I wish to support the Government amendment and, in effect, to oppose the motion in the name of Deputy Collins although I shall have occasion to recognise the relevance of part of the wording of that motion. I was not able to be in the House yesterday when this matter was debated but I have read a transcript of the debate and I have also considered reports and comments on it. I should like to mention one of these comments in this morning's Irish Independent by Mr. Bruce Arnold in which he makes the point that yesterday evening's debate was devoted to what he called simple, ugly, brutal crime and not to high-minded invective on subversion. I see of course what he means, my having read Deputy Collins's contribution in particular. Deputy Collins wished to concentrate the debate on what the motion calls the breakdown in law and order. He wished to concentrate on the area of what one might call non-political crime, general crime, and of course that is an area which is very important indeed. I am not minimising its importance in the least. No Dublin Deputy, or indeed other Deputies, will do so and certainly no Minister for Posts and Telegraphs in the present situation could do so.
Deputy Collins has the right and privilege to determine the emphasis of his own remarks. I would like in my remarks here to do a little to correct that emphasis because I think that we cannot distinguish between simple, ugly, brutal crime and crime committed for subversive purposes or by members of a subversive organisation for any purpose. The murder of Garda Clerkin at Mountmellick we would all agree was a simple, ugly, brutal crime. It may well have been also a subversive crime. Certainly no purpose of gain was to be achieved by the deliberate booby-trapping of a house in an attempt to murder people. We have reason to believe from claims made that the murder of the British Ambassador was a subversive crime. It was also a simple, ugly, brutal crime. The distinction cannot really be sustained. I am not suggesting that the particular commentator intends to make any distinction. I imagine he does not, but the reader of the line might draw that inference from it and I would like to reject that point of view.
One distinction between subversive crimes and other simple, ugly, brutal crimes is that in the case of the latter, the non-political ones, there is no tendency in society to condone. There is no tendency to idealise them. There is no tendency to minimise them. But all those tendencies can be found when we come into the area of political crimes. That is, however, a distinction in attitudes to crimes. I think the Minister for Justice will agree that as regards the crimes themselves it is often impossible, at least pending the apprehension of the perpetrators, to determine whether they are subversive, allegedly political crimes or not. For example, in an area which particularly concerns me there were 73 raids on post offices in 1973, 81 in 1974, 140 in 1975, and to date this year there have been about 110. How many of those raids were committed by subversives? How many by ordinary criminals, as it is said? I think there is no definite way of knowing in most of the cases concerned. Similarly, in 1975, £94,000 in cash and £206,000 in stocks were taken from post offices. How much of that money went to subversive organisations? How much went into pockets of private individuals? How much was shared out? Of course in many cases the perpetrators have not been detected and therefore the Garda unfortunately do not have the information. In some cases they may have their suspicions and in other cases where people have been arrested it is possible to know.
Before I leave that subject I would like to note again that the security situation in relation to post offices throughout the country gives me considerable concern as the responsible Minister in that area. I have met a deputation from the Postmasters' Union; I have been concerned with the improvement of security arrangements at sub-post offices and with the provision of financial assistance to sub-postmasters to instal various security devices, which I obviously cannot discuss in any detail, in their premises and protective screens and so on at their counters. I am, however, aware that there is no 100 per cent security under these conditions. I must say that, having visited a number of sub-post offices in the city and a few in the country also, I have the greatest admiration for postmasters and their staffs who are exposed to very considerable risks as the result of the criminal activities and the threat of criminal activities, subversive or otherwise. It does not much matter to the people who may be attacked and whose staff and family may be attacked.
There are other connections between subversive violence and other types of violence. The glamorising of the gun which has accompanied at all times subversive violence perhaps in recent years also helps on various forms of armed violence, if only by giving people the idea; by showing them that they can perhaps get away with this sort of thing, that there is a lot of loot going around and other armed men are getting it, and why should not they for their purposes? That has an effect. The enormous extra strain that armed subversive activities place on the Garda, on the Defence Forces and on the resources of the State is also relevant. Obviously, if there are fewer police available than we would like to deal with some categories of crime because those police have the task of defending the citizens from armed terrorists, then the other types of criminal will expect more scope and sometimes get it.
Deputies opposite have paid tribute to the security forces, and I recognise the sincerity of those who have spoken on that matter. That sincerity I think is common to almost everybody in this House. I would like to recognise in passing the international acclaim which the Garda won for their brilliant, patient, restrained and effective handling of the famous Herrema kidnapping, and to pay tribute also to what has perhaps been less recognised, the effectiveness of their police work in recovering a large body of incendiary bombs sufficient to destroy the whole of Dublin. The Minister for Justice said in his remarks and I quote:
We live in a state of emergency as the result of the existence of a subversive organisation dedicated to the overthrow of the State, an organisation being fanned by the conflagration that is taking place in the other part of this island.
I agree fully with that statement. Those activities are so fanned because the murderous activities in Northern Ireland get international publicity focused on them, and that publicity attracts money and that money strengthens the IRA not only in Northern Ireland but also here, unfortunately, in most cases. More than that, not merely are this organisation's activities fanned by the conflagration in the North, but those activities are also fanning that conflagration in the hope and with the purpose of engulfing this whole island, bringing about an emergency and a breakdown in law and order on a scale not yet known. They seek to use our territory both as a base for attacks on Northern Ireland and through these attacks, ultimately, at overthrowing democratic government in this State through creating chaos in this whole island. I have no doubt that that is their strategy.
I stress "ultimately" because they are a very long way from achieving that objective and we are not going to let them achieve it, but their thrust is that way. In the meantime their criminal activities endanger and oppress ordinary citizens throughout this country. They endanger them directly by their armed robberies, arson, use of explosives and their willingness to murder—examples of all of which we have seen not merely in Northern Ireland but in this territory. They oppress them directly by seeking to spread an atmosphere of intimidation and also by obliging the State to spend large sums in combating terrorism, money that might otherwise be devoted to social and productive purposes and which also, as has been pointed out has relevance to the crime level. They endanger our people indirectly in a host of ways, for example, by encouraging and emboldening ordinary criminals—I mean criminals with no political pretensions or pretexts—and simultaneously straining the resources of the police. At the same time, their activities in the North have the effect—and this is serious and may be serious in the future—of precipitating the so-called reprisals here by other equally criminal organisations of a different stripe based in Northern Ireland. The horrible carnage in Dublin and Monaghan in May, 1974, may have been precipitated in that way. Again, their activities shade off by degrees through real or pretended breakaway groups, through officially disavowed acts of violence and so on, into the world of all ordinary gangsterism.
I repeat there is no clearcut line that can be drawn between these categories of violence and crime. When I say "ordinary gangsterism" I mean gangsterism without political pretentions or pretexts. The non-political gangsters, who are neither better nor worse than the so-called political kind, benefit from the stimulation of their political colleagues, imitate their exploits, sometimes simulate their motivation and make use of the cover provided for them by the extra burden which the activities of subversive organisations place on the security forces.
Contemplating this situation I can understand how words like "breakdown in law and order" as used in the motion might spring to the mind. I agree with the Minister for Justice that these words are not appropriate to the present situation. Nonetheless, they have a certain relevance to it. I shall have a little more to say about that later when I come to consider those words more closely.
Deputy O'Kennedy, in an able speech yesterday, made the point that if the rule of law was being maintained and upheld to the extent that the Minister asked us to express our satisfaction with it, surely that repudiates the case made by the Government in introducing the state of emergency? He said also that the Government could not have it both ways. That is a neat debating point and, like many neat debating points, it can quite easily be stood on its head. If the Government cannot have it both ways neither can the Opposition.
It is hard to see how they can say there is a breakdown in law and order but there is no state of emergency. Surely a breakdown in law and order, if it were there, would be one of the more serious emergencies that could possibly exist, probably the most serious emergency in the State. There is no point quibbing. There is a real difference in meaning between these contexts, a real meaning in intent. "Breakdown" suggests, and is meant to suggest, failure of those responsible to meet a situation. "State of emergency" suggests a threat which the Government are determined to face. That recognition in the state of emergency is a real one. The Opposition have the right to make their political point which is intended to stress failure. The motion reads:
That Dáil Éireann condemns the Government for its failure to deal effectively with the breakdown in law and order.
In a way that is a rather courageous, perhaps even rash, motion for Fianna Fáil to put down. It invites the question "What breakdown in law and order and when did it occur?" I shall try to answer that question. I believe there was a very serious breakdown in law and order and that this Government are dealing effectively with the consequences of that breakdown. When did that breakdown occur? I think it can be dated with precision—16th August, 1969. On that date, according to the interim and final reports of the Committe of Public Accounts, Order of Dáil of 1st December, 1970, paragraph 20:
The Government at a meeting on 16th August, 1969 decided that "a sum of money—the amount and the channel of the disbursement of which would be determined by the Minister for Finance—should be made available from the Exchequer to provide aid for the victims of the current unrest in the Six Counties".
How were those powers, conferred in this rather extraordinary and mysterious decision on the then Minister, used? How was the money spent? Such part of the answer as is known is set out in paragraph 56 of the same report.
Of the £105,766 spent, £29,166 was spent on relief of distress, £34,850 possibly spent in Belfast on undetermined purposes, £250 on purposes possibly related to the relief of distress, and £41,499 was not spent on the relief of distress.
A possible clue to the moneys unaccounted for was supplied by Deputy Blaney, a Minister of the Fianna Fáil Government at the material time, in this House on 1st December, 1972, when he said:
Not only did circumstances bring the freedom fighters into existence——
"Freedom fighters" is his term for the Provisional IRA.
——but so did the promised support of help not just by one but by a lot of other people as well. The blame lies on me and a whole lot of others who helped to bring into existence shortly after, those who are now condemned as terrorists, murderers, the gunmen of the Provisional IRA.
There is the beginning of your breakdown in law and order, in the words of a former Minister in that Government.
The funds which the then Government authorised the Minister for Finance to take and use for aid for the victims in Northern Ireland were applied under his authority for some other purpose. He has never explained what it was. He has never explained what happened in that breakdown recorded here, one of the most serious breakdowns in law and order which has occurred in any western European State in recent decades. Until he gives a satisfactory explanation the shadow of suspicion which Deputy Jack Lynch once noticed on Deputy Haughey still rests on him undiminished. The suspicion is the suspicion of helping to cause that breakdown, some of the results of which we are still coping with in that criminal background which we are discussing here, the suspicion of helping the Provisionals to get started. These were the victims of unrest who got the taxpayers' money entrusted to him by that mysterious decision of August, 1969, and never properly accounted for or explained.
The Deputy who has that on his record is now back on the front bench of the party who have now the audacity to put down a motion complaining about a breakdown in law and order. A party with that Deputy on their front bench will never have credibility in the field of law and order as long as he remains there. It will never deserve such credibility as long as he remains there. A front bench with that Deputy on it is a security risk and I believe the country will tell that party so unmistakably in the next election.
