During this debate so far speakers on this side of the House have paid tribute to Senator Dooge. I agree that he is a highly respected person but there are other people in the Fine Gael and Labour Parties who are capable of filling this post. I would ask those on the opposite side who think they would not be capable of undertaking the duties of a Minister for Foreign Affairs to so indicate by raising their hands. As there are no hands raised I assume that all those on the other side believe themselves to be capable of doing that job. That message might be conveyed to the Taoiseach. Our situation abroad will not be helped by the appointment to this office of a non-elected person. Consequently, it would be much more desirable that the Taoiseach nominate someone who has been elected by the people.
Nomination of Member of Government: Motion (Resumed).
I would ask those Deputies in the lobby to desist from holding their own meetings and allow the House to listen to Deputy Moore.
The Taoiseach should accede to the proposal of the Leader of the Opposition, that is, that Senator Dooge be put forward as a candidate in the Cavan-Monaghan by-election. Should the Taoiseach ignore this proposal he may be sorry afterwards, though people on all sides of the House will realise that there would be little chance of the Senator winning that election. But if democracy is to work we must take the bad results with the good. As Deputy Haughey said this morning, we will continue to press for the by-election in Cavan-Monaghan until the Government are dragged kicking into that constituency. Therefore, they may as well decide now to have the election.
There have been other occasions on which Fine Gael Members have filled important posts. In addition to the European Parliament, they have had representatives on the Council of Europe. I have served in Europe with, for instance, people like Deputy Richie Ryan, a formidable man who performed well in Europe. We know that the opinion in Fine Gael is far from being unanimous on this proposal to appoint Senator Dooge.
I shall not delay the House. My intention in speaking is to try to make the Government realise that they are making a mistake in this instance. Perhaps even at this late stage they will change their minds and put forward for this prestigious office a Member of this House.
I intend to speak briefly on two aspects of this debate. I wish, in connection with the question of the suitability of Senator Dooge for this office, to draw the attention of the House to a speech made by him in the other House on 8 October, when he spoke on the motion put down on behalf of the Government noting remarks made by the Taoiseach in a radio interview and subsequently. That speech of the Senator's is well worth noting, because it encapsulates and displays very well Senator Dooge's approach to what is the principal national external problem. I use the word "external" in the sense of the problem being external to this State, though not to the nation, that is, the Northern Ireland problem. The central part of that speech genuinely displays the Senator's beliefs from my knowledge of him going back about 12 years. I quote from columns 50 and 51 of the Seanad Official Report for the date I have mentioned. In this part of his speech Senator Dooge was comparing the atmosphere of practical movement towards one another which he found at some levels and on some subjects in the UN with what might be done in this country. He said:
It came through clearly on every occasion that a necessary ingredient of success in all these problems is a mutual recognition of the opposing points of view, perhaps only a conditional recognition that would serve to keep the conversation going, perhaps a recognition that says: "I will for the moment take this one short step at the same time you take a short step and then from our new positions we will look again". This is the great flaw in what Senator Leonard said. He said: "Maybe we will be prepared to move but only at the end; we are prepared to take the last step but we are not prepared to take the first step". That is a sure way of ensuring that nobody takes a step.
In that absolutely unpolemical and simple paragraph Senator Dooge has expressed what I consider to be the truth about our prospects in regard to reconciliation with and in the North. Any point of view about that subject which fails to use that gradualist approach, which fails to prefer it to dogma — not particularly dogma that is strongly or sincerely believed in by those who enunciate it — which ignores or contradicts the point of view which Senator Dooge there represents is totally doomed and has no hope of working. It would lead the country no further towards unity but it would be pre-occupied and doomed in all its other operations by reason of such folly.
Usually I enjoy the speeches of Deputy Lenihan but yesterday I found myself losing interest in what he had to say. He seemed to be speaking with a great deal less ebullience than he usually displays. However, he did say, concerning the speech delivered by Senator Dooge at the UN, that he had fault to find with that speech because, although the Senator referred to various matters, he made no reference to the national aspiration. I have only the unrevised copy of his speech but I am quoting from that:
There was reference in that speech of the Minister-designate to what we have always regarded as the basic national aspiration, to the view that has always been held, and however rough the road and however long the time within which that aspiration might be accomplished eventually that we desire the establishment of political structures within which an evolution to Irish unity would be possible.
He went on to issue a certificate of excellence to himself in regard to the corresponding speech which he had delivered to the UN in the previous year.
I want to say to Deputy Lenihan and Deputy Haughey in particular, who were out in front in this debate here yesterday, that it is not enough to be talking about our aspirations. God knows, I lean over backwards to try to find points in common between my party and the Fianna Fáil Party, as my essential belief is that the Civil War has damned this country for the last 60 years and it should be brought to a close. But no sooner have I leaned over backwards to find points in common than I find suddenly that I am being pushed away out to sea again by reasoning of this kind.
The attitude of the Fianna Fáil Party towards the Northern problem would seem wicked if it were not childish; but since it is the attitude of a child one cannot take it seriously enough to attach a severe adjective like "wicked" to it. They speak about their "aspirations" as a child would speak about a flock of balloons. When somebody comes uncomfortably near them you can almost hear them shouting, "Mind me aspirations!" They think it is enough to recite that aspiration and their national duty is done.
Do Deputy Lenihan and Deputy Haughey ever stand back and look at themselves and listen to themselves? I do not know whether literally they are grandfathers, but they are old enough to be so, and both of them have been in public life for a generation. What has been their net contribution to Irish unity? I do not ask if they have won back a single inch of Northern territory because that is not the point. Have they converted a single Unionist heart? That is the point. I do not ask how active they have been in screaming for the English to do something, and running around tearfully pulling at Mrs. Thatcher's coat-tails to get her to come to twist the Unionists' arm and do something which she is not able to do. I do not ask that, and I do not measure their success by the stridency with which they advance these demands. But I do ask, what have they done to build a bridge between the people in this country who at the moment would fight rather than have anything to do with us? They are of the age of grandfathers and they expect to be taken seriously by the young generation, by our children and grandchildren who are now leaving school, who can get nothing in the way of a lecture from the Fianna Fáil Party except about an "aspiration". They are mewling and puling about an "aspiration" about which not an hour's sleep has ever been lost by that party, and not a constructive step has ever been taken.
I need not tell the House what I have often said, although I would be afraid to emphasise it too much, that I have not much sympathy for the Unionists. They themselves are heavily to blame for the situation in which they find themselves now. By their short-sightedness, selfishness and bigotry down the years they are to blame very largely, along with British indifference, for the horrible fate which has overtaken their Six Counties in the last 12 years. At the same time, individually they are just ordinary people who have to slog through life the same as the rest of us, and they do not feel that they have to apologise for what they are or where they are or what put them there or what brought their great-grandfathers there or what their names are or what their faith is. They do not feel that they are individually or personally to blame for what has come upon them. We have to carry some of that blame. Maybe they are wrong about all these things and should be feeling apologetic, but we have to live with them and we have to find a way towards them and build a bridge to that end.
Without in any sense adopting his political point of view I would like to cite a letter printed today in the Irish Independent from Mr. R.L. McCartney, QC, who led a group of Unionists down here about three weeks ago to see both the Taoiseach and the Leader of the Opposition. I do not say this in any tone of exultation but in order to bring home to the Fianna Fáil Party how far away they are, what astronomical distances they are away from understanding this problem. They have to deal with people of whom Mr. McCartney probably is one of the most reasonable. The fact that he is willing to come down here and meet members of the Government and Opposition demonstrates that, because many of them would not cross the Border under any conditions for anything. This is what Mr. McCartney said in today's Irish Independent:
I came with others to Dublin in a spirit neither of truculence or intransigence but to impart the resolute views of another proud and independent tradition; and to say above all that the destiny of Northern Ireland and her people does not lie in the gift of any other nation but with themselves alone. That basic premise should be the cornerstone of the Republic's policy towards Northern Ireland.
I do not necessarily adopt that point of view, although I believe there is a certain amount of substance in it. He goes on to say:
Dr. Garret Fitzgerald clearly appears to recognise that fact—Mr. Haughey just as evidently does not. I cannot say whether Dr. Garret FitzGerald's policy will lead to unity, but I am absolutely certain that Mr. Haughey's will guarantee partition.
That is what the most moderate kind of Unionist says. Who is Deputy Haughey or Deputy Lenihan to brush aside those opinions and set them at nought, and treat them as being insincere? Why do we expect to be taken seriously with our aspirations? Why do we expect to be taken seriously, and expect people to take us at our word when we speak about our own commitment to independence and freedom and a republic, but will not take the others seriously? We do not believe the Unionists when they talk like that. That is what I call childish and that is why I suspect the sincerity of these protests about aspirations. Somebody who has never taken any thought about what he is at is not entitled to have aspirations about it. He has not earned the right to blather about his aspirations.
Deputy Lenihan, above all, is in a weak position although, as I once said, his endearing characteristic is that it is impossible to embarrass him. His shamelessness is an all-purpose, all-weather shamelessness. As I have said, Deputy Lenihan has been around for a long time. He has been a political force of sorts for nearly a generation. While in Scotland visiting a convention of Scottish nationaists about 1966 or 1967, not long after I joined this party, he said referring to our experience, that "independence was not all it was cracked up to be." That was Deputy Lenihan's advice to the Scots 14 or 15 years ago, and this is the man who cast doubts even on the degree of independence that we ourselves had then achieved.
I would like to ask the Deputy what he is quoting from.
It is a perfectly justified question and I must admit frankly that I cannot give chapter and verse for that, but I remember it with absolute clarity because I was so outraged by it that I wrote once to Deputy Liam Cosgrave and begged him to denounce Deputy Lenihan.
It is contrary to Standing Orders to do that.
I appreciate that, but in the years I have been here many Deputies have quoted things, Deputy Moore among others, without being harried for chapter and verse. However, if a Deputy is anxious that I should spend time researching it I believe I can find it. I think it was in one of the English papers that Deputy Lenihan was quoting here with such respect yesterday.
I would forego the pleasure of listening to the Deputy if he would stop now.
After all the talk about the inconvenience of democracy that we heard from Deputy Moore's leader an hour ago perhaps he can tolerate the inconvenience of listening to me for a few more minutes.
Personal pleasure is not provided for in this House. It is not provided for in Standing Orders. I would ask the Minister to proceed with his speech without interruption.
I would say he is taking pleasure in it all right.
I do not know what you are talking about. What was the reference to pleasure?
Deputy Moore referred to lack of personal pleasure from Deputy Kelly's presentation of the facts, and I was reminding him that the Chair was not obliged to provide for anybody's personal pleasure.
I want to emphasise another thing about Deputy Lenihan who gave us all a lecture here yesterday about "aspirations". He was the man who himself, in the most humiliating possible way, was put over Mrs. Thatcher's knee a year ago when he misrepresented for local purposes the nature of the talks which the British Government had been induced to have with our Government. Deputy Lenihan came back with the usual business about the whole thing being raised to a new plane. It had a new kind of globality, it was a kind of global arrangement now, the old stuff was past history, we had a new relationship, globality, a totality of relationships. He came back talking about that kind of thing. Naturally it caused panic in the North of Ireland among the people I was trying to describe a little while ago. Mrs. Thatcher had to come out and disclaim him. Imagine the humiliation of that. The rest of us felt it, even those of us in Opposition at that time. I object to having a Foreign Minister, whichever party appoints him, who is publicly ticked off by a British Prime Minister and implicitly accused of misrepresenting what has gone on. Naturally, Deputy Lenihan who is as difficult to embarrass as it would be to sink a cork by throwing stones at it, came up with another one. He said the new globalities are all "institutional, not constitutional." With that formula he was allowed to skate through Christmas into the new year. A man who has been publicly forced by the British Prime Minister to admit that there was nothing in those talks which bore on the constitutional status of Northern Ireland is in a pretty weak position to lecture Senator Dooge about not having said anything to the United Nations about our "aspirations."
I regret to have to comment on a despicable reference in Deputy Haughey's speech yesterday, which only echoed an equally despicable moment at the Fianna Fáil conference in Cork last weekend when he berated Senator Dooge for not having thrown his weight against the scheme which I announced in the Seanad last Friday whereby four different kinds of arrangements among a variety of others, some of which were found to be impracticable, are going to be adopted here with the intention of facilitating the travel of Northern people to the Republic and making them feel welcome.
With in a week of becoming Minister I asked my Department to see whether, under the cover of my tourism hat, I could devise a package of schemes which would be clearly seen as a goodwill gesture towards the Northern community of whatever creed or class, and which we could live with financially. I want to commend here, as I did in the Seanad, the extraordinary enthusiasm and diligence with which officials in my Department and also in the other Departments involved, reacted to that request. After some delay, part of which was due to my absence abroad, I was able to bring a set of four proposals to the Government.
One was to extend to residents of Northern Ireland the facility for free travel for the elderly which we have for our own citizens. The other was to make available in the same way for people conforming to the conditions free travel for disabled people from Northern Ireland on our buses and railways. A third was to make a token contribution by means of extending an existing Bord Fáilte voucher scheme towards the cost of accommodation for people from the North. I went out of my way to say it was only intended as a gesture of welcome, that I could not pretend, when the scheme eventually surfaced, that it was going to make any substantial contribution to the cost of their holiday. It was merely a gesture of welcome; and to put it into that perspective and not appear to be claiming a dimension for it which it did not have, I said it was a gesture in the sense of a discount which might meet the cost of a meal or a couple of rounds of drinks. Finally, the Department of Education very enthusiastically agreed to extend the youth incentive scheme to Northern Ireland youth groups, thus offering some support towards their costs in coming here for sporting or cultural events.
I am proud of that scheme; but it does not really matter whether I am or not. The point is: looked at objectively it is the first time in 60 years that a Dublin Government have done something concrete towards making the people in the North feel wanted here. Even if the scheme does not work, if it is a failure, perhaps even counterproductive—I do not claim to have any foresight or wisdom about this—it will still remain the first effort in 60 years to do something of this kind. But what do I find with the Soldiers of Destiny, with their breathless aspirations to Irish unity? What is their reaction? They got a tame SDLP man to come down to their platform and denounce it as being an exercise which will only excite resentment—I think he said contempt —in the North. That point of view was repeated here yesterday by Deputy Haughey. How dare he speak like that? He knows perfectly well that it is sincerely meant. He knows perfectly well there is not one ounce of local partisan feeling or input in that scheme. He knows perfectly well it is intended without reference of any kind at all to the local political scene, and if somebody had predicted that we could get that reaction from Fianna Fáil I would not have believed it. I would have said they may do low things on us but they are not that low, to try to discredit a scheme which has plainly and patently got only one purpose, to try to spread goodwill among people who hate us and to whom Fianna Fáil have given little enough reason to change their minds. I did not think they could be low enough to do it; but I was wrong. They were able to get their party leader to do it and also a man from the SDLP to do it. I consider that one of the most despicable things I have encountered since I entered politics 12 years ago, to undermine a scheme which has no other purpose than to reconcile the people of this island, because I do not expect that its concrete tourist spin off will be anything but marginal. It may even be non-existent.
In the Seanad last week I said that I would look at the scheme in a year's time and if parts of it were less productive than others we reserve the right to ourselves to close them down because there is a limit to the amount of money we can spend, even on this scheme, modest though it is, and I do not advance it as being more than modest. It will cost a significant sum of money which we can ill afford at this time, thanks to the bungling and the hoofling of the party opposite over the last four years. If we find some parts of that scheme are less productive than others we will close them down and switch the money from the less productive to the more productive areas. Perhaps someone will get a better idea and perhaps some further dimensions of the scheme will become possible. In that case, we will put the money into them. I do not want anyone to think, as long as I am in office, that we are committed to exactly the four points of the scheme. We are not, but it is the first such effort ever made in this State, and that is the way it is greeted by the Legion of the Rearguard.
I consider that a shameful performance, especially when uttered in the context of trying to discredit the appointment of Senator Dooge whose words I quoted at the beginning of my contribution and whose approach to Northern Ireland is absolutely correct — let us go a little distance and try to persuade them to come a little distance and then look again. That criticism in the context of trying to discredit Senator Dooge is absolutely contemptible. I am sorry to have spoken heatedly about this but I feel very badly and very strongly about it. I cannot believe that decent people who support Fianna Fáil can have felt anything but shame when they saw what was said on the platform at the weekend by Mr. Mallon and yesterday in the Dáil by Deputy Haughey.
Those who oppose the appointment of Senator Dooge have only themselves to blame for the situation they face today. Their predecessors, the framers of the 1937 Constitution, instead of providing for a truly vocational Seanad in which experts in their own field would be elected by national bodies and come directly into the Seanad and having two co-equal Houses from which the 15 members of Government could be appointed, gave the Taoiseach the right to appoint 11 personal friends, as it were, to the Seanad and to compound this they said that the Taoiseach has the right to nominate two of those Senators to be members of the Government. The Taoiseach has many valid reasons for nominating Senator Dooge and he also used a pragmatic approach. If the shoe were on the other foot and the former Taoiseach was faced with a dilemma, having to depend on five so-called independent TDs for his future political security, he would do precisley the same thing. He would use, in terms of pragmatic politics, what is before him, exercise his constitutional right and appoint a person from the Seanad to this high office. I hope some day in this House we will pass a Bill to do away with the Taoiseach's right to nominate 11 persons of his own choice to the Seanad and so elevate the status and standing of the Seanad in the minds of the public and that this Bill will be passed by referendum. Until that is done, we must face the realities of the situation. All that the Taoiseach was doing, in the last analysis, was something which was pragmatically necessary because of the situation in which he found himself.
As regards Senator Dooge's appointment, I accept what has been said in terms of the North. The British Government imposed Partition as a temporary arrangement and it is the British Government who must undo this and tell politicians, North and South, that they are going to do so. Senator Dooge should point this out to the world because Mr. Prior did announce that it was an international political issue. People like the Caucus in the United States of America are making this a political issue. They do not support physical force and I accept that. The National Caucus and the Ancient Order of Hibernians in the United States want the Partition problem solved and it must be solved politically. We have been condemning the atrocities which are occurring in the North and will occur until this problem is solved, and brushing them under the carpet. Senator Dooge has the capacity and the will to keep that to the fore. It is a political issue which must be solved by Britain who imposed it on the politicians, North and South.
I would like to say a few words on the nomination of Senator Dooge to the Seanad. I cannot understand what all the song and dance by Fianna Fáil is about, having regard to the fact that the rules under which Senator Dooge is now being nominated as Minister for Foreign Affairs is the product of Fianna Fáil's electoral engineering and designing. Surely every Member of the House knows that, in the very early days of Fianna Fáil, one of the first acts of the then Taoiseach, or President of the Executive Council as he was at the time, the late Mr. de Valera, was to nominate in his new Government the late Senator Joseph Connolly and appoint him as Minister for Lands and Fisheries. There was nothing wrong with that appointment. In those days he was accepted, as the nominee of the Taoiseach, the Head of the Government. Those of us who have been in political life long enough clearly remember that later on Mr. de Valera fully exercised his right in nominating the late Seán Moylan. Everybody who remembers the late Mr. Moylan has happy memories of him as a man of integrity, courage, and determination, a good Minister and a soldier of Ireland, a sincere Irishman. It was because Mr. de Valera saw these qualities in Seán Moylan that he nominated him to be a member of the Government. The Fianna Fáil Party readily accepted that recommendation of the Head of the Government. There was no song and dance about that appointment. Very few in the House today had the honour and privilege of knowing the late Mr. Moylan, but we who did knew a man who was fully devoted to the service of Ireland.
The position today is that the Taoiseach has the very same right and privilege to nominate, in the same way, a man whom he believes to be the best and most suited for the position as Minister for Foreign Affairs. Nobody in this House disputes the right of the Taoiseach to do this because once a man is elected by this House as Taoiseach, he has the responsibility and duty of appointing to Government posts men whom he can trust and on whom he can rely. As Mr. de Valera saw great qualities in Seán Moylan and Joseph Connolly, so, I am sure, the Taoiseach sees equally an abundance of qualities in Senator Dooge. Clearly, the law of the land allows such an appointment.
I see nothing whatever wrong with the appointment of Senator Dooge to the Seanad. I have known him for perhaps all his period in public life and before that. I know his ability and sincerity and I am aware of his outstanding brilliance and intelligence. He is cautious in what he says and does. Rightly or wrongly, the Taoiseach says that he is to be the man during the term of office of this Government to be the Minister for Foreign Affairs. He is a good choice but he has an extremely difficult job before him, more difficult in some ways than Members of this House can appreciate. He will be answerable to this House, like every other Minister, for his conduct in that office and the manner in which he will discharge these very grave and difficult duties. It is only right, on the occasion of the debate on his appointment, to place on record that, as the representative holding what I consider to be the most vital and important portfolio of the whole Government, he must concentrate his energies on the contribution which Ireland can make to world peace.
The role of our Minister for Foreign Affairs at European or United Nations level is vital for the survival of this country. We are living in a period when the clouds of war hang over us. Anybody who seriously studies the situation in Poland knows that world peace is being threatened. Many problems coming before the United Nations are of concern to Ireland and we can have a great influence on other nations.
I consider Senator Dooge to possess all the qualities of a diplomat. He is a person who can give and take, make suggestions and is farseeing. I have no doubt but that he will exercise all his energy towards the contribution Ireland can make to world peace. His first job will be to lessen the number of our enemies abroad and increase the number of our friends. In the history of the world a small nation like Ireland was never more in need of friends.
The duty of our Minister for Foreign Affairs is to canvas for friends and solicit their support in times of need. No member of the Government can do more to highlight the good name of Ireland abroad than the Minister for Foreign Affairs. In recent years we have had more than our quota of unfavourable and undesirable publicity abroad. Some of that publicity made one ashamed to admit publicly to being Irish.
Here we have a new Government, a new Minister for Foreign Affairs, whose nomination hopefully will be approved today, who will embark on the very difficult job of increasing the number of Ireland's friends abroad, or perhaps lessening, and if possible, eliminating Ireland's enemies or those who are not favourably disposed to us.
Ireland can play a great part in maintaining world peace, despite the fact that the man in the street may feel that as a small nation we are insignificant when compared to the great world powers, but that is not so. Ireland's voice abroad can be heard loud, clear and determined, especially around the table at the United Nations. I hope there will be frequent discussions between the Minister for Foreign Affairs and our representatives at the United Nations so that on every occasion Ireland's voice will be heard loud and clear.
The Minister for Foreign Affairs must stand bravely and courageously for neutrality. He will have to play a very important role in this area. When the EEC was first mentioned we were told it would be a European institution to look after economic matters. Recently it appears to have been devoting some of its energies towards security and military operations. Ireland's role in this area will be different from that of any other member of the EEC. We should not leave the European countries under any misapprehension that the majority of our people favour neutrality and non-alliance with any great European or world military power.
If anything interferes with our neutrality I have every confidence that Senator Dooge will report all the details to this House. Most EEC member states are also members of NATO and our stand as a neutral country is the envy of many of those countries. We can be described as the most westerly outpost of Europe. Therefore it is only right that our position should be made clear. We are standing fast on the principle of our neutrality. We will not surrender it and if there is any question about Irish association with any military groups, this House and the Irish people should be consulted.
Senator Dooge will be faced with very great problems and he can play a major part in relation to nuclear disarmament. Many European and other powers engage in nuclear activities of one kind or another and the whole of civilisation is threatened with a horrible disaster in which millions of people would be wiped out in a nuclear holocaust. Those of us who are interested in this matter, especially those who heard Father Bruce Kent speak on his last visit to Ireland, realise the horrifying dangers of a nuclear war. It would be extremely short and savage in its impact destroying not only human life but the very land on which we live. Senator Dooge can play a major role in the cause of nuclear disarmament.
It makes one wonder as to the average degree of sanity of those responsible for the administration of states when one looks at the millions who are unemployed and the unlimited money being spent on nuclear armament in preparation for the destruction of mankind and of God's gifts to mankind. Senator Dooge will have the opportunity to speak about the dangers to our entire civilisation posed by preparation for nuclear war. No other Minister will have the same opportunity. He must dedicate himself to European and world peace and to disarmament and must make it clear to our friends in the European Community that Ireland will not enter into any security or military alliance with any powers but will stand by its neutrality.
The Minister can also play an important role by using his influence to ensure a greater degree of support for the Third World. There could be nothing worse than to witness people dying from hunger and malnutrition and suffering because of the lack of medical supplies. It is frightening to study documentation on conditions in the Third World. We must increase our share of aid and influence other states to be more generous to those who are existing in circumstances of destitution and starvation. Ireland can play a role in bringing some form of hope and relief to the starving millions. I often wonder about the degree of sanity among people in public life in many powerful countries when reading of wheat being burned and food being destroyed.
On a point of order, the statements that have been made during the past 20 minutes do not appear to have any relevance to the motion before the House.
I was about to indicate to Deputy Flanagan that while the Chair had accepted and had been sympathetic to some reference to the administration and, perhaps, the policy of the Department of Foreign Affairs, it was hoped that we would not have a discussion on this motion which would be more appropriate to some other debate. Accordingly, I would ask Deputy Flanagan not to depart from the standards which have been accepted heretofore and to limit his references as far as possible.
I am grateful for the Chair's intervention. I feel rather emotional about this subject and it is certainly one of the great problems with which the Minister for Foreign Affairs will have to deal. I should like to join sincerely in wishing Senator Dooge the height of good luck, success and health in the enormous job he is faced with. I should like to ask him seriously to put greater emphasis, if possible, on the activities of the Council of Europe when he assumes office. I should like to ask him to examine the file in his Department in relation to the appointment of a permanent representative from Ireland in Strasbourg. The case has been made but no decision was taken by the last Minister and no decision has since been taken but I hope Senator Dooge will be sufficiently courageous — I am sure he will — to see to it that this appointment is made. I hope and trust that all his difficulties, which will be many, will be crowned with the success and good luck he so rightly and richly deserves.
I want to speak briefly to this motion. Before the debate concludes I am anxious to get a cast-iron guarantee on this whole question of neutrality. The issue of whether the person appointed comes from the Seanad or this House does not interest me because I know that the appointment would not have been made were it not in order under the Constitution. However, it is amazing the amount of time that has been devoted to that aspect of the matter in the debate. I understood that it was Government policy to defend the military neutrality of this State. I believed and accepted that until now. I have read some correspondence on this issue. One last Tuesday pointed to the fact that EEC Foreign Ministers issued a statement to the effect that with the consent of Ireland's Professor Dooge they had agreed to step up co-ordination of foreign policy, including the political aspects of security. That letter stated that neither the Dáil nor the Irish people were consulted about this important development.
The important thing is that the former Minister for Foreign Affairs, Deputy Lenihan, said the other day that this agreement has the effect of making Ireland for all practical purposes a member of the Western Alliance in a political though not yet in a military sense. He said that there is now in effect no limit of any kind on political subjects which may be discussed and Ireland will be fully drawn into East-West tensions and conflicts with profound implications for our position as an island in the event of war. In my view not since Frank Aiken represented this country as Minister for External Affairs has the position of our neutrality been very clear. Is it correct, as is claimed by the former Minister for Foreign Affairs, that there is a definite move on the part of the Germans, British and Italians to get Ireland if not into NATO then in, by the back door, to a European Defence Union? I want an assurance on this issue from the Taoiseach before I make up my mind on this. I also want the matter clarified by the former Minister for Foreign Affairs. I was disappointed to hear Deputy Lenihan quoting from press reports of press conferences and so forth of Lord Carrington. If the former Foreign Minister has facts on this issue he should spell them out. I listened to his contribution in this debate and he did not do that. He made no impact on me because he quoted at length from reports on this, that and the other. I want the Taoiseach to give a cast-iron guarantee that there will be no interference with our neutrality if the appointment of Professor Dooge as Minister for Foreign Affairs is ratified.
There are a number of points I want to make in this debate and I will start by dealing with the general approach of the Leader of the Opposition who said he was going to object to the appointment of Senator Dooge as Minister for Foreign Affairs on political, legal and constitutional grounds. I did hear a good deal from him — and we have heard a good deal from other people — about political grounds but we have heard less about the legal and constitutional grounds. Of course, some things have been said by the Leader of the Opposition, and at least one other speaker from the benches opposite, endeavouring to tell us that what is being proposed here is contrary to settled constitutional practice. Those speakers went on to tell us that what was intended in the Constitution was that this provision in the Constitution should be used only to put in defeated TDs and that justified the appointment of Senator Moylan. We were told that Senator Connolly was appointed in the distant past, under a different Constitution, a different Seanad with different powers, and the appointment was not a precedent. The Leader of the Opposition even went so far as to suggest — a most extraordinary phrase — that the appointment of Senator Moylan was only a venial sin, that he died quickly. I am not quoting verbatim what he said but that is the exact impact of what he has told us. He said he was only there a short time. He was only there a short time because he died and that does not seem to me to be an adequate justification for distinguishing between the two appointments.
The fact is that the Constitution makes provision for up to two Ministers from the Seanad who may not be Taoiseach or Minister for Finance. I take a lot of the points made by Deputy Browne but I could not quite agree with him on one point he made. He said that in constitutions based on the Westminster model, as ours was, it was against the spirit of such constitutions to make such an appointment but he recognised that it was in our Constitution, the right was there and, therefore, he would support the appointment because it was constitutional. In fact, of course, the origin of this provision lies in the fact that our constitutions have been based to a significant degree in their practical aspects of the structure of Government on the Westminster model. Of course, our Constitution has a totally different aspect which transforms it in terms of protection of human rights, the power of the Supreme Court or the High Court to protect human rights by annulling any Acts of the Oireachtas that may be unconstitutional. That is an extra dimension to our Constitution but in the practical application of things we find that our Constitution reflects in quite a remarkable degree the British practice. The first Constitution did and this was maintained in the second Constitution. In fact, the origin of this clearly lies in the British practice under which Ministers can be drawn from either the House of Lords or the House of Commons, a practice which still continues there. There is, in fact, a very distinguished Foreign Secretary in the United Kingdom at present drawn from the House of Lords.
That is the origin of it and it was maintained by Mr. de Valera in the new Constitution on the basis that up to two appointments could be made. We have often heard the legendary story — perhaps it is legendary — about Mr. de Valera looking into his heart and knowing what the Irish people thought. I think Mr. de Valera had certainly a very considerable understanding of the Irish people and the fact that he remained in power for so long suggested that he had it, but what I am not so clear on is how members of the Opposition can define what Mr. de Valera meant by including this provision. To tell us that it was intended only for defeated TDs, that one must first be defeated as a TD before one could be appointed a Minister under this provision, is something which, to say the very least, would require some justification in terms of citation of some statement by de Valera, public or private, that he had in fact intended this. There is, of course, no such evidence. The provision was carried over from the previous Constitution and it is not confined in any way and was intended to provide for the situation where a Taoiseach might wish to draw on people of skill or experience who had not been elected to the Dáil. That is what it is there for.
In selecting Senator Dooge and in proposing him to the House, I acted within this constitutional provision. I know that there may be argument — Deputy Noel Browne expressed this view — that this should be out of the Constitution but that is a matter for discussion in due course. Personally — I speak for myself only on this; the Government may have a different view when they come to discuss the Constitution — I think it is a useful provision. It was placed there by the Leader of the Fianna Fáil Party at the time in Continuity of the previous Constitution in order to enable this power to be used, as it had been used by Mr. de Valera in appointing Senator Connolly as Minister for posts and Telegraphs originally, which he thought right. Having used it in that case under the old Constitution he re-enacted the power and used it again in the case of Senator Moylan. Nothing that was said in the debate on Senator Moylan's appointment would justify the interpretation that has been put on it, that it can only be used to appoint a defeated TD. If anything the debate in 1957 would suggest the contrary. I should like to refer Deputies to volume 161 of the Official Report, columns 1499 to 1509 in which when Deputies McQuillan and McAuliffe dissented on this subject — the Opposition party at the time did not dissent or object to the appointment — the appointment was defended by Deputy Donogh O'Malley when he referred to the fact that:
.... the method by which Senator Moylan was chosen for this Ministry was put before the Irish people and approved in the Constitution which was passed by the Irish people in a democratic manner.
That argument having been put forward by Deputy O'Malley, and both parties agreeing that this was the position — the Opposition did not dissent — Senator Moylan was appointed with the dissent of two people, Deputies McQuillan and McAuliffe.