Dáil Éireann debate -
Thursday, 2 Jun 1983

Vol. 343 No. 3

Adjournment Debate. - Blacklist Allegation.

Mr. G. Mitchell

Thank you for allowing me to raise this matter on the Adjournment. I am a little out of breath as I have just returned from visiting a constituent of mine in Mountjoy jail who might end up on such a blacklist if it exists. I was very perturbed to see in one Sunday newspaper an allegation that this report had been prepared a few days prior to the weekend and that the Department of Justice had not taken any opportunity to offer either a denial or an explanation. It is very disturbing to read these reports and just as disturbing to read that the Department of Justice did not take the opportunity, according to the newspaper concerned, to issue a denial or make a statement to counteract what can only be described as bad publicity for the country.

I accept that the State has to operate a security system. The security of the State and its continuity depends on the State being able to take steps to protect itself and look after its interests. I do not accept that a Government Department, if this is true, should take on itself the role of big brother and extend the question of security beyond the national and natural bounds of decency.

What has been suggested is that there is a blacklist. According to a former high-ranking officer in the Army there is a keeper of such a blacklist in the Department of Justice who finds his job distasteful. I am not aware of any such keeper of a blacklist and I hope to hear the Minister say there is no such person. While there has to be a certain amount of security the suggestion that there are 20,000 people on such a list is absurd and if it is true it goes beyond the realms of decency and national security.

An aura of secrecy surrounds the Department of Justice. This has not just happened since the Minister took office. It has been present for many years and one is conscious of this in representations made to this Department. There is a shroud of secrecy or a feeling that they will be caught out in something. On account of this attitude stories such as this one are given great credence. I hope the Minister will say there is no such list or no keeper of such a list. If such a list exists we will have to have a full debate in the House because the prespect would be frightening. If it is not true, the Minister should reprimand someone in the Department for not taking action to try and nip it in the bud and put the Government's point of view across in the newspapers which carried the article. These allegations were made in the presence of the Minister and the Attorney General. They should have been raised formally. It would have been useful if the Minister had communicated with Members of the House and told them the position. It does not do our national image any good to have this kind of information abroad. The impression may have been created that this is a police state, which it is not as yet, or a State where we accept low standards, which we do not. It cannot have helped our public image internationally. If the allegations are true it will not do our image any good and if they are not true it is still not doing our image any good because they have not been repudiated. Somebody has let us down.

I accept there may be an argument for saying certain people may require to be on a type of security list as regards State employment. Does a teacher who was dismissed after having a row with the parish priest go on such a list? Just because the parish priest who manages the school and the teacher in the school have a personality clash which results in her being dismissed from her job, is she put on a list? If such a list exists and if such a teacher was put on that list it would be a very serious matter. The public should be told if this is not the case.

Most people would say if such a list exists that certain categories of prisoners should be included on it. Indeed some people might say that all prisoners or former prisoners should be on it. The whole idea of incarceration is a rehabilitative process where prisoners can become upright members of society and where they pay for crimes they commit against society. I do not agree that prisoners should be on such a list although it may be necessary for a short time after they come out of prison.

I spoke to a young man within the last half hour who realises that he has done wrong. He is serving a sentence and is very anxious to make amends and take up employment which his brother, a former prisoner, has found for him. His brother is now involved in teaching young people boxing and has not been in trouble for the last ten years. Are people in that category who have paid their debt to society, leaving aside the case of the teacher who had the row with the parish priest, to remain on such a blacklist? Why did the Minister not take the opportunity to inform people instead of letting them accept that there is a list in operation regardless of how big or small it is?

The whole affair has been raised now, perhaps for spurious reasons, I do not know. I do not know the gentleman, his background or anything he has been involved in except that he says he was a former senior Army officer with a judicial background. I accept that is true and would not wish to cast aspersions on the man because I do not know anything about him. Why did the Minister not take the opportunity to say something about this when, as alleged in one newspaper, he had a chance to do so? The Minister should tell us whether such a list exists, if prisoners who commit minor offences are on it, if prisoners who have been out of prison for, say, ten years and are reformed members of society are on it, and if people such as the teacher mentioned are on it.

Does such a list exist? Are these people excluded for the rest of their lives from State employment? I hope the Minister will take the matter seriously and use this opportunity to deal with it extensively and say exactly where we stand. In the coming weekend's newspapers, most of which will be drafted tonight or tomorrow, the Minister's comments on this blacklist could be given the same publicity as the original comments were given last week.

I am sorry to bring in the Minister on a Thursday evening but I tried to raise this on a few occasions this week.

Minister for Justice (Mr. Noonan,

Limerick East): The allegations to which extensive publicity was given in the Sunday Independent were to the effect that an ex-Army officer had alleged that my Department have maintained a secret “blacklist” for years with thousands of names on it — at one time as many as 20,000; that, in particular, the list used to include people who left the Army under a cloud but that that particular practice was stopped during the seventies at the behest of the man now making the allegations; that that man, while still a serving officer, discussed this list with a civil servant in the Department of Justice who was said to be in charge of the list; and that the list is used to bar people from work in the public service.

According to the shorter and less prominent account in The Sunday Press, the ex-Army officer made it clear that he was not referring to those persons who are for the time being disqualified, by section 34 of the Offences Against the State Act 1939, from holding any appointment that is remunerated out of public funds. He was referring to a listing of persons not disqualified by law. My Department keep no such list. Consequently, the subsidiary points made by Deputy Mitchell with great elan as to who would or who would not be on such list, do not arise.

I am assured by my Department that it kept no such list in the seventies or at any other time within the memory of serving officers. To make assurance double sure, my Department have checked with the Department of Defence who have confirmed that this kind of information was not supplied to my Department, as alleged, in the seventies or indeed at any other time.

Deputy Mitchell asked why this was not clarified when queries were put by the Sunday newspapers to my Department. The queries were received only on the preceding Friday afternoon. Details of the allegations, as now disclosed, were not disclosed to the Department at the time. In particular, the Department were not told that it was an ex-Army officer professing to have personal knowledge and that he had made it clear that he was not referring to people who are disqualified by law and whose names obviously must be communicated to all those who might otherwise employ somebody who is legally disqualified. That means that, for all the Department know, the queries as received could have arisen from some confusion or lack of knowledge about the 1939 Act, as had happened more than once in the past, and an accurate reference to that Act would have had to be drafted and incorporated in a reply.

The Department of Justice offices, like other public offices, banks, insurance companies, and the general run of commercial offices are closed on Saturdays. There is no surplus staff in the Department sitting about waiting for queries to come in and the staff who are there cannot drop work they are engaged in to provide immediate answers to queries that have no inherent urgency and especially so with queries that cannot be answered without the kind of checking that is necessary to ensure that the answers are accurate. The Department therefore have no responsibility for the newspaper story.

Deputy Mitchell has asked why the allegation was not denied subsequently and why a statement of clarification was not issued before now. The reason is that I was prevented by Deputy Mitchell from making any such statement. Once the Deputy had placed a question on the Order Paper I had the responsibility of making a statement.

Mr. G. Mitchell

There is no such question on the Order Paper in my name.

Mr. Noonan

(Limerick East): There was a Private Notice Question which read:

To ask the Minister for Justice if he will make a statement on the allegations published in Sunday newspapers that a "blacklist" is in use in his Department.

That was for answer on Tuesday, 31 May, 1983.

Mr. G. Mitchell

That never appeared on the Order Paper.

Mr. Noonan

(Limerick East): There were subsequent attempts to raise the matter on the Adjournment of the House each day since. Consequently, I could not give the information I am giving now until I got an opportunity in the House to do so, the matter having been raised by the Deputy in the House.

As to the keeper of this blacklist being in my Department, since there is no blacklist there can be no keeper of such. I do not know whether Deputy Mitchell ever reads romantic literature, but in King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table there is a Lister of the Black Keep. That might satisfy the Deputy but there is no keeper of a blacklist in my Department as there is no blacklist to keep.

As to the question of secrecy in the Department of Justice, obviously there is secrecy about certain security matters but we try to give as much information as possible. Often it is not possible to give spontaneous information because the queries have to be checked. I understand the difficulties of journalists in meeting deadlines and so on but who have what they think is an authentic story with which they wish to go to press. However, the Department of Justice cannot be held responsible for matters that have to be checked through the Department. Consequently, they cannot give instantaneous answers. In addition, replies have to be cleared frequently with the Minister.

Deputy Mitchell made one point that I wish to contradict. He said that the allegations were made by an ex-Army officer in the presence of the Minister.

Mr. G. Mitchell

I made a statement in relation to a press report that the remarks were made in the presence of a Minister and of the Attorney General.

Mr. Noonan

(Limerick East): The Minister for Justice was not attending at the function concerned.

Mr. G. Mitchell

But the Minister of State at the Department of the Environment was.

Mr. Noonan

(Limerick East): I realise that Deputy Mitchell is, as he has communicated to the House, disturbed about this report. I hope that I have helped to allay his fears in so far as a blacklist is purported to exist in the Department of Justice. There is no blacklist and, consequently, no keeper of a blacklist in the Department.

The Dáil adjourned at 5.15 p.m. until 10.30 a.m. on Wednesday, 8 June 1983.