Possibly the Minister might like to repeat to the Seanad the assurance with regard to this measure that he gave in the Dáil, on receipt of which probably the Seanad will not place any obstacle in the way of the Bill going through.
SEANAD IN COMMITTEE. - DEFENCE FORCES (TEMPORARY PROVISIONS) BILL, 1923.
Question proposed: "That the Defence Forces (Temporary Provisions) Bill, 1923, be read a second time."
AN CATHAOIRLEACH
As I said in the Dáil, to a very large extent this Bill is a complete one. We had thoroughly gone through it with a view to putting it to the Oireachtas as an Army Bill for dealing with our present forces and for regulating the work of the Army during the years immediately in front of us. We were putting up this Bill practically as a permanent Bill. There is just this particular addition, that whereas we did intend to put up a Reserve Bill separately when circumstances permitted, but having to get the Bill passed urgently we put all into the one which is now before you. You have now an Army Bill which is as I said practically a complete Army Bill and Reserve Bill and certain transitory clauses dealing with the bringing of our present forces under the scope of the Bill immediately on the passing of the Bill and not necessarily waiting for a proclamation of the Executive Council establishing the Defence Forces actually contemplated in the Bill.
We fully understand that the setting up of Defence Forces and the passing of laws that will control their organisation, the regulation and discipline of them and the general relationship of the armed forces of the State to the State are matters that require the very gravest and most careful consideration, in the first place in order to secure proper control, and in the second place, and perhaps what is most important to see that the Army set up in this country will be, from the point of view of organisation, the most efficient we could have; will be an Army that will not inflict a very great financial strain on the State; and will be one whose organization is such as to harmonise with the character of our people. It is with very great regret that we find ourselves in the position of having to ask the Oireachtas to pass a Bill of this kind hurriedly. Personally, making this Bill a temporary Bill, gives me a certain amount of satisfaction, because those who are responsible for the Army at the present time have had their hands very full, and they have been faced with a set of circumstances in the country that we never expected to have been faced with.
We have had to develop the Army in the country to a size that we never anticipated our army would grow to. For that reason, even our own ideas as to the organisation and control of the Army may be somewhat warped by our present circumstances. We know that when the Free State was established we had certain ideas with regard to the lines on which the Army ought to be developed and organised. To some extent these ideas have had to undergo very radical change in actual practice, but there is nothing in the greater portion of the Bill that would not be required in any case. Disciplinary sections or sections dealing with the relationship with the civil population as regards billeting and the impressment of transport are matters that will always stand. They have been very carefully considered by a small group of fully qualified men who have set themselves out to control, as far as possible, the actions of the personnel of the Army, and to secure that in every possible way the Army is the absolutely controlled instrument of the State.
There are certain portions of the Bill which have given rise to the suggestion that we are perhaps going to recruit men for a lengthy period and to present any incoming Government with a fairly large Army enrolled for a long period. It has been thought that that portion of the Bill which gives us power for setting up a military college and dealing with the military education of higher officers, meant that we are going to establish big institutions of a military kind, and to develop a rather large crop of highly educated and skilled officers. That has given rise to the suggestion that we were perhaps going to be somewhat expensive with regard to the institutions that we are setting up.
These clauses that deal with military education, simply are clauses that give us power to carry on the education of our officers, but I do not anticipate that by the end of the lifetime of this Bill we shall have any very highly organised or developed military colleges. I personally would be satisfied if we had half-a-dozen or eight officers of good standing and education, men of experience whom we could set aside from their ordinary military duties to look after the higher military education of officers and be the nucleus around which one might some day form a military college that would be something worth talking about, even if it were not an expensive institution. In view of the fact that there is little time under present circumstances for giving the Bill the consideration and discussion that a Bill of its nature should get, and in view of the fact that because of that we made it a temporary Bill, it is, perhaps, not necessary to go into any detailed exposition of the various clauses. If there were any points that require to be dealt with I would be only too willing to deal with them.
AN CATHAOIRLEACH
Am I right in saying that the Government have given a pledge that this Bill will be reintroduced and ample time afforded for its discussion?
When it was suggested first that we should put forward this Bill as a temporary Bill I suggested that it should be put forward for a period of twelve months. There were persons who thought that was too long a period and that the permanent Bill could be introduced earlier. They suggested that if this temporary Bill passed for six months that that would be sufficient. My idea in having it extended to a period of twelve months is that we could, say in five or six months' time, put a Bill before the Oireachtas that would have plenty of time left for discussion. In the meantime if a Bill did pass earlier than twelve months it would do away with this Bill. I personally am so satisfied of the importance of a thorough discussion of what our Army Bill should be like that I would be prepared to introduce it, say in six months' time, but I feel that we would want another six months in order to give it, on our own part, sufficient consideration.
AN CATHAOIRLEACH
The Bill on its face provides that it is not in any case to last beyond a year.
That is so.
I am quite aware that this is a temporary measure, but it contains elements of permanence and defines the order of the new Army. One point I would like to ask the Minister is this: I see that he has followed the nomenclature, if I may call it so, of the officers and non-commissioned officers of the British Army very closely. I know that the titles General, Captain and Lieutenant appear in other armies, but why have we gone so far as to have Lieutenant-Generals, Major-Generals and others exactly as they do?
The Bill is intended to deal with the Army that we have and to deal with it in its transition and its development to a more or less permanent army. We have had reorganisations in the Army of one kind or another, great or small, and we find ourselves with these particular ranks that are in this Bill. I think Senator MacLysaght will find that these ranks also appear in the French, American, and other armies. We have not yet come to the days when we can invent new Irish titles for ourselves. I feel that it would have been very useful if six months ago we could have invented four or five titles of a military nature that had not been heard of in any other country. Then we would have escaped much of the humourous criticism about all the Generals that we have in this country. The matter can be borne in mind in the discussion of a permanent Bill, and if we are able to improve on the names, either from the artistic or aesthetic or national point of view we will be only too pleased to improve on them.
I think everybody will admit that the Minister for Defence is actuated by the desire to do the best possible in the circumstances for the State and for the Army. I feel convinced he has framed this Bill with a view to making the Army an efficient instrument of the State. I was going to put forward a suggestion that we might take a leaf out of the book of our friends across the channel. I think the greatest safeguard of the citizen as against the Army is the Bill which is introduced annually in the British Parliament called the Army Annual Act. I would like to ask if it is proposed to institute any such Act in this country.
We have gone carefully into this matter and we have decided that it is not necessary in this country, in view of its Constitution, to have an Army Annual Act. As far as I know the Army Annual Act passed annually by the British Houses of Parliament deals only with disciplinary regulations which are applied to soldiers. We do not, as we view the matter at present, suggest that there should be in this country an Army Annual Act.
I notice that recruits can be accepted for a period of twelve years. Will recruits be accepted for a twelve-yearly period during the year which this Bill is to run?
No. Our proposals with regard to recruitment at present are that we may recruit or re-attest men for a period of eighteen months or two years and require them to give an additional eighteen months or two years in the reserve. Actually the army we have at present will demobilise itself, as it were, all the men will pass out at the end of the attestation period, automatically at the end of this year or the beginning of the next financial year. It would be necessary for us if we are to keep a sufficient army strength to take steps within the next month or two to recruit men. We have undertaken that we will not recruit men for more than a period of eighteen months or two years, but the Bill was framed as a permanent one and it was thought well to leave a certain latitude in the matter as to the period of recruitment, apart altogether from what our immediate outlook on the matter was. We do not think it advisable to make any change of any kind that would involve going through the whole Bill and making consequential changes in different parts of it.
On the other hand, too, there are certain classes of men whom if we did find it necessary to recruit now, we might recruit for a longer period. These would be men whom we would have to take in and train and we would not wish to be in the position that, after giving them a fairly satisfactory training, in a year or 18 months they would leave us. They would be men of a special class and their numbers would be specially limited.
I would like to ask the Minister if it is his opinion that it is absolutely necessary for this Bill to be passed before the Dissolution. If he says so, of course we have no alternative but to pass it without pretending to understand its implications and without accepting the responsibility that we should otherwise have to accept for its passage. Regarding the suggestion of Senator Dowdall for an annual Army Bill to be introduced, the Minister has simply stated that that is not the present intention of the Government at all events, but beyond that statement he has given us no grounds for it. We should, of course, have an opportunity of dealing with that aspect of the case when the Bill comes before us the next time, but I do certainly hold that the Government should give consideration to that point of view. There is one important fact in connection with the passing of this Bill. For good or ill it lays the basis for our permanent Army. It will lay it in a manner which will be awkward and perhaps undesirable to upset or eradicate when the Bill comes on six or seven months hence. For that reason it is to be regretted, even although it is useless, that the Bill was not introduced in time so that it could be more fully considered before it passed into law even for the first time. I only desire to place on record the fact that we are passing the Bill through necessity without having had time to read, it fully or give it the consideration a measure of this kind deserves.
There is one point we have not touched upon and it is one which we civilians look upon rather from the critical point of view. It is the cost of the Army. We are passing this Bill because it is quite evident to everybody that an Army Bill is required. We have the undertaking given us that probably within the next six months the Minister will bring in another Bill and as this runs for a year there will be ample time to discuss the other Bill and decide what our future Army Bills will be like. We may pass that matter over at once. In the meantime, and with the Government going to the country now, there is considerable time during which the real expenses of the Army will be running on. We know that at present Army expenses are climbing up to nearly half of the whole expenditure of the Free State, and we know also that that burden has to be borne by the ordinary citizens here very much the same as the burden of the Army for the Great War had to be borne by Great Britain. In fact it is far heavier here, really.
I do not wish for a moment to say that it is not right. We owe far too much to the Army to begin quibbling with this sort of thing. The Army has done for the Free State what the British Army did for Great Britain. Our Army has freed us from an immense menace. All the same, now that we have got through, I think we would like to know that as peace goes on and as the requirement for the Army in its real fighting capacity decreases, step by step with that, the economies of the Army are being considered. We would like to know that at the present moment the issue of stores, the purchase of supplies, expenditure in units and other things, are getting that extremely careful supervision which we all know is required in even the British Army. We know that in that Army every British officer and every individual to whom stores are issued has to account for them.
I would like to know that the accountancy portion of our Army is being looked after and that there is an efficient department which is taking care of that. I take it for granted that General Mulcahy is looking into that matter personally. I trust there is someone watching to see that there is not any redundancy of officers and that the staffs are just what are needed. In regard to all these things I think the ordinary citizen would like to have some information and would like to know that our financial affairs as regards the Army are being carefully looked after. I am not criticising; I am only asking for assurances that the public may rely on it that all purchases of stores and all expenditure are being looked after in this country with a view to making our Army fit its needs and not be excessive in cost. The reason I am mentioning this matter now is there will be undoubtedly little criticism of any description of the Army during the next six months.
We will have a new Government and a great deal to do, and I doubt if there will be any criticism of Army expenditure. I am sure everybody in the Seanad is perfectly willing to trust the heads of the Army, and that we have got a good and efficient Army. I would be the very last, considering the conditions in the country, to say that there ought to be any cutting down that is not approved by the heads of the Army. That is not the line I am taking; but without interfering with efficiency I would like to have an assurance that the heads of the Army are taking care of the expenditure as carefully as possible, and that we could rely, in any statements we make on the subject, that our Army was an efficient instrument being worked on as economic lines as possible in the circumstances.
In regard to some of the remarks of Senator Jameson, I would like to draw attention to criticisms that are abroad regarding the Army, especially in the matter of the payment of accounts. There is a good deal of adverse criticism, and in some cases I believe it is justified; in others perhaps it is partly justified. Complaints are pretty frequent in that regard and also as regards separation allowances. Many claims are made for separation allowances that are not justified, but there are cases in which several letters, some registered, have been sent to the proper quarter and have failed to bring forth replies of any description. Members of the Dáil and Seanad have been troubled in regard to these allowances. I believe in most cases where the attention of the authorities has been drawn, satisfaction has been secured. I think that proper organisation of office staffs on a strictly business basis would tend to avoid all this and avoid also criticism that is not an advantage to the Army. I would respectfully direct the Minister's attention to these little details. If they were remedied it would save a good deal of trouble and justifiable criticism.
I would like to support most of what has been said by Senator Jameson and some of what has been said by the last speaker. I am glad that some words of appreciation in regard to the Army have been uttered. What the Army has done is really marvellous.
Up to this there was of course reason why there should be certain slackness here and there. The Army were engaged in endeavouring to restore order, and thy could not possibly have everything as correct as we would wish. But, now, that comparative peace has been restored, I hope that the confidence reposed in the Army by Senator Jameson will be justified, and that the criticisms and the shortcomings alleged against it in that respect will be remedied. I would like to say, speaking for myself, and I believe for everybody in the Seanad, that I hope in the future these little matters of accounts that we have been troubled about in the past by people up and down the country will be squared up. I am afraid they have been unduly carried over. Then in the estimates we find a large sum voted for the officers and men of the Army and in connection with that I think it is only fair to say that up to February last the officers were paid a miserable pittance. Indeed many people would be surprised to know the very small sum the officers were paid.
I fully agree with what was said by Senator Jameson and elaborated by other Senators. I do not believe any people ever got from any army better service than we have got from our army in the matter of protection for life and property. I do not think there is anybody in the Seanad who would wish in any way to be critical of the Army.
The only point I have to refer to, unfavourably, is the payment of accounts. It is only natural, however, that a new Army, an entirely new body, would not have the very best system in dealing with their accounts. There has been a lot of very serious complaint made to me with regard to accounts, and I am afraid that it has more or less injured the country or injured the Government in the opinion of traders. I believe that is a thing that should not have occurred. I would say to General Mulcahy that his Business Department or his Accountancy Department should be overhauled. Every application for the payment of an account should be satisfied or some explanation sent to the person claiming the money. The thing is very serious in this way that people in the country get into their heads that the Government have no money and that they are not able to pay their debts.
I have over and over again in this Seanad pointed out the urgency the necessity and importance for the Government to maintain their credit at the highest possible standard. Everybody in business knows how important it is that the credit of a business firm should stand high. Any firm of whom this could not be said is attempting to carry on under very adverse conditions. That is just as true of a Government. As to the Army, all I can say is that we are under a deep debt of gratitude to the Army and a deep obligation to the Army for the great benefits and the great services they have rendered the country. They have done wonders in their time. Therefore we ought to be perfectly generous with them.
On the matter raised by Senator O'Farrell with regard to the necessity of getting the Bill through before the Dissolution, I would say that our only justification for having an Army, and for controlling it, and disciplining it, up to the present has been the fact of a state of war. We have now actually got to the position that the Courts have declared that a state of war no longer exists. Living in that state of non-war and without the authority of this Act we would not legally and in accordance with our Constitution be able to raise an Army in this country or have an army, and we would not be able to apply the necessary disciplinary measures for disciplining the Army. That is the reason why we have to have this Act passed before the Dáil dissolves.
In the matter of economy raised by Senator Jameson, the expenditure on the Army at present is set out in the Army Estimates, period by period.
We are perfectly aware that it is not sufficient for us to work within the sum of money that has been voted for the Army. We are perfectly satisfied that we must work, and be able to work far below it, so that we may have as big a saving as possible in the vote for the Army in view of the financial stringency in which the Government finds itself. Every effort has been made to economise and there is an economy push on in every Department of the Army. As far as stores accounting is concerned it will be quite well understood that we did not start on our late campaign with a stores accounting system like the British or like any other Army of many years experience would have. Actually we started this campaign with no Stores Accounting Department. We have worked out in the Army at present a stores accounting system that we are satisfied with. We have a stores accounting system which we are putting into force now, and when that is at work we will be satisfied with it. We have the satisfaction of knowing on the report of persons who have gone into our system at the main stores in Island Bridge and at our Headquarters that the system will be satisfactory and can be run economically. We have started on even as detailed a matter as our Stores Accounting system.
I know there has been a considerable volume of complaint with regard to the non-payment of accounts. But in a very large measure that complaint arises because of the fact that we are scrupulously careful how we shall issue public money. We have received very many accounts that cannot be properly vouched for, and I am sorry to say we have recieved many accounts that when fully investigated are over statements of account. In many parts of the country we have sent regular Commissions from headquarters here, to go into these matters with the assistance of the local officers on the spot, and we have succeeded in clearing up all reasonable accounts in various parts of the country. Now we are taking steps to deal with the residue of the accounts that we could not be satisfied on, even with local investigation on the spot. We are taking steps to deal with these. Generally we are looking well after the economic side of things in the Army.
Motion: "That the Bill be read a Second time," put and agreed to.
Motion: "That the Standing Orders be suspended to allow the Bill to be taken in Committee," put and agreed to.
Motion: "That the Bill pass in Committee," put and agreed to.
Motion: "That the Bill be reported," put and agreed to.
Motion: "That the Bill be finally considered and do now pass," put and agreed to.