This Bill aims at extending the Army Pensions Acts of 1923 and 1927 so as to enable men who were wounded, and the dependents of those who were killed, during the Black-and-Tan war and the civil war to be compensated. It will also enable the Minister for Defence to re-open certain cases that were marked "final awards" under the 1923 and 1927 Pensions Acts. On that point a lot of hardship has been inflicted on certain pensioners who were disabled or wounded as their cases were marked "final" and there was no power in the Minister under these Acts to re-open them, even if disability increased manifold afterwards. In order to provide that only those entitled to pensions will get them a Military Service Registration Board will be established. Applicants will have to prove service to three members of that board and if they are judged entitled to pensions for service rendered their claims will be passed on to the Army Pensions Board, on which there will be two medical officers. They will assess the degree of disability from which claimants suffer. The structure of the Bill is much the same as the previous Acts. Where there are dependents they will be entitled to get either gratuities or pensions. Unless there is total dependency proved, the dependents of a deceased person will not be entitled to a pension; they will simply get a gratuity. For all who were wounded the scale of pensions is three-quarters of that given to officers under the 1923 and 1927 Acts. In America and certain other countries when volunteers turn out at a time of national crisis, both officers and men are afterwards treated on the same basis. It is recognised that there is not the same distinction between officers and men in a volunteer force as there is in regular armies, and as they are only up for one or two years they are treated exactly on the same lines and get the same scale of pensions. We have adopted that procedure in this Bill. In certain cases where men die, if they were not married before a certain date, the widows would only be entitled to a grant instead of a pension. Section 12 deals with such cases. As in the 1923 and 1927 Acts provision is made for the hospital treatment of those who claim pensions. There is also provision made for the forfeiture of pensions if a pensioner is found guilty of certain offences by a civil court. By direction of the Minister where a pensioner neglects his wife the pension can be paid direct to the wife. In Part III of the Bill there are certain proposals which were recommended by the Public Accounts Committee. They are simply to tighten up the original Acts and to make the intention behind these Acts have full force and effect. Section 23 of Part II is the section under which the Minister can re-open "final awards" under the 1923 and 1927 Acts. I have already dealt with the scale of pensions, three-quarters that of officers, that will apply to both officers and men. I hardly think there is any necessity to go into any further details, but if any Senator raises any question I will do my best to explain it.
Public Business. - Army Pensions Bill, 1932—Second Stage.
The question that agitates my mind about this Bill is this: When the Act is in operation what amount is it likely to cost the country? I am sure the Minister will have made some estimate of what it is likely to cost. In these days, when taxation is so high, that is one of the things that it is necessary, for the farming community at all events, to direct attention to. I also want to direct the attention of the House to the fact that in taking the scale of pensions at three-quarters of that allowed to officers the effect will be to raise the standard of pensions of the rank and file considerably above what was allowed under previous Acts. For example, previously the ordinary volunteer was allowed up to £105 yearly. If this Bill becomes law the ordinary volunteer will get three-quarters of an officer's pension, up to £150. These are days when the cost of food has fallen, because there is a plethora of it in the country, when butter is cheap, and when there is no sale for beef or mutton. One would imagine that instead of the scale advancing it would be reduced. If this scale is carried through, those who operated as non-commissioned officers in the National Army in the past will be receiving less than men of the same rank to whom they were opposed. I do not think that is a just state of affairs. Apart altogether from pensions being provided for one army, and provided now for another army, why should one man have a larger pension than another man? That is a point the Minister should have explained. I am simply asking this question to find out exactly what is in the Minister's mind, and to ascertain roughly what it is going to cost and, in that way, to direct public attention to the matter.
Having regard to the national interest in the fullest sense of the word, I think it is very questionable if this Bill should be brought in now. Whatever the disabilities and the hardships of the beneficiaries under this Bill—and I dare say that these hardships may have been very great in many cases—and however much the persons concerned may have incurred those disabilities through actions which they considered at the time to be patriotic, I still hold that this Bill is a bad piece of legislation and is nationally a bad precedent. It gives pensions and gratuities to persons of a particular political point of view. It gives these gratuities in recognition of hostilities against the de facto Government of the day. In my opinion, payments of that kind cannot fail to come under the head of payments given for Party services and that I hold to be a bad and demoralising principle in any civilised State.
To my mind, this is a Bill, for which, in the main, the responsibility lies with the Executive Council. I do not know the views of the majority of this House, but if there were a majority that was not satisfied with the Bill, nevertheless this is a Bill, the passage of which, I think, they ought not to attempt to stop. When introducing the Bill into the Dáil, the Minister for Defence said that he estimated that it would cost about £30,000 a year. That is the figure he mentioned, I think. In introducing the Bill he said that he was satisfied that it would remove a great deal of bitterness and ill-feeling in the country and that it would in a large measure remove the memories of past dissensions and create a great deal of happiness. The Executive Council have the responsibility for order in the country, and if they are satisfied that a Bill of this kind will remove bitterness and make for order, then I do not think that this House should take responsibility for rejecting the Bill. Some of us have adopted exactly the same attitude in the case of former Bills about which we were not very enthusiastic, and I think we should adopt the same attitude now.
The main object of the Bill, I think, is to provide pensions for disabled men, or the dependents of those who were disabled or killed, who were previously prevented from having pensions because of the fact that they had taken up arms against the State, which was not only the de facto State but, as Senator Bagwell said, established by law by the elected representatives of the people. I have considerable respect for the point of view of Senator Bagwell and others who say that the State should not provide pensions for those who fought against the State, but, personally, I am not able to take that point of view. We have the highest possible authority for the belief that we should forgive our enemies, and also that if we find any man hungry we should feed him or if he thirst give him to drink for in so doing we heap coals of fire upon his head. If these pensions are to be given in the spirit of making the recipients uncomfortable in so far as they have taken up arms against the State, I agree; but what makes me uncomfortable is that in the minds of many people the pensions are being given for actions of which I cannot and did not approve.
Deputy MacDermot asked the Minister for Defence what seemed to me to be a perfectly fair and reasonable question in the Dáil, and that was whether they were prepared "always to defend against armed interference the institutions accepted by the majority of the people of this country"—I think these were Deputy MacDermot's exact words. In view of the President's statements with regard to majority rule. I would have expected that the Minister would have been able to answer that question of Deputy MacDermot's frankly in the affirmative. The Minister's reply seemed to me, and to many other persons I think, to evade Deputy MacDermot's point. His reply was that Deputy MacDermot could always "rely on Fianna Fáil and the members of their Party doing what they think best for Ireland and the Irish people." To my mind, that kind of answer gets us nowhere. Every Party says that it is doing the best for Ireland. Lord Craigavon and Lord Carson said the same, and the same is said by those who stand for the Soviet Republic. But these people have no right to attempt to force their will on the majority of the people. It seems to me that that is a principle which ought to be condemned, and if every Party should be allowed to do what they liked, even to the extent of violence, it will lead to chaos and disorder. The security of the State depends on the frank acceptance of the principle of majority rule by all parties and certainly by those who are going to accept responsibility for government. If the Minister had been able to give a straight answer in the affirmative to Deputy MacDermot's question I might have supported this Bill without any misgivings whatever. I would like to give every support to any effort to let bygones be bygones and to remove bitterness in this country, no matter on what side people fought. In spite of the fact that the Minister's answer gives me considerable misgiving, I am prepared to support the Bill. My reasons are mainly two-fold. In the first place the responsibility for taking up arms against the State lay on the leaders and not on the rank and file. The people in this country in many cases have elected leaders to high office, some of whom are Ministers either in this House or in the other House, and it seems to me that if the people have elected leaders to that position we cannot criticise their making provision for pensions as provided in this Bill. I am quite certain, personally, and I hope very much that it will not be the case, that if any other people take up arms in the future against this State, and if the people then elected to high office by the people wish to do so, we shall have another Pensions Bill. I do not think that the people should grumble about the expense in the circumstances. I do not see how the former Government could have introduced this Bill because theirs was the responsibility for the State against which these people took up arms. With the present Executive in power, the position is changed and we are faced with a different point of view.
My second reason is that I do not believe that it is good for the country to have disabled men or their dependents in a disgruntled state of mind, especially having regard to the history of the last twenty years. I do not think that that is a good state of affairs. I believe that it is far better for the State to take the risk of erring on the side of generosity, even when people are misguided enough to oppose majority rule, and I am prepared to support the Bill when the Minister states that in his opinion this Bill will remove bitterness and ill-feeling. Together with a number of other people, I had considerable experience of relief work before the Treaty. At that time funds were given to people without any regard to their political beliefs. We even gave relief to the dependents of Black-and-Tans if their dependents were resident in this country. After the Treaty, also, money was voted to men coming out of jail, although in many cases, probably, these men were opposed to the State. I believed that that was a wise policy then and I still believe it to have been a wise policy. I think that personal and political bitterness is probably the worst curse from which we are suffering at the present time, and that if you can do anything which will enable those of us who honestly differ from one another to state our opinions in good faith and without bitterness, it is worth some cost. Although I sympathise with Senator Wilson in his unwillingness to pay money out at this time, still I feel that if as a result of this measure you can do away with the bitterness and get an honest opinion, a Bill of this kind would be very cheap at the price. I may be wrong, but if we can do anything to remove that bitterness and ill-feeling, it is probably the greatest duty that any person in any party could undertake.
I should like to endorse what Senator Bagwell said and to protest against the principle in this Bill on the ground that it sets up a dangerous precedent and leads to no finality in the matter of revolution.
I think it should be pointed out that this Bill does not go to the extent of the old Bills. It does not give pensions or gratuities to any person except those who have been disabled to some degree. That is a big distinction between the treatment of those who served in one or other of the armies and the treatment of men under the previous Bill which dealt with the same problem. I think it is desirable, in view of what Senator Bagwell said, to call attention to the fact that the previous Bills, while ostensibly giving pensions or gratuities to those who served in the National Army, in fact did not give a pension for that service at all but rather for pre-Treaty service. To meet Senator Bagwell's point that the effect of this Bill is to give some kind of encouragement of a partisan nature, I think we cannot criticise in that direction unless we are also prepared to denounce the policy of the previous Bills, because, quite clearly, those Bills were definitely intended to penalise any person, no matter how he were wounded or disabled in the pre-Truce fighting, unless he joined the National Army. If this Bill is worthy of condemnation because it has a partisan effect, according to Senator Bagwell, the other Bills were equally partisan, because they penalised the person if he did not join the National Army, even though he had been wounded or disabled in the previous fighting. I think that it is a reasonable criticism to say that this Bill, if taken as a precedent and dealt with purely in the abstract, is perhaps fraught with certain danger. But the point made by Senator Douglas, I think, is a valid one and a sound principle to enunciate, that is to say, that if something of this kind is not done there is going to be, for at least one generation, a continuation and an emphasis of a certain internal bitterness which ought to be avoided, and that the cost of removing that bitterness will not be high compared with the benefit which, I think, will be attained. Senator Wilson has made a point regarding the differentiation in the benefits which would accrue under this Bill as compared with those under the previous Bills. I am not quite sure, but it does appear to me that under the clause which the Senator has referred to, where the awards were final under the old Bill, if a good case can be made that the disablement is of such a degree as to make it impossible for the recipient of the pension to live decently, he comes within the scope of this Bill if his award is revived and revised. I am not quite sure of that point but I think it is correct. I do not think in fact that the principle is so very great as to warrant our paying too much heed to the criticism to which Senator Wilson refers.
If I believed, like Senator Douglas, that this Bill would remove the bitterness of the past, or that it would relieve people who are suffering, I should find it very hard to make up my mind to oppose it. I should find it very hard to refuse aid to those who are suffering because I realise that many of these men were absolutely misguided in the actions they took. They may have thought that they were doing a patriotic action in opposing majority rule. I cannot, however, believe for a moment that this Bill will remove bitterness. I believe, with Senator Bagwell, that it will have a thoroughly demoralising effect on the whole community. For that reason, I cannot support the Bill. I do not know that there is a precedent for this Bill in any country in the world, either in America or any other country, where you had a rebellion of a section of the people against the majority. I never heard or never read of an instance anywhere in which those who opposed majority rule were rewarded afterwards. I think it is a terribly bad precedent to set up.
There are certain things which are not very pleasant to remember, things which those who lived and suffered during that dreadful period of the civil war cannot very easily forget. It will be remembered that very large sums of money were robbed from the banks in that period. It is well known that a great deal of that money found its way into the pockets of the men who robbed it. It did not go into a general fund. It did not go to keep up the general army, if you might call it such. It went directly into the pockets of certain individuals. Many of these men have been pretty well rewarded—not all, of course. Only the clever ones got more than their share of such money. Cases of people in the country who made fortunes are very well known. Some of them suffered wounds. Others did not. As I say, I would be very sorry indeed if I thought by not supporting the Bill I should be causing unnecessary suffering or want to anyone, but there are other means of relief besides giving pensions. For the reason principally that I believe that it will have a thoroughly demoralising effect on the country and that it will encourage rebellion against authority in future, I cannot support the Bill.
I welcome the introduction of the Bill. I think, if anything, it is overdue and that the interests of those who have suffered injury in health as a result of wounds or the development of disease should be attended to by the State at the earliest possible moment. I do not desire to introduce any controversial matter in relation to the general principles of the Bill, but I feel that I cannot allow to go unchallenged the references made to the establishment of this State and the apparent, I might say unconscious, interchange of the names of the geographical unit of Ireland and the name of this State. I do not agree with Senator Douglas that this State was established by the will of the majority of the Irish people nor do I agree with the last speaker in her libels on members of the Irish Republican Army who took part in the civil war in which she states rather definitely—she always does and without any without any proof—that men in the army bettered their own position through raids on banks or otherwise.
My chief concern with the Bill is that I do not think it goes far enough. I would suggest that not merely should pensions be awarded to those covered by the Bill but that a retrospective help should be given to those families who had a burden placed on them in respect of the care and nursing of men who were wounded in the last ten years. I have in mind one particular case where a family not very well off has had the responsibility of nursing and providing medical and surgical attention for the senior member of the family who has been unable to leave his bed for the last ten years. They are in an impoverished position to-day because of the attention and care given to that member of the family. I think the Bill should go further than it does and should provide retrospective help for such families so as to place them at least in the same financial position as they held at the beginning or end of the civil war. I welcome the introduction of the Bill and I wish the Minister God-speed.
Senator Johnson, I think, confused the Military Service Pensions Act with the Wounds and Disability Pensions Acts of 1923 and 1927. He said that the previous Acts penalised those who did not serve with the National Army. That is true with reference to the Military Service Pensions Act, but it is not so in regard to the Wound and Disability Pensions Acts. Under the Military Service Pensions Act, able-bodied men got pensions provided they had both pre-Truce service in the I.R.A. and post-Truce service in the National Army, but under the Wounds and Disability Pensions Acts, members of the Irish Republican Army who fought on the Republican side against the Free State Government after the Truce got pensions if they proved that their wounds were received during the Black-and-Tan war. I hope that is quite clear, because the past Government were a little bit more humane than Senator Bagwell in that respect. Even though the men who were wounded in the Black-and-Tan war afterwards fought against them, they allowed, under the Acts which they introduced and passed, pensions to these men in respect of wounds received during the Black-and-Tan war. However, there were some men who were wounded during the Black-and-Tan war who did not claim under the previous Acts and their time has lapsed. According to these Acts, if they did not claim within a certain period there was no legal power in the hands of the Free State Government to accept their claims. Under this Bill we are extending the time and they can claim under this Bill either for wounds received during the Black-and-Tan war or in the civil war.
I really do not think this House would wish to discuss the events of the past sixteen or seventeen years. Fundamentally our outlook, the outlook of the Government, is one of peace. We set out, many of us sixteen or seventeen years ago, some before that, in order to bring about peace in this country, such conditions as would allow our people to live in it and be at peace with their brother Irishmen. In regard to majority rule, when a question is flung at one suddenly about majority rule to be answered by a sentence across the floor of the House, the answer will not be satisfactory if it is done in that way. I could easily imagine Deputy MacDermot asking me across the floor of the Dáil whether I stood for majority rule or not. I suppose Senator Bagwell has as little knowledge of Irish history, and I could well imagine him asking me a similar question, but I cannot very well imagine Senator Douglas doing it unless he is simply asking it in order to give me an opportunity of explaining the whole situation and of stating our attitude in regard to majority rule.
Senator Douglas is one of those who is fairly conversant with our attitude with regard to majority rule. I just happen to have here on my file a copy of the Cease Fire Proposals which Mr. de Valera forwarded to the Free State Government at the end of the civil war, through Senator Douglas, I think. At least, he was one of them. In these Cease Fire Proposals the attitude of the Republican Army, to which I had the honour to be Chief of Staff at the time, was quite definitely pointed out. The proposals offer an immediate cessation of hostilities on the basis of the following:—
(1) That the sovereign rights of this nation are indefeasible and inalienable.
(2) That all legitimate governmental authority in Ireland, legislative, executive and judicial, is derived exclusively from the people of Ireland.
(3) That the ultimate court of appeal for deciding disputed questions of national expediency and policy is the people of Ireland—the judgment being by majority vote of the adult citizenry, and the decision to be submitted to, and resistance by violence excluded, not because the decision is necessarily right or just or permanent, but because acceptance of this rule makes for peace, order and unity in national action, and is the democratic alternative to arbitrament by force.
That quite clearly points out our attitude to majority rule. No one could put majority rule in the category of an Eleventh Commandment. We believe that majority rule is a good rule of order, but there are certain things on which no individual would allow himself to be bound by a decision of the majority. There are certain matters of religion, morals and other things in which the individual has an absolute right—as a matter of fact, has an absolute duty—to think for himself. The Republican Army offered to cease hostilities and to stand by majority rule. It is provided in the fourth item of these Cease Fire Proposals:
That no individual, or class of individuals, who subscribe to these principles of national right, order and good citizenship can be justly excluded by any political oath, test, or other device, from their proper share and influence in determining national policy, or from the councils and parliament of the nation.
The fifth was
"That freedom to express political or economic opinions or to advocate political or economic programmes, freedom to assemble in public meeting and freedom of the press are rights of citizenship and of the community which must not be abrogated."
And (6)
"That the military forces of the nation are the servants of the nation, and, subject to the foregoing, amenable to the national assembly when freely elected by the people."
And the statement went on
"We are informed that many in the ranks of our opponents will accept these principles as we accept them. If that is so, peace can be arranged forthwith.
"We hope that this advance will be met in the spirit in which we make it and that it will be supported by all who love our country and who desire a speedy and just ending to the present national troubles. As evidence of our goodwill the Army Command is issuing herewith an order to all units to suspend aggressive action—the order to take effect as soon as may be but not later than noon Monday, April 30th —Eamon de Valera, President."
We have, as I pointed out, been endeavouring to get a real rule of freedom here in this country. We wanted certain principles accepted that would exclude the use of force between Irishmen and that would save much political difference. That was not alone our attitude after the civil war, but it was our attitude before the civil war. Allowing other people to speak for themselves, speaking for myself I can say that I endeavoured before the civil war started to prevent it starting, and during the Four Courts time I endeavoured to bring about peace, and for my trouble I was put in jail. It may be known to some Senators, but not to all, that the Dáil elected by a majority of the people of this country the like of which was never secured by any Party ever previously elected, declared that they wanted peace in June 1922; but it did not meet until three months after the civil war had started. Those of us who wanted to see peace between Irishmen, and to see majority rule accepted, endeavoured to have the Dáil summoned at that time. Senator Johnson will remember that the Labour Party called for a meeting of the Dáil at that time, and, although I was not very closely in touch with things at that time still, I arrived at the same conclusion for myself. I came to Dublin and I endeavoured to get the Dáil summoned, but I was forced into the civil war, I was put into jail for trying to make peace; I escaped later on. We called a meeting in Dundalk and our first claim was that Deputies should be called together and have an opportunity of going into the difficulty. It is an infamous libel on the men who were killed to say that they were against the majority will of the people of the country. There are people who accuse us of being against majority rule, simply because we would not accept the majority will of the people of Great Britain and Ireland. We did not accept the majority will of the people of Great Britain and Ireland. A large number of people were proud of the fact and they fought against the de facto Government.
In answer to the question put by Senator Wilson I should say that the cost of this Bill will be £30,000 and I think the estimate is very much on the safe side. It is confined entirely to people wounded in the civil war and to the dependents of those killed. There may be a difference of opinion— I am sure there always will be—as to what the scale should be. I think the scale we have adopted is the correct one. We knew perfectly well there would be criticism. Looking at this from the point of view of the private soldier, the private soldier, under this Bill will get 25 per cent. more than the private soldier under previous Acts. There is the other point of view of criticism here that the officer under this Bill is getting 25 per cent. more than under the previous Acts——
They are much fewer.
I think if the Senator knew the figures he would find that under the previous Acts, as between officers and men, there was a wide difference, but it will not be the same under this Bill. It was the men who were most active in the old days that became officers and that stopped the most bullets. I think this scale is the best. It is carried out in other countries which have both regular armies and volunteer armies. The regular army is offered a certain scale of pension. When the volunteers are called up, and afterwards disbanded, both officers and men are treated alike. I hope the Seanad will pass this Bill which will do much more than any amount of speeches or sermons to create goodwill in the country. When the Bill was going through the Dáil I appealed that it should be accepted by all, and that the Opposition, in a spirit of generosity, should say "these men were wounded or these women were left widows and out of a humane spirit we should give them pensions." I was quite prepared to carry on as usual and to hear it said that these people were merely victims of President de Valera and myself and other rascals like us. We were quite prepared for that. But I think the majority of them had attained the use of reason and were quite prepared to be wounded for the cause. But from the Opposition point of view if they wanted to be humane they could say "these poor fellows were innocent victims of other people now in good positions and it is only right that these victims should be looked after." If Senator Bagwell wants to pension all men who fought against the de facto Government either British or Free State he would have to introduce an amendment to abolish other Army Pensions Acts.
The question does not arise. It is not necessary to pay pensions to anybody under this Bill I say the principle is bad.
The Senator does not want pensions for anybody under this Bill, but if he did want pensions I was pointing out the way he could proceed. While I quite understand some people do not want to pension others who fought against the British Government, at any rate, I cannot see why there should not be pensions for widows who lost their husbands and, perhaps, also, lost their sons. This Bill will relieve a lot of hardship. There are cases where men have been suffering from wounds for nearly ten years past. With regard to Senator Wilson's point, it is quite clear that privates under this Bill would get a little more than privates under the previous Acts. Under the previous Acts people have been enjoying their pensions for nearly ten years while those for whom we are providing now have not got anything at all yet. These men have not been able to do any work and have been a burden to their families for years. If this Bill errs a little on the side of generosity it only tends to provide a little levelling up of things. You will find people like Senator O'Doherty who would like to have this Bill retrospective for years. They say that some recompense should be made for the hardship these people have suffered and have been suffering for years. In this Bill we are not making recompense for anything. We are only hoping to relieve hardships. Compensation does not come in in any way under the Bill. There is no dependents' allowance given unless dependents can prove that they really were dependents. If the finances of the country were in a better state than they are it might be possible, going back more, to give the Bill greater retrospective effect. Under the circumstances, I think, we are doing as much as the state of the Exchequer can be reasonably asked to bear. I think the Bill will do a great lot of good in the country and if the Seanad passes it, I do not think that anybody will regret their action in the future.