I shall be very brief, and I hope there will not be as many interruptions as there were before we adjourned. As I see it, we had an Act of the Oireachtas in 1929, which provided for a Board only. Subsequently, in 1942, there was a debate in the Seanad initiated by Senator Sir John Keane who was supported by many Members, at least as far as their speeches could be interpreted. It is interesting to note that there are three Members here in the House now of the 60 who were Members of the Oireachtas at that time. You are one, a Chathaoirleach; I am another, and Miss Pearse was here also. There are three of us left, three of those who were in 1942 Members of Seanad Éireann. When they came to vote on the motion proposed by Senator Sir John Keane— there is no necessity to read it; it sought to censure the Board for what they had done in the years that had passed—the Seanad in its wisdom on that occasion, by a vote of 34 to 2 rejected it. There were two supporters for the motion, the Senator and Senator Johnson of Trinity College. These were the two supporters, the two tellers and 34 Members of the Oireachtas voted against them.
Private Business. - Censorship of Publications Bill, 1967: Second Stage (Resumed).
The Seanad has greatly improved since those days.
I shall come to the fact that there is no change in me since those days.
I think that is true.
The substance of my address to Senators here today is that the things that were required then are required today. I am unquestionably in favour of the Act now because the Act of 1946 amended the previous situation to the extent that it provided an Appeal Board. I understand that clergy as well as ordinary public representatives were on that appeal board. That is a splendid arrangement for any country like Ireland and I repeat what I said on that occasion, that I believe our standards are higher and we should maintain them. I do not give a hoot what people outside say. Senators may say that we are a laughing stock in the eyes of the world. We are not and will not be, please God. That is the history as far as I understand it up to the present.
The Bill before us does not alter the situation one iota as far as I am concerned. I have read only one of these books in detail for the specific purpose of seeing whether, as people had said, there were only two lines in it that were immoral. The whole book was immoral, and if it is allowed to be published again, I will regard it as my duty to bring it to the attention of the Appeal Board or whatever machinery exists in the new circumstances. I would oppose the release of that from censorship and allow free circulation in this country.
That is the substance of what I was trying to say when I was forced to deal with something extraneous, and which was out of order, I thought. I was surprised, and I congratulated Senator O'Quigley on the figures he gave which showed how few appeals there have been to the Appeal Board against decisions of the Censorship Board. They were extraordinarily few. The argument is that authors and publishers of these banned books utilise this for publicity. I cannot help it if they do so. I maintain that we as a nation should not agree to any alteration or any lowering of our standards in relation to the literature that is made available to young and old, to university graduates or any others.
One thing I did not refer to is my wish to see an opportunity afforded to young people of education in the facts of life. I think there are lectures in the social science curriculum in the universities covering anatomy, physiology and possibly pathology. I should like the people growing up to have a knowledge of the dangers consequent on immoral actions, even to the extent of appreciating the danger of contracting venereal disease. Some people say we are dealing with sex only and that there are six other deadly sins as well. I think the three remaining Members of the 1942 Seanad will be adamant in their endeavours to maintain the standards they helped to maintain in 1942. While I am in this House, or on earth for that matter, I shall insist that we in Seanad Éireann will exercise proper supervision, through the Censorship Board, whether there be an Appeal Board or not, so that there will not be indiscriminate circulation of undesirable literature. In that view I am adamant.
The Senator is voting against the Bill, I take it.
The Senator is not voting against the Bill.
After that contribution one would think he would.
I described it as being of no consequence.
To see a member of Fianna Fáil breaking the Party line—
I hope the Senator will not see any further breakage of Party lines in my contribution.
The Senator must be up for election or something.
It has become fairly evident, in this House and elsewhere, that the general concensus of opinion among those responsible for the supervision of literature circulated in this country is that, if possible, censorship would be implemented as little as possible, that the reading public would have sufficient enlightened and informed views that we in the Legislature would not have to impose restrictions and directions in relation to their reading tastes.
One of the most urgent things we should undertake in regard to directing enlightened and proper reading tastes is guidance at the basic stage in our secondary schools. Now that post-primary education will be and should be available in a short time to all the children who wish to avail of it, one hopes that many children who in the past never had an opportunity of, one might say, broadening their point of view, of becoming aware of the good and beautiful in life, will be reading matter which would never affect them in their normal experience. Many students will have that opportunity and I hope that our secondary schools will henceforth pay special attention to developing proper reading tastes and offer the facilities of good libraries to all their students.
It may be evident from contributions made here and in the other House that those Senators who may have, one might say, expressed rather enlightened views, have had the benefit in their own domestic environment or school training days of such enlightenment and positive recreation but there are many, and I include myself among them, who in their early education, at least, did not have this opportunity largely because apparently secondary education up to now has been regarded as a means towards equipping one for a job as soon as possible after the leaving certificate, or due to economic circumstances. In many cases students had not the time or the facilities for broadening their attitude and outlook and it is unfortunately true that many of our secondary school pupils and, indeed, many of our university graduates confine themselves to the subjects in which they specialise—I do not include Trinity College in this—and thus may not develop the enlightened attitude to which I have referred.
Every secondary school should make a very determined effort to provide, as an essential facility, a proper and well-equipped library under reasonable direction. As well, the Department of Education should offer every financial inducement towards the establishment of such libraries because many of the people leaving school have not any acquired taste and it is such people who are most endangered by the filth, the trash, the unworthy literature available to them through various channels.
Therefore, it is to be hoped that our schools will, by providing guidance for pupils, in future obviate the necessity of restricting the general reading tastes. Having said that, I wish to point out that during the debate it was suggested that we here, for all that, have no function to legislate, as it was said, for virtue and morality, that because these things are almost impossible, therefore, they should not and do not concern us, that we are imposing virtue on the people. Of course, this is perfectly true but I think we can at least encourage standards. I feel it should be said here that although we do not, with our human failings, pretend to be men of great and absolute integrity, possibly we may not always be as bad as some enlightened views would take us to be, at the same time we should make it perfectly clear that as Members of the Oireachtas we are very much concerned with the morality and even, let it be said, with the virtue of our people.
I wholeheartedly agree with and commend the Bill. It does show at least that we have the confidence as a people of now reading and allowing to be read, books that apparently in the early stages of our national development we felt our nation was not ready for. It is obviously a positive sign of advancement that one can trust the intellectual integrity of our people but we must not let it seem that we do not appear to be concerned with morality. We are concerned with morality in every piece of legislation which comes before this House. Although we are offering ourselves as standard bearers, it should be made perfectly evident that we will always have regard to the standards of decency which prevail in any sphere.
The debate here and elsewhere has got quite a lot of publicity—I think, in fact, has caused a positive rethinking around the country—but I should like to think that there should be an appreciation of the fact that until such time as we have developed a sufficiently discerning reading public, at least among those people who have not been so properly trained, through no fault of their own, as to be aware of it there are certain types of books that even after the 12 year period has elapsed, could well be re-banned under the particular section. Beyond that, I think what could reasonably be said about it has been said but I should like finally to add this.
We are a Christian nation and even though we are a Christian nation there may be those among us who may not adhere to any Christian faith and they may be more enlightened in their adherence than we are. At the same time, we should remember that there have been many civilisations before ours. Many a pagan civilisation, such as the Roman civilisation, who showed little or no regard for standards of decency of any kind, had censorship. Even they would have had their guardian of public morality. Are we now to decide that this State does not require this? It would be a very retrograde step if we were to do that. We hope that the provisions of this Bill will be implemented as infrequently as possible. As I said, my main concern is that our secondary schools would offer this enlightenment to their pupils, and when that is so, we will not be so concerned with the type of literature that would now endanger and poison their minds.
We have had a very constructive debate here in the Seanad as we had in the Dáil on this matter. Indeed, it has tended to widen out into a full debate on the whole question of censorship, which is beyond what I intended in the Bill as is apparent from its Long Title. I would not agree with Senator Ó Donnabháin that the Bill makes an insignificant change in the censorship code. The changes are significant enough but do not affect the basic principle which is incorporated in the Acts of 1929 and 1946. The general consensus, with the one exception of Senator Sheehy Skeffington, in both the Seanad and the Dáil, is that some form of censorship is necessary in any community.
Laws should not enforce morality. Laws should seek only to enforce the very minimum standard of morality that is necessary for the common good of the community. Every community in the world, whether it is democratic or totalitarian, operates censorship in one form or another.
Senator FitzGerald raised a very important point which concerns the method of censorship, that is, whether we should have a system of censorship through a board or whether we should have it as in Britain, through the courts.
This is a matter which I considered very closely when studying our censorship system. I went into it in some detail and I came down—the Government agreed with me on this—against a system on the lines of the British system. There are certain very practical reasons for this. First of all, provided the board is a reasonable board, it can operate more effectively in coming to a decision as to whether or not a book is indecent or obscene than a court, for this reason, that you get from such a board a consistent interpretation of the Censorship Acts, of what is or is not indecent or obscene, so that if one is involved in the book-selling business, as a writer, a publisher or an editor, one knows fairly precisely what to expect. There is a consistent interpretation and a consistent application of standards from a board. One cannot expect to get this from the courts, because, naturally enough, district justices, being human, magistrates in Britain being human and juries being human, variations in interpretation between one court and another are only to be expected. Informed commentators in Britain are beginning to look at our system. In Australia there have been changes to a system akin to ours, largely because of the reasons I have mentioned. It has been the experience in Britain that there have been tremendously varying interpretations and attitudes on the part of prosecutors, of magistrates and of juries. These variations would manifest themselves here also if the control on books were left to the courts and, to take the concrete situation, Garda Superintendents would have a very invidious task and would be subject to all kinds of pressures. I could see tremendous difficulties in our circumstances, but generally and in principle, I think it is much better to have a uniform interpretation by a board that adopts certain standards that everybody directly involved recognises.
I know that ideally control should operate through the courts, but I feel that, having regard to the delicate and sensitive nature of this matter, on balance our system is better. But, again, this is a point that is open to argument and discussion, and I am glad that Senator FitzGerald raised it, because it is an aspect of the matter which I did consider closely.
Our system did incur a certain amount of odium over the years. It has to be acknowledged that a number of the decisions made in the 1930s and the 1940s were, to say the least of it, unfortunate. We are seeking to rectify that position in the Bill, and the Bill is a significant contribution in this respect. Indeed, one of the main sufferers under the system operated in the 1930s and in the 1940s was Mr. Seán O'Faoláin, the distinguished Irish writer, who is on record on several occasions over the past few years as advocating what we have in this Bill as about the right thing to be done to make our censorship system more sensible. He did not go any further. He has delivered radio and other lectures on this matter over the past few years, but he has not advocated any further reform of our censorship code than what is contained in this Bill.
The fact that a prohibition order made in a particular age could last for ever is blatantly indefensible and that is what we are changing in this Bill. We recognise that while basic morality will always remain the same, community standards and attitudes tend to change. Every one of us here is well aware of that, so that it is not necessary for me to elaborate on it. It is a commonsense proposition, and the only question seems really to be what is the period of years one should allow for this sort of evolution. I took the cautious figure of 20 years and allowed myself to be persuaded that 12 years might be a more appropriate period. I feel that what our people are rightly concerned about is to keep out really obscene and indecent matter, and I, as Minister for Justice, have a function to ensure that such matter is not allowed in. I feel that people that share that point of view, and that is the preponderant majority, should be fully satisfied by section 3, which allows the board to make a further prohibition order in respect of any book. Of course, this re-banning process can continue.
Can the Minister say whether he visualises the board re-examining all books or only those still in print?
Only those in print. I am glad the Senator mentioned that point. I should say that 80 or 90 per cent of the books banned 12 years ago are now out of print. It is only books which are still in print which would come to the notice of the board for a decision as to whether or not they should not be re-banned.
Does this mean that someone has to send a copy of a book again to the board asking for it to be re-banned? The Board would not do it automatically?
No, no.
Thank you.
In fact, a lot of what I might call blatantly trashy material is of a very ephemeral nature, tending to go out of circulation and out of publication very quickly. It is published for the day and for the hour, and one finds that 80 per cent of what has been banned will have gone for ever. That tends to be the pattern. In fact, the books that will come forward for reconsideration will be books that have survived and proved themselves as being durable.
Impure.
What will come forward for reconsideration are works which have survived and by surviving proved themselves in most cases— which is, again, a tribute to human sense—works of some merit.
I should like to take this opportunity of paying tribute to the present board. Since Judge Conroy of the Circuit Court became chairman in 1957 a very sensible attitude has been evidenced and the other members of the board are equally to be commended. Some Members of the Seanad have mentioned the fact that the board in recent years showed much commonsense. From my position, being closer to the operations of the board, I can fully endorse that point of view. The whole approach has been one of commonsense and betokens an appreciation of the fact that changes in attitudes and in standards do take place in the community. The fact that literary and artistic merit is a very important consideration and that the over-all impact of the book is good, the presence of some obscene or indecent material should not automatically condemn it.
Even in the case of Edna O'Brien's earlier books.
I should like to mention a few figures, to which I referred in my reply on the Second Stage in the Dáil. They show the sort of pattern that has taken place. In 1963, the figure was 442; in 1964, it was 353; in 1965, it was 288; in 1966, it was 158. Therefore, in the three years the figure has fallen from 442 per year to 158 per year.
They are becoming jaded.
It is very hard to annoy Senator Sheehy Skeffington.
Senator FitzGerald also raised the point of the need for a more appropriate definition of "indecency", if that is the proper word. One has to be very careful here. He referred to the 1929 Act and the 1946 Act in this context. I mentioned this in the Dáil also when Deputy M. J. O'Higgins raised the point. Definitions in this context do not amount to much. It is largely the subject matter that is involved and no matter how one gets down to define the law, no matter what the definitions are of obscenity, indecency, literary and artistic merit et cetera, you are dealing largely with subjective opinion. No two people will agree on what indecency or obscenity is or on the definition of “artistic merit”. It all depends on the commonsense of the board appointed in a given period. This, I feel, is the all important thing and I would relegate definitions in a matter of this kind to a comparative unimportant role.
In that connection, I want to refer to the fact that the cause of much of the difficulty in the past was the fact that there were people on the board who had very conservative views. I shall not say more than that. We have had in the past few years on the board, commonsense views. The Government of the day should ensure that we have a board that has commonsense, a board who reflect the best of the current opinions of the day and the best of the current attitudes and views.
This is fundamentally why we brought in this limitation period of 12 years: the board will be enabled every 12 years to take a further look at books and assess the current views and opinions of the community. They will have another look at a book to decide whether it is admissible with regard to the particular views obtaining and particular attitudes and general standards.
The Bill represents what might be called a middle course between a liberal view and a very conservative view on this matter. The principle of censorship is right. Our system of having a board that can give consistent judgments is good, although argument can be made for the other system operating through the courts. The great anomaly that existed up to now was that when a bad or obscurantist decision was made, nothing could be done about it and the author concerned was condemned for ever. This was the main feature that brought the system into disrepute. The fact was that if a wrong decision was made, there was inadequate machinery to review it.
The second text in the Bill is also relevant. We are eliminating the 12 months' limitation for appeal. Up to now if an appeal were not taken within 12 months of the prohibition order, the author was left in Limbo for ever. We have now provided that there is no time limit on the appeal. This is important, because where a book is revised and a new surge of interest taken in it some four, five or six years after publication, the possibility of an appeal at that stage will exist.
The point was made that a writer should be appointed to the Censorship Board. I see no objection to that, provided the writer is a suitable person to be on the board. I have no set views on it. This applies to any body of this kind. I do not believe in appointing representatives of sectional interests. If a writer is a sensible person, by all means let him be on the board but I do not think that we should appoint a writer per se. Whether a writer might be a suitable member of the board will depend on the merits of the person as a man rather than as a writer.
I would rather have somebody there with literary knowledge, a writer of literary attainment and critical judgment, not a representative of writers but somebody who would have the necessary knowledge.
In making appointments to the board—I made two of the appointments in the past two years—I took particular care to ascertain that the people concerned were people genuinely interested in books and that they were readers in a real sense, readers of literary works who took an interest in literature generally. That sort of person should be appointed to the board, other things being equal. That is the right sort of person to appoint, a person with an appreciation of literature generally be he a writer or a non-writer.
Another point was made by Senator Ryan and other Senators. Senator Ryan was keen on the question of giving the writer or author the right of appearing in person to make his case before the Appeal Board. I want to say in regard to the Censorship Board and the Appeal Board that each board has the right to call the writer or author or publisher, if they wish. The author has not the right to be heard by the board.
Has the power been exercised?
There have been one or two instances. I shall put a very strong argument against doing it. This is not a court of law, which is seeking to have an author's point of view fully vindicated. This type of board is a board representative—provided, again, it is a commonsense board—of the ordinary commonsense opinion of the day, of people with literary knowledge and appreciation, but, at the same time, as it were, a jury of readers. They are representing the readers of the country, and are able to appreciate what a person reading the book will take in from his reading of it. It is not necessary for the proper discharge of their function to look into the author's mind, or intentions or to ascertain what was his particular line of reasoning in a particular passage. This is not really what is involved. It is not a question of the author, publisher or editor being involved in a court trial, in which issues are being decided between the author and the public. It is not quite that situation, but a situation in which both the board and the Appeal Board are representing those who might read the book. It is the impact of what they read on them that is the real factor in their coming to a decision on whether or not such a book is suitable for circulation. When you look at it in that way, I do not think the case for having the author, publisher or editor present is as valid as it might appear at first sight.
Surely the Minister is incorrect in saying there is nothing of a procedure of trial about it. The fact is that an author is publicly found guilty of pornography in the eyes of the world, and if his book is banned, he ought to have the right to present his viewpoint. This is something about which writers feel very keenly. There are writers, like Seán O Faoláin, who have felt very aggrieved at having their books banned, which were honestly written.
The Senator can take it that Seán O Faoláin has expressed himself as being reasonably happy with the present proposal and it meets the point of view he has often expressed.
How often did he appeal?
But there is the requirement, in actual justice, that a man should be heard in his defence and, when a man is condemned in this way as being guilty of pornography, it may be unconstitutional that he should not be heard in his defence.
It is not a question of the author himself being condemned or being put on trial. It is purely a matter as to whether a particular book does or does not, in the view of a group of people reasonably representing the community at the time, come within the meaning of indecency or obscenity, having regard to the other relevant factors of the code. If you look at it in that way, there is no question of the author himself being involved, no question of the author being indicted for pornography. It is purely a matter for a decision of the board, representing reasonable opinion of the time, as to whether or not a book should be banned.
On the definition of the word "indecent", as including or being suggestive of, or inciting to sexual immorality or unnatural vice or likely in any other similar way to corrupt or deprave, would the Minister like to be condemned by a public board as having done something of that kind?
Again, I am not here on trial, either.
The Minister is being heard in his defence, anyway.
As the Bill clearly states in its Long Title, it is limited to the two aspects I have mentioned: the imposition of a time limit in regard to the order itself and the removal of the time limit in regard to the appeal.
The question of customs and excise officers acting in the matter of censorship came up for discussion. There appears to be a certain confusion as to what exactly is the legal position. I think Senator Stanford in particular requested this information, so I had better give the hard information on it. Any banned book can be seized, no matter how it is being imported, under section 18 of the 1946 Act. Only books being imported otherwise than as part of the personal luggage of an incoming traveller can be seized for reference to the board. In other words, if it is part of the personal luggage of a traveller coming in, it cannot be seized for reference to the board.
That means it is not referred to the board?
It cannot be seized at all: is that the position?
What about the Act of 1876?
Now, that is an Act for which I am not responsible. I understand the Minister for Finance at the moment is examining the whole customs and excise code with a view to deciding what should or should not be done with it in the context of the situation today. I should say here that the customs and excise code stretches back over 150 years and is fundamentally the same code as operates in Great Britain as well. However, I will set out here the exact position under the 1876 Act: any book forming part of the personal luggage of a traveller may be seized under that Act. Section 42 of the Act speaks of "indecent books". It is a very global provision in regard to seizure. I agree with the Seanad there. It is a good defence for a person charged with evading the customs control to prove that the book was imported otherwise than for sale or distribution.
But he will not get his book back.
This, of course, does not mean that the book may not be seized, or that having been seized, it must be returned. I understand this is only one of the small matters amongst many others in the customs and excise code being considered by the Minister for Finance at the moment. But, as I have said, it is relevant to an amendment of that code, rather than to an amendment of the code with which I am engaged in the Seanad at the moment.
May I ask the Minister whether it would be possible to introduce into this Bill an amendment of that code? Is that out of the question?
I am afraid it is because, in the Long Title to the Bill, we are purely concerned with the expiration of prohibition orders and with appeals under the censorship of publications code. There is no need for me to emphasise here that the whole customs and excise code is full of provisions of this kind which are drastic——
Antiquated.
——and, mind you, for very good reasons, because they are concerned with revenue matters. That is the factual position.
Senator Sheehy Skeffington will be happy to know that.
We have progressed beyond Queen Victoria.
Some of the Acts go back to George III.
Senator Sheehy Skeffington suggested that the board could re-ban without re-reading. That is not the case. The Senator was concerned in case the provision in section 3 did not place the obligation on the board to re-read the book concerned. That is not so. The 1946 Act provides that the board may only make a prohibition order, having duly examined the book. This requirement still stands in regard to any such examination.
Excellent.
Criticism has been made that we did not go far enough, that there could have been a more thorough examination of the code and that a more far-reaching Bill should have been introduced. My answer to that is that (a) I believe in censorship, (b) I believe in having a board of this kind, a properly constituted board and (c) I think there were anomalies in the code which, as I said, brought it into disrepute and left it open to all this criticism particularly having regard to decisions made in the past which are still in force so that the board and the whole system incurred an odium which I think should not attach to it. Provided the system is a sensible system and is seen to be a sensible system, provided there is a sensible board, provided there is room for review every 12 years, then I think censorship in that context does make sense and does appear to make sense.
Therefore, I do not think there was any need for a fundamental revision of the code and no need for any sweeping proposals. My main objective in this Bill is to get a system which I think is intrinsically defensible, to make it defensible in every sense of the word by ridding it of anomalies which led but to constructive and destructive criticism. The system I think is sound but what I want to do is to make the system even sounder and, what is almost as important in this public relations age, to appear to be a commonsense system.
Could the Minister comment on the provision that five Members of the Oireachtas should be involved in an appeal?
As a Member of this House who was one of the five some time ago, I think there is a fair bit of sense in it. You will always get five reasonable Members of the Oireachtas.
Very difficult.
The Senator should not be always looking in the mirror.
Tá súil agam go mbeidh and díospóireacht ar fáil an lá sin.
The Seanad adjourned at 8.35 p.m. until 3 p.m. on Wednesday, 21st June, 1967.