The fact that it was introduced in a war situation is entirely irrelevant to the case I am making as I am sure the Leader of the House is well aware. I do not want to pursue this at the moment because it might have the effect that the argument which I shall put to the House, to be conveyed through the Minister here to the Government, might be lost.
I have grave doubts, based on the provisions of the Article of the Constitution I have read out, when it is directed at an inquiry concerning the question of free expression of opinion, whether that Act would be held to be properly applied under the Constitution to such matters. My doubt is increased very considerably by the fact that the Oireachtas has already directed itself very thoroughly to the question of regulation of broadcasting. It was contemplated in the Constitution that this might be so. It had already been done in relation to radio broadcasting in the Wireless Telegraphy Act, 1926. We had the Broadcasting Authority Act, 1960, and I suggest that there is a law, the only law enacted which is constitutional, which deals with this matter of ensuring that organs of public opinion such as radio shall not be used to undermine public order or morality, and that is the Broadcasting Act, 1960.
Section 18 of that Act which, I imagine, is well known to members of the Government, states that it casts the duty of impartiality on the authority: it shall be the duty of the authority that when it broadcasts any information, news or feature which relates to a matter of public controversy or is the subject of current public debate, the information, news or feature is expressed objectively and impartially and without any expression of the authority's own views. Section 16 gives the authority all the powers necessary for or incidental to the establishment and maintenance of a national television and sound broadcasting service. I cannot see how these two sections, read together and read with section 31, could be seen as doing anything other than regulating under the Constitution how broadcasting — by television in this case — is to be conducted without undermining public order, morality or the authority of the State.
There is a series of provisions in subsection (2) of section 16 which is worth looking at. They show that the Oireachtas contemplated that the authority might require sanctions appropriate to achieving this purpose. The authority is empowered to originate and to procure programmes from any source, to make contracts, agreements and arrangements incidental or conducive to the objects of the authority, to collect news, information and so on. I am not familiar with their procedures except in an incidental way arising out of an occasional case, but I doubt very much if an authority given such a heavy responsibility has not elaborated procedures whereby it may secure protection for itself in the matter of impartiality by contract. I should be very surprised if it has not this, and if this is so it is not the fault of the Oireachtas. It is, or ought to be provided that this extraordinarily powerful medium — and here I differ from Senator Keery — would not be used to undermine public order, morality or the authority of the State.
There were a number of courses open to the Government when faced with this situation. I am capable of saying the hard word as well as the soft word, but I have some sympathy with those members of the Government who are obviously hard-working and dedicated men and who must have been extremely disturbed with this conflict which arose recently between one of their colleages and the RTE Authority. The Government could have adopted any one of a number of courses which would have avoided much of the trouble that followed.
The first course might have been that the Minister might have exercised his power, which is quite an extraordinary power. We see that he may direct the authority in writing to allocate broadcasting time for any announcements by or on behalf of any Minister of State in connection with the functions of that Minister of State and the authority must comply with this direction. There is no limitation on the time which shall be made available; we could have a weekly programme on the activities of the Minister for Justice, on the code of moneylenders, how it is enforced, the difficulties of enforcing it, and the information available. Appeals could have been made to the citizens to cooperate and so on. If the present Minister for Justice had been the Minister concerned, I am sure he would have gone on television, merry as a bee, and would have gained more votes for his party than he would have lost. But for some reason the Minister for Justice did not choose to exercise that power.
Under section 6 of the Broadcasting Authority Act, when the Government found themselves faced with a conflict between a Minister of State and the authority, if they decided they had lost confidence in the authority, in its impartiality and in its wisdom in the administration of its affairs, they might have removed the authority. But they did not do that. I do not see how they could have made that choice but it was a way of operating which would have at least faced us squarely with the whole question of the relationship of the Government with the authority.
Another method might have been to have made an inquiry, not into the manner in which these gentlemen collected the information which led them to form the opinions they expressed — which seems to me to strike at the root of the free expression of public opinion: people being possessed of their ordinary rights in law to protect themselves and the duty of the authority being there to require that these expressions should be impartial — but into the impartiality of the authority, and this would seem to be a legitimate constitutional inquiry. Such an inquiry would appear to be possible without striking at the confidence of those people who had to prepare that programme and other programmes.
The Leader of my party used good and wise words which I adopt in referring to this whole affair. He referred to the state of public uneasiness. This is true because great public uneasiness was caused by that programme. People whose judgment I greatly respect came to me the following day and expressed utter shock at what they saw. Some of them said there must be awful people in RTE because they were horrified at the possibility that a social evil of the kind alleged could exist. The Government could have taken a course which I and Members of my party would have supported. They could have had an inquiry into the social evils alleged and this would have been a very appropriate step to take when one has regard to the terms of the Preamble to the Constitution, of which some of the language is very ennobling. I quote:
And seeking to promote the common good, with due observance of Prudence, Justice and Charity, so that the dignity and freedom of the individual may be assured, true social order attained,
and so on.
True social order shall not be attained while any substantial segment of opinion believes there are practices directed against the poorest of our people which are not being tackled. There was some indication from the remarks made by the Minister in Dáil Éireann that it was difficult to get proof. We understand this but there may be a case for strengthening the powers in relation to matters of this kind. There are strange and strong powers in the Department of Agriculture and Fisheries. If one is caught with a salmon he starts off with the onus of proof as to where he got it from. There could be a strengthening of the moneylending code which, may I remind Members of the House, apart from a minor amendment in 1929, is precisely the same as it was in 1900.
We have been busy these past 69 years, have we not? There is a social evil and why do Governments not see to it that fresh powers are enacted to tackle this evil? Each of the other parties in the House would be with them on that.
There was another action possibly open, depending on the information available to the Minister and to the gardaí. If the producers of this programme behaved as the Minister alleged they did, it would seem that they could be prosecuted for corrupt practices. It cannot be in accordance with public policy that, as the Minister alleged, people were paid to tell lies to the public.
The gravest consequences seem to follow from pursuance of this line, that is to say, the line that it seems to be proposed to pursue. If this line of inquiry as to the preparation of the programme and the opinions expressed on it is applied and constitutionally permitted, which I doubt, it strikes at the authority of the authority and henceforth their ability to maintain impartiality. The extraordinary thing is that the inquiry is not directed at the authority. It is directed at a programme. It is directed at the people employed by the authority.
I have not thought this out any further but I invite the Minister and Members of the House to open their minds to the dangers of this. Here is an inquiry into the activities of particular employees of one State body running right through the representatives of the authority, ignoring them and rejecting their statement that the programme was impartial, correct and authentic. What are employees of other State bodies to think on any matter? What precedent are we setting for similar inquiries?
Not in the slightest degree to protect myself from anything that anyone may care to say about me in relation to what remains to be said, I should like to say that I am not one of those people who think that his particular party carry some extraordinary virtue which other parties do not carry. I do not think that virtue is divided in this Assembly in any particular way, and if one of my friends were sitting where the Minister is I should like to think that he would consider himself as free as I do to say what I am not going to say. Obviously, there are Deputies, Senators and Ministers with at least as high a view of what should be done for the country as have any of the Opposition, but we must look at the order of events which preceded this inquiry proposal.
I am shocked at the implications of the extraordinary political skill shown by the Minister in this matter. I take it that we are discussing this resolution to prevent us discussing another one, but let us have a look at the events.
On 19th November, Deputy Corish put down a question to the Minister for Justice and he received — I am now paraphrasing — a long and highly emotionally charged reply. The following day RTE made their statement and I do not consider it necessary to bore anybody with that now. On 25th November, which was the beginning of a hot atmosphere, a number of charges of the gravest kind were made against the Minister. I do not propose to deal with them here. Personally, I should prefer if I never had to deal with them, but they should be dealt with. They had considerable significance for the Government if not, in the short term, in the long term. They had great significance for the long term standing and authority of the Government and of the Minister.
Five days later, I was told — others may have known it earlier — by the Sunday Press that the Government might decide on Tuesday to establish an inquiry, not into any of the charges against the Minister but into the behaviour of a programme which had been declared authentic and impartial by RTE and which had been the subject of a highly emotional reply by the Minister.