When this Bill was going through the Dáil the two or three Deputies from my party who spoke on the Second Stage said they could not understand how it was that this topic should be dealt with by the Minister for Labour and his Department. One of our Deputies went so far as to say that if he was asked to guess which Department would be the least likely to have this job on their hands he would have guessed the Department of Labour. My feelings about the Bill are exactly the same.
The lack of cohesion and of administrative liaison on matters which are essentially germane to one another in the eyes of the public are demonstrated very clearly in the Minister's speech. I do not wish to fault him or his officials for what is only a slip, except that it is a significant slip because it shows that the different arms of Government which deal with dangerous things are not working as láimh a chéile as they ought to be.
That slip is the Minister's reference to the Firearms Act, 1925. The Minister's colleague, the Minister for Justice, piloted through this House, in one of the most disagreeable debates which I can remember here—except for that on the Forcible Entry Bill— the Firearms Bill only about a year ago. The topic which the Minister mentions, about firearms ammunition, is dealt with, not just by the Firearms Act, 1925 alone, but in the Firearms Act, 1925 to 1971. It is a tiny slip, but it is a sign that the Departments dealing with matters which really are related to one another and would in the minds of the public appear to be related to one another, are dealt with in an unsatisfactorily separate and haphazard and, therefore, undesirable manner.
Everybody on this side of the House, as in the Dáil, will share the Minister's concern that this Bill, will improve the safety position of people whose work involves them in handling explosives or other dangerous things, and I recognise that it will be conducive to that end. This party will not oppose the Bill for that reason. Naturally, we are in favour of anything which will improve safety.
However, I cannot let the occasion go without adverting to what the Minister said at the very end of his speech, which was identical with what he said in the Dáil. Indeed, I think his whole speech is almost word for word what he said in the Dáil. He says the Bill does not concern itself in any way with the criminal use of explosives which is dealt with in a different code of legislation. Senators will remember that last June when the Minister's colleague, Deputy O'Malley, was piloting the Firearms Bill through this House, he was pressed by me and by other Senators on this side to extend the definition of firearms so as to include things which were not in common understanding firearms but which were, broadly speaking, explosives which could be dangerous to life and property. The Minister rejected that suggestion in the same style as he rejected the other suggestions which came from us, and I shall quote what he said. It is reported at column 387, volume 70 of the Seanad Debates, and reads:
The question of explosives was raised by Senator Kelly. He was critical of the Bill on the grounds that it did not seem to cover explosives as opposed to ammunition. Of course there is a completely separate code of law in respect of explosives. There is on the Order Paper of the Dáil at the moment, having received its First Reading there, the Dangerous Substance Bill, which seeks to modernise certain aspects of the law relating to explosives. I had hoped that I might be able to bring before the Oireachtas a Bill relating to explosives corresponding to, and at much the same time as, this Bill but I find that unfortunately the law on explosives is somewhat more complicated ...
But in that passage and in two other passages in the same volume the Minister for Justice represented to this House that the legislation which is now before us would plug the gap which we have discovered, or which we thought we had discovered in the Firearms Bill. We were not able to satisfy ourselves on the point at that time because the Dangerous Substances Bill was not printed.
I hope I shall not bore the House if I hark back to what happened almost a year ago. The point which concerned us in regard to the question of including explosives in the Firearms Bill was this: the object of that Bill was to put it beyond all possible doubt, in section 4, that the unlawful possession of firearms in this jurisdiction was not any the less unlawful even though they were intended for use in the Six Counties. That would in my opinion have been the law anyway, but the law had been called into question by a couple of judicial directions, and the Minister, quite rightly, wished to put the matter beyond any possible doubt.
That was the main effect of the Bill which we debated here a year ago. We wished to ensure that it would not be possible for a defendant to say: "Yes, I have got this anti-tank gun but it was intended for use across the Border". It was intended to ensure that this could not possibly be a defence to a charge of unlawful possession of such arms.
The Minister was pressed by other Senators and myself to include explosives in the definition, so that if someone was found in possession of gelignite or plastic explosive, it would not be possible for him to say: "I am in possession of it but I do not intend it for use here". That was the reason why we pressed the Minister to extend the definition of ammunition and firearms which already goes beyond the common understanding of firearms.
For example, an aerial bomb or a hand-grenade is clearly a firearm under the definitions used by the Firearms Act, and the Minister refused to accept that amendment on the grounds, as far as I could read his intentions, ostensible or genuine, that the whole matter would be dealt with in the Bill which we have now before us.
I do not see anything in this Bill about the North of Ireland. It may be that there is some other Bill germinating quietly in the Department of Justice which in the end we will be allowed to see, relating to the particular question of explosives in the criminal context. I do not know why we should have to wait for this, so I propose to put down an amendment or amendments to this Bill which will have the effect if accepted, of making it specifically an offence to be in possession of explosives in this jurisdiction notwithstanding that their destination, or the place where their employment is intended, is across the Border. I intend moving a further amendment to make it an offence to export explosives without a licence across the Border into Northern Ireland. Further to that, I intend to move an amendment, similar to the one which I moved last year when the Firearms Bill was being discussed, making it an offence to conspire within this jurisdiction at the importation of explosives into the North of Ireland by whatever route.
The Minister for Labour is not perhaps au fait with the working of the Department of Justice. That is why my colleagues in the Dáil and my party as a whole feel that this Bill ought to have come from the Department of Justice, despite the dimensions of safety which it contains.
Let us be honest about this. When anyone mentions explosives these days he is not thinking about quarries, he is thinking about explosives which blow people to bits. I do not know what is in the Minister's mind, but we might not have had this legislation were it not for the tragic prominence which explosives have developed in this country—I am speaking about the whole country—over the last year or so.
When I spoke on the Firearms Bill the following week the Minister appeared not to have bothered with what I had said I was going to do in the way of putting down amendments. He dealt with some impatience, to put it mildly, with the amendments which I had put down although he and his officials had ample notice of the spirit behind them. I want to tell the Minister here today as uncontentiously as I can, that these amendments will be in within a couple of days. I would like him to consider whether his officials might not take counsel with the Department of Justice as to the proper attitude to adopt.
If our law makes it possible to export explosives without a licence, or in some illegitimate way across the Border into the North, or to contrive the importation of explosives into the North by whatever route, then that law needs amendment, and I cannot see why this Bill might not be an appropriate vehicle for such amendment. There may be reasons of which I do not know; if so, the Minister will have an opportunity of stating them.
I have not made up my mind whether I will introduce amendments on the following lines or not. I would like to hear what the Minister has to say before deciding on this. I refer to the penalties in connection with the importation and manufacture of explosives. Section 10 of the Act says that:
No person shall import any explosive except in accordance with a licence granted by the Minister.
Section 15 says:
No person shall manufacture any explosive except in a factory licensed by the Minister for the purpose and in accordance with the licence.
These sections do not contain any penalties, but section 52 provides a sort of blanket system of penalties for offences under the Act to which no specific penalty is individually attached. That section reads:
A person guilty of an offence under this Act for which no expressed penalty is provided shall be liable on summary conviction to a fine not exceeding £100 or imprisonment for a term not exceeding six months or to both such fine and such imprisonment.
I am aware that there is another Act in force here—the Explosive Substances Act, 1883—which provides penalties for unlawful handling of explosives, but if we are having a specific section in a brand-new Bill which prohibits the unlicensed manufacture of explosives and prohibits also the unlicensed importation of explosives I consider that these penalties are altogether inadequate. What kind of a man would take it on himself to manufacture an explosive substance without a licence? What kind of man would take it on himself to import explosives without a licence? This does not refer to a quarry owner who simply wants to short circuit the trouble of applying for a licence. We are not dealing with somebody whose ordinary legitimate business requires explosives and who does not want to bother going to the Minister for a licence. We may be dealing with such a person, but more probably we will be dealing with somebody who intends to use that explosive to kill people. A system of penalties which provides a maximum of a fine not exceeding £100, or imprisonment not exceeding six months, is a farcical penalty to attach to what I consider would be an extremely serious offence
I have spoken strongly about that and I will wait to see what the Minister says about it. There may be other legislation to which the Minister's advisers have more immediate access or, speaking bluntly, know about and which I do not know about, which meets this point. If it does not meet this point, I would like the Minister to explain why it is that in this new Bill dealing specifically with the importation and manufacture of explosives, the thing should be trivialised so as to carry the same kind of penalty as might be applied to somebody failing to pay his motor tax or to somebody guilty of an act of careless driving. I am not asking that a penalty should be made mandatory. Somebody with no murderous or subversive intention might manufacture explosives for a lark, a schoolboy, let us say, or to satisfy scientific curiosity, or dishonestly because he wants to avoid the trouble of getting a licence but intends to use the explosive for some purpose which otherwise would be legitimate. I am not asking for a mandatory sentence in a case of that kind. Of course the District Court or any other court would not impose the maximum sentence in such cases. I would be in favour of letting off somebody of that kind with a small fine and no question of imprisonment at all, but it seems to me that the offences here are more likely to be committed by persons of a different type altogether. We are not facing up to the reality of the kind of people they are if we attach this absolutely "bread crumb" kind of penalty to what I consider is an extremely serious and dangerous offence.
There are a few other points I would like to mention. I will listen to what the Minister says about them afterwards before I decide whether to ask the House to amend them or not. The Bill as we have it does not state what the criteria are on which the Minister will decide whether or not to license an explosives manufacturer. Although I know that this Minister will act responsibly—and I am not in any way trying to represent either himself or his colleagues in Government as likely to act irresponsibly in this regard—I would like to see the Bill spell out the criteria which it will expect to be satisfied before a licence is granted to manufactures of explosives. The same should apply to the question of licensing the importation of explosives.
While I am prepared to agree and accept unreservedly that the Minister will not behave unreasonably in this regard and does not intend to allow a badly organised factory or unsupervised enterprise to manufacture or import explosives, I should like to see these criteria made explicit, not by regulation but inside the Bill.
It came as a surprise to me to learn some months ago that explosives were actually manufactured in this jurisdiction. I remeber getting a very ill-tempered letter from a Unionist Stormont MP about a year ago who thought I was being hypocritical in trying to stand up for things which I should not have had to stand up for, namely, the behaviour of this Government in dealing with the North of Ireland situation. He said: "How can you say things like that when we know that every day quantities of explosives manufactured in the Republic are coming over the Border?" I have since discovered that explosives are manufactured here. There is at least one factory, I think in Enfield, and perhaps there are more factories elsewhere.
I know there are many legitimate industrial uses for explosives but at a time when explosives are being used daily, not just to destroy property, but to put human lives in terror and often to destroy human lives by taking life itself away, or by making it scarcely worth living, as when limbs are blown off. In a situation like this the Minister should consider a total ban on the manufacture of explosives in all conditions in this jurisdiction.
It is important that we should show the people in the North of Ireland whom we describe as our "separated brethren" that we are prepared to treat them as such and are prepared to undergo inconvenience, expense and difficulty in order to leave them in no shadow of doubt but that we regard their flesh, bone and blood just as our own, just as much in need of the same protection and just as dear to us. I have not the technical knowledge to grasp the dimensions of the problem which such a measure would present.
Maybe it is impracticable or insuperable but if it were not, I would not be aganist a total ban for, say, a limited period in the first instance of six months or a year, on the manufacture of explosives or the importation of explosives with or without a licence. I would revoke whatever licensing arrangements exist in regard to the manufacture or importation of explosives. I would then say to the people in the North of Ireland "If you find explosives in caches or in dumps, they have not come from here because none are made here".
I accept the explanation made by the Minister for Justice in the Dáil a few months ago as being sincerely intended when he stated that when caches of explosives are discovered in the North of Ireland, and they turn out to have been manufactured in the Republic this does not prove anything. The Minister stated this because most of the explosives used in the North of Ireland is legitimately imported from here, so it might have been stolen after being imported into the North of Ireland. I accept this as a fair argument. But it is not enough to argue with people. We are not in a debating society with the people in the North of Ireland. We must show them we mean what we say, and that we are not doing shadow-boxing and going through the motions in regard to dangerous things. To refer back again to the debate on the Firearms Bill, we left ourselves open to that criticism this time last year. I would not be against a drastic measure of that kind provided it were only a question of bringing operations in a few quarries to a standstill, or of making Roadstone or some other firm such as that mark time for a few months.
I should like the Minister to indicate what his reaction to that suggestion would be. Perhaps he would, in particular, say what criteria he intends to apply henceforth in the licensing or manufacture of explosives.
These are the only points of substance which I wish to deal with. Depending on the Minister's reaction, I will make up my mind whether or not to put down amendments on Committee Stage.
