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Special Committee Defence Bill, 1951 debate -
Tuesday, 8 Apr 1952

SECTION 128.

I move amendment No. 171:—

In line 21, to delete " penal servitude " and substitute " imprisonment ".

This section deals with mutiny not accompanied by violence—a simple form of mutiny—and I think the maximum punishment ought to be two years' imprisonment.

I wonder. Suppose you had a group of officers who refused to carry out their instructions without violence. Take the case of the famous Curragh Mutiny of 1914. A circumstance of that kind can be more disastrous and dangerous to the whole structure of the State than if actual violence had occurred. There was then the famous mutiny in the Free State Army in 1924. No fighting was involved but it was a much more serious thing than if a corporal and his guard started firing shots all around them. That being so, the distinction between mutiny with violence and mutiny without violence is more apparent, as a test of gravity, than real.

If we dealt with them in the way in which the alleged mutineers were dealt with in both those cases——

We would not need it at all.

The Deputy is met here again by the words " any less punishment ".

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Section 128 agreed to.
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