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Dáil Éireann díospóireacht -
Thursday, 25 Aug 1921

Vol. S No. 6

ESTIMATE FOR HOME AFFAIRS DEPARTMENT

said his estimate was for £13,150 which was made up as follows: office staff £1,200, circuit judges £2,000, judges travelling expenses £300. Organisers £2,500, which would be in connection with an increased staff of organisers which he was endeavouring to put on the road to visit every constituency to see how courts were working. Office rent, light and heating £200, office equipment £200, printing and postage £150, special printing judiciary rules, decrees, etc., £200, Chief of Police £175, brigade commandants £5,000, Dublin Brigade police, £725, Minister's allowance £250 and contingencies £250.

asked for the names and salaries of the Supreme Court judges and the Circuit judges and were they whole time officers.

replied he had four judges, Professor A. Clery, Mr J. Creed-Meredith, Mr Cahir Davitt and Mr Diarmuid Crowley (in jail). They were prepared to do work as Supreme Court or Circuit Court judges. He had tried to keep two of them all the time free for Supreme Court work. They were paid a salary of £750 per year each and were whole-time officials.

asked if these judges had a knowledge of Irish.

MINISTER OF HOME AFFAIRS

explained he had great difficulty to get judges of standing at all. Two of them, Prof. O'Clery and Diarmuid O'Crowley, were very good Irish speakers. Mr Davitt and Mr Meredith knew some Irish, but he was not sure if they could carry on business in Irish.

asked did the Minister consider four judges sufficient, were appeals being dealt with regularly and were there any arrears.

replied that the Deputy for Longford need have no fear of arrears in his constituency. Republican courts had much more frequent sittings than any enemy assize judge. His difficulty was to get really good men who would represent them in a satisfactory manner. He must say he found the Irish Bar worthy of the bad traditions it always had; there were scarcely half a dozen patriotic men amongst them.

asked did the Minister contemplate the payment of the local registrars.

replied that he thought every court in Ireland could pay its own registrar out of the fees received if it was properly worked. The North Dublin District court had functioned and paid its own registrar all through the very worst of the terror.

asked why was it necessary to pay police in Dublin while they had the D.M.P.

MINISTER

replied that the situation in Dublin was that two courts had been established instead of the usual parish courts and they had a considerable volume of business. The execution of their decrees could not be undertaken by the local Dublin Volunteer Brigade and then other matters regarding the maintenance of law and order had to be seen to. He was authorised to employ half a dozen whole-time police to do this work. Business could not be carried on at all otherwise.

said he had a distinct objection to the payment of Brigade Chiefs of Police. One reason was that in every brigade area they had at least 100 whole time Volunteers and none of them paid. It spoke very badly for the patriotism of the police.

said he was tormented trying to get Volunteers to do police work. They had their own special work to do, to rout the enemy out of the country. Police work was the work of the Department of Home Affairs and he did not want to have anything to do with it. The Chief of Staff and himself decided to set up a police force and hand them over to the Minister for Home Affairs and when that was done by them they did not want to have anything more to do with police work because they had enough to do. If the Dáil refused to pay the police their work would fall back on the army and he did not think the army would be able to do it.

supported the payment of the police. The work was absolutely essential and it would be impossible to get it done if the Chief was not paid.

agreed that the Chief of Police should be paid. While men would be quite willing to do Volunteer work he did not think that they would find men willing to give up their whole time to police work.

did not agree with this opinion.

pointed out that what the members of the Dáil should understand was that the police as an organisation was separate from the Volunteer organisation. They had been coming to that position for a long time. The process was slow as it was felt that the army was the only body that the people of Ireland would put up with interfering with them. They had now come to the point at which they had a separate police force. At the present moment they were in a transition stage but it would be passed immediately.

There would perhaps be some objection locally to a man being paid because he was a police officer considering that the job was pushed on to him because he was not fitted for the responsibilities of an officer in the Volunteers. But education was wanted in the matter and propaganda he thought should take up the principal point among their own people that the different functions of the Republic were developing now and with an organisation taking on a definite shape for the first time they must have a separate body for that organisation. The army had to have full time people and the police force should have full time people to run it. It was necessary to have full time police officers in the country, but the only thing he would like to see was that they would not turn round now and pay their Chiefs of Police but that the police organisation would be brought into line with the organisation of the local government administration.

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