I have already remarked on the circumstances in which this Bill comes forward as a temporary measure. At the same time it comes forward as a complete measure, because the Bill was approaching completion in our hands at the time the necessity came to bring it so hurriedly before the Dáil. With the exception that certain transitional clauses have been put in, at the end, and with the exception that clauses with regard to the Reserve have also been included in the Bill, the Bill is practically the complete Bill that, under more leisured times we would have put before the Dáil. As a matter of fact, as far as the military authorities are concerned in the matter, it may be considered that the Bill has with them gone through the Committee stage. I have referred also to the possible objections that, doubtless, there are to putting a Bill of this size and importance through, and, as it were, putting the complete responsibility for the details of this Bill on the Oireachtas. But for the better doing of our work and the better envisaging of the situation requiring a Bill of this kind, I think it better, and absolutely essential, that the Bill would be put through in the form in which it is at present, rather than in any mutilated form, the practical result of which would be, perhaps, to put into the hands of the military authorities more general powers than this detailed Bill gives them. I realise that if this Bill passes through, it will pass through with less discussion than in ordinary circumstances. The reason we will not have that discussion is because of the want of time. Perhaps, therefore, there is not the same necessity for going into details as there otherwise would be. There are certain things with regard to the Bill that should, perhaps, be said now. The Bill is divided into a certain number of parts and chapters. It gives the Executive Council authority to raise and to maintain armed forces and it places the control of the forces in the hands of the Executive Council. It places the responsibility for organisation and administration on the Minister for Defence.
All commissions at present are temporary. As this Bill is a temporary measure, all commissions granted under the Bill, if passed in this particular form, would be temporary also. What might be called permanent commissions could not be granted to any officer until we had our permanent Defence Forces Bill. The Bill, as I say, is to be regarded as a complete Bill in itself under which commissions would be granted by the Minister, and would be held during the pleasure of the Minister, who might dispense with the services of any officer. But the commission of an officer could not be cancelled without the holder thereof being notified in writing of any complaint or charge made or any action supposed to be taken, and he would be called upon to show cause. The Bill provides for the having of commissioned officers of certain specified ranks, and for the setting up of a college that would prepare candidates and put them through the necessary course of study for the holding of such ranks. Under the Bill the Minister would be responsible for the preparation of regulations regarding the pay of officers. In the matter of enlistments the Bill provides a specified routine to be gone through for the enlistment of the soldiers. It safeguards the position of the ordinary individual with regard to enlistment by stipulating that if a person offers himself to be enlisted in the forces he will receive from the recruiter a notice informing him of the general condition of the contract he is about to enter into, and he shall be directed to appear before the District Justice or the Peace Commissioner for attestation. If he fails to appear, or on appearing declines to be enlisted, no further proceedings are taken; but if he appears before the District Justice or the Peace Commissioner he shall be asked whether he has been served with and understands the notice, and whether he assents to be enlisted, but the enlistment shall not be proceeded with if it is considered that the recruit appears to be under the influence of drink or in any other manner appears to the District Justice or the Peace Commissioner to be incapable of taking an oath of allegiance, promising to obey his superior officers and giving allegiance to the State. In the general matter of the organisation of the forces certain stipulations are made in the Bill, but certain matters are also left to the Minister, who, as I have said, under the Bill is responsible generally for organisation Matters such as these would require to be attended to even under this temporary Bill.
The Minister would require to deal with certain matters in connection with the constitution of the General Headquarters staff, and the ranks and titles and duties of the various officers attached to that staff. In regard to the division of the State into military districts, the Minister will require to deal with the constitution of Headquarters staffs for those districts and the organisation of the various combatant armed forces and departmental services, such as cavalry, military engineers, infantry, air force, medical and veterinary services, and military police. The titles of these various forces, the pay warrant we have already referred to, and the general regulations correspond with the existing regulations in the British Army. These would be regulations regarding the interior economy of the Army not provided for by such special regulations as the pay warrants. Rules for procedure of courts-martial, equipment regulations, recruiting regulations, and such matters as these would be embodied in special sets of regulations. There is also the question of the Reserve. The Bill provides for the formation of a Reserve and for general matters in connection with the Reserve. The Reserve will consist of officers and men. The officers will require to be men who served as officers in the forces and retired therefrom, and the men would require to be men who had retired from the forces also.
In the matter of discipline the Bill provides general regulations under which the Army shall be disciplined. In its details the specific offences for which soldiers shall be punished are set out, and in each particular portion of the Bill, where an offence is stated, the maximum punishment award in connection with that offence is definitely stated also. Most of the offences are of a purely military character, such as offences against military discipline and offences committed by one soldier against the person or property of another. Military Courts may try persons subject to military law for an offence which is a civil crime, subject to certain restrictions in the case of treason, murder, etc., when committed by a person not on active service. The various offences of this type are set out in Part II., Chapter 1, of the Bill. The only offence for which the death penalty can be awarded, when troops are not on active service, is mutiny. In a sentence of death in such a case the confirming authority is the Minister for Defence; but the sentence will only be carried out subject to the confirmation of the Minister for Home Affairs. Cowardice, treachery, mutiny or desertion, and striking an officer are, on active service, punishable by death as the maximum penalty, but these are the only such offences so punishable. In the case of a death penalty the sentence has to be awarded by a three-fourths majority of the Courtmartial, and in every such case it would be subject to the confirmation of the Minister for Defence.
Field punishment is not permitted by the Bill. That is to say, no soldier can be subject to punishment except in a place that is definitely specified in the Regulations as being a place of military detention, or a military prison. There shall be in attendance at every Courtmartial a Judge Advocate, and his duties are to advise the Court on all questions of law, and to see that the proceedings of the Court are accurately recorded. The Judge Advocate at a General Courtmartial must be a Barrister-at-Law or a Solicitor, as well as being an officer. There is ample protection for officers and men in the matter of general redress of wrongs at the hands of a superior officer or otherwise.
In matters with which the civil population are closely concerned, in the matter of billeting and in what are called the impressment of carriages, the Bill is very restricting on the military authorities, so much so that until the proclamation to be issued under this Bill actually establishing the Defence Force the terms are so restricted as to practically put the Minister for Defence and the Army Authorities into rather a legal hole; but the general circumstances are such that we are prepared to suffer from that particular disability.
All billets will be secured through the civil authorities, except in special cases and in time of emergency. Billeting consists of assigning quarters to officers, soldiers, and horses by means of an official order requiring the person to whom it is addressed to provide the necessary accommodation, and the power of billeting in the Bill is confined to the civil authorities. In times of peace officers and men can only be billeted under the direct authority of the Minister for Defence, and in time of emergency billets for officers, soldiers, or horses can only be demanded under an order signed by an officer of not less rank than Commandant, and in these circumstances they shall be provided for by the civil authorities direct. Only in cases in which persons liable for the provision of billeting have refused to carry out an order given them by the police, can a military officer of the prescribed rank actually commandeer such billets.
In times of peace no person with the exception of certain persons who shall be named can be required to give billeting except by their own consent. When billeting does take place private houses are entirely exempt. Troops may be billeted in any victualling house as defined. The expression victualling house is defined as including (a) all inns and hotels whether licensed or not; (b) all livery stables; (c) all premises licensed for the consumption of wine or spirit on the premises. “The keeper of a victualling house upon whom any officer, soldier or horse is billeted shall receive such officer, soldier or horse in his victualling house and furnish there the accommodation following, that is to say, lodging and attendance and food for the officer or soldier and stable room and forage for the horse in accordance with the provisions of the 5th Schedule to this Act.” Where the keeper of a victualling house on whom any officer, soldier or horse is billeted desires relief he can obtain it by providing adequate accommodation in the immediate neighbourhood if approved by the billeting authority, that is by the police authority who for this purpose is described as a superintendent or an inspector of the Dublin Metropolitan Police or of the Civic Guard. They make out an annual list of victualling houses liable to supply billeting, and any person aggrieved may apply to a Court of Summary Jurisdiction for redress. The keeper of the victualling house can also complain to the police of having an undue proportion of officers or soldiers billeted upon him.
In the same way, in the manner of commandeering transport or applying for transport it will have to be sought through the machinery of the civil authorities, and in times of peace motor transport shall not be liable for requisition—that is, the Army authorities cannot in times of peace in any circumstances requisition from the civil population, even through the medium of the civil authorities, any motor transport.
The transitory provisions of the Bill are in order to get us over a very particular difficulty arising out of this present situation. Part I of this part of the Bill cannot come into operation until there is a definite proclamation by the Executive Council establishing the Defence Forces The transitory provision of this Bill is intended to bring the present Army, which for the purposes of defence are styled the National Forces, under the disciplinary section of this Bill. There are pending, subsequent to the passing of this Bill, (1) a proclamation establishing a Defence Force, and (2) a proclamation establishing a Reserve The necessity for including the section in regard to the Reserve in the Bill and for the actual proclamation establishing the Reserve is because of the fact that at the present moment we have an Army which, if the men were released at the time at which their period of attestation ended they would vanish automatically by the end of this year. It is necessary, therefore, that recruiting should be started afresh, or that, as portion of the recruiting, re-attestation of some of the men at present in the Army should be carried out. The Bill provides that men may be attested for an original period of attestation of 12 years—that is, just to give any scope that may be necessary; but our present intention, not fully defined and not fully decided upon yet, is that the men who are to be recruited in the immediate future ought to be re-attested if serving at the present moment, and would be attested for a period of 18 months, and would be required to give two years to the Reserve. The passing of the Reserve clauses of this Bill would put us in a position to require men recruited now to give a small period of service to the Reserve, which would mean that in the years 1925-26 we would be in the position to have a much smaller Army, perhaps, than we would be able to be content with or satisfied with if we had not a Reserve to call upon in case of any great emergency. Generally we are in a period of transition. It seems to us a matter of necessity at the present moment for keeping our strength to what it should be, and in such a manner as not to bring any great financial burden upon the country, that we should put the Reserve clauses into this Bill. We may then expect as a result of this Bill a proclamation establishing a Defence Force and a proclamation authorising us to establish a Reserve. There shall also be issued a pay warrant. At the present moment members of the force are paid at certain rates, and they are paid in addition dependants' allowance. These rates were fixed and the dependants' allowances were granted at a time and in particular circumstances. It is not the intention that men recruited in future under the new conditions should be paid dependants' allowances. There will be certain arrangements by which men will be paid married allowances under certain conditions, but dependants' allowances as they are known at present will not be paid, and certain alterations in the matters of pay will also be made and come into operation in the case of men either re-attested from the present Army for service in the newly-constituted force or for men who were recruited for that force.
Generally the Bill has been very carefully framed for the purpose of legalising the existence of the Army, and for the giving of legal authority for the carrying out of the different matters entailed in the organisation, training and discipline of the Army, and for giving the Oireachtas full control over the Army. The Bill has been, as I say, framed purely from that point of view, and framed carefully from that point of view, and, while I regret the circumstances that make us ask the Dáil to pass it rather hurriedly and without due consideration, I feel that if the Bill is passed as it stands for a period of twelve months the Oireachtas itself will have a valuable opportunity of considering the different clauses of the Bill and the effect of those clauses in law. The military authorities, on the other hand, will have an opportunity of seeing in actual practice the powers it was proposed to take somewhat permanently under this Bill. Nothing but good can come out of the putting, as it were, of the cards of the Bill on the table and of leaving them there for a period of twelve months, some of them at any rate in practice, and some of them that cannot possibly come into practice, and that in the meantime there is nothing in the Bill that would prejudice the rights of any individual in the country, or prejudice the real important matter, the grip and the power of the Oireachtas or of the Executive Council in controlling the Army. Therefore, I have absolutely no hesitation on my part in appealing to the Oireachtas for the passage of this Bill through the Dáil and through the Oireachtas as a whole even in the very short space of time and with an inadequate examination and consideration of its various clauses. I beg to move that the Bill be now read a Second Time.