The Minister for Home Affairs will conclude the debate.
PUBLIC SAFETY (PUNISHMENT OF OFFENCES) TEMPORARY BILL, 1924.—SECOND STAGE. - DEBATE RESUMED.
Question again proposed: "That the Bill be now read a second time."
I would like to deal, in the first place, with the matter raised by Deputy Johnson—the suggestion that the recent Bill, the Public Safety (Powers of Arrest and Detention) Bill, got a smooth passage, as a result of some expressed or implied bargain that other aspects of the Public Safety Bill (which was passed last year) were being dropped. If the Deputy was under that impression, it is certainly not an impression which I, at any time, intended to convey. I made, in consultation with the officials of my Department, a certain division of the main aspects of that Bill, a division which I regarded as convenient. I grouped under one Bill the Powers of Arrest and Detention, and under another Bill the portions of the Bill dealing with the proper custody and control of firearms, and in a third Bill I grouped the extensions of the criminal law current in the country that are deemed necessary in view of the degree and intensity of crime prevailing in the country. It seemed a convenient division. It further had the effect that it saved the Deputy from the necessity of mixing his Constitutional and humanitarian arguments. With regard to this measure, it is not one of the mighty measures calculated to bring calm to Kerry or calm to Ballydehob. These kinds of measures fall for the most part within the scope of other Ministeries. Deputies will appreciate that substantially, the Ministry of which I am, for the time being, the political head, deals with certain machinery that every State that has yet been in existence deems necessary for the repression of the natural tendencies of men to crime: lawlessness and the infringement of the rights of their neighbours. Largely the function of police courts, prisons, and so on, is repressive, and Deputies will note that I use the word repressive rather than oppressive.
Or impressive.
Mr. O'HIGGINS
Deputy Johnson speaks with great reverence of the ordinary law, and the evils of departing from the ordinary law, and I never realised until this debate, with how much respect Deputies viewed the ordinary law. The law, as I see it, is simply a body of rules agreed upon by people with responsibility for the peace and order and security to regulate the lives of the citizens.
Varying occasionally.
Mr. O'HIGGINS
Varying occasionally according to need. And we should, while having, I hope, a due and proper respect for the ordinary law, never forget that it is the growth of convenience and the growth of necessity, and that it must be elastic, and that it must be adjustable to the needs of the times. If a degree, or if an intensity of crime prevails in the country which the ordinary law is not considered adequate to check and deal with, then there is good and sufficient cause for altering the ordinary law. The Deputy spoke all through of this Bill as an emergency Bill. It is an occasional Bill. I prefer to call it that, a temporary adjustment and extension of the criminal law, to meet an abnormal degree and intensity of crime. There could scarcely be said to exist an emergency condition of affairs at the moment.
The country is not rattling back to barbarism by any means. The country on the contrary, is progressing slowly, but quite steadily towards a normal and peaceful situation. But undoubtedly you have dangerous elements in many areas through the country, and undoubtedly in many areas through the country the ordinary fundamental rights of citizens who pay taxes to the State and rates to the local authorities are being gravely challenged almost as a matter of routine. There is no definite active challenge at the moment to the fabric of the State; but there is a challenge to the rights of the ordinary quiet, peace-loving citizens, a menace to their property rights, a menace occasionally to the security of their person. That is not a normal situation nor a proper situation. It is eminently a situation which it is the duty and the function of my Department to deal with, and towards that end we consider it necessary to ask for the powers embodied in this Bill. Deputy Johnson said we should aim rather at a certainty of arrest than a weight of punishment.
As it happens, we are aiming at both. There is an increasing certainty of arrest and detention. The statistics of crime detection in both the capital and in the country are rising steadily, and compare favourably with statistics in other places. I cannot quite accept the view that it is arrest that criminals are afraid of, and not punishment. I always thought that they were afraid of arrest because of the punishment, but Deputy Johnson seems to entertain a different conception. Now Deputy Baxter, as I anticipated, participated in the debate and complained that one of my many weaknesses was to confuse politics and crime—an unpardonable error. But I was not the first to confuse politics and crime. People whom Deputy Baxter knows well, gave me a lead in the matter. When crime became the stock-in-trade of the idealist, when arson and robbery and sabotage became the weapons by which men sought to promote political ends, then some confusion of politics and crime on the part of people who have responsibility for peace and order and decency of life in the country is, perhaps, explainable. He objects entirely to Part 1 of the Schedule. There is no violent challenge to the fabric of the State, and there is no likelihood, indeed he almost suggested, no remote possibility, of anything of the kind. I am devoutly glad to hear it. I take it he speaks with some authority and inner knowledge of the question. When persons elected to this Parliament are at present in leadership of armed gangs in certain counties one might, perhaps, ask for very definite evidence of Deputy Baxter's view.
Might I ask the evidence of that view?
Mr. O'HIGGINS
I have very definite evidence of my view, which I will produce to the Deputy in private if he does me the honour of calling at my Department. When you have, as in Sligo, two people who were elected to this Parliament, but who have not, so far, taken advantage of the honour, leading armed gangs of robbers, then, one wonders, how definitely we can accept all these assurances of pacific intentions. We are not taking too much on trust these times. We are growing very old and very cynical, and the only completely satisfactory evidence of pacific intentions would be the handing up to the proper lawful authority in the country of the lethal weapons at present in the custody and control of these people. I do not think that there were any special points raised in the course of the debate that call for comment. Presumably, on the Committee Stage, there may be a more detailed and more searching examination of the Bill, but at the moment it is not necessary for me to add anything more.
Motion put. The Dáil divided: Tá, 53; Níl, 12.
Tá.
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Earnán Altún.Earnán de Blaghd.Séamus Breathnach.Seoirse de Bhulbh.Próinsias Bulfin.John J. Cole.John Conlan.Bryan R. Cooper.Louis J. D'Alton.Máighreád Ní Choileáin Bean Uí.Dhrisceóil.Patrick J. Egan.Osmonde Grattan Esmonde.Darrell Figgis.Desmond Fitzgerald.John Good.John Hennigan.Tomás Mac Artúir.Domhnall Mac CárthaighLiam T. Mac Cosgair.Séamus Mac Cosgair.Pádraig Mac Fadáin.Pádraig Mac Giollagáin.Seán P. Mac Giobúin.Seán Mac Giolla 'n Ríogh.Risteárd Mac Liam.Seoirse Mac Niocaill. |
Liam Mac Sioghaird.Pádraig S. Mag Ualghairg.Patrick J. Mulvany.James Sproule Myles.John T. Nolan.Peadar O hAodha.Mícheál O hAonghusa.Criostóir O Broin.Seán O Bruadair.Próinsias O Cathail.Aodh O Cinnéidigh.Eoghan O Dochartaigh.Séamus N. O Dóláin.Peadar S. O Dubhghaill.Pádraig O Dubhthaigh.Eamon S. O Dúgáin.Donchadh S. O Guaire.Séamus O Leadáin.Fionán O Loingsigh.Thomas O'Mahony.Pádraig O Máille.Domhnall O Mocháin.Pádraig K. O hOgáin (Luimneach).Seán M. O Súilleabháin.Andrew O'Shaughnessy.Caoimhghín O hUigín.Patrick W. Shaw. |
Níl.
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Pádraig F. Baxter.Séamus Eabhróid.Tomás Mac Eoin.Risteárd Mac Fheorais.Pádraig Mac Fhlannchadha.Tomás de Nógla. |
Tomás O Conaill.Aodh O Cúlacháin.Eamon O Dubhghaill.Seán O Laidhin.Domhnall O Muirgheasa.Pádraig O hOgáin (An Clár). |
Motion declared carried.
When will the Committee Stage be taken?
Mr. O'HIGGINS
I suggest Wednesday next.
That gives very little time for amendments. It means that between Thursday and Saturday we would have to prepare amendments. It is really a very short time, and I would ask the Minister if he could give a longer time.
I scarcely heard what the Deputy said. I understand he wanted a longer time, and I want to know if an extra day would meet his point?
Very likely it would. I am speaking, not on behalf of myself, but on behalf of other Deputies who would require to put down amendments. I am sure between now and Saturday, if the Dáil is meeting, does not give very much time for the framing of amendments. Perhaps Monday will give them sufficient time, as they will have the week-end off.
So far as the other Deputies are concerned, I think an extra day would more than satisfy them.
Committee Stage ordered for Thursday, 28th February.