An External Ministry is responsible directly and exclusively to the Dáil. At least, it is until the Ministers Bill has been passed. When this Broadcasting Committee was appointed to inquire into the White Paper, and began its session, we demanded every document from the Postmaster-General's Department that had any bearing whatsoever upon the inquiry we instituted. Certain officials of his Department pleaded privilege, that documents were confidential. We told them that there could be no plea of confidence set up between a Committee of the whole Dáil and an External Ministry. Whereupon every document of every complexion and character was given to us. That is the explanation of how we came to have this monument of memoranda before us. It is hardly fair to say that the Postmaster-General is now trying to escape the responsibility for this, and trying to hide a secret by selecting so many of these documents which are to be published and no more. A point I made on the previous debate and which I desire to repeat now, is that some of these things are utterly irrelevant to the interim report, and they have no bearing on the decision we arrived at. Deputy Davin, in his very admirable speech on the question before the interval, spoke of evidence where he meant documents. There was no irrelevant evidence; there were irrelevant documents. I, unfortunately— I regret it exceedingly—in supporting Deputy Cooper's motion on the last occasion, pointed out the fact that some of these were memoranda of a routine order, such as "Yours of the 23rd received. Due attention will be paid to it." Others were scribbled notes of subordinates for the information of their chief. I suggested that these need not necessarily be published, as they would add unnecessarily to the bulk of the book. That mild suggestion, to keep out irrelevant documents, was immediately construed by some Deputies —Deputy Wilson worked himself into a fervour of pious indignation—as a proposal to suppress evidence. Now, at the end of it all, it is declared by the President, in his proposal for this new Committee, that sooner or later all this must out. Why not then let it out? Already the printers would have been at work upon it, and it would have been nearer publication. I think already there is a great deal of confusion which makes confusion worse confounded. Deputy O'Sullivan pointed out that the proposal is to set up a Committee of five Deputies—not five judges but five Deputies—representative, I presume, of the various parties in the Dáil. What are they to do? Into what are they to inquire? The transcript of evidence is to be set before them, and they are to find out if in it there are charges or implications made against any Deputy or other person in the course of the proceedings. That is the first stage, but there is a further stage. When we have discovered that there are charges, we are then to afford every opportunity to every person who thinks himself aggrieved, to bring forward any statement in repudiation of any such charge as he may think fit. There are two functions, therefore, to be discharged by this new Committee. First, it is to edit—I use that in a technical sense— and to consider all the evidence, oral and documentary, and to find out if there are imputations in it.
It is then to notify the Dáil that there is an imputation against A, B or C of such a tenor. Then A, B or C, if he thinks it worth while, is to come forward to defend himself. Thereupon this becomes a judicial inquiry. You can call it what you like, but a name will not alter its judicial nature, and it is to consider whether these imputations are well-founded, so that any chance remark that occurred during the evidence that might be deemed by a super-sensitive person as a reflection on his honour or integrity comes before the Committee. Then on whom is the onus? Suppose that some of those who made the charges refuse to proceed, not because they cannot sustain the charges but because they have lost all interest in the matter and will not bother further, then those against whom no charge is made—I am assuming there is a charge—will, as a County Court Judge said on a famous occasion, leave the court without any further stain on their character. All this is in substitution for printing the evidence as taken by the Committee. I was present when Deputy Davin said what I am saying now and twice he was told by the President that that was not so. I have read this document carefully, and I cannot find anything to the effect that the evidence as taken by the original Committee is to be published. There is not one syllable of a reference to that in the document. If the Dáil passes this resolution what has it done? It has come at least to one conclusion, namely, that the proceedings of the Broadcasting Committee were, if not irregular, at least incomplete, and that they required supplementing in some such fashion as this. Yet the Dáil, after agreeing to some proposals not quite specifically disclosed, proceeded to pass by unanimous vote the interim report furnished by that Committee, although the Committee did not mention one reason in support of three-fourths of their findings. You will have this Dáil, at one and the same time, supporting the Committee in its findings, and likewise setting up another Committee to do in proper fashion what it had not done in proper fashion. I submit that it is not quite consistent. It is not consistent logically, and not consistent with the dignity of the Dáil.
Now, in regard to the way in which the business of the Committee was conducted, it is necessary that I should explain a phrase I used on a former occasion and to which Deputy Johnson has referred. It appears that my speech on that occasion was a colossal blunder, or rather a series of small blunders. I began by declaring that we must all be filled with admiration for the generosity of Deputy Johnson's attitude in the matter. That is taken to mean that I spoke ironically, sarcastically, and that I meant that he was trying to cloak someone and that it was very kind, nice, and charitable of him to attempt to do so. What I intended was something very different. We had the leader of the Opposition doing what leaders of Opposition very rarely do, taking an attitude which was rather in favour of the side he was supposed to oppose. It would have been popular, highly popular if he had joined in the cry to publish the evidence, as we are now more than ever aware, but he deliberately took the unpopular attitude of saying: "No, let us not publish all the evidence because that would be unfair to certain witnesses who spoke without reticence in the belief that they were speaking, more or less, in camera and that the evidence would not be broadcasted to the public at large." Further, Deputy Johnson said that he himself had put questions and conducted the inquiry in a manner which he believed was not quite on the lines of absolute regularity. In that way he took the blame upon himself for whatever irregularity might be alleged in the conduct of the inquiry. All these things excited my admiration. It was magnanimous on his part. I think it is due to Deputy Johnson to make that explanation, in view of the fact that those who look for other meanings can always find other meanings when they search for them. I support Deputy Johnson's view to a certain limit. It would be unfair, no doubt, to publish the evidence extorted at times, because occasionally the examining inquirers adopted in their eagerness to extract the truth rather the attitude of prosecuting counsel. Then I said that these are the accidents of life. What I thought would be perfectly understood was this. There are others concerned besides those witnesses who, as Deputy Johnson said, told more of the truth than they desired to tell had they legal assistance. There are others concerned.
There is the Postmaster-General, for example. Charges were made against him, and when we dealt with them we found them wholly baseless after our investigation. I have been charged with cloaking the Postmaster-General. People will not believe that these were honest findings. I have been reproached that I have lent myself to a conspiracy to find a false verdict in favour of the Postmaster-General. When these stories are being circulated, sensational reports continue to be made about the suppression of truth. I think there is nobody in the Dáil who will not support the Postmaster-General in the demand that all the documents and all the evidence given by witnesses in examination shall be published forthwith. It is due to him. This inquiry in substitution may last for a considerable time, and, then and only then, when this has ceased to have any interest for the public, and when other nine days' wonders have cropped up, the evidence will be published, and it will then be stale and uninteresting. What will not be stale is the recollection of these scandalous stories that circulate in the whispering galleries of Dublin. These will not be forgotten. I hold that when a Minister is impugned and maligned in this fashion it is the prime interest and concern of the Dáil to see if there is any remedy, and that that remedy should be instantly applied. To my mind the remedy is clear—the publication forthwith of this evidence. If I am not too long—and I am tempted to be too long this time, for, in my efforts to be brief on the former occasion I produced a misunderstanding, especially a misunderstanding regarding a Deputy I hold in the highest esteem, Deputy Johnson—it is proposed to report to the Dáil the evidence given in support of such charges and imputations. What charges or imputations? Where are they to be found? I invite you, Sir, to bring your mind back to the occasion on which Deputy Cooper moved this proposal. What charges or imputations were then before the Dáil with regard to any Deputy? I submit none whatever, except those connected with the Postmaster-General, and alongside the mention of these charges was the declaration that they had been gone into and had been found to be wholly baseless. Another Deputy's name was mentioned, it is true, but there was no charge made against him in the interim report.
The interim report said, that amongst the documents on the file furnished by the Postmaster-General, was a document in which Mr. Andrew Belton purported to make revelations as to the relations which existed between him and Deputy Figgis, at a period long anterior to the broadcasting project. There is the first mention of a Deputy, and the report goes on to say: "We inquired into these charges and counter-charges only in so far as was requisite to enable us to form a clear judgement as to whether Mr. Belton was a fit person to be a State Concessionaire." I hold there is no charge in that against Deputy Figgis, no charge that any reasonably-minded man could discover. There is the statement that charges are made against him by Mr. Belton, and the statement that we did not investigate these. It was none of our business; whereupon it is proposed to set up a quasi judicial inquiry, to be carried out by members of the Dáil into these charges, into charges that do not exist, into charges that have not been formulated. I could very well understand that proposal being made if the evidence had been circulated, and had been read, and that someone had said here at a subsequent stage to the initiation of the broadcasting inquiry, that: "Documents containing charges against the Deputy have been furnished, and we cannot let this rest here. We must go into it." That would be the natural order, but this unnatural course is pursued, that before the report in which that incidental reference to the Deputy is contained, before that report is given to the Dáil for its consideration, a proposition is made in favour of making some inquiry into the charges and imputations. What the Dáil was asked to do was to consider the report of gossips and evil-tongued critics, rather than to discuss something that has officially come under our notice. I hold with the Attorney-General, that when there is something that affects the honour of a Deputy, and in that way incidentally affects the honour of the Dáil, it is not only the privilege but the duty of the Dáil to investigate it. What is so far disclosed that affects the Dáil? If Mr. Belton, or Mr. A.B.C. or D., or any other letter of the alphabet, makes any charge against any member of the Dáil, is the Dáil to set up a Court of Inquiry into it? Is it fair to do so? If so, we shall have nothing else to do for the rest of our existence. Any scurrilous newspaper whatever may accuse me of robbing a bank, whereupon a Judicial Committee is set up to inquire into that, and if anybody, say, the bank manager or the messenger, or whoever is responsible for locking up the doors at night, thinks he is implicated in the matter, he is to be represented by Counsel before the Committee, and solemn judgement is to be delivered for the benefit of the Dáil. The thing is ridiculous. I submit the proper course to follow, now that this unhappy situation has arisen, is to try to make the best and not the worst of it, and to make the best of it is to admit frankly that the Committee did pursue a course that, after all, was occasionally in the nature of a roving inquiry, but yet it pursued its main objective, and that there is no necessity to create another inquiry to supersede the Committee, for it is, after all, superseding it.
I withdraw my proposal of a former occasion to except certain documents, for on consideration I find it need not be done. Here is a simple expedient. I learn that the Clerk of the Committee had the foresight and industry to stamp every document, and every single page of every document, officially, and to number it, and he has entered in the index every document that was received. Now, it is quite easy when publication is made, to have the documents that are particularly pertinent to the evidence, given to the public, then along with them in the appendix, a list of every other document, and to allow any member of the Press, or any inquisitive member of the public whose motives can be guaranteed to be in the interests of truth and sound history, to consult these, and they will find that nothing in the nature of evidence is being suppressed. That is a simple and practical expedient. What will the public whose attitude of suspicion has been heightened by all these debates and by the articles that have been written on them, think? Simply that the Dáil has been informed secretly by members of the Committee that there are dreadful things, terrible scandals, and that if the evidence were to be published the Dáil might close its doors, and the Government might shut down and retire from business, and that what we are doing is attempting to give the public something else to be interested in, which will appear to be the same thing. You remember the famous work of Swift, "The Tale of a Tub." It reminds me of the expedient employed by sailors long ago in the days of wooden vessels, when a whale was coming too near the vessel, and in sportive mood, might at one stroke of its fluke smash the timbers of the vessel, and send all hands to the bottom of the sea. Barrels and tubs were thrown out for the whale to play with and keep it off. Meanwhile, the ship took a different course, and got out of the danger zone. This motion will be regarded as a tub thrown out to the great whale of the public to play with, and let it forget all about the evidence taken by the Broadcasting Committee. Is that desirable? After all, the wisest happens to be the most courageous course in this matter. Publish everything in the way that I have suggested. I realise, after the speech of Deputy Seán Milroy and the speech of Deputy Wilson, that if the Postmaster-General were to persist in his proposal, that even the least little document should be left out, that there are wise people who would regard it as a proposal to suppress evidence.
So, since there is confusion in the public mind between documents laid before the Committee, to read or not, as the Committee pleases, and actual evidence given, considered and utilised as part of the machinery in bringing about our decision—since there is such confusion, then let us have everything published. It will cost a little more to publish, but public anxiety will have been allayed, and good work will have been done, namely, it will have been proved up to the hilt that the allegations audaciously made and frequently repeated had nothing in them and had nothing to support them, and the public will learn not to be so receptive in the future of scandalous stories circulated about public men.
