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Dáil Éireann díospóireacht -
Wednesday, 16 Jul 1924

Vol. 8 No. 13

COMMITTEE ON FINANCE. - ESTIMATES FOR PUBLIC SERVICES. VOTE NO. 3 (EXECUTIVE COUNCIL).

Debate resumed on amendment by Deputy Esmonde "That the Vote be referred back for reconsideration."

On reconsideration of the many interruptions which occurred at the end of my speech last night, I have come to the conclusion that I was being objected to for stating that the policy of a certain group in the Dáil was a negative one, that it consisted of the phrase: "Not to balance the Budget." That drew a vehement protest from Deputy Esmonde, I think, amongst other Deputies of that group. I would like to quote a little from my recollection of what Deputy Esmonde said in moving the amendment. He directed our attention to certain small countries recently established, who have had many initial charges in the foundation of their State, and his remark was: "Of course these countries have not balanced their Budgets. If they had done so, they could never have established their State at all." If it is not a legitimate deduction from that, that the policy of the Deputy is not to balance the Budget, I can give him further quotations. He took three specific comparisons, Denmark, Holland and Switzerland. He said that in the last 8 years Denmark, on its ordinary Budget, had a deficit of 15 million pounds; that Switzerland, in in the last three years on its ordinary Budget, had a deficit of 12 million pounds; that Holland, in the last year, had a deficit on its ordinary Budget of one million pounds. I am proceeding on the basis that the Deputy will agree that his policy is properly summed up in the phrase: "Not to balance the Budget." If we are to proceed on that basis, might I join the argument I have in response to the Deputy with one in reply also to Deputy Johnson. Let us take some of these newly-established countries which have not attended to the balancing of their Budget. Poland is a case in point.

I wonder would anybody consider that it would have been well for us to go through the recent years of trouble that they have had in Poland? Would Deputy Johnson think that the children there in the last few years had a better chance of getting fed, and that the parents had a better chance of getting work to provide food for the children, as a result of the turmoil which Poland went through by not attempting to balance its Budget? I hesitate to speak of Russia. Russia has been so used for purposes of propaganda that it is very difficult to arrive at any proper estimate of what the truth is regarding circumstances there. But there has been very little attempt to balance the Budget there. I wonder, again, would Deputy Johnson or Deputy Esmonde believe that the State made progress or that the children were less hungry than the children in this country have been for the last year?

Deputy Esmonde has contradicted himself in detail in his speech. He has also contradicted himself on the two main propositions. His whole case rested on this, that the policy of the Government was cheese-paring and parsimonious, as far as finance was concerned, and that the credit of the State has been destroyed. I will read again the figures I gave last night—"£2,000,000 for roads, drainage and bridge rebuilding; £7,330,000 for property losses; over half a million for housing; £200,000 for public works and new buildings; almost a quarter of a million in the Army Vote towards new buildings; a quarter of a million for relief schemes; a quarter of a million, at least, in unemployment insurance benefits; one million pounds set forth under the provisions of the Trade Loans Guarantee Bill," and a promise which I gave definitely here that if that million was exhausted there was more to come. That is the parsimonious and cheese-paring State. And we have destroyed the credit of the country!—destroyed it to this point, that in the difficult circumstances in which we were placed we were able to raise a loan of ten millions, to say nothing of the three millions over-subscription which was returned, and have gathered together one million pounds in Savings Certificates. With that in the Deputy's mind, will he still persist in saying that the policy on the one hand is cheese-paring and parsimonious, and that the result is that the credit of the State has been destroyed?

Deputy Johnson joined in this vote of censure for reasons which were not at all those of Deputy Esmonde. Deputy Johnson, if I may put it in summary, wishes to censure the Government because they have not nationalised the sources of production. That is, I think, what it comes to. The Deputy in his speech said that far better than the idea of balancing the Budget was to have before you the idea that no one should go hungry in this State.

No one is in fuller agreement than I am with Deputy Johnson on certain matters arising out of unemployment. I think that to be able and willing to work and to find no work to do, is the modern wheel on which many fine citizens are broken, and as far as the credit of the Government can do so, it will be provided, and I have promised that it will be provided, to secure work, and we are doing our best to build up and stimulate trade and industry in the country. I have been a schoolmaster for several years, and for the first time I got a lesson from Deputy Johnson that I am rather glad I did not learn before, and attempt to put in practice before a class of discerning children. I never knew that it was any answer, say, to a problem in algebra, simply to wipe it off the blackboard. That is the Deputy's approach to the problem—the wiping of the problem off the board, and simply to see that no child goes hungry. Do not bother about the balancing of the Budget; do not bother about where the money is to come from; simply see that no child goes hungry.

Hear, hear.

The Deputy applauds that, and he has no idea as to providing means. His policy is that no child should go hungry. Was the last state worse than the first, and do more children get fed by reason of the fact that the Budget is not balanced? Is that an example set up for a new State to follow? There is the well-known story of the fool who, in order to hasten the coming of the fruit, shook down the blossoms and destroyed the promise and the potentiality of fruit, as well as not succeeding in getting any. I do not want that to be applied to Deputy Johnson, particularly the word "fool," but I say his action is somewhat similar. But Deputy Johnson at least has got a humane idea. His objective can be clearly seen and his purpose easily perceived, and he puts his case moderately. But Deputy Milroy urges something that is not balancing the Budget and is not a denial of the policy of balancing the Budget, according to himself. It is something that is so deep-seated and of such a description that it is impossible to gather completely what the effect of it is. I do not object to reasoned criticism or to points put up as to how progress can be better made. But I will put it to Deputy Esmonde that while it is an easy enough task to appear as wise as a tree full of owls, when you come to getting schemes that the schemes have to have some relation to practice, and that they must not be merely rudimentary convictions and mere tentative aspirations, and I put it to him that all the schemes he has put forward bear about as much relation to practical politics as the old time novels of Jules Verne do to serious science. This is a progressive Government, but we are not going to have the road to progress developed to a point that will be dangerous to the safety of the State simply for the joy of believing that we are travelling fast, that we are spending fast, and that we are living fast.

I think the statement made by the Minister for Industry and Commerce is the very last statement that would convince me that the point of view that he has taken up is the correct one. He says that this Government, which is his Government and the Government for which he is responsible, or for which he shares in the responsibility, is a progressive Government. I think we will agree that there is progress backwards and forwards, and on the claim that this Government is a progressive one I am prepared to admit that it is progressive in a backward direction. I assume that the mover of this amendment would have the right to reply, and, therefore, I would like to put him one or two questions.

I am afraid he has not that right.

Am I not to have an opportunity of making another statement?

We are in Committee. We have a motion before us, and Deputy Esmonde has proposed an amendment. As such he has not got the right to reply, but he may possibly be able to make some remarks in reply. But the question I am asked is: has he the right to reply, and it is clear that he has not.

If the mover of this amendment fully realised the consequences of his action, especially if his amendment were carried, I think he should have made up a better case, at any rate to this side of the Dáil, for the amendment. I assume that if this amendment were carried by a vote it would be the duty of the Governor-General to send for Deputy Esmonde.

Oh, no. The Deputy must not interpret the Constitution like that. Deputy Esmonde is not going to get into contact with the Governor-General in that manner. If the Dáil decides that it has no confidence in the present Government, I take it that the President would resign and that any Deputy would be in the position of nominating another President. That must be clearly understood. It is not a question of the Governor-General sending for any Deputy. If the Executive Council should be beaten on a vote on this matter and the President should resign, Deputy Davin would be in a position to put forward a motion that Deputy Esmonde should be nominated as President of the Executive Council.

He might carry it.

In that case I will leave Deputy Esmonde to wait until next Wednesday for the Garden Party to discuss the matter. However, in the case, especially of one who is not very closely associated with Deputy Esmonde, or with the policy, if there is a policy, of the party with which he is associated, one is inclined to ask, on coming to a decision of this kind, what is his alternative policy? I have been asking members of that party, especially outside of the Dáil, when we might expect from them a declaration of their policy, and it has not been forthcoming. I was one, at least, of the Deputies to think when an amendment of this kind was being moved, that it would be the first time for them to take advantage of their position as a National Group to indicate to the Dáil and to the country the policy which they intended to pursue if they were charged with the responsibility of Government. However, quite apart from that altogether, there are reasons, as far as I am concerned, for my voting for this amendment, but they are certainly not the principal reasons put forward by Deputy Esmonde.

On the question of the Army, I am not going to say very much. We do not know as much about the incidents which led up to the Army crisis as Deputy Esmonde does, as a result of his association with the Cumann na nGaedheal Party. This much I will say, and I am bound to say it, especially as a result of the speech that was made by the Minister for Justice when the Army crisis was last discussed here: I agree with Deputy Esmonde when he said that all the members of the Executive Council were deeply involved in this matter, and everyone of them who remained in the Executive Council, and for so long as they did remain, must accept their share of the responsibility for anything that happened which led up to the Army crisis. There is no use, for instance, in the Minister for Justice getting up here and saying, "I was a member of the I.R.B. pre-Truce. In February, 1923, I brought this matter before the Executive Council, and nothing was done, but in June, 1923, I met a deputation from a secret organisation that I did not then agree with. I let the matter rest at that." And he simply explained to the country that the reason he left it there was because he regarded it as a private conversation.

I think the Minister for Justice himself would be the last man to say outside that he, as Mr. Kevin O'Higgins, could detach himself from his responsibility, as Minister for Justice, and as a member of the Executive Council. When he met the deputation did he attempt to meet them as an individual—he claims to have gone as an individual—or did he meet them in his capacity as a member of the Executive Council? There is no use in coming here and asking us to accept the statement that it was not his duty to report that to a subsequent meeting of the Executive Council. To that extent I do not think that there is the slightest possible difference between any member of the Executive Council who remained in the Executive Council up to the time of the Army crisis, and there is no use whatsoever in one member of the Executive Council trying to get up on the back of another member who already finds it very difficult to carry his own weight. So far as the Army is concerned, I am an anti-militarist. I have always been, and I always will be. I have never heard anything here which would compel me to take the view that the ultimate and full political freedom of this country will be obtained through force of arms. I cannot subscribe, and will never subscribe, to that idea. I believe if what we have got through the Treaty is to be the means of carrying us further to ultimate freedom, what we must do is not to concentrate upon arms and armies, but to develop the resources of our country, so that when we are faced as an island, either by the English or any other nation that has a great navy, we will be able to stand out against any attacks of a greater force. I believe that it is only when we can be, as far as we can be, a self-supporting nation that we will be able to take a further step on the march to our ultimate political freedom. The thing that concerns me most in this matter is the policy, or the lack of policy, or the lack of co-ordination of policy, of the Executive Council as a body.

I am not going to make any attempt at improvement of the description that was given by Deputy Milroy of the members of the Executive Council, because he knows them to a far greater extent than I do. That is not the right way to tackle this question. We, so far as we have any complaint to make, approach it from the point of view of the lack of policy of the members of the Executive Council, and their failure to make the best use of the machinery which they accepted through the Treaty for the development of the resources of this country. The question of finance is one of the principal matters which we are confronted with when we come to deal with that matter. Both inside and outside the Dáil, more particularly outside, from the members who support the Government, we hear a great deal about the timidity on the part of the Minister for Finance, on the question of money. We have heard here in the House either by insinuations or by direct statements from the Extern Ministers that their policy and the development of their Ministry was held up because they could not get money from the Finance Department. We have that very definitely and candidly from the Minister for Fisheries in regard to that particular matter. There are other extern members of the Ministry who are not prepared to go that far or to make all the admissions they would perhaps make outside because of their loyalty, more than anything else, to the Executive Council. The Minister for Industry and Commerce, in a statement made last evening, said the Government's financial policy "had been endorsed by experts in financial journals in England, the United States and on the Continent, and yet they were told that they should not balance their Budget." Now, I am quite prepared to believe that the financial policy of the present Government is acceptable to England and the British Government, and why? Because there is very little difference, if any, between the policy of the Executive Council and the policy of the British Government and Dublin Castle in the past, and to that extent I quite believe that the British Government is perfectly satisfied with the financial policy of the Executive Council.

What about the other places?

I am not prepared to take very much notice of these financial journals with regard to the financial policy of any Government, because they are only concerned with the financial policy of any country in so far as it enables them to make a pile of money.

Even England?

Yes; I am reminded that the information contained in the financial journals upon which the Minister for Industry and Commerce relies so much, is supplied by the propaganda departments of the different Governments.

You do not know.

I dare say we will hear something from the Minister for External Affairs later on on that point. The whole policy of the Executive Council since it was elected, even in the Third Dáil—and there may have been a certain justification for it at that time—and in the Fourth Dáil, has been to remind the people of the country that any alternative to the Government of which they are in charge would mean a terrible and disastrous war with England. Even Deputy Gorey said at a farmers' meeting in the country some time ago that every one of the members of the Dáil could be got rid of with the exception of the ten supermen who are in charge of the Government, and, I presume, himself.

Deputy Davin, as usual, is inaccurate.

It is the Press report that is inaccurate on this occasion.

I challenge the Press report. It is usual for the Deputy to be inaccurate. The Press report can be inaccurate. The Deputy is inaccurate, and I do not know that he ever is accurate.

It is well known, so far as I am concerned, that I have never associated myself in the slightest degree or attempted to justify anything that was done by a minority of the people of the country, when they challenged the elected Government of the people. Therefore, I see no reason whatever in the members of the Executive Council, when confronted with a vote of censure or vote of no confidence, or when criticised even in the slightest degree, to get up here in this Dáil to be continually reminding the members of the Dáil, and the people outside also, that fifty millions of property has been blown sky-high. This is the usual answer we hear, particularly from one or two Ministers, when any criticism is offered from any side of the Dáil.

I think it is just as well we should leave it at that. That is deliberately done in my opinion by the Executive Council or by different members of the Executive Council as a justification to the people of this country for their existence in their present position. One cannot fail to acknowledge one fact or notice the fact that although there were 109 members elected to this Dáil at the last general election the average attendance in this House as far as I can make out is about 65 and only when a Whip was issued by the licensed traders of the country, did the number come up to 83. Are we to take it that the absence of the thirty or forty members who were elected by the different constituencies to do the nation's business in the Dáil, is an indication of their unqualified support of the Government, or is it to be taken as an indication of lack of confidence in the Executive Council? I would like to have that answered by some member of the Executive Council. I am inclined to claim this as an acknowledgment of their lack of confidence in the Executive Council; it perhaps could be claimed in the other way as well. The Minister for Justice, who, no doubt, everyone will admit, takes a long-sighted view of the position, asks Deputies of this Dáil to say whether the money that has to be found for the development of the resources of the country either for administration or for useful works is to be found by increased taxation or by borrowing either at home or abroad. The Minister, I am sure, can quite easily answer the first part of the question by saying there cannot be any additional taxation. The thing comes to this—we ask the Government for information to make up our minds to see whether or not the money that has to be found is to be found at home or abroad. The Minister for Justice, when asking Deputies to form a judgment upon that matter, is in a privileged position himself, because if the Executive Council has ever considered the matter they have certainly some propositions and some information at their disposal to show whether it would be more profitable to borrow at home or abroad.

At any rate, without knowing anything as to what the rate of interest would be, or what the commitments would be by borrowing at home or abroad, I say that even with great disadvantages on our side by borrowing at home, it is better policy for any new government or for any government to borrow at home rather than abroad. If you have made up your minds that money is necessary, and that you are prepared to find the money that is necessary for the development of the resources of this country, then borrow the necessary money at home at once, and not abroad.

And do not balance your Budget.

Deputy McGarry rightly said yesterday—and the Minister for Justice would know it if he took a stroll around the slums of his constituency—that we cannot take these things into consideration when we hear the cries of starving children. For that reason I should like to see Ministers as well as Deputies, whenever they have an opportunity of going to the towns or cities in their constituencies, take a stroll around the slums and back lanes. If they do they will always be in touch with the human element outside; and if they did keep themselves in touch with the human element outside they would know exactly the extent to which starvation and unemployment exist; and when they come to the Dáil they would not treat the subject in the sneering way in which it has been treated up to the present time.

There is another thing which I daresay cannot be remedied. The Executive Council in their wisdom, backed up by a majority of the members of the Dáil, have seen fit to throw on the present generation responsibility for the payment for all the damage and destruction that has been done within the last few years. I think it would be far better policy if the payment for that damage had been extended over a greater number of years. If that had been done it would result in making some of the people who have taken part in this destructive work pay later on for some of the damage they have done; and to make them do that would give them a very valuable lesson in the duties of citizenship and in their responsibilities in matters of this kind.

I try as far as I possibly can to keep in close touch with my constituents. I have discussed this question of the policy or lack of policy of the Government with constituents of mine regardless of Party considerations, and I am prepared to say this: that if the Party outside this Dáil that has a negative policy, and the Party inside this Dáil whose policy is certainly not a progressive policy but who have charge of the Government of this country for the time being, would agree, for the time, to drop the question of the Treaty versus the Republic and if a candidate belonging to any Party in this House, no matter what Party, were put against a nominee of the Cumann na nGaedheal Party for any constituency except County Dublin, the Government Party would be beaten. That is the reason, probably, why they are delaying issuing the writs for the elections that should have taken place before the adjournment. They know perfectly well that their position is rather precarious, and that wherever and whenever a by-election has taken place the people who have gone and voted for the Government have not gone and voted for the Government because of its policy, but simply because they are not prepared to accept the alternative of the negative policy of the only Party outside the Dáil that oppose them in those elections.

I want also to draw attention to the fact—an explanation may be given for it—that at the present time the President of the Executive Council occupies three positions. In fairness to the President himself, and in fairness to the members of the Dáil and to the people of the country, that situation should not be allowed to continue. There is no man, even a superman, in this world to-day who could take upon himself such a heavy responsibility, and the people of Ireland to-day who look to this Parliament as the only means of solving all their problems are not asking that the President of the Executive Council should undertake such a heavy responsibility. I say that the Executive Council should without further delay fill the vacancies and relieve the President of responsibilities which no human being can bear or carry. There is no reason for it. If the members of the Executive Council can claim the support of sixty-four members of the Dail surely they can find able men amongst that number to fill one of the positions that is vacant. I can quite understand the President carrying on for the time being the vacancy created by the unfortunate illness of the Minister for Finance.

I do not wish to detain the House any longer and I apologise for taking up so much of its time on this question. On this question I would put one pertinent question to the Minister who will be charged with the reply: Have the Executive Council ever sat down in session and considered the Estimates presented to us in this House? Are they acquainted with every detail in the Estimates put forward for the Executive Council? As far as I can trace the matter—and I have had dealings with the Ministry on two or three occasions, in matters of finance in connection with schemes I was interested in—as far as I can trace it the work of the Government of this country so far as finance and so far as matters of public policy are concerned is done by the officials responsible to the Government. It is the officials who are really in charge of the Government of this country. If you go to a member of the Executive Council, to a Minister, and ask him to give his consideration to any proposal which may be put forward by a member of the Dáil he does not bring that matter to the Executive Council and ask the Executive Council to consider it, although it may be a great national question; he refers it to the official who is responsible for the administration in his own department. I say that when any great national question is put up to them the great men in the Executive Council, and certainly there are some great men in it, should set themselves free from the interference of officialism and consider the proposal on its merits rather than accept the recommendation of their officials and stand over it in this Dáil.

On a point of order, since Deputy Davin has referred particularly to the question of unemployment I should like to ask him to state the special item or the special matter which was presented, presumably to me, and which I have dealt with in the manner he has just described.

I accept the challenge. The Minister for Industry and Commerce is really a new Minister in this Dáil. I am not referring to him as a new Minister. I approached the Minister for Industry and Commerce who was the predecessor of the present Minister (laughter). There is no laugh about this. Is it the Minister or is it the Executive Council who are responsible? I ask the Deputies who laugh to answer that.

On this Vote the Deputy cannot criticise the last Minister for Industry and Commerce. He must make the present Minister responsible.

There is a continuity of responsibility.

Surely not in that form. There is a collective responsibility of the members of the Executive Council, but members of the Executive Council cannot be challenged upon work for which a Deputy now no longer a member of the Executive Council was responsible. One might as well make them responsible for the actions of a future Minister.

I thought there was a continuity of responsibility. Am I not, therefore, entitled to give a concrete case on the invitation of the Minister for Industry and Commerce?

No. I am afraid it would not be relevant in a debate which, in fact, is a criticism of the present Executive Council. The Deputy would be really criticising a former member of the Executive.

He possibly has more than one example.

I have no objection to an example being given but it should refer to members of the present Executive Council rather than to past members.

The late Minister for Industry and Commerce left the Executive Council of his own sweet will. He was not chucked out, and to that extent there was a continuity of responsibility. At any rate, if I am entitled to be asked a question by the new Minister who should be acquainted with the facts, I should be entitled to give an explanation. What I said was that I approached the Minister in connection with the Barrow drainage. A deputation was received and recommendations were put up. I approached him about two months after, and we were told that in a month we would have a reply, and that the deputation would be sent for again. We were told that the matter had been referred to the Chairman of the Board of Works. Mind you it went to the Chairman of the Board of Works and not to the Minister for Finance. I spoke to the Minister for Finance subsequently and he said that a report had been called for. Nothing has been done in connection with that matter although it was on the 3rd March last that the deputation was received. I make that statement in order to show how the thing is bandied about from one official to another, and that on a matter that has been recognised for years as a great national question.

I want to keep the Deputy quite straight in that matter. I received that deputation, and I explained when I received it that it was not my particular duty. I also explained that the principal official of the Ministry of Finance—there is no need to mention names—was present, and he took particulars and passed them on, with the result of the discussion, to the Minister. I would point out that if they were not passed on to the Minister for Finance there was someone at fault, but it was not the fault of the Department of the Ministry of Industry and Commerce.

I do not claim to be a Parliamentary expert, and to possess such eloquence as the Minister for Industry and Commerce, and the Minister for Justice, but I was attempting to explain about this matter, that on the 3rd March last we were promised that a reply would be given, but it has not yet been given. I spoke with other people, and it is a privilege on some occasions to get a conversation with members of the Executive Council, but no reply of any kind has been given since. I say that is a fair justification of the statement I made that the Government of this country, even in a great many matters of this kind, is being carried on by officials, and not by the Executive themselves.

Would not the Deputy give another example? He was rather unfortunate in his last.

In spite of the legal mind of the Minister for Agriculture, I contend that the example I have given is a good one as to what is going on, and at any rate I rely on it. As we all know, in debates of this kind we will hear from the Minister for Agriculture some explanation of the attitude of the Executive Council, of which he is not a member. I will support this vote of no confidence, or this vote of censure on the Executive Council, for I believe they have not taken a serious view of their position. They may have been, and I believe they were, a capable and competent body to deal with the Army mutiny, or the Army scramble, or civil war if you like, but even people who might be competent to deal with military matters, and whose mentality is of a militaristic outlook, have not proved themselves competent to deal with these conditions. It was suggested that £50,000,000 was blown sky-high. Take the case of France. Anyone who has seen France since or during the European war would scarcely think that France could ever be built up again. The Cabinet charged with the responsibility of winning that war for France at the same time that it dealt with war conditions also dealt with peace conditions. You have evidence of that in the fact that there is very little unemployment in France to-day, and that is because these men were not thinking merely in military terms.

Will the Deputy give particulars of wages in France?

Deputy Cooper knows more about France than I do, and he will probably give that information. The Minister for Justice stated in the debate on the Army crisis, when he was swinging the sledge-hammer with which he removed the Army Council, that these men had outlived their usefulness. It is for the same reason that I am supporting the vote of censure on the Executive Council, but certainly not for many of the reasons given by the mover.

The President said that if he gave £5,000 more to Kerry than to Clare that I would rise in my wrath against the Executive Council. I will not disappoint his expectations, although he has not given £5,000 to either Clare or to Kerry. I must say that what struck me in listening to the debate was the amazing fact that one set of arguments can prove various conflicting things. The set of arguments used by some members of the National Group in indicting the Government are practically the same arguments as were used by some members of that group in support of the Government which should have been indicted months ago. It would be interesting to collate the speeches of some of the members of the National Group, and read what they said some months ago, and what they said yesterday in the Dáil. I agree with the censure on the Executive Council and I agree that they should be censured for practically nine-tenths of what they have done in the past 12 months, but when the Executive Council undertook to rob the old age pensioners, after being broken on the wheel of social order and thrown on the scrap heap, when they proposed to rob these unfortunate people and send them adrift, to be supported on the rates, and supported out of the pockets of people who cannot support them, why was not a vote of censure moved then? Was it nothing to the members of the National Group then, as it was nothing to the members of the Executive Council? Was it nothing to the National Group any more than to the Executive Council that in the past winter there were 100,000 people on the verge of starvation, and that starvation was rampant in every town and village in the country? Was that nothing to the members of the Executive Council, or the members of the National Group? Was it nothing to the National Group that there were hundreds of children dying of malnutrition? Was it nothing to members of the Executive Council or to the National Group—they were members of the Party who sat behind the Executive—that the grant of public moneys was being used to force down wages throughout the country? Mind you, those grants of public money meant the restoration of it to the people who gave the money in the first instance to us. It is they who give it and make no mistake about it. The unfortunate Minister for Finance is absent, and I regret to have to say these things in his absence. The Minister for Finance goes with every working man who goes into a public house for a bottle of beer, and that working man has to pay over so much money to him. It is the same with regard to cigarettes. He sits down with him at breakfast and takes something for his tea and coffee, and he even follows him into the picture house and demands a payment of tax. The restoration of this money is only returning portion of what these men have paid. Was it nothing to members of the National Group any more than to members of the Executive——

On a point of order, might I ask is this a vote of censure on the National Group?

Mr. HOGAN

It is both. Was it anything to the members of the National Group that they supported the Government when there was tacked on to these grants given for the relief of unemployment a clause as to wages? When "the base, brutal and bloody Saxon" was here, when we were getting grants, there was nothing tacked on as to what wages were to be given, and yet members of the National Group sat placidly behind the Executive Council when these grants were given for the relief of unemployment.

Was it nothing to the members of the National Group, any more than the members of the Executive Council, that 20,000 or 30,000 men and women should be interned, with no charge made against them, for nine or ten months? The members of the National Group sat placidly behind the members of the Executive Council while the Minister for Justice, the Minister for Defence, and every other Minister accepted responsibility for that action and endeavoured to defend their position. It was nothing, I admit, to the Executive Council, who thought it was justice and patriotism and all that. Was it nothing to the members of the National Group that the Executive Council did not make any provision to educate the minds of the people; that the young intellect and brains of the country were starving for knowledge; that there was no system of education that might be called a system of education—no direct passage from primary to secondary and university education; that nothing was being done to remedy the state of affairs that existed when we had a foreign Government in this country? Was it nothing to the National Group or the Executive Council, and why did we not hear a protest then? Was it nothing to the members of the National Group, any more than to the members of the Executive Council, that the Government were ignoring the national traditions and relegating the Irish language and what it stood for to a backward place in every part of the administration of Government? At any rate, we heard no protest from the National Group. Although the Minister for Education might object, I think that both the National Group and the Executive Council are in the dock, that both of them stand convicted of utilising the powers that came into their possession, not for the interests of the country, but for the interests of certain classes in the country, and that they have made no real or earnest attempt to solve the unemployment problem, the education problem, or any of the other problems which confronted the nation. I will support the vote of censure on the Executive Council for this reason, that I voted against the measures as they came up, and in their cumulative, national degradation I will vote against them also, because that is exactly as it appears to me from the speeches that have been delivered by the National Group. But in voting for this vote of censure, I will indict the National Group just as I will indict the Executive Council.

I feel sorry that I had not spoken before Deputy Hogan, if it were only to see what effect it might have on the metre of his little rhyme. I have taken a fairly serious view of the attitude that I took up here in the Dáil since the Army crisis of four months ago. I take a serious view of the attitude I am going to adopt on this particular amendment. I am going to vote for the amendment. I am going to support the vote of want of confidence in the Government, for the simple reason that I cannot allow myself to be put in the position, on a formal vote like this, of appearing in any way to show I have any confidence in them. I have less confidence in the National Group than I have in the Executive Council; less confidence that the small work that falls to their lot in this Assembly will be done well by them, or will be done in any way nearly as well by them as the very responsible work that falls to the Executive Council. But I have no confidence in the Executive Council as a group to direct policy or to control administration. I could give a good many reasons for that, but the main reason—and I think it is the over-riding reason—for that want of confidence on my part is that I consider the Executive Council, as a group, is composed of persons who have no confidence in themselves. As a group of that kind I am perfectly convinced that there cannot crystallise from their efforts or from their work, either a policy that the Dáil or the country would be satisfied with or, given a policy, that there would crystallise out of their efforts a harmonious administration of that policy. It is because I see the Executive Council in that particular light, that I propose to support the vote of want of confidence in them.

Whatever this vote will do, or will not do, it has at least given everybody who wants to give expression to his opinions, an opportunity to speak, and as we all have to take some action on this amendment, we have to justify the action we are going to take by saying something. Looking around and hearing the arguments that have come from all sides as to why this vote of censure ought to be passed, I do not find myself in agreement with any of the conflicting arguments put up by the different parties that are not in agreement with the Executive Council. Yet, I am not in agreement with the Executive Council, and I have to take them to task on one or two points. On this question I would like to say to the members of the National Group, as well as to the members of other parties, that I think it ought not to be forgotten by the Deputies—and I have said this previously—that all the Deputies of the country are not here, and if it is a question of a transfer of authority from one body of representatives to another, the possibility is that it is to be changed, not to a body at present in the Dáil, but to a body of Deputies who are not in the Dáil. It would be a very good thing for the Deputies who have spoken to keep that before their minds.

The Executive Council, and those who have supported them since I came into the Dáil, have taken up an attitude with regard to the Republican prisoners to which I have consistently objected. I want to protest against the continuation of that policy, and to say that I think the Executive Council's policy—which might be termed a "ca-canny" policy—with regard to the relief of prisoners, is not representative of the feeling of the country, and, I may say, is not what I accepted as an indication of the mind of the Dáil when a motion on this matter was under discussion some weeks ago. The interests of the country, I think, would have been better served by the release of these prisoners long ago. The stability and the credit of the State would have been better served by their release months ago, rather than by the action which the Executive Council has persisted in. I protest very strongly, not only against the action of the Executive Council, but also against the action of Deputies who supported the Executive Council when they started out on that policy, and who have consistently supported them in it. I want to hear what the Executive Council has to say on this. Have they got anything to say? Is the policy going to be altered? When may we expect these prisoners to be released?

I want to say also that the decision of the Executive Council not to disclose the evidence that was advanced before the Army Committee of Inquiry is one with which I am not in agreement, and one for which I must take the Executive Council to task. All that has been heard here about the Army crisis, all the dissatisfaction throughout the country, all the whisperings and stories, are due to the fact that many Deputies and many people throughout the country did not know the truth about the Army position. These rumours and the instability that they are bringing about will continue until the evidence is put before the public.

When one comes to make up one's mind as to the attitude to be taken on this amendment, one has to consider the reasons advanced by the different parties as to why this vote of censure should be passed. Coming from Deputy Esmonde and the other Deputies associated with him, I can only say that I am in agreement with Deputy Hogan that a vote of censure on the Executive Council is a vote of censure on Deputy Esmonde and his colleagues. As far as I see the policy of the Executive Council is the same for the last two or three months as it was six or eight months ago, when these Deputies supported the Government. As far as I see the Government policy has not changed one jot or tittle. It is the same as it was when the Deputies were defending every action of the Government. The action of Deputies to-day in calling for censure on the Executive Council, actually, as far as I can see, is really calling for censure on their own actions. I would certainly be very much inclined to censure them for their actions. When we on these benches raised our voices in protest against the policy of the Executice Council as to their conduct in holding the prisoners in jails and camps, some of these Deputies were loudest in their defence of that policy. The policy is the same to-day as it was yesterday. A few days ago we had a declaration from some of these Deputies that the prisoners ought to be released, but yesterday, we had from Deputy McGarry a statement that he did not mind whether they were or not. As far as I see this group has not shown us its policy and in the absence of any indication that it is different to the policy of the Government, I am not prepared to accept it that they are going to do anything different if they were in power. A good deal has been said about the financial policy of the Government, and there has been a good deal of criticism of expenditure, and suggestions about balancing the Budget, and not balancing the Budget. If there is one thing the tax-payers of this country know, it is that they have got to cut their coat according to their cloth. They cannot spend money they have not got. Deputies on these Benches came to the Dáil to do what they could to reduce expenditure, and to keep it at the lowest possible figure. Whatever Government is here it is our duty to see that that will be done. The Government have had fairly consistent support in keeping down expenditure. If the National Group had been able by their arguments to show us what they were going to do, and what alteration there was to be in policy if they came into power, to that pursued by the Government, we would know where we were. I cannot say what they are going to do, as they have not told us. In asking us to censure the present administration it it seems to me, at least, that they are asking us to censure men for pursuing a policy that they themselves have pursued, and which they have not given any indication that they are going to alter.

We have not taken part in this debate until now. I have very little to say, but one thing I will say, on behalf of the Party with which I am connected, is that we stand here for a balanced Budget. We stand for a policy by which normal recurrent expenditure must be met by normal recurrent revenue. Non-recurrent expenditure can be met by revenue or loans. There is no other way except by a gift from somebody. If such expenditure is met by loans the money can be raised by borrowing either at home or abroad. In either case the terms on which we can borrow, and the success of the loan will be decided by our attitude towards the Budget. If we depart from the attitude of balancing the Budget and adopt any experiment in budgetting, or in passing on to others the expenditure of to-day, it will be a foolish policy. It was suggested in a speech—I do not know if it was in the Dáil or in Wexford —that normal or abnormal expenditure should be passed on to a future generation. That is childish, to use a very charitable description of the suggestion.

Will the Deputy say who made that speech?

As I read the papers it was made by Deputy Esmonde.

I never made such a statement.

Did the Deputy say that the big expenditure at present confronting the country should not be met by this generation but should be passed on and divided?

I never made such a statement.

Then the newspapers must have misreported the Deputy and the Deputy's quarrel is with them and not with me. The Deputy can tackle the Press. If the Deputy says that he did not make that statement I am very glad. I do not think any responsible individual with any semblance or pretence to a balanced mentality could make such a suggestion. If it was made, I can anticipate a tragedy in 20 years time, when the new generation would come to deal with the matter. I can see one end of a rope being passed round a tree and the other end being passed round ex-Deputies' necks. Deputy Esmonde found fault with the Executive Council with regard to their Army and Defence policy. He said something about the defence of Dal-key Island and the number of our guns. I do not think that concerns us very much.

When dealing with this vote of censure, Deputy McGrath expressed the view that the Army Inquiry was only a gag. I do not know whether he was right or wrong in saying that. I do not know if a gag was intended by those who set up the committee or by those supposed to go there. We met a very serious gag because nobody wanted to come and give evidence. People who said they would come there did not come. It was a gag to that extent. I can assure the Deputy and everyone concerned, that the committee got rid of all the gags, and got what evidence there was to be got. The question was asked: where are the documents? We found some of the documents were not official documents. Some of them were personal documents. We got these documents from the source that held them, at a later stage. Witnesses have been referred to, but no man's name was ever suggested by anybody to us. We had to find the information ourselves. The members of the committee have to find out all the names. Deputy McGrath did not suggest the names of witnesses. Deputy Mulcahy did not suggest the names of witnesses.

I certainly suggested, sir, on one particular point, and that is the point that is raised, that the degree to which there was financial control over Army matters was the main criterion of civil control over the Army, and I did suggest in connection with that—it was mentioned by a Minister as being the most important matter— that if the committee got before them the Minister for Finance and the Army Finance Officer they would have seen to what extent the three officers who had been so summarily dismissed from the control of the Army had assisted and had been practically the main factors in securing complete financial control for the Government.

Does the Deputy contend that that came within the terms of reference? It had absolutely nothing whatever to say to our terms of reference.

If I might explain, sir. It is brought up as a charge against the Army authorities that there was not sufficient control over the Army, and it was shown that the financial control was mentioned as a factor arising out of that particular point.

Our quest for evidence was a quest for evidence leading up to the contributing causes of the mutiny. No evidence was suggested, even by Deputy Mulcahy or his friends, in that connection.

Perhaps the Deputy would explain?

The causes that led up to the mutiny. I know them sufficiently by heart to know—

Does the Deputy suggest that there was not placed before the Committee, as far as we were concerned, every document and every fact likely to be of assistance to anybody in deciding what led up to the mutiny?

I had not suggested anything of the sort. I have suggested in a previous statement that all the documents were forthcoming, and that ought to be a sufficient answer to the Deputy. I am prepared to admit that General Mulcahy, and other members of the Army Council, were at the table for a considerable length, and except for one specific matter they answered every question that was put to them. There was one specific question that we did not get an answer to. Everybody in the Dáil knows everything about it, and I will not go into it again.

We do not, certainly.

It is in the Report— the I.R.B. matter.

Does the Deputy suggest that we did not make a statement?

A statement up to a certain point.

We seem to be getting into a question which has nothing to do with the matter. We had a criticism of one Deputy who was a member of the Executive Council in his official capacity. Now we appear to be turning on to another Deputy, not a member of the Executive Council. We will have to keep to the Executive Council and criticise them.

I am dealing with a matter from the statements made by Deputy McGrath and Deputy Mulcahy, who took a view from my remarks different from what they should bear.

I am very glad that Deputy McGrath is in the Dáil.

Oh, I am listening to you all the time.

Not because of what we have dealt with, but because of what I am going to deal with. Deputy McGrath referred to paragraph 5, and he wanted to know why it was put in, and what was the ground for it. I think it was those responsible who were prominent with General Collins before his death. I do not want to go into the evidence. We are precluded from going into that, but I will ask Deputy McGrath one question. When he was appointed Director of Intelligence at Oriel House was any objection taken to him?

I may tell you I was never appointed Director of Intelligence at Oriel House, but I never knew of any objection being raised to any appointment I took up.

I would like to ask the Deputy does he consider I gave any evidence on that point?

Deputy Mulcahy did not give any evidence on that point, but it was put up to us that when Deputy McGrath was sent to Oriel House exception or objection was taken to his appointment; that it should have been given to other people, and names were mentioned.

Is this evidence that the statement was made?

No, not all the evidence, by any means, and because it relates to you I put the question now.

You ought to give us all as you have gone so far.

I asked a certain question. Deputy McGrath has answered it, and I am not responsible for his answer.

Now we are going to come to the Executive Council.

Deputy McGrath said that the ultimatum to the Executive Council should be followed by an inquiry. I am not here to defend the Executive Council, but I do not agree with Deputy McGrath that the ultimatum should be followed by an inquiry. It should have been followed by different action altogether. Were I to blame the Executive Council at all, I should say that they did not act as an Executive Council. The people who were in superior authority in this country should not have allowed themselves to be dictated to by any section or servants of the State, dictated to or influenced in any form. If I blame them at all, I do so because they erred on the side of weakness and compromise. I have a very clear idea of what, I think, is the duty of any Executive Council to the State. Now, to pass a vote of censure on the Executive Council of any State must be a matter of national importance to that State. No party or no individual should propose such a motion lightly or without sufficient and very grave reasons. I say that the reasons put up to sustain a vote of that description should be based on national importance.

I have listened to this debate yesterday and to-day, and particularly on yesterday I heard very little reasons of national importance or national policy put up. I heard, as other Deputies stated before me, no alternative policy at all touched upon. I may be wrong, and I may have a prejudiced view, but I did think and I think now, that the debate reached a very petty and a very personal level, not at all worthy of the Parliament of the nation. I did think that the personal element entered too largely into this question. It has entered too largely into every question in Ireland I have been acquainted with since I was a boy. It entered too largely, into Irish questions before the foreigner, the British, came to this country. In every question the personal element is entering too largely and there is too little about the national question or the plain people of the country. I may be blamed for not filling the bill as a member of the Army Committee, but I represent seven or eight thousand electors down the country who were fools enough to send me here. For that reason we claim as much right to be represented on committees and as much right to express our view point here as any other Deputies from the universities or anywhere else.

Deputy Davin has referred to something that he read in the newspaper about my references to supermen. I have never used the word supermen except in derision. I have no room or use for supermen or sad-faced men. I have considerable use for honest, clean, plain people, and very little use for the idealists or the supermen, and the sooner this country comes down to its proper level with some sense of proportion, and gets rid of the supermen and all these super intellects the better for it. I might say the party on these benches will not vote for this vote of censure. I do not think it was put up with the best and worthiest motives—

Corrupt motives.

Not corrupt motives, but foolish and ignorant motives perhaps. I did not say they were corrupt, but certainly they are no motives to ask us to support this vote of censure on the Government.

I am afraid I cannot add any valuable contribution to the discussion that has taken place on this vote of censure against the Executive Council. Coming here, I might naturally be supposed to occupy a critical position, more particularly as regards the Executive Council, and when this Motion was put down for discussion I might be pardoned for having an open mind on the subject and searching round for some information as to the result and the consequences of a Motion of this sort being carried. I recognise that in the event of this Motion being carried we will be losing the services of the Executive Council that carried us through the very stormy period of the last couple of years. In other directions I have opposed what I might call security of tenure in connection with appointments where they are not admirably filled, and if it was in the interests of the country I suppose I might be reasonably ranged along the side of those who would take action to remove people for incompetency from the position of great responsibility in which the Executive Council finds itself. Examining the period in which I have been in this Dáil, I have on the whole, although I have voted against the Government on occasions when I thought it was necessary to vote against them, voted in favour of the actions and the procedure adopted by the Executive Council in the Dáil. In these circumstances, I very willingly pay them the tribute of saying I will vote against the amendment proposed by the new National Party. I think the Minister of Justice has very rightly said that they recognise they have erred, and I would perhaps say that they have erred frequently.

At all events, in my judgment they have erred in matters of perhaps not great importance, but somebody has said that "to err is human; to forgive, divine." I am even at the present moment, after the discussion has taken place, prepared to extend the divine attribute to the President in connection with the Railway Bill. I do not think I could put it any higher than that.

Would you say "Go, and sin no more"?

I willingly adopt Deputy Johnson's dictum as to that. I do very heartily say I hope he will sin no more in that direction. When we have listened to the mover of this Motion of Censure and the following speeches by the members of the new National Party, it does not strike one as very apparent that, at all events, in its present state the new National Party is quite in a position to take up the offices occupied by the relative Ministers of the Executive Council. I do not think that the policy that has been adumbrated by these representatives would be adopted seriously by the country, or that if it were adopted by the country its adoption would be for the health of the country as a whole.

As far as the financial policy is concerned, the only outcome of it I can visualise would be bankruptcy to the State. I do not even know that they have a coherent policy amongst themselves, because I do not know they will all stand for the economic solution of our difficulties that has been propounded so often and so lengthily in the Dáil by Deputy Milroy. The main plank in connection with the vote of censure against the Executive Council lies, I think, in the accusation that the position as regards the Army was badly handled. I do say this for the Executive Council—that the crisis which we were faced with was successfully surmounted.

By Deputy McGrath.

I quite agree that Deputy McGrath, at that time at all events, took a high national line as far he could to minimise the danger with which the State was faced. Whether it was really in the interests of the country to prolong the contentions that have arisen out of that situation is quite another matter. But I do say that, arising out of that crisis, and after the passing of the crisis, there was a sigh of relief in the country; and I think that a sentiment of very great gratitude to the Executive Council and to all those who helped to surmount that difficulty was the prevalent feeling in the country as a whole. And the best thing I could suggest for the country at the present time is to forget all about the Army crisis, and to face the future, and to see that such a thing shall not happen again.

Is it not found by the Army Inquiry Committee that the alleged crisis was much exaggerated?

I would not propose to enter into an argument with Deputy Mulcahy on that subject, because I do not think it would lead anywhere, and I do not think it would be very helpful to the House. I am only expressing my individual opinion on this matter, and I am not prepared to carry it any further than that.

Now, as regards the accusation of the Labour Party, that there are large numbers of unemployed in this country, that is unfortunately so. How far are the Labour Party themselves responsible for it? How far is the attitude adopted by the Labour Organisations responsible for some of that at all events? As far as the Executive Council are concerned, I think they had endeavoured to meet the situation as far as their circumstances and the circumstances of the country would permit. If there is anything more that could be done safely and without extravagant expenditure that the country could not afford, I think this House would have given full support to any measures they would have tried in order to get at that evil. But may I say that as far as unemployment is concerned, this country has suffered in no sense in the proportion that other countries have suffered—countries across the water and in every direction. A world crisis has followed the war, and efforts have been made to meet a situation such as has never been heard of in the world before. It may be that there has not been enough done. But I think in this matter it would have been more helpful if greater co-operation had been secured between all the labour organisations and the Government in trying to meet a situation which, I think, not only included the unemployed but the unemployable.

I do not want to labour further on that subject except to say this: That I think my friend, Deputy Bryan Cooper, at one time accused me of being connected with lost causes. I do sincerely hope that my advocacy of the Government will not include them in another lost cause, because I wish them well. I feel that in the various situations that have arisen they have done, humanly speaking, as well as any representatives that I could suggest from this Dáil would have done under similar circumstances.

took the Chair.

I move that the question be now put.

I have to make a suggestion myself that will probably satisfy Deputy McCarthy. A motion that the question be now put may be made and "shall be put forthwith and decided without amendment unless it appears to the Ceann Comhairle that the motion is an infringement of the rights of a minority or an abuse of the rules of the Dáil." I think in this case the motion that the question be now put is not an infringement of the rights of a minority or an abuse of the rules of the Dáil. But I suggest that in the special circumstances of this particular case, if we get agreement to call upon Deputy Esmonde to conclude the debate, gave him ten minutes to do so, and then put the question by agreement, it may bring the debate to a conclusion and perhaps as rapidly as if a division were taken on this motion, and another division subsequently.

I was on my feet at the same time as Deputy McCarthy.

The motion that the question be now put excludes Deputy Corish, if put.

May I call attention to the fact that this is the first time that the closure was ever tried here?— and it is a serious Motion.

That is a different question.

The Government are safe with the old Tory Coalition. They can do what they like.

This matter has been debated for a long time, and I take it that Deputy Corish wants to explain his position. May we give Deputy Corish five minutes, and then give Deputy Esmonde ten minutes to conclude?

Would you give me five minutes?

No. Deputy McCarthy spoke before.

Deputy McCarthy only spoke about five minutes.

Deputy Esmonde technically has no right to conclude the debate, but there are reasons why he should get an opportunity of concluding the debate if he accepts a limited time. If the House is agreeable I will allow Deputy Corish to speak for five minutes and, after him, Deputy Esmonde. Otherwise I will accept the Motion that the question be now put. I take it that it is agreed to hear the two Deputies.

Like Deputy Baxter, I am really at a loss to reconcile myself to the position as to what my attitude ought to be in this matter. It is a very, very serious matter to censure the Government of this country, if it involves the resignation of that Government, because I do not think that this country at this moment has any desire for a general election.

Read the Constitution.

I will, and I will read your constitution whenever you make it. I do not think that this country at the moment has any desire for a general election, and I do not think we should be fair to the country if we were to have an election. As Deputy Baxter points out, the second largest party in this Dáil is not at present in the Dáil, and by all the rules of democracy, even though those people do not take the oath and come in here and take their seats, I hold that they should be entitled to form a Government if the present Government is put out of office, unless we are going to have a general election. And I ask this Dáil in all seriousness, is that a situation we would like to face at the moment? Personally, I am not going to vote for this amendment. And I want to say that I think that this amendment comes badly from the people who have tabled it, because as regards the acts of omission and commission of the Government that we have been listening to for the past two days, most of them were committed when these men were members of the party they now try to censure. I do agree that the Government should be censured. Time and time again Deputies in these benches have drawn the attention of the Government to the state of the country in so far as unemployment is concerned. We have told them time and time again that they are out of touch with the common people of the country, that they depend too much upon the information supplied to them by their officials, that they do not know the exact position in the country, and that before very long they will be faced with a situation which they will not be able to quell. Deputy Hewat has told you, as I am telling you, that the Labour Party have repeatedly raised the question of unemployment, and Deputy Hewat asks how far the Labour Party are responsible for unemployment. I take it that that is a suggestion from Deputy Hewat that the Labour Party are responsible for unemployment. I want to say here and now that the Labour Party are not responsible for unemployment, that the responsibility for unemployment rests upon the people of his class, who cannot see at the moment that they can no longer get the huge profits that they used to get in years gone by, because of the fact that labour is now organised in its own interests. And I do not think that Deputy Good or any other Deputy will find fault with labour for organising, because of the way in which it was treated in the past, when there was no organisation to protect the working man.

Like Deputy Davin, I have heard it said by the Extern Ministers that the responsibility for their inaction in many things is due to the fact that they cannot get the necessary funds from the Minister for Finance. I want to say here and now, that I am not satisfied, and neither are the members of my Party, that the Minister for Finance is doing anything at all in the interests of the country. The Ministry of Finance is still in the hands of men who have not, and never had, and never will have, an Irish outlook. The same old gang are in the Ministry of Finance that were in it when the British were here, and the sooner the Government clear them out, bag and baggage, the better. As I have said, they never had, and never will have, an Irish outlook, and they are not going to develop this country in accordance with the views some of us held when we were trying to build up the Sinn Fein movement in the old days. We have heard talk about an army crisis. It is very hard for us to make up our minds as to what is or was the position so far as the Army crisis is concerned. We have one point of view from the members of the Executive Council who remain, that the Army crisis is alleged to have passed. We have Deputy Mulcahy representing certain officers, and we have Deputy McGrath who represented certain other officers—we had Deputy McGrath rising in his place and creating a crisis in the country by making a certain statement in the Dáil about muddling and mishandling. Deputy McGrath left the Government, and left the country in a state of absolute chaos.

On a point of order, I think that is a deliberate mis-statement. I did not create a crisis in the country, but I hold that I can claim to have prevented and stopped a real crisis by my statement here, and I think that what the Deputy has said ought to be withdrawn.

I am afraid the question as to creating a crisis is not relevant, except the Deputy can prove that the Executive Council created it.

I am speaking of an amendment which I have already said I am going to vote against, and that amendment has been moved by a member of the Party to which Deputy McGrath belongs.

That does not entitle you to make a mis-statement about them.

It is a question of fact which I am not able to judge. We have allowed two different statements, and that is the best we can do.

I say distinctly and deliberately that Deputy McGrath made a statement in the Dáil which created a crisis in the country, and was responsible for the depreciation of the National Loan at a certain period.

On a point of order, was that crisis here before Deputy McGrath made his statement, and was his statement a result of the crisis?

I am not in a position to state what caused this crisis. I cannot answer a point of order as to what happened at a particular time and caused a particular thing. Deputy McGrath made his position perfectly clear, and Deputy Corish is making his position clear, too. That is all I can say about it.

Perhaps it would be better if I said Deputy McGrath created a state of affairs. What I want to allude to is this: Deputy McGrath at that time alleged that he was prevented by the President from saying anything further in the matter. To my mind, a statement of that kind lent more colour to the situation, and made it worse than it was, because people were thinking all over the country that the thing was infinitely worse than it was, because Deputy McGrath stated that he had something to keep back. Why I find fault with Deputy McGrath is that he made this statement that was responsible for the Dáil debating the matter for four or five days and holding up other business, and he did not follow it up and go before the Army Committee of Inquiry and say what he had to say then to clear up the situation that had been created. I do not think that it comes well from him or his Party now to criticise the Executive because of that. Deputy McGarry, another member of the National Group, comes along and asks what is the use of balancing your Budget for starving people.

I did not ask anything of the kind. I asked what was the good of a balanced Budget for starving people.

That is just what I am after saying.

It is not.

Well, I accept from Deputy McGarry now what he is supposed to have said. I would like to know if Deputy McGarry had the same thought in his mind when he voted for taking the shilling off the old age pensions?

On a point of order, I did not vote for taking a shilling off the old age pensions.

Deputy McGarry will have to sit down, and he will have to make some investigation as to the meaning of the word "order" and the meaning of the words "points of order," and until he makes that investigation I will not hear him any more.

I say and I believe that this is not an honest amendment, and that the Government have not done anything more now than what they did when these men were members of the Government Party, and that the things they put forward against the Government were things that were done twelve months ago when they were members of the same Party. As I said before, I believe the Government should be censured because of their lack of policy so far as the economic situation of this country is concerned, and their dealings with the unemployment problem. Deputy Hewat talks of doing certain things. The Government gave a million and a quarter pounds last year in order to reconstruct the roads, and they stipulated that there should be a wage of 28s. per week paid to the men who worked under that grant. I say here that it would be nearly as well for those people if they were unemployed, as to be trying to work on a wage of that kind, because it is a starvation wage, and a wage that the Executive Council should be ashamed to pay to its workers.

Deputy Hewat says that more has been done for the unemployed in this country than in other countries. Recently, I admit, the Government have tried to do a little, but they have not done enough yet. I want to inform Deputy Hewat that, while people here have been without unemployment benefit for a long period, the "gap" system has been done away with in England and Northern Ireland, and those unemployed in these areas have been in receipt of benefit all the time. As I said, I am not going to vote for this amendment. I believe that the Government ought to be censured, but in its present form, and because of what I believe is the object of the amendment, I am not going to vote for it.

I have listened with interest to the discussion that has taken place, during which every Party in the Dáil has denounced all the other Parties with great enthusiasm.

Are they all deserved?

But we have not had any speech from any of the supporters of the Executive Council in defence of the policy of the Executive Council. We have had three speeches from the Ministers, but we have had no speeches from Deputies supporting the Government. Very little attempt was made in the speeches of the Ministers to deal seriously with any criticism levelled against them. In fact, there was rather an exhibition of flippancy and evasion on the part of Ministers. Their whole attitude was one which, I think, was not in the interests of the country. Criticism with regard to their policy was answered by speeches which were more personal than dealing with matters of policy. That is not calculated to inspire confidence in that large Party which is not in this Dáil, that if they do come in their criticism of the Government will be treated seriously and not in a flippant or personal manner. We have been asked by Ministers about an alternative policy. It is legitimate to ask for a policy, but I think Ministers are flattering themselves by using the word "alternative." Alternative to what? What is their policy? I did hope that during this discussion Ministers would have stated their policy, but that hope was doomed. I suppose we shall have to wait indefinitely for such a statement. Some definite suggestions were put forward here with regard to the conduct of the Department of Finance—suggestions which have been described by Deputy Hewat as inevitably leading to bankruptcy. I would like briefly to recall to Deputy Hewat the suggestions which, in his opinion, are to lead to bankruptcy. These are the definite suggestions; that the finances of the country be put into the hands of financial experts and not permanent civil servants of the old regime; that the Estimates be simplified so that people could understand them; that the Budget be divided clearly into what is normal recurrent expenditure and what is extraordinary expenditure; that a Committee, such as the Geddes Committee, be set up to cut down the cost of the administration, and, at the same time to consider ways of escape from the evil effects of Article 10 of the Treaty; finally, as a result of these measures, to have a definite reduction in taxation. These were the proposals that Deputy Hewat has decided will inevitably bring about bankruptcy in the country.

As a matter of explanation, might I remind the Deputy that he did not keep his Party to the programme?

I do not know to what statement Deputy Hewat refers as being contrary to that programme. Ministers have asked for an alternative programme. It is in their own hands to have their curiosity satisfied in that respect. They can learn what the policy is very soon if only Ministers and their Party are willing to do their duty and are willing to move for the writs for the constituencies that are vacant. The main objection we have—and I must say it has been agreed to by the Deputies who criticised the Government—is their complete lack of coherence, lack of a definite policy of any kind either in finance, economics or in military matters. I have not time to deal with the various small points that were raised by Deputies, and with misquotations, particularly those of Deputy Gorey, who, if there was a championship for misquotations at the Olympic Games would win us one trophy in that event. We have been criticised very severely by Deputies Corish, Hogan and Baxter because of sins when we were in the Government Party. A somewhat similar accusation was made by, I think, the President or Vice-President, that we had only within the last four months discovered that their policy was wrong, particularly their financial policy, and that up to that time we had found nothing wrong with it. I admit that these criticisms are somewhat justified from the point of view of members of the Farmers' Party and the Labour Party, but they are not justified from members of the Executive Council who attended meetings of the Government Party and who know that during the last year many members tried to persuade the Government to have a more forward and a more definite policy. I do not think it is necessary to go into a large number of points that were raised. Deputy Mulcahy stated his position very clearly, and I agree with it entirely except for his personal opinion of the capacity of Members of the National Group.

I spoke of their work. I know nothing of their capacity. I did not get a chance of seeing it.

In spite of the fact that many Deputies intend to vote against this amendment, there has been a very general expression of opinion, except from the Government benches, as to the incoherence and lack of policy on the part of the Executive Council, which this debate unfortunately has done very little to improve.

Amendment put.
The Committee divided: Tá, 18; Níl, 50.

Tá.

  • Seán Buitléir.
  • Osmond Grattan Esmonde.
  • Henry J. Finlay.
  • David Hall.
  • Domhnall Mac Carthaigh.
  • Tomás Mac Eoin.
  • Seán Mac Garaidh.
  • Seán Mac Giolla 'n Ríogh.
  • Seosamh Mag Craith.
  • Tomás de Nógla.
  • Próinsias O Cathail.
  • Tomás O Conaill.
  • Aodh O Cúlacháin.
  • Liam O Daimhín.
  • Risteárd O Maolchatha.
  • Domhnall O Muirgheasa.
  • Tadhg O Murchadha.
  • Pádraig O hOgáin (An Clár).

Níl.

  • Earnán Altún.
  • Pádraig F. Baxter.
  • John J. Cole.
  • Bryan R. Cooper.
  • Louis J. D'Alton.
  • Máighréad Ní Choileáin, Bean
  • Uí Dhrisceóil.
  • Patrick J. Egan.
  • Seán de Faoite.
  • Desmond Fitzgerald.
  • John Good.
  • John Hennigan.
  • William Hewat.
  • Connor Hogan.
  • Seosamh Mac 'a Bhrighde.
  • Liam T. Mac Cosgair.
  • Maolmhuire Mac Eochadha.
  • Patrick McGilligan.
  • Risteárd Mac Liam.
  • Eoin Mac Néill.
  • Seoirse Mac Niocaill.
  • Liam Mac Sioghaird.
  • Liam Mag Aonghusa.
  • Pádraig Mag Ualghairg.
  • Patrick McKenna.
  • James Sproule Myles.
  • Martin M. Nally.
  • Peadar O hAodha.
  • Mícheál O hAonghusa.
  • Ailfrid O Broin.
  • Seán O Bruadair.
  • Richard O'Connell.
  • Partholán O Conchubhair.
  • Eoghan O Dochartaigh.
  • Séamus O Dóláin.
  • Pádraig O Dubhthaigh.
  • Eamon O Dúgáin.
  • Seán O Duinnín.
  • Donchadh O Guaire.
  • Mícheál O hIfearnáin.
  • Seán O Laidhin.
  • Aindriú O Láimhín.
  • Séamus O Leadáin.
  • Fionán O Loingsigh.
  • Pádraig O Máille.
  • Séamus O Murchadha.
  • Pádraig O hOgáin (Gaillimh).
  • Seán O Súilleabháin.
  • Caoimhghin O hUigín.
  • Patrick W. Shaw.
  • Liam Thrift.
Amendment declared lost.

The main question is now before the Committee.

There is a small matter that I want to mention, which may seem a sort of anti-climax after discussing matters of high State policy. I want to raise a matter which may be better raised on this Vote than on any other departmental Vote, although it affects quite a number of departmental Votes. It is in relation to boy messengers. It is the practice to accept boy messengers in the various departments at, I think, fourteen or fifteen years of age and what I want to ask the Ministry to take note of is the fact that in the Postal Telegraph Department provision is made for those boy messengers to have a sort of tuition to prepare them for occupying when they become adult or more adult, positions as sorters, postmen and the like. But with regard to the other departments, so far as I know, no such provision is made, and the messengers are, in effect, in blind alley occupations. I want to propose to the Ministry the desirability of taking into account seriously the position of these boys and to make similar arrangements for them. These arrangements have been made by the Postal Department to give boys opportunities for tuition, improving their education, and generally preparing them for activities in their later life. I ask the Ministry not to give a conclusive answer to that now, as this is a matter of importance to 200 boys in the Ministerial service in one department or another, and in the course of time, when they become adults, they will be at a loose end. I think it is our duty to enable them to prepare for their manhood, and we ought to give them opportunities for preparing for later life. I ask the Ministry to take that matter into account seriously and to depute somebody to arrange a scheme to allow these boys to have proper training.

This is a matter which I am not in a position to say has been considered by the Minister for Finance, but I think the Deputy's suggestion is a reasonable one, and I will bring it under the notice of the Minister when he returns.

Vote put.
The Committee divided: Tá, 52; Níl, 7.

Tá.

  • Earnán Altún.
  • Pádraig F. Baxter.
  • Seán Buitléir.
  • John J. Cole.
  • Louis J. D'Alton.
  • Máighréad Ní Choileáin, Bean
  • Uí Dhrisceóil.
  • Patrick J. Egan.
  • Seán de Faoite.
  • Desmond Fitzgerald.
  • John Good.
  • David Hall.
  • John Hennigan.
  • Connor Hogan.
  • Seosamh Mac 'a Bhrighde.
  • Liam T. Mac Cosgair.
  • Maolmhuire Mac Eochadha.
  • Tomás Mac Eoin.
  • Patrick McGilligan.
  • Risteárd Mac Liam.
  • Eoin Mac Néill.
  • Seoirse Mac Niocaill.
  • Liam Mac Sioghaird.
  • Liam Mag Aonghusa.
  • Pádraig Mag Ualghairg.
  • James Sproule Myles.
  • Martin M. Nally.
  • Tomás de Nógla.
  • Peadar O hAodha.
  • Mícheál O hAonghusa.
  • Ailfrid O Broin.
  • Seán O Bruadair.
  • Tomás O Conaill.
  • Richard O'Connell.
  • Partholán O Conchubhair.
  • Aodh O Cúlacháin.
  • Liam O Daimhín.
  • Eoghan O Dochartaigh.
  • Séamus O Dóláin.
  • Pádraig O Dubhthaigh.
  • Eamon O Dúgáin.
  • Seán O Duinnín.
  • Donchadh O Guaire.
  • Mícheál O hIfearnáin.
  • Aindriú O Láimhín.
  • Séamus O Leadáin.
  • Fionán O Loingsigh.
  • Domhnall O Muirgheasa.
  • Tadhg O Murchadha.
  • Seán M. O Súilleabháin.
  • Liam Thrift.
  • Séamus O Murchadha.
  • Pádraig O hOgáin (Gaillimh).

Níl.

  • Osmond Grattan Esmonde.
  • Henry J. Finlay.
  • Domhnall Mac Carthaigh.
  • Seán Mac Garaidh.
  • Seán Mac Giolla 'n Ríogh.
  • Seosamh Mag Craith.
  • Próinsias O Cathail.
Motion declared carried.

Is it right for one Deputy to remain inside and not to vote?

If the Deputy is in his place he should have voted. I did not notice him.

There is a Deputy in his place who did not vote.

A DEPUTY

Name?

Deputy O'Connor did not answer when his name was called.

I did not think that Deputy O'Connor was in his seat.

I did not hear my name called. I vote "Tá."

It is now half-past six, and I move to report progress.

Barr
Roinn