Deputy Lemass has given notice that, on the Motion for the Adjournment, he would raise a matter arising out of Question No. 13 on to-day's Order Paper.
QUESTION ON THE ADJOURNMENT. - TREATMENT OF A PRISONER.
The question which I wish to discuss with the Minister for Justice concerns the treatment meted out to Mr. James Donnelly, a prisoner in Mountjoy jail. Last February, Mr. Donnelly was sentenced to nine months' imprisonment on the charge of having escaped from Mountjoy prison in 1925. He is one of the prisoners in Mountjoy to whom, as was admitted by Ministers in a previous debate, the term a political prisoner could be justly applied. There is nothing whatever in the charge on which he was sentenced which would in any way lead anyone to understand that he could be a criminal, or was the type of individual who would enjoy consorting with criminals.
On a point of order, are we discussing the crime that Mr. Donnelly committed or his treatment in prison?
The Deputy is in order.
Mr. Donnelly, on committal, objected to being forced to wear the uniform which is usually associated with criminals, and in consequence was left for a period of nine days during the coldest month of the year without clothes. At the end of that period, he was permitted to wear his own clothes again. I say that the treatment given to James Donnelly, a man who should be known to many of the colleagues of the Minister for Justice and a man who never did a criminal act in his life, was, under the circumstances, of such a kind that no decent man should be proud of it. I am aware that in discussing the conditions in Mountjoy prison we are at a disadvantage, because we have found that we cannot rely upon the information given concerning the conditions there, and which is supplied to us by the Minister. I have no doubt but that the Minister imparts that information to this House in good faith as he receives it from the officials in charge, but it has been definitely proved and definitely established that statements made in this House concerning conditions in Mountjoy prison were untrue.
When?
On the 14th March last, the Minister for Justice, speaking on "Review of Prisoners' Cases—Proposed Select Committee," said:
"Another statement was made by Deputy Ruttledge, and here his language became most extraordinarily strong. He declared that cruelty was being practised upon Gilmore in Mountjoy.
Mr. G. BOLAND: So there was.
Mr. FITZGERALD - KENNEY: That statement is untrue.
Mr. G. BOLAND: So there was.
Mr. FITZGERALD - KENNEY: That statement has no foundation.
Mr. G. BOLAND: Will the Minister allow an independent investigation?
Mr. FITZGERALD - KENNEY: That statement, I say, is without any foundation. Never was there a single act of cruelty on that man at any time since he has been in Mountjoy."
Gilmore has since been released, and I have had the opportunity of talking to him, and he has told me stories of the treatment administered to him that would make a person's blood run cold when listening to them. He told me that on an occasion when his mother made application to visit him an official of the Minister's Department, one Mr. Sheehan, went to Gilmore in Mountjoy——
We are not discussing Gilmore. I am perfectly ready on any occasion to stand over anything I said with reference to Gilmore, but I respectfully submit we are not discussing him now.
You challenged Deputy Lemass to repeat the words he said on that occasion.
What Deputy Lemass said was that what he said was definitely proved, and he simply makes that assertion on the authority of Gilmore.
Deputy Lemass cannot now discuss the treatment meted out to Gilmore.
Any time the Deputy wishes to raise the Gilmore case, I am ready to deal with it.
I am discussing the reliability of the reports concerning Mountjoy Prison given in this House. I did say the Minister probably was giving these reports in the Dáil on the strength of statements given to him by Mr. Sheehan, who, I understand, has replaced the Prisons Board. Mr. Sheehan informed Gilmore he would allow him to see his mother on the condition that he would not tell her of the treatment he had received. That is one of the statements made by Gilmore, and if the Minister thinks these statements are untrue or inaccurate he can investigate the facts. The Minister said last week that allegations as to the ill-treatment of certain women prisoners were untrue. One of these prisoners has been taken out of prison and put into hospital, and if the Minister thinks the charge of ill-treatment is untrue he can go to Mercer's Hospital and see the marks of bruises on her.
Will the Deputy deal with the case of Donnelly?
We have had proof that not merely in the case of Donnelly, but particularly in his case, ill-treatment has been administered to political prisoners in Mountjoy. I am sure Deputies will have noticed the considerable anxiety aroused in England in connection with the inquiry into certain action that had been taken by the police.
Again I must, on a point of order, object to the Deputy travelling outside the particular question which he has raised.
The Deputy is quite relevant so far.
I would like to draw the attention of Deputies to a particular case in England where on a statement made, I think, by a couple of individuals, an inquiry was held into the conduct of certain police officials, an inquiry which was given every publicity and has aroused considerable interest.
I think the Deputy should confine himself to the question of Donnelly's treatment.
I am referring to that case in order to show that things have happened here, and particularly to the individual in question, Donnelly, of a much more serious nature than the things concerned in that English inquiry. There is no suggestion here that the matter should be investigated with a view to altering it. We merely have a sort of bland denial of all charges by the Minister. I have no doubt the Minister is acting in good faith, but I would ask him as a man has he satisfied himself that the information supplied to him by his officials is correct. The system which exists in this country of treating political prisoners as criminals is one which we have inherited from the British. I think that is nothing for a supposedly Irish Government to be proud of. With the exception of England this is the only country in the world in which such a system exists. A man like Donnelly, convicted admittedly on a charge that was political— and it was admitted by the Minister for Industry and Commerce when he was speaking here on the prisoners debate that Donnelly was a political prisoner—should not be asked to declare himself a criminal and should not be subject to the same treatment in prison as a common criminal. He should, I think, be given preferential treatment.
The policy of the Government may be such that persons who do certain things or hold certain views should be detained, and cut off from association with their fellows. Well and good. Is it also the policy of the Government that there should be not merely imprisonment, but that there should also be an attempt at degradation, merely because people who are not criminals hold certain political views and take action which they think these views force on them? I would like if the Minister would state if there is any intention on the part of the Government to consider an alteration of the present regulations so as to provide for special treatment for political prisoners. We do not, of course, agree with the laws under which these prisoners are sentenced. We do not think the crimes, as they are called, with which they are charged are in fact anything of which anybody need be ashamed.
Such as murder and perjury.
No. I do not include murder and perjury. I think the Minister's colleagues know more about murder and perjury than anyone on these Benches.
A great deal more. The Minister is left to hold the fort by himself.
It does not trouble me in the least. I can do it with the utmost ease.
The Minister has, I think, a different mentality to his colleagues, and he will be able to see the justice of the case which can be made out for specialised treatment of political prisoners. I think I am correct in saying he has it in his power without any legislation to provide by order for that special treatment. If so, is he prepared to prevent a repetition of the scenes that have occurred in Mountjoy—these beatings and ill-treatment—and remove the objection to giving these prisoners a criminal status? If he is prepared to issue such an order or make such a regulation he would be doing something which would result in considerable improvement on the present system. The case of James Donnelly brings this matter up particularly. He has been subject to considerable ill-treatment, being left naked for nine days because he refused to accept that criminal status, although he was admittedly a political prisoner charged with the offence of escaping from jail three years ago. If in his case specialised treatment is not possible, then we must take it the Government has accepted the traditions of Dublin Castle which were designed not merely to punish political prisoners but to degrade them in the eyes of their fellows.
I support Deputy Lemass in asking the Minister not to accept the word of some of his officials. If the Minister is sincere in the answers he has given to this House, and I believe he is, he has evidently been misled, for I myself saw the marks yesterday evening—and the Minister himself might also see, or send a doctor to see, her— on Mrs. MacDermott who was released from Mountjoy last Sunday. As we all know, the Minister told us here last week that no physical violence was used on this woman, but these black marks are to be seen on her arms and legs.
Deputy Lemass has been, as he always is, very forcible and rhetorical. I do not intend to follow him through three-quarters of his speech, most of which would have been relevant in a debate on the Estimates for the Prisons Board.
You will hear it all again.
I am sure I will.
And again.
I am sure that I will hear it all again, and, since I am quite certain to hear it again, I am not going to waste the time of the House and my own time in dealing with it now. I am going to keep myself strictly relevant to the question at issue—that is, to what happened to James Donnelly. Deputy Dr. Ryan said that he did not wish to waste the time in which I would have to speak, but the time which I will take up in speaking will be only three or four minutes. James Donnelly was sentenced and brought into prison on the 10th February, 1928. He put on prison clothes for one day and made an application, which was not acceded to since he put it on certain grounds, that he might be allowed to wear his own clothes. He refused to wear prison clothes in the meantime and went to bed. He was not naked. He was covered by bed clothes, and even in the month of February one can be quite warm in bed. He subsequently made application on the 16th February that he might be allowed to wear his own clothes, and he, like every other prisoner who makes application to the Prisons Board on proper grounds and shows that it is not necessary for the purposes of health or cleanliness to wear prison clothes, was allowed at the discretion of the Board to wear his own clothes. As soon as he made application, on the 16th February, it was granted.
Was that a second application?
I may say that he was in exactly the same position as other prisoners who are allowed to wear their own clothes in prison. I must say that I am a little surprised that Deputy Lemass has allowed a long time to elapse from the cold days of February to the warm days of June before bringing this matter before this House and dissertating upon the evils which James Donnelly is supposed to have suffered. James Donnelly, however, when he found himself unhappily situated went to bed. May I make the suggestion that Deputy Lemass should now do the same?
On a point of order, I would like the Minister to say whether James Donnelly had a bed to go into, or whether he had to lie on boards.
That is not a point of order.
Was the Minister ever in jail in February?
The Minister stated that James Donnelly made application for leave to wear his own clothes on the day after he entered prison, and that that application was refused. What were the reasons for the refusal of that application, and how was it that the application was granted on the second occasion?
Because in the second application he complied with the necessary regulations of the Prisons Board.
The Dáil adjourned at 10.50 p.m. until 3 p.m. Thursday, 14th June.