I bring this matter before the House mainly on the grounds that Deputy Sean Lemass did last week, when he had occasion to charge the Government and the Press of this country with a conspiracy of silence in regard to what he described as the gang of terrorists who at present are trying to provoke disorder in the country, and with Deputy Lemass, I deliberately accuse the Government of utilising the machinery which the majority of the Dáil has placed in their hands to provoke shooting, bloodshed and disorder in the country for their own ends, because they believe that by doing so they will be able to stampede a section of the people into giving them the support which they will not now accord. In the village of Drimoleague, in West Cork, at present there is a systematic persecution——
Adjournment Debate. - Allegations Against West Cork C.I.D.
On a point of order. I think we are discussing one question only on the adjournment.
I did not hear what the Minister said.
I ask the Ceann Comhairle to rule that the Deputy's speech must be confined to the subject matter of his Question to-day.
The subject matter of my question is contained in the phrase which I have just used—"a systematic system of persecution in the village of Drimoleague"—and the Minister's eyewash is not going to get away from that.
The Deputy must deal with the matter referred to in his Question to-day, and not with the general question.
Yes, I am going to deal with the general question.
The Deputy is confined to the matter contained in his Question.
Right. Well, in the Question I addressed to the Minister to-day I asked him whether his Department was aware of the situation in that village in West Cork, and whether he sanctioned the methods adopted by the Detective Division, and in his reply he stated "a detective officer calling himself McGuinness, and professing to be attached to the body which styles itself the I.R.A., visited the house of one Andrew O'Donovan, on two occasions." It is necessary, in order that the House may understand the position, to state that the three figures who occupy a prominent place in this story are Andrew O'Donovan, a member of the Cork County Council in the Fianna Fáil interest——
Not in the ratepayers' interest?
—Chairman of the Fianna Fáil Cumann and holding executive office in the West Cork Executive, one of the largest ratepayers and most respected citizens in the district; Denis Keohane, Secretary of the Fianna Fáil Cumann and an employee of Mr. O'Donovan, and Daniel O'Driscoll, a respectable farmer in that district and also a member of the Fianna Fáil organisation in Drimoleague. On Thursday, March 28, this man, professing to be Sean McGuinness, but really Detective Lavin, stationed at Bandon, walked into Mr. O'Donovan's publichouse at Drimoleague and called for a drink. Mrs. O'Donovan served him. She was asked if her husband was at home and was told that this gentleman wanted to see him in private on important business. He was shown into the kitchen and there introduced to Mr. Andrew O'Donovan, to whom he gave a letter in which it was stated that the bearer was Sean McGuinness, ex-T.D., organiser-in-chief for Munster for the Irish Republican Army, and asking that every possible facility should be given to him in the pursuit of his work. O'Donovan at once became suspicious, being a member of a constitutional organisation, and decided that there was something fishy about this man presenting a letter of introduction to him in this manner. He stated that he knew nothing whatsoever about this organising campaign of the Irish Republican Army, and he called in his workman, Denis Keohane, and a friend, Daniel O'Driscoll, who discussed the matter with this wonderful Solomon sent out by detective headquarters in Bandon to discover dumps.
The point I want to get at is whether the Minister and his Department approve of an agent provocateur of this type going round the country questioning respectable citizens and asking them whether they approve of such and such a thing, leading them to reply in such a manner, if they were foolish enough to do so, as would afterwards enable him to secure a conviction and to regard himself as a great detective. In this instance he was very much mistaken, although the Minister seems to assume that all the integrity and ability is on the side of the detective division, because it so happened that Denis Keohane knew the real Sean McGuinness and was not taken in, as the Minister assumed in his reply to-day. Amongst the questions they were asked were the following:— What Party are you supporting now? What have you got to say about the Civic Guards? Any chance of forming a local I.R.A. unit here? Would you not try to start one yourselves? Would you be prepared to take over a consignment of guns which I have got from headquarters and which are waiting for you in Cork? He tried this game, and, having failed, he came out with the best bluff of all. He said that Mr. O'Donovan would understand that on Easter Monday always throughout Ireland the proclamation of the Republic was signalised by a stunt, and that he had instructions from headquarters that the local company he was asked to form in Drimoleague should be asked to carry out some stunt, such as shooting somebody in Drimoleague. Not getting away with that either, he decided that other tactics would have to be adopted; he asked Mr. O'Donovan whether he knew Sean Buckley, of Bandon, and said that if he did all letters addressed to him in care of Sean Buckley would be received safely, and any information contained therein would be sent to the proper quarter. He wound up by asking them if they had any arms, and if they would be prepared to let him know where the dumps were, because, acting on behalf of headquarters, he wanted to go round and inspect them and see if all the guns were well oiled or not. He did not succeed in that either, and finally he departed. That was Act I. of the Drama.
He returned on Saturday night, March 30th, and asked Mr. O'Donovan to put him up for the night, as he wanted a safe place and was afraid that Kingston's Hotel, where he was staying, would be raided. He was informed that there was no room, and after some further conversation again left, promising to return. Act II. On Easter Monday at 10 a.m., accompanied by five others in plain clothes, Lavin returned, and the party proceeded to search the house, and I hope that the Minister will give some indication, since he stated at the end of his reply to my question that the search was conducted under the Firearms Act, 1925, as to whether the warrant contained permission to carry out the following activities— tearing up floors, breaking partitions and damaging the ceilings. Asked for their warrant, they produced it, and said they were looking for arms. They asked Mr. O'Donovan if he was the man whom McGuinness interviewed a short time before that, and they said they would give him a belly full of fight if he wanted it, using filthy language all the time. Those in the party included Detectives Burke and Reynolds of Macroom, and Kenny, stationed at Bandon. Finding no arms and being disgusted because of the inability of their Solomon to discover anything of that nature, they stated that they were going to search the house for poteen, and having done so, departed to raid O'Driscoll's house, where they acted in a like manner and did damage, including the breaking of a window, tearing wall-paper, breaking of floor, raising all the stones from the footpath leading to the hall, and using vile language in the presence of the womenfolk of the house, as in the other case.
Now we come to Act III. On Thursday, April 4th, they returned and found that Mr. O'Donovan and his wife had gone to Cork. They ransacked the house again in the same manner, and discovered this time, through the brilliancy of friend Solomon again, I suppose, a boy named O'Brien, who was working for Mr. O'Donovan. He was taken into the backyard where they threatened to shoot him unless he told them where the guns were. Evidently Solomon, who the Minister stated had got valuable information, did not find out where they were. O'Brien replied that he knew nothing about guns, and was only earning his hire from Mr. O'Donovan. They asked him if he would like to find himself out on a mountain some night with three holes in his back—third degree methods. They pushed him about and abused him, using filthy language in the presence of the barmaid and the children of the house, and they left again. Soon after that they proceeded to O'Donovan's Creamery at Leitra, where, without asking for the keys or for permission to enter, they burst open a window, went inside, did some slight damage in the course of the raid that followed, and remained there for some time.
Act IV. On the following Saturday, April 6th, four of them returned again and visited the creamery, taking out the manager, Denis Keohane, and putting several questions to him. He is the secretary of the local Cumann of Fianna Fáil. They ordered him to undress to be searched, and not giving him time to do so, they started to pull and push him about, and tore his vest, muttering threats that he would be shot. They brought him into a back house where they told him that he and O'Donovan were marked men, after which they went to the national school at Castledonovan, evidently not in search of a dump of arms this time, but of the knowledge which some of them lack very much. The teacher was in Cork, visiting a sick brother, and here again they broke through a window and searched the school, tearing up the floor in the process. It is a pity that the Minister for Education is not here, so that he could inquire into that portion of the business.
Act V: Last night, April 16th, four C.I.D. men, including this Solomon, again raided and searched the house of Mr. O'Donovan, but did not appear to get very much satisfaction, so they decided it would be much better if they extended their operations a little bit and they searched the house of a very respected supporter of Cumann na nGaedheal in the district, and also a few other houses, but without result, in spite of this wonderful information that the Minister says was given to them by Mr. O'Donovan in the course of cross-examination. They went a bit further, however. They went to the house of a man named Daly, where a little boy named O'Driscoll, who happens to be a close friend of Mr. O'Donovan was working. They brought O'Driscoll to the barracks, put out the lights, shoved a gun into his ribs, asked him what he was going to do about it, and threatened that he would not get home again unless he told them what Mr. O'Donovan told him he had to do with dumps. They did not seem to be very satisfied with that either, in spite of this knowledge. Apparently they thought that Mr. O'Donovan had succeeded in concealing this wonderful dump, which they, according to the Minister, had discovered, in the Catholic Church, and they proceeded to raid the Catholic Church at Caheragh in the presence of the P.P., but found nothing, and he invited them to search all the rest of the place so as to allay their fears. The Minister stated in the course of his reply that Mr. O'Donovan divulged all the plans of the organisation, the names of the members and the quantity of firearms and ammunition at their disposal.
Correct.
If Mr. O'Donovan was so cognisant of everything connected with the I.R.A. as to be able to divulge all their plans and the amount of arms and ammunition in their possession, why has not the Minister taken action? The Minister stated in his reply that the raid was productive of a great deal of most valuable information. We want to know what that valuable information is—I think the House is entitled to know it. If the Minister seeks to justify the continued persecution of a man who has consistently supported this organisation, and whom the Government realise as a formidable keyman opponent in the district of Drimoleague, to justify this system of trying to organise trouble and upset social order, and, in a word, to create a situation in which the Government can carry out a coup d'état similar to that which they carried out on June 28th, 1922, and thinks that sort of thing can be got away with by making a statement to the effect that this Solomon of his discovered such a mine of information that the Government are now in a position to preserve order and all that sort of thing, then I think he is making a mistake, and the sooner he realises it the better.
Deputy Lemass charged him the other day with deliberately trying to create disorder. I charge him emphatically and deliberately with the persecution of three respectable citizens of Drimoleague, who have been members of this organisation since its inception, who have no connection with the I.R.A. at present, and who, if the Minister continues this system of persecution, will be in the most uncomfortable position imaginable, and will probably have to do what he hopes they will do—emigrate. I ask the Minister if he can stand up here and coolly and calmly state that that is the sort of detective force that is going to preserve law and order in this country. I ask him if he can stand up and justify sending men around to create trouble after all we have been told here since we came into the Dáil— that the Government were the wonderful people who had restored law and order, and that this detective force were the people who were preserving peace. There is no crime in that district, no reason why an agent-provocateur should be sent round to encourage disorder. Remember, it might very well happen that had these people been a little more inclined to be vicious when they discovered who the detective was, they would have given him his just deserts in the form of a good beating, which is what he certainly deserves. It might very well happen, seeing that he thinks he bluffed them, that they could really "call his bluff." I ask the Minister if he thinks that is a good state of affairs to preserve in this country, and to remember that it cannot last for ever. Something is bound to happen; some crash is bound to come if this continues, because no man is going to let himself down day after day, not knowing the time when this "bunch" are going to come and raid his house, destroy his trade probably, and circulate lying stories about him—no man is going to stand that for long. When that persecution extends to a number of men, the Minister, as Deputy Lemass told him, must expect that some retaliatory action will be taken. I know that these men have sense enough not to be taken in by that bluff. The Minister should realise that the time is gone in this Twenty-Six-County State when that bluff will work. It is not going to work in this case.
One thing I would like to know before I conclude, is this: Whether this man who is acting as Seán McGuinness, whose operations extended on Sunday night last to the town of Macroom, where he interviewed Deputy Dan Corkery's assistant in his business—I would like to know if this Detective Lavin happened to go into a house where there was a Republican who knew Seán McGuinness, and if Detective Lavin proceeded to put a series of similar questions to this man, and if he received as good a beating as some of the so-called Detective Force gave to some of the Republican prisoners when they had them under their control, what action would the Minister take? Would we not have big scare headings in the newspapers and tremendous shouting in this Dáil? But because he is a Republican—one of the minority that will soon be a majority, please God—and because he is not in the position to take effective action, the Minister thinks he can justify it by bluff. There is only one thing that I have to say, and that is that there is a feeling growing up amongst very many young men in this country—and I suppose the Minister desires to propagate that feeling—nevertheless, it is a fact there is a feeling growing up that this Dáil will have no control over when it bursts into flame, and this was exemplified in the words of a young man whom I met in the course of a week-end, and who said: "We protected our people against the ‘Tans,' and we will protect them against these people if something is not done to stop them." I hope the Minister will put up a better case in trying to justify this unprecedented occurrence than he put up in his reply to-day. I ask him for once in his life not to try to whitewash these people and to give the true facts of the situation. If he has got this wonderful information I ask him to lay it before the House in the interests of public peace and order.
I wish to ask a few supplementary questions which Deputy Mullins with that spirit which always distinguishes him, tried to prevent being asked by taking up time. I ask Deputy Mullins what is it that he really complains of in this case? Is it that this man entered without uniform into the house of the chairman of the Fianna Fáil Party, going there on behalf of the respectable people of that district? I would like to ask the Minister for Justice is it a fact that going in there this man found from these respectable citizens, whom Deputy Mullins referred to as such, evidence of a murder plot, a contemplated bank robbery and evidence of an existing dump?
That is not so.
Mr. Wolfe
Deputy Mullins tells us they knew who he was. What did the man do who had recognised the detective coming in? In a forgetful moment——
On a point of order may I ask that Deputy Wolfe who knows as much as the detective should give the information?
Order. We will have to hear Deputy Wolfe without interruption of any kind.
Mr. Wolfe
Deputy Mullins does not want me to point out the weakness of his defence. (Interruptions). What did this innocent man do when he walked in and recognised the C.I.D. man? He sends out for the two leaders of the Fianna Fáil Party and brings them both in so that they could be exposed to the insults of this man. He fell into the trap and exposed these three criminal conspiracies and it is up to me, representing as I do the great bulk of the respectable people of this district——
And all the Freemasons.
Mr. Wolfe
It is up to me to ask the Minister if he will give us an undertaking that these people can live without fear of this murder conspiracy, or of bank robberies, or fear of arm dumps. Deputy Mullins is quite right when he says that to all the things opposed to the things I complain of, the chairman of the Fianna Fáil Party is a very formidable opponent.
I would like to ask a supplementary question.
Order! order! I call upon the Minister for Justice.
May I ask——
Cries of "Order!" and interruptions.
One question with regard to the question I asked this afternoon (interruptions).
I intend to hear nobody except the Minister for Justice at this hour. I am afraid I will have to refuse notices to raise matters on the adjournment with the Minister for Justice, because there appears to be a policy of not allowing him to speak in reply.
I have no objection to allowing him to speak.
I want to hear nobody now but the Minister for Justice, and I want to hear no more interruptions.
In collusion with Deputy Wolfe: ("Order, order," and interruptions).
If Deputy Cooney has any conception of fair play or common decency he will allow the Minister to speak in the seven minutes that remain for him. I am prepared to adjourn the House if Deputies do not want to hear the Minister.
rose. (Renewed interruptions.)
Deputies
What they want is an adjournment.
Adjourned.
The House arose at 10.54 p.m. until to-morrow (Thursday) at 3 p.m.