One of the reasons why we object to this Vote is because we have already had an admission from a responsible officer in charge of the Criminal Investigation Department that an unfortunate man who was found murdered in the neighbourhood of Dublin some months ago had been for a considerable time in the pay of the Secret Service. While he was in the pay of the Secret Service he was pretending to be a member of what the Minister and the Minister for Justice and other members of the Executive Council have referred to in this House from time to time as a murder gang, an illegal organisation or society to subvert the State. He was not only a member of that organisation, but he enjoyed a certain prominence and influence in it. I have no doubt that while he was a member of that organisation he was guilty of inciting other members of that organisation to acts for which some of them were afterwards apprehended. The information which has been conveyed to me is that one of the prisoners who were recently on hunger strike was brought to trial and sentenced and imprisoned because of an explosive machine which had been given to him by this unfortunate man.
The Minister for Justice, when this matter was raised in the House, was emphatic and unmeasured in the denunciatory language which he employed in relation to the man who was then on huger strike. He was equally emphatic and unmeasured in his condemnation of the Fianna Fáil Party because they had endorsed a question which had been put in this House in relation to that particular hunger strike, but the association between the Minister for Justice and the Executive Council with these acts of unrest in the country, with these incidents with which from time to time the Executive Council endeavour to terrorise and intimidate the people of this country into continuing to support the present Government and its policy—the association between the Executive Council and this organisation—is very much closer and very much more intimate than the association of Fianna Fáil with that organisation.
It is quite true that we are Republicans as they are, that we are out to achieve the establishment of the independence of this country. We are out to establish that independence under a Republican form of Government, but I do not think that there are any members of the Fianna Fáil organisation who at the same time are members of that association which the Minister and those who are associated with him so bitterly condemn. Certainly no member of the Fianna Fáil organisation is paid out of Fianna Fáil funds to be a member of that organisation. But the Minister and those who are associated with him have paid certain individuals out of public funds to go into that organisation, to incite other members of that organisation to acts of lawlessness for which they are subsequently apprehended, and when the time comes the Minister with a show of virtue and with a pretended zeal for law and order seizes the opportunity of associating us with those acts. I think it is time that the Minister and those associated with him should stop playing the double game in this country. If they are really in earnest in wanting to preserve peace and order in this country they ought not any longer to subvent, as they are doing by means of a Secret Service Vote, people to go into that organisation and to endeavour to stir it up and keep it active.
