Dáil Éireann díospóireacht -
Wednesday, 21 Mar 1934

Vol. 51 No. 10

In Committee on Finance. - Defence Forces (Temporary Provisions) Bill, 1934—From the Seanad.

Minister for Defence (Mr. Aiken)

I move that the Dáil concur with the Seanad in amendment No. 1:—

Section 1. The figures and words "31st day of March, 1935" deleted in line 19 and the figures and words "31st day of July, 1934" substituted therefor.

This is an amendment which the Seanad insisted on inserting last night, limiting the operation of the Bill to the period ending the 31st day of July, instead of the usual 12 monthly period. In my opinion, this action on the part of the Seanad is part of the obstructive tactics which have been used by elements here and in England to obstruct and sabotage the efforts of this Government to maintain and defend the rights of the people. I have no doubt, however, that the decent young men of the country will give the Seanad an answer by joining up in their thousands in the next couple of months the Volunteer section of the Army. The young men of the country will show the Seanad and Senator Blythe that no private army will be allowed with impunity to seize power here, even with the support and assistance of the British and their other old allies.

Mr. Dillon

Is it in order for a Minister of the State to make an attack upon Seanad Eireann in this House?

An Ceann Comhairle

It certainly is not usual to discuss in the Dáil the Seanad or the debates of the Seanad.

Mr. McGilligan

It is disorderly, in fact.

Mr. Fitzgerald

Personally I would expect that when the Minister is moving to accept the amendment made in the Seanad that he would do it in a different way from that in which the Minister did it. As often happens with people of slow mentality and with stupid people, the Minister can only vent himself in very futile spleen. The "elements here and in England trying to sabotage and obstruct"! What are the facts? The Government wanted, out of the public purse, to put money into the pockets of certain friends of theirs. Instead of doing it decently, by giving them pensions, they proceed to bring into the Army these people—people obviously unsuitable for the work they are doing. Whether they are suitable for any work I do not know, but——

An Ceann Comhairle

When an amendment from the Seanad is being discussed nothing but the amendment is in order, and what the Deputy is now discussing does not arise.

Mr. Fitzgerald

That is what I wanted to speak about, but the Minister in a scurrilous way—not to put it any stronger—is trying to suggest, as his mind can only move on these lines, that this amendment is sabotage and an obstruction of the work of the Government, and that people here and other people in England are engaged in that obstruction and sabotage. The Minister and his colleagues talk about the rights of the people and talk about forgetting the past and working for unity. But he is the sort of man who thinks it is right that anybody who does not agree in conniving at the acts of the Government should be denounced as an ex-Britisher who is sabotaging and obstructing the work of the State. That is the sort of thing we would expect from the type that the Minister is. The truth is that there was an attempt made to bring back people from the ends of the earth and to give the money out of the public purse for work for which they are unfitted——

Mr. Lemass

Is this in order?

An Ceann Comhairle

It does not arise on the question of the amendment. We are on the question of a change of date.

Mr. Fitzgerald

What I understand is, that the Seanad is not objecting to renewal of the Defence Forces Act, but seeks to prevent the Government from doing a wrong act. The Seanad objects to being put into the position of conniving with the Minister in bringing people into the Army nominally to take charge of men and to train them while those people are themselves untrained and unfitted to do this work. Instead of conniving at that, the Seanad took the alternative of limiting the Bill to the 31st July, 1934. I do not see that the Seanad had any other option. I hope that within these few short months the Government will have become wise, if not decent, and will recognise that it is clearly necessary and desirable that whomever they intend to put in charge of training the new volunteer force should themselves be trained first.

An Ceann Comhairle

When that Bill was before the House the Deputy had an opportunity of following the line of debate which he is now following. The Deputy should not try to get behind the ruling of the Chair. The references to the officers appointed is not in order in fixing the date or the duration of the continuance of this measure.

Mr. Lemass

He is only trying to throw as much filth as possible.

Mr. Fitzgerald

There is nobody in this House or the other House who is capable of developing as much filth as the Minister's colleagues.

Mr. McGilligan

Let us have decent Irishmen using that phrase, not importations.

Mr. Fitzgerald

As the Minister was able to get away with a dastardly and dirty attack upon certain people which was completely dishonest, and completely contrary to truthfulness, which he never had, we are, merely because we are running counter to his little attempt to pay these men out of the public purse——

An Ceann Comhairle

The Deputy has been twice warned that he must not revert to these matters. I must now ask him to resume his seat.

Mr. Fitzgerald

Very well, Sir.

Mr. Dillon

It is eminently desirable on an occasion of this character to reserve, as far as one can, detachment. Still I do not think the occasion should be allowed pass without drawing the attention of the House and particularly of the Minister's own colleagues to the nature of the speech he has just made. If the speech had come from another man I would have imagined that he had searched his vocabulary for the purpose of extracting from it and using the most offensive and at the same time the most unjustifiable language he was in a position to command. Coming as it does from the Minister for Defence, with his scandalous record in debate in this House, the language he thought fit to employ does not surprise me.

But it is a commentary on the purpose he suggests that he is trying to serve in the Defence Forces (Temporary Provisions) Bill. The purpose which he professes to serve is to bury the past differences, to eliminate bitterness and to provide a common platform upon which men who have parted in the past may meet again. In the service of that purpose he charges by implication the whole Opposition in this country and in this Parliament with being in a conspiracy with certain persons in England for the purpose of sabotaging the Irish Government and preventing them from taking the necessary precautions to maintain the supremacy of the will of the people in this country. From a responsible man such charges would be loathsome. From the Minister for Defence they are merely disgusting and grotesque.

It is interesting also that on this occasion the Minister has chosen to do what has never before been done in this House—that is, to make a scurrilous attack on Seanad Eireann. This House will note and remember that the Minister, who makes that scurrilous attack on Seanad Eireann, is himself at present on trial before the Committee of Procedure and Privileges of Seanad Eireann for what is represented as being a gross outrage on the privileges of that House. The Minister is at present smarting under the rebuke administered to him by the Chairman of that House and by the obligation that has been put upon him by the Cathaoirleach and members of that House to appear before the Committee of Procedure and Privileges to explain his dictatorial and tyrannical attitude.

An Ceann Comhairle

That might well be left to the Committee of Procedure and Privileges.

Mr. Dillon

Under normal circumstances, I would not refer to the matter, but a disgusting attack has been made on Seanad Eireann by the Minister, and it is right, I think, that the secondary motives for that attack should be exposed. This Minister is under censure and is at present feebly trying to justify the attitude adopted by him with reference to the servants of yourself and the Cathaoirleach of Seanad Eireann.

Mr. Derrig

May I ask if this point that Deputy Dillon is raising is in order?

An Ceann Comhairle

The control of the joint Oireachtas staff is ultimately vested in the Cathaoirleach of the Seanad and the Ceann Comhairle. The question at present before the one Committee of Procedure and Privileges should not be debated.

Mr. Dillon

I am submitting that part of the splenetic attitude adopted by the Minister was due to the fact that he is at present appearing before the Committee of Procedure and Privileges of Seanad Eireann, that he has been rebuked by the Cathaoirleach and I am submitting that as a secondary reason for the speech made by the Minister. The speech made by this man is deplorable to the last degree. I can only hope, though I cannot believe, that it does not display the real spirit which inspires the Minister in the whole matter connected with the raising of the new force. He will find it difficult to convince the people of this country after they have read the speech he made here to-day that we were not right when we stated, as we now state again, that the purpose in the Minister's mind when he founded that volunteer force——

An Ceann Comhairle

The purpose of the Minister in founding the volunteer force is not relevant.

Mr. Dillon

Our representations in connection with that need not then be further referred to. I think it right, however, to comment on this, that a restriction has been placed on the powers under which the Minister proposes to act with a view to creating this force. He has three months, under the amendment which we are called upon to accept here to-day, to do a certain job and that job is to bring together men who were parted in the past. I think when he is engaged on that task he should remember the men who were so deplorably parted and who we all hope, despite the Minister's attitude, may forget the bitterness that divided them in the past, are not boys of 18 to 23. The men who were unhappily divided in the civil war are now men of 28 to 35. If he wants to provide a platform for them, if he wants to go back on the attitude which he showed here to-day, he would do well to concentrate his attention on that stratum of our population and not on the younger members of the population to whom the use of arms will be a novelty. I deplore most strongly the terms in which the Minister spoke here to-day and I trust that the attack which he made upon another House of this Oireachtas will constitute no precedent for any Minister on those benches opposite or any member of this Opposition.

Amendment agreed to.

Message to be sent to the Seanad accordingly.