This Vote was under consideration on the 27th April, when progress was reported. There are really two points of view in connection with the administration of justice or the preservation of order in the country. One is a very considerable police force, capable, efficient, mobile, and well adapted to police purposes, and the other is general co-operation on the part of the citizens of the State with a view to the preservation of order and good feeling and the acceptance of the obligations as well as the duties of citizens. Judging this particular service from a superficial examination, or making even a close examination, one is inclined to come to the conclusion that the Ministerial view with regard to a police force is that it must be large, that it ought to be efficient, that it must be called upon to do duty, that it is bound to be placed in difficult positions and that the major work which it is expected to perform is as the result of the announcements, pronouncements, statements or speeches of Ministers. That is unfortunate. For the last two years, if there was anything in the nature of provocative language in this State, it was the language used by Ministers of the State. What their purpose was is an important matter. If they were unaware of the danger that they were plunging the country into; if they merely had politics in their minds and did not advert to the construction that hotheaded young people might put upon their statements—if that be the case, the sooner they mend their hand with regard to it the better.
The Minister has at least this advantage over his colleagues in the Executive Council, that he belongs to an honourable profession. He has had experience in the courts. He has had, perhaps, a greater contact, by reason of that profession, with the police than have had the other members of the Executive Council. He has some experience of courts and he ought to be in a position to tell his colleagues on the Executive Council where and how they make mistakes, how they abuse their positions if they make these provocative speeches, and if they occasion greater strain being placed upon the Gárda Síochána than he, as Minister, or any other Minister, could possibly be expected to make the force equal to.
Reference has been made here during the last two years to attempts to interfere with the right of public speech. I do not know that I have ever heard, or read, of the Minister addressing himself to that subject. I do not know what is the Executive Council's attitude as regards the freedom of expression of opinion. If we are to analyse their attitude on the matter from what transpired here yesterday—the statement made by one of the Ministers—I would say they were not in favour of the free expression of public opinion, or else they had a bias as regards religion. According to one Minister yesterday evening, a particular Party in this House has always voted one way and that was one of his reasons for wiping them out of existence.
On at least four occasions in two years there was interference with the right of public speech, the freedom of public meeting. Examining that and tracing it back to its source, it is plain to me that Ministers have not taken up a very emphatic attitude in favour of freedom of speech. I am afraid I cannot exculpate the Minister for Justice in that respect, because he is reported to have given expression to some sentence such as this: "Get the accursed crowd out of our way." That may be all right at times when Ministers are heated, excited or hysterical, but it does not do when you are responsible for the administration of a huge organisation such as the Gárda Síochána. Take the man amongst the members of the Executive Council who ought to have a little sense, the President. He stood up and said that he could not make men or causes popular. Just imagine such a statement coming from the President of the Executive Council. He was not asked to do it. Nobody expected him to do it. What we would expect him to have is some little common-sense. We want no encomiums from that source or from any Minister, but we do expect to get from the Ministers such statements as will not provoke disorder. Two years' experience of their pronouncements satisfy us that they are not as much concerned as they should be with public order in the State.
With regard to the Gárda Síochána, Vote, some £60,000 or £70,000 are added on this year. If we are to accept the President's statement, made a short time ago, there was never more peace in this country than at present. Is that as a result of the increase in the Gárda Síochána Vote? If it is, apparently we are going to keep peace and order here with the baton. The people are orderly and they do not want disorder. The change made some fifteen months ago must have had its effect amongst the members of the Gárda Síochána. I am told it is considered almost an offence now if any member of the Guards salutes the ex-Commissioner. If that sort of policy is to be carried out, what will its effects in the future be? What effect will it have on the morale and discipline of the force? If it is going to be regarded as a sort of offence for a Guard to salute the man who at one time occupied the position of Commissioner, will it add to the better discipline of the force? Will it tend towards good feeling amongst members of the force? Will it help towards encouraging the spirit that should operate in an organisation of that sort? I do not expect the Minister would put up a case that if a Commissioner be removed from office, from that day forth his name is to be anathema to the whole force of the Gárda Síochána.
If we come along then to examine how this extra sum of money has been spent, we find that in one case in Dublin Commandant Cronin was charged with having uttered a seditious statement calculated to bring the Gárda Síochána into contempt. He said that they had planted or placed some ammunition in his office. He was tried for that and was acquitted on the charge. I think the Minister ought to tell the House if the authorities have taken any cognisance of that event, if there has been any inquiry into the conduct of the Gárda responsible for discovering that ammunition, and with what result. Deputy Mulcahy the other night read about an attack that was attempted on a Mr. Murray of Cork, who was being guarded by two of the newly recruited members of the Gárda Síochána. On a previous occasion Mr. Murray's house was fired at, although he was supplied with a guard, and I believe they also were two of the newly recruited members of the Gárda. There was another case in which a member of this newly recruited force was in court and was described by one of the counsel as being "a two-gun man." I do not know whether the man concerned has a licence in respect of those two pieces of artillery or not, but if he has not the Minister cannot expect other people to have respect for the law if the officers of the law themselves do not respect it.
Quite recently—I think about ten days ago—a large number of farmers attended a sale, or a supposed sale, that was to take place in the town of Naas. From all the information that I have been able to gather about that particular congregation of farmers there was no disorder. There was no attempt at disorder, but without a moment's notice, or without any warning, a baton charge took place by the police. I do not know whether or not the Minister has inquired into that. From the answer he gave to a statement here to-day it would appear as if he had made some inquiry into it. The decision of an officer of the Garda Síochána to order a baton charge is a very serious decision. He should not resort to those methods of keeping order except in the last resort. Even when the British were here, I think that before there was a baton charge it was necessary to summon a justice of the peace or a magistrate, who had to read out the Riot Act, and people had to get notice. It is rumoured through the County Kildare now that the Commissioner's own brother-in-law was assaulted on that occasion.
Now, I will come to an incident that I described in the House before. I need not go over the same ground again, but there was a sequel to the statement I made on that occasion. If the Minister did not hear it or if he did not know of it I shall repeat it for him, but I suppose he both heard of it and knows it. It is in connection with Parnell Square, but, as I already spoke on it, I take it that I need not go over the information that I laid before the Dáil on that occasion. Some three or four days after I had made that statement I was informed that an inspector of the Guards wished to see me. I was engaged on that day and had the Guard informed to that effect. On the following Tuesday the cards of a superintendent and an inspector of the police were brought to me out where I live in the country. They introduced themselves, one as a superintendent and the other as an inspector, and said—I think it was the superintendent—that they called on me in connection with the incidents which had taken place on some date in February—the 10th or 11th of February or whatever date it was—and in connection with what was said in the Dáil on that occasion, and that they wished to ask me some questions about it. I inquired if they knew all about the circumstances and incidents, and they said "No," other than what they had read in the newspapers. I gave them an instruction on the spot to send somebody to me who did know and who would answer to me as to why it was that the police did not raid those premises. I do not know whether it was for a political purpose or for a police purpose that I had that interview, but whether it was for the one or for the other it showed an incompetence that astonished me.
I referred on a recent occasion to the attentions of the police to myself and to my own movements. From, I think, 1927, when the late Minister for Justice was murdered, the police and the military decided that I should have a guard and that other Ministers should be similarly accommodated. It was against my wish and will, but nevertheless they insisted and so, for some four or five years, I was accompanied throughout the country and to all places that I went by a military guard. I believe that the underlying notion with regard to supplying me with a military guard was that whatever danger was anticipated was of a military character—guns or bombs or whatever you like to call them—and that, as such, they thought that soldiers were best adapted to the meeting of such a danger. Some time last year, without a moment's notice, two members of the police force called at my house to know where I was. They were told that I was here in town, and then, for the first time and in quite a roundabout way—I think it was from the maid in my house that I learned it—I was informed that there was now an alteration in Government policy and that I was to be looked after by a police guard and not by a military guard. I objected to it and within 24 hours, having managed to elude the observations of the police on the night they were first put on to the work of looking after my protection, they reverted back to the military again. Some five or six weeks ago another change was made. The military were taken off and it is now a police proposition.
If the danger that the Government apprehends in my case is a military danger, police are not the people to deal with it, and if they can make no other arrangement than that, I tell the Minister to remove those people who are reporting my movements to him. They are not protecting me. They have not protected me. I have gone through this country without them from one end to the other and I do not want them. I think that it is a monstrous invasion of a citizen's rights and gross disrespect to a member of this House and an ex-Minister of State to be carrying on such persecution as that. There is one at the front gate and another at the back gate. I cannot go out of the house, I suppose, without my movements being reported to the Minister by one of his police officers. It may be that because Ministers are now guarded themselves that they want to be in the position of being able to say that I am being guarded also. I do not want their guard. I want to be left alone. It is no pleasure to me to have to bring up this matter in this House, but I protest vehemently and strongly against this invasion of a citizen's rights or this disrespect to an ex-Minister of State. The whole cost of this particular service might be lessened very considerably if Ministers, when addressing their constituents or the people of this country, concerned themselves more with keeping order and with impressing upon their followers that they should not break the law; with telling them that public meetings should not be interrupted and that they would not stand for such interruption, and with pointing out, however objectionable it might be to them, that their political opponents insist now and always insisted upon giving that right to those who differed from them.
