A couple of questions were raised by Deputy Cosgrave with regard to items in this Estimate. There is a mistake in the figures I read out. The first figure—that for rent allowance— should be £1,000 instead of £1,150. The other question raised by Deputy Cosgrave was in regard to transport. The item in the Estimate deals with the vehicles sent on protection duty and their various activities. It covers the cost of additional cars and an item of, I think, £735 for petrol. Deputy MacDermot, at the outset, introduced a matter which it is very difficult for any member of the Government to deal with under the present circumstances. He referred to the reply given the other night by the President on the question of the murder at Edgeworthstown. I do not feel that I am in a position to deal adequately with that matter. I could not possibly deal with it in the position in which matters are at the present time. I think the Deputy appreciates that. For these reasons, I submit that he should not have raised the matter at the present time.
Committee on Finance. - Vote No. 33—Gárda Síochána (Resumed).
Perhaps the Minister will permit me to interrupt him for a moment in order to deal with a point with which I intended to deal when speaking before. As I understand, certain men were detained for interrogation last week. I did not know beforehand that men were going to be detained. I put down my questions on the subject quite independent of anybody being detained. I do not know whether people are still detained. I am not au courant with the situation in that respect. I cannot help remarking that nobody appears, even now, to be charged. It is quite impossible for us to abstain from discussing matters of such importance, where the administration of the Government is called in question, because a series of persons may be undergoing questioning on the subject.
One aspect—and only one aspect—of the matter can be dealt with by me now. That is the issue raised in a letter dated 8th of the present month, which the Deputy received and which was only passed across to me by the Deputy this evening. That letter is from Mr. More O'Ferrall. The President, in answering the case made by the Deputy the other night, gave the substance of the police report which dealt with that question of protection. I shall quote a paragraph of the report submitted by the police as to the protection that was afforded. This report was submitted to the Commissioner on the 2nd March, 1935, in answer to questions forwarded by the Commissioner. The report states:—
"On Sunday, 11th November, 1934, Gárda Ml. Breen (1090) and Gárda Thomas E. Walsh (4228) called on Mr. More O'Ferrall at Lissard House to inquire when he intended to collect the rents from the Edgeworthstown town tenants and he (Mr. More O'Ferrall) informed them that he intended to attend at the Imperial Hotel the following day, 12th November, 1934. He said he did not anticipate any trouble and that, if the tenants did not pay, the Courts were at his disposal. He further intimated in no polite manner that he did not want the Guards around his place, that their presence would only interfere with the collection of the rents. Notwithstanding this, constant patrols were formed in the vicinity of Lissard House by day and by night."
The letter which the Deputy has quoted joins issue with that statement. Until that matter is cleared up, I do not feel that I should say any more with regard to the protection aspect of the question. With regard to the other matter, I think that it would be most improper to enter into any discussion of it at the present time. Lest anybody be misled by statements made in this House or outside it with regard to the activities of the Gárda, I may say that increased forces have been sent into that area. The most efficient men in the Gárda in respect of detective work have been operating in that area for some time and no effort will be spared to secure that the people guilty of this crime will be made amenable.
It has been sneered at here to-day, not by Deputy MacDermot, but by other Deputies, and it has been sneered at outside the House that a reward has been offered. I have seen statements by Deputies who may consider themselves responsible Deputies that such rewards were appealing to the baser instincts of the country, and that it is a vicious business that we have started on.
I think that is inaccurate. The Deputy who is supposed to have made that statement has stated that it is inaccurate.
Under the Cumann na nGaedheal Administration rewards were offered to try and secure that information would be made available to the authorities that would bring certain people to justice. We are simply trying to do that. Deputy MacEoin pointed out something different from what we are used to hearing with regard to conditions in the country. He said he had nothing whatever to say against the Guards in Longford. He said they were doing their duty well and faithfully. He did make a complaint. He mentioned certain cases. In cases where he said there was certain hardship he attributed this to the new recruits taken in. I suggest to any Deputy who is aware of any such cases existing, that the proper attitude to adopt, and the practice to follow, would be to send that information to the Commissioner of the Police, or to the Department of Justice. If these cases are not fully investigated, it is because complaints are not sent in. It is unfair to me and to the Gárda, that no responsible complaint is made to any officer as to the action of irresponsible members of the force if such there are, and it is not fair to raise them in another way afterwards here in this House. What is worse is the practice of making general statements and not specifying or giving any details in such cases.
Deputy Mulcahy referred to a superintendent who was removed from Longford. I do not know what case is referred to. I know that superintendents have been transferred but I am not aware of any superintendent being removed from office, or of anything like that. Questions were raised on the previous Estimate as to the number of transfers effected. There is nothing abnormal about an officer being transferred. In many cases quite efficient and effective officers, for particular reasons, might not be found quite suitable in one area, while suitable in another. Very often, through no fault of his own, a Gárda officer incurs a certain amount of unpopularity, or a Gárda very often who is an officer may be anxious to be transferred to another place. There is nothing penalising in a transfer of an officer from one place to another. He loses nothing by it. His expenses of conveyance are allowed, and he is not degraded or anything like that. I do not see any point in a superintendent being removed if it means that he was transferred. Deputy Mulcahy referred to cases where a lot of wires were cut by I.R.A., with a view, he said, to damaging the League of Youth and stopping their organisation in certain areas. I suggest that people with any information about that should supply it to the Gárda. He also mentioned that any information supplied to the Gárda is in the hands of the I.R.A. in twenty-four hours. I suggest to Deputy Mulcahy that that is a contemptible statement.
It is true.
It is not true. It is made for the purpose of trying to undermine the Gárda.
It is a true statement of fact.
It is not true and the Deputy knows perfectly well it is not true unless he suggests that the force is being pressed into that line that Deputy Fitzgerald-Kenney laid down excluding the new recruits. Deputy Fitzgerald-Kenney told us that it was the most wonderful force except for these new recruits that had been introduced. If you attempt that course of argument you suggest a distinction of those inside the line, and those outside the line, and that those inside the line are the best force the world ever saw, while those outside—the new recruits—are the worst——
I draw no line in making my statement. I make my statement as a statement of fact.
If the Deputy knows it as a matter of fact, then it should be followed up. If he is a responsible Deputy and public representative he should try and remedy that position.
Does the Minister seriously suggest that it is possible to bring these facts definitely before the Minister or in such a way as will persuade him? The facts are true.
What evidence has the Deputy that they are true?
The Minister has a much closer connection with the machinery than I have. If he thinks that I am saying this merely to create noise he will find he is quite wrong. There are at least four counties of which these statements can be made.
That is a very serious position.
Yes, and no one knows it better than some of the Gárda officers.
Are the Gárda officers aware of the statements that the Deputy has made?
The Gárda officers know the facts are true.
Are they senior officers?
Yes.
Can the Deputy say how he got the knowledge?
It is floating around in the different atmospheres— floating round.
Did the Deputy get it floating round?
I am saying it is true. I am offering no proof.
Can the Deputy give any proof?
I am saying what is true.
Can the Deputy adduce any proof? Plenty of people in the country know a lot of things or pretend they know a lot of things. This is a most serious statement to make, and a statement that should not be made without an effort being made to prove it.
The facts are as stated, but the Minister does not believe that the situation is what I have stated. He is close up to the situation and should do his best to deal with it.
I can do my best to find it out, but it would be much easier if I received the proper assistance from people with any sense of responsibility.
Of course, but does the Minister say that we can assist him in that matter?
If the Deputy has information which I certainly have not got at the moment, and I have no reason whatever to believe that such information exists, I say that it is his duty to supply it.
I am telling the Minister that it is a fact, and the Minister can shut his eyes, if he likes.
The Deputy makes a statement. Is the Deputy just making that statement? I say, with great respect to the Deputy, that in regard to statements like that, it is quite reasonable that they be taken with a certain amount of suspicion, if not wholly with suspicion, when no proof is adduced to support them.
The Minister is quite right in suspecting what I say, and he can continue to suspect it, but he knows as well as I do that I cannot assist him in this matter. If I could trust him a little more, I might be able to assist him, but how can we trust him in view of what we know is taking place in the administration of the Gárda?
Oh, I see, that is the excuse now.
Yes.
It is always a useful excuse—to fall back on something like that when you cannot prove a thing.
The Minister can discharge his public duty to some extent by stating what he knows to be a fact.
Is there anybody in the force whom the Deputy can trust to take this matter up? We are told that there are still officers in the Gárda who have the sense of their responsibility mentioned by the Deputy here. If there are such people in the Gárda, cannot those people who have this alleged information supply it to them?
The matter of the exclusion of the public from these sales was mentioned by Deputy Cosgrave. These are public sales, and people going there in the normal course of their business are quite entitled to do so, but there are many other things that are public also and from which people can be excluded if they are going there for an illegal or unlawful purpose. The Gárda were quite entitled—and if they were not so entitled, those people who were kept out have their legal remedy — where people assembled not for the ordinary purposes for which that sale was being held, but for a purpose which the Gárda know to be the prevention of those sales, to exclude such people. It cannot be justified that people can go there simply because it is a public sale, if the Gárda are satisfied that those people are going there for an illegal purpose. As I said, if that matter needs to be tested, there is a way of testing it. The item for ammunition in this Estimate has been very much criticised.
Would the Minister answer the other question I put, as to whether a grand piano which had been seized was sold in the Gárda headquarters for 25/- or 30/-?
I am not aware of that, but if the Deputy puts down a question, I will answer it.
Is the Minister aware of the fact that at those sales, which he says are open and lawful, property has been sold for one-fifth of its value?
If people are intimidated from bidding, I am quite sure it is so.
It is part of the scheme.
I am quite well aware that such a thing would happen. If there is intimidation, people will not bid for property and it will not go for its normal price.
I take it the Minister would not be intimidated in that respect and neither would I. Does it follow that if an article is sold for one-fifth of its value, the administration of justice has been vindicated?
That cannot be avoided. If people are going to try to prevent sales being carried out in the normal way, everybody might not have the courage which Deputy Cosgrave professes and might not have that high spirit which would enable them to go there and say: "The Government are quite justified in collecting that money. These people are bound to pay for their land; they cannot have it for nothing. We are paying for our land and our neighbours are paying for theirs," and have that sense of responsibility as citizens, but the people of this country have not always got that, and they do not turn up for a sale and show their civic spirit by bidding at sales.
But they are not bound to do it.
I know they are not, but I am talking——
Then a person's property can be sold for one-fifth of its value?
If people are there to buy it, certainly.
Does the Minister think that those people who are unable to sell their cattle ought to get at least the top price for their property?
Go and ask Mr. Brabazon.
Perhaps, if we inquired from Mr. O'Neill we might get more out of him.
We cannot secure that these people will get the top price.
But you are securing your own money.
Certainly.
And have you not got a duty to administer justice evenly between all people?
Are not those people who try to prevent sales——
But assuming that there is no prevention. An article is sold for one-fifth of its value. Is that the administration of justice?
It happened under the Deputy's Administration, and well he knows it.
Excuse me, it did not happen under my Administration. Give me the cases.
Excuse me, it did, in cases where cattle were taken by train out of a certain area when you knew you could not get them sold in that area.
And sold at very high prices and the proceeds, over and above any charges, given to the owners.
We should like to see the freightages and the other charges.
They were sold at the highest prices and not at the lowest.
But some farmers had no return to get when expenses had been taken out, and I know of such cases.
It might so happen.
Was that the administration of justice?
The main point is——
The main point is that the Minister is in possession and is entitled to be heard.
And one is sold at the highest price and another at the lowest.
A good deal of criticism was directed against this item of ammunition. I share the hope with Deputy Bennett that it will not have to be used in any way. He anticipated that it was going to be used to shoot all the farmers in Munster. It is an item that was taken over by the Commissioner for training purposes and it has not anything of the sinister nature behind it which Deputies are inclined to suggest it has.
We have heard on this Estimate the same things which we have discussed here on adjournments and on the Estimate last year. A matter that has been discussed and dealt with several times is the shooting at Marsh's yard and I would ask Deputy Fitzgerald-Kenney to read again the words he quoted here, because if he had read them before he read them here, he would not seek to apply them as stating what the law was. Everybody is conversant with the facts of what took place in Marsh's Yard and there is no use in trying to suggest here that it was such an innocent expedition as the Deputies on the opposite benches seek to suggest it was. There you had a position in which something like 3,000 people had assembled and in which it is quite apparent now that a certain number of people were hired or arranged for—at any rate, they were paid afterwards or an allowance made to them—to get into a lorry, to break through the cordons of the Gárda, to dash against the gates and break them down and enter the yard.
Deputy Fitzgerald-Kenney says one should not do anything until one is hit. I do not know where he found that or whether he ever considered making such a regulation when he had charge of the Gárda. There is no such regulation in the code of the Gárda. They have to deal with a situation as it exists. They have to deal with many a situation very suddenly and they have to use their own judgment as best they can in dealing with it. I have never seen any desire on the part of any member of the Gárda or any officer of the Gárda to use more force than he considers necessary. To an extent, and perhaps to a very great extent, one has to sympathise with the people who were the dupes in the lorry of the people who organised this affair outside and who were not made amenable for it, but that is the only sympathy I have in the matter. I have sympathy for the people who were made the dupes of the others who organised this business of smashing down the yard and rescuing the cattle from it.
We have had references here to the partisan way in which the Gárda are carrying out their duties. The necessity for this Estimate arises from no partisan spirit; it arises from the activities of the Party opposite, or of the wings of their Party in their actions through the country. In the early stages, it might have been a little humorous to see middle-aged people dressing up and playing at soldiers, but, while it might have been humorous, it was quite serious enough from the Gárda point of view, in that wherever they held their meetings there was always danger, and there was some interference with those meetings. There were somewhere between 300 and 400 meetings of the Blueshirt organisation held last year, and at every one of those meetings Gárda had to be brought in to deal with any disorder that might arise. I think that it is no wonder we have come to an additional Estimate when the actions of the Blueshirt organisation itself were responsible for practically bankrupting the Blueshirt organisation. They had taken up, as they say themselves, a policy of bringing people 20 or 30 miles in order to try and make the meetings look big. When those people were going to and returning from the meetings they had to be afforded protection as best the Guards could provide it.
Like what they got in Ballina.
That meant bringing in Guards from all over the place. I have here a quotation from the Party organ. I think it is dated 24th November, 1934. Amongst other things it says:—
"One of the things that left the Fine Gael Organisation and the Blueshirt Organisation in financial difficulties was the series of big meetings held last year. The policy of holding meetings of the type of which General O'Duffy spoke so often was a mistaken one. The crowds were made big or biggish, by bringing Blueshirts long distances. Not infrequently a substantial section of those in attendance at one of those meetings came from distances of ten, 20, or 30 miles. The consequence was that a great deal of money was expended both by local committees and the Central Organisation, on transport, and, as it turned out, to no good purpose."
Whether it was to no good purpose or not, whether or not it was a mistaken one, as those people now admit, at any rate it had the effect of costing the State a good deal of money by having to provide protection as far as it could possibly be done. There was this development at a later period, that you had a campaign of intimidation at sales throughout the country. At one of those sales in particular over 360 Guards had to be taken into the place to afford the necessary protection. At every sale there was intimidation, and protection had to be afforded. All that meant a very big increase in transport, and a very big strain on the Guards. Consequently you have this Vote to provide for all those things which could not possibly be anticipated at the time the Estimate was introduced. Over and above the normal number of hours, extra duty was imposed on the Guards in seven divisions to the extent of 144,009 hours. If there had to be a Supplementary Estimate then the people opposite should not complain. It was due to their own tactics and their own policy, and the delay that was made of over two or three months before anyone here, so far as the Irish papers published it, disassociated their Party from the acts that were going on in the country. There was cutting of wires, obstructing of trains, interference with railway lines, and so on, and not until the 28th October had we a very tepid disassociation of the Party from it. We hear a lot said now about the way people are allowed to have arms. I suppose it is an Opposition's tactics to make the most of any incident that occurs, but that was not the decision of the leader, whom I think Deputy Dillon at one time described here as one of the greatest Irishmen of this generation, because when there was a shooting in Leitrim it was referred to at that time as merely a boyish prank. That was, I suppose, because it happened among Blueshirts. If it happened at the other side it would, I imagine, be a very serious and dastardly thing in the words of the Opposition. A number of crimes have been quoted here. A number of questions have been put down, and answers obtained to them. Deputy Mulcahy gives a very long string of charges where nobody has been made amenable. One would imagine that at the time he was associated with the administration of this country nobody who committed a crime ever escaped. Does he not know perfectly well that those are not the facts? All one has to do is to look at the statement which was made by Deputy Cosgrave at the time that he introduced the Constitution (Amendment) Bill. If ever a Government has shown its bankruptcy, so far as being able to bring people to justice for crimes is concerned, it was certainly that Government. There is a long recital here. I will just read it, as reported in volume 40 of the Official Debates, 14th October, 1931:—
"On the 30th January, Patrick Carroll was murdered by armed men at Captain's Lane, Crumlin. He was a member of the I.R.A., but was discovered by that organisation to have been giving information to the police. Deputies will remember that an attempt was made to attribute this murder to the police, who were in fact attacked during his funeral. On the 21st March, Superintendent Curtin was murdered by armed men at Tipperary as he was returning home from duty at night. He had conducted a local prosecution for illegal drilling shortly before. On the 20th July, John Ryan, of Tipperary, was taken by armed men at night from the house where he was employed and murdered on the roadside and the body left there. He had made statements to the police in connection with the same drilling charge as led to the murder of Superintendent Curtin. John Ryan was murdered because he refused to commit perjury. For these crimes it has been impossible to make any person amenable. On the 23rd April, at night, two young men crossing the Dublin mountains were fired upon by an armed drilling party, and one of them was severely wounded. On the 1st August, shots were fired into a dance hall at Drumreilly, Co. Leitrim. On the 12th September, Mr. William McInerney, of Kilrush, was fired at when entering his own house and seriously wounded. On the 15th September, shots were fired into the house of the State Solicitor for County Clare. On the 18th July, warders from Mountjoy Prison were attacked, whilst off duty, by armed men, and one of them was handcuffed to an iron rail and chained by the neck and legs. On the 11th October an attempt was made by armed men to release the brothers Gilmore from Mountjoy Prison. Five or six armed men entered a house adjoining the prison and held up the occupants. On the 14th April, in order to embarrass a political function, the electric cable at Tipperary was maliciously damaged, so as to dislocate the lighting arrangements. On the 15th April, Dublin shopkeepers were visited and ordered not to sell imported sweets. On the 11th May the lighting arrangements at Tralee were interfered with for the same motive as in the case of Tipperary on the 14th April. On the 21st May an armed assault and an attempt at arson was made at the North Wall to prevent the importation of English made sweets. On the 12th July, the railways, buses, and telegraph lines in Kerry were interfered with in order to prevent attendance at the Gárda sports at Tralee. On the 9th August, the railway line at Dore (West Tirconaill) was blocked with boulders; the railway telephone wires were cut at Puck (East Tirconaill) and the main road from Stranorlar to Letterkenny was blocked with stones."
The speech goes on:
"The police were fired on when they interfered. Special trains had been arranged to attend the Gárda sports at Letterkenny. At Clonkeen (Portlaoighise) 40 telephone and telegraph wires were cut, delaying a Dublin special to the Gárda sports at Clonmel."
This quotation is going on so long that I am tempted to ask the Chair whether it is in order on this Estimate?
The Minister is replying to statements and some of those statements were quotations from a speech made by the President before he entered this House.
This is a speech made before the passing of the Public Safety Act?
Yes.
That being so, what relevance has it to the administration of justice now that the Minister has the Military Tribunal to help him?
The Minister is explaining why he voted against the Public Safety Act.
I am not explaining why I voted against it. He goes on then to mention:
"On the 12th August a public meeting at Cootehill, Co. Cavan (Orange meeting), was prevented by the I.R.A. The railway line was torn up.... On the 24th August a party of boy scouts camping at Dunleer were visited at night by about 20 armed men and their hut burned down. On the 12th January, 1931, a threatening poster was sent to Dublin residents with a view to influencing them as jurors. On the 6th of February, 1931, several men were found openly drilling at Tipperary,"
and so on. Now there is a big list there.
And that statement was made when a Bill was being introduced to deal with it, and it did deal with it. We are offered an increased expenditure on the Guards now to get after the farmers.
That has not happened in my case. The Deputy has made the attack here to-day and every other time that the Guards are prevented from carrying out their duties; that otherwise those people would have been brought to justice. This quotation is going to meet the charge here a few minutes ago that those persons could be prosecuted.
Is the Minister aware that after the Public Safety Act was passed here no overt act was committed by those parties?
The Act was not really in operation at all when the Deputy was put out. He was not there long after the passing of the Act.
I was there long enough to stop them. The Act is being used now by those who voted against it.
The point I want to make for the Deputy is——
That it was you put the Public Safety Act into force for the first time effectively.
Well that was something to do certainly, to make it effective. The point I want to make is— if the Guards were not interfered with in 1931 why were not those people brought to justice? How was it that during the year 1931 nobody was brought to justice for all those crimes?
It is all explained in that speech the Deputy has quoted. It was to deal with these crimes that that Bill was introduced.
Were the Guards inefficient then—were they doing their duty?
They were getting killed doing their duty.
Did anybody in the Administration prevent the Guards then doing their duty? Why is it suggested now because certain crimes go unpunished that the Guards are not doing their duty? We have here in this country, unfortunately, one fact and that—whether we like it or not— is when people misname certain crimes as political crimes it is very hard to get a conviction.
It has taken the Minister a very long time to learn that fact.
I have always realised it. Deputy Mulcahy came forward to-day, as he has come forward day by day, and spoke of certain incidents in the country and he reflected on the Government in connection with these incidents. During the agrarian troubles Lord Ashtown published a periodical called Outrages from Ireland. At that time that publication used to be taken advantage of by certain people. They were called dirty birds for fouling their own nests. I suggest that in preparing long litanies like this to show certain things in the light they were shown, the Deputy is doing his best to bring the administration of justice into disrepute. That is what he is doing when he is preparing a category like that. The Guards have a difficult task. They have a difficult time and they are trying to act as fairly and as impartially as possible. They are trying to do their duty faithfully and well. There is no use in any Deputy on the opposite benches trying to suggest that there has been any interference with the Guards in the carrying out of their duties. If the Deputy has all the information which he alleges he has and which he is so reluctant to give to the House, he might also have the information that there has been no interference with the Guards in the carrying out of their duties. A certain policy has been pursued by the Government in trying to administer the law with the least hardship. That policy has been tried wisely or unwisely. It has been given its chance. I do suggest that the record of crime in this country since that policy was pursued stands out in fine relief against the position that existed when the Deputies opposite tried to pursue a very different policy in this country. When people get up and talk about unfair or partial administration of justice they ought at least put their own house in order first before they go out and make charges like they have made. That campaign against the payment of annuities has not ceased yet. We have got to go and collect these annuities and we are collecting them. While the campaign in its worst form perhaps has broken down and the duties may not in the future be so severe on the Guards as they have been in the last six months, much more could have been done if those who have the responsible position of representatives would put it to those people that they have to meet their obligations to the State. No effort will be spared by the Gárda to bring to justice anybody who commits crime. Everybody on the opposite benches knows that there is no ground for the suggestion that there has been any attempt by the Guards or anybody else to cloak crime or criminals. I think I have answered every point raised by the Deputies.
Arising out of the Minister's observations on this Vote, there are a couple of questions I should like to ask him. I think it is very necessary that the minds of public men should be cleared up as regards these matters. We are told that this is not a place in which to raise questions of public order; that we should approach the Minister. What is the use of blinding ourselves——
A Deputy
Is this a speech or a question?
The Minister having concluded, the debate may not continue, but a Deputy may, with the permission of the Chair, ask certain questions. He may not make a statement or speech.
Then I would respectfully remind the Chair that it is the custom when the House is in Committee on Finance that a Deputy may follow the Minister.
The invariable practice of this House has been that when a Minister has been called on without demur to conclude, even in Committee on Finance, he does so conclude. Deputies may, however, by permission of the Chair, ask relevant questions within reason.
With your permission, Sir, I ask the Minister two direct questions: (1) If, as happened in the neighbourhood of Charlestown, County Mayo, a man is held up by men with revolvers, and he informs the police, and his house is paraded outside every day by I.R.A. between the date on which he lodged the information and the sitting of the court of summary jurisdiction before which the person charged is to be brought up, does the Minister expect that man to come in and testify that he was held up by men armed with revolvers, or does he expect that man to swear that he was held up, to the best of his belief and knowledge, by men with a broomstick? I am simply drawing the inevitable inference to the question I asked him. Does the Minister imagine that justice can be administered in the country if persons who co-operate with the Guards are allowed to be publicly intimidated? (2) If a public representative hears of certain charges such as that in the village of Keadue, where everybody in the district is to a certain extent intimidated — if such public representative hears that a land mine was exploded at the gable end of an individual's house by the I.R.A., and that one of the persons engaged in the operation of exploding that land mine was a uniformed member of the Gárda Síochána, whose name is commonly canvassed through the district, is the public representative to assume that what is common gossip all through the district has never reached the ears of any public representative but himself, or is he entitled to assume that the information that has been given to him is common gossip in the neighbourhood and must be well known to the Gárda authorities, and no steps are being taken to bring the individual concerned to justice or to make an end of the common talk that is circulated in the district? These are two concrete questions. They both represent facts as they obtain in districts with which I am familiar. Perhaps the Minister would let us have his opinion on those sets of circumstances, and indicate what a public representative is expected to do.
It would be very hard for the Minister to answer offhand any questions put like that. The Deputy talked here of common gossip. I am not expected to be in the way of getting this common gossip. All I know is that no report has been made to me by anybody.
That a house was blown up in Keadue?
That there was a mine exploded by a member of the Gárda.
The Minister is informed that a mine was exploded at the gable of a house in Keadue.
By a member of the Gárda?
Did the Minister not hear about the explosion?
That is not the point.
Has he made any local inquiries?
The Deputy said a member of the Gárda was present when a mine was exploded. I have no information of that.
The common gossip all over the area is that that mine was exploded in the presence and with the active participation of a uniformed member of the Gárda Síochána.
That is the first I heard of it and I am quite sure it is untrue.
Tá
- Aiken, Frank.
- Bartley, Gerald.
- Beegan, Patrick.
- Blaney, Neal.
- Boland, Gerald.
- Bourke, Daniel.
- Breathnach, Cormac.
- Breen, Daniel.
- Briscoe, Robert.
- Concannon, Helena.
- Corish, Richard.
- Corry, Martin John.
- Crowley, Fred. Hugh.
- Derrig, Thomas.
- De Valera, Eamon.
- Donnelly, Eamon.
- Flinn, Hugo. V.
- Fogarty, Andrew.
- Gibbons, Seán.
- Goulding, John.
- Hales, Thomas.
- Harris, Thomas.
- Hayes, Seán.
- Hogan, Patrick (Clare).
- Houlihan, Patrick.
- Keely, Séamus P.
- Kehoe, Patrick.
- Kelly, James Patrick.
- Kelly, Thomas.
- Keyes, Michael.
- Kissane, Eamonn.
- Lemass, Seán F.
- Little, Patrick John.
- McEllistrim, Thomas.
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- Moane, Edward.
- Murphy, Timothy Joseph.
- O Briain, Donnchadh.
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- O Ceallaigh, Seán T.
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- Pattison, James P.
- Pearse, Margaret Mary.
- Rice, Edward.
- Ruttledge, Patrick Joseph.
- Ryan, James.
- Ryan, Martin.
- Ryan, Robert.
- Sheridan, Michael.
- Smith, Patrick.
- Victory, James.
- Walsh, Richard.
- Ward, Francis C.
Níl
- Belton, Patrick.
- Bennett, George Cecil.
- Bourke, Séamus.
- Brennan, Michael.
- Broderick, William Joseph.
- Burke, James Michael.
- Burke, Patrick.
- Coburn, James.
- Cosgrave, William T.
- Costello, John Aloysius.
- Daly, Patrick.
- Davis, Michael.
- Dillon, James M.
- Doyle, Peadar S.
- Esmonde, Osmond Grattan.
- Fagan, Charles.
- Finlay, John.
- Fitzgerald, Desmond.
- Good, John.
- Holohan, Richard.
- Keating, John.
- MacDermot, Frank.
- MacEoin, Seán.
- McGilligan, Patrick.
- McGovern, Patrick.
- McMenamin, Daniel.
- Minch, Sydney B.
- Morrisroe, James.
- Mulcahy, Richard.
- Murphy, James Edward.
- Nally, Martin.
- O'Higgins, Thomas Francis.
- O'Leary, Daniel.
- O'Mahoney, The.
- O'Neill, Eamonn.
- O'Sullivan, John Marcus.
- Reidy, James.
- Rice, Vincent.
- Roddy, Martin.
- Rowlette, Robert James.