Having complained of the lack of opportunity of speaking on this Vote, I have now to complain, Sir, that I have not sufficient time to deal with all the matters on which I would like to speak, because of the number of farmers who are behind me on these benches, and who desire to speak on the Vote for Agriculture. I shall not occupy the time of the House very long in dealing with the subject of law charges because of the desire of these farmers to get an opportunity to speak on the Vote for Agriculture, but I hope to deal as shortly as possible with three or four points in which I am specially interested. I propose to pass over Deputy Hugo Flinn.
Committee on Finance. - Vote No. 26—Law Charges (Resumed).
The Parliamentary Secretary.
I beg your pardon. I propose to pass over the Parliamentary Secretary and I am sure the House will be glad to know that. Really the performance to which this House was treated last night by the Parliamentary Secretary deserves nothing but absolute contempt. Deputy Fitzgerald-Kenney, in moving that this Estimate be referred back for reconsideration, drew the attention of the Attorney-General to a number of matters of which he complained. I want to address myself so far as I am personally concerned to this Estimate in an impartial spirit. I want to deal with it in a strictly non-Party spirit because I am interested in two or three topics to which I wish to direct the attention of the Attorney-General, and I am more interested in getting from him results than I am in scoring debating points.
Deputy Fitzgerald-Kenney drew the attention of the Attorney-General to complaints with reference to the kind of evidence that was being tendered in prosecutions before the Military Tribunal. The Attorney-General occupies in the scheme of administration of this country a somewhat unique position. He is under the Ministers and Secretaries Act placed, deliberately placed, in a position where he is enabled to exercise his functions judicially and impartially and entirely free from political considerations. He holds his office during the tenure of the President of the Executive Council. In other words, the Attorney-General cannot be got rid of except by the Government's resigning.
That was done in order that the Attorney-General should occupy a position of strict impartiality. It was felt that in the conduct of public prosecutions his office should be as free as possible from political considerations, and while I, in common with my colleagues here, have very grave complaint in reference to the administration of justice in this country, I draw a distinction in this Estimate between the position of the Attorney-General and the position of the Government, because, in reference to the Attorney-General, he is dependent in the exercise of his functions on the co-operation of the Minister for Justice in particular and the other members of the Executive Council, and many of the things of which we have to complain are more directly attributable to the Minister for Justice and the Guards than they are attributable to the Attorney-General.
Deputy Fitzgerald - Kenney spoke about the position of prosecutors before the Military Tribunal. He complained that certain statements were being tendered in evidence by those prosecutors which ought not to be tendered in evidence and that the laws of evidence as he knew them, as practising lawyers know them, were being totally disregarded. The Military Tribunal has on more than one occasion, I think, announced the principle that it is not bound by the laws of evidence. There is a popular fallacy that the laws of evidence are something approaching the cult of the mysterious and are framed in the interests of technical lawyers with a view to impeding the administration of justice and arriving at the truth. People, and particularly lay people, conceive that they will arrive at what they think is the truth of a case by ignoring the rules of the game and particularly by ignoring the laws of evidence.
I should like the Deputy to make it clear that he is not attacking the Military Tribunal as such, the Tribunal being a court regularly set up by the Oireachtas.
I was not aware that I was. Deputy Fitzgerald-Kenney had made the point that the prosecutors were tendering certain evidence and that it was the duty of the Attorney-General to instruct his prosecutors to see that the laws of evidence were obeyed. I am not speaking about the Military Tribunal. I deliberately passed from the discussion of the Military Tribunal which was initiated by the Parliamentary Secretary and I overcame a very strong temptation to reply to the Parliamentary Secretary on the subject of the Military Tribunal and his quotation of a statement that I made at some time in this House about that august body.
The Parliamentary Secretary was allowed to talk about the Military Tribunal.
The point I was making was that the laws of evidence, although popularly believed to be something that obstruct the administration of justice, in fact, are rules which have been arrived at over a long period of years and as the result of experience in the interests of truth and justice. Therefore, I join with Deputy Fitzgerald-Kenney, not in complaining of the Attorney-General, but in an appeal to the Attorney-General in his public and impartial capacity, as one who is charged with the safeguarding of the rights of the public and particularly the rights of people who are accused, to see that in his conduct of cases before that Tribunal, through the prosecutors who appear for him, he instructs them rigidly to adhere to the laws of evidence. The members of the Military Tribunal are laymen. They are in the hands of prosecutors. It is the duty of a prosecutor, if he thinks and believes a statement is not in strict accord with the laws of evidence, not to tender such a statement. I press that forward in the interests of justice, in the interests of people who are charged, whatever their political opinions are. I do not care whether they belong to the Party with which I have the honour to be associated or to another Party which frequently in recent days appears before that Tribunal.
I say it is contrary to the public interest that prosecutions should be conducted in any court or tribunal other than in strict accordance with the laws and the rules of evidence. It may result in a temporary win, if I may use the expression, for the prosecution. One famous crown prosecutor, if I may use the expression that rolled so often from the tongue of the Parliamentary Secretary, in the old days used to come out after he had prosecuted in a criminal case and, rubbing his hands, would say: "We won that case." He was subjected to the derisive comments of his colleagues because prosecutors, even when they were crown prosecutors, had not the notion that it was the duty of a prosecutor to win his case. the duty of the prosecutor was to put the facts before the tribunal before which he was appearing, impartially and fairly, and it is in that spirit that we ask that prosecutions should be conducted before whatsoever tribunal they are conducted by the Attorney-General through his counsel, whether they are conducted before the Military Tribunal or before juries in Green Street and elsewhere.
Arising out of that particular aspect of this case, there is one other topic that I personally feel particularly strongly about. The Attorney-General is only incidentally connected with this particular topic, but he does come in after the matter has taken place, and it then falls into his hands and he obtains control of it, and to that extent the topic to which I am about to refer is relevant to this Vote. The matter on which I feel is the practice of taking statements from prisoners and accused persons. Under Article 2A of the Constitution there are certain powers of interrogation before arrest and subsequent to arrest. Under that Article it is made a criminal offence to refuse to answer certain questions put by members of the Gárda Síochána. It becomes the duty of the Attorney-General, where a case is presented to him, to prosecute a person for refusing to answer a question. I suggest to the Attorney-General and press upon him that he ought, in the exercise of his public duty and in the interests of the public, and not merely in the interests of securing a win for the present Government in a particular case, to take a wider view of the matter and to see that that Article 2A is strictly adhered to by the police, and, if it is not strictly adhered to and the strict letter of the law is not carried out, that he will not prosecute for failing to answer questions put by the police.
I have been informed, and cases have been brought to my notice, that the police have put questions to suspected persons in cases of ordinary crime. In other words, that the provisions of Article 2A with reference to the interrogation of prisoners is being used in the investigation of ordinary crime, not crime coming within the Schedule of Article 2A of the Constitution. So far as the Attorney-General is concerned, when he has to prosecute for failure to answer those questions, I press upon him that it is his duty to see that no countenance is given to any member of the Civic Guard who uses the provisions of Article 2A in the investigations of crimes that do not come directly within the Schedule to Article 2A.
There is another matter arising out of that upon which I wish to lay further emphasis. A number of specific criminal offences are mentioned in the Schedule, and at the end there is a general comprehensive description of crimes that may be brought before the Military Tribunal on a certificate having been given by an Executive Minister. I suggest that the Attorney-General should refuse definitely and emphatically to prosecute any person who is interrogated or who purports to have been interrogated in pursuance of the powers conferred on the police by Article 2A in reference to offences which are not of a kind specifically mentioned in the Schedule; in other words, that where certificates have been given by an Executive Minister post hoc or ad hoc that he should refuse to prosecute for refusal to answer queries unless a certificate has been given prior to interrogation.
Of course, if a member of the Gárda is prepared to swear that at the time he made the first and subsequent interrogations he suspected the prisoner of one of the offences mentioned in the schedule it is a different matter. But where it is a case of a person being suspected—a case that might be trifling—before a certificate is given by the Minister; in that case, no use should be made by the Attorney-General of any statement made by any accused person unless where the certificate has been given prior to the interrogation. One of the sub-heads of this particular Vote deals with under-sheriffs. Another of the sub-heads deals with the defence of public officials. I notice the amount of public money to be provided in this Estimate for the defence of public officials is exactly double the amount provided last year. I take it that it is the anticipation of the Government that the Attorney-General will be called upon to conduct the defence of public officials in the current year, more often than in the last one. I think that probably arises from the fact that people are now waking up to the fact that I have already called the attention of the House to earlier to-night. In my opinion, at all events, not one of the sheriffs' sales conducted, at the present moment, throughout the length and breadth of the country is being carried out in strict accordance with the law. In this Vote there is provision for the salaries of under-sheriffs. Presumably the Ministry expects that the people will get alive quickly to the fact that more goods are being seized under writs or the equivalent of writs, under the Land Acts, than are necessary to pay the debts; that the requirements of the law in reference to sheriffs' sales are not being complied with; that the requirements of the law as to the giving of reasonable notice to intending purchasers are not being complied with; that the requirements of the law as to the duty of the sheriff to get the best possible price for the goods seized under the sheriffs' writs are not being complied with, and that, in general, sales by under-sheriffs at the present moment are being carried out in defiance of the law and the established legal requirements in connection with sheriffs' sales. People are bound to become aware very soon of their rights in reference to these things. I think they have already become aware of these things and that only their poverty prevented them from taking action and that the Ministry anticipates this year more actions being taken against them than last year.
I have but a very little time in which to deal with the matters to which I want to refer. I shall deal with only two more topics which, I think, are of a non-controversial character. I want to impress upon the Attorney-General the desirability of employing, in connection with the defence of persons accused of murder, experienced counsel. Deputies are probably aware of the practice that exists in cases where persons are charged with the crime of murder the judges assign counsel to defend the prisoner. It was the practice to assign junior counsel. Judges have, I think, recently adopted the view, and it is certainly my view, that only experienced junior counsel should be given the task of carrying out that assignment. But I think that is not sufficient. I think that in cases of murder, where a person's means do not allow him to employ competent senior and junior counsel, the State should, at the instance of the Attorney-General, who is conducting the prosecution, also provide counsel for the defence of the prisoner.
It is the practice, as the Attorney-General knows, to assign junior counsel. At one time it was the practice to assign very young and inexperienced junior counsel. Many a junior counsel won his spurs in defence of a prisoner charged with murder. I have no objection to the practice where many a young man has tried himself out and brought himself to the notice of his professional colleagues and brought himself to the notice of the solicitor's profession by his defence in a murder case. There are many cases in which prisoners could be as well defended as they might be by young and inexperienced counsel; but there are murder cases which require experienced and senior counsel. In these cases the Attorney-General should have discretion, and the State should back him up, to assign experienced or senior counsel to conduct criminal cases of that nature, not merely before the jury but in subsequent stages which may take place before the Court of Appeal.
One other matter arising out of something which Deputy Fitzgerald-Kenney raised a few days ago. There is at present a prisoner undergoing three years imprisonment; he was convicted last year by the Military Tribunal. I was originally engaged for the defence of that man. He was one of the persons who gave his name to the proceedings which were subsequently instituted to test the constitutionality of Article 2A of the Constitution. After the Supreme Court decided in favour of the constitutionality of that Article, this man and three others were tried before the Military Tribunal and he received a sentence of three years. I am perfectly satisfied in my own mind of the perfect innocence of that man. People in his own district of Tipperary are completely satisfied of his innocence also. I am making no complaint, and I wish to make that perfectly clear, either of the conduct of the Attorney-General or the Military Tribunal. I think a miscarriage of justice occurred and I am perfectly satisfied of that.
The Deputy knows that cannot be remedied here.
I am suggesting to the Attorney-General who prosecuted, that having brought these facts to his notice it is his duty as prosecutor to act in favour of the prisoner where justice requires that to be done, and I am assuring him of my own personal belief of the innocence of that man, and I am able to assure him that the majority of the people in the district where he lives are completely convinced of the innocence of this man. And I ask, now that he has served well over a year of his imprisonment, that the Attorney-General should put the matter before the Executive Council and see to his immediate release.
Following the example of Deputy Costello, my remarks upon this Vote will be very brief indeed. The Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Finance last evening, in the course of his remarks, told an American story that had no relevancy to the Vote before the House. I am going to tell a real Irish story which, I think, may be pertinent to this particular issue. Some time ago, I happened to be in the country. I met a small farmer who ekes out a wretched existence on a small patch of land and, in the course of a conversation with him, he said "Do you know the Attorney-General?" I said "I do; he is not a bad kind of fellow.""Begor," says he, "he must have a mighty big army because he is costing the country a dale of money. He has a lot of undergenerals whose names are John Brown, McGinty, Mr. Cash and so on." This fellow is a bit of an old seanchaidhe, as they say in the country, and he said "These Maguires were great old chieftains in Fermanagh, but they were wonderful cattle lifters and I think they are at the ould game again. One of them was kilt in Cork over 335 years ago and they have a great spite against Cork ever since." That story tells its own tale and I make no comment.
I do think that one of the greatest achievements of the Cumann na nGaedheal Government was the establishment of the Gárda Síochána, an unarmed police force which rendered great service to the State. The reason that I refer to it is that Deputy Corry, speaking on this Vote last night, stated that when that force was taken over by the present Government, it was a murder gang. I ask the Attorney-General here and now how many members of the Gárda Síochána who were taken over by the present Government have been weeded out or dismissed. I think it is only fair to the Gárda——
The Attorney-General is not responsible for the administration of the Gárda Síochána.
Mr. Burke
I am aware of that, but it was mentioned here last night and allowed to pass.
May it not be that the Attorney-General advises prosecutions on the strength of information given by members of the Gárda Síochána?
Possibly, but that does not make him responsible for the administration of the Gárda.
He would be responsible for evidence he takes from such soiled sources.
I think it is only fair to the Gárda Síochána that a denial ought to be given to that outrageous suggestion, because I here and now denounce it as an outrageous suggestion. If there were a few black sheep in the old Gárda Síochána, there are probably a few in the reformed or so-called reformed Gárda Síochána, and I think it was very unfair that Deputy Corry should be permitted, on a Vote of this character, considering, as you have stated, that the Attorney-General had no particular responsibility for the Gárda, to make such a statement in this House. I take the opportunity now of contradicting it.
There is one other matter I should like to refer to which does, I think, come within the ambit of this Vote. Before the present Government came into office, the most competent barrister in County Cork was prosecuting on behalf of the State, and immediately this Government came into office they deprived him of that position. I should like some explanation of that. They put no man more competent and some far less competent into positions, and I think it is only fair to that young man and to the people that the Attorney-General should give some reason for that action, which, I believe, was dictated by political animosity. There were several other matters I intended to deal with, but, in view of Deputy Costello's statement and in view of the fact that there are so many farmers waiting to speak on the Agricultural Vote, which, after all, is the most important Vote, I will say no more.
Are we going to hear from anybody on the Government side?
The Attorney-General to conclude.
Not to conclude.
If nobody else wants to speak, the Attorney-General is entitled to speak, just as much as Deputy McGilligan.
I want to know if the Attorney-General is going to speak.
We would prefer to hear you.
Very good. I consider the Attorney-General, in a sense, the most unfortunate of men, because this method of guillotine was brought in to save certain people from the ordinary exposure which ordinarily follows the accepted method of Parliamentary procedure, and the motion was not moved soon enough for the Attorney-General, because we have him in the unfortunate position, on the two nights on which the two other guillotine motions were moved in the past, in which his was the head that bobbed up for bludgeoning just by the mischance of the Estimate. Nobody can say but that he deserves what fortune happened to give him. There was a reference here during the course of an interrupted speech to certain people who represent the Attorney-General in the courts of this country adopting a high moral tone towards people who are described as misguided young men—so misguided that they will not attempt to defend themselves or to recognise some of the Attorney-General's courts.
When I attempted to raise this on a previous Estimate, I was told that the Law Charges Vote was the proper base of attack. It is, at any rate, quite clear that in a particular case recently, counsel briefed by the Attorney-General did think fit to lecture certain men, because, he said, they were misguided and refused to recognise the court. Let me stop there. It must be hard for people who are adopting the practice of refusing to recognise the court because of lessons taught to them by some misguided young men who now occupy the Government Front Bench to have counsel, briefed by some of these misguided members of the Government, lecturing them on what they have learned in the previous four or five years. Added to that will be the additional barb that they had a promise from the Attorney-General, when a young and enthusiastic supporter of the same cause, that he, for one, would never serve the Irish Free State. What he is doing now is hard to find out. He certainly did not repeat that promise when taking up office. That would probably be too brazen. But, at any rate, that is on record in his own letter, published in an early edition of a newspaper which he now actively suppresses from time to time. To an issue of that paper, in the early days, he sent a subscription of £5, with the statement that he had long since made up his mind that he could not accept certain things, but that he wanted them to know where he stood. They may be wondering now whether they thoroughly understood where he did stand in those days.
Then, this counsel, briefed by him, in having certain men paraded before the Military Tribunal on certain charges, criticised them, first of all, for not recognising the court. That attitude is adopted in response to circulars sent out by members of the present Government. He goes on to say that he felt it his duty to put forward what would be the prisoners' defence if they had elected to make one. That was eminently charitable. The only place in which it fails is that if a man decides to state to the court the defence which a prisoner would make, if he elected to defend himself, he ought at any rate to state the real defence. What did he say? — that these misguided young men were the successors of the I.R.A. of 1916 and 1920 and stood for the same ideals, but in the view of the State, they were not the successors of the 1916 men. To my mind, if those men had decided to defend themselves before that court, they would not have put up that defence. They would have said, not that they were the direct successors of the men of 1916, but were in the line of succession of the people who claimed to be the successors of the 1916 men, and, for that, they have the authority of President de Valera himself. He said "that those who continued in the organisation which we have left can claim exactly the same continuity that we could claim up to 1925." If counsel had been briefed properly in that matter these young men could say, with President de Valera's approval of the statement here in the House, "that the people in the organisation which he left in 1926 had exactly the same continuity as they claimed up to 1925." I do not know whether the continuity has been broken since. If so they could have produced the President's own words not to show that they were the successors of 1926, because that the President did not claim, but that they had continuity from them, and that there was a legitimacy of succession that he would not deny. I am sure he would find it difficult to deny it at this moment.
Yet the Attorney-General prosecutes men, and his counsel's words were that "these young men will probably claim a particular title in their defence"— not merely claim it, but they have the President on record as giving it to them. Counsel stated further that "of course, these people are not acting in the same way as the I.R.A." What does he pick out as signifying a difference? First of all, that these misguided young men would not defend themselves, and were not defending themselves; secondly that they were getting in arms and were going to use arms for an unlawful purpose; and, thirdly, that they pretended that as an army they were separate from the people, and, therefore, that there was something in the nature of a military dictatorship.
Again, I do not think these young men would have phrased their defence in these terms, but, even taking that as a defence, they could have said this: that they had learned a good lesson with regard to arms, because there are colleagues of the Attorney-General in the Government who went to America and from America sent home funds; that they wrote to say that the people out there were annoyed that the money sent home seemed to be used only for constitutional purposes, but that the envoy to America had assured them that out of the amount sent home there was allocated a certain proportion for purposes which I need not here specify. Later, of course, it was made quite clear that the so-called election fund moneys were being put to the purchase of arms. Why should counsel briefed by the Attorney-General irritate young men standing in the dock by quoting to them as charges what was really evidence of what they had been ordered to do under army circulars given to them by some of the Attorney-General's colleagues.
Any circulars issued by members of the Cabinet years before they became Cabinet Ministers are not relevant to this discussion.
I will not quote them as such circulars. Would that not be an irritation to these young men if they could defend themselves by saying that they had been brought up by members of the present Government to get money collected and to spend it on arms?
That may be a very subtle attempt to get over the difficulty, but what any Deputy, now a Minister, did or said four or five years ago, is surely not relevant to the Vote on the Attorney-General's Department.
The Attorney-General briefed counsel, and counsel said that he would make the defence for certain young men that they were the successors of the I.R.A. of 1916 and 1920. I say that if these young men liked to make a defence they had President de Valera's defence. It was a good defence, though perhaps not phrased in that way. If I am not to be allowed to do this under the method of closure——
It is not a question of closure. If the Chair rules that a matter is not relevant, then it is not relevant.
What is not relevant?
The line of argument that is being followed by the Deputy as to the actions of certain Ministers before they entered this House.
May I refer to the procedure that was adopted without mentioning the Ministers? Such a procedure definitely destroys any documentation that might be given of certain things, but the matter can still be discussed in a sort of vague way. May I put it to the Attorney-General whether he thinks it is a proper thing, when men are standing in the dock on charges, that they should be irritated by counsel lecturing them on practices which the Attorney-General's colleagues not merely approved of, but issued orders on to these young men? Is that in order?
A discussion on what the colleagues of the Attorney-General did three or four years ago is not in order.
I am not dating it three or four years ago. The orders are still in existence and have not been withdrawn. Let me take one matter. This counsel brought in a pamphlet entitled "Constitutional Governmental Programme of the Republic of Ireland: 4th Impression." I have stated that that particular document was issued by the present Minister for Defence and has not been withdrawn by him.
In the current year?
Not in the current year, but he has not withdrawn it. The speech referred to that document, which was produced in evidence against these people. It was the document of the Minister for Defence that was produced in court in the current year.
The Deputy is not proving that?
If I am allowed to prove it I will have to go back to the year 1925, and, apparently, that is out of order. I challenge contradiction on the matter. If somebody tells me that the Minister for Defence has, in fact, taken any steps towards the withdrawal of that order I will close up on that matter. Has he? Not at all.
I do not propose following the Deputy into his irrelevancies in this debate.
This counsel referred, for instance, to the fact that the present I.R.A., the people he was attaching, were divorced from the people. But the present Minister for Defence, in a letter which he wrote, talked about the desirability of the isolation of the Army from the people. Has he withdrawn that?
When did he write it?
In an Army Order issued by him as Chief of Staff about the month of October, 1926.
Orders issued by the Minister in 1926 are irrelevant.
In order to bring this up to the present, may I ask has the Minister recanted that? Notwithstanding that these orders still remain, it is considered a fair thing—I do not say that the Attorney-General necessarily instructs his counsel in detail— that counsel appearing on his behalf should be allowed to irritate men in the dock on serious charges by bringing forward against them charges and criticisms of that type when these men, had they chosen—and this is my point—could defend themselves on the matter as to whether they were the successors of the people in 1916 by producing what the President said. On the matter of arms they could produce other documents, and on the constitutionality of the I.R.A. they could produce the signature of the present Minister for Defence, and on the other matter, as to whether the Government and the Army are always together, they could have produced this document.
The point is that they could not produce the Attorney-General's signature, and it is the Attorney-General's conduct that is under discussion.
These men were being prosecuted on serious charges, and I put it no higher than this: that it was unfair for counsel prosecuting on behalf of the Attorney-General to lecture them in this high moral way, and particularly when these men could have refuted all that by the production of documents and not by mere statements. The biggest charge was that of trying to set up a sort of dictatorship. Think of that, when the Minister for Defence definitely sent out the order: "Remember the Army only serves the Government as long as it was the Government of the Republic." The moment they swerved one hair's breadth from allegiance to the Republic, the Army was on its own. Is that the situation now?
I suggest to the Attorney-General, no matter what he may do as regards legal evidence—and he is doing strange things—that he should remember that people are human, that they have feelings, and that it is a scandalous thing that men against whom there are serious charges should have men, obviously ignorant of what went on behind the scenes, put up and be allowed to say to them: "Remember, you are not behaving in a democratic way; you are trying to divorce the Army from the Government; agreements are agreements." Why irritate men when they have serious charges to answer by saying that the thing is done under instructions from the Attorney-General? The Attorney-General is sufficiently behind the scenes to know that if one of these men against orders could have produced documents and recognised the court, they could have countered every word counsel said in his grand moral hectoring of them before the Tribunal. Apart from that, there is the added irritation. These men would like to know where the Attorney-General stands. What is the particular State he is trying to defend from their attacks? Why is it now worthy of defence when previously in his mind it was worthy of assault?
A second matter also arises on this. If there was one phrase more frequently in the month of the President of the Executive Council it was that the people of this country must continue to protest against what he described as extra legal or coercive tribunals. He said that it was the English view, that the people here were so vicious that they could not be governed by ordinary methods. He has recently declared that the Military Tribunal, before which the Attorney's people operate so often, must be accepted as a permanent part of the court's machinery. That leads, we hope, to an adjustment of the Attorney-General's view towards that particular body. It induces the thought: Has the President not accepted what he called the English propaganda view, that the people of this country are so inherently vicious that we must have some form of extra legal coercive tribunal? Apparently that is the situation. I do not know whether what used to be the English view has now become the thoroughly nationalist view, because the President accepts it.
Suppose we accept the Military Tribunal as part of the machinery of the courts, is the Attorney-General going to make any change in the procedure before that body? The Attorney-General must know that the body was elevated to prominence to meet a peculiar emergency. The Attorney-General knows that that was not the only plan prepared against that emergency. Indeed, he knows from inside reading that it was probably regarded as the worst form of reaction to that peculiar emergency. Has the Attorney-General considered all the other schemes that are on the files that were thought of, and has he considered this particular scheme with his method of appearing before a proper reaction to what the Attorney-General and his colleagues are pleased to think now is a similar emergency? If the Tribunal became a permanent part of court machinery, recognised and established by law, and not regarded any longer as a temporary exception, does the Attorney-General regard it as something lasting? Is he going to take any trouble or to say: "I approach this from a different angle to my colleagues. Not merely is the collection of evidence to be done in a legal way, but there should be someone to sift the evidence before it goes to the Tribunal, to see that when collected it is approached with a judicial mind, approached by someone who knows how to weigh evidence, one piece against another, and who would accept or reject various pieces." As far as I understand there is no such new approach.
The Attorney-General has simply accepted this piece of machinery, and finding it there, apparently does not consider that any new situation has been created by the words of the President. Remember, the President put a reservation in his phrase. If the drafting of the Constitution had been held over he was of opinion that there would be some necessity for inclusion in the Constitution of some form of emergency body, non-judicial and non-legal, like the Military Tribunal. With that particular machinery regarded as something permanent, as something more than was previously there, surely there ought to be a new approach to it by the Attorney-General. Statements have been referred to. There was a question as to whether statements collected under threat of prosecution before the Tribunal could be regarded as free and voluntary. Does the Attorney-General regard them from another angle? Under the Constitution (Amendment) Act, power was given to interrogate men who were in a certain position, under detention or arrest. These powers of interrogation were not unlimited. They were confined to certain things. Certainly, I do not know how any reading of the powers of interrogation would enable Guards to cross-examine a prisoner as to his beliefs in certain things. Yet, we know that it came out in evidence before the Tribunal that during the process of detention, men have been subjected to lengthy cross-examination and that questions such as: "Do you not know that such an organisation is an illegal body?" have been put, that menaces were uttered to get them to declare that such bodies were illegal; and that members of the police force were allowed to ask: "Do you not know that such a body is illegal?" That was asking men to judge what the judges of the country have refused to determine. This question is limited by time. It is quite clear from the newspaper accounts that one prisoner was questioned, not with regard to his movements on one particular occasion, but as to what his attitude politically to things in this country was in 1915. The charges on which he was questioned ranged from 1915 to the particular date on which he was questioned. It that legal? Is that power given in the Constitution (Amendment) Act? Is that allowable?
The Attorney-General
What case was that?
It was the case of three men charged with firing at a dance party. They were found not guilty, of course, of firing at the dance party.
The Attorney-General
Why "of course"?
Because they were very careful that an expert was produced to prove they were not there. A member of the Civic Guards who was a clerk in the office was put up to give expert testimoney, mainly I think, because he had never seen a gun in his life. He had been handling a pen all the time.
The Attorney-General
When was this case on?
It was a case of three men, Mahon, Lacey and Dowling, in Offaly.
What was the date?
I have not got the date. It was not this year.
The Attorney-General
I only asked for it in order to look into the ques tion.
One man was asked about his activities since 1914 up to the date he was questioned. He was asked: "Don't you know that such and such an organisation is illegal." That was at a time that the judges of the country had refused to determine that question. In addition this gun expert was brought in, and he proved that a rifle found in the possession of one of these prisoners had been used to fire three shots on that occasion. Every man who was present in the hall agreed that only one shot had been fired. The gun expert proved conclusively that three cartridges were fired. It was so conclusive, of course, that the Tribunal were astounded, and called another expert, who did not go so far, but he backed up what the great expert said. He did not go just so far. He backed up what the Gárda expert said with regard to the marking of the cartridges. He said that this was an exact science, as exact as fingerprints but he did not appear to credit the deductions that were made by the Gárda expert from the marking found.
The Attorney-General
Is that the case in which the witness altered a statement as to when he got the rifle?
There was no such evidence?
The Deputy has already indicated that the case he is now discussing did not occur during the year under review.
There is an amendment to refer this Estimate back. That widens the basis of discussion.
There was no such question as to the date on which he got the rifle. I think the rifle was one which had been found in the possession of one man and had been given to him, the night after the late Dr. O'Higgins was murdered, to defend the house.
The Attorney-General
Am I not right in saying that the witness, when first interrogated, said he got the rifle some short time before the interrogation but, at the trial, changed that and said he got it 15 years earlier? We accepted his altered statement.
You accepted his altered statement and got a man to prove that, from that rifle, came three cartridges on the night of the hold-up of the dance party, while all five men in the dance party who were held up swore that only one shot was fired.
The Attorney-General
I know all about the case and I think the men got a very fair trial.
They were found innocent because they were innocent.
The Attorney-General
The prosecution was most fair to them. You are not alleging anything against me?
I am alleging the method. I think the method is entirely wrong.
This did not occur this year.
Suppose the five members of the dance party had not been so clear that only one shot was fired, you had absolutely conclusive foolproof evidence that all three cartridges came from that one rifle. I think it is absurd to put before a lay tribunal evidence of a so-called expert who, I think I am right in saying, had been nine months in an office and some other months at expert gun work. I think it is completely unfair to put before a lay tribunal, not used to dissecting evidence and saying what is the correct and incorrect way of proving a case, a man of that type.
The Attorney-General
My recollection is that the man in this case got away on an alibi.
Because the rifle could not have been used on that occasion. The Attorney-General replies: It is one thing to charge men with being in a hold-up; it is one type of defence to say that they were not there at all. But it is another thing to say: "You were there, because the rifle we got on one of you fired three cartridges, according to an expert."
The Attorney-General
I am not responsible for experts.
I understand that you are responsible for producing them to the court. Does the Attorney-General think that a man can be an expert in trigger marks—the marks made by the striking of the pin upon the cartridge—who has been a few months at the game? I put that in as an example. It is only one item of the evidence that goes before that Tribunal. The Attorney-General will recollect another rather notable case in which a man was arrested between 4 and 6 o'clock in the evening, was kept without food, was allowed to have drink and, somewhere about midnight, was roused in his cell to have a statement taken from him. Apparently, that was not thought to be anything out of the ordinary. That man was at the disposal of the authorities from about 4 o'clock in the evening and he was going to be there until the next morning. He is taken in under these conditions and the process of examination lasted for, I think, two hours. Surely it is not fair, when men are definitely under control, that these examinations should be conducted in the early hours of the morning, when they are awakened from their sleep, when they are, to a certain extent, bemused with sleep and when, not being well-fed, they are not in their ordinary form.
The Attorney-General
I quite agree, but I am not responsible for interrogation by the Guards.
You are responsible for bringing before the court interrogations conducted in that way. Does not the Attorney-General know that if he said on one occasion: "I will not have that evidence produced because I do not think it was taken in a way which is fair to the prisoner," that sort of system would not go on?
The Attorney-General
I shall say so to-night. What case is the Deputy discussing?
The Hughes case, dealing with the alleged forgery of a letter. The Attorney-General knows the case well. It was given wide publicity. The Chief Superintendent, when questioned, said he thought there was nothing wrong in this procedure. I thought that that phrase would have come to the attention of the Attorney-General when reading the report and that he would have it definitely made known that he did not consider it proper to have evidence taken in such a way—that no evidence obtained in such a way, except in an emergency, would be put forward against a man on his trial before the Military Tribunal. It is late in the day for the Attorney-General to be saying that he will see that that will not happen. It is 12 months after the event but it is something gained. Sixteen or 18 months have elapsed since——
The Attorney-General
How many similar cases are there?
I understand that there are many. I have not a record of them.
The only case the Deputy is relying upon is one that did not take place within the financial year under review.
I wish the Deputy would go back to his Culbertson and consider bridge problems.
I wish the Deputy would come forward to the year under review.
I am coming to it. We have other things recited, and they are all in the context. I am asking now, when the Military Tribunal is accepted as an ordinary part of the court machinery, that there should be a readjusted attitude on the part of the Government towards it and towards prisoners brought before it. I ask further for consideration of what I assert as a fact—that there were many schemes thought of to meet the emergency of murder that had arisen in 1931, and that the Military Tribunal was not the best or the first to these. It was accepted definitely as much the second-best. If there is now a need for some permanent addition to the courts, I think that some of these other schemes might be considered. There should be that consideration if we were going to have a Military Tribunal, or some court like it, embedded in the Constitution not as a temporary thing, but as a permanent thing, something of which it may be said, perhaps, that two Governments have approved as a necessity, even if it can be also said that two Governments have accepted what President de Valera described as British propaganda—that this country was so vicious that its people could not be ruled by ordinary methods.
The third matter I want to speak about is what I must describe as the very disgraceful occurrences of a few nights ago in this House. We have got used to the silencing of criticism by guillotine, but that the House would accept readily the silencing of criticism outside this House by blackmail is certainly a subject for discussion here. Deputy Fitzgerald-Kenney, in the course of his speech the other evening, drew attention to the Marsh's Yard killing, and referred to the fact that Dr. Cohalan, Bishop of Cork, had thought fit—highly placed as he is and with the knowledge that he was doing a very novel thing—to address two allocutions to his flock with regard to that particular occurrence. What is the answer to that? Deputy Corry is put up. I do not say that Deputy Corry can be regarded as typical of this House or that anybody would say that he represented even the lowest common measure of the different degrees of intelligence in this House. But he is backed by the Minister for Finance. He got the edging of the Minister for Finance and the backing of the Front Bench on this matter. Deputy Corry said that they had "that pronouncement now from the Bishop of Cork when his relatives are breaking the law and their cattle are being seized for unpaid annuities." Then he was broken off. The statement of the Minister for Finance was that the Bishop had to put up with abuse because he had been abusive himself. Some such phrase was used by the Minister for Finance.
No. I pointed out that Deputy Fitzgerald-Kenney had dragged the Bishop into the debate. That is all.
And was that by way of confirmation of Deputy Corry?
No.
I think it was. I think that, in its context, it cannot be interpreted in any other way. There we have a situation which is tantamount to blackmail.
The Deputy talks about blackmail. Let him wait until he is before the Select Committee.
I think that for any Deputy in this House, whether with or without the approval of the Minister, to say that a man in such a position as the Bishop of Cork, who decides, with the knowledge that he is doing an extremely unusual thing, that the circumstances call for a particular warning from him to be addressed to his flock, to speak of such a man in such a way is scandalous. I think that a man, in such a position, should be spared the indignity of having a man like Deputy Corry saying that it is because his relatives are having their lands seized, or their cattle seized, and because they did not pay their annuities, that that pronouncement was made. I call that silencing by blackmail. Is there any other name for it?
How was Deputy McGilligan silenced in regard to Birr?
A Deputy
Yes, what about Birr?
I want to keep to one point at a time. If the Minister wants to get after another point, he has had ample opportunity to deal with it already, and he will have ample opportunity again. I say that Deputy Corry did behave in that scandalous fashion in the House and that he was abetted in his scandalous behaviour by the Minister for Finance. I suppose the belief is that, if a man can be subject to indignity and humiliation and abuse here, such a man as the Bishop of Cork, with a sense of duty, will be prevented in the future from speaking on a matter like that because some foul tongue like Deputy Corry's will be able to say, whether with or without any reality behind it, that that man is simply speaking now because his relatives are breaking the law, because their cattle are being seized, and because their annuities are unpaid. A thousand guillotines are preferable to that. It would be far better to have no discussion in the House than that that should happen.
In the circumstances to which I am referring there was this boy killed. It was questioned here. Certain statements were made about that killing. It was then raised here by Deputy Fitzgerald-Kenney, who, with a sense of responsibility, decided that he would refer to the fact that the Bishop of Cork had written and spoken as he had. One would have thought that that would have merited some attention; that somebody might have said, at least, that the Bishop, perhaps, was misinformed, or that the Bishop appeared to be under a misapprehension about this, that, or the other thing One would have thought that it might even have been passed over in silence. Are we to have it in future that our standard is to be that, when a man speaks in this way, whether he be highly placed or lowly placed, the answer is going to be: "You are only saying that because your relatives are breaking the law, because they are having their cattle seized, because their annuities are unpaid, and therefore we know why you speak in that way?" That is the gist of it. Remember, that that has been said in this House, by implication, of a man whom we take to have reached a particular eminence in the Church because of his character, because of certain virtues associated with that rank, or because of virtues that have always been regarded as being associated with that rank; and we are told that that man did that thing in an unusual fashion from wrong and scandalous motives.
The Attorney-General has the right to re-make Deputy Corry's blunders, but, at any rate, this House ought not to be under the imputation that it thinks that that is criticism, or that, for the future, a man is any position, who thinks fit, in a dignified way, to raise a point or make a protest and ask for further consideration, should be told—leaving every consideration of indignity or humiliation out of it—"We know why you are saying that; you are saying that because your own relatives are in trouble, because they are breaking the law, because their cattle are being seized, and because they have not paid their annuities."
The Deputy's standard of criticism has always been very high in this House!
Yes, it has— always! I will tax my standard of criticism by two standards. First, when I slander a man in the way in which President de Valera slandered Deputy Mulcahy and then ran away——
That is not right. The President did not run away.
When I slander a man in the way President de Valera slandered Deputy Mulcahy, I shall——
That does not arise. What President de Valera did does not arise on this Estimate, nor is the Attorney-General responsible for Deputy Corry's remarks. I think that Deputy McGilligan has dealt with Deputy Corry's remarks sufficiently well by now.
This matter of Marsh's Yard has been raised on this motion, Sir. I am simply putting it that the matter of Marsh's Yard is a matter that calls for attention and that calls for a reply, and I am pointing out that, up to date, the only reply is Deputy Corry's nonsense.
Mr. Kelly
The President did not run away, as the Deputy has stated. He stood up here and apologised like a man.
Like a coward! The man who puts forward a slander over which he is unable to stand and then apologised for it is not a man.
That matter does not arise on this Vote.
I have almost finished, Sir. I shall not harp on Marsh's Yard any longer. I simply say that these three matters require attention: first, if the Attorney-General is going to make use of the Military Tribunal, we want to have a new attitude towards it; secondly, we want to know whether or not the Attorney-General is going to permit counsel to talk in the nonsensical way in which counsel have talked on certain occasions, and that, if counsel are to be allowed to talk in such a way, they should have some kind of education which would prevent them from making such egregious blunders as have been made; and, thirdly, in regard to this matter of Marsh's Yards whether the proper answer to the Bishop of Cork, when he makes such a statement as he did make, is to revile him and to say that he made that pronouncement merely because his relatives are now squealing because their cattle are being seized and they have not paid their annuities.
I want to raise one or two matters in connection with this Estimate. Firstly, I should like to know from the Attorney-General whether any recognised procedure is adopted in the matter of determining what kind of cases are to be brought before the Civil Courts and what kinds of cases are to be brought before the Military Tribunal. Is there any classification on the basis of the kind of persons concerned or on the basis of the kind of offence committed; or what kind of classification operates in determining which body shall actually try particular classes of offences? I seem to recollect a certain familiarity between the kind of cases dealt with in the ordinary courts and cases dealt with by the Military Tribunal.
I should like to know on what grounds such an apparent differentiation is made. I personally would prefer that all offences should be tried by the ordinary courts, and I should like to know in what kind of cases exceptions are made. Why are some people brought before the Military Tribunal while others are brought before the civil courts? If we are confronted with two different classes of offences, and it is possible to have one kind of offence tried by the civil courts, why is it not possible to have all such cases dealt with by the civil courts?
There is another matter to which I should like to refer—it has already been partly dealt with by previous speakers—and that is the extraordinary dissertations by Counsel for the State at the proceedings before the Military Tribunal. I have read at least on one occasion a long dissertation on a variety of brands of Republicanism by counsel employed by the State, all designed to show the persons charged that they have no right to appear there pretending to be Republicans. I should like to know whether that was just a peculiar idiosyncrasy of the counsel selected by the Attorney-General, or whether as part of his brief before the Military Tribunal he was asked to lecture a lay body such as that on the matters to which he apparently chose to make reference in the course of his remarks? It seems to me that if the State wants to lecture prisoners upon varieties of political thought in the country there is another way in which they could be lectured without having counsel employed to lecture them before the court by which they are being tried. I should like to know from the Attorney-General whether counsel was instructed by him to treat the court to that kind of dissertation? If he was not so instructed, has the Attorney-General taken steps to ensure that we will not be presented with that kind of comedy and that kind of irony in future cases of that kind?
There is another matter to which I should also like to refer, and that is the kind of charges which are formulated against prisoners who are brought before the Military Tribunal. I am opposed to the Constitution (Amendment) Act, and to the Tribunal which has been set up under it. On any opportunity presented in this House of voting for the repeal of that Act I would certainly do so, because I believe it to be foreign to all conceptions of decent law, and foreign to everything that our judicial system has stood for in the matter of assuming the innocence of a prisoner until such time as he is proved guilty. The Attorney-General may make the defence that it is necessary to use this Act because of the fact that he has no other powers to deal with an abnormal situation, but I suggest to the Attorney-General that it is not necessary for him to avail of all the reactionary powers contained in the Constitution (Amendment) Act; for instance, judging by the Press reports of the proceedings before the Military Tribunal, persons are being charged with refusing to answer questions. I should like to know from the Attorney-General whether he is bound to formulate, in such cases, a charge of refusing to answer questions? Is it part of the deliberate State policy to charge persons with refusing to answer questions? Those persons, in my view, rightly refuse to answer questions, as being contrary to the whole normal conception of law. They are often found guilty of the offence of refusing to answer questions, and are sentenced to a term of imprisonment because they simply assert their right before the Tribunal to be treated in the same way as a person would be treated before the ordinary civil court. I do not think it is necessary for the Attorney-General to formulate a charge of refusing to answer questions. Of course, the Attorney-General may plead that, unless he threatens such persons with the consequences of imprisonment for failure to answer questions, the Act in his hands is of no use. I should like to know where the Attorney-General stands as between this kind of law, which constitutes the Military Tribunal, and the ordinary conception of law, which in normal circumstances the Attorney-General would be relying upon?
I am not concerned with the particular political complexions of the prisoners who are tried before the Military Tribunal. I say it is an abhorent and reprehensible thing that the State, under the authority of the Attorney-General, should be asking persons to defend themselves on a charge that they refused to answer questions prescribed by the Guards. Has the Attorney-General so convinced himself that the Military Tribunal is right, and that the Constitution (Amendment) Act is so sacrosanct, that he now desires to avail of all his powers under that Act and to utilise them with the utmost possible rigour? I suggest to the Attorney-General that there is no obligation whatever on him to formulate against prisoners a charge of refusing to answer questions, and that the only purpose of formulating that charge is to make it as difficult as possible for a prisoner to extricate himself from the clutches of the State. If a prisoner is found guilty in the ordinary way, most good citizens accept that as the normal consequence which a prisoner should take. But when a prisoner is brought before a lay authority such as the Military Tribunal, and has charges made against him which are not charges known to the ordinary laws—charges which there is no obligation on the Attorney - General to formulate—I think we are entitled to know where the Attorney-General stands in a matter of that kind. To bring a charge against a prisoner for refusing to answer questions is not ordinary law, and the Attorney-General is now implementing a practice which is forcing the prisoner not merely to convict himself by his own answers but to accept the position that he is guilty until such time as he proves himself innocent. I have seen some recent sentences by the Military Tribunal in cases where a charge of refusing to answer questions has been formulated by the Attorney-General, and I say that some of those sentences——
The Deputy cannot refer to sentences imposed by the Military Tribunal, any more than he can refer to sentences imposed by other courts.
I was not going to make any detailed reference to them, Sir, except to call the attention of the Attorney-General to the fact that, having power not to formulate charges of that kind, he has, nevertheless, formulated the charges, and that by reason of his having formulated such charges he has exposed prisoners to sentences which I think are shameful——
That is clearly commenting on the decisions of the Military Tribunal. Decisions of the Military Tribunal cannot be discussed here, any more than decisions of any other court can be discussed in this House.
If we are going to have that kind of law resorted to on a large scale, we are going to have charges of that kind formulated against prisoners when there is no need to formulate such charges. If they are guilty of other offences, let the specific offences be charged against them, and the Attorney-General, who as a member of this House voted against the Constitution (Amendment) Act——
The Attorney-General
I was not then a member of the House. If I had been, I probably would have voted against it.
In any case, the Deputy's colleagues on the Front Bench did. At all events, in my opinion, having regard to the Government's whole policy towards the Constitution (Amendment) Act in other days, they ought to use the Act as little as possible and they ought not to formulate under the Act the extraordinary charges that it is possible for them to formulate against prisoners. They should proceed against such prisoners for such offences under the procedure that is known to the common law of the country, and this new kind of offence which is typified by the charge of refusing to answer questions by the Gárda, should not be formulated by the Attorney-General.
If we are to have that kind of law we do not need an Attorney-General at all. That kind of law is not law. If we are to resort to the Military Tribunal as an instrument for dealing with a fairly substantial number of offences, then we do not need an Attorney-General at all. All we need is a sheriff in the wild west fashion, somebody who will go out and collar the miscreant by the neck and bring him to the place of detention. We do not need a law officer if we are to use this Act in the manner it is being used. All we want is a swash-buckling sheriff and we can dispense with such things as law officers. I would suggest to the Attorney-General that even in cases where sentences have been imposed purely on charges of refusing to answer questions, that he should ask the Executive Council to reconsider and remit these sentences, because sentences imposed on people for refusing to answer questions are sentences for offences that are not known to the ordinary law of the country.
If the State, having a helpless prisoner in its hands, wants to use this extraordinary power instead of the ordinary means and prefers charges against that prisoner, charges that cannot be formulated in the ordinary court, then we reach a position where the Executive Council is enabled to tyrannise over the prisoner. That is the principle that this Government ought not allow having regard to the origin of the Constitution (Amendment) Act. They ought not to follow that principle in future cases no matter what the character of the prisoner may be and no matter of what political complexion he may be. The State should not formulate charges of that kind. If the State has any definite charge to make against prisoners these charges should be charges which, as far as possible, are known to the ordinary law of the country. It seems to me that the Attorney-General, by formulating a charge of that kind, is utilising the Act in a way that is rigorous. In future, if charges are going to be brought against prisoners before the Military Tribunal these charges should be in respect of offences which are known to the ordinary law. These extraordinary and, in my view, legally unjustifiable charges should not be brought against prisoners.
I confess that in rising to reply to this debate my feelings and the tone in which I intend to deal with the debate and the speeches from the Opposition Benches have been, and probably will be, influenced by the tone which this debate has taken on here this afternoon in comparison with the note on which it was opened by Deputy Fitzgerald-Kenney. I intend to deal with Deputy Fitzgerald-Kenney as fully as I can. I consider that his speech—his attack upon me—was a discredit to him. I consider that he has made charges against me without due consideration, without investigation and without considering the slanders which he has spread all over the country against me or considering the effect upon my personal honour of some of those outrageous charges which he made against me here and which have not been repeated by one single speaker from his benches.
When I listened here to Deputy Costello, my predecessor in office, a man who is capable of judging how I have carried on my duties here, and when I heard the way in which he criticised this Estimate and the method in which he approached it, I realised that I was dealing with a man who appreciates the difficulties under which the Attorney-General labours, who appreciates the difficulties with which he is faced and who is able to judge by what he sees going on in the courts, whether it is reasonable to charge a man with abusing the trust reposed in him by the Government here.
I think I had to answer debates in this House here on three occasions, and on each of these occasions the debate was led off by Deputy Fitzgerald-Kenney. With what motives I fail to understand, on the first occasion he made an attack on me suggesting that certain people had come to me and induced me to adopt a certain course in a certain prosecution. I accepted responsibility for what was done in that prosecution. I considered it perfectly proper and fair. I answered the charge and said that the people did not come to me. I did not say when the Deputy made the charge against me, that at the time when the matter arose, I was out of the country. I so informed Deputy Fitzgerald-Kenney afterwards, but he has never offered one word of apology in this House for the charge he made against me on that occasion. He followed that charge up with another attack on me last year, and now he comes along on this Supplementary Estimate on this Vote, and makes further charges.
I do not mind criticism. I am perfectly prepared to face and answer to the Dáil for anything I have done. I am perfectly prepared to admit mistakes. Nobody, unless he is a superman could hope, with the work that I have to discharge, to get through that work without making a mistake. I am perfectly prepared to listen to reasonable criticism and to take knocks. But I do think it is going beyond the bounds of fair-play to come in here and make wild, impassioned charges and dress out these charges with rhetoric in the hope of influencing Deputies in this House to vote against my Estimate. The whole gist of the Deputy's speech was that I failed to discharge my duties fairly and honestly and that I have failed in my action in bringing prosecutions against certain people; that I failed through unworthy motives and because I was a coward.
In another part of his speech the Deputy referred to my action as attempting to obtain convictions by hook or by crook, and to resort to any method in order to obtain convictions. I could afford to disregard these charges. Nobody who is familiar with Deputy Fitzgerald-Kenney's training, experience and position in the profession would pay very much attention to his opinion of my activities in my office at Attorney-General. I should be, perhaps, quite content to rest satisfied with the attitude which has been adopted by my predecessor here and not attempt to answer those charges. But those charges have gone broadcast all over the country and were made for that purpose and for that purpose only. They were made as a smoke-screen for the purpose of covering up the performances of his satellites throughout the country during the past year, performances with which I had to deal so severely. I cannot conceive any other motive for the Deputy's charges.
Let me take the topic which he mentioned already on the Supplementary Estimate and again returned to here, this Marsh's Yard incident. On the Supplementary Estimate the Deputy raised this question of Marsh's Yard and treated the House to what in my opinion was a distortion and suppression of the facts of that case. He treated the House to what was bad law. I answered him and gave my version of the facts. I quoted the facts of the evidence at the inquest held on the body of that unfortunate boy, Lynch. The Deputy comes back here on this Estimate and does not even attempt to deal with my presentation of the true facts of that occurrence. He reads the Bishop's recent allocution. I agree with Deputy McGilligan. I do not know Bishop Cohalan personally, but I do not believe that he made the statement as a result of any seizures made on his relatives. I do think, however, that he has been misinformed. I do think that he had not a full picture of the facts in that case before him. I will not say any more about his statement of the case because he is not here to answer. But I do think in justice to myself and to those men who are being hounded by Deputy Fitzgerald-Kenney, through the medium of this House, and described as murderers, I should ask why the privileges of this House should be abused in this manner. Why should people be described as murderers?
I saw them murder people in Marsh's Yard.
The Attorney-General
The Deputy so far has not taken advantage of the privilege given to Deputies in this House to describe them as murderers, but Deputy Fitzgerald-Kenney has.
I saw them. I was there and was a witness of it.
The Attorney-General
Deputy Fitzgerald-Kenney pretends to pontificate with arrogance and an overweening assumption of a complete knowledge of law, as a man whose judgment is to be accepted always, because I understand that he actually told the judges they were wrong and he disagreed with them. He pontificates about law, as regards the method with which the Guards deal with unlawful assemblies, as regards the principles to be applied to cases of this kind, as regards the way in which statements are to be handed in at the Tribunal.
Was it not murder to fire point-blank at defenceless men? Was not that murder?
Do you subscribe to that?
Fire with rifles and revolvers on defenceless men who could not help themselves. Was not that murder? It was cold-blooded murder.
The Opposition have had now one and a half hours to make their case. The Attorney-General is on his feet about seven or eight minutes. Surely he ought to be allowed to make his statement without interruption.
I was present and saw these men fired at like hens in a coop by a pack of blackguards.
The Attorney-General has not finished and he should be allowed to make his statement.
It was the grossest murder ever carried out in this country.
What did you bring bandages for?
There were no bandages brought—not until afterwards when they came from the South Infirmary in the ambulance. It is a terrible thing for any Attorney-General to defend that cold-blooded murder. He should be ashamed of himself. Some of these men are on duty in this House. These murderers are around this House to intimidate us still.
Deputy O'Neill should at least hear the Chair.
It is very hard to have patience.
If the Opposition are in earnest in wanting to hear what the Government thinks of the incident they ought to hear the Attorney-General make his statement in full.
The Attorney-General
It is the unfortunate result of the unscrupulous methods adopted by the Deputy in this discussion and when I attempt to answer him Deputy O'Neill finds his feelings aroused.
There was no heat in the murder. It was cold-blooded murder.
The Attorney-General
I could say something about Deputy O'Neill if I wished.
It might cool his ardour if you did.
You shut up.
The Attorney-General
Deputy Fitzgerald-Kenney has abused the privileges of this House, not for the genuine or honest purpose, which is perfectly legitimate, of convincing Deputies of the views which he puts forward, because he must realise that it is calculated to arouse intense feeling around the country particularly in Cork. This type of wild, unguarded language used by the Deputy from the Front Bench is liable to arouse feelings from which one may wonder what may flow. I have respect for this House, I have always had regard to the duty which lies upon Deputies to guard their tongues and tempers. I have never deliberately transgressed the rules of order, because I feel there is a responsibility on Deputies to set an example to the rest of the country. The Deputy the other day actually claimed that because we have privileges here we are entitled to slander whoever we like. That is apparently Deputy Fitzgerald-Kenney's attitude— that he can slander me, and slander people who are unable to answer; that because his statement is privileged, and can go throughout the length and breadth of the country, he is entitled to get up here and make it without the consideration which he would apply to it if he were to make it elsewhere. On the previous occasion on which Marsh's Yard was discussed. I gave the facts as presented to me for my consideration, the facts as I saw them. I drew the attention of the Deputy and the House to the evidence given there, to the facts which were omitted by Deputy Fitzgerald-Kenney, that on that particular occasion between two and three thousand people congregated outside Marsh's Yard before a sheriff's sale at which there were in attendance some buyers who had to have protection, buyers who had attended at a previous sale a few days before, and had been subjected to threats by leading citizens in Cork; buyers whose lives were supposed to be so much in danger that they had a special detective group around them. So ominous was the situation in the eyes of the Guards, that 300 uniformed Guards, in addition to the detective force, were in the vicinity of the yard. So tense was the situation in Cork, so alive were the Gárda authorities to the dangers which were in the air, that they provided that number of uniformed Guards.
That the fears were not unjustified was shown in the event. Two or three thousand people congregated outside the sale yard. The gate of the sale yard was closed by order of the Guards. At about the hour that the sale was about to take place, the attention of the superintendent inside was drawn to the fact that there was tremendous cheering and shouting outside the sale yard. One of the small force of uniformed men inside the yard looked out through the wicket and saw a lorry, which was described in later proceedings as a cross between a tank and a battering-ram, being driven at a furious speed, followed by a yelling mob——
Does the Attorney-General suggest that it was anything but an ordinary lorry?
The Attorney-General
I am referring to, and can quote from, the description that was given and accepted by the court in Cork when the driver of the lorry was charged with unlawful assembly.
Everybody who saw the lorry knows that it was an ordinary lorry.
It was a small ordinary lorry. I saw it outside Union Quay Barracks.
The Attorney-General
I will not quarrel with the Deputy as to whether it was an ordinary small lorry or a big lorry. I am not making any point about that. I am merely using the description which was given and accepted in the course of the proceedings.
That description was not used in court. The words—"a cross between a tank and a battering ram"—were not used. I was in court every day and I never heard them used.
There is a lot of things the Deputy forgets.
Shut up, you, or I will make you shut up.
He went to the Minister for Justice on one occasion and forgot about it.
There is something coming to you from me and you will get it some day.
The Attorney-General on the Vote for his Department.
Keep the Minister for Finance quiet and stop him from aggravating me.
I have got to keep everybody quiet.
The Attorney-General
The words which I used I read in the account of the proceedings in court.
Used in court by whom?
The Attorney-General
Used by the judge in the course of the proceedings.
Evidence, please.
They were not used by anybody present.
Everybody who saw the lorry in Union Quay Barracks knows that it was anything but a battering-ram. Everybody saw that lorry, riddled with bullets as it was.
The Attorney-General
If the Deputy thinks there is any importance to be attached to the words I shall give him the quotation later on. The lorry, in whatever way it was prepared, was sufficiently powerful to carry 15 young men through a heavy gate and but for the fact—and this was given in evidence—that the Guard had peeped through the hole in the gate and had seen the lorry coming, the Guards who were inside the gate would have been killed stone dead.
That would not have been murder.
There was not the slightest danger.
The Deputy was there to protect them.
I was the only person present in the yard, if you want to know.
Mr. Murphy
You should be in the dock with the others, because you were one of the instigators of the whole thing. You went around the country for a fortnight collecting the men who went there.
I want to raise a point of order. Deputy Murphy stated that I should be in the dock, that I was the instigator——
I think that charge should be withdrawn by Deputy Murphy.
Mr. Murphy
Your people went around, and you know it.
Who are my people?
Mr. Murphy
They are the real criminals in this case.
Why do you call them my people?
Mr. Murphy
You should be ashamed of them.
Ashamed of them?
Mr. Murphy
Ashamed of the men who planned it, you and your colleagues.
Do you make that charge against me? I want to repudiate it.
Will Deputy O'Neill resume his seat?
Mr. Murphy
For a fortnight before that, you went round picking up men for the purpose.
Deputies
Chair!
Leave it to me.
Will the Attorney-General please resume his seat? Deputy Murphy has made a charge against Deputy O'Neill, and said that he should be in the dock with reference to certain incidents that happened in Marsh's Yard. That is a statement that should not be made with reference to any Deputy in this House, and it should be withdrawn.
Mr. Murphy
I decline to withdraw it, because I believe it to be so. I will not withdraw it.
The Deputy will have to leave the House then.
Mr. Murphy
You will have to take the necessary steps to get me out of the House.
If the Deputy does not withdraw I shall have to send for the Ceann Comhairle and call his attention to the Deputy's conduct and ask for his suspension.
Mr. Murphy
Very well, I will go then, but I adhere to the statement.
Deputy Murphy withdraw from the House.
I want to state, on my honour that I knew nothing about the incident until it happened in the yard.
The incident is closed. The Deputy will resume his seat.
The Attorney-General
I do not suggest the Deputy had anything to do with it.
Thank you, very much.
The Attorney-General
Here is the description that was given in the Cork Examiner on the following day:—
"All was still quiet at 12.25."
There was an ominous silence amongst those gathered outside. It was quite different, as the Cork Examiner points out, from the scenes that were enacted three weeks or a fortnight previously when a howling mob interfered with a sheriff's sale and when they threatened the lives of those men who were there under protection. The description states:—
"All was still quiet at 12.25, but a few minutes later there came a sensational interruption. The Guards in the front cordon were in conversation when shouts were heard from the direction of Anglesea Street. This was followed by the roar of a lorry engine rapidly approaching, and then the crowd scattered in all directions as a lorry was seen making straight for the entrance gates. The Guards in the cordon attempted for a moment to stop the progress of the lorry in which there were some dozen young men. They were forced to scatter to avoid being run over, however, and some Guards who attempted to grasp the sides of the lorry were beaten off by the occupants of the vehicle. Straight at the second cordon went the lorry, and here again the police scattered in all directions to avoid the oncoming vehicle which crashed right through the gates into the yard. Taking advantage of the disorganised state of the police, the crowd behind rushed the gates and there followed a scene of wild confusion, as Guards with drawn batons fought men who used sticks in their efforts to get into the yard. In the midst of all this, shots rang out—several of them —and after a short interval more explosions were heard at the entrance of the repository. Spectators—amongst them many women —made a wild dash for cover, and doorways in the vicinity were congested by the rash for cover, whilst others of the onlookers made down Anglesea Street and up Infirmary Road. The crowd at the repository gates, however, continued the attempt to drive home an entrance behind the lorry, and it was several minutes before it broke before the charge of the Guards, scattered down and up Anglesea Street. Outside the Model Schools the crowd again stood and beset the Guards. Some of the helmets were knocked off the police and several helmets were seen soaring into the air, some of them landing on the roof of the Farmers' Union abattoir. The Guards eventually yielded before the onslaught and fell back some distance. Here they were joined by reinforcements and the order for another baton charge was given. This time the rush continued down to the new City Hall and down Albert Quay, over the new bridge. Another charge continued over Parnell Bridge and down Parnell Place, and the Guards then took up a position at the city side of Parnell Bridge. Several more charges followed."
All this was long after the man had been shot, and the Attorney-General knows it. He is deliberately misstating the facts to the House.
The Attorney-General
I am not deliberately misstating the facts.
What the Attorney-General has now read took place after the shooting, and he knows that all that took place after the shooting. The Attorney-General also knows that it was sworn by Superintendent McNeill that the cordon was reformed and that nobody could get into the yard within half a minute.
Within 20 seconds.
The Attorney-General
The Deputy stated that I have been misstating the facts. I am merely reading from the Cork Examiner, whatever Deputy Fitzgerald-Kenney may say about the standing and authority of the Cork Examiner. The Deputy comes from my own native county, Mayo, and perhaps he may not know what the exact outlook of the owners of the Cork Examiner is. I wonder would any Cork Deputy——
The Attorney-General——
The Deputy must permit the Attorney-General to speak.
With great respect——
The Attorney-General is entitled to make his statement.
His misstatement, Sir, with great respect.
He is entitled to be heard without interruption. That courtesy was extended to Deputy Fitzgerald-Kenney and he ought to extend it to the Attorney-General now.
The Attorney-General
If there was any misstatement, it was not made by me. I merely read the Cork Examiner account.
After the shooting, and you know it.
The Attorney-General
I read the account from the beginning.
Why do you not give the facts?
The Attorney-General
Deputy Fitzgerald-Kenney seems to be getting extraordinarily excited. I started my quotation where the description was that all was still quiet. Then I read the account of the oncoming lorry making its way through the Guards. I read the incident of the shots, and I read what happened, exactly verbatim from what is in the paper.
You read nothing about what took place inside. The reporter was not inside. You read what took place outside after this murderous shooting took place inside.
The Attorney-General
I merely read the newspaper account. I read exactly the account given in the Cork Examiner of the following day of the incidents which occurred there. Will the Deputy take the quotation and read it for himself?
I will take it as perfectly correct, so far as it goes, but I am not taking it as being an account of the shooting, because it is not. It is an account of what took place after the shooting, and it was written by a man who was not inside the yard—which is perfectly obvious.
The Attorney-General
I have read all the accounts and that account seems to me to be a correct account.
Why do you not give us an account of what happened inside the yard?
The Attorney-General
I was merely drawing the attention of the House to this fact, that Deputy Fitzgerald-Kenney on the two occasions when he mentioned this matter in the House deliberately concealed the background of it, deliberately concealed the fact that there were 2,000 or 3,000 people outside.
What I stated was that there was a large number of people outside, but that inside there were only 20 people or thereabouts.
If Deputy Fitzgerald-Kenney is continually going to interrupt, I will have provision made to ensure that he will cease interrupting the Attorney-General.
Let the Attorney-General make accurate statements.
The Attorney-General
I am not making any mis-statements. I do not want the Deputy to think that I am attempting to score in this matter by making mis-statements. I am quite satisfied to make it clear that the account I read was the account of a writer in the Cork Examiner. It was obviously given by a man outside the yard. I do not suggest anything to the contrary. There is not a word in that statement describing the incidents that happened inside the yard, beyond mentioning the fact that shots were heard at a particular moment and then he described the effect of the shots on the crowd. It does bring out, and I want to draw attention to this, what the Deputy has never made clear in the course of his statements on this matter. What I want the House to understand is that you cannot take the incidents inside the yard in isolation. They must be related to what was going on outside, to conditions apparently deliberately organised, to the knowledge in the crowd that something was going to happen. The crowd was silent and then there was a wild cheer, a lorry dashed through the crowd and hurled itself against the gate of the yard, knocked down the police superintendent and was followed into the yard by a howling mob, armed with sticks.
Followed into the yard?
The Attorney-General
As far as they could get into the yard. I understand the man who was shot, unfortunate Lynch, was one of the followers.
One of four or five, not a howling mob.
The Attorney-General
He was one of those who followed through the cordon formed by the Guards into the yard, one of the 2,000 or 3,000 outside.
Does the Attorney-General appreciate the fact that 2,000 or 3,000 people were kept in order by a condon of Guards?
Deputy O'Neill will please sit down. As I have already indicated, the Opposition got a comparatively long time in which to make their case. The Attorney-General is not getting any chance to reply.
Because he is not giving a true statement of the facts.
Pay no further attention to him.
The Chair will insist——
False statements.
The Deputy must not interrupt the Chair. The Chair will make provision that the Attorney-General will be allowed to continue his statement without interruption.
Why does he not make a statement in accordance with the facts?
The Attorney-General
As I have stated, these are the facts as presented to me. These, I think, are undoubted facts—that there was this large mob armed with sticks outside, that the lorry which went in carried 15 to 20 men and in the lorry were a number of batons loaded with lead and iron; that the sticks which were carried by the crowd outside—some of them— were similarly treated. They were produced in court. If I am to go on making a defence which will take me through the whole of the evidence, I am quite prepared to do it if the House wants it, but I do not think it is necessary. Here is the reference which I mentioned some time back. I have just been referred to the statement upon which I have been challenged: "It was converted, as his Lordship had said, into half a tank and a battering ram."
There was no sworn evidence to that effect. That is the statement of the judge.
The Attorney-General
I give it as the statement of the judge.
The judge was not there any more than you were.
The Attorney-General
In those circumstances, with all their background —the immediate history before that occurrence, the objective at which that crowd were aiming, the whole surrounding circumstances—a body of armed men on duty, protecting the men who were there buying the cattle, opened fire on the people who appeared in this manner in the sale yard and they are here deliberately described by Deputy Fitzgerald-Kenney as murderers and I am described as standing behind murder. I do not know how anybody who has any sense of justice could say that. Deputy McGilligan, at the end of his speech, referred to indignities and abuse which were almost intolerable. This kind of thing, I think, is almost intolerable to anyone. I charged Deputy Fitzgerald-Kenney to produce a precedent where, under circumstances approaching these, an Attorney-General as law officer was called upon to put the soldiers or the police on trial for murder. He came here the other day after he had months in which to look up these precedents and what has he trotted out to the House? Some case away back in the last century, the Borrisokane case which occurred apparently in or about the year 1828, over 100 years ago. I have not been able to trace that case. Over 100 years have elapsed since the time of that case, according to the dates on which I find the Attorney-General mentioned held office here. On numerous occasions in this country and in England riotous and unlawful assemblies have been dealt with by armed forces. I wonder does the Deputy know that?
Can the Attorney-General tell us any such cases in this country? Can he give us one example, with shooting similar to those which took place in Cork, where there was no prosecution? I grant him the exception of Mitchelstown.
The Attorney-General
The ordinary presumption of English law and the basis of English law and the basis of English justice, is that a person is presumed innocent until he is proved guilty. If Deputy Fitzgerald-Kenney had studied the law and did not recklessly give forth bad law he would know that now it is established in England, beyond a shadow of doubt, that the mere fact of killing does not mean that a person is to be presumed guilty of murder.
That alteration of the law in England only took place in the last two months. It is ridiculous for the Attorney-General to say he had that in his mind in August last.
The Attorney-General
It is not ridiculous. The principle underlying the decision of the House of Lords has been followed in this country since the setting up of the Free State, and the Deputy should know that.
I know the opposite.
The Attorney-General
That is a reckless and untrue statement.
It is the Attorney-General who is making reckless statements.
The Attorney-General
It is impossible to deal with some people. This case has been made a pet subject by Deputy Fitzgerald-Kenney. He attended the inquest in Cork, and he asked for a verdict of murder from the coroner's jury. I think I could contrast the conduct of previous inquests with the way in which the State, the Minister for Justice, and the Guards acted at that inquiry in Cork. Did they hold back one tittle of evidence? Did they not put forward every tittle of evidence before that Cork jury to enable them to inquire into all the circumstances of the case?
Yes, the police having selected the jury beforehand.
The Attorney-General
The Deputy is now making a charge against the uniformed police and against the jury.
I am not charging anybody; I am stating a fact.
The Attorney-General
Deputy Fitzgerald-Kenney did not ask for an investigation. He simply asked for a verdict of murder. He did not ask the jury to investigate the facts and come to a conclusion as to whether the circumstances justified the firing. He asked for the verdict of murder and explained to the jury that this was murder.
I explained to the jury that an open verdict was equivalent to a verdict of murder.
The Attorney-General
Though it is not. Again I fear the Deputy is making reckless statements. I am really sorry I seem to have provoked the Deputy so much.
I am not in the least provoked.
The Attorney-General
The Deputy having failed in Cork, comes here and thrusts out of sight the main facts of the case, and presents to this House his own facts. He omits the background to which I have referred, even though I drew attention to it on the last occasion; but he omits all reference to it. He omits the fact that the lorry driver was charged before a Cork jury in Cork and was convicted of unlawful assembly.
Who ever denied that the persons who broke into the yard committed a crime?
The Attorney-General
I think this is the first time it was admitted.
It was a crime, but not a crime that justified these people being shot down.
The Attorney-General
This is the first time the Deputy admitted that.
I admitted it every time I made a statement in connection with the matter.
The Attorney-General
And the mob who assembled outside were guilty of a crime?
Certainly.
The Attorney-General
And they were a riotous assembly?
The Attorney-General
And the Guards are entitled to fire on a riotous assembly if they found it necessary to deal with it in that way.
They are not entitled to shoot people.
Order, order. Will Deputy O'Neill please cease from interrupting. Even the Attorney-General is entitled to speak here. The Opposition ought to have learnt that; they were once in office themselves.
I am sorry for the Attorney-General. ("Order, order.") He is making the best of a very bad case; he ought to try to get away from it.
The Attorney-General
On the Vote for my Office in this Assembly, I was told that I was giving the power of life and death to the Guards. The charge was made that I initiated the doctrine that the Guards could fire and kill whom they liked. I never initiated any such doctrine. I said that in that particular case the Guards were entitled to fire.
Who gave the order?
The Attorney-General
The statement made by the judge who heard the case against Crowley that day, was that but for the action of the Guards firing when they did, several lives would have been lost that day.
Absolute nonsense.
The Attorney-General is quite right. The judge gave a most prejudiced summing up of the whole thing. His position was prejudiced altogether. ("Order, order.")
Is that in order?
It is absolutely out of order.
The judge was not trying these Guards.
The statements from the bench were disgraceful on this occasion. (Cries of "Order, order.")
Does the Deputy know that it is most disorderly to make statements of that kind?
I say they were disgraceful and insulting, and I say that Judge O'Connor was a disgrace to his profession and a disgrace to the bench as well. ("Order, order," and interruptions.)
That is a statement that must be withdrawn.
I will not withdraw it. I refuse deliberately to withdraw it.
He wants to be put out; you may as well do it now.
I do not want to be put out, but I will not be smothered here.
Does the Deputy propose to withdraw what he said?
No.
Then the Deputy must leave the House.
I will not leave the House.
Does the Deputy realise that he is making a charge against the judge and alleging that he deliberately charged the jury incorrectly? Does he withdraw that statement?
What statement?
The Deputy knows perfectly well the statement he made. Will he withdraw it?
I would like to explain first.
The Deputy will explain nothing. He must withdraw.
If I am not allowed to explain I will not withdraw.
I will send for the Ceann Comhairle and have the Deputy suspended.
Very well. I will leave the House, for peace sake.
Mr. O'Neill then left the House.
[An Ceann Comhairle took the Chair.]
The Attorney-General
I am very sorry to have to deal with matters which arouse—and I can quite understand it—such feeling. I am very sorry that this step of going into the details of this Marsh's Yard incident again should have to be taken by me, but I do it simply and solely, as I already explained, because I feel that a charge has been made against my personal honour by Deputy Fitzgerald-Kenney, in suggesting that I had no justification whatever for not instituting a prosecution against the Guards in this case. Deputy Fitzgerald-Kenney made it qnite clear in the course of his speech what he is after. He followed up the line which has been adopted here, and which has caused so much exacerbated bitterness throughout the country, by attempting to develop bitterness against what he describes as Colonel Broy's new recruits. He, of course, exonerates the uniformed Guards altogether, but he wants to have a group of Colonel's Broy's new recruits put on trial——
No uniformed Guard fired in Marsh's Yard and you know it.
The Attorney-General
—— to make a Blueshirt holiday. I hope we have heard the end of the Cork business.
You have not.
The Attorney-General
Just as the Deputy and his colleague Deputy McGilligan for two or three years kept trotting out in this House the Gavin case, to which I referred earlier, on which he charged me with certain responsibilities without inquiry and when he was informed of my personal position. I merely informed him of it because he made an attack on my personal honour. The two Deputies kept trotting that case out here, time after time, and I suppose the same campaign of incitement is going to be followed in connection with this Marsh's Yard affair to cover up all the incidents to which I could refer which have happened during the last few months for which the Deputy and his followers have been responsible.
Does the Attorney-General state that after he mentioned to me——
Deputies
Sit down!
On a point of order. The Attorney-General has made a statement about me. Am I not entitled to have that cleared up and to say to the Attorney-General that he did state to me that he was out of the country at the time this matter was investigated? I have never mentioned the matter in the House since. He now insinuates that for three years afterwards I did. The Attorney-General knows that that is false. I accepted his explanation that he was out of the country.
The Attorney-General
I say that the Deputy never tendered a single apology to me for the campaign he carried on in this House against me about that incident.
I said that the work of the Attorney-General was not properly done and I say it still, and I say——
Order!
The Attorney-General
We will pass to another item in respect of which the Deputy made a series of charges against me. He charged me with not following the laws of evidence and with producing in evidence against prisoners before the Military Tribunal statements made by them in answer to interrogation under Article 2A. Part of the statement which he made was that I was attempting to obtain convictions by fair means or foul. He said—and I quote from the Irish Times report of his speech:—
"I charge him with endeavouring to have men convicted against whom he knows there is no legal evidence, with endeavouring to secure convictions by fair means or foul. I charge him with actually succeeding in getting verdicts which he and everybody else knows cannot be sustained in law. I charge him with having men sent to prison in cases in which, if he discharged his duty properly, the State would have entered a nolle prosequi because there was no evidence against these men. The Attorney-General should not allow the Military Tribunal or any other court to convict any persons who in law had committed no crime and against whom in law there was no evidence.”
Then he drops a few tears for the I.R.A. and said that they had been victimised by me. Up to this, the charge was partiality, but now I am impartially unjust to both Blueshirts and I.R.A.
"He had not allowed the I.R.A. to get off scotfree, and heavens knew he had no brief for the members of that organisation...."
except when they come in useful to beat the Government with.
"... Yet there were members of that body in prison at the present time against whom there was no evidence which would justify a conviction."
I understand the charge to be that statements made by persons under interrogation under Article 2A are not admissible in evidence. The Deputy put that as a point of law, but he dressed it up with the charges I have just referred to which seem to flow from his lips so glibly that either he does not understand the effect they will have on the minds of the people who read them and who do not know me or him, or he is deliberately out to slander me. I could quite appreciate the Deputy raising a point of that kind although this seems to me not quite the forum in which it should be raised. Deputy Gearóid O'Sullivan raised the point in a much more sensible way the other day, if I may refer to his action in raising this point, at the Tribunal itself. I understand that the same point was made and that he is endeavouring at the moment to see if he can devise a means by which the point can be tested in the High Court. That is perfectly legitimate and perfectly fair, but Deputy Fitzgerald-Kenney thinks nothing of coming into this House and launching this charge against me, that I have deliberately and consciously obtained convictions and that I have people languishing in jail at the moment on evidence which is no evidence at all. The Deputy nods his head in assent.
The Attorney-General
I wonder what consideration the Deputy gave to that charge before he made it? I wonder why, if that point was to be made, the Deputy should not raise it in the way in which Deputy Gearóid O'Sullivan raised it? If it is a good point——
You say it is not.
The Attorney-General
I will deal with the Deputy in one moment, and, when I have done, I do not think the Deputy will be even as merry as he looks at the moment. The Deputy followed up that charge by saying that I had so abused my trust, and so conducted proceedings before the Military Tribunal that I had produced a travesty of justice, so much so that he had folded up his tents and left the Military Tribunal and that several other members of the Bar Library had announced that they would never go there again. The Deputy, I think, was only at the Military Tribunal once before he made this world-shaking decision, and I wonder if he is entitled——
As a matter of fact, if the Attorney-General had read my speech, he would see that I did not state that I would not go before the Military Tribunal myself. In fact, I would not, but I did not state it.
You might yet; you never know your luck.
The Attorney-General
I know this strange fact, that, although I do not want, and am not anxious, to follow on the Deputy's lines of attack, there was a case to which the Deputy has referred and to which I will refer before I close this debate, in which the Deputy appeared in argument in the High Court. That case went back to the Tribunal, but the Deputy did not appear there, and I gathered from that peculiar conduct that the Deputy declined to go there.
I appeared for one purpose, and one purpose only.
The Attorney-General
It is a new tradition to set up in the Irish Bar that if prisoners require counsel to appear for them, counsel should object to the Tribunal before which the prisoners are sent. That is something new, and I wonder if the Deputy really feels proud of it? I understood that there was a tradition at the Irish Bar that if a prisoner wanted the services of counsel, that counsel was bound to go unless he had some overwhelming reason for not going.
And I had an overwhelming reason for not going.
The Attorney-General
The Deputy has the effrontery to come here and boast of the fact that, because of the manner in which I conduct prosecutions there he will not go before the Tribunal.
Yes, and because of the manner in which the Tribunal decides cases in which you prosecute.
The Attorney-General
I suspect that is what the Deputy would like to have said when he was speaking on this Vote, but instead of doing that he skirted around the rules of order by charging me with being guilty of creating an atmosphere which produced a travesty of justice. He did that in order to prevent being called to order by the Chair, as he would be, if he made the charge against the Tribunal which he has now made.
Charges may not be made against the Tribunal.
The Attorney-General
Another part of the campaign is this. I think the Deputy said that he was going to engender a spirit in the country that will refuse to recognise the sentences of the Tribunal when properly obtained: to discredit the Tribunal. I consider that is a campaign that ought not to be entered upon lightly. Certain adherents of the Party opposite have made those statements, but I wonder if those on the Opposition Front Bench realise the responsibility that they are taking on their shoulders by adopting a course such as that? Does Deputy Fitzgerald-Kenney really think that it is proper for him to lend his professional position to a campaign against the members of the Military Tribunal who, as far as I know—I think most people will agree in this: certainly any unprejudiced person will — are doing their job extremely well and fairly, and that has been so stated by Deputies on the benches opposite. But Deputy Fitzgerald-Kenney refuses to go before them and refuses to recognise them. However, that is the position in which we find ourselves: that a Deputy with that type of mind solemnly and seriously gets up here and says that the criticism which he has directed against me is really inspired by a desire to see that the law should be administered fairly and properly in this country. I ask the Deputy whether he really considered that charge before he made it.
I do not know whether the Deputy was attending to the affairs of the Department of Justice when he was in charge of that Department. I have here a file before me, but before I deal with it let me first of all say this: that I am informed and believe that, in every case in which statements were taken when Deputy Fitzgerald-Kenney was Minister for Justice, they were put in at the Military Tribunal in exactly the same way as they have been put in since I took office. In fact, they were put in far more regularly in his time. I have not put in statements in every case. The Deputy looks up surprised and shocked, but I have a file before me which, if he wishes, I will let him read. Under his signature there is this: "a certificate may issue" in the case of a prisoner from Kerry, and that prisoner was convicted on nothing but statements obtained from him under interrogation.
What case was that?
The Attorney-General
It was the case of the Attorney-General against Thomas O'Driscoll and Michael Shea on a series of charges, two or three of which required the Minister's certificate. On the file before me there appears to be what I take to be the initials of the Deputy: "I will sign a certificate in this case." and the Deputy did sign the certificate. I have also before me the file of my predecessor in office.
I would like to put this to the Attorney-General, that the aspect of the particular subject that is being debated is at the moment sub judice. I am sure that the Attorney-General would be as anxious as anyone else to see that in any particular case if something happened that should not have happened — if something happened wrongly — it should be reopened. Therefore, I think, it would be undesirable to discuss this, and I am sure that the Attorney-General would be the last person in this House to do anything that would prejudice any decision that the court may give in a case.
The first person to do that was Deputy Fitzgerald-Kenney.
The Attorney-General
I am not discussing any case that is sub judice. I would yield to Deputy O'Sullivan if I felt that anything I would say might in any way prejudice a case in any way. I certainly would not even avail myself of the privilege which the House gives me to refer to matters even though they are sub judice. If the Chair says that I am not in order and that I should not refer to it——
If the Attorney-General says that the matter he refers to is not sub judice, the Chair has nothing to say.
Would the Attorney-General tell me what was the charge in the case in which I gave the certificate?
The Attorney-General
I think it would have been better if the Deputy had made some inquiries in this case before he lodged a charge against me.
What was the charge?
The Attorney-General
I will read the whole file.
I am sure that any certificate I gave was perfectly justified.
The Attorney-General
I am not saying that, and I am not making any such charge against the Deputy. What I am charging him with is this: that on the file before me, under his signature, there is a case in respect of which the only evidence was answers to interrogations given by the prisoner: that senior counsel was sent to the Military Tribunal by the then Attorney-General, and that that statement was put in evidence against the prisoner. And that was the only evidence on the particular charges in respect of some of which the Deputy gave a certificate. Therefore, he must have known that when he gave the certificate, or does he say that he gave certificates in cases without seeing the oral evidence?
Is it not perfectly obvious that a certificate does not rest on the evidence? The certificate is that a crime has been committed. You do not condemn a person even though you do give a certificate. A crime, before a certificate can issue, must be a crime of its own nature, and not a crime against the administration of justice. That is what the Minister for Justice deals with and ought to deal with.
The Attorney-General
The Deputy, apparently, does not know the terms of his own Article 2A of the Constitution. Surely, it is the acts stated that constitute the offence, and does the Deputy say that he gave certificates in cases without knowing what the facts were which constituted the offence?
I know what the nature of the offence was. Will the Attorney-General read out what the offence was?
The Attorney-General
I will read the whole file for the Deputy to-morrow. I move to report progress.
Progress reported; the Committee to sit again to-morrow.
The Dáil adjourned at 10.30 p.m. until 10.30 a.m. on Friday, 12th July.