I think for the first time in my life I have sympathy with the Taoiseach, and very sincere sympathy, indeed, because I do not believe in any individual or any group of individuals in this House having any right to place responsibility on shoulders which those shoulders should not bear, and the entire burden of the speeches that have been made from two Parties here to-night is simply because a certain person has been nominated as Taoiseach of Dáil Eireann, that on him, and him alone, rests the entire responsibility of forming a government in this country. If those Deputies' conception of the duties of a Party is that the responsibility should be placed on the shoulders of an individual Deputy, that is not my conception of their duties. We are sent here, firstly, either as individual Deputies if we are Independent, or secondly, as Deputies who may be members of Parties, but our first duty in this House is to represent as far as we can, and express the wishes of our constituents, and to carry them out, as shown by the way they voted, in what we view as the best manner.
I do not believe that any man in this House who dislikes the team the Taoiseach has offered the House to-night has the slightest right to criticise that team when he gave the entire responsibility for formulating it to the Taoiseach. As far as I am concerned, my mind is perfectly clear on what my attitude is. It is not a question of being opposed to the team as a particular Fianna Fáil team. So long as I remain a Deputy of this House I will vote against any team put up by any Taoiseach who is head of a Fianna Fáil Party, and, as far as I am concerned, the individual does not alter my opposition to Fianna Fáil in the slightest. If, as somebody suggested, he picked them out of the Fianna Fáil Benches by chance or by lot, it would not alter my opposition. In fairness to the Taoiseach, his position is this: Not alone did Fine Gael attack him throughout the country, not alone did Fine Gael do their best to see that Deputy de Valera would not be elected Taoiseach, but the Labour Party did their best, and Clann na Talmhan and Independent Farmers did their best, to see that he would not be elected. We are now in the position that he has been elected Taoiseach. They do not want his Ministry; they do not like Deputy Dr. Ryan. But at twenty minutes past three, when they saw who was walking into the Division Lobby, and it was not a question of whether they liked Mr. Cosgrave's nomination or not—it was merely a question as to the election or non-election of Deputy de Valera—the people who campaigned the country as viciously as Fine Gael—more viciously in fact—against the Taoiseach and his Party, took the line of least resistance and sat down to wait to see what would happen.
In order to cover themselves up, having thrown the entire responsibility on the shoulders of one man, having asked that man to take up responsibility, they come along and say: "We have given him responsibility but we do not like his team." They do not like the team. Clann na Talmhan does not like Deputy Dr. Ryan. If they did not want Deputy Dr. Ryan as Minister for Agriculture in this House, there was one way, and one way only, of preventing Deputy Dr. Ryan from being Minister for Agriculture and that was by defeating the nomination of the present Taoiseach. If the Labour Party, anxious as they are to prevent the nomination of Deputy Seán MacEntee, did not want Deputy MacEntee, they had one way of preventing it and that was by preventing the nomination of the Taoiseach as Taoiseach. I cannot understand —and I doubt if I will be able to understand—how anybody can say to the present Taoiseach: "Yours is the responsibility and yours alone. You have to take that responsibility." And those 35 or 36 people will sit there having shirked their responsibility, reserving the right to criticise what any Party or anyone else does in this House.
Deputy Cafferky tried to evade the question. He said he would not vote for Deputy De Valera and he would not vote for Deputy Cosgrave. It was not an issue on that division between Deputy de Valera and Deputy Cosgrave. The motion before the House was the election, or non-election, of Deputy de Valera as Taoiseach, and Deputy Cafferky or any other Deputy cannot now complain if the Taoiseach, in picking his team, is going to leave them with Deputy Dr. James Ryan as Minister for Agriculture. Sooner or later, people will have to find out that there is one thing you cannot have in this world, in politics or out of it. You cannot have the best of both sides of the game at the same time. If you are going to make a stand against a Minister or a political Party you should not run. You cannot go half way and squeal then that you could not go the whole way because you did not like the man. I never believed that we would see an exhibition in an Irish Parliament so inane and futile as the exhibition we saw this evening in the division for the election of Taoiseach when 33 or 34 Deputies abstained from voting. The Taoiseach came back to the House with his team of Ministers, as he was fully entitled to do, and the very moment he arrived the attack started. What did they expect him to do? If Deputy Donnellan was forming a Government, if Deputy Norton was forming a Government or if Deputy Cosgrave was forming a Government, would any of these three Deputies, having been elected Taoiseach, go around the House and consult every Deputy before he distributed his Ministries? Would they not at least agree that the man elected as Taoiseach has the right to select his own team of Ministers? If he has not, I cannot see that the election of a Taoiseach is of any value when he has been refused the right to nominate his own Government.
I am unremitting in my opposition to Fianna Fáil. Opposition to those in the Fianna Fáil Cabinet means nothing to me. I do not care who is Minister for Agriculture; I do not care who is Minister for Supplies; and I do not care who is Minister for Justice. I will vote against the formation of any Fianna Fáil Ministry, and I am not going to allow anyone or any Party to get away with the well-known trick of avoiding responsibility. Surely we ought to be old enough in Parliamentary tradition now to realise that when we are sent here we are sent with a duty to our constituents, to act up to our responsibilities. There is only one way to do that, and that is by talking out what is in our minds, and acting as our constituents desire. I defy any Deputy, whether Independent, Labour, Clann na Talmhan or Farmers, to deny that his constituents have sent him here to sit down and not vote. If any Deputy sent here sits down and does not vote, the constituents of that Deputy will only get from him the type of representation they deserve. It is worse than disfranchisement. It is merely being mute of malice, because they think it suits. They can glory in the fact that when Deputy Dr. Ryan was put forward as Minister for Agriculture they made a terrific fight for his removal. The Labour Party will be able to tell their supporters what a gallant effort they made to prevent Deputy MacEntee being appointed Minister for Local Government. They can talk for the next three years about Deputy Ryan and Deputy Moylan for all the effect it is going to have, once they have committed themselves to the appointment of Deputy de Valera as Taoiseach. Having done that, they might as well remain mute for all the difference it is going to make. It was a most inept exhibition. If Irish politics is going to descend to that level, some people will never make up their minds on major issues.
When I first came to this House I had to listen to Deputy Corry saying something similar to what he said to Deputy Cafferky. I remember that after my first speech here I got a very ardent welcome from Deputy Corry. There was a way for dealing with people like him, and that was not to wait for any sympathy. The same thing happened in connection with the Farmers' Party. What happened to-day. The farmers were told by Deputy O Cleirigh and Deputy Corry that they were decent fellows, that they were delighted to see an independent body of men in the House at last to represent the agricultural community. They said that they were proud of the fact that at last agriculture had come into its own, and had a fine stalwart body of men in this House who would agree with Deputy O Cleirigh and Deputy Corry in so far as they would oblige these Deputies by sitting down and not voting against the appointment of the Taoiseach. No wonder they were delighted. If I was a candidate for any appointment and found myself in a minority position I would not have much to say about people who sat down and did not vote. I am not sure what the Minister for Local Government said about the Labour Party or what tha Labour Party said about the Minister. I think the Minister said some very hard things about me in my constituency, but I have yet to realise that Irish politicians have become so thin-skinned that we have to take up a couple of hours in Dáil Eireann criticising what somebody said about someone else during the elections. Occasionally I have been sorry for things that I said on election platforms, but I have never yet been sorry for what somebody said about me. If one goes on an election platform electioneering one must be prepared to take what people say. The greatest compliment that can be paid by anybody, particularly in opposition, whether he be Deputy or candidate, is to be attacked by a Minister or by somebody else. It is a very good sign to see such an attack being made, as it shows that some impression has been made—whatever impression it may have on voters. It is really no concern of mine what team the Taoiseach comes here with.
During this debate a number of points were made with which I am in entire agreement. I heard one Fianna Fáil Deputy saying that some people were attacking the Ministers, not because of their incapacity as Ministers, and not because of their failure to carry out their jobs and not because of something they said. As far as I am concerned I would not vote for the Minister for Supplies because of one incident. There was a period in this country when horse shoe iron was badly wanted. A friend of mine was in a position to get three tons of horse shoes in Belfast at that time. I applied to the Department of Supplies for a permit. Unless I am greatly mistaken the Minister for Supplies was also Minister for Industry and Commerce. After a little time I got a reply telling me that it appeared to be a matter for the Department of Industry and Commerce, over which the same Minister presided. I applied to the Department of Industry and Commerce and after some time I got a reply stating that it appeared to be a matter for the Revenue Commissioners. I may have been wrong in applying in the first instance to the Department of Supplies, but in November when horse shoe iron was badly wanted the Department of Supplies should not have referred me to the Department of Industry and Commerce or to the Revenue Commissioners, as if that Department was doing its business, it should have given me an Army lorry to go to Belfast to bring it down. The revenue authorities were the only people who did their business properly but by then the iron was not available. Many things happened like that. I will vote against Deputy Dr. Ryan because of another small instance. Deputy Dr. Ryan knows perfectly well that 90 per cent. of the small traders in country towns are seedsmen, and that they are in the habit of dealing directly with well-known English seedsmen. Deputy Dillon can verify that statement. Last year I raised a question with the Minister for Agriculture about the import of agricultural seeds. There was a lot of talk about it, and when it was too late we were permitted to bring them in. Early this year, in April, those firms in England wrote to their customers here saying that the British Ministry of Agriculture would permit the export to this country of any type of agricultural seed that was required, because they had a surplus of them in Great Britain. Individual shopkeepers who were customers of those merchants naturally immediately wired back saying they would take all they could get of them. A week went by, and the first thing those shopkeepers heard was through a wire from the people in England saying that the Eire Government would not permit the import into this country of anything except garden beet. A letter subsequently followed, which verified that position. There was an attempt made to explain the matter to me by saying that the Eire Government would not permit individual licences to be given for the import of those seeds.
If that was the position, I should like to know how they expected those people to bring them in? Here you had, all over the country, shopkeepers, co-operative societies and creameries, who had been dealing with those wholesale seedsmen in England during the last 30 or 40 years. Those people were prepared to supply them with seeds. The British Government were prepared to allow the seeds to be sent to this country, but the Irish Government, the Department of Agriculture, under Deputy Dr. Ryan, would not permit the import into this country of any type of agricultural seed except garden beet. On that one point alone, if nothing else, I would vote against the nomination of Deputy Dr. Ryan.
I do not want to go back over the 101 other things which would make me vote against his nomination. I am quite sure there are members on the Clann na Talmhan Benches who, if they went back seven or eight years, would be inclined to vote against Deputy Dr. Ryan for quite a number of reasons. I am quite sure that there are others on those benches who, like the Deputy we heard earlier, would not agree with Deputy de Valera, and would not agree with Deputy Cosgrave; apparently, he has spent his time since he came to the use of reason trying to make up his mind who is the worse, and is still in such a state of flux that the only thing he is sure of is that one is worse than the other, but he cannot make up his mind about anything else. What complaint has he against Deputy Dr. Ryan? What complaint has he against Deputy Lemass, or against any member of the Government? What has he been doing for the last seven or eight years? What did he do at the last few elections? Did he or did he not support them? Any one who supported that Fianna Fáil Ministry in 1932 and in 1933 and in 1937 and in 1938 should have very little cause to desert them now because in my opinion they are not any worse now than they were in 1932 or in 1933 or in 1937 or in 1938. There must be quite a number of converts to this policy of "sit down and say nothing," who have discovered something about Fianna Fáil in the past four or five months that we did not succeed in finding out over a very long period, but they have not told us about it. They are quite satisfied, as one Deputy said, that a lot of people in the country think we have a great Taoiseach but a rotten set of Ministers, and they spent their time here bearing out that idea of some loose thinkers in the country that we have a great Taoiseach and a rotten set of Ministers.
Does anybody imagine, if the Taoiseach is the one outstanding man of our generation, if the Taoiseach, as Deputy Dillon said, is probably the cleverest politician in Europe, if he is, as some people seem to think, one of the greatest men of all time, that his Ministers can be as bad as they are painted? Surely, if he is the great man they think he is, he ought to be able to make a better job of picking a Ministry than some people think he is doing? They cannot have it both ways. They cannot stand on one foot and pretend to support Fianna Fáil by saying "We are for de Valera", while standing on the other foot and opposing Fianna Fáil by attacking his Ministers. They will have to make up their mind as to whether they want a continuation of the Fianna Fáil Government in this country.
Might I ask whether it is the intention of Clann na Talmhan Deputies, as long as this Dáil lasts and as long as the Taoiseach carries on with his team of Ministers, to sit down and do nothing—to talk as much as they want, but never to vote? Do they realise that, after a division in this House, there may be as much responsibility on them to form a Government as there is on the Labour Party, or on the Fine Gael Party? If they were put into that position, would they just sit tight and say: "We will do nothing. Let somebody else carry on. We reserve the right to criticise those who carry on, and not alone do we reserve that right but we reserve the right to criticise those who are entitled to criticise those who carry on?" The Labour Party went out of their way to attack a certain Minister. Apparently they are prepared to vote against him. Having given that Minister his job already by nominating Deputy Eamon de Valera as Taoiseach, they are now prepared to say they were wrong because they do not like to see that Minister. Clann na Talmhan are going one better still. They have allowed Deputy Eamon de Valera to become the Taoiseach. They do not like Deputy Dr. Ryan very much. They hope to be in a position to direct his policy by their able assistance and the great guidance they will be able to give as the only people who are interested in farming in this country. They hope to direct Deputy Dr. Ryan's mind on such lines that he will not be the Deputy Dr. Ryan we knew of old. Do they seriously think that either, the Taoiseach or Deputy Dr. Ryan will care a hoot, after the division which follows this debate, what Clann na Talmhan or anybody else thinks, or that any influence they can exert by word or deed will have the slightest effect on the Minister for Agriculture? As far as I am concerned, I doubt that there is any Minister of the Fianna Fáil Party for whom I would vote even in a coalition Government if we were to have one in the morning. I suppose I would have to salve my conscience by letting in a few members of that Party, but I am not at all sure that, like another Deputy who has spoken, I would not select them from the back benches.
There is only one thing of which I am certain: If the Fianna Fáil Party, when they first formed a Government here, had the principles and ideals which they led the people of this country to believe they had, if they reasonably believed that they could do something to end unemployment, if they reasonably believed that they could do something to relieve the poor and destitute of this country, if they reasonably believed that they could improve the position of agriculture, then they came into office with as high a set of ideals as any Party that ever came in. If they reasonably believed that they could carry out any of those promises, they must be a sick and sorry lot of Ministers now. They must be tired listening to people telling them what they promised and did not carry out. I am sure they are disillusioned, because it is possible that they had convinced themselves at the time, as they succeeded in convincing the country, that they could do all those things. They are probably tired and disillusioned now. I am quite sure a lot of them would not mind getting out if they could, but they cannot get out; no Minister of that Fianna Fáil Cabinet can get out at the moment. Clann na Talmhan and the Labour Party know very well that, even even though Fianna Fáil dropped only ten seats at this election, one crack in that Cabinet or one crack in a division here might mean the end of them. Deputy O Cléirigh and Deputy Corry were right; if I were the Taoiseach or any of the Ministers or any member of the Fianna Fáil Party I would join with Deputy O Cléirigh and Deputy Corry in welcoming into the House a new Party who are prepared to give Fianna Fáil another chance, after telling the country during the election campaign that they wanted Fianna Fáil out of office.