It is astonishing to me that the Minister should come before the House and seek to do what this Bill does unless he desires to provide an occasion when the whole of the Oireachtas would adopt this measure as a sort of unanimously agreed gesture of gratitude to the society for the purpose of expressing formally some clear national intention. I think it is most unbecoming for the Government to march in here and pass a Bill declaring that the President of Ireland shall, by virtue of his office, be President of the Irish Red Cross Society without the Minister's saying that he comes here more or less as the President's messenger to indicate that, having been consulted in this matter, the President has signified his readiness to conform to this proposal and will be glad to accept the office, if it is put upon him. Can anybody here imagine a statute being introduced into the House of Representatives in Washington purporting to dispose of the President's person without the most careful precautions being taken to indicate clearly that the President of the United States of America desired this thing to be done and would appreciate it if it were done? Can anyone imagine a Minister of the Crown in Great Britain coming into the House of Commons and proposing in a Bill that the Parliament would dispose of the King's person and make him President of the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals? Surely the President of this State is a person who is entitled to as much respect from the Legislature as that of the King in Great Britain or of the President of the United States of America? That is one ground upon which I deprecate the flat-footed procedure adopted in connection with this Bill.
The other is, whether it is desirable that, by statute of this Parliament, we should make the President of Eire the president of the Irish Red Cross. It seems to me very much more desirable that the Red Cross, being a continuing body, should be afforded an opportunity, on the election of each new president, to apply to the President of Eire for his patronage or presidency, so that there would be a renewal of that on the occasion of the election of a new president, on which occasion there would be a kind of public declaration that the administration of the society was of such a high standard that it justified the President in accepting their invitation to become patron. But observe what we are in danger of. Under the present administration of the Red Cross, there can be no question of any conceivable impropriety. We are fortunate in having a body operating the funds and the business of the society which commands the confidence of everyone. But we all know from painful experience over the years that irregularity may very often creep into an organisation of this kind and there may be a scandal and grave matters may have to be attended to and put right. Would it be desirable in such a situation that the President of Eire should have been by statute made the president of that society? Would it not be right that every five or six years, when the question arose as to whether the President was prepared to renew his patronage of the society, the Taoiseach's Department or some other suitable Department of State would intervene to satisfy themselves that the society was properly conducted and everything being done as it should be done before the patronage of the President was renewed?
The more I reflect on the procedure proposed here, the more distasteful it appears to me to be. First, I think it is disrespectful to the person of the President, and, secondly, I think it is inexpedient from the point of view of the Irish Red Cross Society. I venture to say that had the Minister taken the elementary precaution of going to the Leader of the Opposition, the Leader of the Labour Party and the Leader of Clann na Talmhan to find out what they thought of the proposal a very much better device might have been worked out to achieve a similar purpose to that which, apparently, the Minister is at present trying to serve. I would ask the Minister to drop the Bill altogether and see if some more suitable procedure might be adopted to bring the President and the Society into close relations.
In the course of the coming year I think there will be an election of the President of Eire. Possibly the present occupant of that high office will be a candidate and there may be others. That would be a very suitable occasion, after the election is concluded and the new occupant of the office is declared; for him to make his gesture to the society. It is really the poorest compliment to the members of the society to say that the President has to be foisted on the society by law and that the society has to be foisted on the President by law, the presumption being that neither would touch the other with a 40-foot pole if we did not make them.
