Vol. 104 No. 18
This Bill arises out of a recommendation made by a committee which was set up after a discussion on a Supplementary Estimate. The committee considered the question of making awards of medals, certificates, etc., to people who performed acts of bravery. That committee expressed a wish that the whole scheme might be placed on a statutory basis. I move:
"That the Bill be now read a Second Time."
What committee did that?
It was a committee set up nearly two years ago, some time about August, 1945.
A committee of the House?
A committee consisting of the Ceann Comhairle of the Dáil, the Cathaoirleach of the Seanad, the Lord Mayors of Dublin and Cork, the Chairman of the General Council of County Councils, the Chairman of the Central Council of the Red Cross Society, and the Commissioner of the Garda Síochána. This was an informal committee set up following the passing of the Supplementary Estimate. When that committee came together, it was felt that the whole business should be put on a statutory basis. Consequently we have this little Bill. At the time the Estimate was before the House, there was a general demand that there should be some power to make an award of compensation in the case of persons who lost personal property as a result of, say, immersion in a river in attempting to save life. Deputy Dillon made some rather amusing observations on the matter at that time and I opposed it myself but, on reconsideration, the Government agreed that we should make some provision for compensation in certain cases where the Minister for Finance is satisfied that such an award is desirable. This Bill makes provision for that.
At this hour of the day I have very little sympathy with the idea of setting out in the forefront of the Bill a description of bravery such as appears in it. I feel that it belongs to a type of civilisation other than ours. I feel that at this hour of the day the civilisation to which we have been used for years is breaking down because deeds of bravery cannot sustain it. The world is looking deeper into what are the sources of bravery and fortitude. I have no great sympathy with the proposal. I think that people should be allowed to be brave as a piece of ordinary civic duty, and that if they have to get recognition, their local council might very well thank them for it. At any rate, I do not sympathise very much with the general idea of the Bill, and I think that the whole idea, if there is an idea in it, falls down on the machinery of the Bill. If the idea is that people who distinguish themselves by acts of physical bravery are to get recognition in a national way, and if we are to have a Presidential office at all, I feel that the President, as the national father of the State, ought to appear on it in some kind of way. If he has to have some kind of body to consult, to know whether he is suitably acting in matters of this kind, I do not see why it should be necessary to bring the Lord Mayors of Cork and Dublin, the Chairman of the General Council of County Councils and the Chairman of the Red Cross Society together for that purpose. The President has a body associated with him that is not overworked, that as a consultative council in this particular matter might be quite as representative a council as the rather heterogeneous council that is mentioned here. I refer to the Council of State. I feel that assuming that a particular type of recognition is to be given as a national matter to deeds of physical bravery, the President ought to appear some way in it, and I do not think it necessary to get a kind of scratch team together in this way to act as a body to help them. I would recommend seriously to the Minister that, if there is to be a body to consider this matter at all and if the President is to appear in it, the Council of State might give him all the advice and assistance he might want without setting up a special bravery committee in the way in which Section 2 proposes.
I had hoped that the Minister would have given us more information as to the intentions of the Bill other than that contained in the printed particulars. For a number of years I have taken a very active interest in instances of bravery brought to my notice and I followed that up, in due course, by making representations to the Royal Humane Society. I should like at this stage to pay tribute to the very sympathetic manner in which these matters were dealt with by the society, as a result of which parchments and certificates of merit were forwarded to the Dublin Corporation at the various monthly meetings for presentation. At some of these monthly meetings, we had eight, nine or ten cases of various acts of personal heroism. Having attended a couple of meetings of this provisional committee, in my capacity as Lord Mayor, I am not impressed by the fact that it is intended to take up cases which have been already dealt with in the way I have referred to, because I have heard the view expressed—and I hope I may be wrong in my interpretation of these opinions—that it is intended only to deal with major cases of bravery. If that is so it is a rather drastic decision and I should like to get from the Minister some further explanation of the expression "deed of bravery" which in the Bill is defined as "an effort to save human life involving personal risk."
We have daily experiences of instances where many of our citizens risk their lives in trying to save the lives of others. I should like to know from the Minister whether it is intended to deal with such cases under this Bill and under the machinery that is to be set up, in the same way as they have been dealt with in the past. Another point that should be considered has reference as to the form of the trophy. I have seen some specimens of the trophies submitted to the new council. I am not opposing their adoption from the point of view that the inscriptions are made in the Irish language, but I feel that if you want to encourage a spirit of good citizenship, these trophies, when they are exhibited on the wall of a house, should have something on them to indicate their meaning. Families, as a rule, cherish any trophy of that kind; they look upon it as a recognition of deeds of bravery performed by some member of the family. They feel that their meaning should be clear and that there should be no necessity for anyone to ask them any questions as to what they really mean. I have seen some of these trophies. They have just a few words of Irish on them which I unfortunately do not understand and which, I believe, only a very intellectual Irish scholar would know. I suggest that the trophies should have a bilingual inscription so as to let people know what they meant.
Where it is a question of a person risking his or her life in order to save the life of another person, it is something which should get recognition and should get recognition in a very definite way. One of the most common forms of that here is the case of people risking their own lives in an attempt to save other people from drowning. We have numerous cases of that in Dublin, both as regards the Liffey and the canals. In very many cases, the person who risks his life by jumping into the Liffey to save the life of somebody in danger, or into a canal to save a child, very often destroys the only suit of clothes he may have. Will there be any machinery to replace that suit of clothes other than going around with a hat? We ought to do away with going around with the hat. It seems to me that one thing would be laughing at the other, if that person is to get a medal, a parchment or a trophy, while his suit of clothes is replaced by going around with the hat. If money is to be paid by the State, the man whose one suit of clothes is destroyed cannot afford to wait for the ordinary red tape methods.
Further, I should like to know if it is intended that this scheme will replace the activities of the Royal Humane Society? Are we to take it that, when this Bill becomes law, the activities of that society in this State will cease, or are they to continue to operate? That is a point on which we should like some information and, if the Minister is in a position to give it, we should be glad if he would do so.
There is nothing in the Bill to prevent the Royal Humane Society from continuing its activities, if they wish to do so. Representations were made by Deputies at different times that there should be some Irish recognition of acts of the same kind as those recognised for years by the Royal Humane Society, but if that society wishes to carry on, I do not think anyone will interfere with them. Section 5 provides for compensation in respect of loss of clothing or effects of that kind.
I am concerned only with the machinery for paying the compensation.
With regard to the point raised by Deputy Doyle, I left it completely in the discretion of the council. I think it was Deputy O'Sullivan who was Lord Mayor at the time, and they were very keen on getting the Minister out of this matter altogether and on leaving the council free to make the awards—apart, of course, from the monetary awards in which the Government would have to have some say. They felt that what was a major act of bravery or a minor act was a matter to be settled by them. I expressed my personal view when speaking on the Estimate. I did not like the idea, on the few occasions on which I had to present medals, of having to give any man a bronze medal, when another man was coming up for a gold medal, but I imagine that is what they intend to do. I have left them free to make their own decisions and I think that was the wisest thing to do. They probably would not act, if they were to be told by any Minister what they were to do.
The matter of the Council of State was discussed on the Estimate, and Deputy Dillon thought, as Deputy Mulcahy now seems to think, that this would be a proper activity for that body. The reply I made them is the same as the reply I make now. The Council of State was set up for a particular purpose under the Constitution, and to ask them to do this work would be asking them to do something they were never intended to do. On the other hand, the council we have here could not, I think, be more representative. The council will consist of the Ceann Comhairle for the time being, the Cathaoirleach of the Seanad, the Lord Mayor of Dublin and the Lord Mayor of Cork, the Chairman of the General Council of County Councils, and of the Irish Red Cross Society, and the Commissioner of the Garda Síochána.
I do not think it would be possible to get a more representative council, and, if I had thought that any council we might propose would wish to be put on a statutory basis, I would have waited until I had the Bill before bringing in the Estimate. It was only at the unanimous request of the council that I brought the Bill in. I feel rather like Deputy Mulcahy about deeds of bravery. I do not like this kind of thing myself, but the majority of people do. They like to hand these trophies down to their descendants, and there is no reason, when people feel that way about it, that they should not have them and why we should not have an Irish decoration, as well as an English decoration. Let them get both, if they wish.
