I move:—
That a sum not exceeding £46,320 be granted to complete the sum necessary to defray the Charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending the 31st day of March, 1950, for the Salaries and Expenses of the Office of the Minister for Justice.
Following what has become the settled practice on these Estimates. I propose, if the House agrees, to deal generally with the whole group of Estimates—Votes 32 to 40 inclusive— and not to make separate statements on the separate Votes. When I come to move the Financial Resolutions, Deputies will, of course, be free, with the permission of the Chair, to raise any points that may have been overlooked in the general debate.
The over-all picture as compared with last year is that there is a decrease of some £33,000 in the aggregate for the nine Votes in question. For purposes of comparison, the exact figures are as follows:—Last year, £3,448,930 (including Supplementary Estimates); this year, £3,415,860. The main cause of the decrease is that the Estimate for the Garda Síochána— Vote 33—is down by some £54,000. This is due to the fact that we are budgeting this year for a slightly smaller force as appears on the face of the Estimate. Of course, I do not expect that expenditure on the Garda Síochána this year will be less than it was last year. On the contrary, I expect it to be more, as there will be increases of pay with retrospective effect to be met, and for that purpose there will have to be a Supplementary Estimate in due course. Except in the case of the Vote for the Land Registry and the Registry of Deeds—Vote 38—where the increase is due to a provision for additional staff, the slight increases shown in most of the other votes have been necessitated mainly or wholly by the recent general revision of salaries and wages in the public service. There is nothing in the detail of these Votes that appears to call for any special comment, so perhaps I may be permitted to draw attention to some matters of more general interest in connection with the work of my Department.
The crime statistics for 1948 are not yet available in final form, but the provisional figures go to show that there has been a slight decline in serious crime during the past year. In 1948 the total number of indictable crimes recorded was 14,980, as against 15,329 in 1947 and 17,305 in 1943, which was the peak year. It is something that the trend is in the right direction, but I am bound to say that the figures I have quoted are not such as to give any cause for complacency. The amount of serious crime measured by the number of indictable offences recorded is still more than double what it was in 1938, to take a normal pre-war year. Juvenile crime of the more serious kind has followed the general trend and shows a slight decline as compared with the previous year. But here, too, there is no ground for complacency.
So far as non-indictable crime is concerned, there has been an increase in the number of prosecutions for summary offences from 151,690 in 1947 to 168,515 in 1948. A contributory factor has been the increase in the number of prosecutions under the Road Traffic Act. This reminds me that last year when the Votes for which I am responsible were under discussion, there was reference to a number of matters arising in connection with the Road Traffic Act that it would have been more appropriate to raise on the Vote for the office of the Minister for Local Government. Accordingly, it is with some hesitation, lest I may be thought to have set a bad example, that I venture to refer to one aspect of the matter that is literally of vital interest to the public, namely, the number of fatal accidents on the roads. No less than 201 persons were killed in road accidents during 1948. Of these, 78 were pedestrians, 66 pedal cyclists, 45 drivers or passengers of mechanically propelled vehicles and 12 drivers or passengers of horses or horse-drawn vehicles. No one can fail to be appalled by the tragic waste of human life which these figures reveal. However, it would seem that the public conscience has been aroused. There is an increasing awareness of the need for road safety largely, I believe, in consequence of the energetic measures that have been sponsored by the Minister for Local Government with the co-operation of the police and voluntary organisations. As a result, the number of persons killed on the roads last year, though shocking to contemplate and a reproach to our civilisation, was less than in any of the years 1936, 1937 and 1938 notwithstanding that the number of mechanically propelled vehicles registered has gone up since that time by something like 75 per cent. In 1936, for instance, there were no more than 61,000 such vehicles on the register, whereas last year there were 108,000. Non-fatal accidents are down, too, but it would be a mistake to suppose that a true picture can be got from the figures I have quoted without taking into account various other factors (and, notably, mileage) with respect to which precise information is lacking. Nevertheless, it is safe to say that there are encouraging signs that the road safety campaign is having an effect. I trust that I have not been out of order in making these observations or that, if I have, no one will be tempted to follow me, as it is the Minister for Local Government who has the responsibility and is entitled to the credit in this matter.
Turning now to prison administration, I am glad to be able to report that there have been further improvements in prison conditions since last year. It has now been decided to allow all prisoners to smoke, including the inmates of St. Patrick's. Further recreational facilities have been provided by the installation in Mountjoy, Portlaoighise and St. Patrick's of cinema apparatus consisting of 16 millimetre projectors. Prisoners are to have better clothing in future in consequence of the provision of a better quality of cloth. These are some of the ways in which we have sought to make the prisoner's lot a less unhappy one while he is within the prison walls. But we have not stopped there. The Discharged Prisoners' Aid Society will continue to receive support in the form of the increased grant which I announced last year. It has been decided, moreover, that in future convicts who are released before completing their sentences are to be released unconditionally, in the majority of cases, and the so-called ticket of leave, which required the licensee to report regularly to the police, will now be the exception and not, as formerly, the rule. The matter of prison buildings continues to call for attention and, during the year, a beginning has been made with the renovations and repairs necessitated by the enforced neglect of the emergency period. Something has been done this year to improve the quarters of the indoor staffs and in the coming year it is hoped to tackle the prison cottages with a view to effecting such improvements as are practically possible.
Deputies will remember that the need for additional staff in the central office of the Land Registry was foreshadowed in what I said on this subject last year. The requisite provision is being made in this year's Estimate (Vote 38). Because of circumstances outside our control, some of the newly created posts remain to be filled and others have had to be filled by temporary staff, with a consequent loss of efficiency. Accordingly, it cannot be said that our staff requirements have been fully met. The time-lag, which is inseparably associated with the provision of additional staff, has had a more adverse effect in this instance because of the fact that we are witnessing an unprecedented expansion in the work of the central office of the Land Registry. For this reason it has not been found possible, despite the best endeavours of the staff, wholly to avoid delays and to prevent the accumulation of arrears. However, it is hoped to do better in the coming year. Needless to say I am fully alive to the importance to the rural community of the work of the Land Registry and will spare no effort to restore the position though I am afraid it may be some time before there is an inflow of staff sufficient to keep pace with the rapidly increasing intake of work.
I have now concluded such observations as occur to me on topics that appear to be of some general interest. At the end of the debate I shall be glad to deal with any points of detail that may be raised in the course of the discussion and to furnish whatever explanations may be needed.