On Section 2, which is the operative section of the Bill I assume that we would be entitled to discuss everything that it is proposed to continue under the Bill. I do not propose, however, to open the debate upon quite so wide a front as that. I am hopeful, from the moderate and considerate reply from the Parliamentary Secretary to the Second Reading of the debate, that it may be only necessary for me to draw his attention to some of the things that are enshrined or embodied in the Supplies and Services Act of 1946, for him to give the House an assurance that the powers which were thought necessary in 1942—and which were continued in 1946, because we were not at that period out of the wood of the European war—will not be exercised in the manner in which heretofore has been the practice.
Under the Supplies and Services Act, 1946, certain things were done which the House agreed were justifiably done in the circumstances of that time. Among them, Section 3 continued a great number of Orders which were made before 18th June, 1946, and were in force immediately before the operative date. I am concerned with one Order, the Order No. 173 of 1942. This is not a Principal Order, it is not a fundamental Order; but it does significantly and drastically amend what was the basic Order made under the Emergency Powers Act of 1939.
Deputies who were in the House at the outbreak of the great war which began in September, 1939, will remember that the Oireachtas, abrogating many of the safeguards of the Constitution, gave to the Government of the day powers which were universally admitted to be necessary to deal with a very perilous and extraordinary situation. But though these powers were given in the widest measure—perhaps with reservations, mental reservations, on the part of those who conferred them and of those who were the recipients of them—nevertheless, when the powers were conferred, the Government of that time were particularly careful, in drafting this Emergency Powers Order, 1939—which is No. 224 of the Statutory Rules and Orders of that year—to state certain specific limitations within which it declared, in effect, that the powers which had been given to it by the House would be exercised.
In that connection, I think it is highly important for the House and the general public to bear in mind the fundamental reasons why the great powers which were taken under Part VI of this Order were felt to be necessary and the conditions in which and the purposes for which it was felt that these powers should be exercised. Article 31, paragraph 1, of the Emergency Powers Order, 1939, begins with a recital of the conditions under which these powers relating to essential supplies and services are to be exercised. It says:—
"A Minister, so far as appears to him to be necessary in the interests of the public safety or the preservation of the State, or for maintaining supplies and services essential to the life of the community, may by Order provide——"
for a great number of things, including:—
"for regulating the production, treatment, keeping, storage, movement, transport, distribution, sale, purchase, use or consumption of essential articles....
for regulating, restricting or prohibiting the importation or exportation of essential articles;
for regulating the carrying on of any undertaking engaged in essential work....
for regulating, restricting, or prohibiting the production... distribution or sale of articles other than essential articles;".
It will be quite clear from the summary which I have given of the opening paragraph and sub-paragraphs of Article 31 that what the Legislature had definitely in mind was to regulate and control, in the interests of the public safety, for the preservation of the State and for the maintenance of supplies and services essential to the life of the community, the production and distribution of commodities and that these commodities were not commodities merely of ordinary commerce or traffic but commodities without which the State might not be preserved, the interests of the public safety might be endangered or the essential life of the community might not be carried on.
I do not think that anybody will contend that in the circumstances of the time and in the circumstances as they persisted during the period from 1939 until rather recently, the need for wide reaching powers of this sort applicable to commodities of the essential character which the Order specifies were not necessary and should not be unreservedly granted.
The Emergency Powers Order, 1939, was drastically amended by Emergency Powers Order No. 173 of 1942. I concede it was amended in a way which conferred upon the Minister quite an arbitrary power by contrast with the wide but, nevertheless, regulated powers which the Order of 1939 conferred upon the Minister. Under Article 2 of Emergency Powers Order No. 173, Article 31 of the 1939 Order is amended by the substitution of certain new paragraphs for paragraph (1) of the 1939 Order. That is to say—the Order goes on to recite—
"the Minister may by Order or direction, (which direction may be given either in writing or orally) provide——"
I would like to draw the attention of the House to the contrast between the Order of 1939 and the Order of 1942, and I should like to say here that I was a member of the Administration which was responsible for Order No. 173. The House, in common with the Government of the day, thought that the almost arbitrary powers conferred by the Order of 1942 were essential and were justifiably given. There was no challenge to this Order. It was made, as Deputies are well aware, when war was raging all round us, when war was being waged against the State even inside our own territory. It was made at a time of general hardship and general peril, when the safety of the State was in the gravest danger, not only from hostile influence abroad, but from—let us face it quite frankly— the forces of disorder at home.