asked the Minister for Finance if he will state the amount paid out for secret service purposes to date from 1st April, 1952.
Ceisteanna — Questions. Oral Answers. - Secret Service Expenditure.
The answer is "no".
Question No. 35.
Mr. MacEntee rose.
May I ask a question on No. 34?
The Chair called Question No. 35.
Sit down and behave yourself.
Senator Baxter is after you. Be more careful.
Sit down!
On Question No. 34, what is the amount?
The Deputy asked me if I would state the amount paid out for secret service purposes to date from the 1st April, 1952, and I replied that "the answer is `no'."
The Minister will not state the amount paid?
No.
The fact is well known that, while the amounts for other State Departments have been reduced, some thousands of pounds, additional to what was paid last year and the previous year, were paid out this year for secret service. I want to ask the Minister if it is not a fact that in North Mayo, Waterford, Limerick and in North-West Dublin by-elections secret service money was paid out in unlimited supplies?
That is a scandalous statement.
Some of it was recommended by Deputy Briscoe.
That is untrue.
It is not.
The Deputy has made a serious charge against me. He says that I recommended people to be paid money out of the Secret Service Vote. That is not true, and the Deputy knows that what he has said is untrue.
Deputy Flanagan has made a serious charge against a Deputy of the House, and he will have to withdraw his statement.
The Deputy has not withdrawn it.
And he knows it is untrue.
He knows it is true.
The Deputy has again repeated the charge and I have asked him to withdraw it. Is the Deputy withdrawing the charge?
If the Chair instructs me to withdraw it I will withdraw it.
Is the Deputy withdrawing the charge?
This is the Deputy who gave the farmers a month's hard labour. I withdraw it.