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Dáil Éireann díospóireacht -
Wednesday, 12 Jun 1957

Vol. 162 No. 5

Health and Mental Treatment Bill, 1957—Report and Final Stages.

I move amendment No. 1:—

In page 2, line 32, to add after "Minister": "provided that no person shall be refused any specialist service on the grounds of mere inability to pay such charge."

I have tabled this amendment, on this stage of the Bill, to the first section of the Bill. The reason for this amendment will, I think, be apparent to Deputies who took part in the debate on the Committee Stage. In order to explain the reason for it I think I should remind the House that under this Bill the Minister proposes to interfere with the principle upon which the Health Act of 1953 was accepted by Dáil Éireann. That principle was that, under the Health Act of 1953, all eligible persons would henceforth be entitled to free specialist facilities.

I would like to remind Deputies that, under that Act, little or no charge was intended to be made in regard to the provision of free medical services for the poorer sections of the community. A big departure was the provision in the Act that each family doctor, attending an eligible person under the Health Act, would have available on behalf of his patient the full range of specialist facilities in our leading teaching hospitals, without any charge whatsoever. Of course, as Deputies will remember, the Bill having become an Act towards the end of 1953, it was brought into operation by the then Minister for Health, the present Minister for Finance, who left office without having devised a means whereby these free specialist services could in fact be provided for eligible persons.

It then became my responsibility, as his successor, to see in what way such services could in fact be provided. On 1st April, 1956, just some 15 months ago, I was able to make the necessary Orders, providing that these facilities would henceforth be available to each eligible person enumerated and specified in Section 15 of the Health Act of 1953. I regarded that as a step forward in the provision of necessary services for those in need. I regarded it as an important step forward in the diagnosis of ailments, individual ailments of different people who might be suffering, and an encouragement to the family doctor to give improved treatment to his patients. The steps taken provided the full ranges of the specialist services in our lending teaching hospitals for each eligible person. If an X-ray were required, the person merely had to present a reference from his family doctor and whatever was required in that connection was provided without charge.

If the patient required to see a consultant physician or any other consultant on the staff of any teaching hospital, he was entitled to do so, again merely on the reference of his family doctor. In making this provision, I was fulfilling a pledge which I made to Dáil Éireann on the occasion of the passage of the Health Bill of 1954, a pledge by which I undertook to see as quickly as possible that all the services envisaged in the Health Act of 1953 would be provided in fact and not merely on paper.

In these circumstances, I felt some concern that my successor as Minister in a Fianna Fáil Government should have brought in a proposal whereby the idea of free specialist services for needy persons would be destroyed. I felt some concern and dismay that a member of the Fianna Fáil Party, after the passage of less than four years, should come into this Parliament pleading the case that the Fianna Fáil Minister in 1953 had acted unwisely and wrongly and that it was in some way wrong to provide for the needy sections of our people necessary specialist services, unless some payment were made for them.

As Deputies will recollect, we debated on the Committee Stage the merits of the proposal to impose a charge contained in this Bill. During the course of that debate, I and Deputy Dr. Browne and other Deputies raised the question of what would happen if the person needing and seeking this specialist service was, in fact, unable to pay. I think it was Deputy Kyne who queried the Minister as to whether it was his attention, to be translated into regulations, that the charge sought would be paid before or after the service was provided. The Minister informed the Dáil that it was his intention, so far as he could make it operative, that these charges would be paid in advance and, accordingly, the position confronts this House that it is the Minister's intention to provide, when empowered, on the passage of this Bill, by resolution, that no person needing the services of a specialist may get such service unless, first of all, he planks down the money.

I would say to Deputies that whatever differences we may have with regard to the best means of providing health services for individuals in this State, surely there should be no disagreement amongst us that a person in need financially should always be provided with the medical aid he requires. In countries which we have been inclined to regard as being somewhat backward in the provision of social services it is, nevertheless, recognised that a sick person must, first of all, be treated before any question for payment can arise, but not, apparently, under the present Fianna Fáil Administration.

According to the Minister, these services will not be provided, if he can prevent it, until, first of all, the charge specified in the regulations is paid. Not only do I think that wrong, but I think it a most unfortunate, retrograde step. Further, whatever regulations may be made, whatever ministerial policy may be laid down, whatever directions may be issued, I am quite certain that the innate kindlness of our people will ensure that necessary services will, in fact, be provided whether or not a payment can possibly be made. It is in order to ensure that we should not have on our Statute Book such a retrograde section of an Act of Parliament that I propose this amendment. I am certain that there is no Deputy in the Fianna Fáil Party or in the House who will cavil in the slightest at the amendment I suggest.

I suggest that there be added to this section, agreeing as we must, since the House has decided, that the charges shall be imposed, a provision that no needed service shall be refused merely on the grounds that the person seeking the service is unable to pay. I will exemplify what I have in mind only by reminding Deputies of cases within their own experience. A person has some health trouble, perhaps a pain or an ache or something of that kind and he eventually summons up courage to go to his doctor. His doctor, having examined him, says: "You are all right, but I think it might be wiser to have an X-ray examination, just to put your mind at case."

If the present section is not amended and such a person finds himself unable to provide the sum of 7/6, then it is the Minister's intention, as he said on Committee Stage, that such a person will not get the X'ray examination he requires. I think any of us would say that that is wrong and all of us will agreed, if we were free to do so, that no needed specialist service of any kind can be refused by any health authority merely on the grounds that the person is unable to pay.

If we are to accept the principle of imposing a charge, we can well understand a health authority, speaking through the county manager, saying: "That person could well provide 7/6, if he ceases smoking for a day or two, if he did not go backing horses or dogs, or if he did not drink pints with his friends in the ‘local'." There may be a case in which the inability to pay does not arise merely from lack of means. In my amendment, I give to the Minister the right still to say that in those circumstances the person is not deserving, if the Minister wants to adopt that line, I would not agree with it.

What I propose is the very minimum, the smallest provision that can be made. Whatever the rights and wrongs of individual conduct may be, no health authority should be entitled, merely on the ground of lack of means, to refuse a medical service which a doctor thinks a patient of his requires. I urge on the Minister as strongly as I possibly can that an amendment along these lines should be accepted. We should not permit this Bill to pass from this House containing the possibility, no matter how small it may be, that an official of a health authority may be empowered, merely because a person a needing a medical service has not the means at the time, to refuse such service. It would be wrong that that should happen. My amendment is reasonable. It in no way impairs or takes from the change the Minister seeks to impose in the operation of the Health Act, 1953, but it preserves the rights of a person who, temporarily, may be unable to pay.

I would ask the Minister and, if the Minister is unable to agree, I would appeal very sincerely to Deputies in his Party to regard this amendment not as something tabled by an Opposition Deputy to a Minister's Bill, but as something which we should incorporate in this legislation.

I am surprised that the Minister does not appear to consider it worth his while to contribute to this discussion. If I am wronging him, I shall give way and let him speak. The Minister should consider an amendment of this type seriously. On Committee Stage, an effort was made to tone down to some extent the wording of this section by allowing the section to become permissive rather than mandatory. That was rejected by the Minister and, on a vote, it was subsequently rejected by the House.

The Minister is simply being asked to accept this amendment or an amendment on similar lines which will safeguard the position which may arise in possibly only one case in 100 or in 1,000 where a person is genuinely unable to pay for the particular services. As the Bill stands at present, together with the indication the Minister gave on Committee Stage of his mind on the question of payment, it would seem that payment should be made before the service is provided. That being so, it must be clear to Government Deputies that there may be an occasional case, particularly a hard case. It may arise only once every now and again. Even if it arises only once in every two, three, four or five years, it seems to me that we should make an effort to meet that case and provide for it.

I bow to the Minister if he wants to make the case that it is unlikely that a person will not be able to pay, or borrow, or earn the necessary three half-crowns. However, maybe there will be a cases of a person who genuinely has not got and cannot get the 7/6 to put down in advance in order to get the service. We are pleading that in that case—it may happen only one in five years—we should make provision in this Bill so that that person will not be left without the service through being unable to raise the money.

If the Minister sees any objection to incorporating that provision in his Bill, I suggest he should give the House the benefit of his views and the benefit of whatever arguments may exist against the amendment. The Minister should not simply use his parliamentary majority to turn down an amendment of this kind, without giving the House even a word of explanation.

Notice taken that 20 Members were not present; Hours counted, and 20 Members being present,

Amendment put and negatived.

Amendment No. 2 is out of order and may not be moved.

Question—"That the Bill be received for final consideration"—put and agreed to.
Agreed to take Final Stage to-day.
Question proposed: "That the Bill do now pass".

This Bill concains certain novel measures and has been piloted through this House by a Minister for Health who is obviously ashamed of its contents. It certainly must be rare that a Minister is so ashamed of his Bill that he is unable to defend it on an important stage in passage through this House. The Minister is afraid of what is in this Bill and was unable to stand on his feet five minutes ago to say anything in defence of it. This is a Bill in which a Fianna Fáil Minister for Health reverses the policy of the Fianna Fáil Party and says Mea culpa on behalf of every member of the Fianna Fáil Party to the people for this country. This is a Bill in which the spurious election campaign of 1954 is demonstrated to have been worthless. It is a Bill piloted by a Minister who is tongue-tied with shame, who cannot find words to defend its contents.

I pity the Minister for Health. He sits there silent, reflecting on the speeches be made about health services in the general election of 1954 I pity him when he thinks how he and Deputy Dr. Browne pirouetted on the same stage three years ago. No wonder he is silent. No wonder he cannot find words on the Report Stage of the Bill to defend what is in it. The Minister has treated the House with discourtesy in failing to speak at all on the Report Stage of the Bill——

On a silly amendment.

It may be a silly amendment. Deputy Allen thinks it is silly to suggest that the person who cannot pay be provided with medical aid? That may be the new Fianna Fáil policy. No doubt, Deputy Allen will be remembered as the only member of Fianna Fáil who has had the guts to declare what the never Party policy is. The Minister was ashamed to do it, but Deputy Allen comes to the rescue. Apparently, it is a good thing that a person who cannot pay should be now allowed to die.

You did not say that when the Bill was going through.

This is the case of a person without a medical card, a person who does not qualify under Section 14, a person who has not 7/6. This is in this Bill. The Minister could not find words—and I am not surprised—to defend this provision. The Government met and the Minister for Finance cracked his whip. How the Minister once used to crack the same whip! I have no doubt but that the present Minister for Finance, thinking back four or five years ago, said to himself: "By Heavens, I will get my own back on MacEntee"——

There was money in the "kitty" then.

Here is £180,000 that has to be taken from sick people in order to provide cheap flour and bread for greyhounds. There is the crack of the lash of the Minister for Finance. Is it surprising that the Minister for Health is silent here, unable to speak when an Opposition amendment is proposed and unable to defend himself or his Government? The only person who has a tongue in his head is Deputy Allen, who says it is a good thing that a person without money should not be able to get specialist service——

Deputy Allen said no such thing.

He can square his own conscience with the official record. That is what I understood him to say. This is Bill in which a political party undresses in public. That is the Fianna Fáil Party. It is most disgusting—a Party that takes its own brain child and proceeds to strangle it——

There is nothing about that in the Bill.

That is what is in the Bill. The Deputy was not in the House when the parent Act was passed——

That is the one you opposed so very strongly.

And we oppose this one. In this Bill there is a ukase issued to every health authority in the country that henceforth every sick person who has not a medical card—I used to be told there were few who had —pays 10/- a day for so long as he is in hospital. Under this Bill, if he is not in hospital but if he requires the services of a specialist, an X-ray or if he wants to see a physician or have a consultation with a surgeon, he must pay the appropriate charge. The health authority has no right not to charge him because it is mandatory under this Bill that these charges shall be imposed. In addition, if he has not the money to pay, under this Bill it is the Minister's intention and policy that he will not get the medical service he requires. No wonder the Minister is silent. No wonder he sat mute—I think of shame; I do not think it was of malice—on the last stage of the Bill——

Mute of contempt.

Mute of contempt for the people—is that what Deputy Allen says?

No, for the Deputy.

The Deputy may have contempt for the people now but, mark you, a day of reckoning will come. It is important that Fianna Fáil Deputies should know what is in this Bill because I doubt if many of them consider it. I wonder do they know what is being done on their behalf and because they sit silent, ready to walk behind the Minister into a Division lobby? Through this silent gentleman here, the Minister for Health, they are now passing into law a provision that henceforth, if you have not three half-crowns in your pocket, you cannot get an X-ray. But they are doing more. I am not sur-used that Deputy Calleary is leaving to get in touch with his constituents——

I shall leave if I like. I shall not be tied to listening to the Deputy.

Do Fianna Fáil Deputies know further that, under Section 2, henceforth two-thirds of the patients in every mental hospital in the country can be charged 10/- per day for so long as they are there? I am sure Fianna Fáil Deputies have constituents who from time to time suffer from mental illness. In fact, I have no doubt they have. They probably know of cases in which an unfortunate person gets ill and has to go to the district mental hospital, often maybe for the rest of his natural life. Under this Bill provision is made whereby the health authority may charge a person or his family—perhaps, the unfortunate wife who may be struggling at home—10/- a day, £3 10s. a week or £180 a year, year in and year out.

Other Deputies also have suggested a modification in this and have implored the Minister to have second thoughts, at least to ensure that such appalling charges would not fall on the estate of a person in a mental hospital when, if they did fall, the manager of the hospital could be compelled under his obligation to sell out a small farm or a business in order to realise the maintenance charges lawfully due. The Minister was adamant, the lash of the Minister for Finance has seared his back and he must provide this money. A sum of £180,000 has to be provided from the sick people of this country, in order to pay money to the Turf Club, to the master bakers and to enable less good wheat to be disposed of.

That is not in the Bill, a Cheann Comhairle.

It is in the Budget and this is part of the Budget. This is all done in a Bill styled the Health and Mental Treatment Bill, 1957. We have had Healths Bills in the past. The policy of all of them was to improve someone's health. It might have been a matter for question and disputation as to whether that aim would be achieved, but that was the object and policy of Health Bills in the past.

We have had Mental Treatment Bills, too, again to make better provision for the treatment of the mentally ill. Here is a double-plumed bird—a Health and Mental Treatment Bill, the policy of which is to deny health service to those who have not the money to pay and to provide that the mentally ill will pay more for the treatment. This is in a Bill designed by the Fianna Fáil Government, supported by every Fianna Fáil Deputy and which the Minister himself could not defend on its Report Stage here.

The country is restored to sanity again since the 5th of March.

Well, the point is that it is dear to be instance these days. It costs too much—as the people found out on the 5th of March. Deputy Davern might bear that in mind.

In any event, I rise to remind Deputies—it is the last opportunity we shall have in this part of the Oireachtas— as to what is proposed in this Bill, what is sought to be done. I tried on the Committee Stage and on the Report Stage, and other Deputies tried also, to improve in some way the provisions of this Bill, to ensure that it would not have the dire results which we foresee. The Minister remained seated there as if made of adamantine rock, as cold and silent as a rock. He would not concede any amendment; he would not even permit the Bill to read that a health authority "may" impose those charges. No, it had to be "shall", not because the Minister for Health would agree with that but because the Minister for Finance cracked the whip and it had to be "shall". The money had to be got, because, of course, if it was not obtained the poor master bakers would have to go without.

This Bill will be something on the conscience of every Deputy in the Fianna Fáil Party, who might have done something at Party meetings or might have made some approach. I know it is no good approaching the Minister for Health, but they might have made some approach to the Minister for Finance, who after all, should not have disowned the Health Act of 1953 in such a singular fashion. They did not do so and here the poor Minister for Health, who as Minister for Finance sanctioned the Health Act of 1953, is put in this absurd position, that he is driven at the point of a bayonet to strangle the Health Act of 1953 and, of course, he does so as any other stranger would do it—silent, brooding, unable to speak.

The position of the Labour Party in this matter is known to everyone. Whatever differences we may have an political Parties, at least we gave our full support to the Fianna Fáil Party, then in Government, when they introduced the Health Act. I did not think then we would come within a few years to the stage of deciding not to go further forward in the improvement of health benefits for the people, but instead would take a retrograde step—and this is the first step in that direction.

I cannot understand why the present Government should decide so quickly on that line of approach. I am not interested in throwing points at the Minister or the Government as to what they decided to provide money for in the Budget. What I am worried about is the line of approach of the present Government in health matters. There are Deputies here who—as I know from their approach to those matters when speaking down the country —would certainly consider it their hast wish to decide on this retrograde step. It has been said that those with medical cards are not affected. We know that; but we know also that in every county there are numerous borderline cases. Members of every political Party on the local council know that, even when they approach the county manager or local officials, the decision is given against these people, although often their circumstances are such that if a little more sense prevailed in local affairs in relation to the giving of these cards, much could be done to relive the problems of such people. However, the county managers and the local officials are acting within their rights; they are not doing anything they should not do; they are doing what they are entitled to do by law.

It is because so many people have been denied the benefit of a medical card and so many of these people are now to be called upon again to pay extra—whether in the case of maintenance in a general hospital, maintenance of a person in a mental institution, or providing 7/6 for an X-ray—that this will be a very bitter problem for the people throught rural Ireland, as well as in Dublin and Cork.

It seems quite obvious from the approach of the Minister to the whole discussion that he has no interest in any proposal or amendment that might be put down by any Party. I have to finish on the note of saying to the Fianna Fáil Party—and I say it as one who can claim friendship with many of them in the country—that I am very sorry, after the Labour Party gave its full support to the important measure which the Fianna Fáil Government introduced in the 1952-53 period, that the division is now being caused by a member of the Government who, in 1952, realised the necessity of providing these advantage for the people, but who now, unfortunately, sees fit to take from these people some of those advantages.

I should like to make my position clear in regard to this Bill. I oppose the Bill and, as I said on a previous stage, I consider it a disgraceful Bill. It is disgraceful because it is a departure from the fine tradition of the Fianna Fáil Party in regard to health legislation. The experience and the magnificent results of the provisions of the 1947 Health Act are there for the Minister to see. Nobody knows more intimately than the Minister the valuable advantages that have flowed from the Act in the different spheres of health with which it dealt and, in particular, in relation to the provision of services free of charge.

In the light of the benefit which were brought to the sick people of this country by the elimination of charges of one kind or another, the improvements in the health services, the improvement in the health of our people, the reduction of disease and the reduction in deaths that followed from the provisions of that Bill, it seems extraordinary to me that a responsible and conscientious Minister interested in promoting health services should introduce a Bill which is a departure even from the relatively moderate provisions of the 1953 Health Act.

It seems to me that a Bill like this, which is a tax-gathering Bill at the expense of the sick, no matter what the Minister may choose to call it, will reduce the standard of treatment and increase the amount of pain and suffering which many will have to submit to because it will make good health services more difficult to get. There is no doubt about that. All this additional hardship and suffering which this Bill will ensure during the months and years in which it is in operation is put on the people, the sick and the under-privileged in our society, and is all done in a context in which the Government asks for restraint on the part of these people on whom it will impose severe hardships in every aspect of their lives. Because of that fact, I know, as a doctor, that this type of Bill can only cause a deterioration in the standard of treatment the people will get because I also know that the correct and the only possible health service which will give adequate treatment is one with no means test and free of charge. I have, therefore, no hesitation in opposing this Bill.

I have been twitted that I have remained silent when Deputy O'Higgins was proposing his nonsensical amendment and I use that word with due deliberation.

I gather the Minister is speaking now to an amendment, on the Report Stage? Since it is not in the Bill, surely it is out of order for the Minister to refer to it? The Minister had his opportunity when the amendment was before the House.

May I be permitted to speak? Deputy O'Higgins has twitted me with being silent and now that I am about to speak, he interrupts me. I am saying that I was twitted— and I am not going to discuss the amendment except by implication— because I remained silent in the face of an amendment, the purport of which the Deputy did not understand. If we had put this amendment——

On a point of order——

There can be no discussion on an amendment.

Would the chair kindly tell that to the Minister? He does not know.

I am very sorry I had not got the up bringing of the Deputy or I would have taught him to be a sport and to take his medicine.

You would have charged me for it, too.

What is in the Bill but a principle that the Deputy and his Party stood for in the years 1952, 1953 and 1954? That is what is in the Bill. What is the Deputy grumbling about?

Will the Minister allow me to reply?

Then the Minister should not ask me questions.

I am not giving way. Of course, I will ask as many questions as I like. The Deputy is sunburned, but I will make him blush. The Deputy has the hardihood to come here and hypocritically criticise what is in this Bill and impugn the motives and sincerity of the Fianna Fáil Party. He is the Deputy whose very first legislative action was to suspend the operation of the 1953 Act; whose first administrative act was to deprive those persons who are covered by Section 15 of the benefits of the 1953 Act.

They could not have had them, as the Minister knows.

He would have us believe he was genuine and sincere in his hypocritical attempts to amend this Bill. I am not entitled to speak on anything except what is in the Bill. And what is in the Bill is a principle which, I think we all agree, is at least an equitable and just one in relation to a great many services. The principle is that those who enjoy the benefits of the services should contribute when they can to the cost of them. We do that in relation to transport. We do that in relation to electricity supply and I do not see why we should not do it in relation to medicine.

Deputy Dr. Browne, who is at least consistent in his attitude in this matter, has described this as a disgraceful Bill. I can see noting disgraceful in asking a person, who is in a position to do so, to contribute a moderate sum towards the cost of his unkeep and maintenance if he should happen to be confined in a hospital which is supported by public funds, supported out of taxation which is contributed in large measure by people who cannot afford to contribute to the cost of institutional treatment. This Bill does not affect these people. What is in this Bill relates entirely to Section 15 cases, to the people who can afford to contribute something. But the principle was accepted by Deputy T.F. O'Higgins when he was driven at last to putting the 1953 Act into operation. We are merely saying now that, in the light of changed circumstances, where a person can reasonably be expected to contribute more than 6/- for institutional treatment, then it is only fair and equitable to everybody that the local authority should be able to ask him to do so.

Let us take the other case, the case of the person who avails himself of specialist services on the advice of a general medical practitioner and who is asked to pay 3/- or 2/-, whichever may be the appropriate charge, when he goes to see the specialist. I cannot, of course, refer to the fact that there was the absurd proposition, and there has been the absurd case made against this Bill, that a person who has not got 3/- or 2/- will be compelled to pay. In fact, if a person has not the 3/- or the 2/- he is then properly classifiable as a person who is a member of the lower income group and as such entitled to free specialist services. The same applies in the case of the person who requires an X-ray.

I cannot conceive of any person who is clearly outside the lower income group finding any difficulty in providing 7/6 for an X-ray examination, or a series of X-rays. That certainly does not appear to me to warrant the application of the word "disgraceful" to the measure, and that was the word Deputy Dr. Browne used. It is purely a question as to whether it is reasonable to ask a person who us undergoing an X-ray examination and who, again, is in a position to pay something, to contribute 7/6 towards the cost of that x-ray. There is nothing disgraceful and there is nothing unreasonable in that.

There is no question that under this Bill people will as a general universal rule, be compelled to pay 10/- per day even during the period when they are undergoing instituional treatment. That is the maximum that can be charged. What they ought to be charged is left to the discretion and judgment of the local authority. I do not believe that any local authority will act rigorously, unjustly or unfairly in assessing a person's ability to pay.

There does not seem to be very much more to be said. We have had long speeches on this Bill. We have had long speeches designed mainly to cover up the doubtful past of the Deputy and his Party in regard to health services. Just as they have changed their views on a number of other matters, they also appear to have changed their views in relation to this.

Is this in the Bill?

The Deputy's attitude to previous legislation does not arise on this Bill.

The Minister did not know that. He is only in the House recently.

I should like to refer the Chair to the script.

It is not in the Bill.

I should like to refer the Chair to the script of Deputy T.F. O'Higgin's speech. In the course of that speech he referred to the fact that in 1953, the Fianna Fáil Party had brought in the 1953 Act. It had been accepted, he said in principle by Dáil Éireann. He forgot to add it had been accepted by Dáil Éireann in face of the unrelenting and, indeed, irresponsible opposition of the Fine Gael Party. But that was the whole tenor of Deputy O'Higgins's speech. I accept the ruling of the Chair, but I am certainly amazed at the hardihood of the Deputy whose speech took that form and was constituted in that way, in rising and asking the Chair to say that it was only what was in the Bill should be discussed.

Is that not so?

As I have explained, there is nothing in the Bill——

——which gives any support or countenance whatsoever to the speeches we have heard from the Opposition Benches in relation to this Bill. The people who will be affected by the Bill will not even remember what Deputy O'Higgins said about the Bill. They will prefer to forget him and to forget, us he is trying to make them forget, the attitude of the Fine Gael Party toward any progressive measure coming before this House.

Question put.
The Dáil divided: Tá, 66; Níl, 35.

  • Aiken, Frank
  • Allen, Denis.
  • Bartley, Gerald.
  • Beagan, Patrick.
  • Blaney, Neal T.
  • Boland, Gerald.
  • Boland, Kevin.
  • Booth, Lionel.
  • Brady, Philip A.
  • Brady, seán.
  • Breen, Dan.
  • Brennan, Joseph.
  • Breanan, Paudge.
  • Breslin, Cormac.
  • Burke, Patrick,
  • Calleary, Phelim A.
  • Carty, Micheal.
  • Childers, Erskine.
  • Clohessy, Patrick.
  • Collins, James J.
  • Corry, Martin J.
  • Cotter, Edward.
  • Crowley, Honor M.
  • Cunningham, Liam.
  • Davern, Mick.
  • de Valera, Eamon.
  • Doherty, Seán.
  • Donegan, Batt.
  • Dooley, Patrick.
  • Egan, Nicholas.
  • Faulkner, Pádraig.
  • Flanagan, Seán.
  • Flynn, Stephen.
  • Gallagher, Colm.
  • Geoghegan, John.
  • Gibbons, James.
  • Gilbride, Eugene.
  • Gogan, Richard P.
  • Griffin, James.
  • Hanghey, charles.
  • Healy, Augustine A.
  • Hillery, Patrick J.
  • Hilliard, Micheal.
  • Humphreys, Francis.
  • Kenneally, William.
  • Kennedy, Micheal J.
  • Kit,Michael F.
  • Leamass, Noel T.
  • Lemass, Seán.
  • Loughman, Frank.
  • Lunch, Celía.
  • Lunch, Jack.
  • MacCarthy, Seán.
  • MacEllistrim, Thomas.
  • MacEntee, Seán.
  • Maher, Peadar.
  • Medlar, Martin.
  • Moher, John W.
  • Moloney, Daniel J.
  • Mooney, Patrick.
  • Moran, Micheal.
  • Ó Briain, Donnchadh.
  • Ormonde, John.
  • Tyan, James.
  • Smith, Patrick.
  • Traynor, Oscar.

Níl

  • Barrett, Stephen D.
  • Browne, Noel C.
  • Burke, james.
  • Carroll, James.
  • Casey, Seán.
  • Coburn, George.
  • Coogan, Fintan,
  • Costello, Declan D.
  • Cpstello, John A.
  • Crotty, Patrick J.
  • Desmond, Daniel.
  • Dockrell, Maurice E.
  • Fagan, Charles.
  • Giles, Patrick.
  • Hogan, Bridget.
  • Hughes, Joseph.
  • Jones, Denis A.
  • Kyne, Thomas A.
  • Larkin, Denis.
  • Lindsay, Patrick.
  • Lunch, Thaddeus.
  • MacEoin, Seán.
  • McMenamin, daniel.
  • McQuillan, John.
  • Manley, Timothy.
  • Mucahy, Richard.
  • Murphy, William.
  • O'Higgins, Micheal J.
  • O'Higgins, Thomas F.
  • O'Reilly, Patrick.
  • O'Sullivan, Denis J.
  • Rooney, Eamonn.
  • Sweetman, Gerard.
  • Tully, John.
  • Wycherely, Florence.
Tellers: Tá: deputies Ó Briain and Hilliard; Níl: Deptuies O'Sulivan and Kyne.
Question declared carried.
Barr
Roinn