I shall be very brief in my concluding remarks. It is quite clear from the contributions made so far to this debate that no case whatever has been made by the Minister or the Government that would convey to the House the feeling that this motion is inopportune.
The Minister himself resorted to very mean and low tactics. I think it is accepted that whenever an individual has no case or is badly beaten he resorts to sneers, innuendoes and personal abuse. The present Minister, instead of putting forward cogent arguments to counter those made in support of tills motion, resorted to personal abuse so far as I am concerned. I can assure the House I am not greatly worried by this coming from the present Minister for Defence, but I think he has a duty as Minister to answer to the other members of the House, a duty to give the reasons why the Government is not prepared to accept this motion or a similar one.
The Minister spoke for approximately 35 to 40 minutes but he did not give as much as one sound reason why the motion should not be accepted. He began by saying that the aim of both myself and Dr. Browne was to denigrate the Army and that I had persistently or consistently—whichever he likes—sneered at the Army in the House. I think it would be wiser for me at this stage to go on record, because these debates will be read elsewhere, as pointing out that since I came to this House eight or nine years ago my voice was one of the few raised on behalf of the junior commissioned ranks and the badly-neglected private and N.C.O. personnel. So far as I was concerned no opportunity was allowed to pass without adverting to the conditions of pay and service of the N.C.O.s., privates and junior officers. On every occasion that I stood up for the interests of those individuals I was criticised by the Ministers concerned on the ground that I was criticising the Army as a whole if I criticised the policy of the "brass hats" themselves.
Having failed to put across the point that we were out to demean or lower the Army in the eyes of the public the Minister then sought to suggest that our aim in bringing in this motion was to ensure that we would have no Army and instead that our defence would be handed over to some other State. Nothing in the motion and nothing in the speeches made in support of it will bear witness to that point of view. If I wanted to hit hard I could suggest to the Minister that when the handing over of this country to the tender mercies of its neighbour was suggested, the individuals who made that suggestion are on the Council of State; not the members of this House.
This motion simply asks in view of the revolutionary change in modern warfare and in defensive methods over the last few years and in view of the wasteful expenditure which is now occurring as a result of these changes, that Dáil Éireann should set up a committee of the House to examine defence policy in general. The Minister suggests that by setting up that committee the House would be taking away from him and from the Defence Chief all their rights and secrets in connection with defence. Is that not a most stupid utterance on the Minister's part? All we ask is that the committee be set up to examine witnesses and report back to the Minister. The committee will have no function except to make a broadminded examination into the expenditure and report to the Minister their opinions. I see nothing wrong in that.
The Minister said it is not done in any other Parliament. That shows how little the Minister knows about other Parliaments. If the Minister spent 20 minutes each night for the next week reading some of the debates in the British House of Commons, in connection with House Committees there to deal with questions of defence and various other sections of government, he would get very useful information which, if it had been at his disposal prior to this motion, might have allowed him to have a different frame of mind in regard to it.
In America, the Senate and Congress have special committees which examine thoroughly matters put forward by the various defence chiefs. It is nothing new in the United States for a Committee of the Senate to bring in all the brass hats in any particular service for cross-examination in regard to proposed expenditure for the current year or criticism of previous expenditure.
The Minister suggests that, if such a committee were set up here, Army secrets and defence secrets would be disclosed. I have never suggested that any secret weapons that we may have in store would be made known or that secret defence plans would have to be produced to such a committee. Of course, the Minister has his mind made up. He has a mind like a mule and all the sound arguments in the world will not change it. The more you prod a mule, the harder you are likely to be kicked.
The Minister seems to think that there is no need for an investigation on behalf of the public into expenditure on defence and defensive equipment. Let me mention one item to which I have already referred. A few years ago a decision was taken by a Minister on the recommendation of his advisers to purchase three Vampire jet training planes. In order to fly these training planes, the runway in Baldonnel had to be extended. The cost of that little adventure in constructing a new runway and in purchasing first-class agricultural land for the purpose was over £640,000. The three jet planes cost £147,000.
I shall not refer to the cost of spare-parts, maintenance, fuel or any of the incidentals involved in maintaining and flying these planes. The argument was put forward that these three planes were necessary for the purpose of training our pilots for commercial services. It is very desirable that our pilots be trained for commercial services but I do not think it is realistic or practical to spend almost £1,000,000 in order to train a limited number of pilots in planes that were as obsolete as the model-T was when these planes came off the assembly lines.
When I raised this matter in the House the decision had been made, not to purchase three jet planes but to purchase nine because a squadron is composed of nine planes. Due to the fact that public opinion was alerted before further, purchases were made, the people who had recommended the purchase of a squadron got cold feet and decided to do with three planes. I shall not refer to it any further except to ask is there not room for an investigation into the expenditure of almost £1,000,000 on the construction of runways and the purchase of obsolete jet planes for training purposes when for the last two hours here we have been arguing as to whether we can make available £250,000 to keep a few people in in temporary employment?
When it was a matter of expending money on the mad idea of a few crackpots behind the Minister, the money was made available. When it comes to making money available in order to keep people in employment in the State it is a different kettle of fish and we cannot afford it. I suggest that there is room for a very searching inquiry into expenditure of this kind.
I should like also to suggest that this committee would do a very good day's work if it were to inquire into the administration of the Army Vote. In the last ten years the Army has cost £61,000,000 and, although we have had on paper an Army of 12,500, the Army has never reached more than 8,000. All that time we have had an officer strength for an Army of 12,500. In others words, the defence plan that was envisaged ten years ago has never been anything but a paper plan. We have never had the men although we have always had the officers. Expenditure on a non-existent standing Army amounted to £61,000,000.
The Defence Estimate for the year up to 31st March next is over £6,000,000. I ask the House, is it right that, out of £6,000,000, £1,000,000 must go to civilian and Civil Service personnel. It takes £1,000,000 to administer that small Army through the civil servants and civilians attached to the Army. Is it possible that that £1,000,000 could be saved and that we could get rid of the great proportion of the civil servants and civilians attached to the Army? Could we not direct their activities into some other lines? Is it not a fact that at the present time in many Army barracks skilled tradesmen and craftsmen are occupied as officers' orderlies and batmen, drawing the highest possible grade pay while the work that they should be doing as fitters, carpenters and turners is being done by civilians whose average pay is £10 a week? Is there not room for inquiry into that matter?
The Minister says "No." The Minister says: "I will not have an inquiry because it will do harm to the Army." The Minister cannot get away with that. I and others have referred in this House to the fact that the Army could put up nothing but a Stone Age defence at the present time. I repeat that and that is not a criticism of the young men in the Army. Although it has been sought here to suggest that when I said we had a Stone Age defence in the way of equipment and otherwise I was sneering at Army personnel. Far be it from me to sneer at those who were my comrades during the emergency. I have the greatest sympathy with these men who have to do with this type of equipment which I I have described as Stone Age defence.
This committee would be able to investigate and inquire into the question whether it is desirable to spend £200,000 this year on ammunition of a most doubtful quality while, on the other hand, we cannot raise £30,000 to £40,000 in the Army to buy a single helicopter for coastal service, for the relief of islanders, for the purpose of helping sick people to be brought to the mainland. Is there not something lunatic about a policy that will allow £1,000,000 to be spent on a runway for jet aircraft while, at the same time, we cannot find the paltry sum required for a helicopter that could have saved the lives of a number of our countrymen over the past few years? Such a committee, if formed, would be in a position to make a strong recommendation to the Minister as to where savings could be made in the Army Vote—savings that could be diverted towards more useful lines of expenditure such as the purchase of a helicopter.
If the Fianna Fáil backbenchers were allowed to vote in freedom and not under the shadow of the Whip— if this matter were left to their own consciences—I have not the slightest doubt but that they would support this motion. I ask the Minister, if the has any decency left, to take off the Whip and allow a free vote.
