When I moved to report progress on the last occasion, I was speaking of the desirability of providing some facilities for psychiatric examination of children on remand in the Marlborough House Place of Detention. There are facilities available in the City of Dublin at present, in that there is a Child Guidance Clinic, which is run, I think, by voluntary effort and which would be readily made available to the Minister, if he would give the necessary direction. There is the difficulty that, while he is responsible for committing the children to Marlborough House, the Minister for Education is responsible for the internal administration. It would be legitimate for the Minister for Justice to express his interest in this matter, in that the Place of Detention serves only as a place where children are sent or should be sent while their circumstances and background are being investigated, so that when the District Justice comes finally to dispose of the charges laid against the child, he may be furnished with all available information.
I do not think the District Justice can be deemed to have all requisite information properly to dispose of the future of a child of tender years, unless he has the benefit of a report on the general psychological condition of the child and, what may be even more important, of the family background of the child, with the possible difficulties obtaining there which might seriously affect the conduct of the child.
I instance, for the Minister's information, a case recently referred to in a publication dealing with this matter. It was the case of a child who appeared to be wholly uncontrollable and who repeatedly fell into the hands of the police. I think this case occurred in Gt. Britain. The child was charged with breaking and entering and nobody seemed to be able to reconcile this long tale of crime with the tender years of the child, who was 13 or 14 years of age. I think that suitable psychiatric investigation revealed that the child was suffering from a very easily recognisable and well established case of claustrophobia and was reacting in this peculiar way to that condition. In the case of any mature person, that factor would come readily to light and due regard would have been had to it when his responsibility for any collision with the law was being investigated by a court of competent jurisdiction, whereas this child was a person of tender years and quite unable to explain himself or his feelings to a police court. It required skilled investigation by a sympathetic person who was trained to conduct it, in order to establish the true cause of his conduct.
Everybody expresses sympathy with the necessity for a reform of this kind and the Minister himself speaks of his desire to promote penal reform. He speaks also of the difficulty he has in doing so, owing to the happy fact that there are so few persons in prison in Ireland. Here is a scope for reform which is urgently necessary. It is perfectly easy to undertake and it is one to which I would most strongly urge the Minister to devote his mind.
I want to refer to another matter, mentioned by the Minister in his opening statement. He was referring to deaths on the roads. His sole contribution to the solution of that problem was to say that he hoped people would behave themselves better in the future. I am no expert in this matter, but from the ordinary commonsense observation of the activities of my fellow men, I believe that if we could eliminate drunken driving we would reduce deaths on the road by about 50 per cent. When I speak of drunken driving, I do not mean driving by a man who is unable to stand upright, because that kind of man is usually very little danger to himself or to anybody else. For one thing, he is hardly able to get into a car and if he does, he is not able to start it; and if he does succeed in starting it he does not go far.
The great danger is the man who thinks he is not drunk, but in fact is. He is the man who believes that his powers of observation and management of a car are greatly stimulated by having half a dozen drinks and then one for the road. The truth of it is that if you could persuade people in that state of mind to leave their cars behind them and go home by bus, it would be far better for everybody.
I do not minimise the difficulty of dealing with that situation. I think the ideal is to establish the principle that if a man is driving a car, he should not drink alcohol. If he wants to go to a party in a car, one member of the company ought to impose upon himself the self-denying ordinance of abstaining from alcohol. The person who is in charge of a car ought to refrain from taking alcohol and, as far as I know, there is no other way of preventing—of readily preventing— the very large percentage of the accidents, fatal and otherwise, which are at present so grave a cause of anxiety to everybody.
Of course, it is true even if you abolish 50 per cent. of these accidents by the observance of restraint of this character, there would still remain the other 50 per cent. but, doubtless, these can be curtailed by better road manners, by a greater readiness to consider the other users of the road, by driving at a more reasonable rate and by observing the various precepts which the Minister for Local Government and other interested parties offer for the guidance of motorists. However, I believe the principal remedy which would yield the largest and most immediate return would be measures to ensure that a person who drives a motor car abstains from the consumption of alcohol until his driving days are done.
I fully appreciate that in the administration of prisons, the Borstal and other places of detention, one has to guard against the unwarranted intrusion of well-intentioned but mischievous persons whose activities are calculated to create nothing but confusion and difficulty in highly specialised institutions of that kind. At the same time, I think the Minister should exercise a very wise discretion and, if there are persons who are genuinely interested in penal reform, who are in good faith, and are not seeking to wander in and out of prisons for the purpose of giving trouble, and they apply to him for permission to visit prisons and penal institutions, he should make that permission available.
I remember that not long after I became a member of this House, it occurred to me if we were legislating to lock people up in jail—as it was our duty to do—one essential preliminary to undertaking that was to see what jail was like. A great many of my colleagues had spent some time in jail and they had not to undertake that pious pilgrimage. I had not, and I conceived it my duty to visit prisons. I think at that time Deputy Boland was Minister for Justice and he made no difficulty about giving facilities to me in visiting Limerick Prison, Cork Prison and the penal servitude institution in Mountjoy. I think it was a good thing for any legislator to do. I think, before you start legislating to lock up your fellow men, it is no harm to go and see the circumstances which will surround them if they fall foul of the law.
But, apart from Deputies and members of Seanad Éireann, there are certain well-intentioned and prudent people in our community who are interested in the general question of penal reform and, if they ask permission of the Minister, I think it is worth taking some risk in leaning towards the direction of making penal institutions open for the inspection of such persons rather than to adopt too conservative an attitude and say: "Look, we have prison visitors; we have the officers of the Department of Justice and the prison officers themselves, and these are quite enough." I do not think it is and it would be a pity if, through some oversight of that kind, we got the reputation of showing any reluctance to throwing open these institutions for prudent inspection by prudent people who were bona fide in their application to the Minister for Justice.
The last matter I want to refer to is something I find rather painful to mention at all. It is one of these things about which one always finds oneself in a difficulty. If you do not mention it, you are liable to be charged with failing in your duty and yet, if you do mention it, you have the queer feeling you may be doing an injustice. On balance I think the best way to stamp out a prairie fire—if it can be stamped out—is to describe the source of the smoke the moment you see it. If there is fire at the bottom of it, then it is well that fire should be displayed for public view. If there is not, then the Minister is in a position to correct any degree of public malaise that may exist. I want to tell the Minister that rumours are reaching me that a practice is growing up of members of his Party making representations to the Garda for the purpose of deterring them from launching prosecutions against their political supporters in rural Ireland. I think that is a very undesirable thing.
It is perfectly legitimate for a member of this House to remit to the Minister any application he may receive for the exercise of clemency. I am not at all sure that it might not be a good thing, where such clemency is exercised on the representation of a member of this House, that the fact that he made such representation should be made known on the occasion of the exercising of the clemency. If he has no reason to be ashamed of these representations, then he ought not be the least reluctant to let it be known that the application for clemency was made at his instance, and on foot of the local knowledge he claimed to have, and submitted to the Minister. But, in no circumstances does it seem to me proper to justify efforts on the part of any member of this House to deter the Garda from doing their duty and dealing with every citizen of the State on the basis of strict equality.
There may be cases in which the Garda, having full knowledge of local circumstances, may refrain from prosecution where it might appear prosecution would be justified. If they do that on their own responsibility, then they can answer to the Garda authorities for any dereliction of duty that may be subsequently alleged against them, but it would be a wholly shocking thing if the belief were widespread that the Garda were influenced in the discharge of their duty by pressure brought to bear upon them by people in the public life of the country. This is a matter into which the Minister might with advantage inquire and take an early opportunity of making an authoritative statement.
I think also, where he is moved to exercising the prerogative of remitting sentences on the representation of members of this House or of the Seanad, he might very well consider, at the time of making the remission, stating that amongst other representations for clemency regarding this case, he had received them from so-and-so, naming the Deputies or Senators who had made the representation. I am continually making representations—I do not know whether to the Minister or the Revenue Commissioners. My constituents are much given to smuggling. They all protest they were not smuggling, and give me long descriptions of how they were merely travelling from one place to another with anything from a pair of silk stockings to a pound of butter, that they were cruelly set upon by the Revenue Commissioners and savagely penalised, I need hardly say always unjustly.
I always send these representations forward, I think to the Revenue Commissioners. I am sure some of them found their way into the hands of the Minister for Justice. I very rarely have any success whatever in making my representations prevail, but if the Minister does show clemency in respect of any of these cases, I should be most happy if he proclaimed the fact that the clemency was exercised at my instance. I shall experience no embarrassment whatever in having my name associated with any appeal for clemency which I have made.
I know the answer I would get if I went to an officer of the Revenue Commissioners and tried to stop him from levying a fine on one of my constituents or from seizing property which he considered it to be his duty to seize. He would quite properly tell me to go mind my own business and that if I persisted in any such attempt, he would take steps to make me criminally answerable. That is perfectly right. The proper place for me to make representation is to the responsible Minister or the Revenue Commissoiners, as may be appropriate.
My difficulty lies in hearing what I have reported to the House. The Minister should take steps to correct that impression if it be false. I remember the last time I was discussing this Estimate Deputy Russell said that the Minister must get weary listening to one Deputy repeating substantially what the previous Deputy has said. Here I suggest to Deputy Russell that no Deputy should feel that embarrassment. He does the Minister less than justice if he does not faithfully repeat what another Deputy has said. If in his personal knowledge the facts are as the previous Deputy reported them, then the Deputy, like any other Deputy who has experience or has heard this rumour, tells the Minister. If the matter requires investigation and correction, let such investigation and correction be made; if it does not, the Minister will so say and in the absence of any further evidence I am sure all of us would be very happy to accept the Minister's reassurance.