I move:
That a sum not exceeding £73,660 be granted to complete the sum necessary to defray the Charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1961 for the salaries and expenses of the Office of the Minister for Justice including certain other services administered by that Office.
I propose, with the permission of the Ceann Comhairle and if it is agreeable to the House, to follow the practice of previous years and to deal with the Votes for which the Minister for Justice is responsible, namely Nos. 23 to 31, as a group, so that there may be one general discussion, without, of course, prejudicing the right of any Deputy to raise any particular point on a particular Vote.
Taking the group of Estimates together, they show an increase of £209,355 of which £44,190, is accounted for by the provision that has had to be made for general increases in the Civil Service remuneration. A further £113,700 is accounted for by the increase in the provision that has had to be made for police pensions. The upward trend in the latter expenditure, to which I drew attention last year, is likely to continue for some years to come as there are over 3,000 members of the Force with sufficient service to enable them to retire on pension whenever they wish. It has been found necessary to make additional provision to the extent of some £29,000 for Garda transport and to provide an extra £14,000 to cover the pay increases that have been granted to prison officers. Thus, of the £209,000 by which the group of Estimates has increased, some £200,000 is allocated to pay increases, an increase in the burden of police pensions and the extra cost of Garda transport.
As regards Vote 23, that is to say the Vote for my own Office, practically all of the amount asked for is required to meet the salaries of the staff. It will be noted that a new sub-head has been added to the Estimate in respect of a grant-in-aid of £500 for the Incorporated Council of Law Reporting which will now be administered by my Department instead of the Department of Finance as formerly. This does not involve a new charge on the Exchequer as this sum was formerly included in No. 19, Vote for Miscellaneous Expenses.
The Department of Justice is responsible for the administration and business generally of the public services in connection with law, justice, public order and police, and has besides to administer miscellaneous statutes of great importance to the public such as those which deal with adoption, aliens and citizenship, betting censorship, charitable donations, licensing laws and so on.
To begin with adoption, during the year 1959 An Bord Uchtála made 501 adoption orders, 230 in respect of boys and 271 in respect of girls, of which almost half were in Dublin City. I wish to avail myself again of this opportunity to express my appreciation of the very valuable unpaid services of the members of this Board and also of the other voluntary bodies associated with my Department, i.e., the Commissioners of Charitable Donations and Bequests, the Censorship of Films Appeal Board, the Censorship of Publications Board and the Appeal Board and Comhairle na Míre Gaile.
The number of aliens resident in the country for 3 months or more who were obliged to register with the police was 3,073 which is slightly more than in the previous year. This figure does not include British subjects, who are not classified as aliens, in pursuance of the Aliens Exemption Order, 1935. The number of aliens who visited this country during the year was close to 50,000, most of whom came for holidays or for short business visits. I should like to mention that our policy has been to facilitate the admission of foreigners with the minimum of formality consistent with immigration requirements and that paper work and physical checks at the ports are being simplified as far as possible.
As Deputies will recall, from seeing a news item in the public press a month or so ago, negotiations have been in progress for the admission to Ireland of tourists from West European countries who are in possession of a visitor's card plus a national identity card. The visitor's cards will be supplied free to applicants through travel agencies, legations, etc., etc., on the Continent and presentation of the cards to our immigration officers at the air and sea ports will obviate the necessity for having a passport and incurring costs and trouble in the procurement of same. The number of persons granted certificates of naturalisation as Irish citizens during the year was 49. The applicants were of 15 different nationalities.
With regard to film censorship, the footage of film examined at slightly over 3,800,000 feed varied little from the footage examined in each of the past few years. The number of films certified by the censor as fit in their entirety for exhibition to the public was 1,094 and an additional 196 were passed with cuts. Of 59 films rejected 21 were the subject of appeals to the Appeal Board. 15 of these appeals were rejected and six were allowed— three with cuts. These films came mainly from the U.S.A. and Britain with a sprinkling from France, Germany and Italy. Three Irish films were presented and passed for exhibition.
As to censorship of publications, the statistics for the year 1959 show that the Censorship Board examined 797 books and 82 periodicals and made 459 prohibition orders,—402 being in respect of books and 57 in respect of periodical publications. These figures include 95 prohibition orders in respect of books already prohibited under other names or editions. The numbers of applications for variation orders and revocation orders lodged with the Censorship of Publications Appeal Board were very low: there was one application for a variation order in respect of a book which was granted and there were 3 applications for revocation orders for books, 1 of which was granted; one application in respect of a periodical was rejected.
My Department is also concerned to a minor extent with the awards for deeds of bravery made by Comhairle na Míre Gaile: that body examined 47 cases of bravery during the year and made awards of 5 bronze medals and 60 certificates.
It is regrettable to have to say that during the year under review the activities of unlawful organisations have continued along the Border although not to the same degree as a couple of years ago. These activities are the work of irresponsibles and are all the more dangerous on that account. They are a source of constant concern to the Government and cannot be too strongly condemned. There have been 18 occasions on which shots were fired and explosives used in Border areas. Four members of the R.U.C. and one member of the I.R.A. were wounded, and two customs huts and a transformer station were destroyed by explosives. The only people to benefit from these criminal activities, of which the futility must be apparent to all, are the people who want Partition to remain.
No one who has the real interests of the country at heart can approve this senseless and dangerous campaign which has been condemned by responsible opinion everywhere and not least by the spokesmen of nationalist opinion across the Border. The Gardaí are under instructions to do everything possible to prevent the activities to which I have referred and the measures that have had to be taken to deal with them are costing the taxpayer a sum in the order of £370,000 per annum. It is surely deplorable that, at a time when all our efforts should be directed to increasing productivity, so much energy and money has to be expended in this way.
I should like to refer also to the question of street collections. As Deputies are aware, persons who propose to hold such collections are required, in accordance with statutory regulations, to obtain a permit from the local chief superintendent of the Garda Síochána. A permit is usually issued provided that the proposed collection is a bona fide one and that the purposes of the collection are not fraudulent or unlawful.
The regulations have been observed by all concerned with the exception of the Sinn Fein organisation, some members of which have held street collections without permits. As a result, collectors in such cases have been prosecuted and fined in the Courts, and some of them have gone to prison rather than pay their fines. Sinn Fein representatives are aware that permits for collections for lawful purposes will be issued if they apply for them. I made a public statement to this effect on the 7th March last. Their refusal to apply is obviously intended as a rejection of the authority of the Government.
I need hardly say that this will not be tolerated and, as I have already indicated in my public statement, the question of strengthening the law in this regard has been under consideration.
I shall conclude this reference to the activities directly associated with my own office by adding that among the many miscellaneous matters of importance which received attention during 1959 were the formulation of proposals for legislation relative to the Courts of Justice, rent control, penal reform, charities and intoxicating liquor.
The next Estimate, No. 24, is for £5,275,610 for the Garda Síochána. This Estimate, as it stands, makes no provision for the pay increases granted recently to members of the Garda Síochána as a result of the acceptance by the Government of the findings of the Chairman of the Garda Síochána Arbitration Board. The Report of the Arbitration Board was not furnished until April this year, some weeks after the Estimates Volume had been printed. The pay increases which have been approved will cost about £450,000 a year, and it will be necessary for me to submit a Supplementary Estimate in due course to cover the additional expenditure involved.
The present Estimate is greater by £148,640 than the Estimate for 1959/60 and, as I have already stated, this is in the main due to the increase which has to be made in the provision for expenditure on Garda pensions and retirement gratuities. As the bulk of the present Force was recruited more than thirty years ago, the position now is that between 45 and 50 per cent. of the Garda Síochána have reached the minimum age for retirement on pension, while large numbers are approaching the age of compulsory retirement. It is inevitable that the cost of pensions and gratuities will be an increasing charge for several years to come. Other increases in the Estimate follow from adoption of the policy of making greater use of mechanical and scientific aids in the prevention and detection of crime.
It is proposed to develop further the mobile patrol system by the addition this year of 35 motor cycles to the Garda fleet, and it is also intended to equip at least another 30 police cars with 2-way radio sets which will operate in the Dublin and Cork county boroughs. Provision for these items is made in sub-heads H and N of the Estimate. Consideration has also been given to a reorganisation of the Force in Dublin, and I hope that by this time next year much progress will have been made.
Some of the sub-heads show a decrease as compared with last year's Estimate, the most substantial being that of £14,323 in sub-head B. This decrease does not mean that there has been a reduction in the rate of allowances payable to the Gardaí. It is due to the fact that the payments to be made this year, in respect of allowances claimed weekly, fall within a 52-week period whereas last year the payments covered 53 weeks. For this reason, too, the increased provision in this year's Estimate for pay is only £6,696 despite having to provide for the normal increases flowing from the grant of increments as well as for the pay of a greater number of personnel.
At the beginning of the 1959/60 financial year the strength of the Force, all ranks, was 6,493. It was estimated that during the year the wastage from retirements, resignations and deaths would be 430 and provision was made for an intake of male recruits approximating to this number as well as for the appointment of 18 women. In the event, however, the total wastage was only 358 but, because of the necessity which arose during the year to provide extra police for duty in Dublin and on the Border it was not possible to make a corresponding adjustment in intake and the position at the beginning of the present financial year was that the overall strength was 6,586. This figure is, however, 900 less than it was in 1950.
Since I spoke here on last year's Estimate, a noteworthy innovation has been the appearance on duty in the streets of Dublin of the first batch of Ban-Ghardaí. I am gratified at the favourable impression which these ladies seem to have made on the public generally and I think we can look forward with confidence to the useful part they will play as members of the Force. I hope that in due course it will be possible to have some of the other cities allotted their quota of Ban-Ghardaí.
During the present financial year about 200 male members will be leaving the Force on age grounds and taking account of the normal trend in losses from voluntary resignations and retirements, deaths, and so on, it is expected that wastage from all causes during the year will be 450. Provision has been made accordingly for such recruitment, including 25 women, as may be necessary within the limit of 450 to keep the Force at an effective strength.
I have already mentioned that it was found necessary during the past year to augment the personnel in the Dublin Metropolitan Division the strength of which in April, 1960, was 1,719, as compared with 1,661 in April, 1959. This step was necessary to deal with the crime problem in the city.
Now I come to the important subject of the prevalence of crime in the country as a whole. The information which I am about to give in this respect relates to the year ended 30th September, 1959, returns for which have just been compiled. I regret to have no better news to give the House than that the upward trend, to which I referred last year and which has been going on since 1955, still continues. The figures are the highest ever recorded for all classes of indictable crime, the total for the year being 17,865 as compared with 16,567 in 1958.
The pattern of the increase continues to be the same: the bulk of the crimes were in respect of the larceny and destruction of property, the number of persons convicted was up by more than 10 per cent. and they were, for the greater part, under 21 years of age. I am glad to be able to say, however, that according to figures which have been compiled for the six months ending on 31st March, 1960, there has been a drop of about 17 per cent. in the number of indictable crimes recorded in Dublin, excluding bicycle thefts for which figures are not available yet, over the figure for the corresponding period in 1959.
I now turn briefly to summary offences. Here the figures relate to the number of persons prosecuted and not to the number of offences committed, since, of course, as we all know there are numerous trivial offences, particularly against the road traffic code, which never appear in police statistics. During the year the number of prosecutions was 88,819, as compared with 82,876 in 1958. The number of fatal accidents which occurred in 1959 was 300, while there were a further 3,284 accidents resulting in personal injury. The number of persons killed was 306 and the number injured was 4,489.
Compared with 1958 the number of fatal accidents showed an increase of 38, but the number of non-fatal accidents declined by 59. The numbers of accidents, both fatal and non-fatal, and the numbers killed or injured in 1957, 1958 and 1959 were substantially below those for 1955 and 1956. In addition to the accidents resulting in death or injury, there were 3,066 accidents reported in 1959 which involved material damage only. This number compares with 3,621 for 1958, 3,401 for 1957 and 4,201 for 1956.
As Deputies know, crime in this country is to a large extent a Dublin problem. It is there that most serious crime occurs, and I mentioned in the House more than once in the course of the last year that the position was causing me serious concern.
I do not want to exaggerate the position. The crime situation in Dublin was at no time as bad as some of the newspaper publicity we had at times during the year would lead one to believe, and I would like to recall that in reply to Questions in the House last November, I was able to assure Deputies first of all that, contrary to some reports, there had been no increase in crimes of violence such as assaults or woundings, and secondly the Gardaí had been practically 100 per cent. successful in being able to effect arrests in the cases that did occur.
Nevertheless, as I have said, the actual position in Dublin was such that I was gravely concerned and I decided that further measures were necessary to strengthen the hand of the Garda Síochána. We, therefore, increased the strength of the Force in the city, especially the strength of the detective units. The efficiency of communications and patrols was improved by the provision of additional equipment, and an additional twelve motor-cycles equipped with radio were provided for operation on a round-the-clock basis to provide speedy attention in the case of crimes of violence and, of course, other crimes as well.
It may be premature of me to say that already these measures seem to have paid off, but at any rate there is encouragement in the very latest figures that I have obtained from the Gardaí, and which I mentioned earlier. As I told Deputies, the figures for Dublin for the six months ending 31st March of this year show a drop of 17 per cent. as compared with the corresponding period last year. I hope that this may be the turn of the tide.
In previous years I have mentioned the importance of ensuring that unattended property, particularly bicycles, is kept locked. May I once again appeal for greater care in this matter? The person who leaves an unattended bicycle without a lock is asking for trouble, and while the Gardaí do all they can, as indeed is their duty, in these cases, we must face the unpleasant fact that of all crimes bicycle stealing is one of the most difficult in which to make a detection.
This year, I wish to refer to another matter as well, and that is the question of the co-operation of the citizens with the Garda Síochána both in the way of being generally helpful to them when discharging their duties and of rendering active assistance should they be in danger of being overpowered by violence. It is plain that we still have not moved sufficiently with the times in this particular respect and it is lamentable to read in the newspapers from time to time of lone members being assailed by criminals whom they are attempting to arrest and receiving no assistance from law-abiding citizens in the vicinity. It is no less true that in non-violent situations members of the public are reluctant to give the Gardaí all the assistance they can. I take this occasion to appeal for an awakening of conscience and the greater exercise of moral courage towards giving the Gardaí the help which they need and deserve.
The Estimate for Prisons at £218,960, shows an increase of £32,380, but as there was a Supplementary Estimate passed in March for a sum of £13,130, the net increase over 1959/60 is £19,250. The increase is attributable mainly to pay increases granted to prison officers in accordance with the provisions of the Scheme of Conciliation and Arbitration, and also an increase in the number of prisoners who have to be maintained.
The increase in prison population to which I referred last year has continued and provision is being made on the basis of a daily average of 485 prisoners, as compared with last year's estimate of 385 prisoners. The increase reflects the present abnormally high level of crime but the daily average prison population is still below what it was in the early 1950's when the crime figures were lower.
Votes 26, 27 and 28 relate to the expenses of the Courts of Justice and to the salaries of the clerical staff. The increases in all of these Estimates are caused for the greater part by the general increases in remuneration. In the case of the District Court considerable attention is being given to the reduction in the number of districts in order to effect a reduction in the number of justices. During 1959 a Cabinet Committee scrutinised proposals which have been evolved in my Department for the practical arrangements for the settling of proposed new districts and indicated further lines of possible economy. The matter is being actively attended to and I hope that before the end of the financial year the Order to reduce the number of districts will have been made.
In the meantime in anticipation of economies which will be achieved in the number of justices, some of the vacancies occurring for justices are filled by temporary rather than permanent appointments. This is for the time being the cause of an increase in the Estimate for the District Court because the salaries of temporary justices are borne on the Estimate and a sum of £4,500 has had to be provided there which will be no longer required when the reduction in the number of districts has been effected.
I am glad to be able to report that the reduction in the number of the circuits of the Circuit Court from nine to eight to which I referred last year has now been effected, through which an economy equal to the salary of one judge will be possible on the occurring of the first vacancy among the Circuit Judges.
There is nothing to which I need specially refer in the case of the Estimate for the Supreme and High Courts. It remains substantially the same as last year.
On Vote 29, for the Land Registry and Registry of Deeds, I wish to say that both of these Offices are functioning satisfactorily and are up to date in their work. In the case of the Land Registry we are faced with the necessity of renewing the greater part of the stock of maps which after years of service have become badly worn. This has meant an addition this year of five extra staff. This is, however, unavoidable as we never in the past employed staff or had the need to do so for this purpose.
I now come to the last of the Estimates for which I am responsible, those for the Public Record Office and for Charitable Donations and Bequests. There is nothing which calls for any particular comment from me in relation to either of these Offices, and I am glad to be able to say that they are functioning regularly and satisfactorily.