This time the Minister thought fit to boast, as one of the items of solid achievement, that over the year the Garda Síochána conciliation and arbitration scheme had operated. I remarked that that seemed to be somewhat impudent from the present Minister for Justice, seeing that for the best part of 17 years arbitration in any form had been refused to State personnel, either civil servants, members of the Army, teachers or members of the Garda. For quite a while, the situation developed —not a bad situation—that when arbitration had been introduced for the civil servants, there was a certain relationship between the salaries in the Civil Service and salaries in the Garda Síochána and the Army as well as the teachers' group. However, they moved on to a special conciliation and arbitration scheme.
If it is possible to boast that we have had a full year under the conciliation and arbitration scheme, it does not seem to have led to any great comfort amongst the Gardaí themselves. I have read any number of articles indicating great disquiet in the ranks of the Gárda. The two things questioned were that Gárda promotion was being made in such a way that there were many grievances and, in addition, a considerable amount of dissatisfaction was expressed in many articles in the Press that, so to speak, the giving of extra emoluments to the Guards while at the same time withdrawing rent allowances meant a reduction in fact in their emoluments, because the money given barely made up for the rent allowances. In addition, the rent allowance was a matter that could be allowed for in income tax while the extra salary was not allowed and they were, in fact, charged for that.
I began to wonder, when the Minister was so anxious about the monotony of the dietary in Mountjoy and elsewhere and felt himself bound to relieve it by substituting flakemeal for pinhead oatmeal, providing milk pudding, more tea and sugar and all the rest, were these things taken into consideration—particularly since most of them are matters affecting the index figure of the cost of living—by the arbitration and conciliation board when the rather meagre increases were given to the members of the Garda? It seems to me to be rather tactless for the Minister in the speech on his Estimate to say so much about his anxiety to have the dietary of prisoners and inmates of certain mental hospitals improved—nobody can object to that—to boast about it in the terms in which it was done, while at the same time there is seething discontent in the ranks of the Garda, more particularly in respect of emoluments and pay.
There has been a good deal of letter writing in regard to promotion. The Independent had an article on March, 23rd, of this year, which was headed “Garda Promotion Grievances Grow”, and which stated:
Discontent over the promotion system in the Garda Síochána has spread to all ranks and has grown to such proportions that, according to a recent issue of the Garda Review, there is an atmosphere of distrust everywhere.
The journal added that the discontent was now "bordering on despair" and the manner in which it had gripped practically every member to whom promotion meant anything was "truly alarming".
Members of the Force, from Chief Superintendents down to the most junior of recruits, are at no pains to conceal that the present system should be altered, but recent representations by their organisations to the Commissioner and the Minister for Justice have been turned down. The result is that widespread discontent is said to be sapping the morale and efficiency of the Force.
The fourth paragraph in the article stated:
There is no great dissatisfaction at the method of promoting Gardaí to the rank of Sergeant, but from there on the system of selection for higher rank has created a profound sense of grievance.
That particular paragraph was followed up by a series of letters saying that that was a complete mistake and that one of the most serious grievances concerned the promotion from Garda to the rank of sergeant. I shall deal with that in a moment. Apparently, the old system was that a sergeant who sought promotion to inspector entered for a competitive test, the result of which was the deciding factor. Then, the article said:
That system has now been replaced by a qualifying examination in professional subjects, followed by an interview.
Of course, the interview is what matters. It is the interview which has caused disquiet. There is no doubt that where an interview is made one of the special requirements for candidates for promotion, many strings can be pulled and influence can be used. The results of an interview such as this are not like the results of a test marked in a Civil Service way. The results of an interview can be changed, distorted and misinterpreted in such a way as to bring about a situation such as that which is developing, where there is a great sense of grievance with regard to promotion.
As I said, this article passed over the method of promotion from Garda to sergeant. There were a number of letters written almost immediately on that. One fairly lengthy letter in the Independent a couple of days later said that that paragraph was wrong and that, on the contrary, that was where most of the discontent arises. It went on to say:
The majority of the force are in the Garda rank, and they, with their Sergeants, are nearly always first to arrive at the scenes of incidents and it is they who often take the brunt of criticism and abuse. Why not look into the matter of their promotion system in order to reduce their grievances?
They then continue the argument used concerning the type of examination and interview.
The article continues:
That has caused discontent, frustration and jealousy. It seems to disregard men with long service and experience, and human nature being what it is, it has given rise to the belief that there is too much room for influence.
That is the kernel of this letter. If I add that as a corrective to the article in the Irish Independent of March 23rd last it indicates that, right over the Force, with regard to promotion from Garda to sergeant and upwards, there is definite discontent amongst all the members. This article of 23rd March ended in this way:
A Superintendent said yesterday:
"We are left with the Selection Board as before, with the interview system, with the senior men of experience being passed over, with a secret system of selection, and with a Force riddled with grievances and discontent."
That is on the simple matter of promotion. When I add to that the articles I have read from time to time in the Garda Review and letters which have appeared in the papers, I find it is not a question merely of promotion but of the emoluments of the Garda and the special grievance with regard to the quarters in which they find themselves housed from time to time.
Articles were published in the Garda Review particularly the January or February issue. If people there were speaking the truth—I do not know who they were and I do not know if any care was taken to verify the particular grievances they ventilated—if they were speaking anything near the truth in connection with the rules they have in certain places and with the conditions of damp and leaking, the conditions with regard to the beds they have to sleep on, the conditions with regard to the ventilation of the place, the matter is serious. It was stressed in most of these articles that there is a peculiar prohibition. I suppose all the fittings and furniture are supplied by the Office of Public Works. Apparently there is a prohibition on a member of the Garda Síochána providing for himself in the sense of bettering the quarters he has to live in.
One knows that grievances can be magnified and that a great deal can be made out of very little. At the same time, two issues of that journal were published and I saw no counter suggestion made through the usual matter of inspired question in the House here to get a corrective given. I saw nothing of that except I heard an odd phrase from the Minister for Justice himself to the effect that anybody can make a certain case, can make a case here, and there are people who can count up their grievances once they get, so to speak, a lead. The matter lies there. There has been a considerable amount of agitation in the Force with regard to it. I do not know if any cause can be ascribed to it.
There is quite a big percentage of wastage in the Garda. I understand that the training is sufficiently good here that, after people have been subjected to it, they can immediately, on leaving the Force here, get much more responsible positions and better pay in Britain. It is occurring not merely in the Civic Guard area but over the whole population. One would expect that after trying to get recruits of a certain standard and then giving them a certain training, a certain educational value, we would at least try to keep those people here. It does not seem to me that any very great increase will be required. I know it cannot compete with the salaries offered, say, in the London Metropolitan Police but that is not where the wastage is, in the main: it is all over the country. Even outside the police force, people are being given quasi-police status on the other side.
Anybody hoping for a betterment of the situation because of increased emoluments given to the Garda must have lost confidence when he realised the recent increases and realised he is up against the recent cost of living figure, apart altogether from the more important matter of the cost of living outside.
A lot of the Minister's speech was taken up with the revision of the Garda rates of pay, Garda conciliation, the rent allowance and the increase in police pensions. Could the Minister not find it possible to get any satisfaction amongst members of the Garda themselves? They cannot but accept with a great deal of cynicism the statements by members of the Government and Parliamentary Secretaries from time to time at functions and dinners with regard to the state of prosperity in the country. The comment you will hear from many a Garda is: "If there is prosperity, we are not sharing in it and are not being given any extra cut. If there is a bigger national cake, it is divided in ways in which we do not get what we think is an appropriate ration from it."
The Minister's statement about the drop in the figures for indictable crimes is that the number of such crimes reported dropped from 17,865 in 1959 to 15,375 in 1960, a decrease of 2,490 or 14 per cent. We will take the statistics as they are given to us. The editorial in the Irish Independent almost immediately pointed out that it was not much in the way of a boast because the figures for 1959 were an all-high record—the highest this country ever had. So, to get some decline from that, the figures are not in themselves a great deal to boast about.
The Irish Independent article was not absolutely correct. I understand the figures for 1959 are not merely lower than those for the year before but for the year before that again. These two years showed an upward trend and the decline is something not to be boasted about. A couple of years ago, I referred to a statement made by a very well known social reformer who was on a visit to this country, making investigations. When the figures for indictable crime reported to the Garda for that year were brought to his notice, he expressed horror.
This man was used to delving into reports on crime in London and other big industrial cities and in Glasgow and various other parts of Scotland. Having expressed horror, he added that, in relation to delinquency, crimes and indictable offences, one must always remember the tremendous out-flow from Ireland by way of emigration. He made what to me was a surprising statement then but I have heard it commented upon favourably since. He pointed out that a certain proportion of the delinquents appearing in the courts in Britain are really from amongst our emigrants. That can be overdone. However, I know that people in responsible positions in our offices in England were approached by police magistrates there who were very seriously concerned at the number of young Irish girls as well as young Irishmen who appear before them classified generally as juvenile delinquents.
In any event, it surprises me. I thought a person who wanted to play delinquent might prefer to do it at home rather than go off to a strange country in order to start a new type of career there but I have been assured by people engaged in social reform that that is recognised. If we have it to say that indictable crimes reported have dropped, we must remember that drop will have to be compared with the drop in population. I do not know how the figures are worked out but one of these days when we get the census figures, we should have some standard to go by.
On minor offences, the Minister's statement said the figures relate to the number of prosecutions for summary offences and not the number of offences committed. The reason for this, he said, was that it would be impossible to say how many summary offences were committed since a substantial number of them, such as minor breaches of road traffic laws, never find their way into the Garda records. Then some figures did follow in the next paragraph. The number of prosecutions—these are summary offences— rose from 89,000 approximately in 1959 to 103,000 approximately in 1960, an increase of some 14,000. Of course that sounds terrible until one reads the next line or two, "which, I may say, was due entirely to an increase in the number of prosecutions for road traffic offences." Nearly half of that increase relates to offences against lighting regulations. The prosecutions for those offences increased by over 6,000 to a figure of 28,253 in 1960. The Minister made the surprising comment that he thinks that in the interests of road safety, the House generally will welcome this evidence of increased vigilance with regard to breaches of lighting regulations. As well as that, the statement said there were increases in respect of all the common driving offences.
We then get a reference to a number of prosecutions under the Licensing Acts. I put those really on the same footing as road traffic offences, particularly licensing prosecutions. They are all very minor and I think the police could be better occupied in trying to prevent, or in detecting, serious crime rather than having so much of their time taken up with lighting and general road traffic offences. As regards the licensing laws, I have often felt that it would be much better if the police were told not to pay so much attention to breaches of these laws. Let people have their amusement, even though it means staying on in a licensed house beyond the appropriate time, but, apparently, it is one of the great standards the Garda have, if the number of prosecutions they find it possible to bring from time to time for breaches of the licensing laws is high.
The other interesting comment made in this connection concerns the only other figures that are of any significance numerically in connection with summary offences. These relate to unlicensed dogs. The number of prosecutions increased by over 500 to 4,090. That record, a page and a bit, is, to my mind, a record of futility. It is certainly a record of misapplied energy. If the police, particularly in Dublin, are to be occupied in putting labels on windscreens of cars owned by people who commit trivial breaches of parking regulations or meeting people out on bicycles that have not got a red light at the rear or have no front light, and more particularly, if they are to be wasting time looking after the number of unlicensed dogs, they certainly will not have time for serious work.
I wonder would the Minister indicate to us, when he talks about charges in connection with unlicensed dogs, what fraction of the number of dogs in the country does he think are licensed. I believe it is more the rule than the exception for persons who have dogs to take out licences for them. If there are prosecutions of people having dogs without licences, even that record, although it increased by over 500 up to 4,090, is merely scratching at the problem. It would be far better to abolish the system of having dog licences altogether rather than have the real contempt of the law that is indicated by those who own unlicensed dogs.
Here is a question I have asked for three years in succession. Are we ever going to get any improvement in court procedure in regard to things like this? I have brought the matter to the notice of this House on three occasions already and I now mention it for the fourth time. The procedure in England for trivial offences under what was called the Magistrates Courts Act is more realistic and there is an effort being made to introduce something like that Act in connection with traffic offence legislation going through there at the moment. It is not confined to traffic legislation. I think it is used also in regard to people who travel on the underground or on the ordinary railway system without a ticket or with a ticket that does not entitle them to travel in the class of compartment in which they are found.
The system in England is that these cases hardly ever result in a person being brought to court. The procedure is, I understand—I am not speaking with any accuracy or quoting from any official information — that anybody caught committing a trivial offence is given a notice that he has committed a breach of whatever statute it may be. He is told the maximum penalty that may be imposed, whatever it may be. There is a procedure whereby he is warned by letter that he has been found guilty of a certain offence and he is told what the penalty is and asked if he wishes to pay the penalty. A further notice is sent by the police to the effect that if he likes to come to court and if he has anything to say about the case, he may do so and waste his time and money in that way.
Well below five per cent. of these cases ever reach the stage of an appearance by a defendant or an accused person in court. In addition to the accused not having to come to court, it means, if a person accepts the penalty and admits that he is guilty and pays the fine, there is no question, as we used to see in regard to railway offences, of a guard or conductor having to come to court to produce strictly formal proof, say what the fare was and how the person was discovered on a section of the line. All that is done away with and the result is a great saving of time for railway officials, not merely those in the operating section but even the administrative people. That pertains here to an extent much worse apparently than it ever was in England. It did pertain here, and still does, in regard to motoring offences, parking on the wrong side of the street, parking for too long, no lights and all the rest.
I do not know whether the system has improved since the days when I used to visit the district court but it was certainly a scandal to see the amount of time and energy involved in connection with this type of offence. You had the amazing performance of mass swearing of about ten or 12 Gardaí at the same time, all striving to get their finger-tips to touch the Testament. Then each member of the ten or 12 concerned in that collective fashion read out a statement of offence and the general situation was that there was a call around the court to find whether the offender was present.
If it was an ordinary offence connected with a bicycle or a parking offence and the defendant was not present, the district justice generally fined him a little more than he would if the defendant had come down to court. If the defendant came to court, the questions generally ran along a regular line: What was he? Was he self-employed? Was he employed by someone else? Was he let off to come to court? Would he lose wages and, if so, what wages would he lose? Then, if he would lose wages because of his absence from work, a 10/- fine was reduced to 2/6 or a 5/- fine was reduced to 1/-. If the defendant did not appear for this rather fatuous performance, he was fined more heavily.
Further, if a defendant was fined, even if he were prepared to pay on the spot, the fine would not be accepted from him there and then. I believe that was because the sheet before the district justice had naturally to have a whole heap of entries made on it; and, unless the individual was lucky enough to have his offence called when the district justice was at the end of the sheet, there was no question of taking the fine on the spot, as it were. The district justice had to retain the sheet to make the entry which eventually becomes the entry in his minute book. Even if a defendant had the ready money on him to pay the fine, it would not be taken from him. Even in the case where the district justice did hand down the sheet, there was no provision made in the district court office for the reception of money then and there in payment of fines. The result was that the person was fined and subsequently a member of the Garda Síochána was sent out to collect the fine.
I am told that on an average a Garda called at a person's house three times before he eventually got paid. It was a question of the man of the house being out, or there was not enough loose change to pay the fine, or there was no one in the house. It took three calls before the two half-crowns were collected. Simultaneously there was another situation developing. Certain neighbours did not know for what purpose the Garda was calling and there grew a suspicion that the man concerned must be really guilty of some serious crime. All that could be avoided by fines on the spot or by giving the offender a chit and making him pay the fine at an office, thereby putting the onus on him to pay it instead of on a member of the Garda Síochána to collect it. If the defendant wanted to test the point, he could go to court; he could also go to court if he wished to query the amount of the fine.
I make the suggestion again that the Magistrates Courts Act ought to be looked at and the procedure that has developed under it and the practice that has been established now over many years in England should be established here. It would save a tremendous amount of time and a good deal of expenditure of energy, time and even money by the Garda Síochána in their fruitless efforts to collect small fines. We have made an approach to this in road traffic matters. How far that will go, I do not know. In any event, the effort is being made on the departmental side. I hope it will be successful and I hope the success in connection with road traffic will spur on those concerned to make other changes with regard to other trivial offences.
I have on several occasions here queried the condition we found ourselves in in connection with the outbreak of war in 1939. Under Article 28 of the Constitution, there could be declared in this country in certain circumstances a state of national emergency. From the point of view of the Constitution, such a development has this possible result, that, while a national emergency lasts, nothing in the Constitution may be invoked against legislation which is stated or expressed to be for the purpose of saving the State in time of war and nothing in the Constitution can be invoked against any activity which purports to be an activity under legislation of that type.
Under Article 28, it does not matter whether or not war is raging in the country. It is a question of whether there is a situation of war in which the country is not directly involved but in which conditions develop which bring about a state of national emergency. That national emergency lasts until the two Houses of the Oireachtas —both Houses have to pass that resolution—resolve that the national emergency has disappeared. In 1939, on the outbreak of war, this House and the Seanad duly passed such a resolution. No nullifying resolution has ever been passed by either House and that means that this country is still considered to be involved in a national emergency, due to the outbreak of war in 1939. Physically, the war ended in 1945. Here we are, 16 years after, and there is no movement with regard to breaking up that situation of national emergency.
I have never been able to find out why that condition has persisted here. I remember some years ago I made inquiries officially as to whether there was any serious administrative difficulty likely to arise if the state of national emergency were brought to an end. I could not find in the suggestions made to me any that carried any particular appeal. I think, again, this is just a matter of inertia on the part of certain Departments. They are in the position that, if some difficulty does arise which cannot be met by the ordinary law under the Constitution, there is a way of meeting that situation. All that has to be done is to pass a piece of legislation and say in the title of that legislation that it is for the safe-guarding of the State at a particular time. The courts cannot question that. They have already said so themselves. Once the resolution is passed, the legislation is beyond any question by them as to whether or not it is in fact required in a state of national emergency.
The second point is that, if the law be based on its long title, then the Constitution does not count. Further than that, if there is any activity under that legislation, no constitutional point and no question of the Constitution can be raised against anybody who either acts or purports to act in the carrying out of that type of legislation. It means that the Constitution, while not definitely in abeyance, can at any moment be put into abeyance by legislation passed with a certain addition to its title and, from that time on, the Constitution is of no avail to anybody.
As I have said, I have questioned several times as to what is the anxiety of any Department. Where does anybody think a Department might be held up in any conceivable emergency if the national emergency proclaimed in 1939 were now brought to an end? I never got any reasonable explanation. Nobody ever had the nerve, so to speak, to put in minutes any statement of difficulties that might arise. Certain suggestions were made that there might be conditions which would not be met under the ordinary law and could not be met by a piece of ordinary legislation because some constitutional issue might arise and it was, therefore, necessary to have some way of evading or nullifying the Constitution. I do not see why that sort of thing should not be brought to an end—at once.
I have already referred in another context to the question of State liability, more particularly in connection with private wrongs or torts. The situation in this country is that we have maintained much longer than England has the protection given to State servants by the extension of the old doctrine that the king can do no wrong and that he could not therefore authorise wrong to be done by his employees, agents or servants, so that if any injury were caused by a civil servant, it was unauthorised.
Before the Road Traffic Acts broke through this, the situation was that if anyone were knocked down by a military lorry or a Post Office van, the right of action was against the driver of the vehicle involved and of course it was not much good, if the aggrieved person were looking for thousands of pounds, to proceed against a driver earning as low as £7 a week. We have broken through that in a couple of cases. The State liability is not a protection any more in connection with accidents that occur by reason of mechanically-propelled vehicles driven by State employees. Similarly, in the Fatal Injuries Act, that was attended to and a workman employed by the State was put into the same category as a man working for a private firm or individual.
But in all the other areas of life in which torts may be committed, if there is a State servant in the background, that servant is protected. England has given this up for years and years under the Crown Proceedings Act and other such measures. They have abandoned the old-time protection for State servants.
The bogey that has always been raised in that connection is that if this protection did not exist, there would be a tremendous number of claims against the State and that the State would have to pay very heavily over the year and the Exchequer would suffer enormously. That is not so. It can be controverted by examination of cases over a number of years. Under the law as it stands, any number of people could have suffered torts and they would have been left without any resort except against the State servant concerned. I do not believe there are many such persons, but that is the excuse that is put up. If that excuse about the danger of huge claims against the State, if the protection were withdrawn, is a reality, it means that a tremendous number of citizens are suffering from the extension in an out-rageous fashion of the doctrine that servants of the king must be protected. I believe it is time an end was put to that.
There has been agitation in the House, by Parliamentary Question, in the past two or three months and there have been Ministerial statements on it. In this group of estimates, we have the Estimate covering the various courts. Under the Constitution, the judges of the High Court and of the Supreme Court are put into a position of strength. They are told they are to be independent and, to enable them to feel that independence, they are given the fortification erected in defence of judges in many countries as a result of agitation.
That fortification is that once a judge of either the High Court or Supreme Court is given his judicial office, he may not be removed from it, except under certain conditions. Another thing is that the judge's emoluments may not be lowered during his term in office. Under the Constitution, that only applies to the two types of judge mentioned but by legislation in the case of circuit court judges — the Courts of Justice Act of 1924—the same condi tions apply. They are given the same tenure.
That means, of course, that judges of the circuit court have not got the same constitutional protection as those of the High Court and the Supreme Court, but they have legal protection. If anybody wants to get rid of a circuit court judge, the Act of 1924 would have to be repealed. That has not been done and nobody is thinking of it, but there are situations in connection with the judiciary which it might be well to discuss on this Estimate.
One of the things judges have to sacrifice under the Constitution is that they may not take up other employment. The Constitution says a judge shall not be a member of either House of the Oireachtas and shall not hold any other office or position of emolument outside his appointment. One of our judges—the President of the Circuit Court—is at present in Cyprus. The question was raised about him as to how that had come to happen under the terms of the Constitution.
He might have resigned his post here. He had sufficient years on the Bench to qualify for full pension, and the thought was put forward that he had retired on pension. It turned out that was not the case and it was made known to the Dáil that he is holding down a judicial position in Cyprus and, at the same time, his post as President of the Circuit Court in Ireland. In this case, he has to direct the circuit court administration here, and very often attend conferences on the administration of that court and we are asked to assume that he is doing that properly from Cyprus.
Then a statement by the Taoiseach bore the meaning that Judge O Briain was not getting any emolument from the office. Of course the Constitution does not say a judge shall not receive any other emolument. It says he shall not be a member of either House of the Oireachtas and that he is not to hold any other office or position of emolument. Does anybody seriously contend that a higher court in Cyprus is not an office of emolument? It clearly is, and if Judge O Briain is in receipt of an emolument in Cyprus, while holding down a judicial position as President of the Circuit Court in Ireland, where then do we get? It appears to me that the Chief Justice could be made Chairman of the Electricity Supply Board or of C.I.E. in the morning so long as he did not take any emolument. That is, of course, the height of absurdity.
