Vol. 249 No. 4
Having made my introductory remarks last night in this debate I should like to say that the motion on which I am speaking is:
That Dáil Éireann reaffirms its confidence in An Taoiseach and the other Members of the Government.
This is a bread and butter issue——
The Deputy can say that again. Whose bread and butter?
It is not smuggled butter, anyway. It is a bread and butter issue because the Government are judged on the basis of the benefits they provide for the less well-off section of the community, the amount of employment given, the housing situation and the social welfare and health services they give the community, and other matters of that kind.
I am proud to be a member of this party which has such a wonderful record in regard to the matters I have mentioned. Taking social welfare, I shall deal with the advances that have been made through the years and which have been presented to the people and the people in return have supported the Fianna Fáil Government on numerous occasions. We know the present level of old age pensions about which we heard so much in the past. We know how old age pensioners have been treated, apart from increases in pensions of which I am quite certain there will be many under Fianna Fáil Governments. The provision of free television, free light, and free travel for old age pensioners are further advances and positive steps to ensure that the weaker section of the community are provided for. This will not be the end of the line; there will be many more advances as the national finances permit. Portion of the national income will be allocated to this very deserving section of the community. The widows, the orphans, the sick and the disabled have received substantial benefits over the years. If we go back in time we find that almost all the benefits now existing were brought in by Fianna Fáil Governments. On no occasion was any social welfare benefit introduced by either of the Coalition Governments. We are well aware of the paltry increases given to the old age pensioners during the Coalition period of office. I shall not mention the miserable 10d a week again. They are well aware that this was the amount given by the two Coalition Governments and the people have passed judgment on these Coalitions in that regard.
Fianna Fáil gave nothing for 16 years.
I am glad that the "tenpenny Minister" has just spoken. Deputy Corish, Leader of the Labour Party, was Minister for Social Welfare and it was he who decided on the 10d a week. He insulted this section of the people by giving them an extra 10d a week. That is not the type of government that will retain the confidence of either the House or the country. People have no time for the tenpenny tactics of the two Coalitions. That was the second effort. On the previous occasion it was much the same, a miserable 10d. I do not blame Deputy Corish for being agitated by a reference to social welfare because he knows the vast improvement that has been made in this field by successive Fianna Fáil Governments. Substantial increases were given in the Budget of this year.
Next year again Deputy Harte and his colleagues will have an opportunity——
Will Deputy Harte please restrain himself for a moment?
Is it a fact that Deputy Dowling wishes to keep out Deputy Blaney?
That does not arise.
That is more than the Deputy was able to do.
The great advances that have been made are a sore point. We know that Deputy Harte and other members of his party will be sent in to heckle speakers who will project the truth of the situation. They do not want the public to know the truth. The many advances that have been made in widows' pensions, contributary old age pensions and the others were all Fianna Fáil schemes. It is on that the people and the Members of the House will judge whether the Government deserve support and confidence. I am quite certain that on the policies of Fianna Fáil this House will certainly give the Taoiseach and his Government the necessary vote of confidence on this occasion as they did in the past and if the people are called on they also will give the same answer as they gave on so many occasions in the past.
In regard to housing we know the great strides that have been made in this city and in the country. We know that in 1968 an all-time record number of houses were built. All one need do is go through the schemes and see the vast number of houses being made available for outright purchase rather than tenancy. It is regrettable that certain sections, certain organisations and certain political parties advised tenants, when the corporation first mooted the scheme, against purchasing their own homes. The tenants were grossly misled as a result of incompetent advice by members of the Fine Gael and Labour Parties and other organisations. Many thousands have purchased and many thousands will purchase. Unfortunately, those who were misled by certain politicians initially will now have to pay a higher price. They will have to find an additional £600, £700 or £800. They can thank the politicians in Fine Gael and Labour and certain organisations for this additional burden.
The Fianna Fáil Party and the Fianna Fáil Minister for Local Government gave the tenants the right to purchase their own homes. They have encouraged private ownership. The Labour Party opposed that policy. They knew that when ownership passed into the hands of the tenants allegiance would shift from the Labour Party to the Fianna Fáil Party or, possibly, to the Fine Gael Party in some degree because some members of the Fine Gael Party supported this policy of private ownership. One has only to visit the housing estates to see the vast number of houses erected for private ownership by people who hitherto would have had to apply to the local authorities for tenancies. I am very proud to be a member of a party which fosters such a policy. So great has housing development been that estates are now stretching out beyond the city boundary far into the county. This is the kind of policy that commands respect. It is the kind of policy that commands confidence in public representatives.
With regard to advances in health, we heard the Minister outline the various developments under the Health Act. These developments have received tremendous support all over the country. I am quite sure that in time we will have here a health service of which we can be proud. There are defects in the service at the moment. These will be remedied.
There is a shortage of houses but there would be no shortage of houses if there was not plenty of employment providing people with the means of purchasing houses. This is the result of industrial development. Vast numbers of industries have been developed and expanded over the years giving very valuable employment to large numbers. More industries will be established in the future. The establishment of new industries and the creation of new jobs is fundamental Fianna Fáil policy. This is far removed from the kind of thought one finds on the other side of the House. We know the views of Deputy Fitzpatrick and other members of the Fine Gael Party in regard to "silly" industries. They would close them all down, but they never spell out in detail what industries are "silly". Deputy Fitzpatrick did mention Verolme as one of the "silly" industries. This is the kind of thought on the part of those who would present themselves as an alternative to Fianna Fáil. We would like Deputy Fitzpatrick and those who think like him to outline Fine Gael policy in regard to the industries they would close down.
Potez.
Potez was as big a failure as Fine Gael and that is saying something. I hope Fine Gael will spell out the "silly" industries so that those employed in them will know they are in danger of losing their jobs. This would show a greater sense of responsibility than was demonstrated by both Fine Gael and Labour in the Coalition Government when they destroyed the transatlantic air service, closed down the wagon shop in Limerick and the chassis shop in Inchicore. We know all about the extensions to the cement factories. This is the kind of thought which motivates Fine Gael and Labour and, if they were in power, they would sabotage the industrial effort. They would close down industries.
Is the Deputy proud of the unemployment record at the moment?
I could understand industries going out of operation for a variety of reasons but the Fine Gael and Labour Parties would deliberately throw people on the labour market and push them into the emigrant ship. That is what the Coalition Governments did and, because of that, neither party will ever again command the respect of the community as a whole.
Our Government command confidence because their policy is the reverse of that which would be implemented by the parties opposite. Fine Gael once said it was not the duty of the Government to provide work for the people. One would have thought that the Labour Party would be the last to associate themselves with the destruction of any industrial effort or align themselves with the kind of industrial sabotage that occurred under the two Coalition Governments. The destruction of the building industry in 1957 was brought about as a result of deliberate policy by the Coalition Government at that time.
These are the people who present themselves now as a responsible alternative to Fianna Fáil. We have one party with the policy of the "Just Society" and another party with the policy of the "Sick Society". I do not think the people will stand for either, or both, or a combination of both. Should the opportunity of presenting themselves to the people occur, I trust they will tell the people the whole truth and not wait until after the election. I trust we will not have the bartering that we had on previous occasions in the market square for various positions.
In relation to Fine Gael policy I mentioned in some detail last night what I and the workers thought of the Just Society. I mentioned how the industrial and transport workers were deprived of the opportunity of contesting elections because they had not the necessary finances to present to the Fine Gael headquarters.
Last night also I dealt with the policy of the Labour Party—the sick society policy. We should like to know what the left wing will tolerate from the right wing when the crunch comes. There are various matters that must be answered by the leader of the Labour Party as long as he remains leader, and for some people that would not be so very long. Some of the members of his party say "He is a nice fellow and presents a nice respectable front for the party but, if we want to get shut of him, he will go". I hope he will be there for a long time——
Is the Deputy speaking about Deputy Lynch?
No, I am speaking about Deputy Corish.
Did they not tell the Deputy?
The Labour Party will even try to control the people's minds, apart from the confiscation of lands——
We would not pay much for your mind.
——and they will even try to control sport. We know that during a football match here in the city recently certain members of the Labour Party decided that the public should not attend the match. They paraded around with all kinds of banners in company with the most peculiar individuals. We know Deputy Cruise-O'Brien wrote to the Irish Times and told the editor that he should not report this kind of match. To me this indicates that if the Labour Party were in power they would compel the papers not to publish such reports, they would dictate to us about the kind of matches we should attend and they would also direct labour, as some of their proposals in the past indicate.
The extreme socialist policy set out in the Labour Party's outline policy document is in cold storage at the moment. This is deliberate, because when they presented it to the people it was rejected. It was then decided to put it in cold storage until after the next election in the hope they would get into office and the policy could then be resurrected. They are under an obligation now to tell the people if this extreme socialist policy is going to be taken out of cold storage. If Deputy FitzGerald accepts it, will Fine Gael follow Labour or vice versa?
We saw the disgraceful conduct here the other night when the Labour Members had to beat one another into the Division Lobby when the final vote was taken on the Financial Resolution. While all parties agree that there are economic problems, their solution depends on the availability of finance. When a problem exists and when there is a solution available politicians should take the honourable course and adopt that solution. I understand the Labour Party had decided not to vote on the occasion to which I am referring and, since the Whip had gone up to the lobby as one of the tellers, Deputy O'Leary had to beat Members of the Labour Party into the lobby. However, at least one man in that party had enough principle to remain this side of the barrier. He expressed his opinion behind closed doors and, having made a decision, he stood by it. There is no doubt that Fine Gael put pressure on the Labour Party because what the Labour Party did was completely against their principles. Deputy Corish and others have shed bitter tears during the years on the matter of corporation profits tax but we now know that they are more concerned about the employers than about maintaining workers in industry. We have seen this somersault and there is no reason to believe if there was a coalition in office there would not be another somersault in relation to the EEC and other matters.
When I was speaking last night Deputy Thornley requested some references and I am glad to supply them now. The Deputy is not present at the moment but perhaps somebody would tell him. In the Labour Party outline policy document on page 67, paragraph 132 it is stated "we must create a new structure for education in a socialist Ireland". It is also stated that "all schools will be owned by the community and controlled by their representatives". It is stated that "education will be comprehensive and, in most cases, co-educational". The document states that education, even at the lower age group, will be co-educational in form as an essential prelude to opening up the children's minds. It is not enough that the Labour Party are trying to tamper with the minds of politicians, but when they try to get at the unfortunate children——
We will have no problem as far as the Deputy is concerned.
I have an open mind——
It is wide open.
The left wing of the Labour Party, who have been advocating the pill, who have mentioned abortion and contraception, should spell out what they propose to do in relation to this aspect of their policy.
There is no policy about these matters.
If there is not now there will be such a policy soon. Judging by the comments that have been made, both inside and outside this House, these matters are very much in the minds of members of the Labour Party. There are pill-pushers there because we have heard them in this House speak in relation to what amendments should be implemented. The people will make up their minds about these matters. We have a decision to make tonight and we will make it based on the fact that this Government have carried out their duty in a realistic manner and have not changed their policy. I and many others are quite happy about the political and economic policies of the Government.
There are many other factors about which I should like to speak but I have much constituency work to carry out. The policy of the Government is not in cold storage and does not demand a down payment on a Dáil seat of £300 and the balance when the person is elected, as in the case of Mr. Cromwell in North East. Our policy gives an opportunity to every person who subscribes to the aims and ideals of Fianna Fáil to represent the people in Dáil Éireann without any other imposition. I intended to say much more but I know that other speakers, including Deputy Cruise-O'Brien, wish to speak. If I were to outline in any detail the achievements of this party in any sphere I am quite sure that the time at the disposal of the House would not be sufficient to enable me to do so.
I would say that the Government and the Taoiseach deserve our confidence. We re-affirm our confidence in them because we are confident that they will continue to ensure that the weaker sections of this community are catered for in a realistic way. When the time comes I hope that the Labour Party policy will be taken out of cold storage —whether or not that means it will be presented again to the public in the same form as it was in the past, or whether extracts will be presented on the next occasion in order to fool the people, I do not know. The people will not be fooled. The people were presented with various gimmicks and statements in the past by members of the Labour Party and of the Fine Gael Party and on two occasions in 50 years they made mistakes. I will forgive them for those mistakes. They regretted them and when they had an opportunity they endorsed the Fianna Fáil Government in this House and they will continue to do so.
Deputy Dowling, who has just finished, made a reference near the end of his remarks to his confidence in the Taoiseach, and then he almost choked. The motion before us calls for confidence in the Taoiseach and every other member of the Government, but confidence in the other members of the Government was too much even for Deputy Dowling and that is saying a very great deal indeed from what we know of him. Ministers have been going around outside this Chamber admitting more or less privately that they have a credibility problem. They can reassure themselves that they have no longer a credibility problem. There is no problem at all because the credibility has completely gone. After the massive, detailed attack mounted yesterday on the credibility of the Minister for Agriculture and Fisheries in particular and those associated with him, and after the terrible indictment by their own former colleague, Deputy Boland, the Government have not attempted to reply seriously to the case made.
Deputy J. Gibbons, the Minister for Agriculture and Fisheries, and Deputy Dowling replied. People will have been struck by the contrast between the Minister for Agriculture and Fisheries as we have heard him here and the figure he cut in court. In court Deputy J. Gibbons was uneasy, hedging and cringing. He was there in a context unfamiliar and uncongenial to him in which a considerable degree of respect for the truth was extorted, and could legally be required, from a witness. The Minister did not cut much of a figure there. I need not elaborate on that. The people of the country know well about it because it is the subject of common talk among the Ministers and their colleagues.
The Minister was in a different position here when he stood up in this Chamber covered by the Taoiseach and by the Minister for Finance, who was specially helpful to him. Deputy J. Gibbons knew that he was in a congenial situation for a man like him. That is to say that there was no contradiction in which he could conceivably be caught which would embarrass those political friends of his. There is no longer any contradiction which can embarrass them. There is nothing that cannot be met by bluff, bluster, blunder and effrontery and by the liberal use of any allegations that lie handy against the other side. Those are the methods by which they work; and for that reason, with excellent judgement, they put in Deputy Dowling who was called here out of his turn last night to consume the limited time available on this Vote of Confidence so that they would not be pressed on their credibility. Any amount of rambling matter could be introduced by that cool, good-humoured, cunning demagogue whom we have just heard and whose effrontery is almost unmatched even in the Fianna Fáil Party. Perhaps they could make him a Minister if there was a Minister for Bluster or Calumny in any future Cabinet which they may form. I think he qualifies for such a post.
In his statement that opened the debate, in the brief, almost casual, statement which he thought fit to make on this Vote of Confidence, the Taoiseach used an astonishing sentence which I do not think could be uttered in any other Parliament in western Europe. The way we have all been buffeted, inured and hardened is proved by the fact that we let that go and sat here and took it between the eyes or on the chin, as we have taken so much. The Taoiseach—and he is the head of a responsible Government—said:
The important point of relevance in the ministerial changes that brought about the constitution of the present Government is not the rectitude or otherwise of individual activities or actions.
Is the rectitude or otherwise of his colleagues in that last Government a trivial and an unimportant matter? It is a matter on which governments of other countries have fallen and should fall if the actions and activities of members of such government are inconsistent with rectitude. The Government should have fallen, not a few members chosen by canons of rectitude or otherwise but the whole Government comprised by them. There are many people in the country who consider that the rectitude or otherwise of the Taoiseach himself and of his Ministers, both past and present, are important and relevant not merely to the changes which the Taoiseach has carried out in the past but to his refusal to change certain Ministers now and his refusal to consider whether rectitude or otherwise is significant. The Taoiseach is consistent in maintaining that policy. The rectitude or otherwise is not the relevant criterion for them but solely the survival of the Fianna Fáil Party, which has been put above all other questions.
In inviting our confidence in this present Government the Taoiseach stressed something which nobody doubts and that is his power to dismiss Ministers. The Taoiseach tried to act as if that were the only question. He added that his previous Government now belonged to history. We may not discuss it. It is a rather quaint thought that the four gentlemen who were sitting on those benches over there only a few months ago and are still in the House have now entered the Pantheon of our history. Deputy Blaney, in the Taoiseach's conception, has taken his place with Eoghan Roe O'Neill, Deputy Haughey with Silken Thomas and Deputy Ó Moráin has joined some forgotten hostings of the Firbolg.
What about Nkrumah?
I will check the brilliant repartee of the Fianna Fáil Party later.
The fourth member is Deputy Boland. I have no wish to flatter Deputy Boland nor he, I am sure, to be flattered by me. We differed from him here on questions of policy and on courses of policy pursued by him in the past. But having met so much that was sordid in the debate yesterday, every Deputy must have felt that his statement shone out as a kind of honour to his integrity because it was the speech of a man taking a transparently honest stand and sacrificing his interest for that stand.
We are not quite sure yet, but it was, I believe, unique. One felt a special tragic concern for Deputy Boland's predicament because that which was destroying him politically, that which was pushing him to the edge of a trap, was a machine which he himself had helped to construct. It was a Frankenstein situation. One thought that here was an honest man being crushed by the party process within that machine. The machine is there now to roll over him.
It can, perhaps, obliterate him politically. It can drive him from the House for a time, it can, perhaps, deny him a political future, but it cannot rob him of his integrity. I am afraid it has robbed of integrity many who will go through that Lobby soon.
The Taoiseach has spoken of a novelty, in this curious vocabulary of his, the novelty of the four Ministers, and his own retention of office, his floating office in the second Government irrespective of the fate of the first. Most of us do not find that a very attractive novelty and we hope we will not be confronted with it again because it was the abdication of collective responsibility. Deputy FitzGerald laid emphasis on this. This principle has been jettisoned silently. It is easier to jettison such a principle, valuable and important as it is, to ditch it quietly, than to rebuild that convention again.
A precedent was set here which I think—and I am sure all of us in the Opposition think—is most dangerous for this nation. I do not wish to labour this unduly because I think the point has been driven home adequately, but I think the most immediate specific cause of lack of confidence in the Taoiseach is his insistence on retaining a Minister in whom no one in the country can feel any sincere confidence.
The Taoiseach spoke in fine terms earlier of having to put out of his Government any Minister on whom even a shadow of suspicion rested. It sounded like a noble Roman principle but when we see what a shadow rests on a Minister whom he now retains— one cannot call it a shadow, it is a pall of suspicion—no one in the country believes it, least of all those who are going to vote confidence in him tonight. Of course, to those people these things are not important. It is a matter for them of keeping the game rolling, of keeping the show on the road.
The other night I had pleasure in taking part in a televised debate in which a Government Minister, the Minister for Transport and Power, and a Parliamentary Secretary, Deputy O'Kennedy, participated. The other panelist began the debate and continued it by inevitably making reference to the trial judge's charge in the High Court, as was done here by Deputy FitzGerald and others, and by Deputy Boland. The Minister and the Parliamentary Secretary replied, in quotes—they spoke in their turn—but they made no attempt to defend the credibility of their impugned colleague, the man in whom they are voting confidence, the man they dare not defend before a television audience who had read what the judge had said about him. They will vote confidence in him but they will not defend him.
It has been said that we are in some way hounding Deputy Gibbons. He made that appeal here and it was made on his behalf—an appeal for human sympathy. It is the kind of appeal to which our people are sensitive: it is one of the finer traits of our people and we should not do anything to trample on it. If Deputy Gibbons compromised to his Taoiseach and his party and retired to the back benches or to his farm in Kilkenny I do not think anybody would be interested in pursuing the matter further: we would think of him as a man who had slipped, made a mistake, and we would be sorry for him.
But that is different to voting confidence in him, and that we are not prepared to do. The others over there will do it not because they are sorry for him but because they think they had better hang together, an old principle with which they are familiar. They have asked why we are not prepared to vote confidence in him. The answer has to be summed up by saying that the Minister in whom we are asked to vote confidence has to be either a perjurer or a Minister who deliberately deceived the Dáil. I am not saying he is either. The alternative is there and there is no other alternative.
Now, a vote in favour of the Taoiseach and the other members of the Government, including that member, involves saying: "This is all right; it is all right for a Minister—let us take the less damaging imputation of the two—to deceive the Dáil." It says: "Half truths, at best, will do for the Dáil." It says: "A Minister may make to the Dáil what seems to be a plain statement, concealing from the Dáil some quibble or technicality." This means that the statement in the Minister's mind means something the reverse of what the Dáil took it to mean and what the Minister intended the Dáil to understand it to mean.
The Taoiseach, the Tánaiste, the Minister for Finance and the others want us to pass a kind of resolution of self-degradation by this Dáil on behalf of the people we represent. We are not going to do that and we find it very hard to see how any man can do it and still claim to be honest.
As I say, the ground has been gone over very well. It is all on record and I do not propose to enter into any more detail regarding the Minister for Agriculture and Fisheries except to say this: during the early stages of this debate last week when these basic points, which I hope someone will try to answer seriously, were made, the Minister in question was sitting beside his friend and colleague, the Minister for Finance. The Minister for Finance interrupted and in a loud, clear and confident voice said "Slander". In a voice which was a little less loud and which had a less confident ring, the Minister for Defence also said "slander". When these points were being driven home Deputy Power said "Say these things outside the privilege of the Dáil".
These things have been said in a blunt and brutal form outside the privilege of this House when a statement by the Minister concerned was called a tissue of lies and when the Minister himself was referred to as an unmitigated scoundrel. These things were said deliberately by the person concerned in the full glare of publicity. They were as defamatory as, one would think, could be said about a public representative but that public representative did not take the action open to him— the action that most of us would take if such statements were made about us. That being so, the use of the word "slander", whether it is shouted by the Minister for Finance or by the Minister for Agriculture and Fisheries is not an adequate answer to the case against the latter.
We demand from those benches a coherent, rational, and detailed answer to these charges. It is not enough to put up Deputy Dowling to rant and clown. He does his bit well but let the members of that party who claim to be intelligent, responsible and rational men, as Deputy Dowling would not seriously claim himself to be, "do their thing" as well as he did his. Let them give us a logical answer.
We are hoping that the Minister for Finance will do that for us because what is involved here is much more than a question of the credibility of the Minister for Agriculture and Fisheries: the credibility of the entire Government is necessarily made to hang on this chain. The chain itself is as strong as its weakest link. We know who is the weakest link now and we can see clearly that the weakest link is suffering from mental fatigue and is about to come apart completely.
The Taoiseach told us that the important point about ministerial changes. is not the rectitude or otherwise of individual activities or action. One can see why the Taoiseach, looking around him, might feel this way. I wonder what the Tánaiste thinks of all this. He has not been much in evidence during this debate—I do not think he has been here at all. The Tánaiste might be criticised at times for being a little priggish or sanctimonious. At any rate, he gives the impression to the Irish people that he attaches high value to probity, veracity and high standards in public life—attributes in which Deputy Dowling, for instance, is not greatly interested. Deputy Dowling is rougher in his approach, but he may be more down to earth in some ways. In any case, he is a different type of man and the fact that Deputy Dowling was able to take all this in his stride will not diminish in any way the opinion that anyone may entertain in regard to him because his image remains level. It moves along evenly. This is a good thing for a man in public life. However, to get back to the Tánaiste—what does he as a man who, in public, presents a righteous image, think about all this and why is he not saying anything?
Would the Tánaiste waive aside, as airily as did the Taoiseach, the problem of the rectitude or otherwise of his colleagues? The Tánaiste's standards are now put to the test. The general standards of Fianna Fáil have been going down steadily, but the Tánaiste has still been there with his air of earnestness and rectitude, not otherwise, but I am afraid his rectitude is used to cover a lot of otherwise going on in the backrooms over there. If the Tánaiste in these times which try men's souls, passes quietly through the Lobby this evening and votes his confidence, he will suffer in the public esteem in a way that other Ministers perhaps and certainly Deputy Dowling would not suffer.
Therefore, I challenge the Tánaiste now to respond. I address him as a man whom I believe to be genuinely sensitive on this kind of issue. I challenge him to speak in this debate. We must assume that he will vote with the Government because if he had wished to separate himself from them he has had ample opportunity to do so. If any of the people over there are on terms of intimacy or discourse with him I ask them to convey this challenge to him so that he might answer the charges made against his colleague and say why he, Deputy Erskine Childers, Tánaiste in this Government, regards the Minister for Agriculture and Fisheries as being worthy of the confidence of the Parliament and of the country.
People who admire the Tánaiste and who saw the picture in the papers the other day of the Taoiseach's return, when he was so touchingly surrounded by the gentlemen of his party, must have suffered a little. In that picture was the Taoiseach, commonly known as Honest Jack, in the centre. There also was the Tánaiste who might be regarded as honest Erskine, although the term is less often used—certainly I would not like to take that reputation from him—on one side, while on the other side was the Minister for Agriculture and Fisheries, whom we shall leave without epithet for the sake of parliamentary convention. So much for the Tánaiste. I would hope that we shall hear from him.
Another Minister in whom we are asked to vote confidence is the Minister for Finance. I am glad to see that he is in the House and, I presume, about to speak in this House. Most of us personally esteem the Minister for Finance and we should like to be able, if we could, to vote confidence in him. But in which Deputy Colley are we to vote confidence? Only two short weeks ago there was the tough, no nonsense, deflationary Minister for Finance, the man of integrity cracking down severely on the pay packets of the workers; Deputy Colley the man of decision who would not negotiate once he had made up his mind. We in the Labour Party could not have any confidence in that Deputy Colley. We could understand that somebody could have confidence in him—he sounded quite a formidable person if he was, as they say, "for real".
Then we had Deputy Colley of phase two, still the same strong man ready now to think again about the 12th round if he could be convinced an injustice was involved. There, again, somebody could reasonably have confidence in that Deputy Colley, a man big enough to admit and correct a mistake but even that is not the Minister in whom we are now asked to have confidence. The Minister in whom we are asked to have confidence is the man who announced a policy with a blast of trumpets, then qualified it and then finally scrapped it, all in the space of a fortnight. Dáil Éireann——
Has the Deputy had an opportunity of reading the Bill?
We will be discussing the Bill in due course.
I gather that he has not had an opportunity of reading it.
Dáil Éireann through its mechanical Fianna Fáil majority, which presumably it still has, may vote confidence in this man and his colleagues but neither the country nor outsiders will have confidence in him. Indeed, one of the greatest weaknesses — their catalogue of weaknesses is enormous—of this Government is a Minister for Finance who by his vacillations, and particularly by the proclamation of undeviating consistency that accompanied these vacillations, has lost the confidence of the country and of those outside who are interested in the country. I think a Frenchman would say about such a person that he was "vacilleur", not to be relied on, and that I think is the worst reputation a Minister for Finance could have.
The Minister for Finance has spoken about low standards in high places, implying that he was opposed to low standards. What has he got around him? What has he to vote confidence in but precisely these low standards in high places, the high place occupied by his colleague the Minister for Agriculture and Fisheries who has set standards for everybody to see. I will not go into details about other Members of the Government. Time is moving on and there are other speeches we will be interested to hear. Therefore, I will not go into details about most of the individual members of the Government in whom we are asked to vote confidence. As far as most of them are concerned we can have confidence only in their ability to propel themselves into the House, there to read out briefs prepared by their civil servants. We know very little about them. There are one or two Ministers of some responsibility. One person whom if we had time I should like to discuss with a mixture of respect and dubiety would be the Minister for External Affairs and his achievements and policy. However, we will have an opportunity of doing that on another occasion.
For the moment I should just like to come to the Taoiseach because although he would like to forget it the same Taoiseach headed the first Government. He now clearly separates the two Governments; he is not claiming that this is the same Government with a few changes. He wishes to forget about the first Government. As the same Taoiseach headed the first Government he still carries responsibility for it. He may duck collective responsibility as much as he likes but he cannot divest himself of responsibility for what that Government of his did nor can any Ministers in it, such as the Minister for Finance, the Tánaiste and so on. He still carries responsibility for whatever Deputy Blaney and Deputy Haughey did, which is still not clear. For all the curious and strange things which happened inside the State machine headed by him he cannot divest himself of responsibility by sending out four scapegoats and by pretending that these things have entered into history without repercussions on the present.
We have had, through the arms trial, and through commentaries on it since, a partial picture of the course pursued by the first Government in regard to the crisis in the north from August on and it may be that we are going to get much more light on it and if so I do not want to stand long in the way of hearing such speeches. Reading this imperfect, partial account of how the Fianna Fáil Government handled one of the most serious crises ever in the history of the country many people did not know whether to laugh or to weep and many did both. A ticket collector on a train said to me "it is like Laurel and Hardy playing James Bond". That was the tragi-comic verdict of the nation on this.
Again, it is unnecessary to go in any detail over that. People know the picture, the picture in which the Minister for Agriculture and Fisheries orders the Minister for Defence to send 500 rifles to Dundalk and the Minister for Defence obeys with the simple explanation that if he had not done this the Minister for Agriculture and Fisheries might have done something worse. This is Government by the Keystone Cops. That is all very well. We know the picture of confusion and tragi-comedy, of incompetence and so on, revealed by that trial. Indeed it would be wrong to go into very much more detail about it as it might be further damaging.
However, what the country wants to know is what was the Taoiseach doing while his Ministers were acting in this way. He is the missing man in this arms trial. What was he doing? Was he standing idly by, standing idly and, one might say, invisibly by, because a stranger reading that arms trial would not think that we had such an institution as a Prime Minister or Taoiseach as we actually have. He would have thought that Government was by a congeries of individual Ministers each conducting his own affairs and sometimes on occasion one reaching over and conducting someone else's affairs as apparently Deputy Blaney did.
We know that the Taoiseach did appoint, and rightly appointed, a committee on the north in the aftermath of the events of August and to that committee he appointed, again this might be justifiable, two of the most powerful and eminent members of his Cabinet, Deputy Haughey and Deputy Boland but he did not, as might have been expected, act as chairman of that committee. He was not on it at all. Why not? I hope he will answer that question. Was the subject not important enough for him or did he deliberately leave the matter in the hands of men whom he knew would be in favour of extreme solutions, because he did know that. He knew that after the Cabinet meeting in August and probably knew it earlier in the case of Deputy Blaney. He knew the opinions and convictions, and, I would say, the deeply-held principles of at least one of these men from Cabinet discussions and from, in particular, Deputy Blaney's repeated public statements as early as September, 1969, about not ruling out force. He knew, also, as we all knew very well in this House, the headstrong, overbearing characters of those Ministers and that other Ministers, like poor Deputy Gibbons, perhaps, stood in awe of them. So what does he do? He leaves activities in relation to the north under the direction of these powerful men who profess extreme doctrines. What could he expect other than what did happen?
Deputy Gibbons, then Minister for Defence—it seems—kept the Taoiseach informed of some of the things that were going on. Did he, in fact, keep him informed of everything that went on in detail from the start? Is that why the Taoiseach is not in a position to ditch, as his record leads us to assume he otherwise would, this discredited Minister, although he ruthlessly dismissed other Ministers, obviously much less compromised, on a shade of suspicion? The Taoiseach spoke in Tralee in a pacific vein. Deputy Blaney, then Minister for Agriculture and Fisheries, spoke at Letterkenny, almost at the same time, in a sabre-rattling fashion. The Taoiseach then left Deputy Blaney in charge of activities in relation to the north. That is what that committee, which met once, represented: it represented the temporary covert dictatorship of these two powerful Ministers over whatever was going on in relation to the north.
I think we here can claim to have been consistent in this matter and not to have been behindhand in describing its importance. The day after Deputy Blaney's speech at Letterkenny I was in Belfast and I called publicly for Deputy Blaney's dismissal because of the clash between his policy and the policy announced by the Taoiseach and because of the grave repercussions which we feared if Deputy Blaney were allowed to remain in office and if the Government spoke with two voices in this matter. What conclusion can we come to about these transactions, about this pattern of behaviour except this— which is consistent with everything else we know about these gentlemen and their party policies in recent years— that it was all designed for party electoral advantage placed by the Taoiseach, consistently, above the national interest.
That is wrong.
Deputy Burke has not heard my speech so far. I am glad he has now joined the company. I would ask him, with respect, not to interrupt me before he knows what I am trying to say. The Tralee speech kept the moderate "peace and stability" voters in line: that was important. The Letterkenny speech reassured the republicans. The Taoiseach and his party were thus walking—as they like to do and as they do so well—both sides of the street. As far as concerned what Deputy Haughey and Deputy Blaney were actually doing, the Taoiseach, who is no fool, must certainly have been aware that they were playing a dangerous game, even if he did not know and even if we do not yet know all its details. But it was dangerous for them and for the country—not for him. If all went well for them, some of the credit would rub off on him: it would in some eyes, even if it did not go quite that far with everybody. If things went hopelessly wrong, to the extent of its being discovered by the Opposition, they could be disavowed and dumped —ruthlessly—which is what has happened.
Again, we do not want to go into any of the details of all that, any more than we have to, but we have to take some notice of the statement on the north which the Taoiseach made at the opening of the confidence debate. He said:
The first and major item of national policy since its inception was to secure the re-unification of the country by peaceful means. I am satisfied we are making progress in this direction along the right road. I am confident we shall make further progress in the months and years ahead.
Anyone who has been in touch, in any degree, with the real situation in the north in recent months cannot help but be sickened by the bland complacency of that kind of statement about a terrible situation. It is true that some progress has been made in the north, some real progress, but not so much in the direction of re-unification— which is not precisely around the corner, whatever impression the Taoiseach gives to his supporters—as in the direction of the implementation of civic equality for the minority in Northern Ireland. But, for that reality of progress —which I fully admit is there— towards civil equality, the Taoiseach and his Government and the Fianna Fáil Party, which the Taoiseach styles "the party of re-unification", deserves no credit at all. They did nothing to bring that about. Nor do any of the rest of us here, so far as I know, deserve any credit. The credit for that belongs exclusively to the civil rights movement in the north itself, including a number of young people—left-wing students and others—at whom our Government here always looked askance and which our Government tried to push aside for the benefit of their own cronies in the course of their few intermittent, disco-ordinated attempts to intervene in the situation up there.
No, the Government have no responsibility and deserve no credit for the progress made in the only direction in which progress has been made, which is towards civic equality, in the north. But, where the Government began to be active was in the period after the civil rights movement had won the basis for victory—which is all it did win. Then the Government contribution at that stage, after August, was essentially what the people have seen in the sordid mess revealed by the arms trial. There was a series of contradictory statements, speaking out of both sides of their mouths, through the Taoiseach and Deputy Blaney, combined with that pathetic medley of cloak-and-dagger clowning which the arms trial revealed. Politically, through that sinister organ, The Voice of the North, those members of the Government who were left in charge of these activities by the Taoiseach's cultivated neglect contributed to the recrudescence of a particular kind and flavour of IRA activity selected by them from the gamut available of those forms of activity. The effect of the Government's activities and also the effect of the subsequent revelations, which are not yet finished I think, of what their activities had been in the north was to intensify Protestant fears, increase the backlash and hasten a drift towards sectarian civil war.
Some Protestants were trying to cool this situation and to bring about better relations between the two communities —an enterprise, perhaps, of particular hazard for Protestants of goodwill in Belfast, at least at the present time. I have met some of these people. I talk with them quite often and I know the feeling of sick despair they have at some of the revelations of the arms trial, revelations which, it seemed to them, undid all their credibility with the fellow members of their community, with people who were inclined always to suspect Catholics, to believe Catholics could not be relied on, that they said one thing and did another. These other Protestants who are trying to bring about better relations found their efforts shattered and smashed down by the picture revealed by the arms trial and by the emergence of such a character as the Minister for Agriculture and Fisheries.
Today the real situation in the north is one of which no responsible man here has the right to speak with the kind of complacency the Taoiseach showed at the beginning of this debate. The real situation which, so far as I know, the Taoiseach has never seen— his colleague, the Minister for External Affairs, got a brief glimpse of one section of it in the Falls Road but I think the Taoiseach has never seen it at all—is briefly that British troops hold peace lines between two sections of Irishmen. If those troops had been withdrawn this summer in Derry, for example, there would have been a holocaust. There would be a holocaust if they were withdrawn now.
The life of the two principal cities in the north, Derry and Belfast, is at present in a sort of iron lung. Some kind of civil life continues to throb painfully with the artificial aid of British armour and British troops. The Government are certainly not solely and not even mainly responsible for that situation, but they have seriously contributed to the exacerbation of the feelings and, above all, the suspicions and fears which lie behind that situation.
The Taoiseach thinks he can calm these feelings with smooth and peaceful language, which he issues fairly steadily at the United Nations and elsewhere. Unfortunately, this is not just a question of language, of the good word which one uses, but how the words are matched by the record of action. Against the record of the action of the Taoiseach's Government, and particularly his first Government, the Taoiseach's words do not sound too good at all. In the north rather few people—and this is a point which draws together the two communities—in either community believe a word the Taoiseach says, or the members of his Government. Furthermore, I think this Dáil will discredit itself in the eyes of both communities there if it should vote confidence in the Taoiseach tonight.
The Taoiseach talks about being the second guarantor of the situation in the north or of the rights of the minority. He guarantees to the minority there that promises made to them by Chichester-Clarke's Government and by the British Government will be carried out. This is the second guarantee they have of that. This script is in their hands. How can he guarantee anything of the sort? How can he plausibly represent himself to anybody as guaranteeing anything? A guarantee implies that if what you are vouching for does not take place you will do something.
What could the Taoiseach do if the promises which were made to the minority in the north were not carried out? They may be carried out; they may not be carried out. We have no means of knowing. Even those immediately concerned cannot be sure, because events in the north are at the mercy of the actions of a few men. We asked him that question here in the Dáil. We asked how he could guarantee these things and we got no clear answer. We just got something to the effect that he would implement the guarantee in his own way. We know what his own way is: to go on television again and make another "cannot stand idly by" speech. That is the only guarantee which this pathetic second guarantor can really provide because the plain fact is that the minority in the north, and the majority, are outside the Taoiseach's jurisdiction. The Taoiseach's record has proved he is not able even to guarantee events which happen within his jurisdiction which is quite pardonable or, which is not pardonable, to guarantee the actions of the Government which he himself heads and for which he bears responsibility and in relation to which I think we must conclude he acts irresponsibly.
The Taoiseach's record on the north and his absurd smugness about the situation there, which he has never even seen as it is now, are major reasons for withholding our confidence in him, but there are other reasons closely associated with this question of the north. If the Taoiseach and his Government succeed in their present project of clinging to office they must do so by the cynical and conscienceless votes of people who are known to despise and reject the peaceful policy in relation to the north which the Taoiseach publicly professes and which they have equally publicly, some of them, condemned. We do not know what will happen tonight. He may get these votes or most of them. No doubt he will. Like Professor Pavlov's famous dogs, all Fianna Fáil Deputies are conditioned to salivate in a particular way at the sound of a given bell. If he does get the votes—let us grant that he will get them—the continuity of his peaceful policy depends on the votes of people who are known to reject that policy and often openly too.
It follows that if through developments in the north this peaceful policy comes under any heavy strain, the basis of the Taoiseach's political power, if he still has any then, would also come under heavy strain through the threat of defections. Knowing the record of his past, we can see how quickly a completely new and dangerous approach might result from these conditions. We might hear of a sudden escalation; suddenly over television the old peaceful policy was gone because the balance inside Fianna Fáil had changed and it was: "Pour it on". It follows from this that the Fianna Fáil Government, however specific and reassuring their language may sound at present, are and remain a dangerous organisation to be in control of this country and to be dabbling at the same time in guaranteeing what they have no power to guarantee: the nature and trend of developments in the north.
I wish to choose my words as carefully as I can here but it is a fact that, even since the Taoiseach spoke at the beginning of this confidence debate, there has been a serious deterioration in the situation in the north. The Taoiseach, who at first called the presence of the British troops there unacceptable, now admits what is the tragic, unfortunate, sad fact that these troops are at present all that is keeping the two communities there, or many of their members, from rending one another. Some people—I do not know who they are—have now started shooting at those troops and the danger arises that, when the troops shoot back, if they do shoot back, people will be killed, there will be martyrs, there will be funerals, there will be more of these shots fired over graves and the temperature will go up. If the temperature does go up we know what section of the Fianna Fáil Party will profit. I will say no more about that but it is or could be an exceedingly sinister feature in a situation about which the Taoiseach is talking in a misleadingly reassuring way.
A word now about the so-called rebels or ex-rebels or pseudo-rebels or whatever they are in the Fianna Fáil Party. I have already referred to Deputy Boland. I do not want to refer to him again. Any comment I make on pseudo-rebels does not apply to him. He is beyond the reach of such remarks. He has put himself beyond that by his courage and his honesty in his statements here. These men—I am speaking of the others, not of Deputy Boland and there may be other exceptions too — if there are I ask them also—that is to say people who are not going to vote confidence in the Taoiseach—to take my remarks as not applying to them—these men, including the four historical pillars of the Taoiseach's historic last Government, have been presenting themselves as stern, unbending republicans. Some of them, in another part of this building last night, were singing loudly: The Bould Fenian Men. They are going to go through that Lobby tonight like meek Fenian sheep.
They seem to have acquired a certain following, some of them anyway, among some who are in fact republicans in the ordinary acceptance of that word though many republicans of course also reject them. Those of them who go through the "Tá" Lobby tonight are about to lose whatever genuine republican following they may have had up to now. Republicans of strict observance, of whom I know some, may be perhaps narrow-minded, unreasonable, unrealistic people sometimes, and have other faults, but one quality which they most certainly do have is a demanding code of personal honour. They are not given to saying one thing and meaning another, to the tactics of the knowing wink and the tongue-in-cheek. The old idea of "Beart de réir ár mbriathar" is meaningful to them as well as to others not of their persuasion. But these sentiments do not find a very widespread echo among the members of the Fianna Fáil Parliamentary Party though they do, I think among Fianna Fáil supporters, people who traditionally support Fianna Fáil.
Deputy Cosgrave in his forceful remarks during the debate referred, in connection with the lack of truthfulness at present being displayed on those benches, to the "empty formula", the phrase used to designate whatever it was that happened when a certain book was signed in 1927. I do not know what Deputy Cosgrave may feel but I think it is possible to feel considerable respect for the generation that had to go through the agony of that choice, taking that oath, if they did take it, signing that book, which at any rate they did, but I think the exercise of that choice has left a sort of damnosa hereditas to the Fianna Fáil Party in its second and third generations. The older generation knew the agony of the choice; they knew what it represented; they knew what they felt to be its necessity. However, for some of the younger ones, for some of the subsequent generations, the empty formula lesson was understood more or less like this: the wise guy may do anything, say anything, sign anything in order to get into power and hold on to power. I do not believe at all that that is what Mr. de Valera meant when he signed that book or what he felt but I do believe it is what has passed on as patrimony, intellectual and moral patrimony, to some members of that party.
When Deputy Haughey, followed by the faithful and long suffering Deputy Timmons, goes through the "Tá" Lobby tonight to vote his confidence in the Taoiseach and in Deputy Gibbons and the others he will, I believe, be forfeiting the respect not only of any republican sympathisers he may have but of all the disinterested support he has so far retained. I have heard Deputy Haughey say in this House in his lordly way: "I hate phoniness." Tonight when he goes through that "Tá" Lobby at the Taoiseach's command he will be saying to the public: "I am a phoney" as loud and clear as if he were bearing a placard with that legend.
The judge in the arms trial said that there was a total conflict between the evidence of Deputy Haughey and that of Deputy Gibbons, that there was no way of resolving this because they were both speaking on matters within their knowledge. One or the other was a perjurer. That was from the judge. I am not responsible for it. When Deputy Haughey goes through that lobby to vote confidence in Deputy Gibbons either a perjurer will be voting that confidence or Deputy Haughey, since he knows the facts, will be voting confidence in a perjurer. That is the situation.
We do not yet know what Deputy Blaney will do. He will tell us, we hope, shortly. We do know that in commenting on an assertion by Deputy Gibbons which I mentioned earlier about craziness Deputy Blaney stressed his own honesty, comparing it by implication with the reverse of that quality attributed by him to the Minister for Agriculture and Fisheries. What then would be left of Deputy Blaney's honesty if he were to vote, for any reason, confidence in Deputy Gibbons? We do not know. We will know soon.
Of the rest of the rebels it is not worth while speaking. They began by strutting and they are now about to crawl. It is not a pleasant spectacle and there is no need to linger on it. If there are any exceptions we shall know about them soon.
The point we must make clear is that the accumulated discredit of all these sordid proceedings lies at the doorstep of the Taoiseach and of all his colleagues. If they continue to hold office it will be by virtue of those flagrantly insincere professions of confidence extorted by the fear of losing seats. By acting in this way, all of them, all of these furtively hostile factions of the Fianna Fáil Party brought this Parliament into contempt and damaged our country in its own eyes and in the eyes of any outsiders, and there are some, who have troubled to watch what is happening.
It may be—I have not given up hope yet—that the Taoiseach and the Tánaiste behind their self-satisfied masks are conscious of the truth—I think they are conscious of it—of much that has been said in this debate by those of us who openly tell them that we have no confidence in them and tell them that they deserve no confidence and tell them why and tell them also that they have not got the support of an uncoerced majority in this Dáil and would not get the support of a free Dáil tonight. If this is so they will go to the country as soon as this debate is over whatever the result of the voting. I think they may do that.
Just before concluding may I tell a little story from an exotic part of the world, the Congo, to which some of the Fianna Fáil Deputies are fond of alluding on some occasions. It is an historic and true story, the story of a man who voted confidence in a man in whom he did not believe and what happened to him. Some years ago in the Congo there was a "bold Fenian man" in the guise of a rebel and his name was Pierre Mulele. He was beaten by President Mobutu, the resourceful, astute, ruthless head of that far and inscrutable country, and he ran away. Then President Mobutu said to everybody: "Let us forget all this. Let us have unity. Let us forget past rebellions, hard words exchanged, blows exchanged. Let us all be Congolese together." He promised amnesty to those who would accept him, to those who would vote confidence in his regime, in the President of the Congo and the members of his government. So, poor Mr. Mulele, who had gone into hiding in Brazzaville, came back across the river to Leopoldville, Kinshasa, in 1968 and he was welcomed hospitably by President Mobutu's friends. This is a true story. They welcomed him hospitably and they asked him if he would make a speech. He made a speech and it was one in which he declared his confidence in President Mobutu. He said that bad things had happened in the past but the thing now was unity, unity of President Mobutu's party, unity of the country behind it, and they would all go on shoulder to shoulder, back to back and so on. He made this rather lavish speech. Then, when the television cameras had been taken away he was arrested by the troops of President Mobutu and was brought before a military tribunal which that night sentenced him to death. He was hanged on the following day. Now, events in the Congo proceed perhaps more briskly than they are yet allowed to proceed here but the political analogy is sound.
I have heard Fianna Fáil Deputies say in some of their more unguarded moments what they intended to do with Deputy Haughey once he had voted the confidence. They said they would do something which I cannot tell you about here because it would be contrary to Parliamentary etiquette and because it might bring a blush to the cheek of people like Deputy Dowling. It might be interesting but we cannot do that. But, to vote a hollow vote of confidence, to vote it insincerely is, I would suggest to some of those gentlemen—it may be an argument which would tell with them more than some other argument— politically dangerous for them as well as in other ways discreditable.
The Government should go to the country whether or not they get this vote of confidence tonight. As long as they hold office by the hollow and cynical majority they may get tonight the foundation of their power will be rotten and dangerous and our democracy is turned into a mockery. We are asked what is the alternative. I shall only say this: If the people of this country in the next general election show that they demand an alternative to Fianna Fáil then it becomes the duty of the present Opposition to furnish that alternative.
This indeed is a very sad day for every one of us who at the present time happen to be Members of Dáil Éireann. Indeed, a very grave responsibility rests on all Deputies who are interested in saving our country and our people and who are prepared to put country before party. It is perhaps only right to say that the time of Parliament has been taken up for the past six or seven months with these sordid proceedings. Indeed, they have brought disgrace on our Parliamentary institutions, on our Government and on the members of the Fianna Fáil Party. This is not the type of Ireland and the type of government for which the men of 1916 gave their lives. Those men fought and died so that we might have an Ireland where an Irish Government would cherish all the people of the nation equally. Certainly that is not what certain members of the Fianna Fáil Party were doing over the past few years. If it were not for the fact that we have Irishmen, civil servants, men of integrity, then these sordid proceedings might never have come to the light of day.
It can truly be said that never before in the history of this country have we witnessed such intrigue, such doublecrossing, such doubletalk and such disunity inside any party in this State as we have seen for the past six or seven months and especially for the past week. Remember, the party I am now talking about is also at the present moment the Government of this country. Remember also that a house divided must fall.
The Taoiseach when introducing this confidence motion last Thursday and Deputy Lenihan, his vociferous Minister for Transport and Power, the promising young boy, spoke about the unity in the Fianna Fáil Party. Where is the unity in that party today? Is it not true that last Wednesday night their meeting lasted from 7 o'clock to 12.15? They called each other liars and perjurers. As a matter of fact the meeting would have ended in fisticuffs were not certain people held back from one another. The Taoiseach had then to run out of the room to save the members from beating one another up. This is the party we are told is the party of reality, the party which went before the people of this country last year saying: "Let's sack Jack." At the present time it is: "Let's hack Jack." The majority of those people who have been talking like this for the past month are the people who in another four hours will march into the Lobby to support him.
Money talks.
We are entitled to ask what is talking and why are they carrying on like this. The Irish Times in a leading article recently spoke about self-interest in the survival of the party, about self-preservation and, of course, ended up by saying “Fianna Fáil is a great organisation and so is the Mafia”. That is quite true and it is a very apt description of the Fianna Fáil Party at the present time. At the same time the Taoiseach must agree now that Nemesis is on his heels, that he has no mandate from the Irish people to remain any longer in power and that it is his duty to go and to place his case in the hands of the jury which counts, the electorate of the Twenty-six Counties. I challenge him to do that now.
This little country could be a grand one if it were properly managed, but the people of Ireland are sick and tired of the mess into which this Government have brought each and every one of us. It can be agreed, as far as the Taoiseach is concerned, that the knives were out for the past fortnight. He said there was no confrontation. That might have been true because I think many of them were trying to stick the knife deep down in his back. Today we are at the crossroads in this country. There is no use in the Taoiseach coming before us tonight saying perhaps, as he said in New York: "They were doing things behind my back I did not know about." Either the Taoiseach knew what was going on amongst his own Government and amongst his own Ministers for the past two or three years, in which case he is not fit to be Taoiseach, or he did not know what was going on and if that is the case then he certainly is not fit to be Taoiseach.
At the recent trial, which shocked the whole world, it can be truthfully stated that the evidence brought to light a number of issues, a number of issues which go far beyond the legal confines of the Four Courts, issues which involve the highest political levels of the State. The first of these issues is the doctrine of Cabinet responsibility which our Constitution makes the basis of our system of government. This has been flagrantly and persistently violated. We had no leadership. We had the ship of state with the captain standing idly by while his motley crew could do what they liked. Each Minister seemed to be running his own show. We had the Little Corporal; we had the Goering; we had the Goebels; and indeed, we had the Cassius Clay of the Fianna Fáil Party saying: "I am the greatest".
However, we now know that all but one of them have feet of clay because all but one are prepared to use these feet of clay to march into the Lobby and keep in office the present Taoiseach and the Government they have condemned bitterly for the past seven or eight months, because they want to keep their hands as near to the loot as possible. They want to keep in with the Tacateers, the racketeers and the speculators. They are to be seen at night in the bar and in the restaurant. Those people who have got grants and loans, who have got ratepayers' and taxpayers' money to which they are not entitled and who have got such money for one reason and one reason alone, because they support the Fianna Fáil Party, are interested in keeping this Government in office as long as they possibly can.
Talking about leadership and each Minister going his own way, we had a Minister admitting under oath in the witness box that he ordered 500 rifles to be sent to Dundalk in case the then Minister for Agriculture and Fisheries would do anything more rash. Can anyone imagine for one moment what could be more rash than that, instead of getting in touch with his Taoiseach, if there was such a thing as Cabinet responsibility in the party? Then he tells us he used Irish so that the people would not know what he was talking about. Yet they tell us Irish is the official language and that all our people should know and speak the language. Later we find the then Minister for Agriculture and Fisheries writing a letter to the Minister for Defence and the latter ordering that it be torn up, that it was not to be answered, as the Minister believed his own colleague was setting a trap for him. Where is the Cabinet responsibility among people who would carry on in that way?
We also know—and I shall be dealing with it later—that the Taoiseach misled this House on at least four different topics. When he was questioned here by Deputy Cosgrave about the tip of the iceberg, he misled this House about the resignation of Deputy Moran. He misled this House when he informed it that the Minister for Agriculture and Fisheries, the then Minister for Defence, did not know about the importation of arms and also when he told this House that the Minister kept him informed of what was going on, when we later find from the sworn evidence of the then Minister for Defence that not until the 9th April did he ask the new Director of Intelligence to prepare a report for the Taoiseach. The Taoiseach also misled this House about the flagrant misappropriation of £100,000 of the taxpayers' hard earned money for purposes which were not mentioned in this Dáil and would not have been approved by the Dáil and which had not been voted when it had already been spent. If the Taoiseach is the man he is supposed to be he should not have misled this House as he has done in the past. It is sordid and inexcusable for any Minister to use an organisation like the Red Cross for this purpose. I wish to quote from a statement by the Red Cross about the Northern Relief Fund which appeared in the Irish Press of 31st October last:
Accordingly the society received written instructions from the Department of Finance to transfer moneys, as publicly announced, to bank accounts in Clones and Baggot Street, Dublin, in the names of three persons with whom the Red Cross had no previous connection whatsoever, This the society did and had no further knowledge or control of the funds issue.
Here we find the Red Cross Society, a non-political organisation that has done valuable work down through the years for suffering people in this country, being used for this sordid act by members of the Fianna Fáil Cabinet and of the Fianna Fáil Party. The Irish Red Cross have to go into print and disown the people who got them to do this type of work. The statement continues:
During the Garda investigations all questions asked by Chief Superintendent Fleming and Inspector Doocey were answered in writing by the chairman and general secretary of the society, with the consent of the executive, and the Irish Red Cross will make no further comment on this matter to the press.
This of course is not the first time that the present Government and members of the Government have misappropriated the people's money. They have never hesitated at any time in their history to use the people's money to purchase their own votes. This trial has shown the Government to be incompetent in the way in which they do their business. That applies to all Ministers, from the Taoiseach down. Severe damage has been done to this country's credit and prestige abroad at a time when we are, or at least should be, engaged in vitally important negotiations affecting our entry into the EEC. The crucial EEC talks will affect the future of everyone. What we want in this country today is not a bickering, disintegrating, tottering Government, with Deputies trying to plunge knives into their own Ministers' backs, but a united Government — a Government of men who are prepared to work in the interests of all our people irrespective of their class, creed or politics. What we want today is a period of stability.
It has to be admitted that the complete breakdown in the Government has directly resulted in the major economic crisis affecting us today and which may, indeed, affect us for years to come. Because the Government have been in such disorder for so long they have been unable to take action in time to prevent such a crisis.
When the crisis came upon us what did the Government do? Are the Government able and willing to govern? Have they set any lead for people to follow? Back in March, 1969, Deputy Haughey, who was then Minister for Finance, went on television and told the people that we were facing an economic crisis. He called on the people to tighten their belts; he asked workers not to demand any further wage increases; he told the people that Cabinet Ministers were setting an example by cutting their own salaries in order to show to the people the economic crisis and inflation we faced. When the Government wanted to go to the country a few months later that black and dismal picture changed overnight and a rosy picture was painted. The people's money was again spent in an effort to buy their votes and we had an election Budget, followed by a general election when Fianna Fáil again fooled the people and got back into power with the result we all know.
The present Minister for Finance is dithering, he is unsure of himself and he does not know what his next move is going to be. About three weeks ago he introduced certain measures. When the Fine Gael Party heard what those measures were they issued a statement about the 12th round increases which had been promised and negotiated and they claimed that it was a breach of faith for the Government not to honour those increases. A few days later the Minister for Finance issued a statement giving way, but he would not give way any further. On Friday last, when he thought the boys were kicking over the traces and would not march into this House to keep the Taoiseach in office, he further gave way as an election gimmick in order to try to get the workers' votes again. The Taoiseach has fooled them often in the past but I doubt if he will be able to fool them any longer. I do not want to quote from what the Minister has said at different meetings but he is now swallowing all that he has said during the last two to three weeks. We know that inflation is rampant and is gravely affecting the poor, unemployed and those receiving social welfare benefits. Our costs have gone so high that many knowledgeable people now say that not only are we pricing ourselves out of the European Market and the British Market but we are also pricing ourselves out of the home market.
I want to charge the Taoiseach with being deliberately dishonest and deliberately misleading this House. He has been guilty of culpable negligence in allowing the Cabinet, of which he is supposed to be in charge, to become riddled with intrigue. Over the last few years, despite the many warnings he got from this side of the House, he has allowed ruthless men eager for power and drunk with their own vanity to gain positions of power where they could have ruined and wrecked this country, where they could have led us into civil war and where we could have had further violence. Deputy Cosgrave is the son of a man who built up this country in dark and evil days, who formed our Civic Guards, of whom we are so justly proud today, who formed our Army and who introduced the first industries into this country. At the time we introduced the Shannon Scheme it was called a white elephant by Seán MacEntee and other people in the Fianna Fáil Party. That Government built up this country with a trowel in one hand and a gun in the other. It is only natural that the son of that great man would be interested in the future of this country, because today we are again at the crossroads. Unless those self-styled patriots are dealt with immediately and, as the Tánaiste has said, not alone purged from the Cabinet but purged from the party, we may yet again be in the throes of civil war and we may yet have violence and anarchy. We are a peace loving people and we do not want that type of Government or that type of man in any party.
The time has come to say to the people in the Six Counties that those self-styled patriots who call themselves, "We patriots" and pretend to be interested in the people of the Six Counties, are not interested in them, that they are interested in power, that they are interested in self-preservation and that they are interested in leadership. The Government set up a committee to deal with northern problems. It was divulged during the course of the trial that this committee, which had some of those self-styled patriots as members of it, met only once and did not meet again because it could not get a quorum. Those are the people who come in here and tell us that they are patriots and are interested in solving the unfortunate problems that exist in this country. As far as we are concerned, we have for many years disagreed with anarchy, violence and civil war. We believe this unfortunate problem can only be settled by a unity of hearts and a unity of minds. The Taoiseach and Deputy Colley are now preaching that. Perhaps they are 50 years too late, but better late than never.
It is only right to say that to this Government and to the Taoiseach, when he states that another gentleman, who is now in a high position, preached that years ago. He certainly did not preach that, but the reverse. If the chickens are now coming home to roost he and other members of that party are responsible for what is happening today, because he said that he would make brothers wade through brothers' blood and, unfortunately, he did it and we are reaping the sorry harvest of the seeds that were sown then.
Is the Deputy going to slaughter the calves again?
The Minister talks about Cabinet responsibility. He is equally to blame because if members of the Government of which he was a member got their way it is not calves they would be slaughtering but innocent Protestants in Northern Ireland.
If the Deputy wants to go back to 1922 — what has that to do with the motion?
What had what Deputy Dowling said to do with the motion?
If the Minister's party believed for the past 30 years what Griffith and Collins preached in 1922, that the Treaty was a stepping stone to unity in this country it would be better for them.
On a point of information—is it this Government, the last Government or an tUachtarán the Deputy is criticising and is it in order for him to do so?
Deputy Lenehan went back to 1922.
If he was a political figure in the political life of this country for 50 years, we are entitled to speak about him and if today he is mixed up—which he is—in the intrigues that are taking place and trying to get the Deputies to march in behind the Taoiseach——
The Deputy may not make such a statement. He will please resume his seat for a moment. It is entirely out of order to drag the President into debates in this House and to charge him with intrigue. The Deputy should withdraw that remark.
The Deputy should be made withdraw it.
I have already dealt with the matter.
He has already emptied the House. It is like a morgue.
It is the job of you people to keep it filled.
We heard what Deputy Dowling said — a disgrace to the House.
I want to charge the Taoiseach with deliberately misleading this House——
Is the Deputy withdrawing?
I take it the Deputy has withdrawn the charge against the President?
If the Chair thinks I said anything wrong, I withdraw it.
I think we should have a quorum.
Notice taken that 20 Members were not present; House counted, and 20 Members being present,
I wish to charge the Taoiseach with deliberately misleading this House on at least four occasions in the last six months. When Deputy Cosgrave, Leader of the Opposition, asked him if any further Ministers were to be sacked, was this the tip of the iceberg, the Taoiseach denied that he knew anything about it. We know that on that night the whole bubble had burst at 10 o'clock despite the fact that at 4 o'clock that afternoon in this House the Taoiseach denied he knew anything about what Deputy Cosgrave was talking about.
I also charge the Taoiseach that he misled this House about the resignation of Deputy Ó Móráin. On the 6th May the Taoiseach stated, and I quote:
I said at the start of my opening statement, and I repeat it now, that his resignation was tendered to me on grounds of ill health. The former Minister for Justice, Deputy Ó Móráin, is still in Mount Carmel Hospital and my information from an eminent doctor is that it will be some months before the treatment he must undergo will be completed. I wish to state that Deputy Ó Móráin's condition is not unassociated with the shock he suffered as a result of the killing of Garda Fallon. I wish to repudiate emphatically that no attempt was made by this Government, by any member of it or by any person associated with it to ease up in any way on the hunt for the perpetrators of this foul deed——
At that time the Taoiseach told us that they would be brought to book shortly. Perhaps it is right to ask now: "What has been done?"
The only thing that has happened since in regard to that murder, I think, is that Mrs. Fallon has got a bill for the funeral expenses of her late husband. The people who perpetrated this foul deed have not been brought to justice despite the fact that the Taoiseach promised in this House that they would. Let it also be remembered, when we talk about this brutal and cowardly murder of a member of the Garda Síochána in the performance of his duty as a defender of the ordinary citizens, that it should bring home to everybody the importance of upholding law and authority ceaselessly and unflinchingly. That is not being done today. Let it be admitted that if the people who were members of the present Fianna Fáil Government succeeded in importing the arms and brought them, as they say, to the north they would be down on this side of the Border inside two hours. Had they been successful at that time some of these arms might have been used to shoot members of the Garda Síochána. That is what could have easily happened. The present Minister for Finance was a member of that Cabinet. We hear much about Cabinet responsibility. We know he spoke about low standards in high places and in all probability he knew about this when he made that statement in Galway about four years ago. Unfortunately, his words were not heeded.
To come back to the Taoiseach misleading the House and telling us Deputy Ó Móráin had resigned due to ill health, we now know from Deputy Boland, an honourable man, whose word we can take and believe—not like some of the other members of Fianna Fáil—that Deputy Ó Móráin was forced by the Taoiseach out of the Cabinet at that time.
The Taoiseach further misled the House over the misappropriation of public funds. On 9th May, when replying to the debate, he said at column 1336 there was no question of Secret Service or Department of Defence funds being used: "Therefore, I do not know where the moneys came from that paid for these goods, if they were paid for." Surely the Taoiseach should have known what was going on. I will quote the entire paragraph:
I made specific inquiries as to whether any Exchequer moneys would cover, roughly, a transaction of this size. I am told that the probable cost would be of the order of £30,000, not £80,000. I had the usual sources from which one might expect these things could be paid for, checked. The Secret Service funds amounted to £11,500 and had to be spread over the Departments which draw on these funds. Therefore, there was no question of the Secret Service funds being used. As well as that it was established for me that all moneys expended by the Department of Defence were expended as voted by this House. Therefore, I do not know where the moneys came from that paid for these goods, if they were paid for.
That was on 9th May last. That was the statement made by the Taoiseach, the Taoiseach who should know what the members of his Cabinet are doing, who should have control over his Ministers and over the purse strings. The Taoiseach misled this House. We now know—it is a well-known fact— where the money came from.
The Taoiseach further misled the House with regard to his Minister for Defence, Deputy Gibbons. He told us that he had made inquiries and that the Minister had kept him informed and that, as far as he was concerned, the Minister knew nothing about the importation of arms. We come to the trial at which Colonel Hefferon, the ex-Director of Intelligence, who was first introduced into the case as a State witness, and Captain Kelly, an army officer, both swore that the Minister for Defence, Deputy Gibbons, had been informed of the importation of arms and that, while he may not have agreed, he certainly had never said to these people: "Do not import those arms. I am not in favour". We know now that he did not report to the Taoiseach at the time because, on his own evidence in court, he swore that on 9th April he intructed the new Director of Intelligence—I think it was Colonel Delaney — to prepare a report for the Taoiseach. In view of that we are entitled to ask who is telling the truth. Was the Taoiseach telling us the truth when he informed this House that he had faith in Deputy Gibbons and that Deputy Gibbons did not know anything about those arms and that Deputy Gibbons kept him, the Taoiseach, informed all the time?
We now come to another point with regard to Deputy Gibbons. When he was questioned in this House, he said at column 839 on 8th May last:
I wish emphatically to deny any such knowledge or consent.
It has been stated that, when Deputy Blaney was discharged by the district justice, the State's case partly fell because it stated that Deputy Blaney had asked Deputy Gibbons, Minister for Defence, for permission to import those arms and Deputy Gibbons refused to give him that permission. The Taoiseach should tell the House whether or not that is true because it is only right to point out that Deputy Gibbons misled this House on 8th May last. He certainly told a half truth.
There was a suggestion by Deputy Tully that weapons, presumably for illegal organisations, were collected in Army trucks at Dublin docks and presumably driven away to some unknown destination.
Deputy Tully was very much on the ball. Arms were to come in that particular night on that particular boat. It was admitted in evidence that there were Army lorries there to collect the arms for the Army and there were other trucks there to collect the other arms. But something went wrong and the arms did not arrive. Bulletproof waistcoats arrived all right and we are entitled to know what has happened to them.
They are being distributed to the Fianna Fáil Parliamentary Party.
I suppose they would want them to keep the knives from being stuck in their backs. We are certainly entitled to know what happened to these waistcoats. If the plan had not gone wrong somewhere the Army lorries were there to take away the arms for the Army and there were other lorries there to take the arms to a monastery in Cavan. That was sworn to in court. In fairness, it should be stated that the monastery in Cavan is now an army establishment. That has not been made plain up to now. It is time it was.
Deputy Gibbons also misled this House about military training in Donegal. Nobody can deny that. Deputy Garret FitzGerald and others have dealt adequately with that matter and I do not think it is necessary for me to go over it again.
Fianna Fáil talk about unity. We are entitled to ask what kind of a party are they at the present time. Deputy Gibbons, Minister for Agriculture and Fisheries, comes in here and attacks the Opposition for what he alleged were scurrilous remarks about the Fianna Fáil Party. I think he should direct his attack to the members of his own party.
Last May the Taoiseach went down to a dinner in Carlow, I think it was, and he referred there to the people that he had just sacked as brilliant and dedicated men. Brilliant at what? At codding the people? At that particular time they were drawing the people's money and, at the same time, they were trying to undermine this State. Dedicated to what? Was it to subversive activities? There was not a word then of sorrow for the Irish people, of regret for Irish people who might have been slaughtered had these men got away with this plan. The plan would never have been exposed to this Dáil or to the country were it not for the Leader of the Opposition.
Having said in May that Deputy Haughey was a brilliant and dedicated man, we have the Taoiseach on 26th October reported in the Irish Times as saying that Deputy Haughey would not come back into the Government; the Ministers had been sacked because he, the Taoiseach, could not rely on them; he had no knowledge of what was going on. If he had no knowledge of what was going on, why did he go down to a Fianna Fáil dinner in Carlow and there refer to them as brilliant and dedicated men?
What sort of double talk have we in this Parliament? If the Taoiseach himself engages in such double talk, is is any wonder that other ex-Ministers and, indeed, members of the Fianna Fáil Party are also engaging in double talk? When they accuse us of misleading this country we are entitled to put certain questions to Fianna Fáil. The Minister for Transport and Power, Deputy Lenihan, referred to coalitions et cetera when he spoke in this debate but we are entitled to ask what is ruling this country at the present time? It is a coalition of alleged gun-runners, of hawks and doves, of conservatives, pink republicans, hurling and football republicans, of green republicans—there must be about 40 shades—of millionaire and socialist republicans, all presided over by a weak and reluctant Taoiseach.
Similar words have been uttered by members of the Fianna Fáil Party. In particular, I refer to Mr. Gerry Boland, a founder member of Fianna Fáil, one of the President's righthand men in 1932 and an honarary secretary of the Fianna Fáil Party. In the Irish Independent of 24th June, 1970, he is quoted as accusing the Taoiseach of leading the party into ruin and chaos and he stated he was resigning from Fianna Fáil. He also stated:
I was instrumental in getting Mr. Lynch nominated as Fianna Fáil candidate in Cork when he became interested in politics and now I am saying that if he does not want the Fianna Fáil organisation to crumble about his ears he had better go to the back benches and the sooner the better...
Because he was a hurler I thought he had been in the FCA and active in the national movement as my sons were. I nominated him for selection at a Fianna Fáil convention in Cork. That is my greatest regret.
Mr. Boland further stated:
Many people have said to me that Mr. Lynch tossed a coin to see which party he would join and now I see their point.
Mr. Boland stated that his resignation as a vice-president and trustee of Fianna Fáil was in the post. He further stated:
In my letter of resignation I said I wanted no part of a party where an honourable man like my son Kevin appears to be an embarrassment.
Mr. Gerry Boland stated that as his son was such an embarrassment to the party he did the honourable thing and resigned from a dishonourable party. He further stated that those whom he had thought were friends turned out to be the exact opposite.
Mr. Gerry Boland said that in his opinion the Taoiseach was not worth a curse and I entirely agree with him. Mr. Gerry Boland, who had joined Fianna Fáil in 1927, said it had now sunk to its lowest level. He blamed it on the leadership of Mr. Lynch. He said that if the Taoiseach went to the back benches there would not be any need for a general election but that if by any remote chance he did not go Mr. Boland did not know what would happen but he was positive there would be trouble. He also stated:
Mr. Lynch just does not know what is required of the leader of a parliamentary party.
This statement was made by a man who was a Minister of this State in hard and difficult times; he was a straight and honest man and did his duty. Mr. Gerry Boland stated that Mr. Lynch "just does not have a clue and he has surrounded himself in the main by a very inexperienced team." That is a true statement regarding the present Cabinet. He further stated:
You can take a tramp in off the street and make him a Minister. All he has to do is accept dictatorship by civil servants and become a rubber stamp. If he does that he'll be all right.
We are entitled to know if that is what is happening today because all of those statements have been made by a founder member and vice-president of the Fianna Fáil Party. If those statements are true, and I have no reason to doubt them, it is time that Deputy Colley, Deputy Lynch and the Fianna Fáil Cabinet resigned and faced a real jury—the enraged electorate who are waiting to throw them out of power into oblivion where they belong.
Deputy Hillery is quoted as speaking about "a gang" but the Deputy will be delighted tonight to stay in office with the support of this gang. I shall quote Deputy Hillery's words——
If the Deputy is referring to the Minister for External Affairs he must refer to him by his title.
I am sorry. In the Sunday Independent dated 1st November, 1970, the Minister for External Affairs referred to the rebels in the party. He stated:
It would be very damaging for Ireland if the type of operation we are witnessing at the moment were to succeed. It must not succeed. We must be run like a country, not like a gang.
According to the Oxford dictionary a gang is a company of workmen or of slaves or prisoners; a band of persons acting or going about together, especially for criminal purpose or one disapproved of by the speaker. I am not going to say that the Government are doing this but this is the word used by the Minister for External Affairs. The Minister further stated:
Anarchy could result if the dissidents were to have an easy triumph. It would affect the whole system of party and government.
The Minister also stated that he would do everything possible to see that the dissidents did not triumph. However, he is prepared to stay in power with the people whom he referred to as "a gang". He will not hesitate to accept their support to remain in power.
I see that Deputy Blaney is present in the House. I do not know how he intends to vote tonight but when he was being chaired out of the Four Courts he made reference to "being smeared and blackguarded by the powers that be". He said that the trial was not merely a prosecution but, as counsel said during the trial, a persecution. He said "I think they have got their answer today and I hope they realise it and take the appropriate action, that is, to make way for those who believe in the republican party running this country and not the sort that was developing at this moment". We are entitled to ask Deputy Blaney after making those accusations about the Taoiseach and members of the Government whether he is prepared to go and vote with them?
I shall not refer to Deputy Boland's statement. I have often said that he is a rugged but honest politician who does what he says he will do. Last night he stated he is resigning and in all probability he has already handed in his resignation. I am inclined to think that, if Deputy Boland says he will resign, he certainly will. We have heard so much double-talk from those people that we are entitled to ask are they prepared now to go in tonight and vote to keep in office the men whom they condemn, the men against whom they have made such charges during the last month.
Deputy Moran spoke at length also. He was quoted in the paper as saying that an immediate change in government was demanded. As a senior member of the Fianna Fáil Party speaking about leadership, he asked did not the Ard-Fheis elect the President of the Fianna Fáil Party as a whole, and said that the Parliamentary Party elects a leader for its own group in Leinster House. He condemned the Taoiseach and the Government. We are now entitled to ask will he come into the House tonight, despite the accusations which he has made and the insinuations against the present leader, and vote for that same man to remain leader of the Fianna Fáil Party.
I wonder if it would not be right to say that the Taoiseach is as much to blame as those whom he called rebels and whom Deputy Dr. Hillery calls a gang because it has been sworn in court that this was Government policy. I want to charge the Taoiseach with responsibility for anything and everything that has happened in this regard in this country over the last two years because of the speech which he made on 13th August, 1969, when he said that the Government would not stand idly by. What did he mean when he made that speech? In the Evening Press of 14th October, 1969, there was a heading “Troop rumours sweep the Bogside” and the article went on to relate that the people were hoping for some form of help to arrive from somewhere and that all eyes were turned chiefly towards the Border only five miles away where they had heard that Irish troops were building up. This news spread like wildfire through the Bogside and was said to be one of the things which boosted up the people who were throwing stones and bottles at the police. On that same evening the Evening Herald carried a similar story stating that troops were on their way and that lorries had been seen carrying more than medical supplies, and carrying guns. Why did the Taoiseach stand idly by when those statements appeared in the evening papers and when they were quoted on radio and television? Why did the Taoiseach stand idly by, not denying them and not saying such statements were untrue? If Deputy J. Gibbons, during all the times that Colonel Hefferon and Captain Kelly were approaching him and informing him that arms were to be brought in, did not say “yes” and did not say “no”, why did not the Taoiseach of this country say to the people of the Twenty-six Counties and of the north and of the whole world “Our troops are not going in across the Border”? Why did he allow those people in the north to have their hopes and spirits raised? Why did he allow them to assume that the Army was marching on the Border armed with guns? Why did he not go on television that night and contradict all that? The fact that the Taoiseach did not do so shows that he was trying to take both sides of the road or that he was not an able leader. In any case, we all admit that this whole episode has brought discredit to our country. The Taoiseach is the leader of the Government, the man who appointed those Ministers. If they are to blame then he is equally to blame and he is culpably negligent for not doing his duty.
At this stage one of the questions being posed is the effect on trade and on investments and on tourism. Even Deputy Colley travelling the world and appearing with a big smile on his face trying to bring factories to this country can hardly have been helped by the fact that the Taoiseach and the Government allowed this to continue for so long. The Fianna Fáil Party with all its republicanism has thrown a life-raft to the Unionist Party at the present time. It is a party in a state of disarray. It is lending credibility to the rantings of Ian Paisley and others and to what they have been saying for a long number of years.
I could speak at length on the breakdown of law and order in this country and of the drift to anarchy. It is not safe to travel certain streets in Dublin at the present time because of the mobs and thugs roaming the streets. Some judges are not prepared to do their duty. We have a situation in this country at the present time where we have three or four standing armies, each with their own Chief of Staff and with direct access to the mass media of the country. If this accelerated drift to anarchy and lawlessness is allowed to continue as it is at present we will have a situation in Ireland as there has been in Montreal recently where we will wake up some morning and find the ship of State being hijacked and perhaps sailing for Cuba, Russia or God knows where.
There was one remark I did not like yesterday from Deputy Boland when he was talking about selective justice. We have had selective justice, unfortunately, in this country in the past. I do not want to see it any longer. The Garda in this country, of whom there are not nearly sufficient, are being frustrated in trying to carry out their duties.
We are told that 72 people may vote for the Taoiseach tonight. We are entitled to ask why are they voting. Have they sold their votes for power or money, or for State cars? Have the Tacateers, who are about this House for the past week, got at them?
It was said earlier there is an honest man among them who has the courage of his convictions and who stated he is not prepared to vote for the Government. I want to know if the patriots have been bought. Is that true? The Taoiseach can tell us tonight if it is. Is it true that Ministers have promised particular men that if they get their votes, as far as they are concerned in the Cabinet there will be no new prosecution involving more than £100,000. The Minister for Finance can smile.
It is typical L'Estrange.
There are Ministers who are capable of anything. It has been pointed out to some of them that their future would be ruined if this prosecution went ahead. Is it true that those people have been promised by Ministers that if they toe the line there will be no prosecution in this particular case? We know the fixers are at work. It was stated that another man has his hand in this and I believe it to be true.
I believe the time has come when the people of this country, in the national interest, should be told the truth by the Taoiseach—the truth, the whole truth. The Taoiseach should tell the truth about where he stands, of where the country stands. We will be told that Jack Lynch is a decent man, but is being a decent man sufficient qualification for every job? It is crucial that the right man should fill the post of Taoiseach. That is crucial for the welfare of the whole of the people of Ireland.
Many other questions should be answered. There has been an awful lot of double talk and the credibility gap is growing all the time. We have been going from one crisis to another, from one vote of confidence to another. This is the fourth or fifth in a year. Even if the Taoiseach gets this vote of confidence tonight, which he is hoping for, can he trust those whom Deputy Hillery called "this gang" who have been so vociferous during the past week? How many of them are prepared to go in and vote behind him? In view of the way this House has been misled by the Taoiseach on at least four occasions during the past year can the people believe him or his Ministers? When he is replying tonight will he withhold anything else from the people or is he prepared now to tell the whole truth to the people?
We make this final appeal to him and to the Government not to trust the gang, as Deputy Hillery called them. Things are going from bad to worse in the country. If we move from this sordidness, we find a rising cost of living, unemployment at a rate of 10,000 more than last year, 450,000 of our people emigrating in the period from 1957, an increasing national debt which stands at more than £1,000 million today—and if we add the amounts owed by State and semi-State bodies the national debt could be reckoned at £14,000 million, costing at least £110 million to service. We have rampant inflation which is pricing us not only out of the export market but out of the home market.
To deal with these problems we have a corrupt, arrogant, dictatorial Government. Fianna Fáil are afraid to face the music. They have betrayed the trust placed in them by the Irish people and the Taoiseach and the Government are grasping at every straw to keep them in power. They have fooled the people and an enraged electorate are now demanding that the Taoiseach give them an opportunity to change this. The people who gave the Taoiseach a mandate have been betrayed by the betrayers in the Cabinet, and in the national interest we demand that the Taoiseach should dissolve the Dáil and face an enraged electorate who will give him his answer.
Mr. Colley rose.
May I ask if it would be possible, in these particular circumstances, for the Minister for Finance to give way? I respect his precedence——
Since the debate resumed this afternoon we have listened to two Opposition speakers, and in the course of their remarks——
What about Joe Dowling?
——they challenged me and they challenged Deputy Blaney. They continued for two and a half hours. I will be as fast as I can but there are some things I have got to say.
What is the arranged time for the debate?
The order made is that at 8 p.m. a Member will be called on behalf of the Labour Party.
Could I further ask that if the Minister for Finance claims his predecence despite the fact that I have offered on several occasions, if there is time left that I might have it?
As far as we are concerned the Deputy is welcome to it.
We would be in agreement for the sake of letting Deputy Blaney speak——
There is agreement to let Deputy Blaney speak after the Minister for Finance has concluded.
In view of the fact that Deputy Gibbons has spoken on his own behalf and that this debate is limited in regard to time, is it really fair that his solicitor should now speak on his behalf as well?
I am not aware of the basis for the last remark, considering the fact that I have never acted as solicitor for Deputy Gibbons. We are wasting time. The House has agreed to allow Deputy Blaney to speak.
Might we have half the time each?
I do not expect to take half the time. First of all, I wish to remind the House of something the Taoiseach said in opening the debate. He said the motion relates to confidence in the Taoiseach and the other members of this Government. It covers every Member of the Government but it refers to "this Government", not to any of the previous Governments to which we heard so many references during the debate. Secondly, I want to say that the bulk of the case that has been argued by the Opposition in this debate has been based on allegations that the Taoiseach misled the House, that the Minister for Agriculture and Fisheries misled the House and that the Minister for Agriculture and Fisheries committed perjury in court.
I want to say, first of all, that it ill-becomes Deputies to suggest that the Taoiseach or the Minister for Agriculture and Fisheries has been misleading this House when, if one takes any one of almost any of the Opposition speeches, one will see clearly that it is the Opposition who have been misleading the House. I have not the time nor do I intend wasting the time of the House going into all of them but I shall take one merely as an example. The one I am taking is from Deputy Cosgrave, the man who put down a motion saying that the House has no confidence in the Minister for Agriculture and Fisheries because he misled the House. I refer to the debate here on Thursday last as reported in Volume 249 of the Official Report, columns 195 and 196, when the following exchanges took place:
Mr. Cosgrave: What the Taoiseach said was that the bank strike had inhibited the investigation——
The Taoiseach: That is true.
Mr. Cosgrave: Is it not a fact that an investigation of some accounts was undertaken during the bank strike? Of course, it is a fact.
The Taoiseach: I have said that an investigation was being conducted——
Mr. Cosgrave: It was conducted before the trial concluded.
The Taoiseach: Yes.
Mr. Cosgrave: We are dragging it out of the Taoiseach now.
Mr. Colley: We have never tried to conceal it.
Mr. Cosgrave: Fianna Fáil kept silent until I dragged it out of them. You are not dealing with the Fianna Fáil Party now. I know that the bank accounts were investigated. Why was the House not told this fact?
Mr. Colley: Because everybody knew it.
Deputy Cosgrave, the Leader of Fine Gael, was doing everything within his power to suggest to this House and to the public that the Government have, in some way, been trying to conceal facts concerning the fund of £100,000 which was voted by the Dáil for relief of distress in the north. From what I have quoted it is clear that Deputy Cosgrave accused us of trying to conceal the fact that some investigations had been going on for some time past, from the time of the trial. I pointed out that it was obvious to anyone who read the reports of the trial that some investigations had been going on but since then I have taken the trouble to get extracts from copies of the newspapers which reported the press conference given by the Taoiseach after he had returned from New York. I have not the time to quote from these reports in full but I shall quote this one from the Irish Independent of Tuesday, October 27. The Taoiseach is quoted as saying:
The gardaí investigating the alleged conspiracy had discovered there was some question about the source of the money for arms.
The gardaí had not been able, because of the bank strike, to complete their investigation. He did not know when the investigation would conclude.
If Deputy Cosgrave will refer to the other daily newspapers and to the evening papers of the day of the Taoiseach's return, he will find reported similar statements. What I am suggesting is that, knowing all this, knowing that there was no attempt at concealment, Deputy Cosgrave in coming here and saying that he dragged this admission from us is misleading the House. It is misleading the House in a way that gets very close to what I am not allowed to say by the Chair but there is one alternative explanation and that is that Deputy Cosgrave was not misleading the House but rather that he came in here and incompetently and irresponsibly made these allegations without checking one iota of what was public knowledge. This may seem strange but it would not surprise me if it were true because I have previous experience of Deputy Cosgrave rushing in on a political opportunistic basis to take advantage of something without having checked his facts.
I suggest that it ill-becomes Deputies and, particularly Deputy Cosgrave, to suggest that anybody on this side of the House has been misleading the House when that is the performance we have had from him during this debate.
I want to go further and to say something in regard to the question of these funds. Deputy FitzGerald and a number of other Deputies have said that we should now give to the Dáil all the information at present available. Some Deputies said that the matter should be dealt with by a Select Committee while others said it should be dealt with by the Public Accounts Committee but Deputy FitzGerald suggested that a Committee of the House should be directing the gardaí in their investigations. I do not know whether Deputy FitzGerald was temporarily deranged when he said that. Surely he could not suggest seriously that we adopt that kind of procedure?
Did not the House vote the money?
I know the House voted the money but I want to make it clear, as I have already done and as the Taoiseach has made it clear at press conferences, that as far as this Government are concerned, the matter is being investigated; that every fact that can be ascertained will be brought to light. When that has been done this House has the right and the duty to decide what procedure should be adopted but neither I nor this Government will be stampeded by either Fine Gael or Labour into adopting a course that would be absolutely unjustified, a course that no prudent Government would take. All I can say is God help this country if the reins of Government ever get into the incompetent and immature hands that have made the suggestions which we have had to listen to here.
The Minister is the very example of all this.
I do not wish to go into the details of the recent trial because I cannot see any point in doing so. However, some matters arising from that trial have been dealt with during the debate. We heard a number of people, including Deputy Kevin Boland, quoting, with approval, statements made by the trial judge. However, I noticed that neither he nor those other people who quoted from those statements quoted a statement by the judge that the prosecution was properly brought and that it would have been a dereliction of duty not to have brought it.
The last point I want to make in regard to this verdict of the trial—that is all I am talking about—is that anybody who is familiar with the workings of the courts will know that, in a civil or criminal case, to conclude anything about the workings of the minds of the jury by their verdict is extremely dangerous and the only thing one can be sure of is what the verdict is. Nevertheless, some people who know that have made the case that the Minister for Agriculture and Fisheries was condemned by the jury and found guilty of perjury. They know that that is not so but yet some have said so. However, I can understand how people who are not familiar with the procedure in the courts might well think that where there is a conflict of evidence as there was between the evidence of Deputy Haughey and that of the Minister for Agriculture and Fisheries and where Deputy Haughey who was on trial was found not guilty, that meant that the jury came to the conclusion that the Minister for Agriculture and Fisheries was not telling the truth.
I give the benefit of the doubt to Deputies on both sides of the House and put them into that category and in that category I include, in particular, Deputy Cruise-O'Brien who referred to the Minister for Agriculture and Fisheries as a convicted liar. Anybody who accepts that is entitled to do so but he is not entitled to be selective. He is not entitled to say that the Minister for Agriculture and Fisheries is a convicted liar and not to say that a senior civil servant of the highest rank is a convicted liar; that another civil servant of a fairly high rank is a convicted liar; that a colonel in the Army, who is spoken of so highly here, is a convicted liar or, most important of all, that one of the other defendants is a convicted liar because there were conflicts of evidence between all of them. If it makes sense to say that, because there was a conflict between Deputy Haughey and Deputy Gibbons therefore Deputy Gibbons was telling lies, then you must, if you are any way honest, accept the consequences of that line of approach. How do you explain that one of the defendants who was in conflict with Deputy Haughey's evidence was acquitted? That illustrates very clearly the point I made, that those who have any knowledge of the workings of the courts know that it is quite unsafe to assume anything about the way in which a jury's mind works.
I want to repeat that those who believe that Deputy Gibbons, because of the jury's verdict, has been found to have told an untruth on oath, those who believe that, cannot escape the logical consequences of what they are saying and go the whole way along the whole line and then explain the whole story to us, if that is what they believe. I also want to say that if the then Minister for Defence had been involved in this matter, as has been suggested, he would, of course, have signed a certificate under the Firearms Act. There would have been no problem, there would have been no trial, no problem with customs, no problem with anybody else. But he did not. If, as alleged in this House, he is untruthful and a perjurer and a man who could not care less about the truth, could he not have made life easy for himself by telling untruths and committing perjury in the court? Is it not clear that most of his trouble has developed because he was so scrupulous, so determined to be scrupulous in telling the truth? We know him. I know him. I know how scrupulous he is and I know that that is what has been the cause of a lot of the trouble he has suffered. If he is the liar and perjurer that has been suggested, why on earth would he get himself into that kind of difficulty? It would have been too easy for him to say more or less than he did and avoid all that trouble. It is perfectly obvious that he was not prepared to give a glib explanation but rather to be as accurate as it was humanly possible to be.
Furthermore, I want to say this, most of the items that came out in evidence at that trial were matters which were new to members of the present Government who were members of the Government at the time of the incidents, but there were certain matters of which we did have knowledge, such matters as Government decisions and whether or not somebody was appointed a liasion officer between the Government and the northern defence committees. We did have personal knowledge of such matters and we know that Deputy Gibbons was telling the truth about that. We know that and do no let anybody ask us why we are standing behind Deputy Gibbons. If you have listened to what I have said you will know why—because we know he was telling the truth, that is why.
One other matter to which I want to refer is that references have been made in the debate to the prices and incomes legislation, to the suggestion that the Government are wavering. I do not want to spend much time on this but I just want to say that when we met the Irish Congress of Trade Unions recently they asked us to withdraw the legislation and we said no; they asked us to postpone the legislation and we said no, we could not; they asked us to go ahead with the legislation but to postpone the part of it which related to restraint of wages and we said no we could not, and they asked us then if we would provide in it, instead of the restraint we had provided, a provision that the restraint would be such as would be fixed by Government order to enable them to negotiate, and we agreed to that. I think it was a good arrangement and I hope the negotiations will succeed but, if they do not, we are no further back, the schedule is proceeding as arranged. Let me put it clearly on the record that the Government have not stepped back and they are not wavering in any way in that regard.
The Minister said there would be no negotiating on it.
I did not say any such thing. However I am not going to waste the time of the House on it at this stage. We will discuss it next week.
Discuss it next week, how are you!
Finally, I want to say that, listening to the speakers of both Opposition parties and listening to their self-imposed rectitude and listening to the example I gave of Deputy Cosgrave, which could be repeated in virtually every speech we heard over there, does it not strike one that while this party and this Government have difficulties—and we have difficulties, we do not deny it——
You certainly have.
——does it not strike one that the country is a damned sight better off with Fianna Fáil, with all their difficulties, than to be put in the hands of people like that who have shown themselves in this very debate to be so incompetent and to be so willing to mislead the House——
Let the people decide that.
——and who cannot——
The Minister.
——and who cannot agree amongst themselves, not to mention getting together in a coalition. Of course, if they do, which of them is going to give way on the Common Market? We got a slight indication from Deputy Cruise-O'Brien that the Labour Party is going to sell out. Well, they had to before so I suppose it will not be surprising if they do it again. Deputy Murphy says let the people decide. If the Taoiseach decides it is in the interests of the country we will, but let me remind Deputy Murphy of this; before the last election and before the election before that, he and the Deputies over there kept telling us "Go to the people; they are ready to put you out", and you got your answer.
Before this debate had really started, or when it had just about started, and for many months before that I had the feeling that there was a great deal I wished to say that had not been said by anybody in regard to the happenings particularly of the last 13 or 14 months. As the debate proceeded and as I clarified my own mind about what I wished to contribute in this House, and having listened to the crossfire that has gone on here, I came to the conclusion that the country and the institutions of State have already suffered enough grievous hurt in the disclosures made and the allegations flung around not only in public, not only in this House, but even in the very courts of this State. Therefore I have decided here tonight, particularly now that time has caught up with us and as I might not have the time to deal with it fully and adequately, that this is not the time to add my disclosures of what I believe to be the truth and the whole truth of what has gone on and of what lies behind all that appears to have gone on. This is not the time, nor is it in the interests of the country that it should so be put on record. There may be another time and there may not be another time suitable for such disclosures because these disclosures would involve disclosures of Government business and Government decisions which would be necessary in order to relate my entire narrative in regard to these matters.
These are things which in the normal way I would be bound not to disclose and I had only considered disclosing them because of the fact that in relation to the court case it was said that any bond of secrecy that was there would be removed or ignored in order that the whole truth might be got at. That was in the courts. Thanks to the justice of the courts in this country, although lately we began to wonder whether that was so or not, I do not have to go through that trial; I did not have to endure, as others of my colleagues and friends endured, the months of hardship and the months of sacrifice and unending restlessness that can only attend those who are accused and are awaiting trial on charges that are being viciously pursued by all the resources of the State which those same people have served and served very well up to the time of their dismissal from their particular posts.
I am not going into this tonight, for the reasons I have stated, plus the reason that, even if I wished to do so, time would not permit. I do so in the full knowledge that there is a great deal more that could be said if it were thought advisable that it should be said. I do not regard it advisable for me to say it at this particular time if, indeed, it may be advisable at any time because too much damage has already been done to our institutions not only at home but throughout the world in regard to this whole farce that has become the trial that never was—though it was held twice in order to reach a just verdict of acquittal for those who were accused.
I have been following the debate—if not all the time inside the House then all of it through reports outside. I have followed it with quite a sense of disappointment because speakers appear to have lost sight of the basic issue involved in this motion. The issue to my mind is simply this: indeed, it would be a question and, to me, it would be and is this: What policy should the Government and parliament, which derive their authority from the Republic of Ireland, declared in 1916 and reasserted by the first Dáil, pursue in relation to the problem of national unity?
The House is well aware that all other questions in this debate, such as those arising from the recent conspiracy trial and the differences within Fianna Fáil, not to mention the differences that exist in the parties beyond, stem from this basic issue. Let nobody inside our party or outside the party be under any illusions that this is the basic difference—and it is there lie our basic differences and it is there lie our problems and our difficulties. rather than discussing and lamenting and accusing and making allegations about who was telling the truth and who was not.
I have a fairly good idea, a fairly sound idea, of who was telling the truth in particular instances but I am not going to go into it here tonight either. I am much more concerned to put on record what I believe in regard to our role in this House in relation to the national unity of our territory. As Éamon de Valera, our President, said many years ago:
There is no one man with a cut-and-dried plan for ending Partition.
That surely is a truism none of us should ever forget. For Partition can only be ended by negotiation around the conference table. There can be no such negotiation until the British Government finally decides to remove its authority from every part of this land of ours, north and south.
I have said recently that the Fianna Fáil Party is at a crossroads. I go further tonight and say that the Irish nation, north and south—all of it— is at a crossroads in its history. If any Deputy is in any doubt about that, I would point to the unfortunate happenings in the Six Counties and, indeed, in the Twenty-six Counties during the past 15 months. The sham edifice that is Stormont, with its artificially-created majority and its sectarian regime, with which the democratic majority of the people of all Ireland have been forced, against their expressed will, to live for half a century, is now crumbling. Only by the force and the might of the British military occupation—I say "occupation" deliberately—and by the injection of vast millions of the British taxpayers' money is this fraudulent statelet now being propped up on what I hope is its last legs. The duty, therefore, rests on this Government elected by this House to give the leadership and initiative which, in these circumstances, when Partition has now clearly failed, will hasten ultimate unity. The question with which we in this House are concerned is vital at this turning-point in our history when the British experiment, that was Partition, is patently now falling apart.
In the first place, let us be quite clear on the question of using armed compulsion against the Unionist people of the Six Counties as a solution. It has not been, and it is not, the ideal solution for the ending of Partition. The British Government knows this; the Unionist Government knows this. Every Member of this House knows and accepts this. I, therefore, do not know why the Leader of my party, the Taoiseach, keeps making this an issue —as if there were any issue about it. I, and others who may share my views, have made it patently clear that this has always been our outlook and, in spite of that, we have been continuously and constantly misrepresented. I have been misrepresented when I referred to the use of force in another context. What I have said, and now repeat, is that if the minority in the Six Counties were to come under the threat of annihilation by armed murderous assault—as they did in certain parts of the Six Counties in August, 1969 — then we, in the Twenty-six Counties, could not, cannot and should not stand idly by. That is what I mean when I talk about not ruling out force. That is what I have meant when I said it in the past. I hope that those who have been misrepresenting my views in this matter and confusing the public will tonight "catch themselves on" and get it right for this time at least. I challenge any Deputy who believes we should give a blank cheque to the Orange mobs, and their Unionist manipulators, for violence against the Six County minority to say it honestly outright now and to let the country judge him accordingly.
If the ideal solution of Partition lies along the lines of peaceful negotiation, I do not for one moment accept that this means a policy of appeasement and compromise—and this is where I consider the Opposition Parties and the Leader of my own party now to stand in error. We are being told that we must win the consent of the Unionist majority within the Six Counties before Ireland can be united. We are told we must persuade them by good example. This has been put forward as a new policy. This is not new.
Consider what we have been doing over the past half century. We have held out the hand of friendship and co-operation to the Six Counties. We have built the community here so that —whatever its other faults may be— it is an example to those in the Six Counties of how Catholic, Protestant and Dissenter may live side by side in harmony and without discrimination or bigotry. We have striven to build a viable economy against great odds and to maintain a steady improvement in our social services as a further example to them who are themselves entirely dependent for survival on massive handouts from Great Britain. We have moved into close economic union in trade and commerce with Britain, our neighbour. We have offered to negotiate amendments to our Constitution to admit the views of the people of the Six Counties. We have offered to devise guarantees on every possible point about which they might find or have concern. We have done all this and yet, not once in those 50 years, not even after the past 15 months of world condemnation, has either the Unionist regime, or the Westminster Government for that matter, budged a single inch on the question of Partition. We are still, as it were, back on square one.
We are now being told by persons in this House, in the words used by a Tory politician: "Ulster must not be coerced". Éamon de Valera the founder of this party of Fianna Fáil in a debate in this House in 1945 dealt with this same question then when Fine Gael were complaining that we were not going far enough to meet the Unionists and that we should try for a compromise solution. He said of Fine Gael:
These people imagine that by giving away the rights of the majority they will conciliate the minority. They will do nothing of the kind. Our whole history has proved the contrary, and I hope, whether it is in our time or when we are gone, that there will be no people in this country so foolish as to proceed along that course. It is a fatal course.
Yet we are now being asked by our own Government to accept the right of the Unionist minority in Ireland to opt out and to decide when, if ever, they will join in a united nation. This is the proposition that destroys the whole case and takes away the entire roots on which our claim as a people to national unity rests. It is a proposition which was never accepted by the founders of the Fianna Fáil Party. Éamon de Valera said in the Dáil on November 24th, 1948:
There is no just principle which would entitle a political minority because they happen to be a local majority in a certain area to cut itself off.
Séan Lemass speaking at Oxford in October, 1960, said:
We do not accept... that a minority has the right to vote itself out of a nation on the grounds that it is in disagreement with the majority on a major policy issue.
By the Partition yardstick, of course, we might say that the Nationalist majorities in Derry, Fermanagh, South Down and South Armagh, have an equal right to opt out of the Six Counties or, indeed, that the people of my constituency or my county or the people of Cork city have the right to opt out of the Twenty-six Counties.
I would ask the Taoiseach, therefore, to clarify where we now stand on this principle which lies at the root of the claim of the Irish people to unity. The Taoiseach has told us that Mr. Heath, for instance, Britain's Prime Minister, has at long last introduced a new initiative by his statement at the United Nations last month that Britain will not now stand in the way of the Six County Unionists if they wish to enter a united Ireland. I fail to see anything new in that. The British have been saying this in so many words since Lloyd George first introduced the Government of Ireland Act in 1920 and thereby created Partition. King George V said the same and so did Carson and Craigavon.
The real initiative the Irish people are awaiting from Britain is a declaration that from a given date, be it a near date or a relatively far distant date, they, the British, are ready and willing to get out of Ireland and are, therefore, ready to sit down and negotiate their going with us. Far from expressing any such willingness, however, Mr. Heath has emphasised at the United Nations that Westminster will not move until such a time as the Unionist regime of its own desire decides that it wants to come into a united Ireland. Can anybody in Britain or Ireland really see a time when the Unionists of the Six Counties will drop their attitude of "not an inch" while they are being supported by the millions of the British taxpayers' money which these people can now no longer afford, and supported in government and power by the might and the arms of the British State itself?
Nobody can see them getting down to brass tacks to talk about the future of this country while they are so supported and it is for Britain to get wise to this and for us to try to make her wise to the fact that she should indicate her willingness to go and we should then get down to discussing her going. Answering Fine Gael in this House on one occasion Éamon de Valera, our President, asked the question:
Is there anyone foolish enough to think that if we are going to sacrifice our aspirations that they are going to give up their cry of not an inch? For every step we moved towards them, you know perfectly well they would regard it as a sign that we would move another, and they would not be satisfied, in my opinion, unless we went back and accepted the old United Kingdom, a common parliament for the two countries.
De Valera's answer to those who concede any portion of the national claim to unity was expressed by him on that same occasion as "not an inch".
He went further and warned that we would obtain a solution to Partition much sooner if that attitude were known than we would if the idea got abroad that we were going to begin what he termed "slithering along". That is what I fear we are now doing and have been doing for some considerable time, "slithering along" in regard to the unity of our country. Is there any Deputy in this country so naïve that he believes the Unionist regime, no matter how much we woo or coo at them, will voluntarily give up the power and privilege it enjoyed for the past 50 years and is now promised it can enjoy for all time by guarantee of the British Government?
We have heard much recently about the word "guarantee". The British Government has guaranteed that the package of reform which it has forced on the unwilling Unionist regime will be implemented. Mr. Wilson made a declaration in August over a year ago that human rights would be established and respected in the area of Ireland over which his Government claimed jurisdiction. Mr. Wilson is not the first British Prime Minister who waved a wand towards this country and hoped for some miracle solution or magic solution. It is now 15 months since then and very little in that direction has since taken place or, indeed, appears as if it is going to take place.
In the meantime a Tory government has come into office in Britain and the Unionists undoubtedly have found new heart. It is needless to remark that the establishment of human rights in the Six Counties remains what we might call pie in the sky. We have the Taoiseach then who tells us that he accepts what he terms the honesty of purpose of Major Chichester Clark, the Unionist Prime Minister. This is the same man who kicked out Lord O'Neill, then Captain O'Neill, and replaced him because he was allegedly going too fast with his intention to bring about reforms in those same Six Counties. This is the same man, Major Clark, who in the midst of the murder and shooting in Belfast in August of last year when hordes of B Specials, RUC and Orange gunmen were loosed on the minority community, and were held off, I might say, from a massacre by the bravery of a handful of men with very few arms, publicly dismissed this as "an IRA uprising" and praised the B Specials for their devotion to duty. How can we accept the word of such a man as Major Chichester-Clark in regard to any of these promises that have been foisted upon him by the British Government?
Our Taoiseach has also said that the Irish Government stand as a second guarantor. Tonight I was glad to hear one other speaker refer to this because Deputy Conor Cruise-O'Brien is as puzzled by it as I am. I am puzzled by it. How can we guarantee what reforms will take place in the Six Counties? How we can be the second guarantor I would love to know. Perhaps there is an answer but I doubt it.
Only this week in regard to promises from the British we find emerging in a book just published that there was made to Éamon de Valera back in the beginning of the forties a promise by the British Government, a promise that if we entered on the side of Britain in the war they would begin to do something about Partition. De Valera did not accept this promise where there was no corresponding commitment from the Unionist people in Belfast and he was right. Redmond had accepted a similar Westminster offer of Home Rule. We all know what happened about that. British declarations of establishing human rights in the Six Counties contrast very strangely with their refusal to allow any inquiry or inquest so far into the action of their troops in murdering three innocent, elderly men in the Lower Falls last July 3rd.
The Stormont Premier last week praised our own Leader here and spoke of the "cause of democracy" in Ireland. Everybody except the Unionists was responsible, according to Major Clark, for reviving what he called "the dying embers of old hatreds." He called for a return to what the Unionists like to call normality, the old order back in control once again and the Croppies lying down. Well, if it is any news to him he will never, so far as my judgment goes, enter into that state that he regards as normality again because the people of those Six Counties have risen. They are a risen people today. They know the strength of their own force and they will not be driven back underground as they have been forced to do over this last half century. The sooner Major Chichester Clark and others in the Six Counties realise that, the sooner they will come to the realisation, themselves and the British Government, that Partition is not a solution and that we must find another way.
I would ask, indeed, how the head of the regime in the Six Counties can talk of democracy when the known killers of Sam Devenney of Derry, of nine-years-old Patrick Rooney of Belfast, of Seán Gallagher of Armagh and a dozen others, have never even been charged by his law officers. How can he, Major Chichester-Clark, talk of democracy when he has 900 men in jail up there today, many of them for offences so trivial as remonstrating with unruly soldiers as in the case of Frank Gogarty, the CRA Leader?
I come back to the original position that we cannot accept compromise on principle. We all accept the situation that a majority today in the Six Counties area have no wish to join in a united Ireland and want to cling to the British connection. That has been the position for more than a couple of centuries but it cannot be put forward, despite that long history, as a reason for breaking on the principle that this minority within the nation has a right to opt out. We cannot accept it as a reason for a policy giving them that right that we have never conceded to them and on the basis of which our whole claim to national unity rests and has rested over the years.
The key to the solution of Partition, in my estimation, does not lie in trying to move the Unionists from their entrenched position. It lies with the Westminster Parliament and let them be under no illusions about it and let us keep telling them so. They, by Act of Parliament, created Partition and they are the people who must begin to end it. What the people of Ireland really need today from Britain, and have a right to expect, is a firm declaration of intent to get out of Ireland. If that were given, then the people of the Six Counties and the Twenty-six Counties, in my humble estimation, would very soon come to terms with their own problems within the four shores of this country and would negotiate the beginning of the end of the Partition of our land and the disunity among our people.
It is that end to which we should bend all our energies. That should be the policy of our Government, pursued vigorously and with enthusiasm, to bring to the British Government and particularly to the British people, the fullest possible knowledge of what has been done in the name of the British in the Six Counties over these years, to bring to that British public a massive public campaign, a knowledge that they have been so far denied, a knowledge that would open the eyes of that public, who are a fair-minded people, a people who if they knew what was being done and at what cost to them it was being done, not only in money and in arms but also in international reputation, would begin to move their Government to move in this matter to bring it to an end.
These are the sort of things that I believe we should be doing rather than writing it down, rather than giving the impression that, in fact, it will all blow over and that no serious repercussions are going to follow and that everything will be all right in future months or six months hence. Unfortunately, everything will not be all right six months hence or six years hence in so far as real peace in this community of ours is concerned. While Partition lasts we will have trouble breaking out intermittently, spasmodically, serious at times, not so serious, but break out it will again and again and again.
I ask this House how many people must be killed, how many must suffer death, no matter on which side, whether they are British Army or other personnel, how many must be killed before we really seriously begin to realise that we cannot have peace unless this farce that is Partition begins to come to an end or even be seen to be beginning to be brought to an end.
I have only got a few more minutes left and a vote will be taken in a matter of a couple of hours. On the far side of the House I see before me people who are very intent, very enthusiastic and are talking big talk as I have often heard them talk before about how they want an election. How many of you really in your hearts want an election?
Do you?
I know you cannot say it but——
Deputy Blaney.
I do not want to provoke you because I want to get finished. I do say in all sincerity there is more noise than there is real purpose in the Opposition's cry for an election.
There is one honourable man.
Go and drown yourself.
There is a head count tonight; there is a stand up and be counted, as we often had here before. What does it mean where I vote? What if I vote for the Government? Will I be voting for the unity of the Fianna Fáil Party? Will I be voting out of loyalty to a party in which there is as much of me as there is of anybody else in this particular gathering or will I, by a vote so given, be condoning the arrest of John Kelly of Belfast, representing the John Kellys all over the Six Counties? Will I, by my vote, be abandoning the people in the Six Counties who have come for whatever help I and others might be able to give them in their hours of trouble and their hours of need? Will I, by voting in that Lobby tonight, if I so vote for the Government, be abandoning the political, republican ideals which I hold and which my supporters hold and my friends hold down these years? Will I be doing all these things if I should vote in that manner?
On the other hand, if I do not vote tonight what will that, in fact, mean? Will it mean, in the first place, an election? Is that the load that I might be asked to carry thereafter? Is it the blame that then would come on me that I caused an election to exchange this Government? No matter what I may think about it it is a damn sight better than what could be gathered out of over there and that is not flattering this Government. I do not intend to flatter them.
The Deputy has a good way out now.
Order. Deputy Blaney.
Or could I or would I by not voting? Would I in that event be taking my way out of public life once and for all?
This is the type of question that has plagued me and tortured me for many, many more days than you have been debating this motion here because I could see this coming months and months ago as I am sure others may have seen it coming as well. I have consulted my friends. They have consulted me. My constituency assembled and a very representative gathering discussed the matter with me and not, as the Evening Press so alarmingly put it the other evening, “the big majority for one or the other.” We discussed our business and neither the Evening Press nor any other bloody press knows what went on at that gathering except that we are all friends. We have all been Fianna Fáil down the years, we are still friends and we know what each other thinks. I know and have the benefit of knowing what my people think in my constituency and, even more important, I know and have had consultation with and messages from my friends in the Six Counties, whom I cannot ever forget. I have got all of those minds, all of those expressions and all of those views and I thank them all for them. When the bells go tonight you and I and the rest of us will then know what I am voting for and tomorrow, if you do not know tonight, you will know then.
I must warn the people in the Gallery that any kind of applause like this is forbidden in the House.
Tonight the elected representatives have their opportunity. There will be another night for the cumainn to speak.
I am going out before the Deputy speaks.
Deputy Blaney's speech was like so much of the speech-making of the so-called dissident elements in Fianna Fáil that we have heard so much about over recent weeks. It apparently is the case that Fianna Fáil employ a kind of rhetoric on the northern question rather than real action. Another famous man in Fianna Fáil when coming up to a general election in the 1950s, said simply: "We have heard enough" Then there was a vote. Éamon de Valera made that statement. But in this debate we have not heard enough. We have not heard enough from the Taoiseach, the man to whom Deputy Boland referred as the person about whom he felt most doubt in the present crisis. Deputy Boland said he considered Deputy Gibbons as an agent, but he considered most guilt attached to the Taoiseach. He indicated to the House that his chief doubt, and the reason leading to the decision he is making, concerned the activity of the Taoiseach and his lack of confidence in the Taoiseach.
We have not heard a great deal from the Taoiseach in this debate. His original speech was very short and did not cover any of the questions raised. His motion before the House seeks a vote of confidence in the members of the Government and in himself. He gave us little reason in this debate for giving him that vote of confidence. Deputy Boland in his speech, which many of us considered an honourable one, at the end said:
Since last May I have had the opportunity of surveying the end product of all that effort by myself and others, notably Deputies Blaney and Haughey, and as I look around me I see quite clearly there is nothing left to me but my own personal honour, such as it is, and I propose to retain that.
As he looked around the Fianna Fáil Party at this time that was the judgment of Deputy Boland, the former Minister for Local Government.
Deputy Boland has been no friend of the Labour Party. We have opposed him many times here on vital policy matters, housing and other areas, but members of all parties in this House must ungrudgingly say of Deputy Boland that he spoke in this debate like a true representative of the people. I do not think he has the real interests of Fianna Fáil any less at heart now than he ever had, but this was his comment on the state of that party as he sees it now. Yet Deputy Boland sees no reason for a general election. He sees as clearly as any Member of the Opposition that he cannot give any vote of confidence in the present Government, either in the Taoiseach or in the Minister for Agriculture and Fisheries.
He gives his good reasons why, arising from the court case, more than a heavy veil of suspicion lies over the integrity of the Minister for Agriculture and Fisheries. He does not consider the actions of the Taoiseach over the past year to be blameless. In fact, he considers him to have the principal part in the drama and the disaster that has now engulfed the Fianna Fáil Party. Therefore, he cannot vote for this Government. He does not see, despite this, that now is the opportune time for all the other citizens of this country to judge those events.
Deputy Boland is under no doubt about the manner in which the Government will collect their obedient votes in the Division here tonight. In the course of his speech he refers to "a double-barrelled gun threat of a general election pointed at their heads." Quite obviously, this is the manner in which this Party will presently collect their votes. Every man going into that Lobby tonight behind the Taoiseach and his discredited administration — discredited because no defence has been made of their recent actions in this debate— does so, in Deputy Boland's words, under "the double-barrelled gun threat of a general election". Every vote collected by the Taoiseach tonight will be one collected under that threat.
Who was it who said that a treaty was signed under immediate threat of a terrible war? Those votes will be gathered by the Taoiseach under immediate terrible threat of a general election. The Opposition votes tonight will be cast in the conviction that it is time for the wider democracy to make their voices felt on these events.
The mentality of the Government Party is this. They imagine their quarrel concerns no one but the members of that chosen party, the Fianna Fáil Party. They are always ready to cast aspersions on the Members of this House who are interested in social questions, to smear them and to suggest they are in some way connected with the international Communist movement. We can go nowhere for a parallel of the kind of morality prevailing in the party opposite, save in the Communist totalitarian world, where the party diktat runs. We have to go there for this example of a situation in which personal morality counts no more and in which the morality consists entirely of loyalty to the party diktat. It is there we must go for an example similar to the example they will show in their behaviour in voting here tonight. They contend that the people have no right to judge those events, only the members of the chosen party and, specifically, only the Members of the Parliamentary Party of Fianna Fáil.
When Deputy Haughey was denouncing the Taoiseach and the administration, when he was addressing his fellow-patriots, he never for one moment, even at the height of all those intemperate remarks, departed from his conviction that this did not necessitate a general election. Neither did Deputy Blaney nor Deputy Moran. All these gentlemen could be sweeping in their comments and in their condemnation of this administration, but never once were they rash enough to think that the wider democracy of the people could be involved in this discussion, which they said concerned themselves alone. It does not matter to me what kind of discussion went on in the Fianna Fáil Party. But, unfortunately, they are the Government of this country and the mess they have landed this country in concerns me and every other citizen.
They cannot get away with the idea that their troubles concern only themselves. Unfortunately, their feuding concerns every citizen in this country. The Taoiseach has no desire to dissolve the Dáil. He says it is a story got up by the newspapers and that in dissolving they would be guilty of the same conduct as characterised the two previous Coalition Governments. With all due respect to the Chair, I know of no parallel, in any Government of the State since its foundation, for the kind of conduct we have seen operating as a routine matter in the Government in whom a vote of confidence is being requested tonight.
Another reason given by the Taoiseach why the Dáil should not be dissolved is that there are urgent economic problems to be faced, problems which they will not run away from, whichever problems they are. They propose to proceed with the legislation on prices and incomes. Yet acute observers will note a very decisive shift in this Government's attitude to prices and incomes over the past week. Less than a week ago we saw the Minister for Finance, Deputy Colley, a veritable Cuchulainn, facing the saboteurs of the economy as he saw them; his public relations men got up a stirring photograph of the Minister in shirt sleeves in the Sunday Press last Sunday as he faced the tough decisions he had to make to save the economy. In a few moments I shall say more about the Government's own participation in bringing about the mess the economy is in, not that this is primarily a debate on the economy, but their lack of action on economic affairs is certainly one of the examples of the Government's obsession with conspiracy of arms importation over the past year.
What do we find now? There is a sudden shift in the whole attitude to the control of incomes. We find that the situation is not as acute as it was one week ago. Of course, the whole blundering assay of the Minister for Finance into the area of collective bargaining has left things more insecure and, as other commentators have said, it will mean tougher work for those who are attempting to bring some order into the distribution of incomes.
This Government, if you please, base their claim to continue in power on their proven competence in dealing with the economy. No one would think this was a Government that doubled the turnover tax a few short months ago and brought about increases in prices all over the economy, thus inducing rampant inflation. This is the Government who have presided over a situation in which in two successive years there has been an increase of 8½ per cent in prices. I can find no international parallel for that unless I go down into some of the South American countries. We know other examples of Government misadventure in recent times which suggest a comparison for their behaviour in these same areas, but even in the economic area we must go to that same South American continent for similar examples of such alarming price increases over two successive years.
The Minister for Agriculture and Fisheries, Deputy Gibbons, is a person on whom suspicion has been cast and the Taoiseach has given no good reason in his original contribution why there should be any renewal of trust in Deputy Gibbons. Let us remember also that this Budget was Deputy Haughey's creation when he was Minister for Finance, but his successor, Deputy Colley, did not dissociate himself from that Budget; in fact, he went on record as suggesting that it was a great Budget, despite all the advice of people, not in these Labour benches but the bankers, trade unionists, all manner of persons, all of whom pointed out the dangers implicit in that Budget. All these arguments were ignored and prices continued to soar.
Their present measures suggest that the Government have not learned from their mistakes. These measures will simply mean that this inflationary period will be stalled for some months and will continue its merry progress later on if Fianna Fáil are still around to see it happening.
It might be considered no part of this confidence motion to talk about such mundane matters as the economy. However, there are many people whose disgust at recent events stems from the fact that their affairs have been ignored by this Government which has been involved in scrambled phone conversations, movements of arms, intelligence discussions, all the cloak and dagger nonsense we have seen over the last few months. It is right that this party should bring the attention of this Parliament back to the real problems which face the country. Inflation has been rampart and the proposed measures will not arrest it.
How often have we pointed out here over recent years the defective nature of price control machinery, and day after day the then Minister for Industry and Commerce, Deputy Colley, said the machinery was adequate? His own suggested measures show now that at least he was using wrong judgment in adopting that attitude in this House.
There are numerous other examples of incompetence on the part of this Government which justify a vote of no confidence. There is the rise in unemployment, 10,000 over the last year. Yet the Taoiseach tells the House that one of the basic reasons why his Government cannot depart is their competence in managing the economy.
The Taoiseach is well known for his winning ways, perhaps not so winning in this Parliament, where people must answer simple questions, but certainly in the country. However, I hope tonight he will not be true to his usual form and, with the aid of the clock, escape the valid questions which have been raised in this debate. I hope he will expand his statements and, as Deputy Brendan Corish and other speakers have mentioned, that there will be no churlishness on the part of the Opposition in limiting him to any time. We shall allow him to talk till midnight, if he feels it necessary, to explain his position, in the hope that he will give us a reason for giving a vote of confidence to his Government here tonight, or give material to Deputy Boland and others who have themselves declared they are anxious for any evidence or information which would make them change their course.
Let us remember that the Taoiseach said in New York and at Dublin Airport that there was an attempt to import arms. Could we hear an amplification of that statement? The court has ruled on the conspiracy charge. I hope the Taoiseach will not again describe this debate, as he did in his opening speech, as a device to open old sores. The sores in his party are running over at present. There are no old sores with which we are concerned here tonight. This House has a right to hear of the political acts that accompanied this illegal arms importation. The court has heard the evidence and judged on the conspiracy. The political charges are the ones this House should now hear.
The Leader of the Labour Party, Deputy Brendan Corish, called for the appointment of a select committee of the Dáil under Standing Order 67 to inquire into the use or misuse of the £100,000. At the start of this debate Deputy Corish repeated this request: can we have any answer to this request or any evidence on the Taoiseach's part that he will seriously consider it? Surely this House is entitled to hear exactly what happened to the money which it voted? Is the Taoiseach satisfied that the House has all information in relation to this matter? Will he undertake to provide all information on this matter? Can the Taoiseach say on this matter of the illegal importation of arms that nothing is now hidden and that everything will be opened up to the full scrutiny of the House? Will the report on the special investigation which the Taoiseach has said is under way on the use of the £100,000 be made available to this House? If the matter is finally referred to the courts will we be debarred from discussing it because the matter is sub judice? Will a full report eventually be made to this House? All this information and more is needed from the Taoiseach before we can abide by his standard of ministerial appointment, namely, not the slightest shadow of suspicion must attach to the members of this Government.
There have been several casualties as a result of recent events. It would be idle to suggest that all the casualties occurred to one party. Obviously the whole idea of parliament operating in a democracy has been damaged. Certainly the idea of collective Cabinet responsibility has been damaged by recent events. That concept is spelled out in the Constitution.
The Government shall meet and act as a collective authority, and shall be collectively responsible for the Departments of State administered by the members of the Government.
That principle of the Constitution has not been abided by. It has been ignored. There is the whole matter of the conduct of the Government. The Taoiseach has said frequently that he is against the use of force, he is against the illegal usurpation of rights by any group in the name of the people. This party believes passionately in the importance of this Parliament as a democratic forum of people's rights and the questions affecting the people. The whole idea of parliament has been damaged to say the least by the conduct of the Government in recent months.
The judge in court referred to different standards in Dáil debates—a relativity of truth which is quite permissible in answering questions and in giving accounts to this House. What is the power of the Dáil when we know nothing about the eventual fate of money which we vote?
There is also the question of the Taoiseachship, quite apart from the holder of that office at present. My idea of Taoiseach was that he should know always exactly what was going on in every Department of State. The present Taoiseach's alibi has been: "I did not know. Nobody told me." Throughout the court case we heard from the deposed Ministers that they could not contact the Taoiseach that weekend. Are we dealing with a sub-continent, a small country or a small state? Exactly where was the Taoiseach that weekend?
Deputy Gibbons never told me.
The office of Taoiseach has been damaged by recent events. The present holder of that office considers it more essential to have an alibi than to know what is going on. Deputy Boland made the point, and I agree with him, the principal reason we cannot vote in this vote of confidence tonight is because of the present holder of the office of Taoiseach. Deputy Boland also referred to the fact that the Taoiseach has all the cards in this debate tonight. We are discussing and we shall vote on the Taoiseach's own motion yet the Taoiseach in defence of his own motion in his opening speech on this debate gave us no reason. He dealt with the whole matter in a flippant fashion and said he would answer questions of moment at the end of the debate. He advanced no material case for any change of attitude on the part of one single member of this House in opening the debate.
Neither the Taoiseach nor any member of his Cabinet has said anything in defence of their recent conduct of public affairs. Deputy Boland has been waiting for some adequate defence but he has waited in vain. It is not sufficient defence to attack the Labour Party in such a situation. If the Labour Party is guilty of any error it is the error of innocence, it is the error of thinking that our democracy should be one in which real policies are discussed. Our politics should be concerned with how exactly we manage our economy, our public affairs, and these are the matters which we think proper and appropriate for political discussion. These are the matters about which political parties should concern themselves. We plead guilty to that instance if that is our only error. If the Taoiseach thinks he can enter a general election campaign with his only defence being attacks on Labour Party inconsistencies let him take that theory to the people. Let him go to the people with the defence that the Labour Party are inconsistent and our policies conflict one with the other. I do not think such a defence will be sufficient protection for the way in which he has conducted affairs in recent months. We are still waiting for the Taoiseach to suggest any reason why we should change our attitude on the kind of things on which he seeks a vote of confidence.
The Taoiseach has, in my opinion, been a disaster as Taoiseach. He was evasive over northern policy. How often have we on this side of the House mentioned to the Taoiseach in recent years the apparent inconsistencies between members of his own Cabinet on this vital question? How often has he tossed these objections aside as mere Opposition small talk, yet how tragically right we were? The things the Taoiseach referred to as a difference of emphasis were, as we rightly thought, wide differences that led to loss of life in the North of Ireland because of the participation of elements of the Government opposite in sectarian strife in that part of the country. The Taoiseach cannot claim lack of knowledge; he is responsible for not acting at that time.
I have put down parliamentary questions about civil rights in the north and it was clear to me that there was a wide divergence of opinion on the benches opposite yet day after day the Taoiseach ignored the evidence of his own eyes. Last year the Taoiseach had what he referred to as a firm conversation with Deputy Blaney. It afterwards transpired that that firm conversation took place on those steps as the two of them were walking down to take their places before Question Time. As Deputy Blaney rightly said, it was the shortest firm chat that has ever taken place because all the Taoiseach asked him was: "Do you agree with Fianna Fáil policy?". God knows what is Fianna Fáil policy at this point of time. The Taoiseach insisted on thinking that no difference existed between members of his party about this mysterious entity known as "Fianna Fáil policy".
It is a harmless occupation for Opposition parties to indulge in policy conflicts. It may be conducive to a maturing of political thought in the democracy in which they operate. But it is a dangerous thing when the government in power has to deal with a potentially dangerous situation, a situation which, in fact, flared up into conflict, to harbour men in a Cabinet who hold diametrically opposed views on how to act. The Taoiseach ignored the evidence of his own eyes day after day, pretended nothing was wrong. At a time when he should have acted he ignored the warning signs. Obviously he is incompetent to lead any Government.
I would say that the Taoiseach, contrary to the general opinion, perhaps, that his own party would like to project of him—or certain members of it—at that period, it is quite clear, was guilty of moral cowardice. He lacked the moral courage then to deal with people who obviously disagreed profoundly with Government policy.
That is not true.
He did not act in time and, accepting the principle of collective Cabinet responsibility under the Constitution, he had a certain duty when the full disaster of these differences became known to take the only honourable course. In fact that is the opinion—we have Deputy Boland's word for it. This vote taking place here tonight, he said, will not represent the full extent of the differences felt within the Fianna Fáil Party with the policies of the Taoiseach. Deputy Boland has said quite clearly that the men going in behind the Taoiseach tonight do not in their hearts support him or his policy.
At least he is honest about it.
He has given us the secret weapon of the Taoiseach which, according to Deputy Blaney he has used consistently over recent months, the double-barrelled gun threat of a general election. These are the methods by which the Taoiseach has held this crumbling edifice of Fianna Fáil together. These are the methods he will be using tonight.
There are only three Deputies behind him now.
And one of these did a double shuffle.
There are 75.
Some bright young men who changed their minds overnight.
Deputy Desmond should cease interrupting.
There is no way of knowing how we can measure the extent of the support for the Taoiseach within the Fianna Fáil Party. Obviously, there are those within the party who consider that the unity of the party — whatever they mean by that— must be achieved with the removal of the Taoiseach. They wish to do it, however, without the intervention of a general election; they wish to keep their assassination within the party and away from the people. They do not wish to consult the people on this matter but to do their own assassination——
In our own good time we will do that.
Perfect.
That is the best admission we have heard.
After the vote.
In opening this debate the Taoiseach said that there was now a volume of opinion abroad that this would be a propitious time for Fianna Fáil to go to the country. He said that last week. It may be. Nobody in the Opposition, as far as I know, knows the mind of the electorate. We are quite modest in our demands tonight: we merely ask the Government to give the people an opportunity of judging these late events, judging their confidence in this Government. The Taoiseach may well be right: we know the excellent intelligence service at his disposal. It may be a propitious time for him. We invite him: please, in the name of democracy, go before the people and let us have authoritatively the voice and mandate and wishes of the people. We are not saying there will be a victory for any element of the Opposition in this general election. We are merely making the request in the name of the people and saying: "Let us have this general election; let the people decide".
After the verdict the kind of Government that finally emerges will also be decided by the people in its shape and composition and if the cynical estimate of Fianna Fáil is correct, that what has been exposed in the past few months, is not remarkable — the loss of £100,000 voted in this Parliament and gone God knows where under false names, scrambled telephone conversations and all the sordid manoeuvring and intrigue that has been regurgitated in the press in recent weeks, and all these events — if it is their cynical estimate that the people take that as a matter of course, and that such is their attitude to standards in public life, Fianna Fáil will be returned here and some people in the Opposition may be surprised.
The democratic system and the Parliament of which we are all Members is also based on a matter of trust. The authority we gain from the people is a fragile thing. It is trust between the elected representatives and the people and it is my opinion that the fragile bond has been broken by this Administration and that in fact they must now renew their mandate in a general election.
Hear, hear.
It is not enough that the Government have this majority, that they have these reluctant voters—that in fact is what they are — here tonight. I do not know of any better name for the kind of voting the Taoiseach will get here tonight than simple political blackmail. That is what these Deputies are subjecting themselves to tonight. Fianna Fáil is a party expert in formulae. Traditionally, it has managed to wriggle through many formulae and still see integrity at the end of the tunnel. I understand that. Theology has been a strong point with that party but I put this to them. Deputy Boland, a member of their own party, a pillar of their organisation, architect of their victory last year — the Taoiseach was not the architect; the man who got down into the earthworks and arranged the contested areas and carved up the country was Deputy Boland — spoke here clearly and said that he could see no way out of his dilemma: he could not see himself voting for this Administration, either for the Taoiseach or the Minister for Agriculture and Fisheries. Did none of those present hear his heart cry yesterday when he said: Give me a good reason. I do not wish to depart from this Fianna Fáil Party where I have worked for so many years. I would still like to continue supporting this party. Please give me some evidence why in fact I should continue to do so. Give me some proof that the Fianna Fáil Party is the party I worked in, day in, day out, month by month and year by year?
The Taoiseach will totally demean his office and this Parliament if later tonight he comes here and gives us another soft-spoken alibi and once more evades the questions raised in this debate. I do not know what the inner planners — if there are any left in the Cabinet or party opposite — have dreamed up for either tomorrow or the next few months but I say that at some stage the party will have to face the electorate. This majority will not go on indefinitely and the mutiny in the party will not be stilled by any formulae or votes of confidence. If they have decided to fight this out among themselves at some stage an election will interrupt their quarrel. At some stage the people's voice and judgment will be heard on all these events. I recommend to the party opposite a saying taken from—I could probably nearly say the New Testament—"The One Hundred Best Sayings of Éamon de Valera: letter to John Dillon, January 30th, 1918"—those blooming days when all was integrity——: "We ought not allow ourselves to be manoeuvred into professing a loyalty which we cannot feel —" words from the master.
I would recommend to those followers of Éamon de Valera, if there are any in the party opposite, those words: "We ought not allow ourselves to be manoeuvred into professing a loyalty which we cannot feel". Deputy Boland does not intend to be manoeuvred into a loyalty he does not feel. I do not know how many Deputies in the party opposite, because of the double-barrelled threat of a general election, will allow themselves to be manoeuvred into a loyalty they do not feel to the Taoiseach, his Minister for Agriculture and Fisheries and other members of his Cabinet. I recommend to them that statement by the founder of their party. They may save themselves from a general election. They may troop faithfully into the Division Lobby, but finally it is the people who will judge the kind of loyalty they have to the Taoiseach. It is time we had a cleansing operation. It is time the people spoke. It is time their verdict was heard. It is time to end this circus.
It is provided by the Constitution in Article 28, sub-paragraph 10, that a Taoiseach who loses the confidence of the Dáil shall resign. There is no question of his having a discretion as to whether he does or does not do the honourable thing. The Constitution—and, in this regard, there was a repetition of a provision which is as old as parlimentary democracy—makes it clear that once a Taoiseach, a Prime Minister, is seen to have lost the confidence of the elected House, then out he will go. It is well to remember this Constitutional provision because the reality of this motion, which Dáil Éireann will decide tonight, is that the present Taoiseach, realising that he had lost irreparably the confidence of a sufficient number of Deputies in his own party, sufficient to bring into operation the Constitutional provisions requiring him to resign his office, is now forcing the dissidents, out of fear, to behave like mice instead of like men.
The Taoiseach never enjoyed the confidence of the Deputies on your right, a Cheann Comhairle. He enjoyed, or appeared to enjoy, the confidence of a sufficient number of Deputies on your left until these events with which this debate has been concerned broke into public notice. Realising what the machinery of the Constitution requires, he is now exercising one of the most contemptible devices known to the frightened politician and that is to spread his fear amongst those who might harm or injure him. Of course it will succeed. No less than an hour ago we saw evidence of that. Behind the Taoiseach tonight, up into that Lobby, will walk men who have conspired against him——
Hear, hear.
——men who distrust him——
Hear, hear.
——men who dislike him, men who even hate him. But they they will walk up behind him into that Lobby tonight. Behind him also will walk men, groups, who have conspired against each other, who distrust each other, who dislike and even hate each other. They will all walk in the same direction with a sick unity of purpose as an united party because, on this one issue and for this one moment, in abject humiliation, they are all together from the Taoiseach down to the lowest Fianna Fáil Deputy: they are all united because of the common fear of a dissolution of this Dáil and being brought before the people.
Hear, hear.
And so, tonight, at half past ten, we will have a great display of unity in the Fianna Fáil Party —the dreadful, cold, clammy unity of fear.
Hear, hear.
Let those who take part in this charade remember that those who have plotted will continue to plot. Those who have been wielding hatchets and who have ostensibly buried them today will, when tonight is over, brush away the soil and take out their hatchets once the fear is removed. But what is subverted tonight will come inevitably sooner or later.
There is a third party involved in all this. There are the people outside who look to this House and look at it, who look to the Leader of this House and who expect a certain standard of conduct from those who are entrusted freely and honourably by them with the control of our democracy. They have witnessed the sorry, pathetic spectacle of the inner fighting and the inner feuding inside the Fianna Fáil Party for many years now, for so many years that it has become a national scandal. It did not start when, in his dressing gown, Deputy Charles Haughey, without notice to him apparently, but with plenty of notice to the TV cameras and the press reporters, was arrested and brought down to the Bridewell to enjoy the scorn of the ordinary people at an early hour in the morning. The feuding in Fianna Fáil did not start then. It started, and the Taoiseach knows it and every Deputy in his disunited party knows it, the very moment Mr. Seán Lemass decided he was going to retire. Those who saw his shoes and felt their feet would fit them preened themselves for the battle and the contenders were Deputy Haughey and the present Minister for Finance, Deputy Colley. That was the confrontation. Neither was acceptable to the power bosses behind the scenes. Deputy Haughey had not a sufficient Fianna Fáil record or tradition and Deputy Colley was obviously faulted on some other ground.
Let us remember the score. Into the ring came two more hats, one belonging to Deputy Blaney and the other to Deputy Boland. The issue to be decided was the leadership of the Fianna Fáil Party. At the last minute, before the crunch, they decided to withdraw from this particular engagement or fight and to postpone it for another day. They all decided, apart from Deputy Colley, that they would ask Deputy Lynch to become leader of Fianna Fáil and he subsequently described his election, fairly and accurately, as being a compromise and he termed himself a via media.
Compromises, where there are tough, ambitious men involved, seldom solve anything. It is fair to say that in the dying days of 1966 the tough internal struggle inside Fianna Fáil continued to gather momentum. I will not go back over the score. Deputies will remember the jockeying for position by different Ministers of that Government, the unilateral statements by individual Ministers of what they regarded as Government policy, forcing the Government subsequently to endorse what they said. We had full and plenty of this performance by different contenders while all the time they were assuring the Taoiseach that everything was all right.
It is clear now that in this deplorable pathetic period in the last four years the Taoiseach was the captive of his own Ministers and of those who put him into power. He could not control the situation. We had Deputy Blaney as Minister for Agriculture and Fisheries, solely in charge of a war against the farmers in which no one could interfere or end because he did not wish to end it. We had a situation in which other Ministers carried on their own particular interests without any interference from the Taoiseach. The fact was that this Taoiseach feared his Ministers. He regarded himself as inadequate in relation to his Ministers and this pathetic Government crawled on from one crisis to another, never coming to a decision and never solving any problem.
Of course, the country suffered badly. Problems were recognised and looked at but never solved. As they were not solved they continued to grow, and in the struggle and scramble for power, place and privilege the problems of the people did not count. Inevitably, the country drifted and has drifted since then and let us make no mistake about it. We have not had any leadership in the past four years. At least in the days of Seán Lemass there were plans, blueprints and programmes. They may not have succeeded but they gave some evidence of a Government that had some ideas about policies. However, since Deputy Lynch became Taoiseach there have been no such plans. There has not been any effort to define Government policy because it does not exist; in order to find out what it is or likely to be one would have to get the Government together and a decision made and that proved impossible.
Of course the country drifted, but who cared? Each element in Fianna Fáil was watching the other and all the time the Taoiseach was being assured that everything was all right. It was inevitable that this country in due course would end, as it has, in a serious economic crisis which endangers the way of life and the standard of living of every decent worker. This has happened because in the last three years we have had a Government of lobbyists, distrusting one another and not concerned to do the job for which they were elected.
Inflation was allowed to spread insidiously because the Government could not make up their mind and in any event was not thinking of doing anything. Those of us outside the Government, on the Opposition benches, had been concerned about the manner in which the Government had been acting in the last three years. However, serious as it appeared to us then, it now seems ten times worse as a result of the disclosures in the recent conspiracy trial. It appears from the evidence given at that trial that the doctrine of collective responsibility has neither functioned nor been preached under the leadership of the Taoiseach. It appears from the evidence at the trial that Government meetings were held from time to time without ever reaching a decision and it is obvious that there was no communication between the Taoiseach and members of the Government. From evidence at the trial it appears that members of the Government regarded it as unnecessary to have any proper control of funds and moneys voted by the Dáil. It was also obvious that not only was there a general grading among Ministers but there was general and widespread distrust among members of the Government——
No one was shot like your uncle.
My uncle, I am proud to say, fell in the course of duty and I would recommend that as a proper ordinance for any member of a Government.
Hear, hear.
It was inevitable——
It is a rogues' gallery.
Will Deputy Lenehan please desist.
It was inevitable from the evidence disclosed at that trial that such a Government could not continue to operate. There was no collective responsibility whatever. Do Deputies realise that under the leadership of the man who asks this House tonight for a Vote of Confidence three members of the Government were given, in effect, the power of peace and war? Is it appreciated that three members of a Government could have delegated to them unspecified powers in relation to the arming of people in this country without any recourse to any higher authority? That was done by a Government presided over by the present Taoiseach whose only excuse afterwards was: "Nobody told me that anything was wrong". When it transpired that one member of that ministerial subcommittee was a man who frequently and openly had flouted Government policy both inside and outside this House, one can only regard the action, or inaction, of the Taoiseach as being so serious as to be utterly irresponsible. Of course it was to end in disaster. Of course in the end a government so run would find that the bounds were overstepped. I assert, a Cheann Comhairle, that as a result of the intervention and the disclosures of his knowledge by the Leader of the Opposition eventually and finally the Taoiseach was prodded into action.
Hear, hear.
We know well what was going on on 5th May. It is perfectly clear now that the Minister for Justice who, on Friday, 19th April, had deserted his post, was sacked by the Taoiseach, not on grounds of health or for any reason of that kind but because he was part of a counterplot inside the Cabinet and the others would have been dealt with on health or some other grounds in due course, but action had to be taken because the information was in the hands of the Opposition. We had the sacking of two Ministers and then the painful pretence for the next ten days until eventually both of them were arrested and brought down to the Bridewell to be charged with conspiracy, in effect, against the State.
I will not go any further into the details of the trial. It has been referred to by many Deputies in this debate. I am not going to express any view as to the verdict one way or the other. I want to say that what has happened before, during and since that trial has besmirched our name and our reputation among the nations of the world.
Hear, hear.
That is bad enough but something more serious has happened. The manner in which this Government have been run and led and the way they have conducted themselves have bred among our people a contempt for politicians and for the institutions of the State.
Hear, hear.
That is the tragedy.
That is a very serious result. Other things have happened. It transpires now that the misconduct of this Government and its Ministers — and, I assert, of every one of them because each one of them either knew well what was going on or ought to have known what was going on-either by commission or omission has endangered the very security of this State. They have also imperilled the loyalty of our Garda force and our Army. Is it to be forgotten that some weeks before the disclosures of 5th May of this year an unfortunate garda was shot down in the course of his duty and our Garda force, officers and men, who are a disciplined body of men with honourable, proud and courageous traditions, were not allowed to do their duty——
Hear, hear.
——under this weak and vacillating Government because one group of Ministers might be offended if the gardaí upheld the law of the land? What are we to think? Only ten days ago a body of armed, uniformed men marched down O'Connell Street and discharged guns in front of the GPO and marched on with people hurling insults and jeers at the gardaí who were standing idly by, because that is what they were instructed to do. Where are this Government going if we have a government carried on in this way by men without strength or courage, without minds of their own, without aims and ambitions, and above all without knowing their own friends? Where can we go except further towards destruction and harm for the people?
Integrity used to be, and I always hoped it would remain, the one proud possession of anyone who sought the honourable vocation of serving his people in Dáil Éireann or in the politics of his nation. One thing one should always be proud to have is his personal integrity, his belief in the things he stands for and a determination never to dishonour that integrity or that belief. Where is integrity today? What has happened to that kind of personal honour?
The Minister for Agriculture and Fisheries is being talked about. We know the manner in which he deliberately deceived this House. That is a matter for his conscience but the result is something for us because it means that so long as he continues to be a Member of the Government then those who associate with him cannot share a belief in the kind of integrity that should operate in government. What are we to think of the Taoiseach who came into this House on 14th May and said he had made inquiries about the expenditure of money voted by the Oireachtas and that he was satisfied nothing had gone wrong? What kind of inquiries were made? Was it like Nelson looking with his blind eye through the telescope? Was that the kind of inquiry it was? What are we to think of the latest piece of deception when only last Thursday the Minister for Finance, Deputy Colley, was asked about the expenditure of State funds and in particular the lodging of these funds in two bank accounts and he replied:
No money was lodged in my Department to either of the two accounts mentioned.
As the Department of Finance had not any control over and did not exercise any function in relation to, either of the two accounts or any such like accounts, I am not in a position to reply to parts... of Deputy Cooney's question.
This reply was designed to tell Dáil Éireann that whatever money was lodged in a bank in Clones and whatever money was lodged in a bank in Baggot Street the Department of Finance knew nothing about it. I want to assert that that reply was intended to deceive the Dáil.
Hear, hear.
The following day the Irish Red Cross who had been mentioned as having received this money issued a statement in which they said they had got the money but it was followed by a written instruction from the Department of Finance to transfer the moneys to banks in Clones and Baggot Street in the names of three persons with whom the Red Cross had had no previous connection. I want to know from the Taoiseach under what circumstances in this hour and in this situation could the Minister for Finance be permitted to answer a Parliamentary Question in the manner in which he answered it, clearly indicating by the nature of the answer a situation which was contrary to the facts.
Hear, hear.
Where is this deception to end? We have seen in the past ten days a pathetic performance, already referred to by Deputy Cruise-O'Brien, of the Government, through the Minister for Finance, announcing a policy in relation to inflation followed by a clear statement that these particular matters would not be and could not be negotiated. And then the roar of anger arose throughout the country. Was that the reason, or was it the fact that the following night there was an acquittal in Court No. 1 in the Four Courts? Or was it because immediately following that, across the broad Atlantic, two sections of Fianna Fáil hurled abuse at one another through Telestar, with an astounded world looking on.
Whatever the reason was, we know that on the Taoiseach's return on Monday, on the eve of the Fianna Fáil meeting, after a spontaneous reception at Collinstown, there was a sudden change. "Yes, the 12th round may go on", because, of course, Deputy Haughey, who had got up on a butter box outside the main hall in the Four Courts and addressed those around him as "fellow patriots", had announced that he was opposing the financial measures of the Government. Then we had the announcement: "Scrub it out, boys. The 12th round may go on".
Why? Because the Taoiseach went into consultation with the Minister for Finance in an effort to square it before he went into the party meeting. Then we had the Minister for Finance telling the House: "All right, the final plan now is only 6 per cent from now on and we will stand firm on that." Then we had the newspaper commentators: "Timmons is not certain to back them; Foley is uncertain and nobody knows what Flor Crowley will do." So, lo and behold, during the week-end we had the announcement: "Forget about the 6 per cent, boys."
What kind of a Government have we: no plan, no policy, no leadership, no trust, carrying on from problem to problem and from day to day? The dissidents, God bless them, where are they? Are they outside fortifying themselves for the long walk up the stairs and the turn to the left? One of them, Deputy Boland, more power to him, acted with honour at least, and although I have disagreed with him many times on many questions, and will be proud to disagree with him in the future many times on many questions, I want to say he has and had what I have been talking about, integrity.
But what about Deputy Haughey, the man who addressed those outside the Four Courts as fellow patriots? Is he just a verbal warrior, a verbal patriot? What are we to think of Deputy Haughey? During the weekend he issued a statement and he announced that he was going to pledge tonight by the way he voted his confidence in the Taoiseach and in every member of the Government, including Deputy Gibbons, his confidence in Deputy Colley and in all the rest of them. Why? He will do so because "the only alternative to a Fianna Fáil Government at the moment is political chaos". He went on: "In the best interests of the country, therefore, I believe I must put aside all other considerations at this time."
A suspended sentence.
The alternative to Fianna Fáil is political chaos. What have we now? What do we look forward to under a continuance of this Government? Chaos. There is not one single thing that this Government now agree on except their determination to stay in office. "The alternative... is political chaos." The impertinence of that little man. How dare he say that there is no alternative to Fianna Fáil? On this side of the House, I am proud to say, there is a tradition of service to this nation, even at the cost of a man's life, and I think it is fair to say of most parliaments freely elected throughout the world that there is a large share of talent and of men dedicated to the task.
Who is this man, Haughey, who dares to say there is no alternative to Fianna Fáil? If the people want the alternative they are entitled to it and no group of scheming politicians will stop them from getting it.
You will be there until you are sick.
It was a sick party that took you in.
Is this sordid story to end tonight? It will if there are men of honour still left in Fianna Fáil. Or is this merely the beginning of chapter two while we wait from now until the Fianna Fáil Ard-Fheis when we will watch with shame—let me say it—the lobbying and scheming and the operations of the Letterkenny parliament on Leinster Lawn? Is this to continue while those men whose votes the Taoiseach purchases by fear tonight continue their scheming and plotting against him, all because men are forced to act as mice and are not prepared to stand on their own feet?
Is this to continue? I do not know. If it does, our democracy will suffer because, let there be no doubt about it, parliamentary democracy based on our Constitution depends on a very clear high standard in high places. The sustenance of parliamentary democracy depends on an understanding by the leader of a government that the government are bound to have a tight majority behind them and can, therefore, decide things which are subsequently legislated here. It is very essential to the proper functioning of that democracy that whenever it appears the government have lost the confidence of the people, whenever it appears the government have a serious loss of credibility, the moral clear sanction of an election should occur. Is there anyone in this country outside the sullied and batterd ranks of Fianna Fáil who can deny that everybody in the country is demanding a general election at this moment?
Hear, hear.
All political parties, except Fianna Fáil, all the newspapers, including the Irish Press, every organ of opinion believes that the time has come to dissolve this Dáil, because everybody knows that we have reached not merely an economic crisis but a crisis of confidence between the people and the Government.
A well-known columnist has called the Taoiseach "Honest Jack." Personal probity is one thing and a very valuable thing: political honour is another thing, also valuable and at times difficult to retain. Deputy Haughey, who joined in the condemnation of the Taoiseach as a felon-setter and so on, will support the Taoiseach tonight as will the other dissidents, whoever they may be. They are all going in to express confidence in this Government and in the leader of the Government. Can the Taoiseach say honestly to himself that they are doing this out of conviction because they believe in him? Can he, with honour, say after this vote tonight that he has the confidence of Dáil Éireann and of his party? Does he not know that he is getting a vote from frightened men who have been forced into a situation which they are not big enough to withstand? "Honest Jack" is the name that has been applied to the leader of Fianna Fáil. If he is honest he must realise that he heads now the greatest mixum-gatherum of a Government that has ever been known.
Hear, hear.
I have no wish to swap insults but I suggest that a better team and a better Government can be found from the other side of the House.
Which side?
I want to make a recommendation to the Taoiseach: Be honest, Jack, stand up to your responsibilities; stand up to the trust that was placed in you by the people of this country. Now, when you have no mandate, when it is clear that the Government have no mandate, when behind you are those who seek to tear down the very edifice of this State, be honest, clear out the Augean stables, dissolve Dáil Éireann and go to the country.
I do not know whether Deputy O'Higgins expected to terrify me or the members of this party by the ranting and raving speech that he has just delivered. However, it is often a good point when beginning a debate to refer to some of the remarks of the last speaker. I shall do this although there are many others on which I would like to comment in the course of my reply.
Deputy O'Higgins suggested that for the past four years this country has had neither leadership, policy, control nor confidence. I should like to throw Deputy O'Higgin's mind back a little, as well as the minds of many of those behind him, and the minds of some outside observers. I became Taoiseach in 1966. I continued as Taoiseach during 1967, 1968 and up to the middle of 1969—that was almost three years continuation in office — but much to Deputy O'Higgins's surprise and disappointment I was returned in 1969 with a better majority than I went out with.
Hear, hear.
If there was this lack of trust, this lack of control, or this lack of policy, what were the people doing in June of 1969? What were Fine Gael and Labour doing then? Were they so inept as a possible alternative Government, either alone or together? Were they so inept or incapable of forming a Government that they could not convince the people of that lack of confidence or of that lack of leadership? Is it not obvious that Deputy O'Higgins was braying to the stars when he suggested that the set-up was as he tried to paint it? This was the period when there was the so-called war between our Government and the farmers. On occasions during that time there were by-elections which we won one after another. Yet, Deputy O'Higgins has the gall and the cheek to suggest that the people did not have confidence in that Government or did not have confidence in me. He need only cast his mind back to his disappointment and his dejection on the 18th June, 1969.
Hear, hear.
At the outset I want to refer to the policies that we have put forward for dealing with the present economic situation. I want to say that our objective is, first, to reduce and eventually halt the continuous rise in prices. As part of the measures— part but an important part—to achieve this result the Government announced statutory proposals to regulate prices and incomes. The legislation to give effect to these measures will be debated in this House next week.
Since the measures were announced the Government have made two alterations in the proposals. The first was that wage agreements already entered into prior to the 16th October, which still had some time to run and which embodied some further increases, should be allowed to run their course. This change in particular has been interpreted as a sign of weakness on the part of the Government. I assert emphatically that that is not the case. Our policy objective of securing the earliest possible end to inflationary pressures remains unaltered. Neither has the need to achieve an early improvement in any way diminished. What the Government have done by the announcement of these changes is, first, to moderate the impact and hence the speed with which the measures will remedy the position and, secondly, to provide a limited period within which the unions and the employers can secure a more acceptable formula for moderating the rate of income increases than that which was proposed initially by the Government.
These modifications came about by due democratic process and by the process of discussion and consultation. The Executive Committee of the Irish Congress of Trade Unions sought an interview with me and my colleagues who had responsibility in this field and we met them in this House after the Dáil had adjourned last Thursday. They put forward to us the suggestion that even though the Employer-Labour Conference had failed to come to a satisfactory agreement, or settlement, over a period of six months negotiating in working committee and in plenary session, they said they could try again to reach a satisfactory settlement provided the Government withdrew the 6 per cent ceiling from the legislation we proposed to introduce. It was for that reason, to produce if possible an acceptable agreement between employers and workers within the limits of what the Government regarded as feasible in the present situation, we decided not to proceed for the present with the 6 per cent ceiling. Nevertheless we are determined to fix an appropriate ceiling by ministerial order, and will do so whether or not it is possible to reach an acceptable agreement.
The scope for these actions arose because it emerged that the Government's attitude to inflation had advanced at a faster rate than that thought to be correct, thought to be appropriate, by sections of the community.
In the case of the 12th round agreement already negotiated, for example, the opposition to our original proposal largely centred on the point that it was unfair to go back on existing agreements. We agreed it was unfair. The Government's view was that continued inflation would eat away the real gains so that the larger money wage would go in higher prices. I wonder which is the more unfair? Which is the less damaging to the recipient of increases? To tell people openly that their real living standards cannot rise as quickly as they might wish and to indicate realistic figures for worthwhile income increases, or to say nothing—say nothing and have the same result achieved by the more silent but equally certain mechanism of price rises? Since there appeared to be a strong attachment to getting money increases even though part of the money might be swallowed up by inflation the Government agreed to allow existing agreements to run their course. One result of this change will be that it will take longer than we originally intended to bring inflation under control.
The second change, postponing the decision as to the amount of permissible pay increases, is, as I said, designed to provide the Irish Congress of Trade Unions and the employers with every possible opportunity to produce a pay formula which would conform with the country's requirements. The Government, however, will still insist on income increases of a size that will contribute to a substantial easing of inflationary pressures in 1971. That was our intention with the figures that we originally produced and that is still our intention. At the same time the Government recognise that the suggested figures are not the sole or unique ones to achieve the required result. If there is some alternative combination of figures which produces the same result but in a more acceptable manner then by all means let us have it. I assert that the willingness to discuss or recognise the possibility that a scheme may be capable of improvement is not a sign of weakness or uncertainty; on the contrary it is only those who are unclear about their views or uncertain about their capacity to advance them who must fear discussion or any alteration of them.
I said earlier that our prices and incomes policies were part of our programme for dealing with inflation. The budgetary measures which we introduced last week were another important part. I should have thought that it would be unnecessary for me to make this point but Deputy Cosgrave saw fit to describe them as irrelevant when he was speaking in this debate last week. What an amazing statement to come from Deputy Cosgrave. Here we have a man who would claim to form a Government, one who earlier had seen fit to criticise the Government's handling of the economic situation, making a statement which displays either a total misunderstanding of, or a complete lack of interest in, our economic affairs. Perhaps Deputy Cosgrave might have swallowed the line put forward by some newspapers that our economic problems have been manufactured and trumped up by the Government in order to divert public attention from other matters. Perhaps he might consult with his colleague, Deputy Garret FitzGerald who, I am sure, would quickly disabuse him on that score.
I said in opening this debate that it was likely that its true purpose would be lost sight of, that we would be debating not confidence in the present Government but the difficulties in which the Government in which some Ministers were replaced found themselves. I still think that what we must debate and must vote on tonight is the confidence and the credibility of this Government.
Hear, hear.
"Hear, hear" from Deputy Cruise-O'Brien. He said that our credibility was shattered. The first essential to have credibility shattered is to have credibility and Deputy Cruise-O'Brien has none.
Hear, hear.
I want to deal with what inevitably became one of the main themes of this debate, the recent arms trial, but only in matters of some detail. I am not going to comment otherwise. I want to say that it was not my desire that the prosecution would take place and I want to say too that it was my duty when certain information was available to me about an alleged breach of an Act of the Oireachtas that I should have placed that information at the disposal of the Attorney General. The Attorney General as was his duty considered that information at the disposal of the complete sought further information and had further investigations conducted. The prosecution has now taken place. In the course of it all the relevant evidence concerning the attempted importation of arms, all the relevant evidence that it was possible to produce, has been made available to the court and to the public.
I would refer only to some aspects of that case. In the first place, as the House is aware, during the course of the evidence it was stated that some portion of the £100,000 which the Government decided to make available, and that this House voted for the relief of distress amongst people who were victims of that distress in the north of Ireland troubles, was used to pay for the arms in respect of which an attempt was made to import. Yesterday, Deputy FitzGerald accused me of misleading the House in a reference I made to the means whereby these arms were purchased, the reference I made in this House during the course of the long debate on the last Confidence Motion that we had. Deputy FitzGerald quoted from that debate. I think I shall do the same. I said, in winding up the Confidence Motion:
I want to add that I made specific inquiries as to whether any moneys could have been voted or could have been paid out of Exchequer funds or out of any public funds in respect of a consignment of arms of the size we have been dealing with and I am assured that there was not nor could not have been.
So, that was a statement of fact. I challenged the Deputy yesterday to indicate in what way I misled the House. He immediately said that if I did not mislead the House I was putting up an alibi of incompetence. Deputy FitzGerald went on to say:
All the Taoiseach had to do was to ask the appropriate officials of the Department of Finance and they would have told him where the money had gone.
I want to tell Deputy FitzGerald that that is exactly what I did. I caused an examination to be made, before I made the statement in this House, as to how these arms might have been paid for. The Department of Finance having examined all the relevant papers, gave me the information on which I based that statement. So, I take it that if that is the basis on which the Deputy charged me with incompetence he can withdraw that charge too—or does he want to allege incompetence——
No.
——against the officials of the Department of Finance on whose examination I based my statement? Let me say, however, and without in any way trying to evade this issue, that it was during the course of further investigations and, in fact, from that very day on which a statement was taken from one of the witnesses in the arms trial when suspicion for the first time came from that statement that some of the money voted for the relief of the distress might have been used for arms, it was only in the course of those further investigations and ultimately in the course of cross-examination of one of the defendants in the trial that the evidence came that it was so used.
When I returned from New York last week I held a press conference. I was asked about that particular money. I told the press that a more intensive examination had been ordered in the Department of Finance; that, as well as that, during the course of the getting of evidence for the arms trial, the gardaí investigated as well the accounts and other matters relating to the disposal of these moneys. I said to the press conference and I repeat here tonight that the gardaí inquiries were inhibited because of the bank strike, that inquiries are not yet completed but that they are continuing. I do not know what result they will produce. Whatever result they will produce, if it indicates a course of action then that course of action will be taken. But I want also to say that, irrespective of what action might be taken, I fully acknowledge and I accept completely that the Committee of Public Accounts of this House is a competent and is a right body to deal with that matter.
When?
We will await the outcome of the investigation to which I have referred. I hope it will not be long more. I have no desire whatever in any way to keep the facts of this transaction from the House or from the public.
During the course of this debate some rather contemptous remarks were passed, even tonight by Deputy M. O'Leary, about my non-availability at crucial times all during this particular period that we are dealing with. Deputy Haughey stated in evidence that, in the week he was contacted in relation to the difficulties with customs officials, that were encountered by those importing the arms he had learned from my office that I was not available. I want to say that Deputy Haughey was mistaken in his evidence: I will say no more than that because I have no intention of making any more of it.
However, I want to say, in relation to Deputy M. O'Leary's charge, that I was in fact available. I was in my home on the Saturday and again on Sunday and I was in my office on Monday and at a Government meeting on Tuesday. I was available for any contact that was required to be made with me.
I want now to put on record something I have already stated in relation to this trial. One of the defendants, John Kelly, stated in unsworn evidence that, from the Taoiseach down, no member of the Government had refused their request—the request of deputations that had seen members of the Government—for the supply of arms. I think that evidence referred, in particular, to a delegation that came to this House and saw a number of Ministers on 3rd March last. I think I was the first member of the Government to be seen; I remember it well because I was asked to see them. I was engaged most of the afternoon and I left this House during Question Time. I saw them during Question Time and came back again for the Order of Business because I expected there might be some difficulty about ordering the business. I told that delegation, and every other delegation that came to me, that the Government could not overtly or covertly make arms available. That is an incontrovertible fact.
I want to come to some parts of the statement made by Deputy Boland here yesterday. He announced his intention of resigning his seat because, amongst other things, he could not vote for this Motion of Confidence nor could he abstain. At the end of May, Deputy Boland made what I could only describe as an unwarranted attack on me, an attack in which he described me as a felon-setter and said I was guilty of unparalleled treachery.
He did so because he apparently thought that I was responsible for the arrest of John Kelly of the Belfast Citizens Defence Committee. I pointed out to Deputy Boland and anyone else who cared to listen that at the time I handed the papers in my possession to the Attorney General, which contained all the information I had about the matter at that time, I had no knowledge of any involvement of John Kelly in an attempt to import arms.
I have already told the House that I took no further part in any investigations or in bringing a prosecution. It was only after that time, after my handing over the papers and further investigations, that it came to knowledge that John Kelly was involved; but I want to assert again, Sir, that I took no part in the arrest or prosecution of John Kelly. If Deputy Boland felt he had to resign his seat because he could not accept my leadership and because he disagreed with my policies, that I could understand, but when he talks of resigning his seat as the only way to save his honour, that I do not understand. Honour is not the exclusive right or possession of any one man.
Hear, hear.
Others treasure their honour, too, and I certainly do mine.
Hear, hear.
I consider his reasoning as a reflection on my personal integrity and on my motives and as a reflection, too, on the honour of all those others who support me. If this is the inference to be drawn from his action and his statement, then I completely reject it.
I want to make one other reference to Deputy Boland's statement. He said that the jury decided that Deputy Jim Gibbons had perjured himself in court. Deputy Jim Gibbons, Minister for Agriculture and Fisheries, is able to defend himself here in this House and he has done so ably. Deputy Boland went on to say—and say in the privileged position of a Member of the House—that the jury by implication decided that Mr. Berry, Secretary of the Department of Justice, had also perjured himself. Mr. Berry unfortunately is not in the same privileged position as Deputy Boland is in this House and he is not in the same position as Deputy Gibbons, Minister for Agriculture and Fisheries, to defend himself, but he is entitled to be defended. I believe Mr. Berry to be a conscientious and dedicated official, who would not and did not commit perjury. I want to say, too, Sir, that the jury did not so find. I have complete confidence in Mr. Berry's integrity.
I regret that Deputy Boland went on to attack the Attorney General, another person not in a position to defend himself in this House. He spoke of the Attorney General's determination and mine to secure a conviction after the abortive trial and said that determination was such that another trial was proceeded with. He went on to say that our determination, that is the determination of the Attorney General and myself, was such that we made unfair and unworthy preparations and perhaps tried to improve on the performance, and I quote, Sir, "that created such a bad impression on everybody who read the report of the first trial".
I want to say again that I had nothing whatever to do with the course of the first trial. I had no say of any kind in the decision to commence the second trial and no influence on the course of the second trial. That decision was made by the Attorney General personally, after consultation, I presume, with his other legal advisers. I am certain that any decisions he took were in accordance with the highest standards of the legal profession and the highest standards of his office and without fear, favour or malice. Knowing the Attorney General as I do, I know that had I tried to interfere I would immediately have had his resignation.
Deputy Boland said he recognised a well prepared and baited trap in this motion of confidence. I want to say, Sir, that I prepared no trap for anybody. Deputy Boland would have had to come to the same decision as he has had to come to apparently on the motions already before the House in the names of the leader of the Fine Gael Party and the leader of the Labour Party.
One more thing, Sir, about the trial: I have been accused of bringing the prosecution for political reasons. I want to assert that I have no interest in political power for its own sake. I believe that is readily accepted throughout the country. My only interest is to make whatever talents I have available to the service of my country.
Hear, hear.
It is regrettable that Deputy Boland, a man whose ability and dedication have for so long been given wholeheartedly to this country, a man I held in high esteem, should have used his sterling qualities for division and not for cohesion at this juncture. In the course of the debate on the confidence motion of last June, to which I have referred already, references were made to the alleged complicity of Deputy Gibbons, then Minister for Defence, in this affair. Standerous attacks have been made on him in this House.
And outside.
Deputy Cruise-O'Brien has not made one outside, I am sure. I invite Deputy Cruise-O'Brien to make one of those charges he made inside this House outside it.
Statements have been made about the Taoiseach's colleague outside this House and outside privilege to which the appropriate response has not been made.
The Taoiseach.
Deputy Cruise-O'Brien levelled the foulest charge of all at him as being a convicted perjurer which is untrue, but would Deputy Cruise-O'Brien have the courage to repeat that outside or would he have the conviction to repeat it outside? I know he would not.
It has been said outside.
The judge's speech can be read outside.
I am dealing with the references made here last May to the alleged complicity of Deputy Gibbons, then Minister for Defence, in the arms importation affair. I told the House then that I had no information on this at the time I took action against two other Ministers. I also told the House that I subsequently had inquiries made following which my confidence in him had not changed. Evidence has since been adduced that Deputy Gibbons, on learning of the attempted importation of arms, not only took steps to try to stop it, but refused specifically to sign a certificate that would have facilitated the importation of these arms.
I do not propose to deal with the trial to any other extent even though there are many other things I might well have said about it. I want to come to more general matters. Deputy Richie Ryan, whom I heard yesterday evening, alleged that I had absolved Britain from any responsility for the division of our country. I have said again and again that Britain has a responsibility but I have stated my confidence in the genuine desire of the British Government to achieve the necessary reforms and to see them implemented in the North of Ireland. Where the pace or quality of these reforms would not measure up to the legitimate expectations and entitlement of the minority in the north it will be our responsibility as a Government to ensure, in so far as we can, that the British Government will have this done. This is a responsibility that we do not intend to neglect or renege.
I think the time has come again for me—although I should have thought it would be unnecessary—to state again Fianna Fáil's policy for the reunification of our country by peaceful means. That has been Fianna Fáil policy ever since the foundation of our party and Fine Gael can claim no credit, as they seem to be doing of late, that it was they who suggested that this was the best means for securing reunification. I want to say too, Sir, that I have never, nor will I ever, acknowledge the right of a minority, who happen to be a majority in a small part of our country, to opt out of our nation.
Hear, hear.
I want to be as clear and as unequivocal as I can about that because suggestions have been made that I think to the contrary. But we have the factual situation that our country is partitioned and that one and a half million of our total population are outside the jurisdiction of this national Parliament and that approximately two-thirds of that one and a half million at present wish to remain outside the jurisdiction. I have said, and I recognise, that we cannot have a lasting and meaningful reunification of our country until we can persuade that majority that their place is with their fellow countrymen in a united Ireland.
Perhaps I could at this stage refer to some remarks of Deputy Cosgrave in this context. He chose to sneer at the republicanism of the Fianna Fáil Party. But one thing is certain, and it is time the Fine Gael Deputies opposite were reminded of the fact—Fianna Fáil succeeded in making republicans of the lot of you——
Hear, hear.
They gave us stepping stones, but they would not walk on them.
——and you dare not ever again retreat from republicanism, as your predecessors did 50 years ago, because we will never let you.
I was really amazed to hear Deputy Cosgrave make the brazen claim that Fine Gael always had a consistent policy on partition. If Fine Gael or Cumann na nGaedheal or whatever one likes to call them were consistent, if they were firm, if they were strong, if they were truly republican 50 years ago, there would not be any need now for the same kind of policy on partition that we have.
Was that when you tossed the coin to see which side you would take?
That is an untruth.
The Taoiseach.
I will tell the story about that.
What about the Government of Ireland Act?
I never supported any political party but Fianna Fáil. One of my earliest recollections of a political party meeting was when Éamon de Valera came into Cork in 1932 and I carried a torch beside his carriage and I was only a young boy then. I will tell you what I did do. When I was first asked to stand, I did toss a coin as to whether I would stand or not for Fianna Fáil. That is the truth of that position.
Deputy Seán MacBride, as he was then, approached me through a legal colleague in Cork to stand for his party and I completely rejected him. If you want to draw more of these facts out of me you are quite welcome.
What did Gerry Boland think of you?
What did the German to whom the Deputy sold his land think of him?
An Egyptian.
As I said when opening this debate, much of the discussion which we have had both inside and outside this House in the past few months arose from the novelty of my action in dismissing Ministers. Yes, that is the word. I want to repeat, therefore, that there is no reason why changes in the composition of a Government itself or should ever, in themselves, be a reason for changing the Government itself or for calling a general election. Those Deputies on the other benches who are wont to quote for us the example of Westminister will, I am sure, be able to confirm for their colleagues that there have been numerous Cabinet changes carried out by both Conservatives and Labour Governments in mid-term without changes of Government or without a general election in the United Kingdom.
Not for the same reason.
They do not usually arrest them.
The Deputy might think and look at his records more closely.
Another basis which Opposition Deputies and, indeed, outside commentators profess to see as justification for the calling of a general election is the differences of opinion between members of the Fianna Fáil Party. I said candidly at the beginning of this debate that we had our difficulties. I do not deny that. In opening the debate I said that there were no differences on any fundamental policy matters among our party and I went on to point out that differences have existed, do exist and, no doubt, will always exist as to the most effective means by which we can achieve our policy objectives. I wonder what is the terrible thing about that. Why should any party rush to the electorate every time there is such a disagreement—a disagreement, I emphasise, that is not about policy as such but about the means of implementing that policy. If we were to do so the country would be faced with continuous general elections unless, of course, the party were to prohibit the expression of views by its members; but then, I suppose, we would be accused of totalitarianism, dictatorship, fascism, or whatever other smear the Opposition would like to apply to us.
Perhaps we could again look at the Westminster example so often quoted by Deputies opposite and recognise that there, within each of the major parties, there are very severe critics of party policy and of party leadership. No one suggests that in so acting these critics are behaving dishonestly or that they should resign their seats or that the leader of the Government party should call an election. Yet, people reading some of our newspapers recently are being asked to accept that there is something wrong in Fianna Fáil Deputies behaving in this way, that there is some danger to democracy if they do so, that there is something unhealthy in a parliamentary system where such action takes place or that some form of mysterious purification process—I think that is the word used—at the ballot box should be called for. My impression is that the only thing wrong with such behaviour, or the only real objection to it, is that it is being done by the Fianna Fáil Party. Apparently it would be perfectly all right if any one of the other parties opposite chose to do so and perhaps we could examine what they have been doing among themselves.
We have been sitting here for the past three days receiving a battering from the parties opposite about alleged disunity. That it is only Fianna Fáil who are to be denied any freedom for different views can be seen quite clearly if we contrast the position in the Opposition parties. Take the Labour Party, for instance. We have Deputy Browne and Deputy Thornley publicly exposing and debating their differences on real policy matters. Is that not healthy, I would like to ask the members of the Labour Party? Is that any reason why one or both of those Deputies should be expelled?
It is very good for you.
Resign like Deputy Boland.
What about Deputy Coughlan who is playing away out on the right wing of this left wing party?
The same as yourself.
Deputy Michael Pat Murphy and Deputy Desmond for that matter who are flouting the party conference——
The Taoiseach has only one minute left. Why does he not address a word to Deputy Blaney and Deputy Haughey?
I will go on if the Opposition give me more time.
The Taoiseach can have all the time in the world if he will address his remarks to Deputy Blaney and Deputy Haughey.
The Taoiseach must be allowed to make his statement without interruption.
Deputy Michael Pat Murphy and Deputy Desmond flout the annual conference who made the sacrosanct decision some years ago about coalition. I would like to remind Deputy Corish of what he said about it himself. He was quoted in the Irish Times of 25th January, 1969:
I am against Coalition. In the present context we will never be accepted as equal partners and we will not be able to get our Socialist Policies through a Government dominated by Conservative Ministers. I am looking to the future and I cannot see how, after a Coalition Government, the Labour Party could fight an election as a Party with a separate identity. Coalition would lead to another sterile contest between Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael. Last years Annual Conference rightly decided, in my opinion, against participating in Coalition Government in present conditions. This was a democratic choice of the entire party, which at the time I supported and will continue to uphold so long as I am Leader of the party. If conference should in the future decide by democratic choice to change its mind, I will, as I have consistently done since I became a member of the Parliamentary Labour Party 24 yeas ago, accept that decision.
This is the crunch line:
But the Party must appreciate that to me this is a matter of conscience and that in such an eventuality my continued support for Socialism will be from the back benches.
I invited Deputy Corish in my opening speech to comment on that but he has not done so.
I will do that at the proper time. Would the Taoiseach comment on Deputy Blaney and Deputy Haughey?
(Cavan): He is supposed to be Honest Jack.
Deputy Corish did not answer me when he had the chance.
Get out, you fraud.
That is typical.
That is what you are.
I seem to be getting under the skin of the Labour Party.
Will Members on all sides of the House allow the Taoiseach to continue with his statement?
Deputy Boland is enjoying it.
Interruptions are disorderly.
This debate has been about disunity.
It was about what Deputy Blaney and Deputy Boland said about it.
It is confidence in the next Government.
Could we ask Fine Gael what about the birth pangs of its Just Society image? We know there were disputes and differences on all sides about those policies. We know too many of the young tigers on their socialist democratic platform were ultimately emaciated into tired old rabbits.
It did not take a hair out of you.
I have said that the greatest problem facing our country at the present time is the economic one.
As a matter of fact, the Taoiseach is the greatest problem.
He is a problem child.
His own leopards are changing their spots.
The Chair must again point out that interruptions are disorderly.
The smart alecks of the Labour Party seem to want to get their cracks in—loquacious, Deputy O'Leary and others. The threat of inflation is the greatest problem that we have to face.
Why does the Taoiseach not do something about it?
I am coming to it.
Get back to it.
Fianna Fáil created it.
There is a danger that it will submerge us. I suppose Deputy O'Donovan will tell us that we created world inflation.
You certainly did.
Will Deputy O'Donovan tell me of any progressive country in the world at the present time that is not suffering from inflation?
The Taoiseach will blame the world any way.
I am not blaming the world at all but I am not going to accept a naïve suggestion that we created inflation in our own country much less world inflation.
Did you not give £25 million to the banks last March?
That is what the banks are for.
The task of overcoming inflation will be difficult and the measures that we propose will, I know, be unpopular.
They will be changed week after week.
I am not going to run away from those measures, difficult and unpopular though they are. That is not my form and that certainly is not the tradition of Fianna Fáil. It is a tempting thing to bury those problems in the turmoil of a general election, but the time to tackle and overcome the problems is short. In fact, it is now. Necessary measures had to be introduced at the beginning of this term of the Dáil and we are determined to implement them during this term; otherwise, we believe it will be too late. No matter what Government might emerge from a general election that would be held in the weeks between now and Christmas it would not have the time to tackle those problems. We all know of the wage claims which are being made now for implementation as from the 1st January. We know the size of those wage claims. Therefore, I believe it would be totally irresponsible of me, in the light of the economic situation, to seek a dissolution of the Dáil at this juncture and I do not propose to do so.
Why did the Taoiseach wait so long?
They are all happy now.
The fixers and the Tacateers have done their work.
I am seeking in this motion, therefore, a vote of confidence in responsible Government, ready, willing and able to meet and tackle our difficulties. I say "able" because I think this Government is as able, vigorous and determined as any of its predecessors.
That is not saying a whole lot.
Deputy Charles Haughey said the Taoiseach should do the honourable thing.
A vote for this Motion of Confidence in each member of the Government as well as in myself will mean what it says without prevarication, without equivocation. I do not want any Deputy to go into the Lobby with me in order to buy time because I am not in the market for either the buying or selling of time.
Finally, the internal problems of our party—and I am not denying that they are there——
——will not deter us from taking the right course at this time. The economic, social and political progress of our country is our sole object as a political party. The road ahead we know will be a difficult one and a challenging one. My Government, unified as it is——
——and my party, in mutual trust and confidence, look forward eagerly to meeting this challenge and overcoming whatever difficulties lie before us.
