asked the Minister for Defence if the erection of a high security prison in the Curragh Camp will mean that members of the Defence Forces will always have to be employed in custodial duties there.
Ceisteanna—Questions. Oral Answers. - Curragh Camp Prison.
3.
Members of the Defence Forces will be employed on custodial duties in relation to civilian prisoners transferred to military custody under the provisions of the Prisons Act, 1972, for so long as such transfers continue to be necessary.
Does the Minister not agree that those enlisting in the Defence Forces do so in the hope that they will be soldiers and not have to act as warders? Does he agree that Army personnel resent this duty, that they look upon the building of a high security prison in the Curragh Camp as a sign that these duties will be perpetuated? Is this a proper situation?
I do not agree with the Deputy. My experience of enlisted men in the Army is that whatever tasks they are asked to perform in this time of subversion, death, murder and pillage they will do in the name of the State. They would stand by the oath they took when they entered the Army. I should like to say that the minimum number of them are involved in the duties referred to by the Deputy but they are doing them freely. I have seen non-commissioned men promoted for what I would call, if not acts of heroism, acts beyond the ordinary call of duty in the course of their duty. The prison referred to by the Deputy is there because if there is a necessity for the incarceration of people who would murder, pillage and destroy we must have some place to put them. There is no desire on the part of the Government to put anybody in there nor is there any desire to employ one more soldier than is necessary in dealing with people of this kind. More than 1,400 people have been killed since 1969 and that imposes duties upon us all. It imposes a duty not only on the Army, whom I compliment on the excellent nature of their services, but on every citizen to go to a soldier, or a garda and tell them anything about subversive acts going on in their area.
Would the Minister not agree that the decision to have this type of prison in the Curragh Camp, and to deny the opportunity to civilians to act as warders within the Curragh Camp, means that soldiers who enlist as soldiers will have to act as warders as long as that prison is there and operative? Does the Minister not consider that an undesirable situation?
The exigencies and demands of the State at this time, when democracy must be preserved, fall upon the Defence Forces, notably the Garda and the Army. What the Army is asked to do is done gallantly since I became Minister for Defence. I commend them and I do not accept that they complained. The moment it is unnecessary to have them as warders they will not act as warders. To have a place in the Curragh where people could be incarcerated if such were necessary to save human life and try to prevent further murders, robberies and pillage, is a State necessity. It is empty of prisoners at present and please God it will remain so.
I raised this matter before with the Minister and he told me that there was no prison at the Curragh, that none would be built. He knew nothing about it when he was answering on the Estimate for the Department of Defence. Now we are told the prison is there. I should like to know why the site was selected in view of the fact that the Army cannot accommodate recruits. Recruits have been sleeping in their own homes from time to time because of the inadequacy of accommodation. Why was a military barracks taken over? If the Government wish to build a prison why did they not build one elsewhere? We all agree with the necessity for law and order. The Army did a good job for the country long before the Minister took over.
The Deputy is completely untrue in every statement he has made. I did not say there was no prison in the Curragh at a time when there was. There is, in fact, a barracks in the Curragh where £200,000 has been spent and around which there is a fence and the usual look-out posts for sentries. If necessary, should there be a doomsday situation and persons are sentenced by the courts, and the ordinary prisons cannot contain them, we can then incarcerate those people there. They will be treated well if that happens. As I have said, nobody wants it to happen. I pray to God that it will not happen. As well as that, £175,000 was spent to provide alternative accommodation for persons who might have been sleeping in and using the barracks now referred to as a prison. In fact, the barracks now referred to as a prison has been used in the recent past by NCOs who came there to take courses for promotion. They found it provided excellent accommodation. When this terrible time is over, the fence around that prison can be knocked down and we will have a first-class barracks in the Curragh; in fact, the best barracks for NCOs and men in the Curragh. I resent people doing this double think and saying: "We must not have the Army acting as warders. We must not have a prison within an Army camp." The fact is that we have to stop this subversion. The two units which will stop it are the Garda and the Army. If we got the backing from Fianna Fáil we should get, may be we would have it stopped sooner.
Get off that platform.
(Interruptions.)
Order.
I resent the Minister's implication, allowed by you, that I am a subversive. I am quite prepared to put that before the people of Kildare at any time.
A question Deputy.
If the Minister wants to look for subversives he should look for them elsewhere than over here.
I am calling the next question.
(Interruptions.)
You allowed the Minister to abuse the House.
Ministers are allowed to reply.
The Minister said it the other night.
He is a big misfit.
The Minister should act in a responsible fashion.
I just want to say——
A question, Deputy.
Arising out of the Minister's reply, I am not branded as a Fascist by any of my party. I did not say the Minister said——
I am awaiting a question.
The Minister indicated that I told a lie. That is wrong. I referred to a Minister in this House. The Minister for Posts and Telegraphs said on the Estimate for the Department of Justice and the Estimate for the Department of Defence that there was no prison. I rang the Secretary——
This is completely out of order. I am calling the next question.
In view of the unsatisfactory and lying nature of the reply, I wish to raise this matter on the Adjournment.
I will communicate with the Deputy.
I want to make it quite cleat that I did not say Deputy Power was a subversive.
Is the Minister to be allowed to make statements when he likes but nobody else?
I said that if we got more help from Fianna Fáil in dealing with subversives, if they would let the Criminal Law Jurisdiction Bill through, instead of trying to stop it——
Nobody is trying to stop it. That is untrue.
Go and join Neil Blaney.
Question No. 4.
We got through seven or eight sections. The Minister was not even here. He knows nothing about it. He is completely irresponsible and reckless.
(Interruptions.)