The motion we are discussing, the appointment of Deputy Oliver Flanagan as a member of the Government, in particular as Minister for Defence, is a sad one for us all. The Taoiseach had open to him the possibility of appointing any one of 55 or more people to the vacant office of Minister for Defence. I doubt if he could have picked a more unsuitable person than the man he has seen fit to choose. It is a sad reflection on our country that a person like Deputy Flanagan is being put in charge of the Department of Defence. While I am confined, apparently, to talking about the Deputy's personal fitness for office I do not want to pass any reflections on him personally in any sort of private capacity or in respect of any views he may have in a private capacity. I will refer only to his public reported statements and actions.
It seems that there can be little explanation for the appointment of this man other than patronage of some form, of paying off some kind of debt that I cannot envisage and of trying to manoeuvre some sort of short-term political advantage by his appointment. It is clear that the proposal to appoint him has nothing to do either with ability or merit. There are people on the other side of the House who have greater ability and are more meritorious of appointment to the serious office of a member of the Government. In appointing the Minister for Defence for reasons other than merit or ability the Taoiseach and the Government are not breaking any new ground as far as defence matters and the Army are concerned because the number of promotions within the Army within recent years on grounds that have nothing to do with merit or ability are legion. We have had that repeated again in recent weeks by the Taoiseach, while acting as Minister for Defence.
Two men were promoted to senior ranks within the Army even though their military experience is limited. Their chief attribute is their equestrian ability. We have had people promoted to the senior rank of colonel in the Army who, as recently as two years ago, were junior captains. Although there is a strict rule in the Army that nobody is promoted beyond the rank of captain without undergoing a command and staff course at the Curragh for nine months various of these noted horsemen who have now achieved high rank in the Army have never undergone any such course. I wonder in the exhilaration of office if the Taoiseach and the Government consider the damage they are doing to the Army. If they could hear officers talking privately about how they feel and about their careers in the light of what has happened in the past few years, would they come to some realisation of the damage they have been doing and are doing?
Is today's proposal to appoint a particularly unsuitable man as Minister for Defence going to do anything to increase confidence on the part of the Army? If they see a very unsuitable man as Minister for Defence they cannot be surprised if the various ranks of the Army are filled with men who are less suitable than those passed over. Trying to put the matter as fairly as I can, I think it is correct to say that there is not a great deal of change between the former Minister removed from office as Minister for Defence—I am leaving out the interregnum while the Taoiseach was there for a couple of weeks—Deputy Donegan, now Minister for Lands, and the proposed Minister, Deputy Oliver Flanagan. It seems to me that a proposal to appoint him is a proposal to replace an intemperate buffoon by a temperate buffoon. It is rather tragic for the country that this should be so but it is so.
Deputy Flanagan has been in public life for upwards of 30 years and a Member of this House for over 30 years and one would have thought in a life-time of membership of the House and other public bodies that even if it was not there at the beginning, sense would be there by now but I cannot see any evidence that common sense, maturity, stability and judgment exist in the man this House is now asked to ratify as a member of the Government and Minister for Defence.
While he has been a Member of the House, Deputy Oliver Flanagan has probably made more pronouncements than any other Deputy and the proportion of pronouncements that he made that were odd—to say the least —is very high. This goes back over a long number of years. One might appropriately and relevantly bring to the notice of the House dozens of quotations from him before the House decides to appoint him as a member of the Government. I have selected only one or two as I do not want to delay the House indefinitely and stay the hours one might profitably stay reading the assembled thoughts and declarations of Deputy Flanagan over the past 30 years. In particular, I want to refer to a report of a speech Deputy Flanagan made at the General Council of Committees of Agriculture general meeting in Dublin on 6th August, 1969 reported in The Irish Press on the following day. It is a short report of a few paragraphs and the heading is: “ `No room for Nazis'—Flanagan”. It reads:
A call to the Land Commission to take the necessary steps to repossess the land bought by Germans was made in Dublin yesterday by Mr. Oliver J. Flanagan, TD. He suggested that it be given to Irishmen who were capable and prepared to work it.
"We have no room in this country for Nazis and we are not going to entertain them here. This country is falling too much into the hands of Germans," said Mr. Flanagan who was addressing a meeting of the General Council of Committees of Agriculture.
"I am not at all as opposed to the Englishman having a holding here as to a German and the sooner we take steps to end this the better," he added.
He wanted a sub-committee appointed to go to the Minister for Lands to deal with the situation, but the council decided not to discuss the matter at yesterday's meeting.
He claimed that the situation was now getting out of hand and called for Government action. He objected to Germans because they were Nazis and because they were alien. When asked about his use of the word Nazi, Mr. Flanagan said he considered all Germans to be Nazis. He said he would raise the matter in the Dáil.
That is the man we are asked to make a member of the Government today. Even though I have to speak to empty benches because none of them will come in to defend or support him today, I would say to them if they can hear me in some other part of the House, and in particular I say to members of the Labour Party and to people in that party like the Minister for Posts and Telegraphs, Dr. Cruise-O'Brien and Deputy Barry Desmond: will they come in here tonight and vote approval for the appointment to the Government of a man who said that he objected to Germans because they were Nazis and because they were alien and went on to say that he considered all Germans to be Nazis?
Is this the sort of man that it is appropriate should be a member of the Government—even of this Government? Is this the sort of man that the Minister for Posts and Telegraphs wants to sit down with around the table once, twice or three times a week and have the most confidential and fundamental discussions of any group of men in the country? Is this the sort of man with whom other Ministers want to share collective responsibility for every decision made by the Government? Is this the sort of man that the Minister for Posts and Telegraphs along with the Minister for Industry and Commerce and the Minister for Foreign Affairs and the rest of them are prepared to stand behind when he comes out—as inevitably he will—to make some pronouncement equally as obnoxious as the one I have just quoted? Do they want to commit themselves to standing behind him in the views that he holds and that they will not change, views that apparently he has held for upwards of 30 years in public life? Is that the kind of Government they want? More pertinently, I might ask is this the kind of Government the country wants or needs?
I want to refer also to the report of the tribunal appointed to inquire into various allegations made by Deputy Oliver J. Flanagan in relation to Locke's Distillery, which tribunal consisting of a Supreme Court judge and two High Court judges reported on 18th December, 1947 to the then Taoiseach, the late Éamon de Valera. In paragraph 49 on page 15 of that report the three judges unanimously stated:
In like manner, we found it necessary to exercise extreme caution in dealing with the evidence of Deputy Flanagan. We found him very uncandid and much disposed to answer questions unthinkingly as if he were directing his replies elsewhere than to the Tribunal. On several occasions he contradicted himself and was disposed to shift his ground, when he found that answers already given would lead him where he did not wish to go. He was, on other occasions, in conflict with testimony which we believed to be true. In respect of two matters we are satisfied that he told us what he knew to be untrue.
I draw particular attention to the last sentence: "In respect of two matters we are satisfied that he told us what he knew to be untrue". Remember what he told those three judges at the tribunal was told on oath. It was not a question that he gave evidence that was wrong but believed might be right; he told them what he knew was untrue and he did that on oath.
We are asked now on behalf and as representatives of the people of Ireland to ratify and approve the Taoiseach's appointment of such a man to be a member of the Government. I find it very difficult to do that. All Deputies on this side find it difficult to do it for the sake of this country. There must be many Deputies on the other side who find it equally difficult and obnoxious to do it. Will they go through the hypocritical performance that tragically we have become used to in recent years, of trooping in to do something they know is wrong? I suppose they will. I say this to some of the people to whom I have already referred, such as Deputy B. Desmond, the Minister for Posts and Telegraphs and the Minister for Industry and Commerce, to think deeply before they cast their vote in favour of the appointment of this man who said he objected to Germans because they were Nazis and alien and said he considered all Germans were Nazis.
The normal procedure followed when a Minister is being appointed to the Government is that the Taoiseach of the day announces it to the House. That is generally the first time anyone, except the prospective Minister, knows about it. For the past ten days we have been reading that Deputy Flanagan is to be appointed Minister for Defence.
We even read reports in one newspaper about a week ago that he thanked the people in his constituency for their congratulations which had been offered publicly to him as a result of his telling the people in charge of that function that he was to be appointed Minister.
The fact that he should go round telling all and sundry that he was to be appointed Minister for Defence is in itself a ground for serious doubt as to his suitability. I do not know what the attitude of the Taoiseach to such free and easy leaking of what one would imagine should be extremely confidential information is, but nonetheless that has been the case over the past ten years. The country had been told by Deputy Flanagan that he was to be appointed Minister for Defence, but it would not be officially announced for a little time yet. Then, the Taoiseach comes here this morning and announced it. Up to the moment the announcement was made, I thought he would not do it. I thought that if the various other things that had happened down through the years were not sufficient ground for regarding Deputy Flanagan as unsuitable, the fact that he had been announcing it for the past ten days would have been sufficient ground to render him unsuitable, but, unhappily, that was not so.
The Army have been going through a very difficult period. All that was brought to a head by the attack of the former Minister on the Commander-in-Chief of the Army, the first citizen of this country. It was an attack which was not withdrawn and the Minister's offer of resignation was refused by the Taoiseach and this in turn caused the resignation of the President. Is there any evidence that can be adduced to show that Deputy O.J. Flanagan is any less likely than Deputy Donegan was to make some kind of outrageous statement that would be grossly offensive, perhaps, to the President but more likely to some lesser authority during whatever time he will occupy the position of Minister for Defence? I do not think there is any evidence that would suggest that the likelihood of some outrageous statement or action being made or taken by Deputy O.J. Flanagan is any less than some of the outrageous things that were don by his predecessor.
We are being asked now to the appointment of someone everyone in this House must know is not suitable. I remember when the Taoiseach proposed in March, 1973, the appointment of a number of Ministers. There was a very short debate; it may have lasted 30 minutes or one hour. There was a very general discussion about the nature of the appointments. The suitability of individual members of the proposed Government was not gone into. At that time it would have been appropriate—and looking back on it, it was a pity it did not happen— to question the suitability of Deputy Donegan to hold the post of Minister for Defence. If it had been gone into, it might have caused some rethinking.
It was a public fact that Deputy Donegan had done some extraordinary things in relation to a group of itinerants who were camped in the vicinity of his house. It seemed to me that a man who did what he did on that occasion was quite unsuited to the post into which it was proposed to put him. Tragically, that proved to be the case. It was not only when he insulted the President that he was grossly unsuitable. That was only the straw that broke the camel's back. Within a week of entering his office, he did and said things that were quite inappropriate for a Minister for Defence. He continued to act in an undisciplined way, to make extraordinary statements and do extraordinary things from time to time. He exercised a degree of patronage within the Department of Defence, in the Army in particular and in various appointments connected with the Department of Defence, in a way that was positively shameless. I have given the House details of some of these before and I do not want to go into them again because it is not necessary as many of them are well known. Others are not well known, but the best thing now that that Minister is gone is to leave them alone.
Can we have any confidence that the same sort of thing will not happen under the man it is now proposed to appoint as Minister? We can have no such confidence. There are, I suggest, a dozen or more people on the Fine Gael and Labour benches who are clearly more worthy and more suited to appointment to this post than the man now being put forward. There is a heavy onus on the Taoiseach to say why this man is suitable. Nobody either in this House or outside has been able to say why he is suitable. I look forward to hearing of his suitability from the Taoiseach.
I want to put this final challenge to the members of the Labour Party in particular and to some members of the Fine Gael Party and ask them to realise what they are doing when they go through the lobbies to ratify the appointment of Deputy O.J. Flanagan as a member of a Government of this country. Unless they have become entirely bereft of all conscience, they cannot in conscience do what they have been asked by the Taoiseach to do, something which they know well to be wrong and bad.