We have all great respect for President Cosgrave. He is not a member of this House but he comes to us and asks us to appoint a Committee which would possibly disqualify certain members of this House from the right to be elected to sit in the Seanad. I feel we owe it to the honour and dignity of this House not to permit any kind of committee or tribunal calling in question their right to be elected and sit here, unless a very strong case indeed can be made for it. We had a resolution brought forward at first without the intention of making any case for it whatever. We have to use a great effort to get any sort of statement of facts whatever. I do not think any member of this House understood the first statement made by the President.
It is most necessary that we should have the assistance in our Legislature of the best technical types. In the near future, we shall have to consider many things in connection with education, and it is most necessary that the opinions of the teachers should be represented in both Houses. In the recent debates in the Dáil one man whose knowledge and opinion were of the utmost value to the Dáil was a teacher —Deputy O'Connell. No member of either House, as far as I can make out by a careful study of his and other speeches, possesses knowledge comparable to his on the whole question of education in this country. I do not think that his position will be affected by this Committee, but where a man of such technical knowledge has been found once he can be found again. We require to have that technical knowledge in this House for the next two or three years. I hope I am a benevolent man, and I think I am an unsuspicious man, but I find it difficult to separate this resolution from some preceding events.
Some months ago an organisation of teachers passed a resolution in favour of local control of school buildings, that is to say, that these buildings should be controlled and kept in order by local committees.
Very considerable opposition arose to that object from the managers, and it is only right I should say not from the managers of one denomination only but a very considerable opposition came also from the Protestant managers, who did not like Protestant schools passing under the control of Catholic committees.
It is not a sectarian question. It is a question of the ecclesiastical mind, Protestant and Catholic on the one side and on the other a very great deal of the most intelligent lay opinion in Ireland. Then two or three weeks ago the Catholic Managerial Association passed a resolution in favour of repairs to schools and claiming that the money for the repairs should be given to the managers for that purpose, and they added to the resolution a rider that the schools in Ireland are in a fairly good condition, which they are not. They know the arrangements for the maintenance of schools have broken down, and it was admitted that the schools are now in a bad condition. I read in the papers that "Certain pressure was brought upon the President." I think that is the diplomatic and journalistic way of putting it, and then we have this resolution. As I have said, the President, a man for whom we have the utmost respect, has come and asked us to appoint a tribunal to consider the eligibility of certain of our members. I suggest that behind the President there is a certain pressure asking him to have a tribunal appointed. I think a much stronger case must be made before this House votes for the establishment of any such tribunal.
