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Seanad Éireann díospóireacht -
Wednesday, 16 Jun 1926

Vol. 7 No. 9

RAILWAYS (EXISTING OFFICERS AND SERVANTS) BILL, 1926—FIFTH STAGE.

Question proposed: "That this Bill be received for final consideration and do now pass."

I feel compelled to make one final protest against the enactment of this shameful confiscatory measure. In its shameful contempt for all principles of justice and its disregard of common decency, to say nothing of Parliamentary integrity, I think it has no parallel in any Parliament of modern times. In a crude and vicious manner it legalises the robbery of 17,000 railway men of their principal rights under the Railways Act of 1924. It enables the new company to dismiss at will as many of the employees of the old constituent companies as it pleases without any cause whatsoever, and then snap its finger at them as far as claims for compensation are concerned. We have the tragic farce of having retained in the Principal Act a certain basis of compensation whilst there is set up a new and insuperable barrier between the men who would get that compensation and the compensators. It is just like telling a man whom you have bound securely by hand and foot that if he is able to jump over a 20-foot wall there are lots of nice things for him on the other side.

Never in all my experience have I known a case in which there were more grossly misleading statements made in support of a Bill than have been made by the promoters of this Bill in order to get it passed. Those of us knowing the actual facts have absolutely stood aghast at the misstatements that have been made. Misstatements have been made in order to get the Bill through, in order to ensure its passing through this House. Senators who rarely grace the Chamber with their presence have been rounded up and mobilised and have found their speech. When some of those who spoke for the Bill were engaged in the congenial task of felon-setting, the railway men whom it is now proposed to rob were risking their lives and employment in order to make this House a possibility. In return for that service they ask for no reward. They ask simply the rights of citizens; they ask for elementary justice at the hands of the Oireachtas that they fought in order to establish.

I am sorry that Senator Bagwell should signalise his severance with the railway service by helping to give his little push in favour of this atrocious measure. There was a clerk once who was dismissed—he was expelled—by the Great Northern Company because he was suspected of favouring the national cause. The day came when that clerk was a General in the Free State Army, and when the general manager who dismissed him was a member of the Irish Free State Seanad, and fell into the hands of his enemies, the clerk secured the release and safety of the man who dismissed him by threatening to shoot a number of his prisoners if he was not released within a certain time. He showed his magnanimity in that notable case. Senator Bagwell shows his magnanimity by helping to rob 17,000 of the colleagues of that man of every right to which they were entitled under the Railways Act which was passed through this House in 1924. There were in this House five or six railway directors and two general managers. They never thought of the necessity of the amendments that have been introduced until the Minister thought fit to bring forward this Bill at the bidding of the railway companies. So far as the Minister, whom the Government selected for this dirty work is concerned, I can only extend to him the charity of my silence.

It is a very voluble silence.

The man who can with enthusiasm bring forward a measure of this kind can hardly have a very happy life, and he can hardly expect anything but an inglorious end. The evil effects of this measure will reveal themselves from day to day in the arbitrator's court, and Senators who voted for this Bill without even going to the trouble of reading it—as three Senators informed me in the Lobby they did not even go to the trouble of reading it, although they voted for it in toto—may have reason to regret their utter lack of responsibility in the very responsible position in which they have been placed here. We ask that where the State intervenes between employer and employee the people who are put here to represent political and religious sections should not use their position in order to rob men of their fundamental rights.

This Bill will be an encouragement and a justification and an incitement to any future Labour Government to indulge in retaliatory measures. If they should follow the example set in this Bill we know where the responsibility will lie. This measure can only have a most disastrous reaction upon Parliamentary institutions; can only destroy, at one stroke, the confidence of the workers, and all that section of the community not in the majority, in Parliamentary institutions and in their integrity and sense of justice where fundamental issues are concerned. A measure such as this has no moral sanction in the sight of God or man, and as such it will be treated by those whom it is intended to victimise. To-day you have had your opportunity; to-morrow we may have ours.

I suppose I may have leave to reply to Senator O'Farrell in the personal attack he has made upon myself. I do not wish to say much except that it will be known to the majority here that my reason for voting for this amending Bill is that I considered the position without it was extremely anomalous. As regards the Senator's story about the clerk who was employed in the Great Northern Railway and was discharged and subsequently became a General, I beg to inform the House that a greater farrago of nonsense has never been uttered. My release was obtained by myself by reason of the fact that I climbed on to roofs and escaped and for no other reason. The story which the Senator tells is entirely untrue.

CATHAOIRLEACH

Say it is romance.

The Senator cannot deny the fact that General Hogan, who secured his release, and whom he dismissed for his political sentiments, was at one time a clerk in the Northern Railway.

I beg to inform the Senate that I was never released.

I should follow the example given of contemptuous silence by the Senator.

This is not a laughing matter.

The Senator got an opportunity for histrionic display and playing his tragi-comedy by walking out some days ago when the Bill was under discussion. He now accuses the House of having passed a measure founded upon misrepresentation when he had not the ability or the nerve to sit here and point out where the misrepresentation took place. Dr. Johnson once spoke of a man whose method was to exaggerate every parish pump into a Thermopylae and every fish into a whale. We have that fact illustrated here to-day—a storm in a tea-cup. This Bill is rendered necessary through advice given to railwaymen by officials who should know better how to advise, and if the Senator feels his position weakened with his Union by reason of that advice, that is his look-out and not mine. We are told here that we are robbing 17,000 railwaymen of their rights. We are told that 17,000 railwaymen are to be rendered redundant and robbed of their rights. It is only necessary to point that out to show how ridiculous the Senator's bad temper occasionally renders him.

Question put—"That the Bill do now pass."
The Seanad divided: Tá, 15; Níl, 9.

Tá.

  • John Bagwell.
  • Sir E. Bigger.
  • Samuel L. Brown.
  • Mrs. E. Costello.
  • Countess of Desart.
  • James Douglas.
  • Martin Fitzgerald.
  • James P. Goodbody.
  • Sir John Griffith.
  • Henry S. Guinness.
  • Arthur Jackson.
  • Sir John Keane.
  • Patrick W. Kenny.
  • Earl of Kerry.
  • James Moran.

Níl.

  • William Cummins.
  • J.C. Dowdall.
  • Michael Duffy.
  • Thomas Farren.
  • Thomas Foran.
  • Francis McGuinness.
  • James McKean.
  • Colonel Moore.
  • John T. O'Farrell.
Question declared carried.
Barr
Roinn