Léim ar aghaidh chuig an bpríomhábhar
Gnáthamharc

Seanad Éireann díospóireacht -
Wednesday, 20 Mar 1929

Vol. 11 No. 8

Public Business. - Local Elections (Dublin) Bill, 1929—Third Stage.

Bill passed through Committee without amendment.

I move that the Standing Orders be suspended for the purpose of enabling the remaining Stages of the Local Elections (Dublin) Bill, 1929, to be taken to-day.

Question put and agreed to.
Question proposed: "That the Local Elections (Dublin) Bill be considered on Report."

I do not know if I am in order at this stage on this Bill, or on the Central Fund Bill, in calling attention to the policy of the Commissioners. I suggest that it would be appropriate to this Bill, but if not, I can do so on the Central Fund Bill.

Cathaoirleach

The policy of the Commissioners.

The policy of the Dublin City Commissioners.

Cathaoirleach

I think you might do it now.

The point I wish to raise is really for the purpose of asking the Government if they have any voice, or are prepared to take any action, in regard to recent events in connection with certain statues in the city of Dublin. I need hardly say that I raise this matter in no narrow or sectarian spirit. I raise it because I believe, and I am sure the House will agree, that the history of our city, and it is a great city, and its architectural and artistic history, is largely bound up in its statues. They form a distinct and a very valuable link with our past, and we cannot view this matter merely in the narrow and sectarian or party view of events of the past. We have to take a generous, broad and statesmanlike view of recent happenings, and I submit that it is most unfortunate that a certain famous statue, that of William III., has been removed from the place where it has rested for, I suppose, nearly 250 years, and we do not know what has happened to it. I shall be quite satisfied if we can get an assurance from the Government that it is the intention to preserve that historic link. Only recently I visited the National Gallery and saw that well-known picture of the assembly of Charlemont's Volunteers. The statue figures largely in that picture. Around it were grouped men whose names are honoured amongst what can be described as the most hardened Nationalists that could be conceived. I suggest that it would be most unfortunate if for any purely narrow and immediate, and, I might say, extreme party point of view, that statue is allowed to be removed and never to re-appear. I need hardly remind this House that that statue underwent various vicissitudes. On a former occasion when it was dismounted it was restored. By whom was it restored? By a Nationalist Corporation under the Mayoralty of, I think, Daniel O'Connell. In this year of solemn anniversary, when the name of Daniel O'Connell will figure largely in our celebrations, I think it is at least due to his memory that efforts should be made, however difficult they may be from the architectural or the physical point of view, to restore that statue and preserve the tradition and our history in a suitable manner.

I doubt really whether this is in order under this particular measure, but as far as the Minister for Local Government is concerned he has no more power over the Commissioners than he would have over the Dublin Corporation in connection with what statues will remain in the streets and what statues will be removed. As to whether the Minister for Local Government or the Ministry have a policy with regard to King William, whose statue has been taken from College Green, I am not prepared at short notice to discuss that matter. Whatever powers the Minister for Local Government has in connection with these matters he deals with them with a long spoon if with any. It is a question for the Commissioners, a question for the Dublin Corporation, as to what statues will remain in and decorate the streets.

Am I to take it that the Minister has no influence at all with the Commissioners, and is not able to express the intentions of the Government and lay them before the Commissioners in a matter of this kind?

Cathaoirleach

You heard the Minister's reply.

If the matter is important, then it ought to arise in some other way than on a Bill like this and with some more notice to the people who have to answer for the policy, if there is a policy involved.

Question—"That the Bill be received for final consideration and do now pass"—put and agreed to.
Barr
Roinn