I move:—
That Seanad Éireann approves of the statement by An, Taoiseach regarding the export trade in horses.
In our community, the great bulk of the people are so concerned with their own affairs, and are very often so diffident about expressing opinions on other matters, that very often, the idea gets abroad that the loud talker represents public opinion on a particular matter. Before I proceed to deal with this motion, I want to make three or four preliminary points.
First of all, every Senator received yesterday, in an envelope, without authentication or any evidence as to where it had come from, a copy of the Daily Mirror for Friday, January 15th, 1960. I have been a member of the Parliament of this country for nearly six years and this is the first time I have received a document without authentication. I want to ask two questions. Who was responsible for sending me the document and was whoever sent it to me ashamed to attach his name to it? Since the word “shame” was used so frequently last night by Senator Sheehy Skeffington, was the person who sent me this copy of the Daily Mirror ashamed to let me know he sent it?
If I think of the British people as a whole, I might say that I think they have a certain right to make observations about this trade in the export of horses for meat because they do not export horses themselves. I do not think that any newspaper has a right to produce this kind of material. I do not know what one would call it; it certainly is worse than the worst kind of American Yellow Press matter about which we used to hear so much.
There was a former campaign about this matter which started in 1955 and I have here my cuttings in relation to it. Nobody can suggest that it has not received sufficient attention in this country. Here are the cuttings relating to January to June 1955. Here again are the cuttings relating to July to December 1956, again from January to June 1957, and yet again the cuttings for July to December, 1957. Look at the mass of cuttings for a period of over two years! Can anybody suggest in that context that there has not been considerable concern and attention paid to this matter in this country?
I want to suggest that the campaign in 1956 primarily battened on a particular political situation and subsequently the particular people concerned in that campaign backed a number of people as candidates for the Dáil who were elected in 1957. What happened? For months nothing at all happened and then eventually a licence to export horse flesh was granted in November of 1957.
I should like to know how much horse flesh has left this country following the issue of that licence in November, 1957 and following this tremendous campaign by certain persons—whether they were well-intentioned or ill-intentioned does not matter very much but their efforts certainly seemed to me to have been ineffective. My information is that one trial consignment of horse flesh went out of this country, that it was condemned in the country to which it was sent and that there were no subsequent exports.
Another preliminary observation is that from the evidence it seems to me to be obvious that the boat which took the cargo of horses in which 45 died or were drowned recently, did put to sea after a gale warning was available. It seems to me that in these circumstances there are really two people to blame—the particular shipping company and the particular person who was in charge of the boat. It also seems to be pretty noxious and odious to see the shipping company washing their hands of responsibility in that particular instance, instead of telling the public straight out that it would not happen again.
Let us think about this problem in a serious way. A most serious accident occurred in the Irish Sea not so very long ago in which a boat, I think it was the Princess Victoria, travelling from Stranraer to Larne, ran into heavy seas and, owing to its having been improperly looked after prior to the voyage, more than 100 people were drowned, including Major Sinclair, Minister of Finance in Stormont, who certainly was a liberal man and a man for whom we in this country had a great regard. Did we make a scene about that particular incident? On the contrary we, in this part of the country, were extremely concerned and expressed grave concern but the whole thing, so far as being one of a chapter of accidents in inefficiency—if one could call it that, putting them all together—was as bad as could be. I understand that the Coronia, in which people travel the world at £2,000 per trip, has frequent fatalities on board because the passengers are old. I give these two examples in relation to humanity.
Last night, we heard a disquisition on the iniquities of a large part of the Irish nation and, though that disquisition may have worn a veneer of intellectual conviction about the treatment of animals, it was, I think, really intended to demonstrate how much better things would be managed if Senator Sheehy Skeffington were in charge of them. The Senator used the expression "muck-raking". This phrase originated amongst a number of journalists in the United States, one of the most famous of whom was Lincoln Stefans. They muck-raked in American politics. Now, I have a view about muck-raking. I think anybody is entitled to muck-rake in something in which he is really interested. Some years ago, a man might muck-rake with regard to tuberculosis. At another stage, he might muck-rake about malnutrition in children; he might muck-rake about the punishment of children in the schools. But I object to a man muck-raking all over the place.
As I see this issue, there is a serious problem. Ours is a free economy. A small farmer may have a horse that has served him well; he feeds it up and he sells it for £50 or £60. That enables him to buy another and, perhaps a better, horse. If he is a fairly large farmer and he sells two horses, he may use the money as a down payment on a tractor. Will we create a situation now in which, by prohibiting this trade, a horse will become worth perhaps £5 or £10 instead of £40 or £60?
