Censorship of Films (Amendment) Bill, 1970: Second Stage (Resumed).

Question again proposed: "That the Bill be now read a Second Time."

Mr. Horgan

Before I start my speech proper, I should like to pay a compliment to the remarks made by Senator Alexis FitzGerald which I and other Senators have had an opportunity of reading in the Official Report. We are all in the Senator's debt for what he has said on this subject and for his breadth of vision and the wide scope with which he has treated it. I should like to take the Senator up on one particular point. The Senator wondered why persons "to the left" did not expend more energy on condemning and criticising the kind of exploitation we know as pornography. If I may align myself on that very lonely promontory with other persons "on the left" I should like to say to the Senator and to other Members of the House that there are people who believe in these kind of ideas who do, in fact, protest against the kind of exploitation of people that pornography involves but they do not, like so many other people, make protest against pornography a substitute for protest against other forms of exploitation. There is a kind of trait in the human character which encourages some kinds of people to jump on band wagons about things like pornography and drug addiction and abuse. I am not saying these are not serious problems they are, and they will continue to be the concern of people who want to see society a better and healthier place for all the people to live in but I am very suspicious of, and to some extent depressed, by the activities of people who confine their protest to things like this and who, it seems to us, merely jump on band wagons when they arrive and do not see that there are other different, and very much worse forms of exploitation than pornography which are not dealt with at the same level and with the same intensity simply because the issues just do not happen to be as clearcut. I do not think Senator Alexis FitzGerald's implied criticism is altogether accurate. I suggest that people, who for a wide variety of reasons and for very often not praiseworthy reasons, attack pornography should also examine their consciences about the exploitation that takes place in other areas.

I should like to comment on Senator Keery's remarks. The Senator made an important point when he referred to the fact that one of the real problems facing the censor is not immorality in terms of sexual immorality, but immorality in respect of violence on our screens. I must agree with the Senator when he said that it is not absolutely proven that violence on the screen is a direct cause of violence in society. This brings me to a position where I can link the speeches of Senator Alexis FitzGerald and that of Senator Keery to the effect that if violence on the screen helps to produce violence in society it is only because it is working on ground which has already been made fertile by very inadequate social conditions and by social disabilities of a kind which produce a socially-deprived population, linguistically, educationally and otherwise. People who condemn violence on films and the glorification of violence must extend their condemnation to the kind of social conditions which breed people on whom violent films can have a disastrous effect.

Senator Keery refers specifically to the effect of film violence on Irish people in general. The Senator went on to make some point about the fact that our admissions to mental hospitals are among the highest in the world. This may be so. I take it it is so. We should, however, beware of using statistics in this kind of way. If it is true that we have the highest proportion of admissions to mental hospitals of any nation in the world, that statement must be qualified by mentioning two other facts. Our population structure is such that we have a relatively high proportion of old people. Our attitude to old people is frequently exemplified by the way in which we are all too ready to put old people into mental institutions on one pretext or another which has very little to do with their mental health and a great deal to do with general social attitudes towards them. The fact that this is so, and that the age structure of our population is such, is due to the continuous haemorrhage of emigration. Those are the kind of wishes that should be used to qualify the Senator's intention.

So far in this debate we have been listening to talk about censorship and the way in which it is exercised, but this has been dealt with in such a way as to make it a case of a Hamlet without a prince, because one cannot talk about censorship without talking also about the censor. In saying this I am not making any reference to the particular individual who is responsible for censoring films here. Rather, I have in mind the kind of criteria adopted by the Government in appointing a censor.

For far too long in this country the office of censor of films has been regarded as an appointment that is overwhelmingly political in its character— an appointment that is made with only the very slightest attention to the kind of work that the censor is supposed to do. I am not casting any personal aspersions on the present or on any previous censor but it must be acknowledged that for too long this position has been regarded as one where a person is put out to grass as it were. This aspect is very relevant to the Bill under consideration.

The censor should be a man who knows a great deal about films. He should be able to defend any decisions he may make. If all censors were appointed in this spirit it would not be necessary so often to have to bring in the kind of legislation with which we are dealing here.

Senator Keery spoke also on this Bill and made a very good point when he said there is no list published on films that are kept out of the country by the censor. I would agree with him that this is a shortcoming which should be remedied. But this practice also prevents people from knowing what has been cut from individual films. I am not quite sure why this should be so. One of the reasons may be that the people in the industry must keep on the right side of the censor. Some system of publication (a) of films rejected and (b) of cuts made in films passed should be made available to the public.

In general terms it is important to consider not only the nature but the origin of the motivation behind censorship in this country. I believe that nine-tenths of all censorship is motivated by a mixture of fear, laziness and hypocrisy. When we remember the history of censorship here we can distinguish two main strands. The first is the nationalist and revolutionary strand. This strand can be seen principally in the unwillingness of any country in an immediate post-revolutionary situation to allow anything to be screened that might appear to reflect on the values of that revolution and on the people who helped to make it. This is a phenomenon that is common in other countries besides Ireland. For instance, it is common in the Soviet Union, where it has been carried on to a ridiculous extent. The situation there is that nobody is allowed to make any films that do not in some way reflect a so-called "socialist realism."

On the one hand, one can understand this kind of attitude, but it need not be linked to the kind of Philistinism that seems to be attached to it elsewhere. I am thinking in particular of the very fine film made recently in Cuba called Memories of Underdevelopment. This film was unique in that it was made in a post-revolutionary situation and, at the same time, gave a very sympathetic picture of the kind of people against whom the revolution had been directed.

That strand of motivation does not now seem to be the dominant strand of the motivation of censorship in this country. Perhaps, the dominant strand now is one of a peculiar kind of moral conservatism that we seem to have got as part of our bargain for Catholic emancipation. When the majority of the inhabitants of this country were emancipated in religious terms they seemed to think that the best way in which they could show gratitude for their emancipation was to adopt the prevailing moral attitudes of the country which emancipated them. I say attitudes and not practices advisedly because we all know that the attitudes and practices of Victorian England both in terms of sexual and of commercial morality were widely divergent. This particular strand is operative in our censorship system at the moment.

On this aspect I should like to refer briefly to an interesting judgment given in the United States Supreme Court in 1952. In that year the Supreme Court held that the first amendment to the American Constitution protecting freedom of speech protected also motion pictures. The court pointed out in this regard, and I quote that:

.... the censor is set adrift upon a boundless sea amid a myriad of conflicting currents of religious views, with no charts but those provided by the most vocal and powerful orthodoxies....

I think it fair to say that in the Irish situation today these vocal and powerful orthodoxies are the ones that frame our approach to censorship. I believe these orthodoxies to be those of moral and political conservatism. They operate in such a way as to restrict the freedom of some of the minorities in this country. Indeed, I would suggest that they restrict the freedom not only of some of the minorities but also of the majority. It may come as a surprise to the House to learn that at least half of the population in this country are less than 28 years of age and that 47 per cent are less than 25 years of age so that we have a situation in which the minority is legislating for the majority.

We should be aware that as we debate this Bill, we are, to some extent, witnessing the swansong of censorship generally. Within a few years the sheer availability of images, of speech, and of the mass media generally will make the kind of censorship that we are discussing utterly irrelevant. With that reminder I support the Bill in so far as it goes.

Dr. Sheehy Skeffington

I should like to start by echoing the sentiments expressed by those who have welcomed the new Minister for Justice, to wish him well in his new post and to express the hope that he will combine with the strength we know him to have a measure of flexibility which makes a Minister in this House and the other House doubly welcome. There is an indication of this in this Bill which he has introduced. The point of view has been put forward that this is an opportunity, as in the case of the Censorship of Literature (Amendment) Act of last year, to take a fresh look at the position. The introduction of the limited certificate and the division of films into those which may be seen by everybody and those which may be seen only by those over 18 years of age, has introduced a new principle which might well be applied to earlier films. I take it this is the main purpose of the Bill before us.

I agree with Senator Horgan that censorship, whether of films, as here, or of literature, is not perhaps as necessary or as efficacious as might be hoped. In the case of films we now have films which are for adult showing only. The children are not allowed in to see them. I would express some doubt as to whether in practice children under 18 years of age are really uniformly excluded from such films. I would also say that I regard children, particularly younger children, as having a kind of built-in immunity to the apprehension or understanding of evil, no matter what kind it is, whether in relation to books or in relation to films. Films which might appear very harmful to adults would leave children unscathed, partly because of intellectual incomprehension but also because of emotional inaccessibility on the part of children. Senator Horgan suggested it is possible for adults to exaggerate the effect of films on children. I do not think quite enough research has been undertaken to show that such and such a film which might shock people of a certain upbringing or background would in fact have any effect at all on others, be they adults or children.

One of the things which is implied by having limited censorship and saying that certain films can be shown to adults and not to children is that we do not want films for adults to be censored on the grounds that they are not fit to be seen by children. We used to have this in relation to literature. We used to be asked: "How would you like your 12-year old child to be seen with this book in his hand?" as if the book which might be regarded as unsuitable for young children was consequently unsuitable for the entire Irish population. This equating of the entire population of this country to the sentiments, emotions or intellectual capacity of children of 12 is unjust both to the child and to the population. Therefore, this limited type of censorship would seem to me to be going in the right direction.

I made the point in relation to the Censorship of Literature (Amendment) Act and Senator Horgan and Senator Keery have also made the same point, that there seems to be an overemphasis on sexual immorality, the dangers of arousing sexual passions by films, and the neglect of the other sins we are told to regard as deadly. Quite free access to films, and indeed to advertising matter, is made to those who want to encourage gluttony among us. For instance you see Bord Fáilte engaging in lavish advertising for such dens of iniquity as Bunratty Castle where the entire emphasis is on medieval gluttony, as if modern gluttony was not enough.

Pride is something which is encouraged even in pastoral letters where one gets indications sometimes of pride. You find it even among politicians and among Ministers without this ever being checked or without the feeling that such Ministers should not appear on television because it might inculcate pride in very young children and this would be dangerous for the next generation as it grows up. I will not stress the fact that one can even find envy among candidates for the position of Taoiseach for instance, and pictures of such people appearing on television might play a large part in the promotion of envy among our young people.

One finds anger expressed by many people. One even finds the Leader of this House building himself up into a state in which he at least simulates anger very well. I think it would be wrong to say that on those grounds he should be banned from appearing as a television star. I do not feel the showing of pictures of such anger would necessarily endanger the security of the State.

Finally avarice. One sees sweepstakes advertisements telling you what you could do with £50,000. All the emphasis in this country in general, in the news media, in films, newsreels and on television is on gambling and the benefits to be gained by getting something for nothing. This is, in fact, encouraging avarice. I have not mentioned sloth. This is a vice which we tend to look on benignly. I certainly do. I am an active participant there. Again, the advertising of washing machines, labour saving devices and so on, would also appear to me to encourage this deadly sin. When we are faced with those six others, being freely not merely practised but encouraged, through all our news media, including films and television, we make ourselves rather absurd in concentrating censorship almost exclusively on sexual immorality. It is true of course that the question of violence is also considered but the utter neglect-perhaps the Minister might give us his views on this—of the other six deadly sins in the process of censoring films would to me imply an official recognition that censorship is not much use anyway and that it is only a kind of facade, a recognition that we do not really have to have it. I would therefore join with those who say that they regard this as an improvement, a step forward, and evidence of the desire on the part of the Minister and his Department to improve a situation which required the amending powers of this Bill and therefore I welcome it.

Mr. Brugha

With other Members of this House I welcome this Bill as an amendment of the existing position, but in doing so I should like to make it clear that I am in favour of censorship—in case there might be any uncertainty—of films of a pornographic nature which have a tendency to corrupt people in their adolescence.

Dr. Sheehy Skeffington

Would the Senator include all the deadly sins or only one?

Mr. Brugha

Perhaps I will deal with that in a moment. I do not disagree altogether with Senator Sheehy Skeffington. I found myself also in agreement with the suggestion of a seven year limited period for a fresh application. We are in a situation, certainly in almost all the countries within reach of us, where there is a change of attitude and a lowering of standards in relation to the exploitation of the weaknesses of human nature with regard to sex. In this country we ought to be able to maintain some sort of Christian standard without being puritanical. I might compliment Senator FitzGerald on what I felt was a very penetrating and intellectual approach to an important subject. I should also like to compliment Senator Keery on some of his remarks, one of which struck me as interesting. He suggested the censor should let people see what he has done and why he has done it. This is relevant today because people do not like to be put in blinkers. If you are going to administer the law and put it into effect it is a good thing that people should understand why such and such a thing is necessary. This sort of questioning comes up particularly in the minds of young people.

Senator Horgan saved me the problem of dealing with Senator Keery's remarks in relation to the number of old people in mental hospitals. He mentioned that one of the situations we have here, due to the numbers of old people, is that in many cases the county homes are full. There is the problem throughout the country that in fairness to aged people who have become senile and where there is no room for them in their own homes— perhaps because of the responsibility of their family to young children—the family find it easier to put their fathers and mothers into mental homes. This is a matter of their own decision but I agree with Senator Horgan that what Senator Keery said on the matter is not altogether true. I do not think there is that great difference between this country and other countries.

One of the things which some of the Senators touched on is the question of TV films. This is one thing that has made a difference in recent years. A good proportion of our population have access to three television channels People in the other part of the country do not at the moment, but I believe it will not be many years until they can all view all channels. I am not a puritan but I must say that some of the films I have seen on television in the past two or three years, on channels other than our own, are miserable productions from the point of view of morality.

However, there is a distinction—here I differ from other Senators—between an unsuitable film on television and an unsuitable film in a cinema, in the sense that television does not have the same impact in the kitchen, the breakfast room or wherever it may be as does the showing of a film on people in a cinema, a different kind of audience. The change which has taken place, and which may enable a change to occur in our approach, is partly due to the impact of television and partly due, perhaps, to a raising of the standards of understanding and of ability of young people to stand up to the dangers inherent in films of the kind I have referred to. It is also due to gradually improving standards of social life and education.

I agree with Senator Sheehy Skeffington about young people having a built-in immunity, but I think this does not apply to all of them all the time. It applies up to a certain age and then you run into the danger period of adolescence. It is this period that concerns me most. Each young person has got from God powers of soul and body, a potential to contribute to society and mankind, and it is during adolescence that there is the possibility that when the young person has not yet acquired self-discipline and when the intellect has not developed to such an extent as to control feelings fully that danger may be done.

We as a society have a duty to protect young people during those years from material that may tend to corrupt. Failing to do this would leave us open to the charge of having permitted damage to be done to youngsters. Many people get on band wagons about censorship and so on, but as a Christian, a Catholic, I am concerned about the grave dangers to young people. A mother will label a bottle of dangerous drugs and put it out of the reach of children. We in society also have an obligation in respect of young people's minds.

There is another aspect of this that needs a little attention. I have discussed it with numerous young people and I have found criticism of the idea of cutting a film which is pornographic or cutting pornographic portions out of it and bringing the film to the stage where it is not recognisable. I have been told by young people who have seen the same film here and abroad that a mess has been made of it. I am not criticising the censor, who is bound by the terms of reference under which he is working. However, if films are to be made available for viewing only by those over 18 years then they should be made available without any interference or they should not be allowed in at all. There is confusion about the cutting out of what the censor may honestly believe is not desirable.

I agree to some extent with some of the suggestions made by Senator Sheehy Skeffington. I wonder whether the censor's terms of reference cover any other area in films—films that encourage gambling, that contribute to the idea that deceit is a good thing, that show any degree of adulation for successful crime and so on. In reference to what the Senator said in regard to television advertisements, I know that stringent regulations are in operation in RTE. Also in reference to RTE, when they feel a film may be damaging to young people, they make sure it comes on late at night so that there is no danger of children being misled or damaged by them. My own experience in relation to children, since you cannot be there all the time, is that it is better to let the child look at the film and point out what you felt was wrong with it. This is better certainly than to let the child look at the film when you are not there, feeling that you are embarrassed in some way.

In conclusion in supporting the Bill I think that we should continue to have the courage to prevent filth and dirt that might tend to deprave youngsters just as we would prevent the sale of bad food or for that matter poisoned drink.

Mr. O'Higgins

I want to make only a few remarks about this Bill. Senator Horgan seemed to see in this amending Bill the swansong of censorship generally. I should imagine that if that interpretation were correct probably there would be a number of people who would give a whoop of joy. On the other hand there would be very many people who would feel quite horrified at the prospect. I am not entirely sure whether Senator Sheehy Skeffington felt that the Bill was not going far enough and that the censorship code should be extended to cover other matters apart from what are being dealt with here.

Looking at the points made by Senator Sheehy Skeffington seriously, one cannot fail to be struck by the seeming validity of the point of view put forward by him that you have a censorship code dealing with particular aspects of life and not dealing with others. I think that the Minister will correct me if I am wrong in this, that the answer to that lies to some extent in any event in the directives laid down in our Constitution—whether they were in the earlier Constitution or not I do not know. I have in mind particularly Article 40 of the Constitution which guarantees certain rights subject to public order and morality, and in Article 40 (6) 1º one of the rights guarantees certain rights subject to express their convictions and opinions, and then it goes on to say:

The education of public opinion being, however, a matter of such grave import to the common good, the State shall endeavour to ensure that organs of public opinion, such as the radio, the press, the cinema, while preserving their rightful liberty of expression, including criticism of government policy, shall not be used to underline public order or morality or the authority of the State.

It then goes on:

The publication or utterances of blasphemous, seditious, or indecent matter is an offence which shall be punishable in accordance with law.

The tradition here in the censorship code both in relation to films and in relation to printed matter possibly has been to place the emphasis on those matters which are pinpointed in the Constitution.

Again—I am sure that the Minister will correct me if I am wrong in this, because I have not got the principal Act here and did not get an opportunity of reading it before reading the amending Bill—I think it is correct to say that under the principal Act, that is the Film Censorship Act, 1923, the general provision is that no film can be displayed or exhibited here unless a certificate is granted by the censor, and that the censor is obliged to grant that certificate unless he forms the opinion that the film either in whole or in part is unfit for general exhibition and display on our screens for specified reasons, and that those specified reasons, as I understand it in any event, are that it is in whole or in part indecent, obscene, blasphemous or tends to inculcate principles contrary to public morality. As I understand it, those are the tests that are laid down in the principal Act which is now being amended by this legislation here, so that as I understand this Bill there is no question of departing from the censorship code and there is no question of this sounding the swansong of censorship generally. It is merely a question of taking a practical look at the position following on the practical look that was taken on the censorship of books some years ago and having regard to the changing attitudes and changing standards, deciding whether or not some of the films which were banned previously might not in the context of the standards of today be acceptable.

The Minister, I think, has made it clear that as far as some of these go, that is, films that were banned since 1965, they can be resubmitted. As far as they go it is a kind of once and for all operation; but the Bill goes a bit further than that and provides for resubmission for consideration by the censor after seven years. Again, as I say, this is a question of dealing with the matter in a practical way having regard to changing attitudes and changing standards of behaviour.

I think that there are enormous difficulties in this whole question of film censorship, and they certainly have not been lessened by the advent of TV. Senator Brugha I think rightly referred to the difficulties that obviously are inherent in the advent of TV. We cannot control, we cannot by our legislation here in any way affect, what is going to come across the air and appear on our screens from channels outside this country. That is a problem and to my mind the answer is, first of all, that we can only do the best we can in the public sense as far as our legislation goes. Other than that it seems to me that it is a matter by and large for parents and for those in charge of young people in loco parentis to do the best they can in these circumstances. I imagine that most people in the position of guardians or parents would feel that they have a definite responsibility and a definite duty in the matter.

It may very well be that Senator Sheehy Skeffington reads the position correctly when he says—I do not pretend to quote him exactly—that very often adults may feel rather too apprehensive of the effect which films or books might have on the minds of the young, and that the position might very well be that because the youthful mind is unable to comprehend things fully that, in fact, the effect which the adult fears it is going to have on the youthful mind does not take place at all. I can appreciate that that argument may be quite valid. I think it is undoubtedly true that different things affect different people in different ways. Very often the same thing affects different people in different ways. One person going into a cinema and seeing a film which deals largely with violence may be quite horrified at the content of the film, and another person may in some way feel genuinely stimulated by it. These are the kinds of difficulties that any censorship code is going to face.

I am not sure one can act on the system although I suppose it is the best we can do in trying to suit what seems to us to be the average normal person. I do not know that anyone would undertake to define "an average normal person". There is as much case for saying that a person is abnormal if he is not filled with fears and phobias of one kind or another as to say that a normal person is a person without fears and phobias. I do not know where one gets when going along those lines.

We have had here for nearly 50 years now a censorship code which has at times been subject to severe attack and criticism of one sort or another but which has, I feel, by and large, stood up to the test of time and given satisfaction. Different aspects of censorship have given rise to different views from time to time. There are some people who feel we are not really free unless we get rid of censorship entirely.

I can only give what my judgment is of the general reaction of the people of this country. I feel, rightly or wrongly, that generally speaking the people of this country would prefer that there should be some reasonable censorship code than that we should do away with it entirely and leave it to everyone to read what he likes, see what he likes on the films, and so forth, and throw the entire responsibility on parents and guardians. The average Irish parent and the average person in Ireland in charge of the young, whether it be in schools or institutions of one kind or another, approaches the problem of dealing with youth in a responsible way. We, as part of the Legislature in this country, should, where we can reasonably do so, give them a helping hand. The censorship code, by and large, gives that helping hand. This measure here is a practical one and follows up the recent amendment of the Censor ship of Publications Act I think it is being undertaken in the same realistic and practical way as that Act was undertaken.

Tomás Ó Maoláin

I should like to join with other Senators who have welcomed the Minister for Justice to this House and to express the hope that we will see him here often in the future. I wish also to express the hope that the occasion of his visits will be to introduce Bills which would otherwise be clogged up in the machinery of the Dáil and we will help to expedite their passage through this House. I hope we will have good co-operation with the Minister in this respect and that he will have a long and successful term in office.

I find myself in agreement with what Senator O'Higgins said a few minutes ago. I find myself also in agreement with some of what Senator Dr. Sheehy Skeffington has said. I find myself in total disagreement with what Senator Horgan has said about the swansong of censorship. I am going to shock all and sundry by saying that the event of the paperback and a decade of television have turned my rather liberal outlook in regard to censorship into what Senator Sheehy Skeffington would describe as "a very conservative right wing". I am very much in favour of a much stricter type of censorship than we have had up to now. I am afraid censorship is going to be very necessary in the future, if we are to preserve any of the decent standards which existed in this country up to about 30 or 40 years ago when people were much more simple-minded than they are today.

It strikes me as very significant that great damage has been done by television and by the movies apart from the paperbacks. Television particularly has done great damage. Great damage has been done in one sector about which we hear no talk at all and that is the sector of international peace and goodwill. The example I want to give is derived from my experience as a constant watcher of the three channels available to us in this country. The great second World War finished 25 years ago. Whether it is that the censor's instructions contained something in them relevant to the matter, or whether it is that it comes under the order of public morality, I do not know, but it is an extraordinary thing that the only films of any significance which we have seen in this country and on television dealing with World War II have been films made in the countries of the victorious powers, except a few of what would be described as super-cultural films which have passed through the Cork Film Festival and other festivals of this nature. By and large, the films we have seen on the screen here, particularly in the early days, have been films which seemed to have as their motive the portrayal of countries with whom we have had, and still have, the friendliest of relations, as a bunch of savages, and all the others as a bunch of angels.

I have particular interest in quoting the case of Japan. I have never yet seen a film on the screen, on television or on the movies here that portrays the Japanese in World War II as other than savages. I have never seen a film which gave a fair account of the amazing achievements in the economic sphere by the Japanese in that period. The situation with Germany is likewise. Any films we have got have shown the Germans to be second-rate types of individuals compared with their conquerers. The Italians, on any films we have seen, have been portrayed as music-makers and as subjects for fun and hilarity. The whole impression to be gained by the people who viewed the films, and by young people in particular, was that the people in these countries were unfit for human companionship, that they had a bad history and that we should detest and abhor them. I do not know why we have not seen films made on the war situation on the other side of the world. I do not know whether they have been exhibited or presented here, or stopped by the censor. I agree with Senator Dr. Sheehy Skeffington when he says that the terms of the censor's instructions ought to be clearly defined and made known to everybody and the films which were rejected or cut should be enumerated so that every one of us will know what exactly has been done in our name in regard to matters such as I have referred to here now.

One remarkable film, for instance, which I had the pleasure of seeing and which could not have offended anybody was a Japanese film called Retreat from Kiska. This film would have been a wonderful thriller for young people as it was for older people. It told the story of a Japanese expeditionary force which occupied one of the Aleutian Islands during the war. When defeat came the forces were left there isolated from everybody and with hostile people around them from the Soviet Union and the United States. Over 4,000 men were left without food or shelter or transport but they succeeded without the loss of a man in getting away from the Aleutian Islands and making their way homeward. That film was shown in a number of countries but it was not shown on the screens here. Neither has it been shown on Telefís Éireann. I should like to know whether the censor had anything to do with that film not being shown here. I should also like to know whether the legislation under which the censor operates gives him any directive to be careful not only of the Sixth Commandment and of morality and public order but also of sowing the seeds of international discontent and hatred among the people who live in this country and who are forced to view the people of other countries from the point of view of what they see on the screen and from what they read in paperbacks because most of them do not have the opportunity to travel.

Mr. Horgan

Hear, hear.

Tomás Ó Maoláin

I should like to know whether any instruction is given to the censor to consider carefully whether the films submitted to him are liable to do harm to our international relations and whether the subject matter is liable to offend the feelings and traditions of the countries. with whom we have friendly diplomatic relations.

That which applies to films of the war years applies also to Communism and to countries behind the Iron Curtain. With the exception of a few Russian films such as the one entitled The Cranes are Flying and a few others from Czechoslovakia and Poland that were entered for festivals here, we have not seen here any of the epic productions that were produced in the countries of Eastern Europe. I wonder why. The language barrier may be put forward as a reason why the renters do not distribute those films. The great quality of the films themselves might also be adduced by the renters as a reason for not tolerating competition from these unworthy producers. However, those reasons should not apply to Telefís Éireann, our State-sponsored radio and television service. I should like to know whether there is any question of a directive being given in that respect.

In this country we are in the unhappy position of depending on what is portrayed on the screen in so far as civilisation and life of the countries of Eastern Europe is concerned. We are getting a biased and one-sided view and, except for occasional independent reports made by independent correspondents, we do not get the realities of what is happening. It is right and proper that we should be made aware of the realities. Competent American film reviewers think highly of these films. However, the Irish Times and the Cork Examiner, too, who have a first class foreign news service, do not present these realities completely and accurately. We must ask why, since we must tolerate 25th rate American canned productions on Telefís Éireann. I am certain these people would be only too happy to let our radio and television service have some of their productions for a figure that would probably be less than what we are paying for the canned films we are getting from the United States and England.

In this permissive society, which has gone very near the edge of the precipice, we must be very careful. One of the ways in which we can be careful is to ensure that we do not do anything that would create intolerance and/or hatred in our people for the people of other countries. One of the ways in which we can ensure this is to secure the best productions from other countries for our screens. We could do this by exploring further east and further west than England or the United States.

With regard to the situation which will obtain if, God forbid, Senator Horgan's predictions are correct, I have been looking at these outside channels for some years. Up to the time I began to view these channels regularly I was very liberal and broadminded in my attitude towards censorship, but I must say that not only from the sexual and the immoral point of view but also from the point of view of distortion of the ideals which people in this country have held sacred for generations, these programmes are appalling. I read in the papers some time ago that Telefís Éireann are making arrangements to pipe in these channels to every Irish home but when that day comes somebody will have to do something if we are not to be completely brainwashed and subverted as a result of the filth, dirt and distortion of history that is created night after night on these foreign channels.

In regard to the paperbacks anyone visiting the bookshops of this city can see the low level to which we have fallen in regard to books since the bonds of censorship were loosened. I do not care what the cultured gentlemen here tell us about Joyce, O'Casey and the other great luminaries who have been built up into edifices here and around whom a case is made for every other person so that the bonds of control might be loosened. The fact that these books are readily available at a cheap price for young people cannot but have a detrimental effect in due course.

I support this Bill for the resubmission of these films but I do so with grave misgivings. I support it in the hope that the Minister will see to it that the censor will give us and the public generally an indication of what films were submitted to him and what films were rejected. We should also be given some information in relation to the films to which I have referred during the debate.

Dr. Alton

I do not propose to detain the House for very long but there are a few points I should like to make. I have been very interested in the views expressed by the Senators and, in particular, the views expressed by Senator Ó Maoláin. I thoroughly agree that it is unfortunate that in Ireland censorship appears to be synonymous with sex and immorality. I have strong views about this because it is my opinion that for the future we must make a decision as to where we stand in relation to the liberty of persons and to the defence of the community. I do not think we can afford to be too liberal or too strict. In so far as pornography, sex, immorality and divorce are concerned, there is not very much we can do in relation to the adult world because this particular tide is sweeping Europe and if we go into Europe there will not be very much we can do in this regard.

There are more books and films coming into this country at the present time than anybody could have imagined. As far as I am concerned, this affects our young people, and I do not think we can go beyond that. As our youngsters start to travel and as they become more in contact with Europe they will have to stand up to this, to be able to sort the wheat from the chaff. As Senator Ó Maoláin said, there are many more important things. I am concerned with the business of hatred between nations, but I am also concerned with something which may appear to be paramedical and that is that in both the visual image and the printed word we have a swamping of such things which can very strongly influence people who are not as strong mentally as others. We get in literature about scientology, ritualism and cultism and before you know where you are you have a whole group of youngsters, not quite stable, going around the country burning fiery crosses and doing damage. You have this tremendous build up in groups who are not quite stable, who rather reject present day society because of disappointments.

To my mind, censorship in the future will have to be more orientated to those type of people because in those groups we will have a small minority who can do untold damage to the community at large. This cultism attracts large sums of money from people with money and little sense. Those people get tremendous backing and they do untold damage to our national institutions. You get many people who would in a stable society remain reasonably well behaved but who cause untold trouble when they are confronted with this type of thing. Therefore, while supporting this Bill of the Minister's as a practical approach to this question, I hope that some time in the future he will introduce some Bill which would deal with censorship from a far more practical viewpoint, to release it from the rather narrow chains in which it has been held for the last 25 years or more. He might view the whole problem as something which can poison a nation in many other ways than in regard to morality. He might try and see that this can lead not only to violence but that it can lead to the undermining of the mentally unstable. Many of those people I am talking about, while suffering from mental instability, have tremendous strength and can cause great violence to other people not as strong as themselves.

Mícheál Cranitch

Sé an chéad dhualgas atá orm, gan dabht, ná fáilte a chur roimh an Aire nua. Is fear fiúntach cumasach, díograsach é agus sé ár nguí go mbéidh curamaí dlí agus cirt air go ceann i bhfad agus go mbeidh díospóireachtaí tairbheacha anseo againn nuair a bheidh sé i láthair. So far we have had a very interesting debate indeed. When we consider that this is, so to speak, an amending Bill to the 1923 Bill we see that extraordinary changes have taken place since that Bill was introduced 47 years ago. Things which were not even mentionable at that time are now being openly discussed—no great harm there—but we are living in an age when things which are regarded as being basic to our standards of morality are now being openly and vehemently questioned. There is a grave danger that we may arrive at the stage when a great number of our people may be conditioned into accepting standards and norms well below the Christian standards and norms to which we have always adhered.

Senators will recall that in the Bible, when Our Lord was 12 years old, he was found in the temple and a pithy reference was made to His subsequent private life—that he went down to Nazareth and he waxed strong and lived in grace before God and men. There you have the Christian ideal. I am afraid today the Christian ideal is, so to speak, being mocked and sneered at in the spate of films coming into this country at the moment, films made by people whose standards are away below ours.

At the beginning of the debate Senator FitzGerald made many references to the concepts of morality of the early Greeks. There is no point in my going into it, except to say that Plato and Aristotle from one society, and Christianity from the other, arrive at the same conclusion. It is on that basis we should take our stand when we come to assess the value of films, books and magazines and to evaluate what our standards should be in our censorship code. We have a great Christian tradition and the danger is that we may become obsessed by our own increasing opulence and seek to think of other countries, other civilisations, as if they have something we have not got. Is glas iad na cnuic i bhfad uainn. That holds as good today as ever.

The thing we seem to forget is that other countries, other nations, admire us for our standards as far as morals are concerned. They admire our standards; they admire the things we stand for. For example, reference was made by some Senators to the Cork Film Festival. That festival is one of the 11 great world festival. As a matter of fact it is now regarded as being, shall I say, the leading film festival in the world. Of course, the Leader of the House and the Leas-Chathaoirleach may say that the fact that it is being held in Cork is sufficient reason for that. An excerpt which I shall read from a Japanese publication is of great interest. It is taken from Communication 70. a high class magazine published in Tokyo in connection with the international world fair. Among the things it says is this extract:

By and large, diplomats and film producers are orthodox, and every festival director is bound to fall more and more under their influences as the festival grows, thus disappointing the enthusiasts and idealists. The latter refuse to understand that a festival director has a truly impossible task on his hands—since to have a successful festival he must create a mixture of quality films and star ballyhoo, of glamour and intellectual stipulation, of serious thought and showmanship, of social polish and popular entertainment.

Cork is an unassuming festival that has developed its own formula and keeps proving it from year to year. It has turned the International Federation's restrictions (which permits awards for short films only) to conspicuous advantage by showing selected feature films out of competition and thus becoming more and more a "prestige festival", like Venice was in the old days of 1932. The mere screening of a movie at Cork is tantamount to an award.

This comes from the fact that the director of the Cork Film Festival and his committee have set their own standards and have lived up to them, and accordingly have earned the interest and the commendation of the whole world for their stand.

Furthermore, it is of interest to note that since last year they have a film workshop in which young enthusiasts have the opportunity of coming together during the festival week and producing a short film of their own making. That is possibly the first step towards starting a film school in this country and it is possibly the ultimate answer to our problems as regards films in this country—the making of our own quality films provided we live up to the highest Christian standards we have always held so dearly.

The point I want to make here is that we must stand on our Christian traditions. Our standards of censorship should be such as to ensure that, as far as possible, the good, the beautiful and the true will get the place they deserve, and that evil will be depicted for the evil that it is and not as something to be commended in this day and age.

That brings us to the question of pornography. Quite a number of points were made during the debate in relation to pornography and its effects on people's minds, and in relation to the portrayal of violence and its effects on people's minds. Nobody has any doubts about this. Films and plays, particularly films, that arouse what are known as sexual passions, have a much more evil effect on human nature than any other type of film. One could look at murder films every day of the week— in one film one could have as many murders one wished—but people will leave the cinema without any inclination to murder. However, due to the effects of original sin the same does not hold true as far as what are called sexual films are concerned or films that suggest or that put glamour over sex, in other words, pornographic films.

Perhaps this is going too far, but one sometimes wonders is there some business connection between the people who make those films and the proprietors of certain evil houses, because if there is anything that could be calculated to provide full employment for those whose profession has been described as the oldest in the world, it is those pornographic films. A thing which is most upsetting to any Christian—reference was made to it by some Senators—is the degrading and debasing of our womenfolk in films, books and pictures. We all know that.

Goodness knows, there are so many protests being made throughout the world that I would not blame the women of this country and women throughout the world if they went out in protest against the degradation they have to suffer in films, plays, books and pictures. It is simply disgusting and how it will end I do not know. Perhaps the new organisation established in this country to inquire into the rights of women can do something to see if we here in Ireland could get our own house in order.

I should like to say a word or two about television films. Possibly they do more harm as far as children are concerned than does the cinema for the simple reason that one has to go to the cinema and, generally speaking, parents are forewarned in regard to the type of film, and they also can see if a film is restricted to the over 16s or the over 18s. On the other hand, they do not have to go to the TV screen: it is in their houses, it intrudes into their privacy.

We get lots of films from the USA and elsewhere which are supposed to be suitable for viewing by children. For years I have been putting boys and girls through my hands—that is my profession—and the first instance I had of the harm being done by these films shocked me. I did not know they could have such an effect on young minds. Very often children see a programme on television which may be a very suitable and most commendable programme, then they sit through the advertisements, and then a film comes along and they appeal to their mothers to let them stay up for another half an hour and their whole innocence could be blighted.

This is something I would ask the Minister to look into. How it is to be dealt with I do not know. In grappling with it, the Minister would, I think, be doing a great service to those of us, all of us who hold our Christian standards to be absolutely essential for our survival. He would do a great service to the country indeed if he appointed a committee of competent people to go into this question of censorship and see how it has worked since it was first introduced and see what could be done to our censorship code, to gear it to the necessities of this day and age.

I am sure that all of us here feel that we have a great obligation on us, as Members of this House, as Irishmen, as parents, as people who have influence over young people. We feel very perturbed indeed by the spate of films coming into this country totally unsuitable for our people. We are very perturbed by the present trends in film making, and indeed very perturbed by the abandonment in those films of the Christian standards we have always stood for.

Miss Bourke

I thought for a few moments that I was going to be deprived of the opportunity of doing as fellow Senators have done, welcoming the Minister, and congratulating him on his appointment and wishing him well. We have all pleasure in doing so. I find myself in the unusual position of endorsing very strongly two points made by Senator Ó Maoláin, the Leader of the House, in his speech. If I might take them in inverse order, first I would agree with him in supporting this Bill and saying that it would be a great advantage to all of us if the Minister could guarantee to give a list, or to ensure that the official censor does provide a list, of films which have been submitted to him and which have not been allowed a certificate for distribution in this country. I think that the Minister would have power to do that under section 12 of the Censorship of Films Act, 1923, which says:

The Minister for Home Affairs may by order, from time to time, make, and when made vary and revoke regulations for carrying into effect the objects of this Act, and in particular for regulating the conduct of the office of the Official Censor, the making of applications to him, the granting of certificates by him, and the bringing of appeals to the Appeal Board.

The Minister, I presume, would be the proper Minister now since we no longer have a Minister for Home Affairs.

Mr. O'Malley

I think I am the Minister for Home Affairs.

Miss Bourke

Congratulations. The Minister, then, could request the official censor to make this information available to us, and I think that the House would be grateful to have more information on this important matter, and that he would be willing to give it to us.

The second matter on which I agree with the Leader of the House is the point that he made about the political content of many of the films we see. This is due to the farming of the provisions of the Constitution, which was later than the Principal Act of 1923. In Article 40 of the Constitution, as Senator O'Higgins has read out, provision was made guaranteeing freedom of expression subject to public order and morality, and then the right of the Government, in the interest of the common good, to ensure that the expression of public opinion shall not be used to undermine public order or morality or the authority of the State.

Strangely enough, this section does not include in relation to films the safeguard that they will not be discriminated against on the grounds of political, religious or class bias. What I would like to have written into the Censorship Acts would be that guarantee; but that there would be an obligation on the official censor to take into account whether films submitted to him contained any political, religious or class bias which might be harmful to public morality. That is one of the reasons why we have had political bias in many films which have come into this country. A recent instance is perhaps the film Green Berets about the war in Vietnam, which had a clear bias in favour of American policy but no limited certificate. We have not had any such film which would give the point of view of the eastern countries, in South East Asia, in relation to this. I would agree with him that this is a very important point.

Mr. Keery

Is the Senator arguing that that film should have been censored?

Miss Bourke

Yes. Getting back to the words of the Minister in introducing this Bill, he said:

In recommending the Bill to the House I should like to emphasise that it is designed to deal with practical issues, taking account first of all of the fact that we have had this change of practice about limited certificates and, secondly, of the fact that standards of what is or is not acceptable on the screen change over a period and the system must allow for that. Indeed, if we do not have some flexibility of this kind, we will inevitably find ourselves in the wholly indefensible position that films that are being shown on television cannot be shown in cinemas because the application for a film censor's certificate was made several years earlier and was judged by the standards of the day.

It might be wise to look at the basis for film censorship. There are two types of possible censorship: pre-censorship and post-censorship. Post-censorship is covered by the creation of offences under the Constitution, so that there is a possibility at Common Law and under statute to prosecute for films which come within certain categories. There is a possibility also for pre-censorship of films, and in this way we have got the Censorship of Films Act, the censor, and the appeals board.

If the Minister is encouraging this technique of granting limited certificates I would ask him to consider seriously whether at this time he should withdraw, in so far as it is possible, the type of censorship which we have had on films which get a limited certificate —in other words, that they should have as little censorship as possible because of the restricted audiences and because in the theatre we do not have this type of censorship at all. In the theatre we have only post-censorship, namely that the people who produce a play in the theatre may be prosecuted. We had the prosecution in respect of the Tennessee Williams play The Rose Tattoo in the fifties. It is a rather odd situation that we have survived without being depraved by the theatre where there is no pre-censorship, probably on the principle that those who go to the theatre are not likely to be depraved by what they might see there.

If we are to increase the number of films issued with limited certificates then there should be the very minimum of censorship. In fact, in my submission, there should be no censorship of those films except the post-censorship that, if they are obscene or seditious or blasphemous, there will be prosecutions under the law of the land, and only if there are prosecutions will the film have to be withdrawn.

That is not to say that there should not be protection of young and impressionable people but the type of censorship which we have had is not something that I would agree with. Senator Ó Maoláin referred to censorship and said that there should not be religious, political or a class bias in censorship. There was a film shown in Dublin recently with a religious bias and it was objected to for its influence on young people. This film was The Shoes of the Fisherman. I do not think anything of this kind is taken into account by the censor who concentrates only on sexual corruption. In this area it might be proper to bring in an amending Act including some phrase to indicate to the censor that his role as official censor ought to take this matter into account. Since there have been valuable contributions to this debate I should like to welcome the Bill and to recommend it with the points which have been made.

Mr. McElgunn

Ba mhaith liom fáilte a chur roimh an Aire. Ba mhaith liam fáilte a chur roimh an mBille seo. In his opening address the Minister said there was no question of the Bill being meant to promote or encourage a drop in standards. I am glad of that. We all accept the need for censorship. The consensus in this House is that there is a need for censorship. No one denies the right of the State to legislate to prevent the sale of alcohol to people under age. I do not think there should be any question of the right of the State to legislate on the matter of censorship. We are legislating for a Christian country and community. Therefore, the standard of censorship should be based, as has been pointed out here by many of the speakers, on Christian values and not on post-Christian, or non-Christian, values which may come in from abroad.

The tendency with regard to censorship in this country in the past may have been severe in certain fields. The danger at the moment is that there may be a swing in the opposite direction because of the permissive society all around us. We need moderation which is a most difficult thing to get enthusiasm for. One can get enthusiasm for extremism and for people who want complete repression or for people who want the swansong of censorship and an end to it. Denmark and places like that are pointed out as places where censorship has been done away with. I do not know what the beneficial results have been. I remain to be convinced in this matter. If we believe in censorship the line must be drawn at some point. We must leave it to the judgment of the censor to appoint people. I hope that the censor will take into account the things which have been mentioned by Senator Ó Maoláin and Senator Dr. Alton because, as they pointed out, there may have been over-emphasis in the past on particular aspects of censorship.

Paperbacks have been mentioned here already. There is great difficulty here with regard to censorship. The news-stands of this country are covered with a flood of filth which has come in. This literature is completely offensive to people. We should not have to look at these things. Even books which I read as a boy and which were quite harmless, such as Edgar Wallace, are put on the news-stands with semi-nude ladies on the front of them. I do not know why. This should not be so and there seem to be two standards in this matter. One standard is applied to hard-cover books and another standard to paperbacks. It seems that Irish authors in particular are given great attention by the customs. The paperbacks come in in containers and are distributed around the country. The only system of censorship applying to them is if someone complains and sends a book to the censorship office. Something must be done about this. It is no good saying we have censorship of publications if censorship is going to deal merely with hard-cover books.

An Leas-Chathaoirleach

Might I indicate to the Senator that having made reference to this point, perhaps, he could pass from it?

Mr. McElgunn

The question of cutting of films was referred to by Senator Brugha and Senator Alexis FitzGerald. Senator Alexis FitzGerald went into the question of art, morality and censorship. It is all very fine to say that the artist produces art for art's sake. The vast majority of films are produced for the sake of money and for commercial reasons. One can see in a film just as in a book that in a second-rate film the producer just lifts his shovel and shovels in more dirt to help to sell it. We are up against this kind of thing. My personal belief is that cutting is not effective. Senator Brugha touched on this. I can bear this out. In 1955 I was working in a factory in England and I went to a film and was not particularly horrified by it.

Later on I saw this film while I was at the university in Galway. I was in the company of students. Large pieces were cut out of the film. One could almost hear the scissors snipping. The fertile minds of the undergraduates supplied far more lurid passages than were cut out. We either censor a film and say it cannot be seen or say it can be seen in its entirely. Cutting is not effective.

In my opinion, an opinion shared I think my those who have spoken in this House, the only real censorship is self-censorship. We get this through education. Those of us who teach try to get young people to have an appreciation of literature. This is the best antidote to the paperback. We must attempt in the same way to have an appreciation of films, plays and television shows. Senator Cranitch touched on this point when talking about the Cork Film Festival. Through education I hope we will give our young people an appreciation of the good, beautiful and true so that they can realise that the other stuff is worthless.

Mr. O'Malley

First of all, I should like to thank very sincerely the many Senators who welcomed me on my first appearance in this House. I wish to thank them also for the extremely constructive views which were expressed in what was to me and, I would say to anybody who listened, a most interesting and useful debate on an important topic—a topic that was dealt with in a thoughtful and responsible and, indeed, very often in an original way.

Much of what has been said, while it was both valuable and interesting, concerned censorship standards and to that extent some of the value of these contributions lies in the fact that the official censor and the appeals board will no doubt read the Official Report of the debate and, thereby, they will know what the Senators who have spoken have in mind with regard to this problem.

I think it only right that I should refer first of all to Senator Alexis FitzGerald's contribution to the debate. I hope he will permit me to say that I feel that, in a way, he did himself an injustice. He began his speech by apologising for what was to come and he repeated the apology later and in one or two asides he gave the impression that some of his listeners and, I think, I myself in particular, were perhaps less than interested in what he was saying. Speaking for myself, and I believe many of the Senator's colleagues will share my view, I would like to say that, even if my reaction was inadequately expressed, it was not one of restlessness but one of astonishment at his erudition. Indeed, if I may be permitted, as a guest of this House as it were, to make an observation on the scene as I saw it, I would say that it reminded me very much of those listening to Goldsmith's schoolmaster where:

...Still they gazed and still the wonder grew

That one small head could carry all he knew.

I may add that having heard the contributions made by Senator FitzGerald and some other Senators, I realised clearly in a personal way why Seanad Éireann is referred to as the Upper House of Oireachtas Éireann.

I am not sure that I was able to follow every detail of Senator FitzGerald's argument but I certainly found myself in agreement with much of what he said. However, I baulked somewhat at one conclusion which he reached and, since this conclusion was also reached by Senator Keery, what I have to say now applies to him also. Both Senators argued that while films may have to be rejected or restricted to audiences over a particular age, the cutting of a film is probably indefensible. Senator FitzGerald expressed this argument in some detail. As I understood him, his argument was that, as he understood it, the making of a film is essentially a matter of editing and cutting, of deciding what is to be selected from a much greater footage of film that is actually shot and of deciding on the proper sequence in which the selected parts of that longer footage should be shown. To re-cut the finished product was therefore to interfere with it in a serious way. Perhaps the Senator may have overstated the extent to which the making of a film is essentially a matter of editing but I accept that there is a substantial basis of fact in what he said in that regard. I would reply to his criticism and to the criticism of Senator Keery in two ways, or perhaps, I shall say, on two levels.

First of all, I wish to make it quite clear that, as a fact, the film censor does not cut films. He may have to say to the owner that he cannot allow such and such a film to be shown publicly unless a certain part of that film beginning at point A and ending at point B is erased. But I wish to emphasise that neither in theory nor in practice does that mean that the owner or the renter of a film is compelled to cut the film at point A and recommence it at point B.

I leave aside the obvious preliminary point that the owner may appeal against the decision of the censor— what I am referring to here is something different. What I mean is that the owner will look at the film and decide for himself what would be the effect of cutting it at point A and recommencing it at point B. If he considers that cutting at those points would conflict with the intention of its creator either by the placing in juxtaposition certain scenes that were not meant to be so placed or for any other reason, the owner can make any additional cuts or any alterations in sequence that he thinks fit. Of course, if it were to happen, and I believe it has happened but not very often, that the owner were to say that the cut or cuts specified by the censor could not be accepted by him without an unacceptable mutilation of the maker's intention, then he would have to withhold the film altogether. At that point the stage would have been reached where a choice had to be made between the considerations of art as judged by the maker of the films and the considerations of public morality as judged by the censor or the appeals board, as the case may be, to whom Parliament has delegated the right and the duty to make a decision on these points. This conflict is a matter that we must face up to in the last resort. Perhaps in that situation public morality tends to prevail. If that is so I, for one, would not disagree. Many would say that perhaps public morality does not always prevail. However, the point that I am making now is that the censorship authorities do not interfere in a direct or positive way with the film—they do not decide what actually will be shown.

Having said that, I should like to comment on what I would call a more practical level. Both Senators FitzGerald and Keery seemed to me to base their arguments on the proposition that the cinema is an art form and that a film is a work of art. Nobody would quarrel with that provided it is understood that what they are referring to is, in fact, a minority of films. I venture to suggest that it is unreal to use expressions such as "artistic unity" about the majority of films just as it would be unreal to use such terms in relation to the majority of books. I think it was Senator Keery who said that films are intended to be more than just entertainment. I have no doubt that some of them are. But I would like to say a word for the person who makes films which are meant just as entertainment. I would say that it is perfectly legitimate to make films for that purpose and that such films fulfil an important need.

Furthermore there is some danger in the approach which seems to me to underlie some of Senator Keery's arguments, particularly in relation to violence, when he seemed to be saying that the censor should look at the film in its entire context and decide whether the total effect was good or otherwise. I know it was not the Senator's intention but it is a short step from that kind of argument to the argument that the public should be allowed to see only such films as the State might consider were positively good for them to see. During the debate today other Senators adverted in one way or another to that sort of situation.

The fact of the matter, at all events as I believe it to be, is that the great bulk of films have no pretensions to be polished works of art which would be destroyed by the excision of any sequence whatsoever. I agree with what Senator McElgunn said this afternoon on that point. Some films include sequences which are included for one purpose only and that is to attract certain types of audience and I suggest that such sequences can be excised without the slightest detriment to the theme of the film as a whole for the good reason that it was included in the first place for reasons which had nothing whatever to do with the theme of the film as a whole.

There is a further important point. A situation can very easily arise in which the public interest can be adequately protected by the censor or the appeal board in either of two ways, namely, by allowing a film to be shown in its entirely to an audience over a certain age or alternatively by allowing the film to be released for general audience if a certain sequence is excised from it. In such a situation, having regard to the fact that the film is private property and that the censor's only function is to protect public morality, it is right and proper that the owner should be allowed to decide for himself in which of those two ways he will meet the requirements of the censorship authorities. It may very well be that he will choose to make the cut and thereby allow his film to become available for exhibition to a very much larger audience. The point I want to emphasise is that the censor is not imposing either solution on this man.

I now turn to remarks made about violence and the suggestion that down the years there has been too much concentration by the censorship authority on sex and, perhaps, not enough on violence. That may very well be so but, again, it is easy to overstate that position. It may, for all I know, be true, as is sometimes said, that it cannot be shown that pornography or obscenity leads to crime or delinquency whereas there is some evidence that repeated scenes of violence can be a contributory factor in encouraging unstable people to commit crime. Even if this is true it is very far from being the whole story.

Senator FitzGerald referred, very effectively I think, to the traditional Christian ethics but, even if we leave Christian ethics out of it, the concern of society does not begin and end with crime. There can be grave social evils, of great importance to the stability of society, that are not, and cannot be classified as, criminal offences. Even the most ardent advocates of divorce would readily admit that the breakdown of marriage is harmful to the fabric of society as a whole. Senator FitzGerald spoke of venereal disease. Again, I agree. He could have expanded that reference and spoken of the tragedy of illegitimate children and of girls left in the lurch to fend for themselves and very often in the position of having to depend on the goodwill and understanding of the very people they had been encouraged to sneer at. If, and I want to emphasise the word "if", permissiveness in reading matter or on the cinema screen contributes in any significant way to social tragedies of the kind I have mentioned, then there is really no point in people coming along and saying there is no evidence that obscenity, pornography or violence for that matter leads to crime. As I have said, there are, unfortunately, many evils in the world apart from crime.

There is one other observation which I ought to make at this point. It seems to me to be unrealistic, to the point of being dangerous, to criticise the censorship authorities for excising a scene, whether it be one of sadistic violence or of obscenity, on the basis that in the context of the film as a whole what was bad or evil was shown to be bad or evil. This kind of criticism presupposes a level of maturity and appreciation on the part of entire audiences which as a matter of cold fact is frequently missing. I do not think I need labour that point. It seems to me to be perfectly plain that a scene of sadistic violence can do untold harm to certain immature minds even if it becomes clear later in the film to more sophisticated minds that, in fact, the intention of the director or maker of the film was to get the message across, and even if he succeeded in getting across to those with more sophisticated minds, that this violence was, in fact, evil.

I should now like to come to Senator Horgan's speech. One of the things which struck me most, and which was taken up in a slightly different form later by Senator Miss Bourke, was that he seemed to suggest that censorship in this country has been influenced by considerations of not cutting across or interfering with what one might term, for the want of a better expression, the "values of the Revolution". If there is one thing more certain than another it is that not even our worst enemies have ever accused this country of operating political censorship under the Censorship and Films Acts. In fact, the first time I ever heard that suggestion was in Senator Miss Bourke's speech this evening.

Miss Bourke

Would the Minister accept that what I was trying to do was to support the leader of the House that it was not censorship of individual films quite so much as the fact that we are not getting the rounded view, that we are not getting films showing another point of view? I think the two films I mentioned condone political bias because of the absence in the Censorship Acts of power for the curtailment or censorship of films which could deprave politically as well as sexually.

Mr. O'Malley

I accept what the Senator says in its entirety. While I am not familiar with the film to which the Senator refers I would take grave exception, as a citizen of this country, apart altogether from whether I would do it or not do it as Minister for Justice, if the censor interfered with that film on the grounds on which Senator Miss Bourke objects to it.

Miss Bourke

Would the Minister accept there might be a case for a limited audience? Immature minds might be persuaded that something which was in it could corrupt young minds and therefore cause international friction?

Mr. O'Malley

I would not accept that at all. If you bring what the Senator is saying to its logical conclusion you can apply it to newspapers and if a newspaper contains an article which is highly critical of Government policy and the Government feel it is criticised in an unfair way, if one were to follow the logical sequence of the Senator's argument one should support the Government in banning that newspaper.

Professor Kelly

Or withdraw its advertising.

Mr. O'Malley

That is a different thing. I think Senator Bourke possibly did not intend to argue in this way but we have newspapers, as we have films, which take a particular viewpoint. I would think that, politically, the antidote to that is a reply: you write a letter to the editor or you make a film showing the other side of the story. Once you accept Senator Bourke's principle of censoring or banning something because it disagrees with your political views, you leave yourself open to totalitarianism of one kind or another.

Senator Bourke also made the suggestion, as I understood it, that where certificates limiting the viewing of films to persons of more than 18 years are granted there should be no further censorship of the film. I can see the point she made but I cannot accept that it is a valid one. It would cause considerable embarrassment to a great number of people if the giving of a certificate for viewing by persons of more than 18 years of age meant that that was the end of the matter as far as censorship is concerned.

Miss Bourke

Just one question——

An Cathaoirleach

The debate cannot be conducted by way of question and answer.

Miss Bourke

I want to repeat one point.

An Cathaoirleach

The Senator cannot be allowed to repeat points all the time.

Mr. O'Malley

Senators Ó Maoláin, Ruane, Keery and others made the point, and I thought made it rather foricbly, that the censor should be obliged to publish lists of films which he had rejected or that it should be made known to the public the sequences or the parts of films he had directed should be cut out if the film were to get a certificate for public viewing. A number of people took this matter up with my Department during the past few months and the view of my predecessor and my view, notwithstanding the case made here today, is that it is undesirable that the censor or the censorship board should make this information available to the general public.

One of the factors involved—I think one is entitled to give credence to it— is the wishes of the distributors or the owners of the films concerned. Senators may fall into the error of comparing this type of censorship with that of books, but basically the whole system is different because books go on sale and become censored afterwards. Here, you cannot show publicly a film until you have submitted it to the censor and got a certificate of approval from him beforehand. Therefore, in my opinion, since it is entirely a matter within the province of the renter whether he will submit a film to the censor, if he does so he is entitled to do so in privacy without having the fact published later that the film was rejected or cut. The comparison between a person who is submitting a film for censorship and the author or publisher of a book, which already has been on sale publicly before it is submitted to the literary censorship board, is therefore invalid.

There is the further practical point —most Senators probably agree with me in this—that we have all come across instances, when our literary censorship laws were more strictly enforced than now, when it was a boon for various authors to be able to plaster across the covers of their books not a nude lady but the magic words "Banned in Éire". In a somewhat different way, I think it would be unfair to the distributor of a film, who has accepted the suggestions of the censor as to cutting, to have it publicised that his film has been cut, because in that case the publicity undoubtedly will detract from the commercial attractiveness of the film as far as the public are concerned and they are likely to go in smaller numbers. If the film is cut in the manner which I described earlier, not precisely from point A to point B, which might make the film jerky and the cut very obvious to the public, but by the director himself from the beginning of a particular sequence to the end, in such a way that the fact there is a cut is not discernible to a person not having seen the film before, the public may enjoy that film as much as they would if it were not cut.

Miss Bourke

Even though it may interfere with their constitutional rights? There is a public interest in ensuring that the censor has not exceeded his statutory authority.

Mr. O'Malley

I did not interrupt the Senator or any other Senator. I have to reply to a number of rather complicated arguments and I find I have to concentrate on doing it. Senator O'Higgins was correct in setting out the points which the censor is entitled to take into account in judging a film. So that the matter may be beyond doubt, I do not think it is any harm that I should refer to it now and say that the standards—when I say "standards" I mean the only standards which the censor or the appeal board are entitled to apply in judgment—are contained in section 7 (2) of the 1923 Act:

Whenever any such application as is mentioned in the foregoing subsection is made to the Official Censor, he shall certify in the prescribed manner that the picture to which the application relates is fit for exhibition in public, unless he is of opinion that such picture or some part thereof is unfit for general exhibition in public by reason of its being indecent, obscene or blasphemous or because the exhibition thereof in public would tend to inculcate principles contrary to public morality or would be otherwise subversive of public morality.

I think that wording, which as far as I know has not been amended, is adequate to cover what I believe the Irish people want to cover and what I believe should be covered, and I would not consider accepting some of the suggestions made in this House that some reference to political or religious matters or bias or discrimination should be added, even if the intention were only to prevent religious or political matters entering the censor's head.

The fact of the matter is that there is no political or religious censorship of films in this country. There never has been, and while the law remains precisely as it is there never will be or can be. What struck me forcibly was that these suggestions came from the very Senators who I would have thought would be the last to make suggestions of that kind.

Miss Bourke

The suggestions have been misunderstood, I fear.

Mr. O'Malley

Senator Ó Maoláin made the point that various films were shown in this country which depicted the activities of the victorious side in the last war or in previous wars— that we never seemed to get the other side of the story, that we did not get the Japanese or the German attitude in these matters. I accept what Senator Ó Maoláin has said to be correct as fact. Indeed this seems to me, too, to be so, but I want to make it very clear to the House that it is not because of any activities on the part of the censor that this is so. It is not the censor's duty to import films from those or any other countries. The censor's sole function is to adjudicate on what is put before him. It seems that possibly for commercial reasons, which, in turn, may be largely because of language difficulties, many of these very fine films made in Eastern Europe, in Germany, and in Japan or elsewhere just are not submitted here.

Miss Bourke

How do we know if there is no list published?

Mr. O'Malley

Those to which the Senator referred, and to which other Senators also referred, quite clearly come within the terms of qualifying for a certificate under subsection (2) of section 7, and it can be assumed that in fact they have not been submitted. This is borne out by the fact that RTE, which no doubt could obtain those films for exhibition without any great difficulty if they so desired, have declined in fact to do so, and RTE is not subject to the authority of the censor.

One point which I thought was very original and to a very great extent valid was that made by Senator Sheehy Skeffington with regard to the fact that we seem to have concentrated on one of the seven deadly sins to the exclusion of the other six. There may be a variety of reasons why this should have appeared to be so. I can only venture some of my own purely personal opinions as to why it may have been so. I would be inclined to think that violence and pornography— necessarily in that order—are of their very nature more likely to encourage imitation than portrayals of other evils. As an example of that I would call to Senators' minds the example given already of the sin of gluttony. It is not my experience that gluttony, whether it be medieval or modern, is likely to encourage imitation. Indeed, the whole reaction of most people is in fact the opposite. Similarly I find it difficult to envisage a situation in which the deadly sin of pride can be so conveyed on the cinema screen that it would cause the population of Ireland to wish to emulate it.

I suppose, however, that basically I am forced into the position of saying that, in the imperfect world in which we live, all we can do in this respect is to try to exclude what the overwhelming majority of our people firmly believe is obviously harmful and, in the last resort, the law relating to censorship, as indeed the law relating to anything else, should, subject to higher ordinances, be what the vast majority of our people believe it should be.

I would ask the House to give the Bill a Second Reading.

Question put and agreed to.

Miss Bourke

I would support Senator FitzGerald that we should have time to consider it before the next Stage.

Mr. Alexis FitzGerald

I am sorry to inconvenience the Minister, but this is the position.

Tomás Ó Maoláin

It is most unusual, but, however, we will leave it to next Wednesday. It is really absurd.

Committee Stage ordered for Wednesday, 3rd June, 1970.

Seanad Éireann díospóireacht - Wednesday, 27 May 1970