This section is opposed by Deputy Cowan.
SECTION 37.
This section provides for the making of regulations governing billeting during an emergency. In the case of this and similar sections affecting the public rather than members of the Defence Forces—which may give rights to members of the Forces to enter into premises of particular individuals and require lodging, attention and food, and which authorises them to enter and obtain facilities to park or garage vehicles and so on—my view is that those powers should be specifically set out in the Bill, so that every person in the State would know that that was the law. This business of making regulations is all right so long as the regulations deal only with details. Here you are giving the Defence Forces power to enter during an emergency and take over buildings. I do not think we did that during the last emergency.
We had the power.
But it was set out specifically in the Act.
No, it was in the same way as now proposed.
The general power should be laid down in the Act itself. There are details that may be subject to regulation.
Surely the details here are specific. Arising out of this there may be certain regulations. If the Deputy reads it down he will see that practically everything it is necessary to do or seek is included in the details in the section. If the necessity ever arose for the operation of this section it would be in the interest of the people into whose premises the military were going. There might be an invasion from the air of a district convenient to a particular village or town and the troops would be rushed into that pell-mell without the chance of bringing bivouacs with them. They would be going there to safeguard the interests of the people from whom they were seeking shelter. In every case these people would be compensated. Food would be paid for and they would be a friendly army going into the homes of friendly people. I do not think there would be any objection by the people to giving them all the facilities possible in return for the services which they were giving to the people. There is the further safeguard that, wherever possible, these billets would be selected by the local head of the Garda Síochána.
I agree with everything the Minister says in regard to the section. If our troops go into an area I thoroughly agree that they must receive lodging, food and attendance where necessary. I know that in a general way they would be very welcome and that the people would do their best to look after them and it may never be necessary to avail of these compulsory powers at all. What I am advocating as a matter of principle is that the powers to be exercised against the ordinary people by the Army must be specifically stipulated in the Act so that the people may know what they are obliged to do and who can oblige them to do it.
Would the Deputy look at sub-section 5 ?
I understand that, that if the regulations are put before the House and we do not annul them they are in force, but I want Deputies to remember that when a Minister brings an Order into the House containing a lot of billeting regulations, all that we have power to do as members of the Dáil is either reject that Order or approve of it. We have not the power to amend a single line. Do not think there is a safeguard there ; there is not.
If there were one objectionable regulation — objectionable from the point of view of the House—the House could reject it.
The House might be anxious to amend four or five provisions, but in a general way they would say: " We do not want to stop this regulation for the purpose of changing these four or five provisions." Again, generally speaking, we vote in the House in particular ways and if the Minister brings in a regulation, generally it is accepted because the power is there to vote. That is the normal experience of how Parliament is run. I wonder if there were ever regulations made under the old Act or if they are available.
They were made but never had to be operated. They set out how much was to be paid, and so on.
I do not mind that as that is incidental. We should say here that during an emergency any person, on being so required to do by a military officer in charge of a part of the Defence Forces, will provide lodging, attendance and food, and if he fails to do so he will be subject to a penalty of £20, as set down here. Then everyone would know that that was the obligation. No one knows what the obligation will be until the Minister makes the regulation, which even lawyers may have difficulty in finding ; yet the ordinary citizen is bound to obey that under a penalty of £20.
In a general way I do not object to regulations affecting the internal working of the Defence Forces, but where you are passing a law affecting the ordinary civilian population you should be specific in the Act as to what you require civilians to do and what you will penalise them for not doing.
If the powers are specified, as required by Deputy Cowan, the military authorities would have them at all times, but when we give power in this Bill to the Minister to make regulations to do the things that are named in the section I take it that the regulations will not be used or enforced except during certain periods of emergency.
That is specifically stated.
If the section is so drafted that the powers are specified in it, will it not be that the military authorities would have that power at all times ?
No.
In any case, necessity would be the paramount consideration.
What Deputy Cowan is looking for is covered in the section as it stands. The regulations the Minister may make may vary from area to area, as an emergency may exist in a particular locality. If we embodied in this section the powers Deputy Cowan suggests, it might mean you would not need these powers as set out in the Bill, and, therefore, regulations would have to be made changing them to deal with the position ; and that would make it even more difficult.
I would like the Minister to explain subsection (2) which says that any person who contravenes " by act or omission " any regulation may be liable to a fine of £20. What is meant by the word " omission "?
It means failure to provide, say, the meals set out in the regulations. The money would be provided and it would be a question of providing the necessities that went with the billeting.
Mr. Brennan
Would the money be forthcoming from the time the Order was made?
Yes.
Mr. Brennan
Many a person might have premises capable of billeting a certain number of people. They might not have the money to provide the food.
If they had not got the money, the food could not be provided.
Mr. Brennan
But the money would be forthcoming immediately for its provision ?
If such a man were brought before the District Justice, it would be a good defence for him to say: " I had no food and I could not provide it."
They would not attempt to billet in a small cottage where a father, mother and perhaps six children resided, but there might be houses with six rooms and possibly only a husband and wife or a big house, the owners of which would not want to let anybody in but which could perhaps accommodate 20 or 30 men.
I think the section is clear and wide enough, and I do not think it would be wise to attempt to set out in detail everything that would be necessary in time of emergency. As Deputy McQuillan said, it might be necessary to change them from area to area. One point we should keep in mind is that it will be an army amongst our own people. It will be a friendly army, defending these people, and in these circumstances I do not think that people will be worrying very much about law. Rather will they be trying to do all they possibly can.
Mr. Brennan
In case of sudden attack by air, would it not be the local F.C.A. who would take over?
In the first instance, they might, but it is the Army proper which would have to be rushed into the area. From my own experience of the Army on manœuvres, the Army would much prefer—Deputy McQuillan will bear me out on this—to provide for themselves with the aid of bivouacs and cooking utensils, and it would only be as a last resort, where they would have to be rushed out without bivouacs or cooking utensils, that this provision would come into operation. In these circumstances, I am pretty certain that they would be welcomed in the main by the people, just as I am certain that they would not inflict themselves on people in such a way as to upset family life completely and entirely—such as the case I mentioned of a father, mother and six children with very limited accommodation.
What I took from what the Minister said earlier is that if the circumstances permitted it at all, the local Gardai would be rung up and that they would make the arrangements.
What would happen is that there would be an advance guard or something of that sort moving ahead of the Army and making provision for a situation of this kind. We would need this power and I shall have to resist any effort to amend it.
I want to explain that I am raising this on the basis of principle. I have been opposed to this form of legislation for quite some time and I am not alone in that opposition because people in this and other countries also oppose it. I would have no great objection in certain circumstances where it was a matter of internal administration, but where we interfere or make provision for interfering with the ordinary rights of citizens, I believe that the extent of our interference should be specifically laid down in the statute, and that while there might be incidental matters like forms, and so on, to be dealt with by regulation the principle of what the citizen is bound to provide under penalty of £25 should be laid down in the Act in a general way. The Minister may—he probably has the draft ready—make regulations saying that the citizens in any part of the country must in time of emergency provide food, lodging and attendance for members of the Defence Forces. If that were set out in the Bill, we as a Committee and Deputies could examine it and we could put in the safeguard that, if they had not got food, it would not be an offence not to supply it.
Mr. Brennan
Does common sense not suggest that ?
Common sense does not unfortunately work all the time. If the Minister brought in a regulation to this effect, we cannot do a thing in the House to amend it. We can look at the regulation and say that it is a good regulation as to 90 per cent. of it but that there are these things which we object to in it. We still have to pass it.
You can throw it out on the 10 per cent.
In theory, yes, but, in practice, you do not throw it out.
I would agree with Captain Cowan in the principle he is advocating for anything affecting peace-time. The principle of legislating through order for peace-time is fundamentally bad but the section only applies in time of emergency and in time of emergency the national interest is paramount. It is impossible formally to provide for what is going to turn up in an emergency. The section is strictly limited to an emergency and I do not see that for practicable purposes the Minister can do anything else. You cannot fight a war on legal formulae.
Captain Cowan has said that he is strongly against interference with the people's freedom. The men who would be going in there would be going in to protect the people's freedom and to ensure that the freedom they possessed would continue so far as it lay in their power.
I did not mean that. Where we set out to interfere with the rights of citizens we should do it by law specifically in an Act rather than by regulations made by the Minister. Secondly, there is what the Chairman says—Deputy McQuillan made the same point—that, in case of an emergency, regulations might have to be made about this, that and the other place. We have 25 years' or more experience. We have had the experience of an emergency and we have had to draw up billeting regulations under the old Act, and obviously the Minister must have ready now his billeting regulations.
Surely you are not going to fight the next war on the basis of the last emergency regulations.
No, but this statute gives the Minister power to make regulations——
In time of emergency—and strictly limited to that.
It does not say so in the section. He makes the regulations now——
And they only come into effect in time of emergency.
I agree. He makes the regulations now to take effect in an emergency. What I am advocating is that we should put in now the main points of the regulations which the Minister will make to-morrow or on the morrow of the passing of this Bill.
But he might want to make different regulations when the emergency was on.
We do not know what situation will arise in such circumstances.
I am afraid I am being misunderstood. If the Minister makes a regulation to-morrow to affect the County Kerry it will be left on the table of the House. It will be law but nobody in County Kerry will know what is in that regulation. In time of emergency there is no newspaper circulating in County Kerry and there is no use in putting it in the Irish Times or any paper here. We ought to say specifically in this Act that in time of emergency a citizen will be obliged, if so required by an officer in charge of troops, to provide food, lodging and attendance, and that if he does not do it he will be liable to a penalty of £25. That is a statutory obligation on the citizen. As regards the machinery—how the officer pays, the form he uses when he hands it to the citizen—that can all be done without any trouble by administrative regulation, but we should say in the Act that a citizen will be guilty of an offence if in time of emergency he does not to the best of his ability provide the food, lodging and attendance required by an officer in charge of troops operating, on active service, or on duty in that area.
Is that not just what the section does ?
No.
It makes it quite clear that the Minister may in time of emergency require an occupier to supply food and lodging and furthermore this very distinction which Deputy McQuillan was the first to make with regard to emergency and peace-time is made in the Constitution. I could not agree more with Deputy Cowan in his opposition to legislation by regulation for ordinary peace-time purposes, but it is even specifically provided in the Constitution that a state of emergency or war will be recognised and it is one set of circumstances for which you cannot legislate in detail in advance. I strongly advocate that the Minister gets the powers that Section 37 purports to grant.
I am not familiar with legal terms or legal jargon but I suggest that section should be made to read that the Minister " may "—leaving out the next two lines—" require the occupiers of premises——"
And the effect is the same.
Further down, it could be made to read: " and may fix, with the sanction of the Minister for Finance, the scales of payment to be made etc." and " may provide for any matter or thing ancillary to the aforesaid " and, finally, " may make such regulations in connection with the above as he may think fit to suit the occasion." Is it not all combined in that ?
That seems to be a perfectly correct view.
The next section provides for that. I think that Deputy Cowan said that if a man had not food he could not supply it.
You cannot take the trousers off a Highlander.
I have often proposed premises that were not accepted. I am afraid that I have not been making myself clear at all. What I have been trying to say is that what we should say in this Act is that a citizen or a certain class of citizens will be obliged to provide lodging, maintenance and food in times of emergency under certain conditions, and that if they do not do that they will be committing an offence and penalised. This section does not say that. It authorises the Minister to make regulations obliging citizens to provide lodging, maintenance and food.
I would like to ask Deputy Cowan one question. He says that the Minister should clarify the position regarding the type of dwelling in which troops could be billeted. Is he going to set down a list of the type of houses, their valuations, the number of rooms available and the number of people already living in the house ? Is all that to be set down in black and white if a question of billeting arises. Someone mentioned that a cottier with his wife and six children might have two rooms, and any billeting officer would have common sense enough to see that there was no room in that house to fit troops, but if the question really arose he might fit in one man. Is he to be prevented from billeting one soldier or two in a house like that by including in this specific regulations as Deputy Cowan suggested ?
I think that Deputy McQuillan's suggestion shows clearly how necessary it is that the obligations of citizens should be specifically described in this Act and the penalties for breaking the law. What we are simply doing here is saying to the Minister: " Look here, you can make any regulations you like and anyone who contravenes them can be brought to court and fined £25 "; and I say that it is wrong to do it in that way. It is no defence to say: " But this thing must be laid on the table of the House and may be annulled." If, as Deputies have said, the Minister makes the regulation immediately an emergency situation arises there will be no opportunity for anybody to examine it. That is the point I am making—a very simple one. We should say clearly in the Act: " If you do not provide attendance, food and lodging when you are so required you are guilty of an offence and may be fined £25." What this says, however, is that the Minister can make any regulations he likes and if you do not obey them, whether you have ever heard of them or seen them, you will be penalised. That is wrong.
Unfortunately that is the very thing you may be up against in an emergency.
I do not mind giving the Minister power to do something in an emergency, but this is giving him power in peace-time to make regulations which would operate in an emergency.
They will not operate until an emergency.
The Minister will make them to-morrow—after this is passed. They are all nicely set out in the Department to be signed. They were ready for the last emergency. I would rather have these provisions in the Act than in regulations. However, I have fought a hard battle for principle. I would ask you to put the section for record purposes.
Question—" That Section 37 stand part of the Bill "—put.
The Committee divided: Tá, 6 ; Níl, 1.
Tá.
- Minister for Defence.
- Davern, Michael J.
- Carter, Frank.
- Hilliard, Michael.
- Colley, Harry.
- McQuillan, John.
Níl.
- Cowan, Peadar.
Question declared carried.
The Committee adjourned at 4.50 p.m. until 4 p.m. on Wednesday, 19th March.