Dillon, James MatthewWednesday, 11 July 1945 |
Dáil Éireann Debate
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Ceisteanna—Questions. Oral Answers. - Factory Workers' Dismissal.
Is it a case of somebody biting the hand that fed him?
Ceisteanna—Questions. Oral Answers. - Distribution of Bran and Pollard.
Is the Minister prepared to say that the ratio of 25 per cent. to manufacturers of compound feeding stuffs and 75 per cent. to retail distributors to farmers is the same approximately as the ratio of ...
Ceisteanna—Questions. Oral Answers. - Maintenance of Land Commission Roads.
Is that not the purpose for which rural improvement grants are available from the Board of Works?
It would not be much for the Minister to know.
Order of Business.
In order to get this clear, are we to understand that the Taoiseach will first take his Estimate and then we shall have the Emergency Powers Bill and the Documents and Pictures Bill? When is the Exte...
The Department of Agriculture business will be stuck in between?
Committee on Finance. - Vote 3.—Department of the Taoiseach (Resumed).
It took you 15 years to learn that.
The Taoiseach asked Deputies on previous occasions not to embarrass him by raising matters without notice on his Estimate. That was a proposal to which we were all prepared to give ready assent. Ac...
You replied to me that it appeared to you that the matter which I proposed to raise related to the Department of External Affairs. I made further representations, along the lines described, to you an...
May I ask you to finish the quotation?
Surely you will finish the quotation?
May I say that the quotation you have read out stops half-way through? “The matter which I propose to raise has no reference to any other country, or the seven seas surrounding this country, but relat...
This is a republic? That is the greatest news I heard for a long time. Now we know where we are, and the League of Nations in San Francisco knows it, too. When did it happen, can anyone tell us?
Can anyone tell me when we became a Republic?
May we ask the Taoiseach when we became a Republic? I represent an Irish constituency and I want to know when we became a Republic.
I know, but——
May we not know when we became a Republic? Vote put and declared carried.
We still do not know when we became a Republic.
Committee on Finance. - Emergency Powers (Continuance and Amendment) Bill, 1945—Committee.
I move amendment No. 1:— In sub-section (1), before paragraph (a), line 39, to insert a new paragraph as follows:— (a) by the deletion in sub-section (1), lines 4 and 5, of the words “for securing th...
No; it is not.
All I want to say is: Will the Minister accept my amendment, which reduces the powers under sub-section (1) to the power to make emergency Orders for the provision and control of supplies? If he will...
I cannot tell you. Once this section is passed, all the rest of the proceedings are “cod”. I want to make this point, because it is vital. Deputies in this House seem to forget that the Government i...
Did the Taoiseach say in the Bill or in the Act?
The 1939 Act?
Sub-section (5) of Section 2.
That has been amended since.
It is quite clear.
Exactly.
You are taking out (p)?
By the amending Bill you are taking out (p).
Does the Taoiseach realise that there has been a judicial decision that the limitation contained in the lettered paragraph cannot be regarded as an effective limitation of your powers under sub-sectio...
Has any judicial decision been given to that effect?
It is the opinion of the courts that matters to the individual and not the opinion of the Taoiseach's advisers.
Exactly.
But you are not putting in words in Section 6; you are putting in a new section.
This Section 6 means putting in a completely new restriction which was never in the original Act.
Exactly.
In time of war.
And with commonsense.
The Taoiseach talks of certain Orders, and says: “I ask Deputies to leave the question of public safety to us.” That is just the thing I do not want to leave to him. I do not want to leave in the Tao...
And you are taking it back by proclamation.
Then why did you mention it?
Precisely, and I also want the Dáil to understand what the situation is. We are being calmly invited to leave everything in the Taoiseach's hands. “Trust us,” he says. We trusted him in 1939. When...
The Taoiseach says to us: “I cannot segregate supply matters from the other matters. How am I to say whether an Order regulating persons to queue is a matter relating to public order or to supplies?”...
On the understanding that you are going to take those powers by proclamation.
That is the understanding you mentioned.
“And we can use them.”
I am not. It is you who are trying to confuse the issue.
You said that, simultaneously, the Government would make and publish a proclamation which would give them this power.
That is some advance.
The Taoiseach is one of the most astute and devious politicians in Europe. He is quite capable of jumping to his feet and of making a magnificent gesture by saying “Yes, we will take out these words....
I understood the Leader of the Opposition to say: “Will you take out the words ‘or the preservation of the State’?” In any case I want to make this clear: I do not give a fiddle-de-dee for the concess...
God forbid, if I did not want to get permanently lost.
God only knows.
Pass an Act of Parliament.
Can the Taoiseach set any limit to that?
Does the Taoiseach undertake to do that this time 12 months?
Would the Taoiseach answer this: Can he not bring himself to say: “On the 1st of next July I am going to bring in a Bill to repeal that whole emergency code. I warn you here that on the same day. I ...
I would fight like a tiger against it.
No, no.
I am left in the position of believing that the Government, as a whole, are seeking vague and amorphous powers which, when crystallised, constitute formidable inroads on individual liberty. If the Ta...
Does the Taoiseach give us his word that he will not renew it?
The Taoiseach wants those general powers permanently?
And the Taoiseach will give his word that he will come and ask for them.
I can foresee it.
Does not this amendment operate to amend the categories in Section 2 (2) of the Principal Act?
I approach the assurance of the Taoiseach in this connection much as a fly would view the invitation of the spider when he asks him to enter his parlour. I am not going into that parlour on any terms...
I thought he would. I told you he would do that.
Exactly. He is most reasonable.
Exactly.
So long as he has Section 2 (1) he will yield nothing.
On this amendment——
This is the very trap I saw and this is what he has been manoeuvring for since the debate began. The position of the Taoiseach is: “Here am I, a reasonable man, ready and willing to meet the Opposit...
Certainly, I am dealing with it. This amendment is the old Rugby gag——
Yes, and I am exercising my right in Committee to debate it. It is a dangerous and a rotten amendment because it appears to the untutored eye to achieve something, but in fact it achieves nothing. Th...
Yes.
He has passed the dummy as skilfully as I ever saw it done.
Before the amendment is passed I implore the Opposition not to get into competition with the Taoiseach, because otherwise he will make hares of them. There is no one inside or outside this country hi...
On the amendment——
I suggest that this is a political manoeuvre deliberately designed to mislead the people.
And the fact that it is going to be accepted shows the type of political manoeuvring with which he is trying to cover up his flank. It does not influence his refusal to abandon the emergency powers. ...
I am speaking to it. It will be plastered on the front pages of the newspapers by his instructions, what an immense concession has been made. Apart from his original willingness to part with anythin...
And because that is passed I say that no other amendment is needed.
I do not want a discussion. For God's sake let the Opposition not get into a struggle now with the Taoiseach on the remaining amendments.
On this one let us not get into a struggle about tactics. That is going to conceal the main things that happened to-day. This or any other amendment is not of significance. I beg the Opposition not ...
What is the meaning of the amendment? What is the use of putting down an amendment when we know what the position is if anybody wants to leave the country?
Is that not so under another statute?
There is no use in blinding our eyes to the fact that the system of the Minister, in effect, in imposing additional penalty to that imposed by the court, is a horrible system, but, subject to that gen...
I can see the point the Taoiseach is getting at, but it is a very dangerous frame of mind to get into to say that, because you discharge a public servant who has been convicted of embezzlement, on the...
I understand there is a Standing Order that the Report Stage of a Bill cannot be taken under a given time after the Committee Stage.
If there were such a Standing Order, I would not avail of it, but I would go on record as specially abstaining from availing of it in that case.
If there were a hypothetical case, I would put that point: I heard that said here before, when the House passed a Bill of this character without discussion. That was called in evidence to emphasise t...
No, nor with the unanimous consent of the House.
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