DUBLIN METROPOLITAN POLICE.—Class III. (Hansard, 13 February 1917)

§ Mr. DILLON
This is a Vote to provide the means of paying the extra increase in salary to the Dublin Metropolitan police and to the Irish Constabulary which was sanctioned by an Act which we passed last December. On that occasion there was an interesting discussion as to the condition of the Dublin Metropolitan Police. Before we pass this Vote I should like to ask the Chief Secretary to make some statement as to the result of his investigations into the state of that body, a body which, I need hardly say, the position and spirit of which is of enormous vital importance not only to the Irish Government, but to those of us who are resident citizens of Dublin. I think I may say, and that in doing so I speak for the vast majority, that the citizens of Dublin have been very friendly towards that force. The Dublin Metropolitan Police, as I think the Chief Secretary will have been able now to appreciate, is a very fine police force. Physically I do not suppose there is such a police force in the world except perhaps the New York Police, which are largely drawn from the same nationality. They are a magnificent body of men, and, so far as I have been acquainted with them, having resided in Dublin for forty years, they have been a very effective and, on the whole, under difficult circumstances, a very loyal and reliable body of police. I may say that the circumstances under which the Dublin police do their duty is very, very different indeed from 549 the circumstances under which the police in this City, or, I may say, in any other of the cities, do their duty, because sometimes trouble arises in Dublin of a political character which is quite unknown to this Metropolis and which puts a strain on the police and which is very much in excess of anything which falls on the police in a City like this. During all these years the police have managed, as a rule, to maintain fairly good relations, and, in fact, I go beyond that and say, very good relations with the poplation of Dublin. But, unhappily, about five years ago there came a great break in that condition of affairs. Owing to a variety of circumstances the police were brought into violent collision with the inhabitants of the city—large sections of the inhabitants of the city. Bloodshed resulted, there were serious riots, and very bitter feeling was aroused between the police and the people, which was a most unfortunate circumstance.

§ The DEPUTY-CHAIRMAN
Perhaps the hon. Member has not seen the details of the particular Vote we have before us. It is a Supplementary Estimate.

§ Mr. DILLON
Does not the Vote of any sum of money for the Dublin Metropolitan Police raise the whole question of the administration of that force?

§ The DEPUTY-CHAIRMAN
As the hon. Member explained at the opening of his remarks, this sum is to meet the necessities arising out of the passage of an Act of Parlament carried last Session, and it is confined to that. I do not think it raises the whole question. It is a Supplementary Estimate, and the relations between the police and the citizens of Dublin do not arise.

§ Mr. DILLON
On the point of Order. I submit, if it raises any question, it raises the question of the administration of the police and the question whether this House is justified——

§ The DEPUTY-CHAIRMAN
This is a Supplementary Estimate, and not the ordinary Vote.

§ Mr. DILLON
I know.

§ The DEPUTY-CHAIRMAN
It is for a specific object. I remember the Debates on the Act which was passed last Session, when claims were made for additional remuneration. That principle has been accepted by the passage of the then Bill into an Act, and this Estimate is simply 550 for the money, and I think the hon. Member must confine himself to that.

§ Mr. DILLON
Would the Deputy-Chairman kindly define what are the objects of this Vote? The objects for which this money is being voted is to increase the pay of the Dublin Metropolitan Police, and surely I am entitled, in connection with that, to consider the question of the pay of the police generally.

§ The DEPUTY-CHAIRMAN
That is settled by the Act of Parliament. The hon. Member is entitled to raise anything which comes within the Act on which this Supplementary Estimate is based. It must not be in general terms, but confined to that.

§ Mr. DILLON
That is exactly what I was doing. I was raising questions which arose out of the Act for which this money is to be voted, and unless the ruling is that we must pass this Vote sub sikntio we are entitled to discuss such questions as arise out of the Act. One other question which I propose to discuss was the question whether the Chief Secretary had looked into the matters which he promised to look into when we were discussing the Act, because if he has not looked into those questions I intend to move a reduction of the Vote, in order to raise the question of his neglect to look into those matters which he promised to look into when we were passing the Bill. I raised the matter then, and it is precisely on that very matter I propose to address a few observations arising out of that very discussion. I maintain I should be entitled to challenge this whole Vote, if I am so disposed, on the ground that the assurances, or the expectations, not to put it as high as assurances, which were then aroused in our minds have not been carried out. When that Bill was before the House I made a strong appeal to the Chief Secretary to take into favourable consideration a claim for the reinstatement of four or five of the police-constables who were dismissed from the service, and I want to know whether he has investigated that matter or not. I would point out the grounds upon which I make a very strong claim for favourable consideration. The police in Dublin have been undoubtedly in a very disturbed and discontented condition. The Chief Secretary himself must know now that that discontent did not arise entirely from the question of insufficient salaries or wages, although 551 that was a very large element in the matter, but that it arose from the series of circumstances to which I have just been alluding. In view of the ruling which you, Mr. Maclean, have given, I will not enter into those circumstances in detail, although I hope that some other opportunity will be given when the main Vote is brought on. I may point out that when you, Sir, say that another opportunity will be given when the full Vote is brought on, since the War broke out we have had no opportunity at all of discussing any Irish business, therefore a little latitude might reasonably be offered on occasions of this kind. The Irish Votes for the two last Sessions have been thrown into the hotch-potch at the end of the Session and no discussion allowed upon them at all, owing to the excuse of war emergency.
This is a matter of extreme urgency. I maintain, from a long knowledge of the city of Dublin, that by a little sympathetic and judicious handling the police force in the city might be restored to the same spirit of loyalty which prevailed prior to the unhappy events of 1911. I can assure you, Sir, and the Chief Secretary that the state of the city of Dublin at the present moment is such that it is in the highest interest to everybody that the police force should be in an entirely satisfactory condition. It is not in a satisfactory condition. The men are smarting under what they consider to be, and what I consider to be, a good deal of mismanagement and injustice. I will not attempt to go in detail into all the events which led up to the condition of things which prevailed before Christmas, when we were on the eve of a police strike. It would be impossible for me to exaggerate the dangers that threaten the city of Dublin in the event of a strike in the police force. It would be, or might be, nothing short of a disaster. Better counsels prevailed, and that trouble for the moment passed away, but there is still a very serious spirit of discontent among the men. They do not think that they have been generously treated. I agree with them. I do not think they have. I do most earnestly urge on the right hon. Gentleman that he might now, discipline having been vindicated—he may remember that in the Debate last December he was pressed somewhat on this subject, and he made an appeal to us to say no 552 more about it, on the ground that discipline must be vindicated, and I used any influence I possess with colleagues of my own who felt very strongly on the subject to induce them not to press him further upon it, because I felt that these are extremely delicate matters, that in a police force discipline must be maintained, and for the moment it was better to leave the whole matter in the hands of the Chief Secretary and the Commissioner in Dublin—but now a considerable period has elapsed, discipline has been vindicated, the force have been doing their duty loyally in the interval, and I say that now the time has come when the case of these dismissed constables ought to be reconsidered.
I would not make this appeal if I did not believe that the effect of reinstating these men and wiping the slate in their regard would be to greatly better the whole temper and spirit of the police force. Some, not all, of the main causes of the trouble have been removed. The officers who were in command of that force had not the confidence of the men. I do not think they deserved the confidence of the men. The men believed that they were brought into collision with the citizens of Dublin unnecessarily, and that all that trouble—vast numbers of them; were wounded and brought to the hospital, as were many of the citizens—was due not to any necessary cause, but to the incompetence and misdirection of their own officers. That left a very bitter and discontented spirit. There were other causes which I do not go into now, because I do not want to exacerbate feeling. I am anxious to smooth it over, because I have far too keen a sense of the situation in Ireland at the present time, and of the spirit of the country, to wish to add anything to the flames that may break forth. I am anxious, if I can, to help the Government in this matter in putting an end to this trouble, which is a very serious trouble. Therefore I will not go into the other facts which are agitating and causing discontent in the ranks of the Dublin police. I will only say that in addition to the belief—the well-founded belief—that they have had incompetent and unsympathetic officers who were wholly ignorant of police business and who were responsible, through their ignorance, for bringing them into collision with the people unnecessarily, there were other grievances of a substantial character to which I will not allude 553 now. The situation as far as the officers is concerned has greatly improved. The officers now at the head of the Dublin police are competent men, and, with a little give and take and sympathetic treatment the morale, good discipline and good spirit—we cannot have an efficient police force without good spirit—and confidence in their officers would be entirely restored. I therefore appeal to the right hon. Gentleman to make some statement to-night, before this Vote is passed, which will tend to set the police force in Dublin right and remove the bitterness which undoubtedly exists.

§ Mr. FIELD
I rise to re-echo what has been said by the hon. Member for East Mayo (Mr. Dillon). As the senior Member for Dublin City and having an intimate connection with the citizens, I can vouch for the accuracy of every statement which has fallen from him. There can be no doubt whatever about it, every sane man will agree, that there ought to be good feeling between the citizens and the police. That good feeling which did exist to a certain extent was rudely disturbed by the events to which the hon. Member has alluded. The root of the whole business is that the Dublin Metropolitan Police are not governed by the chief magistrate of the city as the police are in other places. I desire to allude to another matter. This is a money question. The ratepayers complain that they have no proper account of how the 8d. in the £ was disbursed in regard to the police. The valuation has much increased in Dublin. The charge made goes into the Treasury. I happen to be a member of the Blackrock Urban District Council and also the County Council of Dublin, and every year a motion is brought forward not to pay the Police Tax because we do not get the information we think we are entitled to in respect of the expenditure on the police. It is quite evident that the ratepayers are dissatisfied in regard to the matter.

§ The DEPUTY-CHAIRMAN
That is quite a general question I really must ask the hon. Member to relate his remarks to the Supplementary Estimate.

§ Mr. FIELD
Is not the question of the Supplementary Estimate the question of emoluments—the expenditure of money which causes that Supplementary Estimate to be necessary? However, I have got in the remarks I wanted to make, and I hope the Chief Secrettry will understand 554 that we are not here to oppose this Vote, but we want information, and I think I am entitled to get information on a point which my Constituents demand. It is so seldom that we get an opportunity of asking anything with regard to the administration of affairs in Ireland that I think a point might be stretched to allow us to obtain information which our constituents require from us. The Government, in their desire to prevent private Members from being anything but mere voting machines, are constantly giving away our rights and privileges.

§ Mr. FLAVIN
As this is a Supplementary Vote, may I refer you, Sir, to Paragraph (m), which says, "Estimated deficiency by receipts from Police Tax, £600." Surely when there is a deficiency of £600 in the amount of money levied on the Corporation of Dublin, and through them on the ratepayers, we have a right to ask for some information in connection with money compulsorily raised on them.

§ The DEPUTY-CHAIRMAN
The hon. Member forgets, I dare say, that in all these Supplementary Estimates the appropriations made at the end do not relate to the specific items with which the Supplementary Estimate is concerned, so as to enable them to raise the whole question. Hon. Members must confine themselves to the items in the Estimate and the items in the Estimate are set out quite clearly, and we are now dealing with pay and extra pay of the police—£6,200.

§ Mr. BYRNE
I rise to join my Friend in the appeal to the Chief Secretary for the reinstatement of these six men. I received a promise from him yesterday that he would go into the matter. I have been in communication with the Chief Secretary for the last couple of weeks and he said he was not overlooking the matter. I gathered very satisfactory information from him yesterday and, in fact, I expected to hear of the reinstatement of the men in the next few days.

§ Mr. DUKE
I must protest against the hon. Member putting upon me, as an account of a private conversation yesterday, a promise that I would take some action with regard to the matter. That the inquiries a Member of Parliament makes of a Minister should be made the subject of a misleading statement in the House, which raises expectations it would 555 be dangerous to raise and worse to disappoint, is to my mind, a thing which cannot be justified.

§ Mr. BYRNE
Apart from that I have had several letters from the right hon. Gentleman's Department on the matter.

§ Mr. DUKE
I cannot allow this to pass unchallenged. The hon. Member (Mr. Dillon) raised this question as one of public gravity. That the contents of letters which are not here, and a mistaken account of a conversation from one party to it should be made the subject of expectations on the part of the Dublin police in the matter, puts a Minister in a most unfortunate position. I beg the hon. Member not to continue the statement as to a conversation such as he states or to represent the contents of letters without producing the letters here.

§ Mr. BYRNE
I will not persue that line, but I have been informed for the past two months that the matter is receiving attention, and I thought it would do no harm to join, at the end of two months, with my colleagues when they raise this appeal for these men, who have really been victimised for the endeavour which they made to improve the lot of one of their own colleagues. A number of them have received a war bonus, and a number of them have been dismissed. But I will get away from that point, and I will ask the right hon. Gentleman if he has received any representation from various public boards asking them to withdraw their request for an additional £5,000 tax for the purpose of paying the police? Considering Dublin City is paying 8d. in the £ and has no control over the police, and can receive no information anywhere, I would ask him whether it is the intention of the Government to insist on the corporation paying this additional £5,000 for the payment of the police for the next twelve months? At the least, having given the men an increase from the Treasury, they should not ask the ratepayers of Dublin to pay the additional £5,000.

§ Major NEWMAN
The Debate so far has dealt with appeals for justice to the living. I should like to ask a few questions about pensions and gratuities to the wives, widows, and dependants of those who fell in the recent disturbances in Ireland. As I read Sub-section (k), it appears that there is no actual pension given to wives or dependants of constables 556 who lost their lives in those disturbances. A mother gets a pension of £15, but when we come to dependants they only get gratuities—a gratuity of £55 16s. and £45 8s., which, of course, is in addition to-a gratuity of £30 already provided. That means a total gratuity of £85 16s. and £75 8s. I do not know what a dependant is—a mother, sister, or child—but does that mean that a dependant gets merely a gratuity and no pension at all? If that is the case I do not think we are dealing very fairly with these dependants. After all, the disturbance was not an ordinary riot, It was an insurrection, and these men were killed with rifles and not in the ordinary way by having stones thrown at them, and yet their dependants are not being treated anything like as well as if they had been the dependants of soldiers killed in action. It may be that I am wrong, and that, in addition to this gratuity, they are getting some sort of pension. If that is the case I withdraw what I have said, but if it is not, and if all that a mother is getting is a pension of £15, and a dependant this one gratuity and no more, these dependants are not being at all fairly treated.

§ Mr. DUKE
I will deal at once with the-matter of detail which the hon. Member has just raised. Dependency, of course, is a matter of degree. When this question was raised some time ago I promised to look into it, and the same assurance-was given in the House of Lords in reply to inquiries there. Provision had been made in the General Estimates for a sum by way of gratuity in respect of the dependency of some of the relatives of the members of the police to whom the hon. Member has referred. I looked into the matter, and this is an addition to a previous grant, and brings up the amount of the payment to a year's pay of the officer in each case.

§ Major NEWMAN
The previous grant being £30.

§ Mr. DUKE
In the case of one of these officers it is an increase of 150 per cent. I believe that redeems the promise which I made across the floor of the House, and which was made with my knowledge in the House of Lords. With regard to the pension of the mother of an officer who was unhappily killed, that is a case which was not provided for, and that pension was given on the scale which the most recent Act of Parliament provided for a widow.

§ Major NEWMAN
The widow of a soldier?

§ Mr. DUKE
I am dealing with the widow of a constable. The case of a mother is entirely different from that of a wife, and it seemed to me that the sum which I presented to the Treasury for sanction and which appears on this Estimate was a proper one. I am sorry that some of the things that have been said should have been said about the Dublin Metropolitan Police. I had hoped that such things as have been said about the force could not have been justly said at the present time. The hon. Member for Dublin (Mr. Field) spoke of the men as being at the present time discontented with their pay. Having debated that question in this House as lately as November last, I think it is unfortunate that a subject which involves so many grave considerations, as has been pointed out, should have been made the occasion for a statement of that kind.

§ Mr. DILLON
I think the right hon. Gentleman is in error. I certainly did not say that.

§ Mr. DUKE
No, it was Member, but the hon. Dublin.

§ Mr. BYRNE
I think the right hon. Gentleman misunderstood the hon. Member. I do not think he said that they wore discontented with their pay. I did not hear him say so.

§ Mr. DUKE
I took a note of what he said. I do not think the hon. Member would seriously tell the Committee that the police of Dublin are in a state of discontent with their pay, increased so lately by the action of the Department.

§ Mr. FIELD
I had no intention of saying so, and I do not remember saying so.

§ Mr. DUKE
I have to watch matters carefully, because I know how seriously circulation of impressions and representations may be expected to affect the morale of a police force where there was for some time last year discontent and dissatisfaction and some reason to fear that which every decent citizen would be glad to avoid. I have not the least reason to believe that the police in Dublin take the view that the House did not deal with them reasonably in the Act which was passed at the end of last year, and at present I do not believe it. It was 558 stated that the men are suffering under a sense of mismanagement and injustice, that there is a serious state of discontent among them, and that it is the business of the Chief Secretary to remove bitterness which "undoubtedly still exists." It was said that there was a feeling that the superior officers of the force had been incompetent and had misdirected the force, but that there had been some improvement in this respect and that the officers were now competent men, though there was still this sense of mismanagement and injustice and a serious spirit of discontent and bitterness. I have been a great deal in Dublin, I am happy to say, during the last two months; in fact, I spent the whole of the Recess in and about Dublin. I saw and heard a good deal of the condition of the Dublin police, and I want to say on behalf of the Dublin police that they responded readily, and I think generously, to the desire of Parliament to deal with their case in a reasonable spirit. I have had no representations from any member of the Dublin police—and I do not believe that they hesitate in coming to me—that would lead me to think there is at the present time among that body a sense of mismanagement and injustice, a spirit of discontent, and a condition of bitterness. I really should deplore such a state of things. To say that there has been no difficulty in the Dublin police would be to burlesque the fact. Of course there has been. But the police at present have a commanding officer, the Chief Commissioner, who is accessible and is ready to hear any reasonable representation of a grievance. They have officers as to whom the hon. Member for Mayo (Mr. Dillon) has said that the superior officers now are competent men. I appeal to hon. Members to consider whether that improved state of things may not have its fair opportunity to produce its natural results.

DILLON
That is exactly what we want.

§ Mr. DUKE
I beg that it may have its fair opportunity to produce its natural results, and that we may not sow suspicion and mistrust and new grounds of trouble in this House which will redound against good administration in Dublin or in any way put in question the discipline of the police, the cheerful acceptance by the police of their duties, and the pride of the police in the esprit de corps of the force, which is one of the most valuable assets 559 of the public in its dealings with those who are entrusted with the maintenance of order. For my part, I have at the present time—and I believe I am warranted in having—confidence in the readiness of the Dublin police not only to do their duty but to do it cheerfully. I believe that they are able and ready to represent grievances if they have any, and that those grievances would be entertained. At the same time, on the questions which were asked me when the Bill was before the House as to the readiness I expressed to investigate the questions which might be brought to my mind, I can assure the hon. Member for East Mayo that those questions have been the subject of discussion between myself and the Chief Commissioner, and the Chief Commissioner is as anxious as any man in Dublin that we shall be entitled to expect the cheerful service of the Dublin force. I was very glad to hear the tribute paid to him and the superior officers of the force. It is a just tribute. I hope that the discreet action of the Chief Commissioner and the superintendents will have the best results.
I would have been glad if it were possible to part from the matter without entering upon the question which I think was presented to the Committee in a misleading fashion by the hon. Member for Dublin who spoke last, when he referred to the inquiry made of me yesterday on this particular matter, and the conversation of perhaps ten or twenty words in which I assured him, as I honestly assure every Irish Member, that I am ready to receive his representations and take care that they secure attention on the part of those whose business it is to attend to them. The conversation went no further than that, and I could only say at the present time that the Chief Commissioner thinks that we must proceed with the discipline of the force as the force stands. I cannot usefully add anything upon that subject. To every wish of this body, every reasonable wish, it is the business of the Chief Commissioner, and my business as Chief Secretary, to give all the attention we can. All these subjects affecting the contentment and discipline of the Irish police force are subjects of a degree of delicacy and gravity which cannot be exaggerated. The hon. Member for East Mayo, as an old resident in Dublin, well knows that. I have endeavoured as Chief Secretary—and I am sure any Chief Secretary always 560 does—to bear that fact in mind, and while doing that to support the Commanding Officers in everything I can, to secure that the police of Dublin are a disciplined force, and a contented force, as I think generally they are at the present moment.