I move:
That a Select Committee consisting of eleven Deputies, to be appointed by the Committee of Selection and with power to send for persons, papers and documents, be established publicly to investigate and report to the Dáil on the following allegations made by Deputy P. McGilligan:—
That the demise of the State Mining rights in respect of certain lands in County Wicklow, made on 1st November, 1934, by way of take note or prospecting lease, to Senator Michael Comyn, K.C., and Deputy R. Briscoe by the Minister for Industry and Commerce was—
(a) made to Senator Comyn and Deputy Briscoe because they were political associates of the Minister,
(b) made under conditions of secrecy, and
(c) made at a time that the Minister was aware that another party or other parties were proposing to seek a demise of the same rights, on terms more advantageous to the State;
and that the action of the Minister in making such demise was improper; and further, publicly to investigate and to report to the Dáil on all the facts and circumstances connected with and surrounding the application for and the grant of the said lease, and all the facts and circumstances connected with and surrounding the agreement made by the lessees for the assignment of their rights and obligations under the said lease.
The motion proposes the establishment of a Select Committee to investigate certain allegations, set out in the motion, made here last week by Deputy McGilligan and also to investigate and report to the Dáil on the facts and circumstances surrounding the application for the mining lease in question and the facts and circumstances surrounding the agreement made by the lessees for the assignment of their rights and obligations under that lease. I do not know if it is intended to have any discussion upon this motion at this stage. I have framed this motion in the widest possible terms. It covers wider ground than that covered by the motion in the name of Deputy Cosgrave. I do not know if the motion in the name of Deputy McGilligan is to be taken seriously.
Before, however, dealing with that matter, I should like to make one or two corrections which, I think, it is necessary to make. In the course of the Dáil discussion on Wednesday last, I stated that the company known as Irish Prospectors, Limited, approached the Department of Industry and Commerce in 1930 concerning certain gold prospecting plans and that Mr. Joseph McGrath was a member of that company. I find now that while Mr. McGrath was associated with the group which included Mr. Summerfield and Mr. Heiser, now members of Irish Prospectors, Limited, and which contemplated the registration of a company under the title of Consolidated Goldfields of Ireland, Limited, and which approached Deputy McGilligan, as Minister for Industry and Commerce in that year, he has no connection with the company called Irish Prospectors, Limited, which latter company was only formally registered quite recently. In fact, I am informed that when certain action, taken early this year by Irish Prospectors, Limited, left the impression on the minds of certain people that Mr. McGrath was associated with them, he took definite action to remove that impression.
The second matter relates to a report which appeared in the Irish Times yesterday and which created an impression that, I think, in the public interest should be removed. The report is as follows:—
"Further prospecting in what is rapidly becoming known as the ‘Wicklow Gold Rush' has just been revealed.
"Borings are now being made in the townland of Glenogue, on the borders of the Counties Wicklow and Wexford. It is understood that they are being made on behalf of Captain H.P. Mahon, of Strokestown, Co. Roscommon, and the work is being directed by an Australian mining engineer.
"The prospectors are reticent about their activities, but it is believed that they are hopeful of striking gold in the southern end of the Wicklow lode, most of which is controlled by the licence granted by the Minister for Industry and Commerce to Senator Michael Comyn, K.C., and Mr. Robert Briscoe, T.D.
"The townland of Glenogue, where the shaft is being sunk by the new group, is south of the townlands and south of the mountain where the deposits are located in which Senator Comyn and Mr. Briscoe are interested."
Captain Packenham Mahon made application for a prospecting lease on the 15th July, 1930. He repeated that application on the 23rd December, 1931, and the prospecting lease was issued to him on the 30th June, 1932—that is, four months before the lease was issued to Senator Comyn and to Deputy Briscoe. With regard to the statement that most of the Wicklow lode "is controlled by the licence granted by the Minister for Industry and Commerce to Senator Michael Comyn, K.C., and Mr. Robert Briscoe, T.D.," that statement is entirely incorrect. The licence granted to Senator Michael Comyn and Mr. Robert Briscoe covers three townlands in the vicinity of Woodenbridge in the County of Wicklow. The licence granted to Captain Packenham Mahon covers eight townlands and part of 19 townlands in the County of Wexford, and part of one townland in the County of Wicklow, an area of about ten times the size of the area covered by the lease given to Senator Comyn and Deputy Briscoe.
The allegations which are stated in this motion which appears in my name as having been made by Deputy McGilligan were not, of course, made in so many words. Deputy McGilligan did not, in fact, make any specific allegation, but merely implied that charges of this nature could be laid against the Department of Industry and Commerce. Now, I gather from the terms of his motion, in which he repeats, not his allegations but his insinuations, that he is disposed to deny that he made these charges at all. I am afraid, however, that I cannot be satisfied with a denial expressed in that form. In the interests of the country, in the interests of the Government and in my own interest it is desirable that the implications of his speech should be definitely cleared up. Deputy McGilligan's speech definitely implied, (1) that I gave this licence to Senator Comyn and Deputy Briscoe because they were political associates of mine; (2) that I gave it under conditions of secrecy; and (3) that I gave it when I knew that other parties might have taken a lease of the same property on conditions more advantageous to the State.
The only circumstances under which I would agree to the Committee not being set up for the purpose of considering these allegations would be a very explicit statement made here by Deputy McGilligan that not merely did he not make these charges but that nothing which he said is to be taken as implying these charges. Unless we get a clear and explicit withdrawal of these charges, or of these implications, by Deputy McGilligan I must insist that the Committee be set up to investigate the allegations.
It is true that when I first circulated my motion it contained only a reference to these allegations. My intention at the time was to confine this inquiry to the allegations made by Deputy McGilligan, but as we have had here in the past a number of allegations of that description unsupported by evidence made against different members of the Government, I felt the time had come when the baselessness of these allegations should be definitely exposed. I felt that Deputy McGilligan had gone one too far, and that it was desirable that he should be given the opportunity of proving his allegations or withdrawing them. Since then, however, I have been approached by Deputy Briscoe and Senator Comyn, who urged me strongly that I should agree that the investigation should cover not merely the actions of the Department of Industry and Commerce in relation to this lease but also matters with which I as Minister am not concerned, namely, the circumstances surrounding the agreement made by them with another party for the demise of the rights and obligations under their lease. I felt it was fair to these parties that no implication should be given by confining the inquiry that they had anything to conceal. I felt, as they had urged, that it was in their interest that all the facts surrounding this matter should be made public so that the members of the Dáil and the public would have a full opportunity of judging for themselves whether there were any circumstances in relation to this that either they or myself or the officers of the Department of Industry and Commerce dealing with this matter had reason to be ashamed of. I am quite satisfied that the investigation will show that their conduct throughout was most honourable, and I, therefore, decided to amend the terms of my motion, and on their representations to widen the scope of the inquiry to cover these other matters: that is, the circumstances connected with and surrounding the application for the lease and the granting of the lease, and also the circumstances surrounding the agreement which they inform me that they had made with other parties for the assignment of their rights and obligations.
I am rather disappointed that Deputy McGilligan did not avail of the opportunity which that motion afforded to him, either to state his charges in specific terms or to withdraw them. He has done neither one nor the other. Instead of doing that, he has put down a motion purporting to contain extracts from his speech here on Wednesday last, and by doing so makes it clear that he is insinuating certain things and not alleging them. It is, I think, the most disgusting motion that has ever appeared on the Order Paper in the House. It is possible, of course, for anybody to make insinuations, but it takes somebody with a little more courage to make allegations and to offer to prove those allegations to be correct. Deputy McGilligan did not do that. Insinuations, however, can be made in a manner in which they can be met, but there is one method of making insinuations which it is almost impossible to meet, and that is by making them in the form of a question. That is what Deputy McGilligan is doing in his motion. It is the old example that has so often been quoted in this House. If you ask somebody "has he stopped beating his wife?" he obviously cannot give a "yes" or "no" answer without admitting the implication contained in the question. These are precisely the tactics which Deputy McGilligan has resorted to: of making allegations in the form of a question to me. In doing so, he shows conclusively that he does not wish to be put in the position of having to produce any proof in support of his charges.
There is just one matter that I want to deal with in connection with this question here and now. One of the allegations made was this: that a lease was issued by me under conditions of secrecy. Now, that allegation caused me a certain amount of amusement, because this is not the first occasion on which we had a debate here as to the amount of publicity that should be given in connection with leases made under the Mines and Minerals Act. When the Mines and Minerals Act was before the Dáil in the form of a Bill in 1931, Deputy McGilligan was Minister for Industry and Commerce and I was a Deputy in Opposition. On the 19th November in that year, according to the Dáil debates—Volume 40, No. 5, Column 1893—I proposed an amendment to that Bill, which afterwards became an Act. The amendment read: "That no lease should be made until each House of the Oireachtas had, by resolution, authorised the making of such lease." That amendment, which I moved in 1931, was vigorously opposed by Deputy McGilligan. In the course of his speech in opposition to it, he contended that, in the case of a prospecting lease, secrecy was essential. He said:
Trading of any kind by the method of a lease being laid before this House, not to be passed unless there is a vote of acceptance—trading in respect of anything under that method would be impossible. When you come to a matter which must be secret, such as mines and minerals— a lot of matters material to such a discussion must be concerned with a discovery somebody has made and is trying to keep the fruits of—trading under these circumstances would obviously be impossible.
I did not fully agree then with the arguments advanced by Deputy McGilligan. I do not agree with them now, but it is obviously ridiculous that Deputy McGilligan should be making allegations against me—allegations of corruption—because I am doing in 1935 precisely what he said must be done in 1931. The lease in question was issued in strict accordance with the provisions of the Mines and Minerals Act. That Act was not proposed by me. It was proposed by Deputy McGilligan, and whatever safeguards he, in 1931, considered necessary in the public interest were presumably inserted in that Act. It was in accordance with that Act that the lease was granted. The Act does not provide for publication of the terms of a prospecting lease. Deputy McGilligan stated, on Wednesday, that if I had made the lease for two years and one day, instead of for two years, I would have had to publish it——