I questioned the Minister for Justice this afternoon as to whether it was on his instructions that children were approached at Lissonfield House last Sunday week and questioned as to the whereabouts and movements of a Deputy. I asked him, if he were not responsible, who was responsible for such a happening, the public purpose it was intended to serve by such a happening, and whether steps would be taken to prevent a recurrence. The Minister replied that no instructions in the matter were issued by him or by anyone else. He stated that the children approached a detective and that he asked them where the other detectives had gone. I do not wish to enter into an argument with the Minister as to how the approach was made, but the fact remains, in spite of anything that the Minister may imply, that the detective did ask the children where I had gone. I also asked the Minister how long a condition of affairs like that was going to continue which made it possible to have unpleasantness of this particular kind, and the Minister stated that there was no unpleasantness. I welcome the Minister's denial, without prejudice, that children were deliberately approached for this particular purpose, because I welcome an attitude on his part that would relieve the police of responsibility for approaching anybody, particularly children under ten years of age, to query them as to the whereabouts or the movements of any Deputy of this House. My particular purpose in raising this question to-night is that at the present moment we may hear from the Minister, for the information of Deputies of this House and for the information of the police, that as far as there are Deputies under surveillance by his police the latter have from him an assurance here that in the discharge of whatever duty is put upon them they are not expected by the Minister to seek after or to interview either the children of such Deputies, or the friends or acquaintances of such Deputies, with a view to finding out where they are and what their movements have been. I hope to shame the Minister into going further in time, but I raise this question here to-night for the particular purpose I have mentioned.
Ministerial vendetta, beginning from the night the President made his Glasgow charge against me, has put ostentatious police guards outside my house. From 11.30 on the night that charge was made there has been one policeman ostentatiously on duty night and day outside my house. That was the position from some time in September last year. From the end of March, as the Minister knows, he has put at least three policemen publicly on duty night and day outside my house. Ministerial vendetta of that kind brought it about that, on the Sunday I speak of, persons going to 7 o'clock Mass could see a carload of detectives with the nose of their car just at my gate. People going to 8 o'clock Mass could see the same thing. The same thing was apparent at 9, 10, 11, 12, 1, 2 and 3 o'clock. I had no occasion to leave my house except to cross the road to Mass that Sunday morning. I had no occasion to leave my house until towards 4 o'clock that afternoon. Then I thought that living in a free country— with, as the Minister for Finance declared to us the other day, a Republican Ministry in office, inspired with Catholic social principles, combining the Christian ideal of Pearse, the solid realism of Clarke, the culture of MacDonagh, the simplicity of Seán MacDermot, and the democracy of Connolly—I might go with my wife that Sunday afternoon, with some friends, to visit other friends, without taking three armed detectives on our heels. I resisted the desire of a friend of mine to bring his car down for me. I said: "No. We will take the train at Harcourt Street; you can pick us up at an intermediate station, and we can have a quiet Sunday afternoon without a police tail behind us." We started and walked down to Harcourt Street. A car of detectives nosed behind us down the street. A detective comes into the station, hurries on to the platform, picks us out in a carriage and goes away. Then, as I say, a detective at the gate of my home questioned some of our children as to where we were. I do not know what the result was, but at any rate we went where we wanted to go. We passed some time in the open air, and then joined our friends at a family gathering. After a couple of hours a guest in the house, who had gone out to admire the kind of grand summer evening it was—he was probably more friendly to the Minister's Party, if there was a question of politics in it, than to any other Party in the State—came in with the story that there were two very suspicious-looking men outside. Although I had succeeded in dropping the police party at Harcourt Street Station they found me three or four hours later in a family circle in County Wicklow.
I hope to shame the Minister out of the continuance of a condition of things under which, on a Sunday afternoon, it is possible for a police party to exercise themselves in that particular way, whether by interviewing children or otherwise. As I say, I am concerned at the present moment that the Minister will explain to his police that they are not expected to go to the extremes to which they apparently went on that Sunday to find me when I did not want to have them. I am glad that the Minister attempts to take responsibility for this off the police, because I hope that the police will understand from the Minister that when I do slip the police party set around me by Ministerial vendetta the Minister does not expect that the police, challenged in that particular way, will feel it is up to them to undertake a man-hunt. The unfortunate police are in the position at the present moment that they do not know to what indecent or demeaning depths they are asked to stoop in order to carry out the Minister's intentions. The position that the police are in is that they see the Minister adopting towards his political opponents the tactics that are being adopted by the Minister. They know that a Minister who can take up that attitude to his political opponents can be a very severe master. I would ask the Minister, if he can be given any credit for not wanting this to take place, to make it clear to his police that he does not want it to take place, that there is something in the professions which the Minister makes from time to time about liberty and about democracy, and that he realises that men can and will want to go about their ordinary family life and their ordinary social life on a Sunday afternoon, without being themselves tormented by detectives marching at their heels or without having their friends or their acquaintances annoyed by detectives of this particular kind every time they happen to receive a Deputy as their guest.