Clare Daly (Dublin North, Socialist Party) | Oireachtas source

I will try to get it all in before the break. I am speaking as someone whose family's involvement dates back to the foundation of the Irish Army. I am also an internationalist and a socialist. In this context, I clearly understand that it is always ordinary people and soldiers who pay the price in war. The Second World War was no different. We all know the stories of the promises of freedom, "homes fit for heroes" and heroes who only returned fit for homes with all of the scars that accompany war.

This is not just a question of how these men were treated at the time, but also of the long delay in the State's recognition of the situation as one that needed to be addressed. That delay indicates a lack of political back bone. The issue is also linked to our relationship with Britain. Seven years after the end of the Second World War, the British Government announced an amnesty for 10,000 of its military's members who had deserted. That army was actively involved in combat, yet here we are more than 60 years later still deliberating on what to do.

We must approach the issue with a sense of history, perspective and humanity. It was not just a matter of punishment. The only reason for the delay and for the imposition of such punitive measures on Army deserters was that they deserted to the British army. The issue has been surrounded by a certain amount of Anglophobia that has existed since the foundation of the State. It is a legacy of the weak Irish State's hypocritical attitude in its dealings with Britain. The battle was fought for independence against Britain. However, as James Connolly warned at the time:

If you remove the English army to-morrow and hoist the green flag over Dublin Castle, unless you set about the organisation of the Socialist Republic your efforts would be in vain.

England would still rule you. She would rule you through her capitalists, through her landlords, through her financiers, through the whole array of commercial and individualist institutions she has planted in this country... Nationalism without Socialism – without a reorganisation of society on the basis of a broader and more developed form of that common property...is only national recreancy.

Since the State's foundation, we have continued to treat our citizens poorly and have not granted them their economic independence. For this reason, many of the issues in question arise. We are quite happy to export to Britain the nurses that we train in our hospitals. We are quite happy to export Irish women and to agree that they have the legal right to travel to look after their health and to go to Britain for abortions, but a woman cannot have an abortion within her own country.

Having examined the history books, the key reason that many people deserted the Army in desperation and went to Britain was not ideological, but owed to the State's failure to deal with the issue of economic independence. A soldier was expected to raise his family on 14 shillings during the war. It was not enough. We must ask ourselves whether poverty is treason. For many of those involved, it was not an easy decision. They knew they would be vilified, but they clearly believed that, if they wanted to look after their families, they had no choice. They were treated shabbily and unacceptably. I am glad the issue is being tidied up now.

I noted the Minister of State's points. It was almost suggested by some Deputies that the lack of access to military courts did the people in question a favour and that emergency powers were used to help them. I do not buy that argument. Those powers were always wrong. It was a starvation order. It denied these men entitlements and gratuities, barred them from working in public jobs for seven years, disqualified them from receiving unemployment benefits etc. One reason for military tribunals not being utilised was the fact that the issue would have attracted media attention. Let us remember that de Valera had already embarrassed the country in international eyes by officially commiserating with the German Government on the death of Hitler. Clearly, there was another motive for not dealing with deserters.

I have little time remaining. Emigration to Britain is continuing. We are exporting people because this country is failing to provide them with a decent standard of living. Irish firemen in New York and Irish nurses in England have been forced out of this country. Army barracks are closing and allowances are being taken from soldiers.

The very circumstances which forced previous generations of Irish men in desperation to go and join the British army are alive and well now under the policies of austerity which are driving many people out of this country today. We must be wary of that.

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