BACK PAGES: Today's politicians might envy their forbearers who rarely came back to the Dáil from their summer recess much before the last week of October. The return from holidays in 1959 was marked mainly by the election of a new leader of Fine Gael, James Dillon, who replaced not one but two people, Gen Richard Mulcahy, who was leader of the party, and John A Costello, who was leader of the Opposition. Dillon's election was going on off-stage as the Dáil resumed, leaving the House in the doldrums, until somebody mentioned what this report describes as that "surefire stirrer of tongues", the Abbey Theatre, writes
JOE JOYCE
THE IMPENDING election of a new Fine Gael leader may have gone a long way to explain the glaze of disinterest which settled rapidly in the Dáil yesterday when the House reassembled after the summer recess. There was a slack, routine air about the business done which suggested end-of-term fatigue rather than the start of a new term.
There was Gen Mulcahy, the man of the hour, occupying the seat reserved for the leader of the Opposition for the first time in 11 years. Opposite him, Lemass was pensive and subdued. Mr Costello was in evidence only briefly, at the beginning and near the end. The entire Fine Gael front bench looked as though their minds were on other things.
The three new members were there, too, but the general air of disinterest even damped the applause as they came down the central aisle. Question Time never sparkled; it was almost a relief when Mac Entee failed to find the answers to a question and thumbed through his papers twice in search of it. He withstood the barrage of wisecracks thrown at him with the off-hand air of a veteran under fire. The back-bencher wits subsided, and all settled down to a uniform dullness . . .
The House, with its attendance and interest dwindling steadily, flickered into something like life when Traynor moved the second reading of the Funds of Suitors Bill (1959) which deals, among other things, with funds for rebuilding the Abbey Theatre. Anything dealing with the Abbey is a surefire stirrer of tongues. Mr Traynor made it clear that the Government did not regard the Queen’s Theatre as suitable premises: it believed the Abbey’s prestige demanded new premises as quickly as possible. Members awoke from their apathy, and Richie Ryan (FG) one of the new members, was moved to make a vehement maiden speech. Criticism was voiced in plenty of the Abbey’s present policy and standards. Patrick McGilligan (FG) was against these attacks – “either we trust those who run the Abbey, or we don’t.” J Lynch (FG) was equally downright: “We don’t.”
Major Vivion de Valera (FF) believed the House had every right to discuss the Abbey’s policy. In Private Members’ Time, Dr Browne moved a resolution in his name and that of his fellow-NPD man, Jack McQuillan, urging that the school-leaving age be raised to 15 years. To a now almost empty House he rode his favourite hobby-horse of education. The Minister, Dr Hillery, replied with a paean to the “dedication and devotion to work” of our teachers, and appealed to those interested in education to be “realistic”
The debate was adjourned until 10.30am this morning. With that the House rose and the few remaining members made off to discuss what had obviously been foremost in their minds all night – who would be Gen Mulcahy’s successor?
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