Against the Tide (34 page)

On their resumption of office in 1951, Fianna Fáil were faced with the dilemma of placating the bishops and at the same time attempting to honour the assurance I had received from Mr
Lemass that they would ‘do their best’ to keep as much of the mother and child health scheme as was possible. The question of simply implementing the mother and child provisions of
their own Act did not appear to arise.

In June 1952 the government faced the problem by emasculating the radical proposals of their 1947 Health Act. They decided drastically to reduce the age of eligibility of the child from sixteen
years to a mere six weeks. At the same time they made the scheme free to all economic groups, so that there was no means test within this narrow category. There was a considerable scaling down on
other aspects of the health service in order to conform to ‘the wishes of the bishops’. Yet even this scheme was rejected by the medical consultants, and later by the bishops. This
change and others went unnoticed by John Whyte, when he claimed in his
Church and State in Modern Ireland
that de Valera had ‘resolved the issues’ of the health service without
great difficulty.

On 16 September 1952 the Minister for Health, Dr Ryan, met Dr McQuaid. The Archbishop demanded the elimination of the clause empowering health authorities to ‘educate mothers in respect of
motherhood’. Ryan agreed to meet the Archbishop’s wishes. Dr McQuaid then queried, ‘Why is the mother and infant scheme without a means test?’ He went on to suggest that the
scheme should include a means test, and be restricted to the lower and middle income groups alone. From state papers it appears that ‘His Grace concluded the discussion by telling me [Dr
Ryan] that I would run into trouble over the free mother and infant proposals’.

On 6 October 1952 a further meeting was held; government representatives met Bishop Lucey of Cork, Archbishop Kinane of Cashel, Bishop Michael Browne of Galway and Dr McQuaid. ‘A detailed
discussion, section by section’ took place. The amendments proposed by the bishops were all accepted by Dr Ryan for implementation in the new scheme. The meeting concluded with the triumphant
comment by the bishops ‘that if the Government would meet their Lordships on the mother and infant proposals, then the scheme would have their approval and blessing’. That is, even this
shadow of the original health service
must
include a means test.

Yet another meeting took place, between Seán Lemass, Dr Ryan, the bishops of Cork and Galway and the Archbishops of Cashel and Dublin. The Tanaiste was reprimanded by Bishop Browne for
referring to a crucial inconsistency in the hierarchy’s position, which had also been referred to by me during my interview with Cardinal Dalton. Lemass asked the members of the episcopal
committee why was it that neither Dr Dalton nor any of the Northern Catholic bishops had condemned Bevan’s health scheme. He also begged, ‘We would like if at all possible to avoid a
means test’. Lemass’s protest was contemptuously dismissed by Dr McQuaid, who said that a free scheme should not be made available to those who could afford to pay. He went on to claim
that Catholic teaching taught that it was morally wrong to deprive the head of the family of his responsibility to pay for a health service and he emphasised that Catholic principles would require
a means test. As my theological advisor had earlier made clear, this claim as to the morality of the health service was a travesty of the truth.

It is interesting to note that the bishops had now abandoned any pretence of making the important distinction between what was and is Catholic social and Catholic moral teaching. Nearly
invariably they referred to ‘Catholic teaching’, and appeared to make this up as they went along to suit their case.

There followed a concerted campaign in the national newspapers against the health service. A succession of writers wrongly condemned as immoral the free no-means-test health scheme. Their
arguments were backed by a series of equally tendentious and misleading articles by a succession of medical consultants. It was a measure of the resourcefulness of our opponents that they were able
to mobilise a wealthy Jewish specialist named Abrahamson and a Protestant paediatrician named Collis in support of the bishops’ opposition to the mother and infant health service.

It is possible that individual ministers in de Valera’s Cabinet would have preferred to act differently. But Cabinet papers show that whatever their personal beliefs, they at all times
toed the line.

There was now a strange development which involved a series of misunderstandings. The Medical Association were unaware of the secret negotiations with the hierarchy since Dr Tom O’Higgins
was no longer a member of the Cabinet. Prematurely and wrongly they concluded that Fianna Fáil were intent on introducing a free no-means-test mother and infant health scheme, and decided to
protest publicly against this. Alarmed by the consultants’ protests, Dr McQuaid and the hierarchy wrongly concluded that, in spite of their representations to the government and the
assurances given to them, de Valera did not intend to carry out their instructions, and decided to issue a letter to the national press (restricted to the two Catholic papers, the
Irish
Press
and the
Irish Independent
). Dr McQuaid’s rationalisation for the decision to issue this denunciation of the scheme was that ‘the faithful were waiting for guidance
from the hierarchy about the health scheme’. The bishops decided to issue a letter to the ‘faithful’, protesting strongly and denouncing the health scheme and Mr de Valera’s
government. Dr Dalton also explained that the hierarchy had felt that ‘some announcement was expected by the people, and silence would be assumed to imply their approval of the Bill’.
De Valera’s concern, as always, was to remove the causes of contention, and not to assert his prime ministerial rights of sovereignty on behalf of his government. He was deeply shocked at the
prospect of being publicly denounced by the hierarchy.

As soon as he received the statement, on the morning of Friday 17 April 1953, he immediately telephoned the President, Seán T. O’Kelly, and asked him to try to arrange a meeting
between himself and Cardinal Dalton. This proved impossible, but the President instead arranged for Mr de Valera to meet the Cardinal that afternoon in Drogheda, where he was attending a
Confirmation ceremony. Archbishop McQuaid was out of the country, at the Eucharistic Congress in Australia.

The meeting between Mr de Valera and Dr Dalton took place in the Presbytery of St Peter’s in Drogheda, in the presence of the parish priest, Monsignor John Stokes. De Valera was
accompanied by Dr Ryan. De Valera appears to have planned for a possible confrontation, for on that same Friday he had ordered that a selection of the relevant documents be immediately despatched
via diplomatic bag on the next flight to Rome to the Irish Ambassador to the Holy See, J. B. Walsh. For years Walsh had served as secretary to the Department of External Affairs; Seán T.
O’Kelly was said to have singled him out to head the Irish diplomatic service as far back as the days of the first Dáil. Walsh was told to study the documents so that ‘he would
be in a position to interpret rapidly and accurately any further instructions he might be sent’. This was, presumably, so that as a last resort there could be a final appeal to the Pope.

However, de Valera first sought a peaceful solution to the problem, stating that ‘the terms of the statement have caused me no little concern, and surprise, since I was aware that the
proposals for health legislation had, on a number of occasions, been discussed by representatives of the Hierarchy, with the Tánaiste, and with the Minister for Health, and since I
understood that at no stage in these discussions did it appear that any fundamental or irreconcilable difference of opinion existed’. He urged ‘the desirability, in the general
interest, of the Hierarchy deferring the publication of their statement, at least until the matter had been fully clarified by further discussions between representatives of the Hierarchy and of
the Government’. Recalling how I had been pilloried in the Dáil for having claimed that the episcopal committee ‘had been satisfied’ following our own negotiations in 1951,
I was comforted somewhat to read de Valera’s statement that he had been ‘astonished’ by the contents, as he had understood that the earlier meetings between the bishops’
committee and the government ministers ‘had not encountered any insuperable difficulties’.

De Valera opened his discussions with Cardinal Dalton, the Chairman of the Bishops’ Conference, by asking him to suppress the letter. Dr Dalton pointed out that he was merely the Chairman,
and had no power to do so. However, de Valera then disclosed that he had arranged for an immediate meeting to take place on the following day between the bishops’ episcopal committee,
himself, and Dr Ryan which could take place, if need be, in Áras an Uachtaráin. This arrangement appears to have satisfied Dr Dalton, who agreed to withhold the letter pending the new
consultation. The impropriety of so using the President’s office does not appear to have occurred to de Valera.

In accordance with these arrangements the episcopal and cabinet representatives once again met on 18 April 1953. They discussed their differences over what remained of the proposals for the
mother and infant health services. It transpired that the hierarchy need not have feared that Mr de Valera’s government would bring in a health scheme which would contravene in any way those
principles considered by the Irish bishops to be in conflict with Catholic teaching.

When I had visited the Palace and met Dr McQuaid and his colleagues I had been forbidden to bring a civil servant adviser with me. Happily for our historical studies, this did not happen on the
occasion of this truly momentous meeting at Áras an Uachtaráin. The state papers include a long note made at that meeting by a conscientious civil servant, possibly unnoticed by de
Valera. It is disturbing and enlightening. It appears that de Valera opened the meeting with a statement in which he defined categorically his fundamental beliefs for the governmental process
between church and state, and the extent and scope of the teaching authority of the Roman Catholic church in the Irish Republic. ‘The Taoiseach stated his personal position in regard to the
teaching authority and the social philosophy of the Church, with regard to the position of the Bishops, as authorised teachers of faith and morals. The Taoiseach said that the view which he had
already held had been confirmed by the relevant portions of an address delivered by the Archbishop of Cashel, Dr Kinane, at Rockwell College, in 1951, reported in the
Irish Independent
of
2 June, 1951’. This statement had dealt with the bounden duty of Catholics to obey their bishops in matters of faith and morals, and the strict prohibition on Catholics from attending Trinity
College, Dublin; ‘the prohibition is not a mere arbitrary one; it is based on the natural divine law itself’. In a clear reference to myself, Bishop Kinane had gone on to say:

In May 1953 the episcopal committee which dealt with health matters met Eamon de Valera and Dr Ryan in Cashel, Co Tipperary. The detailed notes of this fascinating meeting are at last available.
De Valera and Ryan outlined the new amendments demanded by the Bishops and already accepted, but the hierarchy now reconsidered the earlier amendments. Once again re-shaped to their joint
requirements, these were in turn accepted meekly by de Valera.

The joint episcopal and cabinet committee also discussed a proposal to establish a new national health council. The episcopal committee laid down that half of this council must consist of
members of the medical profession, nurses and members of voluntary institutions. This proposal was also readily accepted. All pretence at being independent members of the Cabinet of a sovereign
parliament had been abandoned.

The Bill finally became law in October 1953.

P
UBLIC life for me has rarely been free of controversy. Possibly my decision in November 1953 to cross the floor of the House to
join Fianna Fáil was never clearly justified by me, nor understood by many. I was going from one republican party, Clann na Poblachta, to another, Fianna Fáil. In the context of the
tribal loyalities which divide those who revered de Valera and those who respected O’Higgins and Collins, and who maimed, jailed and even killed one another in the subsequent civil war, the
political solecism of which I was accused seems trivial. I had no blood links with either side in that civil war and could not share their loyalties or cold hate for one another.