A slightly surprising aspect of the first day of the new Dáil was the number of new Opposition TDs who delivered their inaugural speeches. But the availability of a significant television audience was an opportunity too good to miss. No doubt the others and the new backbenchers on the Government side will deliver theirs with less publicity in the weeks ahead.
But for all of them, the occasion will be memorable, and if, in time to come, they become ministers or even taoisigh, historians will peruse the transcripts for clues about their character and interests.
Some of the precedents are laden with irony. Others are prophetic.
John Redmond, who would become a passionate parliamentarian, was elected on Tuesday February 1st, 1881, without opposition, for New Ross. He travelled to London that night, took his seat on Wednesday afternoon and was “named”, ie suspended from the service of the House, with 28 others on Thursday during a row over a coercion bill.
So, his first words in the chamber were: “As I regard the whole of these proceedings as an unmitigated despotism, I beg respectfully to decline to withdraw.” The sergeant-at-arms then removed him.
But, all politics being local, he was back on February 7th to ask why a detachment of Hussars was being quartered in New Ross and later in the day he spoke again to claim that the character of the Wexford people, “the most law abiding and God fearing in the United Kingdom” was being blackened by “lying statements about outrages”. He added, however, that the only way Ireland could hope to see peace and prosperity was by having an assembly of her own.
After Éamon de Valera was elected priomh aire of the First Dáil on April 1st, 1919, he moved a motion that deputies be referred to by the names of their constituencies and that no deputy make a personal charge against or use offensive remarks about another.
On April 10th, he declared that “in Ireland there is only one lawful authority and that is the authority of the elected government of the Irish Republic”.
WT Cosgrave’s first recorded remarks as a TD were about the difference between an oath of faithfulness and an oath of allegiance during the Treaty debate on December 21st, 1921.
On October 11th, 1927, Seán Lemass, Dublin South, speaking on a motion to re-elect Cosgrave as president of the Executive Council, denounced the public safety act then in force and wondered if a policy of coercion would help the growth of the political stability which alone could make prosperity possible. He also noted the need to make a serious effort to solve unemployment and pointed out that 280,000 people had emigrated in four years.
And he asked deputies, especially deputies outside Cumann na nGaedheal, to co-operate with Fianna Fáil in abolishing the memory of past dissension, in wiping out the recollection of the hatred, the bitterness and the jealousy that was created after the Civil War and in calling on all Irishmen to come together and work together for Ireland.
On October 21st, 1943, in his first substantial speech, Liam Cosgrave, Dublin County, argued that the progress of compulsory tillage should be properly planned and that the minister for agriculture should go to England to negotiate higher prices for Irish cattle. But he wondered, perhaps wryly, if it was a dangerous practice for a Fianna Fáil minister to go abroad without being accompanied by the prime minister (sic).
On May 5th, 1947, Seán MacBride, Dublin County, moved a motion to establish a tribunal to inquire into allegations regarding the disposal of Locke’s distillery and the nature and extent of the connection which any TD or senator had with transactions relating to it. He condemned the fact that legislators had come to look on their function as obtaining favours or rights for their constituents or political friends: “deputies should be confined to the purpose for which they were elected, to legislate in public”.
A year later, on May 4th, 1948, Jack Lynch, Cork, praised the appointment of the Fine Gael TD Richard Mulcahy as minister for education because of his interest in the Irish language and lamented that the whole purpose of the educational system was to pass exams. He argued that time should be devoted to the cultural expansion of the minds of youth and the teaching of good manners and etiquette and he pleaded that more attention should be paid to athletics in the school curriculum and that playing fields and indoor swimming facilities should be made available.
Speaking on the budget debate on May 14th, 1957, Charles Haughey, Dublin North, defended increased taxes on tobacco, beer, petrol and diesel because the first and fundamental requirement for the expansion of investment was a balanced budget to create a climate in which recovery would be possible.
On June 23th, 1965, a new senator, Garret FitzGerald, speaking on the second stage of the Turf Development Bill, argued that the high cost of electricity, transport and steel, caused by government policy measures, was inappropriate to policies of economic expansion and free trade.
As colour writers didn’t exist until recently and the compilers of parliamentary debates didn’t record the delivery or demeanour of inaugural speakers, we don’t know how well most of them performed. But TDs who are unsatisfied with their maiden speeches (to use an old fashioned term) can find hope in one assessment that was recorded.
On April 22nd 1875, the new MP for Meath delivered a barely coherent plea in the House of Commons for an amnesty for Fenian prisoners.
Sweating, nervous, stuttering, his fingers clawing his palms, speaking in a thin voice, he asked why Ireland should be treated as a fragment of England and trusted that England would give Irishmen the right they claimed, the right of self-government.
Then, in the words of the Unionist MP for South Tyrone, “the pale stammerer of that night’s debate sat down, really without saying anything”.
Five years later, Charles Stewart Parnell was the leader of his party.