relating to community relations. The membership is evenly balanced between Catholics and Protestants. 9. The Incitement of Hatred Act, which became law on July 2, 1970, imposed penalties for incitement to hatred and for the circulation of certain false statements or false reports. 10. The Housing Executive Act, I expand my written statement as I know the background and perhaps I have not made it sufficiently clear. Public housing in Northern Ireland had up to that time been carried out partly by the Northern Ireland Housing Trust which existed throughout the six counties and partly by the existing local district councils. The Cameron report into the disturbances in 1968 under Lord Cameron, a distinguished Scottish judge, found that one of the grievances of the minority was that certain councils-by no means all, but some of them-had not acted impartially in the alloca tion of the houses. So the Housing Executive Act, which became law on the 12th of February 1971, provided that all public authority house building and house allocation should be the responsibility of one central housing organization. The membership of the completed executives was announced on May 6, 1971, and after extensive consultations it has already started the process of taking over responsibility from existing housing authorities. A LONDONDERRY COMMISSION This will be completed by October of this year except for the housing functions of three development commissions, which will be taken over by April 1973. One of the commissions is responsible for Londonderry, having been established early in 1969 in accordance with the undertaking by the Northern Ireland Government in the 5-point program of reform announced in November 1968. 11. The Local Government Boundaries Act, which became law on March 23, 1971, provided for the appointment of an independent boundaries commissioner to recommend the boundaries of the new local council areas and the electoral districts into which they are to be divided. The commissioner is required to complete his task so as to allow first elections to be held by the fall of this year. New district councils will then be elected on new boundaries, new wards, universal franchise and votes at 18. In addition to these acts of the Northern Ireland Parliament and the action which has sprung therefrom, the government has caused all statutory bodies and all local authorities to make a declaration of equality of employment opportunity and to adopt model codes of employment procedure. From June 1971 anyone tendering for a government contract has been required to complete an undertaking not to practice any form of religious discrimination in the performance of the contract. HOUSING ALLOCATIONS Following the commitment to the introduction of a points scheme for housing allocation in the 5-point reform program announced in November 1968, the government has insured that all public authority housing is allocated in this way, based on a model code prepared by the Ministry of Development. In this area of progressive legislation and proposals, three other documents are submitted for the record: 1. The Queen's speech at the opening of the new session of the Parliament of Northern Ireland on June 22, 1971, which summarized the many legislative measures necessary to effect local government reorganization by the target completion date of April 1, 1973.24 However, by speeding things up, they have beaten this target date and elections under the new system will be held this October. 2. The speech delivered by the Prime Minister in the Northern Ireland House of Commons on that same occasion in which he put forward for consideration of the House his government's recommendation that three new powerful functional committees of the House be established alongside the existing Public Accounts Committee and that the opposition should provide the chairman of at least two of the four committees.24 It must be recognized that any concept of participation (by the minority) will be hollow which does not recognize the duty to participate in bearing the burdens of the State as well as enjoying its advantages. SOME M.P.'S WITHDREW The initiative on new committees of the House was welcomed at the time by members of the main Catholic opposition parties, but the Social Democratic and Labour Party along with the Nationalist Party and the representative of the Republican Labor Party shortly afterwards withdrew from Parliament over an issue outside the jurisdiction of the Northern Ireland Government. But the government has since emphasized several times that the offer of participation by the opposition in functional committees in the House has not been withdrawn. It can be implemented as soon as the opposition returns to Parliament. 3. The green paper entitled "The Future Development of the Parliament and Government of Northern Ireland," published as a consultative document in October 1971, and not only encompassing the recommendation for greater opposition participation in the House of Commons through functional committees, but also canvassing the possibility of expanding the membership of the House and the size, composition, and role of the Senate and discussing the merits of adopting a system of proportional representation voting for elections. to the House of Commons and proposals for broadening the basis of the Northern Ireland Government.24 AN APOLITICAL GROUP I close, Mr. Chairman, with a brief account of the new system of local government recommended by my review body. We were an apolitical body, an industrialist, a banker, a lawyer, an accountant, a trade union official, and a retired civil servant turned farmer. Four were Protestants and two were Catholics and as chairman, I hope I may be pardoned for taking pride in the fact that unlike corresponding reports on the organization of local government in 24 These documents are retained in the subcommittee's files as part of the official hearing record and may be examined there. England and Scotland, the Macrory report was unanimous, with no note of dissent or reservation. Our basic principles were efficiency, economy, and the effective representation of local aspirations. By these yardsticks the existing set-up of a two-chamber Parliament, six county councils and two county borough councils plus 65 district councils-many of them minute in size-seemed ludicrously overelaborate for a Province. smaller in size than the county of Yorkshire and with a population of only just over 11⁄2 millions. Under our recommendations there will be a simple two-tier structure of: (a) the parliament (possibly enlarged) of Northern Ireland where the appropriate ministries will carry full executive responsibility for the administration of the major regional services, such as health, education, water and roads; and (b) a second tier of 26 district councils, each based on an urban center; these will have executive responsibility for such local services as refuse collection, environmental health, amenity centers and so on; they will act as agents for the Stormont Ministries in the local administration of some of the regional services; and they will have a substantial representation on any Area Boards which those Ministries may set up for the delegated execution of those services. REACTION TO MACRORY REPORT These and other recommendations, together with the argumentation, are set out in the Review Body's Report, herewith submitted for the record. This report, published in June, 1970, was welcomed by the press right across the political board. I quote only two: the Irish News (Catholic). It is a document that must win approval. . . in all conscience it [the Government] ought to accept such admirable proposals. The Belfast Telegraph (Protestant Unionist): It [the Government] can hardly afford to alter the Macrory scheme fundamentally. There was vociferous criticism from the county councils and the Belfast County Borough but as we had recommended their disappearance from the scene, this was both predictable and understandable. No one can be expected to welcome the recommendation of his own. demise. As stated, the recommendations have been accepted by the Northern Ireland Government, accepted I think I can say, in toto except for the enlargement of Stormont, which as we mentioned in the report, is not within the competence of Stormont and would require Westminster legislation. Mr. ROSENTHAL. What is the effective date of these proposals? Mr. MACRORY. Well, the new system will have been brought in in time to have elections in October of this year which is sooner than the date given to the Commissioner for Boundaries who was told he must finish by April 1973. You will realize that to transfer these functions from existing councils, to completely new councils at the same time as you are introducing a new franchise is very complicated. My report is very short, but the legislation to give effect to it is pretty technical and detailed so I think they have done pretty well. I know it will be said that the local government elections are overdue because of the delay caused by the introduction of the new system but the effective date on which the new councils will be elected is in October of this year. WITH GOODWILL, SUCCESS I submit, sir that the record of reforms that I have detailed as a record of promises that were made and promises that have been implemented in an impressive one. Will it work? Well, I quote and I apply in this wider context the concluding words of my own Review Body's report, and the quote is: Given goodwill, we believe that the system we recommend can succeed; without goodwill, neither this nor any other system stands a chance. Thank you, sir. Mr. ROSENTHAL. I just have one question and then we will let Mr. David Smyth proceed and then we can question both of you. Mr. Macrory, I want to compliment you on an incredibly difficult task. It seems to me to be a superb performance. I think we can offer a few assignments to you over here when you finish this one. Mr. MACRORY. Thank you, sir. My American daughter-in-law is sitting three rows behind me. Mr. ROSENTHAL. Thank you. As a lawyer, I can appreciate the enormity of the task and the difficulty. You said that economy, efficiency, and local participation were your guides in this study of local government. It seems that the political climate from our perspective has seriously deteriorated in the past 3 years. What is the prospect for your recommendations, upon implementation, having a salutary effect on the political climate in general and on the reconciliation of the viewpoints in Northern Ireland? Mr. MACRORY. This is a very difficult question to answer because things are happening so quickly and in many cases so horribly. I mean the situation is so different from when my report was written. It is encouraging me as somebody who is outside the province to see that nevertheless the government machine has continued to work to introduce the reforms. THE CLIMATE HAS CHANGED Now, in the climate that existed when I did this report, I would say I have no doubt that the introduction of the new system would indeed improve the relationship between the communities. I think it would help to bring them together. The situation at this moment and everything that is happening at this moment is such that I would be a very optimistic man if I gave you a confident yes to your question, but one day, hopefully, when violence ceases we will settle down to live sensibly together again. When that day comes, sir, then I will make so bold as to claim that what they call over the Macrory Report-that is the system— will make its contribution. Mr. ROSENTHAL. You said if we can get to the point where the violence ceases. What has to happen? What must be done to get to that point? Or would you prefer not to answer that kind of a political question? SETTING A CLIMATE FOR PROGRESS Mr. MACRORY. I will answer that with no official standing or claim to expertise, but simply as somebody who reads the newspapers and listens to these sorts of arguments. I personally believe what has to happen is that violence has to stop. The alternative is that you will have given way to the bomb and to violence and this is a terrible thing to do. Violence has to stop. In addition, there are all these reforms which meet the demands of the civil rights associations and which are coming into being. On some of these issues, the feeling of the minority and so on, I think that David Smyth, when you come to him, will have something to add. Mr. ROSENTHAL. Mr. Smyth? STATEMENT OF DAVID SMYTH, LAWYER FROM NORTHERN IRELAND Mr. SMYTH. Mr. Chairman, members of the committee, it gives me great pleasure to address you. I hope to deal with some of the ways in which civil rights were protected in Northern Ireland. Civil rights is an emotional but significant phrase to many people. Many minorities in many places strive under disabilities in jobs, in votes, and so on. What I hope to do briefly is to point out how we have sought to safeguard civil rights and basic freedoms in Northern Ireland. You have already heard of the many attempts we have made to right existing or alleged grievances on the basis that justice should not only be done but that it should manifestly be seen to be done. The Constitution of Northern Ireland is contained in the 1920 Government of Ireland Act by Section 5 of which the government cannot benefit or endow any religious organization. This section is similar in many respects to equivalent provisions in the American Constitution and under it any law that discriminated could be challenged in the courts. This section could, arguably, have extended to discrimination in administrative decisions but the fact is that no one has been able or seen fit to use this judicial process. A measure, by the way, of the impartiality of the Northern Ireland judiciary is shown by their recent decision that the Government of Northern Ireland had no power to make law as regards the British Army. In 1968 the Civil Rights Association was at that time an honorable and concerned organization though, even then, the IRA was beginning a process of infiltration. Mr. Macrory has shown how the seven demands they then made were all met-with the exception of the repeal of the Special Powers Act and the reforms are now implemented and working, inside a period of 2 years with the addition of many other changes designed to bridge the gap between the two communities in Ulster. I would here submit for the record an historical account of the progress of these changes over the last 2 years. There has never been a time when the parliamentary draftsmen at Stormont worked harder than they did in those 2 years. |