1923

State’s fresh start

The programme of reform outlined by Mr. Timothy Healy, K.C., the Irish Governor-General, in his speech to the Oireachtas on Wednesday last, should suffice to satiate the most omnivorous legislator.

The Parliament for An Saorstát has before it the work of reforming the Judiciary and providing cheaper and more easily accessible law and justice, of meeting and dealing with the unemployment menace, reducing prices, reconstructing the damage caused to the country by a year of ruinous civil strife, building houses for the people, getting the best out of our railways, developing our basal industry which is agriculture, regulating our licensed trade, further reforming our local government and education and expanding such meagre shipping as we have.

It is a programme before which a more experienced legislature might quail, even if it possessed the money which is an important factor in reform to which the Governor-General gives but scanty attention.

True, he impresses the necessity of rigid economy in every sphere of national life and adds that “your Ministers feel bound to urge not only on every department of State, but on every citizen, the compelling necessity of husbanding our resources.”

Pictured: Young Irish dancers readying themselves for a performance at the opening of the Clarinbridge Oyster Festival at the Weir, Kilcolgan, on September 8, 1989.