Dáil Éireann debate -
Saturday, 30 May 1942

Vol. 87 No. 5

Central Bank Bill, 1942—Committee (Resumed).

Sections 46, 47 and 48 put and agreed to.

SECTION 49.

General Mulcahy

I move amendment No. 59:

In page 26, lines 33 to 39, to delete sub-section (4).

It will be seen that sub-section (3) of this section says that if any person whose name appears on a document the making of which is an offence, that is if it is a document purporting to be or resembling a bank note, that person will be required to give certain information to the Guards. Sub-section (4) says:—

"The fact that the name of a particular person appears on a document in respect of which he or any other person is charged with an offence under sub-section (1) of this section or appears on any other document used or distributed in connection with that document shall, until the contrary is proved, be evidence that the person whose name so appears made or caused to be made the said document in respect of which the said charge is brought."

As far as I understand it, that implies that if anything resembling money is being circulated, and if it has a person's name printed on it, or if anything about documents of that kind is printed with the person's name on it, the fact that his name is on either the document itself or some other document about it is going to be taken as evidence that that person is responsible for the circulation of, say, forged bank notes, until he proves to the contrary. I move the deletion of this sub-section in order to get some kind of explanation from the Minister as to the reasonableness of holding a person guilty of that offence simply because his name is printed on the document.

Minister for Finance (Mr. O Ceallaigh)

The sub-section provides that where a person's name appears on a document in respect of which he or any other person is charged with an offence under sub-section (1), it will be deemed to be prima facie evidence that that person is guilty of the offence. I do not think that is unreasonable. I think it is reasonable for the prosecutor to assume that the person in question did actually commit the offence. Of course, an opportunity will be given to the person to prove his innocence. It would certainly be much easier for the individual to prove his innocence than it would be for the prosecutor to prove the guilt of that individual. It is not a new idea, I understand, in law. In recent years in England there have been amendments of the law to bring this same idea into operation. The same idea as is embodied in sub-section (4) of this section is contained in the British Criminal Justice Act, 1925.

General Mulcahy

We are dealing with forged bank notes. The only way in which my name could appear on a forged bank note to which the forger wanted to give an authentic appearance would be by having it written in indelible pencil on the back. That often happens in the case of bank notes. Am I to be charged with forging the bank note if such a note turns up with my name written on the back? According to this sub-section, that will be accepted as proof that I am responsible for the issue of the forged note and I am to be required to prove that I did not issue it. What sort of machinery would I have to prove that and what would it cost me to persuade the courts that I did not issue the note?

Mr. O Ceallaigh

It is not the intention that any person whose name might be written on a forged bank note should be held responsible. In the banks, one is frequently asked to write his name on the back of a note. It is not the intention that a person whose name appears in pencil or ink on the back of such a note should be held liable. Where the name is printed, however, the person would be held liable.

Mr. Cosgrave

There is no question of printing in the sub-section. If the name "appears" on the note the person in question is liable.

Mr. Dockrell

I have been looking at one of our legal tender notes and I see that there are two signatures—those of Joseph Brennan and J.J. McElligott. Would these two persons be required to clear themselves of the charge of forging a bank note as a sort of preliminary under this section? Would that be prima facie evidence that they were responsible?

Mr. O Ceallaigh

Yes.

Mr. Dockrell

They would immediately have to come forward and clear themselves?

Mr. O Ceallaigh

They would.

General Mulcahy

They are the only people who would have any chance of continuing the forgery of bank notes for any considerable time. A bank note with the name of Bill O'Brien or Liam O'Hanrahan printed on it would not run for long.

Mr. Brennan

If notes are to be forged at all, these are the names that will appear upon them.

General Mulcahy

In order that a person may be charged with issuing a forged bank note, must his name be printed upon it instead of the two names which appear at present?

Mr. O Ceallaigh

Yes. I got some years ago an excellent imitation of a British £5 note. The paper was not very good but it was an excellent imitation and was issued as an advertisement. I had it for years.

General Mulcahy

Whose name was on it?

Mr. O Ceallaigh

The name of the treasurer of the Bank of England at the time.

General Mulcahy

And he would be liable under this section for forgery.

Mr. O Ceallaigh

This was a photographed impression of a British £5 note. It was not, in the ordinary sense, a forgery. On the back of the note there was an advertisement for somebody's tea. In recent times photographs of notes have been printed in Irish newspapers and periodicals as advertisements with the names of individuals attached. Even as the law stands now, that is a currency offence. It is intended by this sub-section to put a stop to that sort of thing by putting the onus on the individual to prove himself innocent of any charge brought against him in connection with the matter. It is only intended to deal with persons whose names are printed on the notes.

General Mulcahy

Is this section intended to stop the use of attractive imitations of bank notes for advertising purposes rather than to deal with real forgeries?

Mr. O Ceallaigh

That is so.

An Ceann Comhairle

Does the Deputy withdraw the amendment?

General Mulcahy

If the Minister assures me that nobody is going to be seriously jeopardised by the operation of the sub-section, I shall withdraw it.

Mr. O Ceallaigh

Nobody will be jeopardised.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Section 49 agreed to.

SECTION 50.

An Ceann Comhairle

Amendments Nos. 60-63 are part of the same scheme?

General Mulcahy

Yes.

An Ceann Comhairle

The decision on amendment No. 60 will govern all four.

General Mulcahy

I move amendment No. 60:—

In sub-section (5) (g) (i), page 27, line 40, after the word "unemployed" to insert the words "or of members of a parish or other such local committee."

Section 50 applies, generally, to prohibitions on the issue of notes supposed to be money, but it makes certain distinctions and allows the circulation of bank notes, postal orders, etc. Sub-section (5) (g) provides for tallies. These may be issued, whether before or after the passing of the Act, when provided by a club or association the members of which consist wholly or mainly of persons who are, for the time being, unemployed, when they circulate only amongst the members of such club or association and "are so issued or provided and are used solely for the purpose of enabling goods produced or services rendered by members of such club or association to be exchanged between members of such club or association." The use of tallies will not, therefore, be permitted except to a club which consists wholly or mainly of persons unemployed.

I am proposing that that sub-section be extended so that it will be possible for the members of a parish or other such local committee to issue such tallies where they circulate only amongst the workers and residents in the parish or such other local area, and are issued to facilitate the production of goods or the rendering of services by members or residents of the parish or other such local areas, and also in cases in which the tallies so provided by a parish or other such local committee are issued for a particular seasonable purpose and are redeemable by the parish or other such local committee within a period of 11 months from the oirginal date of issue. In that connection I should like to draw the attention of the Minister to the work of one parish council in County Wexford which, last year, organised the cutting of turf in the neighbourhood by the people of the parish for the use of the parish. They wanted some preliminary funds in order to go ahead with the work. They collected small subscriptions, but they were not sufficient to start with. They went to the bank and could not get any accommodation without some people guaranteeing the amount of money that would be given on loan. They passed then from the bank to the local body and from the local body to, I think, the Minister for Local Government and Public Health, and from him to the Department of Supplies. They were passed from the Department of Supplies to the Department of Agriculture and from there to the Department of Finance, and they finally wound up with the Turf Development Board. Probably an official of the Department of Finance told them to go to the Turf Development Board. The board sent along an expert all right, but the board could only be interested where there were 800 acres of bog and the parish only wanted a couple of hundred tons of turf.

Having travelled the whole road from the bank to all the Government Departments, local bodies and the Turf Development Board, they found they had to fall back on their own resources. They got the idea of printing tally-cards; they issued a tally-card for a shilling and another for sixpence, franked it with the name of the reverend treasurer of the parish council and paid their workers during the period of work by those tally-cards. They made an arrangement that those tally-cards would be accepted by the local merchants as money until such time as the scheme was over and the turf was sold in the neighbourhood. They succeeded in that particular way in cutting and transporting a couple of hundred tons of turf, and they redeemed all their tallies and satisfied everybody without any expense to anybody except the printing of the tally-cards which, I suppose, is met by the original small subscriptions that were raised. If they had gone to the bank, with somebody standing in behind them, they would have had to pay probably more than the local body has to pay for an overdraft for turf, as they paid 4 per cent. on their venture. I do not know how much money is involved in it, but if you take a couple of hundred tons of turf on the price at which turf is being sold in the City of Dublin—that may be a bit too high, but it is what I might call the "world price" for turf at the present time—a very considerable amount of money would have gone unnecessarily out of the people's pockets in that way.

I quite understand that it could easily be misused, unless in the hands of a very responsible committee, but where there is so much appeal for work by parish councils and local committees to help people over their difficulties, where there is so much willingness on the part of every section of the people to throw themselves into every kind of local movement which is clear as to its objects and which is suitably organised, it is an awful pity that anything be done here that would stifle work of that particular kind. It is accepted, and I think everybody appreciates that it is being accepted, that the tally system will continue in such institutions as the Waterford Workmen's Club and the Mount Street Club and such places as those. This is almost a better extension of the principle—particularly in emergency times, but even in ordinary times—when it is extended to ordinary parishioners who want to come together in a co-operative and really constructive spirit to do something for everybody, without necessarily having the stigma that they are dealing with a sore or trying to help unemployed people by a little bit of machinery like that.

If the machinery that could help unemployed people can be used to help the people not yet reduced to the position of unemployment, by making their position easier, by making it easier to see how to use local resources, by making it easier for them to work together, I think it is a very valuable thing. While one likes giving credit to those institutions dealing with the unemployed, for showing how the system could be worked, we should be very grateful to people, such as these parish councils, who have adopted a line like this to show that they can take that idea and use it in circumstances where the system is not being worked under the shadow of a social blemish or where there is the difficulty of unemployment. Here, as it were, the seed is being sown in a suitable soil, out under the sun, where people, in a spirit of goodwill and hope, can co-operate to use their resources and develop a constructive local spirit. The very fact of bringing people together develops all kinds of other healthy tendencies in people's minds, and I would urge very much that the provisions made here under paragraph (g) should be extended to parish councils.

Some addition may be required to my amendment to have it employed, that is, that a permit would have to be obtained from some body, after it had been satisfied that the terms in the amendment were fulfilled, that is, that some body would have to be satisfied that this work was being done definitely by a local committee and that it was done principally by the workers and residents of the area, and that it was using the workers and residents of the area to produce goods or give services, and that it was for a seasonal purpose. I put a limit of 11 months, in order to make it definitely a seasonal thing, such as turf cutting or potato growing, as they have developed in other parts of the country. I am not asking that it be extended beyond that. It would be very useful in the emergency, but it may be very useful in some of the natural ways in which people work and co-operate together and which might be continued even after the emergency, and so the extension of these provisions under paragraph (g) would be worth while including in the Bill.

Mr. O Ceallaigh

It would be very unfortunate if anything we do in this Bill were to put a stop to the excellent work being done—particularly during the emergency, but even before that— by many parish councils and local bodies such as Muintir na Tíre and organisations of that description. Parish councils and such organisations have done excellent work in the emergency to relieve many a burdensome situation. However, I do not think we can agree to allow those organisations to operate a tally system, and I do not think that the fact that we cannot allow them is going to stop them. Last year hundreds of parish councils and Muintir na Tíre branches and similar organisations did the excellent work described by Deputy Mulcahy with regard to turf, potatoes, vegetables, wood blocks and so on.

If I thought we were doing anything here that would stop such work, I would be hesitant and would have to consider this for a long time to find some way out. Only one case has been quoted to the House—the case in South Wexford to which Deputy Mulcahy refers. It appeared in some newspaper last March, and I understand it was stated that the parish council in Our Lady's Island, South Wexford, approached the banks, the county board of health, the county council, various Government Departments and the Turf Development Board, but there was no money anywhere to pay the unemployed men of the parish. The parish council issued tally-cards valued at sixpence and a shilling within the confines of the parish only and payable on demand to the parish council treasurer. When this notice appeared, my Department got into touch with the banks. We addressed communications to the Banks' Standing Committee and to the several Government Departments mentioned. The reply from the Banks' Standing Committee was that, according to the information they could get, no application was received by any of the banks from Our Lady's Island parish. It is also understood that no application was made by the parish council to the Wexford County Council or Board of Health, nor was any application received in the Department of Finance, the Department of Local Government and Public Health, the Office of Public Works or the Turf Development Board, so that it would appear that the statements in the newspaper were not well-founded.

Aside from that, I am advised that if these tallies were allowed to be put into operation by parish committees, a very serious and difficult situation would probably arise and it would not be at all a wise thing to do. That is the advice I have received—that it would not be a wise thing to allow these tallies to be issued in such a wide area as a parish. Then, of course, if they were used in a number of parishes, they might be transferred from parish to parish and county to county and there is no knowing where the extension might stop. It is an innovation that is deemed to be most unwise, one that should not be permitted to develop in the way the Deputy suggests. It is agreed that tallies restricted to bodies such as the Mount Street Club, to which Deputy Mulcahy referred—I do not know if a similar club in Waterford is a branch, and there may be similar clubs elsewhere—could be viewed in a different light. There is no objection in that case, provided the tallies are used by the members only in connection with the affairs of their own clubs. But to allow a system of parish tallies to develop, a system which might eventually mean that they would be negotiable from one parish to the next parish or from one county to the next county, would mean the extension of an idea that is thought to be most unwise and undesirable and that should not be permitted, because it would have bad effects on the whole system of currency.

General Mulcahy

I do not know what was in the Press or what foundation there was for it, but I am assured by very reputable and responsible people in the parish: "We ourselves issued our money only after we had failed to secure finance from the statutory bodies, bankers, etc."

Mr. O Ceallaigh

This is a question of fact, and I am told they never applied to these institutions.

General Mulcahy

I am told this by the people who worked the scheme and who in a very reasonable way make a case for it. They realise the difficulties and I do not think that it is a useful thing for the Minister to exaggerate what might happen—that these tallies would overflow the bounds of their parishes and be offered as tallies from one parish to another or from one county to another. I think what I suggest completely covers that, I think that the Minister is tying up the situation too much entirely when he does not accept power to sanction work of this particular kind.

I have seen what has been attempted in the Muintir na Tíre clubs with regard to the production of potatoes. They have to go out and get people to pay £5 in advance, or something like that, in order to get a certain quantity of potatoes when the season comes round. It is very hard to get people to pay down £5 in present circumstances in the hope that they will get potatoes at a particular time. They scratch their heads and wonder what price potatoes will be at that time. If you have a local body dealing with the matter, they will have their people around them and, even if they sell their potatoes in a town that is contiguous to their parish, where you have a group of people with self-confidence and faith and where they have their workers and the prospects of getting the potatoes and looking after the job properly, it could easily be understood, if they were allowed to use tallies, they could do the work and provide potatoes at a much more reasonable price to the people who wanted them than that at which the people would get them if they advanced their money beforehand.

There are two things in favour of the tally. It would provide a cheaper product, and it would provide a more plentiful product, because the local faith, the local organisation and the local work will be a much more potent producer than would the faith of somebody living a distance away, than would, say, the potency of the £5 note that comes from somebody living a distance away and anxious to get something for that money in eight or nine months' time. I suggest that the Minister is stifling an important producing element and an important influence for co-operation by not taking powers to enable him to do this.

The Taoiseach

I think the Deputy will realise that this is a form of money. The tallies become a form of local money in so far as they are accepted at all, and practically the same care has to be exercised in regard to that locality as would have to be exercised in regard to the larger community. The principle is the same. We are discussing a Bill which seeks to regulate money and its backing, its value as a safeguard to the community. If you had a local safeguard of the same kind as the national safeguard we are trying to set up, everything would be all right, but you would have to regulate it in a certain way, imposing penalties for abuses and making provision to see that the tallies were worth their face value, and you would need to protect those who backed them. That is the purpose of this Bill with regard to the community. You would require to have, as it were, a local central bank or a local currency commission if you were to adopt a system such as is suggested and work it properly.

It seems to me that the whole point is, what is the guarantee behind this? If everything goes well with the enterprise, the guarantee will be all right, and they will get their money back; but suppose there is anything wrong, who is going to indemnify the shopkeepers or others who advance their notes to back these tallies? It is all right if everything goes well, but suppose things go wrong?

We have here certain provisions against forgery. Suppose there was forging of these tallies and there was local fraud, there is nobody to supervise completely, with the sort of powers that we have here in the State, to protect the individuals who are taking these tallies. I am not talking about the inflationary effect or anything else. I am just talking from the point of view of the safeguard. It is a natural enterprise. It is nothing new. If you study the monetary history you will probably find that monetary developments have been along similar lines and that the needs for all the safeguards that came along afterwards were realised then. But, it would be quite impossible to do what the Deputy suggests, that the Minister or anybody else should take responsibility for guaranteeing and, say, licensing the body, because he could not be satisfied that he had all the safeguards he would require in order to assure him that this could be done without serious hardships to some people in certain circumstances. If the project is right, that is, if it is sound, —it brings in this whole question of credit really—in other words, if the product when the work is done is of more value than the expenditure in producing it—by expenditure I mean the actual physical food eaten by the workers and all the rest of it—it is possible to finance it within our present system. Who is going to judge that? If the committee or the members of the parish are satisfied that that is so, surely the resources of the parish are sufficient to guarantee that. I do not see any great difficulty about it at all, but there is that "if". Somebody has to be satisfied; otherwise, somebody is going to lose. Is it the shopkeeper who is going to lose, or is it the people who are backing their judgment in producing the scheme?

I am told that the banks have lent to parish committees, and so on, for projects of that sort, a sum of money running into some thousands of pounds —£12,000 or something like that is mentioned. If it can be done that way, the only difference is the question of interest. Somebody, I hold, is paying interest. You cannot get out of it. The shopkeeper who gives his goods and gives credit, if he is out of that money, is somehow or other going to secure himself. He will say: "If I had a cash customer instead of a credit customer I would ultimately have more, because I could have had a bigger turnover. I could have used that money." He is not going ultimately to sell his goods on credit at the same rate as he is going to sell them otherwise. Therefore, he is going to have his interest somehow.

The interest that is paid to the banks for it—if it is a reasonable rate for a short time—does not add so very much to the actual cost for a short period. If the banks do that, they will be taking the risk to a certain extent. They are the sort of body that will examine the situation thoroughly in the way the Deputy would like the Minister here to examine it. They will consider it from the point of view of its worth, the likelihood that it will give a return, that the ultimate product is going to pay back the expenditure in producing it. The bank is in a position through its local manager to do that. It gets the guarantees from certain people, and if the local people are satisfied that this can be done, I do not think there is any great difficulty in getting from the local manager an advance to meet a situation of that sort.

The other way in which it was done was this: turf was to be produced. Certain people wanted turf. There was a canvass made of the people who wanted turf. A person who wanted turf said: "I will buy one ton of turf from you when you produce it. At what rate will you give it to me?" They said so much. He said: "I will give you this money in advance for it." The person who was paying in advance was, in a sense, going to be out of his money; he was going to be paying that interest. The individual, in giving the money in advance, in handing over that money and forgoing whatever he could have got by using it, either by putting it into a bank deposit at a small rate or into his business, was in fact paying interest during that particular period, the rate depending on the use he could have made of the money if he had not given it. At any rate, if he wants to calculate, he says: "For this ton of turf I am willing to pay £2 in advance." He calculates that what he is paying for that turf is not £2, but £2 plus whatever that £2 could have produced for him if he had kept it and utilised it. He realises that, but he pays the money in advance because it is convenient to him. He is prepared to pay £2 and 1/- or £2 and 6d., which is really what it will cost him when he gets the turf, and he is acting in the belief that the people will, in fact, deliver turf of a reasonable quality. He takes that particular risk and, if he wants turf badly and if that is the way in which it is produced, he has an inducement to come along and meet the local committee by making that advance.

If they cannot get it from the banks or by some local people, those who are going to be the ultimate purchasers, subscribing it, then this other method is a dangerous method, dangerous from the point of view of the community, dangerous from the point of view of the individuals who may lose their money. We have a duty to protect them and, though an individual example may work very well, once you begin to universalise or generalise it so that it is used in a number of places, we cannot assume that what has operated well in one particular area under certain circumstances is going to operate properly in a wider sphere.

Mr. Dillon

Is not this proposal very similar to the famous John Law's money?

The Taoiseach

I saw references to John Law last night when reading about Cántillon, but I did not get sufficiently far to be able to know exactly all the damage John Law did.

General Mulcahy

Who was John Law?

Mr. Dillon

The Taoiseach, I observe, is put on to all the correct things in good time to have them ready for the discussion in the morning.

The Taoiseach

As a matter of fact, it was quite accidental. A friend of mine from abroad wrote and asked me if I had ever got anything about John Law.

Mr. Dillon

He was a very interesting and seductive person.

General Mulcahy

Was he an Irishman?

The Taoiseach

Cántillon was an Irishman, living abroad. In all this matter, in the history of all these theories, Irishmen have played their own part. The Deputy is right in a certain contention. It was an example of local enterprise. Assuming that what he has said is right, that there was an effort made —and that is disputed by the Minister—assuming that every avenue was explored by which they could have got this, then this was an example of local enterprise. It appears to have been well managed in that particular case. As far as we have heard, nobody seems to have lost, but things might happen very differently—the Deputy will admit that. If we are legislating here we have to legislate for general cases. It does not require very much imagination to see all the types of abuses that could arise. Certain local people under certain circumstances could suffer rather severely. I do not think we ought to open the door for that. If one could meet the Deputy by seeing there was some body put up to examine it, that you would have a local currency commission, so to speak, or some means of doing that, it might not be so dangerous although the wider question of its effect generally, that is, a sort of inflationary effect, if it went all over the country as a whole, would have to be considered from the public aspect. There is a practical difficulty there. Everybody sympathises with the effort made in particular cases, but I think you could not allow it to become general.

General Mulcahy

So far as the suggestion of danger is concerned, possibly you would require a small parish currency committee to look into it, but I cannot see how anybody could lose anything in this way. After all, let us examine what the scheme is—a local committee in a parish, with local workers and local shopkeepers. The committee people know the workers, and they know the shopkeepers. The shopkeepers agree to accept the tallies and they know the work people who present these tallies. Can you imagine the tallies being paid out each week with the treasurer's name on them? They are given to each man in repect of his work and handed by him to the local shopkeeper? They bear the treasurer's name, and there could be an arrangement by which his signature would be examined so that any forgery could be detected inside a week. It would be brought home to the particular man concerned inside a week, so that as far as any danger is concerned the security of this parish scheme is absolutely copper-fastened.

The Taoiseach

There is a big point the Deputy has not touched yet.

General Mulcahy

At any rate, my impression of the parish is that the people all live very close together. The committee's view of what the people take on and of the parish generally is crystal clear. They see all their neighbours and they are perfectly conscious of everything that has happened. There are no long distance communications to be gone through. Secondly, in regard to the Government's responsibility for preventing losses by the people, I think the Government have a responsibility for saving the people from losses that arise from unnecessary expenses. The Taoiseach indicates that a bank would pay a sum of £300 for, say, a period of six months. I am sure that the bank would charge a committee like this 5 per cent. for that money when they charge local bodies 4 per cent. That would mean a charge of £7 10s. on the undertaking. Why should that £7 10s. be lost? If the shopkeepers are out of their money, the Taoiseach might argue that they are paying interest on the money, but what the shopkeeper is losing because he handles a scheme of this kind, he would gain in another way.

If this scheme were not operating, if production were not brought about in the place, and if the distribution of local products did not take place he might be losing a lot more by the fact that a higher amount of money would be going out of this parish to bring in goods from some other area. Therefore it could easily be argued that the only person who would make anything out of a scheme in which nobody could lose is the shopkeeper because you are holding the money in the parish. However at this hour of the morning, I do not want to spend an unduly long time haggling over this matter. I think the suggestion is perfectly sound and by refusing to accept it, I think you are stifling useful efforts which would have the effect of bringing people together to work together and to handle different aspects of the problem for one another.

The Taoiseach

I absolutely sympathise with the Deputy.

General Mulcahy

It is not I who wants sympathy. I want sympathy for the people down the country who want to do these things.

The Taoiseach

It is because both of us are looking at it from that point of view that I speak of sympathy with the view, not sympathy with the Deputy. Like everybody else, I would like to encourage local initiative and local effort, but when the Deputy says there is no danger in this, he must see at once that there is one other danger apart from the danger of fraud. There is one obvious danger and that is that the project might not be successful in the sense of giving back anything like what is put into it. If the shopkeeper has given food, groceries, etc., to the workers he has incurred a certain amount of expenditure. If the project did not return as much as was spent on it—tools would have to be purchased, the workers have to be fed and there would be other incidental expenses—then the community loses and the individuals who are immediately involved in the enterprise, be they shopkeepers or other persons, who exchange goods for these tallies, find that the tallies are not worth their original value. Who is to say: "we are going to have an enterprise here in which the final product is going to be worth so much"? The committee may do that but that is backing it with their judgment only.

Naturally, it is one thing for one to back his judgment with his money, but it is another thing if you back it by the goods of somebody else. If this scheme were universalised at all, I cannot see anything in it but danger. I do not think it is necessary and if it were necessary to help local bodies in schemes of this kind, instead of asking the Minister to try to guarantee this local currency, the State should be asked to make available under certain guarantees funds for that particular purpose. Certain State help has been given in these cases and a certain rate of interest was charged. I simply want to say that, in my belief, somebody has to pay as long as money is capable of being used otherwise. No matter how you go about it, somebody pays the interest. If the Minister gives a loan without interest he has got to get that money and if he creates it, even according to Deputy Dillon's tendency, that creation is lowering the value of the monetary units existing at the moment.

Mr. Dillon

Oh, heresy.

The Taoiseach

That is the tendency.

Mr. Dillon

No. Antediluvian economics.

The Taoiseach

It is not antediluvian economics. As sure as you have inflation——

Mr. Dillon

Who is talking about inflation?

The Taoiseach

It has an inflationary tendency, unless you have it completely and absolutely checked.

Mr. Dillon

Walter Leaf.

The Taoiseach

It is not Walter Leaf. The Deputy can talk about it afterwards if he wishes. I say that as long as money can be used for other purposes, you are not able to avoid interest.

Mr. Keyes

As dictated by bankers.

The Taoiseach

Not as dictated by bankers, but as dictated by everybody who has money they can use otherwise. Let us say that I have £100 in my pocket, and that I can use that £100 in a particular way so that at the end of the year it has become £105. If I buy cattle for that £100 and sell them at a profit, I find that I have, say, £105. That is, I have made £5 on the £100.

Why should I give that to somebody else and be satisfied at the end of the year to get back £100? If I gave that £100 and am satisfied with £100, I have, so to speak, paid interest on it by losing. So long as money can be used to do things which give a return in excess of the expenditure, so long is interest going to be paid, either by the person who lends without demanding interest or the person who gets the loan. It is reasonable that that should be so. I have never been able to see why the term should be regarded as something wrong or improper. Without going into the wider question, if local bodies have to be assisted in that way and there is a position in which the ordinary mechanism is not available, by which money is advanced through the banks, then, the obvious solution of the difficulty is to try to get the central authority to make it available under conditions which are considered right and proper. While nobody wants to hamper local initiative, this is something which seems to have happened in one particular case, and you cannot generalise on that.

Mr. Dillon

Surely the rebutting of Deputy Mulcahy's plan is simplicity itself. If a parish council resolved to produce a volume of turf, the estimated value of which will be £100, and they go and buy a turf bank valued at £20, they pay the turf cutters by tallies to the value of £80, which is spent in the village shop. The shopkeeper keeps the tallies until such time as the parish council has sold the turf, and is able to redeem them, and in due course the parish council sells the turf but, instead of deriving from it the £100 they anticipated, it only realises £70. That leaves them with only £50 to release the tallies. Who is going to pay the shopkeeper the difference between the amount realised by the sale of the turf less the cost of the turbary and the value of the tallies he accepted?

General Mulcahy

Who says the parish council is only going to get £70?

Mr. Dillon

Those of us who are in business frequently make purchases confidently expecting that they will turn out satisfactorily, only to discover at the next stock-taking that we have to reduce the value and sell the goods below cost. We buy some commodities believing them to be of excellent quality, but our customers tell us that when in use they did not turn out so well, and we are constrained then to sell at a lesser price. We know where bogs have been taken that the turf when on the bank looked much better than it ultimately proved to be, and that the bargain does not turn out to be satisfactory. There is a deficit and somebody must pay up. If Deputy Mulcahy's proposal as it stands was carried out, someone is going to be at a loss. If members of a parish council are prepared to guarantee the finances of such a proposal, then I do not think this machinery is necessary at all. Instead of preparing tallies which are subject to the danger of forgery, they could go to the local bank manager, guarantee a loan, and he would lend £100. That would do the whole business. The moment there was a guarantee with names at the back of it, there would be no need for this proposal at all. I wish that the Taoiseach when he begins to wander off into Victorian——

An Ceann Comhairle

I suggest to the Deputy that he is now wandering.

Mr. Dillon

I am only going as far back as Goshen, whither the Taoiseach seemed to be drawn.

An Ceann Comhairle

The Taoiseach's reference was just an aside.

Mr. Dillon

There is another method by which the individual guarantee of members of a parish council might be avoided, and I direct the attention of the Government to it. Those of us who live in the country know that every county council has in the various towns and villages for which it is responsible special parish committees to advise on local problems.

General Mulcahy

That is a new idea.

Mr. Dillon

They are functioning everywhere.

The Taoiseach

I do not think they operate at present.

Mr. Dillon

I am a member of one of them. I am privileged in Roscommon to act on one of these bodies although the county council never takes our advice. The Taoiseach, fascinated by his own orthodoxy, is moving farther to the right in this matter. There is only one scheme, such as Deputy Mulcahy has in mind, which might properly be financed, and that is, not by means of Treasury bills nor by commercial bills but by hybrid bills. There is no reason why local authorities which try to produce turf should not satisfy the Minister for Finance that they expect the total need of their turf-producing schemes to be, say, £1,000, and that therefore the Government should co-operate with them in persuading the joint stock banks to take a six-months' bill for this amount from local authorities when it is backed by the Government. In exchange for guaranteeing the bill the Government gets a corresponding guarantee from the local authorities, that if the proceeds of the scheme fall short of expectations the rates in the ensuing year would make up whatever deficit developed. If the local authorities were in a position to borrow on a six-months' bill, a short term loan, with an absolute Exchequer guarantee that on the due date the bill would be extinguished as far as the bank is concerned, there is no reason why banks should not discount that bill at the current discount rate in the London money market. In some cases that would be as low as nine-sixteenth of 1 per cent. At present it would be about 1¼ per cent. I think if Deputy Mulcahy moved on these lines he could bring pressure to bear on the Government to realise that that should be done. It is ridiculous to have masses of unemployed men or prospective emigrants standing idle and work waiting to be done, without doing something practical about it.

An Ceann Comhairle

This amendment proposes that tallies be allowed for certain work done by parish councils. The Deputy is suggesting an alternative method, but surely a detailed explanation of an alternative scheme is not in order?

Mr. Dillon

I have not gone one half as far as the Taoiseach. We have listened to the Taoiseach rambling about currency questions and if he had a big wide collar and the name of Goschen, he could not have gone further. I am putting up a perfectly simple alternative to Deputy Mulcahy's plan, which I think the House ought to hear and I think we are entitled to give our reasons for rejecting Deputy Mulcahy's plans.

An Ceann Comhairle

The Deputy has not been precluded from giving his reasons for rejecting the amendment. It would not be in order for every Deputy to get up and propose alternative schemes on an amendment which simply proposes that tallies should be sanctioned by law for certain work.

Mr. Dillon

I am proposing an alternative to the tallies and that seems to me to be a very sensible thing to do when suggesting that Deputy Mulcahy's scheme should be rejected. Deputy Mulcahy suggests tallies. I say to him: "I reject your proposal for tallies because there is another and better way of doing it."

An Ceann Comhairle

I still hold that suggestions as to alternative schemes for giving employment or relieving unemployment are not in order.

Mr. Dillon

I am not talking about schemes for the relief of unemployment, but about schemes to achieve the same end as Deputy Mulcahy says he has in view. The Taoiseach says his sympathy for Deputy Mulcahy's views is so intense that it almost unseats his reason and I suggest that, while his sympathy can rock the very foundations of his soul, there is a perfectly safe and orthodox way of indulging it.

The Taoiseach

It is not in this Bill.

Mr. Dillon

Of course it is in this Bill.

An Ceann Comhairle

I am not prepared to hear the Deputy further on the matter.

Mr. Dillon

On what?

An Ceann Comhairle

On the alternative scheme he is now proposing.

Mr. Dillon

I am talking about Deputy Mulcahy's amendment, and I assume I have as much right to speak on it as any other Deputy. I do not accept the view that this tally system is either safe or prudent, nor do I accept the Taoiseach's antediluvian view that there is no other means of achieving the purpose Deputy Mulcahy has in mind. There is an effective way of providing suitable finance through the very bodies of persons the Deputy has in mind, if the Government will go the right way about it. The House will have heard the Taoiseach return again and again to the proposition that advances of the kind which Deputy Mulcahy and I have in mind must result in the payment of interest by somebody. That simply is not true. It is another extraordinary fallacy which seems to have laid hold of the mind of the Taoiseach and of the Minister for Finance, and it is a most dangerous fallacy. It is not true. There is no question of anybody paying interest on loans operated on the lines to which I have referred. The Taoiseach also tossed off another most poisonous economic fallacy, that is, that any expansion of credit has an inflationary effect.

The Taoiseach

I did not say that.

Mr. Dillon

The Taoiseach said in my hearing——

The Taoiseach

I said "a tendency".

Mr. Dillon

——that it was the equivalent of paring pieces off the coins.

The Taoiseach

I said "a tendency" advisedly.

Mr. Dillon

All I can say is that such an observation is the purest nonsense. I wish the Taoiseach would sit down and apply his mind to some more profitable inquiry than the origins of John Law, in order to satisfy his mind that he is quite mistaken in believing that an expansion of credit has, in all the circumstances, an inflationary tendency.

The Taoiseach

I do not have to satisfy myself about something I never held or believed.

Mr. Dillon

The Taoiseach is now back-watering, of course. I want to nail that down, inasmuch as his name has now been lent to a statement which 999,999 men out of every million men would understand in one way and one man out of every million would understand in the Taoiseach's way. It is quite untrue to say that an expansion of credit must necessarily have an inflationary tendency. So long as there are men unemployed and resources available for them to work upon, an expansion of credit has no inflationary tendency whatever. It is one of the illusions which have driven the world "daft" for the last 15 years, or for the 15 years after the war, that an expansion of credit must, of itself, have an inflationary tendency. I believe that heresy haunts the mind of the Taoiseach and of the Minister for Finance. It is quite wrong, and it is most important that it should be disposed of finally, if that were possible. I think that all enlightened economists in most progressive countries have definitely realised how wrong and silly that illusion was, but the heresy still remains or its vestiges, to prevent people taking the necessary steps to effect the admirable purpose which Deputy Mulcahy has here in view. There is a means of giving effect to Deputy Mulcahy's purpose without the employment of the machinery his amendment suggests. I think the machinery suggested by him is dangerous and bad. The machinery to effect his purpose is available, and if the Government made up their mind to use it, it can be used without any inflationary danger whatever, and without the payment of interest greater than the Treasury bill rate of interest operating in the London money market at the date of whatever transaction we may have in mind. It will simply operate to employ men who want employment and to produce goods that could usefully be consumed by our own people with loss to no one and profit to many.

General Mulcahy

I feel very grateful to you, Sir, for the comment that my amendment is a simple amendment. I do not know who is responsible for it, but I feel like the fellow who went into a barber's shop for a hair-cut and who was asked: "What kind of an anæsthetic would you like? Some professors have recently been working on one and it keeps your toes quiet, so that there is not the slightest chance that the scissors will slip and cut a hair in such a way that you will bleed to death." I think that some of the members of parish councils which work this simple scheme successfully would probably feel somewhat like that man. The suggestion has worked on me so much that I feel half-chloroformed by the atmosphere which has been created, but your suggestion, Sir, that this is a simple amendment has revived me a little, and I just leave the House to consider my simple proposition that the same type of thing which worked successfully in Wexford and which is being allowed to such bodies as the Waterford Unemployed Workmen's Club and the Mount Street Club should be left available to parish councils in the way in which it is proposed to leave it to those bodies, in the way in which it was available last year and in the way in which it is available this year until this Bill passes.

Mr. Dillon

What does the Deputy mean by amendment No. 63, in which he says: "...and are redeemable by the parish or other such local committee within a period of 11 months from the original date of issue"? What happens if they are not redeemed?

General Mulcahy

Then I suppose the local committee might run a raffle, organise a bridge drive or do something else of that kind, but if a venture is gone ahead with on the lines of which the Taoiseach and Deputy Dillon speak and it fails, then one or two people who have guaranteed the venture locally will be saddled with the cost of the redemption. It is unlikely, where you have a local committee working local resources and local workers, that a venture would be embarked upon which would be a failure, because every aspect of it would be simple. Everything would be foreseen, and, if there was any kind of failure, you would have the efforts of everybody to overcome that failure, so that I would not halt to consider theoretically what will happen on the occasion of a failure. When a local committee sit down over a small plan, they see how far failure is likely to be disastrous, and I do not think any scheme will be gone ahead with that could possibly involve anybody in any serious loss. We see around us every day ventures of this kind and the very community of spirit and human touch which exists among the people associated with them enables them not only to cover up losses but to achieve very definite things by a few whist-drives or functions of that type, if driven to it.

Mr. Keyes

I find it hard to understand the attitude towards this matter, particularly as there is a desire, or at least we are told there is a desire, to encourage local and parish activities, and, undoubtedly, a good deal has been achieved in that direction in certain circles. It seems to me that if Deputy Mulcahy's amendment is not accepted, it will mean a great hardship and impose a handicap on the initiative of these people. The Taoiseach's argument would seem to be that all such local activities must be set aside and that priority should be given to the orthodox methods of financing any such activities: that you cannot do anything locally without going through the orthodox financial process of borrowing money from the bank and paying interest on it. A great deal has been done, as has been pointed out by Deputy Mulcahy, and as has been demonstrated recently in Wexford and other places, by local effort without having recourse to the ordinary financial methods. Very good work has been done locally in some places, without having any contact at all with the orthodox financial system. I think our object should be to get the best possible advantage that can be got by encouraging local initiative and endeavouring to get people to put their efforts into co-operative organisation, in connection with such local activities as the production of turf and agricultural produce.

The worst thing that could happen would be to discourage such efforts and prevent people from realising the almost inestimable value of such work, and even if the full value was not achieved, it would be spread over all the people taking part in the venture. For instance, last year, in our part of the country, we did not realise quite what we had expected, but we spread it over all the people who were taking part in the scheme, and nobody was the worse for that, because they realised that we were doing the best we could and, if we did not reach the full 100 per cent., at least we reached 90 per cent. The argument of the Taoiseach, however, seems to be that you must take the money from the bank all the time and pay interest on it. Now, in many places there is a rooted objection to that method, and why should we not be given the initiative locally? I do not see any advantage in Deputy Dillon's proposal, as against that of Deputy Mulcahy, because if the rates are to be responsible, they will be eventually responsible to the guarantee that is given by the central bank.

In the smaller circumscribed zones that have been suggested in this amendment, you are going to have co-operative effort, and whether the people involved are unemployed or hungry people or not, they are people who are going to give of their best voluntarily, and why should it be necessary for a central bank to confine and curb the few liberties that these people have at the moment? What risk is there, in view of what they did last year and the year before? Is there any risk to the stability of the central bank ultimately? I suggest that there can be no risk in allowing such people to exercise their initiative locally for local needs. At the same time, you would be encouraging parish councils and encouraging people generally to have more initiative. You should not try to put any limit on what people feel they are entitled to do at the present moment, particularly when there is no reason to think that that would interfere in any way with the running of this bank.

The Taoiseach

Surely it would be possible to do that without this issuing of local money. If the desire is to enable local workers to get food, or such commodities as boots and so on, and supposing that all such commodities are available in the parish, the ordinary methods of obtaining credit locally should be sufficient. The members of the local committee can go to the local shopkeeper and arrange for food, or whatever it is, to be given to such-and-such people, and can arrange to pay at the end. What is the great difference?

The point I am making is the difficulty of identifying these tallies if they are moving about and not directed towards a certain particular person who knows exactly what his immediate risk is. Why cannot there be the ordinary contact with the local people? If you have the spirit of local co-operation between those who are going to supply the goods and those who are going to produce the commodity which is finally coming back for payment, you can do that without the tally system. The tally system happens to be convenient in the case of a person working in a particular place, where the man concerned knew the dangers and the risk he was taking. In this particular case it works out all right, but it is not a thing that you can permit generally, and there are other ways in which local initiative can find expression and can secure local needs, such as turf, and so on. I have heard of all the various schemes that were operated throughout the whole country, but this is the only one that I have heard of where the tally system was adopted. I have not heard of any other. I believe, however, that if that system were adopted generally it would be harmful and dangerous, and that is why we are trying to stop it. There is no question of interfering with local effort or initiative or trying to prevent people from co-operating to provide for their own needs. If the local shopkeeper is prepared to take tallies to any amount he ought to be able to enter into an agreement with the committee and say: "Very well; I will give you goods up to a certain amount, on such-and-such conditions", and he would get receipts from the recipients to show that the goods had actually been delivered. These receipts would be afterwards considered by the parish council, or whatever body was dealing with the matter, and in that way the shopkeeper would be satisfied.

Mr. Dillon

I think I am right in saying that there is, in fact, no objection under this Central Bank Bill to the parish committee, instead of paying their workmen in cash on a Saturday night, paying them with an order on any shopkeeper in town to supply them with goods to the value of 30/-, or whatever the amount might be. There does not seem to be anything against that. The local shopkeepers exchange their goods in that way and then, at the end of the period, render the bill to the parish committee, the order being the receipt for the goods furnished to the worker who had acquired the order from the parish committee in the first instance. I did not fully understand Deputy Mulcahy's addendum to his series of amendments, to the effect that the tallies could be guaranteed by the individual members of the parish committees. There is the question of indemnifying the individual members of the parish council to be considered. Why not pay the men by docket on Saturday night? The only objection, as I understand it, is to paying the men something which will proceed to circulate to an unlimited extent. With regard to the present system of tallies, I do not think there would be the least inconvenience if, for tallies, there were substituted orders, which would be dealt with through the account of the parish council and guaranteed by solvent citizens of the particular area concerned. Any shopkeeper would be delighted to take them, and would probably give credit for a period in order to get employment provided for the goods produced.

Amendment put and declared lost.

SECTION 50.

Question proposed: "That Section 50 stand part of the Bill."

Mr. Cosgrave

Would the Minister say if paragraph (e) includes I.O.U.'s?

Mr. O Ceallaigh

If the Deputy means, are they forbidden, they are not.

Mr. Cosgrave

I.O.U.'s are usually issued for sums of less than £20. An I.O.U. is a fairly common method of getting money and of undertaking responsibility for the repayment of it. If that practice is going to be disturbed, then it should be done by something more than the mere insertion of a sub-clause in this Bill.

Mr. O Ceallaigh

There is no intention of altering the present arrangement.

Mr. Cosgrave

Perhaps the Minister would look into it in case there should be any danger, through the operation of this sub-clause, of an I.O.U. becoming illegal.

Mr. O Ceallaigh

I.O.U.'s for less than £5 are, I understand, covered by other legislation. I do not believe there is any intention of interfering with the law as it stands in regard to I.O.U.'s I will, however, look into the matter.

Question put and agreed to.

SECTION 51.

Question proposed: "That Section 51 stand part of the Bill."

Mr. Dillon

Would the Minister say what does Section 17 of the Customs Consolidation Act, 1876, mean?

Mr. O Ceallaigh

Section 17 of the Customs Consolidation Act prescribes that all customs duties shall be paid and received in every part of the "United Kingdom" in "British currency". The reference to the "United Kingdom" is already adapted so as to mean "the State", but the reference to "British currency" has not been similarly adapted and sub-section (1) of the present section accordingly adapts it as meaning "currency which is for the time being legal tender in the State".

Section 42 of the Customs Consolidation Act, 1876, enumerates goods whose importation is prohibited or restricted, except, for instance, as approved by the customs authorities for importation at specified ports. Among the items listed are counterfeit coins. By virtue of Section 8 (2) of the Coinage Act, 1926, and Section 11 (2) of the Currency Act, 1927, counterfeits of Irish coins are already added to the prohibited list. It is desirable to add also to the list counterfeits of legal tender notes and consolidated bank notes, and sub-section (2) provides accordingly.

Mr. Dillon

Thank you.

Question put and agreed to.

SECTION 52.

Mr. O Ceallaigh

I move amendment No. 64:—

Before sub-section (3), page 28, to insert a new sub-section as follows:

(3) The Schedule to the Coinage Act, 1926 (No. 14 of 1926) is hereby amended by the deletion in the third column thereof of the words "Bronze, made up of 95½ per cent. copper, 3 per cent. tin, and 1½ per cent. zinc," and the substitution in lieu of those words of the words "mixed metal, copper, tin and zinc."

The Coinage Act of 1926 provided that the bronze was to be made up of 95½ per cent. copper, 3 per cent. tin, and 1½ per cent. zinc. Tin is not easily available now, and therefore we are proposing to substitute in lieu of the words in the 1926 Act the words "mixed metal, copper, tin and zinc."

Mr. Cosgrave

Those bronze coins, up to this, have had a specified percentage of different metals. In the new dispensation is it to be a mixed metal of copper, tin and zinc? I think the amendment is open to the interpretation that that might mean a baser metal. As far as I know, there in no cost in providing token coinage. It is a profitable transaction. I would hesitate to give approval to a proposal which would mean debasing the coinage. I do not know whether a mixed metal simply means copper, tin and zinc or a metal made up of cast iron. It may be that at the moment these metals are more difficult to provide than in normal times. For some time during the winter months there were complaints of a shortage of copper coin in the city. It was alleged by some people, who went about circulating rumours, that certain tribes which came in here during the last 50 or 60 years, and who have been given citizenship in this country—people who specialise in a more highly developed commerce than our people—were responsible for it. I do not know if that is so. I suppose we are disposed to attribute to other people all the evils from which we suffer.

Mr. Dillon

Hear, hear!

Mr. Cosgrave

A couple of hundred years ago there was a great racket in this country in consequence of a grant that was given by a British king to a citizen of his to come over here and mint bad or base coins. That was very strongly condemned by the great Dean Swift. I hope that after a period of 200 years and with a Parliament of our own, we are not going to propose to issue base coin.

Mr. Dillon

I am not so solicitous about this as the Leader of the Opposition because I do not think it is possible to debase token coins. There is this point of significance about it, that under the old definition a statutory obligation was imposed on the currency authorities to issue coins of certain specified metals. The new definition is designed to create a fluid situation so that whatever metals are available from time to time may be employed. Would it not be better to say a mixed metal of copper, tin or zinc and leave it that the coinage may be made of any two of these metals?

Mr. O Ceallaigh

That would give greater latitude.

Mr. Dillon

It would. It will allow you to make pence out of cast iron. You can melt down the railings round the gardens and make pence out of them.

Mr. O Ceallaigh

I will look into that.

Amendment put and agreed to.

Sections 52 and 53 put and agreed to.

SECTION 54.

Question proposed: "That Section 54 stand part of the Bill."

Mr. Dillon

In connection with the issue of coinage, some jocular references have been made to the shortage of coppers during the past three months. I can assure the House that that was no joke down the country. It did on occasion create acute inconvenience in many centres and, in fact, on occasions seriously interfered with business transactions. I have seen on occasions a large business premises without a single copper. I admit that that difficulty did not endure unduly long. I suppose some steps were taken. But I should like the Minister to take the occasion of this section to tell us what authority a harassed mercantile community can turn to if there is a shortage of what is commonly called change. If you went to the banks, the banks simply said that they had applied to the head office and could not get it. If you went to the head office, they simply said that the banks had not got any small silver or copper, and found great difficulty in getting it. If you went to the Minister for Finance, he said that his information was that there was plenty of copper coins and that no inconvenience arose at all. By devious methods and by applying presure in every possible direction, I am obliged to confess that I was able to find a solution for the local problem. I would, therefore, like to ask to whom the public at large can turn in order to secure supplementary supplies of copper token coinage, if and when necessity arises.

Mr. O Ceallaigh

I did hear, during the course of the year, of a number of local shortages. I also heard rumours —some of them were published in the newspapers—that people were buying copper coins and paying considerably over the face value of them.

Mr. Dillon

That was all nonsense.

Mr. O Ceallaigh

It was nonsense. I got the Gárda authorities to test a number of these cases that were brought to my notice and they spent a considerable amount of time following up the rumours. The people whose names were mentioned—some were quoted in the newspapers—when they were appealed to, said that they heard it from So-and-so or some person heard it from somebody else. But we could never put our finger on any case where anybody bought coins at anything beyond their face value. There were local shortages and, when the local bank manager in any of these cases got on the 'phone to his headquarters, if they had not coins immediately available, they turned to the Currency Commission. I do not know that there was any case where a local bank manager was not able to get a supply inside 24 hours—if the trains permitted of that. Either the headquarters of the bank or the Currency Commission came to their rescue from the headquarters' resources so far as any case was brought to my notice. Cases were mentioned and I got letters and telephone messages from people, and we got into communication sometimes with the banks and sometimes with the Currency Commission and efforts were made in that way and, so far as I heard, at any rate, successful efforts were made in all these cases to meet the local shortage.

Mr. Dillon

I think it right to put it on record that the shortage is now, so far as I am aware, definitely over. There is now an abundant supply of copper token coinage throughout the country and has been for some three or four weeks. But, believe me, the Minister is under a complete delusion if he imagines that the acute difficulties were overcome in 24 or 48 hours or a week. I can assure him that in one town for a period of several weeks, it was almost impossible to carry on business owing to the scarcity, sometimes of pennies and sometimes of halfpennies, and that was partly due, as the Minister readily realises, to fixed prices involving broken amounts in a very much larger number of cases than had hitherto been the practice. If, in future, the local bank fails to meet the situation, I can take it that the best thing to do is to apply to the Currency Commission who will get in touch with the headquarters of the local bank and secure that remedial action will be taken?

Mr. O Ceallaigh

Exactly.

Mr. Cosgrave

The Currency Commission Quarterly Bulletin showed that the amount of pennies in circulation on 30th Sept., 1941, was £105,600. That went up to £120,500 in December, and £130,700 in March. It was a very considerable rise. Has the Minister any information as to whether there was hoarding or if there was really a need for an expansion of copper coinage?

Mr. Dillon

It was the 6½d. bottle of stout caused it.

Mr. O Ceallaigh

The figures with regard to the coinage in circulation are set out in the quarterly statistical bulletin of the Currency Commission, and on page 2 of the issue for April, 1942, there is a list of the various coins in circulation.

Mr. McGilligan

Where does the £300,000 that is to be paid to the Savings Certificates (Interest Charge Equalisation) Fund come from?

Mr. O Ceallaigh

The profits on the issue of the coinage.

Mr. McGilligan

It is growing. That used to go to the general fund?

Mr. O Ceallaigh

Yes.

Mr. McGilligan

Why is it being taken from it?

Mr. O Ceallaigh

The Banking Commission recommended that it should be so disposed of, and we are accepting its recommendation. It is being put to the backing of the Savings Certificates Fund.

Mr. McGilligan

Is that short of backing?

Mr. O Ceallaigh

The backing of the State is always there.

Mr. McGilligan

Then it does not need this £300,000?

Mr. O Ceallaigh

That is an additional safeguard.

Mr. McGilligan

Additional to what?

Mr. O Ceallaigh

To the existing safeguard.

Mr. McGilligan

How does that stand?

Mr. O Ceallaigh

There is a fund called the Savings Certificates (Interest Charge Equalisation) Fund.

Mr. McGilligan

There must be when it is mentioned.

Mr. Cosgrave

Will this make the fund solvent? Is full provision being made now?

Mr. O Ceallaigh

It is equivalent to the full face value of the Savings Certificates.

Mr. Dillon

Why do you want to put £300,000 into it then?

Mr. O Ceallaigh

There had been no provision made for accrued interest. Provision is now being made for it, and this is part of the fund to pay the accrued interest.

Mr. Dillon

That is not such a bad idea. I suppose there was accrued interest due which was paid out of revenue every so often. Did this profit go into the Exchequer heretofore?

Mr. Cosgrave

No.

Mr. O Ceallaigh

It came into the Exchequer indirectly.

Mr. Dillon

It did eventually turn up as extra revenue receipts in some way before this sub-section was proposed. It seems to be a harmless kind of proposal.

Mr. McGilligan

You do not generally put money into funds without reason. Here is £300,000 being disposed of in a couple of lines of print. Was the fund insolvent beforehand, and is it now going to be made completely solvent?

Mr. O Ceallaigh

If the Deputy is interested, I will read for him a note on the subject.

Mr. McGilligan

I am just looking at the note which the Minister read on the Second Reading. All the Minister said was:—

"It is proposed to dispose of past profits as follows: to repay advances made from the Exchequer to meet the expenses of the issue of coins in the past; to make £300,000 available to be paid to the Savings Certificates (Interest Charge Equalisation) Fund; and to carry the balance to the currency reserve in the bank's general fund."

That statement simply summarises what is in the sections. Why that £300,000 is being paid is what we want to find out.

Mr. O Ceallaigh

The Banking Commission considered that the powers vested in the Minister regarding coinage are undesirably wide. They would, for example, legally enable funds to be raised for the Exchequer by the direct issue of coin to any person, without regard to the needs of circulation. While the Banking Commission did not, in fact, fear that such a power is likely to be exercised, it would be more in accordance with correct Exchequer administration and orderly currency regulation that issues of coin should be made exclusively through the Currency Commission or the central bank. They, therefore, recommended that provision be made to this effect by amending legislation. The Government have accepted this recommendation and agreed that the central bank should control and issue coinage as well as legal tender notes. Sub-sections (1) and (2) of Section 54 make provision accordingly, and set out that after the appointed day the expenses incurred in providing coins and redeeming them shall be defrayed from the currency reserve in the general fund of the Currency Commission or the central bank, and that the proceeds of issue shall be paid into the currency reserve. It is intended, as recommended by the Banking Commission, that a token coin reserve should be established within the currency reserve and its resources provided from the profits of future issues of token coin and from part of the past profits as provided in paragraph (c) of sub-section (3). Such a reserve is very desirable to meet the obligation of redeeming token coin. All past profits will not be required for the purpose of the new token coin reserve.

Sub-section (3) provides, therefore, in accordance with the recommendation of the Banking Commission majority report, that all deposits held by the Currency Commission on behalf of the Minister for Finance arising from moneys received from the issue of token coins shall be disposed of as follows:—(a) outstanding advances from the Exchequer for expenses of issuing token coin shall be repaid; (b) £300,000 shall be made available to the Minister for Finance for the specific purpose of being paid to the Savings Certificates (Interest Charge Equalisation) Fund in such instalments and at such times as the Minister shall direct —it will help the State to meet its liabilities in respect of Savings Certificates; (c) the balance shall be carried to the credit of the new currency reserve.

Mr. Dillon

It seems to be a reasonable enough kind of provision. I take it this means that the money is going to be used for the repayment of debt?

Mr. O Ceallaigh

That is what it amounts to. Savings Certificates are debt.

Mr. McGilligan

But the Banking Commission recommended that the present Savings Certificates (Interest Charge Equalisation) Fund be merged by appropriate legislation in a Savings Certificates Fund of wider scope. Is that being done?

Mr. O Ceallaigh

No.

Mr. McGilligan

The whole of the paragraph in which they deal with this matter is written on the basis that the new fund would be established. They also recommend that the Exchequer should pay interest at the rate of 4 per cent. per annum on the amount of this debt outstanding. Is that being done?

Mr. O Ceallaigh

No.

Mr. McGilligan

They also suggest that the amount of the debt should be reducible, inter alia, by contributions from the General Sinking Fund. I presume that is being attended to?

Mr. O Ceallaigh

No.

Mr. McGilligan

The commission thought also that, so long as any of this debt remains outstanding, surplus income of the Currency Commission and of the Post Office Savings Bank should be applied to its reduction, instead of being retained in the Exchequer as revenue. Part of that is being done—that is what we are at now—but, in the main, the Banking Commission's recommendations on this matter have not been adopted.

Mr. O Ceallaigh

A number of the recommendations have not been adopted.

Mr. McGilligan

And are not likely to be adopted?

Mr. O Ceallaigh

As things stand at present, no.

Mr. McGilligan

I do not know how we stand, taking one part of the recommendations——

Mr. O Ceallaigh

Well, we are strengthening the Savings Certificates (Interest Charge Equalisation) Fund to the extent of £300,000.

Mr. Dillon

Was there any statutory provision for an annual appropriation for this purpose, which will be relieved by the position we are now considering?

Mr. O Ceallaigh

Nothing statutory.

Mr. Dillon

Was there a practice annually to make provision in the Budget?

Mr. O Ceallaigh

Yes. A statement of the fund appears every year in the Finance Account. For the year ended 31st March, 1931, the statement will be found on page 39 of the Finance Account.

Mr. Dillon

This £300,000 appropriation will not operate to relieve the annual contribution?

Mr. O Ceallaigh

No.

Mr. Dillon

It is over and above the usual provision which was ordinarily made for the repayment of Savings Certificates?

Mr. O Ceallaigh

It will have the effect of reducing the amount.

Mr. Dillon

It will have the effect of reducing the amount of the ultimate liability of the Exchequer, but not the Budget liability. The same annual contribution will continue to be made. This contribution will be over and above whatever the customary contribution was before.

Question put and agreed to.

SECTION 55.

Question proposed: "That Section 55 stand part of the Bill."

Mr. McGilligan

What is the purpose of the second sub-section in this? Have there been any irregularities of that type?

Mr. O Ceallaigh

There appears to be some doubt regarding the copyright of coins issued under the Coinage Act, 1926, and of the artistic work defining their design. Sub-section (1) proposes to clear up such doubts by providing that the copyrights shall be perpetual and belong to the Minister for Finance and that they shall be deemed to have belonged always to him. Sub-section (2) makes it an infringement to reproduce the whole or part of any coin in any published literary or artistic work. This sub-section is similar to Section 12 (3) of the Industrial and Commercial Property (Protection) (Amendment) Act, 1929 (No. 13 of 1939), which sub-section makes a like provision in regard to legal tender notes and consolidated bank notes.

Mr. McGilligan

The Minister, in his Second Reading speech, talked about cases having arisen where photographs of bank notes had been published, and this, by association with the Forgery Act, makes that an offence.

Mr. O Ceallaigh

We were dealing with that earlier to-day.

Mr. McGilligan

That was with regard to photographs of bank notes?

Mr. O Ceallaigh

Yes.

Mr. McGilligan

This is in connection with the reproduction of coins. Have there been many examples of that?

Mr. O Ceallaigh

There have been.

Mr. McGilligan

What the Minister said about the bank notes was that cases had arisen where photographs of bank notes had been published in newspapers or periodicals, and, again, where imitations of bank notes, with various adaptations and changes, had been reproduced for advertisement purposes. I should imagine that cases of the reproduction in literary or artistic work of the whole or any part of a coin would be far less numerous?

Mr. O Ceallaigh

They have been less numerous, but there have been some cases, it appears.

Question put and agreed to.

SECTION 56.

Mr. O Ceallaigh

I move amendment No. 64a:—

In sub-section (4), page 30, line 11, to add at the end of the sub-section the words "and by the substitution of the words ‘in which assets of the legal tender note fund are for the time being permitted to be held' for the words and figures ‘mentioned in sub-section (2) of Section 62 of the Principal Act' where those words and figures occur in sub-section (1) of the said Section 4".

This amendment arises of a lacuna, the credit for the discovery of which goes to Deputy Mulcahy. Section 4 of the Currency (Amendment) Act, 1930, provides for interim transfers during a half-year between the legal tender note fund and the note reserve fund. Such transfers may be done at the discretion of the Currency Commission whenever a profit or loss arises on the realisation by sale or maturity of any capital assets of the legal tender note fund. It is provided that the transfer from the legal tender note fund shall be "in any one or more of the forms mentioned in sub-section 2 of the Principal Act". This covers the various forms in which the assets of the fund may be held, namely, gold, British legal tender, British Government securities and sterling balances in any bank in the United Kingdom. Section 4 of the 1930 Act is being amended by Section 56 (4) of the Central Bank Bill but Section 62 of the Currency Act, 1927, which, as already stated, is referred to in Section 4 of the 1930 Act is being repealed in Part 1 of the First Schedule to the Bill. It is necessary, therefore, to amend the reference to Section 62 of the 1927 Act. The point was raised by Deputy Mulcahy on Committee Stage.

Amendment agreed to.

Question proposed: "That Section 56 as amended stand part of the Bill."

General Mulcahy

The more we discuss the matter, the less reason there seems to me to be for wiping out the consolidated note issue. Would the Minister give us a short statement of the reasons for the wiping out of that issue? The Banking Commission recommended it but they did so with a certain amount of misgiving.

Mr. O Ceallaigh

This section does not deal with the consolidated note fund.

General Mulcahy

It deals with the note reserve fund, which it winds up.

The Taoiseach

A different subject.

Mr. O Ceallaigh

Sections 29 to 35 dealt with the consolidated note issue.

Mr. McGilligan

What was the note reserve fund for—consolidated bank notes?

Mr. O Ceallaigh

Yes.

General Mulcahy

It was the backing for the consolidated bank notes. After the discussion we have had on the subject, I am getting more uneasy as to the reasonableness of wiping out this issue. As a prelude to reconsideration on Report Stage, I should like to have from the Minister a statement as to what in the minds of the Government justified this step. The Banking Commission deal with the matter in paragraph 251 in which they say:—

"Most of the arguments by which we must be influenced in deciding to recommend either the continuance or the abolition of the system of consolidated bank notes are of an imponderable nature. On the one hand some of us believe that the provision of currency is a prerogative of the State, which the State ought to assume at whatever cost——"

Mr. O Ceallaigh

I submit that this is out of order.

General Mulcahy

When we are wiping out the backing for the consolidated note issue——

Mr. O Ceallaigh

The backing—not the issue.

General Mulcahy

——we ought to consider what the result of our action will be. If the Minister can resolve the doubts I have in mind——

Mr. O Ceallaigh

I doubt it.

General Mulcahy

Then the Minister makes me feel very unhappy.

Mr. O Ceallaigh

Not for the first time.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

The wiping out of the consolidated note issue was very fully discussed on previous sections.

General Mulcahy

I suggest that I am in order since this section wipes out the note reserve fund which was the backing for the consolidated note issue.

Mr. O Ceallaigh

I submit that the Deputy is not in order. We have discussed the matter very fully on Part IV of the Bill.

Mr. Dillon

If your contention is right, we could not say a word on this section at all, which is absurd.

The Taoiseach

Is not this consequential in one respect? Having decided that the issue be wiped out, we have to decide where certain funds shall be placed.

General Mulcahy

As we proceed from part to part of this Bill and from section to section, a certain picture unfolds itself. Very subtle matters have had to be dealt with. It is true we have passed sections dealing with the wiping out of the consolidated note issue, but we are in Committee and, on report to the House, we shall have either to approve or disapprove of what has been done. Having decided to wipe out the consolidated note issue, we are, in this section, proposing to wipe out the basis of that issue. Before the House takes the second part of the decision, I want to draw attention to what is involved.

Mr. O Ceallaigh

The House has already decided the policy.

General Mulcahy

I object to the consolidated note issue being wiped out. One of my reasons is the way the Banking Commission approached the question. On the discussions which have taken place here, I think it is necessary that the Government should restate the grounds on which they hold it should be wiped out.

Mr. O Ceallaigh

That would be out of order.

General Mulcahy

I want to have the——

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

When the Deputy wants a restatement, he is going back on Part IV all over again.

General Mulcahy

No, Sir; I would ask you to allow me to read——

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

The Deputy is quite in order when he says he objects to the reserve fund being wound up.

General Mulcahy

I will read a section from the Banking Commission Report as backing up that reason. It is Section 251:

"Most of the arguments by which we must be influenced in deciding to recommend either the continuance or the abolition of the system of consolidated bank notes are of an imponderable nature. On the one hand, some of us believe that the provision of currency is a prerogative of the State, which the State ought to assume at whatever cost to private institutions; others think that the only public interest involved is the provision of a convenient and secure medium of exchange, an interest already satisfied. The concrete considerations are the additional expense involved by the present dualism, and the potential loss to be occasioned to the banks by its abolition; the former is not great——

that is, the expenses of the dualism,

—and is in any case borne by the banks; the latter, in existing conditions and with the rates of charge mentioned above, must also be small.

That is, the potential loss occasioned to the banks by its abolition must be small.

"Weighing these arguments, it is difficult to find a decisive inclination in either sense. Nevertheless, we feel disposed to conform to the world-wide trend presently observable, and to recommend that steps should be taken towards terminating the system of consolidated bank notes."

It is all to be done to conform to the world-wide trend presently observable. It is a shocking way to wind up a body that had that standing and ability and that took the general view of things the Banking Commission Report stated, and particularly in connection with the tendency in this Bill to back the whole of our currency by sterling— except that there is an admission or a suggestion of a certain amount of sympathy with the view that a proportion of it could be backed by domestic assets of one kind or another.

Mr. O Ceallaigh

We are getting back to the same discussion again.

General Mulcahy

If the Minister objects to my discussing important things, and if you support him, I have nothing else to do but to sit down.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

The Deputy is going back over a subject which was already fully discussed.

General Mulcahy

We are proposing here to wipe out the note reserve fund, and I am objecting to that, because the note reserve fund is something that can be built up on domestic assets and on domestic assets only.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

Is the Deputy introducing a new matter that has not been reached before and has not been discussed before?

General Mulcahy

The note reserve fund can be built up on our domestic assets and is entirely separate from the legal tender note issue and from the backing of the legal tender note fund. Before the Minister asks the House to take a decision to wipe out that separate reserve of money, I think we should get very sound reasons for his action.

The Taoiseach

The Deputy will have an opportunity on the Report Stage, when we will be discussing this again. Even though I object to a great deal of repetition, I have considered it better we should have it rather than adhere very strictly to order in this case. This matter will be discussed again. The Deputy may not think it a wise decision, but it was decided in Committee that the consolidated bank notes should go, and here we have a reserve fund which dealt with that. We are now asking that that reserve fund be wound up, as the consolidated bank notes will have disappeared. It is a consequential provision.

General Mulcahy

I agree with the Taoiseach that there has been a certain amount of repetition in the debate here, and that some of it might have been avoided, but I do not think there has been very much in the way of concrete statement, on the one hand, or on the other hand, of repetition of the systematic series of reasons that arose on the wiping out of the consolidated bank note issue, and if anything is worth repeating it is that.

The Taoiseach

We will have it on Report Stage.

General Mulcahy

We have to make up our minds, between this and the Report Stage, as to how we will approach this matter.

Mr. O Ceallaigh

This is only an accounting arrangement. The note reserve fund disappears and the money goes into the currency reserve fund. The reserve fund never was to be called upon unless some banker failed to honour a note presented. That has not happened yet, and is unlikely to happen. That was the reason for the fund, and when the consolidated bank notes disappear the reason for the reserve fund would not continue.

General Mulcahy

If we are to have some of our currency backed by domestic assets and some by sterling assets, it is worth while considering whether there should not be two separate funds.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

Is the section, as amended, agreed to?

General Mulcahy

No.

Question—"That Section 56, as amended, stand part of the Bill"—put and declared carried.

SECTION 57.

Mr. O Ceallaigh

I move amendment No. 64b:—

In lines 31 and 32, page 30, to delete the words and figures "mentioned in sub-section (3) of this section" and substitute the words "in which assets of the legal tender note fund are for the time being permitted to be held."

That is the second part of the other amendment we have adopted. It is consequential.

Mr. Cosgrave

What is the purpose of it?

Mr. O Ceallaigh

It is part of the amendment that arose out of the one to the necessity for which Deputy Mulcahy drew attention.

Amendment put and agreed to.

Section 57, as amended, put and agreed to.

SECTION 58.

Mr. O Ceallaigh

I move amendment No. 65:—

Before Section 58 to insert a new section as follows:—

The references in sub-sections (1) and (2) of Section 3 of the Currency (Amendment) Act, 1930 (No. 30 of 1930), to unanimous request, shall, in the application of those sub-sections to the board, be construed as references to request by any six members of the board.

There were many references, during the course of the discussion, to certain sections of the Currency (Amendment) Act, 1930. I need not describe to the House what that Act was intended to do, as we are all fairly familiar with it now, as a result of the frequent references to it. Before Section 3 of that Act could become operative, it was necessary that there should be a unanimous decision by the board of the Currency Commission, and before that decision would be approved by the Minister for Finance other action had to be taken upon it. At any rate, that section never was operated. I do not know why, but it may have been found too difficult to get a unanimous opinion. I think it desirable that the power contained in that Act be maintained, and that it should be possible to operate it more freely.

I suggest that, instead of having a unanimous decision by the board, we should have a decision of a two-thirds majority only — that a two-thirds majority of the board be secured and that recommendation be made to the Minister for Finance that the other steps to be taken might follow. Then, if the Oireachtas approved, there could be domestic assets used as a backing for our currency—something that many people in the House have strongly recommended to us and wished that, even apart from this arrangement, there were more practical methods of securing. At any rate, we have here in the Currency (Amendment) Act, 1930, machinery which could be used so that there would be domestic backing for our currency. I propose to make it easier to operate that Act, with the intention that the backing that is desired, the domestic backing for our currency, be used, if that be the desire of the central bank later on—a two-thirds majority of the board—and if that recommendation secures the approval of the Oireachtas.

General Mulcahy

When we were discussing amendment No. 45, where Deputy Cosgrave was seeking to have a systematic way of backing portion of our currency by domestic assets, and also amendment No. 46, the Taoiseach commented upon the position with regard to the Currency (Amendment) Act, 1930. The Act provides for a unanimous request from the commission and it provides also that when the Minister proposes to act on the unanimous request of the commission, his Order will not be operative until it has been laid before each House of the Oireachtas and has been approved by the resolutions of both Houses. I was proposing to delete that sub-section, so that where there was a unanimous request by the commission for the making of an Order, and the Minister made the Order, it need not be necessary to bring that before the Oireachtas and there need not be the positive approval by the Oireachtas of the Minister's action. That would mean that the Minister could issue an Order, which had been recommended by the unanimous wish of the board, without having to have the positive approval of the Oireachtas. If there was any question arising, it would have to be on the initiative of some member of the Oireachtas.

The Taoiseach indicated that it might be possible to have a double line of proposals, that where there was a unanimous request of the board for action, the Minister might take action without reference to the Oireachtas; or, where there was a request of the board on the lines indicated by amendment No. 65—that is, by a two-thirds majority of the board—that it would have to come before the Oireachtas. I would like to ask the Minister whether he has given consideration to that, because I can see the desirability of the Minister acting on the unanimous recommendation of the commission without coming to the House, but I can also see it would be desirable for the Minister to state a case to the House for action that he was taking on the request of a two-thirds majority.

The Taoiseach

Deputy Mulcahy has referred to a statement that I made during a previous discussion and I indicated, as the Deputy pointed out quite accurately, two lines of approach. I have had really no opportunity of going into this matter with the Minister and his advisers, and one has to be very careful about things of this sort. It would be helpful if we could get an indication from Deputies whether they think there is sufficient safeguard, in the one case, in a unanimous request by the central bank board and the concurrence of the Minister, without coming to the House, and, in the other case, whether with the two-thirds majority, it is desirable to have the House brought into it. These are things on which there might be some difference of opinion.

I should like to have an opportunity of considering these things with the Minister and his advisers. We would like to see where we are going, and we would like to get a picture of possible risks before we commit ourselves definitely to it. It would be helpful if we got an expression of opinion from the House as to whether there was sufficient safeguard in having a unanimous proposal by the board and action by the Minister, without coming to the House. Some people might say it is too rigid on account of the unanimous provision for the board, and, on the other hand, some might hold that the two-thirds majority and the concurrence of the Minister would be sufficient without coming to the House. The question is whether a double line of approach would be regarded as satisfactory.

Mr. Dillon

I submit that no safeguard in regard to this matter can be too rigid. I would prefer to see a unanimous initiative by the board, followed by a proposal put by the Minister for Finance before the House, because a decision in regard to this matter will affect the livelihood of every citizen of the State. It has to be borne in mind that, although we should make that provision now, it does not deter us, if the necessity ever arises in an acute form hereafter, from amending the law; it does not impair our sovereign authority to adopt some other means of transacting this business if we want to do so in future. As at present advised, I would like to see the bank take the initiative by unanimous resolution of the board, the Minister then coming before the House with that unanimous resolution and ventilating fully the reasons for the proposed change.

I think I am right in saying that this question of the backing of the currency has a dual function, one, the maintenance of the sterling link, and the other, the maintenance of public confidence in the currency itself. In regard to the sterling link, there may have been a time—there probably was —when the maintenance of the sterling link discharged both functions; people regarded sterling as so sound a currency and, so long as they were satisfied our currency was linked to it, that in itself was evidence, not only of the currency's stability, but of its essential soundness. In so far as that soundness consisted of immunity from inflation, the sterling link has ceased to give that guarantee because, of course, one of the most inflated currencies in the world at present is sterling and it promises to inflate far more in the times to come. I do not think it is necessary now to argue in this House for the maintenance of the sterling link.

To depart from the sterling link in our particular peculiar trade position would be, for all the reasons set out in the Banking Commission Report, disastrous for our people and would make our trade virtually impossible. The disadvantages of such a departure, I think, would fall almost exclusively on our people. But what we have got to realise in this—that it is merely post-war that the question of establishing a backing for our currency designed to secure public confidence in the currency will arise and I do not think there is any economist, in this country or outside it, who can envisage clearly at this moment what form that backing must take for any currency, not only the Irish currency, but the British currency and the currencies of all the world.

I think that is one of the post-war problems which will give rise to the greatest difficulty. But what we have got to bear in mind is this—that our peculiar problem in relation to this matter, so long as our trade is 97 per cent. with Great Britain, will be conditioned by the vital necessity of maintaining some permanent parity with the British currency and if a situation arises post-war in which the nations will not accept gold or wheat or some other tangible commodity of that kind, a situation may arise in which certain prominent currencies will interlock with one another in an agreed relationship. We then have to ask ourselves the question, do we want to interlock with those currencies and fluctuate in an agreed ratio with them all or will it suit us better to say that we elect to interlock with sterling alone and to fluctuate vis-a-vis the other currencies in the same ratio of proportion with sterling? That is an immensely difficult question to determine.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

That has nothing to do with this amendment.

Mr. Dillon

It has everything to do with this amendment. It is extremely difficult to see it, but it is vital to this amendment. This amendment means nothing else, because it is on that question that the decisions to be governed by this amendment will be taken. Lots of people lose sight of the fact that we are enacting legislation for a central bank that is going to operate post-war and maybe for generations. It is not an emergency measure.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

Will the Deputy read that amendment and show me how what he is saying now is related to it?

Mr. Dillon

I will read the amendment, Sir, but whether I will be able to show you how it is related to what I am now saying is another story. I will do my best. The amendment enables the board of the bank, by a two-thirds majority, instead of the unanimous vote, to make representations to the Minister in regard to the backing of our currency which initiate a series of activities by the Minister. The question is whether that initiative may be taken by the bank by a two-thirds majority or unanimously. I was pointing out to the House that it ought to be a unanimous vote instead of a two-thirds vote and the reason is because the issues at stake are so immense and their implications and ramifications so very wide. I am urging that there could not be an excess of rigidity in this matter because the decisions are so vital that they should not be taken hurriedly. An opportunity should be afforded to everyone to make his voice heard, through his representatives, because interference with the sterling link may suit commercial communities in the country but might absolutely ruin the average cattle jobber going from fair to fair. Have I made that clear, Sir?

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

Yes, so far.

Mr. Dillon

I think it is right to say, in amplification of my thesis, that there could not be excessive rigidity in this matter, that one should bear in mind that were the sterling link to be broken——

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

I would like to draw the Deputy's attention to the fact that there is an amendment following, amendment No. 66, on which this matter would be more properly discussed.

Mr. Dillon

No, Sir, this is the only amendment on which the matter could be discussed. Were the sterling link to be broken, we might have a situation obtaining in this country in which a cattle jobber bought a wagon of cattle in a rural fair, depending on his expert knowledge to ensure that, though he paid £20 for the cattle in Mullingar, they would yield him £28 in York, but that expert knowledge of cattle notwithstanding, were there no sterling link to operate, currency fluctuations might result in the wagon of cattle realising for that jobber only £21 or £22 in York, with the resultant loss to the cattle jobber on his transaction. Individual mishaps of that kind might not represent irreparable disaster, but the uncertainty that would arise consequent on individual mishaps of that kind would completely disrupt the normal trade of this country and result in a situation where no man would sell his goods on the fairs or markets of the country because there would be no person who was not a qualified currency speculator competent to go down and buy goods that he clearly intended to export.

The thing operates in the other way. If, to-morrow, a merchant in this country wanted to buy a cargo of dried fruit in Spain or Greece or, indeed, the United States of America, he might very readily find that what he had purchased in the conviction that he would be able to sell it so long as the price was 6d. per pound, had, as a result of currency fluctuations, increased between the date of shipping and the date of delivery to a price which would make it impossible to sell under 1/- a pound, with the result that half the purchase would be left on his hands with consequential loss which might ultimately destroy him. Therefore, I want to put this point—that we, who represent the small farmer and the small trader down the country, should be afforded an opportunity of making our voices heard before a decision is taken to alter the backing of the currency and unless we are afforded that opportunity, a Ministerial order could, as I see it, break the sterling link or provide for the currency a backing which would give rise to the legitimate apprehension that it would be no longer safe to hold your savings in the form of Irish currency.

Every individual in this State is so fundamentally affected by dangers of that kind, that he is entitled to be heard through his representatives in the Legislature before a change is made. Legislatures, no matter how wise they are, cannot be expected to have an encyclopaedic knowledge of all the economic arguments that might properly be advanced on a matter of this kind. It would be of material assistance if a proposal of this kind were initiated only when the nine directors of the bank were unanimous in commending it to the Legislature. I believe that where a proposal comes before the House for such a change with one-third of the total directorate dissenting, a confusion of counsels must inevitably ensue amongst us, the Legislature, which would offset any conceivable advantage that might be held to accrue from such a change as two-thirds of the directorate recommend. Therefore, I strongly urge on the Government that we should have unanimous initiation followed by Ministerial approach to the Oireachtas. I do not want to be taken finally as meaning that I think we should pass over to the board of the bank any of the powers of this House because in urging this course on the Minister I have very present to my mind the fact that if in future we make up our minds that the board of the bank is wrong, we should always have in reserve the ultimate recourse to a further amendment of the law, but pending such an unlikely development as that, I urge that the stiffest possible restrictions should be put on any proposal for a change in the backing of our currency. I see no possible disadvantage in making that change as difficult as it is possible to make it, but I see an immense danger in any relaxation of the joint vigilance of this Oireachtas and of the central bank board which we have set up as the expert advisory body in this matter.

Mr. McGilligan

There are a couple of small points which I wish to raise. This has been discussed on the basis that the request must come from two-thirds of the members of the board. That, of course, is not the amendment. The amendment provides that the request may come from any six members of the board, and the board need not have six members. The board need have only four members. The only compulsion in the Bill in that respect is that the board shall consist of a governor and three banking members.

Mr. O Ceallaigh

It means two-thirds of the full membership.

Mr. McGilligan

It is quite possible to have a board which need not have more than six members, in which case you are going to have unanimity again. However, that is a small point. The object here is to remove this unanimity which was previously required in dealing with two things: (1) a request to the Minister coming from the board to have new securities added, and (2) a request to the Minister to have certain securities struck off. It is proposed to have that whittled down somewhat. The other requirements in the Currency Act of 1930 were that, in addition to the request being unanimous, the order made by the Minister, following upon that unanimous request, must be brought by resolution before each House of the Oireachtas, and the approval of each House obtained. I find it very difficult to discuss that matter in the manner in which it is fitted into the framework of this Bill, because that is the only aspect of the bank's operations that will have to be resolved upon in the House.

So far as the whole machinery of credit control is concerned, we are in the position that we throw the board away from any Governmental or Parliamentary control. The only control we shall have over them is when the matter of the re-appointment of the Governor, who holds office for seven years, or the other directors, who hold office for five years, arises. Only after five years will this House get some chance of reviewing the bank's policy or making any changes in the personnel of the board of the bank. That is the only power of control we shall have, and meanwhile the bank may do a variety of things.

For instance, yesterday we dealt with the point that they might make, when it seemed expedient, certain rules with regard to the repatriation of investments held abroad. That could be done without the slightest notice to the House. It is not even clear that it is necessary for the bank in its annual report to advert to any such move. We are asked to say now that in regard to one single matter a proposal of theirs must come before the House. I would have preferred to have the bank generally more definitely in touch with the House, to have, not its day-to-day operations but its operations generally reviewed at, say, yearly periods. That is not being done.

Mr. O Ceallaigh

Would the Deputy suggest that its annual report should be laid on the Table of the House?

Mr. McGilligan

That has to be done.

Mr. O Ceallaigh

Is that not bringing it in?

Mr. McGilligan

That is a different matter. The model I had in mind was that which is contained in the Electricity Supply Board legislation. The view which the House took on that occasion was that we were giving that organisation the benefit of State credit and in consideration of that, we made it a condition that we should have the light of publicity shed on all their activities. We not merely gave control to the Minister but we put on him the responsibility of sending in auditors to the board and getting reports from them. The Minister had to make that report his report because the duty was put on the Minister of ensuring the necessary publicity when we were making inquiries in regard to things that were of public interest. The Minister brings that report before the Dáil. There is a rather tame provision that this board will have to produce a report in regard to certain regulations, but in regard to matters in which the public might be interested or about which they might want information, there is no responsibility fixed upon the Minister of seeing that the bank report will contain any allusions to these points. It may be that on looking through the sections in the 1927 legislation we may find that there are certain matters which the board would have to put before the Dáil in its report every year. If so, that would relieve a certain amount of anxiety about this matter but I would have preferred to see the board more generally under the control, or certainly more generally under the supervision, of the House. I do not want any power to interfere with its day-to-day operations. I do not want to have the Minister persecuted with Parliamentary questions, as he would be if the board were directly under his control, but I do not see that there is any special necessity for bringing this one matter before the House.

Mr. O Ceallaigh

The Deputy referred to a unanimous vote.

Mr. McGilligan

Even if there is less than unanimity, I think there are other objections against this. If we are agreed upon having a unanimous resolution of the board, or some two-thirds majority, that is not of any great account with me. In respect to the other related matters, I should prefer, as we have thrown the bank clean out of our Parliamentary system, not to have this matter brought in, because it is only going to add to the terrors that Deputy Dillon spoke of. I want to get back to the history of this question. When the Currency Act of 1930 was introduced it really dealt with two matters. It amended Section 6 (3) by taking out a certain phrase in paragraph (d) to deal in British Government securities "maturing within 12 months". The first real amendment of the Currency Act was to cut out the words "maturing within 12 months". The Minister told us to-day that the section was confined by that particular paragraph to British Treasury bills and he thought that too restrictive and too narrow. He asked to have the words removed. They were removed. What else was there in that Currency Bill when presented to the House? To add to the list of securities given, the securities of the United States of America. Those were the two changes proposed to be made in the Act of 1930. These two changes were accepted by the Dáil but in the Seanad they decided that it would be invidious to pick out securities of the United States, and said in respect of them: "Let us have this particular form, but let us have a possibility of adding to the list, on the unanimous request of the board, with the Parliamentary safeguards that are here."

Supposing we were only considering this from the point of view of adding United States securities, where is the necessity for having a unanimous vote and the two Houses passing resolutions about it? It would be quite a normal operation to add United States securities. You would have all the pother and trouble about going to the Houses and having two resolutions requiring unanimity. As I see the situation, the Bill we are discussing is framed along very conservative lines, and if the slightest attempt is made—as a slight attempt has been made—to modernise and improve that, a certain amount of rumpus would be created about breaking the securities of the bank and breaking public confidence in the bank. I think we are adding to that by putting it before the public that there is some desperate engine of destruction in the use of Section 3 of the Currency Act of 1930. If, to guard this bank, we go on talking about it in this way, we would have to regard them as gangsters and freebooters that we must hamper in the revolutionary path that we think they are going, by insisting that the whole of this must be under Parliamentary control, and that we must have Parliamentary control over them. I think we would be casting a great deal of doubt on people operating the board by insisting on that. I prefer to give them a little more latitude and to let them operate. Whether you put in unanimity or bring this down to some vote, I do not see how any board could move unless there was something approaching unanimity. If two or three strong members hold out, what other way is there of getting views expressed other than by a vote? I do not see how the bank would attempt to move unless there were something approaching unanimity. Certainly I do not see them moving if there was a very narrow vote.

If you had a board of nine, with six in favour, while three held out or, for any great reason, were opposed, I doubt very much if the bank would go on with it. I would hope and trust that the people operating the bank would act in a reasonable way. It is very hard to come to a conclusion in a theoretical way as to what we should like to have done. The bank is so definitely tied up, and the whole operation is so tied up, that I would not hesitate to have the Act of 1930 changed to the point of leaving it a matter of majority vote, or six out of nine, and omitting the requirement about Parliament. If I say that, it is not because I want the bank cleared away from Parliamentary control, but because I see little use in having this remnant of Parliamentary control. It is a power that will not be very often used. I should like to recast the whole thing and to have the bank at least more under Parliamentary supervision and scrutiny.

The Taoiseach

With regard to the Deputy's statement that this is a remnant, while generally I understand the view taken by him, and personally agree with a great deal of what he said, I think he is mistaken if he thinks it is a remnant. After all, we have definitely direct backing for sterling and convertibility. I assume that this Bill is going through on that basis, and that we are simply taking all the precautions necessary to make that effective. We are doing it here. The other might be regarded by a number of people as a slight change. Therefore, it would be brought, more or less, to the House in relation to the decision of the House to have parity with sterling. From that point of view it could be argued that it was not consistent to bring it before the House. On the other hand, I agree that very often discussion would help to do a great deal more harm than good.

In the first instance there will be a number of people definitely charged with looking after the public interest in financial matters, and secondly, you have also the additional safeguard of the Minister. In other words, he takes responsibility as a Minister of the Government. The Government has to take responsibility for this. You will have an independent body considering it from the public point of view and also the Minister. It seems that if you get actual unanimity on the board, that ought to be sufficient check without going to the House at all. I am rather anxious to know what the general feeling would be. I have not had an opportunity of going into it to see any pitfalls that there might be. I am inclined to think that it might be as well if there was just a majority vote. If my view were taken I would not be the most conservative person in that matter.

Mr. Dillon

Deputy McGilligan said if three of the members of the board resolutely resisted a proposal he could not see the remaining six ever working by majority vote. That is substantially true. Surely that is just as good an argument for unanimity as for majority vote. In fact, the likelihood of the board acting without the consent of virtually all the members is very remote. Therefore, only in such cases where unanimous assent is secured would that apply to the board at all. Deputy McGilligan envisages the board substituting United States securities for British securities in the guarantee fund.

Mr. McGilligan

Adding them.

Mr. Dillon

Or changing some of the British securities to United States securities. On the merits that would be a reasonable proposal, but the leader of the Opposition was speaking about the other side, liquid domestic advances, but, as one can see, while that might be prudent, once you start juggling around with the wherewithal of that currency, the suggestion made might not always be so prudent as the substitution for United States securities of liquid domestic advances properly defined. They might find some other securities which could be brought forward.

I do not foresee that the Government will put on this board a whole lot of lunatics, and let us assume that they are all sound economists and prudent men. We may then assume that unanimity will be a regular incident in regard to any matter about which they may properly move, but it is just as well to provide against the contingency of something untoward happening by requiring that unanimity will exist where they are taking the initiative.

The Taoiseach says that he rather inclines against discussing these things here because discussion sometimes does more harm than good. I think that is a mistake. A great many people are inclined to say, during a stormy political Parliamentary debate, that that debate is doing more harm than good. I have been 20 years in politics now and they were stormy enough.

Mr. O Ceallaigh

So long as that?

Mr. Dillon

So long as that, I am sorry to admit. I never saw harm done by Parliamentary debate carried on in good faith about a vital matter. Momentarily, it might have seemed that feelings were exasperated and trouble started, but in the long run it was infinitely better that both sides of an acrimoniously-stated case should be presented to the public at the same time. It was an old warrior, an old dog on the hard road, who said: "Give a good lie sufficient start and you will never catch up on it." The Parliamentary debate is the ideal means of preventing a good lie from getting a long start, because the moment it is promulgated, it can be corrected there and then, and the lie and its correction go out to the public together. Ultimately, the truth prevails if it is placed under no initial handicap.

While I have no doubt that speeches will often be made in Dáil Eireann which, if uncontradicted, would be very dangerous and calculated to create panic, of this I am certain, that if a man wants to start a panic and is denied an opportunity of making his attempt here in Dáil Eireann, he will set on foot a whispering system which will get a panic going before those concerned to check it are aware of his attempt. So long as this forum is here, he can be challenged to make his case here, where it can be answered in the presence of the public. Though there may be some initial instability, the truth will ultimately get the country right and steady in whatever crisis it may find itself. I do not subscribe at all to the Taoiseach's view that open discussion in a democratic country is often dangerous. I go so far as to say that, in regard to a domestic matter, it is never dangerous. In regard to certain international affairs, it may sometimes be undesirable, but, in regard to a domestic issue, open discussion can never be wrong. I believe that is true so long as the people of this country continue to believe in the system of Parliamentary government.

I always listen to what Deputy McGilligan has to say on matters of this kind because it is invariably very well worth listening to, but it seemed to me to-day that his own arguments answered him. He said he could not conceive any situation arising in which the bank board would take the initiative unless unanimity existed. Very well; why not give the public the added feeling of security that no initiative can be taken without that unanimity? It seems to me to be an added buttress to the public faith in the currency, and, the more of those we have, the better it is for everyone.

Mr. Cosgrave

It is advisable for us to see what it is the central bank will have to decide before we examine whether it is advisable that there should be unanimity or that a majority of six out of nine should carry. In the Currency Act of 1927, there are laid down in Sections 61 and 62 the investments or securities which should make up the legal tender note fund. They are set out as "bullion, gold coins, money in any form for the time being legal tender in Great Britain for unlimited amounts, British Government securities maturing within 12 months and sterling balances on current or deposit account at the London agency, or any bank in Great Britain or Northern Ireland." These are very easily realisable securities. They almost fulfil the description Deputy Dillon gives of certain money when he calls it hot money. It is available within 24 hours. We come then to Section 62 which sets out in respect of the note reserve fund: "gold bullion, gold coins, money in any form, British Government securities, securities guaranteed by the British Government, sterling balances and legal tender notes." A little delay is probably involved in the cashing of those under (d) and (e), that is, British Government securities and securities guaranteed by the British Government, but that is all. Section 3, sub-section (1), of the Currency (Amendment) Act of 1930, says: "If and whenever the commission shall unanimously request the Minister to add any particular security or class of securities, currency, balance or other form of assets to the forms in which the legal tender note fund...".

That, therefore, is the question. It is a matter of the judgment of the central bank as to the desirability of adding some security to those already there. The Minister left us under the impression—he certainly left me under the impression—that the reason this provision had never worked was that it was almost impossible to get a unanimous decision. It is the first time I have heard of even any suspicion of that sort. I do not think it is so. I think the reason it did not operate up to this is that the Currency Commission probably did not consider it necessary to operate it. Apart altogether from what backing there is for our currency here and independent of that backing, so long as we have credits to the extent which is recorded, or anything approaching it, there is no difficulty in maintaining the exchange, or in discharging any obligations likely to arise from one end of the country to the other.

Here the only likely question is whether the security to be added is an easily realisable security. If the resources of the central bank were to any extent measured on the basis of a considerable proportion of their assets being not readily realisable, you might have a difficult situation. I do not think you would, so long as the funds are so extensive as they are at present, but, in the event of sterling balances running almost dry and the entire strength of the currency being vested in whatever resources there were in the central bank, there would be a difficult situation, but I do not see any immediate likelihood of that.

I think that in connection with alterations of the form of securities, it is at least to be expected that there should be unanimity amongst the members of the board. I share with Deputy McGilligan the view that no matter what the proposal is, it is unlikely that, if six members were of one point of view and three of another, the proposal would be carried. It is a risk, but there is another objection I have to this amendment. It is that, as the board is constituted, it looks as if it could mean that the six persons would be the non-banking experienced persons, persons other than those selected from the panel of banking representatives.

That is an objection that I think would be much stronger than the question of the mere division of the numbers: that it would be unfortunate that the intention should be there if you are going to ignore or water down the effect of the banking representation on that board.

As regards the other question, about having it brought before the House, there seems to have been some very strong reason originally for the recommendation of this innovation. I should say that it bears all the imprint of having had the sanction or approval of the Currency Commission of the period, and it would be far better that the matter should be ventilated in the House, as otherwise it might give rise to rumours, because if the matter has to be discussed in the House it is probable that any of these rumours, if they should reach the ears of members—and they ought to—can be dealt with; but, at any rate, whatever proposal would be made for an alteration in the acceptance of securities ought to be of a sufficiently reassuring character, of itself, that it could not only be ventilated here in the House but that the public could be made thoroughly aware of it, and that in so far as it is a public matter that concerns the people of the country, they are entitled to know what changes there may be. It does appear to me that there is no advantage served by saying that six of those members of the board alone could decide this question, and I think that in the circumstances—certainly, in the circumstances in which this Act was originally passed—it would be highly undesirable that a thing of that sort should be done without having the fullest possible publicity about it; in other words, by having it brought before the House here.

General Mulcahy

I wonder would the Minister consider holding back this until the Report Stage, which would give an opportunity of having a full review of the matter?

Mr. O Ceallaigh

Yes, I think that would be a good idea. The Taoiseach and I have talked about the suggestions that have been made, and I should like to look into the matter further. I put down this amendment because I thought it would be making the board wider—that it would be making it a little more free for the board of the central bank to come to a decision, if they thought well of it, to have some other backing besides sterling for our currency. It is common ground, I think, that it would be desirable to have our currency, to some extent, backed by domestic assets, and this amendment might have given an opportunity of doing that to some extent. However, other suggestions have been made during the course of the discussion on the Committee Stage of this Bill and, as I said here a couple of days ago, I am quite prepared to examine these other suggestions with a view to seeing how far we can go to meet them. If it is the wish of the House, I shall withdraw this amendment and put it down for the Report Stage.

Mr. Dillon

Anxious, as I always am, to spare the Taoiseach any embarrassment, I wish to remind him that, in connection with a previous amendment by Deputy Norton, he indicated that the Government had put down this amendment as going half way to meet the views expressed by Deputy Norton, and I take it that the Government is satisfied that the proposal to withdraw this amendment now and bring it forward on Report Stage will be in accord with the Taoiseach's undertaking to Deputy Norton, and that these matters will be dealt with on Report. My reason for pointing this out is that on Report Stage the discussion will be very much more restricted, and I only wish to know whether, I shall not say the undertaking, but the statement or observation of the Taoiseach in connection with Deputy Norton's amendment will be carried out. If so, I am quite satisfied.

The Taoiseach

I do not know exactly what the Deputy is referring to. I did not connect any undertaking given to Deputy Norton with this matter. As far as I remember, there were three things relating to this. There was the question of the consolidated note and of having an Irish backing, and Deputy Cosgrave had brought forward the question of liquid sound advances, which I thought might be examined at this stage. There was then the question of unanimity, and the question of coming before the House.

Mr. Dillon

If the Taoiseach will look at amendment No. 25 I think it will refresh his memory on this matter.

An Ceann Comhairle

Is the Deputy not referring to amendment No. 66?

Mr. Dillon

I mean amendment No. 25, in the name of Deputy Norton. In the discussion on that amendment, the Taoiseach said that he would direct the Deputy's attention to amendment No. 65, which he thought was in the direction of meeting the Deputy's amendment.

Mr. McGilligan

The main point of Deputy Norton's amendment was to put the onus on the Minister of adding to the list.

Mr. Dillon

My recollection is that the Taoiseach said that perhaps Deputy Norton would look upon amendment No. 65 as being moved by the Government in the direction of meeting what the Deputy wanted, and that it was then decided to discuss No. 25 on its merits, and discuss No. 65 when it arose.

The Taoiseach

I should not like it to be thought that I said that it was going to meet Deputy Norton's intention exactly. The point was that I had already indicated this double line of approach, namely, unanimity, plus the Minister, without the House, and non-unanimity, plus the Minister, plus the House. In addition to that, Deputy Norton was talking about liquid sound advances, and I had more or less regarded these as a sort of security that might possibly come in, in connection with the present amendment, but I was not too sure whether they could. There was the question of whether liquid sound advances were of a type to be considered as security. I suggested that when we came to the Government proposals we would take these three things into account, and I had two of them in mind at the time of Deputy Norton's amendment.

Amendment No. 65, by leave, withdrawn.

SECTION 58.

Question proposed: "That Section 58 stand part of the Bill."

Mr. Dillon

On the section, Sir, I understood that it was agreed that the Government should get the Committee Stage of this Bill to-day. Now, Section 58 covers quite a new matter and a very large subject. Would it be acceptable to the Government to recommit this section? I understand that it is possible to recommit a Bill in connection with one section.

An Ceann Comhairle

If the House so desires, but we do not proceed section by section on Report.

Mr. Dillon

Would it be agreed, on Report Stage, to recommit that section? There may be a very long discussion on it.

General Mulcahy

I understand that it has been agreed already with the Leader of the Labour Party to recommit the Schedule, in respect of some amendments he has moved to it.

An Ceann Comhairle

Amendment No. 66.

Mr. O Ceallaigh

What I understand is that Deputy Norton has asked to re-submit his amendment on Report.

An Ceann Comhairle

Yes, on the question of parity.

Mr. Dillon

I think I am right in saying that it was agreed that the Government should get the Committee Stage of this Bill to-day.

General Mulcahy

Yes.

Mr. Dillon

Why not recommit the section for report? There is not much time to discuss it now. It deals with hire-purchase and has very little to do with a central bank.

Mr. O Ceallaigh

Very well.

Mr. McGilligan

I shall have some comment to make on the Recommittal Stage arising out of remarks made by the Minister about hire-purchase.

Agreed to.

Sections 59, 60 and 61 agreed to.

FIRST SCHEDULE.

Amendment No. 66 not moved.

An Ceann Comhairle

Amendment No. 67 is out of order.

Mr. McGilligan

I understood that the Schedule was tied up to a particular section which says that certain parts of the Currency Act shall be repealed or amended in particular ways. Anybody who will hereafter take this measure and have to construe it before the courts will find set out in the Schedule a number of amendments repealing Acts, but that there are other amendments being made which are not in the Schedule. There are two sections which make changes in the Currency Act and they are not referred to at all in the Schedule.

Mr. O Ceallaigh

And the Deputy thinks these should be included?

Mr. McGilligan

Yes. Take Section 63. That is one section referred to in the Schedule. There are other amendments carried to that section in the body of the Bill and they are not referred to at all.

Mr. Dillon

The same thing applies to the section dealing with the repeal of part of the Bank of Ireland Act. That is not referred to in the Schedule either.

Mr. O Ceallaigh

I will look into that.

Question put and agreed to.

Second and Third Schedules and Title agreed to.

Bill reported with amendments.

An Ceann Comhairle

When is it proposed to take the Report Stage?

Mr. O Ceallaigh

On Wednesday fortnight.

General Mulcahy

Will the Minister undertake to give us ten days between the receipt of Government amendments and the taking of the Fourth Stage?

Mr. O Ceallaigh

It may be a good while before I am ready for the Report Stage, so that I think the Deputy will have ample time. If not, I will be glad to extend time.

Report Stage ordered for Wednesday, June 17th, 1942.

Mr. Dillon

Is the House meeting on Wednesday fortnight or on Wednesday three weeks?

An Ceann Comhairle

I understood on Wednesday fortnight, but that can be settled on Monday next.

The Dáil adjourned at 1.55 p.m. until 3 p.m. on Monday, 1st June, 1942.