Dáil Éireann debate -
Friday, 23 Jul 1948

Vol. 112 No. 8

Committee on Finance. - Appropriation Bill, 1948—Second and Subsequent Stages.

Mr. McGilligan

I move that the Bill be now read a Second Time. I would like to point out that the Bill is in the ordinary form except for a clause which is in Section 2, sub-section (4), which is in these terms:—

"The proceeds of any money borrowed from the Government of the United States of America or any agency thereof shall be placed to the credit of an account of the Minister for Finance with the Central Bank of Ireland."

There is power to borrow under the first sub-section of Section 2 and that is sufficient for the purposes but sub-section (4) is to make it mandatory that any moneys that are borrowed from the Government of the United States of America are to be placed to the credit of an account with the Central Bank of Ireland. It is thought, in order to prevent any inflationary effect, that this money should not be allowed to go into free circulation all over the country but should be placed to the credit of an account of the controller and myself.

Mr. Aiken

Moneys borrowed from the United States Government will be borrowed in the form of dollars, to be spent, I take it, in the United States. I do not quite follow the Minister's opening remarks. Will he explain a little more clearly what is the procedure for putting the moneys that are received from the United States into the Central Bank; in what form they will be deposited there and on what authority they will be withdrawn from the Central Bank? Is it on the authority of the Dáil that they will be withdrawable by the Minister from the Central Bank?

Mr. McGilligan

I do not understand what the Deputy is at.

Mr. Aiken

I put the question this way: The Minister for Finance may borrow £5,000,000 worth of dollars from the United States Government. He has the right to write a cheque to draw on a Government account or a Government agency account in the United States. Those are dollars.

Mr. McGilligan

They will be paid to the people who will supply the goods in the United States and the goods will come here. They are all purchases which must be paid for in dollars. The people who supply these goods in the United States will be paid with these dollars. The goods, when they arrive here, will be sold and we will take the money for them.

Mr. Aiken

Then the whole business will be operated by the Central Bank and the Minister for Finance will not come into it?

Mr. McGilligan

Except that it will be an account of mine—that is all.

Mr. Aiken

I do not understand.

Mr. Lemass

What the Minister has said suggests that the purchase of goods in the United States will be effected on Government account. If I, as a business man, purchase machinery in the United States, by what means will the moneys in the account in the Central Bank be drawn upon to enable me to do so? Does the Minister contemplate that the machinery will be purchased on my behalf by the Government or some Government agency and then sold to me here against Irish currency?

Mr. McGilligan

That will be one way of doing it.

Mr. Lemass

Is that intended?

Mr. McGilligan

I imagine that will be the ordinary way, yes. The financing of this has not yet been gone into. First of all, I have been advised, and I have stated with assurance, that there is power to borrow. The general run of the machinery would be this— that dollars will be provided; they will be paid, say, in America to purchase goods for which dollars are required: the goods will come here; the goods will be sold here; the proceeds of the sale we do not propose to allow to get into general circulation, and, therefore, we have this scheme of placing them to the credit of an account. Provision will have to be made for redemption of the dollars hereafter and the easiest way is that we would achieve as much credit as possible from the proceeds of the sale of the goods which have been paid for in dollars supplied by the United States and, eventually, when convertibility comes, the account will be paid by the moneys we have accumulated.

Mr. de Valera

Why could not that be expressed in the Bill—"the proceeds of the sale of goods," or something like that?

Mr. McGilligan

Because that is a matter for detailed arrangement as to what is going to be done. The only points that it is necessary to meet in the Appropriation Bill are—first, is there power to borrow? —There is. The second is, what is going to be done with, say, the moneys that accrue from the sale of the goods that come, say, from America, purchased by dollars? We suggest that it would not be right that these moneys should be in free circulation through the banks all over the country. Therefore, we propose to have them credited in the Central Bank to an account that will be in my name. Deputies are well aware that we must make good these borrowings eventually. Therefore, we must make provision for that and, while the loan is outstanding, must also make provision for servicing of the loan. If the Deputy will suggest what other way is proposed, I will listen to his suggestions, but this Bill only meets two points—(a) making it clear that there is power to borrow, and (b) making provision that these moneys will be placed in the Central Bank instead of circulating through the ordinary banks. What is wrong with that?

Mr. Aiken

I understand the system outlined by the Minister for Finance now. What is worrying me is accepting this loan at all from the United States. I saw in the paper yesterday, I think, that the Government propose to borrow £5,000,000 worth of dollars from the United States for the coming three months. That is borrowing at the rate of £20,000,000 worth of dollars per year. For the nine months ending June, we were getting dollars from the British sterling area pool at the rate of about £20,000,000 worth of dollars a year—£14,000,000 worth for nine months.

Mr. McGilligan

It was £12,000,000.

Mr. Aiken

Exclusive of £2,000,000 for wheat in the event of our not getting Australian wheat. Very well. That is at the rate of £16,000,000 worth of dollars for 12 months, so if we are to go on the first three months' drawings of this European recovery aid and make borrowings from the United States authorities, we are going to borrow, or procure in some fashion from the United States Government, £20,000,000 worth of dollars in the coming 12 months. I would like the Minister for Finance to say if that is so. It is proposed to borrow £20,000,000 worth of dollars, or accept that amount from the United States Government?

Mr. McGilligan

More, I hope.

Mr. Aiken

£20,000,000 worth? Is that the figure the Minister has in mind?

Mr. McGilligan

The amount given was 10,000,000 dollars in the first quarter; 20,000,000, plus 1,000,000 in the second quarter, making 31,000,000 in the two quarters.

Mr. Aiken

That would be at the rate of a little over 7,000,000 dollars per quarter, about £15,000,000 worth of dollars for the twelve months, if it goes on at that rate. That was the rate at which we had been getting dollars from the sterling area pool, and we got those for pounds. I think that was pretty well meeting the requirements that were absolutely essential for the economy of the country. If we are going to borrow or get dollars directly from the United States Government and have no other means of getting £15,000,000 worth of dollars in the coming 12 months, does that mean we are going to get no dollars at all from the sterling area pool?

Mr. McGilligan

By no means, I hope.

Mr. Aiken

The Taoiseach last night refused to give us any information at all about the arrangement which was come to in the London agreement about that matter.

Mr. McGilligan

May I read the phrase that is appropriate:—

The Government of Ireland will use their utmost endeavours to obtain the maximum amount of aid available under the European Recovery Programme, with the object of ensuring that, as far as practicable, their recourse to the sterling area pool for hard currencies will not involve any ultimate drain on the pool.

Mr. Aiken

We have not seen this document in any authoritative form yet.

Mr. McGilligan

That is the only authoritative form to date.

Mr. Aiken

That would appear to me, in its ordinary meaning—unless there is something behind it concealed by these words—that we are committed under the London Agreement to go and get our dollar requirements ourselves and that we are not to draw on the sterling area pool.

Mr. McGilligan

Will the Deputy keep three things in mind? We have some dollar earnings.

Mr. Aiken

I know; I mean, apart from that. If they are cleared through British banks we get those, in addition to anything else we may borrow or obtain from the United States.

Mr. McGilligan

Outside that, the arrangement here is that we are to secure as much as we can by way of dollar aid from America, with the object of avoiding a drain on the pool, but there is no question about being precluded from drawing on the pool.

Mr. Aiken

At any rate, we have undertaken to do our utmost to make no draw.

Mr. McGilligan

No draw that will involve any ultimate net drain on the pool.

Mr. Aiken

Then this is the situation, that for the next 12 months, if we want £15,000,000 of dollars in addition, over and above our own dollar earnings, we have undertaken not to procure those dollars in a way which will involve a drain on the dollars in the sterling area pool. That means we go and get them ourselves. I would like to have got a little bit better information from the Taoiseach on the matter, as it is an important aspect of general policy, but to-day when he was replying he was not very nice. As a matter of fact, he indulged in a whole long string of sour-puss assertions about various matters.

Mr. McGilligan

I hope the sour-puss will go from the other side.

Mr. Aiken

Where are we going to be, if we have to borrow £15,000,000 worth of dollars this year? That is what I would like to know. On what terms? Under this Bill, we are now giving the Minister power to borrow from America £15,000,000 worth of dollars, or thereabouts, or borrow very much more. This country will have to repay those dollars according to the contract. We cannot, like a lot of other countries, borrow this money with our tongues in our cheeks and afterwards depend on repudiation. We are a small country. We want to keep the friendship of the United States, and it is of the utmost importance that we enter into no contract for a loan or otherwise that we are not able to carry out to the letter of the contract. The Minister might say, if he has any information, what the terms of the loan are—first of all, as to interest, and, secondly, as to repayment. It was announced that we are going to borrow £5,000,000 worth of dollars. I would like to know what the terms are.

Mr. McGilligan

They are not arranged yet.

Mr. Aiken

I would urge the Minister to include one clause in the contract— even though he has to pay a higher rate of interest for getting it in—that in a year in which the United States is not balancing its books with the rest of the world, is not buying—and by the term buying I mean to include investment or lending—as much as it is selling, in such a year not only the interest should be forgiven but the instalments should be wiped out for that year, since in such circumstances it is impossible for the world to repay America the amounts that are due on foot of these and all other loans.

It would be a great mistake, indeed, for us to contract to pay America irrespective of whether or not America is allowing the world to repay her. I hope that the Minister will go very far indeed, even extending the rate of interest he is prepared to pay, in order to get such a clause into the contract.

Mr. McGilligan

How does the rate of interest come into that? Supposing one year, as the Deputy says, the United States have unbalanced payments, what does the Deputy propose that I should do?

Mr. Aiken

What I propose is that there should be a clause in the loan agreement stating that in a year in which the United States does not buy as much from the rest of the world as it sells to it, the interest, and whatever the sinking fund is to be, would be forgiven by the United States.

Mr. McGilligan

I thought the Deputy said something about a higher rate of interest.

Mr. Aiken

There could be a contract in which there would be such a clause and you pay, let us say, 1½ per cent. interest, or a contract in which you could get the money for 1 per cent. without the clause. I would rather pay 1½ per cent. for the loan with that clause in it than get the loan at 1 per cent. with the clause out.

Mr. MacEntee

I want to raise another matter on this Bill which I think is appropriate to it. The Bill provides that the Minister for Finance may issue out of the Central Fund a sum of £45,927,774 for the public services. I think that that issue should not be made until serious allegations touching the honour and probity of public servants and people connected with the Government which were made a short time ago by one of the members of the present Government are investigated. Before the change of Government, the present Minister for External Affairs said that he had sent papers to the then Taoiseach alleging frauds in connection with Government contracts and breaches of rationing and price control Orders concerning, among others, some persons closely connected with the Government. These allegations were made publicly. The person who made them has since become a member of the Government. So far as I am aware, no investigation of the nature demanded by him has since been made. Either these statements were true and that condition of affairs continues to exist with the connivance and the consent of the person who made these allegations, or else, on closer examination of the position by him, they have proven to be unfounded.

Mr. McGilligan

There was a prosecution.

Mr. MacEntee

There was no such investigation as the present Minister for External Affairs demanded. There was, of course, a prosecution, but the facts then disclosed did not justify in any way the sweeping and serious statements made by Deputy MacBride, as he then was. These statements were made during the election. They were calculated to create in the public mind the impression that the then Administration was engaged in corrupt practices. The terms in which these allegations were made were carefully chosen. They were chosen in such a way as to imply that there was intimate association between members of the then Government and the persons engaged in these frauds in connection with Government contracts and breaches of rationing and price control Orders. Nothing which has appeared in the Press since the change of Government would warrant charges being made by a responsible person in these terms. I understand there was a prosecution. The extent of the offences disclosed in that prosecution, I am told, were not such as to justify the statements which were then made.

Mr. McGilligan

Did you read the report of the prosecution?

Mr. MacEntee

I did not, because it escaped my notice. The publication which was given to it was so slight that there was certainly nothing disclosed, so far as I am aware, which would show that there were frauds in connection with Government contracts. There has been certainly nothing disclosed or anything which would indicate that the persons then charged with certain offences were closely connected with the Government. I think that is a matter which would justify the House in hesitating to vote these moneys until they have a definite assurance from the Minister for Finance that there was no such widespread fraud or corruption as his colleague, the present Minister for External Affairs, alleged in February of this year to have existed.

There is another aspect of this matter to which I think I should make some reference. This Vote provides money for the payment of salaries of Ministers. In the course of the discussion on the Estimate for the Department of Health, the Minister for Health (Dr. Browne) disclosed that an extraordinary state of affairs existed as between him as a public office holder on the one hand and the organisation which was responsible for securing his election to this House and his ultimate promotion to the Ministry on the other hand. The Minister for Health, in winding up the debate on the Estimate, confessed that he pays over a large part of the salary which he draws from public funds to the treasurers of Clann na Poblachta. That, I think, has disclosed a position in relation to public offices which is most disquieting.

In the old days, Tammany Hall, in its degeneration as a political organisation, was known to have exacted tribute, either in cash or service, from those whom it helped to place in public offices. The inevitable consequence of that was that under the aegis of Tammany Hall, public office holders became unspeakably corrupt. We are, I believe, witnessing the introduction of that system here in our public life, because the disquieting disclosures which the Minister for Health has made as to the relations which exist between him as a public office holder on the one hand and the organisation of which he is a member on the other hand have been followed up by the disclosures which Deputy Cowan made as to the financial relations which exist between his former colleagues of Clann na Poblachta in Dáil Éireann and the executive of that organisation.

It is to be apprehended from these that, in return for the support which the Deputies in question receive from the Clann na Poblachta election machine when they are seeking election, they have bound themselves to pay into the coffers of that organisation such moneys as they draw from the public purse by way of Parliamentary allowances and, in return, they receive from that organisation from time to time such sums as it sees fit to grant to them for services rendered. The effect of this is, of course, to deprive the elected representatives of the people who are in that invidious position of freedom of action, of speech, and even of opinion.

An Ceann Comhairle

What is the Government responsibility?

Mr. MacEntee

The Government responsibility is that it has put before the House, in full knowledge that this is being done, a Bill which provides that these Deputies will continue to draw as an allowance moneys which in fact are not being used by them for discharging the proper obligations of their positions as Deputies.

An Ceann Comhairle

I fail to see how the Minister can decide what they are to do with it.

Mr. MacEntee

The Minister has asked the House to approve Section 3 of the Bill, which appropriates this sum of £45,000,000 odd to various purposes—among them the salaries and expenses of the Houses of the Oireachtas, including sundry Grants-in-Aid. Part of this money is being voted in order to provide these Deputies with the moneys which they, in turn, do not use as other Deputies use their allowances——

Mr. McGilligan

That is not my responsibility.

Mr. MacEntee

——on expenses incurred by them in relation to their services to their constituents but as paid servants of the House.

Mr. Timoney

Are they not entitled to do what they like with their allowances?

An Ceann Comhairle

It is statutory. The State must pay it. The Chair does not see that the Minister has any responsibility.

Mr. MacEntee

First of all I should like to make it quite clear, because I think it is necessary, that these are not salaries. I am not referring to salaries. I am referring to Parliamentary allowances.

An Ceann Comhairle

Which are paid by statute.

Mr. MacEntee

They have to be appropriated from year to year. Section 3 of this Bill provides for appropriation. The Minister asks that they will be provided in that particular way.

An Ceann Comhairle

What power has the Minister to allocate the money afterwards?

Mr. MacEntee

The Dáil has. I cannot see how I could have drawn attention to this matter otherwise, because the facts were not available in time.

An Ceann Comhairle

It could have been done by motion.

Mr. MacEntee

I want to draw attention to the practice which has grown up——

Mr. McGilligan

I suggest that it is out of order.

An Ceann Comhairle

The Minister has no responsibility——

Mr. MacEntee

Wait.

An Ceann Comhairle

That is my view.

Mr. MacEntee

If the Chair will bear with me I want to say this. I am not going to say anything more in relation to the question of Deputies of the House, but I think I am entitled to deal with the question of members of the Government entering into an arrangement which has been disclosed in the House——

Mr. McGilligan

I have no responsibility for that.

Mr. MacEntee

Wait. The Dáil has, and the Government of which the Minister is a member has—in a very special way.

An Ceann Comhairle

Would the Deputy tell me whether the Dáil could alter that without legislation?

Mr. MacEntee

Yes. The Minister for Finance can certainly discuss the matter with his colleague and secure its alteration without legislation, because while the statute does fix the sum which will be paid to a Deputy by way of allowance, it does not fix the sum which may be paid to a Minister by way of salary. The statute merely states that the salary to be paid to a Minister shall not exceed a certain figure. Therefore, if the position is that the Minister for Health finds that for his labours a sum of, say, £1,700 is sufficient to remunerate him, then I suggest that the balance of the money payable to him ought to be allowed to remain in the Central Fund in the public purse instead of being drawn out of the public purse under false pretences and paid into the coffers of a political Party.

Mr. Timoney

There are no false pretences about it.

An Ceann Comhairle

The Minister has no responsibility——

Mr. McGilligan

I ask for a ruling.

Major de Valera

On a point or order. Is this not a Bill? I think it is a mistake to assume that this is an Estimate and a question of Ministerial responsibility. It is a Bill to provide moneys for certain purposes. The reasons why we should vote for or against it are important. Surely, when Deputy MacEntee speaks about his very good reason for voting against furnishing these moneys—with respect, and purely on a matter of the order of business—it is well within the terms of the Bill, but it might not be relative to the Department of Finance, which is not in question.

An Ceann Comhairle

Is it relative to what the Ministers' allowances would include?

Major de Valera

It is on this Bill.

Mr. de Valera

Is this not a Bill the same as any ordinary Bill? Is this Bill not legislation? Has every member not a right to say why the legislation should not get through?

An Ceann Comhairle

It is giving statutory effect to resolutions already agreed to by the House.

Mr. de Valera

Surely it is in order for me or for anybody else at this particular stage to say: "I do not think that this Bill should pass, and my reason is so and so?" Otherwise, there is no point in our discussing this Bill at all. It just goes through if it is not an active Bill.

Mr. McGilligan

Will I get 15 minutes in which to reply?

Mr. Aiken

The Minister will get whatever time he wants.

Mr. McGilligan

I want my allowance of time.

Mr. MacEntee

I have already drawn attention to the fact that in the course of the general election the present Minister for External Affairs was prolific in producing charges of graft and corruption against us. I suggest that we find that present Minister now engaged in fashioning a machine which lends itself most easily to the introduction of graft and corruption into our public life. If a person who becomes a Minister has to pay a heavy toll to the organisation through which he became a Minister——

Mr. McGilligan

I suggest that this is out of order and I ask for a ruling on it.

Mr. de Valera

The Ceann Comhairle has ruled that the Minister has no power over it. That is different.

Major de Valera

He has not ruled it out.

Mr. McGilligan

I ask for a ruling now, and I want my time, please.

Mr. Moran

The Minister is trying to take up time by interrupting Deputy MacEntee.

Mr. McGilligan

Is it worth while listening to him?

Mr. MacEntee

It is. Otherwise the Minister would not be so anxious to close the debate.

Mr. McGilligan

You can have any dirty squabble——

Mr. MacEntee

With regard to what is being done by the Minister for Health, I would ask what is to prevent a similar levy being enforced upon a person who, by the influence of this organisation, secures any other office for him or secures promotion in the public service. What, for instance, is to prevent a similar contribution being exacted from a creature of the organisation who is made a judge of the High Court or of the Circuit Court or a district justice or a State solicitor or a country registrar? Then when in due time the persons thus appointed jib at paying this tax—as, according to Deputy Cowan, some of his former colleagues are now doing—what is to prevent this liability being compounded by a promise that if they are permitted to retain the cash they will be prepared to render equivalent services which will be equally profitable to the organisation?

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

I shall call on the Minister to conclude at ten minutes to two.

Mr. C. Lehane

The suggestion the Deputy is making is worthy of Deputy MacEntee.

Mr. MacEntee

The system which Clann na Poblachta has introduced in regard to these matters, and to which the present Minister for Health is a party, is a system which is designed to curb our whole public life and to corrupt eventually even the organisation of justice.

Mr. McGilligan

The Deputy who has just sat down has made progress through this House and through public life along certain well designed lines. The Deputy is prone to making scandalous and scurrilous suggestions from time to time and then five years later repenting and apologising. We will have another repentance and apology arising out of to-day's proceedings, but the Deputies who have been slandered by him will have to wait five years for it.

Mr. MacEntee

What about the Locke Tribunal?

Mr. C. Lehane

The Deputies who have been slandered are not the least bit worried about it.

Mr. McGilligan

The Deputy knows that composing is a great gift and a particularly great gift when it is unlicensed.

Mr. Aiken

You are an examplar of that advice.

Mr. McGilligan

Deputy Aiken complains of what he calls a "sort of sour-puss mood" that has developed in this House. We will make the Deputy more cheerful.

Mr. Aiken

I never saw a sourer puss in my life.

Mr. McGilligan

The Deputy is not vain and he probably does not look in a mirror very often.

Mr. Aiken

No, I do not.

Mr. McGilligan

The serious matter raised here to-day is this question of dollars and dollar availability and how dollars, if taken, are to be repaid. The Minister for External Affairs went to Washington when this matter was first mooted and when it became an urgent one. I do not think I am wrongly paraphrasing the statements made to him there when I repeat one phrase in particular; he was told by those associated with Marshall Aid arrangements in America that the whole of the Marshall Aid scheme was what could be described as "taking a chance" of sterling becoming convertible after European reconstruction had been accomplished. The phrase "taking a chance" indicated that it was a gamble which the Americans were taking. They were putting their money into European reconstruction, and they were doing that in the hope that they would recreate international trade and, in particular, they would restore the convertibility of sterling. In that mood, even in the face of protests made by the Minister for External Affairs as to our position at the moment, they said that they were applying this aid in a broad way and with a full knowledge of our circumstances. They said the whole success of the Marshall Aid scheme would be judged by whether or not by 1952 sterling had become freely convertible.

Mr. Aiken

That is not in the Act of Congress.

Mr. McGilligan

It is their attitude. Mr. Hoffman visited this country yesterday. He is the administrator of the European recovery plan. He was at Shannon yesterday and the evening papers carried a few phrases from him. One does not, of course, tie a gentleman of Mr. Hoffman's importance to a statement he makes casually—and possibly without his having had time to consider the matter—to people who crowd around him at Shannon; but it is so much in line with what has already been said that I do not think I am doing him any wrong in quoting him. He was asked why aid was given to this country by way of loan instead of grant. He said:—

"We would naturally prefer to give grants instead of loans to all countries. The directive we have received from Congress limits us to giving grants to all countries which are deemed incapable of making repayment to the United States when exchange parity is re-established between the dollar and European currency. The question as to whether this parity can be re-established is naturally bound up in whether the plan succeeds or fails."

That is the latest statement made on our territory by the administrator of the European recovery programme.

Mr. Aiken

If he were speaking for Congress it would be all right, but he is only speaking for himself.

Mr. McGilligan

The administrator is a man whose office is dependent on the statute to which the Deputy is referring. He knows what Congress means.

Mr. Aiken

I think the law is——

Mr. McGilligan

What is the law?

Mr. Aiken

There is no such statement, as far as I read it in the European Recovery Programme Act— that they will forgive the repayment of loans if that anticipated convertibility does not arrive.

Mr. McGilligan

The Deputy has misunderstood me. I have not time now to make the matter clear for him, but he should read last night's Evening Herald and Evening Mail in order to get a proper appreciation of it.

Mr. Aiken

I understand what he means all right. It is a contract though and we will be entering into a contract.

Mr. McGilligan

Does the Deputy mean there is nothing in this Act of Congress which establishes this administrator and gives this money in grant or in loan, allowing them to take repayment in nothing except dollars?

Mr. Aiken

After a certain time.

Mr. McGilligan

There is nothing in the Act which does not allow payment in anything except dollars. With that in their minds' eye, these people have offered us dollars. We have to put to them our position that we have not enough dollars to repay any loan given to us in dollars and their attitude is that "the whole objective of the Marshall Plan is to ensure that by 1952, or thereabouts, we will be able to take sterling instead of dollars, because sterling will be convertible into dollars". Nobody can say that we have misled the Americans. More than anybody else we have made our position quite clear. Notwithstanding that, they are pressing this loan on us.

As far as this matter is tied up with the particular measure I have here, the Deputy has asked me about our position with regard to dollars. We have certain dollar earnings. They are there for whatever they are worth. Previously we drew dollars from what we call the sterling pool. For these we paid sterling. We got dollars in exchange. The new agreement is exactly similar to that. We are going to get dollars and we will put into the fund sterling in the hope, which the Americans have expressed more specifically than we have, that when 1952 comes sterling will be convertible into dollars and they will get repayment. What more can we do? As far as the amounts are concerned our position is governed as set out in the phrase that I quoted from the financial agreement that has been made with England. We must first draw on our own dollar earnings; secondly, under that agreement we must look for whatever maximum aid we can get from the European recovery programme. That is our programme. In the background we still have recourse to the sterling dollar pool from which we can draw. There are certain matters set out as a sort of limitation, but we are not precluded from it and up to a certain point we have a free right to draw—always keeping in mind that we have entered into an understanding with the United Kingdom that we shall bend all our efforts to getting dollars from the European recovery programme so as to minimise to the greatest possible extent our drawings on that dollar pool.

I want now to ask the Deputy to go back and read what his colleague, Deputy Lemass, said at Letterkenny last September when he told the people that the situation with regard to the sterling dollar pool was such that all purchases from the United States might have to stop. He went on to say that it was in our national interest to see that the reserves of the sterling dollar pool were kept as high as possible. That is a view we share and it was because we agreed with that second view ourselves that we made this arrangement. That is an arrangement which we hope will give us not as full freedom to purchase from the United States as we would like, but a certain amount of freedom; in any event, while it is limited, and will have to be limited with regard to certain purchases, there is enough to go on with, we hope, in the intervening years. With regard to repayment, we will act honourably, as we have always done. We have disclosed our position in the most precise way to the Americans and they have agreed with our position. Their attitude is that it is pretty nearly more of a gamble from our side than it is from theirs. We are ready to accept it.

Question put and agreed to.

Agreed to take Committee and remaining stages to-day.

Sections 1 to 3, inclusive, agreed to.

SECTIONS 4.

Question proposed: "That Section 4 stand part of the Bill."

Mr. de Valera

I am somewhat anxious about that word "proceeds". It is a purely verbal matter. It seems to me that there should be some definite indication. Proceeds is a rather strange word to use there. Is it the purchase of the loan or the sale of goods, or some other phrase of that sort? Proceeds of the loan has a very definite meaning, I think—proceeds of any money borrowed.

Mr. McGilligan

I do not think there is anything in the point the Deputy is raising, but I shall have it looked into. The wider and broader it is, the better I like it. I promised that the terms of any loan would be made known to the House at the earliest possible moment. I promised that on a motion on the Adjournment.

Mr. de Valera

It is not quite clear what the meaning is.

Mr. McGilligan

I would rather have the phrase as it stands, but we can amend it if necessary.

Section put and agreed to.

Mr. de Valera

There is just one point on the Committee Stage with regard to a matter raised by Deputy MacEntee. I think that should come before the Committee on Procedure and Privileges as affecting a privilege of this House.

Mr. McGilligan

In what way?

Mr. de Valera

This is a very serious matter from the point of view of the public good.

Mr. McGilligan

It is a pity it was not phrased that way. That is not the way Deputy MacEntee put it up.

Mr. de Valera

It is not a question of attacking anybody. There is a principle involved which may be a very serious one from the point of view of public interest. There is no use in using it as a reason for opposing this Bill now, but I suggest it is a matter that ought to engage the attention of some committee, such as the Committee on Procedure and Privileges. We are letting this Bill through now, having referred to that matter.

Schedules and Title put and agreed to.

Bill reported without amendment.

Question—"That the Bill be received for final consideration"—put and agreed to.

Question—"That the Bill do now pass"—put and agreed to.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

This Bill has been certified by the Ceann Comhairle as a Money Bill within the meaning of Article 22 of the Constitution.

The Dáil adjourned at 2 p.m. until 3 p.m. on Wednesday, 28th July, 1948.