Deputy MacBride has given notice of his intention to raise on the Adjournment the subject matter of Question No. 31 of the 14th November, 1951.
Private Deputies' Business. - Adjournment Debate—Central Bank.
I asked the Minister for Finance, on that occasion, whether he was prepared to request the Central Bank to furnish a report of its "proceedings" for the year ended the 31st March, 1951, in pursuance of the provisions of Section 36 (1) of the Currency Act, 1927 (No. 32 of 1927) as adapted by Section 11 of the Central Bank Act, 1942 (No. 1922 of 1942). The Minister, in his reply, stated that the report referred to had already been furnished to him and that he had presented it to each House of the Oireachtas in accordance with the provisions of the statutes mentioned in the question. In fact, the Minister for Finance declined the request which my question implied —that the Central Bank should be asked to furnish a report of their "proceedings".
I have asked leave to raise this question on the Adjournment in the hope that it will be possible to discuss this particular net issue away from the heat and the controversy of the major debate which has been taking place in regard to the Central Bank Report. I would ask the Minister to bear with me in discussing this question and to realise that there is a considerable amount of force in the case which I propose to make to the House on this question. The Report of the Central Bank, which has been under discussion, is laid on the Table of the House in pursuance of the provisions of Section 36 (1) of the Currency Act, 1927. That is expressed on the face of the report and is indeed the only statutory provision which would enable any Report from the Central Bank to come before this House or to be laid on the Table of this House. I would refer the House to the provisions of Section 36 (1) of the Currency Act, 1927. This Act, of course, dealt with the Currency Commission which was the predecessor in title to the Central Bank, but, by adaptation and by the provisions of the Central Bank Act, 1942, the term "Currency Commission" can be interpreted as meaning Central Bank. The section provides as follows:
"The commission"—
which in this case can be interpreted as "Central Bank"
—"shall within six months after the expiration of every year prepare and send to the Minister a report of its proceedings during such year and the Minister shall present every such report to each House of the Oireachtas immediately upon receiving the same."
Put plainly, the section provides, firstly, that the Central Bank shall provide the Minister with a report of its proceedings. The Minister must lay that report on the Table of the House immediately. The Minister has no discretion in the matter. Immediately upon receiving a report of the proceedings he has to lay it on the Table of the House.
What does "a report of the proceedings" mean? What does it involve? I submit to the House that it means a report of the doings, of the meetings and of the main decisions of the body in question. I looked up a number of definitions, legal definitions and ordinary dictionary definitions, and the word "proceedings" means: a record of business done or a record or account of the doings of a society or of a company. I think we all probably know what a record of proceedings means. It means a virtual account of the decisions come to by a body. In the Standing Orders of this House it is directed that the Clerk of the House shall keep a record of the proceedings of this House, and a journal is issued, a copy of which I have with me, which is published every day giving an account of the proceedings of the House. This journal is headed "Proceedings of Dáil Éireann". It is prepared by the Clerk of the House, submitted to the Ceann Comhairle and published. It is a record of the proceedings and decisions of Dáil Éireann. We have not got very far to search, therefore, in order to find out what is meant by the word "proceedings". We have it in the Standing Orders of the House. I feel that the House, including the Minister for Finance, would take a very poor view of the Clerk of the Dáil if, in the course of the report of the Proceedings of the Dáil, he were to express his views, however justified they might be, on the proceedings of the House, or if the Ceann Comhairle were to add a little footnote saying what he really thought of the different Deputies or of the decisions reached by the House. We would all promptly proceed to sit on them both if they adopted such a course. Yet that is what has happened in this Report of the Central Bank.
There are many other bodies who, by statute, are bound to lay, through some Minister, a report of their proceedings before this House—for instance, Bord na Móna and a great many other statutory bodies. They certainly have not so far taken it upon themselves to advise on policy or to criticise the policy of the present or of past Governments. If they should follow the example of the Central Bank we may well find ourselves in the position where all these bodies will proceed to voice their political views or their views on impending legislation, or on trends of one kind or another.
I understand that the Deputy is finding fault not with what is published but with what has not been published.
I appreciate that, a Chinn Chomhairle. I was coming to that point. I have examined all the reports of the Central Bank since its inception in 1943. Originally the reports did, I think, conform generally to the concept one would have of what a report of that nature should be. However, I think the reports were not, even then, possibly as full as they might have been in regard to the "proceedings" of the Central Bank. One can go through the present report and one will find no account of its proceedings. One does not know how often they have met or what decisions they have come to. One gets general advice, a record of their note circulation and statistical data which would be better coming from the Central Statistics Office. One gets a Table setting out post office savings bank deposits and saving certificates, a list of which and a list of the amounts involved has, presumably, already been published by the Post Office and is also contained in the statistical returns of the Central Statistics Office. There is a section dealing with the balance of payments, a section dealing with the balance of trade which, presumably, one can get in the existing statistics, and there is a chapter on "The General Monetary Review" which is a political and economic harangue to the country.
You get something on hire purchase, something on the European Payments Union, but you will find no record of the "proceedings" of the bank. I do feel the Minister should not consider this thing as a criticism of the Minister himself or the Government, but that he should regard it objectively. Is it wise to allow a body of this kind, or indeed any other similar body set up by statute to discharge certain functions, to go beyond the powers given in the statute and to omit to discharge the duties placed upon it?
Is that in order?
The Deputy is entitled to find fault with what is not published rather than what is published.
However, if I am given the same liberty, I do not mind.
I am inclined to keep away from any controversial topic in this. What I complained of was that we had not had a report of the "proceedings" of the Central Bank. I have to explain what we have got.
I will allow the Deputy to tell us what we have by way of contrast. He is entitled to strengthen his case in that way. I do not want the Deputy to go any further. It is what the bank has not given us that is in issue.
In the course of the last few weeks, I have had to put a good many questions to the Minister for Finance in relation to the Central Bank to obtain information that should, in my view, have been contained in a report of its proceedings— how often the directors met, what decisions they came to, what they were in fact doing. They tell us that they spent £161,000 on running the Central Bank. They do not tell us how they spent that money.
It is somewhat higher than the news agency.
It is somewhat higher than the news agency.
You got something for it.
We might have a little more information as to how they spent this £161,000. They refer to their London agent. They might tell us who their London agent is; when they appointed him.
They might give us all the usual information that one expects to get from a company when it is preparing a report of its proceedings. I respectfully submit that we have not had this information, and that it is creating a dangerous precedent to allow statutory bodies of this kind to depart from the strict terms of the statutory powers that were given to them.
In the course of the last few days we have been told repeatedly from the Government Benches that this House has no control over the Central Bank. It is an independent body, and the Government has no control over it. If that be so—I do not accept that position—at least we have control over the type of report it is to present to us. We can insist that it comply with the one and only statutory requirement it is bound to discharge to this House, namely, the one imposed upon it by Section 36 (1) of the Currency Act, to furnish a report of its proceedings.
In all seriousness I would ask the Minister to consider the dangers involved in not insisting on a strict adherence to the provisions of the Statute in that respect. Even if one assumes that the Central Bank is a highly responsible body, obviously it is not in possession of information which the Government may have in a given situation. A future Government may find itself gravely embarrassed in the discharge of its duties and in giving effect to its policy by policies advocated or by reports or statements of this kind. Might I put this one simple illustration to the Minister? Supposing that a Government intended to float a loan for which there was a great necessity, and that just on the day before the loan was to be floated a report was issued by the Central Bank saying that the State was not credit-worthy; such a situation might be highly damaging to the Government elected by this House. That is very nearly what the Central Bank did in this case. I would ask the Minister to consider this very objectively, and to take steps to ensure that the Central Bank would furnish to this House a proper report of its proceedings.
I think one can only begin by saying that the Deputy is endeavouring to enforce on the Minister for Finance the same narrow, legalistic interpretation of the word "proceedings" in this context which he wants to foist upon the public. There is no justification in the terms of the Central Bank Act for the argument which the Deputy has put before the House. As everybody knows, and as the Deputy must know, the term "proceedings" is a term of art known, of course, to lawyers but not capable of an interpretation which can be universally applied. The Deputy's own reference to the proceedings of this House has demonstrated the false basis upon which his argument has proceeded. He has asked us to assume that in respect to every type of body, every institution, there is a general definition of the term "proceedings" which must be accepted and adhered to. If that were the case, why would it be necessary for this House, for its own guidance, to define what is meant by the term "proceedings"?
We have had to do it in our case. Every Committee of this House has got to accept and adopt a form of proceedings and naturally observes it. It adopts it by definition, prior definition, and by a definition which has been formed by precedents.
There is no set definition of the word "proceedings," either in the Central Bank Act, 1942, the original Currency Act, 1927 or in the amending Act of 1930. Therefore, the Governor and the Board of the Central Bank are entitled to interpret the word "proceedings" for themselves and to give a report of their proceedings in the form in which they think it will conduce to the greatest public good. It is because, of course, the Central Bank have done that in a manner which will bring home to the public——
Go on and finish it.
—— the gravity of the present situation and how it has been brought about, that Deputy MacBride has endeavoured to becloud the issue and to suggest that the Central Bank, in the manner of their report and in the form in which it has been presented, are not observing the obligation imposed upon them by statute. What are the obligations imposed on the Central Bank by statute? The first obligation, deriving from Section 36 of the Currency Act is to present a report.
Of these proceedings.
Yes, and those proceedings must be directed to one primary end and to certain other ends that are ancillary to it. The primary end of the Central Bank is laid down in Section 6 of the Central Bank Act, 1942, which, inter alia, declares that:
"the bank shall have the general function and duty of taking (within the limit of the powers for the time being vested in it by law) such steps as the board may from time to time deem appropriate and advisable towards safeguarding the integrity of the currency and ensuring that, in what pertains to the control of credit, the constant and predominant aim shall be the welfare of the people as a whole."
And as ancillary to that function of the bank, to enable them more fully to discharge their obligations under Section 6, the Central Bank Act provides, in Section 8:
"It shall be lawful for the bank to do all or any of the following things on such occasion and to such extent as the board shall think proper, that is to say:—
(a) make provision for the collection and study of data relating to monetary and credit problems and publish informative material in regard thereto;"
The publication of informative material is a natural proceeding of the bank— can it be held to be anything else?— and must be presented in such form as will warn the people, if necessary, that financial policies and financial procedures are endangering the integrity of the currency and thereby also endangering the welfare of the people as a whole. That is the main purpose to which the Report of the Central Bank is directed. That is the main purpose to which all their proceedings must tend——
Can they advocate a change of Government?
The Minister is entitled to make his speech without interruption.
The Central Bank are advocating nothing. They are warning the people; they are suggesting remedies; they are indicating to the people the position in which they have been left. That is a useful function. It is a function which the people are entitled to expect the Central Bank to perform. That is a proceeding which is the basic and essential feature of the whole character of the institution. It is fundamental to it. Unless they do that, there is no use in having such an institution. It is because they are trying to do that that the Deputy objects.
Let us see what is the alternative. The Deputy has suggested that the Central Bank Report should be modelled on the report of the proceedings of this House. If that were the case, this is the sort of thing we should expect to have to wade through, page after page:
(1) The Governor of the Central Bank took the chair at 3 p.m. (or 3.15 p.m. or 4 p.m., as the case might be).
(2) Prayer.
(3) Document presented. Statutory presentation. Statement of the number of legal tender notes in circulation.
They might tell us how they invest our money in England.
That is the sort of report that Deputy MacBride wants the Central Bank to present to the people of Ireland.
I want them to tell us what they do with our money in England.
Sit down and take your medicine. You made a very useful speech to-night. The report would continue in this strain:
(4) Ordered that consideration of the board's business be not interrupted at the time fixed for taking other business,
and so on. We would have page after page, of the Report of the Central Bank composed of trivia like that. Of course that is what Deputy MacBride would wish, because the Deputy has indicated to all of us that it is the function of the Government and the responsibility of the Government to prevent the Central Bank from telling the people the truth, that it might be embarrassing on occasions.
We want the truth as to what they are doing with our money.
What we want from the Governor and board of the bank is the truth about the financial position of the country, about the condition of the currency as they see it, and not as we would like them to tell the people. Deputy MacBride has said that Governments might find that embarrassing. There is no doubt that Deputy has found it embarrassing that the Central Bank should tell the people the truth about the present position of the country after three years administration of a Government of which he was a member. We do not find the report embarrassing if he does.