I accept that, but the Transport Bill came in on the second last day of the last session and had to be pushed through. The Minister should try to do something about it. I tried some time ago, and I succeeded in stopping the practice in some Departments. The Minister spoke about computers breaking down and said that is the reason why this legislation might be needed in the future. That was a real try-on by the Minister because would it not have been better to fix the computers than to draft this complex legislation? The real reason for the Bill is the trade dispute between the Central Bank and the staff. The Minister has said that under the Ministers and Secretaries Act, 1924, he needs these functions. I do not say that he can do otherwise and therefore we will not be voting against giving a Second Reading to the Bill. We are a responsible Opposition.
In his usual rambling speech, Deputy Kelly asked what was the alternative to this Bill. My reply is that the Minister should not have asked to come here today with this Bill. The strike should have been avoided. In a Private Notice Question last month I asked the Minister for Labour if he had considered the serious consequences of this strike for the national economy and what steps he proposed to take to avoid the threatened strike of the 450 staff in the Central Bank. The Minister for State told me that the union involved had made a claim for a 15 per cent increase. An offer of 3 per cent with a seven months pause in accordance with Government pay guidelines had been made and the offer had been rejected.
Here there has been obvious interference by the Government to ensure that the terms of the national plan would be followed in the Central Bank dispute. Last month the Minister of State said the Government would not get involved. He said that until now section 31 of the 1927 Currency Act had given the Central Bank a unique statutory position which entitled them to negotiate pay but that that had altered in some way. Of course, the official answer is that the Central Bank made up their own minds, but from my experience in dealing with trade unions and disputes it is clear to me that there was massive interference. To find who is guilty of such interference is a difficult job. I met the full council of the Labour Court and heard their views. I had a good discussion with them. As far as possible they are trying to uphold their independence. I am sure the Central Bank will do the same.
Decisions are being made consistently in the public service and in a number of other areas where the public service have influence which are obviously being dictated to certain people. I have already said that is leading us down a very dangerous road. Deputy Kelly seems to be talking about something that happened 20 years ago. There is no question of anyone being afraid to say anything to the unions. Our party had a good, straight talk with them the other day. It is not a question of running away. When the process of free collective bargaining which was fought for for years is interfered with and undermined, and when undue influence is exerted on people who negotiate, that is fundamentally wrong. In Government Fianna Fáil had difficulties about free collective bargaining but it is wrong to interfere with it. This House should not do anything which makes free collective bargaining more difficult.
This Bill does that indirectly. The Minister has to carry out his functions and I support him in that because otherwise he would not be doing his job. If the Minister for the Public Service was not running the country into industrial chaos this would never arise. That is our argument against the principle of this Bill. Confrontation is building up in a number of areas, and this is one. The entire public service area came under threat in a number of cases such as Irish Shipping and the Land Commission and there is alleged interference in several other cases. They went before the Labour Court and decisions were made. Others are awaiting reports and recommendations from the arbitrator.
They are all getting into unecessary difficulties. This requires the Minister for Finance to bring in legislation. The Minister would prefer the 200,000 people to get the benefits and dividends to which they are entitled. Some of them badly need them. People invested in what they thought was the last safe place. The Minister for the Public Service does not see it that way. He goes down the road of aggressive action, confrontation, no conciliation. He had to be forced into appointing an arbitrator in the face of a national strike on 3 October. All these things are building up resentment.
I will give a few quotations. In 1980 the Minister said that the Government did not propose to interfere with the administration of the Central Bank which would be independent in carrying out its functions. He said this independence was possessed by almost every central bank in the world and it was a very desirable provision. That was said by a colleague of my own. In the Dáil debate in 1980 Deputy Garret FitzGerald endorsed what the Minister said about the role of the Central Bank and stated that there would be a grave danger for our currency if the role of the Central Bank was undermined. Deputy Peter Barry said at that time that everyone in the House would ageee that the Central Bank should not be interfered with in any way by Governments or politicians. He said it must be independent.
This is taking away their independance. The Minister is doing that for a reason. In our amendment we are asking the Minister to do this for the duration of the strike only. We know that industrial relations problems are the reason for the Bill. There is no need to try to cloak that. Nobody denies that the Minister has to carry out certain functions. This Bill should be taken off the Statute Book on the day the industrial problems are solved. If the Minister does that, he will be doing a good day's work. This is emergency legislation and it should be dropped as soon as the difficulty is over. If the computer breaks down and the Minister needs the Bill again, we will put it through on the nod. The Minister is having no difficulty today even though in principle we are against his reason for doing it.
The staff of the Central Bank are being treated unfairly. Successive Governments in recent years have followed fairly stringent guidelines and there have been holdbacks and cutbacks. The staff of the Central Bank have lost substantial increases and pay benefits. They have lost from 17 per cent to 27 per cent. They did not receive special increases which were given to the generality of the public service. Arbitration decisions given in favour of the Civil Service were not given to the Central Bank employees. It is unfair to say they are linked to the national plan and the Government guidelines. In the negotiations with the Central Bank an attempt was made to link them with certain analogous grades. Their representatives disputed those grades. The staff wanted to have a say in regard to which grades were analagous.
The Leas-Cheann Comhairle was a good trade unionist in his day and I am sure he would say that was not unfair. This group of responsible and respected people, from clerical grades to economists, do not want to be involved in industiral action over the Christmas period. They are not the type of people who are unruly and who try to bring down financial institutions. The employees of the Central Bank give an excellent service. They work in difficult circumstances and under pressure. They are not paid inordinately high salaries. They did not get some of the increases and the perks which employees of other banking groups got over the years. We are not dealing with an elitist group of 400 employees. Quite a large number of them are females on very low salaries and in grades earning under £100 a week. It is not a case of these people having to be set up and taught a lesson.
This Bill will be passed because the Government have a majority. We will not oppose the Second Stage of the Bill. We will wait to hear the Minister's comments on Committee Stage. When the Bill is passed I hope the Minister will urge his colleague, the Minister for the Public Service, to speak to the people in the Central Bank and to release the constraints which obviously he has put on them. He has taken away their power to follow the provisions of the 1927 Act. He has taken away their right to co-operate with a large responsible trade union group and to participate in free collective bargaining in the normal way. The employees looked for 15 per cent and they were offered 3 per cent. If the principles of free collective bargaining had been adhered to, I have no doubt that a settlement could have been reached and analagous grades, which are at the centre of this problem, could have been found.
It is a little strange that, while the Central Bank could not negotiate with the clerical staff of the ASTMS, they went ahead and the Irish Printing Federation agreed to give a 9 per cent increase in two phases over 15 months after a four months pay pause. They are committed to maintaining relativity between 48 security guards and security guards in the associated banks. The increase in that area is 10 per cent over 15 months.
It has been stated to the staff at present in industrial dispute, who are now in their second week marching the streets coming up to Christmas, that the banks' 24th pay round must remain, as indicated, a seven months pay pause and 3 per cent from 1 January next over an 18 month agreement. This is contained in a letter written by the Central Bank stating that that must be the position and there is no need for me to repeat it at length. The Department of the Public Service have said that the pay guidelines as laid down in the national plan must be maintained in the case of the Central Bank staff because they should set a guideline to other workers. But while there are 450 people marching the streets we are here discussing unnecessary legislation, legislation which can be dangerous in certain respects.
Deputy Bell made a valid point in that respect. If we were to arrive at a situation — and we have seen this happen in the case of companies not too far from here — that every time there was an industrial dispute the Minister present, for valid reasons under his powers and functions brought in this type of legislation, such could become a vehicle to beat disputes in other areas — in other words, that the solution is to introduce emergency legislation, rushing it through this House. That is how one beats certain classes of workers. There may be a temptation for people to do so in other Parliaments. I hope this will not be only the first of such instances here. I accept the Minister's reason for doing so on this occasion but not those of the Government because they could have done something about it while the Minister could not.
There are others who wish to speak. I must contend that the Minister for the Public Service and his officials obviously are not concerned because neither he nor the Minister for Labour has bothered to enter into any part of this debate though they are the people directly responsible. Rather they have sent in the Minister for Finance to the House today. Perhaps even some of their officials would examine what has been said in the course of debates, endeavouring to bring this industrial dispute out of its present deadlock, which I believe can be done. I believe that some little discussion on analogous grades could break the deadline if the rope was taken off the Central Bank, if they were allowed continue in the normal way, following the guidelines they have been following for 55 years, following the normal free collective bargaining pattern.
They should be allowed to follow what has happened in allied institutions such as building societies, insurance companies and other banking institutions. Were they allowed to follow the pattern followed in those institutions, this dispute could be ended tomorrow morning. I accept that the Minister for Finance cannot do that but it could be done by the Minister for the Public Service by way of a telephone call from Government to the Central Bank. If there is no such breakthrough effected these unfortunate workers will be placed in the position of having to continue their industrial dispute. That would be unnecessary action for them, causing unnecessary difficulties to investors and all of the other problems outlined by the Minister for Finance today and mentioned by several Deputies.
It does not seem much to ask that in the week before Christmas the Minister for the Public Service could at least do that. Obviously he will not win his battles on his 3 per cent. Obviously there will not be an arbitration decision of 3 per cent. Why not at least endeavour to offer 9 per cent or 10 per cent to these workers overnight, agreeing that analogous grades be taken into account, which I believe would lead to a breakthrough. There should be discussions carried out in line with what the Central Bank has done, accepting relativities with the Irish Printing Federation, with the security guards and the associated banks. If they can do so in one area why not in another? There is an inconsistent approach being adopted. That is because of Government interference in the process of free collective bargaining.
Hopefully the provisions of this legislation will continue merely for the duration of this strike. I would ask the Minister for Finance to use his good offices to convince the Minister for the Public Service not to continue down this disastrous path rubbing salt into various trade union groups, in an endeavour to win an argument he must know he has not a chance of winning, by endeavouring to set unrealistic and unfair guidelines, forcing workers out onto the streets, leading in turn to other industrial disputes in, say, local authorities, which will be the next to arise. They can be avoided. I want to see them avoided, the Minister for Finance wants to see them avoided and so does the country at large. In the midst of our current economic difficulties we cannot afford such major industrial disputes. The reason they have been brought about is the tough, unfair and unreasonable attitude adopted by the Government, through the Minister for the Public Service, forcing his colleagues rather than himself to introduce fairly dangerous legislation if allowed to remain on the Statute Book for too long.
In these the last few days before the Christmas recess I hope we shall be given some assurance that this will not be the path we shall continue.
I should say I resent the inferences contained in Deputy Kelly's remarks about our discussion with the Irish Congress of Trade Unions. We are entitled to talk to whomsoever we wish. We are entitled to accept whatever principles we wish. Deputy Kelly may wish to drop out of Government, to revert to the back benches and to pontificate on all types of policies and all sorts of matters, at times being totally irresponsible and at other times being responsible. We are a large Opposition party, an alternative Government. We are entitled to talk with the FUE, with the Irish Congress of Trade Unions, with the Irish Farmers' Association or anybody else. I resent anybody challenging our rights to so do. We did not make any major statement. We said we agreed with some of the principles contained in the Irish Congress of Trade Unions' document. Everybody in the country agrees with those principles. It is what is done about them that is important and it is to that end we shall continue to direct our efforts in order to arrive at some solutions to our unemployment problems.
This will not be achieved by dictates of Government or through their interference in the process of free collective bargaining, introducing emergency legislation, allowing semi-State companies to go down the chute, even to the extent of allowing other civil servants in the Land Commission to go the same way. That is not the way to solve our problems. If the Government feel they must bring in a few backbenchers to support that type of legislation from any onslaught, saying anything and everything, then that does not constitute very good government. Yet Deputy Kelly accuses us of not engaging in very good opposition.
I have said that we shall not oppose the Second Stage of this Bill. We see that the Minister for Finance has a function to play. But that should not prevent us from putting forward our point of view, which is that we should not continue to travel this path. Rather we should endeavour to persuade the Government to accept some of our amendments. If one were to follow Deputy Kelly's line of argument then it could be said that we should all go away, allowing the Minister for the Public Service to run the country subjecting everybody in the State and semi-State areas to various dictates. We would then arrive at a position some time in 1985 when there would be no civil servants remaining, whether they be public servants who do not wish to become involved in industrial disputes, staff of local authorities or those of the various health boards. This is the path we are beginning to follow, but one we must not continue to follow. The Minister's only alternative, which is to introduce emergency legislation within 24 hours, constitutes a dangerous and frightening pattern. The Government will have a few weeks over the Christmas recess to think about that, and about changing that pattern very quickly.