Deputy Mulcahy is raising a question of which he gave notice on the adjournment.
Adjournment Debate—Closing of Joint Stock Banks.
We had an Order issued by the Government on Saturday after most people had finished their work for the week which resulted in depriving the people of the country of the services of the banking system on Monday. Since then we have had two other Orders depriving the people in a continuing way of the services of the bank system on Tuesday, and that is to continue until Friday. The implication of the Government action is that that situation is going to continue— that is to say that people cannot say when their banking services will be restored. It would be interesting to examine what exactly happened on Friday and Saturday that led the Government into that particular situation. I think that what we want to do now is to face up directly to two or three points, to understand clearly what the implications of these points are as well as the necessity for seeing that the banking services are restored.
For quite a long time past there have been differences apparently between the bank staffs, from the highest to the lowest, and the bank directors. That has been simmering for some time and apparently has been before the Labour Court. The proceedings before the Labour Court have not apparently been able to resolve these differences. The action of the Government in issuing the Order that I speak about has been to deprive the people of all banking services until such time as these differences are completely resolved. I think that the action of the Government in the matter is a most extraordinary one. It is proposed that the differences existing between the staffs and the directors were militating against the efficiency of the banking service. At any rate, the community in regard to its business, its fairs, and every other aspect of commercial life had 90 or 95 per cent. of the service they required and they have no other machinery to substitute for this service.
I want to know why the Government have intervened in this particular way: why, simply because differences exist between the management of the banks and the staffs, they have turned on the people and removed the service entirely from the people? It is not necessary to elaborate on what the result has been on the machinery of fairs, of business, the payment of wages, as well as the position in which solicitors find themselves in transacting their business. All that, I am sure, is very patent to every member of the House and is now, at any rate, apparent to the Government. I want to ask them why they should strike at the people in this way: why, simply because a difference existed partially impairing the service, if you like, they should remove the service wholly from the people. Many members of the Ministry have been abroad at conferences and consequently have been helped to realise how great the difficulties are that our people find themselves in, and how much greater are the difficulties that they are faced with in carrying on their rather intricate business both in regard to trade and commerce. They surely ought to be hesitant of adding to the people's difficulties.
The Minister for Industry and Commerce told me in reply to a question today that he realises the necessity for creating the greatest possible harmony industrially and commercially here, and that he was in constant touch with employers and employees. He implied that certain failures on the part of the Labour Court to prevent strike action had been exercising the consideration of the Government and that they were considering the matter. Surely, if the Government had been giving any consideration to what are the causes of unrest in the country, and what is the best way of avoiding an extension of it or to avoid circumstances that would lead to a cessation of services here, they must be aware that they are not helping the situation if they by Government action intervene where there are differences and deprive the country of this particular service.
Again, when the notice appeared on Saturday the people got two shocks. I think the first shock they really got was the shock that they felt that here was the Government interfering in what amounted to a dispute and taking definitely one side, and that they were subscribing to certain theories and principles in connection with the matter. Whatever went on between the Joint Stocks Banks Committee and the Government, the Government at any rate must have seen on Monday that their first Order was that the banks were going to be closed on Monday. They were aware that the employees were going to be asked to sign an undertaking by 12 o'clock on that day to this effect: "I undertake to comply with such instructions of the bank in relation to my services as the due discharge of business requires."
I take it that apparently the Government subscribe to the principle that it was right that the bank directors would require the employees of the banks to sign that declaration. I think it ought to be made clear what the Government mean by subscribing to a declaration of that particular kind. As I understand it, and as I hear it judged on, it is supposed to be contrary to man's natural rights that he would sign a contract when he cannot see what the implications of it are. As far as signing a declaration of that particular kind is concerned, simply as a gesture in a dispute, I think that anybody who has had experience in the Ministry or as a member of a Party, or anybody with experience as a member of this House, must realise that a man cannot be expected in a matter of a dispute to sign documents of that particular kind. I also suggest that in that statement there is the implication of a submission to conditions of employment that, say, the Dublin dockers before Jim Larkin appeared on the scene would not be required to subscribe to. We have progressed a lot since then, but in the development of business we find now that the Government have continued the closing of the banks until Friday on the understanding — and no doubt agreeing in some way with whatever principle is involved — that if the staffs do not sign a declaration of this particular kind the banks will have no alternative save to terminate their employment.
I think the House is entitled to be told what the Government contemplated when they signed the first Order for the closing on Monday. They did it, I think, rather thoughtlessly if they thought it could stop on Monday. They signed the other Orders rather thoughtlessly if they thought this matter could stop on Friday. They must have some ideas in their mind as to how they would come to the assistance of the people when the bank services were stopped. We would like to hear what these proposals and plans are. We would like to hear what was in the mind of the Government when they stepped into a dispute that was just in a simmering condition and agreed with the employers that conditions of this kind could be imposed at this hour of the day on employees; when they stepped in behind the employers to the extent of depriving the whole country of a particular service in order to try to help in forcing that situation.
These are two very grave matters, and I raise the question to give the Government an opportunity of answering these things to-night. This is not going to stop on Friday, if we are to judge by the Government's action and attitude in the matter. I personally consider that the Government may have blundered into the present situation. If so, they should do everything they possibly can to see that the banks are reopened on Friday and reopened in circumstances that will assure the public that there will be no necessity for a run on the banks; that the banks will continue to be open after Friday to discharge their statutory obligations, even though the excellence of this service may be interfered with by a certain amount of dispute between the employees and the banks.
I ask the Government to realise the condition that they have brought the country into as a result of shutting down the banks and the extraordinary and unprecedented position into which they have brought the banking services of the country. I ask the Government if they are going so to explain the situation to us now that we can anticipate, if the banks are not to open on Friday and to continue open, they will open on Saturday and continue open. I ask them also to explain what is meant by getting in this particular kind of way behind the employers who, apparently, told them: "We are going to require a particular type of declaration from our employees in reference to this very vital service and we shall dismiss them if they do not sign it?"
There is also one other point which deserves some consideration, namely, that the bank directors apparently carried on conversations with the Government to get them to take this action and, apparently, were utterly incompetent in whatever plans they had to try to get their staffs to understand the undertaking that they required or to provide machinery by which that undertaking could be given, if the staffs were disposed to give it. The whole history of the handling of this business by the bank directors since the banks were closed is a very humiliating one from the point of view of anybody interested in the proper carrying-on of any branch of our commercial business. I ask the Government for a statement on this matter so that it may be discussed for the short period that the House has to discuss it, so that we may face the situation which will arise at the end of the week with a clear knowledge of the Government's intentions in this matter and an explanation of why they acted in the way they did.
This particular week and the days prior to the re-opening of the Dáil have produced a multiplicity of shocks to the public. It was well known to every Deputy that there was a certain amount of tension between the bank directors and the staffs of the banks; that that had been going on for a considerable length of time; in fact over a period of years. Why the Government, on the eve of the re-opening of Dáil Éireann, should utilise emergency powers given in the face of a world war in order to take sides in an industrial dispute is the main thing that has to be answered here. I do not think it would be right at this particular point to go into the merits of the dispute. The Dáil, however, is entitled to ask the Government, who, after all, are the officers of the Dáil and are supposed to be the servants of the people, what authority, what mandate they had, in any industrial dispute to throw in the full weight of Government on one side and against the other; to throw in the full weight of Government on one side, having listened only in secret to the case put up by one side, and not having given any opportunity to the other side to state their case.
We have read in the papers, and we have heard over the radio, speeches delivered by the Taoiseach in Geneva and in Paris and at the Hague and elsewhere, lecturing the people of the world because they cannot compose their differences — people of a different race, different colour, different religion, different traditions. When he comes back here the only instrument he has for settling a comparatively unimportant dispute is the antiquated blackthorn, the big stick; trample underfoot the weaker side, make them eat humble pie, make them walk under the yoke. No industrial dispute in the history of the world was ever settled by might, by the use of the big stick. The trouble is driven underground, only just to fester, to become cancerous, to get heated, to become greater, and to erupt with greater force at a later date.
Everybody knows the might, the wealth, and the influence of the bank directors. Everybody knows the weakness and poverty of the staff. Everybody realises the strength and the might of government. Some of us would like to appreciate and respect the influence, and the sense of fair play of government. Surely before taking such action as was taken last Saturday, and which is being persisted in, an action creating a very grave national crisis, the last weapon that was available to civilisation, to Parliament and to democracy should have been used in order to restore equilibrium, to bring about peace, to remove the difficulties and misunderstandings which were there. Mediation, arbitration, negotiation—every one of these weapons was at the Government's hand. Every one of these weapons was being sought by the different sides in that particular dispute, but mediation, which we bleat about from European capitals, negotiation, arbitration—all these symbols which we throw out as headlines to people in foreign countries — were completely ignored and discarded when dealing with our own people.
Certainly there can be no argument but that the big stick is being used in this case and the strength and weight of the big stick is being increased by the might and influence of the Government behind one side in this dispute. I do not think there is anybody who has any doubts as to what the outcome of a strike would be. A strike is being forced through the medium of a partial lockout, through asking decent people, blood brothers of our own, to submit to conditions which everyone of us with a grain of spunk would refuse to submit to, if it meant absolute starvation for ourselves and everyone we hold near and dear. There is no man, no human being, with any sense of dignity, who should be asked to subscribe to the conditions which have been put up to these unfortunate officials and blessed by the weight, the influence and the patronage of Government.
What can be the outcome? Nothing but a forced strike which is in fact a lock-out. Everybody knows there are no funds available. Everybody knows that, within weeks, if not within days, within a short number of days, absolute destitution and actual starvation will force the unfortunate victims into submission to any set of conditions, no matter how humiliating, no matter how degrading and no matter how unreasonable. Is that a fair position to put anybody into merely because he is weak? Would the Government take such onesided action if they were dealing with any powerful trade union with a large membership and with great funds to finance a strike? But merely because the numbers are few, because the finances are very slender and because the particular grade of society the individuals have to live in is particularly expensive in relation to the salaries paid, the Government take action and they do so without the sanction of the elected representatives of the people. They act, in fact, in hurry and panic so as to get that drastic action taken before Parliament could meet.
Deputy Mulcahy asked the Minister what he thought would happen on Monday as a result of this plot, the plot between Government and bank directors to wield the big stick over the heads of the staff. Was the Minister so very far divorced from ordinary opinion in this country, from the ordinary human reactions of ordinary people, that he thought the banks would get a speedy submission before twelve midday on Monday and did he stop to inquire, if that is not the result, what then will be the result? What is the next step? Was there any investigation, any consideration given to the ordinary man in the street, the ordinary business man, the ordinary man depending for cash for his week's wages, the convenience of the people, the commercial life of the country, international trade and internal trade, the maintenance and continuation of trade, the fairs and markets throughout the country or the shopkeepers in remote unprotected areas, taking in cash from day to day with no strong rooms and no way of safeguarding cash and having that accumulating in lonely business places up and down the country?
It was announced on the wireless last night that the Government, having been approached on behalf of the joint committees of the banks and having heard their case, agreed to make an Order legalising the closure of banks, but that they had given consideration to further steps to convenience big business interests. It is a nice trio, the latest Irish shamrock: bank directors, the Government and big business! These are the people considered. The little man, the ordinary man, the official working in the big machine under survey—there is no consideration for any one of these. I have no doubt that bank directors and big business can very easily get the ear of government, but the population of this country is not made up of government, bank directors and big business. The other odd hundreds of thousands of people require consideration.
I can see nothing but humbug, cant and hollow hypocrisy in all these speeches about mediation, arbitration, negotiation. Is the Government so bankrupt in influence that it could not initiate, sponsor or father negotiations or discussions as between the two parties to what, last week, could scarcely be dignified even by the name of an industrial dispute? There was tension, with one side demanding certain concessions, certain alterations with regard to conditions of service, and misunderstanding with regard to those conditions of service. Evidence was given before the Labour Court that the hours of work of these officials were only so many hours per week. That evidence was given by the bankers in order to meet a claim for overtime pay or increased pay. The evidence was that their hours of duty were only so many a week. The officials proceeded to work exactly the number of hours a week which the directors had stated were their hours of work per week and there was an accumulation of arrears; but there would have been no panic, no crisis, no grave disturbance of business if the Government had made an Order to the effect that, owing to the accumulation of the arrears of work, the banks would close every second day or two days a week, in order to clear off the arrears. The public would then know why the banks were closed, and the panic and the dislocation which is all around us at the moment would not arise.
This emergency Order legally protects the bankers, and only the bankers. Is there nobody else in the community who requires legal protection when banks close down in a lightning manner? What about the solicitor who has entered into a contract for sale and possession by certain date? What about the man who is holding £5,000, £7,000 or £9,000 belonging to another man and has lodged it in his bank and the other man demands his money? Where is the legal protection for all these people? You could multiply that 100 times over and your emergency Act gives legal protection only to the bankers — anything but protection for the rest.
Is it too late, in the middle of this week of crises, to appeal to the Government, with the immense influence that Government has, with the immense machine that Government has, with the very vast experience that Government has of negotiation, of arbitration, of ending various kinds of disputes, that, instead of wading in behind the fellow with the big stick, it will, between this and Friday, invite both parties to this dispute to meet under the chairmanship of such a person as used to be their officer for settling industrial disputes, their officer for arbitrating in all these disputes, and use its very great influence to bring about peace in a highly important and vast service which is vital to the country, to bring about peace in that service where there is anything but peace at the moment?
In the interests of all the people, in the interests of the national and international trade of the country, the Government should make use of such machinery so as to have this dispute ended, if possible by zero hour on Friday next. If that is not done, might I ask the Minister to give some indication to the Dáil of what he thinks will happen at midday on next Friday? He may think that all or the majority of the officials will sign on the dotted line. Assuming that that takes place, what will be the result?—Animosity, bitterness, despair, disappointment and hatred inside the most important service in any community; a spirit of suppressed mutiny; a spirit of disillusionment, absolute disillusionment even with the working of democracy inside the State itself. Is that a victory? Is that a success? Does that bring benefit to anybody? Does it bring benefit to the Government, to the directorate of the banks, to the country?
That is one thing that may happen. The other thing that may happen is a regimented refusal to sign, an organised refusal to give such an undertaking as the banks demand. What will be the result of that? Let us assume that that is what happens on Friday. There will be 5,000 or 6,000 dismissals, 5,000 or 6,000 distressed families, 5,000 or 6,000 evictions, Four times that number of starving children, absolute and complete dislocation of the banking services of the State. Is it not worth anything, is it not worth any effort, is it not worth any expenditure of work to try to avoid either one thing or the other? Is it unreasonable for any Deputy to press on the Government that its machinery of arbitration should be set in motion to-morrow morning so as to end this dispute at the earliest possible date and to suggest that both sides to the dispute will agree, while that machinery is operating, to leave the matters at issue in abeyance and to abide by the result of such arbitration?
I rise to voice what I believe to be the grave uneasiness which exists among the ordinary people of this country as the result of the action of the bank directors and the action of the Government in closing the banks within the past few days. The closing of the banks was sufficient in itself to cause the greatest uneasiness. The suddenness with which that was done exasperated a position which in itself and by itself was sufficiently serious. The Government purport, in legalising the action of the bank directors in closing the banks, to have acted on the excuse or the pretence put forward by the bank directors that the work in the banks had, by reason of the action of the officials, gone into arrears, and the action of the Government was justified in law, as I understand it, by Section 2 of the Supplies and Services (Temporary Provisions) Act, 1946.
I have made it a rule in this House, and I have expressed it here again and again to be my rule as a Deputy, not to express any legal opinions, but I would commend to the consideration of the Government and of their legal advisers whether or not this Emergency Powers Order, which purports to legalise the action of the Government, is, in fact, quite outside the powers conferred on the Government by the Act of 1946 to which I have referred. In the course of the debate on that measure, when it was going through the House, it was pressed on the Government from all sides that powers such as were being sought to be reserved during the residue of the emergency ought to be kept within the narrowest compass, and it was agreed by the Government, as we thought in good faith, and it was accepted as such by Deputies on this side, that the powers which were being conferred on the Government by the 1946 Act would be used sparingly and only for certain very well-defined purposes.
This Emergency Powers Order under which the banks are closed purports to be made, according to the copy I have in front of me, under Section 2 of the Supplies and Services (Temporary Provisions) Act, 1946. That section, if I may put it shortly, authorises the Government to do certain things in their discretion. In the category of those things that they can do in only one sentence can I see any justification for this Order. The Government is authorised to make Orders to provide for the regulation and control by or on behalf of the State of any supplies or services which are in the opinion of the Government essential to the life of the community. Deputies who are not lawyers may, perhaps, put themselves the question how the declaration of what is popularly called a bank holiday can be said to be a regulation and control by or on behalf of the Government of supplies or services which are essential to the life of the community.
Deputy O'Higgins has indicated very briefly some of the very serious consequences which may ensue, as a result of this Order, to business people, creditors and debtors. Payment by cheque, he says, everybody knows is not legal tender. Have the Government power under this Supplies and Services Act — which was given to them here under the express undertaking that it would be used only for supplies and services connected with supplies essential to the life of the community —or do they consider themselves entitled under that Act, to make what they may have to make — an Emergency Powers Order declaring a moratorium in this country?
I think we have reached the position where the action of the Government, in invoking that Act to stand behind the bank directors in this dispute, has caused such stirring up of public uneasiness that, whatever may be the result or the end of this particular incident and this particular controversy, confidence in the banking system will have been undermined and considerably weakened and shakened. I am speaking now on behalf of the ordinary people, those people who have been subjected in the last few weeks to the inconvenience put upon them by the bus strike here in the City of Dublin. Added to the sufferings and hardships they have been enduring, they have now to try so to arrange their financial affairs as to fit in with the manæuvrings—they can be nothing else — by the bank directors in a dispute with their staffs.
It is not my intention, and I think it would be almost improper for any Deputy, to discuss in any way to-night, except perhaps in a passing way, the dispute which appears to be imminent between the banking staffs and the bank directors, their employers. I have no intention of going into the merits of that dispute or of referring to it, beyond a mere passing reference in order to extract, if possible, from the Government some statement which will not be merely a statement palliating or purporting to explain what they have done but a statement which will carry conviction to the ordinary people who are suffering inconvenience and who have been caused great hardship by the action of the past few days. It would appear, as Deputy Mulcahy, Leader of the Opposition, has pointed out, that the Government are taking sides. We do not charge the Government with taking sides here to-night.
What did Deputy O'Higgins do?
We want to know the facts from the Government's point of view first and then we will determine, but, unless there is an explantion, it would seem that, without notice to the public—and that was one of the gravest errors perpetrated by the Government on the public in connecnection with the making of this Order —the banks were closed for one day, on the representation or excuse or justification, made publicly by the Government, that that was required because the banks' staffs were not working at sufficient pressure to enable them to fulfil the duties up to time. Maybe the justification for the staffs in connection with that is to be found in the statement made by a bank director to the Labour Court: it may be that the bank directors took their cue from what that director said to the Labour Court. It may be that there were arrears. I want to know, and I think the public is entitled to know, the extent and nature of those arrears, if there were any arrears.
It has been asserted with some authority that whatever arrears there were, if there were arrears, were not sufficient in the first place to justify the drastic action that has been taken and, secondly, that in fact since the closing of the banks, the bank officials have not been occupied in connection with the clearing up of those arrears. The public is entitled to know the facts. That is being asserted with authority and, until it is authoritatively denied with evidence to support the denial, it would appear that the time taken away from the public in connection with banking services by the closing of the banks is being occupied solely for the purpose of some manoeuvre by the bank directors in connection with that dispute with their officials. The public are entitled to have that point cleared up authoritatively, with cogent evidence to satisfy them that there was justification in connection with those arrears or alleged arrears for the drastic action taken under the Supplies and Services Act of 1946, causing public uneasiness and public dislocation of business.
The public are entitled to know why it was that they got no notice, why it was that the first they heard was from the newspapers or over the radio. Why were they not told that in two or three days there would be a closing of the banks for the purpose of clearing up arrears, that there was no necessity for any alarm or for the public to be worried about the matter as it was merely a question of arrears and nothing else. That was not what happened. First, closing took place without notice to the public. The public, expecting that it would be merely a day to clear up arrears, remained quiet; but they were again told, without notice, that there would be further closing; and up to the moment they have been given no assurance that the same procedure will not be continued for the next three of four days or the next three or four weeks.
We are entitled to complain of the procedure; we are entitled to complain that these drastic powers, which were given to the Government for one reason and one reason alone, in connection with supplies, have been used — even if they are within the letter, as to which there is the gravest doubt, of this Act of 1946 — in a way which certainly is contrary to anything ever thought of by any member of this House when the Bill was being passed and the powers conferred upon the Government which are contained in that measure. We are entitled to know, and the public is entitled to know, what is really behind all this. On its surface, this is a manæuvre by the directors, backed by the Government, in the dispute with their officials.
Wherever the rights or wrongs in the dispute lie, this was no way in which the public should be made parties to that dispute and sufferers from it. The ordinary people of the country, and particularly of this City of Dublin, are being made the victims of all these disputes at present — labour disputes, whatever their nature may be or their merits may be — and now they are going to have to suffer because the directors want to teach a lesson to their staffs and bring them to heel by the exercise not merely of whatever powers they may have in their contracts with their staffs but by the invocation of those powers which ought not to have been exercised except in circumstances of grave public emergency.
Where is the grave public emergency requiring the drastic action that was taken? The public have not been told it yet. They have been told, in so far as they have been told anything, that it was to enable the bank officials to catch up on the arrears of work which had accumulated by reason of the fact that they were not working in accordance with the hours the directors wished them to work. For the purpose of clearing up arrears? Where is the public emergency in that? Where is there anything connected with that state of affairs and the emergency created by the war or war conditions? Were there, in fact, any such arrears of work? If there were—and there appears to be the gravest doubt about that and certainly it has been asserted authoritatively that there were no such arrears — has the time during which the banks have been closed been utilised to clear up those arrears, or has it been utilised merely for the purpose of enabling the bank directors to make it clear to the public that they were doing the strong man in a labour dispute and that they were going to make it clear to their staffs that they would be dismissed unless certain things were done?
Why was it necessary to link up the so-called arrears with the closing of the banks and with the making of this Order by the Government and with the service of this notice by the bank directors on their officials? All these matters — the arrears of work, the dispute between the bank directors and the officials, the service of the notice by the directors which they wish their employees to sign—were matters of internal arrangement between the bank directors and their employees. The public want to know why they should be made the sufferers and to find themselves in the position to suffer inconvenience while apparently the Government stands behind the bank directors in what appears to be a dispute in regard to terms of work and employment, rates of pay and conditions of service. We are entitled to have the clearest explanation of that. We should have an explanation given now for we cannot get over the fact that this thing has been done by the Government. I notice that the Taoiseach appears to be grinning and laughing, but it is no matter for grinning for the people who have to suffer as a result of this action of the Government. It is as well for the people to know that this is the attitude of the Taoiseach—the Prime Minister— in this crisis.
They do not believe that you are serious.
The election speech, that is what we are laughing at.
You are a bad actor.
I am a bad actor but I am saying what I believe and I think I am voicing the opinion of the ordinary people — opinions expressed to me during the last few days. I am asserting the fact here and I am asking the Government and asking the Prime Minister —when the Minister for Local Government has ceased to laugh and make cheap jibes — to repudiate the statement that the bank officials have not been utilised in the last three days to clear off the arrears of work; to say, if there were arrears, whether their time was occupied in clearing off those arrears. It may be that the Government made this Order on misrepresentation. I do not know. So far as the public are concerned and so far as the information given to them is concerned they only know that the Government made the Order because the bank directors told them that there were arrears of work to be made up. I want to know, and the public are entitled to know, if that was the only and the true reason that the special powers of the 1946 Act were invoked; the powers we never thought would be invoked when we passed the Act. If this is the only reason why this Order was made and the special powers exercised, I want to know, and I think the public ought to know, if there is any truth in the allegation that there were arrears; and, if there were, whether the time of the officials has been exclusively occupied during the last three days in clearing them. For it has been asserted —and again I say asserted authoritatively — that the employees have not been occupied in that, but in considering what their own personal position is going to be when the directors serve this notice next Friday or whatever time it is.
But the public want to know if they are to continue to be made guinea pigs in this dispute between the bank officials and the directors, backed up by the Government in the exercise of these powers, and in circumstances in which the ordinary public were not told nor taken into the confidence of the Government as to the reasons for this drastic action being taken at the time when it was taken.
If I had expected any co-operation from the Leader and the Deputy Leader of the Fine Gael Party in handling an acute crisis in the lives of our people I would have been disappointed. But, before I recommended to the Government that this Order authorising the banks to close in certain circumstances should be made, I knew perfectly well that the opportunity would be taken by members of the Opposition to foment all the trouble they could. If they could help to create chaotic conditions they would do so.
Anybody who knows anything about modern economic life knows that the million and one transactions which many different classes of people have to transact quickly every day could not be carried out efficiently unless we had such an institution as the modern bank. Cheques have to be sent by a trader in Dublin to the ends of the earth for goods. If he gives an order for goods he has to pay for them and the person who is going to sell them must be assured that he is going to get paid for them too.
The intimacy with which modern banking is bound up with the life of the people needs no elaboration. Everybody knows it in his daily life and it is one of the first essentials to the community that it should be kept going. If the modern commercial bank were to disappear to-morrow the State would have to set up a similar institution in order that the people could transact their work in the modern way. They cannot go round swapping cows for barrels of wine; they cannot go round with bags of gold and they do not want to go round with bags of money. They want to make use of the modern cheque system which enables a man in Dublin to pay a man in Belfast, in Cahirciveen, or in Timbuctoo, if he lodges in the bank the amount with which the cheque can be met. It is absolutely essential for the modern bank to ensure that its daily transactions will be completed in a regular way; that when a liability to pay is undertaken that that liability will go through the books and that all the writing that has to be done on foot of it will be carried out regularly and faithfully. The situation for the past seven weeks has been that the nerve centre of the modern bank in Ireland has been subject to creeping paralysis and in that event the situation is not one for the directors or the staff of the banks alone, but it is one for the Government. The volume of legislation which has been passed to regulate banking shows that modern Government has a vital interest in modern banking. Powers are taken in legislation to control modern banking. If further powers were needed, or if it were in the interest of the public, it would be the duty of the Government or of a member of the Dáil to bring forward the required legislation.
On last Friday my private secretary got a telephone message asking me to meet the representatives of the Irish banks. I was unable to meet them on that afternoon but I met them on Saturday morning. The representatives of the banks informed me that, owing to the fact that their officials had been on partial strike for seven weeks, the vital work at their headquarters had fallen into arrear. I shall describe later the work which they told me was in arrear. They told me, further, that this partial strike had occurred not-withstanding that the matters in dispute between them and their officials had been the subject of a prolonged hearing by the Labour Court — that the partial strike was in contravention of the Labour Court's award. They also told me that they had learned from the papers on Thursday morning that this partial strike, which had already brought the nerve-centre of the banks to a state of semi-paralysis, was to be taken a step further, that the bank officials were to work even shorter hours than they had been working for the previous seven weeks. They informed me that vital work was falling into arrear and that they would not be able to carry out their legal obligations to the public on that account. They stated that the work would go more and more into arrear with the shortening of the hours. They told me that the posting and balancing of their ledgers had fallen into arrear, particularly at the nerve-centre of the banks — the headquarters. Branches of the banks at which there are two or three men can clear up their work, except on a fair day, within a couple of hours. We all know that. However, many dozens of banks throughout the country could not carry on their work unless they had a centre through which to operate and get their business cleared — the headquarters. It was at headquarters, particularly, that the work fell into arrear.
They informed me that the statements and passbooks of customers, many of whom require those statements and passbooks supplied weekly, could not be so supplied and that their customers were complaining that they were being interfered with in their business because they were not getting those statements and passbooks as before. They informed me that remittances from the head offices to the branches had fallen into arrear, that they were not able to keep their branches supplied. They told me that the clearance of cheques between one bank and another had fallen into arrear, that they did not know where they were from day to day in their balances as between one another. They stated that dealings with bills of exchange had fallen into arrear and that shipping documents and irrevocable credits for imports had fallen into arrear. One of them described a transaction which might take place if a certain buyer here had arranged an irrevocable credit for some perishable commodity to be shipped at some port. If the credit were not available to the exporter of that perishable commodity and the commodity perished, they were liable to an action. They told me that, in respect of that particular type of business, it was absolutely essential to be up to the minute but that they had fallen into arrear with the work. They told me that the sending forward of coupons for bearer securities was also in arrear and that they were also in arrear in the checking of note parcels from branches. The note parcels were being sent up and they could not handle the checking of them. They said they were in arrear, too, in the advising of customers' credits to banks and agents, that various documentary collections were in arrear, that daily calculation of interest on accounts was in arrear, that head office returns, including supervision of overdrafts, was in arrear and that correspondence with customers and the entire filing system were in arrear.
There was one other matter which they did not mention to me but which I mentioned to them. They were in arrear in respect of certain returns they should have made to me, as Minister for Finance, through the Central Bank. Knowing the important function of the banks in relation to the volume of money and their important function as trustees of the people's money, since I became Minister for Finance I have watched carefully from month to month the returns of the banks. Since this partial strike started in August the work of the banks in that respect has gone into arrear. I was not able to carry out that vital function as Minister for Finance responsible to the people of this country. The banks informed me that not only had this vital work fallen into arrear but that, as they were on notice that a step further was to be taken on Monday, conditions were bound to become chaotic and that if on Tuesday another half-hour was clipped off in addition to the half-hour on Monday matters would become worse still. But even without anything happening beyond the partial strike that has been in operation since August, even without the further cut in hours taken by the bank officials on Monday, it would take them practically a week to clear up the arrears at headquarters. They informed me yesterday, in a further conference I had with them in connection with the No. 3 Order which the Government made, that numbers of their staffs at headquarters were engaged on clearing off the arrears that had accumulated during the partial strike since August. I am perfectly well aware, as Deputy Costello is aware, that the ordinary branch manager could finish off his work in a couple of hours, and that they have not been working during this last week. Everyone knows that. There cannot be branches unless there are roots, and the vital nerve-centre of the banking system is the Central Clearance and Accounting in the Central Headquarters.
The answer then to Deputy Mulcahy is that I recommended the Government to authorise the banks to close first on Monday, then on Tuesday, and then for three days, Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday, because I believe it was necessary in order to avoid the chaos and the ill-consequences to the community of allowing chaos to arise in our banking system here. It is untrue to say that the Government interfered in order to line the pockets of the directors or the shareholders. It is untrue to say that the Government interfered in order to put the bank officials under the yolk, as Deputy O'Higgins put it, or to starve their 20,000 children, as he put it, too. I asked the Government to authorise the banks to close because, if the banks opened under the conditions existing, they would not be able fully to carry out their legal obligations to the community, to their depositors, to their customers and chaos would result. I trust that the bank officials will realise the disastrous step they have taken so far as the community is concerned in trying to settle their differences with the bank directors in this particular way. They are being given every opportunity by the State to settle them in a regular way. The Labour Court was set up. The Labour Court went fully and carefully into the matter in dispute between the banks and the banking officials, and the Labour Court made its award and it was the officials who turned down the award. It was the officials, without any further consultation or reference back to the Labour Court, who instituted the partial strike. I grant you this partial strike is somewhat new, but still it is a partial strike, and they showed that the partial strike, if ignored in the first step could be taken another step. I suppose that if the second step were ignored it could be taken a step further until, finally, the whole banking system would collapse in chaos. Let nobody imagine that if the officials of the banks got a very big increase in remuneration it would come out of my pocket or out of the pocket of the State. It would come out of the pockets of the community — the people who deal with the banks and the people who cover themselves for their expenses in carrying out their business which is partly due to bank charges. We all know that at the beginning of the war when the banks increased the remuneration of their officials the first thing that was done was that the bank charges were put up.
And the second thing was that they increased their dividends.
On the subject of dividends, I have the figures for them if Deputy Dillon wants them. The average dividend of the banks in 1938 was 12.7 per cent. In 1939 it was 11.9 per cent. In 1940 it was 12.1 per cent. In 1941 it was 12 per cent. In 1942 it was 11.9 per cent. In 1943, 1944, 1945 it was 11.9 per cent. In 1946 it was 11.8 per cent. I am sure that——
The average——
——the dividend of any trader in this country, whether he is a member of the Dáil or otherwise, did not decrease from an average of 12.7 per cent. to 11.8 per cent.
On nominal capital. Not on paid up capital.
According to the capital of the respective banks—the paid up capital.
The paper capital.
I would regard it as a grave disability to the people of this country if the banks were to take an inordinate or high increase in their dividends. The modern banks, where they have been left without immediate public control, are trusted by the community to act as trustees. They have vital functions to perform — the safeguarding of moneys left with them by depositors, the transfer of documents, the safeguarding of documents, arrangements for payments, and all that particular type of business. They have a second function in that they have, through making advances or calling in loans, an effect on the volume of money. In that regard they are public trustees, and in regard to that particular function I am the people's Inspector through the Central Bank to see that they carry out those functions in an effective manner which will help the people to transact their business and which will not in any way impede them.
I believe that, the banks being public trustees, having a public capacity, being, if you like, a public utility, the employees working for these institutions should behave in a restrained manner whenever they have a dispute with their employers and that they should take care, seeing that they are in relation to the majority of this community very well off, or fairly well off, and have fair wages, or salaries, fair conditions of employment, short hours and fair pension terms. They have been satisfied over a number of years to work under certain terms and conditions as to hours and surely, before they suddenly, without any agreement with the people who employ them, elect to slow down the work by partial strike and cause chaotic conditions in the people's business, they should take every step possible to see if their dispute could be threshed out in a reasonable way. The bank officials were not going to fall down dead, the 4,000 or 5,000 of them, if they continued, as they and their forefathers continued for 100 years, to work the ordinary normal hours of banking. I do not know who else gets home at 4.30 in the afternoon or who can work for only 20 or 30 hours a week. At any rate, they have been working normal hours for a long number of years and it is my own personal opinion that when the banks offered, following their rejection of the Labour Court award, that if they carried on the normal hours of work that they and the forerunners of the present set of officials had been working for 100 years — that was not putting the yoke on their necks — the banks would, notwithstanding the Labour Court award, discuss with them any matter in dispute upon which the Labour Court had not adjudicated, that this was a reasonable offer for the banks to make.
I hope that the bank officials, who have an important function to fulfil in the life of our community, who are respected by the people in the cities, towns and villages in which they live, will pull themselves together and not be led away by the people who are trying to get them to behave in a most irresponsible way. I think it is not asking too much of them to ask them to agree to accept the normal working hours — and that is all they have to do —for the purpose of carrying on the community's work.
I do not know what Deputy O'Higgins, putting on his reddish or pinkish glasses, read into the undertaking, which the banks asked the officials to sign, that they would duly discharge their duties. What does he think the bank directors are?—Highwaymen who are going to spirit off the officials into some dark wood and make them slave for 24 hours a day? All that the bank directors asked the officials to do was, in view of the fact that they had for some weeks failed to work the normal hours that they had been working for 100 years, that they would resume the working of their normal hours and that if there were some matters in dispute beyond what was decided by the Labour Court they could get together and settle them.
I regret the whole circumstances in which this particular dispute arose. I regret particularly that the community could not get all the warning that they should have got. The community in this regard can to a large extent help themselves. If this strike should, unfortunately, go on beyond next Friday, there will be not only a number of people looking for money in order to pay wages and to pay for goods and services but there will be a very big number of people who will be wanting to get rid of money. There will be cinemas, shopkeepers, various people who are paid in cash for their work or goods or services, who will want and will be glad to accept the cheque or the I.O.U. of some person they know and whom they trust, who is looking for money in order to pay wages.
Deputy O'Higgins was very badly off indeed for an argument when he lit upon the accusation that the banks were going to be opened this week in order to facilitate the "bleedin' capitarlists". The banks were asked by me if they could this week get their officials to meet the requirements of men who were paying wages and salaries in order that those wages and salaries should be met. If that is something terrible in Deputy O'Higgins' eyes, it is not in mine and if the bank officials should not carry on their work I hope that the bank directors, if this trouble goes on, will be able to arrange that type of business even after next Friday. If they do not do it, then the State will try to do it.
Does the Minister contemplate keeping the banks shut after Friday next?
I am not keeping the banks shut. It is the bank officials who are keeping the banks shut, and the bank directors.
You are the instrument.
I am not the instrument.
You are the tool, then.
I am trying to safeguard the community from the result of the action in this particular instance of the bank officials. If after next Friday the banks cannot carry on their full normal business, cannot reopen for full normal business, I hope they will be able to carry on and open for the partial business of meeting the requirements of men who want to pay their work people so that their work people will be enabled to buy their necessaries of life from their wage packets.
Why could they not open like that all this week?
They will open three days for that purpose. Deputy O'Higgins talked about that particular opening that was to convenience big business. He sneered at it.
Everybody will be convenienced like that?
I said that I asked the banks to open if they could get their officials to do it for that particular line of business. I hope that, if the bank officials do not carry on in a full way from Friday, they will be able to open partially for that business, but if they do not I trust that the community will first of all help by keeping the money that is out actively in circulation; there is more than sufficient cash in circulation amongst the people to enable the community to do this work and to do it efficiently, but not as conveniently and not as efficiently as if the banking system were in operation. Everybody will grant that there is no substitute for that.
Why do you not settle it?
Order!
What I want to say is this: that, with regard to people who have wage bills to meet so that they may keep their men employed and their workers paid, if the banks fail to do that particular type of work and cannot open throughout the country, the State will do its utmost to help them and get the money to the people whose credit is good in the banks in order that they may be able to pay wages. There is another thing I want to say, and it is that the Government over a very long time gave directions to ensure that the State services would be carried on in the event of a bank strike. Of course, Deputy O'Higgins never heard anything about a bank strike. This thing all came upon him very suddenly indeed, but I happen to be aware that after the Labour Court award the bank officials took a ballot empowering their central committee to call a strike any time they liked. Seeing that the bank officials had loaded their gun in that particular way, I thought it was time for all people who had responsibilities and big wage bills to pay to be looking out, and I gave directions that all steps that were necessary should be taken in order to ensure that old age pensions, widows' and orphans' pensions, unemployment relief, the wages of Guards, of soldiers and of civil servants would be paid. If the bank strike were to go on this week, or if it were to go on for a month of Sundays, the State would be enabled to carry out that function. I will conclude by saying that I sincerely trust that will not be necessary. I sincerely trust that the banking officials will continue to earn the respect that they have earned from our community —from the people of the villages and the towns in which they serve — and that they will realise their responsibilities and will not strike this vital blow at the economic life of our people.
To strip the Minister's statement of all its trimmings it boils down to this, that the closing of the banks by Government Order was due to arrears not in the branches all over the country but in what the Minister described as the vital nerve centres of the banks. I presume he meant the head offices in this city. The Minister told us that it was necessary in order to clear up these arrears to close the banks of this country from Monday to Friday. That action has definitely paralysed the whole life of the country, short as it has been in operation. Whatever uneasiness was in the public mind up to now, I know for certain that it will develop into more than uneasiness after the rather slipshod explanation which the Minister gave us. His explanation has not convinced me that there is not something much deeper and much more sinister behind the whole thing than has been revealed to us here. He told us that the arrears in the head offices are the cause of the whole trouble. He also told us that he met the bank directors on last Saturday. I want to ask him when did he consult with the Government, and it is true that certain concerns in the city were aware of the closing of the banks and had sufficient money drawn out to cover this period before the notice ever appeared in the papers that the banks would be closed on Monday last, and before the public were notified over the radio? I also want to ask him, seeing that it was decided to close the banks by an Emergency Powers Order, why it was that when he was speaking to the directors he did not put up the simple case to them that must have hit everybody in the eye when listening to him this evening, namely, that if arrears occurred in the head offices of the banks why he did not make representations to the bank directors to employ extra staffs for the week? Why did he not ask the bank directors to double the staff, if necessary, to clear up those arrears? It now transpires that it will take up to next Friday to do it.
The original idea was to clear them off in a day.
The Minister had no need at all to go into such a fine elaboration of the arrears. To a person wholly ignorant of the whole system it must appear that the small amount of arrears at the head offices could not clog up the whole machinery and cause this standstill. The Minister's statement, I know, will be taken as a definite evasion of the whole point raised by Deputy Mulcahy. It has caused terrific dislocation all over the country. May I give some instances? The fair of Thurles yesterday was a fiasco. The big fair at Ballinasloe, one of the biggest fairs in the West of Ireland, serving a huge centre, was held up.
It was not; I saw it.
That is not my information.
Thurles was the best fair ever in Ireland.
The Deputy knows nothing about it. I was there.
What about Cashel fair and Tipperary fair?
Deputy Blowick must be allowed to continue his speech.
The whole life of the country, despite what Fianna Fáil Deputies may shout across at me, has been paralysed. Something more than uneasiness has been created in the public mind. The Minister's statement to-night would not convince a child that his explanation is the correct one. He told us that because there were arrears in the head offices of the eight or nine banks in the city the whole State would be held up. He told us that there was no other way out of it except to close the banks from Monday to Friday by issuing Emergency Powers Orders. He has not given an assurance that the arrears will be all cleared up by Friday. He has not told us when the banks will re-open. He has not told us what our fate will be next week or the week after.
I am convinced that the Minister was evading the whole issue put before him. I thought he would have given us a clear idea of what is taking place. Perhaps the true state of affairs has not been put before him. He may have given us the explanation that he got. The Minister stated that bank officials should be very good boys and should not have precipitated a strike. I did not hear of any bank officials going on strike. I know they were making certain demands for better conditions. I do not propose to go into the merits or demerits of the case; whether or not they had a sound case.
One point I should like to refer to in passing is that we always respected bank officials and looked up to them. But we can never respect a class of people who are compelled to eat their lunch while working, as I see them doing in the banks in rural districts that I go into. The Minister pointed out that the officials finished their day's work at 4.30 p.m. I do not think it would dislocate the banking service in any branch down the country or in Dublin if officials were facilitated by being given an hour for lunch and adding on the hour from 4.30 to 5.30. The Minister's explanation was a very poor one.
I hope the Deputy has been speaking to bank officials when he makes the statement that the hour should be added on in the evening.
They have no dinner or lunch hour.
I am aware that they have no lunch hour. Even the lowest paid workers in the State get half an hour for lunch. Usually workers get an hour. If bank officials make that demand, I will certainly stand by them in that demand. The Minister asked that the bank officials should conduct themselves in such a way as to command respect. We can scarcely respect bank officials when we see them trying to do business with one hand and with the other trying to take tea out of a thermos flask and eat a sandwich. Surely they are entitled to something better than that if we are to respect them. I am not at all satisfied with the explanation that the Minister gave. He has been asked a very definite pointed question by Deputy Mulcahy and by Deputy Costello. The public are anxious to know when normal conditions will be restored. I think it is a very mean attack by the Minister on the bank officials to say that the nervecentres of the banks have been affected because of arrears and that that is the fault of the officials. Surely the first thing that must strike anybody is that the cause of that is under-staffing. If five days' work behind closed doors would clear up the arrears in the head offices in the city, surely the employment of a small extra staff would clear up the arrears and keep the machinery running through the country.
The Minister may not regard the closing of the banks for five days as a very serious matter. I wonder does he know what it means to the average country person who brings his pigs or cattle or sheep to a fair and finds that the buyers cannot transact business with them. Plenty of people depend on one or two fairs in the year to sell their stock. Now the banks have been closed without warning and the fairs and markets over the whole country are paralysed. Deputies mentioned the case of people living in lonely parts of the country who will be compelled to keep in their possession fairly large sums of money which they cannot lodge in the banks. That is one aspect of the matter. But we must take into account the greater number whose business will be paralysed because of the closing of the banks. The Minister has not given us any assurance on the matter. If there is any other speaker on behalf of the Government I hope we will have an intimation as to when the banks will reopen and when things can be expected to return to normal.
I listened very carefully to the statement made by the Minister justifying the Orders which he has made for the closing of the banks during this week. While I approached the matter with a completely open mind and refrained from participating in the debate until I heard the Minister's defence of his action, I must say that at the conclusion of the Minister's speech I was convinced that the Minister is definitely, nakedly and patently taking sides with the bank directors. The Minister gave us a litany of work that was in arrears in the banks. I could not help thinking that this was a nice commentary on the competent way in which the banks in this country are directed.
According to the Minister, the whole business was in a chaotic conditon very largely because of the fact that bank clerks insisted, as Deputies insist, on having a meal interval in the middle of the day. The whole banking system of the country got into a chaotic condition because bank clerks dared to eat in the middle of the day. The Minister gave us a list of the items which had fallen into arrears. I suggest to the Minister that that reflects no credit on those responsible for the direction of Irish banks.
What I am more interested in is the manner in which the Government approached the matter. We were told that three Orders were made. First there was an Order for one day's closing. Surely before that Order was made a case was made by the directors that one day's closing would suffice. When they got a one day closing, I can only assume that they got it by convincing the Minister that one day would clear up all the arrears. Then they went back again and got another day's closing. Finally the Government, being very pliable, issued an Order for a further three days' closing. The directors have now got the Government on the run and they can now get closing Orders whenever they want them. First they get one for one day. Then they get another, and then one for three days. That is the situation in which we now find ourselves—that the bank directors can get a closing Order merely for the asking. I think the banks have found the Government pretty soft putty in this whole business. I think the bank directors found that they could roll the Government in any way they liked. They certainly did a fair amount of rolling with the Government. They got three closing Orders out of the Government in one week. They got them from a Government in which the Minister for Local Government is a prominent member. He used to tell us that some of the biggest enemies of this country were to be found in the banks; that they were hand-in-hand with the Fine Gael Party at the time trying to undermine the independence of this country.
And that was not the staff.
That is the Government which gave the banks three closing Orders in the one week. They have got a closing Order for five days out of the seven. I want to say definitely that I was amazed by the speech made by the Minister for Finance and I do not mind telling him and saying to the House generally that I think it was an abuse of his position in the House that the Minister, the chief financial officer of the State, should get up in the Parliament and lecture the bank officials in a way in which the bank directors have so far not dared to lecture them. The Minister has been doing the work of the bank directors. He has lectured the bank clerks, telling them to be reasonable, to be restrained and to be understanding. That is all a long way of saying: "Do what the directors tell you and mind your own business after that. You are there to carry out what the directors intend you should do", and the Minister sees nothing wrong with that.
The Minister has come very heavily into this matter. He has put his finger on the scales on the side of the bank directors and definitely against the claims, the reasonable claims, made by the Bank Officials' Association in this matter. I can only assume now that the Government's interest in this whole matter is tied to the interest of the bank directors, and, knowing bank directors in this country and the general record of banks in this country, I do not think it is a very healthy situation that the Government of a democratic State such as this, the Government of a State in which there are masses and not classes, should anchor itself to the economic destiny of the bank directors in a dispute of this kind.
However, the bank clerks have now got their lecture. The Minister for Local Government will probably be let out next week to say that they are all Communists, that they are all led by Communists, and we will be told next week that this whole move by the bank clerks of Ireland to get a luncheon interval in the middle of the day is inspired from the caves of Moscow. Everything will be said now to give the impression that these bank clerks are most unreasonable people, because the Minister's speech lifts the lid off the element of neutrality which ought to have been preserved by the Government in a dispute between the bank clerks and their directors.
I was struck by the Minister's lecture to the bank clerks and I wondered, while he was speaking, what conception of rights the Minister thinks the bank clerks have. While listening to the Minister, I could not get out of my mind the thought that the Minister felt that, while every other employer in this country may have to put up with disputes from time to time and while disputes arise in industry from time to time, there was one class in the community which ought to be insured against any kind of friction or dispute, the bank directors. Disputes occur in various industries throughout the country from time to time. Is there anything wrong with there being a dispute in a bank, any special reason why bank directors ought not to be troubled with disputes, or do they claim, and does the Government admit, that their function in the life of the country is such that they must not be troubled by disputes by mere bank clerks whose function is merely to sign the ukases which the bank directors issue to their employees for signature?
One would imagine from the Minister's speech that bank clerks had no rights at all, that the mere threat of a partial strike by bank clerks was something outrageous. Is the Minister contending that bank clerks have no right to go on strike, are not entitled to exercise their natural right to withhold their labour, or have we now got a new conception of human rights on the part of the Government that, because you work in a bank under the control of wealthy bank directors in Ireland, you sacrifice your natural right to withdraw your labour, your natural and legally admitted right to go on strike? Bank clerks have these constitutional rights. They got these rights in the Constitution and they have the right to withdraw their labour, if they want to. It would be regrettable if the situation reached the stage at which that had to take place, but it is one thing to regret the occurrence of a strike and another to deny, by implication, the right of the bank clerk to withdraw his labour, because he has constitutional rights to withhold his labour and to go on strike if the circumstances of the situation justify him constitutionally in taking that course.
The Minister has rendered no service whatever in this dispute. He has thrown down the gauntlet this evening to the bank clerks, and he has done so in a way which, I am sure, will command the admiration of the bank directors. It is not the Minister's job to win the plaudits of the bank directors. It is not the Minister's or the Government's job to do the work of the bank directors in a matter of this kind. If the Government does not come in positively on behalf of the weaker section, namely, the bank clerks, it ought at least to hold the scales evenly. Were they held evenly this evening? Did anybody make any effort to put the bank clerks' case? Knowing that they had no right of reply here — and I do not claim to talk for the bank clerks officially — the Minister lectured them as to what he thought they ought to do and ought not to do and where he thought wisdom and unwisdom lay.
The Minister has made this whole situation very much worse than it was. The Government have not covered themselves with any glory by the way in which the matter has been handled, and, even now, on reflection, somebody for the Government ought to intervene with a view to trying to make peace between the bank clerks and the directors. I think there are still possibilities of getting peace made. The issues are not so insurmountable that a settlement could not be reached and an effort ought now to be made by the Government, instead of lecturing the bank clerks, to try to bring about a peaceful solution of the difficulties which have arisen. It will have to be brought about one day. The dispute may go on for quite a while and tempers may rise and become frayed, but in the long run the matter will be settled, as all these disputes have to be settled one day or another. We ought to try in a matter such as this to use whatever good offices are at the disposal of the Government to bring about a settlement so that the banking services, such as they are, will be available for all the people in a regular and efficient way; but I do not think it is calculated to bring about harmony in the banking service or calculated to ease the tension which now exists if the bank clerks are to be lectured by the Government in a way which I say deliberately is on the side of the bank directors and against those endeavouring to improve their conditions of employment.
The Taoiseach rose.
We asked the Taoiseach for sufficient time to discuss this matter and the Taoiseach confined us to a particular time. This is a very important matter on which a number of us who have responsibilities to the people wish to raise points and we should get an opportunity of doing so. The Minister has already spoken for the Government and has made the case, and I want to protest against the Taoiseach taking up more time, unless he intends to give us some information additional to that given by the Minister.
Four Deputies have already spoken and I think I am entitled to speak.
We ought to have got more time for the dispute.
I am not objecting to the Taoiseach speaking, but to the taking up of the time allotted.
We are told that the community is greatly inconvenienced. Of course, the community is greatly inconvenienced. As the Minister for Finance pointed out, and as everybody in the country knows, the banking system is essential to the conduct of business and to the life of the community, and, if the banking service is brought to an end or to a stoppage, surely it is the right of the Government to step in and do its best to secure that the interest of the community, which is the only interest we have at heart in this matter, is served.
We have come into this, as a Government, not to close the banks. That is a convenient phrase, used to misrepresent the attitude of the Government. We have come into this simply to prevent confusion being worse confounded and to prevent a situation from arising in which, when this dispute is settled, the whole thing would be in such a state that it could not be remedied. Our action might be likened to the action of the Government if, for instance, a river was overflowing its banks in the lower regions and we were asked to give permission for the sluices to be closed upstream. Would we not be entitled to say: "Yes, you may close the sluices upstream; there will be a certain amount of damage caused by the sudden doing of that, but it would be far less than the damage that would be created if the flooding was allowed to continue and cause destruction down at the end".
If these banks here—the commercial banks—were not allowed, under the circumstances, to be freed from their legal obligation to open doors, then the position, which was already very bad, would so deteriorate that it might be impossible for them finally to clear up the business at all. This dispute, I hope, will end soon, and when it does end we hope the banks will be in such a position that business can be carried on. We are told that the banks were open for business to the public. They were nominally open, but the business at the top was so clogged up that they could not do their business and the vital services which the headquarters ought to render could not be rendered and were not being rendered.
Deputy Blowick said they should get temporary people and put them in to clear up the job. You might as well say that the chief Departments of State could be successfully run by bringing in people off the streets while the ordinary officers were on strike. That is all nonsense.
It is not nonsense.
It is sheer, absolute nonsense to think that complicated work of that kind, which requires special knowledge and special training, could be done by people that you would take in off the streets.
Why not close the banks every second day?
That suggestion is so nonsensical that no one but Deputy Blowick would make it. The point is this: the banks at short notice were presented with a situation which they had to deal with rapidly, and that was that, if notice was given, the rush would be such that the banks could not possibly cope with it and the arrears which had accumulated to a dangerous point would be still worse. That is the fact. It may be a very pleasant thing for any Deputy who is anxious to make trouble——
No Deputy is anxious to make trouble.
Very fine speeches have been made by members of the Opposition in relation to this matter, speeches which would not be made by people who had any real, serious sense of their responsibilities. That is quite true.
The banks are not getting rid of the arrears; they are piling up.
They were given an opportunity, anyhow, to see whether, with the partial work that was being done, they could get rid of them. They have not got rid of them. At any rate, we were not going to say: "Whether you are able to do your business or not you will have to be liable for all the obligations on the banks to conduct their business and to be available at call". They could not do the business.
And they told you only on Friday?
That is true.
They allowed the situation to develop.
It is not a question of whether we were going to reproach the directors with not having done their work properly. What we had to do was to save the community from the consequences of the situation. We acted, not for the directors or anybody else—we acted in the interests of the community. The community well knows that the situation is being rapidly arrived at in this country, as it has been in other countries, in which, by the organisations that have developed, vital organisations dealing with vital services, one section of the community can do tremendous damage to other sections. That has been an inevitable consequence of organisation. Through these organisations to-day we have people who want to go to their work and cannot get there. The ordinary conveniences which are necessary for the public are not now available.
Why do you not settle the strike?
How can we settle it? If we went in to settle it we would be accused by people like the Deputy of interfering.
Everyone is wrong but the Government—that is the Taoiseach's argument.
The Government is acting in the interests of the community and in no other interests.
They are acting in the interests of the bank directors.
The bank directors are much more to the Deputy than they are to me.
They are giving plenty of money to the Fianna Fáil Party.
The Fianna Fáil Party is getting no bank directors' money.
The Taoiseach was called upon by the Chair to speak. He was not called upon to be made the butt of every Deputy. I ask the members of the Opposition to allow the Taoiseach to make his speech without further interruption.
What effort has the Taoiseach made to settle these disputes?
The Taoiseach must be allowed to speak without any more disorderly interruptions.
The ordinary person in the country has to depend on a variety of services that are in the nature of public utility services. By our organisations the whole community has got into such a situation that it is possible now, by strike action on the part of any one section, to cause extreme hardship to other sections. If the bus people strike—and the bus service is practically a public utility service—other people suffer. If there is a labour dispute between employees and whoever may be in control, the ordinary man and woman will suffer. If there is a dispute in the gas works the ordinary persons who depend on gas to cook their food cannot have their food cooked. If there is a strike of bakers the children of other sections of the community will suffer from want of bread. These are facts which are known to every person in the community and anybody who is alive to the situation knows that, unless machinery is devised by which the interests of the community as a whole can be safeguarded, this system is bound inevitably to break down.
The day has come when there is something else needed, to be added to the ordinary trade union organisation, some body which will be able to say, when the bakers are on strike, that their demands are unreasonable and that they ought not, since baking is a vital service, leave the children of the butchers and the rest of the people without their daily bread. In the same way, when the butchers go on strike, who will suffer? Is it not the children of other sections of the community—the bakers, and others? To me, at any rate, it is necessary that some machinery be devised so that these disputes can be amicably settled.
Why not devise it?
As a step towards it, through the Industrial Relations Act, the Government has established the Labour Court. Nobody could suggest that a court like that was dominated by any section of the community or by the Government. That court heard the dispute. I have not seen whether this lunch hour was a matter decided by the court or whether it was referred to the court at all.
You have only one side of the case.
I only know what I see in the public Press in that regard.
You saw what the directors told the Minister.
I see what the ordinary person sees. Does the Deputy say that it was?
What was?
That this particular question of the lunch hour was adjudicated on by the Labour Court.
No; the hours were.
This particular question of the lunch hour which is now——
It did not cause the arrears.
The point is that the Order was made to give the banks sufficient time to clear the arrears. The only question the Labour Court had to assume was——
The arrears started before that.
Deputy McGilligan, of course, comes in here when he wants to amuse himself at the end of his day.
I am not getting much amusement.
That is what the Deputy comes in to do and does not care about public business for the rest of the day.
I was at nothing but public business to-day.
If that is so, it was all public business of a private character also. I do not want to say anything more about it.
I was not at anything but public business here. Come back to the lunch hour.
We are as a Government interested in all disputes, necessarily so, that affect the interest of the community as a whole. Every public utility dispute—that means now a large number of cases, on account of organisation—is of immediate interest to the Government, and the Government cannot stand by and allow in any case damage to occur which the Government may be able to prevent. The damage that was going to result here was that arrears would accumulate to such an extent that they would become unmanageable after a time. If notice were given and the banks were to be opened for a day, it would be all very well for business people but it would add to the mess.
The community suffers in all these cases. The time has come when some organisation will have to be devised to safeguard their interest. We have done our best. We know that, on the one hand, there is the interest of the community as a whole and, on the other, the interests of the private individual. We are not disputing the fact that a man may withdraw his labour.
You were on strike for five years yourself, against this House.
We are not disputing the fact that a person may withdraw his labour, but we do say that the time has come when all sections of the community who are organised and in a position to do damage like that have a very serious responsibility to the other sections of the community and to themselves. If they do not realise that responsibility, they are going to suffer too. In these days, the whole system that has been so far evolved of democratic control on the one hand and of trade unionism on the other is in danger and both political democracy, as we have it here, and the trade unions, if they are not alive to their responsibility, may go down in this country, as they have gone down in other countries. The attempt to put the Government in the position that we are against the rightful claims of anybody is completely unjustified. Each one of us may have his judgment on the merits or demerits of a particular case. As a Government, we do not come in in that particular way. Our function is to do our best to safeguard the community as a whole from the results of strikes and semi-strikes. In this case, it has been, I understand, a semi-strike, which is still more paralysing than the other kind, since a business which is open is understood generally to be capable of doing its business and has obligations to do business. If conditions are such that these obligations cannot be properly carried out, that is still worse than a complete stoppage. It is much better that the banks should be closed for this temporary period than that they should be open and chaos result in the end. That has been the determining factor so far as the Government is concerned. We are satisfied that chaos would result if the accumulation of arrears were allowed to go on and no opportunity given to the banks to clear them up. How far they will succeed I do not know, but that is a matter which must depend upon the good will of their officials. If the officials set out deliberately——
Are the bankers setting out deliberately? Are there two sides to it?
I am not saying there are not two sides to this.
You have only one.
I am taking one, simply because it is the one at the moment.
There are two and the Taoiseach will have them after Friday, when the country is paralysed by the bankers' committee.
I take no side in this matter whatever, personally.
You are definitely acting on the advice of the bankers' committee.
I have said the same thing regarding the bus drivers, the bakers and others. There must be some machinery for settling such disputes. We set up the Labour Court to function as machinery for that purpose.
You took one side.
I have asked several times that there should not be interruptions while the Taoiseach is speaking. If Deputy Keyes does not wish to refrain, he will have to leave the House. There is very little time to go and the debate ought to be concluded in the same good order in which it began.
We had to deal with the situation as we saw it. I have pointed out the similarity to a river overflowing its banks downstream and compared the problem before us with allowing that to continue or giving permission to close the sluices upstream. What we did was to say to the banks: "You have legal obligations to open; you are not in a position, we are satisfied, to fulfil these obligations and, as it is by law that you are compelled to open, in the circumstances we say that you need not be bound by these particular legal obligations." If the Deputy wants to think that that is siding with anybody, he is free to do so.
What we were trying to do was to prevent irreparable damage being done to the whole community. I hope that some method will be devised by which the parties to this dispute can come together and settle it. There is one mode of settling it which some people think very simple—if you have butchers on strike, there is nothing to be done but put up the price of meat; if there are bakers on strike, put up the price of bread; the bakers and the others can manage to settle their difficulties and increase their prices. Those people say: "If the busmen go on strike, put up the wages and settle it by increasing the bus fares to the community; if the bankers' officials go on strike, you can put on the community the extra charges which occur."
It does not arise.
Nothing is simpler than that one section of the community should have the control and they and their staffs could come together and settle their difficulties at the expense of the rest of the community, by increasing prices.
Would the Taoiseach answer a question?
That is quite simple, but it is a method which, in the long run, is disastrous for the community.
That is not asked for here.
That method could be used if there were not some authority to speak in the name of the community as a whole. It is the function of the Government to come along, as between the various sections, and say it is not in the public interest that a large section should try to compensate itself in that way. There has been talk of the increase in the cost of living. The increase in the cost of living will go on while a policy of that kind is continued. I say definitely, and every person in this community knows it, that it is very easy for employers and employees or for the directors of any particular company and their staff to come to an arrangement by which a particular section will benefit at the expense of the rest of the community. It is the butchers to-day and the bakers to-morrow. In this way we have chaos and a situation which no one can handle.
As I said in the beginning, the time has come in the interest of the community—and in the interest, mind you, of the workers as well as every other section of the community—when everything possible should be done to devise some machinery by which we will not have each section of the community trying to gain at the expense of the others. There is no absolute way under democratic conditions like ours to get a final result except under some form such as the Labour Court whose judgment will be regarded as fair and equitable and whose judgment will be accepted. Otherwise we will have internal strife between one section and the other. Inevitably, when the case comes up of a vital public service the Government has to come in for one purpose and for one purpose only—not to side with any one section against another, but to see as far as we can that the public services are not brought into utter confusion.
On a point of order, is the Taoiseach not repeating himself?
I am, of course, repeating myself, in order to try to drive the point home.
I think if there was a little less heat on the part of the Taoiseach and a little more patience on the part of the Deputies we might get more headway. I have never thought that we would have a Government interfering in this particular way with the economic life of the country, nor did I ever think that the power granted by this House to the Government would be abused in the manner in which the Government has abused the power bestowed on it under this Act. The Taoiseach has told us that banking is an important system. That is so and I would like to know if the Minister for Finance and the Government examined closely the case made by the directors. It is quite clear from the manner in which the case was conducted that there was no examination made either by the Minister for Finance or the Government of the proposals of the directors. They closed for one day. Then they closed for another and then for three days. The Government defends the closing on the grounds that it is essential and that there must be some plan by which a dispute arising in a public service can be settled. What is the Government's plan? First, apparently, if the bakers go on strike close the bakery for four or five days and if the butchers go on strike close their shops for four or five days and then at the end of that time ask them to sign a form. It is the most childish performance that has ever been carried out in the country. Does the Government expect us and the country which has been so gravely inconvenienced by the closing of the banks at such short notice, to accept that situation?
I have been asked by constituents in the town of Longford to inquire whether some firms got notice on Friday from the banks to withdraw money to meet their requirements. There are fowl buyers and pig buyers and people like them left without money in the midlands to-day, while there are a selected few in a position to have all the money they require because of the banks' advance information. The Government may get up in holy horror and lecture these bad boys of bank officials. I have no brief for them. The Minister says their fathers and their grandfathers have done this type of work for 100 years. That is like the attitude of the Land Commission which says that what was good enough for Irishmen 100 years ago is good enough to-day. The Minister for Finance informed us that those employees got a chance of making their case to the Labour Court. I am reliably informed that when this point of the hour for lunch was being discussed before the Labour Court the Labour Court gave it 20 minutes and of that 20 minutes a bank director took 15, leaving the officials five minutes to make their case, and the reason they only got five minutes to make their case was that the Labour Court had got to go to lunch. I challenge contradiction of that.
I think it is a fairy tale.
I am not accustomed to telling fairy tales in this House. I could tell a good fairy story outside the House. The fairy tale of the Minister for Finance as inspector general is no credit either to the Taoiseach or to himself. It is certainly a fairy tale to describe him as an inspector general of the banks.
A public inspector.
I am reliably informed that that is a fact and that that is the opportunity that those officials got to make a case as to why they should get a luncheon hour. Everybody knows that several bank officials' health is broken up as a result of going without food for considerable periods, from 8 or 8.30 in the morning until 4.30 in the evening. There is no opportunity for the cashier to eat. He cannot leave his desk. The Labour Court when hearing the case could not give more than five minutes because they themselves had their luncheon hour at that particular time. I think that is a perfect answer as to why the bank officials are entitled to their luncheon hour. I want the Government and the Minister to assure the House to-night that whatever the chaos in the banking system is it will be ended at once and that the banks will be open to-morrow. If they do not give us that undertaking I submit it is the duty of somebody, and if nobody else does it I will, to put down a motion for the cancellation of the Order made by the Government. It is in the interest of the banks and of the Government who have responsibilities to the community that they should not be in the position of being charged, and with every evidence to sustain the charge, of being so biassed and prejudiced that without a moment's notice to anybody they took the action that they did in closing the banks without consideration.
The Dáil adjourned at 10.30 p.m. until 3 p.m. on Thursday, 9th October, 1947.