asked the Minister for Finance if he has read the speech delivered by the Chairman of the Industrial Credit Company, Limited, on the 16th December, 1959, and if he will state how he reconciles the information then given about the Verolme Cork Dockyard project with the statements made by him on the 23rd July, 1959, on the Committee Stage of the Industrial Credit Amendment Bill.
Ceisteanna—Questions. Oral Answers. - Speech of Chairman of Industrial Credit Corporation.
13.
I have read the speech in question but fail to see that any statements of mine regarding the Verolme Cork Dockyard Project made on the Committee State of the Industrial Credit (Amendment) Bill, 1959, require to be reconciled with the information given on the 16th December, 1959, by the Chairman of the Industrial Credit Company.
Does the Minister not recall that he accused Deputies on this side of the House of national sabotage for asking the very question that the Chairman of the Industrial Credit Corporation answered in the public Press in December?
I held the view that the Minister for Finance should not be required to answer questions in the Dáil on behalf of the Industrial Credit Corporation. The point I made at all times was that we should regard it as an ordinary bank. I have no objection to the chairman of any bank giving any information he wants to give.
Does the Minister not recall accusing Deputy Dillon and myself specifically, and I think Deputy Norton, of national sabotage for seeking to have this information made public and saying that it would effectively prevent any development if such information were made public— not by the Minister but made public? Now one would think that in ordinary decency he should apologise for the words he used.
Arising out of the Minister's anticipated reply, would he agree that it now looks churlish on his part to have spent so much time uselessly defending the withholding of the information when the Chairman, his own appointee, distributes the information broadcast, so that it is now the subject of prolonged correspondence in the newspapers? When the Minister was answering this question some months ago it was a life and death secret; now no dog in the street would bother to look at the information.
The Deputy should go back and read the debate again.
I have read it.
The point I made was that the Minister should not be required to give such information. Let the chairman of any bank give whatever information he likes.
That is not what the Minister said.
Is it now seriously contended that the Minister can from time to time approach Dáil Éireann for large sums of money and inform the Dáil that he is not free to tell Deputies what the money is for but on the next occasion when the public official is communicating with the shareholders of the institution to which the Dáil has given money, he feels free to communicate to the whole world the information withheld from the Dáil? There must surely be some flaw in this reasoning.
It appears to me to be difficult to satisfy Deputies opposite. They spent a month trying to get information from me and now they complain when they get it from somebody else.
That is a typical slick, dirty answer. Any decent man would have got up and said he was wrong.