Before the adjournment I asked where this type of special legislation stood. This Bill affects the Irish Bank Officials' Association. Suppose another association opts out of the national pay agreement and refuses to accede to the wishes of the Minister in this respect, will we have more legislation to deal with that case? This could bring industrial and human relations into chaos and disrepute. This is what we are doing here today. For the second time in our history we are dealing with these officials through legislation. I suggest that this is a reflection on the Government, and especially on the Department of Labour, because this patchwork legislation is trying to stop a gap here and a gap there, but there is no overall plan.
Will the Minister give any guarantee that in a few years' time he will not bring in similar legislation, which will infringe on the liberty of the individual, to deal with any section of the community? Section 5 deals with penalties and reads:
A person guilty of an offence under this Act shall be liable—
(a) on summary conviction, to a fine not exceeding £400, or
(b) on conviction on indictment, to a fine not exceeding £10,000...
It is also stated that he shall not be liable to imprisonment in default of payment of the fine. In most civilised countries if a person cannot or, on principle, will not pay a fine, he can opt to go to prison. If this Bill becomes law—and there is nothing we can do to stop it unless the courts find it unconstitutional—the law will demand the full penalty. The bailiff may come to the guilty person's home, take any part of his furniture or property and sell it to pay the fine.
A charitable bank official may have been a member of the local parochial friendly society and loaned money to them. If he is found guilty the law can demand that the local society worker give details of the money which the bank official loaned the society and that money can be taken to pay the fine. This is not a figment of my imagination; it is written into section 5 of this Bill. In the interests of decency and democracy the Minister should remove that section in so far as it affects parochial societies. In my view, this is penal legislation because the law sets out to ensure that every last penny loaned by the bank official to the friendly society can be taken to pay his fine. In his generosity this official may have loaned the money to the society to build a parochial hall or for other charitable work, but the State says that that money must be taken back to pay his fine. It may be said that many people of the calibre of a bank manager do not invest in friendly societies, but that is not so. If this Bill becomes law a bank official may transfer his funds outside this country where, if he is found guilty, the Minister cannot touch it. Of course, unless he lives under very spartan conditions, he will have furniture and his house which can be seized and sold to pay his fine.
It must be remembered that the fine can be of £10,000 for each day on which the offence continues. This is not democratic legislation. Section 5 (1) (b) reads:
... on conviction on indictment, to a fine not exceeding £10,000, together with, in the case of an offence under section 3 or 4 of this Act which is a continuing offence, a further fine not exceeding £10,000 for each day upon which the offence is continued.
The best thing a bank manager who may fall foul of this Act can do is to transfer his money to South America or even nearer home where the laws prohibit the Irish Minister demanding that this money be sent back to Ireland to pay the fine of £10,000 for each day upon which the offence continues.
This is absurd. The man is alleged to have paid out money beyond the income limit set by the Minister. At the moment we have rampant inflation and every section feel their incomes are not adequate. I am not making a case for any officials to cash in on a general wage increase. If these men and women are insisting on this it may be because we have such archaic industrial relations machinery. When no guarantee can be given to people that the value of the money they earn will hold its value for any length of time they look for various ways to increase their incomes to enable them to live according to the standards they have been used to.
I do not know of any offence where a fine of £10,000 a day is imposed. How could any person pay £10,000 a day? If a man owns a house, even in the most affluent suburb, and if he has saved money during his lifetime, could he pay £70,000 a week for very long or £3,650,000 a year if it went on that length of time? What happens when the State have taken everything from that man and have left him standing in the suit he owns? His family have suffered because their home and savings are gone. The wife of the official and their young children may well have to go on to public assistance so the State will have to start paying out money to keep those people.
I suggest that the Minister should go back to the Government and draw their attention to this absurd piece of legislation which we will probably pass tonight. After the full penalty of the law has been inflicted on the erring bank manager or official and if it goes on for a 28-day month the man will have paid £280,000 in fines. As I said, very few people have that type of money. The State then decide that, having taken everything off that man, they might as well go to somebody else in the bank and tell him that he also was part of this and must pay the fine as well.
I do not believe the men who drafted this Bill or the Minister who brought it in have read it properly. It comes down so heavily on bank officials that it defeats itself. We must protest against this, even though we know that the majority of the Members of the House will pass it. I have no power to say to the Minister that this must not be done but I can ask him, rather than having us look ridiculous before other democratic powers, to amend the section I am talking about. Section 9 is not much better, but certainly in section 5 we could have a dreadful fine imposed.
We can picture the circumstances in which this man has paid out this money. He is dragged before the courts. People may say that had the bank officials obeyed the law this would not happen. If we do not protest, who can say that there will not be some other section involved in this tomorrow? Is the Minister prepared to say now that, while he will not allow any person to be paid over the maximum allowed under the national wage agreement, he also will not allow anybody to be paid under the amount laid down in the national wage agreement?
We ask the Minister to bring some kind of order and sanity into his dealings with the banks because, while it is the banks we are dealing with today, it could be some other section of workers tomorrow. The Minister could then come in with a similar Bill, change the name of the association and—to show how generous he was— say that a man need not go to jail. It is laid down in the Bill that a man who is fined because of an offence under this Act shall not be liable to imprisonment. The person will be driven to imprisonment in another way. He will be made a pauper by having his home, savings and all his property taken from him.
It will never be said of the Minister that he sent a man to prison because of legislation be brought in but, as Deputy Dowling said earlier, even though it is not written into the Bill, the most junior member of the bank staff could go to prison. If he refuses to do certain things he could, under the ordinary civil law, be charged and sent to prison. While the Minister spells out in section 5 that a man may not suffer imprisonment Deputy Dowling has proved that under the ordinary civil law he could go to prison on charges arising from an alleged offence committed under this Bill. That may sound rather ambiguous, but the whole thing is ambiguous. If it is meant to promote good relations it is a hopeless failure.
We have no guarantee that in another three years or even three months' time the Minister, because of his blundering in this field, will not have to come back again with new legislation. We still boast that we uphold the right of free negotiation but there is no such thing. When any future national wage agreements are being planned the Minister may well bring in the representatives of wage and salary earners and tell them that because of the state of the economy that this is the most that can be paid. To show that he is being fair to everybody, from the lowest paid worker to the highest paid executive, he may tell them he will ensure that nobody is penalised and that everybody gets a fair deal. People are now likely to say, because of the Minister's mishandling of his Department during the last three years, that they will force the issue to the ultimate.
Again, the lower-paid worker will suffer if there is any disruption in the bank service—it is not necessary to have the banks closed—because such a strike would not help the economy to grow. We may well say to the bank people: if the Minister is proving irresponsible there is no reason why we should all lose our sense of responsibility and even at this late stage I would ask them also to accept the guidelines laid down even if they are not great guidelines because I fear that if the Minister continues his rake's progress untold damage will be done to the economy and to the trade unions in general. While I do not know whether the Irish Bank Officials' Association is registered as a trade union or not, if it is in the context of a workers' organisation it probably is and we may see some other association being similarly penalised at the rate of £10,000 a day.
We have always considered the higher bank officials to be in the better-off section but can one imagine a man in an institution smaller than the bank suffering the same penalty of £10,000 a day and lasting very long? He could not last at all. Having seized the man's goods and his meagre savings, what could the Minister do then? He would not have paid his fine. Would the Minister then come along with some other idea to ensure that this vicious piece of legislation is fully implemented and make people toe the line? The Minister's handling of the matter is shown in this Bill. Last Friday when the Minister saw the bank officials he said he would withdraw the Bill if they did certain things.