Regulation of Banks (Remuneration and Conditions of Employment) (Temporary Provisions) Bill, 1973: Second and Subsequent Stages.

Question proposed: "That the Bill be now read a Second Time."

Minister for Labour (Mr. M. O'Leary)

At the outset, I should like to emphasise that this Bill is aimed only at ensuring that the Labour Court is utilised by the banks and their employees so that wages and conditions in the banks accord with the benefits which other workers are obtaining within the provisions of the national agreement.

It is my understanding that the terms of the national agreement are in the current negotiations in line with the claims for the majority of bank officials. There is no reason why a settlement could not be agreed immediately for these officials within the terms of the national agreement. Indeed, the Government supports fully the right of all bank officials to be paid the increases which are due to them under the terms of the national agreement.

I understand that the area of contention in the case of bank officials is confined to the salaries of a minority and to that part of their claims which exceeds their entitlement under the national agreement. In view of this, it seems to me that it will be a pity if good sense does not prevail.

I should also like to emphasise that this Bill is a temporary measure designed to meet a unique situation. This legislation indicates no general principle of intervention by the Government in free collective bargaining. It is directed solely at the unique set of problems posed by the banks' settlements which twice since 1972 have been adjudged in breach of the national agreement by the Labour Court. It is to prevent a breach of the national agreement for a third time that this Bill is necessary.

Prior to our election, this Government stated that voluntary wage agreements reached on a national level were the best basis for economic development, stability and growth in jobs. We declared our commitment to a general programme of planned economic development. My colleague, the Minister for Finance, has today invited representatives of farmers, workers and employers to a meeting of an enlarged National Economic and Social Council which will help organise the economic strength of the nation in a co-operative endeavour. Economic co-operation between the organised economic interests accompanied by a true commitment to the demands of social justice in public policy by the elected Government—this is what is necessary to survive in the difficult period ahead, especially in the context of our EEC membership.

This administration is committed to a reform programme in which we declare our intention of doing nothing less than the elimination of the scourge of poverty from our society. It is our firm intention to lay the basis of a policy that would root out the basic inequality of low incomes, bad housing and poor educational facilities. It is stated in the objectives of the present national agreement that the parties to the agreement subscribe to the social and economic objectives of the achievement of full employment, real increases in wage and salary incomes, preferential treatment for wage earners in the lower-income groups, and the abolition of poverty.

Undoubtedly, the architects of the present agreement, both employers and trade union leaders, would agree that while it is not perfect it has helped appreciably the poorest, most defenceless and weakest elements in our society. That agreement stands as a tribute to the ideals of the ordinary men and women of the Irish trade union movement.

No responsible Government, least of all a Government committed as we are to ending poverty and social injustice in our society, could permit that the freely negotiated contract of Irish working people be assailed by any group, however powerful or privileged. No responsible Government can do other in its general policy than preserve an economic climate in which the good faith of the signatories of such an agreement can be sustained. It was in accepting such an obligation that, for example, my colleague, the Minister for Industry and Commerce, intervened in controlling prices just over a week ago.

Poverty cannot be ended, or in its other aspect unemployment be diminished, in conditions of "free for all" either on the profits or wages front. A short while ago in our first budget, this Government made the single biggest financial contribution in the history of our State to the economically weak. A planned redistribution of wealth in our society, a programme to begin the uphill task of equalising opportunities in our society, to banish the spectre of poverty, will not be possible if the strong and the powerful are insistent in ignoring the repercussions of their actions.

Our Government are determined to do everything possible to preserve a climate in which the national agreement may flourish. Our economic policy must be directed towards the creation of a higher standard of living. Our prices strategy will ensure a careful surveillance of factors which influence the cost of living, but the Government's duty to the existing national agreement does not end there. Where, as in the present case, the national agreement is attacked in the most direct way. Government has no choice but to act in a decisive fashion.

At this stage I must inform Senators of certain of the more recent events in relation to this unique situation to which I have referred. The record of the banks and their employees in the recent past is one of persistent disregard for the consequences of violations of the national agreements. Since January, 1972, they have twice violated the national agreements. In March, 1972, the Labour Court, in a report to the then Minister for Labour, held that an agreement negotiated by the banks and their employees, which took effect on 1st January, 1972, contravened the provisions of the first National Agreement. Again in January, 1973, the former Minister for Labour referred to the Labour Court a further agreement negotiated by the banks and their employees which took effect from 1st January, 1973.

On 6th February, 1973, the Labour Court, in an interim report to the then Minister for Labour, stated that they had been considering the views expressed by both sides but that they had not enough information at that time to come to final conclusions immediately on all the matters raised. The problem, the court said, required more information and study consultation with the Employer/Labour Conference concerning the interpretation of some provisions of the national agreement and that this was going to take some time. The court further reported that the parties had pressed them for a very early decision on the grounds that delay in paying money now due could involve hardship for the officials. As it was obvious from the foregoing that a speedy decision was not feasible, the court recommended that, to meet the difficulty referred to, payment should be made forthwith to all officials of the 4 per cent and the cost-of-living supplement to which the court considered the bank officials were entitled under the second phase provisions of clause 3 of the 1970 National Agreement, leaving the further questions for decision after the court had issued its final report.

Arising from the interim report the then Minister for Finance, in protracted correspondence with the banks and the IBOA, sought an assurance that payments beyond those set out in the report would not be made until the Government's views on the final recommendations of the Labour Court had been made known. Neither party was prepared to give such an assurance, however, beyond 28th February, 1973, despite the fact that the then Minister for Finance had repeatedly made it clear that the Government's consideration of the court's final report might not be completed by that date.

On 21st February, 1973, the then Minister for Finance wrote both to the banks and to the IBOA expressing regret that they had been unable to give the assurance sought by him and adding that, if the Labour Court's eventual findings in the matter were not acceptable to the parties, the Government would introduce legislation. Shortly after I assumed office—on 16th April, 1973, in fact—the Labour Court sent me its final report. It was, of course, too late at that stage to act.

Shortly afterward negotiations commenced again between the banks and their employees for a new agreement to take effect as from 1st June, 1973. I immediately sought meetings with the banks and the Irish Bank Officials' Association. I indicated at these meetings that what was past was past and that my concern was with the future and particularly with the negotiations which were now under way for a new banks settlement. I explained that I considered it to be the Government's duty to ensure that no settlement should imperil the existing national agreement.

Since then the Government have spared no effort at numerous meetings with both the banks and their employees to emphasise that any settlement must be within the terms of the national agreement. The Taoiseach, the Tánaiste, the Minister for Finance and I have had further meetings with each of the parties. In all, since 23rd May, 1973, there has been eight such meetings. The importance of any new settlement in the banks conforming with the national agreement was emphasised at each of these meetings. The proposition finally put to the parties by the Government was that the proposals for improved pay and conditions, when negotiated between the banks and the IBOA, should be examined by the Labour Court to ensure their compliance with the present national agreement.

The IBOA stated that they had difficulty in agreeing to the use of the Labour Court for the purpose of examining and reporting on whatever agreement emerged from the negotiations with the banks. The Government have made it clear that it is important to uphold the position and status of the Labour Court and that it is necessary to adhere to the proposition that the court should be the agency for carrying out any task of this kind.

To meet the IBOA's reservations, however, the Government suggested that the Labour Court could be assisted by two assessors to be appointed under the Industrial Relations Act from panels drawn up by the banks and the IBOA. This suggestion by the Government was made in good faith to ensure that the court would be fully conversant with all the facts.

In the event, this proposition was not acceptable to the IBOA. Neither was any assurance forthcoming that the new agreement in the banks would be within the provisions of the national agreement. There was in fact an outright refusal by the bank officials' association to put their case to the Labour Court.

The Bill at present before the House does not relate to past breaches of the national agreements by the banks; it will come into operation and expire on days to be appointed by me by order. The Bill contains provisions whereby I could, should I consider it necessary to do so, impose a stay on the salaries and other conditions of employment in the banks at any time during or following negotiations. The Bill also contains provisions whereby I would have power to prevent, by order, the banks from offering increases in wages or improvements in other conditions of employment in excess of those to which other workers are entitled under the terms of the national agreement. Banks which contravened or failed to comply with the terms of an order made by me under the Act would be guilty of an offence and would be liable, on conviction, to fines.

Legislation to deal with breaches of the national agreements by the banks was approved by the previous Government in January this year. The provisions of that legislation were broadly similar to those of the present Bill with the significant difference that the previous Government proposed that action should also be taken against bank employees and their trade union. The present Government in considering their approach were of the view that the history of Irish industrial relations shows that legislation along the lines decided upon by the previous Government is both undesirable and ineffective.

In May, 1971, Professor Michael P. Fogarty presented his report on the 'seventies bank dispute to the Minister for Labour of that time. I would recommend that report to Senators who wish to know more about the background of this unique situation. That report is an exhaustive examination of the issues, personalities and facts involved. Professor Fogarty's views are relevant—I have made this clear in the Dáil already—to the present situation. In his report he declared:

If the IBOA persist in standing out from this national effort (that is, the national agreement) and press pay claims which amount to sabotaging it, then it will have to be fought not merely by the banks but by the whole community, with whatever weapons come to hand; and those who lead this fight will rightly be able to claim that it is they, not the bank officials, who are fighting for the future standard of living of bank officials.

Again he says:

The national agreement allows for more flexibility than appears at first sight, and the IBOA have the same right as any other trade union to make what it can of this. But it has no right to contract out from arrangements agreed, in effect, by and on behalf of the people of Ireland.

That is not the view of anyone with a political axe or political bias. It is the view of an impartial commentator who examined all of the issues involved at that particular time.

As I have already said in the Dáil, I do not wish to make an order bringing this Act into operation, but whether I must do so or not will depend on the banks and the officials. At this moment the situation demands the legislation which I put before you on Second Reading.

Mr. Lenihan

I want to say straightaway that our group are supporting this necessary measure of legislation. We do so because it is essential in order to ensure that the national pay agreement system, inaugurated by the previous Government in December, 1970, and renegotiated in July, 1972, be maintained and strengthened. The pay agreement principle first came into being in the teeth of legislation introduced into the Dáil by the then Government—legislation which was opposed tooth and nail by both the Labour Party and the Fine Gael Party at that time—which had the very salutory effect of bringing employer and trade union organisations together finally to initial the first pay agreement ever achieved in our society. We believe that that achievement in December, 1970, marked a milestone in the whole history of industrial relations here in Ireland.

We had had a very unfortunate record in the immediate years prior to 1970. Senators will be well aware of the succession of industrial disputes that bedevilled our economy in the late 1960s. The pay agreement was a tremendous step forward. The first pay agreement of December, 1970, was a tremendous step forward towards a very real, practical diminution in industrial disputes which we have seen in evidence since the first pay agreement was initialled. The success of that agreement and the second pay agreement agreed upon last July is imperilled by the type of attitude that has been adopted by both the banks and the Irish Bank Officials' Association.

I wish to say this because, in my view, we are now seeing necessary and practical government from this Government for the first time. There is no point in dressing this matter up in clichés, such as that it is not interference with free collective bargaining. Of course it is, and rightly so. I am prepared to defend it. There is no point in talking a lot of drivel, as emerged in the Minister's introductory speech, about the Government's commitment to a reform programme for the achievement of social justice and hiding the essentials in this.

The essentials in this are—and rightly so, in my view—that the Government have a duty and a very basic duty, to stand up and be counted in defence of the national pay agreement that arose for the first time in this country on foot of legislation that was violently opposed, both inside and outside the Houses, by the two parties who form the present Government. It is a very minimum contribution to their basic duty as a Government that they should do this.

There is no point in coming to the Oireachtas and trying to clothe this measure in all kinds of benign clichéridden terms. This is a measure which the Government must introduce as part of their duty unless they are going to sabotage the Irish economy. They are doing so, and rightly doing so, in defence of a pay agreement which they did nothing to help to initiate in the first instance. It is important, in my view, that Governments take strong decisions like this one that interfere with—let us not put a tooth in it—the principle of free collective bargaining. The Government are rightly interfering with the principle of free collective bargaining between the banks and their employees.

So far as the Government are concerned, in any fundamental matter of this kind where they are doing their duty as a Government—whether it is dealing with the ESB employees, bank employees or any other section of the economy who propose to act in breach of a national pay agreement freely entered into by the employers of this country and the trade union movement—they will get full backing from this party. I give them that assurance. But if the importance of the step being taken here by the Government is to be properly brought home to bankers, their employees or to any other employers or employees, there is no point in trying to sugar the pill in honeyed phrases that disguise the fact that the Government are doing their duty.

The Government should for once be proud of the fact that they are bringing in something that is highly unpopular but is in accordance with their duties. That is what Governments are all about. They are not for bringing in gimmick policies or adopting gimmick policies. In performing their elementary duty, faced with a certain situation, we would fully support them in bringing in a measure, which may be unpopular in certain directions but, in my view, the Government are weakening their status by seeking to sugar the pill. Any time any alleged sacred principle or any sacrosanct piece of policy is being breached by the Government in the interests of performing their duty and in the national interest, it should be stated loud and clear in case of any ambiguity. There is no point in seeking to pretend to the employers and trade unions or to the public that the Government are doing it as part of overall objectives, such as the planned reform of our society and the pursuit of social justice. The Government are just doing their duty and there is no point seeking to disguise the fact that the Government must bring in an unpopular measure of this kind in order to ensure that the national pay agreement is preserved, so that after negotiations between employers and trade unions we can have a third pay agreement, so that the pay agreement principle can be written into our society and our economic framework. It is only in that environment, where there is a total acceptance by all concerned that a pay agreement must be protected and built on, that we can then talk about the achievement of other objectives.

There is no point in clothing this matter in honey. There is no future in this type of legislation or in embarking on steps of this kind where a Government in any way seeks to disguise what they are, in effect, doing. The Government are breaching the system of free collective bargaining and a trade union Labour Minister is doing this—rightly so, I say—on behalf of his Government. He and the Government should state this loud and clear so the people may be fully aware of the seriousness of this situation.

If any breach of the national pay agreement is allowed it will be fatal so far as our economic and social progress is concerned. Any Government who seeks to clothe this unpalatable fact in any honeyed manner, as the Minister did in his introductory remarks, is not performing his duty in bringing home to the public the essential seriousness of this and the essential national interest involved in protecting, enhancing and strengthening the national pay agreement. Unless this is brought home in clear and unambiguous terms to the people, the present Government may be laying further trouble in store for themselves. If this type of measure is seen to be clothed in ambiguous phraseology ridden with clichés and honeyed phrases the public will not take the Government seriously. It is important that the Government be taken very seriously in introducing a measure of this kind, which we fully support, but we would wish that the Government perform their duty as firmly as we are performing our duty by spelling out in unambiguous terms to everybody concerned what this means. Unless this is stopped now there will not be a successful third pay agreement and this must be achieved to finally cement the national pay agreement system and write it in firmly and forever into our social and economic plan.

Mr. Kennedy

The principal parties composing the National Employer/ Labour Conference, which body were responsible for the present national wage agreement and for the previous one, are the Federated Union of Employers, the Irish Congress of Trade Unions and various representatives of State Departments.

The Irish Congress of Trade Unions negotiated the new national wage agreement on foot of a mandate from workers throughout the country. The agreement was subsequently endorsed by a special delegate conference of Congress. At the outset, I wish to make the point that the national agreement has been accepted by all sections of the community except the banks. As a Member of this House, as treasurer of the Irish Congress of Trade Unions and as a member of the negotiating team, I accept this Bill and I will vote in support of it.

If a large and important section of the community such as the banks were to be permitted to flout the national agreement, it is certain that all other interests would feel free to do likewise. The net result of this would be not only to invalidate the existing agreement but also to render it impossible even to consider the possibility of a third national agreement. If the current agreement should be invalidated by action of the banks or any other section of the community, the result could be very serious for workers in general, for the national economy and for the nation as a whole. There is no need to detail the result of such a development. There are tens of thousands of workers who have yet to benefit from the current national wage agreement. If that agreement is broken and invalidated it is certain that many thousands will find it exceedingly difficult, if not impossible, to gain the benefit of that agreement. There would be a high degree of industrial conflict with a great deal more redundancy and unemployment. The cost of living would rise to a far greater extent than heretofore and it would have an adverse affect on the high hopes and asperations which many of us feel could arise from the setting up of a new national economic plan. If the agreement should be invalidated, good industrial relations will be damaged and this will be reflected in the new plan.

As Senators probably are aware, the Irish trade union movement at their annual meeting in Killarney decided to defer consideration of the possibility of a third national wage agreement until a special delegate conference of Congress in September. It may well be that in September the movement might decide against another national wage agreement or it might decide that another national wage agreement would be in the best interests of workers and the community as a whole. But the question of a third national wage agreement, no matter how desirable it might be proved to be, will not arise at all if the current national agreement is invalidated. The trade union movement is not committed one way or the other to another national wage agreement. We have an open mind about that at the moment, but we have not an open mind about the present national wage agreement. We are completely committed to it, as are the employers and the Government. Consequently, we must in honour do everything we possibly can to ensure that the agreement is implemented in the spirit and in the letter.

I accept this Bill. If I have any objection to it, it is because it does not go far enough. Banks should be controlled, not only in respect of salaries but also in other activities. I sincerely hope—I am voting for the Bill for this reason—that this Bill is only a first step in the nationalisation of banks. I see a distinction also between this Bill and any other type of legislation which might tend to restrict the process of free collective bargaining. In other circumstances I might vote against this Bill, but it is distinctive in view of the special position of banks in our community.

The danger is that if a national wage agreement is possible at all, it may only be achieved through the granting of enormous wage increases, as workers naturally try to safeguard the real level of their wages in face of constantly rising prices. Against this background we now have this Bill. We have the situation where this socialist Minister for Labour, in office just four months, comes into the Dáil and Seanad with a measure to forbid free wage negotiations in this so far limited sphere. This is what he is doing. We should be realistic about the matter. This Bill relates only to the banks, but it is worth asking what about other cases? Will the new national wage agreement, which we all hope will be reached, be enforced in the same way?

Section 1 reads:

If the Minister is satisfied that in order to maintain, in the national interest, general adherence to the National Agreements it is necessary for him to do so, he may by order appoint a day on which the Act shall come into operation.

Later on we find the Bill only relates to the banks, but the principle set out in section 1 is a very general one. It speaks of the Minister wishing to maintain, in the national interest, general adherence to the national agreements. We should ask the Minister, therefore, what is the situation going to be in the case of present and future wage agreements if other unions seek to gain an advantage beyond that achieved by those who are prepared to uphold the agreement? In his speech the Minister said that this Bill is a temporary measure designed to meet a unique situation and indicates no general principle of intervention by the Government in free collective bargaining. Later on he goes a good deal further than that. I am in thorough agreement with his remarks. I do not object to them at all. They seem to be eminently reasonable. He states:

If that means anything it clearly means that an attempt to break this or any other national wage agreement from any source must be resisted by the Government. The Minister should take us into his confidence about this. The attempt has been made to suggest that this is mainly dealing with banks, but it seems quite clear that the principle goes much further. The Minister also says:

Where, as in the present case the national agreement is attacked in the most direct way, Government have no choice but to act in a decisive fashion.

Again, we have the official call for Government intervention in wage negotiation. At the end of his speech he quotes, with approval, some remarks of Professor Fogarty:

But it has no right to contract out from arrangements agreed, in effect, by and on behalf of the people of Ireland.

The Minister himself says at the end of his speech:

The Government now find themselves, on behalf of the community, having to use whatever weapons come to hand in defence of the system of free collective bargaining of national agreements which has the support of both sides of industry.

Quite clearly, all these statements mean that the Government have made up their minds. I hope they have. However, I think the Minister should take us into his confidence on this and tell us that no attempt to break the national wage agreement from any source will be tolerated and that further legislation will be brought in if it is necessary in order to preserve these agreements. The Minister should state quite clearly what his attitude on this is. It is desirable that he should say this now rather than wait until perhaps some situation has arisen which it will be difficult to deal with or when it is too late.

This type of attitude was the policy of the Fianna Fáil Government all along when they were in office. I need hardly remind the Minister that his party always rejected this attitude, insisted that the national agreements were voluntary, and opposed every effort by Fianna Fáil Governments to bring some order into this difficult situation, even where quite clearly grave matters of national interest were involved. We would all agree with the suggestion in the Minister's speech that bank officials in the past have been unreasonable in their demands and indeed ruthless in imposing their selfish and sectional viewpoint on the entire country.

Senator Kennedy in his speech was being less than candid in attempting to equate this Bill merely with the banks as such and leading on from there into a dissertation on the necessity to nationalise the banks. We all know that it is the bank officials' union which is attempting to force yet further concessions from the banks. The indication is that the banks are totally responsible. That indication is in no sense justified. Why then is this Bill so one-sided, in view of the Minister's remarks about the unreasonable attitude of the officials in the past?

Let us consider just what the Bill does. It envisages a situation where members of the Irish Bank Officials' Association sit down in a room with the representatives of the banks, make demands upon them for increased wages and improved conditions and where an agreement is come to. The Minister now says in this Bill that this agreement in certain eventualities is not to be carried out, but only the representatives of the banks commit any offence. The Minister says he is meeting a unique situation. He is certainly creating a unique criminal offence. We have here an offence such as does not exist in the criminal law of this country or, I suspect of any other country.

We have a situation where, in effect, certain people have come together in a conspiracy to pay wages beyond what is allowable under the national wage agreement. They render themselves liable to a fine of £10,000 per day. This is a serious indictable offence. They are involved in this conspiracy. One side, the officials, are, one might say in legal terms, the people who have coerced the other negotiators into committing this offence, and yet the officials commit no offence at all. They are considered to be innocent. The banks who have been pushed into this situation are the guilty ones. It is a unique criminal offence, based not on any kind of reason or commonsense but on the Minister's desire not to seem to be involved in tinkering with a trade union.

The Minister's attitude in this Bill, besides being curious and creating a type of criminal offence which has never been seen before, could be very dangerous. What he is saying, in effect, is this. He is saying to the officials: "You can urge the banks to pay unduly high wages. I am going to say in this Bill to the banks that they are not to pay them, but if you officials wish to go on strike in pursuance of these claims the banks, if they pay them, will commit a criminal offence and be liable, on indictment, to a fine of £10,000 per day; but you, who have urged them into this situation, who have gone on strike to force them to pay these sums, commit no offence".

We could have a certain situation, and I hope it will not arise. Should the officials go on strike the buck is passed from the banks to the Government. The banks, obviously, are in no position to do anything. It will be a matter for the Government. Then you would have that impossible class of strike which cannot be solved by any kind of compromise. All strikes, we hear, are ultimately settled by compromise. In this instance you would have a situation where the officials were on strike, the banks were forbidden by law to give way and the Government would be committed to the hilt to defend the principle of the national wage agreement. The Minister may find, by this curious approach of having one-sided law, that he is raising trouble for himself. The results could—but I hope will not—be very damaging to the country. He is giving complete freedom of action to a body of men who, he says himself, have been in the past highly irresponsible.

The Minister may wish—he certainly does wish—to give the impression that this Bill is directed merely against the banks. In fact, it is of considerable advantage to the banks. It enables them to agree to anything that the union wants at no cost to themselves. They know they will not be allowed to pay it. It passes from the bank to the Government. We are not going to oppose the Bill but all the indications are that by dealing in this partial and half-hearted way with merely one small corner of a grave national problem the Government may well be creating very many new difficulties not merely for themselves but also for the country.

Mr. Russell

Making due allowance for the understandable shadowboxing that Senators Lenihan and Yeats have indulged in this afternoon, the House would welcome their support, certainly in the case of Senator Lenihan, for the measure which the Government are introducing. Senator Lenihan has certainly made it quite clear, and Senator Yeats has done so by inference, that if there had not been a change of Government Fianna Fáil would be introducing a somewhat similar measure, the only difference apparently being that the Fianna Fáil Bill would have included sanction against the bank employees as well as the banks themselves. It is a matter of legitimate opinion and possibly disagreement which would be the more effective measure. I hope time will not be called on to judge the issue, that good sense will prevail between the banks and their employees and that a settlement will be reached within the terms of the national agreement that would make it unnecessary for the Minister to make any order under the terms of this Bill.

Senator Lenihan described the Minister's sugar coating of the Bill —fair enough comment; the bitter pill is—all the speakers so far have referred to the fact—that unless we ensure continuing stability in wages, incomes and prices we are not going to have any social justice; economic development or increased employment. The two go hand in hand. By bringing in this Bill after a few months in office the Government have shown their decisiveness in tackling what is a unique situation, which the Minister described but which Senator Kennedy very rightly said was a direct attack on an agreement entered into voluntarily by the vast majority of the organisations representing the employers and organised labour.

Our first priority as one of the Houses of the Oireachtas, representing all sections of the community, is our duty to support the Government in supporting the national wage agreement. Fianna Fáil deserve credit, while in office, for doing what they did to bring in the national wage agreement of 1970. It was a rather belated agreement when we remember the concern of the country at large between 1966 and 1970 at the way the economic situation was deteriorating and prices getting completely out of control. Nevertheless, it was a very welcome settlement.

That settlement was the basis on which all future settlements should be based in the years ahead. Our duty is to safeguard the present national wage agreement. Obviously we cannot do anything about a future national wage agreement. There may not be one, as Senator Kennedy has pointed out. I am one of the people who fervently hope there will be. I believe that any economic and social advance must be based on a national wage agreement. It is the duty of both Houses of the Oireachtas to do everything they can to preserve that.

We need not waste a lot of rhetoric in seeking to score points from one side of the House against the other. The basic fact is that every section of the community, certainly the vast majority of public representatives, support the Government on this, in many ways unpleasant, measure. Nobody would like the duty of bringing it in, particularly a Minister who is only a couple of months in office. It must be quite a difficult operation. It says much for his courage and determination, and the determination of the Government to control the situation in the interest of all the community, that this Bill is being brought forward today.

The Fine Gael Party have already given evidence of their wholehearted support for this Bill. I confirm that support. Notwithstanding some criticism that may be levelled at the reason behind the Bill, it is all part of the play of politics. I would say that the vast majority of the Members of this House want a national wage agreement to remain unbroken.

Let us be fair about it. If there is another unique situation nobody can say that we are not dealing in this case with a powerful economic group, possibly one of the most powerful in the country. This House should be prepared to stand behind the architects of the national wage agreement; we should not be afraid to do so. Senator Lenihan said, quite rightly, that it is the job of a Government to govern. This Government are giving clear indication of their intention to do that. I hope this House will fully support the Minister on this Bill.

Mrs. Robinson

I should just like to make one legal point in relation to this Bill. Looking at the terms of it I wonder whether it is within the powers of the Oireachtas, as it is imprecisely framed. I do this with some trepidation because it may be a matter which the Minister has already cleared up. If not I should be grateful for a reply on the point.

I refer to Article 15 of the Constitution and to the fact that the Oireachtas is not a sovereign legislature but must act within the limits of the Constitution and that Article 15.5, provides that the Oireachtas shall not declare acts to be infringements of the law which were not so at the date of their commission. It seems to me that the wording there is slightly ambiguous. "Shall not declare acts to be infringements of the law."

In this Bill it would appear that the purpose is to declare that agreements entered into or payments made which contravene the national agreement can be subsequently prohibited either by order of the Minister under section 4 or temporarily under section 3. This would seem to me to make them illegal and open to the interpretation that they are at that point infringements of the law in the sense that they are not valid agreements. I do not think that it is not possible for the Government to impose this form of control in the situation which has been outlined by other speakers but I am not entirely satisfied that this Bill is free from any ambiguity that it may contravene the Constitution.

The Bill does not declare explicitly that the agreements or payments made or to be made by the banks to their employees, which go beyond the limits of the national agreement are infringements of the law. There is not an explicit direct declaration of that but the effect of the Bill appears to make such agreements infringements of the law. For the purposes of the law an agreement is an Act. So the word "act" here is governed merely by an agreement. If this is prohibited by order of the Minister and if the result of contravention of such an order is quite heavy fines on the banks concerned then such an agreement would appear to be illegal. If an agreement of that sort is illegal then is it not an infringement of the law? If it is an infringement of the law is it not a retrospective infringement of the law since, as I understand it, such agreement would be legal prior to the operation of this act? That is the only question which I would like to ask at this stage, whether this matter has been considered by the Department and whether it has been clarified.

Mr. Harte

It is a rather sad day when a group of trade unionists, together with their employers, embark on a course of action that would leave an opportunity open to the third party to enter the field of free collective bargaining. This is what has happened in this case. Trade unionists, who are organised into the Irish Congress of Trade unions and who have to work down through to the ground floor have, over the past 12 or 15 years, embarked on a course of action in order to condition the minds of the people to accept certain situations which were not very palatable. When the Fianna Fáil Government introduced the National Productivity Committee management organisations set up seminars and the trade unions also set up seminars to run concurrently to educate people into the broad concept of economics. There was, then, a natural conflict running through the minds of the workers with their general officers, such as Senator Kennedy. Speaking in the broad concept of economics Senator Kennedy automatically comes into conflict with his own particular workers on the floor who want to think in terms of what the size of the cake is in the particular industry to which he is attached.

If this pattern had been allowed without the general officers getting into conflict explaining the broader concepts, encouraging the people to embark on courses of education to enlighten them on what was the best approach in terms of assuring for the low-paid workers, and for themselves, a definite policy towards real pay growth, the position would have been that the major bodies, for example, the firm I represent, or one of them, at any time apart, from the banks, could if there was a free-for-all have got the benefit of a spill-over from what might be considered the norm at the particular time.

In the interests of the lower paid workers a lot of this independence had to be surrendered and the exclusive and separate attitudes of Trade Unions had to be won over to the idea that the only way to serve the needs of the lower paid worker was to pursue a course of action on a joint basis. This did not matter as ultimately the compromise arising from this would come out of the degree of power that each side could exercise on the other. The evidence of that is in the fact that in the national wage agreements there are escalator clauses, productivity clauses, and anomaly clauses. All of these are available to the bank officials and to the employers to make concessions under the various headings without transgressing the national wage agreement or embarking on a course of action that will ultimately, apart from inflaming the passions of the lower paid workers, jeopardise any opportunity we might have in the future of working towards a policy, not an income policy in the sense that some people think of it, but a wages policy. The incomes policy we would desire to evolve from these national wage agreements would control income from rents, gambling on the stock exchange, farm incomes or any professional fees. In order to work towards that the general body of trade unions have to stop crowing in their own particular bailiwick and come into line to work towards a harmonisation of their efforts largely for the benefit of the lower paid workers.

I find it astonishing that presumably educated people, such as bank officials, the investors of capital and those involved in negotiations such as Dr. Whitaker, Professor Lynch, Charlie McCarthy, John McAuley, G.P. Jackson, E.J. Gray and many other experts, advised us down the years that successive income increases, by the way they were approached, were not only the cause of inflation but were also the cause of accelerating it. They urged the promotion of a general understanding of the national needs and a closer and more orderly relationship between incomes and output. Running side by side with this question there was the problem of whether we could get control over the profits, ground rents, professional fees, et cetera. Would the trade unions, in the interests of the community, be prepared to surrender some of their independence or exclusiveness in order to progress towards this growth in real incomes and towards control over strong sections of the community who have taken more out of the community than they were entitled to? As a result of the way they approached this question they were getting inflationary incomes and this was having dangerous consequences in the sense of destroying competitiveness. No matter in what type of society we live there has to be some type of control over the way we approach the question of wages and conditions, et cetera.

Another requirement laid down by those experts was that there would have to be a definite commitment on the part of the Federation of Irish Industries, the Irish Congress of Trade Unions and the Government to make sure it did not become difficult for people to enter into national wage agreements. This should be done by free negotiation between the parties concerned, the employers and representatives of the trade union groups jointly. When they sit down to discuss this the third party should merely have a holding interest and should not be the influencing factor. When one particular national wage agreement was being negotiated the last Government desired to give it legal backing after it was negotiated. This was not acceptable to the trade union movement as we were very disturbed that a third party, particularly a fellow trade unionist, could embark on a course of action that could jeopardise all the efforts that had been made by our people in the past.

We do not agree with Government intervention but, coupled with the endeavours of the Minister for Industry and Commerce, the budget and the consequent action of the various Ministers in the social field should satisfy to some extent the requirements we need to obtain control over profits and farm incomes, incomes from rents, professional fees, et cetera.

We hope that the people in the banks will see reason and will realise that the Bill is designed so as to protect the interests of the community as a whole. In doing so, they themselves, having got away with exceeding the limit on two occasions, will now come to realise that if they do not take the advice and refer the matter to the Labour Court on a voluntary basis and it becomes necessary to enforce the law, not only will they have hindered the people who are investors in their banks, who are members of the community and have to live under national wage agreements, but they will also have hindered the opportunities of the lower paid worker, the blind worker and other handicapped workers, who have to depend on some controlled and ordered way of getting their share of the national wealth.

Apart from the national wage agreement, it is important to remember that we will always have low-paid workers among us. There are two good reasons for it. The first reason is that the employer may not be able to pay the full amount of the award. We hope that type of employer is in the minority. The second reason is that workers in some types of employment are not organised. If people find themselves in these two categories and the Government find it difficult to help them out the bank officials should not place themselves in the position where they can worsen the position of either the low-paid workers or the other categories of workers who cannot get a grip on the purse-strings as easily as other categories of workers can.

The trade unions, in the course of settling down to discuss the national pay agreement, had regard to the question of rising prices. This point was driven home on many occasions to the previous Government and I should like to draw the attention of the present Government to it. Some action has been taken on prices but we have always stated, and we should like to reiterate it, that prices cannot be controlled by the activities of trade unions or by competitiveness. They can only be controlled by political action. We hope that the limited action the Minister has taken— limited because of the problem of trying to control the price of imports —will go some way towards controlling some of the other elements that are involved in this question of incomes.

It is astonishing that we find ourselves in the present position with regard to the national wage agreement. It did not start off on the basis of productivity and so forth. We have always had to argue over the question of the cost of living up to 1961. Around 1964 a new criterion was introduced whereby there would be a rise of the national income per head of the working population. This was the way we were supposed to measure some acceptable increase in the average wage allowance. We went along with that and then went a step further. In 1965, when the Employer/ Labour Conference talks broke down, the Irish Congress of Trade Unions at their annual conference passed a resolution that the unions, even though they had to go it alone, should not seek an increase in excess of 20s a week. The discipline that was shown over the following period to get that amount and the orderly way in which it was approached were a revelation in the sense that here was a group of people who had prior to then engaged in a free-for-all and maybe damaged some of their own comrades by getting the benefits of the spill-over where they were strong. The spill-over often amounted to 4 per cent and 10 per cent over what the lower-paid could realise.

To think that a group of people, despite no binding control on them, could go out and act and behave responsibly was a new concept in this country. The least they can do is to ask the bank officials and their employers to try, in the interests of the community, to exercise the necessary controls. If they do not do so, then they reach the point where they think they have full exclusive right to opt out of society to the extent that they will hinder the efforts made by other people to reach very wholesome and desirable objectives in the shape of getting control over rising prices, et cetera.

With regard to the country, it is not very wholesome to talk about the broad concepts of economics to the fellow downstairs. You have got to convince him and reason him around it. He wants to know what prices are and how he is going to afford them. I have often heard young Jim Larkin make that remark. The fellow downstairs very often talks in terms of the price of bread and says that the price of a loaf of bread to him is the same as it is to a bank official or any other type of worker. Young Jim Larkin very often had to remind people that they were not paid in loaves. It is through this practical experience of trying to induce people to contain themselves that, ultimately, the objectives that are desirable and which they have asked us to pursue can; in fact, be realised. This is how we came to accept national wage agreements. We do not propose, since there is a wage agreement in existence, to sit idly by while observing people opting out of the agreement and getting something which the poorer sections of the community are to be denied.

I believe the Minister is tackling the problem in the right way. It is regrettable that one trade unionist has to stand up to try not so much to condemn the other person for his actions but to try to convince him that the owners of their own banks, when the question of inflation arose, put on a credit squeeze because they used the argument that if they did not there would be further inflation. When they put the credit squeeze on they put it on the other workers over whom they are now trying to gain an advantage. These are some of the points that should be driven home to the people in the banks so that they will regulate their demands in accordance with what is good for the economy and for the community as a whole.

Finally, the bank officials made an observation that the Labour Court did not understand banks. I should like to inform them that I do not understand banks either. I do not know how to fly a plane but I do not have to know how to fly a plane to be able to represent the people who do, if I have the facts. It is nonsense to say that the Labour Court does not understand the banks. If the Labour Court can understand the problems of pilots and other highly-skilled people I have no doubt they will be able to understand the problems of the bank officials. In this respect, the bank officials should understand that nobody owes them any more than their just entitlement. That applies also to the other people I mentioned earlier on. If nationalisation were one of the ways that would help us to reach the situation where we would get this control then, I would be in favour of nationalisation. However, that is something for another day.

I have tried to find out the thinking of many of my fellow trade unionists and I am quite satisfied that the bank officials are offending established public opinion. For that and the other reasons I have mentioned I would ask the bank officials to subjugate some of their feelings in the interest of the community as a whole.

Dr. Browne

I would make it clear from the beginning that I oppose this Bill. It saddens me to see it presented by a socialist Labour man, trade union official, a man with considerable understanding of the whole socioeconomic factors which determine the kind of society in which we live. I understood him to be a good Marxist in his day. He knows that he is now being trotted in in harness, in pair with the Minister for Industry and Commerce, Deputy Keating, to carry out the very conservative policies of the Cosgrave Government. I want to make it clear, as I did before, that I am not blaming the Cosgrave Government at all. Good luck to the Taoiseach, Deputy Cosgrave. He has got power, without having bothered to get a majority in Parliament, because of the betrayal of the Labour socialist ideas of a number of our colleagues in the Labour Party.

The Labour Party's policy on this matter of free collective bargaining, as far as I know, is still unchanged. The right to free collective bargaining is the issue on which we on a number of occasions, as Senator Lenihan pointed out, opposed a number of pieces of legislation brought in bona fide by the Fianna Fáil Government as some kind of patchwork to the private enterprise capitalist system in which they believed ticking over. I must congratulate Senator Lenihan for his honesty in stripping the last fig-leaf of socialism from the unfortunate Minister in his present role as a convinced—convinced, is that the right word?—conservative capitalist Minister for Labour who believes that this is the correct way in which to achieve social justice for the workers. But three years ago there was only a socialist solution. Now apparently there is a conservative solution after all. I do not believe so.

I am also saddened by the intervention by the two trade union officials, Senator Kennedy and Senator Harte because I have too much respect for them to believe that they believe in the naïve simplistic assessment of the position which they put forward. They could not believe it, not if their IQ is above the low sixties, and I think it is.

I can understand the Senator Russells and the Senator Guinnesses—whatever his name is—or the Senator McGraths, these men who have done very well out of the capitalist system, getting up to defend it and to stand in the breach when, thank heavens, it is under such great pressure. The world over, capitalism in crisis, the dollar in crisis, the franc in crisis, the mark in crisis, sterling in crisis. And at this time, for a serious socialist, as I always believed Deputy O'Leary to be, to try to help to keep this tottering edifice of European and western capitalism in existence is particularly sad.

How much admiration all of us have who are seriously convinced of the socialist solution to ideas to see the socialist Allende in Chile going into the parliamentary system and doing what he can to destroy the capitalist system from within Parliament. This is something that Deputy O'Leary, the Minister, and his colleagues could have done. Instead of that they have reneged on socialism. They have betrayed the cause of Labour in Ireland and gone in to hedge, to strengthen the tottering ruins of the capitalist system in Ireland. Leaving aside this dispute, the blind, as Senator Harte mentioned, the old age pensioners, the orphans are all the victims of this society which the Minister is defending here and which Senators Kennedy and Harte are also defending. There are high unemployment, education, health, social welfare problems about which nothing is being done.

I have had some experience of bank disputes. Deputy O'Brien was kind enough to say when I was opposing the EEC that there was a certain kind of consistency in my behaviour. Well, there is also a certain element of consistency in my behaviour here, too, because I was in at the beginning of this in 1949 or 1950 when there was another bank dispute. We were sitting round the table at that stage in Cabinet and there was another Labour Deputy acting as Taoiseach and he said: "We can sign this order," and on finding out what the order was— it was an order to authorise the banks to close, to lock out their workers: that is effectively what I said it was —I, as a Cabinet Minister, dissented. Knowing that they had to have unanimity about that particular order, they could not go ahead with the order at that time. The Taoiseach, Mr. Costello, had to go back and negotiate further because they could not get the banker's order to close the banks.

That is going back a long time. I did not feel that I could or should collaborate in the lock-out of workers. I do not care who they are, they happen to be workers as opposed to employers. I make a very clear distinction between the two. One to me is the enemy; the other is my friend.

We know quite well that there is a certain petty, mean streak in all of us who have peasant origins and were brought up in rural communities like myself. We know quite well the attitude we all had to the bank officials. They were a step above us. Most of us were taught to be jealous of them. Poor devils, the truth of course was that they were forced to adopt a status in society which they could not pay for of joining the right clubs, marrying the right woman, living in the right streets, et cetera. They did not belong to a militant working class background.

Whatever happened—and I think myself it was the intervention of Titterington, their secretary—this group of workers decided to take on the banks whom the Minister is now pretending he is taking on. Senators Kennedy and Harte said he is pretending he is taking them on. They are not taking on the banks. They are taking on the bank officials. They are taking on the workers in the banks. They know that as well as I do. The rest of it is all humbug.

This is a union, an association, which has this added advantage that it encompasses all the workers in the whole banking industry and not directors or shareholders. That seems to me to be something on the lines of the OBU, an attempt towards the development of that situation, the one big union, where there were not classes of unions but one union concerned with all the classes, all the groups of workers within an industry. As long as the wealthier or the more powerful of the groups within that union do not monopolise the power positions, that seems to me to be an ideal development in relation to union activity in Ireland.

What we are attempting to do in this Bill, and what Senators Kennedy and Harte are supporting, is a sophisticated form of strike-breaking. We are trying to entice a section of the workers to betray their colleagues because they are getting a little bit better paid—better paid or a damned sight better paid, I do not care which. That is what we are trying to do.

Deputy O'Leary, the Minister, is attempting to get a section of the banking workers to blackleg, to scab, and so are Senators Kennedy and Harte. If they do not know that they do not know their job. Did anybody see the paper this morning? While the Dáil debated this Bill and agreed to it unanimously for the defence of the nation to control salaries going to these men, this John A. Ryan, Governor of the Bank of Ireland, makes his report:

This has been a successful year for the bank with profit after deduction of interest on Loan Stocks of £10,689,739 compared with £7,448,000 last year, and after tax profit attributable to Stockholders of £5,332,028 compared with £3,510,622 last year.

He then goes on to say:

The directors have recommended a final dividend of 14p making a total of 18p for the year ending 31st March, 1973, compared with 15½ for the previous year.

That is what he thinks of the threat against the bank by the Minister. They are worried about this Bill. I am sure they are.

Senator Kennedy said something so silly that it is difficult to believe I heard him. He said he thought this Bill was the first step towards the nationalisation of the banks. If Senator Kennedy believes that, then I am certain he believes in fairies. How dare he be so impertinent as to come in here, a man of his standing and position in our society, and make such a silly statement? There was no question that this Bill was anywhere near threatening the bank profits or threatening the position of directors or shareholders in the banks. It very carefully avoids doing that.

This Bill is out of the same stable as the one that the Minister and myself opposed in 1966 and 1968—the Bill under which Fianna Fáil locked up some ESB workers. We remember well it was the late Seán Lemass who brought it in. We said we would go to jail by advocating strike action by the ESB workers at that time—Ringsend was my constituency—that if they put the workers in jail we would advocate strike and go to jail with them.

That is the vintage this Bill belongs to. Fianna Fáil have a right to feel aggrieved at the studied insolence of the Minister coming in here and lecturing them on the need for collaboration and help to save the nation in its hour of need. We gave them no help in the Labour movement. I was proud that we gave them no help at that time. We opposed them, contradicted them and defied them, and the Minister, to his credit, was one of the people who did it. Unregenerate youth, I suppose, sowing his wild oats. That is all over now.

Then, of course, there was the threat which brought about this national wage agreement—the threat of prices and incomes legislation. It was effectively a form of blackmail by the Government at the time. Good luck to him, Senator Lenihan said we were under no illusions, we were interfering with free collective bargaining. What is happening to this society? What has happened to both the major parties who profess to believe in private enterprise capitalism? How long I have listened to the virtues of it—free democracy, not like the Iron Curtain countries or the restriction on liberty of the individual in socialist societies. Where has all that rubbish gone now? Out the window. Free private enterprise: these people are being enterprising—they are using private enterprise in order to do better for themselves because they work in a private enterprise society.

It is not the job of a socialist to work the capitalist system; it is the job of a socialist to wreck it. Socialists do not believe in capitalism. They do not believe it can be made to work. They do not believe that capitalists can make it work—and that should be clear to anybody. Look at America at the moment, the leading capitalist country in the world, near to bankruptcy—certainly in a very serious economic condition— and at Britain and most of these other post-imperialist countries.

Why should we make any attempt to help them work a system which brings so few benefits to the worker and brings so much to the few private individuals who believe in it and can operate it and who, by controlling the Press and the media in different ways, are able to keep it going long after it should have been scrapped? Remember I am not romancing. I am dealing with the facts. Remember those famous figures, 75 per cent of the wealth belonging to 5 or 6 per cent of the community here. How is the worker to get more of the 75 per cent? What is the bank official doing except getting more of that 75 per cent by this attempt to get the maximum that he can get of the £10,689,000 from these people, Mr. John A. Ryan and his friends, and this in spite of the horrified jeers or exclamations of Senators Kennedy and Harte, because they betray the worker, by asking for higher wages, by asking for better gains for the job they are doing. I suspect there is this difference. There is obviously improved productivity here from £7 million-odd to £10 million-odd. The difference between the trade unions, whom Senator Kennedy represents is, as far as I can see, that in relation to the banks, the bank officials are making certain that they get a fair cut of any increased wealth coming from better productivity. The Irish Congress of Trade Unions have not succeeded in doing the same thing for their workers. That money which should have gone to the workers because of increased productivity has instead gone to the managers, owners of the industries in the form of increased profits. That I will show pretty conclusively.

Senator Harte appears to be impressed by the other captive Labour leader on the Fine Gael tandem, Deputy Keating, Minister for Industry and Commerce, in his promise about prices. Senator Harte appears to believe that Deputy Keating, the Minister, will control prices. As I have said elsewhere, nobody knows better than Deputy Keating, another brilliant Marxist economist, that there is not the shadow of a hope in hell of our controlling prices except for the interregnum during which the trade union leadership—it appears from what I have heard here today—is going to mislead the workers into an agreement on the understanding that there will be fixed prices over a long period. That is the purpose of the stroke of a pen. Ted Heath—dear old Ted—probably told him about it. What happened to the strokes of his pen? Up to his eyebrows with inflation at the present time, as will Deputy Keating find himself, too.

I do not care two damns about Deputy Keating or Deputy O'Leary, the Ministers. I am concerned for the people who will suffer because of their betrayal of their trust as labour leaders, because prices will rise, because the pensioner, the widow, the orphan, the various social welfare groups, the ordinary worker, are going to go on suffering in this uncontrolled inflationary prices spiral.

We know quite well that in spite of what the Minister for Industry and Commerce says, the Taoiseach has told us there cannot be control of prices. Deputy Ryan, the Minister for Finance, told us the same thing. There cannot be permanent price control. In his famous secret deal with the bankers—the bankers incidentally are now protesting that they are being flagellated so cruelly —Deputy FitzGerald, the Minister for Foreign Affairs—that was a nice move, incidentally, by the Taoiseach putting him into Brussels, Finland and all points north, south, east and west except Dublin—made it clear that there could only be very temporary price control.

Deputy Keating made it abundantly clear during his superb campaign against the Common Market that there must be inflation, that there must be price rises, that national sovereignty would be subordinated to Brussels' needs and for that reason we would not be able to do the things we wanted to do in relation to price control because of devaluation, European inflation, the cost of raw materials, most of which we import, for many reasons which we all know well and which—I will not insult your intelligence by enumerating. I find it difficult to believe Deputy Harte seriously praises the pretence that we could control prices.

The Federated Union of Employers have told us prices cannot be controlled. Nobody believes prices can be controlled except a couple of very important trade union officials, Deputy Kennedy and Deputy Harte. This is most serious. They are going to negotiate on an assumption which they must know, which we have already shown, is an invalid assumption, is a wrong assumption. It is an assumption which they have no right to make.

This Bill is putting a big stick into the delighted hand of the bankers with which they can go to the workers and say: "We would love to give you all this money but look at the position we are in." What a play is being made of the breach of the national wage agreement by the IBOA. Of course, they are not members of congress; they are not party to the agreement. They are not legally bound to that agreement. They are breaking no agreement that they made. If these other people made an agreement less satisfactory than that which is available by better negotiators, more determined negotiators, then why should they worry about the failure of the other trade union leadership to the extent that it failed?

I suspect that this rather petty attempt to introduce this note of jealousy of bank officials whose origins I have explained will be about as unsuccessful in codding the mass of the workers as was the attempt to sell them Mr. O'Higgins as President by giving them free access to James Connolly's Liberty Hall. They are much more intelligent than a lot of people give them credit for. After what Senator Lenihan has stated, I wonder if the Minister still holds he is not interfering with free collective bargaining? Why should a Labour Minister attempt to break a union and give power to the State and the courts to interfere with free collective bargaining—this is the case Deputy O'Leary and myself made so frequently—while, at the same time, taking no steps whatever to deal with the astronomical profits made in recent years by various companies? Are they not important at all? I heard Mr. Ruairí Roberts in a discussion in which he took the Kennedy line talking about a privileged class. His suggestion was that the group within this association who are getting a better wage deal, salary deal, whatever you wish to call it, were in a privileged class. As I have already stated, they are workers. If the trade union leaders and the Minister for Labour are looking for a privileged class, why not look to Mr. Ryan, the Governor of the Bank of Ireland, and his friends, and, further, why not talk to these people? Who is making all the money? These unfortunate people who instead of getting £2,000 are getting £2,500, or £3,500 instead of £3,000, or £2,000 instead of £1,500 —in the context of this kind of statistics of the banks pre-tax profits— 1972, £21 million, in round figures, 1973, £28 million; percentage increase 33? per cent; total assets about two billion. I have run out of words. Take £134,000 from one billion, 695,000 million pounds. Total deposits gone up by 28 per cent; total advances 34 per cent; shareholders' funds up by 14 per cent; total assets up by 25.8 per cent. Profit after tax in 1972, Bank of Ireland, £3.5 million; in 1973 £5.3 million; profit after tax up by 51 per cent; dividends up from £1.1 million to £1.3 million. Allied Irish Banks, profit after tax rose from £3.6 to £5.2 million—up by 43 per cent. If Senator Mullen were here he would be glad to get a 43 per cent rise in wages for his workers in the next wage agreement.

Incidentally, 18 per cent of the stock of Allied Irish Banks is held outside the country. I do not think we should worry ourselves too much about protecting them. Also, one of the nominees of the Taoiseach owns quite a lot of stock in the Bank of Ireland and so on.

Mr. M. O'Leary

Is that Senator Mullen?

Dr. Browne

I do not think there is any need for me to dispose of the case made by the Minister that he was not interfering with free collective bargaining. Senator Lenihan, in a very honest way, disposed of that. In relation to section 4 (2) (a) where it states:

An order under this section in relation to one or more banks and to one or more classes of employee....

I am interested in the classes of employee. Could the employee be convicted under section 5 and be directed to pay a fine? Perhaps the Minister could deal with that in his reply or we could deal with it when we are going through Committee Stage. I am interested to know whether this could, in any way, be used against employees even as it is without changing it in any way.

I can see that I am in a minority here. I am used to that, but it is a nice thought that I am only a minority in this tiny little country. The socialism that I believe in which seeks the ending of the capitalist system, the ending of the social injustices associated with capitalism, has gone on apace throughout the world. Most of the people who have fought for socialism have not lost courage in face of considerable opposition as some of my comrades have lost faith. Because of that a third of the world, or nearly half of the world, is socialist. People are the better of it. The other half of the world, I suspect, is rapidly hurrying that way.

Mr. Mullen

First of all, I must make comments on the explanatory memorandum. Under the heading, "Section 3", there is the following:

...The Labour Court will examine the agreement to determine whether its terms are in accordance with the provisions or purposes of the National Agreements.

I am inquiring about this matter because I assume that the reference here is to existing national agreements. I am making this point deliberately, because I heard more than one speaker refer to the third national agreement. I particularly noticed that Senator Browne, during the course of his speech, made reference to the selling out on the part of two of my colleagues, namely, Senator Fintan Kennedy and Senator Harte. It is only right and proper that the position should be understood. Obviously, Senator Browne is not aware of the situation, despite what Senator Kennedy said.

The Irish Congress of Trade Unions has not agreed to enter into negotiations in connection with another national wage agreement. The decision which was taken last week in Killarney is simply to arrange a special delegate conference for the purpose of giving consideration to whether or not they would enter into negotiations for another national wage agreement. It is intended, in the intervening period, to afford each union an opportunity of assessing the situation, and have regard to our experience in relation to the two preceding national wage agreements. I hope I have made the position clear. There is no question of a sell-out.

Under the heading "Section 5", there is reference to "... a person convicted under the Act ... will not be liable to imprisonment ..." Having regard to that, I was rather intrigued to hear Senator Yeats make one or two queries. He queried the possible extension of this Bill to other areas. He also wanted to know what would happen if others sought to gain advantage. I considered that Senator Yeats was yearning for this situation to come about by the way he spoke. It seems to me that he has a very short memory or else he is not fully conversant with the activities of the previous Government when they tried —and more or less succeeded—to sabotage a national wage agreement by the threat of law enforcement. Again, referring to this matter in case there is any doubt about it, Senator Browne can be assured that the trade union movement, as I understand it, will not tolerate legislation which will restrict their activities.

What about the banks you can ask. What is so special about the banks, the bank owners and bank employees? Incidentally, Senator Browne is incorrect when he says that the bank association encompasses all bank workers. That is not correct. There are bank porters and cleaners who are included by the national wage agreement. They can very well ask what is so special about the bank owners and officials that they can combine and divide up the spoils. There are a few points in this Bill with which I do not agree. One of them was mentioned by my colleague. He said he hoped this Bill was a step towards the eventual nationalisation of the banks. Senator Browne is somewhat cynical about this matter.

Dr. Browne

I laughed out loud.

Mr. Mullen

Fair enough, but the Bill should have gone further in the matter of control of profits. We talk a lot about price control. The price of money is gone beyond comprehension. Everybody knows this.

I have been wondering about the reaction of the people to this Bill. You have a situation where people are concerned about what the banks will do. Few of us fail to realise that the banks are adopting a Jekyll and Hyde attitude in this matter. The banks not only have their money in banking, but they have interests in many types of industry. In many cases they completely control the industry. They can say to the employees in that industry "Be satisfied with the national wage agreement".

I see nothing wrong in any group of workers setting about obtaining increases in wages. They are quite entitled to do this. But it is a bit off-beam if thousands of workers affiliated to the Irish Congress of Trade Unions do not conform with an agreement made in the parliament of the Irish Congress of Trade nions. Some unions do not accept, some unions do, but, finally, a decision is taken and the unions concerned have to conform with the decision taken. This is what has been happening in relation to the national wage agreement. This will be the way in which this whole matter will be processed, whether or not there will be a third national wage agreement. What is wrong in requiring the banks' association to become part of that trade union family? I will never agree with anybody who sets about disrupting the trade union family. I see nothing wrong with the banks' association affiliation. They would not be the first set of professional workers that saw fit to join the Irish Congress of Trade Unions. The door is there for them if they want to come in, and the areas of negotiation can be utilised for the benefit of all the workers. Let not the situation be that they are not concerned for other people.

Senator Browne also mentioned in a snide way the free access to Liberty Hall. Everybody who has the use of Liberty Hall, no matter to what political party they belong to, pay rent.

Dr. West

It seems to me that, as other speakers have pointed out, this is not a simple question of divorcing the requests by the bank officials for better remuneration from the banks' own financial position. I see, as other speakers pointed out, the banks making an enormous profit. Therefore, I have considerable sympathy with the bank officials when they apply for a greater share in the profit which is being made. One of the difficulties the Government face is the necessity to hammer out some sort of pay agreement. We cannot have an agreement on pay increases without having an agreement on profits and without having some form of dividend control. To have one without the other is a meaningless operation. I am certain that this is what is necessary in dealing with our inflationary situation. We must have control of profits. We must have control of dividends. We must incorporate productivity agreements in any national wage agreement which is hammered out.

The banks' profit is a tremendous one. It is made not only at the expense of the bank officials, or their labour, but also at the expense of the public. It is in the national interest that this profit should be controlled by Government. We should ask for a smaller differential in the banking operations between the interest on loans which they give and the interest paid on deposit. We should ask for interest on current accounts. This smaller differential between the interest on loans and the interest on deposits will certainly benefit the country as a whole and will benefit the person either depositing money in the bank or borrowing money from the bank, and it would be in the national interest. The Government should take steps to do something to control a situation which is not a monopoly, but we have two large units which are so important to our national economy that it is not right that they should be free to make such enormous profits without Government intervention and without some form of overseeing, whether it is Government control through the Central Bank, some form of nationalisation or some other means of control. The situation at the moment is not one which is good for the country as a whole. Perhaps the Government——

An Cathaoirleach

May I interrupt the Senator? It has already been pointed out that only passing references should be made to such questions as possible nationalisation of the banks. It is only part of the background to the Bill and should not be made the main content of the contribution to the debate.

Dr. West

I take the Cathaoirleach's point, but I do not think we can talk about the problems which this Bill is dealing with without putting them in some sort of context. I should just like to suggest that the controls could be worked out by the Central Bank. I do not feel that, if that is not done, then we will be faced with the situation again, where the bank officials see enormous profits being made, feel that they should get a higher share of these profits and will be pressing for wage claims which will not fall into the lines worked out under the national wage agreement. A national agreement is essential, but it should incorporate productivity increases and should definitely incorporate profit control. The Government must realise that it is not a straight forward matter to allow these systems to operate without any form of overseeing. Their effect on the national situation is far too serious. We have got to work towards more Government control in this situation. I have no doubt that that, basically is the way to set about solving these problems.

I am not happy about many of the operations of the bank. For example, the growth of credit unions is due to the fact that the banks have neglected the small investor. The credit unions are successful and they deserve a tribute from us. Their labour is mainly voluntary and they have certain legislation allowing them interest free facilities, which again is quite right and proper. The credit unions are making a great success of their operations, but it does show that the banks have fallen down and they have not cared about the small investor.

As Senator Mullen said, banks have a tremendous stake in other industries. In many cases they have a controlling stake. Therefore, their influence on our economy is such that they should be subject to more Government control. I would favour moving to a position generally which was more a socialist one, and one in which these sort of problems were dealt with by the Government through legislation before they arose and we were not continually reaching crisis situations. If we have a national wage agreement we have got to stick to it but that agreement has got to be fair. It has to incorporate productivity agreements. If it comes to a closure of the banks, we can work out, if necessary through the post offices and building societies, a system of monetary exchange by making use of the Central Bank to act as a clearing house for cheques drawn on the post office or drafts made on a building society. I have no doubt the economy will survive this sort of situation. The basis of the current problem is the fact that we have not got enough control on the profits and dividends that these two large banking groups are making.

Mr. Butler

I will be brief, but I rise because I am president of a trade union which is not affiliated to the Irish Congress of Trade Unions. I rise because of the remarks made by Senator Browne and the bank officials' union claiming that they are not tied by the national agreement. Our union, even though not affiliated to the Irish Congress of Trade Unions, sat and discussed this problem and felt we were bound by the national agreement. We felt that we should look at it, see if any anomalies were created by the national agreement and, if there were, take the matter to the Labour Court. This we did. We were very satisfied with the hearing at the Labour Court and with the explanations given to us by the chief conciliation officer. I would appeal to the bank officials union to take their case to the Labour Court, as requested, for examination and for explanation. If that is done the bank officials will be very pleased. I would recommend this procedure.

If the bank officials union is awarded a claim higher than the national wage agreement and if they accept that offer, as I believe they will, then the gates will be open for all other unions. I have no doubt that my union will look at the situation as of then. The members of my union will insist on getting anything extra that the bank officials union get. From there on all national agreements are lost. I appeal to the bankers to negotiate, to take their award to the Labour Court for examination and after that abide by the Labour Court decision. I appeal to them for the sake of this country of ours.

There may be anomalies created by the national agreement that may not be seen by us. I know that the Labour Court conciliation officer, having looked at the possible anomalies that would be created, would point out those anomalies to the officials of the bankers' union and would make compensation for them. I know this because I am a proud president of a trade union, the president of a union that is not affiliated to the Irish Congress of Trade Unions through no fault of our own. That is the reason I am speaking. I feel that we were in the same position as the bank officials are now. I make this appeal to them now from the Seanad.

Mr. E. Ryan

This Bill arises from negotiations which are taking place between the banks and the Irish Bank Officials' Association. It is only if agreement takes place, in certain circumstances, between these two parties that difficulties may arise. As everyone knows, it takes two to make a row and it also takes two to make an agreement. This Bill provides that in circumstances provided by the Bill if a certain agreement is made only one of the two parties will be penalised. Senator Kennedy and Mullen and several others who have already spoken have attempted to show that this Bill was directed against the banks and the banks were made the villain of the piece. I am not going to attempt to say anything further about that because that point has been dealt with in a devastating manner by Senator Browne, and it is not necessary for me to say any more about the invalidity of that point of view.

No matter how much any of the previous speakers may feel that the banks are big and bad and powerful, they are there, they are in business, they want to make money and I am quite sure they have no desire to pay more in salaries than they have to pay. It is quite clear that it is the officials who are attempting to get an increase in wages which would contravene the national wage agreement. Good luck to the officials. They are entitled to get as much as they can within the limits provided by the wage agreement. It is quite clear from the logic of the situation, quite clear from the statement which the Minister made when introducing this Bill, that of the two parties it is the officials who are the ones who are being most intransigent.

Senator Robinson has already mentioned one aspect of this Bill which she considers may be unconstitutional. I suggest that there is another aspect of it which may also be unconstitutional, because Article 40 of the Consituation states quite clearly that all citizens shall, as human persons, be held equal before the law. If two citizens enter into an agreement and the law provides that that agreement is contrary, is an offence and if only one of the citizens or one of the groups of citizens is penalised for entering into that agreement, then I suggest that this is a contravention of Article 40 of the Constitution, and that if any proceedings are taken under this Bill it may well be that the High Court or Supreme Court would hold that it was unconstitutional.

I recognise the reason the Bill is drafted in this way. I recognise that the Minister is attempting to slant it in a certain direction. I recognise that the Minister has certain difficulties, certain embarrassments in attempting to do anything which would appear to impinge on the trade union movement, but there are two institutions, two bodies involved in this situation the banks, on the one hand, and the Irish Bank Officials' Association on the other.

I am not suggesting for one moment that there should be any action taken in regard to individual bank officials any more than I am suggesting any action should be taken against individual bankers, but I am suggesting that there is no reason why, if the banks can be fined for entering into a certain agreement, the association should not also be fined. It seems to me that this Bill is in grave danger of being found to be unconstitutional for not holding both sets of citizens equal before the law in a situation which presents itself under this Bill.

The Minister has been described as being a very intelligent man. I agree with that description of him. I would also say that in the present circumstances he is a courageous man. I think it is a pity that, in the circumstances, having introduced this Bill, he did not introduce provisions which would ensure that it would stand up to examination by the High Court and the Supreme Court, if that situation arose. It is a pity that he should have risked its effectiveness by giving it this peculiar slant so as to try to cloak the real reason and the real purport of this Bill.

Finally, I should like to ask the Minister about one point on section 5 of the Bill where he provides that in certain circumstances if a person is guilty of an offence certain penalties will be payable, on the one hand, on summary conviction and, on the other hand, on conviction on indictment. I wonder if the Minister would comment on the reason for this distinction in regard to the situations he envisages which will call, on the one hand, for summary conviction and, on the other hand, for a conviction on indictment.

Mr. McAuliffe

I am quite sure that the Minister was not a bit happy about having to bring this Bill in here today. He probably felt as perturbed as everyone of us in this Chamber. There must be some reasons why the bank officials stuck their heels in the ground and decided not to go to the Labour Court. I did not agree with that at all. I believe that if they had gone to the Labour Court and accepted the national wage agreement, there are plenty of escape clauses in that agreement to give them an opportunity of exceeding the amount that was given in the national wage agreement.

We know that the whole banking system in this country at the present time is changing drastically. A number of bank officials do special courses to deal with the new situation. They could make a case that the remuneration they are getting is not sufficient to meet that. No group were ever treated as badly as the bank officials. There was a time when unless your parents had a considerable amount of money invested in the bank you would not be considered as a candidate. I belong to a family who were involved in banking and I know that bank officials had to be subsidised for some time after taking up employment in a bank.

There were two strikes, the first being simply for cash. The next one was because of the failure to interpret five words—"the extraordinary circumstances in the economy". The late Mr. Gray had one interpretation of this, bank officials had another and it ended up in a strike without a claim being made.

We are in an extraordinary situation in this Bill we are about to pass tonight because the banks have broken the national agreement on two occasions. We have no idea what the offer is or whether it reaches up to the national agreement. From the Minister's speech we have no idea what offer the banks are likely to make. I should like to see a change of heart among bank officials, because for years the bank directors stuck their heels in the ground and would not share their profits. We, in the Labour Party, have talked a lot about industrial democracy, which means sharing of profits; and the banks may have the same idea and would also like to be involved in sharing their profits with those who work for them.

The Irish Congress of Trade Unions and The Federated Union of Employers fought hard battles to bring those national agreements into being. Some bank officials I have spoken to looked on the national wage agreement as the minimum and for that reason they did not see anything wrong with employers who were prepared to give more than was granted under the national agreement. There are scores of employers who have not honoured the national wage agreement and who have not honoured Labour Court recommendations.

I hope the legislation the Minister is bringing in will be of short duration and that all parties will come together. They can make use of the escape clauses in the national wage agreement. The Minister stressed it is in the national interest that this national wage agreement should not be broken. It could be circumvented by various clauses in the agreement; it is not tied up in a knot. If they come up against the national Parliament, they are out of business; and I should like to see them making use of the Labour Court.

Mr. Brosnahan rose.

An Cathaoirleach

I will call on Senator Brosnahan to conclude and then ask what is the intention of the House.

Mr. M.J. O'Higgins

Call Senator Brosnahan, then the Minister and then ask the wishes of the House.

Mr. Brosnahan

I will be very brief. I know more about the Bank Officials' Association relationships with the bank than anyone else. On three occasions I was asked by IBOA to represent them on tribunals. The first was an appeal against a finding and no strike followed the report of the tribunal on that occasion. On the second occasion I was asked to sit in on the tribunal to which Senator McAuliffe has referred to give an interpretation of a few words in an agreement which had been drawn up between IBOA and the banks. The position was that, unless IBOA could prove that there were extraordinary circumstances in the economy, they could not lodge a claim. On the day the tribunal met we had the bank directors on the side and IBOA officials and representatives on the other and three of us sat at the top table. We were told we were a tribunal and would have to arbitrate on this. I argued against that because I said "Look, we are all sensible people here, we are asked to interpret a few words. Have we not sense enough to do it on a conciliation basis rather than on an arbitration basis? If you arbitrate and the wrong finding comes out, you are in a collision situation and this is a very foolish position to find yourself in if you can avoid it". My advice was ignored by the representatives of the banks on that occasion.

The tribunal met on the following day to sift the evidence given by both sides. So far as I was concerned and so far as everyone else in the country was concerned, there were extraordinary circumstances in the economy and I told the chairman and the representative of the banks, that they were like King Canute standing on the shore telling the waves to go back. The outcome of this was inevitable. A strike was going to take place and I said they bore a grave responsibility. They were not even deciding on a claim; they were deciding on whether a claim should be admitted.

This is very relevant. There are situations which can be resolved. I know the IBOA people very well and I know their mentality. I told them on that occasion that the strike was inevitable, a strike which should never have taken place, but the IBOA people were pushed into it. That is why I do not like this Bill. The same situation could arise again where a strike would be inevitable. This is not the way to solve this problem. More could be done by discussion with the two sides. Discussions have taken place but they have not gone sufficiently in depth to sift this problem and legislation of this kind does no good in the long terms and could bring about another strike which nobody wants.

I can see the point of view of the Government with regard to the maintenance of the principle of the national wage agreement. I represent an organisation and I was a delegate at the special delegate conference and voted in favour of the national wage agreement. It is very narrowly interpreted on occasions and Senator McAuliffe, who is a principal school teacher, is one who suffers from that. The point has been raised here on a number of occasions that if the banks go in they can prove anomalies and so on. They can claim that anomalies exist and they can claim also that they are entitled to a share in productivity. Senator Browne has clearly indicated that there has been tremendous productivity in the banks.

Often the people on the State side are inclined to interpret the national wage agreement very narrowly. An outrageous anomaly exists in the teaching profession at the present time and yet we cannot get the State side to accept it. They are pushing us into arbitration. That anomaly is that over 3,000 principal teachers in this country are working for a mere pittance, vis-a-vis the awards for other posts of responsibility. In grade A and grade B posts an outrageous anomaly exists but the State side will not admit it and they are pushing us into arbitration again. There should be a very generous and flexible approach towards the interpretation of the national wage agreement.

I am sorry that I cannot find myself in favour of this Bill because of my experience and because of the dangers that are inherent in it. This is a kind of last-ditch situation as far as the Government are concerned. I would have preferred to have seen more consultation in depth in an effort to bring about a settlement rather than bring about what might be an inevitable strike situation later.

Minister for Labour (Mr. M. O'Leary)

Very briefly I will try to reply to some of the points raised. First, I should like to thank Senators for their contributions. Senator Lenihan spoke first and he claimed that his party had negotiated the national wage agreement whereas later other Senators pointed out that the record did not bear this contention out. The national wage agreement was brought into being by the Employer/ Labour Conference.

Senator Lenihan felt that my opening remarks here were clothing my actions in ambiguity. I assure Senator Lenihan and other Senators in Opposition that a free-for-all on the wages and profits front would endanger the serious objective of our administration, the objective of ending poverty. Senator Kennedy talked about the necessity of supporting the present national wage agreement and I agree entirely with him. Our legislation is designed to support the existing national wage agreement. It is not intended as legislation for any future eventuality; it is in defence of the existing national wage agreement drawn up freely by the employers and trade union organisations. I endorse Senator Kennedy's hopes that the convening of the National Economic and Social Council, announced today by the Minister for Finance, will bring about social changes in our society and will also help to harness the economic strength of the nation in co-operative effort. A further national wage agreement, as Senator Kennedy said quite rightly, is a matter for the trade unions and employers.

Senator Yeats asked if it would apply to other employers in future wage agreements. Of course, the legislation we are dealing with is in relation to the banks. It is a unique situation. There is no general principle applicable to other employments or other situations. Senator Yeats referred to a familiar theme on the part of Opposition speakers, that it was one-sided legislation. I must emphasise that the legislation before us is a practical course of action designed to obtain a solution and to ensure that the parties remain within the national agreement. It has no other purpose than that simple objective.

Senator Robinson brought in the interesting point about constitutionality and quoted Article 15 of the Constitution. I regret I have not got a copy of our Constitution with me but I recall her point about whether, in fact, we could in legislative form provide for illegalities, which were not so at the time of their commission, in this current legislation. The Attorney General's office advise that the Bill is aimed at preventing payments under an agreement. The payments will be in the future and if they are in excess of the limits set in an order under the Bill they will be illegal to the extent that they are in excess of those limits. Past payments will not be illegal nor will an agreement made before the commencement date. It is the implementation that is being made illegal, not the actual agreement.

The advice of the Attorney General's office is that there is no violation of the Constitution here. In fact, we have been very careful throughout this legislation to ensure that there was not too great a retrospective element in it. Obviously, the Opposition Members of the Upper House are more reasonable men than their counterparts in the Dáil. Their counterparts in the Dáil made a lot of play of the fact that this could refer to past infringements of the agreement. We have been very careful in drafting this Bill to make it clearly seen that the legislation applies simply to the present contentious area between banks and their employees.

Senator Harte mentioned that the Labour Court would be able to understand the case of the bank officials and I agree with him. In fact, to meet the officials' objections to the Labour Court—the officials made the point that the Labour Court was not a suitable agency—the Government made an offer of two assessors, one to be chosen by each side, who would assist the court in coming to a correct judgment.

I know that Senator Browne, who is an old friend of mine, is sincere in his beliefs as I am in mine. Our difference is that I wish to work in Government in our existing society for the improvement of the living conditions of our people now. I believe this is both possible and desirable and I believe that the lives of people here and now can benefit by the implementation of the programme of our Government. Although the Bill is designed to meet a particular situation and has no global objectives of the kind referred to by Senator Browne, the bank profits which so concerned him would not be in the slightest bit affected, either in their growth now or in their rate of growth in the future, by any wage agreements signed between employees and the banking authorities. Senator Browne was striking out in accord with the vision he sees of future society. Quite honestly, it is not involved in the present legislation, which is designed to meet a particular situation and charts out a practical course to meet it.

Senator Mullen made the important point that bank porters and other categories of bank staff at present live under the national agreement. Senator Ahern made the point that his union, though not a signatory to the national wage agreement, had submitted their claims to the Labour Court for scrutiny to see that there was no conflict between the national agreement and their claims. I might add that Members of both Houses—although Senators did better out of the scrutiny than did Deputies—submitted the recommendations of Devlin to the Employer/Labour Conference although we were not signatories to the national agreement. Such was the moral force of that agreement and our realisation of its importance in the economy that we submitted the judgments of Devlin to the scrutiny of the Employer/Labour Conference to see that there was no conflict between the national agreement and any increase coming to us. As I have already mentioned, the Senators were the beneficiaries of that public spiritedness on the part of Members of the Oireachtas. In fact, members of the judiciary did likewise.

I take some of the points Senator Ryan made in the sincere way he made them and I thank him for his compliments. He made the point that in this case it was necessary to adopt a partisan approach to avoid embarrassment to the trade unions and, as a consequence, that this legislation is one-sided. It is true that the penalties in the legislation are directed solely against the employers because the offence at which this legislation aims is the offence of paying an increase above the national agreement. The person who pays is, in the last analysis, the employer. This is the point of difference between the legislation in this Bill and that of our predecessors in office. They wished to have a two-sided approach to the solution of this problem. They wished to have the penalties applied to the workers, their association and to the bank owners. Our legislation is directed solely at the employer, making it impossible for him to pay out increases in excess of the national agreement.

Senator Ryan raised the interesting point about the contrast between the fines at summary level and at a higher level on indictment. The amount of fines will in all cases be determined by the courts. Section 5 (i) (a), which deals with the summary convictions, would be involved where less serious offences took place. Section 5 (i) (b) is there to deal with the more serious breaches of the Bill's provisions. This is in line again with the Attorney General's advice and is, I understand, a regular form of legislation, a routine kind of legislation where penalties are invoked of this kind, that there is a division between summary and on indictment.

Senator Brosnahan, who was the final speaker, raised the question whether sufficient talk took place. I will assure him and other Senators that eight meetings took place. Every aspect of the case was gone over exhaustively. I think fair offers were made to the officials to meet their reluctance to go to the Labour Court, but all of the problems which Senator Brosnahan mentions applied to the officials could be discussed between them and the Labour Court and would be dealt with constructively, especially with the assistance of the two assessors. So the talking had to stop somewhere. We have had eight meetings at which we had frank discussions and in which we clarified the objective of the Government and our anxiety to see that the national agreement was not breached. In the finality we did not get this understanding that the Labour Court machinery would be utilised.

In conclusion, this legislation does not represent a principle of general legislative intervention in collective bargaining. It is addressed only to meeting a unique situation, that situation outlined by Professor Gogarty in his report. It is put forward in good faith in defence of the system of free collective bargaining. The greatest creation of free collective bargaining in our country today is the existing national agreement. It is to sustain the faith of the signatories of that existing national agreement that it is now necessary for the Government to ensure that there is not this breaching of its provisions by one powerful privileged group.

A free-for-all on the wages or profits front under the existing national agreement would endanger the programme announced by the Government to end poverty in our society. This is a very large undertaking to have adopted. We have adopted it and, I hope, we will proceed on it seriously. This legislation we have here does not seek, as the ESB Special Provisions Bill sought, to make the withdrawal of labour by any workers illegal. As I said in the other House this morning, I do not know any legislation which can force a man or woman to work against his or her will. This legislation will not make it impossible for any employee to withdraw his or her labour, nor do I think legislation of that kind would be desirable.

Question put and agreed to.

An Leas-Chathaoirleach

Next Stage?

Business suspended at 6.20 p.m. and resumed at 7.15 p.m.

Bill put through Committee, reported without amendment, received for final consideration and passed.

Seanad Éireann díospóireacht - Thursday, 12 Jul 1973

Regulation of Banks (Remuneration and Conditions of Employment) (Temporary Provisions) Bill, 1973: Second and Subsequent Stages.

An Leas-Chathaoirleach

Seanad Éireann díospóireacht -
Thursday, 12 Jul 1973