‘Under the guise of caution the Central Bank and the commercial banks had gambled and wasted half the national savings’: Seán MacBride, 19 may 1956
Apr 29th, 2011 by Conor McCabe
Irish monetary policy, from 1922 to 1997, has received a bit of a free ride from Irish historians. Lord knows why, as the decisions undertaken created major stumbling-blocks to the development of the economy post-independence.
Here’s an extract from an Irish Times article, 21 May 1956, which quotes Seán MacBride speaking at the Ard Fheis of Clann na Poblachta which was held the previous weekend.
It highlights some of the problems generated by the policy taken in 1927, reinforced by subsequent governments and commissions, to tie the Irish pound to Sterling at parity.
