MAURICE DOYLE:MAURICE DOYLE, who has died aged 77, was a former governor of the Central Bank. The early 1990s were marked by considerable turbulence in foreign exchange markets, and he was a key member of the "currency war cabinet" convened in September 1992 when the Exchange Rate Mechanism began to fall apart.
Determined to defend the punt, on one night in November he raised the overnight lending rate from 30 per cent to 100 per cent to fend off speculators. The strategy worked in the short term, but by January 1993 the pressure to devalue became overwhelming.
That month he and his colleagues recommended a 10 per cent devaluation. “There is a point where devotion to duty ends and persistent stupidity begins,” he said. The defence of the punt could have continued indefinitely, he explained, but it would not have been worth the candle.
“Straight talking”, “abrasive” and “tough” are all adjectives which colleagues used to describe him. His lecture to the Institute of Public Administration conference in 1986 held an audience of the country’s top civil servants spellbound, as he castigated them for their overspending.
The “smart-assery” had to stop, he declared, with department heads continuing to demand twice as much as they needed and making unwarranted threats of what would happen if they did not get what they asked for. He was then heading the Department of Finance, and progress in reducing public borrowing was painfully slow. A pupil of the Christian Brothers at O’Connell’s schools, after graduating from UCD with an economics degree in 1952 and being called to the Bar the following year, he joined the Department of Finance as an administrative officer.
Seconded to the Revenue Commissioners for two years, he next worked under TK Whitaker at the Department of the Taoiseach on the first national development plan, which paved the way for major policy change with the dismantling of protectionist barriers.
Appointed assistant principal in the Department of Finance, he rose to assistant secretary in 1971, in which position he remained involved in economic planning, working with the National Industrial and Economic Council, the forerunner of the social partners’ forum, NESC (National Economic and Social Council). He also led the Irish negotiating team on the establishment of the EC regional development fund.
He was appointed second secretary in 1976, placing him in charge of public spending, and was secretary of the department from 1981 to 1987.
As secretary he had a baptism of fire. The department and the Government miscalculated public opinion which led to the infamous “VAT on children’s clothing” budget and the fall of the Fine Gael-Labour government in January 1982. It was reported that his relationship with the minister for finance in the subsequent Fianna Fáil government, Ray MacSharry, was not easy.
Soon after the 1987 Fianna Fáil government came to power, he moved to the Central Bank. “He was like a breath of fresh air, he cut down a lot on the paperwork,” one colleague commented.
While he dispensed with many of the bank’s bureaucratic conventions, he did not alter its tradition of maintaining a low profile. Press conferences were unknown and he did not give interviews. His accountability was called into question by then Fine Gael finance spokesman Michael Noonan, who said after devaluation: “It is necessary so that we avoid mistakes in the future [to] establish exactly what happened, and I believe that an appropriate committee of the Houses of the Oireachtas should be empowered to hear the views of the Governor of the Central Bank.”
Later in 1993 Maurice Doyle upset politicians of all parties when he claimed that there was widespread abuse of the dole.
Organisations representing the unemployed called on him to apologise or resign; he did neither. And he turned down an invitation from the Dáil Public Accounts Committee to discuss his comments. He was later taken to task for pointing the finger at dole “fraudsters” while turning a blind eye to the fraud perpetrated by the holders of bogus non-resident bank accounts.
His term as governor also involved the bank assuming greater financial supervisory responsibilities in the areas of banking, building societies, exchanges, collective investments, unit trusts, investment companies and for the newly-established IFSC. He did not seek a second term as governor and after leaving the Central Bank became president of the ESRI (Economic and Social Research Institute).
He was a director of several companies, including Citibank Ireland and Hewlett Packard International Bank.
He enjoyed cycling and swimming. An accomplished pianist, he relaxed by listening to classical music. A member of the management board of the Royal Dublin Society and the Royal Irish Yacht Club, he was a Friend of the National Concert Hall.
He was in 1991 conferred with an NUI honorary degree Doctor of Laws, honoris causa.
Predeceased in 2004 by his wife Mavis (née O’Connell), his sons David and Jonathan and daughters Susan and Ruth survive him.
Maurice Doyle: born 1931; died September 10th, 2009