The discussion of this Estimate has revolved around the present economic position in the country and the standard of life of the people. The fact that practically every Deputy who has spoken on the matter found it necessary to advert to the economic conditions of the country and what might be described as the financial plight of the people, is in itself an indication that the House and the country are genuinely concerned about the deterioration which has set in here and which is developing in the whole economic structure of the nation. I think it will not be questioned, I think it cannot be questioned, if one adverts to the reports of county medical officers of health, that there is an ever-widening stratum of poverty, that large numbers of persons are not able to get the barest necessaries of life, that tuberculosis is increasing and that malnutrition is on the up-grade.
These are factors which must beget the lively attention of an alert Legislature and an active-minded Government. But, I am sorry to say, I can discover no evidence that the Government realises the immensity of the task confronting it or of the grave dangers which beset the nation if these problems continue to be dealt with in the unsatisfactory manner which has been manifested during the past four years. In many parts of this country we have had a condition of endemic poverty. I am sorry to say that I think I discover an extension of the area of endemic poverty. I think that condition of affairs is due, on the one hand, to the low standard of wages of large sections of our people and, on the other hand, to the fact that the Government's inability, the Government's utter helplessness, to control prices has produced a deterioration in the standard of life of our people, intensifying malnutrition and ill-health in the country.
Very large numbers of our people are compelled to depend on such forms of relief as they can get through social services. I think the fact that the Government is forced into providing social services in the form of free food and free fuel for the people is in itself an indication that the whole economic organisation of the country is bad. The ideal condition to aim at is to give our people decent rates of wages, to give them decent conditions of employment and enable them to buy food, clothes and the necessaries of life in the same way as Deputies buy food and clothes and the necessaries of life. That is the ideal to aim at. That is the objective which we ought to set before our eyes, and, to the extent that we are forced to give able-bodied men, who are willing and anxious to work, vouchers for free food, cheap fuel, and so on, it is an indication of how far we are from attaining the objective that is so much desired.
In a normal condition of affairs, and with a healthy economic and agricultural organism, we ought to be able to provide our people with a decent standard of living, and thus avoid having to resort to those subterfuges which, undoubtedly, are designed merely to try to provide the poor of our country with some form of sustenance which would enable them to keep alive. I think that, if employment were provided at decent wages, there would be no necessity for this business of giving vouchers for food and fuel. I think that, as a result of giving these vouchers, the unemployment position grows worse from day to day, and I believe that that is due to the fact that we have no plan to deal with the situation. I doubt if we have even an objective in our minds; but certainly we have no plan to deal with the immediate problem as it exists. I hold that this whole problem can be solved by giving all our people full employment at a decent wage, which would enable them to maintain a decent standard of life. I believe that we have the resources within our own country to ensure that this could be done—to guarantee a wage which would enable them to discharge their domestic duties, and also to fulfil their responsibilities as citizens' of this State.
When one adverts to the extent to which the cost-of-living index figure has increased since the beginning of the war, it is easy, perhaps, to see what expense would be involved in any addition to that cost-of-living index figure. In August, 1939, the cost-of-living index figure was 73—being based upon nought—whereas to-day it is 184—an increase of about 111 points since 1939. To the extent to which we permit the cost of living to increase to that extent, while doing nothing to increase the wages or pensions of people, whose standard of life has been affected by that increase—while doing nothing to increase the standard of living of tens of thousands of our people who are forced to live on pittance rates—we are deliberately permitting the standard of life of such people to deteriorate.
Take, for instance, the case of old age pensioners. In 1939, they had a maximum pension of 10/- per week. If they were now getting 16/- a week, having regard to the purchasing power of money, they would not be getting any more in income to-day than they were getting in 1939 when the pension was at the rate of 10/- per week. The Government, however, still tolerates the condition of affairs in which these old age pensioners are compelled to subsist on a pension of 10/- a week, notwithstanding the fact that, even judged by the rigid standards set down by the Department, and ascertainable by reference to the cost-of-living index figure, it would take 16/- to-day to buy what 10/- would have bought in 1939. The Government have taken no steps whatever to repair the shrunken purchasing power of the pittance which we may pay to old age pensioners.
That is bad enough, but in regard to the recipients of unemployment assistance or unemployment insurance benefits, the position is even worse. Many of these people find themselves absolutely unable to subsist on their allowances. It might, at one time, have been pleaded that there was a prospect that such persons might get employment at a later date. Everybody knows now, however, that the prospect of full-time employment is narrowing, and that it is harder to get full-time employment in this country at the present time than it ever was before. As a result of this, the recipients of unemployment assistance or unemployment insurance benefits are worse off to-day than they have ever been in the history of this State since 1922. So far as the unfortunate people who have to depend on home assistance are concerned, I think their case was never worse than it is at the present moment. Of course, I know that we now have installed throughout the country a kind of marionettes, under the Department of the Minister for Local Government and Public Health, who are described as county managers. If I am right, I think that the object of certain statements that have been made by the Ministers concerned is to try to take away the atmosphere of unpopularity with which these county managers have been surrounded. Now, the position is that certain people, who had been allowed home assistance relief in the past, now find it harder and harder to get such relief, because any such applications must get the approbation of the county manager. That is the position, as I understand it, and the answer that is given is that the rates are not sufficient to enable the county managers to pay the money required, but the position is that the people concerned are not getting enough to enable them to keep body and soul together.
I had occasion, last week, to speak to a number of school children on a roadside in County Kildare. The children who were barefooted and ill-clad, were going along the road to school. I asked them whether they had worn boots or shoes this year, and they told me, no. They said that they had had no boots or shoes this year, because their parents could not afford to buy them. Now, as one with somewhat the same propensities as Deputy Larkin (Junior), I think I can say—and I think that members of all Parties in this House could also say—that the increase in the number of barefooted children in the villages, towns, and cities of this country would constitute a most appalling indictment of the inadequacies of our present system. Why should our children be compelled to go to school in the mornings, and return from school in the evenings, ill-fed, under-nourished, under-clad, and obviously undershod? Surely, the Government should be capable of remedying that state of affairs? How long more are our people to be left in the position that their children—young boys and girls—will have to be left ill-clad, hungry, and barefooted? How long more will they have to endure the hardships and privations that they have to endure to-day? Is there any indication that the Government has any plan to deal with a situation of that kind? It is no use to say to these people that times are difficult at the moment; that is a mockery of our Constitution. We have here in this country resources which are capable of development. We had an opportunity of meeting many of the trials and difficulties which, inevitably, beset a nation during a war situation, and we ought to tell these people now what are the prospects for the future development of the resources of our country. Are they to continue to be under-nourished and ill-clad? Are they to be allowed to continue to be the victims of tuberculosis as a result of having to live in slum conditions and in poverty, or are they to be the recipients of a few raggedy garments, as a result of charity, which possibly, may help them to survive the rigours of bitter winter weather?
The Taoiseach should and must give an answer to that question. If we are not in a position to remedy that situation, then we might be allowed to understand the position; but I refuse to believe that we are not in a position to relieve the poverty under which large numbers of our people have to suffer. I believe that you can get people to suffer for an ideal, and that you can get people to put up with bad conditions for a long time, so long as they know or believe that they are suffering for an ideal, but you have to convince these people that you are doing the best you can to remedy the terrible conditions under which they suffer. I am not convinced that the Government have been doing enough to remedy the situation, and I believe that, in regard to the mass destitution under which this country is suffering to-day, many of the difficulties which now beset us, are due to the want of foresight shown by the Government in the years 1938 and 1939. I believe that if this Government had taken proper measures, at that time, they might have imported to this country certain commodities which would have sustained our secondary industries for a much longer period, and that we might have used our now frozen external assets for the purpose of importing to this country commodities which are now in short supply.
Although we missed the tide on that occasion, although we failed to take advantage of the situation which was then present to us, and failed adequately to measure the extent of the dangers which menaced us, I still refuse to believe that we are utterly helpless to-day. We are exporting to Britain to-day much more than Britain is sending to us. We are sending to Britain very valuable foodstuffs which Britain could get otherwise only from the ends of the earth. Britain wants those foodstuffs and is very anxious to get them. The British have no intention whatever of neglecting any opportunity which presents itself of getting from this country as much agricultural produce as she can, the best quality of agricultural produce that we can export. Very essential foodstuffs are being sent to Britain which our own people are denied an opportunity— denied because they have not the wherewithal to purchase them—of consuming. We talk about the export of fat cattle and store cattle while thousands of people in the City of Dublin, in the towns and rural areas, do not see fresh meat from one end of the month to the other. Yet we continue a situation in which we are exporting these fat cattle to Britain and piling up there assets which, notwithstanding Deputy Dillon's enthusiasm for external assets, may not be very valuable to us when the war is over. If it is part of the deliberate policy of the Government to send our primary products to Britain while many of our own people are denied an opportunity of consuming them, I think the least that the Government is entitled to do is to look for its pound of flesh. If we are to give Britain our primary products, our agricultural and dairy produce, then at least we ought to say to the British: "We are giving you much more than you are giving us; the least you should do is to reciprocate by giving us more commodities which are in short supply here."
On one occasion we sent a Minister to America—a long distance away— and we gave him a very good gallop across the whole Continent. I think the results of the visit were pretty meagre. I want to put this to the Taoiseach: Is there anything nationally humiliating or nationally abasing in sending a Minister, or a squad of Ministers, to Britain to tell the British people that we are exporting to them more than they are exporting to us, and that that is not fair, in existing circumstances, where goods, and not money are the main determining factors in international trade? Is there anything wrong in sending a Minister to Britain to say to the British: "Look here, we are giving you the best agricultural produce we have, we are giving you more than we really can afford to export. We are giving it in abundance. We are giving it even when our own people do not get an opportunity of consuming it, and we ask you to give us something in return for that produce?" Instead of that, we are perfectly satisfied, apparently, with a scheme of commercial relations which permits us to send to the British the best that can be produced here, and they can give us a fragment of goods in return and chalk up a credit balance for us in the Bank of England—a balance which may not be redeemable when the war is over, a balance the post-war value of which may not be a fragment of the value of the goods we are exporting to-day.
It may be that the members of the Government think that it would be an infringement of our neutrality to have these close relations with the British. I do not believe it would. I think it is the obvious duty of this Government, so long as it continues to trade with Britain on the present basis, to try to get from Britain at least the value of the goods we are sending the British people. I looked the other day at the statistics of trade between Sweden and Germany. Sweden is a neutral country but an examination of its export trade with Germany is illuminating. Although neutral, and anxious to preserve its neutrality, Sweden recognises that the maintenance of trade with Germany to-day is vital to the maintenance of life in Sweden. Swedish Ministers have not been afraid or ashamed to go to Germany to conclude trade agreements. There has been an expanding trade between these two countries. What is the position here? Here we are content to say to the British: "Look here, take the best we can give you and we are satisfied with any crumbs you can send back here." I do not think a Government which permits a condition of affairs like that to continue is a competent Government. I do not think it is doing its duty to the plain people. I think it is permitting to develop here a lop-sided economy, an economy which gives the British much more than the British give us.
I know of no condition of neutrality, national defence or economic complication which should prevent us sending a delegation of Ministers to the British and saying to the British as one would be entitled to say to any citizen with whom he had trade relations: "Look here, you are not playing the game; you are taking from us much more than you are giving to us. That condition of affairs must end by your adjusting the balance of trade on an equitable basis."