We have now reached the matter of which notice has been given, namely, the rate of wages offered by the contractors for the Shannon scheme.
SHANNON ELECTRIFICATION SCHEME. - MOTION BY DEPUTY JOHNSON.
I would ask leave to move a formal motion on this matter:
"That the Dáil demands that before proceeding further with the Shannon Electrification Scheme all necessary steps shall be taken to ensure that the rate of wages paid to workmen engaged therein shall be such as will enable a man to provide a decent standard of living for himself and his family."
It is proposed to take this motion without notice. I am accepting the motion.
I confess that I have not had time to pick up the story in respect of this Shannon scheme and the trouble that has ensued in consequence of the decision, as I think, of the Ministry to fix a rate of pay which will not provide a man with the opportunity for serving his family and himself with a decent standard of livelihood. I propose to deal with the matter in its broadest aspect, the only manner in which it can reasonably be dealt with. We have charged occasionally, during this and last year, the Government with pursuing a policy deliberately designed to reduce the standard of living of the working people of this country. In Bills dealing with local government, with old age pensions, and in Bills dealing with rates of wages, a preference is given to certain classes of the community in respect of certain kinds of work — rates of pay agreed to and determined by the Ministry beyond which the local authorities will not be allowed to pay their workmen. All these things have led many people to the conclusion that it was a deliberate design on the part of the Ministry to lower the standard of life of the wage-earners. Some of us did take the words of Ministers disavowing that object, but I myself am absolutely forced to the conclusion, in view of what has happened in the Shannon scheme, that the policy of the Ministry, acting through the Department of Industry and Commerce, as hitherto through the Department of Local Government, is to reduce the general rates of wages, and thereby the general standard of life of the working people.
I propose to show that this scheme that is now being started for the electrification of the Shannon is based on a rate of wages which is utterly a sweated wage, and means a deliberate attempt to degrade the workmen to the position they occupied before the war. The war period and the period after the war, in this as in every other country, led to the better organisation of the workers into trade unions, and through that organisation to improve their standard of living. Wages were raised here, and I am glad to say have been maintained to an extent higher — I concede this to Deputy Good — than has been the case in other countries which are adjacent. I think that, instead of decrying that and being ashamed of it, it is a thing that we ought to be proud of, that we are enabling the workmen to live at a higher rate than they did before the war. I think it was common knowledge, and a generally accepted fact, that the condition of the working classes in Ireland was deplorable and should never be returned to. We have had confessions of that kind from many mouths prior to the Treaty, and from nobody more eloquently than from the Ministers who are now exercising the sphere of Government. They, time and time again, declared that the condition of the people was indefensible, and that the condition was not such as would allow a reasonable standard of life, that the rate of wages was deplorable and revolt was necessary. Ministers assisted, and not merely assisted but fomented, the spirit of revolt amongst the working people, particularly of the city of Dublin, with the cry that they should never go back to the stage of poverty and degradation as had existed before the war. They assisted in fomenting that spirit of revolt by appealing to the necessity for improving the condition of the people, and the people responded, and they determined that there would be no reversion to the state that existed before the war, to the rate of wages, and, as I said, to the degradation in which they lived.
Now we find following upon these incidents that have happened during the last twelve months or two years this Shannon electrification proposal which, in itself, as I believe, is destined, or was destined, to change to a great extent the face of the country, and to reinspire and reinvigorate the people with the hope and faith that a change would come over the land. We were told that this great German engineering firm was going to assist in introducing into the minds of the captains of industry, and of the promoters of undertakings, some ideas of scientific management, and the ability to use labour-saving machinery of all kinds, to economise in human labour, with a view to getting the highest possible production at the least possible cost per unit of production. This was to be the work of the great German engineering firm which had so much experience in different parts of the world; and other firms, of equal merit and equal reputation for scientific organisation, were to be introduced with a view to creating a new state of mind on the part of industrialists, and introducing scientific methods of organisation and production into this country, which so much needed them. In my opinion that is a very desirable object to aim at — scientific methods, the best organisational processes which are essential in production, whether agricultural or manufacturing, and those methods must run concurrently with an improvement in the standard of life.
How many times have we been told from the Ministerial benches that the country cannot afford certain rates of pay because the country is not scientifically run, because the methods are antiquated, because production is on such a low stage that the total output will not bear the high rate of wages demanded? That has been the cry from the Ministerial benches and from apologists for the Ministerial policy; but here we have a proposal from what has been described as one of the most eminent firms of engineers, most highly equipped and most perfectly organised. They are going to introduce improved methods, but, instead of raising the standard of life of the workers engaged in that highly-organised industry, they are entering upon their work with the deliberate design to degrade the standard of life of the people, and this all with the concurrence and at the instigation, as I suggest, of the Ministry. I was absolutely astounded when I received in New York a fortnight ago a copy of a newspaper with an advertisement for 3,000 men to work on the Shannon scheme for three years at 32/- a week of 50 hours. I had anticipated that about 50/- a week would have been the standard, and I cannot conceive the mentality of the Ministry which would be responsible for approving of that advertisement or of the rates of wages and hours of labour fixed in it. I said that we all deplored the condition of the labourer before the war. He was paid sums ranging from 13/-, 14/-, 15/-, 16/-, and 18/- per week for different classes of work in different parts of the country, but, of course, that condition of things has passed. This is 1925 and not 1912. The world has suffered a great war, and Ireland has suffered a little war. Ireland, as I understood it, had made up its mind that the wage-earners of the country would not be allowed to go back to that stage of existence. I hope every possible effort in every possible way will be made to prevent any reversion to that standard of life. But the Ministry is using every possible means to revert to that standard — 32/- per week, pre-war about 17/- per week — leaving out of account the large proportionate increased price of luxuries which are looked upon by many as necessaries: I speak of porter and tobacco. Seventeen shillings per week pre-war rate of wages for constructional work on this great scheme which is to rehabilitate the country! I will be as bold as to say that I hope the scheme will not be allowed to go on on that scale of wages.
I think I have read of Ministers addressing meetings, dealing with social problems under the auspices of religious organisations, and I am going to ask them what is their conception of the basis of wages in this country? Are you assuming that every workman in this country engaged on public work, or work of a public constructional kind, must be an unmarried man? Do you make the assertion that no man shall get married or that no man shall have a family, or are you willing to concede this, that the family is the unit of social life in Ireland and is to be maintained as such? If that is to be the case, how are you going to fix wages on public works under Government auspices? The private employer says: "I am forced by competition to reduce wages in this, that, or the other direction because other employers in competition with me can get wages at these lower rates." His answer is, of course, one that must be accepted in the absence of governmental intervention, or trade union pressure, or public opinion; but what are we to say to a Government which starts its career at the head of the State by implying that the people that it is going to employ are to be people that will refuse to be married or will refuse to have children — this Government of ours which refuses to consider that a man has a right to maintain a family? It says that 32/- per week is an ample wage for a man to live upon and maintain his family. Well, I will ask Ministers to look up the records in their own archives, to consider the rates of pay offered to other employees, to consider the cost of rations provided by them to their own employees, to soldiers in the Army, to men engaged in public institutions, to patients in public institutions under their auspices, and to ask themselves how a man is to provide for himself and to have a sufficient sum to spare to provide for his family away from him on 32/- a week. I read a statement in the newspapers in regard to certain canteen arrangements which I have not yet thoroughly understood, but I find in the report of these canteen arrangements that certain breakfasts are provided at a cost of fivepence, certain dinners provided at a cost of tenpence — perhaps I am wrong in tenpence, as I forget what the sum is — and certain teas provided the same as the breakfasts at a cost of fivepence.
The total cost of these three so-called meals per day for a labourer would be eleven and eightpence per week. I suggest to the Deputies on all sides of the House that that ration is entirely inadequate for any workman doing work of the kind that is required under this scheme. There you have a ration proposed which, at this extraordinary cut price, according to the statement can be bought for eleven and eightpence per week. Now, we are providing men with food alone, bare food requirements without any luxuries at one-and-eightpence per day, or eleven and eightpence per week. In addition to that food, he is presumably allowed, upon the assumption that he is a normal man, the luxury of a little tobacco and perhaps a drink per day. Presumably he would be expected to wear clothes and boots and occasionally, perhaps, to go to theatres, and pay something to an insurance policy. He would certainly be required to pay Unemployment Insurance and Health Insurance, for which a deduction would be taken from his wages. He is then, I assert, duly bound to provide for his wife and children. It costs him eleven and eightpence plus certain extras over and above for food, clothing, luxuries, insurance, trade union contributions, etc., a very mild estimate of the extras being, let us say, 7/- per week. What has he to send to his wife? What rent has he to pay for his house? How are his children to be clothed? How is old age to be provided for? Who is to provide the doctor's fees? Are these not matters that have to come within your ken when you are fixing the rate of wages at thirty-two shillings a week? Or are you willing to assert that it is intended that no married man should undertake this employment?
Are you going to build up your new State upon the assumption that no married man is to be expected to provide for his wife and family, but that he is to be expected to find other means of eking out a livelihood? This is the proposal of the Ministry to build up the country upon the basis of a hydro-electrical scheme that is going to change the face of the country. You are going to build up prosperity on a basis of degradation and of sweating. But you say there are plenty of men who are glad to receive employment a that wage. Of course, there will be There will be plenty of men glad to receive employment at £1 per week, and that has always been the case — that you could drive men under stress of hunger to accept starvation wages. But I thought, in my folly, that the outcome of the Sinn Fein movement was to realise certain human demands and that humanity had a call upon the consideration of a Ministry growing out of Sinn Fein. Now we have the implied confession that they are hoping to build a new Ireland upon the basis of unmarried men. There was a statement in the Dáil of 1919, a declaration of social policy, subscribed to by the members of that Dáil, some of whom are present on the Ministerial benches, which said that in Ireland we "shall not suffer that any child shall go hungry or cold, from lack of food or clothing or shelter." Now we understand what was at the back of their minds when they made that declaration — a mental reservation that there were to be no children! No child can go hungry because we are not going to provide a wage sufficient to enable a man to bring children into the world, or to provide for these children. We are going to have a State based upon bachelordom. I wonder will the Minister say definitely that they had no intention that any married man should apply for work on the Shannon Electrification Scheme, and will he say that it is never expected that any unmarried man has a right to prepare for the day when he will be married and have a family? The Shannon scheme, the beet-root sugar scheme, and others of your proposed industrial schemes, are not worth much if you are going to base them upon the degradation of the people engaged in the building-up of those schemes.
Your Minister for Industry and Commerce is well aware of the sentiment generally held by the leading financiers and the leading industrialists of broad mind in America, as well as the well-organised trade unions in that country — that the sound basis of future prosperity in America is high wages, high organisation and security. You are not going to call for a high output and good service if you begin your work on this kind of scheme of thirty-two shillings for fifty hours. You are starting at the wrong end. You put before the country a proposal which is inspiring and noble, in my view, in its prospects, but instead of carrying out in the human field the same idea and appealing to the best, you begin by treating the human material on the basis of the tools of the operation — to buy it in the cheapest market, knowing that if you cannot get it there, you will get it somewhere else. Your whole scheme seems to be to adapt the worst features of the old political economy of the Manchester School. Labour is a commodity to be bought at the lowest price and any instrument can be used to drive down the price of labour, and, in effect, in adopting a scheme of this kind, you establish a rate of pay for a national productive scheme so that the private employer and the public employers in other directions shall be able to point to the fact that here are thousands of men willing to take such and such a rate of wages. You are trying to compete the unmarried with the married. You are trying to compete the weakling with the strong. You are trying to compete the man with a certain amount of resources with the man who has no resources, and I say that your whole scheme is destined to failure, and I sincerely hope, and I say this carefully, having thought very considerably over this matter, that the utmost impediment will be placed in the way of the fulfilment of this scheme unless you can base it on a decent standard of living for the people engaged in the work. I appeal to the Dáil to make its views felt by the Government and to express itself freely on this matter as to whether they are satisfied that this great national undertaking shall begin on the assumption that the rate of wages to be paid shall be insufficient — shall be only sufficient to provide a bare living for the unmarried man — and that you will not write yourselves down as men who are conceiving of the future Ireland as a country of men who will refuse to undertake the obligations of married life and the upkeep and care of a family. I move the resolution.
Who seconds the motion?
I desire to second the motion. I want to say at the outset that as far as I am personally concerned, and as far as I can influence the workers in my constituency, which borders on this great Shannon scheme, every impediment will be placed in the way of the scheme until such time as the Government are prepared to give a wage that will enable those men to keep themselves and their families in moderate comfort. What are they offering? They are offering 30/11 per week, deducting 1/1 for stamps. We are told that they can feed themselves for, roughly, 11/8 per week. I wonder whether the trade or the purchasing department of the Local Government Department can purchase food as cheaply as the German firm claim they can purchase it. I wonder will the Minister for Local Government tell us that from this onwards it is proposed to give a 5d. breakfast to the inmates of the county homes and hospitals. I wonder will the Minister for Justice tell us that he proposes to do the same in the prisons. I do not think it is necessary for me to go into how inadequate 32/- per week would be for a married man. Deputy Johnson has dealt with that matter very fully. It seems rather a funny thing to read in the newspapers statements made by Ministers who are in receipt of £32 per week, in which they tell us 32/- per week are sufficient as a wage for a workman. Note the comparison. The man who draws £32 per week, roughly, says 32/- is sufficient for another man who will work as hard and, perhaps, harder than the Minister himself is working, but under much worse conditions.
We have the President, as he is reported, telling the people on the Continent about the flourishing and prosperous condition of this country. I wonder does the President really believe that. I wonder will the Farmer Deputies here subscribe to that, and will the business representatives subscribe to it. If our Ministers were to spend as much time travelling through their own country as they spend travelling in other countries, they would have a much better grip of the situation in Ireland than they seem to have.
I travelled more of Ireland than the Deputy did.
I daresay the President did.
In an aeroplane.
But when did the President travel through Ireland?
All my life.
The President says that the country is in a flourishing and prosperous condition. He has not travelled Ireland since the boom years of 1919-20. If he goes down through the country to-day and speaks to the workers and the business people and the farmers and ask them whether they consider the country is in a prosperous condition, he will soon realise the difference between now and 1919-20. If the President only notes the number of bankruptcies and the number of writs in the Sheriffs' hands throughout the country, he will know whether the country is in a prosperous condition or not. If he consults some of the Farmer Deputies they will be able to enlighten him, and perhaps some of the other Ministers, as to the position of agriculture. To me it seems that the whole policy of this Government, right from 1922 to the present day, has been to degrade the working-class and the poor as far as it possibly can. I have no doubt that will be denied. Ministers will try to deny it, but the facts are there.
Every piece of social legislation which was introduced by the British has been torn asunder by the present administration. We have had the Old Age Pensions reduced; we have had the old, the feeble and the sick transported across the country to county homes. In some of the homes, as a result of overcrowding, bad sewage, and other things, people have died from fever, and they have also died from lack of attention. Now we are up against the proposition of having 3,000 men huddled together, trying not only to support themselves in those huts, but also endeavouring to send home what will support a wife and family. Assuming for the moment that a worker will be able to get sufficient food to enable him to do the class of work he will be expected to do on the Shannon scheme, for 11/8 per week, does the President or any member of the Government Party contend that if he was to give the balance — without purchasing cigarettes or anything else, and spending merely the 11/8 and 1/1 for his insurance stamps — to his dependents at home, that it would be sufficient to maintain a wife and two or possibly five children? If so, will they point out how that can be done? Some of us would be very glad, indeed, if the Ministry could show us how it can be done on that basis.
So far as I can see, the Ministry think that the only solution for this country is to reduce wages. Their idea seems to be that the high taxation which is being complained about must be met by reducing the wages; that the cost of the great damage and the enormous amount of money which had to be paid in compensation as a result of the irregular campaign, must be met by reducing wages. Will the Ministry tell us whether it is proposed to take any other steps besides this scheme for the reduction of wages, the reduction of old age pensions, and the reduction of out-door relief, to meet this compensation? Are they prepared to show as keen a desire to deal with the high cost of living and to deal with the profiteering that admittedly exists as they display in dealing with this wages question? If the Government were as keen to deal with the profiteering and cost of living questions as they are with the wages question, I think they would be on much firmer ground. If they were able to deal effectively with the profiteering and cost of living questions, then we would be in a position to talk to them about the arrangement of wages.
I have seldom listened to more contradictory statements than those which have been made here this evening. We have been told that there is bankruptcy, depression, deplorable conditions, and so on, and in the same breath that there is profiteering. The profiteers, I presume, are becoming bankrupt. They are making so much money that their balances are on the wrong side. The statements that I should make on the Continent, and that other people should make, are that this country is going to the dogs: that things are bad, and that the outlook is bad. Would the Deputy examine his own conscience and see what contribution he and his party have made towards making the country better than what it is?
I think the President will admit that it is not going to improve the position of the country if you are to blind yourself to the facts.
Very good. We have the facts from the Deputy — bankruptcy and profiteering. Which are we to blind ourselves to?
The President is quibbling with the situation.
The quibbling, I suggest, comes from the Deputy. The Deputy comes from a district in which agricultural labourers are employed. What the wages are that are paid to agricultural labourers in the district in which the Deputy himself lives we are not told.
I can tell the President that if he desires to hear it, but does the President want to compare the wages paid to agricultural labourers with the wages which should be paid to workers on the Shannon scheme? Does he submit that it is one and the same thing?
I submit that it is up to the Deputy or the Party he represents to make a case. They have not made a case yet. One statement was made as to the wages that should be paid there. It is the first time we have heard it. Through all the rubbish that I have read in the papers and through all the nonsense that I have heard inside and outside concerning this matter, this is the first time that a definite figure was put before us, the figure of 50/- a week. What is the case made for it? A case has not been made for it in any negotiations that have been held either in connection with this or any other trade dispute over the whole country. What is the position of the Ministry of Industry and Commerce in the case of a dispute of this kind?
This is not an ordinary dispute.
Is it to set out and see in what way we can get an interpretation of what would be a decent livelihood for a man and his family? Make up the price of cigarettes, make up what is to be sent home, make up his insurance, make up what will give him twice the amount of food that is set down in the canteen that is provided and so on. In any negotiations that have taken place with the Labour Party, I have not been able to come across any reference to a criticism of the canteen arrangements. If such criticisms have been made, I apologise. We heard about it for the first time this evening, and if that be a cause of complaint let it be submitted to the Ministry of Industry and Commerce to have it examined.
Does the President assume that the canteen arrangements are essential to the scheme?
I do not know what the relevancy is in connection with that particular interjection. The canteen arrangements were inaugurated in order to facilitate the workmen and the contractors, and so that there would be no waste. I believe that canteen arrangements would be necessary in any case, and that they would be of advantage both as regards the comfort and the economy of the whole situation.
Had this canteen arrangement anything to do with the fixing of a wage at 32/-?
The Deputy discussed the canteen arrangement and, as Deputy Johnson criticised it, I presume that I am entitled to mention it also. I did not interrupt Deputy Johnson. I made one single interruption to the Deputy to say that I never went on the Continent except on business or when I was ordered there for my health or to attend religious ceremonies. I have never left this country for my holidays, and I do not intend to.
As I do not wish to be misunderstood, I desire to say that if I appeared to be, I certainly did not intend to be personal in any sense of the word.
I presume that I am entitled to keep the flag of my country as high as I can. Was I to say that we were faced with bankruptcy, that we had profiteering, and that the people were discontented because there was not a realisation of their hopes in that great Utopia that we imagined in the prosperous years of 1919 and 1920?
Yes, as far as the poor are concerned.
I can tell the Deputy that I have seen harder work done on the Continent for less wages than is done in this country.
In China.
Theirs is, I believe, an older civilisation than ours. Let us come back to this matter. In the first place, a certain wage has got to be fixed. That will be admitted. Is it to be fixed in relation to the wages paid in other occupations from which the same class of labour is drawn? I presume that will be admitted. The rate of wages paid to the agricultural labourers in the two counties in the immediate neighbourhood of which the Shannon scheme is to be carried out is 25/- and 26/- a week. There may be a difference of a few pence, but let us take the figures as 26/- and 27/-. Invitations have gone out from the Ministry of Industry and Commerce to contradict that statement. Invitations have gone out to contradict it to this extent that there were perquisites in addition to that. The Deputy has just told me that agriculture is not in a flourishing condition. If, for the moment I agree with him, I put it to him, are we going to make it flourishing by paying a higher rate of wages than the premier industry in this country can afford? I put that simple question to him. That industry is our main hope. It is the source from which we draw our maximum wealth.
The position of the men working on the Shannon scheme and that of agricultural labourers is not the same. The agricultural labourer will only have to maintain one house but the majority of the men who, I presume, will obtain work on the Shannon scheme will have to maintain themselves there, and will also have to maintain their families at home, so that the position of the two classes of workers is altogether different.
That is a case then that might reasonably be put to the Ministry of Industry and Commerce if that be the case.
It is the case, unless you want to confine it to the Co. Limerick.
Let us examine the case of the road workers. They are living away from their work and their wages are from 35/- to 36/- a week. That is the wage paid in this neighbourhood. They, I understand, are subject to broken time. I say that this figure of 32/- compares with that. These are economic facts and they are stern facts that have got to be realised. I say that this wage stands comparison with the conditions which prevail in the area, and with the wages paid to men who would man works such as the Shannon electrification scheme. The Government could not possibly put itself into the position of deciding what is a living wage.
They have decided it at 32/- per week.
The Government have done nothing of the sort. They have examined the rates of wages, as between the employers and the employed in that area, and they have submitted these figures, and until a week or ten days ago no challenge was made in respect of them. I stated that the usual formalities have since been complied with, and, now, we are told they are niceties; but we must proceed on business lines in some way or other, and this is the first direct intimation we got that there was any objection to the fixing of this particular wage. It was not fixed by the contractor, and the contractor had not in mind German conditions.
Will the President say who fixed it?
The contractors fixed the wages after consultation.
Who authorised them then?
We got the information that I have stated concerning the rate of wages paid in the different districts.
There is a misunderstanding. The President said that the wages were not fixed by the contractor.
I should like to correct that. I should have said that they were fixed by the contractor after he got this particular information. I understood that Deputy Morrissey stated that the Government fixed them; the Government did not fix them; they supplied the information, and the information stands for examination, if it be in writing.
Will the President lay that information upon the Table of the House so that we can examine it? The President stated that the information stands for examination. Will he now allow us the privilege of examining it?
Do I understand that what the Deputy wants is the information about 26/- per week being the standard rate in certain districts? Is that the information he requires?
What I am asking for is the information laid before the contractors upon which they based their figures.
I do not know whether that information was verbal, or whether it was put in writing; but if it is available I will undertake to have it placed upon the Table.
That is understood.
Yes. It is not, I think, up to this point a case in which the Government should interfere where public works are being carried out. It is a case of the normal working of supply and demand. I understand considerable criticism has been passed on this scheme, in some cases by persons who are against the scheme and in other cases by persons who thought that industrial unrest and industrial agitation, in that particular area, would bring about an abnormal increase on the wages of 32/- per week. If they have a case for an increase beyond 32/- per week to put forward we have not yet heard it. Let us take into account what the usual procedure is in connection with these matters. For work in Limerick City the dockers were offered the recognised rate of pay. The skilled men were offered the recognised trade union rates, and the general labourers were offered 1/- per hour, which is, I understand, the rate paid to general labourers in Limerick City, and that figure has not been challenged. For work in the rural areas outside Limerick City-boundary the rate offered is 32/-, plus free lodging accommodation, plus canteen facilities, and insurance, and a three years' contract for suitable men is offered.
Will the President finish that quotation?
For work in the rural areas.
The appeal was for men from all parts of Ireland.
We are at cross-purposes, I am afraid.
This is a very important consideration. The advertisement said that 3,000 unskilled workers were wanted and there was a contract for three years at 32/- per week and the free lodging would be provided by the contractor, and the advertisement goes on to say that workers will be taken from the whole of the Free State.
Yes, workers to the number of 6,000 have applied.
I wonder you did not say 60,000.
I can give the Deputy the details. On the first day fourteen hundred applied, in the second week sixteen hundred, and since that a balance of two thousand one hundred, or three thousand have applied.
And that is your justification?
To this extent only, that it is alleged it is an unfair wage and a sweating wage, and that men cannot be got at this starvation wage, and when we compare it with the rates paid in the area surrounding, we find this wage compares favourably, and we are still waiting the information that the agricultural labourers are paid more than what we have stated, that is, from 25/- to 27/- per week. We have asked even for a dozen cases, and we have not got an answer.
I do not think it is fair that the President should press that point. The President must understand that if a man walks from Donegal to Ardnacrusha — if he is a married man with three or four children, who continue to reside in Donegal — that man is not in the same position as a man who is living at Ardnacrusha with his wife and family, and who may be only receiving 27/- a week without any perquisites. The Donegal man, who gets 32/- a week, certainly is not in as good a position as the man who is living on the spot, even when working for a lower rate.
I suppose he is not. Supposing I accepted what the Deputy says, the position I have to face is that the people from Donegal and the people from Ardnacrusha and its neighbourhood have applied for this particular work at this particular wage, and that from all these places applications come in. Now the Limerick City men, dockers, skilled men and labourers, struck work, not against their own rates, but against the 32/- a week being paid to rural workers and we have four or five thousand of them.
Sinn Fein organisers were very often glad to get the Labour movement to strike for them.
We did not often ask for it, and if we did we had very good ground for asking for it, and as far as that is concerned, we were all in the same boat with regard to sacrifice. No one made more sacrifice than another. Some of the best people that gave us assistance were Unionists. I am not saying that the Labour Party did not provide their quota and willingly, but the position we are faced with now, assuming that Deputy Morrissey is correct, is that we are up against bankruptcy and defeat and disaster, and the antidote to be applied is high wages. Who is to pay the high wages?
High wages will produce the purchasers——
Who are going to pay the high wages — the men earning 25/- and 26/- a week and the men who have broken time on a wage of 35/- or 36/- a week? Are they the people we are to salt for this — bankrupt farmers, and so on?
I did not say anything about bankrupt farmers.
The Deputy said that bankruptcy was facing us all through the country. I took his statement as a most depressing one, and if he corrects it now, I shall be very glad——
I said there was a big number of people on the verge of bankruptcy. I did not mean the country was on the verge of bankruptcy.
I am very glad to hear that. I do not want to score any debating points against the Deputy. Nobody reads these depressing statements with more disgust or concern than I do. I am sure the Deputy never intended the statement he made this afternoon to do any damage to the country.
This is for a fifty-hour week. It does not mean broken work. It is a full 32/-. Taking the whole country into consideration, the average is about 26/-. The Government cannot take responsibility for these wages. It cannot enter into the question as to whether or not it is a living wage. Deputy Johnson can make an arbitrary statement that there is to be nothing less than 50/- a week.
The President did not quote me correctly. I said nothing of the kind. I said, when I was asked what I thought was a reasonable wage to pay — and which I expected would be paid — 50/- a week, and I still think that would be the most economical proposition to put before these people — very much more economical and more to the credit of the country. The other is the most discreditable thing that you could put before the people of America.
My own impression about the most discreditable thing is the noise about this matter and the fact that we are going to be faced with opposition although on the facts of the case there is a good case for 32/— a very good case. In any negotiations that took place, Deputies know better than I do — I am not au fait in these matters — there are certain essential factors in considering matters of the kind. These particular works will draw on agricultural labourers very considerably. Certain suggestions were made to the contractors and, according to the Press, these have been turned down by the contractors. My information is that that is not the case, that the contractors made reservations with regard to certain matters and certain modifications later. I believe in negotiation unless there is a spirit not to have accommodation, not to have a settlement of the matter in dispute between the contractors and those who drew up this particular document. It could be easily settled, or at least settled after some consideration. If we are in dispute about the fixing of the 32/-, at any rate we will have to find some other formula than the formula adopted up to this, and that is, that local conditions and local rates must be, to a considerable extent, a guide in fixing a wage such as this. That has been the practice and I am not satisfied that a case has been made that we should depart from that practice. As an amendment I move:—
To delete all words after the word "Dáil," and to insert in lieu thereof:—"is satisfied that, in connection with the Shannon Electrification Scheme, steps have been taken to ensure that the rate of wages paid to workmen engaged therein shall be such as will compare favourably with the rates paid in other occupations in which the same kind of labour is employed."
Mr. EGAN
I second.
In his opening remarks, proposing this amendment, I took it that the President taunted our party on its contribution to the present position of the country in general. I think a statement of the kind comes particularly badly from the Ministry, and more especially in reference to this particular scheme. No one on the Ministerial benches, I think, can deny that the Labour Party in the Dáil and the Seanad contributed as much as any other Party to the pushing forward of the Shannon electrification scheme. Every facility that the Ministry asked for was given by Deputies on these benches. The scheme was ardently supported from these benches, and if that was not the case, and if the Labour Party set out definitely to oppose the scheme, as it might have done and, as some people will now perhaps say it should have done, in view of what has happened, I am personally satisfied that the Shannon scheme would not have reached the stage it has reached. The Labour Party felt, as Deputy Johnson pointed out, that we were looking forward to a new era for the country, that the country was going to hold up its head at last, as it were, and to do something big. There is no doubt that this proposal regarding the Shannon scheme was something that caught the imagination of the people, not only of this country, but of other countries, and if it had been proceeded with, and if steps had been taken to see that the present unfortunate state of things did not happen, there is no doubt whatever it would have brought great credit to this country.
The President now says that no good case has been made out against the 32/- wage that has been offered, and he has repeatedly stressed that. The only argument in his speech in favour of the 32/- a week was that that wage compared favourably with the rate paid agricultural labourers in the particular area. That is the sum and substance of his argument. In other words, he has gone to the most depressed industry in the country, one that has suffered from what might be called periodic depression, for his headline. The Ministry has not inquired what the railway companies are paying the people engaged in that particular class of work in Limerick city or in Limerick area. Does the Ministry know that the railway companies are paying 48/- a week to people who are building the new railway in that area? I would take it that the Government, in fixing on a headline, would not, in the spirit of the fair wages resolution, about which we hear so much, have gone to the very poorest industry, but rather would have gone to the employer of the same class as those engaged in this great national scheme. They might at least have given consideration to that.
I suppose the Deputy will not say that the railways are in a prosperous condition at the present time.
Mr. O'CONNELL
I am giving an instance that was brought to my notice and of wages that are being paid. It has been maintained that the wage of 32/- compares with the wage paid in the district, but the only wage that the President has referred to is that paid in Limerick. He has not considered what wages are paid in other employments.
Mention another.
Mr. O'CONNELL
Other constructional works apart from this one. Apart from that, it is not a Limerick nor an Ardnacrusha scheme. It is an Irish scheme, a national scheme, and it is not the wages paid by farmers in Ardnacrusha that should be taken into account in fixing a national wage for this national scheme.
I remember twelve or fourteen months ago when relief schemes were first introduced and wages were being fixed at that time by the Local Government Department, and the Ministry in general, in connection with the scheme, it was put forward, that the miserable wage offered, 29/- per week, would be adopted as a headline throughout the country seeing that it was being encouraged by the Government. That idea was pooh-poohed. It was said that it was only being offered because of the special circumstances; it was relief work, and it was not intended to be taken as a standard wage. We know what has happened. The wage paid on these relief schemes has been taken as a standard wage in other works, especially under the district councils and other bodies. Consequently, the fixing of this wage which the Minister tells us was fixed on the standard of wages paid in that locality to agricultural labourers, is bound to become the national standard wage paid to all workers engaged on any work of this nature all over the country. That is bound to be the result of it.
The President has stressed, or has spoken very much, about negotiations. I am at a loss to know what negotiations he is referring to. It would seem from his statement that these negotiations took place before the wages were fixed. I am in a position to say, and I believe with correctness, that the Labour unions involved were never approached in any way by the contractors, or anybody on behalf of the Government, before this wage of 32/- a week was fixed. The natural thing, one would think, when the Government or the contractors were fixing this rate of wages, would be that they would have approached the headmen quarters of the Unions concerned and found out the rate of wages to be paid, or began negotiations beforehand, instead of fixing a rate of wages which they must have known was bound to bring about the impasse that exists at the present time. They did not do that and there were no negotiations until men were found working on the job at 8d. per hour. That was the first time that they were brought into it. These negotiations should have taken place before the wage was fixed. The President, I think, has been at some trouble to deny that the Government fixed the rate of wages. They may not have definitely fixed the rate of wages, but the implication is absolutely clear to my mind that the rate of wages was fixed indirectly by the Government inasmuch as all the information necessary for the fixing of a rate of wages was supplied to the contractors by the Ministry of Industry and Commerce. It was on the information which they got from the Government that the rate of wages was fixed.
The contract was signed by the Government but the Government has not stated that before it signed the contract, it took steps to see that a reasonable wage would be paid, a wage which could be regarded as a living wage. In his speech the President has completely ignored the points made by Deputy Johnson. He has shirked the issue of saying whether or not he would regard, or his Ministry would regard, this figure of 32/- a week as being sufficient to maintain a man and his family. He has shirked the question put up to him as to whether or not the intention of the Government was that only single men would be engaged on this work. Is it a fact that only single men are expected to be engaged on this work and if it is not, will he explain how a man getting these wages away from his home, men drawn, as the advertisement says, from every portion of the Free State, is to support a wife and family on the 32/-? This scheme could have been a very big thing, and will, I hope, be a very big thing for this country, but those in charge of the scheme, the contractors, and even more so, the Government, who know the conditions better than the contractors, will make a very big mistake if they try to push it through under present conditions. It may mean a few thousand pounds one way or the other, but there is no doubt whatever that better and more work could have been done if the contractors and the Government, who were behind the contractors in this matter, looked at the thing in the big way. We heard a lot about talk of strikes one way or the other, but we do not hear very much talk about strikes amongst the best employers. When there are good conditions of service and good wages paid there are no strikes. The men are very anxious to get work there. They will work and there is no question of output.
took the Chair.
The Dublin Corporation.
Exactly. The Dublin Corporation.
I can give the Deputy more information on that.
I maintain that if this scheme is going to be made what we all hope it will be, what this Party in supporting the various measures that came before the House thought it would be — something that the country would be proud of, something that we could boast about when we went to other countries, and we know that it, more than any other thing that has happened in this country, has been spoken about in other countries — if we want to make it a success the Government will have to adopt some other measures than those that have been adopted, and will have to look at things in a big way rather than insisting on mere formalities. They say that the usual formalities were not complied with. What are the usual formalities that were not complied with? Have the Ministry themselves complied with the usual formalities? Were they aware that a dispute was in existence in this scheme for several weeks without intervening in it? It is not on little formalities or technicalities of that kind that the Government can hope to get men to work for 32/- a week. I maintain that the wage offered is not sufficient to maintain a reasonable standard of living, that it will have the effect of reducing the standard of living all over the country. If that is so, then it is not a scheme that will be of any credit to the country if it is proceeded with, and it is up to those who think so to do everything they possibly can to impede the scheme until such time as the contention that is made here this evening has been met and dealt with by the Government.
This is a matter regarding which it is eminently desirable to avoid the language of extravagance and it does seem to me that for the last three, or four, or five weeks, we have both heard and read a certain amount of extravagant language in connection with this deadlock in Limerick in the matter of the Shannon scheme. I have both read and heard of Coolie wage rates and Congo conditions. I think that kind of talk is not very likely to get anyone much forrader, or be of any particular assistance in a dispute of this kind. It would be better if even now we could get down to a sensible discussion of the matter and a recognition of facts, a recognition, for instance, of such facts as this, that it is not the duty and it is not the practice of Governments to create wage rates. I submit that it is both the duty and the practice of Governments in relation to Government contracts to endeavour rather to conform to existing wage rates, to conform to such rates as have come into existence by the ordinary processes of economic forces, and I invite the Deputies to apply that test to that particular wage rate for unskilled labour in rural areas, rather than to luxuriate in talk of Congo conditions, Coolie labour, and so on. We have been told that we have selected a narrow ground, that we are asking Deputies to pin themselves to considerations of agricultural labour. Deputy O'Connell told us that we had selected the most depressed industry in the country. If it is the most depressed industry, which I doubt, it is also the basic industry, the industry which produces upwards of ninety per cent. of the country's wealth. It is the industry upon which our State fabric and our economic fabric rest, but we need not ask Deputies to pin themselves to the wage rates for agricultural labour.
I invite Deputies to take a much bigger circle, and to consider the prevailing rates up and down the country for rural labour — the wage rate paid to the ordinary unskilled labourer who works in the country, whether he works on the roads, in the quarries, or in the fields; to examine these rates, and after such examination ask himself whether this particular wage rate which is now at issue of 32/- per week, with free hutment accommodation and especially cheap diet accommodation, does not compare favourably, not merely with the average, but with the higher rate paid to rural labour. Congo conditions, Coolie labour, unchristian rates! It may well be that the wage rates which prevail up and down through this country for general unskilled labour are not ideal, but they are the existing rates; they are the rates which have made themselves. If one were to admit that that is because the general economic condition of the country is low, because the country is to some extent economically sick, yet these are the facts of the situation, and it was in the hope of applying a remedy, applying a great cure to such economic evils as exist that this very scheme was adopted and legislated upon by the Government. I would not say, if the Deputy were to ask me, that the prevailing rate for agricultural work is an ideal rate. I think it is far from ideal. This average rate for a man who works hard week after week, in the fields, 25/-a week, is not an ideal rate, but it is the rate, just as in the quarry and on the roads the rates differ very little from that. Is it the suggestion that it is the duty of the Government in this particular Shannon scheme to pay a rate wildly in excess of that paid for similar work, because, after all, we have some standards — we have to have some principles?
Hear, hear.
And the standards which obtained hitherto in the case of Government contracts were that the Government would endeavour to conform, or would see that its contractor conformed, to the rates which prevail for similar work in the area of operations. In the case of this scheme, I would agree that we need not pin ourselves to Ardnacrusha rates, or Limerick or Clare rates, but that we can take a wide circle and say the rates should conform to whatever rates are paid up and down the country for work which is comparable, and applying that test to this particular rate, one does not find revealed grounds for the suggestion that this is part of a deep-seated conspiracy on the part of the Government to grind the faces of the poor, as Deputy Morrissey suggests, or a sinister attack on the most helpless section of the community. Now, that is wild talk, mere rhetoric. It may be very good on platforms through the country; it may be excellent vote-catching, and it may increase the prestige of the Deputy's trade union, as against some rival union, but we are here to do the business of the country, to do it soberly and sensibly, and it is not too much to ask that when Deputies challenge this wage rate they will challenge it along some line, some principle one can get to grips with, that they will apply to it the standards which applied, and which were recognised always as applying, to Government contracts in the past. But it would appear that in the matter of this particular scheme new standards and new principles are to be created, and that what the Government is to ask itself is not whether the wage rate conforms to existing wage rates in the country, but whether it is an ideal one, whether it is going to provide the last word in comfort and prosperity for the men who condescend to take pick and shovel at this particular job.
Is that wild talk?
It did seem to me that Deputy Morrissey, at any rate, was at pains to cut the bough he was sitting on, because, whereas with one breath he was suggesting that when people worked directly or indirectly for the Government, as distinct from private employers, they should be paid rates wildly in excess of rates paid by private employers, in the next breath he was showing that we had a country in which no section could claim prosperity. Ask the farmer, he said, ask the business man, look at the bankruptcy, look at the writs in the sheriffs' offices. These, however, are the people from whom the taxes of the country have to be collected.
So are the people who are offered 32/- a week.
It is from this impoverished country, as Deputy Morrissey would have it, this depressed country struggling for existence, no section of which can claim prosperity, it is from it that this taxation must be drawn, and what becomes of the Deputy's case that the Government, as distinct from private employers, must pay an ideal rate, not any actual existing rate for any kind of work up and down through the rural areas, but the rate which the Deputy, in grave council with his colleagues, would hallmark as ideal? You cannot have ideal rates when you have not got, as he was act pains to show, ideal conditions. It was in the hope of bringing economic conditions here some little degree nearer to the ideal that this particular scheme was considered, adopted and introduced by the Government, but before the cure has been applied, before any of the remedies have been applied, to the economic system the Government is to see that the ideal rates which could only flow from ideal conditions are to be in operation. It is not sound, the Deputy knows it is not sound, the Deputy knows that there is no logical or philosophical basis for the claim that when people work, directly or indirectly, for the Government they must be paid extravagant rates such as are not paid for similar work throughout the country.
I want to make it perfectly clear that I never made the statement which the Minister is attributing to me. I never spoke of ideal wages, and the Minister ought not wilfully misrepresent what I said.
If I have misrepresented what the Deputy said it has not been wilful.
The Minister has repeated it so often that I assume there is a certain amount of deliberation.
I always endeavour to speak with a certain amount of deliberation, and I wish the Deputy would copy it. Deputy O'Connell accused us of being finicky. We were, he said, standing on little niceties and formalities and we did not rush in and intervene between the aggressive contractor and the aggrieved worker because the usual practice had not been observed. We had better discuss that for a few minutes, if only for the purpose of clearing the air. Hitherto in the case of Government contracts when there was dissatisfaction with the wage rates, somebody came in on behalf of organised labour and challenged the wage rate along some well recognised principle. Nothing of the kind was done in this case. The first one heard here was that there were Congo conditions at Ardnacrusha, coolie wage rates, and that generally the whole thing was shocking, unchristian and abominable. No one came in to tell us that the wage rate paid to unskilled labour in rural areas in connection with the Shannon scheme was contrary to the letter or spirit of the fair wages clause which is usually embodied in Government contracts. It was quite recently, and after very considerable trouble, that we elicited any such challenge, but these things, according to Deputy O'Connell, are petty niceties and formalities which should not have caused a moment's delay on the part of the Ministry of Industry and Commerce.
The President stressed these things more than Deputy O'Connell did.
Deputy O'Connell did, and surely, I, humbly following Deputy O'Connell, may refer to them also. The fact is that these things are not petty niceties or mere formalities but they are the things which constitute the locus standi, the right of intervention of the Ministry of Industry and Commerce in any such disputes. If they are to intervene between the contractor and his labourers or, as in this case, between the contractor and certain labourers who have themselves no direct grievance with the contractor, but who are striking in a vicarious kind of way on behalf of someone else who is not striking, then the grounds for such intervention must be supplied if there are to be discussion and negotiation.
I would like the Minister to make some statement that would substantiate the last sentence he used. He alleged that trade unionism is acting on behalf of some unforeseen individual who is acting in a conspiracy.
If any Deputy who has not been absent from the Dáil during any considerable period of the evening will endorse what Deputy Hall has said, I will withdraw such a remark.
The inference is there, and although the Minister is not openly and avowedly making the statement, there is the inference that labour is part and parcel of a conspiracy.
I did not express or imply anything of the kind, and I think I need not delay in setting Deputy Hall right. If he finds, when the Official Reports are issued, that I said anything of the kind he can bring the matter up here and I will willingly apologise. I think the point I was on was that there has to be procedure in matters of this kind. The Ministry of Industry and Commerce cannot simply rush in in a vague way because someone has used the word "Congo," or "coolie," or "unchristian" down the country on some platform, and say: "What is all this about here?" They are slower to intervene when the particular dispute happens to be in the case of a Government contract, or in the case of persons engaged on work in consequence of a contract with the Government.
Within the last week or ten days a challenge was elicited, and I use the word "elicited" advisedly, from the people qualified to speak on behalf of organised labour, to the effect that this particular rate for unskilled labour in rural areas on the Shannon scheme is not in conformity, or in harmony, with the kind of fair wages clause which is generally embodied in Government contracts. That is something which one can discuss. The Ministry of Industry and Commerce is far from satisfied that that is the case. The rate has been arrived at from the material which they supplied—the material being the prevailing wages for comparable work throughout the country. They certainly are not satisfied of the soundness of the claim that the rate conflicts in any way with the spirit of the fair wages clause. But, at any rate, for the first time, something that plain people who are not rhetorical and who are not perhaps given to be swept off their feet by words like "Congo" and "Coolie," has been supplied which they can discuss and get their teeth into. People have been invited to substantiate the general claim that this wage rate is not in conformity with the spirit of the fair wages clause. If that can be substantiated, to the satisfaction of the Government, informed and kept in touch through the appropriate Ministry, then undoubtedly there will be intervention and representation to the contractors. But you do not, simply because a general statement is made that this is an unchristian wage, rush in and tell the contractor that Senator So-and-so or Deputy So-and-so of the Labour Party says that this is an unchristian wage, and must be raised. You invite the proofs and the evidence of that. You invite the evidence of the connection which has at last been made that it is not in conformity with the spirit of the Fair Wages Clause, and when that evidence comes along, it will be examined, conclusions will be reached from such examination, and these conclusions will be acted on, whether they be positive or negative conclusions. One can discuss, of course, these matters and clear the air and the ground on an occasion like this, but one cannot settle a question of this kind here. It is not likely that here, across the floor of the Dáil, we will be able to decide whether or not the contention is valid that a rate of thirty-two shillings a week, plus free hutment accommodation, plus specially cheap dieting arrangement, is, or is not, in conformity with the spirit of the Fair Wages Clause.
We can only help to inform a somewhat bewildered public as to the existing facts in this extraordinary dispute. I refer to it as an extraordinary dispute, and my justification for that lies in the fact that you have a deadlock created by the dockers and the skilled workers in the city of Limerick who are on strike protesting against a thirty-two shilling wage which they are not asked to accept, and for which there are six thousand applicants. Pending the production of the evidence which has been asked for, and which we are to get in support of the contention that the wage-rate is not in conformity with the spirit of the fair wages clause, I simply plead for moderation of language in discussion on this matter. No useful purpose will be served by immoderate language. It is not true that the Government are engaged in one vast conspiracy to grind the faces of the poor. It is not true that the Government has laid before it as a set objective the bringing down of the standard of wages throughout the country. It is as untrue as if we were to charge the party opposite with making the future of this country and of the unemployed people of this country the victims of a squalid rivalry between one labour organisation and another. We make no such charge. It would be the merest platform jugglery to go out and say that that is the position, but it is also the merest platform jugglery for the people to vault on to a platform here and there throughout the country and to talk about——
Secret societies.
About Ministers being engaged in a dirty conspiracy to take it out of the poor man to bring down wages and, generally, to grind the helpless and so on.
Neither one side nor the other is going to profit ultimately by flinging round heated language of that kind, language not calculated to improve the situation, language not calculated to help in the cause that anyone may have at heart, and calculated only to create around this scheme, which after all does hold great possibilities for the betterment of this country, a poisoned, soured and envenomed atmosphere. Let us then, in discussing it, try to keep our two feet tight against the ground, and not simply get carried away by party feelings and heated feelings arising from one cause or another. I do contend that it is not part of our duty to create a wage rate. It is our duty and has been our practice in Government contracts to conform to existing rates. If it can be shown in some way that we are not doing that, then that would be a good cause, a valid cause, a cause that would call for intervention and for action. But that must be shown. It is fair that it should be shown. It is fair that the evidence should be produced to us — so far none has — and let people get it definitely out of their minds and put it on one side that because men are engaged directly or indirectly in working for the State, which is simply the people organised for political purposes, that they must be paid far and above what a private employer can pay them for comparable work. There is no good ground for that view. These poor people whose plight Deputy Morrissey was asking us to weep about now are the taxpayers from whom the Government collects its revenues.
And the people from whom the poor inherited their poverty. You should not forget that that poor inherited their poverty from the people whom you claim are the tax-payers.
I will try not to forget any of Deputy Hall's points.
We have been taunted both by the President and by the Minister for Justice that on this side of the House we have not been able to make a sufficient case for 32/- a week being increased for work on the Shannon scheme. I put it to the President and to the Minister for Justice that if they listened sufficiently and carefully to Deputy Johnson's speech they would find from that statement that he made a very good case to show that that 32/- a week should be increased. I consider that it ought not be necessary for anybody to stand up in this House and show a justification for 32/- a week being increased to any man who has a family to keep. The Minister for Justice has dealt extensively with the question of the fair wages clause, and he said that what they did at all times or what they endeavoured to do is to conform with the wage that has been created, and he quotes the rates paid to agricultural labourers and the wage paid to road workers. I would like to remind the Minister for Justice that the rates paid to agricultural labourers to-day are not at all sufficient to maintain the labourer and his family, and that wage has been fixed by mutual agreement between people in a position to speak for the agricultural labourers and farmers of this country, because of the backward state of agriculture. There has been a mutual understanding on the point. It is mutually understood in the country that agriculture is at a very low ebb and the rural people generally have tried to create a better atmosphere and they have endeavoured to create a better economic state with a view to fostering agriculture.
I do join issue with the Minister when he speaks about the road workers' wages. The wages of the road workers were created by the Ministry. At the time the Minister interfered with road workers' wages the minimum wage paid all over the country was £2 10s. 0d. per week. The Government came forward with grants for relief work about 12 or 18 months ago. When they sent intimation to the councils that these grants were available, they also stipulated that the highest wage that should be paid to any workman working on those grants was to be 28/- per week. We pointed out then that this would be taken as a headline by County councils anxious to reduce the wages of their permanent workers. We were told that was all nonsense; we were told it was a justifiable thing to stipulate 28/- a week as a wage, and the reason given was that they would have more money available to give more employment. One or two months at the furthest after the stipulation was made by the Minister, county councils all over the State immediately lowered the standard of living of their workers. We are asked to-day to take that as a standard for what should be paid on the Shannon scheme. Yet the Minister tells us that they had nothing to do with the creation of the wage, that they came into an area and found this wage created and they gave information to Messrs. Siemens-Schuckert accordingly. I think that by itself ought to show who created this wage.
By what stretch of the imagination can either the Minister for Justice or the President compare the work that must be done in connection with the Shannon scheme with the work of an agricultural labourer? A man working on the Shannon scheme would be classed as a navvy, and a navvy has always been known to be the hardest worked man in the community. I think he is always classified, so far as wages are concerned, as a little above the builders' labourer. I think the President and Ministers will find that the average wage prevailing to-day for a builders' labourer is 1/3 per week—
Per hour.
I am sorry; I meant per hour. I understand there are thousands of tons of cement to be used in connection with the Shannon scheme, and it requires a certain amount of skill to mix concrete to do it in a proper manner. In view of this, and in view of the different kinds of work these men will be called upon to do, I cannot understand how they can be compared with agricultural labourers.
The President taunted us and wanted to know what contribution did we make to stabilise this State. I think I can say for this Party that we made as good a contribution as any other Party in the House, and I include the Government Party in that. In the year 1922, immediately after the Provisional Parliament came into being, the Labour Party came in here — although a great many of our followers tried to keep us out — and we helped to carry on the government of the country. The President was often glad to say since that were it not for the help of the Labour Party and the opposition they offered, it would be hard for them to carry on. It is not right for the President to make the statements he made this evening. It is not really the actual statements, but the implications they carry, that would discredit this Party. The Labour Party is as much for stability as any other Party in the country. On every opportunity we give advice to the workers, equally as good as that given by any spokesman of any other Party.
The Minister for Justice, the Vice-President, has talked about conspiracies. I have never heard the word conspiracy used in this House, from this side of the House. The only place where I read about a conspiracy was in a report in the newspapers when the Minister for Justice appeared on a platform in Dungarvan.
That was some time ago. I know very well he was careful to say that he did not blame the responsible leaders of Labour for the conspiracy which he said existed; but at the same time the statement he made would rally the people to support Siemens-Schuckert and the Ministry of Industry and Commerce in their endeavour to get on with the Shannon scheme at any cost, even if it meant keeping the unfortunate labourer working at a miserable pittance of 32/-.
The President and the Vice-President have stated that we made no case. This is the first opportunity we got of making a case. As I said before, the President and Vice-President ought to know that it is absolutely impossible for any man to live on 32/- a week. It is a travesty to think a man should leave his home in any part of the country and go to Ardnacrusha, in Limerick, be fed in a canteen, have free hutment and meanwhile, out of 32/- a week, contribute to the support of a wife and three or four children at home, children perhaps bootless and perhaps half clad. I am absolutely sick looking at the magazine page in the "Irish Times" and in the "Independent" every day, where there are pictures published in connection with the Shannon scheme. You can see the spectacle of men there with a dejected, pitiable appearance, with some sort of tin mugs in their hands, and Dr. McLoughlin standing by. This is all given as showing the splendid hutments and accommodation provided in connection with the scheme. This is the sort of thing we are treated to every day.
We have been taunted also that no proper representations were made to the Ministry of Industry and Commerce with a view to the Minister's interference. I understand that the National Executive of the Labour Party have already been with members of the Executive Council. Subsequent to a conference — it is reported in the Press, and I do not know whether it is true or not—Messrs. Siemens-Schuckert refused to recognise any trade union; they refused to recognise the right of the largest union in this country to negotiate on behalf of the men.
No; that is not my information. My information is that they are prepared to see the union in question, but they reserve the right to see, also, the representatives of other unions.
That is not the way it appears in the newspapers. The Minister for Justice also referred to the fact that the dockers in Limerick, and the members of other trade union organisations in Limerick, refused to work although they are paid the recognised rate of wages. Well, there is nothing new about that in this country. I think it is a very unselfish thing on the part of the men in Limerick, when they see their brothers downtrodden and, through the pangs of hunger, obliged to accept the miserable wage of 32/- a week, that they would come to their relief and help them. So far as the trade union movement and this Party is concerned, we are proud of the action taken by these men. As I said earlier, in the course of an interruption when the President was speaking, it was fashionable at one time in this country for trade unionists to come out and give their support to other people in their fight for freedom. This is a fight for economic freedom, and, from the point of view of the workers, is no less important than the fight for political freedom was a few years ago.
I was pleased to hear the Minister for Justice deprecate the use of extravagant talk. About a fortnight ago I was speaking to him for a few minutes and both of us, as well as a few others who were present, agreed that too much importance should not be paid to statements made by members of political parties on public platforms. Very often, if a man learned in the affairs of the world stood up at a public meeting, say, in Limerick, or even on the Square of Dungarvan, where possibly he would have an intelligent people listening to him, and were to talk learnedly on subjects that he had devoted years of study to, he would not even get a cheer, whereas if he stood up and talked about plots against the prosperity of Ireland or about coolie wages or unchristian treatment he might be cheered to the echo. Ministers are human, and very often they forget their learning and appeal for cheers. The Minister stated that he would welcome sane and calm discussion on this particular matter. He stated that there had not been a proper case put forward as to why the wages to be paid for work on the Shannon scheme should be considerably more than the local rate for agricultural labourers. The President stated that on the present wage of 32/- a week 6,000 applications had been received from men all over the country for this class of work. That is exactly the justification for the attitude of the Labour Party in this particular matter —that 6,000 applications have been received from different parts of the country.
Anyone acquainted with constructional works in this or any other country knows quite well that on engineering works of that kind the workers engaged on them have been paid a higher rate of wages than that paid to agricultural workers. If, say, Deputy Good or any other building contractor got a job for the erection of houses or for the carrying out of the drainage scheme near Ardnacrusha or at any other point near the site of the Shannon scheme and had to employ 20 or 30 men, it is quite conceivable that he would be able to get that number of men in any of the surrounding parishes to work for little more than the local rate paid to agricultural labourers. The reason for that is this, that these 20 or 30 men would be living, if not at the actual spot where the work was carried out, at least within walking distance of it, and consequently they would be prepared to work for that low rate of wages. How many, I ask, of the 3,000 men who are to be employed on the Shannon scheme by Messrs. Siemens-Schuckert will be able to return to their homes at night? Very few, I think. If the bulk of these men could return to their own homes at night and live in the ordinary way, then there might be some justification for giving them very little more than the local rate of wages, but the fact is that 80 per cent. of the men who would be employed on the scheme will have to live away from their own homes, not for weeks at a time but for months. Their justification for demanding a wage considerably more than the local rate paid to agricultural workers is that not only will they have to live away from their own homes, but that they will have to supply their families who remain at home with something like the bare necessaries of life.
We know quite well that 6,000 men may have sent in application for these jobs. As one who tries to talk plain commonsense — this is what the Minister for Justice suggested we should do — I am quite willing to admit that tomorrow or next week or before Christmas, if there was work available for 3,000 men it is possible and even probable that 3,000 men would be got to start for the 32/- a week. During the days of the European war, both in England and in Ireland, when large jobs of all kinds were being carried out, men could be got through the different Labour Exchanges in this country and across the water at whatever rate of wages was offered originally, but as soon as these men found themselves installed on their jobs and got together discussing matters, they formulated demands for increased wages — wages which were considerably higher than they had agreed to accept originally. The contractors in all cases were compelled to concede a great proportion of the men's demands. I suggested yesterday to some members of the Labour Party, including Deputy Johnson, that it might have been good tactics on the part of the organised workers in Limerick to raise no objection whatever to the wage of 32/- a week on the Shannon scheme. I put forward the view, as I had done previously at one or two public meetings — I always try to avoid speaking too wildly—that the organised workers in Limerick in raising an objection to the 32/- a week, even for the rural areas, were actually conferring a benefit on the German firm, and on the country as a whole, for this reason: that these people knew as well as I do that if 3,000 workers had to accept a wage of 32/- a week, that when they were one or two months employed on the scheme, it was a dollar to doughnuts there would have been a down tools policy—there would have been a general strike which every man in the country would be compelled to recognise, and which industry would have been compelled to recognise — a strike which would not have been settled until a considerable portion of the demands of the workers there had been conceded.
Now we know quite well that these things will happen if the 32/- wage is insisted upon. And in spite of knowing that these things will happen in a few months time, if the work goes on at the present rate of wages, we can understand, also, why there will be men willing to start work at 32/- a week. There are a great number of men unemployed in the country now, and each man looks upon it as his business, and as a duty to himself, to secure a job, and afterwards, to use the power he knows he will have, to fix this rate of wages. We claim that the people in Limerick, who initiated this objection to the work being carried on at the present rate of wages, knew these things were going to happen. They were acting in a manner calculated to have a settlement fixed up now that in a measure, so far as it is possible to guarantee anything where wages are concerned, an effort should be made to secure that there would be no interference in the future with the carrying on of this work. Siemens-Schuckert, with the aid of the Ministry of Industry and Commerce, or with the aid of some working men in the country who are willing to accept the wage, or with the aid of the Army or the police, thought they might succeed in forcing this wage upon men at present unemployed and who are at present hungry. I hope the Minister will not accuse me of exaggeration when I say that there are men in the country hungry, or so near to it that it makes no difference to the statement. If they succeed in forcing this wage upon men now it does not mean that the Shannon scheme will be carried through at that wage, but it means that the evil day is merely postponed and that finally there may be greater trouble involved than is involved now in the attempt, on the part of the workers in Limerick, to enforce something like decent wages upon the employers in the beginning.
There are one or two things that Deputy Johnson said which have not been answered. There was, he said, an attempt to confine this work to single men. Now, I do not want to say anything about the President's visit to the continent. I do not want to suggest that the President should not take a holiday or go abroad. I am not making any personal aspersion whatever, but recently we were all interested in reading the reports in the Press about the delegates in Rome. We saw where the Pope made some interesting references to Ireland and congratulated the Irish delegation upon being citizens of a country which was a holy Catholic country. I did not read the newspapers deeply myself, but I think there was some reference made to the resolution carried through in this House some time ago regarding divorce, and the President, and the people of Ireland generally, were congratulated upon that.
Now, there has been no reply made to the suggestion of Deputy Johnson that an attempt is being made to confine work on the Shannon to single men and that there was going to be an encouragement in the future to men to remain single. If that is the case, and it looks like it, and if that suggestion is not answered by other Ministers who may speak, I think the resolution regarding divorce might have been postponed, or ignored altogether, and that the members of this House and of the Seanad should not have been asked to waste our time and their time discussing questions of divorce when we are going to take such action in the future as would prevent any divorce being looked for.
I did not answer that question because it was involved in the other question that agricultural labourers were paid a lower rate than this rate offered. I did not go into the question whether or not that was or was not a living wage. I say that is not the question and it is outside the question to ask us to decide that. It is too big. I would not undertake it, and I do not know anybody who could. On the question of whether they are married or single men I simply say that is the rate of wages paid to agricultural workers, road workers, or men in the Killaloe quarries and that is an answer——
There is a commodity and we get it at the lowest price!
I ask the President to meet this point; it was not met before and deserves consideration. If there are to be 3,000 men on the Shannon scheme and if the wages are to depend on the number of local men, I would like to know if the President could give us an idea how many of the 3,000 men will be local men, living where they are employed; how many of them can go home every night. Deputy Good will admit that if a workman in Dublin travels three miles outside the city he is paid something like an hour's extra wages per day for travelling time. But he can go home every night. In most cases he can get a tram to his home.
The Deputy will admit that that question is a poser.
It is a poser. These are conditions that exist in this country and that exist both in England and in Scotland. I do not know anything about the Continent but these conditions exist in connection with similar work. But on drainage work and engineering works the men employed have never been paid at the same rate or at a rate approximating to local agricultural labourers or country council employees. There is always an allowance made for the fact that a man has to live away from his home for periods of two and three and six months and that he can only hope to return to his home at Xmas or perhaps for a few days in the summer.
In anything that I have to say I am not expressing any considered opinion of my Party, because as a Party we have not had an opportunity of meeting and considering our attitude upon this matter. As the motion of Deputy Johnson stands, I am not prepared to support it for reasons I shall give. Neither am I prepared to support the amendment of the President for the reason that I believe the statements made in the amendment are not in accordance with facts. The reason I am not supporting Deputy Johnson's motion is that I maintain that in dealing with this question of wages the use of such terms as "a decent standard of living" is a generality which really, when one comes down to hard facts, means nothing.
Will the Deputy accept Pope Leo's proposition, which is "frugal comfort?"
I am not so sure that I can accept Pope Leo's proposition either on matters of this kind.
The position is that Deputy Johnson does accept the Pope's proposition and Deputy Heffernan does not.
This standard of living may mean anything. Thirty-two shillings may be to some people a decent standard of living. I believe there are people in this country at the present time who would regard 32/- as sufficient to provide a decent standard of living. On the other hand, there are people with £1,000 a year who complain bitterly of the effort to make ends meet. Words of that kind may mean anything, but we have to deal with hard facts. Mention has been made as to the condition of agriculture and the argument was used as to the wages of agricultural labourers to prove that certain wages paid in connection with the Shannon scheme were sufficient.
I endorse the statement made by Deputy Morrissey that agriculture is in a very low condition. I had opportunities during the Recess of having that opinion confirmed during trips that I took through my constituency which, I understand, is not by any means one of the worst, from the agricultural point of view. Stating that agriculture is in a bad condition may be said to be a very strong argument why I should favour the effort which has been made to place the wages for the workers at Ardnacrusha on a par with the wages paid agricultural workers. I recognise the fact that if this country is to become prosperous and to get the fair chance to which it is entitled, we must have something in the way of equality of sacrifice, so that the losses and hardships which have to be borne shall not fall, as they have hitherto fallen almost to their full extent, on the agricultural community. In my opinion, the method which the Government has adopted generally to reduce wages, is not the right method. I believe that in certain cases wages will have to be reduced. I also believe that salaries will have to be reduced, and that profits will have to be reduced. I would probably lay most emphasis on the last statement, that profits will have to be reduced. I am almost inclined to think that it would be very good work for the Government to begin by dealing with profiteers.
The profits on cattle?
I am afraid the Minister has shown his absolute ignorance of the cattle trade at present if he states there is a profit on cattle at present.
I stated there had been a profit on cattle.
To whom, the dealer or purchaser?
We can hardly have an agricultural debate now.
I think this is an agricultural matter.
Mr. HOGAN
It is simply a question of the size of the profit.
The farmers of South Tipperary would not agree that there is a profit on cattle. If conditions are to be brought to what they should be, so as to place agriculture in a prosperous position, conditions existing in the country must not be dealt with piecemeal. If we are to have economy we must have a general attempt at economy from top to bottom in order to achieve equality of sacrifice. We are not getting that. Since I entered the Dáil I have spoken in favour of economy, and I voted for certain economies proposed by the Government in the belief that they were only the beginning and that some real attempt would be made to economise from top to bottom. I am sorry that I gave certain votes, as I maintain that the implied promises that were given have been broken, that there has been no real attempt made to economise, and that people who could most easily bear the sacrifice that was necessary to help the country forward have not been called upon to sacrifice anything.
In connection with this matter, it will be interesting to know what salary is being paid to the gentleman who is acting as Director of Labour to the Shannon scheme. It would be interesting to know how many men working at 32/- weekly would be necessary to make up that gentleman's salary. We have not heard anything about economising on his salary.
He does not do any work.
Of course not. With regard to the comparison made between agricultural labour and the labour on this construction scheme, I believe that from any point of view such a comparison is not sound. If the rate of wages is based on that comparison, whether the rate of wages is too high or too low, the two kinds of work are not comparable. I agree with Deputy Nagle when he stated that they are not comparable. I disagree with some of the Deputies in their implication that agricultural work is less skilled work than labour on the Shannon scheme. It is a different type of labour altogether. I maintain that agricultural labour is the most skilled labour in the country, and I believe that a good agricultural labourer is altogether inadequately paid as compared with what is paid to a railwayman, a bricklayer, a mason, or a plasterer. If anything, the agricultural labourer is more intelligent and more skilled than men working at other occupations. However, we are governed, not by sentiment, but by hard economic facts, and in my opinion the agricultural labourer is getting in many cases more than the farmer can afford to pay him. He is getting an inadequate wage because of the condition of agriculture.
Men working on constructional schemes are doing a totally different class of work under totally different conditions. In other parts of the world it is a fact, rightly or wrongly, that men working on such schemes are paid at a somewhat higher rate than men working on local occupations. I would be in agreement with the amendment if it were an amendment to the effect that a rate of wages would be fixed which would be regulated by the general economic conditions existing in the country and the ability of the taxpayer to meet the charges that will be placed upon him by the Shannon scheme. I think a lot of the trouble, or perhaps all the trouble, could have been avoided if the Government had at the time they introduced the scheme, or when a statement was made dealing with it, taken the action they were asked to take: that was, to give the estimated cost, or rather, publication to the necessary specifications required in connection with the work, and that the contract should not have been given, as it was given, behind doors and confined to the nationals of one country. It should have been open to the whole world, to England and America, to contract for the scheme.
For what scheme?
The Shannon scheme.
The Siemens' Shannon scheme.
The Free State scheme. There was no Shannon scheme until the contract was given to Siemens.
What about the White Paper?
The White Paper did not compel the Government to hand it over.
Whose scheme was it originally?
I think that matter has been sufficiently discussed already.
If I know anything of how matters of this kind have been handled in other parts of the world there is no reason why the Government should hand this work over to Siemens. I have no objection to Siemens getting the contract, but I have an objection to not giving a chance to other firms to tender. We had the Minister for Justice making speeches in Dungarvan asking us, I think, to confine ourselves to hard facts and to talk commonsense. We had him also talking about conspiracies and plots and saying that public works of this kind have been open to all nations and that it was up to the nations if they wanted to take advantage of these works to come forward and do their part. If that statement covers what has been said by the Minister it is not, in my opinion, a statement of facts. It is not a fact that other countries were allowed to come forward.
I think the Deputy is reading Senator Keane's brief badly.
I assure the Minister that I never follow on the tracks of anybody. I have the courage of my convictions. They are not popular sometimes, but I state here what I think. I have not read anything by Senator Keane within the past few months. I may have missed something very good by not reading it, but I have not read it. We are anxious to build up trade and anxious to have trade, and we know the country with which our greatest trade is done. We are not making ourselves any too popular in that country by our actions with regard to giving contracts. If this contract had been given openly and if estimates had been given openly——
That question has been decided before. It has nothing to do with the motion under discussion.
I am finished with that aspect of it. The rate of wages would have to be considered before the scheme was passed.
Why?
Because it would be open to the Dáil, to the contracting party, to say what were the rates of wages they were going to pay and naturally they would not contract without knowing what the rate of wages were.
If they understood our language.
With regard to other arguments which have been used, I think we should get some more information. The argument has been used that canteen facilities have been established to the advantage of the workers, but nobody has stated that these canteen facilities are in any way subsidised by the employing firm. As far as I can gather, these canteen facilities will be self-supporting and the worker will only get what he pays for.
Half a pint of tea.
If that is a correct statement of facts, the argument about the canteen facilities should be left out of account, because there is no doubt if they were not provided by the firm they would be provided by somebody else. They would be probably provided by the workmen themselves, joining together in a co-operative manner. Therefore that argument should be left out of the matter. I am not taking the attitude of saying that the wages paid are too low. I am simply taking the attitude that I do not know whether they are too low or too high, but I say comparisons made with the agricultural labourer are not just, and the arguments that have been put forward for the wages paid, by the Government Party, do not deal adequately or honestly with the matter. Until I have heard further arguments which may convince me that the action of the Government, in this regard, is perfectly honest, in view of the circumstances, it is my intention to abstain from voting.
I just want to refer to Deputy Heffernan's speech. He is a man with the courage of his convictions. He is extremely sincere. He is very honest. Would that the Government had the same courage, the same convictions, the same sincerity, and the same honesty.
Is the Minister stating that I said that? I said nothing of the kind.
He is summing up.
Mr. HOGAN
The Deputy gave himself a testimonial. He told us that he had the courage of his convictions.
It stops at that.
Mr. HOGAN
He has the courage of his convictions. These convictions are very strong. They are not very popular. They might have been, had he catered for the popular taste. He said that he is always a courageous, convinced man, a man who must always speak right out, and just says what he thinks, and it would be a great matter if the Government approached this matter in the same honest spirit. This courageous man got up and told us that he is not speaking for his Party. That is safeguard No. 1. He is not going to vote for the motion. That is conviction No. 2. He will not vote against it. That is conviction No. 3. He will not vote for the amendment. That is conviction No. 4. He will not vote against the amendment. That is conviction No. 5. He does not know whether the wages are good or not. That is conviction No. 6. He is not prepared to say they are too high. That is conviction No. 7. He is not prepared to say they are too low. That is conviction No. 8 and an example of his courage. There is his speech from start to finish. That is the speech we heard for ten minutes from start to finish. He then went on to say that agriculture was at a low ebb. I heard that song before. I heard it for the last six months. I am tired of it.
You will hear it for twelve months to come.
Mr. HOGAN
I heard that agriculture was at a low ebb, consequently the Medical Register should be left aside. I heard that agriculture was at a low ebb and that consequently we should stop teaching Irish. I heard that agriculture was at a low ebb and that the railway amalgamation was all wrong. I heard that agriculture was at a low ebb and that we should drop the Shannon scheme. The moment this wicked, dishonest Government, a Government without convictions, attempts to do something definite, people who have no interest in agriculture, people who do not know just what the conditions of agriculture are, all come along and quote agriculture as a sort of Aunt Sally, something put up to create a diversion and something to adorn their own particular line. Deputy Heffernan then went on and he made one specific statement. The class of work was not comparable to the class of work done by agricultural labour. I am not going into that. I did not intend to speak on this debate at all, but he intimated that but for the depressed condition of agriculture the people for whom the Farmers' Party speak are jumping to pay a higher wage to agricultural labourers. I am delighted to hear that. I did not get that impression up to the present. I am extremely glad to have that statement from a member of the Farmers' Party.
I did not say that. I challenge the Minister to produce the official report to see if I said that.
Mr. HOGAN
We shall have the official report later on. I said that the Deputy implied that, but I shall take his withdrawal.
I said I thought that the wage of an agricultural labourer, on account of the skill which is required, is not sufficient, but owing to the economic conditions of the country, it is more than the farmers can afford to pay. I trust, when I am quoted, that I will be quoted in full.
Mr. HOGAN
I am still in a difficulty as to what the Deputy said. He either implied that the farmers were very anxious to pay a bigger wage to agricultural labourers and that they would do so the moment conditions got better, or he did not. I thought he did, but I gather now from his last statement that he did not. The dilemma is there. It must be either one or the other. He went on to say that he would be glad to know what salary the Director of Labour was getting. The Director of Labour has, of course, nothing to do. He is not as hard a worker as we all are. That is the suggestion. The Deputy is anxious to know what his salary is. The Deputy is a responsible member of this House and he either made that as a personal, cheap gibe, or as speaking as a Farmers' Deputy from the Farmers' Benches. Does he suggest that the Government should go in and direct any company or employer as to what they should pay their employees? Is that the attitude of a Farmers' Deputy? If that is not his attitude, what is the meaning of his remarks? He wanted to know how many thirty-two shillings a week would make up the Director's salary. That might not be an awkward question for the Director of Labour, but it might be an awkward question for a great many people. Does the Deputy suggest that all salaries paid to all employees, clerks, officials and others of all private companies throughout the country should be regulated by the Government? The Deputy, of course, safeguarded himself by saying at the beginning that he was not speaking as a member of his Party but if that is his attitude, let him make it clear. We are, for instance, to regulate, not alone the salaries of all civil servants, but of all officials and officers of companies and firms throughout the country, including, I suppose, the salaries that the Farmers' Union pays its organisers as well as the salaries that the Transport or any other union pays its organisers.
The Farmers' Union is not getting a Government contract.
Mr. HOGAN
Messrs. Siemens-Schuckert are a contracting firm and they are able to fix their salaries and are quite competent to do so. Are we to fix them for them? Are we to fix the salaries of various people employed by the Government or private contractors, or are we to stop at Messrs. Siemens-Schuckert? If the Deputy did not mean that, what did he mean?
As the Minister is so good at drawing implications, perhaps he will draw the implication in this case and find out what I did mean.
Mr. HOGAN
I will leave it so. He also said that he would begin with profiteers and profits, and he shook his head in a superior way when a Minister asked: "What about profits in cattle?" He said: "There are no profits." That is one of these generalities which mean nothing. There were profits from January to March, and there may not be profits from March to July. In any case the profits are small. There may be a good case, but I have never heard it argued, for fixing what profits should be; but we are to begin with Siemens-Schuckert. Are we to go on and fix the farmers' profits? To avoid being contentious, let it be assumed that they do make profits. This is the new gospel we are getting from the Farmers' benches. We are to fix prices, and we are, I presume, to control profiteering. We are to fix the price of the loaf and fix the price of everything.
Did I say that?
Mr. HOGAN
The Deputy expressly said that we should start by controlling profiteering. How are we to control profiteering except by fixing prices?
Have you ever heard of the Committee set up by the British Government to deal with it?
Mr. HOGAN
That is all right; set up another committee. As I said, I would not intervene in this debate only for the testimonial which Deputy Heffernan gave himself as being an honest and courageous man, and he followed that up by saying that he had no opinion on this subject one way or the other, but he was against the Government. We are told that agriculture is at a very low ebb. This is not the time for an agricultural debate.
Do you acknowledge that it is depressed?
Mr. HOGAN
I deny that agriculture is more depressed here than agriculture in any other agricultural country in Europe. Depression is a matter of degree. If we are to discuss that it will take a long time, but this is not the time to discuss it. I pointed out that I doubted the sincerity of the interest in agriculture of various people who tell me that agriculture is depressed and therefore there should be no Shannon scheme; it is depressed and therefore there should be no compulsory Irish; it is depressed and therefore the Medical Register should not be changed; and it is depressed and therefore there should be no amalgamation of railways. I advise Deputies not to bring in agriculture in every debate for every possible purpose. It has been done by the Press and by people outside, and I suggest that that is being done for reasons which are very far from those concerned with agriculture itself.
Deputy Heffernan apparently asked for it, and he has got it. I am very glad that I have the privilege of making a few observations following the Minister for Agriculture. If Deputy Heffernan, when speaking in a debate of this kind, could picture himself as one of the unfortunate unemployed who would be willing to accept hard work at a reasonable wage on the Shannon scheme, I have no doubt that if he had the courage of his convictions he would convince himself that thirty-two shillings a week for that particular class of work, with the meals he would like to get, would not be sufficient or decent wage under the circumstances. Deputy Johnson, when moving this motion, asked some of the Ministers, or whoever was replying on behalf of the Government, to state the amount which local authorities spent on people who were in institutions and county homes. I have been told by a member of this party who has a long experience of such work that it costs £45 a year for the upkeep of a person in a county home. I have no doubt but that would be the very minimum which would be accepted by local authorities. The reason why I intervene in this debate is to try and compare the figure for which the Government are responsible in this case with the wages paid to Government employees of different kinds. I am sure that there is no Minister who will get up here and try to persuade Deputies that private soldiers on active service are more valuable from the State point of view than the people who are, or may be, engaged on the Shannon scheme at 32/- a week. Would the Minister for Justice, who in this case is acting as the agent for the taxpayer, say that soldiers forming fours on a barrack square or marching to the strains of Herr Brase's band are more valuable to the State than men engaged on this constructional work? If he would, I would be greatly surprised. The private soldier, Class I., gets 3/- a day, or 21/- a week, with a ration allowance of 12/10, as against an allowance of 11/8 in the case of the Shannon scheme. I could not get the figure which represents the amount allowed for housing, fuel and light, but I am told by people who have given the matter consideration that it would amount to about 6d. a week.
Grade 1 soldier in the Army, who has no responsibilities and no dependents, is in receipt of 34/4 per week. I am also informed that, excluding the cost of the uniform of a private soldier, his other clothing costs £4 10s. per year. Is there any Minister, in view of these facts and figures, who would defend the wages they are responsible for in the Shannon scheme when compared with those of the private soldier? The married soldier gets 3/- per day, ration allowance 12/10, and an allowance of 31/6 for dependents, with an allowance of 6d. per week for housing, fuel and light, which amounts to the respectable sum of 65/4 per week. Could the Government or could the people responsible for such a wage as this offered in the Shannon scheme consider it a wage that would be regarded as reasonable and as providing a decent standard of living, having regard to the pay of the soldier engaged in active service? From the figures I have quoted they have no idea of employing a married man with a wife and four children to support. If they had, how could they defend the Shannon scheme wage rate when compared with the pay and allowances of the married soldier? I have read in the papers — but I am informed that the Press are not accurate or very well informed as to the conditions in Ardnacrusha, or Limerick — that the men engaged on the light railway are paid 32/- per week. It would be reasonable and just to compare the permanent-way employee in and around the city of Limerick who is in receipt of 48/- per week with the man who is engaged, or likely to be engaged, at the rate of 32/- per week. That is a fair comparison, and I challenge the President to say that it is not, from the point of view of the class of work done in both instances.
I made a distinction between the city and the county.
I say that in the city and county the permanent-way employee is paid 48/- per week.
I made a distinction and left out the city.
If the Government are not going to accept these comparisons as between the employee of the privately-owned railway and the man whom they ask to work at Ardnacrusha for 32/- per week, the only inference to be drawn is that they will insist, and are insisting, on 32/- per week as a reasonable minimum wage for men engaged in light railways, and if they succeed in bullying the workers into accepting that wage, then it is a direct instruction to other railway companies to proceed to lower the railway rate to the figure they are trying to impose on the Shannon workers. If that is tried on, and if it is your instructions to the railway companies, and if they act up to that advice and do what you ask in the case of the Shannon scheme, I assure the Government, speaking for the railway men, that they will get a different answer to the one they are getting from the Shannon workers. I am sorry Deputy Egan, who seconded the President's amendment, has left the House. He seconded it without giving his reasons for doing so. He is aware, and I am also aware, that in Leix and Offaly, the constituency we represent, men are working to-day on grants given by the Government at rates over and above those they are endeavouring to impose as regards the Shannon scheme. I would like Deputy Egan to have taken these things into consideration before he seconded the amendment, or that he had given reasons why he did second the amendment, in view of the facts that I have stated.
Are these workers paid for broken time?
No, full time. I think it was up to Deputy Egan that he should have stated that the workers in Leix and Offaly are working at similar work to that of the Shannon scheme for a higher rate of wage than is offered in connection with that scheme.
Do I take it that the Deputy says that rates paid in Leix and Offaly are higher than those for the Shannon work, and that there is no deduction for broken time through causes such as bad weather?
For a full week's work they are paid 10/- more than in the case of the Shannon scheme.
Supposing X is the wage in Leix and Offaly, and a worker is one day short in the week, does he get 5/6ths of the week's wages?
If a man deliberately absents himself from work he is not paid.
That is not the point. If he is not at work because of a wet day is he paid?
In most counties the workers are paid for broken time and Church holidays.
It is not clear to me.
It is clear to me that men working a full week's work are paid a full week's wages. If a man absents himself from duty unnecessarily for a day he would not have the audacity to ask for the day's wages. It is a pity that Deputy Egan did not make himself quite clear in this matter when seconding the amendment. I would like, therefore, the President and the Minister for Justice to make their position quite clear with regard to the private soldier on active service. They should state here now, and tell the taxpayers who are responsible, whether they regard the private soldier on active service as being more valuable than the man who will be called upon to do the constructional work of the navvy type on the Shannon scheme.
The pay of a private in the Army is 2/6 a day.
The pay for class I is 3/-.
The pay of a private soldier joining the Army and not getting into any grade is 2/6. It is not fair to compare the higher grade in one case with the lower grade in another case. For instance, it might be reasonable to claim that a ganger or some person of a higher order should be paid more than the ordinary worker on the Shannon scheme. Thirty-two shillings a week is rockbottom in that case, and I suggest to the Deputy that it is only fair to compare the rockbottom in the Army case with that. I suggest that 2/6 should be substituted for 3/- as the pay of a private in the Army.
I take the rockbottom figure for a soldier with a wife and four dependents as 62/4.
I would like to subject that to examination.
The figures are 2/6 per day, which is 17/6 per week, 12/10 ration allowance, and 31/6 dependents' allowances and 6d. for house, light and fuel. These are the figures I carefully worked out from estimates with the assistance of men in the Army who have some knowledge of the conditions, and of the pay the men are receiving.
If the Deputy is comparing something that transpired 12 months ago with what is the practice to-day it is a totally different matter. It is apparently meant to score and to get in something that is out of date. What I would like him to quote would be what the figures are at the present day in that connection and of course he will admit that the 3/- rate is not a fair one to quote. It should be 2/6.
I have taken the figures from the Estimates. I am positively assured by some pretty high officials in the Army Pay Department who have some experience in that Department that these figures are correct. Does the President challenge them or deny they are accurate?
I cannot accept the figures. I admit that the Deputy puts them in good faith.
I do not know whether we would be justified in taking the President's last statement as an indication of the policy of Siemens-Schuckert and the Ministry in this matter. I mean to ask whether it is implied that the 32/- is intended only to have effect in respect of the recruit to the Grade 3 men, and that as soon as he becomes inured to the work and accustomed to the operations required, that he is inevitably going to be raised to Grades 2 and 1, with a consequent improvement in his pay. I do not know whether that was the implication in the President's intervention.
There has been a good deal of comment upon these negotiations or the interviews that have been held between Ministers and the representatives of the National Executive of the Trade Union Congress. The President and others seem to think that the important issue involved in this is — who should have taken the initiative in bringing the question in dispute before the Ministry of Industry and Commerce, or whether it was the duty of the Ministry to intervene between Siemens-Schuckert and the Unions concerned.
I again state that that is a trivial matter compared with the large issue involved. But let us take that and examine it. It is admitted — I think it will not be denied — that the rate that is now in question has been based upon the figures supplied by the Ministry and in a general way I think it is admitted that the Ministry was conversant with the rate of pay that was to be offered for labour in this matter. But it is suggested, of course, that when there is a dispute, the same Ministry should be invited to intervene, and we are asked to divide up the Ministry of Industry and Commerce, that is to say the Minister for Industry and Commerce acting through his officials, into two departments: first, the Minister in his capacity as the contractor's superior; that is, the person who made the contract with Siemens-Schuckert; and second, the very same Minister in his capacity as intervener between the firm and the disputants. But in the course of this debate we have found out that the Ministry has already prejudged the question. We have a fair wages clause. It has been referred to. The fair wages clause deals with the rate of wages paid in the trade, or, if you like, in the industry. "The contractor shall, under penalty of fine or otherwise, pay the rates of wages and observe hours of labour not less favourable than those commonly recognised by employers and trade societies, or in the absence of such recognised hours and wages those which in practice prevail amongst good employers, commonly recognised by employers and trade societies in the district where the work is carried on; where there are no such rates and hours recognised or prevailing in the district, then those recognised or prevailing in the nearest district in which general industrial circumstances are similar shall be adopted."
In the course of the negotiations we have Siemens-Schuckert taking this line: they do not refer to the trade in the district, but they say their duty as contractors is to obtain men of the right type for carrying out the work, and their policy is to pay such men a reasonable and proper wage, taking into consideration the wages usually paid to similar classes of workers in the district — not in the trade, but to a similar class of labourers. Now, we have the Minister coming along and saying on behalf of this Ministry which was to have been appealed to, that it is agricultural labour which is the trade to which Siemens-Schuckert have to adjust their rate of wages, absolutely prejudging the case.
Rural labour.
Agricultural labour was the term implied here. The Minister now interjects "rural labour," and the President emphasised it all the time. Why rural labour?
Why not?
The Minister in an interjection made the claim that it was comparable with rural labour, and he asks me to say why not rural labour. The onus is upon him. But why is the differentiation made in matters of rural labour? Are you proposing to give every man of these 3,000 men a plot of ground? Do you propose to let them grow their own vegetables? Do you propose to provide them with accommodation and perquisites that every farmer will tell us of when we are dealing with wage rates, that the Ministry of Labour (as it used to be called), and the Ministry of Agriculture, tells us always prevail in agricultural districts, that there are opportunities for employment for the son and daughter of the labourer? These things should be added to the recognised wage rate. Rural labour is quoted because these things are common in rural localities. They are not available in the city. You have your bit of land, your cheap house, your perquisites, your opportunities, because it is away from the city. Therefore, you consider a certain advantage in having rural labour. You have vegetables, meat, eggs, bacon and the various commodities required for a household, obtainable without the labour charges, carriage and distributive charges added to their prime cost.
Rural labour! Therefore we are supposed to consider this matter in the light of rural labour. These men are not going to have the benefits of rural labour. There is no acre of land attached to the wage; there is no opportunity to get those perquisites that normally are supposed to be available for the agricultural worker or the road worker in rural districts. The comparison does not apply at all. If you are going to consider any particular area, whether rural or urban, you have to treat these men as available in an urban area. Three thousand workers in a comparatively small area constitute a town rather than a rural district, so that there is no reason whatever behind this proposition that you should deal with it as rural labour, inasmuch as the advantages of rural labour do not apply. It is not agricultural labour, and the basis of your proposals, if you are falling back in any way upon the interpretation of the fair wages clause, is false, because you are not dealing with a similar class of trade, and you are claiming to deal with similar classes of labourers.
resumed the Chair.
That is an entirely false basis on which to found your argument. If there is going to be any comparison, if you are going to base your rates upon comparable occupations, you have to take into account occupations of a similar kind, constructional work of that character or anything equivalent to it. I have no hesitation whatever in saying that this scheme should have been based upon the idea that even for works of that character we are going to set a higher standard. I have no hesitation in saying you are going below the standard fixed for constructional works or anything comparable that has taken place in this country.
Deputy Nagle has said that it might have been a good policy to allow this thing to go along without any comment; get the workers in first. You would very soon find the opportunities for combination and agitation and strikes and disruptions. I say frankly that I had hopes that this was the kind of scheme that would be started on a high line and that we would have been able to make the highest appeal to the workers engaged in it to do their best, because it was a patriotic duty and to make the most of this opportunity. But having entered upon the scheme with a high note with regard to the scheme itself, the Ministry comes along and fathers this miserable rate as applicable to the human material that are to be engaged in the operation.
The amendment of the President asks the House to decline to give consideration to what is a living wage for a family. In effect, the President says: "We as a Government — and the House — refuse to take into account the requirements of a family in determining the wages that are to be paid to workmen." He says that steps have been taken to ensure that the rates of wages paid to workmen engaged in the operation shall be such as will compare favourably with the rates paid in other occupations in which the same kind of labour is employed. In his speech introducing the amendment he deals with agricultural labour. I have already pointed out — Farmer Deputies, the Minister for Lands and Agriculture and the officials of the Ministry of Industry and Commerce will admit it — that the question of perquisites, opportunities for cheap living in the country, have always been raised in discussing agricultural wages. "The other occupations in which the same kind of labour is employed"— there would be all kinds of labour amongst the 6,000 men. If you ask the Minister for Local Government, or if not the Minister, some of the officials working under the Ministry and under local governing authorities, you will arrive at certain conclusions regarding the classes of labour that will be included in the 6,000 workmen. You will find the desirability of making very careful selection after a few months, and the desirability of weeding out a considerable number. You will have started your scheme with a general sense of irritation and dissatisfaction, in the sense that the employers in this matter are going to buy these men at the lowest price that they can be got at. This will, in turn, suggest to those men that they must take advantage of any opportunity that arises to improve the price. You will have a constant succession of troubles and disputes and demands of all kinds and refusals of all kinds. When you get your high pressure pumps at work, and the men begin to realise what it is to work in mud and water, you will find difficulty in arriving at agreements by direct contact with groups of men engaged in different occupations.
In this amendment we are asked to deal with rates paid in other occupations in which the same kind of labour is employed. You have 32/- a week proposed for general unskilled labour, and the fair wages clause which, I assume, is embodied in the contract, speaks of rates commonly recognised by employers and trade societies in the district. I wonder how many trades are going to be affected? How many trades are going to be compared? There are going to be 101 different operations in this scheme demanding all kinds of variations in rates of pay, and you are practically refusing at the outset to enter into any compact or agreement with a recognised trade union in arriving at an agreed scale.
The President, in the course of an interjection, said something about the trade union affected, that there had been no refusal to negotiate with the trade union concerned, but that the firm had demanded and reserved to itself the right to negotiate with any other union. What is it, in fact, the firm has demanded? To be free to conduct negotiations with any other trade union or association which offers to supply labour. Visions arise of all kinds of fake associations arranged by the employers themselves for the purpose of providing labour; free labour associations, strike-breaking organisations, union-breaking organisations, and associations of all kinds offering to supply labour.
Now that is not at all on the same plane as reference to the fair wages clause and the trade societies. It is entirely foreign to the conception of the fair wages clause and I say that until you get your Minister, who is the principal in this matter, and the firm of Siemens-Schuckert, to come down and deal with this whole question from the point of view of organised labour and negotiate with organised labour and, as I suggest, make the very best possible terms with a view to the country's prosperity, you are going to have failure in this whole scheme. I do not think it is too late for the Government to change their attitude in this matter. I believe they will be doing a good stroke of business for the country, for the electrification scheme, for Siemens-Schuckert, and for the credit of the country if they would say that this matter has been started on wrong lines, that they preferred to begin this big national undertaking on lines that will ensure that the best quality of labour will be attracted to it, and that will ensure that a basis of future working will be arrived at where we can call upon the men for the fullest effort and that the families can have some regard for the future.
We have been asked what principle we would apply, whether we would apply a different principle in respect of public employment in this country. Certainly we would apply a different principle. I have no hesitation in making that assertion, and I lay down the principle that we are bound to take into account the family requirements. Deputy Heffernan is not prepared to support the motion because it speaks of a decent standard of living, and because we have not defined a decent standard of living. He refuses even to adopt the phrase, "standard of frugal comfort," enunciated by Pope Leo XIII. I am prepared to allow the definition of a decent standard of living to any three members of the Dáil who will examine the requirements of a family. I do not care what size family they may take. Let them take any size family they consider as a reasonable average, but I say that you are bound as public employers to take into account the requirements of the family in fixing your rate.
I am not so rigid a doctrinaire advocate as to say you cannot in any circumstances depart from that rigid standard. I admit there are economic factors surrounding the country which may make it necessary to give a little here and there, but if you are going to adopt your basic figure you must take the cost of living for a family as the standard of requirements. Otherwise you are giving away the whole principle upon which your pretended Christian civilisation is based. You ask for a principle, and I say take the principle of family requirements, of a decent standard in a decent community at this stage of our civilisation. If you come along and say that the requirements of private industry, the fruits of competition, are such that wages have been declining, that the average man is the unmarried man, and is prepared to accept less under the strain of hunger, and that this whip of hunger has forced men to accept a wage that is not a decent family wage, I am prepared to take that into consideration, and if it is absolutely necessary to adjust the final decision by those surrounding circumstances we may have to bow to it, as we have had to bow to it in the case of Trade Unions and in the case of ordinary employment in civil life. Do not let us think that because farm labourers can be employed at 26/- or 27/- a week and that other workmen can be pushed to accept wages of 30/-, 32/-, 40/- and 45/- that we recognise these as fair wages. If economic circumstances — the competition of the unemployed man with the employed man, the downward pressure that employers apply for the purpose of buying cheap labour — necessitate that we should accept certain standards, I say that is not the basis upon which Government contracts should be founded. They should not take the lowest rate of wages which competition and hunger have forced men to accept and say we will base our standard upon that claim and wipe out and utterly deny the claim that requirements should be taken into account.
You have here an issue which goes to the root of our social life. The question is whether the Ministry is backing the proposition that free competition in human labour is going to fix the price at which human labour shall be bought, or a decent standard of life in civilised communities, recognising the family as a unit and the requirements of that family as a basis of wages—these are two questions that have to be decided at once. I ask that the House should agree that the family is to be taken as the unit of our social life and that the wages fixed in the public employment should be determined primarily by the requirements of the family. The Minister says: "No, we are going to take the lowest rate of wages fixed by ruthless competition and by hunger and economic pressure downwards and we are going to build our civilisation upon that." That is the issue before the House at this moment.
Might I ask the Deputy a question? This being a predominantly agricultural country, the great majority of its people being engaged in agricultural calling, does the Deputy's thesis not amount to this: that the farmer qua taxpayer is to pay a wage rate beyond that which he tells us the farmer qua private employer is able to pay?
The farmer has demanded, and has secured, the right to grow food from the soil without asking a question of anyone, and is granted that right. The non-farming community, the wage-earning community, is denied that access to the soil. The farmer says: "It is worth my while to forego the rights, the privileges, if you like, that unity and combination have guaranteed, because I am secure in my access to the soil." He has got that privilege. We have got the privilege of combination to secure a standard of life. I believe, and you believe, that these farmers, if they would combine, if they would use scientific methods, unified methods of marketing, could improve their standard of living very greatly indeed. It is in their own hands; they are masters of their own fate. The non-farming community, the wage-earning community, are not masters of their fate, and they have a right to demand a reasonable standard of life from the community, if you like the farming community, inasmuch as the farming community as a whole has denied access to the soil to the wage-earning community. The Minister challenges me on that point. I have no hesitation in saying that the farming community, if they would organise and use scientific methods, could produce from the soil foodstuffs and all the requirements of life that would lead them to a standard of civilisation higher than we claim for our workmen. It is their option; they refuse it by their non-acceptance of it. It is their fault, and it is their punishment. But that does not say that the non-farming community is ready, or must be bound, to submit to a low level, notwithstanding the advantages of urban civilisation, and the introduction of those scientific appliances for the production of great wealth, and that the labour engaged on that occupation must be degraded to the level of the unscientific farmer.
Amendment put.
The Dáil divided: Tá, 39; Níl, 18.
Tá
- Earnán de Blaghd.
- Thomas Bolger.
- Séamus Breathnach.
- Seoirse de Bhulbh.
- Próinsias Bulfin.
- Louis J. D'Alton.
- Máighréad Ní Choileain Bean
- Uí Dhrisceóil.
- Patrick J. Egan.
- Desmond Fitzgerald.
- Thomas Hennessy.
- John Hennigan.
- Patrick Leonard.
- Liam Mac Cosgair.
- Pádraig Mac Fadáin.
- Seoirse Mac Niocaill.
- Liam Mac Sioghaird.
- Pádraig Mag Ualghairg.
- Martin M. Nally.
- John T. Nolan.
- Michael K. Noonan.
- Peadar O hAodha.
- Seán O Bruadair.
- Risteárd O Conaill.
- Parthalán O Conchubhair.
- Máirtín O Conalláin.
- Séamus O Cruadhlaoich.
- Eoghan O Dochartaigh.
- Séamus O Dóláin.
- Eamon O Dúgáin.
- Aindriú O Láimhín.
- Séamus O Leadáin.
- Fionán O Loingsigh.
- Pádraig O hOgáin (Gaillimh).
- Seán O Raghallaigh.
- Máirtín O Rodaigh.
- Seán O Súilleabháin.
- Mícheál O Tighearnaigh.
- Caoimhghín O hUigín.
- Liam Thrift.
Níl
- Tomás de Nógla.
- Ailfrid O Broin.
- Tomás O Conaill.
- Aodh O Cúlacháin.
- Liam O Daimhín.
- Mícheál O hIfearnáin.
- Domhnall O Muirgheasa.
- Tadhg O Murchadha.
- Pádraig O hOgáin (An Clár).
- John Daly.
- Séamus Eabhróid.
- David Hall.
- Connor Hogan.
- Séamus Mac Cosgair.
- Maolmhuire Mac Eochadha.
- Tomás Mac Eoin.
- Risteárd Mac Fheorais.
- Pádraig Mac Fhlannchadha.
Tellers:— Tá: Séamus O Dóláin Liam Mac Sioghaird. Níl: Risteárd Mac Fheorais, Domhnall O Muirgheasa.
Amendment declared carried.
The Motion, as amended, now before the Dáil is: "That the Dáil is satisfied that in connection with the Shannon Electrification scheme steps have been taken to ensure that the rate of wages paid to workmen engaged therein shall be such as will compare favourably with the rates paid in other occupations in which the same kind of labour is employed."
Question put.
The Dáil divided: Tá, 38; Níl, 17.
Tá
- Earnán de Blaghd.
- Thomas Bolger.
- Séamus Breathnach.
- Seoirse de Bhulbh.
- Próinsias Bulfin.
- Louis J. D'Alton.
- Máighréad Ní Choileain Bean
- Uí Dhrisceóil.
- Patrick J. Egan.
- Desmond Fitzgerald.
- John Hennigan.
- Patrick Leonard.
- Liam Mac Cosgair.
- Pádraig Mac Fadáin.
- Seoirse Mac Niocaill.
- Liam Mac Sioghaird.
- Pádraig Mag Ualghairg.
- Martin M. Nally.
- John T. Nolan.
- Michael K. Noonan.
- Peadar O hAodha.
- Seán O Bruadair.
- Risteárd O Conaill.
- Parthalán O Conchubhair.
- Máirtín O Conalláin.
- Séamus O Cruadhlaoich.
- Eoghan O Dochartaigh.
- Séamus O Dóláin.
- Eamon O Dúgáin.
- Aindriú O Láimhín.
- Séamus O Leadáin.
- Fionán O Loingsigh.
- Pádraig O hOgáin (Gaillimh).
- Séan O Raghallaigh.
- Máirtín O Rodaigh.
- Seán O Súilleabháin.
- Mícheál O Tighearnaigh.
- Caoimhghíin O hUigín.
- Liam Thrift.
Níl
- John Daly.
- Séamus Eabhróid.
- David Hall.
- Connor Hogan.
- Séamus Mac Cosgair.
- Tomás Mac Eoin.
- Risteárd Mac Fheorais.
- Pádraig Mac Fhlannchadha.
- Tómas de Nógla.
- Ailfrid O Broin.
- Tomás O Conaill.
- Aodh O Cúlacháin.
- Liam O Daimhín.
- Mícheál O hIfearnáin.
- Domhnall O Muirgheasa.
- Tadhg O Murchadha.
- Pádraig O hOgáin (An Clár).
Tellers: Tá, Deputies Dolan and Sears. Níl: Deputies Morrissey and Corish.
Motion declared carried.