Dáil Éireann debate -
Wednesday, 29 Jun 1927

Vol. 20 No. 2

PRIVATE DEPUTIES' BUSINESS. - UNEMPLOYMENT INSURANCE ACTS.

Mr. JOHNSON

I move—

"That the Dáil is of opinion that the Government should introduce without delay proposals for legislation to amend the Unemployment Insurance Acts so as to extend the period over which unemployment insurance benefit may be paid to men and women who are willing to work but unable to find work."

Deputies who have had an apprenticeship in the Dáil will be familiar with the discussions which have taken place on this question of unemployment itself and the need for amending the Unemployment Insurance Acts. But we have a new House now and I am sure that some of the Deputies, at least, are not as familiar with the problem, and the proposals regarding the treatment of the problem, as those who have had experience here before. Many may not be familiar with the attitude of the various parties in the last Dáil upon this question. We consider it very necessary that the question should be dealt with at the very earliest stage in the history of the new Dáil. So far as the Labour Party were concerned during the election campaign all stress was laid upon this problem of unemployment, and poverty arising out of unemployment, and how the problem should be dealt with. Insistence at every point in our campaign was laid upon this: that it was a big problem; that it meant enormous waste and loss of wealth to the community, and that it should be dealt with seriously in an organised. systematic manner.

The claim, in the motion, is that the Government should introduce proposals for legislation dealing with the extension of the unemployment benefit. When this matter was discussed, not on the last occasion, but in November of last year, we were challenged by the Minister to bring forward figures, statistics and estimates of costs and so on. We did not do that; we are not going to do it to-day, that is to say we are not going to bring forward statistics of the number of people unemployed for the very simple reason that such figures are not known. There was in the early part of the year a Census of Production taken and one of the answers to questions was to be in relation to the number of people in the household who were at that date unemployed. It was found impossible, or at least impractical, to take out from the returns the number of persons who again into an insurable occupation, to obtain extended unemployment benefit. position to-day than we were in 1926 or 1925 or 1924, to state what the number of unemployed persons is. What is perhaps even more unfortunate is this: we are not in a position to say how many persons in the country who are normally wage earners are, in fact. earning wages, and that at least is of equal moment with the question of how many persons there are unemployed.

Though we have not statistics, there is no Deputy in the House who has been in touch with his constituents in various towns throughout the Saorstát but knows that there are numerous cases of persons who are unemployed and are not in receipt of unemployment benefit. Now that is a very simple statement, and I do not think any Deputy in the House who has any knowledge of the condition of things, knowing all the towns in his constituency, but will bear out that statement. I go further and say that there are numerous persons from amongst the class of insurable persons who are in that same position, who have not any more benefit to draw from the Unemployment Insurance Fund. Many of those persons and their families are in dire need, and we are faced with the question whether it is better that these people should remain in need, whether they should be driven to apply for home help, or whether they should be able to keep their self-respect and have some provision made for them by way of insurance out of the Unemployment Insurance Fund.

I would direct special attention to the difference, so far as it may affect, shall I say, the ratepayer as distinguished from the tax-payer. Home help is not repayable. Advances from the Unemployment Insurance Fund are repayable. I am asking that provision should be made to make the unemployment insurance scheme applicable over an extended period to enable people, who have exhausted their benefits and who have some prospects of coming back again into an insurable occupation to have extended unemployment benefit. The question has been faced several times in the history of the Dáil, and in 1924 there were two Acts passed, both of which were directed towards doing something of what I desire to be done now, that is to say, to revive the credits of the insured person, to revive the value of the stamps, so that insured persons may come again into benefit after their normal benefit is exhausted.

I am sorry the Minister for Agriculture is not present or the Minister for Justice, but those Ministers made reference during the election campaign to the position of unemployment, and the Minister for Agriculture made reference to the position of Northern Ireland, not in relation to unemployment, but in respect to the desire that he felt, and which he presumed the community generally felt, that there should be some attempt towards re-union at some appropriate time. He said, by way of illustration, that if we could find a way of making income-tax only 2s. in the £ in the Saorstát it would help to bring the Northern Ireland people into unity with the Saorstát more than any other act he could imagine. There are, perhaps, 20,000 income-tax payers as a maximum in Northern Ireland and 266,000 persons in Northern Ireland are insured under the Unemployment Insurance Acts. I suggest to the Minister and to any other Deputy who thinks as he thinks that though you may reduce your income-tax to nil in the Free State, if you maintain the difference between the Unemployment Insurance and other social insurances that exist to-day as between Northern Ireland and the Free State, you are going to repel with very much more emphasis a ten times larger population than you will entice by reduction of income-tax. To give you an example—a workman in Northern Ireland at present pays 7d. per week by way of unemployment insurance and receives 18s., plus 5s. on account of his wife, plus 2s. for each child. A workman in the Free State at present pays 9d. He receives 15s., plus 5s. on account of his wife, plus 1s. for each child. A man with a wife and three children in Northern Ireland who is unemployed, therefore, receives 31s., and his colleague perhaps working in the same trade or industry in the Free State will receive 23s. In the Northern Ireland scheme there is, in fact, a system of extended benefits, so that when the actual standard benefit is exhausted there comes to him under certain conditions continued assistance by way of extended benefits on the same scale as the standard benefit.

I mention that to show that there is more than the simple fact, which is the more important fact, that a man ought to be allowed to live and not to die. There is possibly a very important political consequence arising from this inadequate scheme of unemployment insurance which we have in the Free State.

I said a few minutes ago that when we were discussing this question in November the Minister for Industry and Commerce demanded from us figures, estimates of the cost, the numbers that would be likely to come upon the fund and the effect upon the fund. He asked in short that we should do without his resources what he was unable to do with these resources. We were told during the election campaign and told last week by the President of the position of the Free State in respect to reduction in unemployment since 1925. We were informed that by reference to statistics compiled by the International Labour Office it appeared that the Free State was one of six States in the world in which unemployment had declined. Now in any figures I am going to quote I am going to take the official figures and I am going to assume that these official figures are approximately correct. I am not going to put forward any case made on the basis of my own figures. I am going to quote only official figures and records and I am going to assume those figures are an actual presentation of the position.

The Minister has told us again to-day, as he told us in November, that there is, in fact, no unemployment outside the registered number, the number on the live register. In November he told us that "there is very little unemployment which is not notified in the ordinary register—very little unemployment indeed." In reply to Deputy Byrne to-day he told us very much the same thing. We will accept that. I ask him, and I ask the House, to believe this: that within that number of 18,000 odd persons who are on the live register, there is a number of persons—I do not mind whether you take it as a large or small number— who are in need, owing to the fact, that their benefits under the unemployment insurance scheme have become exhausted. It might be well to remind Deputies who are not familiar with this question that the Unemployment Insurance Fund is built up out of contributions on the part of the employers, on the part of the employees, and on the part of the State. The fund grew in credit during the war, and a year or two after the war, but then it rapidly went into debt and had to borrow from, what is to us, the Central Fund, and has remained in debt ever since.

There was taken over a certain share of the deficit from the British administration, and there has been a steady borrowing from the Central Fund by the Unemployment Insurance Fund for the purpose of meeting claims since 1922. It is, perhaps, well to remind Deputies that the State grant, which consists, I think, of somewhere about one-third of the total, is recouped in respect of the cost of administration by about half the amount of the grant. I mention that to show that the figures in the Estimates are not quite reliable as an index of the cost to the taxes of this Unemployment Insurance Fund. I also want to remind Deputies that the borrowings from the Central Fund are repayable with interest.

We have had statements made by the Minister for Finance each year when introducing his Budget as to the position of the Unemployment Insurance Fund. On the last occasion, in April this year, he told us that there was a deficit due to the Central Fund from the Unemployment Insurance Fund of £1,284,000. That might be compared with the figure at the end of March, 1924, when the sum due to the Central Fund was £877,000, showing an increase in three years of £407,000. I estimate that about £150,000 of that deficit is represented by interest on the borrowings, and I do not think it includes—I am not sure of this—the Saorstát share of the United Kingdom deficit, part of which was taken over as from the 1st April, 1922. We are in the unfortunate position of not having any statistics published in respect of this fund. We do not know actually what the state of the fund is, except in so far as we are able to extract it from replies given at different times by Ministers, whether the Minister for Finance or the Minister for Industry and Commerce.

I hope that the position in respect of the Unemployment Insurance Fund will be circulated at an early date, showing the position of that fund from year to year since we took it over. We have also learned from official sources that there is what might be called a standard or normal rate of unemployment. It is assumed that the normal rate of unemployment is 7 per cent. The total number of persons insurable under unemployment insurance schemes is about 250,000—men and women, boys and girls of insurable age in the Free State—and 7 per cent. of that would be 17,500. Thus, with the figure we have to-day from the Minister, namely, 18,151 registered unemployed, some of whom, he said, have since obtained employment, we may take it that we are now down to normal, and that we are working on the normal state of unemployment. That is an important consideration in respect to the finances of this Unemployment Insurance Fund.

The fund was in debt on the 1st April this year to the extent of £1,284,000. In March, 1924, the debt was £877,000, and at that time, and for some considerable time before that, the estimate was round about 50,000 persons unemployed. The register showed on February 23rd, 1925, that there were 53,308 unemployed. A little earlier it was something over 45,000 or 46,000. We may take it that round about the beginning of 1925 the figure was 50,000 unemployed. Consequently we may assume on the Minister's argument that the remainder of the persons who were insurable were, in fact, employed, and were paying contributions, helping to build up the Unemployment Insurance Fund. Therefore, it may be assumed on the Minister's own figures that there are to-day 32,000 more persons employed and paying into the Unemployment Insurance Fund than there were in 1925.

That figure will fairly well fit in with the claims of the President and the Minister for Justice a few days ago respecting the number of persons for whom employment had been found by way of tariffs, trade loan facilities, drainage, the Shannon scheme, and so on. We have arrived at a figure which shows that there are 32,000 more people paying into the Unemployment Insurance Fund to-day than there were in 1925. Consequently that fund is growing in strength, is saving, and we have to answer the question:—"How long will it take for this deficit in the Unemployment Insurance Fund to be cleared off, assuming no further decrease in the number of employed, as a consequence of Ministerial schemes and revival of trade, and assuming we maintain merely the normal rate of 7 per cent.?"

When the figure was £877,000, and 30,000 people less paying unemployment insurance, and the comparable number drawing from the Unemployment Insurance Fund, we were told it would take four to five years at the then condition of affairs to pay off the deficit. There is now, roughly, one and a quarter millions due to the Central Fund and the calculation I can make from the figures presented by the Minister is that this deficit— assuming, no further decrease in the number of unemployed—can be repaid in about six or seven years. That, I think, is the outside limit, and will include the amount of the deficit taken over from the British administration. If that is the position, and I am dealing with it in this fashion because of the Minister's challenge on the last occasion when the question was raised, I say, that we can well afford to extend the benefit, to pay unemployment insurance to persons who are now unemployed because they are unable to find employment, at a rate considerably extended as compared with the present period, and that it will be a right, a proper, a just and a humane thing to do. The Minister has agreed with us, and we have agreed with him, that the provision of an unemployment insurance fund is a good and a valuable provision. We would like to see it extended. Some of us are fairly strong on the desirability of extending it even to occupations not at present covered. We say that where people have entered upon insurance, and where their benefits have been exhausted, some provision should be made for the smaller number, who are just as needy, as was made in 1924 when the number was greater, and consequently the cost to the fund was greater than it would be to-day.

The Government has told us many times, and quite rightly, that it is their policy to assist and encourage private employers to extend their economic activities in such a way as to absorb the growing number of unemployed, and generally to extend the area of employment throughout the country, and they have promoted schemes of various kinds with a view to that end, and in fulfilment of that desire. But that has been proceeding for, let us say, four years. The present position I think it will be admitted, is in fact admitted by the statements of Ministers themselves, is that the greater proportion of persons who are at present employed on Government schemes are employed on schemes that are not the result of activity towards promoting new industries, but are rather schemes which are beneficial but temporary in their effect as regards employment. That is to say, while being beneficial they are not immediately and directly productive. Work on roads, houses and reconstruction in Dublin and so on is not directly productive. That will come to an end without showing any growth in the productive powers of the nation. The numbers absorbed in employment by way of the tariff industries through the Trade Loans (Guarantee) Act, the beet sugar and the Shannon scheme are comparatively small in consideration of the need. Unfortunately we have to face the fact that there will, and must be, an interregnum between the initiation of the schemes, valuable as they may be, and their fruition, and I make the claim that in that period it is just as necessary that men should be fed, clothed and housed as in the period they are working. After all, men can only live by what they eat. and can only be warm by what fuel they can consume. It is necessary to keep men alive if the nation is to continue in being.

We are face to face with the question—how is this to be achieved when men's resources have become exhausted? There is provision by the Poor Law, but are you inviting these men to apply for home assistance? Is it the desire of the Dáil that these men should be forced to apply for home relief, or is it the desire that they should seek the charity of their friends? In commercial circles the practice of making bank advances, overdrafts and so on is very common. This proposal is in the nature of an advance against future earnings, an advance against future work, an overdraft for the individual insured person, for the individual recipient of benefit with the security of the whole number of insured persons at his back. I do not want to let it be thought, when I am laying stress on the necessity of providing extended benefits under the unemployment insurance scheme, that I am putting that forward as being more desirable than the provision of employment. Some foolish, and perhaps spiteful, critics, when this matter was being dealt with on a previous occasion, pretended to believe, and tried to teach the public, that we, on these benches, were more concerned with unemployment insurance benefits than we were with the provision of employment. I need hardly say that is an utterly false statement of our attitude on this matter.

I want to see every possible effort made to promote new industries, and I will give all my help to the Government, or any other party in the House, who will bring forward proposals to encourage the development of new industries, of new industrial activities of any kind, to assist in building up the wealth of this State, the wealth of the people. I believe that can be done more satisfactorily than has been attempted or even promised. If there were more energy and consideration given to the problem from the point of view of the people's needs as distinct from the point of view of commercial operations one might be tempted to go into questions of how this might be done, but I will content myself with saying that there is an obvious need for action, for action on the initiative of the Government, perhaps under control of the Government, towards the organisation of all the agents capable of being employed on new productive processes. I think probably the Minister will agree with me that on the employers' side there is a great lack of organisation, and as a consequence a lack of initiative, a lack of risk-taking, a lack of enterprise and a wastefulness in productive methods.

We repeat here what we have argued before the country, that perhaps supplementary to, if not supplanting, the Tariff Commission, there might well be set up a special, separate department to assist the Government by the way of a Development Commission, giving that Commission power to initiate new works of a useful, productive kind, and to direct research and experiment. The President in the course of his speech last Thursday was inclined, I think, to twit the Labour Party for, as he thought, not having made any special point during the election campaign regarding the necessity for using Irish produced articles. I want to re-assure him on that. There were hundreds of thousands of election addresses circulated, all of which contained a paragraph which dealt with the necessity for not only organising the home demand for Irish produce, developing Irish production, but also the spending of high wages in the purchase of Irish-produced articles. That was insisted upon as a primary consideration of our economic policy, that those who receive good wages should be required to spend their earnings as far as reasonably practicable in the products of Irish farms, factories, and workshops.

I come back to the point I made at the beginning, that in this discussion have dealt with the figures provide by the Minister for Industry and Com merce, or the Minister for Finance at different times, and I think I have shown that on those figures it is not an extravagant proposition to do in 1927 for a number of persons who have exhausted benefits what was done in 1924 when the prospects were worse than they are now, and for a much larger number of persons than we are now thinking of. I was able to obtain certain details which supplement the figures given by the Minister in reply to Deputy A. Byrne to-day. Deputies who are familiar with the conditions in their districts may take note of some of these details, bearing in mind the Minister's assurance that the number of unemployed is fairly represented by the figures given in the numbers on the live register.

For instance, if there is any Deputy from Louth here he can answer whether 29 is the number of unemployed in Ardee. Does 84 represent the number of unemployed in Balbriggan, or 63 in Edenderry? If there is any Deputy from Cavan he will know whether there are more than 28 persons unemployed in Cavan. Are there only 23 unemployed in Clones? These figures include men, women, boys and girls. Are there only 44 unemployed in Monaghan? If there is any Deputy here from East Cork perhaps he could confirm the statement that there are 42 unemployed in Midleton, or could any Deputy from West Cork confirm the statement that there are only 20 unemployed in Dunmanway? The number given for Kinsale is 11, and 46 for Mallow. If Deputy Hennessy were here, perhaps he would say whether there are more than 54 unemployed in Passage West. We are told there are 19 unemployed in Dingle, 78 in Clonmel, and in Mullingar 49. If ex-Deputy Lyons were here, he would be able to say something about that, and perhaps Deputy Broderick would be able to confirm the figure. Are there more than 6 unemployed in the town of Roscommon; in Donegal town 3; in Dungloe 9, and in Dunfanaghy 7? These are some of the figures which go to make up the total number on the live register of 18,000, which is the figure the Minister assures us does in fact represent the number of unemployed in the various towns and cities of the country.

I say I am accepting those figures, because apart from general knowledge, apart from personal facts I have no statistics. Therefore, I prefer to accept the Minister's statistics in making this case. I am asking the House to agree that on the facts as they know them and the figures as given, it is a desirable thing that there should be new legislation to amend the Unemployment Insurance Acts so as to extend the period for which unemployment insurance benefit may be paid.

Mr. COLOHAN

I beg to second the motion. Deputy Johnson has made an unanswerable case for this motion. I in my own county know the facts as to unemployment. For the last fortnight I have met men tottering about on the roads, weak from hunger, men with whom I have worked all my life. I know them to be good, hardy workmen. I think it is a blot on the Parliamentary institutions that we have set up that this state of things should be allowed to continue. We looked forward to this Parliament to relieve unemployment in the country. We have preached it off our platforms throughout the different constituencies everywhere. All the parties were agreed that unemployment should be tackled at once. Now is the time to do it. We have a number of new Deputies here and I hope that they will see eye to eye with the Deputies on these benches in doing something for unemployment. Men are gradually growing weaker and weaker from day to day through hunger, due to unemployment. Pending the provision of employment on a national scale as set out by Deputy Johnson, I think the Dáil should pass this motion and extend the unemployment insurance benefit.

Mr. McMENAMIN

There is one matter on which I would like some enlightenment from Deputy Johnson, and that is, is the proposal in the motion to apply only to persons who are already insured? Secondly, I would ask him to explain what he means by the statement that this is a provisional advance to those people against future earnings. I cannot appreciate what he meant by that point. Is it that when these people are employed at a later date that larger contributions will be made by the employer, by the employed and by the State to make provision for the advance made to them during this period while they are unemployed? Deputy Johnson has quoted figures from the various counties throughout the Saorstát as to the number of unemployed, and we have been asked to say whether or not that represents the true numbers of the unemployed. I take it that the figures quoted by Deputy Johnson are the official figures of unemployed persons under the Unemployment Insurance Acts. It is unnecessary to state here, because it is obvious to anyone acquainted with the country, that the Insurance Acts do not apply to the great industry or the staple industry of this country, and by that I mean the agricultural industry.

I would certainly like to know from Deputy Johnson whether the proposal that he makes now to the House and which he asks us to subscribe to, is or is not to include agricultural labourers? I ask that because the later portion of his motion reads "may be paid to men and women who are willing to work but unable to find work." In regard to that it is superfluous to state that in the various towns to which he has referred, there are huge numbers of persons unemployed who are not returned as unemployed because they do not come within the category of insurable persons. Therefore, they are not returned in the official figures and could not be included in them. I would like to know does Deputy Johnson propose that the unemployment benefit should apply to the agricultural industry, that is, to the staple industry of this country. Does he propose that the later portion of this motion, if carried, should apply to them?

Mr. ALFRED BYRNE

Shortly before this House broke up, one of the Ministers expressed the hope that the members on his own benches would join in the debates. I just waited for a few moments to see would any of those Deputies stand up and state the condition under which they have seen the poor living in the City of Dublin. I heard of some of them making promises to bring forward the cases of those people who are herded and half-starved in the slums of Dublin. They promised they would bring their cases to the notice of the Government at the earliest opportunity. Deputy Johnson has given them a very early opportunity, and I wish that some of those Deputies who secured election on these promises would now stand up and put forward the cases of those whom they represent. I specially refer to the Deputies for the North Dublin constituency which I represent and which I referred to on the opening day of the Dáil. I stated that day that I could produce cases of hunger. I have in my hands two letters. I have a bag full here if any Deputy would care to go through them. I have a register at home that that bag could not carry, and they are all nearly the same. Here is one received this morning:

"Sir,—I would be very thankful if you could do anything in regard to getting some employment for me. I am an ex-British soldier and I also served in the National Army, having very good characters from both. I am forty-four years in this parish, sixteen years married. I have a family of four children, one a week old. I never put in any application for relief. I am not on the dole, and I am unemployed since December, 1926, when I was disposed of owing to slackness of work at the Custom House along with fifty more. My wife is a tubercular case for the last six years. I am selling all my things to give myself and my children food. I am thinking that I may have to go into the South Infirmary. The people in the house have sometimes supported my children. I am for the last six months going on in this way, so I thought I would ask you to do anything for me and my hungry family. I am fit for any class of labour and hold very good discharges, I can be highly recommended by Mr. D. Neligan, Chief Superintendent of the detective branch, and by several others. I would be thankful if you could get me on to the distress work or to the Shannon scheme. It would be better than being put into the Union, parting with my family, where I never was before.—Hoping you will excuse me, I remain, yours."

I will give the name of the writer if any Deputy wishes it.

Here is a letter from another man:—

"Sir,—I would be very thankful to you if you could see your way to recommending me to some place for a job, as I am in a very bad way, with a wife and child and another expected. I am getting no dole, as I have no stamps. I am getting no relief of any kind, and do not know the minute we will be thrown out into the street. I got thirteen weeks from the Tramway Company last October, and the only allowance was one day for every stamp since October to the present moment. I and my wife would be very grateful if you could look after us.—Yours respectfully."

I have another case in which an ex-National Army man walked from Gardiner Street, Dublin, to Limerick, and walked back empty-handed. He begged on the streets in the various towns, and got a little assistance as he went along. But he had to come back to Dublin to his wife and child. Then he walked to Newry, and tried to join the British Army there, but they were not taking any recruits. There are hundreds of similar cases in the City of Dublin to-day. I will not be as careful in my language probably as I should be. I do not care who feeds the children of the unemployed, but they must be fed. I can produce a doctor's certificate dealing with a case where one woman lost three children in a month, and the doctor certified that the children could have been saved with proper care and nourishment. Is that going to continue in the City of Dublin? I say it should not continue, and no matter what steps the Government takes to find a means of living for that class, it ought to be supported by every member of this House.

To-day I put forward a couple of questions asking if the poor law system could be amended in order to allow the children of the unemployed to get some kind of relief. At the opening meeting of the present Dáil the President told one of the Labour Deputies that there were regulations to deal with such cases. He led the House to believe that. I think the President had hopes that what he stated would be in operation, but I want to assure him that it is not in operation. If a workman has six or seven children under ten years of age, all of them hungry, and he goes to the poor law officer for relief, he cannot get it; he can get no assistance for the children. The poor law relief system such that if the man holds out long enough and breaks down in health, enters Crooksling or some other sanatorium for tubercular treatment brought about largely by hunger, it is then, and only then, will the poor law authorities step in and give some relief to his children. I say that the law is wrong. The man should not have to enter a tubercular home broken in health, before the State or the local authorities decide to look after his children. There is something wrong, and I hope that the new Minister for Local Government, Deputy Mulcahy, will take steps to see that existing conditions will not be allowed to continue.

Deputy Johnson made reference to tariffs. If you go down the North Wall you will see wholesale dumping of foreign material. There is wholesale dumping of printed matter. On the hoardings in the Dublin streets we can see nice advertisements that are all printed in England, Scotland or Germany. Prayer books and bibles are being dumped at the North Wall while printers and bookbinders are going round the Dublin streets idle. That is a matter which the Government should see to and, where possible, stop. Any of the goods that are being dumped in this country could be equally as well made in Dublin or in other parts of Ireland. That would be one of the means of solving the unemployed problem. Whilst I am prepared to support any motion that would give the workers and their families relief, I, with Deputy Johnson, do not wish it to be stated that I am agitating that this is the only remedy. I am satisfied that those whom I speak for would prefer good employment in which they could earn a reasonable wage than taking relief from either the local authorities or from the Unemployment Benefit Fund, but until such time as they are provided with employment the children of these people ought to be fed, and it is the duty of the State to see that they are.

Mr. J.J. BYRNE

I am one of the members for the constituency which Deputy A. Byrne represents, and I had no intention whatever of taking part in the debate this evening until I heard the appeal that Deputy Byrne has just made to the House. He stated that some of the members for the North City constituency were returned on certain, promises which they had made to the electors, and he mentioned that he would like to hear what they had to say on the particular question at issue. Perhaps there is no member in the North City who had to deal with the question of unemployment from the point of view of the Government Party more than I. I listened with the greatest care and attention to the very able speech made by Deputy Johnson in order to hear something constructive upon the question. I listened in vain for anything in that speech which would negative the propositions that we of the Government Party put forward during the course of the general election. From our platforms it was stated that according to the International Statistical Report the Free State was one of the six countries which, in recent times, have been lucky enough to diminish unemployment. But I would like to go a little further and to say that we in the North City, while being quite sympathetic with all the arguments that have been put forward, would like to add to them the fact that there are other equally deserving classes in the city who are in circumstances as bad as the ordinary rank and file workers. I refer to the small business man type, the man who is running his business, as everybody here knows, in nine cases out of ten practically at a dead loss.

Mr. CORISH

Could the Deputy say that any of them were living practically without a meal every day?

AN CEANN COMHAIRLE

We want to hear Deputy Byrne without any interruptions on this, the first, occasion.

Mr. J.J. BYRNE

We are in perfect sympathy with the arguments that have been adduced by the leader of the Labour Party and by Deputy Byrne. We have no doubt whatever that Deputy Byrne made a great many promises in the recent election, but we on this side of the House will only say that we will endeavour to carry out any promises we have made, and we made no promises in the recent electoral fight that we are not prepared to carry out. We are not coming before the Dáil and making a lot of sentimental, rubbishy speeches without anything constructive in them. We have something constructive to put before the Dáil. Every Deputy knows that the resources of the State are at present at a very low ebb. We on this side of the House are not merely deeply sympathetic with all that has been said so far as the unemployed are concerned, but we have been endeavouring to do something. We have been endeavouring to improve the situation by way of tariffs. Deputy Byrne appears to forget absolutely that 50 per cent. of our imports are now subject to a duty. Deputy Byrne referred to boots, which are practically the highest taxed article at present coming into the Free State. The Government has been working steadily to solve the unemployment problem, and I would point out that the leader of the Labour Party has been unable to refute a single figure that we on the Government Benches put forward from the International Statistical Report on Labour. It is all very well to make sentimental speeches, but we would be better pleased if something of a constructive nature had come either from my friend Deputy Byrne or from the leader of the Labour Party in his very interesting speech.

Mr. JINKS

I desire to support the motion. I come from the town of Sligo where there is a very large amount of unemployment. There is a small job, involving about £2,000, to be carried out by the Sligo Corporation next week, and yesterday applications for work in connection with it were received from 600 men, while only 60 or 70 can be employed. The workers in my part of the country do not wish to touch the dole; they want work, and it is up to the Government, as far as they possibly can, to get employment for the workers all over the Saorstát.

Mr. ANTHONY

I desire to support the motion. Whilst I recognise that it does not and cannot offer any permanent solution of this tragic problem of unemployment, it is the only tentative or temporary method by which this crux can be met. Deputy Byrne referred to many cases of privation in the City of Dublin, and read some communications he had received. It may be news to Deputy Byrne and to the House that I could multiply these cases and these letters a hundredfold. For the last couple of months I have been daily in receipt of at least one dozen letters in terms somewhat similar to those read by Deputy Byrne. I am aware that this problem is not peculiar to the Free State, that many other countries suffer from unemployment in a greater or less degree. But I do seriously suggest that this Government has never tackled the problem as it should be tackled and as they promised in their election addresses and speeches.

To those Deputies who may be in close personal contact with welfare societies and to those who have any connection with St. Vincent de Paul Societies and other charitable organisations, it will be no news to hear that in the reports issued from time to time it is stated that most of the diseases of children treated in various public institutions are attributable to malnutrition and privation, arising from unemployment. During the elections many Deputies promised that when they got into the Dáil they would endeavour by every constitutional means to relieve unemployment. I will welcome any step, and I am sure the Labour Party will do the same, that the Government may take to relieve unemployment, and we will give all the help we possibly can in that direction.

There is a phase of this problem which may not be very evident, but it is one which I think should be seriously considered by the Government. Cases have occurred in Cork quite recently where when people who had exhausted their State benefit went for home assistance they were told that there was no money to meet any further claims. As a consequence of that I very much fear that the great tragedy that occurred in Adrigole may be repeated in Cork city in a very short time. Even if the promises that were made by the various parties were only partially fulfilled it would satisfy me, and I feel sure that the Labour Party would be satisfied if even half the promises made by the Government candidates during the election in connection with the unemployment problem were fulfilled. The phase of the unemployment question to which I wish to direct the attention of the House is one which may not be very evident but which has frequently struck me. After continued unemployment, with all its attendant miseries and privations, men are inclined to become desperate and are usually the readiest to absorb revolutionary doctrine. I look upon a large and increasing army of unemployed as a menace to the State, and the State would be well advised in its own interests to see that every effort possible is made to remedy this evil, even to the extent of raising a long term loan to begin work of a constructive and economic character which would absorb a large number of unemployed. For these reasons I have pleasure in supporting the motion.

Mr. DALY

I support the motion. I should like to point out that the figures given by the Minister for Industry and Commerce, in reply to Deputy Byrne, do not clearly indicate the amount of unemployment in the country. Agricultural workers are not included amongst the insured at all. I do not like to be finding fault at this particular time, but I should like to indicate a direction in which a cure for unemployment might be found. I refer to forestry. If lands were acquired, men could be employed at afforestation. I am sorry the Minister for Agriculture is not present, because I pointed out to him from time to time in the past places where lands could be cheaply acquired in Fermoy district for the purpose of afforestation. The lands belonging to the Land Commission are also available. Employment could be given to a vast number of men in clearing the mountains at present, in preparation for planting in the winter. I should also say that the people who have been employed in this connection have not been insured. They are included in the category of agricultural labourers. I would make the Government a present of that if they would only keep the men employed. They did keep them employed for the last couple of winters, but what they earned during the winter would not maintain them during the summer.

In my district, we have also big drainage schemes. That is constructive work that will pay for itself in the future. We have drainage schemes approved in a district that the British Army left—Buttevant—and in which the people are actually starving. I would urge the immediate necessity of going ahead with a scheme that has been passed by the county council and by the Board of Works. I do not know what is holding it back. The people are anxious to work and they are asking me to urge forward the scheme. The charge that was levelled against Deputy Byrne may be levelled against me—that I made a lot of promises during the election campaign. I should like to fulfil those promises, and I should like to point out that I believe they were honest promises, and promises that I need not be ashamed of. I would ask the Minister for Agriculture, or whoever is responsible, to get on immediately with the work in Buttevant. They were sending down the engineer some time ago. Now is not the time for sending engineers in connection with drainage work. Now is the time for working, and the engineering should have been done in the winter, when work could not be done on the drainage scheme. Now that they have the engineering work in hands, let them get on with the work.

I think any man who works in Government employment should be insurable. Many people do not agree that men should be permitted to draw money for nothing, but I know a number of men who would starve if it were not for the unemployment dole, as it is described. I have great pleasure in supporting the motion put forward by Deputy Johnson, and I should like some occupant of the Ministerial bench to convey to the officials responsible that they should hasten the work in Buttevant. At all events, I have fulfilled the promise I made during the election.

Mr. HORGAN

I should like to support the principle of the motion so ably proposed by Deputy Johnson. I have heard the figures mentioned by Deputies here regarding the extent of unemployment. I was rather alarmed at the smallness of the numbers for the different localities read out by the Minister, having regard to the experience. I have had in going through the country. The wholesale condition of depression which exists in the country is such as to call for the immediate attention of the Government. So serious is the question of unemployment in Cork that a special appeal has been made by the St. Vincent de Paul Society to enable them to cope with it in some slight degree. Not only is trade depressed, but money is almost impossible to get. A feeling of desperation is coming over the men who are unemployed. They do not know where to seek for work. I am aware that the difficulty is not easy of solution, and I feel satisfied that the Government is fairly sympathetic. I would urge them to be more than sympathetic. I would urge them to get really earnest as regards this problem, to "get a push on" and to endeavour to speed up any plans they may have to relieve what is unquestionably a crying evil.

I should prefer that some form of employment should be given rather than that money should be paid out for which no return will be forthcoming. I know that the Government has been interested in the past in the question of the Cork Spinning and Weaving Company. From information which I had at my disposal before I came here, I am satisfied that the time is opportune for getting that mill going again. In fact, I am informed that all the material that could be turned out by one portion of that mill could be absorbed within the Free State. I have been told that the Government have made certain proposals and that they are anxious to assist. I would make a special appeal to them to get into immediate touch with the directors of that firm and see if something could not be done to lessen the roll of unemployed by providing men with useful occupation in that industry. The principle of the motion is one which commends itself not only to me but to every fair-minded man. I feel that it will commend itself to the Government too. I therefore support the motion, and ask the Government to give it its earnest attention.

Mr. LAWLOR

In supporting the motion moved by Deputy Johnson, I should like to point out that the problem of unemployment ought not to be the business of one particular party only, and that we make no such claim. We consider that all parties in this House ought to contribute, as far as possible, towards relieving the unfortunate people who are the victims of the existing distress. I should imagine that the Government would be the first to take up this problem, immediately following the elections. I had an idea that probably they would do so, but I am disturbed by the fact that the responsible Minister stands up and quotes figures that he must know from his own experience are not accurate—no matter how the inaccuracies occurred in their compiling. The fact is that they are not accurate, and could not be accurate. The Minister has stated that there are 18,000 in the Saorstát unemployed. Surely no member of the Government Party, or of any other party, is prepared to accept that figure as a genuine record. Eighteen thousand, indeed! It might be more reasonably claimed that that represents the amount of unemployment in this city. Probably the Government will say that they have done many things to relieve unemployment, and refer to the Shannon scheme, the beet factory, new roads, etc. I say deliberately to the Government that if that is the last word that can be said this evening as to the manner in which they can deal with the question, at least it can be said that they have proved a failure, and that we have all proved a failure, to deal with what ought to be considered as the most vital question before the representatives of the country. If what the Government has done is to be the last word, instead of things getting better they will drift from bad to worse.

Some Deputy has said that those who are not in receipt of unemployment benefit are compelled to seek home relief. Let us understand where we are as regards home relief. A person unemployed and with a family depending on him is not entitled to receive home relief because of unemployment. He can only receive home relief when his health is broken down through starvation, and then only upon the production of a medical certificate to the effect that he is physically unfit to work. Cases have been cited here by Deputy Byrne; many more could be cited. One particular case came under my notice only yesterday during the course of my business in connection with the Dublin Corporation. I discovered that one of the Commissioners was interesting himself on behalf of one of the many cases in this city where a man was driven, because of unemployment, to go into the Dublin Union. This man was in one portion of the Union, his wife was in another, and his family in another. Surely it is a tragedy if we have to admit that we cannot relieve such a condition of things as that. If families have to be reared in the environment of institutions such as that because we have failed to do something for them, I suggest that the sooner we get out the better and let some others come in who can do something. In the old days the union used to be regarded as the symbol of what foreign government led to. I hope we are not going to allow it to remain.

I should like to emphasise that captious critics of the Labour Party endeavoured during the election to show that the only interest the Labour Party has taken in the question of unemployment is to advocate doles. I think every fair-minded person in the House will admit that so far as the Labour Party is concerned, both inside and outside the House it has always endeavoured to do all it possibly could in the interests of the unemployed, and that they only deal with this question of unemployment insurance for the unemployed when it is impossible to obtain work for those who are able to work. I trust the Government will take serious notice of this matter and that they will not be content to say: "There are the figures; you have put forward no other figures to refute the accuracy of the ones submitted"; and that they will not merely state that they have already done so much—and so much and so much. There is a great deal more to be done, and, as I said in the beginning, let us at least agree not to make this all-important matter a Party question, not to make it something for scoring a point off an opponent, but to deal with it in the manner in which it ought to be dealt with by Irishmen and Irishwomen seeking to do what they can for their less-favoured brothers and sisters who are to-day affected by the unfortunate condition of the country.

Mr. BAXTER

This is the kind of motion one would expect from those representing principally the interests of labour in the towns. Undoubtedly knowing, as they do, the conditions in the towns, and being the mouthpieces of those people in this House, the Labour Party are entitled to make their case. Few will deny that unfortunately we have too many unemployed. But we have unemployment not only in the towns but in the rural districts. When we try to solve this problem we should consider the causes, and I do not know that I have heard anything in support of this motion that will lead to a solution of the difficulties that have to be faced and solved before every man and woman in the State is employed. If I understand the motion aright, the import of it is that the expenditure of this State will have to be increased. The Party for whom I speak stood for one thing particularly since they came into the Dáil. All the time we have been claiming that the high expenditure should be reduced. I was glad to welcome many followers of that policy in the recent election, and I think that even members of the Labour Party at times have assented to the declaration that when the administration of a country costs too much depression is, to some extent, likely to follow in its train. We feel that the cost of administration to-day is to high. On behalf of my Party, I wish to say that although we have great sympathy with the people who are unemployed in the towns, we also have sympathy with the people in the rural districts, some of them unemployed and many of them employed, but getting such a very bad return for their services that in fact they are not much better off than the thousands of people on the dole in the towns and cities.

Mr. MORRISSEY

There is no dole.

Mr. BAXTER

Some of our churchmen during the election said that it would be a good thing for the State if we had no dole, that what was wanted was work. By work, they said, and not by the dole, should men live. My Party always subscribed to that doctrine, because the people whom we represent have to work, and very often they are very badly paid for their labour. On the services they give this State depends, to a very great extent, the ability of the State to live and thrive. They feel that they are paying an undue proportion of the cost of both local and national services. Before we are prepared to add further to the cost of these services we have to ask: "Are our people able to pay?" We are not going to stand for one doctrine in the country, namely, to reduce expenditure and be ruthless in our efforts for reduction, and stand for something else in the Dáil. I speak but the truth when I say that the people who demand economy will have to be ruthless, if there is to be economy in the administration of public services.

We have heretofore demanded a reduction in estimates in this House, but we did not succeed, and we did not get support and sympathy from Deputies from whom we expected support. We made no promises in the country of the great things we were going to do. We have as keen a realisation of the difficulty of doing great things as any other body of representatives here. We stood for bringing about conditions that would be more satisfactory to the agriculturists than conditions are at present. Our conviction is that it is by a reduction in State expenditure alone that a change can be brought about whereby employment can be given, the cost of living reduced, and an all-round improvement brought about which will reduce the number of unemployed and at the same time make conditions better for the people who work. We have in many parts of rural Ireland as much poverty, depression and want as exist in the towns and cities. There are some Labour Deputies, and other Deputies, who know that what I say is true. You cannot expect one starving man to pay for the upkeep of another, and we know that in the end agriculture has to bear the greater part of the burden of the expenditure of the State. We are asked by this motion to add further to the numbers of people on the dole.

Mr. JOHNSON

No, you are not.

Mr. CORISH

There are no people on the dole at the moment for a start.

Mr. McGILLIGAN

There will be, if this motion is passed.

Mr. CORISH

I am talking of the situation as it prevails now.

Mr. BAXTER

I want to be quite clear as to where we stand.

Mr. DAVIN

It is about time you were.

Mr. BAXTER

The motion states: "That the Dáil is of opinion that the Government should introduce without delay proposals for legislation to amend the Unemployment Insurance Acts so as to extend the period over which unemployment insurance benefit may be paid to men and women who are willing to work but unable to find work."

Mr. MORRISSEY

There is nothing there about a dole.

Mr. BAXTER

Unless I misunderstand it, that is going to put more on the dole than there are at present.

Mr. CORISH

There is no one on the dole at present.

Mr. BAXTER

Are not unemployment insurance benefits being paid?

Mr. CORISH

They are paying for that.

Mr. BAXTER

Does not this mean that more money will have to be paid out in Unemployment Insurance Benefits?

A DEPUTY

Rather than let the people die with hunger.

Mr. BAXTER

I know quite well the attitude of the Labour Party in this matter. It must be their attitude, because of the conditions that exist and that put them here to fight for this. They made promises too. Perhaps they made more promises than I did during the elections, and I have no doubt they have to make an effort to justify their promises. One does not blame them for that, but the representatives of the country in this House have to examine the conditions as they are in the State to-day and say whether or not if an opportunity is given to one body of representatives to justify their promises to the electors, what position is the State as a whole going to be put in, and what conditions are going to be created for a very big section of our people who have to carry the majority on their backs all the time.

Mr. LAWLOR

This is not a promise but the question of the people's right to work being recognised.

Mr. GOREY

I think it is time Deputies had some protection. I rise to a point of order.

The CEANN COMHAIRLE

rose.

Mr. MORRISSEY

The greatest interrupter in the House.

Mr. GOREY

You are very big after the election.

Mr. CORISH

Yes, we are big.

AN CEANN COMHAIRLE

When the Chair rises Deputies will have to learn that they cannot continue their interruptions. I will protect Deputy Baxter as soon as I think he needs protection, but I would not give him as much protection as newcomers like Deputy Lawlor, or Deputy J.J. Byrne. I think Deputy Baxter can stand a certain amount of interruption. I therefore will protect him when I think he needs it. In the meantime, may I say that when a Deputy has made a speech he should be satisfied, and if he thinks of something he might have said, he should not say it by way of interruption.

Mr. BAXTER

In spite of the interruptions I am trying to state the position and the attitude of mind of the Farmers' Party in this matter. I do not know what other parties may do, and I do not know what their outlook or attitude is in this matter, but our policy all along for years has been the sooner we could do away with this unemployment insurance the better it would be for the people of the country. I cannot see any possible chance that this method of meeting unemployment will be good for unemployment. I do not believe it is going to create that attitude of mind on the part of workers which will make them better workers.

Mr. MORRISSEY

Starvation will not make them better.

Mr. BAXTER

I have met men myself who were invited to do work and who were on this insurance. They did not want to abandon their right to the insurance by doing a couple of days' work in the week. The Labour Party are up against this mentality, and they know quite as well as I do that when men take up money from the State week after week, in spite of the fact that they have previously contributed so that they may get that money, it is not going to make them in any sense better citizens or give them that outlook towards work and even privation which is necessary at all times for every honest worker, if that worker is to live through trying times. We are not prepared to subscribe to the doctrine that there should be a further extension of unemployment insurance. I have not heard anything from the Labour Party or from other Deputies who have spoken in favour of the motion that there should be an increased contribution from the workers so that this money might be available, in order that the taxpayers of the State might not have to carry the burden. Our position in this matter is unaltered. We will stand against any further increased expenditure, because we believe it is bad for the State, bad for the citizens, bad for a revival of trade and industries that would give the employment the Labour Party are demanding the workers should get. We are sympathetic towards the people who have no work.

Mr. E. DOYLE

What good is sympathy?

Mr. BAXTER

I say what others have said heretofore, that we should not have sympathy only for the people who are not working. The men who are not working will have to re-examine the whole problem in the light of the conditions that exist, and the people who, on the other hand, are in a position to give work have their responsibilities too. While agriculture in Ireland is passing through the present period of depression, our attitude here as representatives of that industry, is that our industry can carry no more than it is carrying at the present time, that further demands on the part of the State for higher expenditure will have such a serious effect on our industry that the numbers of unemployed will be added to, not by hundreds, but by thousands, that emigration must increase, and we say that while you may satisfy a body of the electorate in some towns and a couple of cities, you are going to do very serious injury to agriculture as a whole. To that doctrine our Party are not prepared to subscribe.

Mr. MORRISSEY

I do not think that this House has ever had to listen to a more barren speech than that delivered by Deputy Baxter this evening. It seems to me that he spoke merely because he felt it was incumbent on him, as the leader of a Party, to speak, but he spoke not knowing anything whatever about the matter under discussion. He showed a complete ignorance of the whole question of unemployment and of unemployment insurance, and displayed the most narrow outlook that it would be possible to display either in this House or outside of it. It is no wonder that many people in the country refer to the farmers as being narrow-minded and conservative, if we are to take the point of view of Deputy Baxter as their point of view. It is no business of ours, he says in effect, if the thousands of workers and their dependents in the towns die from starvation. I thought at one period of his speech that the Deputy was going to move an amendment to the effect that the Insurance Acts be abolished altogether, and that the thousands who are unemployed and the few thousands who are fortunate enough to be drawing unemployment benefit should be deprived of that so that we would have a quick end to their misery and that they should have a speedy death rather than a struggling one.

Deputy Baxter talked about doles and of the farming community having to carry the dole and everybody else on their backs. We know as well as Deputy Baxter, and indeed everyone knows, that agriculture is the mainstay of the country. We on those benches are as anxious to see the agricultural industry prosperous as Deputy Baxter or anybody else. I would remind the Deputy that there is no section of the community which receives more in doles from this State than the section that he represents. I ask him does he forget about the £1,200,000 paid by all the citizens of this State towards the relief of the rates? I would remind him that a good deal of the money which was voted by this House for the relief of unemployment by making roads was used by the county councils not for giving employment on the roads but to reduce the rates. I know very well that by far the greater part of the taxation of this country is used on the agricultural industry, and that is as it should be, but Deputy Baxter and other members of the House who talk loosely about the dole ought to realise that there is no dole in this country, and that unemployed workers are not entitled to draw anything except what they have paid for; and if this motion be passed it will only mean that a somewhat similar provision is made for the unemployed worker as has been made for the struggling farmer through the credit societies and the credit corporation—an advance, as Deputy Johnson put it, which would have to be repaid, and will be repaid.

I think Deputies ought to make up their minds whether they want to maintain a healthy population in this country or not. I want to ask Deputies, from the knowledge they have of their own households, whether they think that a man can support himself and his family upon 7/- or 8/- a week outdoor relief which, in many counties, is the maximum amount allowed, when it is allowed at all. Deputies should try to realise, as I stated here on last Thursday evening, that a man in order to get unemployment benefit must first get work. He must get at least three months' work in any one year before he is entitled to one shilling unemployment benefit, and if he is lucky enough to get three months' work he gets twelve stamps and is entitled to twelve days' pay; but the man who is not fortunate enough to get three months' work is left without work and unemployment benefit. It is for these men that we are speaking here this evening, and we put it that it is the duty of the State, and a duty which the State cannot shirk, to provide work or maintenance for its citizens. The first duty of the State is to safeguard the lives and the interests of the citizens of the State. I think every member of the House will subscribe to that. We are asking that the House should direct the Government to save the lives of the men who are unemployed and their dependents. Deputies are being asked to do that and no more. Deputies will be asked in the division on this motion to say if a man who is willing to work but cannot get it shall get food to keep him alive until such time as he can get work, or until such time as the country can provide work for him, or whether he is to be allowed to starve. That is the issue clearly put. I hope, and I am sure that the outlook of Deputy Baxter on this matter is not the outlook of the farmers of this country. There is hardly a doubt about that, and perhaps I might say in conclusion that that is the reason—perhaps it is because of that type of outlook and speeches of that kind—why we have less of a Farmers' Party in this Dáil than we had in the last.

Professor THRIFT (Acting Chairman)

took the Chair.

Captain REDMOND

This debate has now proceeded for some time without any indication from the Ministerial Benches as to what attitude they intend to adopt.

Mr. JOHNSON

Has not Deputy J.J. Byrne stated the Ministerial policy?

Captain REDMOND

I am referring to the front bench, and I think it is about time that we should hear from whoever is to be the spokesman of the Government what their attitude is to be. I am one of those who, like Deputy Baxter, preached the policy of economy both before and during the last election, but there are limits to all principles, and I think it is going very far indeed to support the principle to such an extent as has been suggested by Deputy Baxter in his speech this afternoon. This is a matter, to my mind, of life and death, and, though we may be in favour of economy, surely there can be no question of economy where life and death are at stake. As far as I understand the proposal of Deputy Johnson, it is merely that the period over which unemployment insurance benefit may be paid should be extended, that there should be a similar provision made in the Free State to that which is already in existence in the North, and, as he truly said, that in itself would possibly do a great deal more towards the reuniting of North and South than even the abolition of the income tax. But, apart from that, the proposal seems to me to be something in the nature of a temporary expedient, of a last resort, if you like, to meet a serious and pressing emergency. I do not imagine that either the Labour Party or those for whom they speak desire unemployment benefits for evermore instead of work. I, certainly, for one, do not subscribe to that doctrine, but the fact remains that there is not sufficient work in the country for the people, and the Government have not the means of providing that work. Though they have been in office for the last four years, and though they have done a considerable amount towards the relieving of unemployment, one cannot get away from the fact that there are still thousands of unemployed in the country who are anxious to work.

I do not take the Minister's figures of 18,000 as anything like representing the number of unemployed. I do not know that he himself means seriously to put forward these figures. They may represent those who are registered as unemployed, but can he say to-day, when he speaks, that he is himself convinced that only 18,000 people in this State are unemployed? If he cannot say that, can he give any indication as to the numbers which, from the resources at his disposal—and they are probably greater than those at the disposal of any other individual Deputy in this House—are unemployed? From my experience in the country, and it has been no small one in recent months —I have been through most parts of the Free State—unemployment is rampant. And in this regard let me say I do not think Deputy Baxter was quite fair when he seemed to have suggested that this motion dealt only with the unemployed in the cities and the towns. There is no mention of urban areas in this motion. I am aware there is unemployment in rural areas, and I am as much concerned with the unemployment there as the Labour Party is with unemployment in the urban areas.

This seems to be merely a temporary proposal, to endeavour to get over the position which exists and which is largely due—I am not going so far as to say to the neglect, but certainly to the lack of foresight on the part of the Government not providing other means of employment for those people. I say that in the absence of those provisions of employment, and in the presence of the hoards of unemployed, this is no extreme, demand to make to the Government, or, indeed, on the national purse. I take it that this will in no way necessarily throw a very heavy extra burden upon the taxpayer. The proposal, I surmise, is that whatever amount is required for payment during the extended period shall be met by borrowing. Ministers and their friends are never done telling us of the high state of the credit of the country. I do not see that it would mean a very extra burden to borrow the necessary sum for this purpose. In the meantime may I suggest that it should be the duty of the Government to endeavour to relieve unemployment by the provision of further work, and that when they have provided this extra work, then there would be no necessity for the continuance of this payment.

It is because there has not been this provision that we are now faced with the alternative whether in the interests of economy, as seems to be the attitude adopted by Deputy Baxter and his Party, thousands of our people are to be allowed to starve, or whether it is right and proper and economic that, with our credit such as it is, we should be entitled, in view of the present conditions prevailing, to borrow a certain sum of money in order to make a payment over an extended period—a principle which has been adopted and is in force both in Great Britain and in Northern Ireland.

No one wants to see anything in the nature of the dole revived. This proposal, I take it, refers entirely to those who have paid a certain amount into the Unemployment Insurance Fund. As has been said by previous speakers, no one can claim unemployment insurance until he has actually had a certain number of stamps to his credit. Therefore, it is not suggested, I presume, that there is to be anything in the nature of a dole. Even if it were to be a proposal for the creation of the dole I am prepared to say, though I am strongly in favour of economy, that I would not be against it, because I believe the situation is so serious that it demands it. I believe that no expedient would be too drastic to adopt at the present time, in view of the extent of unemployment in the country, to remedy the present state of affairs provided it was an expedient which has been tested, as this one has been, elsewhere and which has proved to be one that can be rightly and properly adopted.

This is a very serious crisis, and is a state of emergency which calls for emergency legislation. It would be far better if we could have employment and work, but in the absence of that work and of any properly thought-out scheme by the Government during their last four years of office, and owing to their not having prevented this state of affairs from coming about, I say it is now their bounden duty to do something to relieve the situation. If this proposal will bring about a certain amount of relief, that should not deter them from endeavouring to provide employment and work as soon as possible, but rather it should influence them to do now what they should have done during the last four years, and that is to endeavour to find some means whereby these people who are now unemployed can be properly employed. While I am strongly against anything in the nature of a gratuitous dole, which I do not think this is, at the same time I am convinced from the state the country is in in regard to unemployment that the proposal contained here is a just, fair and proper way of dealing with that state of affairs and that it is one which I hope will commend itself to the majority of the House. We do not know what the Government's views are upon it at present. We have only heard, I think, two speeches from the Government back benches. Having listened for the last two hours to speeches made from other quarters of the House, I hope the Minister who has charge of this matter, or someone with his authority in his stead, will give us the benefit of his views upon it. When he does, I hope he will realise that, as has been said by another speaker on this debate, this should not and must not be taken as being anything in the nature of a party question. It is no such thing. This is a matter that must affect the whole community, and I hope it will not be treated by the Government, as I am glad to say it has not been treated so far by other Deputies, as a party question.

In supporting this proposal, I do so regretfully, because I regret that it is necessary to bring such a proposal before the House. At the same time I support it because I believe the emergency is so grave that it necessitates something of this nature being done, and if the Government decline to accept this proposal now the responsibility is theirs and they must provide something in the nature of a substitute for it. I hope, if they decline to accept this temporary expedient, that they will give us some indication of what they propose to do. I hope at any rate that they will go so far as to admit that there is a grave question of unemployment, that it is of immediate seriousness, and that they will, if they reject this, be able to give us some indication if they are going to do anything in the matter at all, or if they are going to allow things to drift as they have, more or less, for the last four years. Certainly I think it is due to the House that the Minister, or whoever speaks for the Government, should, if the Government decline to accept the principle of this motion, give the House and the country some indication of what they propose to do, to meet this very serious state of affairs.

Mr. McGILLIGAN

Would the Deputy explain what he believes to be the meaning of the motion with regard to the extension of the period?

Captain REDMOND

I think I have explained that.

Mr. GOREY

Deputy Redmond uses the phrase "properly employed." I wonder what is behind his mind when he talks about proper employment. I may be very fortunate, because in my constituency we have very little of this unemployment problem. I have not come up against it. I am one who, during the recent election, made no promises and therefore am not bound by any, and I have replied to no questionnaires. It is an extraordinary state of affairs if we have a state of unemployment in other constituencies and not in mine. I am not prepared to speak for the Cities of Waterford, Cork or Dublin, and I take it that what the Deputy says about them is a fair indication of the state of affairs.

Mr. W. O'BRIEN

Not even in Kilkenny city.

Mr. GOREY

Not even in Kilkenny City. Last year I had occasion to look for men to work. I got three men from Kilkenny City, who worked one day. The next morning was a little bit wet. They went out to cut thistles, came in about 9 o'clock, and said that as their feet got wet and they had no change they could not work. They got paid for the day's work and went away. My permanent men had to work in the rain. These people from the cities do not want farm work. That is the reason I refer to the question of what Deputy Redmond means by proper work and being properly employed. My permanent men had to work in all weather and were paid a much less wage than these three hands.

I think we must make up our minds that there are certain men in the country amongst the unemployed who do not want work and for whom no State can find work. The question is whether we are to give them unemployment benefit. It boils down to this, that we are to get rid of work and make up our minds to give them unemployment benefit for the rest of the time. A great many people do not like work. That particularly applies to the man who has tasted the paradise of benefit without work. We hear every day in the country of people with unemployment benefit who are not prepared to accept work, and when they do work they also draw the benefit and let nobody know about it in case it would get back to the ears of the people who employed them.

The trend of Deputy Baxter's speech is that there is one section of the community who realises the position, that is those engaged in agriculture, not only the farmers but all who work on the farm. These are the only people who realise the condition of affairs, and who are prepared to work for a low wage. The agricultural worker is paid less and works harder than anyone else engaged in this State to-day. I think the Labour Party ought to realise the position, and if they fail I do not know where the help lies. If they strike out for a wage of from £3 10s. to £4 to which Deputy Johnson refers, I think the State cannot find a wage for the worker. We have heard sneers from the Labour benches at the wages on the Shannon scheme. They altogether fail to recognise that more than 50 per cent. of the people of the country have to work at a much lesser wage and be contented. The facts are that a considerable number of people have been taken from the farmers' employment and are at present, working on the roads. That should not be if there were unemployment in Kilkenny. Men are wanted on the farms. The difficulty we have had is to find enough of hands for the farm. There is no use in looking for men of the type of the three individuals I referred to.

I think we have to come to the conclusion that there are a lot of people absolutely hopeless, that we cannot find work for them, and Labour had better realise that. Men will have to work for a less wage than the one Labour holds out as the ideal. The resources of the State to-day are more limited than at any period since my time. Labour will have to realise the position, come down and get their feet on the ground. Deputy Morrissey referred to £1,200,000 being given in relief to the rates. That has been given, and was principally given to enable a farmer in the country to pay wages of from 10/- to 12/- a week and to diet his workmen. It has not put him in a better position than he was in twelve months ago. That is still the wage paid in the country. We cannot have fancy wages. If the Labour Party are prepared to come down off their high horse and to accept a reasonable wage, I think we will be all right. While they demand this fancy wage and grouse about wages on the Shannon scheme and what is a reasonable wage, I do not think Labour is doing the best service they can to their own class. I make the assertion that they are the biggest enemies of work in this country, but I do not expect that they are going to admit that.

The fact is they are not prepared to accept a reasonable wage even for those who will not work. They want a favoured rate for a few, but the country cannot afford to pay a school-master's rate of pay or the wages given to men in sheltered trades. When Labour is prepared to do that and to adopt a reasonable attitude we can endeavour to sit down and work out a remedy.

Mr. McDONOGH

As an unfortunate employer. I think that I should contribute something to this debate. I come from a place where it is not a question of ten or twelve shillings or even two pounds a week as a wage. Our minimum wage is £2 10s. 6d., and there are men there who will not be allowed to work by some of the Deputies on the Labour, benches. There is what is called a labour dispute, and the sort of men who are favoured there are men of the type of whom Deputy Gorey spoke, men who will not get their feet wet and who take care that they do not work too long. There is no man who cares more for the welfare of his workmen or who would like to pay them better than I, but the men who are doing the greatest dis-service to the country to-day are those on the Labour benches, who will not realise that the country is paying wages which it cannot afford.

Mention has been made of Northern Ireland, but, it might be asked, what wages do they pay in Northern Ireland and what is the difference between the rates of pay there and those prevailing in the Saorstát? Can farmers in the present condition of things pay these wages? In my district there is a certain amount of unemployment, but I believe if there was a fair and moderate wage paid there would be very little unemployment. I have never tried to reduce the wages paid to my men, for I realise that it means a great deal to any workman to have four or five shillings a week taken from his wages. The trouble and annoyance which employers in this country get prevent people from starting any industry in the Saorstát. No one, in fact, except a lunatic, would start a new industry here, except under protection, and even then he would only do so after thinking a long time about it. The sooner Labour realises that things are not what they were in this country the better it will be for the State. Proper men should be sent through the country to discuss with employers what wages they can afford to pay. My experience of Labour representatives is not very pleasant, and I am sure that their experience of me has not been very pleasant either. The one reasonable man amongst Labour whom I ever met, and who seemed to me to discuss in a reasonable way what should be done was Senator Foran. He came to us in Galway and a proposal was made, after the intervention of the Government and the Labour Exchange was sought. A sort of agreement was made. It was not reduced to writing, and before Senator Foran had reached Athlone on his way home that agreement was broken. Labour can only get what it is able to earn, and the sooner that is realised the better. I would like to see a better spirit of co-operation prevailing between employers and employees, rather than the sending of trouble-makers throughout the country. I am not afraid of any of them, and I never was. It is only right that the other side of the question should be given. I remember when some members of the Dáil came to Galway. We had not a labour dispute, but they seemed to have got more liquor than was good for them, and they held a meeting at which they stated that they were going to wipe the floor with me. They have not done it yet. We must realise where we are. One section cannot get more than that section earns, and this country cannot support the extravagant wage that certain people get. I will give an instance of what happened with me some time ago, and I believe the election was the cause——

ACTING CHAIRMAN

Is it in connection with unemployment?

Mr. McDONOGH

Yes. I had a number of carpenters employed and they were getting £4 0s. 9d. a week. I had no quarrel with them and they had no quarrel with me. A gentleman was imported from Manchester. He says he is of Irish parentage and Irish descent. The gentleman who was imported proceeded to make new regulations and new rules. The regulations and rules were that the society would appoint apprentices, that I should employ any man they selected, and not men that I wished to employ. The hours on Saturday were also changed. I could not agree to that. The result was that I let these men walk around. They are walking around. The rest of my men are supporting them by subscribing so much a week. I mentioned to my men some time ago, that if they could afford to support these fellows was it not time for a revision of wages. I did not revise their wages, but I will. It is a pity that there is a feeling that the labour world at present does not want to give a fair return for wages. It is frankly and openly Bolshevik. We imported that from England and other places. The ordinary Irishman in this country is all right. Any trouble we had politically or any other way is generally due to some importee, or to someone with foreign blood. I do not think I can contribute anything more to the debate but, as an initial effort, I have not done so badly.

Mr. COBURN

I would like to say a few words on the unemployment question. I am going to give a sort of tentative support to Deputy Johnson's motion, because I am convinced of the fact that there are at present in the Irish Free State some thousands of honest men who are willing to work if they could procure it. After listening to the speeches of the different Deputies I have come to the conclusion that we made the biggest mistake of our lives when we severed our connection with the British Empire. Some of the Deputies went so far as to insinuate that thousands of our fellow-countrymen who are at present unable to secure employment are lazy and are not willing to work. I resent that statement because I know that men who for the past 40 years have never been idle are denied employment to-day.

Some Deputies on the Government Benches referred to the question of high rates. In answer to these Deputies let me say that I have not heard from them as yet anything about the high salaries. I would not interfere in this discussion were it not for the fact that I am a working man myself. At the election I believe that I received at least 80 per cent. of the votes of the working classes, in addition to the votes of the business people of Co. Louth, because I always stood for closer co-operation between employer and employed, and always believed in the policy of a fair day's work for a fair day's pay. I believe that there are thousands of men unemployed at present who are prepared to give an honest day's work for an honest day's pay. I resent the insinuation that the Irish worker is lazy, and that he does not want to work if he can procure money and the dole. I would not support Deputy Johnson's motion if I were not aware of the fact that misery and starvation are prevalent throughout the cities and towns of the Free State. I say that it is the duty of whatever Government is in power to provide employment.

My principal criticism of the present Government is that they seem to have a happy knack of creating unemployment. In proof of my statement I would point out that in the town of Dundalk there existed in the Distillers' Company a very flourishing industry, but, owing to the criminal neglect and dereliction of duty on the part of the Government, what was once a flourishing industry, employing almost 200 decent Dundalk men, has been allowed to decay and is now idle. With all the emphasis I can command, I say that it is the duty of the Government now in power, and which was in power during the past four years, to give unemployment benefit to the 200 men who lost their employment owing to the action of that Government in their dealings with the Distillers' Company. I am not a believer in anything approaching the giving of doles. I have sympathy more or less with Deputy Baxter from his point of view, because I realise that the present condition of the chief industry of the Free State, which is unquestionably agriculture, is in a very parlous state.

I was particularly impressed by statements made by one of the Labour Deputies, that the question of solving the unemployment problem should not be made a party one, but, rather, was one to be settled by all parties, either by a round table conference or by other means after due deliberation, so as to devise ways and means of dealing with it. I agree with the Deputy who spoke from the Government Benches, that it would be in the interests not only of Labour, but also of employers, if there could be a little more co-operation and more cordial relationship between the two parties. I believe that the future hope of the Free State, so far as the economic and industrial welfare of the people is concerned, lies in peace between employers and employed. Failing to provide employment, it is the duty of the State to provide the ways and means whereby vast numbers of decent respectable men can save themselves and their families from starvation. This unemployment question is going to have very far-reaching consequences, even from the international point of view. I quite agree with Deputy Johnson who, when speaking on the social conditions prevailing in the Free State as compared with those prevailing in Northern Ireland, and, incidentally, in Great Britain, said that the North will never join up with the South until we make the social conditions here not alone as good but even better than those existing in Northern Ireland and Great Britain.

I again appeal to members of the House not to make this a Party question, but rather to deal with it from the humanitarian point of view. In the exercise of the spirit of true Christian charity we should not allow the fathers of families to go about, as they have been doing during the past few years, with absolutely nothing at their disposal to provide the wherewithal to support their wives and families in comparative comfort. As I have said, I am not a believer in doles of any sort, because I have been a worker myself. In answer to some of the Deputies on the Government Benches, I may say that I have been always able to take my own part, and have always believed in the principle of a fair day's work for a fair day's pay. I say with all sincerity that the House should agree to Deputy Johnson's motion, with this reservation, that it is only an expedient, because commonsense tells me that the economic position in the Free State, and particularly that of the farming community, will not allow anything in the nature of increased taxation to be imposed upon the people, but this is an exceptional case. I ask members of the House in general to put aside their Party allegiance and support the motion so ably proposed by Deputy Johnson and supported by other Deputies.

AN LEAS-CHEANN COMHAIRLE

resumed the Chair.

Mr. G. LYNCH

I happen to be an importation from Manchester, that terrible Bolshevist referred to by Deputy McDonogh. I was sorry that Deputy McDonogh went into this question, not because I would be afraid to meet him on that or any other question, but simply because he went away from the subject of debate and into matter which will be the subject of conference in the near future. One thing I wish to make clear is, that though I am an importation from Manchester I happened to be an importation in 1916, and in spite of what Deputies on the other side have said I have no regrets. We Irish in Manchester have no apologies to make for doing our duty to our country, and we have nothing to be ashamed of. Allen, Larkin and O'Brien died in Manchester. The question of unemployment is a serious one. Coming from a constituency in Galway I feel the position very much. From statements made not only to-day but last Thursday from the Government benches it would appear that what they are really arguing is that we are one of the six States affiliated to the League of Nations which have reduced unemployment, but there is one thing they have failed, and deliberately failed, to do and that is to show the way in which the figures are compiled. For instance, there are supposed to be 130 men unemployed in Galway. The branch of the union of which I am secretary has over 400 unemployed. The area administered by the Labour Exchange reaches to Spiddal and Tuam and almost into Connemara. I can say there are roughly over 2,000 unemployed in that area. Even taking the 130 on the register, a number of them, for many reasons, are not in receipt of unemployment benefit.

Those of you who know Galway realise the kind of constituency it is, and the class of workers who are in the rural districts. They have not had the same opportunity of attending school as the people who live near the doorsteps of schools in the cities. We find that the administration of the Unemployment Exchange is so arranged that it debars men entitled to benefit from receiving it. For example, a man who happens to live six miles from the Labour Exchange is a postal man. He does not come in in the ordinary way to sign, and he receives a sheaf of documents like those I have here. I have here document No. 1, and he fills that in; document No. 2 he next fills in; then he fills in document No. 3; document No. 4 follows, and he fills that in, and then he has to fill in documents No. 5 and No. 6. In order to make more confused the already confused man, there is an explanatory leaflet, document No. 7. As a matter of fact, one of these documents has to be signed by a Civic Guard, and some of my constituents have to go five or six miles to a Civic Guards barrack in order to get certified as being unemployed. I have seen these documents filled in by doctors, priests, solicitors and school teachers, and they were not filled in by them accurately. The result is that these documents have to be sent back time and again, and the man gets deprived of his benefit.

These documents are not compiled to assist a man in getting benefit, but to rob him of the benefit to which he is entitled. We have other cases which ought to interest the Farmers' Party. I happen to be one of the Labour representatives on a panel of Court of Referees. On the day after nomination day I was called upon to take my turn on a panel. That day we had the case of a man who had to sign these documents—in fact, he employed a solicitor to do so. That man had a small amount of land. One of the questions reads: "When not working for wages do you assist in cultivating the land?" Naturally the man told the truth, and because he did he was debarred from receiving benefit. Although we had documentary evidence from the Civic Guards, the priest and the local doctor to prove that the man had no stock on his two or three acres and no money to provide seed, and that he was absolutely starving and was unemployed, but willing to work he was denied benefit. He was denied the right to the insurance benefit to which he had contributed. As has been stated already, this question of unemployment is not a Party one. It is a canker eating at the very roots and foundation of the State. It cannot be dealt with by employing a number of men on drainage schemes in different parts of the country.

The only way in which this unemployment question can be solved is by a realisation that it is a national question; the solving of it can only be on national lines. The Government ask us why we do not give them ideas. They ask why do we not put up schemes. If we were in a position to put up schemes that we have in mind, and put them into operation, we most certainly would give the schemes. But the Government has accepted the responsibility of government, and the responsibility is entailed on them to safeguard the welfare and interests of every citizen of the State. If they are not prepared to do that—if they are either unable or unwilling to do that— they should not adopt the attitude of the dog in the manger. They ought to declare their unwillingness or incompetence to do it and to make room for the people who will carry out these things. We have to recognise things as they are. This question of unemployment will have to be solved. If we put it off from day to day the more acute it will become. The only two "industries" that are making progress in my constituency are funerals and emigration. These are not the kind of industries that one would like to see. We want to see this country, that Deputies opposite some few years ago told us was able to maintain sixteen millions of people, in a position to maintain its present population. We have heard a lot of talk about wages. We are not concerned about wages. It does not matter to us how many shillings or pounds a worker gets. But what we say is this: that any worker who renders service to the community has the right to expect from that community enough to provide him and his wife and children, not only with the necessaries, but even some of the luxuries of life, that he and his class produce.

There have been references to the North of Ireland and to Great Britain. There have been references to this freedom. But what does this freedom mean to our friends across the way? Reduction of income tax, reduction of corporation profits tax and many other reductions. We say, why should they have all the benefits and we, the workers, have all the sacrifices? It has meant to them a reduction of taxes. It has meant to us a reduction of the benefits that we are justly entitled to. If we are going to achieve a united Ireland, it is not to the capitalist section of Northern Ireland we must look in the hope of a solution of the question. It is to the workers of Northern Ireland. And we would want to show to them that the social conditions and the general conditions, in this State of ours would be better than the social conditions in their own State, and that it would be advisable for them not to allow themselves to be side-tracked by red herrings, but to vote themselves into a united Ireland. With these few remarks I have pleasure in supporting the motion moved by Deputy Johnson.

Major COOPER

When Deputy Lynch began to speak, I began to be afraid that I might be in the position of the historic Irishman, and that I would have to ask whether the fight between Deputy McDonogh and Deputy Lynch was a private fight or if I might join in. I am glad to see that Deputy Lynch made it a public fight, and I would like to congratulate him on his maiden speech. I pay him the compliment, because I hope it is a compliment, of dealing with it seriously in the manner of argument, and not merely in the way of facile good wishes that one extends to new Deputies. As a matter of fact, in this debate the new Deputies are doing much better than the old Deputies. They are keeping nearer to the terms of the motion on the Table. Deputy Lynch told the Deputies opposite the advantages which they have got—the reduction in income tax below the level of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. Well, as far as the fall in the income tax is concerned, nobody has yet got anything additional out of that, and will not until next January. The Corporation Profits Tax has been abolished in Great Britain and Northern Ireland. The level in the Saorstát is still higher. It is lower than it was, but it is higher than in Great Britain and in Northern Ireland. Have those whom Deputy Lynch represents got nothing? There is no tea duty in the Saorstát and when I was in Galway I thought they were drinking a good deal of tea. There is also a lower sugar duty. The duty on sugar has been very much reduced. I think the advantages have been fairly shared amongst all sections of the community.

Now, I want to get on to the motion with regard to unemployment. Unemployment is a great and terrible evil. Nobody can doubt that. Certainly no Deputy in the Dáil will doubt it. There seems to be a belief in the minds of people that a Deputy in the Dáil has some magical power by which he can provide employment for any person who writes to him. Deputy Alfred Byrne read us two letters, and brought down an attaché case full of other letters. I could bring down a packing case full of letters if I thought fit, and in not one case out of twenty of these would Deputy Johnson's motion do any good to the writers of these letters. Most of the men who wrote to me are ex-Service men, just as are a very considerable portion of the men who write to Deputy Byrne. The extension of unemployment benefit contemplated in this motion would not benefit the vast majority of these men. It is not a case of having a few stamps. It is a case of being held ineligible, the case of men coming out of the British Army who have British stamps, which are not at present recognised as giving benefit in this country. It is a case of men in the National Army who are held as not being in insurable employment before they join the National Army. The position of these men would not be benefited by the passing of this motion, so far as I can see. This motion only deals with the fringe of the question.

Mr. JOHNSON

Hear, hear.

Major COOPER

I am glad Deputy Johnson agrees with me. We have to see whether a motion that only deals with the fringe of the question will not prejudice the whole situation as regards unemployment, and injure far more than it benefits. Deputy Redmond, who is not now here, seemed to me to have adopted Deputy Johnson's policy. He said that the Government should provide the means of employment. That, I think, was the main plank on which the Labour Party fought this election, and it was the main grounds on which I explained that I could not agree with the Labour Party. For the Government directly to provide employment means competition with every private enterprise except in one or two very small and limited directions. If you once adopt the principle that the Government must provide employment for every person who wishes to work, that is, to my mind, death, disaster, and damnation so far as private industry is concerned.

What the Government must do, and should do, is to provide, conditions under which private enterprise can flourish and can give employment. I have told you of the letters I have received. I have never answered these letters by saying that "I am very sorry to see that you cannot get unemployment benefit, and I will do my best to remedy this." But I have been in some cases successful, and in many cases unsuccessful in trying to find a job for men, and to measure up a man's qualifications and give him a recommendation to some private employer to give him employment. In some cases I have succeeded. I wish I could succeed in more. That is to me the only way out of the difficulty.

Unemployment is a terrible evil. The worst evil of it all is that once a man has got out of the habit of industry, not at first, but after a prolonged period, he becomes less able and less suited to industry, less able to take up the burden of industry. We have now a definite proposition before us, that the period over which Unemployment Insurance benefit may be paid should be extended. That is all. Well now, that postulates the employment of money. Money has to be found to pay this unemployed benefit. Where is it going to come from? Deputy Johnson talked of it as an overdraft. Banks allowed certain of their customers overdrafts, on security, from the deposits paid in by other customers and, as many farmers know, they require that overdrafts be repaid in due time. Who are the customers from whom this money is to be taken? They are the taxpayers of the Saorstát. There is no inexhaustible purse; there is no magical reservoir of money from which extended unemployment benefit can be paid. It has to be found and has to be obtained from somebody.

I think, perhaps, that Deputy Morrissey unconsciously misled the Dáil when he mentioned what these people were asking for. He said they were not asking for anything they had not already paid; they were not asking for anything not provided by their stamps. But their stamps are only a portion of the unemployment fund. Every insured person wants more than his stamps. He wants his own contribution, the employer's contribution and the State contribution. In the past that has been forthcoming, although the workers' contributions and the employers' contributions proved entirely inadequate to meet the need. The result was that in January of this year the Unemployment Fund was £1,316,000 in debt to the State.

If you are to extend benefits the State will have to become liable for a larger debt and it will have to get that money from the pockets of the taxpayers of this country. What would be the effect of that? It will be the discouragement of the development of industry and the discouragement of giving employment. It may be—I do not know; I wish the Government front bench would have given us a lead earlier in the debate—that the extra taxation would mean a curtailment of drainage and other schemes. It would certainly, so far as the private employer is concerned, mean either the shutting down or the curtailment of different schemes and enterprises. It might mean that some industries would shut down. It would certainly be the case that they would not stretch forth into new development so long as they saw themselves menaced by increased taxation.

Deputy Redmond agreed with Deputy Johnson on this principle, that whatever the cost to the State, employment must be given to any person who wishes to work. I can see Deputy Johnson and Deputy Redmond sitting by the fire on a farmhouse floor wondering why the goose that lays the golden eggs is not laying as frequently as she used to, and then coming to the conclusion: "Well, she must have the eggs in her anyway. It is an abnormal situation; let us take the short-cut and let us kill the goose and get the golden eggs out of her." We shall not end unemployment by that method, and we shall not achieve national prosperity by that method. We can only achieve a situation in regard to unemployment which I and every Deputy, regardless of Party, wish to see, by the encouragement of industry in agriculture and in the towns, by reducing taxation, by inviting capital and by forcing development in every way. That is the only way. This motion, as Deputy Johnson has admitted, only deals with the fringe of the question. Let us deal with it in the broader and wider spirit. Let us deal with it, looking to the future, rejecting temporary palliatives and going steadily forward to the light.

Mr. McGILLIGAN

At the start I would like to have the motion that we are discussing made a little clearer, if possible, and in this, perhaps, I might get some assistance from the mover. We are asked to express an opinion that the Government should introduce without delay proposals for legislation to amend the Unemployment Insurance Acts with one single purpose expressed, "so as to extend the period over which unemployment insurance benefit may be paid," and there may be a sting in the tail, "to men and women who are willing to work but unable to find work"—not to men and women who have been in insurable occupations and have had at some time contributions to their credit. I want to know does the end of that motion cover the agricultural labourer? Is it meant to cover the agricultural labourers or are we supposed to be dealing only with those who have been at some time in insurable occupations? Can I get an answer to that now?

Mr. JOHNSON

If the Minister is prepared to deal with the question of extended benefit in any way whatever I am prepared to listen and to give the greatest sympathy and support to his proposals. If he would like to do the whole thing that I would like to do, I would include agricultural labourers, but they are not in the scheme at present. Deputy Gorey informed the House there are none unemployed. Therefore, they do not come into the question. The proposition may be interpreted in any way the Minister likes, as widely as possible or as narrowly as possible. I would like to have the Minister's proposals with regard to the extension of the period of payment of benefit under the Unemployment Insurance Acts, which at present do not include agricultural labourers.

Mr. McGILLIGAN

The Deputy realises it is not what I or anybody else interprets that we are discussing at the moment. The Deputy has framed a motion but he has not explained his motion. I do not know if the Dáil is any clearer, after the Deputy's intervention just now, as to what they are asked to vote upon— what they are asked to deal with. Is it the object of the motion to bring in everyone out of employment and get them brought under the peculiar head of "men and women who are willing to work but unable to find work"?

Mr. JOHNSON

Will the Minister answer me this question? Do the Unemployment Insurance Acts at present include anybody else?

Mr. McGILLIGAN

No, but they can be amended (a) with regard to an extension of period, and (b) with regard to increasing the number of those who may get benefit under them. I do not know what the House is asked to express its opinion on. I do not even know what is meant with regard to the amendment of the time. Deputy Redmond believed he understood. I listened to him as attentively as I could. I did not get any enlightenment from him as to what he meant by the period. There was a vague reference to something that prevails in Great Britain and Northern Ireland. There was no-indication from Deputy Redmond that he understood what was the position in Great Britain and Northern Ireland. There was a vague comparison made and a statement that we should have something here like what is there. If the Unemployment Insurance Acts are to be amended with regard to the extension of some limitation as to a period, it is well to know that there is one limitation with regard to a period in the Acts at the moment; there is one limitation specially directed to a period. That indicates that no matter how many contributions a man might have to his credit in the fund, he can only receive benefit, when fulfilling a statutory condition, for a maximum period of 26 weeks out of the 52.

If this resolution be passed and the Unemployment Insurance Acts are to be amended in that single particular, the extension of the limitation in regard to time, then the resolution can only mean that, provided a man has contributions to his credit, those not to be multiplied in any way, and provided he fulfils all the other statutory conditions, that is to say, has been at some time or other an insured person and has had to his credit in coming into a particular year a certain number of stamps, he may receive more than twenty-six weeks' benefit in any year— provided always that he has stamps to his credit. If that is what we are dealing with we are not even touching the fringe of the problem. We are dealing then with people who have been in such constant occupation over years past that they have piled up to their credit a very big number of stamps, and that for some reason unexplained and not even mentioned, they are not able to find work over a period, of six months in any present year. Those must be very small in numbers in the percentage of all those with whom the Unemployment Insurance Acts deal. But the discussion has gone far afield from that very small point, and we have had the usual admission from Labour Deputies that they do not know what the numbers of unemployed are. We have had the admission repeated by a number of Deputies. We had Deputy Lawlor intervening at a period to say that in his opinion there are 18,000 unemployed in Dublin—that that is nearer the mark than 18,000 in the whole country. Deputy Redmond used the picturesque term "hordes"— no numbers mentioned, but just "hordes of unemployed."

Captain REDMOND

Will you mention the number?

Mr. McGILLIGAN

"Hordes of unemployed" is Deputy Redmond's contribution to the whole position.

Captain REDMOND

I am not in as good a position as the Minister to mention the number. The Minister cannot taunt me.

Mr. McGILLIGAN

The Deputy is not averse from giving out a picturesque phrase when it suits him.

Mr. COBURN

He is only telling the truth when he says "hordes."

Mr. McGILLIGAN

Deputy Coburn says he is only telling the truth, not having any idea of the numbers.

Mr. COBURN

I am quite well aware that there are hordes.

Mr. McGILLIGAN

Then we will have to get a mathematical definition of what "hordes" is.

Mr. LAWLOR

The Minister definitely stated that 5,099 is the proper figure for Dublin. Is he prepared to stand over that figure?

Mr. McGILLIGAN

I have explained my position as to that before. Possibly the Deputy will have got his answer when I finish; I cannot always anticipate myself. I have said this, with regard to the Live Register figures, that with reference to the insurable population they represent, to my mind fairly accurately, the unemployed in the country, and I go further than merely making that statement; I give a reason for it. It is commonly put up to me, in opposition to that statement, that the number of people on the Live Register is really an index, not to the unemployed, but to the unemployed who believe they will be in receipt of benefit. I point simply to this fact, that over any month for the last four years the number of people on the Live Register has ordinarily been in excess of those receiving benefit by about 6,000 to 8,000 people. A further deduction shows, in other words, that those who are receiving benefit are, roughly, about 65 per cent. to 68 per cent. of those who are on the Live Register, and that is just exactly the percentage that the insured population of the country is to the working population, insured and non-insured. On that fact only—and I have always stated that that was the foundation for my statement—I do make the statement that the Live Register represents fairly accurately the number of unemployed who have been, at some time or another, in an insurable occupation. Now, I limit it that way. I have nothing to do with agricultural unemployed unless they have been at some time or another in an insurable occupation. I put that statement of fact and that argument against the picturesque "hordes of people," whatever that may mean.

Deputy Johnson takes a very small number as the total of those out of employment at the moment and not in receipt of benefit. His argument to-day is apparently in opposition to the arguments we have previously heard from the same side—the lesser the number the cheaper it is going to be to give them some accommodation. We have Deputy Lawlor thinking that there are 18,000 in Dublin, and Deputy Morrissey, on a previous occasion, spoke of 80,000 unemployed in the State. I do not care what number Deputies put it at, but I want them to state their opinions as to what is the number out of employment so that we may have some idea as to what is to be the contribution of the State and of industry to the solution of the problem.

Mr. MORRISSEY

Is that not your duty?

Mr. McGILLIGAN

The maximum that has been mentioned is 80,000 people. The ordinary benefit is 17/- a week. It is more, as a matter of fact, but let us take that as the average, or £3 10s. a month. One has only to multiply that over the 80,000 or the 40,000, or the 20,000 to get an idea of the three and one-third million pounds, or the one and a half million pounds, or the three-quarters of a million pounds that would be necessary to deal with the problem. But we want to get some idea from Deputies who believe there is a big and serious problem as to what will be the definite contributions from the State and from industry to meet the problem. Deputy Cooper has put it quite well. There has been talk of the taxpayer. In the long run the taxpayer will pay something for this. If it were to be spread over the general body of taxpayers, that would be one problem. But to put the whole, or the greater part, of the burden of this on the people who are actually going to give normal occupation, the industrialists of the country, is a different problem, and that is mainly what is now being proposed. We are told that we might borrow—another of these vague and wandering ideas that come into people's heads instead of what should be more clearly described as thought. Borrow for what? Deputy O'Connell on one occasion, in the last Dáil, talked of the position of the Government claiming that their credit was good, and he went on to say: "Imagine people having thousands of pounds in the bank and allowing their children to starve." Having credit and having thousands of pounds in the bank are two different things. The Government has credit; its credit is good; it can borrow for good purposes, for productive work. But will anyone tell me that good Government borrowing will be achieved by saying here, definitely and clearly, that while labour conditions are what people on the other side believe them to be, we are to continue these labour conditions, making no attempt to tackle that aspect of the problem, and we are to borrow to maintain people for whom work cannot be found? I wonder what percentage of interest would be added to Government borrowings if any big sum were included simply to keep men maintained. What the Government can and what it intends to borrow for is productive work and not, as Deputy Redmond suggested, that we should borrow, definitely and clearly stating that the money is for the purpose of keeping men maintained.

These figures are important, because we must know just what amount of money is in question. Deputy Johnson made play with the figures from my Unemployment Exchange returns, over which I stand, as I have explained them. He asked Deputies from different parts of the House did they believe that there were only so many men unemployed in Passage West and other places. He went round a series of areas. If there are more men in Passage West unemployed than the Unemployment Exchange returns show, why are they not on the register? If an unemployed man does not think it worth while to go in and put his name on the register, who is to blame? Dealing with Passage West, I am told that any man or men from Passage West can clearly see that there are more men unemployed there than the register shows. Why does not the unemployed man register? It does not put him to a great deal of trouble. I heard of seven forms to-day, for the first time. It is not a great deal of trouble to register, but yet we are told it is not done. I want to know why it is not done? Why should people neglect an ordinary precaution with regard to this matter? If they have any appreciation of the circumstances in the last three or four years, they must know that there is an unemployment debate here at least twice a year and that the figures of the Unemployment Exchanges are used very definitely as foundation for a great deal of argument. And yet the people will not go in to register! On the other hand, we have attempts to show what the proper evaluation of the members out of employment is. In the end of 1925 an examination was being made of the conditions prevailing in certain of the towns in the twenty-six counties. A special examination was made in the city of Cork. The examination proceeded on these lines—to take the number of people who were on the unemployment register in the city and who were not entitled to benefit, and to find out how many of those were what the Labour Party assume everybody on the register is—destitute; to find out how many had means and what those means amounted to. I want to have this situation realised. There were a certain number of claimants registered. There were a certain number of those in receipt of benefit. Those were neglected. The cases of the people who were on the register and who had no benefit coming to them were examined. One-third of them were found to be in receipt of upwards of £1 per week. Eighty or some 600 people were in receipt of nearly £3 per week. A further demand was made upon my office by the Labour Party and Trade Union Congress in October, 1925. On behalf of the secretary a letter was sent stating that the number of unemployed and their dependents in a district set out, of about three square miles, was so and so, certain figures being given. The places involved were Ferry Carraig, Castlebridge, Oylegate and Kyle. We had a statement as to the men unemployed, the number being 168 and dependents being 551. The total of unemployed and dependents in those four areas was 719. The census returns showed that there were not 400 people living in all the four districts.

Mr. CORISH

Is that your case?

Mr. McGILLIGAN

It is an indication, at any rate, that Labour Congress figures——

Mr. MORRISSEY

Are nearly as reliable as, your own.

Mr. McGILLIGAN

I am glad to get at least that admission—that Labour Congress figures are to be relied upon to the same extent as the Labour Party believe my figures are to be relied upon. It is no wonder that the secretary said that the branch secretary confessed that the number surprised even himself. 719 people unemployed out of a total population of 400! That is the type of figure that Deputy Redmond has in mind when he talks of "hordes, of unemployed."

Captain REDMOND

I gave no figures, because I could not.

Mr. McGILLIGAN

Very wisely the Deputy gave no figures. Having no figures and having no information, the Deputy might really have remained quiet.

Captain REDMOND

I asked the Minister for information and for figures. He is bound to give both, but he refused to give either.

Mr. McGILLIGAN

I have given a considerable number of figures from time to time.

Captain REDMOND

The Minister has given none.

Mr. McGILLIGAN

I have given information and I have adduced arguments founded upon figures. If the Deputy happens to be out when I give figures, it is hardly my fault.

Captain REDMOND

The Minister did not give figures.

Mr. McGILLIGAN

Deputy Redmond adverted to Government efforts to deal with unemployment. For three or four years, the Deputy said, the Government had been in power, but very little had been done for the unemployed. Personally, the Deputy said, he would prefer the provision of work to the dole. But of course this was not "dole," and if it were the principle had to be sacrificed when there was life at stake. In the end, it was impossible really to know where Deputy Redmond was or what he thought the motion was. During the four years that the Government was in power Deputy Redmond was in this House. Various measures were brought forward with regard to the unemployment question. A Trade Loans Bill was brought in. I do not remember any contribution by Deputy Redmond either by vote or speech to that measure. The whole Shannon scheme was under consideration and a Bill implementing the scheme was brought in. Deputy Redmond appeared on the last occasion, I think, to vote, but I do not know if he even remained to vote. I do not know whether in the end he made up his mind on the matter.

Captain REDMOND

The Minister is as accurate in that as in most things.

Mr. McGILLIGAN

We had a considerable number of schemes brought forward here dealing with the unemployment problem. I believe the unemployment situation presented a really bad problem in 1924, when there were certain measures brought forward to deal with it. The situation bettered, I believe, as far as unemployment was concerned every year since. Only in the year 1927 does Deputy Redmond think that there is a serious problem, and one that should be tackled. During three years he made no contribution to whatever the Government contribution was with regard to this problem.

Captain REDMOND

The Minister is entitled to his misstatements.

Mr. McGILLIGAN

My "misstatements" are founded upon a very close analysis of the records of the last Dáil —a very close and accurate analysis of what Deputy Redmond did either to draw attention to the great problem of unemployment or to suggest measures for relief or active intervention on his part in support of any measure brought forward to relieve it.

One other statement which came from that quarter attracted me. We are not going to get the North in with the South until social legislation here is put on the same footing as in Great Britain and Northern Ireland. Deputy Coburn comes from what is described as "the North." I wish he had gone a little further North. I can imagine the Primrose Dames of England, who are alleged to be amongst the obstructors of a national settlement, now raising the cry, with a certain amount of derision and contempt: "We will not allow the unfortunate workers of the North of Ireland to go down to the South until the same insurance benefit is paid— same in amount and under the same conditions." Does the Deputy seriously believe that the folk who are stopping the ending of partition in this country are considering the social betterment of the workers, or whether that has anything to do with their arguments as to why the North should not come in? I can imagine the Northern Minister for Labour dealing with this problem. If I were in the same position as the Northern Minister for Labour, I could deal with it much more easily than I can deal with it now. If I were receiving grants from Great Britain, and if all that was to be done was to allow these grants to pass through my hands to the unemployed in the country, I could easily deal with the problem. Yet that is the position and the comparison that we are faced with —what is done in Northern Ireland. With regard to Great Britain and Northern Ireland, again, is there a fair comparison? An insurance scheme is started in industrial Britain and carried forward to this country— mainly an agricultural country—and we are supposed to walk step by step with Great Britain and Northern Ireland with regard to unemployment insurance. Remember, in dealing with this whole problem, that there are three people on whom the hardship is going to fall—the employed man, to a certain extent, the employer, and the taxpayer. We have no indication from Deputies opposite as to what they believe to be the problem, and we have no figures as to the amount of money they believe to be involved.

Mr. MORRISSEY

We have no figures from the Minister himself.

Mr. McGILLIGAN

Then I have failed to make myself clear. I have dealt with this problem in so far as it is a problem affecting the insurably-occupied man. I believe the Live Register figures do give a fair representation of what is the position with regard to unemployment amongst those who have been at any time in an insurable occupation. I gave my own idea of what the figures are. Deputies shook their heads and denied these statements of mine. I ask them to put up the opposition case. I want to know what the problem is that we are faced with— what the number of people involved is, what benefit is claimed for them, and whether all conditions or what conditions are to be wiped out. Then we may know what the amount of money involved is.

Mr. MORRISSEY

You will find out the number when this motion is passed.

Mr. McGILLIGAN

Exactly. That is just what the idea of putting the motion in that vague way is. Let us pass it under the belief that it is a very small thing, that it only means a small amount of money, that there are not going to be many people who will benefit by it, and consequently that the sums involved are not going to be great, and the fund can bear the extra addition. Then we will find out afterwards, when we have torn a hole in the insurance code, what the State commitment is, and what the burden to be placed upon industry is. What is the position of the fund at present? The Unemployment Insurance Fund at this moment is £1,400,000 in debt. Deputy Johnson had a figure which did not include the payments due to Great Britain on foot of the deficit from the year 1920 to the date of taking over. The fund is in the position that any further addition to it definitely makes it insolvent, and if this motion be passed —I do not care if it is even only to deal with a small number of people— it will bring about the giving of the dole in this country for the first time since 1923. There was a dole in this country in 1923, because stamps were multiplied to a point that meant simply free gifts. We are definitely getting to the position in which we are having doles.

Deputy Baxter raised a question as to the position of the farming class. He was answered by Deputy Morrissey with regard to the moneys given to the farmers. Deputy Morrissey introduced the very apt comparison of the agricultural credits. Under the Agricultural Credits Act no farmer will be enabled to get a loan if he is insolvent or if the giving to him of the loan puts him over the verge into insolvency. The position that the fund, the insured contributor and the insuring employer at present are in is that their fund is practically insolvent, and any additions to it mean clearly that the whole code, in so far as it is an insurance code based upon contributions, has been wiped out. If the House wants to approach the unemployment problem from that other angle, wants to get away from insurance and from a scheme based upon contributions, where the benefit to be gained must bear some relation to the contributions previously paid, and simply wants to get to the situation clearly where it is a dole, and nothing more nor less than a dole, let the claim be put up that there is a large number of people whose lives cannot be saved except moneys are given to them. But do not let it be put up in the guise of amending an unemployment insurance code. The idea of insurance has almost disappeared, and will certainly disappear if any further additions are made to the debt that the fund now finds itself in.

On the last day that the Dáil met the President asked from the other side of the House what had been its contribution to this unemployment question. The people who are specially interested in this are the people who are making the claim that it is a pretty big problem. The question was put by him: What had they done to ease the situation? That question has been raised to-day by a number of Deputies. There has been a tremendous amount of suspicion as to what are the conditions affecting the employment of Labour in this country at present. I have got a great variety of letters handed over to me by people who tell me things that they know of personally. Even employers tell me of things that happen to themselves, but, unfortunately, much as I press them I cannot get these things made public, and the reason is said to be that an employer is bound to be further victimised if he gives certain statements. Of course, that may be a very easy way of disguising a false statement. But the statements are constantly being made, and are unfortunately being believed by people who are outside this country, and who are anxious to come in.

Mr. MORRISSEY

The Minister wants to give them further publicity.

Mr. McGILLIGAN

I want to get an answer to it. Deputy Horgan referred to Cork and to a special appeal made by the Vincent de Paul Society with regard to the particular situation there in respect to unemployment. I wonder has Deputy Horgan consulted the Vincent de Paul Society who made that appeal as to the response they have received and why it has been so disappointing. If he does make inquiry he will find, as I have found on inquiry, that the response in Cork has been disappointing because people say that they are no longer going to support a state of things, by subscribing in a charitable way, which they believe is definitely stifling any industry in Cork City. They say that they believe that there are conditions with regard to rates of wages, hours of employment, trade union regulations, and a whole variety of things that are definitely preventing people getting employment when they can give them employment. Employers from Cork tell me of men whom they try to get to work and they were refused permission to take them on.

Mr. HORGAN

May I ask the Minister if he knows who constitutes the Vincent de Paul Society in Cork?

Mr. McGILLIGAN

I know some of them.

Mr. HORGAN

I wonder if the Minister does know. His statement is so extraordinary that I doubt very much if he knows.

Mr. MORRISSEY

The Deputy will get used to those statements.

Mr. McGILLIGAN

I have a four-page statement signed by an individual.

Mr. HORGAN

I should like if the Minister would read it.

Mr. McGILLIGAN

I cannot.

Mr. HORGAN

The Minister cannot cover himself in that way.

Mr. McGILLIGAN

I ask the Deputy to take the statement I made, verify it, or be in a position to contradict it.

Mr. HORGAN

I am in a position to say that in Cork conditions are so appalling from the point of view of unemployment that the Vincent de Paul Society have been obliged to issue that special appeal.

Mr. McGILLIGAN

I am not denying that. I say the response to the appeal has been disappointing.

Mr. HORGAN

The money is not in the city. The Government have taken it out of it.

Mr. McGILLIGAN

I know certain people who have money and whose charitable inclinations cannot be denied or criticised, and they have refused to give money and they say they will continue to refuse. These are two particular individuals who have found themselves unable to get men into employment who were willing to go into employment at a certain rate and under certain conditions. At any rate that statement is made. We have had a clear example of it.

Mr. ANTHONY

I should like to challenge that statement. I represent a large body of working-class people in Cork City, and I am in touch with many public men and many employers, and have had the most cordial relations with those employers, and I would seriously challenge the statement of the Minister. I do not believe such a state of affairs exists in Cork, and I have very great doubt as to the origin of the statement mentioned.

Captain REDMOND

May I ask whether it is in order for a Deputy to quote from a statement to the House and not read that statement and give the authority for it?

AN CEANN COMHAIRLE

It is quite in order for the Minister to say what he thinks or what he is led to believe is the state of affairs anywhere, even in Cork City.

Mr. BAXTER

That is treason.

Captain REDMOND

Am I to take it that it is your ruling that any Deputy can read portion of a statement or quote from a statement and not give the statement to the House, and the authors of the statement?

Mr. McGILLIGAN

That is a serious problem, and I hope the Ceann Comhairle will give an answer.

AN CEANN COMHAIRLE

What the Minister is doing is quite in order. I shall solve any other question as it arises.

Captain REDMOND

That is not an answer to my question.

Mr. McGILLIGAN

The situation I have described is one that has been put to me as existing in Cork. There has been, at any rate, a certain amount of evidence with regard to other matters. There is the case of the Shannon scheme. I have heard talk from Labour Deputies about the number of people who want to work. We had the same phrase used as is used here so often about people willing to work but unable to find it, and that work should be given to them. When in early debates I listened to that statement being made, we had not the addition made to it "on such terms and conditions as certain Trade Unions thought fit to demand." That actually was the demand, as we found when we came to the Shannon scheme.

Mr. MORRISSEY

Is the Minister aware that hundreds of men went to the Shannon scheme, were compelled to go there, were prepared to work under the conditions laid down, and were turned away, and that on many occasions when men got work it was only for a week or a fortnight? They were then dismissed, and had to walk back perhaps to Donegal.

Mr. ANTHONY

Is the House aware that the Government themselves are far more penal in some of their enactments than any Trade Union? I know of a case of a highly-skilled electrical engineer who is about to lose his position. Is it because he is unskilled in his profession? No, but because he has not a sufficient knowledge of the Irish language. Is that a penal enactment or is it not? What Trade Union would demand of its members that they should have a knowledge of Irish?

Mr. DAVIN

Will the Minister say when he is making a further statement in connection with the Shannon scheme, if the Germans got what they demanded in connection with the contract?

AN CEANN COMHAIRLE

This is the first speech of the Minister, for Industry and Commerce in this Dáil. We will have to recognise that even the Minister has a right to address the House and that a rebutting statement is not a reasonable interruption. Deputies are not compelled to believe what the Minister says. No Deputy is, by the Standing Orders, compelled to believe what any other Deputy says. The only thing I find that Deputies are required to do without question is to obey the rulings of the Chair. I find nothing about obeying the Minister for Industry and Commerce, and, therefore, when a Deputy sits quietly and listens to the Minister, he will not be taken as agreeing with him. If that much were established the Minister might be allowed to exercise his right to address the House. There is no use in what we must call argumentative interruption. Deputies can speak after the Minister and rebut his arguments, but if every Deputy were treated in this way we would have no debate at all.

Mr. McGILLIGAN

Deputy Morrissey has talked, in answer to my remarks about the Shannon scheme, of certain people who went there to get work and were turned away. That may be. I am on the point, however, that certain members of the Deputy's own Party tried to prevent anybody getting work on the scheme under the conditions that prevailed. If there are 2,000 or 3,000 men getting employment there, and at a great deal higher wages than the 32/- so much has been made of, it is not due to anything the Labour Party did, because their only contribution, was to attempt to stop the whole work.

Mr. MORRISSEY

To stop the conditions.

Mr. McGILLIGAN

It was a very glaring case which foreigners have been quick to notice, which people near at hand have been quick to notice. I would not like to say, hereafter, when it comes to be counted up, just how much unemployment has been caused by the bad example of the Shannon scheme, or rather what the Labour Party tried to do on the Shannon scheme. Deputy Davin interrupts, as he always will in this matter. He asked what the Germans got.

Mr. DAVIN

I want to know if the Minister will say whether the Germans got what they demanded in connection with the contract?

Mr. McGILLIGAN

The Germans did not get everything they demanded, and the Germans cannot get anything they have not under the contract. The contract is made in a particular way based on current prices. If there are Irishmen employed there, then there are certain wages paid. If there are Germans employed and their wages are greater than the Irishmen get, then it is a loss to the firm.

Mr. LAWLOR

Must the Germans know Irish?

Mr. McGILLIGAN

No man, I am sorry to say, in this Gaelic atmosphere, need know Irish to get a job. I do not think Deputy Anthony's remarks had anything to do with the work on the Shannon scheme. The Shannon scheme was a clear example, at any rate, to the people of this country as to certain things that they long had their suspicions about and, as I said before, if there is employment going there and on the Barrow, it is not with the leave or desire of the Labour Party or under the conditions that they would like to see brought about. They would have preferred, and did, in fact, set out to prevent any work being done on the Shannon rather than have it carried on under the prevailing conditions. There was considerable argument as to what these conditions were. I do not know that there was ever agreement as to what the conditions were. I never heard any Labour Deputy put forward a proposition based on this: that the Shannon scheme was really to be regarded merely as an instrument towards further production in this country, and that people should not have looked immediately from the Shannon scheme in its early stages for the conditions that they would like to see with regard to all industrial occupations when industry had been got going.

Have we in this country, and did we start by being, an industrialised State? There is only one answer to that—we did not. There may have been a period long past in which there was a flourishing state of industry in this country, but it has long gone by. We were trying to re-establish that. What help did we get? That the conditions that should apply to a highly industrialised community such as England should apply here from the start. There is going to be no great inauguration of industry under these conditions. There is going to be no great drive on the part of people outside who know industrialised conditions to come in here. What makes any man go to any country and invest capital? Either he has raw material or he has resources close at hand which can be easily won, or he has a good output from labour so that his product can beat the product of some rival in another country, or he has better artistry in the workmanship. Some way or another there must be an advantage to be gained, particularly in a country like this where there is so little in the way of raw material or native resources, at least, so little discovered yet.

What help have we got from the other side of the House, even to see that in 10 or 15 years there should be a decent industrialised community here? Nothing but the clear-cut demand that right from the start, at the infancy of any industry to be established, there should prevail the conditions that prevail in the highly industrialised community opposite, the community that is to be our competitor in a great many things. At any rate there should be thought for that. It is not a matter to have bandied about here.

A LABOUR DEPUTY

It is a national crime to ask for decent conditions.

Mr. McGILLIGAN

One cannot set up an absolutely abstract standard of decent conditions. Decent conditions in any industry must be governed by what the industry can afford. What Deputy Lynch said to-day as to the provision of decent conditions for a married man and his family, who are being kept in employment through industry, is all very well to work towards but there is the over-riding consideration and the economic factor that nobody can get away from, that no industry can pay more than can be got out of it. You cannot get the full advantages from an industry at the start that you may hope to get when it is clearly and definitely established. We have got no contribution from Labour with regard to easing the conditions, even in the infant period of industry. We have got very little help. There was help given in one industry that was started recently. Right along in this country, which was very little industrialised, we found a Labour Party that would have done credit to the most thoroughly industrialised community existing.

Mr. O'BRIEN

What was the attitude of Labour in the case of the Carlow Beet Factory?

Mr. McGILLIGAN

That is the one I referred to.

Mr. O'BRIEN

Why was there a difference?

Mr. McGILLIGAN

The Deputy can make his speech when I have finished.

Mr. DAVIN

Because there was no Government intervention.

Mr. McGILLIGAN

There was.

Mr. DAVIN

Not on the wages question.

Mr. McGILLIGAN

When Deputy O'Brien speaks we will possibly get an answer. There has been no help except in the one instance I spoke of—the Carlow Beet Factory—no inclination to help in the early stages of Irish industry, and until that state of mind comes about I think Deputy McDonogh's words have some meaning, and that the Labour Party, organised as it is, is, to a certain extent, a hindrance to the starting of industry in the country. If the Labour Party were definitely organised and for a good purpose, as it started out to be, and kept along particular lines, there could have been no objection to it, but there have been conditions imposed in recent years that have not been a help to people who wanted to go in for industrial projects.

This is a motion asking for amendment of the Unemployment Insurance Acts. Some three years ago I brought forward a Bill which did amend the Unemployment Insurance Acts, which multiplied contributions and renewed exhausted stamps. I did that because, as I stated at the time, the problem was a very grave and a very serious one, that with such a number of people out of employment it would have been too dear and far beyond the resources of the State to put them into productive employment right at that time, and that the best easing of the situation—the number was so great—was to have an extension of unemployment insurance. I believe, and I hold to the belief, and the figures prove my contention, that the unemployment situation has eased since then, and that there are not very many of the insured classes who are now without contributions and stamps to their credit. I believe that these people can be met, and that provision has been made for meeting them through all the other aids that the Government has given, through State-aided schemes and moneys put forward for roads, and through the protected industries. For that reason I hold that any extension of unemployment insurance at this moment, even by amendment of the time, would be wrong and disastrous to the fund and a wrong move at this particular period. We can deal with the people unemployed by the other method, of relief works. That is a far better method of dealing with them, and, secondly, it is far better for borrowing purposes. For that reason, even although that cannot be put down as the minimum, and even though the number of people to be dealt with is a very small number, I ask the House to reject this motion, and I ask them with even greater vehemence to reject it if we are going to be told that at this moment we have to deal with 80,000 unemployed without benefit, and if we are going to have an amount of money somewhere in the region of £3,000,000 to keep them in benefit.

Mr. MORRISSEY

On a point of explanation, I presume that the Minister is referring to me in the statement that he has just made—a statement with his own peculiar twist. I never stated that there were 80,000 people unemployed. If the Minister wants to try and quote a statement made by me, then he ought to try and quote exactly. I would ask the Minister to correct his misstatement.

Mr. McGILLIGAN

What misstatement?

AN CEANN COMHAIRLE

Would Deputy Morrissey state what the misstatement is?

Mr. MORRISSEY

The Minister referred to the statement which he alleged had been made that there were 80,000 unemployed without benefit. I presume he was referring to something I said the other day in the course of a debate, and I want to make it clear that I did not make that statement as quoted by him.

Mr. McGILLIGAN

I have not quoted any statement. I said that if the figure is 80,000, that then the provision would be by way of three millions and a third.

Mr. W. O'BRIEN

I wish to refer to a statement made by the Minister when dealing with the Shannon scheme. He said there was only one instance in which Labour had taken up a reasonable attitude with regard to industrial disputes in recent years, and in response to an interruption by me he admitted that was in the case of the sugar beet factory at Carlow. I would like to draw the attention of the Minister to the different procedure adopted in the case of the Shannon scheme and that of the sugar beet factory at Carlow. When the Shannon scheme was started no approach of any kind was made between the contractor and the labour unions concerned as regards wages and conditions. Neither on the part of the contractor nor on that of the Minister's Department was there any approach made between the two sides. The contractor put men on the job at a wage of 8d. an hour and there was a dispute on the job as to wages before negotiations of any kind took place. In the case of the sugar beet factory at Carlow, before any work was commenced the Minister's Department, quite properly, did as they ought to have done in the case of the Shannon scheme, approached the unions concerned. They brought the directors of the factory and the labour representatives together, and as a result of that meeting an amicable agreement was come to and adhered to. Now is it not reasonable on our part to ask why the same procedure was not followed in the case of the Shannon scheme? It is quite true, of course, to say that all the labour they wanted there they got it. I have not the slightest doubt that if they required twice or three times or four times the number of men employed there that they could have got them on the same conditions or even worse conditions. That is simply a testimony to the fact that there are a huge number of unemployed people in the country, hungry, famishing people, prepared to accept work under any conditions.

The Minister pins himself quite definitely, as he has done on former occasions, to the figures on the live register. I got some particulars supplied to me as regards the town of Tipperary, which has a population of 6,000 people. These particulars relate to a three weeks' period as between the 18th December, 1926, and the 8th January, 1927. A census was taken of the number of unemployed in the urban area of that town. That census return excludes clerical workers and women workers, and gives the number of unemployed labourers and tradesmen at that time as 318. The number on the live register at that time, for the area covered by the Exchange in Tipperary, which is a very wide one, was 76, which shows that the proportion on the live register to the number of people actually unemployed was about 25 per cent. Deputy Baxter and some of those who spoke on behalf of the farming community seemed to think that all this country wants is a reduction in wages. Is it not very evident that the depression in the agricultural industry that has taken place within the last few years is a direct consequence of reduced wages? Is it not a fact that the depression is due to the reduced demand in Great Britain, the principal market for agricultural produce from this country, owing to the reduction in wages that has taken place in Great Britain? The same thing is true of Ireland. Reduced wages and reduced employment here have brought about a reduced purchasing power which has had its reactions on the farming community.

The Minister stated that the position. has improved from 1923 or 1924. How many people in this country will agree with him that the position has improved? How many employers, how many shopkeepers, or how many bank directors will agree with him that the position has improved? Everywhere you go you meet evidences of depression and stagnation, but according to the Minister things are improving. Deputy Baxter seems to take the view that he speaks on behalf of the farming community of this country. We do not admit that. We represent the rural community just as much as we represent the town workers. The Party that Deputy Baxter speaks for is only 11 strong, and therefore how does he claim to represent 75 per cent. of the people of the State? The proposition is absurd. Deputy Baxter, since he became Chairman of the Farmers' Party, seems anxious to outdo Deputy Gorey in reactionary propositions. We of the Labour Party claim to represent the agricultural labourers and to a very large extent the working farmers of this country just as much as we represent the town workers.

Mr. CORISH

The Minister for Industry and Commerce has taken up the same truculent attitude on this occasion as he did on occasions previous to the last election. One would have thought that that election would have been a lesson to him and to his Party. I do think they ought to have realised by now that the people meted out to them what they considered was due to them because of the utter disregard by the Minister and his Party of the wishes of the people in the last four years. To my mind, the Minister for Industry and Commerce does not realise what his proper functions are. Every time a debate of this kind is initiated by the Labour Party the Minister takes advantage of it to advertise to the world that the Labour Party and the Trade Union representatives are doing everything in order to prevent people from starting industries in this country. I think if he has any charges of that kind to level at this Party, or any other Party in the House, that his first duty, as Minister for Industry and Commerce would be to live up to his functions and to try to foster industries and to get into touch with people who are desirous of starting and developing industries rather than lecturing us or any other Party as to what he believes to be our shortcomings. On every occasion that ever presented itself he has done this. I never heard him, at any time, say anything against the other side. To my mind he is lacking in his duty as Minister for Industry and Commerce, and in this connection I do think that the President, in his selection of the Minister as the Minister for Industry and Commerce has chosen the worst man he could have chosen so far as this question of unemployment is concerned.

The Minister for Industry and Commerce represents a constituency which is a university, and the Minister, by reason of his environment, could not be expected to know the needs of the country so far as industry is concerned, or so far as the needs of unemployment are concerned. He has dealt with the matter, on this occasion, as on other occasions, in a perfectly callous manner. He must admit, and his Party must admit, that there is an unemployment problem here. He must know, and his Party must know as they have been in touch with the realities of the situation in this country in the last four or five weeks, that the people are on the verge of starvation. All this talk about the farming industry having to pay is just bidding for the farmers' vote, because the Government find themselves in a minority so far as this House is concerned. We all recognise that; but is it not lucky that there are some people in the country who are able to pay? The unemployed are not in a position to buy food for themselves or their families, and every employer realises that. They talk about our only touching the fringe of the situation. We are prepared to admit that dealing with this matter, as Deputy Johnson's motion deals with it, is not the proper way to develop industry in the country, but, as he said, and as other Deputies in our Party have said, we are prepared to co-operate with the Government and to do anything to help the industries of this country. The Minister's point was that we have done no constructive work by way of helping industry in this country.

We have not been asked to do anything constructive. Suggestions are made across the floor of the House every time a debate of this kind is initiated. Deputy Good made a suggestion that a conference should be held between the representatives of labour and the employers. The President agreed that such a conference should be held. The Labour Party, through three or four of its members, agreed that such a conference should be held, but we found that when the President sent out certain invitations that the lines on which the conference was about to proceed were not in keeping with the suggestions that we had made in this House. We found that some people were trying to use the medium of this conference in order to reduce the wages of the workers in this country without having any regard at all for the primary purpose for which the conference was supposed to be called together.

Deputy Johnson in his speech dealt with the question of tariffs. Every time we asked about unemployment benefit for the development of industry we were told that certain tariffs have been put on, and that a certain number of workers are finding employment because those tariffs have been put on. I am prepared to admit that, to a certain extent, those tariffs have helped the country, but I submit also that the industries on which the tariffs have been placed are not the industries that should have been so dealt with first. The tariffs that have been put on, to a great extent, were put on because they were as much a source of revenue as a help to the particular industry. I know a great many industries which, if tariffs were placed upon them, would give immediate employment to at least two or three thousand workers. But the Government, by setting up a Commission, merely took up the attitude of Nero fiddling while Rome was burning.

The country is going from bad to worse. They are shelving the question so far as tariffs are concerned. I am wondering, and many people are wondering, whether the Government have entered into any private arrangement with England or any other country not to put on tariffs. Many people in this country say that that is the situation to-day.

Mr. McGILLIGAN

They are wrong.

Mr. CORISH

I am glad to hear that contradicted, but I have heard it stated repeatedly. Some people ask: How is it that England thrives upon Free trade? There is no analogy between England and Ireland in this matter. We know that every time industry raised itself in this country England, either through its Government or through a syndicate of Englishmen, stamped it out; and it is absolutely necessary, if this country is to be saved and to carry on industrial development, that we should have tariff reform.

Mr. O'GORMAN

On a point of order, are we discussing unemployment or the question of tariffs and free trade?

AN CEANN COMHAIRLE

Unemployment insurance is the only matter in the motion, but from unemployment insurance you proceed to unemployment, and from unemployment you proceed almost everywhere.

Mr. CORISH

As I was saying just now when I was interrupted by a Deputy who evidently does not know the position, to my mind it is absolutely essential, if the industries of the country are to be saved, that we should realise that the Tariff Commission now sitting is an abortive effort to deal with the situation, and should be scrapped immediately, and that the Government should take their courage in both hands and put on tariffs if the country is to be saved. I believe that is the only means that is going to solve the unemployment question, and that it would do so in a very short time.

These are my own views. I am not putting them forward as the views of my Party, although I know that many members of our Party have leanings in that direction. In connection with this question of unemployment, the Minister always avoids dealing with figures in any definite manner because he knows quite well that the register available to him in the Unemployment Exchange is no indication, even in a small way, of the number of people unemployed in this State. He asked why do not people in the various areas take advantage of the Labour Exchange in their particular areas to register themselves. I went to the trouble immediately after the last unemployment debate here to get the people in my constituency to register. When I asked the question I was told, in so many words, by the Minister for Industry and Commerce, that the figures had been cooked, or something to that effect. No one could draw any other inference from it.

Mr. McGILLIGAN

I would like to be quoted.

Mr. CORISH

I believe if the Minister were to send to his agents, in each of the labour exchanges, instructions to have a proper register of the unemployed compiled, he would have a rude awakening as to the number unemployed in this country. On the one hand, he says unemployment has decreased something like 50 per cent. from 1923, and on the other hand he tells us that the simple matter Deputy Johnson asked him to do would cost something like a million and a half.

There is one particular aspect of the unemployment insurance system I would like to direct attention to and it is this, that under the operations of the Act as it now stands, it is essential to have 12 stamps in a contribution year. Unless a worker has 12 stamps he gets no benefit, and I think the Minister ought to admit, as any fair-minded man would, that that is certainly a hardship. I know of men in my own constituency employed in an iron works who had been working from 1911 up to two or three years ago, who never lost a day during that period but who have been idle since. Because of the fact that they had not 12 contributions in that contribution year, they are not entitled to draw any benefit. The Minister should agree that that is an undoubted hardship. They are genuinely seeking employment and are unable to find it. They are now prevented from drawing unemployment benefit.

In conclusion, might I ask the Minister to give this matter his very careful consideration, and to try and realise the actual position that prevails in the country to-day. He should try to get reports, secret ones if he likes, from the various members of his Party, and I firmly believe if they tell him the actual state of affairs that prevails in the different constituencies, he will ask his Government to provide for him the wherewithal to enable these people to live as Christians.

Mr. GILL

I desire to support the motion of Deputy Johnson, not because of promises which I made during the election, because, personally, I made no promises. I stood on a policy, and was elected as a result. I support the motion because I realise the seriousness of the position. I say here that the Minister himself has no idea of the number of persons unemployed in the country. Take for instance the figures which he gave us for the Edenderry Labour Exchange area. That covers a distance of something like 20 square miles. He gave the number of unemployed in that area as 63. In or about a month ago a census was taken in the town of Edenderry, within an area of one square mile, which showed that within that small area there were 180 persons unemployed. The attitude of the Minister to-day is his usual attitude, that it is not the duty of the Government or State to provide work for the unemployed. He has quoted an instance in Cork, where an appeal which was sent out by the St. Vincent de Paul Society has not received the response which was expected. He quotes an argument as to why that appeal has not met with a generous response. I am going to quote another argument, directly opposite to the Minister's argument, as to why it did not receive support. It is the general notion that where men, even with large families, cannot receive employment at the Labour Exchange and are unable to find work, have applied for home assistance to support their wives and children that home assistance has been refused because they were able-bodied. I know in my own town there are women and children in that position, who through last winter had to depend on the charity of their friends and neighbours for their existence. When they went on the second or third occasion to beg for charity those people told them that they were paying rates, and that they should be getting home assistance rather than begging charity from them. That is one reason why the ratepayers are not prepared to give out charity, because they claim they are paying rates in support of the destitute poor, and that these rates should be used to relieve these people. It is for that reason, and because I know the position in rural Ireland that I rise to support the motion.

Deputy Baxter has taken up the attitude that if we are to prevent deaths from starvation in this country we must not prevent them at the expense of the State, and that we must practise economy even if it means loss of human life. That is also the attitude of other Deputies in this House. I appeal to the House to pass the motion in the interests of the future generation of Irishmen, to give the children of to-day a chance of becoming the men of to-morrow. If we are going to allow hundreds of families to carry on in a state of semi-starvation we are not giving a chance to the people of to-day to become the men of to-morrow.

Mr. T. MURPHY

I am afraid that some of us who were members of the Dáil which was recently dissolved cannot put the same enthusiasm into the advocacy of this resolution as some of our new colleagues have shown. We have had pretty frequent examples of the manner in which any reference to the unemployment problem has been received in this House. The attitude of the Minister is the same as that which he has taken up since he became a Minister, and I think it is an unfortunate arrangement on the part of the Government to continue him in office. He has shown direct antagonism to the unemployment problem, and he sought to show to-day in an unfair and unjustifiable manner that the greatest contribution to the state of affairs that exists in this country came from the party represented on these benches. The Minister replies to any appeals in connection with the relief of unemployment in his usual style. Taunts and jeers and sarcasm, of which he is a master, are the only methods which he can find to deal with this matter in a serious fashion. When he wants to excel himself he indulges in flippancies and smoke screens, just as he did to-day when attempting to deal with this question. He is responsible for the famous statement that it is not the duty of the Government to provide work for the unemployed. He also stated that people may, and should, starve while the Government sits inactive.

The brief for the Government Party in connection with this debate was first taken up by Deputy J.J. Byrne. I am sorry that he is not here now, because the case which he made was, perhaps, the weakest that could possibly be made on behalf of the Government. He asks us solemnly to say that the position of small business people is equally deplorable with that of people who have nothing to sustain their families. Nothing could be more ridiculous than that comparison. He has offered us sympathy. So has Deputy Baxter. Deputy Cooper treated us to pious platitudes about killing the goose that lays the golden eggs. Deputy J.J. Byrne asks us to refute the figures produced by the Minister. They carry their refutation on their own face. The Minister was in West Cork during the elections, and was in a small town where I reside, and for which the figures of unemployment are represented as not exceeding 20. If he consulted his local representative in that town, he would be told that the figures could be multiplied by five and still fall considerably short of the number of people unemployed. Deputy Baxter says that the Labour Party represents only the town workers, and that we are catering in this motion simply for them. We are not. Nobody who has any connection with the programme of the Labour Party or with the duty which that Party owe to their constituents will ask the Dáil to believe that we are catering for one section of workers alone and that unemployment insurance, or the alternative to it, employment, would not be set going also to the advantage of the workers in the rural districts.

It seems to me that there is one fact emerging from the course of this debate and from the line of action taken by the Government. It seems to me that we are steadily advancing to the position in which it will be the natural order of things that we will set up a huge pauper population in this country and that the only hope which a large number of our people will have will be the grudging home assistance which they get from the local authorities. Recently we had in Cork—Deputy O'Gorman will bear me out in this—an appeal from the Commissioner who is administering affairs there for powers to increase the heavy overdraft to meet the home assistance charges which have grown out of all proportion to the finances at the disposal of the local authority. Deputy O'Gorman stated, and I agree with him—if he intervenes in this debate, I hope he will re-state the position—that it is the duty of the Government to deal with this problem on a national scale, and that local authorities should not be asked to deal with the question simply by increasing the number of persons who would be purely dependent on local charity.

If the Dáil thinks that it is good business for the State to continue to increase by hundreds the number of people who are at the mercy of the poor law system, that is the business of the Dáil, but it is bad business for the country and for those women and children on whose behalf this resolution is being urged. It was recently stated that it cost two millions per year to fight disease in Ireland. Nobody will deny the fact that disease is largely caused by unemployment and hunger, and if it is necessary to find two millions to fight disease largely caused as a result of unemployment, it does not need much common sense to realise that that money could be well spent on preventing disease by way of providing employment or some alternative to it. Deputy Baxter is in favour of ruthless economy and disagrees with any measure that will increase national expenditure. He must think that we have very short memories, because recently in this Dáil a huge subsidy was voted at the expense of all the people of this State to provide means for subsidising creameries. He is averse to protection, but we did not hear from any quarters of the Dáil any protest against the protection which that subsidy provides. We realise that it was fairly good business that the agricultural industry should be protected in a reasonable way, but it is not unreasonable for us to ask the representatives of agriculture to say that human life in this country, flesh and blood, should also be protected, and the best protection for the citizens of this state is the provision of employment by helping them to get some kind of decent living.

The Minister for Industry and Commerce told us that we contributed nothing to the solution of the problem, that our attitude on many occasions has been a hindrance to the provision of employment. I do not know that I am misquoting the President, but I am certainly not misquoting a prominent representative of the Government Party when I say that within the last week I read, or heard, a statement to the effect that we were singularly free from industrial troubles in the last three or four years, and that the Labour Party was as reasonable as any party could be. Deputy Johnson was held up as a very able leader, and his Party was stated to have a sane and moderate outlook. To-day, however, the Minister for Industry and Commerce reverts to his old attitude of placing all the evils of the country on the shoulders of Labour. We refuse to accept that and we say that the principal offenders are the Ministers and their advisers. The Minister for Industry and Commerce, having donned the mantle of Mussolini in connection with the Shannon scheme, uses all his powers of sarcasm to decry anybody who stands up and says that there are hundreds of starving people in this country. He cannot, however, prevent people from realising that that is a fact, and that the responsibility for that must rest largely with him and his Department.

The issue raised by this motion is the very same issue that was raised during the elections, and it sent 22 members back to the Labour Party and reduced the numbers of the Government Party. That issue is—is the Dáil satisfied that it is better business to spend increasing funds in the provision of home assistance than to give people employment, or to provide the benefits of employment insurance, which is the better method of dealing with it?

The Minister for Agriculture, in a speech some time ago, spoke about the credit of the State. He stated that practically every banking house in Europe would be willing to negotiate a loan for productive work with the Government any time it was asked. There is a great need for doing something in that way now. Every Deputy who has taken part in the debate, whether agreeing with the terms of the resolution or not, was good enough to say that he had an amount of sympathy with the principle of it. The test of that sympathy will be the way in which Deputies will cast their votes. If Deputies think it is desirable that things should go on as they are, then they are sowing the seeds of what may be a very big danger in this country in the near future. They are going to hasten the time when Labour will not be as reasonable as it is now, and when the patience of those who are the victims of this system can no longer stand the strain. When that time comes— and we have no desire that anything of the kind should happen—the responsibility for that state of affairs will not lie with the terrible agitators of the Labour Party, decried so much by Deputy McDonogh, but with the Government that permitted a condition of affairs to obtain which is an absolute reproach to any civilised Government.

Mr. BRENNAN

This discussion has been carried on for a long time, and I do not think that many of the speakers have cleared the air very much. As a matter of fact I think there has been a great deal of confusion. In order to ease the passage of this resolution Deputy Johnson told us that only a very small number are unemployed, while at the same time the speeches from the Labour benches have practically all been in the direction of impressing the House with the amount of unemployment that is to be dealt with. Deputy Baxter has been attacked from the different benches, and one Deputy stated that the Labour Party represented the rural workers and agricultural labourers as much as any other party. If I followed the discussion aright, the agricultural labourers do not come within the terms of the resolution at all. I do not know why they are dragged in. The farming community represents at least 75 per cent. of the taxpayers of the country. Certainly they are entitled to some consideration. As some Labour Deputies have stated, I do not think there is any solution of the unemployment question in the resolution. As a matter of fact, I do not think it is entitled to the amount of fuss that is made about it. After all, no one has informed the House, and Deputies would be anxious to know, if the unemployment insurance machinery will permit application of the resolution, or if so, to what extent. I do not know what number of people would benefit and to what amount. Instead of having some kind of good feeling between the Ministerial benches and the Labour benches the pity of it is that there has been the contrary. Some of us would prefer if there was as little of that feeling as possible in the debates. In order to be fair to the Minister for Industry and Commerce I say that I think he has not been treated fairly. He has been accused of making use of taunts and jeers, but personally I do not think he has been guilty of that. After all, it is scarcely fair to hold him responsible for figures which are figures made up by the people the Labour Party represents—the unemployed. If these people do not register the Minister cannot get the figures. I do not think the passage of the resolution has been made easy by the speeches of the Labour Party. Deputies would like to know the real position. I am afraid they have not been told it.

Mr. BRODERICK

As one of the Deputies for Westmeath and Longford, I doubt very much if the number of unemployed for Mullingar is only forty-six. I think the number would be nearer one hundred and forty-six. In the town of Athlone, which is an industrial centre, there was a very flourishing woollen mill some years ago, where seven hundred hands were employed. At present only half that number are working there five days weekly. I wonder if the Minister for Industry and Commerce could give the figures at the Unemployment Exchange in Athlone. The figures on the live register are no indication of the amount of unemployment prevailing, particularly in industrial towns. The Minister tells the House that the unemployed have a perfect right to go and register at the exchanges, but those who have exhausted their stamps which entitled them to benefit are told by the clerks that they have no further use going there until some more stamps are affixed to the cards. As a result, unemployed workers do not see the necessity of going in the winter months and standing outside the Labour Exchange waiting to register their name. That is the state of affairs in a number of towns in Westmeath and Longford. If Deputies are to go back to their constituencies and tell the people that they are to register at the Labour Exchanges the Dáil might then have some idea of the numbers of people who are really unemployed and who are willing to work. The Athlone Woollen Mills are now only doing half the work they did seven years ago. There is a saw-mills in Athlone where 120 men were formerly employed, and where there are now only six.

Reference has been made to agricultural labourers not coming under the Unemployment Insurance Act. That was the intention of the Act, but, unfortunately, as far as I can see, a big number of agricultural labourers bring themselves under the Act. In the town I reside in they are continually coming in and working on the building of houses. They get cards stamped, and when they are unemployed they go to the Labour Exchange and get paid. If they do not get paid for the full period they get paid according to the number of stamps on their cards. That is a state of affairs that should not be allowed. At present the Athlone Urban Council is building twelve houses, and six of the eight men employed on them are agricultural labourers from the rural districts. Is that right? Deputies on other benches say that the Dáil is not getting the truth from the Labour benches. I am giving the facts from Westmeath and Longford. Something should be done for people who have been working and had their cards stamped for years, so that they should get a further extension of the benefit of the Act.

Deputy THRIFT

took the Chair.

Mr. JOHNSON

The discussion has ranged, as some Deputy said over a fairly wide field. It was almost impossible, as the Ceann Comhairle explained, to avoid that range, but I endeavoured to keep fairly well within the limits of the motion. You cannot deal with the problem of unemployment insurance unless you deal with the problem of unemployment. That is a subject that Deputies in the main have dealt with, and have put their experience and personal knowledge against official figures. I made my case, in so far as I could, with statistics from the official returns, but all over the House we have heard evidence from personal knowledge that the official figures do not represent the facts. The Minister has the unfortunate habit of dealing with statistics, book knowledge one might say, disregarding the human facts of life, and, unfortunately, he has not attempted to make himself acquainted with the facts of unemployment as they exist. He has dealt with figures and returns. He has put two and two together as well as he could, forgetting to examine whether two is there to begin with. He has told us that one and one are two and two and two are four, and he takes these figures without attempting in any way to relate the figures to the facts. He builds up a case, and unfortunately he builds up a policy on the basis of those figures without reconciling the statistics to the facts of life. As a consequence his policy is a negative one, and he approaches the question without sympathy and without understanding.

I think some of the statements made in the course of the discussion are very unfortunate, and yet it may be well to have at an early stage a portrayal of the truth. We had an exhibition of the state of mind of certain sections of employers from Deputy Martin McDonogh, and we have that state of mind more or less backed up by the statement of the Minister for Industry and Commerce. We have the view fairly clearly expressed by those two representatives of the Cumann na nGaedheal Party that the rates of pay in this country are to be determined by the hunger state of the people who cannot get employment, that the condition of the lowest strata of the population must determine the rate of wages of other sections of the population, that if there are unemployed men, if agricultural labourers can be got to work for a certain wage, that wage is to determine the rate of wages in all other occupations. We are informed by both Deputy Martin McDonogh and the Minister that the intervention of organised bodies of workmen is a calamity to the country, and that employers should have a free hand to fix wages at any rate they can get labour for. Well, we know now where we are. I am prepared to take that as the position of the Cumann na nGaedheal Party. It has been stated fairly clearly by the Minister and Deputy McDonogh. I say that is leading directly to trouble upon trouble.

Had this Party been inspired and led by people with no sense of responsibility, we probably would have been returned to this House in at least double our numbers. If we had gone through the country with the propaganda of the extremists we would probably have taken from Fianna Fáil a very big proportion of their supporters, and you would have in this House a much larger party of men, perhaps with less regard for consequences and the probable effect of one's actions than you have. The state of mind of the Minister for Industry and Commerce, confirming that of Deputy Martin McDonogh, should be a fairly clear warning to the House that it is not moderation that is going to be beneficial to the people, but extremism; that organisation, and organisation led by responsible people, is not going to meet with the response that it should be reasonably expected to meet with; that we have not reasonable men to deal with, that we have people who are prepared to take the last ounce that can be got out of human life and human labour. I say that way lies trouble. At this time in the world's history it ought not to be argued by any responsible people that the way to low production costs is by way of low wages, and, on the other hand, it certainly should not be argued, especially in June, 1927, from the agricultural benches that the way to create new markets is to deprive the consumers of their power of purchasing. The Shannon scheme has inevitably been adverted to. I will tell the House frankly that if I had my way I would even at this stage make a radical change in the rate of wages on the Shannon scheme, and I would do it with the deliberate purpose of trying to recast the industrial life of this country. What have you in that scheme? You have all the highest organising ingenuity and capacity, one might almost say, in the world, at your disposal. You have the most efficient possible labour-saving machinery that could be found anywhere, and you bring this organising capacity and this labour-saving machinery to a big constructional work. Any enlightened, modern, economic thinker who has human sympathies at all must say that the men, the human labour engaged in that operation, having the assistance of this machine power, should at least get some of the benefit due to the introduction of this highly-organised machinery. That should be a natural corollary of a high state of mechanical organisation. We have adopted the opposite and said: "Let us bring all the powers of the world that are at our disposal, let us bring all the ingenuity and mechanical appliances available, but still let us keep the human labour at the very lowest level." That has to be revolutionised.

Had we, on the other hand, given labourers on the Shannon scheme a decent wage we would have attracted the best, and got the best out of them. Couple that with high organisation and the best mechanical appliances and you are going some way towards developing an economic system in the country that one can be proud of. But you have set a bad headline. You may say we are going to detract and repel people coming to this country with capital, but I say that we ought not attempt to attract people to this country with capital in the hope that they are going to make a profit out of a lower and lower standard of human labour. We have the operations in India, China and Japan of big capitalist organisations, going there because labour is cheap. You want us to be put in the same position—that we would attract capitalists from all over the world to come to Ireland and start industrial concerns on the basis of low-priced human labour. Not a bit of it. We shall oppose that to the best of our ability. On the other hand, let capital come to the country, or better still, let us utilise the capital that is in the hands of the people of this country, and we promise, given accord, given confidence, given something like consideration to the human problems, to do all that we can do to make the labour costs of the finished article as low as possible. But that is not going to be done on the basis of a low weekly wage. It is going to be done at the price of better organisation and some security for the working men engaged.

Questions have been asked as to what is involved in this motion. This motion is an attempt to persuade the Dáil to say that the Government should, on their own responsibility, bring in a Bill to extend the period over which unemployment benefit will be paid to unemployed insured persons. That may be a widely spread measure or a narrowly spread measure. That will be the Government's responsibility in response to the wish of the House if the House carries this motion. Agricultural labour is not at present an insurable occupation. For practical purposes, if Deputy Gorey is to be believed, it does not affect this issue, because there is no agricultural labour unemployed.

Mr. GOREY

Not in my constituency.

Mr. E. DOYLE

That is wrong.

Mr. JOHNSON

The Deputy spoke of his constituency as not being exceptional.

Mr. GOREY

I did not.

Mr. JOHNSON

Agricultural labour up to date has not made any demand that it should become contributory to the unemployment fund, and agricultural employers have joined heartily in that refusal. So that for the purpose of this discussion—whatever we may desire should come about in the future— for the purpose of this discussion, agricultural labour is not included. This motion is an attempt to prevent hunger. It is an attempt to enable some people who will otherwise be obliged to fall upon the home assistance funds, which they will not repay, to be benefited by the Unemployment Insurance scheme that was inaugurated some years ago. The Minister has quoted certain figures as to the possible cost, but he has not quoted the figure, I think, as to what would be the cost of this according to his own statistics. He appears to have thrown doubt upon the value of his own statistics. The more doubt he throws upon the value of his own statistics the wider the problem is and the greater the confession of failure of government policy in the past. I say whether there are eighteen thousand, or twenty-eight thousand, whether there are one hundred or one thousand or ten thousand persons who are within the Unemployment Insurance Act at the present time whose benefits have been exhausted, there is just as good a reason now, aye, there is more reason now, for extending the period of benefit for these persons than there was in 1924. Very many of them have been a longer period unemployed. Such of them as had some reserves have exhausted all their reserves in addition to their unemployment insurance reserves. The position of these people is worse than it was in 1924. The Minister then, with our assistance and our approval, introduced a scheme for the extension of the period of unemployment benefit. We are asking the Dáil to indicate that it is their desire that there should be an extension of the period of unemployment insurance.

Mr. McGILLIGAN

Does the Deputy mean a multiplication of stamps?

Mr. JOHNSON

That I leave to the Minister.

Mr. McGILLIGAN

I want to know what the Deputy means.

Mr. JOHNSON

A multiplication of stamps would be one way, which we have precedent for, but if that does not prove satisfactory to the Minister's Department he may have other means.

Mr. McGILLIGAN

What exactly does the Deputy want?

Mr. JOHNSON

I want the Minister to revive unemployment benefit for people whose benefit has been exhausted.

Mr. McGILLIGAN

That is to revive exhausted stamps. That is not the motion.

Mr. JOHNSON

To revive exhausted stamps or whatever other method the Minister may advise, based on his experience, which we have not any information about, as to how best to meet the defects of the scheme. It is the Minister's responsibility if the House indicates its desire that something in this direction should be done. That is what the motion proposes.

If this proposal is rejected, are we to take it that the Minister's word in this matter is the final word and that nothing is to be done in respect of unemployment insurance to amend the position in any way? Are we to take it the Minister is now in the same position as in November last when he said: "There is no reason whatever to amend the Acts so as to allow for extended benefit"? In any case it is the duty of the House to say whether there should be an amendment of the Unemployment Insurance Acts in this direction. If the House indicates that it is its desire, I take it the Minister will accept it as a direction. If the House says no, then the responsibility lies with the House and not with the Deputies of this Party.

AN CEANN COMHAIRLE

resumed the Chair.

Question put.

The Dáil divided: Tá, 30; Níl, 54.

Tá

• Richard S. Anthony.
• Henry Broderick.
• Alfred Byrne.
• James Coburn.
• Hugh Colohan.
• Richard Corish.
• Denis Cullen.
• John Daly.
• William Davin.
• Edward Doyle.
• William Duffy.
• Séamus Eabhróid.
• John F. Gill.
• John Horgan.
• John Jinks.
• Thomas Johnson.
• John Keating.
• Thomas Lawlor.
• Gilbert Lynch.
• Pádraig Mac Fhlannchadha.
• Daniel McMenamin.
• Daniel Morrissey.
• William O'Brien.
• Tomás O Conaill.
• Pádraig O hOgáin (An Clár).
• Tadhg O Murchadha.
• Timothy Quill.
• William Archer Redmond.
• Vincent Rice.
• James Shannon.

Níl

• Earnán Altún.
• Patrick F. Baxter.
• J. Walter Beckett.
• George Cecil Bennett.
• John Joseph Byrne.
• Michael Carter.
• Bryan R. Cooper.
• Michael Davis.
• Michael Doyle.
• James Dwyer.
• Thomas Falvey.
• Seán de Faoite.
• James Fitzgerald-Kenney.
• Hugh Garahan.
• Denis J. Gorey.
• Seán Hasaide.
• Alexander Haslett.
• John Hennigan.
• Mark C. Henry.
• Gilbert Hewson.
• Patrick Hogan (Galway).
• Richard Holohan.
• Patrick M. Kelly.
• Hugh A. Law.
• Liam T. Mac Cosgair.
• Martin McDonogh.
• P. McGilligan.
• Mícheál Óg Mac Phádín.
• Earnán de Blaghd.
• Séamus Breathnach.
• Seán Brodrick.
• Séamus de Búrca.
• James E. Murphy.
• Martin M. Nally.
• Mícheál O Braonáin.
• Máirtín O Conalláin.
• Partholán O Conchubhar.
• Máighréad Ní Choileáin Bean
• Uí Dhrisceóil.
• Eoghan O Dochartaigh.
• Séamus N. O Dóláin.
• Timothy J. O'Donovan.
• P.S. O Dabhghaill.
• E.S. O Dúgáin.
• David Leo O'Gorman.
• John F. O'Hanlon.
• Fionán O Loingsigh.
• Dermot Gun O'Mahony.
• Risteárd O Maolchatha.
• Domhnall O Mocháin.
• Máirtín O Rodaigh.
• Timothy Sheehy.
• William E. Thrift.
• Vincent J. White.
• George Wolfe.

Tellers.—Tá: Deputies Morrissey and T. O'Connell; Níl: Deputies Duggan and Gorey.

Motion declared lost.

The Dáil adjourned at 8.30 p.m. until Thursday, 30th June, at 3 p.m.