Dáil Éireann debate -
Wednesday, 26 Oct 1927

Vol. 21 No. 5

PUBLIC BUSINESS. - RELIEF OF UNEMPLOYMENT.

Mr. MORRISSEY

I beg to move:

"That the measures hitherto adopted by the Government for the relief of unemployment are insufficient and ought to be extended immediately."

In our judgment this is the paramount issue to be faced by the Dáil. So far as we are concerned we look upon it as the most important subject and most urgent to be dealt with by this House, and we hope all parties will realise that the unemployment question is not a party one. We hope that all parties in the House will give of their best in trying to find a solution for it. With regard to unemployment and the position of this country since 1847, there has been a steady stream of emigration, the best of the young men and women of the country being forced to leave. That went on year after year, a process which weakened the country considerably, but during all those years they were forced to go there was always the hope that with the coming of self-government the tide of emigration would be stemmed. What is the position? We have had control of the national resources for over five and a half years, and I submit we have failed to utilise these resources to provide a livelihood for the citizens of this country, and as a consequence the tide of emigration has gone on just as it did before this country got self-government. While we have had Deputies talking outside about the national status, and Cumann na nGaedheal and other Deputies inside talking about national prosperity, the country was losing its richest asset, its young men and women, those to whom we would be looking to build up the prosperity of the country and to give it its proper status. I wish to deal for a few moments with the figures that were given out from time to time by the Department of Industry and Commerce. We have challenged the accuracy of those figures, and we have said that they represent only a fraction of the whole of the unemployed, for the reason that no inducement whatever was given to register, as the Department was unable to provide work for the thousands of unemployed. They were not going to avail of machinery that was of no use to them and when there were no hopes whatever of providing them with employment. Figures have been given here in this House and to the country on the unemployment debates as if they truly represented the actual number of unemployed, whereas the fact is that the figures given by the Department of Industry and Commerce represent, at the outside, not more than one-fourth of the total number of unemployed.

We have tried to urge upon the Government in this House the magnitude of this problem, and we have received very little sympathy in the matter. We have tried to make an estimate of the number of unemployed and the Government have always refused to accept our estimate. They have treated it as an exaggeration, and yet they were prepared to accept an estimate, which was very obviously inaccurate, given by the Department of Industry and Commerce. While saying that I want to be as fair as I can, and I say that the unemployment problem is not peculiar to this country and that the Government have done a good deal to try and relieve it. They have given a good deal towards relief but they have not gone far enough. If there were 20,000 unemployed and the Government were able to provide for 10,000 of them that is very little satisfaction to the other 10,000 who do not know where they are to get the next meal. That is the point that we want the House to face. I know from experience the type of argument we are going to have from the Government Benches. We will be told about the millions for the Shannon Scheme and about the Carlow Beet Factory. The President will tell us about the "X" thousands of houses that have been built since the Free State was set up, and so on. That is all very good in its own way, but what we want to know is: what is going to be done for those who were not absorbed as a result of those schemes, for the thousands that did not get employment, notwithstanding the millions of pounds that have been spent upon public works within the last five years?

With regard to the number of employed, it seems rather strange that the Department of Industry and Commerce, with all the machinery of the State at its disposal, is not able to give the actual number of unemployed persons upon any given day. But we are provided with figures, by another State Department, which throw a good deal of light on the subject. I referred very briefly here some time ago to the Prolongation of Insurance Act. We are told by one of the Departments of the State that 90,000 persons have had their health insurance prolonged. For the information of the House, I want to state that National Health Insurance Societies have the power to continue insurance to their members who are employed under certain conditions. But this is the point: they cannot give the benefit of the Prolongation Act to any member who has worked for twenty-six weeks in any year. So that here we have it from the figures given by a Government Department and there are now 90,000 persons who did not even get twenty-six weeks work in the year. It cannot be said that the Societies took on this liability very loosely, because when they decided to prolong the insurance of these members they were taking on the liability of paying them benefits. They were not going to accept that liability unless they were satisfied that they were bound to do so. I suggest that although the figure of 90,000 may not be really accurate it is certainly more accurate and nearer to the actual number of unemployed than the figure given by the Department of Industry and Commerce.

I would ask Deputies who are interested in this problem—and I hope all Deputies are interested—and who would like to see it solved, to compare what has been done for the unemployed in this country with what has been done in the North of Ireland and in Great Britain. I submit that the Government of the Free State ought not to be less humane in their treatment of the unemployed than the Government of Northern Ireland or of Great Britain. We make the claim again that it is the duty of the State to provide or to see that work is provided for its citizens who are willing and able to work, and that if the Government are not able to fulfil that duty then it is their duty to see that these workers are maintained—that they get sufficient food, clothing and shelter to keep them alive, and not only to keep them alive, but to keep their strength maintained so that when work is provided they may be able to undertake it. I know that the Government have denied that there is any responsibility on them to see that people do not die from starvation. I hope the Government have reconsidered that view, because I believe that upon reconsideration they will see it is not a right and proper attitude for any Government to take up. No Government have the right to take office or to attempt to govern unless they are prepared to do their duty towards the people. I say that a Government that allows thousands of men and women to be living on the verge of starvation has ceased to carry out its primary duty. A Government's duty is to see that every man and woman willing to work is provided with work, so that they may maintain themselves and their dependants. If the Government fail to do that, then it is their duty to see that those people do not go hungry.

There is another matter I wish to refer to, and that is that I hope we are not going to have, as we have had during similar debates in the past, any of the stale criticisms from those who call themselves business Deputies of the honesty and ability of Irish workers. That is neither profitable nor helpful. Irish workers, if they get any sort of fair or decent conditions, will give as good and as honest a return for their wages as workers in any other country. I hope we will hear no more of that sort of general criticism about malingering, dishonesty, and so on. Irish workers, both at home and abroad, have been accepted as being as good as those of any other country. Whatever Irish workers have to undergo in America and other countries, to which they are forced to go to earn a living denied them at home, they certainly have not to put up with insult and contumely such as they experience in their own country. I hope we will hear no more of that.

We believe that the Government can do a lot to help the unemployed this winter. We believe that they should tackle, in a national way, and not in the piecemeal fashion in which they have been tackled, such questions as housing, re-afforestation and drainage, and that they should tackle the question of protection and security for Irish industries that provide employment in a right manner and not take ten months to make up their minds as to whether they are going to give protection to an industry that would give employment to about 200 hands when there are 60,000 or 70,000 unemployed. In that connection I want to say that we realise that in order to carry out those schemes upon a national scale it would be necessary for the Government to borrow money, and that so far as the Labour Party are concerned, we are prepared to give our whole-hearted support to any Government elected by the people in trying to raise money for national development upon the best possible terms.

While on that, I want to say that I believe the Cumann na nGaedheal Party and the Fianna Fáil Party have a lot to answer for to the people for the damage they have done to the credit of the country during the last three or four months. We have had speakers on the Cumann na nGaedheal side going to the country telling the people that if Deputy de Valera were at the head of a Government here nobody would lend him a shilling. Is that going to help the credit of the country? On the other hand, we had speakers from the Fianna Fáil Party telling the people that because of their past history and record the present Government were the worst possible Government to float a loan. The credit of the country is not in the custody either of President Cosgrave or Deputy de Valera. The credit and honour of the country are in the custody of its people, and the sooner both of these Parties realise that the better it will be for the country. It is of greater moment for us than perhaps any other Party in the House that the loan should be got at a favourable rate of interest. The sooner a loan is got and work started the sooner the unemployed problem will be removed from the arena of politics and Party debate here. I want to stress that point: that whatever President Cosgrave and his Party may say about Deputy de Valera and his Party, or whatever Deputy de Valera and his Party may say about the President and the Party of Cumann na nGaedheal, between them they have done more damage to the country in the last three or four years than had been done to it in any previous years. What will people outside this country think? One would imagine that the money was to be advanced upon the personal security of either one or the other of them.

Mr. MacENTEE

We never claimed that.

Mr. MORRISSEY

That seems to be the claim that is put forward from both sides. We want to have this matter treated on non-Party lines. We want it to be approached by all Parties with the desire to try and relieve the unemployed.

That brings me to what is described as the amendment, but what really is another motion about employment which is on the Paper. It is not an amendment; it is not even a motion; it is a smoke screen. It seems to me that if it makes one thing clearer than another, it is that there has been no change whatever in the outlook of the Executive Council towards the unemployment problem. The motion that stands in the name of the Minister for Industry and Commerce is mere eye-wash—a smoke screen. It is put down with the deliberate object of trying to prevent a straight issue being put to the Dáil, and for no other purpose. There is nothing in my motion which states that care must not be exercised in the adoption of relief measures and so on. But I say care must be exercised to see that the people do not die of starvation as they have done already. That is the point. The lives of the people of this State are of more value to the State than some of the property that is talked about.

So far as we are concerned, we are prepared to treat this as a non-Party matter. We are prepared to give any assistance we can to the Government or to any Party in the House, or to the House as a whole, if there is an earnest and genuine attempt made to deal with the unemployment problem. I hope the House will approach it in a non-Party spirit, and, having in view the fact that there are thousands of people unemployed, that they have a long, hard winter before them, and that upon the action taken by this House to-day depends whether people, men, women and children will be hungry or in modest comfort for the next three or four months.

Mr. COLOHAN

I beg formally to second the motion.

Mr. T.J. O'CONNELL

Before the Minister speaks I would ask for your ruling, a Chinn Comhairle, as to whether this is an amendment to the motion and whether it is in order as such.

AN CEANN COMHAIRLE

I would like to hear the Deputy on the point of order. Has the Deputy a point of order to make against the amendment?

Mr. O'CONNELL

I am in doubt as to whether it is an amendment, and I would like if you would resolve my doubt for me.

AN CEANN COMHAIRLE

Deputy Morrissey made an endeavour to resolve Deputy O'Connell's doubt in a somewhat disorderly fashion. Standing Order 42, dealing with this matter, says:

"Every amendment must be relevant to the motion to which it is proposed, and must be directed to omitting, adding or substituting words. No amendment which is equivalent to a direct negative shall be accepted."

The motion on the paper in the name of Deputy Morrissey is couched in very wide terms. The amendment in the name of the Minister for Industry and Commerce appears to be directed to the second part of the motion, that is to say, that measures for the relief of unemployment are insufficient and ought to be extended immediately. The first test of an amendment is relevancy. I think the words on the paper do constitute a relevant amendment. The words are: "no reasonable method of promoting further employment should be neglected."

The second provision of the Standing Order is that no amendment which is equivalent to a direct negative should be accepted. The words proposed to be inserted by the Minister do not constitute a direct negative. The amendment is directed to the omitting of certain words and substituting other words. Therefore the amendment is in order, and that of course, is my sole concern with it.

Mr. MORRISSEY

Perhaps you would decide another point of order. I understand the Minister for Finance is going to move the motion in the name of the Minister for Industry and Commerce——

AN CEANN COMHAIRLE

It is an amendment.

Mr. MORRISSEY

The Minister is going to move the amendment. I want to know if it is in order for one Deputy to move an amendment standing in the name of another while the other in whose name it stands is in the House.

AN CEANN COMHAIRLE

That is a matter of arrangement and agreement. I think if it was decided from the Chair that when one Deputy put down an amendment no other Deputy could move it while the original Deputy was in the House, that would be found on all sides of the House to constitute a very irksome and troublesome ruling. I think Deputy Morrissey will agree with that.

Mr. MORRISSEY

The reason I raised this point is that this is the first time it has happened in the five and a half years we have been in this House. It is a quite unusual occurrence.

AN CEANN COMHAIRLE

It has happened in the case of Bills that one Minister moved for another. If the Deputy persists in his objection I shall consider it.

Mr. MORRISSEY

I do not consider it important enough to persist.

MINISTER for FINANCE (Mr. Blythe)

I move as an amendment:—

To delete all words after the word "That" and substitute therefor the words:—"recognising that further measures for the relief of unemployment will involve additional provision out of public funds and may consequently impose fresh charges on productive enterprise, the Dáil is of opinion that while no reasonable method of promoting further employment should be neglected, care must be exercised in the adoption of relief measures to ensure that the evil which it is sought to remedy is not aggravated by the placing of an undue strain on the resources of industry and agriculture."

I would like to say to Deputy Morrissey that this amendment is not at all in the nature of a smoke screen, as we do not simply wish to vote against his motion. We are not prepared to say that no further measures for relief should be taken. We are not prepared to say that the measures that the Government have taken for the relief of unemployment have been sufficient and leave it at that.

Mr. MORRISSEY

Then accept the motion.

Mr. BLYTHE

We could accept the motion, but I do not think that that would be an honest way of meeting it. It would be quite easy to accept the motion and to say that we did intend to take other steps and agree with it, but that would be hardly meeting the matter fairly. We think we should put down an amendment which would draw attention to the other aspects of the problem. This is a non-party question in which all parties in the House are interested. Different parties may look at it in different ways, but it is not to be assumed that sympathy with the unemployed, interest in the unemployed and a desire to solve the unemployment problem are the monopoly of any party in the House. I think that Labour Deputies will admit that. It is a question of ways and means. It is a question of solving a problem that is difficult and that is defying solution in a good many countries. It is not possible with the organisation of State that we have for the Government to find employment for everybody. The assumption of that duty by the Government would mean an entirely different system of State organisation. We know that elsewhere experiments are being made along those lines. These experiments may or may not result in success, but at any rate, unless we were prepared to make the most drastic reorganisation in our administrative machine and in our whole political machine, it would not be possible for us to accept responsibility for that. The Deputy has talked about starvation. I do not know that people have died of starvation. A case was quoted here where people were alleged to have died of starvation, but I think that was a case where the family concerned were not quite normal mentally. There is a system in existence to provide for the relief of those who are destitute and to prevent people starving. I do not know whether that machinery works perfectly in every case or not, but at any rate we have not heard any great complaints about it. To use Deputy Morrissey's own words, it is entirely in the nature of a smoke screen to bring the question of starvation into the matter at all.

Mr. MORRISSEY

The Minister apparently knows nothing about it.

Mr. BLYTHE

Perhaps not. The question of unemployment is one problem and the question of starvation another. We do not pretend that we have machinery to provide work for everybody but we have machinery whose purpose it is to prevent people starving. We have not heard many complaints about people starving. I know of only one complaint made in this House and there was an explanation of that. Deputy Morrissey has talked about damage to the credit of the country. I do not think the credit of the country has been so seriously damaged by anybody at all.

Mr. O'CONNELL

In spite of your efforts.

Mr. BLYTHE

Our credit is good enough. It is not just in the very front rank but it is better perhaps than the majority of States. So far as the getting of money for productive, remunerative work is concerned, I think we can get any money required and get that money on fairly good terms, so the Deputy need not be very much concerned about the state of our credit or the damage that may have been done to it. It is a question of finding remunerative work that can be done. If we expend money for the relief of unemployment on works that are not fully economic or fully remunerative, then we are necessarily placing a burden on industry and we are necessarily causing unemployment in some other direction. We can borrow and properly borrow for any work that is economic. If work is not economic then we ought not borrow for it and we could not continue for any length of time, even if we wished to borrow for such work. Work that is not economic must be met out of taxation. If we are going to increase the steps that we have taken that are not fully economic for the relief of unemployment then we must increase taxation. If we increase taxation in any direction we are going to have some unemployment caused, and the difficulty in this matter is simply this: that if you take money from the taxpayer and you employ that money to relieve unemployment you can see the good effects where 500 men or 5,000 men have been given work, but you cannot place your finger on the depression that that increased taxation has caused. You cannot say that here a man was thrown out of work or that there a man was thrown out of work simply because of increased taxation but there is no doubt that an increase in taxation means that some way or another people who are in employment at other industries, which could barely carry on and which no longer can carry on, become unemployed or that industries which would have expanded will not be able to expand after the capital which would have been available for them has been absorbed by the State and applied to other purposes.

The Deputy talks about a national scheme of housing. I think the scheme that is in operation is a national scheme, even though it might be supplemented in some particulars. From the examination of the Gaeltacht report we were able to conclude that the arrangements that exist are not suitable for the very poor areas but apart from rural housing the present scheme seems to be a fairly satisfactory scheme, and it is certainly a national scheme. It applies all over the country. Every arrangement has been made to continue the help and to let people who are interested know that assistance from the State would be available from year to year. If we tried to increase our efforts we pile up costs against ourselves. We could build a certain number of houses in the year, and build them at existing costs. If we try to build a larger number of houses the demand for workers is so much greater, the demand for materials and the alternative opportunities of contractors are so much more numerous, that costs tend to go up. The cost of housing is increased and the benefits of our housing work are lost to those who are in need of houses because it becomes impossible to let them at any rent that can be paid.

In regard to afforestation, we have increased the afforestation scheme. We have now, put into operation a scheme with a programme of five thousand acres a year for the next ten years. That is a considerable extension of the previous schemes but the Deputy is aware that expenditure on afforestation gives relatively little employment. A great deal of the money goes on the purchase of land and on the purchase of fencing material. It is very difficult indeed to give a great deal of employment especially where funds are limited and where it is wanted to do the work on an economic basis.

Again on the question of drainage, the outstanding drainage scheme has been entered upon. A substantial number of men are at work on that. Other drainage schemes of some importance have been also carried out but the difficulty is to find economic drainage schemes. We have had engineers examining schemes put up by county councils for the last fifteen months, and I do not think any strictly economic scheme has appeared. No scheme that will pay for itself has appeared. The actual fact so far as drainage is concerned is that all the good schemes were done long ago and there remain only schemes that will not pay for themselves or that will not benefit land to such an extent as will enable the cost of that work to be met.

In order that the work might go ahead, that people who suffer from flooding and all the annoyances and heartbreak that flooding involves might be saved that, and in order that employment might be given, we were prepared to give a free grant from State funds of 33? per cent. It was found that there were very few schemes that could be done, even with a State grant of 33? per cent. When that appeared we went further and agreed, after giving a State grant free of 33? per cent., that we would give pound for pound with the county councils until the State grant amounted to 50 per cent. A number of cases have been turned down by the county councils. People were all very willing that drainage should be done if free grants were to be given entirely by the State, but they would not consent to grants out of the funds of the county councils. It should be borne in mind that the drainage schemes that could be done, even with the maximum grant that the State would give and with the corresponding grant from the county councils, were very few. A great number of the drainage schemes are of this type: that the annual charges for interest and repayment would amount to, say, £2,000, while the annual value of improvement effected would be, say, £500. There are very few economic drainage schemes, and in respect to any drainage that has been done a fairly heavy charge will fall on the State. What we have to do at the present time is to see what are the most nearly economic drainage schemes, to get ahead with them and try to do them as cheaply as we can.

Deputy Morrissey referred to other big schemes which the Government have undertaken and which give relief to unemployment. I need not rehearse them, but if there are any other schemes put before the Government that promise to be economic, which will give employment and promise some economic benefit in the future to the country, we will not be afraid to undertake them either because of their magnitude or for any other cause. But if it is simply a question of saying: "Here are so many people unemployed and work must immediately be found by any means and at all costs for all of them," then that is a proposal that should not be accepted because there can be no doubt at all that an attempt to solve unemployment that way would fail. The men who are now unemployed might become employed, but other men who are now in employment would be driven out of it.

A great portion of the State revenue comes from taxes on luxuries of various kinds. The revenue from spirits last year was something like £3,087,000. If we are looking for an increased revenue there we cannot get it by increasing that particular tax.

Captain REDMOND

Would you not get it by decreasing it?

Mr. BLYTHE

No. It has been alleged that we would get it by decreasing it, but there has been no case that would bear examination made for that. On the other hand, there is no doubt that the consumption is falling under the present tax. If a higher tax were put on we think that the consumption would fall still more rapidly. That fall in consumption would bring its own new problem of unemployment. From beer we get £3,790,000 There has also been some decline, though not so rapid, in the consumption of beer. An increase on the beer duty would, I believe, bring a decrease in revenue. At any rate, there would be no increase in revenue. There would be a decrease in consumption with corresponding unemployment. The revenue from tobacco was £3,225,000. There has been a slow decline during the past two or three years in the consumption of tobacco, and any increase on the tobacco duty would, I think, bring about a further decrease in consumption. It is doubtful if it would bring any increase in revenue.

As regards some of the principal taxes on necessities, the tax on boots and shoes, last year, brought in £264,000, and that on apparel brought in £661,000. An increase in these particular taxes would not bring in any very substantial increase in revenue. If there was an increase it would be felt very materially by large sections of the population who could not benefit by the increase. Certain people in the towns might benefit but people in the countryside would not benefit, and if there was any increase it would be felt very severely by them. If we increase the number of taxes on necessities we get the same result: an increase in the cost of living.

The prices which our farmers get are ruled by the prices in the British market. The price of the farmer's exportable surplus determines the price that he will get. We cannot make the home price higher than the British market price except as regards, perhaps, one or two minor commodities. Broadly speaking, our farmers must sell in an open market. If we were to increase the number of protective taxes without proper consideration of the farmer's case, then we may have such an increase in the farmer's cost of living, without any increase in his income, as would drive immediately great numbers of our farmers into a state of bankruptcy. That will not mean an increase in employment. Any further diminution of the farmer's purchasing capacity is going to be reflected even in the towns. It is going to mean that men who are now employed in the towns will cease to be employed. The problem, therefore, it will be seen, is not a simple one. It is not merely a problem of human sympathy, as Deputy Morrissey and Deputies on his benches suggest. They speak as if it were a question of sympathy and consideration for the unemployed. If it were only that, then the problem would be solved long ago. There is nobody on these benches who would refuse to propose the voting of public money if by doing so we could solve the unemployment problem. The money that would be voted is not our own money, and the cost of obtaining it would fall more heavily on us than on anybody else.

The question must be looked at in all its aspects, and we must take care that we do not clog the industrial machine to such an extent that our efforts to help the unemployed will result only in throwing a new and bigger body out on the streets. General suggestions, such as Deputy Morrissey put forward, are not going to help us very much. We have considered all these things. We have made sums available for roads. We have made substantial sums available for housing and afforestation. We have made more money available for drainage than we found any means of spending. We have dealt with the question of protecting industries in the way that we thought was the wisest, taking into account all classes in the community. I would like to say to Deputy Morrissey that any delay that took place in the consideration of proposals before the Tariff Commission was much less than the Deputy will find in the consideration of proposals, for instance, before the United States Tariff Commission.

Some of the delay was certainly due to the applicants not being ready with their evidence when it was required from them. We have tried to face this question of unemployment in a variety of ways. In the first instance we tried to do all we could to give employment, directly by the State or through the local authorities. We have tried by means of tariffs, by means of trade loans and other assistance to manufacturers to have employment given by private individuals. We have tried to reduce taxation. We have substantially reduced it so that the overhead charges on trade and industry might be lessened. We have very substantially reduced taxation, and then we have come along, from time to time, with very substantial sums in relief grants. A good deal of these relief grants have been well spent. They have given fairly good returns. We are prepared this winter, as in other winters, to make available a sum for relief works. As far as possible we will avoid road works, because there is almost £1,300,000 available for expenditure on the roads. That money can be drawn on as rapidly as the councils can use it. There are other works in the towns and cities which might be undertaken with the assistance of relief grants. A particular type of road might be undertaken with the assistance of relief grants. These are the bog roads.

In speaking to his motion the Deputy did not refer, except in an indirect way, to the question of uncovenanted benefit. He did not mention it, but he stated that it was the duty of the State to provide work, and if it could not provide work it should provide maintenance. I do not know whether the Deputy meant, when he made that statement, that uncovenanted benefit should be restored or not. The position of the Government in regard to uncovenanted benefit has always been this: that if the position were serious enough there would not be any alternative to uncovenanted benefit. You can help a greater number by giving whatever money you have direct to them than by any scheme of works, but there might be circumstances in which the restoration of the uncovenanted benefit would be the only course we could take. It must be recognised that there is great objection throughout the country to the system of uncovenanted benefits, and that there are also inherent in it grave faults and grave dangers. We do not believe that the situation is serious enough to warrant a return to uncovenanted benefit. It should be stated that, so far as the appeals are concerned, there have been less appeals for assistance this year than any other year. There were no applications from local bodies for grants for relief work this year. I do not think that could have been said of any other year.

A DEPUTY

Because there was no Vote.

Mr. BLYTHE

That is partly an explanation of it. At the same time, if the condition had been more serious than it was in previous years, the fact that there was no Vote would not have deterred authorities from applying. I do not say that there is no need for these measures, but, at the same time, if we compare the situation now and the situation in previous years, the indication is that it is not as serious. The contributions to the Unemployment Insurance Fund also indicate that employment is better, that the situation is not as serious this year, and that it is somewhat better than it was last year. We must really try to look all around the problem, and must not burden the ordinary taxpayer in such a way as to make progress in industry, or the maintenance of industry, more difficult than it is. I admit that Deputy Morrissey was vaguer than I anticipated he would be in his proposals. Too great an expenditure in the initiation of too many schemes now, as any Deputy can see, might easily prevent us arriving at a permanent solution of the problem. We have tried to spend our money on things that are going to be economic assets to the country. It would be better to try to have more sugar factories, to get additional industries started so far as they can be with Government assistance, than to give measures of relief that would please Deputy Morrissey now. The measures of relief that would please the Deputy now might be very displeasing, even to him, in a year or so. I think that is all I need say on this particular amendment. It is not that we deny that more might be done for the relief of unemployment; it is not that we refuse to do more for the relief of unemployment, but we ask the Dáil in considering this matter to remember that there is another side to it, and that both sides should be considered, and that we should take the wisest middle course.

Mr. DE VALERA

We find ourselves in general agreement with the remarks that have been made by Deputy Morrissey. In the first place, we agree that this question ought to be faced, not as a party question, but as one towards the solution of which everyone here ought to bend his best efforts. The second point is that we agree that it ought not to be tackled as a mere question of giving temporary relief to those unemployed, but that it ought to be tackled as a great national question. The only way that we can see that it can be tackled as such is by regarding it as part of a great scheme of national reconstruction. As far as the Deputies on these benches are concerned, we have very clear-cut ideas about it. The first thing we find ourselves in complete antagonism to is the point of view that it is not the duty of the State to find work for those willing and able to work. We stand firmly on the principle that it is the duty of a modern State under modern conditions to see that work is available for those willing to work. We were asked that question on the first day we came here. We would have had no hesitation then, and we have no hesitation now, in standing by that principle. I do not want to argue the ethics of it. It is quite clear that if a human being, by being enmeshed in modern society, is prevented from taking the means to get food that he would have if he were in a savage state, then that society is bound to give him the wherewithal to live. That is our first position. The next thing we ask ourselves is: How is this whole scheme to be tackled? As we see it, it is not likely to be tackled by an Executive that takes upon itself the duty to bring in Bills every second day, as we find here—passing legislation on the consideration of which no proper time can be spent. Therefore we believe that if this question is going to be tackled seriously at all it will have to be tackled by some body set up—an economic council, a development commission, or any name Deputies care to call it—in association with the Executive of the day, to envisage the whole problem and try to find a solution of it as a whole.

Obviously, the first thing for such a commission to do would be to find out the position in which we stand, to find out what is the position of the country as a whole. There are Deputies on these benches who will be able to give you a picture of it if they choose, not the picture that would be given by some of the Deputies on the Labour benches, but a picture of rural Ireland to-day, and that picture will make it quite clear to you that we have all over the country a condition of things which one cannot simply ignore.

I was disappointed to find what I felt was almost a callous attitude towards this question from speakers on the other side. I said to myself that if one-half of the determination or one-half of the energy that Deputies on the other side put into the question of making their own policy on other matters successful from their point of view were to be devoted to trying to reconstruct this island, or the portion of it over which this body has control, the problem we are discussing now could be solved and solved easily. What is wrong is the want of will, and the evidence of that want of will was shown in almost every sentence of the statement of the Minister for Finance.

With regard to tackling this problem, we have, first of all, to make up our minds as to what is our conception of the sort of life that we want in this country, and as to what the economic system is for. We on this side of the House have made up our minds about that. We are not going to take our standards from industrial England, industrial America, or any other industrial country, on that particular matter, and we are not going to be guided in the steps we would take to solve the problem by any means that have been adopted in these countries. We have, as an ideal towards which we will work, the ideal that the individuals who are living in the country should have the fullest life possible, that they should not be merely wage-slaves or simply spending their lives to make money for somebody or other. We believe that the whole object of economics ought to be to try to give to the greatest number possible in this island a decent, comfortable living. In order to work towards that ideal, we will have to ask ourselves if we are going to get towards it by building up great industries or by the ruralisation of industries. As far as we are concerned, one of the things that we are glad of is that the development of electricity power will give an opportunity of bringing power to the people in the country, instead of bringing human beings up from the country and putting them in the slums of the large cities to starve. We are glad that the electrical power of the country is being developed. We have differences as to how it should have been begun, and the manner in which it should have been carried out, but we are glad that an effort has been made to utilise the water power of the country and build up electrical power, so that we may be able to ruralise life and our industries generally. In order to have the life that we wish our people to have we want primarily to provide for their requirements in food, clothing and shelter. How do we stand in this country for food? Everybody knows that, even if we had two or three times our population, our resources are such that no human being should starve. We believe that the primary object of agriculture in this country should be to supply to the individuals in the country the food that they need, and that before any exports or anything else should be considered that primary object ought to be looked after. Because we believe that we can be self-supporting. There is no doubt about that, as far as food is concerned. As far as clothing is concerned we could, if we set out to do it, make ourselves largely self-supporting. We are importing at present articles that we should not import, and in the manufacture of which employment could be given to many people who are now out of work. If we set out to meet our own needs in food, in clothing and in housing, we could do so, with perhaps the exception of timber, in the case of housing. If we decided to build from the materials that we have, we could build the houses that are necessary to shelter our people. If we had food, clothing and shelter, and if, in addition to that, we developed the industry which is most suitable for us, so as to be able to get the necessary imports which it would buy for us in return—the raw materials that we require—I believe that you would not have a man, woman or child in this island willing to work without work to do.

Ask yourselves what would be the result of such a policy. I will take an example I gave somewhere before. Supposing that we were to get notice that in five years this island was to be cut off from the whole world. Ask yourselves how you would feel if that notice was served on you. I do not think that a single one of us ought to be dismayed if we were told that. We would have to do without certain things that we would be glad to have, but we would not have to do without any of the real essentials. We could set out to prepare so that in five years, if we were cut off, all the primary necessaries of human life could be obtained here. If such a notice were served upon us, what would be the picture that this country would present for the next four or five years? Would it not be a regular hive of industry? Do you think that there would be many people idle? It would be a question of organisation for the most part. Some of our people would be taking stock of our needs, what we required and the possibilities of supply. We would have some people going across to foreign countries and trying to get from them the secrets of their methods of manufacture. We would be getting in all the machinery that would be necessary. I am quite certain that if you were to approach the whole question of unemployment and national reconstruction from that point of view we would not, at least for the next four or five years anyhow, have this problem that we are now dealing with.

There are immediate schemes that suggest themselves to everybody, as have been mentioned to-day already, schemes such as the reclamation of land, the building of houses that are necessary, and of course, in building houses, you would also have the question of the quarrying of the stone, the cutting of the slates, the question of cement and everything that would be necessary. If we set about it, all these could be got in this island. We have peat. There is no reason why our peat should not be developed; there is no reason why we should not go further and do without the present imports of coal. Talking about imports, when we are trying to find reasons for the present condition of the country, we must add, not merely the emigration, which has probably cost us a capital loss of £140,000,000 or £150,000,000 during the last four or five years, but the drain from the country, on account of the adverse trade balance, of something like nineteen and a third million pounds a year, in addition to the sum of five and a half millions which is being paid out to England in accordance with the terms of the financial agreement that was made a few years ago. We have got to try and correct that balance. How are we going to correct that balance? Are we going to correct it by increasing our exports? To my mind, while there is no reason for not trying to do that and for trying to do everything in our power to diminish the adverse balance, that is not the way that promises success. We will not get such immediate results from our efforts in that direction. But there is a direction in which we can get immediate results.

If you analyse last year's imports into this country and try to take out of the general imports those that represent articles that could be procured here at home, you will find that close on £25,000,000 would be represented by those imports. You have got £10,255,000 worth in the way of imports of wheat, barley, oats, maize, wheaten flour, oat products and milled maize products. We should get out at once and try and diminish those imports and produce all those at home. That will give employment. A couple of days ago we were discussing the question of a tariff on rosary beads and margarine. Those represented comparatively small imports. Here we have a question of wheaten flour, which last year cost us something like £3,585,000. I have been told by the people who are engaged in the milling trade, people who have a fair knowledge of that trade, that after a very little time the Irish flour mills would be capable of grinding all the wheat we require. Therefore, I say, if we want to increase employment in the milling industry we ought, I will not say at once, but almost at once or after very short notice, with all the necessary safeguards, see that our mills will be prepared to meet the demands, and we could put on a heavy tariff, or perhaps better, simply let in such wheat as we require under licence, and put an embargo probably on the greater part of it. I heard the Minister for Finance talking about tariffs as a tax. I think that the whole idea of regarding tariffs from the taxation point of view is wrong. It gives a wrong point of view altogether, and it is not the proper way of attacking this question at all. Our tariffs ought to be for the sole purpose of helping the home industries, so that we would have produced at home the things that at present we import. You have £10,255,000 in cereals. You have in products such as pig products, beef, mutton, tinned meat, and so on, £3,300,000. In vegetable imports, potatoes, onions and so on, you have £226,000; in woollens, worsteds and yarns you have £1,471,000. In general, in this class, except dutiable goods on which certain tariffs have already been imposed, our imports last year on goods other than those I have mentioned and those on which there are tariffs already, came to a figure amounting to £4,229,000. That makes altogether imports of close on £25,000,000 on articles which could be produced here at home. I think it would hardly be an exaggeration to say that we could, if we organised ourselves for the purpose, produce here, in the Twenty-six Counties, half our total imports, and that would enable us, if we set out to do it, to wipe out the present adverse balance on trade. That matter could be remedied in that way. I have dealt only in general terms with this matter. It is with the outlook that I am concerned. It is the manner of approach to this question that matters. The details of it could be arranged once you get the foundation. You have the fact that we can feed, clothe and shelter ourselves here, and if we approach the problem and set up a proper organisation for dealing with it you need have no unemployment in this country at all.

Mr. CAREY

During the debate to which I have just listened I think it is clear that few of the Deputies realised what our local councils are for. The onus in the matter of unemployment should not, to my mind, rest altogether with the Central Government. The local councils, as local governing bodies, know most about the work and schemes that could be carried out. I do, however, admit that the Government of the State should provide the necessary monies to carry out these schemes. In the town of Youghal, in my constituency, we have the problem of coast erosion. The carrying out of certain work to prevent that coast erosion would give a large amount of employment, and the town of Youghal would be protected. In that matter the Great Southern Railways are immediately affected. Something must be done between the Youghal Urban Council, the railway company and this Legislative Assembly to carry out a scheme for preventing that coast erosion. Now, in the town of Midleton, which is part of my constituency, and where I am a member of the Urban Council, we have been considering the duplication of the water mains into the town for a distance of four or five miles. We find that our borrowing powers at present are £10,000. In addition, we find that in the borrowing of money we cannot borrow for a longer term than fifteen years at 4½ or 5 per cent. It is the duty of the Dáil to pass an Act authorising local councils to get long term loans for the purpose of carrying out reproductive works and schemes.

In Midleton, there is a distillery which gave employment almost to 200 people. In the Malting Works at Ballinacurra, employment was given to about 200. Well, at present the Midleton distillery is giving employment to only about 20 people and the Malting Works of Ballinacurra were closed down until about a month ago. They are only giving half-time to their employees at present. That is a very good thing and a very good idea to give the men half-time as it employs more men. The set back that these two large industries received was given them by the famous Lloyd George Budget of 1910. That was the first blow struck at these industries. Who is going to give them the last blow I cannot say. Up to 1910 that industry was using almost all the barely that was grown in East Cork. The Midleton distillery and the Ballinacurra Maltings were buying all the barley that the farmers grew. Now, barley-growing was one of the most important industries in East Cork. It was the most important crop in that portion of the Free State. It was a cash crop. It enabled the farmer to pay his rent, his rates, annuities and his other debts. That industry must be protected because it has given employment to the agricultural workers. From time to time references are made to the town and city workers and people seem to forget that there is such a thing as the agricultural worker. The agricultural worker will have to be protected and given employment on the land just as employment will have to be found in towns for the urban workers.

References have been made to housing schemes. We have a housing scheme in Midleton; plans and specifications are there to be carried into effect but we cannot borrow money beyond a term of fifteen years. There are plenty of lands to be taken over on which could be erected suitable dwellings for workers but we cannot get money other than on a fifteen years term. It is the duty of the Executive Council to bring forward legislation for long term loans. This would be one of the principal ways of relieving unemployment in the rural and urban areas—at least, those areas for which I can speak.

Mr. CORISH

Support the motion.

Mr. CAREY

Then we have the question of the reclamation of waste land. Half way between Midleton and Youghal there is a whole lot of land subject to inundation from tidal waves. If money were available to finance the erection of a sea-wall, that wall would protect the land, which, in years to come, could be utilised so as to provide a profit for the State. I put forward these suggestions for the consideration of Deputies. If this question is not tackled in an honest, straightforward, business-like way, there is no use in touching it at all. Schemes can be provided which will give employment that is much needed by the people. It is not only in the cities that we find slums. In the towns, although you might not call them slums, there are places that are equally as bad. The towns throughout the Saorstát will have to get the same protection in the way of housing schemes as the cities. I am not saying that from the point of view of prejudice. Recognition in the way of adequate housing schemes will have to be given to the towns.

I believe that unemployment is to a very great extent due to certain legislation put into operation in this country some years ago when we were under the British House of Commons. The measures then enacted are reacting now upon us in the way of unemployment. Different English Governments tried to kill the industries we had at one time. They did our industries considerable harm. Now we are trying to regain the position we once held. In order to regain that position our first move should be to protect our own industries. I am not a wholehogger in the matter of tariff reform. Those of us who reside in rural Ireland know well the sort of tariffs that should be imposed. I remember well when East Cork was one of the principal barley-growing districts in all Ireland. Every farmer was up to date in the payment of his rates and in meeting his other liabilities; he was able to pay his debts to shopkeepers and traders; he could carry on his business in comfort and could go through the world with a light heart. At the present time the people there are scarcely able to hold their heads above water; they are carrying on, pulling as best they can.

We must give relief to the farmers and the urban workers. We who are on the Urban Councils in the Free State will do our part in formulating and carrying out reproductive schemes if we are accommodated in the matter of money. We guarantee that those schemes will be a credit to the Councils and to the State. There is no use in carrying out these schemes unless we get long term loans that we can easily pay back.

Mr. LEMASS

I was very much surprised to hear the Minister for Finance stating that the indications are that the unemployment problem is not serious at present, and I came to the conclusion——

Mr. BLYTHE

Perhaps the Deputy will permit me to intervene in order to make a correction? I said it was not so serious as it was in previous years.

Mr. LEMASS

However, the Minister has not altered my conclusion, which is that he must have at his disposal facts relating to the problem which he is not giving to the public. I have endeavoured to get, by means of questions to the Minister for Industry and Commerce, some facts concerning the problem. He informed me that the total number of workers in insurable occupations is 245,613, and his estimate of the number of workers in non-insurable occupations is 214,000, a total of 459,613 workers. In the sixth benefit year under the Unemployment Insurance Act, 98,286 individual workers applied for unemployment insurance benefit. If we assume that even two-thirds of that number succeeded in obtaining re-employment during the course of the year, the number of workers in insurable occupations unemployed at any given time was about 32,000.

As regards workers in non-insurable occupations I have here the returns regarding unemployment and distress in rural areas in Saorstát Eireann, presented on the 22nd July, 1927, by the Minister for Industry and Commerce. In no less than ten of approximately thirty areas reported on, we are told that distress is extensive, is serious, and is acute. The exact shade of difference intended to be conveyed by the various words, I am not quite sure of. In at least six or seven of the areas mentioned there is no report at all, or else reports of a most unsatisfactory nature. In County Mayo, for example, I note that no actual distress has come under the Inspector's notice, although I see that according to this morning's "Irish Times" there is starvation in Mayo and that Carrigeen Moss is the sole diet of a large number of people. The newspaper article says: "In our issue of Monday we published the fact that hundreds of people in the Barony of Erris, North Mayo, are in a state of semi-starvation, and gave the number of cases to illustrate the widespread poverty that exists." It adds: "Some money has been spent on ‘relief' works, making roads on the tops of bogs and tearing up the few handfuls of earth from between the rocks to make fences round nothing." It further adds: "There are a few knitting schools in Erris doing beautiful work of high quality at reasonable prices, but as a rule these schools are barely struggling to keep going. They are under the Department of Fisheries." Cause and effect! If we assume that the ratio of the number of unemployed amongst insurable workers is one in seven, and that the same ratio applies in the case of non-insurable workers, although at that time of the year it is probably much higher, we get the figure of roughly, 65,000 people without work normally.

It is possible that more than one-third of those returned as applying for unemployment benefit find re-employment in the course of a year, but, even if the ratio were one in ten, instead of one in seven, the situation, I think, is sufficiently grave to merit the serious attention of this House. If, for example, there was no unemployment, if every one of the 65,000 people were at work to-morrow, and if they decided to go out on strike, I think the House would look upon it as a matter of serious national importance and we would probably have emergency measures rushed through to deal with it. The newspapers would tell us of the loss of wealth involved per day, and of the loss of wages to the workers owing to their foolish action, but we are still losing that wealth, and the workers are losing those wages all the year round under present circumstances. I would suggest to the Minister that the situation is sufficiently serious to justify emergency measures, and it should not be taken as a matter of ordinary Departmental routine. We have to face the fact that, unless something big and abnormal is done to remedy the problem, there is going to be a serious strain on the vitality of the nation, from which it will take a long time to recover.

In addition to the 65,000—or the 90,000, according to Deputy Morrissey's calculation—who are unemployed there are a large number at work at many industries in the country only for three or four days a week. They are on short time, and consequently drawing reduced wages, which in many cases are barely sufficient to keep the workers and their families alive. There is also the problem of young men of 20 and 21 years of age, many of whom have never been employed since they left school, and who cannot be accounted for in any statistics. The problem of these young men is particularly serious, because many of them are rapidly becoming unemployable. In the absence of accurate statistics, Deputies considering this problem will have to consider it from their personal knowledge of the circumstances existing in their own constituencies. In the constituency which I represent, that of Dublin City South, in which this House is situated, the problem of unemployment has rarely, if ever, been as serious as it is to-day. There are thousands of men and women who are facing the coming winter with the attitude of blank despair. They think that the Government do not appreciate the seriousness of the situation, and I think they are justified in that belief. They are, in any case, convinced that the Government are not serious in attempting to remedy it.

We have been told that the problem of unemployment is largely one of finance. There is no doubt whatever that there is plenty of work to be done in this country, work sufficient to absorb all the men available. In Dublin City South the housing problem alone is of a sufficiently serious nature to provide work for a long period for nearly all the workers available in it. The financial difficulty, about which the Minister for Finance has been talking, is not one that concerns taxation and public funds alone. The unemployment in the towns, the depreciation of land values, and the fall in prices which is at the root of the distress among the agricultural community, are due to the financial system in operation in this country. The Government, by recent legislation, are attempting to perpetuate it. The Government have not stated what steps, if any, they are taking to make money available. The Minister for Finance assures us that credit is good and that we are going to get the money required on fairly good terms, yet I see that the President, in interviews in the Press, says that we are not going to look for the ten milions which were originally estimated as necessary to meet our requirements but for five or six millions. If our credit is good and if we are going to get the money on good terms, why not, in view of the emergency and the magnitude of the problem, get the money? There are other ways besides floating a loan by which money can be secured.

Deputy Morrissey referred in this House last Thursday to the export of Irish capital. I think that there are 180 millions of Irish capital invested abroad through the banks. That is probably an under-estimate. Can we not devise some means by which that capital could be brought back and used here for constructive work? A mere fraction of it, if put into operation here, would help considerably to solve the problem. I would suggest, as one method, the imposition of a tax on exportable capital, on an ascertained percentage of it, the tax to be maintained on a graduated scale every year until there was made available that portion of the total for which immediate and profitable employment could be found. Another suggestion which has been made is the granting of concessions on income tax on Irish money invested in Ireland in Irish industries. The matter of protection has been mentioned. That is one of the keys to the whole situation, because if we protect our industries we make it profitable to invest Irish capital in them, and those who control capital are always anxious to find profitable investments. Possibly the best way of tackling the problem would be by amalgamation of the three methods.

If we approach the problem properly, and bear in mind the fact that there is a serious national emergency to be dealt with, we can solve it. If the Government maintain their present attitude, as expressed in this nonsensical amendment, we will never solve it. I think it is the duty of Deputies, no matter to what party they belong, if they appreciate the seriousness of the situation, especially Deputies who voted the Government into office a fortnight ago, to reverse the position now and put them out of office. This problem of unemployment is the acid test. The Government must not be allowed to shirk their responsibility as regards unemployment. It is the duty of the Government to provide work for all citizens. The unemployed workers are Irishmen, and they have the right to be provided with work that means food, clothing and housing for themselves and their families. Ministers will, no doubt, be brilliant and will, perhaps, appear to be even effective in replying to the charge contained in the motion. They have treated debates on unemployment as so many occasions for demonstrating their skill in manipulating figures and in scoring off their opponents. If the amendment is passed and when you all are finished talking, the unemployed workers will still be out of work and their families will be hungry. We ask Deputies to realise that this is not a matter for manoeuvring in this Assembly. There are people hungry, and if there is any Minister who has doubts about that I will take him through streets in my constituency where there is hunger and, in some instances, starvation.

We are told that no cases of death by starvation have been reported. I have heard of cases, and even here in Dublin. Only to-day I was told of the deaths of two women from starvation in County Leitrim. I do not know whether or not a coroner's jury would decide they died from starvation, but in the opinion of the people who know the facts they did. If the Government were prepared to tackle this problem seriously and to produce schemes for relieving it which appear good to us, we assure them of co-operation in that matter, but the Deputies on these benches think the Government must tackle it seriously or get out.

Major COOPER

It is the first time I had the pleasure of following Deputy Lemass, but it must always be a pleasure to do so, because his argument is always so clear. I would like to congratulate him on having produced an entirely novel argument. When I was a young man I remember there were many arguments in favour of a tax on landlord absentees, a tax on people who went outside Ireland, drew their money from Ireland and did not spend it here. Deputy Lemass is in favour of the opposite. He wishes to tax those people who live in Ireland and have investments outside and spend their money here.

Mr. LEMASS

I was referring to the capital invested abroad through the banks.

Major COOPER

But only through the banks?

Mr. LEMASS

Yes.

Major COOPER

I have never been a Minister for Finance, and I do not know how you could frame a tax on capital invested abroad through banks that would not also touch the private individual. I am afraid the effects of the measure proposed by Deputy Lemass would be not to import any more capital, but to export a certain number of owners of capital who would spend their money elsewhere than in this country. I do not think that would alleviate the unemployment situation. I agree with Deputy Lemass, and I think every Deputy does, that the unemployment question is a serious one. If it were not Government time would not be devoted to this motion. There is no Deputy, I fancy—I do not know about the University Deputies—who does not receive every day pathetic appeals from persons out of employment and who want employment and assistance. I hope Deputies on the Labour Benches will believe that Deputies on the other benches are not entirely lacking in humanity, and that this question impresses them in the same manner as the Labour Benches, with a sense of impotence and pity, and a sense of a desire to do something to help them. The only thing we have to find is a safe and suitable remedy and not hasten to solve the problem by quack methods which might do more harm than good. My main purpose in rising is to deal with the economic example given by Deputy de Valera, who told us we have an adverse trade balance, but he omitted one or two points, land purchase annuities, I think, and the £2,000,000 paid by the British Government as war pensions, which is money to set off. He said we were not likely to decrease the adverse trade balance in the near future by increasing our export trade. I do not think that is a very helpful doctrine. There are Irish firms in Dublin who by good organisation have given good employment and have built up a substantial export trade. I hold they should be encouraged and not discouraged. Deputy de Valera's remedy was that we should decrease our import trade. He selected one item which appears in the trade returns for 1926. I think Deputy de Valera when taking these figures for cereals omitted food stuffs for animals. He quoted various figures to show we were spending £12,000,000 abroad which we should spend at home, and that we should help to solve the problem of unemployment and encourage industry at home by restricting, if not prohibiting, the import of this £12,000,000 worth of cereals and feeding stuffs for animals. I have looked up the figures and I find that the £12,000,000 is made up of three main items. The first is flour, £3,175,185. That might be milled here, but not all of it. I believe the flour millers themselves compute that about 80 per cent. could be milled here. I always take a certain discount in trade representations, but I will accept 80 per cent. The other 20 per cent. will have to be brought in from outside and will have to pay duty.

Mr. LEMASS

Not necessarily.

Major COOPER

How?

Mr. LEMASS

Under licence.

Mr. BRISCOE

Permit under licence that which you are not able to produce.

Major COOPER

There must be a certain interval when you are installing your machinery and training new hands. During that interval the price of bread will be higher than now, because the cardinal factor in the price of bread is the price of flour. Is it going to relieve the lot of the unemployed to increase the price of bread even for a temporary period? As Deputy Lemass has said, the coming winter is the time you are to have trouble. No one expects the flour millers will have installed machinery by the coming winter. Another matter to be taken into account is that there will be a displacement of labour in some of the towns in the West of Ireland and also in Dublin. A substantial amount of casual employment is given by the unloading of flour. In the end, no doubt, the new mills will absorb that labour, but for the time being there may be a distinct disturbance in the labour market. That has to be taken into account. That is Deputy de Valera's strongest point. There is something to be said for it, but there is also what I have mentioned to be said against it. The next item in the £12,000,000 is wheat, the imports of which are more than £3,500,000. Certain favoured counties in Ireland can grow wheat. I have no doubt Deputy Carey will tell me that Cork can grow wheat. It is incredible what Cork can produce, but you are not going to do any good as regards unemployment in the West of Ireland by growing wheat. I do not know if Deputy de Valera has ever tried to grow wheat in his constituency. I tried it in Sligo and met severe financial loss. There is severe unemployment along the Western seaboard, but the growing of wheat will not do the poor man any good. We shall have to get some £3,500,000 worth of wheat from outside, and a tariff will only result in increasing the cost of living. Another remarkable fact is that included in the £12,000,000 is £2,469,000 for maize. Where are we going to grow maize?

A DEPUTY

We can do without a lot of it.

Major COOPER

Can we throughout the greater part of the country grow the kind of maize useful for feeding beasts? That is the maize we want.

Mr. BRISCOE

We can grow barley.

Major COOPER

The import of barley between 1925 and 1926 amounted to £400,000. Barley is now only £41,000. Again, barley can be grown only in a limited area. It cannot be grown in the South-Eastern counties sufficient to supply the needs of the whole State.

A DEPUTY

It can be grown anywhere.

Major COOPER

I am glad to hear the Deputy say that, but if he will try to grow it in Sligo, he, like some of my neighbours, will be sorry. At any rate we are going to give up the maize— that is the great Fianna Fáil cry: "Down with the maize." I wonder how the farmers will take that. Then to make up Deputy de Valera's twelve millions there is rice—not a very big import. I suppose they can grow rice in Longford and Westmeath too. There are two essentials in growing it—one, abundant rainfall; we have that; the other is a very hot sun. Will any Deputy guarantee me that? Then again there is oil cake—£400,000 worth of oil cake. That is very useful in finishing a beast. I know that, as I show them. I know that I want oil cake for the last three weeks to put a little bit of polish on in order to get a prize. We cannot produce that. So that Deputy de Valera's £12,000,000 fades away down to, at the outside, about four and a half millions. People will not give up using maize for cattle. The Irish farmer is the most conservative person in the world. He has been feeding his cattle with maize and getting good results, and he is very slow to change. The Minister for Agriculture has been preaching the feeding of barley, not to cattle, but to pigs, and he has made very few converts. We shall have to continue to import maize and oil cake and maize products for many years to come. If you tax these products you are putting another burden on the shoulders of the farmer.

I want to come back to the general question. Deputy Lemass said with truth that his constituents are facing the winter in an attitude of black despair. The problem is this winter— it is not a year or eighteen months hence and all the remedies that have been put forward involve preparation. As to housing, you cannot build a house without having an architect's plan for it. You certainly cannot build until you have a site for it. All that takes time. As to forestry, you must have some place to plant trees and you must have the trees. As to drainage, you cannot undertake drainage without a preliminary plan and without preliminary negotiations. I do not believe the State is a good employer. If you think it is, ask the Post Office employees. I do not believe the State spends money as economically as the private individual does or even as the local authority does. The problem before us is this coming winter, and not next summer. The only satisfactory remedy—and I regret it should be necessary—is a relief grant to be expended in part through local authorities, in part through bodies like the Land Commission who have their schemes already prepared, and possibly through the Forestry Commission, if they also have schemes prepared. That seems to be the only means that will meet the immediate necessity and Deputy Morrissey's motion does not deal with that. It may include that, but it goes further. It assumes a responsibility on the part of the State to guarantee employment to everybody. That doctrine I cannot accept, because I believe that it is a doctrine that is at once wasteful and unsatisfactory.

Mr. FLINN

The Minister for Finance said we could get any money we require for remunerative work on loan. What does the Minister for Finance mean by "we"? Does he mean the Government of which he is a part? That is a question to which we ought to be able to get an answer, yes or no. Does the Minister for Finance in the Free State, when he says that we can get any money we require for remunerative work, mean that he and his Ministry can, or does he mean that this State can? Evidently the Minister for Finance has not decided which is the better by-election value of raising or depreciating further the credit of this State. We are facing a loan. If the Minister for Finance is still in the position to apply for it it will be significant in going to those from whom he wants the money to see whether or not he is borrowing it on the credit of this State or the credit and reputation of the Treasury Bench opposite. What would be the significance in the price of that loan if the Minister for Finance would forget that there was a by-election, would forget every lie and libel that he has uttered upon the credit of this State in the last General Election, and say that this State can get for reproductive purposes—whatever Government is in power, put there by the people of this country—all the money it requires for such purposes? But apparently he prefers not.

Deputy Cooper used one word which sums up his whole attitude of mind and the whole attitude of mind of those whom he represents. He contemplates this problem with a sense of impotence. I have upon my pad, among my notes, a drawing of Deputy Cooper fast asleep while Deputy Morrissey was making the case which the Deputy now has the impertinence to wake up and answer. He wants to know whether we are concerned in this matter with an immediate problem or one eighteen months hence. I am concerned with the problem which has existed in this country for six hundred years, the problem which I will show has produced precisely the same results all the way down those 600 years. That problem—the continuance of the same conditions expressed in a different form —will, unless we tackle it as an enemy in the gate to be met and broken by the intelligence and the heart of all our people, come here as a ghost to haunt and cross whatever assembly may a hundred years hence sit here to try and do the duty that we ought to be doing. To me this is a problem of essentials. I have here a book, part of the brief prepared for the Parnell Commission and written by the king in Ireland— the present king in Ireland—Mr. Timothy Healy. Day by day and page by page down this horrible story is a record of poverty, a record of carcases and ashes, a record of people's lips green with the eating of nettles! It is a record of famine, it is a record of disaster. The people were hungry. Half a dozen times in this book I find recommendations for afforestation and re-employment. What I am here to do, as far as in me lies, is to see that when our successors meet here in other generations they will not have to say that the story which lies from our day will be a continuation of this story.

For the purpose of the impoverishment of the people of Ireland many weapons have been used. There have been frank attempts at extermination by military means; there have been Navigation Trade Acts, Penal Laws and Corn Laws—in every year the means which were most suitable to the actual occasion. Sometimes they were subtle, and sometimes they were brutal, and, up to a point, they have always been effective; but the fact that we are here, the fact that the Irish people and the Irish nation still exist, is proof that in their essentials they have failed and shall fail until the end.

What is the expedient that is offered to us to-day? Be practical. Face up to facts! It seems a very easy and a very simple and a very innocuous instrument with which to contrive and to continue to contrive the destruction of the people. Be practical! Face up to facts! Look for a bread and butter policy! Look to your own pocket! Develop the one great industry you have! Seek and nourish the one great customer you have! Rely upon that for the livelihood of your people!

I am here to say that that is a system so bad, that it is a system so calamitous, that it ought to be described in the language in which the Penal Code was in its day. "It was a complete system, full of coherence and consistency, well digested and well composed in all its parts. It was a machine of wise and deliberate contrivance, as well fitted for the oppression, impoverishment and degradation of a people and the debasement in them of human nature itself as has ever proceeded from the perverted ingenuity of man." Be practical! Face up to facts! Rely on a single industry exporting a perishable product to a single customer. That is the description which I deliberately, on economic grounds, apply to it. A country which has only one industry and exports the perishable product of that industry to a single customer is economically precisely in the same position as a labourer who has only one possible employer. A labourer who has only one possible employer is bound to deliver the perishable goods of his labour at the bare cost of continuing production. A country which is in the position of a labourer with only one possible employer is bound to deliver its goods to its only customer at the bare cost of continuing production. That is a basic proposition and the answer is nego suppositum.

There is a vital objection to that which will arise in the mind of every intelligent man, and which, no doubt, is arising even on the benches opposite: It is that Ireland does not sell her goods to a man who himself fixes the price; that though Ireland does sell the perishable produce of a single industry to a single customer she sells it in an international market, and that Ireland gets that international price for her goods.

I want the House to imagine a small town—I do not want to talk in millions; people get afraid when you talk in millions—in which there is some solid buyer. There always is, and that buyer is fed by a series of vendors. The buyer is a competent buyer and a willing buyer, and a solvent buyer, and every one of the vendors is competent, solvent and able to deal with his own affairs. I have stated in miniature the international market as high as it can be put. The price in that market is the price between the willing buyer and the competent and solvent vendors. We will take one of those farmers who is in precisely the same condition as the rest. He gets that international price in the market. There is only one difficulty as far as he is concerned compared with the other. The only means of transport that exists by which his goods can be brought from his farm to the market belongs to the buyer. What will be the net price that man will receive for his goods? The bare cost of continuing production. But that is not all, and at another time, in this House, I will go in some detail into the question of whether Ireland does or does not get the international price in the international market, and I think I shall be able to demonstrate mathematically not merely that she could not, but that she does not. But for the moment, and for the sake of the argument, we will assume that she does. We come back to this consumer who holds the transport. Assuming that the farmer goes to sell his goods to a man who is also his banker, who is the only manufacturer or manipulator of credit, and who owns his transport, what is the net price of his produce? But that is not all. Assuming his farm is mortgaged to that man, as ours are mortgaged to that man for three millions of annuities; assume that that man has a second mortgage on that farm, as through the banks they have. What is the net produce of his farm? What sort of chance have you under those conditions?

The man starts solvent, we will assume, and starts in selling his goods under conditions which in any year will enable the prices to be given him to be reduced to the mere cost of production and he is in a variable trade. He can never get the advantages of an improvement and he must take all the swings against him. How long is he going to remain solvent? Ireland is in the position of a country selling to one customer—who is its banker, who owns its traffic, who controls its credit, who owns its whole distributive system—the perishable product of a single industry. That means that no matter what wealth you produce in this country, no matter how you develop your farms or increase your production, the price which you are going to get is nothing but the bare cost of production of the goods. That, expressed in human conditions, in this country means that you are reduced to as low a population and as low a standard of comfort as people will stand without revolution. The system which is held up to you as ideal, logically applied, produces in this country every evil which can exist and upon me is cast the extraordinary duty of trying to justify the fact that under the system as proposed to you as ideal and as good, there still does exist some of the amenities of life.

In the first place that law has not been fully applied. They have never been able with all their Navigation Acts, all their Trade Acts, all their control of banks and credits and with all the co-operation of those who run distribution in this country, with the aid and assistance of the Dublin Chamber of Commerce, and everything that it represents, to stamp out of this country all its industries. Some of them are good and some of them bad; some of them big, and some of them small. You have Jameson's, Ford's, and Guinness's. All these tend to produce some alternative market for the product of Irish agriculture. They tend to produce some short-circuiting of the outward stream of wealth from this country back into the country itself. They are the chief mitigation. You then have the payment of the economic garrison—the Dublin Chamber of Commerce, the transport system, the banking system, practically the whole of the distributive system, the newspaper. You have dividends on capital belonging to those people. These also tend to mitigate the effect of the law. You have the tourist traffic; you have bankers and you have people from outside who live in this country for sporting and other amenities. Those explain the payment of the garrison which is required to keep this country in a state of economic subjection and their auxiliary returns explain, as far as those who are not included among the poor, the state of luxury perhaps in which some live.

As far as the ordinary man is concerned, the little farmer down in Clare and Kerry, out in Connemara and out in the Arran Islands—well, they could be reduced to a lower standard. It would be difficult in some cases, but the reason why they have not been reduced to a lower standard is that when that standard has been pressed by economic influences too low, they have retorted with violence. Violence, murder, intimidation, firing into houses, driving of cattle, refusing to pay rent —these time and time again in Irish history have been the sound and the only possible economic expedient which stood between the ordinary people and the operation of this law. If we are not to-day a population utterly on the level of the beast, it is because there has been a limit always beyond which we were not prepared patiently to endure. Is it any wonder that the "Irish Times," which publishes a serial story—each chapter its leader of the day—in favour of this policy of Ireland dependent upon its single customer, has the impudence to speak of this motion which concerns the poverty and the hard-driven lot of a great many people of this country, as a "hardy annual"? That is the outlook and the mentality upon this problem of the men who advocate the dependence upon a single customer for the price of the perishable product of a single industry. It fits in perfectly. It explains the impotence on one side and the impudence on the other of those who advocate that Ireland should still remain dependent, that there shall still remain in existence in Ireland an economic system which, whatever number of generations shall pass and whatever we may do, will just keep us on the border line of poverty, describing just being able to live as prosperity, and just failing being able to live as a condition very likely to be a "hardy annual."

What is the solution? Revolution if it were possible would be justified, but I warn every man in this country, above all the poor and the weak in this country, that the weapon of revolution is one of which the impact is upon themselves. What is justified may not be wise, and we must find in evolution a remedy for which conditions would justify another method. We have got to turn our backs upon all this impotence, upon this lying down and going to sleep when you are faced with the actual evils of life and waking up only for the opportunity of criticising those who would ask you to remedy them. We have got to get control of our own production and distribution as nearly as possible from the source to the end. I have here some figures of the effect of transport costs, lack of competition upon results. You see they are in the very lucky position that they do not have to kill us with one wound. What they do not take out of us on transport they can take out of us in banking; what they do not take out of us on banking they can take out of us on distribution, and between the four of them they are in the position to extract from the gross product of Irish industry everything but the net cost of its production. "We of the Farmers' Party," who have taken the shilling and find no difficulty whatever now in finding reasons for protection or anything else, are greatly disturbed at the cost of living, are greatly disturbed at the probabilities in the increase of the cost of living of any such measures which are proposed to face this problem and to relieve its difficulties. Fortunate for the reputation for sanity of the Irish farmers, "We of the Farmers' Group" do not represent them. If what is supposed to be 80 per cent. of this community and what probably represents 90 per cent. of its production were represented in intelligence and were represented in patriotism by "We of the Farmers' Group" I should face the problem of reconstruction in Irish life with considerable anxiety, but fortunately they do not. But it is well that we should have here in this House representatives of that abysmal ignorance, that we should know what they are saying among themselves and what the ranchers represent in mind and contribution to the solution of this problem.

Why is the cost of living high for the farmer? Because everything goes out of production and he is ex-hypothesi the only producer. He has got to keep himself. He has got to keep everybody who touches his products on the way to the market. Everybody who touches his products on their way to the market has a mortgage on the price. Everyone who travels in the van and is only a passenger in the vehicle of distribution takes a mortgage on the price of the goods also, and everybody who handles the goods coming back has a mortgage upon them. Do you wonder that very little of them get back to him? The farmer is paying, in the retail price of his goods, the maintenance of every unemployed and unemployable man in this country. "We of the Farmers' Party"—I think they are now "We of the Farmers' Group"—who up to the present moment have opposed any measures for the development of Irish industry outside their own miserable ranching ideas of cultivation, have got to maintain every man they keep idle. There is only one producer in this country. What are "We of the Farmers' Group" going to do with the rest? We are told they do not starve to death. I might say that I saw myself 5,000 women during my canvass at the elections every single one of whom had in their faces and in their figures the evidence of continuous under-feeding. They do not starve to death. Oh, no!

Mr. SHAW

Did it hurt your conscience?

Mr. FLINN

Yes, and I am going to see that the conditions which hurt my conscience will be removed. They have to maintain everybody who is unemployed and they want to continue it. They can do four things with the people who are not engaged in industry on the land. They can employ them; they can maintain them. I think that is what Deputy Morrissey meant: that if he cannot get employment for the people who are unemployed then he claims maintenance for them at the cost of the State. They can employ them; they can maintain them; they can emigrate them or they can exterminate them, and there is no other thing they can do with them. The sooner that "We of the Farmers' Party" wake up to the fact that we are not going to be exterminated further and that if it comes to a choice as to who is going to be emigrated it does not necessarily mean that it is going to be us, we may be nearer a solution and we may be nearer finding out which of the alternatives they are prepared to adopt: the alternative of employing these people or the alternative of maintaining them. Unfortunately I was out of the House the other day when the Minister for Agriculture was speaking on the Estimate for the creameries. The Minister said: "I was rather anxious to hear the views of Deputy Flinn but he did not speak. I would like to have heard him."

I put this question to the Minister for Lands and Agriculture in relation to these creameries. If there is a system of economics in this country which means that the producer is going to get the net cost of continuing production of his goods, does it matter whether his creamery is a success or a failure? Does it matter whether it produces 24,000,000 gallons of milk or three million gallons?

Mr. HOGAN

The Deputy did me the honour of quoting me. I said that I would like to hear the Deputy's views on a certain question, and he regretted that he was out of the House at the time. The Deputy stands up now and quotes me. I presume he was going to give his views on the question. Of course, he is out of order at the moment.

Mr. FLINN

It is out of order now.

Mr. HOGAN

Of course it is out of order at the moment. The question was in reference to Deputy MacEntee's suggestion that we should confiscate the property of every industrialist who went into the creamery business. It was the Deputy's views on that question I wanted. If the Deputy is quoting me now, I would like to hear his views.

Mr. FLINN

Certainly. You might as well have my views first on your creamery scheme in relation to this question. I suggest that there is in existence in this country and advocated by certain people an economic system so horrible, so stupid, so abysmal and elementarily ignorant——

Mr. HOGAN

On a point of order.

ACTING-CHAIRMAN

I hope it is a point of order.

Mr. HOGAN

The Chair will be the best judge. Is it right for the Deputy to refer to Deputy MacEntee in these terms?

ACTING-CHAIRMAN

That is not a point of order.

Mr. FLINN

I think when this House has met and known the Deputy whom the Minister drags in so much, he will learn that that sort of thing does not pay. I am going to deal with everything. I am coming to what Deputy MacEntee said, and I am coming to the deliberate and knowing misrepresentation of what Deputy MacEntee said. For the moment we will stick to the creamery scheme of £550,000 in relation to the economic system in existence in this country.

ACTING-CHAIRMAN

And unemployment.

Mr. FLINN

And unemployment. We are out for a permanent solution of unemployment. Does it matter, under a condition in which the farmer is going to get the bare net cost of continuing the production of milk, whether he has a creamery scheme or not? It does matter to the Englishman. It does matter to his customer. It matters to the quality and the price of the goods he gets, but if he is only going to get the bare cost of continuing production for his goods—whatever amount of goods he produces and whatever quality he produces—is there any necessary connection between that and the standard of life in this country except the lowest possible standard on which he can live? Now we come to the part that I think the Minister, with gross disregard for the regularity of this debate, desired I should deal with. In order that his conscience might not hurt him I will agree that the Minister was in order. The Minister was asked to give an explanation of certain things which were not clearly understood and, founded upon that, there was an opinion amongst many Deputies that queer things have happened. One of them was that a purely English firm got possession and was dominating the industry.

Mr. HOGAN

No.

Mr. FLINN

I am not saying that is so. I am saying that people might have that impression but, as I understood, Deputy MacEntee was directing himself to the fact that, if there was such an impression, an inquiry, if granted, might have removed it, but they chose not to remove it.

Mr. J. BYRNE

Is the Deputy in order in discussing the creamery question when we are dealing with unemployment?

ACTING-CHAIRMAN

Not unless he establishes a connection between it and the resolution before the Dáil.

Mr. FLINN

I have been hungrily asked by the Minister.

ACTING-CHAIRMAN

You will have another opportunity.

Mr. FLINN

Very well, I will take another opportunity of meeting the Minister on this question. We might take this matter a great deal further. A man will die of one fatal wound, and I have tried to show you that there is in the economic system of this country, advocated as an ideal, a thing which does produce a fatal wound—that we shall concentrate on one industry, concentrate upon selling in an international market a perishable product to one single customer who owns our transport and who controls our banking and everything else. I say the permanent solution for Ireland is not to be dependent on that customer, but is to look and see what we can do for ourselves to develop our own industries. We can develop them by depending more on ourselves, by getting possession of our own transport, by getting possession of our own credits—in a word, to be national. Who is to believe that this is a great nation even though to-day it is broken into fragments, to believe that Ireland is a personality to which every one of us owes all the fealty of our souls, to learn that there is something to which we are subject which is larger than ourselves and of which we are part, a nation which we have to maintain and save? An intensive, self-reliant, self-dependent nationalism is sound Irish economics, and there is no other sound Irish economics.

MINISTER for LOCAL GOVERNMENT and PUBLIC HEALTH (General Mulcahy)

In proposing the motion Deputy Morrissey declared that in his opinion unemployment was the dominant issue before the Dáil and the most important question that is likely to be called upon to be dealt with. I feel that it is a very great pity that Deputy Morrissey, hard bound as he is, no doubt, against the facts, did not theorise a bit in relation to his facts. We might have got some distance with theories as propounded by Deputy Morrissey, whereas with regard to the theories just propounded by Deputy Flinn, in so far as they relate to our present discussion, I am afraid that they will not get us anywhere. But we have not got from Deputy Morrissey any pleading for his motion on the most important matter that he thinks the Dáil will have before it, any contribution to the question as to how unemployment is going to be assisted or solved. He has made the statement that so far as the Government is concerned any pleading about this matter for some years past has got very little sympathy, and he suggests, in a general way, that the way in which the matter could be dealt with is that housing, afforestation and drainage should be carried out, and that there should be protection. When we come to housing Deputy Morrissey does not tell us how the measures taken by the Government can be extended immediately. We find that the contribution already made to the housing question, and as a by-product of that, towards the unemployment question, has been, as it were, ahead of the times, that large amounts of money made available for housing by the Government remain unspent. The rate at which the country has been able to absorb during the last few years the money made available for housing by the Government has been as follows. I leave out of the question the £1,000,000 housing grant made available by the Government in 1922, and for the purpose of seeing the rate at which you can absorb money for housing, I am dealing simply with the £900,000 made available under the three Housing Acts of 1924, 1925 and 1926. During the year 1924-5 the amount was £40,925; 1925-26, £232,900; 1926-7, £250,000, and up to the 26th August of this year, £68,150, or a total of approximately £592,000 out of the £900,000 made available. During the current financial year we estimate that £250,000 may be spent, but that will leave at least £125,000 not expended.

Mr. MORRISSEY

Why?

General MULCAHY

Because the machinery in the country for building houses, whether on the labour side or otherwise, has not been sufficient to enable the money made available by the Government to be taken up for the building of houses.

Mr. CORISH

Nonsense.

General MULCAHY

Can the Deputy tell us what are the factors that prevent the money being used?

Mr. CORISH

Yes, certainly.

General MULCAHY

Why did not Deputy Morrissey attempt to deal with that matter? From our, let us say, ignorant point of view, the provision that has been made has been ahead of what the country is able to take up and absorb. Deputy Lemass says, and says truly, that if you take Dublin City alone, the building required to be carried out there could absorb for a long time the workers that are available. But apart altogether from the financial consideration, when we turn to the condition of, say, the organised workers in Dublin for building purposes, we are driven to the conclusion that you cannot build, through the local authorities at any rate, more than 1,000 houses per annum, and that when we talk about building houses—apart altogether from the question of the financial aspect of the transaction—we have to realise what the organisation of the building trade in the city and the country is. That is a matter on which we might expect to get some information from the Labour Benches—as to what can be done to improve that particular situation—because, in so far as the provision of money goes, the Government have provided money that was more than the building organisation in the country was able to take. If you turn to the road side of things you will find that matters are in the same way. Does Deputy Morrissey suggest that the Government should extend the facilities that they have provided for road work? If he does not I can leave that question, but if he does——

Mr. MORRISSEY

Apparently the Minister desires me to answer him at this stage. I want to say, and I have already said it, that what the Government has done for the roads is one of the few things that has given any real relief. But I would point out that the grants that have been given have been mainly confined to what are known as trunk roads, and that they do not reach areas where there is great unemployment.

AN CEANN COMHAIRLE

took the Chair.

General MULCAHY

Grants have been given to public bodies not only for trunk roads, but for the general improvement and maintenance of roads, and, in special counties, for tourist roads.

Mr. MORRISSEY

Not this year.

General MULCAHY

On the question of roads, every county in the country has money lying available for it; at present there is not less than £1,500,000 available for work on the roads. On the question of direct relief, arising out of unemployment, the Deputy makes the very extraordinary statement that the Government have denied that responsibility existed on them to see that people do not die of starvation.

Mr. MORRISSEY

I never made that statement.

General MULCAHY

I am quoting the Deputy's actual words.

Mr. CORISH

You are quoting what you wrote down.

Mr. MORRISSEY

If the Minister would read the statement upon the Government's responsibility towards the unemployed made by his colleague, the Minister for Industry and Commerce, a few years ago, he would know what I said.

General MULCAHY

I am speaking about what the Deputy said this evening:—"They have denied that responsibility exists on them to see that people did not die from starvation." Outside of the City and County of Dublin, where particular circumstances exist, they have made it possible for home assistance to be given to the able-bodied poor, so that there is no class of poor person in the country who cannot be assisted by the giving of home assistance from a board of public health. The total amount spent on outdoor relief in 1914 was £113,651. The total amount of money given in home assistance in 1925 was £372,654, and in 1926 it was £387,858, an increase of £263,407 on 1914.

Mr. CORISH

I hope we will not hear from this on that the situation is improving.

General MULCAHY

What I want to make clear is that machinery exists and is being used by local bodies to grant relief to those people who require it, and that there is no restriction that would prevent them from giving it to able-bodied people. The county homes have replaced the workhouses, and to a certain extent institutional relief is provided for a smaller number of people. But while £556,604 was spent on the workhouses in 1914 the expenditure on the county homes was approximately £350,000 for the year 1926.

Erris has been mentioned particularly. There is a County Board of Health in Mayo. It is a responsible board and it is closely in touch, I am sure, with the conditions that exist in the county. We are making enquiries, through our inspectors, as to what the position in Erris is, but I think that in fairness to the County Board of Health of Mayo we might suspend judgment until we have the definite details and not rush into a very elaborate and general judgment arising out of a newspaper article. Actually in Mayo in 1914 there was a sum of £4,015 spent on outdoor relief. In 1927 there were £10,278 spent. That would show that there is certainly a great increase there. So let us, in the matter of Erris, suspend judgment and not drag an odd newspaper reference across a very important subject, a subject which, as the Deputy has said, is perhaps the most important subject we may have to deal with here.

It is not clear what Deputy Morrissey suggests should be done in addition to what the Government have already done in the matter of making home assistance available for the poor able-bodied. The people who are dealing with it are not people who are either as politicals or as officials in offices in Dublin or congregated in the capital; they are people living in the individual counties, close up against the general conditions that exist in these counties. When we see a more definite and practical effort being made to persuade the local Boards of Health that they are failing in their statutory duties, then we will feel there is even more sincerity behind the representations that in a general way are being made here than we can feel at present. While Deputy Morrissey gave Deputy Flinn the impression that what he exactly wanted was that the Government should maintain the present unemployed, that is not so clear at all from what Deputy Morrissey said, and I feel he failed in a rather lamentable way, as a Labour Deputy, to do anything like justice to the problem with which he undertook to deal. We have very serious social and economic problems to deal with here.

Mr. MORRISSEY

Deal with them.

General MULCAHY

We all know they arose in circumstances that are deep back in history, but we ought not run away from our problems, and it is in that particular respect that I suggest to Deputy de Valera, when he suggests, as a means of solving the matter that is before us to-day, that a development commission or committee should be set up, that we ought not to shove from our shoulders here the responsibilities that really lie on them on to any body like a development commission until we clear our ideas much more in here than the discussion to-day would indicate we have cleared them, and until we show that we have got a greater grip on the economic and social facts with regard to our country than has been shown here.

Both in the matter of housing and in the matter of roads and direct relief there is no way in which it has been shown that the measures that have been provided by the Government during the last few years ought now to be increased or could now be increased in an effective way. Deputy Morrissey argues from figures quoted in connection with the persons who are still on the National Health Insurance register as the result of the prolongation of the Act of 1921. The figures quoted in that Act were 90,000. The Deputy wants to suggest that the 90,000 must be taken as the measure of unemployment in the country. The matter was fully considered by the Commission set up to deal with National Health Insurance. When the prolongation Act of 1921 was brought into force it was brought in for the purpose of extending the time during which persons would be entitled to National Health Insurance benefit after their free year, after their normal one year of unemployment to which the 1918 Act entitled them. It was brought into effect to deal with a particular unemployment situation in Gt. Britain and it was extended here. The National Health Insurance Societies were charged with the responsibility under that Act of seeing that persons who came on in that particular way were put off if they went into employment that was not insurable, or if they went into insurable employment and made certain contributions. The insurance societies, it has been clearly shown to the Committee that dealt with the matter here, made practically no attempt to check those people who were on their register and to see whether they were due to come off and went off at the proper time. Both the Insurance Commissioners and the approved societies strongly recommended the discontinuance of this particular Act.

Mr. MORRISSEY

Did the Minister say approved societies?

General MULCAHY

Yes.

Mr. MORRISSEY

All of them?

General MULCAHY

Yes. You will find it all in the Final Report.

Mr. MORRISSEY

My information is to the contrary.

General MULCAHY

The Final Report will show that the approved societies recommended the discontinuance of this Act and the Committee made a unanimous recommendation that the Act should be discontinued, pointing out that among the 90,000 there were people who should have gone off, some because they had died and were ignored and left on the register; some because they had emigrated and some because they had gone back to employment without the insurance societies having followed them up. It would be as reasonable for anyone to say that 70,000 of these were fully employed people or had gone off in one way or another, leaving only 20,000 in the country unemployed, as it would be for Deputy Morrissey to say that the 20,000 were people who ought not to have been on and that the 70,000 was the measure of unemployment.

Mr. MORRISSEY

Is the Minister aware that those figures have been vouched for by Government auditors? Is he suggesting the societies kept those men and women on their books, with the liability to pay them if they were ill, if they were not entitled to be there?

General MULCAHY

It is in black and white in the Final Report of the National Health Insurance Committee, if the Deputy desires to read it. They are on the register; they were found by the Committee to be on the register, and the Committee were of the opinion that they ought not to be on the register.

Mr. MORRISSEY

And the figures were vouched by the Government auditor?

Dr. O'DOWD

I rise to support the motion moved by Deputy Morrissey, and I desire to draw the attention of the Ministry, and particularly of the Minister for Local Government and Public Health, to an aspect of our national lives that has not hitherto received the attention that it deserves. The Minister has mentioned housing, roads and outdoor relief, but he seems to forget altogether that as well as being Minister for Local Government he is also Minister for Public Health. He knows perfectly well, just as well as I do, that in many, if not most, of our inland towns the water supply is impure, and in towns where it is pure it is totally inadequate. He knows that in some towns, too, the sewerage arrangements existing are most primitive, just as primitive as one would expect to find in a Chinese hamlet. In one town in particular, in the town of Elphin, in Roscommon, the Minister has admitted himself in the House that the water submitted to the public analyst has been condemned as unfitted for human use. In that town there is effluvia from the so-called sewer across the main streets. That condition of things has existed for the past five or six years, and local agitation has been going on for a proper water supply and proper sewerage works. Engineers have examined the place and have made reports. An estimate was submitted to the Roscommon Board of Health amounting to £13,720 5s. for the carrying out of the scheme. The area charged, assuming that the dispensary district would be the area charged. has a total valuation of £17,611. Taking it that the money was borrowed for thirty years at a rate of from five per cent. to six per cent., and basing it on an average of five and three-quarters per cent., there would be an imposition of 1/4½ in the £ on the rates. I submit that that is an imposition that is too heavy to bear. The farming community would not be at all pleased with the placing of that imposition on them at the moment. The Minister replied to my question to-day that his Department could not accept the view that the proposed scheme would impose too heavy a burden on the local rates if the cost is spread over a suitable area of charge. I suggest to him to ask those members of his Party who, prior to the 11th of October, masqueraded as the Farmers' Party if they think that 1/4½ in the £ on agricultural rates is not too heavy a burden for a sewerage and water supply scheme.

AN CEANN COMHAIRLE

I do not want to interrupt the Deputy, but does he think it is relevant to the unemployment debate? He has a grievance against the Minister for Local Government in connection with the question he asked to-day. There is a way of ventilating that grievance. I am afraid that using this debate for the purpose of discussing a water supply scheme is not at all relevant.

General MULCAHY

If the Deputy would make a suggestion as to how it may be done, it would be relevant perhaps.

Dr. O'DOWD

The Minister asked for an effective way for dealing with the relief of unemployment. I submit that a grant-in-aid of these schemes which could not be carried out otherwise would be the most effective way of relieving unemployment and the consequent distress prevailing in the area at the present time.

General MULCAHY

Will the Deputy say that a grant-in-aid for all the waterworks schemes in the country would be a solution?

Dr. O'DOWD

If possible, I would say it would go a long way towards solving the difficulty.

General MULCAHY

You would want to talk to Deputy Hugo Flinn about it.

Dr. O'DOWD

The Minister mentioned roads. The road grants were undoubtedly very welcome grants, but in the particular area from which I come these road grants were not expended solely in the interests of the unemployed. There were working on these grants as gangers men with large pensions and men with big farms, while at the same time bona-fide labourers were idle. The Minister for Finance mentioned bog roads. The district of Drumboylan and Cootehall, in North Roscommon, is a district which depends a good deal on migratory labour. I am informed that the past season has been a disastrous one for migratory labour in that district. People are faced with stark starvation in the winter months, and if possible I would press for the spending of money on some of the bog roads in that area.

Mr. BOLAND

There is no by-election on.

Mr. T.J. O'CONNELL

Are there no bogs in Kilkenny and Carlow?

Dr. O'DOWD

From the mining district of Arigna there are a few facts which I would like to place before the House in regard to the state of employment there at the moment and employment last year. In 1926 in one mine there were 200 men working full time. In 1927 there are only 80 men working half time. In 1926 the output of coal was 150 tons per day. The output in 1927 does not equal 60 tons per day. Prior to the amalgamation of the railways the Cavan and Leitrim Railway took one hundred tons of coal per week from one owner in Arigna. Since the amalgamation the railways are not taking any coal. Local bodies, such as the Leitrim County Council, the Ballinasloe Mental Hospital, the Sligo and Leitrim Courthouses and the Sligo Asylum have been using this coal for years and they made no complaints about its quality.

The people of Arigna are faced with either of two things at the moment. They are faced with emigration if they can find the money to emigrate, or starvation. What I would suggest is that a Government subsidy should be given to develop and improve the Arigna mines, and that where possible Irish coal should be used in all Government contracts. The answer may be made that transport is the great difficulty in the particular district of Arigna. The Cavan and Leitrim Railway could take quite easily from Arigna the output of the work of two or three thousand men in the Arigna mines. If no financial help is forthcoming from the Government the people there would welcome the formation of a small committee or something like that. They would even welcome from the Government an assurance that in all works under their control where the coal is suitable that it would be at least used and given a fair trial. Before I sit down I wish to draw attention to the condition of things that prevailed in particular in that area. I think it is a great hardship on the miners in that area to be called upon to pay unemployment contribution while at work, for when out of work, when they apply to the local labour exchange, they are refused benefit because they own an acre of mountainy land. They have applied for exemption, and exemption has been refused them. They have to pay the piper, but they cannot call the tune.

Mr. CASSIDY

In rising to support the motion moved by Deputy Morrissey I may say that I think things have reached a very deplorable state when a motion of this kind is necessary. In view of the fact that the Government have been legislating from this House for the past five years, and also in view of the fact that a number of members of that Government subscribed to the democratic programme of the First Dáil, in which it was stated that the first duty of the country would be the welfare of the women and children of that country, this is a surprising state of things.

I believe that the first duty of any Government in any country is to look after the welfare of the people in that particular country and I hold, in view of the fact that has been revealed here that there are in the Saorstát approximately 90,000 people unemployed, that Deputies on the Government Benches have failed in their primary duty towards the people. Prior to the Government going into office, the working classes were told that once we had a Parliament in Ireland things would be all right so far as the working class people were concerned, that work would be provided for the unemployed at a living wage. To-day, however, we have two Parliaments and notwithstanding that fact you find that the Government of the Saorstát has to cater for approximately 90,000 unemployed. That is a deplorable state of affairs. During the last election campaign we were told from numerous Government platforms that we had complete freedom. I do not know what interpretation some Ministers and Deputies on the Government benches put on the word "freedom." If it means freedom for the unemployed to starve, I agree that so far as the unemployed are concerned they have freedom in abundance.

After the Treaty was accepted by a small majority in the Dáil, it was stated that it would be made a stepping-stone. It is true that it could have been made a stepping-stone to bring about economic freedom. It could have been made a stepping-stone to help to kill the reptile of unemployment. It could have been made a stepping-stone towards securing the emancipation of the working classes. Instead of that, however, we find that it is being made a stepping-stone on the path leading directly to the economic serfdom of the working classes, whether employed or unemployed. To some Deputies on the Government Benches that may seem a very far-fetched statement. Some Deputies might say that I am endeavouring to exaggerate the situation but if any Deputy is under that impression I would ask him to look at things from the standpoint of the 90,000 unemployed. If you examine their position you will find that the unemployed in the Saorstát to-day are in a much worse position than the unemployed in England, Scotland, Wales or the Six Counties, because in those parts which I have mentioned they have in the Unemployment Insurance Acts uncovenanted benefit and men and women who are unemployed are entitled to draw unemployment benefit for two or three years or longer, but so far as the unfortunate unemployed men and women in insurable occupations in the Saorstát are concerned, they are only entitled to one week's benefit for six stamps on their cards.

After that, so far as the Government are concerned, they are prepared to let these people starve. That is what it amounts to, notwithstanding the fact that many Deputies on the Government Benches subscribed to the democratic programme of the First Dáil in which it was stated that the women and children would be the first care of the nation. I might be misunderstood, or some Ministers might intentionally put a wrong interpretation on what I am saying, namely, that what we on these benches demand is work for the unemployed and that until such time as work is provided for them, we believe that it is the duty of the Government to amend the Unemployment Insurance Acts so that benefits will be paid to those who are unemployed. So far as my constituency is concerned the situation is deplorable. Unemployment and poverty are rampant all over the country. Small farmers and fishermen are groaning under the burden of practically unbearable poverty. What have the Government done so far as Tirconaill is concerned?

Some Ministers have referred to the fact that the Government have done a great deal to relieve unemployment, but, so far as Tirconaill is concerned, I believe that less has been done for the unemployed there than was done during the time the old Congested Districts Board was in operation. The small farmers are in a state of poverty, and many of them are unable to provide three meals a day for their families, much less pay their land annuities. Even since the general election a large number of them have been evicted because they were unable to pay their land annuities. A large number of seizures have taken place in regard to cattle grazing on these small farms. Since the elections, I have received many letters in reference to these evictions and seizures. I will read an extract from one which I received from Convoy, Tirconaill, dated the 5th October, and I think that that letter is typical of many of those which I receive. The writer states that there are thousands of small struggling farmers in Tirconaill who are unable to till their land, and most of them are not possessed of any chattels. They let their lands for the season's crop and grazing under the conacre system, and as the outcome of the Courts Orders Act, 1926, seizures of stock were, last week, made wholesale from those who took land for the season. The result is that when the season starts on the 1st November, no struggling farmer who owes a shilling arrears will be able to let his land, and as a result thousands of farms will go derelict.

If the Government are anxious to tackle this problem in the manner in which it should be tackled, they will immediately issue instructions that these evictions and seizures should cease. The Minister for Local Government referred to the fact that from these benches no suggestions have so far been made in regard to the relief of unemployment. So far as Tirconaill is concerned, I believe that if the Government were prepared to put into operation the findings of the Gaeltacht Commission they would be doing something useful to relieve unemployment in regard to the woollen mills, the fisheries, and the agricultural community. Deputies in the previous Dáil will recollect that there was a proposal put forward that a Committee should be set up in order to inquire into the possibility of the development of flax-growing. That proposal was turned down. Nevertheless, we find the Minister for Agriculture a short time before the elections, and possibly since, having secret negotiations or talks with firms in Belfast in connection with the growing of flax. I am not finding fault with the Minister for doing that, but I suggest that a better way to tackle the problem would be to set up that particular Committee.

Mr. HOGAN

The first I heard of that was when I saw it in the paper.

Mr. CASSIDY

It is newspaper reports I am speaking on.

Mr. HOGAN

The newspaper report was the first I heard of it also.

Mr. CASSIDY

I suggest to the Government that if they want to relieve the situation as far as Tirconaill is concerned they should set up a committee to inquire into the possibility of flax-growing. That will be beneficial not only to Tirconaill but to other constituencies. The Minister for Finance referred to what has been done in the way of grants towards the relief of unemployment. He said that sums have been paid from the Road Fund and grants have been made to the various county councils. He has eulogised this practice to a certain extent, but he did not tell the Dáil that one of the stipulations the Minister laid down to Tirconaill County Council was that under these grants they were not permitted to pay the road workers more than 26/- per week. Is there any Deputy who considers that a sufficient wage for a married man with a wife and family to clothe, feed and educate? If any Deputy or Minister considers that a sufficient wage I would like him to try the experience of living on it for a short time and he will find that it is insufficient. I would also like to refer to the fishing industry in Tirconaill, which is not as prosperous as it should be, provided the Department of Fisheries paid enough attention to it. Speaking in the Dáil on 31st October, 1923, the Minister for Fisheries said that his Department were getting four additional patrol boats and that the patrol of the service would be then quite adequate to deal with the poaching by foreign trawlers according to the law. Notwithstanding four years have elapsed since the Minister made that statement, we find that even up to the present foreign trawlers are encroaching within the three miles limit of Tirconaill coast and taking away fish that should be caught by the local fishermen and which would go towards relieving their poverty and helping their wives and families. Another matter I wish to mention is that in Tirconaill there are seven fairly large fishery ports. Throughout the year thousands of barrels are brought into Tirconaill from Derry. During the year ending 31st October, 1926, there were brought in to Kincasslagh 2,750 whole barrels and 3,850 half-barrels, which were manufactured in Derry. There were brought into Burtonport 2,400 whole barrels and 2,625 half-barrels, also from Derry, making a total of 11,625 barrels. I do not know the number of barrels used during the fishing season in Tirconaill, but in view of those figures there would be approximately 40,000. Does it not seem peculiar that there are no cooperage works in Tirconaill? The old Congested Districts Board established a cooperage at Burtonport and they employed a number of coopers. They were able to manufacture barrels at the rate of between 30 and 36 per week. They paid at the rate of 1/- per barrel, and the average wage amounted to 36/- per week.

I suggest to the Minister for Fisheries that he should re-establish that cooperage, and other cooperage works in Tirconaill, and not give the trade to Derry city. I want to know from the Minister who is responsible for these barrels coming from Derry. It would be interesting if we had that information. I suggest to the Minister for Fisheries that if he is keen on dealing with this end of the unemployment question he should act on the suggestions I made. I do not believe that in the past the Government have attempted to deal with the unemployment problem in the manner they should have done. I do not believe they have tackled the problem seriously. They have only touched the fringe of the question. In order to prove that I will give you the opinions expressed by a Minister, and also a Deputy on the Government Benches. Speaking in the Dáil, the Minister for Industry and Commerce said it was not the duty of the Government to find employment for the unemployed. Deputy Tierney, speaking at Ranelagh, said—

AN CEANN COMHAIRLE

I think we ought not to hear what Deputy Tierney said.

Mr. CASSIDY

I think it might be as well.

AN CEANN COMHAIRLE

I think not.

Mr. CASSIDY

If the Cumann na nGaedheal Party are ashamed of what Deputy Tierney said on that particular occasion, I suggest the best way they can show their shame is to vote for Deputy Morrissey's motion. I strongly appeal to the Government Deputies not to look at this motion from the standpoint of their own particular Party, but from an ordinary human standpoint. As far as the constituency which I represent is concerned, practically nothing has been done to relieve unemployment. Some of the Deputies on the Government Benches might say: "Where are we to get money to relieve unemployment and to carry out the recommendations you have suggested?" I put it up to the Government that if they were faced with civil war, if the country were invaded by a foe, one of the first things that would be done would be to declare a state of national emergency, and the Government would call to their aid all the resources of the country, financial and otherwise. I believe that in this unemployment problem the country is faced with one of the greatest of national emergencies. As I have said, I hope Deputies will not look at this question from a selfish or Party standpoint. There may be some Deputies who will vote against this motion. I ask them how will they go to their constituencies and face hungry men and women and children who are holding out their hands appealing for work? I hope the resolution will be passed, and that the Government will do something to relieve the unemployed until such time as they can get employment, and that the Insurance Acts will be amended in such a way as to extend the benefits.

Mr. O'DONOVAN

To quote Deputy Flinn, we of the Farmers' Party are sympathetic towards this motion, but we are also sympathetic towards ourselves. As representing an agricultural district, not a district comprised of ranchers, such as Deputy Flinn mentioned, but a purely agricultural district, where all the farmers work, I find that the steps taken by the Government in my constituency to deal with this problem are adequate. The people whom I represent have no dole, no bonus. The prices they get for their produce are down to pre-war level, and their costs of production are from 40 to 100 per cent. above pre-war level. In pre-war times farmers could send their cattle to the English markets at a cost of £1 per head; to-day it costs £2 10s. The farmers whom I represent are unable to meet any further call on their pockets. The present road, drainage and forestry schemes will absorb all the unemployed in our district and they have been a success. Mention was made by some Deputy of actual starvation that occurred in my constituency. That was not the result of unemployment, as I have found out since.

Mr. DAVIN

What is the cause?

Mr. O'DONOVAN

Other causes, not unemployment. One thing I would favour is that portion of the grants given for improvement schemes should go to local authorities. The money that is at present being distributed is not touching the districts where it is really required. If portion of it were given to county councils it could be used for the improvement of the present main and by-roads by cutting away hills, filling hollows and removing dangerous bends. It would serve a more useful purpose than continuing old roads into bogs which are not at present used. I also think that the dole system is a bad one. It serves to create a class in this country who would not accept employment if they got it—they become unemployable. Anything that the Government could do in the way of providing work would be much better.

I thought Deputy Flinn had a panacea for all our ills. After his remarkable speech I thought it would not be necessary for anyone else to speak— that by a wave of his magic wand unemployment would cease to exist, and that there would be no necessity for this motion. But I am afraid Deputy Flinn's contribution is not going to give food to those who are hungry. I think if there were a better spirit of co-operation amongst all parties in this country, if the working man gave of his best, if he did as the farmer is doing, worked longer hours and did a little more—even in the industrial centres, if he worked an extra hour it would not blister his hands or kill him—it would mean increased production and thereby decrease the cost of production. If we had co-operation in that way amongst all classes it would remedy our present ills—every man putting his back into his work and doing what he can. The work is there if every man puts his back into his work and does it. If that were done, this hardy annual would disappear in the near future.

Mr. MULLINS

In rising to support the motion, I should like to echo the appeal of Deputy O'Donovan for co-operation amongst all parties in this country. Most of us realise that the problem of unemployment cannot be solved by the single-handed effort of any party or group in this House or State. We must remember that it has been said that man's right to live implies his right to take the wherewithal to live. As far as I can understand from the Ministerial speeches, the mentality of the Executive Council towards this problem is unchanged since 1924 when their outlook seemed to be that it was not the duty of the State to provide work for the people and that men may have to die of starvation. We on these benches are of opinion that it is the duty of a modern State to find work for the people and that in that respect the Government has lamentably failed. Not alone the Government, but every party in the Dáil which does not lend its efforts towards solving this problem is laying up a heritage for itself and for the future of this country that it would be appalling to contemplate. There is a limit to human endurance, and men will not die of starvation while there is food in the country. Despite what has been said from the Ministerial Benches to the contrary, I maintain that people are dying from starvation at present. Their patience will not endure too long, and the day may come, as it came in other European countries, when men will seize the food they are denied, and there is no law of God or man that ordains that men should starve.

We are faced with a problem which can be solved if the different parties in the Dáil and the Government approach it in the proper spirit of goodwill and with the will to solve it. We are told that it is a problem that has baffled the Government of Great Britain. Deputies who refer to it in that strain seem to forget that the problem here is different to that in Great Britain. Great Britain cannot absorb her surplus labour while we can. There is plenty of productive and reproductive work to be done, and if the Dáil approaches it in that spirit surely we can make some attempt to lessen the terror of people who have to face the coming winter not knowing where their next meal is coming from. Deputies sneer at the idea that there are people who may die from starvation. Those of us who come from the country districts—I am sure my colleagues from West Cork will bear me out in this— are met every day, especially on the seaboard, with the appalling state of affairs that there are men ready and willing to work who are denied work. The Minister for Local Government suggested here that if any productive schemes were put up here grants would be made for them by the Government. We must remember that emigration is taking from this country not only the best of our people but the last remnants of the Gaelic race. In one area in my constituency at present the unemployed number something like 1,200—that is the area stretching from Skibbereen to Dunmanway down to Dursey Island and Castletown Bere. In that area is the remnant of the Gaelic race in West Cork. They are emigrating as fast as they possibly can. Not alone do they receive no assistance or encouragement from the Minister for Fisheries or the Minister for Industry and Commerce, who I notice is absent from the debate, but they are forced by every economic law of the present rotten social system either to starve or get out. In approaching this problem we should remember that if tackled in a spirit of goodwill it can be solved.

Deputy O'Donovan, referring to the constituency which both of us have the honour to represent, stated, if I understood him rightly, that the measures adopted by the Government to deal with the problem down there were adequate, in his opinion. I wish the Deputy would take a walk through Bantry, or perhaps Castletown Bere, or come to my own town of Kinsale, or Clonakilty or Bandon, and ask any of the men at the street corners—ablebodied men, willing and anxious and desirous to work—if they think the measures taken hitherto are adequate to deal with the problem of unemployment. I ask him to move among the fishermen from Crosshaven to Skibbereen and ask the people there if they consider the measures adopted to deal with the problem are adequate. From Crosshaven to Castletown Bere he will meet fishermen who are down and out and who got no encouragement from this Government or any other. Let him ask them whether they consider the measures adopted to deal with unemployment are adequate. If he does he will get his answer quickly, and it will not be the same sort of things that he has told the Dáil about to-day.

The Deputy also said that in his opinion the schemes adopted by the Ministry to absorb the workers in West Cork were successful. In that connection there was one matter that the Minister for Local Government and Public Health mentioned. He said that there was £1,500,000 available at present for roads. I have been asked to bring under the notice of the Minister the grievances which the people of Clonakilty and Skibbereen are labouring under. If that money is available for road work there can be employment given by the resurfacing and steamrolling of the roads in these towns and on the roads between Skibbereen and Clonakilty. Employment of this nature could be given immediately if that money is available.

The Minister for Finance suggested that if any sort of productive or reproductive schemes were put before him he would consider them favourably. But the acid test, to my mind, would be that the Government should assist in a direction that would bring new wealth to the nation and be a good investment. They could help to complete the piers in Crosshaven or Kinsale at an expenditure of four or five hundred pounds, and that would be a very good investment if it enabled £20 or £30 per annum to be added to the nation's wealth. We ask the Minister who has promised to help in that direction to consider in my constituency a few items on which work could be done and employment given quickly.

There is another instance, namely, that of the Bantry Pier, which could be extended. That is all reproductive work and would give employment, and would not be a national loss, but, on the contrary, would add to the national wealth. There is Kinsale Harbour, which could be dredged and the pier extended, or a jetty built, and employment given which would also add to the national wealth. That is far from being unproductive work. The Barytes Mines in Clonakilty gave employment to the people, but they have had to close down. A State grant would enable them to start again and would relieve the distress there. Slips could be laid down in various places and would add materially to the benefit to be derived from the fishing industry, and would facilitate the fishermen in bringing their catches to land, and would also encourage them to persist in their hard and arduous toil on the sea from week to week and from year to year. The Government could accomplish work like that without the expenditure of millions of pounds.

We have been asked to produce schemes on former occasions in this Dáil. Well there are a few that affect my constituency, and I ask the Ministers to give them immediate attention, if any attempt to relieve distress is to be made before people die of starvation in spite of the sneers that such things would not happen. Several Deputies spoke of the relief system in vogue. I know cases in my own constituency similar to the cases mentioned by Deputy O'Dowd in Roscommon. I would ask the Minister concerned to just inquire further with regard to the operation of this system in West Cork and he will find it is not the bed of roses that he supposes in every area.

With regard to the point about unemployment insurance, there is another item in connection with that which affects Kinsale and practically every seacoast town around the Irish coast from which men have to go out of this country to find a living on the high seas in the British mercantile marine. These men pay for stamping their cards from week to week. They make voyages extending from twelve months to two years, and when they come home and are unable to find work they are unable to draw the unemployment insurance for which they paid while on their cruises abroad. I suggest if Ministers find it possible to conclude financial treaties and agreements with Great Britain surely it is possible to make some reciprocal arrangement with the British Government whereby money paid in this way would be either credited to the sailors or could be applied for by proxy, with suitable safeguards to prevent abuse. That is a matter that affects five thousand men in this country and nearly 250 men in my own town. I ask the Minister, when considering this problem, to remember that it is a practical thing to see that these men who are unemployed and who would have to get out of the country through no fault of their own, should not be deprived of the unemployment benefit for which they paid.

With regard to other matters mentioned by Deputy Cassidy from Tirconaill, I may say that what applies in his constituency with regard to the Gaeltacht and fisheries' reports applies even in a greater sense to West Cork. We believe that if the Gaeltacht Report and the Fisheries Conference Report in their essentials were carried into effect by the Government without much delay a lot could be done to relieve the distress that exists, particularly in the Irish-speaking and fishery areas along the coast.

In connection with employment at elections, I hope that the next time the Government decides upon a whirlwind dissolution they will see that in connection with the work of presiding officers and poll clerks men who are unemployed will be given the option of getting these jobs. In Skibbereen there were seven booths, and probably the seven wealthiest men in the town were employed as presiding officers and poll clerks at the last election. I hope when the Government decides to face another General Election they will give employment not to such men but to those who do not know where the next meal is to come from. In conclusion, I think if this problem is tackled in a spirit of goodwill, as I have already stated, it certainly can be solved. The point which concerns me particularly is that which I made at the start—that there is a limit to human endurance and human patience, and that some day if the Dáil fails in its duty and the Government is so callous as to let this debate pass and forget all about it, the storm will burst and we will be responsible for the bursting of that storm.

Mr. SHAW

We all admit that there is very serious unemployment in the Free State. As far as I am personally concerned, I am more intimately in touch with it than a good many other people. I do not wish to say anything that would raise any controversial issues here as to the causes of the present unemployment, but as one who has had a very great responsibility for dealing with unemployment and for endeavouring to keep people from starvation in the constituency I represent, during the past five years, I think I should know something about the matter. I purpose telling you here what the Government has done in these counties, and I believe that in speaking about these counties I am illustrating what they have done in other counties. During the past two years in the County of Westmeath a sum of £102,557 has been applied to road work. Were it not for the expenditure of that money during the past twelve months there would be starvation in the county, because owing to the deplorable condition of the farmers, the slump in the price of live stock, and to every adverse circumstance that could occur, the farmers at the present time are practically unable to give any employment. Huge sums of money, tens of thousands of pounds, have been spent in building bridges that were blown up, in rebuilding destroyed dwellings and buildings, and in connection with land distribution. Some 7,000 to 10,000 acres of land have been divided, and a considerable number have been employed in making ditches and in carrying out other necessary work before the land could be handed over to new tenants. Houses have been built on those lands and a considerable sum spent on drainage. I repeat that were it not for the money that came from the Government —and I am proud to say I was instrumental in getting as much as I could get—the position would be very serious at present and during the past two years.

We are looking for a remedy here, and I believe that the entry of the Fianna Fáil Deputies to this House will do more for the unemployed than all the measures this or any other Government could pass because, owing to the instability and insecurity in this country in the past, persons with capital were not foolish enough to come along and invest money here. I can give you an illustration of that. I had an interview some six months ago with a director of one of the biggest factories in Berlin. He told me that he and the other directors were about to start a factory in Dublin for the manufacture of railway engines, steam-rollers, rails and other products of that kind. He anticipated that they would be able to give employment after some time to over 4,000 persons. He told me that until such time as the country got settled the people of his country were not going to invest such a large sum here. That is one of the best illustrations I could give of the suggestion that the entry of the Fianna Fáil Deputies will bring about the stability that is desired and will bring outside capital into this country, to be invested here. That, in addition to the Shannon scheme and the effect of selective tariffs for Irish manufactures, will put this country in a very different position in a few years.

I am probably more in touch with the unemployment problem than other people because I am Chairman of the Westmeath Co. Board of Health. I am aware that very serious poverty exists amongst a large number of people. I can say that it is not confined by any means to labourers. I consider the small farmers are in as bad a position as labourers. Owing to the position I occupy I am responsible to a certain extent to see that no one will starve. We, in Westmeath, struck a rate which would bring in £9,500 for home help during the past twelve months. During the first half of the year, a sum of £5,255 of that money was spent. We have only for the latter half of the year, which I need hardly say is far the worst period, owing to the advent of winter, a sum of £4,245. The proposition I would make is that the Government ought to give a subsidy in order to make up any expenditure that may be required to tide the people over this period of temporary depression. I would be sorry to advocate that whatever is given should be continued, but we cannot go and ask the ratepayers for any more money for this purpose. On the other hand, as Chairman of the Board, it is my responsibility to see that people will not starve. I, therefore, put that proposition to the Minister for Finance and the Executive Council—that during this period of temporary depression a small sum should be set aside to tide these poor people over the coming winter.

There was one class not mentioned by the proposer of the motion. They are persons with whom I come in contact and who are suffering more than anyone else, probably. I refer to persons between the ages of 65 and 70 who are not able to work and who are not eligible for the old age pension. Very often, they have not enough to get the necessaries of life or to keep soul and body together. I strongly urge that the claim which I have made for a grant of money to assist such people in this exceptional period should be given the strongest consideration.

Mr. MORRISSEY

Would the Deputy agree to give them old age pensions at 65?

Mr. SHAW

If there had not been so much money burned in the country during the last five years they could get the pensions all right at 65. I hope the Government will give a substantial sum for unemployment. They have done so in the past. The charge made against them that they have not given very large sums of money for the relief of unemployment in different ways in the past is certainly unfounded.

Mr. DALY

We are all agreed, I think, that there is a vast amount of unemployment in the country. No one, I think, can deny that. As the winter is now upon us, I think it is the bounden duty of every member of the Dáil to see that preparations are made for the relief of unemployment. In the ensuing six months Deputies can make all the long sermons they wish with regard to the relief of unemployment for all time. They can put forward their views with regard to tariffs and subsidies to encourage the growing of wheat and for the burning of lime. All these things would provide extra employment. I agree with the Deputies who have stated that the Local Government Department did come to the rescue in the last three or four years when a good case was put up to it. I hold, however, that until the cost of living comes down the wages stipulated by the Department, in regard to grants which it gives, are too small. It is very good, of course, to give a grant, say, of £2,000, but those who get employment as a result of those grants are not able to live on the wages stipulated. They have to pay 4/- or 5/- a week for a room, and then the cost of boots and other things for their children is so high that the wages allowed them are not at all sufficient. I think that the workers should get an increase of a shilling or two shillings a week until such time as the cost of living is brought down. The workers on the roads require such an increase and also those engaged under the Forestry Department.

Deputy Cooper said this evening that Cork could grow anything. County Cork is able to grow wheat and it is full of lime kilns. If there was a tax put on the flour coming into the country it would be an encouragement to our farmers to grow more wheat. If that were done, I think that a lot of the unemployment that exists at present would disappear. In my own district there are three or four large flour mills equipped in the most modern fashion. The owners of them assure me that, if there was a tax put on the flour coming into the country, they would not increase the price at which they are selling their flour at present. The labourers in my district are grumbling and saying that the wages they are getting at present are a bit too small. At the June Election, when I was not a Government candidate, I was one of those who gave credit where credit is due. I stated then that I had always got a response from the Local Government Department whenever a straight case was put up to it. I am asking the Department now to sanction an increase in the wages paid to the labourers in my district, and I hope it will respond to the appeal that I am making. There are other Deputies who spoke for their own districts this evening. I am now making an appeal for the people in my district.

We have been told the coming winter is going to be a very hard one. It will not be a very hard one if we have £1,500,000 at our disposal. I say, let that money loose immediately but do not give it to the county councils. I think it is in safer hands in Merrion Street. I hope, too, with the assistance of Deputy Hugo Flinn and a few other financiers, that during the coming winter we will not have any unemployment and that some subject other than this will occupy our attention during the remainder of our time here—let us hope, for five years anyhow. I appeal to all Deputies to unite in an effort to banish unemployment from our midst for ever. In conclusion, I again appeal to the Local Government Department to sanction an increase in the wages paid to those employed under grants given by it. These workers are not able to make ends meet on the wages stipulated by the Department, and they are in a very bad way indeed. House rents are extremely high because of the fact that cottages are not being built in the rural districts now since the abolition of the district councils.

MICHEAL O CLEIRIGH

Ba mhaith liom a rádh, i dtaobh an mhéid a bhí 'sna páipéirí, go raibh an ceart ar fad ag Risteárd O Maolchatha, Aire Rialtais Aitiúla agus Sláinte Puiblí, 'sa rud adubhairt sé i dtaobh na ceiste i gContae Muigheó. Ní raibh níos mó gorta ná bochtanais ariamh 'sa Mhuigheo Thuaidh tríd agus tríd agus go mór mhór i n-Iorras. Níor cheap mé riamh go gcloisfinn an t-Aire ag rádh an mhéid a dubhairt sé nó go bhfágfadh sé Gaelgeóirí Iorrais le "paupers" a dhéanamh diobh. Do cheapamar go mbeadh súil éicint ach Rialtas Gaolach do bheith againn ach b'adh an rud céanna é.

With reference to the report in today's paper on the state both of unemployment and of hunger in Erris, I would point out to the Minister for Local Government that, unfortunately, there is nothing in that report but the truth. There never was in Erris area—and I believe the same can be said of the Gaeltacht generally, Donegal, Kerry and Connemara—so much poverty or so much starvation as at present, and it comes very badly from the Minister for Local Government to state that the district of Erris should be fairly well looked after by being left to the Mayo Board of Public Health. I think that at least the Irish speakers of Erris deserve more from a so-called Irish Government than that they should be pauperised by that Government. The Minister for Finance said that all the economic schemes, as far as drainage was concerned, had been dealt with. Are we to take it, then, that the thousands of farmers in County Mayo along the Rivers Moy, Dargan and Robe, whose lands are continually flooded by the overflowing of these rivers, are to have no hope of relief from the present Government? Are we to take it that their lands are to remain in their present condition? There never was more flooding than at present. I have seen on the banks of these rivers cocks of hay floating away and potato crops submerged. I have seen stooks of oats in the fields half covered with water. Those are the farmers who have to put down their hands and pay for the cost of Government to keep Ministers in their very luxurious positions. According to the statement of the Minister for Finance, there is very little hope of any drainage scheme for them, or that they will have any more to live on than at present—sour potatoes, as a result of the flooding.

A grant was offered to the county councils some time ago for drainage, but I understand that to a great extent it was refused because the conditions on which it was given were not acceptable. It would be a good simile to say that you would offer half a loaf to a hungry man who had no bread if he could show you half a loaf in his pocket. You offered to the people living near these rivers a certain sum of money provided that they would put up another sum, which, of course, they could not afford to do.

In dealing with these schemes Ministers very often have the happy knack of saying: "Where is the money to come from? Can you show us any practical way of providing the money?" I wonder what would happen if, when the bailiffs or the taxgatherers of the Minister came to the doors of these farmers in the flooded areas, the farmers took them and showed them their flooded lands and asked them: "Where is the money to come from to pay the rent, the rates or the taxes?" We feel that if a motion had been proposed here on the 16th August, which was, I think, the last day on which the last Dáil sat, that a sum of £100,000 be given to relieve unemployment in the twenty-six counties, for drainage, or schemes of that kind, the Minister for Finance, or all the Ministers, would say: "Where is the money to come from? Where can you provide the cash?" Yet, only a few nights afterwards, without even discussing the appointment of the Minister for Fisheries in his own Executive Council, and without even discussing Deputy Cooper, who, I feel, was at the time politically very much wide awake, judging from the political tactics afterwards, or without even discussing Deputy Heffernan's position or what he should do, the President declared a general election, which the country has to provide at least £100,000 to pay for. If a proposal were put up, previous to that, to place at the disposal of the Dáil £100,000 to relieve unemployment the cry of the Ministers would have been: "Where is the money to come from?" But when a Party victory, as they thought, seemed evident there was no question as to where the money was to come from to provide the funds. It was always the cry in the old days of the British Government that if the Irish people were to get anything they had to get it by violence or by threats of violence. I am afraid if Deputies on the opposite Benches are not careful there will be a growing feeling in Ireland that very little will be got except by violence, or by rattling at the doors of Ministers.

The PRESIDENT

I would like to remind the Deputy, and another Deputy who spoke this evening in the same strain, that there will be no give way to violence in this country while this Government is in office.

Mr. CLERY

I was saying that they should not create the necessity for it.

The PRESIDENT

That is another question. But on two occasions this evening two separate speakers from the same Party have rattled the sabre, if I might so describe it, and we are not going to bow to that. As I have said on other occasions here, one of the disadvantages in this country of the last five years has been that there has not been an alternative Government in office to shoulder some of the responsibility and to answer frankly and honestly to the people for administration and other things. I have listened very carefully to three or four speeches from what I will call the big guns. They all started off by saying that this is a subject which called for the greatest co-operation and assistance from all parties in the Dáil, that it is a subject on which the wisdom of the Dáil ought to be pooled to provide a settlement. But having given expression to that very Christian feeling, they immediately branched off and contended that the responsibility for the present unemployment rests upon the Government that has been in office for the past five years. I listened to the thunder of Deputy Flinn, who repeated practically the speech that he made here the other day on margarine, with this correction, that if any person employed in Ford's factory were to have come to the conclusion that he opposed foreign capital coming in to give employment, he would like at least to give this tribute to Ford's employees that they gave good results.

Mr. FLINN

Are you being impertinent?

The PRESIDENT

Deputy Flinn is an excellent judge of impertinence, judging by his speech this evening. I, unfortunately, am nothing but a child in that matter. It is not usual to be personal in debates here.

Mr. FLINN

You are.

The PRESIDENT

If there is one person in this House more than another who has been most courteous to every Deputy, it is Deputy Cooper. I would advise and would ask Deputy Flinn to extend the courtesy to others that will be extended to himself.

Mr. FLINN

I rise to a point of order. The courtesy which Deputy Cooper extended to this House was to go to sleep during the discussion on the motion, which discussion he then criticised.

The PRESIDENT

I have seen other Deputies in this House asleep and no one drew attention to it. The atmosphere in this House is such at times that it is very hard to keep awake. Many people close their eyes who are not asleep, and if we were to listen to many speeches from Deputy Flinn it is quite possible that they would have that effect—that we would have nods. There are limits to human endurance, as the Deputy will find out.

Mr. MORRISSEY

Are you speaking on unemployment?

The PRESIDENT

I was proceeding to do so until I was interrupted and was asked if I was impertinent. The Deputy knows that of all things I am not impertinent. We have a motion down in respect of the Government's infirmities in regard to unemployment, and that it has not taxed its resources and has not produced adequate measures to deal with it. There is an amendment down, and I would conclude from the closing remarks of Deputy Flinn that he is supporting the amendment. There was no other impression left on my mind. He suggests as a solution three things. He mentioned revolution. I did not know that he was a revolutionary, and I believed that he did not approve of revolution. He went on to deal with another solution, that we have got to get control of our own production and distribution to the end, and then he adopted the spirit of the amendment, but did not say he was going to vote for it; he accepted at once the Government's contention that during the last five years the development of industry here was the thing that would deal with and, if possible, solve unemployment.

Mr. FLINN

May I interrupt?

AN CEANN COMHAIRLE

The Deputy may not interrupt.

The PRESIDENT

I find a very strange lack of co-operation on the problem of finance between Deputies Lemass and Flinn. One stated in no unmistakable terms that the people of this country were mortgaged up to the hilt, everything they possessed; the land of which they were in occupation, the transport system which brought their produce to other countries and the banks. There was a fourth which I forget but which does not matter. The fact of the matter was that we were mortgaged up to the hilt, but then Deputy Lemass complained that we had mortgaged ourselves. That is an extraordinary state of affairs, to have one Deputy complaining that we are mortgaged and another complaining that we had mortgaged ourselves. If Deputy Flinn had told us that he had twenty or thirty years of industrial experience in this country and if he had recited the various disabilities under which his industry laboured during that period, and that he had experience of certain things that the industry required in order that it would be allowed to prosper, I would say, at any rate, here is a man who knows something about what he is talking of. The Deputy did not tell us that he was in industry. He did not tell us what particular business in the country he was most closely associated with or that he could speak with some degree of knowledge about, or that he could give the Dáil some advice on, having regard to his long experience in that industry. Not at all. He looked up something that his Excellency the Governor-General said 40 years ago and said that the same state of affairs exists to-day. I could have told him that he could read much the same litany of disabilities that he read out here in the year 1838, that he could read of practically the same recommendations that were made to deal with the economic situation that existed then. The third proposal which eventuated after a speech which took twenty minutes to deal with the solution we want was revolution, which he condemned, and that we must get control of all those things which he told us were mortgaged. How are they to be got if they are mortgaged? Are they got by peaceful means? Is a mortgage got rid of by peaceful means?

Mr. FLINN

Is that a rhetorical question? I can answer it.

The PRESIDENT

I listened to all the rhetorical questions of the Deputy for the best part of three-quarters of an hour without a quiver. I never winced. I might have been bored, but I endeavoured not to show it. I am going to deal with the Deputy's speech now if he will allow me. The Deputy's third suggestion was the development of our industries. As I have already stated in this House more than once, this is a matter which was the prime consideration of this Ministry during the last five years.

A DEPUTY

You look like it.

The PRESIDENT

I did not interrupt any Deputy of the Fianna Fáil Party this evening, not but that I had to listen to more economic heresies than I heard for a long time, and not but that I was in much the same position as their unfortunate audiences during two general elections, listening to noise and finding very few contributions towards constructive politics—I will not even say statesmanship. We have had a proposal from Deputy Flinn that we must get control of these things. How is it going to be done? I do not know whether Deputy Flinn was in business or not, or whether he got out of it. Obviously if a person leaves a business someone else gets control, and the original holder can get it only by purchase later. Unfortunately we have not been able to solve every question during the last five years. We have done as much as we could towards establishing the credit of the country. As the word credit is mentioned, and Deputy Morrissey has laid stress on it and stated that the two big Parties had damaged irretrievably the credit of the country—

Mr. MORRISSEY

I did not say irretrievably. I would be sorry to have to say that.

The PRESIDENT

I withdraw that word, but the Deputy said damaged. What is meant by credit? That is a simple question. The Deputy could have told us.

A DEPUTY

Financial reputation.

The PRESIDENT

That would not be correct. That enables a person possessing it to provide himself with credit, but credit of itself, the term that you apply to a country when you say it has good credit, is quite a different thing. Deputy Flinn, when speaking, reminded me of the one occasion I was in the British House of Commons. That was five years ago, and the late President Griffith and the late General Collins were with me.

Mr. MORRISSEY

You should not speak disrespectfully of the House of Commons.

The PRESIDENT

I am not.

Mr. CORISH

You were only going to.

The PRESIDENT

If I had time I could give a little dissertation on credit. The credit of my conception, in so far as any young State like this is concerned, depends upon (1) the balancing of the National Budget; (2) shouldering of national obligations which have been undertaken, and (3) shouldering international obligations which have been undertaken. I find the trouble with those who are supporting the Party opposite on the election platforms is that during the last three or four years they departed slightly from that particular conception of national credit. Three or four years ago they did not altogether approve of the payment of the National Loan. I am glad to say that that policy was not proceeded with at the recent general election.

Mr. MacENTEE

It was never the policy——

The PRESIDENT

That is a big step in the direction of what we call credit. I am glad also that since the general election there has not been a question of repudiation. They are perfectly entitled to say they will reopen the question. It does not damage the national credit when said in respect of financial agreements that have been arrived at that they propose to reopen them. There is no damage to national credit there.

But it is in respect of some statements made in the course of the election that there would be repudiation that the damage to credit comes in. A condition, which I need not mention here at any great length, towards credit is based on order in the country and on a fairly stable economic position. Now, would Deputies kindly, carefully examine the amendment to this motion when considering that question. I do not get many "hear, hears" to that. I ask them to examine the amendment so that whatever damage may have been done in respect of statements made during the general election is now going to be remedied by the passing of this amendment. I would remind Deputy Morrissey that there are very few people in this or any other country standing out before an assembly of the elected representatives who would say: "I am the one person and my party is the one party without sin——"

Mr. MORRISSEY

Would the President claim that he understood the problem better and was in closer touch with unemployment and its effects than any other party?

The PRESIDENT

Well, I dispute that absolutely. There is no monopoly of association with the conditions of suffering in this country on the part of any party in it. None whatever. During my time, as I have said on many other occasions, no person ever had a closer experience of the conditions of the people than I have had.

Mr. HUGO FLINN

And of the jails?

The PRESIDENT

That is not a polite remark.

Mr. HUGO FLINN

And of the internment camps and under the Public Safety Act?

AN CEANN COMHAIRLE

Would Deputy Flinn allow the President to proceed without interruption? It would be better for everybody, including the Deputy.

The PRESIDENT

I hope the Deputy was never in jail. I would hesitate to say that his actions during the last ten years were so courageous as to warrant his being there. I did not start my speech by saying that I was filled with such love of humanity that I would not say anything to offend anybody. I know that I am subject to human infirmities, and I do not mean to mislead people by saying: "Let us have such a lovely debate that it would seem to the world that we are all brothers," but I would rather, in the course of my remarks, make such a contribution towards harmony as would make it unnecessary for me to begin my speech with these statements.

Each year in the month of April the Minister for Finance makes a Budget pronouncement and he puts before the Dáil what he expects to raise in taxation for the year. This year he indicated, I think, very clearly, that the sum which he estimated was very tightly drawn. He gave remissions in taxation which have been criticised and which are open to criticism, particularly by persons not interested in putting before the people of the country the exact state of affairs. We are going, perhaps within the next week or a fortnight, to see a further straining on that very tight cord and it is not a question which can be easily decided or which is within the voluntary decision of the members of the Executive Council. They are bound by the figures, they are bound by the actual capacity of the country to provide a sum, and the members of the Executive Council would be just as willing that the sum which would be provided would be ten times the amount as any of the Deputies in the other parts of the House. But they have not the same opportunities for going round the country and criticising the administration and reciting the long list of benefits that will fall to the country in the event of a change of Government. They have not that splendid platform which other people can so lightly take. I was dealing with the Minister's limitations.

Mr. MORRISSEY

No necessity.

The PRESIDENT

That is just it. We do not like to hear the things that are unpalatable. That is the position of affairs as regards the loose money which is asked for, which is really asked for in Deputy Morrissey's motion. Very good. Deputy Morrissey says no. He shakes his head. There are two methods by which the Government could agree to Deputy Morrissey's motion. One is to provide money towards the relief schemes, and the second is the funding of the Unemployment Fund in order that uncovenanted benefit might be paid. I would like to take either of these and deal with them. But those are the only two methods of giving the sums of money which can be used towards giving employment or extending the benefits of the Unemployment Fund. I will leave the Minister for Industry and Commerce to deal with that matter, and I go on to take the various suggestions which have been made by various Parties in the House as to how this matter should be solved. I notice that most of the speakers concern themselves with comment about the situation as it was. Deputy Morrissey wrung our hearts by pointing out the steady emigration there was since 1847; that the people were forced to go, that they had hoped all through that when a national Government came that state of things should be arrested, and that we had failed to utilise the resources of the country.

I would like to know if the Deputy has made an examination of the various steps that have been taken to provide employment during the last four or five years? Is he aware that, coincident with that, while that was being done, the Government's greatest contribution towards industrial development in this country was in the reduction of taxation, in the improvement of every service in the State, in the lessening of the cost of those services, in the restoration of order, and the last act—and the Deputy and his Party did not agree with our policy when we introduced it —was the filling of the vacant seats in the Dáil?

The subject, we are told, must be attacked in a national way. We have all the great big words, and when we examine all those great big words to see what they mean, we find that we are to have housing in a great big national way. We are told about housing in the South City. I happen to have had more responsibility for housing in Dublin than anybody in the Dáil and I know the difficulties and the delays that take place in the inauguration of a housing scheme. I am positively certain that, with all the machinery available, a housing scheme in the South City at the present moment could not be undertaken inside two months. What is required first is a site. The site must be examined, the levels taken, and the drainage of it must be looked after. The roads have to be looked after too, and also the laying out of the site together with the type of premises to be built on it. All these things are not quickly done. Having got all that done, you will require specifications in respect of the houses. It comes, in the long run, to the provision of a very considerable sum of money. Money must be borrowed. It could not possibly be done inside of two months. I do not for a moment mean to say that it would be done inside of two months. My impression is that it would take three or four months. Deputy O'Kelly can well understand that, because many years ago there was a chart in the Housing Committee's Room of the Dublin Corporation prescribing the shortest possible time in respect of which a scheme, having once been put in hands and having got possession of the site, could be completed. All that had nothing to do with the examination of plans and the selection of materials for the buildings.

So as far as dealing with an immediate necessity is concerned, housing is not one of the services which can be utilised for that purpose. I will bear out what the Minister for Local Government said when he mentioned that not more than 1,000 houses per annum can be constructed in the City of Dublin. I do not want to be misunderstood in connection with that. One thousand houses would practically exhaust the resources which Dublin provides for the construction of houses. Fifteen or twenty years ago, I remember putting a question to the city architect on that point and at that time he stated he did not believe that more than 500 houses could be erected in one year—that that would be the maximum output.

Mr. BRISCOE

Does the figure of 1,000 houses per annum include condemned tenement houses in which people are at present living and which should be knocked down in order that other houses could be built to replace them?

The PRESIDENT

That is both interrogative and explanatory, and I am afraid it is beyond my capacity at the moment to answer it. If the Deputy wishes to draw me into a discussion on Dublin housing, I would say that this is scarcely the time.

Mr. BRISCOE

That is not my intention. I only wanted to ask if those figures include the pulling down of condemned tenement houses.

The PRESIDENT

No, they do not; I have in mind the virgin sites. That disposes of housing as a desirable means, if one had the time, but not as an immediate means of relieving unemployment.

Mr. CORISH

For Dublin only.

The PRESIDENT

Might I ask what ails the Deputy?

Mr. LEMASS

Will the President start now for next winter?

The PRESIDENT

As far as I know, the Minister for Local Government stated, if I interpret his remarks correctly, that the programme at the present moment in Dublin is 1,000 houses per annum. So far as that is concerned, the maximum output is being given. The difficulty there is the question of money. Money must be borrowed by the Commissioners in order to do this work. It so happens that we have been pressed from many sides to provide money on long-term loans to local authorities, and we can only fund such a Local Loans Fund if we have the money ourselves. At the moment we have not got any such money. Within the next month or two we must meet a considerable sum which has already been borrowed. At this stage, with the approval of the House, I will move the adjournment of the debate.

Debate accordingly adjourned.

The Dáil adjourned at 8.30 p.m. until 3 p.m. on Thursday, 27th October.