PUBLIC BUSINESS. - IN COMMITTEE ON FINANCE. – Dáil Éireann (6th Dáil) – Wednesday, 21 Mar 1928

PUBLIC BUSINESS. - IN COMMITTEE ON FINANCE.

Motion:—

"That a sum not exceeding £7,898,061 be granted on account for or towards defraying the charges that will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1929, for certain public services."—Minister for Finance. Debate resumed on amendment:

"That the Vote be reduced by £1,000,000."—Mr. Ruttledge.

Mr. FLINN

As the House will remember, we were engaged somewhat broadly in discussing the reduction by £1,000,000 of a sum of £7,898,061 and we had got so far, at any rate, as to the examination of the reasons put forward, and the history of the reasons put forward by certain interests in this House in favour of continuing expenditure upon a huge scale Though I believe, without doubt, that the expenditure, which is now being taken for the purposes to which it is now being put, is extravagant and is above the capacity of this State continuously to bear, and though I desire to see, and I believe it is possible that we should see, a very considerable and significant reduction in that sum, I do not for one single moment stand for the reduction of expenditure upon productive work below the highest price which we can, looking broadly at the matter, see our way to pay. The difficulty is that we have huge establishment charges and relatively small productive charges.

I would take, merely as an example, a Ministry in which I am very sympathetically interested, the Ministry of Industry and Commerce. I have been through the figures and I find that the salaries for which that Department is responsible amount to about £215,500— salaries and bonus. When you contemplate a figure of that kind and contemplate the amount of obvious result which we are getting, or not getting. from that it seems to be an outrageous sum. I have been through that, merely as a sample Vote, to see whether I could separate in some form the reproductive or primarily productive or development expenditure from expenditure on enforcement and other statutory work, or in other words, development expenditure as distinct from overhead charges. Giving the largest and most liberal allowance, including portion of the expenditure on Foreign Affairs in London, New York and Paris, I cannot make at the highest estimate more than £25,000 of that £215,000 which is allocated to development work. If those figures are correct, it puts in somewhat better perspective, from the point of view of the Minister for Trade and Commerce, the activities of his Department, but it seems amazing that so small a proportion should be devoted to primarily productive work by that department and, probably, nearly nine times as much to overhead charges of one kind or another.

I want to see the proportion between overhead and development expenses in every Ministry in the State increased. If we are to save at all, we ought to save upon enforcement and statutory work and upon what I call the molluscs. This Department is practically new in the sense that I do not think it took over many of the old staff. It had to start work again and build from a new basis and it has not had the time nor, I think, the intention to employ unnecessary, supernumerary people, but there is no question that the amount of development work being done by it is quite inadequate for the necessities of this State. As you know, a few years ago this House entered on a system of what was called experimental tariffs. Those of us who have been used to making experiments, for one purpose or another, have one very definite outlook upon experiments, namely, that we shall carefully and in orderly manner fully record the results and reason from the implications of such experiments. You have had these tariffs now in operation, some of them for quite a few years and some, I think, like the boot and other tariffs, extending over a considerable area of industrial effort. When I went to the Ministry of Trade and Commerce and asked for particulars which would enable me, as a Deputy of this House and as one eagerly anxious to get the truth on economic matters, for the recorded results of that experiment, I found that there were practically no such results available. I also found that there was practically no machinery in existence to get them, even when they were asked for, and though the Ministry of Trade and Commerce did, with great courtesy and great kindness, their best to give such information as was at their disposal, in relation to no single tariff were we in a position to get the information upon which, judged merely as an experiment and for the purposes of information, could we have founded sound conclusions as to the correctness or incorrectness of the particular policy adopted in that case. To the extent to which they were enabled to make that experiment or begin to report the results of that experiment, practically new machinery had to be set up, and set up, I believe, at the cost of putting upon the skeleton organisation for development work, work for which they were not then properly equipped. In relation to industry and commerce it is essential that there should be the most careful, the most critical, and the most open examination of the whole of the facts, the most intimate facts, surrounding some particular tariffs in order that we may get some sound information. That has not been done.

If it has not been done because the Ministry of Trade and Commerce has not tried to get a proper staff for that purpose, if it has not been done because the Ministry of Trade and Commerce has not transferred as much as or more than it has from enforcement and overhead charges to development charges, then the fault is very definitely at the door of the Ministry of Trade and Commerce. We ought to be able to know now from their records, from their experiments and their investigation what exactly is occurring in relation to the particular tariffs with which we are concerned. That we apparently are not able to do.

I, for one, am not moving a reduction of this Vote in the direction of reducing development work on industry and commerce. I find that that Department is loaded with a whole lot of things which might just as well be put somewhere else. In this £215,000, for which they are responsible in one way or another, is included the Statistics Branch which, in my opinion, is doing excellent work and which is certainly under a very competent man, but a very small proportion of that wages and salaries cost is really and properly attributable to industry and commerce. For instance, we had a very remarkable publication, a credit to that Department and a credit to the man who is personally responsible for it—the Report on Agricultural Statistics. The Minister for Lands and Agriculture might very well take responsibility for costs of that kind. I think that one of the things that we might look for is a better segregation of the charges which are laid down here and in the estimate, so that we may know how much of the revenue which is expended by the State is rightly attributable to the development of manufacturing industry and how much to the development of agriculture.

I am now going to take up some of the points which came to the surface in the debate. Honestly one feels, merely looking over the notes, that we must have covered a very considerable amount of ground. Deputy Cooper wanted to know if we want to repudiate something. Does he want to repudiate the Wigg and Cochrane decision? He wanted to know did we want the British to continue to collect certain funds and hand them over to us. We most certainly do not want this House to collect certain funds and hand them over to the British. If this House did not include in its estimates a Department for the purpose of collecting revenue from this State which it does not owe, to be handed over to those who have no right to it, there would not be the necessity to move the Vote which we now are moving here. He told us that the Secret Service Vote was small. Is the Secret Service Vote small? Where does the Secret Service end and where does the patronage Vote commence? That we would ascertain if some independent professional authority went through a Department, say like the Post Office or some other Department, and segregated out definitely every man who is doing his work, set down exactly what he was doing and what the doing of it was worth and set down on the other side the patronage and the merely unemployment relief bodies which undoubtedly have accumulated in some of those Departments. Deputy O'Connell said that there is no case for a reduction. I was down in Achill the other day and I heard them laughing when I was nearly a mile away——

Mr. MORRISSEY

On a point of explanation, I do not think the Deputy has quoted what Deputy O'Connell said. He did not say there was no case for a reduction, but he did say that there was no case made for a reduction on this amendment—quite a different thing altogether.

Mr. FLINN

I believe that is so. I accept it. Deputy O'Connell had been down in front of us. He told the people there how he had given back the shilling to the old age pensioners— 13 of them against 117, I think, had given back the shilling and no one else had anything to do with it. He said there was no case made for a reduction —naturally. Deputy O'Connell, Deputy Morrissey, Deputy Anthony, and a few others have turned their backs pretty definitely upon national Labour and in so doing have turned their backs upon any human prospect of ever being responsible for finding the funds which will run this country.

Mr. MORRISSEY

Are you sorry?

Mr. ANTHONY

On a point of order, since when has Deputy Flinn become a Labour apostle?

Mr. MORRISSEY

Either a national or a Labour apostle?

AN CEANN COMHAIRLE

That is not a point of order.

Mr. FLINN

When Deputy Anthony will go back to his own constituents in Cork and tell them that he performed the duty that they sent him here to Dublin to do, when he came here to sneer at the Cork accent, I will answer him.

A DEPUTY

Liverpool.

Shame!

Mr. FLINN

He also wanted elaborate social services. He also wants high nominal wages with a large amount of unemployment. He also wants restrictions on the building of houses, which will prevent the building of houses at a price at which the poor people can live in them. Deputy Morrissey wants "brass-hatted" Labour on top, and the real workers living 8, 10 and 12 in a room in a slum in Dublin. That is not what we want. We want houses for the people at a price at which they can afford to live in them. I have a letter here from a poor man in Cork—there are such—who complains bitterly that money which ought to have been used for the building of a town hall—it is not Sir John Scott—has been used for building houses, and building houses of such a character that he cannot live in them—they are too dear. Before the Unemployment Committee there came up a statement on housing which ought to be burned into the mind of every member of the House— a quarter of the population of Dublin living in one-roomed tenements, and in the opinion of responsible witnesses, speaking for the Ministry opposite, no human prospect, as far as we can see under present conditions, of building houses which these people will be able to live in. If that is the policy of denationalised Labour, if it is their policy to keep in existence restrictions, to keep in existence difficulties, which will make it humanly impossible for the poor people to pay the rent for the houses in which they can live, then the sooner denationalised Labour gets out of the road, and leaves the road clear for someone who will build these houses, the better.

What I am going to suggest in relation to houses is this: that we take a house such as those people could live in, that we find the price at which that house could be built if there were no restrictions of any kind—if there were no restrictions of capital, if there were no restrictions of ground rent, if there were no restrictions of labour—I mean no avoidable restrictions in all cases—if there were no restriction of a Local Government Department's specification; and when we had found what that house would cost, what that class of house was in which the people could live, then we would segregate that house. That house will never be built under present conditions; it will never be built under the supervision of "brasshatted" Labour; it will never be built under the present restrictions. As far as those houses are concerned we should put all restrictions out of bounds, and we should build those houses as cheaply as we can with the best labour and the best material available, without taking into regard anybody's preconceptions. I believe upon that policy we can build houses in which the people can afford to live.

We have put down an amendment here to reduce the expenditure by one million. Of course that is only a beginning. We are not allowed, I understand, under the rules to connote that saving very strictly against any particular Vote here. But I suggest that, at any rate, for this year a capital sum equivalent to £234,000 can be found by not electing the outgoing Senators who are due for election this year. That is a fairly decent contribution towards the million pounds. I voted in this House the other night for an increase in old age pensions. I did not do that lightly and I did not do it willingly. I did not willingly take the responsibility of putting one penny more on the cost of this State than was required, but I did it because it was just, and I did it because I was prepared myself to find the sources of revenue which would provide the money which was required for it without repudiating anything and without putting one single penny burden upon any legitimate activity of any member of this community. Broadly speaking, when I vote for increased expenditure I shall do it with, at any rate, in the back of my mind the responsibility that we upon these Benches, either immediately or proximately, will have to stand over that expenditure, not merely for a year but for a considerable period, and that it is our business to envisage responsibly the duty and obligation of having in our mind, at any rate, the sources of supply of revenue before we vote them. I have been challenged by de-nationalised labour—

Mr. MORRISSEY

You are more Irish than the Irish themselves.

Mr. FLINN

If your blood is as truly Irish as mine, it is perfectly pure. There is not one drop of blood in my veins for ten generations that is not Irish.

Very well, we will leave it for the Budget debate, having left it now in the possession of the House.

MINISTER for JUSTICE (Mr. Fitzgerald-Kenney)

I thought we were going to discuss the Vote on Account this afternoon. I have listened to a very long and a very vehement speech made by the Deputy from Cork, but I must confess it was beyond my power to see what it had to do with the Vote, or with any of the Votes, we are asked for. It appears to me that the Deputy has been very much angered by some remarks and witticisms of the Deputies on the Labour Benches.

Mr. FLINN

Not at all.

Mr. FITZGERALD-KENNEY

And he has taken up a great deal of our time which might be, I venture to say, better employed, by an attack upon the Labour Party. The Labour Party are thoroughly well able to defend themselves. Since that made up the whole of the Deputy's speech this afternoon I shall pass from it now. Nor do I wish to go through the many questions which were discussed yesterday afternoon in an extraordinarily discursive and wandering debate, but I would like to deal with a couple of the salient points made by Deputies on the Benches opposite when they suggest the reduction of this Vote by one million.

The speeches of Deputy Ruttledge and Deputy Lemass, and of some other Deputies on the Benches opposite, yesterday, were characterised by another attack in the vituperative campaign which they are steadily and consistently carrying on in this House against the Civic Guards. Time and again they make charges against that force. They went into them yesterday also. I do not know what objects Deputies opposite have at the back of their minds when they make these charges against this fine, well-ordered, well-disciplined, thoroughly efficient force. It may be that they think by repeated attacks they will be able to shake the morale and undermine the discipline of that force. I can tell them that I know that force and that they will not succeed.

Mr. COONEY

May I suggest to the Deputy——

AN CEANN COMHAIRLE

No, the Deputy may not.

Mr. FITZGERALD-KENNEY

Deputy Lemass informed us yesterday that he got complaints at his information bureau, of which I understood him to say he was in charge. I will give a specimen of what these complaints are like and the reckless fashion in which they are made. The other day not one, but a whole series of Deputies on the Fianna Fáil benches, all shouting together, informed the House that information as to the whereabouts of the defendants in a certain case that came from Waterford had been asked for at the Depôt and was refused. I knew nothing about the facts on that occasion. It was the first time I heard the charge made, and I asked that a question should be put down. Of course no question was put down. What were the facts? On February 15th the solicitor for the plaintiffs wrote to the Civic Guard Depôt asking for information, and on the 17th of the same month they got the information they asked for. That will show the reliability of the sources upon which Deputy Lemass and other Deputies in his Party rely.

The Civic Guards were attacked. I believe that in making that attack Deputies had not the sympathy of a single law-abiding citizen in this country. I do think that when two Labour Deputies spoke yesterday and expressed their high appreciation of the Civic Guards and their efficient work and of all the good they have done for this country, they were voicing the true belief of every respectable citizen in this country.

Deputy Morrissey asked for certain particulars as to the number of Civic Guards. Deputy Lemass had given them, but, of course, again Deputy Lemass's information bureau was slightly at fault—to the extent of 800 men. The actual number of Guards at the present moment is 7,210. That takes in the entire Guard; it takes in the Metropolitan Division and takes in all the ordinary Civic Guards in the country. Of this 7,210, 1,200 are employed in the Metropolitan area. The figures for the Metropolitan area are practically the same as they were in 1913, when Dublin was policed by the Metropolitan Police. The figure in December, 1913, was 1,211. Everybody knows, and must know, that the duties of the police, especially in large cities, have enormously increased, but this year we are asking for 1,860 fewer police than there were in 1913, and 1913 was the low water mark of numbers in the Royal Irish Constabulary. If you leave out the large towns, leave out Dublin, Cork and Limerick, you will find that there has been a reduction in the number of police in this country by 25 per cent. We heard some little information about the barracks the other day. I may inform the House that there are 836 Garda barracks in the Free State now, leaving out the cities again, as against 1,100 Royal Irish Constabulary stations in the year 1913.

Mr. LEMASS

Is the Minister referring to the Free State as this country?

Mr. FITZGERALD-KENNEY

Mr. G. BOLAND

Making crime is one.

Mr. FITZGERALD-KENNEY

They have to collect census returns and agricultural statistics; they have to act as ex-officio inspectors of weights and measures; they act as inspectors under the Food and Drugs Act: they have to deal with Customs duties and to prevent smuggling on the Border, and Excise duties with regard to the prevention and detection of illicit distillation; they have to enforce the School Attendance Act, which is a new and very heavy burden on them; they have a great number of duties to perform for the Department of Lands and Agriculture, acting as inspectors under the Noxious Weeds Act, the Eggs Act, and all that class of work, and I may say incidentally that they have earned for themselves the highest praise for the manner in which they dealt with the recent outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease.

—was never enforced by the Royal Irish Constabulary. They were never inspectors of the Department of Agriculture, and the Eggs Act, which causes a great deal of trouble, was not law in their time.

Mr. G. BOLAND

They actually have time enough to do election work for the Cumann na nGaedheal Party. They can address envelopes.

Mr. FITZGERALD-KENNEY

The Deputy is always accurate.

The British Government in its day never spent such sums, and never overstaffed the Departments here, as the Government are doing to-day. For instance, take the Local Government Department. The Estimate for that Department last year was £561,889. That is for the Twenty-six Counties. In 1918 and 1919 the expenditure on the Local Government Board was £129,861. The Local Government Board had to deal with 32 counties, with over 159 unions, hundreds of rural district councils, while to-day the Local Government Department deals only with one board of guardians, and one rural district council, as against hundreds there were in 1918-19. The expenditure to-day on that one Department alone is more than four times what it was in 1918 and 1919. Still it is said that the Fianna Fáil Deputies are responsible for the overtaxation. Are they or are they not responsible for this Department? Who is responsible for an expenditure of £561,889 now as against £129,861 in 1918 and 1919? The salaries then paid amounted to £64,401 as against £85,422 to-day. That is one Department. If I had time to go into each of the Departments in detail, it could be shown that not alone could this £1,000,000 be saved upon these Departments, but millions could be saved for the Irish people. Deputy Wolfe stated yesterday that the Department of Justice is under-staffed. Perhaps it is. I do not know, but I do know that the taxpayers are fast approaching bankrputcy in trying to keep up these Imperial institutions. An opportunity should be given for reducing this taxation, to let people live in this country, and not have them flying from it as if they were flying from a plague.

Mr. J.J. BYRNE

Now that the House has recovered from the flood of oratory of Deputy Hugo Flinn, now that he has told the brass-hatted Labour Party how to construct houses, now that he has told us that he had in the back of his mind a way to find the money for the increase in the old age pensions, that caused him such considerable qualms of conscience before he could vote for it, we were waiting to hear how that money was to be found, and the manner in which Deputy Flinn proposed to find it. But I regret to say that the scheme is still at the back of his mind, and it looks very like as if it is going to remain there. Deputy Flinn mentioned a sum of, I think, £150,000 for the Department of Industry and Commerce. He told the House that that was a huge sum to spend upon the industry and commerce of the country. He did not tell the width, ramification and the important duties of that particular Department, and he did not tell the various questions that that Department has to deal with: statistics, industrial production, transport and marine, trade and industry, geological survey, unemployment, railways, and I might mention finally, the initiation of the Shannon scheme. It has been suggested by some of the best brains in this country that the work at present devolving on that particular Department is far in excess of what it can carry. It has been suggested by some of the best brains in this country that there should be an additional Minister to deal with the transport question. Anyone familiar with conditions prevailing in transport in the city of Dublin at present—and I think I might apply that to provincial districts as well as to the metropolis— knows that it is a matter of pressing, urgent, and immediate necessity. Deputy Flinn, the new apostle, who spoke on behalf of the working class, whose panacea to help the workers of this country is the abolition of income tax, did not tell the House, as he should have done, how he proposed to find the three or four millions of revenue that is at present derived from such taxation. I presume, just like finding the money for the old age pensions, it is still in the back of his mind, and that it will still stay there.

Deputy Hugo Flinn in a prolonged, weary and boring speech, continued in a sort of serial form—begun yesterday and concluded to-day—told us that this State of ours should be run upon business lines. Now, being an ordinary, commonsense, plain business-man myself, I watched very carefully the business lines upon which Deputy Flinn proposed to travel. Deputy Hugo Flinn told us about some mythical concern on the far side of the Channel.

Mr. G. BOLAND

Vickers—that is not very mythical.

Mr. CARNEY

They made the guns for you.

Mr. J.J. BYRNE

Deputy Hugo Flinn told us about the firm of Vickers, how an accountant was brought in, how all the various departments were organised and how various schemes of reform were inaugurated. These schemes of reform, summed up briefly, amounted to the relegation of the unfit to the scrap heap. The scheme Deputy Hugo Flinn propounded was simply this: that in that business concern anybody who did not earn for the firm a measure of income in proportion to the wage he drew out was at once thrown upon the scrap heap. That may be all very well in private concerns, in private business companies. We are all aware that private business companies are run for profit. They have no concern with the needs of the people; they have no duties cast upon them such as the Government Party here have; they do not profess that all-embracing doctrine that Fianna Fáil professes—that it is the duty of any Government Party who may happen to run this nation to find a means of subsistence for every man in this State. How can you square ideas of that sort with the running of an ordinary private commercial concern?

Deputy Hugo Flinn did not tell the House, if it was Messrs. Vickers he was dealing with, that the share capital of that company has been written down by something like half. Are we to act upon similar lines in carrying out the affairs of this nation? The thing is as absurd as it is ridiculous. Does Deputy Hugo Flinn suggest that we ought to scrap old age pensions?

Mr. CORRY

No.

Mr. J.J. BYRNE

Mr. CARNEY

Some of them.

Mr. J.J. BYRNE

I have used no rhetoric in laying these figures before the House. Each of these figures is perfectly accurate, and I have shown to the House that on essential services at the present moment we are spending £10,500,000. I have endeavoured to place these services before you as briefly as I possibly can. In this £10,500,000 there is no possible hope of a reduction in this coming year. This sort of talk that we have heard here on these Estimates is all very well for propaganda on the hustings. But when we come into this Assembly we ought to forget all such airy nonsense. When one is on a platform one can say things to what sometimes may not be a very intelligent audience, but in this House we ought to expect reason and logic and common sense——

I have also to add the figure of £255,000 which has been paid to the Irish farmers for their beet. Anybody who has listened to these debates, especially when the Deputies on the opposite Benches were criticising that particular Vote, could see how the farmers, who sit on both sides of the House, appreciated the spending of that particular sum of money.

I think I have shown that the proposed reduction of £1,000,000 is an utter impossibility, and that Deputies, no matter on what Benches they may sit, if they are disposed to treat the matter in a fair and reasonable way, will agree that we of the Government Party have been acting in the best interests of the country. We have done that in the past, and as we intend to do the same in the future, I propose to vote for the motion introduced by the Minister for Finance.

SEAN O GUILIDHE

Is é mo thuairim, ó'n gcainnt do chualas ó Theachtaí annso, go bhfuil daoine ann ná tuigeann i gceart an cheist atá ós ár gcómhair. Is léir domh-sá go bhfuil dualgas orainn uile iarracht do dhéanamh chun costas rialú na tíre do laghdú. Ba chóir dúinn an iarracht san do dhéanamh ar an tairisgcint seo.

I am afraid members on both sides of the House have been more anxious to score points against each other in debate than to find ways and means of educing, as we consider it, this very heavy expenditure. It is all very well to say that this Vote on Account cannot be reduced, and to endeavour to score points against opponents, to attempt to make out a case for the retention of this very heavy expenditure. The people in the country, unfortunately, cannot take that point of view. They are being crushed under the weight of this heavy taxation. I think it is up to each and every one of us to do all we can to reduce it, and to try to meet the wishes of the people. I do not want to criticise in detail a lot of what has been said on the other side of the House, but I hold that a case has been made for a considerable reduction in this Vote.

As regards the fisheries, anyone who has read the debates that took place here during the last few years on the Vote for that Department will see that members on the opposite Benches took very strong views indeed as regards the expenditure under that Department. Reading through the report of the Fisheries Conference, one can see that the expenditure has not been justified by results, and that the criticism levelled against the Department was well justified. Though this Department has, I understand, been in existence for about five years, the position with regard to our Irish fisheries is really deplorable. The Department has had charge of them during the last five years, and yet the position as regards them is one of utter hopelessness and no progress. I think it is desirable to scrap that Department absolutely, and thereby save the country a sum of £50,000 a year. That is the approximate figure for that Department this year, and personally, I cannot see any justification for the proposed expenditure. I think if the Department were scrapped and some other body formed to take over its work that expenditure could be reduced. In connection with the Civic Guards, I appreciate the point made by the Minister for Justice, that the number of men has been reduced since 1913. We hold, however, that the number is still too large.

Professor THRIFT took the Chair.

Mr. GOULDING

The number of Civic Guards in remote country areas where the people are quiet and peaceable and where there is no crime whatsoever, is still too large. In these remote areas, too, very expensive barracks costing, in some instances, £1,500, have been built in the last few years. The building of them is still going on. I do not think it is necessary to have these expensive buildings put up in remote areas, or to have maintained there large bodies of men who really have very little to do. With all the goodwill in the world, and granting that the men were anxious to do all they possibly could to earn the pay they are getting, I think some of them find it hard to get enough to do. I think there is no case whatever for retaining these men in remote areas of the country which are in a peaceable condition. Another way in which to bring about a considerable reduction in the strength of the Civic Guard would be to stop recruiting for it. That should be done until its strength was brought to a level that would be quite sufficient to meet the needs of the people.

There is one Department to which I wish to refer. It does not cost a very large amount of money, but its work is causing a considerable amount of criticism in many of the towns in the country. It is known as the Local Authorities Combined Purchasing Department, and comes under the Local Government Department. I have had complaints from firms in the city of Waterford to the effect that this body interfered very severely with their business, and that it practically prevented them contracting for stores to local institutions. These firms hold that they could supply goods at as cheap or even a cheaper rate than the firms listed with the Department. The Department did not approve of their tenders, and the result has been that while they are local ratepayers they have lost contracts, and the ratepayers have not benefited to any extent. This complaint may be justified or it may not.

Ní doigh liom go bhfuil a thuille le rá agam. Ach, mar a dubhart cheanna, ba chóir dúinn iarracht do dhéunamh chun a fháil amach conus mar is feidir na costaisi atá ar an dtír do laghdú.

Mr. DAVIN

I refuse to believe that the speech delivered here this evening by Deputy Flinn represents the considered judgment and opinion of the Party with which he is now associated. If the Labour Party, which he has attacked in such eloquent language, is as anti-National as he now seems to think, will he explain, or will those who follow him in the debate explain, why the leader and members of his Party were prepared to go into the division lobby in August last and, by their vote, if they secured a majority, make it possible for the members of our Party to form the Executive Government of this country? I would like the members of Deputy Flinn's Party who are to speak after him to say how, if the Labour Party is so anti-National as Deputy Flinn now seems to think, they can explain their attitude on that particular occasion? I am not concerned in this debate with giving an advertisement to Deputy Flinn, but the Deputy in his discourse went out of his way apparently to make an attack upon his colleague, Deputy Anthony, a member of our Party who represents the City of Cork with him. Deputy Flinn talked about the Labour Party being anti-National, and referred particularly to Deputy Anthony, but what are the facts? The facts, as far as I can find them out from the results of the last General Election, are that Deputy Anthony polled 5,668 first preference votes in that election, whereas Deputy Flinn apparently only secured the votes of those who want no income tax, He only secured votes to the extent of 1,236 and got in by a short head.

These figures speak for themselves. We are, of course, asked here now to picture Deputy Flinn in a different position from that in which we knew him when he was Mr. Flinn and before he came into this House. I knew of him only from what I read in the newspapers, and from the knowledge so gained I regarded and looked on him as the champion of rich people, those who live on the dividends they receive from their incomes and want to increase their incomes, unearned, by refusing to pay income tax. Now the Deputy comes into the House and takes up a dual role, that of representing people who want to pay no income tax and therefore refuse to provide money for the building of houses, and at the same time saying that he rather unwillingly voted a few days ago to restore the shilling cut to the old age pensioners. Now I think anybody who gives the matter any consideration will come to the conclusion that Deputy Flinn cannot occupy the dual role, representing those who live on interest and dividends they receive from their money and who are claiming that they should pay no income tax, and at the same time claim that he represents the poor and the people concerned with the restoration of the shilling cut in the old age pensions.

We have been given three reasons, but we have not been given the detailed figures which go to make up the amount of the proposed reduction in this Vote. A reduction of £1,000,000 is asked for, but no details have been given as to how that is to be made up. If we are to follow the debate and disregard figures or details in support of the claim for reduction, it will be found it can be done by doing away with the Army and reducing what has been called a political force known as the Gárda Síochána. In addition, we have the suggestion from Deputy Flinn that the Seanad should be abolished, or reduced by that number who are in the ordinary way bound to seek re-election this year. My main complaint against the Vote on Account is that the Minister has not in certain respects provided sufficient money to carry on productive services to help to relieve unemployment. We all admit the necessity for relieving unemployment as expeditiously as possible. As to the speeches of the members of the Fianna Fáil Party who have spoken in favour of the reduction of the Vote by £1,000,000, I am forced to the conclusion, having read the debate which took place in this House on 15th November on the unemployment motion by Deputy Morrissey, that they have forgotten what they said on that occasion. If the speeches made by Fianna Fáil Deputies on that motion are a correct version of their considered judgment as to what should be done, and how it should be done, to relieve unemployment, then we should not be reducing this Vote by £1,000,000, but increasing it by £4,000,000 or £5,000,000. I say to the Fianna Fáil Deputies: "Look up your speeches and do not forget what you said on 15th November."

Mr. CARNEY

Would that additional money go to unemployment?

Mr. BRISCOE

Before Deputy Davin proceeds I want to ask the Minister for Local Government a question.

ACTING-CHAIRMAN

You will have your opportunity later on.

Mr. DAVIN

I served my apprenticeship in this House for a considerable time, and I agree that Deputy Briscoe cannot be allowed to drag a red herring across the debate at this particular stage. We are asked to agree to the abolition of the Army. People on the Government Benches talk of the necessity for maintaining the Army at a certain strength for certain reasons, or until such time as they are satisfied there is no further fear of civil strife. Again, Deputies on the Fianna Fáil Benches with a military outlook say they would not do away with the Army altogether, but they would have an army of a different type. I think I know sufficient of what has happened in the last four or five years to realise the army that Fianna Fáil Deputies would have if they got control. It would not be an army that would give their services freely and for nothing. It would cost something. Let us hear from them when they talk of an army what, in their opinion, the defence forces of the country would cost under any Government set up by the Fianna Fáil Party. We would then be able to judge as to the difference in the cost of the present Army as compared with the army under the Fianna Fáil Government. When people talk about having an army composed of a certain number of men forming fours in barrack squares and at the same time talk about defending this country, one has to laugh. With regard to the defence of this country, surely that should consist of submarines and air forces? It is on such forces that this island country would have to depend when defending itself against external aggression. Coming to the Gárda Síochána, I deeply regretted to hear Deputy Lemass, who is rightly one of the accredited leaders of his Party, talk of the protective police force as a political force. That is a dangerous way for Deputy Lemass to talk when one realises that he may yet be in the position of being head of the police force. How would he like, if Minister for Justice in a Fianna Fáil Government, to hear the police force under his administration referred to as a political force?

Mr. GOOD

What is your authority for that?

Mr. DAVIN

If I had been listening-in instead of listening to Deputy Flinn this evening, I would have believed that it was Deputy Good and not Deputy Flinn who was speaking.

Mr. MORRISSEY

That is unfair to Deputy Good.

Mr. DAVIN

There was a good deal of criticism of the Land Commission on a recent occasion here regarding the division and acquisition of untenanted land and the carrying out of necessary improvement work on estates when they are divided and handed over to suitable allottees. There was a good deal of criticism during the debate on the Estimates last year in regard to the same matter, but I notice that the Estimates this year for such improvement work on estates, which, as Deputies know, gives a good deal of employment, is only for a sum of £323,000. Are Deputy O'Reilly and Deputy Derrig satisfied that that figure represents the limit of the sum which they would fix, if they had responsibility, for necessary improvement work on estates when divided all over the country for one particular financial year? Are they of opinion that that sum is too large? Is that one of the reasons that they are going into the division lobby in favour of reducing this Vote? These are matters which we want explained.

Mr. DERRIG

You will hear them explained.

Mr. LEMASS

Will Deputy Davin defend the amount used illegally for the purpose of collecting annuities? Does he approve of that expenditure?

Mr. DAVIN

I have quoted the figure which deals with free grants for the improvement work on estates which are divided and acquired under the Act of 1923. Deputy Lemass is an expert on the question of annuities. He knows that the annuities to which he refers and which are exported are annuities collected under Acts previous to 1923. The complaint I have to make—and I have to make it in common with other Deputies of the Labour Party—is that the Government, under certain heads, have not provided all the money which we think should be provided for carrying out national works which would give valuable employment. The Fianna Fáil Party say: "Do away with the Army. Throw fifteen thousand men on the scrap-heap. Add fifteen thousand to the list of unemployed. Do away with a certain number of the Gárda Síochána"—I do not know how many. Their policy is to add to the list of the unemployed without indicating where these men can be employed.

Mr. CLERY

Is it not possible to put them on reproductive and remunerative work?

Mr. DAVIN

I am not here to be cross-examined.

I am sorry you were not here to listen to it.

Mr. DAVIN

We have a reduction in the Estimates for the Relief Schemes Vote. In my remarks I want to point out, and I hope I have given good reason for it, why I should criticise the Government for not giving more money than they are asking for on this occasion, money which, under the headings I have enumerated, would go a long way towards the relief of the unemployment that exists in every constituency, without adding in other ways, to the unemployment that now exists in our midst.

Professor O'SULLIVAN

I am not going to devote any portion of my speech either to the personal consideration, which would be a great deal, or even to the consideration of the argument of the Deputy from Cork who does not speak with a Cork accent. As I am on the subject of the Cork accent, I think it is only fair to Deputy Anthony to say that when there was a little cooing from the top Benches opposite he would not like to acknowledge that the accent came from Cork. Therefore he did not make any reference on that occasion to the Cork accent. What is this amendment? A reduction of a million on the Vote on Account? Remember, it is not to be justified by saying how you could make a reduction of one million pounds on the total Estimate, but how you can make a three millions reduction on the total Estimate. I think that there has been a certain confusion on the Benches opposite as to what precisely they are asking for, not on the part of the Deputy who moved the amendment, because he made it quite clear that what he demanded was a reduction of one million on a third of the Estimate. Therefore they demand three millions on the whole Estimate. In the course of the argument, it began to be quite clear that Deputies should not have limited themselves to a reduction of three millions. They should have demanded a reduction of twelve or thirteen millions. In the speeches made, this argument seems to have faded completely away, because it was repudiated more than once. They began the argument on certain statements, and also on the taxable capacity of this country and Great Britain and the amount of taxes levied in Great Britain. They began to argue that on that basis the taxes raised here in the Free State should be twelve millions. They went on to make the very definite statement—I think it was made by Deputy Ruttledge, and more or less repeated by Deputy Lemass afterwards— that twelve millions is the ouside amount which we can afford to spend on the machinery of Government, and that we are spending double that, and more than double that. They said that thirteen millions is wasted in unproductive Government services—thirteen millions that might be saved for the building up of industry. If Deputies are really serious, why do they limit themselves to two millions or three millions? Why, if they are not merely throwing dust in the eyes of the people do they not demand, as they have done on outside platforms, that the taxation of the country should be reduced by thirteen millions? Why stop at one million or three millions?

Mr. LITTLE

We can do it on the financial agreement.

Professor O'SULLIVAN

You can keep quiet occasionally. I have listened to the meanderings of the Deputies that all of that thirteen millions was an expense on the Government of this country. These are the statements of Deputies who made use of that particular argument. The Deputy who has interrupted has not spoken up to the present. He can explain how you can expend that thirteen millions on the Government. On these particular estimates, we have listened undoubtedly to speeches that meandered and which have certainly the outstanding characteristic of vagueness. I thought that at times Deputy Lemass must have striven very heroically to convince himself and the House that he was really dealing with the motion under discussion. I confess—possibly he may not think that I am impartial—that I am not surprised that Deputy O'Connell, Deputy Morrissey and Deputy Davin thought that there was no case made for the reduction mentioned in the amendment. Could any person listening to this debate come to any other decision? The Government admit that taxation is high and they would like to reduce it. Not merely do they admit it but they have proclaimed it. They have proclaimed it and said it on occasions when it was unpopular to say it. They have had to insist on it when there was a demand made for expenditure of money that would be popular. It is true that some Deputies, when it comes to taxation, take the popular side and demand a reduction in expenditure, and then when it comes to spending money, they take the equally popular side of putting in a demand for more money. That has been done by the Deputies opposite. Only very rarely has it been done by the Labour Party. They have at least been consistent. They have always been consistent here. They have realised that you cannot have a decrease in the total expenditure and an increase in every item, which is practically the tale we have listened to every year here. We listened to it before the Fianna Fáil Deputies came into the House. They have not, possibly, much experience here, but they have at least learned to make that particularly hearty demand for less expenditure and at the same time and in almost the same breath, a demand for more expenditure. You have Deputies who went into the Lobby last week for the full restoration of the old age pensions, now crying out against an increase in taxation. When speaking in the debate on old age pensions last week—I was dealing with a suggestion made to do away with army pensions—there was an interruption which, if it meant anything, meant more pensions for people who had given the country military service of a certain kind. In the Official Debates that interruption was attributed to one of the Labour Deputies, but it actually came from one of the Fianna Fáil Deputies. There is this demand for increased expenditure where the demand is popular, and a demand for decreased taxation where that demand is popular. That is what one Deputy, facing up to the situation, meant when he said they would never do popular things.

Will Deputies consider the proposal to reduce these particular items of expenditure and show how it can be done? Comparisons with the amount roughly estimated to be spent in this country by the British Government in pre-war times and before the truce may have some use, but they are not very useful unless they are accompanied by an examination, and I hope, when the opportunity comes, when these items are being discussed in detail, that Deputies will show where the extravagance is and how the economies can be effected. We had a brilliant suggestion of economy outlined in connection with the Department of Industry and Commerce, to divide the Vote into a productive portion and non-productive portion and give the productive portion of it to the Minister for Industry and Commerce, and transfer the rest elsewhere. Is that economy? Does that help to save the State any money? If the Department of Statistics is put under one Minister and not under another Minister, does that save the cost of that particular sub-Department? Is it not trifling with the whole situation to bring forward an argument of that kind in a deliberative Assembly such as this? Comparisons as to the cost of government, unless you compare the services rendered, do not lead anywhere. One Deputy said that Deputy Cooper put his finger on the point when he stated that there were responsibilities and services undertaken when this became a free country that were not debited to this country formerly. That was misunderstood in the most extraordinary way, though the Deputy gave very little ground for misunderstanding, because he enumerated actual services that have now to be undertaken which were not, so to speak, debited to the account of this country in pre-Treaty days. Nothing is easier, as long as you confine yourself to vague statements, than to promise a reduction, even though you have not made up your mind whether the amount of the reduction is £3,000,000 or £13,000,000. After all, what is a million more or less, or ten millions more or less, to Deputies who speak in that vague fashion?

The Government has been accused of endeavouring to run this country on a grand Imperial scale—that they are maintaining services entirely out of keeping with what is proper and efficient for this State. One or two instances were mentioned. The Board of Works and the Land Commission, I think, were mentioned. What are the complaints? Here again Deputy Davin was consistent, because he has done nothing in the debate that he and the members of his Party, and even the other Party opposite, have not been doing at question time, and at other times, practically every day since the House has assembled. What is really behind all this is, that there is delay in the work of the Departments, even though these Departments are now doing very much more work and accomplishing certain work for the advantage of the country at a quicker rate than ever before. The complaint is that they are not going fast enough. Yet the people who make that complaint, and who incidentally waste a great deal of Departmental time by asking useless questions, now complain of the over-staffing of the Departments. Either they are serious in demanding that certain work shall be done by Government Departments or they are not. If they are, they should not come along and complain that a demand is made by the Government for the particular staff necessary to carry it out. There were a couple of interruptions when Deputy Davin was speaking which suggest that Deputies have not looked at the Estimates we are discussing. Does anybody seriously suggest that the business of the Land Commission is confined to the collection of annuities? Even if a Deputy has not read the Estimates if he looks at the Question portion of the Order Paper any day he will see that the Land Commission deals with a great many other things than that. I wonder if Deputies ever heard—I imagine from the questions put that they must have heard—of such things as the division of estates, improvement works, and unemployment works of various kinds which are carried out by the Land Commission. I see one Deputy is hardly able to restrain himself from interrupting.

I did not catch that remark. I am sorry to miss it, as it might be useful.

Mr. GOREY

Imperialism!

Professor O'SULLIVAN

Is that one of the Imperial services? There is an item of £1,200,000 for agricultural rates. Is that one of the expenses of the "machinery of government" that is to be cut down? Then there is the sugar beet industry and so on. Is it suggested seriously that these things can be cut down? Deputy Byrne, in the course of his speech, pointed out that if you tot up items of that kind, which are items collected by the Government and given back—I am speaking of the money that goes back to the people, not the cost of administration—you get well over £10,000,000. Still the whole of the Budget is to be cut down to £12,000,000. Reference was made to the expenditure of £1,000,000 on public works. Have Deputies asked themselves why that expenditure is necessary? Why is it necessary to build Gárda barracks? Why is it necessary to have big expenses for other items? If they had even gone to the trouble to read what is included in the Estimates, they would see that the one million there is wanted for public works. Are they confusing as one sum, and interpreting as one Vote, the Vote for the Department of Public Works and the Vote for the money to be spent on public works and buildings and various other matters of that kind? In the same way, you can go through all these items. It has been pointed out more than once that if you leave out of account the Post Office, which is run, to a large extent, as a business that pays for itself—remember if you saved you would save at the expense of the ordinary rural community, not at the expense of big cities —the machinery of government, that is, the cost of the Civil Service, with all the salaries included, comes, not to £12,000,000, but to two and a half millions. How you are to save three millions or thirteen millions out of that I cannot see. Of course the real issue, when you come down to brass tacks, is the abolition of the Army and the Gárda. If you abolish the Army that owes allegiance to this State and to the Government elected by the people of the State, you do not get rid of armies. There is, I understand, another army there. This is really an attack upon these two services. That was the real, solid contribution made by Deputies opposite, in the way of showing where real savings could take place.

It is a matter for Deputies on other Benches, and it is a matter for the people of this country to make up their minds whether or not it would be good economy to risk the undue weakening of these two forces, because, remember, that if there is a mistake made in that direction it would be a mistake, as everybody knows, that could cost the country dear. The Army has been maligned and abused in various ways. The Army is there for one purpose and one purpose only, and that is, to carry out the wishes of the people of this country. The Army should be reduced to a much lower and less costly level, according to Deputy Ruttledge. He did not say how, or even hint how. When we listened to the speeches of other Deputies we might be excused if we could not make up our minds whether the Army was to be cut down in pay, reduced, or abolished altogether. As I say, it is a matter for Deputies of all Parties and for the people to make up their minds as to whether or not they can take the very serious risk, even from the purely economic point of view, if from no other, of tampering in the way suggested by Deputies opposite with the Army or with the police.

Have we normal conditions? There is not an excess of ordinary crime in the country. We have normal conditions in that sense, certainly. But if that is so, no small portion of the credit —I do not by any means say all because the people deserve credit, too— for that can be attributed to the two forces that are now attacked, to the Army on one occasion, and to the Guards at present. It is a great mistake to think, as we might gather from listening to the speeches of Deputies on the opposite Benches, that whilst we may be an island of scholars we are an island of saints, in the sense that everybody is a saint and that you have only to remove the police force and there will be perfect order and happiness in the country. In fact, listening to the speeches of Deputies opposite, one is forced to the conclusion that if there is any disturbance, any breach of the law, it is the Guards who are responsible, that if the Guards were not there the law would be accepted and everybody would do what everybody ought to do. That view of the situation is about as solid and as real as most of the other views expressed by Deputies opposite on the situation in this country.

The main purpose of the police force, according to one Deputy, is not the suppression of crime, unless we are prepared to consider as crime the actions of the man who does not accept our political point of view. Everybody knows that nobody has interfered with other people's political opinions. But whatever political opinions a man holds that does not entitle him to murder his neighbour. Merely because a man has his own political opinions does not entitle him to break the law when the law is there. That seems to be forgotten. There is ordinary crime in this country. There would be more ordinary crime were it not for the action of the Guards; but there is another kind of crime, occasionally actuated by what are perhaps called political motives. That does not make it a lesser crime. It is not merely an attack upon individuals in that case; it is an attack on the State as well. Instead of having a lesser crime you have a greater crime; you have two crimes added together. The Guards are for the suppression of all crime, crime of every kind. Everybody in this House ought to know that, and I think the Minister for Justice has made it quite clear, apart from the tributes that have been paid to the Guards from the Labour Benches.

The supporters of the amendment, as they put it in one of the speeches—and this really sums up the whole situation on their side—are asked to support the doctrine that we are a people subservient to a foreign power, and that is the reason why Deputies are asked to support the amendment. That about sums up the value of the arguments on the economy side brought forward by Fianna Fáil Deputies. It throws the whole economic case overboard, and we are asked to believe what everybody knows we are not, though some people still seem to insist on it, namely that we are subservient to another people. Because we refuse to believe that, because the majority of the people and the majority of Deputies refuse to believe that we are a servile and a subservient people, you are asked to diminish this Vote on Account by £1,000,000 and the Estimates by £3,000,000.

A point was raised by Deputy O'Connell which happens to touch my own Department—the question of school buildings. We are anxious to get on as quickly as we can with the question of school buildings. The actual amount put down in the Estimate is what we think, with the resources at our disposal and at the disposal of the Board of Works, and whatever payments remain over from this particular year, we can spend. Speaking from my own experience, if we can spend more money in that respect I do not anticipate any difficulty in getting a Supplementary Vote from the Department of Finance for that purpose. There is one thing, however, on which I cannot quite agree with Deputy O'Connell, because though I am quite sure he does not intend it, it cuts at the root to some extent of our whole primary education system—that is, when he speaks of getting rid of the one-third, or the local contribution. Merely because there is no machinery for doing that is no reason for getting rid of it. The view from which this matter is looked at is that there must be co-operation between voluntary effort and State aid. That is the fundamental view, not merely from the point of view of the Government but from the point of view of a large number of people and, therefore, I cannot accept the proposition that there is no more reason why schools should not be built entirely out of public funds than that, say, police barracks should not be built out of public funds. However, that is a controversial point that can be raised at another time, but so far as actual buildings are concerned we are anxious to get on as quickly as we can. The Deputy himself will realise more easily the various difficulties that crop up in undertaking any particular building, either a new building or the improvement of an existing building. Certainly I cannot accuse the Department of Finance of putting any obstacles in the way so far as school buildings are concerned.

Mr. T.J. O'CONNELL

Is the Minister not aware that a resolution was passed by the Catholic Managers' Association urging the same point that I urged?

Professor O'SULLIVAN

No.

Mr. O'CONNELL

I can send him a copy.

Mr. COONEY

The Minister has commented on a statement I made yesterday evening that we are a subservient power. He denies that. I wish to ask him if it was as representatives of a sovereign power that the Government brought in and passed through this House the Boundary Agreement Act?

ACTING-CHAIRMAN

That has nothing to do with this Vote.

Professor O'SULLIVAN

Absolutely. They could not do it in any other capacity.

Mr. COONEY

Read the speeches of those who advocated it.

Mr. CARNEY

Will the Minister give us the names of the Deputies on these Benches who proposed the abolition of the Civic Guards, or has he merely been wasting his sweetness on the desert air?

Mr. LITTLE

The Minister for Education went out of his way to confuse the issue from our point of view. It is impossible from the Opposition Benches to state a full programme for the reorganisation of all the Departments, showing exactly how much could be reduced here and how much could be reduced there. But Deputy Flinn pointed out that there is a general method which could be adopted, and he took the example of the way in which the Vickers Co. was reorganised by putting in experts to go through the Departments, experts who would be persons quite independent of the influences such as would necessarily bear upon a Civil Service Commission. That adequately, I think, dealt with the point of our having to state in what particular respect a reduction should be made. The Minister for Education also put out a challenge to us to say how we would reduce expenditure. The answer which can naturally be put forward to that is that there can be a reduction made, even by the Ministry as it is, of at least £3,000,000 if they set themselves to doing it. But they have made it impossible to reduce it any more than that, because they have made such agreements on the head of partition and on the head of the Financial Agreement that we are at the loss of that area of taxation included in the Six Counties, and we are suffering for the luxury of the extra Government there, which is costing something like £10,000,000; and as well as that, we are losing, roughly, £5,000,000 as a result of the Financial Agreement.

That is an adequate answer to the challenge of the Minister for Education when he wants to know how a £13,000,000 reduction might be made. It might be made by a Government sufficiently strong to deal with these questions, but it certainly cannot be made by a Government which is responsible for the mess in which we are at present. On the one hand, you have this enormously extravagant system of Government owing to these two agreement, and on the other hand you have the people, who are being plunged more and more into poverty. It is with these facts before us that we have to face the present expenditure on Government services. It will not do merely to say that a man who assumes office might be able to make £5,000 a year if he was somewhere else. We must have regard to other circumstances; we must have regard to the general poverty of the people, and we must have regard to the fact that a man can live fairly comfortably on £1,000 a year, no matter how responsible the office he holds.

Of course it comes naturally from certain Deputies on the opposite benches to say that you cannot get people to serve you unless you pay them extremely well. That is the attitude of people whose only consideration in life is money. But I submit that is not the right attitude of mind of people who honourably enter public service or take part in the life of the State. There are plenty of people serving their country, either in a professional capacity or a public capacity, who are happy to do it with moderate remuneration, who would not change their position to get ten times that remuneration in other lines of life for which they would have contempt. Therefore, it is not merely a question of money. You could get the very best service from men who are inspired with public spirit for £1,000 a year. But it will be a long time before we break away from the evil traditions of the past. Even our education system has not broken away from that. The attitude of mind expressed by the Minister for Education is also expressed by the Education Department, which even still—perhaps not so much as formerly, but to some extent—educates the best brains for export purposes and not for the purpose of building up this country.

The Minister mentioned the Land Commission. He said that the Department for collecting the annuities was not the only one in the Land Commission. As a matter of fact, it is about the only Department in the Land Commission in which a speeding up has taken place. A regular, radical reorganisation was brought about in that Department to speed up the collection, but that did not take place in other Departments dealing with the speeding up of the distribution of land. The Minister for Defence went out of his way to say, in the course of his speech yesterday evening, that there was no question of our not agreeing or not being satisfied with the Treaty which was being contemplated or was rejected by Egypt. He said it was as good as Document No. 2.

Mr. FITZGERALD

I did not.

Mr. LITTLE

I do not wish to misrepresent the Minister, and if I am not stating properly what he said, I will be glad to know what he did say. I understood that he said the Treaty was an admirable one, and that it was as good as Document No. 2. I am not going to enter into a discussion on Document No. 2. It is a very valuable document, and one which should not be misrepresented. I may say that those who laugh at it are those who could never have read it.

The PRESIDENT

It was not as valuable as Document No. 3.

Mr. LITTLE

I do not know what is meant by Document No. 3, unless you mean your own Agreement—the Financial Agreement.

The PRESIDENT

Not at all.

Not at all. I explained the matter yesterday.

Mr. LITTLE

I feel we are bound, when statements are made by responsible Ministers, on a discussion where a question of foreign policy is raised, to refer to it, because there is a Vote here for the Department of External Affairs. When the Minister makes the statement one feels that that cannot be allowed to pass as a final statement of the attitude at least of the whole of this House, and that we are entitled to know what the truth is with reference to that particular Treaty. After all, in the struggle of the smaller nations against empires it has always been a source of great encouragement to the small nation to find that another nation takes notice of its struggle and that it is inclined to back it up and to help it. I would remind the Minister for Defence that in the old days we were very glad to find other countries like Brazil passing votes of sympathy with us in our struggle, votes that were an encouragement to us. The foreign policy of the first Dáil had a great amount of influence at the time because of the sympathy it got for us from other countries. It is really like a matter of a labour organisation, where the weaker is organised against the stronger. After all, the Government must admit that we have not arrived at the goal of full freedom. We have not unity in this country, and we have not complete independence, and even if the Government take up the attitude that we have the best that we could have, they ought to show solidarity with other nations that are struggling to get a greater amount of freedom.

The Minister for Justice went into the matter of the Gárda Síochána in considerable detail. The Gárda Síochána are costing this country £1,600,000 odd, and the number of Gárda, he told us, is 7,210. That means that per head they are costing £230 per annum. If you compare the number of police in Ireland with the number of police in other countries you will see that the number here is much larger. In parts of Germany there are no police at all, and they are not required. There are parts of England where there is one policeman to an enormous area. We really do not require all these police in this country. Anybody who had experience of the time when the police were withdrawn from the rural parts of Ireland—it was just previous to the Black and Tan period, and the police were withdrawn from outlying areas—will realise that you had large areas of the country with no police at all, and at that time we had perfect peace in the country—

Mr. MULLINS

Since we are debarred from going minutely into the different Estimates on the Order Paper, I shall endeavour to follow most of the other Deputies through their speeches. I do not intend to delay the House very long but I have a few comments to make in connection with the remarks made by some Deputies and I have some observations to make on one or two items.

You did not condemn it.

Mr. MULLINS

The Deputy may know as much about it as I do.

Mr. SHAW

You did not condemn the murder of Civic Guards in Waterford, where they were shot in the back.

Mr. MULLINS

If there is talk of murder, both sides can talk. What I would like to get from the Minister is a declaration of policy, or, at least, some information on the point. I put this, not in any spirit of antagonism or bitterness, but in the spirit in which the President made his appeal to this House the week before last. What is the attitude of the C.I.D. and the Gárda Síochána, and on whose instructions are they acting in connection with the present persecution of Republicans in this country? Only two days after the President's appeal here during the course of the debate on Army stores, the Civic Guards and members of the Detective Division were present in a graveyard in West Cork where was buried one of the men who assisted in putting this Government in the position which they occupy to-day. They were present, so far as we could see, in the hope that some action would be taken which would enable them to make a coup—in the hope that the honours which should be rendered to a soldier would not be rendered and could not be rendered. Is that the policy of this Government? That is one thing I would like to know. It has happened on three occasions lately that men who served faithfully and well, and who helped to put the Government in its present position and secured even the little bit of freedom they have so much talk about, are denied the military funeral which is their due because of the fact that they are Republicans. Is not that provocation, and is not that a continuance of the policy started, after the "cease fire" order, in this Dáil by the introduction of Treason Bills, Flogging Bills and all sorts of other provocative Bills by which they hoped to induce the young men of this country to resort again to arms?

There was a statement made by Deputy Anthony, that before the advent of the Gárda Síochána in Cork no man with £1 in his pocket was safe going through the streets. Deputy Anthony evidently has forgotten that there were in the City of Cork in the days before the advent of the Gárda Síochána, or the National Army either, a Republican police force under the command of the late Commandant Denny Barry, and on the admission of even the merchants of Cork, who are largely Conservative, that police force was as efficient in safeguarding the rights and property of the people as any police force that has followed it in the city since.

The Labour Deputies appear to be under the impression that a reduction of this Vote by £1,000,000, as set out in the amendment, would involve a reduction in, or the abolition of, social services or a reduction in the wages of the workers. Since we came into this House we have never advocated a policy of that nature. Deputies, I think, should realise that a policy such as that is not part of our programme, nor would any of the things occur which Deputies seem to suggest in their speeches if the Vote were reduced by the amount stated in the amendment.

There is another point in connection with the activities of the Gárdaí and of the detective division on which I would like some information. We have been told that the peaceable condition of the country is due to the activities of the Gárda Síochána and of the detective division of that force. Yet we find in the Estimates a sum of £10,000 for secret service. Before the debate concludes, I would be glad if some responsible Minister would give us an indication as to what exactly that secret service means. Is it a continuation of the policy of which I have already spoken—an attempt to drive the young men of this country back into a condition of arms, or does the Government think that by these provocative measures and actions, these threats and all that, that they are really going to kill the spirit of independence in the hearts of the young people of this country? If they think that, they are sadly mistaken.

Deputy Wolfe, from my own constituency, in the course of his oration said that we did not want to go back to the days of terror and of anarchy. Probably the Deputy has a very good reason for not wishing to go back to the days of terror and anarchy. Every citizen to-day, we have been told, is a free man. Deputy Wolfe evidently has not heard of one or two men who, at the present moment, though they are good and honest citizens of this Nation and fought to make it free, cannot return to their homes down in the County Cork because of the persecution carried on by the detective division in that county for no reason except that they would not bend the knee to them after the cease fire order in 1923. We have been told that every man is a free man in this country and can walk about in peace. The Deputy also said that no one in the country wanted to have the strength of the Gárda Síochána reduced by a single man. Deputy Wolfe, apparently, forgets the speeches he made during the general election campaign in June last. In these speeches, he advocated economy all round. One of the methods by which he hoped economies would be brought about in this country was by a reduction in the numbers in the defence and police forces.

I am not in favour of the abolition of a police force in this country. I am not saying that we are a nation of saints that can do without a police force, but what I do maintain is that this small, partitioned country does not require the enormous forces that the present Government has at its command at the moment. It certainly does not require, as Deputy Davin said a few moments ago, the gentleman in the Criminal Investigation Department, which is in reality not a criminal investigation department, but a political secret service machine. Deputy J.J. Byrne talked a lot about business. He criticised Deputy Flinn's suggestion that if the Government do not want the Departments run on business lines they could run them on the lines of outdoor relief.

Deputy Byrne appears to be in the same state of mind as most of the other Deputies who spoke on that side of the House. They all seem to forget the fact—Deputy Coburn, I think, was the only one who stressed it—that this small country cannot afford the extravagance of a Government which is costing twenty-three millions a year. If the Committee of which Deputy Heffernan had so much praise a short time ago, the Committee of independent investigators, could not see ways and means of reducing the total Estimate of £23,000,000 to something like £20,000,000 a year, then there is something wrong or some facts are concealed which should be opened to their view and inspection. We maintain that this country does not require an expenditure of the enormous sum of £23,000,000 per year. That is the sum estimated for running the services for the next twelve months. It is because we believe that that proposed expenditure is too high that we are moving to reduce the Estimate by £1,000,000. We maintain that, in spite of the statements made on the other side of the House, especially the statement made by the Minister for Defence with regard to the Army. We believe that the Army is not necessary on its present lines.

The Minister stated that the normal cost of the Army in due time could be reduced to about one and a half millions. He stated further that they should have at their disposal a large body of men trained in the bearing of arms and pledged to the defence of the country against foreign or internal enemies. We maintain that they could have at their disposal a large body of men for a far less sum than that already voted, for that particular purpose. They could have such a body of men at their disposal on a territorial basis, and a force on that basis would give far more efficient and better service to the State and nation than any paid army on the lines of the present system.

And sometimes annoying. The State and the nation— the Deputy, perhaps, in his leisure moments will study both.

Mr. CARNEY

I have studied two States and one nation.

The PRESIDENT

And I am sure the Deputy was much wiser than he was previous to studying them. With reference to the amendment to reduce the Vote by £1,000,000, it struck me that the child is slightly disordered who put down this amendment. £1,000,000 cannot be saved on this Vote, no matter how you try to do so. No Deputy has shown, item by item, where it could be deducted. It is nonsense to say you could save it on the Army. We passed an Army Act. The Deputies on the other side were here when we passed that Act. The soldiers are serving for a certain time. Will a change of Government break a contract of that kind made by their predecessors? Not at all. The comparison between 1913 and 1928 is childish and ridiculous. Only people would make that comparison who have no admiration for anything except the administration that was here in 1913. It might be possible to take a few hundred pounds off an estimate here and there, but estimates such as those for sugar beet, the agricultural grant, education and the old age pensions grant will not admit of a reduction. This proposal to reduce the Vote by £1,000,000 is merely spectacular. I suppose those who made that proposal wanted to show they could do big things when they could take £1,000,000 off an estimate of £7,000,000. I have seen no case made for a reduction on this Vote, and I will vote against the amendment.

Mr. BLYTHE

With regard to the question of concluding this debate this evening, I should point out that the Central Fund Bill cannot be proceeded with until this motion has been passed. It is, I think, necessary that the Central Fund Bill should be concluded on Friday at latest, so that the Seanad may have it next week. The present debate will be continued on the Second Reading of that Bill. I am not asking for time to reply to-night if the vote is going to be taken at 7 o'clock, because I can make my remarks on the Central Fund Bill. I would like to know if it is possible to arrive at some agreement to take this vote at 7 o'clock or continue the discussion after it, so as to be able to dispose of this motion to-night.

Mr. RUTTLEDGE

We are agreeable to take the vote at 7 o'clock and to have Deputy Moore conclude the debate.

Mr. BLYTHE

Thanks.

Mr. MOORE

The President asked us to feel a thrill at the thought that we were voting a very large sum. Of course we all feel a thrill, but our case is that the ordinary working farmer and producer in the country are also entitled to an occasional thrill. We submit, if we could agree that a reduction of £1,000,000 could be made, it would be a considerable thrill, would be a thrill that would have a tremendous effect on the future of the country, and would react here and elsewhere to bring about better conditions. Notwithstanding the devastating speeches made from the Front Benches, particularly the very contemptuous speech of the Minister for Education, we are still satisfied that this million pounds could be saved if there were a desire to save it. I think, in considering whether it is desirable or not, we should not regard it merely from one point of view. We should not consider it from the point of view that these services are there and that they cost so much, but we should consider it— surely the Minister for Education, who is a great philosopher will admit this— from the point of view of the people who have to pay whether they are in a position to do so or not.

Every day in the week you read, in this connection, statements from leading public men, like the Chairman of the Meath County Council, who is no ordinary ranter, I take it, but a responsible man. Speaking a short time ago in connection with the estimates for local government for County Meath, Mr. Quinn, the Chairman of the Meath County Council, said: "Local expenditure, national expenditure, the burden on the ratepayers and taxpayers had reached such dimensions that he thought it time they should call a halt. There was no stemming of the tide of public depression, and, as day succeeded day, that depression became more acute, yet there was no diminution in their standing charges." Is it not our business to take statements like that into account and see if nothing could be done to meet such a situation? Will that man, and the thousands of those who think like him, be consoled on learning from the Government Benches that there is no possibility of reducing the Army, no possibility of taking off a single Civic Guard, that the Government offices must remain as they are, and that every Government service is being run at a minimum? I think that is a very callous attitude to adopt towards the very deep discontent which prevails in the country. I think it was a pity that the President was not told, when he complained that nobody had attempted to go through the items and show where a saving could be effected, that that was ruled out of order early in the debate.

Now that we seem to have come to the position where particular items can be remarked upon, I would call attention to the fact that there is an Estimate of practically £2,000,000 for pensions for the coming year. The defence for that huge sum is, I suppose, that those pensions are part of the Treaty and that they cannot be got over. I do not think that that is a sufficient defence. To tell the farmer who is unable to pay his way, to tell any producer or anyone who is doing useful service and who cannot meet his obligations that we are indebted for £2,000,000 for pensions— a lot of which is admittedly absolutely wasteful and to which, if we had been given an opportunity, we would never agree—to tell a man that he must subscribe to these pensions, irrespective of his means, is hardly a good line to adopt, hardly a satisfactory method of bringing about improved conditions. Further, in regard to pensions, this point could also be raised—namely, how far have the Government endeavoured to insist that pensioners live in the country, that pensions be spent in the Saorstát, and that, as far as possible, they should go back in some way to Irish producers? In other words, even while they have to pay, at least Irish enterprise should get the benefit of as large a portion of the pensions as possible.

I think, when discussing a huge sum such as that mentioned in the Vote, we are, at least, entitled to consider whether we could not get greater advantage out of this money than we get at present. When the Labour Party look at this list, knowing the poverty and privation which prevail at present, it amazes me to see them passing over every item and saying: "It is all right; we have to put up with it." Such an attitude will not get us very far on the road to economy. Let us regard the pension list in another way. Let us turn it into cattle. At £8 a beast, it represents 224,362 cattle. We all know that store cattle for large numbers of small farmers are the principal source of income, and that £8 for a beast is a big sum with a lot of small holders. It represents two years of care and labour in many cases, yet we have 224,362 small holders having to provide a beast valued £8 to pay the pension list due by this State. That is a pretty considerable item. I suggest that a Government that felt a real responsibility to the people would try and get over it in some way. There are other items, such as Temporary Commissions and so on, that, while their cost may not amount to much, indicate a looseness and carelessness about money and a certain indifference, or want of knowledge of the actual conditions prevailing in the country. There is another matter I would like to know something about, namely, why the promise which the President made regarding the revaluation of the loans to fishermen has not been fulfilled and whether it is intended to fulfil it.

There is another very important question on which I think we might have a chance of getting some information before we vote money for the Ministry of Industry and Commerce. That is, that we should know their policy regarding transport. Are they satisfied to allow the present chaos in transport to continue, the present competition between roads and railways and between so many different interests on the roads? Have they no remedy for that? Have they no thought for the complaints that are prevalent all over the country by ratepayers who use the roads that have been made at such a terrific expense to them, that these roads are being ploughed and are going to pieces day after day, owing to the great number of competing buses? Have they no suggestion to make for bringing more order into that little bit of the world? Is it their policy to allow the dozen or more interests that are competing between here and Dalkey to continue to do so, or to allow the number of other interests that are competing on the other roads of the country to continue their competition? Have they no thought of remedying that, or are we to look on such a spectacle as I saw last Saturday, on a road where the population is not more than six to every square mile, of three big buses racing after one another in the space of twenty minutes? Is that their efficiency in the matter of motor transport?

Again you find that although the Railway Tribunal has been in existence for four years, there is no change yet, I think, in the matter of freights. Farmers and others all over the country are complaining very bitterly that practically all the profit on live stock is going in freights. There is no effort made to cut down shipping freights. Railway freights remain at least 100 per cent. more than they were in pre-war days, while everybody knows that the price of agricultural produce is not 30 per cent. more than it was pre-war. Surely it is time that we had some announcement of policy on that matter.

There is one other matter that requires to be made clear. It has been asserted by more than one speaker, and implied by several others, that we here are very much opposed to, or have a special animus against, the Civil Service. I want to make it very clear that that is not the case. If there was such an animus in the Party, I would probably have more responsibility for it than anybody else, inasmuch as I was the only member of the Party who worked in the Civil Service, and I suppose my opinion would have particular weight. I think, in fact, we can make out the case that we have a great deal more respect for the Civil Service than Government Deputies have, in this way —that we hold that civil servants do not look for extravagant pay for their service. We hold that the best men in the Civil Service do not consider their pay as the first thing at all, that they have an enthusiasm for their work which is altogether irrespective of the reward they are getting for it, and that it is an insult to many of them to say that any salary would pay them for their services. We know that there are men in the Civil Service who are worth their weight in gold, metaphorically speaking, but there is no good in talking about that if there is no gold with which to pay them. We believe that the Civil Service, and every public service in the country, would be very glad to respond to an appeal from the Government to consider the terrible plight of the people at the present time and to accept a reduction where a reduction can be made, where there is room for reduction, to respond to an appeal for a more simple kind of government, for a government that would be more in accordance with the desires of the people in the very low circumstances in which the people of Ireland are at the present moment.

With regard to the reduction in the army and the Civic Guard, I think there was a curious plea put forward by Deputy Cooper and Deputy Davin when they said that if you disband the army you are throwing them out on an already over-loaded labour market. That is a rather curious reason to give for keeping the army in existence. If that be a good reason for maintaining an army, then I think a reasonable deduction would be that a good way of employing the unemployed population of the present time would be to set them to work in building battleships, to destroy them after being built and keep on building. I think that would be about as reasonable as to suggest that the army should be kept as an army simply because to disband it would overload the labour market. There would be no overloading of the labour market if Deputy Davin and his colleagues had a more serious view of production. I might remind them that when they spoke of the necessity for increased social services and all that sort of thing, they seemed to have forgotten the necessity for an increased expenditure on social services when the tariff motion was debated here a week or ten days ago.

You had an instance where their own speakers admitted there was a need for speeding up. They fully admitted that tariffs were a means of stimulating production and that it was necessary that more should be got out of the Tariff Commission. Yet because one little amendment of theirs was not accepted they went into the Lobby against the motion to speed it up. There will be much less money for social services until a great deal more of the goods used by the people in the Saorstát are made in the country. If that were being done, if all the things we can make were being made in this country, there would be a great deal more money for social services and there would be, generally, greater welfare amongst the people. I hope, although I do not expect it, that there will be a substantial vote for this reduction of £1,000,000 in the Estimate for the next few months. I believe that the country would welcome it. I believe that the response to it from every section of the population would be such as would gratify every part of this House.

Mr. DAVIN

May I ask Deputy Moore, who is, on this occasion, speaking on behalf of his Party, is he satisfied that sufficient money has been voted for the administration of the Arterial Drainage Act, for land improvement work, for relief schemes, and under other heads, provided for in the Estimates, to give relief to the unemployed?

Mr. MOORE

There is nothing inconsistent, though the Minister for Education thought he had discovered something inconsistent, in advocating a reduction of this Vote, while at the same time being in favour of a greater vote for certain services. It is a perfectly reasonable thing to take the money off one head and put it on to another.

The Committee divided: Tá, 48; Níl, 82.

Tá

Frank Aiken.
Denis Allen.
Neal Blaney.
Daniel Bourke.
Seán Brady.
Robert Briscoe.
Daniel Buckley.
Frank Carney.
Frank Carty.
Michael Clery.
James Coburn.
James Colbert.
Eamon Cooney.
Dan Corkery.
Martin John Corry.
Tadhg Crowley.
Thomas Derrig.
Frank Fahy.
Hugo Flinn.
Andrew Fogarty.
Seán French.
Patrick J. Gorry.
John Goulding.
Seán Hayes.
Gerald Boland.
Patrick Boland.
Samuel Holt.
Patrick Houlihan.
Stephen Jordan.
Michael Joseph Kennedy.
James Joseph Killane.
Mark Killilea.
Michael Kilroy.
Seán F. Lemass.
Patrick John Little.
Seán MacEntee.
Séamus Moore.
Thomas Mullins.
Patrick Joseph O'Dowd.
Seán T. O'Kelly.
Matthew O'Reilly.
Patrick J. Ruttledge.
James Ryan.
Martin Sexton.
Timothy Sheehy (Tipperary).
Patrick Smith.
Richard Walsh.
Francis C. Ward.

Níl

William P. Aird.
Ernest Henry Alton.
Richard Anthony.
James Walter Beckett.
George Cecil Bennett.
Ernest Blythe.
Séamus A. Bourke.
Seán Brodrick.
John Joseph Byrne.
Edmund Carey.
Daniel O'Leary.
Patrick Clancy.
John James Cole.
Mrs. Margt. Collins-O'Driscoll.
Hugh Colohan.
Martin Conlan.
Michael P. Connolly.
Bryan Ricco Cooper.
Richard Corish.
William T. Cosgrave.
Sir James Craig.
James Crowley.
John Daly.
William Davin.
Michael Davis.
Peter de Loughrey.
James N. Dolan.
Peadar Seán Doyle.
Edmund John Duggan.
James Dwyer.
Barry M. Egan.
Osmond Thos. Grattan Esmonde.
James Everett.
Desmond Fitzgerald.
James Fitzgerald-Kenney.
John Good.
Denis J. Gorey.
Alexander Haslett.
John J. Hassett.
Michael R. Heffernan.
Michael Joseph Hennessy.
Thomas Hennessy.
John Hennigan.
Mark Henry.
Patrick Hogan (Clare).
Patrick Hogan (Galway).
Richard Holohan.
Michael Jordan.
Patrick Michael Kelly.
Myles Keogh.
Hugh Alexander Law.
Patrick Leonard.
Finian Lynch.
Arthur Patrick Matthews.
Martin McDonogh.
Michael Og McFadden.
Joseph W. Mongan.
Daniel Morrissey.
Richard Mulcahy.
James E. Murphy.
Timothy Joseph Murphy.
Martin Michael Nally.
John Thomas Nolan.
Richard O'Connell.
Thomas J. O'Connell.
Bartholomew O'Connor.
Timothy Joseph O'Donovan.
John F. O'Hanlon.
Dermot Gun O'Mahony.
Gearoid O'Sullivan.
John Marcus O'Sullivan.
William Archer Redmond.
Patrick Reynolds.
Martin Roddy.
Patrick W. Shaw.
Timothy Sheehy (West Cork).
William Edward Thrift.
Michael Tierney.
Daniel Vaughan.
Vincent Joseph White.
George Wolfe.
Jasper Travers Wolfe.

Tellers:—Tá: Deputies G. Boland and Allen. Níl: Deputies Duggan and P.S. Doyle.

Amendment declared lost.

Original question put.

Mr. RUTTLEDGE

We have already voted on the amendment, and I suppose the voting would be the same as on the amendment.

Question declared carried.

Resolution ordered to be reported to-morrow.

The Dáil went out of Committee.

Dáil Éireann debate - Wednesday, 21 Mar 1928