The President to conclude. Is there any objection?
PRIVATE DEPUTIES' BUSINESS. - The PRESIDENT rose.
I think there are other Deputies who wish to speak.
This is simply a motion that the Dáil stands adjourned till February 20th. It is my view, although it cannot be regarded as a Standing Order binding upon this House, that a motion to adjourn over a period longer than the ordinary period should be made at the beginning of Public Business. This motion was so made, and I take it that Deputies are clear that the motion that the House shall adjourn must be decided by the House to-day, because if it is not so decided the motion would be lost. As a matter of common sense, if this House is to adjourn or is not to adjourn, it must arrive at a decision on that question. I do not know whether the President should get any particular time to reply, but I think if Deputies are clear that the motion must be decided to-day there are certain matters on the Order Paper which, in view of yesterday's proceedings, may be regarded as being urgent, I think the motion should be decided in such time as to allow the House, if it so desires, after first deciding to adjourn, to take that business. That, I think, is reasonable.
May I suggest that we should take these three items on the Order Paper first?
I do not know whether Deputies would agree that the President should get what time he wants to conclude, and that the division should be before half-past one. That would allow time for the other items. Two are non-contentious, and the other is, perhaps, a matter upon which there might be a division. But should the House decide to adjourn at such late hour as that, there would be no time for the transaction of the other business and the result would be that the House, having decided by item No. 13 on the Order Paper to repeal a certain Act at the earliest possible moment, that Act would remain in force until the end of February or perhaps longer. I suggest that as a matter of reason some arrangement should be made.
Would I be in order in proposing an amendment that we adjourn until Wednesday next at 3 o'clock?
I am afraid that amendment is late now. It would not make any difference. We would have to get a decision upon this matter.
It would have a different effect.
An amendment of that kind to the motion would not be of very much value for the reason, that if the motion for the adjournment is defeated the House adjourns until Tuesday next, that being the ordinary sitting day, but by arrangement, Wednesday could be substituted.
Could it not be decided by agreement after all the President has heard during the debate not to force this motion?
That, of course, could be done. I am not precluding that. But in order that we may have no difficulty later on can we not decide now what we are going to do? How many Deputies desire to speak?
Mr. GOREY, Mr. LITTLE, and Mr. GORRY rose.
I suggest that we take items 11, 12 and 13 on the Order Paper, and give five minutes to each Deputy who wants to speak.
And put the question before 2 o'clock. This is one of the questions which, by its very nature, must be put to the House before 2 o'clock, because if the Chair were to withhold its consent to the Closure the Chair would be adjourning the House without allowing the House itself to decide.
Let the President speak now and then we can decide.
We must know what we are going to decide. I am not deciding anything myself beyond this; that it is quite clear that the motion should be put to the House.
I am asking a question that has a bearing upon that. Let the President give us an indication of his policy now.
If the President speaks now will the House take a decision after he finishes and concludes the debate?
DEPUTIES
Yes
Just one point——
No, no. There have been four speakers from the Government Benches, eight from the Fianna Fáil Benches, six from the Labour Benches, and one from the Independents.
We are getting no show at all.
You will get a worse one down the country.
If we had four more speeches of three minutes each would that be sufficient?
One minute will do me.
Will the President not agree to bring in a small supplementary vote for the relief of the unemployed over the period of Christmas?
There is no use in asking me about a supplementary vote.
I am asking the President, through you.
We must decide this question to-day.
Surely you should not stand on procedure or rules where a matter of life and death is concerned.
We must decide this question to-day whether it is a matter of life and death or not.
Appeals have been made from the Opposition. I want to make an appeal to the President from this side of the House, and that is not to disappoint Deputies on the other side. If you accede to their express wish there will be nobody more disappointed than the Opposition. I came into the House yesterday morning and met a considerable number of Deputies from other Parties with their ordinary serious long-drawn faces. I met them half an hour later coming down the stairs. I wondered who had left them a fortune. There were smiles all over their faces. One of them caught me as he was going down and said: "We are going to adjourn to-morrow."
They were pulling your leg.
They were not. You could see Christmas shining all over their faces. The Christmas smile led by streets.
The minute is nearly up.
That is all I wanted to say. They do not mean it at all and nobody would be more disappointed than they.
I do not wish to take up the time of the House very long, but as Deputy Davin has mentioned a matter affecting Leix County, and as I happen to be a member of the Board of Health, I wish to verify his statement with regard to the expenditure on home assistance there. Certainly for the last two or three months the expenditure on home assistance has been increased there. It has increased over the amount estimated. The increased expenditure is due to applications coming from classes of people, including even small farmers, who at present are anxious to make application. The County Council, in response to the Local Government Department, are anxious to meet the wishes of the Department and to put up their portion of the necessary amount required to carry out schemes in towns in that county where unemployment is very acute. I think that the ratepayers of the country are saddled at the moment with all the burdens that they can carry. I say there is a necessity, and I would appeal for some grant to be made available for that county. As a matter of fact, I heard that there are relief schemes in existence, and they are being carried on in County Dublin. I, as a country Deputy, say that unemployment is as acute in my county as it is in County Dublin. I would like then that we should get a certain amount of fair play in that respect. There is undoubtedly in the country districts very acute poverty amongst people who up to the present have not made their position vocal, but who, through force of circumstances, now have to. Therefore I would join with the other Deputies from the county in pressing the Government to consider this matter.
I am quite sure, in regard to the question that was raised a few moments ago about by-roads, that if the Local Government Department reconsider their attitude in that respect it will be very useful. Some of the money we allocate to counties for trunk roads could be made available for country districts.
They cannot do it; they have not the power.
That makes it all the more reason why some other scheme should be devised. I spoke to people last week when I was at home who are unemployed at present and who intend to look for home assistance. They say, assuming they are entitled to fifteen shillings—as breadwinners they say they are entitled to fifteen shillings a week—they are prepared to work for the county surveyor on the roads taking off corners, for instance. Then he can give them a certificate for home assistance which would entitle them to consider themselves as earning the money rather than getting it as relief money.
Naturally enough, it is not to the adjournment, as an adjournment, that one objects, but it is to the adjournment before certain very vital matters have been attended to, and most prominent of these is the condition of poverty and unemployment amongst the people. This adjournment, without making provision for the poor, is going to amount to a death sentence on the weak who are on the verge of starvation, and the responsibility lies on our shoulders in this House. We are here as the representatives of the people, not primarily for the purpose of making political capital out of these things but to look after the conditions of the people. The leader of our Party put it very forcibly on one occasion when he said that the State owes it to the people; when they make certain laws within which they must live they are bound, in absolute duty to see that people do not starve. For that reason I appeal to the Government to try at the last moment to look at the picture of the condition of the poor not merely in Dublin but in Waterford and in the rest of the country and see what they can do to meet what is a real crisis. When a house is on fire one does not start blaming the other fellow even if the other is to blame. One gets the fire out, and one realises that the greatest economy is to be got by putting out the fire. The amount of money which would be spent on unemployment is a real economy, because the unemployed become unemployable, and so create a progressive decay which should be stopped.
There have been so many speeches on the subject that I do not want to dwell on it, but I want to say with reference to Waterford that the Minister for Local Government said if local bodies would put up schemes that there would be co-operation between the Local Government Department and the local bodies. In the case of Waterford that would be extremely difficult, because recently there has been an increase in the rates there to 3s. 4d. in the pound, owing to the fact that a certain arbitration in reference to the port was decided unfavourably to the Corporation of Waterford. Therefore I think he should give very special consideration to the fact that there are 2,000 unemployed in Waterford. The matter is of very urgent necessity, and it should not be regarded merely as a matter of co-operation. There are plenty of schemes which want to be started, such as the water supply, which has not been touched for 70 or 80 years. I hope he will look into the matter and see how far he can go to give some relief to the unemployed there.
I will turn to another question which, perhaps, does not concern a great many individuals, but which is one which would have a salutary effect if dealt with in a proper spirit. I address my remarks to the Minister for Justice. I think he would do valuable work if he succeeded with his Government in getting those political prisoners who are at present in jáil released, and have an amnesty given to those who are on the run. There are a few people still on the run. I think it would have an excellent effect on the country in general if this real gesture was made to show that there is no rankling of the Civil War in the hearts of the Government, and that they are not going to pursue that policy of aggression which they have pursued recently by means of raids, and that they should make a change of front in the matter and release these prisoners. There are in Mountjoy, Stephen Murphy, Mrs. McDermott, and Eva Jackson, Seán McConnell, Patrick Leonard, Patrick Thornbury, Thomas Ryan, Patrick Stapleton, Patrick Fox, James Lyons, John Kinsella and Frank Ryan. In Cork there are H.T. Mitchell, Con Healy, John Riordan. In Portlaoighise there are John Hogan and Mat Hughes. In Sligo there are James Durnan, James Doran, Charles Doran and Thomas Scannell, and in Galway, James Burke. Owing to limited time I cannot go into the individual cases and discuss them. I do not know whether some of them may be regarded as doubtful political cases or not, but even if there is an element of politics about it I say that is a plea that these people are not ordinary criminals and will not be a danger to the community if let out. Therefore the big thing should be done in this matter for the enormous effect it would have on public opinion.
I noticed during the course of this debate that the objections to the adjournment fall under three or four heads. One was that certain items on the Order Paper had not yet been completed; the second was that a certain undertaking regarding legislation had not been fulfilled; the third was unemployment, and the fourth that which has been referred to by Deputy Little, and on which, I think, I am not called upon to make any pronouncement, having regard to the fact that most of these things were discussed quite recently on the Vote for the Department of Justice.
There has been a studied avoidance of one particular aspect of economics here to-day; that is, value for money. If public money is going to be spent, is there going to be value for it? There has been a studied avoidance of that particular aspect of the question, which is an important one. For many weeks we have heard here discussions about the enormous weight of taxation, how the rates locally are pressing upon the people, and how difficult it is for them to carry on. There was an invitation extended here to-day by most of those who contributed to this particular discussion that we should seek to put a still bigger burden upon the already heavily-taxed ratepayers and taxpayers of the country. Looking over the Estimates for the current year—and they do not exhaust by any means all the money that is available for public expenditure—I find in the Local Government Estimate a considerable sum for housing. It represents a subsidy of something like £20,000. In other words, house-building is in the position that it is uneconomic to the extent of twenty per cent. In a sum of over half a million pounds estimated for public works, taking the same percentage, there is £100,000 going waste; there is no value for it, and there is no value for a quarter of a million that we spent on housing under the new Bill. In drainage I find that a sum of £100,000 has been spent, and only this week I had a deputation from Kildare stating that they did not get value for the money spent down there. There was £1,300 of Government money in a total sum of £4,300 spent there. While that condition of affairs exists we are invited to put an additional load on the taxpayers of this country, in order to give, on the showing of Deputies themselves who have made the case, a negligible, an almost useless sum of money to the vast number of people who are concerned. You may take their own figures, 80,000 unemployed. A quarter of a million would give £3 per head. Would that solve unemployment?
May I ask the President what work was done in County Kildare that was unremunerative?
I am not going to go over all that now, but there was a Deputy present at that interview when the deputation stated it was money wasted.
Did you accept the statement as being correct?
What member of the deputation said the money was wasted? I would like to know the name of the member of the deputation who made that statement, because I know one man who is continually saying that we are getting no return for money spent, but there are not ten people in the county who would mind what he says.
This was a sum of £4,000. We were pressed to do the work and we undertook it. There was a strike on the job. The people whose lands were benefited said that they had not got value for the money spent. We had a strike on it, and we had dissatisfaction in respect of the people for whom the work was done. I had a member of another party altogether coming to me and saying that the cost was oppressive on the people who had to pay.
The position with regard to these and other matters is that the Government is standing for a business proposition in connection with the administration of the country. Of course it is unpopular, but we are prepared to stand by it or to fall by it, to give the people value for the money they are contributing, not to put undue taxation on them, and to stand up against any services in the country that are uneconomic.
Take out the Governor-General then.
In that list of items there is over a million pounds of subsidies for which we are not getting value. The position is that we do not approach the solution of our problems from any other angle than the political angle. We should approach it purely from the business point of view.
Is there value in saving human life?
There is excellent value. I should say, in that connection, my reply is the reply I intended to give to Deputy Little, that this House is on fire for seven years, and every year during which this House has been on fire we have been asked to give a big subvention from the State to relieve unemployment, and we are told by the best authorities that that is not well-spent money. There is a sum of £214,000 in local funds for public works, and the only contribution that had any common sense about it came from over there when it was suggested that if we spent £250,000 we would get three-fifths of the total from the local authorities. Obviously, if the local authority is going to spend three-fifths and to get value for its money there should be some safeguard against the two-fifths we are asked to subscribe going into the sieve. The Minister for Finance spoke about our credit being good. Of course it is popular to make great speeches about poverty, destitution and all the rest of it, but if the people who make these speeches had our responsibility they would not be able to borrow money on a favourable basis. It can only be done on a business basis, by showing value for it.
The House had an opportunity of discussing this a short time ago. We have spent, as Deputy Cassidy pointed out, a sum of £1,237,155 on relief works for the last seven years.
How much this year?
£32,000. We have spent over £10,000,000 in restoring destroyed property during the last ten years. We have spent five million pounds on roads, and very considerable sums on the Shannon scheme. Yet we are told we have done nothing towards relieving unemployment.
We did not say that.
Practically nothing.
We gave you credit for everything you did.
I am not here for the purpose of getting any political advantage out of it. I know it is a disadvantageous political pronouncement that I am making, but we are not prepared to ask the House to vote money for the relief of unemployment unless we are going to get pound for pound value for it.
The usual trash.
Question put.
The Dáil divided: Tá, 76; Níl, 62.
Tá
- Aird, William P.
- Alton, Ernest Henry.
- Beckett, James Walter.
- Bennett, George Cecil.
- Blythe, Ernest.
- Bourke, Séamus A.
- Brennan, Michael.
- Brodrick, Seán.
- Byrne, Alfred.
- Byrne, John Joseph.
- Carey, Edmund.
- Coburn, James.
- Cole, John James.
- Collins-O'Driscoll, Mrs. Margt.
- Conlon, Martin.
- Connolly, Michael P.
- Cooper, Bryan Ricco.
- Cosgrave, William T.
- Craig, Sir James.
- Crowley, James.
- Daly, John.
- Davis, Michael.
- De Loughrey, Peter.
- Doherty, Eugene.
- Dolan, James N.
- Doyle, Peadar Seán.
- Duggan, Edmund John.
- Dwyer, James.
- Egan, Barry M.
- Esmonde, Osmond Thos. Grattan.
- Fitzgerald, Desmond.
- Fitzgerald-Kenney, James.
- Good, John.
- O'Sullivan, John Marcus.
- Redmond, William Archer.
- Reynolds, Patrick.
- Roddy, Martin.
- Shaw, Patrick W.
- Gorey, Denis J.
- Haslett, Alexander.
- Hassett, John J.
- Heffernan, Michael R.
- Hennessy, Michael Joseph.
- Hennessy, Thomas.
- Hennigan, John.
- Henry, Mark.
- Hogan, Patrick (Galway).
- Holohan, Richard.
- Jordan, Michael.
- Keogh, Myles.
- Law, Hugh Alexander.
- Leonard, Patrick.
- Lynch, Finian.
- Mathews, Arthur Patrick.
- McDonogh, Martin.
- McFadden, Michael Og.
- McGilligan, Patrick.
- Mongan, Joseph W.
- Mulcahy, Richard.
- Murphy, James E.
- Murphy, Joseph Xavier.
- Myles, James Sproule.
- Nally, Martin Michael.
- Nolan, John Thomas.
- O'Connor, Bartholomew.
- O'Donovan, Timothy Joseph.
- O'Hanlon, John F.
- O'Leary, Daniel.
- O'Mahony, Dermol Gun.
- O'Reilly, John J.
- O'Sullivan, Gearoid.
- Sheehy, Timothy (West Cork).
- Thrift, William Edward.
- Tierney, Michael.
- Vaughan, Daniel.
- Wolfe, Jasper Travers.
Níl
- Allen, Denis.
- Anthony, Richard.
- Blaney, Neal.
- Boland, Gerald.
- Boland, Patrick.
- Bourke, Daniel.
- Brady, Seán.
- Briscoe, Robert.
- Broderick, Henry.
- Carney, Frank.
- Carty, Frank.
- Cassidy, Archie J.
- Clery, Michael.
- Colbert, James.
- Colohan, Hugh.
- Cooney, Eamon.
- Corkery, Dan.
- Corish, Richard.
- Corry, Martin John.
- Crowley, Fred. Hugh.
- Crowley, Tadhg.
- Davin, William.
- Derrig, Thomas.
- De Valera, Eamon.
- Fahy, Frank.
- Fogarty, Andrew.
- French, Seán.
- Gorry, Patrick J.
- Goulding, John.
- Hogan, Patrick (Clare).
- Holt, Samuel.
- Houlihan, Patrick.
- Jordan, Stephen.
- Kennedy, Michael Joseph.
- Kent, William R.
- Kerlin, Frank.
- Killane, James Joseph.
- Killilea, Mark.
- Kilroy, Michael.
- Lemass, Seán F.
- Little, Patrick John.
- Maguire, Ben.
- McEllistrim, Thomas.
- MacEntee, Seán.
- Moore, Séamus.
- Morrissey, Daniel.
- Mullins, Thomas.
- Murphy, Timothy Joseph.
- O'Connell, Thomas J.
- O'Kelly, Seán T.
- O'Leary, William.
- O'Reilly, Matthew.
- O'Reilly, Thomas.
- Powell, Thomas P.
- Ruttledge, Patrick J.
- Ryan, James.
- Sexton, Martin.
- Sheehy, Timothy (Tipperary).
- Smith, Patrick.
- Tubridy, John.
- Walsh, Richard.
- Ward, Francis C.
Tellers: Tá: Deputies Duggan and P.S. Doyle. Níl: Deputies Cassidy and G. Boland.
Question declared carried.