On behalf of Deputy O'Kelly, I move: "That the Estimate be referred back for reconsideration." The purpose for which we are moving the reference back of this Estimate is to give the Dáil an opportunity of expressing its view on the policy of the Government in relation to unemployment. We have had numerous discussions upon this question of unemployment, and it might be thought that no useful purpose would be served by bringing it forward for consideration again. We feel, however, that we cannot possibly endeavour too often to impress upon the minds of Deputies the serious situation that exists in the country and the lack of success which has attended any effort made by the Executive Council to remedy that situation. I think it will be generally admitted that the country is perturbed, and seriously perturbed, at the obvious failure of the Government, not merely to deal with the problem of unemployment but even to appreciate its seriousness. That uneasiness is not confined to any one section or class of the community; it exists among the supporters of the Cumann na nGaedheal Party just as strongly as it exists amongst the supporters of other Parties. The Government appear to feel that their duty is met if they periodically produce estimates in the Dáil which tend to show or to imply that the problem of unemployment is diminishing in extent. Whether their failure to realise its seriousness is due to self-deception or to inadequate information, it has prevented the necessary amount of attention being given to it.
It may be held, and it probably will be argued here to-day, that the Government has no direct responsibility for the unemployed. As Deputies will remember, the attitude of the Government in this matter was expressed in the past in that form. It is held that although the Government should do whatever it can to encourage industries and the initiation of schemes that would give employment, it has no direct responsibility to provide work for those who are without it. That view is altogether at variance with the view held by Deputies on this side and by a large and growing section of the people, particularly by a number of those who are to be regarded as the most important industrialists in the State. The people maintain and pay for the maintenance of the machinery of State—the Executive Council and the Oireachtas, the Civil Service and the police force, to ensure that their social, political and economic activities will be so regulated that their welfare will be promoted.
If a large number of our people are, as we know they are, destitute, the machinery of the State should be set to work in order to improve their conditions. The machinery of State is not being so worked at the moment. The State's obligation to its unemployed citizens is not discharged merely when it provides schemes for the granting of outdoor or institutional relief to those who are actually on the borderline of starvation. It may be held that the Government has no function other than to see that nobody will die for want of food. The Government has taken steps to ensure that such is the case. Nobody need starve. At the worst a person can go into the poorhouse and be provided for there or can throw a brick through a shop window and go to jail. Nobody need starve in any case. But I urge and maintain that the duty of the State is not discharged when it merely provides that there will be food available to keep persons from dying. The State should take upon itself the duty of providing work at a wage that would enable all those willing to work to maintain themselves in decent comfort.
Within this State a particular social order has evolved, and its evolution has been protected by the machinery of the State, maintained and paid for by the people. We give our resources in agricultural land, in minerals, in capital and in technical skill into the control of a number of individuals or groups of individuals to work and develop. If, as a result of their efforts, a livelihood cannot be found for all our people in their own country, the State must step in and so alter the social order that the evils of unemployment and emigration will be either modified or removed entirely. We do not know the extent of the unemployment problem here. I do not wish to renew the complaints which we made quite recently concerning the delay in the publication of the census figures. No matter how plausible the excuses produced by the Minister for Industry and Commerce may sound, we are convinced—and a very large number of people in the country are convinced—that the publication of the figures relating to unemployment, ascertained by the census, was deliberately impeded because it was the view of those associated with the Party management of Cumann na nGaedheal that such publication would be detrimental to their interests. It is, in our opinion, amazing that such essential information collected in 1926 should not be available in 1930. Various estimates of the number of unemployed have been made, not merely by persons associated with the different Parties in this House, but also by persons associated with charitable organisations. These estimates very from 50,000 to 75,000. I do not intend to make any estimate, but anyone who has travelled through the country and discussed the existing situation with public men in different towns —and those men might be expected to know the truth—must be convinced that a serious unemployment problem exists here which has not been adequately attended to.
There is, of course, associated with the problem of unemployment the kindred problem of emigration. This country suffers a net loss of population through emigration every year which is four times heavier than that suffered by Great Britain, the next highest in Europe. The existence of a big unemployment problem now is only a new phase of a problem which has existed for many years and is due to the fact that emigration no longer provides an adequate outlet for those who are unable to get remunerative work in Ireland.
Other countries have unemployment problems as well, although they differ in nature and extent from the problem which exists here. In Great Britain and in the United States of America the seriousness of unemployment has aroused widespread public attention, and is, in fact, the subject-matter of important discussions in the legislatures of those countries. Unemployment in Great Britain and America, however, is due to causes which we do not find operating to anything like the same extent in the Free State. In the first place, it is due to the fact that the home markets are saturated with the products of the industries of those countries to the limits of the purchasing power of the people. Various remedies for that situation have been advanced and novel suggestions are being discussed in different quarters to remedy and prevent the recurrence of such a situation. It does not exist here, however. If our markets are fully supplied with the goods we require, these goods are foreign and can be substituted by our own manufactures if we take steps to reserve the home market for them.
Unemployment in Great Britain, the United States, and similarly situated countries has also been largely aggravated by improved methods of production, improved machinery, improved labour-saving devices which have been adopted and put into operation without any necessary consequential alterations in the working hours of those engaged in the industry. We are, in fact, passing through a transition stage in industry. The invention of a machine which enables the amount of work which 500 men do in a week to be done by half that number results in 250 men being dismissed and deprived of their livelihood, instead of resulting, as common-sense would seem to suggest, in the number of hours which the 500 men formerly had to work being reduced by one-half. Under social conditions as they now exist improved methods of production generally aggravate unemployment. They certainly have had that effect in Great Britain, Germany, America, and other countries. That situation is not serious here, because our capacity to produce the goods we require is, in relation to many articles, much below our consumption of those goods.
In other countries, also, the unemployment problem has been made more serious by the fact that foreign markets are contracting, due to the efforts of foreign Governments to make their nations self-contained. That contraction of the foreign market has gone on while at the same time productive capacity and population have increased at home. That aspect of the problem does not apply here. Our export trade is mainly confined to agricultural products. We have been repeatedly assured by the Minister for Agriculture—and in this matter, at any rate, he is possibly right—that our export trade in agricultural produce has by no means reached its maximum and that with improved marketing methods it would be possible greatly to extend it.
In Germany there is a serious unemployment problem due to the same causes as those operating in Great Britain and America, but aggravated by the fact that the German Government has to pay in reparations to the Allies a sum which bears the same relation to its total State revenue as 21 bears to 100. That particular situation is reproduced here and must be accounted for as one of the contributory causes of unemployment here. We are paying to Great Britain, under the Ultimate Financial Settlement which the Minister for Finance negotiated in 1926, a sum which bears to our total State revenue a higher relationship than the amount which Germany pays in reparations to the Allies has to the total revenue of the German State. Reparations are 21 per cent. of the German State revenue; our payments under the Ultimate Financial Settlement are 24 per cent. of our total State revenue. International economists of undoubted reputation and ability have met in solemn conference and decided that the payment of reparations is one of the main causes of unemployment in Germany. It is to be presumed that if these international economists met to consider the situation here they would conclude that the payments made under the Ultimate Financial Settlement form one of the main causes of the unemployment and emigration in this country.
If we are going to consider methods of solving the unemployment problem we cannot leave out of account the fact that this payment is being made. I do not want to discuss now whether these payments need or need not be made. Deputies know that we urge, and a number of persons not associated with our Party whose ability to express an opinion cannot be denied also urge, that there is no international obligation existing binding us to pay the money. Deputies on the other side insist that we should pay, whether they have any argument to support their case or not. The money has been paid, and because it is being paid we have here an unemployment and an emigration problem of very considerable magnitude. Any responsible body that meets to consider the economic conditions prevailing here cannot leave out of account the Ultimate Financial Settlement payments. The only way by which that particular cause of unemployment can be removed appears to be by removing the present Government. I do not hope that this Dáil will do that; but this Dáil will not always have the sole power of deciding questions of that kind.
Leaving that particular aspect of the problem aside and coming down to the consideration of the immediate cause of unemployment, we find that the outstanding fact concerning unemployment in this country is that it need not exist at all. Other countries in which the unemployment problem is as great if not greater than ours are facing up to the task of dealing with it. The Ministers appear to be satisfied with suppressing information relating to its magnitude, or in so presenting that information as to delude the people concerning it. Repeatedly the Minister for Industry and Commerce has come to the Dáil and endeavoured to present the number of registered unemployed in a manner which would lead people to understand that they represent the total number of those without work. If there is a slight downward fluctuation in the number of registered unemployed the Minister and his colleagues shout loudly that the worst has now passed; a way of dealing with the question has been found, and we have only to sit back with our hands in our pockets and leave the rest to Providence and everything will work out well. Not merely are we failing to face up to our unemployment problem, but we are failing to do so, although it is much easier of solution here than in any other of the countries mentioned in the course of my remarks.
From time to time we have repeatedly urged the necessity for protecting Irish industry from foreign competition and brought to the notice of Deputies the advantages that would accrue from the granting of that protection. It must be admitted that the solution of unemployment depends in the long run upon the development of industry. Whatever can be done in the short run, if we are going to abolish unemployment as we now know it permanently from our national life we must take steps to ensure the development of industry here. It cannot be done in any other way, except we reconcile ourselves to a permenent reduction in the number of people living in the country. The development of industry will require capital, managerial ability and technical skill and we have them all. There will be difficulties undoubtedly in getting them to work, but these difficulties will disappear under the pressure of the demand in the home market, if that market is reserved for Irish enterprise.
The extent of the home market can be easily estimated. Certain puny efforts at protection have already been made by the Government and the results were so good that it is amazing the Government hesitate to follow them up. The few and inadequate tariffs imposed in 1926 and since have given additional employment to just 13,000 workers in the protected industries. The number of protected industries is few, the tariffs, in nearly every case, were too low and the imports of tariffed goods are still very high. And yet, 13,000 workers, who would otherwise be idle, are to-day earning good wages in consequence of the steps which the Government took under the pressure of public opinion.
There are still imported into this country £18,500,000 worth of goods which are at the present time not merely capable of being produced but are actually to-day being manufactured within the country. Leaving out of account goods capable of being manufactured here or goods capable of being substituted by our own products, there are imported into the Free State every twelve months goods to the value of £18,500,000 which are sold in competition with home products. I include in that list such commodities as bacon, hams, flour, bread, slates, motor bodies, and woollen goods, particularly wearing apparel. The net output per head of industrial workers in the Free State in 1926 was £225. Each person engaged in industry in that year was responsible for a net output of £225. The corresponding figure for Great Britain was £210. If we calculate on the Free State figure, we find that the number of workers required to produce a net output valued at £18,500,000 is 82,000. If we calculate on the British figure we get a number of 88,000. I do not believe that there are 82,000 people unemployed in the Free State at present. It is obvious, therefore, that if we can ensure the production merely of these goods which we are in fact engaged in producing, although we are not fully supplying the home market, we shall be able to abolish the unemployment problem as it now exists altogether. That can be done obviously by excluding the foreign goods. I do not think that the exclusion of these foreign goods would have any deterimental effect upon the agricultural community. It has been argued that protection increases the cost of living. The inadequate measure of protection which the Government are responsible for has not, in fact, increased the cost of living.
Since 1925, as I have had occasion to point out before, the cost of living in the Free State has fallen relatively more than in Great Britain, America, France, or any country in Europe. Official statistics published by such bodies as the League of Nations, or statistics made available by journals like the "Economist," are available to show that. Even, however, if it can be argued that the cost of living might have fallen more than it did if these tariffs had not been imposed, it cannot be argued that protection has increased the cost of living. Civil servants, who have had the cost of living bonus reduced since 1925, know that. In any case the provision of such a large additional market to the Irish farmer as would be occasioned by the absorption of 82,000 additional hands into work would have such a good effect that he could afford to bear whatever little burden, if any, would be imposed upon him for one or two years —a short period at any rate—consequent upon the adoption of a protectionist policy in relation to these goods to which I refer.
I am not talking now about industries not yet established here and capable of being established here, but of those industries which do exist, many of which are capable at present, if given a chance, of producing the full quantity of the goods required by the Irish people. It only requires the reservation of the home market to enable these industries to get on their feet and, even if there is a slight dislocation in trade following the adoption of a full protectionist policy, that dislocation will soon disappear and only the benefits of the protection policy will remain. The figures recently produced by the Department of Industry and Commerce showed clearly that one person employed in the Free State consumed a quantity of Irish agricultural produce equal to that consumed by 15 persons employed in Great Britain. It is much more important to the Irish farmer that one additional man should be given work in the Free State than that 15 should be given work in Great Britain, and if we can so extend our industrial production as to provide work for another 82,000 men, then it is a crime against the Irish nation if we are not doing it.
I will admit that it would not be possible to effect that increase at once, no matter how drastically we applied the protective weapon, but we can set out to ensure that industrial production here would be increased by that amount at the end of a fixed period—say 10 years. If we set about that programme with the same vigour and enthusiasm as the Russian Government is now applying to the five-years' programme in operation in that country, we would undoubtedly be able to increase our productive capacity so as to be able to provide the whole of the requirements of the home market in these particular goods at the end of the 10-year period. In that way a permanent solution of the problem of unemployment, as we now know it, can be found.
There is, however, an immediate problem. It is of very little benefit to the unemployed worker to be told that if he sticks it out for 10 years he may get work. The particular task is to provide work for him tomorrow—to find work for him this evening, if we can. He is hungry and his wife and children are without food. Unless he goes into the workhouse or breaks a shop window he is going to continue without food. The State has a duty to ensure that each of these workers who is willing to work is given an opportunity of doing so. It cannot be argued by any responsible individual that there is a single person idle in the Free State at present because there is no work for him to do. There is work waiting to be done—important work —and there are men waiting to do it. But something is gone wrong with the machinery by which the energy of the men can be applied to the performance of the work. What has gone wrong is the collapse or the absence of organisation and leadership. It is the duty of the Executive Council to provide leadership and to erect the organisation. They have not done so; they have failed in their duty, and because they have failed. I suggest that the Dáil should reject this Estimate for the Department of the President of the Executive Council and so express its dissatisfaction.
Other countries have, passed through periods of depression such as we have known. I know that it may be argued that unemployment here is due to a variety of causes for which the Government cannot be blamed. We have had post-war depression trotted out as an excuse for unemployment here. We have even been told that the Irish nation is a country cursed by Providence to remain for all time depopulated and impoverished. Do not believe it. In the United States of America within the past 12 months there was experienced a period of depression in industry as severe as any we have known here. Did the President of the United States sit idle and talk of economic forces which he could not control? Quite the contrary. In a recent speech he stated that the coordinated efforts for which he was responsible among business men, public bodies and other authorities have definitely mitigated the evils of the present slump and brought recovery nearer. He stated, the acceleration of the construction programme had resulted in contracts totalling nearly 500,000,000 dollars during the first four months of this year, or about three times the amount brought into being in the corresponding period of the great slump in 1921. Mr. Hoover stated further his belief in the possibility and indeed the necessity of controlling these occurrences. He did not accept the view that trade booms and trade depression were acts of God, inscrutable as well as inevitable. We have urged in the past and still urge that during any period of depression which now exists here in which a large number of our people are without work the State should embark upon schemes of work providing public utility services which are needed so as to relieve that depression and continue its work on these lines until the period of depression had passed. In other words when trade is booming and unemployment is not serious the State should hold its hands but when trade is depressed and unemployment is serious the State should embark directly upon construction schemes so as to provide work, increase the purchasing power of the people and thus help to bring the period of depression to an end.
Take housing. It has been estimated by the Minister for Local Government that some 40,000 houses are required in the Free State at the moment. That is an underestimate in my opinion. I have made a calculation myself upon the census figures, and I put it at nearer 50,000 than 40,000. The number of houses for the construction of which the State has been responsible, or which the State has facilitated by the giving of grants, is only 17,000. The number of skilled building workers unemployed has increased by 44 per cent. between 1926 and 1929. The number of building trade workers at present insured under the Unemployment Insurance Acts is 24,390. If the present rate of construction were doubled it would not provide all the houses we now require within ten years, and yet by doubling the present rate of construction we could provide direct employment on the construction of the houses for at least 12,000 or 15,000 additional workers. As Deputies know, house-building means not merely employment for those engaged on the construction of the houses, but also employment for those engaged in producing the building materials required. At present building materials are not produced to any great extent in the Free State. Yet we have the natural resources and we have everything else needed, except the market, to enable the majority of the materials required for the construction of houses to be produced here. The market is not available. For some reasons those responsible for housing programmes do not seem anxious at all to encourage the production of building materials here. We have repeatedly pointed out how the Killaloe slate quarry, for example, has been able to sell large quantities of its products to the Glasgow Corporation. In fact, in a recent housing scheme, for which the Glasgow Corporation was responsible, Irish slates were definitely specified, but that same quarry has not succeeded in selling a single slate to the Dublin Corporation, which is controlled at the present time by Commissioners appointed by the Government. If we are going to deal with the housing problem properly we have got to tackle it here from the centre. We cannot possibly ensure the production of 40,000 or 50,000 houses if we are going to leave it in the hands of private enterprise or local government bodies. The existence of this problem is itself a monument to the failure of private enterprise.
Before the Great War, when house-building was not regarded as a State matter at all, the conditions in this country were such as to earn it an unenviable reputation throughout the world, and that particularly relates to the City of Dublin. The housing problem with which we are now faced is very largely a legacy inherited from pre-war days, except that the construction programme for which the Government are responsible is not keeping up with the growth of the demand. As Deputies know, the number of families living in single rooms in tenement dwellings in Dublin has increased by five per cent. in the last eight years. If we get a national housing board established, responsible for the construction of these 40,000 houses, it will be able to organise the production of building materials within the country, because it will be able to provide a guaranteed market to those carrying on that production. In that way it will be able to provide direct employment, not only to those required in building houses, but to a large number of workers throughout the country, producing cement, bricks, slates, and the other things required in house-building.
And yet house-building is only one form of public work on which the Government could engage. I grant it is the most urgent form, apart altogether from the problem of unemployment. The bad housing conditions that exist in Dublin and a number of our towns constitute a social menace which it should be the duty of the Government to remove as rapidly as possible. I have expressed my opinion and I adhere to it, that there can be very few cities of the same size as Dublin in Europe in which the housing conditions are as bad as they are here, 68,000 people living in dwellings described as unfit for human habitation and incapable of being made so fit. I wish Deputies would try to bear that figure in mind, and bearing it in mind, realise the magnitude of the Government's failure, both in relation to this question of housing and the co-related question of unemployment.
There are, however, a number of other avenues along which the Government might seek opportunities of directly providing work for the unemployed. I have pointed out here in the past that there are a large number of medium-sized and smaller towns in the Twenty-Six Counties which have got neither a proper water supply nor a proper sewerage scheme. In the case of some of these towns medical opinions have been expressed that serious epidemics of sickness, due to defective water supplies, seem only to be avoided by good luck. The absence of these works afford an opportunity to the Government of giving constructive employment at a period like the present when unemployment is particularly serious.
There are other avenue that I do not wish to enumerate, such as land reclamation, afforestation, the removal and reconstruction of dangerous bridges and similar work of that kind. Certainly there is plenty of work waiting to be done here in the Free State, sufficient to deal with the immediate problem of unemployment if the Government would only tackle it. That immediate problem can be dealt with in that way while the steps taken for the encouragement of industrial production are being put into operation. We could thus gradually emerge from the present period, dealing with that in the special manner I have indicated. At the end of our 10 years' efforts the amount of work available would be so increased that unless the population substantially increased in the meantime unemployment could not exist.
I ask the Dáil to consider this matter seriously. We have in the past generally confined out discussions on unemployment to requests for the voting of money for relief schemes. Money of that kind is very largely wasted though it may be necessary to spend it to relieve cases of hardship. I want the Dáil to realise, however, that unemployment need not be here in this country of ours; we can remove it if we only can get the organisation and the leadership to direct activities along the lines I have suggested. We have at least 50,000 people unemployed in the Free State at this moment, and that is after eight years of native Government, during which time the population of the 26 Counties actually decreased by just a quarter of a million. During the same period over 300,000 of the very best of our race have been forced to emigrate to other countries to find livelihoods they cannot get at home. These facts, which cannot be controverted, constitute a condemnation of the present Government which would justify this Dáil in passing the amendment to this Estimate and thus expressing its dissatisfaction.
