Unemployment Relief Bill, 1931—Second Stage.

Minister for Finance (Mr. Blythe)

I move "That the Bill be read a Second Time." The question of a grant for the relief of unemployment and distress is one that gave some anxiety to the Executive Council. It was felt that there was a need for such a grant this year. Deputies are aware of the general economic trend of the moment and they are aware of the fact that there has been, for all practical purposes, a stoppage of emigration; that there has been a price fall which has had reactions necessarily on employment, and that, taking everything into account there was at least as great a need for some measure of relief during this period of the year, when employment is normally slack, as there was last year. The figures indicating the numbers of unemployed on the live register show a certain increase. The increase is not very serious. It is rather in the nature of the seasonal rise in the number coming earlier than it should normally come. As a matter of fact the figures as compared with the corresponding date last year are about 5,000 up. They are a couple of thousand higher than in January last. So far as the live register indicates the condition of affairs, there is some increase in the seriousness of the problem of unemployment. In parts of the country there has been a partial or complete failure of the potato crop, and there are parts where, generally speaking, oats also have been very short. Taking all these facts into account, the Government felt that it was necessary, if the means could be found of doing it, to ask the House for some provision for the relief of unemployment and distress. At first the problem seemed one that was very difficult if not incapable of solution, because it was clear to us that we could not well borrow for the relief of unemployment and distress, unless the situation was much more serious than it is, unless there was an absolutely compelling necessity for the raising of large sums of money, and unless there was a situation that was in a measure unprecedented, and that the expenditure was expenditure that could not be in any way regarded as recurrent. The situation is not so bad as that. The sum required could not be held to be larger than the sum of money previously voted in the Dáil.

On the other hand, with a few exceptions, we have had every year since the establishment of the Free State to provide some grant for the inauguration of schemes of employment and provision of relief in other ways. We felt that it was not a matter on which we could vote a certain sum of money and find it by borrowing. This grant clearly must be regarded as a grant of a recurring character which cannot be met by borrowing. Having regard to the prospective Budget deficit, necessitating an increase in taxation, it did not seem that it would be practicable to vote £250,000 or such sum and impose further taxation to find that money. To find that money within the current year would require something considerable in the way of taxation. Then we adverted to the position of the Road Fund. As Deputies are aware from discussions that have taken place in the House, we have a claim to a share of the United Kingdom Road Fund as it existed at the date of the Treaty. Practically since the establishment of the Saorstát negotiations have been going on with the British Government with regard to the apportionment of the fund. For a long time it was impossible to make any progress in regard to that apportionment. However, in the year 1927, some progress was made and the British Government paid over to the Saorstát a sum of £200,000 on account. A further attempt was made to dispose of the matter finally by negotiation, but the attempt was abortive. Finally, in April, 1929, the British Government and the Government of the Saorstát agreed to refer the differences between them to arbitration by Sir Henry Strakosch. The difficulties were not overcome even then, because it was necessary that an agreed statement of the facts should be prepared and laid before the arbitrator. Very great difficulty was experienced in the preparation of that agreed statement of facts, but, in June last, the two Governments agreed on a statement of facts to be laid before the arbitrator. Since that time, both Governments have been preparing their own statements of claim. These documents are practically ready and will be submitted within a few days to the arbitrator. When the arbitrator has read these documents, he will, if necessary, hear oral evidence or receive any further representations that either side wishes to make. He will then be in a position to come to a conclusion. The difficult part of the work has been accomplished, and we are satisfied that it will be possible, at a very early date, to have the matter brought to a conclusion. It is difficult to fix the exact period that the further work will require, but we think that it is very likely that the arbitrator will be able to deliver his award within the current financial year. Even if it is not done quite so soon as that, we are satisfied that it will be done within the twelve months.

I do not want at present to indicate any view as to the amount that we anticipate we shall receive. We are satisfied that there is a further sum due to the Saorstát Exchequer. It is not contested that there is a further sum due to the Saorstát Exchequer, and we propose now to take a sum of £250,000 out of the Road Fund in anticipation of the receipt by the Road Fund of this exceptional income. It might be argued that, as the sum which we will receive—whatever the apportionment may be—was contributed by the motoring public it should be devoted to the Road Fund. But the people who actually contributed this money are dead long ago and their motors are off the road. At any rate, the amount that we will now receive was contributed prior to the year 1921, and we feel that to take a sum such as we propose to take does not involve any undue hardship on those who contribute by way of motor taxation to the work which is done by means of the Road Fund. This vote, although it proposes to take a sum out of the Road Fund, will not prevent the Road Fund carrying on any of the activities that it would normally carry on. It will not prevent the Road Fund carrying on the work which it carried on last year or the year before, or that it would carry on if we had no reason to anticipate a conclusion to the work in connection with the apportionment and no reason, therefore, to anticipate any receipt out of the old United Kingdom Fund.

It is proposed that the £250,000 which will be found in this way shall be spent much as previous grants for the relief of unemployment and distress have been spent—for the carrying out, for the most part, of necessary and useful works in districts where it is possible to carry out such works and in which there is unemployment or distress. Some portion of the money will be devoted, as has previously been the case, to grants for seeds where they may appear to be necessary or by way of grants in other ways which the Department of Agriculture consider the best means of giving relief where distress actually exists. Deputies are aware of the work done by previous relief grants. It is impossible, in connection with work of this kind, to get in every case absolutely the best value for the money spent. But we have, on the whole, I think, got rather good value in the last few years out of the relief funds. One of the precautions that have to be taken in order to get good value is not to limit ourselves to a specified short period for the expenditure of the money voted. In the case of one or two of the earlier relief grants, an attempt was made to spend the whole of the money before the 31st March and not allow the work to go into the following financial year. Where that was done, it was found that the results were not as good as they ought to be. Proper investigation was not possible and sometimes decisions as to the doing or non-doing of a work had to be hurried. Last year we took another point of view and, while we tried to get work started during the winter period when need was greatest, we did not make an attempt to finish the work during that period. We were satisfied, in many cases, if the work was merely begun within the financial year, and we did not insist on undue haste in connection with it. In connection with the present relief grant, while we intend to get the work commenced as quickly as possible, and thus give the greatest measure of employment during the bad period of the year, nevertheless all the precautions that can be taken will be taken to secure that the expenditure not merely gives employment but creates some asset for the public or a convenience for the public that will be in the nature of an asset.

There are many cases where bog roads have been constructed and in which I have heard people say that if the inhabitants of the neighbourhood had combined they could have done the work without a relief grant. I admit that in many cases that would have been possible, but the fact is that there are a great many practical difficulties in the way of co-operation of that sort. In many cases those roads were not constructed. The need of them was there, but they were not constructed. When constructed they were of great convenience and great value to the people of the district in which they were situated, so that whatever may be said in criticism of that, we can hold that relief had been given to the people who worked on them at a period when it was necessary. We can also hold that as a result of their labours at the time there is something that is a definite convenience and a definite economic asset to the people, something that enables them to do their work more cheaply and more effectively now than heretofore.

A great deal of work has also been done in the towns as a result of the relief grant. We have generally insisted there that the greater part of the cost would be borne out of local funds, but we have induced or assisted towns to undertake very necessary works of improvement, sanitary works of various sorts, which are of real value and which perhaps would not be carried out but for these relief grants. While I could not say, in the nature of this thing, that we can be absolutely sure that the full value is got for every penny I do think that in recent years we have got on the whole very good value. I am satisfied that the money which it is now proposed to spend will give as good value to the country and to the community as a whole as would be given if we allowed the money to remain in the Road Fund and allowed any sum which may be coming from the old United Kingdom Fund to go into it and be spent entirely on the roads. There is a certain limitation in regard to the areas and in regard to the employment that can be given out of the Road Fund. There are many areas where it would be impossible, I think, to carry out any useful work out of the Road Fund and if we tried to meet the situation, for instance, by anticipating this extra receipt and increase employment on work financed out of the Road Fund, we would not be able to do anything for many areas where the need is greatest. As I have already indicated there are areas where the appropriate means of giving relief would not be by work on the roads. Representations have been made that there are areas for instance where the potato crop and the oat crop were so bad that one of the best things that could be done would be to supply seed. Where there are areas such as that, it may be that to make the relief really useful for the people there it may be necessary to give grants of that sort.

Mr. de Valera

Some time ago when the Cumann na nGaedheal were thinking that there might be an election, they circulated a certain document which was referred to here by Deputy Flinn on a former occasion. One of the sentences in that document was that "in no Department of the National life has the Government failed to apply energetic, resourceful, constructive effort." I suppose we are to take it that this yearly dole represents such an effort, energetic, resourceful, constructive, on the part of the Government. The yearly dole of one quarter million pounds is their contribution towards dealing with our fundamental problem at the present moment, the problem of unemployment. The manner in which they propose to find the money is rather peculiar. When I was listening to the Minister for Finance it occurred to me that very recently there was a certain definition given of embezzlement that was given us very very recently, I think it was by a member of the Government. It had reference to the land annuities. It said: "The collection by a Government, which does not apply them to their statutory purpose, is embezzlement of these moneys." The collection of moneys and the non-application of them to their statutory purpose is embezzlement of these moneys. I wonder how the present proposal of the Government would stand in relation to that definition? These moneys were collected for one purpose. The Government proposed to apply them to another. Are the Government going to say that their action in this case is embezzlement? Are they going to answer the Alice-in-Wonderland question they proposed a few days ago and say that "here is embezzlement that is not embezzlement —it is done by a Cumann na nGaedheal Government?" That is only by the way, however. I am not particularly interested in that matter.

What I am interested in is that this, I take it, is the Government's contribution towards the solution of the problem of unemployment. It is not a new problem; it has been there for a considerable time. As far as we are concerned in this country it is a different sort of problem to that which obtains in other countries as a result of post-war conditions. I say it is a very old problem for us. We have partially solved it by emigrating people from this country who could not get employment in it. The danger I see, as I said a couple of years ago when I was referring to the same thing, is that we are inclined to approach it in a fatalistic way, as if it should be the normal condition here, as if it were something we ought to take for granted, something which we should put up with and not something which we should make up our minds definitely to end. I have time after time said that in my belief the solution of unemployment is easier to find in this country at the present moment than it is in any other country facing that problem. In industrial countries like Great Britain and America that depend very largely for work for their people on their finding foreign markets for their manufactured goods, in their case undoubtedly very great difficulties exist at the present moment, but that is not the case with us. If we make up our minds to apply a remedy we have the remedy. We are not an industrialised country.

We are a virgin soil as far as industries are concerned. And the cure for unemployment in this country lies in supplying ourselves with the manufactured goods which at the present moment we needlessly import. The present Government has followed in this relation the policy of giving work to strangers while we allow our own people to be idle.

It is no harm for us again to look at the figures and see the extent of this problem. The unemployment figures from the employment exchanges in October, 1930, were 20,775. In October of this year the figure had gone up by 2,652 to 23,427. That is the number that is registered at the exchanges. But we all know that these figures are far short of reaching the total number who are unemployed. We know that these figures, for instance, do not include the farm workers, to take a single occupational group, nor do they include a number of other uninsured occupations. They do not include many of those who have exhausted benefit, and who have, therefore, no inducement to register. They do not include the young people who have not yet entered into employment. So that these Exchange figures, you can see at once, must be far short of the total number who are at this moment unemployed. And, of course, we have that borne out by the Census figures of 1926. In the report of that year, when the Census was taken, the number of unemployed as found from the exchanges was 32,925. When the Census figures were published recently we found that at that particular time the number set down as unemployed was not 32,000, but was 78,000. If we applied the same ratio—and I think I can say that the ratio will not give us the total that we may expect to be unemployed at the moment—if we apply that ratio to the numbers given this year by the exchanges, 23,427, we will find that there are over 55,000 unemployed; and even that does not take account of the particular situation at the present time, when emigration has been stopped. So that I feel certain that a figure like 60,000 is a minimum figure for the number of people who are unemployed at the present moment. And to think that an annual dole of £250,000, representing a couple of weeks' work, is to be regarded as a contribution to dealing with that problem! People are quite satisfied to forget the unemployment problem, they are satisfied that it should remain, they are satisfied that no adequate steps can be taken to remedy it. That is how I see it. Sixty thousand bread-winners are to have divided amongst them £250,000. There is not three weeks' work for the unemployed in that dole.

I wonder are we content with that? Are we content to sit idly by and allow that problem to remain unsolved? We ought to be able to picture for ourselves what it means to have families living actually in a condition in which they are faced with starvation, in which our young people, our children, have to be brought up at the most critical period of their lives under circumstances which mean that they are likely to be stunted in mind and in body. Are we content that that should continue if there is a remedy, a demonstrable remedy? Are we content to allow ourselves to lose every year the wealth that could be produced by these 60,000 hands if they were usefully employed? Apart altogether from what I might call the humanitarian or the human side of the question, there is the definite loss that we are suffering by the fact that these hands are not engaged in the production of wealth as they could be. These 60,000 people if they were employed and distributed even in the present proportions between the agricultural and the manufacturing industries, would produce yearly something like 6¾ million pounds worth of wealth. So that our loss by the continuance of these people unemployed, the gross economic loss, the loss to the community in deprivation of wealth, is something like 6¾ million pounds per year. It has accumulated over the number of years that it has been allowed to continue since the Free State was established and it has reached a very large sum indeed.

Mr. J.X. Murphy

What has the Deputy said about the production of 60,000? I think he mentioned some millions, I did not catch the figures.

Mr. de Valera

I say that if the 60,000 people at present unemployed were divided roughly in proportion to the way in which the present occupational population is divided, giving the agricultural industry its proportion and the other industries their proportion as they are at present distributed, the employment of 60,000 people would give us an annual wealth of 6¾ million pounds, and over a period of ten years it would be obviously ten times that figure, that is, it would amount to something like 67 million pounds. In other words, that is an indication of the national loss over a period of ten years resulting from allowing this unemployment to continue.

I have spoken about the cure for unemployment. There is no difficulty in anyone convincing himself that a cure is obtainable if he takes the trades statistics for any year and examines the unnecessary imports into this country during that year. If you go through it you will find that it is a minimum estimate to say that we are importing some 30 millions worth of manufactured goods which could be produced here if we organised ourselves to produce them. If you take the separate items and take the census of production dealing with the same manufactures and try to estimate from the census of production what is the employment that would be given in the production of these goods, most of them of the same character as those already produced, but produced in insufficient quantities, you will convince yourself that there is employment for some 80,000 people—the figure I have here is 85,000, but I am leaving out the odd thousands—in the manufacture of those imports which are unnecessarily brought in. That is for manufactured goods without any reference whatever to the employment that could be given in growing grain and fruit and the other things which come directly from the land and could be produced here. Nor does it take any account of the extra employment that would be given in transport and a number of other services which would be bound to keep pace more or less with the employment that would be given in the direct production of goods.

I will give you some examples. I have here a list running over the principal items of our imports. I do not propose to go through them all. I shall only take a small number. Take boots and shoes for example. In making up this total of 85,000 workers that could be employed in the production of these goods that we unnecessarily import, I have 5,475 as the extra hands that could be employed in the boot trade. We have a report from the Tariff Commission which was issued since these figures were originally compiled. These figures were compiled mainly in relation to 1928. They are substantially the same to-day. As a check upon them, you can look at the figures given for boots in the Tariff Commission report. It was stated in that report that although only one-tenth of the home demand was supplied by home factories the production of that one-tenth gave employment to 1,200 people. As far as that is concerned at any rate, it would appear that the figures which I have here as the result of an analysis made for me are an underestimate and not an overestimate, and that is a fair sample. In woollens and worsteds the number that could be employed if we were to produce those goods which we import at present would be 6,983 or, roughly, 7,000 people; in hosiery, of which we import, roughly, £1,000,000 worth, the employment that would be given would be over 6,000; in clothing generally the employment that could be given would be about 14,000; in paper manufacture generally, over 4,000; in manufactures from wood, over 4,000; in metal manufactures, exclusive of machinery and implements, about 5,000; and in the case of mine and quarry products, not metals, 11,000. These are some sample figures from the total of over 80,000.

I say that as long as we have a condition like that we have an opportunity for dealing with unemployment such as no other country that I know of has. No other country has such an easy road to solve their unemployment problem as we have in face of these conditions. Why is it then that the Government that boast that they have applied energetic, resourceful and constructive effort to every problem of the national life do not apply themselves to solve the problem decently instead of trying to put off the unemployed with a sop of £250,000 a year or so? I cannot understand why they do not. As I said, these figures relate solely to manufactured goods which we import. I have not included the tens of thousands that could be employed in producing the grain that we unnecessarily import and that would be also employed in the distribution, transport and other services that would go hand in hand with that development of the home industry. Anybody who wants to see the solution for this unemployment problem can see it by looking at these statistics. The solution lies there. Anybody who examines them and analyses them in detail will realise that our trade economy, so to speak, is all wrong. You will find, if you try to separate the goods that are manufactured, and on which a considerable amount of labour is spent, from the raw materials on which little labour is spent or which are simply prepared, that at present some 70 per cent. of our imports are manufactured goods and only 30 per cent. are raw materials or those simply prepared. Whereas, if you examine our exports you will find that only 40 per cent. are manufactured and that 60 per cent. are raw materials or simply prepared. I think that that proves that I was not overstating the case when I said that if the Government appear to have any policy in this matter it is the policy of giving work to the stranger and denying to our own people the opportunity to work.

That is why you have this extraordinary state of affairs revealed by the statistics of British imports and exports recently published. I remember when I first noticed in the early part of the war that the 4¼ million people in this island were second in the world as purchasers of British goods. I thought it extraordinary that with 4¼ millions of people we should be buying practically as much from Great Britain, as, say, Germany was buying, more than France and more than the United States. In the case of Germany you had 60 million people and in the case of the United States you had 120 million people trading with Great Britain. I thought it was extraordinary that these 4¼ million people in this island should be buying more goods from Great Britain than those countries with very large populations of 60 million and 120 million respectively. Of course I accounted for that by the fact that Great Britain had the power of legislating for this country and of forcing an economic policy on this country which suited herself and did not suit us. It provided, as far as I was concerned, an explanation, but even with the explanation it seemed to me to be an extraordinary fact, so extraordinary that I several times checked it to make sure that I was not mistaken.

The position after the war worsened. We got from second to first place shortly after the war, and the position to-day is that the Twenty-Six Counties alone of this small country, with a population of less than three million people, are buying, from the Six Counties and Great Britain put together, more goods than any other country in the world. The figures were published a few days ago, and they ought at least to set us to think.

The exports from Great Britain and the Six Counties to the Twenty-Six Counties, from January to September, amounted to £29,000,000. And the amount they got from the Twenty-Six Counties was £26,000,000. Of course, we have known for a long time that the balance of trade was some millions against us. There was nothing new in that. But what was extraordinary was that we should buy £29,000,000 worth of goods from Britain whereas 320,000,000 of people in India should be buying only £25,000,000 worth and France should be only buying £24,000,000 worth, Germany £23,000,000, the United States £18,000,000 worth, Canada £17,000,000 worth, Australia £11,000,000 worth, and so on.

[An Leas-Cheann Comhairle took the Chair.]

Mr. Doherty

What is your policy?

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

Order, order, the Deputy must not interrupt.

Mr. de Valera

I suppose I should not mind. The extraordinary thing, I say, is that less than three millions of people should be so dependent upon strangers to produce for them the ordinary things that they need, that they should be buying from Britain more than India buys with its 320,000,000 of people, more than the United States with its 120,000,000 of people and so on. It proves to us that we are in a situation such as no other country in the world is in at the present moment. It is a situation which gives us an opportunity, if we use it aright, of trying to deal with our unemployment problem. Every indication is there to show that our economy is, as I stated, all wrong, upside down, topsy-turvy; that the percentage of manufactured goods which we are importing is out of all comparison to our exports; that if we import goods, the percentage of raw material ought naturally to be more than that of manufactured goods if we are going to live in an ordinary commonsense way. I have not been able at any time to understand the Government's attitude in this matter.

For years before the Treaty they went round asking the people to try and get legislative control for the people of this country in order that that control might be used to stop this sort of thing of giving employment to the stranger when our young people were compelled to go to the emigrant ship. They have had for the past ten years the opportunity of changing that policy in their hands, and they have set their faces evidently against changing it, and while whatever efforts they have made are so unfruitful as they appear to be, they will have the audacity to come before the people and ask to be returned to power as a Government that has applied resourceful, energetic, and constructive efforts to every national problem. The trouble is that the people are starving while this sort of thing is going on, that the people who could be employed and given the opportunity to produce wealth, and who ought to be self-respecting and self-supporting, are denied it because we are continuing on with this policy. I have never been able to account for it. Whenever we put forward proposals we were asked by some people on the opposite benches: "What are your proposals?" We are giving them. They are to set out to organise ourselves to produce the boots and hosiery that we want for ourselves, the clothing we want for ourselves, the grain that we want for ourselves, if necessary, to give employment. There is more wealth being lost by leaving those people unemployed than will be gained by any scheme put forward from the benches opposite. That is what we are losing. As I say, it is a marvel to me, with the solution staring them in the face, the Executive will not go and work out the solution. They have turned their backs apparently on their own past with respect to this question.

They asked, as I said a moment ago, the Irish people to support them to get legislative independence in order that they might be able to reverse the British policy that destroyed our country even in the lifetime of some of the older people living at that time. Ten years ago, I remember, hardly an audience was addressed that was not told that in the lifetime of some of the members of that audience the population had been reduced to one-half, and that that had taken place in one of the most fertile countries in the world. Our population to-day is something like 130 people to the square mile. If I remember rightly, it is 229 in Denmark and over 600 in Belgium. I think we would have something like seven and a half million people in this country if we had the same density of population as in Denmark, and we would have something like twenty-one and a half millions in this island if we had only the same density as Belgium. The soil of Belgium is not as well fitted to support human life and to supply all the needs of life as is the soil of this country. They asked people to make sacrifices; they asked young men to give up their lives if necessary in order that the Irish people could be put in the position in which they could end that rot which was killing the nation at a rate unprecedented. What has happened since they came into power?

In the twenty years that have elapsed since the last British census was taken, 100,000 more people than there is at present in the whole province of Connaught have gone out of this island, and since the Free State took office and out of the Twenty-Six Counties there are a quarter of a million gone. It was to end that that they asked the young people of Ireland to make sacrifices, to give up their lives if necessary, in order that they might put an end to it. And whenever any effort is made to induce them to face this problem, when we ask them to employ hands in this country to supply our own grain, they try to make little of it and say "we are going to follow the example of Canada." We have never asked that we should be compelled to produce grain here for export. All we have said is that as long as Irish lands are idle and as long as Irish hands are idle the right thing to do is to put these hands at work and make these lands fruitful and to produce from the soil the things we are paying the foreigner for.

We hear a great deal about what the Government has done in the building of houses. A short time ago I saw the figure for the building trade. In 1930 the number unemployed was 764. This year it has gone up, by more than 50 per cent., to 1,169. There does not seem to be much indication in that of activity in house building. 764 last year has become in the year 1,169, an increase of 53 per cent. If there is one thing in which the Government has failed more than another, and goodness knows there are a number of things in which it has failed, it has failed pre-eminently to deal satisfactorily with this fundamental question, the question of unemployment. We have got a wonderful opportunity here to solve this question. We have got a wonderful opportunity to rebuild this nation and keep our young people at home as a result of the fact that they are now denied entry into the United States and that there is no work for them outside. There is work available for them here if we set out to give them that work. It is a question of organisation and of proper lead from the Government. We expected that the Government would deal with the problem in that way as a problem which would have to be solved and not as something which should be dealt with by giving a yearly sop of something like a quarter of a million pounds—two or three weeks' work to the unemployed. I have only to say that the Government's record of dealing with this is more disappointing than its record in dealing with any other single thing that is of pressing national importance.

Mr. T.J. O'Connell

Any attempt, no matter how halting or belated, to deal with the immediate and pressing problem caused by the fact that large numbers of people find themselves unemployed and therefore without means of sustenance is one which must be welcomed. Even the Government themselves do not pretend that giving grants of this kind from year to year is a permanent solution of the unemployment problem, and so far as I myself am concerned I have abandoned hope that the present Government will tackle the permanent solution of this question in the only manner in which the problem will, in my opinion, be permanently solved.

Mr. Doherty

Why?

Mr. O'Connell

Because it has elected supporters like you to back it, I suppose. That is one of the reasons. I suppose that the arguments which may be put forward in this House to induce the Government to deal with the problem in a permanent way are largely wasted efforts. Even if we could all agree at the present moment on a scheme for the permanent solution of our unemployed problem the immediate question would have to be dealt with in some such manner as the provision of grants to provide immediate employment for as many people as can be put to work. On that basis the present proposal of the Government deserves support. The obvious criticism of the proposal is that it will do nothing like meeting even the immediate necessities of the case. The Minister, in his opening remark, said that the need was as great as last year. I think there is nobody in this House who knows the conditions that exist in the country to-day but must agree that the need is very much greater now than it was last year, and very much greater than it has been for very many years. Such figures as are available and any evidence that is available go to show that the number of unemployed is increasing rapidly, especially since September last. We have actual figures supplied by the Minister for Industry and Commerce, in a reply given to me on the 11th of last month, showing that on the 2nd November there were 26,353 people registered as unemployed, and showing that there was an increase during the months of September and October in the number of registered unemployed of 5,272.

I have no doubt whatever that the figures for the present month, if they were available, would show an increase of at least two thousand. We had in a reply given to Deputy Good a few weeks ago figures showing that even in the skilled trades, in the building trade, the trade in which we were given to understand there was considerable activity, there were four hundred more unemployed then than at the same period last year. We know that in the last few years, in the railway industry, thousands of men have been unemployed, and it is no exaggeration to say that the numbers dismissed from railway employment since 1926 is something like 5,000. Some of these perhaps have got employment elsewhere, but a very large number of them are idle still. These men have not been registered; they were never registered, and they were not entitled to be registered as unemployed people. In addition we have numbers of people engaged in our main industry of agriculture and they are not eligible for entry on the unemployment register. If we take all these things into account, and take specially into account the fact that emigration has been stopped and that numbers of young men and young women who in the ordinary way would have gone to seek a livelihood in the United States or Canada, have been prevented in the last twelve months from emigrating; if we take into account the numbers of men who went from Donegal and Mayo to England and Scotland in the years gone by in order to find work there, and if we take into account the further fact that in the western, south-western and north-western districts of the country there are numerous uneconomic holders who have work on their little farms only for a small period of the year, and who are never fully employed and who are always anxious to get work of some kind during portion of the year—if we take all these things into account, I think the figures that have been mentioned here are under the mark. Deputy de Valera estimated the figure at something like 60,000.

Mr. de Valera

That is a minimum.

Mr. O'Connell

I would say that is a very conservative estimate of the number of people unemployed. I think the figure would be very much nearer to 80,000. Under these circumstances one asks how far this £250,000 which is made available in this Bill is going to meet that problem and to how many people will it give employment? We have evidence in the home assistance figures to show the amount that is being paid weekly. The home assistance has been increasing rapidly during the past few months. In the "Irish Independent" for October 29th we find a report which shows that 7,130 families had received home assistance in Dublin during the week previous to that date. These figures are increasing, and in the face of that how far would this £250,000 go to relieve the existing situation? None of us will say that it will do more than barely relieve the necessities of a small proportion of the unemployed people for a short period.

The Minister said that, as a rule, borrowing to meet unemployment of this kind is not to be resorted to except in exceptional cases. He made that reservation. I should like to know what kind of case the Minister could envisage which would, in his opinion, justify borrowing to relieve unemployment. If the existing situation in this country does not justify it I cannot imagine that anything can do so. I cannot imagine that anything could be so bad as the condition of things in the country at the present time—I mean, short actually of conditions being such that nothing that could be done would relieve the situation.

Mr. Doherty

What about the Departments of State—have not they all this information?

Mr. Hogan (Clare)

Hear, hear.

Mr. O'Connell

A suggestion has been made by responsible bodies that I should like to bring before the Minister and ask his opinion on, and ask why the suggestion has not been acted on. This money is money that was contributed for the purpose of the Road Fund and I am not offering any objection that it should be used in the way it is being used. But over a year ago the Tourist Development Association suggested to the Government that it was possible to borrow something up to one million pounds on the strength of the Road Fund alone without adding anything to existing taxation. The point has been made that in 1925 the income of the Road Fund was approximately like £450,000. The income last year was more than double that sum. The one factor which led to the doubling of that income was the fact that two million pounds had been spent on the improvement of roads. This encouraged the growth of motor traction. The fact that the roads were reconditioned and put into a condition to accommodate motor traction increased the Road Fund. The figures that have been supplied to me with regard to the road mileage that has been improved go to show that a very considerable number of first-class roads are still unimproved. There is a greater mileage still of second-class roads unimproved, and many of the tourist roads remain unimproved. Money could be borrowed on the strength of the Road Fund for the purpose of improving those roads. That proposition was made 12 months ago by the Tourist Development Association. I understand that it has the approval of the Roads Advisory Committee. Quite recently we have had bodies like the Meath County Council and other county councils urging this proposal on the Government. It seems to me a very practical suggestion for dealing with a problem of this kind. We all know that one of the best ways of giving immediate employment to numbers of unskilled people is through road work. If the Minister did that he would then be in a position to devote practically all of this £250,000 that he is making available in this manner to other purposes than to road work.

He would be able to devote it to such purposes as sewerage, waterworks, drainage, bog roads and other roads that would not in the ordinary way be aided by the Road Fund. If it is possible—and I see no reason why it is not possible—to make this money available, it would help to relieve to a very considerable extent the situation that now exists. We know that this grant will go only a little distance towards dealing with the existing situation. In the main I agree with Deputy de Valera's arguments with regard to unemployment. I believe that permanent employment could be found for most, if not all, of our own people by producing the goods we need, and the necessaries of life, and that it only requires an organised effort on our part to bring about that situation. The necessary organisation can only be set afoot by the State; that is the policy we have always stood for, and in our experience of the present Government we have seen nothing which would lead us to depart from that policy.

Mr. Lemass

I was somewhat surprised and disappointed by the attitude of the Minister for Finance in moving the Second Reading of this measure. When last week he whispered the news to the political correspondent of the "Irish Independent" that this Bill was coming, and that correspondent spread himself out over the principal page of that journal, I was led to expect something different. I thought the Minister would come to the Dáil in exultation, asking it to congratulate him on his skill in producing rabbits out of a hat and in finding a quarter of a million of money where Fianna Fáil had not even dared to look for it. That was what we were told by the political correspondent of the "Irish Independent" that the Minister had done. The Government, we were told, was going to do more for unemployment than the Labour Party had hoped they might do. The Minister came, however, in a different mood altogether. There was no trace of exultation in his voice. He opened his speech by making an elaborate apology for the Bill. Apparently he considered it essential to explain in detail why it was necessary to introduce proposals for the relief of unemployment at all. To whom was he apologising? We are anxious to know that. Suggestions have been made recently that the Government's policy is not finally determined in the Executive Council, and the fact that the Minister thought fit to apologise for taking any action for the relief of unemployment would seem to lend some truth to this suggestion. The Minister carefully explained that unemployment this year was, at least, as bad as it was last year. He even told us that, judged from some particular angles, it might be described as worse, and therefore he asked leave of this unknown force to bring forward this measure for the provision of temporary relief.

The Minister, in explaining the Bill, had, of course, to give some indication of the truth, but he was, needless to remark, anxious at the same time not to reveal the whole picture, because if he revealed the whole picture and gave the House an idea of what the real conditions in the country were, it would see at once the inadequacy of the proposal he is making. He did not exaggerate the picture at all. He said there was some increase in the number of unemployed. There has been a substantial increase. The number at present registered as unemployed at the labour exchanges has not merely increased this year, but it has been steadily increasing every year since 1929. As Deputy de Valera and Deputy O'Connell pointed out, the figures that have been published in relation to the registered unemployed give an indication of the growth of the unemployment problem, but they are not a measure of its size. The fact that there are 25,000 people registered as unemployed does not mean that there are only 25,000 unemployed in the country. It does not mean that there are only even twice that number unemployed. From such indications as it is possible to get and such statistics as are available in the various Government publications, there is good reason for believing that the number registered is, roughly speaking, only one-third of the total number of idle workers in the country. This year, in addition to the continual worsening of the employment problem, which has been going on for a number of years, we have the fact that due to the economic conditions in the United States and in Great Britain emigration has ceased, so that 25,000 or 30,000 young people who would normally emigrate are at home and remain idle. If we have got an unemployment problem that is one-half as serious as the figures available would suggest, this Bill is a mere drop in the ocean, and is totally inadequate to deal with it. The Minister for Finance, in coming with this Bill to the Dáil, is like the man who tried to put out a fire by spitting on it.

We have in Dublin an unemployment problem so serious that the municipal council spend on outdoor relief, and in assisting the destitute, an annual sum as great as that spent by the Government over the whole country. Outdoor relief is not available for single workers. It is only available for those incapacitated through illness or able-bodied workers with dependents. Over and above those who can be maintained in that way, there are large numbers of young people in this city who have left school and who, from the day they left school, never got the opportunity of earning a penny. Because of that forced idleness and forced inactivity, at the most important period of their lives, when their characters are being formed, they are deteriorating rapidly, and creating for this State a social as well as an economic problem.

Of course I know that the Minister for Finance, when replying, will adopt the usual attitude, will make a few flippant remarks about the fact that the Opposition always describe the Government proposals as inadequate. I do not think there was ever an unemployment relief grant introduced by the Government on which the Minister has not said that. He can save himself the trouble on this occasion. We know that is what he is going to say. It does not follow from the fact that we have always said this that we were not always right. Even if we were not right in the past we are certainly right on this occasion. A quarter of a million for the relief of some 60,000 or 70,000 unemployed is a mere bagatelle. It will go nowhere. It would not be sufficient to deal with unemployment in Dublin alone. In this debate, as in most other debates of this nature, I suppose the majority of Deputies will confine themselves to unemployment in their own constituencies. I represent Dublin, and I feel justified in speaking specially about the position in Dublin, because of the fact that unemployment in Dublin is worse than in any other part of the State. It is not merely worse, but every year it is increasing in size in the city much more rapidly than in any other part of the State. In a normal year unemployment would reach the peak in January. One would expect from that on, and during the summer months, that the number of unemployed people would decrease until the end of the year, when the peak figure would be touched again. In this year, in Dublin, more people were registered as unemployed in the month of October than there were in the month of January. When one would clearly expect unemployment to be less, it was in fact greater. That is true of Dublin. It is true also of Carlow and Waterford, but it is not true of any other Exchange district in the State. That would seem to indicate that there are special circumstances operating here to aggravate the unemployment problem which do not operate generally throughout the State. Most Deputies know, from their own personal experience, apart from whatever statistical proof is available, that that is the case. Do the Government honestly believe that by the provision of a quarter of a million pounds they can do anything to deal with unemployment except make a pretence which will, perhaps, carry them over the General Election? Personally, I think that is what the Government are attempting. The Government had probably given pledges in certain quarters that money would not be provided for relief of this nature in the future, but they had to break that promise because of the special circumstances now existing. The special set of circumstances operating in the mind of the Government is not the degree of destitution which exists, but the imminence of an appeal to the people. The position in Dublin is such that a quarter of a million pounds made available to the Dublin Corporation for work on various kinds of relief schemes for unskilled workers would probably be insufficient.

There are, of course, two aspects of the unemployment problem. There is the question of finding a permanent solution for it, which was dealt with by Deputy de Valera. He showed—and showed fairly convincingly to anyone open to conviction—that unemployment need not exist here, that it exists very largely because of the lack of directive ability on the part of the Government and the fact that they will not operate the very policy of which they themselves were at one time the loudest advocates. The long-run solution of unemployment lies in the revival of industries. We cannot possibly provide the opportunity of earning a livelihood for our people here unless we can increase the industrial production in the State. The Government has gone slow in that respect. It has been driving the industrial car with its foot on the brake instead of on the accelerator. It has, at all times during its period of office, been seeking ways and means, not to facilitate, but to place impediments in the path of those endeavouring to establish industries of one kind or another. If we set out to secure the production in this country of our requirements in such classes of goods as we are actually making, but only in insufficient quantities, we could provide a solution of the problem of unemployment, as we now know it. That is the long-run solution.

What we have got to consider is not what could be done by a Government which knew its job, but what can be done by this Government in this month. There are people in Dublin and throughout the rest of Ireland hungry. They are looking for work, not next year or after a general election; they are looking for it now. The problem before the Dáil is what it can get the Government to do within the four walls of the Government's own policy to meet that situation. I submit that, within the limits of its own policy, the Government has shown itself to be indifferent to the whole problem and ineffective in pushing the methods they have themselves devised or advocated. Take the situation in Dublin. If we leave aside, for the moment, the work that can be provided by relief funds, I submit that there are steps which the Government could take which would have an immediate, or almost an immediate, effect on the position. There are various groups of workers idle here. I received an interesting communication the other day relating to one class, and I should like to give it as an example. There are 1,400 or 1,500 shipyard workers idle in the City of Dublin. There exist here first-class facilities for the execution of ship repairs. There has been recently installed in the Dublin Dockyards new equipment, and yet the majority of the shipping companies utilising the port of Dublin get their repairs executed abroad. That applies to a number of well-known firms—firms like Guinness, Heiton and Co., the coal merchants, and others whose names are household words in the city. Yet they get from this State and from the citizens of the capital facilities in the conduct of their business. These firms which are utilising the port of Dublin always get the repairs to their ships executed across the Channel. Is it not possible for the Government to put pressure upon these people, or at all events to make representation to them, to ensure that their repairs will be executed here and some employment given, in the first-class ship repair works that exist here, to some of the 1,400 or 1,500 first-class skilled ship-workers who are idle? They could at least do that in relation to the London, Midland and Scottish Company, which has a contract for the carriage of the Irish mails, and which always makes it a practice to have its ship repairs executed across the Channel.

As Deputy O'Connell pointed out, a very large number of railway workers have become unemployed recently. We are going to have the railway policy of the Government under discussion some time. I do not know when. We were told early in the year that the Government's transport policy was going to be submitted to the Dáil. It is coming. It is coming in pieces. As I said on another Bill last week, it is coming backwards. We have not got the kernel of it yet. We got the Traffic Bill and the Railway Valuation Bill. We have now the Road Traffic Bill, but the Railway Bill has not yet been produced. For some mysterious reason, the Government is giving us its policy tail first. What it is going to be, we do not know. We have not got it whole. I take it its main purpose will be to preserve the railways and to secure that an effective railway service will be maintained in the State. If that is so, it is about time they hurried up, because the railway directorate's policy, as shown by its recent activities in the singling of lines, the reduction of staff, the slowing-up in the replacing of rolling-stock—in that direction they are definitely deteriorating their plant—is keeping out of employment skilled workers who may not be available here when a different policy is put into operation. In addition to that, there was at one time a very large number of workers engaged in the coachbuilding trade. We had the coachbuilding industry under discussion here before. There is no industry in the State in which employment has fallen so rapidly—with the exception of the glass bottlemaking industry—as in the coachbuilding industry. If unemployment here is bad and is getting worse, is there not a case for the Government taking action for the stoppage of importation of luxuries—for instance, certain types of motor cars which can be described as luxuries? If we prohibited the importation of bodies for those cars, then those who would otherwise import them would have to do without them or get the bodies built here. They can be built here. There are skilled workers capable of building them here who are now idle and in receipt of home assistance or who are looking forward to the relief work which will be provided under this Bill.

One could go on for half an hour through a list of things of that kind which the Government could do even within the limits of their own policy if they wanted to do it and if they were really concerned with the problem of unemployment and not merely making a pretence of dealing with it. You have the fact referred to by Deputy de Valera that unemployment in the building trade in the City of Dublin and throughout the rest of Ireland, is now more serious than at any time since the Free State was established. Each year since 1926 the number of skilled building trade operatives registered as unemployed has increased, and this year it is almost double what it was three or four years ago. That is, of course, an indication that the Government's housing plans have been ineffective. We discussed that matter last week, and our views are known, but if we are going to deal with unemployment and if we are going to make it easier for the unemployed to tide over the immediate hard period that is coming this winter, we should make up our minds that we cannot do it unless we give facilities to the local authorities engaged in building schemes which the Government has denied them.

We hear a lot occasionally from Cumann na nGaedheal platforms and conventions about the desirability of supporting Irish industries. Apparently members of the Executive Council think that their duty is discharged when they advise other people to do that, but when they come to act as the Executive Council that particular thought appears never to enter their heads. I raised in the Dáil, only within the past week, questions relating to contracts for public works given by the Executive Council to firms outside the country, but even though there were conditions in the contracts that a percentage of the persons employed should be natives of this country, nevertheless the giving of these contracts to outside firms is in direct conflict with the advice which was so airily tendered at meetings by members of the Executive Council themselves. It may be that in the giving of such a contract to Irishmen a small increase in expenditure would be involved, but we have got to take a longer view of this matter than that of the mere accountant. We have got to consider that people who are left idle in order to save a few pence on a contract have to be maintained here either out of the relief Vote, out of home assistance, in the workhouse, or by the private charity of individuals. In the long run it would be very much cheaper for us to ensure that such work would be given here at home no matter what the cost rather than giving it to foreigners working either here or in their own country.

There is just one other matter to which I want to refer and which relates to the finances of the Bill. The Minister for Finance generally endeavours to pose as the guardian of rectitude in financial matters. He told us in introducing the Bill that in the circumstances now existing it would not be right for the Government to borrow money for the relief of distress. Is this not borrowing money for the relief of distress? I will admit that the Minister has concealed the fact that it is borrowing for that purpose by disguising the operation as one of embezzlement in accordance with the Cumann na nGaedheal definition, but what is going to happen? A sum of £250,000 raised in motor licence duties for the benefit of the Road Fund is not going into the Road Fund. The Road Fund is going to operate, we are told, to the same extent as was contemplated at the beginning of the year. It may be that an item of abnormal revenue will come into the fund, but if it does not, the debt of the Road Fund is going to be increased by a quarter of a million. Will the Road Fund debt be increased by the Government borrowing money to lend to it? It seems to me this is merely another trick on the part of the Minister for Finance to disguise what he is doing. He will borrow £250,000 and he will give that £250,000 to the Road Fund. In consequence of the receipt of that by the Road Fund it will be possible for him to supply £250,000 of this abnormal revenue and that £250,000 is going to finance this Bill. He is not borrowing; he is merely embezzling.

He adverted to the fact that there was an item of abnormal revenue which was expected to come in during the current financial year. That I submit is a capital asset which, if it came in in this year or any other year, should be utilised for the reduction of the debt on the Road Fund. A sum of £200,000 was received from that source altogether. Of that £200,000, £150,000 was in fact used for the reduction of the debt and normally, if the Government had not got itself into this financial mess, any sum coming from that source should be used for the repayment to the Exchequer of the advances made to the Road Fund and the repayment of which is due. So, no matter what way we look at it, the Government is borrowing for this purpose. I am not objecting to their doing so. I think exceptional circumstances do exist this year, exceptional circumstances of sufficient magnitude to justify the borrowing of money for the relief of distress. The Government is doing that, but it should have the decency to admit it is doing that and not disguise this operation in this ingenious way. The position as it seems to me is this, that the Government having failed in practically every sphere of administration, failed particularly in the Department of Industry and Commerce, the Department that is responsible for the promotion of industrial production, is anxious—I will try to put it as mildly as possible—to provide itself with funds which will enable it to prevent people thinking about its failure by giving them a temporary sop which will perhaps satisfy some of them, until the Government election machine has induced them to vote again for the Cumann na nGaedheal candidates. It will not, I can assure them, have that effect. I can assure them from my knowledge of the country that when the election comes they will have no chance.

Mr. Clery

The Government, on some occasions at any rate, come down to bedrock and attempt certain things, some of which, as at the present moment, amount to a confession of their own failure. Who would have thought a short time ago, having read the speeches and listened to the statement of members of the Front Bench when they talked about the country being in such a very prosperous condition, having turned so many corners, being out of the wood and all the rest of it, that at the end of the year it would be necessary to introduce a grant for the relief of distress and for the prevention of starvation in the country? It is a very quick change on the part of Ministers. We must only come to the conclusion that conditions must be even worse than I imagined them to be. The Ministers were forced to face up to the situation in this way, to give a vote of £250,000 for the relief of distress. I remember the chief Government Whip a couple of weeks ago, in his own constituency in the Midlands, stating that the question of unemployment in this country was not worth bothering about, that it did not exist to any extent. That, coming from the chief Government Whip only a few weeks ago, must bring to the people's mind an idea of the very false doctrines and the misleading statements that have been, time and again, preached to the people from Government platforms. Evidently the people who listened to the chief Government Whip saying that there was no such thing as unemployment or distress to any extent, believed that their area was the only one that suffered in that way and that outside that there was prosperity. But they will be all forced to realise now that the country as a whole is in a very poor condition financially and otherwise. While I have no great objection to this effort on the part of the Government, still I think that any Government composed of reasonable men with reasonable intelligence and with any interest in the welfare of the people would set about the question of relieving distress in a more laudable fashion than this. I do not at all approve of the methods employed by the Government to relieve distress. Surely everybody knows, everybody must know now, at any rate, that if the existing conditions are allowed to develop and to become very bad year after year, a small vote of £100,000 or £200,000 to patch up for the time being the condition of affairs that exists is not at all making any effort towards a permanent solution. And when we hear the President say from time to time that he always insists, when money is being spent, on getting a pound's value for every pound spent, when we hear that doctrine preached by him and when we see that the only way that the Government have of relieving distress is a spasmodic relief grant of this kind, we know that the President is not putting that doctrine at all into operation. Nobody would attempt to prove that this quarter of a million pounds, spent in the way anticipated, would give anything like a return, having regard to the amount spent. Everyone must know that relief grants in the past have given no appreciable return for the amount of money spent on them; and the present proposed expenditure will be no exception. This is not the way to tackle the problem in any district; and I have great doubts whether this is not being done because there is a General Election in the offing. It is not the relief of distress, it is not the feeding of hungry people in different localities that is the greatest concern of the Government. It is their own popularity, it is the falling off in the ranks of Cumann na nGaedheal, it is the writing on the wall that is troubling them; and it is because of that writing on the wall that they come now to give this grant for distress, and not in order to relieve the problem of unemployment or distress. That is one deplorable feature of the situation.

We are always taunted by Deputies in this House like Deputy Gorey that we are always dependent on relief grants of some kind for the relief of unemployment and distress in the West of Ireland. It comes very badly from Deputies like Deputy Gorey to make charges of this kind against the West of Ireland, as I have heard him do from time to time, because the West of Ireland and other parts of the Free State contributed very handsomely in giving over £2,000,000 to the counties of Carlow, Kilkenny, and the adjoining counties to help them to start an industry there and thus relieve the distress existing there, and to give employment. And when we speak in debates of this kind and claim preferential treatment for congested districts in the West of Ireland, I want to say to Deputies like Deputy Gorey, who come from counties which have been pampered by the Free State, that we demand nothing more than the payment of our just dues.

The £250,000 which it is now proposed to give has been taken out of the congested districts within the last two years in this way: I think that it was in the year 1928 there was a vote of over £300,000, which was the usual annual vote for the congested districts for the improvement of estates in the congested districts; and at that time the Government said that they would economise at the expense of the poorer districts of the country, and they came to this Dáil on the proposal of Deputy Roddy, the Parliamentary Secretary, and they cut the amount that was then being given for the improvement of estates in the congested districts by over £150,000 per annum. And every one of the Government Deputies who represented constituencies that are wholly congested districts in Leitrim and Sligo and Mayo and Galway voted for that reduction on the Estimates, thus reducing the amount that was to be spent in these congested districts. So that when we claim that those congested districts should now get preferential treatment in the spending of this amount, we are only asking that some of the money that was wrongfully taken from them a year or two ago by the Cumann na nGaedheal Deputies should now be given back to them. And if we asked a greater amount than the amount that it is now proposed to give that would be a claim for these districts that should be listened to and admitted.

There is another aspect of the question in this regard. There are no districts, to my mind, so badly hit as the congested districts, because of the recent depression. You have heard the President occasionally stating that nothing is wrong with this country except what comes from other countries that affect it. That is not true of the country as a whole. But if there are any parts of the country which are hit particularly hard because of depression in countries abroad, those parts of the country are the congested districts in the West of Ireland. They have been particularly hard hit because of emigration being stopped. There are thousands of young men and women there at present who cannot get away to America. The province of Leinster and other places are not affected by that question of emigration as are districts in the West of Ireland, and furthermore, the income of residents in the congested districts in the West of Ireland from emigrants in America used to be very great. It was quite usual at one time for families in the West of Ireland at Christmas to get up to £50 from emigrants abroad, £50 which enabled them to pay their debts and rents and things of that kind. That income is no longer there. That money is not being sent now. There is one other great loss to the people in the West. The Co. Mayo, judging by recent figures, has, I think, the largest number of migratory labourers who have been accustomed to go across to England every year. About three years ago a total of 2,200 migratory labourers left the Swinford and Charlestown areas. I got the figures. Those labourers cannot go away now as they used to go, and even those who do go are not given employment in England; and the income of these districts is particularly hard hit on account of that. Then again the West of Ireland is the greatest egg producing part of the country. But the income coming to the small farmers from that source has been reduced considerably. I maintain that the districts which have been hardest hit are the congested districts in the West—the hardest hit by increased taxation, by loss of income from various sources and by emigration. That being the position in those districts, the problem there demands special care in the distribution of moneys of this kind for work. I think that it is unfortunate that the Government has adopted this method of tackling this very grave problem. The method is unfortunate, and it will eventually have the result of making dependent on doles of this kind people who were formerly entirely independent and able to eke out their own livelihood without being dependent upon anybody.

It is an unfortunate system, and I think that we must all deplore the necessity for having it and the actions of the Government which have inevitably brought the country to this state. It is not the right way to tackle this problem. On the question of economy or of getting value for money spent, as the President preaches occasionally, I remember a few years ago very strong pleas being made by the Mayo County Council to have large areas in the West of Ireland drained by the Board of Works. The River Moy, which runs through two counties, and which destroys annually thousands of acres of what would otherwise be very fine land, and the crops of farmers, is causing every year a very great amount of loss to the people. When the Government were asked to tackle the drainage of that river we were told that it could not be done economically, that if it were done the money spent would be wasted. The same argument was put up about rivers in other parts of the County Mayo, one of which also affects the County Galway, the Robe and the Dalgan. Surely tackling questions of that kind, which would give permanent relief to the people, which would improve the land permanently and make the people more independent for all time, would be a much more economical way of settling the problem of distress and removing the existing evils than this method of spending £250,000, for which no return, I maintain, will be shown in the long run. The Government are tackling the problem from the wrong end. They should get at the real problem and remove the evils and not be trying to patch it up.

One thing I want to ensure is that what happened in the past will not happen again, namely, that when grants were given in certain areas they were spent in a corrupt manner. Corruption was practised generally in certain areas, political corruption and other sorts of corruption. We would ask that, no matter what a man's politics may be or what political party he supports, if he is an able-bodied man, able to work, and is in distress, he should be given employment wherever there is employment in the district. I would ask Cumann na nGaedheal Deputies to subscribe to that doctrine, as they have not done so heretofore.

I am not concerned with any proof. The Deputy is entitled to state that. I think the Deputy will agree that it is impossible to prove statements here. It cannot be done.

Mr. Moore

Would the Deputy not be entitled to prove that, as far as he is in a position to do so, if he does not incriminate anyone?

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

I do not see how proof can be given, and the document read and names given. I think it is very undesirable, and it has always been looked upon as undesirable.

Mr. Smith

It has been done on former occasions.

Mr. Clery

I agree with the Leas-Cheann Comhairle, and I shall leave out the names. I will show the type of work that has been going on, but it is probably just as well that the names should be left out. If the Minister afterwards requires the document I shall give it to him if he wishes to make inquiries. We shall call the person "Mr. X.' The document is as follows: "I, ——, the undersigned, hereby certify that ‘Mr. X' (that is, the Government agent in the locality), when gaffer on the Mountjubilee new road in 1927, collected from me and from the other men then working on the road 1/- each, he at the same time telling us he wanted it for the purposes of Cumann na nGaedheal. I saw him getting shillings from many of the men. By his instructions I got 1/- each from some of the men, and these shillings I got I paid ‘Mr. X' in the presence of the men, he at the same time telling us we each would get receipts from headquarters for the money paid him. None of us has since then received cards or receipts for the moneys paid him. We were all induced to believe, from the statements then made to us, that the cards or receipts promised ensured us a continuance of work and earning. But for the last four years not one penny has been expended from any Government source in this area on any work—relief works, by-roads or other—and we know nothing whatsoever since 1927 of the moneys we paid ‘Mr. X.'" If the Deputy who interrupted a few moments ago considers that that is not sufficient proof of the corruption that has gone on, he might inquire from the Chairman of the Cumann na nGaedheal Party, who has got a copy of this statement and who has gone to great pains in the last few days to ensure that this statement, or what will probably result from it, should not go any further.

In mentioning this I am doing it not with the object of throwing water on a drowned rat but to ensure that the Government, in the dispensing of this money, should deal out justice all round. It is probably too much to expect from the Government now, knowing the straits in which the Cumann na nGaedheal organisation is, that this sum of £250,000 will not be used for political purposes solely in the country. I know the hopes built by certain Cumann na nGaedheal Deputies upon this fund. Their only hope of being re-elected is built upon this fund, but I appeal to the Minister, in justice to the people who are in a particularly bad way at the moment, and in justice to the tax-payers—because the Government and its Departments have been run at the expense of people of every shade of opinion in this country—that this money should be spent without any differentiation being made between people because of their political views. I make that appeal strongly and I hope it will be given heed to by the Minister. I have nothing further to say except that, if it possibly can be done, I suggest that every county which has a county council should have the money spent through that body. I objected before last year to this money being spent through the medium of the Irish Land Commission. I think there is very great work for the Irish Land Commission to do in other respects if they do the work for which they are responsible. That body should not go messing into the administration of moneys in connection with unemployment and relief grants. They have other work to do, and we are told time and time again that their inability to grapple with some of it is due to the fact that too much work is put upon them. They should not be burdened with this relief work, particularly if we can find other bodies to do it. I think that in counties where county councils are in being, the grants should be set aside for the county councils to spend in the way that they think best. Some Deputies may not agree, but I suggest that such bodies are very much better for the purposes of expending the money than leaving it to the Land Commission and taking up their time and preventing them from doing the valuable work that they are there to do. I suggest the county councils should be taken into consideration and some of this money should be spent through them in each county.

Mr. Tadhg Murphy

The most striking feature about this measure is the entirely inadequate sum provided. That, I am sure, will be said by every speaker in the course of this debate. This measure is a very small attempt indeed to come near to the fringe of the actual position at the present time. It is distinctly unpleasant to have to refer so often to the conditions under which a great many people are living at the moment. I find that the people themselves are reluctant to do so, because I know that the people in the country, no matter how poor or hard be their position at times like the present, are not anxious and are rather averse to having their poverty paraded. It is a pity that this should be the only method of dealing with this question and that opportunity of discussing this question is annually provided in the way it is.

But there can be no doubt whatever that the statement made that the conditions were worse this year in many parts of the country than twelve months ago is quite correct. There is evidence that thinking people in the country have discovered that. If argument or proof of that is wanting it can be found in the statements made by the Hierarchy recently. Distinguished churchmen and preachers all over the country are continually referring to this matter latterly, and it is apparent that the masses of the people, and people intimately associated with social work in the country, have come to realise that the position is extremely serious. In Cork in the last few weeks his Lordship the Bishop took very timely and practical steps to consult the clergy in the city for the purpose of setting up machinery for dealing with the problem directly arising out of unemployment in the city. And hard upon that action of his Lordship came statements recently made at a meeting of the Workers' Council in Cork, by very responsible people, not irresponsible agitators, describing the conditions as they saw them in the course of their work. Members of the Corporation engaged in business that takes them into the homes of the people in different portions of the city pointed out that they met not one but a number of cases of people that went for a very long time, a day or a day and a half in some instances, without food, and that they met numbers of cases of shocking malnutrition in their visits through the city.

The position is very urgent in many portions of the county also, and it applies in particular to my constituency of West Cork, which is the most remote and poorest portion of the county. I have had, within the last few weeks frequently, letters from clergymen in different portions of the constituency pointing out the extreme want and acute poverty in certain areas and urging that action should be taken to meet it. People who made statements of that kind were people without any desire to discredit the country. They had no desire to defame the credit of the country or to exaggerate the poverty of those people in any direction. The suggestions they made and the demands they put forward, having regard to the reasoned and carefully thought out language in which they put it, were worthy of very much consideration and apparently were the results of intimate investigation into the position in their parishes and districts. In various portions of the constituency of West Cork the agricultural labourers are in a very bad way. There is no employment for these poor people about this time of the year, and even before this time of the year, and from this on until next February there will be no employment for hundreds of agricultural labourers. At best throughout the whole year it is irregular and uncertain, and this to a great extent is the position at the present time.

I am pleased at the introduction of this Bill. Poor as it is, it is something that will remedy the position during the present winter. In many of the towns which I know the position is extremely bad. It is not a case of meeting one or two unemployed persons, but one meets dozens of people who get no work whatever from end to end of the year, except a few days now and again. It seems to me that to talk to people in that position about sound finance and prudent administration of grants is adding insult to injury. There are thousands of people in that very bad position at present. I do not know what interest these people have in sound finance or in the conservative administration of public funds. Their own finances are extremely bad and compassed within extremely narrow limits. Many families of three or four or even five or six persons in West Cork at present are getting 5/- or 6/- a week home assistance. These people have little to hope for, and when I read statements that we have escaped the economic blizzard in this country, and then when I think of the people in the position I have described, and when I know what they must feel, I can only say that, instead of having escaped the economic blizzard, the economic blizzard has been blowing continually on them for several years, and shows no signs of abating to any degree so far as they are concerned. It seems extraordinary to people in that position at the present time to hear demands and appeals made to them for economy and equality of sacrifice. I can imagine these people saying very hard things when they hear demands of that kind. I can imagine them becoming very discontented and very much more discontented when they read in the papers that money seems to be easily found for luxuries, and that many people in the country, especially in the capital of the country, can from one end of the year to another continuously have a very good time. I do not say that things like that do not occur in every country, but when things are desperate in the country this sort of thing encourages feelings and thoughts that will not be good for this country nor for the people of this country.

Having said that much I would urge the Minister to consider the expenditure of this money and to go on with the relief works as rapidly as possible, having regard to the fact that I know that some time must be given to the proper preparation of schemes. One of the defects in a Vote of this kind last year was that a good deal of the money was not spent until the end of March. One advantage of the expenditure of this money will be to strive by every means to provide wages for these people about Christmas. That is the time that people most feel the pinch of want, and this is the time they most want money to tide them over that period. A home in which there is not some earning during the Christmas holiday period is a very sad home indeed.

I would specially urge that the expenditure of this money should be expedited in view of the needs for assistance in these homes during that time. There is very little more to which I wish to refer, except to say this much, and I think I should say it: I have had experience of the expenditure of money by the Land Commission for the past five or six years. In the constituency from which I come there are various political interests. I am not always satisfied that the schemes in which I am interested get the consideration they deserve, but I must say this, that I have seen no sign whatever of corruption or political patronage. I did not see the slightest sign of it at any time, and I entirely disagree with a statement that has been made here as to political patronage and corruption in the expenditure of this money. I say that moneys of this kind best reach the people who deserve consideration most, through the agency of the Land Commission. People in remote areas, people who are not living near important roads will not benefit to a great extent by the administration of this money through the agency of the county councils. While it is right and proper to spend a considerable amount through the county councils I feel that the money will get into remote places and into the homes of the people there who need it most, through the agency of the Land Commission— better than through any other agency.

It is a pity that relief votes of this kind are not notified much earlier than they are. What happens when they are delayed is that there is too much rush and there is too little time given to the preparation of the scheme. That should be avoided in future. In that way better and more useful schemes and ones that would give a better return would be worked out and worked out with more preparation. I regret that the amount provided is so little. I do hope, that little as this money is, every effort will be made to see that it is put into circulation as quickly as possible, and that schemes will be favourably initiated and considered in order to provide employment for all the unemployed who need it.

Mr. Byrne

I congratulate the Minister upon the introduction of this Vote. This Vote will be welcomed from one end of the country to the other, and especially will it be welcomed at this particular season. I desire to congratulate Deputy T. J. Murphy upon the statement he has just made in reply to the statement made by Deputy Clery as to the allocation of the money under these relief Votes. Every fair-minded Deputy in the House knows that this money will be allocated regardless of any political Party. This money will be used to give employment to every unemployed man who needs it. I understand that Deputy Clery is at present studying for the legal profession, and he knows as well as I do that there is such an Act in existence as the Corrupt Practices Act. If the statements he has endeavoured to put before the House are true the remedy lies in his own hands if he cares to avail of it. Anybody listening to the statement made in this House by the Deputy could only come to one conclusion, and that was that it was a statement made purely from the party and political point of view and without a scintilla of fact to back up that allegation. Everybody knows that an ex parte statement is an entirely worthless statement. I am sure the House will adopt the view, as Deputy Murphy from the Labour Benches has expressed it, that the opposite is the fact, and that there is absolutely no truth in the statement made by Deputy Clery that the money is allocated through political influences. Deputy Murphy, in the course of a very fair speech, stated the conditions in this country had considerably worsened and that this year the condition of the unemployed was much more precarious than the preceding year. On listening to speeches made from the Opposition Benches, I wonder if there was any problem of unemployment in any other country or if it was confined to this country and does not exist throughout the length and breadth of the world at all. If one looks actually at facts as they are, one can only come to this conclusion: that the condition of the unemployed in this country is considerably less strenuous than in any other country in the world.

Mr. Cassidy

What about Dublin City North? Would Deputy Byrne be prepared to make that statement in Dublin City North?

It is the people's opinion.

An Ceann Comhairle

And Deputy Byrne has the right to state any opinion, and Deputy Cassidy must listen to him and not interrupt. There have already been seven speeches. Deputy Byrne is the seventh speaker. He is the second speaker on the Government side and he has been interrupted since he began.

Mr. Byrne

It is an old dodge in debate. They stifle by interruptions points which you want to make. I want to make this statement. There are 53,000 more employed insurable workers in 1931 than there were in 1922. I am also going to give another figure which is rather important.

In the number of registered unemployed in the Irish Free State on the 6th July, 1922, there were 41,400, and on the 6th July, 1931, the number of registered unemployed was only 21,427 —that is, there has been an actual drop of 20,000 in the number of workless people in 1931 as compared with 1922. These facts may be unpalatable to the Labour Party, but these are facts taken from the statistics of the Department of Industry and Commerce.

Mr. Hogan (An Clár):

They are not facts.

Mr. Byrne

I am giving facts and I challenge contradiction of them. They are uncontrovertible. Of course I suppose the Labour men would have the Free State entirely clear of unemployment. The economic blizzard is to strike everywhere in the universe except the Free State. There are 2,786,000 unemployed in England, and there are five millions unemployed in America, which is the wealthiest country in the world. There are three millions unemployed in Germany, and we are to be entirely free of their problem of unemployment in the Free State! I wonder what Deputies on the Labour Benches will have to say to this fact: that there are more unemployed in Northern Ireland than there are in the Free State? There are more unemployed in the city of Glasgow and in the city of Liverpool than in the whole Free State.

Mr. Cassidy

An Ceann Comhairle

If the Deputy is in order now, this thing he is discussing will be in order every year for all times, and it will never be finished.

Mr. Corry

Will I be in order later on?

Mr. Byrne

In deference to the Chair, I may say that the Government Party has had a difficult task thrown on their shoulders which no young Government has had thrown on them, and they have successfully tackled that task. We have heard from the Leader of the Opposition to-day the usual panacea for the solution of the unemployment problem, the hoary cry, "Manufacture everything you want regardless of the cost of production. Manufacture everything regardless of the cost of living and regardless of the tax on the community." I wonder did Deputy de Valera, when he was making that statement, ever ask himself one simple question: If that was the true solution for the unemployment problem for this country, how is it that that solution has failed in other countries? How is it to-day in the United States of America, where they have a cast-iron system of protection that they have five millions unemployed? These are facts, and I will have no hesitation in facing on the hustings either the Labour Party or the Fianna Fáil Party anywhere in Dublin City (North).

Anyone who knows anything about economics knows that protection is only one factor in the development of a country and that the Government have done their share as far as protective measures are concerned. In the nine short years that they have been in office, between thirteen thousand and twenty thousand additional workers have been employed in protected industries. There is a sane as well as an insane measure of protection. We have many instances of insane protection throughout the world. They have insane protection in Australia where the National debt is so huge and where the value of money has fallen so low, that Australia is on the verge of bankruptcy. When I hear nostrums like these advanced as a solution of the unemployment problem in this country I can only come to one conclusion, that Fianna Fáil Deputies must think the people of the country are complete fools. If unemployment is to be solved the first thing necessary in this State is the continued order and stability of the State. That is the first fundamental. It is a fundamental that has been always forthcoming since the Government took office, and if in the coming election they are entrusted with office again it will still be their first duty. The problem of unemployment is widespread. It is a problem that cannot be dealt with in five minutes by waving a magic wand. It is a problem that Fianna Fáil could not deal with if it was in office for twenty years, but the Party that is in office is asked to deal with it in nine wears.

Let us look at the facts. This Vote has been introduced to deal with the immediate necessities of the moment. It is a welcome Vote. It is specially welcome in the city of Dublin which is, perhaps, the storm centre of the whole unemployment problem. I generally find myself in a minority when I point out in the Dáil that the unemployed from all the other provinces flock into Dublin and take the bread out of the mouths of the workless of the city. If we had only to support Dublin citizens and if the problem were not intermixed with that of an inflow from the outlying districts and the provinces, the position would be different. I desire to congratulate the Minister on the introduction of this Vote. I am sure it will commend itself to every fair-minded Deputy in these difficult times to find a quarter of a million of money provided for the relief of unemployment at the Christmas season. It will be very welcome to the unemployed in every part of the country. There is only one thing more I would like to say. When speaking on the problem of unemployment we should try, as far as humanly possible, to speak from a non-party point of view. We should try as far as humanly possible to avoid exploiting the miseries of the unemployed so that this money would be spent to the greatest possible advantage of those who sent us here to represent them.

Mr. Corry

I regret that the occasion has again arisen this year for this Vote. Deputy Byrne has given us figures which he states he got from the Department of Industry and Commerce. Some time ago a prominent gentleman in my constituency said there were three kinds of lies: lies, damn lies and statistics. Deputy Bryne stressed the third description and challenged Fianna Fáil to go to the hustings. I remember that on the one occasion I met the Deputy on the hustings I described him to the people as a jacksnipe, and I think it met the situation. When the Government come here on the eve of a General Election with the proposal to provide £250,000 for relief work, we wonder what they have done or what steps they have taken to prevent the occasion for this Vote being passed in this assembly? I called the attention of the Minister for Finance two years ago to the imports of foreign malt. In 1929, 137,000 cwts. were imported, and in 1930, 322,000 cwts. The difference between the price of foreign barley and foreign malt is 10/2 per cwt. The amount taken out of the pockets of Irish labourers owing to the imports of foreign malt represented £165,000 last year. The Minister ignores that, and so does the Minister for Industry and Commerce. We have no remedy against it. The import of foreign malt deprived 220 men in one town in my constituency — Midleton — of £22,000 yearly.

I hope the Minister will remember when serving out this sop that by the inaction of his Department the workers in the town of Midleton lost £22,000 in wages. 10/2 per cwt. on 322,000 cwt. of foreign malt is the difference between the price of foreign barley and foreign malt. When there was a protest here last year against the purchase of Irish flour mills by Ranks, we had a statement from the Minister for Industry and Commerce that he was going to keep an eagle eye on the imports of flour. In twelve months the imports increased by 10,000 tons. We are paying foreign millers £827,000 yearly for milling our wheat. We imported 1,101,000 cwt. of maize meal last year. The difference between the price of the maize meal and the maize was 1/7 per cwt. We paid foreign millers £83,858 for grinding the maize last year. We imported 221,000 cwt. of bakers' bread and buns last year, and we robbed the Irish labourers of £132,000 that would go in wages for that. The total amount we paid foreign millers for milling and malting last year was £1,302,000. That is the difference between the price of the grain and the manufactured article imported. If that amount were divided up it would give permanent employment to 8,700 men at £3 a week. The Minister for Industry and Commerce, however, was too busily engaged at Geneva settling the fight between the Chinese and the Japanese to look after that state of affairs.

They come in at Christmas time with a sop. My constituency is perhaps hit more hardly than any other constituency in the Free State by the inaction of the Executive Council. In the towns of Mallow, Buttevant and Midleton we have three flour mills. The Buttevant mill was giving employment to 87 men, but it was burned down about three months ago. These 87 men are starving on the side of the road because the Minister for Industry and Commerce has created such a state of affairs that the miller has despaired of any hope of restarting. Is the Minister out of this grant of £250,000 prepared to give £10,000 for the restarting of the Oliver Mills in Buttevant? Let him try that plan and remove unemployment, not for a month or three months but for good. Let him put those 87 men back again into permanent employment with the aid of £10,000 of that £250,000. That would be a better means of meeting the unemployment problem than those sops and doles which are handed out every Christmas and before General Elections. 227,000 acres have gone out of tillage within the last half-dozen years. The census of 1926 shows that in my constituency there were 11,000 agricultural labourers. If I said that 5,000 of those 11,000 are now unemployed I would be speaking conservatively. Farmers who employed two men before have only one man now. If there is any tillage to-day the reason is that farmers have three or four sons engaged in slave labour. These young men are working without wage. That is the only means by which people can afford to till at present owing to the ruinous policy of the Department of Agriculture supported by the Executive Council and the so-called Farmers' Party. Where the plough is not working you cannot have employment and the whole country has practically gone out of tillage. 400 acre farms for bullocks will not provide employment. We have this pitiable Vote brought in here year after year and we have Deputy Byrne telling us that there is less employment here than in any other country. Does Deputy Byrne realise that until this year we were exporting 30,000 of our people annually? These 30,000 cannot now, in the words of the President, go to see their friends in America. I am glad that that has happened. They have to stop at home and employment has to be found for them at home. If there is anything which would contribute to unrest it is the fact that young boys here from 14 years to 20 years of age have never had an opportunity to do an hour's work. Everything that could be done to cause unemployment was done by the Executive Council. The machinery in one of the finest dockyards in Europe—Haulbowline—estimated as worth close on £100,000, was sold as scrap by the Executive Council — machinery that could be used now to manufacture building requisites which we are importing from abroad. In the town of Cobh you have widespread unemployment and no effort whatsoever has been made to meet it. You have the same problem in practically every town in my constituency — industry being driven out of existence by the policy of the Executive Council. If there is any Government responsible for causing unemployment to-day it is the present Government. Fancy this country with its hungry unemployed paying foreign millers £827,000 to convert wheat into flour for it. Fancy this country paying each year £165,000 for turning foreign barley into malt for Messrs. Guinness. What controlling power does Messrs. Guinness exert over the Executive Council? If it is a fact that in order to produce a certain blend of stout Messrs. Guinness must import foreign barley surely there is no excuse for importing foreign malt. Still we have the labourers of this country deprived of £165,000 a year, which would be spent entirely on labour. Is that because Messrs. Guinness are one of the collectors of the £40,000? I have repeatedly asked the Minister to give reasons why he does not prohibit the importation of foreign malt. Then we are told that there is not so much unemployment here compared with other countries. The 87 men in Buttevant have no hope whatsoever of finding any kind of employment. If the Government are honest in their desire to put an end to the unemployment problem let them restart the Oliver Mills in Buttevant by giving a decent grant for the purpose. That would put an end to unemployment there by giving permanent employment. This sort of thing— coming here on the eve of a General Election with a sort of bribe to tide over the election—is played out and will not work if I know the people of the country.

Mr. P. Hogan (Clare):

In order to discuss the unemployment problem any way intelligently it is necessary that we should know something about it. The speech made by Deputy J.J. Byrne is so characteristic of the speeches made by members of the Government Party that they clearly do not know what they are talking about when they talk about unemployment. Deputy Byrne endeavoured to mystify us with sets of figures. He told us about the live register, but he did not tell us, as the Minister for Finance told us previously, that the live register even had gone up by 5,000 since last year. Deputy Byrne went on to tell us that there was less unemployment this year than any other year, but he did not endeavour to explain, because he did not understand himself, what is the live register. What is the live register at all? Before we talk about the live register, we ought to try to understand what it is. It is a register of people entitled to benefit and who are drawing benefit. I proved conclusively before that the live register is not an index of the number of people unemployed. I took pains here at one time, about 12 months ago, to ask the Minister for Industry and Commerce to tell us the number of unemployed registered in each exchange area and the number of books retained in each area. Let us see what is the difference. A man becomes unemployed, walks to the exchange and hands in his book. The book is retained; he proceeds to draw benefit, and signs while he draws it. When he has exhausted his benefit he goes to look for a job, but cannot get it. He does not withdraw his book, and that, therefore, indicates that he is unemployed.

When Deputy Byrne talked about the proportion of unemployed in Great. Britain and Germany he forgot to tell us that the unemployed in Great Britain are drawing uncovenanted benefit, while the people in this country are not drawing uncovenanted benefit. Uncovenanted benefit is benefit paid beyond the amount represented by the number of stamps to the credit of the person unemployed. That is, the money comes out of the Exchequer towards the relief of the unemployed. That is what is putting up the figure for unemployment in Great Britain and what is reducing the figure in this country, because no uncovenanted benefit is given in this country. The books left in the labour exchanges are, therefore, the index of the number of unemployed, and not the register. I am not taking into account at all, of course, the agricultural worker or people who would not be entitled to unemployment insurance. I am going to read out not only the people who are in receipt of benefit, but the people whose books were retained, which show the men who have not withdrawn their books because there is no employment for them. Deputy Byrne will then understand the difference between the number of people who are registered and the number of people whose books are retained. It will show that the latter figure is a truer index of the amount of unemployment than the number on the live register.

In Carlow there were 524 on the register, while 683 books were retained. The Deputy can make out the difference in his spare time. In Drogheda there were 1,082 on the register and there were 1,468 books retained. In Dublin there were 8,818 on the live register, which Deputy Byrne talks about, and there were 10,434 books retained in the unemployment exchange. In Dundalk there were 1,030 on the live register and 1,145 books retained. In Dun Laoghaire there were 1,011 on the live register and 1,246 books retained. In Kilkenny there were 731 on the register and 888 books retained. In Wexford there were 789 on the register and 1,025 books retained. In Cobh there were 559 on the register and 857 books retained. In Cork there were 3,464 on the register and 3,590 books retained. In Fermoy there were 628 on the register and 887 books retained. In Limerick there were 2,862 on the register and 3,558 books retained. In Tralee there were 637 on the register and 901 books retained. In Waterford there were 1,492 on the register and 1,699 books retained. In Athlone there were 1,423 on the register and 1,525 books retained. In Galway there were 459 on the register and 697 books retained. In Letterkenny there were 303 on the register and 550 books retained. In Sligo there were 634 on the register and 951 books retained.

That makes a total for the whole country of 25,511 registered, the figure which the Minister for Industry and Commerce, Deputy J.J. Byrne, and the President quote when they talk about the unemployed, but the number of unemployment books retained in the exchanges gives a total of 32,107, showing a difference of 6,596. That shows that when Deputy J.J. Byrne gets up to talk about the live register and the index of unemployment that it is, that he has not the remotest conception of what he is talking about. When he gets up to talk about the proportion of unemployed here and the proportion of unemployed in Great Britain, he either deliberately ignores it or he is ignorant of the fact that in Great Britain you get uncovenanted benefit, while in this State you get no uncovenanted benefit. That is the position. When we talk about unemployment let us try to get some index of its extent. When we are trying to get an index of its extent let us turn also to the home assistance figure. In my own County of Clare we find that something like £12,000 had to be paid out in home assistance in order to relieve the necessitous in various districts. We find the Clare County Council at its last meeting, knowing the extent of unemployment, voting as much of its funds as it is able in order to relieve distress in the various districts. Yet we are told by Deputy Byrne that unemployment is less than last year. This £250,000, this rabbit out of the Ministerial hat, is something, we are told, for which we should be thankful. One would have thought that in the legislation introduced by the Minister, there would be some opportunity given or some encouragement given towards the expenditure of money.

We criticised the Housing Bill and the finance of the Housing Bill here last week and the week before; and the finance of that Bill was such that it will not encourage—it will not, as a matter of fact, allow—public bodies to engage in any extensive schemes of house building. Its finance is such that the public bodies will not be able to start any schemes of any extent with a view to absorbing the existing unemployed. When dealing with the Land Commission we are told of cases where schemes are put up and where roads and such things are put up. I know hamlets in the County of Clare where there are twenty and fifteen and ten houses, and where the roads leading into them are in such a wretched condition that it is impossible to travel on them. I know of public officials who have left their cars and put on rubber boots in order to negotiate some of the roads leading to these houses when they visit them. And yet we are told by the Land Commission that when these estates come to be vested these matters will be investigated. I could paper a room with a list of statements of this kind received from the Land Commission. And yet this is the only sop that we get coming on to Christmas for the relief of distress.

In that connection the Government has given no help towards the relief of unemployment. And not only that, but what has it done? It has itself created unemployment. I asked the President to-day when he proposed to introduce the Shannon Fisheries Bill, and he told me that his intentions, like my own intentions, were good. Good intentions are all right, but they should materialise some time. Eighteen months ago we were promised that Bill and it has not yet materialised. The Minister for Industry and Commerce knows that he was responsible for disemploying forty men on the Shannon who were engaged on the fisheries, and whose occupations have now gone because of the Shannon scheme. On his own estimate the Minister glibly told me that I did not know what the Government was thinking about. I do not know what the Government is thinking about; I do not know if the Government is thinking at all. How long are we going to wait for this Bill? How long will it be before the forty men in Killaloe will be restored to that employment they have lost?

I put up to the Minister for Industry and Commerce a certain scheme. It was not a hurriedly thought out scheme, it was a scheme in the consideration of which some time was spent, and some expert knowledge was brought to bear upon it before it was submitted to the Minister for Industry and Commerce. The scheme had reference to a deposit of clay near Clarecastle, where there is a possibility of establishing a cement factory. We had expert opinion that this is a deposit of the finest clay that it is possible to find in Great Britain or elsewhere. And yet we find that the Minister for Industry and Commercec has given us no assistance towards that industry or towards the starting of employment in that particular district. In the matter of the railways, how many have been disemployed? And we are getting piecemeal a Transport Bill.

I heard it suggested that it is only in the large towns and cities that there is unemployment. Like Deputy Murphy I do feel that it is rather difficult to speak on matters of this kind in this House. I, personally, dislike tearing open the wounds of these unfortunate people in order to excite sympathy. But I cannot refrain from saying that in the small towns and villages there is probably as much want and as much necessity for the providing of employment as in the cities and large towns. About a week ago a young man came to me and asked me could I, under any circumstances, procure a week's work for him on some one of the roads within reaching distance of his house. I told him I would try. His request was one of those usual requests that Deputies get from time to time. "Are you married?" I asked him. "I am," he said, "and my wife and myself and our four children have been living on potatoes for the past fortnight, and the potatoes are out now." This was a case in a small village in Clare with perhaps six hundred inhabitants. And when people talk about distress in the cities and big towns, let them consider that the hamlets and the village have also their problems of unemployment and distress. When the distribution of this money comes to be considered, I think that the county councils should have something to say to it. County councilors are members of the boards of health, and they come intimately into contact with the people. People come to them with stories of distress and many other stories and they know the conditions in these particular areas. Inspectors of the Land Commission cannot get into such intimate contact with the people as members of the local bodies, and, therefore, the members of the local bodies should have a great deal to say to the distribution of this money. Of course the giving of this money is something. That is all that can be said about it. I would like somebody to tell us in what proportion it is going to be distributed, whether, if the local bodies put up a certain amount, a certain amount will be given from this Road Fund to subsidise it, or whether it will be entirely given out by the Land Commission, or in what fashion it will be distributed. I do not want to delay the issue of these moneys, but I do say this much: that contributions like the contribution that Deputy J.J. Byrne has made to this debate are contributions that will not help unemployment. The unemployment problem has put Parliamentary and social institutions on their trial in every country in Europe. It has put them on trial in this country also, and the sooner the Government take cognisance of that fact the better.

Seosamh O Mongáin

Tá bród orm go bhfuil Aire an Airgid ag tabhairt isteach an Bhille seo agus go bhfuil sé in án an t-airgead d'fháil. Beidh fáilte ag 'chuile dhuine roimhe, go mór mór mar cheap go leor daoini nach mbeadh sé in án an t-airgead d'fháil. Is maith an rud go bhfuil. An deontas le haghaidh díomhaointis do tugadh amach anuraidh rinne sé maith an domhain do na daoine gur theastuigh sé uatha. Rinneadh bóithre go na portaigh agus isteach go dtí na bailtí nár bhféidir le duine ar bith roimhe seo a chapall na a chart a thabhairt ann. Anois is féidir leis na daoini i go leor áiteachaí a gcapall agus a gcart do thabhairt isteach ar na portaigh. Roimhe seo bhí orrab an cliabh a chur ar a ndruim agus an mhóin a tharraingt go dtí an bóthar ba ghiorra dhóib. An t-am sin thógfadh sé seachtain orrab ag déanamh an oiread agus dhéanfaidis anois i lá amháin. Nách mór ar fad an feabhas ar an scéal an méid sin? Do réir mo bharúla-sa do deineadh go leor oibre ar an méid airgid a tugadh amach, mar bhí a fhios ag na daoini gur mar mhaithe leob féin a bhí siad á dhéanamh. Tá go leor Teachtaí ag ceapadh go mba cheart cuid den airgead seo do chaitheamh ar na bóithre móra le haghaidh gluaisteán agus a leithéidí, ach im' thuairim-se, is ar na bóithre beaga ba cheart an t-airgead do chaitheamh chun maitheas a dhéanamh do sna daoiní. Tá go leor faighte cheana le haghaidh na mbóthar mór; níl mise ina dhiaidh ortha, ach ba cheart cuimhneamh ar an bhfear leis an gcapall agus an chairt.

Tugadh roinnt bheag d'airgead na bliana anuraidh go Aire an Iascaigh. Níl aimhreas ar bith ná gurbh é sin an t-airgead do b'fhearr a caitheadh, le congnamh thabhairt don dream atá cois fairrge. Fuair an beagán airgid sin amach rud bhí ag dul le fán le linn na ndaoine, sé sin, an fheamann gheimhre do shabháil le haghaidh ceilpe. Nuair a thug lucht na Roinne Iascaigh fén obair sin ar dtús cheap go leor daoini gur obair gan chiall a bheadh ann, ach ní mar sin a bhí, ach gur eirigh leobtha go maith agus go bhfuil tora aca as a n-iarracht, agus go mbeidh airgead á shaorthú go fairsing ag gach duine go mbeidh feidhm aige á bhaint as an obair sin. Bhíodh na mílte tonna feamainne gheimhre ag dul amú gach bliain go dtí gur thóg an Roinn Iascaigh ar láimh í. B'fhiú é an méid airgid uilig a tugadh ar an Vóta so anuraidh an scéim nua so do bhunú, gan bacaint leis an bhfíor-bheagán a caitheadh air. Rud eile atá ag teastáil go han-mhór i mbliana, agus sé sin, na fataí síl do sholáthar do na daoini. Ba cheart cuid den airgead so a chur dá gceannach; mar a ndéanfar san tá faitchíos orm go mbeidh an síol chó daor, dá mb'fhéidir é fháil féin, agus nach mbeadh na daoiní bochta in án é cheannach, agus b'olc an rud dóib é mara mbeadh siad in án síol d'fháil. Deirtear mara gcuirfear san Earrach ná bainfear sa bhFomhar.

Mr. Moore

There was one very hopeful statement made by the Minister in introducing the Vote. The Minister said that it had been found last year that they got value for their money, at least to a very substantial extent. He remarked also that that was an improvement on previous grants of the same kind, and that, therefore, they had less hesitation in giving money for relief work this year than previously. I think that is one of the most important statements made here for a long time, because up to the present the attitude of the Government appears to have been that unemployment cannot be permanently relieved, or rather that it cannot be continuously relieved, and that relief works are rather a painful necessity, rather a method of keeping people from dying of starvation than a function of the State as a means of enabling people to earn a livelihood. The Minister went on to say that they had got fairly definite assets as a result of the experiment; that water-works had been created in places where probably they would not have been built if they were dependent entirely upon grants given by the local bodies; that sewerage systems had been developed which were very desirable. He referred also to bog roads and similar things. If the Government have made that discovery within the last year or two, is there not a hope that they might get further encouragement if they gave the subject more concentrated attention, if they went out now, fortified by the result that they themselves admit, to find methods of doing a good deal more to relieve unemployment? Is it not possible that they would find that there are even better results to be obtained than were obtained last year? In every parish, for instance, there are several farms at present that are not paying either annuities or rates because they are derelict. Is it altogether absurd to suggest that these farms could, by being linked up in a scheme of unemployment relief, not only pay the overhead charges due upon them but could offer a substantial contribution to the relief of the destitution which prevails as the result of unemployment? It would be altogether a confession of despair if the Government were to hold that notwithstanding that there are in practically every parish farms of good rich land derelict, producing no crop from year to year, and that on the other hand they have a number of people eager to work— desperately eager to work in these times—if the Government were to say that nothing can be done, that the two things cannot be connected, cannot be made to cure one another? It does not seem to us that such a thing is impossible. It seems only reasonable that if land is there upon which charges are due, and upon which the State is actually losing money at present through their not being worked, that the unemployed should be engaged on that land. It seems to us there should be no difficulty in employing people on land of that kind to produce their own food, and perhaps a good deal over, and getting generally good results.

There has been a further development in recent years in certain counties that is also very hopeful in that connection. It is now, I believe, the custom of several local bodies to extract one or two days' work from able-bodied men who are living on home help. That has been a very great success in certain places. Of course it is necessary to confine such men to work that would not arise in the ordinary course of day to day labour. It must be work of an exceptional kind so that the men employed will not be competing with those regularly employed. In face of that fact there is even more hope for such an effort as I suggest—looking after the derelict farms—as a means towards the relief of unemployment. There is another feature, however, in connection with this grant this year that is not so hopeful. Last year the Minister was able to get local bodies to embark on such schemes as water-works and sewerage development on the basis of a substantial grant, the bulk of the money being supplied by the local bodies. Arising out of that there have been many protests by farmers in the districts affected by these works that they should not have to pay contributions to the rates for these schemes. It might well be held that they have a very big grievance, because everyone knows that no farmer is at present in a position to pay additional rates, and it has meant additional rates in some cases. A very unpleasant situation has thus arisen between groups of farmers and the local bodies responsible for these works. I think the Minister will find that in his negotiations with the local bodies it will probably happen that they will not be able to help him to anything like the same extent as last year with regard to schemes of that kind. At the same time there is plenty of other work to do and I sincerely hope that this fund will be administered so that it will not only result in such assets as the Minister mentions as the result of last year's work but that it will result in such gain as will enable us to believe that the problem of unemployment is not the insoluble problem that it appeared to us a while ago; that it is a problem that can be solved with good-will between the State, the local bodies, and the general public.

With regard to the administration of the Road Fund I think there should be more care exercised with a view to preventing luxury-spending on roads. There was a question asked here the other day about certain spending in connection with road improvement. It was ascertained that out of £40,000 spent on certain work £25,000 was spent on compensation to property owners. That is not doing much for unemployment. With regard to that particular job I assert that it was purely a luxury job, that in view of the state of housing, and of a number of other pressing things that particular job could have waited for many more years; that it was by no means the most useful work nor the most particularly pressing either in connection with unemployment or anything else. Similarly you find in several counties that considerable sums are being spent in taking off dangerous corners while the improvements necessary to main roads cannot be done because the money is not available. For the present, at all events, I think that these things that are called dangerous corners could very well be borne with, and that as far as possible the money should be spread over work that is more urgently required such as the maintenance of main roads and essential road improvements.

We are very glad that this Vote has been proposed, and we would like to believe that it will be sufficient to relieve the unemployment problem that will present itself this winter. Unfortunately it does not seem that it will be sufficient for that; but, at all events, we hope that it will be so spent as will result in substantial relief to those who need it and a definitely useful return to the State.

Mr. S. Brodrick

I have listened to a contribution from Deputy Clery on this relief Vote, and since he came into the Dáil I have listened to practically the same contribution on every relief Vote that came up. According to the Deputy, there is nothing but corruption and bribery. The Deputy said that the President had stated on the last relief Vote that they had got value for their money, and his answer to that was that they did not get value for their money. Apparently, value for money was not given in County Mayo. If value for the money was not given in County Mayo, the Government should be careful in future in not allowing money to be spent in that county. Most of the money spent in County Mayo was spent through the Land Commission. Deputy Clery's statement, if true, would go to show the dishonesty of the workers in County Mayo, that when they were employed on certain works they did not give value for the money. If Deputy Clery is right, it plainly shows dishonesty on the part of the farmers' sons who worked on these schemes. A few weeks ago a Bill was introduced by Deputy Mongan with the intention of giving portion of the money from the Hospitals Sweeps to the support of the Jubilee nurses in the poorer districts. Deputy Clery on that occasion had the check to come along and vote against that Bill, which was intended to help the very poorest classes in Mayo. I do not know whether he spoke against the Bill or not, but I know he voted against it, and now he comes along and tells us that this £250,000 is no use to Mayo, and that there is nothing but corruption and bribery, and that no relief will be given by the expenditure of this money in Mayo.

I am glad, for my part, that this Relief Bill has been brought into the Dáil, because the conditions in the country as regards employment are not nearly as good as we had hoped they would be. We know that farmers' prices are down very much, and I am very pleased that the President has introduced this Bill. Criticism comes now from people because the Vote was introduced, and from people who never thought of unemployment until the Vote was introduced. The very moment the Vote was introduced we have cries from the benches opposite on the state of unemployment all over the country. In the past three or four months, when we have seen there was a certain amount of unemployment, not a word was heard about it in this House from Deputies opposite. As to the relief of unemployment, I have not heard, though I listened very carefully to the speeches of Deputies opposite, any means suggested by which unemployment can be relieved permanently. They say that this Vote for £250,000 is no use. I certainly say it is going to help for the time being. I certainly would like to hear the Fianna Fáil policy as to how unemployment is to be relieved. We have waited for the statement of that policy for a long time. We have heard criticisms of every measure that has ever been introduced here to relieve unemployment, but we do not hear anything about their policy.

I would like to be assured, in the course of this debate, that when the distribution of the money comes along some attention would be given by the Department to the condition of the smaller farmers in the poorer districts where the potato crops have failed. In several districts in my own county the potato crop has failed and I believe people will find it very difficult in the poorer districts to obtain seed for the coming season. I would like some of the money to be allocated for the procuring of seed for small farmers in those districts. On the matter of sewerage works and water works, I know that some very useful work was carried out last year in several counties, but not to the extent that it should have been.

In my own county I think there were four schemes put into operation. I would like to see something more done than has been done in that way. It would relieve unemployment to a great extent in the smaller towns. In the carrying out of sewerage and water works there is a good deal of labour employed, and the work is also important to the health of the people in the small towns. In connection with this grant I would like to know what the local authorities are about to do in the matter. I know that the great trouble in connection with recent relief grants was the area of charge. The Ministry usually gives one-fifth and the local authorities were to find the remaining four-fifths. Trouble arose as to the area of charge for that four-fifths. I think the present grants also will give rise to the same trouble. I should like to see that, say, a penny rate should be levied each year to create a fund out of which money could be made available for the carrying out of sewerage works and water works in each district, and it might be possible by that means to get over some of the trouble in connection with the areas of charge. Unless you have some fund by which you can make money available when the Minister is making his grant you will have the same trouble. I will ask the Minister to give this matter his special attention. I know in my own county a 1d. rate would bring in something like £2,000. Even a ½d. rate, to start with, would create a fund and make available money for the carrying out of the different works, even sinking pumps in rural areas. It would help in some small way, because the great complaint in these areas seems to be that the area of charge is too small and that the ratepayers in these districts, owing to the depression at the present time, are unable to meet such charges.

Mr. Cassidy

I welcome this Bill because I believe it will do something to relieve the unemployment situation, but in my opinion, and in the opinion of Deputies sitting on these benches, it will not go far enough or give enough employment. There is no good in Cumann na nGaedheal Deputies or members of the Executive Council endeavouring to minimise the situation in regard to unemployment, and there is no use in that Party endeavouring to bury their heads, ostrich-like, in the sands and trying to bring about an atmosphere of make-believe in the hope that by glancing over the situation they will ultimately be able to cure it. If they want to cope with this problem of unemployment, and unfortunately it is a very big problem, notwithstanding what Deputy Byrne says, they will have to face up to it in a very much more serious manner than they have done since the last election or before it.

I ask Deputies who have carefully read this Bill how far will it go to cure the unemployment situation? How much will it do to give employment? How many men and women will find employment as a result of this Bill? I would also ask them this: Will it relieve the Government of their responsibility as regards the whole problem of unemployment? Personally I do not believe it will. It has to be taken into consideration that the amount proposed in the Bill, even if distributed equally in the Twenty-Six Counties, would mean that only a comparatively small sum would be voted to each county. As far as I can see in reading the Bill, and from the speeches made up to the present, I am under the impression that the lion's share of distribution will be in cities such as Dublin, Cork, Limerick, Waterford and Wexford. I do not deny that there is a very large amount of unemployment in the cities, but, at the same time, I think it should be realised that the unemployment problem is not confined to the cities. There are tens of thousands of men walking about in the rural areas looking for work and unable to find it. I for one hold that it is the duty of the Government, notwithstanding the statement made some time ago by the Minister for Industry and Commerce, that it was not the duty of the Government to find work for the unemployed, that it is one of their primary duties and one which they failed, up to the present time, to deal with in any serious manner.

I believe it is the duty of Deputies to consider this problem in all its aspects. I believe that any contribution made by any Deputy should be made with a view to ameliorating these conditions and with a view to getting the Government to devote a much larger amount towards the relief of unemployment and destitution. I must say, sincerely, that I am somewhat surprised at the colossal amount of callousness displayed by Deputy Byrne of Dublin City North. The Deputy endeavoured to minimise the situation, but he knows that situation as well as I do, and he knows that there is unemployment even in the constituency he represents. He knows there is a very large amount of unemployment in that constituency. There is no good in Deputy Byrne or any other Deputy of the Cumann na nGaedheal Party coming to this House and saying there is unemployment in this country or in that country or in the other country. If there is unemployment in those countries that is no reason why the members of the Dáil should not endeavour to solve the unemployment problem in the Saorstát. Deputy Byrne knows as well as I know that the figures that he quoted, and which are issued by the Department of Industry and Commerce in regard to unemployment, were absolutely misleading. Deputy Byrne, in quoting these figures, knows that the figures dealt primarily with unemployment in insurable occupations. He also knows that agricultural and domestic workers do not come under the head of insurable occupations, and consequently they would not be included in the figures quoted. I do not think I would be magnifying the position if I say that there must be about 75,000 unemployed in the Saorstát at the present time. It seems very strange to me that as a result of the last census return, when certain information was asked for upon the census forms, and when that information was given that the Government did not issue the figures with regard to unemployment. Information was issued with regard to housing. Rightly so. Information was issued with regard to agriculture. Rightly so. Information was issued with regard to occupations. Rightly so. Why did they not issue the figures with regard to unemployment? I suggest that the reason they did not do so was owing to the fact that if the information had been issued the people would know the truth of the situation, and it would prove that all this talk about the country having turned the corner was all eye-wash and political propaganda. It would prove that there were about 75,000 unemployed; it would let us see what sort of corner we had turned. The Minister for Finance and the Minister for Education speak about prosperity in the country and talk about the amount of money in the banks, the amount of money in saving certificates and the amount of money invested in shares. Do the Ministers look at that as an indication of prosperity? I admit to a certain extent it might be an indication of prosperity amongst certain people. But what good is that to the unemployed, to the small farmer or fisherman whose wife and family are hardly able to eke out a proper existence?

One of the stipulations as far as the provision went was to the effect that some of the money was to be distributed through the Land Commission and some of it through the local authorities. As far as the amounts distributed through the local authorities is concerned, there were certain stipulations laid down, and I think these stipulations were detrimental to the poorer counties, and for this reason: The counties best able to afford to spend money could put up a certain amount of money, but in the poorer counties the ratepayers were not in such a happy position, and the result is that Donegal, Mayo, Galway, and the congested areas do not derive a sufficient amount in the distribution. Take, for instance, the County Donegal, and I wish that Deputy Byrne or the Minister for Education, who made a flowery speech yesterday, or the Minister for Finance would come up to Donegal and witness the economic position existing in that constituency. They would see that there is a big amount of poverty there amongst the labourers, small farmers and fishermen, and also amongst the unemployed workers in the towns and villages. They would see the position as far as some of the small uneconomic holders are concerned, and especially those in the Gaeltacht areas around by the Rosses and the district of Gweedore. They would see these people trying to eke out an existence on small patches of land on which a County Dublin, a County Meath or a County Kildare farmer could not exist at all.

We might be asked what remedy have we for that. One of the remedies, so far as these small holders are concerned, was outlined in the recommendations made by the Gaeltacht Commission. If these recommendations had been lived up to, the position would be different. Promises were made, but they were made to be broken. The full recommendations have not been lived up to. Some of the people might say that as far as poverty existing in the County Donegal amongst the small farmers, agricultural workers and fishermen is concerned, it might be due to the fact that these people are not industrious enough. I can say, without fear or hesitation and according to the statistics issued by the Department of Agriculture, that there is a greater percentage of arable land tilled in that county than in any other county in all Ireland. But we find that, notwithstanding their industry, there is a great amount of poverty existing there at present, although it has been stated by Government Deputies that things are improving; so far as the Gaeltacht areas of Donegal are concerned, things are the reverse way. Most families there were depending, up to a few years ago, on some money coming to them from their friends in America. Owing to the economic conditions in America very little money is coming from that quarter. Owing to the callous failure of the Government to find work for them many of the people there had to emigrate, but now intending emigrants must remain at home. So far as the migratory labourers who used go across to England and Scotland are concerned, the position is that they are not able to get as much employment there now as in previous years. Severe poverty exists amongst the fishermen owing to the bad fishing season and owing to the neglect of the Department of Lands and Fisheries in preventing foreign trawlers coming in and taking away the fish that might go to the local fishermen. Somebody might ask what has this to do with the Bill we are discussing? I venture to say that if the Department of Lands and Fisheries and the Government had paid more attention to the fishing industry there would not be the same amount of poverty to-day that there is. Some time ago there was a Sea Fisheries Association inaugurated with a great flourish of trumpets——

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

The Deputy is getting away from the Bill altogether.

Mr. Cassidy

I am trying to find a remedy for the poverty that is existing in the Gaeltacht areas among the fishermen, and I should be allowed to go into the case clearly and deal with the failure of the Government to provide work.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

The Deputy is getting as much latitude as any other member in the House, but he is getting away from the Bill altogether.

Mr. Cassidy

I submit that as far as the poverty that is existing in Donegal is concerned, if the Government had left it to the recommendations of their own Commission, namely, the Gaeltacht Commission, and put into operation schemes of drainage, reclamation, and rural industries, and divided up the land and dealt with afforestation, it would be all right. While they are dealing with afforestation we find, notwithstanding the recommendations of the Commission, that since 1922 they have spent hundreds of thousands of pounds on afforestation, the major part being spent in the Counties Wicklow, Cork and Tipperary. A paltry few thousand only has been spent in Donegal. When Deputy Fahy moved the motion asking the Government to pass a Vote of £100,000 extra per annum to improve the position of the Gaeltacht, unfortunately it was not done. As far as the poverty that is existing in the constituency I represent is concerned, it is not alone confined to the small farmer, the agricultural workers, or the fishermen. It exists in the towns and the villages. One of the reasons why poverty exists is owing to the callousness of the Government in insisting on the Donegal County Council only paying the sum of 26/- per week to workers employed on the roads. How can a married man with a wife and family clothe, feed and educate them at that rate, while for the same class of work in County Dublin they are paying 45/- a week? I am one of those persons who believe that one of the first duties of any Government in any country is to legislate in the interests of its people. I believe that any Government which allows tens of thousands of people to be unemployed fails in its duty towards the people. Might I ask the Minister for Education if what was known as the democratic programme of the First Dáil has been lived up to, or if the Government ran away from it? I submit that they have not even endeavoured to live up to it. It has been laid down in a recent Encyclical issued by Pope Pius XI that the duty of a Government in a country is to find work for the heads of families so that they will be able to provide for those dependent upon them. Have the Government lived up to that?

In County Donegal at the present time there are what are known as hiring fairs. Probably Deputies from the South or the Midlands do not know what I mean by hiring fairs. In them I have seen young boys and girls going to the market square herded there sometimes like cattle to be hired out to the farmer to work from early morning until late at night. It is not because of the fact that the parents of these children have any less love for them than the parents of the wealthy, but it is economic circumstances that forces them to do it. I believe if you had a sympathetic Government much of that unemployment and poverty which exists could actually be cured.

We have been told recently that political and economic discontent is existing in the country. I do not under this Bill propose to deal with the question of political discontent, but I suggest to the Government that the best way to deal with the economic discontent is to provide work for the unemployed and to do something of a tangible nature to help the small farmers, fishermen and agricultural workers. I believe if they did that that much of the economic discontent that is existing at present would be wiped out. Before the advent of the present Government the British Government set up what was known as the Congested Districts Board. That Government realised that special consideration should be given to the congested districts. A large amount of money was set aside to help uneconomic holders and to establish rural industries. I suggest that the same amount of help is not now being given to it, owing to the fact that the congested areas are being treated in the same way as the more prosperous areas.

I believe that we here in the Dáil are wasting much valuable time, in dealing with legislation of little importance while we should be devoting more time to solving unemployment and making the people who are in poor circumstances happy and contented. I notice that each of the various Deputies who got up to speak made an appeal. To anyone who understands the poverty in the country it is really a pitiful appeal. It is an appeal to get as much of the crumbs that fall from the Department's table for their own county as possible. I would ask the Deputies to face the situation in a Catholic way. This is a Catholic country and I ask them to deal with it in a Catholic and Christian spirit. I believe if Deputies generally would only endeavour to deal with the situation in this way more could be done than has been done up to the present. For a long time it has been pitiful to see the colossal amount of callous indifference with which this problem of unemployment and poverty has been dealt with in this country. While I intend to vote for the Bill, because I believe it will do something, I do not believe it will give enough employment. While this grant will do something for the unemployed I appeal to the Government Departments to speed up the machinery and to give as much money as possible to the poorer counties. Christmas is a time of rejoicing, but to the unemployed person, the small farmer, or the agricultural worker in a state of poverty, Christmas will not be a time of rejoicing. If the machinery is speeded up by the Departments those in need will be given some assistance before Christmas. If it is not too late I would appeal to the Government to increase the amount so that more help will be provided for those in need.

Mr. Anthony

Neither this Government nor any other Government has discovered a panacea for unemployment. That does not necessarily mean that we should not endeavour by every possible means to end the tragic state of affairs that exists not alone here but in every other country. In dealing with this grant here and outside, speakers are inclined to neglect one or two important factors that have contributed to the unemployment problem here. Unemployment in this country falls under three heads. The world economic depression is having its repercussions here. A few towns, some of which are in Cork county, were mentioned. Before the Free State was established these towns were occupied by British military or naval forces. That is a factor which I think speakers should consider when dealing with a problem of this nature. Cobh has been mentioned. Nobody conversant with the facts can blame this Government or, if Deputy de Valera or a Labour Government were in power, could blame them for the poverty that exists in Cobh. The cause of the problem of Cobh. Fermoy, The Curragh, and places of that kind is entirely different from the cause of the problem in other parts. In Cobh there was a very large garrison of military and naval forces, and a British dockyard was functioning at Haulbowline which gave employment to thousands of men. The British evacuated the country. This is one of the results. Let us face up to that and not blame this Government or Deputy de Valera's Government, when he comes into power. It is one of the things we have to thank ourselves for, whether we like it or not.

Another factor that contributes very largely to unemployment is the want of support for native industries. I have it from a friend who toured the Gaeltacht lately, which is supposed to house the last remnant of the Gaelic stock, and for which so much has been done that it is difficult to get twopence worth of Irish matches there. I have proved in more than one area of the Gaeltacht that it is difficult to get a box of Irish matches. Who is responsible for that? Is it this Government? Is it the British? Is it the world economic conditions? No. Ourselves. We alone are responsible. Another cause, I might add, is the very disturbing effect amongst our people of the continual cry of "stinking fish,""the country is going to the dogs,""the farmers are being robbed,""every citizen of the State is being robbed." By whom? By the Government. If Deputy de Valera's Government were in power I would defend it in the same way. I would play the game, at any rate. I hold no brief for this Government. I am in opposition, and will continue there for a very long time unless the Government mends its manners. At the same time, I like to face up to facts. Cork borough, which I have the honour to represent, has relatively the largest number of unemployed persons in the Saorstát. I feel that whilst £250,000 only goes a very small way to relieve temporarily the unemployment situation that exists, at the same time it is some little thing. Some Deputy suggested that it is a mere bite, but we must have regard to facts and to the finances of the State. If the community as a whole were prepared to tax itself to the extent of another million or two, then perhaps we might be able to vote an extra million or two for the relief of unemployment.

I feel that the Government has to a very large extent neglected this tragic problem. I feel that they might have made a more constructive effort to relieve it than they have done by introducing this Vote for £250,000. I feel that there is something humiliating in this State having to bring in measures of relief Christmas after Christmas. Of course it may be logically said that if the Government brought in no measure of relief we would have a worse kind of criticism to offer. I agree. I am not very captious in my criticism. I feel that some effort is being made to relieve the present economic situation, but at the same time I think that more should have been done during the last financial year. The Government might easily have initiated schemes of road construction on a larger scale than they have done, schemes of drainage and other constructive works which would have given employment to people who are now unemployed. Again I would remind the Government that they are to an extent creating unemployment, at least in one Department of State. I will illustrate this point by an experience I had within the last week. Number of young men are demobilised from the National Army from time to time, and no provision whatever is made for them except some little preferential treatment on work of a national character. I would suggest that some funds should be made available by a scheme of contributions from the soldier and from the State, so that when men leave the Army they would not be added to the unemployed list.

No later than last week, at least a dozen of these young men called on me with letters of recommendation for employment on certain public works. Extra work is about to be started for the Christmas period by the Cork City Harbour Board and the Cork Borough Council. No more than 300 persons, at the outside, will be employed on these works. Twenty or 30 men will be employed by the Harbour Commissioners and between 200 and 250 by the Borough Council. For these vacancies, if they can be so described, there are about 3,000 applicants. If there are 3,000 persons applying for 300 places, it is obvious that 2,700 will be disappointed. That does not exhaust the list of unemployed persons in Cork. As I have said, Cork City has relatively the largest number of unemployed in the Saorstát. The St. Vincent de Paul Society, the Sick Poor Society, the Child Welfare League and other charitable organisations have exhausted their funds. At the same time, we, in Cork, at least, are hopeful. We do not ask the Government to do everything. We do not ask to be spoon-fed. But we do seriously suggest that in the cities of Dublin, Cork, Limerick and Waterford work on a large scale should be initiated. In starting that work, the Government will have the hearty co-operation of the councils controlling the destinies of these cities. I deprecate very much the introduction into a debate of this character of the name of any firm, whether that firm operates in Dublin or Cork. It is, in my view, very damaging to the prospects of the country to have the name of Messrs. Guinness brought into a discussion of this character. It would be well for this country if we had a few firms of a similar character to Messrs. Guinness —a few firms of such a colossal character. I do not want to be ministerpreted. I do not refer to firms manufacturing the same commodity. I refer to firms having as much capital invested in the country as Messrs. Guinness have and giving as much employment as they do. If we had a few more firms of that character, we would have very little need for doles at Christmas or on any other occasion. I would ask the Minister responsible, when distributing this grant, to have regard to the centres where the need most exists. Whilst charges have been made here that there was some kind of favouritism shown in the past, I must say that, so far as Cork City is concerned, there was no discrimination exercised. We got what we were entitled to on the last occasion and no more. There was no political influence or "pull" exercised in Cork City. So far as I know, there was no political or party "pull" exercised in any other constituency. I want to dissociate myself from charges of that character. I want to appeal—it is not really an appeal; it is a request, because if there is £250,000 to be distributed, Cork is as well entitled to its share of it as Dublin or any other part—I want to request, or almost to demand, that when this relief grant is being distributed Cork City will get its share, and that regard will be paid to the fact that Cork has relatively more unemployed than any other part of the Saorstát.

Dr. O'Dowd

I, like many other Deputies who have spoken, deplore the circumstances which render this measure necessary, but I welcome its introduction. I feel, however, that the amount which it is proposed to devote to the relief of unemployment at this season is totally inadequate, and that after the expenditure of the money we will find ourselves in pretty much the same position as we were before. It is certainly not creditable that year after year at this season a relief grant should have to be introduced. I feel, like many Deputies who have spoken, that the Government should tackle the problem in a more manly way, and that they should try to eradicate the causes rather than, year after year, touch on the fringe of the problem by Votes of this kind. I hope that this money will be expended on schemes which will be of permanent value. Only those schemes should be undertaken which will be permanently beneficial to the country. Sanitation schemes, schemes for the provision of sewerage and water supply in towns in need of such facilities would certainly contribute towards the solution of these problems in many centres, and money so spent would yield a satisfactory return in the end. Schemes which will be put up under this Vote will probably be debarred because they will be what I might call "border line schemes." As I passed by motor from the West of Ireland to-day, I noticed that great parts of the country were flooded. If the people affected apply for assistance under this grant in having drainage schemes carried out they will be told by the Land Commission that that is a matter for the Board of Works. I have before me a request from the people in a village in County Roscommon, Ballyfarnon. The village is flooded each year by a neighbouring river. The flooding is due largely to trees which lie in the bed of the river. These people ask to have the trees removed from the bed of the river with the assistance of this grant. When they put up their scheme they will probably be told by the Land Commission that it is a matter for the Board of Works. The Board of Works will tell them that they have no money and next year we will find the same position existing. I hope that no scheme calculated to do permanent good to any town or village will be excluded because of red tape of this kind.

There is no doubt as to the necessity for a grant of some kind. It is all right talking about the prosperity of the country, but a responsible body such as the Roscommon Board of Health has sent to the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Lands and to each of the T.D.s for the county a copy of the following resolution:

That we respectfully request the Irish Land Commission to institute relief works in the county as soon as possible as there is grave necessity for employment to relieve the many poor people who are facing the winter with practically no hope of their being able to support themselves and their families.

The Board of Health, in passing that resolution, had in mind the fact that home assistance has increased by several thousand pounds in the county in the last few years. They had also in mind the fact that home assistance is increasing week after week, and that in the week before Christmas the amount will be doubled. Eventually the small farmers who have to pay the rates will be unable to meet the huge demands made on them, and the people will be reduced to a state of dire destitution. The Board of Health had also in mind, and I would like to add my voice to the appeal made in that direction, that the grant would be distributed before Christmas. They had probably in mind the fact that at Christmas time there is absolute poverty in the homes of many people, and that were it not for the extra home assistance given them during the festive season, people in many parts would be unable to obtain the bare necessities of life.

Mention was made at the start by the Minister of the fact that part of the grant could be devoted to the purchase of seeds, and I think he specifically mentioned seed oats. I would like to point out that in my district seed potatoes would be just as important as seed oats. The provision of seed potatoes for small farmers who are unable to procure them, or for labourers who are unable to till the land attached to their cottages, would be just as important, if not more so, than the purchase of seed oats.

I would like to point out that in the case of many of the former relief schemes, practically as many of them as I knew in my own county, the ganger appointed was an individual who could very well live if he never had been appointed. In most cases he was a man who had a big farm. He was a man in many cases who had a military service pension, and he was pretty well able to live if he never got the work. He always got that work to the exclusion of the bona fide labourer. Many men were left to go around idle who had not got work for months, many agricultural labourers who do not get work from October to March. They were left walking about idle trying to eke out an existence on the few shillings home help which they received while other people were appointed gangers. Deputy Anthony, in his speech, stated that he went through the Gaeltacht and was unable to purchase more than 2d. worth of Irish matches. If the Government had adopted the advice of Fianna Fáil on the question of matches as on the question of many other Irish products, and had given sufficient protection to every article that could be manufactured or produced in the Saorstát, the people of the Gaeltacht, like the people of every other part of the country, would buy matches made in Ireland, and Deputy Anthony would be able to procure Irish matches there.

Mr. Connolly

I am very pleased this Bill has been introduced, for the reason that there is a considerable amount of depression in the country. I am sure everybody is aware that depression is not confined to this country. From the facts available, we have to be thankful that the number of unemployed in this country is so small. In the Free State it appears that we have only 21,000 registered unemployed, whereas in Northern Ireland there are 41,000. Our population is about four times as much, but yet we have only half the number of unemployed. In Great Britain the number of unemployed is 3,000,000. In the United States, where a condition of affairs obtains such as was never known there before, there are 5,000,000 people unemployed. Any person acquainted with the conditions obtaining in Ireland, and comparing them with the conditions obtaining in other countries, will see that Ireland is in a much better position, and that the unemployed are in a much better state than in other countries in the world. The United States boasts that it is the wealthiest country in the world, and I am perfectly satisfied that it is. Yet, you have millions of unemployed there, millions in the bread lines with no possible chance of getting relief in the way of unemployment benefit, or no possible chance of outdoor relief. In Germany you have 3,000,000 people unemployed. These are all countries with old-established Governments, countries that have a tradition behind them, and it cannot possibly be expected that they would have any less means to deal with unemployment than the Government here who have been only a few years in office.

The Government here is charged with having done nothing to provide employment for the people of this country. That is a falsehood, a statement that should not be made. That statement was made deliberately for the purpose of injuring this country. It is a statement made by a man who is a public representative. His statement is accepted by the people and broadcast by the Press of the country. That statement is untrue. This Government has rendered yeoman service to the people of the country and the labouring classes particularly. That cannot be denied. To illustrate the wild statements which are sometimes made, I might refer to the statement made by Deputy Corry to-night that a mill had been burned down in Midleton. The burning down of that mill and the unemployment of 87 men he leaves at the door of the Government. Why should he attribute that to the Government of the country? Is that a fair statement, or is there any justice in it? Why should not these men be honest and fair? If they are not fair to others let them at least be fair to themselves and to the country. The Deputy also referred to the closing of Haulbowline Dockyard. We do not require Haulbowline Dockyard any longer, because we have no Navy. That was the purpose for which these dockyards were originally built. Perhaps the Deputy might find a Navy for us, just as he has provided some sort of scrap army, and in that way provide some employment for those who were formerly employed at the dockyards. The conditions that obtain throughout the country can be relieved by the co-operation of county councils and urban councils. There is no use in Deputies pointing out that it is the incumbent duty of the Government to provide for all the ills of the country. There are Acts of Parliament which enable the council to provide the ways and means and provide work of various kinds. It is up to them to do that. There is no use white-washing themselves and divesting themselves of that responsibility. It is their responsibility.

I received a communication last night from a certain council proposing that we should adopt a resolution calling upon the Government to initiate a housing scheme. There are housing schemes in existence. We built something like 48 artisans' dwellings in the town of Longford and we did that by means of a liberal grant from the Government. We got practically £72 per house in connection with the scheme, and we secured that contribution as a result of levying a rate for the building of those houses. That meant the relief of unemployment. The same methods can be put in force elsewhere. They are methods by which unemployment can be relieved and they are also the means of providing better houses for the people. Those houses that were built in Longford were built for the working men and for the artisans. That is nation building. That is doing a thing that we are accused here of not doing.

As far as the Gaeltacht is concerned, Deputy Cassidy deliberately made a statement in this House which is absolutely false, the statement that the Government did nothing for the Gaeltacht or its industries and that unemployment is rampant in those districts. That is not true at all. The Government has provided something approximately like a half million of money for the building of houses and this money relieved unemployment in the Gaeltacht. And if half a million of money is spent in a small area like the Gaeltacht, it is a very large contribution given to the people of the Gaeltacht. It is half a million of money spent for better housing and for the relief of unemployment of the people in the Gaeltacht, and it is approximately one-twentieth of the entire revenue of this State in one year. And yet that gentleman stands up and says that nothing is being done. We have the further fact that in the Gaeltacht the Minister for Fisheries has set up a system of helping the home-spun industries. He is advertising them and he is helping to dispose all over the country of the products of these home-spun industries, so that you find them in every county and district that you go into. That is doing a real service to the people of the Gaeltacht, it is giving them employment and bringing money to them. You have a further scheme initiated by the Government—the kelp industry—which has also provided employment for those people. It has given them more money than they ever possibly thought of having. And yet this gentleman claims that nothing has been done. Everything that it is humanly possible for a Government to do is being done by the Government; and I do not think it is quite fair, I think it is very unfair, that a statement of the kind made by Deputy Cassidy should be made here. I presume that he will continue to do it. But finally he winds up by demanding that his district should get greater preferential treatment than any other.

I have the greatest possible hope that this money will be spent as soon as possible and before Christmas. I know there is need for money in parts of the country. Unemployment will exist while we exist, and no Government can prevent it. At the same time it will be the business of the local councils to make provision for the spending of this money. And if they make a contribution of half the amount it will increase the amount of money spent, and will increase the earning capacity of the people, and will render a service to the country in general. All the money given in this direction is given for the promotion of work such as the Land Commission did last year. That work had a very beneficial effect on the country. I desire to say that the work which the Land Commission did last year was highly commendable work. They got good service for it, and the work remains there to be seen by any person who wishes to see it. It was of the greatest possible benefit.

I should like to point out also that the urban areas are areas which, in winter time, are much more hard hit than rural areas; and while the urban areas, to my own knowledge, contribute liberally to the promotion of schemes for the relief of unemployment, I do not think they should be asked to contribute as large a sum as may be deemed necessary in other districts in rural areas. They are called upon from time to time to provide money for various services that other districts are not called upon to provide, and the burden on the ratepayers of these urban areas becomes very heavy and they are not able to bear it.

It might be very desirable also to have some of those moneys set aside for the initiation of sewerage schemes and drainage schemes. These are works which are highly desirable and works upon which a vast amount of money is spent in labour. Very often in the case of work of other kinds there is an expenditure of money which does not give a return to the working man. It is spent in the purchase of material and otherwise. But in sewerage and drainage schemes a vast amount of money goes to the working man. It is on that fact that I base my argument that this type of work should get preferential treatment. There may be other schemes which would involve the expenditure of a vast amount of money in the purchase of materials that would be of no benefit to the labouring man, and would not therefore have the result that they were desired to have.

I wish to point out that on the last occasion when there was a scheme for the relief of unemployment my particular constituency, Longford-Westmeath, did not, I am satisfied, get a fair show. I do not know for what particular reason, but the fact remains that these were about the only counties in Ireland that came off very badly in the matter. I do not know whether it was for want of initiative on the part of Deputies or the county councils, or otherwise, but I think that while we got something like £1,600 other constituencies got such sums as £10,000, £15,000 and £5,000. We came off very badly, and I hope that when the distribution of this money comes to be made those responsible will make up for that deficiency. The Deputies from these constituencies are rendering the best possible service they can in the Dáil and they are doing the best they can for the people whom they represent. We ought to get our fair share of this contribution. As to giving preferential treatment to any organisation, Cumann na nGaedheal, Fianna Fáil or otherwise, that is a thing that did not happen in our county. I think the Fianna Fáil organisation got on the spot very quickly on the last occasion. They had all their organisation working there very hard, their secretaries and otherwise, and they came in and got the lion's share of whatever was going. They have nothing to complain of on that score as far as I know. They are very hard at work now, and though they complain that the Government is doing nothing they are very quick to take the money that the Government has provided. They are prepared even to take the money that Deputy MacEntee said that this Government could not get. They are prepared to take even £400,000.

Mr. MacEntee

Certainly.

Mr. Connolly

For the Deputy's information I may say that individual Deputies on these benches could get £400,000, not to say the Government. These are things which do not help the country in any way. I hope that the Minister will bear in mind on this occasion that the people of my constituency are rendering as good a service as any others in the country and they should get a fair crack of the whip.

Mr. H. Broderick

I listened with interest to the Minister when introducing this Bill. He informed the House that this grant of £250,000 would be used on schemes of work similar to those carried out last year, with the exception of granting a certain sum for the purchase of seed potatoes to a number of farmers who lost their crops during the year. That, I think, is very desirable, as I know of a large number of farmers along the Shannon, both in Longford and Westmeath, who suffered extreme loss through the flooding in the early part of the year. The Minister did not specify the different schemes of work to be carried out, but only said that they would be the same as last year. He did not say how the money was to be allocated, or how much money the local authorities were to put up when formulating schemes. Last year's grant was not very satisfactory as far as urban councils and town commissioners were concerned. The Athlone Urban Council formulated a scheme for the extension of the sewerage system and they only got one-third of the cost out of the grant. At the same time, the City of Dublin —I am not sure about Cork—got one-half of the cost of any schemes carried out. That is a great burden on small towns like Athlone and Longford in formulating such schemes. As the last speaker said, a sewerage scheme is certainly a very good one to put forward because it provides a lot of labouring work. You can employ a large number of men on a sewerage scheme whom you cannot employ on other schemes. The Land Commission last year got some of the Relief Vote and will also get some this year for improvement schemes. The work for which that money is provided is carried out under the boards of health or the county councils, but there is no contribution required from these bodies for the work done. I think that is unfair. In Longford and Westmeath, which I represent, unemployment has increased considerably this year. In Athlone we have 500 on the live register, not to speak of the people whose right to benefit is exhausted and the number of young men from 18 to 20 years who have never yet procured any kind of work. They are clamouring for work and cannot get it.

I should like the Minister to let the House know what the local authorities are to contribute. Urban authorities and town commissioners in small towns cannot afford to put up £2 for every £1 given to them out of the grant. As Deputy Connolly mentioned, last year Longford and Westmeath were not fairly dealt with. The amount they received out of the grant was less than £3,000, which was much less than they were entitled to. I hope when the Minister is allocating the money to the different Departments that he will instruct the Minister for Local Government to make it perfectly clear to the local authorities what schemes of work he is prepared to sanction. Local authorities prepare different schemes which are turned down by the Department. I have a scheme in mind which was formulated last February when sanction for a loan of £4,000 was applied for by the Westmeath County Council for the erection of a new Technical School in Athlone. That has not been sanctioned yet, and that is a state of affairs that ought not to obtain. If it were sanctioned that building could now be in the course of construction and a number of people employed on it. I mention that matter to show the way the local authorities are treated in putting up schemes. It is not true to say that the Westmeath County Council's borrowing powers are exhausted, and the Minister during all these months would not allow the Council to borrow £4,000 for the erection of a Technical School. That and many other schemes could be proceeded with if the Local Government. Department gave their sanction. I hope the Minister will give us such information that I can write to the different councils in my constituency and tell them the conditions under which a grant can be obtained for schemes of work that they may put up.

Mr. MacEntee

We on these benches naturally are not going to oppose at this time of the year a grant for the relief of the unemployed. At the same time, we feel that the measure is not at all satisfactory, because it is no real remedy for the condition of affairs that exists. It is one of the yearly palliatives that the Minister introduces to ease the pangs of hunger at Christmas in order that he may avoid that unpopularity which a callous Government richly deserves. As Deputy de Valera pointed out, if only the Government were really in earnest and really anxious to do something for our workless people they have here at their own door a valuable market affording excellent opportunities for development which would absorb practically every registered unemployed man in the Free State. We had Deputy Connolly, in a moment of purse-proud eloquence, telling us that there were men on the Cumann na nGaedheal Benches who could raise £400,000 on their own name. I am glad to hear it. I must say that having heard it, taking Deputy Connolly's word for it, I have a somewhat poorer opinion of the Cumann na nGaedheal Party than I had previously. In that Party there are men who can raise £400,000, and there are industries which recently existed in this land closed down to-day; there are tens of thousands of people unemployed, and these gentlemen who are so affluent, who have such control over capital resources, would not themselves venture one penny piece in the development of Irish industry under that Government. There may be justification for that. They are in the counsels of the Government, and they know the attitude of the Government towards Irish industry.

Mr. G. Wolfe

Did Deputy Connolly say these things? My impression is that he did not.

Mr. MacEntee

He made the statement that there were members of the Government Party who could raise £400,000 upon the security of their own resources. Why do they not raise some of it and invest it in Irish industry? If they have these huge resources at hand, why do they not have some regard for their starving fellow-countrymen?

I drew the attention of the Minister for Industry and Commerce to that question a week or ten days ago, but the Government has done nothing, and the men who last year were able to look forward to a happy Christmas in their own homes are to-day wondering where the Christmas dinner is to come from. I did not intend to take this line. I wanted to refer particularly to the case of Co. Dublin in connection with this matter. Last year, owing to a certain misunderstanding which arose out of the reorganisation of the Local Government in the county, County Dublin fared very badly in the matter of relief. I think they only got £3,000 out of the total amount of money that was expended. I hope when the claims of County Dublin come to be considered this time that some consideration will be given to that fact. I am not arguing that they should be unduly compensated at the expense of any other of the counties. I do know that the need for this relief exists in every one of the Twenty-Six Counties, but I hope if the Dublin County Council put up a desirable and well-considered scheme that sympathetic consideration will be given to their claim.

Mr. McDonogh

I think it is only right that there should be criticism of the existing Government. Sometimes I find as much fault with some of the things the Government do as Deputy MacEntee, but I am not as foolish as he in his criticism. Now as far as the glass bottle industry is concerned, the side I heard might be coloured a bit. I heard it was trade union mismanagement. A number of decent men got together. I think the Government helped them. Trade unionism when properly carried out is a blessing to employer and employee, but we have some trade union men in this country for the last few years and I look on them as a veritable curse. In Galway I had in one year six strikes, but not one owing to conditions of labour. It was simply that one trade union official should assert his dignity, but he did not get away with much dignity when I had finished with him. With regard to the paper mills, I do not think it is feasible at all unless you want to tax people for the paper they use. I think trade unionism had a lot to do with it. It is not the Government's function to compel people to go to work unless you have Russian methods here. The proprietors could not get any good out of it, and they dropped the factory in disgust. Men who can get along and live without it will not worry themselves about it, and they feel it is not worth trying to go on. There was a cement factory here and it failed. What was the cause of the failure? The same old game, strikes. Unfortunately whenever there is an Irish strike it is the worst in the world. Our people have a capacity for starving and suffering greater than that of any other people in the world. When our people strike it means ruin to the industry and ruin to the people themselves.

Mr. Cassidy

Why did the people strike?

Mr. McDonogh

I do not know.

[An Ceann Comhairle resumed the Chair.]

Mr. George Wolfe

I think there will be general approval of this grant of the Government from year to year, especially as we are suffering from great poverty. In that way we are not any different from any other country in the world where in most of them the conditions are different from those we have. We have our problem. I think a great many of the speakers wandered very far away from the subject in hand.

Mr. Corish

Principally Deputy McDonogh.

Mr. Wolfe

It was common throughout the debate to notice that the grant had passed out of the minds of speakers. It has been said that the Government had done nothing; one speaker mentioned drainage. I think that speaker forgot that the Government undertook drainage on the Barrow. It was one of the biggest schemes, a scheme which successive British Governments funked or pretended to take up and then put aside. They have also carried out the drainage of the Greise. The Land Commission got their share of criticism, but I am glad to see that Deputies Anthony and Murphy gave them credit for the work they did in times like the present. As to the exceptional work they did some years ago every Deputy knows. Every Deputy has his own ideas as to how this money should be expended. The money will be allotted to each county, and I hope that schemes which are likely to give the most employment and to be of permanent use afterwards will be given preference. In that connection I would like to say that there are several schemes crying for completion in the County Kildare. In this matter my colleagues on the other side will probably back me up. I mean first of all the desperate conditions caused by flooding in the town of Naas. Owing to the magnitude of the scheme the local people cannot themselves carry it out without assistance. It is a carying need, and I hope that out of this money a sufficient sum will be earmarked to help to carry out this absolutely necessary work.

There is also the question of making roads through the bogs. This would give a good deal of employment to the people and it would be a lasting benefit to the district. The Curragh and Kildare districts are more affected by the distribution of this money than other districts of Kildare on account of several circumstances to which Deputy Anthony alluded. There can be a great deal of work done in the reconstruction of bridges. These have been for a very long time before the County Council, but they have been put aside for the want of money. I think these are very useful things on which the money might be spent. Of course there are many other ways in which money could be usefully spent in giving employment. I do not know how much we are to get in Kildare but I do hope that whatever amount we do get a good portion of it will be earmarked for the town of Naas. At the present moment the town of Naas is faced with a pressing necessity of finding out some means of preventing flooding. Great hardships are felt there whenever there is anything like exceptional flooding in the town. I think the Government are to be congratulated that this sum of £250,000, in this exceptionally hard time when money is so scarce, has not to be raised by extra taxation. All of us wish that more money were available; it could all be spent if it were. I think the people of the country, and especially those who are suffering from want on the approach of Christmas, will feel grateful to the Government for this Vote. I hope that as early as possible a great part of it will be paid over to the local authorities so that they will be able to expend some of it before Christmas.

Mr. Corish

On the few occasions that Deputy McDonogh has spoken in this House his speeches have been mainly occupied by attacks on trade unionism. To-night the Deputy went out of his way to try to convey that every industry that has been closed down in this country in the past three or four years has been closed in consequence of trade union activity. The Deputy referred to the glass bottle industry at Ringsend. Everybody knows who has been in touch with the glass bottle industry in this country that trade unionism had nothing to do with the closing down of that factory. It is common knowledge that a receiver was put in there who was an Englishman and who had very little interest in an Irish factory. It was pointed out time and again by people in Dublin who were interested in this project that this man was not making any effort, good, bad or indifferent, to further this industry. Deputy McDonogh should try to get some facts in connection with matters of this kind before he voices his sentiments in the House. We have heard repeatedly from the Government side of the House that Opposition Deputies are using language outside the effect of which is to decry the credit of the country. I do not know of any language which could decry the credit of the country more than the language used by Deputy McDonogh this evening. Anybody reading his words would think there was nothing but strikes in this country; that the workers did not want to work and that their only desire was to hamper and thwart industry in every way. That is not the case and Deputy McDonogh knows it. Every opportunity that presents itself to the Deputy is used for making an onslaught on the workers, especially those organised in trade unions.

So far as this money is concerned we welcome it as a gesture of the good faith of the Government, and I believe it will be accepted as such. At the outset, I want to say that in the distribution and in the administration of the last grant there was no political patronage displayed one way or another. The grant was used in the best interests of all the people. I was glad to hear the Minister say that in his opinion good work had been done, and that the money was not wastefully expended. The £300,000 grant last winter was well spent in providing sewerage works and waterworks where they were particularly needed. I hope that the money on this occasion will be as usefully spent as was the last money.

I would request the Minister in his closing statement to give the House an idea as to how it is proposed this money is to be allocated. I do not want to say that a certain amount should be given to one county and a certain amount given to another county. I would like the Minister to tell us what is required on the part of the local authority so as to procure the grants. I know that a great amount of time is wasted after the money is voted by the House. The time is wasted in negotiations between the Local Government Department and the local authorities interested in schemes. It would shorten the period of negotiations if the Minister would let the country know what the public authorities are expected to do. In that way representations could be made at once by them. If the local authority had a certain number of unemployed to warrant them to get some of this money, and if their schemes were acceptable to the Minister, the work could go on at once. What is required is that the local authorities should know what the Minister wants.

I hope the Minister will not expect too much from the local authorities, because the capacity of the local ratepayers has been reduced in the same manner as the national taxpayer. Anybody who has had anything to do with public boards knows that the ratepayers are taxed to the pin of their collar, and that there are large numbers of unemployed in a number of areas. It will be found that the county councils and urban councils are unwilling to put up a large amount of money in order to take advantage of the grants from the National Exchequer. Deputy George Wolfe has expressed his thanks that the money is not to be raised by extra taxation. There is very little difference between raising money through extra taxation, through the medium of national finance, and raising it from the local rates. In that connection I would ask the Minister to be as reasonable as possible with the local bodies.

The question of Irish manufacture has been mentioned here. I want to stress that point. There are things which are manufactured in Ireland which the ordinary man in the street could not be expected to purchase. But there are other things, such as matches and candles, and there is no excuse on the part of the ordinary man for not purchasing them. Take the question of matches alone. There are parts of rural Ireland where it is almost impossible to get an Irish match. There is a custom creeping up whereby small books or packets of matches are given away with Player's cigarettes. Player's have a cigarette factory here. Their name appears on the packet, and the cigarettes are labelled as being manufactured here in Dublin. If a person goes in to buy a 20 packet of Player's he will be given with them a box of matches. On the outside of that packet of matches there is the name of John Player and Son, but if the box of matches is examined closely one will see a small imprint which states that these matches have been made by Bryant and May, so that one of those factories which has come over, and which has not its headquarters here, helps another English factory.

I would appeal to people who are in the habit of buying Player's cigarettes to hand back that package and to demand Irish matches. There is no doubt that a considerable amount of money is being sent out of the country in that way. It is a small thing and people do not bother about it, but if the returns were examined at the end of a year it would be found that the amount of money sent out of the country and that could be kept at home is considerable.

In the town that I come from, Wexford, there has been a considerable amount of unemployment for a long time. Most of that is due to the fact that there is a slump in agriculture, as most of the men employed in Wexford were engaged in the manufacture of agricultural implements. At the same time I think farmers could do better and could support local industries by purchasing Irish machines. A great many things have been done for Irish farmers during the past few years. They got a certain measure of derating, and a tariff on butter, and if one believes all that one hears, in the near future there will probably be a tariff on bacon. Wexford has a population of 12,000 people and the inhabitants are almost entirely dependent on the engineering works for a living. The least we can expect is that if the farmers are being helped by the towns they should make an effort to help the town industries by purchasing machinery made in them. At this time last year the number on the live register in Wexford was 390. This year the number is 434. As Deputy Hogan pointed out, these figures do not represent the total number unemployed in an area. I have an estimate that was given me by the manager of the local labour exchange showing that while there is only 434 registered who expect to get benefit there are at least 1,000 people unemployed; in Enniscorthy there are 400, in Gorey 200, and about the same number in New Ross. That certainly showed a serious state of affairs. I am not blaming the Government. It is due to circumstances over which we have no control. I trust that areas of that kind will not be forgotten when distributing the grant and that local authorities will not be expected to do too much. I agree that a local authority should make a serious effort by giving a decent contribution towards easing the unemployment situation but the Minister should not expect anything unreasonable, and should not provide an excuse for a local authority which was dilatory in making an effort to help the unemployed. When replying I would ask the Minister to endeavour to make it clear what local authorities are expected to do in order to secure a grant, provided there are unemployed in the area and that a decent scheme is put forward.

Mr. White

Some very useful work has been done in my county by portion of the grant that was given last year for the provision of waterworks and sewerage schemes which are essential in the interests of the public health. I would suggest to the Minister that re-afforestation and reclamation should be considered this year. At any rate, a beginning could be made with re-afforestation. Reclamation could be very profitably engaged in and would be very helpful in the way of extending the holdings of small farmers. Re-afforestation and reclamation are reproductive and profitable works. I listened to what Deputy MacEntee mentioned, and I will give my experience. I am agent in Carndonagh for the sale of Pierce's machines for the past 25 years. No question can be raised regarding the quality of the article they produce. It is as good as any made in Europe. It is almost impossible to get farmers to buy Irish machines. Some of the Deputy's supporters are the worst offenders in that respect. I have no hesitation in saying that. I was negotiating with a couple of people before the harvest, and I thought I had succeeded in making sales, but, to my astonishment, I discovered two mowing machines that were made in Yorkshire at the railway station, consigned to two of his most prominent supporters. It is not for the purpose of making any capital out of it that I mention that. I wish to show where the difficulty arises. I am sure that my experience has been the experience of agents in other towns who endeavour to sell Irish-made machines or Irish manufactured articles. It is almost impossible to get the people to buy them.

Mr. de Valera

What is the obvious remedy?

Mr. White

I can hardly made a suggestion. I would like to hear the Deputy make one. I know what the obvious result would be. In any case these are the facts. I would again impress upon the Minister the desirability of having re-afforestation and reclamation work taken in hand by the Land Commission in Inishowen. We have had no afforestation in my area, and I would urge that the Land Commission take up some plots experimentally in Inishowen for tree-planting. I believe that we have enough roads, both bog roads and accommodation roads, and that it is throwing away money to make more roads.

Mr. Goulding

What I regret about this grant is that it is taken from the Road Fund. I received a resolution from Waterford County Council suggesting that, instead of taking money from it, the Road Fund should be augmented, and that a loan should be raised and the Road Fund used as a means of raising it. However, if the money could not be got in any other way we are glad to have it, small as it is. Deputy Anthony and Deputy White referred to the fact that the people will not purchase goods of Irish manufacture. The average man will take the line of least resistance. Those of us who were in the Gaelic League and in the Irish Industrial Development Association in the old days, and endeavoured to get the people to act patriotically, failed to a great extent. In every nation you will get a certain number of people patriotic, but you will never get a nation of patriots. In other countries the Governments had to compel the people to do what they should have done from patriotic motives. If we want the industrial revival to be a success we will have to do the same thing. There is no use depending on the patriotic action of the people to buy Irish matches, Irish soap, Irish candles, or Irish machinery. They will take whatever the shopkeeper gives them, or whatever they think handiest. The average man or woman will not bother to think how that is going to affect their neighbours in the next town or in the next county. If you appeal to them they will say, "We do not care about the people of Dublin or Cork. As long as it suits us we will buy it." This constant cry of the unemployed is becoming heart-breaking. Every year we have the very same appeals from every side of the House as to the condition in every part of the country. Next year, we will be appealing again for a further grant to whomsoever is here with power to make it. We will be pointing out that there are many people unemployed in our own districts and the neighbouring counties. We will be reading out statistics and going over the same old ground. If we keep on with this system of trying to relieve unemployment by means of doles, we shall never get anywhere. If we do not tackle the question in deadly earnest and adopt the best method, we will never end unemployment. Take, for instance, Waterford City. Somebody spoke a moment ago about a tariff on bacon. Everyone of us has pointed out at some time that the Irish farmer will take his own bacon on foot to town and go home with American bacon. So he will. He will similarly purchase foreign matches or soap or candles. We have got to prevent him doing that. If we had a genuine tariff on bacon, and if the Irish people were compelled to use their own bacon, there would not be an unemployed man in Waterford. We produce the finest bacon in the world there. Boots are made there which are as good as can be obtained anywhere. Yet, you will find in Waterford bacon imported from many countries of the world and boots from America, Britain, and other places. Until we make up our minds to compel our people to use the goods we make ourselves, we shall never get anywhere. I am not arguing that prohibitive prices should be paid for those goods. We can make good things in Ireland, and make them cheaply. If we compel our people to buy what is made in Ireland, we should see that they get good value for their money. We do not want to make in this way any section of the people of Ireland rich quickly. Our only anxiety is to see that the people for whom we are now voting this dole of a quarter of a million will be placed in a position to earn their living. There is only one way of doing that. As long as the average man can get cheap goods made in CzechoSlovakia or Japan or anywhere else, he will buy them. We must compel our people to be patriotic, as the Italians did. The only way to do that is to prevent the dumping of foreign goods in this country.

Mr. T. Sheehy (Cork):

I would not interefere in this debate which is so much concerned with Irish industries if I did not stand up in a suit of woollens manufactured in my own constituency, and in a pair of boots made by a Skibbereen tradesman. That is practical support of Irish industry. The reception accorded to this Vote by the Opposition was most disheartening. I believe that in no other Parliament would members refuse a gift of a quarter of a million to the poor for Christmas. The members of the Opposition did not absolutely refuse it, but they damned it with faint praise. I would ask Deputy de Valera and his supporters to examine their consciences after all the tirades levelled against the Government, and tell us what they did to encourage Irish industry or to start factories here during the last few years. It is a matter of history, and it is well known, that when the Republican bonds——

An Ceann Comhairle

We cannot have any history now.

Mr. Sheehy

I do not wish to go further into the matter. The Opposition charged the Government with neglecting the industries of the country. I challenge them to say what they did or what they are doing for the industries of the country. What has been their chief activity since they came into the Dáil but to thwart in every way possible every measure brought forward by the Government for the advancement of the country and the improvement of the poor and the rich. They are there to stand by every class. They brought forward a measure to assist the farmers a short time ago. Now, they come to the rescue of our poorest countrymen. In my constituency the people from Castletownberehaven to the mouth of Cork Harbour will be deeply grateful to the Minister for this unsolicited gift to the poor. He makes that gift to the poor of the Twenty-Six Counties—a gift of a quarter of a million—without putting taxation on a single article. It is very disheartening to have this criticism in the Dáil. We should rise and pull together if we want to help on the nation. As far as the nation is concerned, it is there, and there it will remain for all time. We have these insults levelled at Cumann na nGaedheal, but we are standing solidly behind the Free State. We stand by the Treaty and the Constitution. We believe that it is the utmost amount of freedom that could be got, and I say unhesitatingly that that will win at the next election.

Mr. Everett

We are somewhat disappointed that the Minister did not make a larger contribution, but in the constituency I come from this grant will be welcome. I have spoken on many occasions of the distress that prevails in that county. I believe there never was so much distress in the County Wicklow. I do not put the blame on the Government, but I disagree with the representatives of the Government when they say it is not the duty of the Government to attend to these matters. It is the duty of the Government to provide work for the fathers of families in all the homes of the country. The County Wicklow Board of Health have to expend £17,000 in providing home assistance for the unemployed. That is £5,000 over the estimate. At the last meeting of the Board of Health, the assistance officer had to appeal for the appointment of an extra officer during this period to deal with the large number of claims coming in from unemployed persons.

I join with other Deputies in asking the Minister not to make it a condition of the grant that the local authorities contribute on a fifty-fifty basis. Take the case of Bray. The Local Government Department has refused to sanction an application by the Commissioner for the raising of a loan for other purposes. Owing to the flooding, there is exceptional distress in Bray. The Government, of course, came to the rescue in that case, but there are over 400 unemployed. The Commissioner is endeavouring to provide some men with work for a week or a fortnight before Christmas. It is obvious that, owing to the high rates, if a fifty-fifty conditions is imposed in connection with this grant or if the money has to be expended by the 31st March, many of the public boards will be unable to avail of the grant. I ask the various Departments connected with the distribution of the grant to take a liberal view. I do not suggest that there was any political bias in the distribution of the last grant. We were somewhat disappointed by the small amount we received, but we did not trouble the Department. We put up our scheme to the Land Commission, and extra men were employed in re-afforestation. Two hundred or three hundred men got work for four or five months in that way.

I hope the Land Commission will get some portion of this money and continue the good work which they have been carrying on for the last year in County Wicklow. A serious problem confronts public boards whose borrowing powers are exhausted. The County Council in County Wicklow view with great alarm the distress prevailing in that county. At the last meeting they asked sanction for the raising of a loan of £8,000 whereby work might be started for the relief of unemployment during the Christmas period. In Bray an exceptional amount of distress prevails. Owing to railway amalgamation a large number of men were thrown out of employment and there are a number of others unemployed also through various causes. There is a large population of unemployed there and there was never such distress facing the unemployed people. I hope the Minister will allocate some of this money for that district.

In the town of Arklow there are also a large number of persons unemployed. Ever since Kynoch's factory was closed there have been a large number of unemployed in that town. The Board of Health have to provide for these unemployed. The Board of Health will be faced with a deficit of £5,000 next March, notwithstanding the extra social services which they had to initiate during the last twelve months and the loans which they had to raise to finance various schemes, such as waterworks, etc. As I say, there is a large number of unemployed in the town of Arklow and there is practically no work for them on the roads. The streets there are in a bad way, and I would ask if the Arklow Urban Council put up a reasonable case for the immediate expenditure of a certain sum of money that the Minister would not make it a condition that the urban council, whose borrowing powers are exhausted, should provide an additional amount, because that would mean that the Board of Health will have to continue giving these men 5/- a week home help.

In the rural areas also there is very severe distress owing to the agricultural depression. The men unemployed are looking for home help, and the only alternative we have is to give them work on the roads. We have two or three thousand able-bodied men looking for assistance. When the Minister realises that we spend £17,000 at the rate of 5s. per week in home help, he can visualise the amount of distress that prevails in the county. We have heard a good deal of talk about foreign materials, but there is one employer we have in Wicklow—and I only wish that we had more of his type in the Twenty-Six Counties, and we would not have to be making so many appeals for the relief of distress due to unemployment. I refer to Lord Fitzwilliam, who has expended a tremendous amount of money in developing the slate quarries there. A large number of foreign slates are imported into this country, but we have made it a condition that in the building of houses in our own county, Irish slates must be used, and that preference will be given to Killaloe slates and particularly slates produced in the county.

Reference has been made here to the fact that a condition was made that asbestos slates should be utilised in building, but I think some encouragement should be given to an employer who is prepared to go to such great expense to develop an industry of that kind. All he wants is encouragement. I understand that he is now prepared to produce a special tar for use on the roads. He has spent thousands of pounds in the Shillelagh district in developing this industry. He is prepared to produce this tar and I hope that he will get every opportunity of selling it in the Free State. Instead of constructing concrete roads and buying foreign cement for them, I hope that some of this tar will be used for roads in the Saorstát. I object to concrete roads. I oppose them until we have cement works in our own country.

At the time of the Kildare election the President admitted that it was the duty of the Government to provide employment for the unemployed. We realise that it is a big problem and we on these benches, both inside and outside the House, have stated that we are prepared to give every assistance to the Government in solving that problem. We are prepared to assist them or anybody else, any capitalists or industrialists, who invest money in the country. We are prepared to give them every assistance, provided they pay a proper rate of wages, to make some attempt to solve the problem. A large quantity of foreign manure is imported to my own county, although we have a manure factory there which gives employment to a fairly large number of men. There would be employment for a few hundred men if the farmers purchased Irish manure instead of purchasing foreign slag. In many ways we could assist towards the solution of the problem if we supported Irish products. Some people think that it is a great thing to have a sum of £250,000 voted for the relief of distress, but when that is spread over the Twenty-Six Counties I am sure it will be some disappointment to counties like my own to find that they will not receive more than £12,000 or £14,000. Of course it is better than nothing. It will assist public boards to deal with distress.

I hope that the Minister will not insist on the conditions that he has hitherto insisted on in connection with public boards. I hope also that the Forestry Department will get to work and absorb the large number of unemployed in the country. Splendid work is being done by the Forestry Department in my county. I only hope that a large amount of money will be placed at the disposal of that Department. That would remove a large cause of complaint. I appeal to the Minister to do something immediately in the three big areas I have mentioned and not to impose any conditions that will prevent public bodies availing of this money, because on previous occasions I saw that a large amount of the money was transferred back to the Exchequer because some of the public bodies were not in a position to fulfil the conditions which would enable them to avail of it. I hope that the Minister will have regard to the appeal made from all sides of the House and will not insist on the public bodies having the money expended before the 31st March. I would like if the Minister would also deal with the case of bodies who have reached the limit of their borrowing powers.

Mr. Nally

I wish to make an appeal to the Minister on behalf of the island of Achill in connection with the allocation of this grant. In Achill there is a population of over 7,000, and I am informed that over 3,000 are unemployed at present. A scheme for afforestation has been placed before the Minister for Agriculture by the people in that area, and I hope that when the matter comes before the Minister he will give it favourable consideration. In the town of Westport there are over 300 people unemployed. A scheme of reclamation has been sent on to the same Ministry from that area. I think if a substantial part of this money, say, £1,000 or £1,500, were placed at the disposal of the local authorities for the purpose of carrying out a scheme of reclamation, it would assist considerably in relieving unemployment. In the union of Castlebar there is also a considerable number of people unemployed. The same also is true of Claremorris, while in the town of Kiltimagh I understand that there are about 300 persons out of work. Works which could be carried out in that area would be the making of bog roads and the making of cul-de-sac roads which the local authorities under the present Local Government Act cannot carry out, and also the fencing and improvement of estates. In the town of Ballinrobe there is also a considerable number of persons out of employment. Work which the Minister could help considerably in that district would be the improvement of estates, fencing and drainage, and the making of roads. I hope that when the Minister is allocating this money he will remember that Mayo is in the Gaeltacht. I understand that under the last grant Mayo was one of the worst treated counties. In conclusion, I wish to congratulate the Minister and the Government in placing this money at the disposal of the Land Commission and the Local Government Department, as certainly this is going to be one of the poorest winters we have experienced in this country for the last twenty years. I hope again that the Minister will not forget Mayo in the allocation of the money.

Mr. Harris

I believe that there is great necessity for this grant for the relief of unemployment at the present time. I think the amount now provided will not be sufficient to relieve all the distress that exists in the country just now, particularly in the Co. Kildare. For the past nine years we have had a considerable amount of unemployment there and deputations have been constantly coming up to the Government from the country seeking unemployment grants. Conditions are not getting any better. They are getting worse and worse as time goes on. I believe this necessity for grants is a very clear indication that the policy of the Government has been wrong all the time. The want of policy on the part of the Government is very apparent in Co. Kildare. They never faced up to the situation that was created in that county by the evacuation of the British military. The towns in Kildare—Naas, Newbridge and Kildare town—were towns which depended to a very large extent —Newbridge, in fact, depended almost entirely—on the British garrison. It was through the British garrison that Newbridge first came into existence. Early in the life of this Government the Minister for Local Government admitted to a deputation which came here from the Kildare Board of Health to put before the Government the very serious situation that existed in Kildare owing to distress and unemployment, that he realised that Kildare was an exceptional county and that the whole question of the economic condition of the county was a national problem like the congested districts and that the Government must tackle it on that basis. The Government never tackled it on that basis and the situation is worse now than it was then. They allowed the agricultural community in Kildare to shoulder that burden, which they admitted was a national problem.

The agricultural community in Kildare also suffered severely as a result of the evacuation of the British military. The system of agriculture that prevailed in Kildare was largely brought into existence through the fact that they had a ready market for hay, corn and vegetables of all descriptions. That market was cut away from them when the British military left. The decline in brewing and distilling affected Kildare also and caused a big amount of depression. While the agricultural community in Kildare were faced with that handicap the burden of unemployment directly created through the evacuation of the British military was also placed on their shoulders. When appeals were made for the protection of the corn-growing industry—barley, etc.—the answer to their appeal was just a sneer from the Minister for Agriculture who stated that it was a bad policy to grow grain crops for cash. He advocated the policy of keeping one more cow, one more sow and tilling one more acre of land. That policy was at that time a little better than grain growing on the part of agriculturists in Kildare. The policy advocated by the Minister was very difficult to build up and it was very hard for them to change their system. Now, several years after their demand for protection, we have got a tariff on oats this year. If we got that several years ago the unemployment problem might not be so large and we might have more tillage in Kildare and other counties as well.

In Co. Kildare you have a big amount of ranch land. Forty-three per cent. of the land in the county is in the hands of 443 individuals. There are 443 holdings above two hundred acres and the amount of land held by those people comprises forty-three per cent. of the entire acreage of the county. Anybody who goes through the county can see that is really the best land in the county, that really the best land has no population on it. The large population is in the small holdings on the bog edges and the people are trying to eke out an existence in that bad land. The Land Commission has done nothing to remove those people out of that land. They have not done very much drainage for them and have made no roads for them. Much could have been done to get these people out of these small holdings in the moory bad land and put them on the good land. In fact where the Land Commission did take over good holdings and good estates, they systematically marked out big holdings on these estates, built houses on them, and brought migrants of the ranching type in and put them on them. These types of people give very little employment. In fact I know a farm on the Carrick estate, an estate taken over by the Land Commission, where a house was built on 170 acres of the best land and the land has been let on the eleven months system since then. No hedge has been sown and no ditches or anything like that erected. The smallholders got the worst land in that estate. It is the same all over the county.

We have seen that the British Government are protecting wheat growing. There is much land in Kildare suitable for wheat growing on the large estates I mentioned. For generations that land has been allowed to deteriorate. It has been left more or less a wilderness. Large hedges and trees are growing all over it and the ditches have not been cleaned. We do not know what is before the country and we may be compelled to adopt the policy of growing a big proportion of the wheat we require. If this land is to be used for that purpose the Government should provide the money to have it made fit. The Government should take over these estates and have the ditches cleaned and the hedges and trees cut so as to make them fit for tillage. There will be a lot of preliminary work necessary before the land is fit for tillage. Much unemployment is also caused in the country districts owing to the agricultural depression. Many genuine tillage farmers used to keep two or three men and in the winter time they carried out improvements on their farms. They cut hedges and cleaned ditches, made fences good and improved their farms generally. Owing to the bad prices now prevailing they are losing their capital and are unable to make this capital expenditure on the improvement of their farms. In that way many agricultural workers have been deprived of employment.

Conditions are also very bad in the towns in Kildare. A large number of working people in Athy used to find employment at tillage. Beet growing for the past few years relieved the situation there but this year conditions are worse than ever they were. From inquiries I made at the Board of Health I find that unemployment is increasing rapidly and the Board are unable to cope with the demand for relief. The amount which they are able to pay even to married men with families is very small, from eight to twelve shillings per week. In Newbridge and Naas the conditions are also very bad. In fact there is a chronic state of destitution there. Many people have not been able to get work for years. In connection with former relief schemes complaints were made by certain men who applied for work that those drawing unemployment benefit were taken on and that men who were not entitled to unemployment benefit were refused work and had to look for home help. I consider that was very unfair. It looked like trying to save the Exchequer in one way or another. Many men working on the canals have also been deprived of employment owing to the beet crux. Boats have been held up for want of work. In consequence much work is needed in these districts. In Naas, as Deputy Wolfe said, there has been severe flooding. Some of the houses were flooded to a depth of eighteen inches. The Urban Council feel that they are not able to deal with the situation because it would cost a large amount. A large proportion of the money derived from rates at present has to go in repayment of previous loans obtained for relieving unemployment. After being in office for nine years the people have little hope that the present Government will ever solve the problem. We expect at least that they will consider the seriousness of the present situation and deal with it adequately. The situation is getting worse and worse as time goes on, and if a proper policy is not put into operation the problem will become even more difficult to solve.

Mr. E. Doyle

I should like to make a plea that consideration should be given under this grant to the counties Kilkenny and Carlow which I represent. Bagenalstown and Tullow water and sewerage schemes have been under consideration for a number of years. I wonder what are the possibilities of money being given under this grant to boards of health and county councils to help to finance schemes of that sort? The Minister is no doubt aware that it is not probable that boards of health will undertake to promote such schemes out of their own resources as they would increase the rates to an alarming extent upon the people in the areas concerned. Apart from the employment that would be given by schemes of that kind, the health of the people, which is a most important factor, has to be borne in mind. In Bagenalstown and Tullow in the Co. Carlow, Ballyragget in Co. Kilkenny, and similar towns, epidemics have broken out very frequently and many deaths have taken place, due to the want of sanitation and proper water supplies. I should like to know what are the conditions under which public boards will receive grants for the promotion of such schemes and for the relief of unemployment. Under the last Relief Vote County Carlow got the lowest grant of any county for relief schemes. That was probably due to the fact that the beet factory was then working to full capacity and that that was supposed to solve the unemployment problem in that county. That is not the case now. We know that the acreage under beet this year was not anything like what it was and that the amount of employment given has as a consequence been considerably reduced. My constituency has also been unfortunate this year because many of the towns along the banks of the Barrow have been inundated with water. In Graigue-Cullen and Tullow many people have had to leave their houses and to be accommodated in courthouses and public halls for several days, while their furniture and bedding have been ruined. In consequence of that, I say that all the consideration that can be given should be given to the people in these places.

There is no doubt that the unemployment problem in Carlow, and Kilkenny also, is as bad as it is in any other county of the Saorstát. There is no use saying that one county is better off than another. That is not the case to-day. On many occasions in this House for the last seven or eight years Deputies from these benches have suggested many methods of solving the unemployment problem. I have suggested the making of bog roads and I have others also in my mind, such as mountain roads, that might give a considerable amount of employment in both these counties: Afforestation also should be speeded up. Drainage schemes should be set going and last, but not least, the Land Commission, where they are in negotiation about purchase of land for distribution among the people, should speed up the work immediately which would give employment to the rural people in the way of putting up fences in making roads. I sincerely hope the Minister will give consideration to what I have suggested and that in particular he will facilitate public boards as far as possible whereby this money will be expended for the benefit of the unfortunate people during the Christmas season.

Mr. Carey

To my mind the spending of this money rests entirely with the local authorities. It is the local authorities throughout the country concerned with civic administration who should administer this scheme. They should formulate schemes, put them up to the Minister, and ask for grants to carry them out; but what I am more concerned with than the formulating of schemes where the local authorities are anxious to do so is the striking of a rate to qualify for portion of the grant. Heretofore local authorities had to put up a certain amount of money and to raise loans with their treasurer to qualify them to get a certain amount from the Department of Local Government. To my mind, if the Minister can see his way to allow the local authorities when engaged in the striking of their rates in March to raise a penny or twopence to meet that demand it would be an easier way to do it. There is no use shedding crocodile tears about towns where English garrisons were formerly. We have to shoulder civic responsibility in the towns where there was employment given when they were occupied by the English garrisons. It is our duty as a local authority to do so and it is the duty of the Government to place a certain amount of money at our disposal to enable us to carry out our duties in that respect. Towns like Mallow, Midleton, Youghal, Cobh, Fermoy and Mitchelstown cannot at the moment, on account of different works carried out since last March, go to their treasures and raise loans to qualify for this money that the Minister is placing at their disposal. What I would suggest to the Minister and to the Executive Council is that they should allow the local authorities permission to raise a certain amount by a rate of twopence or threepence in the pound, as the case may be, next March. I think the local authorities would promise to do that and will carry out their duties. I think it is up to the Minister of the Department to see that the rate is struck in March next. That would be one of the ways of meeting the situation at present.

The local authorities have the necessary schemes to be formulated on their finger tips. Drainage schemes, especially having regard to the amount of rain we have had for the last two or three weeks, would be very easily formulated. In the town I come from we have been inundated with water for the past five or six days and poor people living on ground floors felt it very much. Their bedding and furniture were washed away and we found it very hard to make up funds to enable them to replace them. With a little outlay by the local authorities that would be averted in the future. The raising of this loan by the local authorities cannot to my mind be seriously objected to because the money so raised and spent upon the employment of labour would revert to the pockets of the ratepayers. I believe Cork County, the largest county in the State, if given a fair show, would put forward schemes, and if the Minister would allow us to strike a rate for the amount that we should contribute in this financial year the local authorities would get over their difficulties.

Mr. Kennedy

I was delighted to hear Deputy Connolly's plea for a share of the grant for Longford and Westmeath, and his reference to the small amount which these counties got under the last two grants, even though Deputy Connolly last year went round the counties and told his constituents about the enormous sums that were coming to them from a beneficent Government and all the employment that was given. I believe he visited the few works carried out every day and he told the men how thankful they should be to Cumann na nGaedheal although employed at one pound per week. I am glad that even here in the Dáil he now admits that the sums were so small and put up a plea for the relief of unemployment in his own constituency even at a sweated wage.

Deputy Connolly did not inform the House that in the spending of the money in his constituency last year no notice was taken about whether this unemployment existed and that the small sums spent in Westmeath-Longford were spent under Cumann na nGaedheal auspices; that no Land Commissioner went out on unemployment inspection to ascertain whether there was unemployment in that area or not, and that the money was spent in the area which gave the biggest service to Cumann na nGaedheal in the previous by-election. If that is going to be the case in whatever grant we get now the Government can keep it. Towns like Athlone and Moate where there were some hundreds of unemployed were not considered and the Government took no notice of them. They went out to places where there was no unemployment, to places which served them well in the previous by-election and they spent there whatever they had to spend. The local county councillor was the man to say who was to be employed and who was not. Certainly consideration was not given where men had large families. The question whether a man had a large family or not was not taken into account. It was: Who had given the best service to Cumann na nGaedheal? If that is going to be a condition of the employment grant now the Government can keep this grant. Deputy Carey gave a lecture about local authorities.

Mr. Carey

The Deputy should speak for his own county.

Mr. Kennedy

The Deputy said that the local authority should shoulder responsibility for its own problems of unemployment even to the extent of 2d. or 3d. in the £ on the rates. These are the local authorities that are to be abolished by the Cumann na nGaedheal Party who are to appoint Commissioners in their places. These local authorities are now told that it is not the duty of the Government to solve the unemployment problem or to tackle the unemployment problem but that it is the duty of the local authorities.

Mr. Carey

Have you no brains down in your county?

Mr. Kennedy

I only hope that Deputy Carey extends his philosophy a little farther and tells what is supposed to be the sovereign authority in the State, that it is their duty to tackle this problem. Deputy Carey belongs to a Party who in spite of starvation in the country, go about glibly talking about progress and glibly talking about prosperity. Now on the eve of a General Election that Party has a sop of £250,000 to throw to the unemployed in the shape of £1 a week for a few weeks in the hope that that will make the people forget the Government's misrule and neglect; in the hope that the people will forget that the Government instead of placing £250,000 at their disposal now at this £1 a week rate, have neglected to place millions of pounds in decent wages at their disposal in manufacturing at home the things that are made now in England, Germany, Russia or anywhere else. These things could be produced here.

People like the Minister who have enjoyed an uninterrupted salary for the last ten years and who see Ireland from the windows of a motor car can very well say "we are prosperous." But if the Ministers had been like the local Deputies and if they had come up against these most pressing problems of distress, and if they were to see the amount of home assistance increased four-fold in the last ten years, they would look at things in a different way. It is clear that large and additional burdens will be placed on the backs of the ratepayers. In the smallest village in the Midlands, and I suppose the same applies to the South and the rest of the country, the Ministers would see that conferences of St. Vincent de Paul have been formed in an effort to try and tackle this problem. If Ministers knew these things they would realise what the state of the country really is.

Whatever portion of this grant comes to my constituency it should be spent where the greatest unemployment and poverty exists. It should be given to those heads of families who have the greatest number of dependents and not to those who are Government timeservers. It is doubtful if in these cases this money is not given purely as a bribe. The sooner and the quicker the money is spent the better. It should be made available before Christmas. In getting this sum of money the Government have robbed the Road Fund. They have pilfered the Road Fund of this money which should go in the ordinary way to the making and maintenance of roads. They have gone and robbed the Road Fund and the roads have to suffer accordingly. This clearly indicates the mismanagement of financial affairs by the Government. This also indicates that the various avenues for the relief of unemployment that have been pointed out from these benches have not been explored by the Government. The Government neglected to explore these avenues. When the time comes the electorate will let them know what they think of them for all their neglect in the solution of these major problems.

Mr. Smith

There is an atmosphere in certain parts of this House that seems to regard the giving of doles as quite a normal thing. I have been here four years and on this Vote in these four years I have listened to Deputies, but have taken no part myself in these debates. I am sorry to say that the major portion of what was said during these debates did not impress me very much. For example I heard just a few minutes ago a Deputy who represents County Mayo, Deputy Nally, reciting a litany of the conditions in the different towns and rural districts in his constituency. He told the Minister for Finance that this town wanted consideration, that some rural district wanted consideration and that some other town was worse. Then he seemed to congratulate the Government on having been able to produce that situation. That is the sort of consistency that you get from people who stand up in this House and address themselves towards these problems that we are supposed to be dealing with in a discussion on this Vote.

I heard another Deputy who formerly belonged to the Farmers' Party refer to the fact that certain people who were alleged to be supporters of our policy and Party in a certain constituency, refuse to purchase Irish machinery. I think that is the height of nonsense. It is the height of nonsense for the President or members of the Executive Council to go around the country and ask the people to support Irish manufacture. They tell the people "It may cost you more but it is good business and we all do it." For example the President said "Everything in my house and everything I wear is Irish." So well it can. Then there is the Minister for Local Government and Public Health coming along and telling the local authorities that they are not to use Irish slates. If we do not get an example from the Government in this matter how can we expect the people who are poor and hard-pressed to use Irish material?

Mr. Connolly

It is not true to say that the Minister refused to allow local authorities to use Irish slates——

Mr. Smith

I am in possession and when I am finished the Deputy can speak. He is one of the Deputies in this House to whom I would not give way. The atmosphere of this discussion and of every discussion like it previously here is an atmosphere that some of us do not want. We say that the unemployed in the country who are poor and hungry have as good a right to live and to get an opportunity of living as any Deputy here. The Deputies over there are denying them that right. Then we have this as a normal state of affairs. They go down the country and say to the people: "We are providing you with £250,000 to get you over Christmas." That has been the mentality manifested here during the last four years. Anybody who takes his mind back over the four years cannot deny that. This question of unemployment has never been approached from the national point of view by the people in this House.

When it comes to spending this money, through the Land Commission or through the Local Government Department by the agency of the local bodies, what is the position? Let us suppose that £3,000 is given to the Land Commission to spend in any county on, say, improvement of bog roads or cul-de-sac roads. It would take ten times the amount of money given to any county to cover half the applications that will come up from that particular county. The result is that the inspectors of the Land Commission who should be on other work are given these applications to inspect. They get into their motor-cars and they feel that they must go around and inspect each of them because if they do not people will complain and say their particular scheme was not considered because they were this or that thing. The result is that the money is going to be used largely in the payment of travelling expenses. I am not saying this now by way of making any reflection on officials of the Land Commission. I know they cannot help it.

I asked a question as the result of the last grant. I asked how many applications were sent in from my county, how many were inspected and how many jobs were completed. I would not be told that. I feel that half of the grant given to that county was spent in the payment of petrol and motor expenses. Every job that is undertaken in this haphazard way has first to be inspected and the money given to the relied of unemployment does not get there at all. A few people get £1 a week for three or four weeks. If money is to be given in this way it should be given through the local authority, who have a permanent machine for dealing with roads, who know their own county and who have certain schemes prepared. As a matter of fact each of these local bodies has applications from time to time from their members for certain works that are much needed in the area. I imagine that giving money in this way and through this system will not achieve the best results for the people and for the country. That is my contention. The suggestion was made by other Deputies on this side—and I think it is a good one—that it is the local authorities who should have the spending of this money if money is to be given at all in this way.

The one reason why I rose at all to speak on this debate is simply because I feel that I want to tell those who have a certain outlook and mentality and who think that this thing can go on and that we can come here every year and pass some sort of laws and that we have a right to condemn some 40,000, 50,000 or 60,000 people to unemployment and then come along at a time like this and say: "We are finding £250,000 to get you over the Christmas," that that is the old idea of going to the landlords hat in hand again. We do not stand for that, at least I do not stand for it. I think it is time that if this House can claim to be a National Assembly and can claim to be a sound legislature surely to goodness we ought to make an attempt to cultivate a spirit in our people. Surely to God you will not make that attempt by methods like this. Would it not be worth our while to go and face this problem as men should face it? Would it be worth our while even to make a sacrifice as regards the support of our own industries and producing here the things that we want? Would it not be worth while doing this and getting rid of the attempt to keep a section of our people in a state bordering on starvation and want?

Mr. Connolly

With reference to what Deputy Smith has said about Irish slates, is it not a fact that the Department of Local Government never——

Mr. Smith

Is the Deputy the Minister for Local Government?

Mr. Connolly

I will not leave untruths go unchallenged.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

That is not a point of order, and the Deputy has already spoken.

Mr. F.J. Crowley

I agree with the views of Deputy Smith and Deputy Kennedy. I would not have got up at all only to point out that in 1925 there was a large amount due on the part of the British Government under the Road Fund to the different county councils. In 1925 it was brought up and in 1926 it was brought up again. On these two occasions the correspondence from the Department of Local Government was to the effect that we were talking through our hats. I would like to know when the money is now forthcoming, and if the Government have taken care to get the interest on that money since 1921. Strictly speaking, the money should be taken over since 1921. I would also like to know the rate of interest. Like Deputy Kennedy I am really sorry that we are compelled, year after year, to vote a certain amount of money in this House for unemployment, because I hold, as most members on this side of the House hold, that as far as possible it is the duty of the Government to provide work for all its able bodied men.

I have been studying the notice in the introduction of this £250,000. I cannot find out why they put it in that particular form. It means that you take £250,000 from the Road Fund. I hold that the best way to relieve unemployment in this country, at the moment, is either by the construction of new roads or the expenditure of money on the existing roads. I doubt if you can get any other better way to expend money for the relief of unemployment than on the roads. I have been asking myself why the Government have adopted this extraordinary method of taking £250,000 from the Road Fund and transferring it to the Minister for Finance.

As I said at the opening of my speech, I agree with every word of Deputy Smith and Deputy Kennedy for the simple reason that nothing could convince me that this is not bribery money for election purposes. The expenditure of Land Commission money in Kerry has been absolutely bribery money so far as I can understand it. There is no such thing as expending money in the areas where the unemployed are. It is expended in the areas where the Government can get most support. One of the grievances at that time was that, in order to get work, you had to be an ex-Free State soldier. I hope this money will be applied to the relief of unemployment and that that condition will be wiped out this time. If an ex-Free State soldier could be picked up in any quarter of the globe he was brought in and drew the money. In many cases men drawing pensions from the Army were the first to be placed on the work. Money has been taken from the Road Fund, which was one of the best possible ways of relieving unemployment, and transferred to another Department. If it had been transferred to the local authorities in the south, or throughout the Twenty-Six Counties, I would not say a word against it. I would like to know what amount of money is going to be ear-marked for the Land Commission and what amount for the local authorities. The usual routine has been for a Minister to sail into a certain locality. Immediately emissaries were sent out for deputations to come in and then the money is allocated left and right. If a Minister does not happen to reside in the county then a Cumann na nGaedheal Deputy sails down. When it is stated that £250,000 is going to relieve unemployment it would be just as well to look at the matter in this way: It is officially admitted, I think, that there are about 70,000 unemployed in the country. Owing to the stoppage of emigration the figures will possibly reach 100,000 next February or March. If 100,000 is divided into £250,000 there will be about £2 10s. per head for twelve months. If that is the Government's solutions of the unemployment problem I think it is about time they retired. We know that their economic policy has been responsible for this state of affairs all along the line. Outdoor relief and the assistance given by the Society of St. Vincent de Paul are the best barometers of the economic conditions in the country. If we announce at the crossroads which, they say we are so fond of, that the Government policy is a bankrupt one, we are immediately told that we are destroying the credit of the country.

[An Ceann Comhairle resumed the Chair.]

The very fact that the Government was compelled to vote this money for the relief of unemployment, and which they admit only touches the fringe of the problem, shows that the Government policy has been an abject failure as far as the agricultural and industrial affairs of the country are concerned. The reason why I object so strongly to the transference of money from the Road Fund to the Irish Land Commission, or to other bodies, is that the British Government appointed a Commission some years ago and that Commission ear-marked money which was to be spent on the road from Mallow to Killarney. The Kerry section of that road has not yet been steam rolled. It goes through one of the most congested districts in the country. I think the Minister for Education will have cause for regret if, now that this money which is coming from the British Government, and which was ear-marked for that road, is not spent on it. As far as I understand, the Government have a grandiose scheme for a certain town in Kerry to build a big structure while neglecting districts where there is a greater proportion of the people unemployed.

When allotting the money the Government should remember that on their own initiative they appointed a Commission some years ago to report on the relief of the sick and destitute poor. That Commission reported that as far as possible grants should be allocated on the basis of valuation per head of the population. That recommendation was sent forward by the Commission, but the Government have not given a single grant on that basis. The Commission was one of the most representative that the Government appointed, but not a single one of its recommendations has been put into effect. The report was published three years ago. Is the Minister now going to take the report into serious consideration and to allot the money on the basis of valuation per head of the population? If the money is allotted on that basis it will reach the congested districts where the population is large and valuations low. I doubt if there is any better way of distributing the money and taking it out of the hands of politicians.

Mr. D. Bourke

I move the adjournment of the debate.

Debate adjourned.

Dáil Éireann debate - Wednesday, 2 Dec 1931