I move:—
That the Dáil disapprove of the action of the Office of Public Works in paying rates of wages on relief schemes which are lower than the rates prevailing for similar classes of work in such areas where relief schemes are in operation.
I move this motion because I think this House, certainly those members of the House who protest violently against the mentality of low wages, should be given an opportunity of dissenting from the action of the Office of Public Works in paying on relief schemes the miserably low rates of wages of 21/- and 24/- per week. I think, sir, I ought to anticipate at the outset some of the erroneous arguments which will be used in this debate.
Some members of the Fianna Fáil Party—and the attitude is not confined to ordinary members, but apparently extends to Ministers as well—are endeavouring to show that so far as the Labour Party are concerned they have tolerated, and it is even suggested they have agreed to, the payment of 21/- and 24/- a week. I want to correct these misstatements, because they are very definite misstatements. While I hope the correction will satisfy those who have been responsible for disseminating that kind of mischievous and misleading statement, at the same time I wish that those not satisfied with the explanation I am going to give will have the courage to say here what they have been saying outside at the cross-roads. In November last, when the Estimate for Relief Schemes was going through the Dáil, Deputy Everett on behalf of his Party protested against the payment of 24/- a week on relief schemes, Deputy Everett then having some advance information as to the low rates of wages which the Office of Public Works proposed to pay. On 6th January last a deputation representing the Labour Party and the Irish Trade Union Congress had an interview with the Minister for Finance.
It will be observed from that that the Labour Party had been protesting to the Government against the low rate of wages which it was proposed to pay on relief schemes. I was not present at the interview with the Minister for Finance. Deputy Davin was, and I leave it to him to narrate the views of the Minister as then expressed. If, therefore, we were protesting on the 30th November and on the 6th January against the scandalously low rates of 21/- and 24/-, it will be obvious to every fair-minded Deputy that, so far as we were concerned, the moment we heard of the low wages proposed to be paid we immediately made representations to the House and subsequently to the Minister for Finance. When the interview with the Minister took place the Dáil had then been dissolved. It was not our fault if the interview with the Minister did not take place much earlier. It had been fixed on a few occasions and, because the Minister was not available, the interview had to be called off and later dates had to be arranged.
Then we had the election. The House met again on the 8th February. It sat for four days between 8th February and 8th March. I raised the matter in this House first by way of question and, in view of the flippancy displayed by the Parliamentary Secretary when replying to that question, I raised the matter on the adjournment that same evening. That shows that, so far as the Labour Party was concerned, not merely did it protest speedily, but it did everything in its power to have these rates of wages increased.
I must take the House back to the attitude of the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Finance. In doing so I do not want the House to imagine that this is a complaint against the Parliamentary Secretary. It is true that he has been a rather uncouth mouthpiece of the Government in the Dáil, if one is to examine his defence of this miserably low wage; but then, this whole policy involves the wage policy of the Executive Council, and in that sense I want the House not to regard the matter merely as a censure on the Parliamentary Secretary. In this matter he is just the instrument of the Executive Council policy. When this subject was last raised I referred to the instructions which were then issued by the Office of Public Works in relation to these relief schemes. The instructions were headed: "Instructions to Inspectors." It was sought by the Parliamentary Secretary to lead the House to believe that that was a mere routine instruction; that nothing new had happened in relation to the instruction. He said it was something that went out in connection with all relief schemes.
It is worthy of note that 250 copies of the leaflet were reprinted in October last. That shows conclusively that so far as the Office of Public Works was concerned this leaflet was reprinted six or seven months after Fianna Fáil had been elected. Apparently there was so much community of interest between the present occupant of the post of Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister and the last Parliamentary Secretary to the same Minister that both of them could agree that 21/- and 24/- a week were good enough for Irish workers in rural areas. The publication of that document in October, 1932, six months after a Fianna Fáil Executive had been elected to office, is to my mind conclusive evidence that the Executive Council stood over the mentality enshrined in that document.
What is the objectionable paragraph in the document? This document, I may mention, is a circular issued from the Office of Public Works, a Government Department that ought to pay decent rates of wages. It contains this statement:—
"The rates of wages in the case of relief works are, where possible, to be fixed on a lower scale than that normally paid to agricultural workers in the district."
That is a clear incitement to farmers who might pay reasonable rates of wages to cut their wages below the standard fixed by the Office of Public Works in connection with these schemes. It is a clear expression of opinion also that so far as the Office of Public Works is concerned it considers that this work ought to be paid for on a scale comparable to the wages paid in the most depressed industry in the country. That is the attitude of the Office of Public Works in relation to the employment of persons engaged on these relief schemes.
If we ask ourselves the question: Why are low rates of wages fixed for these schemes, we can, I think, get some interesting information in so far as the Parliamentary Secretary is concerned. Replying to my question in the House on the 8th March last, the Parliamentary Secretary said: "On minor relief schemes, which were originally designed to deal with and confined to specially necessitous agricultural areas, the rate of wages is related to the wages paid to agricultural labourers in the district." He adds:—
"In response to strong local representation, grants for minor relief works have this year been made to counties to which they had not heretofore applied; these grants, naturally, carry with them the conditions which have always applied to and been accepted in relation to them."
The clear meaning of that is that the Parliamentary Secretary wanted the House to believe that these schemes were formerly confined to special necessitous agricultural areas, that in response to special local representations these schemes had been extended to other areas and counties, and that the original low wage conditions must apply even when the works were now extended to areas not regarded presumably as necessitous agricultural areas. I do not know how the Parliamentary Secretary is going to justify that answer in relation to my particular constituency. Works of this kind were carried out in the County Kildare in 1930 and 1931. These schemes in the County Kildare are not new schemes. These schemes in the County Kildare are old schemes of 1930 and 1931 when we had the Cumann na nGaedheal Government in power. Many of the things that they have done have not excited my admiration or interest. But we do find that in the County Kildare the wages paid under these relief schemes by the same Office of Public Works as that by which they are carried out to-day were that 27/- a week in 1931.