Dáil Éireann debate -
Wednesday, 17 Feb 1937

Vol. 65 No. 3

Private Deputies' Business. - Unemployment Assistance Acts—Motion.

Debate resumed on the following motion:—

Having regard to the wholly inadequate rates of benefit originally provided for unemployed persons under the Unemployment Assistance Act, 1933, and to the fact that during the last two years the retail prices of commodities normally used in working-class homes have been raised substantially, this House requests the Executive Council to introduce proposals for amending the Unemployment Assistance Acts, 1933 and 1935, with a view to providing from State Funds adequate maintenance for all persons unable to obtain remunerative employment.—(Deputies Norton, Corish, Davin and Keyes.)

Mr. Anthony

I am supporting this motion moved by the members of the Labour Party. At the same time, I am wondering if the House has forgotten that the Labour Party themselves were parties to the increase in the cost of commodities which they now, apparently deprecate. I am glad to welcome the change of front on behalf of the Labour Party. They state in this motion that during the last two years the retail prices of commodities normally used in working-class homes have been raised substantially. I agree with them, but those who have eyes to see and ears to hear must remember that the signatories to this motion themselves contributed very largely to the tragedy that has overtaken this country in the shape of unemployment, as well as an increase in the cost of commodities.

Now, I want to point out that the position of the unemployed in Cork City can only be described as very bad, and very tragic in some cases. Many men willing and able to work are unable to procure employment, and many of those persons, honest, decent, respectable working men, are not able to come within the provisions of the Unemployment Assistance Acts because it has been suggested that they are not genuinely seeking work. I know that great hardship has been inflicted on many of those persons who are justly entitled to the benefits which should accrue to them under the Unemployment Assistance Acts, but they are debarred from receiving benefit because of the reason I have mentioned. Perhaps the Minister might, at some future date, devise some other means than those at present adopted to discover whether a man is genuinely seeking employment. I must emphasise that great hardships have been inflicted through the operation of that particular clause.

I am sure I will be joined by the members of the Labour Party and the official Opposition in the remark that none of us would agree to encourage the type of person who is not genuinely seeking employment. In that connection I want to say that many of the unemployed, both in Dublin and Cork, do not quite understand the position by which public bodies are faced. Members of public bodies are frequently charged with neglecting their duty because they do not provide employment for unemployed persons. I will give as an instance, the cases of the Cork Corporation and the Cork Harbour Commissioners. They were blamed for not having created work, for not having started large schemes of work. Those bodies, as the Minister is aware, are governed by statute, and they are not allowed by statute to break up property or indulge in certain public works without an inquiry being held and certain preliminaries gone through.

In the case of the Cork Harbour Commissioners I would like to give an extract from a report issued by a special sub-committee set up to inquire into the losses sustained by the Cork Harbour Commissioners over a period of years. That special sub-committee was presided over by a member of the Minister's Party. I will quote one or two paragraphs from the report to show that the revenue of the port has been seriously affected owing to the operation of the Government's present economic policy:—

"The revenue of the port, which in 1930 was £96,964, had fallen by 1935 to £78,617. This decline is due to reduced imports and exports, particularly imports of maize, flour, fruit, artificial manures, cattle-feeding stuffs, sugar, and exports of live stock, eggs and bacon. Messrs. H. Ford & Son, Ltd., also ceased to export cars and tractors, and the oil entrepot trade at Haulbowline was closed down.

"Those responsible for the management of the port of Cork could do nothing to prevent this decline, which was almost entirely due to national policy, over which they have no control."

Later on, we have the following:—

"When Haulbowline dockyard was working normally, it employed 1,000 manual workers from the Cobh and Passage areas. As late as 1927, the local expenditure at Rushbrooke docks was £75,000 per annum. All this has ceased."

I suggest to the Minister that he should give serious consideration to the facts related in this document, and to inquire has the City of Cork got anything to compensate it for this loss. As a result of this policy in Cork, we have numbers of men unemployed; we have the workers in the Cork Harbour Commissioners' yard working for a considerable period on short time, something like a week about. We have had them working a five-day week up to recently; the employers were then able to restore them to a full six days, and the position will be again reviewed at the end of June next.

The operatives in most of the tariffed industries are, naturally, because of the high cost of living, looking for increased wages. From time to time we hear of the turbulent character of some of these people who look for increased wages, but who can blame any worker, organised or unorganised, when he finds the cost of living going up from day to day, looking for an advance in wages in order to meet that increased cost of living? It appears to me we are going to follow that very vicious circle begun during the Great War period, when prices were rising from day to day. There was only one reaction to that on the part of the working people, and that was to look for still further increases in wages to meet the increased cost of living. I think the Minister will agree it is the only natural reaction.

When the purchasing power of the £ goes down to something like 14/- or 15/-, it is high time the workers in industries should look for increased wages, and, in turn, these increases are passed on to the consumer. The position, as I find it to-day, is this, that we are creating a newly-rich merchant class who are exploiting the working class in a way the old ascendancy class never did. It appears, also, that the newly-rich, the new ascendancy class, possess most of the vices and very few of the virtues of the much abused old ascendancy gang.

An Ceann Comhairle

The Deputy has travelled somewhat far from "the retail prices of commodities."

Mr. Anthony

This policy has been operated by the persons to whom I refer, and who would be loudest in their condemnation of the operatives in these various industries when they hear they are going to use the strike weapon to enforce their demands. At a meeting of the unemployed workers in Dublin a few weeks ago, we had a gentleman named Mr. Eamonn Wall, described as a member of the Irish Labour Party, and he stated: "It was all very well for them to read of after-dinner speeches by industrialists at banking concerns, etc.; to read of the introduction of the new Constitution and the abolition of the Seanad, but the unemployed knew there was no prosperity in the tenements." There cannot be prosperity in the tenements so long as commodities, these essentials of life, are going up and up; and yet the rate of unemployment assistance remains the same. I do not want, and I am sure the Labour Party do not want, to encourage the malingerers, the "won't works," or the "weary Willies," but there are numbers of honest, decent, respectable working people who are badly hit by the regulations as they now stand.

The motion very properly states that the retail prices of commodities normally used in working class homes have been raised substantially since the introduction of this Act. I would be the last person in this House to suggest extra taxation either local or national, if I did not believe that dire necessity exists. I am aware of the poverty that exists in Cork City amongst a number of very deserving people who would willingly work to-morrow if they got it. I have known cases where men who went to work with the pick and shovel had to be fed by charitable organisations. One or two organisations in which I take a very great interest and with which I have been connected for some twenty odd years have assisted men to get work and fed them for one, two or three days before they could work with the pick and shovel. Because of these reasons amongst others, I suggest to the Minister that machinery should be set up to deal with cases of the character I have mentioned. Nobody defends, as I said before, the position of the people who will not work, but the cases I have cited are typical of many thousands of cases of working class people in the country to-day and I hope the Minister will see his way, even if he does not accept this motion, to initiate himself some legislation which will meet the wishes of the Deputies who have signed their names to the motion and the other persons in the House who are equally interested in the welfare of the working classes.

Mr. Dillon

This unemployment problem would be far worse at the present time but for the immense numbers of young people going to England; but even after the tens of thousands of boys and girls who have gone to England in the last eighteen months the situation is still very grave. In that connection I think it would be very salutary if some of the Labour enthusiasts for tariffs would pay close attention to the words of Deputy Anthony and remember that though you may put a limited number of persons at work to produce certain commodities by imposing sky-high tariffs——

Mr. Norton

Deputy Anthony supported tariffs—he supported a tariff on prayer books.

Mr. Dillon

——you may throw out of work an immense number of people——

Mr. Pattison

He also supported a tariff on motor car tyres for Cork.

Mr. Norton

Tariffs for several places.

Mr. Anthony

Not on food.

An Ceann Comhairle

Order, Order. Tariffs on interruptions would be approved by the chair.

Mr. Dillon

It would be well for the tariff enthusiasts of the Labour Party to remember that while you may put a limited number of persons in work if you put on a sufficient high tariff, there are repercussions of the economic policy of self-sufficiency to be found in the docks of Dublin, Cork, Galway, Waterford and every other shipping centre in the country. It is noteworthy that the cruellest suffering from unemployment in this country is to be found in the big ports where men have been thrown out of work in the docks and in the warehouses and in those branches of occupation which were connected with our international trade. Another occasion will offer to compare the values of international and internal trade, but it is relevant to refer to these matters so far as to point out that one of the by products of economic nationalism is the unemployment of large numbers of men, many of them family men, who had been earning good money doing useful work for the community. That is something that a lot of people forget when they talk of a tariff of 75 per cent. on this or 100 per cent. on that or of a quota on this or a quota on that. While you may produce a little factory here or a little factory there, you may at the same time throw out of good and remunerative employment men who have never until that hour known a day's unemployment in their lives.

I am concerned in regard to the substance of this resolution, because I come up against it every day of my life. I see working people buying the necessaries of life every day, and I have frequently been shocked when I reckoned up the amount of taxation and excess charges paid by a working man's wife on her weekly supply. I have frequently seen a labouring man's wife coming in to spend her husband's wages on a Saturday night, and on £1 worth of goods, if she bought clothes for the children as well as food for the house, I have found that 5/- of her £1 was going directly or indirectly to the Treasury.

Mr. Moore

Even if she bought Irish clothing.

Mr. Dillon

Yes. The tragic thing about the situation with which we are trying to deal is that the vast majority of the Fianna Fáil Party are so benumbed by their own propaganda that they do not know the facts, and they are afraid to learn them. Does Deputy Moore realise that if a workingman's wife goes on Saturday night to buy 1 lb. of butter she pays 5d. tax upon it, approximately?

Mr. Moore

I was alluding to clothes.

Mr. Dillon

I said that where she bought household requirements and drapery, 5/- out of every £1 went directly to the Treasury. People should not forget that. People in this country are losing sight of the fact that every reactionary government in the world is a tariff reform government, every government which is inspired by the worst vices of the capitalist system. In my opinion the capitalist system is the best system under which we can live, but it has its vices. Every Government which comes under the control of the vicious element of the tariff system knows that through the instrumentality of tariffs it can lift the taxation off the direct taxpayer and shift it over to the backs of those who pay indirect taxation. The indirect taxpayers are the poor, and you can so cover up indirect taxation that the poor do not know they are paying it. All that happens is that they tighten their belts and do with less. They do not realise that their food and their standard of living is being cut down by the taxes they are made to pay, and which they are paying to relieve the wealthier sections of the community who are much better able to afford to pay. Some people will say that most of the increased taxes of one kind or another are being laid on the backs of the poor for the simple reason that the rich would not pay them. If anything like the amount of money that is being dug out of the poor was levied on the wealthier element the Dublin Chamber of Commerce would make the welkin ring; they would chase the Minister for Industry and Commerce at every stage; there would be no banquets given, no entertainments provided, and no passionate speeches about his excellent virtues, his zeal for industry, his courage and his resource. They would chase him out of the city, because they are equipped with resources with which the poor are not equipped.

Take the case of a woman living in Gloucester Street who goes to Talbot Street to buy a cotton singlet for her husband. Up to a few years ago she got one for 1/-. It is now not a question of paying a little more; her husband has to do without an inside shirt. Of course he has an outer shirt but he has to do without a singlet. These are homely and some people may say indelicate things to mention, but every labouring man knows what a difference it makes if his wardrobe comprises an undervest which can be washed frequently. This is a joke for some members of the Fianna Fáil Party, but it is not a joke for anyone who has to deal with working people, and who knows what a difference it makes in the household. I have seen men who had to go without these garments because they could not afford to buy them. The Minister says that these things cannot be produced here. He asks: "Do you want me to allow in Japanese and Czecho-Slovakian products to wipe out Irish Industry?" I admit that it is a difficult proposition, but I think the last people who should be hit in order to promote Irish industry are the very poor. Supposing we are faced with the alternative of allowing in Japanese garments which will make available for the working man a wardrobe, which he will not have if they are not let in, then these are the last things that prohibitive tariffs should be put on. It may be said that it is a terrible pity that we cannot produce singlets at a price that these people can afford to pay. If we make up our minds that it cannot be done, then I think it is wrong to prohibit their entry altogether.

Under existing circumstances what is happening is that a considerable percentage of lowly-paid working men have to do without these garments because they cannot afford them. They pay form 1/6 to 1/11 for garments that are not as good as those they were able to buy for 1/- three or four years ago. The President of the Executive Council says that we cannot have omelettes without breaking eggs. That is quite true. But I object to breaking the eggs of the poorer section of the community first. To my mind, their eggs are the last to be broken if eggs are to be broken at all. I am sure Deputy Mrs. Concannon has some experience of the difficulty of hardworking women who are trying to provide clothes for a large family of young children. The Deputy will probably remember that up to about four years ago a mother could get a pair of cotton socks for about 4d., so that if she wanted to turn out six children nice and clean on a Sunday she could get socks for the family for 2/-. These socks are not to be had now.

The Minister wants to know what we want him to do about it or if we want him to wipe out the hosiery factories. I do not want that. I think a middle course could be pursued. The hosiery industry could be promoted here without stopping what is required for the poor man's child. It is reckless disregard for the particular case that has resulted in the steady increase in the cost of living of the poor. I sometimes despair of getting those who are supposed to be solicitous for the welfare of the poorer sections of our community to understand what the situation is. In so far as drapery goods are concerned, the whole trouble is complicated by this fact, that not only do money prices rise but the quality of the articles supplied goes down. No one seems to see that.

Take the case of flannelette. Remember that the poor buy flannelette, and that a great part of their raiment is made from it. A woman who is in the habit of buying eightpenny flannelette, when she goes in now gets in fact flannelette which used to be sold for 4½d. The flannelette that now costs 8d. will not last much more than half the time. That is happening all through commodities which working people buy in drapers' shops. There are comparatively few commodities which cost a shilling three years ago that do not cost 1/3 to-day. People are still buying articles for a shilling but they do not last half as long. It is only when you get to the 1/- singlet and the 4d socks or something which the poorest of the poor must purchase that you find the actual increase in money prices. Where there is any scope for reducing the quality or raising the prices you will very frequently find that the change in value that the poor are getting consists only of half of an increase in price and half a reduction in quality.

Mr. Moore

Were the imported articles always high-class products?

Mr. Dillon

No, but when we were importing people here were getting good value for their money, because merchants had to buy in the cheapest market, or otherwise competitors would take away their trade. The result was that when buying flannelette they tried Manchester, America or Holland to get the best value to be got. If you did not do that your neighbour would, and he would take your trade away from you. Now, there is only one firm in Ireland producing flannelette, and you take that or you leave it, and you pay 33? per cent. tax. I put it to Deputy Mrs. Concannon, just imagine a working woman coming in to buy 3½ yards of flannelette at 1/- a yard to make a garment for herself. Out of that 3/6, that woman is paying about 8d. tax. Mind you, I am understanding it; she is, probably paying 9d. or 10d., but let us say 8d. On an ordinary nightdress she is paying 8d. tax. I deem it my duty to mention those things. It is very easy for Deputies to sneer and jibe at me.

Mr. Norton

I do not think any Deputy has. Do not be so self-conscious.

Mr. Dillon

I quite agree that those things may sound funny in these surroundings. I have personal experience of them because I have a shop, and I think it is my duty to bring those matters under the attention of Deputies who are supposed to represent the people. They are a daily source of misery and shame to anybody who is serving poor people.

Mr. Jordan

And a nightly source of comfort.

Mr. Dillon

There are matters about which I do not care to joke, and I do not suppose the Deputy wants to either. I find them very depressing, and I have not the slightest doubt that if Deputies here had those matters brought under their notice from day to day they would share that view with me. I wish we could see our way to do something to relieve that kind of stress. I believe it is unnecessary and I believe it is very harmful. I should like to direct the attention of Deputies to specific commodities which I am now going to mention. In 1933, when this Unemployment Assistance Act was first mooted in this House, a cwt. of flour in this country cost 13/-. I am now taking the average price at which it would be bought in a country shop. If it were nearer a port it might be cheaper; if it were nearer the centre of the country it might be dearer. To-day the price is 20/6, that is an increase of 7/6 per cwt. in the price of flour over the last four years. A cwt. of meal was costing 6/11. Now, mind you, a cwt. of meal in some parts of the country is animal food, but in many parts of the Gaeltacht, as Deputies from that part of the country know, it is used as human food. A cwt. of meal used to cost 6/11; now it costs 9/5. Part of that is due to the Government's folly. Part of it is due to the rise in the world price of maize, but a great deal of that increase in price is due to the maize meal mixture scheme. Tea is up by 4d. a pound. A stone of sugar cost 3/- in 1933; now it costs 3/11. A 10 stone bag of oatmeal cost 16/- in 1933; now it costs about 25/-. The last price I saw paid for it was 23/6, but it has gone up a little since I took down those figures, and I think it is now 24/- or 25/-. A stone of bacon was 9/- in 1932; it is now 15/-. A cwt. of coal was 2/6 in 1932; it is now 3/-.

Most of those increases are due to the active intervention of the Minister for Industry and Commerce. All those increases are being paid by the poor. All the commodities I have just mentioned are commodities which are the weekly purchases of the people who are receiving unemployment assistance— the purchases of those least able to afford the increase. It is not relevant to discuss the conditions of persons other than those who come within the category of the unemployed. Of course this burden is bearing just as heavily on many other sections of the community, and it is manifest to anybody who is meeting those people every day that the allowances made to them under the Unemployment Assistance Act two or three years ago have been as effectively reduced by this rise in price to which I have referred as if the Minister had taken 2/- or 3/- off the assistance. We all remember the storm of fury which Fianna Fáil succeeded in raising against the Cumann na nGaedheal Government when they perpetrated that major political folly of taking 1/- off the old age pensions. Of course it was the greatest political error a Party ever made. The fullest capital was made out of it by the Fianna Fáil Party, and it stood them in good stead in the general election which then ensued. They have taken far more off.

I put this to the Labour Party, and I ask their particular attention for it, because it is an extraordinarily good example of how you can fool the poor, but you cannot fool a potential member of the Dublin Chamber of Commerce. The taking of 1/- off the old age pension created a storm all through the country. There was no old man or woman in the country who did not understand that as plainly as A B C. There was no explanation required; it stood out, and they were mad. There is more being taken off by the rise in the cost of living to which we have referred in the course of this debate. Infinitely more than 10 per cent. of their income has been taken from them in the rise in the cost of living. How many people can you get to see that at the present time? If you went to the old age pensioners and said: "Which would you sooner have—those prices reduced, or 1/- put on to your old age pension?" 99 per cent. of them would say: "I would sooner have 1/- on my old age pension," because they do not feel that; they do not understand it. That is why this Government does that kind of thing. That is what I despise this Government for. I think the late Government was wrong and stupid and mistaken in taking 1/- off the old age pensions, but I respect them for the moral courage they showed. Having made up their minds that it was their duty to do it they faced the political tornado which they knew was going to blow against them, and which they knew was going to be fanned and fomented by an unscrupulous Opposition. This Government has not the honesty to do that.

Mr. Norton

You voted for them.

Mr. Dillon

Whom did I vote for?

Mr. Norton

For the election of the President.

Mr. Dillon

Do you refer to the vote I cast for President de Valera when he was first elected in 1932?

Mr. Norton

There is only one President. You should remember that vote when you are criticising him.

Mr. Dillon

Most emphatically I remember it, and in the same circumstances I would do the same to-morrow. That man had to get a chance. The country had to learn by bitter experience what that man meant.

Mr. Norton

You did not say that at the time. You are mending your hand now. You have changed your Party since.

Mr. Dillon

I have not changed my mind in the very least on that score. President de Valera had to get a chance in this country. There was no other way of letting the people know what that kind of "codology" meant.

Mr. Norton

You did not say that at the time.

Mr. Dillon

The people are learning a lesson, and Deputy Norton is learning to-day what I saw four years ago. We have him here admitting that President de Valera is now grinding the faces of the poor in the dirt. He was declaring him to be a liberator of the people five years ago. He has supported President de Valera through thick and thin in this House. He has voted for all those parts of the President's policy which have placed those burdens on the backs of the poor. Am I not right in saying that the Deputy is still bound in advance by some sort of understanding to support Fianna Fáil in this House? He is still supporting them.

Mr. Norton

The Deputy can hardly be right in that, seeing that he is wrong in so many other things.

Mr. Dillon

Deputy Norton is rather given to some subterranean understandings, and when the whip is cracked one will find the Deputy leading his Party into the right Lobby.

Mr. Norton

Into the right Lobby!

Mr. Dillon

The Deputy will be found leading his Party as he is told when the whip is cracked. I hope the Deputy will develop independence and that he will see the position in the country as I see it. Ample evidence is now forthcoming that the policy for which Fianna Fáil stands is a fatal policy to this country and that it is peculiarly fatal to the poor, inasmuch as it is piling up on their backs immense burdens of expense, that it is increasing unemployment, and that it is at the same time dissipating the country's resources out of which unemployment must ultimately be looked after. I frankly do not see how the Government are going to meet Deputy Norton's request unless they are prepared to change their policy.

Deputy Norton wants more money for unemployment. I want less money for unemployment. I want reasonable maintenance for any man who is willing to work but who cannot find a job. But to do those two things we must have in this country active, increasing and profitable business. We must have abundant national income in order to carry the unfortunate sections of the community over any periods of distress that may afterwards come. But the fact is that the business of the country is dwindling. Our international trade is decreasing in value; we are artificially stimulating exports of certain commodities, largely through the help of Government subsidies. There is practically no branch of the agricultural industry at present which is yielding a profit. There is every evidence that the national income as a whole is dwindling. If that national income continues to dwindle there is going to be no found out of which we can give the unemployed any kind of reasonable maintenance until we can find work for them to do.

I have mentioned two heads under which the increase in the cost of living has become very onerous. In conclusion I want to mention two others. At the present moment the people of this country are being asked to pay 1/5 per lb. for butter. That price puts butter out of the reach of the unemployed people and out of the reach of many labouring men. We now discover, as a result of a Parliamentary question addressed to the Minister for Agriculture to-day, that we have been levying 5d. per lb. for butter on our own people in order to ship butter to Germany and Great Britain in excess of the quantities we should have shipped and we are faced with a situation in which we have got to use unsalted butter that was intended for the Belgian market or else import Danish butter in order to keep our own people going. We have been actually charging 5d. per lb. on butter in order to finance that operation. Now, is such a thing believable outside Bedlam? The same Minister who is responsible for that, is the Minister who got up in this House and said that the reason he was bringing in the Milk (Regulation of Supply and Price) Bill was because there was too much milk coming into Dublin. Too much milk coming into Dublin when half the children in this city are not getting a quarter of the milk that they should consume every day! And our remedy for that situation was to raise the price of milk. Outside Grange-gorman such activities have never been allowed to continue for long. Just imagine in a city like Dublin with the under nourishment that obtains, and with the development and spread of disease amongst the children, that it should become the declared conviction of a responsible Minister that there was too much milk coming into Dublin. The remedy for that situation was to increase the cost of milk to every consumer of milk in the city. In the presence of insane activities of that kind one almost gets tired of protesting; one is accused of crying "wolf;" one is accused of always complaining and the suggestion is that some of our complaints are illfounded.

I think the conduct of the Government in regard not only to the unemployed but in regard to all the people is absolutely indefensible, hopeless and cruel. Indeed some of their supporters are beginning to realise that. What astonishes and amazes me is that the Labour Party have consciously supported the Government in this policy. How the Labour Party have shown so little interest in the practical outcome of the course for which they are responsible is a matter that I cannot understand. I hope as a result of the debate on this motion the Labour Party are coming to realise whither they are going. If they are they may be sure of whatever co-operation they ask from the other parties in this House so as to make the Government realise that they have the duty of running this country not in the interest of one section only, not in the interests of the people who are out to make a bit, but to see that every element in the community gets a fair share and to realise also that the only sound economy which attracts support in this country is that economy which will secure prosperity to all sections in the community and not prosperity exclusively for one or two sections.

Mr. Norton

Deputy Dillon treated us to rather a lengthy dissertation on the vices of tariffs, on the vices of economic nationalism and, by inference, of course, invited the House to believe that his fundamental philosophy—free trade—is a policy which will cure all the evils that beset this country. The Deputy asked why impose tariffs on the importation of certain articles of clothing. He asked why we should impose tariffs on certain articles of children's clothing. If the Deputy had thought a little more deeply and a little longer he would probably have found by reference to the conditions in other countries in Europe, and by reference to conditions in other parts of the world, that almost everything we make here can be produced cheaper in some other countries.

Mr. Dillon

Nonsense. Guinness's stout!

Mr. Norton

The Deputy can have all that. We will let it in free.

Mr. Dillon

Jacob's biscuits.

Mr. Lemass

Why is there a tariff on biscuits?

Mr. Dillon

Does the Minister mean to tell us that Jacob's are depending for their success on tariffs? Jacob's were making biscuits before the Minister was born and will be making biscuits when the Minister has a halo around his head.

An Ceann Comhairle

Order.

Mr. Norton

The truth of the matter is that the Deputy ought to know, if he were thinking at all, that almost every article that is made in this country can be produced cheaper in some other country in the world. In many cases this is due to the highly industrialised conditions obtaining in those countries. In other cases it is due to the currency exchange rates, and in a number of other cases it is due to the fact that very low rates of wages are paid in some foreign countries. It is also due to the fact that there is over-production in those countries. Such conditions enable those countries to export their surplus here and to sell it at a price much below the price charged to their own people or the price at which we could produce it here.

Mr. Dillon

Fifty per cent. of that is pure nonsense. We can produce in this country goods as cheap as can be produced in any country in the world.

An Ceann Comhairle

Order.

Mr. Norton

Deputy Dillon took 40 minutes to treat the House to a foolish dissertation on free trade and on the dangers of tariffs. But when we asked him, at the end of 40 minutes, to give us one case in disproof of the contention that I make, namely that almost everything we produce here can be produced cheaper in other countries of the world, the only thing the Deputy can point to is Guinness's stout.

Mr. Dillon

Jacobs' biscuits, ships and linen.

Mr. Norton

That is the serious contribution that we get from the Deputy. He tells us that ships can be produced cheaper here than in other parts of the world. The Deputy ought to know perfectly well that his statement in respect of ships is the purest nonsense. If he will examine the conditions in the Russian market he will find that it is utterly untrue to suggest that linen can be produced cheaper here than in Russia. The Deputy ought to know—he can get the information from the official statistics published by other countries—that practically every commodity that we make in this country can be produced cheaper elsewhere.

Mr. Dillon

That is pure nonsense.

Mr. Norton

The Deputy says "let these commodities in simply because somebody here wants to buy them." Of course, if one were to follow Deputy Dillon's argument to its logical conclusion the ultimate result would be that this country would be the open door for the exports of every other country. Some exports could get in, as I have already indicated, by reason of special exchange positions; in other cases by low wage rates; in others, by highly concentrated mechanised methods of production, but, over and above all, they could get in by dumping here the surplus products of their own countries. Take sugar, which the Deputy is disposed to talk about so frequently in this House and outside of it. It affords a classic example of the truth of what I have been saying, because the surplus products of that industry in Czecho-Slovakia are exported to any other country that will take them, and at a lesser rate than the citizens of Czecho-Slovakia pay for them. The Deputy, of course, does not want information of that kind because it disturbs his foolish preconceived notions.

Mr. Dillon

I have forgotten more about it than the Deputy ever knew.

Mr. Norton

I think the Deputy has forgotten all about it, and I am glad to have that admission from him. I hope, however, that the next time the Deputy studies the matter he will try to retain some knowledge of the subject. What he said here on this particular matter has a bearing on the utterances that he has been making outside the House:

"Do not produce anything here in this country except bullocks and send them over to John Bull."

That is Deputy Dillon's philosophy. Wheat growing, he says, is a fraud. Beet growing is a fraud, according to him. All the new industrial development is a fraud, notwithstanding the fact that other and more sensible members of his Party who make speeches after Deputy Dillon have been very careful to assure the country that they do not propose to make any wild changes in the industrial or agricultural policy that is now being carried out if they are ever returned to office.

Deputy Dillon treated us to another discourse which was in accord with what he has been saying outside the House: "Do not produce anything here but bullocks, and send the bulk of them to John Bull; depend on him to pay; if he does not pay, well and good, we will face up to the famine that follows. If he wants to apply economic pressure against us, let him apply his economic pressure so long as it pays the farmer to get back to grass; let our work people play in the fields of grass that Deputy Dillon would create here, or pay occasional visits to the round towers to look at the wolf dogs or have a look at the rising sun." That is Deputy Dillon's conception of the kind of Ireland that we ought to have here. Of course, Deputy Dillon must know that you have got to pay a price for all that, and the price you pay is to have large numbers of your people idle, unable to obtain any wage at all and unable to pay anything for the articles he speaks of no matter what the price is. Of course, when the Deputy's Party was in office it did not even provide our people with unemployment assistance benefit to buy articles at the low prices he now talks about.

Mr. Dillon

No, they only gave them work.

Mr. Lemass

Where?

Mr. Brennan

On their farms.

Mr. Norton

On their farms? Deputy Morrissey, who is now a prominent member of the Fine Gael Party, can be quoted from the official records of this House as saying that during the period Cumann na nGaedheal was in office the census showed 80,000 unemployed people, and that he really believed the figure was more. If Deputy Brennan wants to get a picture of agriculture under Cumann na nGaedheal all he has to do is to go down to the library and look up the speeches made by ex-Deputy Baxter and ex-Deputy Heffernan who claimed to represent the agricultural industry in this House. The picture they painted, so far as agriculture was concerned, was that the Cumann na nGaedheal Government was fast turning that big industry into a pauperised industry.

Mr. O'Leary

People have learned a lot since.

Mr. Norton

Apparently so, because the Deputy was at this side of the House then and he is at the other side now.

Mr. O'Leary

I have a communication—it is in Irish—in my pocket, and if the Deputy could read it, it would give him some indication of what is happening in the country.

Mr. Norton

The Deputy can make a speech on the matter.

Mr. O'Leary

I do not want to make a speech now. I will have another opportunity later, when I can have more scope.

Mr. Norton

I do not want to pursue Deputy Dillon into the realms of free trade and tariffs on this question ——

Mr. Dillon

If the Deputy has done with me I propose to go out and have my tea.

Mr. Norton

——because in some respects it seems to me not to be germane to the motion that we are discussing, though it may be in some respects closely related to it. I prefer to deal with the motion rather than the curious views to which Deputy Dillon gave utterance in the course of his speech. This motion was proposed on a previous occasion. It has been seconded and spoken to by a number of members of the House. So far, no member of the Government Party has thought fit to support the motion orally in the House, though I am quite sure that many of them feel considerable sympathy with it. The Minister for Industry and Commerce, apparently, does the thinking for the Government Party on industrial, economic and social matters, and, apparently, once the Minister has made up his mind that this motion must be opposed then the whole of the Government Party decide to accept his viewpoint not to support the motion and to vote against it. There was no attempt whatever made by the Minister to contest the reasonableness of the motion, or to show that the claims made in it were in any way unjustified, having regard to existing circumstances.

The Minister's speech was, in my view, a particularly disappointing one, and if he has since read it I imagine that he cannot be very pleased with it himself. It was a remarkable speech in some respects, because we get some very important admissions from the Minister. We have been used to listening to speeches by members of the Government Party that they accept the principle of providing work or maintenance for the unemployed. Now, that speech did service in the last election. That contention and that philosophy has done service on a number of political platforms since the last election, but the Minister, apparently, has now recanted and has now declared that the Government, while it may try to provide work for the unemployed, does not consider that it is its function to provide a decent standard of maintenance for the unemployed, because we had a very definite declaration by the Minister that these rates of benefit are not intended to provide maintenance for the unemployed.

Mr. Lemass

The Deputy had better read what I said.

Mr. Norton

Oh, I read the whole thing with pain and anguish.

Mr. Lemass

But not with accuracy.

Mr. Norton

I could not believe that it was the Deputy Lemass of other years who made that speech. If the Minister looks up his own speech, he will find it very definitely stated that, so far as he was concerned, he did not regard these rates as maintenance rates.

Mr. Lemass

If the Deputy likes, I shall read what I said. It is at the top of column 943, and reads as follows:

"I think I have never described the rates of unemployment assistance payable as capable of maintaining any unemployed person for a protracted period."

Mr. Norton

Yes, and the Minister might look at column 942 as well. That was also part of the speech, and there he declared:

"The unemployment assistance scheme was designed to give a contribution, within the limits that the resources of the State would permit, to each unemployed person, to enable him to maintain himself during temporary unemployment."

Mr. Lemass

Yes, during temporary unemployment.

Mr. Norton

Yes, temporary unemployment. So that if we take that statement by the Minister, and the following statement which he has quoted himself, we get the clearest possible indication from the Minister that these rates are not maintenance rates.

Mr. Lemass

For protracted periods.

Mr. Norton

But he says in one case that they are a contribution within the resources of the State.

Mr. Lemass

To persons temporarily unemployed.

Mr. Norton

To persons temporarily unemployed, but surely the effective words in that statement are "within the resources of the State"?

Mr. Lemass

No, "temporarily unemployed".

Mr. Norton

I think the Minister must be as weak in his grammar as he was in his arithmetic. Anyway, we got a definite statement from the Minister that these are not intended to provide maintenance for unemployed people.

Mr. Lemass

For protracted periods.

Mr. Norton

Yes, for protracted periods, if the Minister likes. I will take that phrase in order to get some agreement with the Minister, but who is to provide maintenance for unemployed people during periods of idleness, and does the Minister consider that the rate of 12/6 per week, to maintain a man, his wife, and five children, will provide any Christian standard of maintenance even for a week's unemployment or a fortnight's unemployment? Surely that man is entitled to be maintained even for a fortnight.

Mr. O'Leary

And they turn them out on the grass in the summer time. They have to live on the grass then.

Mr. Norton

I informed the Minister previously that, according to the findings of the British Medical Association, the minimum expenditure on food required to maintain the barest standard of health for a man, wife and three children, at the cost-of-living scales operative in Great Britain in 1933—and the index figure there was less than the index figure here—was £1 3s. 8d. per week; and yet the Minister here offers to a similar family a maximum benefit of 12/6 a week, and even if the family should be seven or eight or nine, instead of five, they will get no higher scale of benefit than 12/6 a week. Who is to supply the difference between the 12/6 a week, which that family gets under the Unemployment Assistance Act, and the ascertained minimum standard of £1 3s. 8d. per week?

Mr. Lemass

The Deputy knows that we are spending twice as much on providing employment.

Mr. Norton

But who is to provide the difference between 12/6 a week and £1 3s. 8d. a week, the ascertained minimum standard to provide the barest medium of health for a man, wife and three children? The unemployed, obviously, have a right to expect the Government to provide that standard of maintenance in the absence of any ability on the part of the Government to provide work for the unemployed; but the Minister, apparently, is content with the position whereby these people are expected to try to exist on a scale of benefit measured by 12/6 per week for a man, wife, and five or six or seven or eight children.

Mr. Lemass

I never said I was content with the position.

Mr. Norton

Evidently, as I said in the beginning, the Minister is probably dissatisfied with the speech he made on the last day.

Mr. Lemass

Oh, no.

Mr. Norton

But the fact remains that if he is not satisfied with the existing rates of benefit, this motion, asking him to increase the rates of benefit, ought to be supported by the Minister and his Party.

Mr. Lemass

I gave the Deputy a fair proposition in that regard. If he wants to increase the rates of benefit he must tell us at the same time what taxes he is prepared to support for that purpose.

Mr. Norton

Oh I shall come to that later. On the last occasion, the Minister, in some of those reckless moments when he feels that all the righteousness is on his side and all the error on the side of those who disagree with him——

Mr. Lemass

Those are not reckless moments. They are same moments.

Mr. Norton

Well, we will test their sanity. The Minister on the last occasion said:

"Deputy Norton made most unscrupulous use of the figures relating to the cost-of-living index supplied to him by my Department. It is not fair to compare the figures for May of one year with those for November of another year."

Now, if I compared May with November, it would undoubtedly be unscrupulous, but if the Minister had taken the trouble to read my speech, or even to listen to it, he would have found that I did not compare May with November. I compared only comparable months, and I am going to compare comparable months now again for the enlightenment and edification of the Minister. The Unemployment Assistance Bill was introduced in the Dáil in September, 1933, and at that time the cost-of-living index figure—the last ascertained cost-of-living index figure—for food in Saorstát Eireann was 129.

Mr. Lemass

Oh, no.

Mr. Norton

Yes. It was 129.

Mr. Lemass

In what year?

Mr. Norton

1933.

Mr. Lemass

Oh, no. It was 131.

Mr. Norton

Well, this is the Irish Trade Journal that I have here, and this is the publication that the Minister places all his faith in. I am quoting from a printed copy of the Irish Trade Journal for December, 1936, setting out in a tabular form the index figures for food, from 1926 to 1936, and the general cost-of-living index figure for the same years; and the figure in respect of Saorstát Eireann is 129 for mid-August, 1933.

Mr. Lemass

Yes. The figure I quoted was the average for the year.

Mr. Norton

Oh, of course "I am always right." I said mid-August, 1933, and the index figure when the Second Stage of this Bill was being taken in this House was 129. The Bill was finally passed in the House in October, 1933, and 129 was still the figure operative in that period. So that, when the Executive Council were considering the question of the rates of benefit to be paid under this Bill, obviously they had regard to the cost of living then ruling, and the cost of living then ruling in respect of food alone was 129—July, 1914, being the datum point of 100. To-day, however, the cost of food has risen from 129 in August, 1933, to 145 in August, 1936—a very substantial rise in the meantime—or, if we take the November, 1933, figure for food, we find it to be 140; whereas the last index figure for food ascertained by the Department of Industry and Commerce is 155, another very substantial rise in respect of foodstuffs.

If foodstuffs are not accepted by the Minister as playing an important part in the dietary of unemployed people, we can take the general index figure. In August, 1933, a month before this Bill was read a second time, the general index figure was 149. In August, 1936, the index figure was 159, a rise of ten points in these three years. If we take November, 1933, we find that the figure was 156 and in November, 1936, we find the figure to be 166. So that no matter whether the Minister chooses to have the matter dealt with from the standpoint of the rise in the cost of food, or the rise in the cost-of-living index figure, in both instances a very sharp upward tendency in the cost of living is manifest in these official figures. The Minister said on the occasion of his speech on this motion that the cost-of-living index figure here had not risen as sharply as in Great Britain. The Minister obviously had not his brief with him when he made that statement. In August, 1933, the British cost-of-living index figure was 139 and for the same month it was 149 in the Saorstát, the Saorstát figure, therefore, being ten points higher than the British figure. For July, 1936, the British figure was 146 and the Free State figure, 159; so that while there was a difference of ten points between the two sets of figures in 1933, there was for July, 1936, a difference of 13 points between the two countries. If we compare the figure here for November, 1936, with the figure for November, 1936, in Great Britain, we find that the figure for Great Britain is 151 and for the Saorstát, 166, showing a further upward tendency against the Saorstát. A difference of ten points between the two countries in 1933 has now become a difference of 15 points. That fact, if the Minister had adverted to it on the last occasion, should have shown him the unwisdom of making statements of that kind which are not supported by the official figures supplied by his own Department.

Mr. Lemass

The Deputy has not proved that.

Mr. Norton

I shall prove anything in this connection to an impartial judge in the matter, but I do not hope to prove to the defendant in this case that he is guilty of the misstatements which I have definitely attributed to him. However, the Minister now has time to examine these figures and the more he examines them the more accurate he will find them. But, of course, while we are able to show the Minister very definitely from official figures that there has been a substantial increase in the cost of living between 1933 and 1936, and argue that as the reason why the rates of unemployment assistance benefit should be raised, if we were to concentrate specially on certain foodstuffs, the increase in the cost of living would be shown to be even greater than that indicated in the official statistics. When the Unemployment Assistance Act was going through the House in 1933 flour could be bought at 28/- or 29/- per sack. Flour is now 46/- or 47/- per sack.

Mr. O'Leary

Or 50/- in some cases.

Mr. Norton

In some cases. I am quoting a figure of 46/- or 47/- so as to induce the Minister to restrain himself from saying that that figure does not represent the facts of the situation. If we take bread, another staple article of diet among the working class, we find that in 1933 the price of a 2 lb. loaf was 2¼d. The price of the same loaf to-day is 5¼d., another very substantial rise in the cost of living so far as the working class is concerned. If we examine the position in respect to milk, tea, meat, potatoes and a whole variety of other articles, even the Department's official statistics prove that there has been a substantial upward tendency in the price of all these commodities between 1933 and 1936. I put it to the Minister that if the Unemployment Assistance Act when introduced took cognisance of the prevailing cost-of-living index figure, and if that cost-of-living index figure has since risen substantially, the logic of the situation demands that the Executive Council should increase the rates of unemployment assistance benefit if for no other reason than that these rates have not the same purchasing power as they were intended to have in 1933.

Mr. Lemass

What about the unemployment assistance paid to small farmers? Have they not benefited by the increase in prices?

Mr. Norton

Is the City of Dublin populated by small farmers? How many small farmers would you find in Gloucester Street?

Mr. Lemass

A very high proportion of the people getting unemployment assistance are small farmers.

Mr. Norton

What consolation is that to those who are not small farmers?

Mr. Lemass

None at all.

Mr. Norton

Well then there is no point in an argument which expects a man living in a city or town to be consoled by the fact that some small farmer is getting a better price for some commodity.

Mr. Lemass

Persons getting unemployment assistance have had their positions improved by the rise in prices.

Mr. O'Leary

There are very few small farmers in my part of the country getting unemployment assistance.

Mr. Lemass

There are about 40,000 small farmers getting it all over Ireland.

Mr. O'Leary

They are hardly small farmers. They must have been always living on it.

Mr. Brennan

It is a very bad sign to see 40,000 of them getting it.

Mr. Norton

The Minister tells us that the small farmers have benefited by the rise in prices.

Mr. Lemass

All farmers.

Mr. Norton

A certain class of farmers who have a certain class of produce to sell, but the Minister will surely not contend that the small farmer trying to eke out a livelihood on land which is not suitable for cultivation, or having only a small proportion of suitable land, is compensated, by the higher price for the small quantity of produce he has to sell, for the substantial upward tendency in commodities which he has to buy. The Minister knows his contention in that respect is utterly fallacious. I again come back to the point that if the Executive Council acknowledged that the rates of benefit introduced in 1933 were intended to buy a certain quantity of food, then, if those rates of benefit will now buy only a lesser quantity of food, there is a moral obligation on the Executive Council at least to repair the shrunken value in the rates contemplated under the 1933 Act. If 12/6—the maximum rate of benefit in rural areas, which include towns with a population of 7,000 and under—was assumed to buy a certain quantity of food in 1933, then 12/6 will not buy the same quantity of food to-day because of the increase in the cost of food. In these circumstances, the least the Executive Council should do is repair the shrunken value of the unemployment assistance. There is a moral case for their doing much more. because in 1933 the rates of benefit were utterly inadequate to provide a decent or Christian standard of maintenance for unemployed people. Endeavouring to resist this motion, the Minister talked about the large sums of money being provided for the relief of unemployment. While he was making his speech on that point, I could not help wondering if the Minister had not made some very considerable sacrifices by coming into public life at all. If he had chosen the stage for a career, he would probably be at the top of the bill as a first-class conjurer in the leading music-halls of Europe.

Mr. O'Leary

You are finding him out.

Mr. Norton

The Minister spoke about £2,500,000, and proceeded, in rapid fashion, to indicate the extent of the benefits which would be given by this sum. When you get the £2,500,000 away from the language in which the Minister sought to clothe it, and examine what that sum will do, you get a very different result from that represented by the Minister on the last occasion. Of course, it is not the Government who are giving the £2,500,000 at all. The local authorities are expected to make a contribution of at least £800,000 towards releasing this sum of £2,500,000.

Mr. Lemass

That does not reduce the total amount.

Mr. Norton

It does not, but it ought to induce the Minister to softpedal in talking about this sum of £2,500,000. He ought to remember that the local authorities are paying almost half the sum, and that portion of it is being got by cutting down unemployment assistance and by raiding one fund and another, so that the £2,500,000 is not coming out of the Government funds at all.

Mr. O'Leary

By taxing tea and sugar.

Mr. Lemass

Do you object to that?

Mr. O'Leary

I object to taxing the poor.

Mr. Lemass

Does the Deputy think we are providing too much for the unemployed?

Mr. Norton

If you get this sum of £2,500,000 away from the Minister's speech and bring the light of reality to bear upon it, you get a very different result from that contemplated by the Minister. Let us assume that the whole sum of £2,500,000 is available, without inquiring where it came from. Let us assume that £1,000,000 of it will, at least, be spent on materials. That is an under-estimate of the amount which will be spent on materials in carrying out public health works.

Mr. Lemass

Not more than 25 per cent.

Mr. Norton

On public health works?

Mr. Lemass

On works to be done under this grant.

Mr. Norton

A very large proportion of this sum of £2,500,000 is to be spent on fairly complicated schemes of public works. If portion of it is spent on concrete roads, the expenditure will be 50-50 on labour and materials, as any county surveyor will tell the Minister. My figures are not tainted with exaggeration. At least £1,000,000 out of the £2,500,000 will be spent on materials. That will leave a wages fund which I generously estimate at £1,500,000. When that figure of £2,500,000 was first mentioned there were 140,000 persons registered as unemployed at the labour exchanges. If you divide 140,000——

Mr. Lemass

There are not 140,000 now.

Mr. Norton

I shall do another sum for you later. Divide 140,000 into £1,500,000, which is available as a wages fund, and you will find that it is sufficient to give each unemployed person £11 for one year.

Mr. Lemass

Not for a year.

Mr. Norton

That is all they have got to subsist on for a year unless they can get other employment.

Mr. Lemass

Exactly.

Mr. Norton

Everybody who goes into the rural parts of the country, and who does not confine himself to the main roads, knows that it is extremely difficult to get employment.

Mr. Lemass

There are only 94,000 registered now. That is a drop of 44,000 in a year, which is not bad.

Mr. Norton

How was the drop arrived at?

Mr. O'Leary

By going to America.

Mr. Norton

Here we have more of the conjuring tricks of the Minister. He said that there are only 94,000 now registered as unemployed. Portion of that £1,500,000 will have been spent in bringing down the figure from 140,000 to 94,000. Assuming, however, that it is all there, by dividing 94,000 into £1,500,000 you find that the sum available to sustain an unemployed man and his wife and children is between £15 and £16 a year.

Mr. Lemass

The unemployed are not solely dependent on relief works.

Mr. Norton

The bulk of them are, as the Minister knows. If you keep to the main roads, you get a distorted view of the position in the rural areas. I can tell the Minister that there is in the rural areas a core of unemployment which depends for relief on some kind of public work.

Mr. Lemass

Public works like housing are not financed out of that fund.

Mr. Norton

I did not say they were. Are you not getting the benefit of housing in the fact that it is absorbing other people who would otherwise be registered? You cannot put it on both sides of the account.

Mr. Lemass

Double entry bookkeeping is the most up to date system.

Mr. Norton

The Minister did a fair amount of double entry on the last occasion. When we examine that £2,500,000, we find that it is largely an illusion so far as its capacity to sustain unemployed people over a prolonged period is concerned. The fact remains that though a substantial portion of the £1,500,000 which was available for wages is already spent, there are still 94,000 unemployed people registered at the labour exchanges. Everybody knows that there has been a substantial tightening-up in the administration of unemployment assistance in such a way as to drag large numbers of these people to the courts of referees to prove that they are genuinely seeking work. Anybody who knew anything about the circumstances would realise that, in many cases, no work whatever is available in the areas.

Mr. Lemass

I said that there were 94,000 registered. There are not 94,000 getting unemployment assistance. Only about 60,000 are getting unemployment assistance.

Mr. Norton

It is no credit to the Minister that a large number are registered without getting benefit.

Mr. Lemass

I did not say that they were not getting benefit. I said they were not getting unemployment assistance.

Mr. Norton

From time to time, quite a number of people registered at the employment exchanges are not actually in receipt of benefit but a large percentage have claims current and are awaiting decisions on them. But that is no evidence that they will not ultimately receive benefit and it is no evidence that they are not entitled to benefit at that time if the machine which distributes the benefits could be induced to move more quickly.

Mr. Lemass

The machine is moving fast enough.

Mr. Norton

I am not complaining about the machine; a big machine cannot move fast; but if you could give a man a decision on the day he claims benefit, in many cases you will find that he is entitled to benefit.

Mr. Lemass

There are 60,000 getting unemployment assistance; there are 20,000 getting unemployment insurance benefit, and the balance are probably not entitled to benefit because of the means test.

Mr. Norton

If we take the Minister's own figures, these are people who satisfied a rigorous test.

Mr. Lemass

No.

Mr. Norton

I submit they satisfied the rigorous test imposed under the Unemployment Assistance Acts, and others satisfied the test imposed under the Unemployment Insurance Acts.

Mr. Lemass

They are registered for work, but not necessarily unemployed.

Mr. Norton

The Minister will see that a very substantial number registered are actually in receipt of benefit and if he makes inquiries he will probably be told that many people registered, but not receiving benefit, will ultimately receive benefit when the investigations are completed. There is the fact that 94,000 are registered at the employment exchanges as not working at the moment.

Mr. Lemass

A farmer with a holding of £4 valuation is entitled to register at the exchange and can get unemployment assistance, but he can be occupied on his farm.

Mr. Norton

The Minister says that a small farmer can register at the employment exchange and be occupied on his farm. Everybody knows the kind of small farmer that can get within the four walls of the Unemployment Assistance Acts. He is the kind of small farmer who could not possibly sustain himself on the holding he has.

Mr. Lemass

For the whole year, that is true, and therefore he gets work on the roads at certain periods of the year.

Mr. Norton

He is not getting work, or otherwise he would not be registered there.

Mr. Lemass

But he is not unemployed. He is available to take work for wages and when that work comes along he is an employable man.

Mr. Norton

The Minister has a curious notion of the amount of energy to be put into land. It is utterly impossible for these people to sustain themselves on the land during the whole year. In respect of many of them the amount of work the land calls for is pretty small and in any case the holdings are usually so small that it does not require all the available members of the family to look after them. Proof of that can be found in the fact that, if you start a relief scheme in the area, no matter what the call of the land is on the bread-winner he will work on the relief scheme, through economic pressure, for 21/- or 24/- a week, because he knows he gets a better return than he would out of the land.

Mr. Lemass

Whether he does or not, he will work it.

Mr. Norton

I agree that the making available of a large sum of money for the relief of unemployment is desirable. In so far as the sum of £2,500,000 puts people into employment, helps to increase public amenities and enrich the national estate, it is all to the good. But my complaint is that it is not good enough. It is only giving people an annual subsistence income of £11, £12 or £15 a year, and that is not dealing adequately with the unemployment problem. For the useful things that have been done in the way of providing work, I have nothing but praise and enthusiasm. That is very beneficial work, but it is not sufficient; you are not going far enough. There are still vast numbers of unemployed in respect of whom the Government must recognise it is unable to provide work and if these people are not able to get work by their own efforts or the Government is not able to stimulate industrial or agricultural activity so as to absorb unemployment, then they are entitled to decent scales of maintenance during periods of involuntary idleness. The Minister said he pulled the unemployment assistance and the unemployment insurance claims down from 144,000 to 94,000. Everybody knows that is being done by resorting to the ruse of employing people for two, three and four days a week.

Mr. Lemass

Not two, anyhow.

Mr. Norton

I think there are cases of two.

Mr. Lemass

But that man still gets unemployment assistance during that week. Two days' work would not break his unemployment continuity.

Mr. Norton

A man works on Monday and Tuesday. Say he is employed by the county council at 30/- a week. He draws 5/- for Monday and 5/- for Tuesday and 10/- would be his week's income.

Mr. Lemass

He can get the unemployment assistance for the remaining four days.

Mr. Norton

Does the Minister say that man can get the unemployment assistance for the remainder of the week.?

Mr. Lemass

Yes. Two days' work does not break the continuity. Three days would break it, but two days' work would not.

Mr. Norton

His income for that week would be taken into consideration. In view of what the Minister says, we will have that case tested.

Mr. Lemass

That is what the Act says.

Mr. Norton

A man may be entitled under the arithmetic of the Act to calculate certain days as unemployed days, but when you test his means for the week he will fall.

Mr. Lemass

No. What he earns does not count as means.

Mr. Norton

If the Minister says he does not fall on means, that can be tested. Take the three-day man whom the Minister admitted will definitely be caught. In that case the man is getting 15/- a week in lieu of the 12/6 he would get by way of unemployment assistance. The 12/6 would be utterly inadequate to sustain him during periods of unemployment and yet he is being given only 2/6 in addition to the 12/6 he would get as unemployment assistance, to compensate him for the three days' work he has done. Why not give the man six days' work? Why push him off after three days? On these schemes there is work available for men for a whole week. Why not allow them to work for the whole week? The reason is obvious. You want to employ as many people as possible on these schemes so as to pay out to each person as little as possible and spread the distribution of the money over the greatest possible number in order, at the employment exchanges, to bring down the number from 144,000 to 94,000. Of course that is the way the unemployment assistance figure has been pulled down.

Mr. Lemass

There are 45,000 more people in employment.

Mr. Norton

The Minister has frequently told us of the phenomenon of having more people in employment and still more unemployed. How that philosophy is to be adjusted to the last census figures is another matter. The Minister declares that there may be more people in employment and more unemployed in a country with a rising population. That is poor consolation to the unemployed man; it is no comfort to know that the person who happens to be on either side of him is unemployed. The Minister, in one of his humorous moments on the last occasion, said:

"If Deputy Norton wanted to provide a remedy for unemployed persons he should have supplemented his motion with a paragraph in which he would set out the direct taxation which would produce the amount involved. So far as I know, he is against direct taxation. I do not know what particular increase in taxes the Deputy is prepared to support in order to meet the sum that he is advocating for unemployment assistance. In this House we had him opposing an income-tax Vote."

I suppose it is relevant to discuss that matter seeing that the Minister was allowed to raise it.

An Ceann Comhairle

Income-tax?

Mr. Norton

The Minister raised it.

An Ceann Comhairle

Surely the people with whom the Deputy is concerned in this motion do not pay income-tax.

Mr. Norton

I did not think so, but apparently the Minister managed to drag it in.

An Ceann Comhairle

I still think they are not liable.

Mr. Norton

That is a rather strange statement from the Minister who had a plan to absorb all the unemployed people in the country.

Mr. Lemass

That has nothing to do with the motion.

Mr. Norton

In 1931 and 1932 the Minister needed no charts, no graphs, no paragraphs of any kind for the relief of unemployment. He had a plan then which, when put into operation, would absorb all the unemployed in the country. After looking at the plan on a few occasions and apparently entranced with it, the Minister said he had grave doubts as to whether he could get sufficient unemployed in this country to do all the work that Fianna Fáil was going to make available.

Mr. Lemass

If I said that it must be reported somewhere. Where?

Mr. Norton

I will get the quotation.

Mr. Lemass

You should have got it.

Mr. Norton

I will get it from the paper which never tells a lie.

Mr. Lemass

The Deputy must have been referring to the Irish Press. I have not seen it.

Mr. Norton

The Minister said that there were grave doubts whether he could get all the unemployed he needed in this country to do the work that Fianna Fáil was going to make available and we would probably have to send to America to bring back some of the exiles. The Minister who said that in 1931—

Mr. Lemass

I said that in 1931?

Mr. Norton

And in 1932. He ought to know perfectly well without having to be reminded by me of the speeches he made at that time. I agree that it looks a very reckless speech now, but that cannot be helped —it was made. The Minister does not deny the authorship of the plan. Is that thrown overboard?

Mr. Lemass

No. It is working satisfactorily.

Mr. Norton

The plan is there. The Minister still claims the ownership of the plan under which so many people were going to be put to work that there would be no unemployed left.

Mr. Lemass

No—82,000; we gave the number.

Mr. Norton

At the same time taxation was to be reduced by £2,000,000. Deputy Cooney was going to save £2,000,000 on the Army, although only £1,500,000 was being spent on it. These are the 1931 and 1932 statements. The Minister, who has been in office for five years, now comes along and wants a chart.

Mr. Lemass

No, a paragraph.

Mr. Norton

"If Deputy Norton wanted to provide a remedy for unemployed persons he should have supplemented his motion with a paragraph in which he would set out the direct taxation which would produce the amount involved." The Minister confesses in 1936 that he apparently cannot solve this unemployment problem.

Mr. Lemass

The motion would not solve the unemployment problem.

Mr. Norton

It is rendered necessary by the fact that you cannot solve the problem which you told the country in 1932 you could solve.

Mr. Lemass

That has nothing to do with the motion. The Deputy wants to increase the rates of unemployment assistance and that means extra taxation.

Mr. Norton

In 1932 the Minister did not want any assistance in solving the unemployment problem. He had a plan and he was going to do it.

Mr. Lemass

The Deputy is avoiding my question. What tax will he support?

Mr. Norton

I will answer it. The President was not going to be left out in the cold without expressing his views and he said he saw no reason why unemployment should exist. When the Minister for Defence addressed himself to the problem of unemployment he said they ought to be glad that there were so many unemployed people in the country so that they would be available to do the work that Fianna Fáil was going to make available for them. The Minister for Industry and Commerce, five years after these statements were made, says on a motion to provide some kind of decent——

Mr. Lemass

To increase the rates of benefit.

Mr. Norton

I will say it. On a motion to provide some decent scales of unemployment assistance benefit for these people who are still unemployed, his plan notwithstanding, the Minister says that he must now have a paragraph set out in the motion indicating what taxation we are prepared to support in order to provide these additional rates. That is the position of the Minister in 1937. He was much cheerier and more buoyant in 1931.

Mr. Lemass

What tax will the Deputy support?

Mr. Norton

Of course the Minister wants to use here against us the fact that we opposed a motion by the Minister for Finance assuming an increase in the valuation of working-class houses for the purpose of raking in a bigger income-tax return. We opposed that motion then because the Minister would not indicate that he would exempt working-class houses from the scope of that curiously conceived proposal. If the Minister had been prepared to say: "Well, in respect of houses normally occupied by the working classes, I will exempt these from the scope of the thing and I will increase it in respect of the houses occupied by the wealthy people," we told him we would vote for the motion if it appeared in that amended form, but the Minister was not prepared to do that. Is it necessary for the Minister to have a paragraph of the kind indicated? What about the £2,000,000 which were going to be saved in 1931? Are they not available to increase the unemployment assistance benefit?

Mr. Lemass

They have been used for that purpose.

Mr. Norton

They have not, because according to the Minister's own contention it is not now costing more than £1,000,000 to the State, as the local authorities are putting up about £300,000, and the total estimate for this year can only be in the vicinity of that. What about Deputy Cooney's £2,000,000 that he was going to save on the Army, and the Minister's speech at Cahir, I think, in which he indicated that £2,000,000 could be saved without impairing the existing social services? Surely the Minister ought to have these resources available in order to supplement these scandalously low rates of benefit. It should not be difficult to get money for this necessary purpose. I have read frequent speeches by bankers and others in Dublin indicating, apparently, that there is agreement on the part of the Minister and of industrialists, that there is now a considerable wave of prosperity through the country. If all that prosperity is available why should not portion of it be shared with the most needy section of the community, the unemployed people? If that prosperity is there, why not rake some of it in and give it to the unemployed who are compelled to exist on such low rates of unemployment assistance benefit?

The Minister made reference to the healthy condition of industry and to the prosperity that has been achieved in industrial development, while the Minister for Education, at Kilkenny recently, stated that the nation's finances were healthy and prosperous. Although we have all these testimonials to the existence of prosperity, and the declaration by the Minister for Education that the nation's finances are healthy and prosperous, we cannot do any more than provide 12/6 weekly as unemployment assistance benefit for large families. Yet, with all the prosperity that we hear of, we cannot give the Athy family I mentioned anything more than two-thirds of a penny for a meal. In my opinion these unemployment assistance rates are now utterly inadequate, comparing the purchasing power of these benefits to-day with their purchasing power in 1933. As the purchasing power has shrunk considerably in the meantime, the least the Government should do is to repair the shrunken purchasing power of the benefits provided under the Act. There is a strong case for a substantial improvement, because if the rates were inadequate to maintain a civilised existence in 1933, when they represented the maximum benefit the State could make available, in 1937, when there is so much talk of prosperity, and when we have high tributes paid to the healthy and solvent condition of the national finances, the State should share with the victims of the social system which gives us regular unemployment, some of the prosperity talked about on these occasions. These rates cannot be justified. They do not provide a decent standard of subsistence for an unemployed man and his family. They cannot be justified by reference to any code of State or private conduct. The Minister ought to accept the motion and agree to the rates being increased, in order to provide some better standard of living for unemployed people than the pauperised standard that thousands are compelled to tolerate to-day.

Question put.

The Dáil divided: Tá, 35; Níl, 59.

Tá

• Anthony, Richard.
• Belton, Patrick.
• Bennett, George Cecil.
• Bourke, Séamus.
• Brennan, Michael.
• Coburn, James.
• Corish, Richard.
• Curran, Richard.
• Daly, Patrick.
• Davis, Michael.
• Dillon, James M.
• Dolan, James Nicholas.
• Doyle, Peadar S.
• Everett, James.
• Fitzgerald, Desmond.
• Fitzgerald-Kenney, James.
• Holohan, Richard.
• Keyes, Michael.
• Lynch, Finian.
• McDermot, Frank.
• MacEoin, Seán.
• McFadden, Michael Og.
• McGilligan, Patrick.
• McGovern, Patrick.
• McMenamin, Daniel.
• Morrisroe, James.
• Mulcahy, Richard.
• Norton, William.
• O'Donovan, Timothy Joseph.
• O'Leary, Daniel.
• O'Mahony, The.
• O'Sullivan, John Marcus.
• Pattison, James P.
• Redmond, Bridget Mary.
• Wall, Nicholas.

Níl

• Aiken, Frank.
• Allen, Denis.
• Bartley, Gerald.
• Brady, Brian.
• Brady, Seán.
• Briscoe, Robert.
• Concannon, Helena.
• Cooney, Eamonn.
• Corkery, Daniel.
• Corry, Martin John.
• Crowley, Fred. Hugh.
• Crowley, Timothy.
• Derrig, Thomas.
• De Valera, Eamon.
• Doherty, Hugh.
• Dowdall, Thomas P.
• Flinn, Hugo V.
• Flynn, John.
• Flynn, Stephen.
• Fogarty, Andrew.
• Gibbons, Seán.
• Goulding, John.
• Harris, Thomas.
• Hayes, Seán.
• Jordan, Stephen.
• Keely, Séamus P.
• Kehoe, Patrick.
• Kelly, James Patrick.
• Kennedy, Michael Joseph.
• Killilea, Mark.
• Beegan, Patrick.
• Boland, Gerald.
• Bourke, Daniel.
• Kissane, Eamonn.
• Lemass, Seán F.
• Little, Patrick John.
• Lynch, James B.
• McEllistrim, Thomas.
• MacEntee, Seán.
• Maguire, Ben.
• Moore, Séamus.
• Murphy, Patrick Stephen.
• Neilan, Martin.
• O'Briain, Donnchadh.
• O Ceallaigh, Seán T.
• O'Dowd, Patrick.
• O'Grady, Seán.
• O'Reilly, Matthew.
• Pearse, Margaret Mary.
• Rice, Edward.
• Ruttledge, Patrick Joseph.
• Ryan, James.
• Ryan, Robert.
• Sheridan, Michael.
• Smith, Patrick.
• Traynor, Oscar.
• Victory, James.
• Walsh, Richard.
• Ward, Francis C.

Tellers:—Tá: Deputies Corish and Everett; Níl: Deputies Little and Smith.

Question declared lost.