I move the following motion standing in the names of Deputy Norton, Deputy Murphy and myself:—
So as to give effect without further delay to the undertakings in Article 45 of the Constitution that the State shall direct its policy towards securing that the citizens may, through their occupations, find the means of making reasonable provision for their domestic needs, Dáil Eireann requests the Government immediately to formulate proposals for absorbing into useful employment at adequate remuneration all adult citizens able and willing to follow useful occupations.
I suggest that this motion is a suitable follow-on to the one which has preceded it. It is an important motion. I suppose that everybody who moves a motion is inclined to say that it is the most important one which has yet been moved. But I make bold to say that this is the most important motion which could be suggested for discussion in this House, much more important than its treatment by the Government would seem to warrant. It is similar to a motion put down by the Labour Party which is on the Order Paper since March, 1942. It has been allowed to hang there since, and it is similar in terms, practically, to another motion which was tabled by the Labour Party in 1940 and which, at that time, was allowed to hang on the Order Paper for almost 12 months until it was skilfully and scientifically sidetracked by the then Minister for Industry and Commerce, Deputy MacEntee, who introduced an amendment to it, the effect of which was to take from the Labour Party's motion the kernel of speed which we had put in. We had asked for a commission to be set up to ascertain the cause and incidence of unemployment in industry and agriculture with a view to seeking a remedy for it, and we also asked that a time limit should be put on the findings of that commission. By taking out that portion of the motion which referred to a time limit, the Minister left the motion innocuous, and that was carried through this House by the votes of the Fianna Fáil members only. Nobody else voted in the Lobby for the Minister's amendment. It was carried by 54 votes to 32, I think, and since then nothing has happened. I think it will be of interest if I read the Minister's amendment which was carried on that occasion by the sole and complete vote of the Fianna Fáil Party—nobody else in the House voting for it. It was as follows:
"A commission should be appointed to inquire into and report upon the extent, cause, incidence, general character, and other aspects of unemployment, and to make proposals in relation thereto. Dáil Eireann requests the Government to appoint such a commission."
That was the Minister's amendment to the Labour Party's motion which, as I have said, wanted to have a definite time limit on the findings of the proposed commission. There were 32 votes against the Minister's amendment, and 54 votes—all Fianna Fáil Deputies—in support of his amendment. Evidently, the 54 Fianna Fáil Deputies thought it sufficient to await the Minister's decision on the matter. I say that the Minister had no serious intention in his mind to give effect to that, and that he was just using it as a means of sidetracking any definite proposal or effort by the Labour Party to grapple with what we considered to be really the only serious problem in this country to-day and for years past, the solution of the unemployment problem.
Two years later, the subject again comes up before the Minister and the House, and it comes up because the Minister and the Government have failed to make any reasonable attempt to deal with the problem of unemployment, or at least any such attempt as members of this House ought to expect, because it would not be true to say that the Government did nothing to solve the unemployment problem in this country, since they certainly facilitated the exodus of our people to Great Britain to get employment there, although they did not make any effort to provide employment for them here. That is the line of least resistance— the attempt to solve the problem by the deportation of our people, and I am using the word "deportation" advisedly. In the past 12 months, 1,000 of our men and women have left this country per week, which means that, within 12 months, approximately 52,000 of our people have left this country. I think it will be agreed that thereby we are making a free gift to another country of about £1,000 per head, taking into account what it costs to bring these people up, and so on, and a rough calculation will show that we are therefore making a free gift to England of £1,000,000 or £1,500,000 per week from the point of view of the potential value of these people of ours.
England is able to find plenty of work for them. They are potential munition workers and, in many instances, they are potential soldiers, because many of them are joining the British Army, but they are definitely exported from this country and, as I say, deported, because of the absolute failure of our Government to grapple with the problem of unemployment here or to give these people an opportunity to build up the fortunes of this country rather than carry on the services of another country.
A good deal of capital is being made in certain places out of the action of the German conqueror in resorting to the practice of driving out the unemployed men in the occupied countries to work in Germany, making munitions, producing food, and so on. That is bad enough, but that is being done by the conqueror of these peoples. Our people have not that satisfaction, if one might call it so. Our people are compelled by a native Government to go and work in another country—a native Government which refuses to take sufficient interest in them to provide them with work here at home or to make it worth their while to stay at home.
We had recently in this city the annual meeting of that voluntary and benevolent society, the St. Vincent de Paul Society. That society certainly could not be alleged to have any political bias, one way or another, and their comments on the present situation are of very great interest to anybody concerned with the affairs of the State. In their recent appeal for funds, in October, 1942, that excellent organisation, which has more intimate contact with the victims of poverty than anybody else in this country, said that:—
"(a) Poverty and destitution are rife in Dublin;
(b) many of our men and women are so weak from under-nourishment that, even if employment were offered them, they could not undertake any kind of heavy work;
(c) thousands of people are without sufficient personal and bed-clothing;
(d) the never-ending struggle to provide food and clothing often results in non-payment of rent and constant fear of eviction;
(e) the poor have no reserve of food or fuel for the winter."
That is the description of poverty and of the victims of poverty published widespread by the non-political, humanitarian St. Vincent de Paul Society in October, 1942, and can anybody challenge the correctness of it? Anybody who knows the close and intimate contact that that society has with the poor in the City of Dublin and in other cities must know that it is only too painfully true.
We have allowed all these thousands of people to leave this country to seek employment in Britain, and still we have 60,000 registered as unemployed at the labour exchanges, and I do not think I would be exaggerating if I were to say that there are another 40,000 unemployed who are not on the register, who do not bother to go into the labour exchanges because they feel that it is not worth while. On the official register, however, there are 60,000 signing at the labour exchanges, plus the numbers that have gone to Britain, and they are admitted to be at the rate of 1,000 a week for the last couple of years. I have not the exact figures as to the numbers who went to Britain since 1939, but I have a shrewd idea of what they would be. At any rate, they have been absorbed by England, and have been given good wages to perform her functions, whereas we could not afford to keep them here at all. Now, unemployment is not by any means inevitable. It will scarcely be denied that we could provide work of national importance here in this country for these people. In the last few hurried words of Deputy Cogan he referred to the work that is here. It has not been challenged that there is good, useful work of national reconstruction to be done. Deputy Cogan spoke of reafforestation. I also speak of it. We have land reclamation, river drainage, coast erosion schemes, road widening, and reclamation of land that has gone into waste and could be restored into good arable land. Will anybody suggest that that is not good, useful, national work on which our people could be employed? The Minister for Finance, a few minutes ago, referred to the lack of raw material, but the question of raw material does not arise there. There is plenty of useful work here to be performed by Irishmen, if the Government will set their hands to the doing of it. The Minister for Finance, about a quarter of an hour ago, also said that it was not a question of money, as he said that the money is and will be available, whenever necessary, for the fulfilling of the nation's demands. He said that the bankers have plenty of money, and are prepared to make it available if the people are prepared to take it, but that these people are not prepared to take it, mainly because of the lack of raw material. That is not, by any stretch of imagination, an answer to the point contained in this motion.
We suggest that the biggest problem of this or any other Government will be the building up of our population and maintaining them at home. We are declining in population. In fact, before the war, we were the only white race in Europe that was declining. We are declining because there are late marriages and long-delayed marriages because of the fact that people have not the courage to get married; they have no prospects; there is no work for them. We are told about the flight from the countryside. Quite recently, an attempt has been made to stop that. We are now offering to our rural workers, rather belatedly, a retainer of 5/- a week to keep them in the country. It is a very belated effort. It is like closing the door when the horse has gone. That effort may have the effect of retaining the bare minimum for the saving of our crops, but it is no answer for the Government's assistance, I might say, in the departure of thousands of men and women who should be engaged at home on works of national reconstruction. The responsibility for this calamitous condition of affairs cannot be laid upon the shoulders of any individual. It was taken on to the shoulders of the Government themselves when they framed the Constitution. Article 45 was written into the Constitution for some specific purpose. It gives guidance and direction to the Government and Parliament in regard to policy which can be expressed only in legislation and in the administrative acts which flow from legislation. The Article declares:—
"The State shall, in particular, direct its policy towards securing that the citizens ... may, through their occupations, find the means of making reasonable provision for their domestic needs."
That does not visualise the citizens of this State living on doles or on private and public charity. That Constitution visualised the virile, healthy, active members of the Irish race being put to work in their own country to earn their livelihood by their own occupation and to create their own incomes by the wealth they would produce. We have here private and public charities overloaded. We are sinking into a race of charity mongers. We have perfect respect for the charity, but we think it is unfair that the St. Vincent de Paul Society and other organisations of that character should be loaded with the responsibility which the Government accepted in that Article of the Constitution and which is their responsibility if they never put that pious Article into the Constitution.
No reason has been adduced for the lethargy of the Government. It points from time to time to the amount of money spent on social services. £5,000,000, £6,000,000 and up to £7,000,000 is spent annually on social services. We have great respect for them, but I suggest that the magnitude of the figure is merely evidence of the failure of the Government to grapple with the problem in its true perspective. If our people were put to useful employment the money required for the social services would dwindle considerably because, as I have said, the people would be earning and creating wealth in the country rather than being a drag on the wheels of prosperity in the country. We see a declining population and we see the existing population pegged down to low-wage levels. We see the arrears that were left to us by an alien Government still existing after 20 years of two native Governments. The present Government seem to have no more intention of grappling with the problem in 1942 than they had when they were a perfectly new Government, buoyed up with good ideas and hopes in 1932.
Will it be argued, for instance, that it is beyond the competence of the Government or of any Government to provide such schemes of work as will absorb our people and put them into employment and keep them at home? The Labour Party are not talking like the hurler on the ditch. We are not talking the day after the fair. We were before the Government in 1939 and submitted proposals similar to those I am mentioning here to-night. The following year the Labour Party published a little pamphlet entitled Planning for the Crisis, which sets down exactly what we have in our minds in this motion. The only reply to that from the Government was the sneer of Deputy Lemass that it was visionary and unworthy of serious consideration. That, evidently, is the policy of the Government to-day.
The Labour Party has not departed one inch from the ideas that prompted us to draft that programme in that little pamphlet. We believed the urgency existed then, and we believe it has increased with every day that has since passed. We charge the Government that they are deliberately and wilfully responsible for the lowering of the virility of our people, for lowering the standards of our people at home. As the St. Vincent de Paul Society tells us, the people are scarcely able to work when work is offered to them because of the poor state of health they are in as a result of continuous periods of unemployment. The Unemployment Assistance Act was passed through this House as a pledge on behalf of the Taoiseach and the Government that an Irishman was entitled to work or maintenance in his own country and that between periods of employment on schemes of work which might be necessary, there would be small gaps of unemployment during which he was entitled to maintenance allowance. I am prepared to say that that maintenance allowance was not intended to be a living wage.
The intention of the Government as expressed at the time was that such periods of unemployment would be infrequent and of short duration and, therefore, it would be necessary to give only a maintenance allowance until the men would go to another scheme of work. The schemes of work have not materialised since then. Periods of unemployment have become more long drawn out. Many of our workers throughout the country have the experience of being employed perhaps three, four or six weeks in the year. Six weeks is sometimes considered a big amount of work in the 12 months. I am speaking from actual experience. Men in my constituency tell me: "I have done six weeks' work in the entire year."
The only effort made to implement that first promise was to draw the machinery more tightly in administering the Unemployment Assistance Acts and their provisions, to get more inspectors and more inside information, more anonymous letters, to see if they could trap a man and rob him of the few shillings given him at the labour exchange. For instance, the fact that a man might be seen digging a drill of potatoes at the back of his own house might be quite sufficient for someone to send an anonymous letter to the labour exchange and, automatically, that man would be struck off. That guarantee to the Irish worker that he was entitled to maintenance as long as work could not be provided for him is and should be as sacred as any other piece of legislation on the Statute Book.
As a result of unemployment the physique of our people has deteriorated and the health of the children has deteriorated. We are now reaping the whirlwind. Reports received every other day tend to show us that T.B., that we thought we had under control a couple of years ago, is again on the increase. I think it can hardly be challenged, taking the reports of the medical officers of health throughout the country, that that increase is largely attributable to hunger or, as we now call it, malnutrition. I have heard statistics given from the Government Benches, I think on the occasion of the last Estimates, that malnutrition was on the decrease. Anything can be proved with figures, but I would ask the Government to take serious cognisance of this point: wherever they get their statistics, they do not square with the actual facts. Malnutrition is rampant in the country. It is showing itself, unfortunately, in the increase of T.B. and we have not sufficient sanatoria in the country to grapple with the disease. I think it is all directly—not even indirectly—attributable to the failure of the Government to give effect to what is asked to be given effect to in this motion and what was asked to be given effect to in the motion of the Labour Party practically two years ago.
I ask the Government what have they done since then to implement the promise they made to this nation when 54 members of the Fianna Fáil Party walked into that Lobby in support of the amendment of the then Minister for Industry and Commerce, Deputy MacEntee, which in point of fact was similar to ours except for the one thing, that there was no period to it. Ours was too precise. Ours reckoned that the problem was too serious. The Minister evidently did not think it was serious, but he succeeded in capturing the vote of his majority and pawning it off on the people and did nothing. That has been the effect of the amendment of Deputy MacEntee that was passed here almost two years ago.
The Labour Party feels that even now it is not too late—it is certainly not too early—to make the attempt. I think it is belated, but certainly there is no necessity to wait until the end of hostilities, until the period of emergency has passed. We think that now is the time to grapple with this unemployment problem. We do not think it should be beyond the competence of any Government to deal seriously with it. If the Government say that they are unable to put all our unemployed people to work, what will their answer be when our exiles in England return home after the war? If they are not able to deal with the lesser evil that faces us to-day, how do they expect to grapple with the greater evil to be faced when the emergency has passed? The Government may plead a lack of raw materials. I would not regard that as a serious answer, since the question of raw materials does not enter very largely into the schemes that I have outlined. These schemes are mainly of an agricultural character. For example, afforestation, the reclamation of land and river drainage works, if undertaken at once, would absorb a considerable number of our unemployed. Housing schemes might, to some extent, be impeded by a lack of raw materials, but even these could, I suggest, be undertaken under present conditions. We have cement and stones. We may have a shortage of timber. We have plenty of lime and sand and of native timber. I understand that where native timber has been employed the results have been satisfactory. If it is seasoned over a period of three or four months it can, I understand, be utilised in building schemes. Slates ought not to be unprocurable here, so that really with the materials available in the country there is nothing to prevent us from going ahead with housing schemes. Why not put our idle men into employment on vast housing schemes and on the other schemes that I have outlined?
I am not suggesting that these works should be undertaken on money borrowed at exorbitant rates of interest from the banks. May I say that, I think, is the kernel of the Government's trouble; that they feel they ought not to upset the present practice of going to the banks for loans. What we think the Government should do is to take their courage in their hands, especially when we propose to undertake works of a national character, the effect of which will be to put our people into useful employment. The execution of such works ought to be possible without going to a private institution for money on which high interest charges have to be paid.
The Government ought to be capable of taking such control of the credit of the country as will result in putting our idle people to work on those waiting schemes that I have mentioned. The failure to connect our idle people with such waiting schemes is, in my view, a blot on the escutcheon of the Government, or on any Government that would permit such a situation to exist. If the Government were to take control of credit, houses could be provided at rents the people could afford to pay. Those of us who are connected with public bodies are aware of the difficulties that prevent them from providing the people with houses at rents they can afford to pay. These public bodies are working in co-operation with the Department of Local Government. I want to give that Department every credit for all that it has done under the Housing Acts passed since 1932. But the position is that the local authorities are hamstrung in their efforts owing to the high interest charges they have to meet on the loans made available. The result is that the houses cannot be let at rents which are within the means of the occupiers to pay. Slum areas are being cleared and the people are being put into decent houses. The houses are not too good for our people, because our workers are deserving of the best that can be provided. But they are in this position that, under present conditions, they cannot afford the rents that are being charged. In connection with housing schemes carried out by local authorities, the position has been reached that the interest charges on the loans almost equal the cost of the labour and materials employed in the houses. That is an impossible condition of affairs. We suggest there should be no necessity to have recourse to the banks for the money needed. The Government, in our submission, should have sufficient control in their own house to be able to create credit, and thereby put men into employment on the creation of what would eventually become valuable national assets. The Government should be able to do that without asking leave from the commercial banks or anybody else.
I suggest that the time for an inquiry as to the causes and incidence of unemployment has been wasted and frittered away. We know too much about the causes and the incidence of unemployment. The time has now arrived when action should be taken without delay. I suggest that this motion is entitled to the immediate and serious consideration of the Government, that there should be no further sidetracking of it and no further dodging of the issues involved, as happened under the amendment that was set down two years ago. It is practically two years since this question was first dealt with, but nothing has been done to check the evil, which has grown worse in the meantime. In my view it is the most serious evil that is facing the country to-day. I cannot understand the Government's serenity so far as this question is concerned. They seem to have become more and more unaware of the seriousness of the problem. The solution of dealing with our unemployed by sending them out of the country is not one that ought to be offered to this House by any Government. The policy should be one of providing work for Irishmen in their own country, and not one that would oblige them to go to England to seek work.
