I move:—
That the Estimate be referred back for reconsideration.
I put down this motion for a very specific purpose, and in fact the Minister made a case for it at the close of his speech. My main reason for wishing to refer the Estimate back is that the Department is entirely too large, too unwieldy and reaching out in too many directions. It is utterly impossible for any one man, even for the present Minister for Industry and Commerce—who is undoubtedly the most active and energetic member of the Front Bench—adequately and efficiently to supervise and direct its activities. The Minister's own speech has made that perfectly clear. He made a long and exhaustive statement, in a very clear way, but to use his own word he was able to give only a thumbnail sketch of many matters covered by this Estimate, which would require a long statement and which would call for fairly full discussion by this House.
It must be remembered that this is the most costly Department of State, that we are asked to vote here over £5,000,000. There are items which could only be touched on by the Minister, but which in themselves are costing as much as some entire Departments of State. I felt last year that it was a mistake to amalgamate the Department of Supplies with the Department of Industry and Commerce. I will not be misunderstood when I say that. It is not conveying any reflection on the present Minister. As I said before, I do not believe there is any other member of the Front Bench who could handle it so well, but it is impossible not to have certain very important branches of this Department neglected, no matter how hard the Minister may work. I can understand Deputy Norton's suggestion that we might have a better and more informed discussion if we could sit down and read the Minister's statement and go into the various branches of the services which he touched on. However, we cannot do that.
There is one matter I want to deal with particularly. Now 12 months after the end of the war, and facing into another year, we should consider whether (1) it is necessary and (2) whether we can be content to go on as at present with regard to the present fuel position. Approximately one-third of the total amount asked for under this Estimate is in connection with the production and distribution of native fuel, that is, somewhere in the neighbourhood of £1,500,000 or £2,000,000. Turf is costing over £5 per ton, when purchased here in Dublin, in the fifth or sixth year of our turf production under war conditions and with all the information and experience we have gained during that time. That £5 represents the price paid by the consumer plus the subsidy paid by the taxpayer. It might be no harm, as it has been misunderstood generally outside, to emphasise here again that the 10/- per ton reduction mentioned in the recent Budget statement is not a reduction in the cost of turf to the State. It means merely that the State has to find an additional 10/- a ton by way of subsidy.
Dealing with this matter last year, I said I agreed with the Minister that, in relation to the production and distribution of home produced fuel, one could not talk about an economic price, in the ordinary meaning of the term. I agreed that the fuel must be produced, but I am not at all satisfied that it could not be produced, distributed and delivered to the consumers at a much lower cost. Of course, the smallest part of the cost is in the production. It is after that that the wastage and expense start. It is fantastic that we should pay nearly £2,000,000 by way of subsidy to fuel importers or distributors or to the Turf Development Board by way of grant-in-aid, etc., leaving out of the question altogether the losses which are being sustained by county councils and others. Anyone with any knowledge of the bog areas, of the cutting, saving and drawing from the bog to the roadside and the subsequent transport of turf, and who is looking on at what is happening, knows quite well that there could be a very substantial saving on the amount. That is one of the matters to which I would ask the Minister to give closer attention. I would go further and say it should be the subject of a special inquiry in all its branches, not only because of its importance but because of the terrific cost of this item alone— which accounts for about one-third of the total cost of the Department.
The next matter is the question of fertilisers, which is probably our greatest need at the moment. I am not satisfied that the full effort called for to make available to us here the last ounce of fertilisers is being made. I want to warn the Minister, from my own personal experience and contact so far as cereals are concerned and from the information I have got from people engaged in all branches, from the production to the actual turning out of the finished article, that you cannot go on assuming that we are likely to get the same yield per acre sown as we were getting for the first three or four years. I think the Minister knows—if he does not, some of his advisers are not giving him the information which should be given to him —that there is a very substantial reduction in the yield per acre over the last year or two. Unfortunately that is a progressive reduction.
I do not want to go into statistics. Frankly, I pay no attention whatever to statistics. I think they are more harmful than anything else. They are merely misleading the Minister and the Government, because the machinery for collecting statistics—I am referring to wheat—as to the acreage sown or the yield per acre, is so loose that it would be utterly impossible to get a set of figures that would be even approximately right. I was talking to one of the largest growers of wheat in this country only three days ago, a man who had been growing, for a number of years even before the war, an average of over 200 acres of wheat per year. This year he told me that he has only 35 acres under wheat and the remainder is under beet, because he found that, notwithstanding whatever rotation he could arrange in the difficult circumstances of the last few years, his land was becoming completely exhausted and he had to stop growing wheat on an extensive scale and put a manured crop into the ground, such as beet.
This was a very important matter all during the war. It is more important at the moment. I do not think the Minister will disagree with me if I state that our position in relation to wheat will be more critical and more dangerous this coming year, and next year, than it was at any time during the war. I think it is quite probable, having regard to world conditions, and particularly European conditions, that we will not get any wheat from outside. That is all the more reason why we should get the fullest return from the acreage sown at home, and we can get that only by having fertilisers made available to the fullest possible extent.
May I suggest to the Minister that he should discuss with his colleague, the Minister for Agriculture, the question of insisting on having wheat sown on certain farms merely because the acreage is there, with no regard whatever to the suitability of the land. I have seen good wheat seed put into ground and you might as well sow it outside in Kildare Street. It is sheer waste of good seed and a waste of time sowing it. There is enough wheat land in this country to grow more than our requirements and we ought not to insist, merely by going strictly according to the rules, that, because there is an acreage there, a proportion of wheat must go into that ground, whether it will give a good yield or not.
I want now to refer to a matter that has affected, is affecting and, I am afraid, will continue, to a greater extent, to affect, every section of the community, and that is the cost of living. The cost of living, according to the official figures, is about 72 per cent. over pre-war. Neither the Minister nor anybody else who knows anything about the situation will suggest that there is much possibility of that coming down. I think the tendency is the other way. Indeed, the likelihood is that that there will be a further increase, and there is little use in the Minister expressing optimism about an increase in the standard of living of our people if we are to have an ever-increasing cost of living. This is a matter to which one could devote a full speech. I do not want to go into it in detail. It has been discussed many times, both inside and outside the House. It was discussed inside the House on very many occasions during the past 12 months.
As a result of the high cost of living, and because salaries and wages were unable to keep pace with it, it is an undoubted fact that a very large section of our community are to-day on a lower standard of living than they were in pre-war days and, of course, that is particularly true of those who have young families. I must say that it is almost a mystery to me, having regard to the present-day cost of living, how any family man, working for a wage or on a moderate salary, is able to make ends meet. There is hardly a Deputy, particularly if he is married and has a family and has the responsibility of maintaining a home, even though he may have a very good wage compared with some of the people I am talking about, who does not find, notwithstanding the official figures, that it is costing more to run his home. That is true where there are just ordinary living conditions, without any extravagance.
One of the most important aspects of the cost-of-living figure is not taken into consideration, although it has, perhaps, the most important bearing of all, and that is, not merely the cost of the article, but the quality. If the quality were compared with the pre-war quality, and if the price were compared with the pre-war price, you would get a real cost-of-living figure, a figure far different from the one we see in the ordinary statistical way.
With regard to tea, I gather from the Minister that the allocation to be made to this country is approximately 75 per cent. of our pre-war consumption. Will the Minister tell us whether the subsidy in connection with the price of tea is still being paid, or whether there is any variation in it?
