Dáil Éireann debate -
Tuesday, 9 Mar 1948

Vol. 110 No. 3

Committee on Finance. - Vote on Account, 1948-49.

The Dáil, according to Order, went into Committee on Finance to consider a Vote on Account for the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1949.

Minister for Finance (Mr. McGilligan)

I move:—

That a sum not exceeding £24,143,298 be granted on account for or towards defraying the Charges that will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1949, for certain public services, namely:—

		£
1	President's Establishment	1,800
2	Houses of the Oireachtas	59,400
3	Department of the Taoiseach	6,600
4	Comptroller and Auditor-General	9,517
5	Office of the Minister for Finance	38,600
6	Office of the Revenue Commissioners	418,000
7	Old Age Pensions	1,709,600
8	Management of Government Stocks	22,100
9	Office of Public Works	63,000
10	Public Works and Buildings	432,000
11	Employment and Emergency Schemes	400,000
12	State Laboratory	4,200
13	Civil Service Commission	14,400
14	Irish Tourist Board	12,000
15	Commissions and Special Inquiries	4,300
16	Superannuation and Retired Allowances	282,000
17	Rates on Government Property	70,000
18	Secret Service	5,000
19	Expenses under the Electoral Act and the Juries Act	Nil
20	Miscellaneous Expenses	5,000
21	Stationery and Printing	109,000
22	Valuation and Boundary Survey	14,480
23	Ordnance Survey	14,830
24	Supplementary Agricultural Grants	850,000
25	Law Charges	31,500
26	Universities and Colleges	153,600
27	Widows' and Orphans' Pensions	320,000
28	Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies	18,000
29	Agriculture	794,000
30	Agricultural Produce Subsidies	790,000
31	Fisheries	46,700
32	Office of the Minister for Justice	22,100
33	Garda Síochána	972,000
34	Prisons	55,990
35	District Court	21,980
36	Circuit Court	28,240
37	Supreme Court and High Court of Justice	23,600
38	Land Registry and Registry of Deeds	21,400
39	Public Record Office	2,347
40	Charitable Donations and Bequests	1,350
41	Local Government	480,000
42	General Register Office	5,317
43	Dundrum Asylum	9,000
44	National Health Insurance	270,800
45	Office of the Minister for Education	90,000
46	Primary Education	2,000,000
47	Secondary Education	200,000
48	Technical Instruction	200,000
49	Science and Art	36,000
50	Reformatory and Industrial Schools	75,000
51	National Gallery	4,700
52	Lands	633,961
53	Forestry	92,000
54	Gaeltacht Services	90,000
55	Industry and Commerce	5,617,460
56	Aviation and Meteorological Services	550,000
57	Children's Allowances	716,600
58	Transport and Marine Services	72,220
59	Unemployment Insurance and Unemployment Assistance	393,120
60	Industrial and Commercial Property Registration Office	5,700
61	Posts and Telegraphs	1,549,000
62	Wireless Broadcasting	82,000
63	Defence	1,510,820
64	Army Pensions	258,366
65	External Affairs	58,000
66	Office of the Minister for Social Welfare	223,000
67	Miscellaneous Social Welfare Services	123,800
68	Health	740,000
69	Damage to Property (Neutrality) Compensation	3,700
70	Personal Injuries (Civilians) Compensation	800
71	Athletics	8,300
72	Alleviation of Distress	195,000
73	Repayment of Trade Loans Advances	Nil
—	Repayment to Contingency Fund	Nil
	TOTAL	£24,143,298

This Vote is generally taken at this time of the year. It is essential that it should be taken about this time. The public services are continuing services, and it is necessary to provide money to maintain them during the period when the Estimates for public services are discussed in detail. It is not necessary at this period to have a detailed discussion, and the Estimates are not ordinarily discussed at this time. The detailed discussion generally lasts for four months of the year. For that reason the moneys are taken at this time and are granted by the House ordinarily to cover about one-third of the amount set down as being likely to be spent during the year.

The Book of Estimates has been sent to Deputies, together with a White Paper which sets out the different items as they are set out on the Order Paper. The total sum required as appearing on the face of this book is the rather staggering one of £70,520,477. Deputies will, see a comparison made with the previous year. They will notice the comparison between the £70,500,000 odd required for this year and the moneys voted for the financial year that is just ending, which totalled £64,184,402. There is, therefore, an increase of £6,336,075 on the provision as shown in the Book of Estimates for the previous year.

But that total is, of course, swollen by the Supplementary Estimates passed during the year. They amounted to £9,928,259. If those Supplementary Estimates were excluded, the comparison I would have to make would be between the £70,500,000 odd contemplated for the coming year and the sum lessened by the Supplementary Estimates, which would then be £16,264,334 less than what is now here. In other words, if I omit the Supplementary Estimates that came in during the financial year just ending, the present book on its face shows an increase of £16,250,000.

There is a difference, as between the moneys actually voted and the moneys sought to be provided by the late administration for the coming year, of £6? million. The greater part comes from the Vote for Industry and Commerce, which is up by £4,450,000. Of that sum £3,836,805 is due to extra provision for food subsidies. There are other substantial increases. The Agricultural Grant is up by over £500,000; Health has increased by £712,000. There is a decrease in the Vote for Alleviation of Distress. The decrease amounts to £925,010. That decrease is there because it was not possible to send foodstuffs and other things abroad, as had at first been contemplated. In addition, there is a decrease of £193,000 odd in the Vote for Unemployment Insurance and Unemployment Assistance. More than half the Votes are up. There are decreases to a small extent in certain other Votes, and a few show no change.

When issuing the Book of Estimates this year I caused to be sent to Deputies a slip with information that Deputies will have had for themselves, but I thought it necessary to stress that this particular book was with the printer at the time this Government was formed. It had passed the scrutiny of the various Government Departments and the Government as a whole. It had been carefully scrutinised and had received the assent of the various Departments and the Minister for Finance. It then took the shape in which Deputies now have it, with this amazing total of £70,500,000 to be spent.

It is quite clear that no Minister of the present Government has had time to examine the details of the Estimates for which he has to stand responsible before the House. I disclaim any responsibility for the book, either in respect of its amount or the form in which it appears. I did intimate that inquiries were being made, and so far I have secured the acceptance by my colleagues of the general proposal that economies should be sought over the widest possible field. We are endeavouring to get these economies, and we hope to secure substantial ones.

I have described the Estimate as amazing. I should apply the further terms to it—prodigious and prodigal. When the previous Ministers the last time found themselves with an addition of some £16,000,000 as compared with the previous book, it apparently never occurred to them that it was possible to subtract anything from any of the several headings. The whole idea appeared to be a complacent system of accepting increases: of not searching out for any possible decreases and of securing them from time to time. The attitude of the present Government towards this booklet, and towards Government expenditure generally, may be described in this way, that we want, first of all, to ensure retrenchment over as wide a field as possible. We are looking for economies in public expenditure, save where that expenditure is going to be reproductive or where it is socially desirable. Our second objective is to reduce the cost of living. A factor in the heavy burden of the cost of living which people have had to submit to for many years past, is the amazing increase in the cost of Government spending. Therefore, we hope if we can reduce public expenditure to do something to ease the burden on the masses of the community. Our third objective is to transform some of this wasteful expenditure and non-productive and, possibly, unnecessary services, over to the field of production, to speed up production, which has been running at a very low level, to as high a point as possible in a limited number of years.

I would point out that this booklet represents the endeavours of the last Government over 16 years. It will not be easy to break up all this expenditure in a very short time, but I do hope when I come before the House in about six weeks' time with proposals for the Budget to be able to show the preliminaries we have taken to effect our main object. We hope to be able to announce that certain economies have been discovered, and that we are going to put these into effect, as well as to indicate that we are searching for, and hope to find, further economies during the course of the year, and if it is possible at the same time to make provision for needy people to do that. For the rest, our endeavours will be towards the spending of money on production. That is likely to give better aid to the people in the way of production. We shall endeavour to break up this enormous bulk of expenditure that has grown so steadily year by year until now it has reached this enormous sum which, I think, in the last two or three days, has rather stupefied the great masses of the people.

I cannot add anything in the way of detail on the Estimates. I have not had the time to examine into them. I can tell the House that my colleagues are all willingly co-operating in the search for economies, but they could not assist the House by telling Deputies at the moment what their attitude is to the various heads of expenditure. I do not think that any individual Minister could hold himself responsible here for the particular sums of money set out in the different Estimates. All he could do would be to offer the booklet to the House in the way in which it was presented to him. The figure is one which was arrived at by the last Government and apparently they thought the figure is one that the populace could bear. In the last three weeks we have not been able to take any steps towards a reduction in that figure. If Deputies want to discuss the Estimates, they do so in this way that in the main they are not accepting them, that they have been foisted on them, and refuse responsibility for building them up.

Mr. Lemass

I think the Minister for Finance is quite well aware of the fact that the Book of Estimates was never considered as such by the Fianna Fáil Government. Estimates were prepared in individual Departments and the book was got together in the ordinary way. It never came before the Government that preceded the present Government. We never had the opportunity of examining the total of the Estimates, much less of considering proposals for submission to the Dáil as to how the problem created by the aggregate figure could be disposed of.

I think the country will be disappointed with the statement we have heard from the Minister for Finance. It was a very brief statement, mainly concerned with the recitation of facts of which Deputies are already aware. In so far as he attempted to outline the attitude of the Government to the financial position disclosed by the Estimates, or the general financial situation here, it was very largely confined to the repetition of the two words —economy and retrenchment. No one could reasonably expect the Minister to have produced detailed proposals for the reorganisation of the public services or even for the execution of the economies which, presumably, they believe to be possible, but we could reasonably have anticipated a fuller statement giving, with greater clarity, the whole approach of the Minister and of his colleagues to the issues of financial policy which will have to be debated during the course of the present session of the Dáil.

There are a number of matters on which I am seeking information, a number of matters on which I think it is desirable that information should be given, and given quickly, and given, if possible, in the course of this debate, either by the Minister for Finance or by the Ministers of the Departments concerned. Before I proceed to refer to these matters there is one issue of general policy which, I think, the Minister for Finance should deal with when replying. When the Deputies who now grace the benches opposite sat on this side of the House, if there was one subject more than any other which called forth their eloquence it was the growth of the practice of legislating by means of Ministerial Orders and of Governmental decrees rather than by Bills enacted by the Dáil. That is a practice that has developed in recent years in every country in consequence of the extension of the functions of Government—that is conferring on the Executive and on individual Ministers the power of making Orders having the force of law. That practice was denounced by the Deputies opposite in unmeasured terms as one which would lead eventually to the replacement of the power of the Legislature by the power of the Executive. It was not uncommon for them to suggest that the growth of that practice—it had been taking place at a slow rate before the war and was undoubtedly accelerated during the war when various temporary emergency Acts were passed, and temporary emergency powers given to the Government — was tending towards dictatorship.

I am sure that every Deputy on the benches opposite will recollect how often he used that word, dictatorship, during the course of the general election campaign early this year and based his use of the word upon this practice of effecting changes in the law by means of Governmental Orders and Ministerial decrees rather than by legislation submitted to the Dáil and debated before being passed here. Those who heard Deputies opposite on that subject in this House in the past or who read their speeches at the crossroads on it must have been astonished when they found that the first formal act of the new Government—certainly the first act which gained publicity in the newspapers—was a startling innovation in this process of government by Order. I am referring now to the use of the Emergency Imposition of Duties Act to repeal the additional taxes upon beer, tobacco and cinema seats imposed by the Supplementary Budget of last year. I am assuming that the Government were legally advised that their action in availing of the Emergency Imposition of Duties Act for that purpose was in accordance with the provisions of the Act and of the Constitution.

Mr. McGilligan

Yes; we were so advised.

Mr. Lemass

I assume that, but nevertheless I want to put before the Dáil and before the Government in a serious way for their consideration that it established a most questionable and undesirable precedent. The Emergency Imposition of Duties Act was passed by the Dáil in 1932 for the purpose of giving the Executive power to impose protective tariffs upon goods coming into this country in advance of consideration of the matter by the Dáil where they considered it necessary in the commercial interests of the country. Certainly the Dáil had no purpose in enacting the measure, except to give that power to the Government, to impose protective duties by Order as a matter of urgency if commercial considerations necessitated it, subject to subsequent approval by the Dáil. The Act was never used for any other purpose and to use it as this Government has used it for the purpose of removing duties imposed for revenue purposes, duties which were the subject of considerable controversy, was without precedent, and, I submit, constituted a precedent of a most undesirable kind.

I presume that that action was taken by the Government for the purpose of preventing discussion on the proposal by the Dáil or of avoiding the necessity for answering the questions that might have been addressed to it as to the implications of the step. The control of finance is the most fundamental power of the Dáil. I think it is true to say that, if the power of the Dáil over public finance is weakened, democracy is weakened in this country, and if the power of the Dáil over public finance is destroyed, democracy is destroyed. That, in fact, is the foundation of dictatorship in every State and we have now to ask ourselves, having regard to the discovery of this Government as to the use to which the Emergency Imposition of Duties Act of 1932 can be put, whether, in fact, the power of the Dáil to control public finance exists at all. If duties imposed for revenue purposes can be repealed by Governmental Order, then, presumably, similar duties can be imposed by Ministerial Order and the people can be subjected to taxation about which the Dáil was not consulted and made liable to pay the taxes imposed by Order for a period of at least six months, because the motion which must be submitted to the Dáil, subsequent to the action of the Government, to secure approval of it, need not be brought to the House for a period of six months after the action has been taken.

Mr. McGilligan

Eight months.

Mr. Lemass

The Minister is quite right; the period is eight months. When the Dáil votes money for any particular Supply Service such as the subsidisation of the prices of foodstuffs, and passes the necessary resolutions and enactments authorising the raising of taxes to defray the cost, it should not be in the power of the Executive to annul the action taken by the Dáil by its own Order and without previous consultation with the Dáil. If that power should be used arbitrarily, it could cause complete financial chaos, and, having regard to the fact that the Government has established this startling innovation of repealing by its own Order duties imposed for revenue purposes under the authority of the Emergency Imposition of Duties Act, 1932, the question is clearly raised whether that Act should not now be repealed, or at least amended, so as to confine the power it confers on the Government to that which the Dáil intended to give it when the Act was passed.

I am assuming that this action of the Government in repealing the duties imposed by the Supplementary Budget of last year upon beer, tobacco and cinema seats is not a mere confidence trick. I am assuming that, having repealed these duties, the Government has no intention of reimposing them in the annual Budget this year or next year. I should like to get some definite statement on that point from the Minister. Are we to take it, as we seem to be entitled to take it, from the statements published in the Press on the formation of the coalition Government and the action of the Government, that these duties upon beer and tobacco, having been repealed, will remain unchanged during the lifetime of this Government, that the present rate of tax upon beer and tobacco is to be regarded as sacrosanct and not to be altered upward so long as this Government is in power? If there is any intention on the part of the Government to follow up the reduction of the duties as imposed by the Supplementary Budget by reimposing them, in whole or in part, either for the purpose of financing food subsidies or some other purpose, it would appear to be an undesirable practice which would bring the business of government in this State into discredit. We must take it, therefore, that these duties, having been reduced to the level at which they were before the Supplementary Budget of last Autumn, will not be increased beyond that figure this year, next year, or while this Government is in office.

I think most Deputies will agree that that is the clear implication of the action taken by the Government. I wonder have they considered all the possible consequences of that step. Let me say this, that, having regard to developments which have occurred since the Supplementary Budget of last year and having regard to the particular purposes for which these increased taxes were raised, some reduction of them would now be justifiable, and perhaps their entire repeal. The successful negotiation of the wheat agreement has clearly reduced very substantially the amount required to maintain the prices of flour and bread at their present figures, and the undertaking given by the Fianna Fáil Government was that if the reason for the imposition of these higher taxes ceased to operate, the taxes themselves would cease to operate. But the new Government has approached the matter in a different light. They did not relate the taxes to the purposes for which they were imposed. They formed a Government and issued a statement of that Government's policy. There was no ambiguity in the statement they issued. In their ten-point programme they stated specifically their intention to remove the recent taxes on cigarettes, beer and cinema seats. They have done that, but there was certainly no implication in that statement, or in any other statement made by the Government since, that circumstances could arise in their opinion which would require the reimposition of higher taxes on those commodities. Therefore, we are entitled to assume that the taxes on beer, tobacco and cinema seats will remain at their lower level so long as this Government is in office.

There may be Deputies in the benches opposite who do not quite understand the structure of the national revenue. In the year 1946-47, the total tax revenue was about £51,000,000—that is, total revenue exclusive of the Post Office receipts. Of that £51,000,000, approximately £12,500,000 came from income-tax, £12,000,000 from tobacco and £9,000,000 from beer and spirits— that is to say, income-tax, tobacco, beer and spirits gave between them practically two-thirds of the total tax revenue of the State. The other third was derived from a multitude of small taxes and other charges, most of which could not be changed and none of which could be so expanded as to yield any substantial increase in revenue. If, therefore, the position has been established that this Government cannot increase, without breaking its pledged word, the taxes on beer or the taxes on tobacco, then if they require to recoup the revenue lost by the repeal of the supplementary duties on those goods for the purpose of maintaining food subsidies, or increase revenue for any other purpose, they have practically no means of obtaining that except by increasing the income-tax.

The yield of income-tax is roughly about £1,000,000 for every 6d. in the £ tax and to replace the £4,000,000 or £5,000,000 which the supplementary duties upon beer, tobacco and cinema seats would reap in a full year, would mean an increase in the standard rate of income-tax by about 2/6 in the £. That may not be necessary. I am assuming that the Minister for Finance will find some of the economies he is seeking and will be able to offset the loss of revenue following upon the repeal of these duties by means of those economies—I may in fact be able to suggest an economy or two—but if there is to be, while the present Government is in office, a freezing of the taxes on beer and tobacco, then any increased revenue can only be obtained by an increase in income-tax. Some small additional revenues may be secured by adjusting some of the minor duties, but any substantial sum can be obtained only through income-tax. Any Government that sets out to raise £2,000,000, £3,000,000 or £4,000,000 for any purpose, however necessary, in this State would find it impossible to do so without adjusting the income-tax, adjusting the tobacco tax or adjusting the taxes on beer and spirits.

I want Deputies on the benches opposite—particularly the Deputies of the Labour Parties—to consider the implication of the action which their Government is taking. If it is necessary to replace the revenue lost through the repeal of these taxes, that will necessitate expanding the income-tax here to the highest practical level. I am sure the Minister for Finance fully appreciates that raising the standard rate of income-tax here above the level in Great Britain could mean a loss of revenue instead of an increase and, therefore, there is a practical limit beyond which the State cannot go. If the whole of the additional revenue which was to be obtained from these additional duties for the purpose of paying for food subsidies can be secured only by increasing income-tax, then no substantial revenue can be obtained from that source to subsidise the social insurance scheme to which the Government is committed.

Might I remind the Minister that, in addition to being committed to the introduction of a social insurance scheme, the Government is also committed to reducing the cost of living? I do not know if they intend to secure that result by means of increasing food price subsidies. It may be possible to reduce it without adding to the food subsidies, but if there is to be an immediate implementation of the pledge to reduce the cost of living by providing out of State funds for subsidies, then presumably this social insurance scheme to which they are committed—to which we are all committed—will, when introduced by them, be so designed that it cannot mean any increased charge on public revenue. If they intend to do more under the social services than is now done, in the sense of providing more money out of State revenue for social services, it seems to me that they have limited their capacity to do so by this decision to repeal the supplementary duties upon beer, tobacco and spirits, if they intend to maintain the food price subsidies that these increased duties were imposed to finance.

I heard the Minister for Social Welfare to-day hedging as to when he would introduce his comprehensive social insurance scheme. Let me tell the Dáil that, so far as the detailed work of preparation is concerned, that social insurance scheme is ready. It may be that this Government will not agree fully with the proposals of the former Minister for Social Welfare as to the details of the scheme.

Mr. Davin

What were they?

Mr. Lemass

Ask the Minister for Social Welfare for them. A comprehensive scheme was prepared and all the necessary research work was done. The outline of the plan was drawn up and the administrative details had been examined. If no change of Government had taken place, we were confident we could have produced a social services scheme on an insurance basis in this year, probably in this summer. There is no reason whatever why there should be any greater delay on the part of the new Government in introducing that scheme—unless they are now beginning to appreciate that they are going to have financial difficulties.

Mr. Michael O'Higgins

Would the Deputy say if that was the reason for the delay of the last Government?

Mr. Lemass

If the Deputy is sincerely asking a question, I will answer it. The Fianna Fáil Government introduced most of these social services, but they introduced them separately. As we considered that the resources of the country permitted of an expansion of the social protective services, we expanded them. Each service was expanded as a separate step and frequently was established under the administration of a different Minister from that by whom the previous new service was administered. It was after the end of the war that we decided the time had come when all these separate social services should be bound into one comprehensive scheme and it was to make that possible that the Department of Social Welfare was established at the beginning of last year. That separate Department was set up so as to facilitate the amalgamation of the social service scheme into one comprehensive form of protection against undeserved want.

Mr. Davin

The poor law scheme, for one.

Mr. Lemass

I am very strongly of the opinion that the proposals which were prepared in the Department of Social Welfare are not being let see the light of day, because they were more ambitious than the present Minister is prepared to recommend, subject to the concurrence of the Minister for Finance.

Mr. T.F. O'Higgins

What were the details?

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

The details are not relevant.

Mr. Lemass

I am quite prepared to answer any questions which the Ceann Comhairle allows me to answer.

Mr. McGilligan

Just answer that one. What about the details?

Mr. Lemass

Considerable details were published in the Press.

Mr. M.J. O'Higgins

In the Irish Press?

Mr. Lemass

They were published in all the newspapers. Speaking quite frankly, I do not profess to remember all the details, but quite substantially improved payments were proposed to all persons who have necessarily to have recourse to the public services.

An Ceann Comhairle

The details are not relevant to this discussion.

Mr. Lemass

I would like to put it to the Deputies' serious consideration that they have repealed the additional tax on beer, tobacco and cinema seats and that they have repealed them in such a manner as practically precludes them from ever putting them on again. As the main sources of revenue are the tax on beer and spirits, the tax on tobacco, and income-tax, and if they wish to maintain the food subsidies, the revenue lost by the reduction of the tax on beer, tobacco and cinema seats must be replaced somehow, there is no practicable method of replacing that revenue except by increasing the income-tax. If you increase the income-tax for that purpose you cannot increase it again for another purpose because there is a limit to which income-tax can be increased. If you increase the income-tax for the purpose of replacing the revenue from the tax on beer, cigarettes and cinema seats for the purpose of food subsidies, you cannot again increase it for the purpose of improving the social services. We had contemplated improving the social services mainly by inaugurating an insurance scheme to which the beneficiaries would contribute and also by providing additional revenue from State funds for that purpose. I am assuming that the food subsidies are intended to be continued. Could we have a statement on that issue?

Mr. McGilligan

Do you want that statement now?

Mr. Lemass

I would like it some time during the debate.

Mr. McGilligan

You will have that statement on the first Wednesday in May.

Mr. Lemass

I want to remind the Party opposite of the pledge which they gave when they formed their Government. I am quite sure that they are going to be reminded very often of those ten points during their term of office. They undertook to remove the additional taxation on cigarettes, beer and cinema seats.

Mr. McGilligan

And they were removed from that time.

Mr. Lemass

And they must remain so for as long as this Government remains in office.

Mr. McGilligan

And you are angry that we have done it.

Mr. Lemass

Not in the least. We would probably have done it ourselves. You are pledged to reduce the cost of living, not to prevent an increase in the cost of living, but to reduce it. That has a specific place in the ten points of agreement which the Coalition Government made public. The Clann na Poblachta Party in their declaration used practically the same words as were used in the joint declaration, "to reduce the cost of living and remove the additional taxes on beer, tobacco and cinema seats". The Labour Party said that they were joining the coalition "because it would enable them to carry out their policy to control and reduce prices, to improve the allowances to old and necessitous persons, and to repeal the supplementary taxation which was imposed upon the people in the Fianna Fáil Autumn Budget".

The Minister for Finance, in reply to a Parliamentary question here, stated that the loss of revenue arising from the repeal of these duties early in March would be met as far as this financial year was concerned by economies. The loss in this financial year would be quite small, and expenditure in this financial year could be avoided by the simple process of postponing it until the next financial year in order to show economies realised. It would not be possible to effect economies in a full financial year capable of offsetting the revenue lost by repealing the taxation on tobacco, beer and cinema seats unless the Government has in mind a drastic reorganisation of the public services.

It is true that the subsidies required in order to maintain the present subsidised prices of foodstuffs may be less this year than last year. The Minister is well aware that we had to provide against a possible wheat price of five dollars a bushel in order to maintain the ration for the first half of this year. The new wheat agreement has instituted a ceiling price of two dollars and I have seen from newspaper reports that we have a saving of £1,500,000. I do not know whether we in preparing the Estimate took into account the possibility of the agreement being completed in time for the Estimate or whether the £10,000,000 in the Estimate can now automatically be reduced by £1,500,000. I am assuming that the wheat agreement will be ratified by the other Governments that are parties to it.

I was disappointed that the Minister for Industry and Commerce was able to give us no information concerning the tea situation. There is available in the country at the present time sufficient tea to abolish the rationing, and the storage of that tea is creating a very substantial problem. Most of the stores available to the Dublin Port and Docks Board are overcrowded and additional stores must be rented to accommodate any more tea brought in. The present Government must make an immediate decision in this matter. If the same quantity of tea as last year is to be purchased this year in India, then the necessary instructions must be given to Tea Importers, Limited, and they will have to be given now. I regard it as inconceivable that under circumstances in which abundant tea can be obtained the Government should refuse to buy it and maintain a one and a half ounce ration when the ration could be abolished completely. Deputies who read the Irish Press will know what the alternatives are and the general trend of public opinion as to what ought to be done which has been disclosed. I do not want to press any particular solution on the Government, but the Government cannot dodge the issue indefinitely.

Mr. M.J. O'Higgins

For how long has there been sufficient tea in the country to abolish the ration?

Mr. Lemass

Since the beginning of the year. I could have abolished the ration since Christmas.

Mr. Davin

Then why did you not?

Mr. Lemass

Because I would have been told then that it was a political dodge.

Mr. M.J. O'Higgins

Well, surely the present Minister is entitled to the same amount of time to make up his mind as the former Minister.

Mr. Lemass

I want to impress this one point. If the Government wishes to abolish the ration, instructions must be given now to the tea-buying organisation to buy tea this year. The crop comes on the Indian market at the beginning of June. If they do not wish to abolish the rationing then instructions must also be given to that effect and there is enough tea in the country to maintain the present supply for a very long period. I know that the Coalition Government will try to dodge or postpone awkward issues, but there are some things which they cannot postpone and the people of this country are entitled to know what they are going to do. They can get competent advice from people who are familiar with the intricacies of the tea trade and make up their minds on the basis of that information but the Minister must do it quickly. Mere postponement of the issue is in fact a definite decision to commit us to restricted supplies for another 12 months, for unless the tea-buying organisation makes the necessary financial arrangements to buy tea in India, we will not have any more tea. Thus postponement is, in fact, a decision.

Mr. Desmond

What did you say on the 18th February?

Mr. Lemass

I said that there was enough tea in the country to finish the rationing.

Mr. Desmond

And what about the subsidy?

Mr. Lemass

It is a problem, but it is not a problem surely to a Government who intend to save £10,000,000 and reduce prices at the same time.

There is also enough sugar in the country to abolish the ration. I see in the papers that supplies of Polish sugar have arrived in the country.

Mr. McGilligan

Since when?

Mr. Lemass

It cannot be for a very long time. I gather that certain negotiations for the purchase of Polish sugar which were initiated last year have been completed. If that is so and if the quantity of sugar which was being negotiated for in Poland has been procured then I can calculate from the knowledge which I have that there must be available in this country now a stock of sugar somewhere between 70,000 and 90,000 tons. Assuming we get a normal beet sugar harvest this year, and in view of the unexpected conversion of the Minister for Agriculture to the policy of growing beet I think there is no reasonable risk that we will not have a normal yield of sugar from our own factories this year, we have enough sugar available to abolish sugar rationing. The normal consumption, I think, varied between 100,000 and 110,000 tons per year. The present consumption is about the same. There has been an abnormal demand for sugar for manufacturing purposes for some time past. As Minister for Industry and Commerce, I allowed jam manufacturers double their pre-war supply of sugar in order to increase the output of jam. Other manufacturing consumers of sugar also were granted allowances——

Mr. Davin

What about the mineral water manufacturers? You refused them.

Mr. Lemass

No manufacturing concern was getting less than 100 per cent.

Mr. Davin

You refused the Athlone Company. Deputy Childers knows that well.

Mr. Sweetman

You refused a number of other concerns also.

Mr. Lemass

New concerns. Existing firms had their allowances increased to 100 per cent. towards the end of last year. I am not saying that their allowances were not at the 80 per cent. level and even lower at various stages. However, when I left office they were getting between 100 per cent. and 200 per cent. of their pre-war supply.

Deputies

Oh, no.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

Deputy Lemass should be allowed to make his speech without interruption.

Mr. Lemass

There was also a very large number of people who wanted to get into the business of manufacturing jam or sugar confectionery or some other manufacturing process involving the supply of sugar. They were refused, except in a few cases where new forms of manufacture were involved. There is a Deputy over there muttering to himself. If he would speak up——

Mr. McGilligan

I am sure you heard what he said.

Mr. Collins

I said they got them if they belonged to the Fianna Fáil clubs.

Mr. Lemass

That is false. All around this country there are people who know that such statements are false.

Mr. Collins

There is a big majority who know they are not false.

Mr. Lemass

I am including supporters of the Deputy's Party who know quite well that such statements are false. Their opinion of the Deputy will be related exactly to the fact that he will make statements of that kind. In the case of sugar, it is quite clear that we can abolish rationing. It may involve the taking of a risk but such a risk can only materialise next year. The risk is that we might not be able to supplement our own production next year except by purchases for dollars. I am assuming, however, that the Marshall Plan will go through, despite the efforts of the Cominform to prevent it, and that next year the exchange problems which beset us now will be greatly eased. If that is so there is no reason why sugar rationing should not be abolished now. Sugar has not the same subsidy problem as tea. The subsidy costs about £1,000,000 a year. The domestic price of sugar is 4d. a lb. and the economic price is, I think, about 6d. a lb. Manufacturers are at present required to pay 7½d. a lb. In doing so they are, of course, contributing to the cost of the subsidy. The wisdom of that procedure is very questionable because, of course, it means that in turn the prices of jams, marmalades, and sugar confectionery are higher than they would be if the manufacturers were required to pay only the economic price of sugar. If the price of domestic sugar were increased to the British level—Britain's sugar is 5d. a lb.—or if the present price of sugar were maintained and operated only for the present fixed ration and the balance of the sugar available were sold at the equivalent economic price then, of course, the sugar subsidy would be saved. I do not think I would have any problem in dealing with this sugar position if I were still Minister for Industry and Commerce but, of course, I was not committed to doing two things at the same time—firstly, to reduce taxation, and secondly, to reduce the cost of living.

A Deputy

What would you have done?

Mr. Collins

Increased both.

Mr. Lemass

We are told that these problems will be solved by economies. There is, however, one point which I should like to stress for the information of the House. Ninety-nine point nine per cent. of all direct Government expenditure goes in salaries or wages to persons employed by Government Departments.

Mr. McGilligan

Do you really mean that?

Mr. Lemass

I am excluding, now, money that goes out in food prices subsidies or grants in aid to external organisations and so forth. I am talking of expenditure by Government Departments in Government Departments.

Mr. Collins

It is obvious that the Deputy was on holidays.

Mr. Lemass

I am leaving out food subsidies, agricultural grants and grants in aid for various purposes. I am talking of direct expenditure by Government Departments—the type of expenditure on which this present Government is going to economise. I wonder if Deputies of the Labour Parties appreciate to what they are committing themselves.

Mr. McGilligan

It is not true.

Mr. Lemass

The Minister has been so accustomed to interrupting and to heckling at public meetings that he cannot listen to an argument to its conclusion.

Mr. McGilligan

An argument which is not true is no argument.

Mr. Lemass

The Minister would be wise to possess himself in patience.

Mr. McGilligan

That is no argument.

Mr. Lemass

Say 98 per cent.

Mr. McGilligan

It is all the same to you whether it is 70 per cent. or 90 per cent.

Mr. Lemass

I will not argue about a point or two—say 96 per cent. or 98 per cent. The Labour Party of this country is in a unique position in comparison with all other Labour Parties in the world in that it is committed to retrenchment in Government Departments. Of course, they said that they joined the Government because, by doing so, they were going to fulfil their election pledge to promote a policy of full employment— and they start off by sacking employees in Government Departments for the sake of economy. The alternative is reducing their salaries or wages. Such a course would not be justified. On the contrary the time has come when a further revision of the wages and salaries of Government employees is necessary. So far as the Minister for Finance considers himself bound by the pledges of his predecessor, he is bound to do so. The wages and salaries of civil servants were established by agreements made with the Civil Service organisation which were, I think, based upon a cost-of-living index number of 175. It was understood that they would again be reviewed if the cost-of-living index number rose above 310. I am not quite clear of the details of the agreement but that, I think, was its main feature. There is, therefore, an obligation on the Minister for Finance to enter into discussion with the Civil Service organisations for an upward revision of the scales of salaries of civil servants which were established under the agreement made at the end of 1946. I am assuming, therefore, that the economies in Government Departments will not be secured with the assent of the Labour Parties through cutting down on the salaries of civil servants and the wages paid to workers employed by these Departments, and that if there are to be economies they must be secured by dismissing a number of the officials or men employed in those Departments. You are committed to economies. Deputies cannot make pledges like that to the public and then forget all about them. As the Minister for Finance to-day has reiterated his determination to pursue a policy of retrenchment and economy, then in so far as it is true to say that 98 or 99 per cent. of the direct expenditure of Government Departments goes out in wages and salaries to individuals, any economy must clearly mean either a reduction in the amount paid to the individuals or a reduction in the number of people to whom wages or salaries are paid. As things stand at the moment, it appears that the Labour Party's programme of full employment is to begin by fairly widespread dismissals from the public services.

I want to refer now to another matter, which affects me to perhaps a greater extent than others, that is, the announcement of the suspension of the commencement of the transatlantic air service. I would like if possible to discuss this matter in a non-controversial way but I was not helped in doing so by being inveigled into buying a publication of the Labour Party—am I right?—which I saw advertised in Dublin last week. Let me say something about that, incidentally. I purchased this journal because I saw a newsvendor with a contents poster announcing the appearance in the journal of the full story of why the American air service was held up. I understand that there is a regulation in force, for which the Minister for Industry and Commerce is responsible, which prohibts periodicals from publishing contents posters. All other periodicals are apparently required to conform to that regulation but, for some reason——

Mr. Davin

On a point of order. What is the Deputy purporting to be reading from?

Mr. Lemass

I am suggesting that this Labour Party publication has either broken the law or has been granted exemption from the law.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

What Deputy Davin wants is the reference.

Mr. Davin

Yes.

Mr. Lemass

Could the Deputy read it?

Mr. Davin

Will the Deputy quote, please?

Mr. Lemass

I see no reason why I should give this publication an advertisement.

Mr. Davin

It is not the Irish Press, is it?

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

This is not to be turned into a place of ridicule. If the Deputy purports to quote from some organ or other, he will give the name of the organ or else discontinue quoting.

Mr. Lemass

On a point of accuracy. I have not quoted from it yet.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

The Deputy referred to it and he has been asked to give the reference.

Mr. Lemass

I refer to an organ called The Irish People, the official organ of the Labour Party, I understand. Am I right or am I wrong? They are not quite sure, apparently. Anyway, it is quite clear that the suspension of the transatlantic air service, if it is confirmed, must mean the immediate disemployment of a substantial number of highly skilled workers. The operation of a transatlantic air service involves the recruitment and training of a large number of pilots, engineers, radio-operators and ground crews, all of whom must have a very high order of skill. The air company sent a large number of people to America last year to be trained and they all came back fully certificated to engage in the operation and maintenance of Constellation aircraft. These people have a very high order of skill. If they are not going to be employed on the service for which they were recruited then they will have little difficulty in getting employment outside the country because people with that training and skill are at a premium everywhere. I should think it is undesirable that they should be left in any continuing uncertainty as to what their future position may be and that, therefore, the announcement of the postponement of the date of commencement of the service should be followed up as quickly as possible by the announcement of the decision of the Government as to whether the service is going to start or whether it has been permanently abandoned.

I do not know if it is the considered view of Deputies opposite that air transport development policy is to be determined solely by budgetary considerations, that is to say, that no extension of air transport facilities will be undertaken unless they are immediately profitable. That seems to me to be an unduly narrow point of view. I would not be at all surprised if it was advanced by the Department of Finance. I know the Department of Finance better than some of the Ministers opposite and that they might advance that argument without turning a hair. But no businessman will seriously expect a new operation of that kind to be financially profitable from the time that it started. Any transport undertaking particularly must inevitably spend a substantial amount of capital on development work, building up goodwill, and most transport organisations have a large part of their capital invested in goodwill which appears as an asset on their balance sheet.

It may be that Deputies opposite do not feel about this question of air development as I do. I think the air is the highway of the future. I think the development of air transport is a matter of first class significance in this country and that we should not fail because of any inactivity or wrong policy now to take full advantage of the opportunity which air transport development gives us in this island, an opportunity which, missed now, may not recur. In the past we were driven out of every activity which involved bringing us into international contacts other than with Great Britain. We have now got a new opportunity of escaping from that position and I am urging on the Deputies opposite, who have the final say in this matter, not to judge wrongly, to think of this matter as something more than the mere redemption of an election pledge to reduce taxation or to effect economies. I do not know if they have decided or if they want to decide that we are to abandon our effort to win a significant place in air transport development. We have won a significant place already but we cannot maintain it by applying to air development a cheese-paring policy such as was indicated by the statement of the Minister for Finance.

I see in the Cork Examiner, one of the daily papers supporting the Government, a suggestion that we should also economise by closing down Irish Embassies and Irish Consular offices in other countries. Before Fianna Fáil came into office, nobody could come to this country as a visitor except through Great Britain. It was physically impossible for him to travel to Ireland except he went to Great Britain first, whether he travelled by sea or by air. Before Fianna Fáil came into office, you could not send goods to or from this country except in a foreign ship and all over a great part of the world nobody could have diplomatic or consular relationship with us except he went to the British Embassy or the British Consular office.

Mr. Sweetman

That is not true.

Mr. Lemass

I hope Deputies opposite do not think now that that was a desirable position or want to get back to it. We were just an island beyond an island. We were, in the minds of the people of the world, Britain's special property. It was our neutrality in the war and the development of air transport and our participation in that development which, more than anything else, took us, in the minds of the people of the world, into the position of being an independent State, not merely in legal form, but in practical reality.

Mr. M.J. O'Higgins

Dictionary form.

Mr. Lemass

Deputies opposite are making sneering remarks. They can continue as often as they like. I am making the case that there is, in relation to this matter of air transport development, a far wider consideration to be kept in mind than the mere possibility of avoiding the spending of some capital sums upon development purposes this year. We were in a backwater. Air transport development put us into the main stream of international travel and it is, in my view, clearly desirable that we should remain there, where we can have regular contacts with people of other countries otherwise than through Britain, whether it is with travellers who reach us through Great Britain or through British consular or diplomatic representatives. This paper, The Irish People, says that “It is absurd for us to join in the fierce air line competition over the North Atlantic.” And again: “The idea of competing was absurd from the first.” Why is it absurd? Why is it absurd for us and not absurd for Holland, Belgium or the Scandinavian countries? All these countries are going into transatlantic service operation. Is it absurd for them if it absurd for us, and is that argument going to be used in relation to every international activity that brings us into a competitive field? Is it going to be used in relation to merchant shipping?—and merchant shipping is the most competitive trade in the world.

Do Deputies opposite contemplate using that argument for abandoning our efforts to develop a worth-while merchant shipping service? If the argument is valid in relation to air services, which represent the main development in transport to be expected in future, surely the argument is equally valid in relation to surface transport on the sea. Certainly, there is no competition in the air as keen as competition on the sea. Yet, we decided to enter into the development of our merchant shipping service, to build up a worth-while merchant shipping fleet, knowing we would have to develop it in competition with the services of other countries and confident in our capacity to do so, confident that we could get here directors, managers, captains and sailors as good and as capable of running ships efficiently and economically as could be found elsewhere.

Mr. Davin

It is paying its way.

A Deputy

Like Córas Iompair Éireann.

Mr. Lemass

It is.

Mr. Davin

The other is not.

Mr. Lemass

I want to deal with that argument. The Deputy's contention is that we should not compete in any transatlantic service unless it pays its way from the start. That is hopeless. It will not pay its way from the start. The expenditure on development this year and next year must be regarded as capital outlay and can be legitimately regarded as such. Let me say also that it is far less absurd for us to enter on this competitive traffic route than it is for these other countries—Belgium, Holland or the Scandinavian countries—because we have got advantages which they have not and never could have. The first is a fund of goodwill in the United States of America which has never been theirs. It is true that we incurred certain expenditure on publicity which has added to that fund of goodwill, but we had already a goodwill position such as these countries will spend very large sums of money every year in endeavouring to produce and which they never can produce.

We have also got a splendid operational record for our Irish services. I do not think it necessary to elaborate on that record but let me state one fact that will come as a shock to Deputies who do not regard this as a wise development. Aer Lingus, the main Irish company, carried in 1947 more passengers than the British European Aviation Corporation. That record is all the more remarkable having regard to the fact that the British European Corporation has practically the monopoly of all the eastward traffic from Great Britain. Aer Lingus made a profit in 1946 and they made a loss in 1947. They made a loss for two main reasons. During the year they took delivery of two new types of aircraft and had to set up new organisations to operate and service these planes. The delivery of the aircraft was substantially delayed on both occasions and the staffs which had been set up to operate and service them could not be fully employed. They had purchased new types of aircraft which proved expensive in operation. I am not going to say that there is not substantial room for economy in the operation of the company. The company was expanding at an extraordinarily rapid rate. Its activities were growing month by month and in any event it would be necessary to check periodically over its organisation to ensure that it was not carrying any passengers on its staff. No air company can tell whether a new service to Amsterdam, to Belgium, to France or to Rome is going to pay until it tries to run such a service. The obvious way to find out specifically is to run the service and to run it in circumstances which appear to give it a chance of success and then ascertain whether the traffic which is anticipated can in fact be realised or whether economies in operation are possible.

May I point out also in extenuation of the losses of Aer Lingus last year, that having commenced new services to the Continent and having spent a great deal of money before they could get these services to a paying state, currency restrictions were imposed which seriously curtailed travel abroad and which inevitably involved the cutting down or the complete suspension of a number of these services? However, I am anxious not to put the case for the maintenance of our air services or the commencement of a transatlantic service on a controversial basis because I sincerely hope that the Government, having gone into the whole matter and having considered it on a much wider basis than the mere financial one, will authorise the maintenance of the present activities of Aer Lingus and the resumption of the plans for the introduction of a transatlantic service.

A suggestion has been published that the Army is going to be cut. Again, I want to urge on Deputies opposite that there are surely more than budgetary considerations or the political convenience of coalition Parties, to be taken into account in considering this question of our defence arrangements. So far as I can gather, the demand for the cutting of the Army is coming from the Labour Party. I have seen a resolution published in the Press from the Dublin South-East Constituency Council of the Irish Labour Party welcoming the retrenchment of expenditure on the Army. The journal to which I have referred also holds out an expectation that there will be a reduction in the armed forces. I want to remove from the minds of Deputies opposite any idea that the present strength of the Army or the present organisation of the Army, is in any sense a Fianna Fáil plan. It is not. The Army headquarters staff was asked by the Fianna Fáil Government to prepare proposals for a peacetime Army which they regarded as the minimum and the cheapest possible, consistent with reasonable efficiency and of such a kind as to permit of its rapid expansion at a time when a threat of war or an outbreak of war would require such expansion.

The plan prepared by the Army staff may not be a good plan. I can find faults with it myself but it is their plan and if there is to be any modification of that plan it should be decided upon in consultation with the Army staff in the light of our defence needs and not imposed upon the Army staff by way of a political decision arrived at by a Government anxious to find economies or to justify its pre-election pledges. I think there are a number of Deputies opposite who will agree that ability to undertake our own defence is an essential prerequisite for the maintenance of our liberty. It is quite true that we could not so organise our defence as to permit us to resist successfully a major attack by a major Power but I think Deputies will agree that we should maintain here a defence organisation sufficiently effective to make it not worth while for any outside Power engaged in a world war to divert to the attack of this country the forces and equipment which would be necessary to overcome it. But, clearly, if we are not able to undertake our own defence there are other people who consider immunity from attack from this island as essential to their security and who would certainly undertake, if we do not do it, the defence of this island with or without our invitation. That is why the destruction of our defence organisation on the plausible ground that it will achieve economies, in the present international circumstances, might well be recorded in our future history as an act of incredible folly. I do not know any more than the Deputies opposite what the prospects of the next few years in the international field may be. If there was a reasonable prospect of stable conditions and world peace for 25 years we might perhaps be justified in gambling with our defence organisation.

Only last week I noticed that a United States Congressional Policy Board published a report in which it said: "It is folly to pretend that the world does not live under a sense of impending tragedy." Last week in the British House of Commons the British Minister for Defence, dealing with a communistic motion to cut down the strength of the British Army in much the same way as it is proposed our Army should be cut down here, said: "It is quite clear why this motion was put down," and he countered a proposal for the abandonment of compulsory service in Great Britain by saying: "In the world situation no responsible Minister could contemplate it." I would urge strongly that the Deputies of the Parties opposite should consider this matter carefully before they accept whatever proposals their Government may put to them in relation to our defence forces. If the highly trained personnel of our peace-time Army—officers, N.C.O.s and men who are trained and experienced—is dispersed now that will be a blow to our future national safety similar in principle, though much greater in degree, than the raid on the Magazine Fort at the beginning of the last war.

I see also a suggestion that turf production should be one of the sources of Government economy. I am not going to contend that the special hand-won turf scheme, which was embarked upon for the purpose of producing turf for the national pool to be sold on a rationed basis in the eastern part of the country, could be maintained indefinitely after coal supplies had increased or after the general fuel situation had eased. But the abrupt dropping of that scheme now is, I think, unwise. I had contemplated that the hand-won turf scheme would be merged into an enlargement of the machine-won turf scheme.

It was decided by the Fianna Fáil Government that the plans of Bord na Móna for the production of 1,000,000 tons of machine-won turf per year at the end of a five-year period should be amended so as to put upon the Bord the obligation of stepping up its production to 2,000,000 tons per year. I do not know if these plans have been considered by the new Government or what decision has been taken on them but it seems to me that it should be possible, having regard to the decision to extend the machine-won turf scheme and the plans already made which, I presume, will be carried out to establish electricity generating stations fired by turf, particularly in the Kildare area, to combine the development of one scheme with the curtailment of the other without a very serious upset in employment or the dispersal of skilled and experienced personnel which the mere decision to cut off hand-won turf would entail.

These may not be the ideas of economy which the Government have in mind. I am sure that the ordinary Deputies of the Government Parties are aware that all this drive at economy and retrenchment and the cutting down of this service and that service is causing a great deal of uneasiness —perhaps uneasiness in the minds of people who have no reason to be uneasy; but it is desirable that some specific indication of the Government's plans should be given so that that unwarranted uneasiness may be removed. Uncertainty always has a bad effect and uncertainty is inevitable perhaps in the present set-up. Uncertainty is evident here in the Dáil. It is evident in the speeches made by members of the different Parties on the benches opposite. They seem to have a considerable degree of uncertainty as to what the Government may or may not do.

I notice that the Taoiseach in his broadcast speech before the first meeting of the Dáil stated that "the points of difference between the various Parties comprising the Coalition, if any, will be much fewer than was expected". Surely, that was a masterpiece of understatement—much fewer than was expected. Certainly much fewer than were expected by the unfortunate people who voted for the Coalition Parties.

Mr. McGilligan

And much fewer than you expected.

Mr. Lemass

Oh! very much fewer than I expected. Record me as being completely astonished. I thought there was some importance to be attached to the declarations of the leaders of the various Parties opposite. I learned my lesson. However, now that the Ministers have made their patriotic and unselfish sacrifice by taking their seats in the Government——

Mr. McGilligan

That comes well from you.

Mr. Lemass

——they have also taken certain responsibilities.

Mr. McGilligan

That comes well from you with your present set-up.

Mr. Lemass

And the first of these responsibilities is——

Mr. McGilligan

A decent man would apologise for that sort of remark.

A Deputy

But he is not a decent man obviously.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

Order, please.

Mr. Lemass

The phrase "patriotic and unselfish sacrifice" is not mine. It is the Taoiseach's.

Mr. McGilligan

Are you accepting it or are you jeering at it?

Mr. Lemass

The Taoiseach says that it is a patriotic and unselfish sacrifice.

Mr. McGilligan

I understand you to be jeering at it.

Mr. Lemass

I do not believe they made any sacrifice at all. But one of the responsibilities you took was the responsibility of being frank with the people, and mere general statements about economy and retrenchment are not frankness. You should state specifically what you propose to do and you should make that statement as quickly as possible so that the inevitable uncertainty and uneasiness will be dissipated.

Might I remark at this point that the efforts of some Ministers to build reputations for themselves on plans made by their predecessors are to say the least of it dishonest? If Ministers find in their Departments plans relating to health, limestone, poultry or eggs which they think good—plans prepared under the auspices of those who went before them—let them adopt them but let them pay tribute to their authors by acknowledging their authorship. To publish these plans as something they themselves devised and not something which was already prepared for them is, frankly, dishonest. Deputy Flanagan credited the Government with the increase in the minimum agricultural wage. The Government had no more to do with that than General Chiang Kai-Shek. The Agricultural Wages Board made that decision. The process of arriving at the decision began many, many months ago. The county committees were consulted and their views were correlated by the central board and the board published its recommendation. It is that recommendation which has now come into force.

Mr. T.F. O'Higgins

Would the Deputy say who got the board to meet?

Mr. Lemass

The board is obliged to meet under the Act.

Mr. T.F. O'Higgins

Would the Deputy say who got the board to meet?

Mr. Lemass

The board had in fact met and arrived at its conclusion before the election.

Mr. T.F. O'Higgins

He will not answer. Who got the board to meet?

Mr. Smith

I did.

Mr. Lemass

May I express also a certain amount of disappointment that my successor in the Department of Industry and Commerce has proved to be so inactive? The only sign of activity from him is an excessive regard for the interests of profiteers. We are told that pip-squeaks of inspectors in the Department will no longer annoy traders who may possibly be over-charging or selling goods in the black market. Those who were convicted of serious offences of over-charging or selling goods in excess of the ration and who lost their licences for so doing are to have those licences restored to them. Let me say this: I was going to give them back also, but that was an entirely different business. I was the man who took them away and my giving them back could not be held to be a condonation of their offences. My successor giving them back is a different matter, because his returning them carries with it the implication that he thinks they should never have been taken away. That is the only thing we have got so far from the Minister responsible for checking profiteering and blackmarketing, an excessive consideration for the offenders.

Now, let me give the Deputies opposite a word of warning in conclusion. Beware of the Department of Finance. It has always been restrictive of development. Under the Fianna Fáil Administration it was not successful because Fianna Fáil had its own policy and they went ahead with that policy and were undeterred by any impediments. With a Minister for Finance who has got the outlook of Mr. McGilligan the Deputies opposite should beware. They will find that any plans for development which they may have had in their mind in coming into the Dáil will be lost and lost for ever in the dim recesses of the Department of Finance.

Let me give the Minister a word of advice. If he is going out for a new loan, will he take the precaution of silencing, for the period in which the loan is in issue, certain members of his Government who have been telling the people of this country that they found the nation bankrupt and its finances derelict? He knows that that is not true but it will not help his loan if his colleagues go out next Sunday, as they did last Sunday, and tell the people that the State is financially bankrupt. These are all matters that I think should be dealt with, and I hope the Minister for Finance or some member of the Government will deal with them in the course of this debate. Deputies cannot avoid these questions being asked or these statements being made here by interrupting those who make them. They can be repeated. For the first time in 16 years, I am now in the happy position that time is no object so far as a Dáil debate is concerned. Consequently, if there is to be a debate on this issue and it should become necessary, because of the course of that debate, to correct any misstatements made or elaborate on the points. I have advanced, there will be other opportunities either on this Vote or on the Central Fund Bill to deal with it.

Mr. T.F. O'Higgins

After the speech made by Deputy Lemass, it does seem to me rather extraordinary that, in the absence of the Leader of the last Government and of the former Minister for Finance, some defence was not made in this House to the people of this country for these Estimates which are placed before the House, Estimates which, in effect, call for the expenditure of £76,000,000 and which are the legacy of Fianna Fáil to this country. I think it is right to say that Deputy Lemass and his colleagues in the last Government seem to fall into the great mistake of spending the people's money freely just because the people happen to have some money, instead of recognising that in a boom period it should be the duty of the Government to restrict Government expenditure. I am glad to have heard from the Minister for Finance to-day that it will be the object of this Government to economise in Government expenditure, to ensure that the people's moneys are spent on the people in circumstances in which there is a real return on them.

Deputy Lemass has spoken about aviation, about Aer Linte, and he has made a passionate appeal to the Government to continue this experiment. I represent two counties—Leix and Offaly—and in recent months I have seen farmers in these counties who were faced with a very serious problem of drainage and of flooding. I have seen farmers around Clara and Tullamore, up towards Banagher, standing in their fields watching some of Deputy Lemass's planes flying over their flooded lands. I think it is about time that a mentality such as has been displayed by Deputy Lemass, who is more concerned with this country cutting a dash before Europeans and Americans than with the problems which face the people here, should cease to have any influence on the Government of this country. I am glad that there is going to be economy and that an effort will be made to conserve for our own people our own money. If we are to spend money for prestige purposes amongst other nations, then we should first of all ensure that our own house is in order and that the problems facing our people are solved.

There are one or two other matters I should like to refer to. Deputy Lemass, in finishing, talked about things he has seen in newspapers. He did not say what newspaper, but we must assume it was his own particular paper, the Irish Press. He referred to the danger to turf production. He did not tell this House that, if there is any danger to turf production now, it is due to the action of Deputy Lemass prior to the last election in allowing coal into this country. We all realise, particularly Deputies who represent farming constituencies, that coal may be a very necessary consideration if we are to have a cattle trade and, obviously, that entire matter of coal as against turf is one which must depend upon market conditions. If there is a market for turf, obviously turf will be sold; if there is not a market, obviously turf will not be sold.

I should like to make reference to what Deputy Lemass has said concerning the removal of the taxes on beer and tobacco. He has complained that these taxes were removed by Ministerial Order. Deputies who were in this House at the first meeting after the election of the Government will remember that Deputy Lemass, so far as he did contribute to the deliberations of the House on that date, asked what were we going to do about these taxes and urged that they should be removed in a speedy manner. When he made that speech, Deputy Lemass was playing politics and when he spoke here again to-day he was playing politics a second time. It is, apparently, a matter of considerable surprise to him that now for the first time in 16 years there is a Government in office which is prepared to honour its pledges to the people.

In conclusion, I hope that some time during this debate some apology for or defence of these Estimates will be made by the Party opposite. These Estimates, totalling over £70,000,000, show a callous disregard for the people of the country and one would expect that we would have had to-day during this debate the help and assistance of the Leader of the Opposition or of the former Minister for Finance. We have not got that. We have merely had the speech of Deputy Lemass, who, as a Minister, was concerned solely with the bigger men in this country and not with the ordinary people.

Mr. M.J. O'Higgins

I should like to join with the last speaker in congratulating the Government on making a serious effort to effect a reduction in taxation. A number of matters were dealt with by Deputy Lemass in the course of his speech, and I should like to refer merely to two of them. One is the question of the transatlantic air service. Deputy Lemass has made the case, I think in some respects it is a reasonable case, that some matters— and this question of air transport is one —should not be judged entirely by whether or not they prove to be profitable concerns. That may be all very well. I believe that there are such projects. But, to my mind, there is a time and a place for everything, and the view I want to put before the House and the Minister is that a time when the people of the country find it hard enough to make ends meet, a time when the ordinary father and mother of a family find it extremely difficult at the end of the week to balance the family budget, surely is the worst time for any Government to engage in colossal expenditure merely for the sake of prestige. So far the only defence made for the transatlantic service was that it was a service that would pay dividends to us in terms of prestige. Prestige does not feed anyone, and I am very glad this Government have taken the action they have taken. I sincerely hope that they will continue along that line.

Another matter dealt with by some previous speakers was expenditure on defence. I do not think the Government have announced any concrete proposals with regard to economies, if any, which can be effected in defence. I think it is as well for all Deputies to bear in mind that the Government have an exceedingly difficult task to face. It is a task which has been rendered all the more difficult by the policy of the last Government. It is not at all easy to economise. I do not believe we would ever have been put in the position where the economies such as must now be contemplated would have to be considered were it not for the last Government's policy. I have no hesitation in terming it an extravagant, wasteful policy. If it were not for the actions of the Government that has just gone out of office, that particular problem would not now be facing this Government.

I believe economies can be made in the Army. I think it is fantastic that a small country, with a population something under 3,000,000, should have an Army costing between £4,000,000 and £5,000,000, an Army of 12,500 persons. I am not alone in that view.

I will ask Deputies to listen to the words of Deputy Lemass, spoken in 1929 (Dáil Debates, volume 29, column 1177, May 1st, 1929). Deputy Lemass —he was Deputy Lemass at that time too—said:

"We are weak in man power. Our population is only 2,900,000, our man power is very low. We have got to take these facts into account, and taking these facts into account certain things are obvious, leaving for a moment out of consideration all questions of the possibility of war or strained relations between ourselves and Great Britain, and considering that the present political relationship between the two countries will continue.

"The first obvious fact that faces us is this, that any nation that invades this country will be one strong enough to defeat the British navy on the seas, because it is quite obvious that while present relations continue at any rate Britain will not tolerate any other Power establishing herself militarily here without resistance."

I do not think the position has altered from the time Deputy Lemass spoke those words. I believe the words he used then are as true to-day as they were at that particular period. At the time Deputy Lemass was speaking our Defence Forces were costing the people approximately £1,500,000 a year. The argument Deputy Lemass was developing on that occasion was that the Defence Forces here should not cost more than £1,000,000 a year. In the same reference he went on to say:

"I hope Deputies from all parts of the House will agree with that proposition. It indicates at any rate that such military opposition as we would have to face is likely to be very formidable. Any nation or Power strong enough to beat the British on the seas and likely to invade this country in such strength is one that we could not hope to beat."

That was Deputy Lemass's argument then, and he went on:

"The policy of the Executive Council according to the Minister for Defence, though not according to the Minister for Agriculture, is to maintain here an Army sufficiently strong and sufficiently effective to make an invader think twice before he decides to invade this country."

The Government Deputy Lemass was attacking at that time was able to serve the object which he had in mind to-day with an expenditure of approximately £1,500,000. Deputy Lemass recommended to-day that the Defence Forces should be such as would make an invader think twice. There was a lot more along those lines and then Deputy Lemass finished with these words:

"I do not think that it is necessary we should spend one and a half millions yearly in order to ensure that that resistance will take place. If the spirit of the people is right, if they want to resist aggression and to maintain their independence, resistance will come...."

Despite 16 years of Fianna Fáil Government, I do not think the spirit of the people has in any way altered. I agree with what Deputy Lemass said on that occasion; I agree with every single word of what I have read out here, and remember, those words did not originally come out of my mouth— they came out of the mouth of Deputy Lemass. I think he was on the right lines then. I am sorry he has gone completely over the rails so far as our defence policy is concerned.

I want to forestall an argument that might be used, that that speech was made nearly 20 years ago, the world has moved on and what was applicable then would not be applicable now. I do not believe that is so. I believe that in view of the developments which have since taken place the necessity for a large army, so far as personnel is concerned, has diminished rather than increased. If the years have added anything to what Deputy Lemass said in 1929, it was merely to give them added weight and effect.

I would like to stress again that prestige expenditure is all very well at certain times; it is all very well if we can afford it. What should influence the Government is the necessities of the ordinary people of the country and not the comfort of those who might be able to afford flights to New York or elsewhere across the Atlantic. The ordinary citizen of this country finds the operation of a transatlantic air service very cold comfort. The ordinary person of whom I now speak will never have an opportunity to test the comfort of such a service; he will never fly in these planes and will never have reason to fly. Indeed, he will never have the money to spare. We must cater for the ordinary average person. If, in the course of time, we become a wealthy nation, with a reduced cost of living, that might be the time to indulge in expenditure purely for the sake of prestige.

Eamon Ó Cíosáin

Maidir leis an bhóta seo i gcuntas is dócha gur féidir linn cur síos a dhéanamh ar léargus agus ar imeactaí an Rialtais nua atá tar éis teacht i réim. Ní go ró-mhaith is féidir linn é sin a dhéanamh fós mar ná fuil fhios againn i gceart cad é cuspóir an Rialtais.

Is ait mar a chuir an tAire Airgeadais an bhóta seo ós cóir na Dála. Teastaíonn uaidh an t-airgead d'fháil chun Ranna agus seirbhísí an Rialtais a choimeád ag obair agus san am gcéanna deir sé nach é atá ciontach maidir leis an méid airgid atá á lorg aige chun seirbhísí an Stáit a choimeád ar siúl. Go deimhin is ait liom-sa an sórt sin imeachta. Mura dteastaíonn ón Aire agus ón Rialtas an méid sin airgid d'iarraidh ar an nDáil agus ar mhuintir na tíre isé a ndualgas a thaispeáint dúinn go h-oscailte agus go beacht cad iad na seirbhísí gur mian leó airgead a shábháil iontu. Focal ar bith nior chualamar ón Aire mar gheall air sin.

Im thuairim féin, ba dhealbh an iarracht a dhein an tAire nuair a chuir sé an meamram amach leis na meastacháin, á chur ina luí orainn nárbh é féin faoi ndear an bille atá á lorg aige. B'ionann sin is a rá go bhfuil locht le fáil aige ar an Rialtas a bhí i réim go dtí seo, ach rud gan éifeacht is ea é sin, mura dtaispeánann an tAire dhúinn go cruinn cad iad na Ranna Stáit go bhfuil sé ar aigne aige féin agus ag an Rialtas maolú a dhéanamh ar a gcaiteachas.

Is mian liom-sa a chruthú anseo ná fuil an Bille atá á lorg ag an Aire Airgeadais inniu pioc níos mó ná an Bille a bhí ar Aire Airgeadais Fhianna Fáil a chur os cóir na Dála sa bhliain 1932 nuair ab éigin dó seasamh i mbróga an té a bhí i mbun an sparáin roimis, nuair a cuirtear an méid seirbhísí sóisialacha atá ann anois agus ná raibh ann sa bhliain 1932 san áireamh agus nuair a chuimhnítear nach fiú an púnt inniu ach deich scillinge fé mar a chuir an tAire féin ina luí orainn go minic nuair a bhí sé ar an dtaobh seo den Tigh agus in aghaidh an Rialtais.

I presume we can deal with all items of Government policy on this Vote on Account. Before, however, I proceed to deal with the few matters that I have in mind, I would like to refer to the way in which the Minister introduced this Vote on Account. He has in fact issued a disclaimer; he is accepting no responsibility for the amount of money that appears in the Estimates for the forthcoming year. That, to my mind, is an extraordinary attitude for the Minister for Finance to take up. In other words, he is asking the House to vote so much money while, at the same time, he is not accepting responsibility for the amount in the Estimates. I remember when Fianna Fáil came into office——

Mr. McGilligan

What did they say?

Mr. Kissane

They had to accept the bill.

Mr. McGilligan

They did not. They said that it was none of their making and they did not accept it.

Mr. Moran

Who is making the speech?

Mr. McGilligan

I am correcting the Deputy.

Mr. Moran

You got your opportunity to say what you had to say.

Mr. Kissane

May I continue, a Chinn Chomhairle?

Mr. McGilligan

Yes, now that you have been corrected.

Mr. Kissane

The Minister is accepting no responsibility for the amount of the Estimates. I suppose it is because he considers the national bill excessive. I would like to point out that, when all the circumstances surrounding the presentation of these Estimates are taken into account in comparison with the circumstances surrounding the presentation of the Estimates when we got into power first, the bill is not one bit greater.

Mr. McGilligan

Do you remember the figure?

Mr. Kissane

I do, well.

Mr. McGilligan

What was it?

Mr. Kissane

About £22,000,000. I also remember that Deputy McGilligan, when in opposition, said the £1 was worth only 10/- as compared with 1939.

Mr. McGilligan

What was the figure?

Mr. Kissane

It was £21,957,000.

Mr. McGilligan

Call it £22,000,000.

Mr. Kissane

Yes, in 1932.

Mr. McGilligan

What is it now?

Mr. Kissane

£70,000,000.

Mr. McGilligan

And if you divide £70,000,000 by two you get £35,000,000.

Mr. Kissane

There is more than that to be taken into account. I want to dwell briefly on the social services that are in existence to-day and that were not in existence in 1931 or 1932. We have, for instance, to-day the sum of £1,250,000 for employment emergency schemes. Can the Minister tell me what was the sum that was made available for that service in 1932? I can tell him—not one single penny. The farmers in 1932 were left without their bog and accommodation roads and without drainage schemes as well as all the other schemes that come under the heading of employment and emergency schemes. In the Book of Estimates circulated to Deputies for the coming year we find provision to the extent of £3,120,989 for supplementary agricultural grants. In 1932 the amount was £599.011, representing a difference of £2,521,978.

Mr. McGilligan

Divide it again by two.

Mr. Kissane

I would not forget that for the life of me. Neither am I forgetting the 10/-. In the present Estimates there is a sum of £2,375,000 for agricultural produce subsidies. There was no such provision made in the 1932 Estimates. In this year's Estimates, the Estimate for unemployment assistance is £1,635,000. In 1932 there was no provision whatever for that service. We now have children's allowances, the Estimate for which this year is £2,197,700. There was nothing for children's allowances in 1932. There is also provision for the alleviation of distress.

Mr. McGilligan

Where?

Mr. Kissane

Look at the Estimate.

Mr. McGilligan

Where is the distress you are alleviating?

Mr. Kissane

The Minister should know that as well as I.

Mr. McGilligan

Is it Irish distress or not?

Mr. Kissane

It is no such thing. The Minister should look at his own Estimate. The amount for this purpose is more than £500,000. For miscellaneous social services, the provision is £371,000 and for athletics, £20,000. I do not know whether we should call athletics a social service or not, but in any case the sum is there. We have, in addition, a number of increases which many members will not dispute. We have a new Department, the Department of Health, for which the Estimate is £1,668,402 and an increase of £475,000, or nearly £500,000, in national health insurance, the provision for which was £314,000 in 1932 as against £789,000 this year. There is an increase in respect of the Garda Síochána for increases in Garda salaries and so on, and if there is any Deputy who objects to it or who thinks that there should not be an increase in Garda salaries, he should say so. In 1932, the amount was £1,635,095 as against the present Estimate of £2,938,569.

Mr. McGilligan

It is down then.

Mr. Kissane

It is up.

Mr. McGilligan

Do not forget the 10/-.

Mr. Kissane

I will not forget to divide the pound by two when I have finished. The provision for primary education in 1932 was £3,645,806, the provision for this year being £5,317,583.

Mr. McGilligan

That is down, too.

Mr. Kissane

The greater part of this amount is attributable to an increase in teachers' salaries and I should like to hear from the Minister if he objects to the increase given to the teachers or if there is any member of the House who objects to it.

Mr. Palmer

Ask Deputy Derrig that.

Mr. Kissane

I am referring to the increase given to the national teachers.

Mr. McGilligan

It is not an increase.

An Ceann Comhairle

The Deputy must be allowed to make his own speech.

Mr. Kissane

If there is any Deputy who objects to the increase given to the teachers, I should like to hear him, because certain Deputies here were very vocal and very loud in their condemnation of the Government of the day because they did not give them more.

Mr. Dunne

What about the teachers' strike?

Mr. Kissane

I am not referring to the teachers' strike.

Mr. Dunne

The Deputy should not suggest that anybody on this side has any objection to increases in teachers' salaries.

Mr. Kissane

There is a difference of £534,000 in the amount provided for secondary education now and previously and of £213,641 in the case of technical education. I have not even mentioned old age and widows' and orphans' pensions. A lot more is being paid out in old age pensions to-day than in those days, and they gave nothing at all for widows' and orphans' pensions.

Mr. McGilligan

I doubt that.

Mr. Kissane

Look at the figures.

Mr. McGilligan

Tell me them, but remember to divide by two.

Mr. Kissane

Leave the "two" in abeyance for a while. Widows' and orphans' pensions were non-existent in 1932. There is then a difference of £17,000,000 as between these years. We are spending about £17,000,000 on social and other services which were not there when we came into office.

Mr. Commons

The Deputy did not mention the £52,000 for the President's establishment.

Mr. Kissane

I am leaving that in the bill and it is so much in favour of the Deputies' argument. Subtracting the £17,000,000 from the £70,000,000 gives us £53,000,000. The Minister for Finance when on these benches said over and over again that the pound was worth only 10/- as between 1939 and 1947 and I submit that it is worth less as compared with 1932 because the costof-living index figure in 1932 was lower than it was in 1939—something about 20 points or one-fifth.

Mr. McGilligan

What is the Deputy going to make the pound worth for this calculation?

Mr. Kissane

It would be worth about 8/- as compared with 1932, according to the Minister, when he was an opposition Deputy, and therefore we have to take two-fifths of the £53,000,000, which represents about £21,000,000 or about the same amount as the Dáil was asked to provide in 1932.

We are told by the Minister that the House and the country are being presented with an enormous bill. We are all in favour of economy—the Deputies on this side just as much as those across the way—but we would like to see that economy effected in such a way as not to interfere with the weakest sections of the community. As Deputies will have remarked, the first thing the new Minister for Agriculture did when he came in here was to offer a cynical criticism of the tomato-growing scheme in the Connemara Gaeltacht. No doubt, it will be possible to effect an economy there at the expense of the people in the Gaeltacht, but I do not think the people down the country will applaud that action on the part of the Government. In fact, I think the words of the local parish priest were very apt when he said it was a perpetuation of the curse of Cromwell.

The question of turf has been raised to-day and we who come from turfproducing areas would like to know from the Government what their attitude towards the production of turf for the coming year is to be. I would remind the House that the turf industry has been a very remunerative industry in certain parts of the country— in Kerry, Tipperary, West Limerick and up to Donegal—and the people in these parts would like to get a clear and unequivocal statement from the Government as to what the turf policy for the future is to be. The private producers who have been accustomed to produce turf on their own initiative would like to know that, if they do so this year, they will be paid a remunerative price. The time is at hand when a statement to that effect must be made. The turf-cutting season is at hand and before farmers who have turbary in their own right will be prepared to embark on a turf-cutting campaign this year, they will want to know what exactly will be the fruits of their labours.

About a year ago the Fianna Fáil Government fixed what they considered at the time was a fair price for milk produced by the farmers. The price they fixed was 1/2 a gallon for eight months of the year and 1/4 a gallon for the remaining four months. That was considered a fair and equitable price at that time, but circumstances have changed since then. Since that price was fixed, there has been a trade agreement with Great Britain, as a result of which the price of cattle has gone up considerably. Agricultural wages, too, have gone up by 5/- a week—to which nobody could object.

Mr. Dunne

By 2/- a week, according to the Deputy's own estimate.

Mr. Kissane

We will have to take the figure as it is. I was dealing with the value of the £ then.

Mr. McGilligan

And does it change when you come to agricultural wages?

Mr. Kissane

Taking these things into account, I think it is time for the Government to review the price of milk. I imagine that the farmers down the country should get 1/6 a gallon or something near that figure, having regard to all these circumstances. I know I will be told that that will mean an increase in the price of butter for the consumers in cities, towns and villages, but this could be done by subsidy, as has been done in many other cases. If there is any justification for subsidies at all, surely there is justification in connection with the price of milk, as the production of milk is the most important branch of our agricultural industry and every encouragement should be given to the farmers to produce more and more milk.

By way of conclusion, I would like to refer to this much-vaunted question of emigration. During the election campaign, speakers from various Parties opposite were very loud in their condemnation of the Government for allowing emigration to continue, for not preventing it. I must say that I have found, in my travels up and down the country recently, that there is a certain amount of confusion in people's minds on this question of emigration. Many people were under the impression that it had been stopped altogether; others thought that it had not been stopped but that certain stringent restrictions had been imposed on it. Now, lo and behold, we have the Minister for Agriculture coming along to a meeting in Dublin and more or less advocating emigration, that emigration should continue unabated. In fact, he said he would like to see married couples having 21 children so that the majority of them could go to countries abroad and Christianise the peoples there. That does not seem to tally with statements made by the present Minister for External Affairs and by some of his colleagues and by certain members of the Labour Party when they were going around during the election campaign and condemning the Fianna Fáil Government on this question of emigration.

I know there are many people in the country who would agree with the Minister for Agriculture that the freedom of the individual should not be restricted and that he should be let go wherever he wished or wherever he thought he could do well for himself. In any case, all these questions will have to be dealt with as time goes on and we will have an opportunity, all of us, of referring to these matters again. Sin a bhfuil agam le rá, a Chinn Comhairle.

Mr. Seán Collins

It has often been said that the mountain in labour brought forth a mouse—and that might be the apt description of the last effort made by Deputy Kissane to stand over the staggering figure of £70,500,000 in the Book of Estimates for this year. His mathematics are doubtful——

Mr. Kissane

Does the Deputy agree with the Minister for Finance that the £ is worth only 10/-? He should start off on that note.

Mr. Collins

——and it goes further. Deputy Kissane seems to be suddenly apprehensive that there might be a return of the good Government of 1932 which taught the people rather to look to themselves and their own efforts for the development of their own lives and the development of their own individual economy, than to any Central Fund or any Government doling-out of sops or privileges.

I have a distinct objection to distortion and there is one thing being completely distorted in this House, and I know it, and that is the question of the private turf producers. It is time the Opposition Deputies here were honest enough to admit that the reason for the sudden drastic action in relation to the whole fuel problem is the intolerable and insufferable mess it is in at the moment. We know perfectly well that this country has two years' supply of dirt in the Phoenix Park in the nature of turf, five years' supply of timber there, subsidised by the public funds to the extent of £4 a ton, and American coal that has been reduced to useless powder saleable to nobody. And then Deputy Kissane comes here in a new guise to plead on behalf of the people of Kerry.

Mr. Kissane

Why should not I?

Mr. Collins

I represent a constituency that deals with turf also, but I would rather the people there got an honest picture of the problem before this Government than the tortured and distorted view of the new Opposition. Because this Government approaches the problem of national expenditure in a courageous way and because they are unafraid to take upon themselves rather difficult and may be unpopular decisions, it becomes the butt of what might well be described as distorted stupidity on the part of Fianna Fáil Deputies. Deputy Lemass comes here and makes a crying appeal for the transatlantic airway. He comes along and makes it in the teeth of the fact that the people throughout the length and breadth of this country realise that it was one of these fantasy dreams, possibly in order to make more simple the departure of Fianna Fáil Deputies to America on various missions. They come to intercede for the immediate reconsideration by the Government of the transatlantic schemes. As a supporter of this Government I sincerely hope that no consideration, good, bad or indifferent, will be given to the re-establishment of that airway until such time as the priority needs of the country have been dealt with and until the people of the country who are living in rural districts and who are living under conditions which Fianna Fáil apparently lost sight of get a fair chance to rehabilitate themselves and bring up their families with a moderate degree of comfort. I am not going to oppose the building up of national prestige but I am opposing the building up of prestige at the expense of the already overburdened poor people in this country.

Deputy Lemass talks to-day on the line that income in this country can only be got from three sources. He is trying to alarm the country with a possible prophesy of an increase in the income-tax. He said that we get £12,000,000 a year from tobacco and £9,000,000 from beer. To my mind that is a most startling admission by an ex-Minister that the last Government were going to continue a deliberate policy of the exploitation of the poor people of this country—because they and mainly they, supply the revenue from tobacco and beer—and now because this Government has had the courage to give the first crack of the whip to the poor man it becomes a matter of apprehension to the managing director of the Irish Press.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

I do not see what the occupation of a Deputy outside the House has to do with a matter under discussion.

Mr. McGilligan

He himself made a reference in the same way. He quoted a jeering remark of the Taoiseach.

Mr. MacEntee

He quoted a remark of the Taoiseach and if that is to be considered disorderly I do not know what to say.

Mr. Collins

There has been apprehension about what may happen to the Defence Force. As a supporter of the Government, I feel sure that the victimisation which Deputy Lemass tries to envisage for political purposes is not going to take place and I am certain that the officers and men serving in the forces have no real fear of any displacements. But it may become a sensible policy to try to make the Army a wieldy force rather than, as it is at the moment, an imaginary one on paper. I can speak with some little knowledge of the Army because I had the privilege to serve throughout the emergency in it, and I know perfectly well that some of the things envisaged by Deputy Lemass and some of the hares and rumours of apprehension which they might give rise to are completely and totally unfounded. I think it would be far fairer when referring to retrenchment to realise that this Government is facing, not the task of just one year's Budget, but the task of trying to cut down on the accumulation of 16 years of senseless and extravagant government.

It is time that this House knew that the sincerity and effort of the Government in trying to retrench at a time when the poor are getting poorer and the rich are getting richer is something that they should be given credit for and not something which should make them the butt of what might be described as distorted and puerile criticism. There was an effort made here to try to embarrass the Government into making statements before they had reached any realisation of the extent of the depredations of the Fianna Fáil administration, before they had got any comprehensive picture of the alarmingly bad situation in the country. I would like to put on record here a protest against trying to make capital out of the Government's difficulty. They are, in fact, not the Government's difficulties at all but a Fianna Fáil legacy.

Mr. J. Flynn

A Chinn Chomhairle, I will confine myself to one or two remarks on this Estimate and I will refer to this question which has been raised by Deputy Lemass, the question of the Government's policy in regard to the turf industry. I would like to point out that, as far as I know and as far as my county is concerned, the turf industry was worth £500,000 in the last season, and that to all other counties the turf industry is worth £7,000,000 per annum. That is a matter, in my opinion, of great importance and a matter which should not be dealt with lightly by the new Government. I realise the difficulties and I am not one of those who would ask the Minister for Finance to do an impossible thing. I know and I appreciate what led up to those difficulties, and with all due respect to Deputy Lemass, he himself led up to those difficulties in so far as he allowed indiscriminate licences for the importation of coal into this country and, in fact, into the turf districts. Coal was allowed to be brought indiscriminately into areas where turf was produced and was sold in competition with turf producers in their own district. That, in my opinion, was a great mistake on the part of the Fianna Fáil Government and that, together with the marketing system as it was carried out by Fuel Importers and others, led to a state of affairs which is difficult to handle at the moment.

I tabled a question here asking the Minister for Industry and Commerce to clarify the position and I realise that it was difficult for him to do so. I now again request the Minister for Finance not to close the door to this question; not to treat it lightly but to explore every avenue with the view at least to maintaining the industry in these counties. We talk a great deal about emigration and the depletion of the population in the Gaeltacht and the congested districts, but I submit to the Minister for Finance that this turf industry is being dealt with in a haphazard way. All these men who are employed in that industry will have no outlet. They will have to emigrate as there is no hope for them, and there are thousands of them. At the same time I understand the difficulty and as far as I can arrange it in my own way in my own county I will give the facts and the truth as I have stated it here to the people, for as I said before the election and during the election, Deputy Lemass should have taken cognisance of the danger to this industry, but he did not do so in a proper way and at a proper time. This question of Bord na Móna in my opinion is an attempt to deal with an industry in a small way. That equipment and personnel can only deal with a fraction of the industry. It is experimental and it is there to satisfy the Government and the Department that something is being done, but that is not the real thing needed. Private turf producers, men with families who live in the bogs and work in the bogs, for the first time in their history, got a livelihood in their own districts. These are the people that matter.

All you can talk about up here are industries and local enterprise but you are neglecting the real Irish people. I submit that the best of our race lives in those districts which are cut away from the big cities. Let us get away from the less essential points and concentrate on the provision of the vital necessities for the life of our people in general. I agree with what Deputy Commons has said in regard to the postponement of these splendid schemes. I admit that in their own way these schemes are splendid but they should be postponed pending the development of more urgent schemes After all, the life of the people should come first.

I am with the new Government in regard to a certain line of action on the question of retrenchment. Take the Army, for instance. Why should we have, in peace time, an expensive Army in this small country? I consider that the Army should be reduced to a figure which is in accordance with our financial resources and which will, at the same time, give us a well-equipped nucleus should we need to expand it at any future date.

Take also the inspectors attached to the Department of Industry and Commerce who have been going around the country and making it difficult for honest traders to carry on. I admit that these men served a useful purpose during the emergency but, in nine cases out of ten, they are now an obstruction, and I can see no useful purpose in maintaining that particular service and other services of a like nature. I consider that a considerable reduction in expenditure could be brought about by the retrenchment of such services. I am referring to these merely to show that I am sincere in my efforts to assist, first of all the people who sent me here and, secondly, the Government.

Deputy Lemass referred to the question of Gaeltacht glass-houses and to the growing of tomatoes in the Gaeltacht. What did the late Government do in regard to housing? I admit they passed a splendid Bill in this House. They gave an increased grant for housing—but what did they do for the Gaeltacht? They forgot it. I was in Valentia Island two Sundays ago where I met a number of people who qualified for Gaeltacht grants. They are, however, in the same position now as they were seven or ten years ago. The maximum grant was £90 but the Government increased it to a maximum of £220 for all areas exclusive of the Gaeltacht. That position is extremely unsatisfactory and it is one which makes for discontent. We got plenty of lip service about tomatoes and glass-houses but, in my county, I can safely say that for every one man who was looking for a glass-house there were 50 looking for Gaeltacht grants. If we are to be sincere in our efforts and statements we must act sincerely and consistently.

I wish to make a final effort to convince the Minister for Finance that the turf industry, so far as the poor districts are concerned, is of paramount importance. It is vital to maintain a section, at least, of our private turf producers in the industry. We will appreciate anything that the Government can do for us in this connection.

Mr. B. Maguire

Fortunately for the Government on this occasion they can say, in presenting this Estimate to the House, that it is not their handiwork. They can say that they had nothing to do with it; probably that they disagree with it, and that they regret that it is one which will lean very heavily on the community, interfere with our industries, and be a burden on the taxpayers generally. It will be the duty of this new Government to examine carefully these Estimates and to ensure that, wherever possible, reductions will be made which will case the burden on the taxpayer and on the community in general.

From the point of view of one who is attached to no Party but who is an Independent, it is rather interesting to listen to the pros and cons of this debate. I have come to the conclusion that, when all is said and done, the points made from one side of the House to the other represent nothing more than a mere juggling with figures. There has been a good deal of talk about the value of the £ in 1932, 1939 and 1948. However, the fact that its value is discussed here does not one whit improve its purchasing power for the person who owns it. A man who has a family and who has housekeeping expenses to meet does not, as a rule, spend his time comparing the value of the £ to-day and its value, say, 30 years ago. To such a person the £ represents the only method he has of procuring his bread and butter from week to week. This debate has little or no value whatever when it touches on the value of the £ to-day and its value some years ago. True, it is a matter of debate but it leads us nowhere.

No doubt the present Government will adjust the form of proposed taxation as set out in the Estimate which we are now discussing. I have no doubt that, in order to relieve the pressure of taxation here and there, they will get rid of what may be generally regarded as undue and unnecessary expenditure which is, incidentally, so harmful to the nation. Having done that, however, will they in effect have increased the national wealth and, if so, to what extent? The Government should, by adjustment here and there, endeavour to tighten up on expenditure in a sincere effort to lighten the burdens on the taxpayer and thus provide for an increase in the national wealth. There is no gainsaying the fact that the value of the £ has decreased within the last 20 years and will further decrease in the next five years.

No section in this House, neither the present Government nor the past Government, will indicate economies in social services. We are inclined to bid against each other in advancing that form of expenditure but in what respect are we settling down to the problem that must be met some day, the problem of increased production? Social services do not help towards that end but rather may have the opposite effect. At this juncture have we any proposals before us to deal with that problem? What are our plans for increased agricultural production or increased industrial production? We await with some anxiety and care an announcement of Government policy in that respect. Agriculture is our main industry and there must be increased production if the nation is to continue to exist, even in its present condition. Increased agricultural production can be achieved only when the necessary facilities are provided to encourage those engaged in the industry and to entice people to remain in the industry. We should even aim at enticing others who do not belong to it to enter the industry, although I do not believe that that will take place.

In what way can the Government help in that direction? First of all, conditions of employment and remuneration in agriculture must be equal to those obtainable in industrial occupations. That has not been the case. In fact, conditions of employment, wages, social services and the amenities enjoyed by workers in the industrial sphere are much better than those obtaining in agriculture. Do the present Government undertake to examine that problem seriously and to endeavour to reverse that position and to make agriculture, which is the only industry that provides us with an exportable surplus whereby to provide ourselves with essential raw materials, attractive and remunerative? Agriculture is our foundation.

Then we must consider the condition of the soil of the country. We say that we are not Communists, that we are not Socialists even, that we are a people who believe in private ownership. Yet, in the emergency we said to the private owners of land that they were to use up the fertility of their soil in producing food for the nation. That was justified but surely the farmers who were compelled, in the interests of the people of this country, to exhaust the fertility of their land that had been built up by them and their predecessors, should have that fertility restored at the expense of the community. Then we could say to the farmers that they should produce more. That would be talking sense. Otherwise, to say to the community of farmers whose land has been despoiled that they should increase production, is talking nonsense. If the Government wake up to that position and make agriculture attractive and restore at the expense of the State the fertility of the soil that was exhaused in producing the needs of the nation, at the farmers' expense, then they can ask for increased production and it will not require much compulsion to secure it.

Another very imporant matter has been referred to by many if not all the speakers, that is, the position of the peat producer. I fully realise that the problem facing the peat producer, particularly the private producer and county council employees, is not easy to solve. As far back as January last I was confronted with a problem affecting my constituency, namely, the cessation of a market for coal-products from the Arigna, Leitrim, Sligo and Roscommon area.

Speaking at a meeting in Carrick-onShannon during the recent election campaign, and dealing with this problem, I said that, not only was the future prosperity of coal production seriously jeopardised by the importation of an unreasonable quantity of English coal, but the production of turf by the county councils and private producers would be inevitably doomed if the situation were not remedied. I do not blame the present Government for that problem. I should like to know how far the financial arrangements made some months ago between the then Government here and the British Government are responsible for that situation. Did that financial agreement bring into existence an arrangement by which we bought English coal ad lib. at a higher price and sold our cattle to them at an improved price, but still their price? The free import of coal here has brought about the destruction of employment in the Arigna mines for 500 or 600 families. It has also brought about the cessation of employment in the turf-producing areas for many thousands of people who are amongst the poorest of our population—small farmers living adjacent to the bogs whose children, when they came home from school, were as profitably employed as their elders in saving turf, thus bringing a substantial income into their homes. Does the trade pact with England mean the ruin of these homes, the disemployment in one area of 500 or 600 coal workers and of more than double that number who were formerly engaged in turf production? If the trade pact had anything to do with the abolition of that employment and the resultant destruction of family life in these areas, then it was a bad pact and should be reviewed.

Does not anybody know that if we are going to export more cattle as a result of increased prices, and if we are going to import more coal, resulting in the unemployment of fuel workers in the poorest part of the country when no alternative employment is available, it means that we shall not only export more cattle but we shall also have to export more human beings? In that regard, let me state that I am in entire disagreement with the recent statement of the Minister for Agriculture when he said that he had no qualms of conscience on the subject of emigration and that he considered it a good thing that emigration should continue. I cannot see any great judgment on the part of any man who tells us that he has succeeded in obtaining substantial imports of coal from England, the United States or South Africa, and selling our foreign assets that were so valuable, when that policy involved unemployment for turfproducers and coal workers here at home. I fail to see that it is sound national policy to destroy the livelihood of our turf producers and coal workers and to scatter the money derived from our own national production to the ends of the earth and I disagree with that policy.

I await with the utmost anxiety a statement from the Government as to what is going to be their policy. If they are going to preserve and encourage production from our national resources, such as turf and coal, thus providing much needed employment for our people—if they are going to do that versus an alternative policy of buying from the ends of the earth, I shall back the Government that will do it and I do not care what its composition may be or how many Parties participate in it. I can of course see serious difficulties confronting any Government in the development of turf as a national fuel because of the difficulty of transport, but I refuse to believe that science cannot devise some means by which we can get over that. For instance, we might have more extensive use of machinery.

Why not develop turf production and maintain it for a few years, in the hope that we may be able with the minimum of transport, to convey it to stations where it can be utilised for the production of electricity? Every scientific means should be exhausted in the effort to find a solution for this great national problem which affects so closely the lives of the most necessitous sections of our people and the most densely populated parts of the country.

What is the alternative in the way of employment if our county councils cease to employ workers this year? I offer this solution. We say we want more production. Let us, then, concentrate upon giving employment to every agriculturally-minded worker, in fact to every worker of any kind, who is prepared to do a reasonable day's work for a reasonable wage. I say that if the Government seriously contemplates a solution of the unemployment problem, there need be no one unemployed in this country. For instance, every farmer in this country is entitled to have a decent road leading into his house. At the present time, many farmers are deprived of the means of ingress and egress from their homes, with the result that even on Sundays, when going to Mass, the shoes of them selves and their wives are soiled before they reach the main road. Similarly, children going to school have to travel over muddy paths and fields and their feet are sodden before they reach school. Yet these same farmers pay rates to build the tarred roads that we motorists travel over. Is that justice? I say that the energies of our young people who are seeking work should be employed in building roads into such houses. Every farmer should have a decent roadway leading into his house. Similarly, every farmer should have a decent road leading to his bog. Given these facilities to begin with, given that indication of fair play, the conditions under which our people have to live can be considerably improved.

Again, why can we not develop drainage schemes in rural areas? I realise the difficulty of putting the Drainage Act into operation because of inability to procure the necessary machinery. But apart from that there are millions of pounds' worth of work which can be done in carrying out an ordinary drainage scheme and in improving our main arteries. Let us build the drains and I assure you that there is work for every man capable of working. Let us improve our main arteries. Again, I assure you that there you will have work for every man capable of working. These two schemes can absorb all the labour we have in this country for the next ten years. There need be no unemployment for at least a decade. Let us get down to that work instead of wasting time here on purely debating points. Let us consider rather how we can adjust our present income and let us consider how we can increase our income to meet the increased demands that confront us.

Mr. Dunne

First of all, I would like to take this opportunity of apologising to the last Deputy for inadvertently interrupting him during the course of his speech. I want to refer in particular to the fuel policy of the Government because that is something in which I myself have a vital interest. I speak on behalf of the men who labour in the turf camps of Kildare and Offaly, men who were maligned in this House some short time ago by responsible spokesmen of the Party which is now in opposition, because they saw fit or were forced to take action in support of their just claim for an economic wage and improved conditions. I have observed one item in the Estimates to which I think attention should be drawn.

The organ of the Fianna Fáil Party endeavoured this morning to make considerable publicity out of some information—information which they appear to have got, but which nobody else appears to have got, officially from the Government—in regard to a stoppage of hand-won turf production in the country. I would draw the attention of the House to the fact that in the Estimates there is a saving to be effected. This saving was planned by the previous Administration. It is a saving of £500,000 on hand-won turf production in the Kildare area. That, at any rate, is something which the Fianna Fáil Party cannot now criticise because they themselves were the originators of it.

Having a very intimate knowledge of this particular scheme in Kildare I would make a strong appeal to the responsible Minister seriously to consider the plight of these men and to consider the fact that many of them were taken from their homes in remote parts of the country in order to ensure that the fuel supply of the country would be maintained during the emergency. I would urge upon the Minister that in turning over to machine-won turf every effort should be made to ensure that there will be no consequent redundancy or unemployment. I heard one Deputy on the Opposition Benches say that the turf industry was a remunerative one. That may be so, but I can definitely state that as far as the men in Kildare and Offaly were concerned — the men who did the actual work on the bogs—it was anything but remunerative. The treatment they have received under the previous Administration is something that they will never forget. I trust that in any plans we have for machine-won turf in the future we will embrace the fundamental principle that the operative will work under conditions that will be all that can be desired. On these turf schemes in Kildare and Offaly we have some of the finest of our Irish people. The finest of our Irish people are not confined to any single district. They are to be found in every hamlet in the country.

No Deputy in this House can claim that his particular constituency harbours the only real Irish. You will find them in the streets of Dublin as well as in the Gaeltacht. These workers in the turf camps are part of the real wealth of the nation. They can be turned to good advantage for this nation provided they get a square deal. That is all I ask for them. Some of the Opposition Deputies in dealing with this Vote adopted what seems to me to be a rather facetious attitude. One Deputy in particular was at pains to amuse the House by some mathematical calculation. I thought the most amusing occurrence here to-day was when we had Deputy Lemass striving to prove that the increase of 5/- per week to the agricultural workers came about by statute, and we had Deputy Smith, the ex-Minister for Agriculture, running down the steps of this House to assure us that he was responsible for the increase.

Mr. Moran

He did no such thing.

Mr. McGilligan

He said so.

Mr. Moran

What Deputy Smith stated was that he was responsible for calling the board together and Deputy Dunne heard him.

Mr. Dunne

At any rate, there is no doubt left in the minds of the farm labourers as to why their wages were increased. They know that their wages were increased because of their own organised efforts and not by virtue of anything that any of the Fianna Fáil Deputies have done, although efforts were made in the past to convince the farm labourers that it was the Fianna Fáil Administration which was responsible for these increases.

In regard to agriculture, we have heard a great deal in this House as to the rights of the farmer. I have a not inconsiderable acquaintance with the problems of the farming community. I think too little attention is paid to the problem of the agricultural worker, the most submerged class in this community. The farm labourer was the only real soldier in the gap during the emergency. I think it behoves this Administration to consider the reconstitution of the Agricultural Wages Board and to examine carefully the expenditure of money thereon in order to ensure that the rights of the farm labourers throughout the country will be fully protected. In practice it has been found that the Agricultural Wages Board is not all that it should be in so far as efficiency is concerned. Side by side with any policy promoted by the Government to help the farmer there should be an acceptance of the rights of the farm labourer. Given that acceptance and a sincere desire on the part of the Administration to raise this maltreated and ill-paid class to the level of other workers throughout the country, agriculture will thrive. Some effort must be made, either by means of subsidy or in some other way, to bring the farm worker to the same standard of living as the workers in other industries. I think it is the duty of the Administration to give consideration to this and to strive to implement it as best they can.

Mr. Moran

One of the amazing things about the Minister's statement in connection with these Estimates is that he has not given us any intimation of where the much-vaunted economies of his Administration are to be effected. One would imagine that, after completely disclaiming any responsibility for these Estimates and saying that this was a burden left to him from his predecessors, we would have heard something more specific about the methods by which he proposes to effect his economies. One might forgive the Minister as he has been just a short time in office and possibly has not time to look around. But the Minister has been sitting on these benches as an Opposition Deputy for quite a number of years and on Estimate after Estimate introduced by the former Minister for Finance the present Minister was very loud in his explanations as to how money could be saved. After all that long experience and all these years telling the Fianna Fáil Government about their squandermania, it should not take the new Minister very much time to point out to the House and the country the methods by which he proposed to effect these tremendous savings.

Mr. McGilligan

Will you give me another week?

Mr. Moran

I will give the Minister a year because the Minister will only get a year from the country to occupy his present position. If we have not results within a year, I am afraid we will then realise, perhaps too late, that the Minister's former talk as an Opposition Deputy about economy was so much nonsense. One of the things that the community as a whole wants to hear is the particular methods of economy which the Minister proposes to adopt. There is one method, of course, by which the Minister could economise. He could economise by stopping all types of work in the country. He could economise, for instance, by stopping road-making, by wiping out the Army completely, by wiping out the different State services. It is quite true that, if a Government are spending no money, as a natural consequence of that the Government will not need any taxation and we will be all in a happy state. But many sections of the community look with apprehension at what the new Minister and the Government propose to do.

The attention of the new Government seems to be focused mainly on what they call their economies. They are going to effect economies at the expense of the congested areas and the Gaeltacht. The very first thing the Minister for Agriculture did was to deliver a death blow at one of the industries being fostered in the Gaeltacht. It should not be necessary to point out that the Gaeltacht and the congested areas are the part of this country from which there is the most emigration. We have heard so much about stopping emigration that it seems extraordinary that one of the first acts of this new Government was to hit at that part of the country from which there is the most emigration, namely, the congested districts and the Gaeltacht areas.

In the congested areas where the valuations of the holdings are very small, the people cannot live by farming alone. They have had to live on such side-lines of agriculture as they can engage in, such as poultry rearing, egg production and tomato-growing, where they had the tomato houses, and any other side-lines whereby they could supplement their income, and, in particular, since the Fianna Fáil Government started it, intensive turf production. From the constituency which I represent we have sent to Dublin and other districts outside Mayo as much as 100,000 tons of turf in one year. At a minimum, that meant £100,000 more being circulated in Mayo. That did not include the turf that was produced to keep the various industries in Mayo supplied with fuel. It was rather a shock to us to find that in the congested and Gaeltacht areas one of the first crushing economic blows delivered by the new Government was at tomato-growing. Evidently we are now going to get the axe where the chicken got it, namely, in the neck, in connection with turf production.

In the west, the system was that turf was produced by the family. On each holding there was more or less a self-contained factory in connection with the turbary rights by which the farmer and his wife and children could produce turf economically in the off-season for other agricultural work. Under the Bord na Móna scheme as envisaged and as it was proposed to operate it, that system was to be continued and Bord na Móna supervisors got contracts signed by the various family units. That is the way in which hand-won turf can be produced most economically and the people in Mayo, where we have produced so much turf and have such fine virgin bog, looked forward to a further period of prosperity in connection with turf production and marketing. Now we understand that this part of Bord na Móna's activities, at all events, if not more, is going to be wiped out. It will certainly come as a terrific shock to the congested areas and, particularly, to the constituency which I represent. The turf scheme in County Mayo was described by some of the people around the Louisburgh and Erris areas as being as good to them since it was inaugurated as the money received from their children in America and England formerly. The turf-production scheme was the first chance these people got of making ends meet. It was an industry which they had on their own door-step, so to speak. Now we find that one of the first of the new economies, of the austerities of the new Government is to wipe out our turf industry.

I do not know whether the new Government have considered the full implication of the curtailing of the national turf production scheme. I do not know whether they consider that everything seems to be fine in the world and that the day will never come again when we in this coutnry will be forced to stand on our own feet to the extent of producing our own national fuel. Anybody who looks about him at present will incline to the view that all is not well in the world and that it may well be that we will have the misfortune of witnessing another world war. If we do, I wonder how far can we rely in the future on supplies of imported fuel. Will the position be the same as it was in the past? I wonder have the Minister and the new economists in the new Government considered that aspect of the matter.

I understand from some previous speakers, from Deputy Collins in particular, that the axe is also to fall on the national Army. Another method has been found by which we are to save money. We are told that the strength of the Army is approximately 12,000. From what I have been told, I understand the Army, even at its present strength, is not large enough to perform its ordinary peace-time duties. Looking at the world situation, I wonder if the Government have considered that we can afford to do without an army. Quite possibly, the members of the Coalition Government have been converted to the view of the Leader of the Fine Gael Party. If that is so, and if every Minister in this new Government considers that we should immediately make an offensive and defensive alliance with Britain, and the British will come here to protect us, then there is no necessity for an army here. That would be one way of eliminating any of the expense that the Irish taxpayer is called upon to pay for the upkeep of the Irish Army.

Captain Cowan

Is that strictly correct?

Mr. McGilligan

It is good enough for an argument, anyway.

Mr. Moran

The Deputy has not been here very long, but if he were here as long as I have been, he would have heard the Minister for Education, Deputy Mulcahy, advocating an offensive and defensive alliance with Britain and he would have no doubt as to what way Deputy Mulcahy's mind is moving in this connection. Perhaps the Deputy, like his Leader, has been converted to the Fine Gael policy. If that is so, then the Minister for Finance can wipe out completely the demand for an army, because there will be no necessity for it in the new order of things.

Captain Cowan

If we did enter into such an alliance, is it not likely that we might have to have a bigger defence force than we now have?

Mr. Moran

We presume that the Army is to be another of the victims of the new economy. I thought we might have had some statement of policy in connection with what has been termed our main industry, agriculture. I am at a loss to understand what our policy in that respect will be. The present Minister for Agriculture seems to be speaking with two different tongues. From one statement made by the Taoiseach, I presume the Government will take collective responsibility, but the farming community want to know what will be the policy in connection with agriculture. I understand from a recent statement by the Minister for Agriculture that we will have no compulsory tillage after this year and that our sole aim will be the production of beef for Britain. I would like an authoritative statement as to whether that will be the future aim for agriculture.

I listened to the Minister at a recent meeting in his Department, and he talked at some length about keeping inspectors outside the farmers' gates. The only inspector I saw around my farm was the type of inspector sent by the Minister's predecessors to see whether the Compulsory Tillage Order had been carried out. In the main, these inspectors were required, not on the lands of the small farmers of the West, but on the lands of the ranchers who never did tillage and who never want to do tillage. I listened to the Minister's implied jibes at these inspectors who went around enforcing regulations in the interests of the nation. Is it the policy of the new Government that there will be no further question of tillage for Irish farmers? I should like to know whether land division will be continued, whether the migration schemes from the congested areas in the West, inaugurated by the Fianna Fáil Government, will be continued.

The people in the congested districts which I represent are particularly anxious to know the Government's agricultural policy. They want to know if there will be in this country a system of ranching for the purpose of producing beef for England and whether we are to see the end for all time of tillage of any kind. The Minister for Agriculture, amongst the somersaulting statements he made at that meeting, made one very interesting one. Apparently since he became a Minister he has discovered that the position of the bacon industry is due solely to the lack of feeding stuffs. Listening to the Minister when he was in Opposition, one would think the scarcity of bacon was due solely to Fianna Fáil policy. Evidently since he became a Minister he discovered that pigs have been reduced in number, or are not produced in sufficient quantity because there is a scarcity of feeding stuffs. He proposes to get the feeding stuffs by telling the farmers that they have only to put in another year of it and there will be no more tillage.

I should like to know whether that is accepted as Government policy and whether the Minister for Finance will endorse the views of the Minister for Agriculture, that the be-all and end-all of agriculture will be that we will produce plenty of bullocks for the British market and forget about the production of tillage here and the various subsidiary industries that depend on our tillage policy.

On the other aspects of this Vote on Account, not knowing where the new axe will fall beyond the indications that have been given, I do not know what to say.

Mr. McGilligan

You are not doing too badly.

Mr. Moran

I see that the Minister proposes to borrow money. It is a nice way out. Of course, borrowing money will not ultimately solve any of our problems. Borrowing money will not ultimately solve any of the ills of this nation.

Captain Cowan

Is this patriotism now?

Mr. McGilligan

This is sheer patriotism.

Mr. Moran

The Deputy will have his opportunity to address the House.

Mr. McGilligan

You are doing quite a lot of harm.

Mr. Cosgrave

Is the Deputy prepared to support the loan?

Mr. Moran

I want to know from the Government if it is to be their future policy to meet financial demands by borrowing money?

Mr. McGilligan

We are meeting your losses by borrowing.

Mr. Moran

I think the Minister's wiping out, his spiking of the turf industry his policy of sabotaging the Army and his undoing of the sound national constructive work put in during the emergency years by his predecessors, will go down in history as even greater nonsense than his actions when he formerly held office in this State. We will give the Minister time; he will need time. I can only hope that the time will be sufficiently short to prevent his making a mess of some of the things we, particularly in the country, looked forward to as a solution to our problems. If his ideas are going to prevail, particularly in connection with the great turf scheme built up after years of hard work—if that is to be wiped out by one stroke of the Minister's pen, then the people will feel very sorry for the Minister's new effort at economy.

Mr. Sheehan

I did not intend taking part in this debate, but I see two main problems confronting the present Government. We ought help it to surmount those problems. One is agriculture. There is a scarcity of milk, a scarcity of butter, a scarcity of eggs, and a scarcity of bacon. That should not be so in an agricultural country. Over a period of years our people have been leaving the land. Why? Because they did not get paid. The man who sweeps the streets in Dublin or in Cork gets in or about £5 a week. He starts at 8 o'clock in the morning, has an hour for dinner and finishes at 5.30. The rural worker or the farm labourer is up in the morning at four or five o'clock milking cows under bad conditions. He has no electric light and has to work in the mud and the slush. He has to deliver the milk at our doorsteps. He is paid a wage of £3 a week. I say that he should be paid £4 or £5 a week. The men who produce the stuff should be paid and their reason for leaving the land is because they have not been paid. Men working on the land and producing food for the country will be happy if they are paid a proper wage. If a farm worker wants a drink on a Sunday he cannot have it. The "pubs" do not open, but they are open in the cities. There should be some relaxation in that respect. Workers in the country should get the same facilities as city workers. We are building domestic economy schools in our cities. The girls in the rural areas should be taught domestic economy in the national schools. Many of the national schools that we have in the country are just pig-sties. They are a disgrace.

Mr. McGilligan

I hope that Deputy Moran is not going to go.

Mr. Sheehan

In Cork City we have schools which are a disgrace. I hope that the Ministers concerned will give very careful consideration to the matters that I have mentioned. Housing is another problem. I happen to have been Lord Mayor of Cork for the last three years, and every other day I have to try and solve difficulties arising out of the housing shortage. Poor people come to me to the City Hall, many of them with five and six children living in one room. They are living under awful conditions. You find that boys and girls of 16 and 17 years of age are sleeping in the one room. How can you expect to have a decent race under such conditions? We cannot produce the stuff we require and we cannot build the houses that we want, but if we had an emergency in the morning we would be able to get the money to build and to provide all that would be required to meet such an emergency. I appeal to Deputies to forget their grievances, to join hands and to work together for the good of the country for four or five years. I would ask the Labour Deputies and their leaders to speak to their men and to see that labour is led properly. We have a lot of strikes but we want to see all that stopped. Labour should ask their men to go to work, to continue at work and not to go on strike. If that were done then this country could be made as prosperous as any other country in the world.

Mr. Davin

The recent change of Government has provided Deputy Lemass with the privilege of sitting on the Opposition Benches and of speaking in a free and easy style. That does not give him the right to get away with every statement that he makes without at least the fear of being challenged, and of being asked to prove some of the things that he has alleged against this side of the House. Deputy Lemass made the amazing statement that 99.9 per cent. of State expenditure goes in salaries and wages. I should like to have some proof of that statement from him. I hope that when the Minister is replying he will prove to Deputy Lemass that his statement does not represent the facts of the situation. Let us, for example, take Vote 55—Food Subsidies. Deputy Lemass was responsible for preparing this Estimate when he was Minister for Industry and Commerce. The figure is the huge one of £12,766,805, or an increase of £3,836,805 over the previous year. Deputy Lemass, as I have said, had responsibility for the preparation of that Estimate. Is he now seriously suggesting that 99.9 per cent. of that huge figure goes in salaries and wages?

Mr. Killilea

That was not the statement that he made.

Mr. Davin

I took a note of his statement. I do not want to be unfair to him. If he was in the House he would not challenge it.

Mr. Derrig

He would challenge it. The Deputy has stated——

Mr. Davin

I am not giving way to the ex-Minister. Deputy Lemass when challenged later by some Deputies reduced his figure from 99.9 per cent. to 98 per cent. There is not much in that. I would be interested to know from the Minister for Finance what portion of that huge increase in the Estimate for food subsidies is going to the flour millers instead of to the workers in the bakery trade. I am pretty certain that the figure of 99.9 per cent. to which Deputy Lemass referred, is not correct.

Mr. Killilea

It is not correct the way that you are putting it.

Mr. Davin

I ask Deputies who were not in the last Dáil as well as Deputies who were to realise the seriousness of another statement that was made by Deputy Lemass in connection with the Estimates that are before us. The present Minister for Finance in the note which he sent out with the Estimates said that they were in the hands of the printer when this Government came into office. The statement made by Deputy Lemass was that these Estimates never came before the Government of which he was a member. Is it possible that these Estimates representing a total figure of £70,520,477 were allowed to go to the printer by the former Government without being examined departmentally, and without being examined and approved of by the Government—a body with collective responsibility for raising the necessary taxation to provide this huge sum of money? At any rate there is a serious difference between the two statements that were made—one made by the ex-Minister for Industry and Commerce and the other made by the present Minister for Finance.

We have had a good deal of ridicule poured on us here this evening with regard to the economies which are going to be effected—that should be and can be effected without injuring anybody. Let us take the Army to which Deputy Moran referred. Will any new or old member of the House say that at this period in the history of our country there can be any justification for increasing the expenditure on warlike stores by £120,512 over the sum provided in the previous year for the same purpose? The figure for warlike stores in 1947 was £99,400.

In the year 1948, when everybody is talking about peace and of attending international conferences for the purpose of bringing peace to the world for the remainder of our lives, warlike stores are estimated to cost £215,912. Can we have an explanation from the people responsible for doubling the figure in this respect as to whether the increase represents the purchase of atomic bombs or anything in the form of modern warlike stores which would help to defend this country in case the war which Deputy de Valera says is now inevitable should come in the next year or two? There is a figure which can be reduced right away without causing unemployment for any person in either the Army or civilian employment.

One could go through other items and effect considerable reductions without doing what Deputy Lemass suggests we are supporting this Government in doing. He says that the members of the Labour Party are supporting this inter-Party or Coalition Government for the purpose of effecting widespread dismissals in the public service. Is there any ground whatever for making that allegation, except to cause considerable confusion and annoyance to those at present employed in the public service? Has he any ground for making that statement or any proof to offer for it? He is responsible for the preparation of these Estimates. He accuses us also of supporting this inter-Party Government in effecting dismissals and economies in the amount of money provided in connection with air transport. I am not opposed to the development of air transport by gradual methods so long as it can be made to fit in with the necessities of the situation in relation to our own citizens and so long as its cost is kept within the means of the taxpayers. Is there any justification whatever for incurring, as evidenced by the latest return supplied to Deputies, an expenditure of £934,000 with a revenue of £60,000?

Deputy Lemass is a very able man and he is a good bluffing speaker. He has the audacity to compare the cost of the air transport service with the cost of Irish Shipping Limited. Irish Shipping Limited, so far as I know, is a self-supporting service, a service which pays its way. Can anybody— Deputy Lemass or any other Deputy— say that the air transport service is paying its way, or is likely to pay its way in the immediate future? Why should we allow the lords of this world —not of this land but of other parts of the world—to be carried over our airlines on the basis of the payment of the equivalent of 1d. in the 1/- related to the cost? I believe that the revenue represents 1d. in the 1/- of cost and the taxpayers are to prop up a service from which we get a penny for every 1/- spent in carrying the lords from one part of the world to another.

There is no comparison whatever between the balance sheet of our air transport service and the balance sheet, as we now know it, of Irish Shipping Limited. One is a luxury service and the other an essential, and every Deputy who wishes to be fair will have to admit that. I am very proud of the fact that we have a self-supporting Irish shipping service. Let whoever deserves the credit for it take it and a good deal of the credit is due to Deputy Lemass and the people associated with him as members of the previous Government. I am not going to deny them the credit they deserve for establishing such a service. I think it is the policy of every Party in the House, whether in Opposition or on this side, to maintain that service in the interests of the Irish people.

Other remarks were made by Deputy Lemass into which I do not want to go too deeply, but I heard him state to-day, less than two months after he left office, that there is a supply of tea in our stores here sufficient for a period of ten years and he now demands from the Opposition benches the reason why the present Minister for Industry and Commerce, who has been in office only a couple of weeks, does not take tea off the ration. Why did he not do it before he went out or before he was put out of office? He also ridicules the Minister responsible for the supply of sugar. He asserted that during his time he did everything possible for those who were looking for sugar, but I have evidence in my possession which proves that only a couple of months ago he refused a ration of sugar to mineral water factories in this country. If there is that great surplus of sugar which he now says exists, because people on this side have come into office and he is on the other side, why did he not give a reasonable supply to some of our mineral water factories when they sought sugar a couple of months ago? The amount required by one factory I know was only three tons per month, and, if there was available the surplus he says, how can he defend his refusal to grant a ration of sugar to a factory in Athlone which would have provided employment for many of our people?

I want now to make a couple of suggestions. The House was supplied to-day with information in regard to the floatation of a new national loan, the rate of interest being indicated. I am certain it will be used for the most deserving purposes in relation to the development of the country. I want to suggest to the Government and to the Minister for Finance in particular that the rates of loans to people engaged in industry and agriculture should be reviewed as quickly as possible. I see nothing wonderful in the Agricultural Credit Corporation providing loans for the farming community at such a high rate as 4 per cent. and the Government should at the earliest possible date review the rates of interest charged for agricultural loans. If they are to help the agricultural community to develop their industry in a proper way, any credit corporation working under the auspices of a government and worthy of the name should be in a position to give loans to farmers at a much lower rate of interest than 4 per cent.

Mr. Hickey

And 4½ per cent.

Mr. Davin

Four and a half per cent., up to some time ago. I suggest that the Agricultural Credit Corporation should not be continued as a profitmaking body. Bodies of this kind in other agricultural countries, such as New Zealand, Australia or Denmark, are providing loans at nominal rates, and the Minister for Finance, as the responsible Minister, and the Government as a whole should recast the whole loan system of the Agricultural Credit Corporation and provide loans for farmers at nominal rates of interest in future. The latest figure for agricultural loans in Great Britain is 2½ per cent.; but here, where we have an Agricultural Credit Corporation which is a State institution run for profit-making purposes and where farmers are badly in need of loans at reasonably low rates of interest, they are entitled at least to the same low rates as the farmers in New Zealand, Australia, Denmark and other countries.

The same thing applies in regard to industrial loans, but agriculture being our basic industry the farmers should get loans at nominal rates of interest. No credit corporation running under the auspices of a democratic Government and worthy of the name should be allowed to continue any longer making a profit for the principal shareholder, the Minister for Finance, instead of giving loans at reasonably low rates of interest. If agriculture is to be revived, the farmers must get a reasonable chance to increase production. The decent, honest farmers who can provide good security should be given loans at nominal rates of interest, and not at high rates charged over a long period. The same, to a great extent, applies to loans for industrial development, but agriculture should get preferential treatment.

The same policy might be applied with advantage in the case of our transport industry. Transport is supposed to be under semi-State control, but only a few months ago the Minister for Industry and Commerce of the day allowed the transport rates to go up by 20 per cent. There was a 20 per cent. all-round increase, without any reference whatsoever to the justification for giving preferential rates for the carriage of the raw material for agriculture. I know no other agricultural country where there is not a rating system inside the transport industry to give preferential treatment to the carriage of raw materials to the farmers. Here you had the same rate increase put on luxury articles last year as was put on machinery and raw materials for the agricultural industry. The transport rating system requires immediate revision, and I hope the Minister for Industry and Commerce will look into it without delay. It is the policy of every Deputy, regardless of the side of the House on which he sits, that we must give cheap money at low rates for the transport of material from the factory to the farm and from the farm to the market. These are some of the things which must be brought under the notice of the new Ministers who will be responsible, at a very critical period in our history, for the Government of the country.

Speaking for myself, I want to be fair to Deputy Lemass when I say that I listened to him make three or four speeches since this House met on the 18th February and—with the exception of the speech he delivered here this evening—I want to admit quite fairly and frankly that all his previous speeches recently have been fair and critical, as one would expect from an ex-Minister of the Opposition Front Bench. However, in regard to some of the things he referred to this evening, he was far from being fair. He has wonderful experience, by reason of the fact that he occupied a key Ministry in the late Government. I would like Deputy Lemass when he speaks in the future to be as helpful as he was on the occasions he spoke previous to this evening. I think he was unfair, generally speaking, in some of his criticism to-day and that it was not absolutely correct.

If we are to survive as a nation in the critical times that lie immediately ahead, we must make a determined and serious effort. I invite those ex-Ministers who have had considerable experience over the past 15 years to remember, when they speak here in future, that they are here to give the benefit of their long and valuable experience, that they have been sent here by the people of the country to help the new Government to do better than they were able to do themselves when they were in office.

Mr. Corry

First of all, when Deputy Lemass was speaking here and alluded to the 99.9 per cent. that all the argument seems to be about, he definitely called attention to the fact that he was cutting out food subsidies from that. The Official Report later on will prove whether he was correct or not. In connection with the Army and the Estimate for Warlike Stores, the new Minister for Defence must trust his staff. The Army Estimate was prepared by the Army Chiefs themselves and forwarded by them and they have a technical knowledge of their job and will not go beyond that. It is their job to say what they require for the ordinary defence of this country.

With regard to tea, what Deputy Lemass looked for was a declaration of policy. He pointed out that there was 12 months' supply of tea in the country and he wished to know definitely whether tea was to be bought on the same scale as last year and tea rationing done away with, or whether the rationing was to continue.

I do not intend following Deputy Davin along the lines of his argument. I have no intention of criticising the new Government, except when they look for it and when they deserve it. I intend using exactly the same policy here towards them as I used towards my own Government when in office. Whenever I see them going wrong, I will put down my finger and point out the wrong to them. That is my job and I will do it. I heard Deputy Davin commenting on food subsidies and wondering what they were for and making what I consider a wrong allusion. I think this thing of cheap sneers at industry, whether they be flour millers or steel workers, is wrong. If Deputy Davin would cast his mind back on the fact that wheat had to be purchased within the past two months and brought in at a difference between £22 per ton last year and £35 per ton this year, surely he will see the reason why the Estimate had to be increased. Looking at it in that light, I am very glad of the news that came back from America in connection with wheat, which will probably enable us to save in the end.

I am concerned mainly here, as an old farmer, with our agricultural position. We have heard a lot of talk about the flight from the land and getting back to the land. The remark made here by the Lord Mayor of Cork, when speaking in connection with that, brings it home very forcibly—that you had a man sweeping the street at £5 a week and a man producing food at 50/- a week, or a little over that. That is what is mainly the cause of the flight from the land and when you remember that in dealing with this subject you have to deal with a position where you have something like 80,000 farm labourers and 250,000 or 260,000 other workers on the land in the shape of farmers, farmers' sons and farmers' daughters, you will realise where the problem is. We are apparently going to be up against the same problem in regard to production under this Government and have to use the same pressure which was used previously.

I listened to the Minister for Agriculture to-day when, in reply to a question regarding the price of milk, he stated that he was not going to increase the price to the creameries. Does the Minister tell me that you can increase wages by 5/- a week and rates by 4/- in the £ and keep the price of agricultural production down? If so, the Minister is living in the clouds and the sooner he comes down from the clouds the better for everybody concerned. I do not consider that the present agricultural wage is a fair one for any agricultural labourer and I stated that before from those benches over there. I see men who live in labourers' cottages on my land walking up to Cork and getting jobs as builders' labourers at just double the wage of an agricultural labourer. They are living in agricultural labourers' cottages, they have their bicycles and cycle the six miles to the city and then at 2 o'clock on a Saturday they can laugh at the idiots in the ditch who have half their wages. There is a cant on all sides about the flight from the land and an increase in production. Does the Minister for Agriculture for one moment hope that he is going to increase production of milk while holding down the price of milk to the price at which it was when wages were 10/- a week less and rates roughly 7/- or 8/- in the £ less? Who is he going to put against the wall? Those are the questions which we have got to consider if we are going to increase production. I have had to deal with the matter for the past 14 or 15 months as chairman of the Beet Growers' Association and we had to drive up the price of beet by £1 per ton in order to meet the increased costs and we will have to drive it up by another 10/- a ton, for if you do not do that you will have no beet and no sugar. It is just as well to get that done to-day as to-morrow. If you think anybody is idiot enough to work on the land or that the farmer is idiot enough to produce at less than the cost of production or the labourer to work at less than a fair wage, you are living in the clouds and it is no use to talk about production.

Mr. Davin

It has been going on for some time.

Mr. McAuliffe

It has been going on for years now.

Mr. Corry

I can take my mind back a little bit and judge the increases given each year. I can also judge what the position was. I advocated from those benches over there 12 months or two years ago that a wage of £4 a week should be given to the agricultural labourer.

Mr. McAuliffe

Well, you voted against it.

Mr. Corry

Deputy McAuliffe is wrong.

Mr. McAuliffe

That is doubtful.

Mr. Corry

What Deputy McAuliffe is looking for is an entirely different thing and he knows that.

Mr. McAuliffe

I do not know that.

Mr. Corry

Deputy McAuliffe should use ordinary intelligence in his job. I am not responsible for the mind of the Deputy or for his intelligence.

Mr. McAuliffe

I am just as intelligent as you are.

Mr. Corry

We went to a certain amount of trouble with the Milk Producers' Association last year. We handed a bunch of farmers over for costings and brought them to the Department of Agriculture. People are wondering, and I see complaints in the papers from day to day, about the scarcity of milk in the cities and towns. Those things prove definitely that winter milk for the cities is being produced at less than the cost of production. It was produced last winter at less than the cost of production and since then you have an increase of 5/- a week in the wages of agricultural labourers and also a pretty steep increase in overtime which forms a large bulk of the burden on the producer for the city. Therefore, there is no use in talking about reducing the subsidies. If you are going to get food at the same price you will have to increase the subsidies and you will have to increase them pretty well.

If you want to increase production on the land, you must be prepared to pay the worker, whether farmer or labourer, at least something which can compare with the wage of the gent in the city or the town. If you do not do that, there is no use in talking about the flight from the land because no farmer or labourer will be idiot enough to go on producing food for the people at less than the cost of production. That is the whole kernel of the situation as far as food production is concerned. I have alluded to the price of milk and the policy of the new Minister for Agriculture, and I would like to suggest that he consider that position seriously. I am aware of the pull against it. I have no illusions on that score. I am aware of the pressure that was brought to bear by the gentleman who said: "Oh kill the calves, because the price of milk is so high and reduce the price of milk." I am aware of that policy and I am aware of the new Minister's leanings towards the production of beef. The production of food for our own people is the first duty of the land of this country and after that if we have anything to spare we can give it away. I can very well see what the wind up of this continued condition is going to be and it is only fair that we should go into it here piecemeal and see where we are going to find ourselves. If the Minister for Agriculture thinks, for instance, that the supply of milk in Cork City next winter is going to be sufficient and that he can hold it down to an uneconomic price then he is living in the clouds.

An Ceann Comhairle

The Deputy is repeating himself.

Mr. Corry

Another instance is that the price of wheat was fixed here last October or November by the then Minister for Agriculture and since then there have been two very definite increases, an increase in wages and an increase in rates. I hold that any increase in the cost of production to farmers must be immediately relieved by an increased price. There is no point in expecting to hold a man against the wall and to think that by pounding away at him you will get something out of him. You will not. The agricultural community of this country have been against the wall long enough.

Mr. Davin

Who owns all the increased deposits in the banks?

Mr. Corry

I do not know what Deputy Davin's bank balance is. I did not get a look at it but I would willingly swop mine with his in the morning.

Mr. Davin

I will look at yours.

Mr. Corry

Let us settle the matter by making the bargain now. We hear a lot about the deposits in the banks and about the people who own these deposits. Who, in fact, owns them? Is it the farmers' sons who started to work at 13 years of age and slaved away until 45 years of age before one of them sold out to some lady for what could be got out of her. Or is it that bunch of unpaid labourers working on the land, producing food and selling at less than the cost of production for Deputy Davin and the rest of the drones of this country.

Mr. Connolly

Is it Parliamentary to call a Deputy a "drone"?

An Ceann Comhairle

I would not say so but I have heard much worse.

Mr. McAuliffe

Especially from Deputy Corry.

An Ceann Comhairle

I do not think Deputy Davin objects.

Mr. Corry

I am willing to withdraw the expression if Deputy Davin does not like it. Who are the owners of that money? It is not the farmers' money. I hold that it is the property of the farmers' sons and daughters who work as unpaid labourers on the land. It is their money.

A Deputy

Not all of it, surely.

Mr. Corry

Every blooming farthing of it, even the overdraft. That is the actual state of affairs. I am awaiting with great interest the statement by the Coalition Government on their policy in regard to increased production on the land and the arresting of the flight from the land. It is a big problem but it is one that they, as a kind of mixumgatherum Party, can tackle a lot better than any single Party standing alone can. I like to see them at it now. I can only guarantee that whilst I am here they will get their crack of the whip.

Mr. Davin

Hear, hear.

Mr. Corry

I will not be long until I call attention to anything wrong which they may do. I will, however, give them credit for anything right which they may do.

Mr. McAuliffe

Will you vote for them?

Mr. Connolly

Will you vote for them?

Mr. Corry

I do not know. I will probably be putting a few little things on the Order Paper from time to time that will ruffle Deputy McAuliffe when he goes voting against them. We will then test Deputy McAuliffe's sincerity.

Mr. McAuliffe

We often tested your sincerity.

Mr. Corry

Deputy McAuliffe will then realise the question of whether he is going to vote with his Party or not. I am merely putting these points as I see them but I am withholding criticism until I see the new Government take action.

Parliamentary Secretary to the Taoiseach (Mr. Cosgrave)

I would like to allay a few of the fears of the Opposition in regard to the possible consequences of altered policy which this Government proposes to put into effect. First of all, I think I can reassure them that no avoidable hardship will be imposed on any section of the community. This inter-Party Government was founded on the basis of common agreement amongst the Parties who make up the Government and on the basis that they had come together to achieve, in the words of the Taoiseach: "Something for the benefit of the people." It is, therefore, unlikely, certainly in so far as the Government can prevent it, that hardship will result to any section of the community. It is, I know, reasonable to assume that Fianna Fáil would attempt to convince the people that this Government is a failure before it is even three weeks in office. I have no doubt that not alone have the past three weeks shown that the people appreciate the remarkable step which brought about the formation of this Government but that, even to-night, we have another convert in Deputy Corry. It is a remarkable tribute to the success of this Government and to the degree of patriotism which marks the "new era", as it has been described, in the political life of this country. At the same time I would like to say that in the transition period from the emergency to post-emergency conditions certain difficulties and certain problems will no doubt confront the Government. It is quite true that the Government will be faced with a difficulty, to which Deputy Flynn and Deputy Maguire referred, in the matter of turf production.

It is inevitable that, after a period of emergency during which turf production was the primary aim, in so far as fuel production and fuel supplies are concerned, that the transition from emergency conditions to peace-time circumstances must have reactions and possibly, for a time, disagreeable consequences for certain sections of the community. It is the intention of the Government to examine fully the possible repercussions of any alteration in the turf production programme. The entire matter of turf production is at present under consideration. All the factors are available to the Minister for Industry and Commerce. They have been considered by the Government and further consideration is necessary in so far as it is within the powers of the Government to avoid any hardship or to cause unemployment or to take any action which may result in people becoming disemployed. The Government will use every effort and spare no energy in achieving a proper and satisfactory solution of these difficulties.

It is true that we have at the present time adequate supplies of fuel. In view of the experience last winter it would have been highly undesirable and, I think, bad national policy, not to have taken whatever steps were available. The fact that certain steps were taken then presents the Government and the country now with another type of problem. It is our aim and it will be the aim of the Government to mitigate any hardship caused as a result of an alteration in policy. As the Minister stated to-day, it is hoped in the very near future to outline the turf production programme for the coming year. When that programme is announced, whatever measures are deemed desirable will be taken to mitigate and absorb any of those who may be disemployed as a result of the altered policy. On the general question of policy, the Taoiseach said, when he addressed the House after the formation of the Government, that each question would be examined on its merits.

It is unreasonable to imagine that a Government that has only been three weeks in office could have a cut and dried policy on every detail ranging from industrial questions to agricultural problems that would satisfy the anxieties of Deputies from all quarters of the House or that would satisfy the anxieties or hopes of the people in general. Every public question of major national or economic importance will be fully examined. When these questions have been examined the Government will outline the policy. It is our intention, not only to take the Dáil into the confidence of the Government, to explain to the Dáil the various changes in policy that may be decided upon, but to inform the country as well. It is our belief that if the Dáil is fully informed, if the people are fully informed on questions of public policy, if they are given the facts and if a full explanation of any changes that may be considered desirable is put before them, they will readily accept the policy as outlined and they will have a full opportunity of deciding what alterations or what modifications of that policy are in their interest.

It would be bad from the country's point of view to expect, or for the Government to rush in here with, a solution of the various problems that confront us. In the course of this debate Deputies have adverted to many problems. Deputies from various sides of the House have explained the difficulties as they see them. Many Deputies even on the Opposition have referred to these difficulties. From their own knowledge or as a result of contact with other Deputies, they have given their views. It is quite true that these problems must be examined fully and whatever alterations are necessary must be effected but it would be unreasonable and bad from every point of view for Deputies to expect that the Government, at this early stage, should give a detailed announcement on the various aspects of public policy.

In the ten-point programme we have outlined the major aims of the Government. Some of these, no doubt, will conflict with the policy of Fianna Fáil. We cannot expect Fianna Fáil immediately to agree with the measures which the Government may take, but at any rate we can ask for their forbearance and expect that degree of co-operation which is necessary for the proper and efficient administration of Government.

It is a matter of some satisfaction that the loan outlined by the Minister for Finance received a favourable welcome from Deputy Lemass. It is a great pity that Deputy Moran, who spoke after him, did not take the same line. It is in the national interest and in the interest of the people as a whole that the credit of this country should be high. It is not a political or Party matter that we should strive to maintain that high credit and that prestige without which it would be impossible to carry on administration or government here. It is therefore with regret that we listened this evening to a few disparaging remarks by Deputy Moran, but I suppose it is only fair to excuse certain Deputies. It is in the national interest that all Deputies and every single section of the community should strive to retain the high credit and sound financial position of this country. The fact that it is as sound as it is at the moment reflects credit not only on the past Governments and on the present Government but on the country as a whole.

We ask that the unity which obtained in this country in the recent emergency should be again displayed and that there should be the same patriotic strength in dealing with our national credit as there was during the emergency in dealing with possible invasion. There is in the Minister's statement an outline of the reasons why this loan was necessary. The fact that certain capital expenditure on housing and other works had been undertaken since 1946 made it essential that money should be provided. It is not to pay debts. It is not to cover up the failure of this Government. If there is any debt involved—and there is some debt —it was incurred by Fianna Fáil. The Minister stated that the last National Security Loan, which was issued in 1941, was exhausted by 1943, but that it was possible to meet the capital outlay and Budget deficits in the interval out of the proceeds of Savings Certificates and temporary borrowings. He said that the resumption of State expenditure on the works that I have outlined, since 1946, made it necessary to undertake immediately a substantial borrowing operation so that the temporary borrowings may be repaid and further capital outlay provided for. That work is national work, undertaken in the public interest. It was therefore in the public interest that this loan should be issued, and the fact that the Opposition have welcomed it and have supported it demonstrates, and should demonstrate to the country, that it is a national issue outside Party politics.

As I have said, it will be the aim of this Government to serve all sections. It is founded on the basis that all sections are represented in it. If we can, as I have no doubt we will, achieve a large measure of success, then we depend on the support of all sections, and possibly in the future we may even secure the support of Fianna Fáil for the inter-Party Government and for the policy that it proposes to put into effect.

When the Budget is introduced in May a far fuller outline and greater detail of the policy of the Government will be given. It is only fair that the Government should get at least a few weeks in which to familiarise themselves with the various Departments with which they have been entrusted. After 16 years, Fianna Fáil ought to give this Government six weeks and if after six weeks we are in a position to present the national policy embracing the major Departments of the State and the major questions on which the Government is agreed, then we can hope, not alone for the support of the various Parties which make up the Government, but for the support of the people as a whole.

Mr. Desmond

Deputy Smith was anxious this evening in this House to state that he was responsible for calling the meeting of the Agricultural Wages Board in connection with the recent increase but Deputy Smith did not say that he, all the way, refused direct representation of the workers on the Regional Wages Board. Furthermore, if the farm workers got an increase of 6/- last spring and a recent increase of 5/-, I assert, openly, that it was through their own endeavour and not with the help of any Deputies either in Cork County or elsewhere.

There is one item in connection with this Vote to which I would like to draw attention, that is, the question of fisheries. Next to agriculture, the fishing industry can be of enormous value. The sea coast of the south and west of Ireland can provide adequate employment. It must be remembered, however, that the fishermen must get a proper wage for their catch. In addition, they must be provided with adequate transport facilities in order to get the fish to the market. It is well known that in many inland districts fish is not used to the extent that it might be. If the Government will consider the vital importance of a satisfactory fishing industry I believe it will help to allay the fears of unemployment in many districts.

In connection with agriculture itself, it is vitally important for us to consider the advisability of helping the farmers but as Deputy Dunne said earlier we must never lose sight of the fact that that help must in a large way go to the agricultural worker. If we believe in a Christian principle of life, we must start by considering the economic conditions of these workers and improving them so far as we can. Deputy Sheehan mentioned the position of milk supplies in the cities. It is rather strange to realise that the Milk Board areas are confined to certain limited districts in the vicinity of cities. I know that in Cork, in a certain district outside the Milk Board area, the farmers are obliged to send their milk to the creameries. If they had their way they would be anxious to supply milk to the city but unfortunately being outside the boundary of the Milk Board area, they are excluded. I would ask the Minister to consider the advisability of extending the limits of the Milk Board area, in order to facilitate farmers outside the present area who are definitely entitled to such consideration.

The last point to which I should like to direct attention is the question of the means test in connection with old age pensions and widows' and orphans' pensions. I would appeal to the Minister to consider as quickly as possible, the abolition, if at all possible or if not, the easing, of the horrid un-Christian means test. Too long have our people had to submit to this degrading test. The last Government in their early Opposition days stated that they would do away with it if they got into power, yet after 15 or 16 years of office the means test is still applied to applicants for these pensions. The present Government say that their outlook is a genuine Christian one and that they desire as far as possible to help old people in the declining years of their lives to eke out a frugal existence. They can help towards that end by doing away with the means test in order that these people may be provided with a few extra shillings to enable them to live.

Mr. P.J. Burke

It was rather interesting to hear Deputy Collins speak on the amount of coal and turf in the park at present. Of course Deputy Collins is new to the House but if he were here at this time last year, he would have heard the Party of which he is now a member condemning the Government because owing to inclement weather there was a scarcity of turf and because economic conditions in England were responsible for a scarcity of coal. The position was that the last Government, in their wisdom, decided that our people should not have to suffer privations arising from the absence of warmth this winter as they unfortunately had to suffer last spring. Not alone was that the policy of Fianna Fáil, but it was the policy supported by all Parties in the House in order that the Government might make adequate preparations for the coming year. It is very easy to throw stones at the late Government now after we have had a reasonably good harvest and a mild winter but if things went badly, as they did last year, we would hear the same tune played on the same old fiddle as last year.

With reference to the Vote on Account, Fianna Fáil is being blamed for very high Estimates. Nobody in this House likes to be responsible for asking the taxpayers for more money but at least the circumstances should be taken into consideration. We often heard the members of the present Government when they were in opposition demanding more social services from the then Government. On the other hand the Party which is now talking about the high Estimates voted on every occasion when there was a division in this House, for extra expenditure. Yet when it came to the time that the Minister for Finance had to introduce a Supplementary Budget or any Money Resolution they were up in arms against it. One day they would blow hot and another day they would blow cold. I suppose that is politics.

I wonder how the present Government will be situated if they seek to fulfil some of the promises of their colleagues to reduce the cost of living by 30 per cent., to increase social services and to reduce taxation. I hope that the present Minister for Finance and his colleagues will try to put some at least of their election promises into operation. Of course it is very nice to hear promises to reduce the cost of living by 30 per cent., to increase social services, to provide full employment and to reduce taxation, but a schoolboy reading these statements will know what they are worth.

We have heard a lot about emigration and the flight from the land but judging from some reports we have had to date, I believe that expenditure on the development of the turf industry, which we in Fianna Fáil looked upon as a national industry designed to provide employment for people living in barren parts of the country, is about to be reduced considerably. That possibly will cause unemployment amongst some thousands of our people. We have also heard promises of a retrenchment policy in the various services by cutting down the alleged high cost of Government for which, it was said, Fianna Fáil was responsible, but at least we tried as far as possible to create employment for our people. We heard a lot of talk about luxury buildings and luxury hotels. Do Deputies opposite want this country to go back to the Stone Age? Do they think that having done our best to revive the tourist industry we should give it no further encouragement? As I have already said in this House on more than one occasion, 80 per cent. of the people who come to this country as tourists are emigrants returning to visit the scenes of their childhood. They come home to visit their friends after being a number of years away.

A Deputy

What about Maximoe?

Mr. P.J. Burke

They come to visit their friends and they put a large amount of money in circulation here. I put it to this House that every tourist who arrives here confers a benefit on the business man, the draper, the butcher, the grocer and everybody concerned. The tourist industry if properly developed would be a great source of employment. The farmer would gain by it. At least it would put money in circulation, build up our foreign assets and increase our purchasing power. Judging by the opposition of some Deputies to this industry it would seem that they want our country to be isolated and ringed off. They do not want any such thing as a decent hotel in the country.

A Deputy

Who said that?

Mr. P.J. Burke

The Deputy can make his own speech in his own time. That was one of a number of statements that I heard made from various platforms through the recent campaign. Another statement was that we while in office gave priority to luxury buildings. That is, at least, untrue because the Minister for Industry and Commerce and the Minister for Local Government gave priority in every instance to those local authorities who made application and who were prepared to go ahead with the work. They were given every encouragement.

I want to deal with our aerodromes now. Is it the policy of "the Opposition" at the moment to scrap all our aerodromes?

Mr. Sweetman

The Opposition have no power in the matter.

Mr. Davin

You are the Opposition.

Mr. P.J. Burke

I should have said the Government. I am grateful to the Deputy for his timely correction. Is it the policy of the Government to scrap the aerodromes of this country? It looks as if it were. Is it the policy of "the Opposition"——

Mr. Davin

The Government.

Mr. P.J. Burke

The Government—I am trying to get used to it, of course. It is very hard.

Mr. Sweetman

You will after four years or so.

Mr. P.J. Burke

Is it the policy of the Government at the present time to have this country in a position not in keeping with other civilised nations throughout the world? We have heard a good deal from the Government Benches as to their concern for the rural people. I say that we in Fianna Fáil are concerned with the well-being of every section of the community.

Mr. M. O'Higgins

You should be.

Mr. P.J. Burke

It is not merely one section at all. We have at least proved that we were concerned with the well-being of every section, and that has been the outlook of our Party from the very beginning.

Captain Giles

Why did they not give you a majority, so?

Mr. P.J. Burke

At any rate your Party did not get a majority in the House. You had to go in with somebody else.

Captain Giles

We got across the floor anyway.

Mr. P.J. Burke

You got a lot of satellites to support you.

Mr. Davin

Is that word in order?

Mr. MacEntee

It is too respectable for some of you.

Mr. Davin

But not for you.

Mr. P.J. Burke

We have heard a good deal about cutting down the Army. I put it to the House that the Army we have at the moment is a small one. Considering the condition of the world to-day we should at least have as fully equipped and efficient an Army as the country can afford.

General MacEoin

£10,000,000.

Mr. P.J. Burke

What is 12,000 troops? It is really only a small police force. We have not even got that. I do not think any further curtailment of the Army is in the national interest. Our country should not be left completely devoid of protection from a national point of view and leaving out altogether the international point of view. I put it to the Minister for Finance that he should go slow on that particular policy.

I entirely support Deputy Kissane as to the increased price of milk. I think that industry should be subsidised even more. It should be encouraged a good deal more in order that the dairy farmer might be in a position to pay his workers a higher salary. For that reason I think the farmers should be subsidised even more than at present provided that the resources of the country can afford it, because the great majority of their workers will be anxious for a further increase in wages.

Mr. Davin

Why did you not do it yourself?

Mr. P.J. Burke

The Deputy is very vocal and I am sure that when I sit down he will get every opportunity of telling the House what he thinks of me.

Mr. Davin

Your Minister for Local Government gave two pence a day extra to the county council workers in Cork and said it was good enough for them.

Mr. P.J. Burke

Another industry with which I wish to deal is the fishing industry. That industry has been subsidised to a large extent by the provision of boats. Under the Harbours Bill the harbours throughout the country were being improved, and some of them were reconstructed. I would like that that good work should be carried on and I would like the harbours to be fully availed of. I would like to see decent harbours for larger boats. I feel that it is an urgent necessity for the fishing industry to have larger boats to enable them to go to sea in reasonably bad weather. Because of their small boats they are now weather-bound when adverse conditions prevail. As regards the distribution of fish in inland towns, I would like to see that matter taken seriously and I would like to see central shops from which our fish could be distributed throughout the country in order to encourage the industry as far as possible.

With regard to old age pensions, in view of the promises made by members of the Government that they would increase old age pensions, widows' and orphans' pensions and teachers' superannuation, I hope that the Government will take all these matters into consideration and fulfil the promises they made to the people who elected them.

I would like the Minister for Finance at an early date to give us some indication as to how he proposes to create employment for the 200,000 people who are at present in England and to whom one of his Ministers recently referred. I would like him to tell us what his policy is in that regard.

Mr. McQuillan

I notice that Deputy Burke prefaced nearly all his remarks with "I would like to see". He would like to see the fishing industry improved. He would like to see the emigrants that Deputy de Valera promised to bring back in 1932 now brought back in 1948. He prefaced all his remarks with the statement, "I would like to see".

Mr. P.J. Burke

Your promises.

Mr. McGilligan

Please let the Deputy make his speech.

Mr. McQuillan

It is quite evident from his remarks that he obviously did not see much constructive work while he sat on the Government benches.

Deputy Lemass is greatly worried about this pet aviation scheme of his. He believes that the matter of prestige is a highly important one and overshadows the question of a monetary return for the expenses incurred in the upkeep of aerodromes on the same scale as a country like the United States. Does Deputy Lemass think that the matter of prestige will account for the loss of £1,000,000 by C.I.E. this year, a body that has been running for quite a considerable time? One of his reasons for asking for more time for the aviation scheme to develop was that in time it would pay, C.I.E. has had plenty of time under the patronage of Deputy Lemass, but we have not seen it paying its way in 1948.

A Deputy

I wonder what you propose to do with it.

Mr. McQuillan

Deputy Burke is greatly worried about our fishing industry. That is one matter in which I am very interested. I have seen outside Galway Bay 80 foreign trawlers off our fishing-ground. I have seen inside in the bay a number of Spanish trawlers lined up week by week. I have seen very few boats under the auspices of the Irish Fisheries Association going out in competition with these foreigners. At the same time, I have seen a lot of money spent on what I consider to be a toy navy which is the laughing-stock of Europe—a number of motor torpedo-boats bought from His Majesty's Government and used for the purpose of escorting the ex-Taoiseach when he visits our empire in the Aran Islands to shake hands with the only child on one of these islands. I think that the money spent on the upkeep of this toy navy would be much better spent if it were invested in deep-sea trawlers and in the purchase of nets and equipment to allow our own fishermen to go out in competition with these foreigners instead of having motor torpedo-boats chasing up and down the coast two days after the foreigners have taken away their catch.

Deputy Moran lamented the fact that in a short space of time a large number of men would be unemployed as a result of the new Government's action in regard to turf-cutting. If he had listened to Deputy Maguire he would have heard him outline in no uncertain terms the policy pursued by Deputy Lemass and his colleagues whereby Irish coal from Arigna, which is eminently suitable for use in our beet factories and in boilers which are of pre-war manufacture, was not put at the disposal of these beet factories in 1946. I should like to remind Deputies on the opposite benches that a cargo of raw sugar was diverted from the Irish factories not so very long ago and the reason given was that there was no fuel available here for these factories. It is quite evident that Deputy Maguire would have been only too willing to see that that coal, which is so eminently suitable, was made available from the Arigna mines.

Deputy Moran feared that we were about to turn this country into a ranch for the export of cattle. Owing to the attitude adopted by the Party now in opposition foreigners of very doubtful calibre were allowed into this country, large sums of money were spent on luxury hotels, and still larger sums on airways, and the reason given to us for this is that we must keep up prestige. If we wish to compare with America or any other country in the world in the matter of aviation, we must also try to compare with them in our social services, in the conditions for farm workers and the conditions that prevail on the land and in our industries. We have the example of New Zealand, a country which has been criticised by the people now in opposition, where the old age pensioner, after his years of service to the country, is given a decent means of subsistence. Do Deputies on the opposite benches not believe that, if we pursue this policy of prestige in regard to aviation, we should also pursue the policy of social services adopted by those countries which we are so anxious to copy in the matter of aviation?

Seán Ó Tiománuidhe

Ní rabhas ag éisteacht leis an díospóireacht ar feadh an lae, ach bhíos anseo nuair a bhí an Teachta Corry ag labhairt agus ba mhaith liom cuidiú leis an gcuid is mó dá ndúirt sé. Sin rud a chuirfidh ionadh ar an Teachta féin agus ar na daoine eile atá in aice leis, ar an taobh sin den Teach. Sin é an spiorad atá ár spreagadh, leas na tíre a chur i dtosach báire, pé duine a aontaíonn linn nó atá inár gcoinne.

It will probably be astonishing to members on the other side of the House that a member on this side can agree with anything they say. I agree with practically everything Deputy Corry said. He confined himself to the conditions of the agricultural community which, of course, includes both farmers and farm labourers, and he indicated that although a member of the Fianna Fáil Party, he was not satisfied with the conditions prevailing so far as the agricultural community was concerned during the Fianna Fáil régime. He expressed his dissatisfaction then, but apparently without effect, and he intends now, in opposition, to continue to express dissatisfaction. I believe that he will get results from this Government, which represents co-operation among practically all sections of the Irish people, that he did not get from Fianna Fáil and that he justly complains of not getting.

Deputy Moran spoke about compulsory tillage. He wanted to know if it is to be abolished. These questions of compulsion and the expenditure of money are very closely linked up, particularly with regard to compelling people to use their property in a certain way, especially the farmers. Historically, the great fight in this country has been the fight of the farmer to own his land and to use it as he thinks best. The farmer found himself, under an Irish Government, compelled to do things. That system operated in a manner that caused great distress; it operated under conditions which were very unfair to the farmer.

The policy of a Government should be inducement rather than compulsion, inducement even to extremes. Every Deputy here is the servant of the people. The people who sent us here are in real truth, and fundamentally, the masters. We are here to serve the people. This ideal of service is one thing the Fianna Fáil Government lost sight of. They wanted to boss the Irish people and they bossed the Irish farmers. That was wrong. The Government should increase the price of agricultural produce to such a point that the farmer will be induced to produce what they are trying to make him produce. If they gave him a sum which would pay him for producing wheat, then I believe he would have produced the wheat without any compulsion at all. I know that would have cost more money than we have been spending, but as against the cost which this inducement would entail you should set off the cost of the enforcement of the tillage Orders. If that cost were set off against the increased cost which would be incurred to induce the farmer by giving him a bigger price for wheat, then the extra cost would not be so very great at all.

Deputy Lemass spoke about the problems which Ministers for Finance present to the Governments of which they are Ministers and he saw a great difficulty facing this Government. Ministers for Finance have great difficulties and anybody who has thought about the cost of running a country must realise that. Our Minister for Finance has soon to introduce a Budget. He has indicated the need for reductions and I believe he will do everything possible in that direction, but he must find money to meet the items set out in the Book of Estimates which we recently got. His approach to the finding of that money should be on the basis of fairness to every citizen, and he should at all times suit the burden to the backs of the people who have to bear it.

That was one great fault which every fair-minded person had with the emergency Budget. It put high taxes on every member of the community, whatever his income might be or whatever was his strength to bear that burden. The Minister of State with his high salary had to bear only the same tax as the worker with his wage on such an item as a packet of cigarettes. But the man with the wage is as much entitled to a cigarette as the Minister with his salary.

We all realise the purpose of taxation. The main purpose is the production of revenue for the running of the State. There is a secondary purpose. We tax things so as to prevent over-consumption. Too great a consumption of commodities may be undesirable, and it prevents over-consumption if we put a tax on. That may be all right, but these items must be examined by themselves. The main purpose of taxation is to produce revenue and that taxation must be fairly distributed on the people. I believe the fairest means of taxation is taxation on income, other things being equal. The man with £1,000 a year should pay double the tax that is paid by the man with £500, all other things being equal. Consequently, I will not be sorry, as a taxpaying citizen, if the Minister for Finance steps up income-tax considerably.

In his approach to the finding of this money I would ask him to consider this question of income-tax. It may be an unpopular thing to do, but I would be for increasing it. It seems to me the people who would bear the most income-tax are not by any means the most important people in this country. That is the mistake which Cumann na nGaedheal made and which Fianna Fáil made. I believe the Cumann na nGaedheal Government started right when they had in mind the plain people of Ireland. Ultimately there were a few moneyed people patronising them. Then Fianna Fáil started off democratically, but they too sold themselves, perhaps not intending to do it, to the big moneyed interests in the country. During the last election we read in the papers the advertisement signed by big industrialists here. The Government forgot the people who mattered in this country. Both those Governments made that mistake and I hope this Government will not make it. The rich man must be taxed so that the poor man will have a chance to live.

Major de Valera

I move to report progress.

Progress reported, the Committee to sit again to-morrow.