Last night when I moved to report progress I was dealing with the issue which had been raised by the exculpatory slip which had been inserted in the volume of Estimates by the Minister for Finance in which he claimed that the Government could not accept responsibility for the Estimates which they have presented to the Dáil either in form or amount. Perhaps in dealing with the issue the Minister for Finance may try to justify himself by adverting to the procedure which was adopted here when the Fianna Fáil Administration took office in March of 1932. There is no parallel between the two circumstances. The Dáil in 1932 was assembled on the 9th March. The new Government was constituted on that day and had to meet the House less than a week later for a Vote on Account. In introducing that Vote, I, being then the Minister for Finance, pointed out that it was based on Estimates which had been prepared by the late Administration and which we had not had time to check. I merely contented myself by saying that authority was required to expend the money after the 31st March of that year. There was no similarity between the Estimates as then presented and those upon which the Vote of Account which we are considering to-day is based. Those Estimates, as has already been pointed out, made no provision for a multitude of services which have, since then, under the aegis of a Fianna Fáil Government, been provided for the people. The volume of Estimates which we were considering in 1932 made no provision for employment, for widows' and orphans' pensions, for unemployment assistance or for children's allowances and it made but a very insufficient provision for new works and buildings and development works generally. Consequently, we had but the barest bones to begin with and, so far as useful and productive expenditure was concerned, there was no room for any pruning. On the contrary, there was a grave necessity for a considerable expansion. That is not the position in which the present Administration finds itself. They find the people provided with these and many other services. Deputy Cowan, in speaking on this Vote on Account, when referring to the Estimates for the coming year, stated that they represent a rake's progress. The Deputy is very vocal in demanding that better conditions of living should be provided for our people.
Committee On Finance. - Vote on Account, 1948-49 (Resumed).
Yes.
Perhaps he will bear with me while I call attention to some of the milestones upon this rake's progress. In 1931-32 the amount provided for old age pensions was £2,757,000: in this volume of Estimates the rake has gone so far as to increase that sum to £5,132,000. In 1931-32 £791,000 was provided for public works and buildings: this year £1,351,000 is being provided for that service. We have heard some Deputies talk about the need for arterial drainage. I think that one of the grounds of criticism which Clann na Poblachta, Clann na Talmhan and the Labour Party found in relation to the Fianna Fáil Administration was that we had not proceeded expeditiously and energetically enough to carry out our plans for a widespread scheme of arterial drainage. There were reasons for that, the principal reason being that the necessary machinery was not procurable. However, in the year 1931-32, in the Estimate for Public Works and Buildings, the amount provided for the necessary plant to carry out such drainage works as the then Government envisaged was only £9,000. The rake, as Deputy Cowan was pleased yesterday to call the previous Government of this country, has provided in these Estimates for plant and machinery for arterial drainage a sum of £100,000.
Did the Deputy not say——
Order. The Deputy may not interrupt.
I heard Deputy Palmer criticising the condition of the schools in this country. In the year 1931-32 for Public Works and Buildings the amount provided by the Administration of which the present Minister for Finance was the Minister for Industry and Commerce was £100,000. In this volume of Estimates, which Deputy Cowan has alleged is an expression of squandermania, the sum provided for the purpose of new schools is £250,000. In the year 1931-32— Deputy Blowick may remember, because he is so concerned about the condition of the ratepayers in County Mayo—the amount provided for the Supplementary Agricultural Grant was £599,000: in this year the sum is £3,120,000. I wonder if that is another instance, to the mind of Deputy Cowan, of squandermania.
In the year 1931-32 the total amount provided for all the services administered by the Department of Local Government and Public Health, with the exception of national health insurance and old age pensions, was £532,000. That covered all the expenditure on public health, upon local government, upon free milk schemes, upon mother and child welfare, and upon water supply and sanitation schemes. A sum of £532,000 covered all these important activities in 1931-1932. In this year's Estimate, for Local Government alone, the amount to be provided is £1,172,000, and of that sum no less than £972,000 is being provided for housing. I heard Deputy Con Lehane speaking last night about housing conditions in Dublin. If the housing position reverts to what it was in 1931-32, it will be due to the support and the votes of Deputy Lehane and Deputy Cowan with the other members of the Clann na Poblachta Party, because when the Fine Gael Government was last in office in this country the total amount provided——
On a point of order, the Chair ruled last night that it was wrong to refer to this Government as a Fine Gael Government.
The Chair did not rule it out of order.
I am asking the Chair to rule it out of order now.
The Chair did not rule it out of order but said it was not a proper description.
But, Sir, have we not to describe an animal as we see it? "A rose by any other name would smell as sweet." If Deputy Cowan is ashamed of the fact that he is a pillar of the Fine Gael Government now, I am sorry for him, but he is the only person who can cure it.
You are going the right way about making me cure it.
In the year 1931-32, the Cumann na nGaedheal Government provided for housing, about which Deputy Lehane professes to be so concerned, a sum of £221,000. We have expanded that sum by over four and a half times—by 450 per cent.—and in the mind of Deputy Cowan that is squandermania, another milestone, as I have said, on the road of the rake's progress. In the year 1931-32 there was no Department of Health, and the Fine Gael Government, or the Cumann na nGaedheal Government, as it called itself then, contented itself with spending upon tuberculosis £109,000, and on child welfare £23,000. This year we had intended to provide in these Estimates a sum of £1,688,000 for the Department of Health, of which the sum of £1,450,000 was to be provided as grants-in-aid to health authorities for health services, and other miscellaneous ancilliary services were to absorb £102,000. In the year 1931-32, the widow and the orphan, to the extent to which the deceased breadwinner had not been able to provide for them, might have gone hungry and homeless for all the Government of that day cared. There was no provision then for widows and orphans in this State. In this year the sum of £960,000 is being provided for widows and orphans—another example of Captain Cowan's squandermania. Children's allowances were nonexistent in 1931-32, but despite the financial stringency of the war we introduced them, and introduced them after a general election without having undertaken to do so——
You were beaten in that general election.
We were not beaten.
You were dependent on the support of the Labour Party.
We introduced children's allowances and £2,150,000 is being provided——
You intended to rush another general election.
Persistent interruption is disorderly, and the Chair will have to take serious notice of it. If Deputies cannot listen to speeches from other Deputies, they may retire voluntarily or otherwise.
For unemployment assistance and insurance nothing was provided in the Estimates in 1931-32. This year we intended to provide a sum of £1,945,000 for that purpose. Under national health insurance, the total amount provided, not only for benefits but for administration, in 1932 was £314,000, of which approximately £80,000 represented administrative costs, leaving the net amount appropriated for benefits at £230,000. This year, for benefits under the national health insurance scheme and for additional and supplementary schemes, there is a sum of £780,000 provided.
For education, in 1931-32, the Department had to be content, for the primary, technical and secondary branches, with the sum of £4,237,000. This year's Estimates provide £6,961,000 for that purpose. Lands in the year 1931-32 absorbed £697,000 and the farmers were then paying every penny of the original annuities imposed upon them on the purchase of their land, in addition to other charges. This year a sum of £1,535,000 is being provided for the purposes of the Land Commission, of which a substantial sum is provided in the Estimate to meet capital charges upon land bonds which the farmer is allowed to forgo. That is the difference between the Estimates which I had to handle when I entered the office on the 9th March, 1932, and the Estimates for the coming year. It represents the difference only in some degree between the Estimates on which the Vote on Account had to be passed in March, 1932, and those on which the Vote on Account is being presented to-day.
In the year 1932 the people of this country were going around on their uppers. There was very little provided for a person who was in need, in want, or for any person who was ill. The difference and the changed circumstances of the people are reflected in these social services, all of which have been provided under the late Fianna Fáil Administration, all of which have been provided by the Government which was constituted and supported by the men sitting on these benches. That volume of Estimates represents, in epitome, the social and industrial policy of the late Fianna Fáil Administration.
I gather that it does not represent the policy of the new Administration. I gather from what the Minister for Finance said that there are going to be wholesale economies; that it is going to be cut and slash everywhere in order that they may fulfil their undertakings to reduce taxation in this country. Which of these services do the Deputies who are supporting the Fine Gael Party, which is the Party leading this Government and dominating it, which of these services do they want to have cut? Is it the old age pensions? Is it the widows' and orphans' pensions? Is it the children's allowances? Is it the unemployment assistance? Is it any one of the numerous new projects that were established under the Fianna Fáil Administration and which are giving useful and productive employment to our people?
You have now been told by the Minister for Finance that his policy henceforward is to be to go through the Estimates and have them closely examined in the various Departments and offices concerned with a view to effecting the maximum economies. It is not necessary, if you are going to have economies, to go through these Estimates with a fine comb. What you have to do is to approach the larger of these services, to consider which of them you object to in principle and, having decided that, either because they are objectionable in principle or because they are too costly, proceed to prune them drastically. You can decide, if you are going to have economies, whether or not you are going to slow down the housing campaign, which we had got under way despite the difficulties which had been created for us by the recent war. You can determine whether you are going to cut children's allowances; you can determine whether you are going to cut unemployment assistance; you can determine whether you are going to close down on the programme of public works and buildings which we have set out in detail in these Estimates. Those are the things and the only things upon which you can economise—that is to say, if you want to make any significant economy.
There is no use in going through the Guards, the Civil Service or any of the other Departments with a view to getting economies by determining whether you are going to sack a writing assistant here or a clerical officer there. Go through any one of the Government Departments and you will generally find that, so far as many of them are concerned, so far from there being too many responsible officers, there are too few; that, so far from there being over-staffing and redundancy in most of the important Departments, most of those who carry the higher responsibilities in these Departments are very greatly overworked. But go through them all and the maximum amount of the reduction that you can make will not I wager, no matter how drastic you are or how ruthless you are, exceed 500 or 600 lower-paid civil servants. The choice you have then to make, in order to save £30,000, £40,000 or £50,000, will be whether you are going to turn them out on to the street or whether you are going to pension some of them off.
There is no use in trying to delude the people. There is no use in trying to delude yourselves. If you want to make economics and reduce taxation, then you have got to tackle the major services. You have got to tackle the problem on a broad front and you have got to tell the people that they are going to have to do without many of the things with which Fianna Fáil provided them. That is your dilemma. That is the dilemma of every member of every Party which is now supporting the Fine Gael Administration.
I said yesterday that the slip which the Minister for Finance has issued and the statement which he made constituted an evasion of responsibility. One of the issues which is going to be raised apparently in this House is whether we are going to have constitutional government or not. Are we going to have responsible government or not? Are we going to have responsible government by a Cabinet all of whose members accept responsibility for everything which every other member of that Cabinet does and which is prepared to face the House and face the country as a collective body? Are we going to have government by an administration which has a common policy? If we are, what is the explanation of the statement which was made by the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Finance that henceforth there would be no sales of land to any person who was not a national of this State? How are we going to reconcile that statement with a statement——
On a point of order, such a statement was never made by me.
I have seen no contradiction. I read the Irish Times yesterday. I read the Irish Times this morning and I have seen no contradiction on the part of the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Finance of the statement which was ascribed to him by that newspaper. How are we going to reconcile that statement with the advertisement which was published in the Irish Independent on the 26th May——
On a point of order.
I think it is the same point of order and I am just going to deal with it. The Deputy is quoting from a newspaper report, the accuracy of which is denied by the Parliamentary Secretary. In the circumstances, the Parliamentary Secretary's word must be taken.
It cannot be denied, because I can produce printed evidence that it was made. I listened to it.
I respectfully submit that I am not going to be put in the position that I refuse to accept what the Parliamentary Secretary has said here. I did not hear him say anything outside the House. I have only the use of my eyes. I am repeating again that I read a certain statement ascribed to the Parliamentary Secretary in the Irish Times. I read that yesterday morning. I have seen no contradiction of that statement published in the Irish Times to-day. So far as I am concerned, the matter rests between the Parliamentary Secretary and the Irish Times, and he has his remedy. If the Parliamentary Secretary now assures me that he did not make that statement, I am not prepared to give him the lie.
On a point of order, my statement as it appeared in the Irish Times yesterday and in the Irish Press to-day is completely divorced from its context.
As I have said, it is a matter between the Parliamentary Secretary and the newspapers, and I do not want to intervene between him and them. I have no doubt, perhaps, like many others of us, he may sometimes have to complain of the manner in which his speeches are reported. But we have all suffered from that and we have had to submit to a continuous misrepresentation, even when we had denied the misrepresentations as the Parliamentary Secretary has denied the accuracy of this report.
I take it the Deputy accepts my statement.
The Deputy has said so.
Therefore the foreigners can buy land all the time—that is a bit of a come-back.
Fianna Fáil allowed them to do it.
I do not want to make any point out of what has been ascribed to the Parliamentary Secretary by the Irish Times other than to remind him and the other members of the Government that it was, apparently, the policy of Clann na Talmhan, at any rate in 1947-and I presume it is still the policy of the Minister for Lands—that free sale could not be done away with and that free sale cannot be done away with. I suppose he will have to leave it at that.
I was emphasising that, if we are going to have responsible government in accordance with the Constitution, we must have a Government with a common policy, a Government acting upon common principles. I understand that the Minister for Industry and Commerce has recently had some interviews with those who are interested or have interested themselves in the industrial development of this country and that he gave them assurances which were regarded by them as being generally satisfactory. If so, how are we going to reconcile that with the statement which was made in Cork by the Minister for External Affairs that his policy was going to be to seek a customs union with the North? I do not know whether the Minister for External Affairs is sufficiently well acquainted with the position which exists as between the Government of the Six Counties and the Government of Great Britain. He would appear to be unaware of the fact that there is already in existence a customs union between the Six Counties and Great Britain. I want to know whether this statement of the Minister for External Affairs represents the considered policy of the Government of which he is a member; whether the Minister for Industry and Commerce is accepting collective responsibility for that statement with the Minister for External Affairs; whether, in fact, it is now the aim of the Minister for Industry and Commerce to look for a customs union with the Six Counties.
Viewing the circumstances as they exist to-day and the circumstances in which that statement was made, I think that it must be a very disquieting one to those who have invested their savings and put their energy and their enterprise into Irish industrial development. Are we to take it that we are going to have a customs union with the Six Counties without a political union? Are we to take it that the barriers which have been erected by them are going to be raised in order to allow their goods and their manufactures to compete with us, while at the same time they maintain the political barrier? Is that going to be the policy of the Minister for External Affairs? Are the industries which have been established here in the Twenty-Six Counties at such great cost to our people and which are now flourishing, going to be submitted to Northern competition without our getting any political recompense or compensation for them? That, so far as one can read, is the policy of the Minister for External Affairs. Is it the policy of the Minister for Industry and Commerce also? Let us at least know where we stand. Does this Cabinet speak with a common voice in this matter or has it many voices, each of them adapted to the particular circumstances of the moment and to the particular exigencies of the Minister who happens then to hold the platform?
I think it is very regrettable that a statement of that sort should be made by the Minister for External Affairs. There is no public pronouncement that he has made in regard to Partition that has not created grave dissatisfaction, extreme discontent and a high anger amongst the nationalists of the Six Counties. He is the man who told them that their nationality and their patriotism was one of the belly and the pocket. He is the man who has told them, when they are fighting and struggling to maintain their separate existence there as a unit which wishes to be united with the rest of Ireland, that their protestations and their desire for unity were only a sham; that he did not believe that they really felt so keenly about this problem as he did. I think it is a regrettable thing that, so far as the Government's policy in relation to Partition has to be moulded or shaped, the responsibility for it should be entrusted to a Minister who, however estimable he may be in other respects, lacks one essential to a proper understanding of that problem, and that is, an early knowledge of the factors upon which it has been based. He knows nothing about the history of Partition. He knows nothing about how Partition was encompassed in this country. He knows nothing about the feelings and the desires and the ambitions of the nationalists of the Six Counties and, in all sincerity, I doubt whether he knows very much about the feelings of the ordinary common Irishman of the Twenty-Six Counties in regard to it.
On a point of order. It was ruled here yesterday on this Vote we were limited to matters of administration.
No.
That was ruled when I was speaking—that matters of administration only could be dealt with on this Vote.
What is the point of order?
The point of order I am making is that the personal knowledge of the Minister for External Affairs is not an issue in this debate.
Policy is an issue in the debate—large questions of policy.
It took me a long time to learn.
I have said enough about that aspect of the matter. Perhaps I might refer to another aspect of the international situation which, apparently, has caused a certain amount of disquiet in the ranks of the Vanguard and in the ranks, perhaps, of those who might be described as having been on the right side of the civil war—the legion of the rearguard.
What about Mallow and the train in 1916?
The Vanguard was obviously very anxious and very concerned at the fact that the Minister for External Affairs was going to Paris. In fact so concerned was the Deputy who speaks for it that he wanted to raise this matter as a matter of urgent public importance and for that purpose desired on Tuesday to move the adjournment of the House. The Order Paper yesterday carried a question from a Deputy whom I used to know, and do still, as what might be described, and was described in 1922-23, as a die-hard republican. He seems to be uneasy at the fact that the Minister, for External Affairs is going to Paris. May I, on behalf of myself and perhaps on behalf of some others, express concern at the fact that the present Minister for External Affairs should be a person with his background and with his record in relation to Moscow. I think that it is rather unfortunate——
The Deputy is going rather wide of the debate now.
——at this critical stage in the history of Europe that we should have our views in relation to the Continent expressed and represented by a gentleman who has sent his fraternal greetings to Russia. That will not, of course, cause any alarm or concern to the Minister for Social Welfare.
Anything you say would cause no alarm except in an asylum, and there your brothers are proud of you.
The South Irish Horse Regiment.
When the results of this election were known, Sir, many people said that, at any rate, we are going to have a House of young and enthusiastic men. There was a Party which called itself the Party of youth, and Fine Gael was supposed to he recruiting new and ardent spirits to its ranks. When I was young, youth was associated with energy, enterprise and eagerness to adventure. I do not think——
You should not have missed that train.
That is how you missed the train.
I did not miss the post office and other things, and Deputy McAuliffe did. I heard sentence of death pronounced upon myself. You did not. I do not want to boast, but Deputies know that I have never been afraid to accept responsibilities when they were thrust upon me. If I was a follower of John Redmond in 1914, I was prepared to carry out the responsibilities arising from that.
That sentence put you standing there. Nobody on that side of the House will get me——
Order.
When I was young, as I said, youth was commonly associated in the public mind with energy, enterprise and eagerness to adventure. I wonder did any person ever listen to such expressions or senile cynicism as we listened to from Deputy O'Higgins, Junior, and Deputy McQuillan when they talked about our "toy boats" and about the money which we were going to spend on aviation for mere purposes of prestige. I would have thought the young men of Ireland would like to carry the Flag of Ireland high. I thought that the young men of Ireland would be glad to see the Irish flag carried on our warships, be they big or small, on the Irish Sea. There was a time when most of us thought that the highest ambition of our lives would be to see that flag carried on Irish waters and to see that flag waving over Irish soil, and that we should live to see it carried across the Atlantic Ocean on aeroplanes belonging to the Irish nation. But that is only a matter for jibing and jeering so far as the young men of Clann na Poblachta are concerned. They talk about "toy boats". They would rather see the money spent upon what they describe as "utilitarian services." They tell us that we do not want a navy, we do not want an army, that the British Navy will protect us and that the British Army will protect us.
Who said that?
I was only quoting Deputy Lemass's speech of 1929.
You quoted it with approval.
I quoted it with Deputy Lemass's approval.
They want the British Navy, the British Army and British airfleets to protect us, and they want our goods and our people to be carried on British bottoms and British planes. That is what the ultra-Republicans have degenerated into. That does not represent the view of all of them, of those whom I know to be republicans who are prepared to fight for the Republic and who would place the honour of the Irish flag higher than any utilitarian benefit or advantage which the people might derive from safe, secure and smug cynicism. The Republic we have established, if Deputy McQuillan and some of those who are associated in Clann na Poblachta have their way, is going to degenerate into a British protectorate. That would seem to be Deputy McQuillan's objective, but I am perfectly certain that it is not the objective of all his colleagues, at any rate.
The fact of the matter is this: as far as these Deputies are concerned, the potentialities of our geographical situation, the hopes of our future development as an aviation centre in the world are going to be sacrificed to the price of the pint. That is the policy of the new Republican Party; the pint above all, tobacco above all and pictures above all, but as far as the Irish nation is concerned, prestige, status and dignity below everything else.
I would have thought that this debate would have been utilised by the Minister for Finance, or perhaps more appropriately by the Taoiseach, to have outlined the policy of the Government. We have been singularly unfortunate in that respect. After having been three weeks in office this conglomeration of Parties, each of which was supposed to have a policy which would cure all our ills, is unable to enunciate one here in Dáil Éireann. The Taoiseach can go down to the Broadcasting Station and broadcast: the newspapers can be filled with ten-point programmes; but as far as the representatives of the people who are asked to vote the money are concerned, the Taoiseach is dumb and so far all his Ministers have been dumb.
Surely we are entitled to know, and the people are entitled to know, what is going to be the policy of the Government in relation to two matters which were mentioned by Deputy Lemass. What is it going to do in relation to tea and in relation to sugar? We are told that there is no reason, as far as supply is concerned, why the people should be stinted any longer in relation to these two articles of common consumption. Tea is plentiful and sugar is going to become plentiful. Here in Ireland, where we are rich enough to buy all the tea we want and all the sugar we want, we still continue to be rationed in relation to tea and sugar. When the Fianna Fáil Administration was in power if the people wanted food and could not produce it for themselves we went out to buy all we could get at whatever price we could get it. That was our policy in relation to tea, wheat and sugar and we sold what we purchased to the people at as reasonable a price as we could. Now the people are kept on short commons in order to save the Exchequer. That is one economy which the Minister for Finance is making. To-morrow morning or next week —making due allowance for administrative difficulties—the tea and the sugar rations could be increased, but they are not going to be increased because the Minister for Finance and the Government of which he is a member have decided that it is going to be too expensive as far as the Exchequer is concerned. Now let the Government be honest with the people. Let the people have the food and if the Government is not prepared to subsidise it in order to let them have it at the price at which Fianna Fáil provided it for them let them at any rate have it at whatever price they have to pay for it. Let them have it and do not keep it from them in order to ease your political difficulties. Your political difficulties are difficulties of your own making, difficulties arising out of the rash pledges which you gave and it is not right that you should make the people suffer for them.
This session of the Dáil has been significant for one thing. During the election it was the common complaint of those Parties who were then in opposition, as they are to-day, to the Fianna Fáil policy, that this country was bankrupt. It has not taken the Minister for Finance very long to discover that, in fact, the situation is the reverse. In his statement announcing the loan, the Minister for Finance stated that the credit of the country is high, and that since 1939 there has been a comparatively small addition to the national debt. Yes, the credit of this State is high—as high as any in Europe, as high I might say without exaggeration as any in the world. The loan which is now being offered, for which subscriptions have been opened to-day, is the soundest investment imaginable. Any man who subscribes to that loan is making a good investment. It is being offered, if anything. I think upon terms which are too favourable to the investor. I think if there had been another Minister for Finance and if a loan were necessary, the people could have got their money upon more favourable terms, upon terms which would be less onerous upon those who will have to succeed the present Minister for Finance. Therefore, there is no reason whatever why any person in this country or outside it should hesitate to invest in that loan if he has the cash lying idle. However, having said that, and that relates only to the credit of this State, I want to go on to say that I do not understand why it has been necessary to float the loan at this particular time. So far as the Exchequer return is concerned, it does not indicate that there is any grave need for the money. On the contrary, the Exchequer balances seem to be in a very healthy condition. There is a certain amount of borrowing, it is true——
On a point of order, was this matter not decided by this House a couple of days ago, and was authority not given for this loan by the members of this House, including the Deputy?
There is no necessity——
A statement was made by the Minister which was approved by the House.
By everybody. Therefore, it ought not be questioned.
And the Deputy has not disapproved of it.
He is saying that it is not necessary.
Let the Deputy do his worst now.
I am doing no worst. The people of this country know that the credit of this State is good.
Hear, hear!
And the Minister knows it, too.
What I am questioning is the present policy of the Minister and the Government in raising this loan. I am questioning whether it is necessary or not, because I want to know——
Do you, because I have to answer if you ask this question?
I can see nothing——
You are not going to do things any good.
——in the Exchequer returns which would indicate——
I would ask, Sir, for discretion in this matter. I would plead——
Yes.
I will be discreet. I do not wish to do the loan or the State any harm.
It is a good investment.
It may not be so good after the Deputy has finished.
The Minister for Finance has the last word in this matter. If any damage will be done, he will do the damage.
You will make me either sit silent or reply.
The Minister has asked for discretion.
I have never been indiscreet in relation to financial matters.
The Minister thinks it is advisable that he should not reply.
I do not know what the Minister thinks or does not think.
It is a matter for the Deputy's own discretion.
If it is, Sir, then I will take my responsibility. I want to say that we have been told that one of the reasons why this loan is necessary is in order to defray some of the costs of the industrial and other development undertakings which were initiated or carried out by the late Government. Looking at the Exchequer returns—and I can read them as well as anybody—so far as my judgment and my opinion goes, this financial year of 1947-48 is going to close with a very substantial surplus. Revenue has been particularly buoyant. It is no less than £10,000,000 up on last year already. I know, of course, that there will be heavy outgoings between now and the close of the year, but I also know that there will be a heavy income and, so far as my reading of the Exchequer returns goes, this year is going to close with a substantial surplus.
Will you take a £10 bet on it?
We know the Minister.
I know that the Minister can overhold. I am no tyro in this matter.
Take up the bet.
It will close with the same substantial surplus as every other year since 1941.
Since when?
With such a surplus that we were able to carry on and defray the costs of the emergency services and the other additional services created by the Fianna Fáil Administration without having to borrow outside the resources of the Exchequer since 1941.
Since 1941? My statement was not made in this House without a good deal of consideration as to what had to be said. I thought fit to say that not since 1941, when the National Security Loan was issued, has it been necessary for the State to invite subscriptions to a public issue. I added in the next sentence that the proceeds of that loan were exhausted by 1943. In two years the £8,000,000 loan was exhausted. I hope the Deputy will not continue any further.
Wait, what are the borrowings of the State at the moment? By savings certificates, in which people invested, which were bought £936,000, and we paid out to the extent of £657,000 leaving a net investment in saving certificates; by ways and means advances, which are merely advances from Departmental funds under the control of the Minister for Finance, £3,200,000 and by Exchequer Bills £1,450,000. As I have said, I can see on these figures no justification for issuing a loan at this particular moment. We are told by the Taoiseach that the loan is to be issued because of the financial problem with which we are faced. If there is a financial problem it is a financial problem of the Government's own creation——
It is not.
——arising out of the imprudent and incontinent repeal of the duties which were imposed under the Supplementary Budget.
That is deliberately bad and very dishonest.
That is why. If the financial policy of the last Government had been allowed to operate, we should have closed this year with a very substantial surplus and we would have been able to divert——
We would not.
——to the services which would normally have to be met out of revenue during the next budgetary year——
There should be somebody over there with better judgment to close you up.
We should have had, as we have had in every other year, a substantial surplus to appropriate to capital purposes. That would have been the position. I do not know what is the cause of the sudden change. I do know that sources of revenue which the Exchequer could have counted upon when Deputy Aiken was Minister for Finance have now been cut off, and that, perhaps, in consequence it may be necessary to meet some of the abnormal expenditures which we have been in the habit of meeting out of revenue out of the loan.
When were they cut off?
If the Minister for Finance does not know himself——
I know, but do you know?
I understand that they were imposed up to——
How long before the end of the financial year? Three weeks.
A very significant three weeks. It is not only that. If the financial position warranted it, they would have been continued on in the next Budget. From what the Minister has said, however, it does not matter for what purpose, we cannot now raise any more money out of beer, out of tobacco or out of entertainments. That is the policy of the Government, and people are asking themselves how is the Minister for Finance going to raise this money. It is all very well for the Minister for Finance and for those Deputies who are prepared to support him to think that there is an easy way out, that you borrow this money——
We are not borrowing it for any deficit in future and well you know it.
According to a statement in the papers to-day the service of the loan is going to cost, for sinking fund and interest, 7 per cent.— 3 per cent. for interest and 2 per cent. on the loan outstanding, to be set aside half-yearly for sinking fund purposes. So that the service for interest and sinking fund purposes is going to amount to 7 per cent. Will any Deputy just calculate what 7 per cent. on £12,000,000 is going to be? Just calculate that and you realise that, though the Minister for Finance may get out of his immediate budgetary problems, next year and every year after, he is going to have to find a substantial sum for the service of that loan. So far as I can see the loan has been issued in advance of the budgetary statement——
You are quite wrong and I believe you know it.
That remains to be seen.
The Minister will have his chance later.
This is most irresponsible.
Everybody who has money knows that they have a chance now of getting in on a good thing. It is not easy to pick up 3 per cent. upon a substantial sum of money in any country whose credit is as high as that of this country is. People will subscribe to the loan, and justifiably so, but we are not going to be put in the position, because we know the credit of the country to be high, of saying that we think the judgment of the present Minister for Finance is sound. When the Minister for Finance was in opposition here, he was an enthusiastic a monetary reformer as, say, Deputy Flanagan. He was, like the present Minister for External Affairs, sceptical about the link with sterling. He, like the present Minister for Social Welfare and like Deputy Cowan, felt that we should do all these things outside the present capitalist system. Though I would say to any man outside who has money to spare, who has money idle on which he might be only getting 3 per cent. or 2½ per cent., that he should hop at this chance and go into the loan, I am not at the same time being put into the situation of saying that because we think the loan is a good thing for the investor, we are satisfied that it is going ultimately to be as good a thing for the taxpayer as it might be. It will depend very largely upon the projects for which it is used.
If it is used to carry through to fulfilment the undertakings which were started by Fianna Fáil, if it is used to develop Irish shipping, to develop Aer Lingus and Aer Linte and our other air services, if it is used to extend the electricity supply and to carry through the programme of rural electrification which the Fianna Fáil Government started, if it is used for turf development, to modernise our harbours, to modernise our roads and give the farmers of the country a proper transport system, then it will be well used and it will be very productive. But, I gather, many of these things are going to fall under the axe. I gather that the future of the air services is in jeopardy. I understand that, to please some members of Clann na Talmhan, the improvement of our roads has become a matter of doubt. I understand that the Fianna Fáil programme for the development of the peat resources has been drastically curtailed. Therefore, as I say, I am very doubtful and very sceptical. While I do not minimise the advantages of the loan to investors, I am doubtful and sceptical as to whether it will be, in the hands of the present Government, wisely and reproductively used.
Listening to the Deputies on the opposite side of the House one would think they had no responsibility, good, bad or indifferent, for these Estimates, despite the fact that the Minister has told us in his opening statement that the Estimates were in the hands of the printers before this Government assumed office. It appears to me that these Estimates are far and away beyond the capacity of the people of this country with its population of something under 3,000,000. Rather than embark upon these grandiose schemes of transworld air travel, luxury hotels and speed highways, it would be better for us to devote all our efforts towards the development and extension of the natural industries of this country, such as agriculture, fisheries and afforestation. It must be remembered that the facilities provided by these grandiose schemes will be availed of principally by foreigners and not by the unfortunate natives, who will be called upon to bear the greater part of the cost of these schemes. Deputy MacEntee thought a moment ago that we should be very much enamoured with the idea of having obsolete corvettes travelling around our coast with the Tricolour flying from their masts, but I think the Deputy also foreshadowed that across the Tricolour would appear the word "austerity", because it means that the people of this country will have to suffer austerity for the privilege of having these out-of-date vessels patrolling our coast.
Why?
He knows nothing about them.
You are not a good source of education or a good source of information.
The Minister has suggested that we should increase the standard of our agricultural products. I believe it is vitally necessary to the well-being of the country to increase our agricultural production and agricultural projects. I would, however, ask the Minister to remember that it is unreasonable to ask the farmers of this country to increase production when at the same time the farmers' costs are increasing. If the farmer must bear the increased cost of his raw materials, if he must pay more for his labour and if he must pay more in rates and taxes without getting more for his commodities then he cannot increase production under existing conditions.
Was I not listening to the Minister for Agriculture yesterday——
It is customary to give a Deputy a good hearing when he is making his maiden speech.
Mr. Lehane
I am sorry. Am I being irrelevant?
Not at all.
Mr. Lehane
I have listened to speeches here and, having listened to them, I rather wondered why the AllIreland Final on next Saturday was not discussed. As far as I can see all the world over and in this country, too, since the repeal of the Corn Laws, those engaged in producing food have not got a fair crack of the whip. Certain conditions were created in the countries which had sufficient influence and, because of that, the producers of food—the most essential of all commodities—were reduced to slave conditions. The way in which that situation was created was that you had an alleged surplus or alleged surpluses. These surpluses did not exist in actual fact because at no time has food been produced beyond the need for it. You have had alleged surpluses simultaneously with having people dying from malnutrition. I think the outlook is somewhat different now and I hope that as a result of the formation of this international federation of agricultural producers agriculture will be helped and that in this country at any rate there will be no malnutrition.
Our past Governments have failed to realise that the land of this country is the principal source of our wealth. Generally speaking, they have legislated with an urban-minded mentality. They have legislated in favour of those people who were not producing the real wealth of the country. I think we are in the unfortunate position to-day in this country of having become the most urban-minded legislature of any country in the world. All the legislation introduced here has resulted in attracting people to the towns and cities because of a different standard of wages in the cities and the towns as compared with the standard obtaining in the rural areas. Because of that you have created grave social problems in the big centres of population. You cannot solve these problems by throwing millions into social welfare. You can feed millions of pounds to social welfare but it is only a palliative. If you want to solve the problem you must turn your mind to the fundamental fact that 75 per cent. of our people who are gainfully employed are employed directly or indirectly in agriculture. Unless that 75 per cent. have spending power the country as a whole cannot be prosperous. If you try, as past Administrations have done, to build up an artificial prosperity in the towns and cities that prosperity will fail because it is an artificial one and, in the last analysis, you will have graver social problems to contend with. I do not want to develop that point any further for the moment.
There is in the Estimates provision made for old age pensions. I would like the Minister to tell us what proportion of that sum is devoted to old age pensions and what proportion is spent on administration. I know of a case in Cork where a pensions officer hired a car for £5 or £6; he travelled over a wide area of the county; his salary had to be paid by the Government; the hire of his car had to be paid by the Government. As a result of his tour he succeeded in reducing the pension of one old woman of 75 years by the sum of 1/- per week. If the administration of the means test costs more than it is worth, I think it should be abolished. I think that is one matter which the Minister should examine closely.
There is another item in the Estimates for vocational schools. So far as I can judge in my own county, these vocational schools are so many white elephants dotted all over the place. There are not enough pupils to keep the teachers occupied. I think it would be better if we were to develop some continuation of the primary school programme and, if necessary, add another room to the primary school and there teach the children something of the particular industry in which the greatest number of them will engage in the future—that is, agriculture. It is no use teaching the girls in Skibbereen, Macroom and Kinsale how to make éclairs. It would be much better to teach them something practical. It would be much better for the farmers' sons and the agricultural workers' sons to learn something about agriculture, something about soil surveys, something about soil analysis, and so on, than teaching them fantastic ideas in these schools which tend to make them flee from the rural countryside.
There is a Vote in these Estimates also for the Tourist Board. I suggest to the Minister that that is something which should also be dispensed with. I do not know what the Tourist Board is doing, but I know what the board is not doing. The Tourist Board may be trying to turn Tramore into a Blackpool and I sincerely hope they will not succeed in doing it. But I know that within 12 or 14 miles of Cork City and in Cork City and suburbs you have a population of over 100,000 people. There is a seaside resort there called Crosshaven which has many natural facilities. It is a place that, if it were anywhere else in the world and if there were a Tourist Board in that particular country, would be fully developed, because it is a playground, if I might say so, for these 100,000 people. But the Tourist Board have completely ignored that. Cork is too small and, if they developed Crosshaven to facilitate the people of Cork, they would be only catering for natives, which is above the province of the Tourist Board.
During the debates the other day I was surprised to hear Deputy Davin bringing up the old hardy annual about bank deposits. Deputy Davin is a man of intelligence and ability and I am surprised at his referring to farmers' deposits because, if Deputy Davin had gone to the trouble of capitalising the value of the farms in this country and had applied the total bank deposits, not the deposits held by farmers, he would find that the industry was very short of capital. Deputy Davin should know that the number or the amount of the deposits that are alleged to be held by farmers are not really held by farmers. They are held by anybody who holds land. It might be a farmer-shopkeeper or a farmerpublican and other sections. In addition to that, there is an economic precedent in this country that people must keep a certain amount of money at hand, as you have the old system of giving fortunes to farmers' daughters when they get married. These fortunes are the wages that these daughters have earned and earned very hardly. They are not even getting the statutory wage in these alleged fortunes that they are getting. In addition to that, Deputy Davin should also have remembered that for the past seven, eight or nine years farmers have not been farming; they have been mining their soil, because they cannot get the fertilisers necessary to keep the soil in heart. They cannot get the requirements to keep their farm buildings and their equipment in repair. That money has gone into the banks and they will have to do all these jobs in the near future and will have to pay twice as much for them as they would have had to pay if they could get them done at the correct time. I think that disposes to a certain degree of the bank deposits.
One thing that rather amused me was that Deputy Hickey told us shortly after Deputy Davin had spoken that money was not wealth, after Deputy Davin had told us that it was. Deputy Hickey also referred to the fact that he met a constituent of his who said he was going to England to earn his living as a farm worker at £4 a week, whereas he could only get £3 in this country. I want to explain the position of the Irish farmer as compared with the position of the English farmer. The Irish farmer has to pay considerably more for his raw material than the English farmer. I think that the English farmer can get superphosphate, for instance, at £2 10s. per ton, whereas we are compelled to buy superphosphate of inferior quality from a monopoly company in this country at £11 per ton. Everything that the English farmer buys is cheaper than what the Irish farmer has to pay, and, at the same time, everything that the English farmer sells, he gets more for it than the Irish farmer gets. Is it any wonder that the gentleman that Deputy Hickey met should expect to get £1 more from an English farmer than we can afford to pay him in Ireland?
We had talk about beet last night. Deputy Killilea, who is very interested in beet, and Deputy MacEntee said that they turned the Carlow factory from a white elephant into something else. I do not know whether Deputy MacEntee is like the fairy godmother in the pantomime or what he is, but the position is that Deputy Killilea comes from the Tuam district where there is a beet factory and there was a statement in the newspapers recently from the general manager of the Irish Sugar Company that the Tuam factory was going to be a white elephant and an uneconomic unit to work and that there was great danger that it would have to be closed down.
A number of Deputies shed tears over the turf scheme — crocodile tears probably. I should like to say that the housewives of this country have shed a lot more tears and, if you combine the tears of the housewives and the crocodile tears of the Deputies on the opposite benches, I think you will get more tears than the turf was worth which they were asked to burn and make fuel of. I have no sympathy for that particular business and I think the Government are quite right. I think it is ridiculous to ask the people to pay three guineas per ton for turf and at the same time ask the ratepayers and taxpayers to subsidise it by some extra pounds. I think that when it is necessary in this country to impose an austerity Budget on the people we cannot afford the luxury of waterlogged hand-won turf.
With regard to the Estimate for the Land Commission, certain statements have been made here that my Party, the Clann na Talmhan Party, are not in favour of fixity of tenure and free sale. I want to say definitely that we are in favour of free sale and fixity of tenure and that we are opposed to anything that does not agree with that. It is part of our policy, and I hope that it will be part of the Government's policy. I feel that this Estimate is greater than the people of this country can bear, and I appeal to the Minister for Industry and Commerce to effect whatever economics he possibly can. There is no use in expecting agricultural producers to produce more if they have the taxes imposed upon them which are crippling them at the moment.
I want to say, first of all, that it is quite obvious to us on this side of the House that this Government is going to have quite a deal of difficulty in coming to conclusions as to how it is best going to manage State affairs for the benefit of the people as a whole, there are so many varieties of policy which will have to be related one to the other until some compromise shall have been reached with a view to governing. On top of that the Government, I think, realises that it has added responsibilities. If we are to take it that there is anything in the feeling that is abroad that there could be, or that there is likely to be, a war in the near future, the Government must take steps and keep in mind that it must make certain decisions in order to make sure that our people will be provided for, where, in the event of a war, we might have a worse experience even than we had in the last war. Consequently, they have to keep in mind that there must be certain expenditure by way of insurance, as it were, rather than by way of getting an absolute return.
I listened to some of the speeches made by some members of the House. I listened with particular interest to some. I was very interested, for instance, to hear Deputy Cowan summing up what he thought to be the solution to the problems which confronted the country and which confront the Government in particular. He said, first of all, that the wages of agricultural workers must be increased. He said that the farmers—the producers of commodities and the employers of the agricultural workers—must get an attractive and economic price. They must be induced to produce more by having a fair price. Then he said, on top of this, that the cost of living must be reduced. He wound up by saying that in order to bring about these three results to the satisfaction of all concerned, one would have to go outside the capitalist system. I cannot follow that line of reasoning unless the Government has accepted that as a formula. Then, of course, our approach to most of the trouble would be quite different, and probably the results might be quite different, too.
Another point which I would like to refer to is this. Deputy Lemass, I think, without any hesitation, wished the loan which the Minister for Finance is floating absolute success and I think that that wish for its success is shared by everybody in the House without exception. But the Minister for Finance seems to be rather worried that certain Deputies have taken a certain view about the purposes to which the proceeds of the loan will be applied. I say to the Minister for Finance that it was unfair of him to suggest yesterday that Deputy Bartley started a hare in connection with this particular matter. I would suggest that the Minister for Finance should send to the Library and get a copy of yesterday's Daily Mail where he would see headlines in the black type which the Daily Mail uses as a result of what they say was a statement to their reporter by the Taoiseach. They state that the proceeds of the loan will also go to reduce the cost of living. What does that mean? Does it mean that the proceeds of the loan will be used to replace the remitted taxes on beer and cigarettes and on admission to picture houses and to greyhound racing tracks, or does it mean that it will be used in some other way? I think that the Minister would be wise to make it quite clear that that is not the way in which the proceeds of the loan will be used.
I should make it clear to whom?
To the public.
Or to the Daily Mail? Why should I?
Because it circulates here.
It might be more misleading.
Send to the Library and get a copy of yesterday's Daily Mail and read what it says.
I listened to Deputy Bartley and I replied.
The Minister for Finance accused Deputy Bartley of trying to set up in the minds of the public a certain line of thought.
So he did.
I say that the Minister is unfair, because if he takes a copy of yesterday's Daily Mail he will see where the statement is published and where it is attributed by the reporter to the Taoiseach. I think that he ought to make it clear that the statement is entirely without foundation and entirely wrong.
And then I suppose that Deputy Bartley will accept it?
I am sure that he will accept it. If the Minister states that the statement in the Daily Mail was wrong and that the purposes for which the proceeds of the loan will be used will be purely capital purposes and not in order to make up any deficiency as a result of the remissions of the taxes or as subsidies, then I think that everybody will accept his word.
Was the Deputy here when I made my statement?
Yes.
Did you hear what I said?
I did.
Was that not clear?
Not apparently in the view of the Daily Mail.
I am not going to bother my head about the Daily Mail.
As long as the Daily Mail knows that it is all right but they will not be looking for any further interviews.
It is a wonder that the Deputy would read the Daily Mail. It is a wonder that a great Republican like him would read English papers.
I read any paper, English or American.
The Taoiseach gave an interview to that paper.
Deputy MacEntee was quite correct when he stated that because the credit of our State is high, and further, because it is an attractive loan, the loan will be over-subscribed and the question of how the proceeds of the loan will be used or a discussion about it will in no way interfere with the success of the loan. I am not going to reply to that because it may affect the success of the loan itself. That is not so. If this State and certain public institutions in this country enjoy a very high reputation —the Dublin Corporation included— I am sure this loan, like other loans such as the corporation loan or the 1941 loan, will be very much over-subscribed. I consider that the Minister will have great difficulty in keeping his conditional promise that those who subscribe up to £2,500 will receive their application in full.
£5,000.
I mean up to £5,000. The Minister will find it difficult to implement that promise because the loan will be so much over-subscribed. The Minister is now dismissing the Daily Mail. I am satisfied that his dismissal of it can, in fact, be now interpreted by us as meaning that there is no foundation for the suggestion contained in that paper.
Yesterday I listened to Deputy Timoney of the Clann na Talmhan Party. In his speech he suggested that income-tax should be increased in such a way that a man with £1,000 a year should be made pay twice as much as a man with £500 a year. Surely that is the case. A man who pays incometax on £500 a year pays less than a man who pays income-tax on £1,000 and the more he progresses to a higher rate the more he pays in relation to his increased income. He pays far higher, relatively, than the person who is limited to the payment of income-tax on a £500 income. The suggestion made by Deputy Timoney would indicate that, notwithstanding the proposed savings which the Government is going to make as a result of the axe which is going to be brought down now on a variety of items which were estimated for in the Book of Estimates, there is going to be increased taxation generally.
Deputy Timoney made a distinct statement to the effect that if taxes have to be raised they should be raised by heavier taxation on the rich.
I am not anxious to misquote anybody.
That is what he said.
He said he wanted the person who had £1,000 a year to be made pay twice as much in income-tax as the man with £500 a year.
He said, "Put the burden on the broad back. Make the rich man pay heavier."
Did he not say what I have said?
I do not remember.
I made a note of what Deputy Timoney said.
Do you not understand his point? Was his point not that if there has to be extra taxation, the rich should be made to bear a bigger proportion of it?
Yes, but he used as his formula——
You knew what he was at?
No. What I thought he was at was that he expects that there will be increased taxation. I want to say to Deputy Timoney and to the House in regard to the taxes put on the people in the interim Budget—the 3d. on the pint, the 4d. on cigarettes, and the 6d. on tobacco— that if this new Government, who all agreed to remedy those taxes, are now going to make the public pay for the remission of those taxes by the loss of their employment, the people——
That is what you would do.
Is Deputy O'Leary going to say that no people are going to lose employment as a result of the change being brought about by this Government?
There are 70,000 unemployed at the moment.
Deputy Briscoe should be allowed to make his speech.
There will be 140,000 if the Deputy does not wake up.
What will be?
I have stated that if the interim Budget has been, to a great extent, the cause of the change of Government, I think that for those people who now have their pint and their cigarettes at the old prices, if they are going to suffer entire loss of employment the exchange is worse.
As long as it is a hypothesis it is all right.
I do not want to see anybody lose employment as a result of the change of Government just for the satisfaction of being able to say "There you are." I hope that the country and the individuals in the country will not suffer.
Hear, hear!
It is possible that the Government may be able to do better than the Fianna Fáil Government did, but I say that it is not probable.
They have not had as long to wait to see.
A long time——
Three solid weeks.
And in those three solid weeks a great number of our people who are employed are very doubtful about their future.
They may be doubtful but they have retained their employment.
Deputy Briscoe must be allowed to make his speech.
I do not see, from what any spokesman of the Government has said, any assurance that certain people are not going to lose their employment in which they have been engaged for a number of years. It is quite obvious that all those who have been engaged in the production of hand-won turf are going to be disemployed.
Are they?
Well, if the Minister can say that they are not going to be disemployed I will sit down and be very happy, because I will have nothing further to say.
It is a very tempting offer.
Then say it and I will sit down. If, however, the Minister does not say so, then I can say that all the appearances of what is taking place spell unemployment for that section of the public, at any event. It has been almost universally accepted in that conglomeration of Parties over there that Aer Linte is going to close down. There will be a consequent loss of employment there. I say that if these things are true a great number of the people who were excited and agitated into voting against the Fianna Fáil Party in this recent general election because the pint had become 11d. instead of 8d. will be very sorry for taking the advice.
Deputy MacEntee read out in this House a series of figures by way of comparison between the Book of Estimates as it appeared in 1932 when Fianna Fáil took office and the Book of Estimates now in hand when this inter-Party Government has taken over. I do not know whether this Government should be described as a Coalition Government or as an inter-Party Government. I have heard some members describe it as "inter-Party" and others as "Coalition", but whatever the name of the Party there is quite a different picture in these Estimates compared with that in the 1932 Estimates.
You are telling me.
I am telling the House and I hope I am telling the country as well. As Deputy MacEntee pointed out, there were no such things as children's allowances, widows' and orphans' pensions, and other items which he read out, in the 1932 Estimates. The Minister now says: "You are telling me", but he will probably be telling the widows and orphans and the old age pensioners and the other beneficiaries of State assistance that those expenditures should never have occurred and that they cannot be borne. I believe that every member of the House wishes the country well. I do not believe that anybody in this House wishes the country ill, but I say that it is possible that some people may have wrong ideas as to how they are going to bring even greater good to the country as a whole. It is probable, too, that mistakes will be made. I cannot understand, and the Minister, as Deputy MacEntee pointed out, has not yet indicated what the policy of the Government is going to be. There is an air of expectancy: there is an atmosphere of uncertainty: nobody knows. We will get a statement, possibly, when the Dáil reassembles towards the end of April, as to what the policy is and as to what items are going to be cut down. We have heard it advocated here that the Tourist Board should be discontinued. The Tourist Board is an item of £40,000 in a Book of Estimates of £70,000,000.
A Deputy
£76,000,000.
The £6,000,000 refers to the Central Fund.
And a half.
I will concede the Minister the half but even the interrupterhave something to learn. £40,000 has to be saved and the Tourist Board has been singled out for criticism. What has the Tourist Board been worth to the country? Has it been a loss or a gain to the country? I heard members of the Clann na Talmhan Party during the past election making speeches advocating the stoppage of the tourist traffic without having any regard for the fact that there are thousands and thousands of our people engaged in trade which caters for tourists, without any regard for the fact that there is a tremendous return to the State in excise and in the indirect taxes paid by the visitors who consume articles which are taxed. "Cut off £40,000 and stop the tourist trade".
Take £40,000 off the tourist trade?
I did not say that. What I meant was that a Deputy of Clann na Talmhan suggested that we should not spend this £40,000 and should stop the tourist trade.
Where did you see that?
I beg your pardon, I meant a Deputy of the Clann na Poblachta Party. It is very difficult to become accustomed——
It is.
——to the names of the different Parties. It reminds me of the time when I was a small boy and I used to pay 4d. per lb. for what we called liquorice all sorts. When you put your hand into the bag, you did not know whether you were going to get a black one, a striped one or a white one. Just now when I said Clann na Talmhan, I meant Clann na Poblachta.
You should know when you become accustomed to looking this way instead of that way.
When I look that way I become somewhat befogged. It is very difficult to know all the Parties opposite. As a matter of fact, I do not know to what Parties some Deputies belong.
You will get over the shock of the change soon.
There is no shock at all.
It is only a delayed shock.
Probably the Minister for Finance has been shocked into the position in which he finds himself, but when he gets a little more experience in trying to manipulate the various Parties which are at present supporting him—the Government reminds me of a snake which is trying to swallow something and which finds it impossible to get down a little bit of tail hanging out of its mouth—he will find that it is very difficult to keep all the Parties under his control. It is easy enough to buy out one Party, but to buy out five or six is quite a different thing. I heard someone recently asking how long is this situation going to last.
That is what is worrying you.
Deputy Briscoe is travelling very far away from the Vote on Account.
I am getting quite a lot of help. I am sorry if I have digressed; it was due to the fact that so much bait was dangling in front of my eyes and I snapped at some of it.
Deputy Briscoe is looking for interruptions. Will Deputy Briscoe come to the Vote on Account?
He was back at liquorice.
Am I to be so lacking in the ordinary courtesies that I am to completely ignore the last remark made by the Minister for Finance?
I do so under your direction, but I hope the Minister will understand that it is not due to any lack of courtesy on my part. I would press the Minister when he is replying and dealing with the new loan to be quite clear that the entire sum will be spent on capital purposes.
He is asking things which are impossible.
The Minister will have ample time for his reply.
I am not asking the Minister to reply now, but when he is summing up I would ask that in order to allay a suspicion in the minds of a lot of people that this loan will not be devoted to capital purposes, he should say that that view is incorrect. If he does not say so, then I can only suggest that people will take it that it may be used for other purposes. It would be wise in my opinion for the Minister to make some statement about that, particularly as the Taoiseach has already said that this is the first of a number of loans which are to be floated in the future. I do not think I am quoting him incorrectly in saying that. He has been quoted as saying that this is the first of a number of flotations, every one of which will be successful so long as the credit of the State stands as it is to-day.
Deputy Hickey quite rightly said that in borrowing large sums, apart from setting aside sums for repayment, you have also to pay for interest charges. The interest charge on £12,000,000 is £350,000. That money has to be found every year in addition to the amount which will be repaid. In the first year, at any rate, there will be a sum of £350,000 to be provided, less, of course. the income-tax which would come to the State in any event from these people. I did not hear the Minister say that the interest on the loan was free of income-tax. These charges will have to be met out of taxation and if we borrow more money we must have additional taxation. I would wish very much that the Minister would indicate, first of all, in what way savings are to be made and what Estimate is going to be slashed. Is he going to interfere with the Estimate for Industry and Commerce which includes the sum of £12,000,000 for subsidy purposes? Is he going to reduce that £12,000,000 by x-millions or on what items are subsidies to be reduced without increasing the cost of living? The abolition of subsidies will mean an increase instead of a reduction in the cost of living.
I have not heard any explanation from any of the members on the Government side, or any indication of anything that is going to be done, as a positive statement. I have heard all kinds of recommendations. The last speaker of the Clann na Talmhan Party obviously means that the employment formerly given in the production of hand-won turf is going to cease because he said it is a good job that hand-won turf will no longer be made available to the public. He apparently accepts that position, and in accepting that position he is either guessing or he has some inside information. I would like the Minister, or some responsible member of the Government, to give some indication of what is going to happen in order to allay the apprehensions in the minds of many of those people employed on schemes which the Fianna Fáil Government initiated over a number of years. I heard a Fine Gael Deputy from Kerry, speaking last night, say in all innocence that this scheme of turf winning introduced by Fianna Fáil in 1939 should now be abandoned. Every member of this House who has some knowledge of the pre-1939 period knows that from the moment Fianna Fáil came into office they adopted as one of their schemes of production the development of turf winning; and, inherent in one of the schemes for the Electricity Supply Board, there was a plan for the utilisation of turf for at least one generating station.
That is post-1939.
That is post-1939, I agree. It could not be started until post-war.
It could have been thought of pre-war.
It was thought of pre-war.
The legislation authorising it was introduced in 1938.
The Minister can look it up.
The Deputy can look it up, too.
I say that the Fine Gael Government introduced legislation into this House pre-war with the intention of erecting a generating plant operated entirely, or almost entirely, on turf.
Post-war.
I am sorry I am precluded from saying to the Minister that he is wrong because I am not permitted to take notice of interjections, but if the Minister is under any misapprehension he can look up the debates and see whether I am wrong. Because of the outbreak of war it was impossible to proceed with the scheme at that time. I understand that the Electricity Supply Board is engaged at the moment on this particular project. I heard the Deputy yesterday talk about turf as if it were something produced from a hat because of the war situation with which we found ourselves confronted in 1939. Frankly, I was amazed. I heard him make reference to the conditions of our schools. Because of a peculiar statement which he made yesterday I actually handed in a question to the office asking for details of expenditure by the State in the years 1922 to 1932 and for the period 1933 to 1947 on the building and reconstruction of schools. I happen to represent a constituency which has in it not one school but a number of schools built under the auspices of the Fianna Fáil Government which are regarded as being the finest in Europe. People travel from many parts of Europe to see them. They are schools of which we can be justly proud.
They are in Dublin City.
They are so full at the moment that there is not accommodation for all the children. In one of the schools they cater for something like 5,000 pupils. Deputy Halliden, who should know something about schools——
Deputy Halliden did not speak. I did not interrupt.
It was Deputy Palmer.
I am sorry. I apologise. It is hard to get accustomed to new voices.
I suggest that the Deputy should ignore interruptions and proceed.
If a Deputy makes a statement and another Deputy, by interrupting, seeks to suggest that the statement is not true, I think it is onlyfair that the Deputy so interrupted should be allowed to state that what he has said is true and accurate in every particular.
It has been repeatedly stated by the Chair that discussion in this House is by way of speech and not by way of interruption or cross-examinations. I would repeat once more that interruptions in this House are at all times disorderly no matter from what quarter they emanate.
We have in Crumlin, Drimnagh and Kimmage evidence of Fianna Fáil Government with regard to the housing of our people, the provision of schools for our children, and many other amenities of which our Party can be justly proud for many years to come, and which is an example that the present Government may find it difficult to follow. I hope that the people of the country who made the mistake of bringing about a change will not regret that mistake before they are very much older.
As a representative of agriculture I cannot allow the occasion to pass without making some contribution to the debate. It has been said that the credit of the country is good. That seems to be generally agreed. That is something of which we are all proud. I submit that the credit of the country is sound because of what has been done on the soil of the country. Faced with this enormous bill of taxation there is only one industry on which we can concentrate in the hope of meeting the bill and that is agricultural production. Increased production on the land, because of depleted soil fertility owing to the stringent tillage policy during the war years, is almost impossible without some capital expenditure. It is roughly estimated that to restore fertility to the soil will cost about £8 per acre. That is a national charge. It the fertility is restored at that cost I wonder will the credit of the State be quite so sound.
Production under existing conditions places too heavy a burden on the farming community. Because of the low return in income to the farmer and the farm labourer there is a flight from the rural areas. It is significant that that flight is into the cities and towns and the only conclusion to which one can come is that the standard of living in the big centres of population must be better than in the rural areas. I think I am fairly correct in stating that Dublin at the moment holds 20 per cent. of the population of the 26 Counties. Surely that is not a healthy situation. As a result of this flight from the land there are empty houses in the rural areas while there is an outcry for more houses for the people of Dublin. Therefore, to restore a proper balance in this country we should encourage the people in rural Ireland to remain there by giving them a decent living. There is no reason why the farm labourer and his employer should have to exist on a lower income than the people in the cities or anywhere else; it is not justice. As I said, the thing to do is either by price or subsidy to give them a reasonable return for the produce raised on the farms so that there will be an inducement to the people on the land to remain there.
In that connection, I should like to say that if the Minister for Agriculture thinks that the farming community is satisfied with the present price of milk and other farm products he will get a rude awakening, because I am quite satisfied that the farming community is not satisfied with the income it has nor with the prospect for the future, particularly on account of the present high taxation and the wages to be paid to the agricultural labourers, which we all agree are far too low. If prices were satisfactory, production would not be declining.
Everybody is very much concerned about the present scarcity of milk and butter. The decline of both these products is very serious. The creamery in my County of Cavan, of which I am a shareholder and a supplier, in 1936 received 2,905,761 gallons of milk. Ten years later, in 1946, that was down to 1,966,331, practically a decrease of one-third. The decrease did not stop there. In 1947 the supply had fallen to 1,881,567 gallons, a decrease of practically 85,000 gallons on 1946. That, I think, proves that if the supply of milk and butter is even to be maintained, much less increased, there must be an increase in price. The remarkable part of it was that, although in the cash to suppliers was only about 11 by about 15 per cent., the increase in past year the price of butter was raised per cent., owing to the lower milk yields. That is like burning the candle at both ends.
Some people seem very much concerned at the prospect of dropping compulsory tillage. I should like to say that if the production of farm produce had been profitable there would never have been any need for compulsion. As an instance of that I should like to point to the production of flax, in connection with which there was no compulsion. While the price of flax was profitable, the farmers in my county and a couple of other counties went very much into the production of flax. Later on, when Great Britain did not think it wise to pay that price, the result was that production went down. Now the price offered this year is very attractive, with the result that the farmers will resume flax growing. If that is true of flax, which is not a food, it shows that our farmers, if they are paid a profitable price, will produce all the food that is necessary, at least as far as their poor soil at present is capable of producing.
On the question of prices for farm produce, there does not appear to be any system whereby the cost of production can be authoritatively checked. The prices are fixed by Departments and the farming community has to accept them. That does not appear to be just. There should be some sort of costings committee established which would go into the details of the cost of production, more especially as the farmer is compelled to pay a minimum wage to the labourer. A price should be paid to enable the farmer to pay the labourers' wages and have some profit for himself, so that he would have some encouragement for the investment of his capital and his energy. Therefore, I suggest that our future agricultural policy should include the setting up of a costings committee which would go into every detail and issue authoritative figures on which prices can be based that will give the agricultural labourer a fair wage and the farmer and his family a reasonable living which will induce them to remain on the land and produce the necessary food, rather than have them flying from the country.
Another matter that is coming before the people at the moment is the development of a scheme of poultry and egg production, sponsored and, to some extent financed, by Great Britain. I should like to issue a warning in connection with that. If, as a result of this scheme, we have a very much increased production of poultry and eggs, in a few years' time there may be a very serious slump when supplies become plentiful. Naturally, if Great Britain can get supplies from foreign countries at a cheaper rate, she will avail herself of these supplies and our poultry and eggs will be left on our hands, unless we sell them at an uneconomic price. Therefore, I would advise the Department of Agriculture to deal cautiously with this. If the prices offered in the past were attractive, there would be no need for the expenditure of a capital sum by a foreign country to develop this industry here. All Deputies are agreed that agriculture is the foundation of the future of this country. Owing to the efforts made during the emergency to produce food and the sacrifices which he had to make in the past, when the industry was not profitable, the agricultural producer should not be forgotten in the years to come.
I wish to address myself to item 63 of the Vote on Account. I am going to ask the Minister for Finance to give the House an assurance that the axe of economy which appears to be the chief tool in the equipment of the Government at the present time is not going to fall on the Defence Forces. There is quite an amount of disquiet in the minds of the members of the Defence Forces and this anxiety has been caused by reason of the statements made by men who are now Ministers. The statements to which I refer were made when they were members of the Opposition. From these statements it was made very clear that they had little or no use for the Army.
Where is that statement?
Ths Minister for Finance, who seems to me to be interrupter-in-chief——
I would like a bit of detail; I would like a bit of information.
——of the Government can listen and can reply, as a Minister should reply, when he is concluding the discussion. I am not quoting any particular——
Ah!
Any particular paper or Dáil debate, but if the Minister will go to the trouble of reading the discussions on the Estimates—in fact, if he reads last year's Estimates without going any further—he will find ample evidence of the statement which I have just made. In fact, he will find that the present Minister for Defence made statements which of themselves would be sufficient to cause the anxiety about which I have just spoken. He-was supported in these statements by Deputy Mulcahy and one or two other Deputies who are now members of the Government supported his views.
All I am asking for is an assurance that the fears which do exist in the minds of the Army personnel and the anxiety which arises from these fears will be relieved.
It was suggested that £2,500,000 could be saved on the Army. I hope that when the Government is looking for money and when they are attempting to economise, they will not be so unwise as to accept the suggestion that £2,500,000 can be saved by reductions in respect of the Defence Forces, whether in respect of personnel or of expenditure. I am fully aware of the fact that when members of the last Government were in Opposition they held the opinion that the Defence Forces were not necessary to the extent to which they then existed and that money could be saved on the Defence Forces. But to their credit be it said that when they took over office and examined the situation which existed, they very frankly and very candidly admitted that such a thing could not be done. They even went further than that and established a volunteer force which cost a still further sum of money to the State. But let me say that if, for instance, an attempt was to be made to secure an economy of £2,500,000 on the cost of the present Army it would reduce the Army to a state which would be below that of the Army which existed in 1931 and 1932. Let me say that with a force of that strength it was found to be quite impossible to give the personnel of the force the training which was necessary in respect of field work and other technical work of which every soldier should be aware and capable of carrying out. Most of the time of that particular Army was spent in doing guard duty, which is the most soul-destroying and morale-destroying duty that can be enforced on any soldier, as there was only sufficient personnel in that Army at that particular period to do that type of duty, a duty which consisted of something like 24 hours on and 24 hours off. We talked then of establishing an Army which would be capable of training the personnel that would come into being in the event of an emergency, but we could not, in fact, be aware of the facts which would govern this situation because we could not under any circumstances train an Army of 5,000 men who had to carry out these guard duties and train them in the necessary military manoeuvres which every army should be in a position to accomplish. Therefore, when the last Government decided that the strength of the Army should consist of 12,500 or 12,800—approximately these are the figures—officers, N.C.O.s and men, they had in mind the fact that the Army could, if necessary, be divided in such a way that for at least six months one half of them would be doing that necessary training to which I have referred and the other half could be carrying out the guard duties.
Even that is undesirable from the view of the general staff of the Army. Naturally the general staff would like to be in a position to have its personnel trained to the highest point of efficiency, but because of the circumstances which govern the case, they are fully aware that that cannot be done. Nevertheless, the figure of 12,500 which the Government decided was the minimum, in their opinion, and in the opinion of the general staff which was accepted by the Government, with which the necessary duties appertaining to the Army could be carried out. I know that it is not possible to keep a very large Army in this country. I am not suggesting that 12,500 men comprise a very large Army. It is indeed the very minimum Army which should exist in this State. If some of the views expressed on the last Estimate in this House were to be accepted, the Army could regard itself as being nothing but an auxiliary police force. It is highly undesirable to inculcate into the minds of the Army personnel that they are the auxiliary to a police force. These men want to feel that they are giving some very useful service to the State. To be regarded merely as an auxiliary to the police force or to be in being, as was suggested, to act on ceremonial occasions as glorified flunkeys or glamour boys, or something of the kind, is still further undesirable.
It may be true to say that the Army is a non-productive force. Nevertheless, it is a necessary force. I would impress upon the members of this House that in the present serious state of the world, a state of rather uneasy peace, the last thing that should be undertaken by any responsible Government is the reduction of the present Army to a figure below that at which it now stands. It would not be true to say that at the beginning of the recent emergency it was possible to train the troops who responded to the national call at that time in a short period. It is well known that it took something like two years to bring them to the state of efficiency which existed at the time of the manoeuvres of 1942. It was discovered in the course of these manoeuvres that they had very much to learn in respect of the handling of large forces in the field and the getting of that ready response from the forces that well-trained soldiers should be able to give. If the force which was in being at the beginning of the emergency had been a force that was trained to the point to which I am referring, it might have been possible to have produced that high state of perfection in a much shorter time. Due to the fact that most of a soldier's time was spent on what I have described as that soul-destroying and moraledestroying duty—that of continuous guard—it was impossible for these men to impart to the recruits who were coming in information which they themselves had not got. Were it not that there was in the Army a number of highly-trained officers whose training was due, in the main, to the fact that they had undergone courses in foreign military establishments, it might not have been possible even then to have produced the results which were produced in the years from 1940 to 1942.
Following the period of 1942 and since then the state of the Army was what might be described as highly efficient. I was very pleased to hear the present Minister for Defence describe the Army as being an Army that was comparable with any army in the world. I will go further and say that when he is some time longer in office he will be able to say even more than that by reason of his close contact with the personnel of the Army. At the present time, and I sincerely hope it will continue, selected officers of the Army are being sent abroad on these courses. I am very proud to be able to say that they are more than holding their own, on these courses, with officers from other nations in the world. To do anything in the nature of curtailing that training, that education, would be the most tragic thing that could happen in this country at the present time.
The Deputy will admit that that has always been the case with our officers who were sent abroad. Surely he will admit that they have always more than held their own.
I have already said tliat. I have stated that were it not for the fact that a number of officers had been on foreign courses the achievements which were secured between 1940 and 1942 could not possibly have been secured. I think that Deputy Cowan, if I have not misread his speech in the newspapers—I did not hear it—supports me in my plea to the Minister——
Wholeheartedly.
——not to let the axe fall on the Army at the present time.
Wholeheartedly.
I am glad to hear that. We are living in times in which the very least we can do is to ensure that there will be a corps of officers and non-commissioned officers and men which will be capable at the shortest possible notice to take—if an emergency should arise and if a response similar to that which occurred in the last emergency should occur—in hands these men and produce an army in as quick a time as the armies of other nations appear to have done. That is a desirable aim.
I would go further and make a plea that the present naval force will not, in any circumstances, be interfered with. Apart from the fact that it would be highly desirable in time of war that we should be able at least to attempt to protect our shores, our loughs and our rivers from use by one or other of the belligerents, the naval force are doing very useful work at the present time in the protection of the nation's fisheries. I happen to know by reason of my close attachment for a number of years, and certainly since the establishment of the naval service, that it has done extremely valuable work. It has not, perhaps, been the type of work that has received any kind of publicity. However, the fact that it has debarred foreign trawlers from coming into our territorial waters should justify its existence. It has not been in actual conflict with these foreign trawlers because these vessels —knowing that the corvettes, which have been described by a Deputy this evening as being out of date, were in the vicinity, and that they were fastmoving, well-armed vessels carrying a wireless with which they could communicate with the shore—kept well clear of our territorial waters.
I would make an appeal to the House generally to support me in my plea that, in so far as the Defence Forces are concerned, they will not be interfered with. The Army, apart from the fact that it has given very patriotic service in the recent crisis by standing guard in the hour of danger, ready to go into action at a moment's notice, has given tremendous valuable domestic service to the nation. The soldiers have come into the nation's life at every time of crisis. Their services have been given unselfishly and to the best of their ability, and every section of the community, whether agriculturists or the citizens of Dublin, is well aware of the efficiency, the courtesy and the sympathy of the men of the Army in any national difficulty. Now in this hour of their doubt, when there appears to be a general rumour not alone in Army circles but in civilian circles, that the Army is going to be severely curtailed, I make an appeal that the minds of these men will be relieved by some definite statement from the Minister for Finance that there is no ground for these doubts and rumours.
Like other Deputies on the Government side of the House, I accept the Minister's statement that this burden which the Estimates represent is not of his making and certainly is not to his liking. I was glad to hear him say that it is his intention, when he finds it possible to do so, to examine closely every single Estimate and to ensure that economies are brought about in what he has described, and what we all described when we were in opposition, as the extravagant policy of the former Government. He will undoubtedly have a very big job, as it will take great effort on the part of the Minister and his colleagues to bring about economy and at the same time bring down the cost of living and maintain employment for every section of the community in the country.
Deputy Lemass, the chief spokesman of the Opposition Party responsible for this burden of taxation, told us that this Government cannot effect any economies in any single Department of State. He had to admit, I suppose very much against his will, that economies had been brought about by the repealing of the duties imposed by the Budget of last September. He also expressed dissatisfaction as to the Ministerial decree which enabled the Government to bring about this reduction in taxation without any consultation with the House. He went on to express the fear that the Government would in future avail itself of powers under a similar Ministerial decree to increase taxation at some future date. He should realise that when this inter-Party Government took over the reins of Government, it was their avowed intention to put the interests of the people of the country before anything else. They will continue to bring about economies wherever economies can be effected.
At the expense of the poor.
Deputies of the Fianna Fáil Party are now in a very happy position. They are all equal in status but, of course, if they think of the Ministerial pensions, the backbenchers will realise that they are not yet as important as their colleagues of the Front Bench. I have been in this House for two and a half years, and during that period I never heard half a dozen Fianna Fáil Deputies of the Back Bench open their mouths. I am glad that they have got their tongues at the present moment and, even if their intelligence has not improved since the change over, it is nice to know that at last they are inclined to say something.
Turning to the question of economies, there seems to be a general impression that the axe will fall on the Army. The previous speaker, the former Minister for Defence, naturally would be inclined to say that the Army should be maintained at its present strength. We have also listened to a Deputy on this side of the House express agreement with that statement of the former Minister for Defence.
The Minister was ten or 12 years after him.
I have to admit that. Still we have got to face the facts and consider the statements which were made last year when the Army Estimate was under discussion by the then Opposition Deputies. I say that, if we are to have an Army in this country, we must either spend £70,000,000 a year on it and bring our Army up to the strength of a really first-class force or else cut it down to the minimum and use it only for ceremonial purposes or for assisting the Gardaí on certain occasions.
I believe that our first and biggest economy must be made in the Army. I am in full agreement with the Minister for Finance and the Minister for Defence in the assurance they have given us that their first economy will come about by reducing the Army by £2,500,000. There are other economies, too, which the Government will have to make. In some of them they will have to move slowly, because economies may bring about unemployment. We have heard the boast that the Estimates are nothing greater than the Estimates presented here by the old Cumann na nGaedheal Government in 1932 when Fianna Fáil took over the reins of office. When we examine the social services for which provision has been made we are told that the Estimates are nothing more than what the country can afford; in other words, we are told now that the country is getting damn good value for them. The chief gunner of the Opposition, Deputy MacEntee, carefully refrained from telling us that it is the taxpayers of the country who will foot the bill. When we are told that social services have increased by so much we are not told at the same time of what the increase in rates has been. In my county in the year 1932 the rate was 7/6 in the £. To-day it is £1 3s. 6d. in the £.
What were the road-workers getting in 1932?
More than Deputy MacEntee was getting.
1 notice still another Deputy in the Opposition Party is now finding his tongue. The value of the £ in 1932 was much higher than it is now. In 1932 the road worker could get "digs" for something like 18/- or 22/- a week. He could buy a pair of boots or shoes for 10/- or 15/-. He was much better off then because prices were lower than he is to-day when he is in receipt of 52/- per week plus this famous increase of 2d. per day in the last six or eight months. That increase does not meet the situation.
There are many directions in which money can be saved. I believe that a big saving can be effected on road construction. Ninety per cent. is now given to the county councils to be spent on the highways of the country while the secondary roads, which are much more important to the ordinary people, are completely neglected. I think economies should be effected on our highways and any unemployment which may result can be remedied by turning the workers over on to much more essential repair work on roads other than highways. These roads are just as essential to the ratepayer as are the highways to the fortunate owner of a private motor car.
The next item to which I would make reference is drainage. We are told that 15,000 men will be thrown out of employment as a result of the late Government's decision with regard to Bord na Móna. Any men who are thrown out of employment on turf production can be utilised on this much-needed arterial drainage scheme. We have been promised arterial drainage for the past 30 years. So far no effort has been made to put any scheme into operation. I hope that that will be one question which will receive the Minister's earliest consideration.
We have been barely three weeks in office and yet there are members of the Opposition—particularly the two former Ministers, Deputies MacEntee and Lemass—who are opening their eyes in wonderment because this Government has nothing to show after three weeks. I can assure the Opposition that when the Government does start to economise, and I hope that will be in the very near future, they will have some cause for amazement. I hope that the very first economy will be on the Presidential Establishment in the Phoenix Park. I hope that the economy effected there will be heavier than on any other Department. I am glad that Aer Lingus has come under the axe. I can see no good reason why, at the present time, we should spend $4,500,000 on Constellation aircraft. Everybody admits that we are entitled to have some air development but essentials must come first. Every single air company in the world has lost millions of pounds on air transport. Even if we had the prospect of receiving a big dividend in 15 years as a result of air development I still think the time is not opportune for largescale operations. I am glad that the Government has stepped in before we have embarked too heavily on this scheme.
We have been told many times in this House that we are going to get our national income from agriculture alone. We realise that perfectly well. But whatever was done for agriculture in the past 15 or 16 years was done to destroy it. We cannot expect that that can be undone in two or three weeks. We take the statements of the Minister for Agriculture at their face value and we hope that he will make as good an effort as possible to bring prosperity to the agricultural community and make the people employed in agricultural production realise that they are the keymen and the main producers in the country. The best way to do that is by seeing that the agricultural industry is fostered and looked after. During the past 25 years the mania was for what we call the professional or collar-andtie job in this country. We had reached such a stage that it was regarded as degrading to have to earn your living by the sweat of your brow. That attitude was encouraged, especially by the last Government, who saw to it that workers employed in Government Departments were paid far superior wages to workers employed all over the country who were much more important and who, by their hard work, added to the national income. I hope this Government will move along a different line and that they will realise that agriculture is, and always must be, our basic national industry.
I would also remind Fianna Fáil Deputies that we on this side have got an assurance from the Taoiseach and from the Cabinet that the suggestions of every Deputy will be listened to in connection with any scheme which is brought in for the benefit of the country and that these suggestions will be given every possible consideration. I want to remind them that before very long perhaps this Government may get plenty of criticism from within its own ranks. The position will not be as it was under the former Government, with a few chosen people at the top who enforced their decrees on their own colleagues, so that when Fianna Fáil Deputies went into the Division Lobby they were voting against their own conscience on many occasions. So far as this Government is concerned there will be no such enforcement. The Government will not get away with it, because they will hear good, honest criticism of their policy. If it can be improved upon, it will be the duty of the Deputies to instruct the members of the Cabinet rather than of the Cabinet to instruct Deputies in connection with any legislation which is introduced.
The present Minister for Finance has a hard task before him. I hope that he will be able to effect his economies without displacing any undue number of people from employment. I hope that any Bord na Móna workers who are displaced can be provided with employment in different schemes all over the country, and that work can also be found for those who have been forced to emigrate. When the Government's economy axe strikes, I hope it will strike first at the higher paid officials and the salaried people who got increases from the last Government within the last 18 months or two years.
Including the teachers?
I believe that the recent increases to the members of the Oireachtas were entirely unjustified. When they were discussed, I pointed out that the country could not afford them. I hope that the Government will set about that at an early stage.
The Deputy is criticising legislation, which is not allowed.
Let him continue by all means.
That is for me to decide.
Yes, I will continue.
Not to criticise legislation.
To reduce Ministers' salaries and Deputies' allowances.
Why not?
I hope that one of the economies of the Government will be a reduction in the salaries and allowances of the higher-paid officials in this State which the previous Government were so generous about in the last 18 months or so. I also hope that the Government axe will strike very early at the Ministerial pensions granted by the Fianna Fáil Government.
That is legislation also.
I am only suggesting——
The Deputy is suggesting amending legislation which is not allowed on a debate on a Vote on Account. It is out of order. Deputies may not advocate amending legislation or new legislation.
I hope the Minister for Finance will realise that it is the people's money he is spending and that he will move much more cautiously than the preceding Minister for Finance.
The last speaker told us that he believed the Minister for Finance could bring down the cost of living by economising on the Estimates, which, he said, the Minister was not responsible for, as they were the responsibility of the former Government. In addition to that, he said he believed that employment could be given to every person willing to work at a remuneration which would give them a decent livlihood. I hope the Minister will be able to do so. If he can bring down taxation and the cost of living and at the same time improve the standard of living of everybody in this country nobody will congratulate him more than I will. The Deputy mentioned that former Ministers had been brought to the same level as the backbenchers. When prompted by Deputy Davin, he said that they had the advantage of having Ministerial pensions. If they have, I think they are just as well entitled to them as the former Ministers of the Cumann na Ghaedheal Government, all of whom made application for pensions, with the exception of the former President of the Executive Council, Mr. Cosgrave. There is one legislation which, if it is introduced, I, as a farmer, will rightly oppose, that is the cutting down of the Ministerial pensions.
The Deputy is now on to legislation.
Only as an abbreviated reply to the last speaker. He wants economy in the Army, and perhaps it is a nice thing to economise in the Army. It might be possible in the eyes of many people, but I do not think that they were so anxious to economise on the Army between the years 1939 and 1945, when we had an economisation as a result of the Fianna Fáil policy which maintained this country's neutrality. If we had not our neutrality our national debt would be a very different one from what it is to-day.
I am a member of a local authority in County Galway and some of Deputy Commons' colleagues are members of it. I have never heard them to object to an increase in the rates. In fact, on the contrary, they were the very first to bring in motions for an increase. If there is going to be a decrease in the rates and if at the same time we are going to keep up the wages—and they are not very substantial wages either— of the road workers, I wonder what is going to happen. I suppose that, like the economy that has taken place in regard to Bord na Móna it can be achieved all right by having a far fewer number of people employed on the roads and keeping within a certain estimate. It is quite easy to give £4 10s. a week to road workers by diminishing their number by over 50 per cent., but I do not think that will work too well and I do not know how the members of the Labour Party would agree with that kind of policy nor do I think that the present Minister for Local Government is likely to agree.
He talked of providing alternative employment for those who are being displaced from the Army and elsewhere on big drainage schemes. Drainage has been mentioned in this House by Motion, by Question and by criticism on various occasions. We know that big drainage schemes are required in this county, but if you read the report of the commission that was appointed to inquire into the position before the passing of the Drainage Act, you will find that, after all, drainage, on no matter how big a scale, is not going to give very big returns in manual labour. I have experience of that in recent months. Galway County Council was carrying out a maintenance scheme on a river near Killimor which is quite close to me and the Board of Works lent them a dredger—or an excavator to use a more modern term. It cost £50 a week and there were only seven men and the driver of the dredger employed. The job of work was done in 15 weeks that 2,000 men would not accomplish in the same time because nobody at this stage would go down into a river such as the dredger had to go down into for any money. In the first place they would be submerged. So I do not think, as desirable as drainage is and as badly needed as it is, that it is going to give such a very high volume of labour to the unskilled workers as Deputy Commons imagined.
Now to come down to the Vote on Account which we are asked to pass. It is over £24,000,000. With that, we have been presented with the Book of Estimates for 1948-49 which totals a sum of approximately £70,000,000. We have been notified by the Minister for Finance that he had not time to go into the Estimates as they were prepared and gone to the printer before he took office and consequently he was not responsible for them. The economies that have been effected so far have caused a certain amount of worry to Deputies from the western counties and they should cause a considerable amount of worry to Deputy Commons too, and to other Mayo Deputies. Equally I should imagine that they should also worry Deputy Davin and Deputy Flanagan who is now on those benches opposite but who was very vocal in denouncing us and the conditions under which the bog workers were employed. But bad and all as they were, the men did have employment, and many of them were quite willing to work under such conditions. But that is the position.
The result of our first economies is to wipe out by the stroke of pen the production of hand-won turf. We are told that 15,000 men are affected. I know that in my own particular county between 2,000 and 3,000 men are affected. It was their livelihood; their sole means of livelihood in many instances, and the chief means of livelihood in other instances, and now that livelihood, which brought to them an average income of from £100 to £200 for seven months of the year, is being taken away while no alternative employment is being offered to them. It is contended here by the apologists of the new Government, by the Labour representatives who have joined Fine Gael, that, of course, this was contemplated by Fianna Fáil. We shall see if that is exactly the case. It was contemplated perhaps by Fianna Fáil to take place in a gradual way.
We see here under sub-head B (1) in the Estimate for Industry and Commerce that a sum of £330,000 is allotted for the production of turf for use in the non-turf areas in 1947-48. The present year's Estimate for 1948-49 shows that that has been decreased by £329,995. Under subhead B (5) in this year's Estimate the sum of £1,900,000 was estimated in respect of turf production which was hitherto undertaken by county councils. In 1947-48 the Estimates under the same heading was £824,370. The total under both headings for 1947-48 was £1,154,370. The present year's Estimate under both headings is £1,900,000 showing that the Estimate went up by £750,630.
That being the case, it will show that Fianna Fáil had not in mind, had they remained as a Government, to take the livelihood overnight from the 20,000 workers who were employed on the county council schemes in this country.
Has the Deputy Vote 55 under his observation?
I have the Vote for the Department of Industry and Commerce.
It is down by a half million.
With all due respect, I am not going to allow myself to be subjected to cross-examination as if I were in Green Street Courthouse.
That is right. The Criminal Court. I beg the Deputy's pardon.
I myself have always been very slow to interrupt and I am not going to pay any attention to any interruptions from the opposite benches. The position would be all right, perhaps, if alternative employment were available or if we had an assurance either from the Minister for Finance or from the Minister for Industry and Commence that that alternative employment would be available immediately. The trouble is that it is not. A number of those men were ready to take up work last Monday on the bogs which had been taken over from the county councils by Bord na Móna. It was sad news to them that the project had been knocked on the head. During the election campaign we saw posters which read "Put them out and vote for progress". I must say that this is nice progress as far as Clann na Poblachta and the Labour Parties who have joined Fine Gael are concerned. It is rapid progress to the nearest employment exchange. That is what it really means. I represent a county which has produced a greater amount of turf than most counties. Despite all we have heard about its bad quality, and I am not saying that all of it was excellent, we should remember that the people were very glad to get it.
Hear, hear.
There were bakeries in this country which would have been idle but for the turf. Idle bakeries would have meant that many stomachs would have been unfilled during the years from 1940 to 1946. We supplied the turf during that critical period but all that is all forgotten now. It is fine economy now to bring down the axe on the people who gave that service and to deprive them of their livelihood by one stroke of the pen. We do not know where the economy axe, which is so pleasing to the members of the Government Party, will fall next.
There has been a great deal of talk about the increase in this year's Book of Estimates as compared with that of last year. In the Vote for the Department of Agriculture there is an increase of £399,700 under sub-head G (4) for improvement of poultry and egg production. I wonder if the economy axe will fall on that project also. Perhaps it would be pleasing to Deputy Commons and to some other Deputies if the axe were to fall there. Under sub-head M (11)—farm-ibuildings scheme, which was initiated by the previous Minister for Agriculture—the Estimate is increased by £249,250. I suppose all that is extravagant and that it should be cut out in view of the fact that the first item to come under the eye of the Minister for Agriculture was that of the glasshouses for Connemara. After that, I shall not be surprised where the Minister will stop. I am glad that recently he seemed to be converted to the tillage policy of this country, although his conversion dates only from recent weeks.
That is no harm.
It is a good thing. Often the converted sinner becomes the greater saint. I hope that happens in the case of our present Minister for Agriculture. He has, however, had to eat his words very quickly. Remember that at a lecture in University College, Dublin, which he attended on the 5th of last December, he said, in reply to a Paper which was read by the Auditor on, I think, "The Revolution of Agriculture in Ireland", that his policy for this country was 1,500,000 people living in prosperity and with a good store cattle trade with England. Then, he said, he could go over and talk turkey to the Englishmen because they have to rely on this country for their supply of store cattle. The present state of affairs is a happy change of front. I cannot quote the Press report, and if the Minister denies the statement I will accept his denial, although I am sure that those who heard him on that occasion will not accept it. It is a happy change——
It is a change.
I hope that the Minister for Finance will consider these matters and that he will not axe the schemes even though they were initiated by Fianna Fáil.
Under "Public Works and Buildings" which comes within the ambit of the Minister for Finance or that of his Parliamentary Secretary, an increase of £39,990 is provided in sub-head J (2) for arterial drainage construction works. Under sub-head K (1) there is an increase of £54,000 over the sum required in the 1947-48 Estimate for the purchase of dredgers and excavators. I sincerely hope that no false economy will be effected in these matters. I hope that the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Finance, who was so vocal in his criticism of the previous Government because of their delay in undertaking arterial drainage works, will now speed up the work and that, in addition, the dredgers which were being negotiated for will be speedily brought into this country to enable the work to progress. I also hope that, as he is so very interested in the flooded areas, apart altogether from the big drainage schemes, he will help to have the flooding eased. I would suggest one course to him to follow and that is to enable the county councils, with financial assistance from his Department, to undertake work on a scale something greater than ordinary maintenance work in such areas and to place at their disposal, in each county, at least one dredger for this work. In that way he will help to keep rates down fairly well and, at the same time, to do very necessary work.
Now we come to housing. I wonder is this an extravagance on the part of Fianna Fáil? The Bill that was introduced and passed in 1947, just before the dissolution means an increase of £300,000 by way of grants under the Housing (Amendment) Act of that year. There is one question which I would like to put to the Minister for Local Government. Why is it that the regulations which I understand are necessary —in many instances an Act enables Ministers to make certain regulations that are necessary under the Act—have not been formulated? If they are formulated, why is there any delay in their being approved by the Department of Finance? That is a question which the Minister might answer. I admit that the Ministers have not been long in office. Nevertheless, they gave a considerable amount of attention to the Bill when it was passing through. They were quite conversant with all its implications and obligations. That being so, I think it is only reasonable to expect that the necessary regulations should have been approved and not have thousands of applications held up as they are being held up at present.
Are they held up?
I understand they are. The applications can be made but I understand that the Minister for Local Government cannot sanction a grant nor can he authorise his local inspectors throughout the country to inspect sites until the regulations are made.
Is it in the last three weeks or was it before that that they were held up?
Yes, in the last three weeks.
What Minister for Finance held up those proposals? I did not.
The Act was passed only very shortly before Christmas and then there was an election campaign.
I am asking you who held them up? Are you saying I did?
I understand they are being held up at the moment.
By the printer.
If they are held up by the printer, good and well, but the printer should be requested to hasten with the work.
He had to print the Fianna Fáil general election address.
Perhaps he had, but if he had I am sure he was paid for it.
The regulations are not made yet. Deputy MacEntee held them up. That is the situation.
If Deputy MacEntee held them up, I am sure they were regulations under the previous Act and that should be something to go on. Under the two previous Acts—the Act passed by the Fine Gael Government and the Act passed by the Fianna Fáil Government in 1932—regulations were made and, after all, it should not be such a great difficulty for the new Minister for Local Government to make regulations under this Act.
Is it your hope that the new Minister may do it?
I am putting that to the Minister. I hope the delay will be short and that as soon as possible the work can go on. There should be no great trouble in that because, as Deputy Lemass pointed out, the machinery is there. I wish, in conclusion, again to protest as vehemently and as emphatically as I can against what I consider to be a most unjust hardship inflicted on the people who are earning their livelihood from the production of turf in my constituency.
I must say it took my breath away, when, having abused the Fianna Fáil Government, up hill and down dale, in the most furious terms during the election, after the new Government came into office it should suddenly start to coo like a turtle dove in inviting the Opposition to co-operate with it in carrying on the government. However, we must ignore these things in the interests of the country and we must try to prevent the present Government as far as possible, from destroying the splendid policy of Fianna Fáil as it was planned and carried into operation. Certainly, in so far as these plans are concerned, we shall help in every way possible to make sure that they are carried into effect. When I heard so much talk about slashing down expenses, about the extravagance of the former Government I felt very concerned about some of these schemes. The scheme, naturally enough, in which I was most interested, was that in connection with Posts and Telegraphs. I hope these schemes will not be cut down because they are a real national investment.
What are they?
Plans for development in putting a telephone into every post office in the country.
Are you keen on that?
I do not think it is fair to interrupt. The Minister will get his opportunity.
I am only asking are you keen on it?
In the past six years we have had an excellent staff. The money had been supplied by a telephone loan and the plans are ready, and not only that, but there are other possibilities of elaborating that scheme. Up to quite recently there was a lack of supplies but now supplies are beginning to come in. Owing to the storms of last year, these schemes were held up, but now undoubtedly the opportunity arises for developing them. It is a real investment because it will bring in money. It is an investment which I hope the Government will not cut. I hope you will be able to get an exchange in every post office in the country so as to enable subscribers in the surrounding areas to take advantage of it and put in telephones. If the Government is daring enough, they could go further and try to get a telephone in every house.
Every pram.
They could do it free of cost and rely upon the income that comes from it. That perhaps would be too daring. However, I hope they will not at least spoil the initial schemes. Then again, on the question of buildings, nearly every Minister for years past has been abused for not having certain buildings constructed. I hope the Minister for Finance will see to it that the Board of Works will cease to be a bottle-neck. I am not blaming any particular branch but the reorganisation of that Department is greatly needed. What is required is the employment of a number of additional architects at least to carry out the plans. There are buildings at Pearse Street Post Office and St. Andrew Street Post Office. There are at least 40 buildings of different kinds to be carried out. I hope that the Government when cutting expenditure will not cut into the national estate. The investment of money, whether it is by way of taxation or loan, which improves the national estate is all to the good.
I am somewhat concerned, too, about broadcasting. Plans have been made and are under development at the present time in connection with the broadcasting system. I believe in the policy of Fianna Fáil, based on the old principles of Sinn Fein, to raise the prestige of this country and place it on an equal footing with any nation in the world and to make it self reliant, and in conformity with that policy the broadcasting plans should be pursued. Nothing should be done to impair the work that has been done in raising the cultural standards of the country.
You want a few more seats in the orchestra.
Speeches have been made here which leave one under the impression that it is the desire of some members of this Hous to reduce the country to the standard of a Hottentot country. I use that term because it was a term used by people who came to this country and judged the country on erroneous indications. I think that is most unfair to the Irish people who are, after all, capable of producing as good culture as any nation in the world of a corresponding size.
Reference was made to the turf scheme by a Deputy from Kerry. It is pathetic to observe how people can become deceived by the political folklore of their own Party and who, by constantly telling each other things that are untrue, come in the end to believe them. The Fianna Fáil Government was always interested in the development of turf from 1933 onwards. Schemes for machine-won turf and electricity generating stations were canvassed very shortly after 1933——
They were not.
In 1938 those scheme were crystallised.
No, post-war.
Only for the war the schemes would have been put into operation in the following years.
It was post-war.
Of that I am perfectly certain.
The records of the Department of Industry and Commerce show it.
Interruptions are disorderly no matter from what source they come and Deputy Little is entitled to make his speech without interruption.
I took a very keen interest in turf development from the beginning and I watched the development with the greatest enthusiasm. I think if the Minister refers to the files he will find that I am correct.
You are quite wrong, but go on.
A Deputy from Cork, in an innocent sort of fashion, spoke of his fear lest Tramore should be developed into another Blackpool. He followed that up with the mild suggestion that Crosshaven might make a much better Blackpool. I hope the scheme in Tramore will be developed. So far as I know the development is not for the benefit of foreigners only but for our own people in order that they may enjoy a cheap holiday at home.
There is another matter to which I would like to refer. It affects the country as a whole. I understand that travellers at the present time are coming back from the country with their books closed. No business is being done because of the uncertainty as to what our protection policy is going to be. In my constituency the boot, shoe and leather factories are very much concerned. Some of the men have teen laid off because of the dumping of boots and shoes from across the water.
Who caused the dumping? Look at him.
I am not talking about the earlier period. If the Fianna Fáil Government were now in power they would look into the matter. It only developed just as the general election was taking place.
That is good.
You let the country be flooded.
There is a quota Order, and if footwear is being brought in it is being brought in illegally.
It is illegal then.
Surely it will not hurt the Government's feelings if I draw attention to it.
Not at all. I do not know what all the concern is about.
Mr. Collins
That is the reason for the change of Government.
Now, there is one other matter in regard to fisheries. The fishing season has been very good around the coast, especially in my constituency. The buyers are in possession of large quantities of fish. Owing to large imports of kippers from England and herrings from Norway they find it exceedingly difficult to market their catch. I would ask the Government to interest itself in that matter and to afford protection to our own industry. Our fishermen should not be discouraged and put out of employment. If that happens they will be compelled to go across the water to look for work.
What about the foreign trawlers?
This is merely another red herring.
The late Minister for Defence pointed out that our ships have been very effective in dealing with foreign trawlers within the three-mile limit.
In the daylight.
These are the difficulties to which the present Government will have to face up.
We had a fishing fleet but it failed to protect us.
Many of the Deputies evidently do not want us to have a fleet at all. I have expressed my anxiety about this "slashing" policy which has been suggested. I hope that as far as general national policy is concerned the policy we adopted of improving the national estate will continue.
Deputy Lemass saw fit to question the conduct of myself on the Defence Bill. He took exception also to the form of Government policy as portrayed in the debate in this House. It is, well that I should make it quite clear to him and to all the members of his Party how much we welcome the new policy and the new outlook as outlined by An Taoiseach. It is regrettable that Deputy Lemass should find it so awkward that the "yes-men" have disappeared from one side of the House and that they can no longer be brought to heel. With that development I am in complete accord. I am sure that most of the Deputies on this side of the House have no intention of becoming "yes-men" in the present inter-Party Government or in any Government which may evolve itself in time. Independence of spirit is too sacred to be sacrificed for mere political privilege and preference. We reserve the right to criticise the Government helpfully and constructively. Whether or not we can do that effectively, we still reserve unto ourselves the fundamental right to criticise, whether that criticism is welcomed by the Government or whether it annoys the Government or individual members of the Government.
It will be said of some of us, of course, that we may be committing political suicide by taking up this attitude of criticism towards the Government, but, so far as I am concerned at least, I am not so wedded to a political life that I should consider the continuance in office of this Government or the continuance of myself as a Deputy as being something more valuable than a vindication of truth or of principle. That is an attitude that, perhaps, is rather difficult for Deputy Lemass to appreciate or understand, but in time I hope there will be some warrant for his conversion to this new type of debate which has already made its impress upon the House.
So far as I am concerned, I do not accept that every measure of Government policy should be welcomed wholeheartedly by each and every individual Party constituting the Government and by each member thereof. In the present crisis of taking over, actions of a sharp and quick nature may be imperative on the part of Ministers. As they find their stride, however, I would suggest that much greater notice should be given to individual Deputies of some of the outstanding features of their policy, particularly in regard to finance. There will be criticism of a tendency to stress retrenchment too much. There may be a case for retrenchment on any Estimate or any given sphere of activity. But the policy of the Government and the policy of the Minister for Finance must bear on it a very good defence before it can find ready acceptance by many of us on the Labour Benches.
There are many aspects of the threatened or actual cut in the hand-won turf scheme that require examination. There are many aspects of it which, perhaps, the Minister has not had time fully to appreciate. I shall just give one or two points in regard to that. In this particular sphere of economic activity there has been quite a large investment of individual capital of a particular type and, if the policy goes through as suggested without any alleviation, there will be widespread distress amongst certain individuals operating in that economic sphere, particularly those lorry owners who, thinking that the programme of turf development would continue without cessation for quite a number of years to come, invested whatever little savings they have in the hire-purchase of these lorries. They, of course, paid their instalments out of their earnings. Now, with their business gone, they find themselves in a very serious position.
It may be true, as is suggested by some, that a great deal of this policy was a Fianna Fáil racket; that a great deal of the profits thereof found their way into the hands of Fianna Fáil supporters. That may be so or it may not be so. It does not, however, invalidate my contention that a large number of honest, hard-working, earnest young men in this line of business, who were induced for one reason or another and by one means or another to purchase those lorries, will now not be in a position to pay the remainder of their instalments. I would suggest to the Minister, therefore, that he should examine this question closely to ascertain the proportion of these lorry owners who are so affected in regard to the hire purchase of their lorries and endeavour, as far as he has power, to alleviate the distress that may fall on them by the change of policy which has come about in regard to hand-won turf.
Deputy Little has talked about the boot and shoe industry and the dumping that has affected that industry. He is completely at sea in regard to this matter. He paid little attention, if any, to the supplementary questions and the exchanges that followed the answer of the Minister for Industry and Commerce upon this question of employment in the boot and shoe industry. According to Deputy Lemass, this matter is not, as Deputy Little said, a question of dumping at all. To quote Deputy Lemass, it is a matter that is not due to excessive importation, but to problems internal with the merchants here.
I did not say that.
You did say that. It is in the Official Report.
It is not in the Official Report.
It is. Here is the transcript:—
"Mr. Lemass: Is the Minister aware that the total importation of footwear permitted under quota is less than 10 per cent. of the footwear sold in the country? Is it not a fact that any temporary difficulty is not due to excessive importation but to problems internal with the merchants here?"
Internal with the merchants. It is quite clear that as imports are less than 10 per cent. of our consumption, then importation alone cannot explain the decline in production in the industry. That is obvious.
That is what the Deputy is saying. Why are you interrupting him?
I said that imports alone could not explain it.
According to Deputy Little, whom I heard five minutes ago, this question of unemployment which is seriously affecting the boot and shoe industry is due to dumping. According to Deputy Lemass it is not due to dumping but is due to problems internal with the merchants here. As far as I am led to understand—and in my constituency there are quite a number of boot and shoe factories and I have had representations both from the workers and the industrialists concerned — it is a matter of dumping. I am not an expert in this matter and I do not pretend to be. I give it to the House second-hand according as I heard it from the men who make their living and their profits in this industry. They say that 1,250,000 pairs of boots and shoes were permitted by the former Minister for Industry and Commerce to accumulate before the election ready for release on this country.
The quota is only half that, so how could they come in?
I was not Minister for Industry and Commerce when this happened, and perhaps Deputy Lemass can explain how it happened and how he permitted into the country twice the quota.
It did not happen.
In January alone 182,000 pairs of boots and shoes were imported and 240,000 pairs were imported in the same month in one factory alone in Dundalk. For six weeks back they have been piling up on an average of 3,000 pairs of shoes per week. This stock of, roughly, 20,000 pairs of shoes cannot be disposed of because of the flooding of the market with cheap foreign footwear. They have stated that some of this footwear is sold at less than the price necessary to produce it. In this boot and shoe trade things are highly organised. The costings in particular, I understand, is highly organised and highly standardised and they know exactly what is the cost of each item in the process of production. They know the cost of each of the different materials and of the ancillary materials that go to build up the final unit, and they have said that the cost of the uppers in some cases which they produce would cost more than the entire shoe at present on the market in Dublin and elsewhere. That is a very serious state of affairs. How far it is a result of the previous Government's understanding with the British Government, whether it is part of an agreement entered into——
That has nothing whatever to do with it. There was no such agreement.
There was no such agreement. Well, it is a remarkable fact that this situation, as far as I am led to understand — subject always to correction by the former Minister for Industry and Commerce — that this piling up of reserves in the factories that held up the sale of their produce, this huge importation, did not previously occur. What, then, is the explanation of it at the present time? It is a very serious matter because it will spread in its effects. It will not stop merely at the boot and shoe factories which are affected but by causing unemployment and by causing a reduction in the purchasing power of thousands of operatives there will be of course an adverse effect upon the shopkeepers, those who supply them with goods, and, though it may appear to be confined for the moment to the boot and shoe industry, unless the Government can regulate this series of events, then we are in for the usual picture under capitalism, over-production, under-consumption and mass unemployment. I am acutely interested in whatever pronouncement the Minister for Finance may make in regard to this question. I specifically dealt with the boot and shoe industry because the question was brought up by Deputy Little. But the same type of dumping affects the toy industry, particularly those known as soft goods toys. The industries which were built up on that basis are very adversely affected at the present time by the importation of toys into this country and there is no reciprocal arrangement under which we may export our toys.
The Deputy is now on a point to which the Minister might give some consideration. Why can we not? We have an agreement which gives us the right to.
If we have such an agreement, so far it has not been operated to our advantage. Some manufacturers of toys have orders amounting to £6,000 or £7,000 and are unable to obtain the licence from the English Board of Trade, while there does not seem to be that difficulty about English toys coming into this country.
The same applies to electrical goods. A great number of concerns in England which were primarily concerned in war work, as part of their return to a peace-time basis at the end of the war, turned their attention to the production of consumer goods in the electrical industry. They found a very ready market for them in this country to the detriment of those few small industries which were built up in this country for the production of goods of a similar nature.
There is a 50 per cent. tariff.
The tariff evidently does not prevent the dumping that is at present continuing. The Minister will have to examine whether the policy of production which was worked by the previous Minister was effective enough or whether it is necessary in some of these industries to have even more punitive tariffs; whether we can go on to the extent of exclusion or whether we can share out the internal market by giving Irish concerns a certain quota or proportion of the market and allow the remainder of it to be worked and exploited by manufacturers as a means perhaps of maintaining a certain balance, a certain price level, a certain amount of economy in production by Irish firms so that they will always be on top with regard to efficiency and with regard to the development of the industry along proper lines.
I trust that the Minister will devote some short space of time to a discussion of matters of production with relation to some immediate action or policy in regard to dumping as it adversely affects the employment of thousands of Irish workers.
I spoke on the subject of the Army and I chose my words as carefully as possible. It would appear, from reading the speeches of Deputy Lemass and Deputy Major de Valera, that they misunderstood to some extent some of my remarks in this connection. I ask and still ask that, as part of Government policy, there should be an examination into the question of the structure of the Army. In my closing sentences I specifically stated that I was not doing so from the point of view of advocating economy. I had no possible way, without expert assistance, of knowing whether the ideas that I set forth would cost more or less than current expenditure. I did not make the plea upon that basis. I did not and I do not make any charge of extravagance, waste, or any such other things suggested in his speech by Major de Valera. These matters are quite beside the point. The type of armed nation which I suggested might conceivably require a greater expenditure of public money than the present Army of 12,500 men. I think it is a misnomer to call it an Army at all. By modern standards 12,500 men is hardly a division. What I suggest is that the purpose of an Army in this country, and in this type of nation, is to make an attack upon the liberties of the Irish people as costly as possible for any invader. The instrument which would carry out that policy should be as efficient as possible.
The type of Army which we have may be, as Deputy Traynor said this afternoon, the very best that the General Staff can conceive. That is no guarantee whatsoever that it may be the best type suited to its own particular function. We may have the greatest possible respect for the General Staff as a series of specialists but general staffs in other countries have, of course, at times shown a very inferior conception of the higher questions of strategy to those shown by civilian Ministers. They have often — for instance in France in the last war and even prior to it — shown that they could develop the Army and the armed forces in a manner and according to a plan and concept which was altogether against the best interests of the country which they purported to defend. It was from that point of view that I suggested that the Minister and the Government should, at this grave juncture in the history of Europe, consider whether we have the best fighting instrument that can be obtained for the money at our command. I do not agree with the suggestion of Deputy Lemass that if we abandon the Army or if we reduce the Army there are others who will come into the country and defend it for us. I do not think that suggestion requires very serious consideration because I did not, and I do not think anybody else did suggest that the Army should be disbanded. Its mode of formation might, however, be strengthened by developing an entirely different type of armed force in this country. I suggest that we should have a nation armed. I suggest that we should arm the men and women at the ages when they would be most efficient for this particular type of work thus making it possible to have a general rally to arms at the slightest sign of danger and ensuring that there would be a trained nucleus in every part of the country necessary to give this mass of the people coherence, guidance and leadership in the struggle. I think I have made that point sufficiently clear now and that I have rid the minds of members of the Opposition Party from any misunderstanding in the matter.
At the outset I wish to say that I see no point at this stage of our national progress in questioning the motives underlying the inter-Party Government.
Hear, hear! It is time somebody said that.
I take the same view as Deputy Lehane. His view is that the present Government was formed in order to put out the previous Government. Therefore, everybody who voted in the recent election was quite clear in his own mind that, so far as any other Party but the Party on these benches are concerned, he voted for two alternative policies — the full policy or whatever policy resulted from an inter-Party Government. I think the less said on that subject the better. What we want to see is whether the present inter-Party Government will be sufficiently resolute to lead the people of this country through the difficulties which face them in the future.
Hear, hear!
We want to see whether this inter-Party Government can not only be resolute but stern if necessity demands it or if there should be the kind of economic crisis arising here which might eventuate from an even more serious situation arising in Great Britain. Not only is a resolute Government required, but a strong Government is required under the circumstances in which we live. A Government in these days with its controls and influences on the lives of the people has a great effect on their ambitions.
It has a great effect on their plans for private enterprise, for private production, on the extent to which they will co-operate with the Government in semi-State aided production, and it has a great effect on the extent to which the individual citizen will invest his money in a new business or a new industry. The one thing that the public needs is a sustained approach to economic problems, a resolute approach. The worst possible results that frequently arise and that have arisen in the past from inter-Party Government, have been lack of confidence on the part of the people as to what kind of line the Government is going to take in the event of having to initiate legislation for any specific reason.
The present year is a very fateful one for the Irish people. It is fateful because there are at once adverse influences and hopeful signs surrounding us at present. It will require great genius, almost what might be described as a sixth economic sense for this inter-Party Government to avoid the dangers that confront this country from world influences and at the same time take advantage of the greater supply of raw materials and the fact that, while in one part of the world there appears to be semi-starvation and political conflicts, in another part of the world there appears to be an evidence of greater normality, a greater flow of machinery and materials and the possibility of far greater prosperity. It is going to be hard for any Government, most of all for a Government with so many diverse elements, so to arrange its policy as to allow national development to proceed as quickly as possible.
You have on the one hand a greater supply of raw materials and machinery in certain lines coming in. You have on the other the White Paper issued by Sir Stafford Cripps with its terrible warning to the British people that they are still spending too much, that their outgoings are greater than their incomes, the possibilities underlying that to their detriment, the need for austerity in Great Britain, and the possibility of devaluation with its very serious effects on the whole of our economy, no matter what changes we make in our currency system or mode of living.
As I have said, there are signs in the world that the period of inflation may be quickly over. If Europe holds together, if the Marshall Plan goes through, if the British are able to overcome their particular difficulties, thefuture is bright for this country and there will be more opportunities for its development. There is a need not to be ultra-conservative, just as there may very well be disadvantages in making too many economies. There is a disadvantage in not borrowing, if it is right to borrow for national development. The other side of the picture is that there are other adverse conditions arising which may make it difficult for the Government to know how to proceed. What we need is a policy in between the two extremes of reckless spending and reckless borrowing and the other policy of deflation, of spending nothing and borrowing nothing which was the policy of the Fine Gael Government before it went out of office in 1932. The balance is very hard to find. It is difficult, even when you have members of the same Party constituting the Government, to agreeto a middle path and to try to avoid the extremes of over-taxation and under-taxation, the extremes of deflation and inflation. We on this side hope that the present Government will be able to take advantage of every situation offered to them and at the same time avoid the pitfalls which they will undoubtedly meet.
The main remedies for meeting the world situation are an increasing production in agriculture both for home and export purposes. There is no other way by which the status of the working people can be improved. There is no other way in which the real purchasing power of wages can be maintained. There is no other way by which this country can meet any crisis which it might have to face as a result of a breakdown in international relations. Our policy must be a planned one. We must try to produce everything we can and we must export more and more in order to raise the standard of living of our people. That is a policy which requiries careful planning and designing. Allied to that general statement is the necessity for bearing in mind our needs in the event of another world war. I hope the present Government will consider a long-term policy for this country both in regard to the storage of essential materials and to the changes that have taken place as a result of the methods used at the conclusion of the last war. I hope they will bear in mind the necessity of dispersing some of the main storage plants of this country. I realise the enormous expense involved but I would suggest that it is a matter of high policy that the Government should bear in mind that nearly all the electricity of this country at present is produced at two strategic centres and that nearly all the grain storage is confined to three or four places. Having regard to the character of the next war, whatever long-term planning they have, they should bear that in mind.
I hope the time will arrive when there will be no serious conflict of political opinion in this country as to what the agricultural policy of this country should be. I heard the previous Minister for Agriculture state on a number of occasions that we should get beyond the point of quarrelling on the main aspects of agricultural policy. We may differ about details, we may differ on the amount of help provided for the farmer by the Government, or the advice given to the farmer on forms of production, but on the main aspects of policy I trust that in future, now that conditions are normal, we shall have some agreement in principle.
This Government has a chance never given to the previous Government of trying genuinely to increase the volume of agricultural production in this country. We gave protection to the farmer. We gave him land-improvement grants and we helped to improve his dwelling. We gave him guaranteed prices but we did not succeed in overcoming the one great national problem — the stagnancy of our agricultural production. As all Deputies in this House who have read the figures in regard to the population of livestock in this country know, the total volume of production has hardly varied since 1912. Whatever the figures are, it will be found that there has not been any notable change. During the whole of that period conditions have been abnormal. Firstly, there was the world war. Then there was the national conflict followed by the civil war. After that there came the economic dispute with Britain in which we deliberately guided agricultural policy in such a way as to help us to solve some of the problems affecting the Anglo-Irish position. Then when we thought conditions were at least approaching normal, the second world war began. Accompanying that, there was a huge increase in prices, united to a scarcity of feeding-stuffs, a continued decrease in the volume of fertilisers available and the absence of new machinery or replacements for old machinery, while at the same time farm buildings were not improved and were not extended in the way they should be. This Government now if, as I have said, Europe holds together, has the first real chance of effecting a genuine increase in the volume of agricultural output.
That is not going to be an easy task. I hope that there, again, there will be the agreement that exists in the Fianna Fáil Party in regard to agricultural policy. We made plans assisting the farmers to increase agricultural production that were based not on any previous ideas but on modern conditions. We announced those plans and we must perforce now bequeath them to this Government. We said that we would continue the plan to guarantee the sale and price of crops sold off the farm. We said that if we could effect long-term contracts for all agricultural produce we would do so, and there were certain people in Fianna Fáil who believed that, if the world became sufficiently normal, we should do something to guarantee prices of live stock over a period in the future even if it meant all the obligations of a policy of subsidy and a policy of accruing sums to pay the farmers in one period what they might lose in another. That policy was always in the mind of the previous Government, but conditions have been so abnormal for so many years, both during the economic dispute and during the world war, that it would have been very difficult or, indeed, utterly impracticable. It is not beyond the bounds of possibility now for the Government to guarantee absolutely in the future prices of all produce or, at least, to extend the guarantee beyond that at present in existence. It will take careful planning. It may involve a change in our marketing system, but it is at least worthy of study by the present Government.
As the late Minister for Agriculture announced, we also made provision for grants for farm buildings. Practically all the farm premises in this country require improvement. We are glad to hear that the Minister for Agriculture is adopting our scheme in full. That scheme was thought of, devised and put into operation by the previous Government. We were also glad to be told that the Minister for Agriculture has accepted in toto and even, apparently, with some extension, the plans for expanding the poultry and egg industry. It should be possible to bring into existence a long-term programme for an increase in agricultural production based on the general principle that we are now in a better position to bargain with the British in regard to our exports. If the status of the workers goes on improving, as we hope it will, all over the world their consumption of protected foods should increase when given opportunities for expansion both in the home and foreign market.
We also provided subsidies, as the Minister for Finance knows, for fertilisers, and we increased those subsidies in the Supplementary Budget. Just as we in Fianna Fáil always argued amongst ourselves whether we were doing enough for the farmer in any particular direction, I would like to express the hope that if the present inter-Party Government can possibly increase that subsidy they should do so. I would even like them to consider borrowing for a period in order to provide the enormous quantities of fertilisers necessary to overcome the deficiencies of the war years. I do not like to think that the tax on the pint and on tobacco was reduced at the expense of a subsidy on fertilisers.
I do not believe that any agricultural worker or any farmer in this country, if it were put to him in a patriotic way, would object to a tax on any nonessential commodity if that tax were necessary to provide the highest possible subsidy on fertilisers for the next four or five years. I would like the Government also to consider another plan mooted here upon which I understand there has been no official decision and which would have come before the Minister for Agriculture in the ordinary way; that is, the suggestion that there should be more encouragement in the way of providing subsidies for grass seed of good quality. I recommend that as a matter of urgent and immediate consideration by the Government.
There is one advantage which the new Government will have and for which they will probably take credit. It may be a matter which has no relation to what they do and for which they are not in any way responsible; I refer to the possibility of being able to import more maize. There was a great deal of nonsense talked during the election about the Government's attitude towards the bacon industry. The facts are, as every person who studies statistics knows, that if we imported last year all the maize that the Fianna Fáil Government imported really and deliberately in the first normal year after the economic war we could have fattened some 700,000 more pigs. I hope that the maize harvest that was denied to the previous Government, because it was bad, will not be denied to the present Government.
You would not take maize when you could get it.
When was that?
Both the former Minister for Agriculture and the former Minister for Industry and Commerce informed the Dáil that they were searching the world for maize. I have no reason to disbelieve them.
You had a maize meal mixture and that is what killed the pig industry and the boars.
I have mentioned some few aspects of our policy. I believe it is a good policy. I believe that nothing better can be devised for agriculture. I hope that that policy will be adopted in toto, as most of it has been already, by the present Government. I would like to state in passing that I trust the Minister for Agriculture's efforts to guarantee the price of wheat for a number of years will be sufficiently effective. We, during the election, said that we would offer a sufficient inducement for the growing of wheat when the compulsory growing of wheat could be ended in order that a very considerable acreage could be maintained, both because we thought it was a good thing to grow wheat and also because of the possibility of another world war. I hope that that policy will be borne in mind by the present Government. We also left them a legacy of a considerable increase in the contribution from the Central Fund to the relief of agricultural rates. I reckon that in 1938 the agricultural rates paid by the farmers of this country represented 5.6 per cent. of the then agricultural output whereas, in spite of the increase that has taken place in rates since then and in spite of the increase in local social services of every kind, I reckon the percentage of agricultural rates as a percentage of the total agricultural output to be approximately 2.6 per cent. of the agricultural output in 1947. That is an indication that the Government were prepared to ask the taxpayers in general to contribute relief to the farmers in order that they could pay the agricultural workers higher wages and in order that they could commence to restore fertility to their land.
With regard to the development of industry, there can be no half-heartedness in the development of industry. If there is the slightest idea of a free trade policy entering into the minds of this inter-Party Government the results will be fatal because industry of necessity must be expanded largely by means of private enterprise. The State can intervene and form a company if it is desirable that they should do so and if no private producer is willing to enter the field. Where private enterprise is concerned, it is vitally important that those people who are considering industrial promotion of every kind should be given encouragement by the Government and there should be no half-heartedness about it. The Government should have the same balanced attitude, as we had, in insisting on efficiency on the one hand and, at the same time, in affording protection for new industrial ventures on the other. We now have an opportunity for expanding our industrial exports. The countries that were not willing to take our goods before are willing and anxious to take them now. The deficit in production costs has altered noticeably in the past few years. The late Minister for Industry and Commerce announced some time before the election that he was planning the inauguration of a special Department to assist in increasing industrial exports and to assist manufacturers to find markets abroad.
That Department would no doubt cost money and not pay its way in the first few years, but I would say it was worth gambling a little public money upon in order to see if you could achieve useful results. A comparison of the export of worsted and woollen cloth from Great Britain and Scotland before the war and from this country shows our country at a disadvantage. There is no reason why we should not compete with other exporting countries in certain fields. The industrialist requires up-to-date information. He requires the names of good agents where he can sell his goods. He requires information about publicity and advertising. Sometimes he requires guarantees for payments such as were given by the British Board of Trade before the war.
Equally, money will be lost over a number of years by the minerals company in its attempt finally to evaluate the mineral content of this country. I hope every effort will be made to see whether it is possible by means of new processes to develop such mineral resources as we have.
I hope also, that the establishment of good industrial standards will be pursued, and that no money will be saved on the Industrial Standards and Research Bureau, if it possibly can be avoided. The higher the standards we have, the more opportunities for ascertaining standards in this country, the better. There are absolute methods of testing industrial products and these should be applied whenever possible and facilities for applying them should be inaugurated here.
I also hope that there will be no false economy in regard to the development of the shipping services in this country. In order that our shipping may be successful, we have not only to ship our own goods but our people's. It requires forethought and care and planned development for the ships of this country to bring goods to this country, to go to seek for goods in other countries and bring them to still other countries, and to come back with more goods to this country. Only by that method can shipping, be successful. But it will need help from the State in its earlier stages of development.
In regard to the development of air services, we have heard a great deal already. There is no need to add my belief to the general statement that we should expand our air services. We have been surrounded in this country by a paper wall far too long. We have far too many close connections with only the British people. With them we have natural trade relations that are inevitable. We have close ties with them which we cannot forego. But there should be a greater direct link between the people of this country and the people of the Latin countries and the people on the American Continent, a link that can be best encouraged by air development. It should be possible for all those desiring to visit this country to come direct to it from all parts of the world. I believe it would be good business in the long run and that it would expand trade. It is worth losing many thousands of pounds in order to provide services which will bring people direct to this country. Although we all deplore excessive wastefulness on the part of any State-aided company, I would ask the Minister for Industry and Commerce to reconsider, as far as possible, any unnecessary economies that he is effecting in the services other than the Anglo-Irish air services.
The same observations apply to the tourist industry. I should like the Minister for Finance, if it is possible for him, to check the statement I am making in regard to our adverse trade balance in 1947. While it may appear serious at first sight for this country, a further examination of the figures will show that our external assets were not wasted to any great degree. There was no great undesirable disinvestment in order to purchase those imports, in order to pay for them. The natural explanation of that is that the value of the tourist industry was far greater than that actually calculated by the Department for Finance in the year 1947. I think the last figure we had was for 1946, when it was £17,000,000. In 1947 it must have been far greater than that in order to account for the manner in which we managed to import huge quantities of goods without dis-investing or reducing our external assets. That being the case, we must recognise that there is no immediate substitution for that revenue. Whatever individuals may feel in this city about the tourist industry, whatever temporary effects it may have had upon price levels in Dublin or the standard of living in Dublin, it is inconceivable that you can increase agricultural exports in a short period. Not even the most perfect Government could increase them so quickly as to offset that revenue and, therefore, as a short-term policy it is essential to import all the machinery and raw materials we require for fresh economic developments, and as a long-term policy it would seem to me to be an excellent one for this country, bringing the farmer's markets to his door.
It seems to me to be an essential contribution towards increasing employment in the West, in the mountainous areas, in the areas where scenery attracts visitors. It seems to me to be an essential contribution towards an increase in the employment of those in domestic service. A very large proportion of the total emigration last year consisted of those going to domestic service in Great Britain. It would take a government of angels to provide alternative employment for people who desire to do that work and for whom no work is immediately available in industries or other occupations. The tourist industry supplies that answer to a certain degree and I trust it will have the full support of the Government and that they will not be afraid if there should be passing adverse repercussions, such as tourists driving up prices in certain areas.
We have the problem of emigration and the flight from the land to consider here. We heard a great deal about emigration during the election. We heard very little about the fact that there were 100,000 more insured workers in this country in 1946 than there were in 1931 and 25,000 more than in 1939, indicating that the Government had by their policy enabled nearly one extra worker to be employed and to pay national health insurance contributions for every three in 1931. No plans that we can devise for agriculture will completely solve the emigration problem. I defy any Deputy who comes from the West of Ireland to deny that, even if you increase the income of the West of Ireland small farmer on five 10, 15, 20 acres by 25 per cent., the problem remains that most of the people have to leave the farms.
Neither land division nor agricultural production or expansion can solve the problem. It cannot be solved by housing. The only way to solve it is by providing the greatest possible diversity of employment in this country, by doing all the things we were doing at considerable cost to the taxpayers by encouraging industry, whether State-aided or private schemes, by dividing lands where possible, by giving employment where possible, expanding shipping and aviation and encouraging the tourist industry. It cannot be solved by wild statements such as guarantees to employ every person at the job which he wants and at the wage he wants and the accommodation he desires. It will not be solved by that method, but only by careful planning with the object of expanding every aspect of industry and diversifying life to the greatest possible degree.
I know of no other method, and I challenge anybody to deny that even a considerable increase in agricultural production in the area in which emigration is greatest would not effectually prevent a very large proportion of those on each small farm from leaving the farm and finding employment elsewhere, either in the eastern part of Ireland or in the big towns or abroad. That is the fact we have to face and in regard to which a Government, consisting partly of individuals who made rosy promises in regard to curing emigration, will have to exercise common sense, imagination and restraint, if they are not to continue making promises which are very difficult of fulfilment.
I trust that one of the economies envisaged by the Government will not be with regard to the decision which was made by the previous Government to enable moneys to be granted from the Transitional Development Fund for the restoration of roads.
The position, as many Deputies know it, is that owing to the scarcity of supplies of tar and other materials and owing to the turf programme, the roads gradually deteriorated during the war. Special grants were given to main and county roads to effect their restoration and to preserve a skin on the main roads whose capital value is estimated at something over £15,000,000. Those grants were given for two years and, as far as I know, the previous Government decided to repeat those grants and, if necessary, to borrow from the Transitional Development Fund in order to do so.
Another difficulty is that while the cost of road building is 50 per cent. or 60 per cent. more than it was before the war, motor taxation has not increased in anything like the same proportions. Road building is the ideal solution to provide employment, and, as far as the improvement of the main roads is concerned, there need never be any fear of unemployment, for if the Government continues the turf scheme and expands the drainage schemes and if tillage continues on a proper basis, there will be barely enough workers for the main roads. More modern methods are needed and more modern machinery can be employed without having any unemployment. In the summer months it should be possible to increase the number of workers and the number of workers who are paid wages for highly skilled work. It all depends on continuing the road restoration programme and the road improvement programme that were being prepared by surveyors who were appointed by the previous Government. I trust that those funds will be forthcoming, at least for the present year, and then the Minister for Local Government will have the difficult task of considering the increase in road building costs in proportion to the increase in motor taxation.
Among the other schemes which were being prepared by the previous Government before they went out of office was a programme of social services and there were other plans also for the assistance of the workers. There was the Factory Act for improved physical conditions in the factories which, I hope, will be pursued by the present Minister for Industry and Commerce. As far as I am aware, it was nearly completed. That was our plan, a Fianna Fáil plan; a Fianna Fáil Bill which was three-fourths or five-sixths completed. I would like to remind the House that we were preparing a social security scheme. It would be well to repeat this because it would be a gross injustice to the previous Government if the present inter-Party Government took the credit for this scheme. They will find in draft form a number of alternative social service schemes. The Government were not able to make up their minds as to what should be the total volume of the scheme but it included widows' and orphans' pensions, old age pensions at the age of 65, unemployment insurance and a national health insurance scheme which, for the first time, varied according to the size of the family, and maternity benefits. Like all such schemes it will be found to be costly, costly to some degree to the employer, to some degree to the employee and costly to the taxpayer. One result of the former Ministry for Social Welfare was the organisation of a social services scheme which would reduce social assistance, as distinct from social insurance, and the abolition of the last relics of old British public assistance in this country. To arrange for workers to have social insurance in contrast to social assistance is not possible in rural areas, or at least it is very difficult except on a voluntary basis.
The new Government will also find in the Ministry for Social Welfare a method for changing the present system for the calculation of the means test in rural areas. The Government decided to put an end to the old method of counting a man's crops, his cattle and his chickens for this was one of the last remains of British pauperism which penalised the man who was thrifty and gave the advantage to the thriftless. Though, of course, an occasion could arise when a man could be unlucky and unfortunate but you will find plans for a change in that matter also.
It is time.
I would like to refer now to one or two observations made by Deputies on the opposite benches. Deputy Palmer suggested that the previous Government had done nothing about education. That was an extraordinary misstatement. Deputy Palmer will find that the last Government built or gave building grants for 600 schools. It gave grants for the enlargement and improvement of 4,000 others and it had plans to assist in the erection of 500 other schools. And when — as I hope it will — their erection proceeds under the present Government, I hope that they will not claim that it was an inter-Party Government plan because it was already on the files of the then Minister for Education. It was also planned to expand the number of vocational schools.
It was planned to raise the school-leaving age and the Minister for Finance will find that the cost of putting this into force, of providing equipment for the schools and of staffing them, will make him somewhat breathless.
If it is decided to go on where the previous Government stopped, I hope that the present Minister for Local Government will overcome the difficulties attaching to the expansion of housing and the problem of providing sufficient skilled labour in the urban areas. This problem is one which will confront him and for which I hope he will find a solution. Many workers are returning here because wages are as high in the city as they are in London, and I hope he will be able to effect an increase in the number of apprentices taken into the trade without adversely affecting the security of the workers. I hope that the members of the Labour Party will be able to influence the unions to take an increased number of apprentices by guaranteeing State employment. If they do, they will have the approval of all the members on these benches. It is a difficult problem and the present bottle-neck in regard to housing in Dublin has been caused by the shortage of labour and to a certain degree by the shortage of materials, though there has been an increase during the last two months of 1947.
The new Minister will not find that the figures in regard to the use of materials for luxury buildings agree with the statements made by members of the present Government. Only 3.4 per cent. of the materials were allocated to recreation or tourist purposes. He will not find that we were building gigantic cinemas all over the country so as to prevent seriously the building of workers' houses. He will find that that canard, at least, is false. I do not know that the Minister for Local Government himself stated that but plenty of other Deputies did state it in their arguments. Only 3.4 per cent. was allocated to recreation and tourist purposes.
Deputy Commons in contrast to Deputy Cowan spoke suggesting that the Army ought to be cut in half. It is impossible for me to analyse the Army Vote but for some time, for two or three months, the Army is only 8,500 men. Special services are available for soldiers' wives and children and there has been an improvement in the living conditions of all men in the Army. We have provided better conditions and amenities in the barracks. We have given better pay, better travelling facilities and better walking-out uniforms. The result of the suggestion made by Deputy Commons, in contrast to Deputy Cowan, would be either to cut down the Army to a mere regiment of 2,500 men or that those services should be abandoned. That would be the result of cutting the Army Vote in half. I hope that we will be able to maintain the nucleus of a fine Army and that the services will be continued. I would add — and this is purely on my own initiative — that the pay will have to be further increased if we are to maintain the Army.
It should have been done long ago.
Even the increases, large as they were, given by the previous Government were not large enough for the best kind of Army in this country. When I hear Deputy Cowan and Deputy Commons disagree on the future of the Army it worries me because it indicates already that lack of resoluteness which this country needs if its social and economic conditions are to improve. It is all very well to say that it does not matter whether Deputy Cowan disagrees with Deputy Commons so long as the individuals stand together, but will the right type of men join the Army even now if they see that disagreement in the Dáil? Is that not a typical example of what we wish to avoid in any Government, namely, disagreement on a fundamental principle?
I wish to conclude by observing that, if world conditions are suitable, now is the time to go ahead by stimulating every form of development in this country. Our credit is high. We have a chance now of entering into world markets, of importing machinery, of starting new industries and of developing agriculture, such as we have never had before, either because we had internal political disputes or disputes or wars with Great Britain. The future is bright for us if we have a Government that is resolute and strong——
Hear, hear!
——and a Government that is prepared to spend money when it is necessary to spend money and if, as I have said, world conditions remain reasonably stable. Therefore, we in this Party will watch the efforts of the present Government. We trust that they will have the same strength, the same confidence, the same ability to go ahead and the same know-how as the Fianna Fáil Government had over the past 16 years.
I wonder if the House could reach agreement to conclude this debate to-night. The Seanad must meet and pass the Central Fund Bill before the 31st March and, in view of the holiday next week, it is desirable that it should meet to-morrow. If we can get agreement for an hour or for even three-quarters of an hour for the Minister tonight it should be possible to conclude by 10 o'clock.
Perhaps it would help us to decide whether it will be possible to conclude to-night if we could get some indication of the number of Deputies who wish to participate in this debate.
There is only one offering. I shall call on the Minister after Deputy Brady has spoken. I presume that there will be no discussion on the Central Fund Bill after three days' discussion on the Vote on Account.
I do not wish to commit myself until I have heard the Minister. I agree that the Minister should be called on after Deputy Brady has finished.
And that the Minister should conclude to-night?
Very good.
When the Minister for Finance introduced this Vote he signified his intention of seeking economies and retrenchment in certain directions. He did not, however, give any definite indication of where he proposes to enforce these economies. We, who have been members of this House over a period of years, and who have heard the Minister for Finance speaking when he was in Opposition, are apprehensive about some of the items contained in the Book of Estimates and are wondering whether he will economise on them. One has only to refer to his speech last year as Deputy McGilligan from this side of the House on the Vote on Account to realise that there is reason for apprehension in respect of this proposed economy and retrenchment programme.
Speaking in this House on the Vote on Account for 1947-48 he made some caustic comments in regard to the new post of Minister for Social Services whose Vote for the first time appeared then on the Vote on Account. In volume 104, columns 2278-79 of the 14th March, 1947, referring to the Fianna Fáil Government, Deputy McGilligan is reported as saying: "The policy of the present Government has been to boost what they call the social services." Later on he said: "It could be and probably was a good angle of politics for some years; I think it is even wearing out as far as politics are concerned." Referring to the then Minister for Social Services, Deputy McGilligan said that "He is always talking about charity" and he maintained that "No healthy community can be reared on charity". Does the Minister for Finance regard the present Minister for Social Services as a Minister for charity? Does he regard the amount included in the Vote on Account for social services as charity, and does he intend, seeing that he wants to rear a healthy community in this country, to do away with that charity? It is inevitable that there should be a good deal of uncertainty about the economies that are going to be effected by the Government. Even if the Minister for Finance did indicate that he was prepared, seeing that in his opinion it did not make very much difference politically, to cut on social services, would there be the same uncertainty about the finality of that decision as there is about the glass-house scheme for tomato-growing in the Gaeltacht? I understand that—despite the fact that the Minister for Agriculture announced in this House a couple of weeks ago in the manner that only the Minister for Agriculture can employ that this scheme was going to go by the board, that he was going to spend on it only the money to which the Department had been committed—as a result of pressure which was brought to bear upon him he has now agreed to the tomato-growing scheme for the Gaeltacht. However, is there going to be the same instability about everything in the policy of the Government as there has been in this matter? Once a decision is taken will the Government stand over that decision? If they give a decision in the House to-day is it quite possible that on the following day that decision may be reversed?
Naturally, I am glad that the Minister for Agriculture has changed his mind in this case because the Gaeltacht Glasshouse Scheme affects the constituency which I represent. I believe that it is a good scheme and the previous Government introduced it in that belief. I think that the Minister for Agriculture, when he originally made the decision, did so rather hastily. Probably by now he has seen the matter in a different light and has given way to the deputation that he met to-day. There was no necessity for the rush. There was no necessity for the Minister for Agriculture just to jump in, start with this as one of the cuts and then reverse his decision. I hope we are finished with that sort of thing, that the Government will give careful consideration to any of the economies they are going to effect, and that when having, according to the best of their judgment, come to a certain decision they will stick to that decision and that we shall not have that uncertainty and shiftiness that have been characteristic of the tomato scheme.
I want to refer to another scheme which cannot be referred to too often by the representatives of areas where turf has been produced over a long number of years. We in Donegal have been producing turf under the scheme during the emergency. We had planned this year under the scheme of Bord na Móna to produce 40,000 tons of turf. One could visualise at least 2,000 workers in Donegal earning £50,000 producing turf this year if that axe had not fallen on the turf scheme. It is difficult to understand the attitude of a Government composed of Parties, a number of whom in recent months promised full employment up and down the country to everybody. They were going to end emigration and give employment to all and sundry. Yet the first axe to be applied represents an economy which may be the means of depriving thousands of workmen in Donegal and in the West of Ireland generally of employment.
In addition to the work provided in actual turf production there was haulage, transport and ancilliary employment for a number of other people. I would appeal through the Minister for Finance to the Minister for Industry and Commerce to adopt the attitude of his colleague the Minister for Agriculture and reconsider his decision on that matter, that he would agree to continue the production of hand-won turf for this year and give these people some notice in advance of the fact that next year the scheme would not be continued. They would then be in a position to look for some alternative employment. These men provided fuel that was badly needed in the cities and towns during the darkest period of the emergency and they deserve better from the Government and the nation than to be told now that their services are no longer required and that in the interests of economy the fuel scheme has to be done away with.
On Tuesday of this week, I asked leave to make a statement about the loan, a statement which had been prepared and which was definitely a responsible utterance. The ex-Tánaiste, as Leader of the Opposition, welcomed that statement and in a very brief series of remarks wished the loan success. I had not at any time to give him anything more than a preliminary note of the statement but if I had any unworthy suspicion that he might have said anything antagonistic to the loan, these unworthy suspicions were unjustified. I would like to have it assumed that what he had said would be regarded as the Party attitude on the matter. Nevertheless three or four other people decided to make other comments with regard to it. A couple of them were made out of ignorance, and one, I think out of inexperience, but the comment made by an ex-Minister for Finance, Deputy MacEntee, could not be regarded as anything but deliberately bad and malevolently dishonest. I said with regard to the loan:
"Not since 1941, when the National Security Loan was issued, has it been necessary for the State to invite subscriptions to a public issue. The proceeds of that loan were exhausted by 1943 but it has been possible to meet capital outlay and Budget deficits in the interval out of the proceeds of Savings Certificates and temporary borrowings."
That was, I think, a fairly clear statement that what had been borrowed in 1941, by 1943 had become exhausted, by reason of finance, open finance, and there were Budget deficits in the meantime. I went on to state:
"The resumption of State expenditure on development works, especially electricity and housing, since 1946, rendered it necessary, however, to undertake immediately a substantial borrowing operation so that the temporary borrowings may be retained and further capital outlay provided for."
In this House people have tried to read into that statement of mine the insinuation that I was borrowing against a deficit which I was going to make myself. I do not think anybody in this House believes that, but three people have made that statement. I think they know they were saying what was untrue.
I should like to speak of the ex-Minister for Finance in language that he will understand. He has been paraded in this House as a poet, or rather as an ex-poet. In this House he speaks in a pedestrian way, in an earthy of the earth pedestrian way, but at least he must know the meaning of the phrase "making an ass of yourself." Nobody effects that temporary transformation more often or more easily than Deputy MacEntee. I have been told by those who have some knowledge of the feelings induced by that transformation that afterwards the victim feels very sorry for himself but that does not prevent him from doing it again. There are two types of chastisement which a man, realising the next morning that he has undergone that transformation, finds of great use. One is to blow out his brains and the other, to quote the old phrase, is to kick himself. A man may blow out his brains but it is anatomically impossible for him to kick himself. It is a pity that human nature has not provided for that contingency; otherwisethe Deputy might have administered that chastisement to himself when he discovered how silly was that utterance. If he cannot, if it is anatomically impossible, then some of his colleagues might do it for him.
The ex-Minister went on then to suggest that this was a device to get over the loss of money sustained because we had reduced certain taxation but when I questioned him, he admitted that if there was any loss, it could only have been spread over the last three weeks. The ex-Tánaiste said that what was lost must have been very small. Of course, there was no reason to believe that there was any possibility that the borrowing which was announced this week was for that purpose. Where the ex-Minister for Finance gets his calculation of 7 per cent sinking fund I do not know. Possibly a child might misread the statement made with regard to the loan but nobody who has any knowledge of finance could misread it. Where he adduces the particular figures he has got and how he arrives at his 7 per cent. conclusion I do not know. I wish that he were present in the House now to explain it. Let us hope, despite all the bad things that have been said about the loan, that the few good comments have been made to the effect that the loan is a sound investment will help to make it a success. If it is successful, leaving Party politics out of it altogether, I want to acclaim—if they will take acclamation from me— those Deputies who spoke in support of it and I want to say that there were two or three Deputies of this House who certainly added nothing to the possibilities of its success.
This has been a Vote on Account which has been totally devoid of the usual flavour associated with such a debate. That is only as it should be because the Deputies now facing me suffer under the embarrassment of having to criticise their own bill of costs, £70,500,000, the bill of costs that they would have imposed on the people in this country in the next financial year had they continued in office. Naturally, they could not be as critical of it as they might have been had the bill been prepared by some other Government and had they been sitting in Opposition for a year or so. They might then have the right to criticise it, and they would have criticised it on the ground of its being one of the most extravagant and tyrannical burdens ever imposed upon the people.
The criticism of this Vote on Account has been mainly concentrated on two or three items. Deputies are very worried about some small points. One very small point caused quite abnormal misapprehension in the minds of some of the Opposition speakers. The last speaker, in particular, was rather interested in it. I refer to the scheme to erect glasshouses in the Gaeltacht. I do not know whether Deputy Brady conferred with those Deputies in this House who used to be Ministers over here and who were supposed to favour that scheme. If either of the two previous occupants for the Ministry of Agriculture was here I would ask Deputy Brady to listen quietly here while I challenged them to say whether they ever believed in that scheme. They did not. No person in the Department of Agriculture had any faith or belief in that scheme. I say that without fear of contradiction. If there is any great lament about it now, remember that that lament would not be shared by either Deputy Dr. Ryan or Deputy Smith. Neither of them had any belief in the scheme. It was only let go on because it was a fad of the previous Minister for Finance, and was described as such.
The second matter to which considerable reference has been made is turf production. The comments made with regard to turf range from those who believe there is no turf going to be cut next year to those who believe that it is still possible to save something from the wreck and that, through Bord na Móna, those who win turf by hand will get some employment and some chance of securing a livelihood. I shuddered as I listened here to the terrors of the Deputies opposite because these people might have to emigrate. That fear is a new emotion for those Deputies. I am sorry that Deputy Childers has left the House. He was the only person who faced up to this problem of emigration and his excuse was the easy one. "We are an adventurous race," he said; "Our people will always emigrate." He was not thinking about the people who were kept at home because there was employment on the turf bogs and he was not thinking about the people who are going to emigrate because there is no employment on the turf bogs. "Our people are an adventurous people," he said, and they went while the going was good and the going was better abroad than it was at home here under the present Opposition when they were a Government. Hence, they went.
The Deputies opposite seem to labour under the misapprehension that all turf production is going to be dropped. Remember, if there is any development in the direction of dropping hand-won turf it is nothing new. Deputy Lemass in February, 1946, foreshadowed what was going to happen and he told us that when the emergency ceased all hand-won turf production would finish and Bord na Móna would be asked to take over certain functions. In August, 1947, the then Minister for Local Government issued a memorandum, or a circular, to all county councils and local authorities informing them that the county councils should not engage in the production of turf for Fuel Importers Limited after a particular date. It is quite clear from that that turf winning was coming to an end——
Not from the circular.
The circular is dated 1947 and the speech of the Deputy to which I referred is dated February, 1946. I add both together.
The circular conveyed that the production of turf was being transferred from the county councils to Bord na Móna.
So did the speech. The speech also stated that there was going to be a declining process and the Estimate that the ex-Minister put forward shows a cut of £500,000 in the subsidy in respect of fuel, including turf, timber and coal. Hence £1,500,000 was cut out of the Estimate. If there was to be a falling-off in the need for turf and if there was going to be a reduction in the numbers employed on turf production, that was no sudden emergency and that was no development that took place in the last three weeks. That had been foreshadowed and steps had been taken to bring it about. Let nobody suffer under the misapprehension that the events of the last three weeks are in any way responsible for it.
There is another situation that I shall develop in a moment. I want to ask the Deputies opposite what is the target they think ought to be achieved with regard to turf merely from the point of view of the employment angle? Six hundred thousand tons has been spoken of as the correct figure. That target was achieved in one year and one year only. Is it to be an obligation for ever that every year hereafter 600,000 tons of turf must be cut? Is that the essential target? Is that the minimum we must cut in order to avoid a wave of unemployment? Or, can we go down to 400,000 tons? Can we go down to 200,000 tons? Has the matter to be related to whatever fuel there is in the country? Has it to be related to any other form of employment that may exist in the country? Is it, for instance, to be related to this: before the war started at all the then Minister for Agriculture, Deputy Dr. Ryan, had put about 40,000 people off the land; between 1941 and 1946 a further 36,000 people have been put off the land. Is there enough work on the land or would there be enough work on the land in the future to employ, say, the late 36,000 that were disemployed in the five years between 1941 and 1946 under the auspices of the late Government? Can we get back then to the other 40,000 people swept off the land in the previous period before the war ever started?
I have had lectures here on academic finance and academic economy. Deputy Childers spoke about our Irish peasant economics. His dissertation was reminiscent to me of the Third Programme on the B.B.C.—a certain amount of culture and learning and a great deal of statistical information. The fact of the matter is he talked about all the plans that were prepared. The reality is that these plans were not carried out. Everything of which he spoke were plans that were to be found on departmental files. Everything was prepared—all but done, but not done. That is the fundamental difference between those who had been dislodged from Government and ourselves. We are proposing to get things done and not merely to leave things as schemes on files. The things we propose to have done are things of a productive nature and not these megalomaniac nightmares that we have found scattered on files throughout the departments. I regard the ex-Tánaiste as the main protagonist in all this matter. He summed up what he called the anxiety that we had caused him by speculation as to what this Government was going to do in the way of retrenchment. He said with regard to my opening few remarks that the whole speech could be regarded as a repetition of the words "economy and retrenchment." I am glad they impressed the ex-Minister in that way. These are words which will be heard very much more often in this House than ever before. I hope to get the assistance of my colleagues in not merely making them words, but carrying them into a programme and achievement. There has been too little either in the way of economy or retrenchment for years past.
I have been asked about the disposition of the Government with regard to some of the air lines. I want to say, so far as the transatlantic air service is concerned, that that service will not come into operation if I can stop it. People tell me that this will result in unemployment. I will do my utmost to minimise whatever may be caused in the way of unemployment to some people. It is a great pity that the people who started off with this grandiose scheme did not first of all consider when they offered attractive terms of employment to technicians, whether that employment was likely to last or to end in disappointment of the type that may now be ahead for certain people. I am told that if there is unemployment caused with regard to the technicians these are so good that they will be immediately called for by other air services; that we may lose their services, but that they will not suffer unemployment. I hope that is so.
Why should that transatlantic air service be run? Deputy de Valera spoke as if the whole of the air service was to be dislodged. There is no such programme. Why should we think that we are going to add to our national prestige by adding on a new and more serious non-paying airline proposition to the other non-paying air-lines we have? Remember, there is not a solitary one of the services we have operating in or about the air which pays its way. There is not one about which any business-man connected with any board could give me an assurance that it will pay its way. There is a deficit on Aer Rianta, the holding company. Strange as it may appear, there is a deficit on Aer Lingus.
There is a deficit on Collinstown airport and on the Shannon airport. May I stress also that there is a deficit on every branch of Aer Lingus— the London service, the other English services. the Rome service, and the Brussels service. There is not a single one of these services either paying its way or promising to pay its way. I am leaving out of that calculation the return to the State of a single penny of the almost £6,000,000 that has been capitalised and that went to purchase the aircraft and the landing grounds to which these aircraft come. Leaving all that out, in three weeks I was able to discover this, and it was a shock, that not one of the air services that we have pays or even hopes to pay its way.
In these circumstances, I am asked if I have an opinion on whether the new non-paying air service should be permitted to start. Surely we ought to get time to look at that. Does anybody say that that is not a wise precaution to take? With all these other deficits accumulated, we should at least hesitate and delay for examination before we add on another deficit which is likely to be a heavier one than any of the others. Why that service was ever contemplated I do not know. I have heard suggestions about prestige. Do you really get prestige from adding a fifth non-paying service on to the four which already do not pay? Is there prestige of any national type to be got from that?
Somebody suggested that it might be useful for the purpose of getting tourists here. Tourists came here before there ever was an air service. They will come here whether we have an air service of our own or not. Tourists come here and they will come a little bit at our expense, because we are providing out of the resources of this people, meagre as they are, landing grounds with a very small payment by them for the services that we give them. I consider that I am patting an end to the megalomania of a high type when I say that I am not going to have my mind worked away from ordinary considerations by any nonsense talked about flying our flag in America. If we are going to fly our flag in America, I want to see it flown in some way that we can at least call attention to it, and ask people to look at the way in which we run things and not have to confess that it is another added to a series of deficits with regard to the air business.
One Deputy said that possibly the air service might be defended on the ground of the income it brought us in tourist dollars and he appeared also to think that that was an excuse for the Tourist Board. I have not been able to examine in detail yet the question of the Tourist Board. I do know, however, that they operated private hotels and that in a year in which tourists were pouring into this country and in which it might be said that every hoarding-house around Dublin made money, the five hotels operated by the board could not make money. They showed what they call a profit from a type of trading account but, when the management expenses were put against that, there was a loss, and the loss did not include one halfpenny return on the almost £250,000 that the State has put into these hotels.
Should we continue luxury hotels here under the patronage of a semi-Government board in order, not to get tourists—tourists will come in any event—but in order to put up tourists? Go down to any public house in this city and ask the people around there would they like an extra penny or two put either on their pint of stout or their packet of cigarettes to enable wealthy tourists to come to this country and be supported by those who drink their pint and smoke cigarettes because hotels did not pay their way? Why should we in this country bring in the luxury type of tourists and give them accommodation at a rate that does not pay the expenses? It is again another part of the megalomania which was very evident as we went through the files, even at a three weeks survey.
I do not know whether the information I have got is accurate, but there appears to be even a lack of co-ordination between some of these Government-sponsored bodies. I am told that if you go to New York at present you will find Aer Linte—the service which is not going to be run, if I can stop it— advertising trips to Ireland to bring Americans here while next door to it is an office run by the Tourist Board telling people not to come here on the ground that we do not want them this year. Where the sanity is in that particular type of performance I do not know.
A third thing which caused a certain amount of anxiety was the retrenchment in the fuel situation. I have already posed the question, is there a minimum amount of turf which people say that I must cut apart from whether ifc is saleable or not, just in order to keep people employed? Am I to deal with the turf situation purely as a question of employment or as a device to prevent unemployment and emigration, or is it something in the nature of a business proposition? Will the Deputies think so when I say that when we assumed office one of the first things we found was that 10,000 tons of logs per week were pouring into the city at a subsidy of £40,000 per week? We were bringing so many logs into the city that there was not a sale for the weekly supply for six weeks past.
That was stopped before you took over office.
It was not stopped then. It was stopped since we took over office and if the ex-Minister thinks that he gave orders to have it stopped they were disregarded. I would like to know when he gave the orders.
We found that the stuff was pouring in at a cost of £40,000 a week, and that it had not been purchased in six weeks. It has been rolling in here to the Park and in the Park there is a five years supply of logs. In the same Park there is enough turf to last the winter of 1948 and the winter of 1949. If another sod of turf or another log of timber was never brought to the Park there is a five years' supply of timber fuel and enough turf to last until the Spring of 1950. In addition to that we have a quarter of a million tons of American and African coal. That is the situation. I remember that in May of last year the newspapers were blazing forth the great achievement of Deputy Sheehan who was sent to America to get half a million tons of coal and to get liberty ships to bring it in. In February of this year we had the park piled high, as I have described. In these circumstances does anybody here put up to me as a sane proposition that we should consider cutting 400,000 tons, let alone 600,000 tons of turf? It is not required but we could of course take this turf out of the park and bring it back to the bog.
There are people who would burn it if you gave it to them. Why is it rationed still?
I do not know at all why it is rationed. I do not know why the ration was not removed for the past year or so. It may be that there are considerations as regard what the people would do if there was no ration and if they were allowed freely to buy the multiplicity of types of fuel which are in the park, but a decision is rerequired on one thing and it has been taken. There is not going to be any big campaign for the cutting of turf this year and will any body tell me that that is wrong in the face of the facts I have given? The facts are not to be denied.
I have heard Deputy Bartley and Deputy Breslin. They said that whether we want turf to burn or not we must cut the stuff. About the time of the famine a series of things called "follies" were built—buildings for which there was no real use. I could also perpetrate "follies" by getting turf cut at one bog and sent to another and then brought back again just for the sake of giving employment. Is that the fatuity which is going to be a basis for the policy which is going to be carried out?
The Minister for Industry and Commerce (Mr. Morrissey) has said that this year we proposed to ask for 200,000 tons of turf to be cut. That is an effort to keep the people in employment, and it is not because we want the turf. The Minister said that the storage of this turf was becoming quite a problem, and all I can suggest is that it will be stored along the bog roads. Whether we are going to have it watched or not is another matter, or whether we are going to cut it merely in order to have it pilfered. That is the situation we are landed in. Surely in these circumstances it is futile to speak of continuing the turf campaign.
If there had been any forethought, it would have been recognised that just as there had been a big emergency there would have to be a shading off and a decline, and if the decline was not to be sudden the matter should have been cased off. We have not got so much a wealth of turf as a burden of fuel, and yet the complaint is made as though we were going to end all cutting of turf in this country.
I hope that we will get a policy with regard to turf eventually; that we will have turf cutting for the turf areas, that it will be used, and that we will not forget turf as a national fuel. But that policy of making it attractive to the people of this country is going to be impeded when we start to unload on them all the mass of fuel that is in the Park.
There was an example of the same type of megalomania in allowing the Tourist Board to do what private enterprise could have done better and without any investigation, public scrutiny or care as to whether they were doing the job as well or better.
The last matter about which there was supposed to be anxiety and which was commented upon on the opposite side of the House was the retrenchment in the Army. From some of the misleading comments which I have listened to, one would think that the Army was being disbanded, or, from the scarcely less misleading comments, that it was going to be made completely useless. One comment from the ex-Minister for Defence was that the Army is not at its full strength and that it would be just as well to leave it as it is. There is no question whatever of disbanding or, as far as I know, of interfering with the major part of the personnel of the Army. We are faced with an Army with a paper strength of 13,000 men, but that strength has never been achieved. Now there is a cry as if the country was going to be opened up to immediate invasion or, as some greenhorn on the opposite benches put it, to dictatorship, if we could not recruit 13,000 men. There never were that number and we do not intend to recruit them. It is somewhat above what I think to be our normal requirements, but whatever retrenchment may take place, care must be taken that the men who were induced to come into the Army with the expectation of a certain term of service will not be too disappointed. But I deride the proposal that we need an Army of 13,000 men. We can get retrenchment in the Army in a variety of ways and we are endeavouring to get it without cutting too seriously the personnel by ordinary methods of preventing wastage.
Deputy McQuillan, I think, referred to our toy Navy. I hope to get retrenchment there. I do not know how many corvettes we have got but they are too many. I do not know what their purpose was, but, as described by the late Minister for Defence as keeping our waters free of belligerent activities, it is outrageous. That would not require four or five corvettes but a full navy, and the people of the country do not want that. They could not be persuaded to pay for that, but he pretends that it is something more than a patrol fleet and something short of a real navy. We have something a good deal short of a real navy. I do not think we are ever going to have a real navy. I feel there is some little field for retrenchment there. These are the main points that have been raised in connection with retrenchment—all the pother that has been in this House for the last few days and all the scaremongering has been done in that regard.
I feel it is a sound policy to stop these enormous subsidies for a fuel of which we have too much and certainly to which we do not want any addition. I feel it is a sound policy to stop some of the air services. I feel that it would be a sound thing to bring a lot of these Government subsidised companies under review and to let the public see what they are paying for and the value they are getting for their money. When these accounts are operated we will probably find fields for retrenchment. I believe that when people realise what has been aimed at they will applaud this Government's decision to look for a saving instead of continuing the mad course of ever-increasing expenditure year by year which has gone on for the past 16 years. Lest there be any gibes in time to come that no great economy is being effected very speedily I should like to point out that it will be no easy task.
When you have a slow and upwards-proceeding accumulation of expenditure year by year over a period of 16 years it is no easy matter to effect speedy economies. There have been, of course, vested interests created, and nobody can be completely unconscious of the people who may suffer. We will look for economies, and I hope that we will get them, but ruthless economy is not asked for and will not be accomplished. Too many individuals will suffer, and the longer the period over which this vast expenditure was. built up, the slower the process will be to take it down. I hope this year to be able to pick a few locks. I want to ease the deadlock. I want to start the cutting-down process, and I hope that my colleagues will support me in my efforts to reduce this type of wasteful expenditure. The members of the-Fianna Fáil Party have found themselves, in the main, trying to back this Book of Estimates for £70,500,000. They did not always do that. I have quotations here from speeches which were made a few years ago, when even the small amount of the Estimates we presented in 1931-32 was described as gross extravagance, and when we were told that millions could be saved. Deputy Lemass wanted embassies cut down. He is very strong now on having them kept there and increased. But that was one of the fields for economy he thought of. Deputy MacEntee thought some retrenchment could be made everywhere because there was gross extravagance and he could see a field for economy. That was out of a £22,000,000 Supply Vote in comparison with a £70,500,000 Vote now.
I think that the chief argument of the Fianna Fáil Party has been the mysterious calculation made about the national income, which is intended to prove that the present £70,500,000 Vote is no greater burden on the new national income than £22,000,000 Vote was in the days of 1931. I want to commend to all those who are interested the speech that was made in this House by Deputy Kissane.
Deputy Kissane proves that the £ is now worth 8/-. That is some feat for that Party to have accomplished—to have reduced the value of the £ in this country to 8/-. One could pause to think of the effect of that on the people of this country. It is all very well to talk about our credit being good, and I say that our credit is good. However, credit may be made good while the population internally is definitely made suffer very much. No people, in 16 years, could think of reducing the value of the £ from 20/- to 8/- without recognising that a vast amount of harm was going to be done to the people and, of course, harm has been done. People have fled from this country in droves. People have suffered from disease. People have gone suffering from malnutrition. People have had less education. Families have had to withdraw from their children the promise of education because they could not afford to pay the fees.
Hear, hear.
Those who had little savings had to dissipate them. Nobody ever will calculate the harm that has been done over the past 16 years by merely reducing the value of the £ — the unit in which people are paid — to 8/- and that is the work of the people who are sitting opposite to me. Whatever harm has been done they did it. I am sure it was not deliberate — it was probably done through ignorance — but it was done and the people have suffered from it. However, it does not mean much to them whether it was done deliberately or inadvertently. When people think of the dislocation that has been caused in their lives now that the £ in their fist is worth only 8/- they begin, in their own family circles, to throw their minds back over the past 16 years and to realise in their hearts what the last Government did to them.
On the basis of a further calculation that this £70,500,000 Estimate represents only the same as the £22,000,000 Estimate, because that calculation can be made, other calculations have got to be included. Have the wages of all the people who are included in this Book of Estimates gone up the two-and-a-half times they should have gone up if the relation of the 20/- to 8/- is a real one? Was full income-tax relief given to people? Are they based now upon whatever the old assessment was or are they related to the new value of the £? Has the Book of Estimates been adjusted, in other words, to that calculation made by Deputy Kissane and apparently accepted by all of his colleagues? It is only an argument that Deputy Kissane has because he has no better one at the moment. One of our difficulties is to try to remedy the distortion that has been caused by that policy, whether it has been pursued or just developed over the 16 years, which has given the peculiar result that 20/- now buys only 8/- worth of goods. There has been a tremendous distortion which has been more acute among the middle classes than among the other classes. It has been less acute among working classes, because they fought their way, and since the standstill Order was raised they got some return, but not the whole, between the value of their wages and the new cost of living. Those people of whom Deputy Timoney has spoken did well out of it, namely, the new rich. They got far more of their share of the 8/- than what they used to get when the £ was worth 20/-. Part of the operations of the finance type which I hope to carry out will be to try and restore the old-time division of money which was in this country and to do away with the violent distortion that has been accomplished over the last 16 years. On that note I want to turn away from what Fianna Fáil has said in this debate and to devote myself to what has been said by other Deputies on this side of the House.
Deputy Maguire and Deputy Hickey, I think, spoke about social services. One of these days I would like to have a full debate on social services. When a Fianna Fáil Deputy is driven to desperation he talks about social services and of the amount of money now being spent on old age pensions and those other things that are called social services in comparison to what used to be spent on them. It is amazing, but if you take such a thing as old age pensions, and bearing in mind the relationship of the value of the £ in 1931 and now, the 20 to eight relationship, the value of the pension is lower than what it was in 1931. I take no pride in that but that is the situation. Of course if the eight to 20 is the relationship to be observed, the money now given to old age pensioners is much less than what it was in 1931. The whole matter is disguised by this fictitious value associated with the £.
Let nobody believe that these social services are a good thing. They are something we have got to tolerate. Again let nobody distort my words and say that I am going to do away with them. By no means. We are in a society that is not static and we have got to take people as we find them. There are certain people who have been brought up in conditions such that it was impossible for them to make out of their earnings the savings that it might be possible to make if they were getting better wages, to provide against ill-health or old age. I want people here some day to sit down and analyse where does the money come from that pays for social services.
The days are long since gone when there was an entirely wealthy class living in our communities from whom we could take all the fat in order to provide social services. In the main, social services are paid for nowadays by the working man. Are his real wages going to be cut down year by year in order to pay for social services? I do not think there is much good in charging a man in this country something extra on the boots and shoes, or something else that he has to purchase for himself, or for his wife and family, and giving him a family allowance, particularly when in between there are two or three civil servants and a couple of businessmen to make up the extra charges on the clothing and another civil servant to pay him his family allowance. The man who gets the family allowance in the end does not make anything on it.
One of these days, on the occasion of the investigation of some strike by the Labour Court or some court, I should like, if I can, to encourage them to make a calculation about these social services and try to find out where the money comes from and whether workingmen, as a whole, would not be better off if we could start anew by having a better wage system and not having to depend on those things, which, no matter how you phrase them, are a type of charity. I remember Deputy Hickey some years ago referring to this matter and saying that if he could get a good wages policy in this country, we would have done a better day's work than in building up this accumulation of social services on top of social services. We would have something to pride ourselves on, a free society, the members of which would be at liberty to spend their money as they wished, instead of having all this weight of various deductions from their wages and having a group of political people hoping to gain power as a Government by holding out promises that if they got into power they would give these so-called social services.
If I can move towards that free society I shall try to do it, and I think my colleagues behind me in the various Parties will support me in that programme. For the present we are only concerned with the technical, small, and rather unimportant consideration of finance. We have to try to reduce the cost of government. I hope we shall be able to do that without causing any great misfortune to anybody. We shall seek retrenchment, but retrenchment in the main is going to mean that those grandiose schemes which do not do anybody good, and certainly do not do the nation as a whole any good, will have to go. If we get that done we shall try to reduce the cost of living.
I want to direct the attention of colleagues of mine to the warning given by the ex-Tánaiste when he asked them to be beware of any Minister for Finance or of me in particular. I have to be presented, of course, for the purpose of debate in this House, as a person ruthless about economy. I do not think the people who heard me in this House over the last 15 years could form any such impression of me. I do not think I was put in this position because people believed that I had a gift for ruthless economy and that that was the only gift I had. If I have had to make any speeches over these years and have been criticised for them, it is because I am always to be classed with the money cranks, perhaps with Deputies like Deputy Cowan and Deputy Hickey. I know very well that a lot of theories people have, have to be abandoned when theory is brought up against the facts of life. I am quite certain that a lot of the theories I have developed in my years of Opposition will not stand against facts, but they will be pursued, as far as I can pursue them with the help of my colleagues, so that we shall get a new view of things. That new view is going to lead in one way, perhaps, to retrenchment and economy, but there is another way, the way of development. We cannot get the ground clear for development until we get rid of the rubbish accumulated over the last 16 years. My colleagues will pardon me if at the moment I have to bear in mind only the question of retrenchment. We shall arrive at the stage later when money can be applied to development purposes and production. That is the aim I find my colleagues have, and that is the aim I support. However, we have for the present and for some months ahead to try to content ourselves with cutting down unnecessary expenses. If we have to increase expenditure, we shall increase it, but not merely for some mistaken idea of prestige or megalomania.
I ask Deputy Lemass when he talks about warning my colleagues of my activities in connection with development to remember what he said long years ago when I was attempting to put through the Shannon scheme. He gave me no help then. He said it was no time to have a grandiose scheme.
I was not here then.
The Deputy said it outside, when he told us that the country was bled white from emigration. I got no help from the Deputy. It was not a bad type of development. There has not been much like it since. It was not carried through with the aid, or even with the quietude of the Deputy. He was against it and I ask anybody listening to what the Deputy says now, in a sort of angry way because he is in Opposition, to remember that in these old days all the Parties now grouped together stood for that development and we got the unanimous vote of the Dáil for the scheme in those days. The only objection came from people who were sulking in their tents outside. They were very vocal in their opposition and ruthless in their economy.
A Deputy
So were some of your own Deputies.
You said it was a white elephant.
I do not remember anybody in these Parties who was opposed to it.
Who said it was a white elephant?
The members of your Party did. I do not remember anybody on the Opposition Benches now who gave me any support in that development. I see very few here who were in favour of it. I ask people to think again now. That was a big development scheme and it was hindered to the uttermost limits to which the late Government could hinder it. It was carried through in the teeth of a bitter opposition. It was the sort of scheme that I had every hope of carrying through because I think that anything that promises well for the future, even though it may be expensive in its initial stages, should attract the strongest support.
When Deputies talk about economy and retrenchment they should remember that that is merely the first step. If I can get economy and retrenchment that will free the hands of my colleagues and myself to come to the people in a new mood and ask them to give us a better provision of money for new development services. I think that we can get that hereafter.
Throughout this debate there has been a funny note struck by the Opposition. Deputies have told us about the plans that Fianna Fáil had. They would come into being apparently in their own time. If they had not jumped to a general election just about now all these plans would have been blossoming and the country would have been full of endeavour. There would be work for everybody. We would be back almost to the achievements that were promised in 1932. But somebody made a mistake and called an election at the wrong time and what we have now is a statement of what Fianna Fáil would have done, what they were about to do and what was on the files. Deputy Lemass told my colleague, the Minister for Social Welfare, that there was a grand plan for social security on the files.
All my colleague had to do was to stand aside and let the plan develop. The better mind of Deputy Dr. Ryan came into the debate then; he confessed that there was no plan. There was a certain amount of actuarial calculation and some statistics, but there was no plan and no decision taken by the Government as to the way in which the money was to be procured; there was no decision by the Government as to what money was to be expended on these things or what aid the State would give. There was no calculation of that kind but just some bald statistical data. Deputy Lemass said the plan was there and it was being kept from the public merely because it was so much better than anything the present Minister for Social Security could give them. His own colleague comes along and tells that there was nothing but a lot of statistical information. We have got that statistical information to help us in the formation of a plan.
I think that most people will be inclined to please themselves hereafter. They have now got new minds operating on the old accumulated data and there is a better direction. This matter has been discussed in many different undertones during the debate. There has been open criticism. That is a fairly new thing in this House. I hope that we are going to have more of it, even from the people who support the Government. I hope that we are going to have from our back benches what was described here to-day as "critical support". That is what we want. If there had not been so many —as a late Deputy of this Dáil described them —"dumb oxen" in the background of the late Government there might have been more efficiency.
It is a significant feature of the time that this is the period in which we read in the Gospels of the miracles of olden days. Miracles have taken place here in this House in the last few days; the dumb have spoken. At least six Fianna Fáil Deputies have spoken in the last two days' debate here who had never opened their mouths in the five years prior to this. We have at least criticism in the House and the Dáil is at last coming into its proper function as a critical Assembly.
After three days of that critical debate I want the Dáil now to support me. In the phrase I used in opening this debate when I presented this Bill: I take no responsibility for it; I had nothing to do with its make-up or with its content, or with the amount. I am going to seek for economies of the type about which I have spoken and when I get these I will ask my colleagues then to see what can be done in regard to development. Along that road I propose to travel with my colleagues as long as they have me and I have them.
Tá
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- Kyne, Thomas A.
- Lehane, Con.
- Lehane, Patrick D.
- McAuliffe, Patrick.
- MacBride, Seán.
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Níl
- Allen, Denis.
- Bartley, Gerald.
- Beegan, Patrick.
- Blaney, Neal.
- Boland, Gerald.
- Bourke, Dan.
- Brady, Brian.
- Brady, Seán.
- Breathnach, Cormac.
- Breen, Daniel.
- Breslin, Cormac.
- Briscoe, Robert.
- Buckley, Seán.
- Burke, Patrick.
- Butler, Bernard.
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- Lemass, Seán F.
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