The Deputy, who was the only one who had the courage to stick to his guns in this matter, has lamented the efforts at economy that have been made. I apologise for these efforts at economy. They have not been sufficient. I will go a good deal further, if I can manage it, on the same lines of cutting out extravagance because there is requirement and necessity here for money for productive purposes from the limited resources that this State has. It is only when one stops the wide gaps that have been created in any sound economy by Fianna Fáil that there will be any possibility of having money that can be applied usefully to development purposes and to socially desirable purposes. These are the objects we have and to them any money will be devoted. We must save and we will save on the Cushla Machree extravagance for which the Deputy was responsible.
I do, however, feel that it is not really tolerable to be addressed on faith and morals by Deputy Lemass and it is hardly tolerable to be spoken to by the same Deputy on the integrity that attaches to public office. Faith and morals and the integrity attaching to public office! All we have to do is to have about a five-minutes' silence to think back over the Deputy's relations to public office in the view of these principles. Deputies will recall them without any urge from me.
The Deputy has spoken of the one great tax I have imposed and the difficulty it is going to impose on the trade. I presume that is the petrol tax. The Deputy knows that in 1941 he had a tax on petrol of 1/3. I have not raised it as much. I am at least a penny short of that. If that tax on petrol is a handicap on trade and agriculture, if it is going to increase the cost of living and the costs in every trade and business, including agriculture, then the Deputy had it at a penny higher from 1941 to 1946. It is amazing that these criteria with regard to the hardship going to be imposed on people did not operate to prevent at least the back-benchers of the Party, who were moving amongst the people, from precluding the Minister, as he then was, from imposing this addition on the difficulties under which trade, industry, and agriculture in particular, were labouring at the time.
The Deputy fears that there is no developed policy with regard to trade or industry in this country. I do not know where the Deputy gets that fear of his. I have made statements here with regard to the attitude we have towards both agriculture and industry. We have shown signs of bettering both of these. We have removed certain handicaps. As the years go on, we will remove certain other handicaps by changing a policy which, through its extravagance, had raised taxation, that had imposed burdens well-nigh intolerable upon all the productive capacity of the country.
The Deputy says costs of living are rising. I do not know where the signs of that are. He complains that the index figure has been delayed. I do not know that it has but, if it has, I wonder is it because it is difficult to reconcile the new index figure with the figure which the Deputy when a Minister fathered in order to delude the people of the country by building up a new index figure, the relationship of which to the old was hard to discover, so that, by bringing about a reduction on paper, he could pretend that in reality the cost of living in this country had been reduced. I assert again, as I have asserted right through the debates that have taken place on the Financial Resolutions, that the cost of living in this country has been reduced since the 18th February and, if anybody hesitates to believe that, will he weigh in the balance that inside a few weeks of our coming to office we remitted taxation to the extent of £6,000,000, and that the only major tax I have imposed in this Bill is one of less than £1,000,000? How can anybody expect to be believed in this country when he clamours that the costs of living have been raised in the face of that calculation I have given and which is a sound calculation? It is hard to believe that anybody can be so simple as to accept the view that costs of living have been raised in this country when, in fact, taxes to the extent of £6,000,000 have been remitted and have been substituted by one major tax costing the people less than £1,000,000. That is a remarkable proposition.