Turn now to the miscellaneous social welfare schemes and we find the same story told. Last year we were providing grants for the supply of fuel to necessitous families to the extent of £90,000. This year the appropriation has been cut to £84,000. It is a minor reduction, amounting to £6,000, but do not forget that in the City of Dublin the figures for unemployment have increased considerably compared with last year, and throughout the country the number of persons on the unemployment register has gone up by thousands and would go up still further if it were not for the fact that once again the emigrant ship has come into operation, and while the list of emigrant passengers is swelling, the number of persons on the unemployment register has been correspondingly reduced.
Then, again, one of the things which the Minister for External Affairs told us he would do in 1947 was to provide subsidies so as to reduce the cost of living. He said that subsidies should be provided sufficient to bring about a reduction of at least 30 per cent. On the existing cost of all food produced and consumed here and should be accompanied by rigid control of prices. Now, we are being told by the Minister for Industry and Commerce and the other members of the Coalition Government that it is quite impossible for them to give effect to the admonishments they addressed to us to keep prices down despite all that was happening in the world outside. We know, therefore, that so far as this Coalition Government is concerned there is going to be no drastic reduction in prices. Nor, as this Book of Estimates shows, is there going to be any attempt made to give effect to the pledge which the Leader of the Clann na Poblachta Party gave to his followers in 1947 that if he were in power—and he is in power now—there would be an increase in the subsidies sufficient to bring about a reduction of at least 30 per cent. on the existing cost of all food. How is that being given effect to? So far from subsidies being provided to secure a reduction of 30 per cent. in the cost of living, if the Deputies will turn once more to Vote 55 and look at sub-head J they will see there that, whereas we provided £12,676,000 for food subsidies in the year 1948-49, that provision has now been cut by £3,617,000 in the present year and only £9,150,000 is being provided.
What justification is there for cutting the provision which was made for food subsidies? Having regard to the policy upon which the Parties on the Government benches appealed to the electorate—and Clann na Poblachta was not the only Party that wanted to subsidise food; the Labour Party wanted to do it, too, and some members of even the Fine Gael Party also advocated it —what justification is there for the reduction now? It may be that there is a general fall in the price of certain imported foodstuffs. But, if there is, do you not think that, having regard to the stress which was laid on the increased cost of living during the general election last year, that you ought to use that £3,160,000 to reduce the cost of essential foodstuffs still further? Then at least you would be doing something to fulfil your pledges to the electorate. But you are certainly not fulfilling them when, so far from maintaining the subsidies at the figure at which they stood last year, you are taking steps to drastically reduce them. Do not forget, you members of the Clann na Poblachta Party and the Labour Party, that your statements on this matter are on record and when you vote to-night—as I have no doubt you will vote—you are voting in order to nullify your own pledges, to forswear your own words and swallow them and to give effect to the policy of the reactionary wing of Fine Gael.
I think it would be no harm now if I were to summarise what I have been saying by giving you a few figures. In regard to agriculture and in relation to the provision which was made for the assistance of farmers, these Estimates represent a net reduction of £367,000 odd; for social insurance and assistance there is in this Book of Estimates a reduction of £666,000 on the figure provided last year; on ameliorative services—and these include food subsidies and Gaeltacht services— there is a reduction of £4,712,000; on national development, including hand-won turf schemes but excluding airports and civil aviation, there is a reduction of £1,649,000; on national defence there is a reduction of £859,000; on police and general protective services there is a reduction of £53,000, making all-told on these services a reduction of £8,309,000, in addition to which we must add the fact that £575,000, which was provided last year for the relief of European distress, is not included.
On civil aviation and development there is a reduction in the provision made for them of £611,000. I do not want to impinge upon the debate which will properly take place on the Estimate for the Department of Industry and Commerce and the Meteorological and Aviation Services, but I do want to say that I am perfectly certain that there is still room to improve the accommodation and facilities provided for the safe handling of passengers and planes at both Shannon and Collinstown Airports to the extent of £300,000 That £300,000 could be advantageously spent there. We have been hearing a good deal about the £40,000,000 scheme to provide alternative employment, but there is one form of employment which could be readily given and could be availed of by the people in Limerick and Dublin who have been thrown out of work by Coalition policy and which, if it were given, would considerably increase the economic potentialities of this country. But the provision for that is being cut because Clann na Poblachta, which promised to develop all our resources, and the Labour Party, which had a somewhat similar programme, are now backing the Coalition.
