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Dáil Éireann debate -
Wednesday, 11 May 1949

Vol. 115 No. 7

Committee on Finance. - Financial Motions—Motion 13 (Resumed).

There is one matter I would like to refer to before I conclude. Deputy Aiken stated that when he was in opposition the Minister for Finance frequently advocated the printing of money. Deputy Aiken asked why the Government do not propose to print money now. I think the answer to that is that the Government are printing money. All the money in use at the present time is printed money. I have never yet come upon any other system by which money is produced except by the printing of paper. Everybody knows that. There may be a difference of opinion as to whether the issue of money should be dependent upon the wishes of an external authority or whether it should be controlled by our own Government.

Will the Minister tell us what is the obstacle to breaking the link with sterling and issuing whatever money we require, according to the needs of the nation? There may be an insurmountable obstacle to that course, and it is desirable that the people should know what it is. It may be something connected with our economic and financial position in the world of which the ordinary average citizen is not aware. I think the average citizen is entitled to a clear statement of the position. There seems to be no reason, now that our country has broken all other links, why we should not be completely independent in the matter of coinage and the control of currency. It will only make for a better understanding of our economic and financial position if the Minister will tell us what obstacles are in the way and if it will be possible during his period of office to surmount them.

There is one minor aspect of the Budget to which I wish to draw the Minister's attention and that is the reimposition of the entertainment tax on dances. The Minister said there was no evidence that any benefit from the remission of the tax had been passed on to the public. I do not think that is quite correct. What happened was that, although prices of admission were kept on the same scale, dance hall proprietors were enabled to engage larger bands and increase the wages of the musicians. I do not think any of the dancing people in Dublin, and they are very many, resent that the tax was not passed on to them, because they know it is being usefully employed elsewhere. Those who organise dances, and committees of social clubs who depend on the running of dances to keep their funds going, are aware that they get better value in the shape of more contented musicians and larger bands. Where formerly they had a band of five members they now have six or more. From that point of view I would like the Minister to consider the danger of disemployment of musicians.

Major de Valera

This Budget, coming at the time at which it does come, is something more than a mere annual budget with which any State has to contend. We are facing quite an extraordinary situation, having regard to our national problem, and for that reason, in our economy as in our general policy, it is essential that we should organise the resources of the State to give us the economic, moral and general strength necessary for facing the national problem upon which our attention has been very drastically forced by events. In order to face that problem it is essential that the strength of this country should be built up. If we are serious about facing this problem, then we must be serious about the steps necessary to give us the strength to cope with it. Our ability to cope with that problem will to a great extent depend on how our moral and economic and general strength here are developed. It is with that background we must face this Budget. We must face it with the realisation that if we are serious and not merely talking about this problem a degree of discipline and organisation amongst ourselves will be necessary and it may call for some variation in what I might regard as the normal financial viewpoint. With these general remarks I wish to come now more specifically to what is involved and to the repercussions that I see in this regard since the Minister took office. I do not wish to be taken now as in any sense merely criticising the Minister. That is not my purpose. I simply seek the facts objectively. Taking these facts objectively let us examine the trend up to the present moment in order to discover what we should do to face the situation in which we find ourselves. Calmly and fairly let us examine whether the policy of the Minister, who directs finance and who largely controls the entire economic progress of the State has given the results which he himself sought and whether these results are the best that could have been obtained from the point of view of the community. In doing that I shall be anxious to give the Minister credit for achievement where I find it.

What is the position? What is the trend? Last year the Minister in his Budget statement, and prior to it, approached the problem from the point of view of effecting economies with a view to lightening the burden of taxation. That was his professed objective. He also expressed the view that there was a limit to the burdens which the taxpayer could bear in regard to social services generally. He saw very acutely the likely repercussions and the inevitable consequences of demands for wage increases. Last year, without any apology and of his own set purpose— the set purpose of the particular Party also to which the Minister belongs—he came forward and, where he could get agreement, he made certain substantial reductions in such things as the Defence Forces, wireless broadcasting and so forth. In an effort to lessen the burden of taxation on the ordinary citizen he gave relief on spirits, tobacco, cinemas and so forth. Some of us differed from him in his approach. He, nevertheless, continued his course. He made a very strong statement with regard to the control of wages.

In that Budget last year there was a definite statement of policy. Definite action was subsequently taken to implement that policy and during the past year that policy has been pursued. What do we find now? I am afraid that the Minister has in the past year found things difficult from his own point of view. From the figures which I shall deal with in a moment it is quite apparent that, whereas he has been successful in shifting the incidence of taxation in certain respects, he has not been successful, because of the demands made upon him largely by the people who support him, in achieving any substantial over-all reduction in taxation. He has been foiled to that extent by virtue of the fact that certain outgoings could not be denied. He has been conspicuously unable—note that I do not charge him with failure, I say "unable"—to achieve a reduction in expenditure on public services and administration. He has been unable, as many of us told him he would be unable, to implement the policy expressed by him in regard to the stabilisation of wages. He has had the inevitable and unenviable problem of every Minister for Finance of trying to find moneys where increased expenditure has been unavoidable. That is the general picture.

Let me now paint the picture more specifically. Notwithstanding the decleared policy of the Minister, he is faced with the fact that over-all increases in tax revenue last year were something in the region of £6,000,000. In the coming year it looks as if something over a further £2,000,000 will have to be collected. That is almost £9,000,000 over the last financial year before this Government took office. That is the first difficulty in which he finds himself. Whether he likes it or not, he has to contemplate an increase in over-all taxation. With that condition imposed upon him, he can only do what he has tried to do in this Budget —that is, to reapportion. In that particular respect I would like to express a certain general approval of some of the things the Minister has done, reserving my possible criticism for the things he has not done. I am glad that he has given relief in income-tax. When he took off the taxes that were imposed under the Supplementary Budget I suggested at that time that he should also remove the 6d. that was imposed on income-tax.

I would have considered it a much more equitable thing a year ago when he was removing the taxes imposed by the Emergency Budget of 1947, if he had taken off this 6d. which he is now remitting. In other words, what he is doing now is to complete the job which he started of removing the major taxes imposed by the Emergency Budget. I am glad he is doing it because one of the difficulties always has been—and many of us have mentioned it in this House previously— that a certain class of worker does not get sufficient consideration because he belongs to a scattered and unorganised group. I refer to the worker known as the white-collar or black-coated worker. That unfortunate worker, because of easy assessment, is subject to the incidence of income-tax more severely than other groups. For that reason I am very glad the Minister is doing what he proposes now. In that connection, the depressing feature about the Budget is that, whereas the general economic trends of the last year were such that the need for the Emergency Budget—which was explicitly designed to be of a temporary character—had expired, in the ordinary normal course of events this tax should have been abated or removed by this time; having regard to that fact, although I am glad the Minister has done it—and I want to compliment him as much as I can on the matter—I should like to be able to say that its removal represented a real benefit to the community as a whole.

In the real Budget of 1947, or perhaps it was in the Budget of the previous year—at any rate, since the war —the previous Minister for Finance, notwithstanding the war circumstances, was able here in this House radically to reduce taxation, including income-tax. Then you had the crisis of 1947, a rise in the cost of living during the early months of that year, culminating in August of 1947, traceable largely to the increased prices in the world market, immediately affecting our subsidies cost in a very serious and inevitable way. You had the general repercussions of the world situation here and, in particular, the necessity for removing the standstill Order, resulting in further tendencies to an inflationary situation. You had all these matters, including the better price which our farmers were getting for produce on all the export markets which were open to them, with, of course, the unpleasant corollary that the price of similar produce to home consumers also went up in 1947. All these things culminated in the crisis of 1947, which was nothing more than an aberration of the post-war situation. It was met by the then Government and, as a matter of fact, safely met. The figures show that the then Minister for Finance was budgeting safely. It was hoped that would largely be a temporary situation and that there would be a return to a more favourable condition within a couple of years.

Where are we now? These forecasts have been justified. There was a return to more favourable conditions. During the past year the trend was much more favourable. We had a saving on food subsidies alone of £3,000,000, made possible largely by an improvement in that trend. What is the Minister for Finance actually doing? Already he has taken off most of the taxes that were imposed at that time. He has now taken off 6d. in income-tax imposed by that Budget. In other words, he is doing nothing more in this regard than had been hoped for and that could be confidently expected at that time. The previous Government confidently anticipated that some adjustment could be made in that regard within these years. That expectation is now being fulfilled. The minor taxes which the Minister has left on, such as the stamp duties—they were Emergency Budget taxes to a large extent—are not very serious items in the general picture. So when one sees the proposals put forward by the Minister one can say that he is bringing us back only to the position that obtained prior to the Emergency Budget. He only fulfils the expectations that we could get back to that position within a couple of years. Incidentally, in regard to the dance hall tax, it is interesting to note that that was one of the things in which Deputy Aiken, when he was Minister, was able to give relief. Against that—let us be fair—the present Minister has given relief in regard to small cinema shows which I think is a step to be commended, so I think we shall let these things balance out for the moment.

The student of our economic development would, therefore, see it thus: that thanks to our neutrality, largely —and that is a question of thanks to God—we rode the war and arrived at a relatively favourable position. By 1946 the Minister for Finance was able to come in with an optimistic Budget embodying a substantial decrease in taxation, including a decrease in income-tax. The post-war crisis one can accept as a normal economic event resulting from the perturbation of the war. That crisis arrived in 1947 with its repercussions—repercussions which the student will have no difficulty again in understanding. It was met by the then Government in the only manner in which it could be met, and, as I have said, a little bit safely. The student will not be surprised to find a return to easier conditions in the next few years and, therefore, the extraordinary provisions of that Budget going, so that what we are getting in the Budget on this occasion is what one would normally expect in the ordinary course of events.

Carrying on the policy of the previous Administration, after the war one would expect that by this time the incidence of taxation resulting from the emergency would have been lessened so as to leave us a picture similar to that presented in 1946. That is what has happened as far as the special items in the Budget are concerned but, as I say, the over-all taxation, the amount of money the State is collecting from the people, has increased. In considering that increase one has, of course, to look also at the other side of the picture where one would normally have expected an increase in expenditure. For that reason, I am not attempting on the line I am thinking at the moment just to charge the Minister with extravagance in that regard. But I do say that all he has done in regard to these specific items of taxation is what one would have normally expected.

The next question is: at what cost? What were the repercussions on the country's economy during the past year? The Government can legitimately and rightly say to us: "We put you back in the 1946 position with regard to these specific taxes." They can say: "Yes, the incidence of over-all taxation has gone up by the number of million pounds mentioned. We have collected more money from the taxpayer than you did, but we are giving better benefits." They can legitimately claim that they have done something. It is only a fool who would deny that they have increased the actual old age pensions and that certain salary increases in the administration have resulted and so forth. Admitting all that and facing these facts objectively and squarely, what is the cost? I understand that Deputy Lemass dealt with this matter in detail and I think it would not be proper for me to delay the House by a complete repetition of his arguments. I think, however, that I can add a couple of comments and document some of the statements made by him and I intend to do that now, and I am going to do it specifically for the purpose of answering the question: "What was the cost?"

The cost of living was one of the items concerned. One of the big boasts of the Minister for Finance was that, through his financial policy and the policy of the Government as a whole, it would be possible to reduce the cost of living. I am not going to turn round and say to the Minister, "You should have done it." What I am going to say is that it was not possible to do it, as we told you beforehand. Whatever its faults, the emergency Budget had caught the rising cost of living and had held it. It held it at a certain level which we shall call the 100 level of August 1947. In its initial tackle, so to speak, it not only held it, but pulled it down three points. Then the struggling monster wriggled a bit. But, despite all the present Minister and the present Government can do, the monster has managed to stay round about the 99 to which he wriggled back. It has managed to stay round about there so far in spite of the fact that I believe the Minister and his colleagues would, if they could find any practical way of pulling it lower, immediately seize on the opportunity of so doing. I think we can be all confident of that. It has managed to stay there and even shove a bit ahead, because the official figures of prices are not altogether a true reflection of the incidence of that cost on the person who has to pay.

This is not the proper occasion on which to raise that matter, but perhaps the Chair will just allow me to refer to it en passant. Just go down the City of Dublin and inquire about meat. There is an official list of prices. As I said on another occasion, I throw myself before a jury of the housewives of Dublin in saying this. In actual fact, are you getting value in your meat at a price equivalent to the controlled price? On top of that, you have the difficulty that the butchers are in a completely uneconomic situation. I do not intend to pursue that, however. The point I am making is that, even though there are official figures in regard to certain standard commodities upon which the estimated figure of the cost of living is based, does the housewife find that they are a true reflection of what her cost of living is?

The serious thing is that the Government, in an effort which I can understand, to try to have the burden borne by people who have money more plentifully than others, come along with the idea of unsubsidised varieties of commodities like the unsubsidised white flour. We have objected to that on another basis. But, from a purely financial point of view, there may have been something in the idea. But, mark you, the official cost of living figure is reckoned on the rationed and subsidised commodity. The same thing applies to the off-ration tea and sugar. These things have had their effect.

I went into one restaurant myself and noticed that the price of the bun had gone up. I asked why, and I was told: "You are getting white flour". I told them to give me the black stuff, but it was not there. Therefore, the people visiting that place were forced to buy the unrationed bread at a higher price. Of course, immediately that happens the whole theory of the thing falls to the ground. How far the prices generally of unsubsidised items have been passed on in restaurants I have not been able to ascertain in a very definite way, but I have been able to ascertain sufficient to make me confident in saying that the cost of living has not gone down anyway, and that is borne out by the index to-day. If the index is to continue to be based on commodities which are rationed in that particular way to the exclusion of commodities consumed, I think it will get further and further away from reality and that the point made in regard to that by Deputy Lemass is worthy of attention. However, that is slightly away from this debate.

The point is that the cost of living has not gone down. If anything, the trend was the other way for a good part of the year. Ask the average housewife about the price of eggs and similar things round about Christmas and during the winter. There is no use talking about figures. The real thing is what the housewife, the person who has to buy, the man in the street, in fact, feels. Let us go and ask them what they feel. Admittedly, the situation has bettered itself in other regards. But I think that, over-all, the burden and the incidence in regard to living costs have not decreased.

On top of that, where are we in regard to another item that should be taken into account in the cost of living —the cost of accommodation? In this city within the last few years the rates have risen to a degree that imposed very serious burdens on the people having to live in the city. In 1942 the rate was about 20/6 in the pound. In other words, on a house of £20 valuation in this city—that is not a big house, as you know—a man was paying £20 rates a year. Mark you, from 1946 onwards the burden was on the occupier, whether he was the tenant or whether he was the owner-occupier, both in law and in fact by virtue of the provisions of the Rent Act. It is a serious universal problem. What are the rates this year? I understand they are to be around 29/-. That is an increase in the cost of living.

What about the cost of money?

Major de Valera

Even taking the cost of money. The point is that the man in a £20 valuation house had to pay more last year to that extent. I know of a case of a house of £40 valuation. I have seen the figures recently and, therefore, I happen to have the actual sum in my head. The rates were something over £40 in 1942. They were over £55 last year. They will be more this year. That is a big burden. I want to ask how far that increase is due to the policy of passing back burdens to the local authority and how far the general policy of the Government is reflected in that? If there are repercussions from the general policy of the Government in that regard then we can only say that the Government is responsible for an increase in the cost of living. I am not going to go so far as that. I am going to say simply that having regard to the increase in living accommodation costs borne by both the owner-occupier or the ordinary tenant, having regard to the statistical index for the cost of living and having regard to the experience of every housewife in this city the cost of living has not gone up—or, rather, has not gone down.

The Deputy was right the first time.

Major de Valera

I was not right the first time; I was very wrong the first time. The cost of living has not gone down. If I were to express an opinion, which I cannot prove in a sum of arithmetic at the moment for want of the actual figures, I am prepared to argue that it has gone up. Specifically, I can argue, in any event, that it has gone up definitely in the matter of living accommodation. If I reserve my right to go much further on any other consideration of the matter, and I do not intend in any way to bind myself from seeking the further implications of this but just for the purpose of the present argument to go as far as I possibly can, I can simply say that under the heading of cost of living there is no achievement. I am not going to charge the Minister with any serious matter, except this question of how far the policy of trying to protect the Central Fund by passing burdens to local authorities may have had an effect on the rate situation.

I come now to the question of employment, again dealt with by Deputy Lemass, and to the question of emigration. Deputy Lemass made the comments. I merely want to document them. First of all, I will take the question of employment. If one looks through The Trend of Employment and Unemployment, published by the Government during a number of years past, interesting summaries will be found. I propose, with the permission of the Chair, to read the conclusions of some of these reports. The general picture is that the war situation brought certain unemployment and emigration and that is a non-disputed fact. Coming to the 1943 to 1944 report we find the summary and the conclusion of the report at page 24 as follows:—

"Almost to the end of 1944 the volume of unemployment continued the downward trend which began in the last half of 1940. At first this downward trend was due mainly to the expansion of the Defence Forces, but from the end of 1941 and to the end of 1943 emigration was the main cause.

In 1944, for the first time since the present emergency began, the further decline in recorded unemployment is due to increased employment.

The approximate average weekly number of persons employed in occupations insurable under the National Health Insurance and the Unemployment Insurance Acts was 9,000 and 6,000 greater, respectively, in 1944 than in 1943. Increases in the numbers employed are known to have occurred in agriculture, turf production and building. With one exception, there were also increases in all industrial groups covered by returns of the numbers employed in protected industries at 1st September, 1944."

That is the report for 1943 to 1944. Coming then to 1944 to 1945, the report concludes:—

"The approximate weekly average number of persons employed in insurable occupations during 1945 was 11,100 greater than in 1944. This was chiefly due to an increase in the numbers employed in commercial and industrial occupations. There was also a small increase over the preceding year in the number employed in agriculture. It should be borne in mind, however, that the figures for the numbers employed in insurable occupations do not cover members of the Defence Forces, the average number of whom was considerably less in 1945 than in 1944. Mainly because of demobilisation the live register in 1945 was, on average, slightly greater than in 1944."

Slightly greater! This is the report for 1945 to 1946:—

"The estimated average weekly number of persons employed in insurable occupations during 1946 exceeded the number for 1945 by 25,700. Insurable employment in 1946 was considerably in excess of the best pre-war year. The increase over 1945 was almost wholly due to the numbers employed in commercial and industrial occupations. The numbers engaged on employment schemes and emergency schemes are included in the estimates, but the numbers so engaged in 1946 were less than in 1945. Mainly because of demobilisation, the live register in 1946 was, on average, slightly greater than in 1945, but during the last quarter of 1946 it was considerably less than during the corresponding quarter of 1945."

Then for 1946-47—this report was actually published since the present Government came into office—the conclusion reads:—

"The estimated average weekly number of persons employed in insurable occupations during 1947 exceeded the number for 1946 by 16,200. Insurable employment in 1947 was considerably in excess of the best pre-war year. The increase over 1946 was wholly due to the numbers employed in commercial and industrial occupations. The number employed in agriculture, as estimated from the net contribution income, was some 2,000 less in 1947 than in 1946. Registered unemployment in 1947 was on average considerably less than in the preceding year."

These are quotations from official published documents. The last report that I read from was published since this Government came into office. That is the picture over that period. It is generally that, from 1943 onwards, there was steadily increasing employment in this country.

Not on the land.

Major de Valera

I am dealing with the figures as a whole. There was no serious deterioration in the position in regard to unemployment. In fact, the trend was favourable. There was a fluctuation which is noticed either in the 1945 or 1946 report, due to demobilisation. That is traceable from the fact that, towards the end of that particular year, there was a correction of the trend. Therefore, over these years up to 1947 there was a favourable trend both in regard to employment and in regard to unemployment. Let me refer again to the last of these reports:—

"The estimated average weekly number of persons employed in insurable occupations was up by 16,200"

in the year 1947, notwithstanding the substantial progressive increase in previous years. The number of registered unemployed in 1947 was, on the average, considerably less than in the previous year. Therefore, unemployment was considerably less. It was less in 1947 than in 1946. Practically, the same words are used in one of the previous reports.

Therefore, in regard to people in insurable employment and in employment generally as well as in regard to employment figures, the trends were very favourable when the present Minister and his Government took office. The Deputy opposite referred to rural employment. That was one of the angles that needed further correction. There is the figure of 2,000 adverse on that in the last report. I shall comment on that later. The fact is that the Government took over a favourable trend for employment and for unemployment. However, it is a notorious fact that during last year unemployment has been consistently up. The register has been up. That is a fact. I think I am fair when I point out that that is directly attributable, as a consequence, to certain steps taken by this Government in pursuance of the Minister's economy drive. In other words, in reckoning the cost, the favourable trend in employment and the favourable trend in regard to unemployment which the Government inherited from their predecessors, has been reversed in the interests of the Minister's economy drive.

Would the Deputy have maintained the private turf scheme?

Major de Valera

If what I say hurts the Deputy I cannot help that. I am pointing out an objective fact, and I shall continue to do so. Let us carry on this debate in a balanced manner. The hard fact, therefore, is that in the interests of the economy drive, the trends in these two particular regards have been reversed. Notwithstanding that, the Minister because of pressure upon him in other regards, will have, over all, to collect more money from the taxpayers than was ever collected by his predecessors. Now, that is a fact.

That is not a fact.

Major de Valera

The Minister will collect more in "over all" taxation than we collected.

Not at all.

Major de Valera

No reduction in taxation has taken place "over all". Let me move to another trend. Deputy Lemass referred to the question of emigration. Let me, again, simply document what he said with reference to these reports. I will start with the 1943 report. Under the head of "emigration", page 5, paragraph 5, it says:—

"For years prior to 1939 the balance of passenger movement was out of the country. In 1939 and 1940 the balance was inwards, but in 1941 and 1942 it was again outwards. Owing to war conditions, passenger traffic with countries other than Great Britain and Northern Ireland is small. The following table gives for 1940, 1941 and 1942 statistical particulars of the passenger movement between this country and Great Britain and Northern Ireland".

In other words, the general picture is that, on balance, there was emigration in the years up to 1939 but in 1939 and 1940—the year before the war and the first year of the war—emigration had been stopped or was being checked.(Interruptions.) Deputies can make their own speeches if they do not like what I am saying. I am quoting what is in this report which is a Government publication, and I am not going one whit outside it.

Where did the boys come from in 1939?

Major de Valera

Again, if the Labour Deputies do not like it I cannot help that. In 1941, 1942 and 1943— the first three years in which there was an acute phase of the war—emigration went up very seriously. In 1940 the trend was inwards, but it reached the peak in 1942, due mainly to the war situation. Coming to 1943 and 1944 the paragraph goes on to say:—

"For years prior to 1939 the balance of passenger movement was out of the country. In 1939 and 1940 the balance was inwards. In 1941, 1942 and 1943 it was outwards. In 1944 it was again inwards. The following table gives for 1942, 1943 and 1944 statistical particulars of the passenger movement between this country and Great Britain and Northern Ireland."

Actually, therefore, it was favourable in 1939 and 1940, and very unfavourable in the next three years. It was favourable again in 1944 to the figure of about 6,000, but that figure must, in all fairness, be discounted, because Deputies will remember that 1944 was the year in which there was a complete clamp down of passenger traffic prior to the invasion, so that to that extent that radical correction must be wiped out. In 1944 the balance of passenger movement was inwards and in 1945 it was outwards. This table gives the statistical particulars for passenger movements out of and into the country and in that case there was a slight outward movement. The net balance was only 2,000 outwards. But again, that was probably caused by the war situation. I do not seek to place any particular stress on the favourable—from my point of view—complexion of the figures for these two years.

Coming on to 1946, in that year the balance of passenger movements was again outward. In 1946 there were nearly 9,000 outwards. The position was roughly this, that the balance was all right in 1939-40, but there was a very serious outward movement, going up to 55,000, in the years 1941, 1942 and 1943. There was then a radical check in the situation, there being a slight inward balance one year and a slight outward balance the next year, and that was largely because of the situation arising from the contemplated invasion of the Continent. In 1946 there was a net outward balance of almost 9,000. Coming to the 1947 report, we find there was an inward balance of 11,166. The serious war emigration was checked prior to 1946. In that year there was still a net outward trend, going up as high as 8,899.

In 1947 the passenger movements showed an inward balance. That is the last year we were in office, and the number was 11,166 inwards. The next important point is that last year it was 12,000 in the opposite direction. In other words, that trend has been reversed. It was approximately 12,000 for the year 1948—that was the net balance outward.

In regard to emigration, I am warranted by those figures in asserting that, just as in the case of employment and unemployment, the favourable trend which the Government took over has been reversed. In fact, in regard to emigration, on the Government's own figures there were more than 12,000 in the outward balance in 1948 as against a favourable inward balance of 11,000, again on their own figures. The Minister may say you cannot take a year standing by itself, but if you take the general trend of the figures, if you look at the graph, you will see it was up in 1943, it came right down in 1944, and at best you can say that it is going up and it has continued the upward trend with the present Government.

Actually, on the specific figures, I can say that in the year when Fianna Fáil left office the balance was favourable to the tune of 11,000 inwards and a year after it was unfavourable to the tune of something more than that outwards. Emigration doubled, if you want to put it that way, but I admit that in a matter of this nature it might be fairer and more scientific to consider the general trend of the figures. Even from that most sympathetic point of view—and I am anxious to give it that for the purpose of this debate——

May I put a friendly question? Is the Deputy aware that for two or three years we have had an invasion every week-end, people coming on Friday and going out on Sunday for the purpose of getting food and other commodities which they cannot get on the other side ?

Major de Valera

I am not personally aware, but that really does not matter, because what comes in goes out.

But it may be regarded as emigration.

Major de Valera

No, you are wrong, and I will answer you on that in the words of the Minister for External Affairs. I have purposely based my argument on the passenger movements because they balance themselves out. If you take them over a year, the man who comes in on Friday or Saturday is checked in. He moves out on Monday and he is checked out and cancels himself. It is the net balance I have given you. There are other figures which might support my case, but they might be open to the point of view the Deputy has put and therefore I do not use them. I have based my arguments on the passenger movement figures. In justification I will quote the Minister for External Affairs—Vol. 114, No. 7, col. 969. Deputy Larkin asked the Minister a question in regard to this matter and the Minister replied:—

"Separate figures for persons leaving the State to take up employment are not available, but the number of travel identity cards and passports granted during the year 1948 to persons intending to go abroad for employment or permanent residence was 40,075, of whom 12,759 were from urban and 27,316 from rural areas. The 1948 figures include, for the first time, persons going abroad for permanent residence, as well as those going abroad for employment.

As has frequently been pointed out before, statistics of this kind do not reflect accurately the volume of emigration, as they do not take account of returning workers, of seasonal migratory workers or of persons who, after obtaining travel documents, do not leave the country.

The net emigration is more clearly reflected by the statistics of passengers entering and leaving the State by rail, road, ship and aircraft. For the year 1948, these figures show a net balance outwards of 12,793."

At any rate there is an authority acceptable to Deputy Davin. I could have used the figure of 40,000 for argument's sake if I were approaching it as a lawyer wishing to make his case to the jury. I admit that that is sometimes popular and I might conceivably hinge upon that figure of 40,000. But I am not doing that.

To come back to the Budget, I am not speaking for the sake of saying "I told you so". I am not speaking for the purpose of apportioning blame. That is not the reason why I have gone into these matters. I have dealt with them merely to discover what we shall have to face. The Minister is stymied in many of the things he set before himself last year. The cost of administration and State expenditure generally has risen in spite of him. The amount of money he has to collect is more than his predecessors had to collect. I would ask the Minister to meet me objectively on these arguments. It is immaterial to my argument what was estimated for; I am referring to the amount of over-all money collected from the taxpayer. The Minister was not successful in 1948 in reducing the amount of money he had to collect. To put it very mildly, he got as much as ever. He has not been able to reduce expenditure on the public services. Nearly every increase has been an increase in respect of public services. I am not criticising him because of that. I recognise that much of that was inevitable. I realise that salary adjustments were inevitable. I am not blaming the Minister in the least. Viewed objectively, that fact is the main contributing cause which rendered it impossible for him to do what he set out to do. In the course of doing what he set out to do, with the measure of achievement he has had, it has been necessary to involve the community in the cost of reversing the favourable trends which I have mentioned and which Deputy Lemass probably put much more cogently than I have done.

Looking at the policy of the Government as a whole, has there been an advance? Would it not be better for us to admit frankly now that problems are there? Would it not be better for us to avoid the catchcries which, from the political point of view, have landed the Government in the difficulty in which they find themselves? Would it not be better for us to face our economic and other problems objectively? That is very important now. Would the Minister reconsider the question of the short-wave broadcasting station? Surely in this struggle to get our case made before the world it is vitally important to have means of communication at our disposal. That is one arm, if I may call it so, which cannot be altogether interfered with. There we have a very certain physical means of putting our case, a means which cannot be stopped short of direct intervention. I do not think we should worry ourselves about legal inhibitions in a matter like this. I would ask the Minister with the co-operation of the Government to reconsider this matter and to go out after this equipment.

With regard to our general economic rehabilitation, the Minister for Agriculture told us his programme for the rehabilitation of the land. Despite that fact there is a cut in fertiliser subsidies. That seems to me to be somewhat illogical.

Do you know the price of fertilisers at the moment?

Major de Valera

I do not.

It is much less than is was.

Major de Valera

Let me deal with it in my own way. I said it was illogical. Surely, if there is a reduction, the farmer should be given the benefit of that. That would encourage him to rehabilitate his land and do his part in strengthening our economic position. One of the difficulties in the present situation in which we find ourselves is that even though circumstances are improving we are ourselves no better off. An extra £3,500,000 has been put into the Minister's pocket because of the savings on food subsidies and on the turf subsidy. There has been a windfall of £1,000,000 in regard to death duties.

There has been no fall in fertilisers.

There is a fall.

Major de Valera

For the purpose of the argument we will leave it to the Minister. Here we have all these benefits accruing from outside circumstances and we ourselves are deriving no real benefit at all. That is the trouble.

Rural employment was mentioned by a Deputy. It was noticeable that sloth in readjustment after the war was in rural employment. From 1944 onwards the problem of keeping people employed on the land was the stiffest problem the Government had to face and the one that required the closest attention. It is quite right to draw attention to that. What has this Budget done in that regard?

That is the land reclamation scheme. That is what it is for.

Major de Valera

Where is there provision in this Budget for that? The local authorities drainage scheme was mentioned as one offset to unemployment. I did not deal with the road grants of set purpose. I shall leave those for the moment because of the promise made by the Government that what was taken away in that regard would be given back in another. But the facts are that you will need at least £1,000,000, or a very large sum anyway, to offset the unemployment expected to result from the cut in the road grant or, in any event, in order to implement the local authorities' drainage scheme which we put through this House. In that Act there was no provision for financing it, but we did not elaborate the point as we thought we might get some indication here. I may be very stupid, and I do not profess to be very learned in the matter of these figures, but I cannot see where provision is made for this. I should like to ask the Minister, therefore, if this is to be done, where is the money to come from? How does the Minister propose to find the money to finance it ?

Land reclamation has been mentioned. The irresponsible way in which it has been mentioned by some people does not warrant my putting a particular figure to the Minister for Finance, who has to get these things done and to make hard calculations as to the cost of them. However, if it is intended as an appreciable contribution to the problem of unemployment it must involve an appreciable sum. Land division, if it were carried out in the same way, would also involve heavy expenditure, but I do not think there is any use in following up the question of land division under the present Government, according to present indications anyway. This Budget is deficient in that regard as far as I can see. If the Minister would tell us where these moneys are to be found I should be very happy to hear it at the end of the debate.

There is another matter which I should like to mention in regard to the Minister's financial policy. It might be a question of administration. I ask the ruling of the Chair on the matter and, if it is administration, I shall not pursue it. That is the question of the inertia of the Department in facilitating payments of certain things like housing grants.

That would be administration.

Major de Valera

There is no doubt the Minister's servants are serving him well, from the financial point of view, in that regard, as they have always served his predecessors. To that extent one wonders how much the contemplated expenditure under these headings is to be real or not. Already the savings in the Estimates have been mentioned and I do not propose to go over them again, but it should not be forgotten that, in certain hidden ways, the Minister has also succeeded, by what I called before accounting tricks, in diverting money to one purpose or another such as by the transfer of funds and by the method by which the postal rates were increased.

To conclude, then, here we have a Budget in which I am very glad the Minister has been able to do what he did in regard to income-tax. It is a much-needed relief for certain classes of people. I am sorry that, when he tackled this problem initially, he did not make that relief then and deal with people who were compulsorily bearing burdens before he did give the reliefs he first gave. My criticism is that, in spite of windfalls, in spite of the favourable trend of outside economic events during the past year or two, he has not been able to do better, and that what he did involves a cost in the trends I have mentioned. I hope that, having learned the lessons of the past year, learned what can be done and what demands can be met, the future experiments of the Coalition will not be so costly. I mention the experiments of the Coalition and, in regard to that, it is quite obvious that the Minister for Finance is having difficulty vis-a-vis the outlook of some of his own colleagues. He made a statement in regard to wages at some outside function in Dublin that has been counterbalanced —shall I say that rather than contradicted?—by a statement from the Tánaiste. That is an indication of the weakness of all Coalitions. I do not agree with the policy with which the Minister set out but I do say that there was this extenuating circumstance in his favour, that owing to these circumstances, which are always an unsatisfactory feature of a Coalition Government, it has been apparent during the year that the Minister was unable to implement effectively the policy which he would have pursued himself and consequently no particular definite policy has been fully implemented. The compromises arrived at, even though they have achieved certain things and pleased certain people and even though certain benefits have accrued—I am not denying that—have been brought about at a very heavy cost indeed. I ask myself the question if there had been more unity in outlook, more foresight, a more definite line adhered to, a facing up to the implications of certain promises, sufficient strength to say “no” where it was necessary to say “no”, whether the same results as have been achieved could not have been achieved at much less cost and in particular whether we could not have maintained the favourable trends in regard to emigration and employment that we had before the experiment took place.

In regard to the cost of living, it has not decreased but would it not have been possible, if the line which I have last mentioned were followed, to have diverted a part anyway of the sums that have accured this year like those from food subsidies, estate duties, etc., to achieve the same results or to achieve even more? These are all questions which will remain largely hypothetical but the fact is that the figures I have quoted and the trends shown by these official returns are uncontradicted. There is the fact, too, that in order to pay for many of the services and benefits to certain people, arising out of certain increases, the community is paying more than ever it did before; whether as contributions, whether as direct tax or in any other form, they are paying more. It has so often been said that it does not matter to the man who has to pay under what heading you take it but the actual amount to be paid is what matters. The actual heading is very poor consolation to him if the money has to come out of the same packet.

This Budget has been described by many Deputies as being a great economy, a successful Budget and a realistic Budget and the last description was that it was a prudent Budget. I cannot say that I agree with any of these descriptions of the Budget, because I feel that we could be very badly off through taking too much notice of worldly prudence. Anybody will admit, even Deputy Major de Valera who has just finished, that we have suffered slums, unemployment, poverty and social misery because we do not avoid the abuse of worldly prudence. I listened to Deputy Lemass for one hour and 50 minutes and I had expected some constructive proposal, something practical from what he had to say, but I suggest that all those quotations from speeches and all the figures from 1932 onwards have very little to do with what is going to happen in 1949, 1950 or 1951. I say the same thing to any speaker who speaks with that trend on this side of the House because they have not addressed themselves to the serious problems confronting us but are only interested in scoring points from one side of the House to the other. Nobody, no matter how concerned with the Budget, made reference to the cost of the Central Fund Services £7,728,430. The first thing we have to do is to budget for that £7,000,000, money we are asking from the people in taxation to do desirable and necessary things. I come from the City of Cork where there is a tax on every man, woman and child of £16 for money borrowed to do things which are socially desirable and essential and I would like Deputy de Valera as well as speakers on this side of the House to concentrate on matters of that kind. If Deputy de Valera were sitting in the place of the Minister for Finance, I am quite satisfied that he would find the same difficulty in trying to meet the problems of the day as long as the Minister for Finance or the Government are not capable of controlling the issue of money and credit to do the things which are necessary in the country. It has been said that unemployment is worse than it was in 1946. I remember writing an open letter to Deputy Lemass in 1944 and unemployment was then 79,000. We were told to work harder and to work longer and that there should be greater output. There has been no change whatever in the mentality on that side of the House as to how to meet that situation. I suggest to Deputy Lemass or to anybody who spoke in similar tones that the unemployment problem will grow graver as we grow older unless we can change the whole structure of our economic system. It has been said that the land is to be mechanised, but if the land is mechanised surely we know that the same number of men will not be wanted.

You want them but you cannot pay them.

That comes down to the question of money.

What is money?

You have just said it, "what is money?" We must bear in mind the fact that the Minister for Finance or any Government cannot carry on a policy as they wish to carry it on if they are not in control of the issue of money and credit to do desirable and necessary things. Lest there be any doubt in the minds of anyone, let me say to the Minister for Finance that the Bishops and Archbishops of Australia issued a manifesto last October and here is what they say about the control of credit:—

"It is also out of harmony with Christian thought that the control of credit policy as distinct from administration of credit should be in private hands.... Whether credit is dispensed by banks or insurance companies, which are to-day often more powerful financially than the banks, it is opposed to right order that the sovereign power which rests in formulating the credit policy of the nation should be in the hands of individuals."

If there is any country that should draw encouragement from that statement it is this country. In Cork there is a £16 debt on every man, woman and child for payments for money borrowed to build houses and to do other necessary things for the people. What did Cork County Council pay recently for the use of money? £52,000 odd per year and they want £3,000,000 more now for housing. Where are all the arguments, all the statements from one side of the House to the other to score points about what some man said in 1946 or in 1947 while he replies, whereas there is no word about the things that matter?

I heard Deputy Lemass and Deputy Childers last night shedding tears almost about the hard way the industrialists are being treated and the insecurity from which they are suffering. I heard Deputy Burke talking about the abuse they are getting. Would any Deputy on the other side of the House deny the fact that in 1938 the number of persons chargeable to surtax was 2,550? In 1944-45 the number was 3,689. In seven years over 1,134 new rich were created and during those years the workers' wages were pegged down by an Emergency Powers Order to 16/- over their pre-war wages. Let us go further and find out where we are with regard to the anxiety shown by Deputy Lemass and Deputy Childers about industrialists and how they are being treated by the present Government. When the excess profits tax was taken off in January, 1947, by the Fianna Fáil Government the industrialists received a present of £3,000,000 per year. Would any Fianna Fáil Deputy state that that money was reflected in a reduction of prices? I suggest that it was not. Prices went up and the excess profits made out of increased prices over the years were as follows: in 1940-41 the profits were £34,000,000, showing an increase over the average of pre-war years of approximately £2,000,000. In 1941-42 the profits were £34,812,200, showing an increase of £2,800,000. In 1942-43 the profits were £37,507,600, showing an increase of £5,500,000. In 1943-44 the profits were £39,466,300, showing an increase of £7,400,000. In 1944-45 the profits were £43,627,200, showing an increase of £11,000,000. In 1945-46 the profits were £46,200,000, showing an increase of £14,000,000. These are the men about whom I heard Deputies Lemass, Childers and Burke worry themselves last evening. They commented on the insecurity they were facing.

I would suggest to the Minister that instead of taking 6d. off the income-tax of the people he has taken it off, that money could much more usefully be spent in increasing family allowances for poor mothers who find it very hard to make ends meet. He should also increase the personal allowance of workers, which is now £140, and which was £120 in 1939. The Minister should know very well that wages have gone up 100 per cent. in most cases and that the workers are not one bit better off and have no more security now than they had in 1938-39 because of increased rates and increased prices. If it can be done now in the coming Budget that should be kept in mind, because a 6d. flat decrease in income-tax is not an equal way of distributing income in the country.

There should also be progressive income-tax. There were some years ago 41 people earning £20,000 each and 53 people with up to £20,000. What do they think of 7/6 or 8/- income-tax as against the poor worker receiving an allowance of £140 now? I suggest that we are reaching a period when we have to change and re-cast our ideas completely about our social economic system. These are the things I would like to see Deputies considering. We have wasted some three or four hours. Deputy de Valera spoke from 20 minutes to six. I have tried to see what he suggested to meet the new situation. I am satisfied he is conscious that the problem cannot be solved if we try to work within the system which we are operating. I would be glad to know if the Minister for Finance has the same idea. I wonder what the fear is and why we have not faced up to this problem before now. It would look as if we were not in power at all, when we have not the power to issue credit to do the things desirable and necessary. I would like to know how much of the last loan was subscribed. Should it be the position of any Government that a Minister should go to a group of private individuals, responsible to nobody, to see whether or not he has power to get money to do the essential things?

Any Minister—whether it be Fianna Fáil, or as at present—is not in power while he has to contend with this combine of local individuals. Imagine that in 1947 there were 29 men in Ireland who held between them 276 directorships of over 200 companies, including banks, of course. We had Deputy Lemass telling us about the wisdom displayed by the banks in telling us what to do. One can talk and talk about economic facts, but the 70,000 unemployed signing at the labour exchange are there because the system is putting them there. We have unemployment and men drawing 17/6 old age pension because of the necessity to have control of money. We are building houses to-day down to a level rather than up to a standard, because of the stringency of money. I remember seeing, in 1934-35, 86 houses built without a fireplace because the money was not available at the time. Imagine building houses for working people, men who create the wealth of a nation and not being able to afford fireplaces, because it meant so much less money. Houses were built in the suburbs of Cork in the same year without a backdoor, because it meant so much less to build such houses. Are we to subordinate the interests of the people to the whims of the financiers and bankers? The sooner this problem is solved, the sooner we can make progress. It does not matter where it is tackled, we will never succeed as long as we are subject to a group of financiers who are able to dictate the policy of this country instead of control being in the hands of the Government of the people.

All Budgets, whether good or bad, will be criticised in any Parliament and it is only right that this one should be criticised to-day. The Budget is a sound one and I am sure it will please the people and that is what counts. It is our duty to find flaws in it, but the arguments of Fianna Fáil in the last three or four days were sickening. I am sure even the people in the gallery were disgusted.

They should not be referred to.

It was not a case of arguing on the Budget but of trying to drive a wedge between the Parties here. That was the whole theme of Deputy Lemass's statement, an attack on the Minister for External Affairs and Clann na Poblachta. He should throw his mind back a few years and realise that the members of that Party were previously members of his own and that they were the grandest fellows in the world then, but when they differed with Fianna Fáil and came across the House they become the very opposite. That is bad tactics for the country. I ask Fianna Fáil to judge the Budget on its merits and let the country see a little bit of commonsense, instead of trying to score points. That is not all on the Fianna Fáil side, however. I sat through the whole debate and I and others are pretty sick of the whole thing. There has been a lot of nonsense from all sides of the House. Deputy Major de Valera was the first man to contribute a reasonable argument, which would have been a little bit better and more spicy if he had got shut of the lawyer attitude. He made a fairly reasoned statement and said many things I agree with.

We are told the present Government promised to reduce taxation. Everyone knows the Government is only a little more than 12 months in office, and no one could expect them to reduce taxation in that time. If we are to give work to the unemployed and stop emigration, it is not by reducing taxation. The Government is taking a wise and honest course, not trying to be spectacular, and they have put forward many millions for national expenditure. There is work for people and emigration is being reduced from month to month, and we find all our people working and earning wages and giving a good return to the nation so that these sops and subsidies they received over the previous years will be eliminated. That is national waste and it is degrading to human beings to keep them in idleness for mean political purposes. I am satisfied that, under the scheme initiated by this Government, we will give work in the reclamation of land and bring wealth to our country, which is at a very low ebb. Those are the things for which we on this side stand. Fianna Fáil at all times liked to be spectacular, to be doing something new, and, during all their years, we had emigration, unemployment, doles, free beef and free money, together with a fall in production right along the line. Was it not time that another Government came in to put an end to that? There is now a Government in power which is realistic enough to face up to the position, and not only to face up to it but to say things. I read in a Sunday paper a speech by the Minister for Industry and Commerce which gave heart to me and to the country. It was sound commonsense in that it dealt with the workshy we have in this country. That is the sort of thing we want to hear at present.

My fellow-Deputy from County Meath, Deputy M. O'Reilly, is usually a commonsense Deputy, but he seems to have gone completely off the line recently. He seems to be a born pessimist, and I never heard such a wail of woe as he uttered here—there is no beef market; eggs cannot be sold; and there will be no market at all in future. Did anyone ever hear such rot, from a man representing a county where the farmers and workers are happy and contented? I saw the Deputy at the fair in Trim recently looking at some white-headed calves, and as fast as these calves could be put up the farmers were getting £10, £12 and £15 for them. It was a matter of who would get in first to buy them, and he tells us that they cannot be sold. I leave it to the people of County Meath to judge whether the Deputy was a hypocrite or a fool. His speech was not the speech of a commonsense man and particularly a man who comes of farming stock. He talked about the quantity of oats left on the hands of the farmers, but he knows that the Minister for Agriculture did everything possible to dispose of the surplus oats. In every speech he made he told the people to buy more pigs, more poultry and more calves and feed the oats to them and so walk it off the farms. What more could he do?

I am satisfied that for the past 12 months there has been a stepping-up in everything-more pigs, more poultry, more eggs, more butter and more production of everything. If that stepping-up continues for the next year or two, we will be in the position of having a balanced economy and will be able to step off on the right foot. Deputy O'Reilly even told us that we may have to kill more calves. Did anyone ever hear the like of it—and not half enough calves in the country. The people at the moment are satisfied that they are getting a fairly good return from the Government and they regard the Budget as a sound and sensible Budget, under which there will be vast schemes of reclamation with plenty of work at good wages, together with a stable market. We know the prices which will be available for our eggs, poultry and live stock and we know where we stand in that regard, and the country is satisfied that we are on the upward trend. We have a Government composed of men of commonsense who will do big things in a big way. We were told that we promised to reduce taxation. We promised first to stop emigration and that is the major problem. It is a problem which we intend to tackle and a problem which will be solved.

The last Deputy who spoke brought out to some extent the difference between Fianna Fáil policy and the policy of the other Parties, because for a very long time it has been the settled conviction of Fianna Fáil that the development of our industrial arm is absolutely essential to the building up of a proper economy. It is an old story, going back to the days when Arthur Griffith preached the same doctrine, and, the more experience we have had since, the more we realise that, as Deputy Lemass said, the ills of Irish economy go very deep indeed and it will take a long time to get that balance, because of the time it will take to develop our industries. Agriculture can be a very dangerous gamble, as I would remind Deputy Giles, who must have had experience of the slump after the first Great War. I am sure that he, like all of us, had the experience of farmers coming to him and telling him that, as a result of the desperate slump in prices, many of them were broken, because of the swing from high to low prices.

We have no control in that respect because it depends on a market outside the country. The only thing we can do is to develop our own markets to such an extent that we will not be broken, if anything happens to the export market. That is why there was such concentration by Fianna Fáil on the building up of industries here; this was done to a tremendous extent. The very figures of the number of people making more money than before which were quoted by Deputy Hickey indicate the extent of that industrial development. Deputy Hickey started off by quoting the Bishops in Australia. I do not know whether he is an out and out socialist or not, but I could counter his quotation with a quotation from a statement by the present Pope only the other day—it is fresh in our minds—in which he pointed out that the nationalisation of certain undertakings may be a very good thing, where the national good is involved, but that, generally speaking, the development of industry should be left in the hands of the individual. That is Fianna Fáil policy and has been all along. If people are making money out of it, that is not a crime. There must be that incentive for people to build up their industries and there must be a capacity to put by money for renewing machinery and so on. Deputy Lemass pointed out the extent to which the British Government had come to the assistance of industry in England in order to bolster up their export trade, and, if we are to go out and attack our industrialists and to call them racketeers——

Who did that?

Oh, now! Does the Minister mean to say he has not read the papers?

I remember seeing the phrase used: "Some of these boys got away with enormous profits." Why transform that into "Our industrialists"?

The boys are the industrialists.

Some of them.

And the result has been that people are afraid to go into industry.

No. If the Tánaiste says: "Some of the industrialists made profits," why does the Deputy say that all industrialists are rogues?

I suggest that that line of argument was pursued not merely by the Fine Gael Party, but by the other Parties as well—attacks upon the industrialists. We had it here from Deputy Hickey.

I must object to that.

The Minister will have the whole House to himself when he gets up to reply and I must ask him not to interrupt me.

I thought the Deputy would welcome correction of what I thought was an error he made. Nobody ever attacked industrialists as such.

I am glad to hear the Minister saying that as a statement of policy, because it means that in future industrialists will know they are not being attacked.

And they never were. Some of them were and some deserved to be attacked.

We had a remedy in that respect. We put forward a Bill which was not carried through by this Government. It was called an Industrial Efficiency Bill, which would have met a lot of these objections but that Bill has been put aside. The Minister must know perfectly well the fierce attacks that were made on us in the last election because of the list of industrialists that were supporting the Fianna Fáil Party. Surely he will not deny that? However, we will leave it at that.

May I ask one other thing of the Deputy? Does the Deputy remember any quotation about industrialists who kept two sets of books, one for the Revenue Commissioners, and one for themselves?

We have all heard of these things——

It was Deputy Little who said it.

Yes, I would not be surprised.

This is not a dialogue.

Was not that a bit roguish?

Deputy Little is in possession.

I have known that to happen with reference to the Revenue Commissioners long ago. I have known people to be smashed by the folly of doing that. I have also known it in more recent cases but that is not a reason for making it a plank in a political platform for attacking Fianna Fáil.

I will give the Deputy the reference—February, 1947.

I am not a very fluent speaker. I would rather try to labour along as best I can. Deputy Hickey mixed up a whole lot of things together. He referred to a subject which, in the presence of the Minister for Finance, was an unkind reference, considering the interest the Minister at one time took in credit control. Since he has gone into office he has had to face up to a very different set of circumstances and so we do not hear so much about the type of credit control which he advocated formerly. Of course, it is true that the Minister has as much control as the State requires if he wants to exercise those powers but I do not think there is any shortage of credit. There is not a great deal to be made out of that. Deputy Hickey's difficulties arise out of the price of building materials rather than out of the lack of credit.

The price of money. Were not you listening to him?

I was but he has it all mixed up.

You are mixing him up.

The Deputy must be allowed to make his own speech.

May I ask him a question?

Only with his consent.

One question.

Would the Deputy refer me to the statute that gives me credit control?

Yes, the Central Bank Act. You can use it. There are certain careful phrases in it about the common good which give the Minister certain powers.

We will leave it at that.

Examine it on the basis of that and see what you can do with it. Deputy Vivion de Valera referred to the reclamation scheme and the fact that there was no provision in the Budget to meet that scheme. I gather from the Press that the intention of the Government may be to use Marshall Aid money for the purpose of land reclamation and agricultural development but, as Deputy Lemass pointed out, it would be very dangerous to use dollars for such purposes as that because dollar loans must be paid in dollars and anything in the way of land reclamation and the development of agriculture does not earn dollars but sterling, and sterling is a very precarious commodity. We have already been robbed of hundreds of thousands of pounds on account of the deterioration of sterling.

Are you telling me?

I would not have to quote his own speeches to remind the Minister of that. Therefore, we should learn to be careful of the pound sterling. There is talk now, even by economists, of the possibility of further devaluing sterling. If the Minister can get us out of the straitjacket of dependence on sterling he will be doing a great day's work, but I do not imagine that that is possible at present.

In any event, the obvious way to use Marshall Aid money is on the tourist trade, which directly earns dollars. Everything should be done in that direction to earn dollars. That is where Fine Gael policy can be criticised more severely than any other. Their trend can be judged—of course they can change that trend, and for the sake of the country I hope they will change it—by the fact of their shutting down Aer Línte, which was such a calamitous destruction of a great national asset.

The American companies themselves say that they have been making a packet of money out of their transatlantic service.

Would you give us a reference?

The Minister will have unlimited time to reply.

The Minister may find it very useful to follow up the things I am saying and to find out for himself the sources of what I am saying. The Government's attitude towards tourism has been terribly provincial and reactionary. Consider what is done in every other country to attract tourists. Colossal effort is made to attract tourists by cultural activities, musical and dramatical festivals, by inducing conferences to hold their sessions in the particular country. The Swedish News shows the number of conferences that have been induced to go to Sweden during the year. Mr. Taft referred to the fact that we were not paying the attention that we ought to pay to our tourist trade, that it is something that should be concentrated on at a higher level than the tourist board. He referred specially to the neglect of our historical monuments. We have all these unexploited riches and we could use them to attract tourists, especially tourists of the Irish race. My experience of external affairs and of being abroad cn work of that kind is that in the end we must rely more upon the Irish race than on any other people for our support. That is true also in reference to the attraction of tourists to this country. There are various elements of culture in this country. There is the folklore. I admit something is being done for that. There are the museums and the art galleries and archaeology. There is our music. These are all neglected.

I do not know what is the present position with regard to the short wave station or if there is anything that I could say that would induce the Minister to speed up the use of that short wave station and to put really good programmes before the world as the very best way of inducing tourists to come here. The Minister should tell us whether he has been able to get a wave-length, whether he is going to make use of the one mast which, I understand, is up and whether he is going to complete the other masts. Any capital expenditure on these things which will increase what already is a very substantial income from the tourist trade will be very valuable indeed to the country. I do not know whether we shall be able to maintain the figure, as the Minister said, at £35,000,000 per year, but every effort should be made to maintain that figure and to increase it.

The luxury hotels have been attacked. I admit that they got an unfortunate name but they are not any better than the other hotels tourists would go to in other countries.

They ought to be, judging by what they cost.

It was an extravagance to destroy them before they produced full results. The Tourist Board, in seeking Government approval for the establishment of an interim company to operate these five hotels, was influenced by two main considerations— that the board's direct interest would be of a temporary nature and that the hotels would be sold through the flotation of a public company. The intention was to establish demonstration hotels, varying as to standard but each exemplary in its own grade. The board was satisfied that very good results accrued from this policy. We all know that our hotels have been very backward. We must have a higher standard of cleanliness and service generally if we are to make our hotels as attractive as hotels in other countries. Therefore, I think the Government deserves very severe criticism for their reactionary attitude with regard to this matter. It is true that at the outset the attitude was entirely hostile. On the 18th December, 1947, the present Taoiseach, speaking at Dún Laoghaire, said that the tourist trade must be limited as the expenditure of tourists undoubtedly played a large part in pushing up prices. I suppose there is something in that statement but, at the same time, we have to decide which is the more important to make our dollars and to get that export even at the risk of a certain amount of possible influence on the cost of living. Everything we do in the way of building up prosperity is likely to increase the cost of living. Then again a leaflet was issued by the Clann na Poblachta Party in which reference is made to the fact that butter, bacon and eggs are available in hotels for English spivs, foreign tourists and moneyed aliens. Further on in that leaflet there is an appeal to "end corruption and poverty amidst plenty." Apart altogether from the fact that such talk was an insult to the visitors who came to this country, the destruction of tourism by advocating the withdrawal of butter, bacon and eggs from the hotels would have meant the disemployment of the people working in the hotels.

You want free hotels for tourists.

I do not. I want a market at the door for the farmers. It is the very best market they could have, It is far better than sending their produce out of the country. If every farmer within a reasonable radius of these so-called luxury hotels could dispose of his produce in that way rather than have to export it, the position would be infinitely better. They would get a much better price and the market would be more secure than if they had to export their produce.

Another calamity was the refusal of the Government to pursue the building of the concert hall for which the preliminary plans had been made and investigations carefully carried out by the architect and broadcasting expert, and for which the agreement was about to be signed for the Rotunda. It was intended to build a magnificent concert hall there with a foyer that could be used for conferences and which would give to Dublin what is badly needed and what the people of this city have been asking for. No private individuals and no voluntary effort could ever, with present prices prevailing, build an adequate place for international conferences and concerts and for various entertainments, and which would supply a first-class hall such as is to be found in every self-respecting capital in Europe. That project has been knocked on the head and no attempt has been made to give us any substitute for it.

I am sorry the Minister has left the House because I should have liked to ask him about the tax on the sale and transfer of house property. It is now pretty clear that the inflation in that market has been effectively checked, especially by the tax of 25 per cent. on non-nationals who buy property. However, with regard to nationals, I think the position could be eased. The Government could bring that tax back to 1 per cent.—especially on houses which are required by people with modest incomes. There are many people who cannot get married and many young couples who are living in difficult circumstances. These people really have not the means to put down any more than the bare deposit required. An extra taxation of £100 on a house that would cost £2,000 is just more than they are able to afford. It is vital that these people should be able to purchase these houses. Quite a number of houses which have been built have not been taken and I think there should be relief in connection with that tax. I am asking the Minister a question as to how much revenue he is getting from it. Even if he is getting a considerable amount of revenue from that tax he should find some other way of getting that revenue than by collecting it in that way and especially on the house property which hovers about the figure of £1,200 to £2,500, which is the amount generally paid by people with modest incomes.

The Deputy must have been reading the speech I made when that tax was being imposed by his colleagues and himself.

The Minister will remember that at that time there was a desperate racket going on in the house-property market. A neighbour of mine sold a house for £3,000. The person who bought that house sold it again for £11,000. It was going on all around us. Remember that that was between nationals, not non-nationals, so, for the time being, some action like that was required to check it. That problem has now passed. Now that the Minister has made that admission, I think he should use his good offices with the Minister for Finance to have the situation adjusted.

I did my best at the time to prevent you from putting your two feet into it.

You have an opportunity now of taking your two feet out of it.

I have spent the last 15 months trying to clear up after the Deputy and his colleagues.

There was a considerable amount of jubilation in this House because the Fianna Fáil prophets had predicted that the present Government would not survive a second Budget. To tell the truth, we were foolish enough to believe the various Parties when they made certain statements and committed themselves to certain principles and gave pledges to the people that they would follow an independent line—a line which would be in accordance with the policies they had put before the people. Apparently, they are prepared now to merge everything in the interest of hanging together rather than being hanged separately. The Fine Gael Party, under its various names, from time to time has rather played the role of Bluebeard in making alliances with several Parties and then getting rid of them altogether. Deputy Blowick, as he then was, in a speech on the 3rd January, 1948, referred to this. He said:—

"When we went in there"—that is into the Dáil—"as a Farmers' Party, the only real farmers organisation at present in the Dáil, we had to overcome a nasty odour as three other previous Parties had joined with Fine Gael and many people thought it would be only a matter of time until we would lose our identity and independence."

Then followed this solemn pledge that there would be no merging:

"We have no right to sell that independence. We never asked your authority to do so and we are not asking now for that authority."

Deputy Donnellan, as he then was, said on the 13th January, 1947:

"Never will another Party absorb Clann na Talmhan. Away with the doctrine of broken promises before the flood of our Irish youth has crossed the Irish sea."

The Minister for Lands, then Deputy Blowick, in Longford on 13th December, 1947, said:

"Three other Farmers' Parties entered the Dáil. They made all kinds of promises, but they were not long in the Dáil until they became absorbed with other Parties. I want to tell you that our independence will be maintained rigidly no matter what the cost or no matter what it means to our Party. I want to make it clear to you and to the candidate that we will never sell out."

I should like to warn all these Parties that they will be all swallowed up. Mr. Baxter's Party was swallowed up and Mr. Heffernan's Party and Mr. Gorey's. Then there were the Redmond Party, Mr. MacDermot, the present Minister for Industry and Commerce, and the present Senator Anthony. They were all absorbed in Fine Gael in due course. The extraordinary part of it was that Fine Gael did not grow. The nourishment did not seem to do them any good.

The Deputy is not speaking now from where he was speaking for the previous 16 years. Therefore something happened.

Something certainly happened. I would rather that that happened to me than what has happened to the Minister.

Fine Gael did not grow at the same time.

It is still growing and that is what is trubling Deputies opposite.

They had 65 at one time and they have less than half of it now—30.

In order to see how far it has grown, I invite the Minister to try a general election and see how they will do at it.

I listened very carefully to various speakers from both sides of the House and what really strikes me is what an outsider would think if he were listening here. We had criticism from one side and eulogies from the other. This Budget has struck me, at any rate, as being a sound and businesslike Budget. It is not what you would call a spectacular Budget, but it is a Budget which went down very well with the people of the country. In fact, it is a real people's Budget in every sense of the word. Everyone will agree that when a Government takes over it has to face the hard realities of life and this Government is facing up to its responsibilities. If service is to be given to the people, money must be spent. To my mind, the taxpayer never grumbles if he finds that he is getting value for his money.

I do not think that anyone could disagree with the policy of the Government. In every Department they are giving service to the people. During the past 12 months the Social Welfare Department has conferred many benefits on the poorer sections of our people so as to alleviate some of their miseries and hardships. That costs money. It had to be found, but the people did not begrudge it because it is helping sections of our people who deserve to be helped. Various other schemes were embarked on by Ministers, such as the land reclamation scheme, the housing scheme and other schemes. From what I have learned during the last few months, the Government intend to help the people in every possible way. I do not believe that anybody except an out-and-out political partisan would disagree with what the various Ministers have in view. In my opinion, value has been given for the money expended and I feel certain that more value will be given in the years that lie ahead.

The 6d. in the £ off the income-tax is a godsend to middle-class people. One section of the community which has been very hard hit for many years is the business people, the ordinary plain people who have to keep their doors open from 9 o'clock in the morning until 7 o'clock in the evening. The remission of 6d. in the income-tax is very well deserved by them, and I am sure they will be very grateful for it.

I was rather surprised to hear a person of Deputy Lemass's long experience state this afternoon that the Government was hostile to visitors from abroad. I was amazed to hear a person who held Ministerial position for many years give expression to such a view. I do not think that any Irishman, no matter what Party he belongs to, has any objection to people from other countries coming here. They come here to spend money which finds its way into the coffers of every section of the community. Naturally one wonders why such a responsible person as Deputy Lemass should give expression to such a view. Whatever Irishmen throughout the world were renowned for, they were always renowned for hospitality. Any visitor from abroad, no matter from what part of the world he comes, leaves Ireland with the feeling that he has been warmly welcomed. It is an inherent trait in the Irish character to welcome visitors from abroad. Therefore, I was, as I said, very much surprised at Deputy Lemass's statement.

Some speakers were rather worried that the Irish Tourist Board had decided to get rid of their hotels. Personally, I am very glad of it. Their cost was colossal. They brought no real income to the country and I do not believe they ever would. I feel that the money made by State-controlled hotels acting in opposition to hotels run by ordinary people really goes into the pockets of the managers and the staffs.

That matter would arise more properly on the Estimate for the Office of the Minister for Industry and Commerce.

It was referred to by other speakers and that is why I referred to it.

Not in that detailed fashion.

One thing long overdue was the relief given to a forgotten section of our people—the old retired national teachers. Every Deputy is under a deep gratitude to these people. I was very glad indeed when the Minister was opening his Budget speech to see that they were remembered by him. For many years past these public bodies throughout the country have appealed to various Ministers and I am glad it has been the lot of the present Minister for Finance to lighten the financial load they have been carrying for many years. They are deeply grateful and certainly will not forget this Budget.

Deputy Little referred to his very deep regret that the Government decided to do away with the airlines. In a small land like ours I could never foresee or visualise our Government making these costly airlines pay. Anybody reading the reports of the various air companies throughout the world would realise that every one of them has been working at a loss for years past. Goodness knows the people of this country have their pockets emptied enough by the encroachment made on them over the past 15 years. I am very glad that they have decided not to go ahead with that again.

I sometimes wonder if it is ever possible in this House that any suggestions coming from one side of the House or the other would meet with unanimity. I thought this Budget was an excellent one in every sense of the word. It helps the small man, the teacher and the industrialist of whom I have heard so much talk here this afternoon. I have been speaking to some of them during the past few days, and they were certainly very grateful to the Minister for the increase that he gave them for the depreciation of their machinery. It will amount to a very large sum in the year and will confer benefit on them. In my honest opinion I consider this an excellent Budget in every sense of the word. It has gone down well with the people. In my wanderings round my constituency during the week-end I naturally discussed matters which had occurred in the Dáil and ascertained the views of the people for whom I have the honour to speak. Everyone seems to be satisfied with the Budget and so am I.

The last speaker said it was a very good Budget. I wish that I could say so in that respect. Like other speakers who have spoken here I think the Budget is disappointing more for the things that are not in it than for the things that are. To my mind the Budget should always exhibit the Government's policy no matter what Government is in office. The exhibits should be the chief problems that confront the country and that the Government is responsible for dealing with. In this Budget there is no mention of the unemployment or the emigration problems. Agriculture and industry, the branches that would bring most relief as far as unemployment and emigration are concerned, are treated in a day after to-morrow fashion. It is all promise but there is not very much performance as far as I can see.

I heard one of my colleagues speaking here this evening, Deputy de Valera, lauding the Minister. At least, he agreed with him with regard to the 6d. relief in income-tax. He said it was a concession, of course, that people would be gratified with. When we get concessions everyone of us feels gratified but we always find it very hard to give something in order to relieve others. In this income-tax concession £1,221,000 is being given by way of the 6d. deducted from the income-tax and other adjustments. It is my belief, and it always has been, that no matter what section of the community people belong to, those who have an income are much more fortunate than the people who have no income at all. We have figures to show that there are approximately 75,000 unemployed in this country. In that regard I think this reduction in income-tax is false economy. Take the moderate rate that was mentioned by the Minister for Industry and Commerce in reply to a question of mine the other day, of paying wages at 1/4 per hour. That would be 10/8 a day for an eight-hour day and about £3 4s. 0d. for a six-day week. If income-tax was retained at the same level employment would be given to about 7,400 of the 75,000. Of course, it would not be a very big number but at the same time it would be making some small change in that number. When we get promises about unemployment being relieved and all that is to be done for unemployment I wonder can we place any credence whatsoever on promises made? There was a Private Members' motion on the 23rd February in connection with the curtailment of the Road Grant. The Minister for Industry and Commerce considered it proper, I suppose, to intervene and not once but, in fact, three times he stated that 5,000 more men would be employed this year by Bord na Móna. That statement is in Volume 114, columns 441 and 442. Five thousand extra men employed by Bord na Móna would be quite a handsome figure. We should all like to see that achieved but I do not see any provision in the Budget for 5,000 more men. I see a figure of £280,000 for an increased income for Bord na Móna.

Having this amount of money spent altogether on what I might term unskilled labour which—again according to the Minister for Industry and Commerce—would be at a rate of 1/4 per hour, I find that £280,000 would be far from providing employment for 5,000 extra men for 52 weeks. In fact, it would provide for only a third of the amount. I read that the Minister stated at a meeting, I think, in Westport that he was finding it very difficult to get workers. He did say, as far as the electricity development scheme on the Erne was concerned, that he did succeed in getting some from the County Galway. That shows that there are at least some unemployed in County Galway.

Do you know how many he got?

I will deal with the position as far as County Galway is concerned. It might be very desirable to get all the men that could possibly be got from the County Galway to go to the Erne, but I hold that employment could be found for them in County Galway.

Hear, hear! We have jobs waiting for them.

I put a question to the Minister a few weeks ago. In fact, I put two questions to him in relation to the position of the machine-won turf scheme in the bogs in the County Galway. We know what his reply was. It was to the effect that 18 bogs were being worked in County Galway in 1948, and that in 1949 eight bogs are being dropped. Machines are being put on only ten of them. In 1948, there were 40 machines at work in County Galway. This year it is proposed to engage only 27 machines. There were 261 persons employed on the machine-won turf scheme in County Galway in 1948 and according to the estimated figure which was given in the reply it is proposed to employ only 215 this year, a decrease of 46.

I should like to put one point to the Deputy. Is he aware that we have failed to get the number of men we require up to the present moment?

Of course, naturally enough the Minister may have failed, but the fact remains that, according to the figures given by his own Department regarding emigration, 1,000 more males left County Galway in 1948 than in 1947.

Why do they not stay and work in County Galway?

Now this kind of little quibbling might be all right in a debate in this House. It might be all very nice, of course, and very amusing to the gentlemen who take part in it, but, mind you, it is not so very pleasing or so highly amusing for the people who are unemployed, or for the people who have left this country as emigrants, or for the 1,000 who left County Galway in 1948—the 1,000 more than the number that left in 1947. I am not saying that there was not emigration from County Galway in 1947, but the fact remains that 1,000 more males left the County Galway in 1948 than in 1947. That is something which requires an answer.

Why did they leave when there was work for them?

Because they were not given work.

Because what?

The hand-won turf scheme was cut out. That could be all right, but why was not work provided on the bogs——

——where is was proposed to put in the machines this year, work which would give plenty of employment to the people in preparing the bogs to continue work, not with 40 machines but with 80 machines. If that were done you would have plenty of workers to get in County Galway. It is all very well to say that you could get only a small number to go to the Erne from County Galway. Many of the workers in County Galway are different perhaps from those whom you meet in other places. A number of them are of the very small farmer type. Their wives and youngsters are in a position to look after the little holding in the working part of the day when the men have gone to the bogs or to the roads. The men could supervise and look after things when they returned in the evening or before they left in the morning. It is quite a different thing to get employment of that kind from being invited to take employment a distance away in your own country. Mind you, there are very many people and if they have to travel a long distance to employment within their own country they say to themselves: "Well, if we have to break home and go at all it is just as well to go the whole distance and go across the water."

There you are— might as well go to England.

If the Minister for Industry and Commerce did not make the statement that he did make on the 23rd February, I hold that provision should have been made in the Budget to meet the number of men that was mentioned, not once, but, as I have said, three times by the Minister for Industry and Commerce.

Of course, we are told about the reclamation scheme. It is going to do two things: it is going to give employment to the worker and prosperity to the farmer. I hope it will do that. Mind you, the farmers have been pretty well neglected during the past 16 months. The farm improvement scheme has nearly evaporated altogether. I have not heard of any new applications that have been dealt with. Any applications that have been dealt with, and any money that has been paid in respect of the scheme, were applications that were made previous to the present Government coming into office. I know, as far as the reclamation scheme is concerned that, so far, it has been only vaguely outlined. I presume there will be a Bill brought in to deal with it. I am sure it can be a very good scheme but I have grave doubts about it. While the Minister for Agriculture, on occasion, talks in very fine tones about increased tillage, I am sure that his policy does not mean increased tillage, or even a continuation of the tillage that we have, because it is wholly and completely a grass policy that is enshrined in everything the Minister has done so far.

We had advertisements issued last year inviting the people to grow more oats and to grow more potatoes. We were assured that we would find a profitable market for the surplus, and that, if we had any trouble whatever in disposing of the surplus, all that it was necessary to do was simply to send a postcard to the Department of Agriculture. Well, we did have a bountiful harvest; we had good crops of both oats and potatoes, and the surplus was there. The postcard to the Department of Agriculture did not bring any results so far as finding that profitable market is concerned. Then we were told the proper thing to do was to walk it off the farm. There is good sound commonsense in that for a particular type of farmer. Any farmer with 50 Irish acres and upwards will find that is a good sound policy, good sound advice, but if we take the farmers with 50 acres and upwards all over the country we will find they form a small percentage. The farmers below that figure are the people who require to grow, and always did go in for growing crops for cash. But where is the cash now?

At the very time when the Minister for Agriculture should have been trying to do something regarding the surplus oats position he was over in America and Canada arranging for huge imports of maize meal. The maize meal has come in and it is being retailed at £1 5s. 6d. a cwt. We are told there is a great profit to be gained by feeding maize meal to pigs, that it is far more profitable than feeding them with the home product. Anyhow, that is the inference. But, where are we to dispose of all the pigs that we feed on this imported maize meal? True, we can dispose of a considerable number on the home market, the market I would like to see reserved and guaranteed to the Irish farmer. When we have huge imports of maize meal it means that the home market is not being reserved or guaranteed to the Irish farmer.

I have read some journals, I have listened to speeches and I have heard statements by experts and others regarding this maize meal business and the great profit it would mean to Irish farmers who will avail of it. I have also heard that the people in the United States and Canada are very go ahead, that they have wonderful facilities over there, great equipment, and are mechanised almost in every way. It strikes me as very strange, if there is so much profit in feeding pigs on maize meal, that it is being exported from those countries on the strength of a dollar loan bearing interest. How is it that the people who can purchase that maize meal at about one third of the price will not go in for pig feeding and send cured bacon to the British market? I do not think the cured bacon would take up any more space in the ships than would the maize meal—indeed, I think it would be very much less.

The farmers in this country are entitled to the home market for anything they can produce and I do not care what Government is in power, even if Fianna Fáil were back in a month, I would strongly oppose a free trade policy in that respect.

What is true of farming is also true regarding industry. The industries in this country have to be protected and unless you have industries and agriculture going hand in hand it is futile ever to talk of building up a prosperous country. Of course, I may be told that we have a fine cattle trade with Britain. I know we have, but how long are we guaranteed it? We had that before, as was pointed out by another speaker, and we know well what happened overnight. The cattle that were purchased at £40 were sold at £20 the following week on the British market. We have no control over that market, but we have over our own, and that is the market we have to look to in the first instance.

I do not see that the farmers are getting anything out of this Budget. The only thing is that they are told to work harder and produce more. I do not find one bit of fault with that advice, but I would like to see that if the farmers have to work harder and produce more, other sections of the community should also do likewise and that the farmers should not be called upon to pay for other works and services if in such other works and services equal efficiency and hard work and production are not made evident.

One of the things that I think is wrong in this country—and I think it is a big thing, and it applies to every one of us—is that people, professionals, farmers and others, place too high a value on their services, and that is not working equitably either. There are certain sections getting far more out of it than others—and they do not form the sections that work the hardest. I always hoped that when the generation, of which there are members on both sides of this House, helped to bring about freedom and took a very active part in doing so, the succeeding generation would appreciate their efforts and would take into account the sacrifices made and risks that were taken in order to place them in the very happy position in which they find themselves to-day and that they would be prepared on their part to make sacrifices in certain directions in order to build up this country, as built up it can be if there is a proper co-operation and a proper outlook on the part of the people.

A good deal of money has been collected on the tea and sugar that has been sold in a certain direction. Why is it that all the people are not given a fair and square deal so far as that is concerned? There is an increase in the quantity of sugar and tea and some people tell me that tea could be taken off the ration. Why not give it to the people at an economic price?

I will do that tomorrow if you like.

Give them all an equal share at an economic price.

What is an economic price?

I am not in a position to go into the question of an economic price with the Minister. I know that 7½d. has been charged for sugar, and you can get all you want at that money, and that 4d. is the subsidised price. When the Minister does not think it is proper to have subsidies now in spite of all that we heard before, why does he not sell all the sugar at a reasonable price, at what it can be sold at—6½d.?

Will you agree to that for all over the country?

Why does he not do that and not collar all the money and put it into the Exchequer? I may be told that when Deputy Lemass was Minister for Industry and Commerce he did something similar. We beet growers know what we got out of anything he did in that particular way. In two years we got an increase of 19/8 per ton in our sugar beet. We are told now that we need expect no further increases in the price of our produce. That is nice consolation to the farmers who have to pay increased rates. They have to pay increased stamp money. They have to pay various other increases and they are told now that the way in which they have got to meet those increases is by working still harder and producing still more. That sounds grand. I can tell you that the farmers are now pretty enlightened and pretty intelligent. They have some little idea about the "sit down strike" or the "sit in strike" in the same way as other sections of the community. They are not going to be hoodwinked as easily as all that.

I do not approve of this Budget for the reasons I have mentioned. I could give a great many more reasons for my disapproval but there are other speakers who wish to say something about the Budget and I know the Minister has been here a long time. I could not approve of a Budget which bears the hallmark of free trade in every line of it. The people who support this Budget are supporting free trade. Free trade means for this country economic stagnation, poverty, unemployment and emigration. If people are prepared to support a Budget such as this, then theirs is the responsibility.

Despite the depressing and pessimistic speeches of the Opposition Deputies, I wonder how in their hearts they can as ordinary human beings think that the people of this country are not much better off to-day than they were before this Government came into power. We have listened to a good deal of talk about unemployment as a result of the discontinuance of hand-won turf production and the emigration resulting from that. If we examine that problem we cannot hold that emigration is entirely due to unemployment. A recent advertisement appeared in the Press for 5,000 workers for Bord na Móna. Yet, only something in the region of 3,000 applied for the 5,000 jobs available. I presume when Deputy Beegan speaks of the 70,000 that are unemployed he is referring to the registered unemployed. I think the time has come when such people, instead of being permitted to live on the backs of the taxpayers and the ratepayers, should be urged and forced to accept employment when it is available. If people want employment work is available for them.

The last Government caused a great deal of unemployment when they started on the showdown with England. It was then that emigration really started. In 1931 11,000 more people came into this country than went out of it. There was then employment for all. The farmer was able to make a living out of his land. When the time came and he was no longer able to get a price for what he produced, the policy then introduced by Fianna Fáil caused them to seek work on the roads and in the bogs. The policy of this Government is that those men should return once more to productive employment on their own farms. I have known people who had remunerative employment here who emigrated. It seems to me that once people begin to emigrate the course of emigration follows the same old pattern as when it first started in 1847. Those that go away induce those who remain behind to follow them. Possibly they paint glowing pictures of the high wages and amenities abroad. It will probably take some time to make these people realise that they will find more congenial employment at home than they will find in any foreign country.

Increased agricultural production can be brought about only by inducing people to work well on the land. By obtaining and keeping markets at home and abroad for what is produced on the land we can absorb thousands of people who are anxious to work. There is plenty of employment in our factories. When I speak of factories I do not mean those so-called factories that were set up under the last Government in the back lanes and elsewhere. I mean those industries which have established themselves and which provide good employment and good working conditions. I mean those factories that are not continually begging for subsidies or other help from the Government. It is no use producing goods unless we have a market for them. It is only by a proper coordination of agricultural and industrial development that this country can ever hope to be prosperous or provide employment for all its people.

The legacies left to the Minister for Finance by the last Government call for some comment. I refer to the expenses incurred by the projected establishment of Aer Línte. I refer to the money that was squandered on the luxury hotels and other works carried out by the Tourist Board. I refer to the losses on the wheat purchased in the Argentine and on the Canadian oatmeal. I refer to the short-wave broadcasting station and to the millions that have been lost in fuel production because of the method by which it was produced and the racket it developed into. Yet, despite all those disabilities the Minister has succeeded in reducing taxation. The Minister has been able to reduce taxation and to produce a Budget which is quite acceptable to the vast majority of the Irish people. There are great hopes that the arterial drainage scheme will be fully developed and, with the work that will be carried out under the Local Authorities (Works) Bill and the reclamation, and the rehabilitation of land to be carried out under what I might call the Dillon plan, I do not think there will be any necessity as the years go by to demonstrate to the people that there is no unemployment and no necessity for people to emigrate.

There is one other matter to which I should like to call the Minister's attention. In replying to the debate on the Estimate for Education the Minister for Education stated: "A number of Deputies were anxious to know what is being done by the Minister for Finance with regard to the teachers who were pensioned before the scales of November, 1946 came into operation. The Minister will give the fullest details of the general plan with regard to that when replying to the debate on the General Financial Resolution." I would respectfully ask the Minister for Finance to carry out that undertaking when he is replying and also to state, if possible, the likely date on which the first payment of increased pensions to teachers will be made. I can assure the Minister that the pensioned teachers are deeply grateful for what he has done and I should like to convey to him the fact that I, who have been agitating for a number of years for increased pensions for teachers, received from the chairman of the pensioned teachers' association on the morning after the Budget was introduced a telegram asking me to convey to the Government the sincere thanks of the pensioned teachers. It is well, too, that the Minister has made provision for increased pensions for ex-policemen and ex-civil servants. In referring to police, I hope the Minister has in mind those ex-R.I.C. pensioners who retired on patriotic grounds during what I might call the Black and Tan war. After all, other members of the R.I.C. who continued in the service received increased pensions from the English Government. I think the time has now come to increase the pensions for those ex-R.I.C. men who resigned on patriotic grounds.

On the whole, this is a Budget which even Deputies opposite must admit is a sound and business-like Budget. People down the country of all classes are perfectly satisfied with it and I can safely congratulate the Minister on behalf of the people I represent. He can feel sure that he has the good wishes of all these people to continue in the good work of economising in certain directions so that he will have money to spend in other directions.

Listening to the last speaker, I came to the conclusion that he must have been like Rip Van Winkle for part of his life when he talks about the industries established by this Government and by Fine Gael. Speaking from my experience of the city and suburbs of Cork, and of certain surrounding towns, I can tell him that the flour mills were closing down there under the régime of the Cumann na nGaedheal Government at a time when flour was being dumped here from outside. We had at that time no firms in this country manufacturing tyres, we had no cement factories nor any of the other factories which have since been established and which there is no necessity to mention. Anybody going round any of our cities and towns can see for himself the factories established during the time that Fianna Fáil was in power. Even the cigarette manufacturers were compelled to come in here and set up factories. When one hears a Deputy talking in that particular strain it is enough to make one smile. I did not intend to refer to the increased industrial development under Fianna Fáil but I am compelled to do so after hearing statements such as that I have quoted.

The Deputy also told us what was being done for agriculture. I do not know much about agriculture but I was very friendly with a few pig buyers and they told me that when Cumann na nGaedheal was in power farmers would sell their own pigs and buy Chinese and Danish bacon to take home to their workmen. That never happened during the time that Fianna Fáil was in power. I am glad that the Government are giving the teachers increased pensions but everybody knows that the reason Fianna Fáil did not give an increase in pensions was that they believed that not alone the teachers, but also many other sections in the State deserved increased pensions and it was a matter of dealing with the whole lot together. I hope now that the Minister has agreed to provide money for increased pensions he will not forget other classes. I hope that in particular he will not forget the men who made this State and who were pensioned when the cost of living was pretty low. Men got disability pensions when, as I say, the cost of living was very low and those men are having a very hard time at the present moment. I would appeal to the Minister to provide money for that increase.

There are also other classes such as mental hospital attendants. I know mental hospital attendants in Cork who were pensioned before 1940 with as low a pension as 7/- or 8/- a week.

You did not do much for them since.

That was in the Cumann na nGaedheal time. We did not do it for one class above another.

You did not do it at all.

We could not do it.

You did not do it after the emergency.

I am not in court now. Let me make my speech.

The Deputy is rather in the dock I think.

I am asking the Minister if he is going to give those pensions. Fianna Fáil gave them and made special allowance, which no other Government made, for people who were incapable of earning their own living and who were destitute at a time when the cost of living was much lower than it is now. The Minister knows very well that since he came into office the cost of living has gone up considerably.

He has given increases in salaries to civil servants making up for that. The Minister for Local Government has sent a circular to local authorities telling them to pay 7½ per cent. more on all salaries over £350 a year. The cost of living has gone up and there is no other reason for it.

There is another reason for it.

The reason is that the cost of living has gone up and the Minister has done nothing to keep it down.

To listen to Deputy Palmer talking of emigration and unemployment in this year of Our Lord is a bit of a joke when the unemployment figures are what they are at the present moment. I understand that there were no unemployment figures when Cumann na nGaedheal were in power because those people got no assistance and had nothing to sign for. While I am on that, I would suggest to the Minister that the class of people who are entitled to an increase are the people who have been working all their lives and who are temporarily thrown idle now. They have to pay increased contributions, the cost of living has gone up and now when they are thrown idle they are getting no compensation for what they paid all their lives and for the increased contributions they are paying now. The same applies to National Health. The contributors are getting no increase but there is an increase in contributions.

The Minister for Social Welfare seemed to be very annoyed the other day when Deputy Lemass referred to his failure to bring in a comprehensive insurance scheme. I want to tell him that the delay has been a very serious matter for some workers because employers do not know where they are. We were told last year that we would at least have a White Paper at a certain date. We were told when amendments were being brought in to the Workmen's Compensation Act that in a short time we would have a comprehensive scheme which would cover the whole lot. I have been approached by directors of large industrial concerns in Cork who intend to reorganise their own superannuation schemes because they feel they are out-of-date with the present cost of living. They do not know what to do. If the Government is to bring in this scheme it will put a different face on the situation. Are they to keep waiting and waiting? We were promised that scheme a long time ago and those people are waiting to see what benefit the workers will get from it so that they will arrange their own superannuation schemes in line with them. I think that is a very important thing for those workers and there is no use in saying that the Government will bring in a White Paper. What we want to know is when and those people want to know where they are.

I must go back for a moment to the question of Old I.R.A. pensions. The Minister was asked to extend the time for special allowances and he said this time last year at the time of the Summer Recess that he would go into the matter. He has not gone into the matter yet as far as I can see, or at least he has done nothing about it. There are men who did not apply for the medal which would entitle them to apply for the special allowance. They did not apply for it because they thought they would never need assistance.

That surely is not Budget policy.

It is extra money and has to be budgeted for.

The Budget is for the collection of money. What the Deputy is talking about is the paying out of money.

What is the money collected for?

To make up for a lot of your mistakes.

You got away with that last year.

I will get away with it again.

Those people are destitute now and they cannot apply for these special allowances.

Fianna Fáil passed the Act of 1945.

I thought the Deputy was the Army deserters' champion.

Deputy O'Leary should let Deputy McGrath speak.

He is speaking on a matter which you have ruled out of order.

A Deputy

We have two Chairmen now.

I would like to draw the Minister's attention to another matter, the renewing of the tax on dances. As far as Cork City goes every Sunday night céilis are run in the City Hall and every one of them is for local organisations or football clubs. It is impossible, or nearly impossible, for any organisation to make those céilis pay while paying the tax. First of all, they have to prove that their expenses are less than 30 per cent. of the takings which is nearly impossible, and really the Minister is only depriving those organisations of help. He is suggesting then that you have no tax on dance halls three miles from cities or towns with a population of over 500.

Yes, that is right.

I maintain that that will lead to many an abuse. I think there are people in this country who are opportunists enough to put up dance halls outside that three-mile limit which will be an inducement for the motor car fiends, as they are described by some people, to go out to them at night. I am sure that the Minister will agree with me that there will be more facilities for wrong practices in those places than there would be in a large city or town where the participants in the dance would be under the eyes of the public. I would like to draw the Minister's attention to that matter for him seriously to consider it.

I am sure that even the most ardent supporters of the Government are disappointed with this Budget. Usually when Budgets come in, the chairmen of the two chambers of commerce in our part of the country are interviewed as to what they think of the Budget, but no interviews were published in the newspapers this year. Those who talked about the reduction of taxation got a rude shock when they found out that it is not so. That is all I have to say on the Budget and I am sure their followers are very disappointed with it.

This is the first Budget of this inter-Party Government. Last year they claimed that it was a Fianna Fáil Budget they had to bring in, but this year it is their own lovely baby. When I glance at it and see what is in it, I wonder how any rural Deputy can have the neck to support it. The only contribution made for the rural community is "Work harder and produce more and if you do we will probably take the duty off the sparkling wine next year—we are taking it off the other this year—and we will probably be able to give the professional classes, whom this Government represents, a further reduction in income-tax." That is the net relief this Budget gives. The Minister callously comes along to tell us that, as an agricultural community, we are very well off and we must produce more. Any one who has spent a number of years over on that side of the House, listening to the so-called farmers' representatives complaining of prices and of poverty-stricken farmers, begins to wonder, now that we have what some people claim is a farmers' Government, where the people are who were making a lot of noise about the price of milk. I wonder what has become of their tongues now. There was an old saying here about the dumb, driven cattle. We do not hear any of those complaints now.

The Minister for Finance tells us to produce more. On what basis? One would need to produce more than double as much oats to get what the farmers got for oats in 1947, and three times as much potatoes to the acre to get what they got for potatoes in 1947. Turf has gone out of the question. Flax has gone up the spout, as the Minister for Agriculture would tell us, after wheat and beet. I heard some allusion to the fact that we are still growing wheat. The only reason for that is that a peculiar result of the coming in of the Minister who told us he would not be found dead in a field of wheat is that now the only crop the farmer has with any kind of a guaranteed price tagged on to it is wheat. There is one very noble distinction and that is the crop that we looked after the price of ourselves, despite the efforts of the Minister for Agriculture to put it down. It is rather funny to see the farmer next year getting a minimum price of £28 15s. for barley and only £25 for wheat. That is the agricultural position in which we are looking for increased production—double as much oats, three times as much potatoes, no market for flax, beet at the same price as last year. That is the position, with this tagged on to it— agricultural labour up by something like 14/- a week, rail up by something like 5/- in the £ and every other costing going up every day. Artificial manure is dearer than it was last year; superphosphate is up from £10 to £10 15s. In that situation, we ask the agricultural community, the only producers of wealth, to produce more so that the professional classes can be relieved of their income-tax and get cheaper wine under this Budget. This is a rich man's Budget, not a poor man's Budget. I do not think even Deputy O'Leary would claim that the agricultural labourers in his constituency will get much relief out of 6d. in the £ off income-tax and so much off a glass of wine.

They get cheaper smokes.

There was plenty of cheap smoke sent over for the Orangemen in the North in the past 12 months. The ordinary Irish labourer paid more for his cigarettes in the past 12 months than he paid under the increased tax in the Budget, because 50 per cent. of what he bought had to be English cigarettes to make up for the Irish ones that went out. Do not try that one on. There have been increases in labour costs and rail costs, and every other costing the farmer has to face and a reduction of over half his income. In that condition of affairs, he is asked to produce more. I do not know the attitude of the rural community, though I know their feelings very well. They feel the shoe pinching them more and more. Where there were two agricultural labourers employed before, there is only one employed to-day. They see the country being turned into a grass ranch and a special artist—an expert, I suppose— brought over from Australia to show us how to grow grass.

That is the position of affairs the Irish farmer will face after this Budget and it is a condition of affairs in which we see every week and from month to month a reduction in the number of men employed on the land. We wonder where the voice of Clann na Talmhan has gone. We wonder where the Deputies have gone who were so vocal when looking for an increased price for milk and an increased price for this, that and the other, and who condemned the previous Government because they did not give a larger increase than they were giving. The farmer to-day has to produce his milk at the same price as that at which he produced it two years ago with his costings mounting up day after day and month after month. And then he is to produce more.

Deputy Beegan alluded to the 12/10 per cwt. which the Minister seized from the Irish Sugar Company in order to prevent the farmers getting the increase they were entitled to on this year's crop of beet. On questions which I put down to the Minister for Industry and Commerce, I succeeded in dragging from him the fact that £380,000 had been taken from the sugar company on that basis alone last year. When I first raised the matter here, I was met with the sneer that our own Minister had done it. Our own Minister did allow a charge of 7½d. a lb. on manufactured sugar, but that money remained in the coffers of the sugar company to meet the increased cost of beet which it met last year to the extent of 9/8 per ton—increased costs admitted by the sugar company due to increased wages and freight charges. We went to the sugar company last November on this matter and we were met with the situation that there was a bare cupboard, a cupboard that had been raided and cleaned out by the Minister a month before, and with the statement that the Minister considered that the sugar company had been entirely too generous with the farmers in the price of beet the previous year and considered that last year's increase should be good enough for this year. Those are the conditions in which we are to have increased production.

On going into the figures of the increased production costs of beet, we found we were entitled to an increase of 9/6 per ton. As a matter of fact, I believe the sugar company did recommend to the Government an increase, but the Government were more concerned with extracting this sum of £380,000 from the sugar company to meet apparently the reduction in income-tax and in the price of wines. The result is a reduced acreage and reduced production, despite the fact that the farmers, driven away from potatoes by the policy of the Minister for Agriculture, had no other crop to turn to in respect of which they could get any guarantee of a price. These are the conditions in which farmers are asked to produce more by this Government of the professional classes for the professional classes and for nobody else, this Government which governs with the help and assistance of the representatives of the most misguided lot of farmers who elected so-called farmers to represent them in order to keep the professional classes in power.

There has been on the Order Paper of the Dáil for the past 12 months a motion dealing with rates. With the usual manoeuvring of this Government, no time has been afforded for the discussion of that most important matter and they have no intention of discussing it or allowing it to be discussed. If it is discussed, I expect that the poor dumb, driven cattle will have to walk into the Lobby and see that the professional classes are kept safe and that the burden on the farmers can be increased to any point to which they wish to increase it, for social services and everything else. During the past 12 months, the increase in salaries alone in the South Cork Board of Assistance area is £22,800 and in respect of the Cork Mental Hospital, £24,400—extra burdens on the State largely, thank God, owing to the foresight of the former Minister for Social Services who saved the ratepayers a large proportion of that extra burden. But let us have some stabilisation. Let the farmer know where he stands some time with regard to this policy. If he keeps a shotgun now to shoot crows, he must pay a double licence fee, and if he keeps an old .22 rifle to train the young idea to shoot, it will cost him four times the previous licence fee. All these little things are being piled on.

We come, then, to the grave unemployment position. I put down a question a couple of months ago to the Minister for Industry and Commerce in connection with four towns in my constituency. Despite the fact that when Deputy Keane was speaking about emigration he told us the workers were like wild geese, that they had all flown, despite the fact that hundreds left these areas during the past 12 months in despair of getting employment in their own land, the numbers of unemployed registered at the labour exchanges in Youghal, Cobh and Midleton were higher than they were the previous year. There is increased unemployment in each of the areas. I happen to be living in a district where the condition of affairs as regards emigration is brought home more forcibly to me than it is to any other Deputy. Any evening when I am going home from the city I may meet at the station hundreds of what the Minister for External Affairs would call postulants, setting out for Cobh and the emigrant ship. What have those Deputies whose benches, with the exception of Deputy O'Leary, are empty now, who told us there was going to be full and plenty and full employment for all when this Government would take over, to say to that? They took over some 14 months ago. There is many a poor devil whom I met setting out for Cobh and the emigrant ship who cursed the day he put a number before their names and gave them a chance to take over.

How can any Deputy expect that there will be employment on the land under the conditions as I have outlined them? These are the conditions that, unfortunately, do exist. The first reaction of a farmer who finds his income halved on the price of his oats, potatoes and beet is, if he has two men employed, to get rid of one, to reduce his outgoings. His next reaction is to put the old plough to stop a gap and to look for something to eat the grass——

Or to buy a tractor.

——because, owing to the action of Deputy O'Leary's Government, he cannot till it.

Did you see the farmers buying all the tractors at the Show?

Tillage is something to be whispered now. We had all the boasting here from time to time that there would be no more inspectors out on the land. They are being sent out now inspecting the dance-halls instead to see what population can be found within three miles of every dance-hall, to see if they can make up the 500. That is a new job for the inspectors. I am sorry that there is no member of the Clann na Poblachta Party here now, the people who were so interested in Muintir na Tíre and in the flight from the land. Surely we could be spared the mean attack that has been made in this Budget on the rural halls. To be honest about it, I expected that I would find in the Estimates this year some grant towards the establishment in each parish of a parish hall, in view of the fact that there had been so much talk on the part of certain Parties about the flight from the land. Instead, I find extra taxation on them, so that the professional classes can be relieved of income-tax. That is the game they have worked.

This is not a Labour Budget. I cannot see any relief for those whom Labour pretend to represent in the relief of income-tax or the relief on non-sparkling wines. I cannot see any relief in this Budget for the Clann na Poblachta Party, and nobody would pretend for one moment that there is any relief in it for the agricultural community. The splinter Labour Parties, the Clann na Poblachta Party and the Clann na Talmhan Party have all been dragged in at the heels of the old Fine Gael team to produce this Budget and to sit there, dumb driven cattle. That is their position.

I had an interview last week with 20 road workers in Cloyne who are out of employment as a result of the reduction in the road grants to Cork County by £85,000. I am sure they will be very pleased to read Deputy O'Gorman's praise of this Budget. They will be very pleased to know that the £2,000,000 that has been saved on them has gone to the relief of the professional classes in respect of income-tax and wine. Farmers are told that they are going to get something out of the dollar loan. This Government reminds me of the old tag of the "not far distant day". Everything is coming. They are only waiting. They will have everything if they will only wait—and next year they will be asked to wait for another little while. The Minister dealt with the £40,000,000 land reclamation scheme in his Budget speech. However, the first intimation we have had in regard to that scheme is that the farmer will have to pay £12 for every acre of land drained by the State. I would point out that the highest price paid by the Land Commission for good arable land taken over by them is only £8 an acre. Yet the farmer has to pay £12 an acre for draining the old bog—that is the big blessing farmers are to enjoy under this £40,000,000 scheme.

I have sought to find out what steps are being taken to give back to the ordinary road worker in this country the £2,000,000 that was taken from him and that, we were told, he was going to get back in the river scheme. Particulars in regard to all these schemes have been sent in by the county council but I have not seen one item in the Budget or one item in the Estimates as to where the finance was to come from. After all, a man is not going to work without money. We want to know specifically and clearly where that money is going to be found. Is a Supplementary Budget going to be introduced for it or where is it going to come from? Surely we are entitled to that information, but it is not forthcoming. Is there some secret hoard that the Minister has his eye on or does he intend raiding the coffers of Messrs. Arthur Guinness for it? Or does he intend putting a special tax on the farmers who succeed in selling their barley to Messrs. Arthur Guinness to make up for it? We want to know where the Minister is going to find the money and we are entitled to be given that information. We farmers have our produce sold at far less than what our best customer is paying to her farmers for the same article. We have the Minister for Agriculture mooning around trying to persuade the farmers of this country to-day——

The next Estimate is the Estimate for the Department of Agriculture. The Deputy might reserve his comments on agriculture for that Estimate.

I certainly shall. I am speaking generally——

I said "reserve".

——about the remarks of the Minister for Finance in his Budget speech when he asked our farmers to work harder, to produce more and not to expect any more because they were too well off under Fianna Fáil and he intended to take a little of the fat off them now. That is the attitude of this Government towards the agricultural community of this country—this Government of lawyers and so forth. We are told about increased salaries and increased pensions for teachers, for Gardaí, for the Army and all the rest of them. The only man who is not mentioned for any increase is the old farmer. He is warned, specifically, in this Budget that he is going to get no more; that if he works hard enough and produces more there will be something off champagne next year. That is the net result, as far as I can see, of this Budget.

We, who represent the rural community, are entitled to be told by the Minister when he intends to cease raiding the coffers of the sugar company and when he intends to allow the farmers to get at least the cost of production for their beet. We are entitled to know that. We have a condition of affairs in this country to-day in which one pound of sugar out of every six pounds is bought in the Government black market—a special black market of their own that they have set up and under which they collar 12/10 a cwt. on sugar. Sugar was rationed during the war. There was not enough sugar to go round and we had repeated wails from Labour Deputies in this House, from people who pretended to be sorry for unfortunate little children who, they said, were crying out for sugar and who could not get enough of it. However, if the unfortunate little child wants an extra pound of sugar now he can get it at 12/10 a cwt. more than production cost. Production cost is 6? pence. He is charged 7½d. for a pound of sugar.

How much of it is sold at 4d. per lb?

That is the ration that the Labour Deputies were complaining was not sufficient for little babies and young children. I heard Deputy Hickey on occasion crying out here about the condition of those unfortunate children for want of sugar. They can get it now on the Government black market ——

Please do not misrepresent me.

——and 12/10 a cwt. is collared off it.

The Deputy should not repeat himself.

I was not repeating myself.

The Chair does not think so.

I regret that.

The Deputy will regret it still more if he does not cease repeating himself.

I shall not offend again. We have the same position as regards practically every other item that was scarce during the war—not excepting the bread which is good enough for the ordinary worker and which is still rationed. The position now is that there is a special loaf at a special price being made, off the ration, for the professional classes. They could not be expected to eat the ordinary bread that is used by the ordinary person; a special loaf is being made for them. There is either a sufficiency of flour here to take flour off the ration or there is not. If there is not sufficient flour, why it is that a portion of that scarce commodity is made up and certain things extracted from it so as to make flour scarcer for the other people in the country and to provide a white loaf for the professional classes? This is being done with the blessing and the support of the Labour Parties and I might say—they would almost say so themselves—the Labour Government in power.

In the same way, you could go through item by item every scarce commodity and find the same condition of affairs. There must be only one rule for it and that is that, whoever gets anything, the farmer is to get nothing and the worker is to get nothing. The worst offence that a man can be guilty of in this country to-day is to be a producer of wealth. Once he becomes a producer of wealth, he gets all the kicks and none of the ha'pence. His only relief is to work harder and produce more, and the more he will produce, the more he will be able to give the professional classes. That is the result of the first inter-Party Budget introduced in this State and I hope those who represent the agricultural community here and those who represent Labour in this House will remember that and think over it. Every farmer in this State would have to more than double his production in order to get the return that he was getting under a Fianna Fáil Government in 1947.

If ever a Budget produced a certain amount of dejection amongst the supporters of the people who introduced it, this is the Budget. This year there was a lot of speculation as to a reduction in income-tax, the reimposition of the excess profits tax and many other taxes which were going to relieve the life of the ordinary person and provide the much-wanted and much-publicised social services for which we have been waiting now more than 15 months and which, so far as I can see, are as far away as ever. The main theme of the speeches of the Government's supporters on the Budget was the relief of 6d. in the £ in income-tax. Last year the Minister imposed a tax of 7/- in the £. Out of that tax and surtax he got in something like £1,500,000 in excess of what he provided for. Under the present Budget, by the relief of 6d. in the £ in income-tax, he is returning just £1,000,000 of that amount to the taxpayers. Therefore, I submit that he is doing nothing that the taxpayer did not deserve. If the taxpayer paid to the extent of £1,500,000 in excess of what he was expected to pay last year, he was entitled to that amount of relief this year. Therefore the relief given by the Minister is no more than the taxpayer is justly entitled to.

If the Minister did intend to relieve the small taxpayers—there are many more of them nowadays than there were previously as a result of the wage increases over the last seven or eight years—he would have increased the personal allowances and given a bigger increase in the other allowances mentioned in his Budget. Under the £1,000,000 which the Minister will give back to the public, the ordinary salaried man with £7 to £10 per week will get about £2 10s. 0d. or £3 relief. It would be a much fairer proposition if the Minister gave relief by way of an increased personal allowance.

Last year I made a claim for relief in the case of earning widows. I feel that a woman who, by reason of the death of her husband, has to work for her living is entitled to more relief, particularly if she has children, than the ordinary single man. It is true that in many cases widows get relief by way of children's allowances and widows' and orphans' pensions. Nevertheless, there are many earning widows at present who do not qualify for these pensions or allowances and who find it extremely difficult to make ends meet. Many of them are living alone and many of them are providing for children who do not qualify for the children's allowance. I ask the Minister to make an examination of their position during the coming year, if he is in the position of bringing in a Budget for the financial year 1950-51.

During the war years in England they introduced a system for collecting income-tax called P.A.Y.E., or the pay-as-you-earn system. Under our system, income-tax is collected twice yearly. These demands for income-tax are really feared by the ordinary low-income man. I should like to see a system like the English system generally applied in this country. It is true that the cost of administration would possibly be much higher. In England during the war, however, I think the cost of administration was largely borne by the big firms who employed extra clerical staffs to collect this tax and forward it to the Government weekly. It also had the effect in England of not only relieving the ordinary worker from facing a big burden once or twice a year but of being anti-inflationary. It kept from circulation that extra money which would otherwise have been paid out by way of wages every week. I would also suggest that it might justify a trial from the point of view of the extra labour it would employ in the big firms who, no doubt, would have to employ extra staff to deal with this particular form of collecting taxes.

There are one or two items in the Budget which must be welcome to many sections of the community and, in particular, to the Guards who will benefit to the extent of £260,000 in the current year by way of increased pay. On the contrary, however, I feel that this increase which represents an overall average of about 12/- or 14/- will not be welcomed by the lower paid Garda Síochána. When I mention an average of 12/- or 14/- the actual increase will, no doubt, in many cases far exceed that sum and in most cases will be much less. There is a section of the community for which no provision is made in this Budget and for which I made a case during the course of the last Budget debate. I refer to taxi owners and hackney owners. I think they are entitled now more than ever to some relief. After the period of the emergency had passed the Fianna Fáil Government justly gave ex-Army men a chance of investing their superannuation amounts in some profit-making concern and many of them invested it in the purchase of taxis. Many others besides ex-Army men have also invested in taxis with the result that nowadays in most taxi ranks in the city and in most of the towns there is a surplus of taxis. Taxi owners and hackney owners are finding it far more difficult to make ends meet. Apart from the cost of petrol they have to meet an increased cost of maintenance, increased insurance and increased road tax. I feel that taxi owners by reason of their service to the public are entitled to some concession in the tax on petrol. I appreciate that the collecting of this tax would present some difficulty but I suggest to the Minister that their case should be examined and some relief should be given, particularly as they are men who are totally dependent on the use of petrol for their livelihood.

Many Deputies made an appeal to abolish the stamp duties which were necessarily imposed in the Budget of 1947. I read through the Budget Debate of that year and it is extraordinary to find that Ministers, who now support the reimposition of this tax, as Private Deputies attacked this imposition as an outrage and attacked the Minister for Finance, now Deputy Aiken, who imposed this tax.

I do not know why the Deputy says "reimposing". It has not been reimposed.

I meant to suggest maintaining it. I do not know about the Minister for Finance but certainly other members of the Coalition Cabinet attacked the then Minister for Finance as if he was some kind of financial fiend for introducing such duties. They told him in no uncertain fashion that there was no justification whatever for it. I am not a financial expert but, in my opinion, there was every justification for imposing a duty. It was during that period when house property was changing hands week after week, so much so that auctioneers made fortunes out of a very limited number of transactions. Single houses changed hands no fewer than nine or ten times within a period of six or seven months. That duty served a dual purpose. It curbed the tendency to make money out of house property and also served as an anti-inflationary device. However, I feel that at this stage it has served its purpose in that respect and that the Minister should abolish the high duties that were imposed in 1947. It is now reacting on the average young man who wants to buy a house for his own use on marriage or shortly after marriage if he wants to rear a family and get out of a flat. When a man pays £2,000, which is usually the price of the ordinary small house at present, it comes as a terrific blow when he gets a demand for £100 tax which he finds, in many cases, very hard to get.

The Minister has reimposed—I take it I use the right word on this occasion —the tax on dances in this present Budget. Many people run dances who are not deserving of a lot of sympathy at all because, goodness knows, they make enough out of them. However, there are many organisations—political, sports, parish, etc.—throughout the country who depend largely on functions such as dances and concerts for their main source of revenue. I feel myself that the reimposition of this tax will hardly justify itself. I remember reading on one occasion that the cost of collecting this tax was practically half of the actual revenue that was got out of it. I would appeal to the Minister, whatever about the professional dance hall owner, the man who can depend on a dance hall for his livelihood, it certainly is a justification for granting relief to genuine organisations that run dances and depend on them for their revenue. I need hardly tell the Minister at this stage that his officials are faced with a new task in tracking down people who will attempt to evade this tax.

The Minister in this present Budget strikes two notes of warning. Last year the main theme of his Budget was economy in administrative cost. He held out promises that he could cut the cost of running the country by about £10,000,000. I am sure he has already been reminded that that estimate is out by about £8,000,000. However, if he intends to economise now in the cost of administration he has the means—less wages, which is hardly likely at the moment, or less officials. He used the term that there should be improvement in organisation and method of working. The only implication I can gather from that statement is that he proposes to lop, to some extent, the number of what he might consider to be surplus officials in the Civil Service. If he has any other explanation for it, I would like to hear it. Last year, civil servants—a number of them who are temporary—felt uneasy when the Minister brandished his economy programme in the House shortly after he became Minister. I think they have grounds for feeling uneasy as regards their tenure of office by the statement that is contained in the Budget.

Under the heading of "Wages and Earnings," the Minister sounds a note of warning where he says that it is to be expected: "that the upward adjustment of wages and salaries has been completed." I think that if the Minister opens his eyes he will see that in almost every branch of industry and employment generally, there is even yet a demand for increased wages. The Minister's statement, I take it, means that, so far as he can accomplish it, there will be no further increase in salaries and wages. Here again I am sure he will be reminded by the Labour Deputies who support the Government that, until such time as the demands of the people they purport to represent are satisfied, there cannot be any halt called in the upward trend of wages— until such time as it catches up with the cost of living. The Minister claims that the cost of living has been stabilised. It is true that the official index figure has been more or less steadied since the present Government came into office, but that is a far cry from the promise that the cost of living would be reduced by 30 per cent.

The Minister made reference to increased industrial production. He produced figures in his Budget to support his claim that there has been increased industrial production. It is strange that almost every Deputy who spoke on this side of the House, representing all parts of the country, should say that increased unemployment is evident in industry. It is a strange paradox that while industrial production can go up, as I take it to be the case from the Minister's Budget statement, that industrial employment seems to be going down.

No. Industrial employment is up. The latest figures show that.

It is a peculiar circumstance that many people who, to my knowledge, were in constant industrial employment over a long number of years are now out of work. They do not want to face emigrating to find employment elsewhere. I have been approached by several men and I have tried to find employment for them. So far I have not met with much success.

I heard one of the Fine Gael Deputies, when speaking of emigration, say that at least the present Government were not asleep, that they were taking active steps to stem the tide of emigration. No matter what statistics are brought forward, it cannot be denied, so far as the rural areas are concerned, that the number emigrating is mounting considerably. That is true of many places with which I am familiar. I am told that in remote parts of the country they cannot get enough people to organise dances. The young people are not there because they are emigrating. It is a sad state of affairs that young people should be allowed to emigrate.

A lot was made during the first year that the Government was in office about what was said to be wanton expenditure on turf. If there was a loss of hard cash to the State on the hand won turf scheme, it can be said that the expenditure of it served the purpose of keeping the people at home, the people who are now forced to emigrate. I think that, even if there would be a loss to the State, it would be good economics in the long run to have kept that scheme going.

There is nothing more that I have to say except generally that in my opinion this Budget has been a flat Budget to say the least of it. It has caused keen disappointment in many respects.

Hear, hear!

Not as far as I am concerned or as far as anybody on this side of the House is concerned, but particularly from the point of view indicated by Deputy Lemass, in his first speech, that no provision has been made for the comprehensive social insurance scheme that we have been hearing about for a long time. Since it is not mentioned in the Budget, I take it that a solution of whatever problems have been presented to the Minister for Social Welfare is not being envisaged during the coming year.

Many of the Opposition speakers in this debate seem to have made it their principal theme to be concerned about the projected social insurance scheme. Of course, it is a very important matter to know how soon we will have it, and when it will come into effect, but it strikes me, and I am sure it strikes every member on this side of the House, as being a very incongruous attitude on their part, and a very incongruous thing for Fianna Fáil to talk about a social insurance scheme at all. In any event, the discussion of it does not seem to me to come properly within the scope of this Budget debate. I would like to say that when an opportunity was provided for Deputies on the far side of the House to concern themselves in a very real way about social insurance, and when that opportunity extended over a very long number of years, it was not availed of by them. Therefore I suggest it ill-becomes those Deputies to endeavour to make political capital out of what are definitely technical difficulties, and that it ill-becomes Deputy Lemass, who must know the procedure that is adopted in the matter of the preparation of a White Paper to try and capitalise on the ordinary routine method of handling such a matter. I have no doubt that the social insurance scheme will be brought before the House at the earliest possible moment because of the fact that the Government, and more particularly the Tánaiste—everybody knows of his intense interest and intense desire in this matter—are concerned to introduce such a scheme for the benefit of the working people throughout the country.

The principal feature of the Budget, so far as the country generally is concerned, is the reduction in income-tax. It can be said to be in the nature of a token reduction. It is undoubtedly welcomed by that section of the people whom it affects. Unfortunately, because of the general relatively low level of wages, income-tax reduction does not affect the mass of the people. It is undoubtedly a welcome thing for those who are affected, and I feel that the Minister for his effort in that direction is to be complimented.

It would, perhaps, have been of more benefit if an effort had been made rather in the direction of easing the burden on the mass of rural workers, roughly 180,000, throughout the country who find it very difficult to exist and carry on on the present cost of living, which has been held but is still fairly high. It has been a difficult thing for these workers to live. I, personally, had hoped that some effort would have been made to relieve them in this Budget.

The reduction in the income-tax, while welcome, has a limited application in my view. Undoubtedly it can be said that the steps which are taken with regard to the entertainments duty are welcome, but I would have thought that villages of a somewhat larger population than 500 might have been included in this exemption. There are many villages with up to 1,000 of a population which would be deserving of consideration so far as that tax is concerned, and I ask the Minister to consider this matter in that light, because this tax is one that imposes a certain amount of hardship on the rural population.

One of the most important aspects of the Budget. I am sure every Deputy agrees, is that which relates to the provision of money for housing. Deputy P. J. Burke made a fairly lengthy speech on the Budget. Deputy Cowan referred to the remarkable ability of Deputy Burke in dealing with certain matters and to his funereal attitude on many points. Deputy Burke, despite his occasional sadness, is nevertheless an astute politician. He avoided reference to the housing problem and for a very good reason. I will not suggest that the housing problem is anywhere near solution, but in so far as my constituency and the provision of houses for workers there is concerned, considerable progress has been made. That progress contrasts very strongly with the absolute absence of movement which was evident prior to the advent of the present Administration. I do not refer merely to the years of the emergency, but to the years which preceded the emergency.

Any development there was in the matter of housing in County Dublin during those years was merely a drop in the ocean, but since last year there have been definite forward steps taken. I feel it is right that we should have some definite information in that connection. The number of operatives engaged in house building—erecting houses for the working people—in County Dublin on 1st May of last year was 70 and the number on the 2nd April of this year was 763. Those figures alone indicate what progress is being made. Deputy Burke, in his speech on the Budget, was very careful to avoid mentioning that. He did, however, mention other things to which I would like to advert.

There is a great deal of talk at the present time, very desirable talk, on the need for production. We all feel that in order to get full recovery in this country production must be greatly increased. But Deputy Burke's view— and I take it he is speaking on behalf of his Party—is: "There is no use in telling us that increased wealth, for that statement is as old as the hills." That is rather a peculiar economic theory to put forward, especially when leaders of the Deputy's Party have been saying exactly the opposite.

I feel the provision made in the Budget in respect of housing requirements will be very welcome throughout the country. I feel that under the late Minister for Local Government the housing drive was going at top speed. The greatest monument to his memory, the greatest tribute that can be paid to him; is the tremendous energy he put into the attempt to meet a terrible housing problem, a problem that was presented to this Government by the previous Administration who, for many years, did not avail of the opportunities they could have availed of to meet the need for houses.

This discussion has circled round the important questions of unemployment and emigration. There are many Deputies now professing horror at emigration. It seems to me they have very short memories, or they must consider that we have very short memories. During the period when the road grants were reduced we heard expressions of concern for road workers, expressions of undying love for road workers, from the Opposition. It was very hard to believe their statements. One member of the Opposition was very virulent on this point and expressed his desire to help the unfortunate road workers. He almost wept salt tears here for them, but he took the first available opportunity in his own county council to ensure as far as lay in his power that no road worker would secure anything in the nature of a guaranteed half day during wet weather.

Many of the statements made by Opposition spokesmen on unemployment and emigration will not bear a great deal of examination. Unemployment is definitely a problem which this Government must face. It is not a new problem. It is said we have 70,000 unemployed. Before the war, before, that terrible calamity struck the world, there were 120,000 unemployed. That was in the time of the Fianna Fáil Government. I do not say that in an attempt to justify the existence of 70,000 unemployed now. I believe it is the duty of this Government or of any Government to take every step necessary to create employment of a productive kind. There are undoubtedly certain difficulties in the west of Ireland which we on the eastern seaboard do not come up against. At the moment it is practically impossible to get sufficient labour for the Erne hydro-electric scheme. It has been stated on many occasions that it is impossible to secure a sufficient labour force for Bord na Móna in order to carry out the turf production scheme. I think there is good reason for that. I do not incline to the view that any proportion of the population of this country is averse to work. I believe that the number of people who do not want to work for their living is not worth talking about. I think the average normal human being wants to work in order to earn his living. There is a reason why it is difficult to secure the services of men for Board na Móna. That reason has its roots in the activities of the previous administration. For very many years employment under Bord na Móna was regarded as the last refuge of the damned. No later than this evening we read in the Evening Herald of a gentleman who, through some accident or other, found his way into the courts of justice; he was there given the option of imprisonment or going to work for Bord na Móna. That shows the attitude of mind that exists in relation to the turf camps. As one who is familiar with this problem I admit that there is a certain amount of justification for that attitude. The history of the working conditions of Bord na Móna and the wages paid to its employees is well known. During the previous administration workers in Bord na Móna were harshly and unjustly treated.

During the last few months of the Fianna Fáil régime conditions and wages were improved to some extent but there is still considerable dissatisfaction amongst the workers generally. I suggest that is the main reason why it is difficult to get young men to go to work willingly in turf camps which are remote from the large population centres. The actual life itself is not too attractive. It behoves the Government and Bord na Móna to ensure that wages and working conditions are made satisfactory.

I suggest that might be reserved for the Industry and Commerce Estimate. It is largely administration.

I merely mention it in passing because I think it is important.

It strikes me the Deputy has not passed from it for a good while.

I will proceed to pass from it now.

Very good—it is administration and it is for Industry and Commerce.

If we are to secure that recovery to which the Minister referred and which all Parties desire, we must accept the principle that the average man in this country is willing to help to the utmost of his ability, given a fair deal, in order to secure that recovery.

I was disappointed because the Minister made no reference to the taxation on petrol used for agricultural purposes. Last year there was a reduction in taxation on that particular commodity. I feel there is a very strong case for the removal of that tax altogether. It would seem to me highly desirable to make the mechanisation of agriculture as attractive as possible in order to secure that maximum production which is the foundation of our economic recovery. There are a great many very progressive farmers in my constituency. Given the opportunity, they can do even better than they have been doing as regards production. I would suggest to the Minister that he should give some further relief in the matter of this particular tax. The actual income to the Exchequer from the tax on petrol-driven tractors cannot be so great that its removal would cause any undue difficulty to a Minister who shows so much ingenuity as the present Minister for Finance. Its removal would do much to encourage further agricultural production.

I was glad of the announcement made by the Minister in reference to the pre-1940 pensioners. These people have given good service in the past and they will welcome the Minister's announcement. I would have liked this adjustment to have a wider application. Further, I would urge upon the Minister that he should consider the position of Civil Service employees who are still employed on a temporary basis, many of them for 20 and 30 years back. I would urge the Minister to examine the position of these people to see what relief he can give them.

The Budget has one great advantage. Up to the eve of the Budget the people were filled with apprehension because of what they had endured under the Fianna Fáil Administration. It seems to me now that during the next four years of the present Government the people must feel that they no longer have any cause for fear. They can be satisfied that, whatever steps may be taken to improve their position, no steps will be taken, as was done on so many occasions in the past, to worsen their position.

I would like the Minister to answer a few questions when he is replying. With regard to the land reclamation scheme, can he give us any further information as to when the details of the scheme are likely to be published? Can he say how the scheme will be financed and in what way it will be related to the arterial drainage and the farm improvements' scheme which are in operation at present? Furthermore, what are the considerations which make the Government feel that this is the chief way in which the Counterpart Fund should be utilised to increase production in agriculture? Is there to be any provision for increased production in respect to non-agricultural commodities and is the Counterpart Fund to be devoted entirely, in so far as it is being devoted to agricultural production, to this scheme of land reclamation? The Minister has been asked to give certain information regarding pensioned teachers and I should like to ask what is the position with regard to the recommendations which it is rumoured have been made——

That is easily answered. There are no recommendations.

I take it in any event that some provision will have to be made during the year for this and it will be no harm if the Minister would reassure the teachers as to that matter. There is also the question of Córas Iompair Éireann. It is believed that a promise was made that within a month there would be a definite announcement regarding the terms on which it was proposed to acquire the stock and the stockholders, as the Minister knows, are very anxious to know what is the position.

In regard to the Budget in general I have only to say that the income-tax remission is not at all sufficient, having regard to the enormous increase in revenue and in view of the promises that have been made. The total remission amounts only to about 1 per cent. of the total revenue or something over 1 per cent. of the tax revenue. Moreover, the 6d. which the Minister has now remitted was imposed only last year, so that as far as the taxpayer is concerned he is going to be in the same position as he was before the last financial year began. He is not going to be in any better position although the Minister last year took in about £5,750,000 more than in the preceding year. On the present basis of his estimate of revenue he would be getting in about £7,750,000 more than in the last year we were in office. The total remissions he calculates to be £733,000, a very small remission in a Budget of £73,000,000. The Minister has abolished the fertilisers subsidy practically on the ground that it was not being utilised but the fact is that the money was provided had fertilisers been available in larger quantities. I cannot quite understand why the Minister should seek an economy of that nature if he is anxious to increase agricultural production.

It would be useful if, in addition to the information which we got in the Budget statement, we could be told what the net agricultural output during the last year was and also if the Minister could give us more information on the point which Deputy Aiken raised, namely, what is the actual position as regards the inflationary trend which the Minister spoke of? Are we in an inflationary position when it is necessary that Budget surpluses should be made or are we in a deflationary position when it is necessary that Government expenditure should be speeded up? There is a certain slump in business. Businessmen are looking forward to a not very good year and the remission that the Minister has given them can scarcely be regarded as a serious incentive unless it is that in view of what he said in the past about excess profits, he thinks it is really more than businessmen and employers are entitled to.

The Opposition would also like to know what the income from stamp duties amounted to and whether the Minister can give us any indication as to how it was distributed between the 25 per cent. tax on purchases by aliens and the 5 per cent. tax on native purchasers. Our attitude is that we feel that this tax fulfilled its purpose. I need not dilate on the matter. If it cannot be abolished completely, as we think it should, it should be reduced certainly in respect of our nationals.

I should also like to ask the Minister, in view of the statement that prices have increased and that the cost-of-living index figure increased in 1948 as against 1947, what is to become of the point in the Coalition programme which definitely promised a reduction in the cost of living. What is to become of the undertaking given by the Taoiseach "that other considerations must be subordinated to the overriding necessity of reducing the cost of living and increasing the value of the people's incomes? The first task of the new Government must be vigorously to grapple with and provide a solution for the problem of the soaring cost of living which is menacing the economic life of the State and the happiness of its people." As Deputy Lemass pointed out, the most the Minister has been able to claim is that there has been no substantial increase in the cost of living. I could quote, if I did not desire to bring my remarks to a conclusion as speedily as possible, the remarks of the Tánaiste and other Ministers in this House on the Supplementary Budget and previously, in which they stated that prices were altogether beyond the power of the people to support. In their election campaign, of course, they gave very definite promises on this point. The Leader of the Fine Gael Party said that the cost of living was a most crushing imposition on the people and the Government were in a great degree responsible for it. The Tánaiste said the people groaned under everrising prices and that wages were buying less goods.

The Minister who now tells us that it is impossible to control prices adequately to secure the purposes we would all like to achieve accused his predecessors in office of wilfully allowing prices to get out of control and the value of money to fall. He has now had time to try his hand at reducing the cost of living in circumstances in 1948 which, every honest man will agree, were far more favourable than in 1947. What has been the result?

We believed also that the tax on dancing, in rural areas at any rate, was not justified and that the cost of collection—and the expedients that would have to be adopted to secure it —would more than counterbalance the advantages to the revenue, not to speak of the cost of administration. With the very bouyant position of the revenue and the fact that the Minister can look so complacently at his Budget of £70,000,000 in which he has given such a limited amount of remission, I do not think he is justified in imposing these burdens which do not seem on their face to be worth the trouble of collecting them and the cost of administration.

The Minister referred recently to the question of public buildings and I would like to say that I intend on another occasion to raise the question of accommodation for the institutions of science and art here. This is a problem that has been neglected for a great many years and I think it is one to which attention should be given now that more favourable conditions prevail.

Deputy Derrig might take a holiday away from the gloom which he always finds around him in the Dáil for the last year and a half. He should go and meet the pensioned teachers and tell them what another administration has done for them. He can do that rather than talk about the teachers as he has done here.

I do not feel in the slightest degree ashamed. I was always interested in the pensioned teachers.

We know what they think about that. The Deputy can now tell them certain joyful news. The Deputy asked a series of questions most of which were actually answered in the Budget Speech. He asked about the land reclamation scheme. Surely the Deputy understands from reading the financial statement that that is going to be financed out of Counterpart money.

I asked when the House was going to get definite particulars.

He asked how it was going to be financed. With regard to the time when it will come in, an Estimate has to be brought in to gear that scheme into the present methods of spending money.

Will it be before the 1st of July?

It will be before the 1st of July unless members on the Opposition Benches decide to obstruct it as the Local Government (Works) Bill was obstructed.

That is not so. The Local Government (Works) Bill was a half-baked measure which was rushed into the House.

The people who want to prevent this scheme from going through can say that this is a half-baked measure, but we can leave to the people to judge as to who is anxious to do the work and who is anxious to obstruct it. We will clear the obstruction out of the Opposition Benches as we are clearing the obstructions out of the streams in the country and it will not cost as much money.

This Budget has been described as a rich man's Budget. As far as my memory serves me, two taxes have been imposed, one with regard to firearms which is going to bring in £30,000 in this part of the year and the other on dancing which is going to bring in £110,000 in this part of the year. There has been more wailing about those two taxes and exaggerated language about burdens on the community with an entire neglect of the remissions which have been made to the community prior to the Budget of last year, in the Budget of last year and in the Budget of this year. As far as the tax on firearms is concerned. I put the matter on this simple basis. The rates paid for the various licences were fixed in 1925 and the value of money has entirely changed between that date and this date. I consider that I am imposing no hardship whatever on the people of this country if I ask them to give me an extra 5/- on the licences in the main.

The dancing tax is going to bring in £110,000 this year. I had what I would describe as a first round of argument with those who are interested in this matter. Deputy Derrig should remember that the Government to which he belonged imposed a dancing tax in 1932 and kept it on for 14 years despite the cost of collection, and on one occasion when it was found that there was some possibility of evasion they strengthened their legislation to see that those who attended in particular ways would also pay the tax.

For 14 years, notwithstanding all the cost of collection which apparently makes this an unremunerative type of imposition, the Deputy's Party kept it on. I consider in the better times there are now—and I say that without any fear of contradiction at the moment-that it is not too much to ask dancers to contribute to me £110,000 in this part of the year. Deputies of the House will remember that when the tax was taken off there was an expression of a certain view that the reduction would be passed on to the patrons of the dance-halls, but it is notorious that it was not passed on and that the particular duties are still built in to the prices of admission which are those charged prior to the remission. There should be no change now that the tax has been reimposed. If there is any reason why the tax should be passed on to the public— and I understand there has been some suggestion of it—then I think the proprietors should make the question clear. There is a feeling in the country, in the first place, that there is too much dancing, and, secondly, that the proprietors of dance-halls are making a good thing out of dancing. That may not be the case, and, if not, they should let the public know exactly what the question is.

Is it the opinion of the Revenue Commissioners that the remission of the tax did not go to the patrons of the dance halls or is it the Minister's opinion?

What have the Revenue Commissioners to do with that? It is notorious that the charges were not lessened.

It was stated in the House that it would be so.

It was stated in the House that there was an expectation that the prices would be lowered. It is not a matter of the opinion of the Revenue Commissioners but of common and certain knowledge and should be accepted by the Deputy as that. Apart from those two taxes —and the talk about them may be warranted by a serious demand from the public—there is nothing in this Budget except remissions and aids to people.

Deputy Corry, notwithstanding that, thinks that this is a rich man's Budget and that unemployment and emigration will be caused by it. Deputy Beegan fears that those who support this Budget are supporting free trade, unemployment and stagnation. It appears that word has gone around the House that that is a chorus which is to be repeated. Deputy McGrath also wept about emigration and unemployment. He, with others of the Fianna Fáil ranks, was concerned about a measure for social security. When that measure is brought before the House it will be a matter demanding very serious consideration. I wonder whether in the end the exaction of very heavy contributions from the community for social services will be an advantage to them. I think they will probably find in the end that they are not getting as much in services. I believe that before introducing a big scheme of social insurance the wage and salary position should be attended to and that the people should be left to their own devices to provide as a free people the services which free people provide for themselves.

I understand that Deputy Maguire to-day gave one example that had come to his notice, of the farmer in Northern Ireland from whom £16 was taken under the comprehensive scheme there and in return for that he got what Deputy Maguire said was expressed to him as a quite insufficient return-medical services up to £2 a year, free spectacles and free dentures. He might not require either of the last two, so he had free medical services costing £2 a year and was paying £16 for them.

In regard to the introduction of social insurance comprehensive schemes here, Fianna Fáil have again complained of the delay in that connection. On the 22nd October, 1947, there was a motion discussed in this House with regard to modifying the means test for old age pensioners. Deputy Dr. Ryan, who was in charge of the debate as Minister for Social Welfare, said that to carry out the terms of the motion would, so far as he could calculate, involve a sum of between £500,000 and £750,000 and that that sum could not be afforded at that time. In the same month, at the end of it, on the 30th October, 1947, the then Minister for Finance, Deputy Aiken, introduced a Superannuation Bill and when questioned about certain matters in connection with that Bill and as to why he had not improved the position of pensioners who retired prior to 1940, he again complained of the cost. The cost was put in this way by Deputy Aiken:—

"At the moment the State was paying, between Post Office pensions and Civil Service pensions £1,000,000 a year and excluding old age pensions and blind pensions, the total pension bill annually is £2,400,000. A 10 per cent. increase had been mentioned and calculating the 10 per cent., that would amount to £240,000 a year and that was beyond the resources."

Did not the Government give £2,000,000 in the spring of 1947 as additions to the social services? The Minister is just picking out October, 1947. Let him give the total expenditure in the financial year.

Whatever was given remains. At the end of 1947, a demand was made for modification of the means test and the Minister then could not do it because it was going to cost £500,000.

Because he had given £2,000,000.

In addition to all that, when Deputy Aiken was asked in regard to the increase in modification, that we have now done, it was going to cost £240,000 and it could not be done. The people who were aghast at the idea of adding £500,000 at one point a sum of £250,000 at another are now whinging and crying because a social insurance scheme has been delayed for over a year.

It was promised. It appears in the programme.

It was, and it is still there. I do not think it ever was in the Deputy's programme—it certainly never was there in practice. Outside those things, there were some smaller points dealt with in this debate. With reference to the stamp duty, comment has been made here and outside— Deputy Colley was responsible for it here—that the extra stamp duty has stopped the sale of houses. Deputy Derrig has asked me what revenue is derived from it. From the 5 per cent. tax, the money that came in was over £600,000. Deputies can make the calculations themselves: 5 per cent. brings in £600,000—therefore, what was the value of the property that changed hands during the year from which the £615,000 was achieved. They will find it runs into millions. Yet I am asked to take, as a contribution to the debate, the statement that the sales of property have been stopped and the sort of phrase used was: "The sales of all property are at a standstill." The tax was, I think, a bad tax at the time it was introduced, because the prices then made for houses were very high indeed and putting on the 5 per cent. tax was certainly not a very easy thing for those who were prospective purchasers. The situation is entirely different now. A deputation I saw recently expressed the point of view that houses which had ranged at £5,000 at that time were likely to be got for £3,000 now. A person now paying 5 per cent. on a £3,000 house is in the end getting a far better bargain than a person purchasing and paying £5,000 for it even if they have to pay only the 1 per cent. —and under Deputy Derrig's administration he would still have been paying the 5 per cent.

It was an anti-inflationary measure.

The main thing that contributed to the decrease in the price of houses has not been that fact. It has been the fact that the banks have restricted the money they put into the hands of prospective purchasers of houses. That has been a matter of great lamentation around the House. Accusations have been levelled at me on more than one occasion that I had instigated the banks to a particular type of policy or, as it was often put, that I had ordered the banks to restrict credit in certain ways. If there has been any downward tendency with regard to the price of houses, it must be mainly due to that and not to the 5 per cent. tax. I propose to keep on the tax at the moment, because I do not think it is anything like the burden it was when it was first introduced. It brings in a certain amount of revenue and that revenue I require at the moment. As far as I am concerned, it is in the main a revenue imposition and I think I am entitled to get it, in the atmosphere that there is at the moment in which lower prices are being taken for houses, and thus be enabled to give remissions of taxation that effect the general community.

Why not make a distinction between the small purchaser and the big one?

The Deputy did not do that in his time and we have no reason to do it now. I am taking the tax because it is valuable from the point of view of revenue and I do not intend to make any reduction that would to any great degree reduce the yield of the tax.

Deputy Lemass has challenged me with regard to a number of things connected with the use of E.C.A. funds. I think that on two occasions here I made the position clear with regard to the use of the funds. There are two pieces of legislation that impact on such moneys as we get and I have indicated here and in the Seanad the attitude to them. I have nothing to add to what I said there. If Deputy Lemass would direct his attention to what I said then and if he has any doubt in his mind I will answer him on any particular point he raises. He has quoted from the Central Bank report of last year that we should take measures to secure the earning of sufficient dollars to cover at least the service of the loan. The Central Bank statement went on to say that the difficulty of any such type of investment need not be elaborated. The difficulty was so great that Deputy Lemass did not find it possible for him to indicate to me the type of investment that he thought we should make which would earn dollars. I have said in the Budget speech that there were two or three considerations operating with regard to these funds and I think they answer, if he would take the trouble to read them, the main points he put to me with regard to that. He asked whether expansion is to be dependent on the Counterpart Fund and whether it would not be better to borrow from the Irish people. Expansion does not depend on the Counterpart Fund.

If there were no Counterpart Fund there, we would have gone ahead probably with the same programme of development as is set out in the Capital Operation side of the Budget this year. But once these moneys were there and were accumulating, it seemed foolish not to apply them, as long as it could be done along sound lines and in a way which would meet the approval of those who lent the moneys to us. It has been put to me that I must look on to 1956 when these funds become repayable and I am asked what provision is being made to have repayment made in dollars. On that, I refer Deputies to what the administrator of these funds said when he was under examination before one of the Congress Committees in the United States in July of last year. Mr. Hoffman was asked if the Irish Minister for External Affairs had not spoken of the difficulty that this country might be in in making repayment in dollars.

His answer was that the Irish Minister made it clear that they did not see how they could pay back any loan unless there was some improvement when it came to convertibility. In other words "they are being paid for their agricultural products in English pounds, French francs, and currency not readily convertible."

He then said and said publicly—it was broadcast all over the globe—"Our answer to that is that we have got to assume that, with the recovery programme will come convertibility of these exchanges," and if there was convertibility, Ireland or any country could pay back the loan. If that is the way in which the Chief Administrator of the fund regards this whole matter, why should I call that in question? I think I am entitled to go along on the basis that, whether it is full convertibility or not, some degree of convertibility will have been achieved by 1956, and, if that is not the case, so far as America is concerned, the whole aim and objective of the Marshall Plan must fail and presumably something will have to be substituted for it.

Deputy Lemass is very anxious about the situation which has arisen here with regard to certain industries. He feels, in particular, that there is not enough concern with regard to the manufacturers of certain textile goods. He was also querulous with regard to the situation in the boot and shoe industry and he raised certain complaints about the Electricity Supply Board and certain orders which the board had made which, he said, had more or less stopped production on the part of a new factory, the Aberdare concern. With regard to these three things, there are some dollars being provided for the purchase of textiles from America, but they are very limited, and, as a matter of fact, even those provided have not been utilised to the full. Deputy Lemass ought to get this picture in his mind that, in the last year in which he had any association with imports of textiles from America, he allowed the import of $21,750,000 worth of textiles. In 1948, there was imported into this country $2,292,000 worth of textiles. In other words, where he had allowed in about £5,000,000 worth of textiles from the States, we allowed in a little more than £500,000 worth of goods.

Does the Minister object to having allowed them in?

Deputy Lemass objected to my allowing in £500,000 worth when he had allowed in £5,000,000 worth.

Were there not other markets?

Were they available in 1947? Why did we spend $21,000,000 in bringing in textiles from the States in 1947? I understood that the contention was that our own factories could supply all these articles and it seems to be a peculiar reflection on these factories that $21,000,000 worth of goods had to be brought in; but that was the situation. The boot and shoe industry is very much the same.

Were these textiles——

Deputy Derrig got a fair hearing and it was rather gloomy for me to have to listen. Will he not now compose himself in quietude while I speak?

I want to ask the Minister a fair question. Were these textiles being produced here?

I would ask the Deputy the same question: Were the £500,000 worth of textiles being produced here?

You shelve the question, then.

I am ashamed of the question, but the Deputy is not very open to shame this evening. With regard to boots and shoes, the boot and shoe industry undoubtedly did find itself in a rather bad position this year. They had a meeting with the Minister for Industry and Commerce and they referred themselves to the fact that, in 1947, a year in which Deputy Lemass had charge of the situation, 1,500,000 pairs of boots and shoes had been allowed into the country and the complaint was made by Deputy Lemass that for the first six months of 1948 imports were put at the figure of 560,000 pairs.

That was changed when Deputy Morrissey got in control of the situation, and, by agreement with the manufacturers, the import quota was reduced to 150,000 pairs. In the second half of 1948, as a matter of fact, not even 150,000 pairs came in and it was a condition of the Minister's quota Order that no boots whatever were to be imported. The quota, again by agreement with the manufacturers, was fixed at 200,000 pairs for the first six months of 1949—by agreement with the manufacturers—and, in the first two months, only 15,000 pairs were imported.

After the figures had been disclosed to them, the representatives of the industry who met the Minister said that the difficulties were certainly not by them attributed to the current rate of imports, but that they were in fact due to the footwear imported in 1947 and the early months of 1948, a lot of which was still held in stock by traders. There was also the position that the industry had developed to such a point that it was over-producing. I think the situation might better be explained by saying that there was an over-capacity for production, so far as these goods were concerned. However, that is one of the many difficult situations which Deputy Lemass has left to us.

The over-capacity?

An over-capacity, yes. I like over-capacity because it leads to competition, but those who are very strong on tariffs, quotas and restrictions will object to it, because they always want a capacity of something a little below what the country consumes so that prices can be raised and the public, to a certain extent, imposed upon.

With regard to the orders placed by the Electricity Supply Board, a very interesting situation is revealed by the information supplied to me. The complaint made by Deputy Lemass is that a factory was being erected and machinery being brought in here for the production of certain goods which the Electricity Supply Board would require, and that, as the Electricity Supply Board had placed their orders, he said, up to the end of 1951, they had left this new factory, the Electricity Supply Board being its only customer, without anybody to provide. The fact is that, so far as the board's work other than rural electrification is concerned, the board has placed, or had placed, certain forward orders for conductor wire. The board placed in all £438,000 worth of orders away from the Aberdare factory. That undoubtedly is something that would call for comment and critical inquiry, and the critical inquiry reveals that one-quarter was placed in Great Britain in December, 1946, when Deputy Lemass had certain control over the situation, and £138,000 worth placed in Belgium in October, 1947, when Deputy Lemass had some touch with the Electricity Supply Board. The only other orders they have placed, the small sum of £50,000, were placed in November, 1948, and my information is that only £18,000 worth of that order was of a size which the Aberdare company could produce and it is tied in with a bigger order. If there is any contact with the Electricity Supply Board, or if any Minister has the right to say where they should place their orders and where not, there is the point that, in his time, £388,000 worth of material was ordered abroad, while his factory was in course of erection, and only £50,000 worth placed abroad since.

Why does the Minister say it was in course of erection? It surely was not in course of erection in 1946, and I doubt if it was in course of erection in 1947.

Deputy Lemass said it was in 1947 because he was complaining with regard to the orders being placed about that time. It is to a certain type of copper wire that these orders to which I have referred relate. As far as transformers are concerned, transformers of the type the Electricity Supply Board use for other than rural electrification purposes are not either produced or going to be produced by the Aberdare factory and, therefore, no question arises.

Is it the policy of the Electricity Supply Board to import all their requirements if possible?

Deputy Derrig's policy would be to order from an Irish company material which the Irish company does not produce and does not intend to produce. That would hardly be progressive policy for people who want to get on with rural electrification. As far as the rural electrification side proper is concerned, the articles that the Electricity Supply Board have ordered relate to conductor wire and to certain transformers. As far as the conductor wire is concerned the Aberdare factory equipped itself to produce certain copper wire conductors.

The world price of copper has gone very high indeed and the Electricity Supply Board has abandoned the use of any such conductor wire and have gone over to a different type, steel cored aluminium wires. The relation between the prices makes it clear that that was a proper thing to do—copper wire at about £130 to £140 a ton as against £80 for steel cored aluminium. The board in this instance having to place orders and to get firm orders ahead from people who could supply this particular steel cored aluminium wire, placed certain orders away from the Aberdare Company. With regard to whatever they have placed—Deputy Lemass said it was up to the end of 1951—no orders have been placed by the board covering any date beyond the end of this year and the same applies with regard to any transformers they have ordered. They have placed orders to meet the needs up to the 31st December, 1949, and have placed other orders with the Aberdare Company. The Electricity Supply Board have had to place orders outside the country for large transformers because they are a type that is not inside the range of production of the Aberdare factory and they do not intend to engage in any such production. Deputy Lemass with Deputy Vivion de Valera and Deputy Aiken was querulous with regard to one matter that I want to deal with before I conclude tonight, that is, the matter of emigration and unemployment. For some months past I have been trying to get before the minds of Deputies the very very high programme of capital expansion that we have set our hands to and I would ask Deputies to consider the table that was published in the Estimates of Receipt and Expenditure each year and to turn to the last page of that, where they will see set out the capital and other issues. As far as this particular White Paper that I have is concerned, it gives only the contrast between 1949-50 and 1948-49 but the pamphlet for a year or two ago will give the other figures. In 1946-47 the money provided for capital works was in the region of some £2,000,000. In 1947-48 that rose to about £5,000,000. Last year, we provided £9,113,000 and this year there is set out here a provision of £12,630,000. The main heads under which these moneys will be disbursed are: money for the development of the telephone system in the country, money that goes through the Local Loans Fund for housing and in aid of housing in the country, money that goes for turf development and money that goes into and out of the Road Fund. There is also money provided under the Electricity Supply Acts. The sums that are set out here—there are a few small headings as well—under these headings amount to the respectable total of £12,630,000 but that is not a real figure because, in addition to that, in connection with housing, there is £1,000,000 and at least £300,000 from the Transition Development Fund and another almost £750,000 that comes into the Local Loans through repayment on previous issues and that is issued out again. Similarly, with regard to the Electricity Supply Board, there is at least something approaching another £1,000,000 which they have in their funds that they collect for depreciation and other things and that is ploughed back again.

There is in fact something in the neighbourhood of £15.6 millions provided for capital works this year as opposed to the £9,000,000 of last year and as opposed to the £5,000,000 of the year before and that is without counting any single penny under the land reclamation scheme on which it is expected that possibly £4,000,000 will be spent this year. If £4,000,000 is provided for such spending this year, that whole figure amounts to something just short of £20,000,000.

It is not possible to have £20,000,000 or even £10,000,000 spent in the country without there being necessarily some reflection in employment, and for a long time I have been rather anxious and rather curious when I hear people talking about a live register and how it has swollen up and the increased numbers that are on it. My colleague, the Minister for Industry and Commerce, Deputy Morrissey, speaking the other night, however, gave a different picture. He indicated that there are 15 county areas in which Bord na Móna have work for people and that only in three of the county areas have they got the number of men for whom they have work in connection with that particular development. The Minister for Industry and Commerce also said that in connection with the Erne hydro-electric scheme the work is many months in arrear, and that the contractors on the job have been looking for employees for a long time. The Minister for Industry and Commerce indicated that the Sligo register showed that there were 1,000 people available for work and not able to get it and that in Donegal there were over 9,000 people also signing on the live register, that is to say, indicating that they were available for work and ready and willing to work. So, in the neighbourhood of Ballyshannon there were 10,000 people who should easily have been procured for this work from those who were signing on and this is good work and wellpaid work. However, the contractors, as I say, were unable to get the people whom they desire for that work.

The result of it was that they cast their net a little bit wider and a very interesting situation was then revealed. They went to an area a little bit further afield than either Sligo or Donegal and one day some weeks ago men were paraded for this work. There are four areas in which they were gathered in and while, of course, the contractors would have taken married men if the married men had been willing to go, they concentrated on single men under 45 and single men with dependents. These people were brought in as people who were signing the register and were introduced to the contractors as people who were so signing and available and willing to work. At one area 54 men were interviewed and offered work. One man accepted the work. In the next area 90 were interviewed. None of them took the work. At the third area 80 were interviewed. A big bag was got here—six volunteered for the job. In the last area, 95 were interviewed and offered work and one took it. Out of 319 who were interviewed and offered work, eight men accepted. The work is good work. The rate is 1/10 an hour for a 48-hour week and provision was made to have suitable board and lodging provided on the site of the works at 33/- a week. These men were offered work at 88/-. Provision was made for board and lodging at 33/- a week. They had 55/- a week over. They were going to get free travel to the site and a bus was provided to take these eight men, with 14 others who were recruited from other areas. I begin to understand why the employment register is inflated. I rather imagine people are being asked to sign on.

There is evidence that people are being asked to do so for political propaganda purposes.

Will the Minister produce the evidence?

I will give this to go on with. A total of 319 men are signing on for work—all single people, the majority of whom are under 45 years of age. They are offered 88/- a week for a job and a free bus to the site. Yet only eight take it. I begin to get a new view of what is called unemployment in the country.

Then there is no unemployment?

Certainly 319 are pretending to be unemployed and willing and able to work. When only eight go to the job that would make you believe that 300 at least are signing on falsely.

"For political purposes."

What distances are the areas from the work?

A bus was going to travel to the site. Must single men get work inside a certain area from their homes? They were going to be taken to the site. I do not know what "distance" means. They were going to have board and lodging provided at 33/- a week and they would have 55/- a week over.

Many of us had to travel miles to our work years ago.

Why should we consider these men as unemployed if they will not take a job which is offered to them? That is the sort of register that is being paraded around this House as an indication of really serious unemployment. Deputy McGrath talked about the people who would rather go to America than work at home. It turned out that his complaint was that people had got so accustomed to, and enamoured of, work on the bogs that when they could not get that work they wanted to go to America. Of course, it is another point if a man has become so enamoured of working on the bog that if he could not continue to do so he would rather go to America. I have no longer any belief in a live register if it is built up of eight people who will go to work when offered a job and 311 who will stay at home rather than take a bus to where work has been provided for them.

I hope the Minister will remember these statements when he is back on these benches again.

This cannot come as news to the Deputies on the other side of the House. I am sure they were told about it——

Here comes Deputy Brady now who has helped us with the problem.

——by Deputy MacEntee and Deputy Childers when they were Minister for Local Government and Parliamentary Secretary respectively. I am sure they told of the difficulty they had when they had all the engineers and surveyors in the different counties in an effort to get turf produced in the early part of 1947.

Will the Minister say when I spoke of people going to America?

I thought the Deputy did so. I must be thinking of somebody else. I apologise. I do not think the Deputy was in the House when I was talking about the 319 people.

I am listening to the Minister telling a lie about what I said.

What about the 45/- a week?

Will Deputies get this into their heads? Apart altogether from the land reclamation scheme, almost £15,000,000 is being provided here for, in the main, useful work. I would say in regard to road work that I would rather have money diverted from the roads to the land or anywhere else, but it is here. Almost £16,000,000 is being provided. That must be reflected in occupation in this country if people want work. In any event, what more can a Government do but provide the funds? Even in the case I have mentioned here, amenities for the transportation of the people to their work were provided.

I should like more attention to be given to other aspects of the Budget. I have listened here to the main part of the Budget being debated until I am almost confused by people telling me I have increased taxation. When the people who formed this Government came together they had a variety of objectives. I was told that these objectives were so incompatible that they could not be achieved. It was put to me that one group was clamouring for reduced taxation while another group was clamouring for increased aids for those who needed aids. These objectives were thought to be so inconsistent that the first Budget was to be the last. The heading of the article in the Irish Press by “A Dáil Reporter” on the Budget last week was “Crisis Day for Coalition”. I want to claim that we have done both these things. We have given a tremendous amount of aid to the people we regarded as having first call on State aid. Last year we started with the old age pensioners and the widows and orphans. We went on to the Civil Service. We went on, after that, to the police pensioners and other State pensioners this year.

The Garda have been provided for and there is provision for increased pay in respect of the Army personnel, to occur in the latter part of this year. The bigger items in the way of aids I have given amount to something short of £4,500,000. These are increased aids which we have given to people to whom such aids have been refused over the years by the last Government. That was done, and it was not a question of waiting for the first Budget. I think it was only a fortnight after our taking up office that we reduced the beer and tobacco duties, at a loss of £6,000,000 a year. I have given various small concessions in regard to income-tax. These concessions amount to £220,000 in a full year and there is a remission of income-tax which will cost £1,000,000. These three groups of remissions amount to £7,220,000. In addition, we gave aid amounting to something short of £4,500,000. That had been done with the aid of the £30,000 which will come from gun licences and the dancing tax which will bring in £110,000. I think it can be truly said that in this Budget we have attended to the neediest sections of the community to whom we promised aid and that at the same time, we have made a number of remissions.

Question put.
The Committee divided:— Tá: 67; Níl: 62.

  • Beirne, John.
  • Belton, John.
  • Blowick, Joseph.
  • Browne, Noel C.
  • Browne, Patrick.
  • Byrne, Alfred Patrick.
  • Coburn, James.
  • Cogan, Patrick.
  • Collins, Seán.
  • Connolly, Roderick J.
  • Corish, Brendan.
  • Cosgrave, Liam.
  • Costello, John A.
  • Cowan, Peadar.
  • Crotty, Patrick J.
  • Davin, William.
  • Desmond, Daniel.
  • Dillon, James M.
  • Dockrell, Maurice E.
  • Donnellan, Michael.
  • Doyle, Peadar S.
  • Dunne, Seán.
  • Esmonde, Sir John L.
  • Everett, James.
  • Fagan, Charles.
  • Finucane, Patrick.
  • Fitzpatrick, Michael.
  • Flynn, John.
  • Giles, Patrick.
  • Halliden, Patrick J.
  • Hickey, James.
  • Hogan, Patrick.
  • Hughes, Joseph.
  • Keyes, Michael.
  • Kinane, Patrick.
  • Kyne, Thomas A.
  • Larkin, James.
  • Lehane, Con.
  • Lehane, Patrick D.
  • McAuliffe, Patrick.
  • MacBride, Seán.
  • MacEoin, Seán.
  • McFadden, Michael Og.
  • McGilligan, Patrick.
  • McMenamin, Daniel.
  • McQuillan, John.
  • Madden, David J.
  • Morrissey, Daniel.
  • Mulcahy, Richard.
  • Norton, William.
  • O'Gorman, Patrick J.
  • O'Higgins, Michael J.
  • O'Higgins, Thomas F.
  • O'Higgins, Thomas F. (Jun.).
  • O'Leary, John.
  • O'Sullivan, Martin.
  • Palmer, Patrick W.
  • Pattison, James P.
  • Redmond, Bridget M.
  • Reidy, James.
  • Reynolds, Mary.
  • Roddy, Joseph.
  • Rooney, Eamonn.
  • Sheldon, William A.W.
  • Spring, Daniel.
  • Sweetman, Gerard.
  • Timoney, John J

Níl

  • Aiken, Frank.
  • Allen, Denis.
  • Bartley, Gerald.
  • Beegan, Patrick.
  • Blaney, Neal T.
  • Boland, Gerald.
  • Bourke, Dan.
  • Brady, Brian.
  • Brady, Seán.
  • Breathnach, Cormac.
  • Breen, Daniel.
  • Brennan, Thomas.
  • Breslin, Cormac.
  • Brisooe, Robert.
  • Buokley, Seán.
  • Burke, Patrick.
  • Butler, Bernard.
  • Carter, Thomas.
  • Childers, Erskine H.
  • Colley, Harry.
  • Collins, James J.
  • Corry, Martin J.
  • Crowley, Honor Mary.
  • Davern, Michael J.
  • Derrig, Thomas.
  • De Valera, Eamon.
  • De Valera, Vivion.
  • Flynn, Stephen.
  • Friel, John.
  • Gilbride, Eugene.
  • Gorry, Patrick J.
  • Harris, Thomas.
  • Kennedy, Michael J.
  • Killilea, Mark.
  • Kilroy, James.
  • Kissane, Eamon.
  • Lahiffe, Robert.
  • Lemass, Seán F.
  • Little, Patrick J.
  • Lydon, Michael F.
  • Lynch, John.
  • McCann, John.
  • McEllistrim, Thomas.
  • MacEntee, Seán.
  • McGrath, Patrick.
  • Maguire, Patrick J.
  • Moylan, Seán.
  • O Briain, Donnchadh.
  • O'Grady, Seán.
  • O'Reilly, Matthew.
  • Ormonde, John.
  • O'Rourke, Daniel.
  • Rice, Bridget M.
  • Ruttledge, Patrick J.
  • Ryan, James.
  • Ryan, Mary B.
  • Ryan, Robert.
  • Sheridan, Michael.
  • Smith, Patrick.
  • Traynor, Oscar.
  • Walsh, Richard.
  • Walsh, Thomas.
Tellers:—Tá: Deputies Doyle and Kyne; Níl: Deputies Kissane and Kennedy.
Question declared carried.
Financial Resolutions Nos. 1 to 13 reported and agreed to.
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