Dáil Éireann debate -
Thursday, 23 Mar 1950

Vol. 119 No. 16

Committee on Finance. - Vote on Account, 1950-51—Motion (Resumed).

Mr. T.F. O'Higgins

There are a few other matters to which I should like to refer in this debate. We had Deputy Traynor speaking here this evening on the subject of emigration. He expressed a view which, I am sure, will be shared by all Deputies, that emigration constitutes a serious problem and a threat to our country's economy. Having stated that noble sentiment, he went on to declare that this Government had done nothing towards the solution of emigration and that the Fianna Fáil Administration had apparently worked wonders during their period of office. I would like to remind Deputy Traynor of this fact, that while we agree with the seriousness of the problem of emigration, nevertheless, we on this side of the House are entitled to say to Fianna Fáil that emigration is a problem completely created by Fianna Fáil. It is well to remember that in the year before Fianna Fáil were first elected to office, for the first time in the history of Ireland more people came into this country than left it and the emigration figure was nil. Realising that, it is difficult to understand why Deputy Traynor should derive consolation from the fact that when Fianna Fáil left office only some 40,000 persons were leaving this country.

I think that is a discreditable record. It is something that will always be remembered against Fianna Fáil. Nobody here can be complacent about emigration and none of us is. We realise that it is a serious problem, something that must be tackled if this Government is to fulfil its pledges to the people. It is right to remind Deputies opposite that in 1948, when this Government assumed office, emigration, which had been running at a figure before that of something like 33,000 a year, was in full flow. In that year some 40,000 left this country. I am glad to note from figures now available for 1949 that emigration has at last shown a significant drop. I think the people can take confidence from that drop and will realise that the problem of emigration is now being tackled with determination.

Deputy Traynor did say in connection with emigration that one of the ways in which it could be tackled is by the provision of industries giving employment in rural areas. We do not require Deputy Traynor to tell us that. We appreciated it long before he uttered those wise words. It was because of that belief that the Government asked this House recently to give legislative power to the Industrial Development Authority. That authority was designed to develop rural industries and to tackle the problem of rural employment, the flight into the towns and the flight from the country. That proposal was bitterly opposed by Deputy Traynor and his colleagues. Apparently they are merely prepared to pay lip service to the idea of having industries decentralised through the country. They will give lip service merely to that, but they are not prepared to co-operate with the Government in their efforts to decentralise industries and give employment to our people. Despite that kind of opposition, the people do appreciate the progress that has been made, even in the limited time this Government has been in office. Unemployment has been mentioned by Deputy Traynor and other Deputies. I think it is right to claim this for the present Government, that there is available to-day in this country more substantial employment than our people have ever had before. There is more money being spent on capital schemes giving employment over a long period of time than has ever been spent before. There are more people going into insurable employment than have ever gone into such employment before in this country's history. In the 25 months during which this Government has been in office the increase in insurable employment is at the rate of 1,000 workers a month, and that is no mean achievement. It is something that expresses the real progress that is being made by the Government.

We do not say that that progress represents the high tide of what we desire our achievements to be. We recognise that there is still in this country that residual unemployed class and that residual drain of emigration that must be tackled. We merely say that progress is being made towards the solution of these problems. The various steps that have been taken by the Government, the schemes catered for in this Book of Estimates, are further steps towards the solution of those problems and we can only hope that the Opposition will co-operate with the Government in that task.

They have opposed two important steps taken by the Government in the last 12 months. They opposed the Local Authorities (Works) Act violently in its passage through this House, the industrial development proposition, and matters of that kind which give promise of a considerable return to the people. All these things have been opposed by the Party opposite.

The land project is being operated throughout the country. Again, with regard to a project of that kind, Fianna Fáil Deputies have been careful to avoid expressing any view that could be recorded and quoted for or against them anywhere in the country. They realise that the land reclamation scheme is one that will bring immense benefit to this country. It is a project of a capital kind from which the people will derive great benefit for generations to come. I would like to say to the Opposition that if they regard this scheme as a good one, as I am sure they do——

Mr. Allen

Not at all.

Mr. T.F. O'Higgins

I think I heard Deputy Allen say: "Not at all." I may take it then that Deputy Allen, representing a rural constituency, is prepared to go on record as declaring that the land project is not in the interests of this country. I can scarcely believe that Deputy Allen conceived that view himself, and that he gathered it from other members of his Party. If that is so, it is becoming apparent that some time Fianna Fáil will express that view more openly. I know that in my own and in other constituencies farmers are not only anxious to avail of the land project but have availed of it, and will do so despite what obstruction may become apparent. At the same time somebody, some Party, some group in this country has attempted by propaganda to destroy the confidence of the farmers in that scheme. It has been suggested to farmers about to avail of it that they would find their land revalued.

Mr. Allen

Are we going to have a rehash of what the Minister for Agriculture said the other day?

Mr. T.F. O'Higgins

We know Deputy Allen's view of the land project. He is against it. That type of propaganda is going on throughout the country and is damaging the scheme. It is interfering with something that is of great significance to the country. I would like to say to the Opposition that if they regard the scheme as a worthy one, if they think it is going to enable our land to produce more in the years ahead, if they think that by doing that it is going to provide a better standard of living for our people—if they think as they should think along those lines—why do they not co-operate with the Government in killing rumours of that kind and ensure that a person who would spread a lie of the kind referred to is prevented from sabotaging the scheme and from frightening farmers from availing of it? I know that co-operation cannot be expected from Deputy Allen, who apparently is going to preach the gospel in Wexford that land reclamation is something not to be availed of. I hope that Deputy Gorry and other members of the Fianna Fáil Party will ensure that the scheme will not be interfered with or hampered by a person who would spread false propaganda.

We know that damage can be done, and has been done, to a scheme of that nature. It is regrettable that some people have such a violent personal antipathy to the Minister for Agriculture and the Government that in their endeavour to harm both they are prepared even to harm the country. That is something which we should not tolerate. I hope that some time we will get a clear statement from the Opposition as to where they stand. It is becoming more and more apparent that the Fianna Fáil Party are afraid to declare what their own policy is, and what their view is with regard to many of the great problems which face the country to-day. The people who have trusted Fianna Fáil, some of them anyway, have had no lead from that Party, and the members of it are afraid to state what their view is. They have been afraid to declare their policy. This debate could have been availed of by the Leader of the Opposition and by other members of that Party to make their position clear but it has not been so availed of. I am sure that, as the debate proceeds, we will hear from different individuals on the Opposition Benches—because after all they are nothing but a Party of individuals now—what their own pet theories are. They will ride their own pet hobby horses, but from the point of view of presenting a consistent policy to the country the Opposition have failed lamentably.

I want to say, in conclusion, that the capital investments proposed in the Estimates before the House, as well as the manner in which they have been presented, give an indication to the country that the Government appreciates the under-development from which the country is suffering. The manner in which the financial policy of the Government is disclosed in these Estimates indicates the intention of the Government to invest more money in the country so that the country can produce more. It is only by doing that, by following that policy consistently, that we can all share a better standard of living. I think that, for these reasons, the Estimates should have the support not merely of this side of the House but also of the Opposition. I think that they disclose the considerable progress that has been made by the Government in the interests of the country.

Mr. G. Boland

I have yet to get any evidence whatever that any people connected with out Party have made any move whatever to sabotage the land reclamation scheme. We had a mere statement from the Minister for Agriculture the other day in answer to a parliamentary question, but there is no evidence whatever to bear out what he said. It is quite the contrary. We are always ready to give any help we can to the development of the country. As has been pointed out, our objection was to the way which the Fine Gael people objected to every move that we made. Whenever we spent money, or proposed to spend it, on schemes of this kind, the schemes were always sabotaged by them. It is because they were at that game that they think we are doing the same. There is no evidence whatever that our Party ever did that.

I do not know how the scheme is progressing, but the only conclusion that I could come to was that apparently the Minister for Agriculture is not satisfied with the rate of progress and so he had to find a scape-goat, and, of course, his usual scape-goat is the Fianna Fáil Party. That is the only evidence there is—that the Minister had to find a scape-goat. No action whatever was taken by any of our Party or by our organisation that I could ever hear of. We would not stand for it.

Deputy Traynor on the question of emigration gave correct figures. I remember myself that during the time of the Cumann na nGaedheal Government I was in Cobh and I saw people lined up there. Undoubtedly, a number somewhere in the neighbourhood of 220,000 people went out of the country at that time. That was a lamentable thing. In our time, during the period of the war, there was a big exodus of people. We could not help it. I would go so far as to say that I would not blame this Government for any emigration that is going on. The point, however, is that they blamed us for it from every platform in the country. The Labour Party and all the Parties supporting the present Government said that we were shipping human beings instead of cattle. There are conditions in the world which do not always make it possible for a Government to prevent emigration. Every Party is bound to be interested in keeping the people in this country and, if possible, on the land. Therefore, any schemes put forward by the Government which are calculated to keep people on the land will have our support.

Mr. McQuillan

There is no doubt about that.

Mr. G. Boland

You need have no doubt about it. Everything we did from the time we came into office in 1932 was in that direction.

Mr. T.F. O'Higgins

That is a welcome statement.

Mr. G. Boland

I wish we could say that we got co-operation from the Opposition in those days. What we got was direct obstruction. When we tried to industrialise the country, we were told that the factories were in the back lanes.

Mr. S. Collins

A lot of them were.

Mr. G. Boland

A beginning had to be made anyway. We have been told that the Industrial Development Authority is to speed up industry. If we thought that, we would welcome it. We have, however, the example of the Tariff Commission, which was a device for nothing else but to stop industry. For that reason, we are doubtful about this authority. We feel that, instead of being a help, it will be a brake on industry. One thing which struck me when I saw this Vote was that one of the Parties forming the Government stated that it had left its policy in abeyance. I think that Fine Gael has done that also. They promised to reduce taxation by £10,000,000. Instead of that, they have raised it by £20,000,000, so that it is about £30,000,000 more than they promised it would be. I am not going to weary the House with quotations, but there is one "gem" here which I shall quote. Deputy Thomas O'Higgins will be interterested in this, because it was the present Minister for Defence, a near relative of his, who made the statement in 1942 on a Vote on Account for the sum of £13,445,000. I am quoting from Vol. 85, col. 2415, of the Official Reports for 11th March, 1942. Here is what he said:—

"Experienced men, trained men, men who understand finance in a way I never claim to understand it, have pointed out, in private, what the end result is going to be—that if the brakes are not put on at some point on the downhill road, the end result, and a fairly near end, is going to be hunger, famine, unemployment and widespread distress."

Mr. T.F. O'Higgins

He was right.

Mr. G. Boland

That was a Vote for £13,000,000. Now we have a Vote for exactly twice that sum. I will not accuse the Minister for Finance of being so stupid as to have believed all he said, but he used to maintain that the Fianna Fáil Government should divide every Estimate they brought in by half. As I pointed out on my Estimate, even though he took that view, the Government had to raise £1 and not 10/-. At present it happens to be double that amount, because this is a Vote for £26,000,000.

Mr. S. Collins interrupted.

Mr. G. Boland

I do not want to prolong this debate unduly, but I can shout down the best shouter in this House if it comes to that.

Mr. S. Collins

You proved that a few weeks ago.

Mr. Boland

I will do it. Any time you challenge me, I will shout you down, young and all as you are.

Mr. S. Collins

You would not have a chance.

Mr. G. Boland

It is clear that Fine Gael also has put its policy in abeyance. If a sum of £13,000,000 was to end, if the brakes were not put on, in hunger, famine, unemployment and widespread distress, what is going to happen when a bill of over £26,000,000 is presented, or almost twice as much? I do not think, however, we are any more hungry now than we were at that time. That was in 1942, and prices had risen then.

When Deputy Vivion de Valera was speaking, the Minister for Finance was very anxious that we should not do anything to destroy the confidence of the people so that when he floated a loan he would be able to get it. That is a matter which we would all be anxious about. I submit that nothing could possibly cause more lack of confidence in the country than to have two Ministers advocating different policies, particularly in a matter of finance. The Taoiseach was quoted by Deputy Aiken the other day as saying, on the day on which he assumed office, that he would see that the principle of collective responsibility was observed in the spirit and in the letter. If that means anything, it means that, when any member of the Government makes a pronouncement on policy he is speaking for the Government. When one Minister gets up and says the reverse of what his colleague says, I think there is nothing more calculated to destroy confidence in the country and in the Government. Anything said by ex-Ministers, who are now in the same position as any other Deputy, could not possibly have the same effect as what is said by a member of the Government.

Last night we had a quotation from a statement by the Minister for Finance on the credit-worthiness of the Dublin Corporation in which he flatly contradicted a statement of his colleague, the Minister for External Affairs. The Minister for External Affairs, on the 18th October, at some meeting in Dublin of his own organisation, said that the Dublin Corporation was one of the most credit-worthy municipal authorities in the world, that the security of the Dublin Corporation was much safer than the £135,000,000 which the commercial banks held in sterling securities. The present Minister in charge of finance, who ought to be the spokesman of the Government in matters relating to finance——

Mr. McGilligan

I am.

Mr. G. Boland

Certainly you ought to be. Your colleague, who has collective responsibility with you, should "pipe down" and let you be the advocate. He certainly should—unless there is going to be a complete change in the system of Government. That has always been the practice. It was the practice in Mr. Cosgrave's Administration and in ours. I think you will find in any democratic country in the world that the Minister in charge of a Department is the person who lays down the policy in respect of his Department.

Mr. McGilligan

What did I say?

Mr. G. Boland

You said that it was not.

Mr. McGilligan

Do you want the quotation?

Mr. G. Boland

I am not going to quote. The Minister said that it was not the most credit-worthy municipal authority in the world.

Mr. S. Collins

What are you quoting from?

Mr. G. Boland

I am not purporting to quote. I am pointing out what the Minister said in the Seanad. Deputies can read it for themselves. He contradicted his colleague with regard to that. He appeared to be justifying the banks in their attitude. I am not saying whether he was right or wrong. I say that if anyone speaks with authority in matters of that kind, it should be the Minister for Finance and not the Minister for External Affairs, who has another Department to look after, but appears to be butting into everyone's Department.

Mr. McQuillan

Is it worrying you?

Mr. G. Boland

That is, when he is here at all. More than half the time he is out of the country.

Mr. S. Collins

That is worrying you, too.

Mr. G. Boland

It is not worrying me a bit. If he stayed out of the country altogether, it would please me better. He should return to where he was born and reared because that would be more suitable for him than this country. I am a man of the people and I have got very little money indeed in the bank. I know the vast majority of the people have not got money in the banks and it is, therefore, quite a popular thing to attack the banks because one gets more votes for it. Anyone who has the hardihood to get up and defend the banks may reckon on losing public support.

Mr. S. Collins

And losing his overdraft.

Mr. G. Boland

That is so. But although the people who have money in the banks are in a minority, I think the Minister for Finance will agree that if he wants to get a loan it is from these people he will get it. Is that not so? He cannot get it from people like me who have not got any money in the banks. Deputies should be careful then, when talking about the banks, not to create panic amongst those from whom they expect to get this loan.

Mr. Hickey

There is great fear of the banks.

Mr. G. Boland

Deputy Hickey is on to the popular cry too. I shall not pursue the matter further than to ask, when two Ministers contradict one another on matters of this kind and when we have, as we had in this debate, Ministers talking about the desirability of changing the banking system and demanding from us what our attitude will be, as the Minister for External Affairs did, what are we expected to do? It will not be surprising if the people who have money in the banks are not prepared to hand it over. But, if they do hand it over, they will want more interest than they might otherwise have demanded. The Government has a majority here. Let them bring in their proposals and let us see what these proposals are and then we will be in a position to say what our attitude is. Naturally, we must see the proposals first.

Deputy Esmonde spoke here yesterday evening. I must say he is a thorough gentleman and a rather likeable man. We were told that he was the alternative to the present Taoiseach. He, too, attacked the banks. When a man of his standing, in addition to the Minister for External Affairs, talks in that fashion about the banks and makes half threats, they should come in first to us with the proposals they have in mind. Let them come in and do that now. Surely, even Deputy Hickey will agree that it is better to get down to brass tacks and not leave the House and the people in the air. Let the Government bring in its proposals and we will examine them. We shall then be in a position to approve or disapprove of them.

We have, of course, the lamentable failure of the Taoiseach to enforce collective responsibility on his Cabinet in regard to devaluation. A serious decision had to be made and the Minister for Finance made a reasonable statement over the radio as to why the Government took the course it did. Anyone with common sense or experience knew very well that the Government had no alternative. Despite that, we have the spectacle of the Minister for External Affairs attacking the very policy his Government had enunciated a couple of days before, a policy to which he must have been a party.

What sort of Government is that? If he did not agree with the policy, there was an honourable course open to him. All he had to do was to revert to the position of a private Deputy in which capacity he would not have upon him any compulsion towards the collective responsibility that lies upon a Minister. He could have remained an ordinary Deputy supporting the Coalition. The excuse that was given was that it might put us back into office. That excuse does not hold water. What does he do? He goes away at the public expense to Liverpool a few days after devaluation and he addresses a rotary club meeting there attacking the policy of his own Government and the policy of the British Government in regard to devaluation. I might add that we paid the bill for his trip. Is it any wonder there cannot be any confidence in the Government? The most fundamental essential of good Government is that there must be agreement amongst Ministers so that when one speaks, he speaks for all. Ministers should not contradict one another. If there is contradiction, it only leads to bewilderment, disturbance and lack of confidence.

I think this matter requires the careful attention of the Taoiseach. He should insist on his Ministers speaking with one voice on Government policy. He should not allow them to contradict each other. We have had too many examples of it. We had the Minister for Finance on the 12th March, 1948, in the Seanad recommending that lorrymen should be allowed to drive lorries on the roads, or use them as ramshackle buses. He was immediately turned down by the Minister for Industry and Commerce. The Minister for Finance suggested that these lorrymen would show Córas Iompair Éireann how to make money. Of course, the Minister for Industry and Commerce turned down the proposal and he said that Córas Iompair Éireann was much more important than these lorrymen. Why should the Minister for Finance butt into the concerns of the Minister for Industry and Commerce? Transport should be dealt with by the person designated by the Taoiseach for that purpose and not by a Minister who has no responsibility for it. That goes right down along the line.

We had the Minister for Posts and Telegraphs attacking the Labour Court and condemning his own colleague, the Minister for Industry and Commerce. No Government could succeed if it is run in that fashion. I do not know how they have managed up to this. There is only one explanation. They are like ship-wrecked sailors on a raft; they must hang on for dear life, knowing that, if they fall, they are finished. Meanwhile, they are availing of every opportunity to see the world. If one of them is asked to make a speech in Baltimore or San Francisco he hops over on the next plane.

Mr. McGilligan

Off the raft?

Mr. G. Boland

And we pay the bill. I was 16 years in Government and I never went outside this country. I would not be let go.

Mr. Blowick

You would not be let go.

Mr. G. Boland

Not at State expense, certainly. How many of the present Ministers have travelled at State expense? In our time only four or five Ministers ever left the country. They went on State business. The Minister for Lands had his trip around Scotland and we footed the bill for it. I think that is going too far.

Mr. S. Collins

What about Deputy Aiken?

Mr. G. Boland

Deputy Aiken went to attend the Council of Europe. I am not referring to that. Whenever a Minister of our Government went abroad, there had to be a sound reason for it. It had to be on purely Government business. Now it would appear as if any Minister can go any time he likes. We were attacked because we had fast cars, but cars are not even fast enough for the present Government. They must take planes and we have to pay for them.

Mr. Rooney

What about your world tour?

Mr. G. Boland

My world tour was all right. People on the Government Benches went to the same place I did and they came back and tried to do something quite different from what I did. If Deputy Rooney, who threw in that remark, wants to hear any more about that, let him ask the Minister for External Affairs and Deputy Fitzpatrick. They can tell him something about it. As far as I am concerned my record is clean. I can face the country as I faced it during the general election.

Captain Cowan

I have been somewhat surprised by the observations that have been made by Deputy Boland in regard to this principle, as he calls it, of collective responsibility. One would imagine that, with Deputy Boland's long experience as a Minister, he would have appreciated what this principle of collective responsibility is. It is quite a simple one— that in matters in which the Government have a particular responsibility, particularly in matters that are vested in the Government by law, the Government must act as a collective unit. That is, simply, the doctrine of collective responsibility. But there certainly is not laid down anywhere that in all matters of public importance that arise every Minister must hold and express the same view. That is not the doctrine of collective responsibility; that is a doctrine of foolishness. Every Minister in a democratic Cabinet is entitled, on matters of public importance, where no Government decision has been taken, to express his own views. Certainly, in the type of Government we have now — an inter-Party Government composed of Ministers who are leaders of different Parties holding different views on many matters—it is essential and in the public interest that those Ministers should express their own views rather than views with which they do not agree.

The great objection taken to the Government as a whole in regard to this particular doctrine of collective responsibility is that on a matter of monetary policy Ministers have expressed views that do not agree. Everybody knows how difficult it is, in a country such as this, to bring about a change in monetary policy. It is an essential part of the machinery, if you like, of bringing about that change, that the people as a whole should be educated. The only way they can be educated is by considering this matter, by hearing lectures or statements on it and by reading about it. Only in that way can the people be educated to understand what is involved in a change of monetary policy. Deputies in the House should remember that whenever any particular politician advocated a change in monetary policy it was always alleged against him that he intended to interfere with the savings in the banks. That particular form of propaganda was used against persons who advocated a change in monetary policy by the last Government and by speakers who spoke on behalf of the last Government.

Deputy Boland says it is a popular thing to attack the banks and that you get votes by attacking the banks. My view is to the contrary. At the present stage of our political development and at the present stage of our political education you get more votes by supporting the bank than you do by attacking them. I am glad that this whole matter of monetary policy is receiving attention. I am glad to see a larger number of Deputies in this House expressing the view, as they have expressed it in this debate — and particularly Deputies on this side of the House — that there should be a change in monetary policy. I think that that process of education and propaganda will have to go ahead for some little time yet and eventually a considerable section of the people will realise that a change in monetary policy will not in any way affect personal savings in the banks or elsewhere. The only thing that I think has been wrong in this propaganda is the attack on the banks themselves. Monetary policy can be changed by an Act of Parliament which will alter the functions of the responsibilities of the Central Bank. It can be done in that way. But we must remember that the ordinary banks at the moment have a particular function and particular responsibilities. They are governed and directed mainly in their own interests and it is no particular part of their function to come to the assistance of the State or to come to the assistance of anybody except their own customers or their own shareholders. I think that that fundamental mistake has been made in the discussions in regard to the change of monetary policy by an attack on the banks which suggested that they were not doing the things that they ought to do. We have a Central Bank. That Central Bank is restricted by legislation. We can enlarge the powers and duties and functions of the Central Bank by legislation and it is only when we do that that we shall effectively change our monetary policy. Therefore, I am glad to see this process of discussion but I would suggest to those Deputies and Ministers who have been attacking the banks that that is not the solution of the problem and that a little more study and a little more knowledge of the particular subject will show that this change can be effected and that there is no necessity to interfere with personal savings and that there is no necessity for the attacks that have been made on the banks in recent times.

I have been led into this discussion by Deputy Boland's observations on the doctrine of collective responsibility. So much has been said recently on this doctrine of collective responsibility that we are in great danger of accepting the position that in a Government every Minister has to talk with the same tongue and with the same voice about everything. Furthermore, if we were to follow Deputy Boland's line of argument, in matters relating to finance nobody would speak but the Minister for Finance: in matters relating to industry and commerce nobody would speak but the Minister for Industry and Commerce: in matters relating to defence nobody would speak but the Minister for Defence and in matters relating to justice nobody would speak but the Minister for Justice. Deputies must realise that that is contrary to the public interest. While we by law give certain duties and responsibilities to particular Ministers, other Ministers or Deputies are not prevented from discussing these matters and expressing their particular points of view in regard to them. I have often wondered what it was that was wrong with the Fianna Fáil Administration. If the views that we hear now expressed in regard to collective responsibility were the views held by the Fianna Fáil Ministers while they were in office, then it does explain, I think, to a large extent why Fianna Fáil failed to make the progress they might have made as a Government and as an Administration.

In this debate we are discussing Estimates for the public services and a Vote on Account which amounts approximately to £26,000,000. My great objection to developments in regard to Estimates and the Vote on Account in recent years is that while we are seriously discussing this Book of Estimates as the Estimates for the public services for the year ended 31st March, 1951, every one of us knows that the Book of Estimates is not complete. While discussing the Vote on Account this evening we interrupted the debate for one hour to discuss the last of the Supplementary Estimates—I hope they are the last, anyway — to last year's Book of Estimates. Each and every one of us knows that by this time next year we shall be discussing further Supplementary Estimates.

I think that we ought to have reached a stage in the administration of the country when the Estimates for the public services for a particular year should be reasonably correct, when the Estimates should be as close as possible to the actual amount that will be required for the public services for the year. Some years ago, even in this House, the introduction of a Supplementary Estimate created a flutter and a stir but now it has become a common place. In your envelope from the Clerk of the Dáil every morning, for a month or so before the end of the financial year, you receive sheets of Supplementary Estimates. I think that some effort should be made to make the Book of Estimates more realistic. It is not the real thing at the moment. It cannot be real. I have not been able to find anything in these Estimates for Córas Iompair Éireann for the coming year, although we know, and we have been told, that at least £1,000,000 will be necessary for Córas Iompair Éireann during the coming year.

Mr. McGilligan

Do not take me as agreeing to that.

Captain Cowan

It has been stated that for years to come a substantial sum of money, probably a £1,000,000 will be required each year to keep Córas Iompair Éireann going.

Mr. McGilligan

Is that a £1,000,000 from public funds?

Captain Cowan

That is what I understand.

Mr. McGilligan

Oh no. It is £1,000,000 to be got in another way.

Captain Cowan

What is the other way?

Mr. McGilligan

Rates and fares would be another way.

Captain Cowan

I understood that it meant this Dáil voting a £1,000,000 next year and in subsequent years.

Mr. Corry

Shifting up the freight charges.

Captain Cowan

The point I am endeavouring to make is that the Estimates for the financial year should be within a very small figure anyway of the amount actually required. I have examined the Book of Estimates as it is and I find it very difficult to see where substantial savings can be made. I know that savings may possibly be made in administration but if one examines the Book of Estimates, one will find that the great bulk of the millions estimated for, goes back in one way or another to the public and the margin that is left for administration does not leave very much scope for reduction.

It may be that within the Civil Service itself there is some room for saving. I notice from the public Press that the Minister has decided to set up a new officer in every Department whose duty it will be to see to the correct organisation of that Department and to the introduction of business methods that will lead to efficiency. I think in doing that the Minister is doing something that should have been done many years ago. Civil Service procedure may have been all right in the good old days, but Civil Service procedure, as far as we see it in this country and as it has developed over the last quarter of a century, is not the most efficient method by which the business of the nation can be done. Day after day, more and more of the business of the nation is being done by the Civil Service. It is only right that that service should be reorganised, that methods of efficiency should be introduced and that responsibility should be decentralised so that the work might be done more expeditiously and in fact more efficiently. In the whole administration of the Civil Service, in most Departments at any rate, there is set up the bottleneck of the secretary as head of the Department. That responsibility of the permanent head or secretary, in some Departments, at least, has led to a bottleneck of the whole business of the Department into that particular office.

I hope this new system that the Minister is anxious to obtain by the introduction of these new officers will lead to decentralisation and more efficiency. I think, however, that perhaps the most efficient way of bringing about that change is not in the way that it is proposed to do it. The selection of particular civil servants and the sending of them on courses abroad to learn business methods is, perhaps, not the best way in which it can be done immediately, and it might be a desirable thing if the Minister were to introduce into these Departments new blood with knowledge of business methods and with a record of capability and efficiency.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

Would this not arise more relevantly on the Vote for the Department of Finance?

Captain Cowan

Yes, but I am dealing with this matter on the general principle of the cost.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

It seems to be somewhat detailed.

Captain Cowan

I am almost at the end of it. I was dealing with it on the general basis of the cost to the community of administration and of the Civil Service and as to how that cost might be reduced. We have been asking for increases in pay for everybody. We have been asking for an increase in pay for teachers and I see that the Estimate in relation to primary education is to be increased by almost £1,000,000.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

Surely that is administration and would arise more appropriately on the Vote?

Captain Cowan

It would, but if the Chair will bear with me for a few minutes——

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

If I do, I will have to bear with half a dozen others.

Captain Cowan

I think the Chair misunderstands me. We are, and have been, demanding additional pay, we have been demanding additional benefits, and if we succeed in getting this additional pay and these additional benefits then we cannot complain if the Estimates make provision for these increases.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

On that basis we could discuss every Department.

Captain Cowan

No, I am only dealing with the size of these Estimates. They represent a sum of £78,000,000 and that has been condemned as being unduly high. In examining the Book of Estimates as a whole it is very difficult to find, except possibly in the matter of the administration of all the services, any place in which there could be a reduction. I certainly have not been able to find it. There has been quite a considerable amount of discussion in regard to this new development of separating capital services from other services. That makes it probably more convenient and easier to understand. We know now that when the Minister for Finance introduces his Budget he has to find £66,000,000. Between the introduction of the Estimates and the Budget, heretofore, there was always a certain amount of doubt as to how much the Minister would try to find by revenue and how much he would try to find by borrowing. It is now very clear at an early stage in these Estimates that he is going to find £12,000,000.

In so far as it helps and is in that way convenient, this departure is welcomed. I think Deputies have, perhaps, paid too much attention to that particular division. If the division did not take place now we would know all about it in the Budget. We know now that £12,000,000 is provided for capital development. In my view £12,000,000 is insufficient for capital development.

Mr. McGilligan

The Deputy knows there is another sum still for capital?

Captain Cowan

I do. We have, as has been stated here this evening, the responsibility of endeavouring to end emigration and the responsibility of endeavouring to end unemployment. These two tasks will require very substantial capital expenditure for the purpose of providing employment, because it is only by the provision of employment here that one can reduce unemployment, and it is only by the provision of employment here that one can reduce emigration. If we are serious in our efforts to reduce either unemployment or emigration we can only do so by means of a plan which will involve substantial capital development, and if I have any objection at all to the policy as announced by the Minister when introducing this Vote on Account, it is that he was unable specifically to say the numbers of persons who would be put into productive employment by means of capital expenditure in the present financial year.

Every Party in the House is anxious to see the development of industry; every Party is anxious to see more employment provided; every Party is anxious to see emigration and unemployment reduced, but we cannot end or reduce those things simply by talking about them. We can only reduce them and solve these very big social problems by a planned development and that can only be done by the Government. Now that these expenditures, capital and otherwise, have been segregated, it will be easier in future years to gain a picture of the plans that the Minister and the Government have in mind.

Two vital matters, as far as the general public are concerned, are taxation and expenditure. What I am mainly anxious about is how this sum of £66,000,000 will be raised. The Minister will deal with that in his budget, but it is a problem that concerns nearly every person in the State. The provision of £66,000,000 is a very large sum for a small community like ours, and if this enormous amount is to be raised from the wrong section of the people then undoubtedly hardship will be caused to the public as a whole. However, this is not the time to deal with that. As far as I am concerned I must support the Estimates introduced by the Minister. I hope that, when next year's Bill comes before us, it will contain within it a very clear picture of the programme of industrial development which is essential and which, I think, every Party in this House would support.

Dr. Ryan

My first criticism of the Vote on Account is at the way in which it is presented—that is in the segregation of capital expenditure—but not so much that the expenditure should not be segregated into capital and otherwise. I want to express my opposition to some of the items which are placed under the headings of capital expenditure. I take in particular the Department of Agriculture. There are three items there: poultry houses with equipment and so on, farm buildings and land rehabilitation. I think that the only defence for putting an item under the heading of capital expenditure is that, first of all, it should be an abnormal item not likely to occur again, or that it should be non-recurrent or that it should bring some return to the State in general. Take this item of poultry houses. I think Deputies from the rural areas know that the equipment for them has not a very long life. It does not last more than a few years. Some of the lamps that they use as poultry equipment are very quickly used up or worn out, and have to be renewed.

If we take the subsidies for hatcheries that would be a recurrent item. It will be paid next year as well as this year and the year after. Unless the Minister can say definitely that these subsidies will only be necessary for a few years to put the industry on its feet, and in that way are not recurrent or abnormal, there is no justification for bringing them under the heading of capital expenditure. As regards farm buildings, I presume the argument is that if they are provided or renovated it will conduce to greater agricultural production. Even if we accept that argument, I do not think the Minister can justify putting the whole amount, as he is doing in this instance, into capital expenditure.

As regards land rehabilitation there are many headings within this particular sub-head. One could defend probably using capital for the purchase of machinery if one could see clearly that the machinery would be used for a long time to come. We may admit straight away that any Minister who brings in a scheme of this kind does so in the hope that the machinery will be used, and on that account the machinery can be admitted as a capital expenditure. But, in strict financing, I do not think we could admit that grants to farmers should be included in this particular instance. We have also a £125,000 for direct labour.

Under this scheme the Minister might have set against that particular expenditure a saving on unemployment assistance or on some other Vote. In this way he is saving on his recurrent expenditure in order to put it into capital. We have even the salaries of officials, and included amongst the Minister's officials there are permanent civil servants. That is an innovation that can hardly be defended, to pay the salaries of permanent civil servants out of a capital Vote. These permanent civil servants will be there until the end of their term of office, and there can be no justification whatever for treating their salaries as a capital item. The same is done in the case of the travelling expenses of these civil servants as well as the item for publicity. Everybody will admit that as long as the Minister for Agriculture is there there will be a Vote for publicity. It is going to be recurrent but it is treated here as a capital item.

Taking these three items together I suppose one may say that a Minister who foresees some difficulty in making ends meet when the Budget comes along will naturally put as much as he can aside as capital. I think that the Minister, if he were really taking a fair and honest view of what should be capital in this instance, would have taken only a portion of these three items. The total amount is £3,800,000. If he had taken say one-third of that we might not see very much objection to it. I think it is as much as could be allowed in all fairness.

The total Estimate in this Vote on Account as presented to us is £78,127,000. We are all inclined to compare one year with another and to watch the trend upward, year after year, of the total Estimate. We are inclined to compare the amount now with the amount for the last year before this Government took office. When we do we find that there is an increase of something over £19,200,000. It is a very substantial item. I think it is admitted that we must add to this a fairly substantial increase in the Central Fund Services, so that the increase will be at least £20,000,000 this year as compared with 1947-48.

The Fine Gael Party promised about that time that, if they could get control of the finances of the country, they would reduce the expenditure by £10,000,000. They spoke of Fianna Fáil's mad schemes and extravagances and so on and made the promise that, if they got control, the expenditure would be reduced by £10,000,000. Here we have the result of their administration for two years, and I think we may take it as a fair sample of the promises made by Fine Gael at that time—an increase of £20,000,000, instead of a reduction of £10,000,000. We were supposed to be extravagant when we were the Government and the Fine Gael Party promised to make big savings. When they got control of the Government two years ago, they did make reductions in some of the Estimates. The biggest savings they made were in the Army and in the Widows' and Orphans' Pensions Fund. We find now, however, that they are both as high as they were in 1947-48, so that the saving made in the Army and the attempted raid on the Widows' and Orphans' Pensions Fund were of short duration and we are back again at least to the same expenditure as in 1947-48. They also set out to make a saving on the short-wave station, but we find that is back again in the Estimates.

Mr. McGilligan

In the Estimates.

Dr. Ryan

Yes.

Mr. Aiken

We are not going to go on the air, then?

Mr. McGilligan

I hope not.

Mr. Little

You are still hoping?

Mr. McGilligan

Still hoping.

Dr. Ryan

There is no guarantee then that everything in the Estimates will be spent?

Mr. McGilligan

I would hope not.

Dr. Ryan

It is not so easy to discuss this Vote on Account as there is such a big amount in it which, I presume, will be borrowed for the coming year. The Minister did not give us any indication, when introducing the Vote, of what his plans were for borrowing this money or what his hopes were. He did not say, even in a general way, whether he hoped to find this money by borrowing from the public, or by borrowing from funds which would be indirectly under his control, or when it was likely that this borrowing would take place. It is not so easy to discuss a Vote of this kind in which there is such a big proportion of capital expenditure when we have not got a clear picture of the Minister's intentions in that respect. It would have been helpful if he could have given us a clear and frank picture of the situation as he sees it. But, in the absence of that, we have to do the best we can.

I should like to support Deputy Cowan on this question of Supplementary Estimates. As Deputy Cowan said, this practice of bringing in Supplementary Estimates has grown out of all proportion. I think Deputy Cowan was correct when he said that, if you go back 15 or 20 years, the number and the volume of Supplementary Estimates brought in during the year was very small. They were only presented in very exceptional circumstances. When I came into this House first, I was on the Public Accounts Committee and the Comptroller and Auditor-General explained the necessity for bringing in a Supplementary Estimate for anything over £1,000, which was regarded as a fair sum at that time, even where it was necessary to transfer it from one sub-head to another. The Supplementary Estimates at that time were usually of that nature — merely amounts brought in to correct the Estimate that was made as between one sub-head and another in the various Departments. But, as Deputy Cowan said, they have grown out of all recognition.

I think the Minister should impress on his colleagues the necessity for giving a firm Estimate and let us have that firm Estimate when we are discussing Estimates here either on the Vote on Account or on the individual Estimates afterwards, because we do not get an opportunity in this House of discussing the Estimate again. We only get an opportunity of discussing the particular Supplementary Estimate presented, even though the theory is that the voting of finance is under the control of this House. It is obvious that there will be Supplementary Estimates introduced. There is no provision, for instance, for a comprehensive scheme of social welfare and I am sure that Deputies of every Party know that, in view of the promises of the Tánaiste and other members of the various Parties composing the Coalition Government, this scheme will be brought in and that the money will be necessary. That will, I presume, mean a Supplementary Estimate before the end of the year.

Another item I found in going through the Book of Estimates was the item for military service pensions. I notice that the increase is only £1,000 over last year. We have had statements and promises from the Minister for Defence, the Minister for Justice and other members of the Parties opposite with regard to the pensions that are due in all justice to a number of people who did not get military service pensions. If we are to judge from the Estimate, they have only provided for ten extra pensions of £100 a year or 20 of £50 a year. Is it that the Act which was passed is not going to bring the great benefits promised, or is it that the Minister for Defence will be coming along with a substantial Supplementary Estimate before the financial year is out?

If we had time to go through the Estimates, I am sure we would come across a number of instances of that kind. It is obvious, therefore, that the Departments were discouraged by the Minister for Finance from putting up a large Estimate. Of course, that has always been the case. I do not think there was ever a Minister for Finance who did not appeal to the Departments to keep their Estimates as low as possible. But if the appeal goes so far that Departments are put in the position that they have to say: "Well, we will put in this Estimate now, but we shall come along during the year for some more," that is a bad system. That is a system that should not be permitted to grow up. I think the Minister for Finance, who is responsible for watching these things, should rather appeal to Departments to budget for all their needs now and not come along later with Supplementary Estimates. We know the very big bill we have to meet for the present financial year in relation to Supplementary Estimates. I take it that next year there will be a bill of equal magnitude.

In relation to social services, I would like to refer to the housing of that Department. I have a certain suggestion to make. When I was Minister for Social Welfare I was rather taken with the idea of decentralisation. I think practically every Deputy has expressed the view from time to time that we should try to divert the population from Dublin to other cities and towns. I thought it would be both feasible and desirable to have the Department of Social Welfare established in some town or city other than Dublin and, with that in mind, I asked the Secretary of the Department to discuss the matter with the public authority of both Galway and Cork. These were selected because there were sufficient educational facilities available for the families of the officials who would man that Department. I think the Secretary had a consultation with the authority of at least one of these cities where it was thought that a site would be available for the Department and housing facilities could be provided for the staffs. I think every Deputy would agree that it would be desirable to divert some thousands of our population from Dublin to Cork, Galway or elsewhere. I think my suggestion provides a feasible method by which that could be done. I think it is a suggestion that the Minister concerned and the Government might take into consideration.

Another matter that has been referred to during the course of the debate is rationing. Rationing was introduced during the war. It was introduced because certain goods were in short supply and it was feared that those with money might be tempted to hoard some of the necessaries of life thereby depriving the poor of them. The only fair way to meet a situation of that kind was to introduce rationing. Every country in the world had to do it. I do not think there is any need for me to adduce again the arguments in favour of it then. The point is, however, that bread, butter, tea and sugar are still rationed, but the necessity is no longer there. We are the only country to-day in which rationing is maintained. It has even been dispensed with in Germany, a defeated country. We have enough tea, sugar, bread and, we are told, butter to remove rationing altogether. Yet, rationing is still with us.

I am sure that had the Parties now on the Government Benches been told that rationing would be continued long after the necessity for it had ceased, when they were in Opposition, they would have taken a very serious view of it and raised very strenuous objections to it. The only reason we can see for the continuation of rationing is because there is financial difficulty. I can imagine the criticisms that would have been made had we, as a Government, endeavoured to do what the present Government is doing in relation to these essential commodities. The present Government has said, in effect, that there will be a bare subsistence ration of bread, butter, tea and sugar for everybody at a certain price, but the people who can afford to pay more can buy more at a certain price. I can imagine the objections that would have been raised by the Labour Party if we had introduced that system. Because it is done by the Coalition Government, with the Labour Party behind it, it is turned into a virtue. I have heard Labour members say: "Why not make the rich man pay more for his tea and sugar if he can afford it," and they gloss over the fact that the poor man cannot get any more because he cannot pay more for it.

It is not enough for the Government to let us presume, because they do not say it, that there is a financial difficulty in the matter. If the Government wants to share goods equally with all members of the population, surely it is the duty of the Government to give that share equally to everybody at the same price. But they have not done that.

Why is petrol rationed? Everybody knows there is enough petrol. I have not met anybody for months who has had any difficulty in obtaining petrol. Yet, we carry on a system under which we are paying civil servants, paying for the printing of books and forms and for sending them out and putting distributors to the inconvenience and expense of collecting these coupons and making returns to the Department of Industry and Commerce. Outside the 11 or 12 members who constitute the Government, nobody can see any necessity at the present time for petrol rationing. I would be very interested if the Minister could give us some reasons why petrol rationing is being maintained at the present time. I have said that we have enough tea, sugar and bread to drop rationing. We are told that we have enough butter. In fact, I saw in the paper that we are exporting creamery butter. The Minister for Agriculture is evidently finding some difficulty about a market for butter in Great Britain because we find that the price that Britain will pay us for our creamery butter will not enable the creameries to pay 1/2 a gallon to the farmer for his milk. There is not a Deputy in this House, I am quite sure, who will say that the farmer is getting too much. He is not getting more than a remunerative price for his milk.

The Minister for Agriculture came into this House in the Summer of 1948 after a trade agreement had been concluded between the Irish Government and the British Government and, in his recommendation of that agreement to this House, he used words to the effect that we have now got a market at a remunerative price for all the agricultural produce we can produce in this country. The Taoiseach used practically the same words. The Taoiseach and the Minister for Agriculture used these words to convince the Dáil that the agreement was one that the Dáil should vote for. Naturally the Dáil voted for it when they heard that, amongst other things, in favour of the agreement. Now we find, when the agreement is put to the test, that the Minister must ask the farmers to take 2d. a gallon less for their milk. Is that a remunerative price for our butter?

Is it a fact now, as we were told in 1948, that that agreement gave us a market for all our agricultural produce at a remunerative price? It is quite obvious that it did not. The result is that we are finding a market for a certain amount of butter, I believe in Germany, and if we have to go to England with some of our butter then we are going to be trouble. Before we exported butter, as we did a few days ago, surely rationing should have been withdrawn. It is all very fine to say, as Government spokesmen will say, that nobody needs more than eight ounces. If people do not need more than eight ounces, why do we have rationing? Why do we try to puzzle the people and to deceive ourselves by making a statement of that kind — first fixing the ration at eight ounces and then, when we are asked to withdraw that, saying that we do not need any more? Why put people to the expense and the trouble of keeping records and of making returns? Why make the housewife bring her ration book with her to the grocer? Why is all this necessary if we are getting enough in eight ounces? Why not withdraw rationing and cut out these regulations and especially why not stop rationing before starting to export? I have heard it said in this House by members of the other Parties, as well as by members on these benches, that the primary function of agriculture is to feed our own people. I do not think anybody will object to that definition. If that is the primary function of agriculture, then let us make sure that everybody has enough butter before we start to export it. That should apply to everything else, but I think that butter is the only rationed article where we are building up an export business as well. On that account rationing should be dropped.

We are told by speakers on the other side of the House that there is a marked increase in the output of agricultural produce. That is to be expected. The war has been over now for five years. We can get all the raw materials which are necessary; we can get the fertilisers; we can renew our seeds and we can make progress in certain directions which we could not make during the war. We can get other necessary materials such as spraying materials which were not in sufficient supply during the war. We can get machinery and machinery parts which were needed during the war also. I do not think we should be in the least surprised if we have now got back to the output at least of 1939. It is possible that we are approaching that point now but it is not surprising and it is all to the good if we are able to exceed it.

Output, as we all know, is sometimes quoted in volume and sometimes in value. The value is misleading from the point of view of statistics but not to the farmer because it is the only thing he is concerned with, in a way. If he is getting more cash, he is satisfied. However, from the point of view of statistics and from the point of view of finding out whether our agriculture in general is making progress, we want the volume. In volume I believe we are approaching the 1939 level. But in crops, the yield per acre gives us the basis on which to calculate our output. I notice from questions asked in this House recently that in 1949 the yield of wheat and beet was very good—in fact, I think it was higher than in any year unless we go back to the 1930's— but that the yield of potatoes and oats was low. I think everybody will admit that the Minister for Agriculture does not neglect potatoes and oats and that he would be very keen on getting good crops of potatoes and oats—more so than good crops of wheat and beet. The weather has a big influence and weather conditions, it appears from these returns, are a bigger factor than a change of Government or a change of Minister. We must keep that in mind when we are comparing figures from year to year. We may be going along beautifully as we were in 1948, when we had such a good bumper crop of oats and potatoes and when the Minister for Agriculture was priding himself on providing the farmer with the fertilisers to grow these crops and when he was comparing the yields he got with the yields got during the time of Fianna Fáil. He proved to this House that all that was due to the Coalition policy. But last year, 1949, with the weather less favourable, the yields went down considerably. That is a factor in the situation that must always be kept in mind.

Another point which I think is very important indeed to a Government is the cost of living. It is a very big problem for every Government in the world, as far as I can see. I think that most Governments have great trouble owing to the high cost of living and we cannot escape the trouble here. But, in spite of the obvious difficulty of influencing the cost of living in a very big way, the Minister for External Affairs, when he was seeking election in 1948, saw no difficulty in reducing the cost of living by 30 per cent. In his speech at Carlow he laid down the points of Clann na Poblachta policy and showed how it would be possible to bring down the cost of living. That, however, was not done and yet the Minister for External Affairs remains a member of the Government. Deputy Cowan gave us his views on the principle of collective responsibility but I think that Deputy Cowan did not quote Deputy Boland correctly. Deputy Boland surely did not say that all Ministers should think alike because although we were members of one Party, we often had very long Cabinet meetings and, if we all thought alike, they would not have lasted more than a couple of minutes. It is quite obvious, therefore, that we held different views on various matters but when we took a decision on major policy, we stood together. If we did not intend to stand together, it was open to the person who objected to resign. That is the principle of collective responsibility that must be recognised, that once a Government takes a decision on major policy every Minister must stand by that decision or resign. The Ministers of this Government have not observed that principle. Some of them have condemned decisions that were taken. The Minister for External Affairs, if he were sincere and honest in his promises to reduce the cost of living by 30 per cent. and if he found that he could not get the Government to agree with him on the measures that were necessary to achieve that, had the obvious course open to him to resign. He did not resign and we can only conclude that he was not sincere when he made that promise.

The cost of living has not come down. On the contrary, this Government has adopted the very pernicious practice of putting up the cost of things which do not appear in the cost-of-living index figure. This Government is not worried about the cost of living; they are worried only about the cost-of-living index figure. They are looking at it only from the purely political scientific standpoint of keeping that figure at a certain level but they pile up the cost otherwise. We have heard other speakers refer to white flour, sugar outside the ration, tea outside the ration and so on. They have built up a system of this kind, in order to make money to relieve the bill for food subsidies in general. This is not the only way that the Government is, as it were, collecting money in an indirect way. They did not admittedly put a penny on the pint or a penny on the ounce of tobacco but they collected money on sugar, tea and flour—the necessaries of life. Then they make insured persons, those insured against sickness and unemployment, pay more for their stamps. They took £500,000 out of the Post Office Savings Bank and put it into Government funds. In various ways of that kind, they take money from one source and pile it on to another. Then they piled more money on the local authorities. The Government pay less now towards home assistance than when Fianna Fáil was in power and the ratepayers pay more. The Government make savings of that type and if they did not make these savings this Book of Estimates would be showing another £1,000,000 or £2,000,000. There are various ways of doing those things.

When every single possibility of income was explored and every single opportunity taken to pile expense on somebody else, when the Minister for Finance had no other way of doing it and the Estimates were put before him he proceeded to say: "A lot of this is capital expenditure." I think myself he made a very arbitrary classification. I mentioned items under agriculture. Housing was mentioned by other speakers. Housing must go on for years. It is a recurrent expenditure and there is no justification for putting housing grants down as a capital item. The Minister for External Affairs in his speech said that no man building a house would finance that house out of his revenue for one year. Of course not, because a man who builds his own house expects it to last his lifetime, and if this Government were going to build all the houses necessary for our people in one year, then naturally the expenditure would be a capital item. They are not going to do that; they are only going to carry out the annual portion of the programme each year. The same portion will be necessary year after year.

Mr. McGilligan

And that makes it not capital expenditure. You will stand out in history as a famous economist.

Dr. Ryan

The Minister for Finance will be a famous economist when this bill comes to be paid.

Mr. McGilligan

That is the great distinction—that if we were to build all these houses in a year it would be capital expenditure, but if we build them over 20 years it will not be capital expenditure.

Dr. Ryan

The Minister knows very well that this will be a recurrent expenditure. The Minister for Finance, let us admit, was hard put to it to meet the bill and he had to put as much as he could under the heading of capital expenditure. He adopted this course of putting on the cover of the Book so much for capital services and so much for other services. That was probably done so that the comparison of the total this year with the total spent last year and the total of the year 1947-48 would not be so obvious. An effort was made by Deputies on the other side to take only some of these services and compare them with other years. That is an unfair comparison but I suppose we must have a little sympathy with a Minister who has to resort to that type of subterfuge in order to mask the truth.

Mr. Hickey

Listening to the speeches that have been made during the past few days, some of which occupied nearly two hours, it is evident that many Deputies do not realise or are unmindful of the fact that there are thousands of men, women and children throughout the country who are ill-fed, badly clothed and compelled to live in slums and hovels or so-called homes of that type. We all saw the activity and the energy that was displayed by a number of Deputies who brought in bundles of Dáil reports to quote speeches that were made by other Deputies from 1932 until the last general election, as if they counted now. These Deputies have very little realisation——

Mr. McGrath

You are making a very different speech now from the type of speech you made then.

Mr. Hickey

I am making the same type of speech as I always make. The Deputy must not forget, when in November, 1947, he walked up that gangway in order to prevent old age pensioners from getting an increase in their pensions. Those Deputies who have shown all that energy and so much excitement here for the past few days do not seem to realise—indeed, they seem to be quite unmindful of the fact—that there are men and women working and drudging in field and factory and in their homes endeavouring to exist on wages that are scarcely sufficient to give the bare necessaries of life to themselves or to their wives and children.

Mr. McGrath

And you will vote for an increase in the rents and rates on their houses.

Mr. McGilligan

There is no increased rate on housing.

Mr. Little

On loans.

Mr. McGilligan

Why will Deputy McGrath continue to say what is not true?

Mr. Hickey

I will deal with the Deputy in the way he deserves to be dealt with. Deputy de Valera came in here yesterday and gave us a lecture for nearly an hour. I really felt I was back in school again. He said the people who were talking glibly about financial matters should study the Banking Commission Report. He mentioned also that some people were talking nonsense about external assets and told us that we could not have our cake and eat it. I would like to say to Deputy de Valera or anybody else who talks in that strain that that kind of talk is only good enough for political infants. He talked about our banks and said that the banking system in this country was the soundest in the world. So well it may, as long as the banks control the money and credit of this country and so long as they are allowed to dictate to the past and present Government their economic and social policies.

Probably I will be able to convince some Deputies as to the type of sound financial system we have. During the 15 years from 1926 to 1940, inclusive, the ten banks in this country earned a net profit of £22,486,009 on a paid up capital of £9,062,000. In other words, they made more than double the paid up capital in profits during those 15 years. Now we will come to later years. In the nine years from 1941 to 1949, inclusive, these banks made a total net profit of £10,841,710. That means that in 24 years they have made £33,327,719 in profits alone on a paid up capital of only £9,062,000.

Is it any wonder our banking system would be regarded as the soundest in the world when we have these results following the exploitation of the Irish people? It would be very interesting to find out what are the reserves in those banks and the total value of their property and assets. Last night Deputy de Valera said that some of us were talking without conviction or experience. Of course, we are all irresponsible fellows.

The Cork Corporation floated a loan in 1939 for £250,000 at 4 per cent. at par. I happened to be Lord Mayor at the time and some of us were instructed to come up to the credit corporation to see if we could get the money. We did come to the credit corporation and interviewed the chairman, Mr. Colbert. We informed him of our mission and he said:—

"Very well, I will give you £100,000 at 98½ at 4 per cent."

I had to inform him I was one of those who did not agree to pay 4 per cent. on money for building houses for the workers. I would not agree to any more than 4 per cent. at par. He said to me:—

"You will not get it."

At that time we had the financial agreement and I pointed out that in view of what had taken place did he think one could find a better investment than in corporation stock. He said:—

"That is true, but they are paying 7 per cent. for it in Abyssinia."

That is the system we have in operation in this country, and we are paying that gentleman so much a year for looking after investments in this country.

What was the result of the whole thing? Not a solitary shilling did we get from the credit corporation. We then tried the hospital trustees. Deputy Cosgrave was the senior member for Cork and he was asked to accompany us on our visit to the hospital trustees. We discovered that the Secretary of the trustees was in a bank in College Green. We interviewed him and he said:—

"We would be pleased to put our money in corporation stock, but if we were to take it from where it is and transfer it to corporation stock we would be suffering a very severe loss."

We eventually fell back on issuing a loan to the public but, having floated the loan at 4 per cent. at par, we did not get as much as a solitary shilling from any of the banks in this country. Some 17 months previously the Cork Corporation floated a loan at 98 at 4 per cent. and in less than ten hours more than three times the amount required was subscribed. Some of the banks subscribed £20,000, and insurance companies subscribed £12,000, but in order to give everybody a portion of the stock, we cut them down. Later, when the housing loan was floated, not a solitary shilling did the bankers give.

Can Deputy de Valera or anybody else here deny that it is about time that that system ought to be controlled? Deputies on the opposite benches were in office during the period to which I have referred and that was the time when these bankers were able to dictate policy to them. I say it is about time that system was changed. I hope every Deputy will read Deputy Esmonde's speech yesterday. I was sorry to hear Deputy Boland saying that the Deputy was talking about the banks for the sake of popularity. I suggest that Deputy Esmonde was possessed of great moral courage to speak as he did yesterday about the banks and the country's credit. I hope many people will read his speech.

It is very dishonest—that is the mildest way of putting it—to accuse any member of the House or any person outside it of being an enemy of the country if he talks about the need for a change in the control of our money and credit. I say that type of thing is most dishonest. We also had that type of jargon of accusing persons of using the printing press and frightening people with the statement that if you interfere with the financial position of the country you will create a crisis.

I heard Deputy Childers speak here yesterday. I am quite satisfied that he realises the need for a change. All his trouble appears to be the fear of a change. I am quite satisfied that there are Fianna Fáil Deputies who know well that there is need for a change, but there is this fear that is paralysing them. It is the greatest enemy to progress that we have. I am surprised that Deputies in any part of the House should be afraid to tackle the question of our right to have charge of the money and credit of the country. The money and credit should be a social instrument of the nation. I do not care what Government we have, but as long as a Government in this country is subject to the dictates of the speculators on the money markets, what chance can there be for it to carry out its programme of industrial development.

I wonder why there should be the fear of attacking this problem. Deputy de Valera surprised me when he talked about the fear of doing anything. Let me quote another instance. Some months ago the Cork County Council looked for an overdraft of £180,000. A deputation from the Council called on the banks in Cork and asked that they should get the overdraft at the same rate as was being paid for local loans. Of course the banks could not agree. The result was that they had to pay 4 per cent.

At the December meeting of the Cork County Council the council proposed to borrow £280,000 for the maintenance of roads. A question was asked about the terms on which they could get the loan. The county manager said the average length for such loans was about ten years. He went on to say that on that basis the repayment of principal and interest for the first year would be £39,200, and that this would be reduced by £1,120 in each subsequent year. What did that work out at? Perhaps Deputy McGrath will agree when I tell the House that I am now talking about the cost of money. Over the ten years it worked out in this way, that on that £280,000 the banks would have got £61,600 on the use of money which was required to keep and maintain the roads in the County Cork.

In view of facts such as these, is it not a good and desirable thing that the Minister for External Affairs would attempt to educate public opinion so that there might be a change in that situation. Would there be anything wrong if Deputy Aiken, when he was Minister for Finance, went down to Cork and tried to educate the people there that some change was necessary? The moment that anybody talks about finance to-day the Press in the country and the vested interests put up their hands and say: "Do not touch it, that is only for experts". I suggest that the time is ripe for this Government to review the question of financing housing and other essential undertakings. That will have to be done if we are to build the houses our workers require.

We should come down to realities. Deputy de Valera asked me to come down to realities. Is there anything wrong in asking that we should use our money without having to pay such heavy interest charges for the purpose of providing houses for those who are producing the wealth of the country? As regards the provision of houses and electricity and other requirements of the people, why should this Government be at the mercy of the financiers? I saw in the paper on Monday last where we had to pay 15/- per ton by way of interest to produce sugar for our people. I am quite satisfied that the majority of those who get that 15/-in the form of interest on the money which they give to run beet factories, never soiled their hands in the growing or the saving of the beet crop. Is there any reason why we should pay 4 per cent. to the bankers so that we might be able to cut turf for our people? I claim to have as great a sense of responsibility for the man who has a £5 note or £1,000 in the bank, and I am as anxious to safeguard his rights as anybody who is trying to prevent me from having this question of money and credit tackled. I say it is time for the Government to tackle the whole situation.

I was a member of the House when the Central Bank Bill was going through. Deputy de Valera was Taoiseach at the time. I asked him then what was the good of bringing in a Central Bank Bill when he was giving no power to that institution. Do Deputies realise that the Central Bank cannot take £1 on deposit? Yet, this same Central Bank has £43,000,000 invested in English securities for which they are receiving a little over 1 per cent. But we have to pay 4 per cent. for the money we require to carry out many necessary undertakings and 3½ per cent. for the money we require for housing. These are matters to which the members of this House should address themselves instead of quoting past history or in making vindictive speeches across the House.

I want to say to the Minister for Finance that I am prepared to support his Estimate wholeheartedly because there are many things to be done and the more investment of money there is in the country the better it will be for the whole people. Great issues are facing us. We do not know what may face us as a result of the financial position across the water. If there is to be further devaluation of the pound in Great Britain how will it affect us? Is there any other country in the world that would allow £43,000,000 of its money to be subject to the outside control of another country, especially in view of the fact that we are only getting a little over 1 per cent. on it, while we have to pay 3½ per cent. and 4 per cent. for the doing of necessary social work at home. Our heroes were not afraid to challenge the most powerful empire in the world. They did not measure the cost of the sacrifices that they were prepared to make. Why should we be afraid to face the money bags and the financial interests of this country in order that we may serve our people and give them the standard of living that they are entitled to. Are we not ashamed that we can give only 17/6 a week to the old age pensioners and smaller sums to widows? The fact is that we are not able to do more because we have not the moral backing and courage to do what is necessary according to our Constitution. The sooner we deal with these matters rather than be spending our time in trying to score political points the sooner this nation is going to take its place amongst the nations of the world.

Mr. Corry

I am only an old farmer. I am not going to follow the financial expert who has gone before me. He is a trade union leader, and I regret that he did not tell us where his trade union funds were invested, and the amount of interest that they are bringing in.

Mr. Hickey

If the Deputy wants an immediate answer I can tell him now. The funds of the Irish Transport and General Workers' Union are all invested with the municipal authorities of this country. Those who have responsibility for the funds have no voice in what interest is being paid because they must be invested in gilt-edged securities. Let me say also that the organisation offered £50,000 free of interest during the emergency to the country, and when it did so it found very little response in that direction from any other organisation, bankers or otherwise.

Mr. Corry

I am sorry the Deputy did not mention that when he was at it.

Mr. Fitzpatrick

You are sorry you asked him.

Mr. Corry

What I am concerned about is that there does not seem to be much worry here about how many millions are piled up. The Rake's Progress still goes on. The Minister for Agriculture endeavoured to give orders to the local authorities this year when he told them that the county manager can reduce the rates, and if the county manager does not reduce his estimate for the rates they should sack him. That was the statement of Deputy James Dillon, the Minister for Agriculture, which he sent to every county council and which was published in the Press. Having a Minister of that kind in the Cabinet, you would expect, if collective responsibility means anything, that he would have brought his influence to bear and said: "This amount can be reduced. and if it is not reduced we will sack the Minister for Finance".

We have had wild statements made here and accusations thrown out which lead me to believe that one Minister over there does not know who the other Minister is. The Parliamentary Secretary to the Taoiseach yesterday said that the Fianna Fáil Government were going to spend £11,500,000, I think it was, on new buildings for the Oireachtas. I have a fairly good memory, and I was wondering from whom I heard that statement about these new Oireachtas buildings before. Suddenly I remembered and I went to the Library to look it up. In case anybody has any doubt as to who got the brainwave for that, I am going to give the quotation from Volume 97, column 1027, of the Official Reports, of what Deputy James Dillon, the present Minister for Agriculture, said. When I heard of this new move about the capital expenditure services, I knew whose brainwave that was, also. This is what the Minister for Agriculture said:—

"This is a time when we should mobilise credit and use it boldly and resolve, if necessary, to repay it over the next 100 years. The extension of credit should not deter us from embarking on bold schemes at the present time, always provided that they are good schemes. As a start in that direction, one good thing would be to build a new Oireachtas, and it would prove to be an economy in the long run. We are eternally patching and tinkering with these buildings in order to make them adequate to fulfil the functions of an efficient Parliament. It is common knowledge that half the Deputies cannot find accommodation in which to write a letter. Even the Ministers' rooms are inadequate and they have not proper facilities. We are trying to get our meals in a restaurant which is built on top of the boiler house and in which no person could sit in the months of August and September. The permanent officials are obliged to sit in cramped quarters up at the top, and their teeth are made to chatter with the noise of the machinery in the basement, because we are trying to dislodge a beetle through the medium of a vacuum cleaner in the roof."

Where was that beetle? Already he has been after the Colorado Beetle. Only an hour ago we gave him £1,600 for chasing that beetle out to Colorado.

"I understand that the roof is now infested with beetles and that it shall have to be rebuilt. Of course, some facetious individuals will possibly say that we ought to transfer all our activities into the Musuem."

I think it is grossly unfair, after all the charges that have been levelled against the Fianna Fáil Administration that they should be charged with having that brainwave. It was evidently the product of beetles in the roof or bats in the belfry. Charges like this have occupied the House for the last few days. When Deputy Hickey speaks of financial matters I have a certain amount of sympathy for him.

Mr. Hickey

I do not want sympathy; I want support.

Mr. Corry

I am anxious to know how much of this £12,000,000 is going into productive industry or how much of it into non-productive industry. I shall quote my dearly beloved friend again as reported in the Official Reports for Wednesday, 4th March, 1942, column 2277. When I read this I thought it was yesterday that the Minister for Agriculture was speaking on this Vote. On that occasion the Minister for Agriculture said:—

"It would not have mattered so much if the Government confined themselves to robbing the Treasury, but, in addition to robbing the Treasury, they are borrowing right, left and centre, wherever they could, to finance the various ‘cod' schemes."

That reminds me of what is happening here. Apparently, we will be borrowing right, left and centre to the extent of £12,000,000 to be expended on various "cod" schemes.

In regard to industry, I am anxious to know when there is going to be any extension of an industry in this country or any effort made to start any new industry or to take up the plans and proposals that were ready when the Fianna Fáil Government left office, and work on them. If the Government want any advice on the matter, I have no objection to giving it to them. If the Minister for Industry and Commerce would take a trip to Cobh, he would see at Haulbowline on the wall of the general manager's office blue prints for changing that steel industry over into oil, which would mean, according to the opinion of the general manager, a 15 per cent. reduction of the cost of producing iron and steel in this country. They are lying there since November, 1947. The Minister should also be aware that when that industry was in course of preparation first, plans were made for various extensions and, amongst these extensions, were the making of block and corrugated iron. He should be aware, also, that there is not one lb. of corrugated iron made in this country. That is an industry awaiting development. According to the estimates given to me by the general manager of Irish Steel, he could find employment there for anything up to 200 more able-bodied men at a decent wage if the industry was extended to manufacture some of the things that we are now importing. The plans were laid when this Government went out of office. I hope that some of this £12,000,000 will go into expanding that industry and providing decent employment there for our own people.

An Ceann Comhairle

A review of the Cork industries hardly arises under this.

Mr. McGilligan

Particularly as there is not 1/- in the £12,000,000 for them.

Mr. Corry

That is just what I would expect. My complaint is that the money is not being devoted to that purpose. I think it would be much better to invest it in an industry such as that rather than invest it in the reclamation of land at £25 an acre, land to be sold subsequently to the Minister for Lands at his valuation of £4 per acre. That is where £3,100,000 of this money is going. When the last Government was in office we had schemes for the drainage and reclamation of land, but under our schemes a grant of 75 per cent. was made available and the farmers concerned were responsible for the other 25 per cent. What is the scheme now? Where will the scheme start and where will it stop? The scheme was introduced some 18 months ago with a flourish of trumpets. Last month I asked the Minister for Agriculture how much fertilisers and lime had been put out in Counties Meath and Monaghan, the two counties in which the scheme had been put into operation. The reply I got—I think it was the shortest answer ever given by the present Minister for Agriculture in this House—was the one word: "None".

Captain Giles

That is economy.

Mr. Corry

"None". Now, there is very little use in starting to drain land 15 or 16 months ago and letting it lie ever since without a lb. of fertiliser or a barrel of lime. But that was the answer given by the Minister for Agriculture. I am very concerned with the condition of affairs in our principal industry, agriculture. It is rather amazing that prior to the present Minister taking office, speaking on the Vote on Account on the 5th March. 1942, at column 2279 of the Dáil Debates, he charged the Fianna Fáil Government with having ruined the land of this country by producing wheat on it. At column 2278 he said:—

"At the end of ten years of Fianna Fáil, 500,000 acres of Irish land under wheat produced not the 500,000 tons of wheat that it would have produced ten years ago, but 210,000 tons."

He said the land was ruined. He said it would not produce wheat now

"because like every other institution of this State, the land has been impoverished by the Fianna Fáil Party, and bad as the yield was last year does any farmer dare to prophesy what the yield will be this year?"

That was in 1942. Fianna Fáil continued its compulsory wheat scheme right up to 1948 and I heard the Minister bumptiously boasting that he got over a ton an acre for every acre of wheat grown in the country. He forgot all about God and the weather. They did not come into the picture at all. The extraordinary thing is that the only advertisement issued by the Minister's Department last year was an advertisement advising the farmers to grow wheat, despite the fact that he told us the growing of wheat in this country in peace time was

"pernicious cod for which we are paying in this hour of crisis."

He said that in 1942. Having gone through the whole gamut, having started off with a flourish of trumpets and advised the farmers to grow oats, when the harvest came there was no market. But he did not worry as to whether or not there was a market and he created such uncertainty in regard to it that, lo and behold, in this little island of ours we have to-day to send away out to the Argentine for feeding oats purchased with hard-earned dollars.

An Ceann Comhairle

This is not an Estimate for Agriculture. One would gather from the Deputy that it is.

Mr. Corry

I am dealing, Sir——

An Ceann Comhairle

With agriculture?

Mr. Corry

Not exactly. I am dealing with production.

An Ceann Comhairle

I had an idea that oats was a part of agriculture. Perhaps I am wrong.

Mr. Corry

I am taking step by step the Minister's speech on the Vote on Account in March, 1942.

An Ceann Comhairle

That is not relevant now.

Mr. Corry

He devoted four columns to wheat, six columns to oats——

An Ceann Comhairle

The Estimate of 1942 is not relevant now.

Mr. Corry

I took it that there was no change in the procedure in the House from that which obtained up to the present.

An Ceann Comhairle

I am simply stating that the Deputy is not in order in dealing with agriculture. That is what he is doing now instead of dealing with the Vote on Account.

Mr. Corry

If the Minister is not providing the money here, I wonder where the £2,250,000 is going to come from to pay for Cuban sugar to take the place of the 9,000 to 10,000 odd acres of beet which the Minister has succeeded in preventing from being grown in this country. As a result of his actions, we have to pay £500,000 in dollars more to the foreigner for that quantity of sugar than we would pay to our own farmers here to produce it. We hear talk of production. Surely the first job in this country should be the production of our own food. Surely, at a period like this, when there is a reduction in the value of our sterling assets and of our sterling, this is not a time when we should be sending abroad for materials and foodstuffs that can be and should be produced here. That is one of the items.

My authority for that is the public statement made by the general manager of the Irish Sugar Company and published on the 23rd February in the Cork Examiner. He said that the price we were paying for foreign sugar was £12 a ton more than what he was selling sugar produced by our Irish farmers for. That is only one item. An increase of 24,000 acres of beet in this country would fill that gap. A recommendation was sent to the Government for an increase of 4/6 a ton in beet last year, and was turned down by them. Now they have to give more to the foreigner than they were prepared to pay to their own.

The Minister for Defence was the acting Minister for Agriculture—when our Minister for Agriculture conveniently left us—and it was he who succeeded, luckily enough, in getting rid of the oats. When you come to examine the estimates you find that we paid £4,801,000 for foreign maize that year. It was thrown in here to help the farmers to sell their oats. I do not know what the policy is that is going to leave our principal industry in this country in the position that you have employed on the land to-day, as compared with the day those gentlemen opposite took up office, 21,000 less people. A total of 21,000 have fled from the land since the inter-Party Government took up office.

Mr. Fitzpatrick

Shame on you, farmers.

Mr. Corry

They might be going to work on the £80 an acre estate that the Minister for Agriculture mentioned a few days ago—£44,000. Perhaps the Minister for Agriculture might be able to induce them to take up work on it. In this country each farmer with a holding under £35 valuation has something around £3 a week as his total income over the 12 months of the year, while any labourer in any kind of employment can get from £4 7s 6d to £5 a week. What will be the position while that state of affairs exists on the land or anywhere else?

Mark you, what happened in regard to sugar this year and what happened in regard to oats and what happened the other day that sent the Minister to Amsterdam for the spuds will create a condition of affairs in this country where you will find yourself back again, not dividing up the holdings with the Land Commission, but bulking them all into one ranch, because there will be no one to work them. That is caused solely because of the absolute uncertainty of the position at the present time. Each thing has been attacked in turn and wiped out; I will not say that was done maliciously, but it has been done. The last thing that has been wiped out is the old cow. There is now an economic war against the old cow. I have been a member of this House for the past 23 years and when I think of all the red herrings on collective responsibility I wonder what is the collective responsibility that drove nine farmers, who directly represent the farming community, into the lobby last week to vote against the farmer getting an economic price for his milk. Collective responsibility!

An Ceann Comhairle

The price of milk is not relevant.

Mr. Corry

I should like to call the attention of the House to the fact that, in this Estimate, the subsidy on fertilisers is completely wiped out and, as a result of that, you have an increase of £2 a ton on fertilisers, in spite of the fact that the Minister for Agriculture told us that the cost would not be increased.

Going through these Estimates, you will find that in the Department of Agriculture alone, there is an item of £27,000 for increased salaries. That from the Minister who was going to reduce expenditure by doing away with inspectors. We thought there would be a reduction of nearly £500,000 in the Estimate for Agriculture, seeing that all the inspectors who had been annoying the farmers were going to be dispensed with. However, there is an increase of £27,000 for increased salaries and an increase of £19,000 in travelling expenses—I suppose to enable the Minister to go to the Argentine for oats and to Amsterdam for the "spuds". The result of all this is to be seen in the rising cost of living. If the Minister for Defence had gone down to Cork last week, he would have found that potatoes were costing no less than 3/- per stone.

Dr. O'Higgins

Who is getting the money?

Mr. Corry

That is all right, but the fact remains that that scarcity has been created through the uncertainty of the markets. It is now reacting on the heads of those who refused to take the good advice given by Deputies from these benches. I wonder whether it would not be far more advisable for the Dáil to set about a complete examination of our position in that line. Every day one opens the paper, there is talk of war and more war and once you create a condition of affairs in which you are going to be short of essentials, especially of essential food, you place yourself in a position in which there is no hope for you. I doubt the wisdom of exporting dollars to America for wheat or anything else that can be grown in this country.

Mr. Rooney

There was more than ever grown last year.

Mr. Corry

I knew I had something to tell the Deputy. There is no one gladder than I am that he has reminded me of it. He is a godsend to me. I am quoting from the Official Report of the Dáil for the 7th May, 1947, column 2248:—

"In order to improve the standard of living of the people in the Gaeltacht, the Minister for Agriculture is arranging to carry out experiments in the concentrated production and marketing of glass-house crops. The scheme roughly is to get a minimum of 100 farmers to erect glass-houses covering one-fortieth of an acre each in an area sufficiently concentrated to justify the running of a central plantrearing and packing station and to have the crops grown and packed under the best technical supervision. The importance of promoting glass-house production on the small holdings in the Gaeltacht can be appreciated when it is realised that 40 tons of tomatoes per acre can be grown under glass on land that could not produce ten tons of potatoes per acre. The Minister for Agriculture intends also to help the extension of poultry-keeping in the Gaeltacht."

That was a statement made by the former Minister for Finance, Deputy Aiken, in this House in his efforts to promote the Gaeltacht glass-house and poultry schemes. Deputy Rooney, in the old days, before he found that he was hogtied and shackled, used to be worried about tomatoes and the price his unfortunate constituents were getting for them. I am wondering why Deputy Rooney has not said a word now about the complete absence from this huge bill of £78,000,000 of one penny piece for the poor old tomato grower. I knew Deputy Rooney in his earlier days and I thought he would make a bit of a scrapper, but he seems to have lost his vim. That is another item that has completely disappeared from the Estimates.

Mr. Rooney

Did you get the 40 tons an acre that you were talking about?

Mr. Corry

Does the Deputy agree that the Minister for Agriculture should not be sending across to a foreign country for tomatoes while the Irish people are prepared to grow them? Is that a wise policy for the Minister for Agriculture?

An Ceann Comhairle

This is not an Estimate for agriculture.

Mr. Corry

We had a lot of talk about housing. I have noticed from time to time that certain claims have been made in connection with housing by the present Government. Lest they should get any idea of making any of those claims in my part of the world, I want to say here, as the chairman of a housing authority, that the only limit that we would place on housing in the south Cork area would be a limit of people to occupy houses. Each county councillor or member of the board of health was requested to come to that meeting with a list of applicants, and I was prepared to guarantee to him that there would be houses built for every one of the applicants. That guarantee was carried out. It does not matter whether it was a Fianna Fáil Government or a Fine Gael Government or a mixum gatherum that was in power. So far as the housing needs of the people in east Cork were concerned, they were looked after.

Mr. Murphy

The plans were there.

Mr. Corry

And the houses were there, and we had this experience, that so far as South Cork was concerned we did not worry about bringing down the Minister to open the housing schemes. These schemes of houses that were opened by us——

An Ceann Comhairle

The history of Cork does not arise on this.

Mr. Corry

I was just dealing with the claims made——

An Ceann Comhairle

The Deputy is dealing with local matters in Cork.

Mr. Corry

I suppose it is a terrible crime to mention Cork up here.

An Ceann Comhairle

It might not be orderly.

Mr. Corry

I do not wish to go further into that matter now, and neither am I going, in view of the time, to hold up or prevent others from intervening in this debate.

An Ceann Comhairle

They will have only ten minutes, because the Minister is concluding the debate at a quarter to 11.

Mr. Corry

In that event I will not delay the House any further. I regret we could not have a few more days on this, because I could do a few hours very well on it.

Mr. McQuillan

I shall have to be very brief in my remarks, seeing that the Minister will intervene in the debate at a quarter to 11. I came into this House under the impression, like a lot of other Deputies, that Fianna Fáil were rather slow about their policy of national development—that they had neglected it—and, having listened here to the debate for the past three days, and particularly to the contributions that came from the benches opposite, I am convinced in that belief. I am also convinced that not alone did they fail to push ahead with national development, but they are now, as an Opposition, prepared to retard any advance that this Government tries to make. The time is so short that I must get down to the facts very quickly.

Here yesterday the Minister for External Affairs asked two specific questions of the Fianna Fáil Party. He asked them, first of all, what stand were they prepared to take on the question of the repatriation of our external assets, and the second question that he asked them was, had they or had they not a policy in connection with the control of our finances. I listened carefully to the rest of the speakers on the opposite benches since then—and the debate is now about to conclude—but so far we have not got any two members on the Fianna Fáil benches to give the same version of the policy they have in mind either on the repatriation of external assets or on the control of our own finances and currency.

I wish to welcome the new departure in the presentation of the Estimates, the separating of capital expenditure from the ordinary, or what I would consider household expenditure from year to year. In the coming year this Government is prepared to expend over £12,000,000 on capital development. In the last year of office of Fianna Fáil the amount shown in the Estimates for capital development was less than £2,000,000. A Government that wants to put a policy of full employment into operation must be prepared to indulge—if you can so describe it—in a policy in which capital development plays a large part and capital expenditure will be of a productive nature.

Last night here Deputy Lemass really let the cat out of the bag so far as Fianna Fáil are concerned in dealing with items such as afforestation, land reclamation, hospitalisation and housing. He maintained that the money expended on the development of these services should come out of current taxation, and he said the reason the present Government was prepared to ease the burden on the people by lengthening the time for the repayment of the money on these development schemes was that posterity would have no votes in the next election. That, in a nutshell, is the key to the Fianna Fáil policy for years past. They pursued a policy that would, in their opinion, give returns in the next election and put them back into power, but they forgot that there were other generations coming after. Surely to God there is nobody on the Fianna Fáil benches so foolish as to think that an intensive programme of afforestation could bear immediate fruit for the purposes of an election?

I want to congratulate any Government that has the foresight and the courage to start a programme of afforestation when that Government can never hope to achieve, within its own lifetime, the credit, by getting votes at a general election, for putting that policy into operation.

I should like to refer to the mentality that the Minister spoke about here last night in connection with afforestation. I hope that mentality has gone for good. He said that there existed a viewpoint that money spent on afforestation was not wisely spent; in other words, that it was foolish to lock up money in afforestation because the benefits of afforestation would not be seen for a number of years. That, to my mind, proves that Fianna Fáil had no notion of pursuing an intensive afforestation programme and it is no harm that they are now on the far side of the House, because they will not be able to prevent that programme from being carried out.

Now, there was a good deal of talk last night on the question of our sterling assets. I listened to Deputy de Valera, Senior, explain his views. He said it was nonsense to talk about repatriating those accumulated assets which made us one of the few creditor nations of the world. Then he posed the question: is that a bad position? His question reminded me that, not so very long ago, he posed the question as to whether or not it was a good thing to repeal the External Relations Act. He always poses questions and never gives an answer. He asked: is that a bad position, and for himself he answered: "No". We had, he said, a compulsory saving in the purchase of goods. Maybe we had, but we also had a compulsory flow of emigration as a result of that policy, and if Deputy de Valera and Fianna Fáil think it is a better policy to have our external assets frozen, as they were in Britain, while our young people have to go abroad as a result of that policy, they are welcome to pursue that policy. Deputy de Valera went on to say that in time of danger they would attempt to get them back. I wonder can Deputy de Valera and Deputy Lemass make up their minds as to what they want. I intend to give a quotation from a statement that was made several years ago. I leave it to the House to decide who made the statement. The answer to the question is a six-marker. This was the statement:—

"A creditor nation, our foreign assets are mainly in Britain.... We are now in the position that we are unable to utilise them as we would wish.... For many years our economists have been preaching about the value of these assets. They measured the prosperity of this country by the rise and fall in their value. There was a Maginot Line mentality about them which prevented a sounder financial policy for the country from developing. If, instead of these immobilised sterling assets, we had real tangible assets in our own country—factories, machinery, buildings, stores of goods how much stronger we would be?"

Mr. Lemass

Hear, hear!

Mr. McQuillan

That was a statement made by Deputy Lemass which appeared in the Irish Press on the 1st February, 1941. I invite Deputies to compare that statement with the speeches which we had yesterday from Deputy de Valera and Deputy Lemass.

Mr. Lemass

There will not be the slightest difference found.

Mr. McQuillan

I will give another quotation from Deputy Lemass which appears in to-day's issue of the Irish Press. He said:—

"Just before the outbreak of war he was given responsibility for making preparations against the war. One of the matters that naturally arose for our consideration was the means by which we would finance imports from the dollar area while a war was in progress. It naturally occurred to them to transfer funds in the Central Bank to the dollar area. That, at the time, would have had serious consequences on the international value of sterling, and, in any event, it would have been a rather difficult operation to conclude."

In the last few lines of that quotation we have the key to Fianna Fáil policy on the repatriation of our external assets—that the problem was too difficult to tackle. I think that the speeches made by Deputy de Valera and Deputy Lemass in this debate were a complete contradiction of the speech made by Deputy Lemass on the 1st February, 1941.

The whole purpose of this extra money for capital development is to put as many of our people as possible into full employment. It is an accepted fact that full employment is a necessity in the world to-day if we are not to have another slump such as the one we had in the 1930s. In October and up to December of 1947 a group of five leading economists, men of world fame, submitted a report to the United Nations' Organisation in which they stated that another slump such as that of the 30's was avoidable only by a policy of full employment and every member of the United Nations was pledged to that policy. Here in Ireland, if we hope to get that policy put into operation we must have control of our own finances, and, for once, let us copy the British in something that can be really useful for our own country. Mr. Morrison, a member of the British Government, expressed this view recently:—

"We shall control the financial forces to keep up our employment and raise production. We must, therefore, have control over imports and exports of capital."

That statement was made by a leading British statesman. I think there is nothing wrong if a leading Irish statesman makes the same kind of remarks about finance in his own country and says it is time that we in Ireland take control financially as well as politically.

I do not want to refer in detail to the remarks that were made by Deputy Childers whose main fear, in connection with taking control of our own finances, appeared to be that it would make the breach between the North of Ireland and the South bigger. In other words, he was trying to cause the same trouble that he caused when the repeal of the External Relations Act was under consideration.

I presume the Minister for Finance wants to conclude. On that account, I am prepared to forego, much as I dislike it, dealing with other aspects of the repatriation of our sterling assets, and with the policy of keeping as many people in productive employment as we would like.

Mr. McGilligan

This is the third day that we have been debating the Vote on Account. The debate has roughly gone on two lines. We had the people who tried to discuss, in a serious manner, what very definitely is the new development that has been accomplished this year, and on the other hand the Deputies who could not refrain from bringing it down into the arena of Party politics. Most of the lengthy speeches that were made were from those who, of course, decided that that would be the best way to treat this development. I want to have it regarded as a new development. I cannot say that it is entirely novel, but, as I said in my opening speech, for years it was the practice when Budget time came to make certain subtractions for things that were to be properly met by borrowing, and not to be taken from the taxpayer in a particular year. We have enlarged the scope of that considerably. I would rather have it regarded not as a measuring up, so to speak, of the number of items now being taken in this way, but by the fact that, deliberately, we have set out here on what I think is a new line of policy. We are trying to create a bigger amount of public investment, and we want that to run along with private investment; but we think there is a great field of very wide scope, and of very many things, for which investment, either directly by the State or in some way under the persuasion of the State, is required—something that the ordinary private investor will not do. I do not think there is much objection to that, except the Party ones that have been made, as a principle, and even when the items that are segregated here in the £12,500,000 sum have been analysed, I do not think there is anything in the way of serious objection to what it is proposed to make the subject matter of borrowing.

I have already quoted one remark made by the Taoiseach at the Institute of Bankers meeting on the 19th November last. I want to enlarge on that quotation, because it showed the policy that we were developing. It was, I think, the first important public occasion upon which that policy had been given a direct voice and we regard it as definitely being an important point—the development of the financial and economic resources in this State. The Taoiseach said on that occasion:—

"Public finance in the past has been mainly preoccupied with the annual Budget, although this covered no more than a fifth or a quarter of a country's economic activity. To-day, however, it is generally recognised that to discharge fully its economic responsibilities the Government must budget not primarily to allocate a certain part of the nation's finances to public purposes, but must also ensure that the resources of the nation are utilised in the way which can best advance the interests of the community. The community has to be considered not merely as taxpayers but as producers and consumers as well, and the level of the national income may be regarded as the best indicator of economic progress. The Government can best influence the community's prosperity by a sound budgetary policy and by investment. As long ago as 1936, the late Lord Keynes declared that the duty of ordering the current volume of investment cannot safely be left in private hands."

That was the headline set last November. We are following out that in this Book of Estimates, to be followed still further when the beginning of May comes and the House hears the ordinary Financial Resolutions. We are not going to budget hereafter primarily to allocate a certain part of the nation's finances to public purposes. We are going, as far as we can manage it, to ensure that the resources of the nation are utilised in the way which best can advance the interests of the community. We take the test that the best indicator of economic progress will be the level of the national income and we accept it that the duty of ordering the current volume of investment cannot safely be left in private hands. Is there anybody here who will query any one of those four items I took from that paragraph of the Taoiseach's speech? Apparently it is going to be accepted unanimously.

We see the application of that in this volume in which £12,500,000 is going to be devoted to certain capital services. We found an agriculture that never was very well developed and which had been wasted by over-cropping during the war period. Looking back over the statistics of production since the State was founded, although the volume of agricultural production increased here and there, I think it is true to say, as was said in evidence before the Banking Commission, that the volume of agricultural production has hardly increased in this country since about 1880, and it was certainly on the decline during the war period. The land of the country was in no state by itself, and without aid from the State, to come to the point where we would get the increased production required.

In addition to that, we found a terrific back log here so far as housing was concerned and public enthusiasm mingled with public anxiety, one with regard to the progress which should be made and the other with regard to the progress which was being made in catching up on these arrears. We had the astonishing statement made by Fianna Fáil to-night that if this country decided to build all the houses required, about 100,000, this year, that would be capital development, but, if divided over ten years, it would not be proper capital development. That is the economic advice we get from the Party which formed the Government for 16 years. That back log must be caught upon.

In addition to that, there is a pretty bad arrear in connection with school buildings. There are some buildings, I understand, still being used as schools in this country which were converted from Church property uses as far back as 1816. The Department of Education have a programme with regard to making good, not making entirely good, but making good to some extent the terrific arrear there is with regard to school buildings over a period of five years. Are all these school buildings, as well as all the houses and all the development of land required, to be done from the resources that the citizens, through taxation, can provide in a year or five years?

In the Seanad, on the 12th January, 1949, Senator Professor O'Brien said, as reported in the Official Report for the 12th January, column 564:—

"I cannot help feeling that the right way to approach this subject of agricultural credit is not by loans of money from the banks to farmers but by subsidising farmers and enabling them to obtain in a subsidised way, either by way of grant or loan, the particular type of fixed or working capital which falls in with the Government's agricultural programme. When it comes to the question of how these loans and subsidies are to be paid for, I suggest to the Minister that there is a very strong case for borrowing to pay for a great many of these loans and subsidies.

Taxation in this country is already as high as the country can stand, and I think that a programme of agricultural production of this kind is essentially a productive investment. It is a productive investment in the sense that, sooner or later, the national income will be raised as a result of the investment. It is not self-liquidating. The debt created will be dead-weight debt—with that I agree— but the fact that a debt is a dead-weight debt does not necessarily mean that it should not be incurred.

There again, I would like to try to correct a false impression which is still very widespread in relation to the Banking Commission report. The Banking Commission report, which referred with disapproval to a good deal of the dead-weight debt which had accumulated at the time, has frequently been quoted as an expression of opinion by the Banking Commission that debt which is dead-weight should never be incurred in any circumstances whatsoever. I would like to draw a distinction between productive dead-weight debt and unproductive dead-weight debt, and the real criticism of the Banking Commission regarding the dead-weight debt which was being accumulated in 1938 was that a good deal of it, at any rate, was unproductive in the sense that the assets which were being created by it were not earning anything in return. I think that investment in the improvement of Irish agriculture is the most productive type of investment which the Government could encourage, and I think that debt of that kind, which may be dead-weight debt in the sense that in the first few years the taxpayer may have to find the interest on it, in the long run will yield abundant return. Therefore, I do suggest to the Minister that in discussions with his colleagues he should advocate borrowing rather than taxation for his agricultural programme."

Mr. Derrig

Did not Senator O'Brien sign the Banking Commission's comment which stated that grants for subsidies should not be provided by way of long-term debt?

Mr. McGilligan

That is a dead-weight comment. At any rate, that is the professor's own statement. Deputy Derrig thinks he knows more about Professor O'Brien's mind than the professor does. If he thinks the professor's mind in 1938 was the one we should be guided by, I take this. Let us judge this on our own. Is investment in Irish agriculture good or bad? Is it something we should borrow for? Do we think we will get a return in the end? Do we think that the level of production will be raised by as much as the annual cost over a number of years of the investment proposed? I personally think it will be raised to that extent and in that hope the main bulk of the House, I think, join. That deals with a considerable part of this amount of £12,500,000.

Another part of it is housing. Housing for the people comes under two of the headings in the Local Government Vote, No. 38, part under the Gaeltacht Services Vote, all the money that is in Vote No. 71 and in the Transition Development Fund. I cannot understand how at this stage of this country's history anybody has been found in this House to say that it is not right to borrow for housing. If it is not right to do so, we have been doing it since 1932. Why should we turn our backs on what was a programme approved by everybody, even the financiers——

Mr. Derrig

No.

Mr. McGilligan

——since the State was founded? The amazing conclusion came this evening, after all the varied arguments made on the point, from the ex-Minister for Agriculture that, if we wanted to build the entire 100,000 houses, it is good capital development proper for borrowing, but that if we build 10,000 a year for ten years, we ought to finance it from the taxpayer. That is the height of folly or the depth of folly to which people can be driven by listening to the arguments from the Front Bench opposite. We have been borrowing for housing—is that acceptable? What is now being changed? Nothing, except that there is a recognition of the tremendous task which lies ahead, and, after appreciating that, there is simply this idea of letting the people know clearly what is proposed and giving them a figure, so that they can segregate these items under the different heads.

Will it be accepted that forestry is an investment over a long period and that we should not finance it out of annual taxation? In fact, it is years since the whole of forestry was so financed. It is not any new principle that is being adopted in regard to it, but merely that it is proposed to spend more money on afforestation and therefore the debt accumulated under this heading will be greater and the amortisation will have to be borne in an increasing way as the years go on. I could go through all these items, but I do not think that more than three people at any time have concentrated in their condemnation of any one of these items.

There is apparently a mistake with regard to the item listed as No. 10. It is under No. 10 heading, F. and G., and that is simply because these two sums are found in a Vote which has been misnamed from the beginning. They are two relatively small items— urban employment schemes and rural employment schemes, and I think it is the newspapers more than Deputies which have been misled by the fact that they are so named. I am glad in a sense that they were still in that Vote, although they will be transferred out of it next year, when this change was made, because they do mark a difference. Deputies will notice that in respect of these we have put after each of the two items, in brackets, the words "sanitary service works". In other words, it is such part of these moneys as is devoted to the sanitary services appropriate to housing that we tie in with housing and consider to be as proper for borrowing as housing itself. For years, that has been carried as an employment scheme. We want to mark the difference. For years, that has been the system—an endeavour here to get the people more fully occupied at whatever their occupation may be, with some under occupied for a number of years in the main industry of the country, agriculture, and some out of employment over the years.

It has been the hope to try to get these people who are out of employment for the whole or part of the year occupied at patching, at relief schemes, something that has been described as being on the lines of the old famine schemes of digging a whole in the ground and putting the earth back again. We feel that we are doing something in even transferring these away from the heading of employment schemes and putting them under the heading of development work. We associate that development with house construction and tie it on to that, and nobody need have any fear that anything that counts as merely a relief scheme will be allowed to come into this scheme of capital appropriations. That is the programme or at least part of the programme.

Last year, on the under-the-line services ordinarily detailed in the White Paper published just before Budget time, we showed that we were making provision for the expenditure of about another £12,000,000 on things like electrical works, telephone works and certain other matters, the details of which will no doubt be known. I cannot see that under-the-line sum at anything less than £16,000,000 this year and that is to be added to the £12,500,000. It is quite likely that in this year there will be spent something short of £30,000,000 on these capital development schemes. There seemed to be a certain amount of consternation when I answered a Deputy last night and said that, so far as we are concerned, that is going to go on for years, until we recover the productivity which we think there is in this country and until we have caught up with these arrears, both in housing proper and school buildings, and until we have attended to these other items so far as it is appropriate to attend to these over the years.

It may be necessary not to have all these done at the same time. I have no doubt that this programme, when we come to deal with it in the months ahead, will be seen to require an ordering, that these particular items will have to get one priority over the other. There will be required a very careful watch to see that there is not too great a demand upon either the manpower or the money power in the country and it may be—this, I think, is the fear which has been most often expressed in this House—that the spending of these sums might cause a very serious increase in the inflationary pressure which, I think, is still around. If that did happen, it might be that these schemes would have to be put in some order of priority, some postponed, and some even deferred until a later year, but I have no real fear or anxiety about that happening.

We have heard from the report of the Central Bank that inflationary pressures are still here. That cannot have been any surprise to Deputies opposite because for the past six or seven years that same warning has been sounded, but it is useful to have the warning and the danger must always be feared. It would have to be the endeavour of this Government— colleagues of mine, I hope, will assist me in it—to see, as I say, that these schemes will not crowd too fast, one upon the heels of the other, as to make any disorderly advance which might cause the inflation which is definitely to be feared to become a real menace.

I have been asked here whether there is the money around to finance all these. Again, I think there is. Some Deputies seem to think—founding it on a figure mentioned incidentally in the Central Bank report in respect of a particular year—that once we went beyond a draw of £24,000,000 a year, we were getting into danger. It must be recognised that there is a great field for private investment and it would be a very bad thing indeed if what the State intends to do this year were to stop to any great extent the money that ordinarily the private investor wants to put into reproductive schemes in the country. I should imagine that the amount of money that has been spent for years past on all sorts of projects, both new matters, reconstruction, repairs and everything else, has been of the order of £70,000,000 a year, and there has been no appreciable change, no change for the worse, in the finances of the country.

Indeed, in so far as the balance of payments is any test, last year, in which a very big amount of capital money was expended, was one of the most successful years we had. The balance of payments which in 1947 had been running at almost £30,000,000 of a deficit, had been changed to something short of £20,000,000 in 1948 and was less than £5,000,000 in the year just ended. This country can accommodate itself easily to that situation, when all these sums of money were being made available, between public and private investment, for whatever was required, I have no doubt that the money is there and is available up to what we require as capital.

A great deal of the argument here turned on whether we could get this money or whether some new procedure would have to be devised to get it. I hope that, when the Deputies on the other side read the debates of the last couple of days, they will recognise they have not done the country much good by their comments. I said, when opening, that while these projects will be financed in the beginning by a draw on the American Counterpart Fund, arising from American benevolence, I will also finance them out of certain other funds in my hands and eventually hope to get money from the public by borrowing. The only comments that drew were of a scandalous type from members of the Opposition. Reference was made several times to the fact that the second loan this Government attempted to get from the people had not drawn the full amount. The people who said that should have remembered their own history. They had not a very good record about getting money when they approached the public. They had one catastrophic approach to the public, but it did not stop them from going again. What happened last year will not stop me from attempting to get the public to subscribe.

When people did mention the fact that the loan was not filled last year, the second one, they should have remembered the very restrictive conditions which, very deliberately, this Government put upon its attempt to get that loan. We asked the banks not to look for money abroad; we asked the banks not to create, by way of overdraft or otherwise, credit for that loan. We made it known to them—and they appreciated the fact— that the main endeavour was to get from the people surplus savings which we thought, if we got into a loan, we would not leave any longer as purchasing power in their hands. As the days of the week in which that loan was on offer went on, the banks made an approach to my Department to know whether now we would let them subscribe themselves and part with part of their funds, or let some of their customers become subscribers. We asked them not to do it.

Conditions may change next year. Those who spoke so casually of it should remember that I said all these things and was quite frank with this House in explaining what happened and what the result had been. If Deputies on the far side of the House had any real hope or belief that they were ever again, or shortly, to occupy these seats, they would not have spoken in the last two or three days as they did speak. We can take the depths to which they have sunk as some evidence of their own appreciation of their future. They should at least help the country, and should not try to create scares. If they have any criticism to pass on the items in this Estimate set aside as proper for borrowing, they should have argued those points. I asked that that should be done. I do assert that very strict tests were applied before any item got into that tot of £12,000,000. I wanted these matters publicly discussed, because in the end it is public opinion we have to live by, and if public criticisms showed that the items put into that tot cast doubt on the whole scheme or part of it, we would have to modify the scheme or abandon it altogether.

Into this question there then came the whole matter of our attitude as Deputies, the attitude of certain Deputies in different Parties and even certain conflicting attitudes towards the banks. I was glad to hear in the end Deputy Peadar Cowan make the comment that he thought that even people who regarded the present situation of financing as bad were wrong to launch any attacks on the banks as institutions. I want to underline that. I think it is wrong. I personally think nobody could be satisfied with the situation that exists at the moment. At the same time, we must see that we get the arguments properly made before the people as it is only when we have educated public opinion and they have a proper appreciation of what we do, that we can get public support. It is not the banks that give the support, it is the people whose money is in the banks, and so it is the people we have to get on our side.

I was amazed last night when Deputy Vivion de Valera thought fit to criticise a speech I made in the Seanad on the 26th October, 1949. Nearly the whole issue of the Seanad Debates for that date was given up to a motion on the monetary policy of the State. My own remarks, which were not very lengthy, are given at column 129. Deputy Vivion de Valera thought it was proper to pass on as my attitude towards banks the type of comment I had passed on the Dublin Corporation. I asked him to read what I had said and to point out to what he took objection.

He read what I had said, but I never heard the objection. I have a feeling that he was confused and that he had never read that speech before, but had merely read a comment upon it, a comment which is to be found in the columns of the Irish Times, proceeding from a correspondent who is certainly very fast qualifying for a high place in the Irish Press. There is a talent there for misrepresentation that I thought I would never find in any paper other than the Irish Press. I had commented upon a remark that had been made outside. The comment was, “The view has been expressed recently that the Corporation of Dublin could stand as the most credit-worthy corporation in the world.” My remark on that was, “Without at all wanting to depreciate the standing of the corporation, I doubt if that phrase is a good one. I doubt if they are that.” Is there anybody who does not understand what I meant by that—that it was hyperbole to say the Dublin Corporation was the most credit-worthy corporation in the world. But, the political correspondent of a newspaper said that I had said that the Dublin Corporation was hardly credit-worthy. I again ask Deputies opposite to agree with me that that type of misrepresentation is only usually to be found in the Irish Press.

Mr. Lemass

We have heard some of it here in the last few minutes.

Mr. McGilligan

What was read, yes.

Mr. Lemass

From the Minister.

Mr. McGilligan

I thought the Deputy was referring to what Deputy McQuillan read, which was entirely from Deputy Lemass in the Irish Press. However, there is the comment that I made. What is wrong with it? Why was that singled out for some sort of criticism here last night? I merely want to use that, by the way, to ask people—I am not being very bumptious in this—to read that debate. There is a good deal of comment in that debate —quiet comment—about the banks, by people who objected to the banks. I think there are many people in that Assembly who have as vehement objection to the banks as Deputy Hickey expressed here to-night. They did not express themselves that way, though. They got their views across. Will anybody disagree, or will they disagree violently, with what I said towards the end? I did say that there had been two sets of inquiries into the banking system in this country. I referred to the Banking Commission that had been presided over by Mr. Parker Willis and established when Mr. Cosgrave was Leader of the Executive Council and, acting on the report of that commission, there was the Currency Act, 1927, passed.

That Currency Act and all that it meant was vehemently assailed by people, two of whom afterwards became Ministers for Finance. We were told we had tied ourselves to sterling, that it was a millstone around the necks of the people and so on, and so forth. Then the people who talked that way came into power and Deputy de Valera, as Taoiseach, set up a new commission and that commission reported. Two sets of Governments, two sets of inquirers and, in the end, you have the 1927 legislation and later the Central Bank legislation. I was in favour of the 1927 legislation. I may remark I knew very little about it. It was not my job at the time. I was against the Central Bank legislation because I thought it was, as Deputy Hickey said to-night, establishing an institution without very much power.

I did not think there was much good in doing that.

In any event, the banks were inquired into in the most objective way by two groups of people established by two different governmental groups. The legislation was brought into a Dáil Éireann which had changed its Party complexion, and the two pieces of legislation were passed which established the banking situation as we have it.

Many years have gone since the second Banking Commission reported. Even at the time when the second Banking Commission reported, there was a good deal of hostility to the report. The legislation was put through here by the Party majority.

I think there are certain things that it would be meet and proper to inquire into with regard to the banks. I met them recently over the matter of the loan for the Dublin Corporation. I have spoken of that in this debate and what I said is to be found at column 132. I there said it was wrong to blame the banks because they did not take the popular view of housing. I said, as Deputy Cowan said here to-night, that they were institutions with a particular purpose and objective. You could not ask them to have a particular outlook. That is not their business. I was speaking, so to speak, for the banks on that occasion. I had not entered into the negotiations that I did, in a very close and intimate way, take up later, and I was expressing what I thought to be the banking attitude. I do not think I would say as much in the banks' favour if I had to make that speech again, since my experience of them at the end of November. Still, I do not go to any point of attacking them. They have money entrusted to them. They think they have a certain job to do. They get that money under peculiarly difficult circumstances, due to the old-time habits of the investing part of the people here. I have heard the comment made—without saying where it came from, I put it forward as an explanation of the difficulty—that people here who own moneys, people who in the end become the possessors of savings, have not, in this country, acquired the direct habit of investment, particularly of long-term investment, that better educated people financially have in other countries. They have not got the habit. They have not the experience. The whole history of this country is against that type of thing.

The banks get money from people who will not themselves invest directly either in long or intermediate term investments, and the banks, taking the money believe they may be called upon suddenly to repay all the money they have in their possession, that is just put in on deposit receipt. For that reason, they say, they must invest in such a way that allows them, at a moment's notice, to realise whatever the investment is, and be able to pay it back. They can give good reasons for that viewpoint of theirs.

Of course, two things have to be done with regard to that. The first thing is, we must try to educate the people that it will be for their own betterment to get more money by getting a bigger interest rate if they invest over a long period. That might be a long process, and in between we have to look at the situation. That situation as we know it is this, that, no matter what the theory may be about customers running into banks, crowding in and demanding back their deposits, we know that does not happen. We know there is what Professor O'Rahilly has called a statistical regularity with regard to the movements of people who put money into banks, and at what point they want to draw them out. While some degree of liquidity is essential, our banks have been driven by history and the habits of the people to adopt an amazing preference for liquidity that you do not find anywhere else in the world.

That, added to one other thing, puts the banks in the position we find them. That other thing is that there is no immediate market here. There is no market for, say, Government shares or for the stock of local authorities. There is in nearly every other country. There should be such here. In any event, these stocks should be freely marketable and the banks themselves should assist in that process.

I believe that if the banks were relieved of their fear arising from what they think is their obligation to their customers, we would have the banks as willing agents to get this country into a proper lending system. You will not get the banks to come along that road by attacking them. You will not get any good out of a lot of the speeches that have been made here in the last two or three days. We must let the banks see that we do appreciate the stability that they have brought to the country. I think it has been overdone but still it is stability in that type of institution. We have got to let them see there is another viewpoint and, if necessary, the State may have to step in in some sort of intermediary way so that the customer can always have his liquidity preference fully explored and exploited and the banks can have the security of a Government backing in case the banks have to do something that the banks think their relations with their customers do not allow them to do.

I think these matters will have to be explored with the banks. At the moment, certainly, it appals me, when I think of the approaches I may have to make to the public quite soon and the approaches I would like to make to the public quite soon, to find the number of people who, while hitting as they attempt to hit at the banks, are in the end annoying the investing public. I would like the House to leave out of their calculations hereafter what used to loom so much in these discussions in Parliament long ago, the old bogey of international Jewish finance. I doubt if it is here.

There is also the bogey of the un-national person who is trying to put a brake on national development. I doubt very much whether any person is deliberately trying to close down on national development. There has also been a lot of talk about the banks being dictators. They are not. They are trying to do a particular task as they understand it. That runs counter to the views most Deputies would have, I think, but that they are dictating or attempting to dictate I deny. The dictators are the people, and if the people cannot be got to give their money to the banks to invest in a short term way or a long term way what are we to do? I hate to think of the future if these circumstances develop, but at the same time it is not one in which we would be without resources. It is the investment side of the banks which is important. Questions about links with sterling could be left over to a later date, but the investment system is one which we shall have to tackle.

In that connection Deputies on the other side of the House have anguished themselves with talk about the public embarrassment which there is over the fact that the Minister for External Affairs does not talk the same financial language as myself. I have yet to meet anybody outside the ranks of the professional politicians who is worried about that. Nobody is worried. Have we got to the stage in this country when, on a matter which may be an important point of policy when it is decided, we cannot have freedom of speech? Have we got to the stage when men, just because they join the Government circle, must all, as one Deputy said, when they go out of the council chambers speak the same language? If anybody thought that that was our policy I could imagine public confusion and embarrassment. I have my own difficulties regarding the intimate association which is forced upon me with financial houses, but I do not find myself embarrassed to the point of confusion by anything which has been said either here or outside during the past six months. It is good for people who run financial instituttions to know that there are other viewpoints than those which I express and even I am not expressing myself with the fullest of freedom when I approach them. One gets into intimate association with such institutions and there has to be a certain approach. I do not find myself weakened entirely but rather I find myself strengthened by some of the things——

Mr. Lemass

Which of you is speaking for the Government?

Mr. McGilligan

That is not for me to say, but I think I would be accepted.

Mr. Lemass

But the Minister for External Affairs speaks.

Mr. McGilligan

I expressed a point of view which is known to the Government and appreciated by the Government and by a number of people outside the Government and in association with them.

On the serious side of the debate there is very little else I have to say, but a certain amount of politics was dragged into this. Deputy Aiken, for instance, was very alarmed about inflation. Deputy Lemass is not so much alarmed. I suppose that that is because Deputy Lemass was convinced a year ago that deflation was on the way. I do not think that Deputy Aiken ever agreed with that and they both made speeches publicly—I do not say that there was public confusion as a result because I do not think anybody bothered about what they said. Deputy Lemass, with that sort of guttural emphasis which he employs when people who know him know that he is only chancing his arm, said that from all the signs we were passing out of period of inflation and passing into a period of deflation. I do not think I am misquoting the Deputy. Deputy Aiken was as strong in reading the signs as in his fears that inflation was not passed.

Mr. Aiken

I only asked. The Minister is quoting me as saying that it was so.

Mr. McGilligan

But then there was the Deputy's atrabilious earnestness about the way he asked the question.

Mr. Aiken

The Minister is doing "slip Johnny" on that.

Mr. McGilligan

If I am asked I will say, the signs having been read for me, that there is inflation still around and it is a matter to be carefully guarded against. It has been there at least since February, 1948, but I do not think that there have been any signs of inflation breaking out in prices, which, of course, is where inflation is to be apprehended. Capital development having gone on while inflationary prices were around, we will still continue while trying to read the signs correctly as they appear and we will attempt to close off and relax pressure if it should appear to be dangerous.

Right through the debate, of course, Fianna Fáil had to enjoy impaling itself on the question of whether or not taxation has been reduced. I am told here that it has not. I asked Deputy Lynch, I think it was, did he agree—because if he did not I could send for the Order —that certain beer and tobacco duties had been taken off early in 1948. They were, of course. I asked was it accepted that that cost the revenue and benefited the taxpayer to the extent of £6,000,000 a year. I gather that that is accepted. If there is any objection or if proof is required I can send for the Finance Act to show that 6d. came off the income-tax last year and that other reliefs were given which amounted to £7,200,000 in the full year. I do not think that anybody denies that the tax did come off and that the effect is a relief of £7,200,000. In addition, there will not be any denials that the old-age pensioners' and widows' and orphans' funds have gone up by about £2,500,000. The cost of the Civil service has gone up by £750,000 and the cost of a number of civil pensioners, teachers, Guards, etc., with certain increases in Army pay and Garda pay, add up to an additional burden of another £750,000 to the State. Facing it it must be admitted that at least £7,250,000 relief has been given and if I had not, under the sway of my colleagues and on my own initiative, decided to give these extra benefits to teachers and Guards, Army and Civil Service, as well as the increase in the tea ration which cost something like £460,000, we would have another £4,000,000 to use for the reduction of taxation. That is £11,000,000 of economies that were achieved. People tell me that there has not been any reduction in taxation and yet admit that those things have happened. It is something which is nearly a modern miracle.

Mr. Lemass

How much did the Minister get in? Did it go up or down?

Mr. McGilligan

A tremendous sum of money. May I make the Deputy a present of that? Having taken 6d. off the income-tax I took in as much money as if I had not. But the 6d does mean something. It is a reduction in taxation. There is more income around as a result of that reduction and I am getting some of the fruits of that income. That is one of the advantages of working on a developing system instead of working merely on a restrictive system.

Mr. Lemass

There is more petrol around.

Mr. McGilligan

The Opposition Deputies have been only two years in opposition. About the tenth year in opposition they will have learned by experience.

Mr. Lemass

You should know.

Mr. McGilligan

I am speaking from experience. It is evident that the Deputies in opposition now have not learned from our experience. About ten years hence you will realise that you need no longer go around telling that cock and bull story to the people. The people know whether taxation did or did not come off. The people know whether or not they are enjoying more prosperity. The people know whether or not they are living in a more prosperous time. The people know whether or not production has increased. The people will always give credit to the Government for the good times just as they give all the discredit to the Government for the bad times.

Mr. de Valera

You had a good harvest.

Mr. McGilligan

The other political arguments advanced were advanced in the main by Deputy de Valera, the ex-Taoiseach. I must say he was rather pathetic the other day when he was talking about all the White Papers he had in relation to his policy.

Mr. Davin

Some were blue.

Mr. McGilligan

The one that really ought to be published, so that the people will at least know what is inside it, is the one about tuberculosis. The ex-Taoiseach was able to distinguish it by the fact that it had a beautiful cover on it. According to the ex-Taoiseach all these White Papers contained the foundations of our policy. And then he wondered why it was they got beaten. I do not suppose for a moment the ex-Taoiseach will accept me as a guide on that matter.

Now, he went to election under the most shocking conditions for himself. In October, 1947, he went to the country and made a speech which led the Irish Times to produce a heading, a heading which was not a misrepresentation on that occasion: “The Taoiseach Tells Why Wages are to be Pegged.” That was part of the policy. The people read that. A little later they saw this pamphlet from the industrialists, in whose favour the excess corporation profits tax had been remitted. It may have been a hasty conclusion, but they did jump to the conclusion that the last Government had gone over to the “money-bags” and had gone away from the people.

In 1947 also Deputy de Valera, speaking as Taoiseach, dealt with the problem of emigration. He said it was a most important question but that, when they had done the best they could do, the drift from the land to the town or abroad would continue. He added that there was no other way for it; there had been that steady trend since the famine and it was perhaps a tendency that could not be stopped. In the same speech, he said that agriculture was our great industry. This was after 16 years in office. He came to that conclusion at the end of 16 years in office. He said it was a problem and the consistent decline in the numbers engaged in the basic industry related to the question whether there was any solution to it or whether it was a natural decline. He said that if anybody—I remember the pathetic appeal —could advance a plan for agriculture, they would be glad to consider it. The ex-Taoiseach then went to the people telling them that wages were to be pegged, telling them that he did not see how he could stop emigration and that agriculture was declining. He added that nothing could be done about it and, rather pathetically, remarked that if anybody would give him a plan, he would accept it.

Mr. Lemass

And that is not misrepresentation.

Mr. McGilligan

That is a quotation from a speech. He said he would be glad to consider it. Does not that present all the appearance of a person who finds himself at the end of his tether, and certainly at the end of his programme.

The other night Deputy de Valera said that this scheme with relation to capital development ought to be strongly and vigorously examined in this House; but he said it was not for him to do that because he was not, so to speak, in favour—I do not know whether it was of progressive development by capital expenditure or deficit financing, since he mixed both up. But, anyway, he said he could not do it. He was skipping 16 years. He had a programme. He said at one time that the cost of government in this country had doubled by 1931. He said that the British Government, which was a spendthrift Government, according to him, had been able to govern the entire country on £14,500,000 a year. He said the Cumann na nGaedheal Government had put the bill up to £25,000,000. Apparently, the Deputy wanted to reduce it again to the late spendthrift Government's standard. He came into office in 1932 and, year by year, the cost mounted steadily. He complains bitterly now because we want to put £12,000,000 into capital works. Every one of these works has been scrutinised. I do not know that any of them have been dislodged from their position in that Book. Deputy de Valera wanted to float a loan for £11,500,000, but at the last moment he funked doing it, for the large-scale destruction of the City of Dublin and the erection on the ruins of a new Parliament House and new offices for the Civil Service.

Mr. Lemass

That is not true.

Mr. Donnellan

It is true.

Mr. Lemass

The fact that you say it is true does not make it true.

Mr. Donnellan

I contradicted you.

Mr. McGilligan

Would the Deputy challenge me to produce the White Paper, the information I have here?

Mr. Lemass

No.

Mr. McGilligan

Because I will produce it. The Minister for Finance in those days—I think it was in the year 1935—put the matter clearly before the Government. At that stage it was only a £3,000,000 scheme:—

"Apart altogether from the question of the immense cost involved, of which the minimum has been shown in paragraph (6), various considerations of great political, social and municipal importance arise in any approach to the conception of parliamentary and Government buildings in any one area of the City of Dublin. Before any such scheme becomes acceptable to the general public which will have to pay for it, and to put up over a number of years with the disturbance which it would necessarily involve, the Government would have to win the support of the Dublin Corporation, which would be vitally affected, and to gain the approval of the growing body of town-planning opinion and of the professional associations interested in such a project."

The document goes on to say:—

"One effect of putting the scheme into operation would be to postpone inevitably the solution of the problem of the housing of the working classes."

Mr. Donnellan

That was the whole idea.

Mr. McGilligan

That undoubtedly was then regarded as the erection of palatial buildings to house civil servants and members of the Government.

Mr. Lemass

And the scheme was rejected.

Mr. McGilligan

And the scheme was rejected as a £3,000,000 scheme. It boiled up again in the year 1944. It lay for nine years and then it came forward again. It went to a committee and a draft Bill was prepared and draft resolutions for this House. The scheme had then got to the point:—

"This figure of cost must be purely conjectural, but the following should be taken as an indication of the size of the project: acquisition and compensation for residents, £2,500,000; demolition and site clearance, £500,000; building costs, £7,500,000; furniture and equipment, £1,000,000."

The complete tot would have been £11,500,000. Deputy Lemass says that that was objected to. Why was it objected to?

Mr. Lemass

Because the Leader of the Minister's present Party found we could not get an inter-Party consultation.

Mr. McGilligan

He said he would not touch it.

Mr. Lemass

That applied only to one Party.

Mr. McGilligan

It was objected to by Deputy de Valera not on the grounds of what it would cost or that it might be a wrong thing to ask people to subscribe to it by way of loan. He did not ask whether that housing drive was going to be productive or not. What was his objection? It was that too many places would have to be excepted from the Merrion Square scheme. It was too much to ask the public to pull down Holles Street Hospital, the Marie Reparatrix Convent and a few other places like that. It was felt that the public would not stand for it.

Mr. Lemass

The Merrion Square scheme was a Cumann na nGaedheal scheme.

Mr. McGilligan

No. That scheme took place between the years 1936 and 1944.

Mr. Lemass

The decision was taken before that.

Mr. McGilligan

There is no decision in that book taken by the Cumann na nGaedheal Government about that. Deputy de Valera did not like the thought of wiping out Holles Street Hospital, a couple of churches, the Marie Reparatrix Convent and so on. He then directed the Board of Works architects to a scheme in the park under which a good many of the houses flanking the river from Kingsbridge would be wiped out. The park was to be built up and the places where these buildings were to be demolished would be given in substitution for the provision of the amenities for these palatial buildings to house the Oireachtas and other offices. Peculiarly enough, that happened to be an £11,500,000 scheme. Those people who are now sitting on the Opposition side of the House and who are so critical of this £12,500,000 scheme for productive work did not then bother, in connection with the £11,500,000 scheme, on the grounds of cost. They bothered when they said the resolutions were prepared and the draft Bill was in order, but when the Deputies would not agree to it. It was postponed and then it was resurrected. Deputy de Valera cannot think that that was what lost him the votes of the people—because they knew nothing about that.

Mr. de Valera

They would know more about it if it was spoken about properly.

Mr. McGilligan

Does Deputy de Valera assert that I am misrepresenting the position?

Mr. de Valera

I do say so.

Mr. McGilligan

I am not. I know that Deputy Aiken said that it was a step against unemployment.

Mr. de Valera

We will have it in full now.

Mr. McGilligan

Would the Deputy like a White Paper about it?

Mr. Lemass

Will the Minister say why the Merrion Square scheme was turned down and abandoned? Was it not because the Catholic Church had bought Merrion Square to build a cathedral there?

Mr. McGilligan

If the Deputy wishes, I shall read the relevant part— though I would prefer that the Archbishop of Dublin were not brought into this discussion. The centre of the Park was to be let for that——

Mr. de Valera

We are quite prepared to meet the Minister and to have this matter debated properly.

Mr. Aiken

And this is only to cover up the present position in regard to taxation.

Mr. McGilligan

That was an £11,500,000 scheme.

Mr. de Valera

As far as I am concerned, I am prepared to defend our position anywhere.

Mr. McGilligan

People were going to be asked to lend money for that project. We are putting up a demand for £12,500,000 for productive works— as opposed to that megalomania business. Let the Deputy add to that Store Street; the Commodore Hotel, Cobh; the Glengariff Hotel; the Transatlantic Airlines; Industrial Alcohol, and all the rest of it.

Mr. de Valera

And the tourists' bills, I suppose, too.

Mr. McGilligan

We have done away with all that. We have made certain savings. We are trying to ease the burden on the taxpayer and, at the same time, we are offering this country a certain line of advance in respect of development.

Deputies

Hear, hear.

Mr. S. Brady

Now we know the "Yes" men.

Question put.

The Committee divided: Tá, 71; Níl, 60.

Tá

• Beirne, John.
• Belton, John.
• Blowick, Joseph.
• Brennan, Joseph P.
• Browne, Noel C.
• Browne, Patrick.
• Byrne, Alfred.
• Byrne, Alfred Patrick.
• Coburn, James.
• Cogan, Patrick.
• Collins, Seán.
• Commons, Bernard.
• 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.
• Flanagan, Oliver J.
• Flynn, John.
• Giles, Patrick.
• Halliden, Patrick J.
• Hickey, James.
• Hughes, Joseph.
• Keyes, Michael.
• Kinane, Patrick.
• Kyne, Thomas A.
• Larkin, James.
• Lehane, Con.
• Lehane, Patrick D.
• McAuliffe, Patrick.
• MacEoin, Seán.
• McFadden, Michael Og.
• McGilligan, Patrick.
• McMenamin, Daniel.
• McQuillan, John.
• Madden, David J.
• Mongan, Joseph W.
• Morrissey, Daniel.
• Mulcahy, Richard.
• Murphy, William J.
• O'Donnell, Patrick.
• O'Gorman, Patrick J.
• O'Higgins, Michael J.
• O'Higgins, Thomas F.
• O'Higgins, Thomas F. (Jun.).
• O'Leary, John.
• Palmer, Patrick W.
• Pattison, James P.
• Redmond, Bridget M.
• Reidy, James.
• Reynolds, Mary.
• Rooney, Eamonn.
• Sheehan, Michael.
• Sheldon, William A.W.
• Spring, Daniel.
• Sweetman, Gerard.
• Timoney, John J.
• Tully, John.

Níl

• Aiken, Frank.
• Allen, Denis.
• Bartley, Gerald.
• Beegan, Patrick.
• Blaney, Neal T.
• Boland, Gerald.
• Bourke, Dan.
• Brady, Seán.
• Breathnach, Cormac.
• Breen, Daniel.
• Brennan, Thomas.
• Breslin, Cormac.
• Briscoe, Robert.
• Buckley, 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.
• Gilbride, Eugene.
• Harris, Thomas.
• Hilliard, Michael.
• Kennedy, Michael J.
• Killilea, Mark.
• Kilroy, James.
• Kissane, Eamon.
• Kitt, Michael F.
• Lahiffe, Robert.
• Lemass, Seán F.
• Little, Patrick J.
• Lydon, Michael F.
• Lynch, John.
• McCann, John.
• MacEntee, Seán.
• McGrath, Patrick.
• Maguire, Patrick J.
• Moylan, Seán.
• Ó Briain, Donnchadh.
• O'Grady, Seán.
• O'Reilly, Matthew.
• Ormonde, John.
• O'Rourke, Daniel.
• O'Sullivan, Ted.
• Rice, Bridget M.
• Ruttledge, Patrick J.
• Ryan, James.
• Ryan, Robert.
• Sheridan, Michael.
• Smith, Patrick.
• Traynor, Oscar.
• Walsh, Richard.
• Walsh, Thomas.

Tellers:—Tá: Deputies P.S. Doyle and Kyne; Níl: Deputies Kissane and Kennedy.

Question declared carried.

Resolution reported and agreed to.