Dáil Éireann debate -
Thursday, 4 May 1950

Vol. 120 No. 12

Committee on Finance. - Resolution No. 5—General (Resumed).

Mr. Briscoe

When progress was reported I was referring to the increased expenditure of the Government and certain of its Departments on the one hand and to the increased cost of living on the other. I do not know whether the members of the House supporting the Government really appreciate that there has been, in fact, a very substantial increase in the cost of some very essential commodities.

On the 1st April, 1950, the International Labour Office Review reported that in the Twenty-Six Counties—that is the Republic of Ireland—the cost of living had gone up by 2 per cent. over the previous November. Trade unions have been complaining at their meetings that the cost of living has gone up, is going up, and that the only solution for them is to advance further arguments to sustain their claims for further wage increases. On 23rd March, 1950, the Irish Independent reported a meeting where a Mr. Seán O'Moore said he could not see how trade unions were going to keep their members from applying for an increase of wages unless the Government got down the cost of living. On 25th February, 1950, the public was informed that unrationed tea, which had previously been sold at 5/6 had gone up to 6/- a lb.

To show the confusion that exists, both inside and outside the House, the Irish Times on the 7th February, 1950, published a statement by the Minister for Posts and Telegraphs who, in addressing the Tinahely branch of the Irish Transport and General Workers' Union, stated:

"The union's aim was to seek to raise the national level of wages by trying to have the cost of living reduced. He was pleased to say that since this Government was elected there had been no increase in the cost of living, the upward trend of the index had been halted and everything possible was being done to reduce it."

In spite of the fact that we have had increased prices advertised of a number of commodities, that we have certain trade union representatives admitting that the cost of living has gone up and demanding increased wages to meet the situation, a Minister, addressing a branch of a workers' organisation, said that it has gone down, that they were going to keep it down and going to improve the workers' standard of living by keeping the cost of living down. I have here a report from a trade journal of the 3rd February stating: "Bacon, eggs, milk and mutton all cost more." Milk in that particular period had risen by 16.2 per cent. over the previous price. The Irish Press on 2nd February, 1950, stated:—

"Another serious impost on the smaller wage and salary earners is to come about in the next few days following an increase in leather prices from a penny to fourpence a pound, according to quality, which came officially into operation yesterday. The new leather prices will mean that footwear of average quality will cost from 2/- to 2/6 a pair more, with a bigger increase on the dearer types."

Mr. Davin

Is that from a leading article?

Mr. Briscoe

No. Deputy Davin should know that we are not all as foolish as he is and that one does not quote as a news item something which appears in a leading article. If the Deputy does not know it, it was the Minister for Agriculture who permitted the canned meat factories to charge the tanneries more for hides in order to compensate them for the low price they were getting for canned meat abroad and as a result the price of leather went up.

Mr. Davin

These are not official statements.

Mr. Briscoe

Does the Deputy deny that leather went up in price? "Coffee has now reached a new high level of 4/6 a lb." I suppose an Irish Independent news item can be taken as something which would be regarded as honest.

Mr. Davin

It is not official anyway.

Mr. Briscoe

"A rise of approximately 10 per cent. in the price of cement is announced by Cement Limited. The new price is to take effect from to-day"—that is the 23rd January, 1950. Cement has gone up by 10 per cent. in order that we can build houses cheaper for people to live in. Of course Deputy Davin will not be affected by this, as he is just a plain man like myself. This is from the Irish Independent of 14th January, 1950:—

"It was announced yesterday that as a result of an increase in the cost of imported materials the Minister for Industry and Commerce has made an Order with effect as from Monday next fixing revised maximum prices for tyres and tubes. The increase is equivalent to 10 per cent. in the case of motor and bicycle tyres, 7½ per cent. in the case of heavy vehicle tubes and bicycle tubes, and 5 per cent. in the case of motor car tubes."

We all know that on 24th November, 1949, the price of petrol went up by 2d. per gallon. To a great extent, that was due, I suppose, to devaluation. Nevertheless, we have various members of the Parties forming the Government continuing to tell the people that the cost of living has been reduced. Do you think that people are so stupid that when a woman goes into a shop and finds that the price of flake oatmeal has gone up by 2/8 a cwt. she believes what she has been told by a member of the inter-Party Government when she knows that she is paying more and she is told that she is paying less?

I could go on giving a lot of other items, but I want to give another one, from the Irish Press of 3rd October:—

"Beet growers have been notified by the Irish Sugar Company that the compound beet fertiliser, which has been selling at £22 a ton, will cost £24 a ton as from Saturday last."

Then there is a note added:—

"Speaking at Portumna Show on September 20th (less than a fortnight ago) Mr. Dillon, Minister for Agriculture, said: ‘Some people have expressed apprehension that the price of artificial fertilisers will go up. I am your Minister for fertilisers, and I want to tell you that the price of fertilisers will not be increased in Ireland by one penny piece in foreseeable time and that supplies will be equal to any demand you make upon them.'"

That is typical of the assessment of the intelligence of the public by Government spokesmen.

Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Finance (Mr. Donnellan)

Of course you know the background to that increase in price?

Mr. Briscoe

I do. As long as the Parliamentary Secretary will agree that there have been numerous and serious increases in prices, we will get somewhere.

Mr. Donnellan

You know the reason for that?

Mr. Briscoe

There have been and are increases. I am referring to people who are reported as saying that there have been none.

Mr. Donnellan

There was none in that case.

Mr. Briscoe

If the price goes up from £22 to £24 and the Parliamentary Secretary says there was no increase, I am afraid I am unable to understand him.

Mr. Donnellan

It was brought down to that price so that the people would take it in order to relieve storage.

Mr. Briscoe

Perhaps the Deputy could tell me whether the price of bacon has gone up or not?

Mr. Donnellan

We have the bacon, which we had not before.

Mr. Briscoe

Every single item that I know of has gone up. The price of potatoes in Dublin to-day is higher than it was a few weeks ago. Deputy Byrne must know that, because he has always been interested in this particular subject. He will have to admit that potatoes at this time of the year were never as high in price as they are to-day. We are interested in the City of Dublin and in the cost of living as it affects our people round and about us and for whom we are responsible.

Mr. Donnellan

Do you remember the time you had not them at all?

Mr. Briscoe

I agree.

Mr. Aiken

Was that 100 years ago?

Mr. Donnellan

It was during the reign of Fianna Fáil.

Mr. Briscoe

We shall see whether Deputy Donnellan will talk with a smile on his face in a couple of weeks from now. To-day people are getting a quarter-stone of potatoes, and no more, and the price has risen from 2/6 a stone a few weeks ago to 3/6 to-day. The consumers are informed by the shopkeepers that the position will be much worse.

I want to come back to the talk we had about the pre-election period and about the period immediately after the first Budget. I want to refer to the alleged wasteful extravagance of Fianna Fáil. We have been told that a lot of the expenditure is for "capital purposes", "reproductive purposes" and for the "improvement of people". There is, first, one Estimate to which I should like to refer. For the Department of External Affairs in 1947-8, the Minister and staff cost £31,000—for 1950-51 the figure is £60,000. It is true that a certain amount of that is due to devaluation. Travelling expenses have gone up from £750 for the year 1947-8 to £4,750 for the year 1950-51. Incidental expenses—I do not know what incidentals are—were £500 in the year 1947-8 and have now risen to £2,900. Telegrams and telephones have increased from £2,000 to £5,600. Entertainment has increased from £2,000 to £6,500. Iveagh House office and restaurant—this is something that Deputy Donnellan can give us some information about—cost nothing in 1947-8 but its cost is £27,000 in the Estimate for 1950-51. That represents the position now despite the fact that we were going to introduce all kinds of economies and despite the fact that the Deputies opposite criticised their predecessors in office under the headings of squandermania, of leading the life of Riley in luxury camps, of running around in big motor cars which, of course, I believe have since been abandoned—I believe the Ministers and Parliamentary Secretaries now walk or take the bus. I would not suggest that they could be accused of using a State motor car after all they had to say about the use of State cars by their predecessors——

Mr. Donnellan

Do not be jealous.

Mr. Briscoe

I would be amazed to see Deputy Donnellan in a State car after all he had to say——

Mr. Donnellan

I never said a word.

Mr. Briscoe

——at every street corner and at every meeting. He had plenty to say then in criticism of the use of State cars.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

Come back to the Budget.

Mr. Briscoe

I submit, Sir, that the Budget covers expenditure for State cars. A great deal of criticism was expressed because of the use by Fianna Fáil Ministers of State cars.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

On the Estimate that would be quite all right.

Mr. Donnellan

As a Parliamentary Secretary, I pay for the use of my car when I am not entitled to use it—and that is something that the Fianna Fáil Parliamentary Secretaries did not do.

Mr. Briscoe

Now we are getting at it. When I was speaking before, Deputy McQuillan, I think, doubted what I said. I have searched for the statement which proves that Clann na Poblachta were committed, if any particular Party ever believed in its policy and ever intended to carry out their promises, to the policy which they put forward at election time. One of their promises was a reduction of at least 30 per cent. in the cost of living. I have here an extract from the Leinster Leader of the 6th September, 1947. The present Minister for External Affairs, speaking at Carlow is reported in that paper to have said:—

"Clan na Poblachta calls on the Government to put into immediate operation the following temporary remedies:—

(1) Provide subsidies on all food produced on a sufficient scale to enable the producer to provide for himself, and the agricultural worker whom he employs an adequate family wage, having regard to the present cost of living and modern requirements."

I shall not attempt to go into details on that first provision. The second provision reads as follows:—

"(2) The subsidies provided should be sufficient to bring about a reduction of at least 30 per cent. on the existing cost of all food produced and consumed here and should be accompanied by a strict control of prices."

Food produced and consumed here has not gone down in cost by 30 per cent. It has gone up. Milk has gone up. There has been a promise—I shall not say a threat—that butter is likely to go up by 2d. per lb. if the producers can be made to accept 1/- a gallon for five years' arrangement. Oatmeal has gone up. Everything that I can possibly think has gone up in price —and I have already mentioned potatoes. The third provision states:—

"(3) Supply all agricultural producers with fertilisers free of charge to increase the production of the land."

When I was talking earlier this evening I questioned the Land Reclamation Scheme and what it was promised would be achieved by it. I feel that the Clann na Poblachta people might do much more good for the country in respect of increasing production by asking the Minister or the Government to use some of the Marshall Aid money to bring in fertilisers to be given to our farmers even at reduced prices or at a subsided price or free of charge.

Mr. McQuillan

Why is your Party trying to sabotage the land reclamation scheme?

Mr. Briscoe

I think I am entitled to criticise what the Government does. It does not necessarily follow that because I disagree with something that I sabotage it. This House is where we voice our opinions. If we disagree with something which is suggested by the Government and criticise it—for instance, with an announcement in regard to policy—is that criticism to be taken as sabotage?

Mr. Aiken

To remind Clann na Poblachta of its promises is, apparently, sabotage.

Mr. Briscoe

The fourth point in the statement is this:—

"Cease wasting shipping space and credits on imported luxury articles such as motor cars, wines, brandy, canned fruits, etc. Utilise that shipping space and those credits to obtain fertilisers and agricultural machinery."

I wonder could the Parliamentary Secretary tell us what is this Iveagh House Restaurant, costing up to £27,000?

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

The Deputy can raise that matter on the Estimate; he should now deal purely with policy.

Mr. McQuillan

Let him get back to fertilisers.

Mr. Briscoe

Then we come to the point about stopping the destruction of our railway system. I will not go any further into that now.

Mr. Davin

Develop that.

Mr. Briscoe

That is all he says.

Mr. Davin

Give us your own point of view.

Mr. Briscoe

I will give my point of view on the Industry and Commerce Estimate. I would not be permitted to discuss railways now.

Mr. Davin

Of course you will; do not dodge the issue.

Mr. Briscoe

I will not dodge it; I will deal with it on the Vote and others, perhaps more competent than I, will also deal with it. All I will say is this, that this Budget is a clear confession, if confession can be applied in this situation, that the promises every one of the Parties who make up the inter-Party group made to the public can never be carried out.

Mr. McQuillan

It is a queer pain in the head for Fianna Fáil.

Mr. Briscoe

It will be a queer pain in the pocket for the public ultimately. I say it is a complete confession of failure to implement any of the promises made. It is a confession of failure on the part of the Minister for Finance to bring about all the reductions, the savings, the economies embraced in his expression that he would bring down the cost of Government by £10,000,000.

Mr. McQuillan

There is at least £11,000,000 saved on the new Dáil, the new building your Party were going to put up.

Mr. Briscoe

I do not know whether the new Dáil was going to cost £11,000,000.

Mr. McGilligan

That was the estimate for part of it.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

There is no proposal before the House now for a new Dáil.

Mr. Donnellan

And that is a good job.

Mr. Briscoe

Any project undertaken by a Government which would have a 70 or 80 labour content in its cost as a means of relieving unemployment, and where the structure which would be erected could be put to use, would not be, in my opinion, unwise spending.

Mr. McGilligan

That is a good test.

Mr. Briscoe

It is as good a test as, say, this land reclamation scheme.

Mr. Davin

Or Store Street.

Mr. Briscoe

Store Street? It is good. I feel that where the labour content is high, any project is desirable. We used to give grants to local authorities to relieve unemployment. It was an expenditure of State money and practically 90 per cent. of it was used in the payment of labour. Deputy Byrne knows we used it in Dublin for the cleaning of laneways or repairing roads, doing work which we could not normally do out of ordinary income or out of borrowed money. So long as it served a useful purpose, and provided there was a maximum labour content, it was never regarded by us as waste.

In somewhat the same sense the Minister is making his new approach. He says that the building of a hospital is a capital expenditure. It is true it has no reproductive value in the shape of a money return and, possibly, it will become a liability on the community for at least portion of its upkeep. The Minister says it is a capital investment because it is for the purpose of improving human beings and, from the national point of view, that is just as good a capital investment as anything else. Consequently, I say that any project about which Deputy Davin might make an inquiry will have the same value so long as it keeps people employed, so long, as you do not build something just for the purpose of blowing it up.

Mr. Davin

Do you compare the land reclamation scheme with Store Street?

Mr. Briscoe

I am not referring to Store Street. I would not be allowed to refer to that building. I am merely conjuring up a building that might cost £11,000,000.

Mr. McGilligan

There is no imagination about that.

Mr. Briscoe

If the Minister is permitted to refer to it and I am not——

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

The Minister is not making any detailed reference to it. I have asked Deputy Briscoe to pass from that and to deal with the policy of taxation.

Mr. Briscoe

It is quite obvious that there has been a complete somersault. I do not know whether the Minister was standing on his head in 1948 or whether he is standing on it now, but at one time he was in quite a different position from that which he now occupies. In his speech on the Vote on Account in 1948, and generally in connection with all the Estimates, the defence was put up that the then Estimates and other financial proposals were not framed by the Coalition Government. We were told: "Next year, please goodness, you will see such a whittling down in every Department that the total reduction in Government expenditure will be £10,000,000." I got that far when this uninvited interruption came along about a building I am not permitted to discuss.

Mr. McGilligan

You are afraid to discuss it.

Mr. Briscoe

I would if I were let.

Mr. McGilligan

I wish you would be let.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

The Deputy can discuss only what is before the House.

Mr. Briscoe

I agree, and therefore the Minister's interjection that I am afraid to discuss it is hitting below the belt—if one can use that phrase in parliamentary debate—inviting me to do something the Chair will not allow me to do.

I do not know whether the Minister for Finance accepts the uncertain position with regard to sterling. I heard a great deal of his financial statement, and I read it last night. I was particularly interested in the long number of pages dealing with financial theory—juggling with inflation, deflation and repatriation of capital, saying a lot of things, but, in fact, saying nothing. Why does not the Minister for Finance say: "I am of the opinion that we must repatriate our capital and we propose doing it in this form," instead of saying that some people think it would be a good thing to do it and other people have been investing their money abroad and some people say such behaviour is perverse, while all the time he does not indicate if there is any Government policy in relation to that matter.

He talks about inflation and deflation and says "I am afraid if I did this it might cost so much, and if I did it this way it might cost something else." We have to recognise one thing and that is that the value of our currency, so long as we are linked with sterling, will not be altered up or down by any act of ours. We are only the tail end, and a very small hair on the tail end, of the sterling world. What happens outside will affect the value of our currency only so long as we are linked with the sterling bloc. Therefore, the Minister can only relate things to the internal situation. If our consumer goods are to be mainly imported an increased expenditure in this country will in no way affect the price of these goods outside the country, because our capacity to consume in relation to world production of any article is infinitesimal, so it can only affect those things which we ourselves keep on short supply, if short supply exists.

It is also fair to include in any reasoning on that particular matter the position as it really is. A big proportion in the increased cost of living in this country is due to circumstances beyond our control. The devaluation of the £ has made certain things that we buy abroad dearer. Unless we alter our policy we shall be continuously faced with the same kind of dangers and, should these dangers eventuate, the same kind of results. I referred earlier to the peculiar situation wherein this country has to buy corn and maize in a dollar area on borrowed dollars which may have to be paid back at high rates of interest. They are already costing us a good deal more because of devaluation. If we are using them to purchase food for our people or foodstuffs for our live stock in order to supply our people the increased cost must be reflected in the finished article to the consumer. If we are not using that finished article and if we are exporting it we are again exporting for sterling which, in the opinion of some people, it is very dangerous to accumulate, and we are thereby increasing our credit in sterling while having a debit ourselves in borrowed dollars. Surely that warrants some examination to see whether or not that situation can be avoided. I do not know whether it will make the present Cabinet confess another change of policy.

Will the Government ever realise that we are in just as grave an emergency to-day financially as we were physically during the war years? It might be wiser to go back again to compulsory tillage and try to produce here the foodstuffs we require both for our people and for our live stock instead of carrying on this uncertain juggling between two types of currency with ourselves sandwiched in the middle, promising our people a certain amount of comfort in their homes and a certain stability when we know that because of circumstances as they exist we cannot possibly hope to retain that situation. The only way to achieve stability is to return to a simple policy of self-sufficiency in so far as we can accomplish it and to face the situation as one of emergency in the uncertain financial condition of the world to-day.

It is all very well to talk in millions. It is all very well to say how we will do this and how we will do that. The day of reckoning will not come for posterity. The day of reckoning will come, in my opinion, very soon after 1952. We can no longer get dollars from the dollar pool. Yet, we go on borrowing dollars to provide another country with commodities and we get no compensation in the shape of dollar credits from that country. I suggest the time has come when we must approach this matter from a realistic point of view and one that will be understood by the public. I think the change of policy must go further. Apparently the economy idea is abandoned. Fianna Fáil were accused of sinning in that respect. Their sins have now been taken off their shoulders and the sinners to-day are the present Government.

We were supposed to have handed over to our successors a barrel scraped clean of its contents. The extraordinary thing is that on every occasion in the past two years upon which anyone has dipped into that barrel fresh riches have been produced from it. That is due to the careful husbandry of the previous Administration during its 16 years in office. Take care that the present Government does not scrape the barrel so clean that in the end there will not be sufficient in it to keep things going normally.

I take it it is the intention of the Government to make this year a sample year for succeeding years of State finance. If we clap on to the back of the people the interest charges on a borrowed £31,000,000 this year, and possibly a similar amount next year, it is quite easy to reckon up how much money in the shape of interest payments will have to be met. They will not be found in the control of State ownership. The scrapings can then only come from the pockets of the citizens who have to pay.

Mr. M. O'Sullivan

The outstanding feature of this Budget is the fact that it is presented in two parts. It has been rather neatly described as a two-tier Budget. While it may be a novelty in this country so far as national finance is concerned, it is by no means revolutionary. There is a precedent for it in at least one of the Scandinavian countries. Strange as it may seem, there is a precedent for it much nearer home in the realm of local authority finance. Many members can testify to that. It is a recognised feature of local authority finance that where it is necessary to invest larger sums in capital works that type of requirement is financed by borrowing. If one were to adopt the system advocated by Deputy de Valera of "pay as you go" so far as local authorities are concerned one would have a wide divergence in rates.

I am not so much concerned with the Budget being intended to conform, as some people think it is, with commercial practice. Rather do I see in it, and so do my colleagues, a much deeper significance, since it has a very useful and desirable social objective. Everyone knows we are a creditor nation and, taken per capita, amongst the highest in the world. Despite that fact, and probably partly because of it, for years past the order of things has been a comparatively low standard of living, chronic unemployment and large-scale emigration. That is due to the fact that we have suffered from under-investment and lack of exploitation and development of our national resources.

It is quite evident to me and to my colleagues this is the first attempt made by a native Government to grapple with our grave social evils. What is wrong in initiating a system of capital works designed to enrich the community as a whole and for which prudent financial arrangements in the way of sinking fund are made? The only argument that I could take from Deputy Aiken's criticism last night was the point he made that a growing national debt would eventually lead to financial chaos.

I repeat, what is wrong in dealing with the twin diseases of unemployment and emigration, if this House decides to adopt the remedy outlined in the Budget proposals with the precautions incorporated in the Minister's speech? I say that the stand taken by Deputy Aiken so far as the question of national debt is concerned is financially unsound. I go further and say that criticism of that particular type is positively anti-social. The issue or rather the challenge which this Budget provokes is whether we shall have a departure on the lines of the capital works indicated in the Budget or a continuation of the position based on the policy of, as Deputy de Valera indicated, pay-as-you-go with the disastrous results which were featured in administration in the last 25 years in this country. I suggest that raises a serious social issue and, so far as Deputies of the Labour Party are concerned, we regard the adoption of this policy as part and parcel of our own creed. I have no hesitation in saying that we welcome it. To the workers, may I say lest they might be misled by propaganda of a kind which would indicate that the nation was in financial danger, that it is their interests, the workers' interests, which are being safeguarded for the first time in this Budget. Under the scheme of capital works as envisaged in the Budget, they will have good wages both in a direct form and in an indirect form. Their position will give them a measure of security that they have been unable to get over the years. If we decided to adopt the policy outlined by the Opposition of pay-as-you-go, well then the issue is quite clear; we are destined to remain with a pool of constant employment and large scale emigration. There is no avoidance of that position unless we move away from it in the form indicated.

I listened with very careful attention, as I say, to the speech made by Deputy Aiken last evening. To my mind the main point, in fact the only one, he made was that in which he referred to the question of the national debt. That I think has been effectively dealt with in the Budget statement. I listened with equal care to the speech made by Deputy Lemass who had time to examine the Budget statement overnight. In this connection may I say that Deputy Lemass is always interesting and invariably convincing when he has a good case but during my period of membership of this House, may I say that I have not heard him—I am sorry he is not present at the moment —make a weaker case. I can only conclude that he knew himself that his material was weak. His speech like the Budget itself was presented in two parts.

In the opening stage he, like Deputy Aiken last evening, denounced the improvident way in which it was proposed to proceed with these works. He concluded that stage of his address with the rather interesting designation of the proposals as a whole as those of "a cock-eyed social system". Whatever that comment meant, I am not quite sure but it is true that in the second part of Deputy Lemass's speech we found the real Deputy Lemass when, in fact, he admitted, referring to the list of capital items which are given in page 26, that he himself, if he had the responsibility, would adopt the same procedure particularly so far as items like housing are concerned. I am inclined to take the view that the only difference between our friends on the left here and the Government and ourselves on this side is that the Opposition probably regard the measures that are being taken now as ones that should have been taken before. That is how I view it.

I must say I was rather surprised at one omission on the part of Deputy Lemass. I recall that on last year's Budget he thundered forth very heavily indeed on the absence of any reference to the question of a scheme of social security. That was the basic point of his attack last year and it is a remarkable feature of this year's debate that Deputy Lemass, Deputy Aiken and Deputy Briscoe, the three Deputies who have spoken for the Opposition so far, made not the slightest reference to that proposal.

Mr. Aiken

Neither did the Minister for Finance.

Mr. M. O'Sullivan

I expected that retort from Deputy Aiken but the fact that the Minister for Finance did not refer to it does not absolve the Opposition from their omission to refer to it. We are supporting this new financial departure because it is so desirable and necessary and we are supporting it all the more readily because of events that have occurred in the economic and social field for the past 12 months. May I point, in the first place, to the fact that the Government and the Parties on this side have granted an addition to old age pensions of £2,500,000 as well as easing the means test. So far as the means test is concerned, it is a question to which we shall return at a later stage. There is also the fact that pensioners of the State and local authorities have been given a not unreasonable measure of assistance to meet the increased cost of living.

To return to the point to which I referred earlier, there is a definite assurance that the scheme of social security mentioned so often during the past 12 months will be introduced before the Minister presents his next Budget.

Mr. Aiken

What assurance have you of that?

Mr. M. O'Sullivan

The assurance is this. The present Government have approved of that scheme and the Deputy may take it that members of all Parties on this side of the House will support that legislation. I am confident that, if not all, a big proportion even in the Opposition Party will also support it. It is my feeling and the feeling of all Deputies on this side of the House that that measure of social security will be law next year.

Mr. Aiken

Is it the feeling of the Minister for Finance?

Mr. M. O'Sullivan

I am satisfied that, as one member of the Government, he is behind this scheme equally with the Tánaiste himself. Anyway I shall move away from that and refer to other matters which as I say make it easier for us to support the Budget before the House. There is the question of housing to which a great deal of reference has been made. I think it is safe to say that, as far as housing is concerned, this will be a record year in the State as a whole. The number of men engaged at the end of February was 12,556, and the number of houses in course of erection was 10,838. It is safe to say that the rate of progress is so satisfactory in some districts that the responsible authorities there can say that they are within measurable distance of a final solution of the question. I think that County Dublin may be cited as an example. The City of Dublin has its own special problem. Things are not by any means unsatisfactory here. The City Council is aiming at a target of 3,000 houses this year. If that is reached it will be a wholetime record for the City Council. With other members of the House who are members of the Consultative Council, I should like to take this opportunity of paying tribute to the extremely efficient officials who are in charge of that scheme. I will leave it at that.

There is another side to the question of housing, particularly in Dublin, to which I should like to direct the Minister's attention. He has given figures in his Budget statement relating to the subventions which are being given at present to local authorities for houses and for private building as well. I think he described these subventions as generous. I think that if things were normal, they could certainly be so described. I want to put it to the Minister that, notwithstanding the fact that these subventions are generous and notwithstanding the fact that local authorities are making a pretty useful contribution to housing from their own purse, the fact still remains that, in a good many cases the rents which the tenants are called upon to pay are entirely too high. I think that Deputies in all Parties will agree that there are cases of that kind—that while excellent houses are being produced, the rents are too high or will eventually prove too high for the tenants going into them. There are two solutions to that problem. One is that the subvention be increased or alternatively, that building costs should be lowered. I and other members of the House have repeatedly directed attention to the question of building costs. You may rule out the question of labour so far as building costs are concerned. I am going to direct the Minister's attention once again, as I have directed the attention of his colleague the Minister for Industry and Commerce to it, that it is about time we had an inquiry into the cost of building materials. Rightly or wrongly, the feeling is abroad that this cost is too high. I will be quoting a statement later which will indicate that the profits from building materials can certainly be described as too high. As I say, it is a matter for the State, as to whether the subvention shall be increased or whether we shall have an easement in the direction that I have indicated.

There is a still further problem so far as houses are concerned. I think I may speak on this for my friend, Deputy Hickey, as well as for myself because the grievance that obtains in Dublin also obtains in Cork. The grievance is this, that for some reason, so far unexplained, Dublin and Cork Boroughs are excluded from the recoupment which all other authorities are getting in the case of housing. I will pay tribute to Deputy Aiken in that he initiated the question of the 2½ per cent. so far as housing authorities are concerned.

As Deputies know, all local authorities get their housing finance from the Local Loans Fund. The rate, I believe, is 3¼ per cent. The present Minister has maintained the old rate of 2½ per cent. by recouping to the local authorities the difference between the 3¼ per cent. and the 2½ per cent. But the county boroughs of Dublin and Cork are excluded from that benefit. The only reason given for doing so is that they have to go on to the market to provide their own finance. I want to underline the point that, while they have to go on the market to provide their own finance, they are prohibited from drawing on the Local Loans Fund. I suggest that, in equity, they are entitled to the same recoupment as that afforded to all other authorities.

So far as housing finance is concerned, there is the definite assurance now—it will be accepted by all Parties —that no financial consideration will be allowed to impede housing progress. The only restriction that I see in that undertaking is that Dublin and Cork are being left in the position of being discriminated against.

There are other features of the past 12 months which give the members on this side a measure of satisfaction. This may be described as the half-way stage of the present Government, and it is not inappropriate that these matters should be referred to. I have referred to old age pensions, housing and social security. It may be no harm if I refer to the position of employment as it is in the country at the present time. The average numbers engaged in all industry increased by 17,000 or by 10 per cent. between 1947 and 1949. The number in 1938 was 166,000. The production of manufacturing industry increased by about 22 per cent. since 1947. The wages paid to workers were increased by, roughly, 8 per cent. since 1947. Provision is made in the Book of Estimates this year for £12,500,000 for social services. There is an increase from £6,000,000 to £8,000,000 for education. The agricultural grant for the relief of rates is increased, and local government, public health and other services are increased. Taking these increases, in conjunction with the legislation with which, I am glad to say, we have been associated, such as that relating to the transport industry, the position, I think, may be regarded as satisfactory. The Transport Bill is now in its last stages. This means that, roughly, 22,000 workers, with their families, will have a measure of security which was not available to them up to this.

Donnchadh Ó Briain

They are all on strike.

Mr. M. O'Sullivan

There is also the question of agricultural workers. Provision is being made at the present time for them so far as holidays are concerned. All these matters give us, on this side, satisfaction, because they justify the participation of our own two Ministers in the present administration. I want to refer to another matter which has not so far been touched upon and that is what has been described as the excess profits tax. In his speech in 1948 the Minister stated, as reported in Volume 110, column 1057, of the Official Report:—

"Another important factor in the present inflated structure of wholesale and retail prices is the high level of profits in trade and industry. When the excess corporation profits tax and the excess surtax were abolished two years ago by my predecessor, with effect as from the end of 1946, it was expected that this would be followed by a general fall in prices. This expectation has, unfortunately, not been realised and from the figures which I have examined it is clear that excessive profits are still being taken in a number of instances, despite all efforts at price control."

He went on to say that, if it were necessary, he would introduce a further dividend Standstill Order accompanied, this time, by the appropriation of the whole, not merely a part, of any excess profits. My comment on that is that if profits were excessive in 1948, there is no doubt that they are higher now. I have had a statement prepared with regard to a number of firms taken at random in what might be described as the industrial group. These were firms concerned with drapery and clothing, textiles, tanning, boots and shoes, confectionery, milling, bakery trade, building materials' providers and miscellaneous, totalling 69. The result shows that, according to the last returns available for these companies, namely, returns for last year, as against the preceding year, there was an over-all percentage increase of 23 per cent. after provision had been made for depreciation, taxation and so on.

I instance this to place it alongside the position of the workers in relation to the cost of living. Ministers and Deputies are as well aware as I am that there is still a gap to be bridged in order to put the workers on a parity with the year 1939 between the increase in the cost of living and the increase in wages. The Minister will be aware that there are only two ways in which to bridge that gap. The most desirable way is the one which the workers would like and, particularly, the wives of the workers, and that is to ensure that there will be a substantial decrease in the cost of living. The Government can claim that since they have taken office the cost of living has been kept more or less steady. Actually, on the new index figure, it may be said to have gone up just one point. That new index was introduced in 1946. I suggest that, while the Government can congratulate themselves that that is so, they would be foolish to rest on their oars or regard the position with complacency. The figures I have given indicate that the prices emanating from firms of that description are having a serious bearing on the cost of living and I am bound to say that there is discontent at present so far as the cost of living is concerned. The Government would be well advised to take heed of the position as they see it and to have a ruthless and a thorough probe into the matter.

On the question of the cost of living, I should like to make this point. In 1946, the previous Government changed the method of computation of the cost of living figure. They did that by means of some 900 budgets taken in conjunction with the nutritional survey over the country and it was described as an interim index figure, the understanding being that at a later stage a more permanent index system would be introduced. That system has remained unchanged. I submit that it is not a true reflex of the actual position. To give one instance, the Córas Iompair Éireann bus fares in the City of Dublin were increased, but that item was not included in what they called the weighting system in connection with this index figure. My colleagues from the Dublin areas know only too well that so far as Dublin workers are concerned —I am sure this also applies to other large areas—transport as an item of the family budget is almost as important as food. There is a necessity for a change there. The survey was made over 900 families. Obviously, that was not a sufficiently wide range and the survey was taken at a time when there were acute shortages, so that the consumption of food then was not what it is to-day. Therefore, there is need for a change so far as the index figure is concerned.

These are the points I want to make in connection with the Budget. As I say, it marks a new and welcome departure as giving hope to the workers throughout the country. It is a Budget almost specially designed for their welfare and I am sure it will be appreciated by them as such. I have read the magnificent economic survey made by the Minister. It is probably the best that has been presented to the House in my time. So far as he has introduced and sponsored the proposals to which I have referred, I want to extend to him my personal congratulation.

Mr. Corry

I think the best way of dealing with the situation under the Budget is to use the words of one of the Ministers who was undoubtedly brought into consultation on the Budget. I allude to the Minister for Agriculture. I shall give the description given by the Minister for Agriculture of the last Budget introduced by the Fianna Fáil Government on 9th May, 1947. I heard Deputy O'Sullivan telling us that the best way of carrying on was to borrow all the time. So long as you keep going that way you are all right. The Minister for Agriculture, before he became a Minister, held the same views. Here is what he said—column 2550 of the Official Reports, Volume 105, of the 9th May, 1947:—

"The Minister for Finance winding up a long statement announced triumphantly that he wanted to point out that total State expenditure to be met in the coming 12 months amounts in all to £69,356,000! That represents expenditure at the rate of £23 per head of the population or rather more, and £140 in respect of each family consisting of a father, a mother and four children."

That was only 1947. The present Minister for Finance told us that he was going to pare down wasteful extravagance. How is he doing that? Here is what he did. Lo and behold, his £69,356,000 has now become £109,500,000. That is a bit of a change. According to my colleague, Deputy M. O'Sullivan, who is on the Labour Benches, everything in the garden is lovely now—although, according to the present Minister for Agriculture, the sum of £69,356,000 in 1947 could only be described as wasteful extravagance. I wonder what he will have to say about the present sum of £109,500,000?

Mr. McQuillan

In the gallery or in the garden? Which?

Mr. Corry

Deputy Dillon, as he was then, continued:—

"Is it any wonder that Deputy Giles——"

—he is over there now—

"should say to the Minister: ‘Do you remember the time when you were going round from houseen to houseen in Louth and South Monaghan? Would you have told a countryman and his wife, with three or four children in the kitchen, that you were struggling to get control of this country in order to get the opportunity of spending on their behalf £140 a year..."'

—and the same Minister struggled and went from chapel gate to chapel gate in this country to get a hold in this country in order to put 40 per cent. on to that £140 in respect of each family. It is a great idea. He continued:—

"Take the average ten-acre farmer west of the Shannon. Of how many of them could it be said that their weekly income is £3 per week?"

—since they got the Minister I think it has fallen by about 30 per cent.

"We are blessed with a Minister for Finance who glories in the fact that in the next 12 months he is going to spend on their behalf £140 in respect of each household consisting of a man, his wife and four children. He is mixing things up. He is beginning to believe that all the households are like Raglan Road residences and forgetting that the bulk of them are like the houseens in Louth and South Monaghan in which he was glad to take refuge 20 years ago..."

Further on he said:—

"It is very easy to sweep it into the Exchequer and it is great fun to go around spending, providing a little dole for this one and a little benevolence for that one, but it is very bad finance."

That is what the present Minister for Agriculture—then Deputy Dillon—had to say in 1947. Notwithstanding those fine sentiments, he will come in here, probably, in the very near future and give his blessing to this Budget. He continued further:—

"But the Minister announces blandly that the total debt of the nation now is £100,000,000—"

—I wonder what it is now? Apparently, something like £45,000,000 has been added to it in the past two years. Here is something that I thought I would see between the well-known tightness of the present Minister for Finance and the ideals which the present Minister for Agriculture held when he was an ordinary Deputy here. I should have thought that this Budget —and the last Budget—would have been somewhat on the lines of what the then Deputy Dillon said in that speech:

"Does it ever occur to him—"

—he meant the then Minister for Finance—

"that in times like these there is a very grave duty upon him to start repaying what he borrowed in years gone by".

I wonder if the Minister thought of these sentiments when, inside a period of two years, he increased the expenditure from £69,000,000 to £109,500,000? I suggest that the Cabinet should take this speech, which was made by the present Minister for Agriculture in 1947 when he was an ordinary Deputy of the House, and examine carefully and seriously what he suggested. If they do that, it is quite possible that there will be a change of heart on their part and that they will come in here with completely changed minds about the Budget as it is before the House this afternoon. Further, in the same speech we read this:—

"If my memory serves me well, somebody once approached Adam Smith with that dilemma and said:

‘Can you tell me, sir, if people go on spending more than they are earning and if they never take any action to try to repay their debts, must not a state ultimately go bankrupt?'

"Adam Smith's reply was:

‘Well, sir, it takes a long time and a great deal to bankrupt a country!'"

I think the rate of the rake's progress has doubled in the past two years. It is a pretty good lift from £69,000,000 to £109,500,000 in two years on this job.

"And this gentleman will be long dead and mouldering before the consequences of his actions fall to be endured."

This is a Budget in which we are borrowing on the labour and work of our children and of our grandchildren. We are going to live well and they will have to pay for our extravagance. That is the actual position. The Government have started off operations with the definite decision: "We are going to have a good time and we do not give a hang about who comes after us." That is the spirit in which this Budget and the previous one was introduced. That is their attitude. Everything they can lay their hands on—every asset that was in this country—has been wrecked. Not content with that but, according to this Budget, the central authority is going to rob the local authorities. The roads of this country are the property and the obligation of the local authorities. These people remind me of the gentleman who got a farm in conacre and who thought he would come in and knock out of it three or four or five cocks of wheat in succession and then throw it over. If I were to use the words of my dearly beloved friend, the Minister for Agriculture, he was out to mine the land. Those boys are mining the roads.

Let us see in that respect what the position is. First of all, as regards duties, I will quote from a reply given to me by the Minister for Finance on Tuesday, 2nd May, when I asked him to state the revenue derived from import, excise or other duties on mechanically propelled vehicles and parts therefor in the years 1944-45 to 1949-50. I find from that reply that the Government collected in customs in 1949-50 £993,300 and in excise £122,500 or, roughly, £1,150,000. I asked the Minister for Local Government, on the 19th April last, if he would tell me the position as regards motor taxation. He told me that in 1949-50 they collected £2,552,000 and that the estimate for 1950-51 was £2,600,000. In 1947-48, the last year Fianna Fáil was in office, the income under that head was £2,000,000. There is an extra £600,000 now.

I was very anxious to know how much the Minister for Finance was pulling in on petrol and I asked him would he state the revenue derived from petrol taxation in the years 1944-45 to 1949-50. I find that last year the Minister collected £3,213,000 in petrol taxation as against £1,514,925 collected by Fianna Fáil in 1947-48. In motor taxation and petrol taxation the Minister has collected £2,313,000 more than the Fianna Fáil Government collected.

This extra motor taxation means an increased number of vehicles on the road, and the increase in the revenue from petrol taxation means more wear and tear on the roads. You would think a Minister who is receiving £2,300,000 more than his predecessor got would take his claws out of the Road Fund. The fact is that he is again taking from the Road Fund this year £300,000.

Added to that enormous sum which he is collecting from motor users, I think there would be about £800,000 by way of duty on Irish produced motor tyres. The tyre that is made in Dunlops in Cork must pay duty to this Government and there would be another £800,000 of revenue from that. I have not definite information on that point, but I have a question down for next week. At any rate, without counting that, the Minister receives from motor users this year an income of £7,713,000. Out of that enormous sum he is giving back, roughly, £2,000,000; he is giving that to the local authorities to keep the roads in order.

That position can lead only to one thing. According to the statements of our county engineers in Cork, the roads are steadily deteriorating and are quite unable to cope with the kind of traffic from which the Minister is drawing practically £8,000,000. The Minister apparently has decided, like the gentleman who took the conacre, to wear away the roads belonging to the local authorities, to turn them into pot-holes. As anyone can see on the rural roads at the present time, the water, instead of being in the channels on the sides of the roads, is in the centre of the roadway. The Minister's cure for that is to collect all he can and give nothing out.

The money collected in this manner is being used in other ways; it is going in other directions and to people who are far less entitled to it than the local authorities who are being robbed in this manner. The roads are the property of the local authorities. The local authorities are responsible for them and they will have to endeavour to keep them in order. The Minister's attitude towards these roads is "Well, we have succeeded in getting into office; let us gather in all we can while we are there, rob everybody, and let the next fellow foot the bill." It is a very fine, a very good idea, if the Minister can get away with it.

What is the position of the people who will have to foot the bill? I will again quote the Minister for Agriculture in regard to our principal industry, and the means he has taken to remedy the things he considered were wrong.

Speaking in this House on 18th June, 1947, at column 2041 of Dáil Debates he said:—

"There remains beet—the blessings of beet! Some day, and not in the far distant time, our people will have to ask themselves whether it is in the best interests of the community as a whole to continue the production of sugar from beet in this country at an annual cost to the community of £3,000,000 sterling. That is what it costs in normal times to keep the beet industry going in this country. If, instead of growing beet and converting it into sugar, we import refined sugar into this country there will be £3,000,000 sterling more for the National Exchequer and that £3,000,000 can be used to increase children's allowances in every home in Ireland from the 2/6 per child to 5/- per child."

That is another quotation from the present Minister for Agriculture, then Deputy Dillon. Since the farmers of this country were blessed by that Minister for Agriculture the area under beet has gone down by some 10,000 acres. Recently the general manager of the sugar company stated that we would have to import from Cuba, or from wherever we could get it, 36,000 tons of foreign sugar. We will have to pay for that sugar £12 a ton, according to the statement made by the general manager, more than the Irish farmer and the Irish labourer in the sugar factory are paid to produce sugar here. For that we shall have to find this year £1,000,000 odd in dollars. I must admit that the Minister has done a pretty swift job in the two years he has been in office. Anyone who looks at the kind of stuff we are getting in the sugar bowls in the restaurants here and compares it with the product of our own factories must realise the difference in more ways than one. The income from that particular industry of ours has been reduced by that amount through this gentleman's activities.

This gentleman also talked about potatoes at that time. At column 2050 on 18th June, 1947, he said that there was a surplus of potatoes in South Monaghan—a very serious surplus— caused by this atrocious system of giving a guaranteed price for potatoes. The Minister came into office. He was very fond of potatoes. He started his activities two years ago. He advised the farmers to grow potatoes. They grew them. On the 18th June, 1947, he was looking to Deputy Smith to find a market for the surplus that he said existed in Monaghan. I wonder what kind of market he found last year. What is the position to-day? Dear old Ireland, the land of the spud! We had a statement from the Minister for Agriculture a few days ago that the price of potatoes now was £20 a ton. Why? In order that our friends across the water would not have to go without, this gentleman travelled the Continent; he went to America and Canada and to the Sandwich Islands looking for spuds. He was quite prepared to pay the American people dollars, and the dollar is after all a respectable coin, for spuds and to sell those spuds to Britain for sterling. In two years the Minister for Agriculture has succeeded in bringing about that condition of affairs.

We have to import sugar at £12 a ton extra from Cuba and Formosa and we have to travel the world looking for spuds. Last year you had the position where the Minister could not find a market anywhere for Irish spuds and this year, when he wants to buy them, he cannot get them.

Acting-Chairman (Mr. Halliden)

I would ask the Deputy to relate his remarks to the Budget statement. He is discussing agriculture more than anything else.

Mr. Corry

I am discussing the financial position of the people who will have to pay this Bill of £109,000,000. There is nothing more important to the people than the yearly examination of the balance sheet so that they may know where the money will come from, since it is they, after all, who will have to foot the bill, and that is particularly true of the agricultural section of the community.

Mr. McCann

Spuds are 4/- a stone in Dublin to-night.

Mr. Fagan

Everyone knows that there is a surplus.

Mr. McCann

There is no surplus in Dublin.

Acting-Chairman

Order!

Mr. Corry

We must examine what the financial position is of those who will have to meet this Budget. Deputy O'Sullivan treated us to a glowing description of social services and of the benefits that would be conferred through them on certain sections of the community. I submit that the cost of living has reached a very serious point. There was a time when we had plenty of oats here. Now we have to import them from the Argentine and convert them into flake meal at 8/2 per stone. The Argentinian farmer can get 8/2 for oats and the sugar growers of Cuba can get £12 a ton more for sugar, but anything is good enough for the poor old Irish farmer. The tillage farmer's income has been wiped out. Having done that, the Minister turns his attention to dairying. His predecessor had achieved a situation in 1947 where the cost of producing milk was 13.35d. Production costs have increased since then and to-day one should get for one's milk something like 1/4 to 1/5. But the Minister for Agriculture wrote to the creameries recently asking the farmers to take 2d. a gallon less than they were getting when Deputy Smith was in office, and the pity of it is that some of them took the shilling.

Mr. Beirne

Production is going up all the time.

Mr. Corry

My colleague would go into the Lobby as a representative of farmers to say that they should not get any more. I think this is about the sixth Farmers' Party I have seen doing that. That is the position of the people in our principal industry who are supposed to foot this bill. These are the people who will have to foot the bill in the long run. I do not wish to annoy the Acting-Chairman too much by quoting the Minister for Agriculture. I thank him for his leniency in that respect. I am not going to worry him at the moment but there are a few more little items in the calendar in that line. We shall have an opportunity I hope, in the debate on the Estimate for Agriculture, of dealing with the whole matter. The Minister in charge of that Department is the gentleman who advised the farmers to grow Ymer feeding barley and who is at present paying £23 per ton for cargoes of barley from Morocco to depress that market as he smashed the malting barley market last year.

Mr. O'Leary

The black market.

Mr. Corry

These are the people who have to foot this bill of £109,500,000 and that is the attitude adopted towards them by a gentleman who is paid £2,125 by the taxpayers of this country to look after their interests.

Mr. Fagan

He is doing it well.

Mr. Corry

Deputy Fagan will have a very different tune in a couple of years. Deputy Fagan will find in a few years that the farmers who are now being asked to produce milk at 1/- a gallon while it costs 1/4½ per gallon will give up keeping cows. When there are no cows there there will be no calves and there will be no stalls to keep on Deputy Fagan's ranch for fattening. So long as Deputy Fagan can get a cheap whitehead he is all right. Deputy Fagan will never recover from the outrage inflicted upon him by the Fianna Fáil Party when they compelled him to plough up his land and grow wheat for the Irish people. That outrageous wheat! "Before you ate it, you had to hold it out in your hands, squeeze the water out of it, then tease it out and make up your mind whether it was a handful of boot polish or a handful of bread. If it was boot polish you put it on your boots or shoes and if it was bread you tried to masticate it if you were fit."

That is the statement made on Irish wheat in this House on the 18th June, 1947, by the gentleman who has been put in charge of agriculture in this country for the last two years. That statement is reported in column 2050 of the Official Debates of the 18th June, 1947, Volume 106. That is the statement made by the Minister whom these gentlemen put in charge of agriculture. That is his description of the bread made from Irish wheat.

Acting-Chairman

Will the Deputy get back to the motion before the House?

Mr. Corry

I have been drawn away from it. I expected when I saw that they were going to borrow £12,000,000 for capital expenditure—apparently I was under the same misapprehension as Deputy Martin O'Sullivan a while ago —that this money would be expended on starting industries here that would provide increased employment for our people. For that reason, I mentioned two items in the debate on the Vote on Account that would mean an increase in the number employed in my constituency of something between 200 and 300 able-bodied men. I thought that they would be provided with decent employment of the same type as Fianna Fáil gave them before. I mentioned that there was practically three-fourths of a sheet mill down in Haulbowline. Unfortunately all the parts which it was intended to acquire to bring that mill into operation were not brought in at the period the war started and they could not be got afterwards. We, at the present time, are sending out of this country a pretty considerable sum for the purchase of corrugated iron. That sheet mill, as I say, is three-quarters finished and if it were completed, it would provide employment for anything from 200 to 250 extra men.

I was speaking on this matter on the Vote on Account when the Minister for Finance interrupted me and told me not one penny of the £12,000,000 was for this purpose. I do not know what it is for unless it is for getting a special plane to place at the convenience of members of the Executive Council. At the rate travelling expenses are mounting up, they must be travelling to an extraordinary extent. There is hardly a day you pick up the paper that you do not see three or four of them featured on a train somewhere, while the country pays the bill. I would be extremely anxious to see the money devoted to such purposes diverted to more useful purposes. I heard a good deal as to the extra numbers employed from Deputy Martin O'Sullivan when he was speaking here but the returns which I have got as a result of questions which I have put here, show that the number of unemployed in the town of Fermoy has increased and that the number of unemployed in the town of Youghal has practically doubled. I expect that if we are going to borrow money for capital expenditure, that money will be devoted mainly to providing employment in capital industries.

Instead of starting industries to give employment to our people and keep them at home, we go borrowing for a rehabilitation scheme at a cost of £25 or £30 an acre for land which the Minister for Lands will be buying in a few years' time for forestry purposes at £4 an acre. I say openly and above board that is all that land is fit for. I do not think that is wise spending.

Mr. Davin

Are the farmers objecting to it?

Mr. Corry

The Deputy comes from a rural constituency and he is pretty wise about that.

Mr. Davin

They are not objecting.

Mr. Corry

I never heard anyone object when he was getting something for nothing. Neither will this Government object to the boys who will give them the money. The only time the Government will object is when they are caught out and have to pay any of it back. They have no intention of paying any of it back, and will not be here when it will have to be paid back. When I went to one of our new Ministers I told him I wanted a new hospital and I spoke about equipment for it. He had no bother in telling me that he could give me 100 per cent. for it. He wanted me to tell him that he was the most decent Minister I had ever met and, when he asked me for my opinion, I told him that he had no intention of being here when the bill would be presented. That is what I feel about all this borrowing.

Deputy Dunne last night feelingly alluded to agricultural labourers and forestry workers. I would like to see something in this Budget which would put those workers, as well as the unpaid labourer—the farmer's son, and all of the unskilled men—in as good a position as the unskilled labourer. Deputy Martin O'Sullivan talked about bold schemes. I would like to see a bold scheme brought forward so that our agricultural labourers would be able to earn between £4 10s. 0d. and £5 a week, and under which the farmer would get a price for his produce which would enable him to pay that wage. If that were done I would be in favour of the Budget. I would regard that as one of the fundamental points in it. Unfortunately, as far as Deputy Dunne is concerned, class hatred drove him into the Lobby the other day to further depress the farmer by refusing to give him an increase in the price of his milk. I do not wish to say in the House what I think about him.

Mr. Dunne

You are not fit to say it inside or outside the House.

Mr. McGrath

He is as quiet as a mouse.

Mr. Dunne

You look after Cork.

Acting-Chairman (Mr. Halliden)

Deputy Corry should keep to the Financial Resolution.

Mr. Corry

When I hear talk about an increase in employment and the numbers that have been put into employment in the last two years, I wonder where are those people employed. We had meetings all over the country, at which members of all Parties spoke feelingly about the flight from the land. During the past two years, over 21,000 of our young people who were employed on the land under the Fianna Fáil régime in 1947 and 1948 have cleared out. I do not blame them. How could you expect any man to remain on the land at the present wage for agricultural workers when an unskilled labourer, digging foundations for houses, can get £5 10s. 0d. a week? It is in that situation that the farmers are being asked to increase production. We hear a lot of talk about that. We had a complete manoeuvre on that line.

It is said that the best method of defence is attack. The Minister very wisely started off on that line when he told the farmers that they were going to have increased production, and that a market would have to be found for what they produced. I have examined closely the line that has been given in this House during the past month on questions that were asked by Deputy P.D. Lehane and Deputy Cogan. In order to give sufficient butter to the people of this country on the present ration you want 700,000 cwts. of butter.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

Is not that agricultural policy purely which could be raised on the Estimate for the Minister for Agriculture?

Mr. Corry

I think it is absolutely financial policy.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

No, it is agricultural policy and can be raised on the Estimate for the Minister for Agriculture.

Mr. Corry

After all, when you come to borrow these few millions, the gentleman from whom you borrow them is going to look into your financial position, just as the bank manager when the farmer goes into him for a few quid, wants to know how many cows he has.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

The Deputy must not pursue that line. That is a matter of agricultural policy relevant to the Department of Agriculture. The Deputy can air his views in full on the Estimate for the Department of Agriculture, but not now.

Mr. Corry

If the principal industry in this country is not to be mentioned——

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

The Deputy must not comment on the ruling of the Chair in that fashion.

Mr. Corry

We will have another day for it. Sometime there will be an opportunity of discussing agriculture here.

Mr. Davin

We are not going to borrow money to buy butter anyhow.

Mr. Corry

You borrowed it to buy sugar and spuds. You borrowed it to buy oats, and you are borrowing it now to buy feeding barley. If you want to know anything else for which you are borrowing it, I will tell you. That is what we are faced with here. It is on the credit of that section of the community alone and on the credit of the land of this country that that money will be borrowed. When the time comes to pay it back, the boys who will be shoved into the front-line trenches to pay it back will be the agricultural community who have been ruined and robbed for the last two years. They are the people who will be asked to pay it back.

I am extremely anxious to know what this money which we are borrowing is to be expended on. Is some of it to be spent on the roads? Is it going to be spent on providing industries? The Minister for Agriculture tells us that £40,000,000 of it will be spent on the land. I respectfully suggest that it is going to be spent in the wrong way on the land.

The Parties on the Government Benches went before the people of the country two years ago and I suggest that they got no mandate to increase by something over £40,000,000 capital expenditure in this country. As a matter of fact, their object was to get rid of the spendthrift Government, those scoundrels who came along to collect £65,000,000. In order not to delay the House, I shall refrain from quoting the speeches of the Minister for Finance on that matter. Some of my colleagues will probably fill the bill in that respect. I assert, however, that they have no mandate from the people for that and that the proper thing for the Government to do, if they intend carrying on with a policy of that description, is to go to the people and look for a mandate to spend £109,500,000. I have put the case as fairly as I can and, as you, Sir, said, I will have an opportunity later on of discussing the position of the people who will have to foot the bill.

Mr. M.J. O'Higgins

When speaking in this debate, Deputy Briscoe referred to the fact that this Government had only got an empty barrel from Fianna Fáil. We left them one, too, and he has just sat down. Deputy Aiken, in opening the discussion on the Budget yesterday, struck what has, in my opinion, been the keynote of the Fianna Fáil attack on the financial policy of the Government, not only in the course of this debate, but possibly for the past 12 months. When Deputy Aiken said yesterday that he bitterly resented this Budget, the operative word was "bitterness" and bitterness has been the keynote of the Fianna Fáil attack on the present Minister for Finance and the financial policy of the Government. It is not very difficult to see the reason for that. It is mainly the bitterness of remorse that Fianna Fáil when in office, particularly when they found it necessary to introduce a Supplementary Budget in 1947, had not the financial wisdom or even the ordinary common-sense to deal with financial matters in the way the present Minister for Finance has done it. It might be as well if some speaker from the Fianna Fáil Benches had the courage to stand up and tell us what is their policy in these matters.

We can all remember that for the best part of two years the present Minister for Finance was portrayed as some kind of a miserly lawyer who was rampaging with an axe over his shoulder to cut the roots of all the capital development schemes started by Fianna Fáil. We remember the outcry raised by Deputy Kissane and others with regard to Fianna Fáil schemes which were cut out by this Government. We were told that they were schemes of capital development, that the Fianna Fáil Party and Government stood for schemes of capital development, and that this reactionary Government, this ultra-conservative Government dominated by a Fine Gael Minister for Finance, was going to clamp down on all of them.

Some while ago the tune was changed. Deputy Lemass in one of his articles in the Irish Press under the pen-name of “Dáil Reporter” complained to the members of Fianna Fáil Cumainn throughout the country that the economy drive was all a fake. From the time that that article—or should I call it a Party directive— from Deputy Lemass appeared in print the whole tune has been changed. Now we are told that the Government, instead of carrying out their policy as originally announced, are being wasteful and spendthrift and that a rake's progress is the only way to describe the activities of the Minister. We have had Deputy MacEntee and Deputy Lemass not stopping at personal abuse and personal insults in their descriptions of the Minister for Finance. We find him described by Deputy MacEntee a few days ago as a tight-fisted rasping lawyer, as a Minister for Finance without as much back-bone as a filleted herring and we find him described by Deputy Lemass as weak-kneed. Peculiarly enough, we also find Deputy Lemass telling Fianna Fáil supporters down the country that the Government have now come around to view things through Fianna Fáil spectacles and that they are now pursuing Fianna Fáil policy. We heard Deputy Little stating that the Government were clambering back on to the rock of Fianna Fáil policy. Even to-day we had Deputy Briscoe complaining that in two years the Government have turned a complete somersault and that they are now facing in an opposite direction to that which they faced in 1948. If that is so, the Deputies opposite must be facing in a diametrically opposite position, too. Their acrobatic skill must be just as great as that of any Deputy in this House. The extraordinary thing is that the Deputies opposite were criticising the Government just as violently and just as virulently, in respect of every action and every speech then as they are to-day. If we are to accept from Deputy Lemass and Deputy Little and Deputy Briscoe that the Government have faced about, must it not also follow that the Deputies opposite have faced about if they still find themselves in a position to attack this year's Budget just as they did the Budget in 1948?

I said that the keynote of the Fianna Fáil attack was bitterness. I believe that in their bitterness they have become completely reckless of the damage which they might do not to the Government, not to any particular Party supporting the Government, but to the interests of this nation as a whole. I hope that it is merely ignorant recklessness on their part and that there is nothing callous or deliberate about it. When I heard Deputy Corry's speech here this evening some doubts entered my mind. I have read the recent speeches, printed in the Irish Press, which were made by Deputy MacEntee and Deputy Lemass, and it is quite apparent to me that those speeches were speeches which might either deliberately or inadvertently damage the national interests, damage the confidence of the people in the financial stability of this State and make it difficult for the present Minister for Finance to float a loan, as he indicated he intended doing. When I heard Deputy Corry gloating over the fact that these people from whom it was hoped to raise the money would examine the financial position here and might not give the money—he did not say that, but that was the implication in his sentence—I wondered whether those speeches delivered by Deputy Lemass and Deputy MacEntee were designed for that particular purpose or whether it was merely accidental. I think that any Deputies on the opposite benches who read these speeches or who heard them will know very well the dangers in the line being pursued by their leaders. I hope some of the more responsible Deputies opposite will make some effort to repair the damage which Deputy Lemass and Deputy MacEntee are doing—whether, as I say, it is being done deliberately or merely through ignorance. It is difficult to believe that such ignorance could be displayed by people who for 16 years were Ministers of State in this country.

The Fianna Fáil Party, and in particular the two Deputies whose names I have mentioned, are, apparently, going before the people and claiming that the dominant political voice in this country is still the Fianna Fáil voice—that the majority of the people in the country are going to be guided by what the Leader of the Opposition and his colleagues say. If they are honest in that claim they must realise that they are treading on very dangerous ground in some of their recent utterances on matters financial. I particularly deplore the speech made by Deputy MacEntee and which was reported in the Irish Press of the 3rd instant. He made the speech at a Fianna Fáil gathering in Dublin SouthEast. In it he referred to the present Minister for Finance in the insulting language which I mentioned already. He said that the Minister is a tight-fisted rasping lawyer and a man without as much backbone as a filleted herring. That is all right—that is Deputy MacEntee's normal form. We come to expect that kind of thing from him when he gets on his feet. But Deputy MacEntee himself was a Minister for Finance in this State for some years. He knows the responsibilities which that office carries. He knows the particular responsibilities which always must attach, in any Government, to the occupant of the position of Minister for Finance. He knows how difficult, particularly in unsettled times, it must be for a Minister for Finance to get money by means of borrowing, if he requires it. Deputy MacEntee has heard the Minister for Finance making references in this House to his approach to the banks in this country. He had heard the Minister for Finance defending the banks and the banking system, even against some Deputies on this side of the House who did not share his view.

And what had Deputy MacEntee to say with regard to the banks knowing, as he must have known, that in many cases where national loans are floated the success or failure of those loans may ultimately depend on the attitude of the banks and the degree of support or otherwise which bankers will give to national loans? Deputy MacEntee, in the speech to which I have referred, made a deliberate effort—it must have been deliberate, because his language does not leave it open to any other interpretation—to suggest that this Government were endeavouring to drive the banks to adopt a policy which the banks did not want to adopt—and not alone did they not want to adopt it, but it would be bad finance, which would endanger the deposits of all bank depositors, large and small. This versatile Fianna Fáil warrior appealed to the banks to hold firm, to safeguard the interests of the small depositors.

Mr. Killilea

What about the statement of the Minister for External Affairs?

Mr. M.J. O'Higgins

This is a serious matter, not at all suited to Deputy Killilea.

Mr. Killilea

Quote the statement of the Minister for External Affairs.

Mr. M.J. O'Higgins

I would seriously advise Deputy Killilea——

Mr. Killilea

Will you seriously advise the Minister for External Affairs?

Mr. M.J. O'Higgins

I advise Deputy Killilea to take his time and to read what is being said. He will be able to digest it then and possibly to understand it. Here is what Deputy MacEntee had to say:—

"The screw is to be put on the banks to do what Mr. McGilligan has admitted the public are not prepared to do. That is the explanation of the cold war which the Coalition spokesmen have been waging on the Irish banks. But the banks had a personal responsibility to their depositors and it would appear from Mr. McGilligan's own statements that they had been impressing this point of view upon the Government.

The banks, naturally, and because they had certain traditional standards of conduct in these matters, were apparently refusing to become the instruments whereby the cautious thrift of their customers was to be fully explored and exploited."

He went on later to say:—

"If the hard-earned savings of a lifetime are wrung from the banks and squandered by this reckless and incompetent Government, what use will it be to the man who is reduced to penury because his savings have been thus wasted to be compelled to take from the banks thousands of scraps of paper issued by them under the compulsion of the Government? Unless the banks stood firm and the people supported them, the State was heading for financial chaos. Inevitably in its train would follow hardship and suffering and widespread unemployment."

I am quoting from the Irish Press of Wednesday, 3rd May.

Mr. Davin

Which could not be wrong.

Mr. M.J. O'Higgins

I make a point when I am giving a quotation to use the Fianna Fáil bible so that it will not be questioned. That was Deputy MacEntee talking to members of the Fianna Fáil organisation in his own constituency last Tuesday. Every Deputy who read that speech will, I think, realise the implications of Deputy MacEntee's statement; he will realise what Deputy MacEntee intended to say, even when he had not the courage to say it openly. I think, in so far as words can carry any meaning, that Deputy MacEntee in that speech did go as far as he could to say to the banks "As long as Fianna Fáil are in opposition, as long as the inter-Party Government are in power, any of you who have political leanings towards Fianna Fáil, we are calling on you not to support this State as long as it is without a Fianna Fáil Government; we are asking you not to cooperate with the present Government and, in case you are thinking of cooperating with the present Government in its financial policy, we are warning you that we will create panic amongst your depositors."

Mr. Little

Nonsense.

Mr. Butler

Pure nonsense.

Mr. M.J. O'Higgins

That is the meaning of that statement; there is no other meaning to be attached to it. Deputy Little and Deputy Butler may say "nonsense." Deputy MacEntee talks a lot of nonsense. It is his speech.

Mr. McCann

Is the Deputy not quoting himself? He is not quoting Deputy MacEntee—he is quoting himself.

Mr. M.J. O'Higgins

I was putting the plain meaning of Deputy MacEntee's words into words that even Deputy McCann can understand.

Mr. McCann

Did you ever know a banker to have politics?

Mr. M.J. O'Higgins

I certainly know a lot of bank depositors who have politics. There is no doubt, to my mind, what Deputy MacEntee meant, and I am willing to wager with any Deputy that if Deputy MacEntee decides to participate in this debate he will bear out what I am saying. Deputy MacEntee loses his head when he gets on his feet and it will not occur to him to strike a note of caution. If Deputy MacEntee is reminded of that speech, I would like to hear his comments on it. I think he would go a lot further, not when he is merely talking behind the closed doors of the Fianna Fáil meeting, but when he gets an odd interruption from this side of the House, it is then we will hear all about it. However, that was Deputy MacEntee.

Deputy Lemass, somehow or another —I do not know how, and I never have understood how—built up for himself a reputation as a level-headed man, the shining star on the Fianna Fáil ministerial Benches, a realist amongst politicians by accident, as a certain Mr. Skinner described the Fianna Fáil Government. One might overlook that type of speech from Deputy MacEntee. One might find the bankers might be sufficiently interested in politics, despite what Deputy McCann thinks. I think even the banks might be sufficiently interested in politics to know Deputy MacEntee's form and to know that that type of thing can be expected from Deputy MacEntee. But when we have the same line being pursued by Deputy Lemass, the Deputy Leader of Fianna Fáil, the man who, as I say, amongst all Fianna Fáil Ministers, managed to acquire, however fraudulently, the reputation as a realist Minister and a Minister with common sense—when we find the same line being pursued by him, we are surely entitled to suspect that the Party directive has been issued and that the Party line is going to be toed by Deputies opposite; either that or there is something contagious about it, because Deputy Corry was on the same line this evening and Deputy Butler will be on it the next evening.

Both Deputy Lemass and Deputy MacEntee, without giving any reasons for their attiude, jumped to conclusions which they invite the people to accept. Deputy Lemass spoke in Belturbet on the 24th of last month, and he is duly reported in the Irish Press of the following day where he persuaded the type-setter to give him this heading: “Lemass on Madcap Policy. Finance in Parliament.” Deputy Lemass's speech to the people in Belturbet was not an impromptu speech. We know that. Possibly that is the way in which Deputy Lemass acquired his reputation. All of us know here that Deputy Lemass is an effective speaker, a speaker who with very little straw can make effective bricks, even when he is speaking impromptu. But on this occasion when he visited Belturbet on the 24th of last month he did not go there merely for a chat; he did not go there to make an unprepared speech. He went there to deliver a lecture. In the course of that lecture the Irish Press report him as saying:—

"The sound financial condition in which the country had emerged from the war period had been undermined with extraordinary rapidity by the Coalition Government. It seemed hardly possible that any Government, however improvident, could have done so much damage in so short a time. Every month was making the position worse, increasing the difficulty and lengthening the period of subsequent recovery under another Government."

In connection with that I think it should be pointed out in fairness to the Minister that some short time ago a pamphlet was circulated by the Economic Co-operation Administration in Dublin in which that authority surveyed in detail, and very exhaustively, the financial position of this country. We find in that impartial review by the Economic Co-operation Administration authority here a somewhat different picture from that presented by Deputy Lemass for the edification of the people of Belturbet. I shall quote now from the Irish Independent of 2nd April, 1949. There is a quotation in it from the pamphlet to which I have referred in which it is stated:—

"With the aid of substantial dollar imports Ireland's internal economy has made good progress since the war. Both agricultural and industrial output are rising and the monetary and financial position is sound."

This is a comment on the pamphlet. I have not got before me the pamphlet at the moment but I think it will hardly be questioned that this is an accurate summary of what the document says:—

"Ireland's economic position past, present and prospective, has been subjected to a very searching examination by Economic Co-operation Administration experts in Washington. They reached the conclusion that the need to increase production is acute in Ireland and that the Government has prepared realistic and ambitious plans for the recovery and development of the country over the next four years"

Deputies must remember the advent of that pamphlet and they must remember, too, its reception by the Fianna Fáil Party newspaper. They must remember the Irish Press banner-lined the pamphlet by saying: “Back to 1939 level in four years.” I merely mention this pamphlet to illustrate how the financial policy of the Government and the economic position of the country is thought of by an impartial investigator whose job it was to investigate the economic position of the country impartially. I invite the House to put that review side by side with the reckless speeches made by Deputy MacEntee and Deputy Lemass.

A certain amount of criticism has been made on the grounds that too much money is being spent by this Government and the focal point of the criticism has been, by Deputy Aiken in the House, by Deputy Lemass in and out of the House, and by Deputy MacEntee out of the House, that the Government's proposed programme for capital development is fraudulent, that the Government had no right to borrow money for the purposes set out by the Minister in his Budget statement, that the Government was afraid to face the unpopularity of increasing taxation and that all these various items which the Minister has segregated into capital items should be financed from taxation. I think even Deputy Little, provided he has not yet received the Party directive in the matter, will admit that that is a correct analysis of Fianna Fáil Party criticism.

Mr. Little

Not quite.

Mr. M.J. O'Higgins

It is admitted.

Mr. Little

Not quite. A distinction is made between the investment of capital for productive purposes and for consumption purposes.

Mr. M.J. O'Higgins

I would be very much obliged to Deputy Little if, while I read out the list of items given by the Minister, he will tell me with what items he disagrees. First of all, we have housing. Is that admitted as a proper capital item?

Mr. Little

Not the grants.

Mr. M.J. O'Higgins

In other words, we have a "Yes" and "No" answer to housing. Even that is some slight improvement because Deputies will remember that yet another financial genius on the Opposition benches told us on the Vote on Account that housing would be a proper capital development provided all the houses were built in one year. That was Deputy Dr. Ryan's attitude. However, housing is "Yes" and "No". Now what about public health services?

Mr. Little

I will make my own speech in my own time.

Mr. M.J. O'Higgins

Public health services will not be answered.

Mr. Little

That is consumption. That is not production.

Mr. M.J. O'Higgins

Perhaps Deputy Butler would like to make a shot at electricity development.

Mr. Butler

My answer to that is that no development is good development that puts the country into pawn as you are doing.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

This question and answer must cease. It may be the proper procedure in other places, but it is not suitable here.

Mr. M.J. O'Higgins

We have got a certain amount of information. I will go down the list now for the purpose of letting the Deputies opposite know what is in the list.

Mr. Little

You will get it in Deputy Lemass's speech.

Mr. M.J. O'Higgins

I have taken the trouble to look up Deputy Aiken's Budget statement in 1947. I made a note of the items he then considered proper as capital items. This would be a six mark question for the Deputies opposite if I asked them to tell me what items are in both lists. They have changed their tune so often——

Mr. Butler

You do not remember your own speeches.

Mr. M.J. O'Higgins

The list as set out by the present Minister for Finance is housing, which is "Yes" and "No".

Mr. McCann

As far as the Dublin Corporation is concerned, yes and no.

Mr. M.J. O'Higgins

Public health services, which cannot be answered; hospitals, agricultural development. I think we may pass over agricultural development because Deputy Corry, apparently not having either listened to or read the Minister's statement, deplored the fact that agricultural development was not included. If we accept Deputy Corry as a spokesman for the Fianna Fáil Party, I dare say we can pass agricultural development. The next item is electricity development, which so shocked Deputy Butler; the telephone system; transport; schools and other State buildings; afforestation; tourists, fisheries and mineral development. This is the list the Minister for Finance set out in his Budget statement, showing the items set aside as proper items for capital development.

For days on the Vote on Account and for a day and a half on this Budget Deputies opposite have attacked that list. We have been told that we, like Fianna Fáil, should be Aiken-minded, that we should tax the people to get the money for the works mentioned in that list. In 1947, Deputy Aiken, as the people of the country have cause to remember, was Minister for Finance. Deputy Aiken, introduced a Budget in May of that year—we shall come to the Supplementary Budget in a minute— and his Budget statement appears in Volume 105. I want to direct the attention of Deputy Little and Deputy Butler to column 2255 of Volume 105, so that they will see that Deputy Aiken made provision for borrowing a sum of £8,000,000 to pay for items which he considered proper items of capital development. We find that the list included a sum of over £1,000,000, nearly £1,500,000, for telephone services. The present Minister has "Telephone System" in his list. We find that Deputy Aiken's list included £2,000,000 for electric power stations. We find that the present Minister, with some slight economy of words, refers to it as "Electricity Development". We find that Deputy Aiken had £150,000 for tourist facilities. "Tourist Development" appears in the list of the present Minister. We find that £1,500,000 was included for machine-won turf by Deputy Aiken. Again the present Minister includes the same sum, for what he calls "Turf Development".

There was one item in Deputy Aiken's list which does not appear, so far as I can see, in the present list unless it comes under the heading of "Transport". That was "Airport Development" which cost the people at that time something over £2,000,000. I wonder will Deputy Little now give us a clear "Yes" to housing, because in 1947 housing was accepted by Deputy Aiken as a proper item of capital development and he did not attach any strings to it. He did not hear Deputy Dr. Ryan whisper in his ears: "You must complete all those houses this year." No, Deputy Aiken was prepared to treat housing as a proper item of capital development with no strings attached. I have not got the report before me but I have one sentence of it which will give Deputy Aiken's 1947 mind on this question, as reported in column 2253 of Volume 105. Deputy Aiken said:—

"During the past year the Government did all it could to encourage new capital development and particularly the building of houses."

In other words, Deputy Aiken asked the Dáil to believe at that time that housing was not only a proper item of capital development but one in which the Fianna Fáil Government was particularly interested. Now three years later, Deputy Little cannot make up his mind as to whether housing is a proper item of capital development.

There were five or six other items which Deputy Aiken laid down as proper items for capital development, items for which money could properly be borrowed in 1947 and which also appear in the list mentioned in the Minister's statement. I wonder did it occur to any Deputy opposite to inquire from Deputy Aiken whether he had said anything indiscreet in his various utterances as Minister for Finance? I know that the Supplementary Budget of 1947, which came along some months after this, was a very indiscreet affair, something but for which Deputies opposite feel that they might be sitting on these benches, if only Deputy Aiken had kept his mouth closed and kept the Supplementary Budget speech locked up in his mind instead of standing up and spouting it out in this House. These five or six items were sanctioned by Deputy Aiken in 1947. They are now being attacked by speaker after speaker on the benches opposite. Why? Is not the only reason that Deputy McGilligan is Minister for Finance instead of Deputy Frank Aiken? Is there any other explanation?

Deputy Briscoe talks about a somersault. Could you have any greater somersault than the attitude of Fianna Fáil on this question? Many times during the past 12 months Deputies opposite have criticised the Government because they did not do this or they did not do that. For the 12 months prior to that, there was a unified whine from Deputies opposite because the Minister for Finance and the Government pursued a policy of cutting out waste and extravagance and putting an end to schemes which were not only unproductive then, but would never be productive and which were merely a drain on, and a waste of, the resources of the people of this country. We were told during the 12 months from February, 1948, to February, 1949, that this Government was economy-ridden, that it was dominated by a reactionary group who were going to do away with all development and progress in this country.

For the last 12 months we have had Fianna Fáil Deputies, in particular, urging the Government to do this, that or the other thing, all of which meant increased expenditure. We have had Fianna Fáil Deputies expressing dissatisfaction with the increase in salaries paid to the teachers. We have had a deliberate policy of provocation pursued against the Tánaiste in respect of social welfare matters, in particular, old age pensions. We have had the usual suggestions of meanness against the Government—that they did not give enough to the Guards, to the Army or to civil servants.

I want to put this point bluntly to the Deputies opposite, and would be glad to get a blunt answer to it. The Deputies are now criticising this Budget because too much money is going to be spent. They are not criticising what is known as the capital end of the Budget, but they are criticising the first portion of it which is described as the current Budget because they say too much money is going to be spent. Every Deputy opposite is entitled to speak in this debate. I invite any Deputy opposite to tell the Government where he wants economies made. Remember that when the Party which I represent were in opposition, and when the Labour Party and the Farmers' Party were in opposition, they claimed that the Budget introduced by Fianna Fáil could show reductions, and they pointed out where those reductions could be made. They pointed to the extravagance of Fianna Fáil and they indicated how economies could be effected.

Mr. Butler

And now they are puting £30,000,000 more on the people of this country.

Mr. M.J. O'Higgins

I thought Deputy Butler might put his two feet into it. He epitomises in that sentence exactly what I have been trying to say.

Mr. Butler

Explain it, please. You are taxing and pledging the Irish people, more than we did, to an extent of over £30,000,000. Please explain that.

Mr. M.J. O'Higgins

I said that, when the Fine Gael Party, the Labour Party, the Farmers' Party and Deputy Dillon were in opposition, they pointed out where economies could be effected.

Mr. Butler

And you are effecting economies by increasing the burden on the people by over £30,000,000.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

Deputy O'Higgins should be allowed to make his statement without interruption.

Mr. M.J. O'Higgins

We effected economies in many ways, and every time waste was cut out Deputy Butler, or some other member of the Party, went to a Fianna Fáil Cumann, and said: "Oh, is it not terrible? The McGilligan axe is at work again." We know that by cutting out the loss of £500,000 a year on the transatlantic air service we were able to increase old age pensions. We remember, too, that this Government were able to put a stop to such improvident purchases as Deputy Lemass's purchase of the Argentine wheat and the Canadian oatmeal.

Mr. McCann

And you are buying sugar from outside instead?

Mr. M.J. O'Higgins

We can throw our minds back, too, to the time when a number of people who were demobilised from the Irish Army were encouraged by the then Government to put their gratuities into the confectionery business, and we can remember the action of Deputy Lemass, as soon as that was done, in flooding the Irish market with imported chocolate and other sweets. Yet, Deputy McCann has the nerve to talk about sugar. I have indicated some of the ways in which economies were effected by this Government. We also scotched the £11,000,000 plan of Fianna Fáil for luxurious buildings and offices. Fianna Fáil, as well as putting into operation some of the plans which I have mentioned, also imposed certain new taxes in their Supplementary Budget. I am sure Deputy McCann is probably sick and tired of hearing of the triplets— beer, tobacco and cinema seats. This Government was able to give back to the taxpayers all the money which could have been obtained from them under those taxes when it remitted the taxes before it was one month in office.

Mr. McCann

It is getting them back now with a vengeance.

Mr. M.J. O'Higgins

In addition to all that, this Government substantially increased old age pensions, widows' and orphans' pensions, and blind pensions, while the level of workmen's compensation was raised. The teachers, who were so scurvily treated by Deputy Butler and other members of the Fianna Fáil Party——

Mr. McCann

But the findings of the commission which you set up were not implemented.

Mr. M.J. O'Higgins

Does Deputy McCann say that more money should have been spent?

Mr. McCann

I say that if we were in office the teachers would have more than they have now. The figures are there.

Mr. M.J. O'Higgins

We can take it, therefore, that Fianna Fáil would be spending more money.

Mr. Davin

What were the teachers walking the streets six months for?

Mr. Butler

The teachers' 12/6d. at that time was worth £1 of your money.

Mr. M.J. O'Higgins

I take it that Deputy Butler has read an article called "Diddlum Dandy" written by his financial leader, Deputy MacEntee, and that Deputy McCann thinks that under Fianna Fáil the teachers would have got more. I wonder would the old age pensioners have got more, and would the teachers?

Mr. Butler

What they got under Fianna Fáil was worth more.

Mr. McGilligan

That is why they went on strike and fired you out?

Mr. M.J. O'Higgins

Are we to take it that the large-hearted Fianna Fáil Party would have seen to it that their pensions did not decrease in value, and that accordingly there would have to be an even further rise under Fianna Fáil? I suppose the same thing would have happened to the Gardaí and the Army.

Mr. McCann

There would not be so many house-breakers in Dublin anyway.

Mr. M.J. O'Higgins

So that there would be more Gardaí and, I suppose, there would be more civil servants. It is very difficult to follow the line of argument put up piecemeal by Deputy McCann. As far as I can see, Fianna Fáil policy would be to increase all these things.

Mr. McCann

The point is that there would be more people working.

Mr. M.J. O'Higgins

What then would be reduced? We are talking now about a Party which was responsible for a low wage policy and for a Standstill Order which operated for a very long time, and a Party which was responsible for allowing the national school teachers to strike for a considerable length of time.

Mr. McCann

What about the Party that promised that it would give them everything they looked for during the strike and got into power on the backs of the teachers?

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

Deputy McCann will have an opportunity of making his own speech and should not be constantly interrupting.

Mr. Davin

He should have a chat with Deputy Butler.

Mr. M.J. O'Higgins

I move to report progress.

Progress reported; Committee to sit again.

The Dáil adjourned at 10.30 p.m. until 3 p.m. on Tuesday, the 9th May, 1950.