In his introductory statement the Parliamentary Secretary was at great pains to show that the price control machinery had operated effectively and efficiently up to recently. He dilated at some length on that point. In striking contrast with that, it was interesting to hear a quite contrary note in many of the speeches that were made from the benches behind him. Some of the speeches that I listened to last week made me feel that I was back again in the period before the change of Government. One would think that Deputy Lemass was still Minister for Supplies, and that Fianna Fáil was the Government, because all the attacks seemed to be in that direction, and that, even now, the Parties who had directed for so long a period their attacks against the Fianna Fáil Administration could hardly shed their minds of the impression that a change had not taken place.
We were told that price control had worked quite effectively until the blast came from Korea. Devaluation was also mentioned. Was not the decision to devalue our money taken by the Government on their own initiative? If devaluation has proved to be a curse rather than a blessing, would the Government not take the responsibility for the decision themselves? If the position which has arisen out of the Korean war is to be offered as an excuse for the recent increases in prices, is it not permissible to ask why there was so much uninformed and prejudiced criticism of the Fianna Fáil Administration on these matters when war was somewhat nearer to us than far away Korea and when the whole world, in fact, was locked in a life and death struggle and ships had a very restricted part of the oceans on which to voyage to get the supplies which were needed? Of course the position has proved that the machinery set up by Fianna Fáil was quite effective except in the most abnormal circumstances.
It is very difficult to know what provisions the Dáil is asked to vote on since the Tánaiste made his speech this evening. He told us that a tribunal is being set up. I understand that the body to be set up will not have the powers usually given to a tribunal, that it will merely act in an advisory capacity. In any event, the Tánaiste said that there was going to be a complete and general freezing of prices. One would like to ask why the Tánaiste came in almost at the last moment to make this sensational announcement, because there is nothing in the Bill which provides for the freezing of the prices and it is quite obvious from a reading of the Bill that the body to be set up will not be given any such powers. If, in its advisory capacity, it recommends to the Government that there should be a freezing of prices, the decision to freeze or not to freeze—there are a great many people freezing at the present time because of coalition policy—will still be a matter for the Government.
I do not know what the attitude of Deputies would be if this Bill when we received it contained a far-reaching proposal of that sort. Without in any way wanting to be offensive to the Tánaiste, I want to say quite frankly that I do not accept his statement that there is going to be a freezing of prices. I believe that it has been introduced by him because the Bill is regarded by a number of his supporters on the Government Benches as being quite inadequate for its purpose, particularly in view of recent developments.
A great many of the criticisms I listened to last week were criticisms of racketeers. I do not think this measure is calculated or designed to deal with the activities of racketeers. In connection with that matter, I should like to remind Deputies how we dealt with racketeers when we were able to prove rackets against them. I should like to remind them further how that was criticised in this House and that it was very effective when it was applied. When Fianna Fáil went to the extent of using the power of the Military Court to check this racketeering, we remembered what was said then. We were told that it was tyrannical and unconstitutional. If we are to believe some of the statements made on this Bill, some of the Deputies would go much further than we went then.
Of course the question of prices cannot be discussed without relation to the question of supplies. I think that is obvious. The war has been over since 1945 and there has been a much freer flow of trade for the last three years since this Government came in than there was at any period during the war. Surely then the supplies situation ought not be as stringent as it is at present, either supplies from overseas or from our own resources. Take the question of agricultural products. Many of the complaints at the present time have relation to foodstuffs which we are capable of producing ourselves. There has been a great deal of boasting about the increase of agricultural products. Very often the administration of a Government is likened to budgeting for a household. What would be said of the head of a house if he allowed the sustenance of the household to run out on account of high prices, and if the members of his family were to be left hungry? We boast about the increase in the export of agricultural products. Even if that export is necessary to buy other goods, when we come to the position that exists at present there should be a recasting of views about it.
Let us relate that question of exports to the devaluation of money. We have not been told in any great detail by the financial experts why devaluation was necessary at the time it took place. We are told now that we are feeling the effects of it. I believe there was a time when the Irish pound, without any official action, did fetch more in exchange across the Atlantic than the English pound. If there had not been devaluation, is it not obvious that we could get as big an income from a smaller volume of agricultural exports and, in consequence, have more to go round at home among our own people? That applies to any of the foods that we export.
Wool has been mentioned here and we have been charged with taking up two different attitudes in regard to it. We were challenged and we were told that our remarks about wool being permitted to soar in price was an attack on the farmers. We know that when Fianna Fáil was in office wool was controlled. We know the lambasting the Fianna Fáil Administration received because of their action in that connection. The farmers who sell wool did not expect to receive as high a price as 8/9 or 10/- per lb. In that connection a great deal of jealousy has been created among the farmers themselves because it is not every farmer who has wool to sell. In my constituency the farmer who has wool to sell in any quantity is fairly comfortably off. This year his profits have been enormously inflated because of this wool racket and in consequence those farmers who have not enough land on which to produce wool and who have been deprived of other sources of income since the change of Government are looking askance at this wholly irrational wool market.
With regard to fuel, I want to try to avoid making the pun that it is a burning question at the present time. It is certainly a topic of prime importance. A very extraordinary thing happened in my constituency this winter. Turf had to be brought from the centre of Ireland into West Galway. We have often heard about bringing coals to Newcastle. Importing turf from the midlands to the west of Ireland is something that cannot happen without the people of the west taking serious note of it. I was told in reply to a question here that the stopping of the hand-won turf industry in the west had nothing to do with the present shortage of fuel that exists there. On the face of it that is, of course, quite untrue. When Deputy Beegan was speaking someone interjected that it was we ourselves who stopped the hand-won turf industry. That matter arose on a previous occasion here, and I remember dealing with it exhaustively then in so far as it referred to my own area and to other areas with which I am acquainted.
If one looks up the Book of Estimates for the year 1948/49, a book prepared by the Fianna Fáil administration although the estimates were actually handled by the present Government, one will find there a sum of almost £2,000,000 for the provision of hand-won turf, turf produced under the auspices of the county councils as well as Bord na Móna. On looking up the Appropriation Accounts for that year one finds that only £220,000 of that £2,000,000 was spent. With reference to the question as to whether or not we stopped the hand-won turf industry, I want to state that an organisation for the carrying out of the hand-won turf industry had actually been set up. When the change of Government took place that was dissolved and the men who had been appointed were sent home. The bogs had been marked out and the stations allocated. The whole scheme was ready to go into operation. The people who lost their employment as a result of the present Government's decision were not all supporters of Fianna Fáil, as has been proved.
The Fianna Fáil method of checking any increase in prices during the emergency and immediately afterwards was that of subsidisation. Some Government spokesman said here last week that subsidies never really took on any sizable appearance until there was a change of Government. That, of course, is not true. We had not, perhaps, got on to the subsidy method of dealing with the cost of living quite as rapidly as the British had, but that is easily understandable. In any event, from 1939 to 1945 subsidies were increased from £1.4 million to £6.4 million. In the year 1943 the cost of living was stabilised as a result of these subsidies. In Britain, subsidies increased from £20,000,000 in 1939 to £250,000,000 in 1945, and they stabilised their cost of living there two years earlier than we did. The steady increase in subsidies if proof positive of the effective method adopted by the Fianna Fáil Government to check a possible rise in prices. In the Book of Estimates for 1948-49, the last year for which we prepared Estimates, one finds the very big figure of £12,767,000 for food subsidies alone, a further £1,000,000 for fuel subsidies and almost £2,000,000 for the turf, to which I have already referred. There has been a drop in these subsidies since then. I am not including agricultural produce subsidies because they were in existence even before the emergency; but even if they are included, a comparison with the figures since 1948-49 down to the present year shows that there is a tendency to decrease. Notwithstanding that, the total bill for government, as shown in the Book of Estimates, has gone up by £8,000,000 between 1948-49 and 1950-51. It was down to £65,000,000 in 1949-50. It is quite obvious that if a check to prices is to be applied it can only be applied in circumstances such as Fianna Fáil produced by subsidisation, if the Government cannot increase the output sufficiently to make rationing unnecessary. Claims were made here with relation to the reduction of £6,000,000 in taxation. That £6,000,000, as everybody knows, was imposed by the previous Government who subsidised the essential articles of diet, flour, bread, butter, tea, etc.
