The Taoiseach has thought it best to keep out of the House during the course of this debate. But yesterday he went down to Wexford and he made a statement, according to to-day's Press, which, if he believes it, should have been made here together with an indication as to what the Government proposes to do to meet the situation he outlined there.
Supplies and Services (Temporary Provisions) Act, 1946 (Continuance and Amendment) Bill, 1950—Second Stage (Resumed).
On a point of order. I was in possession when we adjourned the debate on this matter.
Yes, but the Deputy would not rise when called on. He was talking to somebody. It is not my fault. I regret it.
I should have finished.
The Taoiseach stated down in Wexford: "There is no ground for foolish or presumptuous optimism." He went on to say that "throughout the entire period of the last four or five years it had been difficult to avoid being disturbed by the threats of yet another and more terrible war. It was, however, to misunderstand the events of these years to imagine that the spectre of war made its first menacing appearance only recently in Korea. In one aspect or another that spectre has been haunting the world since the present uneasy peace began."
What are you quoting from?
I am quoting from the Irish Press.
Good enough—truth in the news.
Truth in the news.
I will not challenge it.
That statement made by the Taoiseach in Wexford is a most amazing statement in view of the fact that it is only a couple of months since he was denouncing as warmongers——
In Dundalk.
——those people who were asking the Government to do something to prepare against the menacing world situation. Yesterday he talked about the "presumptuous optimism" of those who thought we could avoid the effect of wars in other parts of the world. On 14th July last he stated that the Government's policy was based on the "hypothesis of continuing peace," and he said "we did not require to take any steps against the mythical war that Deputy Lemass thought was coming." He denounced more than Deputy Lemass on that occasion in relation to this "mythical war," as he called it. Yesterday, according to his speech in Wexford, those people who did not see that the world situation was dangerous and that the Korean war was merely an incident in the general situation were "foolish optimists" and blind people. What are the people to do under the guidance of a Government like that?
Thank God for the Government.
The Government are proposing that we give them powers in this Bill to authorise them to make Orders providing for the regulation and control, by or on behalf of this State, of any of the supplies which are, in the opinion of the Government, essential to the life of the community and also for the provision and maintenance of such essential supplies. Another clause in the Act which this Bill proposes to renew enables the Government to make such provisions with respect to the cultivation and use of land which, in the opinion of the Government, are necessary for increasing or maintaining the production of articles essential to the life of the community. Another clause authorises local authorities to take steps in connection with the maintenance of supplies and enables them compulsorily to acquire land. If the situation is such, as the Taoiseach denied most vehemently it was in 1950, and as he said yesterday in Wexford it is now, what use are the Government going to make of these powers? The Minister for Social Welfare said that they were going to freeze prices, that they were going to freeze the price of blankets at 100 per cent. more than a year ago. To the person who is looking for blankets to keep himself warm at double the price they were a year ago, all I can say is that I hope the weather keeps mild. To freeze prices at that level is very small comfort for the people who are short of blankets.
He did not say that.
That is what he said.
Read it again.
Deputy after Deputy got up after the Parliamentary Secretary spoke and tried to deny that he said that the price level had remained static
Up to mid-August. I did not say since.
Let us deal with that particular point.
What did he say about reviewing certain prices?
One at a time. I shall take the whole lot of you, one by one. The Parliamentary Secretary said, as reported in col. 1267 of the Official Debates for the 23rd November:—
"It is, however, a matter of some achievement that, despite devaluation and despite the rises that occurred elsewhere, in this country in the last three years the index of retail prices, which is in fact the cost-of-living index figure, has remained static."
Why be so dishonest? Why not read the full quotation?
I shall read the whole speech.
This is blatant dishonesty. The Deputy knows he is dishonest. He is only quoting part of it.
I am quoting the full sentence.
Quoting what you want to quote.
I shall quote the whole speech for you if you want it.
Everyone in the country must be dishonest.
I shall quote the truth when I am replying.
Not only did the Parliamentary Secretary say that, but the interpretation put on the statement by the principal paper supporting him was that he said there had been no rise in prices.
I said that no rise in prices had occurred until recent months.
In the last couple of weeks Deputy after Deputy tried to cover up the Parliamentary Secretary and suggested that he had not said it.
While you were galloping around Europe.
What did Churchill say at Strasbourg?
I want to say first of all that the Parliamentary Secretary used these words, that prices had remained static for the last three years. He went on to say that—
"the improvement which has occurred in our economic position has been achieved at a time when the cost of living has been kept stable and the prices of essential commodities maintained at the same level at which they stood in mid-August, 1947."
Mid-August. That is the date.
The Parliamentary Secretary was put in here by the Government to make the best of a bad job. I think it most extraordinary, on a Bill of this nature, at a time which the Taoiseach described yesterday in Wexford as so serious, to make that sort of speech.
He scrapped your machinery.
The Deputy is entitled to speak without interruption. If anything he says is not correct it can be corrected afterwards.
The trouble is that what I am saying is correct, but they want to deny it and they want to try to put me off the track. Deputy Davin is now saying that the Minister for Social Welfare did not say that they were going to freeze prices. Perhaps he has ratted.
I did not say that. He used these words and he said he would review other prices.
He said he was going to freeze prices and he gave that undertaking. It is poor comfort to the people to say that they are going to freeze prices at double what they were a year ago. We know that Deputy Davin and other members of the Labour Party are running as fast as they can from these words. They ratted on everything they said before.
You ran away when you were put out.
They ratted on every promise they made to the people about the cost of living and everything else. They are trying to fool the people a little longer, by opening their mouths wider and making bigger promises about what they are going to do in future. The Minister for Social Welfare promised to freeze prices only three days ago and now Deputy Davin is ratting on that.
What did Churchill say in Strasbourg?
Ask the Minister for Posts and Telegraphs.
To come back to where I started when Deputy Davin interrupted me, what use are the Government going to make of the powers under this Bill to provide essential commodities in a situation in which the Taoiseach said that it would be foolish optimism to think that the international position was not going to interfere with us to our detriment? Surely if that is the situation, we should be making some preparation, but instead of making a preparation for it, instead of asking the people to grow more wheat and beet and to produce more turf, the Minister for Agriculture went down to Connemara and his only solution was to threaten to shove the Twelve Pins into the sea. He also promised that he would make nylons for them out of the seaweed. From the time of Silken Thomas such a speech was never made until Nylon James went down to Connemara. The Clann na Poblachta Party used to advocate a 30 per cent. decrease in the cost of living and free fertilisers for the farmers. Yesterday the Taoiseach was down in Wexford complaining that under the Fianna Fáil Government, during the emergency, the land had been depleted in its essential manurial constituents. What has the Government done about it? Nylon James promised that he will make artificial manures out of the rocks of Connemara, some time between now and Tibb's Eve.
On a point of order. Is it correct for the Deputy to refer to a Minister as "Nylon James"?
The correct reference is the Minister for Agriculture.
The Minister for Agriculture went down to Connemara and promised that he would make artificial manures out of the rocks, some time. Clann na Poblachta said that they would give manures free. Yet, what Deputy Davin and Clann na Poblachta and the Minister for Agriculture in fact did was to stop the subsidy that Fianna Fáil had for artificial manures. Now, when the Taoiseach has changed his mind about the war situation, when he no longer thinks it is the mythical war that he denounced Fianna Fáil for talking about a few months ago, he talks about manuring the land and repairing the damage that was done to the land during the emergency.
I ask the Taoiseach to come in here before this debate is over and to give the country some indication of what he means to do in relation to the provision of the essential supplies that we are empowering him to make Orders about under this Bill and what proposals he has to make for the use of land for the production of essential supplies about which also we are empowering him to make Orders. We know that there is nothing being done about encouraging our farmers to produce the wheat that we might so badly require—nothing at all.
We sowed more last year than ever.
You did in my hat.
You would not believe that?
You did in my hat. If we were producing more last year, why did we import more wheat?
We sowed more last year than ever before.
The Deputy is now trying to make the speech that he was afraid to make on his feet. He got an opportunity to make a speech.
I will make it after you. Do not forget it.
The Government are doing nothing in relation to the production of wheat. The Minister for Agriculture tried to kill wheat production when he came in. He did his damnedest to prevent people from growing wheat. He issued advertisements asking them to grow oats. There was not a word about wheat. He tried to get out of the contract that Fianna Fáil had made with the farmers for the wheat for the following year and he probably would have succeeded in getting his way in that regard from Deputy Davin and Clann na Poblachta if the wheat prices in the world market had not turned upwards.
Nothing is being done either to produce the wheat within the country or even to store wheat. When there was a threatening situation in 1937 or 1938 the Fianna Fáil Government, so much denounced now by Labour and other people, took steps to store various essential supplies. We were denounced then by Deputy Dillon and he is making certain that nobody can accuse him of doing what Fianna Fáil did before the last war, that is, trying to stock up in a reasonable fashion against an uncertain future.
No matter what the Taoiseach says about "foolish and presumptuous optimism", the Government certainly are acting in a foolish and presumptuous way in regard to the essential supplies of which our people may be very badly in need.
That declaration by the Taoiseach is worthy of being repeated in this House. It should have been made in this House because it is a declaration of a state of emergency, which the Taoiseach up to now denied existed. He said in Wexford:—
"It was, however, to misunderstand the events of these years"
—that is the last five years—
"to imagine that the spectre of war made its first menacing appearance only recently in Korea. In one aspect or another that spectre has been haunting the world since the present uneasy peace began."
If that is true, if he really means that Korea is only one of the first incidents in the third world war, his place is to say that in this House and to outline a programme to the House and the country that we should follow to meet the menacing situation. Even Deputy Davin has not the impudence to say in reply to that particular statement of mine that I am talking about a mythical war. Whenever his leader, the Fine Gael Taoiseach, Deputy Costello, opens his mouth, Deputy Davin has to stay quiet.
So should you.
It is now, I think, admitted by implication by the Parliamentary Secretary that he was wrong when he said there was no rise in prices.
I never admitted it by implication nor did I state it expressly.
The Parliamentary Secretary now admits that he was wrong in making that statement.
I do not admit it. I did not make the statement to begin with.
Was Deputy Aiken in the House when he made it?
I have just read it out of the Official Debates.
Were you in the House when he made it?
I was not, but the official reporters were here and put it down in black and white and, not only were the official reporters here, but the Independent reporters were here and they stated that he said there was no rise in prices.
If you vote for this Bill, there will be none.
Are you voting against it?
I will vote for it. I am waiting for it to give relief to the people outside, not talking about wars.
Deputy O'Leary ought to reserve his statement until he is making a speech.
If Deputy O'Leary does not keep quiet, the Taoiseach will be coming down on him. In Wexford the Taoiseach was talking about foolish optimists who could not see the situation.
Do you forget the time when you said——
I ask Deputy O'Leary to cease interrupting. This is the last time I will ask him.
What do the Government propose to do in relation to the rise in prices which the Parliamentary Secretary denied existed, a few days ago, but which he now admits, along with Deputy Davin and the Minister for Social Welfare, does exist? What do they propose to do about it? Freeze prices at the present stage.
Not wages.
We will come back to the wages afterwards. They propose to freeze prices. They will only leave the people paying the present exorbitant prices for numbers of essential commodities without any addition to their wages so far as we know or without any additional subsidy from the Government to keep down the cost of essentials. Fianna Fáil had to meet exactly a similar situation as that which this Government is up against. In 1947 prices suddenly started to shoot up. At that time the financial crisis was due to the British putting an end to the Washington Agreement and the free flow of sterling to dollar countries. Prices started to rise.
We could have dodged the situation in the same way as the Parliamentary Secretary is dodging it at the present time. We could have denied there was any rise in prices. We could have dodged the situation in the way the Labour Party prefer to do it by promising to freeze prices. We could have dodged the situation as Clann na Poblachta, Labour and Fine Gael propose to do it by promising to set up a commission, an advisory body, to examine prices some time in the distant future. Instead of doing that, we took our courage in our hands and we did the honest thing. We told the Dáil that there had been an increase in prices; we admitted to the people that there had been an increase and that the only way out of the situation was to collect subsidies from the taxpayers and give them to the consumers. We do not expect a Government formed as the Coalition Government is formed would have the courage to do that. They have been running round in a cage for the past two and a half years. They probably will run round it for three years, no matter what happens to the people. We do not expect them to take any such steps as would indicate that this situation of rapid price increases should be met by subsidies from the State Exchequer which would be collected by taxation.
Apart from the price rise, what are the Government doing in regard to the supply of those essentials which our people must have in peace or war? We had a certain amount of fuel in the Park when we left office. The Government, I think, in order to make a political scandal out of losses, dispersed that turf that we had in the Park at very much below its economic value. They wanted to make the claim that they had lost millions on a Fianna Fáil hare-brained scheme. I remember that last July Deputy O'Higgins talked to me across the House about the dirt that was in the Park—that was the American and African coal. I said to him: "You might be very glad of the dirt yet". Now the dirt in the Park is being hoarded like gold dust; nobody will get it.
If the situation is as the Taoiseach said in Wexford, that anybody could have foreseen it in the past five years, that, in fact, we had no settled conditions and that peace was at present in grave jeopardy, why did the Government within the past three years disperse our reserves of fuel and why were they so contemptuous about our small efforts to build reserves of American and African coal? If the situation was as it now appears to the Taoiseach, why did the Government do their utmost to kill the production of turf? They did everything they possibly could do in that direction. The Minister for Industry and Commerce the year before last shut down the small automatic turf-winning machines and he made a great song and dance here, that if they kept the scheme on, they would have to sell it for 39/6, whereas it cost 41/6; they would have to subsidise machine-won turf to the extent of 2/- a ton.
Instead, they preferred to shut those schemes down and to send our people to England where they could produce British coal. We are paying a subsidy of 25/- a ton to the British Coal Board. Our Government refused to pay a couple of shillings by way of subsidy on Irish turf. If they had only done so they could have kept our people at home. Now we are paying a subsidy of 25/- a ton on English coal. They are employing Irish workers there to dig the coal. We saw in this morning's paper where Mr. Noel Baker, the British Minister of Fuel and Power, stated that he was going to build camps for more Irish workers who would dig coal. What will our Government do in that situation? I do not expect the British Minister of Fuel and Power made that statement in the House of Commons without having some word beforehand as to the attitude of the Government here.
He had no word whatever. The implication behind that statement has no foundation, and the Deputy knows it. Whatever statement the British Minister made, he made it entirely independently.
Therefore there was no conversation with this Government with regard to the recruitment of Irish workers to fill these camps?
None whatever.
If there were no such conversations, there might have been some conversations with the workers in Ireland with the object of employing them to dig turf.
We were thousands of workers short in the turf camps this year. We published advertisements time and again.
Deputy Flynn was speaking about people from the ends of Kerry who were offered a job in Kildare. When Fianna Fáil were in office those people were offered jobs to dig turf at their own doorsteps. Much as I want to see the machine-won turf scheme going ahead as rapidly as possible, if we are to deal with this situation we will have to try and encourage everybody to produce fuel and other essentials of life where they can best produce them, and that is as near as possible to their homes. The solution for a fuel emergency next year will not be found in offering somebody from Connemara or Kerry or Donegal, who has family ties, who has to run his own household, a job digging turf in Kildare. It will be found in giving him employment in Kerry or Galway or Donegal.
The Minister for Social Welfare had the impudence last week to talk about the excess corporation profits tax. Three and four years ago the Minister for Social Welfare, Deputy Davin and Deputy O'Leary were ranting round the country as to what they would do with the excess corporation profits tax. When Fianna Fáil took off that tax, following a similar tax being taken off by the British Labour Government in England, we were denounced as racketeers and the friends of racketeers. It was said that we were giving back £3,500,000 to the people who had fleeced the consumers of the country. Well, if we gave back £3,500,000 to the racketeers who had fleeced the consumers of the country, it can be said that Deputy Davin and Deputy O'Leary gave back at least £12,000,000 or £14,000,000 to them, and there is not a mumbling word out of them about it.
It put you where you are.
There is not a word from them about the iniquity of their own Government, which gave £14,000,000 to these racketeers. It is only when the Minister for Social Welfare gets into a political difficulty, of having to cover up the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Finance, that he comes in here and rants, as he used to rant, about the racketeers who were fleecing the consumers, and now says that he is going, at some future date, to impose the excess corporation profits tax on them again. He will in my hat.
The Minister for Social Welfare and Deputy Davin have kept as meek as mice about the excess corporation profits tax for the last three years, although they had made very definite promises to the people that, if they were returned even as a strong Party, they would see that it went back. If Deputy Davin wants some quotations as to the many occasions on which that statement was made by the Minister for Social Welfare, and others, I will give them to him. The statements were made all through the country, from one end of it to another. They spoke about the excess corporation profits tax, and of what they would do if only they had the power. During the last three years the Labour Party had absolute power to insist, if they wanted to, on that tax being put back. If they insisted the Fine Gael people would have surrendered, but the Labour Party are as meek as mice now. They are going to try and fool the people coming up to another general election, because we are in the straight for another general election, as we can see by the various hedge hoppings that are going on over there.
We will give you Deputy Cogan on that side.
We are, as I say, in the straight for a general election. We can see all the shifting that is going on over on those benches. The Minister for Social Welfare comes into the Dáil and opens his mouth as wide as ever about all that he is going to do at some future date. They had the power to do it within the last three years and they did not do it, although they promised the people that they would do it.
You had 16 years.
I want to call the attention of the Chair to the fact that Deputy O'Leary, on three occasions, has broken the order of the Chair not to interrupt. Deputy Davin, of course, like all the rest of the Labour members, is quite prepared to play the game for another few months, or even another year, and so they will continue to promise the people what they are going to do some time in the future in the hope that, in that way, they will scrounge a few votes at the next general election. The Minister for Social Welfare not only said all that he was going to do about the excess corporation profits tax, but he had the temerity to say that, when the present Government came into office, they sought to make amends to the workers for all the sufferings which Fianna Fáil had imposed on them. They started off, he said, to provide compensation by a generous approach; they had given increases to public servants and to workers generally, showing that their policy was to enable the workers to get compensation for the increase in the cost of living. What are the facts of the matter? They are that the Labour Party, the Fine Gael Party and all the other elements which go to make up the Coalition were growling about the standard of wages and the standard of remuneration under Fianna Fáil. They came into office on 18th February, and from that date until the Minister for Finance introduced his Budget, not a single penny of an increase was given to any public servant. Not only that, but the Minister for Finance said, in his Budget statement, and it was applauded by Deputy Davin, that:—
"The substantial wage and salary increases already secured by all classes of workers"
—that was under the naughty Fianna Fáil Government—
"with such further advantages as shorter hours, paid holidays, children's allowances and other increases in social services, have gone as far as is possible, in present circumstances, to meet the claims of social justice."
That was what the Minister for Finance said three months after the Coalition came into office, three months after they had completed the campaign in which they had denounced Fianna Fáil as being unjust because of the standard of wages, remuneration, salaries and so on; but three months afterwards the Minister for Finance came into the Dáil and said that the standard of wages, remuneration and salaries were as high as social justice demanded. That statement by the Minister for Finance was applauded by Deputy Davin. Now, three years after that event, the Minister for Social Welfare has the temerity to say that when the Government came in they increased the remuneration of civil servants and others. Now that Deputy Davin is going out he might send in a couple of others to take his place.
Now that you have mentioned that I will ask for a count so that we may get in some of the intelligentsia to listen to the Deputy.
Notice taken that 20 Deputies were not present; House counted and 20 Deputies being present—
The other night, when Deputy Allen was speaking about the Prices and Efficiency Bill which was brought in by Fianna Fáil and asking why the present Government did not go ahead with it, although the Labour Party had voted for the Second Reading of it, Deputy Larkin, who is the Leader of the Labour Party in the House, I understand, said that it was because it was no good. As I pointed out to Deputy Larkin, the Labour Party had voted for the Prices and Efficiency Bill and for the last three years they have been content to leave the law as it stood when Fianna Fáil left office. They were content to allow the Prices and Efficiency Bill to go by the board. Now, when we are coming into the straight for a general election——
A Deputy
What?
We are three years gone.
You were only to be three weeks.
The agreement was three years.
That has nothing to do with the cost-of-living or high or low prices.
The agreement was for three years.
I know nothing about that.
Now, when we are coming down the straight, they are making a promise that they will set up an advisory body under this present Bill and that that is going to cure the evils of the prices rise. This particular section in this Bill has a curious history. There was no word about it when the Bill was introduced. At that time the Government had decided to take the line that there was in fact no prices increase, that anybody who thought there had been was under a delusion, just as the people last July, according to the Taoiseach, were under a delusion if they thought there was any danger of war. But, when it came to the point that they saw they could not bluff it out, the Government decided to introduce this section of 20 or 30 words in the Bill to deal with the situation. That section is to replace the Prices and Efficiency Bill which contained many clauses.
Fianna Fáil had long experience of trying to wrestle with prices and decided in 1946-47 that the proper way to deal with fair prices, fair to the manufacturer and fair to the consumer, was by the Prices and Efficiency Bill. We all know that, if we are to have commodities manufactured here and expect people to put their money into machinery and premises and to hire skilled people, they must get a reasonable profit. The Prices and Efficiency Bill gave the manufacturers a right to have their case examined before a conclusion was arrived at. It also gave the consumers a right to have their case examined. In order that that might be done on a basis of justice, not only to the consumers, but also to the people who had risked their money in investing in Irish business, a long and very complicated series of clauses was necessary in the Bill which the Fianna Fáil Government put before the Dáil. But now, as a last resort in order to meet a political situation and with nothing else but a political purpose in view, the Government throw in this section which they thought of after they had introduced the Bill. They withdrew the original Bill and then threw this Bill at us. The clause reads:—
"A Minister may from time to time by Order provide for the establishment and constitution of bodies of persons to advise him in relation to all or any of the powers conferred on or delegated to him by virtue of the principal Act and any such Order may contain such ancillary and supplementary provisions as the Minister thinks proper."
Even the word "prices" is not mentioned in that section. Every time the Government have got into a difficulty since they came into office they set up an advisory body or a commission. They ranted about emigration, and when they discovered in their first year of office that emigration had started again, they set up the Commission on Emigration. When people complained about the price of flour, they set up an inquiry into flour milling. On several other occasions they have met difficulties and criticisms by setting up commissions or advisory bodies. They could not handle the situation in the Department of Industry and Commerce even with a Minister and Parliamentary Secretary. They hesitated to handle and deal with the various propositions put up for the starting of industries or even to deal with the list of industries which had been left to them by Fianna Fáil. When they were being pressed they set up another advisory body. They used to be great people for doing things in one day with their mouths when in opposition, but for three years, or 1,000 days, they kept quiet and did nothing to see that prices were reasonably just to all concerned. But when we are coming into the straight for a general election, they throw in this little clause as another promise.
What would be the result of setting up an advisory body in regard to prices? They will advise. The situation has been apparent to everybody that prices were going to rise, even without war, after the devaluation of the £, although that was denied by the Government and by every Minister of the Government. They did nothing about it. It will take them some time to set up an advisory body and the advisory body will be as slow to act as the Industrial Development Authority is slow to act. They have been at it for 18 months and nobody can get a reply out of them about anything. It will be the same thing with this advisory body in connection with prices if it is set up.
Why cannot the Government act up to their responsibilities? After all, they have been three years in office and if the situation is as the Taoiseach described it in Wexford yesterday, it is time for the Government to live up to their responsibilities and act instead of trying to pass the buck on to some advisory body or another. If there are undue price rises, the Parliamentary Secretary and the Minister for Industry and Commerce have at their disposal officials who are able to tell them whether there are unjust price rises or not. It is up to the Government to take action themselves now. They should have taken it long ago, but it is up to them at least to take it now instead of passing it on to an advisory body to be done some time next year or the year after.
If they do not want to deal with the situation, if they are not men enough to act up to their responsibilities in that way, let them face the situation by a prices subsidy. Of course, we know that they do not like the collection of taxes. They set out to borrow £12,000,000 this year which they should have collected in taxes. Another £1,000,000 or £2,000,000 would be very little extra for a prices subsidy. I want to end on the note on which I began: it is due to the House and to the country, when the Taoiseach has so radically changed his mind in regard to the international situation, as he has done in the last few months, that he should come into the House now, not only to describe the situation as he sees it, but to give some outline to the people as to how best that situation can be met. The people are prepared to co-operate with any Government in the present situation in order to ensure that we get together a better supply of essentials than we have at the present time. All during the war, when things were very much worse than they are at the present time and when we had to appeal to the people to make great sacrifices both with regard to prices, wages and everything else, the people co-operated with the Government when the Government dealt candidly and honestly with them. Fianna Fáil never tried to deny that there were increases in prices when, in fact, prices had increased. We took the unpopular step, politically disastrous but nationally very beneficial, of asking the people to meet the situation that arose in 1947.
Let us hope that even if Fine Gael have lost all respect for the people and are prepared to tell them any untruth in regard to the world situation and the prices situation, some small group in the Coalition Government will bring pressure to bear upon the Government. After all, the Clann na Poblachta Party had ten members returned on their promise to the people that they would reduce the cost of living by 30 per cent. Surely they have some little sense of shame left in them. Surely they will not stand idly by when the cost of living, instead of being reduced by 30 per cent., has in fact been doubled in relation to some essential commodities. They claimed that they were so powerful they made the Government introduce the Republic of Ireland Bill. We know that the legal authorities have said that that made no change; that, in fact, there was no change from the Constitution of 1937. But the Clann na Poblachta Party made a great song and dance about it. Let them now, if it is in fact true that they brought pressure to bear to get the label changed, do something with their powers to force the Fine Gael Party to meet the present situation and make provision to meet its disastrous consequences so far as those with low wages and incomes are concerned. Indeed the farmers are also concerned. I do not know how they will meet the increased cost of living in certain essentials accompanied as it has been by decreases in the prices they are getting for their commodities.
Give us one example.
The Deputy from North Dublin is concerned, of course, with the graziers. They have done fairly well. Let us take any example. Let us take the whole farming economy. Under the Fianna Fáil régime eggs were fetching 3/- per dozen. In a few weeks from now they will fetch 2/- per dozen. At the same time as eggs fall from 3/- to 2/- the price of maize has gone up from £18 per ton to £27 per ton, or £30 per ton in certain parts of the country. Does anybody think that the average small farmer whose ready cash is mostly procured from the sale of eggs will be in a better position to pay twice as much for blankets as he did under Fianna Fáil when his eggs go down from 3/- to 2/- per dozen and the price of his feeding stuffs goes up by 60 or 70 per cent.?
We know he is in a better position.
You know he is. Can it be proved? Get up and prove it. Go down the country and tell the farmers that.
Are you forgetting the price of poultry and the increased production. You are only killing truth.
The 3/- per dozen will be reduced to 2/- and the price of feeding stuffs is up by 60 per cent.
They could not even get feeding stuffs during your period in office.
We are getting feeding stuffs by borrowing dollars. In my opinion it is a crazy idea to put a dollar debt on this country for the purpose of gaining a sterling asset. The Parties on the Government Benches were growling about sterling assets when Fianna Fáil was in power. In the last year or so they have become so keen on sterling assets that they are actually borrowing dollars in order to procure them. They are borrowing dollars to buy maize and to sell eggs at two-thirds of the price that Fianna Fáil got for them in order to build up their sterling assets.
I hope the Taoiseach will explain to the country, before this debate concludes, the situation as he sees it to-day, and I hope that he will ask all our people to co-operate with the Government in ensuring that this Bill will not be in vain, and that steps will be taken to secure an increase in essential commodities so that, whether there is peace or war, our people shall have the security of having within the country a fair supply of essentials at reasonable prices.
Deputy O'Leary should have been called when this debate opened to-day. He was not called. I call on Deputy O'Leary now to conclude his statement.
The only thing Deputy Aiken has told us about is the coming general election and what certain people said in the last general election. Deputy Aiken's Supplementary Budget in 1947 put him and his Party on the other side of the House. I want to quote a statement made by the ex-Taoiseach in 1947. It appears at col. 389 of Vol. 108 of Official Reports, 8th October, 1947. The ex-Taoiseach asked the trade unions at that time not to support the demands of the workers for increased wages. I hope Deputy Aiken will tell the people to-morrow where they can get eggs for 2/- a dozen. If he does that we will have thousands of people with baskets looking for the eggs at 2/- a dozen. I wonder how he can make such a statement when we all know that eggs are 5/6 a dozen in the City of Dublin at the moment. Does he think the farmers are prepared to feed their hens for nothing?
We all admit that the cost of living has gone up in the last few months, and the trade unions of this city and the congresses of both unions are awaiting this measure, which should have been passed, not this week, but last week, in order to prevent profiteers from fleecing the people. Fianna Fáil, of course, do not want prices controlled, because the people who gave them £50,000 in the 1948 election would not support them the next time if they supported a Bill to freeze and to control prices.
Deputy Aiken talked about war. He came in here when this Government was formed and he asked the Minister for Defence what he was going to do about the men who were carrying rifles down in Dundalk. Now he has gone over to the war in the Far East. I thought we were going to have immediate and terrible war here at the time he spoke of men carrying rifles in Dundalk. It is deplorable for any workingman in this House who knows the needs of the people to have to listen to statements such as were made by Deputy Bartley last week when he said that our people were well fed and well clothed. That just shows all he knows about the needs of the people. We have thousands of people throughout the length and breadth of the Twenty-Six Counties in a very bad way, yet these people have to listen to foolish talk of that kind by ex-Ministers who had the control of the country in their hands for 16 years.
Foolish questions are repeatedly put down here asking Ministers for information on matters which do not matter one bit to the people. Of course, one does not mind what anybody says when one remembers the statement made by Deputy de Valera, the ex-Taoiseach, on a certain occasion in regard to which I have a cutting here from the Sunday Independent. The statement was made in reply to me when Deputy de Valera was referring to speeches made during the general election. I reminded him of the statement he made in Tipperary before the election about breaking stones, and he replied: “It does not matter what I said”. What Deputy Aiken said certainly does not matter when we have the Leader of the Party making a statement of that kind. Surely we ought to get better advice from members of the Opposition. If they were honest with the people they would vote without hesitation for this Bill. The country is crying out for it in order to deal with profiteers who are fleecing the unfortunate poor, above all others. The man with the money does not care, as he will always be able to get his loaf.
I have here a cutting from a paper of April 26th last which contains a letter written by a man dealing with food rationing. In that letter he said that tea was rationed at one time at half an ounce and that there was a universal complaint as to the quality of the tea. In June, 1947, the price was increased from 1/2 to 4/10, but if one was prepared to go into the black market and pay 25/- to 30/- a pound it could be got all right. Have the members of the last Government any conscience when they look back on these matters? Sugar was rationed, according to the writer of this letter, at a quarter of a pound at that time, and people had to resort to the black market, whereas to-day additional supplies are available at a not unreasonable price. In regard to bacon, he says:—
"This formerly flourishing industry was virtually wiped out of existence by the Fianna Fáil regulation. During the war the common rasher was almost unobtainable—a luxury."
Is that not true? Is it not a fact that under the Fianna Fáil Government the people could not get one half-pound of rashers except in the black market? They allowed that to go on and when the new Minister for Agriculture came into office, he had to take steps in Dublin to prevent the operations of what were known as the silent slaughter houses. That was allowed to go on under the leadership of Deputy de Valera, the man who said in 1947:—
"The Government is not giving any guarantee that the cost of living may not rise."
Listening to Deputy Aiken to-day I was reminded of the time when he said he did not care if all the damn ships were at the bottom of the sea. I was reminded also of the statement of another ex-Minister who said that they had whipped John Bull. Now we hear them crying out about British coal. The people of this country are really suffering from the effects of petty statements by political Parties in this House in their efforts to score off one another. We heard some references to the speech made by the Taoiseach in Wexford last night. I was listening to him in Wexford and the people of Wexford were listening to him. The biggest people in the county were there and there is nothing wrong in what he said. If Deputy Aiken can make no speech except to quote what the Taoiseach stated, he is doing a lot of good because the man who says something that annoys other people is bound to produce some good eventually. We heard the Deputy refer to the condition in which the country was when we took over. We did not find it in a very healthy condition. The Deputy should remember that in 1947 when he was Minister and when Deputy Byrne and myself with a number of other Deputies made a plea on behalf of old age pensioners, Deputy Aiken stated that the country could not afford it, even though they had brought in a Supplementary Budget and imposed additional taxes. The Coalition Government was formed soon afterwards and the taxes imposed under the Supplementary Budget were removed. In spite of that £6,000,000 was found for the relief of old age pensioners and widows and orphans, money which could not be found when Fianna Fáil was in power.
I think a Coalition Government is the best type of Government for any country because you have the voice of the people expressed both in the Cabinet and on all sides of the House. Under a one-man Party Government such as had been controlling this country for some years prior to the present Government, the Deputies in that Party were scarcely ever allowed to get up and speak. I scarcely ever heard their voices until they went into opposition. Now they are at the old game of mud-slinging across the House. We want this Bill passed quickly in the interests of the plain people so that we can freeze prices. What did the last Government do? They brought in a Standstill (Wages) Order, although Deputy Aiken said at that time in the Dáil that prices were rising. They were rising in 1947 when a standstill Order was passed by a majority to freeze the wages of the workers and it was only when the change of Government took place that 11/- was granted to the workers.
The standstill Order was repealed in 1946.
It was there. Why should it ever have been there when you allowed black-marketing and everything else to go on? We hear a lot about blankets. There were blankets sent to European and other nations in 1946 that some people in this country needed. Millions of blankets and food of all kinds were sent out while our own people were in need.
That does not arise on this debate.
I know it does not, but——
If it does not, it does not.
They were sent to other countries while Irish people were in need.
Does that arise? Otherwise, we will have a debate on the value of national charity and the circumstances under which charity is granted.
I have said that it does not arise.
My belief is that charity always begins at home. We should look after our own people. Deputy Bartley also said that we should keep the goods for our own people but he did not advocate that when he was in power. Everybody realises that something must be done to control prices. The Government and the Deputies on this side of the House know what is happening in the country. Every day there is a new increase in prices. That is because there is nothing to control prices. I would suggest to the Opposition that the sooner this Bill is passed the better it will be for the people who are looking to us to save them from the effect of high prices. It is all right for organised workers who can go on strike and demand an increase in wages and get it, but we must consider those who are not organised, the aged, the small pensioners, some of them I.R.A. pensioners or British pensioners who are trying to exist on small pensions and who can get no increase. We want to come to the aid of that class by curtailing prices.
I know of a certain place where yesterday the price of coal was advanced by 1/-. Before 6 p.m., one of the clerks in the establishment was sent out to give back the 1/- to the people who were overcharged because the directors became afraid, knowing that they had done wrong.
That is happening in regard to other commodities. Every day in the week there are increases in prices. The price of goods is increasing but wages are not increasing. That is our biggest grievance, as members of the Labour Party representing workers. We want to protect the workers, but it seems that Fianna Fáil are on the other ditch; they are more interested in the industrialists, the people who are building up funds and putting thousands in the banks at the expense of the working class.
We were told that Fianna Fáil were the poor man's Government. If they were, they should join now in the Coalition and pass this Bill without further discussion or opposition so as to give the Government the power to say to those who are responsible for increasing prices: "You will not rob us any longer by high prices." If that were done, there would be no unrest in the country or in the trade union movement. If a man gets an increase of five shillings in his wages it is no good if the prices of the goods that he needs for his home and his family also increase. There are clothing manufacturers and shopkeepers who do not know what to charge for a shirt, a suitlength or children's clothes. There is no control and they can do what they like. The Government must stop that. It is happening throughout the country. Deputies may call names across the House about the Coalition and attack the Minister for Agriculture, but I do not think the farmers will fall out with the Minister for Agriculture. As far as I can see, he is the best Minister for Agriculture they ever had, because he is getting the prices.
We want to control the prices of goods when they go into the shop and across the counter. Deputies opposite have talked about the Act they had in 1947. It was like other Acts. It was only on paper. It is all right to say: "We were going to do this and that". They did not do it. We are asking them now to help us so that we can do it, because, without co-operation, we can get nowhere. This country cannot go on unless there is co-operation in this House. We are all sent here by business people, workers, small farmers and others to voice their grievances here. First of all, we must be honest with the country. Deputies have quoted ex-Ministers' speeches and the speech made by the Taoiseach last night in Wexford. As long as he is head of the State they will have to recognise him as such. That is democracy. He is the people's leader, whether it is for five years or ten years, as the case may be, and anyone who slanders him does not do any good to his own Party. We could all make use of slander if we wanted to do it.
I hope this Bill will become law before the Recess. It is most necessary. If we are to do anything for those we represent we must control prices. People are crying out for that. Fianna Fáil do not want it. They are opposing it. Why are they doing that? They are talking about the cost of living. Deputies are asking us to give a bigger price for milk and, at the same time as they are putting down motions to increase the price of milk, they are making speeches about controlling prices and saying that the cost of living is going up.
As far as I am concerned, as long as this Government help the class that I represent, I will keep them here. took a decision on that. They have done a certain amount of good up to now. The price of goods is going beyond the reach of a certain class. We must stop that immediately. So long as the cost of living goes up, wages will have to follow; otherwise strikes will take place. The most necessary thing to do is to keep the cost of living down.
I do not like to see the Parliamentary Secretary being attacked by some ex-Ministers and other Deputies. It is very unfortunate that the Minister for Industry and Commerce is not able to be here to answer for his Department. Deputies should be honest and fair with the Parliamentary Secretary and he should not be placed in a false position. He quoted the figures as he found them. Of course, the papers flashed it: "The Parliamentary Secretary says there is no rise in the cost of living." That was very good propaganda. He did not say that. We all know the cost of living has increased in the past few months and it is still increasing and that is because there is no control of prices as regards the traders. We want to see price control.
The trade unions are crying out for some such control. According to a trade union publication, they would welcome the inclusion of a provision for the establishment of a prices advisory tribunal with consumer representation. They say, however, that the work of the tribunal might prove to be an impossible task if prices are allowed to continue their upward trend until the tribunal is established, and the Irish trade union congresses strongly insist that the Government should freeze prices as from the date of the introduction of this Bill.
If Deputy O'Leary's picture of the state of the country is correct, it is a damning indictment of the Government. They have been in office almost three years. They have all the power they require. So far as prices are concerned they have a war measure, a measure that the Minister who brought it in described as one that should not be placed in the power of any Minister in peace time—that only war could justify. They have had ample power to exercise and we have the result as pictured by Deputy O'Leary.
I admit it is hard to follow Deputy O'Leary's mental acrobatics, but so far as I could follow him he painted a very bleak picture of the position to-day. That Act is there for the Government to use. Every Party in the Government Benches promised not alone to keep the cost of living level, but to reduce it. What actions did they take when they got power? Their first action was to give back to the people who have been found to be profiteering the licences that were revoked by the former Minister. Their next action was, according to the Minister, to withdraw the pip-squeaks—that they were not going to have them any longer.
I am very sorry the Minister is not here. I would be glad if he were, because I want to refer to certain things. I hope he is well on the way to recovery, and that he will soon be back. When he was here he referred to pip-squeaks— that was shortly after he took over office—and he said they were going to withdraw them. That was a nice term to apply to the inspectors in the Department whose job it was to see that price control was enforced. The Government then remitted prison sentences and fines that had been imposed by the courts for breaches of the price control regulations.
That was how the Government set out to keep their promise to reduce the cost of living. With that beginning, one could naturally expect certain things to happen. Prices began to rise. The Parliamentary Secretary or members of the Government can keep repeating as long as they like that prices remained stable until August of this year, but they will not get one housewife to agree with them. Last May, on the Estimate for the Department of Industry and Commerce, I gave a list of articles that had risen in price and not one of them was contradicted. I challenged the Minister on his complacency and I pointed out that it was quite evident last May that prices were again rising.
In these circumstances this is what the Government did, and I would like Deputies, Deputy O'Leary in particular, to note this. Where commodities were rising in price the action of the Government was to de-control. Thirty-six different items in the controlled list were de-controlled since the Government came into office. In every case the price rose immediately. The Government were not going to be unpopular by admitting a rise in prices. Instead, they de-controlled items in the price list and tried to escape responsibility in that way.
Do not think for a moment that the public have been fooled by this device. I have been wondering, as a matter of fact, if some of the Deputies opposite think the people are being fooled by the arguments that have been put forward. The people of Dublin, who are very concerned in this matter, learned last year how prices were going up. Last winter in Dublin eggs and potatoes reached a record figure. That is what happened under a Government that promised to reduce, not to mind keeping stable, the cost of living. I know there is a feeling on the opposite benches, particularly among Labour Deputies, that election promises do not matter. That belief has actually been given expression to here and I commented on it before. The chickens are now coming home to roost and Deputies will know all about it when the opportunity offers. That will not be long either if I am to judge the temper of the people.
We have had from several members of the Labour Party an attempt to excuse the action of the Government on the question of controlling prices. The excuse was that they were operating the Fianna Fáil machinery. When they went before the people they gave them to understand that we had failed absolutely in that respect and that they had the remedy and would make sure that there would be no further profiteering. But the only action they have taken is that which I have already described. In view of the definite promises which all the Parties supporting the Government had given to the people on this question of price control, one would imagine that they would set out immediately to put the great plans which they had set before the people into operation—that they would find out the defects and cure them. They had not even to do that, because before the election they promised the people that they would produce the remedies. But three years have passed and the Fianna Fáil machinery is still in operation. Whose fault is that? As far as I can see, it means that there were not any brains in the Government to improve the measure which was there to make it more effective. I am not saying that in any disparaging way, because the Bill before us is so drastic that I think anybody would find it hard to make it better.
Deputy O'Leary seems to be under the impression that this Bill is going to make the price control machinery more effective. According to him, it is going to do wonders. The only change which it is going to make in what has been in operation up to this is to appoint an advisory committee before which applications for increases will be heard in public. That may be all right, but how is it going to affect the machinery of price control?
Heretofore, when people got permission to increase prices they, I have no doubt, had to prove their cases up to the hilt, and they will be able to prove their cases in public also. The only result that I see from this Bill is that we are going to have further delays in price fixing, because this advisory committee will have to take a lot of time going into details. The committee is to act in an advisory capacity. It will advise the Minister. In practice, that will mean that its advice will go back to the officials who, hitherto, have had the fixing of prices. That as I say will mean more delays. The Labour people have been claiming that it was the Fianna Fáil machinery which they have had to operate. Therefore, I cannot see for the life of me who they think they are fooling. What were they doing for the last three years? In view of the promises which they had made to the public, it was their duty to set about remedying the situation at once.
There have been several references to the ration of 2 ozs. of butter. Everybody knows that when that ration was fixed we had passed through the most abnormal winter in living memory. What would happen if such a thing should happen this year? We have had three or four years of full and plenty, but when that ration was fixed it followed on six years of scarcity, due to the war. Deputy O'Leary does not seem to realise that, or that at that time we were in the centre of operations. If conditions now were as bad as they were at that time I am afraid there would be a great many other things much worse than the 2 ozs. of butter. Now, we are beginning to come up against what seems to be a serious world position. In that situation our fuel position is bad. There was a period in this House when we had jeers and gibes from the Deputies opposite about the extravagance and waste of having fuel dumps in the Park. I remember dealing with Deputy Michael O'Higgins about that myself. I wonder how he feels about it now?
We have not yet reached a war situation, and we are not in the centre of operations as we were before. The Government should be very glad if they had those fuel dumps in the Park now. If they had any sense, they would never have parted with them. They sold them off at any price just to gain political advantage. As I have said, the chickens are coming home to roost.
We are the only country in the world which is rationed in bread. The excuse given is to keep it from being fed to greyhounds. That seems to me to be like getting a sledge to swat a fly. During the last four years this country had not much trouble in getting supplies. Yet we have bread rationing. I should like to refer to some of the off-the-ration supplies. We have before us the report of the Bread and Flour Inquiry Committee. We can gather from that report how every item that can be bought off the ration imposes concealed taxation.
This report was issued in 1949 and the committee worked on 1949 figures. On page 93, Table 4, there are, however, some interesting figures. We are told that the economic unsubsidised price for white bread at that period was 11?d. per 2 lb. loaf. The price charged on the 1st January, 1949, for the white loaf was 1/-, so that there was a concealed tax of ? of a penny on every 2 lb. loaf. Just before that the people of Dublin were allowed to go through a fortnight's strike for the sake of a farthing a loaf, but there was a concealed tax of ? of a penny on the white loaf. The committee tells us that the economic price for white flour was 6/7¾ per stone. The price charged was 7/-, or a concealed tax of 4¼d. per stone. The economic price of butter was 3/4¼ per lb. and the price charged was 3/6, or 1¾d. per lb. concealed tax on butter. The economic price for tea was 4/7½ per lb., and the price charged was 5/6, or 10½d. per lb. concealed tax.
Deputies will notice that I am taking the prices charged at that period, 1949. Since then there has been another 6d. put on. I have not the figures, but unless there is an increase of 6d. per lb. in the cost, there is a concealed tax of 1/4½ per lb. on tea now. The economic price of sugar was 6d. per lb. and the price charged at that time was 7½d., or a concealed tax of 1½d. Unless there has been an increase in the cost price of sugar, the tax is 2d. now with the increased price to the consumer.
Labour Deputies try to make out that they are the real watchdogs for the poor. I know that we on these benches have the reputation of being the profiteers, but the Labour Party like to boast that they are the watchdogs for the workers and the underdogs. With no attempt to control prices while all that was happening, I wonder how they carried out their obligations. Those figures which I have extracted from that report prove that, in spite of the tremendous increase in taxation that we know about, there was a whole series of concealed taxes on the necessaries of life for the people. Nobody will say that, five years after the war ended, we should still be tied down to a meagre ration of those commodities. In some cases, the ration is the same as it was during the war, and people have not alone to pay an increased price, but pay a concealed tax on every one of these necessaries which they have to buy in order to keep themselves going in anything like normal circumstances.
In various speeches Deputies have tried to make out that Fianna Fáil put a standstill Order on wages and never allowed any increase in wages, and that any increases which have been given were given since the present Government came into office. Again, I would ask, whom do they think they are fooling? We all know that even during the war there were increases while the standstill Order was in force. We all know that as soon as the war ended the Labour Court was set up, that the standstill Order was withdrawn, and that the biggest part of the increases which the workers got was given while Fianna Fáil were in power. Since the present Government came into office the only increase which has been given, so far as I am aware, amounts to 11/-. Why an attempt should be made to fool the people in that way is beyond my understanding.
Deputy O'Leary quoted the ex-Taoiseach about not giving any guarantee that the cost of living would not rise. Later on he told us that we must be honest with the people. But he blamed the ex-Taoiseach for being honest with the people and he supports the present Government who made the most lavish promises that they would reduce the cost of living and who have not been able to keep it stable. The Deputy had to admit that prices are going up now, but he supports them and talks at the same time about being honest. One thing that must be said about the ex-Taoiseach is that when he said that he was honest. He was not playing politics or fooling the people. The Deputy told us that the ex-Taoiseach would not give any guarantee. But the guarantees were given by the people opposite. Are they being carried out? We know that as a result of it we are embarking on another series of increases which undoubtedly will be followed by further increased prices and the vicious circle will go on unless something like a standstill Order is introduced. The British Government, a Labour Government, after trying the other system are now back to the standstill as a result of their experiences. I am one who suffered under the standstill Order but I have the sense to know that it was for me the lesser of two evils. Probably some of the Deputies who have talked so volubly about it, if the present situation holds and if the present policy is persisted in, will realise before they are many years older what a godsend the standstill Order was to them instead of being, as they appear to think, an incubus.
The Tánaiste intervened last week and treated us to his usual frothy utterances. Apparently he was brought in because of the way things had developed in relation to this Bill. He proceeded to talk of the manufacturers as if they were profiteers. He told us what he was going to do. I have a recollection that that is not the first time the Tánaiste has told us what he was going to do. I have here a cutting from the Sunday Independent of 23rd January, 1949. He was nearly a year in office at that time. According to this report he said:
"If you saw the balance sheets of some of these companies these boys have certainly got away with money since 1939. While other people were undergoing the hardships of the emergency and suffering the privations of rationing, there was a small group of unscrupulous people lining their pockets thicker and thicker with money raked out of the pockets of the consuming public. I do not stand for an industrial development policy which permits that to happen. I think that in a well-governed country gentlemen of that kind ought to be the guests of the Government in power in the thickest walled jails we have."
On the Government side of the House Deputies can think what they like. Everybody on these benches will deal very severely with any proved profiteering. The Tánaiste spoke on that occasion as if he had definite proof. Two years have elapsed. During those two years the Tánaiste had at his disposal the most drastic powers. He is the deputy-head of the Government. He has a Party behind him which would have helped him to force the Government to take action, if he really meant what he said. But two years later the best he can do is to come along and repeat himself. He is going to do it. If that position really exists, and I doubt very much that there are any people who answer the descriptions given by the Tánaiste, why has the machinery in existence not been used against them during the last three years? Why did the Tánaiste not insist after that public speech that the machinery should be put into operation? Why should he come along now, three years later, and tell us that it is going to be done? There is nothing in this Bill which will confer upon the Government any greater powers to deal with these alleged profiteers. If the Tánaiste had wanted to deal with them, he could have dealt. with them at any time since he took office. I do not think it will produce any good results in relation to the development of our industry for men in the position of the Tánaiste to come along and talk as he did last week about our industrialists and yet not produce a scintilla of proof in support of his statements or take any positive steps to deal with the alleged situation. One is driven to the conclusion that he is either not sincere or the position is not such as he has painted it.
We have tried to point out world development for some time past on these benches. In fact so far as defence is concerned, we have tried to point it out from the very first Estimate. We have tried to show the threatening world position. But we were told by the Taoiseach that he intended to legislate for peace. He seemed to change his mind on that last night. With the threatening situation that faces us we want the help of every individual to bring us through any crisis that may arise. As far as I can see no steps have been taken at all up to this to provide for such a situation of crisis. It ill-becomes the head of the Government to make public speeches like he did, and not follow them up by action.
In my view this Government will only delay matters. If the Government was really in earnest they would put the ordinary powers they possess into operation. I have no objection to their doing it. If they continue on the present line, they will only succeed in making the control of prices much slower. Considering how far upward prices have moved even since last August, I do not think this is the time to start trying to delay control. Instead of getting panicky and sending in the Tánaiste here to make a statement such as that he made last week, they ought to get down to the hard facts of the situation and use the machinery at their disposal where necessary. If it is not effective they can bring in amending legislation to improve it. In doing that they will get the support of this side of the House. Let them get on with the job. Let them get down to the job, even though it is three years late, of fulfilling their promises.
Mr. Byrne
After four or five days' discussion on this matter there is very little left to say that could be considered new. I have heard criticisms from all the speakers on this measure. May I say that none of those criticisms was of a constructive nature? I did not hear anyone make any suggestions as to what should be done now to help those outside to meet the difficulties with which they find themselves faced as a result of the increase in the cost of living. Whatever claim may be made by the experts in relation to the cost-of-living index figure, nobody will deny that the cost of living has gone up. The index figure is wrong, and the sooner it is amended the better it will be.
The experts should get busy and give the House and the public some opportunity of deciding once and for all what the proper figure should be on which to base the cost of living. Take the average Dublin housewife; no matter what she goes out to buy she finds that to-day it is up a halfpenny, to-morrow something else is up a halfpenny and the next day something else is up a penny. Remember, we have on the agenda here notice of motion under the name of a Fianna Fáil Deputy asking for an increase in the price of milk.
If we are to have an increase in the price of milk so that producers may get a fair profit—and anybody who produces an article is, of course, entitled to a fair profit—we should remember that that is one of the main items in the diet of a working-class family and that it will mean an increase of 1/6 per week in the household budget of a man with four or five children. From that angle, it should be remembered that we cannot have it both ways. If Deputies demand an increase in the price of certain commodities, they must remember that automatically it means an increase in the cost of living. We are also told that the price of gas will be increased shortly. Every tenement house in Dublin and every workman's cottage has a gas stove and if the price of gas is increased the outlay of the man with four in the family will be increased by another 1/6 a week and therefore, through no fault of the Government, the cost of living will go up by at least 3/- per week so far as gas and milk alone are concerned. Can anybody from the opposite benches who has criticised the Government suggest a remedy? Gas workers because of the increased cost of living have had to demand increased wages. We are told again that the price of fuel is going up and that increase will again mostly hit those who are paid small wages. It will add another 1/- per week to the family budget, probably before Christmas.
I want to put it to the Government that if any Labour Court or inquiry decides that the cost of living has gone up to an extent which would warrant say an increase of 12/6 a week for any group of wage earners, who because of their organisation and because of the fact that they can embarrass the consuming public by going on strike, are able to enforce their demands, the Government should make an Order that that increase should apply uniformly to the lower-pay wage groups— to the Gárdaí, members of the Army, postmen, teachers and others. Above all the Government should not forget pensioned teachers and Guards who have a very limited income. It is not right or proper that such increases should be confined to workers who can create a certain amount of inconvenience to the public if their demands are not conceded. The other classes I have mentioned have to buy the same milk, the same coal and the same gas as workers who are granted increases. The Government would be doing a noble day's work in deciding that an increase of, say, 15/- granted to any particular group because of the increased cost of living, should be applied to other wage groups who have to suffer the same hardships.
Many civil servants, for instance, are not able to live on the same small incomes which they enjoyed five or six years ago. We all know that the salary or the pension of five years ago is not able to purchase the same amount of goods nowadays. For instance, I remember a Gárda saying to me about two years ago in a district not far outside Dublin: "Alderman, if we could cause the same amount of inconvenience as people who are in a position to strike, we would get an increase in our pay and we would have got it long before now." I think that the time has come when the question of the pay of the Gárdaí should be reconsidered.
The cost of living has also gone up for classes such as blind pensioners and old age pensioners. I admit that they were given a small increase about two years ago but it has been admitted by every member of the House that the cost of living has gone up enormously since. As I say, these people cannot enforce their demands in the way that workers who are organised can, by submitting the general public to the inconvenience of a strike.
One further matter I should like to bring to the Minister's notice is that people who have been moved to new houses in areas such as Donnycarney, St. Brigid's Gardens, Reynolds House, Ballyfermot and Cabra have now to pay twice and three times the rent that they paid before they were moved. That, of course, is largely due to the differential rents system. It is a heartbreak and is the biggest grievance these people have at present and rents should be reduced.
That is hardly a matter that is relevant on this Bill.
Mr. Byrne
The point I want to make is that rents influence the cost of living. I will not refer to corporation rents again. An increase in rents and rates is felt more than a penny extra on a pint of milk or on a tin of sardines.
Take the price of fish. The working class people in Dublin cannot buy fresh fish. They look for substitutes. During the emergency they were in the habit of buying sardines or tinned salmon as a substitute for fresh fish. They find that the price of these commodities has increased by a couple of pence. These are problems which the Government must face.
I am sorry that the Opposition is not more favourably disposed to this measure. On the whole, I think we ought to give the Government the power to appoint this committee. This is not being done because Fianna Fáil forgot to do it. In their time they had certain proposals that met a certain situation. It is now found necessary to appoint this tribunal. I hope the Minister will insist on having the housewife with a large family represented on the tribunal. There are various women's organisations in this city. There are the Irish Housewives' Association, the Legal Adoption Society, the Save the Children Society, the Child Welfare Society. Members of these societies can inform the Government about the cost of living better than any member of this House. I implore the Government to get the views of these organisations when they are dealing with the matter. I implore the Government not to forget the old age pensioners, the widows and orphans, the teachers, the Gárdaí and those people who have to wear clothes that are brushed to a polish because they cannot afford to pay the prices of new ones.
Will anyone in this House tell me why the cost of boot repairs has increased by 50 per cent? Is that due to an increase in the cost of material or what is the cause? I have heard that it costs 7/- to sole and heel a pair of boots.
10/-.
Mr. Byrne
The complaint has been made that the cost of boot repairs has increased considerably. The cost of margarine has increased. The penny candle is now 2d. The penny tin of pepper is now 6d. The price of a tin of sardines has increased by 2d. Margarine has increased by 5d or 6d. I know that these matters were outside the control of the Government.
I do not think there ought to be the opposition that there is to this measure. I think the opposition to the Bill was in order to put across various points of view. There were some very good contributions to the debate from all sides of the House, drawing attention to the position. Deputy Bartley said last week: "Let us forget all these things and go back to the teachings of Fianna Fáil." I do not want to get into a political controversy but I do remember that when prices were going up Fianna Fáil said they would freeze things and they brought in a standstill Order. I remember voting against every clause and in every division on that measure, and I would do so again if the present Government were to attempt to bring in a Bill freezing wages. I would find myself having to vote against it. I hope the Government will never be tempted to bring in such a measure. Let a court decide what shall be done, but in no circumstances should they bring in a Bill to freeze wages.
To-day Deputy Aiken read an extract from the Official Report. He was contradicted by the Parliamentary Secretary who said: "Cannot you read the whole paragraph?" He did not read the whole paragraph. He said that the Tánaiste, Mr. Norton, said last week that he was going to freeze prices and that he was freezing them at a high level. The Tánaiste said no such thing. The Tánaiste said that he would freeze certain prices. I ask any of my colleagues to read what he said. He said he would freeze certain prices and bring down others. At the time we were referring to blankets. He said he would freeze certain prices and bring down others and that under no circumstances would he freeze existing prices where prices were raised within the last month or two. I hope he will go into that matter. I would ask the House to consider this matter in a reasonable manner and give the Government the support they deserve.
Deputy Byrne has been taking us to task for not being more favourably disposed towards this measure. If we thought that it was a genuine attempt to bring down the cost of living, to reduce the prices of the various commodities that people have to purchase in the shops we certainly would support it, but we consider that it is no such thing. I will go further and say that it is my opinion that this proposal to set up an advisory committee is all humbug, another attempt to throw dust in the eyes of the people.
I have often been wondering during the past couple of years, when the Government were not succeeding in bringing down the cost of living or even in keeping the cost of living at the level at which it was when they took office, that they did not set up a commission early on to advise them, mar dheadh, on the position, but there is very little difference, in my view, between this proposed advisory committee and a commission.
This idea of setting up a commission seems to be an incurable disease with this present Government, but, of course, everybody knows that it is just a remedy to cover their tracks. There is an old proverb in the Irish language that is very applicable to the position to-day: Filleann feall ar an feallaire— Deception recoils on those who practise it—and that is exactly what is happening at the present time. The deception that the members of the present Government practised on the electorate in the last general election is recoiling on their heads.
When they promised the people of the country that they would reduce the cost of living, in my view, they entered into a contract with the people, a solemn contract, and they have broken that contract shamefully, but the worst feature of that breach of contract is that they did not care one iota whether they broke it or not. The members of the Government and the Deputies who support them have been coming into this House for the past three years and have been going around the country during the same period, and they did not seem to be one bit concerned about their failure to keep down the cost of living, much less to reduce it. If there is to be any sanctity attached to contracts, especially a contract entered into with the people of this country, it is time the Government woke up and realised it.
I have heard Deputies opposite speaking on this measure and some of them, at least, seem to resent the publicity that the Parliamentary Secretary's statement got in the Press. One would imagine that the Press of this country, judging by the attitude of some of the Deputies opposite, should not be at liberty to publish what people say here. But the organ that gave it the greatest publicity was the Irish Independent which, of course, as everybody knows, supports the Government.
I would not say that entirely.
That the Irish Independent does not support the Coalition Government?
Not as much as the Irish Press supports Fianna Fáil.
The publicity given to that statement, in any case, was justified, in my opinion. It certainly startled the people. It was bad enough when the Government had not done anything about bringing down the cost of living, but it was worse when they sought to deny that the cost of living had gone up, when, as Deputy Colley pointed out, every housewife, every householder, knew very well that everything purchased in the shops had gone up in price, and has been going up by leaps and bounds.
I am inclined to think that some of the Deputies opposite are out of touch with the realities of the case. We had an example of that from Deputy Byrne when he said it costs 7/- to sole and heel a pair of boots and shoes. The fact of the matter is that the cost of soling and heeling at present is 10/-. Deputy Byrne did not know that.
He also complained of the scarcity of fish in Dublin and the exorbitant price the people have to pay. To whom does he attribute that? We have a Minister for Agriculture and Fisheries here who told us he was going to rehabilitate the fishing industry and do wonderful things in connection with it. Now it transpires, and we have it from Deputy Byrne, who lives in Dublin, that fish cannot be got in the city.
I have no use for this advisory committee. I look upon it as just another attempt on the part of the Government to run away from their responsibilities. Certain speakers over there want to pretend that the Fianna Fáil Government made no attempt to control prices. Deputy O'Leary said we do not want it even now. The fact is that up to 1947 there was little or no increase in the cost of living. The Fianna Fáil Government succeeded in keeping it down. When, in 1947, the cost of living trend was upwards, and when we took steps to bring it down lower than it was, at least in so far as the main requirements of the household were concerned, no condemnation was strong enough for us from the opposite benches.
We have been speaking here about the cost of living and the high prices of commodities. So much has been said on that, that I do not propose to dwell upon it at any great length, but I would like to say a little as regards the fuel position. Everybody knows that the fuel position in the country is rather serious. I am doubtful if the Government are taking the necessary steps to cope with that position. I remember in the Dáil quite recently the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Industry and Commerce, when replying to a question asked by Deputy Lemass, was inclined to blame the weather. While we all agree it has been a bad year, still I do not think it could be said that the Government have done all they should have done to provide fuel for the people. For instance, last year was the finest year that we had for a long period. If the Government had given encouragement last year to the turf industry, if they had taken all the necessary steps to put that industry on its feet, we would have had ample supplies left over until this year, thereby obviating the necessity of purchasing all the coal that now appears to be necessary.
When will the Government begin to realise the importance of the turf industry? Some members of the Government seem to have an animus against that industry. There was a Turf Bill on the Order Paper for a long time before the Government thought it worth their while to put it through the Oireachtas. Since then what has been done to promote the turf industry? Nothing that I know of. The position is that, instead of taking steps to promote the turf industry, Bord na Móna were instructed to take away some of their machinery from the bogs. That happened in my own constituency. The turf-cutting machines have been taken away from the bogs in certain places. How can the Government account for that? Not merely did they put an end to, and cripple, the hand-won turf industry, but they also took steps to curtail the machine-won turf industry, so that when the Parliamentary Secretary, or any other member of the Government, comes in here and says that when there is not turf available for the people at the present time it is due to the weather, I am afraid we cannot entirely accept that.
The point is: have the Government any proposals now for the coming spring to develop the turf industry? Everybody knows now—it has been clearly demonstrated within the past few months—that supplies of coal henceforth will be very uncertain. Therefore, it is necessary that everything possible be done to get the people to produce turf and to organise a proper market for it. Are there any proposals, for instance, in the Department of Industry and Commerce, or even in the Department of Local Government, to get the county councils to produce turf again as had to be done during the emergency. This is a very serious matter in my opinion, because we have now the extraordinary and unnatural position that supplies of coal are being sent into the turf areas, even into the County Kerry which I represent. I hope, therefore, that the Government will realise at last the importance of the turf industry and do everything in their power to promote it.
Now, coming back again to the cost of living. The Minister for Social Welfare came into the House the other night and delivered a rather abusive speech. He abused the Fianna Fáil Government and he abused the manufacturers. He tried to put the blame on everybody except on the people on whom it should be put. One would imagine from his remarks, and from the remarks of some of the other speakers over there, that the Fianna Fáil Government were still in office. He tried to pretend that a lot of the difficulties which, he says, the present Government are confronted with were created by the Fianna Fáil Government—that it was we who left them the present machinery. The present price control machinery is quite adequate if it were properly used. There is the saying that a bad workman quarrels with his tools, and that is exactly what the Minister for Social Welfare was doing: he was quarrelling with his tools, quarrelling with the machinery which he has at his disposal. Have they made any serious attempt to utilise that machinery? Not at all, as far as I can see. We will find, when this Bill is enacted, that they will have no more power than they already have at their disposal to control the prices of commodities.
We, I think, succeeded fairly well in keeping down prices in our time because, as Deputy Childers pointed out, out of a total of 67 countries in which statistics are kept, the cost of living went up higher in 50 of them than it did in this country, while in seven others it was about the same. That was not a bad record for this country which had to import a great lot of raw materials and so on during a war and its aftermath that had engulfed the whole world. In any case, the lesson to be learned from the whole position is this, that the policy of self-reliance, the old Sinn Féin policy which has been preached by Fianna Fáil and which Fianna Fáil has done its best to foster, is the only policy for this country.
As far as I understand it, this Bill is merely to give the Government powers which it already possesses under another Act that was passed by the late Government. It is simply a continuing measure. As the Parliamentary Secretary stated, most people in all countries thought that after five years of a second world war it would not have been necessary to continue the powers which were granted by the Oireachtas during the stress of the emergency period. He went on to say that, looking at world events and realising the experiences after the end of the war in 1945, he thought no one would question the necessity for continuing the Supplies and Services Act for a further 12 months. That is the issue before the House and it behoves Deputies to approach this matter and give it calm and dispassionate consideration. Let me say at the outset that I do not at all agree with the gloomy speeches which have been delivered by very many Opposition Deputies, and, indeed, by a few Deputies on these benches, with regard to the present position of this country. With regard to the supplies of foodstuffs and the standard of living in general prevailing in this country, I say without hesitation that it is the finest country in the world. The people of the country and the working classes particularly, I am proud to say, enjoy as high a standard of living as in any country in the world. With all the force at my command, I resent such statements as have been made by Deputy Corry in trying to make political points.
He referred to the farmers as a depressed class. Knowing the farmers as I do, I am proud to be able to say that they can hold their heads as high as any other section. I hope that he will withdraw a statement he made, because it is an untruth, that it was a case of the white loaf for the rich and the black loaf for the poor. Is any Deputy or any Irishman worthy of the name prepared to substantiate that statement? Does not Deputy Corry know that that is not a fact, that the loaf which I receive and which other Deputies receive is the same as the loaf which the people of every section receive?
We have been told about the increase in the cost of living. It was stated that the Parliamentary Secretary said that there was no increase in the cost of living. He said no such thing. So far as an increase in the cost of living is concerned, it has been increasing from my early days 60 years ago. It has been going up and down ever since, and we have lived through it all. Here is what the Parliamentary Secretary did say:—
"I want to refer first of all to the situation which has existed between 1947 and August of this year. I want to deal primarily with that period in order to refute any possible suggestions or allegations that there was any rise in the cost of living or in the prices of essential commodities during that period..."
I want to emphasise those two words, "essential commodities".
"I think it is right that we should review the situation up to either the summer or the early autumn of this year and then consider the situation which exists at the present time or may exist in the future."
That is the one important point that seems to have been left out by Opposition Deputies. Not one of them referred to that statement of the Parliamentary Secretary which would convey to any man of common sense that during the past few months a new situation has arisen, not alone in this but in every other country in the world, which requires new methods and more careful handling than has been given to it during the past three, four or five years.
Deputies profess great surprise at this sudden change. They have only got to look at the present position in Korea, for example, where in almost the twinkling of an eye the situation was changed overnight. Most people thought that that war, if it could be called a war, would be finished in a few weeks. To-day the end of it is just as far off as ever. There is no use in saying that the Parliamentary Secretary should have foreseen this or that. The fact is that, due to circumstances over which the Parliamentary Secretary or Ministers have no control, a situation will develop here, as it has developed in other countries, which will require the fullest co-operation and good-will and special measures on the part of the Government if we are to pull through. I am not one of those who talk of war every moment. The Leader of the Fianna Fáil Party, who seems to express such concern about the position of the people of this country, has not thought fit to speak in this debate. Instead, he went down the country and told the people that the one thing that was essential for the future prosperity of the country was to have a general election.
That is what the people want.
He is a first-class psychologist. Knowing the temperament of the Irish people, that they are remarkable for their impetuosity and enthusiasm, he thinks that the best thing he can do at the moment is to provide them with a little fun and a little enthusiasm. That seems to be the whole basis of the arguments of Fianna Fáil Deputies when they should try and co-operate with the Government to meet a situation which they think is very dangerous and very serious. Instead of that, they have referred to what was said at the last election. Personally, I do not mind what promises were made during the last election. I never made any promises. My headline always was and always will be, man shall earn his bread by the sweat of his brow. I made no promises and, therefore, I am in a position to tell Opposition Deputies that, rightly or wrongly, consciously or unconsciously, the people have entrusted us with the cares of Government, and we are going to carry on until the end of the five years.
Surely not.
As I say, I do not pretend that the cost of living has not increased. I do say, however, that in dealing with the cost of living Deputies are inclined, and in fact the people in general are inclined, to leave out one of the most important factors, and that is the human factor. Deputies opposite have put a certain price on every item which goes to make up the family budget. Are they aware that one mother can run a house on £5 a week while another could not run it on £10 or £20? How are they going to get over that difficulty? How will you get over that difficulty? I admit that the cost of living has gone up in certain cases but, despite all the talk about the high cost of living, I say here and now that tea is as cheap to-day as it was 60 years ago. When I was a boy a half-pound of tea cost 1/4. To-day a half-pound of tea costs 1/4, 2/8 per lb. Anyone who wants extra tea can get it at about 3/6, as far as I understand. As far as I am concerned two ounces are quite sufficient for me and my family, and no member of my family has ever had occasion to buy unrationed tea. We can live on 2 ozs. per person and, therefore, it is not right to say, as has been said here by Opposition Deputies, that poor people have to pay 3/6 a lb.
I do not like to go back into the past but when I hear the taunts hurled at us from the Opposition Benches I am compelled to point out that there was not so much sympathy shown for the poor when they were paying not 1/4 for a half-pound but 1/6 per oz., 25/- or 30/- per lb. References were made to the price of butter. Again, the Opposition Deputies have not been honest. They have fashioned and moulded their speeches according to the way in which they think they will go down with their constituents.
We had a city Deputy criticising the Government because off-the-ration butter is 3/6 per lb. We had a Deputy representing a farming constituency, as Deputy Allen does, saying butter was only 2/3 or 2/4 per lb. Of course that was said lest the Minister for Agriculture might get any credit. We have Deputy Major de Valera throwing up his hands in horror because eggs are 5/6 per dozen as if he did not know, innocent man that he is, that there is always a seasonal increase in the price of eggs in the winter months. Eggs were 6/- a dozen in the First World War, 30 years ago, when wages were only half of what they are to-day. The moment he mentions 5/6, lest the Minister for Agriculture might get any credit, Deputy Ó Briain gets up and says to Deputy Major de Valera: "You are in fact wrong; they are only 2/- a dozen." That is here in the Official Report.
On the one hand, the Minister for Agriculture is blamed because of the high prices the farmers are getting; on the other hand he is blamed if he does not get good prices for them. In other words, Fianna Fáil are speaking with two voices. I say that they are thoroughly dishonest and contemptible in doing that in face of the situation that confronts us. I wonder would Deputy Major de Valera go down to Limerick or Wexford to-morrow, address a meeting of farmers there and tell them they are getting too much for their eggs. I wonder would he go down to Limerick or Tipperary and tell them they are getting too much for their butter. No, that would not do. It would not be politically wise to do that. But he gets up here and he criticises the price of eggs, the price of butter and the price of bacon.
Speaking of bacon, do we not all know that we can get bacon now? Do we not all know that bacon bought and cured by the curers works out at an average of about 2/- a lb.? As the Parliamentary Secretary has said, the standard of living and the tastes of our people have improved. The people want the prime cut now in both bacon and beef. We all know that. The curer when he buys the pig pays a flat rate of 190/- or 200/- for the whole pig, head, feet and everything else. There must therefore be some little increase in so far as the prime cuts are concerned. Taking the situation as it exists we must admit that it is due to no fault of the Government that increases have occurred in certain cases in the cost of living. But the people are enjoying at the moment a higher standard of living. Possibly it is not higher from the physical point of view but the tastes of our people have changed.
We have acquired many new ways of spending a shilling. As the late Lord Snowden once said, what was wrong with the world was that we had all acquired ten, 20, 30, 40 new ways of spending a shilling but not ten, 20, 30 or 40 new ways of making a shilling That is equally true at the present time.
I do not think the introduction of this measure should call forth the type of speech that has invariably been made by Opposition Deputies. They all speak as if we were about to have a general election in a week or a fortnight's time. We do not want a general election. We will not have a general election. We want work. We want the country to carry on. When the time for a general election comes we will go out on the hustings. I will go out on every platform in Louth and Meath and meet any Deputy who speaks about the high cost of living and I will answer him. We have been elected to carry on the government of the country for the next five years. We have carried on for three and, taking all the circumstances into consideration, I do not think we have done badly. If we were to take the Opposition speeches seriously we would go out through the front gate here in fear and trembling. Last week I really thought I would be met at the gate by a mob with bludgeons in their hands waiting to destroy us. That has not happened. I mix with the people in my county just as much as any other Deputy does. Realising that things will become more serious as time goes on there is no use now in throwing up our hands and saying that things are much worse than they really are. No matter what may be said to the contrary, this is as good a country to live in as any in the world. Only last week I had a letter from a young lady across the water in which she wrote in black and white: "I wish to go back to dear old Ireland. There is no place like home, sweet home."
The Bill which is now before the House gives power to the Minister to interfere in every branch of industry. It gives him power to compel manufacturers, shopkeepers and traders of all kinds to produce accounts, to account for every penny of expenditure and to justify every increase in prices or in costs shown on the face of those accounts. The principal Act which this Bill is to continue in operation gives to the Minister for Industry and Commerce the widest possible powers to control prices, powers which should be adequate in every way if they are rightfully and effectively and efficiently used. Notwithstanding that one of the provisions of the Bill is to enable the Minister to set up a prices advisory tribunal. We may well ask ourselves with some astonishment why that should be necessary, bearing in mind the remarkable statement made by the Parliamentary Secretary when introducing the measure that there had been no rise in the cost-of-living index whereby, I assume, he intends to imply at any rate and to convey to the public, if not to convince them, that there has been no rise in the cost of living.
If there has been no rise in the cost of living, why is it necessary to set up this prices advisory tribunal? Some cynical members of the House, remembering the recent history of the Irish Tourist Board and of Córas Iompair Éireann and of the Baltinglass Post Office—above all, I should say, of the Baltinglass Post Office—or thinking of the snug berths which have been found for Roddy the Rover and Mr. Archie Heron, might say that one of the reasons why it is proposed to set up this new body is to give the Government greater powers of patronage—in short, to afford to their supporters more jobs. Others recollecting the Government's stratagem in regard to the vexed question of teachers' salaries and remuneration, the tricks which they played in regard to emigration and the question of the prices of bread and flour, might think of another purpose that the Government had in view when they decided to set up this prices advisory tribunal.
Whatever its failures—and they have been, I think it will be admitted, gross and appalling failures in other spheres —this Government has shown itself adept at what the Americans colloquially describe as "passing the buck". Whenever a difficult question arises which the Government is afraid to tackle, it washes its hands of it. It sets up a commission, that is to say, it washes its hands of it. So far as its public responsibilities are concerned, this Government of moral cowards— because I think we are entitled so to describe it—is continually washing its hands. Wherever an injustice is being done, as in the case of the Baltinglass postmistress, it washes its hands. Where a Minister, who promised to solve the emigration problem overnight, wishes to shirk that issue, the Government washes its hands by setting up a commission to inquire into the causes of emigration, if you please. When we were told that these causes were so well known and could be so easily overcome and dealt with that emigration could be solved overnight, the Government, as I have said, sets up a commission and washes its hands of the whole question. When the Government alleges, as the members of the Government did allege prior to the last general election and since, that there is gross profiteering in bread and flour, instead of curbing this alleged abuse when the power is in their own hands, it decides to set up a commission and washes its hands. Now when the Minister, with the most far-reaching powers ever vested in one person, has not merely failed to reduce the cost of living by 30 per cent, but stands complacently by and alleges that the cost of living is not rising, once again they propose to set up a commission and to wash their hands of all responsibility for the position. When there is trouble about, when difficult knotty problems arise and have to be tackled, the first preoccupation of every member of that Government, of the Ministers individually and collectively, is——
To wash their hands.
To wash their hands, precisely, for in the washing of hands, Pontius Pilate had nothing on the members of this Government. The Government could give him lessons in the art.
But the day of the washing of hands is over. The days of dodging are over. The Coalition chickens are coming home to roost. They are coming home to roost with the "dodgeem" Government, as the leader of the Opposition fitly described them in a speech to which Deputy Coburn has taken some exception. The "dodgeem" Government have at last had to face up to the issues which they raised in the election of 1948, and to tell the people why it is that they have not fulfilled a single one of the pledges on which they secured their votes. The Government must face up to its responsibilities because these responsibilities are now inescapable, not only for the Government but for those who support them, and particularly for those who claim to represent the workers of this country. I understand, at least I gathered from reading the reports of the debate, that when the question of prices was raised in this debate, the members of the Labour Party, and particularly the present leader of the Labour Party—a post which seems to be out of commission since Deputy Larkin resigned it— viewed this issue with some complacency. I must say, of course, that so far as economic circumstances are concerned, one might say that this Government is perhaps from the point of view of members of the Labour Party the best Government they ever had, because a great many plums have fallen to followers of that Party since the Government took office. However, that is by the way, and I did not intend that that aside should intrude itself. Instead I should like to put some questions to those who are now supporting the Coalition. First of all, the members of the Clann na Poblachta Party might answer this: where is the 30 per cent. decrease in the cost of living which they promised if only Fianna Fáil could be got rid of?
Oh, no.
Deputy Timoney says "Oh no." Deputy Timoney's Party is just as powerful in this House with its ten members supporting the Government and with two of its members actually Ministers of the Government, as if they were a majority Party and the whole Government were constituted of its members. The Clann na Poblachta Party, whose support is vital to this Government, have it in their power to fulfil their pledge to the people and to compel the Government to reduce the cost of living by 30 per cent. They can do it, as we managed to do it, and keep down the price of bread very considerably by increasing the subsidies which brought down and lowered the price of bread, butter, tea and sugar to the consumer when we were in power. You can do that if you want to fulfil the pledge of reducing the cost of living by 30 per cent.
Where is the reduction in taxation which we were promised? Instead of taxation having been reduced considerably, as we were told it would be if Fine Gael took office, it has, in fact, been increased by not less than 40 per cent. over the last three years. Where is the freedom of enterprise which we were promised if Fine Gael had the reins of Government? Where is the emancipation of business from the control of inspectors and bureaucrats as they used to describe them when they were in opposition? How many "pipsqueaks", as the Minister for Industry and Commerce so elegantly described them two months after he had taken office, have been eliminated from the Government service?
You have gone, anyhow.
Now a lot of plums have fallen to the O'Higgins family. Keep from interrupting me now, otherwise I might say things which I might regret later and which you would feel very personally. Where is the reduction in the number of civil servants which we were promised? So far from there having been a reduction, everybody knows that not merely has the cost of the Civil Service and the remuneration of civil servants increased, but the number of civil servants has also increased since this Government took office.
Where is the decentralisation of government that we were promised? When we were in power and we had plans for the orderly housing of the Civil Service and the concentration in economic, efficient and up-to-date premises of the Civil Service which is now scattered throughout the city, occupying buildings that are very sorely wanted for the purpose of private business, it was alleged that we were going to engage in a prodigal and wasteful expenditure upon buildings. What has happened? So hard put have the Government been to find accommodation for this growing and swelling army of civil servants that they have had to take over and divert from its proper purpose the national bus terminal which was intended to serve as a terminal building for the whole transport systems of this country, particularly for the road transport systems. Does not that indicate at least that, in so far as their pledge to reduce the number and the cost of the Civil Service is concerned, they have, like all their other pledges, thrown it on the scrap heap?
Where is the closer association with Great Britain and the Commonwealth that Fine Gael used to promise its thick and thin supporters in the days when it was in opposition? Had not we instead a magnificent speech, delivered in heroic tones and with ponderous gestures, telling the people of Ireland that henceforward we should hit the British in their pride, their prestige and their pockets? What is happening to-day? They are over crawling on their bellies to try to get hold of coal to replace the coal in the dumps that they gave away at scandalous prices last year, to replace the turf that ought to have been cut but was not cut because of the deliberate policy of sabotaging the Fianna Fáil programme which this Government embarked upon when it took office in 1948.
Where do we find the Deputies from the Six Counties who were to sit in the Dáil, according to Mr. MacBride's programme and the programme of Clann na Poblachta? Where is the encouragement to industrial enterprise that we were promised? I could go on but the time at my disposal is short. I could retail dozens of other promises as lightly made and as lightly broken as those to which I have referred.
To-day we were told that one of the causes of the increase in prices has been devaluation, that the soaring cost of living is due to devaluation. When the Government decided to devalue and took upon themselves the responsibility for that, do not let us forget that that operation yielded a very substantial profit to the Government. This extravagant Government has borrowed more millions in the three years it has been in office than the Fianna Fáil Government borrowed during the whole of the period, practically, that it was in power, during the whole of the 16 years, including the six years of war and the seventh year of its aftermath. When the Government decided to devalue last year, it did it knowing that because of its extravagance it was being faced with the task of finding, out of the wages and sweat of the people, a substantial sum to meet its liabilities in respect of the National Loan. One of the consequences of devaluation was to reduce the real value of the people's savings which had been invested in the National Loan and to reduce the real burden of the interest and sinking fund charges payable in respect of that loan.
Another consequence, a profitable consequence from the Government's point of view, was to reduce the real value of every pension payable by the Government under any one of its insurance schemes, and not merely those payable under social schemes but payable from any source.
These were the benefits which immediately accrued to the Government as a result of devaluation, and to-day these illgotten gains of the Government are being reflected in rising prices. If the Government had not devalued, undoubtedly, the cost of living would not have risen to anything like the same extent as it has risen over the past 12 months.
The Deputy is aware that they had no option.
One of the Deputy's pledges when he was seeking election was that they had, that they would break the link with sterling and that they had an option. I am not going to be responsible for trying to resolve the Deputy's dilemma. His leader and his Party told the people that they had an option, that we need not be tied up with sterling.
He said that we ought to have.
If we need not be tied up with sterling, then the Government of its own free will decided to devalue. They secured the fruits of the devaluation and the people are now paying for it.
The law as it is forced them.
Apart altogether from paying in these two ways and from these two sources, other people have had to pay very heavily too, because the Government, instead of allowing manufacturers and others to adjust themselves to the position in regard to raw materials which devaluation had created, insisted upon freezing prices.
Prices are not being frozen for the first time just now. Retail prices have been virtually frozen since devaluation. So far as manufacturers are concerned who have had to buy raw materials for their industry in a continuously rising market, to-day wool is almost three times what it was this time last year and cotton is up by almost 40 per cent. They have had to buy in this rising market since and sell their goods at the same price level as they were selling them last year. That is only by the way.
The Government have done that in order that they might evade one of the consequences of devaluation, but they can no longer escape it, and now they are using it, having secured the profit from it, as an excuse for the increase in the cost of living which has taken place since. In that connection let me remind the House about one or two things that were said. When it was pointed out that devaluation would inevitably entail an increase in the cost of living, the Minister for Agriculture—I need not mention the ubiquitous Mr. Dillon—stated that there would be no increase in prices within any forseeable time and the Minister for Finance gave the public to understand that devaluation would not significantly affect the cost of living. You can see in these statements what little reliance is to be placed upon the pronouncement of any Minister in the Government.
When the Government gets into a mess of this sort, what do they do? They immediately look around for a scapegoat. In the Tánaiste's disgraceful speech on this Bill he produced a whole horde of scapegoats. First of all, we had the Fianna Fáil Government. I do not want at this time to go into the record of the Fianna Fáil Government. Then we had the Irish manufacturers. The Irish manufacturers are the bête noire of a man who never gave a day's employment to any other man in his life, of a man who never put any person into productive employment, who never did anything to foster, develop or expand Irish industry. His quarrel, of course, with the Irish industrialists is a basic one. The Irish industrialist provides decent employment at decent wages and therefore deprives the Tánaiste, who might be described as the Minister for Blatherskite in a Dodgem Government, of the only ground on which he can build up his political career, because the Tánaiste's political career is based on one thing only, causing disaffection among the Irish people.
Having thought, perhaps, that people would not be taken in by this attack on the industrialists and the Irish manufacturers, he went on to put the blame on devaluation, and this member of the Government which this time last year was assuring us that there would be no increase in the cost of living due to devaluation went on to say something like this:
"Since August, 1950, there has been a change. We are fools if we do not recognise the changes which have been brought about. The first change was devaluation in September, 1949. It was then believed that devaluation would have immediate and serious consequences for those countries in the sterling area which were compelled to buy either manufactured goods or raw materials from the dollar area."
I am quoting from Volume 123, column 1814. Mark what I have read. Here is a Minister whose colleague, the Minister for Finance, told the people in September, 1949, that devaluation would not significantly affect the cost of living. Here is a Minister whose colleague, the Minister for Agriculture, told the people there would be no increase in the cost of living within a foreseeable period, now admitting that in September, 1949, the Government of which he was a member then believed devaluation would have immediate and serious consequences for those countries in the sterling area which were compelled to buy either manufactured goods or raw materials. So much for that scapegoat.
Then he blamed the rise in prices on the war in Korea and in column 1815 of the same volume he says:
"In recent months we have had to face the situation which has arisen as a result of the Korean war. Does anybody suggest that we could have foreseen that and stock-piled against it?"
For the past three years it has been apparent to everyone who had eyes to see, to everyone whose vision was not blinded by deliberately shutting his eyes to the Communist aggression which was sweeping over Europe, that a show-down was coming. It was particularly clear to the Tánaiste, who was in Strasbourg in the summer of 1949, that the one fear which was overhanging the whole of Europe was war, which even in that year seemed imminent.
Had the events in Indo-China over the past years no significance for the Tánaiste, for the Minister for External Affairs, for the Minister for Defence or for the Taoiseach? Had the increased bellicosity of the Russians nothing to convey to the members of this Government, to every man who was a student of events and who was prepared to look at them with an unbiased judgment and who could see that the peril of war was coming nearer and nearer? Even if the Tánaiste could not recognise those symptoms for himself, they were pointed out to him time and time again from these benches. But we were told by the Taoiseach, in a speech which is on record, when the growing menace was pointed out to him, that he and his Government were planning on the hypothesis of peace. Where is the basis of the Government's plan now? Where is the hypothesis of peace upon which their whole policy has been based?
Now when we are faced with a shortage of fuel and of raw materials, when we cannot get coal, what would they give if, instead of sabotaging the policy of Córas Iompair Éireann to try to turn over to oil fuel, they were going ahead with the Diesel-electric project? They can get oil when they cannot get coal. Oil is much more easily and economically and safely stored than coal and the one salvation of the transport system, if a war did come, would be that we would have adequate supplies of oil fuel and properly equipped oil-burning locomotives of one type or another to utilise it. But that policy has been overthrown. Everyone apparently foresaw the danger which was coming except the Government.
The Tánaiste, in recommending this Bill, said it would set up a tribunal of vigilant citizens to deal with a certain problem. Thank God we are going to have some element of vigilance introduced into the Government and into the administration of affairs.
It has been conveyed to the Chair that the Parliamentary Secretary is to be allowed in at 8 o'clock.
Yes. I hope that these vigilant citizens who are going to be brought in on the advisory tribunal will be given the conduct of the affairs of this country, because the country has suffered too long and is in great peril through having had a Government of Rip Van Winkles for the past three years.
Deputy Desmond rose.
It has been conveyed to the Chair that the Parliamentary Secretary was to be allowed in at 8 o'clock.
Is it not correct to say that Deputies are entitled to speak here?
The Chair does not want to prevent anyone from speaking, but it has been conveyed to the Chair that there was agreement between all Parties that the Parliamentary Secretary would be allowed to conclude the debate at 8 o'clock.
As far as we are concerned, the agreement was that if we got three hours we would be satisfied.
I am prepared to give the Deputy five minutes.
It is quite clear that such an agreement was unknown to us. We are entitled to say our say, especially in view of what little Deputy MacEntee had to say. He had a great deal to say.
As I say, I am prepared to give the Deputy five minutes.
If the House agrees, because otherwise the Chair cannot change the agreement.
If any of the Deputies who are concerned with Private Deputies' time are prepared to give extra time we will agree to it if the others agree.
Is it agreed that the debate will continue into Private Deputies' time until 9.15?
Agreed.
Unfortunately, the time is so short that I cannot go in detail into the figures and other matters that were dealt with in this debate. At the outset I would like to say that Deputy MacEntee, when speaking, brought back to me the lesson which my old school teacher tried to instil into my mind. The words were:—
Hail to thee, blithe spirit!
Bird thou never wert,
That from heaven, or near it,
Pourest thy full heart
In profuse strains of unpremeditated art.
In this case Deputy MacEntee was dishonest enough to tell untruths. He is never ashamed of that. Is not every Deputy on the Opposition Benches aware of the circular that was sent out to the county councils in November, 1947, to stop completely the turf schemes? That is a fact that cannot be denied. It was stated quite clearly here and is on the records of the Custom House.
It never was sent out.
It was. As a member of the Cork County Council, I heard it read in November, 1947. I believe that it would be a waste of time to speak at length about statistical abstracts and the cost of living. The truth is that we have to face the problem of the cost of living from the point of view of our every-day lives. I believe, as many Deputies on this side have already said, that it is bound up completely with the failure of the system that was introduced in 1947—the price index at that time. Further, I would like to record, for the benefit of the House, that as well as the cost-of-living index being unsatisfactory, there is a further fact to be taken into account, that the then Minister for Industry and Commerce gave to Córas Iompair Éireann the power to charge up to 1?d. per mile on bus journeys from Cork to Crosshaven. The fare then was 1/10. I should like to remind the House that if Córas Iompair Éireann had taken advantage of the offer made to them by Deputy Lemass, who was then Minister, the fare from Cork to Crosshaven, instead of being 1/10, would be 2/2. That is all tied up with the question of the cost of living.
This Bill has been under debate for such a long period that I do not think it would be fair to keep the Parliamentary Secretary out longer from replying. I want to say in conclusion that the sooner we depart from the system which has been operated since 1947 as regards the cost-of-living index, and the sooner this tribunal is set up, even though Deputy Lemass and Deputy MacEntee may not like its personnel when it is announced, and the sooner we have a proper system of inquiry into a proper cost-of-living index figure, the better it will be.
In replying to this debate I think I should at the outset deal with a matter which was referred to by a number of Deputies, and which also received some comment outside. A number of Deputies, in the course of their speeches, said that I had stated in moving the Second Reading of the Bill that there had been no rise in the cost of living. It is quite likely, because of the headings in the newspapers, that the mistake arose; that it was due to the fact that they looked at the heading and did not look at the speech. I made it quite clear, in moving the Second Reading of the Bill, and subsequently by way of interruption on a number of occasions, that I first of all dealt with the cost of living and its reflection in the cost-of-living index between the month of August, 1947, and the month of August of this year. I said—the reference is Volume 123, column 1267:—
"Any rises that have taken place have occurred in recent months and can be attributed to the emergency preparations for the Korean conflict and the resultant preparations elsewhere."
Later in column 1275 I said:—
"I want the House to realise that I am dealing only with the situation up to August of this year. I will come to the future later on, and to whatever problem it may hold, and outline the steps the Government has decided to take to deal with that situation."
Later in my speech at column 1279 I said:—
"Now, since the start of the Korean war this year, a change has occurred. Circumstances have altered considerably, and the future cannot be assessed as regards its effects on the prices of imported commodities."
Later, by way of interruption when Deputy Lemass was speaking, I said at column 1305:—
"I concede that there is a recent rise. I made that quite clear and it is to meet that situation."
I think it is well to refer to that, because a great deal of what was said in the course of this debate has proceeded on a wrong assumption, the assumption that I made a statement here in introducing this Bill which had no foundation. I should say that I have no complaint to make, nor am I voicing any criticism, of the manner in which the speech was reported. My speech is fully reported in Volume 123 of the Dáil Debates for the 23rd November last. I think that if any Deputy takes the trouble to read it he will see that it will amply refute any suggestion that I, in some way, had been misled, by being directed as part of Government policy, to express views that had no foundation, or that were in some way unrelated to present circumstances. It is, of course, true that very often when listening to a speech and subsequently reporting it the heading may give a misleading impression. While I have no complaint to make of the manner in which it was reported, the heading I think was in this instance misleading in so far as it did not portray accurately the body of the speech.
In the course of this debate, a great variety of problems and matters affecting the country has been raised. Numerous matters, dealing in the main with the cost of living and its effect on the standard of living of the people, have been referred to by Deputies on both sides of the House. In dealing with the matter, therefore, I think it is necessary to refer to some of the remarks which Deputies made in connection with the cost-of-living index figure. I want to be quite clear that I have no particular brief in that matter, nor am I qualified, nor for that matter is any person not versed in statistical knowledge qualified, to express criticisms of it. For a considerable number of years that index figure has been the subject of a great deal of criticism, criticism in the main directed against it on the ground that it does not accurately reflect changes in the cost of living, or rather that it does not reflect changes in the standard of living.
As I explained in the course of this debate, the index is an index of retail prices. It is, I think, a matter of note that the British retail prices index, now so-called, was formerly described as the cost-of-living index. Experience showed that a great number of people failed to realise what that index was intended to portray and the various trends it was intended to indicate.
A number of Deputies, Deputy Lehane in particular, said that this index was vague and valueless. The Deputy said that the sooner we arrived at a new method of computing the figure the better. He went on to refer to the fact that The Economist had criticised the corresponding British index. I have not seen that particular criticism, but I think it is well to say that the British retail prices index is based on the 1937-38 standards and weighted accordingly. The Irish index, whether it is imperfect or otherwise, was revised, not by this Government, but by the present Opposition in 1946 or 1947 and, as Deputies are aware, the new cost-of-living index figure came into effect from August, 1947, and the weights are accordingly based on the pattern of consumption then existing and, as I said earlier, it is taken over a range of about 120 towns and over a wide variety of commodities.
Another criticism expressed against the index has been that it does not take into account commodities that are sold off the ration, and the political criticism was made by the Opposition that, in effect, the Government were sponsoring a black market, and that that black market was not taken into account. It is quite true that these off-the-ration commodities are not taken into account. The basis on which the index is compiled is this. In the case of tea, the vast bulk of tea which is being sold is rationed tea at 2/8 per lb. Similarly, in the case of butter, the bulk of the butter being sold is rationed butter at 2/8 per lb. The rationed sugar is sold at 4d a lb. In that connection, I have inquired from the Central Statistics Office if it would be possible to get data which would show the effect of the inclusion of these various non-rationed commodities and sundries, because another criticism of the index was that it did not include a number of articles generally bought by the average household which might be included in it.
As I said in introducing this Bill, it is only a retail prices index of the various items included in it. It does not purport to indicate a standard of living or a pattern of consumption other than that which is regarded as a fair average of the entire community. But, since the start of this debate, I have made inquiries from the Central Statistics Office, and I have got some information which would show that, if the off-the-ration commodities were taken into account, last year approximately 10 per cent, of the total tea consumed in the country was bought off the ration. In the case of butter, only 7 per cent, was bought. Sugar is somewhat different.
What is the percentage of sugar?
Sugar is different. It is 60 per cent., but a great deal of that sugar is bought by manufacturers for conversion into sweets, jams and other commodities. In that connection, both chocolates and boiled sweets, in the manufacture of which a large amount of sugar is used, are included in the index. Therefore, in so far as three items in the manufacture of which a large amount of sugar is used are concerned—chocolates, sweets and jams—these three items are included in the cost-of-living index figure. The figures show that the effect of including both rationed and off-the-ration commodities would be to increase the figure by 0.36 of a point, which would make no real difference. If sundries were included or other commodities which are generally regarded as normal for the average household, the increase would be 1.42. If all these off-the-ration commodities and sundries which are not included were included, it would only show a rise of from 100 to 101. It is necessary to get that on record on account of the rather reckless statements which a great many Deputies made in the course of the debate.
There is no reason why I should proceed to defend the index. But, if statistics are to have any value, then, in so far as they deal with a certain situation or are expected to be or should be considered as dealing with trends in employment or prices or anything else, if a case is to be argued, then there is no reason why the particular statistical data on which it is based should be attacked on the ground that the data are unreliable. It is particularly interesting when we examine the prices to which I have referred.
There has been a great deal of talk in the course of this debate by the Opposition about a black market in tea, a black market in sugar and a black market in butter. They say: "If you had included these commodities that would have produced a different result." They go on to say that people find it difficult to live on the amount of the commodities that are made available. Tea, butter, flour and sugar are all available at the same price at which they were when Fianna Fáil was in office this time three years, with this difference, that the ration of butter is now eight ounces. This time three years it was as low as two ounces. Just prior to the 1948 election it was increased to six ounces. During the greater portion of that year it had never been higher than six ounces, and most of the time it was either two ounces or four ounces. Since this Government came in it has never, with the exception of a short period of six weeks, been lower than four ounces, and it has been eight ounces for the last 18 months at the same price as it was when Fianna Fáil were in office and when the Supplementary Budget was introduced to subsidise butter, tea, sugar and flour.
When was that introduced?
This time three years.
It was after August, 1947.
This time three years.
Why compare prices now with August, 1947?
I am not comparing August, 1947. I am dealing with the question of rationed goods and the black market. Since then we have raised the tea ration from 1½ ozs. to 2 ozs. at the same price as it was when Fianna Fáil was in office. We have increased the subsidy which is paid by the Exchequer by £400,000 in order to make available to the people a ration of 2 ozs. of tea per week and over and above that we have made available to them unrationed tea at 6/- per pound. Is there a single Deputy here or a single person outside who does not know that there was a time when people paid up to 5/- a lb. for butter and as much as 30/- per lb. for tea and that, if one could get sugar, one would pay as much as 2/6 a lb. for it? Now there is available over and above the same ration at the same price as when Fianna Fáil was in office sugar at 8d. per lb.
The war is five years over.
It was two and a half years over in the autumn of 1947. At least there was this difference: at that time we were moving into peace; for the last couple of years it appears as if we are moving into war and there is a great difference between a tendency towards peace and an indication or tendency towards war.
The Minister for Defence did not think so.
There have been references to wages and to the recent rise in the cost of living. I admit that the cost-of-living index figure will show a rise, a rise attributable to the causes I have mentioned and to the facts that the Tánaiste mentioned in the course of this debate, the Korean War and the preparations for it, to some extent devaluation, to the general transition from peace-time production in a great number of countries to a rearmament programme, for even though they may not be directly involved they are directly contributing in some way to the present conflict.
And the fact that a lot of commodities have been decontrolled.
Nobody knows better than Deputy Lemass that control makes probably the least difference in any incidence which affects the cost of living. Deputy Lemass will agree with me that the least effectual weapon in keeping prices down is price control. There are plenty of cases where people cash in on a situation and take dishonest advantages of a rise but in the main the rising cost of any commodity is attributable to an increase in the price of raw materials, an increase in the cost of manufacture, an increase in wages or some other factor of that sort.
Deputies in the course of this debate referred to the fact that wages all during the Fianna Fáil period had been kept down and prices had been allowed to rise. It is interesting in that connection to examine a graph which I have here prepared by the Central Statistics Office showing that from the outbreak of war in 1939 there was a continuous rise in the cost of living. Anyone can see the pattern: a gradual rise at first, then a steep rise in 1941, 1942 and 1943, and then a comparative period of steadiness. At the same period the rise in wages was negligible. For one period there was not merely no rise but there was an actual drop in the wages of industrial workers.
The same as last year.
What industrial workers' wages dropped?
The first time that there was any change in the pattern of the economic circumstances of the people and the first time that there was not merely a closing of the gap but industrial earnings went above the cost of living was in 1948, after the change of Government. Since then up to the very last index industrial earnings have remained higher than any increase that has taken place in the cost of living.
Deputy Larkin not merely referred to that fact but he expressed satisfaction with and appreciation of what had been accomplished and of the improvement that had taken place in the standard of living of those sections of the community which, under a wage freeze policy, had had their standard of living depressed when the cost of living was rising and when their circumstances were infinitely worse than the circumstances of workers and wage earners to-day. Yet the Opposition has the dishonesty to come in here and criticise the Government. They have the dishonesty to allege, as Deputy Corry and, I think, Deputy Bartley alleged, that the workers were never worse off. I think it was Deputy Traynor who said that in the course of his activities it was his experience that the people found it harder than ever now to make ends meet. Assuming that is true, what kind of existence had they then in the circumstances that I have outlined, circumstances that are portrayed by statistics compiled on the same basis, with the same knowledge and, in general, by the same people as the statistics compiled by the Opposition when they were responsible for government?
It is true that some of the more responsible Deputies opposite appreciate that a great deal has been accomplished and that it is difficult to expect the Government to control a lot of factors outside its sphere of influence or control. Their criticism was tempered by their experience and by their knowledge. Deputy Lemass did not express the view that any great change could be effected by any other Government or even by Fianna Fáil, if they were in office. Deputy Childers followed on the same line. I shall deal with the matters he raised later. But the least responsible of the Deputies came in here and read out a whole list of prices comparing like with unlike and one period with a different period, even varying it to the extent of taking a period of the year in which there are seasonal changes or rises in price. They expected from that comparison that it would be obvious to the public, misleading though it was to those who were seeking a solution to the problem, that there had been a rise.
Unfortunately quite a number of Deputies on this side were to some extent misled by a great deal of the Opposition propaganda. I think it is no harm to say in that connection that Deputies supporting the Government must be expected to take the rough with the smooth. We cannot always satisfy everybody simultaneously. Listening to some of the views that have been expressed on this measure it is obvious that some Deputies think one can get too much for too many too quickly out of too little. It is obvious that with the great increase that has taken place in production, the substantial rise in the value and volume of agricultural production, the increase that has occurred in the last two and a half to three years in industrial earnings, as well as the increase in industrial output and the substantial increase in industrial employment, that whatever is the position now or whatever the position may be in the future this country, as the Taoiseach said in Wexford last night, is sounder and stronger economically and in a better position to face the future, whether it be war or peace, than it was when this Government assumed office in February, 1948. Nobody knows that better than some of the Opposition Deputies.
Deputy Aiken came in here to-day and he referred to a variety of matters. In the main he dealt with food supplies, the steps we had taken to induce the farmers to produce more, the encouragement we had given them or should have given them, and the fuel situation. He wanted to give the impression that we were in a bad way for food and that we were short of a number of other commodities. In order to encourage farmers to produce wheat and to make it remunerative for them, when this Government came into office we raised the price of wheat from the Fianna Fáil figure of 55/- per barrel, plus a 2/6 fertiliser docket, to 62/6 and we gave them a guarantee for five years. Is there any better way, any proposal more likely to increase production, any policy that could be designed to secure the acceptance of farmers, than to give them an increased price and a remunerative and guaranteed market for wheat? We did that and as a result last year we took in more wheat than in any other year. This year there is some drop because of weather conditions.
That is not true nor is the other statement either.
The stores in the country are absolutely bulging with supplies of wheat. Our position is that we were obliged to build, and are building, additional storage in the country over and above what was there during the Fianna Fáil time or over and above what was there at any time in the past. At the same time as we increased the price to wheat growers, we lifted the control on barley. There was control of barley by the previous Government. We lifted that control and, in addition, this year we have given a guarantee that those who produce feeding barley will get a guaranteed price and that the barley they produce will be bought from them in order to provide pig producers with their own feeding stuffs so that we can continue the expansion of the pig industry and the rehabilitation of the bacon curing industry. Deputies referred to the fact that at times the price of bacon had risen and that sometimes they regarded the increases as unnecessary, but there has not been a single reference by the Opposition to the fact that their policy eliminated, or almost eliminated, the pig industry in the country. There were hardly enough pigs in the country to enable us to restore the pig population. At the same time they carefully avoided any reference to the fact that they reduced the number of cows in the country by their foolish calf-slaughtering policy. As a result, milk was scarce, butter was rationed at two ounces per week, and cheese was difficult to get. Since this Government came in, we have increased the number of cows, and there has been a gradual and continuous increase in the supply of milk and butter. It is now available at the same price on an increased ration as was the case during the period in office of Fianna Fáil.
At the same time as Deputy Aiken referred to the alleged difficulties in regard to the encouragement to farmers to increase production, he referred to the question of fuel. He said that we killed the hand-won turf scheme. I have here a note which shows that on the 12th February, 1948, six days before the Government came into office, Deputy Lemass, then Minister for Industry and Commerce, took a decision to cease hand-won turf production.
That is not true.
Deputies
Of course it is.
If the Parliamentary Secretary is purporting to quote from an official record, the statement he has made is not true.
The statement has been made several times in the House already.
It still is not true and there is no official record which would support it.
Deputy Aiken alleged that we had slowed down on production. I have here a book which shows for the last three years, and in particular this year, a list of advertisements in every paper, including the Irish Press and the Irish Independent——
On a point of order, did the Parliamentary Secretary say that Deputy Lemass had stopped hand-won turf production?
I referred to an official note which I have here.
It was denied by the Deputy that he had made such a decision. Is it not usual in the circumstances to ask that the statement should be withdrawn?
A Deputy's statement as to what he did say has to be accepted.
In this case, the Parliamentary Secretary is purporting to quote from official records. I know there is no such record.
I have no record, but I have an official note.
What happened was that a decision was taken to close down the Kildare camps operated by Bord na Móna in the production of hand-won turf. The decision so far as the county council scheme was concerned was to transfer these schemes to Bord na Móna and carry them on in 1948.
I made no reference to the county council schemes.
It is denied.
I made no reference to the county council schemes. Here are the advertisements.
Does the Parliamentary Secretary withdraw the statement?
I made no reference to county council schemes. The record is there and Deputy McGrath knows nothing about it.
It is the county council scheme the Deputy is now talking about.
On a point of order, the Parliamentary Secretary says there is a record. Where is it?
In the Department.
Does the Parliamentary Secretary——
Deputies
Sit down.
The position is that this year we advertised on numerous occasions in every paper that circulated in the country, the national dailies and the two Sunday papers, the Sunday Press and the Sunday Independent for turf workers. At no time were we less than 800 workers short in the turf camps. The conditions in these camps are good. They have been dealt with in the course of a number of discussions in the last few months and during the passage of the Turf Bill. The present position is that despite all we did, we could not get sufficient turf workers. We advertised in every paper and offered to provide transport from where the turf workers resided to these schemes. The book is there for any Deputy who wants to read it. Most Deputies saw the advertisements which were published in the various newspapers.
They were promised in Cork if they could get more wages.
The position so far as Cork is concerned is that we have endeavoured by every method available to increase production. In addition, we have plans for the coming year to increase turf production. I hope we shall be able to get sufficient workers and that it will be possible to expand production. It is only right to say that the temporary shortage or difficulty which has been experienced in securing supplies of fuel in certain parts of the country is in the main due to the weather. Many Deputies remember the difficult autumn of 1946.
And a lot of them forget it including the Parliamentary Secretary.
A Deputy
Including the Opposition.
Why was the butter ration reduced?
I want to say that not merely have we succeeded in expanding industrial and agricultural production, but at the present time there are over 206,000 persons in insurable industrial employment. When this Government came in, according to the figures published for the end of 1947, the number at that time was 183,000. Since then we have expanded industry and production and increased the employment available. When Deputies come into this House and refer to the fact that we have delayed or in some way postponed or as they allege have not implemented the Fianna Fáil plans and policy on that matter, how can they explain away these figures? How can they show that their policy which was in operation was a better one when the one that has been put in its place has succeeded in increasing the number employed and at the same time giving them better wages?
If you got out of the way, the increase would be twice as much. What did you do?
At the same time that that took place, we expanded the building of houses. I never thought the Opposition would find the facts so difficult to swallow.
Give us a few facts.
It is getting underneath Deputy Lemass's skin. That is clear enough.
When Deputy MacEntee came in, it was the first time that we had seen him almost since the Recess and it was refreshing to hear him talk but the one thing that must have been obvious to Deputies on all sides of the House is that he is as irresponsible as ever and that as long as he can create a good impression it does not matter how far he is from facts. I want to give the House some facts about the expansion in a capital development and the increase in the number of houses built. In 1947, at the 31st March, the total number of local authority houses completed was 691 and employed on that there were 1,452 men.
Give us the figures for 1938.
In 1948 the number of houses was 739 and the number employed on them was 3,079. In 1949, the number of houses had gone up to 1,871 and the number employed on them to 8,353. In 1950, at 31st March, the number of houses was 5,299 and the number employed was 12,955 and at the 31st October of this year, that is a little over a month ago, the total number of houses in course of construction by the local authorities was 10,413 and employed on them there were 12,878.
Have you the figures for 1938?
At the same time as that was accomplished the number of grant houses completed on the 31st March, 1947, was 456, in March, 1948, 773, in March, 1949, 1,425 in March, 1950, 2,667.
What about 1938?
Deputies have expressed the view that if there was a change of Government, that if the Opposition was responsible here, in some way or other, things would have been better. At any rate, we have increased on what they did before. It ought to be remembered, not merely by some Deputies but by some people outside, that whatever criticism may be expressed, whatever faults may be found with the present Government and its record, whatever difficulties may be met with in the immediate or in the remote future, the Party opposite were in office for 16 years, we know what they did and what they did not do, they are not untried and that nobody should labour under the illusion that, well and good, if we are dissatisfied with the present crowd we can change over to something better. Their record and the results in connection with industrial production, industrial employment, agricultural production, the increase in the farmer's economy and the standard of living for all sections, the expansion in the house-building programme by local authorities and grant houses show that the position now is infinitely better than it was——
During the war.
——this time three years or in February, 1948.
Or during the war.
Or in 1938.
The facts that a number of Deputies have referred to in the course of this debate and the wide range of it make it impossible to deal with everything in the short space of an hour but I think it is necessary that certain matters that were referred to in the course of this debate should be dealt with. The debate ranged about prices, wages, the cost of living, the standard of living, in addition to the matters that I have referred to, to food subsidies, to the assistance which has been given by way of subsidy in maintaining the level of the cost of living up to a certain period, the changes that have occurred since. It is not possible at this stage to forecast what may happen in the future but, at the same time, as these subsidies were provided and as the wages of those engaged in industry and other earnings rose, this Government increased the circumstances of the most needy section of the community by raising the social services. We raised the old age pension to 17/6 a week and at the same time we modified the means test from £39 5s. 0d. to £52 5s. 0d.
You said you would abolish it.
In addition, we modified the means test for widows' and orphans' pensions. We reduced the age limit for widows. Widows are now entitled to pensions at 48. Formerly they had to be 55.
And increased contributions.
At the same time it was possible to provide pensions for blind pensioners at 21. Formerly they had to wait until they were 30. All these increases were granted under the Social Welfare Bill which was introduced at the end of 1948 and became operative in 1949. At the same time, we raised the pay of a whole horde of lowly paid workers. We raised the pay of road workers, agricultural workers, Garda and Army personnel. Retired State pensioners received increases in pension over and above the rates that were in operation when this Government assumed office.
In the case of all these most needy sections, the groups in the community worst hit by the impact of the last war, worst affected by the influence of shortages, rising prices and so forth, we improved their conditions, increased their capacity to meet with the difficulties and to face the problems which they are obliged to face. We felt, and all sections in this House recognised, that they were entitled to get these increases.
Deputies must remember, and it is no harm to remind them, that this time three years ago we brought forward from the Opposition a modest motion to increase the old age pension by 2/6 a week and the Government at that time said it would cost £500,000 and that the country could not afford it. Since then, we have increased the old age pension without raising taxes but rather after we had repealed the taxes amounting to £6,000,000 on beer, tobacco and cinema seats, these supplementary taxes that were introduced in this House by Deputy Aiken in the Supplementary Budget, prefaced by an introductory speech by the then Taoiseach, in order to stabilise the cost of living, in order to subsidise the foodstuffs that I have mentioned. We have since maintained the subsidies, in some cases at an increased ration, and we wiped out all this tax amounting to over £6,000,000 and we enabled the people to get the benefit of that remission in taxation and also the benefit of a reduction in income-tax by 6d. in the £.
That brings me to a section in the community which has not the same representation nor the same influence in expressing their views in Parliament or getting their position recognised, that is, the class known as the white collar worker. That section did receive certain increases under a number of the wage increases that have become operative since the change of Government. We remitted taxation on the commodities that I have mentioned and we introduced a reduction in income-tax. We modified the allowance in respect of income-tax payers and improved their position.
In addition, we made available housing subsidies for a larger and more commodious type of house under the last Housing Act. It is, perhaps, true to say that that section in the community has, since 1939, probably had to face greater difficulties than anyone, with the possible exception of the very lowly-paid sections, or those living on old age or widows' and orphans' pensions. I recognise that their position is difficult and that the problems they are obliged to deal with can only be met by a realisation, on the part of those who have responsibility in this matter, of the changed circumstances.
Deputies must have read in the papers or heard on the radio that, as a result of discussions which were held under my chairmanship in the Department of Industry and Commerce, and which arose out of meetings which the trade union representatives had with the Government, or with certain Ministers, and the Federated Union of Employers, an agreement has been arrived at between the Trades Union Congress and the Federated Union of Employers. A statement has been published which indicates the lines on which wage negotiations are to be conducted, the factors which must be taken into account, the effects which any variation in wages may have on the future economy, and future living standards, not merely of those who are directly concerned, but on the community as a whole.
In that connection I would like to express my thanks and, I believe, the thanks of the country, for the goodwill, the co-operation and the will to find a solution which was obvious at those discussions, and in the statement which was their outcome. I think those who participated in the discussions recognised not merely their responsibilities to those they represented, but their responsibilities to the community. I hope in the future, as regards whatever problems and difficulties and discussions are necessary, that they will be conducted with the same goodwill and with the same type of realisation of the responsibilities of those who represent employers and workers.
The debate has been remarkable for the fact that a number of Deputies opposite appear to be under the impression that the Government in some way or other are under pressure. I noticed that Deputy Coburn, in a very sensible, factual speech here this evening, referred to the fact that the Leader of the Opposition has not spoken in this debate, but that last week-end he took a trip to Roscommon and there expressed the view that it was time to have a general election. Now, there was no greater pastime amongst the members of the Fianna Fáil Party than holding general elections. It was really remarkable. In the space of their period of office they held a general election on an average every two and a half years.
You are not going to chance that.
It was quite satisfactory as long as they got back. I am reminded of a circular issued by the Fianna Fáil General Election Finance Committee, dated December, 1947——
That is worth listening to.
I will not trouble the House by reading it out fully, but this is part of what it said:—
"We are about to face a general election, the importance of which to each one of us cannot be overemphasised ...
It is not made clear whether the importance attaches to each one of the signatories or to the Party as a whole.
References have been made both here and elsewhere to the need for a stable Government. If there is one thing more than another that we should recognise it is that during the past three years we have had stable government. During that period economic conditions have been improved; in that same period we have seen more people employed; there has been greater production and there has been greater prosperity than at any time in our history. We have had all that, despite the gloomy prognostications and all the dim forecasts from Deputies on the other side of the House.
And the resignations.
The only solution from the Leader of the Opposition is that we should have a general election. In the course of his speech he mentioned the fact that we had borrowed and spent more than they had. The fact is that without any increase in taxation, without putting any greater burden, rather by lessening the burden on the community, we have succeeded in building more houses and in producing more from our factories; we have expanded employment and given more general security. Fianna Fáil's solution of that problem is to hold a general election.
It is no harm to remark in that connection that those who feel they can with impunity criticise or weaken the Government can only do so as long as they have a Government here to criticise. There is a great danger that some people will be misled by petty grievances, by individual disagreements, sometimes even almost of a personal nature, and certainly local in their effect, to withdraw their support from this Government. The result may be that some time or other the Government will fail to have a majority. If that position is reached, then the responsibility will be theirs. I believe there is not one of them who, though at times, he may act in a reckless or purely individual capacity, does not recognise that he was elected to this House to replace the Fianna Fáil Government, and that there is only one alternative to this Government, and that is the Party opposite. If, through any individual disagreement, or by any reckless use or misuse of his voting power in the Dáil, he weakens this Government in any way, or reduces its authority, then the responsibility for the change will be his.
The conditions that have been brought about and that I have outlined—the things we have drastically improved and radically altered in the course of the past three years—might all be nullified by any change or weakening of the position. We face the future with confidence. There may be difficulties, and it would be rash in present circumstances to imagine that because there is a conflict which at the moment appears far away, and which in other days might be regarded as having little influence on conditions in this country, we will not be affected. Modern war and all it means, the implications of modern war in the rearmament of countries not directly concerned, have an immediate effect, and will certainly have a quick effect on conditions in a small country, in a country such as this. The effect is shown in increases in costs, in shortages of materials, difficulties of securing commodities, demands for raw materials that are required for rearmament purposes, and all the other effects of which we have had experience in the past.
In this connection it is remarkable how short memories can become, and how easy it is to magnify some difficulties, elevate them to points of principle, elevate a temporary dislocation of one kind or another to a point at which not merely do people convince themselves, but they seek to convince others, that conditions are worse and that the whole situation is out of control. Nothing could be further from the truth, as the facts I have outlined show.
There have been various attempts made, successfully in places, by the Opposition to create a scare, to create difficulties. These attempts have succeeded in influencing some people on this side of the House. They have succeeded in putting their propaganda across. Anyone listening here to-night to Deputy MacEntee or to the debate to-day when Deputy Aiken was speaking, anyone listening to the whole of this discussion, and particularly to Deputies opposite during the past month—the debate began four weeks ago to-morrow—would be led to believe that there has been a notable deterioration in conditions in this country.
We had speeches in this debate such as that delivered by Deputy Larkin. He recognised the problems and difficulties that had to be dealt with, and at the same time showed that the credit side had still a good deal in hand. The view was expressed that we are dealing with the situation, and that the Government is tackling it on the basis of giving priority to first things and to essentials, and that we can surmount whatever problems, difficulties or shortages that may have to be faced.
It would be wrong to imagine that, because the conflict is remote, we can isolate ourselves from it. We have never taken that view. Over a long period the Government has a Cabinet sub-committee working on preparations. As a result, we have got in supplies of a number of commodities. It is to be remembered, of course, that some of the shortages, as regards raw materials, which we require, are also required by countries engaged in the production of armaments. They are required by them for the purposes of war or for the building up of reserves. It depends on where they are and who has control of them, the amount that will be made available, whether we can get supplies and, if so, in what quantities. We take the view that, as long as we can secure these essential supplies, and so avoid the introduction of restrictions, we will do so. I do not believe the House would expect me to say definitely on behalf of the Government that, if a number of commodities become scarce elsewhere, or if restrictions have to be imposed elsewhere, that it may not be the responsibility of this Government to impose certain restrictions. If that has to be done, then I have no doubt the country will recognise that the present war, the conflict that is now taking place with resultant preparations elsewhere, is not of our choosing.
This country has pursued a policy of peace in its international discussions. That is our policy in so far as we can make it effective in the councils of the nations and on the various bodies on which we are represented. We are anxious to use the influence which this country has—it has been referred to as that of a vast spiritual empire— in the cause of peace. If we are obliged to face more difficult times in the future, then we will face them stronger economically and stronger in every other way than we could have faced them at any time since February, 1948. That is not bad claim. It is no bad achievement for a Government which represents in a unique way all sections of the community, a Government which, of course, has problems incidental to a wide representation.
I want to conclude by saying that we will push forward the plans which we have, in the knowledge that we have public support for them and the backing of the majority of the elected representatives in Parliament. As long as we have that majority, we are not going to put the country to the expense of a general election, or to the dislocation incidental to an election.
Dislocation is right.
The Government here has the backing of the majority of the elected representatives. That majority was expressed in 1948. Since then we have had three by-elections. Two of these seats were retained by the Parties which had them in the past. The other seat was a Fianna Fáil seat, and this time last year an inter-Party candidate won that by-election. Since then, inter-Party majorities have, in the case of a great many of the county councils and local councils, replaced Fianna Fáil majorities. In face of that expression of public opinion, and of the changed complexion of those local councils and of the invigorating effect of the victory in the West Donegal by-election, it is stretching the uses of political debate to have to listen to some of the things which were said here. The Leader of the Opposition went down to Roscommon and said that we should have a general election.
He was giving you good advice if you are doing so well.
This Government is quite satisfied.
He had very few listening to him.
You are all agreed on one thing, that you will never face the people until you have to.
It is no harm to remark that the rumours there used to be have died very quickly. We used to hear the rumour that the Government would not last three weeks; then it was extended to three months and, finally, to six months. The Opposition know that we are adjourning now into the spring, when the Government will be introducing one of its most comprehensive proposals, proposals to increase the social services, and that, in addition, we are proceeding with our Bill to give back to the local councils power to deal with the matters which come before them. I may say that, over the whole range of Government policy in so far as we have the power and responsibility, and in so far as we have been able to minimise the effects from outside, we have sought to implement our policy.
I do not know what is wrong with the Opposition. They must be feeling the draught. Their speeches ranged over every subject in the course of this debate. As Deputy Coburn said, one Deputy opposite talked of the price of eggs and the price of butter, and said the price of everything had gone sky high. Deputy Corry, who comes from Cork, says that the farmers are depressed. Deputy Ó Briain followed suit, and said eggs were 2/- a dozen, and that it was a scandalous price. Deputy Vivion de Valera said that they were 5/6 somewhere else. That is a sort of two-faced policy, one policy for city audiences or for people behind closed doors—to spread false talk, false rumours and give out false dope of any kind, and then go to the country and give the dope there that will suit. This Government has faced up to its responsibilities and its duties. It has served all sections of the community and is concerned to see that the most needy sections are dealt with on the basis that they come first. Others will be taken in the order of priority. We do not accept, and will in no way be guided by a document which says that we are about to face a general election.
It cannot be over-emphasised that the bulk of the signatories to that document are people enjoying protection which is provided by the nation to enable them to provide employment, to give the people of this country the right to earn their livelihood and so provide themselves and their families with a decent standard of living in their own country. We have never taken the view—we do not take it now —that people are not entitled under this Government to get a reasonable profit and reasonable remuneration. So far as persons who are enjoying protection or who are providing employment are concerned, they need not fear, nor need they think they can in some way or another by propaganda create the impression that this Government are out to destroy private enterprise or the rights of private property. This Government believe in private enterprise and have achieved results under that system comparable with or better than those in most other countries. These people need not worry or fear and the Opposition may give up trying to create the impression, either through the Irish Press or the expression of their views in the Dáil, that we are in some way determined to undermine the fabric of this State by, as they stated at one time, being dragged at the heels of the Labour Party or State socialism and, at another time, being dragged at the heels of the farmers or those who want to raise prices for the rural community. They also say that the Fine Gael axe is taking the heads off all these people, but the facts are there.
We have combined and we have succeeded in achieving better conditions for all the people in the country, irrespective of whatever temporary difficulties or problems they have to face, than they ever had in the past. I am glad to be associated with, and proud to have associated with me, the various Deputies who sit behind the Government, irrespective of whatever Party they belong to or whatever policy they had in the past, in a policy which has succeeded in giving this country stable Government and in providing the people with such economic, social and national conditions that they can express satisfaction that it was given to this Government to have the responsibility of guiding the destinies of a free Ireland.
Question put.
The Dáil divided: Tá, 74; Níl, 58.
Tá
- Beirne, John.
- Belton, John.
- Blowick, Joseph.
- Brennan, Joseph P.
- Browne, Noel C.
- Browne, Patrick.
- Byrne, Alfred.
- Byrne, Alfred Patrick.
- Coburn, James.
- Collins, Seán.
- Commons, Bernard.
- Connolly, Roderick J.
- Corish, Brendan.
- Cosgrave, Liam.
- Costello, John A.
- Cowan, Peadar.
- Crotty, Patrick J.
- Davin, William.
- Desmond, Daniel.
- Dillon, James M.
- Dockrell, Maurice E.
- Donnellan, Michael.
- Doyle, Peadar S.
- Dunne, Seán.
- Esmonde, Sir John L.
- Everett, James.
- Fagan, Charles.
- Finucane, Patrick.
- Fitzpatrick, Michael.
- Flynn, John.
- Giles, Patrick.
- Halliden, Patrick J.
- Hickey, James.
- Hogan, Patrick.
- Hughes, Joseph.
- Keane, Seán.
- Keyes, Michael.
- Kinane, Patrick.
- Larkin, James.
- Lehane, Con.
- Lehane, Patrick D.
- McAuliffe, Patrick.
- MacBride, Seán.
- Mac Eoin, Seán.
- McFadden, Michael Óg.
- McGilligan, Patrick.
- McMenamin, Daniel.
- McQuillan, John.
- Madden, David J.
- Mongan, Joseph W.
- Mulcahy, Richard.
- Murphy, William J.
- Norton, William.
- O'Donnell, Patrick.
- O'Gorman, Patrick J.
- O'Higgins, Michael J.
- O'Higgins, Thomas F.
- O'Higgins, Thomas F. (Jun.).
- O'Leary, John.
- O'Reilly, Patrick.
- O'Sullivan, Martin.
- Palmer, Patrick W.
- Pattison, James P.
- Redmond, Bridget M.
- Reidy, James.
- Reynolds, Mary.
- Roddy, Joseph.
- Rooney, Eamonn.
- Sheehan, Michael.
- Sheldon, William A.W.
- Spring, Daniel.
- Sweetman, Gerard.
- Timoney, John J.
- Tully, John.
Níl
- Aiken, Frank.
- Allen, Denis.
- Bartley, Gerald.
- Beegan, Patrick.
- Blaney, Neal T.
- Boland, Gerald.
- Bourke, Dan.
- Brady, Seán.
- Breathnach, Cormac.
- Breen, Daniel.
- Brennan, Thomas.
- Breslin, Cormac.
- Briscoe, Robert.
- Buckley, Seán.
- Burke, Patrick.
- Butler, Bernard.
- Childers, Erskine H.
- Colley, Harry.
- Lemass, Seán F.
- Little, Patrick J.
- McCann, John.
- MacEntee, Seán.
- McGrath, Patrick.
- Maguire, Patrick J.
- Moran, Michael.
- Moylan, Seán.
- Ó Briain, Donnchadh.
- O'Grady, Seán.
- Ormonde, John.
- Collins, James J.
- Crowley, Honor Mary.
- Davern, Michael J.
- Derrig, Thomas.
- De Valera, Eamon.
- De Valera, Vivion.
- Flynn, Stephen.
- Friel, John.
- Gilbride, Eugene.
- Gorry, Patrick J.
- Harris, Thomas.
- Hilliard, Michael.
- Kennedy, Michael J.
- Killilea, Mark.
- Kilroy, James.
- Kissane, Eamon.
- Kitt, Michael F.
- Lahiffe, Robert.
- O'Rourke, Daniel.
- O'Sullivan, Ted.
- Rice, Bridget M.
- Ruttledge, Patrick J.
- Ryan, James.
- Ryan, Mary B.
- Ryan, Robert.
- Sheridan, Michael.
- Traynor, Oscar.
- Walsh, Richard.
- Walsh, Thomas.
Tellers:—Tá: Deputies P.S. Doyle and Spring; Níl: Deputies Kissane and Kennedy.
Question declared carried.