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Dáil Éireann debate -
Thursday, 1 Mar 1951

Vol. 124 No. 6

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

Before the debate was interrupted, I was drawing attention to one of the gravest problems facing the country at the moment. I refer to the problem of providing our basic fuel supply both for domestic use and to fill our industrial and transport requirements. I have always approached problems of this kind from a strictly non-Party viewpoint; I can see no merit in one side or the other seeking to make political capital out of the difficulties that arise.

We are a country with very limited coal resources and with a very difficult problem in relation to the development of our turf resources. A good deal of criticism was levelled at the former Government because of the manner in which they handled the fuel situation during the war years. I have no intention of absolving that Government from all blame, but I think it must in fairness be acknowledged that many of the charges, particularly in respect of the year 1946 and the winter of 1947, were grossly exaggerated; 1946 was an excessively wet year and much of the turf was severely damaged. The winter following was one of successive severity and fuel supplies were quite inadequate to meet the situation. I think any supplies that had been built up were almost completely dissipated during that very severe winter. In the following year there was an intensive drive to produce fuel under somewhat difficult circumstances since it was rather late in the year by the time turf production could be undertaken. In addition to that there was a nationwide demand that the Government should undertake turf production. That demand came from both sides of the House. Some members of Fine Gael and the Independent Deputies, as well as some members of the Fianna Fáil Party, pressed the then Minister for Industry and Commerce to accumulate supplies of firing. Supplies were accumulated and at the beginning of 1948 we had 229,000 tons of turf, 387,000 tons of firewood and 449,000 tons of coal. Last week I asked a question as to whether these reserves were maintained or whether they were dissipated. The information I got in reply was that turf reserves were reduced to 11,000 tons, firewood to nil, and coal reserves were down to 189,000 tons. If we accept the view that the Fianna Fáil Government made a mistake in accumulating these large reserves, we must also accept the view that an even greater mistake was made in completely dissipating those reserves. During 1948, and I think this is on the records of the House, I suggested that while it was desirable to utilise the accumulated firewood and turf supplies as quickly as possible, we should at the same time accumulate alternative supplies of good quality imported coal. I think that would have been a very wise step. Whatever reserve was there should have been increased rather than dissipated.

In a matter like this a Government must always take risks. In any form of stock piling a Government is always open to the criticism that they accumulate reserves at a high price and thereby subsequently incur a loss to the taxpayer. But in matters of this kind there ought always to be fair play as between Opposition and Government and I think the Government is entitled, in the circumstances in which they find themselves, to do the best they can. Notwithstanding the advice that was given and the representations that were made, these reserves were dissipated. We all know that it would have been possible to utilise the turf and firewood that had been accumulated during the years 1948 and 1949, while at the same time building up a new reserve of better quality fuel in order to safeguard the country in the present difficulty. I mention the matter now because it is possible that a similar situation may arise in the future. There may still be some possibilities of stock piling in relation to certain commodities and I do not think the Government ought to be deterred from taking the necessary steps to safeguard the country's position because of possible criticism. The Government must be prepared to take risks on behalf of the people rather than expose them to the merciless brunt of adverse circumstances.

I think it is quite clear now that all the reserves of the nation must be directed towards an intensive drive to produce good quality turf. We all recognise that in the matter of turf production, as in agricultural production, one is to a certain extent dependent on weather conditions; notwithstanding that, every effort should be made and every opportunity should be taken of mechanising turf production. We can produce, and are producing, machines suitable for turf production. We should continue in that direction and produce small machines to speed up the work, since I think nobody will deny that it is possible to produce a better quality turf by machinery than can be produced by hand. No consideration should deter the Government from pushing this policy; not only should they advance courageously, but they should plan ahead. They should guarantee to those who produce good quality turf a fair reward for their labour plus a certain measure of security.

A serious complaint was voiced against the present Opposition when they were in Government that where owners of turbary let that turbary to the county council or any other public body they were penalised by an increase in their valuations. If it is necessary to amend the Valuation Acts in order to safeguard such people in the future, that should be done. People who give their turbary for development for the public good should be safeguarded against injury to their land in relation to its agricultural use.

There is another matter which is important and which should receive more consideration, that is, the method of selling turf. We should endeavour to get away from the system of selling turf by weight. There ought to be an alternative method, such as selling it by measure, for instance, by the cubic yard. That is the traditional method of selling turf. Prior to the recent emergency, turf was never sold by weight. As long as the system obtains of selling turf by weight or charging for transport on weight, there will be a temptation to keep the turf wet and even to add moisture. That is one of the great complaints made in respect of turf generally.

It should be the policy of the Government to see that our coal reserves are developed and utilised to the fullest extent. In many homes cookers have been installed which burn anthracite or coke. It will be a tragedy for a great number of families if they cannot obtain anthracite for cooking purposes. They have incurred considerable expense in installing up-to-date cooking apparatus and it would be very unfair to deprive them of the essential fuel for that apparatus. In installing such cookers many people have been inspired, not merely by a desire for efficiency, economy and comfort, but by a desire to use native fuel, such as anthracite. Therefore, it should be Government policy to ensure as far as possible that they will receive the necessary supply.

One of the great mistakes made by the present Government over the past few years was that they allowed themselves to be bewitched, bothered and bewildered by the Minister for Agriculture. In loud voice he told them what was sound national economic policy. In loud voice he told them that he knew everything about agriculture and that nobody else knew anything. In the first year of the present Government's administration, he diverted agricultural policy to dependence upon what he described as unlimited quantities of cheap imported maize. He told the people during the summer months of 1948, and even during the harvest, when farmers were endeavouring to sell their oats, in 1948, that he would make available unlimited supplies of good quality maize at a very much reduced price. In that way, he sabotaged the harvest of 1948. He drove many farmers, who had more or less changed their economy to tillage, out of that line of production by his action and killed the market for oats in that year. The result was that there was a very substantial decline in the acreage under oats and feeding barley in the following years. That was a criminal act. It may not have been deliberate on his part. He honestly may have believed that unlimited supplies of maize were available from outside sources but he does not seem to have weighed up all the considerations; he seems to have acted in an irresponsible manner and to have exposed those who had engaged in the production of barley in 1948 to severe loss.

The net result of his action has been to leave us dependent to a very large extent on imported feeding stuffs over the past two years. That policy must be changed. The Minister now would appear, belatedly, to intend changing it but the trade statistics show that we imported over £15,000,000 worth of cereal crops from the dollar area during the year 1950, thereby adding very considerably to our indebtedness in respect of dollars.

I believe that the entire policy of the Minister in this respect was completely misguided and misdirected and that he completely misunderstood the trade situation. If he thought that we could import cheap feeding stuffs and convert them into animal produce and re-export to Britain at a profit, he was making a terrific mistake. He found that we could not convert imported feeding stuff into eggs, bacon or pork without incurring severe loss, because the price that we had to pay for maize was too high and the price we received from the British for eggs and bacon was utterly uneconomic.

That is rubbish and you know it. I will be talking later.

If I had the facility to be in two places at one time, I might be able to get, perhaps, a more comprehensive view of these matters. I am viewing the matter, logically, and I think reasonably. Everybody realises that the price that is being offered to this country by the British for bacon is utterly uneconomic. I think that is accepted by everyone.

The Minister, the other day, talked about being able to provide a price of 210/-, dead weight, for pigs. The fact of the matter is that the people in the Six Counties are getting 50/- a cwt. more. He knows perfectly well and everybody knows that we could not produce for export at that price.

I do not think I am painting too dark or too gloomy a situation. I believe that with courage and initiative on the part of those who direct parliamentary policy, we can well restore conditions to a more normal level. So far as agricultural exports are concerned, many of the circumstances of the international situation are in our favour. While the price which has been accepted by our Minister in regard to eggs and the price that we may expect in regard to pigs is inadequate, I believe that with good salesmanship we could secure better prices for the farming community.

In this connection I want to draw attention to an arrogant statement made by the Minister last week. We all know that the price offered to Irish producers for eggs is ridiculously low, but the Minister for Agriculture said last week that he was not in any way responsible for that situation. He claimed his predecessor made a bad bargain and, as a result, he found himself with intensive production here and a very large supply of eggs which the British did not want. In actual fact the Minister, during 1948, was boosting egg production. He sent a personal letter to every farmer's wife and daughter, urging them to increase egg production, and he gave a guarantee that the more they could produce the higher the price.

Surely he could not hold the former Minister responsible for what he himself did in 1948. As a matter of fact, both he and his admirers claimed complete credit for the expansion in egg production during that year and the following year. Last week he said that as a result of the unwise bargain made by his predecessor he had to try to dispose of the eggs to the best of his ability last year. I asked him on what date the trade agreement with regard to eggs was made last year and he replied that it was made in August and it provided for the Irish egg producer a price of 2/- per dozen from 1st February to 1st September. He said that agreement was made after long and difficult negotiations.

The records of the House show that the Minister stood up here on 15th June last, while negotiations were supposed to be going on, and he said:—

"I have to announce to the House that, as a result of negotiations which have recently been proceeding in London... from 1st September to 31st August, 1951, the price of eggs to the producer will be 2/- per dozen."

He went on to say (Vol. 121, No. 13, col. 1795):—

"It is not a bad price for eggs if you grow your own stuff on your own farm.... Twopence an egg: I can remember when it was the top price."

There we had the Minister for Agriculture boasting of the price the Food Minister in Britain was offering for eggs, and that was at a time when the negotiations were not completed. It seems to me that is a peculiar line of salesmanship for a Minister to take, a Minister supposed to be trying to get the best possible price for eggs. There he was boasting about the inadequate price offered by the British Government. He said it was not a bad price, 2d. an egg, and he could remember when it was the top price. What could the Food Minister in Britain say? What conclusion could he come to except that he was over-generous in offering 2d. an egg? Twopence was all our Minister could secure.

He had the audacity to say that he had a very hard fight to get a better price. If we are to get a better price for our produce in the British market the Minister will have to acquire some elementary knowledge of salesmanship. There is no use in going to Britain with the intention of selling things and saying you are going to drown the British with eggs. Equally there is no use in coming here while negotiations are proceeding and applauding the price that is being offered.

There is a very serious position facing a large number of decent, industrious people who have gone in extensively for egg production. They find themselves with a large number of hens producing eggs in considerable quantities. Those eggs cost a substantial sum to produce. An egg selling for 2d. must cost at least 3d. to produce, and that is a very modest estimate. Those people are involved in very substantial losses, simply because the Minister refuses to look for a better price. There is such a thing in existence as a consultative council on matters of production. That council has never been asked to meet since this Minister took office. Apparently he knows so much that he cannot be advised on any subject; he spurns all advice. The result is he has made a series of deplorable and ridiculous mistakes.

Last week I had a question in regard to our tillage programme for the coming year. I based that question on a statement the Minister made to the Sunday Independent. Since then a summary of that statement has been issued at public expense by the Department of Agriculture and it has been published in every paper throughout the country. It is headed in a manner to catch the farmer's attention and it is worded very closely along the lines of the Minister's statement to the Sunday Independent. In that statement the Minister appeals for certain acreage targets in regard to certain crops. For instance, in regard to Ymer barley, he demands 200,000 acres; in regard to oats he demands at least 300,000 acres; in regard to potatoes he demands 400,000 acres and in regard to hay and silage the demand is for 2,000,000 acres. There is no reference to the crop upon which human beings depend for their bread. There is no request in this advertisement for increased acreage or any acreage at all in regard to wheat or even beet. I think the papers carried a larger advertisement issued by the Irish Sugar Company calling for an increased acreage of sugar beet.

The only reference the Minister makes to wheat is this: having asked for an additional acreage in regard to barley, oats, potatoes, hay and silage, he mentions that preparation for these crops must be undertaken now, "in addition to such other crops as the farmer may intend sowing, such as wheat, industrial barley, beet and other root crops." So far as the Minister is concerned it does not matter whether the farmer sows any wheat or beet, it does not matter what acreage he sows. He may or may not as he thinks fit sow those crops. The Minister issues no request to farmers on behalf of the State or the community to grow even the acreage that was provided this year. Were there to be a drastic reduction in the acreage of wheat sown, would not that be a serious matter in the event of a complete closing down of imports? Could the Minister escape responsibility in that matter? He has indicated the target required in regard to other crops. He has indicated that he does not care whether one acre of wheat is grown or any acreage of wheat whatever is grown. That is a matter which ought to be seriously considered not only by the Minister but by the entire Government because I think the entire Government must take responsibility in a matter of this kind. In addition, this advertisement is objectionable viewed as a departmental advertisement. It says:—

"Compulsory tillage and all other forms of arbitrary interference with the freedom of farmers were abolished by your Government.

The Government depends on farmers to do, in their own interest, all that is necessary without compulsion or penalties.

Unless each farmer produces on his own land all the animal feed he requires, he cannot hope to maintain his live stock.

It is for the farmers to decide whether freedom or compulsion is the better policy."

In other words, there is an inference in that statement that the policy of compulsion is advocated by someone or other in the Dáil or that it was the policy of compulsion which was in force during the emergency. The position ought to be clarified.

Compulsory tillage was introduced into this House during the war period, but not as a Party measure or as a measure supported only by the Government. It was a measure that was supported unanimously. Every Party in this House supported the policy of compulsory tillage during the war. I have no doubt that if a similar situation arose again—if the world was engaged in a life and death struggle—there would not be any objection to compulsory tillage. In normal peace times, however, when it is possible to produce to secure the acreage required of the various crops, inducement is by far the better policy.

An attempt was made by Deputy O'Higgins in this debate to suggest that I was in some way in favour of compulsory tillage when I advocated an increased acreage of wheat. Deputy O'Higgins knows quite well that nothing could be further from the truth. As a constant reader of the Carlow Nationalist he might have seen a report last week that a proposal recommending compulsory tillage was opposed by me. Deputy O'Higgins did make, in the course of his speech, one constructive suggestion that the Government should appeal to the farmers to grow more wheat and that they should increase the price having regard to the costs of production. That was what I suggested to-day. It is desirable for the Government, in the national interest, to appeal to the farmers, who are a patriotic body of citizens, to increase their acreage of wheat. The Government ought to meet the farmers in the same way the Irish Sugar Company met them by giving a price which will compensate for the rise in the costs of production. The price of wheat has not gone up since 1947. Wages have gone up by over 10/- per week and they are increased by the present legislation. Rates have been increased by 10/- in the £ at least and all other costs have appreciably increased. The Minister aggressively pointed out during the week that there is a reserve of nearly one year's supply of wheat. That, as far as it goes, is satisfactory enough but I am not prepared to admit that one year's supply of wheat completely secures the community against all danger. If imports were stopped at this time of the year, one year's supply of wheat might be all right since we could increase our acreage, but if a stoppage occurred later on in the summer, it would not be possible to increase output for at least a year and a half. We should not be too complacent about a year's wheat supply. It would be very dangerous this year to rely on one year's wheat supply. From the point of view of national security and of saving dollars, it is essential that we produce an increased acreage of wheat and produce the other cereals which the Minister in his public advertisement suggests should be produced.

In the course of his speech to-day, the Minister for Agriculture referred to the cost of living and had several figures to show that the cost of living had not increased over the last three years. It was significant that he selected the prices of commodities produced by the Irish farmers which are rigidly controlled. The price of meat, which he quoted, is very rigidly controlled for the past three years and it is now the subject of investigation. The price of milk is approximately the same to-day as it was three years ago. The price of eggs is down onethird as compared with the price obtaining three years ago. The Minister also mentioned potatoes and a number of other agricultural products the prices of which did not increase since 1948. He did not mention other agricultural commodities, the prices of which have increased very substantially. The only point I want to make in regard to that is that the Minister was bearing out my contention that over a wide range of commodities there has been no increase in agricultural prices since 1948, notwithstanding the fact that there has been a very substantial increase in costs. I might point out that the cost of living would be infinitely higher if agricultural prices had kept pace with the prices of other commodities.

I must conclude on this note. We are facing a situation which calls for a non-Party approach to our economic and financial problems. Hurling accusations across the House and blaming Fianna Fáil for one condition of affairs or the Inter-Party Government for another is of no use to the people. The position, as the Minister for Finance indicated when introducing the Vote, is far too serious to be made the plaything of Party politics. The very survival of this country depends on an all-out effort to reduce to some extent our consumption of unnecessary, and particularly unnecessary imported, commodities and to increase our productive capacity. All our efforts must be directed towards that end. Not only must all Parties, but all organisations must combine in that effort. This is not a time for advancing sectional interests.

I have mentioned some injustices to the farming community, but there is no intention on the part of the farming community to hold the rest of the community to ransom. All that any farmer would expect in regard to prices is a fair and impartial investigation. The farming community are prepared to submit their case to impartial investigation and to accept the decision of that investigation in regard to prices. Every other section should be prepared to do the same. Every section of the community which has demands to make in regard to salary or wage should be prepared to submit its claim to an impartial court or tribunal—call it what you like—and to accept the decision of that fair and impartial tribunal.

This is a time when the law of justice must be put into operation and when a sense of fair play and justice must be universally accepted. No section should be allowed to exploit the difficulties facing the community and public opinion should insist upon every section accepting the broad principle of fair play and justice. The people of my constituency have shown that, in the hearts of the ordinary people, there is a strong sense of justice and fair play that can rise above Party loyalty or Party affiliations and that is prepared to assert itself, and to assert itself in a vigorous way. That same spirit, the spirit of Baltinglass, if you like, should inspire the people of this country in this crisis and each section should be prepared to submit its conflicting and complex claims—and very often they are just claims—to an impartial tribunal and to accept the final decision.

You would not accept the principle of a half-holiday for agricultural workers.

I justified the stand I took on that matter.

A justification of it does not arise on financial policy.

I will not go into that matter because I dealt with it very fully and, I think, very effectively. I believe that, in that particular matter, as in every matter, every claim put up by any section has two sides, both of which should be fairly heard, and there should be such a public feeling of respect for ordinary justice and fair play that each section would accept a fair and impartial decision. That goes not only for the farmers but for organised workers, and even for salaried people, civil servants and so on, who have made very definite claims that they have been unjustly treated.

I very rarely intervene by way of interruption while another Deputy is speaking, but, while the Minister was speaking to-day, I referred to the price of wheat. Last week, I raised this matter of wheat imports and said that we were paying a much higher price for imported wheat than we were paying to our Irish producers. The Minister intervened to say that that was not true. To-day he produced figures in reply to a question which showed that the price he is paying for imported wheat is over £30 a ton, while he is paying only £25 per ton to the Irish producer. I think it is time that Minister developed a sense of responsibility and did not make wild statements merely for the sake of proving a point, regardless of whether there is any substance or truth behind the assertion.

I conclude by strongly urging the Government to exercise a little supervision over the Minister for Agriculture. It is not possible to restrain his words, but at least it might be possible to keep him under a certain amount of control, so far as deeds are concerned. Since becoming Minister, the Minister has made a statement with regard to wheat—I do not intend to quote the statements he made before he took office, because I discounted all these statements, believing they were made for the purpose of getting publicity, and that, when he took office, he would completely turn over a new leaf and live up to the responsibility which would then rest upon him—in these terms:—

"I hold precisely the same views now as I have always held regarding the growing of wheat on Irish land. In my view, it is a ‘cod' and a waste of land."

That statement was made on 9th July, 1948, and, in view of that statement, it is desirable that the entire Government should take the matter in hand and see that, in the first place, the interests of the community are safeguarded; and, in the second, that the farmer who grows the wheat will get a reasonable return.

The House has listened for a very considerable period to Deputy Cogan giving vent, on this Vote on Account, to his peculiar anti-Minister for Agriculture psychosis. Deputy Cogan knows as well as any other Deputy that, analysing the agricultural situation in the country to-day, the over-all position of the farmer is better than it has ever been and that he is enjoying a period of prosperity which he has never hitherto enjoyed. Conclusive evidence of that might be the fact that I notice that Deputy Cogan, a farmer Deputy, is arriving now daily in a new automobile, which is not very consistent with his lachrymose and doleful tale of the misery of Irish agriculture.

On a point of explanation. I want to say that I did not purchase a car for the past two years.

You got a present of it.

From the moaning association. Even though the Deputy may try to snipe with regard to individual items on the general agricultural curriculum, the fact is that the farmers he speaks about certainly are not anxious for the costs investigation about which he whines and are certainly satisfied with the over-all position.

On this Vote on Account, we can look back on the achievement which is self-evident in the general well-being of the community, in the lack of unemployment and in the general level of prosperity now enjoyed throughout the length and breadth of Ireland, and enjoyed particularly for the first time by small farmers, farm labourers and the people generally living in rural Ireland. It is easy to snipe, and very easy at the present moment, when an ominous international situation leaves certain goods in short supply and certain raw materials rising in price in a rather erratic and sudden way. These are matters over which no Irish Government has control. The incidence of these rises externally may lead to increases and difficulties at home, but those difficulties cannot be related in any way to Government responsibility.

Much capital has been made out of a temporary fuel shortage. It is time that this House faced up to the real fuel problem, that an agreement entered into between this country and another has not been honoured to the extent anticipated and that the shortage would not have arisen in the acute way it did if that agreement had been honoured to the full. The outcome of that may have meant temporary hardship, but we would do better here as a House by facing the problem in a united way, to ensure to the best of our national ability that no extraneous circumstances like that will be allowed to cause a sudden fuel difficulty in the future. That can be done by all-out co-operation by all Parties in the drive in the coming year for machine-won turf and in encouraging individuals, as they were encouraged before, to cut good quality turf for their own consumption.

I want to put on record here the general favourable advances made throughout the length and breadth of my constituency by Government effort during the past year. We have a tremendous increase in rural electrification, with all the advantages and prequisites of the installation of electricity in rural Ireland accruing to the people in my constituency. Fortunately, there are several other areas under development immediately. I commend the Government on expenditure of this nature, investing Irish money in the grandest objective in which Irish money could be invested, the assurance of a more comfortable standard of life in rural Ireland, where people must be kept to increase the production of Irish farms and so that the country in the main may benefit. Hand in hand with rural electrification, there is throughout my constituency an immense number of people taking advantage of the water scheme, under which there is a free grant to bring water into farm houses for the comfort and benefit of the overtaxed and overworked farmers' wives. Again I say "Well done!" to the Government, who had the courage to expend our own money on that type of development.

Following out the same ideal, I am glad to be able to report to this House that through the land rehabilitation scheme there are acres and acres throughout West Cork coming back into heart and fertility. That surely is a most commendable investment—an Irish Government looking to the future of a nation that has to develop and whose population is on an upward trend. Surely that investment must commend itself to all and sundry here, irrespective of politics.

I say, in direct contravention of all the dreary tales uttered by Deputy Cogan, that the farmers of West Cork are doing well and fully appreciate the fact that they are now masters of their own holdings, that they can decide now for themselves, that in consideration of the help they have at hand and in the interest of their conception of the economy of their own farms they are able to go ahead and farm as they think fit and not as somebody else might direct. Though there may be talk about a fall in the acreage of wheat grown last year, I think it is time for the House to realise that, whatever the acreage might have been, there was more actual wheat from a smaller acreage than there had been previously from a larger acreage——

Nonsense.

——and that the system of the Minister for Agriculture, to encourage the farmer to use fertilisers to build back heart into his debilitated land, has proved so successful that it will be possible with ministerial encouragement to have more and more grain won from a restricted acreage than was won under a system of compulsory tillage where wheat was grown in fields throughout this country not fit to be subsequently reaped.

I am all in favour of encouraging, in every possible way, the growing of more foodstuffs here at home for both man and beast. I have always subscribed to the belief that the more self-sufficient the ordinary Irish farmer can make himself the better it is for the economy of his holding. If he can grow, in the main, the foodstuffs he needs for his cattle, pigs and hens, he is growing them at the cheapest possible cost to himself. Therefore, he can produce the finished product from the farm at the greatest possible margin of profit. I believe that if the Minister for Agriculture can develop a proper scheme of ordinary potato ensilage and grass ensilage he will be able to relieve any of the aggravated difficulties that may have arisen with regard to feeding stock owing to the extraordinarily bad season we had last year.

I firmly believe that the time has come, with this ominous world situation, for the Minister to direct the mind of the farming community towards that honoured and well proven policy of the late Paddy Hogan: "One more cow, one more sow, and one more acre under the plough." It is no good to try to decry a Minister for Agriculture who has, in fact, been able through his efforts to bring back into the farming community not only prosperity but self-respect. I feel that this is an opportunity for Deputies in this House boldly to present the story of a phenomenal achievement by a Government over a short period, a Government which faces the responsibility of making this country a better country for each and every individual Irish man and woman, irrespective of class, creed or any other consideration.

It is full time that the Dáil should realise the extraordinary significance of the fact that for the first time we now have a population of over 3,000,000 in the Republic of Ireland and that the trend is upward, showing in a sound unequivocal way that things must be getting better in Ireland. Taking this Vote on Account I think that the indications are that the Government is going to pursue its policy of greater capital expenditure on the development of our country and of giving decent and plentiful employment at home to Irish people. The desire to emigrate is now being killed because rural Ireland is rapidly being made a place worth living in because new amenities, a new and better standard of life and a new and better standard of profit are available to each one on the land whether he be a small farm proprietor or a farmer's man.

The Minister for Agriculture will have to face a problem with regard to egg prices, but I do not think it is fair to snipe at him at a period when the price is low because there were periods, particularly around last Christmas, when the price of eggs was at a level which never had been reached before. If some of these critics were to take the general over-all price for the year as distinct from any one period, I wonder whether they would consider that the poultry industry had really got the tremendous crack suggested by weeping lachrymose Deputy Cogan.

I feel proud to be able to come in on a Vote on Account as a Deputy who normally supports the Government, as a member of a Party which is an integral part of it, and say to the Government: "No matter what your difficulties may be, in the main you have done a fine job. Face the road and God prosper your future progress".

One cannot but be touched by Deputy Collins' simple faith. Politics would be a very easy game if it consisted merely of making rotund general assertions ignoring all the facts. It must be grand to be able to stand up in the Dáil or at a crossroads and say: "Everybody in the country is better off and if there are any troubles the Government is not to blame for them", and to scorn all reference to statistics, all reference to recorded facts and all reference even to the Book of Estimates which we are now discussing.

It is a good thing that the rural electrification scheme is going on, but it is to be regretted that the rate of progress achieved to date is much less than what was estimated when that scheme was being discussed here in the Dáil on the legislation introduced by the Fianna Fáil Government to provide for it. It is to be regretted that the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Industry and Commerce announced only a few weeks ago that even the very reduced rate of progress achieved last year will be impossible this year because of some anticipated difficulties on which he did not elaborate.

It is grand to be able to join in the Minister for Agriculture's brazen assertion that the yield of wheat last year was so high that from a much reduced acreage we actually secured more wheat than we gained from a larger acreage in earlier years, ignoring the actual recorded statistics. I took the precaution, however, of asking the Taoiseach who is now in charge of the statistical service what was the yield of wheat per acre last year, and he told me that it was 17.9 cwt. per acre. I also thought it desirable to look up the statistical abstract and I find that not merely was 17.9 cwt. per acre no record but that in the seven war years, despite the fact that there were no fertilisers, despite the fact that there was an enormous increase in the acreage under wheat, the average yield was higher than in last year, and that in only three of the seven years did the yield per acre fall below last year's yield. Does the Deputy want proofs? They are available to him as they are to me in the Government's published records.

The same is true of oats. The Minister for Agriculture we know has a neck of brass and he would talk himself out of any political situation by assertions such as he made here concerning the cost of imported wheat in relation to the cost of native wheat even though he knew he would have to contradict it in a week. Only last week he told the Dáil when cornered in a political discussion that the cost of imported wheat was below the cost of native wheat. Only a few months ago he published to the country a formal report of a committee which estimated that in 1950 because of the use of native wheat the subsidy of flour would exceed by £2,000,000 the figure that would be necessary if we used imported wheat only. But when he is nailed on the facts, when he is asked to state to the Dáil the actual price paid last year for imported wheat and for native wheat, we find that it was all boloney. Not merely was the cost of imported wheat last year substantially above the cost of native wheat but, because we used more imported wheat than was originally thought to be necessary, owing to the fall in acreage, we now have a Supplementary Estimate presented to this House asking it to vote £1,500,000 more to meet the cost on flour subsidy. That was no miscalculation. That was no trivial error in estimation. It was a major error in policy, for which the Minister for Agriculture, whom Deputy Seán Collins has been praising, must be blamed.

It is, of course, perhaps more to Deputy Collins' heart to praise the land reclamation project. It, after all, was something which was originated by the Government which he supports. He told us of the good work being done under it. He did not tell us why the Minister for Agriculture has decided to cut down on that project for this year. He did not tell us why the Vote on Account which we are now discussing provides a reduction in expenditure on that project of no less than £600,000. These are the facts—facts which any member of this House who wants to approach this discussion in any serious manner cannot ignore, as Deputy Collins has ignored them. A beautiful theory killed by an ugly fact is one of life's tragedies. I am sorry that my facts spoil the grand picture which Deputy Collins painted for us. The picture would be grand if we were accurate. Unfortunately, some of us are curious and we like to check assertions of that kind by relating them to known and ascertainable facts—and in this particular case these facts destroy the Deputy's picture.

This debate is not really a discussion on agriculture at all, despite the trend of recent speeches. It is more a discussion on the consequences on the nation's economy of the financial policy which the Government is following. One of the difficulties, in discussing this matter, is our inability to relate the statements of Ministers with the acts of the Government. There does not appear to be any obvious relationship between the statements of Ministers— and I am not talking now of the Minister for Agriculture, but of any member of the Government—with the things that the Government is doing. That is certainly true in relation to financial policy and it is obviously true also in relation to agricultural policy. The Minister for Agriculture is always running round in circles and getting back to the point from which he started.

In so far as financial policy is under discussion, I want to emphasise the inconsistency between the declarations made by Ministers of the Government's aims, intentions and policy and the actual results that they are getting. It is not so long ago since the Minister for Finance assured the House that the main purpose of his Administration was to effect a reduction in the cost of Government—"retrenchment" was the word he used. Deputies will remember how, when the Book of Estimates for 1948-49 was produced to the House—a Book of Estimates which had been prepared by the previous Government, but which, because of the change following the election of 1948, was actually presented by the present Minister for Finance—we got with it a slip, making it clear that the Minister for Finance repudiated it absolutely, and Deputies will remember how he came subsequently to the Dáil and told us he regarded the cost of government represented by these Estimates as fantastic. The figure upon the cover of that book was £65,000,000. The sum of the figures on the cover of this book is £83,000,000. We have to relate that declaration by the Minister, that proclamation of his intention to cut down the cost of government below the figure of £65,000,000, which it had reached in 1948-49 with the fact that each subsequent year it has achieved a new all-time record and has not stopped going up yet. There is no Deputy opposite who will now even pretend that this Minister for Finance is pursuing a policy of retrenchment. There is no Deputy opposite who will even suggest that the figure upon the cover of the Book of Estimates for this year is not going to be exceeded next year if the same Minister for Finance has still the preparation of it.

Not merely was the cost of Government services to be drastically cut but, of course, the cost of living was to be reduced. That assertion was made not merely by members of the Government but by many Deputies who support them in this House. The cost of living was to be reduced by the creation of a more effective machinery for price and profits control and by an extension of the policy of subsidising food prices. Again, despite these declarations which are on the record, we find that in each year since, not merely has the cost of living been higher than it was at the highest point reached during the war but it has been rising continuously and is right now again an all-time record.

And where is it lower anywhere else?

Let me deal with it for a moment. We did not say that it was practicable to cut the cost of Government services. We did not say that it was possible to devise any method by which, independent of world conditions, the cost of living could be reduced. It was the members of the Government who said it. It was the Deputies who support the Government who made those assertions.

In the circumstances then prevailing.

Can we at least get a declaration from some Minister that when they were making these assertions they were misled by their false conclusions as to the probable course of events? Can we get them to admit that they were wrong—will they admit that they were wrong? Will they admit that when they made these assertions they were either misinformed as to the facts of the position or they miscalculated as to the probable course of events generally? Will they admit anything?

We were told that there was to be a policy of repatriating our external assets. The members of the Clann na Poblachta Party went to town on that issue. We find, of course, that the policy has been carried out. There has been a repatriation of external assets —but not for the purposes that were elaborated upon when the policy was being proclaimed. They were to be brought back to be put to work here. Instead, we find that they are being dissipated in maintaining a level of consumption of luxury goods which the current volume of production here is incapable of supporting. They are being dissipated: they are being wasted. That dissipation and waste of these resources is, as I hope to prove, an inevitable consequence of the financial policy which the Minister for Finance has followed.

There was to be a programme of capital investment. Ireland suffered, we were assured, from under-investment in its natural resources, and a large-scale capital investment programme was to be a feature of the policy of the Government. We got a large-scale capital investment programme but not in the development of natural resources. We got capital investment, mainly in budget deficits and in Government cowardice. Again, want to remind the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Industry and Commerce that it was not from this side of the House it was asserted that a reduction in the volume of Government spending was either practicable or desirable. It was the present Minister for Finance and his associates who made that assertion. It was not from this side of the House it was asserted that it was practicable, by any action taken here, to make a significant reduction in the cost of living. That assertion came from the other side, from men who have now got the power to fulfil these promises if it is possible to do so.

I said here last year in the debate on the Vote on Account that I had gone through the Book of Estimates and that I had examined every estimate in it with a view to ascertaining whether there were any specific economies I could recommend and that, apart from cutting out some follies and fripperies, there was nothing I could suggest which would make any significant difference in the total figure. But when we come to consider the question of policy in this regard we have got to relate it to something more than the details of individual Estimates. We have got to relate the volume of Government spending to the national resources, to the level of production and the means available to the people of this country to sustain that volume of spending. When the Minister for Finance came to this House, shortly after his elevation to that office in 1948, he informed us that he was about to issue £12,000,000 in Exchequer Bonds. I told him on behalf of the Opposition Party that he could always rely upon our support for any well-conceived programme of capital investment. We have found, however, that although the Minister for Finance borrowed in that year £12,000,000, in the following year another £12,000,000, in the present year £15,000,000 by the issue of marketable securities and a very much larger sum, so far as we know, by Ways and Means advances, although the national debt of this State has been increased in these three short years by 50 per cent., the investment programme about which there was so much oratory, was devised apparently without any reference to the volume of savings, the level of imports or its effect upon prices and that, in its application, it has ignored the most serious deficiencies in our national economy.

The Minister for Finance came here yesterday and asked the Dáil to vote him this enormous sum of money on account of the cost of Government services in this year and he thought it wise to warn the House about the significance of the deficit in the balance of payments last year, the consequences of the considerable increase in last year in the consumption of what he called non-essential goods, but he left it at that. Apart from a futile appeal to individuals to refrain from expenditure upon non-essentials, there was no practical suggestion from him which would convey that he himself was alive to the seriousness of the warnings he was giving. There was in his speech no recognition of the extent to which the policy of the Government was responsible for the emergence of the dangers he deplores, much less any indication of an intention to repent and to reform. I think it is well known to members of this House, and probably just as well to the members of the public, that the Government was driven into its present financial practices by Party political considerations. Deputy Hickey is shaking his head—in agreement, I hope.

You were blaming us before for not spending enough and you are blaming us now for spending too much.

The Deputy must not misunderstand me in that regard. I hope to make myself clear to him before I finish. I find that individual members of the public, with whom I discussed the matter, give the Minister for Finance certain credit. They credit him with sufficient intelligence and understanding of the nature of the problems with which he is dealing to enable him to realise the defects of that policy and its probable consequences. I find that they credit him with personally disliking that policy even though they may have nothing but contempt for the weakness, if I may not use a harsher term, which led him to become the instrument of fulfilling it. Anyway, it is generally assumed that the Minister for Finance, if he could give effect to his own viewpoint upon financial policy, would have followed a different course to that which he has taken and that he was driven to taking that course by the pressure exerted upon him by groups and sections within the Coalition. I do not know if the Minister for Finance will accept that definition of his position. Possibly he will not, but if it is not true that the financial policy of the Government has been dictated by the narrow political consideration of holding the Coalition together, by giving in to every demand of sections of Coalition Deputies large enough to secure the defeat of the Government, then the Minister for Finance has much more to answer for than has yet appeared. I think that this device of his of introducing into the formal statements he makes to the House, the vague words of caution which he has put on record as his understanding of the dangers of the course he is proposing but which do not affect in the least the subsequent conduct of the Government, is evidence that the public assumption as to his position in relation to Government policy is well-founded.

But, sooner or later, some members of the Government, or some Deputies who support the Government, will have to make a stand upon these issues. They cannot always allow themselves to be driven along courses detrimental to the national interest by any little group amongst their members that wants to put forward a sectional demand or press for some expenditure in a direction to which it is committed, irrespective of the over-all effect. At some time, somewhere, there will have to be a decision taken by those within the Coalition who appreciate the consequences of the courses they are following to stand against that pressure. The indication up to the present is that there is nobody in the Government that cannot be pushed, even from standpoints to which they appear to be committed, provided that the push comes from a sufficient number of Coalition Deputies to threaten the survival of the Government if they resist it. I think it is time that we took stock; it is time that members of the Government took stock, and that members of the Coalition Parties who support the Government took stock, and asked themselves: where have we got to, and where are we going in this matter of financial policy, the expansion of Government expenditure, the rise in the public debt and the consequences of these upon the future prospects of the country?

Last year, according to the Minister for Finance, 5/4 out of every £1 of the private income of Irish citizens was taken to pay for public services. Despite the fact that out of every £1 of private income 5/4 was taken to pay for public services, we are faced with demands and plans for a further expansion of these services and the creation of new services, all of which will add to the aggregate cost. Despite the fact that the rise in the cost of Government services is now proceeding at a pace, and is likely to continue at a pace, far greater than any possible expansion in national production, we can get from the Minister for Finance nothing more serious, by way of a proposal, to remedy the position than this futile appeal to individual citizens to curtail their spending upon non-essential products. If he has any realisation at all, and if one is to take seriously any of the precautionary phrases which he put into his formal speeches, of the course which he has been forced to follow, surely we should expect something more serious from him now than this pathetic appeal to individuals to help him out of his growing difficulties by voluntarily curtailing their personal expenditure. I am sure he knows, and I am sure his advisers know, that any such appeal is only a waste of time. If there is to be any such curtailment of non-essential imports, it can be secured only by Government action to that end and not by incoherent appeals.

Not merely have we got this multiplication of plans and demands for the expansion of Government services but we also have announced from time to time new plans and projects for capital investment which appear to be devised without reference to the fact that the level of national savings is possibly falling and is certainly not rising. If anybody is to secure a realistic facing of the facts by the members of the Dáil it must be the Minister for Finance. It is his duty. Not merely is it a matter of duty with him, but he has the status of his office and the availability of facts to enable him to do it, but he has got to talk to the people who sit behind him in this House. It is not necessary to speak across the House to the Opposition, the members of which are fully conscious of the disastrous consequences that may follow if he continues along the course on which he is now being pushed. But he has got to speak to the members who sit behind him not in these precautionary phrases carefully inserted in formal statements which the subsequent actions of the Government proved to be a valueless effort to control the course of Government policy. May I say that he has got to speak here also in this House or in this country and not in self-laudatory articles in British magazines? It must be apparent to him and it must be apparent to other members of the Government—I am sure it is apparent to some Deputies who support it—that they cannot continue for ever to solve their Budget problems or their political problems by further resort to the policy of borrowing.

We got some information supplied to us in the last couple of days concerning national income and expenditure in the past few years. When the Minister for Finance came here last year with this new type of Budget we had a discussion, he and I, as to whether it would be practicable for him to borrow the amount of money he proposed to borrow—£31,000,000— within this country out of current savings. I expressed the view that it would not be possible to do it. That view was not based upon any reliable statistics such as are now available to us. It was based upon a general knowledge derived from other years of the proportion of the national income that was likely to be saved and of information published by the Central Bank concerning the amount raised in recent years by public subscription through the sale of marketable securities.

The Minister for Finance was quite confident that he would be able to borrow his £31,000,000 from the public. He expressed the hope that the whole of it would come out of current savings. He emphasised in his Budget statement how desirable it was that it should, how recourse to the American Loan Counterpart Fund or the repatriation of foreign investments would have inflationary consequences which he thought it was desirable to caution the Dáil against.

It appears now that in the year 1949 the aggregate of savings was £29.8 millions, £17,000,000 representing personal savings, £8.3 millions representing undistributed profits of companies and £4.5 millions representing appropriations to various funds of public authorities. If we add to that the amount set aside for depreciation, £8.4 millions, we find that the total amount available in 1949 as representing savings of all kinds was £38.4 millions. The Minister for Finance was seeking to borrow £31,000,000. Not merely did I think it desirable to express the view that it could not be done, but also to express the view that if it were done, the effect would be to stifle every other form of development in this country, to deprive industry and agriculture of the capital they needed for expansion, to curtail commercial activities and to confine all development to various Government schemes.

The money which was saved in 1949 was expended upon producers' capital goods, in this Estimate to the extent of £14,000,000, upon the building of private dwellings, hospitals, schools, etc., to the extent of £15.8 millions. Other home-produced capital was estimated at £17.1 millions, and increase in stocks and work in progress, £1,000,000. These figures total £47.9 millions, because of course in the Estimate of the amount of capital available there was added in not merely the amount saved by our own people but a sum of £9.7 millions representing foreign disinvestment.

I am presuming that the Minister when preparing this well-advertised capital Budget last year had before him some estimate from the Statistics Branch of the volume of savings in 1949. The Statistics Branch may not have been able to give him the detailed figures which we now have but, presumably, he asked from them and got some estimate upon which to frame his Budget, because it would have been foolish to prepare a capital Budget and to express the hope of being able to finance that Budget out of current savings without having made some effort to estimate what the volume of savings was likely to be. If the Minister for Finance had any such estimate before him, then he was speaking to the Dáil with his tongue in his cheek when he expressed the hope of being able to finance that capital expenditure out of current savings and to avoid the inflationary consequences of financing it in other ways. We know that he floated Exchequer bonds to the extent of £15,000,000 and got in public subscriptions only £10,000,000.

He never said that he would finance it out of current savings.

Not merely did he say he would finance the whole of the £31,000,000 out of current savings——

He expressed the hope.

I will grant you that. Had he such a hope? Could he have such a hope?

Could he be quoted?

Certainly, if the Deputy wants it. He said it was essential that as much as possible of the capital required for State investment should be met from current savings——

That is very different.

That the realisation of sterling assets or the use of the Counterpart Fund were methods of finance unrelated to current savings and as such might have an inflationary tendency. He said that recourse to such sources must in present circumstances be cautions.

It was worth pinning you to the quotation.

I do not know to what extent the Minister has succeeded in carrying out the capital investment programme he outlined in last year's Budget. He has resisted attempts to extract any information from him. We may hear it in the Budget statement this year. We know that in his efforts to cover that capital Budget by public subscription he failed to the extent of two-thirds. Ten million pounds were all he got from public subscription and the loan of £15,000,000 was filled to the extent of £2,000,000 by the investment funds and as to £3,000,000 by the banks and the balance of the £31,000,000, if it was in fact raised, was secured, so far as I can gather, from the American Loan Counterpart Fund.

It is a false position for any Minister for Finance to be in, even if you were Minister for Finance.

The point I am trying to make to the House is that if the State embarks upon a capital investment programme which so far out-runs the current savings of the public, there are bound to be economic consequences if it persists in that programme, and these consequences must be noted if we are to protect ourselves against them. My charge against the Government is that they are proceeding blithely along this course even without regard to the consequences of what they are doing, even to the extent of pretending that these consequences are beneficial.

Because of the system.

I think it would be the same in Russia. You cannot spend more than you have.

Keep it in your own country.

The Deputy might reserve his speech.

Between 1947 and 1951 the cost of Government services here has risen by 40 per cent. Now I want the House to understand that in 1947, when the Budget of that year was presented by the then Minister for Finance, the present Minister for Finance, Deputy McGilligan, described it as imposing an intolerable burden upon the national economy. In relation to the circumstances of that year he thought that the amount the Government proposed to take from the public to spend upon public services was so excessive that it would be bound to cast undesirable economic and social consequences; the phrase used was "an intolerable burden". Between that year, 1947, and the present year the cost of these services has increased by 40 per cent. There has been, as is now clear to us, no corresponding increase in the national income and so the burden this year must be substantially heavier than the burden of 1947, not merely actually but relatively. Between the year 1947 and 1950, according to these figures now available to us, the national income increased by 14 per cent.; over the same period, under Deputy McGilligan's administration, the cost of Government services has increased by 34 per cent.

It was Deputy McGilligan, as a private member of this House, who in 1947 described the Budget of that year as involving an "intolerable burden". How would he describe the imposition now if he spoke honestly to us of the much heavier burden which he himself proposes to cast, whether of his own volition or under pressure from the minor Coalition groups we do not know. It is possible, of course, that in the present year the national income, measured in devalued pounds, will be higher than last year. I think nobody can hope that there will be such an expansion of the national income that it will have any relationship with the expansion in the cost of Government services which this book reveals, much less meet the still further expansion we are entitled to anticipate in next year.

Deputy Hickey seemed to think that I was to some extent contradicting myself. I do not think so. I said earlier that the assertion that the expansion in Governing spending was most undesirable came from members of the present Government when they were in opposition and during their first year in Government and not from this side of the House.

In the election campaign of 1947 the argument in favour of cutting the cost of Government came from those Parties that now constitute and support the Government. The argument in favour of raising the level of Government expenditure, if the national income would support it, came from members of that Party which is now in opposition. The same is true in relation to the cost of living. It may be that the burden of the cost of Government services even as revealed by this Book of Estimates is not too heavy. The Minister for Finance has argued that so long as the level of taxation is such that the total amount taken in taxes is less than 25 per cent. of the national income, then it is within the safety limit. We are at that point now. I do not know if the Minister for Finance will seek to balance his Budget this year by imposing new taxation or by further recourse to the money lenders, but I assume that if he decides to screw up his courage to the point of presenting an honest Budget to the House, then we shall have passed what he himself has described as the safety limit this year and we shall certainly be well beyond it next year.

It is of course possible that there has been an expansion of Government revenue since devaluation sufficient to take care of the increase in the cost of Government services shown here. With the jump in the prices of imported goods I am sure that customs duties are yielding far more revenue than they yielded for several years past. With devaluation and the rise in the cost of living and the enormous increased spending upon drink, tobacco and amusements, which so distressed the Minister for Industry and Commerce, it is likely that Government revenues, and particularly the revenues from beer, tobacco and amusements, will show a corresponding expansion. But if the Minister for Finance intends to persist in the policy of borrowing to meet deficits, which he dislikes covering by taxation, and if he persists in the policy of regarding as capital charges recurring grants of various kinds—grants for housing, grants for rural electrification which are really in the nature of social service payments, and which create no Exchequer assets—then it is inevitable that the economic consequences of the policy he followed last year will be further intensified in the coming year. If the burden is to be lightened, the public must either be taught to be contented with a curtailment of Government services or there must be an expansion in production, if that is still practicable. It is the efforts which the Government will make to effect an expansion in production to an extent which will enable the people to bear this extraordinary growth in the cost of Government which will be the real test of its competency.

I do not know and I have not been able to discover by way of statement or parliamentary question here, what the Government is likely to do either in relation to agriculture or in relation to industry. I do not think anybody really knows. The Department of Industry and Commerce provides the country with a picture of indolence and indecision. The Department of Agriculture gives a picture of feverish activity, and feverish is the right adjective, of a Minister running around in circles and getting nowhere.

There has been some increase admittedly in the over-all output of agriculture, but that was inevitable following the ending of the war. That increase occurred despite the efforts of the Minister for Agriculture to confuse the farmers as to the lines of development which were open to them.

There has been quite a substantial increase in industrial output.

I will deal with the industrial question later. There has not been in agriculture that increase in output which should have been possible having regard to the disappearance of the difficulties and the scarcities caused by the war. There has not been that increase in output which we should have if we are to support any array of Government services at the present high level. There has not been that increase in output which many of the E.C.A. experts now in the country are prepared to demonstrate to be practicable.

Do you believe they can?

It is true there has been a recovery in live stock. The number of cattle has increased since 1947 by 6.5 per cent. There has been an increase in the number of sheep, in the number of pigs and in poultry. But, against that increase in live stock, there has been an all-round decrease in tillage. Since 1947, the acreage under wheat has fallen by 37 per cent., the acreage under oats by 26 per cent., the acreage under barley by 16 per cent., the acreage under all corn crops by 29 per cent. The acreage under potatoes is down by 12 per cent., under sugar beet by 3 per cent., and under all root crops by 12 per cent., and the acreage under flax has declined by 34 per cent.

It is obvious from these figures that there has been, not so much a change in the volume of agricultural production, as a change in its character. Whether that change in character is desirable in present circumstances is a matter that can be more conveniently debated, and which I am sure will be debated, upon the Estimate for the Department of Agriculture.

It is clear that there has not been in agriculture that expansion in production which we believed would be possible after the war when we were planning our post-war programme and which we must get if we are to continue expanding the array of Government services in the manner in which we are now doing.

In the case of industry, there has been an expansion in production. Whether that expansion was assisted or retarded by the Department of Industry and Commerce or the Industrial Development Authority is a matter about which there is room for considerable difference of opinion. It seems to me, anyway, that, in the things that really matter, nothing has been done. A great deal of discussion may have taken place. We certainly have been continuously assured that these vital matters were under consideration but evidence of results has not been forthcoming.

There has not been any expansion of our shipping service since 1947. The only addition to the mercantile marine upon which the Government decided was the purchase of two small colliers. After our experience of the war, the previous Government took a decision——

It took them a long time, indeed.

——that Irish Shipping, Limited, alone should acquire sufficient tonnage to carry the minimum essential requirements of this country in circumstances in which tonnage of other nationality might not be procurable. We regarded that figure as representing the safety level below which our merchant shipping service should not be allowed to fall. Quite clearly, there was in 1948 or 1949, by our successors, a decision taken to abandon that programme.

You apologised, I think, the last time you made that remark.

I did not apologise. Certainly, in so far as specific instructions were given to the Board of Irish Shipping, Limited, I am sure that they would have fulfilled them unless they got counter instructions from the Government.

There has been no development in transport. How many months is it since we passed the Transport Act, since we heard the Minister for Industry and Commerce expounding upon the substantial capital investment in internal transport facilities that was contemplated, since we solemnly went through the farce of passing sections in an Act empowering the Minister for Finance to sanction and guarantee the raising of new capital by Córas Iompair Éireann for transport development purposes? Have they sought to raise one penny under the provisions of that Act since?

Turn to all the industries that matter—cement, steel — the industries which are vital to the maintenance of other industries — chemical industry, the manufacture of nitrogenous fertilisers, all the things that are practicable here, all the things that were in train when this Government came into office.

Despite all the faults you allege, there was never a higher rate of industrial employment.

That is no thanks to you.

Certainly. The progress we started is still going on, but I want to ask from the Government some assurance that whatever is putting the brake upon these other projects will be removed. I do not know if it is in the Department of Industry and Commerce or in this Industrial Development Authority but somewhere, either because of positive decision or because of indecision, there is an impediment which it should be within the power of the Government to remove.

I want to say this—I hope I will say it in the way that I would like to say it—we know that the Minister for Industry and Commerce has been ill for a long time. I do not know if he is still ill. It is noticeable that he has not been available to the House to answer Dáil questions since the Dáil resumed this year. If it is so, that he has not got the physical strength to discharge the duties of the Department of Industry and Commerce, then I think the possibility of transferring him to some other post should be considered. I do not think it is fair to him that he should be left in a job of such importance if he has not got the physical health and strength to perform it. I do not think it is fair to the country. I do not think it is fair to all those who are engaged in industry in the country, who are being held up by inability to get clear decisions on matters vital to them from the Department, that the should remain there.

May I say this? I do not think it is fair to the Parliamentary Secretary because, no matter how he may try to relieve the Minister of work, no matter how he may try to increase the area of his own activities, he cannot possibly do so successfully when he has not got the authority of the Minister. The position at the moment is that everything is at a standstill, whether because of some weakness in the Department or the ill-health of the Minister. It is at a standstill because the one thing that will get things going—ability to get clear decisions—is not there.

It is true, of course, that the Department of Industry and Commerce has been gutted of its responsibilities. A large part of its former work has been transferred to External Affairs. A still larger part has been transferred to the Department of Agriculture, and now we find that responsibility for the turf programme is transferred from that Department to the Department of Social Welfare, no less. Did anybody outside a madhouse conceive of such a thing?

That is not so.

Why is it the Minister for Social Welfare who is making the pronouncements on these matters, who summons the conferences, whom Press representatives meet when they want to find out what the Government is doing about turf?

The Minister for Social Welfare did that when I was engaged on discussions in connection with the Great Northern Railway.

Is it the responsibility of the Minister for Social Welfare or of the Minister for Industry and Commerce?

The Minister for Industry and Commerce.

The Minister for Social Welfare has announced that he is taking responsibility for turf.

No, he has not.

He has. He has made public pronouncement.

He made a speech advocating it.

That he was taking public responsibility for producing turf.

Deputy Lemass can get on without assistance.

That was said not merely in public but in private.

If anything said in private is going to be introduced into public discussion!

In public.

Deputy Aiken does not know what he is talking about.

Deputy Lemass should be allowed to make his statement without interruption.

The Minister held these conferences as Tánaiste. There is nothing wrong in that, is there?

No. Is it quite clear that responsibility for the turf programme rests upon the Minister for Industry and Commerce, and no one else?

Absolutely.

And that the Minister for Social Welfare is not concerned except as a member of the Government?

And there will be no transfer of functions or anything else.

Anyway, what I have said is still true, that the Government are piling on new burdens on the country, but they are not, either through the Department of Agriculture or the Department of Industry and Commerce, taking the steps necessary to give the country the strength to bear these burdens.

The Minister for Finance has said on more than one occasion that our people are, of course, better off; we are producing more and exporting less and importing more. There is, therefore, a larger volume of goods being consumed and that means that our people are better off.

There is no Standstill Order such as you had.

If that is the measure of well-being, it is perfectly true. We imported last year no less than £160,000,000—to the nearest million— worth of goods; we exported £70,000,000. There was a deficiency there of £90,000,000. To that extent we imported more than we exported and our imports last year exceeded our imports of the previous year by no less than £30,000,000.

We are certainly consuming luxury goods in considerable quantities, far in excess of our means to buy them, and because we are permitting and encouraging and facilitating that enormous influx of luxury goods, the capital resources upon which we were relying to develop our productive capacity and to give us the strength to carry this array of Government services, are being wasted at the rate of £30,000,000 a year.

According to the Minister's estimate we had last year net external assets to the value of £225,000,000. We used up £30,000,000 of them last year maintaining this level of luxury consumption in excess of what our current earnings would enable us to buy. How long will they last if we continue to absorb them in maintaining current consumption at that rate and, when they are gone, what will happen? We will have to face here a very serious lowering of the standard of living of our people, a lowering enforced through higher taxation, enforced through unemployment, and which will lead inevitably to another exodus, another flight from the country, a recurrence of the emigration which we knew in Cumann na nGaedheal times and which we were able to check or partially to check in 1932.

All these things are the results of the financial policy which the Government are following. Financial policies that in other countries would lead to inflationary pressure on prices, have in this country a different result, because of the integration of our currency with the currency of Great Britain, because of the absence of any exchange restrictions between this country and Great Britain, because there are, in fact, few other restrictions upon the flow of goods from Great Britain in here, and because of the existence of these accumulated sterling assets, upon which we can draw. The effect of the financial policy of the Government, a policy which would produce inflation in other circumstances, is to expand the level of imports here because there are goods which the expanded purchasing power can buy. The effect of that expansion is not found in prices, but in the increase in the influx of goods. That is what has happened.

Last year the Minister for Finance deliberately took £20,000,000 out of the banks, or realised external assets, or drew out of the Counterpart Fund, and spent it, and that £20,000,000 is reflected in the expanded import of goods which took place in that year. He regarded that, not as a national disaster—that these limited resources of ours are being wasted in that way, these resources upon which we were relying to finance our future activities —but as evidence on which to base the declaration that the standard is living is rising.

Will Deputies examine, from the published returns which we got this morning, the effect of public policy on the pattern of public expenditure? They came in here in 1948 and in so far as their actions proclaimed their policy they announced that it was preferable that our people should spend money on beer, tobacco and amusements than that they should spend it on food or clothing. In so far as the Government, through taxation, can influence the pattern of public expenditure, that is what they set out to achieve. They reduced the taxes on beer, tobacco and cinemas; they reduced the food subsidies and introduced a dual-price system for certain foods and they got, in 1949, the results which they set out to achieve, the results which they should have anticipated by that policy.

We find that, in 1949, although there was an increase from £335,000,000 to £347,000,000 in total personal expenditure, expenditure upon food went down but, of course, expenditure on alcoholic beverages and tobacco went up from £37,000,000 to £40,000,000 and expenditure upon amusements went up from £3.9 million to £4.2 million.

The Minister for Industry and Commerce can go to an advertising agents' banquet and deplore these results, but these were inevitable consequences of the policy of the Government. They were short-sighted if at any time they anticipated any other results. Do Deputies think it is still good policy so to arrange the pressure of taxation as to discourage, even in a period of expanding expenditure, outlay upon food and clothing and encourage a higher outlay upon beer, tobacco and amusements?

This policy of expanding imports, expanding the gap between the level of imports and the level of exports, has also been represented as desirable in the national interest, that it means the repatriation of external assets, which we were told was so desirable and was the aim of Government policy. If there was a repatriation of these assets in the form of productive equipment which would enable us to expand output, either to avoid imports or to increase exports to an extent that would compensate for the loss of revenue through the reduction of these assets, then it would be a matter that we would fully approve, but that is not what has happened.

I want Deputies to get into their heads what is happening. It is not merely has there been an increase in luxury spending but, in the main, the expansion of the imports in the last year took the form of increased outlay upon commodities that could not in any circumstances be described as capital goods. Against that total increase of £30,000,000 in the value of imports we find that we paid £2,128,000 more for wheat. We will be dealing with that again when the Supplementary Estimate for £1,500,000 additional subsidy for flour comes before us in a day or two.

What about the Argentine wheat?

We are not getting far off the price that was paid for Argentine wheat. We are only about £3 a ton off it at the moment. Do not have any doubt about it whatever —the Minister for Agriculture is completely prejudiced against wheat. This present policy of getting good Irish wheat crushed for animal feeding which is going on at the present time is deliberately designed to create a prejudice against Irish wheat in the minds of the Irish farmer. It is no accident that the so-called guaranteed price for wheat now in operation is merely a device to ensure that the Irish farmer will get a lower price for his wheat than he would get in a free market.

Typical nonsense.

The Minister for Agriculture said, as a private Deputy, many years ago that he would not be found dead in a field of wheat. Deputy Cogan quoted him here as saying last week that he still has the same opinion about wheat growing in this country as he always had. If there are Deputies who do not agree with that policy but who allow him to exploit his prejudices in this way, then they are responsible more than he is for the consequences of what he is doing. As a result of what he is doing, we borrowed more dollars from America last year and with those dollars we bought more wheat, and of the increase in the trade gap the increased expenditure on wheat represented practically £2,250,000. We spent £2,700,000 upon maize.

I notice that even the American representatives who are sent here from the country in which, in the main, we buy that maize are telling us that we are mad to do it, telling us that it is madness not to be growing here to a far greater extent than we are the animal feeding stuffs that can replace these imports. We spent $40,000,000 per year upon import of animal feeding. That is all right so long as we can borrow these dollars, but next year our power to borrow dollars will cease. What will happen after that if the present policy of the Minister for Agriculture is pursued— the policy which has, I admit, given us an increased number of live stock but a decrease in tillage?

The next item on the list was raisins. We paid £700,000 more for raisins last year than in the previous year. That is a fine capital investment! That is going to enable us to expand our production and give employment to Irish workers. We spent £1,500,000 more on sugar; over £1,000,000 more on tea, and millions more on tobacco. We spent £500,000 more on cement, because the Minister for Industry and Commerce could not make up his mind what he was going to do, and £4,500,000 on textiles that we could have made for ourselves in our own mills. Does anybody see in these figures evidence that the repatriation of these external assets, in that form, is going to enable such an expansion in our productive capacity that, in the course of time, we will have either an increase in exports or a decrease in imports to the extent that would offset the buying power we are now losing for that reason?

The Minister for Finance, in one of his articles in an English magazine, estimated that against the £90,000,000 increase in imports and the £30,000,000 increase in the adverse trade balance and the £30,000,000 deficit in the total balance of payments, outlay upon capital works, including depreciation, repairs and maintenance and the maintaining of higher priced stocks, increased last year by £9,000,000—a modest £9,000,000, of which half was attributed to capital outlay by private enterprise. Anybody with any knowledge of business conditions would see that financing the higher costs of stocks last year, without any addition to their volume, without any suggestion of stock piling of any kind, involved a far more considerable additional investment by industry than the £4,500,000 the Minister's calculations produced.

Probably if the position were analysed and due allowance made for the effect of price increases, it is far more likely that there was a net disinvestment of capital in industry last year—a disinvestment represented by a diminution in the volume of stocks held. It is obvious from these figures that the import excess was not due to any capital imports. We are not building up our productive capacity. We are certainly not getting increased production as a result of the wastage of these external assets which would make it possible to carry this exceptional expansion in the cost of Government. Is that policy to go on? Last year the Minister for Finance spent, through his capital investment schemes, £20,000,000 more than he was able to draw off current savings. As a result of that inflationary expenditure, we had this enormous growth in the volume of imports, as well as the intensification of the upsurge of prices. Are we going to have the same policy this year? The Minister for Finance, in so far as I can interpret what he has said, actually contemplates increasing the volume of capital expenditure this year, despite the probability that the volume of savings has been curtailed. Are we to get another inflationary surge as a result of that policy—another expansion of purchasing power reflected in a further increase of the flow of luxury imports, which must inevitably by reflected in higher prices and further frantic efforts by the Minister for Industry and Commerce to control that prices rise?

If the Government is going to seek to borrow in 1951 the same sum as it borrowed in 1950, or a larger sum, by the same methods, then not merely will the consequences be the same but of a certainty they will be intensified. If that borrowing programme is carried out, there will be next year, even to a greater extent than there is now, a further draining off of the resources that should be available to private industry and private enterprise in commerce and agriculture—resources without which they cannot possibly give us that expansion in output which is necessary if we are to carry this burden of State expenditure. I move to report progress.

Progress reported.
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