Dáil Éireann debate -
Wednesday, 7 Mar 1951

Vol. 124 No. 9

Committee on Finance. - Vote on Account, 1951-52—Motion (Resumed).

Major de Valera

Last night, I tried to point out the damaging effect which the policy, or shall I say, the changes and uncertainty of policy, so characteristic of this Government, had upon, and was calculated to have upon, public morale. That brings one to what should be the kernel of this debate from one point of view. It brings up to inquire what is the policy of the Government, the general basic policy or considerations which direct the Government in their approach to the nation's business. A perusal of their history over three years gives no clearer picture than the facts which I tried to enumerate last night. As far as the Minister for Finance, who is responsible for this matter, is concerned, we can trace what he has purported to do; but the net result is that, at the present moment, neither the people in the country nor Government supporters themselves, I think, know on what basis the Government is facing its present problems. One cannot get any clear indication as to what their outlook is. We do not know, for instance, definitely whether they are still content to go along the line which the Taoiseach characterised as the hypothesis of peace. Neither do we know whether they are conditioning their policy by the probability of economic difficulties in the future, let alone the possibility of something worse. When one looks at their actions, there is confusion and contradiction, as I hope specifically to show in a moment. On the one hand, there will be talk about preparations for emergencies and preparations for difficulties, but on the other hand when efforts are made to probe the situation with questions, and when the figures relating to the economic situation are examined, one sees that the old drift is simply continuing.

Now it is almost impossible to get down to a common basis of discussion on this important aspect of national housekeeping unless we are quite clear what are the fundamental considerations basing Government policy. I must confess that I myself am utterly confused, and I know very many other people are also, to know what is this Government doing, or what is their outlook.

Mr. Davin

Hear, hear!

Major de Valera

Deputy Davin says "hear, hear." Perhaps he may resolve the following set of inconsistent facts. I will give him chapter and verse for them. The Minister for Finance started off two years ago—the record is here in Volume 110 of the Official Reports and he will be found reported both in the Vote on Account and in the Budget statement—by laying down —I gave the quotation last night—a policy of retrenchment——

Mr. Sweetman

Three years ago?

Major de Valera

Yes, a policy of retrenchment, the cutting of the cost of living and similar statements which we have come to associate with Fine Gael. That policy, of course, was not carried out. The figures on the front of the book in the following three years demonstrate and show conclusively that, of course, that policy was not carried out. But all the while, during that period, you had right up to the debate on the Taoiseach's Estimate last year, the standpoint that you were to face ultimately a period of normal peace—to use the Taoiseach's phrase, he was legislating for peace or basing his policy on the hypothesis of peace, and those who attempted to draw attention to the difficulties and to the worsening of the international situation were laughed at and were described in all sorts of unflattering terms, and were dismissed with contempt by the Taoiseach and other Ministers. I can understand that. We are told that that was the official attitude of the Government. The thing which it is hard to understand is that, while this statement was being made, the drift was allowed to continue. As I say, it belied the protestations of Fine Gael both in regard to retrenchment and the cost of living.

Then we came to the Supplies and Services Bill, and, overnight, there was a change in attitude. The official attitude up to then was that the Government considered the retail prices situation satisfactory. I think that is actually the phrase of the Minister for Industry and Commerce. That stand was again taken up last December or at the end of November. But the facts were too strong to allow that misrepresentation to continue and, as I pointed out last night, it led to an immediate panic. Then we had the spectacle of the Taoiseach, in Wexford, I think it was, talking about foolish optimism and an anxious time ahead and, overnight you might say, beginning to realise that the situation was serious. We had the Tánaiste rushing in with his price freeze and we have been allowed to believe that the Government's policy since then is to be determined by the "anxious time ahead". In other words, that, economically, we are to prepare for the difficult time ahead, whatever it may be—and we all admit now that, whatever is coming, the time ahead is likely to be difficult—and, what is more, that certain defence preparations were to be made. But, with these protestations, we find again a disparity between action and protestation, as in the case of the previously held Fine Gael policy. What do we find? While the Government were working on a hypothesis of peace with their primary aim retrenchment, reduction in the cost of living and the cutting of State expenditure—three big pleas of the present Minister for Finance—the State expenditure goes up, the cost of living goes up and there is no retrenchment.

Here again we find exactly the same type of phenomenon characterising this Government. Last December there was every sign that at least they did realise what situation had to be faced. As I say, there was every indication of panic. There was the price freeze on the part of the Tánaiste. That must be a rather chilly matter when he contemplates it, in view of the results as disclosed day by day in the papers in regard to defreezing. You had the Minister for Defence announcing certain changes and purporting to start a defence drive. But, again, check performance with protestation and the same characteristic of this Government is to be found. Obviously, most of the talk about defence was a big bluff. Week after week and day after day efforts have been made by questions to drag from the Minister for Defence any indication that something is being done, and I leave the Deputies themselves to analyse the answers given. The fact is that there was a certain amount of talk, that there was a meeting, and that there was little else done. What was worse, the attitude adopted was such as to sabotage—to use a very common phrase—any real effort which might be made to deal with this problem. The Red Cross was launched on a campaign and then left to it. Surely no more damaging thing could be done to any organisation, particularly a voluntary one, than to go through the forms of starting them off on a campaign and then leaving them high and dry. It is like launching a vessel in a canal and then letting the water run out. That is what was done. There was one big flourish and thereafter the relevant Department has not even the information required to handle the problem.

I am using these to exemplify the typical attitude of the Government. On 7th December, the Government were going to do nothing about the First Line Reserve. Before January was out, a scheme was advertised. What is the result? A scheme is advertised, but no member of the Government goes out to try and support it. A certain number of recruits come in and the Minister comes in here and says it is a failure and, more or less by implication, says that somebody drove him to it. What kind of a Minister is he to admit that he would take his decision because somebody kicked him into it and then come along and, because it does not work, blame the somebody? That is an extraordinary concept of government. Surely it is the Government's responsibility to assess what is the right thing to do and to do it irrespective of whether it will be popular with certain people or with their opponents.

These are just two examples of the attitude of this Government to national affairs. The same trend can be found now in the attitude of the Minister for Finance on the present occasion. He made a short speech when introducing this Vote on Account. Last night I traced the history of and the damage that was done by the shuttlecock, improvident measures taken in regard to turf, the cost of living and other matters. I might here consider the cynical attitude disclosed by the Government to the nation's finances. No further pretence is being made that they are going to achieve retrenchment or about the cost of living. But the Minister comes in here and tells us quite frankly that spending has gone up.

Assume for the moment that the Minister for Finance were to face the present situation as it is and give him the credit for facing up to it, as we thought the Government were going to face up to it last December. What would be the position? Surely all the efforts of the Government would be turned towards directing our financial resources in a way that would safeguard as far as possible supplies for the future and safeguard our future generally. None of us could complain, for instance, about expenditure which involved real stocking-up. None of us could complain about expenditure in present circumstances that would lay in plant or make arrangements for a day when we might be more isolated.

What do we find? First of all, we find that the Minister apparently has no very definite information and, from the tone of his approach to this, one would almost gather the impression that he was not very interested in getting any more definite information. Be that as it may, the record itself shows this statement to his credit:—

"Some stocking-up undoubtedly is being done at present but it is not an easy matter to distinguish what has been done."

Then he goes on to say that that there has been a very definite increase in consumption, particularly in the consumption of non-essential goods in the country. He excludes food, clothing, fuel and rent as being in the essential class. Therefore, notwithstanding the anxious time ahead which the Taoiseach spoke of, notwithstanding the dissipation of our assets which is allegedly being done to facilitate proper development here—repatriation of the assets it was called—notwithstanding all these protestations here, we find a situation where money was being squandered on non-essential consumable goods, goods from which, when they are gone, there is no benefit thereafter. That is the way we are to face the anxious time ahead. I think I am well within my rights in characterising that attitude as cynical, improvident and dangerous.

Let me come now to the next paragraph in the Minister's speech. He comments on the fact that there has been a rise in import prices and he says that that rise in import prices is not yet matched by a corresponding increase in the return for exports. You have then the improvident situation in which we are squandering our substance in buying non-essential goods while, at the same time, a trade situation is complacently allowed to continue in which we are paying more for what we import than we receive for the good food we export. As far as one can see this Government has made no real effort to adjust that adverse balance. In the very next sentence the Minister says: "The rise in import prices is to some extent the product of devaluation." That may well be; I shall deal with that in a moment. One would imagine, considering the nature of our exports, that had there been a provident policy enforced by this Government we could at least have kept parity between the prices we paid for our imports and the prices we received for our exports in so far as devaluation affected the problem.

I am basing all that I say now on the Minister's own statements. If that is the situation, then that is yet another indication of the failure of this Government to face up to its responsibilities. The Minister says in that same speech: "Shortages have already made their appearance.... It is expected that these will become more acute. At the same time it is hoped that there will be an upward movement in export prices." Shortages will become more acute: what lead has the Government given as to its policy in relation to that problem? I find it very hard to deal with this matter in the absence of any specific indication as to what the Government will base its policy on; I wonder does the Government know its own mind in the matter. Be that as it may, there is obviously on the Minister's own statement a failure to stock up essential commodities. Perhaps the Minister will deal with that in his reply.

The general financial policy of the Minister for Finance can have an important influence on the attitude of those responsible for our imports. Yet, many of the actions and statements of this Government have been such as to create uncertainty in the minds of business men. They have also helped to set class against class and that has militated seriously against the proper preparation of this country for the difficult times that lie ahead. Having said that, I anticipate that I shall be accused by Deputies on the Government Benches of war mongering. No matter what comes, and let us all hope that ultimately war will be avoided, there is a difficult economic situation ahead. Temporary shortages will occur. If we are to weather the storm now is the time to make preparation, even at this late hour. We have already lost three valuable years.

Let us examine the approach of the Minister for Finance to these problems once more. The only inference I can draw is that he considers it his function to try to find the money; having found the money, financial policy does not matter much thereafter. I referred last night to the cynical disregard of the real requirements of the nation in favour of the more narrow requirements of providing revenue. The question is as to whether or not the Minister is in fact permitting the particular state of affairs to exist to which he makes reference in his speech when dealing with the consumption of non-essentials. I wonder does the Minister want that particular state of affairs to continue because it will give him the necessary revenue. It is quite clear that if he can encourage the consumption of these non-essential goods his revenue will remain very buoyant. If his revenue remains buoyant, then he will be able to evade for the moment at any rate any increases in taxation rates. That seems to be the policy. Just as he seems to completely disregard the problem of the future of the country in his policy of borrowing, so he is prepared to exploit a particular opportunity again completely disregarding the future. If he can encourage spending on these non-essential goods they will bring him in a big revenue and his problem temporarily is solved. Apparently he can then sit back quite complacently about the future.

The Minister for Industry and Commerce some time ago discussed this matter. He referred to the standard of living of the people generally. He said that the people's living standards were of particular significance at a time when essential lines of essential foodstuffs were available to all citizens. He gave certain figures: "Expenditure on drink, tobacco and amusements had doubled since 1938 and amounted to no less than £44,000,000 in 1949... £8,000,000 was wagered on Irish racecources last year and bets placed in bookmakers' premises doubled an equivalent sum so that, without reckoning dog track betting, about £16,000,000 was expended on gambling last year, a threefold increase since 1948." I am quoting now from the Irish Times of 30th January, 1951. Some innocent people might think that the emphasis laid by some members on the Government Benches on this matter is to be used as an excuse for certain steps that might be taken in the future. It seems to be more likely, however, that this Government's attitude is to continue to encourage expenditure in those categories so that the Minister for Finance will be relieved of difficulties in finding the money to cover the various commitments which he must meet. In other words, in so far as this Government has any policy at all, it seems to be the deliberate, set policy of the Minister for Finance to encourage spending in these categories, to allow the frittering away of our resources in these categories and to allow the time when we should be preparing for the anxious time ahead— again to use the Taoiseach's phrase— to slip by improvidently, as the last three years have been allowed to slip by.

Explanations are commonplace matters with this Government. The trouble about this Government now is that they have explained so much that their own explanations trip them up. Explanation after explanation has eventually destroyed the last vestige of confidence which the country had in them. Deputies know very well from their contacts outside just how true that statement of mine is. It sets one wondering as to what future we have to face if this kind of thing continues.

We got some indication of the weakness of this Government and the weakness of the Ministers concerned just before Christmas. One could perhaps forgive, if it was genuine, the mistaken idea that the Government had in working blindly on what they call the hypothesis of peace up to last October and if they had been sincere in trying to prosecute that policy, but there is no evidence in the history of the facts to point to any such sincere effort. They come and they panic on prices, and then they shuttlecock back again. One asks oneself what might one expect if they were really faced with a serious problem, what would they do, what could the country hope from them. That, again, is a question that many people are asking. In other words, we are left in this position in this debate, that we have no real indication as to what basis the Government is facing the future upon. We might be able to get somewhere with it if we had that, but without that fundamental basis everything is confusion. Having witnessed the shuttlecocking back and forth, the talk about normality one day and crisis the other, about freezes one day and defreezing the other, and so forth, with all that confusion, the country does not know upon what general basis this Government proposes to move towards the future.

I spoke of the damage to public morale last night. Many of the difficulties of this Government at the moment arise from the damage that was done to public morale by them. The lack of confidence in themselves has been fostered and engendered by themselves. The cynical making of promises, the exploitation of grievances without facing facts, the attempt to pretend that facts beyond the control of a Government were within the control of a Government, as was done more than three years ago—all these things are having their repercussions on themselves now.

It is rather amusing to hear Ministers saying now that there are factors outside their control, external factors. That is very true, but they would find their path easier and they would find it easier to lead the people in facing the difficulties of the moment had they taken up a different attitude with regard to these same factors some years ago. How do they expect people to believe them now when they say these things or to follow any of their indications, when their utterances and representations of so recent a time as three years ago are still ringing in people's ears, when they have left people disillusioned and soured with them, when they got votes on the promise of decreases in the cost of living, for instance, and then gave their subsequent sorry performance?

How can the farming community have any confidence in a Government that led them up the garden, first with oats, then with potatoes, then with fertilisers, then with eggs and poultry —the latest? How could they have confidence in a Minister whose only consistent indication was that he would develop or encourage the agricultural economy of this country for the benefit of neighbours across the water rather than for the long-term benefit of our own people at home?

I was just looking through the devaluation file. I see two very interesting headings. They are very interesting with reference to the facts to-day. The Government and their supporters, in a chorus, will blame devaluation largely for the rise in the cost of living. I would like to show Deputies the headline of the Irish Independent on 20th September, 1949—“No Significant Rise in the Cost of Living, Assurance by the Minister for Finance”. I heard Deputies referring to and I saw reports in the newspapers about the cost of fertilisers, but in Galway, in the same month, the Minister for Agriculture assured all and sundry that maize and fertilisers would not go up in price. Both maize and fertilisers have since gone up in price. It is very hard to see what confidence any group of people can have in a Minister or a Government that adopts that approach.

Now that the Minister for Finance has come in, I would like to address this query to him. It would make it easier to understand both his figures and his statements if we could have some definite indication as to what was the basic consideration in Government policy looking towards the future. What is the Government's estimate of the present situation and its likely future developments? If one had that clearly and unequivocally it would be easier to understand the trend of things and it would be easier to understand what policy lies behind the Government's present actions.

I might repeat the point that I was making. Perhaps it will save the Minister being briefed by his advisers. It is simply this, that up to a short time ago it seemed that everything was being conditioned by what the Taoiseach characterised as the hypothesis of peace. I understood that to mean that the estimate was that there was no likelihood of international difficulty involving this part of the world and that the Government of the moment could safely proceed along a hypothetically normal course. It is quite obvious that things have changed. It it quite obvious from the state of affairs in the world at the moment that that course cannot be taken. It is a matter, perhaps, in the final analysis, for a guess as to what the future holds; but whether it is going to result in a conflagration or whether it is going eventually to work out through a difficult period in a way which will avoid a catastrophe, in either case the time ahead looks like being difficult and one of shortage. I think the Minister would help very much if he could, with definiteness, state the considerations which lie at the basis of the Government's outlook at the moment and we can rejoin issue with him on the matter, if necessary, on another occasion.

Mr. Sweetman

Deputy de Valera last night and to-day took a line which I could appreciate from somebody else who had not, perhaps, got his training. I find it difficult to accept the viewpoint that the Deputy is as innocent as he would make it appear, or that he has innocently misunderstood the position, as his speech would make it appear. Last night he took the Fine Gael Party to task at some length because we in this Party had opposed, and had stated we would continue to oppose, squandermania. I want to make perfectly clear, in case there is any lingering doubt really at the back of the Deputy's mind—though I do not believe there is—that the viewpoint of this Party is no different at all from the viewpoint that was correctly expressed by the Minister for Finance on the Vote on Account three years ago. Deputy de Valera quite deliberately omitted stress or reference to the one conditioning factor in that speech.

The Minister for Finance, when he was speaking on the Estimates that had been prepared by Fianna Fáil but that were brought in by this Government, due to the change of Government, referred to the outlook that was so clear in them, that those Estimates justified the viewpoint that money was being spent in them without any regard to the purposes for which that money was being spent. The Minister for Finance made the position quite clear then when he said that this Government were looking for economies in public expenditure, save where the expenditure was going to be reproductive or save where it was socially desirable.

The entire basic difference between the policy of this Government and the policy of Fianna Fáil was that they were prepared to waste the money of the people on things like the £11,000,000 scheme for a new Parliament House, whereas we are prepared to show faith and confidence in the future of the Irish people by investing that money in a way that will bring reproductive employment to the people and that will tend to alleviate and improve social conditions. That is the basic difference between the two policies, and it is a difference that I have no doubt the people on this side of the House are entirely united in accepting. It is, of course, a difference which Deputy de Valera did not for his own purposes wish to see.

During the whole course of this debate—and I have listened to or read most of the speeches on the other side that were made in the course of the debate in so far as they were published—I heard only one constructive suggestion. That suggestion was made by Deputy Lemass, and I will refer to that. There was a great deal of destructive criticism; there was a great deal of ballyhoo, but there was only the one constructive suggestion. It is a constructive suggestion inasmuch as it did suggest a line of policy, but it suggested a line of policy which I think was totally and absolutely undesirable in the time in which we are living. That suggestion was made by Deputy Lemass, when he resumed yesterday, and when he said that in his view the amount of public investment should be levelled down to the amount of public savings. That was the whole tenor of his resumed speech yesterday—that the figure for public investment should be levelled down to public savings. The viewpoint apparently that the Deputy wanted to get over to the House was that he could have it both ways. He wanted to suggest that the Minister had allowed public investment to run riot, but in reply to a question put to him from this side the Deputy on another occasion stated that he was not against any particular item in the capital services budget submitted by the Minister.

That is quite typical of the whole outlook of Fianna Fáil. They want to make a grand global statement which they think will sound nice or will read as a nice heading in the Irish Press, and at the same time they want to run away from their responsibilities in making that statement when it comes down to particularising, because cutting out one item or another might not suit them from their political point of view. I want to make this clear, so far as the Fine Gael Party are concerned, and it ties in with part of the speech made by Deputy de Valera. Nobody is going to deny that the times in which we are living are likely to be difficult from an economic or a shortage point of view; nobody will deny that in these times it is essential and more than ever necessary to build up the strength of this nation.

Where I fundamentally differ with Deputy de Valera is that he wants to take the men of this country away from economic work and put them forming fours on the squares of the Curragh or somewhere else, while I want to ensure that in the time that lies ahead they will be utilised to the fullest advantage in building up our economic resources and, while supplies are available, that we will make the utmost use possible of those supplies.

It is perfectly clear to anyone who has considered the matter that if three years ago there had been in this country the enormous expansion in our Defence Forces which Deputy de Valera then advocated and has advocated consistently since, the result would have been that to-day we would have less houses built, less land drained and our whole economic structure would not be as strong as it is. We would have had, perhaps, some additional people in the Defence Forces who had been in them in the last emergency and who knew in consequence the rudiments of army training, but that would not have affected by one iota the real efficiency or the real force of our defence, because that must depend on material equipment as well as on personnel, and this House has been assured on more than one occasion by the Minister responsible that so far as the provision of additional material equipment for those forces is concerned, no question of money has ever stopped him; the only thing that has stopped him has been whether these materials were available for purchase or whether they were not.

The whole outlook of this Government and the whole outlook of Fianna Fáil differ fundamentally in that respect, because we want to ensure that the wealth of our people is being invested in things that matter. We are not interested in some of the schemes which were under consideration by the previous Government at the time they went out. I am not going to suggest that new buildings in the City of Dublin might not, perhaps, be a contribution to the artistic features of the city; I am not going to suggest that they might not be desirable but I am going violently to suggest that they are not desirable until we have done something towards building up our economic fabric in a way that will bring us a bigger return. The whole stress of the speech of the Minister for Finance three years ago was that he was going to ensure that the resources that this Government could employ would be utilised in the promotion of reproductive schemes or schemes that were socially desirable and that all the resources of the State would be set out in a big way, as they were set out in a big way by the same Minister when he was responsible years before for the introduction of the Shannon scheme. He emphasised that it was that type of investment that was desirable and not a type of investment which merely meant the building of large new public buildings in the City of Dublin. I think the Minister can quite truthfully say, when we look over this Book of Estimates, that it does achieve that aspiration to some degree.

I do not propose to deal in any detail with any of the items for capital services but I want the House to realise that if we were to adopt the viewpoint of Deputy Lemass, that our investment should be levelled down to our savings, it is quite clear that many of the items of capital services set out in the Estimates could not be carried out, and that the people would have to do without some of the work which it is proposed to carry out. If Deputy Lemass were sincere in making that suggestion he should have followed it up by suggesting some items which he thought should be deleted and suggesting a figure which he thought we could invest in schemes for the public good. We had a suggestion from Deputy Major de Valera dealing with the heading that appeared in newspapers over the Minister's speech in September, 1949. I remember listening to the speech that night as well as the Deputy. I have not read the full report since nor apparently did the Deputy, but it is quite clear that what the Minister did say was that there was going to be no immediate increase in prices due to devaluation. In fact the Minister for Finance was perfectly correct in that and events bore him out. There was no immediate increase although some people imagined that the following week would have seen an enormous jump. Facts have since borne out the Minister's statement. I do not know the justification for the heading that was put on that statement, just as I do not know the justification—in my opinion there was no justification—for the heading put on the speech of the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Industry and Commerce in the beginning of December.

I could excuse people who had not facilities available, by way of the verbatim Report of the Debates, to check up on what was said in the House, for misinterpreting what was said by Deputy Cosgrave, but there was no excuse whatever for Deputy de Valera or Deputy Little trying to suggest by implication that what the Parliamentary Secretary said was that there had been no increase in the cost of living. The Parliamentary Secretary said nothing of the sort. What he said was that there had not been an increase up to the beginning of the previous six months and the verbatim Report of the proceedings of the House is perfectly clear in that respect. In a factual statement made later in that debate by Deputy Larkin, it is perfectly clear that Deputy Larkin's point was that the increase started a couple of months earlier. He believed that the rise had started in April whereas the Parliamentary Secretary thought it had started in July. Of course the heading that was put on the statement in the newspaper reports was the only thing the public understood. Having got that heading members of the Fianna Fáil Party proceeded to go out and to make whoopee. The mistaken heading was the only thing understood by the public and Fianna Fáil proceeded to take full advantage of that mistake. I could understand that at the time but there is hardly a genuine explanation for the continuation of that line now.

The position in regard to the debate on the cost of living and the imposition of the freezing Order is quite a simple one. There is nobody on this side of the House so foolish as to think that we can control the price of things coming in from outside but we were quite determined that the public would be able to see and realise that the price of commodities could only be increased to the same extent as the price of these imported commodities over which we had no control had been increased. We were determined to ensure that the passing on of that increase was going to be done in a fair way and that the proportion of our people—it was not everyone who would do it— who wished to take advantage of the shortage position that had been created, and who wished to take an unfair advantage of an international rise in prices were not going to be allowed to do so to the detriment of the community as a whole. It was never suggested from these benches that everyone engaged in Irish history was going to take that dishonest line. It was never suggested that shopkeepers and those engaged in the distributing trade were all necessarily rogues and that they would take advantage of the community but, unfortunately, there were certain individuals who would not hesitate to take such an unfair advantage of consumers and the steps which we took did effectively prevent that small proportion of traders from taking an unfair advantage of the community because of the international situation.

We heard some discussion in a general way in this debate as to the manner in which our people are living. There has been since February, 1948— and we on this side of the House are very glad to be able to say it—a substantial improvement in the standard of living of our people. We were in the situation then that it was not possible to get many of the things that can now be procured with much greater facility. Naturally enough, when standards expand like that the cost of additional purchases is going to rise. If a comparison were made with the cost of living across the water and here, one would find perhaps that their cost of living in certain degrees might be lower when one takes into account the meagre amount of their meat ration, the meagre amount of other rations they receive, and then compare these with the amount of food which families in this country can purchase. Quite clearly, we are able to have a better standard of living, and so it is natural that the cost to us should be a bit more. It is equally natural that our people would prefer that.

I do not think there is any doubt whatever in the minds of the people in this country that they are now in a position to purchase more than they were able to purchase in February, 1948. There has been a rise in wages, and with that a substantial improvement in the position of the people. In consequence of that they have been able, to some extent, to overcome the effect of what was put on them by Fianna Fáil when the standstill Order was brought in without an equivalent standstill Order in prices at that time.

Mr. Aiken

Will the Deputy explain why the same quantity of food is being eaten now as before?

Mr. Sweetman

The Deputy must not read the figures. Take butter, for example. The amount of butter that was being consumed when the Deputy left office was two ounces per person per week.

Mr. T. Walsh

How much was it six months before that?

Mr. Sweetman

I think——

Mr. T. Walsh

Do not be thinking. How much was it?

Mr. Sweetman

If Deputy Walsh wants an answer to a question it would be wiser for him to wait until the answer is given. The Deputy must believe that everybody is as blind as he pretends to be.

Mr. T. Walsh

No one is more blind than those who will not see.

Mr. Sweetman

The ration of butter was two ounces, it was four ounces, and part of the time, in the flush period, it was six ounces.

Mr. T. Walsh

Never eight?

Mr. Sweetman

Never eight. At that time the consumption, including farmers' butter, was about seven ounces on the average. The consumption at present is 13½ ounces per person per week, and that at a time when Deputy Aiken tells us no more food is being consumed.

Mr. Aiken

It is in the statement the Minister gave us in the beginning.

Mr. Sweetman

At the time Deputy Aiken tells us no more food was being consumed, he was only allowing us a substantially smaller ration of tea, and it was not possible to purchase any tea in addition to the ration except in the black market.

Mr. T. Walsh

It is the same to-day.

Mr. Sweetman

The tea that was being purchased in Deputy Aiken's black market at that date was, as everybody knows, being bought at £1 or 25/- per lb. Deputy Aiken must be going around with his head in the sand if he does not appreciate that our people are consuming more now than they were when he left office.

Mr. Aiken

The Minister for Finance must have his head in the sand because that is the figure he gave.

Mr. Sweetman

The Minister for Finance said nothing of the sort. That is another of the same kind of twist which the Deputies opposite are always anxious to put on any statement, just as Deputy Vivion de Valera lectured us last night for three quarters of an hour on the question of Fine Gael financial policy without ever adverting, though I asked him once to do so, to two most important qualifications that there were in the Minister's speech of three years ago.

One of the other Deputies on the opposite side also gave us a long lecture—I think it was Deputy Vivion de Valera but I am not absolutely sure of that—on the subject of turf and of the present arrangements which, he said, were being belatedly made for the coming season. The Deputy was rather unfortunate that he did not, before last Sunday, make clear what the policy of Fianna Fáil in this regard was going to be because if he had perhaps the Sunday Press of March 4th might not have published the article it did. I am sure those opposite have read that article. That article makes clear beyond question that, in the mind of its contributor, the arrangements that are being made for the current season for the production of turf are far better than the arrangements that had been made before. It is not for me to put any emphasis on what the contributor in the Sunday Press said. The facts are exactly as that contributor of the article has stated. I can speak from personal knowledge of the position in Kildare. In regard to the people who came to work in the turf camps and live in the hostels in those days, there was an unfortunate feeling, as a result of which they left their work. They were not satisfied, and did not believe that they should come back themselves in the future and bring others with them.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

What appears in a paper is not relevant to this discussion.

Mr. Sweetman

I agree, except to this extent that I think that was the whole point in what Deputy Vivion de Valera said in regard to the production of turf—that the plans for the coming season's turf production campaign were entirely unsatisfactory.

Major de Valera

I did not say any such thing. What I said was that you had made the situation extremely difficult for yourselves by your improvident decision of three years ago.

Mr. Sweetman

I am glad the Deputy has reminded me of that. I had inadvertently forgotten the Deputy's reference to the decision of three years ago, a decision which, so far as my constituency is concerned. was made without question by Deputy Lemass. Deputy Lemass himself has accepted that it was made by him.

Mr. T. Walsh

When did he accept it?

Mr. T. Sweetman

Deputy Lemass accepted it in this House.

Mr. T. Walsh

No twisting now.

Mr. Sweetman

No twisting. Deputy Lemass himself accepted in this House that the decision in regard to the Kildare hand-won turf scheme was made by him. There is no doubt whatever about that.

Major de Valera

Will the Deputy allow me? I went on to speak about making whatever adjustments might be necessary. What I criticised you for was doing all that without making alternative provision for the small producers and the road workers, coupled with the road grants.

Mr. Sweetman

I do not think that was entirely the argument the Deputy made last night but I am prepared to accept the correction. It is much easier to appreciate the meaning of the written word than the spoken one. However, I want to make this quite clear in regard to turf production in Kildare. I do not know how far I am entitled to go into details of that on this Vote.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

Not in regard to Kildare.

Mr. Sweetman

I have no intention of going down that detailed lane or bog road. But, in regard to the question of turf production, you are not going to get labour forces satisfactorily to carry out turf production except the people who go there are satisfied with the conditions and the hostels, or unless you make arrangements for families to be together in ordinary housing conditions. If Deputy Walsh asks his colleague, Deputy Harris, he will learn from him that the suggestion——

Mr. T. Walsh

The Deputy should make that suggestion to the Minister.

Mr. Sweetman

If Deputy Walsh was not so very frightened on this subject, he would not want to interrupt sentences in the middle of them. If Deputy Walsh would ask his colleague, Deputy Harris, he would learn from him, as the Deputy and I learned as members of the Kildare County Council, that the previous Government's scheme in regard to bringing families together on the bog was that the local authority should build the houses.

Mr. Aiken

That is not true. There were 2,000 houses to be built. The thing was through in 1947 and you have sat on it since.

Mr. Sweetman

There is no use in Deputy Aiken saying that it is not true. It came to us from Bord na Móna when I was a member of the Kildare County Council, when Deputy Harris was chairman of the council, and when Deputy Aiken was Minister for Finance and it was thrown out by the Kildare County Council as being the job of the Government and not the job of the council.

Mr. Aiken

Bord na Móna were authorised to build 2,000 houses three years ago and you have successfully sat on it until the present time.

Mr. Sweetman

The situation was that the Kildare County Council told Deputy Aiken at the time that it was his job to make these arrangements and that they were not prepared to take from him a job which was his. It is no good for the Deputy to take the view that it is not true. It was there on the records at that time. I want to make one suggestion in regard to general financial policy to the Minister. I am a little bit frightened of making it in the hearing of Deputy Hickey, because I might take Deputy Hickey along the same line.

Mr. Aiken

He is as meek as a mouse.

Mr. Sweetman

I have always failed to understand why it is not possible to make a short-term bill market here such as there is on the other side. I have always failed to understand why the short-term bill borrowing that must be always necessarily indulged in by financial houses has to be done by borrowing from the other side, and why it is not possible to set up here in the same way a short-term market which would mean that the banks and financial houses that want to lend easily liquid resources would be enabled to do that in this country without having to go to the other side.

Mr. Briscoe

Did the Deputy never hear of ways and means advances?

Mr. Sweetman

The Deputy heard of ways and means advances all right, but they are not the same thing.

Mr. Briscoe

Because you cannot get enough.

Mr. Sweetman

It depends on whom the Deputy means by "you".

Mr. Briscoe

The State.

Mr. Sweetman

The banks go to London for their short-term bills. It is a fact, and there is no good in the Deputy shaking his head.

Mr. Briscoe

We have to borrow here to pay off ways and means advances when they become too big.

Mr. Sweetman

The situation is that when they want to get easily liquid resources they get them in the money market in Threadneedle Street.

Mr. Briscoe

They lend it to the British Government and to us also.

Mr. Sweetman

I want to know why it cannot be lent to us in such a way——

Mr. Briscoe

To what amount?

Mr. Sweetman

To an amount that would prevent the State having to pay a higher rate and prevent the benefit of the use of that money going into the British Government's pocket instead of ours. I am considerably interested in that problem because I cannot understand why we should not get the benefit of that in this country rather than it should go outside.

Mr. Briscoe

So am I.

Mr. Sweetman

There was another reference by Deputy de Valera or Deputy Kissane, I am not sure which, to the question of stockpiling and storage. So far as the main things that we want to keep in this country are concerned, the real difficulty is that there is not the storage space. If we had the storage space, we would not, for example, have the situation that we had last autumn when mills and warehouses could not take in the native wheat because there was not enough room for it in the stores.

Major de Valera

The Deputy appreciates what he is saying? He is admitting that there is not enough storage space.

Mr. Sweetman

Of course there is not. When the Deputy's Party left office there was not anything like the storage space there should have been. That storage space has been to a very small degree already increased, but to quite a substantial degree the building of the additional storage space has got beyond the blue print stage. The Deputy can ascertain by inquiries in Dublin what is being done. One of the real difficulties during the war, as Deputy Briscoe must recollect, was that we were dependent on regularity of shipping space. It was not a question of being able to pile up. We had to depend on its coming in in regular bottoms. That is one of the real economic weaknesses that we have here and one of the weaknesses which I say——

Mr. Briscoe

What was the tonnage of native wheat in the war years?

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

Deputy Sweetman should be allowed to make his speech without interruption.

Mr. Sweetman

The Deputy rather likes these interruptions.

Mr. Briscoe

We both do.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

The Chair does not.

Mr. Briscoe

We are both sorry for the Chair.

Mr. Sweetman

The Deputy will appreciate this if he goes down the country. I am not making any point against the Deputy's Government, because I think they were right. But, during the war a lot of land had to be got for the purpose of feeding the people. If we continued on the same basis, it would mean that if there was another emergency the resources would not be there. The situation is that over the past three years these resources were being built up and have been built up again, and that we are in a far more favourable position now to withstand the difficulties of an emergency in regard to the production of wheat than we were three years ago when this Government took over from the previous Government.

Mr. Hickey

And we have not enough storage yet.

Mr. Sweetman

We have nothing like enough storage yet and until such time as we have enough storage we shall never be in a position to cope with any emergency situation which may arise. That is perfectly obvious to everyone. I believe it is perfectly obvious to the Deputies on the Opposition Benches, but they will not admit it.

This Government, as I said at the outset, is working consistently along the lines of an economic policy which I refuse to believe Deputy Major de Valera is too stupid to understand. I believe he understands it very well, but will not admit it. It is our policy to ensure that there will be invested here not the restricted limited savings, to which Deputy Lemass referred yesterday, but the maximum amount of men, labour and material which will ensure reproductive utilisation for the betterment of our people as a whole and not utilisation on those things which will not bring any real benefit, an outstanding example of which was the plan of Deputy Aiken for the new Parliament building in the City of Dublin.

Mr. Little

Would the Deputy tell us what evidence there is of the previous Government setting out immediately on plans for the building of Government offices?

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

Is Deputy Little going to speak?

Mr. Little

I am asking the Deputy to explain a reference he made.

Mr. Sweetman

The whole matter was made quite clear here.

Mr. Little

A suggestion was made to the Opposition at the time and, when they disagreed, there was nothing further done.

Mr. McGilligan

Does that not mean that you would have gone on with the project only for the disagreement?

Mr. Little

It could only have been done by agreement on both sides.

Mr. McGilligan

And we stopped it.

Mr. Briscoe

Like the turf.

Mr. T. Walsh

This year the country is faced with a Bill for £83,000,000, around £14,000,000 increase over 1948 when this Government first took office. The figures for 1947 were round about £59,000,000. These are audited accounts. £59,000,000 was the amount of money spent in the last year in which Fianna Fáil was in office. In addition to an increase of £14,000,000 over and above 1948, the present Government has borrowed £39,000,000 from the Irish people. It has also borrowed £128,000,000 from the United States of America.

Mr. Coburn

Dollars.

Mr. T. Walsh

Dollars. If you convert those dollars into pounds you get something in the region of £42,000,000. In addition, we have been allocated grants to the extent of $18,000,000. Where is this money being spent? In what way is it proposed to spend it? Last year the Minister for Finance informed us that he was adopting a new method. He introduced capital expenditure. Many of the items included by him under that expenditure were paid for by the Fianna Fáil Government out of direct taxation. Nothing new is being done by this Government, with the exception perhaps of the land rehabilitation project. We have been told by the Minister for Agriculture that he intends to spend £4,000,000 per year on that scheme. Last year he spent £472,000 on it, plus £160,000 on machinery. Where has the balance gone? Where has all the other money gone?

Mr. McGilligan

What other money?

Mr. T. Walsh

The money that was borrowed. No new scheme has been introduced over and above the schemes that were in existence when Fianna Fáil was in office. The same amount of money was spent on land reclamation under Fianna Fáil if one includes the farm improvements scheme. What new schemes have been introduced other than land rehabilitation? If one takes lime, one can put against that the subsidy given on fertilisers. One is just as high as the other.

The estimate presented in 1948 by Fianna Fáil was for £70,500,000. According to the present Minister for Finance, the value of the £ was then 10/-. To-day the value of the £ has been still further reduced. I am sure the Minister for Finance will not quarrel with me on that point. There has been a further devaluation of at least 10 per cent. and the Estimates have gone up by 20 per cent.

Since 1948 we have borrowed a sum of £39,000,000 so we have in all a bill of £83,000,000. When the Coalition Government took office the national debt stood at £100,000,000. To-day it is £183,000,000. Would any Deputy run his own business in the same way as this Government is running the country? The Government is tying a millstone around the necks of the people. The deadweight debt has increased. Interest and sinking fund has gone up from £3,250,000 to over £6,000,000. That money will have to be found during the next 30 years. If a farmer were to borrow money and run round enjoying himself until his capital liabilities far exceeded his assets, as they do in the case of the State liability now, he would not have his farm very long.

The Minister for Industry and Commerce has told us that the people are spending £44,000,000 per year on drink and £16,000,000 on cigarettes. Is that a good policy? Yet, we are told by responsible Ministers that the country was never better off. Possibly that is so. We are spending more on amusements anyway. During the 16 years Fianna Fáil was in office many important schemes were initiated and many important steps were taken. We paid £10,000,000 to England and in return were given relief to the extent of round about £80,000,000. We got back our ports. To pay our liabilities we borrowed £38,000,000.

We built more houses per year than are being built to-day. During the period that Fianna Fáil were in office, we divided more land than is being divided to-day. We gave higher prices, pro rata, to the farmers for cereal crops than are being given to-day. The only increase that there has been is from Britain in the price of cattle so that it is foolish and useless for Ministers to say that the farmers were never better off. They are well off. They were well off before this Government came into office and it is not anything that was done by the present Government that has made them well off. Fianna Fáil made them well off when they changed the policy of Cumann na nGaedheal, the rancher policy, and brought in a tillage policy. If the policy that now obtains and that the Minister for Agriculture wants to pursue is continued, in a few years' time the farmers will not be well off.

It is admitted, of course, that the people in rural Ireland are able to pay their way, but there is a section in this country—and many of the Deputies on the opposite benches know them—that may not be as well off. I wonder if the people who are living on unearned incomes are better off to-day than they were five years ago. What relief have those people got? Their cost of living has gone up. There has been no reduction in taxation as far as they are concerned and yet, taking National Loans, for instance, their dividends are the same. Those people are not better off. It is very easy to say that the country generally is better off but there are sections of the people who are not better off and that fact should be well known to some of the Ministers and to the Deputies on the opposite benches.

What would happen to a man who was running his own business in the same fashion as the Government is running the country, borrowing money for, in many cases, useless and unproductive projects? It is not the first time that I have stated that, in my opinion, the land reclamation scheme, as it has been carried out up to the present in many parts of the country, will be unproductive, that by the time the two-thirds that the Government will pay and the one-third that will be contributed by the farmer are expended, the land will not be worth the amount of money expended on it under the scheme. Time alone will tell. I know land that they have attempted to reclaim, and I know that nothing on earth can make it value for the money that will be expended on it by the time they are finished with it. The Land Commission are buying land at £10 per acre for afforestation purposes. Some of the land that is now being reclaimed will not be any better.

There are many things I would like to say in connection with the general policy of the Government over the past three years, and particularly in the present year. If that policy is continued, it will be bad, not merely for some sections of the people, but for the country generally. Let me take agriculture, for instance. Again taking the value of the £ as in 1948 and assuming that I am correct in saying that there has been a reduction of 2/- in the £ since then, the price of wheat to-day should be increased by 12/6 per barrel. If 62/6 was an economic price for wheat in 1947, when Mr. Smith, who was then Minister for Agriculture, fixed the price in October of that year for the following harvest, then it must be an uneconomic price to-day, or, putting it in another way, if Mr. Dillon, the Minister for Agriculture, believes that the farmers are getting an economic price for wheat to-day, then, in 1947, they were getting far in excess of its value from the Fianna Fáil Government. It is one or the other. The unfortunate thing about it is that the Minister for Agriculture cannot be moved, and as a result of that we will have less wheat grown in this country next year.

I have had the experience during the last week or two of speaking to seed merchants. I have been told that the number of people looking for seed wheat has dropped considerably, and that they are not taking anything like the same amount of seed as they took in other years. On the other hand, I have been told by maltsters that they have had increased applications for seed malting barley in this year. That means that we are going to reverse the policy and that we are going to produce barley to make drink rather than produce wheat to make bread for our people. The present price of wheat at 62/6 represents 3/1½ per stone. The price of malting barley is fixed for next year at 57/6 per barrel, which represents 3/7 per stone. Is it good policy, is it good economics, is it good national policy, that we should produce malting barley for the purpose of making available drink, which is a luxury, and prevent, because it is a prevention, our people from producing a commodity which is the necessity of life, namely, bread? If they were induced by way of a better price, there is a great number of farmers who would increase their acreage under wheat, and it is very necessary that the acreage under wheat should be increased. If war or an emergency should arise, what would be the position of this country in regard to supplies of wheat and flour? On 27th February, 1951, I asked the Minister for Agriculture—column 565, Volume 124, Dáil Debates—

"if he will state the total quantity of (a) seed wheat, and (b) millable wheat at present in the country, and (c) the estimated quantity of wheat required to meet our normal requirements of bread and flour for 12 months."

The answer I got on that occasion was:

"(a) Approximately 230,000 barrels of home-produced seed wheat have been assembled by the authorised seed wheat assemblers, and approximately 60,000 barrels of imported seed wheat have been landed or are in course of delivery. In addition, some 47,000 barrels of selected milling wheat which would be suitable for seed if required are being held in reserve. No information is available as to the quantity of wheat retained by farmers for seed.

(b) On the 10th February, 1951, the flour millers held approximately 178,000 tons of wheat, as well as approximately 12,000 tons of wheaten flour.

In addition, a further 99,465 tons of wheat are on load, on passage, loading or freight in course of arrangement.

The estimated quantity of wheat required to meet our normal requirements of bread and flour for 12 months is approximately 480,000 tons and our total supplies as set out above are sufficient to meet our bread requirements at present rate of consumption up to September 30th, 1951. We are at present negotiating the purchase of a further 97,000 tons of wheat which will be brought forward as storage permits."

My calculation is that, taking all the seed wheat that the Minister states is available, we have around 376,000 barrels of imported seed wheat. Last year we grew 366,000 acres of wheat. But 376,000 barrels are not sufficient to seed 366,000 acres. It will take anywhere from 23 to 24 stones, normally, of spring varieties, to seed an Irish acre, so that we have not enough seed wheat at the present time to seed the acreage that was grown last year. Even if we had, even granting the 97,000 tons that the Minister says he has negotiated for— granted that these were delivered— and even assuming we were going to get one ton per acre of the 366,000 acres that were grown last year, if you had an emergency in the morning I calculate, taking all these things into consideration, that normally, with the consumption at 480,000 tons of wheat per year, we would run out of flour in June, 1952.

That is something the Coalition Government should be concerned about. They have a greater responsibility than trying to kill the schemes that were initiated by Fianna Fáil. The people who are charged with the responsibility of government have something more to be responsible for than baiting the men on these benches or telling them that their schemes were wrong. They have the people in the towns and cities and in the country to feed and they have to ensure that, if they are going to fulfil their obligations to these people, they will at least provide them with bread. That is one of the responsibilities of government.

The Coalition Government, largely through the Minister for Agriculture, are failing in their duty. The Minister is not giving a price that will induce our farmers to grow wheat in preference to malting barley. If you had an emergency in the morning, and we were unable to get wheat, as might happen, we might have other countries very anxious to supply us with bread. We heard at Question Time to-day the Minister for Defence answering a question regarding warlike stores. He told Deputy de Valera that the position was entirely unsatisfactory, that orders had been placed and they were not delivered, and that the British attitude to this country was entirely unsatisfactory. Is it not good policy on the part of Britain to keep us in a disarmed condition? Is it not good policy on the part of Britain to keep us from growing wheat?

The unfortunate thing is that the person responsible for growing the foodstuffs our people require has been in league with Britain, not merely recently, but seven or eight years ago, when he wanted the people of this country to walk with heads erect into the British Empire. He has not changed. The leopard never changes its spots. The Minister for Agriculture has never changed his outlook. His spiritual home, his political home, is still across the water. For that reason it is time that the Government, and particularly the representatives of Labour in that Government, who also have responsibility, would see to it that provision is made so that our people will be supplied with bread.

If we want to retain our independence, if we want to carry out the policy announced by the Government and supported by Deputies on this side of the House—a policy of neutrality—we must make preparations for war. We must prepare to defend that policy and the first essential is to have food for our people and for our Army. What attempt is being made by the people responsible for doing that? We are making provision, of course, for malting barley to be consumed, as the Minister for Industry and Commerce said, in the form of drink to the extent of £44,000,000. There has not been a word about that. The Minister for Finance will not say a word about it. He is deriving a good revenue from it and because of that he will keep silent.

As the Minister for Defence said this evening, the British are reluctant or unsatisfactory in supplying warlike requirements, whatever they may be. I wonder would we have met with the same unsatisfactory position had we dealt with continental countries? We were told here in 1948 about the wonderful agreements made with Britain, when the British negotiators insisted on this country sending them 90 per cent. of our cattle and giving permission to this country to send only 10 per cent. to the continent. I wonder if the position had been reversed and if we had not been so much linked up with the British as we have been for the past three years—and we are heading in that direction every day— how we would fare?

We have seen how that agreement was kept. We have seen our people this year left without fuel. If the fly-by-nights that the Minister for Agriculture talked about then were permitted to come here and purchase our cattle, I wonder would our Army be devoid of these warlike stores that the Minister for Defence talked about? Unfortunately, it has been the policy of many of our Ministers down through the years to become more closely linked with the people across the water. It should at least now be time for them to realise the position in which they have placed themselves. The agreements they made in the last three years have been broken or unfulfilled. What about the poultry and egg agreement in 1948, or the agreements about coal, butter or bacon? Have all these agreements been fulfilled? It is time the policy of Fine Gael should change and that the outlook of the Minister for Agriculture should change. There is one thing that can be done, but it must be done very quickly if this country is to be assured of a supply of wheat for next year. A change of attitude must be announced this week regarding prices.

I heard Deputy Sweetman talking about turf production and how easy it was going to be made for county councils to produce turf this year. He gave his experiences in County Kildare. Let me give mine of County Kilkenny. Kilkenny County Council have been told they must produce 13,000 tons of turf and create an iron ration of a two-years' supply at least. In the peak years during the emergency, when we had men available, and equipment, and when we had carried out development work on the bogs and everything was ready just to walk in and cut and save the turf, the peak was 7,000 tons per annum. This year we are told that we must produce 13,000 tons. In 1947 when we produced 7,000 tons we were permitted to buy from the small producer, the farmer with a family who went out on the bogs, cut the turf and sold it to us. That will be denied us this year. We have been told by the Minister for Local Government that he will not permit that to happen, that all our requirements must be produced through the county council by direct labour. We were able to produce only 7,000 tons in 1947 with all the equipment and labour we then had.

Now we have to come and develop these bogs again and redrain them. Had the policy of Fianna Fáil been continued in 1948, had we been producing turf each year, had our councils been compelled to produce it, a situation such as has arisen now would not have arisen. We would have kept our people who had been working on the bogs during the four or five years prior to 1948 at home. We would have had the equipment and we would have had the reclamation work done so that this year, when the necessity again arises, it would not have been necessary for the Minister for Local Government to come along and say: "You must make provision for a two-year ration of turf in 1951." What was the reason for discontinuing the production of hand-won turf?

Mr. McQuillan

Ask Deputy Lemass.

Mr. T. Walsh

We shall ask Deputy McQuillan.

Mr. McQuillan

Ask Deputy Lemass who was responsible for it.

Mr. T. Walsh

Ask who was responsible for the action of the present Government carried out for the past three years.

Mr. McGilligan

The decision was made by you.

Mr. T. Walsh

Many decisions were made by Fianna Fáil.

Mr. McGilligan

That is one of them.

Mr. T. Walsh

Many decisions were made by Fianna Fáil during their period of office. Have not some of these decisions been changed by Ministers in the opposite benches? If Deputies on the opposite benches believed in hand-won turf production, there was nothing on earth to prevent their going ahead with it. Deputy McQuillan, if he wanted, could have gone ahead with it.

Mr. McGilligan

He could have changed your Order.

Mr. McQuillan

Why did you not change it?

Mr. Aiken

If it was there.

Mr. T. Walsh

However, I shall not go into that matter now.

Mr. McGilligan

Get away from it; it is dangerous ground.

Mr. T. Walsh

I should like to go back but, now that you have changed your opinion regarding it, I do not believe there is much use in discussing it. You have come back to the Fianna Fáil policy and that is something gained. Now that you are coming back to the old schemes of policies of Fianna Fáil, I might mention tourism. Tourism is another little scheme that the Coalition Government killed. They talked about the English people coming over here to be fed. They talked about the palatial hotels erected by Fianna Fáil and the amount of money which they alleged was misspent on tourism. After two years, they discovered, to their amazement I am sure, that the tourist industry was worth £35,000,000 to this country. The goose that was laying the golden eggs is dying and, now that she is almost dead, they are trying to revive her by spending a lot of money in an effort to restore tourism. There are many other things which the Coalition Government did but I am not going to waste the time of the house in going into them.

I should like to call attention to two statements made recently by the Minister for Agriculture. He said that the people were never so well off as they are at present, that this was a land following with milk and honey again. He said that we had full employment on the land, that the population was increasing and that it had never been so high since the days of Brian Boru. On the 19th of December, 1950, the Social Welfare Department issued a report. Just to show how prosperous the rural community, but particularly the farming community, felt themselves, I might mention that, according to that report, the number of people engaged in agriculture on 1st June, 1949, was 16,755 fewer than on the 1st June, 1948. Therefore we had an exodus from the land between June, 1948 and June, 1949. That does not look as if the people were happy and contented, "never so prosperous as they were at the present time". The Minister also stated that we had full employment. The unemployment figures have gone down but yet on the 24th February this year there were 63,000 people registered as unemployed. Therefore all the things we have been hearing from the Minister for Agriculture are not quite so true as he would have as believe. We still have our unemployment; we still have emigration and the flight from the land. If this is to continue, I believe that when Fianna Fáil comes back into office to clear up the mess left by the Coalition Government, we shall have our work cut out for us.

Mr. O'Leary

Are you hoping for that?

Mr. T. Walsh

It is a moral certainty. It is going to happen whether we hope for it or not. The people are going to do it; they are only waiting for the opportunity at the moment. Give them the opportunity and you will see.

I think I referred to all the points which I wanted to cover but I should like to add that notwithstanding the fact that we are faced with Estimates this year totalling £83,000,000— £14,000,000 over and above what Fianna Fáil asked for in their last year of office—and notwithstanding the colossal amount that has been borrowed—I am not satisfied that this country is run in the best interests of the people. I believe myself that this land rehabilitation scheme is not a good scheme.

So far as the expenditure of all these moneys is concerned, the one good scheme that I have seen is that which was initiated by the Department of Local Government, the Local Authorities (Works) Act. Good work is being done under that Act. In my opinion it would be far better if the Minister for Agriculture got out of the picture altogether and left the drainage of land and the avoidance of flooding on the roads to the county councils. They would do a far better job than he and his experts in the Department of Agriculture are doing. The money allocated would be far more usefully spent. It would serve the interests of the people better if that work were left to the county councils. That is the only scheme that I can say is giving value for the money that is being spent on it. The work is done by our own engineers. I am certainly going to vote against the giving of £83,000,000 to this Government unless the Minister is able to tell me, and tell those who are in opposition, that it is going to be spent in the interests of the people.

I should like to refer to agricultural prices so far as wheat and milk are concerned. These should be increased. If we have regard to the change in the value of the £ the price of milk should go up by 3d. a gallon.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

The Deputy is now going into details.

Mr. T. Walsh

We had the extraordinary experience this year of having to import butter. During the last 12 months we exported butter to Great Britain at 266/- per cwt., while we imported butter from New Zealand and Denmark at 376/- and 379/- per cwt. That is not good policy, and I am sure the Minister for Finance will agree that it is not. Would it not be far better to ensure a supply of butter sufficient to meet the requirements of our own people by having more milk produced? The Government could have that if they held out any inducement to our farmers.

Mr. Kyne

I had hoped that Deputy Walsh would have taken a different line from that taken by a number of the Opposition Deputies, but I was doomed to be disappointed. I had hoped that, while he might criticise the things that we did not do and the things that we did do, he certainly would not complain of the cost. Most Deputies on the opposite side would want to make up their minds as to what really they want. For the past three years they have claimed that this Government, under the present Minister, has been trying to carry out retrenchment, and that the Party that I belong to was tied to the tail of a Fine Gael Minister who was laying the axe everywhere he could. They have told us that the country was left defenceless, that the Garda force, due to the lack of recruitment, was almost extinct, that turf production was being discontinued, that the transatlanic airways had been stopped, that the short-wave station had been scrapped, that mineral development and research had been stopped, and that the Place Names Commission had been discontinued. But, suddenly, a change has come over them, and this year they say there is squandermania in this Government, that they have gone mad on spending, and that, never before, has the country been faced with such a debt.

The Deputies opposite complain of the size of the bill that has to be met. Surely they cannot expect, if the Government takes heed of their demands, not only their demands, but demands from all sides of the House, that improved services should be carried out, that increases should be granted to civil servants and all in State employment, that all that can be done without increasing the cost. Opposition Deputies who are loudest on their local councils demanding bigger grants and cheaper loans for housing, for roads, for sewerage, for water supplies, for hospitals and for schools, decry here the effort that is made by the Government to meet those demands. By asking questions in the Dáil and by speeches they advocate better wages, better conditions, better pensions and superannuation for all Government employees, and still they ask that all that should be done at the same cost as when they were running the country under worse conditions so far as all those various classes of people were concerned. If they were honest with themselves they would know that all these demands of theirs must cost more money.

They claim throughout the country that money to-day has only half the value that it used to have. They say that the ordinary employer has to meet twice as high charges in the way of overheads to carry on his business, but they deny the very same concession to the people who are trying to run the Government. The Minister for Finance must necessarily find that money has only half its value so far as the running of the country is concerned if what the Opposition Deputies say is true. If better services are given they have to be paid for. We in the Labour Party are demanding and asking for better conditions for the people of the country, and when the piper comes to be paid we are not going to complain. We realise that the Minister is no magician. He may be a wizard of finance, but he still will have to find the money if he is to increase wages and salaries, and give improved benefits to the aged and the blind.

We have had experience in the past of Opposition Deputies putting forward claims which they themselves must not have believed to be true. Deputy Walsh referred to the Local Authorities (Works) Act. He claimed that it was the only good thing that this Government ever did. When the late Mr. T. J. Murphy was putting that Act through the Dáil, we had Deputy after Deputy on the Opposition Benches claiming that the local councils would be swamped with lawsuits if authority were given to the officials of local authorities to enter private lands in connection with flooding on county or main roads. Every local authority in the country has availed of the grants made available under that Act. I have yet to hear of one single case where a council has been mulcted in costs for damages. It certainly has not happened in my county where we have taken our full share of the grants that were made available. We have done a great deal of necessary work under that Act, and have been enabled to give employment to hundreds and hundreds of men over the past three years.

That is the kind of opposition which I feel is unfair. It is the duty of those on the other side to expose flaws in legislation or in suggested legislation sponsored by the Government, but it is not their duty to oppose, whether a thing is right or wrong, or whether it is good or bad. I suggest that they are adopting the very same attitude on this Vote on Account as they did on that Act. Irrespective of whether there is any good in the Government, they are claiming that it is bad. That, I suggest, is a bad policy and one that is not good for the country. It is a policy that is calculated to break down the morale of the country if it is persisted in.

The suggestion is constantly made by the other side that this Government stopped the hand-won turf production. Is it not a fact that on the files of the Local Government Department there can be got a copy of a circular issued by the then Minister in August, 1947, which was sent to all county councils, indicating that hand-won turf production was to be stopped in favour of machine-won turf production to be carried on by Bord na Móna? Whether or not that was a good policy I am not prepared to say. In actual fact, at the time and for the years following, it was not a bad policy, as we would get better and cheaper turf produced by machines. Surely it is ridiculous to suggest that we stopped it and that the other side would have continued with hand-won turf? It is quite true, as Deputy Walsh said, that if we did not agree with that circular we could have disregarded it and continued on, but, because of the circumstances then obtaining, we carried on on the lines which the Local Government Department indicated. I see no reason why an apology should be made for doing so. It would probably be too much to expect the dyed-in-the-wool supporters of Fianna Fáil to believe it, but it is a fact that that circular can be produced and it should be procured. It was read at certain county council meetings. It was read at a meeting of the county council of which I am a member and I am certain that it was not a bogus circular.

If, by reading a morning newspaper, Fianna Fáil supporters can be convinced that after 16 years of meditation there can be produced out of the air a scheme of social welfare better in all respects than the one which has been introduced by the Minister for Social Welfare and at no cost to the person who takes part in it, then surely they would believe anything that is told them by their own Deputies or leaders. I suggest to Deputies on the other side that the people of the country have now decided that the hopes of a general election being called on account of the Independents voting against the new Bill have been dashed to the ground. Even if they were not dashed to the ground, the working people, the old, the blind and the sick of this country will look to this side of the House for services that were denied them for 16 years.

Mr. MacEntee

Perhaps before I devote myself to an examination of the general economic position of the country, I might correct a statement which has just been made by Deputy Kyne. I was Minister for Local Government in 1947 and I did not terminate the hand-won turf scheme. I did issue a circular indicating that the production of hand-won turf could be better undertaken by the specialised organisation which had been set up by the State under the Fianna Fáil Government for the development and exploitation of our peat resources rather than by the improvised organisation which had been set up in time of emergency under the county councils. I pointed out in the circular that the work of reconstructing and restoring the roads which had been so heavily damaged during the emergency was urgent and that for that purpose the Government were giving a free grant, I think in that year of over £2,000,000 and in the following year of over £4,000,000, to enable the county councils to employ their skilled staff and their experienced engineers upon the job for which they were originally recruited. That was the purpose of the circular which was issued by me in 1947, and which transferred the responsibility for producing hand-won turf from the local authorities to Bord na Móna. What happened in the year 1948 was the responsibility of the Government of that day and not of the Opposition.

It is interesting to look at the figures which appear on the volume of the Estimates for the Public Services for the year ending 31st March, 1952, in respect of which we are now considering the Vote on Account. We have there set out the total cost of the Supply Services for the year broken up into two components—the capital services which are costed at £12,079,000 and the Supply Services which are estimated to cost £70,956,000. In all, and this is the significant relevant figure, the Government anticipate that during the coming year they will spend no less than £83,000,000 of the people's money. Whether that money comes from taxation or whether it comes from inflation, it is money taken out of the pockets of the people and used by the Government for their own purposes. It is quite true that you can do more harm to the economic structure of the country if you take it in one way rather than in another. I venture to say that when the Estimates for the Central Fund services are before the Dáil it will be quite clear that irresparable damage is being done to the finances of this country by the policy which is being pursued by this Government since it came into office, that is, of borrowing where they ought to have taxed to defray public expenditure.

However, we have here this figure of £83,000,000 for the Estimates for the Supply Services for the coming year. But let nobody in this House deceive himself that that is going to be the whole tale or toll of expenditure. At the moment, we are endeavouring to cope with Supplementary Estimates that are falling upon this House as the leaves fall in autumn. They are pouring in upon us in a spate, in a full flood tide, indicating the extravagance even at the last moment of the eleventh hour of the Government under which the people are now groaning. It is impossible to keep track of them all. In some cases, it is impossible to check them all; but they are miserable in information, grandiose in magnitude and prodigal in conception. Over and above the £78,000,000 which we were asked for this time last year, we have been asked to provide in round figures, and not taking into account any broken thousands, over £1,500,000 within these past few days.

During the year which is now closing, over that £1,500,000 additional which is now being demanded, the Dáil voted another £500,000, making, so far as I can ascertain, the total amount asked for under the head of Supplementary Estimates at least £2,000,000. Now we may take it as certain that when the financial year 1951-52 is drawing to a close we shall again be asked, either in the last month of that year or during the course of the year, to provide at least another £2,000,000 over and above the £83,000,000 with which the country has been confronted during the past few days. That will make £85,000,000 in all for what may be described as the normal expenditure visualised under the expensive policy of the present Government. In addition to that, and there is no provision for it in this volume, the Minister for Social Welfare has indicated that the Government will look to the taxpayer to provide—it will not provide—another £1,000,000 for old age pensions. We have then an additional £4,600,000 as the contemplated State contribution under the Social Welfare Bill, if it ever becomes law. When we tot all these things up we find that the true estimate for Government expenditure during the coming year, so far as we can visualise it, is of the order of £90,600,000. That leaves out of account the £3,400,000—or, shall we put it this way, the burden of the Minister for Social Welfare's stamps, £3,400,000 of which is to be provided by the worker in the first instance—some may succeed in passing this part of it on to other members of the community— and £4,600,000 to be found by the employers which will definitely be passed on, with added profit, to the consumer. The position may be roughly summed up as follows: over and above the amount which will be provided by taxation, definitely imposed as taxes and not cloaked as contributions, there will be this £8,000,000 additional burden imposed on trade, industry and agriculture to be passed on by the producers in practically every industry except one, namely agriculture, to the consumers and ultimately to the taxpayers. The real expenditure then with which the community is confronted at the instance of the Government, and in order to serve the Government's ends, is not £83,000,000 as appears on the Book of Estimates but almost £100,000,000 if it will not exceed that sum.

Let us now turn for a moment and contemplate the Minister in his earlier swashbuckling days when he came in here proclaiming proudly that he would cut everything and then suddenly found that he was about to cut off the nose of the Coalition in order to spite its Labour face. In the days when the Minister was still preaching the Fine Gael policy, in the days when he was all for retrenchment and reductions in the cost of living, in expenditure and in taxation, the actual expenditure under the last Fianna Fáil Budget, according to the Minister's own speech, for the year ending 31st March, 1948, on all supply services was £58,527,000. To-day, as I have shown, the probable expenditure forced by the Government upon the community will be about £100,000,000, or £42,000,000 more than it was in the year which closed on 31st March, 1948, an increase of over 70 per cent. in public expenditure and concomitant public taxation.

We know that, just as Deputy Kyne endeavoured to justify the present inflationary expenditure on the grounds that a great deal of it will be spent on social services, the Minister, if his memory fails him, will probably take that line also when he is closing this debate. It will, perhaps, be salutary then to remind the House and the Minister and the Fine Gael members of the Coalition Government what the present Taoiseach said in respect of the Budget of 1947-48, under which £58,000,000 was provided for the supply services. On the 13th May, 1947, at column 72 of Volume 106 of the Official Reports, Deputy Costello, as he then was, said:—

"Has he ever adverted to the fact that high taxation in itself takes money from those who would have saved it, thereby creating an asset in building up the economy of the State, or from those who are unable really to pay it, thereby creating a hardship for some section of the community?"

As I gathered, the whole purport of Deputy Kyne's speech was: "We are going to spend £83,000,000 in this year and let the taxpayers and the producers and the workers of this country-remember that you cannot have an omelette without breaking eggs, you cannot spend money without increasing taxation," and, as the present Taoiseach told us when he was in opposition, in 1947, you cannot get that money without taking it "from those who would have saved it, thereby creating an asset in building up the economy of the State, or from those who are really unable to pay it, thereby creating a hardship for some section of the community."

That was the Taoiseach's attitude towards the comparatively moderate expenditure, the really and truly moderate expenditure of that time as judged by the standards which prevail to-day. Then the Taoiseach went on to gibe at those who, like Deputy Kyne, said: "We are spending all this money on social services." I trust that those who believe that the Taoiseach's heart bleeds for the suffering poor will remember the words which I am now going to quote:

"Here we have him spending away."

—He was referring to the then Minister for Finance, Deputy Aiken—

"There is no proposal for the reduction of Government expenditure or for economy. It is not even envisaged that there shall be any restriction in Government activities. He is on the left of the economic thoroughfare there because, as has been said by speaker after speaker on the opposite benches, the money is wanted for social services."

That, I assume, will be the excuse of Deputy Kyne and, indeed, of the members of the Fine Gael Party who were never on the left of the economic thoroughfare until they were goaded there by the need to keep Deputy Kyne, Deputy McAuliffe and Deputy Desmond in harness behind them, if one can put it that way, or—should I say?—in harness in front of them, drawing them and drawing Fine Gael where it did not want to go. I am quite content. You can dispute with each other which of you is leading.

Mr. Desmond

You are not happy.

Mr. MacEntee

I am perfectly certain that the Fine Gael supporters down the country will be very, very happy indeed when you demonstrate to them that it is Deputy McAuliffe, Deputy Kyne and Deputy Desmond and the rest of you who are leading the Taoiseach and the Minister for Finance.

Mr. McAuliffe

We are doing a good job, so.

Mr. MacEntee

Let us leave that for one moment. The Taoiseach, Deputy Costello as he then was, had no use for this money which was being spent on social services because—I am quoting from column 73, Volume 106—he went on later to say this:

"Spending on social services is the excuse for everything."

—So he sneered. Is not that the excuse which will be trotted out on every Labour platform, every Fine Gael platform, throughout the coming general election?

Mr. O'Leary

There is no standstill Order now, as there was in your time.

Mr. MacEntee

Mark this:

"The existence of social services is an indication of ill-health in the body politic."

So, accordingly, we may take it that the fundamental belief of Deputy Costello in the year 1947 would be that a State without social services, a State, say, like the bad old days of 1834 or perhaps before the poor law was introduced, would indeed be a happy State and his ideal form of State and a State to which, if he had then the power that as Fine Gael Taoiseach he has to-day, he would have reduced this country.

"The existence of social services is an indication of ill-health in the body politic,"

said Deputy Costello in 1947. He went on to say:

"In any case, as has been said, they are nothing more than a row of medicine bottles showing disease in the household. The sounder your economic fabric is, the less need there is for social services."

Now, quite suddenly, in this country which has grown more prosperous under the Coalition Government, when we have a higher standard of living than we ever had before, there comes a demand for increased social services, notwithstanding the fact that the present Leader of the Government said in 1947 that the sounder your economic fabric is the less need there is for social services. Let those people, those newcomers in this House, who accuse us of being reactionary, who hold us out as people who have ever oppressed the less fortunate elements in our community, listen to what the then Deputy Costello had to say about the Fianna Fáil Government, when they were in office and he was in opposition:

"But, because of the policy of the Government, who have reduced agricultural production, caused the cost of living to rise to soaring heights, and because of the malnutrition which people are suffering from, we require these additional social services."

The social services which Fianna Fáil introduced—and it has a proud record, but not a reckless one, in regard to the expansion of the social services— were introduced because production, industrial production, was increasing and we were able to support those services without imposing any heavy additional taxation upon our people for that end.

Mr. O'Leary

You are not serious.

Mr. MacEntee

However, it is quite clear that now the Taoiseach has become an addict to medicine bottles. He has suddenly burgeoned out as the great apostle of social services. There was a book published recently with the title Late Have I Loved Thee and when I read this declaration of the then Deputy Costello about the social services and the medicine bottles it immediately recalled that book to my mind. I thought how apposite it would be to apply it to the Taoiseach's present attitude in regard to social services—late have I loved thee. Then I think we might recall another quotation—“I would not love thee half so much, loved I not office more”. That is the real reason why we are having all these measures forced, as everybody knows they were forced, upon a reluctant, unwilling, incredulous and sceptical element in the present Coalition. What has all this long struggle been over the years in order to bring this Social Welfare Bill to birth?

Mr. O'Leary

It did not take 16 years, anyhow.

Mr. MacEntee

What has been the real driving element behind it? It was that they could not keep the Coalition together, and that the Taoiseach and the Fine Gael Ministers could not hold their office unless they were prepared to placate the Labour elements in the Coalition.

Mr. Desmond

I thought Fine Gael had swallowed us up. That is what you said last year.

Mr. MacEntee

There is one thing that history has shown in regard to Fine Gael. They may not have very fixed principles. In fact, looking at their record, again I am reminded of another quotation: "a merciful Providence fashioned them hollow on purpose that they might their principles swallow." They may not be very tenacious about their principles, but I can tell you that the history of the Farmers' Parties and the Centre Parties and most of the other minority Parties in this House shows that Fine Gael has a very voracious appetite indeed, and that there are many people who thought themselves independent of Fine Gael, but once they found themselves in the clutches of Fine Gael they speedily disappeared, some of them into the ranks of Fine Gael, but most of them out of the public life of this country.

Let me, however, get back to this interesting review of the political development of the Fine Gael Ministers. I have disposed of that great humanitarian, Deputy Costello. Let me now consider our politically profligate Minister for Finance. It is interesting to read what he was saying on this question of public expenditure and public taxation in the year 1947, when the last Fianna Fáil Budget was before the House. He had opened his speech with an historical dissertation about, I think, the origin of the word "rap." He said, according to an answer which the Irish Independent gave, that:—

"A rap was a base halfpenny really worth about half a farthing, issued in Ireland in 1721."

Based on that opening theme we come to this point, then, in Deputy McGilligan's speech, made on 28th May, 1947:—

"At this point we have a Budget which I have taken throughout as being only £30,000,000."

He was then endeavouring to show that the £ sterling in 1947 was only about half the value of the £ sterling in the year 1932 or 1939. I wonder what value he thinks the £ sterling has to-day? He went on to say:—

"There is, of course, a danger about equating a £60,000,000 Budget to a £30,000,000 one. If everybody had doubled his income since 1938 or 1932, it would be easy to bear that sum. It would, at least, be as easy to bear a £60,000,000 Budget as it used to be to bear one of £30,000,000. Of course, that is not the situation."

Neither is it the situation to-day.

"If you look through the Book of Estimates, you will find that the human personnel in the background have not had their wages doubled or anything like doubled."

I have shown that so far from the public expenditure and the consequent public taxation being £30,000,000 or less than £60,000,000, what it was in 1947-48, it is nearer £100,000,000. I do not think anybody's remuneration has been doubled or trebled under the Coalition Government.

Mr. O'Leary

Only the ex-Ministers'.

Mr. MacEntee

Whatever the ex-Ministers got, they worked for, and that is more than Deputy O'Leary was ever able to say.

Donnchadh Ó Briain

Find the lady, Johnny.

Mr. MacEntee

I think the Deputy would be more expert with the pea and thimbles. However, these things should not be drawn into the debate. Deputy O'Leary had better remember that there are people who can use their tongues just as well as he can. At any rate, we have an honourable career. I was saying that nobody's remuneration has been doubled or trebled since Fine Gael took office. Within the past few months I think some workers in some employment, some sheltered industries, have secured increases of 12½ per cent. or increases not exceeding 12½ per cent. But that is a long way from making up the difference between £58,000,000 in 1947-48 and the £100,000,000 that is staring us in the face as the burden which will be imposed upon this country during the year 1951-52. I want to continue this quotation:—

"So far as the home factor is concerned, it has been very definitely penalised by the distortion of the money value."

That is a very apt quotation from Deputy McGilligan, because under him as Minister for Finance there has taken place in this country a distortion of money value such as never before has been experienced in this State.

In 1931 Britain went off the gold standard and our currency followed suit. But from 1931 until 1950 the purchasing value of our pound remained definitely very stable in terms of dollars and certainly very stable in terms of sterling, if only because that, for reasons of convenience and because of the inter-linkage in our trade, we were tied up to sterling. What happened only a few months ago, comparatively speaking, when our currency was distorted to the extent of being devalued by over 30 per cent.? Has there been any corresponding increase in the remuneration of any person in this State? In some ways this devaluation has resulted in very substantial benefits for the Exchequer; because by reason of the inflation of money values, due to the depreciation of our currency, the amount of money which has been collected, the number of Irish pounds which are being collected in customs and in excise and in other duties, ad valorem duties, has very considerably increased.

The Minister has not, in any presentation he has made of the financial position of the State, adverted to the fact that he has been a member of a Government under which a patent and open distortion of money values took place. Therefore, since, as he has told us, distortion is a very big factor in increasing the burden of taxation upon the people and the consequent hardship which it inflicted upon them, one may say this, that whatever was the position in 1947-48, when the Supply Services cost less than £60,000, it is much more than proportionately aggravated this year when the expenditure is likely to be, as I said, in round figures, £100,000,000.

Then what did Deputy McGilligan say about social services?

"Is nobody," he said, "going to say social services?"

The Deputy, as he then was, was looking for an interruption.

"What is the necessity for social services? Because people cannot live on the money they get when they sell their services for a money return."

That, I assume, appeals to the Labour Party. That expresses, perhaps, the view of the Labour Party and the outlook of the Labour Party in regard to social services, but does it express the view and the outlook of most of the members of the Fine Gael Party? Do they believe that, in certain circumstances and at the present time, the mass of the workers of this country "cannot live on the money they get when they sell their services for a money return"? Is that what Deputy Dr. O'Higgins is going to proclaim in his constituency, what Deputy T. F. O'Higgins is going to proclaim in his constituency, what Deputy Coburn is going to announce from the housetops in Dundalk—that the mass of the people living in Dundalk cannot live on the money they get when they sell their services for a money return— because, remember, that is the principle, and the only principle, on which Deputy McGilligan was prepared to justify expenditure on social services.

Then he went on to say, and, mind you, it has a bearing on this muchboosted social security scheme:

"More and more people are being driven to what the Americans call the bread-line. More and more people are being driven to be dependents on the State. Taxation is not merely a matter of income-tax, the tax on income that people draw. It falls on everything we do and everything we consume."

Mark the words. Deputy McGilligan believed in 1947, even with the figure which we were spending on social services then, that more and more people were being driven to be dependents of the State because he went on, merely by implication, to draw the conclusion that with more and more social services, we have more and more taxation and that more and more fruits of the people's labour were going to be diverted from the individual uses, the special, specific uses of themselves and their families to the use of the State.

In fact, we can put this in another way. More and more people, because of the amount of taxation, are not only becoming dependents on the State but more and more people are becoming slaves of the State. Let us look at the figure given by Deputy Lemass, a figure taken from the official returns of the national income, showing that out of every pound that was earned or produced in this country no less than 5/4 was being devoted to the services the State. The position, of course, is very greatly aggravated to-day. One can express the position in terms, shall we say, even more fundamental than those of money or currency—in terms of labour. We can say that to-day the majority of the people are giving two days out of every seven to the State and a great many are giving more than that. The fact of the matter is that under this Government, the people— the workers, the wage earners and the enterprising elements in this community—are being reduced to a position of economic serfdom. Why is that being done? Because we have a Government which is using the resources of the community, not in the interests of the community as a whole, but in the interests of those political Parties who have banded themselves together in order to create and maintain that Government. The reason why we are being reduced to that position is because we have in power a Government which feels it right to treat all the resources of the community as one huge slush fund. I shall give an example; one little instance will show what the true position is.

In the Supplementary Estimate which is being submitted to the House for the Department of Industry and Commerce there appears an item of £6,365. It is true that this sum is a mere fleabite in comparison with the £100,000,000 of which I have spoken; but let us see,, nevertheless, what this £6,365 is being asked for. It is for the purpose of maintaining a body which is known as the Prices Advisory Body, and it represents just two months' cost of that body. I would be safe, therefore, in saying that when it gets properly going and is properly installed it will cost the taxpayers of the State no less than £40,000,000 a year. That is a body which was set up with such a great flourish of trumpets by the Tánaiste, acting I think for the Minister for Industry and Commerce. The trouble about the Tánaiste is that he is apparently the cuckoo in this Government— you cannot keep him out of other birds' nests. This body was set up after the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Industry and Commerce had aroused the country to a state of boiling indignation when he told the housewives of the country that they were suffering from a delusion if they thought that prices were increased or had been increasing for many months past.

Mr. Sweetman

He did not say that and you know that is not true.

A Deputy

He did say it.

Mr. MacEntee

If he did not say that, then he must have said this: that prices were rising and that the cost of living was going up. You cannot have it both ways but, in any event, the deluded people of this country somehow or other got the impression that the Government was telling them that the cost of living was stable and that prices were not going up. They were in such a state of seething indignation that the Tánaiste had to come here and make one of his usual forthright attacks on industry and industrialists, on those who are engaged in giving employment, in producing things and in marketing and selling commodities. They brought in what they called a "freeze" Order. The significant thing about the "freeze" Order is that it has turned out to be a frost. We have had the whole set-up completely exposed in the past few days. Two-thirds of the items included in the schedule—I am talking in round figures or in rough fractions—had to be suddenly removed from the schedule and the prices are now to be adjusted in the normal and regular way. But though we have had the collapse of the Order, though it has been shown to be not merely ineffective but even stupid from the point of view of the future economy of this country—yes, and of the future employment of the workers of the country and the cost of living in the near future in this country—its reactions have been disastrous. Notwithstanding the collapse of the policy embodied in that Order, yet all this political stunting is to cost the taxpayer over the last two months of this year, £6,365. That, as I say, would represent £40,000 per annum. Why was it done? Why had we this stunt? Why was this Prices Advisory Body set up? In order that this £40,000 might be spent in providing what has been described elsewhere as "jobs for the boys". That is why it was done. Mr. Norton's friends are sitting pretty on the Prices Advisory Body.

Mr. Desmond

And pensions for you.

Mr. MacEntee

It is able to do nothing to keep down prices. The first thing it did after it was set up was to permit the price of coal to be increased to the householders in this country. It is an extraordinary thing that the price of everything which had been bought under the auspices of the Government, and out of which the Government was making a concealed profit, was allowed to go up, while the legitimate traders of this country were faced with financial disaster. They were compelled to overburden themselves with commitments to the banks, they were compelled to carry heavy stocks and to stop buying raw material when they ought to have bought it, and were even driven to the point of having to stand off for a week or two the very workers in whose interests the one time Leader of the Labour Party proclaimed that he was introducing this price freeze Order. Is it any wonder that with this record of extravagance, of ineptitude, of futile and fuddling mismanagement, the people of this country are crying out night after night, as they go down on their knees: "How long, oh Lord, how long?"

Mr. O'Leary

That is what you have been saying for the last three years.

Mr. MacEntee

The people are groaning out their prayers in their misery, begging heaven for a general election, because when they look at the Government of their country in these critical days they see in that Government no unity, no direction and no control. It reminds them of nothing so much as a rudderless ship adrift in troubled waters with a hurricane in the offing, with a quarrelling and mutinous crew. The people of this country are not so innocent, not so simple——

Mr. Sweetman

Hear, hear.

Mr. MacEntee

——as the members of the Coalition Parties. They can judge what is happening behind the scenes by what they see on the stage, and when they see the Clann na Poblachta Party breaking up, and its leaders at variance with each other, when they see the Tánaiste come into this House, as he did on that fateful occasion, December 2nd, set himself and conduct himself as if he were Taoiseach, they know it must be because he had won a hard-fought battle behind the scenes. When they see the sudden shifting of Ministers from one portfolio to another they know that someone has bungled, they know that some bargain has had to be made to keep the decaying Coalition together.

Captain Cowan

Every change of Ministers is not a bungle, I hope.

Mr. MacEntee

When they look at the Government and they see one Minister contradicting another, when they see the Minister for External Affairs pleading for a universal Coalition in which the Government would have no opposition, with no one to criticise it, and therefore could go on from blunder to blunder without let or hindrance and without, so far as the people are concerned, any remedy; when they see the Minister for External Affairs preaching that policy and begging for it one day and the Minister for Health going out four days afterwards and saying that he had no use for Coalitions, in which one Minister would be pursuing one policy and his alleged colleague at the Cabinet table would be pursuing a different and antagonistic policy, then they know that all is not well with the Coalition. When they see, as they have seen in the papers recently, the accounts of these midnight meetings, when they see the Minister for Health enunciating one policy in regard to the medical services of this country and the one-time Minister for Defence, now to become the Minister for Industry and Commerce, advocating a diametrically opposite policy and describing, in fact, a document which expresses we are told the mind of the Minister for Health in regard to the medical profession in this country as a "lunatic" document, then the people of this country know that all is not well with the Coalition.

An Ceann Comhairle

That is far away from economic or general financial policy.

Mr. MacEntee

That is what is depressing the people and that is what has produced the reaction which is now so widespread. That is what is moving the people to go down on their knees and cry out: "How long, oh Lord, how long?" I move to report progress.

Progress reported; the Committee to sit again later.