When I moved to report progress I was about to suggest to the Government that there would be nothing detrimental in the effort to conserve the language in our making the Gaeltacht and congested areas economically sound. I believe the Irish language is much more likely to flourish in a prosperous Gaeltacht rather than in a poverty-stricken one. No matter how desirous we may be for the rapid re-establishment and development of our language the Government will have to face the existing problem on the basis of grappling first of all with the economy of the areas concerned. One factor that bears heavily on the people in the congested and Gaeltacht areas is the unreal values that are placed on their holdings. I would have liked the Taoiseach to have given us a reasonable indication of what the functions of the new Parliamentary Secretary to the Government are.
The House owes the country, and the Government owes the House, some explanation for the festooning of the House with five beautiful Parliamentary Secretaries. If there is a Government policy for the Gaeltacht, surely there must have been some plan crystallised in their minds when they decided to appoint this new and special Parliamentary Secretary to the Government itself? What is that policy? Can the Government give us any indication of what scheme, if any, they propose to keep in employment people living at present in the Gaeltacht; what plan, if any, they have for the development of industries that the Taoiseach wants in harmony with the area and not tending to Anglicise it? What are these industries? What are their likely prospects of survival or of economic reality? We are entitled to know that, instead of being treated, as we were this morning by the responsible Leader of the Government, to a shamming, circuitous hour and ten minutes of virtual codology. Never in my short experience have I heard a more inept effort at presenting a case.
We are entitled to know what is Government policy on major issues. Is it to be a continuation of intelligent capital investment? Is the drive for housing to continue at its full impetus? Are the social improvements conceived and designed by the predecessors of this Government to be implemented in full? Above all, we were entitled to a statement from the Taoiseach to-day as to whether that cemented unity and domestic peace which exist at home are to be preserved, as to whether or not he has departed from that extraordinary statement he had to make about the Republic of Ireland Bill— that he did not know whether it was a good thing or a bad thing. We are entitled to inquire and to know whether the country can under this Government hope for a continuation of domestic peace. We are entitled to get an assurance that the special courts and tribunals will not once again raise their ugly heads in the domestic affairs of this country. We are entitled to have, and I am demanding from the Leader of the Government, an assurance to the country that the gun has gone out of politics, that he will strive to maintain the internal position that has been attained, and that he will ensure as Leader of the Government that the seeds of bitterness and disunity are finally laid to rest, and will remain so.
One would have expected, and was entitled to expect from the Leader of the Government a statement as to what is the Government's approach to all the big issues. We had lamentations and exhortations for many months on the issue of defence. We were told that we should raise unlimited cohorts. We were entitled to get an indication, which we did not get from the Taoiseach to-day, as to what is the Government's plan for defence and for the building up of the Army about which Deputy Major de Valera was so vocal for three years. We were entitled to a statement from the Taoiseach to-day in the light of what had been said by Deputy Boland, the present Minister for Justice, when he was on this side of the House, as to the Government's attitude to their new brother in bondage, Deputy Cowan, and his erstwhile army of four and forty fighting men and a couple of stout gossoons.
We were entitled to, but we did not get, a pronouncement on the particular heads of the Government's approach to these problems. We were entitled to get an indication, where special Parliamentary Secretaries have been assigned duties, as to what the Government's intentions and policy on certain issues were. We were entitled to hear, after the appointment of a Parliamentary Secretary to deal with the problem of fisheries, what the approach to the fishing industry is to be and whether or not the Government will face up to the problem of making the fishing industry, not a subsidiary industry but a major industry, self-supporting and of a truly national character. We were entitled to know whether the Government will develop, and aim at maintaining or exceeding, the target set for afforestation. We were entitled to get information as to what the Government had planned for the future. What did we get? We got incoherence, indefiniteness and a complete lack of cohesion in a rambling speech indicating that the zest and the personal vitality of the Taoiseach were suffering with the passing of the years.
I want the Taoiseach, when replying, to let the country know where exactly it stands under this new caretaker Government. I want the Taoiseach to be careful and deliberate in reassuring the country as to where it stands. Does he intend to continue the effort to bring to full fruition the scheme that it took the courage and the vision of a James Dillon to initiate? Does he intend to give to the workers throughout the length and breadth of this country the security they might have hoped for and would certainly have obtained, under the previous Minister for Social Welfare, Deputy Norton? Will he not come into the House now and indicate whether the Minister for Finance, adopting the role as he did last night of the doleful Johnny in the hair shirt, represents the Government view or whether, looking at his own Party organ this morning, he can see the divers tongues of two of his Ministers talking within an hour of each other in this House—one boasting that exports have reached pre-war level again and the other enunciating a tale of woe, misery and impending doom.
We are entitled to know whether the Leader of the present Government, the Taoiseach, has suddenly become wedded to the idea of a Coalition Government, and what has caused this change of heart in one who preached and prated from one end of the country to the other: "We stand alone and we will touch nobody else." What motives, other than those of seeking power and patronage, coalesced him with the "Doubtful Five"? This country was entitled to get, but did not get, a responsible, considered statement from the Leader of a Government, resting as it does on foundations of that type. It is remarkable that, having jettisoned day after day during the election campaign all of its one-time policy, it now comes into the Fourteenth Dáil to assimilate, and grasp at, the policy of its predecessor. It was a good policy and we know it. At least the Taoiseach, as the responsible Leader of the Government, could have had the courage to come into this House to-day and say: "We are in Government again now with responsibility, and we intend to discharge that responsibility by accepting the able and intelligent policy given to us by our predecessor."
I am glad the Taoiseach is back in the House because I want to ask him, as a member of a different generation, why has it become something of an abhorrence or something not to be touched that we should, in the year 1951, want to hold out our hands as a gesture to the North of Ireland and say to them: "All of you, be you anti-Partitionists, Nationalists, or whatever creed or class you like, are welcome to have audience in our Oireachtas"? This view is extraordinary in one who can let his mind go back to the part that he himself played in the establishment of the First Dáil in this country, a Dáil that was ultimately to ensure that the King's writ no longer ran in the present territory of the Republic of Ireland. It may well be that there are arguments against this method, but I am asking the Taoiseach to consider very well whether the crack of his whip to-night, driving his 69 heroes before him to vote against this motion, is not going to retard the progress that I genuinely believe he himself has sought to make in the Partition problem. It does seem extraordinary, when one remembers the situation of an all-Party group in the Mansion House Committee striving for a unified Ireland, that we cannot have unanimity, or at least the exercise of free conscience and of a free vote on this problem. I want the Taoiseach to tell us why. It is common knowledge to us all that to many elements in the North of Ireland, the present Taoiseach is a symbol of greatness and of leadership. Let us see and consider carefully what might happen to whatever goodwill might be built up when this motion is dealt with to-night.
I do not wish to delay the House but there is one further problem that I must deal with before I sit down. It is one that is agitating this country and it is one on which the Taoiseach cannot avoid facing the issue much longer. There has been controversy under the Health Bill; there has been a question of the constitutionality of parts of the 1947 Act; there has been a responsible and considered document served on the Government at the behest of the Irish Hierarchy objecting to certain portions and certain parts within that Act. This House and this country are entitled to know from the Taoiseach whether the boast of Deputy Cowan that he would not be subject to or dominated by the Bishops is to be a reality or whether——