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Dáil Éireann debate -
Thursday, 19 Jul 1951

Vol. 126 No. 13

Committee on Finance. - Vóta 3—Roinn an Taoisigh.

Tairgim:—

Go ndeonfar suim nach mó ná £15,020 chun slánuithe na suime is gá chun íoctha an Mhuirir a thiocfas chun bheith iníoctha i rith na bliana dar críoch an 31ú lá de Mhárta, 1952, chun Tuarastal agus Costas Roinn an Taoisigh (Uimh. 16 de 1924: Uimh. 40 de 1937; Uimh. 38 de 1938; agus Uimh. 24 de 1947).

That a sum not exceeding £15,020 be granted to complete the sum necessary to defray the Charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending the 31st day of March, 1952, for the Salaries and Expenses for the Department of the Taoiseach (No. 16 of 1924: No. 40 of 1937; No. 38 of 1938; and No. 24 of 1947.

As members will see from the Book of Estimates, a total sum of £22,620 is required for the year. Of that a sum of £7,600 has already been voted, leaving the sum I have mentioned now, £15,020, to be granted. There is an increase of £650, but that is due entirely to the progressive increase in increments and to some changes in grading of staff. I am informed that certain changes have occurred since the preparation and publication of the Estimates, and that that may need a Supplementary Estimate for a relatively small sum. That will be dealt with, of course, in due course.

There is nothing, I think, in the Estimate that calls for any particular comment by me. Some questions may be raised in the course of the debate, and I shall be very glad to reply to them. My predecessor initiated a custom of making a general survey, which, I think, was a very good one. Most of the financial papers have been published by this time. We have got the Central Bank reports, the Budget Statement, and the other papers that were circulated at that time, all of which give us a fairly extensive picture of the financial situation. The purpose of such a survey would be to go over the Government's work during the year and indicate the progress or lack of progress that has been made in certain directions. On this occasion, particularly as we have some important motions on the Order Paper to deal with, I think it is just as well that I should break the custom which I hope will be continued. It is particularly advisable and it gets the House down to discuss questions which are fundamentally more important than a repetition of the questions that are raised generally in the separate Estimates for the Ministers. However, I feel that it is better that I should not adhere to the custom now. The main purpose of the survey would be to consider the general governmental policy, what it is aiming at and what has been achieved. It is my intention to refrain from doing so, but if there are any questions raised, I naturally will be only too happy to answer them.

May I ask the Taoiseach a question before he concludes? It is not by way of a smart question. I think it has been noticeable here in the House, in the introduction of their Estimates, that none of the Taoiseach's Ministers made any effort to make any declaration of policy in respect of their Departments. I think the House rather expected, as I expected, that at least on this occasion, on the Vote for the Taoiseach, the Taoiseach would take great pains to indicate the general lines of Fianna Fáil policy. The only indication of Fianna Fáil policy that the House and the country has had was in the nature of the 17 points that were published in the daily papers a day or two before the election of the Taoiseach. In this House last night the Minister for Finance painted a somewhat gloomy picture and made a forecast which, I think, the Fianna Fáil Party themselves would not stand by. We were expecting that the Taoiseach would take an opportunity this morning to give us an idea, at some length, of what the Fianna Fáil policy may be in the future. Of course, the Taoiseach may say it will be the same as it was in the past, but circumstances have changed and times are different from what they were, possibly, in 1947 when the Taoiseach went out of office. I think it is only fair to members and to the country that we should be given a statement of policy before the House adjourns, however long or short that statement may be.

It is usual for Ministers, in dealing with their Departments, to indicate the work that the Departments have been engaged on and what they propose to do in the immediate future. Ordinarily, the Taoiseach's statement, if he were to go on the lines that were suggested by Deputy Corish, would be simply a repetition of those individual statements that have been made. For instance, the Minister for Industry and Commerce would naturally deal with the industrial side, the Minister for Agriculture would put forward agricultural proposals——

They did not do that.

——and the Minister for Finance would deal with the financial aspects. If the Taoiseach were to go over a survey of these grounds, it would simply mean a repetition of the debates that have taken place on all these Estimates. However, I do admit that the Ministers have not given a survey of the policies of their particular Departments, and it is probably because they have been in office for such a short time and have had to take over the work that has been already done. They need time to find out on what lines activities are moving, to make up their minds how they will change these activities should a change be necessary, how they will speed them up in certain directions, if it is a question of lack of speed, and so on. It has not been possible for the Government to deal with the Estimate under review as it would ordinarily be dealt with. Neither has it been possible for Ministers to present their departmental reports in the recognised manner.

As far as Fianna Fáil is concerned, general Government policy may be summarised under three or four heads, namely the political head, the economic head, the social head and the cultural head. One can always summarise our policy, or indeed, the policy of any Government, under these heads if they are taken separately. As far as the political head is concerned, there is one outstanding political problem that has been dealt with to a certain extent in the debate on the Estimate for External Affairs. In so far as it affects our relations with Britain, it is very natural that that should be so.

It was not dealt with. I do not think the Minister referred to it at all, and the understanding was that the Taoiseach would deal with it.

As a matter of fact in regard to that, if I had been permitted to proceed with my statement, I would have said I was under the impression from the speeches I have listened to since the Dáil started this morning that there had been a discussion on that subject. For instance, there was a reference to the statement of Deputy Costello (Junior) on that matter and then there was a reference by another Deputy this morning. Therefore, I concluded that that matter, to a certain extent, had been dealt with.

There are two motions on the Order Paper which, undoubtedly, in one form or another will bring up this question, so that the big political question, namely, the unity of our country, will be dealt with.

Then let us take the next one, the economic question. The economic policy of Fianna Fáil, and it must be the economic policy of anyone interested in the well-being of the country, is to utilise the natural resources we have to the full. There may be a difference of opinion on different sides of the House as to the method by which that can be done. We have indicated many times how it ought to be done. We were pursuing for a number of years a policy of development. The natural resources of our soil would naturally be developed by the Department of Agriculture by having such a policy as will improve the general conditions and the productivity of the soil and pursuing a policy with regard to agricultural production which will make the best possible use of the soil.

The next thing is the development of resources like our bogs. Obviously, the policy of anybody who wants to use the resources of the country to the best advantage will be to make use to the fullest extent of these bogs, whether from the point of view of producing fuel for domestic purposes or utilising them for the production of power. Water power is another resource which should be utilised to the full. That is the purpose, for example, of the Minister for Industry and Commerce in pushing ahead the work of the Electricity Supply Board in these several directions. Then there is the exploration of our mineral resources to see exactly what we have and to put them in an order of priority as far as development is concerned, if an order of priority should be necessary.

These in general are the natural resources which occur to everybody. The development of these resources to the full and the utilisation of the credit and the capital and financial resources of the country for that purpose is obviously in line with our general aim which has been stated so many times. You have then the development of the natural resources of the country and of agriculture, as well as the development of the industrial side, the manufacturing industries. It is obvious that the best industries to develop are the industries for which we have raw materials here. If we have raw materials at home they will be available in times of crisis when there are difficulties of transport, etc., and when raw materials would not be available otherwise. The industries that depend on raw materials which have to come in from abroad and which may be prevented in times of crisis from coming in are not fundamentally as sound as the industries based on home resources.

The building up of our manufacturing industries is the other side of our economic policy. We have gone ahead with that and we propose to proceed further with it. Our policy is based on the utilisation of private enterprise to the utmost extent. But where private enterprise is unable to do a specific piece of work, where the resources do not appear to be sufficient or private enterprise does not seem to be willing and initiative is lacking, we have always held that the State has the right and the duty to come in and supplement the efforts of private enterprise. As to the particular industries that should be established, again there is a priority in regard to these industries. The more fundamental ones naturally come first. If you take the ordinary needs of man: food, clothing, shelter and fuel, these are the fundamental needs and obviously our industries should be directed towards the provision of these fundamental needs. I am only giving a general idea because the Deputy was anxious that I should give a sort of general outline of what we intend doing.

With regard to the social side, again our aim has always been to try to improve the general standard of living in the country, to make it possible for as many people as our resources will permit to be maintained in a reasonable standard of comfort. That has got to be done, first of all, by their own efforts and where the efforts of the individual, through circumstances over which he may have no control, fail or are insufficient, the State should come in and by a sort of mutual social insurance, if I may put it in that form, try to help the weaker members—those who are weak, not through any fault of their own, but through circumstances over which they have no control.

I have often pointed out that one has to be very careful how one proceeds in cases like that, because to give aid where it is not necessary has very undesirable results. If possible, we ought to try to encourage people to do the best they can for themselves. From the point of view of human character, that is the best thing to do and the aid should be given only where necessary. On the other hand, one has to be careful not to follow a policy which would cause hardship in cases of that sort. It is a very difficult matter and naturally there are differences of opinion as to where exactly one could draw the line, where one is giving help which is not necessary and where one is withholding help which is necessary and should be given. We feel that the resources of the community, if properly husbanded and carefully managed, ought to be sufficient to meet our reasonable needs in that respect.

We admit that we would not move in some of these directions as fast as other people, perhaps some members on the Labour benches, would like to go. The difference between us in these cases would be the question of estimating whether the policy of going in a particular direction would be really a weakening policy on the one hand or a policy beyond the resources of the country as a whole which, if adopted, would mean that in a very short time you would produce greater evils than the evils which you try to remedy.

On the social side, obviously the first thing which comes to one is the question of housing. Housing is fundamental. Decent homes are absolutely necessary for human well-being and, consequently, the provision of houses to the fullest extent necessary and possible is, I would say, the one of our social activities which requires most attention. I feel I am justified in saying that, from the Government point of view, the continuation and speeding up, if possible, of the provision of houses for those who need them will be the most fundamental of our social activities.

Then there is the question of public health. I think there is a sort of general agreement that the matter of public health is one that requires immediate and vigorous attention. I do not agree with a number of people who say that things are in a desperate state. I think there is a great deal of exaggeration. There are obvious things that should be done and I think the resources of the community are sufficient to deal with them. On that side, we intend pressing ahead in the direction in which we have mentioned. There are other social services as to which a general indication was given when we were in opposition. We indicated in general terms the direction in which we will go and we will keep as close to that as possible, subject to any closer knowledge which we may derive from statistics, etc. For instance, there were some statistics that were given by the former Minister for Social Welfare here and it seems to me that they were absurd. These have to be examined. At the time I was going to question further as to what the figures were based on. If the figures were as he gave, it is quite possible that the thing would not be done. If, on the other hand, our estimate proves, on close examination, to be nearer to the truth, then, of course, we would be able to keep to our programme. But, if there should be any deviation from that programme—if there is such, and I am not saying that there will be— it will be due to the fact that, on closer examination, with better statistics, we may find that some of our projects are beyond our means. I hope nobody will take it that I am saying that as a fact. I am simply looking at the problems that concern us immediately. The continuing of the particular projects for dealing with social services and public health are two of the immediate tasks that face the Government, tasks to which, during the Recess, we will, I hope, devote our attention and when the Dáil reassembles I hope we will be in a position to meet them in a concrete and definite way.

Before I leave this question, perhaps I might refer to the question of the Gaeltacht and the attempt which we propose to make to try to have some co-ordination of the services that are dealing with, not the Gaeltacht alone, but the congested areas. As the House knows, we set up a Parliamentary Secretary responsible to the Government to try to co-ordinate these various services so as to meet the special needs of these areas. Attempts have been made in the past to deal with these areas and they have not been very satisfactory. You have, of course, this sort of contradiction that you are anxious to have as many people in rural areas as you can have and, certainly, if people have to leave any of the areas that we call congested areas, we are anxious that they should not leave the country. The problem is how to get decent conditions of life and reasonable opportunities of decent living for the people in these areas without moving them from the areas. The general idea was to move them out, We are trying, or will try, to see to what extent we can develop in those areas means for giving employment. Two or three things suggest themselves. There is, for instance, the question of dealing with some of the bog areas that are there in two ways, one, in developing the bogs from a power point of view and another the reclamation of the bogs, to see whether, by using modern methods, certain modern techniques, these bogs can be utilised for the production of crops of one kind or another. Then there was, for instance, the idea that originated with the former Minister for Finance, the present Minister for External Affairs, namely, to utilise areas like that for the growing of tomatoes and produce of that kind, where you have not soil to utilise the energies that come to us directly through the sun.

I think I can pass on now to the cultural side. On the cultural side, there is the fundamental question of trying to restore the language. The restoration of the language is fundamental. I think it is accepted as being a national aim. It is accepted by all the Parties. I do not know, if there was an absolutely free vote taken in this House, how many would vote against. I do not think there would be many. There probably are some who take the view that the language has nothing to do with nationality fundamentally or at least that it is all a bit of foolishness, that one language is quite sufficient and that the whole world would be very much better off if we all spoke but one language, and they trace back and talk of the Tower of Babel, and so on, and the results, as being a curse. In this country, we have not taken that view. The majority of our people have not taken that view. We have taken the view that our language is so closely associated with our nationality that for the ultimate preservation of our nationality in the world as it stands to-day it is a necessity or, if it is not an absolute necessity, it is highly desirable.

The problem then arises, what are the steps that we can take to restore the language? Anybody giving any fundamental thought to the matter, obviously, has to rely on two main sources for development. The first is the Gaeltacht, the preservation of the area in which the language is spoken, and its extension, if possible. That is number one, and it is vital and it is in that connection that it is important that the Parliamentary Secretary and the work that has to be done in those areas do not, in fact, become an anglicising instead of a nationalising agent so far as the language is concerned. It is one of the great difficulties that, if done unwisely, when you introduce modern industries into those areas and develop them from an economic point of view so as to give a livelihood to the people there, the danger is that at the same time you are introducing anglicising agents. That must be carefully watched and it may be very difficult indeed to manage to have the economic development that one requires and to do it quickly and at the same time to prevent the evil results following.

Is it not better to develop these areas economically than to have the people emigrating?

The point is not that. The Deputy will see that it is not merely the emigration. My point is that we want to try to have all that, that we want to keep the people there, and the aim must be to find employment for the people without bringing in anglicising agents. It will be very difficult to do that. I am not saying that we have the choice that the Deputy has mentioned, that that is necessarily the choice. I hope it will not be the choice because it would be a very difficult one if it ultimately came down to that. The trouble is that it may not solve the emigration problem to any large extent, but it may very well destroy the core of the people who are there and get them to lose the language too.

I am as much alive to the importance of the economic side as the Deputy is, but everything humanly possible ought to be done, if we are serious about the maintenance of the language, to see that the anglicising results do not follow. The aim is the maintenance, at least, of the Gaeltacht at present and, if at all possible, its extension, and if I were managing it personally and I were asked to suggest places for immediate development, the areas that I would choose, other things being at all equal, would be the areas that immediately are on the verge of the Fíor-Ghaeltacht.

If I could get these areas developed for giving employment to other Irish speakers, I would hope in that way to extend the area of the Fíor-Ghaeltacht. By planning carefully, and using to the utmost whatever opportunities are available, I think it should be possible to move along in that direction.

Is that part of Government policy?

What I am talking about is, generally, part of the policy.

Because you prefaced your remarks on economic matters by saying that "if I were managing a thing personally" as if there was disagreement in the Cabinet.

The Deputy knows perfectly well that you can have general directions, but that when you come down to details there may be different considerations, and that one has to leave the person who is doing a thing a certain amount of discretion and freedom. What I want to say is that different people will put slightly different weights on different aspects, and that when considerations and decisions are being arrived at, one person will put a bigger weight on one factor than another person will. You can never leave out the human element completely in any human organisation. I was saying that if I were that person and had to apply these considerations, then, if possible, I would choose in a certain way. As Head of the Government and as far as the Government is concerned, that is what we will try to do. That is what the Deputy wants to know.

With regard to the development of the Gaeltacht and the congested areas, as long as I have been in politics, and certainly since the old régime passed, there has always been the suggestion of reconstituting the Congested Districts Board. There has been a good deal said from time to time about the good work that was done by the old Congested Districts Board. Anybody who has given any thought to that problem will realise that there are two things operating. One is that things which are far away, as they come back, always become golden in the sunset and that the work it did has always been magnified.

On the other hand, there is this, that conditions now are quite different. It was one thing to give to a group of people practically absolute power to take an area of land and cut it up, to say that A would get this, that B would get that, and that C would get something else. Any complaints that were to be made had to go over to London. Fortunately, the centre of authority, and the place for making the complaints, is now not London, but here. We have representatives here from every part of the country who will examine everything that is being done. If there is any fault to be found, it will be talked about. If things which passed as being well done in those days were done here in present circumstances, they would be regarded as things that were by no means well done. Under the Congested Districts Board, when A got a certain holding and B was deprived of it, if there was a complaint it had to go to Westminster and nothing more was heard about it. That is not the position now. If B thinks that his complaint is a good one he sees his local Deputy or somebody else. We hear complaints about things that are being done rather than anything about the good work that is being done. You hear the two sides at any rate.

I am not in a position to pass judgment on the work that was done, but I know that the conditions under which similar work is being done to-day are so different that you are faced with a very different problem altogether. Nobody would agree that to-day you could, for instance, give power to any group to make all these changes just as they themselves considered them to be immediately right. The nearest thing that we can do to meet that situation is, I think, to do what we are doing. It is a beginning anyhow, to see whether any special organisation can be developed which will co-ordinate the various activities in these areas so that a common definite purpose is aimed at.

I think, by means of that division into sections, I have covered the ground on the whole. If someone were to ask me to go into details, I would say, in regard to the agricultural side, that as far as we are concerned, we will try to do everything we can to develop the growing here of all crops which are necessary for both man and beast, so that in a time of crisis we may not be short. In regard to sugar production and all those things which go to make the country self-sufficient and self-supporting, that policy will be followed.

White elephants?

What are the white elephants?

The Minister for Finance will be able to explain.

I know that the present Minister for Finance was Minister for Finance when we added three extra beet factories, and so placed ourselves in the position in which we were able to produce practically all that we required.

The Shannon scheme?

I remember as much about the Shannon scheme as the Deputy. We had been sold, so to speak, the Liffey scheme long before that. The reason for the Liffey scheme was because there was an immediate demand, and it was a smaller beginning. We felt that if that were done it should be done by Irish engineers—if foreigners had to be brought in it would be a small scheme —and that further developments could be continued later. It was a question of developing water-power. I am talking now for myself. I do not know what views were expressed by other people. It is a long time ago. But I do know that, as far as we were concerned, our aim was to develop the Liffey as being the best way to begin. I am speaking for myself, but that was the view of some of us who were interested, particularly in developing the Liffey.

There is next the big problem of emigration. The figures that I have from the statistical Department have not been re-checked as they should, but they are really very disquieting and have been progressively increasing over the years. If serious action is not taken the result will be the complete impoverishment of our country through the departure of our people. I was in England recently, and heard there appalling stories about the conditions under which some of the workers who go from this country are living. I am trying to get some verification of the statements made to me, but they are appalling, and it is a very sad thing indeed to think that our people who leave this country and go to other countries live in conditions in which nobody would dream for a moment of permitting them to live here. If some of our workers who are living abroad were living in such conditions here, there would practically be an internal revolution. Nobody would stand for it at all. We want to try to develop employment in various directions and we would ask the help of other people in an effort to see that, even if there is not perfection, we will at least have the best we can.

The Taoiseach will agree that it was not lack of employment which required people to emigrate recently?

I used to say something like that formerly, but the fact is that, whichever of us is right, they are going out.

It is a bad habit they have.

The older people amongst us know the conditions of employment when the great flow of emigration was to the United States. Take the case of the parish in which I was brought up. A young girl or boy left the parish and went to America, and seeing some employment for a brother, sister or cousin, wrote back, very often in glowing terms, about the conditions in which they found themselves.

Is the Taoiseach not aware that the cause of emigration from rural districts is the fact that there is no permanent security in employment and the people cannot plan for the future.

I think I know the conditions fairly well. I have not been amongst those who have blamed people for emigrating. I am sorry they did, but I know that the natural temptation to people who find themselves in circumstances which they regard as unsatisfactory and which they think they can improve——

Lip service and sympathy are not going to bring a solution.

I am not talking of lip service and sympathy.

That is what we are listening to now.

You are not listening to anything of the kind. It was the Deputy who tried to suggest, when I was talking, that I did not know the conditions or the causes.

Splitting hairs.

I suggest, Sir, that the Taoiseach should be allowed to speak without interruption.

I said that the fundamental cause is lack of employment. The important thing is to get employment and what I have been appealing for is that, when reasonable efforts are being made to provide employment and fair conditions, perfection is not asked for immediately and that people will remember that, in doing these things, they are driving people to conditions which are many times worse.

Emigration then is a fundamental question and the one cure for it, I am quite willing to admit, must be the provision of employment. The former Parliamentary Secretary has said— and I am not in a position to gainsay what he says—that there was employment available during recent years. The trouble is whether it is available in the right places. It is not always enough to have employment available somewhere—it requires to be in a particular place. There are certain conditions in connection with it, and it is, of course, one of our terrible modern problems. Deputy McGilligan used to quote extracts, without quoting my speech, from statements I made in the past about emigration and migration. I said, speaking in the past, that it was one of the unfortunate things that we had the temptation to people in the country to go into the towns. It is very difficult to get rid of that tendency. The only way I can see or anybody can see is by trying to bring about an improvement in rural conditions.

One of the efforts towards improving rural conditions was the provision of electric power and of some of the amenities of the city for the rural areas, but, with the present shortage of building materials, it is not possible to do some of the things one would like to do. One of the things we did hope to do was to encourage in various ways—again, only supplementing where it was necessary—the provision of village halls in an effort to give the country areas some of the amenities which attract them to the cities. Another thing we tried to do was to develop the smaller cities. We are becoming top-heavy in this country by reason of the capital—it is a case of much will have more—attracting more and more people. If you wish to establish an industry, you find that all those connected with it will want to come into the neighbourhood of the city, because they think they have a local market and that transport and other costs are less, so that there is great difficulty in inducing those who are about to start industries to go out from the city.

I mentioned to the Minister for Social Welfare that we should try decentralising even some of the Government Departments, to try to get down to some of the other cities and not have them all here. There are certain headquarters staffs which you may have to have here, but, in the case of the divisional staffs, it ought to be possible to accommodate them elsewhere. It cannot be done overnight, but it is a question of having a definite policy and pursuing it over a long period. I believe that the former Minister for Health, who is now Minister for Health again, Dr. Ryan, did agree when he was examining this matter that we could put a considerable portion of the staff of the Department of Social Welfare in some of the other cities. I was speaking to him recently about it and the difficulties—there were always difficulties — appear to have been somewhat added to. Another way would be to try to push new industries into cities like Cork, Limerick, Waterford, Kilkenny, Sligo or Galway. These would be ways of trying to keep people nearer to the land, of preventing them all crowding into the cities and keeping them as far as possible on the soil.

I did not intend to make this type of speech but I hope it will give an indication to Deputy Corish and others of the general line on which we will try to proceed. The particular steps being taken from time to time will appear in legislation or administrative action. If the Deputy looks at the 17 points he mentioned, he will see that they are only specific details, all coming under the general heading.

I might also talk about our attitude towards capital development and so on. The principal difficulty in that respect, of course, is the fact that the savings of the community are not sufficient of themselves to meet the capital development which is necessary, or could be envisaged as desirable. In this case, we have to move with caution. If we disinvest foreign investments, we have to see that they do not put us in a position in which ultimately we will find ourselves without the necessary resources and will be compelled absolutely to deal with whatever savings there are, and work on them alone, so that these resources, our foreign investments, in being invested here must be invested with care. It is not sufficient to have what I might call non-financial results. For instance, a man who is living on an ordinary farm or an ordinary estate could spend too much on improving the amenities there. If he intends to invest money in it, he must see that the investment will be productive, in the sense of providing him with an income. He could, of course, spend some of his income in improving the simple amenities on his farm. Some of these things may be essential, as in the case of providing a house or taking care of his health. These things are so fundamental that they would be regarded as necessities.

A private individual who has an income may say to himself that he must look after his income, but at the same time he must not allow his health to deteriorate. If by proper use of some of his income he could improve his health or save himself from some illness, obviously it would be his duty to use some of his income in that way. Again, if he wanted a reasonable dwelling to shelter himself properly, he would have to use some of his capital resources to do that. These things are justifiable, provided that in such cases a man had some regard to the money he was spending and its relationship to the things he required.

On the other hand, if a man intends to give up some of his previous investments—to disinvest, as it were—he should see that the income produced will enable him to continue permanently—and not merely for a year or a few years—in that state of comfort to which he was accustomed formerly. These are common-sense things which do not require much discussion at all.

We felt that the policy of the previous Government had not sufficient regard to the speed at which they were diminishing the external assets, which were income-producing. We felt they were not alive to the fact that the savings of the community were not nearly sufficient to meet the rate of expenditure on which they were engaged. I do not think I should keep the House, other than in making this general survey; but I hope I have said sufficient to indicate to some extent the general aims of the Government.

Is the Taoiseach aware that so far there has not been one word from the Government Benches as to what the Government policy is in regard to Partition—not one word?

Neither has there been one useful word anywhere with regard to Partition.

Surely it is up to the Government?

The Government giving a lead? The problem of Partition has been before this country for a good many years. Our policy had been at the start not to accept certain things which other people accepted and which made difficulties. We had been proceeding on the line that by exposing injustices and by exposing what was wrong, making those things known generally, we would gradually bring about a change in that situation. We agreed with the previous Government that the first thing necessary was to make the facts of Partition as widely known as possible. That has been common ground.

All that can be done by any Government which is honest about Partition is to use any circumstances that come their way, having the object of ending it in mind and sincerely intending to use to the best advantage any circumstances which may come their way to try and end it. I could not have told here at any time, for example, that the ports were going to come back, but I did have at the back of my mind that any situation which arose that would enable us to get those ports back should be availed of by us to do so. Circumstances may come our way again —we cannot create them, we can only avail of them—which we may be able to utilise towards ending Partition.

We know that, in regard to Partition, the nation's aim and right is only a just one. I have not taken the view that we will force it by military action, forcing the people in the North to come in, or that we were likely to cajole them either. I felt that the proper way, in dealing with our minority, was to say to them: "You are entitled to the fullest rights, you are entitled to justice, but not to any more; and also, the people you are dealing with harshly are entitled to justice, just as much as you are." As far as we are concerned, the basis of our policy on this point would be to utilise any circumstances that came our way to let these people realise that we were going to be fair as regards any political differences that might be there. We pointed out this in the past and I do not think there was any change in the recent Government in regard to pointing out on what lines a practical solution, a just solution, could be arrived at.

We have indicated more than once that, if the powers which the British Government are unjustly holding from this country were transferred here to an Irish Parliament and there were proper safeguards for the minority who would be under a local Parliament in the Six Counties, that local Parliament would be permitted to continue with the powers they have at present. Apparently there has been no move towards acceptance of any situation of that kind. Remember, in regard to that, I have always said that that was more than just—at least, that it was almost unfair to the majorities that existed in places like Derry City, Fermanagh, Tyrone, South Armagh, South Down and so on. If there were a question of dividing this country in accordance with political opinions, it would mean that those areas that formed a continuous area where there was a majority against Partition would have to be cut away from the rest—and the area left over would not be much more than a little over two countie.

I have been criticised by some Northern papers on account of a statement which I made recently. These papers said I had made a selection out of the Six Counties when I referred to Derry, Tyrone, Fermanagh, South Down and South Armagh. They forget altogether that they made a selection out of the whole of Ireland. Surely, if they were entitled to make a selection out of the whole of Ireland, I would be much better entitled to make a selection out of the area they were cutting off? If there were to be any cutting off on the basis of local opinion, that area would probably embrace less than one half of the area which is cut off at present.

If this problem were being started anew and if one were confronted with the statement: "Here is a continuous area in which there are people who hold very firmly to political opinions different from those which are held by the majority of the people and they are entitled to have a Government of their own," you would say: "Very well, let us examine this problem and see its extent." If you proceeded in that way and had a local plebiscite, there is no doubt whatever you would only get a small area, something about 30 miles around Belfast which would be entitled to separate itself, if one were to admit that basis. Whether that basis would be accepted by any nation is another matter. I do not think that any nation would accept that as a basis, but it might be considered a reasonable and just basis for giving it a local Parliament, so that the local Parliament should not extend, if you were tackling it anew, beyond that restricted area I have mentioned, an area of about 30 miles around Belfast. You could see that point of view of getting the greatest possible agreement. You could cut off that area and give them a local Parliament with full powers that would not be inconsistent with the natural unity of the country as a single State. But as we are not tackling the problem as a new one, and as a larger area has been cut off and as a certain time, unfortunately, produces certain results, we have said that we would be willing that the present boundaries should remain, provided that those who are within these areas should have guaranteed to them the full rights and equalities of citizenship. These rights we know are denied in many cases. There is a positive effort being made to try to prevent places like Derry, Tyrone and Fermanagh from having their rights retained. If houses become vacant, an effort has been made to prevent these houses being given to those who stand for the unity of the country. Methods of that sort are, from the point of view of ordinary civil liberties, to say the least of it, scandalous.

If I am asked: "Have you a solution for it?" in the sense: "Is there a line of policy which you propose to pursue, which you think can, within a reasonable time, be effective?" I have to say that I have not and neither has anybody else. All I can do is choose the methods which seem most likely to produce the best results.

Hoping for a miracle.

It is not we who have been depending on that so much. It is not we who have been talking about that too much. We do expect and hope to get the help which was very valuable to us in bitter times in the past from our people abroad. We do hope to get support from the people in the United States. They have been working to try and make that support as effective as possible. We do hope to get support from our people who are in Australia, New Zealand and in other parts of the States of the British Commonwealth. They have been sympathetic. If you want to bring the facts to the notice of the public, you will naturally go in the first instance to the people who are likely to be receptive and who do not start out with a feeling of hostility to you and who are not suspicious of you. We have been trying to bring the facts of Partition to the notice of the world and in these countries we have been trying to get those people to help us to the fullest extent they can. But to what extent they can, I am not prepared to make any statement. I know they will do the best they can, but whether that will be effective or not I cannot say. I do say that in general we ought to let the people in the North know what the truth of our attitude is. If it were possible to convince them, then our problem was solved. If it were possible, the most satisfactory way of going about this problem would be to try to win to our side the people who are opposed to us at present. What are the chances of success in that direction? We certainly ought to do that to the extent it is possible. About one-third of the people in that area are our supporters and want to have the unity of the country. What you have really to win over is, therefore, the difference between one-third and one-half, that is, one-sixth.

Will you admit that it would be more important to win over the people of the Six Counties than to convince the Socialist Minister, Mr. Atlee, to take his hands off interfering with this country?

If you are able to do it. I can tell the Deputy that I did not have very many opportunities when the Government was formed of seeing what you call the Socialist Ministers of Britain. We met them in 1948 and just as on every occasion on which I ever met a British Government or a British Minister, the most important part of any conversation I ever had with them, the part I stressed most, was to try to bring about the unity of our country.

You were a wee bit too courteous with these gentlemen.

Will the Deputy tell me how to be discourteous and be successful?

Not to call at No. 10 Downing Street and present my card on behalf of the Irish people.

If other people come into your country, they do that, and are you going to behave differently?

I pay my courtesy calls on people who recognise liberty and who do not infringe on my rights.

The Deputy when he is here will have an opportunity of dealing with matters in that way, his own way. I deal with them in the way I think best in order to secure my purpose, which is to try to bring about the unity of this country on a basis of establishing good relations between the people of the two islands. I think that is a better and more humane way and I think there is also a better chance of success.

I think that rubbing the English will not get us very far.

We have rubbed both ways. We are able to deal with each occasion as it demands. I was about to say that I had met previous British Governments and although I had very little time, I can assure the House that the subject which occupied most of the time in any conversation I had with any British Ministers was this question of Partition. I believe it affects fundamentally the relations between the people of this country and Britain. I believe these relations are of wider importance than the well-being of the people of the two islands and it is on that basis I have tried to work. I think that is a fundamental truth. It is not pretence. I think it can be proved to be true to anybody who looks into the question. We have tried to make it appear and have it recognised that it was not merely an Irish interest and our first and foremost interest but that it was also a British interest to deal with this matter. It is particularly of interest to us in this country and our friends in the North. No matter how the world goes, these people and ourselves are going to live on one island here. We have been one for many centuries and we are going to remain one unless there is some terrestrial cataclysm that we need not make any calculations on.

We will have some more, no doubt, about the question of Partition. Unlike Deputy MacBride I am not going to promise, and I cannot promise in truth, that this will be solved within six months or two years or any specified time. I do not want to pretend that the solution is around the corner, but I do say that we will proceed with the same tenacity of purpose in that regard as we have with regard to many other things. I do hope that we will be favoured with good fortune in that particular matter, and that our efforts, as they are inspired by feelings of fair play and justice, will be successful, but I cannot say any more. I do not want to pretend to this House that I can say any more.

With regard to force, which has been mentioned a few times, we had to deal with that problem back in 1921. We had to deal with it specifically when the question of negotiations began. At that time we definitely said that force as a solution of that problem was not contemplated by us. We said that in the fundamental conviction, first of all, that if it were successful it would not give the ultimate results at which we were aiming, and secondly, that it was not even likely to be successful. From these two points of view, therefore, we were satisfied that the best national policy was to say at once that force as a solution was not contemplated, so that when we made that definite statement the suspicions of various kinds which were sought to be aroused might be allayed, and that the ground might be made somewhat more favourable for other methods by which we hoped to make some progress towards a solution.

Deputies J.A. Costello and MacBride rose.

If I may ask a question——

I will answer if I am permitted by the Chair. I have no objection at all to dealing with questions. I think it is only right. As far as I can reveal my mind and the mind of the Government to the House it is my duty to do so.

Deputy Costello was called.

I called on Deputy Costello twice.

This is a question pure and simple, not a speech. Is the Taoiseach prepared to leave the motions standing in my name to-day to a free vote of his Party?

No. I think that free votes where a Government is concerned are wrong. The Government is here as a Party in the House to try to consider all important matters regarding public business with all the knowledge and time at their disposal and to come to what they regard as a proper decision. If they are fundamental questions, these questions will have to be decided by the House in the usual way all important questions are decided. I am not a lover of the idea of free votes. I believe that the Government are responsible for deciding and making up their minds on questions of national policy. Everybody's business is nobody's business. We are charged with a definite task here and we have to face that task. We face it; we put our views to the Party that supports us ordinarily in the House; we explain our views; if we convince them it is a question for the House to decide.

I saw the Taoiseach permitting a free vote on more than one occasion.

I think that Deputies have every reason to complain of the procedure which has been adopted by the Taoiseach in introducing this Estimate. It must be a cause of great disappointment and some embarrassment that he has not followed the practice which I initiated last year and of which he approved last year and of which he indicated his approval again this year. Instead of that, instead of having a survey of the economic conditions of the country, instead of giving some account from the statistical material available to him from his own Department of the progress or lack of progress in the various sectors of our economic life, he has treated the House for over an hour to a somewhat discursive speech which contained nothing but vague general propositions of a very superficial character and which was obviously made extempore.

The procedure adopted by him is rendered all the more embarrassing for the reason that the Government have decided that the two very important motions which are on the Order Paper in the name of Deputy Seán MacBride have to be discussed as part of the discussion on the Estimate. The Taoiseach has sat down without giving us the slightest indication, other than saying that there will be no free vote on those motions, as to what the attitude of the Government is to be towards those motions. We do not know yet in what respect the Government is going to prevent a free vote; we do not know whether it is going to allow these representatives from the North to get the right of audience in this House and in the Seanad; we do not know whether or not the attitude of the Government will be to prevent them coming in.

Why did you not discuss it during the past three years?

Mr. Costello

Does the Deputy wish to make a speech?

This is by-election soreness.

I will make a speech when I feel like it.

Deputy Costello on the Estimate.

Mr. Costello

I was pointing out, when I was interrupted rudely by a new Deputy in this House, that we do not yet know what the attitude of the Government is on these two motions. Speaking first as is my duty on this Estimate it will fall to me to indicate my attitude on these two motions without having yet heard the Government's attitude or the reasons for that attitude or without even having heard the reasons which impelled Deputy MacBride to put down those motions or the arguments on which he bases those motions and commends them to the House.

The Taoiseach has justified the attitude he has adopted first of all of not giving any indication of general policy but a vague discursive disquisition on general problems passing as Government policy by relying on the fact that they have not been sufficiently long in Government to formulate a Government policy. Surely they knew what their policy would be when they formed a Government. Surely during the last few weeks they should have been able to formulate not details but the broad general aspects of a Government policy and it is these broad general aspects of Government policy which particularly and practically solely fall to be discussed on this Estimate. This Estimate as Deputies know gives an opportunity to the House to discuss not details of Estimates, not details of departmental policy, but general Government policy.

The House was entitled to be told by the Taoiseach to-day what is general Government policy. We listened for over an hour to these vague general propositions. With the exception of the very short remarks he made on the policy of the last Government in reference to capital expenditure, there is very little in those general propositions with which the whole of us could not agree. Listening to that speech and listening to the tone of that speech, one would have thought there were no differences between the various sections of this House on Government policy on a vast variety of matters. It is well-known that there is a wide cleavage between what we believe or think to be general Government policy and the policy that is advocated by those of us on this side of the House.

When I was introducing this Estimate last year I understood that the practice that I was initiating—and of which Deputy de Valera, as he then was, speaking from these benches, approved and indicated to-day his intention of following—was to give to the country an objective survey of the results of Government policy during the previous 12 months. The Taoiseach has in his Department, attached to his office, the Director of Statistics and his staff. It would not have been necessary even to indicate in the course of his remarks to this House what was the general policy of the present Government, but he could have given that objective survey which I gave last year, based upon facts and on statistics supplied to me by the Statistics Branch of the Taoiseach's Department and by the officials of the Department of Finance. We were entitled to have that survey. It could have and would have been useful to Deputies in this House.

Had it been possible to do so, I have no doubt that that survey would have been given to this House for the purpose of demonstrating to this House that the policy pursued by our Government from July of last year until June of this year was proved to be a failure. We would have been prepared to face up to that position had the facts justified it but at least we were entitled to know, with the materials almost exclusively available to the Taoiseach from the Statistics Branch of his office, what had been the effect of the Government's policy during the past ten or 11 months. That could have been given objectively from the material provided by an independent officer, the Director of Statistics, a person who has been given by the unanimous consent of this House, I may say, a position of independence and responsibility in order that the House and every Deputy in the House and every person in the country may be furnished with statistics which will be reliable, praiseworthy and produced from a competent source.

If the Taoiseach was not in a position to give us a general survey of the proposed Government policy, other than the discursive disquisition we listened to for an hour to-day, at least he certainly could have fulfilled his duty as head of a Department and given to this House some indication of the working of the Statistics Office of his Department during the past 12 months. That would have been useful and valuable information because it is only by reference to statistics that we are able to judge and evaluate Government policy in action. I am entitled to draw the conclusion, from the failure of the Taoiseach to give that information to this House—information which was available to him from his own Department and which could have been supplemented by the expert financiers in the Department of Finance and checked and counter-checked by them —that the results of those statistics would have been to justify the last Government's policy in action during the 11 months' period from July of last year to June of this year. We are entitled to draw that conclusion.

The Deputy would be wrong.

Mr. Costello

If I would be wrong, the Taoiseach had an opportunity of demonstrating on this occasion that we were wrong. I am entitled to draw the inference—as I believe it will be drawn throughout the country—that that information was available. It was given by me objectively last year in the course of a survey I made of the economic position of the country, apart from the indications I gave of the then Government's policy. It was available to the Taoiseach and it could have been given. I have no doubt that if it had demonstrated some of the things which he and his Ministers have been saying about our policy during the past few months and even over the years when we were in office, that information would have been available and stated by the Taoiseach to-day. We are, therefore, justified in concluding that that policy which we carried into effect in the three years we were in office was a policy which had brought success and prosperity to every section of the people.

I demonstrated last year by statistics that the result of the policy which was in operation during two and a half years was to bring to every section of our people an increased standard of living, increased agricultural production, more employment than ever before in industry, more employment in rural Ireland than ever before to the point where there was practically full-scale and full employment in rural Ireland. The national income had greatly increased. The figures given by me at that time of the national income were estimated figures, but they were proved to be accurate and even to be an understatement of the figures of national income that were produced subsequently by the Director of Statistics. I assert to-day that the policy pursued by the last Government was fully justified in its results and that the only way in which any Government policy can really be tested is by reference to the objective, responsible and independent office of the Director of Statistics which is attached to the Taoiseach's Department.

I should like to comment upon remarks that were made during the course of the last 12 months upon the work of that section of the Taoiseach's Department, the Office of the Director of Statistics. I do so because I feel that it is the merest justice to those responsible officials who man the Statistics Department of the Taoiseach's office, that they should be justified in this House in the face of the irresponsible and ill-informed criticism that was made upon them and upon their office and work by certain Deputies of this House and by certain other influential parties throughout the country. Ill-informed, irresponsible and unfounded criticism was directed against the Director and his staff in reference to the compilation of the cost-of-living index figure. I want to put myself on record as having supreme confidence in the complete responsibility and independence of the officials, from the Director down to the lowest official in that Department, in the compilation of all official statistics.

The figures were called a farce. Deputies, I suppose, who used that expression in this House hardly realised the implication of what they were saying. Certainly they demonstrated that they did not know what they were talking about. I think it is only right that I, on my own behalf and on behalf of my colleagues on this side of the House, should pay the tribute which is due in justice to the Director and his staff in reference to their compilation of official statistics, and above all to their independence in doing so, and give the lie to that irresponsible and ill-informed and ignorant criticism that was so rife and rampant in the months before Christmas last year.

We have had no indication from the Taoiseach as to what the activities of the statistics branch of his Department were during the past 12 months. Accordingly, I pass from that. In the course of the remarks made during the Taoiseach's speech, the only thing I could pick out as being any criticism by him or by his Government upon the policy pursued by my colleagues and myself in the last Administration was a reference to the policy of productive capital expenditure which we initiated and carried through with supreme success in the short time we had while in office.

I propose, therefore, to address my remarks to-day mainly towards justification of that policy and to demonstrating the real nature and the fundamental character of that policy, a policy which has been so frequently misrepresented and so frequently distorted by members of the present Government when they were in opposition and by them to-day as Ministers of the Government since they came into office. Before I go into that aspect I shall have to examine in some detail the circumstances surrounding the whole matter, because the country is being deluded as to the character of that policy and as to the approach we made in the implementation of that policy by the suggestions that have been so frequently made in the past and were repeated here last night by the Minister for Finance and hinted at to-day by the Taoiseach that we, in devising and framing our policy and carrying it into effect, were unmindful of the dangers attendant upon it.

I want to show here and to demonstrate to the House and, through the House, to the people the falsity of the criticisms that have been levelled against that policy and I want to give some indication to the people of the real character of that policy and the fruitful results that were accruing and would still further have accrued from it had we remained in office. During the course of the general election campaign I endeavoured in speech after speech to prise forth from any of the then Opposition speakers what their attitude was in reference to our policy of productive capital expenditure. I failed to find out what it was. Up to the present moment notwithstanding the speech made by the Minister for Finance last night and taking into account the very short references made to-day by the Taoiseach and his implied criticisms of that policy, I still have no idea what the attitude of the present Government is in relation to our policy of productive capital expenditure.

We were told to-day by the Taoiseach that he objected to that policy because we did not have sufficient regard to the speed at which we were spending our external assets or to the fact that savings were not sufficient to finance the projects comprised within our policy of productive capital expenditure. The Minister for Finance last night referred to what he called "the rapid dissipation of our external assets", and he purported to give what he described as the truth at long last about the last discreditable three years. If it is discreditable in a period of three years, and three years is a very short period indeed within which a policy had to be initiated, devised and carried into execution in very difficult times, and in a period of great international stress and financial and economic dislocation throughout the world, to do what we did, and if it be discreditable that we are able to point out at the end of that short period that there was no unemployment in rural Ireland, that the national income had increased to a level it had never reached before, that our agricultural exports had doubled and our industrial exports quadrupled, while at the same time we were able to put into operation a hospitalisation programme, social services and increased old age pensions, and all without increasing taxation, if it be discreditable, then I take great credit in being discreditable.

I think it is gravely wrong that a Minister for State, and particularly a Minister for Finance, in a speech such as that made by the Minister last night, and without any reasons stated and without giving any adequate examination or any adequate facts or arguments on which to base his conclusions, should suggest to the country that the Minister for Finance in the last Government was so unmindful of his duties as to neglect the advices he got from competent Finance officials that he was heading the country towards financial ruin and disaster. That action of the present Minister for Finance is one that must be gravely deprecated as being contrary to the best national interests of the country.

In considering this Estimate it would have been our duty, had we been able to do so or had we been given any facts on which to base a considered opinion, to ascertain if there were any fundamental principles underlying and directing general Government policy and thereby informing and guiding departmental policy. The Taoiseach said to-day that had he done what he was asked to do by Deputy Corish he would have been merely repeating what should have been stated by his colleagues in the Government when speaking upon their various departmental Estimates. That statement alone demonstrates the fact that the Taoiseach does not understand the fundamental character of this debate whereunder we deal with general Government policy and not the details or particulars of departmental policy.

When we were in Government we set out with certain principles to guide us. The first of those was that we should take every possible advantage of every moment of peace, uneasy though it was, in order to build up our national economy, to strengthen and develop our resources and to create conditions in this country where emigration and unemployment would be stopped and stopped forever. We felt that we should not allow ourselves to be frustrated; we felt our efforts were not to be frustrated by the fact that the international situation was menacing and the financial position here was weak. We felt the best way of building up the country or defending the country against possible disaster from international friction and disturbance was to build up our economic and financial structure, to strengthen it and thereby provide a real defence against attack or disaster accruing from the menacing international situation.

I would like to know now if that policy will be pursued by the present Government during the period in which they remain in office, be it short or be it long. I urge the Government to take advantage of every moment of peace to build up our financial and economic strength. We set ourselves the headline—and I think we followed the headline—that we should not allow political considerations to impinge upon our economic problems. I have a suspicion, more than a suspicion, that political considerations are impregnating all the thought and all the considerations that the Government is giving or will give to the very serious and difficult financial, economic and social problems that confront them in the framing of their policy. In framing any Government policy, any Government can only avoid the traps and pitfalls set by the impact of these political considerations by remembering always the basic principle that Government is the trustee for all sections of the people and that, unless the general international interest requires it, and urgently requires it, no particular section of the community should be allowed to take an undue advantage at the expense of any other section.

Political considerations have forced this Government to-day to break that very fundamental and basic rule. There is a long queue of interests clamantly demanding from the Government, as they demanded from us, considerations at the expense of the taxpayer. Farmers, or any section of the farming community, who demand that their claims, just though they may be thought to be, should be given priority over other sections of the community, whether it is the poor or the worker in the towns and cities, should remember that queue and before they get their demands satisfied they should pause and consider the injustice that is being done, or that may be done, by putting other sections of the community out of their proper place in that queue.

We had—and I am sure the present Government will have—to face another very grave difficulty, the difficulty of reconciling what seemed almost irreconcilable. I think Deputy Dillon in a speech made recently in this House drew attention to that very great difficulty of the reconciliation of different interests. You have the industrial interests in active conflict, at least with the agricultural interests; you have the pull and tug between the Department of Industry and Commerce and the Department of Agriculture. You have the conflict between town and country, the conflict between the consumer and the producer; the conflict between all sections of the people and the just rights of the taxpayer. You have as an example of that problem, to which general Government policy must be directed, the question as to whether the raw materials of agriculture should be taxed or whether it is better policy to try to reduce the cost of production for our farmers rather than to give the benefit of tariffs and quotas to fertiliser rings or to people who want to set up industries here which will have the effect of increasing the cost of raw materials for the agricultural industry.

These are matters on which we should get some enlightenment from the Government. As an instance of the difficulty of reconciling the number of conflicting interests of various sections of the community, we had the question of hides and the price of hides. On the one hand it is clear that the producers of hides were suffering an injustice from not getting the world market price but the Department of Industry and Commerce put up the case, and very properly put up the case, that if the farmers got a just price for their hides, then the price of boots and shoes would go up for the working sections of the community in the cities and towns. I want to know if the Government have given any consideration to matters of that kind.

The really fundamental principle underlying all the policy of the last Government was large-scale productive capital investment by the State. That was criticised over the period since it came into operation, by members of the present Government and their followers, when they were over here on these benches. It was criticised last night by the Minister for Finance and to-day by the Taoiseach. The significant feature of all these criticisms is that they are merely destructive. They overlook the tangible results that were obtained by the operation of that policy for every section of our people. They criticise it without giving any reasons for their criticism. If there is anything wrong with the policy, if there are any items included in the capital programme which was devised and put into operation by us, then let us be told what these items are, the objections that are taken to them, the nature of these objections, and let us have them examined by argument and by reason so that a just conclusion can be come to on the facts and the arguments. I do, however, object, and I am entitled strongly to object, to the ill-informed and vague criticisms that have been made by the Minister for Finance and some of his colleagues in the present Government without giving us, in the first place, any indication of what items of that capital programme they object to or without saying where we should call a halt or why we should call a halt to any particular item.

We have had a reference by the Minister for Finance to what he calls the discreditable period of the last three years. Let him tell us why it was discreditable, why and where this capital development is wrong, and then we shall deal with and answer those charges. We set out with a full realisation of the problem we had to solve. Emigration, unemployment and underemployment of our men, the nondevelopment and under-development of our natural resources were endemic in this country for many years. This country suffered from the lack of full employment for our men and of our material resources. We set out, as a Government, to see that whatever could be done would be done to provide more employment and opportunities for stopping emigration, to increase the standard of living of our people and, above all, to bring about the productive use of our resources in men and materials. Having studied the problem, we believed we found a solution. The Minister for Finance said or purported to say last night that much of the expenditure included in Deputy McGilligan's capital Budget could not be relied upon to add in any material degree to the income of the nation. That is a mere statement without proof. It is a mere statement without any advertence to the fact that the results of the policy of productive capital investment, and the development of the resources of the State, cannot be obtained in a month, a year or even in two or three years. The work done by Deputy Dillon will inure to posterity for centuries to come. The fields that he caused to be fertilised, the stock that he caused to be improved and the schemes for the development of agriculture that he initiated were only beginning and the test and the results of that policy, even within a few short months or a few short years, have demonstrated, not the ill-success of the policy but the falsity of the arguments upon which the criticism of that policy is based.

The Taoiseach to-day said that the general Government policy was to encourage private enterprise and to supplement it, where necessary, by State activity. That was our policy. He could have stated that policy and taken it, as it was taken, from speeches that I have made and that several of my colleagues have made. That was our policy—State investment supplementing private investment, private investment based as far as possible on the development of our resources: but we felt that it was not possible to develop our resources or to increase the standard of living for our people, unless private investment and private savings were supplemented to a very considerable degree by State expenditure.

Can we have agreement on that principle, because that was the principle on which we based our capital expenditure policy? We set out to achieve and secure a more buoyant expanding national income, and the achievement of that expanding national income, which was well on its way when we left office, would have secured an automatic increase in the revenue of the State, in the annual money available for the housekeeping expenditure of the State and even in capital expenditure. It would also have done far more; it would have gone a long way towards increasing the standard of living of our people and solving the problems of emigration and unemployment that menaced us. We knew that the task that we had to fulfil was to increase that national income. The way we increased it was by the projects which we initiated and were carrying on when we left office, and which were included in the capital Budget that was put before the House and the country in two successive Budgets by Deputy McGilligan, the then Minister for Finance. Every relevant factor was stated by him, and by us all, to enable the country to judge as to what we were doing.

We exercised the urbe me fides with our people, and we were justified as a Government by the people themselves last year when got the biggest loan subscribed to here in this State by the people of this country since the inception of the State in 1922. The Minister for Finance now must needs state that a discreditable period of financial malpractice was carried on by Deputy McGilligan, when he was Minister for Finance, and by his colleagues who supported him in the inter-Party Government. What are the facts that can justify a remark of that kind, which does not damage us because the people know what the value of our policy has been to them, but which does damage to the people of the country? It demonstrates a fact, or it seems to me at all events to justify a suspicion to which I referred earlier in my remarks, that Government policy is largely actuated by political consideration, and that there is merely an endeavour to show the people that the general Government policy of the present Government is somehow, and in some way, different from that which was carried on by the last Government.

We knew that, in order to increase the national income and to secure greater buoyancy in the national income it was necessary, in the first place and above all things, to secure greater productivity. Day in and day out in this House and outside it, we expounded general Government policy, and when I or my colleagues were speaking of it, we emphasised, in the first place, the absolute necessity for increased production, particularly agricultural and industrial production. Every effort was made and every help given to the agricultural community and to those engaged in industry to achieve that greater production. We bent our energies, our policies and our actions towards securing increased productivity and a greater export trade, not for the purpose of the home market alone. Our eyes were not bounded, in devising our policy, by looking for its results in the future merely in the home market; we looked to a greatly increased export trade, because we knew that unless there was increased productivity, particularly in agriculture, that unless agriculture was organised so as to create a surplus for export, it would be impossible to increase the national income, to stop emigration, to give employment and, above all things, to rectify the depreciation in the adverse balance of trade between this country and the people abroad from whom we purchase.

We knew that productivity was necessary and that an export trade was necessary. We knew that the only way to secure that increased productivity and that increased export trade was by the initiation of those various schemes of capital expenditure financed, as far as possible, from the savings of our people. We emphasised again and again the necessity for saving. You would think, from the speech of the Minister for Finance last night, that he had just discovered the real solution for all our economic ills, for all the distress and misery caused by all the malpractices of Deputy McGilligan, as Minister for Finance, and the last Government when they were increasing employment, increasing production, aiding industry and agriculture, increasing the national income. You would think he had found the real solution when he appealed for savings and laid down a series of propositions and asked general consent for them. He took those from our policy. Those general propositions, in so far as they are tenable, were taken direct from the policy of the inter-Party Government and were the foundation for our policy of capital expenditure, productive capital investment of the savings of the people in their own country and for their own people.

We knew that it was necessary to have those savings, that it was necessary in a period when inflation was threatening—and when, may I say, in parentheses, inflation never really overtook us all during a period of at least two and a half years while we were in office—that there should be savings. We believed that our people should be encouraged in habits of thrift, that those savings were necessary in order that our people should get out of the habit of dissipating them in what are known in economics as consumer goods. We appealed for those savings last year, and when introducing the Budget Deputy McGilligan, as Minister for Finance, again made an appeal for those savings and spoke about the necessity for them. Now it would appear from last night's speech that the present Minister for Finance is the only person who ever thought of it.

At column 1884 of the Dáil Debates of 2nd May, 1951, Volume 125, the then Minister for Finance, Deputy McGilligan, stated:—

"Making all allowance for the exceptional conditions now obtaining it is to be feared that we are not producing and earning enough to pay our way. The implication is obvious. We cannot have both consumption and capital development on the present scale unless we save more and produce more. Additional saving would ease the congestion that now exists and causes consumer demand to seek an outlet in imports. It would relieve the pressure on the balance of payments and help to confine external disinvestment—or surplus imports—to what is needed for home development or stockpiling."

Further on in his speech, at column 1906 of the same Volume of Dail Debates, he again referred to the necessity for savings, and said:—

"I must, therefore, sound again the note struck at the beginning of my speech by emphasising the critical importance at the present time of increased savings. They are essential for national development on lines on which there is a general agreement. No one interested in the improvement of our social and economic conditions would suggest that the State capital programme should be abandoned. While some may advocate curtailment, many will share the view that it should be pressed forward with all possible speed because of the uncertainties of the future. To make room for State spending on the present scale, however, the public must be prepared to abstain to a greater extent from spending. Over-spending by the nation as a whole could only increase the rate of external disinvestment for unproductive purposes. In other countries where private savings are deficient, it is necessary to impose taxes to make up for the saving that the public ought to do. I feel that we are not yet constrained to adopt this expedient. It is preferable that means of stimulating voluntary savings should first be fully tried. The Government have, therefore, decided to organise an intensive campaign to promote savings, especially amongst those of the younger generation who have not yet been properly initiated in the habit of thrift. It is hoped to enlist the support and enthusiasm of educational bodies, trade unions and other voluntary organisations in this campaign."

There was an indication of Government policy in reference to this capital expenditure and the necessity for saving and the utilisation of savings. We were about to initiate an intensive campaign and ask the assistance of trade unions and organisations such as Muintir na Tíre, Farmers' Clubs, the Countrywomen's Association and other bodies of that kind to weigh in behind that campaign for thrift and savings.

You would think from the Minister for Finance's speech last night that he was the only person who thought about savings for the first time when the present Government came into office. Not merely did we know and emphasise again and again the importance of saving, but we emphasised the importance of putting those savings into proper investments. We emphasised the proper nature of these investments and the kind of investments that were proper to be adopted on sound economic principles if our programme of productive capital investment was to be a success. We pointed out the dangers that were inherent in the programme and in the policy. We directed attention to the fact that a very large amount of the moneys which we were expending and proposed to expend on the capital projects was to be devoted to housing and to the provision of schools, and we emphasised that in order to get proper returns for these capital moneys that we were expending, the nature of the investment should be such as either to give a direct productive return in the strict economic sense of the term or to give a return socially or on human improvement principles.

We pointed out that we were spending and proposed to spend a large amount of money on housing. The Taoiseach referred this morning to his housing policy. We are justifiably proud of our achievements in connection with housing. We were building houses at the rate of 1,000 a month before we left office. We said that no unreasonable financial considerations would hamper us in our determination to solve the housing problem throughout the length and breadth of the country within the shortest space of time. We pointed out the danger of that policy because, judged by strict economic principles, judged by those principles of Victorian economics which apparently have impregnated the present Minister for Finance, that policy was an unsound policy; spending our resources and savings on houses was unsound. We felt it was sound policy socially and we determined to proceed with it.

The same thing applied to schools. We pointed out that while we were convinced of the necessity for spending the savings of our people and investing the moneys available from State sources on housing above all things, the very fact that there was no immediate productive return, although there would be a very sound return in the years to come in a social way and in the stability of the country and the comfort of the people, imposed on us the liability to see that every investment of the moneys which were necessary and which we employed in our schemes of capital development projects should be employed in projects which would produce productive returns in the strict economic sense of the term. We knew, as I have said, that there were dangers inherent in all this and we pointed them out and kept them in our minds all the time.

The Taoiseach said that he joined issue with us on our capital development programme because we did not have sufficient regard to the speed at which we were spending our sterling assets. Again and again, in speeches to which I will refer, I directed attention to what was happening. I directed attention to the fact that we regarded as implicit in the capital development programme the repatriation of such part of the sterling or external assets as was necessary to carry out that programme. We knew well that this increased investment would lead to sterling disinvestment, but we knew also and I stated it and it will be found on the records of this House, in my opening speech on the Taoiseach's Estimate last year that there were occasions when it was proper finance, sound economics and good social policy to create a deficit or that disinvestment in our sterling assets for the purpose of financing schemes for the provision of houses for our people and for the development of our resources in order to end emigration, to remove poverty and secure employment for all sections of our people.

We knew also of and directed attention to the danger deriving from an unsatisfactory disequilibrium in our balance of payments. We knew, and I pointed out last year, that the mere repatriation of our external assets was no panacea for all our ills. We knew that the problem of the balance of payments was one which required to be carefully watched and measures taken to bring about a proper balance between them. In the circumstances with which we are faced—I make no apology to the House or to the Fianna Fáil Government or Party for this—we knew well that the national interest then required that there should be a conscious creation of a deficit in the balance of payments for the purpose of financing our capital schemes.

I shall deal before I finish with the suggestions made by the Minister for Finance last night, and repeated to-day by the Taoiseach, that we were going too fast, that we did not know where we were going, that we did not realise that there were not enough savings from our people's resources to finance these schemes. I will demonstrate from the speeches I made either in this House or throughout the country the principles upon which we acted all the time, and I want to put these speeches upon the records of this House so that they will be available for people who are interested in the truth of this matter and so that it can be seen how unjust, how false, how unsound are the arguments, or the alleged arguments, produced by the Minister for Finance and his colleagues and that were stated last night in the House on this matter by the Minister for Finance.

We knew the dangers. We directed attention to the dangers and we took measures to obviate those dangers. Right through every speech that I made expounding Government policy on this there will be seen a consistent line of principle and of warning of the dangers of the application of these principles and of full advertence to the problems that we had to solve, the difficulties that faced us and the real, proper methods that should be taken and were taken to solve these problems and which brought us a very large measure of success in the short time in which we were in office.

I spoke at the Chamber of Commerce on 26th May, 1948, within a very few months of assuming office as Taoiseach and Head of the Government. On that occasion I made these observations. Firstly, I said—I quote from the speech:—

"The two main long-term economic problems confronting this country are the necessity for greatly increased agricultural and industrial output and the rectification of the unhealthy condition of our balance of international payments. The first of these problems is the more important. If we can solve it we will have gone a long way towards improving the balance of payments position as well."

Later, I said in my speech:—

"Inflationary tendencies can, to some extent, be counteracted by direct Government measures but by far the most effective instrument is in the hands of every citizen in the State—increased voluntary savings."

I quoted last year on this Estimate a further passage from that speech—at column 1807. It bears repetition, even at the risk of boring Deputies because, as I say, I wish to have it on the records of the House so that there may be an answer to these spurious arguments and unjust suggestions that have been made by members of the Government, particularly the Minister for Industry and Commerce and the Minister for Finance. This is what I said:—

"I have stressed the necessity for saving but having done so it is necessary to give equal emphasis to the necessity for productive investment of savings. It will be generally agreed that this country has for many decades been suffering from chronic under-investment... It can scarcely be questioned that our national income per head is far too low for a country so rich as ours which has the potential to be very much richer. Unless national capital is increased, there is no hope for any real increase in the national income.... There is no reason why this country, which is comparatively under-developed, should be satisfied with a normal rate of increase in national income. We should aim at a rate of increase much above the normal, and the Government is determined to use every effort to secure the acceptance of that which must be regarded as a fundamental truth of Irish economics."

I made an observation in that speech which I did not quote last year but which I want to quote here and put upon the records of the House because it is very important and very relevant in view of what we anticipate may be, and probably will be, the policy of the Government in reference to this so-called discreditable financial condition in which they find themselves now—a policy of greatly increased taxation. In reference to this matter, I said:—

"The Government realises what too many are inclined to forget, that taxation is a very important factor in the cost of living."

I want Deputies to pause and contemplate that proposition which is forgotten, and which, if forgotten by the present Minister for Finance, will have very grave results upon the initiative and enterprise of our people and the cost of living of our people.

I want to refer to some passages from the speech that I made at the Institute of Bankers in Ireland on 19th November, 1949. There I said:—

"Public finance in the past has been mainly preoccupied with the annual Budget, although this covered no more than a fifth or a quarter of a country's economic activity. To-day, however, it is generally recognised that to discharge fully its economic responsibilities the Government must budget not primarily to allocate a certain part of the nation's finances to public purposes, but must also ensure that the resources of the nation are utilised in the way which can best advance the interests of the community. The community has to be considered not merely as taxpayers but as producers and consumers as well, and the level of national income may be regarded as the best indicator of economic progress. The Government can best influence the community's prosperity by a sound budgetary policy and by investment. As long ago as 1936, the late Lord Keynes declared ‘that the duty of ordering the current volume of investment cannot safely be left in private hands.'"

I went on to say about the then Government's view:—

"The present Government regard it as the responsibility of the State to create economic conditions within which it will be possible to provide a high level of employment and regard it as the duty of the State so to arrange our economic affairs that no resources of land or labour which can be usefully employed should be allowed avoidably to remain idle.

I have said before and I say again that the root cause of the low level of Irish national wealth and the incapacity of the Irish economy to absorb workers into employment has been due to the inadequacy of capital investment, particularly in agriculture."

Later on, I proceeded to develop that point by saying:—

"Only by large-scale investment can we increase the national wealth of the country or absorb the resources of land and labour which are at present idle. Some of our capital investment will be capable directly of earning revenue. Other kinds, such as housing, will bring social and economic benefits which cannot be measured directly in terms of money, but which are, at present, just as indispensable to the national wellbeing as directly revenue earning assets."

Then I proceeded further:—

"It would scarcely be possible to finance such capital expenditure entirely from the current resources of the community. The Government are satisfied, however, that the need for this investment is so great and the social and economic advantages it will bring so obvious that they are fully justified in drawing, in part, on past national savings to finance it."

Then I proceeded to deal with the balance of payments:—

"A temporary disequilibrium in the balance of payments is inevitable according as repatriation of capital takes place. There are greater evils, however, than a temporary deficit in the balance of payments. This Government believe that impoverished and unnecessarily infertile land, lack of housing and shortage of hospital accommodation are far worse evils, evils which we are determined to extirpate, and which would even justify short-term economic loss for the sake of social and long-term economic gain.

It is necessary to ensure, however, that the deficit in the balance of payments is a reflection of increased capital investment at home rather than increased consumption. It is also necessary that the new State investment must be in addition to and not in substitution for private investment which would have taken place anyway. Indeed, the Government would prefer if as much as possible of the new investment were undertaken by private persons because it would be more likely to be productive of a proper economic balance.

Some of the proposed capital investment will be directly revenue earning, such as telephone development. The test of its soundness will be whether it yields a return in revenue at least sufficient to service the loan charges. Other forms of capital investment will yield revenue indirectly. They will improve the level of employment and living standards at home. They will increase the productivity of the land and so ensure a higher national income and a higher exportable surplus of agricultural produce in years to come, to compensate for the reduced income resulting from repatriation of part of the sterling assets. Capital investment in housing is in a special category. It will not directly earn revenue."

Then I went on to say:—

"While recognising the defects in our economy and sparing no effort to remedy them, we must, of course, beware of making a fetish of capital investment. There is both good domestic investment and bad domestic investment justifiable neither by its economic return nor by its social fruits. We must turn our faces sharply against anything that savours of the mere visionary. Even foreign investment is better than bad domestic investment and certainly better than anything remotely approaching dissipative expenditure. The more our social necessities compel us into forms of capital investment showing a social return alone, the more carefully must we select schemes which can survive vigorous financial examination. If we build houses which are a necessity, we must so augment agricultural and industrial productivity that the people who live in those houses have real incomes to maintain them. We must tilt the balance on outlay in a genuinely productive direction.

The more we invest, the more we must save. If the evil of inflation and all its consequent waste, on the one hand, is to be avoided and an unnecessary deficit in the balance of payments, on the other, it is essential that savings be increased. The degree of expansion possible is limited by the availability for expenditure of current savings and accumulated resources."

Speaking at Clonmel Chamber of Commerce on the 24th April, 1950, I again developed the principles underlying this policy and directed attention to its dangers. I said:—

"Unlike many other countries, Ireland's economy has never been marked by recurring cycles of employment and unemployment. The inherent defect has not been extreme fluctuations in economic activity, but rather what is technically called a tendency towards economic equilibrium at an unduly low level. The result has been that a large part of Ireland's natural resources has remained undeveloped and that there has been altogether insufficient economic activity to provide employment for all the population. Ireland's economic ills have, accordingly, been chronic. For generations before the recent war, lack of work has compelled some of the most active and energetic Irish workers to emigrate. Others who remained at home lived an unproductive existence by unemployment assistance or by casual periods of work on unproductive employment or relief schemes. There was a shortage of work because the capital resources of the country were not being used to create work. In addition, particularly in agriculture, under-capitalised projects in private hands were not giving rewards commensurate with the effort employed on them. Many attempts were made to apply patchwork treatment for these unhealthy symptoms, but most of the money spent was wasted because it was spent unproductively. The fundamental trouble was the failure to recognise that the basic defect in the country's economy was the absence of sufficient capital investment to ensure that the maximum of national resources in labour and land would be productively employed."

Further on I said:—

"The capital expenditure which is now proposed may be divided generally into two kinds. Some of the expenditure will lead to the creation of additional productive capital assets for the community, which will add directly to national wealth. The remainder of the expenditure is to be spent on what might be described as human improvement projects, these being assets which are unproductive in so far as they increase national wealth only indirectly, but which, when selected with wisdom and foresight, directly advance national welfare. Such expenditure, when prudently undertaken, can yield a return in greater productive powers of the community and in greater health and happiness."

Later, I said:—

"The aim of the two-Budget system is to expand economic activity nationally. Rigid tests must be applied to ensure that the items included in the capital Budget are genuine assets of either a revenue earning character or are human improvement projects. In no sense must the capital Budget be regarded as a device to disguise with respectability a deficit in the current Budget. Any projects which fail to pass strict tests, projects which are neither productive of direct revenue nor add to the real welfare of the nation must, if they are to be undertaken at all, be charged against the current Budget and so paid for from taxation. The capital Budget must be examined constantly by the Government just as the revenue Budget must be examined constantly by the Department of Finance, but both Budgets must be examined on different principles. Large-scale public investment has to be coordinated with private investment, and this presupposes careful planning. It is necessary, accordingly, for the Government to establish social and economic priorities for its capital projects. Many capital projects may be desirable, but all cannot be undertaken at the same time. To maintain an even and smooth level of national investment must be an important feature of Government policy. It is desirable that a programme of capital projects should be prepared as a long-term objective. Some of these projects can, so to speak, be kept on the shelf until the time is opportune for putting them into effect. In this way capital exlis penditure on a national scale can be so directed as to avoid the extremes of inflation on the one hand and unemployment of men and other resources on the other."

I want to quote and put on the records a statement made by the then Minister for Finance, Deputy McGilligan, in an article which he wrote for the "Economic Survey of the Republic of Ireland" in the Statist in February of this year, where he said:—

"The State investment programme rests on the principle that repatriation of sterling assets is desirable where it is clearly shown to be in the interests of domestic development. The underlying assumption is that the increased outlay of the State, in so far as room is not made for it by additional current savings, i.e., by private abstention from spending, will spill over into purchases from abroad, thus causing a realisation of sterling assets. While a moderate deficit in the balance of payments attributable to genuine realisation of external assets for domestic development is acceptable, any heavy realisation due merely to a widening of the gap between export and import values or to excessive imports of consumer goods would be cause for serious concern. The gross value of the holdings of external assets in Irish ownership was estimated some years ago at approximately £400,000,000, which is less than the present annual rate of use of goods and services. External holdings in Ireland were estimated at £175,000,000, so that Ireland's creditor position was of the order of £225,000,000. The economic advantages of possessing net external resources are too substantial to enable a light view to be taken of their use merely for consumption, as distinct from productive purposes."

I have quoted at some length from these speeches and statements for the purpose of putting on the records that the principles upon which the last Government operated were principles that cannot be attacked on any sound economic grounds or on any economic theory other than the outworn theories of the early Victorian era. The Minister for Finance was injected last night, when speaking on his Estimates, with all the virus of conservative finance. He was poisoned by his outlook on his political opponents on the opposite benches. He wanted to try and get something out to show that there was something discreditable in the policy which we adopted and carried into effect. I have placed at some length on the records of the House the principles which guided and directed both the formulation and the application of the policy of capital expenditure for productive purposes in this country in order to show those people who listened to the poisoned and venomous outpourings of the Minister for Finance and of his colleague, the Minister for Industry and Commerce, when they criticised, or purported to criticise, Deputy McGilligan as Minister for Finance, and make the serious charge against him that he was guilty of discreditable financial tactics, that those arguments are due merely to a poisonous hatred of political opponents, and have no justification in truth and no foundation whatever.

I asked earlier in my observations what is the alternative policy of the Government. The Taoiseach to-day mentioned capital expenditure. He was unable to give an account in his opening statement of general Government policy, because apparently the Government have no general policy at the present moment, but are hoping to devise it in the months that lie ahead during the vacation they have fixed for themselves of three or four months, hoping to filch more of our policy, the policy we devised and which they did not think of in the 16 years they were in office, and hoping then to suggest to the people, through these poisonous outpourings of the Minister for Finance, that they have something new, something different.

Seventeen points.

Mr. Costello

I have, in the quotations I have given, shown the principles upon which we acted. Let any criticism of our policy therefore be directed to these principles, and let the Minister for Finance or any of his colleagues tell the people where any of these principles were wrong. Let them test them upon any sound modern economic principle and show us where they are wrong. Let them give some arguments or reasons for believing they are wrong and we can discuss the matter.

I have demonstrated that we were alive to the dangers inherent in that policy and took steps to anticipate and to guard against these dangers. What does the Government now propose to do in regard to these matters? Do I gather from the Minister's speech last night that he proposes to stop or to curtail capital expenditure? If so, let us know in what respect. Let us know whether the Government propose to stop capital expenditure in respect of housing, schools, land rehabilitation, afforestation, harbour development or any of the other schemes of capital expenditure which we initiated and set on foot for the benefit of the people. Let them tell the people whether they propose to adopt Deputy James Dillon's Connemara scheme or what they propose to do about it. Do they propose to filch, to steal it from him and then suggest to the people that it was really they and not James Dillon who first thought of the people of the Gaeltacht, and particularly of Connemara?

I gather from the suggestion of the Minister last night that we were not alive to the dangers of inflation inherent in this policy of capital expenditure and the investment of State funds in the development of our capital resources. I want to emphasise this fact, and to lay it down without fear of contradiction, except possibly by some of the most conservative financiers who apparently surround the present Government, that any inflation that exists here at present is in no way due—or, if due in some small way, it is only in the very smallest way—to the moneys expended in the development of our resources and on capital projects initiated and put into operation. Any inflation that exists at present is due not to that expenditure on capital projects but almost entirely, if not entirely, in the first place, to the rise in import prices of the goods we have to import from abroad, and, in the second place, to the spilling over of inflationary tendencies from abroad into this country.

We have no control over either of these factors which are the cause of any inflation existing at the moment. Our capital expenditure programme had nothing whatever to do with these inflationary tendencies. On the contrary, I assert that, were it not for these capital projects, with the employment given by them and the hope which they give to the people, we would have far greater inflation than we have at present. Let nobody assert, without giving proof, that we failed to take the measures necessary to avoid inflationary tendencies caused by the development of our capital projects. If the Government propose to abandon any of these projects, let them tell us which of them they propose to abandon. If they assert that there is something wrong with any item of that programme, let us be told the item and we will examine it, and give the arguments against. If it is wrong, we will agree that it is wrong and should be dropped; but there is no use in making these outrageous charges which were hurled some years ago when our schemes were initiated and our policy first made known to the public, when posters were put up on the hoardings of this country suggesting that the Irish Government and the Minister for Finance of the time had put the nation's finances into pawn.

That is the headline which is being followed now by the present Government, and particularly by the Minister. That is the mental attitude he has. He wants to try to "down" his political opponents, even at the expense of doing damage to the financial and economic structure of the State. Are they going to drop any of these items, and, if so, which of them? Is any of them wrong and, if so, let us be told where it is wrong?

If, as appears from their criticisms, unless they are more thoroughly dishonest than even we think they are, they propose to abandon some at least of these capital projects, are they going to be financed out of taxation, and, if so, what is the amount of taxation that will be imposed upon the taxpayers in each year in order to finance schemes of long-term investment, of capital development, such as land rehabilitation, afforestation, harbour development, houses, schools, rural electrification and the rest?

We gather from the Minister's speech that the general financial policy of the Government is a policy of high taxation. I referred earlier to what Deputy McGilligan, the then Minister for Finance, said with reference to the necessity for savings and the avoidance, if at all possible, of the imposition of taxes. That was our policy, and I suggest that the Government ought not to accept the shallow view that taxation takes away the surplus income of the community which would otherwise be spent on consumption goods, but ought to remember the danger that, in doing what apparently the Minister intends to do, to take away what is called the surplus purchasing power of the people and to spend it, they very frequently take away not the surplus income of people that would be spent on consumer or consumption goods but income that would be devoted to savings and productive investment in the country.

I do not stand, nor did my colleague, Deputy McGilligan, stand, for that policy, the policy which was the Sir Stafford Cripps policy during many years in England and which brought austerity to the people of England, the policy of skimming off the excess purchasing power of the people and its expenditure by the Government. The Government want to save and spend for the people. I want to save my own money which I earn hard and spend it myself on productive projects or put it into savings. I do not want this Government to skim off the excess purchasing power of the community, because God only knows what they will dissipate it on or what are the extravagant projects on which they will send it rapidly down the drain.

The Minister for Finance last night, as reported in the newspapers, stated that external assets estimated at £225,000,000 in 1949 had been reduced to £90,000,000 in the past three of four years and there was a prospect of a further reduction of £60,000,000 this year. Why did he say "three or four years"? Did he not know very well that the figure of £90,000,000 was taken, not from three or four years, but from four years? But he could not let it pass; he had to make the suggestion that in the three years we were in office £90,000,000 in external assets was realised and contributed to the discreditable state of affairs that he alleged was in existence when he took over the office of Minister for Finance. That £90,000,000 was contributed to very largely by the realisation of external assets that occurred in the last year of the run of the Fianna Fáil Government, before we took office. That £90,000,000 was arrived at by adding the following figures. The realisation of sterling occurred in the year 1947 to the amount of £29.9 million. That was the year in which there was restocking after the war. That year, it will be seen, is higher than the average of the four years to which I refer. In 1948, £19.8 million was realised; in 1949, £9.7 million and in 1950, £30,000,000, giving, including the year 1947, a total of £89.4 million— presumably the £90,000,000 referred to by the Minister for Finance last night.

In 1950-51 it is estimated there will be a further deficit of £60,000,000. I do not believe that estimate is correct. I do not believe that you can, in the conditions in which disinvestment took place, make any sort of accurate estimate based on the first few months of this year. I believe that the last six months will probably show that there will be less realisation than in the earlier periods of the year. But even if that estimate is correct, it will be seen that those amounts added together, the £60,000,000 and the £89.4 million, give a total of £149.4 million, say £150,000,000, and that amount is less than the amount of money which was invested in sterling assets during the period of the war. During that period, from 1940 to 1946, our people were obliged to accumulate sterling assets because there were no goods on which they could spend them. They were forced to invest the money in those sterling assets and in 1940 the figure was £2.3 million. I am referring to this as the accumulation of sterling during those years. In 1941 it was £14.3; in 1942, it was £26.1; in 1943, it was £32.4; in 1944, it was £32.7; in 1945, it was £34.6; and in 1946, it was £19.7, making a total of £162.1. Comparing the £162.1 million which was the accumulation of sterling assets, the forced saving of our people caused by the conditions of the world war, it will be seen that that figure is greater than the figure for the realisation of our sterling assets, due either to the repatriation policy or to the stockpiling that took place in last year and the early part of this year.

Of course, the Minister for Finance would have Deputies and the people believe that all that realisation of sterling assets was "the rake's progress", that it was something that was done not on principles of financial rectitude, but on irresponsible principles of finance. The fact is that we balanced our Budget in every year and that the Minister for Finance in his Budget statement for this year indicated that he intended himself to balance the Budget this year also. At column 1887 of the Dáil Reports for 2nd May, 1951, Volume 125, having indicated the possible claims that would be made upon the revenues for the following year, having indicated that there was then sitting an arbitration board which might make an award in favour of civil servants—which would have its repercussions upon other public servants if an increased remuneration were given to civil servants—having indicated the possible claim for Córas Iompair Éireann, he made certain provision of £1,500,000 to meet possible contingencies falling within those categories. He said:—

"The £1,500,000 must be regarded as already fully committed and any additional expenditure must entail corresponding increases in taxes or other charges."

The present Minister for Finance, Deputy MacEntee, must needs pretend that the previous Minister was so irresponsible, so lacking in his duty, that he left it to his successor—and he might very well have been his own successor—to meet the bills that would fall due. I suppose the Minister for Finance and his colleagues never adverted to the fact that, if provision had been made for the Civil Service, for the Gardaí and the Army, that would have been a headline to the arbitration board. Had provision been made in the Budget by taxation or otherwise for possible losses of Córas Iompair Éireann, that would have been a headline and almost a direction to Córas Iompair Éireann to batter ahead, not bother about expenditure, and not to run their concern as they should run it as far as possible as an economic concern. If they were to know that the purse of the taxpayer was available to them, what possible chance would there be of any economies, any increase in efficiency, any effort by the directorate or staff to run the company as an economic concern?

The Minister for Finance must needs cast mud at his predecessor. It is a source of great satisfaction to us to know that the reputation of Deputy McGilligan as Minister for Finance stands high in the estimate of the people. They know what his family budget meant to them this year and no amount of mud slinging by his successor will in any way detract from his knowledge, his experience and his reputation as an expert on finance and the reputation that he very deservedly earned for himself when he occupied the position of Minister for Finance of this State for a period of three years. We will see how his successor deals with the problem. Is he going to have a financial deficit or is he going to balance the Budget, as we did for every one of the four Budgets for which we were in office? Or is he going to follow what Deputy Lemass, as he then was, said some time ago; is he going to borrow for a deficit? Are we going to have heavy taxation for projects of capital expenditure and other matters? Is the Minister for Finance going to overlook the fact that practically always every estimate of income of national revenue has been falsified and always understand by the Department of Finance. This is what Deputy Lemass then said, as reported on May 8th of this year in the Irish Times:

"Fianna Fáil has learned much during its period in opposition. It will be a better Government now than ever before. The new Government would be faced with an unbalanced Budget and a pile of unpaid debts. Fianna Fáil would not attempt to clear the Coalition's legacy of debt from current tax revenue. However orthodox that course might be, it would be an impossible burden on national production. The level of Government spending was already as high as the country was capable of sustaining."

The present Minister for Industry and Commerce stated a few months ago that, if brought into office as a result of the then pending election, he would budget not out of so-called deficits in current expenditure to clear the debts he alleges we left behind but he would budget for a deficit. Last night, the Minister for Finance was adumbrating increased taxes. Which is it going to be? Is there going to be a policy of budgeting for a deficit or a policy of crushing taxation, spoiled initiative, crippling enterprise and preventing the people from doing what they have a right to do—make their own savings.

The Minister for Finance referred last night to the £60,000,000 for the year 1951. I have dealt in part with that. He left the House and the people under the impression that it was the capital project policy of productive capital expenditure that was responsible for that deficit. He did tell them of stockpiling that took place during that year. If we had not done stockpiling for purposes of Government, hospitalisation and for having materials available for houses, we would have been severely criticised for lack of foresight in not taking those measures. There has not been so far, although the Government has been in office for a while, one single breath or word of complaint or criticism that we in any way failed in our duty, during the months after the international situation deteriorated and the supply position became so bad, to stockpile to the greatest possible advantage.

The Government knows, but I do not know whether the people or the country know, that we set up some months ago an inter-departmental committee to deal with this very matter of stockpiling and to advise the Government as to the steps they should take in the then existing serious condition of the deteriorated international situation and of the supply position. That expert inter-departmental committee sat frequently and made reports which are available to the present Government. The results have been of great advantage. They saved the people money and had the effect of putting at their disposal supplies of materials and commodities that otherwise they would either not be able to get or have to pay a very high price for them.

I requested the Press to come to see me at a Press conference of a private character. I asked for their co-operation. We did not spread this abroad as something that we wanted to get credit for. In view of what the Minister for Finance has stated, I think I am bound to disclose that. We set up this committee for the purpose of stockpiling. I asked the co-operation of the Press whose representatives attended at my office. I asked them for their co-operation and I told them what I was doing. I said if the matter was publicised or in any way dramatised by the newspapers grave damage would be done to our people and to the problem we had to solve and the position we had to overcome. I got the co-operation of the Press. We were in a position, therefore, of not causing any panic to the people or pushing up prices. We wanted quietly to secure pretty substantial quantities of essentials of life for the people.

There is not a word about that in the Minister's statement. He left it to be inferred by Deputies and by the people reading it that the £90,000,000 was evidence of financial lack of principle and that that was entirely due to mismanagement of our national investment programme. It was largely due to stockpiling. Stockpiling took place in Government, business and industrial circles and it is well that it did for the people of the country. Nobody but a fool would have considered that it would be possible to finance schemes of capital expenditure without a deficit in the balance of payments. We were alive to the danger of that and justified anything we did in our policy of repatriation of external assets.

I have already indicated the fact, by reference to a speech that I made, that there should be a priorities of capital programme; that those priorities should be continually considered in the light of changed realities; that it might be good policy to change from one business to another, and that the policy should be a flexible one. I pointed to the results we have achieved, results which cannot be denied. If the financial policy which informed and guided the policy of capital investment was such as the Minister for Finance stated last night, how did we obtain the results that were obtained and which cannot be denied? If those results are satisfactory, why criticise this policy, and if the policy is criticised why not give us the criticism? Why not base it on facts and give us the arguments? Until these arguments are given I assert here and now that all those criticisms, which were initiated during the period when the present Government was in opposition and when they were repudiated by every member of the various Parties and Independent Deputies who supported the then Government, and so-called repudiation of our policy are merely politics. Playing at politics is a very dangerous game for the present Government to be playing—dangerous for themselves but still more dangerous for the economic safety of our people.

I stated at the outset of my remarks that we were somewhat embarrassed by the position that existed in connection with Deputy MacBride's motions. I find it rather difficult to make any observations on those motions without having, as I think I have indicated, heard the reasons on which Deputy MacBride will commend these motions to the House. I do not know what the Government is going to do other than they are going to vote as a body about something that is not disclosed, and that there is going to be no free vote.

When these motions were put down in the time of the former Parliament, I indicated then, in answer to a question put, I think, by Deputy Con Lehane, that, so far as the then Government was concerned, they would leave it to a free vote of the House. So far as I am capable of influencing the policy on this or any other side of the House, I should wish to adopt that principle. I should wish to leave this to the consideration of each Deputy for his own independent judgment and his own particular conscience. It is a serious and by no means an easy decision to take to vote for or against these motions. We take pride in the fact that there is little if any difference between any sections of this House upon the problem of Partition. We differ on the question of methods or means to achieve the solution of that very difficult problem but whatever bitterness there may be or whatever antagonism may exist between sections of this House and between Deputies we are all at one on the necessity of doing everything possible for the solution of this difficult problem. I think I stated in this House when the matter came first before the members that I would approach consideration of the question whether members of the Northern Parliament should be permitted to enter this House either as full Deputies or as persons being granted a right of audience, with one objective in view, and I applied one test and one test only. The objective I had in mind was the ending of Partition. The test I applied was: would those motions or the matter which they wished to bring about help in any way towards the solution of the problem of Partition?

I approach the consideration of Deputy MacBride's motions in the same sense to-day, applying the same test and with as deep a sense of personal responsibility in me in making my personal decision as I had when I was the Head of the Government in this State having to determine policy and decide in reference to somewhat similar motions.

I think that every Deputy in this House should be allowed, as I said, to have a free choice and exercise a free right without consideration even of the democratic principle of majority rule within the confines of his own Party. As far as my own Party, the Fine Gael Party, is concerned, that is the rule we have adopted. Each Deputy must make up his own mind for himself having had full consideration of the matter as we did have in our own Party and individual discussions.

Personally I am against the adoption of either of these two motions. I approached consideration of the admission of Deputies into this House rather sympathetically when it was first proposed. I knew, of course, that it was utterly impossible constitutionally that they should take their place as ordinary Deputies in this House, but constitutions could be changed and laws could be enacted if the vital requirements of the problem so decided. Then putting aside questions of constitutionality and legal difficulties, I considered whether it was desirable that they should sit as full Deputies or whether they should get a mere right of audience. I did think it would be right to give them a right of audience, not in this House but in the Seanad.

I find it rather difficult to disclose here in public all of the views which have actuated me and influenced me in coming to the serious decision I have just announced. I think it would probably not do any great deal of good to the cause we all have at heart if I were to go into very great detail but I have, as a result of my experience and my thought on the matter, come to the very clear conclusion that, far from advancing the interests of the cause we all wish to advance, the ending of Partition, it would very gravely jeopardize it.

I do not want to go into the consideration of constitutionalities or legalities or the fact that their sitting here with the right of audience would be not taxation without representation but representation without taxation. I content myself with saying that there is no such clear view among the people as distinct from politicians as would coerce us to the belief or conviction that it is necessary for the ending of Partition that these steps should be taken. I gravely fear that were these representatives given even the right of audience it would cause grave dissension among the people in the North and that it would certainly help to cause further friction among our people down here, particularly Deputies in this House. I see no way by which they could be prevented from interfering in our domestic politics as practised in this House.

I am convinced of that and my conviction leads me to say that personally I intend to vote against these motions. It would be a wrong thing in present circumstances to give them that right of audience, as their proper place is the House of Parliament of so-called Northern Ireland. They can use that forum as the sounding board to disseminate our views and their views against the injustice of Partition and against the injustices daily inflicted upon them by that Parliament of which they are members.

When these projects were suggested to me some time ago I told those people who came to me representing or purporting to represent at least a section of our politicians of the six north-eastern counties that I was against that project of giving the right of audience, but I suggested to them an alternative method. I thought and I still think that that alternative method would be better and more productive of results. I mention that for the purpose of showing that I did not adopt a negative attitude or approach to this problem. If it were a fact that these people were isolated from us in the North, if it were a fact that they had not access to Ministers, Deputies and the people in general here, there might be something to be said for it, but there is nothing to be said for their coming down here and preaching to the converted. The people we have to convert are the unconverted and the obstinate. We can only do that by weighing in together, by co-operating together on common policy, and by agreeing upon common methods to achieve the end we all desire. I suggested that they should form a unity council in the North, that people of all political Parties and associations and of different complexions should come together and form a council which would be a unity council and which would speak and act for all sections of our people in the six north-eastern counties. I suggested that a liaison should be established down here between that unity council and the Government or a body consisting of a committee of Ministers. That was how I envisaged that the problem should best be dealt with and the greatest possible beneficial results achieved: a unity council meeting and sitting with a Cabinet Committee of Irish Ministers to consider the problem, weigh the difficulties, formulate plans and agree on a common policy and on methods to carry out that common policy.

I saw some useful purpose in that. I see none in giving those Deputies a right of audience so that they could come down here and preach to the converted possibly causing dissension among our people. For these reasons I personally propose to vote against the motions.

Mr. McGrath rose.

On a point of order. In view of what Deputy Costello has said regarding these two motions and in view of the seriousness of the issues raised by them, I want to ask the Chair if it is Deputy MacBride's intention to persist in having these motions discussed as part of the Estimate for the Taoiseach's Department, because it is difficult for those Deputies like myself who want to discuss both matters fully, and in the limited time I see no opportunity of doing so.

I understand that it has been agreed to discuss these motions in conjunction with the Estimate.

It is like throwing a very important ball into the discussion.

I do not know when Deputy Costello started his speech, but I have been listening to him for almost one and three-quarter hours and of that time I should say that at least one and a quarter hours were taken up with quoting statements which he made during the past three years.

Mr. Costello

I gave the justification for inflicting them on the House.

We have all heard of the hypocritical Minister long ago who did not practice what he preached. I think that actions speak louder than words. I notice that Deputy Costello was in quite a serious mood to-day. I can recall a day a couple of years ago when he sneeringly likened Deputy Lemass to a fly hopping outside the window-pane, because he was so helpless. I hope that Deputy Costello realise that he himself is in that position now—hopping outside the window pane, as he sneeringly remarked to Deputy Lemass.

I hope this country will never again experience anything like the past three years in our history. We were left without leadership and without guidance. Our Departments were left in the hands of incompetent people who never seemed to have had any collective agreement in the matter of the government of this country. I am sure Deputy Costello had many a headache when he opened the morning papers and read what Deputy James Dillon or Deputy Norton had said the night before.

I should like to remind the House of the period around last December when, in reply to Parliamentary Questions, the Parliamentary Secretary stated that there was no danger of a scarcity of coal during the winter months—and within a couple of weeks of that statement the fuel retailers in Cork who supplied the poor and the needy people in the outlying districts of the city had to close their stores and publish advertisements over their names to the effect that they had to close because they were unable to get coal supplies. That happened within three weeks of the making of the statement that there was no danger of a coal scarcity. The poor people in Cork—and in Dublin, too, judging by the questions which were put down on the Order Paper—who were depending on turf for their vouchers as old age pensioners, and recipients of home assistance and blind pensioners, were left in the position that they had nothing in the nature of burnable fuel. The people in Cork had to be content with turf that had been cut four and a half years previously, when the Fianna Fáil Government were in power, and which had been left out in the open Cork park under hail, snow and sleet during all that period whilst Messrs. Henry Ford, and other people, were drawing a high rent for the ground. Not a sod of turf was put in there in those years that the last Government was in power and not until we could not get coal or anything else did they start drawing on what was left there.

It is a scandalous state of affairs that no provision was made for the people of this country to live in comfort and to cook their food or anything else— and that position was brought about by people who actually did not know what was happening at all in the country, and there is no doubt about that judging by a reply which was given here. I put down a question to the same Department, the Department of Industry and Commerce, asking if the Minister was aware that certain tweed manufacturers had piled up their suitings and were stockpiling. I asked if the stock which they were piling up would be put on the market at higher prices later on. I was told by the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Industry and Commerce that he was not aware of anything of the kind. There are not so many manufacturers in the country that, when the Parliamentary Secretary got notice, he could not have made inquiries into the matter. Every draper and tailor in the South of Ireland knew that these people withdrew their patterns and refused to sell until it suited them to do so.

It is laughable for anybody who reads to-day's Order Paper and sees the questions which are down on it by Dublin Deputies in regard to the cement position. I think three Deputies have put down questions asking whether the Minister is aware of the shortage of cement and of the difficulty which is being experienced by the Dublin Corporation in procuring cement for their housing needs. I think these Deputies should have been ashamed to put down these questions in the light of the way in which this particular industry was treated by the previous Government. In May of last year we were told in this House that consideration was being given to the question of extending existing factories.

Mr. O'Higgins

On a point of order. Surely it is not in order for Deputy McGrath to criticise questions put down for answer in this House, or the motives which inspired the questions?

I think that the Deputy is travelling away from the Estimate.

Mr. O'Higgins

On a point of order. As I understand it, Deputy McGrath has criticised three Deputies who put down three questions which were allowed by the Chair. He has criticised the motives which inspired these questions. Is it in order for any Deputy to criticise the motives behind any question which is allowed by the Chair?

It is not out of order to criticise them.

Mr. O'Higgins

Am I to understand that it is in order for Deputy McGrath to discuss the motives which inspired questions allowed by the Chair?

It is certainly in order for Deputy McGrath to criticise questions, but I would remind the Deputy that he is travelling away from the Estimate.

I only want to refer to the negligence of the last Government in connection with the handling of the cement position of this country. Were it not for the policy of the present Minister for Industry and Commerce during his previous term of office, we should now be in the position that we would practically not be able to build houses. I want to make that point clear to the people on the opposite side of the House who are talking about housing.

Deputy J.A. Costello dealt with housing. May I point out that the last Government was simply continuing the Fianna Fáil policy in relation to the building of houses? That work was partly interrupted during the war and very seriously interrupted during the last three years. At the time when Fianna Fáil came into power we were content to get all our flour and cement manufactured in England; we were content to get all our motor cars manufactured and assembled in England; we were content to get all our tyres manufactured in England. We were content to get many things manufactured in England that are to-day being manufactured in this country. A Minister of the last Government once said that it was not the duty of the Government to find employment for our people. When we know the progress that was made in the industrial field under the Fianna Fáil Government I think it is ridiculous that we should have to listen to all this criticism.

In regard to our defence policy, I remember when the then Taoiseach, Deputy J.A. Costello, on the passage of the Ireland Bill through this House said we would hurt the British in their pride and in their prestige and in their pocket. Some of us at that time hoped that we would have a certain firmness in Government. Unfortunately, the people in Cork got a rude awakening very shortly after that when the then Minister for Defence, Deputy Dr. O'Higgins, said he thought it would be a good idea to appeal to that lionhearted statesman, Winston Churchill, to end Partition. I think that was drifting a bit from hurting the British in their pride and in their prestige and in their pocket.

Mr. O'Higgins

Would the Deputy be averse to Mr. Churchill ending Partition?

I think it was pitiable to have the Minister charged with the defence of this country at a time when all the other countries were preparing to defend themselves adopting that attitude——

Mr. O'Higgins

Would the Deputy be averse to Mr. Churchill ending Partition?

——and sneering at our corvettes and describing them as rubber ducks.

There are a couple of rubbernecks on that side of the House.

I suppose never in the history of this country did we have so much of the publicity stunt as we did under the last Government. One saw them going around the country blowing trumpets when the plans that had been originated by Fianna Fáil were beginning to mature and claiming those plans as their own. Every few houses that were built the Minister for Local Government was down with six or seven Press photographers.

The Minister for Local Government, Deputy Smith, is visiting Sligo this week-end.

I will ask anyone on the Opposition Benches if, when Fianna Fáil built all the houses they did between 1932 and 1939, they can show me any photograph of a Minister going down and opening these houses.

Mr. O'Higgins

We saw a lot of them opening cinemas.

The work of their Departments was neglected. Instead of looking after the work of their Departments they were touring around the country.

The Minister for Local Government will be touring in Sligo next week.

I would also like to compliment the present Government on bringing in the Social Welfare Bill in order to give the old age pensioners an increase of 2/6 per week.

Mr. O'Higgins

You should be ashamed of yourself.

The Social Security Act was hanging fire here for three years until the Government was on the point of going to the country. It was then used as propaganda and introduced here though there was no intention in the world of bringing it to a conclusion. They simply believed that it would be a good stunt on which to go before the country.

You should not judge everyone by your own standards.

I am judging by what happened.

Deputy McGrath should be permitted to speak without interruption.

The Deputy is stating a deliberate untruth.

We increased social services from £4,500,000 to £12,000,000 and I think that is sufficient answer to anybody. Our work was interrupted for three years but now, thank God, we are back to continue where we left off.

Mr. O'Higgins

For a short period. Will you dissolve the Dáil and go to the country again on that?

Deputy McGrath should be allowed to speak without interruption.

I listened to Deputy J.A. Costello and no one interrupted him.

Mr. O'Higgins

You were learning something.

I am quite prepared to stay here all night.

You could not talk that long.

Deputy McGrath on the Estimate.

Nobody interrupted Deputy J.A. Costello. I would ask the present Government to consider the position of the Old I.R.A. pensioners. Every pensioner in the country got an increase during the past three and a quarter years with the exception of the Old I.R.A. pensioners. The men drawing disability pensions got an increase. I think the Old I.R.A. deserve more from the country. I put down a question here to Deputy Dr. O'Higgins when he was Minister for Defence about the people who were drawing special allowances and who have to be proved destitute and incapable of work, and I asked him how much it would cost to give them an increase of 25 per cent. and he said £20,000 per annum and I asked him would he not think the Old I.R.A. worth that and he said "No".

Mr. O'Higgins

I challenge the Deputy to produce that quotation. On a point of order. The Deputy has purported to quote the former Minister for Defence——

I did not purport to quote.

Mr. O'Higgins

——and he should produce the quotation. The Deputy should not try to fly kites here. Behave yourself now.

Deputy O'Higgins should behave himself. It is he who is interrupting.

Mr. O'Higgins

Surely it is not disorderly to raise a point of order. The Deputy has purported to quote an answer given by the Minister for Defence and I am entitled to have the parliamentary answer which the Deputy quoted referred to.

The Deputy stated he has not quoted.

Mr. O'Higgins

He prefaced his remark by saying that he put down a parliamentary question to the former Minister for Defence and he received a certain answer. Surely I am entitled to get that quotation, and surely I am also entitled to address the Chair on a point of order without Deputy McGrath behaving like an ambling alderman in the House.

Have you disposed of the point of order raised by Deputy O'Higgins? Deputy McGrath purported to give the text of a parliamentary question and a reply given here, and the House is entitled to have that answer in its proper context.

Arising out of the point of order raised by Deputy S. Collins, as I heard Deputy McGrath he made no attempt to quote what the previous Minister for Defence had said. He simply gave the context of what he said. I do not think he should be called upon to give——

With all due respect, the Parliamentary Secretary must be a little hard of hearing. Deputy McGrath said that he put down a parliamentary question to Deputy Dr. O'Higgins when he was Minister for Defence asking him would he give an increase of £20,000 to the Old I.R.A., and he purports to say here——

As far as the Chair is concerned, Deputy McGrath gave no context.

I did not quote.

That is a deliberate lie.

Order. He gave no quotation. He paraphrased a reply received some time ago.

Mr. O'Higgins

Are we entitled to get the context of that paraphrase?

The statement that Deputy Dr. O'Higgins said the I.R.A. were not worth £20,000 is a deliberate untruth because I would not stay in this House if anyone made that statement.

Mr. J. Lynch

Deputy S. Collins has stated that Deputy McGrath had told a deliberate lie. I ask for your ruling whether that statement is in order and whether the Deputy should be asked to withdraw it.

Deputy Collins must withdraw that remark.

Is it in order to quote parliamentary questions in the Dáil and not give the context?

Is it not a fact that on at least three occasions Deputy Dillon paraphrased what were supposed to be statements of Ministers?

Deputy Collins will withdraw the remark to which exception has been taken.

I qualified the remark. I said it was a deliberate untruth.

The Deputy withdraws the statement that it is a deliberate lie.

Perhaps the Deputy will not attempt to quote again.

Now that the legal men have finished, perhaps the unfortunate blacksmith would be allowed to continue.

You are not so unfortunate; you are a decent fellow.

I was pointing out that the Old I.R.A. men were the only section in this country who did not get an increase in their pensions during the last three and a quarter years.

Mr. O'Higgins

Many of them got pensions that you denied them. Many people in Cork got such pensions.

Order. The Deputy must refrain from interruptions.

I think that may not be altogether accurate because I believe there is another section who retired under Article X of the Treaty who did not get an increase. I am not so sure about that, but the Old I.R.A. men who are drawing disability pensions did. The people who have to be proved destitute and incapable of self-support before they get a special allowance, got no increase since 1946, since the Act was passed. Every other body—teachers, civil servants and other sections—got increases in pensions apart from the people who helped to create the State.

I think the Government should also consider the question of the abatement in pensions. We have people throughout the country in very menial positions and a certain percentage of their I.R.A. service pensions is deducted by way of abatement. I would ask the Government seriously to consider that matter. I would also ask the Government to consider the position of the people during the coming winter and not to leave them hungry and cold as they were last winter.

Poor Cork! Were they really starving in Cork last year?

With a very deep sense of regret, I listened to the Taoiseach this morning blundering and rambling through the disjointed, disconnected and ill-considered speech which purported to give some indication of Government policy and which, in fact, will go on record as stark evidence of the fact that no policy at all exists. It is a very poor tribute to the Leader of the Government and a very poor compliment to this House that it was only the series of questions put to him that enabled the Leader of the Government to make a speech at all. It is quite obvious that, bereft as Fianna Fáil were of a policy in 1948, they are completely naked now and they are rapidly trying to clothe themselves in the garment of the intelligent, constructive policy which was left to them, not by the will of the people but by the caprice and irresponsibility of certain elected representatives in this House. We have to face in this debate very serious problems and I shall have to direct questions on Government policy which I feel will not be answered but, at least in the interests of the country, they must be asked.

One wonders listening to Deputy McGrath whether lurking in the background of his mind was not a sinister hope of a revival of bitterness as between the Republic and England. One has the uneasy feeling—and we are entitled to demand that the unrest and unease that is felt in the country should be put at rest—that we may soon have the hardy warriors over there shouting again for another stupid, catastrophic and idiotic economic war. We have the significant statement of the Taoiseach that England will get goods if she pays the price. We have some erstwhile Walshian theories now being operated by the new Minister for Agriculture. We have a state of unease in the country that was typified by the question addressed by Deputy Flynn in this House yesterday to the Minister for Agriculture relative to small store cattle through the south-west of Ireland. If any Fianna Fáil Deputy wants to ascertain what the situation in the country is to-day, he should visit the fairs of the country and see the gloom that has been created in the short period since the change of Government. He will see people standing beside their cattle unable to dispose of them because of the uneasiness and the uncertainty that has arisen since the resumption of office by the Fianna Fáil Party.

That is not happening to-day.

If the Deputy wants to say something he had better get up and say it, as this is about the only time he will be heard. We are entitled to expect from the Government, not the disconcerted disjointed mumblings of a man whose Party is in process of disintegration; we are entitled to ask the Government for a clear and unequivocal statement of policy. We do not mind if they have learned the lesson that their best policy is to endeavour to carry on the good policy which they have inherited, but let them have the courage to come into the House and tell us that they are going to complete the good job already started. So far, we have had nothing like a lucid statement from anybody in the Fianna Fáil Party as to what their policy is.

Presented to this country as an alleged policy after the election and on the eve of the election of a Taoiseach was a 17-point programme, and, I declare to heavens, even the blindest, the most stupid and the thickest of the Fianna Fáil Deputies will realise at once that that is not even a redressing of the previous Government's policy. It is an assimilation and a swallowing of it in toto. That is a good lesson if the Government take it, properly to heart, because, in spite of themselves, with the co-operation and intelligent, constructive criticism they will receive from the Opposition here, we will make a good Government of them if they make the least effort.

We are entitled to ask, and I intend to ask, the Taoiseach to inform the country as to what is the design and what is the plan for agriculture in this country. Will there be a continuation of the long-term agreements already entered into or will we have to extract the information as it was extracted from Deputy Walsh, the Minister for Agriculture, yesterday when he told the House that the five-year guarantee for milk is not suspended? We want to know, and the farmers of Ireland are entitled to know, whether there will be a continuation of the tremendous schemes of benefit designed and executed by the last Government, whether there will be a full continuation of land rehabilitation, whether there will be full development of the schemes for putting water into rural dwellings, whether there will be a proper use made of all the development works under the Local Authorities (Works) Act.

It was rather amazing to hear the naïve Lord Mayor of Cork, moryah, to-day talking about holding things up, when one reverts to the Local Authorities (Works) Act, which was a fruitful source of employment, a fruitful source of national schemes that did lasting national good. It was obstructed over and over again, and deliberately obstructed in this House by Fianna Fáil, the then Opposition, so that work would be denied the people in rural Ireland at a time when they badly needed it. It does sound just a little bit too hypocritical to swallow when Deputy McGrath stands up to talk about thanking the Government for giving an increase in the old age pension. That would never have been given but for the fact that the late Government had already designed and planned the Bill to give it, and that they had made Fianna Fáil, during the election campaign, give an assurance that that 2/6 would be given. We are entitled to know whether or not the record of a Party who denied increases in the old age pension can compare with the record of a Government who removed the iniquitous and unnecessary taxes and at the same time gave a substantial increase to the extent of 5/- in the old age pension. We are entitled to know and the country is entitled to judge, where the merit lies when you have the pontificating Deputy McGrath claiming credit for something that Fianna Fáil never conceived or never would have conceived but for the fact that it was left to them as a concrete proposal when the Government which I supported left office.

We are entitled to ask, are we to accept the kind of vague, unreal, Victorian and archaic approach to Partition adumbrated by the Taoiseach to-day as being Government policy on this our major remaining political problem? I am entitled to say, in reference to the motions to be moved by Deputy MacBride to-day, that, as the Taoiseach has indicated, the whip is on and the iron grip is on his own Party in relation to these motions. He gave us no reason that would justify the denial of the liberty of their consciences to the Deputies of this House when voting on the issue. He did not even advert to the terms of the motions. Not one suggestion has been made by him as to why the vote could not, in a deliberate, free non-Party spirit be an issue in this House. He mumbled some vague remark about not liking free votes. Too well, and too bitterly, does this country know the fact that the Taoiseach never liked free votes or never liked votes that might entail defeat. I am entitled to ask, when we are dealing with this problem, if we cannot face the principle that is in issue quite apart from Party differences and Party cleavages. The issue in the motions, which I intend to support and vote for, is that, as a gesture of our goodwill and our confidence in our brother Irishmen in the North, they will be given an audience in either the Seanad or in the Dáil. We in this House are merely asking the Government to initiate proposals to that effect. That motion includes, as I wish it to include, even the die-hard Unionist of the North should he want to come down here amongst us to be heard.

We pay lip service, and too much lip service, in this country to the ideal of a unified Ireland and do nothing practical to achieve it. There are myriads and myriads of bridges of goodwill that could be built between our brethren in the North and ourselves, and they are not going to be built until such day as the North can have confidence in us—a confidence that was bitterly lost in 1798. Are we going to encourage or engender any goodwill with the North when one finds their ex-god, the present Taoiseach, whipping his boys up the stairs into the lobby to-night to vote in such a way as to deny them the smallest access to what we claim to be their rightful Parliament? They seek no deliberative or voting powers in this House. They seek but the right that they, believing sincerely in the union of Ireland and the unity of Ireland, should be allowed to come here to the Parliament that they consider their rightful Parliament to speak on issues that may be of consequence to them, not in any way to deal with our domestic problems, but to have a platform and a forum from which to continue to air the iniquitous situation of Partition externally imposed and externally maintained.

I feel that we are approaching this problem in a completely wrong way and that, if we do not mend our hands, we can discourage an element that needs all the encouragement and co-operation that they can be given. I have a particular liking for the first motion in Deputy MacBride's name because it is wide enough to embrace even our seemingly most bitter opponents of the moment, if they also want to come amongst us. We know that the establishment of this State is due to the courage and the vision that men had to establish the first Dáil and probably, even more than the military successes, it was the fact that administration was crippled and the King's writ could not run in this country that brought about the happy situation which leaves us in the Republic of Ireland to-day with a free independent Parliament.

This move may be the forerunner to the building up of an organisation supported by the Irish here in the Republic which will gradually tear away from the tentacles of despotism and vested interests those parts of our country which are predominantly republican in sympathy, those parts of the Six Counties which should, by all the tenets of politics and of feeling, be part of the Republic. As each advance is made in that direction, as each acre and each field are filched from the vested interests that abound around Belfast, the impossibility and the impracticability of maintaining an isolated puppet unit will become more and more apparent to the world.

This is a problem which is reaching a stage where, with the goodwill and conscientious effort of all Irishmen, whether they are North or South of the Border, a genuine advance can be made. It may be that the motion to-day, or our action to-day, may only be a gesture, but at least it can be a manly gesture. It may be that there are difficulties in the way of making it really big. It may be that constitutional lawyers or people anxious to score points may raise insurmountable barriers, but at least there can be no barrier, legal or otherwise, to the genuine goodwill and spirit of this House if it wants to reach out its hands in real fraternal brotherhood towards its own people. We will not do that if, on motions such as this, we have divisions in this House in which the individual conscience of Deputies on the Government side is to be stifled, because I can fully realise from the petulance and impatience of the interruption of Deputy Brennan to-day that he is as sore as blazes because the Whips are on, as he knows perfectly well, from his close proximity to those of our temporarily severed brothers, where his vote should go if his conscience was free.

If we want to face the Partition issue in earnest, we must try to explore every possible avenue where goodwill and co-operation can be found, and if there is even the remote possibility that by accepting this motion we could build a bridge of goodwill, then we should have the courage to take that step in the genuine national interest. What is there against it? It is not so long ago when in an early Dáil representatives from many of these areas were heard. Why should we allow an act of any alien Government or any petty circumstances to stop us from holding out the hand of friendship, if it is sought? Whatever good this might do, the fact that we will not do it can do irreparable harm. I appeal to the House to consider that particular viewpoint.

Whether a Northern representative be a partitionist, a nationalist or a unionist, under the terms of the first motion proposed by Deputy MacBride, if we have the courage to adopt it, he will have the right of audience in either the Dáil or Seanad, as we desire. My own leanings would be that if any right of audience were given, it should be given in the Seanad. But under the terms of that motion we can say even to our seemingly blackest enemy in Northern Ireland: "We are big enough to let you come down and air your views in our Oireachtas if you want to." It would be a very big step in the right direction. It would show the magnanimity there is in this Republic. It would show willing eagerness on our part to have them not only Irish in name but Irish in reality as well. We are entitled to ask, and we must ask in a deliberate way, what are the reasons activating the mind of the Taoiseach when he does not tell us whether he is going to vote for or against this, but avoids the subject by giving us a little homily on the danger of free votes.

I listened this morning to a disjointed, ill-considered dissertation on the Gaeltacht and the congested areas. The problem in these areas is an infinitely deeper problem than the one so dear to the heart of the Taoiseach, the language. Like the Taoiseach, I hope to see the drive to revive our own language spreading. But the problem of the congested areas and of the Gaeltacht has become one of dire economics. One problem which I was surprised the Taoiseach never touched and which is one of the most serious blisters in these isolated areas is the extraordinary high valuation of poor and inferior lands.

I move to report progress.

Progress reported; Committee to sit again later.
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