Referring to the cost of living, which is perhaps the most talked of and the most live problem with which the people of all classes and sections are faced, last night I dealt to some extent with the various items of household commodities the prices of which had been increased on the recommendation of the Prices Advisory Body. If my memory serves me correctly, that body was brought into being for the purpose of investigating very thoroughly and fully applications that would be made for increases in the prices of certain commodities. But I think it is quite true to say, and it would be well for the House to bear it in mind, that the Minister for Industry and Commerce, be he Deputy Dr. O'Higgins, Deputy Morrissey or Deputy Lemass, or whoever it may be, is under no obligation whatever to give effect to the recommendations of the Prices Advisory Body. I should like to know from the Minister, and I am sure it would be welcome information to have on the records of the House, on how many occasions during the term of office of the inter-Party Government did the then Minister for Industry and Commerce ignore a recommendation for a price increase?
Supplies and Services (Temporary Provisions) Act, 1946 (Continuance) Bill, 1951—Second Stage (Resumed).
One, with regard to meat.
It would be well also to know on how many occasions since the de Valera-Cogan-Cowan set-up came into being last June did the present Minister refuse an increase in the price of commodities recommended by the Prices Advisory Body.
Yes, tobacco and cigarettes. The prices body recommended double the increase that I allowed.
Does the Minister mean to tell us that he refused to sanction an increase on tobacco and cigarettes?
Yes. The prices body recommended double the increase that was allowed.
But the Minister approved of an increase.
Yes.
And he need not have done it. If the Minister for Industry and Commerce gave any consideration to the fact that the smoke to the ordinary working man is the equivalent of probably two daily meals, would he have sanctioned such an increase? There are people who cannot live without a smoke. There are people who have not their share of this world's goods in great abundance and their only comfort in life is to sit down and enjoy their smoke. The Minister admits that he refused to give effect to a recommendation whereby double the increase would have been imposed. Would it not have been better for the Minister to reject the application entirely? It is to be expected, of course, that a Fianna Fáil Government will not give very much consideration to what the ordinary man-in-the-street needs.
I could even have made an Order reducing the price by half, but I could not guarantee then that there would be any cigarettes or tobacco.
Could the Minister not have ignored that recommendation completely?
And the Deputy would go around then abusing the Government because there were no cigarettes.
How was it there were cigarettes during the three years of the inter-Party Government?
Because they devalued the £ and put up the price by 40 per cent.
Who devalued the £?
You did. The £ was devalued by 40 per cent—the Irish £.
Do not be misled by the Minister for Finance.
This Government is put to the pin of its collar to maintain it.
Order!
I cannot understand how the Minister can possibly tell the House that cigarettes and tobacco would disappear immediately if he had not sanctioned half the increase asked for. How was it cigarettes were available in abundant quantities during the three years of the inter-Party Government? How was it there was full-time employment in the tobacco factories? There was no question of unemployment or a shortage of cigarettes and tobacco. Yet, the Minister tells us now that if he had not sanctioned half the increase asked for there would probably be unemployment and we would be faced with a shortage of cigarettes and tobacco. Surely the Minister does not think for one moment that we will believe that. We all know that cigarettes and tobacco were available in ample supplies during the inter-Party Government. It is codology to tell the House that supplies would disappear if he had not sanctioned an increase.
It is increases such as this that make it more difficult for the ordinary working-class people to exist. Where was the use in the inter-Party Government giving an extra half-crown to the old age pensioners when this Government comes along—the de Valera-Cowan-Cogan Government—and to their shame put into effect increased prices so that the old age pensioner finds that he now has to pay more for his pipe of tobacco in addition to the increased prices he has to pay in order to keep body and soul together.
Some people may say that the cost of living affects only the poorer sections of the community. It is quite true that almost half the wage-earners in the country are in receipt of less than £4 per week. Not only has the ordinary wage-earner been affected by the mismanagement of the present Government and not only is the ordinary housewife worried about the soaring cost of living but another large section of the community is beginning to feel the pinch.
Commercial travellers are faced with the problem of having to pay more for their petrol. The ordinary citizen who finds it impossible to carry out his everyday duties without the help of a motor car is faced with the problem of having to pay more for his petrol. He finds great difficulty in meeting the approved increase in the price of petrol. Business people who need vans and lorries for the transport of their goods are faced with the problem of meeting this increase in petrol.
There is one increase that affects both the rich and the poor. That is the increase in the price of fuel. I am sure the worried housewife, whose pained countenance we saw on the Fianna Fáil posters before the last election, is feeling much more pained to-day because of the increases which the Minister for Industry and Commerce has seen fit to put into effect on the recommendation of the Prices Advisory Body, a recommendation that he was by no means bound to put into effect.
The price of coal has increased in New Ross, Waterford, Balbriggan and elsewhere. The increase is a substantial one. Is it the intention of the Minister to leave the majority of the people in the non-turf-producing areas without a fire? Bad as were the increases in the price of bacon and eggs and the depriving of people of milk to colour their tea, the increase in the price of fuel is something that cries to Heaven for vengeance. Where does this increase fall into line with the promises made before the election to provide the people with cheap firing and the housewife with everything she required at a lower cost than that at which commodities could be procured under the inter-Party Government?
On the 1st October, 1951, a notice appeared in the papers informing the public that coal had increased in price by 10/- per ton retail in Dublin, the County Borough of Dún Laoghaire and elsewhere. This came as an unwelcome shock to the householder but it is only one of the many unwelcome shocks that we may expect judging by the Taoiseach's speech in the House this week. The announcement was that, on the recommendation of the Prices Advisory Body, the price of coal was increased by 10/- a ton. That was to affect the retail price of coal in the County Borough of Dublin and the Borough of Dún Laoghaire. It is quite a number of years since the people of this city have found such great difficulty in obtaining supplies of coal as they are experiencing at the moment. It is not that the coal is not there, but that the price is prohibitive and prevents unfortunate people from purchasing it.
Some days afterwards the price of coffee was doubled. It would be interesting to know what sort of a recommendation was put before the Minister which wanted a double increase in the price of coffee. It is hard to understand why the Minister permitted the increase. On Thursday, 1st November, 1951, a statement made by the Tánaiste in this House, in reply to questions raised by Deputy Seán Dunne and Deputy Seán Collins, was published in the daily newspapers. The heading to it made more gloomy reading for the unfortunate people. It read: "Little hope of cost-of-living cut in the future." Five months after the worried housewives had been asked to vote for the new deal and the straight deal, and to vote Fianna Fáil, we had from the very people who complained about the cost of living the statement: "Little hope of cost-of-living cut in the near future." This statement of the Minister for Industry and Commerce is only one of the many gloomy and depressing statements made by members of this de Valera-Cogan-Cowan Government in the past few months.
We also had statements from the Minister for Finance. Those of us who know him well seldom take him seriously. Those who do not know him probably are misled by the type of speeches he makes. The Minister for Finance has made many speeches in Dublin and the country in which he has said that there are bad times coming, that we are living beyond our means, that we have too high a standard of living, that we are too well off and that these things will have to be cut out and cut down.
Deputy Larkin, in the course of his speech, made a very important point. It is one which I want to ask the Tánaiste this morning. It is, who in this State are living beyond their means? I would like if the Minister for Finance or if "the chief", as he is described, would tell this House who in this State to-day are living beyond their means? Is it the 80,000 farm workers who are put to the pin of their collars to get an existence? Only a few weeks ago, Deputies sitting behind the Tánaiste voted in this House against that unfortunate section of the people getting a decent and a proper wage. Are they living beyond their means? Can we have a clear-cut statement from the Government as to what sections of the people are living beyond their means, and in respect of whom the Government proposes to see that the standard of living will be lowered?
I hope that the Government are not going to touch the pensions of the 30,000 unfortunate widows we have. The Tánaiste and the House know that the Lord in the high heavens can send no greater cross to the mother of a family than to deprive her of her breadwinner, because immediately that unfortunate citizen is left to the mercy of this cruel Government. She has already suffered sufficiently as a result of their bad handling of the present situation without asking her to cut down her standard of living or to deprive one of her unfortunate children of one meal per day which is the standing policy of the present set-up. While every item which that unfortunate widow may require has gone up, few steps have been taken to double her widow's pension in order to enable her to meet the growing increase in the cost of living.
It goes without saying that the cost of living in this country has gone to an extent higher than ever before, and the Tánaiste must have an uneasy mind when he considers that——
He looks very concerned now.
Very.
——he sneaked into office on promises which he made, which he has broken and which he failed even to make a serious attempt to fulfil. As far as the cost of living is concerned, I have not heard one word from him, or from any of his colleagues, as to what hope there is for the wage-earners in this country. We only heard from the Tánaiste a speech of little hope of a cost-of-living cut in the near future. That is nice reading for those who believed that the cost of living was going to be brought within their reach.
On the 1-11-1951 more disastrous news appeared in all the papers: "More price increases, dearer jam, marmalade and sugar up." The backbenchers in the Fianna Fáil Party ought to be well satisfied now, since not only have they the cost of living well up but they have it up with jam on it. The housewife is again deprived of the marmalade and jam which the children expect to have on their bread when going to school. We all know that most children find jam very tasty and appetising and that it is used in homes where the people cannot pay for butter, thanks to the Tánaiste. He wants to drive them back to the dry bread days, to the hungry days. He was not satisfied by depriving them of butter but says: "You may lose your jam; we are not satisfied that jam lowers their standard of living; they are still living beyond their means," and the price of jam and marmalade is jumped up.
There was not one protest about that from any member who sits behind the present de Valera-Cogan-Cowan set-up. They all took the fact that, when the unfortunate mother was being deprived of butter for her family by the prohibitive increase in price, she was likewise called upon to get back to the dry bread days because she was also to be deprived of jam and marmalade. That is what we got from the Tánaiste, from the man who promised that he would reduce the cost of living. We are returning to the days of the hard dry crust, with butter a luxury for the rich, and the poor now deprived of jam.
The Irish Independent of Saturday, 20th October, 1951, published this: “Higher Price for Bread Sought.” On the same day Boland's shares went up. I hope that no attempt will be made by the Tánaiste to sanction for anyone in this State any increase in the price of bread. He told us last week that there was no attempt at present being made but he did not tell us he would not do it. Does not the Tánaiste know quite well that bread is a commodity without which the citizens of this country cannot exist? If there is any increase in the price of bread it will seriously affect the poorer sections of the people to whom I have referred earlier this morning and last night. If the Tánaiste produces any flimsy reasons as to why the price of bread should be increased we are prepared to reject and disbelieve them.
The Tánaiste knows quite well, as, I am sure, do some of the Labour Deputies who are associated with trade unions, that there are bakeries throughout the country closing down and that bakers are being thrown on to the list of unemployed, because firms such as Boland's and Mooney's are bringing huge consignments of bread down throughout the country, putting the local baker out of business. No steps have been taken by the Minister for Industry and Commerce to protect the local bakeries and those employed therein—the local bakers, the local van drivers and the people behind the counter selling the bread. They are going on to the unemployed list because Mooney's and Boland's have a monopoly of bread supplies in the country. I am told that Dublin bread is being sold in places as far off as Roscommon and Tipperary and I have known that in parts of my constituency bakeries are closing down. In the town of Tullamore, for example, a number of bakers are threatened with dismissal.
I would like to know and I would be very interested if the Tánaiste would explain—I am very slow on the pickup of such explanations and also I would like to have the explanation on the records of this House—how firms such as Boland's have floor to supply bread to the whole of the Twenty-Six Counties. Is it that the Dublin people are not drawing their rations? I can safely say that if that is the case there is something seriously wrong with the rationing section of the Minister's Department—to say that bread can be supplied by Dublin firms and that they can transport bread from the city down to the country with the serious consequence of loss of employment to local bakeries and local bakers. I would like to direct the Minister's attention to the seriousness of that problem. I think it is a problem that should be tackled in a better spirit than it is being tackled at the moment.
Let us go on to something more important, although it is doubtful if there could be anything more important than the cost of living. The Minister for Health made a speech last night in the course of which he said that they had heard recently that this country was living beyond its means. "Everybody," he said, "agreed with that. At any rate we are not making ends meet." The Minister for Health made that statement last night when he was addressing the Veterinary Council of Ireland. I want to know how did the inter-Party Government make ends meet. Not alone did they make ends meet but they were able to put knots on. Even last night the Minister for Health was not satisfied without making another gloomy speech. He called for an increase in agricultural production. Every Minister of the present Government who speaks winds up his speech by saying: "Take off your coat. Work harder, produce more."
While the Minister for Health was addressing the veterinary council last night, he saw fit to ask the farmers of this country to produce more and to work harder, that means to put more energy and determination into their work. I would like to hear from the Minister what he has to say about this. If we require more produce from the farm it is from the farmer that we expect the production. What help is he getting from the Minister to increase his production? What has the Minister to say about the price of fertilisers which are a very necessary and most essential commodity for the farmer? I understand that the Minister has this matter under consideration at the moment. The high prices of fertilisers to-day will have a very serious effect on production in this country during the coming year.
The fertilisers purchased by the average farmer last year ranged in price from £9 10s. 0d. to £9 15s. 0d. per ton for superphosphates, compared with £14 10s. 0d. per ton this year. If superphosphates could be obtained at £9 15s 0d. per ton last year, what has been responsible for the heavy increase to £14 10s. 0d. per ton to-day? When Deputy James Dillon was Minister for Agriculture he was able to make available to the farmers of this country manures and fertilisers at £9 10s. 0d. per ton. Now, however, the days of the £9 10s. 0d. per ton have passed away. Mr. Walsh is now the Minister for Agriculture and the days of the £14 10s. 0d. per ton are with us. That is the price per ton the farmers to-day will have to pay for the fertilisers which we in the inter-Party Government made available to them last year for £9 10s. 0d. Yet, the Fianna Fáil Government are saying that we should produce more and work harder.
Bulk purchases of fertilisers could be obtained last year by the farmers from the factory at £8 12s. 6d. per ton, whereas this year's price is £13 15s. 0d. per ton. There is somebody getting a fine big rake-off from fertilisers and manures at the present time. Such an increase in price is unwarranted and unreasonable, and the farmers of this country cannot be expected to purchase fertilisers at this rate. I would like to know who has been responsible for this unreasonable increase in price. I say, without any fear of contradiction, that this increase is going to have a serious effect on the agricultural production of this country. There seems to be a serious racket, and I deliberately use the word "racket", as far as the price of fertilisers is concerned.
I hope the Minister for Industry and Commerce will see that there will not be further unemployment and that the discontent will not grow to an even greater extent as a result of the deplorable price of fertilisers and manures. How can the farmers increase production unless they have fertilisers? How can they use them unless they have them, and how can they get them unless they can afford to pay for them? Last year, as a result of the sound, wise policy of the inter-Party Government and of Deputy James Dillon, the farmers could afford to buy fertilisers; but to-day, even if fertilisers are available, they cannot purchase them.
Yesterday, in the course of a statement during Question Time, the Minister for Industry and Commerce stated that he was going to look into the question of motor car insurance increases. In other words, the question was going to be probed. At the same time, he thought that the increase of 25 per cent. was justified. I ask the Tánaiste to tell me what would happen if any worker were to approach the manager of his factory and ask for a 25 per cent. increase in his wages? What would happen? He would be presented with his insurance cards and he could then proceed to sign up with Deputy Kennedy in the Department of Social Welfare. The Prices Advisory Body, we understand, is arranging to investigate the increased charge of motor insurance. Let us give consideration to the fact that many people who have to pay this 25 per cent. increase after the 1st of next January, find that a motor car is as essential to them, in order to eke out an existence, as are their hands and feet. I am referring to commercial travellers and the like. I doubt if the Minister for Industry and Commerce could put forward any case before this House that would warrant such an increase, and the Government that would approve of it would be doing a bad day's work.
I also feel that there is a racket in connection with insurance, but the insurance companies know that they have a sympathetic Minister for Industry and Commerce and that there is a "big man's" Government in power. Even if they asked for an increase of 50 per cent. in motor insurance they would still have the Tánaiste sympathies. The Tánaiste says, from information he has obtained, that the increase in motor insurance is quite justified—an increase of 25 per cent. Are the widows going to receive an increase of 25 per cent. in their pensions? Is the old age pensioner about to get an increase of 25 per cent. or is the agricultural worker to receive an increase of 25 per cent. in his wages? When all those people look for an increase of 25 per cent. in their pensions or in their wages no favourable or sympathetic words come from the Minister for Industry and Commerce to justify the increases sought.
The increase sought by the insurance companies is justified, but it is a very different story when it is a question of the ordinary working-class people. For instance, the members of the Garda Síochána were seeking a substantial increase. Their case did not receive sympathetic consideration and it did not take the Minister concerned very long to probe into it, but the case put forward by the insurance companies was sympathetically considered. I say that no concern is justified in piling on an increase of 25 per cent., and I hope that, as a result of the probe that is about to be made, some steps will be taken to see that such an increase of 25 per cent. will not be permitted. Personally, I would not give them any increase, not one red penny, and I say that it would be wrong for the Government to approve of or to allow any increase.
The inter-Party Government are very severely criticised, particularly Deputies Cosgrave and Morrissey, who were in charge of the Department of Industry and Commerce, because they stockpiled, to use the Tánaiste's phrase. At that period, everybody knows quite well that Europe was in a very unsettled position and that it looked as if we were going to face another world war. If a third world war had come upon us I would like to hear the criticism which the Tánaiste would have levelled at the inter-Party Government if they had not stockpiled, advocated stockpiling and asked the people to store up goods. Did the inter-Party Government not adopt a right and sound attitude in view of the world situation at the time? If we had the misfortune not to do so the finger of scorn would be pointed at us and we would be told that we were not farseeing. However, because we were farseeing, knew the uneasiness of the world situation, and advised people and concerns to buy in and store up stocks, we were wrong in the eyes of Fianna Fáil, and if we had not acted thus we would also be wrong in the eyes of Fianna Fáil.
I say that the line of action which we took was quite right, and I would be prepared to stand 100 per cent. behind the Minister and the Government who acted so wisely. We would have seen the usefulness of such a policy had the world situation become more serious than it was at that period. We were informed that, as the result of stockpiling, the country was faced with quite an amount of unemployment, both in the woollen and worsted trades.
I am sure the Tánaiste is concerned, much concerned. He was asked by a Deputy in this House to receive a deputation of Deputies representing Laois-Offaly concerning unfortunate workers who were employed for only three days per week in Tullamore and Portlaoise. He refused to do it. He was so little concerned with the conditions of the workers in the Midlands, both in Portlaoise and Tullamore, that he refused, plump and stern, to discuss it with the Deputies representing the constituency. Yet Fianna Fáil spokesmen throw the full blame for this state of affairs upon the inter-Party Government. That charge is not true and the workers employed in those mills know that it is not true; they know that when the inter-Party Government was in office they were working full time and overtime. The moment Fianna Fáil came back, bad times also came and instead of overtime and full time, they have now only three days a week. I say for the purpose of record, that if the inter-Party Government was in office, there would not be one man, either in Tullamore or Portlaoise, on short time. The mills would be working to their fullest capacity and every worker would be in receipt of his full wages and would have the advantage of the overtime which they so proudly enjoyed during the term of office of the inter-Party Government.
Amongst the gloomy speeches that were made—and there were many gloomy speeches made in the past six months—was a speech by Moleskin Joe in Galway.
Now!
By the Taoiseach.
The Deputy should not use an expression such as that, causing the Chair to intervene. The Deputy knows perfectly well that such expressions are grossly irregular and should not be used.
Is he not going to be asked to withdraw it?
He has withdrawn it, I understand.
I did not hear him.
On a point of order, the Deputy used that expression several times last night and he is repeating it to-day. In view of that, am I in order in suggesting that we should have some type of guarantee that the use of this expression will not be repeated?
The only guarantee that the House can have is that the Chair will watch to see that such expressions are not used.
Has he withdrawn the expression?
The expression has been withdrawn.
And the things poor Dillon was called!
If there is any man who reminds me of the gentleman to whom I referred as Moleskin Joe it is the present Taoiseach.
The Deputy may not discuss any alleged similarity between the Taoiseach and the person to whom he refers.
I am prepared to accept your ruling.
The Deputy will accept my ruling.
I do, Sir. The Taoiseach went to Galway. I do not know if he was shaking his legs at a Fianna Fáil céilidhe in Galway, celebrating some joyous occasion in the Fianna Fáil organisation, or whether it was a dinner he was enjoying, but in the course of his visit to Galway he spoke of some of the national ills from which the country is suffering to-day. He referred to emigration. You can picture the Taoiseach referring to emigration. He criticised bitterly and severely the living conditions of workers in Great Britain because he said he had a report of the conditions there.
Will the Deputy relate this to the motion before the House?
I am relating it to the amendment. Emigration is one of our national ills and when the Taoiseach was in Galway he spoke on emigration.
I want the Deputy to relate this to the motion and the amendments before the House.
I thought it was in order to discuss emigration.
On a point of order, practically every Deputy who spoke dealt with emigration and, with all respect, I never heard you asking any Deputy before to relate it to the motion.
If the Deputy wants to question the ruling of the Chair, there is a method of doing so.
With all due respect——
The Deputy will sit down while I am on my feet. I challenged any Deputy's statement that was not relevant to the matter before the House. I am asking the Deputy now to relate his remarks on emigration to the motion and the amendments before the House.
Well, there is the question of unemployment.
In one of the amendments there is a reference to—
"measures that will produce unemployment, promote emigration or reduce the economic conditions of the Irish people".
That is on to-day's Order Paper. The Chair should read the Order Paper, with all due respect.
On a point of order, is it customary to ask Deputies who deal with emigration to relate it to the matter before the House? May I ask why you have requested Deputy O. Flanagan to do so?
The Chair is quite entitled to ask any Deputy to relate anything with which he is dealing to the matter before the House.
It seems that only one Deputy so far has been asked to do it.
I shall deal with emigration and I shall ask the protection of the Chair to see that I deal with it. Now that you have read the Order Paper to see that I am in order, I ask to be permitted to deal with it.
The Deputy may not make irrelevant remarks as to the necessity of the Chair reading the Order Paper and what is in the amendments.
The Chair has asked——
If Deputy Flanagan persists in this attitude I shall have to ask him to discontinue his speech. The Chair is well acquainted with what is in the Order Paper.
Deputy Flanagan has suggested directly that the Ceann Comhairle has not familiarised himself with the contents of the Order Paper. Must the Deputy not be asked to withdraw that?
I shall ask the Deputy to withdraw it.
It is well we have at least one protector of the Chair on the opposite side, remembering how the Chair was threatened on one occasion by Deputy Smith. It is a good thing that you are becoming a little civilised.
Emigration is one of the greatest problems we have to tackle in this country. It is quite true to say that practically every family in this country has someone in Great Britain sending home money. The statement made by the Taoiseach in Galway dealing with emigration referred to the bad housing conditions under which workers who were denied full-time employment at home were forced to exist in Great Britain. He said that he had received a report from a certain committee in England outlining the disgraceful and sad conditions under which they were existing. He said that the report carried a statement that in certain works, in order to attract girls to employment in a factory, one firm mentioned that they had hostels, but they omitted to say that after six weeks the girls must find their own "digs". He quoted again from the report to show that in some quarters of Birmingham and Coventry, the beds in a certain lodging house were going day and night, were going in relays. His speech cast a serious reflection on employers, on hostel-keepers and on hotel-keepers in England who were good enough to house and to keep our Irish workers there from starving and dying with hunger.
He made a speech which was responsible for creating bitterness between the Irish worker and the Englishman who was feeding him and maintaining his dependents in this country. How many Irishmen had to suffer the sneer and the jeer in Coventry, Birmingham and Hull? How many Irishmen were told: "Go home to Dev. He has work for you. We do not want you here"? How many Irishmen were put in an embarrassing position in respect of lodging accommodation? How many Irishmen were told: "Pack your bags and get out. We do not want you here now. You are not going to disgrace our lodging-house. We were doing our best for you and feeding you in accordance with the rationing regulations of the British Government. That is not good enough for Mr. de Valera." I have received hundreds of letters and I know that hundreds of workers were put on the high road as a result of that speech. It was designed and uttered for the purpose of bringing about discontent between the Irish worker and the British master.
Many Irish workers were driven out of their employment in factories in England as a result of that speech and many Irish workers were driven to the high road. Many Irish girls were driven out of their hostels and put on the high road and the position in Birmingham and Liverpool was that many of them could not get work when they said they were Irish. They were told: "Go home to Dev. He has the work for you." Where would they be going? Is it back to sign on with Deputy Kennedy? That is where the work is. Surely the Tánaiste must be aware that on the 10th November of this year the unemployment figures showed an increase and that there is more of a need now for Deputy Kennedy's Department and for relief and doles than ever before in this country.
On the 10th November of this year there were 56,255 registered unemployed—compared with 52,540 this time 12 months ago. How many unemployed are there who are not on the register? Where are they going to get work? Where is the work that the Taoiseach said in Galway he had for them? As a result of the harm done by that speech our Irish workers were kicked out of every hostel and lodging-house and hotel in England—as if it were not enough that they were scalded and crippled and driven like live stock out of their own country and denied work because of the bad management of Fianna Fáil. It was not enough that they should be driven out of their own country to seek employment abroad but an evil curse had to be put on them when they were in England to deprive them of their work and their lodgings there.
The man who made that insane speech will answer before his God for it, because it has brought destruction on many a home in this country and discontent and unemployment and the high road on many an Irish worker in England who lost his job because of the widespread publicity which was given to it. He said: "There is plenty of work for you. Come home." Come home to what? Is it to come home to tighten their belts for a lower standard of living? Is it to come home to economise? Is it to come home to sign on for unemployment benefit? What would bring them home? But the Taoiseach wants them, apparently. There are not enough on the dole in this country already. He wants more.
If any one man is responsible for the state of affairs contained in the report it is the Taoiseach himself. It causes a laugh in this country to hear him talk about emigration in his old age. Why did he not talk about it 16 years ago? He spoke about it in 1932 when he said he would bring back all the emigrants who went to America because there would be plenty of work at home for them. But the work never materialised and he forgot about the emigrants—until he went down to wag his legs at a Fianna Fáil céilidhe in Galway a short time ago. Then he thought of them again. Is it not time, in his old age, he thought of the emigrants? There was no mention of providing work for them during the 16 years he was in office. That speech which he made in Galway was just a dodge to pretend that he was anxious to provide employment for them. He was not satisfied until he had created discontent—upset the man working in England who was feeding his hungry family at home in this country. Thanks to the Fianna Fáil-Cogan-Cowan setup, there is no work for these men to-day in this country—and there was no work for them before while Fianna Fáil was in office. That is the type of hypocrisy we are faced with.
Unemployment is soaring in this country. Everybody knows that it is increasing and that it will worsen every hour Fianna Fáil is left in office. It is a curse on this country which is increasing in vigour and determination. There is not a hope for this country while they are in office. There is not a hope for the youth of this country or for the business community of this country or for the farmers of this country while Fianna Fáil are in office. The country is doomed while Fianna Fáil remain in office. I say that without the slightest fear of contradiction. The sooner these self-seekers are removed from the public life of this country the better.
Last week the Taoiseach said in Cork that they were as loyal in that Government to-day as they were in 1916. That is quite true. They have 1916 ideas but they have not got 1951 ideas. He said:
"We are as loyal to-day in Fianna Fáil as we were in 1916 and we will stand shoulder to shoulder as we did in 1916."
They have 1916 ideas still—not 1951 ideas. Their policy—if any—is a 1916 policy. It is not a 1951 policy. We want to forget 1916 and we will forget it. The youth of this country wants to forget it. What good is all this talk of 1916 to-day to the 56,255 unemployed people whom Deputy Kennedy has on his register? The "1916 shoulder to shoulder" is not much good to the thousands of Irish workers who are now on the roadside because they were removed from their digs as a result of the speech which the Taoiseach made in Galway. Nineteen-sixteen is not much use to them.
It is true to say that the Taoiseach has a busy time trying to keep this Government together because it is split in 50 pieces, if there can be such a thing. The Tánaiste, Deputy Lemass, is only waiting to become Taoiseach. He thinks he will never see the end of the Chief. He is only waiting to get power. Deputy Aiken is making every attempt he can in order to oust him from that position. Deputy Little of the Fianna Fáil Party was a silent member of this House for a number of years and was later a Minister. When the present Government was being formed, the present Taoiseach sent for him and said: "Deputy Little, I will send you back to your old Department of Posts and Telegraphs." Deputy Little replied: "Chief, I never thought to take office on Deputy Cowan's vote."
What has all that to do with the motion and the amendments which are before the House? The Deputy is out of order.
I will accept your ruling, Sir. This Government is utterly incapable and utterly irresponsible and it is not fit to discharge the official affairs of this country. We talk of emigration, unemployment and bad times and the Taoiseach at Galway referred to the housing conditions in England. Would it not have been wiser for him to direct his attention to the housing conditions at home? On the very day that the report of his speech in Galway appeared there was a report in the Irish Independent concerning a widow in Cork who was summoned for possession of her house at 11 Market Street. She and her three children had to sleep in a field because the Cork County Home was too full to accommodate her. That happened the same day on which the Taoiseach criticised living conditions in England. There was not accommodation in Cork to shelter a widow and her three unfortunate children. That is the sort of tripe we have. That is the sort of speech we have. That is the sort of Taoiseach we have and that is the type of Government we have.
Now for the Central Bank Report——
Monetary reform.
——and the White Paper. There seems to be extraordinary secrecy about the manner in which the directors of the Central Bank perform their duties. The head of the Civil Service in this country is the Secretary of the Department of Finance. I understand he is a director of the Central Bank. The Central Bank have issued a statement of accounts which I have before me. On page 3 of the statement of accounts for the year ending 31st March, 1949, in Part II, general fund, (a) profit and loss account, it says: Expenses of bank, salaries, wages and other remuneration, £33,674 10s. 3d. Underneath there is the item: "Other expenses, £60,805 18s. 5d."
I have also the report for the year ending 31st March, 1951, on page 3 of which is set out:—
"Part II, general fund (a) profit and loss account, expenses of bank, salaries, wages and other remuneration, £33,674 10s. 3d."
Underneath, the figure in respect of "other expenses" is set out as £120,621 10s. 3d. The "other expenses" have in 12 months jumped from £60,000 to £120,000. I may not be a very great man with figures. I cannot say that I am very bright with figures. There are worse behind the Minister. They cannot even read, but if this balance sheet were presented to a hurling and football club down the country, there would be murder over it. If it were presented at a Gaelic Athletic Association or soccer meeting in the country, the members would pull the hair and teeth out of each other over it. There is nothing in this report to tell me what these other expenses are.
Postage.
This report should be rejected. It fails to give information in regard to what the Central Bank has done with the £120,000. I now accuse them of sticking it in their pockets. That is where it went. There is no statement telling me what they did with it. I do not know whether they spent it on fish and chips, ice cream, wild duck or how they spent it but I say that it is unaccounted for. One hundred and twenty thousand pounds comes under the heading of "other expenses". If 5/- was under the heading of "other expenses" in a football club down the country, you would have every member of that club asking where that 5/- went and how it was spent. Members of committees in the country love to be able to question a balance sheet and find fault with figures and they feel really proud in saying: "This is our balance sheet. Give us an account of every 1d. and ½d. in it."
Deputy MacEntee made a speech. What did he say about this thing? He said that the Central Bank is the watchdog of the Irish people. Who are the watchdogs of the Irish people if not the members of Dáil Éireann? Dáil Éireann has the right from the Irish people and the Irish people alone to be the watchdogs of the people and not the Central Bank. Every member of Dáil Éireann, whether he is a member of the Fianna Fáil Party or otherwise or has common sense or not, is sent here by the people with full authority and responsibility from the people to be their watchdogs and look after their interests. Deputy MacEntee tells us——
The Minister for Finance.
I am sorry. The Minister for Finance tells us that the watchdog of the Irish people is the Central Bank.
Expensive watchdogs.
They are nice watchdogs. Would the Minister for Education, who is the highest educational figure from this House, be prepared to accept this disgraceful statement of accounts? I do not accept it for one moment. I say it does not give us information. I deliberately accuse the Central Bank of sticking £120,000 down in their pockets unaccounted for. There is no account of it in this report. I am not prepared to accept "other expenses" as covering it. Maybe we now know how the present Government is in office. It has just struck me. Maybe this is where the £120,000 went. We are not told, as I have already stated, whether they spent that sum on fish and chips, ice cream or on the five Independents. There is nothing in this to prove to me that the directors of the Central Bank have not squandered the money without accounting for it. I have a fair idea of where it did go. It took us a long time to find out how the present Government got into office. We now know. There is nothing in this sheet to tell us where this sum of £120,000——
The Deputy has said that three or four times.
——has gone, and, in view of that, I say that this is an improper document to present to Dáil Éireann in pursuance of Section 25 (2) of the Currency Act, 1927. Section 25 (2) of the Currency Act, 1927, when it was being passed, did not mean that the members of Dáil Éireann were to get a vague document such as this; with a heading "Other Expenses". Does everyone not know that an item of £120,000 under "Other Expenses" is too Irish? We do not believe it.
The Deputy has said that several times.
I believe it is my duty to call on the Government to see that this money is accounted for and that members of Dáil Éireann will be presented, in pursuance of Section 25 (2) of the Currency Act, 1927, with a supplementary statement of accounts, showing in detail where every penny of that money went. Every Deputy, whether a front-bencher or a backbencher, is entitled to it and every Deputy should have that statement of accounts to peruse and study. Apparently, however, this is one item which is deleted from the statement of accounts, as I say, deliberately, because it was stuck down in their own pockets and put to improper purposes.
The Deputy will pass from that item. He has spoken about it several times and has said the same thing.
I want to go a little further with the Central Bank. The Central Bank is an institution which, instead of this House being its master, is our master. I want to know what qualifications the directors of the Central Bank have to be directors of the Central Bank.
That does not arise. The personnel of the directorate of the Central Bank does not arise.
Salaries and wages must arise. Deputy MacBride asked the Minister for Finance for information concerning the wages, allowances and remuneration paid to the members of the Central Bank. He has not got it.
Deputy MacEntee gave their history, or his version of their history.
The reply Deputy MacBride got from the Minister was:—
"The particulars asked for in the question are outside the scope of the information which it is necessary for me, in the public interest, to require from the Central Bank."
May I say that that question was in relation to the expenditure of the £120,000 under the heading "Other Expenses"?
I should like to find out, and I believe the House should have the information, the amount being paid to the governor and directors of that bank. In particular, may I inquire whether, in view of the fact that the Secretary of the Department of Finance is head of the Civil Service and is also a director of the Central Bank, he is in receipt of a salary as a director of the bank, in addition to his salary as Secretary of the Department? That is a reasonable question and it is reasonable that the House should get that information.
There has been a lot of discussion on the Central Bank and on credit. Everybody who has any intelligence knows that the Government elected by the people cannot put into operation or carry out their programme without stooping and bending the knee to a group of private individuals and that it is wrong for any Government, this Government or any other, to call themselves a Government in those circumstances, because they are not. They are only the servants of the banks, the pawns and tools, the agents of the banks. Members of local authorities know that, in respect of housing, drainage, land improvement and road-making, a great percentage of the rates paid by the ratepayers is going into the banks in the shape of interest on loans for these essential services.
Everybody knows well that money is only a claim on goods and services. Deputy Hickey will agree with me in this. It is a claim on goods and services; in other words, it is a medium of exchange. It is a costless commodity—it costs nothing to make. Money is mere ink and paper, and that must be admitted. It is an artificial mechanism. The plough serves its purpose by ploughing the soil and the seed sown serves its purpose by producing the crop and the reaper and binder serves its purpose; but man is their master and they serve man. Money is quite different. Man has no control whatever over the issue or creation of money, and we are the slaves of these people. The sooner the present Government, the sooner Dáil Éireann as a whole, takes the necessary steps to see that the power for the creation and the issuance of money is vested in this House, and not in a group of private individuals who have neither responsibility to now from this House, the better for the country as a whole.
I say that the banks are robbing this Government barefaced, robbing every Government, that they are robbing the plain people of the country, that they have robbed them and will continue to rob them, until this question is tackled in the proper spirit. The title deeds of land, houses and industry are held in pawn in the banks, because the owner of either the lands, the houses or the industry has left in that real right to real property as a security on the ink and paper money which he received from them, which cost nothing to produce and which was produced by a stroke of the pen.
They created it.
Yes, they created it. Mr. Reginald McKenna, chairman of the Midland Bank in England, told us that every bank loan creates a deposit, that every time you borrow, money is created. We are told that. I fail to see why the Central Bank, or any other bank or any group of bankers, should be in a position to hold the Government and the people to ransom. It is the banking system which is responsible for unemployment and for emigration and for poverty and for debt, and the sooner the House realises that the better. I say this, that on no occasion even in the memory of the oldest member of this House, did the Irish people by their votes or otherwise give the directors of the banks the power, right or authority to issue or to create credit or money. They never gave them that right—and this is the first time that their hold on that right has been openly challenged with determination in this House. Is it not only right that we should challenge the right of three or four bankers to say whether or not Dublin Corporation is to have money for housing? Is it not only right that we should challenge the right of three or four private citizens, who never have or had regard for this country, its national ideals or its progress, and who hate everything Gaelic or Irish and love everything British or imperialistic? These are the men that we are down on our knees to in order to secure money to run this country—and it must be paid back to those private individuals at exorbitant rates of interest, out of the pockets of the people, through their hard work, through their earnings, through their skill and economy and efficiency.
If this Government, or if Dáil Éireann, decides to put every unemployed man immediately to work—we could do it and we have the men and we have the work, there is nothing surer than that—we cannot do it because three or four or five private individuals can prevent it. It is time this House realised that we are powerless, that we are paralysed, to do anything in the matter, that we cannot do it, that we are not the Government in the real sense of the word, that we can inflict only taxation on the people, that we can inflict only poverty and debt on the people, that we can only look at our unemployed and provide moneys in this House to give allowances to them to keep body and soul together, but cannot put them to work because the bank directors will not permit us to do that. I say that the greatest shame, the greatest racket and the greatest disgrace is the present banking system, by which the banking of this country is administered.
Hear, hear!
This House should be in a position to dictate terms to the banks—not the banks to dictate terms to this House. What does any man here give two straws about Lord this or Earl that or Sir John the other? We have the right from the people who sent us here and if there is any dictation to be done, the sovereign Parliament, this House, Dáil Éireann, should give the dictation and not be dictated to.
I hope and trust the day is not very far off when the members of Dáil Éireann will realise their responsibility to the people. If we want to develop agriculture and our mineral resources, to provide housing, to reclaim our lands, there is only one way to do it and that is with the control of our own currency. Deputy Dr. Ryan, the Minister for Health, spoke last night about increased production. The Agricultural Credit Corporation across the street has the title deeds of the big and small farms throughout the country locked up in its vaults in Kildare Street and the remainder is locked up in every bank throughout the country.
With two signatures as well, from depositors.
And £33,000 of it lent to the British Government.
For the life of me, I fail to see why all Governments of the past have been so stupid in this connection, why they have been so careless in using the right the people gave them. I should ask nothing better than to see the directors of the various banks brought into this House and given their instructions on the floor of the House: "Go and do this and do that and the other; we are telling you to do it."
They are controlled from outside, of course.
Yes, they are controlled from outside. We should control them from inside this House. There will never be proper agricultural development or other development until such time as that is done. The Central Bank directors have no love for this country. They hate it and its people, and want to destroy its industry and its agriculture. I honestly think they are agents of the British Government and are being paid by the British Government for destroying everything here. There is £80,000,000 invested in England—can that be pictured?—£80,000,000 invested outside, and the Central Bank with not one penny piece invested in this country. Is not that something for the Taoiseach to shout about in Galway when he is wagging his leg at the next céilidhe? Is it not something for the Tánaiste to talk about when he goes through the country? Is it not something for the Minister for Finance to talk about——
When he goes to Strasbourg.
Apart from the Central Bank altogether, the Government and the Department of Finance has £57,000,000 invested outside this country, on which they lost £3,000,000 last year. There are wise investors, there is wisdom for you—£57,000,000 invested by the Government and the Department of Finance, apart from the Central Bank investments—and they lost £3,000,000 on it last year. They are the watchdogs of the people, says Deputy MacEntee, the Minister for Finance; they are the watchdogs who would not invest a penny in the reclaiming of land, in housing or in industry in this country. They are the watchdogs. In addition to the £80,000,000 invested in England by the Central Bank they have invested £57,000,000, on which they lost £3,000,000 last year. Is not that good business? Is not that disgraceful business?
If the manager of any little mill down the country, of any factory, or any private concern, was brought before his directors, his masters, and said that he had invested money on their behalf in a company which had brought about a loss to the same extent as the three millions which the Minister for Finance and the Government had invested, he would not be kept 24 hours on the premises. But we are still retaining the practices and the services of those people We are still keeping them there surrounded by secrecy, cloaking and hiding. I say without any fear of contradiction that our whole financial system is bad, rotten and unworkable, and until such time as it is changed so that we will have some say—which we are entitled to have—in the control, issue and creation of money, we might as well be whistling jigs to tombstones as endeavouring to develop the country properly. We cannot do it because we are not masters of our own jobs or our own business.
Then comes this disgraceful White Paper we have heard so much about, presented to every member of the Oireachtas by the Minister for Finance, and a little slip with it "with his compliments" which we could have done without, knowing him as we do. With his compliments he has sent us a misleading and untruthful volume of figures. The Taoiseach rose in this House and paid a tribute to one thing the inter-Party Government had done, the establishment of the Statistics Department. When the Government which I supported was in office they found it necessary to establish one Department under the Taoiseach which would be fully and completely responsible for all statistics so that every Parliamentary Secretary, every Minister and every Deputy who desired statistics or information would find them in that Department. It was set up by the inter-Party Government and it was a success.
One of the greatest authorities on statistics in Europe to-day, I suppose, is in charge of that Department. There is an accurate and complete record there of statistics concerning every Department of State and the Taoiseach paid a tribute to it. He said that it was wise, good, sound, and necessary and that he approved of it, but yet the Government did not approach the Statistics Department when they wanted to get faked—and I say deliberately faked— figures for the disgraceful White Paper. Those figures were cleverly secured by the Minister for Finance with the aid, probably, of the Central Bank directors. They were issued for the purpose of misleading this House and the country and bringing discredit on the inter-Party Government. They published false, faked and untrue figures. That is the type of document we have got from the Minister for Finance. On many occasions the Minister for Finance has stooped very low in his public life but the lowest stoop yet is the publication of this lying White Paper which has been proven false by members of this House.
I challenge the Minister for Finance and declare that he knew that the figures contained in it were false and that they were cleverly cooked for the purpose of misleading this House and the country and of boosting up the report which was also issued by the Central Bank. It could not be humanly possible that there was no relation between them. There was and there is a relation between them. The Central Bank directors and the directors of the provincial banks are successfully robbing the country with the aid and help of the Minister for Finance and with the full force and sound approval of the Government behind them.
Deputy Cogan, in the course of his address, referred to agricultural production. I think so little of Deputy Cogan and his remarks that I think that the right and proper way to treat them would be to ignore them completely because he, his associates and his remarks are worthy of contempt. Now, however, that he has come into the House it is only right that I should endeavour, as far as possible, to enlighten the Deputy and to remove from his mind any doubts he may have concerning the production of food under the inter-Party Government. It may be interesting for Deputy Cogan to know that in 1939 there were 255,000 acres under wheat and in 1950 366,012 acres. Nineteen thirty-nine was the famous year of Fianna Fáil but 1950 was the glorious year when the country and its farmers thrived under the leadership of James Dillon. Even if there was a lesser acreage of other essential crops there was a greater yield than ever before in the history of agriculture in this country. Deputy Cogan may be interested to know about oats. In 1939 there were 536,000 acres under oats and in 1950 614,000 acres and Deputy Dillon was supposed to be disinterested in tillage.
In 1939 there were 73,000 acres under barley while last year there were 123,000 acres. There were 1,000 acres of rye in 1939 and almost 4,000 acres in 1950. Was that not a jump up? Is not that a proof of the work of James Dillon as Minister for Agriculture? In the case of peas and beans, which the Minister attacked recently, there were 400 acres in 1939 and last year 1,500 acres. Potatoes: In 1939, 317,000 acres and last year 336,000. Mangolds: 85,000 acres in 1939 and 79,000 acres under Deputy James Dillon.
I will give the figures for sugar beet for the information of Deputy Corry. He has gone. He is always gone when there is someone to reply to him. In 1939—this is also for the information of the Tánaiste—there were 41,600 acres under beet. They were the good, glorious times of Fianna Fáil. Last year, under the administration of Deputy James Dillon, whose policy Deputy Corry said was to put beet up the spout, there were 60,000 acres under beet. That was grown at the direction and instance of the man who, Deputy Corry tells us, said that beet was to go up the spout. Never was there as much grown as was grown last year.
For other root and grain crops the figure for 1939 is 11,700 acres and for 1950, 21,400 acres. In connection with fruit, in which the Tánaiste must be interested, seeing that he is so fond of putting up the price of jam and of approving of increases in the price of jam, there were 8,100 acres under fruit in 1939 and last year there were almost 13,000 acres under fruit. Somebody must have been responsible for that increase. Who was it but the Minister for Agriculture, Deputy James Dillon.
Give us the acreage of carrots.
Does Deputy Cogan live on carrots?
It was poor Deputy Flanagan who followed the carrot for three years.
Apparently Deputy Cogan walked into a mousetrap and was caught. I am quite satisfied that never in the history of this country was there a more prosperous period or a more glorious time than there was under the administration of Deputy James Dillon. Those days are gone. As I pointed out last night, another matter that was distasteful to the farming community was a second fall in prices in the Dublin market. I think I dealt sufficiently with that last night and, as there are other Deputies who wish to speak, I do not propose to detain the House much longer.
This debate has served a good and useful purpose and the Vote, which will be taken next week, I hope, may be regarded as a vote of no confidence in the Government. They should pack up and get out because they cannot do the job. They failed. They know they cannot do it. They are beaten men. We gave them the country in a good, sound condition and I hope we will get it back in the same condition. Fianna Fáil know that they have gone to the hips in it as far as the people are concerned, that they are a beaten Party, and that the people are now against them and that they have lost any favour they had. This House is embarking on this issue as a vote of no confidence in the Government. We ask them to go to the people on the cost of living, to go to the people on the Central Bank Report, to go to the people on any issue to-day, and I will guarantee that they will not come back with 40 men behind them. I know quite well that there will not be a general election. We all know that.
That is why you are shouting so much.
If there were one every day in the week and two on a Sunday, as far as I am concerned, I would not mind.
You are slipping.
There are some very shaky men hanging on to the long coat of the Taoiseach. One of them is Deputy Cogan. No matter what goes up or down, he started off with the Taoiseach and, if the Taoiseach sinks and drowns, Deputy Cogan must go along with him to the mud at the bottom. He cannot go back; neither can Deputy Cowan. They realise that they have made a mistake and that they have got this country into a serious mess. The Tánaiste knows that he cannot handle the situation. Let him have the courage and pluck to say: "I cannot do the job. It is an impossibility. We are not fit to do it. We have not the brains or the intelligence to do it. We will chuck it in and inflict no more hardships on the people."
The inter-Party Government reduced taxation successfully. They removed the penal taxes imposed by Fianna Fáil. Now Fianna Fáil consider putting those taxes back again. When we could run the country without this taxation, why cannot they do it? There is no reply. There is only silence. We are told that there are bad times coming. We are told to take off the smile and our good clothes and to get back into rags and commence to cry, to look sad and sorry. That is the advice that is coming from those "gaubeens" that sneaked into office. That is the advice that is given instead of a word of encouragement to the people, instead of saying: "We will give you a hand and help you to pull through."
I hope and trust that Dáil Éireann will reject the report of the Central Bank. We do not believe it. It is an insult to the Irish people and an insult to Dáil Éireann. I hope that some time in the not too far distant future we will be giving instructions to the Central Bank and to all other banks that they are not going to be the masters of this House. The Tánaiste and those behind him should have the courage and pluck to begin to walk on that road, to take over the control and the creation of credit so that schemes sponsored by Dáil Éireann may be put into the fullest possible effect and so that the land, out of which all good must and does come, may be put into maximum production in order that the millstone of debt that is around the necks of the farmers and business people and the chains that are imposed upon them by the bankers may be removed, and so that the Irish people may be free, not politically, but economically and financially, and so that the Irish nation can survive.
Perhaps this debate will serve one useful purpose, that is, to make it clear to the members of the present Government that an attitude of gloom, prophecies of disaster and of bad times do not pay or are not true. If it serves to bring that home to them the debate will have served at least one useful purpose.
The present Government have been roughly four months in office. The inter-Party Government were three and a half years in office. A more vivid contrast was never put before the people than the contrast between the way in which we managed the country during our term of office and the way in which Fianna Fáil has managed it in the four months since last June.
I want to ask the Tánaiste this question. Shortly before he left office, about the time of the Supplementary Budget imposing taxes on tobacco, intoxicating liquors and cinema seats, the Minister had the same gloomy outlook that he appears to have to-day. How is it that it was the same country, the same people, the same climate, the same land, the same towns and cities that we took over and that we achieved the success which we did and that the Tánaiste and his colleagues were not in office more than a few weeks when they were back again to the old war-cry, the gloomy outlook, that this country is doomed, that there are always crises of the first magnitude round the corner?
So you want an answer?
I do.
Read Deputy McGilligan's Budget statement this year and see how much worse off he said we were.
I listened to his Budget statement. It was the same Ireland, the same population, the same climate, the same land, the same factories that we had which you have. The Tánaiste has made a few terrifying announcements which have caused immense damage to the country. He and his colleague, the Minister for Finance, in the past few weeks have made some announcements which have literally frozen the lifeblood of this country in a way which could produce nothing but evil.
Speaking in Letterkenny on 15th September, 1947, the Tánaiste said:
"The country is entering on four years of acute difficulty"—
That was in 1947, and he did not anticipate a change of Government the next year—
"in which economic disaster will threaten on every side and our only weapon of defence must be our capacity to work hard. If that weapon should fail we are finished."
Later on he said:
"There is too much complacency, bred perhaps by our immunity during the war. There are too many people who for the most sordid Party purposes are telling the Irish people that there is some easy way out of our troubles. Any opinion that we can be better off than we are without a great deal of exertion and combination of effort is just nonsense. Our welfare must exist on the twin pillars of increasing agricultural production and expanding industry, or it will not rest anywhere."
There is a certain amount of truth in that but the gloomy outlook is not true.
It is not as deep as the gloom in Deputy McGilligan's Budget statement.
Deputy Cogan was a supporter of the inter-Party Government and, if the inter-Party Government was wrong, I think he has to account to his constituents and to the House for his attitude in supporting a Government which was wrong.
Because they were wrong I put them out.
The Deputy cannot take it. I do not intend to be bitter or acrimonious in this debate.
Keep off high finance then.
I leave that to the Tánaiste with his gloomy statements that disaster is round the corner for us because of our policy. The only incursion I will make into it is this: If the Tánaiste is trying to convince the Irish people that we did wrong when we repatriated some of the moneys invested abroad in order to invest them in our own country, I want to tell him that I for one and every colleague of mine in the inter-Party Government will do the same thing if we come back to power to-morrow, because my colleagues in the inter-Party Government, and I in particular, believe that this country, which suffered for 700 years owing to conquest by a foreign country, was left undeveloped. We took over a very raw country. That applies to the Cumann na nGaedheal Government, the Fianna Fáil Government, the inter-Party Government and the Fianna Fáil Government again. We are a backward, undeveloped country.
I am a great believer in the future of the Irish people. They have thrown off their coats and are prepared to build up their country. I do not agree with the gloomy outlook that we must always be going round with tears in our eyes, a hair-shirt on our back, nothing in our stomachs or in our pockets; that there is no future for us but to emigrate. That is what is damning this country.
The Tánaiste must realise the full impact of his speeches on the ordinary plain people. If he and his colleagues mixed more among the people and heard their talk and criticism as we did when in office, perhaps he and his colleagues would be able to give a better and more realistic Government to this country, something more in keeping with what the people want. The Tánaiste is trying to put the inter-Party Government on the wrong foot because of our spending huge sums of money in the development of this country. I will give him some of the things we spent it on and that we did not complete. If we get back to office we will complete them. I want him to know where we will go if we do come back.
And you want Lord Glenavy to know.
We increased wages in every sphere of Irish life. We increased old age pensions and the social services and gave prices for agricultural produce, and fought for prices for agricultural produce in foreign markets, that the farmer never enjoyed before. We put into operation an Act which the Minister's colleague, the then Minister for Finance, passed, namely, the Arterial Drainage Act which was lying fallow from 1945 until we took over in 1948. We introduced a new Local Authorities (Works) Act which was to work hand in hand with the Arterial Drainage Act and the land reclamation scheme. We introduced the land reclamation scheme and put it into operation. We introduced a reafforestation scheme which was about six times as large as the Fianna Fáil annual programme. We put the Land Commission to work in order to remove the last vestiges of congestion. We increased the Gaeltacht services. Hospitalisation and the health services were overhauled and renovated. Housing and bog development were proceeded with. These are only a few of the big things that we undertook and a few of the things which we will complete if returned to office.
Before the last election the Tánaiste and the Taoiseach, when they saw by the attitude of certain Independents that there was a chance of their forming a Government, with the brazen effrontery of pirates captured the inter-Party programme. They were not cheeky enough to claim it as their own but they said they would do the job better than we would. They published their 17 points, each one of which came from our programme. In that regard the present Taoiseach, as a kind of modern pirate, would put the greatest pirates of 200 years ago absolutely in the shade. Captain Kidd was only a small boy compared with him.
I should like to see you climbing the mast.
When we left office we left a country that was humming like a new machine. Does the Tánaiste realise that, short as it is since the present Government took office, the old necessity for men to seek influence to get work has reasserted itself, a thing which had vanished during our time in office? At that time the work of gangers over the country had to be closed down because men were engaged in other work and the necessary labour could not be found for the gangers. Is the Minister proud of that? I want to tell the Tánaiste that a policy of restricting credit, of freezing the circulation of money, is not going to produce the desired result. It can only produce one result —mass emigration and flight from the land. I am sure that that is not a thing to be desired. We believe in developing the country and, particularly, in developing the land.
Deputies have spoken about the need for agricultural production. We know that that is one of the key-stones for dealing with the present situation in which our balance of trade is temporarily upset—I repeat, temporarily upset. It is not beyond our capacity to put it right. It is possible to increase our exports. I issue one warning to the Minister and to those Deputies who seem to imply that we should live a little more frugally in order to increase our exports. If that increase has to be brought about at the expense of the standard of living of our own people, I, for one, will not stand for it.
Agricultural production increased enormously under the inter-Party Government and for some years before that. The volume of exports may have remained fairly static. During our period of office the people lived well and bought more of our own home-produced foodstuffs. More power to them that they were able to do that. When Deputy Dillon was Minister for Agriculture he quoted some figures to the House in relation to butter. I am not quite certain of the figures but I think he told us that the Irish people consumed 350,000 cwt. of butter in 1935. In 1950 they consumed 760,000 cwt. If increased exports mean that we shall have to export butter at the expense of the standard of living of our own people I will not stand for that.
Deputy Corry and other Deputies purport to speak here on behalf of the farmers. They shed crocodile tears over them. I think it is time that that hypocrisy and sham was exposed. How does the average farmer live? I think even city Deputies realise that it takes the combined effort of the farmer, his wife and probably several members of his family to make ends meet. There is no eight-hour day for the farmer. It is a 16-hour day and sometimes an 18-hour day. The farmer has no five-and-a-half day week. He has a seven-day week. He has no fortnight's holidays. He is a slave for 52 weeks in the year. Yet the farmers are the people to whom the Government turns with the request that they should work harder. I doubt if there is anyone who can work harder than 18 hours a day for seven days of the week during 52 weeks in the year and, if there is, then we are reverting to slavery, and that is something I would never tolerate.
There is one way in which we can help the farmers to produce more. That is by spending liberally—I emphasise spending liberally on such things as land reclamation, arterial drainage and drainage under the Local Authorities (Works) Act. We handed all these schemes over to the present Government. Fertilisers, too, should be placed at the disposal of the farmers so that they can fertilise their arable land until such time as the land reclamation project and the two systems of drainage to which I have referred come to their assistance. It is common knowledge and an accepted fact that we have approximately between 4,000,000 and 4,500,000 acres of marginal and sub-marginal land which can be brought into first-class production by the carrying out of certain works and the spending of money on it. That is the object we were endeavouring to achieve. That is what Deputy Dillon had in mind when, as Minister for Agriculture, he introduced land reclamation. That is one of the best schemes ever introduced in this country and second only to the Tennessee Valley scheme in the United States of America. The Minister may laugh.
Why did he not spend the money? He did not spend sixpence.
The Minister knows quite well that, as the Taoiseach said the other day in the Tánaiste's hearing, great things cannot be done in a hurry and the reclamation of 4,500,000 acres of land in a country of 13,000,000 acres of land is something that cannot be done overnight. The Minister will not put his argument across on a ten-year-old child.
He got £3,500,000 and he spent only £500,000.
I make the Minister a present of that. How much machinery has the present Government brought in for land reclamation? What is your answer?
The £3,000,000 is still there in the Exchequer.
Is it part of the deficit?
I am not trying to score political points but money in the Exchequer is not much good to the man whose lands are flooded.
Tell that to Deputy Dillon. He had the money and he did not spend it.
He did spend it and if the Minister gets the present Minister for Agriculture to do half the work that Deputy Dillon did he will not be doing too badly.
He has done three times as much since he came into office as was done last year.
Why did you attack him, then, in the Irish Press for spending money on land reclamation?
Nonsense. There was no such allegation.
Why did you tell the story of £500 per acre, a story which was grossly untrue?
I will tell you a few more stories.
Why was such a gross misstatement as that not corrected?
It was corrected.
It was corrected yesterday here when the Opposition asked the Minister about it. I want to refer to the leading article in the Irish Press since it seems to be relevant, and the Irish Press is the official organ of Fianna Fáil, and in which it was stated that the outlay of £500 per acre would not yield 1 per cent. Fianna Fáil is the strongest partner in the coalition. The Taoiseach, the Tánaiste and Deputy Major de Valera are three prominent members of the Fianna Fáil Party, while two of them are members of the Government and all three of them virtually own or control the Irish Press. Is it the policy of this paper at the present time to give directions to Government Departments or, if not directions, at least a positive indication of the line the Government would like to follow? I say that statement was deliberately framed by somebody in the Government and published in the Irish Press as a direction to the director of the land rehabilitation scheme in the Department of Agriculture to go easy with land reclamation. The Irish Press is being used to clamp down on other phases of Irish activity too and Irish development.
This strike will cripple the Government.
I think the Government is taking the wrong line. I want to impress on the Government and on the Minister in particular as forcibly as I can that this country is worth spending money on; that is the simplest and most forcible way I can put it.
Why did you not spend it then?
We did spend it. Are you not blaming us because we brought back £160,000,000 and spent it on housing, hospitals and land reclamation?
Not at all. You spent it on Budget deficits.
Why do you not balance the Budget then if that deficit exists? It does not exist and you know it does not exist.
It was the Córas Iompair Éireann deficits you left there.
Is Deputy Blowick not to be allowed to proceed with his speech?
Deputy Blowick should be allowed to speak and the Chair is doing its utmost to allow Deputy Blowick to proceed. Deputy Blowick should be allowed to talk without these continuous interruptions.
I do not mind the Minister's snappy comments. They may amuse certain people. But this is a serious debate and I would like a little more realism in it. There is a place for facetiousness but this is not the place for it.
There is one thing about the Minister; he will never cry. It would be a moving spectacle, indeed, if he were to cry.
He has never shed tears over the people.
Unlike the Deputy.
I want to say further that the restriction of credit has produced disastrous results up and down the country. The farmers, that we are all so fond of turning to to take us out of a hobble—we asked them to take us out of a hobble when the economic war was on and during the world war— are now being asked for increased agricultural production. I think it is about time that both the Government and every member of the House devoted a little time to devising ways and means of helping the farmers to increase the production that we are asking for. The inter-Party Government was travelling on the right lines. Deputy Flanagan was able to quote the figures of increased agricultural production for the year 1950 over the year 1939.
It is disgusting to hear Deputies get up and paint a completely wrong picture about the farmers. If the farmers demanded the same terms as wage earners, civil servants or any other class of people in jobs, that is an eight-hour day, with an annual holiday and every Sunday off, such as agricultural workers enjoy, I know what would happen to agricultural production. We would have little or no food at all. It is not generally realised, and I think it is no harm for me to mention it in this House, that I do not know a single farmer, except perhaps the large type of farmer who is wealthy, who is not working from 14 to 16 hours a day, and that goes for his wife and the members of his family. The farmer, too, is working under primitive conditions in most cases. He has to work seven days a week and 52 weeks in the year. Take our seaside and holiday resorts and the very few farmers who can afford to go there for a holiday in the fall of the year. The percentage of farmers who can afford to do that is very small. I do not believe it is more than two or three farmers per parish. These are the people who are being asked to produce more. At the same time we close down on the very things that would help them to produce more.
I want to tell the Tánaiste—I am sure the Minister for Agriculture would be able to tell him, too—that the reclamation of one acre of land, which may not appear much to us, might mean the difference between economic living and poverty to the farmer. In any case, if the reclamation scheme takes one acre of Irish land from under the water, or rushes or weeds and makes it available for the growing of potatoes, oats or some other crop then in my opinion it is money well spent. I think that the blackguardly attack which was made on the reclamation scheme by the Irish Press, that it will not pay 1 per cent., was an ill-considered, foolish and ignorant statement.
It will pay more than the yield from the external assets.
Deputy MacBride is now interrupting.
If the Minister wants to know, his interruption was that it would pay more than the yield from our external assets.
I have advised the Deputy already to keep off that subject.
£80,000,000 giving a yield of £400,000. This country may be likened to one of two boats and may be praised by certain economists Perhaps they may say that there is this definite connection that, if the big boat goes, it will drag the small one down with it. I suggest that you will never get anywhere by handing over the bucket for bailing out your boat to the other fellow, and that the thing to do is to make your own boat as secure as possible.
When you stole our programme in the 17 points you published, you gave a definite promise to the Irish people that you would carry out our programme better than we were doing it. But you turned in your tracks, and sold the Irish people and, of course, you have scandalised and sold the few unfortunates who helped to form the Government. It may be bitter to swallow that, but it is a fact. The modern type of piracy, such as, Fianna Fáil have been perpetrating, does not pay. We leave it to the people of the country to decide. They will give the proper answer. The sooner you take to the country the better. Give the people a chance to say who is right or who is wrong. Give them a chance to say whether the inter-Party policy, or your policy, is the right one.
Have a heart. Have pity on Deputy Cowan and Deputy ffrench-O'Carroll.
I have no pity on people who renounce their principles or who are base enough to go back on their principles. A man without a word—it is very hard to style him— but I think he is one of the meanest things that God has created. I appeal to the Tánaiste to try and undo the damnable destruction which his speeches before the Dáil met has caused. He literally told everybody in the country to stop spending. His speeches froze up the whole lifeblood of the country. I am sure the Minister for Finance found that, inside 24 hours, the Exchequer returns must have been affected by that freeze. You terrified the country, you terrified every employer and every person who was inclined to spend. The shops down the country had their doors closed because the customers were not coming in, and people were being thrown out of employment. I am not as well acquainted as the Tánaiste is with the position in the city, but we are told that factories are closing down. The same thing applies down through the country. Our method was the better one. We put money into circulation and it came back into the Exchequer. The money was spent again in the same months as those in which it was put into circulation. It was being used twice like water in a circular system.
I have already warned the Deputy to keep off that subject.
I am not a financier. I am sure that, if I got into an argument with one, he would be able to make rings around me so far as high finance is concerned, but there is one serious bit of advice which I want to give to the Tánaiste. It is this, that, in the present Government, there is too much of a desire to delegate to civil servants and others the powers which the people by their votes put into the hands of the Government.
Surely, we are doing the very reverse.
No, you are not. I remember that when I was putting the 1950 Land Bill through this House I was attacked by the Party opposite. I was accused of taking powers from the commissioners—I was taking powers from the commissioners and giving them back to the Minister. At election times, we go to the people and we ask that all power and authority be put into our hands, but when we come back here we act like cowards. In my opinion it is wrong that the powers which are given to us by the people should be handed over to others.
There were never more commissions or boards in the Department of Industry and Commerce than there were under the last Government. You could not see the place with them.
How much of the people's power did the inter-Party Government delegate to any commission or authority? I challenge the Minister to produce one instance of that. I have already quoted what occurred when I had the 1950 Land Bill before the Dáil. Under that Bill, I took powers from the commissioners which had been given to them under the 1933 Land Act. Rather than have what we have at present, it would be far more decent to admit that we are a Dáil full of cripples who go out and ask for support and power from the people on fraudulent promises and fraudulent statements. We then come back and admit that we do not know how to run the country. Instead of that, would it not be far better to set up a bureaucracy and decently admit the truth?
We had an example of that at the Fianna Fáil Ard Fheis. Statements you had made a few weeks before in connection with the Central Bank Report were absolutely refuted there by you. You said bankruptey was on our own doorstep and that the country was ruined. Yet you come here and say there is no crisis, but that there may be something wrong in five or six years' time if we are not careful now.
The Minister for Finance circulated his White Paper which is carefully constructed so that it will fall into line with the Central Bank Report, and the Minister for Industry and Commerce stands up and, in the course of his speech, says that there is no crisis, that everything is all right. The Taoiseach then tries to unite the two opposing elements in his Cabinet. You cannot blow hot and cold or go north and south at the same time. The people will see that the Tánaiste is in direct conflict with the Minister for Finance.
Deputy Dillon said it was the Minister for External Affairs.
I do not want to prolong the debate, but might I say this: If you want to increase agricultural production proceed with the land rehabilitation scheme as rapidly as possible? It will be money well spent. As a farmer myself I say that. Do not let down the local authorities works grants as you have done.
You did it.
If the Minister wants I will quote the figures.
The Minister voted against it eight times in this House.
I do not take any notice of the tactics of the Fianna Fáil Party, who are trying to blind the people to the situation. They say that everything the inter-Party Government did was wrong and that everything they said since they came out of office was lies.
Did not you cut down on the Estimate for the Local Authorities (Works) Act?
Deputy Moran's colleagues in South Mayo were trying to cover lost ground in North Mayo and in Galway by maligning Deputy Donnellan in Galway and Deputy O'Hara in North Mayo. He concocted a question to the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Finance in order to bolster up what he knew to be wrong, but the lies were uncovered. I do not mind these lying tactics because the people know the truth.
Which lies were uncovered?
That the inter-Party Government did no drainage. Deputy Flanagan can make his own speech. We are told that the farmers of this country must work harder if we want to increase agricultural production. The farmers of this country are working harder than any farmers in the world. One cannot get more out of a pint vessel than a pint. I suggest that what we should do is to give the farmers cheap fertilisers for production. I understand that fertilisers have increased by £5 per ton this year and that there will be a greater increase in the springtime. Give the farmers cheap fertilisers, subsidised, if necessary. Take up the land reclamation where we left off, because you promised to take it up. Take up the Local Authorities (Works) Act drainage. These are some of the suggested helps; there can be other helps. Speaking from my experience as a farmer and as head of the Land Commission, I say that there are few farms or holdings up and down the country which have not a piece of land which could be usefully reclaimed to-day. I say that that 4,000,000 acres should be put into production and drained and that the weeds and rushes should be removed. That is the way to increase agricultural output.
Let me utter this final warning: If there is any attempt made to increase exports by cutting down on the standard of living of the people, I want to say that I will object strongly. The people are using more butter, beef, bacon and eggs to-day than ever before. I want to draw the attention of the Labour Deputies in particular to this point, because some of them are under a misapprehension; agricultural production has not dropped but increased. It has not only increased in value but in volume. The volume has increased very substantially. Owing to the prosperity which the people enjoyed under the inter-Party Government they are consuming more of the agricultural production, the result being that the exportable surplus has remained fairly static. If we are going to increase exports by cutting down the standard of living of our people here in Dublin and down the country I, for one, will be for condemning that policy.
It is about time that our people had it in their power to live as comfortably as they are living to-day. Thank God that they have reached that stage and that we are alive to see it happening. I think that our people are better off to-day than many peoples are, but there is yet room for improvement. Therefore, continue the works which we were engaged on and so help the farmers to increase production. But do not freeze the money and take away from the people the power to spend. Do not make the cost of living so high that the people will not buy. This is not the way to increase exports. Such is the policy of the present Government. In other words, the difference between their policy and ours is as clear as crystal.
Our policy was "Spend and spend wisely on productive development work", and their policy is "Do not spend or do not put it within the people's power to spend". If a man cannot buy, then he cannot grumble about prices being too high. That is not the way to attack the problem. I would like to say that this country is worthy of the development which we started and which was continued. The present gloomy outlook and forecasts are an attempt to freeze the lifeblood of this country, namely, circulation. During this debate Deputies have stated, from time to time, that the most urgent needs for this country were drainage, hospitalisation, and so forth. I say that the most urgent national need for this country at the present time is to put the present Government out of office before they do any more damage.
I will say at the outset that some of the speeches which have been made could have been curtailed with great benefit to the speakers themselves. I think that the amendments which have been put down in this debate have served a useful purpose, in so far as they have allowed the light of day into certain aspects of our financial situation. If there is one thing to which I object in this House, it is the remarks of the principal speakers of both sides of the House to the effect that this question of finance should not be discussed by the ordinary members, who are not experienced on this matter. I feel that, above anything else, it is the duty and should be the concern of the ordinary members of this House, even though they may not be experts, or anything approaching it, on financial matters, to make it their business to speak, at any rate, on finance as they know it. The discussion was useful but, at the same time, to my mind, it was largely unreal.
The solution of the problem which faces the country is not to be found in either amendment which was put forward by the Opposition. The amendment in the name of Deputy Costello deplores the White Paper which was issued by the Department of Finance, and calls on the Government to take effective steps to restore public confidence in the economic situation. The amendment, however, does not mention what steps should be taken. Another amendment which was put down in the name of Deputy MacBride calls on the Government not to take the steps that are recommended in the report that was presented to the Government and to the country as a whole. Where are either of those amendments going to lead us? The position as I know it, at any rate, is that the people who are now in opposition appointed the chairman of the Central Bank, and they must now stand over that appointment. Both have taken responsibility for the appointment of the personnel of the Central Bank.
When public opinion has been aroused against the report issued by the Central Bank, both sides are anxious to declare that as far as they are concerned no steps will be taken by them to put into operation the recommendations of that Central Bank. In other words, the Central Bank directors and the report are left hanging like Mahomet's coffin. I think a far more useful purpose would be served if the leaders of the Opposition in tabling their amendments suggested that the time was ripe to give full powers to this Central Bank, to do away with it or sack the present directors. Then we would have something to go on.
One thing, to my mind, that has emerged from this debate so far is that although we may have achieved political freedom in the Twenty-Six Counties, no Government so far has attempted to achieve economic freedom in that area. That is one thing that is sticking out a mile in this debate. If the present debate has served the purpose of disclosing that, it can be considered to have been useful.
I do not want to be taken as criticising particular Ministers in this affair but we had here yesterday or the day before at Question Time an answer from the Minister for Social Welfare stating that it was a fact that for years past British liaison officers or agents have attended at the labour exchanges. We know perfectly well that the purpose of their attendance at the labour exchanges was to select the most suitable type of workers for various jobs in England. When that has to happen in this country and when we have to use those British agents as a solution to our problem of unemployment how dare we call ourselves economically free?
A discussion has taken place here on our balance of payments and sterling assets but very few people have drawn attention to the fact that our real assets are pouring out of this country every day and have been pouring out for the last 50 years, that is, our people, the boys and girls to whom the Taoiseach referred in Galway.
I do not want to go into any aspects of the Central Bank Report. All that has been discussed. But I will refer to one recommendation that was made in that report. I would like to say that this report, to my mind, was gloomy and depressing and that the remedies that were offered for our economic ills indicate that the cure was worse than the disease. One recommendation that struck me very forcibly was their advice to public bodies, local authorities, and so forth, to reduce expenditure, that there was enough money in circulation to give sufficient employment in rural Ireland. That advice was given in the Central Bank Report and it can only mean one thing. As far as local authorities are concerned, the only reduction in expenditure that they can achieve is in connection with housing, drainage, sewerage, waterworks and so forth—all these things that the House knows perfectly well are essential. Yet that advice was given by the Central Bank that the local authorities should reduce expenditure. They are the only things they can reduce expenditure on.
Let us follow up what would happen if that advice were accepted. As soon as the local authorities reduce their expenditure on these essential works, it means unemployment. In other words, as far as I am concerned, the authors of the Central Bank Report are acting in collusion with the British agents that attend at our labour exchanges. No sooner have these works stopped in rural Ireland on the advice of the Central Bank than the men at present receiving employment leave to line up at the labour exchanges. Then they cross to Britain and in Britain build the houses that the British are putting a drive on at the moment to obtain, construct the roads and work in factories. At the same time they will send home as much money from Britain as they have earned in Ireland. Consequently, you will have as much money in circulation with less people. If that will not produce an inflationary trend, I do not know what will. This recommendation came from the Central Bank and for that recommendation alone the directors of that Central Bank should be sacked.
Hear, hear!
What is the use of saying "Hear, hear!" when there is nothing being done by the present Government and nothing has been done by the last Government?
How do you know?
That is untrue. That statement was made here yesterday by Deputy Cowan. It is an untrue statement, and I would ask the Deputy not to repeat it.
I am not going to get into an argument with Deputy MacBride. I am pursuing a completely independent line in this House, and as far as I am concerned both sides of this House will get the lash of my tongue when I feel like it.
Your leg is being pulled.
Lots of legs have been pulled, including those of Labour Deputies in this House. There have been some excellent speeches made in this House. As I said recently, a speech given by Deputy Larkin was one of the finest speeches I have heard, and I only wish it had been lived up to by other speakers. When Deputies are outside this House they will all agree it is a great speech. Yet they will place no more heed on it afterwards because of party politics. They are tied up with their political groups and are afraid to open their mouths.
Will the Deputy answer a question?
I will answer no question.
Ask Deputy Dr. Browne is your statement true?
I am not going to enter into an argument about the Labour Party's attitude about the mother and child scheme.
On the Central Bank.
The Deputy must be allowed to make his statement.
An appeal was made by the Tánaiste and other leading members of the present Government to farmers and those working in industry to produce more. As the Taoiseach said, we should gird ourselves for the forward march. We should tighten our belts, reduce expenditure in order to achieve greater exports and balance our trade. That advice may be nice but it is not going to do any good. I have been disappointed in the Tánaiste. I looked on him as a practical man but, apparently, he can offer nothing else but advice. That appeal has been made in the first place to the farming community. I propose first to deal with agriculture and secondly with the industrial end of it.
In regard to the appeal, as far as the West of Ireland is concerned, it is a waste of time because those small farmers, smallholders, are giving their best because they have to give their best even to eke out an existence. I would like if the Tánaiste whispered into the ear of his comrade, the Minister for Lands, and said to him: "Look at what Commissioner Mansfield said in connection with Meath and Westmeath, that there were 100,000 acres there that were not being properly utilised." That statement was made two years ago by a land commissioner, that there were at least 100,000 acres of Meath and Westmeath not being fully utilised, actually not being utilised at all. Does not some responsibility lie at the door of the Minister for Lands to see that he carries out the advice given by his colleague, the Tánaiste? That land should be acquired, divided and given to people who are willing to work. It should be given to those who are anxious for land and who have a love for the land and who do not seek to use it as a means of obtaining money to live in Dublin or London. I do not want to go into this question in detail except to say that when the Tánaiste talks about producing more and tightening the belts, his own comrades in the two Departments can do a lot about that.
Apart altogether from the work that the Minister for Lands can do, the Tánaiste himself and the Minister for Finance should be in a position to help the farmer from the point of view of credit. I am not going to refer in detail to the Agricultural Credit Corporation; it certainly got "the works" here and it was time to give it "the works". The position at the moment is that if a small farmer wants to expand, wants to buy machinery or more stock, he has to go on his hands and knees to the Agricultural Credit Corporation and also get two securities. There is more difficulty attached to getting a loan by that means than the game is worth. These difficulties are put in the way of suitable applicants when they look for a loan. Yet I understand from questions put down in this House that this same body has money invested in British securities. That is a nice state of affairs.
We have heard a lot of talk in this House about afforestation but I do not know what the present Government is doing to promote afforestation, any more than the last Government did. All the talk in the world about afforestation will get us nowhere and all the appeals to farmers to sell land for forestry purposes will not meet with success under present conditions. One of the big problems facing any Government in the acquisition of land, at present used for grazing, for forestry purposes is that that land is of immense importance to the smallholder in rural areas, even though it may be of benefit to him only for a limited period. Power will have to be taken by the Department to acquire such land when necessary. Some people will get hurt in the process but it is essential for the good of the majority of the people that such power should be given to the Minister in order that he may go ahead full tilt with the programme of reafforestation.
In regard to the advice given to manufacturers and industrialists to expand, I have listened to the Tánaiste telling us how often he asked industrialists to go west. It reminds one of the old dictum: "Go west, young man, go west". Yet, I see none of these industrialists crossing the River Shannon to establish industries in the West.
Nor will you.
I have not seen it happen under the last Government, and I wonder are we going to see it under this Government. If the Government succeed in inducing industrialists to go there, they will certainly deserve the thanks of the Irish people, but my own opinion is that they will never see large-scale industries started in the West by private enterprise. The State is the only body that can establish industries in these areas. The entire West of Ireland is a rural slum. We have more people on the dole there than in any other part of the country. We have a large number of small holdings and a big labour pool. All that is needed is a bit of guts and brains and the necessary capital, but the present financial system, in my opinion, is not of the right type to achieve industrial expansion in the West. The State must have control, and should have the power to provide the capital necessary for the industrialisation of the West.
The Tánaiste, in his speech in connection with our sterling assets, said that we must depend on the voluntary effort of the people to disinvest abroad and to invest at home. I am not suggesting that we should tell people who have their money invested in British securities or in British concerns, that they must take it home, but I am going to ask the Tánaiste why should these people be facilitated to invest their money in Britain? That is the trouble; that is what has happened hitherto.
I can put my reading of the financial situation, so far as rural Ireland is concerned in this way: Say there is a fair in Roscommon to-day and that a farmer sells four bullocks at that fair for which he gets £140, that he buys some young stock, and then has £60 left over. He goes into the bank, hands it across the counter to the cashier, and says: "Put that with the rest." That is all the farmer is concerned about. So far as I can gather from my limited knowledge of finance, it is quite possible for that £60 which the farmer has put in the bank to find its way, through that bank, to be invested in Britain. Let us suppose that that is what happens.
We find in Britain a number of people, call them Jew-boys or anything you like, who want to start an industry and for that purpose raise a loan from a British bank or on the British money market. Included in that loan is the £60 which John Murphy had saved as the result of his sale of cattle at the Roscommon fair. John Murphy goes home from the fair and brings the local newspaper with him. He has two daughters at home for whom he has no work and for whom there is no prospect of getting a job. The newspaper contains an advertisement reading: "Wanted, young girls, 18 to 25, light factory work in London, fare paid, suitable accommodation," and so forth. The two girls apply for these jobs and go to London. They earn £60 there, the very amount that the farmer got for his bullocks, and they send home part of that £60 to enable the farmer to put his son on for the Church or to become a doctor. That is the lunatic system of finance we have in this country. I see no reason why that money should have to be sent across the water. I see no reason why the bank, when it receives that money, should be allowed to invest it in Britain. The power should be retained in the State here to invest that money at home to assist industrial expansion and to be of benefit to the country. The farmer or the shopkeeper who put the money in the bank is not going to mind so long as he knows it is always available at call. He is not concerned with it so long as he can draw it out whenever he requires it.
I think that if the matter is examined you will find that a number of Irish people have money invested in certain industries in Britain, which, I understand from certain sources in Britain, were supplying Russia with machine tools and heavy equipment. Actually Irish money, for all I know, was helping to gear up the Russian war-machine. Many British concerns in which Irish money was invested were sending war machines to Russia. It is quite possible that that happens.
I do not intend to delay the House much longer. As I said in the beginning, I think the debate has been useful in so far as it has enabled us to probe behind the iron curtain that has been laid over our financial structure for a number of years past. An attempt has been made by so-called experts to cloak up the financial system and to describe it as something that should not be talked about except by people with long beards who look upon themselves as geniuses, so far as finance is concerned. It should be remembered that the ordinary man in the street has some knowledge of finance too, limited though it may be, and when he finds certain things happening, he begins to wonder. At the present time a tremendous interest is being taken throughout the country in this debate and people are wondering about the activities of the Central Bank and the financial position generally. From that point of view much good has been done by this debate. Instead of bickering over political matters and trying to score points across the floor of the House, as has so often happened in the past, all Parties have tried to make some useful contributions to the debate. I think it a good sign to see that we are getting down to examine what it is necessary to do, to achieve our economic freedom as distinct from our political freedom. Our economic freedom can be achieved only by taking control of our own credit system, by the State—I do not say the Government—taking power itself to utilise money that is available within the State. I think that power should not lie in the hands of a few individuals such as is the position at present. Under the present position, a group of four or five individuals can make or mar the destinies of this country so far as finance is concerned.
I think Deputy Larkin mentioned that the Tánaiste may not agree with the word "nationalisation".
At the same time, the Tánaiste, in a number of things, has decided that a form of nationalisation or State control was essential for our Electricity Supply Board and for Bord na Móna. They are State concerns. What could be more sound than to suggest that the life stream that keeps all our industrial concerns, agriculture, and so forth, in operation should also be controlled by the State and should not be left to private individuals who, for all I know, may have no love for this country? I think that it would be enough, if the amendments were serious, to suggest that the chairman and directors of the Central Bank be sacked.
There has been a lot of talk about the general election and the present Government has been challenged to go to the country. On what? Is it to go to the country on these two amendments? I should love to see some Party go to the country and say to the people: "We are going to take control of our own credit and of our own currency. We are going to be masters in our own country." I would support any amendment on these lines.
During the time I have listened to this debate my mind went back to a time 30 years ago when, at a debate, the late Arthur Griffith threw up his hands and said: "My God, is this country ever to get a chance, or what hidden hand is holding down this country?" I cannot help remembering these words to-day when I listen to the speakers in this House. It has been a useful debate and there have been some good contributions by speakers on both sides of the House. The Tánaiste made a good speech and so did some of the speakers on the Opposition side of the House. These speeches were good national speeches. However, much of the time of the debate was taken up by some speakers in political play-acting and tomboy antics. It is disgraceful that an important occasion such as this should be used in such a fashion by some Deputies.
In this debate, the question of finance looms over all other questions and it should be debated on a high level. We back-benchers who know very little about finance, and who do not pretend to know much about it, realise that in our lifetime finance has been the key that decided whether we were up or down. When this debate is being concluded I hope we shall be told where we stand as regards our finance. Can we control our own finance or not—or is the finance of this country definitely controlled by hands outside the country? If it is, it is up to this nation to break that hidden hand and to give us control of our own business. I am satisfied that there is a hidden hand. In the past 30 years we have made a reasonable advance as a nation, but it is not as great as it should be. Our country is nothing so much as a country ripe for development. We are not able to give it that development or foundation which it should have. We have not been able to make this country a peaceful, prosperous and happy land teeming with young generations who can live and work here and draw their wages here and marry and settle down here. Instead of that happy picture there is the same drain of finance and manpower from this country as has been going on since the time of the Famine. Our national freedom is not being worked as it should be worked, and we must find out what is at fault.
I do not say that the Fianna Fáil Party is composed of knaves and that everybody on this side of the House is a saint. I am satisfied that all Parties have good, sound men. The trouble is that we have come down to narrow, mean and petty politics in order to hold the different positions— in order to determine who will be the Government to-day or who will be the Government to-morrow. As a result of that narrow outlook, the Irish people are suffering and that is not good. It is time for us to examine what has occurred in the past 30 years in order to discover where we succeeded and where we failed. The Central Bank Report and the Government's White Paper are a challenge to this country and that challenge must be met. I believe the people will meet it. If national regeneration must stop to suit high finance then it is time something were done about it. Our financial structure in this country is not on a sound basis, and it is about time that that position was rectified.
There will never be peace or progress here until we have full control of our own finance. I am not the first person who has used these words but they are the truth and it is a pity that they were not acted upon when they were first uttered. The Government and all the Parties in this House should unite on this one matter. We have national freedom but we have not financial freedom. There may be a risk in trying to achieve financial freedom, but why not unite and take that risk and face the future? I am satisfied that it is not as big a risk as we think it is. Do not forget the risk we were told we were facing three years ago in connection with the declaration of the Republic. Gloom and doom were forecast if we should declare a Republic. We were told that Britain would not buy our foodstuffs and that the country would suffer. What actually happened was that Britain carried on as usual: she continued to come to our markets and she paid for what she bought from us. When the Republic was declared we had peace and plenty. We should face the financial issue and get down to bedrock and have full control over our destinies. We have not got that control. Freedom is only a sham if we have not control of our finance, because finance is the key.
Progress has been made by us over the past 30 years but it has been made at a very slow and dragging rate. During all those years we were letting slip from this country our men and our women who were really our national assets. They were leaving the country to toil in other lands and to help to build up other nations while we at home were allowed to sit in semi-decay. It is about time this country got a new deal. It is about time we stopped all this squabbling and fighting about who did this and who did that. After all, that kind of behaviour does not get us anywhere. We hear a lot of Party taunts in this House. Yet when you go out to the Lobby you may find the very men who have been bitterest in their attacks on one another in this House sitting in the Lobby with their hands on each other's shoulders. The Press representatives are in the Press Gallery listening to all that talk and they report it to their newspapers. That is not good and it does not help the nation. It is about time it stopped.
Since the change of Government we have heard talk of austerity, panic and gloom. I consider that it is too soon after the change of Government for that kind of talk, because, during the three years of inter-Party Government, we had a regeneration of the life of this country. Works were undertaken, employment was provided and good wages were paid. All that took place in the short period of three years. We had peace and plenty and everybody was working.
The present Government is only a few months in office and we have heard nothing but gloomy speeches about the country being on the high road to bankruptcy. What put it on that high road? Giving full employment, spending money wisely on fertilising, draining and reclaiming our land could hardly put a country on the high road to bankruptcy. These were tangible, national assets that were being built up. Money was circulated and spent in our towns and villages. It is time that we faced up to this gloom and doom. I would like to know where this gloom and doom is. There was none in the country until recently. Over the last few weeks there has been a restriction on credit. Orders have been given to all bank managers in provincial areas to restrict credit to our farmers, business people and shopkeepers. At the present moment, the only people who will give credit are the shopkeepers throughout the country. Were it not for them, things would be in a bad way.
Do we intend to go back to the old team of unemployment, emigration and national standstill? I certainly believe that we will not. I would ask the Government to shake itself up and refrain from making gloomy prophecies. They should not heed the dictates of the Central Bank or outside banks. My advice to the Government is that they should build up the nation and see to it that they are not throttled so far as the control of our finances is concerned. The Government should get full control of the country's finances.
I am satisfied that the hidden hand is at work. Britain wants cheap labour and cheap money for her war machine. She sees that Ireland is able to employ her own people and she cannot get that drain of people from Ireland which she used to get since the time of the Famine. I believe that Britain alone is the cause of this threatened financial crisis. I think we should stand up to that challenge as we did in the past. Neither Masonic nor Jewish moneylenders should be permitted to stand between us and our destiny, which is the building up of the Irish nation in our own way. These fiendish hands are at work at the present moment in the interests of imperialism. We have made many sacrifices over the past 700 years in struggling to get freedom. Now that we are free we find we are being throttled in the same old way again. I believe that there are men with courage, patriotism and ability in the present Government who will stand up to the issue.
Unfortunately, we have a divided Cabinet. I found that the speeches of the Taoiseach, Tánaiste, the Minister for Finance and, above all, of Mr. Childers, Minister for Posts and Telegraphs, were most depressing, gloomy and full of foreboding for the future. I wish those men would sit down and have a talk between themselves, and put up a united national front. They should say where they are going and why. Let them not be divided at the present moment when Masonic influences are getting ready to subjugate us as they did in the past. Let Ireland be on the march, and let us keep her on the march.
I was particularly dissatisfied with the Taoiseach's speech. I have a good deal of admiration for many things the present Taoiseach has done, but from the speech he made, I am satisfied that he seemed to be an old, weary, played-out man. He should not be. There should be plenty of manliness and vigour in him still. He is a leader who is the idol of many people in this country, and he could be an inspiration in facing and getting over this crisis. From the speech he made the other day, I am satisfied that he does not mean to face up to the issue. His speech was gloomy. He told us to be cautious. Imagine that coming from the Taoiseach at a time when the financiers of Britain and this country are trying to throttle us. Now is not the time to be cautious. It is time to take off our coats. The issue is there. Ireland is ours for the making. Let us make her. The way to do that is by getting control of our finances and building up our homes and factories, making our land a place worthy of free men.
I hope that when the Taoiseach reads his speech he will examine his conscience and give us something of that spirit with which he answered Churchill and others in years gone by.
He said step together.
He will want to double on the step. We must meet the challenge and if we go down in taking the risk we will do so honourably and nobly following the traditions of the great men of the past. I am satisfied that there are fine men on the opposite side of the House. I know they are saying in their hearts exactly what I am expressing in words. I hope they will get up and say the things I have said so that we can give a lead to the people down the country who find themselves in the grip of the banks. If these people want a few hundred pounds to build a house they cannot get it on account of restrictions on credit. In a country where we have everything to make ourselves peaceful, prosperous and happy, why should the banks be permitted to tell a farmer, who has paid £2,000 for his farm and who wants £100 more, that he cannot get it? I know of a man who required £200 in connection with building a house. He went to the bank manager as he was short of ready cash. He was refused the loan. The bank informed him that they were told to tighten up on credit. It is the same story all over the country. Is it not a nice state of affairs that the banks should tighten up on credit to the very men who gave cash to build those towering structures —the banks—which are the biggest buildings to be seen in every town? The people are now told that they dare not go to the banks until the banks get their orders to release credit. Those orders come from Palestine and London.
It is time to stop this. It is tragic to think that credit should be restricted to these farmers who built up our little country and who supplied the nation's food on all occasions; and this at the very time when they had a scheme in hands for fertilising and draining their lands and repairing their homesteads. Are we going to retreat before this? If we do, I have no hope for this country. It is time for Ireland to wake up and be on the march again.
We have only gone a certain distance and national freedom is a sham, unless we get financial freedom. I know nothing about high finance and I do not want to know anything about it. I know that I never had too much of my own and, in that respect, I am in the same boat as all the boys down in the country. We never had much of the world's goods and we do not want much of them, but we do want honour and honesty in our country. If we have these and if we do things in an honourable way, things will come right.
The time is ripe for this House to take full control of its finances, and, if credits are to be issued, let the order come from the Government. It is they, and they alone, who should be able to advance or restrict credits. It is time we took out of the hands of the private financiers the control of our credit, because financial freedom and national freedom should walk side by side. Are we to abandon the glorious schemes started by the inter-Party Government because of this situation? It is not because they were started by the inter-Party Government that I praise them; if Fianna Fáil put forward such schemes I would say: "God bless you; you are a great Party." It is because of the sound structure of these developments that I praise them. I do not say that the inter-Party Government was a heaven-sent Government. There were plenty of men in that Government I did not care much about, but we were the best set-up that could be got and from that Government good things did flow. We have an inter-Party Government at present, as we had for the past three and a half years, because a few men at the tail keep wagging the dog.
It is because of the things the inter-Party Government did that I am happy. We had a leader with vision and foresight, with manliness and courage, a leader who did gigantic things and whose name will go down in the country's history as the man who laid the foundations upon which all future Governments must build. Under that Government, the whole attention of Ireland was focussed on agriculture. Agriculture was the fount from which all things were to spring, and rightly so. Then we had a change of Government, and is it not a fact that to-day there is a reversal of that position and, instead of the Minister for Agriculture being the pivot of the Government, the Minister for Industry and Commerce is the strong man, as Deputy Dillon was in the previous Government? To me, that is a hateful position, because the strong man should be in agriculture.
If the Tánaiste, who is one of the most able men in the Government, a man with drive, energy and initiative, were in his proper position, he would be in charge of agriculture and I wish he would swap places with the present Minister or give back to the Minister in charge of agriculture the control and authority which the occupant of that position had under the previous Government.
Agriculture is the key to everything. I believe in industrial development in a normal way, but there is no use in thinking that you can industrialise 100 per cent. a country which was not made by God for the purpose. This country was made an agricultural country and it possesses everything needed for progress in agriculture— soil, people and climate. If we look at the country from the industrial point of view, we see that we have no coal, no iron, no steel, no zinc and no copper which go to make the big industries. You can set up side-line factories, but these are merely assembly stations and nothing more, and they are nearly always an adjunct of some company across the water. There is a provision that there must be so much Irish capital, but from across the water comes a man who gets control of it and runs it as a side-line to his own factory in England. We are nothing more than puppets in the hands of these people.
I am not decrying Irish industry. I am in favour of building it up, but let us do it cautiously and prudently and let us see to it that at all times its control is in the hands of Irish people. In fact, I do not see why any money should come in from outside to set up industry here. There are hundreds of millions of Irish money invested abroad which bring in 1 per cent. If the people who are investing that money abroad had any sense of patriotism, would they be doing so? Why is that money being invested abroad? Is it not plain that the men with the wealth for hundreds of years past are those who, in their hearts and souls, still have a liking for dear old John Bull? Would they invest their money in Ireland? No, they would not. They prefer to send it across and to have it used to build up Canada for the old Empire.
It is time that we who are now in control said to these people: "There is a good sound investment in this country. Withdraw your money from your investments abroad and use it to build up this country. You will be building it up for yourself as well as for others." Until we do that, we will not get very far, and it is lack of patriotism and a sense of nationalism in the hearts of many of these big financiers in the country which has us in the impoverished state we are in.
We are told that for the past 50 years agriculture has been static and has made no progress, and we must admit that it is a fact. What is the cause of it? Is it not due to the fact that there is no vision, foresight or finance forthcoming in relation to agriculture? Deputy Dillon, when he was Minister, put forward a plan for agriculture. He wanted to link up every three parishes under an instructor, so that every man working in agriculture would be able to get from the Department all the assistance he needed to build up his economy. We are now told that the plan has been scotched and that the farmers are to be left to fend for themselves. In my own county, the land of the Pale, where there were big clearances, there are still big broad acres to be seen. Some land division has taken place, but there are still these big broad acres and the plough is not being put on one acre of them. Around these are the small farmers with ten, 15 or 20 acres of scraggy bogland, of sedgeland and scutch grass, without twopence in their pockets to do for these little patches what should be done. There is no credit and there are no plans, and they are left to fend for themselves.
Is it not about time these broad acres were put into full production, whether by the men who now control them or by means of an allotting of these lands to people in the area. If a man holds 10,000 acres and if he puts these in full production and gives employment and if, from the proceeds of his crops, he invests in Irish industry and Irish agriculture, I would not touch such a man.
We have a few of these in our county, but we have too many of the other type—the man with hundreds of acres who employs a shepherd with a dog, and who treks to the market with a big drove week in and week out. The cattle are allowed to roam these broad acres, and whether they break down ditches and dykes or stop up drainage works, it makes no difference—there is plenty land to take them all. I can show these broad acres to anybody who wishes to see them, and I say that they are a festering sore in the heart of the country.
These are the things we must tackle. We must bring these small, struggling farmers who are living on the fringes of these big, broad acres up to an economic level, and give them a chance to live, to pay their way and to rear their families, not for export but to work on their own holdings; but that is not happening, because we have neither vision nor plan. We are told every ten years that the work of the land division will be completed by the Land Commission in ten years' time. "Five years more and land division will be completed," but so far as I can see it will not be completed in 200 years. As fast as land is being divided, so often do I see posters at the crossroads announcing sales of land, because the small man is selling out and going away with the £1,000 or £1,500 he gets, for the reason that there is no future and no living to be got on these little holdings. They are too small and too scraggy, and they are left unvested for years.
The small man goes in to the bank manager and says he cannot work his holding without some capital or credit. He is asked to show his title deeds, and he has to say that he has not got them yet because his holding has not been vested. He is then told: "Do not come in here. You must go somewhere else."
The small farmer who wants to get some credit—who has a horse and a cow and a family—can fend for himself. The neighbours can do nothing for him and the banks refuse him credit. He has to go hat in hand across the broad acres and beg the money bag, the financier, with the ranch beside him, to take his land on the 11 months' system. Perhaps 15 or 20 acres are taken and what happens? There is no need to open the gate, you just break a hole in the fence and let the cattle flow over the land and close the fence at the end of the year. Is that the way to run agriculture? Is it not time to tackle this with millions of money, to put money working as it should be working? At present, there is no plan, vision or foresight.
Under the inter-Party Government, that national development was started and I am sorry to say that it is being retarded by the present Government, on the whim and dictates of the banks, foreign and national, slowing up credit. The Central Bank has issued a foreboding document and Ministers have been making the same points in speeches with gloom and doom in every word. I am satisfied that there is no need for that. We were often nearly down and out in the past, but we fought and struggled, we dug our heels in the ground and we rose again. To-day we are in a strong position, as we have the tangible assets of the last 15 or 20 years. We have housing and afforestation on the way, we have the electrification of the whole country almost complete. These are tangible assets. We are not now at the beck and call of every financier, either Masonic or Jewish—and I think them together, as they are the key to all the trouble the world has seen over a long number of years.
We must have a plan for agriculture and we must pump money into it. We must see it properly diverted to where it is needed. We must give the little farmers a chance, we must vest their holding and leave them opportunities for credit. If we do that, there will be no need to make compulsory tillage orders. Those men who have 30, 40 or 50 acre holdings can be relied on to produce without compulsion. They are middle class men who will do exactly as the nation wants. Their holdings are big enough to be economic units; they can go out with horse, tractor or plough to reap, mow and sow, to produce the things for themselves and have a surplus for sale to the towns and for export. These are the things which turn the wheels of industry and make a happy land. Therefore, I say to the present Government: "Do that." I do not want to be hard or bitter. I am tied to one Party, Fine Gael, as I believe in it; but I am an old Republican Army officer who believes in greater things than Party politics in Ireland. I want to see the day when the old and young will join together for a final act to give us full control of Ireland in the interest of Ireland and then the old men can die happy, if they see come to fruition the struggles of Pearse, Connolly, Brugha and Collins. In spite of civil wars and economic wars, we stand for Ireland, a grand little happy land, and we can all say: "God bless Ireland." We cannot say that to-day as we are a divided people, a sick people, allowing the financiers and the Jews and the others to control us. Will we stand any longer for that?
Deputy D.J. O'Sullivan rose.
If Deputy O'Sullivan gives way, I will call on Deputy Seán Flanagan.
I do not wish to intervene at great length, as my score would be low after the heavy artillery. First of all, I wish to repudiate the charge Deputy Blowick made against me. I have never tried to use to political advantage anything as important as the drainage of the River Moy. That may have a rather remote interest in this debate for Deputies who do not come from the West of Ireland, but in so far as this debate is concerned with increased production, the River Moy has a very distinct bearing for any Deputy representing the County of Mayo. At the present time, there is gloom and doom in the hearts of the farmers in the constituency I represent. Under Deputy Dillon's land reclamation scheme, 80 or 90 per cent. of the tenant farmers in Mayo received absolutely nothing. The vast bulk of the money went to big landowners, who got as much as £100 an acre.
I appeal to the Government, if they wish to stop the flow of emigration, if they want the West of Ireland farmers to produce more, to re-orientate their minds regarding the land rehabilitation project. I do not care what Deputy Blowick or others on the opposite side may say about a reduction of the amount of money available for minor employment schemes. The fact is that those estimates were prepared for the inter-Party Government. Let us stop at that. I am not making political capital out of it, but let those opposite not try to make political capital out of it either. We are out for the small farmers, the backbone of the West of Ireland. If we are out for them, irrespective of Party politics and irrespective of any small, cheap, parish pump gibe one may be able to throw at someone on the opposite benches, we will urge the Government to increase, if possible, the amount of money made available for minor employment schemes for the farmers in the West of Ireland. They have small, uneconomic holdings—even if they could be reckoned on paper as economic, they cannot use all of their holdings because they are not drained.
Even where they have an economic holding, which is rare, and even where, which is still rarer, it is properly drained there is often great difficulty in getting the necessary labour, particularly if the young men of the family happen to be over in England.
If the Government want to tackle this problem first of all they should alter the land code. It is all very well to talk about the Land Commission. I have said enough about the Land Commission before and I could keep on talking about it. The only remedy for the Government is to alter the terms of the Land Acts. I must say I am in agreement with Deputy Blowick when he said that to some extent the power of the Government is handed over to the Land Commission. In theory I believe that that is proper. The theory is that the State should not be all important and all powerful. That is the theory which is the basis of democratic government. The Land Commission is there as a brake on the exercise of governmental powers and to ensure that governmental powers are exercised with regard to the acquisition of land in a truly democratic manner, as laid down by the constitutional statutes of the country, but I do suggest that those statues are not now sufficient to enable the small farmer, of the West of Ireland particularly, to obtain a proper living, a living such as he is entitled to, and to obtain for his family the employment to which they are entitled in this country. I suggest accordingly, that the Government should alter the land code in whatever way is necessary for the benefit of the people.
I was interested in many ways in Deputy McQuillan's speech, but I could not help reflecting that the basis on which he decided to cast his vote on a certain side in June last was that the inter-Party Government had done more for the industrial development of the West of Ireland than we had. He stated to-day, amusingly enough, that the inter-Party Government had done nothing industrially for the West of Ireland and that he was wondering if Fianna Fáil were going to do something. Perhaps he has got his answer in the Undeveloped Areas Bill.
Where the Undeveloped Areas Bill is concerned, I would suggest to the Government that, in so far as it deals with the Gaeltacht and the congested districts, it should not deal too much with the Gaeltacht at the expense of the congested districts.
I do not believe that Deputy McQuillan is right when he says that industrialisation of the West cannot be realised by private enterprise. I believe that it can. If you take the problem of the small farmer of the West of Ireland now, you must remember number one, that he has not got an economic or fair-sized holding. As a remedy, the Land Commission at present is inadequate, and I suggest that while the democratic rights of the people of the country must be preserved, greater power should be given into the hands either of the Minister or the Land Commission with a view to relieving congestion in the West.
Mr. Coburn
Is there sufficient land available there?
Sufficient land is available elsewhere.
Mr. Coburn
Within the area you are speaking of?
I have deliberately avoided mentioning the vast areas of land in other places which are not being used as they should be.
Hear, hear!
It is too easy for a man to approach the Land Commission court and make the case that he is using his land and conducting his farm with good husbandry. That method for dealing with applications for acquisition should be abolished.
Even if people have economic-sized holdings in the West of Ireland, 80 or 90 per cent. of the farmers get very little advantage from the land project as it is in operation at the moment. The Government should alter that project so that, instead of giving £100 an acre to the man with enormous farms who is not using them properly and in the interest of the nation, advantage could be given to the very small holdings in the West of Ireland.
Mr. Coburn
Were you listening to the Taoiseach's speech when he preached the reverse of the policy which you are stating now?
I must say that I would like to have that quotation of the Taoiseach's speech, as reported.
Mr. Coburn
I will not interrupt the Deputy but that is a fact.
I cannot deal with that unless the Deputy is prepared to give me the quotation. I am stating facts regarding the land project as it affects the people in my constituency. In so far as employment is concerned it is most ardently to be hoped that the Undeveloped Areas Bill will in a short space of time provide employment for the second and third sons of the smallholders in the West of Ireland, people who now have to leave the country and emigrate to England. It is to be hoped that when that Bill eventually realises itself as an Act of Parliament these people will not have to seek employment in England and will have, far more than the material advantages of living at home, the spiritual advantages derived from living with their own people in their own country under the Catholic influences of this country which are of incomparable value in the mental development of any young man, particularly at the present time.
I believe that these young men would be prepared to accept something less in the way of material payment if only they could stay at home, live at home and live among their own people according to their own way of life which they learned in their youth. If that Bill ever has that result it is a result which is most urgently wanted, the result that all the members of the family will be able to stay at home and not just the man who will succeed to the economic-sized holding. Remember that the economic-sized holding in the West is microscopic, to use Deputy Collins's word.
What is the valuation of such a holding?
From £2 10s. 0d. to £3.
An economic holding?
All that we actually have are of that valuation. If you like, ask Deputy Cafferky, who represents the same constituency.
About 50/-.
What is the valuation of an economic holding?
A person with a valuation under £10 is usually eligible to apply under the land scheme. We should aim at providing not just one man with an economic holding but the sons in the family with work in a nearby town at the same time. We must make sure that the holding can all be used. If all that is done you will get better production. In the West of Ireland no real drainage can be done until the River Moy is tackled.
Hear, hear!
While Deputy Cafferky says "Hear, hear," his colleague, Deputy Donnellan, said before the county council that a certain sum of money was set aside for the purpose. I am not trying to make political capital; I do not want to make political capital, but when we are bogged up at the moment by the statement that nothing more can be done until the River Moy is tackled I say in God's name tackle it, get it done and then we can tackle the minor river in the West. While we are waiting for that employment for these people we should try to create interim employment so as to keep them within the country by improving on the estimates of the inter-Party Government for expenditure on minor employment, bog development and rural improvement schemes.
These things will put great heart in the people. They do not want much and are prepared, I know, to produce more. It is necessary to produce more and if the flow of money which we have been receiving from America is shortly to dry up then we must find something to take its place. If we are to find it by way of increased production then all the small farmers of the West of Ireland want is very little. All they want, to use the expression of a distinguished statesman, is: "Give us the tools and we will finish the job."
Give the farmers of the West of Ireland the tools to work with and I assure you that, if they never let down Ireland before, they will not let down Ireland now.
This debate has been going on for a number of weeks. We have listened to very flowery language about deflation and inflation and repatriation. I doubt if nine out of every ten people outside this House could understand what has been said in the House. While the speeches that have been made may have a certain bearing on the situation, it would be more appropriate to come down to a sensible discussion of the situation and the causes of the supposed crisis through which we are passing or are about to pass.
I agree with 90 per cent. of what Deputy Seán Flanagan has said this afternoon. I would like to put this to the Taoiseach: Since he became a member of this House, which is quite a number of years ago, and since the establishment of this Dáil, we have been talking, discussing and planning, but we have got nowhere in dealing with the principal ills that affect the country and its economy, namely, emigration and unemployment. I cannot see now in Government policy any solution of the problem. That is what worries me, as coming from a county from which large numbers emigrate to seek a livelihood elsewhere. I would like to know from the Tánaiste, when he is replying, what solution he has for that problem. Are we to continue pinpricking with the problem as we have been doing since the establishment of the Dáil and since the setting up of the Free State? The Tánaiste will agree that every Government, since 1919, has been pinpricking with this problem and that the problem is as great to-day as it was then.
There is no need to discuss our financial position, there is no need to wait for a bank report, to understand how we stand financially or economically, because the very fact that there are thousands of unemployed on the register and thousands more who do not qualify for registration but who are unemployed, and the fact that, since the establishment of the State, close on one million young men and women have emigrated, are indications of our financial and economic position and indications to every Government that has been in office since the establishment of the State that they have failed and that we are still failing to secure a solution of the problem. What solution has this Government or any Irish Government to offer? How do they propose to provide employment?
When I talk about employment I do not mean employment for a month or a week or three months. I mean secure employment that would give a reasonable standard of living. I do not mean a week or two weeks on a minor employment scheme somewhere in a bog in County Mayo. I mean employment in which a man can plan a future and in which he can feel secure. That does not exist in the greater part of Ireland to-day. In particular, it does not exist in the West of Ireland.
If we are really serious, it is the business of this House, and not the business of the Government, to prepare a scheme or plan which will meet the problem that we are confronted with. I know of no Government or Party that is capable of providing, or that is trying to build, such a plan as would solve the two problems of emigration and unemployment. I have listened to the Taoiseach. I have listened to the Tánaiste. I have listened to the various speakers from all parts of the House. None of them has put forward a solution.
I was not a member of the inter-Party Government. I was not a member of the House during the period of office of that Government. They claim that they were developing schemes, that they had a plan that would be a solution. I do not believe it. No Government, to my knowledge, had a plan that would solve the problem. Emigration was as great during the inter-Party Government régime as it was during the Fianna Fáil régime.
Emigration was as great during the Cumann na nGaedheal régime, in the early days of 1922, as it was during the period of office of Fianna Fáil from 1932 to 1948. We must try to provide the key to the problem of emigration and unemployment. If we want to understand the financial or economic position of the country we have only to ask ourselves how we stand as far as unemployment and emigration are concerned. So long as the young men and women are leaving this country, that is a clear indication that there is something very seriously wrong with the economic fabric of the nation.
The Taoiseach, the Tánaiste and every member of the Government seem perturbed and worried about our financial position. The Taoiseach is worried that we have depleted our external assets, the £160,000,000 that we built up during the war years, which would not be there if the Government could have secured the necessary raw materials during those years. It was because we could not secure the necessary raw materials that those assets were built up. They have been depleted because they were used in doing essential work during the three years that the inter-Party Government were in office, in the building of houses and hospitals, in drainage, afforestation and other works which helped to provide employment. The Tánaiste and the Taoiseach should be much more worried about the trend of unemployment and emigration than they are about the depletion of our external assets. They should congratulate the inter-Party Government on repatriating these assets and utilising them for development even though all of that development may not be of a capital nature and may not produce dividends immediately. Over a period of years it will produce dividends and will be a source of wealth to the nation.
If we think that the spending of a few million pounds of capital, provided out of taxation and set aside for development, will solve our present-day ills and problems, we are making a big mistake. The expenditure of a few million pounds is merely pin-pricking with the problem. We must spend in terms of millions and millions, we must spend quickly and at once, if we are to tackle the problem and provide a solution. If we are really serious in dealing with the problem of unemployment and emigration we must provide the money no matter how it is procured and we must not talk about bankruptcy or financial crises. We must put our productive power into operation. That is what counts and that is what will solve the problem. If we allow our productive power to go out of this country, to be utilised by some other nation or some other Government, we endanger the fabric of the nation, we endanger the national economic and financial position. We are allowing somebody else to use the machine that we should use here.
If we are serious about maintaining the people on the land and keeping them from going into the cities of Dublin or Cork or other large towns, we must provide employment in the rural areas. What has been done by successive Government towards that end? Nothing. Bits of factories have been erected which only give employment to child labour. No heavy industry has been established which would give employment to men who could marry and rear families. Most of the factories only give employment to women. You cannot expect to marry a woman hoping that she will go out and work and run a home for you as well. It is the duty of the breadwinner to provide for his wife and family. We must establish heavy industries. No matter what may be said about this being an agricultural country, we must have a balanced economy. Where are the sons and daughters who cannot secure a livelihood on their father's farm going to go? They must be provided for. Are we to continue with what has been happening over the years—that we must provide emigrant ships to take them away?
I want the Taoiseach to deal with these things. Let him forget about repatriation of external assets, devaluation, inflation and all those things and come down to the matters which count. Let him tell the House what is his programme, what is his outlook in relation to the provision of industrial employment for Connacht. Is he going to denude Connacht of its population as each successive Government has played its part in doing? There are hardly any young men and women left in Connacht; they have gone away. Every second school there is closing down, every Church is half empty on Sundays. The doors of the houses are being closed and the people are going away to secure employment elsewhere. They cannot find employment and security on the small uneconomic holdings in the West. We may by drainage and reclamation bring these holdings up to a certain economic standard. But, no matter what standard we bring such a holding up to, it can only provide for one man and one woman. When a father transfers his holding, he does not transfer it to two or three sons, but to one, and the other sons must secure a livelihood elsewhere. Where are they to secure it? What does the Tánaiste offer these young men and women? Has he any industry to put them into? I hope he will reply to that question. What solution is there for that problem? Are we going to permit them to emigrate or are we going to develop industry of a nature which will provide them with employment and security at a decent wage and standard of living?
It is quite clear that each successive Government took very little interest in the industrial development of this country. We saw during the war years the lack of foresight shown by various Irish Governments in relation to shipping. It took a war and almost the threat of starvation to get an Irish Government and an Irish Parliament to realise that they could not depend on a foreign mercantile marine. It was in the midst of the war, when ships could only be secured at a very high price and were of a low standard, that they sought to secure ships and tried to build up a mercantile marine. That is one instance which shows the lack of interest of successive Irish Governments in the provision of a mercantile marine which would give employment. If we had had that mercantile marine, we could have imported the necessary raw material for the establishment of industries here.
It is no argument to say that because we do not get the raw material for the development of industry we cannot have industry here. That is wrong. Any Party which advocates that policy should not be in this House because they are doing untold damage to the country. There are countries which have not got any ports, which are situated in the middle of Europe, and which have got a mercantile marine and heavy industries. They give employment to hundreds of thousands of men by the importation of raw materials. Why cannot we do that if we are serious about keeping our population at home?
It is no use for Deputies to say that by the expansion and development of agriculture we can provide employment for our men and women. We cannot. I admit that we can expand agriculture, that we can increase production and that we may be able to give more employment by the expansion of agriculture, but we cannot give 100 per cent. employment. So long as we believe that agriculture is the only industry in this country, that it is the only thing we should concern ourselves with, we will have emigration and an unbalanced economy. We must wake up to our responsibilities and realise that we have a duty to perform. That duty is not the responsibility of any Party or Government. It is the responsibility of this House to come together and unite with one objective —the provision of suitable long-term employment, so that men can plan for the future. If we do not do that it would be as well to forget about it because this country will go down and down if we permit our young men and women to emigrate.
Why have not successive Governments ensured that if factories are to be established they will be established in rural districts? I know that the people who invest moneys in industries want to have them established in the City of Dublin or in the city of Cork adjacent to the ports as transport facilities mean more money and profit for them. They do not want to have to deal with the problem of transport from the rural areas. The Government should exercise their power and say to the directors of a proposed industry: "We shall permit its establishment provided you establish it in such-and-such a town or rural district," and prevent the City of Dublin becoming top heavy.
It is top heavy at present. Anybody who goes around the City of Dublin can see that the wealth of Ireland is concentrated in Dublin, and that we are trying to maintain a population which it is impossible to maintain. Sooner or later, if we permit that to continue, we will be faced with a crisis which we will not be able to overcome, and the people to be blamed for that are the various Governments we have had since the establishment of the State.
What have the Government in mind in regard to the development of industry in the West of Ireland? If they propose to introduce a Bill to deal with the congested areas in the West of Ireland they must give serious consideration to certain matters. If they are to carry out proper industrial development, they must keep in mind that the industries must be of such a nature as to provide employment for men rather than women, and ensure employment the whole year round. They must be of such a nature that they will be able to pay a reasonable living wage so that young men will be able to marry and plan ahead to provide for the future. If an industry does not provide all these things, then the Minister is wasting his time in establishing industries which do not provide a solution to the problem as it exists in the West of Ireland.
I agree with Deputy Seán Flanagan that drainage is essential to and will give much employment in the West of Ireland. The West of Ireland has been sadly neglected by successive Governments. It is the Cinderella of the country. Its position to-day is similar to that of Wales prior to the outbreak of war on 3rd September, 1939; it is the distressed area of this country. We hear a good deal here about Irish culture, the Irish language, Irish traditions and the Irish way of life. Where will you find all these things except in the West of Ireland?
Have not successive Governments by their policy deliberately forced out of the West of Ireland those men and women who had the Irish way of life and who maintained intact all our Irish traditions? What efforts have been made to keep these men and women at home? They will not be induced to remain by some minor employment scheme lasting a month, a road scheme lasting a couple of months or a few weeks' turf eutting. They will only be kept at home by the development in this distressed area of an industry of the kind I have suggested.
Deputy Seán Flanagan dealt with the land rehabilitation scheme and with the necessity for draining the River Moy in order to enable small farmers to avail of the land reclamation scheme. I do not agree with Deputy Flanagan when he says that only the large farmer has benefited from this scheme. The Minister, in the course of his opening speech and through the medium of interjections in the debate during the past few weeks, has tried to insinuate that the land reclaimed was not profitable, that it was swampy, that it could not be put into production and, if put into production, would not produce either the quantity or the quality crops one would expect.
Farmers of all kinds have benefited by this scheme and lands of all types have been reclaimed. I agree, however, that there is a certain percentage of truth in what Deputy Flanagan says, namely, that the average small farmer in the West of Ireland cannot benefit from the scheme because the tributaries draining into the River Moy are waterlogged. The water cannot escape because the Moy has not been drained. Why is it development is retarded in relation to drainage in the West of Ireland? Why was work done in Munster and Leinster before it was done in the West of Ireland? One may say it was the inter-Party Government which initiated the scheme.
It was not.
You say it was not. I will not argue with you.
The Act was passed in 1942.
Mr. O'Higgins
1945.
The Arterial Drainage Act was passed in 1945.
Deputy Cafferky is in possession.
I will not argue the question as to who is responsible. The Act was passed in 1945.
It is not much use passing an Act and then leaving it lie there dead.
I am not blaming the Fianna Fáil Government for not initiating the work for the simple reason that there was a war on and they could not procure the machinery to implement the scheme.
They had the machinery. We started it.
Deputy Costello blew the whistle.
In the list in which the rivers concerned were placed in chronological order the West of Ireland was put last. Leinster and Munster dictate policy and legislation in this country. It is the Leinster and Munster and Dublin mentality which governs everything. That is one of the reasons why we have this serious depletion of the population in the West of Ireland and that is why the West remains the Cinderella so far as work, employment and some sense of security are concerned. The bulk of the money voted is spent in Dublin and in Leinster and in Munster.
A Deputy
That will read well in the Western People next week.
Truth always reads well.
But this is a criticism of you. It certainly sounds very like it.
Deputy Cafferky.
I will resume my seat until the Minister, Deputy Blowick and the other Deputy have finished their little tiff. I am not interested in whether or not my speech appears in the Western People. I was not elected to this House through the influence of the Western People. I was elected by the ordinary people who wanted to have me here. I think I am perfectly entitled to express my views. I believe what I say to be the truth. I believe my suggestions are the solution to the problem. I am glad that Deputy Lynch, the Parliamentary Secretary to the Government, has come into the House. He may be better informed on this matter than the Minister is. He may know more about conditions in the West of Ireland.
I would like the Parliamentary Secretary to take notice of my suggestion that we must have industries established in the West of Ireland to provide employment there for our young men and women but I would like him to remember that the establishment of an industry that provides employment only for women or juveniles is no solution to the problem. I suggest that the proper solutions are drainage, afforestation, land rehabilitation and road construction on a large scale. Most of the small tenant farmers in the West who live off the main road have to carry one pair of shoes in their hands and a pair of Wellingtons on their feet in order to trudge through the mire and slush to reach the main road. Why is it that the roads of this area cannot be reconstructed and put into reasonable condition? Why is it that our young men in this area have to seek employment in Great Britain and elsewhere building roads for the inhabitants of another country? Would it not be better for us to provide that employment at home in reconstructing our own roads for our own people? Are not the people in these areas just as much entitled to decent roads as the citizens of Dublin are to decent streets?
Thousands of pounds were spent this summer on O'Connell Street, Dame Street, Grafton Street and College Green to provide good streets and decent footpaths for the people here. Obviously the citizens of Dublin must get consideration. Surely the citizens in the West of Ireland are entitled to just as much consideration. Why is it the same provision is not made for these people in the West of Ireland to enable them to bring their agricultural produce to the market and attend Mass on Sunday? Could not our Irishmen who are employed in Britain building roads and highways be put to work on building highways and reconstructing roads here?
The reason for that is that there is no capital available. We have £80,000,000 invested by the Central Bank in Great Britain which is yielding only one-half per cent. Would it not be far better if that money were made available at home for the reconstruction of our county roads in the West of Ireland? Its expenditure would enable our young men and women to be employed here at decent wages and under decent conditions. Think of the encouragment which the provision of good roads would give the farming community and our young men to remain at home. Instead, they are living in the mire, in slush and in dirt. Would it not be far better for the country to have them in good employment at home?
The Parliamentary Secretary to the Government has been through the West of Ireland recently. In the course of his travels, how many hundreds of homes has be seen closed up, how many doors and windows locked, with the grass growing on the window sills? Why did the people who lived in those homes leave the country and go to Birmingham, Wolverhampton and Coventry? Was it because of their love for those cities? No, but because they saw no future in their own country. They saw that successive Governments here had done nothing to make suitable provision for them or to encourage them to remain here. Would it not be far better for the country if some of those millions which are invested outside Ireland were realised and made available for the provision of employment for our own people and for the development of our backward areas? This House and past Governments have given no consideration whatever to the intrests of the people in the West of Ireland. That is why they have been driven out of the country. They have been forced to go across to the great cities in Great Britain where they become potential sources of wealth for that country. How tragic it is that they should have to go and help in producing wealth for another country while there is so much work to be done here in the construction of roads, in the afforestation of land that is not suitable for cultivation, and in the building of houses and hospitals. When our young boys and girls reach the ages of 18 and 20 years, after being reared and fed at the expense of their parents, they are, so to speak, dispensed with, and handed over fully equipped to help build up another country.
We talk about the Republic of Ireland, about our foreign assets and about the depletion of those assets. How do we stand in the eyes of the world? There is no need to try and bolster up a case as to how we stand economically or financially. Any person who comes into the country and examines the situation can get the answer to that question quite easily when he ascertains the number of unemployed we have, and the number of young men and women who are leaving the country. No Government that has ever held office in this country has, in my opinion, ever made an honest attempt to deal with that situation or tried to find a solution for it. We are not going to get a solution for it in the setting up of bits of sweet factories or in an industry here and there which gives employment to little girls between the ages of 14 and 18 who are chucked out when they reach adult age. The so-called industrialists that we have simply use them for their present purposes. Let us try and provide employment for our young men. If we do that they will be able to provide a means and a livelihood for the young women.
Some speakers have said that the members of the farming community are better off to-day than ever they were. As far as I know, they are no better off to-day than they were at any time in the history of this country. They are still struggling and scraping along, working seven days a week and 52 weeks in the year. As Deputy Blowick said, they cannot even take a Saturday or a Sunday off. They have to work seven days to make ends meet. Even if they are getting higher prices than formerly for their produce, they have to pay high prices for everything they require for the upkeep of their farms, whether it be a set of horse shoes, a plough, a harrow, fertilisers or feeding-stuffs. All these things have trebled and quadrupled in price since the outbreak of war, but there has not been a corresponding increase in the same period in the prices paid for agricultural produce.
Everything required for the upkeep of a holding has increased in price to a far greater degree than the increases given for agricultural produce. Taxation has increased, and there has been a terrific increase in the rates. The wages for those who work on the land for a farmer also have been increased over the past few years.
We must confess, I think, that the farmer is not one bit better off than he was. That, of course, may not apply in the case of wealthy farmers in counties such as Westmeath and Kildare. They farm on a large scale, and they may have benefited by war conditions. The average tillage farmer, who represents the majority of the farmers of Ireland, and for whom I speak, is not one bit better off than he was. Take, on the other hand, the position of teachers, doctors and business men or any other profession you like. They are in a position to give a good education to their children. They can afford to send them to a secondary school and to the university, and give them a profession. How many small tillage farmers can afford to do that? Perhaps one out of five or six, and if that one goes to a secondary school or to the university the other children in the family must be denied certain things to enable the father to pay for that one child's education. All that points to the fact that the small farmers of the country are to-day the worst off section of the community. I do not accept the argument that the farmer to-day is well-to-do, that he is comfortable and better off than he was heretofore, especially when you take into account the cost of living, the increase in the prices of the things which he has to purchase, and relate all these to the fluctuating prices for the commodities which he has to sell.
There is no guarantee for the farmer. He is encouraged to produce eggs, but as soon as he gets the necessary numbers of poultry the price of eggs drops. The same happens when he is encouraged to produce more pigs. He increases his production, prices drop, and he is then left to fend for himself in his predicament. The farmer has been recommended by all the Governments we have had here to increase production in many directions, but, in my opinion, he has been thrown to the winds on every occasion by Governments, Ministers for Agriculture and by this House.
They have simply utilised him in the interests of other sections of the community. He has been called upon to produce more and to work harder. Those who made that demand on him never took his difficulties into consideration, difficulties which, on many occasions, were created for him by the false promises made from the floor of this House. That applies to every Government we have had, including the inter-Party Government. He was let down by the inter-Party Government in the case of eggs, and by Fianna Fáil when he went in for increased pig production. We have the extraordinary position that while the price of pigs dropped in the last few months, the price of bacon has gone sky high. Why does the Minister, or the Government, allow the bacon factories to reap such vast profits at the expense of the pig producers? The position is that at one fair a man may get a certain price for his pigs while at another fair, held five or six miles away, quite a different price may be prevailing. The Pigs Marketing Board, in my opinion, destroyed pig production in Ireland. It disgusted the farmers. I think you will not get the farmers to go back into pig production until you take your hands off him. The way to encourage him to increase pig production is to allow him to run his own business in his own way, and by giving him an open market with open competition.
Deputy Lynch knows, and Deputy Flanagan, who is now coming into the House, knows that there is complete stagnation, that there is no scope for any employment in County Mayo at the present moment.
I did not agree with everything the inter-Party Government did during the three and a half years they were in office. I was disappointed that they did not do more. They could have done more, and I expected them to do more than they did. But what they did was a little bit better—only a little bit better—than what their predecessors did. At the present moment there is complete stagnation. There is no money available and no work available. There is a gloomy outlook on the eve of Christmas—no road construction, no drainage, few minor employment schemes. What does the Government intend to do? How is it that, under the Local Authorities (Works) Act, which was in operation for the past couple of years, thousands of pounds have been spent having small rivers and brooks cleaned, which was of immense value to the small tenant farmer in so far as it took away a certain percentage of the flooding on his holding? How is it now that there is a virtual standstill in, for example, the most congested district in Ireland, Swinford? In the few years that the inter-Party Government were in power we had over £11,000. This year we have less than £2,000.
Mr. Lynch
You are getting every penny that the inter-Party Government voted.
Not at all. Here is a question addressed by Deputy MacBride to the Minister for Local Government:
"...if he will state the number and estimated cost of proposals submitted under the Local Authorities (Works) Act, 1949, by the county councils of Kerry, Donegal, Galway, Mayo and Leitrim for the year ended 31st March, 1951, and for the current year and the total amount allocated to each of these county councils for the periods mentioned?
Mr. Smith: As the reply is in the form of a tabular statement I propose, with your permission, a Chinn Chomhairle, to circulate it with the Official Report."
We find that in Mayo—I am not going to read the tabular statement but merely to give the figures for Mayo— there were 410 schemes submitted for rivers and drains. The estimated cost was £132,882 and the grant allocated was £80,000. That was for the year ended the 31st March, 1951. For the year ended 31st March, 1952, there were submitted for Mayo 595 schemes, an increase from 410. The estimated cost was £171,476 and the grant allocated was £51,000. We find that, as far as Mayo is concerned, on the eve of Christmas only £10,604 of that £51,000 had been expended at 30th September, 1951. How does the Parliamentary Secretary try to convey to me that there has not been a curtailment or stagnation in the carrying out of the Local Authorities (Works) Act?
Were they not the figures passed last year for this year?
No, this year. I have given you a quotation from the Official Report of 15th November, 1951.
They are passed a year in advance.
I gave you the amount for the year ended 31st March, 1951, and for the year ending 31st March, 1952.
Where did you get your £2,000.
I am giving you that as chairman of the Mayo County Council. As I said heretofore we got over £11,000. Under this Government we only got £2,000.
There is £40,000 left for the remaining part of the year.
There was £51,000 allocated by the then Minister for Finance, Deputy McGilligan. Of that £51,000 only £10,000 has been spent up to the present, and I am entitled to assume that no more money will be available out of that Estimate.
You are not entitled to assume that the remaining £40,000 will not be made available.
Mr. Coburn
Are we at a meeting of the Mayo County Council or dealing with the Estimate for Supplies and Services?
I am dealing with the Deputy's interjections, and I want to convey the information to the Tánaiste and the Parliamentary Secretary who asked me the question.
Mr. Lynch
I addressed no question to you.
No matter what the Tánaiste or the Parliamentary Secretary may say there is complete stagnation in regard to the Estimate provided by the then Minister for Finance early this year. My contention is that of the £51,000 provided by Deputy McGilligan in March, 1951, only £10,000 of that has been spent or made available to the people of Mayo up to the present.
Mr. Lynch
Every penny provided will be spent.
There is no use spending or making this money available when the people are gone to work in John Bull's country. It will be too late then. A stitch in time saves nine. If you think we are going to live on fresh air while you are making this money available that was provided by Deputy McGilligan, as Minister for Finance, you are backing the wrong horse. I can assure the Tánaiste and Deputy Lynch if they wish within the next 24 hours to dissolve the Dáil the people of Mayo will give their decision in relation to the conduct of this Government since they assumed office in so far as the drainage and other local authorities' works are concerned.
They voted against the Act eight times.
I know that we had four different meetings of the Mayo County Council in order to convince the Fianna Fáil councillors to accept that Act.
Deliberate obstruction of the Act.
Housing, drainage, land reclamation, every single item of policy that the inter-Party Government initiated and put into effect is bound up with the repatriation of these assets about which we hear so much talk. Every one of these items is at a standstill now.
In regard to unemployment and emigration the figures given by Deputy Kennedy here for the City of Dublin alone are an indication of what is happening as the result of Government policy.
The result of the Coalition stockpiling policy.
With all due respect to you I have read your political commentary every Wednesday. I bought your kept paper, the Irish Press, because I have a very broad mind and I like to read your commentary Wednesday after Wednesday. You affirmed that the inter-Party Government were not prepared to face up to their responsibility, that they did not realise that a world crisis was pending and that if war broke out the people of this country would be faced with starvation. I do not say that you forced the inter-Party Government to stockpile because they recognised their responsibility, but if there was any weakening as far as stockpiling was concerned you helped them to stockpile by your policy and the advocacy of your colleagues.
We wanted you to stockpile raw materials, not manufactured goods.
Deputy MacEntee said that there was no stockpiling.
Does the Tánaiste consider that the spending of that money for the purchase of machinery was not essential? Does the Tánaiste consider that the purchase of raw material for the development of forestry was not essential? Does he disagree with what Deputy Blowick, Minister for Lands, did in making provision for an emergency—the plan for 25,000 acres a year under foresty? Was it not wise to have in stock a sufficient quantity of trees to continue a scheme of 25,000 acres per year?
Mousetraps.
That was the policy carried out by the inter-Party Government and if you do not agree with it, then I am surprised that you do not face the people of the country. The people of the country know that the inter-Party Government only stockpiled raw materials, essential for the continuation and development of industries and for the carrying on of drainage, afforestation and land rehabilitation. During their three years in office they made every possible effort to keep the cost of living within reasonable bounds, notwithstanding that you and your Party, during your term sitting over here did everything to embarrass them in relation to the cost of living. In the course of the Tánaiste's opening remarks he made out that the increase in the cost of living was due before the change of Government, that the Prices Body had recommended to the inter-Party Government that this increase should be permitted. The Prices Body recommended the increase but does the Tánaiste deny that he and his Government have the final word as to whether these increases are to be permitted? The inter-Party Government recognised that they had established the Prices Body as an advisory body but they also recognised that they did not permit them to have the last say or the last word in relation to these increases.
Mr. Lynch
They stuck their head in the sand.
Will the Tánaiste tell me whether firms such as Player's, or any other firms which have sought an increase since the change of Government, have closed down and turned their staffs out on the road because they did not get the increases sought? Was consumption limited? You granted these increases and are you going to grant the increases which are being put forward at the moment by the R.G.D.A.T.A.? The Tánaiste and his Party talked so much about the cost of living and led one to believe that if they got the power to control that they would stabilise the cost of living and keep it within the means of the ordinary working man and woman. You can disguise yourself and go into any public-house or fun fair in Dublin and the ordinary working men will tell you what they think of the position of events at the present time. If you doubt what I say, then face the country to-morrow and have a general election.
Captain Cowan would not allow them to do so.
The Deputy had better not tempt Providence. You challenged us once before with bad results.
You were at your best then.
I have talked about drainage and the necessity for bringing it to the forefront in future Government policy so far as industrial expansion is concerned in the West of Ireland. I would ask the Minister to seriously consider that. Since the establishment of the Dáil, Leinster and Munster have had more than their share. I have nothing against them, but Connacht and the West of Ireland played just as much a part in trying to liberate this country from the yoke of foreign oppression as did Munster and Leinster. We were always ready to answer the call and I do not think it is fair that successive Governments should have treated Connacht as the Cinderella of Ireland. I do not think it is fair that Connacht should be left as the most distressed area of this country.
If this Government have in mind any scheme, plan or industrial Bill I hope it will be heavy industries which will give manual employment so as to stem the tide of emigration. I could suggest drainage, afforestation or road construction. All these schemes will help towards providing employment for men on a long-term basis. There is no need for one man to leave the West of Ireland if we would put our shoulders to the wheel and live up to our responsibility. If we do not do so, there is no point in the Taoiseach and the Parliamentary Secretary talking about emigration. There is no point in the Taoiseach delivering a speech in Sea-point Ballroom, Salthill, Galway, telling us of the conditions that exist in Birmingham, Liverpool, London and Glasgow. What he says may well be true. I am acquainted with the conditions that existed in Britain before the war and during the war, and I know what the picture is like to-day. I realise that conditions are not what they should be. We must appreciate that England went through a big war, fought for her independence and survived just in the nick of time. We should be the last Government in the world to criticise conditions there. They have provided us, and are providing us, with employment, not because they like us but because they need us. I do not think for a moment that they would give us any extra consideration if their own workers were available to take our place in industry, on the land or in any other kind of employment. I realise that full well. Does not the Tánaiste consider that it would be more appropriate and better if the whole Dáil were to put their shoulder to the wheel and provide employment for the men in Birmingham, Wolverhampton and Coventry? Would it not be far better to invest this money in capital production at home than to invest it outside the country? Would it not provide greater dividends, if not to-day, at least to-morrow, if employed in the production of goods for the home market and by increasing our productive capacity? Is that not the key-note and the solution to our problem?
Deputies and others say that we have no coal, no steel and no iron ore. We are not going to agree with them. I do not believe that Almighty God has cursed us to such an extent as Deputies make out He has. I believe that we have raw materials and that they can be developed. Then, if we have not the raw materials, we can import them from outside and turn them into the goods which we need. Why can we not develop industries like Sweden, Belgium and Norway, who have to import raw materials, develop their industries and balance their economies? Why can we not follow in their footsteps? I agree that we can expand agriculture but not to such an extent that it will provide employment for every man and woman born on the land. There will always be two, three, four, five or six who must go to the cross-roads. When we are seeking a solution to the problem, let it not be said that we are talking for the sake of talking and trying to cod the people. The people will not believe that.
Does this House realise that the people are convinced that we are only codding them? Does it realise that respect for an Irish Parliament is diminishing? Do Deputies realise that many people in the West of Ireland look to the House of Commons rather than to this House to provide a solution for their problems, that they look to Great Britain to provide them with security and employment? Does the House realise that it is falling into disrepute as a result of the many broken promises of Governments in the past? If we want to repair the damage done in that respect, we must start now by providing not a few lousy million but by raising a national loan to the extent of £100,000,000 if necessary, to convince Irishmen and women that we are really serious in attempting to provide a solution for the evils of unemployment and emigration. We must put our shoulders to the wheel and start immediately, otherwise we shall leave it until it is too late. I am afraid it is too late even now.
I do not suggest or want to convey for a moment that if any other Government were in office the cost of living would not have increased. I agree that that is a problem which would have faced any Government, but I would ask the Minister, whenever a recommendation is made to him by the Prices Body, that he should consider it carefully and, no matter what pressure is brought to bear on him, not to succumb to it. There must be some halt to the upward trend in the cost of living, otherwise the people will not be able to sustain the heavy burden imposed upon them. Increased prices will inevitably be followed by demands for increased wages and strikes, and the result will be that the whole country will suffer arising out of the upward trend in the cost of living. The Tánaiste, therefore, should consider very carefully every recommendation made to him from the Prices Body. I would also ask him to prohibit any increase in the price of goods which have been stored in warehouses prior to the demand for increased prices. There are certain raw materials which were brought in here by the inter-Party Government over the past three years which are now being retailed from the warehouses, and the small shopkeeper at the present day is being charged prices recently recommended by the Prices Body and permitted by the Tánaiste.
What materials?
Take fertilisers, for example. There are other materials, too, and it is your job to find out what these materials are. I would ask the Minister to be most diligent in the discharge of his duty. I admit that he has a heavy responsibility and that he may be overworked. I recognise that, and also the fact that he has many irons in the fire, but at the same time he should ensure that none of these people will get away with black-marketing prices for commodities that had been stockpiled prior to the granting of the increases permitted by the Government. Some of these people are prepared to stop at nothing. They do not consider the ordinary working man, and if they think they can wrench a few extra pence from him they will do it without any consideration for his problems, so long as it means a few pounds in their pocket or in their banking account.
I would suggest to the Minister that if there is to be increased production in agriculture, he must make fertilisers available at a cheaper rate than at present. The farmer cannot buy fertilisers at their present price and you cannot expect him to do so. If the Minister expects farmers to increase pig production, he must stabilise the price of pigs and must do likewise in the case of eggs. If you want farmers to respond to the appeal for increased production, you must give them some guarantee that you are behind them and are prepared to protect them. If you offer a price to induce the farmer to engage in a certain line of production and to-morrow, after he has entered on that production, throw him to the winds, he is going to lose all confidence in Government promises. That has been done too often by Governments and that is why so many farmers do not trust Government spokesmen in any matter relating to their industry. The farmer is always willing to co-operate with you but he cannot co-operate with you if you are not prepared to assist and protect him. If we are to close the gap which exists between the imports and exports, if we are to prevent inflation and provide essential foodstuffs for ourselves, we must give every encouragement and protection to the farming community. They have responded on every occasion to the appeals made to them but they have been let down so many times by various Governments that they are beginning to lose faith in Government promises.
The last matter which I wish to mention is the policy of the Government in relation to the acquisition of land and congestion in the West of Ireland. In that area, a number of holdings have been unoccupied over a period of years. Deputy Blowick did make an effort when he was in office to deal with that problem, and I am sure if he continued in office for another four or five years, he would have changed the whole scene in congested districts in the West of Ireland. He was going about it in the right way. I would ask the Tánaiste, when he sits around the table with his colleague, the Minister for Lands, to impress upon him that he should continue in the footsteps of his predecessor in so far as unoccupied, untenanted holdings, which have been derelict for the last 20 or 30 years, are concerned. I would ask him to impress upon his colleague to continue with the reorganisation of the estates at present held on the rundale system.
Would the Deputy relate the rundale system to the Bill before the House?
We are dealing with questions of emigration, unemployment and production, and I feel that one of the ways to bring about increased production is the utilisation of holdings which have become derelict, the bringing of them back to fertility and production by having them distributed amongst uneconomic holders, thereby bringing occupied holdings closer to an economic standard. That can only be done by the intervention of the Land Commission and the Minister for Lands. It is for that reason that I urge that it is essential that these untenanted holdings should be acquired for redistribution.
I do not say that the holding of a man who is compelled to go to England for a few years, through no fault of his own, should be grabbed. It is quite easy for the Minister to ascertain what holdings he should take. Further, there are many people in the West of Ireland who should be transferred to the Midlands, to some of the large estates to which Deputy Giles referred. I must congratulate him on his attitude to-day because I remember, when I was here from 1943 to 1945, I, and others like me, came under the lash of that Deputy for advocating migration to the Midlands. He agrees now that the large tracts of land in the Midlands which at present are producing nothing but furze, heather and noxious weeds, should be divided and utilised by placing on them men who are real farmers and real workers, in suitable economic holdings.
I ask the Tánaiste, therefore, to encourage his colleague, the Minister for Lands, to follow up the policy that Deputy Blowick was developing, namely, acquisition of land, the migration of tenants in congested areas and the reorganisation of some holding in the congested districts and the redistribution of untenanted holdings amongst local congests. In that way he will help to ease the situation. You will be able to get increased production, because it is in the blood of these men to work hard and to cultivate the soil. You never had to send inspectors down to the West of Ireland to make the people cultivate whatever little piece of land they had. We are a mixed farming community and we glory in being able to work, to produce on our farms and to contribute towards the welfare of the State. We recognise that we have a duty and a responsibility.
The Government cannot fail to realise that we cannot contribute as fully as we would like to contribute if the Government will not give us the ways and means of doing so. The land is the raw material. Give us that, with the necessary capital to utilise and to work it, and we will answer your call and the call of any Government. We cannot do that on only a couple of acres or on a 50/- valuation. We cannot do it if the land is waterlogged and we cannot do it if the fluctuation in prices which has been going on for a number of years is allowed to continue. These things must be rectified.
The Government to-day has responsibility and it must recognise that responsibility. I do not wish to be hard on the Tánaiste. I appreciate his difficulties and the problem he is up against. However, I ask for due consideration of the suggestions I have made. I have not gone into the matter of high finance. I have not competed with other Deputies in order to demonstrate to the House how intelligent I may be as far as high finance is concerned. I do not want to speak for three or four hours. All I want to do is to try and convey the viewpoint of the people I represent. I believe that the people whom I represent are sound nationally and politically. I believe they are willing to help and are ready to go into the front line of the trenches. The Government must be prepared to help them if they are to help the country. The Government must consider their needs and requirements. The country can have no better backing than the young men and women of the West of Ireland. There are no shoneens or yes-men or pro-Britishers there. You will not find Quislings there. You can rely on us in the darkest as well as in the brightest hour. I cannot understand, therefore, why this Government and other Governments have not given real and honest consideration to the development of Connacht. I cannot understand why Connacht has not been given the consideration that Munster has been given, though there you can find the shoneens and the Quislings and the traitors in a dark and dangerous hour for this country. These types of people are few and far between in the West of Ireland.
The Tánaiste knows that the West of Ireland has been neglected. His Parliamentary Secretary will tell him that it has been neglected. When replying, I hope the Tánaiste will answer the questions which I have asked in addition to answering the points made in some of the high-sounding speeches which we have heard on all the different aspects of finance. I hope the Tánaiste will tell this House and the West of Ireland what the Government intends to do for us. The Tánaiste is an energetic man, in the middle of his life. He has done a lot towards the development of industry in this country. He has sponsored and encouraged it. I hope he will now tell the House what he is going to do for the West of Ireland and what he has in mind. However, if he has only something of the type of a toy factory in mind, I hope he will not tell me about it because I should prefer not to hear that. An industry of the kind of a toy factory will employ only a few young boys and girls. I want to hear of employment for 5,000, 6,000 or 10,000 men who are able and willing to work—men who will take wives to themselves and rear and maintain a family and build up an economy. That can be done by the expansion of our mercantile marine, by the importation of raw materials, by the expansion of our western ports and by the opening up of the natural facilities at Blacksod, Ballina, Galway and Sligo. If that is done, raw materials can be imported into the West of Ireland and utilised. I went to England as a youth and I have worked in factories there. How is it that, although I knew nothing about industry, I and thousands like me became a valuable asset to the British nation? If we were valuable assets to the British nation we can become equally important to our own country. It is hardly necessary to say that we would be much more pleased to contribute our part in the building up of this nation than to help in the building up of any other nation.
For these reasons I appeal honestly and sincerely to the Tánaiste and to his Government to consider the West of Ireland apart from any other problems. If he does that he will leave behind him a corner of Ireland on which the Irish people can rely in its darkest and in its brightest hour. You can depend on the people who will remain there to protect and defend it and you can depend upon them to have brains and the brawn and the ability to do in their own land what they have been doing, and are doing, in other lands. I ask the Tánaiste to give us an outline in simple language that we can all understand, and that the people outside this House can understand, of his own intentions and of the intentions of the Government. Are you prepared to extract from the taxpayer a few miserable million pounds towards capital development or are you prepared to launch a loan of £100,000,000 to ease the situation and bring about industrial development, drainage, afforestation and all the other projects I have mentioned? If you are going to extract from the taxpayer a few miserable pounds then I say that it is no solution to the problem: the West will become depopulated; the land problem will solve itself because there will be nobody there to work it; the doors will be closed and the curse of future generations will be on this House, on the Government that is in office now and on the whole Oireachtas. I ask the Tánaiste to think seriously about this matter and not to be led or misled by the Banking Report. I do not wish to criticise the gentlemen who made that report or to hold them up to public odium or to say anything about them. They had a perfect right to bring in their report. It should, however, have been fuller.
In denying to Deputy MacBride certain information because, he tells us, he is debarred by statute from doing so, the Minister for Finance is unfair. Particulars of the £120,000 which has not been accounted for in that report should be placed on the Table of this House so that every Deputy will have an opportunity of knowing how the money was utilised.
There should be more frankness. I am glad the Tánaiste has recanted everything he said prior to coming into this House. I hope that he will turn down the banking report, lock, stock and barrel, and that he will continue on the lines of capital development and expand that scheme which was initiated by the inter-Party Government. My complaint about the inter-Party Government was that they did not spend more, that they did not work on a wider basis and make every effort towards that end. They started all right on a small scale. They have paved the way. Perhaps if they had got another four or five years they would have expanded their schemes. I hope this Government will follow the lead of the last Government and expand the work which was begun by them. I hope this Government will not be ashamed to do that. After all, if you were crossing a bridge in your car and you discovered that the bridge was dangerous you would not be ashamed to reverse your car and go back and drive around another way. They have been going for a number of years on a line which was dangerous. They were taking retrograde steps and were reactionary in so far as the provision of employment and industrial expansion was concerned. Let not the Minister be afraid to change his mind. Let not the Minister be afraid to admit that the policy upon which the previous Government embarked was a good one and that the Government are prepared to enlarge and expand it with a view to providing more employment and development. I would ask the Minister not to be misled by that report. He should make the capital available to do these things. If he does that things will be different from what they are at the present moment. The Irish people have more confidence in their own Parliament than that we should have those gloomy speeches to make for Basil Brooke and others to quote.
We, as a Christian State, should be an example for every other State in Europe. We should be able to set a headline so that they can look to us and take from us the cue and to see a model in our way of life, our economy and in our development, employment and the kind of wages we pay and the social services we make available. As a Christian nation, we should set the way for them to copy. At the moment, we are a Christian nation but we have a lot to learn yet from the nations that are non-Christian in outlook and practice. They have provided much better amenities, social services, employment and wages than we have provided here. Those nations should look to us. We should avail of every opportunity to provide the essential capital to keep our young men and women at home. The young men and women are the key to our economy and the future of this country.
So much has been said in the various speeches on the Government White Paper and on the Central Bank Report that I wish to be as brief as possible towards the end of this debate. It is, of course, of the greatest significance that we spent so much time discussing the economic position and that the country as a whole has taken such an intense interest in the proceedings.
As far as the Central Bank Report is concerned, I think that I am not unfair in describing it as a report well written in the best interests of banking circles but a report which shows little or no regard for the welfare of the Irish people as a whole.
I need only mention its recommendation in regard to the withdrawal of the food subsidies and the freezing of wages to indicate that this description is not unfair. Why have the people of the country taken such a great interest in this report? Not because they had the time or opportunity or inclination to study it but because, as soon as the contents of this report were made known, the commercial banks sought to begin an implementation of the report's recommendations by attempting to effect general credit restriction throughout the country. The response of the people—which, I think, is indicated in the views expressed by the various Deputies in the House on this attempted general credit restriction— was immediate and intense. The Irish people fully realise, in their own good common sense, that no such general credit restriction was in the interests of this country at the moment. Apart from the effect on the dislocation of business which such a general credit restriction would have, as has been pointed out by many other Deputies, I would like to emphasise that we must learn a lesson from this recent scare that such a credit restriction would not only affect business circles throughout the country but it would retard the very capital development which successive Governments have laboured to expand.
Take, for example, the building industry. This recent restriction meant a restriction of credit to builders and builders' providers. This would have effected, in a very short time, a very definite retarding of the housing programme for it is impossible for the builders to carry on the local authority housing programme unless, while they are awaiting the payment of State grants and loans, they receive credit either from the banks or from the builders' providers. This scare was ended when the Tánaiste in the House clearly and deliberately repudiated the recommendations put forward by the Central Bank Report. I think that the Tánaiste's speech increased the confidence of the people in the Government enormously and strengthened its position in this House very considerably. I only regret—if I may make one criticism—that his speech was not made earlier because I think it would have been better since that scare would have been avoided.
It is only fair to point out that the economic question we are discussing here is the problem of the hour in every country throughout the world. The economy of every country at the moment is difficult on account of world rearmament. It should be less difficult here because rearmament and defence take such a relatively small percentage of our budgetary expenses. At present there are discussions and people seem to feel that there may be some peace in the world. Whether the ordinary person deep down in his heart really believes that is true or not I do not know. I do think that in peace or war—and even visualising some economic difficulties associated with peace—there is no case for retarding the capital development of this country.
That capital development was very ably initiated by the Fianna Fáil Government when they were in power before and I am very glad to see that the Tánaiste has indicated that it is their intention to continue and expand these capital projects. Considerable progress in capital development was undoubtedly made by the inter-Party Government in respect of housing and hospitalisation. We all realise that this capital development is necessary in agriculture, in housing, in hospitalisation and for the backward parts of Ireland, as has been so ably put forward by many of the Deputies. Where is this money going to come from? This capital in the quantities in which it is necessary to maintain prosperity and expansion of the country cannot possibly come from taxation. The extent to which it can come from our external assets is something which has been discussed at great length. I get the impression that it is the feeling of both sides of the House that neither the Opposition nor the Government wish to alter their relationship with sterling at present.
We have discussed the repatriation of external assets, and again it would appear to me that both the Government and the Opposition are obviously in favour of such repatriation. It is, therefore, I submit, a matter of deciding to what extent we can repatriate external assets, or, to put it in another way, what is the minimum external credit this country should maintain. I suggest that the Government should decide, and it should be easy for them to decide, what is the minimum figure at which these assets should be kept and keep them there. If we can only obtain a limited amount of capital from the repatriation of external assets and we are limited in the amount of capital, if any, which we can obtain from taxation, we are therefore forced to see how this country's capital is being utilised. I admit that, when one reads back the reports, one finds that it makes very strange reading to see that large sums of money are invested in England at a nominal rate of interest for long and short periods, and that, as far as capital development in Ireland is concerned, it would appear that the Irish banks only wish to advance money for capital projects at short terms of repayment and high rates of interest.
Take, for example, the position of the Dublin Corporation in regard to housing. The Dublin Corporation, in my opinion, are being forced to carry on a very extensive housing programme on capital which they are acquiring at rates of interest and terms of repayment which are putting a most unnecessary burden on ratepayers and Dublin City as a whole. Money is being advanced to them, but is being advanced grudgingly, and they are told that they are to be considered lucky to get it at 4 per cent. for ten and 15 years. This necessitates subsidisation by the Government. I submit that the assistance which the Dublin Corporation receives from the Government, from the Transition Development Fund and various State aids and grants, could be done away with if the Irish banks were prepared to advance money to the corporation at a more reasonable rate of interest and for longer periods of repayment.
Another aspect of this discussion has been the White Paper on the balance of trade payments. I think that this White Paper is a factual document which makes a useful contribution where it points out that we are importing, as we all realise, far too many luxury or made-up goods. That not alone has dislocated our balance of payments, but has acted as a damper on Irish industrial expansion, an expansion which, in reality, since the end of World War II, has not come about. One criticism I would make which has been made by other speakers, and which I think is a fair criticism. A paper on the balance of trade and payments which shows that imports are increasing should, in all fairness, show more details of the state of public and private capital investment in this country.
These are really big problems, and all sides of the House realise the big task before us. While I feel that no one in this House on either side is really prepared to take any serious steps to alter our relationship with sterling, money will have to be made available at cheaper rates of interest and longer terms of repayment, if we are to carry out the development programme which, on all sides of the House, is accepted as essential. How we are to obtain that money is another matter. I think the Central Bank should be allowed to give their views, so far as currency is concerned. I do not think that, as has been suggested, their reports should be influenced or censored by the Government, or that their functions should be taken over by the Government; but the Central Bank directors will have to realise in future that the money they hold is the result of the hard work of the Irish people and that they have a moral obligation to see that that money is used for the development of this country, so that a reasonable standard of prosperity, a good standard of living, will be maintained for everyone. I welcome the speech of the Tánaiste, and I hope that, during the reign of office of this Government, the capital development of this country will be continued and extended as far as possible.
I should have thought that Deputy ffrench-O'Carroll, when making his contribution to this debate, would have availed of the opportunity to carry out one of the promises he made in his election address, and perhaps the fact that he did not do so indicates that he now realises that the criticism in that election address of the former inter-Party Government was unjustified and that the position was not as he then represented it to his constituents. I will be charitable to him and accept that that was his reason for not carrying out, on this of all occasions, an occasion which has particular reference to the cost of living, the promise in his election address in which he said that, if elected, he would focus attention constantly on the cost of living and press for increased subsidies on food and essential commodities.
In that election address also he indicated that the bold, bad Fine Gael Party was going to do away with subsidies and were going to make sure, if they were in office, that the people would not be able to afford to buy even essential foods. I welcome the Deputy's change of heart, and as he stays longer in public life he will realise that just as he was wrong last May in that assessment of the policy of his opponents, so also was he wrong in his assessment of the change of policy of the Tánaiste to which he referred.
This Bill is the main weapon by virtue of which any Government, in the modern times in which we live, influences the whole economic life of the country. It is, even more than a Budget and even more than ordinary legislation, the means by which Governments in modern times shape the destinies of their people, and it is because of that that it was obvious that there would be, quite apart from the reasoned amendments which have been put down, a long and serious debate on the problems before us. The Tánaiste, in his usual challenging fashion, indicated that he dared anybody to discuss the cost of living on this Bill.