Dáil Éireann debate -
Wednesday, 19 Mar 1952

Vol. 129 No. 14

Committee on Finance. - Motion by Minister for Finance (Resumed).

Mr. Dillon

The Government, in reviewing the matters arising out of this Vote on Account, have the immense advantage that every Minister feels himself quite free to tell a different story, and they maintain outside this House another organ of expression which enjoys the additional freedom of offering an entirely independent version. That is bad enough, but when you find the fundamental figures on which his whole fraudulent edifice of panic has been built are themselves defective as a result of the defective arithmetic of the Minister for Finance the difficulties of resolving our problems grow greater every day.

I would refer the House to Volume 129, column 1936 of the Official Report at which the Minister for Finance purported to give us the figures which constituted the Budget problem that confronted him. He said the Supply Services will cost £95,000,000; the Central Fund will cost £13,000,000 and below-the-line outlay will cost £26,000,000. "The House will, therefore, see," said the Minister for Finance cheerfully, "that if I have a revenue of £85,000,000 I shall have a deficit of £50,000,000 because my burden is of the order of £135,000,000."

In the times in which we live I suppose £1,000,000 has come to be looked on as an insignificant figure here. In the financial madhouse set up by the present Government that is perhaps a legitimate assumption but I will direct the attention of the Minister for Finance to the interesting fact that 95 and 13 and 26 add up to 134 and not to 135. If the Minister gets out a stump of pencil and works that one out it may help him to get the rest of his problems resolved in a saner way than he shows signs of attempting at present.

I said before that for any rational Minister to have the impudence to come here and announce that he, as Minister for Finance, had advised the Government to submit a Book of Estimates to Dáil Éireann founded on a prospective revenue of £85,000,000 and calling for a deficit of £50,000,000 is making a public show of himself and of this Parliament. It is important to go on record at an early stage in saying that the allegation is untrue.

It has come to be the fashion for the Minister for Finance persistently to absent himself from the House during discussions. He did not attend for one single hour on Thursday and he now vacates the Front Bench again and leaves it in the hands of the Minister for Agriculture. I submit that is discourteous to the House and quite without precedent in the experience of this Assembly. However, if that is the way the Fianna Fáil Government want to carry on nobody can stop them. But it is wrong.

Mr. Everett

They are not a Fianna Fáil Government.

Mr. Dillon

It is especially wrong when, I regret to say, I have to bring to the attention of the House a deplorable and to my mind very regrettable sequence of events which has transpired in Manchester. I attended a gathering of Irish people in Manchester on St. Patrick's Day—the day before yesterday — and subsequently a great many of them came to me privately and said they were much concerned as a result of a visit paid to Manchester by the Irish Ambassador about three weeks ago during which he addressed them and told them that the output of the agricultural industry was dwindling and was a matter of very grave concern to the Irish Government.

The fact is the direct opposite. What shocks me is that a campaign appears to be emerging to represent this country, not only in this Parliament but abroad, as being unable to meet its commitments, with a reckless disregard of the truth. Whatever Fianna Fáil Ministers may want to do here at home amongst ourselves, surely there is no conceivable justification for propagating falsehoods in foreign countries, where such statements can do the economic life of our country very material damage.

I want to try to offset that deplorable form of publicity here in Dáil Éireann where, if there is any mistake made, it can be challenged on the spot. What is the value of our agricultural exports? I shall deliberately refrain from taking our total exports. In 1939 our agricultural exports were £22.3 million. In 1944 they were £24,000,000; in 1945 they were £27.5 million; in 1946 they were £30.5 million; in 1947 they were £30.9 million; in 1948 they were £36.4 million; in 1949 they were £46.4 million; in 1950 they were £51.4 million, and in 1951 they were £51.7 million. Although, as a result of the British Ministry of Food cutting the price of eggs, we had reduced our exports of eggs by £2.5 million, we still made all that and increased by £.3 million in 1951.

In those circumstances what conceivable justification is there for trying to make the case before the world that our capacity to export and to pay for what we require to bring in is dwindling? Our total exports in 1951 amounted to £81,000,000 sterling. Our total exports in January, 1952, are 44 per cent. higher than they were in January, 1951. I cannot get the figures for February or the details for January because there is some problem in the Central Statistics Office due to a change over to a new system and the installing of new machinery. The last figure I have is for January, 1952, and in January, 1952, our exports were up by 44 per cent. on January, 1951.

I am primarily concerned to see that this country in not injured internationally by the tripe that is talked by some people in this House. It is very difficult to get people to understand statistics. I have tried before to explain to the House that net agricultural production is a most dangerous figure because it represents the product of the land less the raw materials that had been used to get them so that, if you put out no fertiliser, if you make no improvements, but get everything you can out of the land, your net agricultural production will rise. That is mining land. That is the agricultural policy of locusts. Nobody can get a net agricultural output from land so efficiently as a locust. When a swarm of locusts have passed across an area of country and have left nothing behind them but a sandy desert, they have extracted from that land the maximum possible net agricultural production. Gross agricultural production taken over a period of years is the product of land without making any allowance for fertilisers or feeding stuffs, both of which ultimately manure the soil. If you do not manure the soil to maintain it in good heart, over a period the law of diminishing returns will begin to show your gross agricultural production going down.

I think a reasonable thing to do when looking at gross agricultural production, to try and get it into relation with the years that have gone before and the years that have happened since, is to take, not arbitrarily 1938 as 100, but to take as your base year the lowest point we reached in gross agricultural production. If you do that, the increase in the volume of our agricultural production since 1947 is the largest of any country in Europe.

Here are the figures: If you take 1947 as base year 100, in 1944 the volume was 109; in 1945, 114; in 1946, 109; in 1947, 100.

Minister for Agriculture (Mr. Walsh)

That was the worst year on record.

Mr. Dillon

I am not blaming the Minister for it. I am simply taking a base year.

Mr. Walsh

Take some other year.

Mr. Dillon

It is for the purpose of getting the base year.

Mr. Walsh

A selective base.

Mr. Dillon

It is not for the purpose of reflecting on the Minister at all. It is for the purpose of demonstrating that Irish agriculture is not stagnant, is not going down, but is, in fact, retrieving——

Mr. Walsh

To try and demonstrate the improvement in 1948, 1949 and 1950 —is not that so? That is the purpose of the argument.

Mr. Dillon

Does not the Minister want to do that?

Mr. Walsh

No, you are trying to do it.

Mr. Dillon

Does not the Minister want to do it?

Mr. Walsh

Yes, but take some other base.

General Mulcahy

We will be glad to hear the Minister on any base.

Mr. Walsh

Why take 1947?

Mr. Dillon

It is the bottom year.

Mr. Walsh

Take 1948-1949.

Mr. Dillon

What I am trying to bring home to people who look at our industry is this, that the allegation made in this House that the Irish farmer is an inefficient, lazy crompán, is not true and that is the case that is being made before the world, that our agricultural community are a lousy lot of bowsies on the land, that they have let the agricultural industry go down and that they are not making any effort to retrieve it. My case is that our farmers have done better than any other farming community in Europe. Why should we be the people to slander them and denigrate them before the world? There are enough people anxious to run our people down without getting their cue from us in Ireland. The figure I was quoting are: 1944, 109; 1945, 114; 1946, 109; 1947, 100; 1948, 111; 1949, 122, and 1950, 116—I am trying to find out what that decline of six points between 1949 and 1950 is due to. It may be the deliberate policy of reducing eggs rather than produce them at a loss for sale to Great Britain. But, from 1947 on, that volume of increased production is better than can be produced by any other country in Europe.

I am not concerned about what the neighbours think about our people. All I am concerned with is that we will not go out and belie our farmers before the world and make out the case that, although they have got extra machinery, although they had extra facilities provided for them, they have miserably failed. I was responsible for agriculture during those two years and I want to go on record as saying that I think they triumphantly succeeded.

Mr. Walsh

The policy was responsible for a reduction in wheat.

Mr. Dillon

In what?

Mr. Walsh

In wheat—the policy of the last three years. You had no increase in the production of wheat.

General Mulcahy

We grew more than the Fianna Fáil Government estimated that they would grow and informed the world that they would grow.

Mr. Walsh

You certainly did not. Your average yield was not as high over the three years as it was in the preceding five.

General Mulcahy

We would love to hear the Minister on that.

Mr. Dillon

Two facts emerge. In the eight-year period prior to the inter-Party Government coming in, the average annual imports of wheat were substantially in excess of the average annual imports of wheat in the last five years. Yet, during a great part of the first eight years we were eating black bread. In the last five years nobody had to eat black bread and a great many people who wanted to pay for it could eat white bread.

Mr. Walsh

At a higher price.

Mr. Dillon

Do you not think that was right, that anyone who wanted to eat cake should subsidise the price of bread? I think that was a good plan. I do not know, Sir, that I ought to pursue a discussion as to the average yield of wheat?

An Ceann Comhairle

I do not think it falls for discussion on this.

Mr. Dillon

At 6.30 we will be dealing with the Supplementary Estimate for Agriculture and we will have an opportunity for a very interesting exchange——

Mr. Walsh

I am ready for you.

Mr. Dillon

——particularly in elaboration of Deputy Burke's intervention on this Vote on Account. There is an Appropriation-in-Aid in the Estimate which will enable the Minister and myself to have a most interesting discussion.

Mr. Walsh

Quite.

Mr. Dillon

I look forward to it. The Minister for Posts and Telegraphs intervened in this debate to say that one of the economic matters which he felt should be examined very closely was the cattle population. He was quite right. The live-stock population of this country is the sheet anchor of our economic life. I want to direct the attention of the House to the most revolutionary development in the live-stock industry that has been recorded in the last century, which represents to our people an additional income of between £2,000,000 and £3,000,000 sterling.

If Deputies will look at the statistics of live stock as on June 1st for the last 20 years, that is, from 1931 down to to-day they will find that there is one category of cattle recorded, cattle under one year old, and the next category is cattle one year old but under two. If Deputies will compare the number of cattle over one year old and under two in any given year, say 1950, with the cattle under one year for the previous year, which would be 1949, they will get a rough guide—and I emphasise the words "rough guide"—to the calf yearling mortality experienced because, while we send calves and yearling cattle to and fro between one farm and another in Ireland, virtually no cattle in that age group are exported. They may be slaughtered for consumption or they may die. I believe that the bulk of them die from various diseases. That view is not held by others, who believe that slaughter for consumption contributes substantially, but whatever the cause there is an annual disappearance in that age group. Going over the last 20 years you will find that the annual average was 83,000. You know, a Chinn Chomhairle, what that has been reduced to in the last recorded year? Nine thousand. Should that record be maintained, and I have good reason to believe it will, we save approximately 70,000 cattle per annum, which we may reasonably anticipate will be related to three year olds, at which age they will be worth about £40 a piece, and that represents £2,800,000. Knock off £800,000 to provide against the possibility of over-estimation. You have an annual accretion to the income of the live-stock industry of this country of £2,000,000 annually as a result of the reduction in calf mortality, calves and cattle under one year of age, which is shown by the returns going back over 20 years. That, if the Minister for Posts and Telegraphs wants a vital statistic regarding the live-stock industry, is the most significant and most important fact that has emerged to my knowledge in the live-stock industry in this country in the past century.

I know what is worrying or giving hope to the Minister for Posts and Telegraphs and that is the figure appearing on page 283 of the Trade Journal and Statistical Bulletin for December, 1951, relating to milch cows and heifers in-calf. His soul rejoices that this shows a reduction of 29.6 per cent. In heifers in-calf, but like all other statistics that requires examination because, when you take the figures for heifers in-calf and milch cows, the total reduction in numbers amounts to 2.5 per cent. and if you look at the total number of cattle you will discover the comforting fact that it has gone up by 1.3 per cent. and will continue to go up. I can reassure the Minister for Posts and Telegraphs, if he can restrain his colleague, the Minister for Agriculture, and just persuade him to remain absolutely quiescent——

Mr. Walsh

And static.

Mr. Dillon

——persuade him to remain absolutely static, everything will go along splendidly but if he suffers himself to be kicked about by the Minister for Industry and Commerce, the Minister for Finance and the Minister for Posts and Telegraphs, then we may look out for squalls. I do suggest to the Minister for Agriculture that it is time he told the Minister for Posts and Telegraphs that he has no business addressing county committees of agriculture because his opinions on agriculture and on matters relating thereto are not worth the straw that he sticks in his hair to make himself incognito when he goes to such rendezvous.

An Ceann Comhairle

That matter is not relevant.

Mr. Dillon

If anybody bothers to look at the trade returns they will see what our exports to hard currency countries are to-day as compared with the days that went before. I take as hard currency countries the United States, Canada, Belgium and Switzerland. In 1945 our total exports to these countries amounted to £560,000; in 1946, £1,117,000; in 1947, £2,275,000; in 1948 £2,281,000. In 1949 it was £1,918,000. In 1950 it was £2,243,000. In 1951 it was £4,267,000.

Mr. Walsh

Possibly higher in this year.

Mr. Dillon

Certainly I should hope so.

Mr. Walsh

Yes.

Mr. Dillon

Another stock observation from the Fianna Fáil propagandists who seek to denigrate this country is to say that the national debt position has been greatly complicated by recent developments here. Does any Deputy in this House know what the national debt is? I bet the Minister for Agriculture does not know.

Mr. Walsh

He has a fair idea that it has increased a lot since 1948.

Mr. Dillon

He has not the vaguest idea. There you are. You see, he believes that, and I do not blame him.

Mr. Walsh

You would have a bit of a job trying to disprove it. You cannot do so.

Mr. Dillon

I refer the Minister to Table 188 in the Statistical Abstract for 1950. I know that he has never seen it but he can procure it and he will find the information there set out in black and white. There is nothing for me to prove because it is proved there. What the Minister and most of his unhappy colleagues are deluded into believing is that what is significant is the gross figure. They are made to read that figure but they are never let look at the assets which the Government holds against it. How much has the national debt increased between the years 1947 and 1951? Does the Minister know?

Mr. Walsh

Yes.

Mr. Dillon

How much?

Mr. Walsh

I will tell you later.

Mr. Dillon

The Minister is becoming discreet in his old age.

Mr. Walsh

I will tell you how much you spent on wheat and maize and other produce that you should have produced at home.

General Mulcahy

Would that affect the national debt?

Mr. Walsh

It affected the national prosperity. That, in itself, affected the national debt.

Mr. O'Higgins

I should not talk too much about wheat if I were the Minister.

Mr. Dillon

This unfortunate man has not the vaguest notion of the meaning of the expression "national debt". It is appalling.

Mr. Walsh

You would be terribly surprised.

An Ceann Comhairle

This conversation may be very interesting but let us get to the Vote on Account.

Mr. Dillon

I am dealing with it but the Minister for Finance is not here and I am grappling with the Minister for Agriculture, who does not know B from a bull's foot about the Vote on Account. I am asking what is the national debt. He says it has increased vastly. I asked him by how much—to put a figure on it. He did not venture a reply.

An Ceann Comhairle

I take it that these are rhetorical questions.

Mr. Dillon

He now has the assistance of the Minister for Posts and Telegraphs. The fact is that the net national debt in 1947 was £47.4 million. In 1948 it was £47.2 millon. In 1949 it was £48.4 millon and in 1950 it was £57.5 million. To that must be added the capital liability in respect of housing loans, the charge for which is estimated to be in the order of £11.8 million. I venture to swear that the Minister for Agriculture was led by the nose into the belief that the national debt had gone skyhigh. My figures are facts. I told him where he could get that information.

I do not know what use there is in my asking the Minister for Agriculture what has become of the Marshall Aid Grant Counterpart Fund. He does not know. I do not know if he knows what the Marshall Aid Grant Counterpart Fund is, never mind what has become of it—but I want to know what has become of it, and I want to know why the Minister for Finance thought fit to tell us that our availability of dollars from the sterling pool in the second part of this year would be no more than 16,000,000 dollars, without giving us any indication of what discussions led up to that agreement. I asked him to tell us what has become of the thousands of millions of dollars that were in the sterling area pool, and of which we did not ask for a single one. I think the House ought to know the facts. In June, 1951, the dollar reserves of the sterling area pool were 3,770,000,000 dollars. In February, 1952, that reserve had dwindled to 1,770,000,000 dollars. Those reserves had declined by 299,000,000 dollars by January, 1952 and by a further 266,000,000 dollars by February, 1952. In the third quarter of 1951 the reserve declined by 598,000,000 dollars. In the fourth quarter of 1951 the reserve declined by a further 934,000,000 dollars. What has become of them? Who got them? Are those nations who participated in the sterling area pool with us, and who got all the 2,000,000,000 dollars that have gone from the reserve in the last 12 months, acknowledged to have an identical claim with us on whatever dollars are now in the reserve while we are carrying on without Marshall Aid of any kind and they are still in receipt of substantial aid under the mutual security scheme? We have not drawn a single dollar from the sterling pool during the past four years, while they, between them, have drawn 2,000,000,000. We are asking for dollars now in so far as we may require them, to convert funds due to us by Great Britain— every £ of them is due in respect of goods sold and delivered.

Our Minister for Finance does not think it necessary to deal with that in Dáil Éireann. I invite him to do so and to tell us what account he has with the British Chancellor of the Exchequer as to the disposition of those funds which are of vital interest to us. I am told that the deficit in the balance of payments amounts, according to the Government's estimate, to £66,000,000. We have not seen it yet and we do not know how it is made up. So far, it is a confidential document that they will not show although it was prepared in the Central Statistics Office. We are told that that spells impending ruin. They allege that our sterling assets will be consumed in a year. We have about £450,000,000 of sterling assets. Their arithmetic is not very good and their profound respect, their deferential respect, for the rights and claims of the British Chancellor of the Exchequer compare strangely with their gracious acquiescence with the same Chancellor who seems to suggest that this country has no right at all but should be grateful for what it gets. Great Britain had an overall surplus on balance of payments in 1950 of £238,000,000 and in 1951 Great Britain had an overall deficit on the balance of payments of £516,000,000. Great Britain's deficit in the balance of payments with nonsterling countries rose from an annual rate of £325,000,000 in the first half of 1951, to an annual rate of £1,200,000,000 in the second half of 1951, and let us not forget that the backing of our currency is sterling.

Will the Government still contend it was reckless folly to stockpile, that it was reckless folly to reclaim land, that it was reckless folly to build houses for our people? Let them make the case if they dare. I would sooner have 200,000 acres reclaimed than £2,000,000 sterling on deposit in the Bank of England. Let us hear from the Minister for Posts and Telegraphs, when he gets under way, where his preference lies, because there are interesting views on record, which I have tabulated, by the Minister for Posts and Telegraphs last November, on the proper uses to which money should be put, and on the essential desirability of taxing for capital investment. I wonder is he going to recapitulate these views to-day, or did his incognito travels through the Netherlands alter his outlook? He was talking to four trade unionists in Belgium. These were the gentlemen who said: "Monsieur, nous travaillons." I wonder if he met them now could they say "Nous travaillons."? Two out of the four would have to tell him: "Non, nous ne travaillons plus," for there is no work for them to-day. Belgium is rich in gold and rich in foreign balances, but she has to use up her charitable funds to sustain a large part of her population for whom there is no work, no employment. It is true that there is a higher standard of living in some of the fashionable seaside resorts of Belgium than in almost any other part of Europe, but the gold and uranium which provides them with the currency to buy motor cars, caviare or anything else exotic they want, has a queer defect which prevents it filtering down to the simple homes of Belgium, so that of the four optimists he met, the Minister will, if he cowers behind his whiskers in disguise and glory in the fact that they can tell the dirty Irish how to prosper if they would only learn to work——

Minister for Posts and Telegraphs (Mr. Childers)

The Deputy is talking nonsense.

Mr. Dillon

I should be long sorry to misrepresent the Minister for Posts and Telegraphs.

Mr. Childers

It does not matter about me. I am speaking of those whom I met.

Mr. Dillon

About "Messieurs, nous travaillons".

Mr. Childers

I shall not interrupt him. Let him deal with Belgian economy if he wishes.

Mr. Dillon

It was rather significant that he did not deal with Belgian economy. He told us about Sweden, Denmark and Holland and he mentioned that he crossed the Belgian frontier incognito but beyond saying that he met these four trade unionists, he said that he did not wish to add anything. I should be glad if he would tell us if he has heard anything from the four trade unionists since.

An Ceann Comhairle

The travels of the Minister for Posts and Telegraphs may be very interesting but I do not see how they are relevant to the Vote on Account.

Mr. Dillon

I think I am entitled to dwell at reasonable length on the Minister's statement and I am entitled to compare the favourable action and policy of the unsophisticated yokels who administered the Irish Government with those of the wise and sophisticated optimists chosen by the four anonymous trade unionists in Belgium. The yokels in Ireland may not have produced gold and foreign credits for the goldenhaired ladies of Ghent but they did produce something very like total employment for the people of Portarlington and if I have got to choose between everybody in this country being reasonably well off and nobody rich, and the Belgian example of certain sections of the country having an embarras de richesses with a large section of the community living on the dole, I am all for the unsophisticated Irish approach. I would recommend the Minister for Posts and Telegraphs to take off his whiskers and eye badge and come here to study economics in Ireland where he will find a very much better school of sociology is maintained, and sociology should play some part in the economic studies of a prudent student.

What has happened to the Marshall Aid Counterpart Fund? I gather from the carryings on of these silly billies who constitute the Ministers of this Government that they missed the bus. They should have had their papers in before the 8th January but they forgot about them. Then they went around begging and imploring the E.C.A. to let them put them in and they would not be let. The Mutual Security Act was passed, and they then found themselves out in the cold. Now the American Ambassador is, I believe, striving might and main to salvage for them the Counterpart Fund. He is a good friend of Ireland. He is a great and influential public servant of the United States. I can only hope that, with his great prestige and the high office he holds, he will prove sufficient to salvage for our people the millions of money that our own poor silly billies very nearly lost. If goodwill can bring that about, I have no doubt he will succeed and, should he fail, I have no doubt it will not be for want of trying.

How often has it been repeated for the edification of their blockhead colleagues that Marshall Aid was spent on maize, wheat and commodities of that kind? What the heck else could you spend it on? Let the truth now be told, for it is time to tell the truth. Do Deputies of this House know what our principal problem was in the years of Marshall Aid? To get the dollars spent. You got your allocation of dollars at the beginning of the Marshall Aid year, and, if these were not spent at the end of the year, they were no longer available to you, and, what is more, your allocation for the following year would be cut. Our problem was to get them spent. The Minister for Posts and Telegraphs shakes his sophisticated head. That was the problem. There was not a single application for dollars, in respect of any project remotely related to development here originating from any source in Ireland which was not granted. I defy the whole of the Fianna Fáil Party to produce one single citizen of Ireland who, during the three years of Marshall Aid, had in mind any project of a capital character, designed to develop our resources here in Ireland, and who applied for dollars and did not get them. But the plain truth is that, at the end of the year, the urgent problem not infrequently was to get your dollars spent inside the financial year laid down by the Marshall Aid plan.

I am sure there are poor Fianna Fáil Deputies who will regard that statement with amazement and say that it cannot be true. That is true, but the poor unfortunate dupes on the Fianna Fáil Benches have been sent around the country to wring their hands about the awful outlay of American dollars, and was it not terrible. Perhaps it would be expedient in certain circumstances not to dwell on this matter, but frankly I am of the opinion that our people have a right to know the truth and I am telling the truth. The problem of the Irish Government not infrequently was to get the dollars spent. The alternative was to forgo them.

Now a lot of Deputies in this House, because, God help them, they are innocent, think that when we borrowed dollars under the Marshall Aid plan the Irish public fell into debt. That is a good enough yarn with which to fool Fianna Fáil Deputies, but it is pure cod. Nobody would tell it to any but Fianna Fáil Deputies and expect them to believe it. Do Fianna Fáil Deputies not know what happened? The Marshall Aid scheme, so far as it applied to Ireland, was purely an exchange transaction. I say this—maybe it is not discreet to say it, but it is time I think to say it—that we told the American authorities, in regard to Marshall Aid, that there was not the slightest prospect of our paying it back in dollars, but that we would have sterling pound for pound on the due date, and that that was a matter for them and for Great Britain to arrange in regard to sterling and dollars. That meant they were going to have to restore the convertibility of sterling. They made no comment on that except to say that was their headache, and that if they were prepared to go on with that headache why could not we. We replied that we would. At this moment, there is a pound in the Central Bank for every pound that we borrowed from the United States.

When we got a loan of say 10,000,000 dollars, what do Deputies think happened? What happened was that a flour miller bought through Grain Importers a cargo of wheat. The cargo of wheat cost him £40,000, but he had to pay for it in dollars, and he had no dollars. He came to the Department of Finance and said: "Give me £40,000 in Marshall Aid dollars to pay for my wheat." The Government applied to Marshall Aid, got the £40,000 in dollars and lent it to the miller. The miller lodged his order through Grain Importers in Baltimore for the cargo of wheat. The cargo was shipped from Baltimore to the miller. The miller paid the grain growers in America in dollars. When he brought in that cargo of grain he milled it into flour and he sold the flour. He then went back to the Irish Government and said: "There is the £40,000 that you lent me in dollars when buying the grain." The Minister for Finance took the £40,000 and lodged it in the Central Bank in the Marshall Aid Loan Counterpart Fund. So that for every dollar we borrowed from the United States we put £1 in the Central Bank. At this moment, for every single dollar that is owing to the United States by the Government of Ireland, there is £1 sitting in the bank on which the present Minister for Finance can draw a cheque and pay the first instalment when it falls due. There is the amount in sterling and I assert there was never any disguise of that fact.

If anybody wanted to stand on the letter of the agreement that the repayment was to be made in dollars, the attitude of the Government was: "We are in no position to give any such firm undertaking," and the reply of the American Government was: "Look here, is not that our headache and if we are prepared to go to bed with that headache why the hell can you not do the same?" I venture to swear there is not a single Deputy on the Fianna Fáil Benches who is not to-day feeling bewildered on discovering that we do not owe America £18,000,000 with nothing to pay it.

Mr. Hickey

We are only hearing it for the first time.

Mr. Dillon

You have your own Party and it is not my business to pry into your interior "carryings on". That poor crowd over there has a Party but they are never told anything. In fact, they are told nothing until I tell them and it is very often difficult to make them understand even what I do tell them. They all go off with a different story. However, I hope they understand this.

In addition to what the United States Government lent us, they made us one grant of £2,000,000 sterling in dollars and the second year they went through the motions of making us a grant of £1,300,000 in dollars. It was not a grant at all. It was a refund of excess freight that the United States Mercantile Marine succeeded in levying on shipments to this country purchased with United States dollars by getting an amendment to the Marshall Aid Act requiring us to carry 50 per cent. of all we bought with American aid in American bottoms and then jacking up the price of freight and robbing our people. The Administration could not stop that because the maritime Lobby was too strong but, for shame sake— and decent Americans were ashamed of that transaction—they availed of the procedure of giving us a grant in the third year of Marshall Aid of £1,200,000, which approximately recouped what the United States Mercantile Marine had robbed from our people through constraining them to carry in American bottoms purchases made, not with gift money but with borrowed money on which we were paying interest. That is what we did with American money.

We were reviled. We were blamed. We were threatened. Why is it that our Minister for Finance, the Iron Chancellor, can go over now and tell the British Chancellor of the Exchequer that he openly undertakes to limit our purchases to 16,000,000 dollars in the second half of the year? We had in stock 34.3 million lb. of tobacco and that represents a two and a half years' supply of that commodity. The Government need not buy £1 worth of tobacco for the next two years and still collect all the annual revenue without which the Exchequer could not carry on because their predecessors bought with Marshall Aid dollars all the tobacco they could get and put it in store for their successors in order that that source of revenue would not be closed for want of money to buy tobacco.

Do not forget what tobacco represents to the Government as a means of revenue. No Government in Europe could carry on without it. You cannot collect revenue on tobacco if you have not got the tobacco on which to collect it. We left a two and a half years' supply and our successors can now economise on purchases abroad chewing on the stocks that we assembled for them. We also spent it on the supplies which the Minister for Finance recently said had converted the Forestry Department into something like a hardware shop. Ask any forester in the world what he requires to develop forestry and he will tell you "wire." Everything else is easy to come by but there is one thing without which nobody can develop forest lands, and that is wire. The Minister for Finance complains that he has too much of it. We spent dollars on it.

We spent dollars on maize. I spent 5,000,000 dollars on wheat in one afternoon. It is a long list but I will give it all and if Deputies opposite do not like listening to it they can lump it. I bought 300,000 cwt. of soft Pacific wheat with Marshall Aid dollars for 1.80 dollars when maize was costing 2.50 dollars. I was in a position to make them deliver it under the international wheat agreement and it is the presence of that abundance here to-day which guaranteed in the bad winter of 1950 enough feed for our cattle, for I anticipated the arrival of this soft wheat; secondly, it puts our Government to-day in the position that they need not buy any dollar wheat at all because when I left office there was more wheat afloat and in store here than there had ever been before. I had bought all the soft wheat this country required from Australia plus what we have to buy every year from Canada on sterling contract, for the following year.

Would we have been right to reject 300,000 tons of soft Pacific wheat, which was available at 1.80 dollars and surrender the dollars requested to pay for it back to Marshall Aid? Were we right to buy it for our people and let them convert it into meat and milk and pigs for their own profit on their own holdings? If it is right to bring cotton from Carolina and convert it into dear fabric in Athlone for which the Irish people have to pay, why is it wrong to bring maize from Kansas so that the farmer in Mayo may process it on his holding and sell it in competition with the world as pigs of bacon to his neighbours or abroad?

I never could see any crime in it and so long as our people were able to use maize profitably and economically as a raw material of our agricultural industry, I would bring it from the Yang Tse Kiang. I do not see why our farmers should be made hewers of wood and drawers of water to be perennially the servants in the lowpaid service of the tariff racketeers of this country. So long as I was Minister for Agriculture they were never that. So long as I am in Dáil Éireann nobody will make them the hewers of wood and drawers of water for tariff racketeers and get away with it in silence.

Where do you think the bulldozers, the cranes, the shovels, the machinery that drained the Brosna, that drained the Corrib, that helped to drain 200,000 acres of arable land came from? Do you think we bought them in Ballina? Possibly Deputies on the far side of the House imagine that they should have been manufactured in the bus depot, the beloved bus depot, where you are going to have everything but buses. If we were to get this type of machines at all they had to be bought for dollars and paid for in dollars. Were we wrong to buy them?

Mr. Davin

They will not answer that.

Mr. Dillon

Where do you think we got the oil and the petrol to operate the transport of this country and on which the revenue of this country is founded? We paid for it in dollars. When we came into office there was not one-fifth of the oil storage of this country occupied and when we left office four-fifths of the oil storage was full. Were we wrong to do that? If we did not do it, we would have surrendered the dollars in the year in which we failed to spend them and our allocation in the subsequent year would have been cut down on the ground that we did not spend what were allocated to us the year before and we would have been told that if our requirements did not impose on us the necessity to spend those borrowed dollars the United States Treasury had no intention of making any grant. We got the grant and Fianna Fáil lost it. Maybe we will get it back again. If we do not, it will not be for the want of trying.

What makes me sick is realising that Deputy McGilligan's successor can go over with sanctimonious piety to render an account of his stewardship to the British Chancellor of the Exchequer and to assure him that he will certify in writing his firm resolve to restrain dollar purchases within a certain figure and that he is enabled to do that by the prescience and energy of the Government that went before him and that his sole reaction to that fact is an effort to denigrate and belittle those who put him in the position where he ought to show independence when defending the interests of this country where, most unhappily, he does not appear to do so.

I want to say this, Sir—at this moment Ireland is one of the most prosperous countries in Europe. I want to say this—that at this moment the wealth potential of Ireland is greater than that of any other agricultural community in the world. I want to remind Dáil Éireann that the inter-Party Government took the precaution of summoning the editors of the four leading newspapers in this country, including the kept paper of the Fianna Fáil Party, and telling them, in October, 1950, that it was the Government's intention to throw the balance of payments in 1951 emphatically out of balance and I challenge the kept newspaper to deny that, and it would if it could.

I want to warn Dáil Éireann that we did that of set purpose and that, as a result of our prescience and prudence in doing that, the present Government have stocks at their disposal which insure them against the possibility of crisis. But, they have something more. They have stocks at their disposal which materially relieve their necessity for foreign currency in the immediate future.

Remember it is money value that counts when you are talking about balance of payments. I want to remind Dáil Éireann that the money value of our exports, including re-exports, in 1951 was £81,000,000. That is the highest figure ever recorded since statistics were first kept. I want to remind Dáil Éireann that in January, 1952, the money value of our exports and re-exports exceeded those of January, 1951, by 44 per cent.

I want to remind Dáil Éireann that there is nothing on God's earth to prevent our people enjoying for generations they have ever known or that their fathers and grandfathers have ever known unless our own Government sabotages and destroys the work their predecessors did.

I remember the day I left office I spoke in this House and in concluding I said to Fianna Fáil Deputies this much:—

"I beseech of those who come after us, what you cannot complete at least do not destroy."

Do not let envy or jealousy mislead you into the loathsome treason of injuring our own people for the purposes of denigrating your political opponent. Watch the men who constitute the Government to-day in the disedifying scramble that proceeds between them for the preferment they await on the retirement of the present Taoiseach. The interests of our people and our country are being forgotten and these men are thinking more of whether it will be Lemass's group or Aiken's group which will prevail when the new leader is to be chosen. I wish they could conduct their quarrel and vie with one another——

Mr. Childers

The Deputy knows no limit.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

That matter does not arise on this Vote.

Mr. Dillon

It ought not to but I think it does and I think it is driving these people mad.

Mr. Childers

The Deputy is revolting in his remarks.

Mr. Dillon

Revolting be damand. I want no lessons in propriety, cognito or incognito, clean-shaven or behind false whiskers. It will becomes a Childers to tell me how I should conduct myself in an Irish Parliament. I want no lessons either from a de Valera or a Childers. I am saying what I have to say and I will say it whether the Minister for Posts and Telegraphs likes it or not. The interests of our people are much more important than the political hopes of any individual in the public life of this country.

Mr. Allen

Why then is the Deputy introducing the names of individuals in public life?

Mr. Dillon

It is strange that a Minister of State should squirm in his seat at the mention of his name. Are we here by chance or did we work for the jobs we got? Fianna Fáil appears to me to corrupt and rot everything it touches. Irish public life is not manned by lily-livered individuals.

Mr. Allen

It became corrupt——

Mr. Dillon

Corrupt, my foot. You cannot have the laurels in public life without the dust.

Mr. O'Leary

Take your medicine.

Mr. Dillon

There is no need for the Parliamentary Secretary to get pained and dismayed.

Parliamentary Secretary to the Government (Mr. J. Lynch)

And disgusted.

Mr. Dillon

As the Parliamentary Secretary grows older and more experienced he will learn not to get fussy when the going gets tough.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

There is need to get back to the Vote on Account.

Mr. Killilea

The British Budget secrets are bursting out.

Mr. Dillon

For that profound intervention from Deputy Killilea, our representative at Strasbourg, I am profoundly grateful. Deputy Killilea does not advert to the fact that the British Budget was open ten days ago and its contents are secret only to those who are deal and illiterate, neither of which disadvantages afflicts Deputy Killilea. I can only attribute his ignorance in this matter to a reluctance to undertake the public duty of studying British Budget proposals. I want to warn Deputy Killilea that I think that the members of his Party will be taken into a room one of these days and will be told by the Fianna Fáil Minister for Finance that this is what Chancellor Butler did and "therefore I have got to do the same thing." Deputy Killilea has put it in a nutshell that the British Budget will become the secrets of our Irish Budget. May I impress upon Deputy Killilea, when that proposal is made to him, to rally the stalwarts of the Fianna Fáil Party and say to the Minister for Finance: "Forget Butler for a while and think of Ireland. Forget the intoxicating experience of prancing down Whitehall and come back to the pedestrian atmosphere of Upper Merrion Street." If I could get an assurance from Deputy Killilea that he would deflate the distended but empty head of his Minister for Finance my worries would be over. Deputy Killilea has put it in a nutshell. The danger that confronts this country is that the facts of the fraudulent British Budget should be the secret of the pending Irish Budget. If Deputy Killilea will bind himself to deliver us from that peril I will labour to have him named a Casabianca for the front cover of Time.

Three weeks ago, the Iron Chancellor, who went to London, denounced a newspaper for daring to suggest that he had the intention of cutting down the allowance given to travellers going abroad from £50 to £25. He said there was not a shadow of truth in it. He went to Whitehall and he came trotting in here as mild as could be.

I thought I heard Deputy Killilea grumbling with approbation when the Minister announced that he was going to cut the allowance to £25 and he had said three weeks before that it was a malicious and wicked thing to say. Deputy Killilea has had his say and if the only effect of all my assertions to-day was to make Deputy Killilea bind himself to undertake that, should his Minister for Finance become too Butlerish, forget he is in the service of the Irish people whose interests he is charged to defend, he will bring him back on to the straight and narrow path and walk beside him along the paths of economic rectitude, my time will not have been misspent. I pray that the courage which flames in Deputy Killilea now and the fire which flashes from his eye will not flag or dwindle between now and the time that the Party is assembled to hear what the Minister has to tell on the Budget he is about to introduce.

Peadar Ó Duigneáin

An ceart dúinn, a Chinn Chomhairle, éisteacht leis an saghas sin cainte. Níl ann ach pleidhcíocht.

Séamus Diolún

Nach bhfuil cead agam labhairt anso?

Peadar Ó Duigneáin

Ní ceart pleidhcíocht a bheith ar siúl ag an Teachta. Ní maith liom pleidhcíocht.

Séamus Diolún

Is deas an saghas amadáin atá ansin thall.

Peadar Ó Duigneáin

Ní háil liom bheith ag éisteacht le pleidhcíocht.

Séamus Diolún

Níl an Teachta ag imeacht?

Peadar Ó Duigneáin

Níl sé.

Séamus Diolún

Bhoil, go dtéidh tú slán.

Are we not reaching a sorry state of affairs when a Deputy of this House rises to clamour that another should be put down? Who will blame me for saying that it was a bad day for Ireland when Fianna Fáil got control of this country?

Mr. Killilea

Your memory goes back a long way.

Mr. Everett

Deputy Cowan put you back into office.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

It would be better if the Deputy would address himself to the Chair.

Mr. Dillon

I am trying to find out who wanted me to sit down.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

Please address the Chair.

Mr. Dillon

I have been addressing the Chair consistently and, through the Chair, I have exhorted the Deputies of the Fianna Fáil Party to be as valiant at their Party meetings——

Mr. McGrath

You exhorted all Ireland to be valiant and to go out to fight in France though you had not the guts to go yourself.

Mr. Dillon

It gratifies me greatly to see that I have stirred their conscience. There is nothing more certain to demonstrate that I have stirred their conscience than the fact that I am being interrupted to this extent.

Mr. McGrath

You would make a great Jimmy O'Dea.

Mr. Dillon

There is nothing more certain to demonstrate that the sluggish conscience of Fianna Fáil begins to stir than the vituperative utterances which fall upon me from the mouths of the Deputies on these benches opposite. The more Fianna Fáil Deputies abuse me the higher I rise in the esteem of my friends.

Mr. McGrath

Even Fine Gael expelled you.

Mr. Dillon

There is nothing I esteem more than to be reviled by the occupants of the Fianna Fáil Benches. Let them not think that they will intimidate me or bribe me for it is not in their power. Thank God, there are a few of us in this country of whom we can still say that that is true. All they do will be exposed in this House: all they fail to do will be described in this House. They may long for the happy day when the institution of Parliament and other institutions in Ireland, which would bring them to the people's tribunal, shall be no more. It may be that once they entertained hopes that they might live to see that day. The youngest amongst them have abandoned them now.

Mr. McGrath

Ha!

Mr. Dillon

I am relieved by the intervention of the two eloquent Deputies who are getting cross. It means that I have penetrated the impenetrable hide of Fianna Fáil.

Mr. McGrath

You penetrated Fine Gael but they expelled you.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

Deputy Dillon on the Vote on Account.

Mr. Dillon

Yes. Surely the conscience of Fianna Fáil has something to do with it?

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

The Deputy has been wandering for a long time. The Chair has repeatedly told him to come back to the Vote.

Mr. Dillon

The Vote on Account ought to have something to do with the conscience of Fianna Fáil. I am trying to reach that conscience. I am inspired to hope that the reaction of Deputy McGrath, and the other Deputy whose name I do not know, has revealed some crack in their armour. If I have done that I have done well. By the statistics I have quoted in this House I have demonstrated that, the Fianna Fáil Government notwithstanding, the fact is that this country is prosperous, that it is economically strong and that it has resources and the courage to use those resources for the benefit of our people. Nothing can stop her but the Fianna Fáil Party. Great as are the many wrongs that have been done this country by the Fianna Fáil Party, I hate to think that they would crown their loathsome activities over the past 20 years by this final felon's blow at their own country outlined and envisaged by the language of their Minister for Finance and by the publications for which he has been responsible before the peoples of the world.

Mr. McGrath

I do not know why the people pay to hear Jimmy O'Dea when they can come here for nothing and hear you.

Mr. Dillon

We are all getting £600 a year to do it.

Mr. Allen

The last of the race.

Mr. Killilea

Take the advice now which you gave to the people of Ireland during the 1914-18 war and again during the 1939-45 war.

Mr. Davin

Surely Deputy Dillon has not silenced the lot of you?

Mr. Donnellan

He certainly has.

Mr. Allen

Keep on, James.

A Deputy

Send for the Minister.

Mr. Childers

We should like to hear some more.

Mr. Beirne

Get up and speak.

Mr. McGrath

If Deputy Dillon had talked like that to the hens, they might have laid some eggs for him.

General Mulcahy

We were told that the Minister for Posts and Telegraphs was ready to be very tiresome. He now has the whole afternoon in front of him.

Mr. Childers

Not yet. I am sorry to disappoint you.

Peadar Ó Duigneáin

Gabh mo leithscéal. Níl sé ar intinn agam oráid a dhéanamh ar cor ar bith. Tuigeann an Teachta Diolún é sin go maith má thuigeann sé mo chuid cainte. Sé an fhírinne é nach maith liom an méid a bhí ar siúl ar feadh an leath-uair a chluig atá caite.

Séamus Diolún

'Tuige deireann tú é sin?

Mr. Duignan

I would point out to Deputy Davin that I have as much English as he has.

Mr. Davin

That is a short speech.

Mr. O'Leary

Let Deputy Allen say something.

Mr. Dillon

If none of you are going to get up, I will go for a cup of tea. I would be quite willing to listen to what any Deputy following me might have to say, because that is the custom.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

Since no other Deputy has offered to speak, I will put the question.

Mr. Byrne

I have listened to Deputy Dillon speak during the last hour about the prosperity of this country and of what a happy people we should be. I should like to draw attention to the growing unemployment we are experiencing at present in Dublin City. I believe that the country could be as prosperous as we are told it should be were it not for the depressing speeches which are occasionally made in this House describing to the people how bad things are and urging them not to spend. It is obvious that when people do not spend they do not purchase the products of our Irish firms, and that, in turn, results in unemployment. That unemployment is growing and day by day men are being dismissed from their jobs. What is the Government going to do about that position? Down in the dock area you will now meet hundreds of men seeking work. Two years ago we sent to Britain for our building operatives, guaranteeing them ten to 20 years' employment on the building of houses for their own people. These men are now to be seen in Palace Street seeking passports to enable them to go back to the place they left some years ago. Will somebody tell us where the hidden hand is that is keeping back the prosperity of this country? Will somebody tell us where the hidden hand is that is keeping back the finances for housing? We are told that the Government guarantees the money for housing—and we got that guarantee from the previous Government. In spite of that guarantee, the position now is that our building operatives are emigrating and those people who are seeking houses are being left in the unhappy surroundings in which they are at present.

Is it the intention of the Government to encourage employment and industry in this country? Myself and another Deputy were stopped outside the gate of the Dáil last week by a man carrying a banner on which it was indicated that he was a married man with a family trying to exist on a dole of 26/- a week. Surely that is not the prosperity that we promised these people nor is that the prosperity that we all had hoped to see. We all know, too, that the staffs of various business houses and distributing centres in Dublin, instead of being increased, are being reduced at every available opportunity. In the past month especially it has become a regular feature outside the doors of Dublin Deputies to see queues of people looking for jobs. Many of these men are now seeking passports to get out of the country. If one goes down to the boats at the North Wall or visits Dún Laoghaire Harbour, one will see them going away, I shall not say in hundreds because I do not want to exaggerate, but in dozens every evening of the week. I remember hearing some Ministers of the present Government saying some years ago that it would be necessary for us to bring our own people back from England there would be so much employment available here at home. We may as well face the fact that they are not being brought back now and that unemployment is growing. There is no employment open to young people leaving school and one is frequently asked for a letter of recommendation to enable these young people to get work in some part of Great Britain. I would ask that the various Parties in this House should get together to devise ways and means of providing employment for these young people in their own country.

It was not my intention to speak here this evening but when I found a slack moment with nobody else apparently anxious to get up after Deputy Dillon had concluded, I thought I might avail of the opportunity to tell the House of my experiences, an opportunity which otherwise I might not have had until the tail-end of the debate. I ask the Government what they propose to do to deal with the growing unemployment and I would appeal to the Taoiseach to prevent his Ministers making these dull, depressing speeches which are so frightening to our people. People who would not hesitate to spend a few pounds in the shops, are afraid of doing so because of these depressing speeches. The absence of purchasers in the shops means that workers in industries are being displaced. I might remark that quite recently there were a number of people over here from England offering to assist passages to Canada and Australia. As Deputy Dillon has pointed out this should be one of the most prosperous countries in the world having regard to the fertility of our land and our various other resources and our workers should be fully employed to obtain an increased output both in agriculture and in industry.

I would ask the Minister what, for instance, is going to happen the shipbuilding industry in this country? I understand that although we require ships at the moment skilled men are being knocked off down at the dockyard every day. I visit the North Wall, the Alexandra Basin and the vicinity of the dockyard at least three times a week and I find an air of depression existing there that never existed before. I am frequently stopped by dockyard workers who inform me that sufficient work could be provided for them were it not that there appears to be a shortage of materials. Why cannot the Minister ensure that materials are made available for these industries which could pay such good wages? I am stopped almost 20 times a day by young fellows who ask me if I could recommend them for a job and, as I say, I see men standing around at the dockyard who formerly were in constant employment. I mention these things because I know them of my own personal experience and they are typical of what is going on in Dublin at present.

Something has apparently happened within the last three months to worsen the unemployment position and I believe it is due to the depressing speeches made by Ministers. In the building trade, for instance, we cannot find out exactly what is the cause of the hold-up. The Dublin Corporation say they were guaranteed money to finance their schemes. We need the houses, we have the plans ready but workers are being dismissed and are seeking passports to get back to Britain. Not alone are young single people going away, but married men with families are now leaving the country as well. That means that these men have to support two homes. An unfortunate married man has to pay for his board and lodging in England and what he is able to send home afterwards is not sufficient to maintain his family here.

I would ask the Minister to try to do something to stop this emigration of the best workers of the country. As I have already mentioned, we saw a man last week standing outside the Dáil carrying a placard announcing the fact that he had a wife and two children, that he had to pay a pretty high rent for his cottage in Dublin and that he could not get a day's work. That, I think, is indicative of the deplorable situation which exists in the city.

Mr. McGrath

Like Deputy Byrne, I did not intend to speak in this debate, either.

Mr. Byrne

We coaxed them in.

Mr. McGrath

I think, despite all the talk we have heard from the Opposition, the people of the country as a whole realise now that there is a general world depression which has affected this country as well as others.

Mr. O'Higgins

Give us a general election and you will find out all about it.

Mr. McGrath

I think the majority of the people realise that a great deal of the unemployment is not due to that world depression but is due to stockpiling by the previous Government. It is also due to their destruction of industries which were initiated by Fianna Fáil. Deputy Byrne is a Dublin man and must know that, after Fianna Fáil had imported machinery for the chassis shop for Córas Iompair Éireann, it was sold as scrap by the last Government. That was done because it was a Fianna Fáil project.

Mr. Davin

By whom was it sold as scrap?

Mr. McGrath

By some gentleman not far from Dublin. I believe he comes from Monasterevan, so the Deputy should know more about him than I do. If that machinery had been retained for the purpose for which it was purchased it would have provided much needed employment and would have meant the starting of a heavy engineering industry here. That industry would have been able to provide chassis for Córas Iompair Éireann, the Electricity Supply Board and the sugar company. The last Government, however, preferred to bring in those chassis and let Irishmen go over to England to make them. We had no protest against that from the Labour Benches, the Fine Gael Benches or any of the others.

Mr. Hickey

You are worried about labour.

Mr. McGrath

Perhaps more than you are, and perhaps I did a lot more for it.

Mr. Hickey

You showed it, too.

Mr. McGrath

Perhaps I did more for labour than you did when you sat over here for three and a half years.

Mr. O'Leary

What about the standstill Order?

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

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

Mr. McGrath

I know all about the standstill Order, and about Deputy Hickey's negligence of labour here.

Mr. Hickey

I am glad it is confined to you to say that.

Mr. McGrath

It is not. Then they took over the Store Street station. They could not employ stonecutters from Ireland on it, but had to bring in Portland stone dressed and finished. They did not mind whether the stonecutters in Ireland were idle or not and there was no protest.

Mr. Morrissey

Why was it brought in?

Mr. McGrath

You can say that.

Mr. Morrissey

And by whom? You are on dangerous ground now.

Mr. McGrath

I know what I am on now.

Mr. Morrissey

You do not. If you did, you would not open your mouth about it.

Mr. McGrath

I am accustomed to your bluff.

Mr. Morrissey

What about the Glengariff £1,000,000 hotel?

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

Perhaps Deputy McGrath would be allowed to continue.

Mr. McGrath

Deputy Byrne spoke about the slowing up of housing in Dublin. Deputy Briscoe made the position in regard to that clear in one of the papers last Sunday. The previous Government were warned that if they were going to assist town planning there could not be more than 1,000 houses built in Dublin this year. I understand that the number of houses in Dublin will be increased in the coming year.

Mr. Morrissey

I hope so.

Mr. McGrath

So do I. A lot of Deputies on the other side of the House, rather than face the facts as regards the world depression, adopt the attitude of the boy passing a graveyard at night who starts to whistle so as to pretend that he is not afraid of ghosts. They are carrying on the same sham idea now, that they are not afraid of any depression and that the country was never so prosperous. The fact is that they left the country in the position in which we have to pay seven and one-third million pounds by way of interest on loans. That charge increased more in their three years than it did during the 15 years that Fianna Fáil were in power.

We had Deputy Dillon talking last week about the spending of dollars and the bringing in of Cuban sugar. Most Deputies will remember that Deputy Dillon said in the year 1947 that if we bombed and blew up all the sugar factories we would save so much money as to be able to increase the children's allowance to 5/- for every child in Ireland.

Mr. O'Leary

And Deputy Lemass said they were white elephants.

Mr. McGrath

Now he talks about buying Cuban sugar. He also said that when the war was over sugar would be landed on the quays of Dublin at 2d. per lb. I think it is a good job that the people of this country do not always take his advice.

The people who talk about unemployment occurring during the time of the Fianna Fáil Government must have very short memories if they are not able to recall what Fianna Fáil did for industry in this country. Deputy Hickey need only go down the quays of Cork to see the mills and the silos that are there now. Before Fianna Fáil came into power the previous Government were satisfied to have all our flour manufactured in Liverpool and Birkenhead. It was Fianna Fáil that started the flour-milling industry and insisted that all the flour we use would be manufactured in this country. That has gone on ever since, with the exception of the present of flour that was given during the period of the last Government by the American Government.

Mr. O'Leary

We have Ranks in Limerick now.

Mr. McGrath

It is better to have Irishmen working there for Rank than to have them going over to work for Rank in England. During the time of the Fianna Fáil Government, Dunlops started their tyre factory, the Sunbeam Wolsey factory was started and the cement factories were started. If I were to recite all the big industries which were started here by Fianna Fáil it would take me at least half an hour to do so. In view of that, how could anybody make any accusation against Fianna Fáil about unemployment? If there has been unemployment it was due to the fact that the country was flooded with goods which were imported during the term of office of the last Government. Deputy Byrne wants to know what the Government are going to do to stop unemployment.

I think the Tánaiste has shown the way to do that by the action he took in the case of the textile industry when he cut the quotas for imported goods. He brought them down to a practically negligible quantity. I think that the same rule will apply to most industries. That has always been the policy of Fianna Fáil, that it is better to keep men working in Ireland than to be sending them to England to make goods there and then import the goods here.

Everybody remembers what the position of this country was at Christmas 12 months ago when we had not a sod of turf or a lump of coal in Cork City or in Dublin, Limerick and other places.

Mr. Morrissey

That is not true.

Mr. McGrath

And when the retail stores in Cork had to close down.

Mr. Morrissey

That is not true.

Mr. McGrath

It is true.

Mr. Morrissey

It is not true and the Deputy was shown to be speaking an untruth at the time. It was proved to be untrue.

Mr. McGrath

The Deputy was well aware of the fact that no poor person in Cork could purchase as much as half a bag of coal in any retail stores there.

Mr. Morrissey

That is not true.

Mr. McGrath

It is a positive fact. There were pictures in the papers showing what happened in Limerick and other places when a cargo of coal arrived. I am sure Deputy Hickey will not deny that there were queues of children waiting with go-cars outside the retail stores in Cork trying to get coal. I defy him to deny that the retail stores had to close down because they had no coal.

Mr. Morrissey

It is the old story— repeating the lie.

Mr. McGrath

Deputy Byrne said here that the people were being served with wet sponges under the cheap fuel scheme. Deputy Norton was Minister for Social Welfare at the time and in charge of turf. He can deny that now if he likes.

Mr. Morrissey

The Deputy is thinking of the winter of 1946.

Mr. McGrath

The Deputy is thinking of the winter of 1950-51. I had a question down last week and in reply to it I was told that there were 9,000 tons of coal in the dump in Cork which could not be sold to the merchants.

Mr. Morrissey

That is not true. The Deputy ought to be ashamed of himself.

Mr. McGrath

The then Deputy Sheehan offered to buy it and they refused to sell it to him. He offered £5 10s. 0d. per ton for slack and they would not sell it to him.

Mr. Morrissey

Deputy Sheehan at that time supplied the people of Cork City and you know it.

Mr. McGrath

Deputy Sheehan was not able to do it.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

Deputy McGrath must be allowed to speak without interruption.

Mr. McGrath

I know the facts. The coal was kept there. Then Deputy Sheehan asked the Minister for Industry and Commerce at the time, Deputy Morrissey, would he give him the turf to hand it over to the St. Vincent de Paul and the Minister said he would have to consult Fuel Importers first. That was the reply brought to me by Deputy Sheehan when I had questions down about the turf and the rent charged for storing it in Cork Park.

Mr. Morrissey

That is untrue. It was offered to the merchants and they refused to take it. The Deputy should keep some contact with the truth.

Mr. McGrath

The Deputy is not in the habit of telling lies.

Mr. Morrissey

For a beginner, the Deputy is doing very well.

Mr. McGrath

Deputy Sheehan must have told the lie then because he said he went to you and you informed him you could do nothing until you consulted Fuel Importers. This year it cost £20,000 to remove it.

Mr. Morrissey

The fuel merchants would not take it and that was the legacy left to us by Fianna Fáil.

Mr. McGrath

That was the turf given out under the cheap fuel scheme. Deputy Hickey is here and he can answer that.

Mr. Hickey

Never mind Deputy Hickey. Make your own case and he will make his. Do not quote Deputy Hickey.

Mr. McGrath

I invite him to contradict that.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

The Deputy might come to the Vote now. We have discussed the Cork turf scheme at great length.

Mr. McGrath

Fuel is very important in relation to the Vote on Account. People on the Opposition Benches now are asking who is causing unemployment here and where has all the money gone to. When they were in office they tried to please every group in the inter-Party Government and in the end they pleased nobody. Some of them are now worried about increased benefits for the unemployed. There was unemployment during the three years they were in office.

Mr. Morrissey

But not as much as there is now.

Mr. McGrath

I admit that, but there were still a good many unemployed. They would have required the same amount per person as the people do to-day but there was no talk about that then.

Mr. Davin

Did you not vote against the Social Security Bill on 3rd March last year?

Mr. McGrath

That was the Bill under which the Government refused to increase the old age pensions by 2/6.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

We are not debating the Social Security Bill.

Mr. Davin

The Bill would have been in operation on 1st January this year only for the Deputy.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

Deputy Davin should allow Deputy McGrath to make his speech without interruption.

Mr. McGrath

I would like to draw the Minister's attention to the unfair profits made in some businesses at the present time.

Mr. O'Leary

The worst of it is the Minister is not here to listen to you.

Mr. McGrath

I believe profits should be fixed by means of a maximum price only. In most businesses now there is a minimum price fixed as well and if a trader sells below that minimum he is immediately struck off the traders' list. That is helping to keep prices up and it is a matter to which immediate attention should be given. If a shopkeeper is prepared to a take a lower price and make a smaller profit no combine should have the power to punish him for selling at competitive prices. Some may call it undercutting but I know of no more effective way of bringing down prices other than to have a bit of competition between shopkeepers. I know of several commodities where the shopkeepers, if they sell under the price fixed by the manufacturer and the wholesaler, will no longer be served with supplies. That is a shocking state of affairs and the Government should give it immediate attention.

Mr. Davin

Less than six months ago we had a sham battle here between the Minister for Finance, supported by his very loyal colleague, the Minister for Posts and Telegraphs, and the Minister for Industry and Commerce concerning the policy enshrined in what is known as the Central Bank Report. The Minister for Finance on that occasion made it quite clear that he was accepting the policy enshrined in that report while the Minister for Industry and Commerce endeavoured to persuade the House and, through the House, the people that he and the Government stood for its rejection. Now we are confronted with Estimates and a Vote on Account supported by a speech made by the Minister for Finance in which it is quite clear, to me at any rate, that the Minister for Finance, supported by the Minister for Posts and Telegraphs, has won this sham battle. Sham battle is all it is or all I can see in it. If, however, the speech made by the Minister for Finance on that historic occasion and, more particularly, the speech that he made here when introducing this Vote on Account, indicates the considered policy of this separatist Republican Government, then it is fatal to the future of this country. It is financial suicide to follow British financial policy when the circumstances and conditions in the two countries are so different.

We are a creditor country, high up on the list of creditor countries. Britain, on the admission of the present Chancellor of the Exchequer and the former Chancellor of the Exchequer, is facing bankruptcy. A considerable portion of our surplus profits is in Great Britain by way of external assets, invested in a bankrupt country. We are asked by the Minister for Finance, supported again by the Minister for Posts and Telegraphs, as he will be on this occasion, to continue to invest in Great Britain the profits of our agricultural and industrial production, the profits of the daily labour of our people, and to increase our investments and external assets in Great Britain rather than use them for national development purposes to provide employment for our people in our own country.

That is a clear-cut issue. It is a fundamental issue. As far as this group is concerned, there is a wide gulf between that policy of the Fianna Fáil Government and the policy of the members of this group.

The inter-Party Government has been condemned in unmeasured language for repatriating or proposing to repatriate, not all our external assets, but a portion of our external assets for the purpose of carrying out works of a capital development nature, thereby providing increased employment. The short history of the inter-Party Government proves that that policy was to the advantage of the plain people of this country. Now we are asked to reverse that policy. We are asked to subscribe to a policy of restriction of credit and to follow Great Britain, with whom there can be no reasonable comparison, in pursuance of that policy.

Why is Britain carrying out a policy of credit restriction? It is in order to make it possible for people to be changed over from industrial employment to the manufacture of arms and armaments, atomic bombs and so on. Surely we are not expected to pursue that line of policy, if neutrality is the policy of this country to-day and if neutrality is to be its policy for the future.

By continuing to invest our surplus assets, the profits of our agricultural and industrial production, in Great Britain at 1 per cent. and less than 1 per cent., at a nominal rate of interest, we are allowing the profits of production in this country to be used by the British for the purpose of carrying out a rearmament policy. Apart from other considerations, is that in keeping with the policy of strict neutrality?

I want to know whether the policy outlined by the Minister for Finance in introducing this Vote on Account will help to increase agricultural production. All of us in this House, whether associated with groups or so-called individual Deputies, subscribe to the policy of increasing agricultural production in the interests of all sections of the people. Will we help to increase agricultural production by increasing the rate of interest on agricultural loans at a time when everybody is pleading for an increase in agricultural production? An increase in the rate of interest on agricultural loans will increase the cost of agricultural production. I cannot understand why Deputies like Deputy Cogan, who talks about interest-free money when he speaks in the Carlow County Council, can come in here and support a speech made by the Minister for Finance which amounts to a confirmation of the attitude of the Minister in increasing the cost of agricultural loans simply because Mr. Butler, the British Chancellor of the Exchequer, increased the rates of interest in Britain for entirely different reasons. Is it not a glaring example? Is it not clear evidence that he is following the financial policy of the British Chancellor in the most patent and loyal manner?

By increasing the rate on agricultural loans, instead of reducing the rate of interest, as has been demanded very often in this House, we will not help to increase agricultural production.

Will we increase agricultural production by suspending the activities in connection with the acquisition and division of land? When the inter-Party Government was in office, several decisions were taken affecting the acquisition and division of large estates in my constituency. I can quote them if challenged. The Fianna Fáil Government, immediately they came into office, as far as I know, deferred some of the decisions and reversed the decisions in other cases. Does not every Deputy who represents an area where there is still land available know that if that land is acquired and divided and allotted to industrious people who have been working the land on conacre, and who will work the land to the best possible advantage, agricultural production will be increased?

I wonder does the Minister for Agriculture know the extent to which the Land Commission is responsible for reversing decisions of the previous Government and deferring others in connection with the acquisition and division of land? I challenge the next Deputy on the Government side who speaks in this debate to say whether the rules that were to be made under the 1950 Land Act have yet been issued or are in operation. I accuse the present Minister for Lands and his colleagues in the Government of deliberately holding up the issue of these rules so that they can hold up the operation of the 1950 Land Act, against which the Fianna Fáil Party voted when they were in opposition.

Can we increase agricultural production by slowing down the land reclamation scheme? The Minister for Agriculture will not deny that that is being done with his connivance and goodwill?

Minister for Agriculture (Mr. Walsh)

Not at all. It is going on faster than ever.

Mr. Davin

I know what is going on in my own constituency and I have studied the figures. I admire the Minister for Agriculture because he is looking after his own constituency. The figures have improved in Carlow and Kilkenny but that is not the case in other constituencies in the Midlands. The Minister for Agriculture is, no doubt, using the big stick that he now has in his hands as Minister to see that the land reclamation scheme is speeded up as far as possible——

Mr. Walsh

All over the country.

Mr. Davin

——with his all-powerful influence, in his own constituency. I have studied the figures very carefully and have related them to and compared them with the figures for my own constituency. I am only speaking about what is going on in my own area. I move to report progress.

Progress reported; Committee to sit again.