I think it would have been interesting to have heard a speech from Deputy Corry if he were in opposition and if the following situation faced the country. If the complaint of the farmers were that although they have worked harder and produced more they got less, if there were less acreage under wheat and beet, fewer milch cows, less milk and butter being produced—if that were the agricultural situation produced by a Government to which Deputy Corry was opposed, one could imagine the kind of speech that he would make here. Yet those are the conditions that he declared obtain in the country to-day—less tillage, the beet industry finished, men running from the land because the land cannot provide a decent standard of living for them, the milk industry and the dairy industry destroyed. That is the agricultural picture which he has painted for us. We can at least say that Deputy Corry in his speech put a very clear indictment against the Government's agricultural policy. Of course, we know at the same time that, despite what he may have said, he will vote to maintain in power the Government that has permitted this unfortunate and deplorable situation to exist.
I should like to return, if I may, to the more acute problems that now face the country. It is proper, and I think it has been the custom for some years back, that this debate should be availed of by Deputies to review the economic condition of the country during a particular 12 months' period, or a longer period perhaps. I think, applying that test to the conditions that we now see obtaining in the country, there is one clear fact which emerges. It is that this Government is the high price Government. The Fianna Fáil Government and Fianna Fáil are now synonymous with high prices, rising costs, high taxation and the general economic ills which are always associated with a period of inflation.
It is deplorable that that should be so when we recollect that it was on this debate two years ago, in 1950, that the present Minister led an onslaught on the inter-Party Government because of a complaint with regard to rising prices. I am sure that the attention of the House has been directed to the words which the Minister spoke in this House on the 23rd November, 1950, as reported at column 1,306, Volume 123, of the Dáil Debates on this Bill just over two years ago. The Minister then said:—
"The failure"—he is referring to the failure of the then Government—"to control prices, to prevent a rise in prices up to now, the accelerating rise that is now in progress, is perhaps the Government's greatest failure. It is, I think, no answer to the criticisms that have been expressed among sections of the public of the apparent indifference of the Government to that increase that, generally, economic conditions in the country are better now than they were in the war."
I adopt every single word used by the Minister two years ago as being a fair description of the present economic condition of this country and of the present deplorable failure of the Government to take effective, or any, measures.
In his speech two years ago the Minister referred to ministerial indifference. He referred to it in a most unfair way, because he knew that, at that time, the backwash of devaluation and the outbreak of the Korean War were causing conditions outside the control of our Government here; but he was prepared, and his Party were prepared, and it will be to their cost now whenever an election may come, to use any particular circumstances for the purpose of causing public discontent and uneasiness two years ago. They started a ramp about prices. The Minister himself castigated the former Government two years ago because of an increase in prices, and he referred in a determined manner to apparent ministerial indifference.
In other passages in his speech, he went along to make jibes which I regarded then, and regard now, as cheap jibes about various commodities which had gone up in price. He asked where was the Prices Section of the Department of Industry and Commerce, and what were they doing, and where was the great system of price control which he had established in the Department, and why was it not working.
Deputy Corry referred in his speech to the evil that men do living after them. The words which the Minister used two years ago can now be fairly used to test his conduct in office and his record over the last 12 months. Is it fair for the Opposition to ask, as he asked two years ago, where now is the Prices Section of the Department of Industry and Commerce, and where now are the controls necessary to maintain commodities at a fair price for the people? Meat has been decontrolled. It has been decontrolled by the Minister with a pious expression of opinion by the Department that it would result in a fall in the price of meat. Does the Minister now think that the pious hope expressed when meat was decontrolled has been satisfied?
Bacon was decontrolled. Again, we were supposed to experience an amazing drop in the price of rashers and hams. Again, has that been the result? Over the last 12 or 18 months, in relation to a variety of commodities, has the Minister taken effective steps to decontrol prices and to ensure that the prices obtaining will be the ordinary economic prices resulting from supply and demand? He is the Minister who, as a Deputy, charged his predecessor with shirking his responsibility in relation to rising prices and with not doing the job that he was told to do by the Dáil when he was appointed a Minister.
There is no Deputy, no matter on what side of the House he may be, who can be satisfied with the record of this Government over the last 12 miserable months. In relation to prices, they have done nothing. They sat back, fiddling while the people were surrounded by a forest of rising prices. It is for that reason that, I think, the people can regard this Government as a Government of high prices. I think it is about time that the Government, through his representative here in charge of the Department of Industry and Commerce should be made aware that we in the Opposition, representing the majority of the people in this country, are not going to stand for this kind of ministerial complacency, laziness and indifference any longer in relation to this problem of prices.
We are entitled to know what, if any, policy the Government have in relation to the cost of living. Two years ago, the then Government, facing as it was the effect of factors outside their control, took action which was sneered at by the present Minister. They established a Prices Advisory Council. They passed a standstill Order in relation to prices which, again, was jeered at and jibed at by the present Minister. But whatever defects that policy may have had, nevertheless it was a policy. When the Supplies and Services Bill was introduced two years ago, it was introduced by the member of the Government in charge of it as a measure designed to deal with the problem of rising prices, and contained concrete proposals in relation to the problem of the cost of living.
What a change we see now two years later! In introducing this Bill this morning, the Minister made no reference whatever to the problem of the cost of living, offered no proposals, concrete or otherwise, as to what policy the Government might have in relation to rising prices, offered no prognosis with regard to what was going to happen, made no suggestion, good, bad or indifferent, to the representatives of the people here with regard to this serious and acute problem. Did the Minister think that by saying nothing about it this debate might have been conducted without any reference to the problem of the cost of living? Was he so naive as to think he could set the tone which this debate should follow? If that were in his mind, he was very much mistaken because we in the Opposition know our responsibilities. As I say, we appreciate that we represent the majority of the people in this country, and we will not tolerate this kind of lack of policy and ministerial indifference in relation to what is the big economic problem of the moment.
I was astonished to see the apparent indifference of Fianna Fáil Deputies, representing city constituencies, in relation to this matter. Where are all the brave boys of two years ago? Where are Deputy Vivion de Valera, Deputy McCann and Deputy Briscoe? Where are all the other Deputies who two years ago followed the Minister as leader of the pack howling about rising prices? Why are their voices silent now? When any Government Deputies attempted to intervene in this debate why did they endeavour to talk about something else rather than this problem of the cost of living? It is noticeable that ministerial defence and protection in this debate were afforded, not by Fianna Fáil Deputies, but by their outriders, Deputy Cogan, Deputy Cowan and these other gentlemen. That is not satisfactory so far as this country is concerned.
I glanced through the debate on the Supplies and Services Bill two years ago, and it is well worth reading. I recommend it to every Fianna Fáil Deputy, because it will be remembered by every former Fianna Fáil supporter. They should read that debate, see what they said, and regard their conduct for the last two years. Deputy Briscoe was very vocal two years ago. Now he only sits and beams magnanimously at Deputy Cogan defending the Government. But two years ago Deputy Briscoe reminded the House that Fianna Fáil as a Party was formed to look after three things. He said that Fianna Fáil's traditional concern was in relation to the food, clothing and shelter of the people. As reported in column 1462, of Volume 123 of the Official Reports, he said:—
"There are three items of importance to the vast majority of our people — food, clothing and shelter. We on these benches subscribed to that particular principle on the formation of the Fianna Fáil Party. We agreed, and we laid it down as part of our policy, that there were three items to which the Government must give the utmost and the first consideration because of their effect on the vast majority of our people: food, clothing and shelter."
Then the Deputy went on:—
"Let us take food first. One would imagine that food subsidies existed when Fianna Fáil took office. Do the members of the Coalition groups not realise that the subsidisation of the essential foodstuffs for the vast majority of our people was a principle introduced by the Fianna Fáil Government?"
At column 1463 he referred to what was happening under the bad inter-Party Government in regard to food subsidies. He said:—
"When the change of Government came, taxation was not to go up; taxation was to come down. However, the price of food for the vast majority of the people was affected by the system of limiting the ration allowance, not with regard to the availability of any particular foodstuff, but with regard to the extent to which the Exchequer would suffer by a particular subsidy. That, in our opinion, we say quite frankly, was a bad change."
There we have a Fianna Fáil Deputy two years ago lecturing us on the principle of rationing food at a subsidised price to the vast majority of the people. Led by the Tánaiste and followed by the Fianna Fáil city Deputies, he was saying that the inter-Party Government were in some way reducing subsidies. "That, in our opinion," said Deputy Briscoe, "we say quite frankly, was a bad change." Where is Deputy Briscoe to-day? On the Supplies and Services Bill two years later not a word is said by him with regard to the type of Government that not only reduces or interferes with subsidies but wipes them out completely.
These are serious considerations, because I suggest to the House that in relation to prices and other matters this Government have no policy, good, bad or indifferent. If they do anything, they decide what they will do from day to day and from week to week as a result of political pressure exercised on them by groups represented by Deputy Cogan and Deputy Cowan on the one side and Deputy Dr. Browne on the other. That is the type of policy which is dictated by the exigencies of the different circumstances of each week. So far as the country can see, there is no clear programme being followed, no aim being sought and nothing concrete to be put before the people. That is, I think, illustrated very clearly by the type of speech which the House heard from the Minister to-day. It was clear from his speech that there is no policy in relation to prices and matters of that kind.
I know that when I refer to prices as one of the big economic problems of the moment I must also add to it the big problem of unemployment which exists to-day. Deputy Corry or any other Deputy of that kind should not try to cod this House. There is more unemployment in this country to-day than we have experienced for many years back. It is unemployment that did not accidently happen, but unemployment, unfortunately, that has been caused by the direct action of the present Government and, incidentally, by the present Minister. That is a serious situation.
Again, in relation to that, what policy do the Government put before the country? When they assumed office some 15 or 16 months ago this country was doing fairly well. Of course, we had not solved all the outstanding problems that faced the country but we had had only three years to do what we could. Things were going fairly well nevertheless. There was no unemployment. There were no spiralling prices. There was no heavy burden of taxation. There was plenty of money in circulation and, despite the suggestions of the Minister for Finance, there was no restriction in credit from the banks. Generally speaking, conditions in agriculture were booming and the country was passing through a very good period. That was the situation at the very moment when the present Government were charged, not by the people but by this Dáil, unfortunately, with responsibility for governing the country. Now we can look back on the immediate and startling change which took place. Again it was not a coincidence. It was not accidental. It was the result of the very unfortunate and irresponsible campaign initiated by the Minister and by other members of the Government by which the solvency and credit worthiness of this country were endangered, causing a business and trade recession, unemployment and the general economic ills about which we now complain.
I do not think that any member of the Government intended in June, 1951, when they came into office, to follow the deflationary financial policy which has been the cause of so much harm in this country in the last 12 months. In fact, I know that when they went into office, they just did not know what they were going to do; but they started a particular trend which has led to their actions of the past 12 months and to the present deplorable situation. The present Government, 13 or 14 men, and the present Government Deputies, some 60 odd, are the most unhappy people in Ireland to-day, and they are in that deplorable situation because of their actions in the last 12 months. I do not think that the results were foreseen. I am quite satisfied, no matter how many hard things I may have had to say on the political line about the present Government, that no group of men could possibly promise the people of Ireland, as Fianna Fáil did in June, 1951, that they would maintain the system of food subsidies if they intended to do the very reverse. That is not what happened. When they became a Government, particularly with the Minister for Finance playing politics and acting the giddy goat, they wanted to attack the condition of the country because they knew that if they did not get the people to believe when they were well off that they were badly off then the people would regard the financial policy which made that possible as being the correct policy. Since the country was prosperous when Fianna Fáil came into office the people had to be told that it was a false and phony prosperity, and they were told that very well by the Minister for Finance, the Minister for Industry and Commerce and other members of the Government. All of us were told that we were codding ourselves for three years before when there was full employment, expanding markets, good business conditions and all the rest, that that was all phony, that it was make-believe, and that now we had to face up to realities.
That campaign started off as a political expedient aimed against the previous Minister for Finance and the financial policy which the previous Government had been following, but unfortunately for the Government, disastrously for the country, that campaign got out of hand. It was like letting a car roll down a slope, it got faster and faster and eventually the people who started it could not control it. When the banks were told by the Minister for Finance that there was too much money in the country and that people were spending too much they began to restrict credit. Step by step conditions began to appear where there was uncertainty and doubt in the minds of business people and the people generally regarding the solvency of the country and the trade recession which presumably would have existed to a certain extent was magnified out of all proportion by the campaign indulged in by the Government. As a result we must complain here of the deplorable unemployment situation and the consequential problem of emigration.
While that campaign was going on it was suggested by members of the Government and by Fianna Fáil Deputies that the inter-Party Government had been doing something wrong when they borrowed from the investor in this country and sought investments here at home. I have references here but I do not want to go over all the speeches made by Deputies on the other side of the House in relation to the investment programme of the inter-Party Government. It will suffice to say that every supporter of Fianna Fáil down the country was firmly convinced that the inter-Party Government had been doing something terribly wrong when they asked the Irish investor, instead of putting his money in England, to invest it here at home. All of them, like a well-trained squad of soldiers, were in step in suggesting that that borrowing programme was something terribly wrong and that we were jeopardising our future by the financial policy we had supported. When all that campaign was over, when all the noise had died down, when the people had begun to think over what the issues had been, when all that was finished and unfortunately harm had been caused in business with regard to the solvency of the country, along came the Minister for Finance himself seeking a loan of £20,000,000 from the people of the country, a loan at a rate of interest higher than had ever been given. I think that that type of action by the Government has certainly not been consistent, certainly not been part of a definite policy or a definite programme.
It certainly gives evidence to the people of this country that there is a policy of drift and nothing else in Government circles. There is no clear, cogent line such as the people are entitled to expect from the Government, but rather is there a collection of hasty decisions made up in varying circumstances by, so far as we can see, different groups of Ministers. It is very hard for anyone to justify condemnation of an investment programme 12 months ago, and to justify that same investment programme as being a proper financial expedient 12 months later. That unfortunately is what is happening in this country. It is regrettable that the sufferers are not merely the Fianna Fáil outriders like Deputy Cogan and Deputy Cowan, but also the unfortunate people of this country, those who are out of work, those who are paying Fianna Fáil prices for the things they have to buy, paying Fianna Fáil taxes on all the commodities they use. Those are the people who suffer and who have to pay. In addition, as a result of what the Minister for Finance described in a letter to the newspapers as "a ha'porth of tar", everyone who now seeks to build a house will have to pay increased interest charges. That is the result of the action of the present Government. It is that situation which we are entitled to complain about here in this debate.
I know there are many other grounds upon which the present Government can be indicted. I do not intend to deal with them. It is certainly fair that the present Minister should be indicted here two years later on the same grounds, on the same Bill, on which he sought to indict the previous Government in the month of November, 1950, on prices and on employment. While the previous Government could at least say they were doing something—perhaps not the right thing, perhaps not the best thing, but they were doing something—that is not a defence available in mitigation to the present Minister here to-night, because he is doing nothing, good, bad or indifferent, to control the spiralling of prices. He is doing nothing to retain some reality in the value of the workers' pay packets. On the contrary, his actions and the actions of his Government in the last 12 months have been positive steps further to increase prices, further to reduce the real value of money. The abolition of food subsidies, the decontrol of meat, bacon and other commodities of that kind have contributed in their own way further to increase the cost of living. While we complain of these unfortunate results we also complain that the Government has no right, good, bad or indifferent, to be there at all or to be doing the things they have been doing in the last 12 months. They have not the support of the people. They were not put there by the people, and, so far as popular expression of views can be obtained, the people of the country are merely waiting for the moment to get rid of them.
It is regrettable that this political situation should exist in the country to-day. It is regrettable that any Government should find itself in the position that it knows it has not the support, the goodwill and the confidence of the people it seeks to govern. It is bad for the country and it is bad for the Government. It is bad for business and it is bad for the people generally that these unsettled political conditions should obtain, causing insecurity, causing lack of confidence, and causing apprehension, not merely in the minds of Deputies like Deputy Cogan and others but in the minds of the ordinary people.
We say to the Government, in the interests of the people and in the interests of the country generally, that the time has come to seek a proper mandate from the people of Ireland. If the Government can get it, well and good. We will accept it; we will abide by it. At least the country will be stronger in this fact that, whatever Government is elected, whether it is the present Government or any other Government, it will be put there with a policy and charged by the people with executing and carrying out that policy. In that way the air will be clearer, the country will be stronger and the future made more definite. If the Government just carries on, holds on to power, holds on to office, knowing that the people are going one way and the Government going the other way, then these unfortunate conditions I have described will continue to exist until, eventually, some circumstances or accident unfortunate to the Government will cause the dissolution of this unrepresentative Assembly.
I do suggest that the time has come for a new general election, and it is proper that that should be pointed out in this debate, which has been used actively by the Opposition in the past to draw attention to acute problems facing the people. It is clear that the Government's policy is not acceptable to the people of this country. At least that is our charge. That is what we suggest. We may be wrong; I do not think we are. Most Fianna Fáil Deputies recognise the fact that their policy has not the support of the people of this country. At least we are making that suggestion, we are making that charge, and we are doing it as a responsible Opposition asking the Government, in the interests of the country, in the interests of the Government itself, to seek a fresh mandate from the people. If they do that, and get back, they will be a lot happier, I am sure, and the country will be a lot stronger.
