Dáil Éireann debate -
Wednesday, 11 Feb 1953

Vol. 136 No. 5

Committee on Finance. - Vote 3—Department of the Taoiseach (Resumed).

Debate resumed on motion:—

That the Estimate be referred back for reconsideration.—(Deputy J.A. Costello.)

Mr. Briscoe

Last night when the debate on this Estimate adjourned I was dealing with the emphasis placed on the unemployment position and I pointed out that that emphasis could just as readily have been placed on the unemployment position that existed in January, 1951, when the inter-Party Government was in office. At that time the records showed that there were 65,000 unemployed and the emphasis laid by Opposition speakers on the present position when criticising this Government could just as easily have been laid on them when they were in office.

Yesterday Deputy Blowick talked about comparisons made with other countries and he attempted to show, without producing any figures, that circumstances here are entirely different from those prevailing elsewhere. He arbitrarily set aside employment in industrial occupations. The figures for employment in agriculture and in industrial occupations in 1950 were 220,000 and 500,000 respectively. Therefore, one-third of those on record as occupied in employment were occupied in industrial occupations. Comment was made to the effect that the Budget was specifically designed to reduce the standard of living.

Mr. O'Leary

It is the cause of all the trouble to-day.

Mr. Briscoe

Those comments have now been reinforced by the remark that the Budget is in fact the cause of all the trouble to-day. As I understand the housekeeping of the country, the Government was concerned about the very considerable adverse trade balance. It was concerned that some serious attempt had not been made to try to balance not only the revenue of the State as far as the Exchequer was concerned but also the adverse trade balance outside. Had steps in the right direction not been taken the national economy at home would soon have been in such a position that we could not remedy it at all. As a result of the method adopted by the Government to try to save the situation something like £50,000,000 worth of imports ceased. Our imports were reduced by £50,000,000. To the extent that domestic circumstances, or world circumstances or Government activity brought about the different steps culminating in this figure of £50,000,000, it is quite obvious that if that amount of goods is removed from circulation so also is the volume and the velocity of money affected. We have to consider then whether it is not better in fact to have a smaller volume of money with less velocity bringing about a balancing of expenditure and income from the point of view of the national economy or whether it is better in the long run to take no notice at all and wait until disaster overtakes us.

Deputy Blowick announced that in three and a half years the inter-Party Government had produced in his opinion full employment through the medium of unlimited capital development and by spending £18,000,000 of the Marshall Aid Loan. He tried to compare that position with the position following the change of Government in 1951. He forgot that the inter-Party Government, in addition to spending that £18,000,000, had borrowed from the public £36,000,000. He also said that his Government left in the Exchequer £24,000,000 which had been dissipated by us in a matter of weeks. Question and answer here and discussion on the Budget have clearly shown that whatever amount of money there was in the Counterpart Fund resultingfrom the Marshall Aid Loan of approximately £24,000,000 or £26,000,000, every penny of that was earmarked for capital expenditure commitments undertaken by the inter-Party Government, commitments which had to be honoured and had to be met. There were the commitments to the E.S.B. and to the rehabilitation scheme. There were several schemes that had been inaugurated and had to be met out of these moneys. I understand that there was £10,000,000 alone of that due for expenditure by the E.S.B.

Deputy Blowick has a most elastic imagination. He said the Fianna Fáil Party published 17 points on the eve of taking over. He said the Coalition was formed on ten points, and whether they were all implemented or not is another matter but I am trying to relate an approach of mind to this discussion by those who say ten are 17. That is the kind of thing we get, these statements with waves of the hands and without any sort of consideration of the actual facts confronting us.

There were references to increased taxation. I do not know whether the people realise that whether it is a local authority or the national Exchequer, if they have to meet increased expenditure they must have increased income. If in the City of Dublin we have a demand for increased wages by the employees of the Dublin Corporation of, say, 12/6 per week for the ordinary working people and different figures for those who are termed as working for salaries, that alone imposes an increase of 1/- in the £ on the rates and when you have a series of these increases coming year after year obviously you must have increased income to meet those increased expenses.

Deputy Blowick also said there were three times as many people employed on rehabilitation schemes when the Coalition left office as there are to-day; there were three times as many people employed in afforestation and there were three times as many people finding employment under the Local Authorities (Works) Act than there areto-day. Only yesterday the Minister for Lands, in answer to a parliamentary question, pointed out that the maximum figure reached in regard to afforestation by Deputy Blowick in any one of the years when he was Minister for Lands was 9,000 acres; yet he always talked of 25,000 acres a year, otherwise the problem of afforestation could never be solved. During last year as a result of the activities of the present Minister for Lands a plantation of 15,000 acres had been achieved and there is no recognition for that. Last year and this year more money has been provided for the amended method of land rehabilitation than was provided in any year under our predecessors. I am not saying that when the scheme was introduced it could automatically be at full capacity but there has been a steadily increasing amount of money spent on land improvement. If you take the figures in the Estimates and if you take the figures that were shown when there were Supplementary Estimates introduced for this purpose, one must admit that more money is being employed in this class of work.

In order to copperfasten his arguments, Deputy Blowick turned to the House and said: "Did anyone ever see so much `neck'?" Last night we had Deputy Dunne talking about £200,000 being spent for an additional "neck" length. I wonder are we going to indulge in the measurement of neck or the thickness of neck? We would soon find out who has the thickest neck if we had an inch-tape around here.

Deputy Blowick said when they were in opposition before the change of Government in 1948—I think he said 1946 or 1947—they petitioned the then Government to increase the old age pension by 5/- a week, but he did not tell us why it was not done in their three years of office and why it was that the additional half-crown a week for old age pensioners was only included in the Social Welfare Bill which never came into force?

Mr. O'Leary

The Coalition increased the old age pension by 5/- a week in the first three weeks after they came into office.

Mr. Briscoe

It was never increased.

Mr. MacBride

That is nonsense.

Mr. Briscoe

I am saying when we came into office it was increased by 4/- —the 2/6 included in that particular measure adopted by us from the point of view of old age pensions, and an additional 1/6.

Mr. O'Leary

To meet the cost of living.

Mr. Briscoe

It does not matter. I dealt last night to a certain extent with this talk about emigration.

Mr. MacBride

Talk?

Mr. Briscoe

The talk of the Opposition with regard to emigration, as sincere as their talk about unemployment. Deputy MacBride will have to take responsibility for his share in this problem just as we have to take our share of responsibility. I pointed out last night, notwithstanding all this talk of emigration, and I gave figures last night to show, that there was a net increase in the population of the Twenty-Six Counties in the last census return, and if all those who had left the countryside had left the country, where did those come from who have helped to bring about the increase in our population, particularly in the city?

Mr. MacBride

The Deputy knows perfectly well it is a natural increase. There would be a further increase in the population every year were it not for emigration.

Mr. Briscoe

I am glad Deputy MacBride is intervening, because by his intervention he would suggest that during the three and a half years of Coalition administration there was no emigration at all.

Mr. MacBride

I never suggested that.

Mr. Briscoe

That is the implication and I will give you the figures. As far as statistics can show, 28,000 people emigrated in 1948, 34,000 in 1949, and 40,000 in 1950.

Mr. MacBride

What is the source of the Deputy's quotation?

Mr. Briscoe

These are figures supplied by the Statistics Office to the Taoiseach.

Mr. MacBride

I think the Deputy is making a mistake. The Statistics Office can supply only a five-year total——

An Ceann Comhairle

Deputy MacBride can speak later on.

Mr. Briscoe

I have here figures given to me as the figures supplied by the census office to the Taoiseach.

Mr. MacBride

Are they published anywhere? If the Deputy is quoting figures he should give us the source.

An Ceann Comhairle

Deputy MacBride can speak later on.

Mr. MacBride

If the Deputy purports to quote from a document or from figures he is usually expected to give the source.

An Ceann Comhairle

As far as I know, Deputy Briscoe has not purported to quote. He has mentioned figures.

Mr. Dillon

Yes, he did purport to quote. He said he was quoting from figures supplied to the Taoiseach by the Director of Statistics.

Mr. Briscoe

I am glad that Deputy MacBride has cross-examined me on this because the more Deputy MacBride does this cross-questioning the more he is trying to assert that what I am saying is untrue and without foundation. I am putting on record here— and I will ask that others would try to prove these figures to be untrue—that in the year 1948, 28,000 emigrated; in 1949, 34,000 emigrated; and in 1950, 40,000 emigrated.

Mr. O'Leary

By aeroplanes and all that?

Mr. Briscoe

I will ask Deputy MacBride to assert authoritatively that these figures are incorrect, that no such emigration took place. I will challenge him to say that.

Mr. MacBride

The only way in which the figures can be tested is bythe Deputy saying where he got them. If I make an assertion on a certain figure, unless I am prepared to divulge the authority for the figure, no one else can contradict it.

Mr. Briscoe

I have in hand the figures as I understand them to have been given by the Census or Statistics Office to the Taoiseach.

Mr. MacBride

Published for the first time now?

Mr. Briscoe

Deputy MacBride will have a chance of speaking and can state that I have so said this and can ask the Taoiseach either to deny those figures or correct them. I challenge him to do that. I am referring to these figures only because, unfortunately, we have had a long history of emigration and unemployment amongst our people and a long history of a low standard of living amongst our people. Having watched the change from the time of the establishment of our own native Government here in this part of the country, the Twenty-Six Counties, I have myself witnessed the improvement in employment and in the standard of living and the retarding in normal times of the numbers of our people who have to seek their livelihood abroad. I say that this problem does not belong to any one of us but to all of us and where there are variations in the figures we should seek to establish the causes and try to find the remedy—rather than try, both in the case of emigration and of unemployment, to make political capital out of it, as we do.

I said last night, in answer to the suggestion that there was a deliberate policy by the Government to slow down housing, that in fact the position is quite the opposite. Any local authority which is not dealing with its housing problem to the fullest possible extent must take the responsibility itself.

Mr. O'Leary

It cannot get schemes sanctioned.

Mr. Briscoe

I can speak only of housing within my own experience. In the City of Dublin we have the biggest housing problem of all local authorities, we have to build the largest number in the shortest space of time; and inthis year we will build more houses than last year and this year there will be a record number built, over any year since 1932.

Mr. O'Leary

I hope the men stay at home to do it.

Mr. Briscoe

We have the difficulty of meeting the financial requirements, but in our case we have the right to seek the money from the public direct by issuing our own stock and, where that might be difficult as a means to give us all we need, both this Government and the last Government underwrote our issues of stock to the full amount we requested. The last Government did it on two occasions in the years they were in office and this Government has done it again, so that from the point of view of finance——

Mr. Dillon

This Government has not underwritten the corporation loan. It has underwritten only half of it and the banks have underwritten the other half, for a fee.

Mr. Briscoe

Is the Deputy talking about this loan or the last one?

Mr. Dillon

This loan.

Mr. Briscoe

I am afraid Deputy Dillon—he may change some day—can never understand a gentlemanly gesture. I have said I give credit to his Government for having helped to continue the housing scheme to the full extent that any local authority wished to undertake and that they actually gave the money; and I say that this Government is doing the same.

Mr. Dillon

They are not.

Mr. Briscoe

Deputy Dillon can tell the House why they are not.

Mr. Dillon

I will, in detail.

Mr. Everett

It is 5¼ per cent. now.

Mr. Briscoe

I know all about it. We will discuss the rate of interest with Deputy Everett on another occasion. It does not cost us 5¼.

Mr. Everett

Because you have the privilege of getting a loan.

Mr. Briscoe

It does not cost you 5¼.

Mr. Everett

Find out from the Local Loans Fund what they are granting now.

Mr. Briscoe

I take it that Dublin City enjoys a definite privilege to the extent that only in the case of Dublin does the Government subsidise the interest charges.

Mr. Hickey

Oh, now!

Mr. Briscoe

That is what I mean and if the Deputy knew more about what he is talking of——

Mr. Hickey

It is impossible to get more than 5 per cent.

An Ceann Comhairle

Deputy Briscoe should be allowed to make his statement.

Mr. Everett

We are trying to help him.

An Ceann Comhairle

Interruptions do not help anyone.

Mr. Briscoe

The allegation is made that this Government deliberately slowed down on housing.

Mr. Dillon

Hear, hear!

Mr. Briscoe

And Deputy Dillon says "Hear, hear!" Deputy Dillon does not know whether that is so or not.

Mr. Dillon

I will prove it.

Mr. O'Leary

The number of unemployed will prove it.

An Ceann Comhairle

The Chair will have to take serious notice of interruptions. Deputy Briscoe has been constantly interrupted since he stood up to speak. The interruptions must cease.

Mr. Briscoe

The suggestion is that because the present Government is helping the corporation to continue to get the money necessary to the extent it requires it, or is budgeting for the building of houses, the corporation is not getting the same support because the Government only underwrote half and the banks the other half. Thedifference is this, that during the Coalition Government's time the banks did not underwrite and the Government had to underwrite the lot, and the Government had to take up practically the whole of it because there was not the same co-operation as there is to-day. I am not saying that in an assertion or an allegation against the Coalition Government.

Mr. O'Leary

You are a Coalition Government yourself, so do not talk about Coalitions. You are a bad Coalition, with four weak Independents.

An Ceann Comhairle

I have cautioned Deputy O'Leary. I will not caution him again.

Mr. O'Leary

Has he not got a Coalition Government himself?

An Ceann Comhairle

I am leaving you to the House, Deputy O'Leary, and the House will deal with you if you do not accept the ruling of the Chair.

Mr. Briscoe

There is no shortage of the finance required to build houses and certainly no shortage of the work people. There are people complaining to-day about the number of skilled operatives as well as unskilled people who are idle and for whom work cannot be found. There is no shortage of material. I say this is a matter for the local authority to deal with. All the necessary means have been made available and if local authorities do their work in the proper way, housing will be ultimately completed. It is further true to say that in many areas local authorities find they are fast approaching the end of their housing programme.

In the Borough of Dún Laoghaire, after this year, they will have completed their housing programme. There will be no housing drive there then and those who have been engaged in the building trade there will be affected. They will have to seek some other form of employment or move to another place. That is a problem which will have to be met when it arises. If ever the City of Dublinreaches a solution of its housing problem, something will have to be found for the thousands who are engaged in the building industry there to-day.

I quite agree that local authorities try to get as much as they can from the Exchequer to save the rates. We get a very substantial grant in Dublin from the Road Fund—it subsidises 70 per cent. of the cost of road operations in the City of Dublin. We would like to get more, but one point which I should like to put to the Government in this regard is that, when we get a road grant, there is a limited period of time within which the money must be spent. Operations cannot be begun before a period towards the end of the year and that work must cease before the end of March.

An Ceann Comhairle

Surely that relates to the administration of the Local Government Department, which is not under the control of the Taoiseach?

Mr. Briscoe

There can be no accusation against the Government with regard to their desire to have this housing problem solved and, as a matter of fact—I do not know why there should be a difference as between Dublin and elsewhere—the Government has made it a priority item in Dublin. The Government urge us, direct us and give us facilities to meet certain snags as they arise. Deputy Collins referred yesterday to a hold-up on the sewerage scheme, but that is not the fault of the Government. The money we require for that scheme has been sanctioned and is available when we can spend it, but we have to wait until the professional gentlemen sort out the type of scheme we should undertake. There are differences of opinion in that regard, as I mentioned last night.

Most of the discussion on this Vote has hinged around the items of unemployment and emigration, as well as the cost of living and to a certain extent, the suggestion that the Government is closing down on housing. I do not accept or believe that, because I know from my own day-to-day experience that it is quite the opposite of theGovernment's wish and what is taking place.

Mr. MacBride

It has always been one of my difficulties in this House in discussing any major question such as the economic position of the country to determine to what extent members of the Government adduce reasons merely for the sake of putting up a political facade, when they know these reasons are incorrect, or to what extent they genuinely make a mistake as to the facts of the situation. The Taoiseach, in giving his reasons for the unemployment position yesterday, stated that it was due, in the main, to stockpiling done by the inter-Party Government more than two years ago. That reason, I think, if it stood by itself, would not bear examination. I think that the nature of the stockpiling done then has certainly no effect on the present unemployment position. The Taoiseach, however, then destroyed his argument —I am not saying this to score a point; it seems to me an obvious comment— when he went on to say—I am quoting from his own newspaper, the Irish Press,of to-day's date:—

"The figures for unemployment had been disturbing. An analysis of the unemployment figures for January seemed to follow the same pattern as the figures for December. They were mainly in the building and construction industries and in transport, as well as in one or two other directions."

That is undoubtedly a fact—that most of the present unemployment is in the building and construction industry, in transport and one or two other directions.

The Taoiseach

Mainly agricultural —the biggest item of all.

Mr. Hickey

And in transportable goods.

Mr. MacBride

The Taoiseach says it is mainly in agriculture. Assuming this to be so, how can unemployment in agriculture be affected by stockpiling carried out two or two and a half years ago?

The Taoiseach

I was dealing with the whole position. It was suggestedthat it was since we came into office that all these things happened. During portion of the time, there was undoubtedly an effect on industry through the stockpiling of goods and the slowness with which they were being disposed of.

Mr. MacBride

The Taoiseach's reason for the present unemployment crisis—and it is a crisis—was that it was due to the misdeeds of the previous Government because they stockpiled in 1950 and 1951. Then, when we come down to analyse the unemployment that exists and the increase in unemployment that has taken place in recent months we find this unemployment in agriculture, in construction, in building and in transport. Can anybody relate this increase in unemployment with stockpiling carried out in 1950?

The Taoiseach

A general slowing up of industry and manufacture.

Mr. MacBride

I agree entirely and I propose to come down to that later. I hope the Taoiseach will be patient with me because there is not much use in addressing each other merely for the sake of making propaganda speeches. I want to try to convince the Taoiseach, if I can.

The Taoiseach

That is why I interrupted.

Mr. MacBride

I should like the Taoiseach to understand that I welcome any interruptions or comments he wishes to make, because I find that very often one can get a point more clearly understood by discussion like that than by formal speeches. I agree entirely with the Taoiseach that the present unemployment crisis has many ramifications, but I do not think that any of the ramifications can be brought back to stockpiling carried out in 1950 or 1951. The reasons for it are much more fundamental and it is a form of unemployment which is not at all as transient as any unemployment caused by occasional stockpiling.

Let us try to get at the facts first. As I understood some of the speeches made from the Government Benches,there was a suggestion that there was no serious unemployment. Of course, if the Government adopts that attitude, then it is very nearly useless discussing the matter. It has been said that the present unemployment figures are deceptive because they include a number of people who have come under the Social Welfare Act. Again, that argument does not bear examination because the totals include both claimants under the Welfare Acts and claimants under the Public Assistance Acts. I am quite prepared to concede immediately that the number of persons who are claiming under the Social Welfare Act has increased and that the number of persons claiming under the Public Assistance Acts has decreased proportionately, but the gross total is the same. Therefore, the unemployment figures, the total figures on the live register at 87,000 do represent the unemployment position. That is the highest figure for January, 1943, the highest figure for over 10 years. That in itself shows that we have reached a crisis position in regard to unemployment.

Was it merely by accident that we had a position in January, 1951, when the last Government was in office, where we had the lowest number of unemployed on record in the history of this country for that period of the year? The unemployment figures in January, 1951, standing at 65,000, were the lowest figures ever recorded in our history for unemployment in winter. Was that accidental? I submit to the House that that was the result of a deliberately conceived policy to try to reduce unemployment and that that was largely brought about by the economic and financial policy of the inter-Party Government. Unemployment then went down in the summer to a figure as low as 35,000. Again, that was the result of the economic policy which was being then pursued.

I should like the Taoiseach and Deputies to examine with me the change that has taken place since and the causes for the rise in unemployment. Before dealing with these changes and the causes of unemployment, I should like to refer to one or two other matters. Deputy Briscoe—Iam sorry he has left the House—gave some emigration figures which he says he obtained from the Taoiseach but which I do not think were published. My understanding of emigration figures is that they can only be reliably obtained by means of a census. These are the only reliable figures that can be obtained and, in between times, the only way of assessing the figure for emigration is by the number of new travel permits issued, on the one hand, and the balance of passenger movements on the other, but neither of these sets of figures is accurate or reliable. Indeed, very often they are misleading. I do not know the source of Deputy Briscoe's figures and of the detailed figures he purported to give year by year. The only detailed figures that I am aware of from year to year for that period would be the figures for the number of travel permits issued or the balance of passenger movements. I do not accept these figures and I should like to see them verified.

The Taoiseach

The figures are 10,000 for 1947; 28,000 for 1948; 34,000 for 1949 and 41,000 for 1950, with a large margin for error because it was becoming increasingly difficult to obtain accurate figures. These figures are obtained from the Central Statistics Office. They were obtained and officially published by me and some of them were published by the previous Taoiseach.

Mr. MacBride

With great respect, I should like to know the source of these figures and how they have been arrived at. I have here the official statistics published by the Central Statistics Office showing the number of new travel permits issued.

The Taoiseach

Which were not reliable as a measure of emigration as the Deputy well knows.

Mr. MacBride

I quite agree they are not accurate but they do give an indication of the position and as such it might be well to put them on the records of the House. In the year 1948, the number of new travel permits and passports issued to passengers was 40,075. I think the House may assume that people do not apply for permits orpassports unless they are intending to seek employment outside the country and intend to use them. I think it is a reasonable inference to draw that the 40,075 persons who obtained travel permits to seek employment abroad, availed of them. In the year 1949 there were 29,491 such permits obtained. In the year 1950 there were 17,356 such permits obtained. These are the figures published by the Statistics Office. I know the Taoiseach does not like these figures.

The Taoiseach

The fact is that they are well known to be altogether unreliable as an index of emigration.

Mr. MacBride

As I pointed out a moment ago, if 40,000 people obtained travel permits for the purpose of obtaining employment abroad they are doing it presumably with the intention of using them. Having obtained them, I think it is a reasonable inference to draw that they used them to go abroad to seek employment. People do not go to the trouble of obtaining travel permits, photographs and all the rest of it just for fun.

The Taoiseach

The people who know the facts have said quite definitely that these figures are quite unreliable from the point of view of determining the extent of emigration.

Mr. MacBride

I know the Taoiseach does not like these figures but he should face these figures and not send Deputy Briscoe in here to try to establish a low emigration figure well knowing the facts. The Taoiseach will remember that he gave me figures in this House for the last five months of the time during which travel permits were still required and they showed there was an increase of 65 per cent. in the issue of travel permits during those five months. Surely, that represents an increase. As I have said, people do not go to the trouble of obtaining travel permits unless they intend to use them. Take another index which again I know is not accurate—the balance of passenger movements. You had in 1948 a surplus outward movement of 12,592.

In 1949 it was 7,829 and in 1950 it was a + figure of 196. Again, I know these figures are not reliable. I think they are less reliable than the figures relating to the issue of travel permits because a great many people may cross the Border on foot and come back by bus or vice versa.But let us face this quite apart from figures. I do not know what the emigration figures are at the moment and I do not know whether the Taoiseach knows or whether he has made any inquiries.

The Taoiseach

Unfortunately they cannot be got.

Mr. MacBride

That may be convenient for the Taoiseach at the moment.

The Taoiseach

No. It is not.

Mr. MacBride

We may take it as axiomatic that the higher the unemployment rate the greater will be the emigration rate. I think that is axiomatic. I think the figures in the past have shown that to be true. The more unemployment you have the more people will emigrate. It is quite obvious.

The Taoiseach

It is not so obvious.

Mr. MacBride

May I put it this way? I know of cases in the city, men who have been in employment particularly in the building industry, bricklayers and carpenters who were laid off work. They cannot get work. They remain out of work for a fortnight or three weeks. They look for work and they cannot get it. They can get it in England and they go there. That happens daily.

The Taoiseach

It depends upon whether there is work available elsewhere.

Mr. MacBride

There is construction work available in England as the Taoiseach knows.

The Taoiseach

There is unemployment.

Mr. MacBride

Is the Taoiseach trying to make the case that there is no emigration?

The Taoiseach

No. I only want to be accurate. If the Deputy looks for accuracy let us have it.

Mr. MacBride

The greater the unemployment figures the greater the emigration rate will be. Will the Taoiseach agree with that? Is the Taoiseach not prepared to commit himself? I suggest that is the position. I think any fair examination will show that to have been the position. Likewise the highest rate of emigration usually comes from the counties where you have the highest rate of unemployment. The highest rate of emigration comes from Donegal, Leitrim, Mayo, Galway and Kerry. I think Clare comes next. They are the same counties in which you have the highest rate of local unemployment.

We are all agreed that probably one of the worst evils that this country has to deal with is that which results from emigration. We are all agreed also that unemployment is certainly one of the most serious problems facing this country. We need not, therefore, waste time discussing the social consequences of unemployment and emigration nor in discussing the hardships which it imposes on the people who are affected by it. But I think that the economic consequences of unemployment are not realised and I think that that is one of the things which the Taoiseach ignores. It is one of the facets of the problem which he does not examine because he is so ready to accept the views of the conservative school of economists who advise the Government.

I would ask the Taoiseach to try and work out an estimate for himself at the moment of how much the 87,000 people who are unemployed cost the State. Would he agree with me that on an average it certainly does not cost less than £2 per week each?

Mr. Hickey

How much?

Mr. MacBride

£2 per week each it is costing the State. That is £174,000 per week. The State is at present paying out that sum because of the present unemployment crisis. Quite apart from and in addition to the direct cost of unemployment, does the Taoiseach appreciate that revenueloses very considerably because you have 87,000 people who are not earning and spending? I think it is agreed that the revenue collect something like 6/- in the £ from every wage-earner in the country, paid by way of tax on cigarettes, on drink, on cinemas and so on. Obviously the revenue is losing a large sum because 87,000 people are unemployed and are living on an income which precludes them from contributing to the revenue.

Accordingly, I think it would be of considerable interest to try and have an actuarial assessment made of the actual cost of unemployment to the State because if such an actuarial assessment were made it would show, I think, that the present rate of unemployment is, in fact, costing the State something like £200,000 per week. If we could once get that picture in our heads——

Mr. Hickey

I am suggesting that it is £20,000,000 per year.

Mr. MacBride

The figures are about the same. If we could get that picture in our heads and the capital sum it represents, we can realise the capital sum which we should be prepared to spend in remedying unemployment, and then we could begin to tackle the problem. I would ask the Taoiseach seriously to ask the Statistics Department to prepare an estimate of, first of all, the actual cost of 87,000 people who are unemployed by way of contributions, insurance payments and public assistance payments; and, secondly, the estimated loss of revenue which results from unemployment. In addition to that, the national income loses because the 87,000 people who are unemployed would be contributing to the national wealth of the country if employed in productive employment, and would create fresh wealth which would add to the national income. On the one hand, the State loses in what it has to pay in relief and unemployment payments and in what it loses by way of revenue, while, on the other hand, the nation, in addition, loses the proceeds of the additions to the national economy which the unemployed would contribute if they were employed.

What are the causes of the present unemployment crisis? I think that can be summarised in the reasons which the Central Bank gave for the pursuit of the policy which the Government has, in fact, been pursuing.

The Central Bank advised the abolition or the reduction of food subsidies not merely as a budgetary measure in order to balance the Budget but in order to reduce consumption by the public, in order to reduce the purchasing power of the public, in order to reduce the purchase of consumer goods. They advised, next, the imposition of additional taxation on consumer goods —also in order to reduce the purchasing power of the people so that they would consume less. They advised restriction of credits—also in order to reduce expenditure within the country so that there would be less employment. They advised the reduction of public works—also because in that way there would be less employment and, of course, the more unemployment there is the less consumption there will be and the more people will emigrate.

In the past few days the Taoiseach has been rather vehement in protesting that the Government did not accept the Central Bank policy but, in point of fact, the Government has carried out the Central Bank policy step by step and implemented every single one of their recommendations. The Taoiseach may say now that they did implement the Central Bank policy but that they had different reasons from those expressed by the Central Bank for implementing it—but the Central Bank pointed out the results which they wanted to see achieved by the implementation of their policy. They practically said, in so many words: "We want to create unemployment in the country. In view of the unusually favourable state of employment in the country we recommend the cutting down of public works."

The Taoiseach

Why were they so vicious as to seek that aim?

Mr. MacBride

I am only quoting their words. They belong to a school of economists who believe that unemployment is a desirable thing becauseif you have unemployment the people will consume less, workers will not seek increases in wages and you can keep wages down. I think the Taoiseach has had discussions with some of the members of the Central Bank in the past. He will probably have found that they do not regard emigration as being terrible—that they regard it as being more or less inevitable and possibly desirable. I am not accusing the Taoiseach of wanting unemployment or of wanting emigration but I am accusing him of pursuing a policy which can lead only to emigration and unemployment and of having done so with his eyes opened not merely by the speeches in this House by members of the Opposition but by the Central Bank itself who, in its report, did not hesitate to declare its objective, namely, the reduction of employment in the country because if employment were reduced the people would consume less.

I do not propose to quote at length from the Central Bank Report. It has been quoted in this House over and over again by other Deputies. We know the Central Bank advised the reduction of public works because of what they term "the unusually favourable condition of employment in the country." We know also that they advised the cutting down of building because of the labour content of building. The Taoiseach asks me why they advised such evil policies. I suggest that the Taoiseach should ask that question of the directors of the Central Bank.

Mr. McQuillan

Why did you, when you were Minister, not oppose the reappointment of the directors of the Central Bank of whom you are now speaking?

Mr. MacBride

I did my very best to ensure that they would not be reappointed.

Dr. Browne

Where were you?

Mr. MacBride

Deputy Dr. Browne took very little interest in economic matters when he was a Minister. He had better join Fianna Fáil if he wants to help them along, and stay out of this.

Dr. Browne

"Paris Correspondent."

Mr. MacBride

I know it is awkward for Deputy Dr. Browne to listen to this when he is supporting the present Government. Possibly the Taoiseach might ask the Secretary of the Department of Finance who is, after all, the head of the Civil Service, who is the principal economic adviser to the Government and who is one of the leading directors of the Central Bank, why, in their report, they advised the creation of unemployment. Let us examine the steps that have been taken, one by one. The purchasing power of the community was reduced, as I said a few minutes ago, by the removal of the food subsidies, by the imposition of additional taxes and by the restriction of credits. The other day the Taoiseach—I think in reply to something I said—remarked that he saw no evidence of any restriction in credits, that he had not had an opportunity of examining the position recently but that he did not think there was any evidence that credits were restricted. I wonder if the Taoiseach's attention has been drawn to a report which was circulated by the Department of Finance? It is an extract from a "country survey" published recently by O.E.E.C. It might be well if I explained how these "country surveys" are compiled. O.E.E.C. publish an annual report which is very valuable because of the amount of statistical data which it contains. The annual report embodies a number of country surveys giving information concerning different countries.

These country surveys are prepared from particulars and memoranda submitted by the different Governments. There was always great insistence on that, lest anything might be embodied in one of these country surveys that might create an awkward situation for a Government of a member country. Therefore, in practice, these "country surveys" are usually prepared from drafts and memoranda submitted by the Governments concerned. I notice that this particular extract from the O.E.E.C. report containing this "country survey" was circulated by the Department of Finance here. Ithink that even if that had not been indicated I might, possibly, have detected the source of the information contained in the country survey because it contains many of the well-worn clichés of the Department of Finance, A lot of the material in this "country survey" is just tendentious nonsense but, despite that, we get some useful information in it. On page 7 of this Department of Finance circulation we read the following statement:—

"The 1952 Budget was designed to replace a deficit on current account in the 1951 Budget by a balance, and thus to obtain a reduction in the volume of consumers' expenditure——"

which is what the Central Bank advised should be, and which, in fact, was done by the Minister for Finance in his Budget.

"The effect of budgetary policy on demand has been supported by a tighter monetary policy."

It goes on:—

"In March, 1952, the rate on bank advances was raised from 5 per cent. to 6 per cent., that on bank deposits from 1 per cent. to 1½ per cent. and bank rate from 2½ per cent. to 3½ per cent."

I should like the Taoiseach to listen to this. He probably has not had an opportunity of reading or studying this document. I think he should listen to it with care. He may take it that it is a document written by his principal economic adviser.

Mr. Cogan

On a point of order. May I ask what particular paragraph Deputy MacBride is quoting from? I ask that because I think he has omitted several sentences.

Mr. MacBride

Of course, I have. With regard to the Budget I am quoting from paragraph 807. I quoted the first sentence which reads:—

"The 1952 Budget was designed to replace a deficit on current account in the 1951 Budget by a balance, and thus to obtain a reduction in the volume of consumers' expenditure."

That is all I am quoting from that paragraph.

Mr. Cogan

Why not read on?

Mr. MacBride

The Deputy can read it to his heart's content. It goes on to talk about a reduction in the food subsidies and the increase in indirect taxation. The next sentence in paragraph 808 which I want to quote is, I think, of tremendous importance. It reads:—

"The volume of bank advances fell by 2 per cent. in the second quarter of the year. The tighter credit policies now prevailing have no doubt, to a minor extent, been responsible for the change from accumulation to the running down of stocks."

In the light of that, can the Taoiseach come to this House and say that he was not aware that there was any restriction on bank credit? Possibly the Taoiseach's attention was not drawn to this document.

The Taoiseach

I did not see any such figures before I went away.

Mr. MacBride

I am afraid that the Taoiseach's attention may not have been drawn to that matter, but he can take it that this document was drawn up in the Department of Finance, based on memoranda supplied by the Department of Finance, and if they tell him now that there was no restriction on bank credits they are misleading him. The Central Bank Report had, of course, advocated the restriction of credits. Mr. Ganly, the Governor of the Bank of Ireland, immediately afterwards, in identical terms, declared to the court of proprietors of the bank:—

"It is, however, necessary to say that in present circumstances the bank is not disposed to lend its support to unproductive or speculative transactions or to projects which, though perhaps estimable in themselves, may very well be deferred to a more opportune time."

That is a restriction on credit and was bound to create unemployment. Inevitably, it was bound to create unemployment. Likewise, the increasein the bank rate was bound to restrict credit and create unemployment.

The effect of economic policies is referred to in the fourth report published this year at pages 88 and 89. It does not refer to countries' surveys which are referred to in the general portions of the report drawn up by O.E.E.C. and not by individual Governments. Paragraph 193 of the report, dealing with monetary policies, states:—

"In the United Kingdom the bank rate was raised by ½ per cent. in November, 1951 and was made effective at the new level, this being the first increase in 19 years, except for a very temporary rise in 1939. A further 1½ per cent. rise to 4 per cent. in March, 1952, induced a major movement in the Treasury Bill rate and the rates for other short term securities."

I would like the Taoiseach to mark the next sentence:—

"Steps were taken by the United Kingdom Government at the same time to prevent the higher interest rates from adversely affecting the housing programme."

No such steps were taken here.

"In Germany, the Netherlands and Belgium, the official discount rates were raised during the early phase of inflation following the outbreak of the Korean war, but were subsequently lowered to meet changing conditions."

They were not lowered here to meet changing conditions nor were any steps taken to safeguard the housing programme or the capital development programme which we had. It goes on at paragraph 194:—

"Increases in official discount rates not only made credit dearer but also tended (apart from the controls examined below) to make it scarcer since they were interpreted by the banking system as an indication of the Government's determination to obtain a more restrictive lending policy."

There is no doubt in the world that the banks here felt that it was the desire of the Government to restrict credit.No doubt, the Taoiseach laughs. Why should he not if it was the Government's policy, and that of the Secretary to the Department of Finance, one of the leading directors of the Central Bank.

Mr. Hickey

He said lately we should increase the rate to get more money.

The Taoiseach

I did not hear what the Deputy has said.

Mr. MacBride

After all, when motions were tabled in this House asking the Government to dissociate itself from the policies and remedies advocated by the Central Bank, and particularly on the restriction of credit, the Government refused to do so. They did not accept these motions and did not make any statement indicating to the banks that they did not wish the banks to restrict credit. On the contrary, they gave their unofficial sanction and blessing to the policies advocated by the Central Bank and the banks generally. Let us get this clear. I am not suggesting that there was any formal letter from the Government to the banks telling them to restrict credit—that is not the way these things are done—but I do suggest that the Government were in a position to make their wishes known to the banks either through the Secretary of the Department of Finance, a director of the Central Bank, or through the Governor of the Central Bank, or through many of the other channels which the Department of Finance use to keep close contact with the banks in the country.

I do not think I am the only person in the country who thinks that the increase in the bank rate was unnecessary and damaging. I was interested to find that the Taoiseach's own newspaper, The Sunday Press,recently published views of certain well-known economists in regard to this very question. If the Taoiseach will bear with me, I should like to quote them to the Taoiseach in case he did not see them since his return. In the issue ofThe Sunday Pressof the 18th January, an interview with Professor Busteed is published in which Professor Busteed says:—

"The basis of our economy is agriculture, and agriculture is incredibly inefficient by European standards. Denmark, little more than half the size of the Republic, produces 25,000,000 tons of crops to our 7,000,000. I cannot be persuaded that the Irish farmer is inferior to his like elsewhere in intelligence, capacity for hard work or enterprise. A major defect in his position is gross under-capitalisation..."

I should have mentioned to the Taoiseach first that these interviews followed a statement made by the Tánaiste which is quoted in a panel in the centre of the page. The statement attributed to the Tánaiste was:—

"It could not be said that the State's commercial banking organisation was designed to develop the nation's economy.

It was more than time that the bankers considered changing it."

Dealing with that statement, Mr. J. P. Colbert, in a column headed "Says Former Industrial Credit Chief," made the following statement:—

"Mr. Lemass may have been referring to the astonishing fact that four of our leading banks have their headquarters outside the Twenty-Six Counties—two of them in London and two in Belfast—and that another leading ‘Irish' bank is totally British-owned!

Or he may have had in mind the raising of the Irish bank rate following the increase in the Bank of England rate—which I, for one, regarded as quite uncalled for."

Mr. Hickey

He did not say that when he was chairman of the corporation board.

Mr. MacBride

He says it now. I continue the quotation:—

"Then, again, he may have been referring critically to the restriction of credit here on the directive of the Bank of England—an action which, again, I consider was also quite unnecessary."

If I had made a statement of that kind, of course, I would be accused of being irresponsible in this House.

Mr. Hickey

You would be told you were talking nonsense.

Mr. MacBride

Deputy Hickey would be told exactly the same thing. The Taoiseach would look down his long nose, shake his head and say that he had been taught that 50 years ago and had forgotten about it.

Mr. McQuillan

Why did not you talk like that when you were in the inter-Party Government?

Mr. MacBride

If Deputy McQuillan is not careful he will hear a few things about himself. Deputy McQuillan's chief interest in this House seems to be to try to help the Government while pretending to be opposed to them. He knows that his constituents in Roscommon would not re-elect him if they realised that he was supporting the Government. Therefore he puts on a show of opposing the Government while, in fact, trying to help them wherever he can.

Mr. McQuillan

I would like to see you challenging me in Roscommon.

Mr. Dillon

He would beat the socks off you. He would not leave the colour of you on the ground.

Mr. McQuillan

When Deputy Dillon lost his seat he had to go to Monaghan for it.

Mr. MacBride

These are views of responsible people who cannot be accused of being actuated by political motives in expressing them. Nor, I suppose, can it be suggested that The Sunday Presswas trying to embarrass the Government by publishing such views. Do not they form a complete indictment of the policy the Department of Finance has been pursuing?

Mr. Colbert followed that interview a couple of weeks later by a full-blooded article which was also published in The Sunday Pressin which he again deals with the question of the bank rate and with the question of directives from the British Treasury. InThe Sunday Pressof the 1st February Mr. Colbert, in the course of his article, writes:—

"As indicated, one of the Irish banks operating in the Twenty-Six Counties is owned by a London clearing bank. Another is an independent bank with headquarters in Belfast. Two others have their headquarters in London, one of which is a member of the London Clearing House and is, therefore, subject to the Bank of England in regard to its ‘directives'.

In regard to the ‘directives' of the Bank of England as regards, for instance, as previously mentioned, a 10 per cent. cut in hire-purchase finance as from last September in Britain and a general restraint in lending to individuals and, indeed, to manufacturers producing consumers' goods, one may ask: Did the ‘directive' operate in regard to the four banks with headquarters outside the Twenty-Six Counties?

In the case of the increase in the Bank of England rate by 1½ per cent. to 4 per cent. it would seem that, ‘directive' or no ‘directive', the Central Bank of Ireland promptly ‘followed suit' and set a headline by raising the published ‘discount rate of the Central Bank of Ireland' from 2½ per cent. to 3½ per cent. on March 25th, 1952.

One of the obvious defects in the Irish financial organisation was the lack of regular acceptance house and discount house business. Why should the Irish Central Bank, following a British Government decision—based anyway on a doubtful financial technique—follow an increase in the Bank of England rate?

The following of the increase has not even the merit of recognising the radical change in the Bank of England technique since before the war..."

He then proceeds to deal with the changes in the Bank of England technique and to draw attention to the fact that the Bank of England is now subject to the British Treasury.

Is it not quite clear that the whole monetary policy of this country is practically directed from London? I am not suggesting to the Taoiseach that he is accepting directions improperlyin this matter but is it not quite clear that the action of the banking system in increasing the bank rate, which undoubtedly the Government sanctioned, was influenced from London? Is it not quite clear also that this is one of the direct causes of unemployment?

Mr. Hickey

There is the increase of interest for individuals who are building houses.

Mr. Dillon

It amounts to 12/- per week on the rent. That is what is stopping housing.

Mr. Hickey

It amounts to 12/4 per week.

Mr. Dillon

The Small Dwellings (Acquisition) Act housing is stopped. The Government stopped it and they wanted to stop it.

Mr. Cunningham

What about the reply to the question to-day about cement?

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

What about allowing Deputy MacBride to continue?

Mr. MacBride

I must say that when Deputy Dr. Browne thought fit to jump in to the rescue of the Government when he thought the arguments were going against them I was reminded of some declarations that he made about a year ago in this House. On the 19th March, he declared:

"There was a time when the British sent over their recruiting agents here. In order to build up their armies and to increase their strength, they took our young men to fight in their wars and to build up their empire."

Then he went on:—

"Now we are seeing the American dollars being sent across for a similar purpose."

Of course the Minister for Finance encouraged Deputy Dr. Browne and Deputy Cowan in their anti-American propaganda because it suited him. We had a speech from the Minister for Finance referring to this country beingput in pawn to a foreign nation. But, be that as it may, the suggestion that American dollars were being sent here for a similar purpose is nonsensical.

Is it not true that the creation of unemployment conditions here, the restriction of credit, the general financial policy which has been carried on here are, in the final analysis, destined to force a large section of our people into the British Army by creating unemployment conditions here? Would it not be well that we should face up to these problems and tackle them seriously?

I do not know whether the Taoiseach is taken in by the jargon of the Department of Finance theorists, whether he seriously believes in inflation or not. I remember that the Taoiseach made a speech some time ago in this House, I think it was on the motion dealing with the Central Bank, in which he said that he did not know whether it was inflation or not, but that the Government's policy was not based on the theory of inflation or the theory of deflation. The truth is that there is no inflation in this country in the ordinary sense. Any inflation here is inflation created by the Government's own policy, because the Government has been the greatest contributor to the increase in prices in the last 12 months by the removal of the subsidies and by the imposition of additional taxation on consumer goods. That is one single factor which increased prices more than any other factor.

The Taoiseach

Will the Deputy answer this question: Does he believe in deficit budgeting at the present time or not?

Mr. MacBride

I think that question is beside the point, because I think that the Taoiseach in attempting to avoid deficit budgeting has in fact succeeded in creating deficit budgeting. I think he has succeeded in imposing a burden of taxation which has resulted in reducing the earning power of the community to such an extent that his budget estimates will not be achieved.

The Taoiseach

The first question is: What are we aiming at? Are we aimingat having a balanced Budget or not?

Mr. MacBride

I think that is not the vital question. The vital question is, what is your objective? Is it your objective to try to provide a policy of full employment, or is the objective to be the objective of the Central Bank and the Department of Finance, to maintain unemployment deliberately and to create inflationary conditions? That is what they say in their own report. The Government so far has not publicly dissociated itself from these views.

Mr. Hickey

I take it that the Taoiseach is speaking of balancing the Budget in terms of money?

The Taoiseach

It is by means of the money that we get in that we meet our expenditure.

Mr. Corry

We have to pay your debts.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

Deputy MacBride is in possession.

Mr. MacBride

I would commend the Taoiseach to read this O.E.E.C. document prepared by the Department of Finance with great care. I read some portions of it already and I shall read another portion because of indications which the Minister for Finance gave the other day in a speech he made in regard to wage policy. At page 285 they say:—

"There is some danger that the beneficial results which, by reducing the volume of consumers' expenditure, the Budget changes might have on the balance of payments may be lost by subsequent rises in wages."

Then in the next paragraph they refer to unemployment and they say that the effect of unemployment has not reached serious proportions. I should like the Taoiseach to listen to the first sentence of paragraph 810 which reads as follows:—

"The fact that unemployment has not reached serious proportions is largely due to continuing heavy emigration."

It has not reached large proportions, according to this document, but there is a heavy drain of emigration which is in accord with that school of economy.

If the Taoiseach reads his own speech on inflation, I think he will find in his own speech that he has absorbed some of the theories of the Department of Finance economists and the Central Bank economists. I would refer him to the speech he made on 23rd April, 1952, in this House, column 232:—

"As I have said, our Budget, as far as I am concerned, was not related to any ideas of inflation or deflation. I would have been very anxious if there were suggestions that it was simply to deal with inflation as such."

Rather typically then, the Taoiseach proceeds to qualify all that:—

"There are inflationary tendencies. If I am told that such-and-such is an inflationary tendency, I have got to close my eyes if I do not want to see it prevented in a certain form. But I cannot help seeing it. I know, for instance, that if you have widespread capital expenditure in this country, wholesale capital expenditure—suppose you had that and that it was not immediately productive and not likely to be—surely you are putting our purchasing power in advance of the goods that were to be purchased, and you are creating an inflationary situation."

The Taoiseach

Now, is that true or not?

Mr. MacBride

It may be. It depends on what one means by an inflationary situation, and it is there I immediately join issue with the Taoiseach and with the Department of Finance theorists. I do not agree with their definition of inflation.

Mr. Dillon

In reply to the Taoiseach, it is bound to be true because it means three different things.

The Taoiseach

It cannot mean three different things.

Mr. Dillon

It can, and nobody knows which.

Mr. Hickey

While there is a sufficiency of goods there is no fear of inflation.

Mr. MacBride

At column 233, the Taoiseach, after some references to the Fine Gael Party, goes on to say:—

"... I could not deny their contention that expenditure, even the large capital expenditure that we were contemplating ourselves in the past, would in the present world circumstances lead to inflation."

The Taoiseach

Or an "inflationary tendency" would be more accurate.

Mr. MacBride

The Taoiseach continues:—

"Therefore, the Government will be in the difficulty of choosing carefully its road so that, on the one hand, the necessary development will take place and that, as far as possible, employment, the end to which our greatest effort should be directed, will be available for our people so that they will not have to emigrate. These are the fundamental things which we have got to aim at."

We are all agreed on that, but I do not like the next sentence:—

"I will admit that we have there the danger that, if we try to remedy the evil, we will introduce this other danger of inflation by over-capital development and over-capital spending."

I think that sentence epitomises in a nutshell the Taoiseach's hesitancy and the Government's policy which has resulted to-day in 87,000 people being unemployed. This spectre of inflation has been so presented to the Taoiseach and to his colleagues by both the Department of Finance and the Central Bank that they have allowed it to dominate their policy, thereby creating conditions which have resulted in the present grave unemployment crisis.

I do not know whether it will be of any assistance to the Taoiseach if I draw his attention to the fact that the O.E.E.C. report says, at page 184:—

"Generally speaking, therefore,there is at the present no inflationary pressure."

The report is dealing there with European trends. It states specifically that there is no inflationary pressure. If, of course, one asks our Department of Finance for their opinion, they will always say that there is inflation. The Minister himself more or less laid down the same policy in his Budget speech —we had to be very careful not to indulge in too much capital expenditure because it might create inflation, because there might be too many people employed, and the more people employed the greater the danger of inflation, because people in employment naturally spend money and thereby might create inflation. That is the equation.

The Taoiseach

Surely they produce?

Mr. MacBride

That is the equation. The Taoiseach must now choose between accepting the economic theories of the last century, which largely, I believe, have given rise to Communism in the world, and a more enlightened economic policy, the principal aim of which is the provision of full employment for the people. I do not think there is any middle course.

The Taoiseach

Is there not?

Mr. MacBride

There is no middle course between these two economic theories. It is not a question of socialism against capitalism. It is a question of what is the objective of the financial and monetary system of the country. Is the objective to be the provision of work for the people or is it to be the creation of conditions of unemployment so that wages will be kept at a low level and so that there will be a degree of poverty in the country in order to maintain these conditions?

The Taoiseach shakes his head as if he does not believe that. If the Taoiseach will analyse the position he will find that what I say is true. Dealing with the question of credit policy, I think the Taoiseach must now, in the light of the evidence I have put before him, admit that there has been a restriction of credit. I want to makeit quite clear that the restriction of credit has to be measured in relation to the purchasing power of money at any given time and if the purchasing power of money depreciates by 20 per cent. or 25 per cent. obviously the extent of the credit necessary to cope with such a situation must be proportionately increased by 20 per cent. or 25 per cent. It is useless quoting the amount of credit extended by banks 20 years ago and to compare it with the figures to-day. Likewise, the extent of the credit extended by a bank to any given customer a year ago, or two years ago, bears little or no relationship to the amount of credit the same customer requires to provide the same services to-day. The fall in the value of the purchasing power of money necessitates a proportionate increase in credits so that any examination of the credit position must be made in the light of the fall in the purchasing power of money within the last two years.

The Taoiseach

Or the changing needs of the people who got credit.

Mr. MacBride

I am quite prepared to add the changing needs, and I am sure that the Taoiseach will look to the needs of the 87,000 people who are unemployed at the moment largely because of the restriction of credits. I think it is admitted that there has been a restriction of credit and I think that is now beyond controversy. Can the Government do anything about it? The Government can, of course, remedy the position, but so far we have had no indication from the Taoiseach and the Government of their intention to remedy the position. The attention of the Government has been drawn to the matter over and over again in the course of the last 18 months. Time and time again questions have been asked and motions tabled.

The Taoiseach

And there was no evidence of it in any of the figures I saw before I went away—none.

Mr. MacBride

There are none so blind as those who will not see. It is quite possible the Taoiseach's attention was not drawn to it.

The Taoiseach

That is not so. I looked for these things.

Mr. MacBride

This has been circulated by the Department of Finance. It is not my concoction

The Taoiseach

All I know is the figures of bank advances had not diminished——

Mr. MacBride

This was circulated by the Department of Finance on 4th February this year.

The Taoiseach

For what period? Obviously after the changing of the rate.

Mr. MacBride

For the year ending December, 1952. It is a clear statement to the effect that the volume of bank advances fell by 2 per cent. in the second quarter of the year. The increase in the bank rate itself was an additional restriction of credit.

The Taoiseach

It was not.

Mr. MacBride

Of course it was, yet that policy was pursued.

Mr. Hickey

There was a reduction of over £7,000,000 in the amount of advances for last year.

The Taoiseach

That is in the later part of the year. I looked for figures for the earlier part of it and they gave no indication that this was a deliberate restriction of credit.

Mr. Dillon

The O.E.E.C. report deals with the period March to June.

The Taoiseach

I know. The figures were not available at the time.

Mr. MacBride

That is the value of a debate such as this. It is very seldom a debate is of any value but occasionally I think it is because very often members of the Government are not informed of things of which they should be informed. I think the Taoiseach should not be placed in the position of coming into this House and hearing me quoting these figures from the Department of Finance document for the first time. His attention should have been drawn to these mattersmonths ago, not now. The whole of that document deserves attention because it represents the Department of Finance viewpoint and it points out that the purpose of the Budget was to obtain a reduction in consumer expenditure which is exactly what the Central Bank says also.

The only way the present position can be remedied is by reversing this policy. The Taoiseach could now get up in this House and relieve the position to some extent by making a categorical statement in regard to the views of the Central Bank, the Department of Finance notwithstanding, that he desires the banks to relax credit restrictions and to relax them proportionately to the fall in the purchasing power of the £ which has taken place over the last year. If he does that within a short number of months we will see the employment position improved. If he does not do that the employment position will stand not necessarily at the figure at which it now stands but proportionately worse than for the last three or four years.

This will be a very difficult situation to remedy. There is no quick remedy for this position. The deflationary spiral has been set in motion. Unemployment breeds unemployment. The more people you have unemployed the less they buy and the net effect of the budgetary policy and the financial policy of the Government has been to reduce the purchasing power of the community. If the people buy less the shopkeepers will sell less. They will buy less from the producers and the manufacturers. The producers and the manufacturers in their turn will lay off people and then you have unemployment. The more unemployment you have the less people buy. That is a deflationary spiral and we are in the middle of one; it is quite a difficult thing to stop.

In addition to the reversal of the general economic policy the Government has been pursuing, I think we have reached the stage, in Dublin at any rate, where it will be necessary to have some kind of relief schemes. Iam not in favour of relief schemes. They are usually wasteful and uneconomic but the situation has reached such dimensions now that the responsibility is on the Government to make some effort to provide employment by means of relief schemes of one kind or another, whether it is by building roads or otherwise. One scheme that would be of immense advantage in the city of Dublin and might be of value later on would be the building of a tunnel to relieve some of the traffic congestion that exists at the moment. The Government might make a contribution in that direction by providing a considerable amount of work. Of course, it would take some time to draw up plans but the Government should introduce some relief schemes to deal with the position as it exists at the moment.

In case the Taoiseach has some doubt as to whether the Government has power to influence the credit policy of the banks, I would like to remind him of a certain statement made in this House in that regard by the present Minister for External Affairs, Deputy Aiken, when he was speaking here on a motion which I tabled in regard to the development of our resources. At columns 355 and 356, Volume 129 of the Dáil Debates of 31st January, 1952, he said:—

"The Central Bank has the power to control bank credit in this country if it wants to exercise it, and the Government of this country has the power to select and appoint the directors of the Central Bank... Section 50 of the Central Bank Act gives the Central Bank the power to control credit... The Central Bank has not the power to shoot bankers, but it has the power if they are lending too little or lending too much to make them cover a percentage of their deposits in the Central Bank, interest free. It has the power to compel the commercial banks to do that."

At column 359 of the same volume, the Minister for External Affairs castigated me rather severely for suggesting that the banking system was largely controlled by the British Government. He said:—

"He said that the banking system here was largely controlled by the British Government. That is not true. Our commercial banks are subject to the control of the Central Bank."

I gather that even The Sunday Pressin the articles written by its columnists who suggested that the Central Bank operates under directives from the British nation——

The Taoiseach

That, surely, was not said by anybody.

Mr. MacBride

The Taoiseach might like me to read their articles again.

The Taoiseach

No, but I do not think that was said. What has been suggested is that the commercial banks, but not our Central Bank, act under directives of the Bank of England.

Mr. MacBride

"In the case of the increase in the Bank of England rate by 1½ per cent. to 4 per cent. it would seem that, ‘directive' or no ‘directive', the Central Bank of Ireland promptly ‘followed suit' and set a headline by raising the published ‘discount rate of the Central Bank of Ireland' on March 25th, 1952, from 2½ per cent. to 3½ per cent."

The Taoiseach

There is a difference surely.

Mr. MacBride

If the Taoiseach reads it he will see the inference is that they acted in unison with the British Treasury, and as regards the commercial banks, they acted on the basis of directives from the British Treasury.

A good deal of the discussion in this debate has ranged over the question of the investments in sterling assets and investments held by the Government and by the banks in England. I have spoken longer than I should have and do not propose to deal with that now. I would like to have another opportunity of examining some figures the Taoiseach gave, because I have some doubt as to whether the basis on which those figures were compiled is the correct one. I want to make it quite clear, frankly, that as regards materialsupplied by the Department of Finance, I am sceptical—I question it. I will accept any information supplied by the Central Statistics Office.

The Taoiseach

Except when they give figures for emigration.

Mr. MacBride

I would like to know the basis of them, as I do not know any basis for figures regarding emigration reckoned year by year except the census.

The Taoiseach

Not actual figures— estimates.

Mr. MacBride

Before concluding on the question of bank investments in England, I would refer the House to the actual position as it is at the moment, according to the last returns of the bank reports. This by no means represents the total sterling assets held by the commercial banks here. They have total assets amounting to £235,000,000—more, possibly—but looking through their investments you find that the five associated banks here have invested in British Government securities £122,500,000, whereas they have invested in Irish Government securities only £10,250,000. In other words, they lent £122,500,000 to the British Government of the Irish people's money, but they will lend only £10,250,000 to the Irish Government. It is very hard to blame the commercial banks for pursuing that policy if the Department of Finance and the Central Bank pursue the same policy themselves.

I think the lead has to come from the Government. I am not suggesting that any steps should be taken to compel the banks to alter their investments, but I think that, so long as the Central Bank and the Government itself give them the headline and the encouragement to invest in England instead of investing in Ireland, they will pursue that policy. It certainly seems fantastic that we have a Central Bank here which can boast of not having one single penny invested in Ireland, that we have five associated commercial banks lending £122,500,000 to the British Government and only £10,250,000 to the Irish Government and making bones about providingmoney for the Dublin Corporation and other bodies that require it. That is the position which undoubtedly requires attention.

I would have liked to draw the attention of the House and of the Taoiseach to some of the advice contained in the Industrial Survey prepared under the E.C.A., but I have taken too much time already, so I will cut down the references. This survey is entitled "An Appraisal of Ireland's Industrial Potentials" and was compiled, not by Deputy Hickey or myself, or Deputy Dillon, but by American businessmen, economists, with no axe to grind in our own politics.

Mr. Hickey

They were well paid for the work, too.

Mr. MacBride

On page 20, they say:—

"The fact that the Central Bank has made no use of its statutory power to invest its legal tender reserves in Irish Government securities has handicapped the development of an active domestic capital market in Ireland which is one of the country's primary needs."

Are those people wrong? Are they dangerous revolutionaries? Are they irresponsibles? Why should so many people come to the same conclusion?

Mr. Hickey

Page 21, too, is very striking.

Mr. MacBride

Yes, there are plenty of striking things in it. There is this comment on page 20 also:—

"Irish political independence was won through a long, bitter and gallant struggle that established a republican Government for 26 out of the 32 counties of Ireland, for more than 80 per cent. of its land area and 70 per cent. of its population. By contrast, Ireland's economic ties to the United Kingdom have persisted with only minor abatement."

Mr. Hickey

Go on to page 68. The Minister for Lands would be interested.

Mr. MacBride

At the end of the book, on page 92, they say:—

"We return, at the end, to a theme that has run like a chain of linked traffic signals throughout our analysis of the Irish economy—the degree of Ireland's economic linkage to the United Kingdom which is inconsistent with its passionate commitment to political independence. The effectiveness of political sovereignty will continue to be vitiated while the Irish economy remains so decisively dependent upon the United Kingdom as a market for its exports, as the purveyor of its shipping services, as its major source of import supply, and in its financial and fiscal services."

Further on, they say:—

"The status of economic dependence permeates the psychology and outlook of all but a few of the boldest spirits who are concerned with the management of Ireland's economic affairs. Procedures in most economic fields continue to be modelled upon British procedures even at a time when, demonstrably, they are working far from well in the country of their origin."

Mr. Hickey

It will not be said that they are talking nonsense, I hope.

Mr. MacBride

I appeal to the Taoiseach to consider this question objectively and away from Party politics.

Mr. Hickey

Every member of the House should consider it.

Mr. MacBride

These are grave issues which have been preventing the progress of the nation over the last quarter of a century. There is general agreement now on all sides of the House that the time has come when these matters should be tackled. Deputy Costello has made a number of very valuable and constructive proposals in regard to the creation of an investment board here. Undoubtedly, one of the biggest problems is the provision of investments. He has also proposed the establishment of a money market here. I think the Taoiseach should examine the proposals carefully and possibly invite a committee of this House to discuss them and the changeswhich require to be made in the structure of the Central Bank and in the policy of the Department of Finance and to lay the foundations for the development of a proper banking system, that would be controlled by the country—but not in any governmental sense—and whose aim would be the development of this country rather than the accumulation of assets in Britain which are, for the most part, lent to the British Government.

Mr. McQuillan

I propose to make my remarks as brief as possible. The first matter that occurs to me is that there is an air of unreality about the discussion so far. If there were any doubt whatever about that being true, those who have listened to the last speaker can have no further doubts as to the fact that this House has now become a debating society or talking shop. Listening to the last speaker, if one had come into this House for the first time, one would undoubtedly have the impression that here was a man who, if the opportunity were given to him, would put into effect all those great suggestions and plans which we have heard outlined here for the last hour and three-quarters. Any innocent lamb who might have strayed into this House would have felt like saying: "What a pity Deputy MacBride has not the control of the interests of this country." I should be the last Deputy to suggest that the previous speaker is not an able man. I want to pay a tribute to his abilities——

Mr. MacBride

I can get on quite well without it.

Mr. McQuillan

——as a public representative and a senior counsel, but I think it is only fair that the general public should realise that all this talk about a change in our financial system—a change with which I am in full agreement—comes from a man who had three years as a Minister of this State in which to carry out portion of his policy——

Mr. Dillon

And in every hour of which period he fought tooth and nail for it.

Mr. McQuillan

——and who, duringhis entire period in office, made little or no effort to carry out that portion of the policy for which he was returned to this House and for which the public returned ten Deputies to help him in his fight.

Two matters have been discussed on this Estimate—unemployment and the cost of living. Tied up with the problem of unemployment is the still more serious problem of emigration. I do not intend to bore the House with a repetition of the facts and figures given by previous speakers with regard to the seriousness of the emigration problem, but I want to make it quite clear that the remarks I have to make are made by me as an Independent Deputy, with no ties with Fine Gael or Fianna Fáil. My only ties and my only responsibilities are in respect of the people who elected me, and, whether the people now in opposition like or dislike my remarks, I say them because I believe them to be substantially true.

I have figures here in connection with emigration which have been taken from the 1951 census report and these show that, between 1926 and 1936, a total of 166,751 men and women left this country; that between 1936 and 1946, 187,111 people left the shores of Ireland; and that between 1946 and 1951 a further 119,568 emigrated. I want to draw the attention of the House to the fact that the last period I have mentioned is only a five-year period, whereas the other periods are ten-year periods. Yet, in the last five-year period, almost as many people left as in either of the other two periods. There is a lesson for this House in that, because during that period, 1946-1951, we had both the inter-Party Government and a Fianna Fáil Government sharing the responsibilities of office. No side of the House is entitled to lay the blame for emigration completely at the door of whatever Party happens to be in power.

Let us see what Deputy MacBride as a Minister in the previous Government tried to do with regard to this problem. A subject which was discussed in this House on many occasions was the problem of the hand-won turf and of who had been responsible for the decision to cease production of hand-wonturf in 1948. I understand from Deputy Morrissey that the previous Government were responsible for the decision to discontinue that scheme. I wonder how many Deputies realise that a decision had also been taken by Bord na Móna to close down a number of the bogs where semi-automatic machines were at work. I happened to be a member of a political Party at the time and I spent a considerable period touring the areas where development work was in operation on these bogs, until I got full particulars of all the bogs about to be closed down.

I was responsible for a deputation from the Clann na Poblachta Party which met the then Minister for Industry and Commerce, Deputy Morrissey, and which suggested to him in very strong terms that if these bogs were not reopened, it would be a very serious matter for the Government. I want to put this on record, that Deputy Morrissey, through all that period, showed himself to be as anxious as any member of the Party to which I belonged to ensure that as many as possible of these bogs should be reopened. My reason for mentioning the year 1948 is to point out that thousands of young men left the West of Ireland and the turf areas that year due to the fact that the hand-won turf schemes were dropped. I do not care who took the decision to drop them. Even if it was Fianna Fáil who dropped them, it was no excuse, because if the next Government had been serious, they could have reversed the decision and kept the bogs open or could have reopened those which had been closed. I felt at the time like taking some drastic action within my own Party, but I hoped that the situation would improve as time went on. When 1949 came, Deputy MacBride, who has given us such a lengthy and intelligent speech on the financial structure of the State, had an opportunity, with the arrival of devaluation, of putting some of his pet theories into operation.

Mr. MacBride

In fact, he had not, because the law did not permit it.

Mr. McQuillan

He was elected to this House to make laws——

Mr. MacBride

And so was Deputy McQuillan.

Mr. McQuillan

——but he preferred to shelter behind the excuse that he was afraid to break up or disrupt the Government in power at the time, and we had patience with him once more.

Mr. MacBride

That is untrue.

Mr. McQuillan

He did very little at that time to put into operation the Clann policy on finance.

Mr. MacBride

That is just untrue.

Mr. McQuillan

Then 1951 came and we are now coming very near to last year.

An Ceann Comhairle

Is the Deputy coming near to what the present Taoiseach is responsible for?

Mr. McQuillan

It is suggested that the financial policy pursued by this Government is the root cause of all our evils to-day and I am suggesting that if Deputy MacBride is entitled to spend an hour and a half attacking the Government for pursuing the type of policy that he himself pursued for three years, we are entitled to point that out to the House, and to ask why he did not take action to change the policy in operation when he had the opportunity.

In 1951 a decision had to be made with regard to the Central Bank directors. They were due for reappointment during that year. I have heard frequently from Deputies on both sides of the House plenty of criticism of the Central Bank and its directors. There has been no more vocal critic of the Central Bank directors than the leader of the late Clann na Poblachta Party.

Yet in 1951, when the opportunity was there for Deputy MacBride, as a Minister of the then Government, to ensure that directors would be appointed who would carry out a policy more in keeping with the ideals of the people of this country, he did not avail of that opportunity. Instead, Deputy MacBride, like the quiet boy he then was, fell in with the wishes of his colleagues and allowed the reappointment of these directors of the Central Bank, the same bank which is nowblamed by Deputy MacBride for all our economic ills, our emigration and our unemployment. We heard here last night, and again to-day a taunt flung at the Fianna Fáil Government as to why they had not taken steps to repatriate our sterling assets, why did they not bring home the money we have in England and utilise it here in Ireland. I am trying to draw a picture of the air of unreality which surrounds this debate and I hope it is not going to be suggested that I am acting on behalf of Fianna Fáil.

Mr. MacBride

What else are you doing?

Mr. McQuillan

I am out to expose the sham and the hypocrisy of people like Deputy MacBride. It is a well-known fact that for the period during which Deputy MacBride was in office our sterling assets increased by £30,000,000. Where was the policy of bringing home our sterling assets then?

Mr. Dillon

Fianna Fáil says we ruined the country by bringing home too much of them.

Mr. McQuillan

I have no dispute with Deputy Dillon whatever and Deputy Dillon should realise by now that Deputy MacBride is quite capable of fighting his own battles.

An Ceann Comhairle

Deputy MacBride is not the subject matter of this debate.

Mr. McQuillan

Having said so much about the air of unreality that has overshadowed this debate, I think I should say that it is essential that immediate steps be taken by the present Government to ease the unemployment problem. A suggestion has been thrown out by a Deputy here that the Government should start relief schemes. Deputy MacBride suggested that he was not in favour of relief schemes. The poor man does not know what a relief scheme means because for the last 20 years nothing but relief schemes have been in operation throughout rural Ireland. I wonder do the Government at the present time realise the seriousness of the unemployment situation? I shall give an examplein a rural area of what I consider to be a very serious state of affairs. In this House to-day I mentioned an electoral division, Kiltullagh, in County Roscommon. In that half parish there are 408 holdings of land. Three of these holdings have a valuation of less than £3, 48 have a valuation of less than £5, 40 have a valuation of less than £9, 18 have a valuation of approximately £19 and two have valuations of over £51. Nobody can suggest that that area is anything other than an agricultural slum.

When I use these words I do not intend to be critical of or insulting to the people who live there. In that half parish alone there has been for years past a stream of young boys and girls leaving yearly for England. The extraordinary thing about it is that there has been a high marriage rate in that locality. The only employment given in that area has been provided by a bog development scheme or a minor relief scheme from October to February every winter. That is a relief scheme and, to my mind, is no solution for the problem facing the country to-day. There is no security and no permanency of employment in that type of work.

To bring home forcibly to the Government what things are like in that electoral division, I might mention that three weeks ago on a Wednesday in a small Garda barracks 115 men signed on, on the unemployment register. That is a half parish in rural Ireland. In the last couple of years in that same half parish, 59 passports were issued to young people, 57 of whom went to America and two to Canada. In that locality there are several houses closed up and the few acres surrounding them are set to neighbours while the entire families who formerly lived in these houses—fathers, mothers, sons and daughters—have gone to England to try to earn a few "quid". The hope lingers in the minds of these people that some day they can save enough to come back to that little spot in Cloonfad. What a delusion! I do not care what Government is in power, to allow a situation like that to continue is a crime against the nation. We have no greater wealth than our youngpeople and yet we drive them from the countryside to work in Britain, year after year, while Deputies get on their feet in this House and pay pious lip service to the problem of solving emigration. For the last 30 years I think from every pulpit in Ireland churchmen have bemoaned this terrible problem of emigration. Every politician that gets up on a wall bemoans it. None of them has done anything about it except talk. Between 1926 and 1951 we got rid of 473,430 people by emigration. It is safe and sound to say that under the last 30 years of successive native Governments more people left this country than the British drove out in any comparable period with the exception of the Famine years.

The Taoiseach's Estimate which is under discussion covers what took place during the last 12 months. In other words, the year in respect of which the Estimate was drawn up will shortly come to a close. I think that discussion on the Estimate at this time of the year is a waste of time. I also think that changing the good-looking men from this side of the House to the opposite side as a Government is not sufficient. I think that a change of heart and outlook is necessary in this House.

Mr. Hickey

Hear, hear!

Mr. McQuillan

There is too much talk to-day of making political capital out of the mistakes of your opponents. I suppose that in politics everything is fair and you are entitled to take advantage of any slips by your opponents, but when those slips affect the livelihood of thousands of our people, then we cannot afford to play politics in this House. That is what is being done for years past.

I will try to give the House an idea of what the Taoiseach said when he came into office in 1932. I do not propose to quote exactly what he said, but I will try in my own way to give the House an idea of what he meant to say. He said he would work with the machinery at his disposal for the purpose of ending emigration and that, if necessary, if he found the machinery at his disposal was not sufficient to do the work or that it was impossibleto carry out his policy with the machinery at his disposal, he would work outside that machinery.

With all due respect to the present Taoiseach, I think he has had 21 years in which to test that machinery out fully. Without prolonging the discussion to prove my statement, it is fair to state that the 21 years which have elapsed have proved that the machinery was inadequate for the work. The solving of unemployment and emigration were the two things that the present Taoiseach always had in his mind since he came into office. I do not think that either he or his Party can claim to-day that great success has attended their efforts. I do not think that 87,000 unemployed is a credit to any Government. Personally, I have no confidence in an organisation that is prepared to carry on with the old machinery to try and solve a problem which is as bad to-day as it was 21 years ago. Why, in Heaven's name, cannot Fianna Fáil, when they see that emigration is as bad now as it was 20 years ago, change the machinery? Why do not they change the financial system?

During the last six or eight weeks Deputy Lemass, Minister for Industry and Commerce, has referred, on a couple of occasions, to the financial structure and he expressed his satisfaction with the banking system. He suggested that the banking system here was mainly in the interests of the depositors, that there was no question of a banking system here for the purpose of lending money for capital development and so forth. He was quite right. I think the words he used were: "It was more than time the banks considered changing the system themselves." He was referring to the commercial banks.

But who can blame the commercial banks for pursuing the policy on the lines they are following when the example is set them by the Central Bank? Figures have been given to show that the Central Bank has £80,000,000 invested in England. The Central Bank and the commercial banks all worship this idea of fluidity. I listened one night to Deputy Aiken, Minister for External Affairs, suggesting that it would be wrong if the Statehad any control of the money that was deposited in the various banks. He suggested that when the farmer put his money in the bank he was entitled to draw it out whenever he felt like it and that if the State had power to invest the money instead of the bank the money might not be available to the farmer.

I saw in my own constituency where one particular farmer got £95 for live stock at a fair. He borrowed a fiver from another man to make it an even £100 so that he could lodge an even £100 in the bank. The idea of the ordinary man down the country is that that money is left in a cellar some place with big weights on top of it to prevent it from being blown away whereas the actual value of that money is being utilised outside this country.

The headquarters of some of those banks are outside the State and it is well known that any financial transactions which take place in Ireland are controlled from England. We, therefore, have the sorry sight of that farmer putting his £100 into the bank here while the value of that £100 is being used in England for the purpose of making armaments. The farmer's two sons leave the country and go to England to work in the armaments factory. That is the lunatic financial policy that is being pursued to-day in this country.

This matter should be approached with caution but there is no need to frighten the lives out of the people in the country by saying that their money will be seized. They could be told that they are free to withdraw the money at any time just as happens in the case of withdrawing money from the Post Office. Could not the same type of liquidity apply to investment as in the case of money put in the Post Office? The money should be utilised at home for national development instead of allowing it to go to Britain. That is the system we want to see changed. I do not believe Fianna Fáil will do it and I do not know what the Opposition will do about it.

I am concerned now with trying to find out if there is any hope that someParty is prepared to say: "We will not co-operate in any half measures but we will support a Government that is prepared to put into operation a policy of full control over our financial system." I want to see some Party in the House doing that. The only Party I can see any hope of doing it is the Labour Party. That is their policy, and it has been their policy all through. I wonder what will happen in future general elections. I wonder if we shall have the same thing again. I am completely disillusioned in regard to political Parties in this House. I regret to have to say that I cannot trust them. I should like if, before a general election—even if it should come off in the morning—each Party were asked to outline specifically its policy in regard to finance so that the country could judge how serious the various groups are about tackling the problems that face us. It is all very well to make a speech at the chapel gate, at the crossroads or elsewhere on an election platform, and to say: "Put them out and put us back. Then you will see what we will do." I maintain that no matter what Government may be in office, they can do very little to ease or solve the problems that are facing the country to-day unless they have control over our finances. No matter how genuine the motives of Parties may be, it is all useless unless they have the courage to take a big and drastic step and to face the matter with an independent approach——

Mr. Hickey

That is all that is needed.

Mr. McQuillan

Why has that not been done in the past ten or 15 years?

Mr. Hickey

Because of vested interests.

Mr. McQuillan

I have heard Deputy Dillon argue more ably on this matter in this House than I can, and yet what has he been able to do about it?

I come now to the problem of the cost of living. I understand that a motion is being taken on this Estimate in connection with the cost of living —a motion that stands in the name of Clann na Talmhan. I think there is room in this House for Fine Gael,Fianna Fáil, Labour and Independents, but I am puzzled as to where Clann na Talmhan fit in.

Mr. Donnellan

Two out of four in South Roscommon.

Mr. McQuillan

The sooner they make up their mind to join up with one of the other Parties the better for the farmers whom they allege they represent.

An Ceann Comhairle

That does not seem to be relevant on the Taoiseach's Estimate.

Mr. McQuillan

I want to make it relevant in this way, Sir, if I may. The Clann na Talmhan motion deals with the cost of living. I cannot understand how this organisation has the neck to put down a motion like this and, at the same time, to ask for an increase in the price of milk—or were they serious when they asked for an increase in the price of milk?

Mr. Cogan

They voted against it.

Mr. McQuillan

If a Party comes into this House and say that they will speak for the farmers of this country, then surely they ought to be in the forefront of the fight to ensure better standards and a better deal for the farmers. Instead, we had not a squeak out of Deputy Blowick or a grunt out of Deputy Donnellan.

An Ceann Comhairle

All that concerns the Clann na Talmhan Party. I do not see how the Deputy can tie that up with the Taoiseach's Estimate.

Mr. McQuillan

I have criticised the Government and I have criticised the Opposition. The two matters that need to be dealt with are agriculture and industry. I am not going to deal in detail with either the one or the other except to say, with regard to industrial expansion—and in that category I include major projects such as electrification and Bord na Móna production—that I think we have been taking things very easy.

Deputy MacBride quoted from a report by American experts—a report which lets us see ourselves as others see us. It is no harm to have a littleoutside criticism and to know what other people think. Their views on the methods adopted by Bord na Móna are very enlightening. Their criticism of the expansion that has taken place in rural electrification is very enlightening. Their remarks on power stations, and so forth, are worth reading. The Minister for Industry and Commerce and some Deputies have suggested that tremendous strides are being made with regard to electrical power development in this country. We are led to believe that by 1956 we shall have doubled our output of electricity and that then we shall be on the pig's back. At the present time 6 per cent. of our energy for industrial purposes is supplied by the E.S.B. By 1956 we shall have doubled our output so that the E.S.B. will then be supplying 12 per cent. of our actual needs. On the other hand, coal is imported into this country and supplies 45 per cent. of the energy required to keep our industries going. I do not want to embarrass Bord na Móna by quoting the criticism that has been made of it except to say that in my view its advance has been painfully slow.

Bord na Móna is a State body which could help in a very big way to ease unemployment and to stop emigration. What is happening to-day? Near Castlerea, in my own constituency, Bord na Móna developed a number of bogs in the past five or six years. The latest information which I have received is that they are closing down all except one of these bogs in the coming season. That will mean that 300 or 400 men will lose their employment on the bogs there. While that is happening, coal will be allowed to come into the country. We have no Party or group in this House who will get up and say: "While Bord na Móna are able to produce a first-class fuel in this country at an economic rate, and can sell it at a reasonable price, we will not allow coal to be imported." Has no Party in this House the courage to say: "We are sorry but you will not get coal whether you like it or not. We have a good substitute in Bord na Móna turf"? That is the way to do business: take an iron stand. The country needs a Party with couragethat is prepared to do more than talk. If some Party is willing to act on those lines the people will follow it faithfully, once it becomes obvious that it has the courage to do so.

Another of the matters under the industrial wing which needs attention is An Foras Tionscail, the body which was set up to help industrial expansion in the West of Ireland. I see on the Sunday papers plenty of boasting that there is going to be so-and-so, but I see nothing established so far in the West. It is quite possible that there will be a few factories started, but Foras Tionscail is only nibbling at the problem. When the Undeveloped Areas Bill came before this House it got support from Fine Gael, Labour, and all concerned, and the Minister got the blessing of this House to go ahead with it. What has happened? The purpose of that measure was to encourage industrialists, through private enterprise, to go down to the West of Ireland and set up industries there which, normally, they would feel like establishing in Dublin. In other words, it was an enticement to them, that is to say, that it would be made worth their while to leave Dublin and go to the West of Ireland.

In the way that measure has been operated since, nothing practically has been done. Before financial assistance is given to an applicant who is anxious to set up an industry in the West of Ireland, he must prove the exact loss he is going to suffer if he goes there rather than by setting up the industry in Dublin. That is how the Civil Service has reversed the wishes of this House. There you have a good measure going to waste simply and solely because the Civil Service is allowed to put its interpretation on what should be done contrary to what this House decided should be done.

I would like to suggest to the Government that there is one way in which they can set a good example with regard to development in rural Ireland, especially the West. The criticism has been levelled at various Governments that Dublin is getting top-heavy, that before long most of our people will be either living in Dublin or moving over to England. No onecan deny that the problem of overcrowding in Dublin is getting very serious. The Government should embark on a policy of decentralisation. There is no question but that the more Departments you have in Dublin the more you will attract people from the rural areas to come to where those Departments are situate. If, for example, you had the Department of Social Welfare in Cork, and the Department of Lands in Galway, you would reverse that trend, and so would keep people away from Dublin. The tendency for people at all times is to move towards headquarters. Consequently, if you had the headquarters of various Government Departments set up outside of Dublin, you would be taking away the emphasis and the allure that Dublin has for people in the rural areas.

Finally, I want to refer to the question of agriculture. I am sure there are many Deputies who will be speaking on this when I conclude. My submission is that agriculture cannot be treated or should not be treated on its own as a separate Ministry as it is at the present time because of the fact that the problems of agriculture and land division are so closely bound up. There is a lot of talk in this House about the farmer, that he should get this and get that. The position of farmers in the West of Ireland, the Midlands and the South of Ireland is completely different. We have the fantastic position to-day that the Land Commission, which has been operating for more than half a century, has not yet solved the problem of congestion. We have in the West of Ireland areas than can only be described as wholly uneconomic—agricultural slums. Anyone travelling from Athlone to Dublin will realise that when passing through Moate and Kinnegad or from Roscommon through Mullingar or through Portarlington to Tullamore or by Rathangan. It would be well worth while for any Minister to travel through that country and see huge farms of land with not as much as one beast to be seen in some fields.

In that situation we read every other day in the newspapers of such and such a farm being bought by Colonel So-and-so.I could mention for the Taoiseach a chain of farms in Westmeath and Meath which are now in the hands of various retired British colonels. While Irishmen are leaving to work in the factories of Britain, a silent conquest is taking place, with Englishmen moving in to take over the rich fertile lands in the Midlands. That is going on and the native is going. Are we unable to offer a solution for that or afraid to put down the heavy hand on the interlopers coming in from abroad? I wonder can I, as an Independent in this House, be expected to say anything other than that I am disillusioned. The picture that I have tried to paint did not start 12 months ago. It has gone on during the last 20 years. It went on during the period when I supported the inter-Party Government. It has gone on since and I wonder when it is going to change.

I should like the Taoiseach, when he is replying, to assure the House that he is fully alive to the seriousness of the unemployment question at the moment. As an Independent, I should like to hear what immediate solution the Taoiseach and his Government have to try and rectify that position. I could not, in conscience, do anything except criticise severely this Government for the situation that now exists. They have been two years in office, and there is no good at this stage in blaming their predecessors for what is happening at the present time. That excuse might have held water last year, but to my mind it does not hold water to-day. I think that we are entitled to have a statement from the Taoiseach as regards the steps that are going to be taken before the end of March to try and ease off this unemployment situation. The debate on this Estimate is practically ten months too late. Consequently, we are talking now of what has taken place when we should be talking about what is going to take place. From that point of view, a great deal of this discussion to-night has been in the air. I hope, at any rate, that the debate will bring home to the Government the seriousness of the unemployment situation we have to-day.

I would like if the Taoiseach could state to the House that the Governmentare alive to the fact and that they have more to offer than statements that we are going to expand such and such an industry, that we are going to set up a power station in Arigna or in Lanesboro'. Things like that are 100 per cent. I am all behind the Government in those plans but plans like those take time. In the words of the Tánaiste, it will be at least two years before coal is needed for the new generating station in Arigna. I am only using that as an example. The long term plans are good but what are the immediate plans to relieve the situation that faces us to-day?

Mr. Dillon

Facts are the most eloquent of all arguments. The number of unemployed in Ireland at the end of January 1953 was 87,283 persons, the highest figure since 1943. In January 1951, shortly before the Government of which I was a member left office, the number of unemployed registered in this country was 65,900, which was one of the lowest figures ever recorded. By June, when certain automatic changes in registration took place, of which we all have cognisance, our Government left office and at the date most recently ascertainable before we left office the number of unemployed registered was 35,300. I ask the House to note these developments: In the following September the number of unemployed was 40,500 and it was in that September that the Government White Paper on budgetary policy was brought before this House and the policy of our successors declared to institute a deflationary spiral in our economy on the ground that our people were eating too much and living too well. The net result of that was that, within 18 months, there are 73,700 unemployed in this country and emigration flowing at a pace greater than it has flowed since 1923.

Why is the House astonished by that? Surely they heard us tell in the debate on the White Paper, in the debate on the Budget, in the by-election campaign in Waterford, Limerick and North Mayo, that if the policy of the Government were pursued, its inevitable and logicalresult would be the creation of unemployment, the depression of trade and the compulsory emigration of large numbers of our young people.

Is there anyone in this House who forgets those warnings? Is there anyone in this House who denies that they were repeatedly given at every stage of the Government's deflationary policy as they put it into operation?

The Taoiseach yesterday afternoon, in winding up, says that he believes that the alarming increase in unemployment in the country is largely due to the panic stockpiling of his predecessors in office. Is it true or is it not true that for 18 months in this House Fianna Fáil contended that there was not any stockpiling? Have not they argued here and abroad, have not they bruited it at every international conference where the opportunity came for them to bruit it, that their predecessors in office dissipated our external assets on a spending spree, that there was no stockpiling, that there was nothing but the importation of consumer goods which enabled our people to eat too much and live too well? That was the full measure of their indictment. To-day we are all expected to believe that the unemployment problem which confronts us derives from the fact that we stockpiled too much and the Fianna Fáil Party, with their customary cynical confidence in the shortness of public memory, expect our people to swallow both those stories and to accept them both as alibis for Fianna Fáil performance.

But the Taoiseach did not stop at that. He was determined to be a little more circumstantial. He said that having examined the thing closely, he had come to the conclusion that this unemployment deriving from the excessive stockpiling was very largely due to the stockpiling, not of timber or of articles like that but, he said, of textiles and readymade clothing.

I refer now to the Industrial Analysis of the Live Registerpublished by the Department of Industry and Commerce in February, 1953. It sets out the categories of employment in which unemployment has increased and in which unemployment has decreased inthe recent past and, if the Taoiseach had looked at this before he came into the House, he would have discovered that his alibi in this respect is a bit weak if he alleges that excessive purchase of textiles and clothing has created a serious exacerbation of unemployment because, under the heading of textiles, there is a material reduction in unemployment; it is one of the few headings of the unemployment returns which show that there are fewer people unemployed than there were 12 months ago.

If we turn then to clothing, we discover that this is another of the heads under which there is a substantial reduction in unemployment as compared with 12 months ago. But, if we turn to building, here we find 4,709 men who have lost their jobs. These are the men who are registered. This does not include the numbers that have gone abroad to get work in England. Is it surprising? Fianna Fáil protest that they are not aware of any reduction in building in this country.

What do they think the rate of interest on loans was designed to do? Are they aware that in the last six months any young man who wanted to get a loan under the Small Dwellings (Acquisition) Act to build his house has been required to pay 2 per cent. more than he had to pay heretofore? Do Deputies of the Fianna Fáil Party understand what that means? If that house costs £1,600 to build in addition to the grant, and he has to borrow, the increase in that man's weekly rent is between 10/- and 12/-. There are hundreds of young people in this country who, faced with that prospect, simply had to make up their minds that they would not build and the men, the labourers, the carpenters, the plasterers, who were idle and who wanted to build those houses for those men, were told to go and draw the dole or seek work in Great Britain. Is Fianna Fáil blind to that fact? It may not mean much to the Government that in the retail shops of this country unemployment is running at a higher level than for many years, and shop assistants have to live the same as anyone else. Unemployment in the bakery trade is higher than it has been formany years because the people are eating less bread.

I want to state most categorically that I now accuse the Minister for Finance of deliberately creating unemployment by his fiscal policy. I now assert that one of the purposes the Minister had in mind in removing the food subsidies, in increasing interest rates generally, was to create unemployment so that the full employment we had created would be brought to an end and wage rates might thereafter be brought down.

Can anyone challenge this fact—I am sorry that Deputy McQuillan has gone —that three years ago, in order to get our housing programme going, we had to take the unprecedented course of advertising in the English Press for Irish craftsmen working in England asking them to come home?

Will anyone deny that we had to get up in the Department of Social Welfare a special section to bring men in England into contact with prospective employers here so as to make straight their path in coming home to help in the housing drive then in operation? Will anyone deny that with the land rehabilitation project we called men home from the ends of the earth and that they gladly came from North Africa and Suez when they were afforded an opportunity of earning a living here. To-day, the men we brought home are being sent abroad again. The land project machinery is to be sold. The Small Dwellings (Acquisition) Act is to be virtually wound up by making the cost of money available for loans under it too dear for any ordinary employed person to avail of it.

Fianna Fáil themselves admit that, because when the Dublin Corporation proposed to apply the increase in the interest rate forthwith their own Deputy went to the Minister for Local Government and to the Minister for Finance and told them that if this imposition were put on those who had houses in mind or in the process of building it would ruin them, and the Minister for Finance and the Minister for Local Government directed the Dublin Corporation to stay their handand to continue to give money at the old rate because they stated: "If you do not, building under the Small Dwellings (Acquisition) Act will stop and there will be dislocation enough when that happens; but we are satisfied that it would be utterly unjust that those who are actually in the process of building should be called upon to bear the burden." The thing is admitted, and what astonishes me is that Fianna Fáil can admit it to-day and come into the House on the morrow and deny it.

What has happened in the last two years? Something has happened. Two years ago, there was full employment in this country. That is very generally agreed. Two years ago, business of all sorts was thriving and prospering. Two years ago, the farmers were working hard, full of optimism and going ahead. Two years ago taxes were coming down, yet the revenue derived from them was going up. Two years ago the cost of living had gone up by about three points in as many years. To-day, all are agreed on all sides of the House that unemployment is at a higher point than it has been for very many years. All are agreed on all sides of the House that emigration has suddenly become an acute problem. All are agreed that there is a very serious diminution in the rate of housing. All are agreed that business is stagnant, that shopkeepers and business people are in a state of relative distress. All are agreed, and even the Taoiseach to-day conceded, that stringency of credit has grown greater with the passage of every week. Finally, the farmers who were "going places" two years ago, now find themselves walking the streets, thrown into Mountjoy Jail, or sent home to-night with the news that the Fianna Fáil Party triumph in the fact that they smashed them in their strike.

What has brought all that about? Something has happened. It did not happen by chance. I suggest to the House that as certainly as dawn follows dark, it followed on the White Paper and the Budget of the present Minister for Finance. It was his fiscal devices which stopped housing. It was his fiscal devices which raised the cost of living on everybody in this countryto the point that their purchasing power dwindled away. It was his fiscal devices which left men standing idle with no alternative but emigration or the dole. It was his fiscal devices which raised the cost of living in respect of tea, sugar, bread and butter on every farmer in this country, and put upon him the additional duty of meeting, by increased agricultural wages, the increased cost of living of every man that worked for him, until we were straight up against the situation which brought the most respectable elements in our community out on the roads to do things that our farmers were never naturally inclined to do, to follow the leadership commended to them and thrust upon them by the Fianna Fáil Party, only to discover, when they accepted it, that the Party which thrust it on them betrayed and jeered them as they put them in jail.

I can remember the Fianna Fáil Party exhorting the farmers to rally to the ranks behind Mr. Fletcher and Mr. Barry. I can remember them denouncing me because I would not endorse that recommendation and receive these persons as the representatives of the farmers; and I saw the very men who urged them to follow that leadership throw them into jail for doing what that leadership induced them to do and jeering at them when they succeeded in breaking their strike. I beg them to reflect on the triumph they achieved. I do not envy them their triumph. I do not envy them their thought that for the second time in 20 years an Irish Government has emulated bloody Balfour in its zeal to throw the farmers into the cells of hard labour prisons. It makes me happy to think that no Government with which I was associated ever created a situation in which the necessity could conceivably arise to throw the best elements of our people into hard labour prisons. Let those who delivered them into the hands of the men who led them in due course, by conduct which afforded that opportunity to a rotten Government depending on a rotten rump to make jailbirds of them, examine their consciences.

Mr. Cogan

You are wild because we settled it.

Mr. O'Higgins

The only thing you settled was the cooking of your own goose.

An Ceann Comhairle

Order!

Mr. Dillon

A settlement is a poor thing to provide at the expense of jailing anybody. Let it be remembered that justice could have been done without jailing anybody and it will be done no doubt after Fianna Fáil has laid the soothing unction to its soul that it has the power and commands the strength in Deputy Cowan, in Deputy Cogan and in Deputy Dr. Browne to turn the key of the prison gate on the farmers of this country. Thank God, they helped to put us out. The fact we shed them purified the public life of this country. You have got them now, and I earnestly pray you will keep them until they vanish from the nauseating spectacle we have to contemplate to-day.

(Interruptions.)

I ask the House to ponder on the fact that employment here depends ultimately on the prosperity of all our people. There is no creature here, whether he be a trade unionist, or a doctor, or a lawyer, or a civil servant or anybody else, but derives his living and his standard of living in the last analysis from the land. It is the people who live and get their living on the land who must determine how the rest of our people will live. I say that the land of this country and the people who get their living on it can secure for our people a higher standard of living than is available in any other agricultural country in the world if they are given the chance but I warn the House that the present critical days are merely an indication of a far greater danger that lies ahead.

Agriculture is the industry on which everybody in this country ultimately depends for the ability of our people to export profitably. The profit on our agricultural exports is the difference between what we get for them and what it costs us to produce them. We can strive by negotiation and agreementto get in foreign markets the best available price that can be got and we have done a very good job in that regard. But if we proceed to pile up on the farmers increased costs of production, believing that we can compensate them by giving them certain guaranteed prices on the domestic market, we are mad because we cannot control the price on the market abroad and unless we are going to pay foreigners to purchase our goods and consume them we have to get from the foreign consumer not only the cost price of what we produce but that price plus a profit for the farmers who live upon the land.

If the cost of production in the agricultural industry is raised very much further, whatever compensatory prices are fixed in the domestic market, exports will cease to be profitable and if exports cease to be profitable Deputies must ask themselves this question: what paid for the imports that employed every industrial worker here in the last 12 months? If the raw materials which constitute the employment of a great body of our industrial workers in this country had not been brought in, how many unemployed would we have here to-day? I do not want to go into the detail in which Deputy MacBride dealt with this matter. Though I do not agree with all that he said, I think he made an extremely able speech. If Deputy McQuillan—he is no longer in the House—can persuade himself that Deputy MacBride is insincere in the views he expressed to-day, then I say that he is quite mistaken. If there is one man who has been consistent in the advancement of these views ever since he entered public life that man is Deputy MacBride.

Mr. Cogan

You opposed him.

Mr. Dillon

Indeed I did in many ways and for reasons that the Deputy would not understand. Let me turn to simpler concepts which I expect Deputy Cogan to grasp although I do not expect him to digest them. Taking the broad view, in 1947 the total exports of this country realised £39,000,000. In 1952 they realised £100,000,000. Is that a vindication ofthe policy of the inter-Party Government?

Mr. MacEntee

No.

Mr. Dillon

Does that show that the policy we operated was paying dividends? Does that conform with the forecast we gave as to what would ensue as a result of a courageous policy of investment in our own resources? I think it does.

Mr. Cogan

Borrowing $140,000,000 to be repaid.

Mr. D.J. O'Sullivan

Not at 5 per cent.

Mr. Dillon

We borrowed £42,000,000 and when we went out of office we left on the desk of the present Minister for Finance £24,000,000 sterling.

Mr. Cogan

To pay your debts.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

Order!

Mr. Dillon

If he thought that there was the slightest suspicion of improvidence in the borrowing that we had done, he could have called his secretary and told him to take that £24,000,000 round to Merrion Square and leave it into the American Ambassador to be credited against our borrowing under Marshall Aid. There was nothing to stop him. He had both the right and the power to do it. Instead of doing that, what did he do? We had laid out with care and circumspection over a period of two and a half years £18,000,000 in building houses, in the rehabilitation of land, in drainage projects that had waited 20 years to be undertaken and in other capital development jobs. We spent that sum combined with the savings of our own people, savings that we asked them to commit to our care. In two and a half years we spent £18,000,000. In six months the Minister for Finance spent every penny of the £24,000,000 we left on his table and then he persuades a simple creature like Deputy Cogan that there was something to be deplored in this borrowing of Marshall Aid. He has never yet succeeded in explaining even to Deputy Cogan, if it was deplorable, why, when he had thechance to repair two-thirds of the borrowing, he did not jump at it. He did not do it because it would not have been the wise thing to do, but he spent it foolishly. It should have been there as the support of a capital development programme in this country for the next five years but every penny of it is gone and that Minister spent it in six months. There was never in the history of this country, a more conservative programme of credit policy than that operated by our Government. There was attached to every pound that was borrowed under the Marshall Plan a proviso in the Central Fund Act of 1949 that a sinking fund must be established, designed to extinguish the entire borrowing in 30 years and provide for 3 per cent. interest per annum although there was a liability for only 2½ per cent. in respect of the moneys borrowed from the United States. There is no other record in our legislation of a borrowing policy on such a conservative line as that and I challenge the Minister for Finance to deny it.

In the years of our administration our national income rose from £239,000,000 to £352,000,000 and I ask the House to note this point because I think it requires to be made. In 1947 the tax revenue of this country was £54,000,000. We reduced tax rates; we reduced the income-tax, the tax on beer and on tobacco and we maintained all the subsidies. The tax revenue was £65,000,000 in 1948, £71,000,000 in 1949, £74,000,000 in 1950, and £77,000,000 in 1951. During the whole of that period, so far as I know, the only addition that was made to tax rates was 2d. per gallon on petrol and it was offset by substantial reductions in tax rates.

We suggested to this House and the country that the right way to raise revenue necessary for extending Government services was to extend the national income and to draw from that increased revenue at stable rates of tax. We prophesied that if we had the opportunity of investing in the land and in the lives of our own people, the increased employment and the increased yield on employment whichwould result therefrom, would give us in the tax revenue a steadily expanding yield, without increasing tax rates, which would greatly improve the standard of living to which we thought our people entitled. I think we were right and I think the Minister's deflationary policy has revealed that he is wrong. But what causes me concern is that I doubt if we can reverse his policy in as short a time as I think it is necessary we should do.

I want to say this because I think it is important to be said. There is a steady propaganda campaign going on in this country, operated by vested interests, to prove the case that the farmers of this country are lying down on the job. I hear every Minister in the Fianna Fáil Government—except the Minister for Agriculture who has been in a muzzle for the last six weeks —the Minister for Finance, the Minister for Industry and Commerce, the Minister for Posts and Telegraphs, all out telling the farmers that they are lazy and incompetent.

These gentlemen have one thing in common, they would not know hay from oats if they saw it growing and they have the impudence and the insolence to tell the agricultural community of this country, on whom they, in common with everybody else in this country, are living, that they are lying down on the job. I repudiate that and I appeal to the figures. The value of the gross agricultural production at current prices, making allowance for the changes in live stock, in 1945 was £96,000,000; in 1946 it was £94,000,000; in 1947 it was £99,000,000; in 1948 it was £116,000,000; in 1949 it was £127,000,000; and in 1950 it was £129,000,000. But that is not all. Into the land of this country during the period that that gross production was produced the farmers in this country put feeding stuffs and fertilisers— feeding stuffs ultimately benefit the land in the form of manure—to the value of £8,000,000 in 1947; £11,800,000 in 1948; £15,000,000 in 1949 and £18,700,000 in 1950.

I want to assert this, that the farmers of this country, given a chance, are doing a better job than any otheragricultural community in Europe. I repudiate with emphasis and with all the authority of which I dispose the thesis propounded by chancers at home and abroad that the agricultural community of this country are not fit to manage their own holdings. I see some people rambling into this country telling our farmers how to manage their own land and when I go and look at their land and compare it with the land on which our farmers work, it amazes me that they have the brazen-faced audacity to pose as experts on grass growing. In regard to some of the gentlemen advising us on grass growing, there are as many blades of grass on every foot of our own grassland as there are on an acre of theirs and I have walked them both.

I venture to say a lot of Deputies in this House have suffered themselves to be persuaded that there has been a material reduction in the production of milk in this country. The quantity of milk delivered to creameries in this country went up by 40,000,000 gallons between 1945 and 1950. Does anybody in this House believe that? I think a great many Deputies are persuaded that the dairying industry is dwindling away and that all the farmers are sitting down doing nothing. There was more milk being consumed in the Cities of Cork and Dublin before this strike than ever was consumed in the recorded history of either city. It was produced and brought into the city by the farmers of this country, and much thanks they got for it.

I hear Fianna Fáil Deputies glorying in the alleged fact that the cattle population has gone down. The fact is that there are 320,000 more cattle in Ireland to-day than there were in 1948.

Mr. Corry

You are daft.

Mr. Dillon

Wait a moment. This is easily tested. I quote the figures of the Central Statistics Office of the Republic of Ireland. The total cattle population in January, 1948, was 3,531,000. The total cattle population of Ireland in January, 1952, was 3,854,000. Do a bit of subtraction; let Deputy Corry get out a stump of a pencil and see if those figures are right,and if he doubts them let him waddle away down to the Library and he will find them there.

Mr. Corry

You have them already.

Mr. Dillon

The total number of sheep in January, 1948, was 1,628,000; in January, 1952, it was 2,004,000; and it has been substantially increased since then. The total number of pigs in January, 1948, was 369,000; in January, 1952, it was 551,000; and it is now nearly 700,000.

Let us face this fact. The denigration of the farmers has gone far enough, we have reached the nadir of the slander campaign, when they have been adjudged worthy to be thrown into Mountjoy Jail. I do not approve of the farmers demeaning themselves by parading the roads to challenge their neighbours who go on their lawful occasion. I think it is a very rare farmer who would pour milk on the road, and 99 per cent. of the farmers would deprecate and condemn that conduct. It is a lie to say that farmers injured or inhumanely treated cattle in the course of this quarrel.

Mr. D.J. O'Sullivan

Only one newspaper stated that.

Mr. Dillon

I think it is a disgusting thing that some of the decentest men have been jailed, and I bitterly resent it. When the wealthy bakers of this city notified our Government and our successors that if they did not get the farthing on the loaf of bread they would starve the citizens of Dublin, no bakers were put into Mountjoy; when the transport workers announced that they would not bring the people home from the Christmas shopping, no transport workers were put into jail; and when the bank clerks announced that the banks would be closed indefinitely, no bankers or bank clerks were put in jail.

Mr. MacEntee

You gave in to them; you surrendered.

Mr. Dillon

I congratulate an iron Minister on having demonstrated his ability to trample on the faces of the farmers.

General Mulcahy

And stand up to bankers.

Mr. Dillon

If the Minister is proud of the fact that he in his time created a situation which enabled him to justify himself here in throwing farmers into Mountjoy Jail, if he is proud of encouraging them into a course of conduct which has brought them little but disaster and can now state in triumph over them that he proposes to do, after outraging them, what he ought to have done before things were ever allowed to reach the stage they did, I do not envy him his position. It is not triumph I would enjoy; it is not a course of conduct on which I would embark with any kind of satisfaction. But it does not surprise me that the combination of the Minister for Finance, the Minister for Posts and Telegraphs and the Minister for Industry and Commerce should feel that justice has been vindicated and law and order been made to triumph— because there were farmers put in jail.

There is one way we can secure for our people deliverance not only from compulsion but from emigration and unemployment, there is only one way and that is courageously to exploit the resources of which we dispose as we think best. I want to say here that if the whole world feels justified in mobilising the credit under its control to engage in the task of mutual destruction, I cannot understand why we should not avail of the credit we control to house our people, to improve our land, to employ our men and to develop the inheritance God gave us.

What is wrong with it? Is it right that we should prefer, to what we can create in our own country from our own resources, as collateral for our currency, the currency and securities of Great Britain, which have no more solid support than the banker and his authority for the fiduciary issue? Do Deputies realise that the £50,000,000 security which it is claimed sustains our currency is created when necessary by the writing of the British Chancellor of the Exchequer on half a sheet of notepaper, authorising the Board of the Bank of England to issue £50,000,000 more on the fiduciary issue, always provided that the writing isbrought before the British House of Commons within the ensuing 14 days, there to be approved or disapproved, without prejudice to whatever may have been done under it in the intervening time? That is the fact.

I believe in maintaining for the convenience of our people the convertibility of sterling and our currency and I believe in taking effective measures to secure that that convertibility will be maintained. I believe in conservative banking as an essential element of the economic stability of our community, in the absence of which those who would suffer most would be the poor and the very poor. But when we have work to do here which will produce wealth for our people in the immediate future, when we have awaiting completion social amenities without which our people should not be asked to go, and when we have the men and the materials, I do not believe that we should send the catalyst—which would bring those men and materials and wants together for the great benefit of our people—abroad to serve in a similar rôle in Great Britain, where they use men, materials and money, all from Ireland, to produce for the British people that which we have not the courage to produce for our own people in Ireland.

There is the centre of our difficulty and of the problem that here confronts us. Let no one delude himself—no manipulation of currency, no issue of credit, no creation of loans will carry our people through if the source of all our wealth is suffered to dwindle and die. Let every Deputy here and every person in the country fix this clearly in mind—the present and the future of the Irish people depends upon the land and the people who live and get their living on the land. I assert that if we bring within their reach the markets, the fertilisers, the raw materials and the advice, there are no people in the world better able to get from the land its maximum return, leaving it always a little better in the autumn than they found it in the spring, than the Irish tenant purchase farmers. Our fathers fought to get that land and make it the property of those who live upon it and work upon it. They did it in the confidentbelief that we, in our generation, would make of that land something that it was worth while for the tenant purchaser to spend his life on, something that would afford the tenant purchaser in Ireland the means to raise a decent family and give them a fair start in life.

It is in our power to do it. If we fail to get for them that profit and no more, we will have unemployment and emigration and ultimately economic collapse in Ireland. If we succeed, as we can and should succeed, we can get for our people the best standard of living of any people in Europe, or indeed in the world, in a country of our kind. I warn this House that a persistence in the deflationary policies of the present Minister for Finance means ruin for us all, and I exhort this Parliament, while there is yet time, to insist on a reversal of these policies, to put our faith back where we ought to put it, in the land of Ireland, and the people who live upon it, in the assurance that, if we do, our present difficulties and complications will very quickly be resolved.

Mr. Cogan rose.

Brendán Mac Fheórais

Perhaps the Leas-Cheann Comhairle could indicate at what time the first Vote will be taken and at what time the Taoiseach will be called on to conclude.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

I understand that the Taoiseach is to be called at nine o'clock.

Mr. A. Byrne

Might I suggest that speeches be limited to ten minutes in order to give the rank and file an opportunity of speaking in the debate? At least 20 members want to get in and they will take only five minutes each. I want to speak about unemployment at the North Wall, in the shipbuilding industry.

Brendán Mac Fheórais

I thought there was some question of the first Vote having to be taken at five minutes past ten.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

Yes. It is expected that the first Vote will betaken not later than five minutes past ten.

Mr. A. Byrne

Take me as protesting against the long speeches.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

The Chair has no power to limit the speeches.

Mr. O'Higgins

It seems clear that the Taoiseach is to be called upon to conclude at nine o'clock. The Chair is now calling on a pro-Government Deputy, but there is the fact that the Opposition have not got a sufficient innings up to this.

Mr. MacEntee

Surely that is a reflection on the Chair. Deputy MacBride spoke at length earlier.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

The Chair has given an opportunity to all sides and for that reason is now calling Deputy Cogan.

Mr. A. Byrne

I sat here yesterday, and I have been here since three o'clock to-day and have not been able to get in.

Mr. Cogan

It seems that there is a campaign on the part of the Opposition to prevent one particular Deputy from speaking.

Mr. MacBride

On a point of order, the Opposition side agreed to limit the debate to the very short period arranged for, but a lot of the time has been taken up by Government speakers——

Mr. MacEntee

That is untrue.

Mr. MacBride

——and, in all fairness to the Opposition, I suggest more time should be given to them.

Mr. MacEntee

That statement, I wish to say to you, Sir, is without foundation. Deputy MacBride himself took up 50 minutes drivelling to the House.

Mr. Davin

What about the Minister for Lands?

Mr. MacEntee

And Deputy MacBride interrupted continuously.

Mr. MacBride

We had the Minister for Lands, Deputy Briscoe and Deputy Cowan, as well as Deputy McQuillan.

Mr. MacEntee

Deputy Blowick and Deputy Norton.

Mr. Cogan

I am sorry that our lawyer friends seem so reluctant to allow one farmer Deputy to speak in the House.

Mr. Davin

Did the Deputy say "a former Deputy"?

Captain Giles

The man who helped to jail the farmers.

Mr. Cogan

Deputy Dillon endeavoured to inject some venom and bitterness into the conflict which has now ended and which has been happily ended. He is perhaps disappointed because ordered conditions have been restored and a spirit of friendship reestablished. He is disappointed because the farmers' representatives met the Taoiseach to-day in conference in a friendly spirit. It is wrong that any man at this hour should come in here and try to bedevil the situation with venom and hate and it is wrong that he should seek to disrupt the spirit of goodwill which better men than Deputy Dillon have sought to establish and have established.

We are dealing on this Estimate, I understand, mainly with unemployment, and before going on to deal with that problem, I want to re-echo the friendly sentiments expressed by Deputy Mulcahy when opening the debate, when he congratulated the Taoiseach on his restoration to the active exercise of the duties of his high office. I want to endorse that sentiment, and I am sorry that we could not have to-day an opportunity to approach the very important matters that face us in a more friendly spirit.

The problem of unemployment is a serious one, but there is a very prevalent and deplorable illusion that the expansion of the agricultural industry cannot in any way contribute to the solution of that problem. Deputy MacBride quoted in a very selective way particular items from a report of O.E.E.C. He did not advert to the fact that in that report it was pointedout that, over the past ten years, during the period in which both Governments were in office, there has been a decline of the number of people employed on the land at the rate of 15,000 per year. Therefore, it is not true to say that some improvement in agricultural conditions would not help in the solving of our prime problem of unemployment, for, while it may be said that any agricultural development and improvement may not lead to a substantial increase in the numbers employed, at least a full expansion of that industry would lead to the retention to a large extent of the people who are now working on the land. If the numbers employed on the land continue to decline, it is inevitable that they must find their way into the cities, the towns and the unemployed queues.

Let us then face the fact that agriculture is not one of the many industries in this State; it is the foundation and the basis of all the industries of the nation. Let us face the fact that it is with an improved agricultural position we can hope to help in a large measure in the solution of our unemployment problem and in ensuring that that problem will not be aggravated by a further drift from the land. For the past week I had the honour and the pleasure to speak to men who were very deeply interested and concerned with the dairying industry. I had the honour and the pleasure of discussing with them intensively the problems that confronted them and the fears and hopes which they had in regard to the future of that industry. I am glad to say that I found common ground with those men in regard to the establishment of a sound policy for agriculture and in particular for the dairying industry. I believe that a conference which was held to-day between the Taoiseach and representatives of the dairying industry will open a way for close co-operation between the dairying industry, the agricultural industry as a whole and the Government. It will lead to the establishment of more permanent machinery for implementing that close co-operation in future. I suggested to some of those men with whom I discussed the problem of the dairyingindustry that what we need in this nation now in order to ensure the full expansion of the agricultural industry is the establishment of a representative agricultural council, a council that will be recognised by whatever Government is in power just the same as the executive of the National Farmers' Union is respected and consulted by the British Government. On that national agricultural council we should have representatives of every truly representative agricultural organisation. I think nothing is more essential than that farmers should be organised in a decent and in a responsible way.

It is unfortunate that some politicians will seek to stir up anger and hate in the farmers' hearts, will seek to prevent their approaching calmly the difficulties that face them with a view to overcoming these difficulties. I was speaking to a farmer in the past week and I told him that what the farmers needed was an organisation that would be respected and accepted by the Government because of its representative character. That man said to me: "Twenty years ago I joined a farmers' organisation and before three months I was drafted into the Blueshirts. They put me into a shirt that I had to wear outside my braces and inside my pants so that whenever I turned my pants fell off. That finished me with the farmers' organisation."

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

What has that to do with the Estimate?

Mr. Cogan

It is very vital because we have had here to-day an exhibition of the venomous spirit that politicians have sought to engender in every movement that farmers have initiated in order to improve their position. I said to the farmers in the past week that I did not blame them for taking drastic action. It does no harm for a strong man, if he finds he is frustrated, misunderstood and misrepresented, to break out and show his strength just as it does no harm if a man who is nagged and henpecked in his own house breaks out some time and throws the dresser out the window, to show that he is the master.

Captain Giles

Did you ever try it?

Mr. Cogan

The farmers, having asserted themselves, have now gone into conference with the Government in a decent and honourable way, determined not only to solve the immediate problems that face them and the dairying industry but to lay a foundation for the solution of all agricultural problems that have been neglected owing to the venom and bitterness of Party conflict over the last 30 years.

I am offering the suggestion that the time has come when every responsible and decent organisation that has been established by the farmers, whether it be Macra na Feirme, Muintir na Tíre, the Beet Growers' Association or any other association, should all be given representation on the National Agricultural Council which will be met and treated fairly by whatever Government is in power in future.

That I think is the way to lay the foundation for the permanent solution of our economic problems. It is not only essential that we should provide proper solutions for the problems of agriculture. It is also essential that we should establish a feeling of confidence and security amongst farmers, a feeling that they are trusted and respected. I heard the complaint from farmers during the past week that while there were arbitration courts for civil servants, prices advisory bodies for the business community and other sections of the people, labour courts for organised workers and an agricultural wages board for dealing with the agricultural worker, there is no machinery through which farmers can effectively make their claims or assert and secure their rights. I am now suggesting that permanent machinery should be established for that purpose.

I am anxious not to delay the House unduly. A good deal has been said about finance and banking and I do not want to labour that question unnecessarily. There are people who have said that drastic reforms are necessary. Deputy MacBride, in a long and laboured speech, sought to convey that idea to the House but he had no explanation to offer when we askedhim why he did not put these drastic reforms into operation when he was in office. Deputy Dillon has sought to explain that position by saying that there were desperate fights within the inter-Party Government in regard to this question. When I asked against whom Deputy MacBride was fighting, Deputy Dillon replied that he was fighting against him. This apparently is the kind of thing that went on right through the period of office of that Government—rival policies, rival views and conflicts within the Government which resulted in no solution being put forward.

The problem was solved to a great extent by the injection into the monetary system of £20,000,000 per year. Conditions, of course, would be much easier to-day if that inflow of external money had continued right through 1951 and 1952 and down to the present day. We know that that would have contributed a great deal of additional spending power for our people and would have to a great extent raised the volume of revenue coming into the State, but that condition could not continue forever. No man can expect a rich uncle to stand by him and keep shovelling out money to enable him to keep his business going. Sooner or later the American Government was bound to say: "We have given you some help. We expect you to carry on in your own way and stand on your own feet." That is what I hope the nation is trying to do to-day.

I feel that the views which have been expressed by so many people in this country in regard to our system of finances and banking ought to be given serious attention. Because I feel that and because I am not speaking for the sake of speaking, I sincerely feel that something ought to be done. I have tabled a motion which appears on the Order Paper to-day. It suggests that a Select Committee be set up to inquire into the whole system of finance and banking to make recommendations as to how some reforms should be brought about.

We had banking commissions in the past but they were composed mainly of bankers. I would like to see a banking commission of inquiry composed ofsimple, ordinary members of this House—perhaps some of them are not so simple—who would bring the financial experts before them and question them as to why certain things were done and why certain things are not being done and to see by intensive inquiry if anything can be done to improve the position.

I believe there is need for an intensive expansion of agriculture and industry of every kind. I believe there is need for additional money to carry out that expansive programme. If that money can be obtained at a cheaper rate than at present it will be all the better for those industries. I think it is time to give up just beating the air. It is time to give up the play-acting of Deputy MacBride and Deputy Dillon who condemn the present Government, but both admit that they did nothing themselves when they were in power except to fight vigorously over those questions within the Cabinet.

Mr. O'Leary

Why did you stay with them for three and a half years?

Mr. Cogan

I am a very patient man. I put up with them for a long time, almost until the disgrace of Baltinglass revealed them to the world. Then I said that the sooner they were got out of office the better.

I think, Sir, that this Estimate affords us an opportunity to stress the things that matter. I would like to compliment Deputy McQuillan on his contribution to the debate to-day. He laid very great stress on the important problems—the problems that arise from the continued neglect of many of our most important national resources.

There is need to ensure that every acre of land in this country produces its utmost while at the same time it is improved for future generations. There is need to see that not one inch of the soil of this country is wasted. There is need to see that those who work on the land whether employers of labour, the labourers themselves or the small farmers employing their families on the farm are amply rewarded for their labour and effort. That is the task that lies before us. It is a task we should set ourselves to solve. I thinkwe can solve it if we are prepared to be a little more co-operative and a little less venomous in regard to the suggestions put forward from one side of the House or the other. I have tried to be fair to everyone.

Mr. O'Leary

Talk about the people who elected you. You were not fair to them.

Mr. Cogan

I have ensured for the people who elected me that they will never again be exposed to the ruling of a Minister who will disgrace them before the eyes of the world by his scandalous administration. I have endeavoured to ensure that the farmers and the milk producers of my constituency will never again vote to put into office a Minister who sought to reduce the price of milk by 2d. per gallon. I am happy that I removed from office a Minister who herded all the Parties supporting his Government into the division lobbies to vote against the proposal for an increase of 2d. per gallon in the price of milk in March, 1950.

Mr. D.J. O'Sullivan

He did not put any of them in Mountjoy.

Mr. Corry

He left office rather than give them one penny.

Mr. D.J. O'Sullivan

He gave them 3d.

Mr. Cogan

It was partly through my efforts and the good sense of the farming community that the strike of the last few weeks has been brought to a conclusion.

Captain Giles

You are forgetting Deputy P. J. Burke.

Mr. Cogan

I do not think the Fine Gael Party are happy because the unfortunate strike was brought to a conclusion. I do not think they are happy because the farmers are consulting and conferring with the Government with regard to the future of the dairying industry and the whole agricultural industry. I cannot offer them any consolation. The farmers know their own business. They have made a greater effort to ensure thattheir industry will be put on a sound basis. They are prepared to meet the Government in a reasonable way and to discuss their problems with whatever Government is in power.

I think we are on the eve of an era when a much better spirit will exist not only between the Government and the farmers but between the Government Departments and the farmers. I have always felt that in the Department of Agriculture there are too many easy-going men. They are decent poor creatures I know but they are living in could cuckoo land because we have not got down to the solution of the problems of agriculture and to putting agriculture on a sound basis.

I hope we will now approach those matters in a serious and earnest way— in a way that will not be influenced by any political considerations but by a desire to uplift the whole agricultural industry and by uplifting it uplift the economy of the State and raise the standard of living of every section of our people.

Mr. O'Higgins

The debate on this Estimate is one in which the House reviews Government policy. Incidentally, in the present Dáil, it is a debate in which one has to hear confessions of error from different independent Deputies who support the Government. From time to time in the course of this debate one did not know whether it was the Government that was trying to explain away its sins or Deputy Cogan, Deputy Cowan or other Independent Deputies at present supporting the Coalition Government. However, whoever has to explain things away the fact is that there is at the moment a great deal to be explained away. I want, as briefly as I can, to examine the record of the present Government in the period during which it has been in office—that is, the period covered by this Estimate—and to compare what they did with what they said they would do.

I have here before me a very important document which is headed: "Fianna Fáil's Programme as a Government." It is an extract from the Irish Presssetting out 17 points which these gentlemen who now call themselves the Government of Irelandsaid they would put into operation if they were elected by this House. These 17 points are prefaced by a statement that Fianna Fáil, as the largest Party, if it receives the necessary support of Dáil Éireann will form a Government and, in accordance with its election pledges and its national policy, proceed at once to carry out its general programme including the following:—

"(1) To take appropriate measures to secure the fullest utilisation of the national credit and capital resources so as to achieve a rapid expansion of agricultural and industrial production; to increase opportunities of employment and to rectify the present adverse position affecting the country's balance of trade."

Point No. 1—To utilise immediately the nation's credit to increase agricultural and industrial production and to provide greater employment in this country. That programme was issued in the month of June, 1951, at a time when we had the lowest registered figure for unemployment in this country's history and at a time when we had the greatest known production from agriculture in this country's history. At that time, the Fianna Fáil Party proceeded to say that they were going to utilise the national credit— the credit resources of this State— further to increase employment, further to increase production and, generally, to make good things a great deal better. Now, 18 months later, can any Deputy in this House who is not in the nature of a political mendicant—as are some of the Independent Deputies now supporting the Government—say that the present Government has fulfilled that pledge to utilise this nation's credit for the purpose of providing for our people greater employment and for the land greater production?

We all know that only a few months after that particular document was issued—on the 19th October, 1951— and this may be of interest to the Taoiseach, the editor of the Irish Presspermitted the following paragraph or article to appear in theIrish Pressunder the heading: “The BanksClose on Credit.” The article stated:—

"It was becoming increasingly difficult to get credit from banks for the past six months but, within the past two months, this tightening of credit facilities has been intensified."

That was not written by a Deputy from this side of the House: it was printed by the accredited correspondent of the tied daily organ of the present Government Party who, in October, 1951—a few months after Fianna Fáil came into office—was concerned to complain bitterly that there was a tightening, a restriction, of credit in this State. It is a pity that the gentleman who wrote that article did not address a letter to the Taoiseach in the following vein: "Why have you not taken immediate and full steps to utilise the national credit of this country as you promised in the month of June, 1951?"

We are now in the month of February, 1953. We all know that from October, 1951, the restriction of credit got worse and worse. To-day, in this city, and in every city and town throughout the country, business initiative is being stifled because a decent businessman, no matter what his assets may be, cannot get from his banker the necessary credit to indulge in worthwhile enterprise. The only person to-day who can get an advance from a bank in this country is a millionaire, and it is in that respect that the present Government have fulfilled point No.1 of their 17 points.

We know well that the result of that restriction of credit has been not only serious but tragic in relation to employment in recent months. Slowly, but surely, the restriction of credit made itself felt in business activity and, in due course, on the number of jobs available to working people in this country. It is little wonder that, in a short period of some 18 months, the unemployment figure should have risen by more than 22,000 persons—and to that extent has Fianna Fáil fulfilled its pledge to provide more opportunities for persons to engage in gainful employment in this country. We have had an increase of 22,000 unemployed in 18months. What will the figure reach if, by some unfortunate circumstance, this Government is not kicked from office in the coming months? Every month brings an additional 1,000 persons to that unemployed figure. I would point out that those figures refer merely to registered unemployed. It was a happy circumstance for the Taoiseach's Government that, immediately it assumed office, it became impossible to give proper figures for emigration.

It is a happy circumstance for the Government that to-day, in this debate, Deputies on this side of the House are not able to refer to accurate and checked statistical figures for emigration. It is a happy circumstance for the Government that the cutting out, by reason of the cessation of the travel permits, of figures for emigration should have occurred very shortly after the Taoiseach, in the month of August, 1951, upbraided every single Irishman who, by circumstances, was forced to emigrate to England.

I would like to say this to the Taoiseach: we have 87,000 unemployed now, 22,000 more than when he assumed office 18 months ago. That figure does not take into account the thousands and thousands and thousands who have been driven in the last 18 months to seek employment in Britain, America and elsewhere. The figure for emigration has been immense, far more serious than it was at any time during the emergency. In addition, that figure of 87,000 unemployed does not take into consideration the fact that the Minister for Defence carried through a recruiting programme and brought together other persons, who could well have been employed in gainful employment in this State, to knock sparks off the barrack stones.

That is the situation we find 18 months after the Fianna Fáil Party undertook to carry out point No. 1 on their programme. I will not have time to go through all these points, but I shall select four or five for comment. Point No. 2 is worth mentioning merely because it, no doubt, will appeal to the conservative soul of the Minister for Finance who, I have no doubt, drafted it. Point No. 2 was "Whileproviding funds for necessary social and economic development, the Fianna Fáil Party would endeavour to keep the total cost of Government service in reasonable relationship to the national income." I do not think it is necessary to question whether the cost of Government service in the last 18 months is lower or higher than it was when the present Government found itself in office.

I am sorry to notice that Deputy Cogan, following his usual hit and run tactics in this House, has now fled, because I am certain that Deputy Cogan put his constituents and political beliefs on one side when he saw point No. 3 in the Fianna Fáil programme which was as follows: "To assist agricultural production by (1) guaranteed prices for milk, wheat, beet and such other products as, after investigation, may prove to be practicable." That would seem to indicate to Deputy Cogan and farmers outside that, if Fianna Fáil policy was going, substantially, to increase milk prices, wheat prices, beet prices, oat prices, barley prices and the other products which the farmer had to sell, it had reference to a time when they were already guaranteed prices for wheat, milk and the other products named. We know that when that programme was issued barley was sold here at 84/- a barrel. To-day the guaranteed price is 55/-. Oats were sold at 42/- a barrel, while last harvest farmers were lucky if they got 25/- a barrel for their oats.

The Fianna Fáil plan for agriculture did not end there. The second step was that the Fianna Fáil Government would immediately seek new trade agreements to secure export prices fair to the Irish producers, the innuendo there being that the trade agreement made by the inter-Party Government on behalf of the Irish people in June, 1948, gave to our farmers prices that were in some way unfair. We are entitled to ask this Government, 18 months later, what new agreement they have carried through, or secured, during these 18 months which brought to our farmers any prices more favourable than those which had already been secured for them by theirpredecessors in office. Every farmer who gets a good price for his beef to-day gets it not because the present Taoiseach's Government is in office but because in June, 1948 we were able to send to London a brilliant team of negotiators who secured a first-class trade agreement for this country. If the Taoiseach smiles, can he not say why, when he had the opportunity in the last 18 months to cancel that agreement, to tear it up, wipe it out and negotiate a new one, he has not done so, although he promised in June, 1951 that that was going to be the first thing that he would do?

The Taoiseach

There is a good time coming.

Mr. O'Higgins

The third way in which the Government was going to assist agricultural production was as follows: "By ensuring the availability and encouraging the maximum use of fertilisers and lime." During the last 12 months we, on this side of the House, have exercised ourselves immensely by trying to bring home to the present Minister for Agriculture that the price of fertilisers was such that it made economic tillage completely impossible. We have tried to bring it home to this Government that, were it not for the fact that they were left in possession of 48,000 tons of fertilisers, imported at £9 per ton, in the last 18 months we would have had no manures available for tillage. The present Government have carried out that pledge to the Irish farmer by importing fertilisers at something round about £16 or £17 a ton, by marrying them with the stock that was left available and by selling the fertilisers to the farmer at a fixed price which makes it completely uneconomic for him to use them in profitable production.

I do not think it is necessary to go in detail into the other ways in which they were to give assistance to agriculture. They undertook in point No. 4—I am sure this appealed hugely to Deputy Cogan also—to expedite the work of land division for the relief of congestion and of all other matters that were part and parcel of the Fianna Fáil speeches during election time. I leaveit to Deputies representing the Midland and Western constituencies to answer the question as to whether the work of land division has been expedited by this Government during the last 18 months.

Under point No. 5, the Fianna Fáil Party undertook an extension of afforestation activities so as to bring the maximum area of suitable land under plantation. That particular promise was made at a time when the then Government had pledged itself to have 25,000 acres planted and put under afforestation. The manner in which the Fianna Fáil Government carried out that pledge in relation to afforestation was to cross out the figure 25,000 and put in its place the figure 10,000, and to have as its programme, aim and target the planting of 10,000 acres. I do not think I need say any more on that to point to the serious breach of faith that there has been in that respect.

There are many other points here referred to. It would be a pity indeed if the magnitude and multiplicity of the sins of the present Government caused us to forget point No. 15. I shall skip all the others and come to point No. 15 because here is an assurance that, no doubt, was given by the Government with a due sense of responsibility, realising those to whom their programme might appeal, realising that one of the Independent Deputies whose support they would seek had promised that if elected by his constituents he would focus attention constantly on the cost of living and would press for increased subsidies for food and essential commodities. Realising, no doubt, that that grave and solemn pledge had been given to the people of a working-class constituency in this city by one of those whose vote could and create or destroy forever a Fianna Fáil Government, point No was framed and fashioned. Point No. 15, issued after a meeting attended by the present Taoiseach, was that a Fianna Fáil Government would take immediate steps to maintain the subsidies, to control the prices of essential foodstuffs and the operation of an efficient system of price regulation for all necessary and scarce commodities.

June, 1951, was not the time of the flood. It is only 18 months ago. What a part of history those words now represent. What a part of something that has gone completely from the national life those words represent. Nevertheless, from time to time it is well that public men and political Parties should be made aware that they cannot put their names to a document giving their solemn pledged words and break those words and expect to get away with it.

I do not mind the poor Independent Deputy who bit the carrot. I do not mind him. He was not perhaps responsible and he still has a chance to save his political soul but how do those who issued that document and made that promise reconcile their actions and square their consciences when, six months after, at the behest of powers and authorities not represented in this House, they proceeded to put into operation a budgetary policy timed at wiping out and reducing the very food subsidies that they had promised faithfully they would maintain? How can public men reconcile that promise with that action?

The slashing and the raiding of the food larders of the poor of this city would be bad enough if done by men who had made no promise with regard to the maintenance of those subsidies but when it was done by those who, for the sake of gaining office—and this document was issued eight days before the present Government was elected— made a promise which they broke, political honesty comes at a very serious discount.

I am not surprised that the Minister for Finance hangs his head in shame. I am not surprised that Fianna Fáil Deputies are very anxious that the 17 point programme should never be referred to.

The slashing and the abolition of the food subsidies was only part of the grievous sin committed by the present Government. People often forget that in point 15 they also went on to say that they would operate an efficient system of price control. They made that promise at a time when meat was controlled, when bacon was controlled, when a number of essential foodstuffsbought and consumed by our people were controlled at a fixed price. Having made that promise, the Minister for Industry and Commerce, the Deputy Leader of the present Government, proceeded to abolish the control on meat and, having abolished the control on meat, he issued a statement from his Department that he did so in the full confidence that the abolition of meat price control would mean a reduction in the price of meat. A day or two later he abolished the control on bacon and a similar little pious message was issued by his Department that the price of a rasher would drop and that everyone could afford rashers and ham and bacon at reasonable prices.

He continued on. In ensuing months he looked at provincial towns and he saw in operation, according to him, a system controlling the price of milk. He abolished that and again we were told that that would mean a reduction in the price of milk. Within recent times he abolished the control on fish and we were told again that the abolition of the control on fish would mean that all of us on a Thursday evening could get plaice and sole at next to nothing.

In the last 18 months the only manner in which the present Government has operated a price regulation system is by abolishing what was there before they took office. To-day it is very difficult to know what commodities are controlled in their price. They have by successive action decontrolled any number of different commodities and the Minister in charge, obviously, has not shown the responsibility in this important duty that he owes to the consuming public.

I think, Sir, it is fair to say that in one notable respect in connection with point No. 17 the Fianna Fáil Government have fulfilled their pledge entirely. They have made Store Street a station once again. That is all they have done. That is the only part of these 17 points that they have carried out. Store Street is to become a station once again.

I do not think it is necessary to spend any further time in criticising those who subscribed to that responsiblestatement of policy and so ignominiously departed from their pledged word. We are now holding what amounts to an inquest on the Fianna Fáil Party. The only thing we are concerned to know is when the funeral will be. The time has long passed when the people can watch with patience the activities of the present Government. The time has long passed when the people's patience can permit these gentlemen to parade themselves around the country calling themselves the Government of Ireland. They have not the support of the people; they were not put there by the people. They are in office because of the spite and petty malice of which we had an exhibition to-day.

I wonder if any words of mine can make any impression on the Taoiseach, the Minister for Finance or the Government. Can I impress upon them that they have as much support amongst the people of the Twenty-six Counties as the Unionist Government in the North would have down here? Does that seem improbable? Do they not realise that they are putting into operation a policy which is disemploying our people, taxing them and making them accept with bitter tears a substantially reduced standard of living, that they are doing that after they had promised to do the very opposite, that they are doing that, to use the Taoiseach's phrase, after they found themselves in office by the political accident of the election of a few Independent Deputies who represent very little? In these circumstances, does it not suggest itself to the Taoiseach—it certainly would have 15 years ago—as a commendable course to give the people an opportunity of selecting a Parliament that will be representative of them and, incidentally, putting into office a Government which shall have a mandate from the Irish people?

The Taoiseach

Like the Coalition.

Mr. O'Higgins

The Coalition Government, as you call it, or the inter-Party Government, was selected by the Irish people by more than 150,000 votes.

General MacEoin

There was a Coalition in 1927.

The Taoiseach

There was not.

Mr. O'Higgins

I should like to emphasise that Deputy Costello's Government at all times had the support of the Irish people, and even on June 13th, 1951, when it was defeated in this House, it had the support of the people. If you doubt that, dissolve this House and find out.

There can be no doubt about it. At the last general election it was quite clear that the Taoiseach and every one of his Ministers said that the issue was one-Party Government or no Government. They said they would not doff their cap or touch their forelock to any Deputy, be it Deputy Dr. ffrench-O'Carroll or anybody else; that they would only take office if they got a complete majority over all Parties. They did not get that majority. They were beaten, but they found themselves in office and they are there representing nobody but themselves. They are carrying out a policy which has not anyone's support, not even the support of the Fianna Fáil Party. We know well that no group of 69 or 70 Irish people, no matter where they spring from or how they got there, could possibly subscribe to the policy of the present Government. We know well that if freemen were allowed to act freely the policy of the present Government would be discarded by the House. It is in operation because, apparently, the Minister for Finance is stronger temporarily than other Ministers. We are asked to accept what is doled out to us as a pittance, the type of reduced standards we have had to accept during the last 18 months.

In this debate an opportunity is given to this House to save itself, because by the rejection of this Estimate the present Government can be removed from office. They will not go freely. They will not go of their own volition. They will stay there as long as they can until they are eventually kicked out of office. In the division on this Estimate, where the issue is the Government policy in its entirety, where the retreat on the mother andchild scheme, the milk strike imprisonments and all these things arise, there will be an opportunity for each Deputy freely to vote against Government policy.

I have no doubt that at least one of those Deputies who voted for the Government, one Independent Deputy representing a constituency in this city, who voted to put the Government in office—were it not for his vote it perhaps would not have happened—the Deputy who said during the general election: "If elected by you, I promise to focus constant attention on the cost of living and press for increased subsidies on food and essential commodities," will now, fairly and honestly reviewing the events of the last 18 months, save his political soul by voting as he promised he would.

Deputies A. Byrne and Corry rose.

An Ceann Comhairle

It is now 8.45 p.m. and the Taoiseach is concluding the debate at 9 o'clock. I will call on the Taoiseach at 9 o'clock.

Mr. A. Byrne

I will not take five minutes as most of the things I want to say have been said already. I wish specially to draw attention to the unemployment in the City of Dublin. I mention specially the shipbuilding district, because within the last six months the building of ships valued £500,000, which would have taken 24 months to build, was given to firms across the water. The Irish Lights Commissioners, of which I am a member, received a tender six months ago for £300,000 for the building of a ship, and because the Dublin Dockyard could not get steel at a reasonable price from England, they lost a contract for one of these ships and would not tender for two others. One ship was to cost £300,000 and two smaller ships £100,000 each. These three ships were to cost £500,000, and would have given work for 24 months. They are now to be built across the water because the Minister for Industry and Commerce was not able to arrange a pact to get steel from England at a reasonable price.

We see very large quantities of tinned meat going across the water from the North Wall. I am glad thatis going across the water to the people who deserve it and want it, but I do object to paper money coming in here for that tinned meat instead of steel, which would give work to our people.

I remember in the early days of the Cosgrave Government we could not get coal and that Government arranged what was subsequently known as the Coal-Cattle Pact. Subsequently the Fianna Fáil Government followed that up. There is no doubt about that. What influence has the Government lost that they are no longer able to enter into a trade agreement with England or with Belgium in order to bring steel in here and provide work for our men. Our dock workers and our shipbuilding workers are going across the water because there is no work for them here. There they have to go into lodgings and they can send home only a little more than half their wages perhaps to keep their families. Why should that emigration continue? That is emigration that could be stopped if the Government used its ability and its ambassadors to negotiate trade agreements. The North Wall has ceased to be an employment depot. The cattle trade appears to have been diverted elsewhere. Shipbuilding has gone.

I speak on behalf of our unemployed people. I make it my business to visit a number of working-class houses, and recently in every second house, if not in every house, there was a young husband, a son or a daughter unemployed. That was the grievance everywhere. We were asked what we would do in order to provide them with work. Some of the boys had their Leaving Certificate. Others wanted to go into trades. The girls had learned shorthand, typewriting and book-keeping. We could hold out no promise to the broken-hearted mothers because of the inability of the present Government to do anything for them.

I have no remedy. I am not charged with the responsibility. The Government and its Ministers have their Departments behind them. Could we not have a cessation now of all the bickering? Could we not have some effort that will hold out prospects for these people? Will the Taoiseach hold out any hope to the parents of theyoung boys and girls leaving school and to the young husbands who cannot find work?

At the moment the Corporation of Dublin is the only body building houses but that body does not build houses for the young married people. They are not able to pay a deposit and they have nowhere to go. They cannot qualify for a corporation house because they have no family. What happens now is that the boy who gets married goes back to live with his parents and the girl goes back to live with her parents. They cannot even get a room in Temple Street, Grenville Street, Seán McDermott Street or Gloucester Street because, when these houses are cleared, the corporation reconditions them for other families. One no longer sees cards displayed in the windows of these houses stating there are furnished or unfurnished lodgings to let. These young people have no chance of getting a room. It is out of the question that they could pay a deposit on a house now, though they may have saved with that object in view, because of the high rate of interest. At the moment the rate of interest represents an increase of 12/- a week on the rent and these young people could not possibly meet that.

House-building of a certain type has ceased and bricklayers, carpenters and tradesmen of every kind have been thrown out of employment. There are to-day 500 carpenters idle in the City of Dublin. Three or four years ago we had advertisements in the newspapers appealing to them to come back from England and build houses for their own people. We guaranteed them 10, 15 or 20 years' work. They got three years' work and they are going back more rapidly to England to-day than at any time during the last two years. I am afraid that now we shall lose them altogether because they will not trust us if we give them another guarantee in the future.

In passing, may I say that, along with others, I welcome the Taoiseach home. I wish him well. I hope his health will improve and enable him to carry on the work in which he isengaged. I appeal to him to look at our problems from a sympathetic as well as a business point of view. I ask him to do something quickly to give a chance to our unemployed. I ask him to send out some message of hope to the mothers who have boys and girls ready for employment and for whom there appears to be no work.

I challenge my colleagues from the country to go to Victoria Street to-morrow morning and see for themselves the half-mile queue of fine young girls willing and anxious to work. Let them then go down to Beresford Place to see the queues of unemployed there. Let them go over to Werburgh Street and see the men there, willing and anxious for work and praying that something will be done for them. God knows, they have been patient. I appeal to the Government to ensure that their patience will not be exhausted.

Mr. Rooney

The Fianna Fáil Party made the cost of living an issue in the last election. At that time the cost of living had risen by 3 per cent. It has gone up 20 per cent. since that date. In the ordinary household throughout the country that means that for the essential goods of the household our people are now paying approximately £23,000,000 more for food, clothing and rent because of that rise in the cost of living. A rise of one point in the cost of living amounts to about £1,000,000.

The policy of the Government in relation to dear money has made difficulties for many of our people, particularly for those desiring to provide homes for themselves. Since the 6th October the rate of interest has increased with the result that many of those who were buying their own houses have to meet an extra 12/6 per week on their repayments.

Taxation has increased. So has unemployment. All these things have created a condition of crisis. I hope that when the Taoiseach is concluding to-night he will tell us whether the Government has any remedy. During the last general election the present Government pretended that they had remedies for the situation.

Since that time the cost of living hasbeen increased progressively and no attempt is being made to arrest it. I would like to remind the Taoiseach also that during the inter-Party régime the cost of living fell by one point in 1949. In 1949 the cost of living was 99 compared with the level of 100 in 1947 before the inter-Party Government, took office.

Donnchadh Ó Briain

It was 107 in 1951.

Mr. Rooney

I am talking about 1949.

Mr. Corry

What about the tomatoes?

Mr. Rooney

There was a reduction in the cost of living at that time but there is no sign of any improvement by the present Government so far as the cost of living is concerned. They are making no attempt to limit it and it appears to be their policy to bring about the dear money which has resulted in so much difficulty for our people both in business life and in the employment sphere.

I would like to bring to the notice of the Taoiseach also one matter which he mentioned yesterday when he referred to the adverse trade balance for 1951. I would like to remind him that the Fianna Fáil Party and their satellites were in control during the second half of 1951. During the second half of 1951, when the Fianna Fáil Party were in control, the adverse trade balance amounted to £49,500,000. He must consider that figure when he is talking about an adverse trade balance of £61,000,000 for the whole year.

The Taoiseach

As I anticipated, the greater part of this debate has been taken up in trying to prove that the condition of unemployment was the direct consequence of Government policy. I asked the Opposition to state whether they believed in balancing current expenditure by current revenue. Some came close to dealing with that matter but they skipped away from it fairly rapidly. Now I ask them again do they believe in meeting current expenditure by current revenue, and, if they are not infavour of reducing expenditure, are they prepared to face the taxation which is necessary to meet the expenditure? Remember, the Coalition were not, apparently, prepared to do so. They preferred to borrow; they preferred to work by having deficits on the current account. We do not believe in that. We believe that, under very exceptional circumstances, it might be justifiable to borrow but that you cannot base a progressive policy on any such foundation.

Expenditure has been increasing constantly in this country. Every Party is appealing for more and more social services, for the State to take upon itself doing more and more of the things that private individuals in the past did and in the present, if they could be induced to do it, would be better.

When I was listening to some of the speeches from the Opposition Benches, and particularly some of the speeches from the Labour Party—I should perhaps not refer to the Labour Party because they were with us during the period in which we were in the initial stages, putting the Fianna Fáil policy into operation—and when I heard some people in the Opposition Benches arguing about this policy, my mind could not help going back to the period when those who represented the Fine Gael Party referred to our progressive programme, which is the same to-day as it was then, as a programme which was risking, for example, the deposits of the farmers in the banks. If you spoke about the banks it was immediately suggested that you intended raiding the banks and taking away the deposits of the farmers.

Fine Gael seems to have travelled a long way since that time. Banking policy and the effect that banking policy can have on the general wellbeing seem to be matters of consequence to them now. When I hear some of the young people on those benches speak and when I remember the situation as it used to be I cannot help thinking of the Irish proverb: "An t-uan ag múineadh méileach d'á mháthair"—the lamb teaching his mother how to bleat. The policy that was being advocated in general terms has been the policy for which ourParty has always stood, and that is utilising the resources of the country, including the nation's credit, for the general benefit.

The only thing to consider is how to use those resources to the best advantage with the idea of basing our national policy, in ordinary circumstances, on balancing our Budget. I am admitting that there might be very exceptional circumstances in which you could borrow even for current expenses but, on the whole, we are not going to work on a solid foundation if the Budget is not balanced.

When Fianna Fáil came into office it wanted to make sure that the basis on which we were going to build was made right. Therefore, it was necessary for us either to reduce expenditure, as I said at the start, or to raise taxation to meet it. We have done that. We were fully alive to the fact that taxation does take away from the pockets of the people money which they could otherwise spend on purchasing consumer goods, and that, if these goods were made in this country, those purchases would help to give employment. But we cannot, like the Opposition, have it both ways. The Government cannot have it both ways and the nation cannot have it both ways. We must make up our minds what we want and, as I have said, we very definitely set out to make the foundation of our financial structure sound and our financial operations right by endeavouring to balance expenditure by revenue.

I know there are people who will say —if I asked the Fine Gael Party of the olden days I have no doubt whatever that they would say it, and it is a thing that might be said in order that it might be argued and the truth arrived at—that in regard to social services we are advancing more rapidly than our resources will permit and that, for instance, even in our capital expenditure, the amount that is spent on what I might call purely the social amenities side, that is not directly and immediately productive, is too large a proportion of the whole and that a larger portion of capital investment should be spent on productive enterprises. I have been watching expenditure over anumber of years, and have come to the conclusion that, at the present rates of taxation, it has reached a limit. If it goes beyond that limit, it would not serve the best interests of the people as a whole, and I take it that the primary duty of the Government is to serve the interests of the community as a whole.

The Central Bank has come into this discussion a good deal. The Governor and Board of the Central Bank are independent men, who have been chosen for that reason, first by us and—with one substitution, I think—they have been reappointed by the Coalition Government. They have certain duties to fulfil. They are not tied to the Government, they do not take dictation from the Government, the Government has not sought to dictate to them and the Government has not taken dictation from them.

Mr. MacBride

The Secretary of the Department of Finance is one.

The Taoiseach

One of their main functions is to safeguard the integrity of the currency. They are asked to make reports. These reports are those of an independent body, not subject to political pressure or political influences. The least thing we can do is to read those reports to see what they are aiming at, to ask ourselves whether the proposals they make are worthy of adoption or not. We ought to give the board credit for not wishing to damage the nation, for not viciously aiming at bringing about unemployment. Listening to some of the Deputies speaking here, one would think that the board found some strange satisfaction in thinking of men and women unable to find a means of livelihood. Of course, the board had not any such attitude of mind. If they proposed certain measures, they did so because they thought—wrongly, many of us may believe—that the proposals which they were making would serve the nation's interest best, and particularly their special interest of safeguarding the currency and the general financial credit of the community. Let us give them credit for that, at least.

I have said that we have not takendictation from them. I gave an example formerly of people out in a shower of rain. If there is a shower of rain and one man rushes for shelter and another man beside him similarly rushes for shelter, is it because the first man did it that the second man did it? Is it not that there are some common circumstances which suggest it? The fact is that the one sole consideration which suggested to the Government the cutting down of subsidies and the increasing of taxation was the simple fact that it was necessary to balance the Budget, and we believed that by doing that we were serving best the interests of the community as a whole.

Deputy O'Higgins has spoken of the various points of the programme which we issued. We may have an opportunity of completing most of these— we may have—but one thing we have done in the year is this, in regard to the first point about reducing the adverse balance in our international payments, that has been substantially done, and its effects will be very important.

What was the Central Bank aiming at in some of its proposals? I take it that they were aiming at stopping the rise in prices, in the main.

Mr. MacBride

By the removal of subsidies?

The Taoiseach

That was their aim. If you have subsidies you must tax in order to pay them. The £15,000,000 paid in subsidies cannot be obtained from the moon: you have to get that money out of the pockets of the people. The view of the Central Bank Board in general was that that was one of the very worst ways in which money taken out of the pockets of the people could be used in the circumstances in which we found ourselves. Their fundamental aim was to bring about more stable conditions, in which you would stop this increase in prices, which led to a demand for increased wages, which in turn led to increased costs, which led to increased prices again. They were anxious to find some foundation on which to bring about some financial stability. I take it that that was their view: it is the onlyexplanation I can give for the proposals that were made. Financial stability has been the aim of economists for the last 20 or 30 years. Everyone realises that if you have stable prices you have the best economic conditions for production and for wellbeing. The moment that you have rising prices you have rising costs and then demands from labour and then rising costs again, and so on. We were anxious to bring about a condition of stability also. Our primary purpose, as I said here last year, was to avoid both inflation and deflation.

Coming on to the question of unemployment, Deputy Norton reminded me of things I said about unemployment in the past. I hold to-day to those views as strongly as I did 20 or 30 years ago. I believe that it is the duty of the Government to do everything within its power to create conditions in which every person who is willing and able to work will get opportunities for work. I believe that as strongly to-day as I did then. I never believed what some representatives from the other side said. I remember that, when we were in office before, they said that, if they were a Government, they could find employment within 24 hours for every person who was willing and able to work.

The person who said that was in the Coalition Government afterwards, and, when we talk of the height of unemployment to-day, we must not forget that at one period during their term of office it ran up almost to the figure shown to-day.

Mr. Morrissey

That is not so.

The Taoiseach

85,000 unemployed at one period.

Mr. Morrissey

At no time.

The Taoiseach

The average for the year 1948 was 61.9 thousand and in 1949 it was 61,000. It went down in 1950 and 1951 and then began to rise again. It was 60,000 on the average last year.

Mr. Morrissey

That is not 85,000.

The Taoiseach

It was 85,000 at its maximum, at its peak, at one of the periods in which there was an average of 60,000.

Mr. MacBride

The average for 1950 was 53,000 and for 1951, 51,000.

The Taoiseach

You had three years of office and the fact is that this reduction did not take place in 24 hours. Although I do not want to minimise in the slightest the situation that exists in regard to unemployment——

Mr. Morrissey

You could not do it.

The Taoiseach

If I were disposed to do what some of the Opposition Deputies have often done. I might. I might do so, if I were to go on the basis that there were a lot of things in that figure that had to be explained, such as the fact that 1,200 of that January 1953 figure represented an increase over the corresponding figure last year, in the number of people whose last place of employment was in Britain. There are a number of people who have come in as a result of the Social Welfare Act, 1952, which, even in November, when it was only partially in operation, caused an increase of 2,000 in the number on the live register. If I wanted to try to minimise it, I might be able to find a lot of things, but I do not want to minimise it in the slightest, because it is a matter which must give concern to any Government which has the interests of the people at heart, to any Government which thinks of the individuals who, because of unemployment, are deprived of the ordinary means of living decently. Certainly I do not want to minimise it, and so long as I am a member of a Government, one of the main aims of the Government will be, now as it was in 1932, to try to remedy that situation.

It is suggested that we did not remedy it after 1932. We did, of course, remedy it. We reduced emigration after 1932 and we increased the number of people in employment in industry, after 1932. The result was that Deputies opposite were able to boast a year or two ago that there were 220,000 people in these industries which come into the Census of Industrial Production compared with 110,000 when we came into office in 1932. You want topretend that that was your work, I suppose—that you did all that in a year or so. What was done by the Coalition was that they took over the plans.

The whole machinery was geared up and there is not a single thing that was done except saying that capital above the line and below the line are two different things. You put one sum above the line and another below it. You called things by names, but the whole plan, the arrangement for the plan of development, had all been prepared before you got into office at all. You gave different names to disguise the fact that you had turned over completely. If Labour deserve the credit for that, we are all glad. We are glad that at least we can talk in this House in terms in which we can understand each other. If Labour has to its credit that it turned Fine Gael from being the Tory conservative Party it was to being a progressive Party such as ours has always been, then, it has done good national work. In just the same way, Fine Gael were converted politically. You were converted both politically and economically to the programme that was initiated and worked out by Fianna Fáil.

Mr. Morrissey

Now come back to the unemployed.

The Taoiseach

I am going to come back to the unemployed. There were, when we came into office in 1932, some 80,000 unemployed. We pointed out that industries could be built up which were capable of employing that number and we proved it by doing it, by building up industries which did employ that number, and before we left office, there were already, even though it was after a war period, 183,000 in these industries covered by the Census of Production, where there had been only 110,000. Our present programme is precisely the same.

The suggestion is made that it is only the Coalition Government which had a capital development programme. Who developed to the extent to which they were developed the beet-growing industry and the beet factories? Who was it developed to the extent to which they were developed Electricity Supply Board activities?

Captain Giles

Who put them there?

The Taoiseach

Who developed them? Just the same as you put the beet factories there—a poor, halting attempt.

Mr. Norton

Who called them white elephants?

The Taoiseach

I did not, anyhow.

Mr. Norton

Your colleague, the Minister for Finance.

The Taoiseach

I did not call them white elephants. I would remind the Deputy that what we did question at the time—and it was something that was quite open to consideration—was whether we should not have begun with the Liffey, because, if we had done so, we would have been able to employ more Irish labour and Irish enterprise. That was the position.

Mr. Morrissey

Oh!

The Taoiseach

That was so, and you will find that I said that back 20 years ago.

Mr. Morrissey

We are now in 1953 and not 1927.

The Taoiseach

I think it was the Deputy who said he was going to put every unemployed man into employment within 24 hours.

Mr. Morrissey

I put more into employment than Fianna Fáil did in 18 years.

Donnchadh Ó Briain

40,000 emigrants in 1950.

The Taoiseach

The fact is that Fianna Fáil, by continuing its progressive policy, was able to build up the industries of this country and to develop the undeveloped resources of the country to an extent to which they had not been developed. It is quite true that we were interrupted in our programme. Although we had got more members elected than all the other Parties together, those other Parties combined here. They did not, as Deputy O'Higgins said, go back to thepeople and ask the people whether they wanted them to be the Government. Indeed, they did not. When they were in office, they were telling us that they were going to remain in office for their full period. We went to the people many times when we were challenged.

Mr. Rooney

And you are challenged again.

Mr. Cafferky

Why do you not go now?

The Taoiseach

We will choose our own time. So long as we have a majority in this House we shall see——

Mr. Cafferky

Give the people the opportunity.

Mr. Corry

We might lose you.

The Taoiseach

So long as we have a majority in this House, we are the legitimate Government of this country.

Mr. Dillon

Hear! hear!

Mr. Davin

Deputy Cowan says he is the boss.

The Taoiseach

I thought the boss was the external body, the Central Bank. How many more bosses will we have? I should like to tell Deputy Norton, as he mentioned it, that we did strive to diminish unemployment. We did strive to diminish emigration, but, of course, when you have not the figures everybody can say what they want about them. I remember that, in 1947, we were told that emigration was greater than it had ever been since the days of the famine in 1847. I would remind Deputies that, in September of that year, there was a smaller number of unemployed on the register than the 35,000 which we were told was the smallest number on record.

Mr. MacBride

The 35,000 was the lowest on record.

The Taoiseach

In September, 1947, there was a lower number. Yet we were told that there was an exodusequal to that of the famine days. What were the facts? The figure given by the Central Statistics Office for 1947 was 10,000.

Mr. MacBride

The figure for September, 1947 was 37,000.

The Taoiseach

The figure for emigration was given as 10,000. The figure that was given for the next year was 28,000, when the Coalition was in office. What they did, of course, was to set up a commission to investigate emigration. I have been trying to get the report of that commission but we have not got it yet.

Mr. Norton

And you are two years there.

The Taoiseach

I assure the Deputy I am quite anxious to get it. We have the position that there was an increase in emigration when the Coalition came into office and the next year the figure was increased still further according to the best estimate of this independent body which Deputy MacBride is willing to accept. The best estimate they gave us—we cannot, of course, regard these figures as absolutely precise— was 28,000 for 1948 and 34,000 for the next year. That showed an increase from the 10,000 of 1947.

I know that there has been considerable emigration from this country. I have met, in England, men and women whom I was very sorry to see striving to get a living in another country. I promised them that, in so far as our general policy could do it, our aim would be to keep every Irishman and every Irishwoman here at home. Our policy will be aimed at doing that. I said to-day that you cannot conclude that because there is high unemployment there will be correspondingly high emigration because it would depend on the attractions and the availability of work on the other side. If the ordinary man cannot get work here at home he will try to get it elsewhere. That is natural.

I have always believed that, though there were other factors causing emigration, the main factor—there are others which affect it considerably—was inability to find employment here athome. Our policy every year we were in office was to aim at finding employment here at home for our people.

Mr. O'Leary

You have been aiming at it for 25 years.

The Taoiseach

We doubled the number in industrial employment. That was doing something towards it.

Mr. O'Leary

There is no attraction in England for workers, only hunger.

The Taoiseach

I wish those who go and who, very often, find it so, would think of that in advance. In some cases it has been so. There have been very bad conditions for these people. However, we have this serious situation, and the suggestion is that it can be easily remedied by some financial action. I believe that if we increase taxation we are going to do more damage.

Mr. Morrissey

Hear, hear!

The Taoiseach

That is quite true. We had to do it last year or else we would have had a completely unbalanced Budget. Remember that we are dealing with a situation which had been allowed to run by the Coalition in a direction in which it should not have been allowed to go. They did not make proper provision in the previous Budget for the expenditure which was anticipated during the year. We had to deal with that situation. We dealt with it despite the fact that we were told that we were taxing the people for millions more than was needed. We increased taxation because it was absolutely necessary to do so.

Let us come now to capital development. There has been some suggestion that we have curtailed capital development. The Minister for Finance did dispute some of the items that were described as capital expenditure by the Coalition, but we did not take these into account as current expenditure. We did not try to cover them by taxation or to get current revenue to cover them. We dealt with those as capital items, even though the Minister for Finance had qualms, serious qualms, about doing so. There has been no reduction in any way in capital development, none. There has been,on the contrary, evidence in various directions of vigorous capital developments. The point again arises: have we reached a point beyond which it would be unwise to go in the long run? Surely the Government should have the interests, not merely the present interests but the continuing interests, of the nation at heart? It should be able to think in terms of the future, of the young people of this nation, of the children and the grandchildren of the older people amongst us. We should look at least sufficiently far ahead to try to safeguard their interests. We ought to remember that, if we in any way waste assets at the present time, we deprive them, our immediate successors, of the opportunities which they will require in order to get a decent living in this country. The question then arises: "Do our resources enable us to continue to increase our rate of capital development?" If we are able to do it, by all means let us do it. But let us not do it in the way in which the previous Government did it in regard to forestry. They planned a programme and talked about a programme of 25,000 acres without having made provision to get much more than half of the land required for such a programme—if they did get half of the land. If we are to do it, we must not merely provide for the capital needs of to-day but we must remember the capital needs of to-morrow and the day after.

If we look at the nation's resources as a whole, we can plan properly so that our resources will last and enable us to continue capital development. I spoke at the beginning of the extent to which we could continue capital development. We are told, of course, that the Central Bank and the other banks have certain external assets and that these should be used. They are, in fact, being used. Our net reserves—external assets—were diminished by £61.6 million in one year. That would be all right if it had been for capital development, but at least one half of the increase in the deficit in each of the past two years was used for consumption goods and was not related to provide either raw materials or capital equipment for industry.

Mr. J.A. Costello

I think the Taoiseach was quite wrong in saying that the reserves were depleted by £61.6 million in one year. I think £37,000,000 was the figure.

The Taoiseach

The deficit was £61.6 million.

Mr. J.A. Costello

That was not on our external assets.

The Taoiseach

Part of it represents a reduction in our external credits and the rest an increase in the external demands upon us.

Mr. J.A. Costello

There was only £37,000,000 on our external assets to meet that deficit.

The Taoiseach

It demonstrably diminished our net external assets— the amount which brings us dividends in the form of goods in excess of the amount of goods that we export. If a diminution of our net external assets continued and we became a debtor nation, the converse would be the result—that is, we would have to produce goods and export them in payment of the external claims upon us, and then we would be back to the days of the land annuities, handing over our produce to some outside country without getting anything in return. It is important—very important—therefore, that the diminution of our external assets should be checked, and we have achieved that object very largely in 1952. We have brought the deficit in the balance of payments down, perhaps, to £10,000,000 or £20,000,000, some say £15,000,000. We have not got the final figures yet, but it has been brought down to a very satisfactory extent.

When people talk about bringing over and investing here the assets of the Central Bank and the assets of the other banks, you would think you could effect this change by some book-keeping device. It is hard the first time it is mentioned to convince yourself that there is no practical way in which you can bring those foreign assets home except in the form of goods and services. That is a fundamental fact. Anything else you doconsists in transferring the claims from one to another. The Central Bank, by realising some of these assets, might transfer them to the commercial banks or the commercial banks might transfer them to others, but none of these transactions would change the situation for the community as a whole. We could, by the creation of credit, get practically the same results without any transfer of the kind and practically with the same effects upon our general economy. The result that is most to be feared in these cases is the situation of increasing prices which commonly goes by the name of inflation. I am not going to try and detail the various circumstances in which you would have inflation or not. The tendency created by monetising resources which have not been monetised before and of introducing new money like that is towards increased prices.

Mr. O'Leary

Where is the Hospitals Trust money invested?

The Taoiseach

I do not know what the Deputy is talking about, I am sorry to say.

Mr. O'Leary

In Rhodesia.

The Taoiseach

Mind you, I am not saying that the Central Bank should not transfer to some extent from external to home investments. If there was any case in which it became really vital and there was no opportunity of doing the work otherwise, I would have no hesitation in coming to the Dáil and asking that such power be given as would ensure that a fair proportion of the assets would be in Irish securities. It can be done if the Central Bank think it wise to do it at the present time, but the Government cannot force it to be done at the moment.

Mr. Davin

It is for this House to decide that.

The Taoiseach

Quite so. If it is necessary to do it, I would have no hesitation myself. But I would like to see into the future a bit and satisfymyself that that process would be carefully controlled and that purely political exigencies of Parties would not interfere with the interests of the community as a whole.

Mr. MacBride

That is quite sound.

The Taoiseach

It is, of course, quite sound. Does the Deputy think that there is not a strong temptation for a Government situated as we were last year or as we might be situated this year, or for any other Government in a difficulty, to get away from the severe task of making ends meet? All Governments are subject to that temptation.

Mr. Hickey

If we want to create money surely it should be based on physical facts and not on political expediency?

The Taoiseach

Quite so. Generally, if this House puts up a body of men who are not subject to political pressure and if it chooses its men properly as men of intelligence and wisdom, patriotic enough to have the interests of the country at heart, I think we ought to be able to get any results needed in that connection.

Mr. Hickey

I am satisfied that we can get more responsible men that the people who are at present creating money.

The Taoiseach

We all know that the banks create credit. There is no doubt about that.

Mr. Davin

And restrict credit.

The Taoiseach

And they can restrict credit. That is equally true, but please do not say that this Government has anything to do with any restriction of credit.

Mr. MacBride

Of course, it has.

The Taoiseach

I should know a little better than the Deputy whether it has or not.

Mr. MacBride

We know it from your speeches.

The Taoiseach

You do not. There has been no direction of any kind by this Government in regard to therestriction of credit. If there was a question of whether credit was going to be used for productive purposes or for, say, the building of cinemas, and if the circumstances were such that both could not be met, and if we had to choose, we would very quickly step in and say that credit should be given in one direction and not in another.

Mr. MacBride

Does the Taoiseach deny——

Deputies

Order!

The Taoiseach

Wait a moment. People have been talking about bank advances. The peak of bank advances was in March last year when the advances by the banks amounted to £123,000,000.

Mr. Rooney

Overdrafts.

The Taoiseach

That was the peak —and it was at the very time that Deputies on the opposite benches were telling us that the banks were restricting credit.

Mr. MacBride

Does the Taoiseach deny that there has been a restriction of credit?

The Taoiseach

All this talk started about the end of 1951 and it continued all the time up to the Budget. We were told all the time that there was credit restriction. I said I saw no evidence of it in the figures——

Captain Giles

If you were a farmer you would.

The Taoiseach

The position on the 31st March, 1952, was that the advances were £123,000,000.

Mr. Davin

What was the value of the pound then? Eight shillings.

The Taoiseach

The reason the advances at that time were £123,000,000 is obvious enough. They had gone up to that peak to meet the demands which existed for stocking and buying in goods. Remember, all this buying——

Mr. McGrath

Dear tea.

Mr. MacBride

Does the Taoiseachdeny that there has been a restriction of credit?

Mr. McGrath

Take the next plane to Paris.

The Taoiseach

The figure came down to £121,000,000 and I think it is £116,000,000 at present. I admit there is a different situation now from the situation I was speaking about when I said there was no evidence of a reduction in bank credit: that was when I was speaking in this House about a year ago in connection with this matter, and later, when the up-to-date figures were not available at that particular time. Now there has been a diminution in their advances. Are we to conclude at once, without having the matter examined, that there has been restriction of credit? I cannot say that there has been a restriction——

Mr. MacBride

The Department of Finance say that there has been.

The Taoiseach

——because the advances of the banks correspond very largely with the various stocks that are kept in factories and in shops. Consequently, I cannot say definitely that there has been a deliberate restriction of the credit that ought to be given in order that the industries and the business of this country can be carried on.

Mr. Davin

Ask the builders.

Brendán Mac Fheórais

Ask the bank managers.

Mr. MacBride

Ask the Secretary of the Department of Finance.

Deputies

Order!

The Taoiseach

There has been a reduction in building. Is it not significant that, of 116 local authorities, 69 have come to the completion of their building programme? Deputy Corish was talking about Wexford. I have since made some inquiries about Wexford. The Deputy has not considered the country as a whole. There has been no restriction as far as the county as a whole is concerned. In Gorey and Enniscorthy they are coming withinsight of the completion of, if they have not already completed, their housing programme. Therefore, as far as the country areas are concerned, there is a problem in relation to those who have been building houses up to the present. Certainly there has been no effort on the part of the Government to get local authorities to restrict: quite the contrary. The effort has been to try to provide the houses that were necessary as quickly as possible. It is obvious that if you have a building programme which you are pushing to its limit, and you reach the point at which you rapidly complete your work, you have a very big labour force when the work is completed and unless you have other works for them to carry out they will be idle. Might I tell the Opposition that when we were facing a situation like this before one of the things we tried to do was to build up a pool of public works which would provide employment for those who had been engaged in the building industry from the moment the immediate needs of housing, and so forth, were met? Just as, in the future, we may have university buildings, so there was the idea that instead of having Government offices scattered all over the city it would be better to erect them in a place where it would be possible to get greater efficiency and, at the same time, the premises formerly occupied by Government Departments could be used for other more suitable purposes. If a time should come in which our housing programme, and so forth, was nearing completion it would be desirable to have a pool of public works of a proper character.

Mr. O'Leary

The rent is too high.

The Taoiseach

Deputy MacBride spoke of a tunnel under the Liffey. That project was considered and examined in 1932 and 1933 with the idea of setting up a pool of public works of a useful and profitable nature in the sense that the works would meet some requirements of the community just as the building of central Government buildings in the city would make the present buildings available for other purposes. A pool of public works is not a new idea.

I was, perhaps, foolish enough at one time to say that it was much easier for a Government to face a situation in which there was deflation and something of a slump than to face a time of the opposite character when you were having a boom. You can do something to meet deflation but political people will start talking about hair shirts the moment you try to deal with a situation of the opposite kind.

Mr. Morrissey

The only person who mentioned a hair shirt was yourself.

The Taoiseach

I have heard about it many a time since: it does not do me any harm, either. The fact is that it is necessary—if we are coming to a situation of that nature—that we should look ahead and try to ensure that when one source of employment ceases useful work of some kind will, if possible, be made available. It is necessary that plans be prepared so that those who were employed in an industry and who became disemployed can get new work. We have a situation of unemployment at the present time which gives us concern and which must give concern to the Government. Let no person say that we are pursuing a policy deliberately designed to produce these results. They have happened as a result of various causes which, in some cases, are not quite clear. The position is that the situation has occurred quite contrary to our wishes. Our aim should be to try to provide the best remedy we can. When we examine the matter we find that a large section of the unemployment figure represents rural workers—agricultural workers—whose work, in the main, is partly seasonal.

I had always hoped that we would be able to devise some way of meeting the situation because I think it is very valuable, if you have a small farm which is not large enough to enable you to live completely out of it, to have some complementary employment. I think it would be very valuable if we could have work, such as road work, carried out at a time when it would not compete with the work on a farm. So far I have not been able to secure that. Whenever I proposed anything of that sort, I was always met withthe argument that this road work, if it was to be effectively done at all, should be done in the summer-time.

Mr. Hickey

Does the Taoiseach now agree that the Government should exercise the right to create money and credit rather than allow the banks to create it and lend it? I should like to hear the Taoiseach say what measures are being taken to avoid any future devaluation of the pound.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

The debate has concluded on Vote 3.

Mr. Norton

May I inquire in what way the Chair proposes to take the motion relating to unemployment. Is it proposed to take it after the Taoiseach's Estimate?

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

Yes. On Vote 3 there is an amendment in the name of Deputy Costello. I am putting the amendment: "That the Estimate be referred back for reconsideration".

Amendment put.

The Committee divided: Tá, 66; Níl, 73.

Tá

• Beirne, John.
• Belton, John.
• Blowick, Joseph.
• Browne, Patrick.
• Byrne, Alfred.
• Byrne, Thomas N. J.
• Cafferky, Dominick.
• Carew, John.
• Cawley, Patrick.
• Collins, Seán.
• Corish, Brendan.
• Cosgrave, Liam.
• Costello, Declan.
• Costello, John A.
• Crotty, Patrick J.
• Crowe, Patrick.
• Davin, William.
• Desmond, Daniel.
• Dillon, James M.
• Dockrell, Henry P.
• Donnellan, Michael.
• Doyle, Peadar S.
• Dunne, Seán.
• Esmonde, Anthony C.
• Everett, James.
• Finan, John.
• Finucane, Patrick.
• Flanagan, Oliver J.
• Giles, Patrick.
• Hession, James M.
• Hickey, James.
• Hughes, Joseph.
• Keane, Seán.
• Keyes, Michael.
• Kyne, Thomas A.
• Larkin, James.
• Lehane, Patrick D.
• Lynch, John (North Kerry).
• McAuliffe, Patrick.
• MacBride, Seán.
• MacEoin, Seán.
• McGilligan, Patrick.
• McMenamin, Daniel.
• Madden, David J.
• Mannion, John.
• Morrissey, Daniel.
• Mulcahy, Richard.
• Murphy, Michael P.
• Murphy, William.
• Norton, William.
• O'Donnell, Patrick.
• O'Gorman, Patrick J.
• O'Hara, Thomas.
• O'Higgins, Thomas F.
• O'Higgins, Thomas F. (Jun.)
• O'Leary, Johnny.
• O'Reilly, Patrick.
• O'Sullivan, Denis.
• Palmer, Patrick W.
• Reidy, James.
• Roddy, Joseph.
• Rogers, Patrick J.
• Rooney, Eamon.
• Spring, Dan.
• Sweetman, Gerard.
• Tully, John.

Níl

• Aiken, Frank.
• Allen, Denis.
• Bartley, Gerald.
• Beegan, Patrick.
• Blaney, Neil T.
• Boland, Gerald.
• Boland, Patrick.
• Brady, Philip A.
• Brady, Seán.
• Breathnach, Cormac.
• Breen, Dan.
• Brennan, Joseph.
• Breslin, Cormac.
• Briscoe, Robert.
• Browne, Noel C.
• Derrig, Thomas.
• de Valera, Eamon.
• de Valera, Vivion.
• Duignan, Peadar.
• Fanning, John.
• ffrench-O'Carroll, Michael.
• Flanagan, Seán.
• Flynn, John.
• Flynn, Stephen.
• Gallagher, Colm.
• Gilbride, Eugene.
• Harris, Thomas.
• Hillery, Patrick J.
• Hilliard, Michael.
• Humphreys, Francis.
• Kenneally, William.
• Kennedy, Michael J.
• Killilea, Mark.
• Lemass, Seán.
• Little, Patrick J.
• Lynch, Jack (Cork Borough).
• McCann, John.
• Buckley, Seán.
• Burke, Patrick.
• Butler, Bernard.
• Calleary, Phelim A.
• Carter, Frank.
• Childers, Erskine.
• Cogan, Patrick.
• Colley, Harry.
• Collins, James J.
• Corry, Martin J.
• Cowan, Peadar.
• Crowley, Honor Mary.
• Crowley, Tadhg.
• Cunningham, Liam.
• Davern, Michael J.
• MacCarthy, Seán.
• McEllistrim, Thomas.
• MacEntee, Seán.
• McGrath, Patrick.
• Maguire, Patrick J.
• Maher, Peadar.
• Moran, Michael.
• Moylan, Seán.
• Ó Briain, Donnchadh.
• O'Reilly, Matthew.
• Ormonde, John.
• O'Sullivan, Ted.
• Rice, Bridget M.
• Ryan, James.
• Ryan, Mary B.
• Sheldon, William A. W.
• Sheridan, Michael.
• Smith, Patrick.
• Traynor, Oscar.
• Walsh, Laurence J.
• Walsh, Thomas.

Tellers:—Tá: Deputies P.S. Doyle and Mac Fheórais; Níl: Deputies Ó Briain and Killilea.

Amendment declared lost.

Main vote put and agreed to.

Progress reported; Committee to sit again.