Having listened to the leading speakers of both major political parties, it would indeed be very presumptuous for an independentDeputy to stand up to prove that he had a cure for the obvious evils which have tried the ingenuity of the best brains and the best abilities which have been from time to time in the last 30 years at the disposal of different Governments. I do not propose to do so. I should like merely, on this Vote on Account, to take my opportunity of attempting to influence to whatever extent I can the policy of the Government in a democratic Parliament. I think in this regard that one can answer to a certain extent Deputy Sheldon's motion. We must have regard and respect for the motion which has been put down by Deputy Sheldon because he has had a long experience during his membership of the Public Accounts Committee, on which, I understand, he has done extremely good work. I feel that a similar purpose to that which he is trying to achieve is at present being served—the "vetting" of Estimates and their reduction to a minimum consonant with the carrying out of policy. Here we have an opportunity on the Vote on Account of trying to halt the Minister in mid-air, as it were, in the process of framing his Budget, in the process of implementing his policy, and of formulating his proposals for the year to come.
I supported the Minister's policy last year with my eyes open. There were certain aspects of which, obviously, I, as an individual, might have disapproved. At the same time I think it is very unwise, and it would be very wrong of any Party to refuse to give a trial to the financial policy of the Government in power. What we must do now is to try to review the effects of that policy and to find out from the Minister whether he is quite content about the effects which his policy has achieved, and if he proposes to continue that policy, generally speaking.
I suggested in my Budget speech last year that it was not really possible to get away with a deflationary Budget. I suggested at the time that the inevitable result of last year's Budget would be—a result which has since taken place—a fairly substantialincrease in wages all round. Short of a stand-still policy for all wages, a deflationary policy by any Government was quite impossible. The increases in wages have had certain effects. The result has been an increase in the cost to the consumer, of the product of the industries concerned, the mopping up of excess moneys which might have been available to the consumer, a restriction in buying, the reduction in trade to which Deputy Dockrell referred, the laying-off of workers and that deflationary vicious circle to which I have already referred. I am not an economist, and do not pretend to be an economist, but a deflationary circle of that kind appears to me to be an equally dangerous event facing any Government. The Government have to face that situation now.
I have listened to the apologies of the different leading speakers for the Government. It is their job to gild the lily to the best of their ability, to put a good face on things, to reassure the people that things are not quite as bad as they imagine them to be. I was interested in the attempt made by the Minister for Posts and Telegraphs. He appears to have a magnificent facility in the manipulation of figures—I say that as no reflection on him—in such a way as simply to prove anything.
Let us accept the case made by Government speakers that unemployment is not as high as it is represented to be. The number of unemployed is about 90,000. A whole lot of trick-of-the-loop explanations have been put forward to prove that it is not quite 90,000. Let us agree with them that it is 80,000, or even go further along the road with them and say that it is 70,000, or come down to the inter-Party figure of 60,000. Surely if you go back even as far as that— and we are not invited to go that far— it is a completely reprehensible state of affairs that there are 60,000, 70,000, 80,000 or 90,000 unemployed. I do not mind what the figure is but you have that number of unemployed men, men willing and able to give their contribution to the building-up of the wealth of the community and they are denied that right by the ineptitude of whatever Government is in power. It doesnot matter what Government. I am criticising both Governments equally.
I think one of the dangers of a discussion of this kind in a democratic Parliament of this nature is that the Government distrusts the Opposition, probably with a certain amount of justification, because the Opposition's job is not to make things comfortable; it is to criticise, to make the best capital they can out of the situation, in the honest or dishonest belief—it does not matter which—that they would do better if given the chance. The Minister for Posts and Telegraphs quoted many figures to demonstrate that things were not quite as bad as they seemed—figures in relation to housing, land development and agricultural statistics of different kinds, the general claim being that these capital investments of different kinds had increased during the two years' office of the Government.
In passing I should like to say that I think he was being a little unfair to the late Deputy Timothy Murphy, in his references to the housing programme. I think he was the man who was responsible for the planning of a long-term housing programme which, as the Minister for Posts and Telegraphs well knows, is a programme which gradually moves away and has little or nothing to do with the Minister of the time after the initial organisation has taken place. The Minister for Posts and Telegraphs made one other rather frightening remark, and that was that the housing drive was falling away in the natural way—that it had nothing to do with the restriction of credit or any action of the Government but was due to the fact that our housing needs are largely becoming filled. He then went on to say that the inter-Party Government had left no plans to take up the slack of the unemployment which is inevitable. I consider that to be a very unfair and unrealistic comment. Two years is a long time: one and a half years is a longish time. Anticipation of this falling-off in employment in the building industry was a relatively simple thing. The Minister for Posts and Telegraphs has always told us with facility of the plans which weredrawn up in the emergency years, and which could be put into operation on the pressing of a button, to provide employment in the different aspects of our industries throughout the country.
I think it is the duty of the Government, once it takes over, to plan ahead, to look ahead. A Government can live from day to day or from year to year. A weakness in all our Governments is that we do not plan on, say, a five or a seven year basis. It is ridiculous for a Government to run, as we do, on a year to year basis without considering that the absorption of employment by different industries must tend to stop —as is happening now in the case of the building industry and some other projects. The Minister for Posts and Telegraphs tried to console us also with the reflection that all the other countries—even countries with Socialist Governments—are finding themselves in much the same position. I do not think that is a completely fair statement. Most of the other countries in Europe have just been through a devastating war. Socialists, Conservatives, Liberals, Radicals—whatever they were—spent millions of pounds blasting one another to bits throughout Europe. That is none of our business now but it was an expensive pastime while it lasted. They had to reorganise their industries and to arrange the redistribution of the working potential towards the reconstruction of their States. There was a rebuilding of their factories and a re-establishment of their industries. They had all these preoccupations. In addition in the Socialist countries, at any rate—if they are hard up to-day they are hard up with excellent conditions of employment for their people, excellent educational facilities and excellent health services. They have spent a lot of money. Many of them are hard up but their people have known the benefit of the money which has been well spent. I am afraid we cannot say that we have a similar situation here.
When one is in Government one has friends who think that the sun shines out of you, who tell you everything you want to hear until you are sick of it. That is the case, no matter what Government may be in office. Then thereare your natural enemies—the Opposition; you cannot blame them. When a problem has defeated you, you tend to put the best side on it for public consumption. The tragedy is when you believe the fairy stories which you are putting across for public consumption. I think a little bit of this extraordinary insensitiveness to the unemployment figures by the Minister for Posts and Telegraphs arises from his lack of appreciation of what unemployment means. Possibly, it has the same effect that we have often seen in regard to headlines about devastation from bombing during war time, and so forth. "A hundred thousand people bombed out of their homes,""Floods in Western Europe,""War in Korea," and so forth.
These headlines scarcely move you at all, but if you see a child knocked down by a car you realise in a flash the appalling hardship that affects people as a result of such a catastrophe. I think it is somewhat similar in relation to unemployment. People get so used to hearing about 60,000, 70,000, 80,000 or 90,000 unemployed that they do not realise that it means that 90,000 men are anxious to work to support their families but are deprived of the opportunity of doing so. It is the Government's job to find that opportunity for them. I know many a man in my own area who, if he is not already unemployed, is facing unemployment. The Minister for Posts and Telegraphs agrees, apparently, that unemployment will increase. Apparently, too, there are no plans which would help to take up the slack as a result of the falling-off in the building of houses. Consequently, more people will become unemployed. I do not think the position is disastrous but it is terribly serious. It cannot be solved by digging your head in the sand. I would remind the Minister for Posts and Telegraphs that the political ostrich with his head in the sand is in a very delicate position vis-á-visthe public, especially during a general election or some similar occasion. He is quite at liberty to defend the Government: that is his job. He gave the impression, however, that these realproblems had not sunk deeply into his understanding and that, having explained the position here, having overcome the problems, having solved our difficulties by producing sets of figures, he could then go off and finish his job in Radio Éireann.
An aspect of our financial policy to which I should like to refer is the feeling that the attitude of the Department of Finance to financial matters is one which they appear to have assimilated from too close contact with what Deputy Dillon calls his Treasury counterparts across the water. I deprecate in the strongest terms any attempt, even by innuendo, to attack Civil Service groups: I think it is quite unforgivable. The suggestion that any Minister is dominated by his civil servants is an insult to ourselves because we appoint the Ministers—and I have no intention of doing it. At the same time, there is the impression abroad that we are trying to run Ireland on lines very similar to those adopted in Great Britain. I think the Opposition made a fair case for the suggestion that Tory policies in the last Budget in Great Britain had a considerable effect on policies here.
I do not think that is very important at this stage, but I have been slightly worried by references which I have read recently to this question of taxation—that the burden of taxation has reached its limit. We have heard the Leader of the Opposition, Deputy Costello, and Deputy Dr. O'Higgins refer to that. Reference has also been made to it by the Taoiseach and other Government speakers. My attitude to taxation generally is this: that, where you have quite satisfied yourself that there is no wastage in the administration of the money raised through taxation from the community for the maintenance of State services, it is money which the taxpayers have contributed because they are conscious of their responsibility to the weaker members of the community— that is to say, to provide good conditions for our old people in their own homes or in the institutions, to provide good conditions in our hospitals, good health services, old age pensions,widows' and orphans' pensions, and other amenities.
I am not one who is terribly moved by the vehement rejection of increased taxation, which we have had from both sides of the House. I know, of course, that it is a popular political catchcry on which to go to the people who are paying the taxation by saying to them: "We will reduce it." It is likely to get votes. At the same time, I think that, if you are going to establish a social order in our society here, it must be accepted that taxation, direct or indirect, will have to be maintained at a very high rate.
It has been suggested that the taxation of industry is too heavy and will have to be mitigated to some extent. I have read that ad nauseamin the English Tory newspapers about the situation in Great Britain, of Mr. Butler going from one end of England to the other and in the House of Parliament there and continually saying that industry is over taxed, that the burden on it is too heavy. That may be true of Great Britain. I have not sufficient knowledge of the situation there to speak with any authority on that subject, but I think it would be quite wrong if we were to take that suggestion from Great Britain, and from their Chancellor of the Exchequer, and accept that it must be axiomatic, that it is a cure for our ills here.
Let us not fool ourselves about our industries. Our industries are wonderful and grand things to have, but they are largely pocket industries, largely, as I have said, subsidiaries of English companies which have come in here to get the protection of our tariffs and quotas. They are not our main source of revenue or our main source of employment. Consequently, to order your fiscal policy on the assumption that what is good for England is good for Ireland is I think, completely erroneous, and is likely to lead to disastrous results.
If it is the policy to have a reduction in indirect taxation, that is all to the good, but I doubt very much if a good case can be made for a reduction in direct taxation on people in industry who are already doing pretty well forthemselves. Most of our industrialists— I am not one of their greatest critics— have, I think, been doing pretty well for themselves. Consequently, if there is not any likelihood of a mitigation of taxation, they are, I think, the people who should bear most of the burden, and not the lower income groups, or the old age pensioners, the widows, orphans and others.
On this question of tax relief, I feel that it is not a necessarily sound suggestion for adoption here. The Minister may be able to give us an explanation as to how the question of tax relief can be reconciled with his continuous exhortations to save. Tax relief will allow more money into circulation, and in that way will prevent people from saving—the objective which the Minister has in mind.
I listened with particular care to Deputy Costello, the Leader of the Opposition, in order to hear the policies of the Fine Gael Party expounded. I also heard Deputy T. F. O'Higgins on the same subject. I am quite prepared to believe that miracles can happen. The English Tory Party of to-day is only a pale shadow of what that Party was 20 years ago. It is possible that you can get a progressive Fine Gael Party. I believe, as I have said, that miracles can happen. Consequently, I was prepared to hear that the Fine Gael Party had a solution for our present ills. I must be forgiven for being sceptical and cynical of them, but, at the same time, I am not sufficiently sceptical or cynical not to believe that they could not turn over a new leaf.
The conditions put forward by Deputy Costello seemed to resolve themselves into the repatriation of sterling assets, of having increased savings here and of the investment of those savings in a prudent way, and in the establishment of money markets. There was an important condition which was not dealt with at any length, and that was the emendation of the Central Bank Act. First of all, I could get no views at all, good, bad or indifferent, on this question of subsidies. He admitted that the wage increases appeared to have met to a certain extent the taking away of the subsidies. At the same time, Fine Gaeldo not appear to have any clear policy in relation to those subsidies, whether they are going to restore the subsidies, even in an attenuated form, or completely to the level at which they were before the Minister took over, that is, if they were ever returned by the people again into power.
My difficulty, of course is, that Deputy Costello insists, as a good Tory must insist, that taxation is already too heavy and must be reduced. I have asked a number of very reputable economists about this matter. The question I put to them last year, when Fine Gael said it was possible, was, how could you reduce taxation or keep taxation at its present level and restore subsidies? I understand that it is impossible. If it is not impossible, I am prepared to be convinced that it is possible but nobody on the Fine Gael benches has made any attempt to convince me that it is possible. Consequently and naturally I must remain unconvinced.
The repatriation of sterling assets and the prudent investment of funds is a tremendously important proposition. There is nothing new in it. It has gone on for some time. I see difficulties with it. Under Marshall Aid a lot of money was made available to the inter-Party Government, of which I was a member. A lot of that money was spent in the country. It was pumped into circulation. There was this great drawback that I saw in it. What the country needed at the time and still needs was what you might call a blood transfusion, and, instead of that, it got what you might call a champagne cocktail. I may explain it in this way. I think the Minister for Finance at the time was very anxious that the money should be spent in a prudent way, but the trouble was that the only people who seemed to want to take up the dollars were the wireless-set sellers, the luxury consumer goods sellers, the washing-machine people, the lipstick and hair-curler sellers. Money was put into all these silly things, which, of course, could not make any contribution at all to the betterment of the community generally. It appeared that the people who sell these productscould use the money and that the tractor owners, the farm equipment retailers, for whatever reason, could not use that money. They were perfectly at liberty to use it if they wanted to, but, whatever the cause, that money did not go into the projects which most of the then Government had at heart, the buying of farm equipment, the land.
Nobody has explained to me how it will be possible, in our free economy, to insist that, if you do get another large loan, if you do raise large sums of money by an intensive savings campaign or if you do lay your hand on more of the sterling assets, that the money will be prudently spent. It has not been demonstrated to me by Deputy Costello or any of the Fine Gael speakers how they will ensure that that money will be prudently spent. Of course, the alternative, money imprudently spent, has tremendous political attractions — the wonderful feeling of plenty of money in circulation which, I am afraid, the American Loan did give, plenty of luxury goods in the shops, plenty of buying and selling, plenty of people employed in the distributive and drapery trade—a completely unhealthy economy. Most of the things were produced by America or Great Britain. They kept young Americans and young Britons in occupations, but they did nothing at all to produce a healthy economy in Ireland. It just gave that superficial facade of prosperity which is all very pleasant. Now, there is no doubt about it, the Government has right on its side there.
Now the hangover, now the realisation that that money was borrowed money, not one penny of which should have gone in any way except the creation of wealth, either by capital goods in industry or the mechanisation of agriculture. That of course seems to me to be one of the major problems facing the country, it does not matter which Government is in power —the fact that they have no right of direction or no right of control of the expenditure of money, no matter how much they may like to have it.
It is silly of the Opposition to accuse the Government of deliberately having created unemployment. It is aludicrous suggestion. No sane politician who has to face the public, as the members of the Government will have to do, would deliberately create times of shortage or of unemployment or of restrictive credit or any of these other things. At the same time, it is wrong of the Government to say that unemployment, restricted credit or emigration are not the results of their policy. I do not think that is quite fair either. If there had been a considerable rise in employment figures and a reduction in emigration, the Government would have been quick, and rightly quick, to claim the credit for those improvements in the state of the country. While they would be at liberty to claim credit for those improvements if they had taken place, I am afraid they cannot evade their responsibility in relation to the rise in unemployment figures which has taken place over the last year.
I said in the beginning that I have no remedy, mythical or otherwise, that I can put forward as being guaranteed to solve the problems of the country. It is no use for the Government to tell the Opposition that they did not do any better or for the Opposition merely to criticise without being constructive at the same time. The responsibility rests on the shoulders of the men in power and they must freely and fully accept that responsibility.
We do tend to become rather too interested in the clever dialectics of this whole business of parliamentary control, democratic government, and to overlook the fact that our failures in government have disastrous, serious, hurtful and painful results on our people.
One of the most serious results which everybody foretold was in relation to the food subsidies. I wonder if the Minister would explain a statement in relation to the food subsidies which was made by the Minister for Lands, as reported in column 442 of the Official Report for the 13th March, in which he said:—
"The food subsidies were only cut down by over £4,000,000, but the Government lost more by the provision of the compensatory benefits to the sections of the community most in need, to the extent even of1/6 per week per person. These benefits cost the Exchequer more than it gained by the reduction in the food subsidies...."
That to me is rather a peculiar statement. If that is true, I cannot see why the Government, as a sane, adult political Party which is a long time on the road, should have gone to the extraordinary strategem, having removed the food subsidies, of paying out that money. What did they gain by the removal of the food subsidies? The political results, of course, were disastrous. Many of the results took effect before the compensatory rise in wages. Why were these hardships imposed by the Government, if, as they must have anticipated, the consequences would just be the same in the end, that they would lose the same amount in the end? There may be an explanation for that, but I should like to hear it, because it was forecast by people that the removal of the subsidies would have to be met. It seems to me an extraordinary operation which was carried out with very little apparent benefit and that it was a disastrous, hurtful and harmful measure.
For what it is worth, I will try to offer constructive or helpful suggestions to the extent that I can. Our problem is a very serious one and must be solved. Other nations have done it before. There is no doubt that the solution of our problem needs more than just good intentions. Nobody, I presume, has any doubt as to the good intentions of the Minister and the Government. I think they have the best interests of the people at heart. They have shown that in the past. But it does need more than good intentions in running the country; you must show results as well. Listening to the Taoiseach, I could not help feeling that the most important matter is not whether the Government policy is the same or very much the same as that of the Opposition. I do not give a damn whether it is or not. The only interest I have is whether the policy works, and the policy of the last year, I respectfully submit, has not worked. I believe that the results of the policy have been too serious for many of ourpeople to allow anybody to feel in any way complacent about it.
In the solution of the problem, they might go back to the problem facing the late Mr. Roosevelt in America in 1929 and 1930, when he adopted the device of getting together a "brains trust", as he called it, in an attempt to provide employment by capital projects of different kinds, such as the Tennessee Valley projects and projects of that nature. As to afforestation, our approach to that has not been as dynamic as it could have been. A tremendous amount of wealth lay there if previous Governments had attacked that problem in a forthright way.
Then there is another thorny problem, the use of turf or coal. One of the things which the Minister and the Government have done is that, without doubt, they have given us a hair-shirt policy. I do not think any people worth their salt mind stringency, mind a hard time or short rations. No nation has ever minded that if they knew that these things would pass and that there would be an end to them. When Sir Stafford Cripps was dealing with the British people they went on short commons. They went without the luxuries which we wallowed in at the time, with the proviso that there would be an end to these short commons. He promised that the results of his policy would be a better life for them and for their children. That, I think, is what we have felt, that we have had restriction, that we have had a hard time and hardship. I do not think anybody minds these things very much as long as they know there is to be an end to them. Listening to the Minister for Posts and Telegraphs the other night, I do not think he anticipated that there will be an end to them. He anticipated a further rise in unemployment.
I want to make a suggestion in relation to the use of turf. I believe that any other nation facing such a problem as ours would not allow coal into the country—I represent a city constituency where this, I think, will be unpopular—as long as there wasturf available, which is a good fuel, and which is produced from the sweat and labour of our own people and which can work boilers and machinery and keep our industries going. That has been demonstrated in Athlone. Anything that can provide employment for our people, particularly in rural Ireland, is a sound policy and is worthy of consideration. I know that that is a terribly unpopular proposal to make, but it will provide more employment for our young men in the rural areas.
Some group of experts should be there to advise the Minister. I am sure most of our experts would be very willing to help in any way they could as to useful capital projects designed to provide employment, apart altogether from their overall value to the nation. The hydro-electric and the turbo-electric schemes are somewhat lackadaisical, perhaps, in their progress at the moment. I see no reason why many more such schemes should not be put into operation simultaneously. I see no reason why more rapid progress could not be made in that direction.
Industry is in the very capable hands of the Minister for Industry and Commerce. He certainly needs no advice. I doubt if any Government has the courage to tackle the main problem with which we are confronted. I doubt if any Government is prepared to take the risks involved in relation to increasing the productivity of our land. The farmers have many loud-mouthed and articulate advocates here. They have plenty of people to defend them. I am interested only in facts and in finding a solution to our present problem. I have no particular animus against any group or section.
Irish agriculture is stagnant. It has been so for many years past. No real attempt has been made to increase production under any Government. Everybody knows my views on social services. It is not realistic for people to talk of social services and a proper social order until a solution has been found to our present problem by the creation of new wealth. Nobody seems to consider that aspect of the problem at all. Each Minister for Finance triesto go on performing the miracle of the loaves and fishes, dividing the same amount of money between larger and larger groups of people demanding better health and social services, increased old age pensions and blind pensions, improved educational facilities and so on. It is absurd to think that these aims can ever reach fruition unless there is a vast increase in the national wealth of the community. It is only playing with the problem to say that taxation has reached its limits, that there is no more money and that we must cut down on social services. That is an evasion of our problem.
The whole world is giving better social services to its people. Our people will demand such services. They will expect to get them. It is no use blaming them for wanting them because they will go on wanting them and they will go on blaming whoever is in power for not giving them. One cannot possibly give them in the present context of our national resources. Like a benevolent parent both sides of the House are anxious to give our people the best possible in every sphere of activity, social, educational, health and so forth. The cost of living is rising and our income is fixed. That is a problem which relates to everyone in his or her own private life just as much as it relates to the Government.
Neither side has said how the national wealth can be increased. One must do something about agriculture. One must tax the farmers. One must get more of the money that passes between farmers at fairs and that never goes near the banks. Everybody knows that that money is there. Everybody denies it is there. Nobody will make any attempt to get it. The larger part of our farming community pays no income tax. It is living in the 18th century. Yet, it is the farmers who get free grants and all sorts of other benefits provided for them, which Deputy Finan wants increased still further.