Committee on Finance. - Resolution No. 3—General (Resumed). – Dáil Éireann (14th Dáil) – Tuesday, 12 May 1953

Committee on Finance. - Resolution No. 3—General (Resumed).

Debate resumed on the following motion:—

That it is expedient to amend the law relating to customs and inland revenue (including excise) and to make further provision in connection with finance.

Mr. Briscoe

I rose to speak on Friday immediately after Deputy O'Higgins had spoken. I took notes of his words of wisdom about the Budget, and it is no harm to repeat his statement as to his necessary intervention "because of the ugly economic situation, the serious unemployment, the rising prices, with taxation a staggering burden". He referred also to a verbal web woven by the Taoiseach to conceal the position, and added that, 18 months ago, there was no unemployment in the country—he used the phrase "no unemployment"—there were no rising prices and there was no emigration. I do not know how a Deputy can expect those who listen to him to accept these extravagant statements as being in exact accordance with the facts and I further do not know what is his idea with regard to the general public. It is possible to have a member or a number of members of the House who believe these things when they say them because their ignorance is abysmal but, on the other hand, if that is not the case, are they suggesting that the public at large are so ignorant as to believe such stupid statements?

There are various ways of checking figures. The most reliable, I take it, is by way of answers to questions in this House because it has always beenaccepted that the word of a Minister, when he makes a statement of fact, is taken. Are we now to throw overboard all the statements made not only by members of this Government and the Government who preceded them but all past Governments? If Deputies look through the Dáil reports in the Library, they will find figures set out in answers to parliamentary questions and they will see that the average yearly figure for emigration for the years 1926-36 was 16,675 and, for 1936-46, 18,711; and that the average yearly emigration figure for the years 1946 to 1951, which included the period of office of the Coalition Government, was 23,914. These are reliable figures based on examination by the Statistics Office and yet, in face of these figures, we are told by a Deputy that, 18 months ago, there was no such thing as emigration. We know that, two years ago there were over 60,000 unemployed in the country. It is true that the figure is higher to-day, and there are reasons for that, but, in face of that figure of 60,000 unemployed, Deputy O'Higgins says there was no unemployment in the country, no registered unemployed.

As for rising prices, may I quote a statement by Deputy McGilligan in 1951 when he was Minister for Finance to show the farce that some Deputies indulge in when they make these statements? Deputy O'Higgins said there was no such thing as rising prices in the days of the Coalition, and I take it that a number of members of the Opposition now subscribe to and believe that view, but Deputy McGilligan at column 1878, Volume 125 of the Dáil Debates, said:—

"The stresses to which our economy is at present subject arise largely from increased prices and these in turn are due in the main to external circumstances. After a period of viritual stability....

—the stability being in the period before the advent of the Coalition Government—

... import prices took an upward turn last summer when we began to experience the delayed impact of devaluation, later reinforced by the effects of rearmament and the stockpilingassociated with it. There is reason to fear that we have not yet experienced the full consequences of the increased international demand for basic commodities. Concurrently with the rise in import prices there has occurred an increase in our trade deficit; the return for our exports, though it also has increased, has advanced less than the cost of our imports. When what we produce for export does not go as far as before towards paying for our import needs we suffer, as a nation, a reduction in the standard of living we can afford. Increases in remuneration offer no escape from this unwelcome development; indeed, they can only accelerate the process of inflation and cause social injustice as between those able to improve or maintain their position and those who cannot enlarge their incomes and are therefore forced to assume an undue burden of hardship. For this reason, the Government ask for restraint in the putting forward of wage and salary claims and have taken measures intended to limit price increases to those justified by increases in costs."

That is a very comprehensive statement, made by a Minister for Finance of the Coalition Government, pointing out that during his period of office, because of situations beyond our control, rapid increases in prices had taken place which affected our standard of living. Then we had Deputy O'Higgins last Friday saying that up to 18 months ago there was no increase in prices.

In facing a situation of trying to have our economy controlled by a balanced Budget, by a balance of payments in our trade with other nations, we must have regard to the effects on our domestic affairs. There is no use in trying to pretend to have improved the position by just making hustings speeches here because of the belief that there will be an election in a couple of weeks' time.

We had speeches in the House from Deputy Costello and Deputy Norton.We had speeches over the radio from Deputy Costello and Deputy Norton.

Mr. O'Leary

I can talk too.

An Ceann Comhairle

Deputy O'Leary should allow Deputy Briscoe to proceed without interruption. If he wishes to make a statement he can do so but not by way of interruption.

Mr. Briscoe

It is clear to me that the people who interrupt in that fashion do not want the Dáil to get on record a reasoned statement of things as people understand them, that they do not want the public to know what is going on. Deputy McGilligan's contribution in Cork and Deputy O'Higgins's contribution in Cork were two outstanding masterpieces. I repeat that Deputy O'Higgins's solution for the country is that the 73 Fianna Fáil Deputies should be hanged and I repeat, if there had been 77 of us he might have said "shot". That is his way of telling the public all about their custodianship of the affairs of State during the three years of Coalition Government. Deputy McGilligan wants a way back to the road of conservative financial management. He wants this development towards what he reports to be a social welfare State stopped. I am asking the Labour Deputies are they prepared now to say that in their arrangement for a future Coalition Government part of the bargain is to rat on the people?

Mr. Hickey

I suggest that you make your own speech and allow the Labour Party to deal with it themselves.

Mr. Everett

What arrangement did you make with Deputy Cowan and Deputy Cogan?

Mr. Hickey

Deputy Briscoe should make his own speech.

Mr. O'Leary

Fianna Fáil got their answer in Dublin and they will get it in Wicklow.

Mr. Everett

And Cork.

Mr. Briscoe

May I go on now?

Mr. Hickey

Yes. We are prepared to listen to you.

Mr. Briscoe

As I have said, Deputy Costello made a speech in this House.He also spoke over the radio. Deputy O'Higgins spoke here last Friday. I listened to him and it was quite obvious not only to me but to everybody listening to him, even his own colleagues, that the poor Deputy just did not know what he was talking about. He was adding one figure to another when, obviously, he should have subtracted one figure from the other and when that was pointed out to him he still could not see it. I intend to deal with some of those figures but, for the benefit of Deputy O'Higgins, I will do so in a very simple way. If I send a messenger to buy five buckets and he comes back having bought only four, each bucket being £1, he has spent £4 and has £1 over. According to Deputy O'Higgins, on the budget to buy the five buckets he has saved £1.

Mr. Blowick

What would you say if he bought five Independents instead of five buckets?

Mr. MacEntee

He would save your salary.

Mr. Briscoe

Deputy Costello, in his speech on the Budget on the 3rd April, 1952, gave a list of six items which he alleged were deliberately overestimated. He said that the overtaxation on subsidy proposals would bring in £2,000,000 more than was required; overtaxation in the provision for reserve stocks, £1.8 million; overestimation of the cost of social security, £1,000,000; overestimation for certain Departments, £2,000,000; excess provision for interest on the public dept, £500,000; and then buoyancy of revenue, £3,000,000. Flexibility in revenue can only go upwards,it can never go the other way. The total of these items comes to £10.3 million. The reference for these figures is the Dáil Debates, Volume 130, columns 1269 to 1278.

Now, what are the facts? As I said, instead of a mythical surplus of £10,000,000, there was a deficit of £2,000,000. With regard to the overtaxation on subsidies, Deputy Costello found this extra £2,000,000 of saving by calculating the cost of food subsidies on the basis of one-quarter of the year at full cost and three-quarters of the year at a reduced cost. He ignored a number of important factors which reduced the saving. The extraction rate of flour had been reduced from 85 to 80 per cent.; the arrears of subsidy payments were carried into 1952-53; then there was the loss of the substantial revenue which had been derived from off-the-ration sales of flour, tea and butter. The actual saving over and above the Budget estimate on these items instead of being £2,000,000, turns out to be £656,000.

If I do not refer to this in detail and get it on record, there may be again confusion of figures by people who are not able to check additions and subtractions. I, therefore, propose to put on record the exact figures in the original estimates of expenditure with regard to food subsidies. The Department of Agriculture had included in their Estimate a figure of £3,558,000 and the Department of Industry and Commerce, £11,682,000, making a total of £15,240,000. The Budget estimate of expenditure was £8,572,000 and the actual issues were: Agriculture, £1,225,000; Industry and Commerce, £6,691,000; making a total of £7,916,000. The actual saving, therefore, as between £7,324,000 and the Budget estimate of £6,668,000 comes to £656,000 and not £2,000,000 for the reasons stated.

Overtaxation in the provision for reserve stocks, Deputy Costello, the authority on behalf of Fine Gael and I take it the spokesman for the Coalition groups, said was £1.8 million. Deputy Costello argued that the purchase of reserve stocks should havebeen charged to borrowing and not to current revenue. On this basis, he held that there was overtaxation amounting to £1.8 million. The sum of £1.8 million was the provision for reserve stocks in the year 1951-52 and had nothing to do with 1952-53. In actual fact, the net accumulation of reserve stocks in 1952-53 was only £188,264.

Overestimation in the cost of social security £1,000,000. This allegation can be attributed only to a misreading of the Budget statement and the table explanatory of the Budget in both of which the £3,000,000 addition to current expenditure is a provision for the extra cost in 1952-53 of the proposals in the Social Welfare (Insurance) Act, 1952, and for other public services. Deputy Costello ignored the words "and for other current services" and assumed that because the social welfare proposals would cost about £2,000,000, there was an overestimation of £1,000,000. The provision in the 1952 Budget for additional expenditure on social welfare services was £4.75 million. The Supplementary Estimates taken during the year amounted to £4,754,810. The actual provision then exceeded the Estimate by £4,810 or by only one-tenth of one per cent. Any of the Deputies who have any experience of our Public Accounts Committee will know that there is always an allowance for overestimation or underestimation and there is more or less a suggestion that Departments should not allow themselves be found overestimating or underestimating by large amounts or percentages in normal circumstances.

It would be rude on my part not to accept an invitation of one of the hosts of Wicklow. In the last 18 months our Government has increased old age pensions and widows' and orphans' pensions and made them more readily obtainable by those entitled to them. It was a Fianna Fáil Government that first introduced children's allowances and last year the allowances were increased and the scheme extended.

Mr. Everett

Tell us about the increases in the price of food—tea and sugar and butter.

Mr. Briscoe

I am coming to that. I will read some of Deputy McGilligan's gems for the House. We have increased social insurance and social assistance benefits. We have provided greatly improved health services. We are providing money to develop the tourist industry, which, next to agriculture, is the largest source of income we have. It is not so long ago that during an election leaflets and posters were published in an attempt to mislead the public into believing that the tourist trade was a grave danger to this country and that the tourists were only coming here to eat our fat juicy steaks and take food out of the mouths of our own people. Now we have the Dáil unanimously in favour of the development of the tourist industry because that industry means good business for the country. Nobody now speaks against it.

I do not know whether Labour Deputies will agree that it was the Fianna Fáil Party that first launched the drive to build up industry here. I do not know whether the Labour Party has forgotten the ill-informed criticism and misrepresentation showered on the Government and on those who were helping to support industries when they were first established here.

Mr. Hickey

You got as much support from us as you could expect to get.

Mr. Briscoe

I did not say Labour members created abuse. I say they have forgotten the abuse to which we were subjected. Deputies must have some concern for the welfare of the people. They were talking about certain things on which I would like to bring back some recollection. Do the Deputies remember Deputy McGilligan's speech in his financial statement on the 4th May, 1948, as recorded in Volume 110, column 1039, of the Official Debates, when he used this long statement in the shape of a promise:—

"When introducing the Vote onAccount on the 9th March last, I informed the Dáil that no Minister of the present Government had had time to examine the details of the printed Estimates for which he had to stand responsible before the House. On that occasion I made it clear that it was the policy of the Government to ensure retrenchment over as wide a field as possible, to limit expenditure to projects and services that were productive or socially desirable and to endeavour to reduce the cost of living in which the very large increase in Government spending is a material factor. Accordingly, I have caused the Estimates to be subjected to careful scrutiny in my own Department and in the other Departments concerned with a view to ascertaining what economies can be effected in the public services."

First of all, do the Labour Deputies subscribe to the formula that increased Government expenditure causes an increased cost of living, because if that is what they stood for then, I would like to know is that what they stand for now? As I said before, the Book of Estimates in 1948 shows a total of £65,000,000, much less than the succeeding Estimates of the Coalition Budgets. Do they subscribe to that now? If so, they should tell us we should not give the increase to the Civil Service because that is increasing Government expenditure. They should tell us we should not indulge in expenditure in social services generally because that increases Government expenditure. Further, I would like to draw their attention to the words:—

"Accordingly, I have caused the Estimates to be subjected to careful scrutiny in my own Department and in the other Departments concerned with a view to ascertaining what economies can be effected in the public services."

The Minister for Finance, in introducing this Budget, made a reference to possible savings in administration generally to see could economies be effected and he believed in that particular connection that a figure could be reached. Therefore, it is wrongnow to attempt to effect economies where there happens to be waste or unnecessary expenditure, but it was right three years ago? When the Coalition assumed office they had misled the people into believing that there was nothing but waste in the administration of Fianna Fáil, and they were able to prove it by increasing expenditure in the administration of the country, notwithstanding the fact that they had declared off every platform that they were going to eliminate all this waste; they were going to bring down all this extravagant expenditure.

At the outset I wondered what was the cause that put people into the frame of mind in which we find some Deputies, certainly the Deputies who have spoken so far. I asked myself: is it innocence? Is it simplicity? Is it that they do not know or that they do not want to know, or is it that they just want to persist in misleading people all the time. I recommend that the Deputies should take a look at each year's Estimates during the Coalition term of office; then look through the pages and find out the amount involved for Supplementary Estimates introduced subsequent to the Budgets and find out how these Supplementary Estimates were financed. Our Budget attempts to be an honest, real estimating of expenditure and the providing of the money for that expenditure, and an indication to the public as to where that money is coming from and how it is to be raised. It is not going to take the easy line of underestimating for the purpose of trying to secure public acclaim and then, behind the scenes, borrowing money to obtain the excess required to meet Supplementary Estimates particularly where those supplementaries cover what normally require to be met out of taxation.

There is a big difference between paying your way in the ordinary income and expenditure of your week by week or day by day requirements and the capital item. You can have arguments, as we do have, on what is a capital item, on what is above or below the line, but as far as normal expenditure is concerned the income of the State must be secured in the ordinary wayand it is not good to follow the policy of our predecessors in spending borrowed money to make up a deficit for normal payments which should come to be made year by year out of the income of the State. However, we will have a great deal of further abuse and misrepresentation attaching to the Minister.

I hear a great deal of talk about the unemployed and I wonder will I get support from the Labour Deputies now. I will try to urge and press the Minister to obtain sanction from the Government to provide substantial sums of money—I am talking of millions—to give employment to our unemployed people in the creation of essential assets of the State which can be regarded as capital expenditure. I do not know Cork as well as Deputy Hickey but I know Dublin fairly well. I want Dublin Castle knocked down as far as possible and the elimination of all the memories that go with it, and I want rebuilt there suitable, desirable and reasonable Government offices to house our State officials in a better way and not in the way they are housed at the moment, particularly as the structure is now in a dangerous condition and needs to be rebuilt. Are the Labour Deputies going to say, as Deputy McGilligan has said——

We have in the City of Dublin an undertaking known as the E.S.B. sprawled all over the city in what used to be private houses. I am sure that it is not a proper way to run a big undertaking, to have streets and streets of private houses converted into offices. It would be far better for an institution of that kind to erect proper suites of offices in proper places. In the same way I say the State should set a headline and should not use as offices houses which are wholly unsuited to the purposes for which theyare used. Dublin Castle was never built to house the Revenue Commissioners and the other Departments of State which operate up there. It is time we had proper offices. We shall have a sneer again, I know, from Deputy McGilligan. I do not know where he gets the figure of £10,000,000, £11,000,000 or £12,000,000 about which he speaks but I say that the sooner we understand the proper application of capital expenditure in a form to give the greatest content of labour in the spending of that money, the sooner we shall be able to get together, not to talk about the unemployed but to relieve the unemployed. Some people like to have a big number of people unemployed so that they may have something to shout about. If we could reach the goal where everybody would have full employment, some people might give up the ghost altogether because they would have nothing to shout about. That position, however, cannot be reached easily. I quite realise that we have a very substantial number of unemployed, very many of whom are from the City of Dublin. I do not know what capital projects Cork Deputies are thinking about to absorb the unemployed in that city.

Mr. Hickey

We have several of them.

Mr. Briscoe

Mr. Everett

Thanks to us.

Mr. MacEntee

We had an overall majority. We had not to thank you for anything we ever did for the working people of this country.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

Deputy Briscoe should be allowed to make his speech.

Mr. Everett

We are only helping him.

Mr. Briscoe

We are not taking anything off food. Is the Deputy suggesting that, during his time as Minister in the Coalition Government, there was no subsidy taken off food, or does he want me to prove that to him? Does the Deputy deny that? These are thepeople who go out on the hustings and say: "We are the just men; we do nothing wrong; we will not do to you the things that those people do," but those are the things which the Deputies opposite did, and because they did them we had to correct them. Does the Deputy deny that food subsidies were removed during his time as Minister?

The Deputy is wandering far away from the financial motion.

Mr. Briscoe

The final thing I wish to refer to is the balance of payments. We have heard in the discussion references to the nation's credit balance abroad. We hear people talking about repatriation, but, as the Minister pointed out in his speech on the radio, you just cannot repatriate the nation's possessions and put them, in the shape of commodities, into cellarsand other places for safe keeping. That will not do any good. We must also recognise that there have been periods, and there may be such periods again, when circumstances will make the nation's credit balance a matter of vital importance in relation to securing essential commodities. If we repatriate and dissipate every penny of our assets abroad, I do not think that anybody here would like to face the future. The security of this nation is at stake. We can continue to improve our productive methods, the methods by which we can create additional wealth, and if, as a result of the production of individual wealth and wealth for the nation, we can increase our credit balance, wherever it may be, it is a far better aim than the negative approach of those who say: "There is a sum of £400,000,000 in England and if we could only get that home and put it to work, nobody would be short."

Mr. Everett

Rebuild Dublin Castle.

Mr. Briscoe

I am talking of destroying Dublin Castle and Deputy Everett still thinks I have said I want to build it. What can one do with a Deputy like that?

Mr. Finan

Forget about him.

Mr. Briscoe

I suppose that is the best thing. Maybe I am talking above his head, but I am trying to illustrate that all this credit balance we have was created by the efforts of the people of this country. It was wealth created by these people and retained by them, wealth which can be utilised whenever and wherever necessary, but why it should be suggested that the State should by legislation realise these assets and bring them home in the form of a credit in books—and then find it impossible to utilise them, destroying, with the destruction of these assets, the income that comes to the nation from their investment—is beyond my comprehension.

This nation is gradually improving its output of all kinds of commodities, and the wealth of the nation is consequently improving, and therefore what we should concern ourselves with is how best to safeguard the nation'sinterests. One of the matters which we must have regard to—and Deputy McGilligan said the very same thing about the frightening proportions of the adverse trade balance—is the taking of corrective measures to ensure that our expenditure on things imported will not be much in excess of the value of the items we export so that the net balance, if it cannot be in our favour, at least, will be as low as possible. These are important matters.

The Minister in his 1952 Budget indicated to the Dáil and to the nation that because of a certain situation which, in his opinion and in the opinion of the Government, was dangerous for the nation, corrective measures were going to be taken and not talked about. These measures were so well taken that he was able to report satisfactorily on this occasion. We hear it stated generally that industries are closing down and commercial undertakings going out of business. I do not know that that is the case at all. Deputy Lynch, the Parliamentary Secretary, indicated that, since Fianna Fáil came back to office, that is, within the past 18 months, we have had some 164 new industries or additions to existing industries. They probably will be laughed and gibed at as were the industries established when Fianna Fáil first took office when they were described as cellar industries in back rooms, rat infested places; but we have to-day fine institutions in the shape of these industries, giving large—scale, good and constant employment, industries which must be protected from the impact of things outside which are beyond the control of themselves or of this nation. I do not know whether Deputies will regard these as such. As I said, I was in Wicklow over the weekend——

Mr. Everett

You were not very successful.

Mr. Briscoe

——and I visited a number of farmers who told me that they anticipated a very good harvest this year, that the amount of tillage this year is greater than ever and that farmers would no longer be concerned about the import of maize. I believethey have now realised that we can do without maize, which means a saving in the export of our money and the realisation of our external assets for the purchase of maize or other feeding stuffs abroad. Is that what is wanted? Very soon, we will have ended the import of cement, with a consequent saving to the nation of the millions which previously went out for its purchase. All these things will help. We will be self-sufficient in regard to cement, self-sufficient in regard to sugar and self-sufficient in regard to dozens and dozens of items and articles. Then look at your balance of trade. We will find that the money previously exported for these things will find a home here, will circulate here and will add to the wealth of the nation. I should not be surprised if, after a number of years of office of this Government, our credit balance abroad will be twice what it is to-day.

I remember that when we talked during the three years we were on the opposite side about when we got back, we were told we would not be back for 16 years. Nobody can forecast what the nation's voters will decide, but I believe that this Budget is well understood by most people. I believe it is appreciated and welcomed. I believe that stability has come again to our country and that that stability will give confidence to those who are able to create the means of giving the employment which they need to our people. I believe that if those Deputies who are concerned about the nation's welfare, as distinct from Party politics, were to speak of things as they see them, they would be bound to admit that and it would help the degree to which people are getting back again to normal activities.

It is all very well to get up here and talk of things which are not correct, but I believe I have put on record sufficient evidence to show that Deputy Costello was entirely wrong when he said that we budgeted last year for a surplus of £10,000,000, and to show that Deputy O'Higgins does not understand the most simple book-keeping transactions in relation to the nation's accounts. I believe that the people, whenever the opportunity comes, will put on record again their completesatisfaction with the management of the Fianna Fáil Government and the Budget of the Minister for Finance.

Mr. Cosgrave

I hope the concluding remarks of Deputy Briscoe mean that the country will have an opportunity soon——

Mr. Briscoe

I did not say soon.

Mr. Cosgrave

——of expressing their views on this Budget because I do not think the country gave this Government a mandate for the policy that it is operating. It used to be a phrase that was frequently employed by the Taoiseach and other members of the Fianna Fáil Party that they wanted a mandate to do certain things and on a number of occasions they referred to the fact, after elections, that they had not a majority and that they could not do the things they wanted to do, that they might be put out at any time. I think on two occasions they succeeded in getting a majority. In 1948, however, they did not get an over-all majority and in 1951 they did not get an over-all majority but, on this occasion, they have so far refrained from allowing the electorate to express their opinion on the effects of the Budget of last year. I hope it will be possible to get a condition of affairs in which the electorate will have an opportunity of expressing an opinion on this Budget and on the results of the present Government's economic policy.

It is, however, significant that although Fianna Fáil protest that they are not anxious to have an election, in respect of one of the constituencies in which a by-election is pending some inducement is mentioned in the Budget, an inducement which, I notice, was omitted from the Estimates as presented originally. It is a reference to the fact that additional money is to be provided for certain capital development at Avoca. It was noticeable that the Vote for the Department of Industry and Commerce provided for a reduction by £55,000 in the amount of money to be allocated to Mianraí Teoranta and on the Vote on Account other Deputies as well as myself referred to the fact that weknew remedial measures would be taken to deal with that situation.

It is, of course, common knowledge in Wicklow that a large number of men had their names on a list of those who were to be dispensed with, that that list was subsequently cancelled and that it is understood, at least, that the axe in their case has been postponed until the election takes place. That postponement, apparently, is to be facilitated in some way by a vague promise in a passage in the Budget.

This Budget affects more than the people of Wicklow; it affects the country; it affects it in the same way as the Budget of last year affected it. It reimposes, continues and maintains the taxes that were imposed in last year's Budget. Those taxes were designed, according to the Minister for Finance, as corrective measures. These corrective measures were followed by a very marked change in the picture of affairs as reflected by any indices that are stated. Since last year and in particular since this time two years ago, there has been a substantial rise in unemployment. Deputy Briscoe referred in his speech to his anxiety to get support in this House for the purpose of providing employment. Probably the Deputy is sincere in that but the best test of any policy is the results. What do the indices of the present Government's policy as far as employment is concerned show as compared with this time two years ago? I am comparing like with like.

The figures as published in the March issue of the Irish Trade Journal and Statistical Bulletinon page 2 show the numbers unemployed in May, 1951, as 49,000 and some odd hundreds. The most recent figures show that there are still over 80,000 persons unemployed. The figure has varied slightly taking one week with another, but traditionally at this time of the year there is a reduction in the numbers unemployed. On those figures there are at present over 30,000 more persons on the unemployment register than was the case this time two years ago.

The suggestion is now made that if a proposal is promoted to rebuild Dublin Castle to provide employmentit should get support. We are interested to see what steps have been taken, what conditions have been caused by Government action, that created the substantial increase in the numbers unemployed, not to mention those on short time or on part-time, and excluding entirely the numbers emigrating.

We do not claim that every aspect of the inter-Party Government's policy was entirely successful. We still had a number unemployed, but the figures were substantially lower than they are at the present time. It is the avowed aim of all Parties in the House to create employment. We believe that the conditions which have been created by the Budget of last year and which are being continued by this Budget have affected to a great extent the employment position, that they have created a worsening of economic circumstances, a reduction in the demand for a variety of goods and a consequent reduction in output in certain types of industry.

I need not refer here to figures which other Deputies gave. It suffices to say that the Minister in his Budget speech referred to the fact, but passed rather quickly from it, that there had been a fall in industrial output. That is the first time in the history of the country, with the exception of the war years, when circumstances were entirely different, that there was a reduction in industrial output. The fact that that has occurred, its effect on employment, its effect on those who have had their employment terminated or who were put on short time and the consequent dislocation to themselves and their families requires little emphasis. At the same time there has been a reduction in building. It was rather ironic to hear the Minister in his Budget statement refer to the fact that last year a record number of houses were constructed when anyone who has any knowledge of the length of time required to plan housing development will recognise that the houses built last year and the year before were planned and, in many cases, already under way when the present Government assumed office.

It is very significant that in recent months there has been a substantial drop in house building. Again the Minister's speech made very little reference to that, except that the higher interest rate might have had an effect on it. At present in Dublin there are 22,000 persons described as building workers or workers employed on constructional work on the unemployment register. That deterioration has occurred over the last two years. The substantial rise in the numbers unemployed, the reduction in the previous rate of house building and the drop in the output of certain types of industry have been part of the results of the present Government's economic policy and the only contribution which this Budget makes to that situation is to continue the existing burdens and, in respect of industry, to promise that a committee or a commission will be appointed whose labours will press hard on the already heavy demands on the time of businessmen, professional men and the Revenue Commissioners. That is the only incentive in the Budget to increased output. It is the only incentive provided for those who have been affected, as the statistics show, by a reduction in industrial output—a promise that a committee or a commission will be set up to inquire into the effects of taxation as it operates in regard to industry. It is, of course, long overdue. Industry may, however, congratulate itself at least on the fact that there is a promise of a committee to inquire into taxation. Agriculture has fared less favourably. The agricultural community were told in page 15 of the Budget statement that taxation presses lightly on the land.

Mr. MacEntee

Central taxation.

Mr. Cosgrave

In a year in which there has been a rise in the rates of every local authority throughout the country, in some cases a substantial rise, affecting every aspect of life and which must have an effect on agriculture, which must press hard on farmers as on every other section, they are told in the Budget that taxation presses lightly on the land. The position which has developed shows, although theMinister did not in last year's Budget anticipate that there would be any substantial rise in earnings, because, as reported in column 1123 of the Official Debates of the 2nd April, 1953, he said:

"Similarly, on the earnings side, while we may expect some increase in export prices the immediate outlook in agriculture would not justify us in counting upon any material increase in the quantity exported,"

that last year we had a record level of exports. The statistics show, and it was admitted by the Minister, that the bulk of that rise was due to what might be considered as agricultural products. He referred to cattle, dressed meat, tinned beef and the products of new industries such as sweetened fat. There had been that rise in exports, most of which was due to an increase in volume, as only £2,500,000 could be attributed to higher prices.

It is significant that under the trade agreement which was derided in 1948 and subsequently as restricting the prospects for our farmers and an expansion in trade it was possible to attain a record level in respect to exports. It is significant also that, although that trade agreement was then criticised, up to date no effort has been made to effect any modification of it. I do not suggest that some modifications might not have been desirable. Any agreement of that sort negotiated in a particular year may, in existing circumstances, require modification. It is, however, a tribute to that agreement and to those who negotiated it that it was possible last year under the terms of that agreement to attain an export total of over £101,000,000, which was £20,000,000 more than in 1951 and twice as much as our total exports in the last year of the previous Fianna Fáil Administration.

Mr. Cunningham

Because we boycotted Britain.

Mr. Cosgrave

That situation was attained in the main because of the substantial opportunities provided under the 1948 Agreement with Britain and under a number of other agreements which had been made with continentalcountries. This year, although the situation has developed as a result of the Budget of last year, finds the country faced with the same burdens and the same rate of taxation. It is interesting to recall that, although repeated assertions were made by those who opposed the Budget last year that a great number of taxes were unnecessary, that the proposals enshrined in the Budget must inevitably result in a surplus, and although that surplus was subsequently hidden or, one might say, devoured by Supplementary Estimates, the Minister for Finance expects on the basis of the same rate of taxation, taxation which last year brought in over £1,000,000 less than was originally estimated, to be able to get not merely the amount that is anticipated but to effect in the Estimates as represented to the House an economy of £3,500,000. I want to try to find out where these economies will be effected.

Last year the Minister for Industry and Commerce asserted that the Estimates had been examined with what he described as a fine comb and, allowing for a slight variation here or there for either overestimation or underestimation, no material saving was possible; that the Estimates were kept as low as was regarded as prudent and that they had been examined with meticulous care by all the Departments concerned.

As the year wore on a great number of Supplementary Estimates were introduced. Although in the Budget last year provision was made for £3,500,000 for contingencies, including certain Supplementary Estimates, the figures which were presented by the Minister in this year's Budget show that additional Supplementary Estimates over and above those provided for, amounting to over £4,000,000, were met out of the level of taxation which, it was claimed by those sponsoring it, was necessary, and, in fact, justified merely to secure a balance. That taxation brought in not only sufficient revenue to meet the Budget presented to the House and the Estimates for the year, but was also sufficient to provide over £4,000,000 in respect of Supplementary Estimates for which no provision had been made.

It is significant that that was possible if the claim made by those sponsoring the Budget was honest. It is indeed significant that that was possible if the sponsors of that Budget were honest in suggesting to the House that the taxes were not excessive and that the Budget only imposed sufficient taxation to bring in adequate revenue to defray the Estimates that had been presented. Although that was possible last year, with taxation which failed to bring in revenue to the extent of over £1,000,000 as originally anticipated, this year, according to the Budget speech—page 57—it is proposed to effect economies. It is proposed to secure economies amounting to over £3,500,000.

What Estimates will be cut? What schemes will be postponed? The Minister referred in his speech to the fact that, while economies affecting the living standards of the weaker sections of the community are out of the question, and will not be sought, this does not apply to other sectors of the administration. It is possible in an estimated total expenditure of over £100,000,000 to effect economies amounting to £3,500,000 on the same rate of taxation which failed last year, so we are told, by over £1,000,000 to reach the estimate originally presented; and last year we were told by the Minister for Industry and Commerce that the Estimates had been gone through with a fine comb and that no economies, no worthwhile economies, allowing for a slight variation here and there, could be effected.

This year it is proposed to save a total of £3,500,000 out of the Estimates which are presented this year. It is interesting to compare that with the circumstances to which the Minister referred when he was dealing with the Exchequer balances. In the course of his Budget speech he referred to Exchequer balances. I think last year he described them as "till money". This year he said:—

"On 1st April, 1948, the cash balances in the hands of the Revenue Commissioners amounted to almost £1.9 million and over the three yearsto 1st April, 1951, they were maintained around this level. As a result of fortuitous accretions over the past two years, however, the figure at 1st April last had risen to £2.5 million. They will now be drawn upon to the extent and for the special purpose which I have mentioned, thereby reducing them to a round £2,000,000."

The fact is that, although Deputy McGilligan was paraded as scraping the bottom of the barrel, according to one Government spokesman, at the end of his period in office the cash balances on hands, or the balances which were carried over at the end of the year, were bigger than they had been when he assumed office in February, 1948.

We have heard a good deal in the course of the present debate and during the past year about the necessity for this taxation and about the need to provide for current expenditure out of current revenue. The proposals which were introduced by the Minister last year and which are being continued this year are in effect a continuation of the same rate of taxation first introduced last year. I have already referred to the substantial rise in unemployment, to the substantial slump in business, to the drop in house building in recent months and to the fact that for the first time for a great number of years, with the exception of the war years, there was a reduction in industrial output.

However, there are other aspects of this Budget that require mention. The Minister for Finance in the wholecourse of 66 pages which he read to the House last week, with the possible exception of reference to the fact that wages and salaries had increased, made no reference whatever to the high cost of living. It is important to remember this Government was elected after it had published a 17-point programme. Point 15 of that programme undertook to provide controls where necessary and to continue food subsidies. The Budget last year and the continuation Budget this year reduced in some cases and abolished in others the food subsidies. The result of that change was to increase the price of butter from 2/10 to 4/2; to increase the price of the 2lb. loaf from 6½d. to 9¼d.; to increase the price of tea from 2/8 per lb. to 5/-; to raise the price of sugar from 4½d. per lb. to 6½d. and to raise the price of flour from 2/8 per stone to 4/6.

It was suggested last year that that money had to be saved in order to meet current outgoings. The total subsidies which were reduced or abolished in last year's Budget amounted to £6,000,000, slightly more. The excessive taxation, as it was proved by the returns this year and by the fact that it was possible to make provision with the existing rate of taxation for the additional supplementaries that came to be met over and above what were provided for in the Estimates last year amounting to over £4,000,000, showed that in respect of at least that sum of money, it would have been possible, by continuing the subsidies then in operation in respect of essential foodstuffs—certainly in respect of bread and butter, not to mention tea and sugar—to maintain the existing level of prices.

It is significant that the survey which was published in March shows that the cost-of-living figure for all items has risen by comparison with the index of 100 in 1947 from 109 in May, 1951, to 123 in February of this year: that took place after almost two years of a Government that undertook in one of the published points of its programme to maintain and continue both food subsidies and price control, and it is a figure which does not take into account the last rise in the price of butter. That situation, we believe,calls for a remedy. We do not consider that the proposals which were brought forward here in this Budget are designed to help and stimulate thrift and act as an incentive to industry. We regard them as oppressive, unnecessary and unjust.

We have never suggested that adequate revenue should not be raised to meet current outgoings, but even in the Budget which was introduced this year the Minister admits that he has still, after almost two years, accepted as a capital item—because he has not altered them—the services designated as capital by the previous Government. They have been continued and are regarded as capital to the extent of just £14,000,000 in this Budget. The inter-Party Government introduced the two-tier Budget in order to promote not merely a programme of economic expansion, of development of housing, hospitalisation and those other plans that have been referred to, but also to assist employment and to provide a stimulus so that as many of our people as possible would secure employment here at home.

It is a significant change that whereas under the inter-Party Government it was possible to publish advertisements to ask skilled tradesmen who had emigrated to come back to work on housing, hospitalisation, on the other national development schemes and particularly skilled building operatives to come back to the work that was available, the most recent figures show that in Dublin at the present time there are 22,000 persons unemployed who were formerly employed on building and constructional work. A number of members of the Government have attempted to paint the picture that the conditions which were in existence when the inter-Party Government left office in 1951 were so bad that a whole variety of measures had to be taken to correct the situation.

As I said earlier, I do not claim that every step the inter-Party Government took achieved our most optimistic desires. I do not claim that everything we aimed at was achieved, but we do say that the results of the policy asimplemented over the short space of three years were such that, in 1951, an impartial, neutral, detached observer, Mr. Foster, who was then the E.C.A. administrator, described our economy in words which I believe deserve repetition here. He said:

"The suspension of E.C.A. Aid is the best possible recognition of the strides the Irish people have taken towards economic self-sufficiency under the impetus of the Marshall Plan.

With the dollars and technical assistance provided through E.C.A. help Ireland has accomplished agricultural and other economic reforms in three years that otherwise would have taken a generation to achieve."

That testimony to the economic results that have been achieved, with the assistance of Marshall Aid, by the inter-Party Government—because the three years to which he referred were the immediate preceding three years— is not given by a person who had any interest in the inter-Party Government. It is a detached appraisal of the fruits which accrued as a result of a policy that was implemented by the Government which represented in a unique way all sections of the community with the exception of the Fianna Fáil Party. We believe that that policy did achieve in a short space of three years substantial improvements, but it is a policy that would have to be continued because the incentives given under the trade agreements, the incentives provided by Marshall Aid for land reclamation and development, the assistance provided for expansion under the Housing Acts, the expansion of the social services, the raising of the old age pension and the other pensions and the modification of the means test, all these economic and social improvements were part of the comprehensive programme which in that short period of time had achieved considerable success.

We believe that the burdens which were imposed last year and which are being maintained and continued this year are not only excessive but the proposals which the Minister makes in the Budget to effect economy of£3,500,000 on the basis of the rates of taxation at present operative, show that it was unnecessary last year and that it is still unnecessary this year in order to maintain and provide the services which are covered in the Estimates.

It is important to remember that the proposal which was referred to by Deputy Briscoe to provide employment was one of the types of enterprise which received criticism in the Stacey-May report. On page 25 of the report reference is made to the fact that "the chief criticism of the dominant rôle of Government in Irish capital investment is that under its guidance, a disproportionately large percentage of capital investment has been channelled into ‘social overhead' rather than into production - increasing enterprises". They refer to a variety of proposals and the fact that a great number of them were of the social and ameliorative type rather than the productive type. It is indeed a strange commentary on the present Government, which was so tardy in granting the award of the Civil Service Arbitration Board, that while the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Social Welfare should say that about 20 per cent. of the Civil Service is redundant and that while one of the Government's supporters, Deputy Corry, should refer to civil servants as "drones", another member of the same Party should suggest that, whatever about paying them an adequate wage or whatever about implementing the undertaking given in the Civil Service Arbitration Award, the essential thing is to house civil servants properly. I believe everybody in all quarters of the House would be in favour of providing proper accommodation for all public servants, but if a choice has to be made between proper and more commodious housing of the Civil Service on the one hand and implementing the award, on the other hand, the bulk of public opinion, and of opinion in the Civil Service itself, would favour the early implementation of the award which was made.

We believe that if this Budget were put to the test of public opinion there would be an emphatic rejection of it. It cannot be said that it stimulatesthrift or industry. The indices of industrial production following the Budget of last year show a substantial drop. There are fewer people employed in building and other activities and more people on the unemployment register. Although there can be no accurate assessment of emigration figures at the present time it is a reasonable assumption that there has not been any reduction in these figures. At the same time, we have had from the Minister for Finance in the course of the Budget speech, high sounding phrases about defending the nation. It is pertinent to ask what steps have been taken to defend our people against unemployment, short-time work, a rising and already high cost of living and the fact that so many have been obliged to emigrate? It is just as reasonable to take steps to defend our people against any of these maladies which affect them as it is to take steps to defend the country against an aggressor from outside. These economic aggressors are within. The remedies that were applied and were being implemented by the policy of the inter-Party Government succeeded, at any rate, to the extent that Mr. Foster was able to say that the suspension of E.C.A. aid was the best possible recognition of the strides the Irish people had taken towards economic self-sufficiency. These strides were made during a three-year period, and it is worthy of note that six months before the commencement of that three-year period the present Tánaiste, speaking at Letterkenny, said that the following three years were a period in which disaster threatened on every side and economic danger lurked around every corner. By the programme implemented during these three years the country was developed to an extent that succeeded in securing commendation from the impartial observer to whom I have already referred.

A few days before the present Budget was introduced the Sunday Independentpublished an article entitled “The National Peril” and displayed a photograph of the present Minister for Finance. The article referred to the fact that the Irish race was threatened with extinction, that the census figures showed continuous emigration. Itwent on to say: “There are those who say that nothing can be done about it. People cannot be kept on the land if they want to go into the cities. They cannot be kept at home if they wish to emigrate.” It further commented: “The country should set its face against this doctrine of helpless despair. Something can be done about it; much can be done about it.”

We believe that the sound economic policy implemented by the inter-Party Government had shown good results. We do not say it stopped emigration or provided everybody with jobs but over a period, despite external influences, it maintained prices at a fair level and it maintained a high level of employment, the highest level ever reached. It succeeded in reducing unemployment to the lowest figure ever published by the Statistics Department. It provided houses and hospitals, rebuilt and extended existing hospitals, provided land reclamation and drainage and improved a variety of social services. It so enabled the productive capacity of this country to be geared up that in the short space of less than five years, during three of which the inter-Party Government were in office, our total exports had increased to over double the figure of 1947, the last year of the previous Fianna Fáil Administration. I have no doubt that if the country gets the opportunity it is anxious to have, either by means of by-elections, or by a general election, of expressing its views on this Budget and on the economic policy of the Government generally, the people will emphatically reject this policy as oppressive and as contrary to the economic and social betterment of the country. The country awaits an early opportunity of so deciding.

Mr. M.P. Murphy

It is natural that people throughout the country should display a greater interest in the Financial Resolutions before the House than in any other phase of our activities, because the discussion on this Budget has a more direct bearing on their livelihood. To any impartial observer the discussion so far has been a mass of contradictory statements.Indeed, it is difficult, not only for the people but for members of the House present listening to the debate to follow the trend of the discussion. However, one thing is apparent to the people down the country and that is that this Budget offers them no redress or alleviation of their present position but that the policy which was in operation during the past year will be continued for the coming year. It is quite apparent to them that it will take the formidable figure of £101,170,000 to administer the affairs of this country for the current year. I can assure the House that throughout the country there is a general feeling of uneasiness as to how the money, which will be extorted from the people during the present year, will be expended.

Many people believe—I think rightly so—that some of this money will be wantonly wasted. I believe there is an obligation on the responsible Minister to give this House and the country a detailed statement as to how every penny of that money will be laid out. One of the main matters that confronted the people for some time was this question of the Civil Service. It has been more in the forefront of discussions over the past few months than at any time during the last 25 or 30 years since the State was founded. The ordinary people throughout the country are very interested at the present time in this body.

At the outset I may say that from my experience I regard the Civil Service in general as a very capable, efficient and admirable body who are generally willing to help any people who approach them on any matter whatsoever. Mainly due to statements made by members of this House, there is a feeling existing in the country at the present time that there are far too many of these civil servants in the country and that there are far too many public employees. We had a statement from a junior Minister or the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Social Welfare who told the country that at least 20 per cent. of the Civil Service could be done away with without any adverse effects on its working. No wonder there is a feeling among the people who have to providethis £101,000,000 that something could be done to reduce that Estimate especially when they are told by a junior Minister or a Parliamentary Secretary in the present Government that 20 per cent. of those people have nothing whatsoever to do; in other words that they could be done without.

I think there is an onus and an obligation on the responsible Minister to clarify the position. During the course of his Budget statement the Minister announced that it was his intention and his hope to be able to effect a saving of £3,500,000 in public administration. So far as the Civil Service itself, this House and the people of the country generally are concerned. it would be very well if the Minister for Finance in referring to this discussion clarified the whole position and told the House and the country once and for all whether or not the statements made by a Minister's Parliamentary Secretary and by other people supporting the Government are correct. I think it would also be desirable to let the public know. Many parents are at present confronted with the problem of providing employment for their sons and daughters and look forward to the Civil Service as a career for them.

It would be no harm if the Minister made the position quite clear because if the statements made by Deputies Kennedy, Corry and other supporters of the Government are correct it is only natural to assume that recruitment for that body will cease. When people who have to work from one end of the year to the other in order to earn a fair livelihood get it into their minds that they have to work so as to provide soft jobs in Dublin for people with little or nothing to do it is bound to have adverse reactions in view of the statements made by the Government supporters themselves. It is a responsibility of the Minister and the Government to clarify the whole position. I think it is only right and just that the Civil Service should be vindicated if it is necessary to do so or if the position justifies it.

During the course of the debate on the Estimate for the Department ofJustice it was mentioned by a number of Deputies that savings could be effected in that Department. I am one of those who hold that opinion. We have scattered throughout rural and isolated districts of the country at the present time numerous Garda stations having four or five officers in each of them. They might have been necessary in the 1920's when we had a good deal of political strife and in the 1930's also but now that we have a much more intelligent approach to the problems confronting us and since there is little or no political strife and little or no talk about the civil war and all it brought upon the country, I think the position has changed completely. Indeed, if these stations are necessary at all at least 50 per cent. of the present personnel would be quite sufficient.

The same thing could be said about the Department of Defence. Without in any way impairing its efficiency, a reduction of at least 50 per cent. could be made in that Estimate and reductions must be made somewhere. A time has come when we will be unable to get the money from the people to meet the Financial Resolutions before the House. It may be said that it is completely out of place for a Labour representative to make assertions in this House that would lead to the disemployment of a number of people, but I cannot agree with the argument that to have a man in non-productive employment where there is no output or return for the common benefit of the people is a good business way to expend money. I believe it is not. The money that is at present being devoted to such measures would be better employed in other directions.

Listening to Deputy Briscoe's contribution to the debate a while ago, it seemed peculiar to me that he should be the chief advocate of the welfare state in this country. I take it for granted that Deputy Briscoe should be the last man to advocate the welfare state. So far as his statements in that respect are concerned, I do not believe he meant one word of what he said. He brought in a mass of documents from which he quoted. He tried to confuse the present position and muddlethe minds not only of the members of the House but of the people by showing that it was necessary to impose all these hardships on the people if the country's finances were to be safeguarded. Looking over Deputy Briscoe's contribution to the debate on the Budget of 1950, I see he had no such documents. He did not speak on the repatriation of our sterling assets or the adverse trade balance. He spoke very plainly. He mentioned the difficulties which confronted the people of this country and of his constituency, particularly the working classes, in meeting the then increase in the cost of living. He was very vocal in 1950— that was typical of many of his classmates now on the Government Benches —about how the people of Dublin, and the working-class people throughout the country, could meet the increase of 2d. in the pound of butter. He was also vocal about the increase of 16 per cent. in the cost of potatoes at that time.

Everyone knows, of course, that money must be got to run the country. Everyone knows, too, that the present position in which the Fianna Fáil Government find themselves is of their own making. In the general election campaign of 1951, their main slogan, in order to try and capture votes, was the then cost of living about which Deputy Briscoe and other members of the Party were then so vocal. There was, however, the definite implication in their speeches at that time that if they got back into power the cost of living would be reduced, and that, as mentioned in this year's Budget, "industry and thrift would be stimulated." Every housekeeper and housewife in the country know how they have honoured that promise. They do not need to be very well versed in finance, or as to how sterling assets are to be repatriated, to know that. They know quite well from their slender incomes of £3 or £4 a week how difficult they find it to balance the family budget. The people from Donegal to Cork know the difficulty which confronts them in trying to balance the family budget at the present time. I am sure that people in places like the City of Dublin know it to a muchgreater extent. They know how they have been misled by Fianna Fáil, and how difficult it is becoming for them, out of their slender incomes, to provide themselves with the essentials of life.

I would like to know what would be the trend of Deputy Briscoe's speech to-day, or of the Minister's statement, if the inter-Party Government were in office and had imposed all the increases in the cost of essential foodstuffs which were imposed on the people in last year's Budget, as well as additional taxation in almost every possible line. If that had happened, what would be the trend of their statements to-day? I can very well visualise them bewailing the fact that the people were so blind as to elect such a Government, and suggesting to them that they should vigorously seek an opportunity of replacing them. They, no doubt, would tell the people that if they were in office no such taxation would be imposed.

I believe that some of the biggest problems which confront the bulk of our people at the present time do not confront Deputy Briscoe and others who are in receipt of fairly substantial incomes. The ordinary working-class people, the small business people in our towns and villages and, to a great extent, small farmers as well, have to pay not only the 2d. per lb. extra for butter that Deputy Briscoe did so much wailing about, but 1/4 per lb. extra. They also have to pay 100 per cent. more in some cases for other essential commodities which they require. All these increases have been imposed by the present Government. Taxation has exceeded all limits. No one would have thought two years ago that it could ever reach its present limits, or that prices would have gone to their present level. The prices of essential commodities have gone so high that one wonders where some of our people are to find the wherewithal to purchase them to-day.

Despite all the money that has been taken from the people, no extra employment has been provided. On the contrary, the figures published last Saturday show that since this time 12 months the number of unemployed has now gone up to 80,675. The membersof the Government were very ready to tell the people in 1951 what they could do if elected to power. In view of that, there is surely an obligation on them to-day to take some steps to reduce the number of unemployed people.

Coupled with the unemployment problem, we have the question of emigration. It is a very serious problem. It has been commented upon by almost every Deputy who has spoken in this debate. I know from experience in my own constituency that there is no alternative for a number of young boys and girls there except to emigrate. I am certain that 95 per cent. of them, if they could get a reasonable livelihood at home, would not dream of emigrating. I do not know whether Deputy Hillery was expressing the viewpoint of the Government Party when he said, in the course of his speech in this debate, that emigration was no great harm—that it broadened people's outlook. I do not know whether that is the mentality of the Fianna Fáil Party or not. I can assure the Deputy that it is not the mentality of the people with whom I am conversant in West Cork. I know that every father and mother would very much prefer to see their sons and daughters employed in Ireland. They have no desire to see them go to a foreign land, whether it be England or America to seek the livelihood which they cannot get at home. However, due to the policy that has been pursued by the Fianna Fáil Party over the past two years, it has become an absolute necessity for those boys and girls to leave their own country and go over to the land of the so-called hated John Bull to get their existence there which has been denied them at home.

I was surprised, and so I think would anyone coming from my part of the country be surprised, to hear the statements that were made in this debate by the Taoiseach and by Deputy Lynch, the Parliamentary Secretary to the Government. The Taoiseach told us on Friday that Fianna Fáil had erected 1,000 factories since they came into office. The Parliamentary Secretary said that since Fianna Fáil came into office in 1951, they had erected orextended 140 factories. I think it would be no harm to quote the actual words used by the Parliamentary Secretary. He said:—

"In the industrial field generally, there has been considerable progress and, much as we have been hearing about unemployment, there is no denying the fact that employment in several of our existing factories has been expanded in recent months. Since the change of Government there have been 140 new industries created, by way of new buildings or expansions of existing buildings established in the country."

I would like to know from the Parliamentary Secretary what he means by new industries or by expansions of existing industries. Are we to assume that, if the Department of Agriculture gives a grant to some woman down the country to erect a chicken house, it is to be described as a new industry which has been set up? In the constituency of West Cork, since the foundation of this State there was never any industry set up, good, bad or indifferent. The representatives here from West Cork were just as capable as any others and made every effort they could. The same could be said of South Cork. I am not aware of the 1,000 industries the Taoiseach told the Dáil were set up, unless they were all in Dublin, nor am I aware of the 140 industries Deputy Lynch, the Parliamentary Secretary to the Government, has set up.

Two years ago, shortly after the present Government assumed office, they told the people that some of the money then being taken from them by the Budget would be devoted to the industrialisation of the undeveloped areas. Deputy Lynch, supposed to be in support of that idea, travelled from Cork to Donegal, and I do not believe that any industry has yet been set up as a result of the Undeveloped Areas Act or as a result of the Parliamentary Secretary's visit—with the possible exception of North Mayo, where I believe they got some promise of an industry during the by-election campaign. This Government's policy is mainly a policy of deceit. Withoutgoing outside my constituency for an example, I can say that Deputy Lynch visited every town there in seven or eight centres and got every co-operation possible. He was assured of full co-operation by the representatives of the area here, but no benefit whatever resulted from his visit. It raised false hopes amongst the people for a time, that some new industries would stimulate business in the towns and villages —which, I can assure the House and the Government, are rapidly declining —and that it would give an opportunity for productive employment to some of our people. It would be quite relevant to this discussion to emphasise that there is no section of our community which will find it more difficult to meet their commitments and pay their share of this £101,000,000 than the small business people and dwellers generally in the towns and villages. Trade is declining, there is no question about that. In one particularly hard-hit section are the publicans.

Mr. Cunningham

I am sure you are worried about them.

Mr. M.P. Murphy

Deputy Cunningham may laugh. I am worried about them. There is an obligation on me, so long as I am a member of this House and a representative of theirs, to try to improve their position, and I will do so, as far as it lies in my power, irrespective of whether the Deputy is worrying about the people in Donegal or not. I know they have learned a lesson from the Fianna Fáil Government. Some of these people have been almost wiped out of existence. I cannot see where they are going to get the money to pay the taxes, which are being continued for a further year under this Budget.

The only result we ever got in our constituency from industrial development is that it has cost us sorely. I mentioned in this House before that we are as nationally-minded and as broadminded as any other people. We have contributed to the promotion of industries that have been erected elsewhere—and according to the Taoiseach there are 1,000 of them in other centres. Those industries are beingprotected by tariffs and consequently areas which do not get any benefit will have to pay a proportionate share towards the subsidisation of those industries. Surely there is no case to be made for the centralisation of industry in Dublin, Cork and big towns? Areas such as the West of Ireland and West Cork are entitled to some industry after 30 years of native Government.

On Saturday, I heard Deputy Colley mention that the country was completely on the road to prosperity in 1948 until the "disastrous blunder" of the inter-Party Government overcame it. What were the results of this so-called "disastrous blunder", to use Deputy Colley's term? The result is apparent in my own constituency and I feel sure it is typical of others. I just single it out to illustrate what has happened in country areas. The result is that house-building was stimulated to an extent never known in this country before. After three and a quarter years of that Government, many people who never knew what it was to live in a decent house are now, thanks to the efforts made by them, enjoying a decent house to live in, which, indeed, is their right. Apart altogether from that, we had almost full employment, and in my own area, for at least three-quarters of that period, there was no man willing and able to work who could not get a job. The same cannot be said to-day. The figures I have got from my own constituency show that in the five towns to which they refer, there were 1,553 in that small area registered as unemployed, for the towns of Clonakilty, Bantry, Skibbereen, Dunmanway and Castletownbere, a large increase on last year's figures. It may be contended that the Government's policy has nothing whatever to do with this. I can say that that policy is largely responsible for those figures.

The one scheme that did give definite advantage in that particular area and in other rural areas was the Local Authorities (Works) Act. Since Fianna Fáil came back, they have virtually wiped out the moneys provided for those schemes. Everyone knows, without my reiterating it, what the merits of those schemes were. They gave thefarmers—who welcomed that and would welcome it back, if the Government changed or if the line of policy on that particular Act was changed— an opportunity of getting, free of cost, the main streams drained to enable them to clean the subsidiary streams themselves. We are all looking for increased agricultural production, but it is impossible to increase it without reclaiming and improving land in some areas. The farmers in general were quite satisfied to do the subsidiary streams themselves, if the main river stream were done for them—otherwise, there would be no use in their doing the others themselves.

There is another item in which I have a particular interest and which was scarcely mentioned in the Budget statement, namely, agriculture, our main industry. It gives employment to 55 per cent. of our people, but there seems to be complete complacency about that main industry at present. That is shown by the fact that in the 66 page Budget statement it occupies only about a quarter of a page. It is no wonder, then, that we read on last Saturday's papers that in the City of Dublin for the months of May, June and July the people will have to consume butter imported 6,000 or 7,000 miles across the oceans from New Zealand. That is only to be expected, when the Government is so complacent about this important industry. Surely something is wrong and needs to be redressed when that position of affairs obtains in this vital industry.

Imagine a country like this, with thousands of acres of the finest land in the world, having to send its money to New Zealand for the importation of butter to be consumed in Dublin and other parts of the country, when people are emigrating every day for want of employment and when the unemployment figures are mounting rapidly. It is true that, when the previous Government were in office, they imported some butter. The Fianna Fáil Party then set themselves up as the fairy godmother of the farmers and particularly the small farmers who were producing home-made butter. What has been their record since they came intooffice? They have been in office for two years and they had an opportunity to help the agricultural industry, to improve the dairy industry and obviate the necessity for the importation of foreign butter, but they have made no progress whatever, and in fact the position has worsened to such an extent that, for the three principal months, so far as milk production is concerned, not one ounce of Irish butter is to be available in the City of Dublin.

Were you against the Civil Service award?

Mr. M.P. Murphy

I have dealt with the Civil Service. I have dealt with that on other occasions. I am not going to repeat for the Deputy what I have already said. Here is this report coming before the House. Of course, the Labour Party have nothing whatsoever to do with this committee or would have nothing to do with it because the Labour Party believe that there are many more important problems confronting the people than the question as to whether or not people with £4,000 or £5,000 a year have sufficient salary or allowances at the present time.

Despite the scarcity of money to meet the many ills that have to be rectified, not only does this report recommend increases of from £250 to £450 but it recommends that they be paid as from 1st April, 1952. I do not want to be in any way narrow about this question. Every member of the community is entitled to fair and just consideration but I am making the case that those people already got good increases in 1947. I am making the case that, considering their work and their contribution to the State, they are already very well remunerated. If we take into account the fact that the Minister has to be contented with a salary of £2,125 a year, how can we say that a judge or justice is underpaid? Everyone knows that the work of any Minister, particularly the Minister who has to deal with this Budget, is ten times more onerous than the work of any judge of the High Court. In addition a Minister has the difficult job at the present time of trying to build up the resources of his Party, seeing that its stock is not very good.

Mr. Everett

It is only a temporary job.

Mr. M.P. Murphy

In fairness, no one would contend that a Minister of State has not a much more difficult job than a judge.

It is completely out of place that anyone should get a higher salary or reward for service than a Minister of State. I have no fault to find withministerial salaries. I am well aware of the difficulties that confront Ministers and of what they have to contend with. It is completely out of place in a small country like this that judges and justices should get this increase, and that a number of civil servants should have salaries £700 or £800 in excess of the salary of the head of their Department, the Minister. I impress on the Minister, as he has returned, that he would be doing a bad day's work if he implemented the recommendation of the Select Committee.

An Ceann Comhairle

That report is not before the House at all at the moment.

Mr. Carter

It is an all-Party committee.

An Ceann Comhairle

We do not know the Government's decision in the matter at all.

Mr. M.P. Murphy

It is not an all-Party committee. It is comprised of only two Parties.

An Ceann Comhairle

That is not before the House at the moment. We do not know the Government's policy at all in the matter.

Mr. M.P. Murphy

As the Minister has returned, I would ask him to disregard this Dublin mentality that seems to be in the Government at the present time. A Deputy mentioned the fact that Governments do not see beyond Inchicore, and if the statements made by the Taoiseach and by the Parliamentary Secretary are in any way correct, there is something to be said for that. Until such time as there is more decentralisation of industry and cognisance is taken of the hardships confronting people down the country we will not succeed in solving our problems. The Government must take cognisance of the fact that Dublin is not Ireland and that people in remote areas are just as much entitled to a fair living as are the people in Dublin or other large centres.

I would appeal to the Minister to devote some of this £101,000,000 to the stimulation of industry in rural districts,particularly the undeveloped areas, because, as I have mentioned in the Minister's absence, business in towns and villages is rapidly declining.

An Ceann Comhairle

The Deputy must not repeat himself. Even if the Minister was not in the House, he must not repeat himself.

Mr. M.P. Murphy

I would ask the Minister to stimulate industry in the rural areas. By stimulating agriculture or any other industry he will be helping to bring about an era of prosperity, to offset emigration and unemployment and to improve the resources of the State.

Mr. Bartley

Deputy Murphy has complained that while there has been a number of Select Committees for a list of matters that he read out there has been no Select Committee set up to inquire into the problems confronting the ordinary person in the country. I want to congratulate him on the very eloquent manner in which he has addressed the Select Committee of the people in the House for the last 50 minutes. He gave us a very comprehensive survey of the entire economic field, and I am afraid I cannot hope to emulate his example and maintain any degree of relevancy.

It seems to be that the main complaint that the combined Opposition has to this Budget, and they link it with last year's Budget, is that there was overtaxation to the extent of £10,000,000. That is the gist of the complaint and from it flows all the other charges they made : increasing the cost of living, increasing the number of unemployed, migration and so on. Of course I should remark that if that is where the blame is to be assigned and apportioned, the £10,000,000 is a pretty good yardstick to lambast this side of the House. But where Budgets have been introduced since this Party returned to office and have produced control of the balance of payments and brought about a big increase in the export of goods, that cannot be attributed or ascribed in any way to the actions of the Minister forFinance and must, of course, be laid to the credit of the wise policies of the Government which was there during the previous three years.

I listened to a remark by one of the Opposition speakers last week in which he indicated that in certain respects we had paid the very highest tributes to the Coalition Government because we had applied some of their advice. It is said that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. I propose to develop that argument and I do not think I can do it in a better way than to repeat some of the pieces of advice which the Minister for Finance had in the early parts of his Budget statement indicating how we had applied with good effect advice given to us by our predecessors. A good thing, it is said, cannot be repeated too often, and here are some of the pieces of advice given by the Opposition, of course at other times and in other circumstances, which the present Minister for Finance has applied with such good effect that there is really no criticism of this Budget upon which any man could base an argument. Deputy Dillon, as reported in column 1817, Volume 76, of the Dáil Debates said:—

"It is plain to the observant that unless we correct the adverse balance and correct it soon we are going to have a crash."

In May, 1948, the Coalition Minister for Finance, as reported in Volume 110, column 1053, said it was impossible to view with equanimity a continued reduction in external assets on last year's scale. "These assets," he continued, "can be consumed now only at the expense of a reduced standard of living for the future." Then we had this from the Leader of the Opposition in August, 1948, as reported in Volume 112, column 2146:—

"The adverse trade balance has gone to an extent which must cause anybody who thinks about it for one moment or who looks at the figures the utmost alarm for our economic and financial stability."

In his Budget speech in 1951, Deputy McGilligan reminded the country that deficits in the balance of payments cannot be sustained for more than ashort period (Volume 125, column 1880). Then he gave us the warning, as reported at column 1883:—

"The present position on external account is by no means satisfactory and if it continues to develop unfavourably the application of corrective measures will be called for."

I have repeated, because I think it cannot be repeated too often, the very sound advice which the principal spokesmen of the Coalition Government gave the House and the country. If the present Minister for Finance has hearkened to this advice and applied it in the most competent and least harmful way for the benefit of the country as a whole, I cannot see what complaint the people who gave that advice can now have. As I said, the £10,000,000 is the yardstick by which the Budgets are to be judged. We have had to wade through masses of statistics and figures and also all sorts of incoherent statements made upon them to see whether there is any foundation for the charge that the Minister for Finance last year did overburden the country to the extent of £10,000,000 and how to dispose of it. In passing, I might remark that if in fact he did collect that extra £10,000,000 it is a fair deduction to say that the £10,000,000 in any event would redound to the benefit of this year's Budget and ease the situation by at least that amount. I do not see how that deduction can be run away from if the charge of overburdening the people last year to the extent of £10,000,000 is well-founded.

I have read very carefully, in fact I read it twice, the speech made by the Leader of the Opposition in an attempt to build up this case. The very length of the speech and the intricacy and complication of the arguments and the phraseology used would make one question whether there was any merit in the charge he made. In any event, he is very specific in regard to one matter and that is the servicing of the public debt. As reported in Volume 138, column 1359, he points out:

"It was inaccurate, not to the extent of £500,000 but to the extent of £900,000. In the Estimate of the Receiptsand Expenditure in the White Paper circulated under the Constitution and bearing the title ‘Estimates of Receipts and Expenditure for the year ending 31st March 1953', there will be found at page 4 of Part III in the second column, a figure of £6,389,000 which was the estimate for the interest on the public debt for the year 1952-1953. We find in the same Estimate for Receipts and Expenditure for the year ending 31st March, 1954, there is recorded the actual amount of money that was paid for interest on public debt; instead of being £6,389,000, accurate to a £ according to the Minister for Industry and Commerce, the actual payment out was £5,474,543."

That is a sum of £914,457 less in actual payments than was estimated for a year ago. He has, therefore, built up £900,000 of the £10,000,000 which he proposes to show the Minister over-exacted from the people last year.

He comes along then and he deals with the question of the sinking fund. He said:—

"Let us look at the position with regard to the sinking fund. In the same table it will be seen that the estimate for 1952-1953 in respect of the provision for sinking fund to pay off public debt or, as the jargon is, to retire public debt, was £1,790,000. This was the estimate of the amount of money to be provided for the retirement of debt and we find, by going to the latest document circulated to us in the last day or so, that the actual amount paid for sinking fund was £2,639,609. In other words, instead of paying off £1,790,000 by way of retirement of debt, a sum of £2,639,609 was paid, £849,609 over and above what was estimated for in last year's Budget."

Then the extraordinary conclusion is come to that there was an overestimation of £1,500,000 between interest and sinking fund. I understand that the argument that has been adduced to support the claim of overtaxation is the difference between the Minister's estimate and what was really found to be actually required. Perhaps I maynot have understood the real implications of all the arguments—some of them are very abstruse—but I think it is a fair interpretation to say that the case is built up on a number of differences of that sort that can be adduced from the accounts which the Minister has furnished for the last year.

General Mulcahy

The Parliamentary Secretary should offer that kind of explanation at the cross-roads and not here.

Mr. Davern

On a point of order. Is the Parliamentary Secretary entitled to make his speech without interruptions from Deputy Mulcahy?

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

The Parliamentary Secretary is entitled to make his speech without interruption.

Mr. Bartley

The meetings I address at cross-roads in my constituency would grasp this quite easily.

General Mulcahy

They would swallow it.

Mr. Bartley

I sympathise with Deputy Mulcahy if he cannot grasp it. In any event there is the error of £600,000 in a sum of £8,000,000 in the building up of a charge of overtaxation to the tune of £10,000,000. In view of Deputy Mulcahy's interruptions, I will not ask him to calculate for himself the extent of the error on a total of £96,000,000, which was the total of last year's Book of Estimates. If one has £600,000 on a sum of £8,000,000 it makes ducks and drakes of the £10,000,000 that we have been charged with over-exacting from the people.

On Deputy Costello's figure of £1,800,000 the error on the total sum for the year would be £18,000,000 andhe would be wrong to the extent, therefore, of £18,000,000. Accepting Deputy Mulcahy's interpretation the error would be over £7,000,000. If we can get such ingenious, or should I say ingenious, arithmetic as that in the build-up of the case in respect of the £10,000,000, I think we can straight away assume that all the other arguments are equally false and fatuous.

The question of the cost of living has entered very largely into this debate. We are prepared to debate that matter on its merits, but we think the facts should first be elicited before unsustainable charges are levelled. Subsidies were first introduced by the Fianna Fáil Government during the war. We felt that war conditions were abnormal and that abnormal solutions had to be applied to abnormal causes of complaint. Here there is a strange contrast. We felt that when the war was over some effort should be made to bring our country, which was not involved in the war, back to a state of normality as soon as possible but we did not frame our policy on the positive assertion that there would be permanent world peace. There would have been more justification for retaining subsidies if you assumed from the begining that another world war was likely to befall. We knew that when the subsidies were reduced the prices of goods and commodities would increase and that the solution to that would be an increase in wages and in salaries. The former restrictions on wages and salaries were removed. The Labour Court was there to accept and deal with applications for increases and practically every employed person in the country got an increase after negotiation. If the increase has not been sufficient to meet the increase in the cost of living, then I place the blame on the negotiators. They were given every latitude to make their case and where their case was made and proved they received an adequate increase in their income.

We all remember the method adopted by the Coalition when the world situation deteriorated at the end of 1950. I was listening to Deputy Norton saying that there would be no monkeying about their methods in dealing with inflation and increases in the cost ofgoods. They would apply a blanket freeze that would be inexorable in its effectiveness. Deputy Norton soon found that there were so many holes in the blanket that every vital commodity on the housewife's list escaped through it and when, as happened a short time afterwards, Deputy Lemass became Minister for Industry and Commerce, he found the blanket so tattered and torn that he had to discard it entirely and adopt some effective method for dealing with the question.

I do not know what merit the Opposition attach to subsidies. I cannot understand why the Fine Gael Party that jibes so much at what they call the socialisation of medicine, swallow so readily socialisation on this question of the cost of living. Does everybody not know that trying to regulate the price of commodities by means of subsidies is really an attempt to feed the dog with a piece of his own tail? I can see the Labour members' point in supporting subsidies but certainly not that of Fine Gael.

The Labour spokesmen I have heard on this question seemed to indicate you can get all the money you want from income tax and other taxes for the financing of these subsidies. I think that has been demonstrated to be a fallacy and the solution to this problem, if we are ever to return to normal conditions, is the economic price and the economic wage and to take off the dalladh mullógof subsidies which is blinding everybody to the facts. There is no charm about subsidies and there is no inexhaustible source from which they can be financed. The people themselves have to pay the subsidies in the end.

It was very clearly and forcibly demonstrated in this House just before the change of Government that there was no real belief in the subsidy solution. Take the question of the price of milk which was the immediate cause of the dissolution of the Coalition Government. Deputy Dillon, who was Minister for Agriculture, advised the farmers to accept 1/- a gallon for milk for a period of five years, and to increase their production; in that waythey would stabilise the dairying industry and put it on its feet and beyond all danger of ever being seriously damaged by competition from other countries such as Denmark or New Zealand. It is a striking commentary on all the claims and statements that have been made by the Coalition and on their behalf that the dissolution of the Dáil could not have been avoided by the provision of a modest demand by milk producers for an increase in the price of milk. If the Coalition had regulated affairs so pleasantly and so beneficially to the advantage of all sections of the community, both producers and consumers, by the use of subsidies, why was there no subsidy for milk to avoid a dissolution? And if their statements had not been given some plausibility by the injection of outside money into the economy of the country, notably the American loan, this theory of theirs would have been exploded long ago.

By the time the Korean war had scattered its panic all over the world, it had become quite evident here that there could be no further foreign aid obtained by way of Marshall loans, etc., and Fine Gael, which was the dominant partner of the Coalition, decided that the end was near as far as their pleasant fantasy was concerned and that they would have to seek an election and if they came back they would have to apply the obvious measures of asking the people to pay for the services out of their own resources; in other words, they would have to apply the advice which all sound economists made available to them and which has been applied by the present Minister for Finance to the lasting benefit of the economy of this country.

We stated, when we came into office, that the financial position was such that it would take possibly three years to correct it. It is very well on the way to correction now and the outstanding example of the success of the Minister's efforts is demonstrated by the reduction of the gap in the balance of payments from that very large sum of £61,000,000 down to the figure of £9,000,000. I know it has been stated that we had sufficient sterling creditsto finance the false position which the people accepted during the years of the Coalition as being genuine and lasting, but at the rate of dissipation which went on, namely £60,000,000 a year, these assets would not have lasted for longer than another two years and then we became a debtor nation. That situation was already sign-posted by the Coalition spokesmen themselves to whom I have reffered in my earlier remarks. We, when we were in office, could have done as they did. We could have accepted an American loan. We knew that an international loan, if you are to have any reasonable prospect of repaying it, should be backed by some considerable volume of trade with the people who lend you the money. We knew that the trade relationship between the States and ourselves was not such as to enable the Government, with any degree of optimism or confidence, to accept a large loan from the American Government and, therefore, we did not accept it.

General Mulcahy

When did you decline it?

Mr. Bartley

We were not vouchsafed the benefit of a grant. Our successors got both the grant and loan and they spent it.

You will not stay anywhere very long with that voice.

Mr. Bartley

This Budget is disappointing to Fine Gael. It is most disappointing. In fact it is the greatest heartache the Coalition Parties have ever experienced. What did I find when I went down the country last week-end? I was told by my own supporters that they had all breathed a terrible sigh of relief and I asked them the cause of this sigh of relief. "I thought that you had been reading the papers," I said, "and that pretty clear pointers were given by both the Minister and the Taoiseach that thelimits of taxation had been reached and that, if pointers as to the present Budget meant anything at all, they indicated that there would be no further increase in taxation.""Well," they said, "you may know that as a member of Dáil Éireann, but how were we to know it when we heard the propaganda going around which has been going around for the last fortnight or three weeks?" I said: "What propaganda has been going around and who has been putting it out?""Well," they said, "all the Fine Gael spokesmen have been spreading the story that flour would go up to 6/- per stone, butter to 5/- per lb., and that there was a big list of vital commodities that were going to skyrocket again." That is why I say that this Budget is the greatest disappointment that the Fine Gael Party has ever experienced.

The propaganda machine was geared up. All the salient points of the propaganda were ready and had, in fact, been issued and now they have to be called in. That is why I say this is the greatest disappointment that the Coalition Parties, particularly Fine Gael, have ever experienced. That is why we have to wade through all this rubbish, page after page, to try to find out is there any case against the Budget. I have given an instance of the phoney arithmetic upon which the charges are based.

I have no doubt in the world about the ability of the average man and the average woman, who have to worry down the country about the cost of commodities, to assess the merits of this Budget. I have no doubt about their intelligence to see that if this Government is asking them to bear burdens, it knows, where it is going and that, as happened during the years of the economic war, if the people do not listen to the spurious arguments which are being disseminated all over the country in newspapers and by politicians, the benefits of this Budget will be obvious to the most obtuse-minded by the end of another year. We anticipated that it would take three years to put conditions in the country right. We can ourselves now see from the achievements that have been already accomplished particularly inrelation to the increase in capital development, the control of the balance of payments and the increase in exports that that goal is within sight of being attained. We shall go with the greatest confidence to the ordinary people of this country when the next election comes. The next election will not come as a result of this Budget. That is quite definite now. It will come when the term of this Dáil has expired and when it does I have not the slightest doubt in my mind that the people will then realise that their willingness to accept the advice of and to co-operate with the measures which the Minister for Finance has recommended for the curing of a very serious malady will have produced their due mead of reward for the public.

The people before put up with serious inconveniences when they were satisfied that these inconveniences were necessary. They were satisfied that whatever inconveniences last year's Budget imposed on them were necessary because the people in a moment of aberration in 1948 had changed a leadership that had been trusted over the years, not years of peace or promising peace, but years of strife and crisis and conditions such as obtained during the period of the economic war and the world war. As I say, a small section of the people in a moment of aberration forgot those achievements and changed the leadership while we were still crossing the stream.

Mr. Davern

Unfortunately.

Mr. Bartley

When they got the first opportunity in 1951 they changed back again.

Mr. Sweetman

Indeed, they did not.

Mr. Davern

They did. Oxford accents.

Mr. Bartley

It would be quite foolish on the part of the Minister, even if he wished to conciliate the Opposition, to follow courses and policies which they in their time and with the full co-operation of this House failed to make succeed. In 1951, simply because there was a war in a corner of the world more remote from us thanany other place of which I know, the whole economic structure of the Coalition collapsed. That in itself is something worth comparing with the achievements of the previous Government who had a world war raging round its coasts for seven years after a previous period of economic war and still weathered the storm. If a blast from far away Korea could upset the Coalition outfit, well then it offered the people very poor hope that the crisis which promised to be much more serious could be withstood.

So we did.

Mr. Finan

What happened? What changes took place to make the Government change their mind on that matter? Before I proceed to my ordinary remarks, I should like also to refer to the question of our adverse balance and the question of our external assets because I honestly believe there is a terrible lot of muddled thinking in connection with them. Is it not a fact that until the outbreak of the war, apart from the investments of our banks abroad, we had very little external assets? Is it not a fact that a big portion of our external assets was built up by the export of agricultural produce at a period when Britain was not in a position to supply us with the goods we needed here? We are told that if we dissipate our external assets now in the event of an emergency it will be a very serious situation for the country. I submit that it was in such emergency conditions that those external assets were very considerably added to. I do not think there was any good ground for the argument which was put forward by the Taoiseach. There is one thing which the Minister must be given credit for. It is that he has made the adult population of the country Budget conscious—much more so than had ever been done before. There was a time when the introduction of a Budget meant very little to the ordinary people. To those who paid income tax, it was a day on which they felt they had to read the newspapers to see what had happened. The housewife might be inclined to wonder if the price of tea had gone up, but in these days, and particularly since last year, every citizen eagerly awaits the announcement which the Minister for Finance makes on Budget day.

I would ask the Minister not to pay serious attention to what Deputy Bartley stated, that the people were not disappointed with the Budget. Naturally they were disappointed. In 1952, the Minister in his Budget made inroads on the standard of living of practically every citizen—greater in some cases than in others. I admit that the patriotism of our people is something which is really admirable.

People were prepared—mind you, I am not suggesting that the inter-Party Government had jeopardised this country—in order to overcome any possible danger, for the possibility that the Minister for Finance for the year 1952 was going to make inroads on their private incomes and on their standard of living to redress the situation. Accepting that, as some of them did, they were quite prepared to make the sacrifices which the farming community had made between 1933 and 1938, naturally hoping that, when that year of sacrifice was over, there would be some redress.

Is it any wonder then that, having listened to or read the Budget statement, they were disappointed? Nobody on the Government side has denied in my hearing, over the last 12 months, that the policy pursued was creating unemployment. I heard a dispute here to-day as to whether the figure of unemployed was 82,000 or 84,000. Whether it is one or the other, is it not a colossal number of unemployed for a country such as this to have? There is emigration and an increase in the cost of living. Can anybody who has studied these 66 pages find any consolation in them? I submit they cannot.

The three big questions have been completely ignored. The unemployed may remain unemployed, the intending emigrants may emigrate and the cost of living may remain high as far as this budgetory demand of £101.5 million is concerned. I cannot understand how anybody on the Government Benches can suggest for a moment that this is a good Budget. The position appears to me to be this, that the Minister for Finance inflicted a serious wound on the body politic last year. That wound is still festering and no remedy has been applied. Is not that the real situation? Nobody on those benches denied last year that the 1952 Budget was one of the most severe that had ever been introduced in Parliament. The Budget this year is just as severe, with this difference, that the pople are in a worse position than they were last year—less well able to pay.

On page 15 of his Budget, the Minister made a statement which wasalmost as extraordinary as the one made by Deputy Bartley this evening. He said:—

"Taxation presses lightly on the land so that there is little scope for any stimulus under that head."

That is a clear indication of what I have often said here and elsewhere, that there has been absolute failure on the part of the Government to realise that the only source of wealth within this country is the land, and that those who work on the land are our only wealth producers. That is so axiomatic that I cannot understand how anyone can ignore it. I feel that Deputy Lehane was right in his view, that we have in that statement of the Minister a city mentality which cannot see beyond Inchicore to get a guide on policy.

I was going to deal with that. If there were anything in this document to suggest that the Governmentrealised the importance of agriculture and the necessity for having the maximum number of people on the land I would not be so critical of it. The more families you have on the land, whether they be on big or small farms, the surer you are of guaranteeing the economic salvation of the country. That particular aspect of policy is one of the first matters to which the Government should give attention and by an intensive policy of putting people on the land ensure that there will be men on the land to work to produce the food that we need. Emigration has been referred to also. There are people who will emigrate no matter what the position is here, social or economic, and no Government can be blamed for that; but there are people who would not emigrate if they could be provided with modest sized holdings of land to work for themselves. In my own county I know of cases where there are two or three sons on a holding, one of whom only will inherit the holding, and in many such cases the ones who would have made most use of that holding have to emigrate. If there were some provision in this Budget, or some indication that a scheme would be thought out, whereby the Government, through the Department of Lands, would have a panel of holdings to make available to these young men to take possession of, to get married and settle down, repaying the Government over a period of 50 or 60 years, they would then be aiming at contentment and prosperity. As it is, there is no hope whatever that I can see.

I give credit to the Minister for providing increased grants under the land project, making more money available, but it was a short-sighted policy— which showed again that they do not realise the problem properly—when they reduced by £250,000 the amount allocated under the Local Authorities (Works) Act. Those two schemes are interdependent, the successful operation of one depends on the successful operation of the other. What is the use of providing money for tenants under the land project if the local authority will not open the main drains and permit the carrying out of the work? That is precisely what is occurringto-day. The inspectors of the Department of Agriculture are inspecting applications for work under the land project and they are saying: "It would be good work, it is necessary work, but we cannot do it until either the Board of Works or the local authority makes the main drain." I have not the slightest doubt that that is where the Minister will find some money lying to his credit at the end of the year, because it will be unexpended by virtue of the fact that the allocation under the Works Act was curtailed to the extent of £250,000.

Even yesterday in my country we had to deal with this question and it was with the utmost indifference that the council went to the trouble of preparing a plan for the expenditure of the meagre sum of £7,775, in comparison with 1950-51 when we got £52,000 and when good work was being done. Not alone that, but much of the emigration which took place over the last year would not have taken place from the rural areas if that employment had been available as a result of the Works Act.

I can easily understand that the Minister is bored stiff listening to criticism for the last three or four days and I do not want to bore him any more, but I would like him to consider seriously what I have been saying as I am saying it in what I consider to be the best interests of the people. I hope that when the Government come to consider the whole situation, whenever they hold their meetings, they will consider that no matter what they do they cannot for one moment forget the fact that the vast number of the people of this country are self-employed on the land and that it is on them this country must depend.

Mr. Cogan

I think it is quite clear to everyone in this House that the members of the Fine Gael Party at least were very disappointed in this Budget. Those of us who had not the privilege of being supplied with a typed statement of the Minister's speech could by watching the Fine Gael Front Bench easily and readily foresee what type of a Budget it would be. While the Minister was reading his Budget speech, members of theOpposition were turning over the leaves to see what would be the changes in the Budget and I could notice a deep depression, such as the meteorological experts talk about, centering over the Front Opposition Bench and spreading gradually to the back benches. It was a very different position from that which prevailed last year, when bright smiles and broad grins were spreading over the faces of every member of the Opposition while the Budget statement was being read. It is quite clear that the Opposition were hoping that the Minister would be forced to impose some additional taxation and then, of course, they could go out and raise a storm of protest. I think the ordinary people are beginning to take the measure of the Opposition Party, or the Fine Gael Party, very clearly now.

We have a Party in this House, the second largest Party in the House, who consistently demand that the Government should spend more and more money on every conceivable service and, at the same time, must reduce taxation. Nobody has attempted to explain how that can be done—it seems to be some sort of miracle that the Government is expected to work. It is true that, if this nation had behind it some mighty wealthy nation with an open cheque-book providing for our finances, we would be able to reduce taxation and at the same time increase expenditure. That would be all right so long as the wealthy nation did not demand repayment, but unfortunately it is not usual for nations to find some benevolent outsider to provide it with its finances.

During the period of the inter-Party Government, it is true that substantial advances or loans were made to this country by the United States and that as a result the Government were able to stave off for only a short time the obligation of increasing taxation. It was only for a very short time that they could stave off that obligation, and the moment they were notified by the American Government that the Marshall Aid loans were being terminated, they dissolved the Dáil and went to the country, because they knew they could not carry on for anotheryear. They dressed things up as well as they could by a specially prepared Budget, and one of the Ministers of the then Government has said that the Estimates were cooked or baked. Immediately after the Budget was presented, the Dáil was dissolved.

The people of Ireland realise that that type of dishonest Government cannot be continued for more than a very short time. The ordinary man, the farmer, the worker or the businessman, cannot go on for a long time spending more money than he is earning and what is true of the individual is true of the nation. A Government, like the individual, has its income and outlay. Its income, in the main, is what it derives from taxation and its outlay, the cost of maintaining the various services. It is the first and fundamental duty of a Government to see that income balances outlay, or that outlay balances income, that both are kept on an even keel, and, no matter what system of government we may have—even if we had Deputy Hickey's type with an entirely new financial system—it would still be necessary, even if it were possible to issue money, to balance expenditure with revenue, because otherwise the country would be flooded with useless money and would run into inflation where money would be worthless. It was tried in other countries and it failed.

The crime committed by the Government last year was that they attempted to carry out the ordinary system of housekeeping that the ordinary honest citizen tries to carry out in private life and honest and intelligent people realise that that is true. We could not expect a condition to continue indefinitely in which we would have Marshall Aid coming in at the rate of £20,000,000 a year. If that condition prevailed indefinitely, it would aid our budgetary problems, but I suppose it would create other problems, perhaps even more dangerous and difficult. The position now is that Marshall Aid has finished since April, 1951, and we have to do our own housekeeping, to see to it that current expenditure is financed out of current revenue and that works of capital development are financed byborrowing from the savings of our people. That is ordinary common sense and good management of the nation's affairs.

All the howlings we have heard about the burdens being placed on the people and the suffering being caused to the people is utterly insincere. No greater suffering and no greater injury could be inflicted upon our people than to drive the nation to financial bankruptcy. It is not the wealthy alone who would suffer—I doubt if they would suffer at all—but the ordinary working people, if the nation were driven to bankruptcy, and no matter what difficulties may present themselves to an executive Government, it is their duty to keep the nation solvent and ensure that our children and our children's children will not have to suffer serious poverty and eventually see the loss of the nation's independence and their perpetual enslavement. No nation, as far as I know, has been able to get away with a policy such as is advocated by the Opposition, and such as was practised for a very short time by the Fine Gael Party and their allies. No nation has been able to get away with it and no nation can hope to do so and preserve its independence.

We have now reached a position of stability. By enlarging the revenue of the State, we have been able to catch up on expenditure and the big task that lies before the Government now is to maintain that position of stability. It is the task of the Government now to ensure that never again shall we as a nation slip into arrears in regard to the financing of governmental services. Each year must take care of itself and it is gratifying to know that the Minister has stated that the limit has been reached in regard to taxation and that expenditure must, therefore, be reduced. There is no use in listening to the crying of the Opposition to reduce taxation and, at the same time, increase expenditure. The first step towards reducing taxation is to reduce expenditure and run the country efficiently and economically, and the clear-cut statement in the Budget this year that an all-effort is to be made to keep expenditure within reasonable limits is welcomed by all our people.

We have now reached a position of stability and we hope that position will continue—that the cost of living will rise no more and that there will, in fact, be some reduction. We hope that the burdens of taxation, local and national, will not be increased and that the people of this nation can look forward to a period in which they can go to work to produce goods, to expand industry and agriculture, knowing that they have before them a prospect of reasonable security and stability.

It was strange, and some people must have remarked it, that, while the Leader of the Opposition—I think that is his correct title—spoke for a considerable time and denounced the Budget in every conceivable way, while he tore passion to tatters, or pretended passion to pretended tatters, in his denunciation of the Budget, he did not indicate that, if returned to power, he would reduce any of the taxation imposed nor did he indicate any way by which he could provide economies in administration. His speech was barren, futile and unconstructive. It was simply a denunciation for denunciation's sake, a rehash of what he said last year about last year's Budget being based on an intention to secure a surplus of £10,000,000. If last year's Budget was framed so as to produce a surplus of £10,000,000, he did not attempt to explain to the House where that £10,000,000 is; he did not give any indication as to what has become of it.

Ten million pounds is a tidy sum of money. It cannot disappear into thin air and cannot be spent by a Government without some account being given of it. We have an efficient system of finance in the Department of Finance and Government Departments generally. We have a Comptroller and Auditor-General. We have a Public Accounts Committee. These are all designed to see that money is spent according to the laws of this House, and if one penny, not to say £10,000,000, were wrongly spent we would hear about it in due course. I do not think that we in this House have ever listened to a Leader of an Opposition Party making such a futile uproar without being able to make any attempt to put forward anything reasonable or constructive.

In the course of the debate many viewpoints were expressed. The one that amused me most was that put forward by Deputy Blowick. While Deputy Costello, Leader of the Opposition, declared that the increase in exports of agricultural produce was entirely due to the wise agricultural policy pursued by the inter-Party Government, Deputy Blowick denounced the Government for that increase in exports of agricultural produce. He said it was brought about by cutting down consumption of food in this State. He said it was brought about by forcing our people to eat less so that we would have more to export to Great Britain. He did not produce any figures in support of that extraordinary contention and, unfortunately, he did not take the trouble or had not the foresight to have himself weighed 12 months ago and to re-weigh himself again and find how much loss had been accomplished in the course of the year.

Mr. MacEntee

Where would he get the scales?

Mr. Cogan

He did not produce figures of any kind to support his contention. The only documentary evidence we have goes to show that consumption of foodstuffs generally has increased over the last year. A very vital question was asked by Deputy Desmond on 22nd April. He had no ulterior motive; he had not the motive of supporting any contention put forward by the Government or of upsetting any contention put forward by Deputy Blowick. The following is the quotation from the Official Report, Volume 138, No. 4 of 22nd April, 1953:—

"Mr. Desmond asked the Taoiseach if he will indicate the total consumption of (a) bread; (b) flour; (c) butter; (d) sugar and (e) tea in the years 1950, 1951 and 1952.

Parliamentary Secretary to the Taoiseach (Donnchadh Ó Briain) (for the Taoiseach): With the permission of the Ceann Comhairle, I propose to circulate in the Official Report a statement giving the desired information."

Following is the statement:—

TOTAL CONSUMPTION by Persons of Bread, Flour, Butter, Sugar and Tea in each of the years 1950, 1951 and 1952.

Commodity	Unit of quantity	1950	1951	1952
Bread	Million 2 lb. loaves	269.5	278.5	276.1
Flour	Thousand cwt.	2,975	2,836	2,982
Butter	,, ,,	1,107	1,079	1,056
Sugar	,, ,,	1,653	1,709	1,937
Tea	Million lb.	23.9	22.7	22.8

There you have in connection with bread a very slight reduction as between 1951 and 1952 and an increase between 1950 and 1951. In regard to flour there is a definite increase. In connection with sugar there is an increase. There is a very slight increase in regard to butter. There is also a very slight increase in tea. In the main there is no reduction whatever in the consumption of foodstuffs but rather a slight increase. That does not bear out Deputy Blowick's contention that there was a reduction in the consumption of food.

If we take the figures of bacon produced over the year—I think there was very little export of bacon—we will find that it increased very substantially and we may take it that practically all of that increase was consumed by our people. There is no foundation whatever, therefore, for the suggestion put forward by Deputy Blowick that the people were being starved in order to bring about increased agricultural exports, no ground whatever for that suggestion, no evidence of any kind, not even weight dockets, as I have suggested.

Deputy Blowick put forward another very remarkable contention. He raised this matter on a number of occasions and it is no harm to deal with it. He was particularly indignant when he raised it in this debate. He denounced the Government with unmeasured violence for having, as he said, reduced the grants under the Local Authorities (Works) Act by £250,000. Of course he forgot to mention that his own Minister for Finance the last year he was in office reduced the same grant by £600,000. What is more important, heoverlooked the entire position in regard to land drainage. Deputy Blowick's brain is so large that it looks as if he only cultivates a very small portion of it. If he had surveyed this question a little more broadly he would have seen that there has been no reduction under the heading of land drainage.

In this State we cater for land drainage under three headings. We have arterial drainage, we have the land project and we have the Local Authorities (Works) Act. Under these three headings the task of removing the surplus water from our agricultural lands is dealt with. If you tot up the amount provided in the Estimates for 1951-52, the last year that the inter-Party Government framed the Budget, you will find that these three items come to £3,509,000. The figure in the present year's Budget is £3,671,000. That means that £162,000 more is provided in the present Budget for land drainage and improvement than was provided in the last Budget of the inter-Party Government of which Deputy Blowick was a member, so that all the anger and resentment that he expressed have no foundation whatever in fact.

If you compare the amount in the present year's Budget under these three headings with the actual expenditure in 1950, 1949 or 1948, you will find that there is very considerably more provided for drainage in this year's Budget than was provided during any year of the inter-Party Government. It is true that a considerable amount more was provided under the Local Authorities (Works) Act, but now the balance has swung towards the land project. The figure for arterial drainage has been practically the same each year. The amount provided under the land project has increased at a very rapid rate over the last two years. Judging by last year when there was a Supplementary Estimate, I suppose we may take it for granted, notwithstanding what Deputy Finan said, that every penny of that money will be expended.

What has happened really is this. There are three schemes of land drainage. There is the field drainage under the land project, there is the countycouncil drainage under the Local Authorities (Works) Act, and there is the arterial drainage. It appears to me that the land project and the arterial drainage are crushing out the county council drainage schemes and rightly crushing them out because drainage is a national problem. Rivers have no respect for county boundaries. It is difficult to operate a drainage scheme on a county basis. The proper way to operate drainage on an island such as ours is on a national basis through arterial drainage schemes. I foresee that arterial drainage must continue to be pushed forward and advanced until it links up completely with the land project and takes away from the land all the water that requires to be removed. That is ordinary common sense. In the County Wicklow I have seen a very large scheme carried out.

An Ceann Comhairle

That does not seem to be relevant to the Financial Resolution.

Mr. Cogan

I am only mentioning it in passing. There is no substance whatever in the contention that there has been any cutting down on the amount of money voted for land drainage. It is no harm to make that perfectly clear because one of the lines of propaganda used against this Budget and the last Budget is that drainage is being cut down very severely. It was rather remarkable that Deputy Blowick as an ex-Minister for Lands and Forestry noticed this reduction in regard to the Local Authorities (Works) Act, but did not notice the increase of £155,000 provided in this Budget for afforestation, a very important national work of development. In last year's Budget we provided £1,065,000 for afforestation and in this year's Budget we are providing £1,220,000. There is a very substantial increase being provided for afforestation, and it is rather strange that fair-minded Deputies like Deputy Finan and Deputy Blowick did not give the Government some little credit for having provided that additional money for works of national development.

The cry of the Opposition in thisyear's Budget debate has been about the poor. I suppose the poor, like the politicians, will be always with us. I doubt very much, however, if there is any sincerity whatever in this solicitude for the welfare of the poor. It is strange that no member of the Opposition, dealing in a broad-minded and fair-minded way with this Budget, referred to the fact that under the various services which cater for the poor and for the sick there has been a very substantial increase in this year's Budget. In the health services there is an increase of from £5,000,000 to £5,500,000. Much of that may be required for building, but nevertheless it will be utilised for the welfare of those who are sick and infirm. Under the heading of old age pensions we have provided an additional £2,000,000 over last year. Under the heading of children's allowances we have provided £2,800,000 over the sum provided last year. Under the heading of widows' and orphans' pensions we have provided £750,000 extra. All this additional expenditure will go directly to the people who are most deserving and for whom Opposition Deputies express such grave concern. When they talk about reducing taxation do they suggest that we should cut down on our hospital programme? Do they suggest we should cut down on old age pensions? Do they suggest we should cut down children's allowances? Do they suggest that widows' pensions should be reduced?

If the policy which they advocate of cutting down the taxes imposed in last year's Budget were carried into effect there would not be money to provide for these essential social services. So long as we have a considerable section of our people in what is known as the lower income group so long will it be necessary for the State to do something for these people.

I notice a wide gulf has suddenly shown itself between the Labour Party and the Fine Gael Party. The Fine Gael Party has swerved sharply to the right and the Labour Party has swerved a little more to the left. One ex-Minister of the inter-Party Government said that the Fine Gael Party was dragged kicking and squealing intothe 20th Century. I think they have escaped back again to the Victorian era, to the time when it was considered good policy to let people die of starvation. I am hopeful the Labour Party does not intend to follow them into that era but, whether the Fine Gael Party goes more to the right and the Labour Party more to the left, it is the duty of the Government to hold the middle of the road and hold the balance fairly. It is the duty of the Government to ensure that private enterprise and initiative are encouraged and promoted in every possible way and by every possible incentive while at the same time ensuring that the needs of the destitute, the weak and the underprivileged are effectively catered for.

That is the policy I see enshrined in this Budget. That is the policy which must continue if we are to maintain our reputation as a civilised and Christian State. It is the duty of the Government to continue along the road mapped out in this Budget statement. It is the duty of the Government to provide every encouragement and inducement to industry and agriculture so that they will develop and expand as far as possible under private capital and private initiative. It is at the same time the duty of the Government, particularly through such services as children's allowances and old age pensions, to safeguard the interests of the poorer sections of our community.

There has been, of course, the usual outcry about emigration. Everyone deplores the fact that a large number of our people are unable to find regular employment at home. It is somewhat strange that the Opposition did not note a question asked recently by Deputy Desmond, a very enterprising and inquisitive Labour Deputy. On 22nd April, 1953, he asked the Minister for Social Welfare:

"Whether he will indicate the average number of persons employed weekly, distinguishing between males and females, as derived from the net contribution income of the national health insurance fund in the years 1950, 1951 and 1952."

Mr. Kennedy: The figures asked for by the Deputy are as follows:—

Year	Males	Females	Total
1950	332,000	157,800	489,800
1951	339,700	159,200	489,900
1952 (provisional estimate)	350,300	164,400	514,700

In 1950 the total number of men and women in employment was 489,000. In 1951, it was 498,000. In 1952, it was 514,000. That is a substantial increase in the number of people gainfully employed. It is satisfactory that the number of people in insurable employment has been increasing over the last three years. That refutes the wails of woe that have been coming from the Opposition Parties. We have been told the country is going to the dogs. Industries are closing down. Business is at a standstill. Agriculture is stagnant. Everything is going to rack and ruin because the Opposition Parties are out of office. But that is not the position. Industry is fighting back fiercely and overcoming the difficulties inherent in the situation that arose following the outbreak of the Korean war, the import of goods and the stockpiling by business people and individuals. That situation has been overcome. Business is getting back into its stride. Agriculture has survived the deplorable and disgraceful attempts made to sabotage it last year. Last year there was a campaign, fostered mainly by the main Opposition Party, against tillage generally and against the growing of wheat and beet in particular. This year there has been an expansion in the area under tillage. The farmers are confident of the future. The acreage under wheat and beet has substantially increased, though I have not the figures to prove that. There is a progressive spirit in agriculture. The young farmers are very keen and determined. They are anxious to exploit the productivity of the land to the utmost. They are helped by the security given them in relation to certain crops, such as wheat and beet. They are helped by the reasonably good prices that prevail for exported beef.

There is a spirit of enterprise and a growing confidence such as we have not known for many years. It is a good thing that we have broken away from the bad old tradition and broken away from the spirit that denounced wheat and peat and beet as being unworthy of support. These are to-day providing increasing employment for our people. That is all to the good. We are getting away, too, from the spirit that denounced every manufacturer or industrialist as a sort of unconvicted criminal. I noticed in to-day's paper that the President has visited the Bord na Móna schemes and was deeply impressed by the progress made in the production of turf. I think that there is evidence of the foresight and the wisdom of those who have consistently over the years advocated increased production in that respect. It is well that we can look forward to an expanding peat industry making our country more self supporting, more self reliant and independent than it has ever been in the past. I notice in to-day's papers also where the Tánaiste visited a pottery factory in Arklow. That was one of those factories which were described as "cod" factories some years ago. It was one of those industries that was fiercely denounced by some of the more vocal spokesmen of the Fine Gael Party; yet it is employing over 600 decent Irish people and giving them a reasonable wage and a secure standard of living.

It would be no harm if the Opposition Party were to abandon the spirit of gloom and desolation that prevails over them and if they would try to clear away the clouds that seem to hang over their heads. They are not doing themselves any good and they may do the country a certain amount of harm. By crying down every enterprise that is being set on foot, they are seeking and have been seeking over the past years to discourage business people, to indicate more or less to them that there is no future before this country.

They have tried to discourage manufacturers and, as I said already, to discourage farmers from extending their productive enterprises. I think theirefforts have failed. The people are coming to realise that there is a great deal of commonsense behind the present Administration. The people are coming to realise that on fundamentals in regard to social and economic policy we are proceeding on absolutely sound lines. They are beginning to realise that those who have denounced the wheat, beet and peat were wrong; that those who denounced industrial development and industrial enterprises were wrong and they are beginning to ask: Can we trust those people with government again? How can we trust them? How can we trust people who try to destroy their own country? That is a question which the ordinary sane, sensible, decent people are asking.

——in his Budget statement, and it is no harm to dwell on itfor a moment because agriculture is the basic industry of this nation.

General MacEoin

I thought it was Fine Gael you were dwelling on not agriculture.

Mr. Cogan

I have never been able to see eye to eye with Fine Gael.

General MacEoin

It was Fine Gael you were dwelling on.

Mr. Cogan

I do not want to try to learn anything from them at present. At the very outset I said that the Minister in introducing this Budget had set a limit to national expenditure. He has declared that we cannot increase current expenditure further. We may provide as much money as it is possible to raise for works of national development but as far as current expenditure is concerned we have reached the limit and there must be some curtailment. I would like if the Minister would endeavour to convey that message also to the local authorities and fix a maximum limit there also in regard to expenditure and the burden of direct taxation.

In the course of his statement the Minister said that agriculture was lightly taxed. I assume that in reference to that he was referring to the direct taxation paid into the central Exchequer by the farming community.

Mr. MacEntee

Hear, hear!

Mr. Cogan

But the farming community pay the greater portion of their direct taxation into the local authorities and, while the burden of direct taxation may be relatively high upon those people with fixed incomes, it is equally substantial upon the ordinary medium-sized farmer as far as his contribution to local taxation is concerned. There are very few farmers under £50 valuation driving around in Chrysler cars as Deputy Costello suggested. I have never met them or seen them and I think that if such a person were seen in rural Ireland he would be regarded generally with very great suspicion.

Captain Giles

Keep where you areand you might get one. But I think it is a Dodge they use.

Mr. Cogan

I suppose it was inevitable that the case would be put up in this debate that was put up by Deputy Finan. He said that wage earners generally had been compensated for the additional burdens of last year's Budget through increased wages but that the farming community had got no compensation whatever. I suppose it is right that farmers should grumble and complain about their position but it is not altogether true, and I think we would be very quickly pulled up if we were to suggest that we did not get some additional concessions over the last year. Wheat and peat have been increased in price and over the last two or three years there has been an increase in the price of beet. The agricultural price index has risen from the figure of 283 points in December, 1950 to 319 points in December, 1952, so that we are getting some little compensation for the increasing burdens we have to bear.

So far as farm workers are concerned, they have got even a more substantial increase in income as compared with 1950. I do not think it would be right to allow every Deputy who has spoken from the Opposition Benches to get away with the assertion that the cost of living, as a result of the Budget, has been increased by 20 or 23 per cent. It is a statement very frequently made and is, of course, a statement without any shadow of foundation. The cost of living to-day is 23 per cent. higher than it was in 1950 but half of that increase occurred before the change of Government. There was an increase of 11 per cent. in the cost of living before the inter-Party Government went out of office and while the present Government made a considerable amount of provision by way of children's allowances, increased old age pensions, increased wages and increased widows' pension for the increase in the cost of living since the Government came into office, no provision whatever was made by the inter-Party Government for the increase of 11 per cent. that took place before that Government went out of office. They simply allowed the poorersections of the community to bear that increased burden without any compensation whatever. That is the fundamental difference between the present Government and the last.

The increase in the cost of living has undoubtedly been severe, and I think everyone will join in the hope that the cost will soon be stabilised. I say that as a farmer. I suppose some farmer Deputies would like to see agricultural prices rising higher and higher but, looking at the matter from a national point of view, and a long-term point of view, I think it would be better if all costs and prices could be stabilised at their present level and prevented from rising higher. If that were done, we should all get on much better. That may lead to some reduction in costs of production. I hope that will happen. Farmers nowadays are going in more extensively for mechanisation, and I think it essential that the costs of machinery, fertilisers and everything else connected with agricultural production should be reduced to the lowest possible level.

Two main questions that have been the subject of debate in this discussion are unemployment and emigration. Fundamentally, they are probably the most serious and the most important questions affecting us as a nation. It is all right to say that we can, by efficiency and economy, cut down the expense of running this country, but that probably means cutting down the number of civil servants and stopping recruiting for the various governmental Departments. Even if you achieve that, it will not get you very far nationally unless you can ensure that the young people growing up will find alternative employment by some means or other within the country, rather than having to emigrate. Emigration and unemployment constitute, as I have said the most serious of our national problems. I do not think it serves any useful purpose for the Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil to toss these problems across the House from one to the other. There has been unemployment and emigration every year almost since the State was established. There was unemployment and emigration during the three years that the inter-partyGovernment was in power. Supporters of that Government may say, of course, that unemployment for one or two years was not as high as at the present but, nevertheless, it was very substantial and, at the same time, emigration was very substantial. It amounted to over 40,000 a year for one or two years at any rate.

It would be very easy to solve the unemployment problem if you had emigration on a large scale. Of course, it would be equally easy to solve emigration if you could tolerate a very large number of unemployed people in the State. The two problems are correlated and they are two problems that should be tackled. I believe that the only way to tackle unemployment in the main is to promote the development of our national resources to the fullest extent. That implies a spirit of patriotism and of patriotic endeavour. It implies a spirit of confidence in our resources and in our ability to develop them to the fullest extent. Wild, fanatical denunciations of the production of such things as beet, wheat, peat, will not help to solve the problem of emigration. As a matter of fact, they make it utterly impossible for us to deal with that problem.

I hope that in seeking more efficient, more advantageous and more beneficial administration during the coming months, attention will be turned to the large amount of money—I have not the figure before me now—which is expended each year on unemployment assistance and unemployment benefit. If that money could be utilised to provide employment it would be far better. I could never be convinced that it is not possible to work out a scheme under which every penny of that money could be utilised, to provide employment. Why should a man who draws, say, 50s. a week be expected to travel five or six miles in order to register as unemployed and to receive that money and be compelled rigidly to abstain from work for the rest of the week in order to qualify for that money? Why should that money not be given to the county council, the local authority, or even the parish council on condition that they should provide work in exchange for the money?

It can be done. I think there is no reason why it should not be done. It would not be possible to give each of those men a full week's work and possibly in the economic situation it would not be desirable, but it would be possible and desirable to give those men at least the number of days' work each week to enable them to earn this money rather than have them accept it as a gift. I think this matter cannot be allowed to continue. It is a source of national waste to keep men permanently idle, to force them to be idle and to make it a penalty for them to work rather than devise a means by which they could be provided with employment. In addition, in districts where there is a considerable number of unemployed relief grants should be given so as to cut down the amount that might have to be given by way of dole. That is very important and urgent.

I hope, now that we have achieved a measure of solvency and stability in our national finances, that we can look forward to a real progressive effort being made to develop our agriculture and our industries to the fullest extent. I hope that the Opposition will have the good sense and the practical patriotism to refrain from running down their own country. I hope they will help to restore and establish a spirit of confidence in our own nation, our own people and in the future of our country. If that is done, I believe we can tackle and solve the problem of unemployment. In fairness, let me say that some of the work that has been done under both Governments over the past 30 years has been of immense value and is admired by other nations.

Our hydro-electric schemes, our turf development schemes, our beet and sugar factories are all worthy of admiration. So, too, are the industries in the County Wicklow to which I have referred, the pottery industry in Arklow and the many other progressive productive efforts that have been made in this country. So, too, are our forestry development schemes. All those are desirable as is the national scheme for land improvement and reclamation. That scheme has been inoperation since 1940. It expanded under the inter-Party Government and it expanded still further since the inter-Party Government went out of office. I think it is going to grow and extend thus ensuring that in a very short time there will be no land in this country lying waste that can be brought into production. We will have the advantage of an energetic and virile rural population who will tackle this problem and co-operate actively with the Government to make our land as productive as possible.

I hope that if there are any further speeches from the members of the Opposition they will not sound the note of gloom and despair that has been so prevalent up to the present. I hope they will sound a note of confidence in our nation, our people and our ability to tackle and solve our financial, economic and social problems and in that way preserve for our people the independence of our country.

Captain Giles

It is unfortunate that I follow Deputy Cogan in making my speech. I hope that whenever Deputy Briscoe takes a trip to the Wailing Walls of Jerusalem he will bring Deputy Cogan with him and allow him to do all his wailing there rather than in this House. This Budget may bring joy to the people if it can force Fianna Fáil to go to the country. Other than that, it contains no other redeeming feature. It is a bad, despicable Budget, one which the people will not forget. In fact, it is a Budget which will draw the curtain over Fianna Fáil for all time. It marks the end of a long decade and thanks be to God for it. Fianna Fáil are holding on to power like grim death. They have tried every trick in the old political bag. They first started off as the patriots' Party to live and die for Ireland. They would leave nothing stand in their way and the country would be reunited under Eamon de Valera and Fianna Fáil. That lasted for four or five years but nothing came of it.

They next started to talk about business and they wound up by becoming the most ardent Tories ever produced in this country. Churchill and his Party are only second to Deputy MacEntee, the Minister for Finance,and those on the front benches of the Government. It is a poor state of affairs, after the struggle for national freedom, that we wound up with a Minister for Finance bowing to Mr. Butler and saying: "I will do whatever you say." That is where we stand to-day. The Budget of last year was framed by Mr. Butler and this year's Budget was framed by Mr. Butler. I am satisfied that the people will frame their future in their own way.

Brendán Mac Fheórais

Mr. Butler's Budget was not a bad one this year.

General MacEoin

Not a bad one at all.

Captain Giles

This Budget will open many people's eyes. Many people hankered after Fianna Fáil. Some of them honestly believed in Fianna Fáil, but a large number wanted Fianna Fáil for what they could get out of them. Under this Budget, I do not think they will get very much. It is the parting of the ways for many of them. Let us face things clearly. Is it not a fact that the country was never in such a plight? I live in the centre of Ireland and I meet the people all around me. I see the flight from the land. The labouring man is going off the land. Some have gone to the towns; others have gone to Britain and were it not for the money they send across to this country we would be gone burst long ago. There is not the slightest doubt about that. That fact stares us in the face.

All this started because of the political sops of many years ago which made the nation soft. That state of affairs cannot be allowed to continue all the time. Year after year, millions of pounds are expended to hold the votes and buy them. The price is too high and it cannot be done. The people who established the right for us to sit in this House feel very sad about it.

Mr. Killilea

You got a good deal of help.

Captain Giles

We have more troubles to-day than we had 30 years ago. We started off with a free country and with almost no national debt. Unemployment was at a low ebb. Thecountry was full of life and vigour. Patriotism flourished at every cross-roads and in every village and town-land. What is the position to-day? The people are downtrodden. Labourers are flying from the land; farmers are overtaxed and the land is full of sedge-grass, rushes and dirt. There is no money in the farmer's home to provide for the cleaning of his land. That is a poor state of affairs. What does Fianna Fáil intend to do to right some of these things? If they do not do anything, freedom is a sham. As I said before, if this Budget forces Fianna Fáil to go to the country it will be the only redeeming feature about it. Millions of pounds are spent in the most stupid way in this country. We heard Deputy Cogan speaking about the money spent on helping farmers and labourers. but if they are given money it is taken from them in taxes. In doing that you are employing thousands and tens of thousands of extra officials.

The position in the country at the moment is that we have half the people looking after the other half. We have a vast number of men who will not work. If one goes to any village in the country one will see at the employment exchange 30, 40, 50, 70 or 100 men queued up once a week waiting to beg a living on the land that could give them full employment and good wages if things were done in a business-like way. Quite a number of those whom you see there would not work in a fit. On top of that, we are told here that the nation is in danger and that it must have an immediate recruiting campaign to have anything from 12,000 to 20,000 men marching on a barrack square standing four-square in the defence of Ireland. These able-bodied men are taken off the land to march around a barrack square when they should be planting crops on the land. We are told that we cannot compel a man to do anything.

There is one thing certain, and it is that for the last 30 years or so the people who really work in this country are carrying a vast number of idle men on their backs. If men are wanted for the Army why not have compulsory service for those who will not work?The country is crowded with gypsies, tinkers and tramps. They do not give two hoots about the country. They have never done a day's work. Why not put them on the barrack square and not be bringing in vigorous, healthy men who should be in good employment on the land producing crops for the nation? It is time that something was done so that the same people would not be carrying the load all the time. The farmers are carrying an unnatural load. The result is that they are not able to give proper employment on the land.

The aim of this country should be to double production. The country is not getting that. I come from one of the wealthiest counties in Ireland as far as the land is concerned. It has been stripped of its people. No one is buying land there except foreigners. They are doing it as fast as they can. They do not even come across to buy it. They buy it on the telephone from London and India. They start off with a stud farm. The Government winks at that. They start, as I say, with a stud farm of one or two thousand acres, but in a short time it is turned into cattle ranch with white-headed bullocks roaming all over it. That is the kind of thing which the Government stands for. Ministers come down and dine and wine with those people, with Lord this and Lord that—our Ministers bowing and scraping to them.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

That is not relevant on the motion before the House.

Captain Giles

Is that the sort of way to build up the country? That is what is happening under national Fianna Fáil. Fianna Fake! The man in the street knows very well what he wants—a fair crack of the whip, instead of that crack of the whip on the back, morning, noon and night. Facts will have to be faced, whether we like it or not. Whether we change the Government or not, there will have to be a change of outlook and changed ideas, in the interests of all the people.

Mr. Hickey

Hear, hear!

Captain Giles

I do not think I could do better than quote the four last paragraphs of the Minister for Finance when introducing the 1952 Budget.

He said:—

"In this Budget, onerous as it may be, we have done what is essential but no more than is essential to put the public finances in order and to revive confidence in the credit and stability of the State.

On the solid basis thus laid we can build a future worthy of the sacrifices of the past, worthy too, of the men and women of this generation, the first to be born in freedom but for that reason the more determined to preserve it.

When Fianna Fáil left office in 1948, this State stood high in credit with the world. It owed no foreign debt. The encumbrances which the preceding Government assumed we shall, however, honour, as Deputy Costello rightly said, to the last dollar. But we shall not add to them. We shall rely on our own people to provide by their industry and thrift, the capital necessary to build up the nation.

We relied on them before during stringent and terrible days. They did not fail us then and they will not fail us now."

From that speech, I can see, great difficulty flowed for the Opposition because every member who has spoken so far attributed the 1953 Budget to the results that flowed from the 1952 Budget and in doing so pointed to the unemployment problem, emigration and various other ills from which this State has suffered since its inception and before that from the famine years.

I propose to show that the rate of emigration was greater and in larger volume during their term of office thanit has been during our term of office. The Opposition treat these matters of unemployment and emigration solely for political purposes and because they see we are regaining the initiative in the face of two coming by-elections and that we are not faced with the handicaps that we were faced with when we fought them in North Mayo, Waterford and Limerick.

Mr. Belton

And North-West Dublin.

Mr. Carter

The people can see the results of our policy over the last 12 months. We are beginning to achieve the results that our Minister for Finance and the Government hoped we would achieve, namely, stability in our monetary conditions, stability with regard to employment and that we have and will have a remedy for the problems of emigration. You can only remedy the problem of emigration by pursuing a policy such as that envisaged in the 1952-53 Budget, when you put the finances of the State in order.

On 22nd April, 1953, Deputy Desmond asked a question with regard to National Health Insurance statistics. He asked the Minister if he would state the average number of persons employed weekly, distinguishing between males and females, as derived from the net contribution income of the National Health Insurance fund in the years 1950, 1951 and 1952. We find that in the year 1950 there were 332,000 males and 157,800 females employed, a total of 489,800; in the year 1951, there were 339,700 males and 159,200 females employed, a total of 498,900; in 1952, the figures reached 350,300 males and 164,400 females, a total of 514,700—a total increase in employment of 24,900 persons.

Despite the manner in which the Opposition fume and fret and try to create a fog, the figures are there and they are very revealing. They defy contradiction. Figures rarely lie.

I see in the wild outbursts of the Opposition since the introduction of this Budget the rantings of disappointed men. If you like, they had a good deal of fodder out of which tomake political capital but they failed to make use of it because they underrated the intelligence of the electorate. They put on full steam following the 1952 Budget. Now they are inclined to reverse engines and they will probable end up in a collision.

Deputy McGilligan went to Cork recently, where he made a speech. I will take a paragraph from that speech which appeared in the Sunday Pressof May 10th:—

"Fianna Fáil are being dragged squealing and kicking before the electorate, and notwithstanding the delays, their cowardice makes them welcome, circumstances are compelling them to the test that they would prefer to refuse."

Those words were quoted before in relation to Deputy McGilligan's own Party. When all is said and done, when, perhaps, the results of the by-elections are known, he might change his opinion.

I think the Minister for Finance and the Government have done a fair job of work. They have done away with unwise and improvident spending that resulted in the Central Fund and Supply Services going up 50 per cent. during the Opposition's term of office, not to mention, as has been mentioned here often, a record during that period of £90,000,000 in loans.

General Mulcahy

They were £80,000,000 earlier in the day.

Mr. Corry

They were actually £95,000,000, for which we are paying £7,500,000 yearly.

General Mulcahy

They were £90,000,000 a couple of days ago, £80,000,000 earlier to-day, and now £95,000,000.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

Deputy Carter.

Mr. Carter

Despite the fact that the Coalition had that amount of money at their command they failed miserably in providing an adequate sum for the Defence Forces. To-day you have the back benchers, whether with or without the benediction of the front benchers I do not know, advocating that we should fill our barrack squares with tramps and tinkers. Instead ofstrengthening our Defence Forces and spending money on worth-while projects, they also persisted in purchasing foreign foodstuffs and agricultural products of a finished character, ad lib.

I believe that the firm foundation on which the Minister for Finance built his Budget in 1952 has resulted in our external account being balanced. It gave us £4,000,000 to equip our troops with modern weapons to defend the country. It resulted in an increase in social welfare services. Whatever else may be said against us, it can never be levelled at us that we were unwilling or unable from our own resources to help the poor and the needy. It resulted in increased old age pensions, increased widows' and orphans' pensions, increased children's allowances, and in an extension of the social welfare services generally.

Deputy Finan addressed himself in particular this evening to the question of the small farmer. He said that the Government had done nothing to help the type of farmers who are in his constituency. I would refer him to the extended social welfare services as they apply to a farm of £30 valuation. The Government have made great strides in that direction. When a farmer of £30 valuation reaches the age of 70, even though he may have stock, goods or chattels worth £2,500 or £3,000 he can make over his holding to his son or daughter and apply for the old age pension without a means test. I would draw Deputy Finan's attention to the fact that the Party which is weeping on his shoulder never could do that for the farmers and never tried. If he continues to allow them to weep on his shoulder, he will find himself out of the Dáil or, like Deputy Dillon and Deputy Flanagan, a member of the Fine Gael Party.

Under the recent Housing Act county councils have access to the Local Loans Fund for the first time. We also provided for grants from the Department of Local Government and from the local authorities as well as loans on very favourable terms from that fund. The rate of interest for these loans has been criticised by the Opposition. I find that the very peoplewho are criticising the rate of interest in respect of borrowing under the Small Dwellings (Acquisition) Act were the people who increased it to 6 per cent. and 6¼ per cent. back in the 1930's, and it was a very selective fund in those days. You would want to have a very substantial bank balance before you could borrow from it. One of the Fine Gael front benchers now, Deputy Morrissey, was the very man who castigated Deputy Mulcahy then when he was Minister and charged him with not lending money from that fund for the provision of small dwellings until wages would be brought down to 27/11. I like fair criticism, but I do not like people striking below the belt, and if people strike me below the belt I always strike back.

General MacEoin

You give them the boot.

Mr. Carter

We heard a good deal about the results that flowed from the 1952 Budget, but we heard nothing about the commitments left to the Minister for Finance when he took office in 1952. It seems tedious for me to go over some of these items now after all the speakers who have gone before me but, in view of some of the wild statements made by Deputy Giles and other Opposition Deputies, we must lose no opportunity of putting the truth over.

Captain Giles

That is what we are doing.

Mr. Carter

Some of these silly statements are, I am sure, taken at their face value. At any young farmers' club meeting in the country one would certainly hear these matters discussed more intelligently. Are we to forget the burdens that were laid on our Minister for Finance in 1952? Are we to forget that the inter-Party Government left us a bill of £1,300,000 in respect of C.I.E.? Are we to forget that they left us £433,000 arrears of fuel subsidy? Are we to forget they left us a bill of £2,700,000, the gift given by their last Minister for Health to certain sections of local authority officials the day before the Dáil dissolved? They conveniently forget the £3,500,000 in respect of increases in salaries to State servants. In fact, a gross total ofnearly £15,000,000 was left unprovided for by the Minister for Finance in the inter-Party Government and our Minister for Finance was subsequently obliged to take over the debt and make it good. Our Minister has been accused by certain sections of the Opposition and certain elements in the State service of dishonouring the Civil Service Arbitration Board award. As the Minister said in his Budget statement in 1952, he honoured that award to the last penny. He did not run away from it. He did not dissolve the Dáil and go to the country leaving another Government to honour the award.

He has also been accused of increasing expenditure. It has been suggested that he should cut down expenditure, but no effort was made to show how that economy might be achieved. I suggest that if the Minister cut out some of the politicians in the public service he might be able to effect a substantial saving in expenditure. We have been accused of depressing agriculture and cutting down the food subsidies. Let us look at the way in which we are supposed to have depressed agriculture. Let us resort for that purpose to some of the figures available to us in the various official publications. All the figures published support our argument that agriculture has increased and developed and that its output has expanded under our régime. During the last year of Deputy Dillon's term in office cattle under one year declined by 3,700; milch cows declined by 20,000; in-calf heifers decreased by 33,000; pigs went down by 87,000. He practically wiped out the poultry industry altogether. He put the palsied hand of the Coalition on that industry despite the fact that Deputy Smith, when Minister for Agriculture, had made a very good bargain with the British Government in relation to which he got £2,000,000 to develop the poultry industry.

Captain Giles

That was not much to his credit.

Mr. Rooney

The industry did not exist.

Mr. Carter

The £2,000,000 he received to develop the poultry industrymelted like the £5,000,000 that Deputy Dillon spent in one afternoon. He succeeded in decreasing our poultry industry by 2,300,000 head. Tillage during the inter-Party régime declined by 53,000 acres. Over 50,000 people left the land in those years. It is hard to understand in face of all that why we should now come in for such a barrage of criticism with regard to agricultural production and emigration.

In the three years from 1948 to 1951 the inter-Party Government had available to it over £46,000,000. I will quote now from the Official Report, Volume 129, to show Deputy Dillon's manner of dealing with that money:—

"Do Deputies of this House know what our principal problem was in the years of the Marshall Aid? To get the dollars spent... We spent dollars on maize. I spent £5,000,000 on wheat in one afternoon."

Of that amount of £46,000,000 the inter-Party Government spent in fact £27,000,000 on imported foodstuffs.

General Mulcahy

There must have been a bit of drink and some petrol, too.

Mr. Carter

Let me come back now to the charge they level against us that we give bad prices for agricultural produce and that we have depressed agriculture. We answer that charge with facts and figures. Let us take milk, for example. We increased the price of milk from 1/7 in 1951 to 1/10, with a further increase last year.

Mr. Rooney

That is wrong.

Mr. Lehane

The Deputy does not know what he is talking about.

Mr. Carter

From 1st January to 30th April, 1951, the liquid milk producers in Dublin and Cork were getting 2/3 per gallon. In 1952 the price was 2/5 and in 1953 it is still 2/5. From 1st May to 30th June it was 1/7 per gallon in 1951. In 1952 it was 1/8 and in 1953 it is 1/10 per gallon.

Progress reported; Committee to sit again.

The Dáil adjourned at 10.30 p.m. until 3 p.m. on Wednesday, 13th May, 1953.

Dáil Éireann debate - Tuesday, 12 May 1953

Committee on Finance. - Resolution No. 3—General (Resumed).

Dáil Éireann debate -
Tuesday, 12 May 1953