Committee on Finance. - Financial Resolution No. 3—General (Resumed). – Dáil Éireann (14th Dáil) – Thursday, 21 May 1953

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

Mr. Desmond

One aspect of the problem confronting the country in connection with this Budget with which I intended to deal last night and which was referred to by a Deputy of the Minister's Party is the problem of employment, or lack of employment, in rural Ireland as against the City ofDublin. The reply given by the Parliamentary Secretary to the Taoiseach to-day bears out the fact that the economic policy of this Government seems to be directed more particularly to the advancement of industry in Dublin City than in the rest of the country combined; and when we hear of projects to the number of 33 or 34 in relation to new industries or additions to existing industries in this city, as given by the Parliamentary Secretary, we are entitled to say that the economic policy of this Government is undoubtedly one which is tending to force people to leave rural Ireland.

Secondly, because of lack of accommodation in the cities and towns, where rural workers may hope at times to get some form of employment, there is no alternative for them but to leave the country. It is poor consolation for people in rural Ireland to read in tomorrow morning's newspapers that more industries will be commenced in Dublin City. I do not know whether they will be or not. It will not satisfy the people who are unemployed or underemployed to be told that the Government policy is a continuation of the old policy of making Dublin topheavy, without regard for any other part of the Twenty-Six Counties.

There is another aspect of this Budget to which attention must be directed because of its connection with the failure of last year's Budget. Members of the Government Party were relieved when they heard that the food subsidies which were reduced so savagely last year would not be further tampered with this year. For the last two years Ministers of State emphasised the desirability of leaders of trade unions and others instructing and, if possible, coercing their members, at the behest of Ministers and the Taoiseach himself, not to seek increases in wages. They were completely illogical in their approach to the problem because the Minister for Finance and the members of his Government were directly responsible for placing the workers in the position that they had to seek increased wages in order to meet the cost of living imposed upon them by the present Administration.

In rural Ireland, in Cork City and I presume in Dublin City, a heavyburden was placed on local authority hospitals and voluntary hospitals by the reduction of the food subsidies last year. That burden will be continued by the Minister's refusal this year to restore the subsidies even though it is now quite clear that that action was mistaken. Patients in these hospitals had to pay higher maintenance fees because of the consequent increase in the cost of foodstuffs.

The Government's approach to this matter is completely false. The working people are entitled to fair treatment. Deputy Corry, as chairman of the South Cork Board of Assistance, is well aware of the heavy burden imposed on the ratepayers and on hospital patients as a result of the savage attack made by the Minister for Finance on the food subsidies.

Attention has been drawn to the problem of emigration. A question was raised in the British House of Commons on 7th May. The responsible Minister was asked if he was aware of the danger of people leaving Ireland and going into Britain carrying with them the dread disease of T.B. and if the Minister was prepared to introduce some system of screening these poor unfortunate emigrants from this country. The reply was that the matter was under consideration and that some method of having a check at the airports and shipping ports would be considered. Very few of our emigrants travel by air. Before our young people can emigrate to Britain they will probably have to be screened. That means that only the flower of the young people will be allowed into Britain and the poor crocks, like some of us, will be left.

I direct the attention of the House to the irresponsible action of the Minister, politically speaking, the dishonourable action, and the unjust action, in refusing to provide out of the carry-over that is available the money that is due to the rural postmen and other lowly-paid State employees. The Minister and the Government cannot evade their responsibility in this matter. The Minister stated in his Budget speech that there is a carry-over of £2,000,000. The Minister and the Government are prepared to give retrospectivepayment to other people who have very high salaries—the judges.

Our main problem concerns the unemployed who have to attend at the employment exchanges. In that connection I direct the attention of the Minister to Part VII, page 35 of the National Nutrition Survey where the following statement is made:—

"The average height in inches of the unemployed man's child at a given age is over two inches less than that of the average child of the lower professional group of the same age."

While the Minister devoted part of his Budget speech to the vital importance of providing additional money for defence and stated that the previous Government, between 1948 and 1951, did not meet their commitments with regard to defence, he conveniently passed over such a damning indictment of the modern conditions of Government in this country as is contained in this report. I say, and I am saying it for every member of the Labour Party, that while we are loyal to our country our first obligation as Christians and Irishmen must be to deal with the problem of the children of the unemployed men who are faced with being in future the so-called undesirables who, when having to go to Britain, will have to go through the process of screening. There is little use in talking about getting new guns and new automatic weapons, if we can afford them, or the leaders of our Army on manoeuvres in the country posing for pictures when at the same time resolving to keep the photographers away from the employment exchanges and from the homes of the unemployed where children are hungry and when, because of the continuation of the savage Budget introduced last year, the Minister is prepared to say to the unemployed in rural Ireland and in Dublin and Cork: "Continue as you are; draw the dole; if you are strong enough and if you will pass through the process of screening you can go to Britain and let the future look after your children."

Mr. Donnellan

In my ten years' experience of this House neverhave there been Financial Motions discussed more in the atmosphere of a general election than the present motions. There is very good reason why that should be the case. It is my intention to go into that matter and the reasons why we should have a general election. I should like to refer first to the statement made yesterday by Deputy Hickey in a very good speech on which I must compliment him. He referred to the fact that he had to go to the agricultural Credit Corporation with a certain man from his area who wanted a loan for the purchase of certain machinery for development in this country. That man was told that the interest on the loan would be over 12 per cent.

Mr. Hickey

The interest was supposed to be 7 per cent. but he would be actually paying 14 per cent.

Mr. Donnellan

The Minister interjected: "Why does he not cut out smoking?" From the beginning to the end, that is the view of the Minister —cut out this, that and the other thing; we eat too much, we smoke too much, we drink too much, we dress too well, our standard of living is too high. We must cut out all these things and put on the hair shirt referred to by the Taoiseach many years ago. It has come back to what that great prophet, the Taoiseach, stated, that it is necessary to put on the hair shirt. That is what it amounts to.

In introducing last year's Budget the Minister stated that the reason for the extra taxation was that he had got to put the finances of this country in order; that it was his intention to put the finances in order and put this country on the road to prosperity. But, after 12 months, he has found out that instead of putting the finances of the country in order he has put them completely into disorder. This year he comes along with an "as you were" Budget, and there will be more disorder in the finances in the coming year. I know that it would be his intention to increase taxation but for something which happened during the last year. As a result of the by-electionin North-West Dublin the Government found that they could not continue putting on more taxation.

It made me laugh when I heard the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister, Deputy Beegan, in reply to Deputy A. Byrne, stating that sweets beat them in North-West Dublin. It must be very easy to beat the present Government when sweets beat them in North-West Dublin. Much less than sweets will beat them throughout the country in the near future. I also listened to Deputy Hickey, and later on to Deputy McQuillan referring to what you might call the currency problem and matters of that kind that I do not understand. From year to year the burden on the taxpayers is becoming greater and greater. If greater expenditure is required for things that are necessary, until such time as more money can be earned in this country by whatever method it is possible to do it, we are just taking it out of one pocket and putting it into another.

With regard to the finances of this country, my view is that there is only one section of the community that makes any new money. We hear quite a lot about professional people, bankers and others making new money. They do not make any new money. There is only one section that makes any new money and that is the people on the land. Any new money that is made comes from the land and from the workers on the land. It is on those people and what they produce that we have to depend for any new money that is made.

The Minister said in his Budget statement that taxation lies lightly on the land. That causes no little amusement, when one remembers the efforts made to squeeze the last penny out of the farmer. It is said that coming events cast their shadows before them and, from that point of view, the Minister's statement did not surprise me very much. Some time ago the Leader of the Fianna Fáil Party in the Seanad, Senator Quirke, suggested that there should be a tax of £5 per head on cattle and live stock exported from this country. I have not the slightestdoubt that if Fianna Fáil had a majority behind them they would, as they did in days gone by, put the farmer once more on the verge of starvation. If the Minister had a majority, I have no doubt he would have imposed more penal taxes in his recent Budget.

The Minister must realise that in a very short space of time 78,000 people have left the land. The land is not the El Dorado he thinks it is, and the sooner the Minister gets away from the idea that he can impose further taxation on the farmers and on the workers on the land the better it will be for the country. In some cases local rates are as much as £2 in the £. The income-tax paid by the professional man or the businessman is really derived from the land and from the wealth the farmer produces. Any increase in wages is put upon the consumer and in the last analysis it is the man on the land who sweats and works to get from the land the food we eat and the raw material we export. He is the foundation of all wealth in this country and without him no other section could survive.

In my young days it was the custom for the parents to select the particular child to whom they would leave their holding or farm. Nowadays the trouble is to find a child who is prepared to remain on that holding or farm. All the sons and daughters are emigrating to England or to the cities and large towns to get away from the land. Nevertheless, the Minister tells us glibly that taxation lies lightly on the land. Our export trade in cattle and live stock is the only source of revenue worth a damn. The day we fail to keep up those exports we will find ourselves without any revenue, and without money we will not go very far.

A general election is in the offing. The cry is: "Put out the Government." It matters little to me what Party is in power if the proper policy is implemented. I and my supporters in Galway have come to the conclusion that the present Government should be deprived of power. What has happened during the last 12 months? Teais double the price to-day that it was last year. The price of bread has doubled and so has the price of butter. The inter-Party Government was taunted with importing butter. We were told it was yellow. We were told it was not fit for human consumption. We were told it would cause disease. Strange to relate, the colour changed, the smell changed, and it became fit for human consumption the moment Fianna Fáil changed the price from 2/8 per lb. to 4/2 per lb. Motor taxation has increased by over £800,000. The increase in the postal rates is anticipated to bring in £750,000. Unemployment has more than doubled. Emigration, especially from the West of Ireland—I am sure Deputy Killilea will agree with me in this— has never been greater since 1947 than it is now. Homes in rural Ireland are closed up and the sons and daughters have gone away. When I was on that side of the House I remember being taunted in regard to all the people that were lined up at the employment exchanges in Galway City, but never before in Irish history were there as many unemployed in Galway City as there are to-day. Over 1,000 people are unemployed there. That is the record of the past 12 months and it is on that record that I judge the present Government. I feel, as over 90 per cent. of the people of the Twenty-Six Counties feel to-day, that a general election is necessary and that the present Government should be put out.

On my way up from Galway yesterday a young man from my area told me that he came over here five years ago when the inter-Party Government was in power. He was a professional builder and he answered the call of the inter-Party Government to come back to his native country. For three and a half years he worked in the City of Dublin and there was plenty of employment. Yesterday he travelled with me having been home to visit his people. Last night, he took the boat to go across to England to try to find employment there. I said to him: "Is the position as bad as that in the City of Dublin?""Yes," he said, "on account of the increase in the bank rate, and so on, there is no use buildingany houses now unless you build a £6,000 or £7,000 house for the financiers. The day of building for the white collar worker or for the general worker in Dublin City is gone for the simple reason that, with the increased bank rate, there is no point in building houses for those people because they cannot afford to pay the rent." Therefore, the people who did come home and hearkened to the call when the inter-Party Government was in power are fleeing to-day as fast as ever they can.

That is the record of the past 12 months, but let us see what the position was slightly before that. When Fianna Fáil got in, or were put in as the case may be, we remember the cry of the Minister—it was a help to him in the last Budget if not in this one—that this country was robbed by the inter-Party Government. You would imagine we were looters or people of that description. The financial position was parlous and we had the country robbed. Nevertheless, he had to admit that when he and his Government came into office there was £24,000,000 of the Marshall Aid fund in the Treasury for him to use. While with one side of their mouths they shout how this country was robbed—there was not a penny left to do anything— with the other sides of their mouths they can justify paying £250,000 for a racehorse. With the self-same side of their mouths they can stand over the expenditure of £500,000 on transatlantic services and other items like that.

When the inter-Party Government assumed office the first thing they did was to give back £6,000,000 to the taxpayer. They removed the penal taxes Fianna Fáil had imposed on beer and tobacco. They kept the necessaries of life, such as bread, butter, sugar and tea within reasonable bounds so that the people could buy them. In passing, may I refer to the increase in sugar a few days ago by ½d. a lb.; of course, that is nothing! The inter-Party Government did their best in matters of that kind. During their term of office, we had an export trade in this country of over £100,000,000, the greatest ever in the history of thiscountry. The reason for that was that the section of the community I referred to, that is, the people on the land, knew the inter-Party Government were solid; they knew the line that Government was working on and that there was no trick-of-the-loop business. They knew that for their work and their produce they would be paid. They knew that all they had to do was to work and they would be paid. During that time we had, for the first time in the history of this country, an export trade of over £100,000,000.

Mr. MacEntee

It is not true.

Mr. Donnellan

Never was employment greater; never was unemployment lower than it was during the inter-Party Government term of office.

Mr. MacEntee

It is just not true.

Mr. Donnellan

Never was it lower since the war. It is double what it was during the reign of the inter-Party Government. It is 90,000 to-day.

I listened to Deputy Dillon in this House when he said that the Taoiseach, Deputy de Valera, does not rule Fianna Fáil any longer. I was just wondering was that so. I did not express the opinion, but surely some very strange thing has happened because it is not his form, as I knew him for many years, to be in the corner he is in to-day and not to run to the country. I remember an occasion when he rushed at midnight to have the Dáil dissolved. Of course, I believe Deputy Dillon is right when he says that he does not rule any longer, because if he had the power he used to have some time ago he certainly would say: "We will go to the country and hear what the people have to say."

At least 90 per cent. of the people of this country are crying out to-day for a change of Government on account of the reasons I have given. The present Government are still clinging or trying to cling on to power despite what they must know well, that the people want a change. Dublin North-West proved it and I suppose within the next three weeks, if we do go that far, Wicklow and Cork East will prove the same thing. Then we are bound to have it anyway. My suggestion would be that in view of the hopeless mess into which the present Minister and the present Government have put this country over the past two years, they should come out to the people and make an open confession that, although they challenged the inter-Party Government that they did not keep down the cost of living, they themselves have failed and have made it impossible for the people to live here. Let them admit it, and allow back into power the inter-Party Government which was the best Government this country ever had.

The sooner the present Government go to the country and let the people return the inter-Party Government again, the better it will be for the country. Even if the by-elections are held, it will be necessary to have a general election within a short time. The Minister knows that his Party is finished and that back into power theywill never get again. It is not worth clinging to office and incurring the cost of two by-elections for the sake of three or four weeks longer in office. Owing to the terrible failure this Government have been, owing to the fact that they have doubled unemployment and that they are responsible for an emigration greater than was ever known in black '47, at least in the West of Ireland: owing to the fact that they are responsible for having homes closed up in the rural areas, I would ask them to dissolve the Dáil, go to the country and allow the people to give them their answer. That answer will be to put the inter-Party Government back into power. So far as we in Clann na Talmhan are concerned we shall take part in any such Government. Fianna Fáil have their organisers going through the country saying: "We shall get in all right; the Opposition do not want an election." The question is not what the Opposition want or what the Government want; it is what the people want. The people want an election and the people must get it. So far as we in the Clann na Talmhan Party are concerned, we shall work and cooperate, as we did previously, in an inter-Party Government, not for the sake of Labour, Fine Gael or Clann na Poblachta but because we believe it offers the only means to get us out of the mess into which the present Government and the Minister have put this country in the past two years. The quicker the people are given that opportunity the better.

Mr. MacCarthy

As one who has grown up with national movements of many kinds in this country, I often wonder here whether I can believe my ears when I hear the ullagoning, the banshee wails and the cries of dire distress that are uttered in this House, as if this nation had lost its manhood and its nationality. The banshee wail is weird but at least it is consistent even though, like a jack-o'-lantern, it might lead the people astray; it is certainly leading the Opposition into all manners of inconsistencies in their discussion of the matters which they pretend are connected with this Financial Resolution. Last nightDeputy McGilligan, with that usual waspish venom with which he tries to smite his opponents, said that this Budget was designed in the interests of our external payments, but when Deputy McGilligan was in power and when he took office as Minister for Finance in the inter-Party Government he stated that his policy was one of economy and retrenchment. He told us last night about rising prices and all the rest of it but after he had been three years in office this is what he said on the 2nd May, 1951, as reported in Volume 125, column 1878, dealing with prices and the monetary situation:—

"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. . . . There is reason to fear that we have not yet experienced the full consequences of the increased international demand for basic commodities."

That is what he said in 1951—that prices had not yet reached their full limit. He went on:—

"Concurrently with the rise in import prices there has occurred an increase in our trade deficit."

That is something perhaps that members of the Opposition have need to consider in their arguments on this Resolution.

Deputy McGilligan continued:—

"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."

How does that compare with his argument last night? He tried to condemn the Government for taking into consideration the balance of our external payments, but in 1951 he said that if that balance was not corrected, we, as a nation, would suffer a reduction in the standard of living we could afford. When the present Minister is trying to remedy that situation so that we can afford a decent standard of living, Deputy McGilligan has theaudacity to come to the House and condemn the Government for doing what he advocated in 1951. Not because he advocated it is the Government carrying out that policy but because they believe it is the right policy and a good policy.

His next statement on that occasion was:—

Increases in remuneration offer no escape from this unwelcome development."

Last night he condemned the Government for not going back another six months in the increased payments to civil servants and others, while he said in 1951 that increases in remuneration offer no escape from the unwelcome development which he admitted had taken place under his own administration. He stated further on that occasion:—

"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 income."

I have some regard for people who try to be consistent—even if you do not agree with them you may admire them —but people who come along in this blatant way and alter everything they previously said, just to try to condemn the Government and to give the country a false impression, surely are not acting in the interests of the nation or the national economy.

At column 1880 Deputy McGilligan adds:—

"Unless we are building up our productive capacity to an adequate degree, so that by increasing our exports or reducing our imports we can within a few years equalise——"

mark the word "equalise".

"——our external receipts and payments, we must inevitably suffer a decline in our living standards."

In column 1883 he further says:—

"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."

What are the things that Deputy McGilligan advocates in those statements? He advocates the equalisation of our balance of payments so that we can keep up our living standards. Last night, he seemed to take a different view but the Government feel this way about it. The balance of external payments is the barometer indicating the trend of our national economy and if we can provide for our own people and balance things in such a manner that we will be able to pay our commitments we are acting in the best interests of our people.

One of our patriots—I think it was John Mitchel—said: "Woe to that man or that nation whose destiny is depending on the will of another." We want to preserve the integrity of our currency in the interests of our own people so that we will not have to put our country in pawn to any nation on earth. Last year, we were told by members of the Opposition that our Minister for Finance was in collusion, if you please, with the British Chancellor of the Exchequer. This debate has become so monotonous and so much out of line with reality that I would ask the members to divert their minds, if not their eyes, for a few moments through the medium of the Cork Examinerto what is happening in the fair land of France at this moment.

If they visited the Parliament there they would see that the same problems are confronting that country as confront us here. The similarity is such that, perhaps, when the Opposition have studied it, they may accuse the Minister this year of being in collusion with the Premier of France because the French Premier is at the moment seeking a vote of confidence on his Financial Resolution. He is doing that, he states, in order to reorganise the administration and preserve the economy of the country. He speaks on the necessity for economic stability. He said the question was so serious that it was impossible to have either an internal or external policy of any kind while the national finances were in disorder.

Mr. Hickey

Of course, he was right.

Mr. MacCarthy

That is what ourMinister for Finance has been doing over the last year. He has been trying to put our finances into order. I was very interested in a motion which was submitted to the House recently by Deputy Sheldon, who made a proposal concerning the examination of our accounts and our national economy. We have a Committee of the House which examines from time to time the finances of the various Departments. I, like other members of the House, have been connected for many years with local authorities and we have to consider our estimates at the end of the year and the sums that have been paid over the previous years. The figures are presented to us and, of course, it would be impossible to get to the root of many of the vital matters concerned in these items.

As I understood Deputy Sheldon's motion, it was one suggesting that a committee be set up to get away from the pattern of the Estimates for a time, examine the national economy and the payments to be provided for capital expenditure which it would be in the national interests to stimulate and other matters of that kind. It was a proposal to work out, if you like, the sum by a different method and see if you would arrive at anything like the same answer.

We had members of the Opposition, people like Deputy Rooney, juggling and muddling figures the other night and if he was there until the Lord called on him he would not arrive at any answer which would give any appearance of correctness in the measuring of our national finances. If we could get down to and examine the problem before us and forget this call for elections it would be much better for us. That is not what this Parliament was elected for. It was elected to do the work of the country in this Assembly for five years unless the Government in office was defeated in the House in the meantime. That is what the people were sent here for.

If any notice were to be taken of the views of the Opposition we would behave just as they did. We would have run away from the financial situation as they ran away from it a few years ago. If the Government wouldnever face an unpopular thing they would have their minds bent on what the people outside were thinking and what each individual was saying. They would do that rather than examine as a whole the national position and take the decision best suited to the interests of the nation.

We do not intend in any way to avoid our responsibilities in that respect. In endeavouring to do that the Minister's Budget has got many strange names. It was called a cruel Budget: It was called a tragic Budget and it was called an unimaginative Budget. If there is anything in this world that does not lend itself to the exercise of imagination it is finance. It would be a grand thing if you could imagine that money was to come from the air and that you need not provide for it by hard work and industry but it would be poor consolation to the workmen in C.I.E. to imagine that they had their wage of £5, £6 or £7 in their pockets when they had nothing at all there.

Instead of Deputy McGilligan bringing about a position of retrenchment and economy, as he said, he ran the country £81,000,000 more into debt and he left the balance of payments with which he was so concerned £61.6 million out of balance on the wrong side for this country. It is very hard, indeed, to listen to people speaking in this way after they had got the Marshall Aid as a help to provide for the war conditions which then prevailed.

We had Deputy Dillon saying here the other night that we have priced ourselves out of the external markets. He was referring to butter, if you please, and saying that we would not sell butter any more in the foreign market. Why? Because the farmers got an economic price, or something near it, for their milk and, of course, the price of butter is based on the price of milk. If the farmers had accepted Deputy Dillon's proposition of 1/- per gallon as a guaranteed price for their milk for the next five years, what would the position be to-day? Bad as it is as a result of his approach, most of the farmers wouldhave got out of their dairy cattle and we would not have milk any more than we have butter. It is strange that we have to import butter into this agricultural country. If Deputy Dillon, when he got the opportunity with the Marshall Aid money, was interested in our agricultural economy—mind you I would say he is but that his interest is entirely misplaced—had put aside £1,000,000 for each county for the replacement of uneconomic herds and had helped the farmers in that way— if he had done that for each of the Twenty-Six Counties—he would still have about £20,000,000 left to blow up the rocks of Connemara. But where did the money go? I do not know and I live in the largest county in Ireland. I do not think anyone could tell me or tell any person living in that county what help it got from the Marshall Aid money. I think that to find the answer one would have to search for many a day and that ultimately the banshee would catch one out at night.

It is an extraordinary thing that so many people speak with divers tongues in this House. They do not think, first, of the interests of the country or of the interests of their Party. If they thought of the interests of their own Party one might say that it was all right, but they put their own harebrained ideas even before the interests of their Party. Deputy Dillon has been so long out of a Party that he probably forgets there is any such thing except the Fianna Fáil Party, which he wants to attack, because it has remained together.

Mr. D.J. O'Sullivan

It has Deputy Cowan now.

Mr. MacCarthy

That is a type of the slighting remarks that we hear in this House from time to time. It is true that we have a number of Independent Deputies on both sides of the House. When a number of them got tired of the mixum-gatherum that made up the inter-Party Government, changed their views, went before the country and were re-elected to this House as opponents of the inter-Party Government and then proceeded to act on the principles on which they wereelected, we have nothing but sneers thrown at them across the House. Surely, if a man is elected as an Independent Deputy he has the right to exercise his independence in this House and is quite entitled to do so. He was elected to this House for that purpose.

It is not in keeping with this Government's recorded intentions—and we do not propose to do so now—to purchase popularity at the expense of the economy of this country. We propose to face the issues before us and to tell the people honestly what the position is. We told them last year that they had a difficult year to face. They faced it last year, as the people of this country have always done.

I am surprised at the ullagones and the wails we hear from Deputies in this House. Do we not know that, during all the difficult years of oppression, with their penal enactments and with the worst system of landlordism in Europe hanging over their heads, our people ploughed and sowed, they reaped and they mowed, even when eviction was threatening them. Those were the people who kept the economy of the country together. They kept up its spirit so that Davitt and Parnell could tell the Irish farmers to keep "a firm grip on their homesteads," and to preserve the land for the people. As Pearse has said, "Irish nationality is an ancient spiritual tradition." It will never fade while there are people in this country willing to make sacrifices in the national interest. Despite sentiments of the lowest kind which some Deputies attempt to arouse in the breasts of our people, of people, perhaps, who have to contend with the misfortunes of life and sometimes with the mismanagement of local authorities and Governments, yet the people must prefer the sursum corda—raise your hearts—to theDe Profundisand are prepared to face the future as their ancestors did.

We have been told that we promised great things up and down the country during the time of the last election. Undoubtedly, if the finances of the country had been preserved, as we think they should have been by theinter-Party Government when they were in power and when the control was in their hands, we would not be in the position to-day of having to make provision to meet all the debts which they left us unpaid. I do not want to recall these debts to-day. They have been recited so often that we are really tired hearing of them. We have something else to do now—to meet the obligations of the future and make provision for them. We intend to do that.

The inter-Party Government undermined the policy which we had prepared for the development of C.I.E. and for the modernising of the railways. Almost five years have been lost in putting that policy into effect. We have to start again with that policy at the point where we left off. Our intention is to try to modernise the system, to effect economics and, at the same time, give an efficient service. We had schemes for turf development and for rural electrification. Instead of setting up stations to be operated on foreign fuel, as the inter-Party did, these stations will now be operated by our natural waterpower and by the turf fuel which we produce from our own bogs. These schemes will give employment through the length and breadth of an area in Ireland where that particular type of development is best suited.

I will say nothing here that I am not able to prove. Any Deputy can examine the records if he wishes to. The records will prove that I am telling the truth. We were told that the higher rate of interest was impending progress. I would refer Deputies to column 763 of Volume 30 of the Official Report. The then Cumann na nGaedheal Minister for Finance (Mr. Blythe) said:—

"It is understood——"

—mind you, "understood."

"—that some local authorities are anxious to carry out housing schemes under the Housing of the Working Classes (Ireland) Acts, . . . "

—they were only just starting to make the local loans available to them at that time. Mr. Blythe continued:—

"The loans will be repayable on the annuity basis over a maximum period of 35 years, and the rate of interest chargeable will be 5¾ per cent."

Now I ask Deputy Hickey to calculate the value of interest at the rate of 5¾ per cent. on the 5th June, 1929—when that statement was made—and what 5¾ per cent. interest is worth at the present time. Deputy Hickey knows that there are public utility societies in Cork which built houses for working people in Cork—houses on which the people have been paying 6 per cent. interest from that particular time.

Mr. Hickey

I know that they are. It is a shame.

Mr. MacCarthy

The rate of interest of the Agricultural Credit Corporation was 5 per cent. to which legal expenses, titles and mortgages were to be added. Deputy Mulcahy, who at the time was Minister for Local Government, complained in Dáil Éireann when dealing with grants from the Road Fund that they wanted to pay workers higher wages out of the moneys received from the Central Fund. One can find that in the records, if anyone wants to search for it.

Mr. Palmer

When was that?

Mr. MacCarthy

It was in Volume 30, column 763.

Mr. Palmer

How many years ago?

Mr. MacEntee

Has he reformed?

Mr. McGrath

1929.

Mr. Palmer

We will never come to 1953.

Mr. MacCarthy

Would Deputy Palmer allow me to develop my point? Deputy Mulcahy said then that the local authorities had the audacity to try to increase the wages of the workers out of the money received from the Central Fund. We heard last night the Government condemned in all moods and tenses for the increasein motor taxation of £860,000. The motorists were the users of the road and where is that money going? That money was distributed to the local authorities this year and it will go into the pockets of the workers and for the buying of material to put the roads in proper shape for the motorists who are using them and paying for them.

Mr. L.J. Walsh

And rightly so.

Mr. MacCarthy

I hope Deputy Mulcahy and those with him have not the same views regarding what should be done with that money as they had previously.

There are two items that disturb people very considerably. One is unemployment and the best method of giving employment in our own land. As president of the Association of Municipal Authorities, I was down in Wicklow some time ago—I also travel to various parts of the country—and the urban authorities there said: "When we have these 20 or 30 houses finished, we have the housing problem solved." Then people come in here with that knowledge and condemn the Government because people who were working in the building industry have not the same measure of employment as they had previously when these schemes were at their highest. In Cork, Dublin and other big cities that problem will not be solved for many years, but taking the all-over picture, should not any Government be planning for other works? When the houses are built, surely there are many schools which need renovation, reconstruction or absolute renewal; surely there are roads and bridges to be reconstructed, playgrounds to be provided and other schemes of work needed to beautify the surroundings of our towns?

Would it not be better than having them drawing the dole, to put a whole lot of unemployed clearing derelict sites and taking the ugly look off many towns and villages, and to provide money for works of that kind, even if they were only lifting the stones from these derelict sites in lorries? I remember our Minister for Local Government—andto give Deputy Keyes credit where credit is due, he had the same thing in mind—being anxious to clear these derelict sites. He sent down from his Department, as our Minister did also, a circular underlining that derelict sites were to be cleared. When it went to the local authorities, you had the attitude of the county managers or city managers: "We would do that with machinery a lot more cheaply; we should not put manual labour working at it." Would not the difference between what they are getting on the dole and a decent wage make up a lot of this, to put them out to do some work and leave the machinery off it and get the men to do it themselves?

The other day, a Sunday morning, a man called to my door, a man whom I knew previously, and I asked him where he had been. He said: "I was in England for the last three or four months driving a tractor and working from daybreak to dusk in a farm in Devonshire; 16/10 of my wages was deducted every week for income-tax and I had to pay 3/8 for a packet of cigarettes. If I wanted to go to Mass on Sunday the boss had to drive me there. For a couple of Sundays he did it but then he said to me: ‘Paddy, remember you are in England now; why do you have to go to Mass?' and I said: ‘Because I want to be something different from the cattle you have outside there in your stall.' I came home because £5 here is worth £7 in England, in my experience, and because the money you get there would not be worth what you lose in other respects—your religion and the traditions in which you were brought up."

We had Deputy Donnellan at the same sing-song a while ago about the unemployed being doubled. There were 60,000 unemployed when the inter-Party Government was in office. That has mounted up to some measure but not to the extent that is being bandied around this House. It has gone up by 11,000 approximately—it is a very big number, indeed—from 60,000 to 71,000.

Donnchadh Ó Briain

81,000.

Mr. MacCarthy

71,000.

Mr. D.J. O'Sullivan

85,000.

Donnchadh Ó Briain

Not 85,000, in fact.

Mr. MacCarthy

Deputy Carter gave some figures here the other night showing that, by a reciprocal arrangement with the British Government, there were 4,000 odd-nearly 5,000— put on the Labour Exchange this year who previously were not entitled to benefit. As well as that he gave a figure of between 7,000 and 8,000 who were there all the time, who by reason of the change in the means test were now added to the unemployed list. That is 12,000 and taking 12,000 from 82,000 you get 70,000. Any Deputy who wishes can prove that by reading the Irish Trade Journalin the Library. Deputy Morrissey advised us last night to read certain things in the Library. Here is what I read on page 10 of that journal:—

"Certain amendments of the Unemployment Assistance Acts provided for in the Social Welfare Act, 1952 became operative as from 5th January, 1953. The effects of these changes account in large measure for the increase in the number of unemployment benefit claims current and the decrease in the number of unemployment assistance applications current. . . . Comparisons of the numbers of claimants to unemployment benefit and of applicants for unemployment assistance in 1953 with the corresponding figures in 1952 are not useful, in view of the changes made by the provisions of the Social Welfare Act, 1952, which came into operation as from 5th January, 1953. In addition, it is believed that the total numbers on the register were to some extent increased by the operation of this Act which, among other provisions, extended the means limits for qualification to unemployment assistance, entitled agricultural workers—who were not at all entitled before—to unemployment benefit, modified the contribution conditions for receipt of such benefit, increased rates of unemployment assistance, thus possiblyinducing persons who did not pursue applications formerly."

I am sorry there is unemployment and I am sorry there is emigration. When it mounted from 3,000 in 1946, to 10,000 in 1947, to 18,000 in 1949, to 34,000 in 1950 and to 41,000 in 1951, the inter-Party Government got so alarmed that they set up a commission to tell them what to do about it and that commission has not yet reported. That is the way they dealt with it.

Mr. Hickey

It looks to me as if they have emigrated too.

Mr. MacCarthy

Let me come now to the question of defence. We are told that we should not provide all the money which is being provided for the Army and their equipment. Deputy O'Higgins said with regard to the last emergency: "If a vote were to be recorded, I would say that the policy of neutrality was unwise." That is Deputy O'Higgins referring to the last emergency. If the policy of neutrality was unwise, evidently he wanted to fight somebody, to declare war on somebody.

Sneers were thrown at one Minister, the Minister for Posts and Telegraphs, the other day. I travelled with his father through the glens, the lanes and mountains of this country when he faced every danger and difficulty. I saw him offer to do almost impossible things, undertakings from which there was no chance whatever of escape. He marched with the columns and shared their dangers and, I may add, participated in their prayers in the houses of the plain people. Would those who throw these sneers across the House put the same doubtful questionings regarding Thomas Davis or Pádraic Pearse? No; they would shrivel up in shame for their own audacity. If we allow ourselves, as Thomas Davis said, to be influenced by sun, and wind, and rain, and not by the deeds and sacrifices of the past, we are a helpless and a hopeless nation.

Mr. A. Byrne

The most important and immediate problems this Government have to face are unemployment, emigration and the rising cost of living, and the sooner they face these problems, the better it will be for themselves and the country, because people can have patience for a long time, but, when they see their families suffering, their patience becomes exhausted. Therefore, unemployment is the most immediate problem they have to face. When the Budget was introduced last year, I said it was the most vicious Budget ever introduced in this or any other country. Its effect on the Irish people was appalling. The first thing that Budget brought about was an increase in the price of the loaf from 6d. to 9d., one of the biggest blows the working class ever got. Many other things were done at that time which were a discredit to an Irish Parliament. On the introduction of that Budget everything that the people had to purchase went up considerably —bread, butter, tea and sugar. Heavy taxation was imposed on taximen and people with small vans. Some of them could not bear the taxation and were driven out of business. Others have advertised their taxis and vans for sale.

Dublin North-West cried halt andtold the Government they could go no further. The voters of Dublin North-West showed in a practical way that taxation had reached its limit. The Taoiseach and the Minister for Industry and Commerce said that taxation had reached its limit, that the burden of taxation was a crushing one and that no further taxation could be imposed. The people of Dublin North-West had said that already, very effectively.

The present Budget is merely a repetition of last year's Budget. The Minister for Posts and Telegraphs has increased the cost of living by increasing postage rates and charges for telephones and telegrams. That was done after the Taoiseach had said that the limit of taxation had been reached. A week ago ½d. per Ib. was put on sugar. These were new ways of introducing Budget Resolutions. The Minister for Industry and Commerce broadcast that further taxation would not be imposed—or words to that effect. At that time he must have known that he had given his consent to the increase in the price of sugar. There is no doubt about that.

The taxation of last year continues. The public, unfortunately, are bearing heavier burdens this year even than they did last year, because of the increase in unemployment. I should like to speak of nothing else but unemployment. A few months ago I said here that in every house in the City of Dublin, in Dublin North-West at any rate, there was either a husband or a son or a daughter unemployed. I am prepared to give proof of that fact. Boys and girls are leaving school and there is nowhere for them to go, unless they emigrate. Young girls, and especially young boys, are not wanted in other countries unless they have a skilled trade. The countries of the world are looking for skilled men and they are getting them in Ireland, particularly in Dublin.

Because the Government failed to use their influence in other countries, steel could not be obtained for the purpose of building ships in Ireland. Within the last year £537,000 went out of this country for ships that couldhave been built at home if the Government had got the steel for the purpose. The shipworkers from Dublin Docks went after the work and got some of it. It meant keeping two homes and living on half their wages. They are gallant men who are prepared to follow the work rather than draw the dole of 40/- or 45/- per week.

The cost of stamps, telephones, telegrams, wireless licences and sugar increased overnight.

The Minister for Industry and Commerce, on 6th March, said—column 2483 of the Official Debates:—

"Nobody is denying that the cost of living has gone up, that prices have risen. What has happened is, in my view, permanent."

When taxation has reached its limit, according to the Taoiseach, the Tanaiste says: "In my view it is permanent." There is little or no hope of the possibility of a reduction in the cost of living, although unemployment is increasing. Men who were drawing £7, £8 and £9 a week a 12 months ago are now drawing unemployment benefit of 40/- or 50/- per week. Prices are still rising. Yet these men are down to one-fourth of their income.

This week I asked the Minister a question as to whether he could hold out any prospect of an early increase in unemployment benefits or unemployment assistance. The Minister gave the shortest and most abrupt answer I ever heard. He said "No" and then sat down. There is no intention whatsoever of giving any increase in these benefits in order to compensate for loss of employment or for the rise in the cost of living.

Take the position of those on small wages and fixed pensions—Civil Service pensions, Garda pensions, the pensions of men who served 25 years in the Army and the I.R.A. Take the case of the civil servant who gave loyal and faithful service to the country, who went out, say, six years ago, on a pension of £200 per year. The value of that pension is reduced now, according to the experts, to £89. A civil servant who went out on a pension of £200 a few years ago after his long and faithful service, owing to the depreciationof money, has the value of his pension reduced to between £80 and £90 a year. Some people say £82 and others £84. Some people say that the value of the £ is now 8/9 and others 8/11. So far we have not got a definite figure as to the exact value of the £ to-day. Army pensioners, I.R.A. pensioners, Post Office pensioners, D.M.P. pensioners, Garda pensioners, teacher pensioners who went out when the cost of living was not so high as it is to-day got pensions to enable them to procure the necessaries of life and the value of money has now so depreciated that it does not procure for them half of what we thought it would procure.

The Government, out of the funds at their disposal, should give everybody a reasonably fair chance of meeting the continued high cost of living. Last year certain Deputies voted for an increase in the price of the loaf by voting for the withdrawal of the food subsidies and on the same day they voted to relieve the dance-hall proprietors of taxation amounting to £140,000 a year. The loaf went up from 6d. to 9d. and the dance-hall proprietors got relief to the extent of £140,000.

Mr. Cogan

What about the increased children's allowances?

Mr. A. Byrne

Emigration is at the rate of 100 a week at present from the City of Dublin alone. I am told that the number emigrating is well over 10,000 a year. Anybody over 40 years of age is not wanted by the agents who are seeking workers here. That means that all our young people are going away to find employment in other countries. In my young days I used to hear the song: I'm off to Philadelphia in the Morning.It is not to Philadelphia they are going to now; they have discovered Great Britain. But conditions are settling down in Great Britain and those who emigrated three, four or five years ago are now coming home because local labour is available in Great Britain and our people find that on the reduced wages with no overtime they cannot support themselves over there and their families at home. Therefore they arecoming home. That is one of the reasons why I say that the problem of unemployment is more urgent than anything we have been discussing for the last week or two. I have not access and never had any access to Government files. I am not an economist and I have not got the financial ability to say that I know what can be done. But that is what Ministers and Governments are for.

Mr. Cunningham

Can you suggest anything?

Mr. A. Byrne

There are expert men in the Government and they have most expert men to advise them. They ought to have the courage to accept that advice and provide employment for all our people. Most Deputies received about a week ago a copy of a letter which was sent to the Minister for Finance by the whiskey industry in this country. The whiskey industry never got a subsidy from the Government or never asked for one; they were always able to carry on themselves and prosper. The tone of that letter was that the whiskey industry which was giving so much employment was being crushed out. The distillers complain that they are getting no chance from this Government. I am prepared to give this Government and the previous Government credit for all the things they did in the way of building up industry. The last speaker made some disparaging references to Deputy McGilligan. Deputy McGilligan was the man who was responsible for the establishment of the first sugar factory in this country and for bringing in the Shannon scheme. We would not be talking about electrification for the towns and villages of this country if it were not for the work he did at that period.

Mr. Cunningham

Nonsense.

Mr. A. Byrne

Every time you see an electric lamp lighting in any part of the country now you can say: "That is McGilligan's light". I remember when the Shannon scheme was introduced commenting severely on Deputy McGilligan's attitude in taking over the Dublin electricity supply and notgiving sufficient compensation. That was my quarrel with him at the time. When people speak disparagingly of him it is only right that we should remember that it took men of imagination like him to do those things in those days. As I say, every time electricity was introduced into a new area it was called "McGilligan's light".

Yesterday the Minister for Social Welfare said that he was not prepared to give any increase to those drawing unemployment benefit. Something must be done immediately to ease the lot of these people. A very large number of these people through no fault of their own are living in condemned tenement houses which are the heirlooms of the years gone by as no building schemes were started until our own Government got going. All our Governments have done exceptionally good work so far as housing is concerned. We send these people five miles outside the city to live. Some of them are unemployed. They are all paying a much higher rent than they did when they were living in the city proper. Their bus fares have doubled within the last two years. The cost of living has increased enormously. If the unemployed have to come into the city to sign on at the labour exchange for unemployment assistance they have to pay an exorbitant bus fare in order to collect the miserable amount of money to which they are entitled.

What has brought about the present condition? During the inter-Party Government regime we had apparently a very prosperous people.

Mr. Norton

Including the First World War.

Mr. A. Byrne

He went back to Thomas Davis. In passing, I want todraw attention to the fact that our Government is not paying sufficient attention to boys and girls who leave the country. They are only three or four hours' journey away but we wipe our hands completely of them. If they stayed at home they would be drawing unemployment assistance. I hope the Minister will do something for them. I know he takes an interest in all our people. I think the Government should provide decent employment for our people so that they will not have to emigrate to earn a living. There is a discounted group of unemployed in the City of Dublin at the moment. They are waiting anxiously for something to be done for them. I tried to get something done for them by way of relief work and the officials assured me that as soon as they get a relief grant they will be able to do something. I raised the matter here and I was told that there is £27,000 in the locker. We would spend £27,000 in three days.

You were talking about gloomy speeches.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

Order! Deputy Byrne is in possession.

Mr. A. Byrne

The Government would be doing great work for the country if they could find a couple of million within the next week to help those who are unemployed. The workers should get a decent wage to meet the cost of living. If that cannot be given, then the Government should reduce the price of foodstuffs. A man with four or five children, drawing £2 10s. per week unemployment assistance, does not buy butter to-day. He has not seen butter for the last two years. He is living on tea, and bread and margarine three times a day. The unemployed do not know whether the butter is good or bad to-day because they are not able to buy it. I appealto the Minister to tackle the unemployment problem, without delay.

Mr. O'Gorman

Having listened to many of the speeches on this Budget over the last seven or eight days I do not propose to imitate the other speakers by wandering and rambling around every aspect of our economic life. I propose to be brief and concise and I shall confine myself to the few points that are of interest. Last year I prefaced my Budget speech by saying that having heard the pros and cons for several days, I considered that the Budget had been flogged to death. This year it is going through a similar ordeal. If anyone had been flogged by the impositions of the Budget last year it was the plain, ordinary people throughout the country. In introducing this Budget a fortnight ago the Minister spoke at considerable lenght and in that long speech not one ray of hope was held out to the unfortunate taxpayers of the country by the Minister. It would appear from his statement that the taxpayers and the ratepayers must suffer on. As many of us here know, the taxpayers are bearing a load that many of them are incapable of standing up to. In Shakespearean parlance the Minister's speech was "much ado about nothing." We heard it for an hour and a half; we listened and we waited and hoped that at the end when he came to the serious part of his speech he would do something to obliterate the unhappy memories of last year.

We cannot shut our eyes to the fact that this year's Budget was a severe blow to the country. It is no pleasure to any Deputy in this House—whether he is on the Government side of the House or the Opposition side—to state here publicly that in the long history of this country and particularly since our own legislators took over we never had more unemployed in the country than we have at the present time. We must face up to that fact; it is sticking out the proverbial mile. I do not want to cash in on any difficulties which exist. I am sure no member of the Government side is happy or contented; it is a very serious problem forus who have been sent here to do our best for the people who honoured us with their support at various elections.

We are a small country as compared with other countries throughout the European and Asiatic continents. We are a people with a population of less than 3,000,000; yet after 30 years of self-government we find ourselves with the biggest list of unemployed we have ever had in that period. These facts are unpalatable and no one desires them. However, we must ask ourselves what is the cause of this? I do not want to get any political kudos out of it but it is my opinion that the taxes imposed on the ordinary people of this country last year were more than they could stand up to. The slashing of the food subsidies was responsible for the vast army of unemployed we have to-day for the simple reason that people who must pay wages to keep shop assistants, clerks and other workers in employment have found that, owing to the slackness that undoubtedly has taken place over the year or two, they are not able to give them an adequate wage to pay for the necessaries of life.

We hear many people here discussing the numbers of unemployed. I quote from the Industrial Analyses of the Live Registerof mid-March 1953, a Government sponsored monthly paper. In practically every one of the various avocations in industry there is a decrease in employment. One or two certainly have increased over the last year or two but, generally speaking, it is otherwise; in construction and maintenance of roads and bridges, there is a slackness. Everyone knows there is a considerable shrinkage in house building throughout the country; there is a general slackness in building, sugar manufacture and bacon curing; there is less employment on docks, harbours, piers and there is general slackness in hotels, restaurants, public houses, and so on.

It is not pleasant having to state that and none of us, I am sure, wants to make political capital out of it but when I hear people saying that the country was never better off in its history than it is at the present time,I find that very hard to believe. I do not want to speak from a political aspect; I want to speak as an ordinary businessman who has to make his living on the side of the street. I do not want to cash-in on the country's misfortune. We are living in a rather unfortunate age at the present time.

According to the various papers who commented on the Budget it is an "as you were" Budget, the same as last year. In my opinion, there was nothing left to tax. There was one time when the imposition of taxes was the duty solely of the Minister for Finance, but this year it was done in a rather gentle manner, if I can put it that way, by passing on to the shoulders of other Ministers some of the burdens that the Minister had to carry in former years. Some five or six months ago, coming up to November or December, the Minister for Local Government imposed rather heavy taxes on many articles that are necessary in everyday business life. We are all aware that very heavy taxation was imposed on commercial vehicles. We are also aware that the man who requires a motor car for his business or for any other purpose had to bear further increases, some of them pretty severe. In my own constituency the imposition of these very heavy taxes on lorries was responsible for putting some of the owners whom I know off the road.

We had also within the last three weeks or month the Estimate for Posts and Telegraphs in which the Minister of that particular Department imposed what you cannot deny were taxes, on postal services, telephones, telegrams, and so on. This is a further imposition on business. It may be a small increase; at the same time the impost was placed with a view to securing for the coffers of the country an extra £800,000. All those little pin pricks may seem small but they sink in deep and have the effect of hurting business people considerably.

We are living in a serious age, in a hard age for everybody. Everyone in the country is going through a pretty grim period. I do not want to stand up in this House and preach gloom and depression but I cannot blind myselfto the facts that I see around me every day, when I have men coming to me asking when all this is going to finish, these increases in this, that and the other. Every morning we take up the newspapers we expect to see some fresh impost placed on the ordinary people of the country. Last year the cost of money, the recession and the disturbance in the various trades all over the country was caused by the vicious Budget—I can describe it as nothing else—whose impositions fell hardest on people who are least able to stand up to them, perhaps than most of us. It is a very serious thing for a married man with £5 or £6 a week to find himself, due to the slashing of the subsidies, paying 4/2 for his butter instead of 2/10, finding his loaf of bread going up 10 or 15 per cent. from 6½d. to 9d. as I believe it did; sugar, which is an essential commodity for every Irish family, going up from 4½d. to 6½d. per lb. and having increased by another ½d. within the last three or four days as sanctioned by the Minister for Industry and Commerce; flour, a most necessary commodity in the ordinary Irish household, jumping up from 2/8 to 4/6 a stone; tea, petrol, postal rates, all increasing. When is it all going to end?

If taxation continues to soar at such a rate and there is no cessation in this vicious spiral, the day will come when the Government will not be able to get the taxes and the rates necessary to run the country. I realise that you cannot have governmental schemes without getting money but I feel that the Government has not a sufficient appreciation of the hardships which the ordinary man living in the country at present is undergoing. Life is becoming more difficult, as every one of us knows. It is all very fine to say that everything is rosy; everything is not rosy. Things have reached a serious stage throughout the country and it is the bounden duty of those of us who are in touch with the ordinary people to give expression here in this House to the views of these people. I come in contact every day of the week with people in my constituency and I know that many of them are put to the pin of their collar to make ends meet. Yetwe come here and talk in millions, as if money did not matter. We have got to realise that the further imposition of taxes on the ordinary people must stop and my voice will be heard on every occasion on which I can raise it in conveying that warning to the Government. I am just telling the Government that it has got to stop.

The Government, as far as I can see, are living beyond their means and are spending more than they are entitled to spend. I suggest to the Minister that we are spending large sums of money on schemes and on things that the people do not want. I do not want to mention these schemes seriatimbut I repeat that we are spending far too much money on schemes that the people do not want. I have heard other Deputies refer to Constellations and about doing away with the proposed transatlantic air services. I think that the abolition of some of these schemes was the best thing the inter-Party Government ever did. I consider that it would be farcical for this country to embark on such a scheme considering that many of the old-established lines are losing money or running these services at a loss. These big concerns do not operate air services across the Atlantic for pleasure. Their teeth are well worn; they are well up in all the fine points of business and commercial practice but if you read up the trading accounts and the balance sheets of some of these companies you will see that they are being run at a net loss. How can a small country like ours compete with these established services? I should be very glad to see an Irish air service if it were possible to have it but the undertaking is too big. We cannot afford all these luxuries, and a luxury it would be because we would not have much chance of competing with these other companies which are run on extremely efficient lines. I think it would be throwing away the taxpayers' money.

The present Fianna Fáil Government, plus the four or five Independents who keep them in office—I suppose I can put them in the same category—have always prided themselves on their solicitude for the poorersections of the community. At various elections in the South of Ireland for many years past it has always tickled me to hear the slogan: "Vote for Fianna Fáil, the poor man's Government." That cry must seem rather farcical now to some of those called upon to bear the heavy imposts inflicted by the present Government and who realise how difficult it is for the ordinary man to live. I do not want anybody's emotional chords to vibrate too much on hearing me speak in this way but it does seem rather ironical when we realise that those who are called upon to bear the heaviest burdens are the unfortunate lower-paid sections of our people.

In a speech which I made some five or six weeks ago in the debate on the Central Fund Bill—that would be a month or so before he introduced his Budget—I made a plea to the Minster that he should do something for the one section of our people or the one trade that has been hit harder than any other section—that is the licensed trade. I made that appeal to the Minister fortified by the knowledge that in the constituency which I represent many of those trying to make a living in the licensed trade have been almost crushed out of business by the severity of the taxes. I asked the Minister to do something for them especially, whatever about others. I had hoped that he would hearken to that appeal and I was very sorry to observe, when I heard him speak on the Budget, that he had done nothing for them. I read in one of to-day's papers—and I know that the remark applies equally to all parts of the country—that you can purchase licensed premises in Dublin for about 50 per cent. less than you could secure the same premises five or six years ago. There is no trade, if I might put it that way, that has been milked so dry by various Ministers as the licensed trade. I am not in the licensed business myself but I come in contact every day, in my wanderings around my constituency, with people who have to make their living in that trade and when I ask: "How is business?" the reply invariably is: "The licensed trade is a thing of the past". Every Deputy, irrespective ofwhat Party, realises that as well as I do.

I feel intensely for those people and I dislike intensely seeing a man's livelihood taken away from him. My opinion is that if something is not done for the licensed trade in this country very soon you will find that those engaged in that trade will be unable to meet their liabilities. That view has been confirmed in a letter which I received on my return to Leinster House this week from the director of one of the biggest distilleries in Ireland. He states:

"We enclose herewith a copy of a letter forwarded to the Minister for Finance by the Irish Potstill Distillers' Association.

We need hardly stress our grave anxiety at the damage being caused by the present excessive taxation to this old-established Irish industry which is so closely allied to the agricultural economy of the country.

In a wealthy country like the U.S.A., with a large rearmament programme, the relative whiskey duty up to 1951 was approximately 100/10 per proof gallon and a 16.7 per cent. increase of 16/10 per proof gallon (making a total of 117/8) had a disastrous effect on the trade in that country notwithstanding its great wealth.

Prior to the 1952 Budget, the whiskey duty in Ireland was 137/-per proof gallon and a 28.5 per cent. increase of 39/- brought the duty to the present fantastic figure of 176/-per proof gallon (nearly £3 per gallon higher than in America)."

That is the position in America which is one of the wealthiest—if not the wealthiest—countries in the world. We in poor Ireland have to pay £3 per proof gallon more than they do in America.

I have here another letter. Perhaps, it has not been quoted by the Minister but I intend to put it on the record to show that I have done my part on behalf of an old-established industry. This is a letter sent to the Minister for Finance, Department of Finance, Dublin, by the Irish Potstill Distillers'Association, Bow Street Distillery, Dublin, dated 8th May, 1953. It is as follows:—

"Dear Sir—I am directed by my association to convey to you their great disappointment and serious concern at your failure to alleviate the crippling rate of duty at present imposed on whiskey. Since you imposed an additional 39/- per proof gallon in April, 1952, there has been a fall in consumption of home-made spirits of over 200,000 proof gallons and a fall in revenue of all spirits of between £300,000 and £400,000.

My association feel bound to inform you that they cannot accept your statement made during your Budget speech on Wednesday that ‘the produce of the spirits duty last year was adversely affected by the fact that consumption had been met in part by using up stocks on hand rather than by withdrawing stocks from bond.' They desire to point out that in their opinion, based on an extensive and intimate knowledge of the trade in Ireland, this statement is not in accordance with the known facts.

My association, moreover, would like brought to your notice that it is their considered view that the higher rate of duty has permanently reduced consumption.

Great stress has been laid upon the importance of raising the volume of industrial production. Our industry would like to play its part but cannot do so if it is to be singled out for what amounts to persecution.

We must protest in the strongest terms against the unjust and shortsighted policy which burdens our old-established, self-supporting, native industry, and we would like to know if it is the policy of the Minister for Finance to increase the duty on whiskey on every occasion that he considers, rightly or wrongly, there is a prospect of fall in consumption in order to obtain revenue, quite regardless of the damage it may do to the industry."

That is from the Secretary of the Irish Potstill Distillers' Association and itis prefaced by a letter from one of the most reputable directors of an Irish distillery. This is a very serious matter. These men are not politicians. They do not have to play up or down to the gallery. They do not have to go on the hustings. They are businessmen who give a decent living to Irish workers but, as a result of the severity of the crushing taxes which, as they said in their letter, amount to persecution, people are being driven out of employment and many people who held good lucrative positions in such firms over the past 20 or 25 years have been put out of business.

That has a very serious effect in other ways. In my own constituency of East Cork, which is one of the best barley growing areas in Ireland, the contracts for barley this year have been cut by 50 per cent. That means that a man who grew ten or 15 acres of barley before has now to cut that acreage to half. That is a very serious matter as it will affect the monetary inflow for the support of his home and family. I am not advocating that anyone should take spirits. I enjoy a half one as well as any man here within reason but the matter to which I refer is a very serious one.

Mr. O'Donnell

Last year, Deputy Cowan tried to encourage the poteen industry but we cannot even go ahead in regard to the legitimate stuff.

Mr. O'Gorman

I am trying to impress upon the Minister the gravity of the situation in view of the serious statements from two of the most reputable firms in Ireland. If this serious situation continues there are bound to be repercussions in the agricultural industry in so far as barley growing is concerned. I do not want that to happen in my constituency. Contracts have been cut down by 50 per cent. this year. Much of the land in that area is suitable only for barley growing. Certain parts of it are not too suitable for wheat growing. Naturally, this is a very serious matter for many people.

As I said at the start, I do not intend rambling over the many points to which speakers have already referred. I have stressed a few realand, in my opinion, cogent points. It is necessary to impress on the Government the seriousness of the matter. I do not want to preach depression. There is no use in any businessman saying the country has gone burst. It has not. This is a very comfortable little country if Governments would get out of the habit of peering into the innermost recesses of the mind of a man who is engaged in trade.

There are many other points which I could mention, points in regard to valuations, but I do not want to go over them again, since I spoke about them before. In conclusion I would like to impress on the Government that they should ease somewhat the burden on many of the traders who have been hit so hard by the severe taxes of the 1951 Budget. Ireland belongs to us all whether we sit in the Opposition or in the Government. That does not make any difference. I never wanted to score political points. It makes me sick sometimes to hear nationality being spoken of on the Budget.

The Budget is a business. It is the business of the Minister for Finance, and bringing up what happened 150 or 200 years ago is completely extraneous. It has nothing at all to do with the Budget. The Budget is an ordinary trading account and balance sheet of the Government in relation to affairs during the preceding year and explores avenues to see where money can be got for the coming year. I think the time has come to call a halt to any more taxes. The people do not want any more taxes. As one who will be in the throes of an election, I sincerely hope that the people of East Cork, as well as those of Wicklow, will show they had just enough of the Government which is in power for the last two years. I say that in no disrespectful spirit, but the people have been severely hurt and they cannot live if you cripple them with further taxes. I would appeal to the Minister to think of the plain ordinary people and try to do something before he goes out of office very soon.

Mr. Butler

I wish to draw the attention of the Minister for Finance to a very important matter, to a reallycrying need. I refer to the need for a substantial increase in the capitation grant to secondary schools. The grants of £8 for junior students, that is up to and including the Inter Cert. examination, and £10 for seniors up to Leaving Cert., were fixed in 1929. If these were fair amounts to fix in 1929, surely they should be doubled at the present day. There has been no increase in spite of the devaluation of the £, the rise in outgoings of all sorts —repairs to buildings, new buildings, casual employees, such as charwomen and groundsmen, etc.—so that if the rate fixed in 1929 was a fair rate, as I think it was—it was not over-generous, but it was fair—surely, there should be now, considering all things, a very substantial increase given.

Secondary schools are privately owned. The Department does not contribute to their construction or repair. The great majority of them are in the hands of religious orders. When dealing with this matter, I am not speaking for any particular denomination or really for any particular type of secondary school.

An Ceann Comhairle

If proofs be needed of these assertions we can get them quite easily. The trade statistics show—taking industrial employment in what is described as the volume of production in transportable goods—that the index figure of production in 1947 was 119; in 1948, it increased to 130; in 1949, it jumped to 148; in 1950, it jumped to 168, and in June, 1951, it was 181. The latest figure on which I can lay hands is the figure for June, 1952. It shows that the figure had fallen from an index of 181 in June, 1951, to 163 in June, 1952.

So far as industrial employment in transportable goods was concerned, the statistics issued by the Central Statistics Office show that there were 133,000 persons employed in the production of these goods in December, 1951. That figure had fallen to 125,000 by December, 1952. I think that if the latest figures were available they would show that there was a still further fall, because our industrial production has continued to fall.

If one looks at the situation in respect to housing, and again quoting from the figures issued by the Central Statistics Office, which is under the Department of the Taoiseach, we find that there were 11,100 persons employed on local authority housing schemes in December, 1951. That figure had fallen to 8,600 by December, 1952. If the later figures were available I should say that they would show a still further diminution in the number of people employed on local authority housing schemes as well.

If we look at the broad figure of unemployment, we find that since May, 1951—since this month two years ago— the number of unemployed has increased by no less than 29,000. Even since last year's Budget, the number has risen by no less than 16,000. These increases have occurred, notwithstanding the very substantial increase in emigration which took place over this period and notwithstanding the recruitment of additional persons to the Army.

Let us examine the situation so far as the cost of living is concerned. Again, the official figures of the cost-of-living index show the enormous transformation that has taken place in a relatively short space of time. The index figure of all items comprising the cost-of-living index was 99 at mid-February, 1948. By mid-February, 1950, it was 100—an increase of one point. By mid-February, 1951, it was 103. What is the situation to-day? By mid-February, 1952, it had jumped from 103 to 114. Between February, 1952, and February, 1953, it jumped to 123. The net position, therefore, is that in mid-February, 1948, the index figure for the cost of living was 99. That figure was 103 in February, 1951. It is now 20 points up, the latest figure —for mid-February, 1953—being 123.

If we examine the situation regarding the increased prices for food, the position is equally revealing. In mid-February, 1948, the index figure for food was 97. By mid-February, 1951— after three years of inter-Party Government—it had increased one point, to 98. But since February, 1951, it has increased by 24 points to 122. Therefore, during the period of office of this Government, we have had a situationin which unemployment has increased by 29,000 and in which the cost of living has increased by no less than 20 per cent.—and even more than 20 per cent. so far as foodstuffs alone are concerned.

The situation to-day is that—thanks to last year's Budget and the increased burdens imposed by it on the people, together with the fact that last year's hardships are being continued by the Budget which we are now discussing— the purchasing power of the people has been crippled because of the high prices which they are compelled to pay for food. As a result of the substantial increase in the cost of foodstuffs —an increase of more than 20 per cent. —the people find that they have not sufficient money to purchase the barest necessaries of life, much less to be able to find a margin for the purchase of less essential commodities.

In these circumstances, is it any wonder that there has been a substantial recession in industry? The figures of declining production are available for anybody who is interested enough to examine them. As a result of the decline in industry and the recession in trade generally, our unemployment figures are mounting so that we can now say that we have a more serious unemployment situation to deal with than we have had for many and many a year.

Even the figures which I have quoted in respect of industrial production do not, in fact, give a full picture of the sag in industrial production in particular respects. Official figures show that the impact of the scarcity of money, consequent upon high prices, has been felt in some industries to an even greater extent than in others. Again, official figures show that production in furniture manufacture has fallen by 15 per cent.; the production of men's and boy's clothing has fallen by 12 per cent.; the production of boots and shoes has fallen by 14 per cent; the production of woollen and worsted manufactures has fallen by 16 per cent. and the production of vehicles has fallen by no less than 19 per cent. These are all serious figures—and not merely in themselves. They are an index of the fact that our whole economic position, consequent upon the Government'shandling of the situation, is now such that, unless effective measures are taken to grapple with it, we may be faced with a still more serious position in the months to come.

I looked up a Press cutting of a speech made by the present Tánaiste, Deputy Lemass, at a luncheon given by the Publicity Club of Ireland. On the 12th October, 1951, the Tánaiste was reported as follows in the Irish Pressin reference to the economic position as he then saw it. He said that if we did not soon get to the position of maintaining our present standard of living, without drawing on reserves, then, sooner or later, we should have to pay for it. He said that whether it took the form of rising unemployment or increasing emigration, higher prices or higher taxation, it would represent the defeat of all our hopes for the future of this country. That situation looks as if it has now arrived. Since the Tánaiste made that speech we have had rising unemployment, increasing emigration, higher prices and higher taxation. The Tánaiste said in October, 1951, that if we did not do certain things we should pay for it in the future by these four evils. We have reached the stage now in which we are in the midst of and keeping company with the four evils which, the Tánaiste said, if they made their presence felt would represent the defeat of all our hopes for the future of this country. That is the economic position which the Tánaiste saw as likely to arise. Now it is present with us. We have a confession from the Tánaiste—by clear implication—that we have now arrived at a position in which all our hopes for the future of this country have been defeated. In the face even of that warning by the Tánaiste, there is no evidence whatever in the Budget speech that the Government realise the necessity to take effective steps to deal with a rapidly deteriorating economic position. What matter if the economic position were incapable of remedy, but the situation has been impacted upon us by the gloomy speeches made by Ministers, by the miserable prognostications of ruin andbankruptcy facing the country, that the country was “consuming too much” and must cut down its living standards—which means it must cut down also opportunities for employment in the production of goods.

The cumulative effect of all that has given us these four manifestations of which the Tánaiste warned the country when he spoke in the Publicity Club in October, 1951. Nobody will attempt to deny that there is serious slackness in every branch of industry. No one will attempt to deny that every shop in this country can tell its own sorry tale of falling sales, of a buyer's resistance produced by the fact that the people simply have not got the money to buy the goods which are in the shops. The shops in turn cannot take the products of the factories, because there is no demand for the goods they would normally be taking from the factories if there were a buoyancy in the demands of the people for those goods.

To-day we see over 82,000 persons trekking to the labour exchanges to get the inadequate benefits made available to them under the Social Welfare Act. The 82,000 people undertake that miserable trek each week looking for employment which they know is not there and every week adds to the grim total of the numbers who are losing employment and who are finding the employment exchange the only refuge—not a refuge where they can hope to get work but the only place they can get some income to sustain them in the trying ordeal through which they are passing as a result of the general recession in trade and industry.

Look at the situation we have reached in respect of housing. Nobody will deny that there has been a sag in housing, in the past 12 months in particular. That shows itself in our unemployment figures, as there are 6,000 more unemployed building and constructional workers to-day than there were 12 months ago. Everyone knows the reason for that. The Minister for Finance decided during the year, after maligning the creditworthiness of the country for 18 months, that he wouldask the people, against the background of his own malicious talk on the country's solvency, to lend him £20,000,000. As he said, in his own elegant phrase, he offered them 5 per cent. for the money because he did not want "to spoil the ship for a ha'porth of tar." As a result of the Minister's policy in offering 5 per cent. on a State loan, a much higher rate of interest than any local authority in Britain is borrowing at, we have reached the situation now in which anyone who wants to buy a house from a private builder has to pay 5 and 6 per cent. on the loan. As a result of such high interest charges being demanded, they are not able to face up to the responsibility involved in undertaking to repay those loans.

Any Deputy who is keenly interested in this matter—and I am sure Deputy Gallagher could supply starting information—has only to go to the building sites around this city, or around the City of Cork and ask the private builders what is their experience in the matter of selling houses. Every one of them will tell you that if they could get rid of the present vacant houses, lying there with no purchasers, they would clear out of private building altogether, as they know now that it is not easy—in fact, it is almost impossible—to sell houses if the repayment terms are 6 per cent, thanks to the dear money policy inaugurated by the Minister for Finance in his State loan of 5 per cent. during the year. Look at what the building figures show —6,000 more unemployed building and constructional workers last year, thanks to the dearer money policy of this Government.

In the City of Dublin alone, there are four times more unemployed building craftsmen than there were in July, 1951. I am quoting here from a trade union journal, the journal of an organisation which represents building trade workers. It uses this phrase:—

"It is safe to state that if to-day there are five craftsmen idle for each one who was idle in 1951, there are at least ten builders' labourers out of work at present for each one without a job two years ago."

Is not that a nice situation? That situation has been brought about largely through the sag in private building and the sag has been brought about by the inability of potential purchasers to pay the high interest rates demanded, either by the local authorities or the building societies. I do not blame the building societies. They have to borrow money from the banks and if the banks can get 5 per cent. on gilt-edged State loan, they are certainly not going to lend at less than 5 per cent. to a commercial building society. The Minister's policy of paying 5 per cent. on State loans has caused an additional 6,000 building and constructional workers to go to the employment exchanges, 6,000 who were in a job two years ago and had all the indications that they would remain in those jobs.

When the last Government was in office, so keen was the demand that you could not find a single building craftsman unemployed. They simply never went to the employment exchanges, there was no need for them to go as they were whipped up or were even being booked from job to job at that time. That is not the situation to-day. This trade union journal shows that there are five times more unemployed building craftsmen idle in Dublin than in July, 1951. Anyone who goes to the building sites around this city will find abundant testimony of the complete transformation in the building of private houses which has taken place, especially during the past 12 months, in consequence of the Government's dearer money policy.

We have been told by this Government, in some of the dreary and depressing speeches made over the past two years, that this country was eating too much, was consuming too much, that its standard of living was too high, and that we would have to get back to the situation of being a poor, distressful country—producing food for export, building up sterling assets in another country while our own people went without the commodities necessary to ensure a decent Irish life under concepts compatible with the Irish sense of human values. TheCentral Bank started the racket. The Central Bank attitude was that this country was enjoying too high a standard of living; that it had to cut down; that it was eating too much butter; that it should eat less and export the butter to Britain and build up in Britain reserves in the Bank of England, which would be used by the Bank of England at 1½ per cent., while we borrowed money to build our own houses at 6 per cent.

The Central Bank said at that time that there was too much employment available and that it was a dangerous situation because it tended to lift wages if there was a scarcity of workers, that the real remedy was to have a pool of unemployment and to keep it there as a challenge to the employed worker and the organised worker because so long as that pool of unemployment was there, it would act as a brake against the possibility that, because of a keen demand for workers, wages would tend to rise. We had from the Central Bank a recommendation that the large-scale schemes of public works should be eased off in order to get this pool of unemployment which would act as a brake on the possibility that wages would increase still further and we got the final piece of advice from the Central Bank that the food subsidies ought to be slashed because they were a concession to wages and in that respect incurred the displeasure of the Central Bank directors.

Look at what has happened in relation to these four items. That was the advice the Central Bank gave the Government. The Government said: "We do not propose to take that advice". Maybe they did not, but they have arrived at precisely the same situation. The Government have created a pool of unemployment of 82,000 people, a figure which would be much larger were it not for the fact that there is an Employment Period Order current at the moment which has brought down the number. The actual figure is nearer 100,000.

There is no annoyance, except the annoyance to the margarine workers.

Mr. Norton

The Deputy is now happy that workers are engaged making margarine to supply to the people whom his Government have deprived of the old Irish privilege of eating creamery butter. That is a nice situation. That is one of the things that Fianna Fáil can chalk up to its credit at the next election—that they cut down the butter rations of the Irish people by the simple device of putting butter beyond their reach.

Mr. McGrath

Did your Government not do it?

In any case, this will not be questioned: The whole policy of investing our money in sterling assets has given us certain basic problems. It has given us the problem that our land is starved through want of capital. It has given us the problem that our industrial situation has not been exploited to the fullest, that we are still a relatively undeveloped country. Instead of using our money to develop and expand Irish agriculture and Irish industry, we are content to follow the investment policy of sending our badly needed money to Britain for 1½ per cent. interest instead of utilising that money to capitaliseIrish land, Irish industry and any other form of activity that would mean wider opportunities for employment here and greater wealth for the Irish nation.

Not only has that policy given us an inadequate industrial and agricultural development; it has given us mass unemployment, mass emigration. Emigration is now taking a greater toll of national life than tuberculosis and cancer together. These two ravaging diseases are not denuding the country of its population nearly as seriously as the mass emigration of our young manhood and womanhood is denuding it. There appears to be no end to this stream of humanity pouring out every day in the week because they cannot get employment here.

Mr. McGrath

You did not get the report of your commission yet.

Mr. Norton

You have been sitting on it for the past two years. It does not seem as if you are terribly anxious to get it now with the tidal wave of humanity which is going to Britain at present. I want somebody who speaks for the Government to tell us what is the Government's policy for dealing with this economic situation. Somebody who has got a recipe for these difficulties ought to tell us what is the Government's policy. Are we to continue the policy of having 82,000 people unemployed? The biggest industry in this country at present is unemployment. There are 82,000 people looking for employment which is not there. Are we to be content with continually increasing emigration and to do nothing in face of the obvious trade recession which is apparent to all of us? Is it the Government's policy to drift and drift, to let these three evils continue to rot the whole basis on which our economy rests?

We are entitled to ask if the employment exchange is the only hope the Government can offer this year and next year for the idle men and women who cannot get work, with the emigrant ship the only alternative to the employment exchange. We are entitled to answers to these questionsbecause they intimately affect not merely the domestic life of our people but the whole of the national economy as well. One thing is certain, that everybody concerned with preserving the nation, everybody anxious to promote the national well-being must recognise that the present situation cannot continue without appalling and irreparable consequences to our whole economy, because if these serious problems are not dealt with, then the very existence of the Irish nation is at stake. If the present situation is allowed to continue, in my view it can only end in national decay and the frustration of all our hopes, as the Tánaiste referred to it in a recent speech.

I am sure even Fianna Fáil Deputies must have noticed a very substantial alteration in the Fianna Fáil policy in these fields to-day as compared with 20 years ago. Then we were told that Fianna Fáil had a plan for the provision of work and that every idle man and woman would get employment. Having looked at the plan, the Tánaiste stated that he was afraid that he would have to send to America to bring back the emigrants. Somebody told the present Minister for External Affairs that there was a large number of unemployed in this country and the answer was: "Well, should we not be glad to have them to do all the work that Fianna Fáil will make available for them?" These were the old salad days, but since then 500,000 people have left this country to take up employment in Great Britain and elsewhere because they could not find the work which they were promised then by Fianna Fáil. There is no sign of the work being there. The ships leaving this country and the trains crossing the Border are carrying their human cargo of Irish men and women away to seek the work which is not available for them here, notwithstanding the rosy promises of Fianna Fáil in other days.

In a recent discussion on his Estimate, the Taoiseach was asked what was the Government's policy for the relief of unemployment. The Taoiseach had no policy. He admitted that the Government could do nothing about the matter and, of course, the 82,000 unemployed lining up at the employmentexchanges each week are a living proof of the fact that the Government have no policy for dealing with the serious question of unemployment. Either of two things can happen. We want to get from the Government a declaration that they are going to deal with this problem or the Government should get out of office and let somebody else deal with it. This Government do not command the confidence of the Irish people. They were never elected by the Irish people. Whatever fragment of confidence they had from the people two years ago has by now evaporated because of the manner in which they have dealt with the nation's problems for the past two years. Our people have certainly paid a very high price for the luxury of having a Fianna Fáil Government for the past two years.

There are three main achievements for which nobody will deny the Government credit. They have increased prices to a level never previously experienced here. They have brought unemployment to an all-time high level. Under Fianna Fáil there are more Irish going to Great Britain than ever went at any time for the past 30 years. These are the three achievements of this Government. Everybody knows what contribution the people have made in human suffering because of the manner in which the Government dealt with these vital problems. This 13,000 word Budget which we had from the Minister merely perpetuates last year's vicious hardships on the people. It provides no solution for our three main problems of unemployment, emigration and high prices. It offers the people no solution for the problems of underdeveloped land and inadequate development of our industrial possibilities.

This Government which is so bankrupt in policy has one honourable course open to it. It is maintained in office to-day by a few so-called Independents who are afraid to go before the people and ask them to express judgment on their activities or inactivities during the past two years. If democratic Government is not to be a travesty of what real democracy should be, then this Government, having broken every pledge made to the electorate two years ago, havingshown no capacity to deal with the problems of the people, having treated unfairly and unjustly many sections of the people, ought to go before the electorate and ask them to pass judgment on the manner in which it has conducted the nation's affairs for the past two years. The people want a chance to express their views on this Budget and on last year's Budget. They want a chance to express their view on many other social and economic problems which confront the country.

This Government have admitted that they have no remedy for these serious problems. The obvious thing for them to do, therefore, is to give the people an opportunity of saying whether they want to continue in office a Government which they never elected or whether they want to hand over responsibility for the nation's affairs to a Government which will deal with these problems much more courageously and much more competently than the present Government and deal with the problems from the standpoint of removing the vicious hardships imposed by last year's Budget and continued this year.

Mr. Cafferky

This debate is about to come to a close and I think I am correct in saying that it has been one of the longest debates on a Budget which has taken place in this House for a considerable time. Deputies on the Government side of the House have stated that the Opposition were disappointed because the Government did not find it necessary to impose any new taxes. I can assure the Minister and his Party colleagues that we are not disappointed because the Minister did not see fit to impose any extra taxation. Our disappointment arises from the fact that the Minister has seen fit to continue the same taxes as he imposed a year ago, despite the fact that he knows those taxes have resulted in chaos. Deputies on the Government Benches need not congratulate themselves on the fact that no new taxation is imposed in the Budget. Within the last few days the price of sugar has increased. Within the last few days stamps, telephone calls and telegrams have gone up. Taxes may not have been imposed directly by the Ministerfor Finance, but his colleagues, the Minister for Posts and Telegraphs and the Minister for Industry and Commerce, have imposed new taxation on the people.

Possibly the Minister felt a year ago that it was essential that the taxes he imposed then should be imposed. He alleged at the time that they were necessary to right the wrongs of his predecessors. He asserted that it was his intention to bring about stability. He indicated that the lot of the workers would in general be much better as a result of such stability. He has discovered now that that is not so. What are the results? The results have been enumerated here by several speakers. The position in regard to unemployment has been described. Emigration has been discussed at length. The trade recession, and so forth, has been dealt with exhaustively. In the light of the knowledge the Minister now has one would have expected him to reconsider the financial position this year, to make some reductions in taxation and to give some reliefs. Instead of that, we find now that the people will have to endure these hardships for another year.

One can well imagine what the results will be. Unemployment will increase still further. Emigration will increase. The sufferings and the hardships of our people will increase. There does not seem to be any real hope for the future considering the speeches made by the Minister's colleagues over the last few days. Darker clouds are gathering on the horizon. It seems futile appealing to the Minister and to his colleagues. Most of our appeals seem to be in vain. There is only one way in which to make the Minister mend his hand and that is by dissolving the present Dáil and asking the people for their decision on this Budget. We do not know what the result might be. Some of us who are here to-day might not come back again, but I have no doubt that, if the Government sees fit to go to the country within the next month or five weeks, they will meet with a severe check in relation to their financialpolicy and their economic policy which has grown out of the Budget of 1952.

A good deal has been said about emigration and unemployment by those Deputies who represent the provinces of Munster and Leinster, but it is the Deputies from Connaught and the western counties generally who have reason to feel really aggrieved in relation to this problem because the situation there is without parallel. Large numbers are unemployed. Many are emigrating. Craftsmen and others who had been employed on building operations can no longer find employment. One Government Deputy justified the slackness in the building trade at present by saying that the standstill is due to the fact that there is no longer any need for houses; the problem has been solved. That may be so in some areas but it is not true all over the country. There are towns in which the problem is very far from being solved. It is regrettable that our craftsmen should now have to go abroad to seek a livelihood. The fact that they have to go abroad is due in large measure to the curtailment of credit brought about by the Minister's acceptance of the Report of the Central Bank last year. That report is now showing its results in the fact that we have practically the number of unemployed that the drafters of that report wished us to have.

The Taoiseach said in the course of his contribution to this debate that the Government has done a fairly good job of work; I think those were his actual words. Can he honestly say that the Government has done a fairly good job of work in the last two years? In what direction? I have yet to hear the Taoiseach or his colleagues show us where the work has been done. It certainly has not been done in the field of employment or development. There may be some increase in agricultural production due solely to the activities of the inter-Party Government during its three and a half years in office. The increase is also due, as Deputy Blowick said it would be last year, to the fact that the consumer can no longer afford to pay for our own agricultural produce and in that way there is a greater surplus for export.

The Minister may claim credit for a reduction in the balance of payments through the medium of increased agricultural exports but the reduction from £60,000,000 to £9,000,000 is not due to Government policy. Deputy J.A. Costello said last year that the balance of payments would right itself in the course of time. It has righted itself to a certain extent but, as the Minister informed us in his Budget statement, he can give no guarantee that there will not be a reverse and he said we could not look forward to the total elimination of even the £9,000,000. It may again go to £18,000,000, to £22,000,000 or £30,000,000. The Minister cannot claim credit for this reduction from £60,000,000 to £9,000,000 because to a certain extent that reduction is due to the policy of the inter-Party Government, a policy which is only now showing results. The result of the inter-Party Administration would be much more noticeable were it not for the interference of the present Administration and the present Minister for Finance.

As I said, it is western Deputies who have reason to complain about emigration and unemployment. We who live on uneconomic holdings in the West of Ireland, under the shadow of constant unemployment and emigration over a period of years can see very little encouragement in this Budget or the last Budget with a view to easing emigration and reducing unemployment. I am convinced that the Undeveloped Areas Act which passed through this House a year or so ago deserves to be scrapped. It has not brought about the desired change or the desired results which we anticipated. The Government should now admit that it was nothing more than a piece of propaganda to keep the people down in the West of Ireland hoping that there was prosperity around the corner. It is still around the corner as far as the people in the West of Ireland are concerned and as far as the people in County Mayo are concerned it has not yet arrived. If we are to have this Budget and this Government for another year, and if we continue in the strain in which we are expected to continue according to theMinister's address, it will be a considerable distance from the corner.

It is rather regrettable to think that out of 66 pages the Minister did not see fit to devote a whole page to the principal industry in this country, namely, agriculture. He neither saw fit nor thought it wise to devote one page out of 66 to that important subject. He rambled along with what I call a well drafted Party speech trying to defend his conduct over the last 12 months and, on the whole, it contained very little of sound common sense. reference to the agricultural industry to the effect that taxation pressed lightly on the land was a clear indication of his outlook in that direction and the outlook of his colleagues in the Cabinet. If that is the only interest he has as far as the agricultural industry is concerned and as far as the small farmer is concerned, then we can well expect a darker and a gloomier period ahead. However, we are hoping that the year will not close before we put an end to this present Administration.

No matter what we may say there is little we can do to convince the Minister or his colleagues. The only means of disposing of this cruel burden which he has seen fit to impose on the people over a period of 12 months and intends it to continue, is by asking the people to decide for or against it. The people do not want it. Not only do we believe that they do not want it but we believe that it is not essential. This extra taxation he has imposed over the last 12 months and sees fit to continue is not necessary.

The Minister tells us that he intends to economise to the tune of £3,000,000 to £4,000,000. It is a wonder he did not tell us that a year ago. If we could economise this year to the extent of from £3,000,000 to £4,000,000, surely he could have done that last year; or is it that, as Deputy Costello, the Leader of the Fine Gael Party, has said, the Minister is securing or wrenching from the taxpayers this extra amount in a hidden form which he will use, perhaps, at a later date for other purposes?

The capital programme and the programmeof development which the Minister has submitted in his Budget speech is not sufficient to meet the present circumstances. The unemployment and emigration that exist at the present moment will be relieved but very little by the development envisaged in his financial report. Unless something more is done in the field of development, particularly in the West of Ireland, in relation to forestry, drainage, land reclamation and the migrating of tenants from the congested districts, then we can see a very gloomy future ahead of us. I find it hard to be obliged to repeat this because over a period of years since I first entered this House away back in 1943, in every debate in which I took part I have referred to the necessity for migrating tenants from the congested districts, to the development of forestry on a large scale, to the drainage of land and other schemes of that kind, as a means of meeting the situation that exists in the West of Ireland.

It is no use for the Minister to tell us about what is happening in the City of Dublin or in the City of Cork. We agree that they have their problems and that there are thousands of unemployed in these cities, but it is an acknowledged fact that there is too much centralisation in the Cities of Dublin and Cork at the present time and that these two cities, important as they are in their own way, receive consideration out of proportion to their importance. They are becoming top heavy for a country of this size, top heavy to the extent that the rural community will find it difficult to maintain them from the point of view of administration and all the other paraphernalia appertaining to the Cities of Dublin and Cork.

The large number of non-productive workers, not only in Dublin and Cork but elsewhere in the country, is a clear indication that eventually you will have a crash. Unless the rural towns like Castlebar, Kiltimagh, Ballina, Westport and other towns in the province of Connaught receive the attention and consideration of the Government we will be heading slowly but surelytowards that crash and we will find that the community will not put up with it much longer.

I think the Minister appreciates that situation as also does the Taoiseach when he says that taxation has reached a level at which no Government can find a reason for increasing it further. While the Taoiseach says that taxation has reached saturation level and ensures that the Minister does not impose further taxation in the Budget, we have the Minister for Posts and Telegraphs and the Minister for Industry and Commerce within less than 60 hours of the introduction of the Budget coming along and imposing extra taxation on the community.

It may be said that a halfpenny on the stamp does not mean a lot to people, say, in the West of Ireland. It does mean a lot to those who have sons and daughters away, to those who have most of their family away, to those who have to pay for telegrams, letters, telephone calls. To the person who has to pay an extra halfpenny on the lb. of sugar if means a lot. Therefore, the Minister cannot deny that he is still carrying on, in an indirect manner, wrenching excessive taxes from the public.

We hear the Deputies from the opposite side of the House boasting about what they are doing at the present moment. So many houses more were erected than were erected by the inter-Party Government. I accept that the Minister has a certain amount of honesty, and he must confess that many of the housing schemes that are on the verge of completion, or were completed in the past 12 months, were schemes initiated by his predecessors, the late Deputy Murphy and his colleague, Deputy Keyes, who played a very important part in the solution of the housing problem in rural, urban and city areas. I know that in some of the towns in my constituency people who were looking for houses before I was born had to wait for these houses until the inter-Party Government came into office. I want to make it clear that it was as a result of inter-Party policy these people were at length provided with houses. It wasnot as a result of Labour policy, Fine Gael policy, Clann na Poblachta policy, or Clann na Talmhan policy but as a result of the policy operated by the combination of these groups on this side of the House.

It is as a result of the policy which these Parties jointly put into effect that the people now enjoy these houses and the people are hoping that the inter-Party Government will return when the present Administration is removed from office. As a result of these groups coming together, slums in some of the towns I represent in Mayo, Swinford, Ballina, Castlebar and elsewhere, were removed. There are very few slums to be found in these towns now and such need as still exists for houses will in the near future be satisfied.

Deputies on the Government side would like to convey the impression that progress in the field of migration of tenants from congested districts was the result of the policy pursued by the present Administration.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

That does not arise. The Deputy is going into too much detail.

Mr. Cafferky

I do not want to go into detail but it is necessary to make it clear that the present move in that direction is due to the activities of the inter-Party Government and to the fact that some 80,000 acres of land were acquired when Deputy Blowick functioned as Minister for Lands and initiated that policy. If the interest which the inter-Party Government took in the development of industry and agriculture and in the provision of employment by various schemes such as drainage, land rehabilitation and housing were taken by the present Administration, we would not be in the position in which we find ourselves to-day.

Spokesmen on behalf of the Government, and the Minister in his Budget speech, pointed out the facilities provided for the farming community in the way of cheap cash for the purchase of machinery, live stock, fertilisers, etc. There is no cheap cash at all. I think no greater insult can be offered to thefarming community than to say that cheap cash is available to them. The Minister knows well there is no cheap cash. He knows that unless you have a good substantial account in the bank, you will get no money from the Agricultural Credit Corporation, even if you had half the City of Dublin as guarantors.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

The Deputy may not discuss the Agricultural Credit Corporation on this Resolution.

Mr. Cafferky

I am not discussing the Agricultural Credit Corporation. I am referring to the Minister's statement on page 15 of his speech in which he said:—

"The Government have provided incentives by guaranteeing high prices for agricultural produce, by arranging markets, by draining, reclaiming and fertilising the land, by making credit available for the purchase of stock and machinery and by providing educational and advisory services."

Where is this credit available and at what interest rate? Would the Minister tell me how a farmer, with a valuation of £10, can afford to avail of this cheap credit? Do Fianna Fáil Deputies not know well, Deputy Moran, Deputy Seán Flanagan and Deputy Calleary from Mayo not know well that no cheap credit is available? Unless you have a substantial account in the bank you will get no money from the people who are supposed to be lending this money to farmers to enable them to purchase fertilisers, machinery, stock and all the other things essential to secure increased production. The Minister talks about the confidence the people have in the Government and, to justify that statement, he pointed out the way the people responded to his appeal when he asked them to provide £20,000,000 by way of national loan. Who amongst us would not subscribe to that loan, if we could afford to do so, at the fine rate of interest which was offered? Who amongst us would not withdraw money from the bank or other sources if we could afford it, so as to get thebenefit of this 5 per cent. interest? Does the Minister wish to convey that it was solely because of confidence in him and his Government that the people subscribed to that loan? If you make the rate of interest 5½ per cent. or 6 per cent. for the next loan, we shall all be rushing to subscribe, if we can afford it. It would even pay us to borrow money from the bank and offer it to the Minister on these conditions. The confidence of the people who subscribed was in the rate of interest you offered. That rate of interest has had the effect of increasing rates of interest for everybody else who is obliged to borrow money, whether it be for the building of houses, the purchase of machinery or live stock, or the stocking of your shelves if you happen to be a businessman.

The position at the present moment is that we are facing a crisis, a crisis deliberately brought about by the present Government and the Minister, in unemployment, in emigration and in the cost of living—a Government that got into office on the cry that their aim was to reduce the cost of living, a Government that got into office by convincing the people that they would ensure greater employment and greater stability, that the cost of living would not go up and that the subsidies would remain, a Government that got into office on various other guarantees and promises that they gave before the election. Bad and all as it was to renege on promises which they gave before the election, they reneged on promises which they gave shortly after election to the people.

In bringing my remarks to a close, I say that if there is any honesty, any sincerity in the present Government, if the Taoiseach is the Taoiseach of former years, if he is the man he was in 1932 and almost down to the present time I might say, he will now consult the people. I remember that if he thought for a moment at one time that his policy was questioned and that the people wished to remove him from office, he would have no hesitation in dissolving the Dáil. I remember being here in 1944 and again, I think, in 1948, when the Taoiseach had a majority of14, a majority which would have enabled him to carry into effect any programme which he wished to implement. When he was told that he no longer enjoyed the confidence of the people he dissolved the Dáil immediately. Now when he is treading on very delicate ground and he knows full well that the people are opposed to his policy and that there would not be a hope of his Party coming back as a Government, he is still holding back and trying to make believe that he has the support of the people, despite what we say here. The Minister knows that that is not so. For that reason the Minister or the Party Whip should approach the Taoiseach and tell him to go to the country to see how he stands with the people. If he does so, I am sure he will get a better answer than even the Opposition can give him from this side of the House.

Mr. O'Hara

Deputy Cafferky, who has just concluded, represents South Mayo, and he has said many things that I would have said had I preceded him in the debate. He has dealt with many of the matters with which I as one of the representatives from North Mayo would be dealing in the normal way. I want to say briefly that I listened to the opening speech of the Minister for Finance, the speech of the Taoiseach and the speeches of the members of the Government Party. They are trying to give this House and the country the impression that we are very fortunate that we are not facing in this year's Budget further increased taxation. Evidently they want this House and the people to believe that they are very well off and very fortunate in having such a Government as the Fianna Fáil Government and that they are not being pinched by taxation.

The truth, however, is that almost everything you could think of, almost every item you could mention has been taxed or has increased in price since the present Government, with the support of a few Independents, took office. On numerous occasions in this House, other Deputies have referred to the increase in the cost of living, the increase in the prices of butter, tea, sugar, flour, bread, and the increase inmotor taxation which hits very heavily at least one section of the community who can ill afford to pay—the taximen down the country and in the City of Dublin.

I know many taximen in my part of the country, in Ballina, Foxford, Belmullet, Ballycastle and other towns who, as a result of Government policy in increasing the tax on their vehicles, are unable to replace their motor cars and who are, in some instances, unable to pay the hire-purchase instalments due on their cars. Many of those cars that have now been taken into the garages are being taken up by hire-purchase companies for the reason that the people are no longer able to earn a livelihood. One can well picture the plight of the wives and children of the people in such circumstances.

There are other sections of the community—the ordinary working people in the various towns throughout the length and breadth of the country— who are hard hit. I know people in Ballina and many other towns who in some cases, that of young ladies, earn a weekly wage from 30/- to £2 per week. There are others—the majority —who work for about £3 15s. or £4 per week. All these had to pay the increased charges for butter, tea, sugar, flour and bread and for the other articles of food for human consumption without any corresponding increase in their rates of pay. I am sure that is the position in 95 per cent. of the cases. I am well aware that these people have gone through a very difficult time and that they are feeling the pinch. Many of them have told me that if they were afforded an opportunity to-morrow morning of voting against the present Government they would gladly avail of it. I invite the Government to dissolve Dáil Éireann and give the people an opportunity of passing judgment on their conduct since they took over office. Believe me if they do that they will get their answer.

The Minister in the course of his speech said that the tax pressed lightly on the land. That statement has already been referred to by members of my Party. I do not propose to deal with it again at any great lengthexcept to ask, as Deputies Dillon, Blowick and others have asked—where else does wealth come from except from the land and from those engaged in working on the land? The land is the principal source of wealth in this country. That fact is admitted by every sensible-minded person in this country and for the Minister to suggest to this House, or to the country, that taxation presses lightly on the land is stupid, nonsensical and typical of the Minister. I think that if the Fianna Fáil Government, who held office for such a long period, made up their minds years ago on the importance of the land in the economic sense the picture would be very different from what it is to-day.

I remember years ago, long before ever I entered this House, or long before I had a notion of ever entering it, Fianna Fáil politicians going from church gate to church gate, frothing from the mouth, telling the Irish people what they would do if only they were afforded an opportunity of doing so. Cumann na nGaedheal or Fine Gael were then in office and the Irish people decided to turn them out and put Fianna Fáil in. As I see it and as thousands of Irish people see it too, the promises made then were promises that were made to be broken and broken they were. The economic war—and I do not propose to deal at length at this stage with the merits or otherwise of the economic war—certainly had very adverse effects on our Irish farmers.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

The economic war does not arise on the Financial Resolution before the House.

Mr. O'Hara

I do not propose, Sir, to deal with that at any great length but I feel that I am entitled to say that during that particular period of depression many of our Irish farmers were so impoverished that they have not got back on their feet yet. I say in all seriousness that, with the exception of the years of the inter-Party Government, the Fianna Fáil Government which was in control for a long period of years did very little—in fact, I might say that they did nothing—to help those farmers to get back on their feet.

We know that during the period of the emergency, when Britain could not get foodstuffs from other countries, she was glad to take them from this country. Shipping at that time was uncertain over long distances. It was costly, too, and Britain naturally realised that she was to a great extent dependent on this country for supplies. During that period, too, we got increased prices for the cattle, eggs and other agricultural produce that we had for export. The prosperity which followed those increases was not due to Government policy, but rather to the demand there was in Britain for all the agricultural produce that we could send to her.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

The Deputy seems to be covering the whole field of agriculture. Many of the points that he is making could be made on the Estimate for the Department of Agriculture.

Mr. O'Hara

I am anxious to impress on the House the importance of the agricultural industry. The Minister, in his Budget statement, could only afford a couple of lines to it. I should like to see the Government spending more and more money on the main industry of the country by affording technical advice to our farmers, by assisting them to produce more and thus help the nation in a way that it has not been helped during our whole period of native government. The subsidisation of fertilisers, the drainage of our land and particularly the drainage of the main arteries, such as the River Moy would, I believe, tend to encourage our farmers to produce more, and in turn would enable our people to get out of the plight in which they find themselves to-day.

Deputy Cafferky, has already referred to the question of emigration. In that regard, the people in Mayo and in the West, generally, seem to be the most unfortunate people in the whole Republic. All down through the years the young people have been emigrating from Achill, Erris, Ballycroy and other Irish-speaking areas. A lot of lip sympathy is being offered to the people in these areas. They were toldof the wonderful things that were to be done for them under the Undeveloped Areas Act, and of all the prosperity that the operation of that Act would bring to them. I have yet to see any signs of that prosperity in my constituency where a big percentage of the people are Irish speakers. All down through the years, thousands of our boys and girls have been, and still are, emigrating from these Irish-speaking districts to England and America in order to earn a livelihood for themselves and help those who remain at home.

As one who is engaged in a small business in a country village, I am aware that the bulk of the money coming into North Mayo comes from those emigrants. I often wonder what their plight would be if they could not emigrate. In my opinion, this Government would be better employed in trying to devise schemes to provide work that would enable those young people to remain at home than in lending millions of pounds, the savings of the Irish people, at a cheap rate of interest to a country that we were taught to hate by the Party opposite. It is an extraordinary position that if one wants to build a house, or borrow money for any purpose, one has to pay 5½ per cent. or 6 per cent. for it, while the Irish people's savings are lent to Great Britain at 3 or 3½ per cent. I well remember seeing on the walls slogans such as: "Burn everything that comes from England except her coal", but I can see now that these slogans did not mean much.

In my constituency of North Mayo we have a very considerable acreage of bog. I wonder whether or not I am wasting my time in trying to impress on the Minister and on the Government the importance of bog development there. In my native parish of Kilasser, in Erris and Ballycroy, we have large tracts of bog and many workers available there for their development. I should like to see the Government going ahead with a scheme of full-scale bog development to supply their own requirements in turf for the people living in the towns and for our turf generating electric stations.

I feel it my duty to impress on theMinister the importance of keeping alive in our Irish-speaking areas a little bit of the old Gaelic culture and as much of the native language as is left. If the Minister himself is not interested in that, I know that some members of his Party are.

I appreciate that, Sir. I have not spoken for very long on that subject and I feel that I am entitled to refer to it. It is unfortunate that, after all their grandiose promises over the years, the Fianna Fáil Government did not implement them. It is a pity that the Fianna Fáil Government did not build houses for our people in cheaper times so that we should not now have the position in which they have to pay anything from £2 to £3 10s. a week. If the houses had been built during cheaper times the people would not have to pay so much for them.

When Fianna Fáil found out, as a result of the change of Governmentwhich took place in 1948, that there are people in this country who are more competent to govern than they, they pretended to waken up suddenly to the whole situation and they adopted an attitude of "Anything you can do I can do better". I have great sympathy for the ordinary working man to-day who earns £3 10s. or £4 a week and who, out of that wage, has to pay anything from £2 to £2 10s. per week in rent. He will have a very lean time.

This debate has lasted a very considerable time and I do not propose to hold up the House any longer except to say that I would welcome an opportunity of facing the people of this country. I should like to see the Government go before the people, who, in the final analysis, are the judges.

Mr. Killilea

You might not get back yourself in North Mayo.

Mr. O'Hara

This is North Mayo speaking. I cannot say whether or not I shall be returned to this House again but, at any rate, I shall be quite satisfied to accept the verdict of the people. I am not speaking from selfish motives. If I were to take the selfish and the narrow view, I suppose I could say that I could be more profitably employed in my own little business at home than speaking in this House. However, if I should be a candidate in the future for election to this House I shall be quite prepared to accept the verdict of the people. It makes very little difference, after all, whether or not Tommy O'Hara comes back to this House: the important thing is the welfare of the people of this country. During my short period of public life I have endeavoured to do my very best for them. After two defeats, I was elected to this House. I was defeated twice because I refused to tell lies and to make promises which I knew I could not keep. Although I was slow about it, I was returned to this House.

I have said that Deputy Declan Costello's speech was one which addressed itself to the Budget. It was, however, a long and laboured thesis— one which will not stand an examination in the light of the actual facts— but on the whole, I think it was agallant attempt to justify the absurd contention of Deputy Costello, Senior, that the revenue for 1952-53 was underestimated by £3,000,000.

In the younger Deputy's speech we had a series of misdirected questions. We were asked why, if we anticipated that we should make economies this year and were prepared to budget on the basis that these economies would be realised, we did not take that line last year. We did not, for this reason. We found that the public administration of our Departments was left in such a state of confusion by the Coalition Government that it was scarcely possible for us to secure control over expenditure. When you have had a Government which has thrown over the doctrine of collective responsibility and in which each Minister is a satrap working for himself and according to his own whims and wishes, naturally it takes time to co-ordinate the activities of the various Departments and to try to get the public administration working efficiently as a unit. We had to take time. We required time in order that we might review the activities of all these Departments. We required time to see where economies could be made without causing economic dislocation, to see where extravagant expenditure existed —and there was extravagant expenditure under the Coalition: Deputy Dillon boasted of that when he told us that he had spent millions of dollars in a half-hour one afternoon—and to see where, as I said, it could be curbed and restricted. Therefore, we were not able last year to pledge ourselves to the public that we would secure economies.

One of the criticisms which was made against last year's Budget was that we had not made any allowance for overestimation. Deputy J.A. Costello, the Leader of the Opposition, was, I think, the spokesman who first directed that criticism against the Budget.

We said that in the state of the administration, as we found it, and having regard to the course and trend which had been set by the Coalition Government over their three years, itwould not be safe to allow anything for overestimation. Under the Coalition Government, faulty estimation was quite a common thing—and if necessary I will quote instances. The Minister for Finance came in here, I think, in the year 1949-50, and said that he was allowing the sum of £600,000 to cover Supplementary Estimates that might be introduced during the year, and when the year's Budget closed I think the amount required for Supplementary Estimates had swollen to something like £9,000,000. When you have that sort of trend and course set in regard to departmental expenditure, you cannot undertake, having regard to the difficulties which we experienced, and which every person anticipated they would experience in trying to regularise the procedure under which public money was being spent and in trying to put it into some sort of order and get it under control, you could not, I repeat, say definitely that there would be overestimation in last year's Budget. On the contrary, you were quite entitled to say that, having regard to past experience, it would not be safe to allow anything for overestimation.

Accordingly, when we were challenged on the ground that we were imposing unnecessary taxation because we had not allowed for overestimation, we said that we did not believe that we would be justified in making that allowance. The outcome of last year's Budget has justified us up to the hilt. We have been fully vindicated. We estimated last year that supply services, after deducting voted capital services, would require £97,761,000. In actual fact, the amount which had to be found for supply services, after deducting voted capital services, was £98,466,000. We had allowed £5,750,000 for Supplementary Estimates. In fact, the amount which we required, speaking in round figures, was £8.8 million. We had not allowed, by £3,250,000, sufficient to cover the Supplementary Estimates that were introduced. That is my answer to Deputy Declan Costello. We would not have been justified last year in allowing anything for overestimation.

We have now got control of the ship.There are no longer any mutinous or insubordinate members among the crew. We have not people like Deputy Dillon flinging millions away without consulting anybody. We have not a Minister for External Affairs who will walk in and intimidate the Taoiseach and compel him to reverse a decision which was taken by his own Minister for Finance in regard to the expenditure of Marshall Aid dollars. That is not the situation. This Government is working as a team. It realises, as the Taoiseach says, that in present circumstances, with our present productive capacity, in the existing condition of our economy, the limits of taxation have been reached. We are determined to bring the cost of the public services into line with the people's capacity to pay and, as I said on the Vote on Account, into line with the people's willingness to pay, which is just as important in any democratic State.

Deputy Declan Costello also asked me why I did not allow something last year for the buoyance of the revenue. I did not allow it, for the simple reason that, having regard to the task which we had to face, to the gap which we had to close between expenditure and revenue, there was bound to be, in the ordinary normal course of human nature, unwillingness on the part of the taxpayer to shoulder the increased burden. He would be bound to protect himself in the only way left to him, that is, by reducing his consumption of certain of those taxable commodities. The only thing on which we can be criticised is that we underestimated in regard to one taxable commodity the extent of the increase in consumer resistance to the increased price. In respect of all the other commodities we just about hit the mark and, in all the circumstances, I think that was a very creditable achievement.

This year in framing the Budget we have assumed—and I think the results will show that our assumption is justified—that certain of these taxes will show a return to their old resilience, that they will begin to pick up and to yield in greater measure than last year what we expected them to give. As I have already confessed and as Iinformed the House on the Budget, there was a short fall in tax revenue last year of £1.8 million. It was £1.8 million less than we anticipated. This year we hope to make up a very substantial part of that and I am glad to say that there are already some indications that these hopeful expectations of mine are likely to be fulfilled. The commodity which disappointed us last year was spirits of all kinds. As I have already told Dáil Éireann, there was a very marked gap between the revenue actually received by us and the revenue which we had hoped to receive from that particular source. But there has been a remarkable change in the position since the introduction of this year's Budget. In the case of homemade spirits, the average clearances over the four months January, February, March and April amounted to about 36,000 gallons. The House will be gratified to learn that, within eight days after the Budget—from the 7th May to the 15th May—the clearances of home made spirits from bond amounted to no less than 50,000 gallons.

Mr. O'Leary

Who is drinking it all?

Mr. MacEntee

I do not notice any increased intoxication. I think our people are as sober as they were and I do not think they have grown any more convivial. The explanation is very simple. There was a considerable amount of forestalling before the Budget of Deputy McGilligan in 1951; then again in the autumn of 1951, when there was a lot of talk about a Supplementary Budget; then again last year, before my Budget of 1952. These accumulated stocks have now been liquidated and they have now to be replenished in order, I may assume, to be re-liquidated in due course by the taxpaying citizens.

The experience is just as remarkable in regard to imported spirits. The average clearances per month for the first four months of this year were of the order of 6,400 gallons and from 1st May up to 16th May of this year, the clearances amounted to 11,000 gallons. I think that so far as spirit duties are concerned, we have got offto a good start and there is every reason to anticipate that, so far as that particular head of the revenue is concerned, we do not have to go around with any gloomy expectations that the experience of last year will be repeated.

General Mulcahy

Having seen the two swallows, we can now wait for the summer.

Mr. MacEntee

If I saw two swallows on a bottle, I would stop drinking.

Deputy Declan Costello also asked me why defensive equipment was not borrowed for last year. My personal view is that if our defences had not been allowed to run down, if our Army were being properly maintained, the expenditure on defensive equipment ought to be borne year by year out of the revenue for the year in which it arises. I do not think that in order to defend our own liberties and our own property and to preserve them for our children, we have a right to pass on to posterity the burden that should rest on ourselves, but we have to adjust these principles and policies to the financial circumstances in which we find ourselves. Accordingly, in this year's Budget, I am taking special financial measures to deal with that problem, but when Deputy Declan Costello asks me why we did not borrow for defensive equipment last year, I shall have to say that in fact we had to borrow for it, because last year's Budget showed a deficit of £2,048,000 and the amount expended on defensive equipment last year was £1,700,000. We may, therefore, assume that this defensive equipment was in fact borrowed for.

Deputy Declan Costello then went on to allege that the Government had been thrown into a state of mental confusion—I think he said obfuscation —by its obsession with this balance of payments problem. That is a very unkind thing for a junior Deputy to say about a senior Deputy who is, in fact, his own colleague, because the first person to make a weighty public pronouncement with regard to this question of the balance of payments was the Coalition Minister for Finance who, in May, 1948, said:—

"It is impossible to view with equanimity a continued reduction in external assets on last year's scale. These assets can be consumed now only at the expense of a reduced standard of living for the future."

That statement was followed up, three months later, by no less a person than the then Taoiseach, Deputy J.A. Costello, who said in this House, at column 2146 of Volume 112 of the Dáil Debates:—

"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."

It would seem that, long before I came to occupy a bench on this side, there were other responsible public men who were as concerned as we have been with this balance of payments problem, but who, perhaps because they were pulled this way and that by the divergent forces in the Coalition Government, could not make up their minds to deal with the problem and so put it on the long finger and left us a sorry inheritance.

It has been suggested that this problem is a problem of our own creation. I have already referred to what Deputy McGilligan said in his Budget speech of 1948—I am quoting now from the brochure issued by the Department of Finance in May, 1950, page 20, in which Deputy McGilligan is given as having used these words:—

"To sum up, our economic position. . . is urgently in need of improvement if we are to be able to meet the exigencies of the future and weather possible depressions without impairment of our living standards or loss of amenities and comforts now regarded as essential."

So that, even in 1950 and 1951, this question of the balance of payments was a matter of concern to our predecessors. In 1951, in his Budget speech, my predecessor used these words:—

We can take it this way: at the very minimum and on a conservative estimate the live register now represents 10,000 people who did not leave this country, whose status under the Social Welfare Act has changed and who are now entitled either to social assistance or to social welfare and are taking advantage of that fact. There are about 5,000 others, more or less, who have returned to this country within the past four months in order to take advantage of the new social welfare legislation which this Government has enacted and which Deputy McGilligan, speaking presumably for Deputy Costello, Deputy Mulcahy and all the rest of them, has been criticising and attacking up and down the country during the past fortnight or three weeks, telling us that we were demoralising the country, that the country had become too material. I do not want to say too much, but Deputy McGilligan does not belong to a profession which is notorious for disdaining material gain.

General Mulcahy

Another very despicable remark.

Mr. MacEntee

As we are on this question of the conditions of the people perhaps I may refer to a speech which was made by Deputy Desmond. I shall refer to it only briefly at this stage. Deputy Desmond quoted from the National Nutrition Survey, Parttable 2A, which is the table giving the mean heights and weights of schoolboys in amalgamated town areas, classified by age and by occupational group of father. He pointed out what was undoubtedly a fact, that the children of the unemployed worker tend to be shorter by a couple of inches than the children of people who belong to other occupations, or who are employed, either as unskilled manual workers, or as skilled manual workers. The difference is not at all as great as Deputy Desmond pointed out. At the age of 13, I notice that the average mean height of a child of an unemployed worker is 55.9 inches, of an unskilled manual worker, it is 56.7 inches, and of a skilled manual worker it is 57 inches.

I will confess—and I suppose it is only natural—that I do not attach the same importance to height as Deputy Desmond does, but when he did refer to the National Nutrition Survey he might have conveyed a little more information to the House, because quite the most interesting thing about that survey, I think, is the statement which appears at paragraph 16, page 23. Do not forget this examination took place over the years 1946 to 1948:—

"Among all the children examined, the proportion in good nutritional state amounted to about 75 per cent. of the total, while those in poor nutritional state came to less than 2½ per cent."

They now see that there is a future for this country and that there is something to be gained by trying to make provision for themselves and their children and they are saving. As against that, and I say it quite frankly, there has been a reduction in the amount of speculative building. We must remember that for this industry there is not an everlastingly expanding market, that there was built up, owing to the arrears in housing, a huge demand during the war years and latterly, that this demand is tending to exhaust itself and that, in regard to housing as in other things, those who are engaged in the industry must realise that in this country, as elsewhere, we are entering on a buyers' market and that they must adjust their profits and costsaccordingly. I have no doubt that if builders take a realistic view of the situation and convince themselves that people are not going now to rush in to buy houses at inflated prices, if they are prepared now to take a more modest profit, that the speculative house-building industry will revive itself.

Let me come back again to the significance of Deputy Morrissey's admission. As you know he is an auctioneer. Every man engaged in that occupation will reinforce and re-echo what he has said, that the price of laud in this country is, not only not declining, but is, in fact, appreciating.

It is an honourable record and we have not made our people more servile or more materialistic by doing these things and by discharging the Christian duty of a Christian Government to its people— not one bit, but we have not had much support in doing these things from Deputy O'Leary and the others.

Mr. O'Leary

Is it a good Order to give the Tipperary men 2½d. a day?

Mr. MacEntee

Last night when distributing these bouquets to the civil servants, Deputy McGilligan also took occasion—I hope the members of the Labour Party are listening to me—to describe the recent legislation passed by this House as contributing to the pauperisation of the people and that the Government had embarked on a deliberate policy of pauperising the people. It would be well, as we are going to have by-elections in the near future, for the Labour Party to make up their minds as to whether they endorse that statement and whether they believe that these Acts of progressive social legislation to which I have referred—widows' and orphans' pensions, children's allowances, the enlargement of social welfare, the institution of social Orders—are Acts and enactments to pauperise the people.

Is it pauperisation to make better provision for the health of our people and to provide for the proper care of mothers in childbirth? Do the members of the Labour Party subscribe to and endorse Deputy McGilligan's statement that these measures are pauperising the people? Deputy O'Leary may interrupt me in this House, but these are the things that are going to be asked of his candidates when they stand as allies of Deputy McGilligan and his Party at the coming by-elections.

Mr. O'Leary

Not as an ally of yours, anyway.

Mr. MacEntee

Mind you, the people are not going to be fooled by any references to a servile State. They know the state of servility to which they have been reduced by the Fine Gael Party, under the name of Cumann na nGaedheal, that was in Government from 1922 to 1932. They remember the 15/- per week that was paid to workers. They remember that workers' wages were brought down when that Party was in untrammelled control in this country.

Mr. O. Flanagan

They will not for get the New Zealand butter at 4/2 per lb.

Mr. MacEntee

Last night also Deputy Kyne and Deputy Browne and, I am sorry to say, Deputy Desmond, whose speech in this House impressed me as that of a sincere and meditative Labour Deputy really concerned for the welfare of the people of this country, with Deputy McGilligan, joined in sneering at the provision we were making for national defence. He said we would be much better employed taking that money and paying it over to the public servants, to those bureaucrats at whom he was sneering and jibing when he was speaking in Cork. The issue which is raised, was raised by Deputy Kyne—I want to particularise these matters—and Deputies McGilligan and Browne is whether, instead of providing for the defence of this country, to make what provision we can out of our limited resources to ensure that the freedom we have won and inherited will not be lost to us, we should dissipate the resources of this State by borrowing to make better provision for our public servants.

The issue which is raised there is very clear. It is simply this, and, again, the Labour people will have to answer it: Is this State to exist for the benefit of the people and the nation, or is it to be run and administered for the benefit of those who are paid by the State? That is the issue. So far as I am concerned, and I am sure so far as my colleagues are concerned, we will put the interests of the nation and the interests of the defence of this nation above any other consideration. Apparently, that is not the line which is going to be taken by those who are angling for the votes of public officials and public officers. But it will be for the people to say whether the State is to be run and administered for the benefit of the people or for the benefit of the officers of the State; whether, having freed themselves from one set of exploiters, they are to have another set over them, with, if you like, puppets and the marionettes sitting on these benches and pretending to be the people's Government.

Deputy McGilligan also last night sneered at the success of the last national loan. That national loan, Iwant to repeat again, is outstanding as an example of the confidence which the honest, thrifty people have in the present Government. We had a larger number of subscribers among people of smaller means than had ever been secured before. The list was over-subscribed, something at least that did not occur in the case of Deputy McGilligan's last loan. He went on to compare it with an issue which had been made in Jamaica some time ago, and said that the amount of money which the Jamaicans wanted had been secured 20 times over, but he did not tell us where Jamacia secured this loan. It just happens that in yesterday morning's Timesthere appeared this paragraph:—

"Mr. Bustamante in London.

Talks on £30,000,000 Loan.

The Chief Minister of Jamaica, Mr. Bustamante, arrived in London by air from New York yesterday for talks with the Government concerning a loan of £30,000,000 for Jamaica.

When he arrived at London Airport he said:—

‘The growing threat of Communism in the Caribbean area is becoming really serious. There are 150,000 unemployed—we must have the loan to help them. In many cases economic conditions are dreadful.' He said he would ask the British Government to take the whole of their sugar production."

Mr. Bustamante, for whose financial acumen Deputy McGilligan was so full of praise, is going to ship the whole of the sugar production of Jamaica to London. I am sure Deputy Blowick would take strong exception to that if he happened to be in the same Cabinet as Mr. Bustamante.

In any event, let us see what this means. Deputy McGilligan praises a Prime Minister who goes abroad to borrow; he thinks, of course, that he is to be commended for the fact that a foreign lender is generally prepared to lend to a foreign borrower if he thinks the security is good enough. Apparently, it was the same sort of motivation that operated with theCoalition Cabinet in 1948 when they decided to reverse their previous decision and apply for the Marshall Aid loan with, of course, the same consequences. What happens is this: that out of the sweat and toil of the native people, whether they happen to be Irish or Jamaicans, the interest has to be paid to the foreign lender and the remission of that interest abroad naturally operates with a highly deflationary influence on the economy of the country. It does tend to produce unemployment and to produce hardship, and it does tend to lower the standard of living, and that is a continuing influence to which we have been condemned by the financial policy of our predecessors.

As I pointed out in the Budget statement last year, I had to find £577,000 to pay for one-half year's interest on the Marshall Aid loan. This year, we have to find just twice that, or almost £1,200,000, and not one penny piece of that money will be spent in this country. Now, if the Government were paying £1,200,000 out in interest to our own people we know that our own people would spend the money here. It would continue to remain within our monetary system; it would continue to flow through the veins, so to speak, of our economic body; it would help to make it healthy, strong and productive, but this Marshall Aid money is going to be extracted out of, and will disappear from, our monetary system. We will be to some extent in the position in which the Irish people were when the Government in 1923 or 1924 signed the secret agreement under which we were sending £5,000,000 a year to Great Britain. It will produce, though to a lesser degree, exactly the same type of economic reaction in this country as that secret agreement did, and the gentleman who was responsible for that financial transaction had the audacity to get up here and criticise the terms upon which the last national loan was issued.

It is well known that if you want to get a thing you have to pay for it. People do not for one moment believe that the economy of this country couldcontinue to run on a 3½ per cent. basis. They showed that by refusing to subscribe to the last loan issued by my predecessor. Since they realise that we are now trying to make ends meet, that you have got a Government which acts responsibly and does not enter into commitments which it does not expect it will be able to fulfil, you have the people coming along subscribing not merely to the last national loan but doing something more: subscribing in a much greater proportion than they ever did before to the Dublin Corporation loan. On the day before yesterday, they over-subscribed the 5 per cent. C.I.E. loan of £2,500,000. Does anyone want to tell me that under Deputy McGilligan's administration, and under the administration of Deputy Morrissey, they would get 2,500,000 pennies, let alone £2,500,000 for C.I.E.? We are getting it now because our people realise that a firm grip has been taken on the affairs of this State, that we are no longer allowing things to drift, and that we are prepared to face up to our responsibilities and, what is more, prepared to ask our people to face up to them with us.

Now, I have heard a lot of talk here about by-elections. It seems to me that it would be a salutary thing for those who are talking about by-elections to recall the by-elections which took place last year about this time. We had a Budget, a severe Budget but a Budget, however, which thinking people regarded as what was necessary. We went down to Deputy O'Hara's constituency in North Mayo and won the by-election there. We went to Deputy Kyne's constituency in Waterford and won the by-election there.

Mr. O'Leary

By mistake.

Mr. MacEntee

Undoubtedly we did not win it in Limerick but it will be agreed that two gains out of three is not a bad record. If we did not win in North-West Dublin perhaps we may the next time. The people will not be so easily fooled. They will begin to realise that it is not the bread, sweets and turf that count. The honest, thrifty and provident people upon whom this country depends, and whoseconfidence this Government is glad to have, realise that a change has taken place in our fortunes, that we have now got firm ground under our feet and that they can make the progress which we all anticipated and hoped they would make after the war, in 1945. That progress was interrupted when a Coalition Government took office—and took officewith one idea. They took office in this country as if it were a conquered country and they decided to plunder it.

General Mulcahy

The Minister should take his own advice and not prophesy.

Question put.

The Committee divided. Tá: 67; Níl: 62.

Tá

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

Níl

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

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

Question declared carried.

Financial Resolutions 1 to 3 inclusive, reported and agreed to.

Dáil Éireann debate - Thursday, 21 May 1953