I was inquiring, when the debate was adjourned, as to where the Minister for Finance planned to get the £300,000 to £500,000 which the Minister for Local Government had undertaken to collect from the ratepayers in relief of his Budget now that the Minister for Finance and the Government gave an undertaking to two Independent Deputies to cancel that proposal. Did the Government tell Deputy Lehane that they were going to adjust the new rate demand so as to relieve the local authorities of the extra £300,000 to £500,000 which it was suggested was going to be levied on them by the alteration of the manner of distribution of the agricultural grant? Would Deputy Lehane tell us that? This is important. Do you remember the beating of bosoms that went on on the Government Benches?They did not consider Deputies Lehane or Sheldon or Cogan. They threw the vote of confidence on the floor and told them: "Take it or leave it." But it now transpires, according to Deputy Lehane, that he told them that he would abstain from voting unless he was assured that this——
Finance Bill, 1953—Fifth Stage (Resumed).
On a point of order. The only thing I told the Government was what I told the Government in this House.
That is not a point of order. The Deputy can make his own statement later.
I want to know, if the ratepayers are to be relieved of this sum of £300,000 to £500,000 which the Minister for Local Government has instructed the local authorities to levy on the ratepayers as a result of the adjustment of the supplementary agricultural grant, where does the Minister for Finance intend to get the money which he said he required to balance his Budget? Is it not time that the House was told?
What he is going to do is to get the money. Is not that all?
But we want to know where.
Would Deputy Cowan please restrain himself? There is no need to answer rhetorical questions.
But it is very revealing when he does answer them.
It is disorderly also.
I can understand Deputy Cowan's position. His position was that he would make any number of requisitions on the Government before determining how to cast his vote and whatever answers they gave, whether positive or negative, we all knew what Lobby he would walk into. He salved his own conscience.
He could not salve yours, because you have not got one.
But what the Minister for Finance has to tell us now——
I am sure you will give me a chance to reply.
——is how his undertaking—now that he has cancelled the additional charge being made on the ratepayers—is going to be met if the Minister for Finance depended on the relief produced by that manoeuvre to balance his Budget. I think it is highly likely that the Minister for Finance will not answer because I think he has reached the point of irresponsibility when he does not think there is any obligation on him to answer to Dáil Éireann. He has come to consider that no matter what he says he can depend on Deputy Cowan, Deputy Dr. Browne, Deputy Dr. ffrench-O'Carroll and Deputy Cogan to vote where they are told to vote.
That is just the way Deputy Dillon voted as an Independent. He voted as he was told.
And when he was thrown out, he crawled back again.
Does this quartet not see that the more often they vote that way, the more often they will be made to vote that way, and how humiliating the position of the Government becomes that depends on their suffrage for its survival? I often wonder how long can the Minister for Finance and his friends continue to survive as parasites of this quartet because that is what they are becoming. Whether the quartet are the parasites of Fianna Fáil or Fianna Fáil the parasites of the quartet the relationship is not very honourable for either party whichever way you take it, and I would submit to such members of the Fianna Fáil Party as still have some regard for the country that for an Irish Government to be in that position grows more embarrassing for everybody with every day that passes. It is bad enough to be a parasite on the body politic.
That the Final Stage of the Bill do now pass is the question before the House. Would the Deputy keep that in mind? As amatter of fact, Deputy Dillon may be inviting interruptions, but the Chair will not take that as an excuse for obliging him.
On a point of order— Deputy Dillon has made certain insinuations against me. I have made it quite clear in this House that the only thing I said to the Government, I said it in this House which, I think, is the right place to say it.
Deputy Lehane can make his statement afterwards. Deputy Dillon.
Deputy Dillon revealed the Minister's intention and the intention of the Government at a meeting in Blessington, and so far as I know that was the first public revelation that was made of that intention anywhere in Ireland. I think as a result of the by-elections in Wicklow and Cork it is likely that the Minister's intentions were changed in this regard. I understood that an undertaking had been given to Deputy Lehane, but if I am wrong I gladly take the opportunity of apologising. I was told that the reason he did not vote in either Lobby was that he was told by the Government that they were resolved not to put this imposition on the farmers.
The fact that Deputy Lehane voted or did not vote in a certain way does not arise on this Bill.
It does arise.
The reason why he voted in a certain way or did not vote does not arise.
It is a matter for the House.
Deputy Dillon is increasing the Government's majority every time he opens his mouth.
If it is your seed, breed and generation that I am wishing upon them, I am going the surest way of burying them fathoms deep.
I now understand that no such undertaking was given to Deputy Lehane, but something has happenedbecause the Minister for Local Government refused to reveal what legislation he intends to bring in although he was very frank in communicating with the secretaries of the county councils what he intended to do. He has changed his mind for some reason. It is a matter of interest to this House that it was not anything which Deputy Sheldon or Deputy Lehane did that caused the Government to change its mind. It was the by-elections. I think we are entitled to learn from the Government and from the Minister for Finance what consequential action he proposes to take now.
You are not arguing on this Bill at all, and the Deputy knows that.
I cannot make the Minister speak the truth but I can ask him to do it.
The Deputy did not speak the truth in this House on many occasions.
I am quite prepared to face that accusation if the Minister can prove it. I want to refer to another matter. I read to-day a list of articles which the Taoiseach declared he intended to import from dollar sources, and to pay for them with dollars, when he put his hand upon his heart and said that he would not sign this statement or make this agreement if he did not believe that the document presented was an honest document. I asked the House when perusing the document to turn their attention to page 6 from which I proceeded to read certain figures. I should have directed the attention of the House to page 8, which is the page on which the proposed imports appear. On page 6, the figures mentioned by me really relate to the total requirements of the country. The House will remember that in reading these figures I turned to Deputy MacBride and said that there must be some mistake about them. The mistake is that I read the figures of the total requirements for the country.
So you did mislead the House. You are now beginning to mislead them again until you find out——
Find out what, you ridiculous little man?
Deputy Dillon will please proceed.
The moon-struck comedian.
On page 8 the figure for the imports which the Taoiseach, the Minister for Industry and Commerce and the Minister for Agriculture informed the Marshall Aid authorities they would want or buy from dollar sources with Marshall Aid dollars are as follows——
Not with Marshall Aid dollars.
Wheat and flour in wheat equivalent, 336,000 tons.
Will the Deputy read the title of the document?
"Import Deficit CEEC/I Annex."
I am sorry——
What are you grunting about? Wheat and flour in wheat equivalent——
It does not say so. The words that the Deputy is using "Purchases from Dollar Sources" are a figment of his own imagination. They do not appear on the page at all.
Who is in possession?
Let me read it for the silly little man. Wheat and flour in wheat equivalent, 336,000 tons for the year 1947-48; 327,000 tons for 1948-49; 381,000 tons for 1949-50; and 437,000 tons for 1950-51.
I am accusing Deputy Dillon of deliberately misleading the House.
Barley, 66,000 tons in 1947-48; 86,000 tons in 1948-49; 86,000tons in 1949-50 and the same quantity in 1950-51. Maize, 392,000 tons in 1948, 441,000 tons in 1949, 490,000 tons in 1950, 580,000 tons in 1951; rice, 3,500 tons in each of these four years. Oil cakes, 40,000 tons in 1947-48; 45,000 tons in 1948-49; 50,000 tons in 1949-50 and 50,000 tons in 1950-51; raw sugar, 49,000 tons in 1947-48; 40,000 tons in 1948-49; 40,000 tons in 1949-50 and 40,000 tons in 1950-51. On page nine we find: Fish, fresh and frozen, nil; vegetables 10,000 tons in 1947-48 and the same quantity in each of the three subsequent years, to the value of 1,000,000 dollars American currency.
The Deputy is deliberately misinterpreting that statement.
I stake my reputation that on page 9 of this document there appears this entry. It is an official White Paper of the Government of the Republic of Ireland and the entry is: Vegetables, 10,000 tons to the value of 1,000,000 dollars.
I challenge the Deputy to read paragraph three of the very first page of that document.
Dried fruit: 10,000 tons in 1947-48 to the value of $2,800,000 and the same quantity in 1948-49, 1949-50 and 1950-51. Wine: 30,000 hectolitres to the value of $1,800,000 in 1947-48; 35,000 hectolitres to the value of $2,000,000 in 1948-49; 35,000 hectolitres to the value of $2,100,000 in 1949-50 and 35,000 hectolitres to the value of $2,100,000 in 1950-51. Tea: 11,000 tons to the value of $18,000,000 in each of the four years. Cocoa: 2,500 tons to the value of $1,800,000 in each of the four years. Coffee: .8,000 tons to the value of $480,000 in each of the four years. Tobacco: 6.2,000 tons to the value of $8,000,000 in each of the four years. The reason I directed the attention of the House to these figures is that this was Deputy de Valera's own estimate of his proposed imports during the six years.
It was not.
It was for the purpose of procuring currency facilities toensure that the State would be able to effect these imports in those years that he participated in Marshall Aid when he said, as I pointed out earlier to-day, that he would not approach good friends for help if he did not feel that the document on which he founded his justification for seeking this help was an honest document. The document I read out to this House is the document to which he then referred.
A document from which the Deputy has wilfully omitted all the vital conditions. Will the Deputy read the conditions?
It does not refer to Marshall Aid at all.
I say to the Minister for Finance and to Deputy Moran who is interested to explain that this did not refer to Marshall Aid at all: would the Minister for Finance tell me why did Deputy Smith, who was then Minister for Agriculture, charter a special plane to fly to Paris, of all places in the world, with a fleet of civil servants to be followed by the Minister for Industry and Commerce, who came from Amsterdam to Paris? Why did the Taoiseach charter another special plane and go to Paris with 20 civil servants in that special plane and dine with the British Ambassador to celebrate their mutual participation——
The Deputy said all that before.
I said that and these two gentlemen say that this document had no reference to Marshall Aid.
It has a reference to O.E.E.C., as the Deputy well knows.
That does not justify repetition.
The Deputy is well aware that the figures given in the document he is referring to were figures given as estimates by all the democracies to O.E.E.C., some of whom had no intention or did not, in fact, borrow any American money.
Who?
Furthermore, our Government, if we had a right Government, would not have borrowed American money.
Go back to Mayo.
Deputy Dillon, without interruption.
You see, their sins found them out and it is the sin of falsehood that was found out.
This is the finest attempt at a three-card trick that I have ever listened to.
Will Deputy Dillon please come to the measure before the House? What relation has that to the measure before the House?
The relation is the Finance Bill. The Minister for Finance has repeatedly said that the contents of the Bill are substantially due to improvident borrowing and spending of Marshall Aid funds by his predecessor. Is that not the whole defence of his Budget?
I have not stopped the Deputy from dealing with that.
Now that they have their ears nailed to the post, the Minister and his supporters are contorting in an effort to get their ears off the post, but they cannot. The truth is the truth and it cannot be avoided.
The House ought to know that the document from which I am now reading was only put in the Library as a result of parliamentary questions put down by Deputy Mulcahy. The Government of 1947 were very reluctant to put it in the Library. They said that it would be too expensive to put it in the Library and to circulate it. Look at it. They said that it would be too expensive to circulate this booklet to the Deputies of this House, that it would cost too much to duplicate. However, they put a couple of copies in the Library. Was it not lucky that we got it put in the Library?
Did you not know all about it? Was it not there on the file?
Was it not lucky that we discovered what our predecessors had stipulated for when they joined the Marshall Plan?
They did not.
"They did not"! Well, when they flew in chartered planes to Paris—we know not why or wherefore —they met somebody in Paris and they agreed to something with somebody in Paris. One of the by-products of that mysterious agreement in Paris, which was celebrated by a dinner held in the British Embassy that night, was this document here. Having negotiated that settlement, they flew back to Dublin in the chartered plane, having discharged their bill in Claridge's Hotel in Paris. Now, perhaps Deputy Moran, who was in their confidence then, will tell us who they met in Paris and what brought them to Paris.
They did not leave a bill to America, like you did.
Deputy Dillon without interruption.
I am hoping to persuade Deputy Moran to intervene in the debate in order to throw a flood of light on this whole situation. We should like to hear his version of this transaction.
You will.
I should most particularly enjoy hearing from him whom the Taoiseach was talking to when he put his hand upon his heart and said that he approached old friends for help only when he was in a position to do so.
The Deputy has said that at least half-a-dozen times already.
I am asking Deputy Moran to whom the Taoiseach said that. Deputy Moran says that it was not to the Marshall Plan people—that it was not with the Marshall Plan in mind that he said it. But if the Fianna Fáil Deputies think he did say it, he said it to somebody. He did not say it to the birds in the bushes or to the blossoms on the chestnut trees of theAvenue du Bois de Boulogne. He said it to somebody. Who, and why?
Having, with amusement, listened to Deputy Dillon for an hour, we can now come back to the discussion of the Finance Bill. I was rather angry with my friend, Deputy Cowan, to-day for his attack on Deputy Dillon and for saying that Deputy Dillon was not in favour of public works. We had some interruptions from Deputy S. Collins—I am glad that he has just come into the House now—in connection with a new Dáil that was going to be built. Deputy Collins made some interruptions at that point and evidently wanted some information. I will give him the information if, first, he will have a little bit of patience.
My interruption was to the effect that some of the members of the Dáil ought to be changed.
I will quote now from a speech made by Deputy Dillon on the 25th May, 1945, as reported in the Official Report, Volume 97, column 1027:—
"This is a time when we should mobilise credit and use it boldly and resolve, if necessary, to repay it over the next 100 years. The extension of credit should not deter us from embarking on bold schemes at the present time, always provided that they are good schemes. As a start in that direction, one good thing would be to build a new Oireachtas, and it would prove to be an economy in the long run. We are eternally patching and tinkering with these buildings in order to make them adequate to fulfil the functions of an efficient Parliament. It is common knowledge that half the Deputies cannot find accommodation in which to write a letter. Even the Ministers' rooms are inadequate and they have no proper facilities. We are trying to get our meals in a restaurant which is built on top of the boiler-house and in which no person could sit in the months of August and September. The permanent officials are obliged to sit in cramped quarters up at thetop and their teeth are made to chatter with the noises of the machinery in the basement, because we are trying to dislodge a beetle through the medium of a vacuum cleaner in the roof. I understand that the roof is now infested with beetles and that it shall have to be rebuilt."
How is that relevant to the discussion before the House?
I am showing the mind and the policy that was behind the indiscriminate borrowing. That is a statement that was made by Deputy Dillon in this House on the 25th May, 1945.
That may be so, but it is not relevant to this measure.
I do not know what beetles or what roof Deputy Dillon was alluding to but, judging by what we heard from him this afternoon, he certainly has bats in his belfry. In pursuance of that policy of mobilising credit—"use it boldly and resolve, if necessary, to repay it over the next 100 years"—those people in 1948 borrowed and they borrowed again and they borrowed again on top of that and they borrowed the fourth time on top of it all. Unlike Deputy Dillon, I am not going to go back to the dark ages. I will give another little quotation now. It is from the Official Report of the 23rd April, 1952, Volume 131, column 168. The heading of the question was "State Borrowings":—
"Mr. Corry asked the Minister for Finance if he will state the total amount of State borrowing (a) in each of the years 1947-48 to 1951-52, inclusive, (b) in the years 1932-33 to 1947-48, inclusive, and (c) in the years 1923-24 to 1931-32, inclusive.
Mr. MacEntee: The net amounts borrowed for Exchequer purposes in the years mentioned by the Deputy were as follows:—
(a) 1947-48, £5,004,500."
That, of course, was to fill the Budget blank—since Deputy Dillon has been talking about the £500,000 Budget deficit there was to be—which was leftby reason of the cheap pint and the cheap cigarettes which Deputies opposite when they came into office gave back to the boys when they reduced the taxes put on beer and cigarettes. For that purpose, they borrowed £5,004,000 so that for the next 30 years the people of this country will be paying in principal and in interest for the cheap fag and the cheap pint the boys got in 1948. In 1948-49, the amount borrowed was £8,951,000; in 1949-50, £20,539,000; in 1950-51 £21,686,000; and in 1951-52, £38,938,000. That is a total in borrowing of £94,000,000 odd to run this bit of an island for three and a half years— £14,000,000 more than the total amount borrowed by the Cumann na nGaedheal Government and the Fianna Fáil Government in a period of 24 years. They borrowed £14,000,000 more to run this bit of an island for three and a half years than was borrowed by the two previous Governments to run the country up to the time they came in.
The Ceann Comhairle may ask me how that affects the present financial system. I will tell the House how it affects it. At column 167 of the Dáil Debates of that date, there is the following:—
"Mr. Corry asked the Minister for Finance if he will state
(1) the total amount payable and paid in interest and sinking fund in the financial years 1947-48, and
(2) the total amount payable in interest and sinking fund in the financial year 1952-53."
The Minister replied that the figure for interest in 1947-48 was £3,095,714, and in 1952-53, £7,354,700. For sinking funds, the figures were £1,128,620 in 1947-48, and £2,725,700 for 1952-53. The total amount that had to be paid in principal and interest for money borrowed over a period of 24 years in 1947-48 was £4,224,334, while the total amount that had to be paid in principal and interest on borrowed money when Deputy MacEntee came back as Minister for Finance was £10,080,400, with the addition this year, I understand, of the first repayment on the Marshall Loan of £1,200,000, which means that £11,200,000 a year must begot by taxation from the people to pay for the spree that Government had here for three and a half years. We hear Deputies opposite looking for a reduction in the spirit duty and a reduction in the price of the pint, but the total extra amount put on spirits and on the price of the pint would not cover the payment of the interest alone on what they borrowed during the three and a half years they were in office.
Let us get clear on these things. We had the same cry the other day in connection with the reduction of the subsidies. I heard the reduction and abolition of subsidies preached in this House before, and I know who the archpriest of that doctrine was. At column 2048 of Volume 106 of the Dáil Debates of 18th June, 1947, we find Deputy Dillon saying this:—
"We are subsidising butter production to the tune of £2,000,000 per annum. How long will that go on? Do we expect butter to get dearer in the markets of the world? Do we expect a time in the early future when the price of milk will become so adjusted that it will be possible to suspend this subsidy or do we intend to continue producing milk for conversion into butter in creameries at an annual cost to the taxpayer of £2,000,000 per annum? I want it to go on record most emphatically that I think such a policy is sheer insanity and is purely pursued for the purpose of maintaining the prestige of incompetents in the office of the Minister for Agriculture since Fianna Fáil came into power."
That is rather a strange statement, but it accounts for a lot. It accounts for the "bob" a gallon which Deputy Dillon offered the farmers for their milk, and the resultant reduction of the number of milch cows in the country by 54,000 in 12 months. As the Deputy said: "You cannot produce a calf in a month," and the effects of his activities on the live-stock trade of the country will live for a long time after. That is his first statement, and that was the result of his action. Then he comes in here and glibly demands to know why the subsidies were taken off. According to him it was sheer insanity to pay a subsidy on butter, or even toproduce butter from milk at all. That was his solemn statement. I think it was Deputy MacEoin who raised a matter in connection with the building of the new Houses of the Oireachtas on the Adjournment. Now he knows who got the brainwave—it was his own Jamesy.
I told the Deputy already that terms of that kind should not be used.
I withdraw it, Sir.
Only for Deputy MacEoin, Deputy Corry would not be even a member of the Dáil.
I have been a member of the Dáil for the past 26 years.
We know what happened.
As a matter of fact, I took part in the by-election at which Deputy MacEoin was elected a Deputy.
You have another reason to remember it, too.
The baby will learn a little, if he will listen.
I was a Deputy a long time before that.
And filled your position, I am glad to say, with honour. I would not expect anything else from you. However, that is one result of the activities of Deputy James Dillon and one of the reasons for our financial position. I wish Deputies would adopt an entirely different attitude towards these matters—I think we would do better if we did. The kind of stuff that was dished out to us to-day is no benefit and no credit to this Dáil or to any House.
When we see a certain condition of affairs obtaining in regard to agricultural production, we wonder what is the reason for it.
"We had the enthralling, stimulating and surprising experience of eating bread made out of Irishwheat. Before you ate it you had to hold it out in your hands, squeeze the water out of it, then tease it out and make up your mind whether it was a handful of boot polish or a handful of bread. If it was boot polish you put it on your boots or shoes, and if it was bread you tried to masticate it if you were fit."
That was a statement made by Deputy Dillon, 1947.
The Deputy is making quotations which do not seem to me to be in any way relevant to the matter before the House.
I will make them relevant very quickly. In 1947 we produced here 579,000 acres of wheat. In 1948 we had 518,000 acres. Then we had the man that could not masticate it and the acreage fell to 362,000 acres.
But the yield was better.
In 1951, it fell to 281,000 acres.
Give the figures for the tonnage.
I have not got them.
If the Deputy gets the figures he will see that the 300,000 acres produced a bigger yield than the 518,000.
We will hear Deputy Collins later on that. There was a reduction from 579,000 to 281,000 acres.
Give us the tonnage yield.
And that reduction came about because the Minister who was in charge of agriculture then stated that he could not look at or deal with Irish wheat.
We got a bigger yield from the 200,000 acres than you got from the 500,000 acres.
What was the result? There was a reduction in oats from 826,000 acres in 1947 to 619,000 acres in 1951. As between 1948 and 1951 there was a reduction in the grain acreage of 488,891. We hear a good deal aboutunemployment and so forth. Let us examine the position in regard to the root acreage.
The Deputy should read the Taoiseach's proposals to the O.E.E.C. organisation.
The acreage under beet fell from 66,000 acres in 1948 to 59,000 acres in 1951. Potatoes fell from 385,000 acres to 321,000 acres. Turnips fell from 151,000 acres to 128,000 acres. The total reduction in the acreage of root crops was 114,162 acres and the total reduction in tillage was 603,000 acres. I am not at all surprised that we had to borrow money to buy food abroad for our people, food that should and could have been produced at home.
You proposed that reduction in 1947.
That reduction was carried out under the policy of a Minister in the inter-Party Government. I have read what he said about wheat. The Deputy might like to know what he said about wheat. On the same occasion he said:—
"There remains beet—the blessings of beet! Some day, and in the not far distant time, our people will have to ask themselves whether it is in the best interests of the community as a whole to continue the production of sugar from beet in this country at an annual cost to the community of £3,000,000 sterling."
I have already told the Deputy that he is using quotations which are not relevant.
I am giving the quotation as relevant to the reduction of 10,000 acres in the beet grown here during the period when Deputy Dillon was Minister for Agriculture and I am relating that to the fact that a sum of £3,000,000 had to be sent to Formosa to purchase there 74,000 tons of Formosan brown sugar to be brought in here to feed the Irish people. That is where the money went.
How much Belgian and Cuban sugar has been brought in this year?
We had a solemn declaration from two Ministers in the inter-Party Government, Deputy Dillon and Deputy Morrissey, that they were prepared to pay for that 74,000 tons of foreign sugar £1,000,000 more to the Formosan than they were prepared to pay to the Irish farmer, the Irish labourer and factory workers to produce it at home.
What about the Argentine wheat?
There is the result: £12 a ton on 74,000 tons of sugar. I would like Deputies to consider these matters seriously. I would like them to examine the facts for themselves. I am glad to say that so far as the rural community is concerned that state of affairs has changed with the change of Government and the change of Ministers. Instead of buying 74,000 tons of sugar abroad we intend to produce that sugar at home.
It is coming in from Belgium and Cuba at the moment.
We have 10,500 more acres under beet this year as compared with last year.
Go down to the docks and see what is coming in there.
That represents at least 200,000 tons of beet. Think of the amount of employment that will provide. Think of the 150 Mayo men who were packed, ready to go over to England, but who were brought down to Cork instead and given decent employment there. They are earning now from £10 to £15 per week and they do not have to eat horse flesh or asses. They get decent Irish meat. That is one item in the relief of unemployment. Think of the labour content and the money that will be spent in Fitting that 200,000 acres of beet, in conveying it to the factories and in processing it into sugar. Think of the £3,000,000 that we are keeping here in this country this year for the benefit of the farmer, the farm labourer, C.I.E.and the workers in the sugar factories. That is where Deputy Dillon's policy was wrong—the man who advised the blowing up of the beet factories as the wisest thing that could be done on behalf of the Irish taxpayer. And then we had the lunacy of putting this man in charge of that industry for three and a half years.
The Minister for Finance described them as being white elephants.
Other statements were made here to-day. Deputy Rooney had the neck to tell us that the grain committee of the Beet Growers' Association had reduced the price of barley.
And I told him it was not relevant. The Deputy may not now discuss the matter.
Unfortunately, the evil men do lives after them. When Deputy Rooney accused in this House a responsible organisation of reducing the price of malting barley on the farmers they represented surely——
I told Deputy Rooney that in so far as the impact of taxation under this Bill on the distilling industry affected barley growing he was entitled to refer to it but not on any alleged reduction agreed upon by some body.
I will deal with the matter in that light. Deputy Dillon, when he occupied the benches over here as Minister for Agriculture, told the unfortunate farmers about the £2,000,000 Fianna Fáil had offered and when he was asked to remove the controlled price for barley so as to give us the chance of getting back some of the £2,000,000——
The impact of taxation in this measure on the distilling industry as it affects the production of barley is the only matter relevant.
And the Deputy should be confined to that.
If I am to be confined to that and if I am not allowed to goback as far as Deputy Dillon did a while ago, I will approach the matter in this way. The agreement made by the grain committee of the Beet Growers' Association——
I have ruled out any agreement or alleged agreement made. I cannot allow the Deputy to proceed on that line.
I want to show to the House the exact impact——
The Deputy will discuss the impact of taxation in this measure on the distilling industry as it affects barley production in this country or not at all.
As far as the distilling industry is concerned, the impact does not count at all and should not count. Barley will be taken in this year which is supposed to be released from bond in the form of whiskey in seven or ten years hence.
Contracts are down 40 per cent.
The whiskey released from bond this year was made from barley produced ten years ago.
You cannot get away from the fact that the contracts are down by 40 per cent.
Or it was produced from the foreign barley allowed in by Deputy Dillon when he assumed office. I have very little sympathy, as I said before, for the distilling trade as far as that is concerned. The distilling industry, so far as I know it, is the industry which purchased barley under price and had to be forced into the courts and made disgorge its unjust profits. It comes each year now and makes its bargain half a dollar a barrel under the price given by Arthur Guinness. Two years ago the Grain Growers' Association got back for the farmers of this country over £2,500,000, the difference between 57/6 and 84/- a barrel because the agreement was that the Irish farmer would get for his barley 2/6 a barrel over what any English farmer would get. This year the Irish farmer will receive for hismalting barley 3/9 a barrel more than any English farmer will get.
For all they produce?
For all that will be purchased under contract.
The contracts are down by 40 per cent.
If the Deputy wants to know anything about them let him ask the farmers in my constituency who told the brewers and the distillers that they did not want their contracts because the present Minister for Agriculture, Deputy Tom Walsh, protected them by keeping out the maize which Deputy Rooney was looking for. Last year they made £48 an acre.
Forty-eight shillings a barrel.
They made £48 an acre on their feeding barley as against £32 10s. from the brewers or the distillers for ten barrels to the acre. Those are facts. Let us not boast about something that does not occur. Due to the manner in which our Minister for Agriculture has worked the matter out, feeding barley to-day is a better proposition than malting barley for the ordinary farmer of this country who knows his job. Last year Messrs. Guinness got frightened. They made a bargain with us in November and last February they changed it. It cost them 10/- a barrel. They paid us 10/-a barrel more than the English farmer got this year because of the price we fixed and because we knew what we were doing. We caught them. This year they sent for us again. They said: "Look, there is your 2/6 a barrel." I said: "That is no good. I want 3/9", and I got the 3/9 a barrel over the British price.
Guinness did not take all the barley they contracted to take from the farmers. It was left on their hands.
I do not want to argue with the Deputy, but these are the facts, and facts are stubborn things.
There were 36,000 barrels of barley left on the hands of the farmers in my constituency last year.
Whatever sympathy the distillers might expect from the ordinary farmer they lost it on the day they closed down for three days. When they reopened they offered a price of 50/- a barrel. They either wanted the barley or they did not. They bought at 50/-, and that is the barley that "Paddy Flaherty" is made from.
That happens only in Cork.
I am sorry that Deputy Sweetman is not here because I had to fix up one of his clients. Despite Deputy Sweetman's advice, all his barley was taken from him.
The Deputy should come to the Bill.
I am sorry, but these interruptions annoy me.
Did you throw your barley contract back to the brewers?
No fear of it.
You advised others to do it.
I did not.
These interruptions must cease.
I have shown what the financial burden is. We have been told of the money that was left on the table. Do the Deputies opposite forget what they did? Do they forget that, even though the arbitration award in regard to the Civil Service was also on the table to the tune of £3,600,000, they made no provision for it? That will have to come out of the nest egg which they are supposed to have left on the table for the present Minister for Finance. Do they also forget that they made no provision that year for C.I.E. losses which amounted to £1,800,000? Are they also aware that, in regard to the fuel subsidy, they left a debt of £2,700,000? Are they also aware of the letters whichwere sent out from Departments after the Dáil was dissolved and which put an extra burden on the taxpayers of £875,000?
We heard a lot here to-day of the £500,000 which is supposed to have been divided between Deputy Cogan for voting for the Government and Deputy Lehane for not voting at all, but we did not hear very much about the £2,800,000 which was dished out to officials of the local authorities, or of the letters that were sent out three days after the Dáil had been dissolved, at a time when the Ministers in those Departments were only in the position of caretakers.
I think these are facts which will take some answering. In regard to the letters that were sent out to the local authorities, they are already on record. I do not want to read them again. These were some of the debts that were piled high on the table waiting for Deputy MacEntee to pay off when he came in again as Minister for Finance. What about the £94,000,000 which the last Government borrowed and the £7,200,000 that will have to be lifted from the people of this country in the form of taxation over the next 50 years to meet interest charges and pay for the last Government's spree?
I, like every other Deputy, am worried about unemployment conditions in my constituency. Last week, the Taoiseach invited all Deputies to put forward any proposals they had to make in regard to the relief of unemployment in their areas. In pursuance of that invitation, I had four questions on the Order Paper this week. In view of the statements made here by various Deputies with regard to unemployment, I was surprised to see that I was the only Deputy who had accepted the invitation. I am worried, for instance, as to the position of affairs in Cobh.
After the by-election you should be.
No. I am more proud of the results of the by-election than I ever was before. There are always thousands there to vote for Corry, and the Deputy will learn that the nexttime. The people opposite refused to find the money for the erection of a sheet mill in Cobh. I am anxious about that mill and about the 100 people who find employment there.
Mr. O'Higgins
Is it in order on this stage of the Bill for a Deputy to discuss matters of detail?
I have endeavoured to keep the Deputy to matters relevant to the Bill, but I have not succeeded.
I heard Deputy Cowan, Deputy Dillon and other Deputies speak to-day on conditions relating to unemployment.
The Deputy has been dealing with unemployment in his area. That is not relevant on this stage of the Bill.
Deputy Cowan spoke one and a half hours on housing in Dublin. If there is a special brief under which Dublin Deputies can speak of Dublin and country Deputies cannot speak for their areas, then we should know that.
The Chair is not giving any special advice to any Deputy.
I agree. I am only making a general appeal to Deputies that it is their duty, in response to the appeal that was made by the Taoiseach last week, to think out various means by which unemployment can be relieved in their constituencies and areas. We have a condition of affairs in the town of Fermoy——
Mr. O'Higgins
Again, is it in order for the Deputy to go into details?
I cannot allow the Deputy to proceed on those lines.
In conclusion, I want to give advice, and it is rather bitter advice, to Deputies in general, and that is to see that when their proposals are put in that they are not spiked; that they will not be getting, as I got in response to my question yesterday, a departmental decision on something which was looked for five or six months ago, but which was not given out until 12 o'clock on the day of the poll.
The purpose of the Finance Bill is to implement in general the budgetary policy of the Government. This year the Finance Bill is virtually a repeat of last year's; therefore, it becomes relevant to discuss two successive years of bludgeoning Government economic stupidity. I propose, with your permission, Sir, in addressing my remarks to the subject to keep within the rules of relevancy.
The consequences of the Government's policy are now apparent. They can be mainly grouped under three headings: a catastrophic rise in unemployment, a disastrous increase in emigration and what one might describe as a general uncertainty and uneasy depression in trade, business, and various types of economic endeavour within the State.
With the glorious naïveté that sometimes he can achieve, the Taoiseach in the recent vote of confidence brushed aside the question of rising unemployment on the basis of appealing to the House to put in schemes that will give employment and that they will be dealt with on their merits. It is poor consolation indeed to the people who in an effort to impress their dire economic distress on the country are having to resort to forced marches, sit down strikes on main thoroughfares and other methods of focussing attention on their plight in the main within the city.
I am not one who would purport to say in this House that there was an easy solution to the unemployment problem but I cannot see how an economic policy of a Government that increases taxation—to use the very expression of the Taoiseach himself— to its limit and leaves the people under a staggering burden, can be calculated to arrest rising unemployment, or how the Government can expect initiative and effort from people with capital to speculate, people with business to expand, in the situation of increased taxation and of curtailment of purchasing power of the public.
I cannot fathom the purpose behind all this, a situation deliberately created by the Government where more and more money is being forcedout of circulation by virtue of the fact that the ever-grasping hand of revenue is after it. There is no substantial compensation given to the community for the direct action of a Government that increased the cost of living by not less than 17 points. There is no commensurate compensation in earning capacity for that. Do you expect in that situation, a people over-taxed, with the cost of consumer goods 17 per cent. higher than heretofore, to face anything but depression? Let the Government face the reality of the situation and they will find that if they want a cure for unemployment and emigration, the cure is in their own hands. The stimulus that is necessary to the people is not an as-you-were policy with regard to taxation. Continuing this burden described as staggering by various members of the Government for a further year is hardly the way to encourage people to go out after expansion, increased production and, as a consequence, increased employment.
I say to the Taoiseach and his Government that there is a simple solution to part of their unemployment problem if the Minister for Finance has the courage to call in the various people engaged in industry here, discuss with them where tax reliefs will enable them to expand, to improve conditions of employment and, even if it may be termed a type of bribe, let tax alleviation and compensatory tax reliefs go to people who are prepared in the situation of national difficulty to expand in a reasonable way the amount of employment they are giving. It is better to have people in employment in industry which is expanding by virtue of tax concessions and tax reliefs than to have growing queues in the unemployment exchanges and ever-increasing queues to the emigrant ship. As I have said too often in this House, the emigrant we lose particularly in the initial stages of manhood or womanhood in the formative years of 18 to 21, is a loss that we can count as permanent because the number that ever returns is virtually nil, especially of those that return as useful citizens. People may say that some will return but, in the main, the boy and girl who leaveIreland in the initial stages of their career, if they come back, will only do so at a ripe old age to live out the autumn of their lives in their homeland.
This Finance Bill gives us a real opportunity of reviewing what Government financial policy has been responsible for. The whole design of the Government's financial policy has been to create an atmosphere of uncertainty, depression in business, and so on. As far as that is concerned, we see the immediate consequences in the meteoric rise in unemployment and in the ever-growing flow of emigration. Incidentally, things that arise in regard to the tax levied here fit into the over-all picture, too. Let us look at what the over-all picture is and do not let us delude ourselves for a moment. Unemployment at its extraordinarily high figure is a stark reality as is emigration with its ever-increasing flow. Nobody in this House, no matter how devoted and loyal a follower of the chief he may be, will deny that the general state of trade and commerce throughout the length and breadth of the country is infinitely worse to-day than it was two years ago since fortuitous circumstances allowed the present inept Administration to take control.
There is more in this discussion than the bludgeoning impact of this tax on various trades. It seems extraordinary that a Minister for Finance, the one and only Deputy Seán MacEntee, can to-day defend, with typical political adroitness, the imposition of the taxes on beer and spirits in the light of his Rathmines speech on the eve of a general election when, with political acumen, he sought to quell the ever-increasing rumour that if Fianna Fáil were returned to power there would be a return to the taxes of the 1947 Supplementary Budget. To assure everybody that that was not so, apart from what Deputy Seán Lemass had to say, Deputy MacEntee as he was then, said there was no foundation whatever for such a rumour.
He had not well warmed the seat in his office in the Department of Finance when that was recanted and the peoplein the distilling industry and the licensed trade found that the only truth that was not in the rumour was that it was not going to be the 1947 tax but a new and increased bludgeon which the Minister had conceived in the meantime.
The situation is that one particular type of trade has suffered a staggering body blow from the caprice of a slightly indignant Minister who realised that the 1947 Budget had been a mistake, but was now going to give a salutary lesson to the Irish people for deigning to say that it had been wrong by hitting them infinitely harder when the opportunity presented itself. That is the background and pattern of that particular facet of the taxation that this Finance Bill imposed.
It goes a lot deeper than that. We have to view this matter in the light of the opinion that has been expressed by the Irish people since the full impact of the reduction of subsidies has been felt, since the full effect of the hair shirt policy of this Government, this austerity type of economy, has been felt by the people, in the light of the successive clamour of North-West Dublin, Limerick, East Cork and Wicklow.
And North Mayo and Waterford.
Unfortunately, the effect of your stupidity had not then become completely apparent.
It turned a Coalition majority into a minority.
Let us face the issue. This Finance Bill does no more than continue the stupidity of last May 12 months. The Government, clinging as it is, like a limpet, to the last vestige that gives power, patronage and privilege, must wake up and realise that an opportunity was presented to the Irish people to adjudge that policy in its full effect in North-West Dublin, Wicklow and East Cork. It was not until these by-elections that the removal of the subsidies, the raid on the cupboards of the householders and the impact of the various taxes were felt by the Irish people. The moment that became areality, at each successive opportunity the people in these constituencies, a city constituency, an East coast constituency and a South-East coast constituency, representing a very fair cross-section of the general public, gave a salutary answer and expressed what they think of Government economic policy.
They do not believe and we do not believe that it was necessary to adopt that policy in this country, credit-worthy as it is. The Irish Republic, thanks be to God, is one of the greatest creditor nations, one of the most financially sound nations in the world to-day. We do not believe that any Government is entitled to indulge in an economic policy that is based on false premises, that is forcing more and more Irish people into the ranks of the unemployed and more and more Irish boys and girls out of the country. We are strengthened in that belief by the effective answer given by the Irish people in the trials of strength we have had since the full impact of that economic policy has come to bear upon them.
If this Government is in earnest about arresting depression, unemployment and emigration it has either of two solutions. The first and most effective one would be to get out. There is every indication that they do not propose to do that. The second solution, which I give to the Fianna Fáil Government for what it is worth, is that the Minister for Finance should confer with his revenue experts and he will be able to find, through the medium of certain tax concessions, a way to stimulate initiative in industry and to encourage development that will give increased industrial employment forthwith. Having done that, he can proceed to discussions with responsible people in the Board of Works, the Land Commission, Fisheries, and various other Departments operating schemes of development throughout Ireland. He will find an immense variety of useful practical schemes, from breakwaters and piers to river clearance and various types of State-aided industry, as adjuncts to fishing, into which to put solid money which will create employment for peoplewhere it is needed most, in rural Ireland. In that way we could put a brake on the ever-growing exodus from rural Ireland into the cities that is swelling unemployment queues in the cities and the ever-increasing flow of people out of the land altogether.
This Finance Bill gives us an opportunity to look at the picture as we now see it. As I said before—and I am not going to delay the House inordinately at this stage of the Bill, as I feel sure the House is anxious to dispose of it to-day—looking at the picture now it is a sorry one compared with one of a country geared for effort, people going more and more each month into employment, and productivity on the land increasing month by month. That was the picture we could look at only two years ago. To-day we look at a picture the background of which is haunted by the three most miserable spectres that can affect any Government—the scowl of unemployment in one corner, the growl of emigration in another, and the general gloom of growing depression as a background to the two. That is a tribute to the inept, ill-conceived, ill-judged, bludgeoning financial policy that this Government has succeeded in forcing on this country, and in two years reducing it to a country in which even the people in steady and effective employment are getting restless to the extent of trying to find other lands to which to emigrate, themselves and their complete families, where they feel there will be stability and security in some new country. It is a terrible travesty of the sacrifices made that this should be a free, independent country, that an Irish Government reduced to such a state the general morale of the people. People may think it is an exaggeration, but if the Government does not do something quickly to expand employment at home and effectively put into operation schemes to give work to the people who want work and are clamouring for work, they will find that the labour troubles and the difficulties already being created by unemployed men seeking work in this country are only in their initial stages, and they will willy-nilly leave this country a breeding ground for many worse evils, ifthey do not adopt some practical policy of amelioration and get to work at the job of finding decent employment for people of Irish origin and Irish descent at home in their own country.
This Government is too complacent about the present situation. The Taoiseach by-passes it, the Minister for Finance sneers at it, and his interest in unemployment is purely at the moment a question of the cut and thrust of Party politics. It is time that this House, dealing as it is with this finance measure, realised that we have a collective responsibility as distinct from Governments or Parties or anything else, to ensure as rapidly as possible that we undo the unrest and unease and general lack of trust and confidence that is growing in the Irish people. It can only be done by the Government acting with an effectiveness that will give boys and girls the realisation that there is a future at home and that it is not necessary for them to become once more part of the new emigrant stream, who may not only take with them their own young and bright lives but may also take with them the hope of this country, suffering as it is at the moment from falling birth-rate, inordinately high rates of unmarried people and falling population generally. It may be in this very hour and this very age that we will by our ineptitude in this Dáil and by our lack of appreciation of the critical situation that is arising generally for the Irish people, ultimately carry the responsibility in this 14th Dáil of being the people who in a critical period allowed such an exodus from Ireland as made it impossible for the rehabilitation and re-establishment of this State in its full virile youthful exuberance. We may find ourselves answering to posterity ultimately for a failure to be able to keep a reasonable proportion of Irish boys and girls at home in Ireland. I say to the Minister for Finance that the time has come for him to recant the hair-shirt economy and to view the situation as it really is, and not to view it on the basis of "dot, dash, plus one or plus two"— view it on the basis of the human misery and suffering that has resulted for this country from his economicpolicy, and have the courage to undo that and no matter what the economic theorists may say have the courage to end as quickly as possible the ever increasing load of human sorrow and misery that this type of hair-shirt policy is inflicting indiscriminately on all sections of the Irish people.
I rise in this debate mainly to try, as they say in America, to put the records right and not to allow Deputy Dillon to get away with it either in this House or in the country. At attempt was made by him here to-day to share responsibility for the Marshall Aid borrowing by himself and his colleagues with the Party on this side of the House. Mind you, it is only quite recently that this change of policy has come about in the opposite benches. We were told till quite recently what a wonderful thing this borrowing under Marshall Aid was both for the nation and for our people individually, but now that the time has come to pay the piper, now that the people of this State, through this Budget and the preceding Budget, have got to pay the piper and to put right the financial consequences of the borrowings of Deputy Dillon and his colleagues, the boys on the opposite benches have considered that the time is ripe to try to put over on this side of the House some of the blame that is now coming back to them, trying to pass over some of the chickens that have now come home to roost on the Fine Gael Benches to this side of the House. Of course, to do that and to do it well, they had to get the greatest illusionist sitting on those benches. There was a man in this country called "The Great Bamboozlem" and he was certainly an excellent illusionist; and in order to create this illusion here to-day Deputy Dillon was brought into this House to carry on for hours putting this particular construction on a document, a query and a reply to it which was sent to our Government by the organisation known as the O.E.E.C., to try to suggest that the reply of our Government to the query that was sent by O.E.E.C. on the 23rd July, 1947, constituted, in effect, in some peculiar twist of Deputy Dillon's imagination, a request for MarshallAid by this State. Now I think that nobody in the House but Deputy Dillon would have the neck to try to put the interpretation on this query and on the reply to this query that he has attempted in this House to-day; but in order to keep the records right, I intend to quote from this document that he has been waving around in this House to-day, and to quote the portions of it that Deputy Dillon deliberately refrained from quoting.
In the first place, let Deputy Dillon be clear that the committee of O.E.E.C. was set up to take stock of the position of all countries in Europe at that particular time, round about June or July of 1947.
Of all participating countries.
For the purpose of finding out what was the position in each of the European countries a query was addressed to every European democracy that joined in that organisation asking them for a balance sheet of their national affairs as far as productivity was concerned and so far as their needs were concerned. This document that Deputy Dillon was quoting from here to-day was not all of a sudden compiled by the Irish Government of its own volition at the time. This document was in answer to a query sent to the Irish Government by the O.E.E.C. organisation. The same query was sent to this country as was sent to all those other democracies, in Europe and elsewhere, some of whom did not even apply for or avail of Marshall Aid. Deputy Dillon challenged me to name any of these European nations. Neither Switzerland nor Sweden, both members of this organisation, either asked for Marshall Aid or borrowed any money under it. They got the same query as we got and they sent the balance sheet and estimates that we sent, in accordance with their own economic resources. What Deputy Dillon refused to read or to quote to the House was from the first, second, third and fourth paragraphs of this draft questionnaire which was prepared by the O.E.E.C. and sent to uson the 23rd July, 1947. The first paragraph of it reads:—
"In accordance with O.E.E.C./12/ paragraphs 2 and 3—reports to be provided by each country should include a short statement of the efforts made up to date, of the contributions made by each country to the reconstruction of other countries."
The answer to that query would not be for the purpose of borrowing or for the purpose of seeking aid from anybody. It went on:—
"In regard to national programmes for the period 1947 to 1951, inclusive, each country should give a brief account of its production plans for those years."
It asked for the plans of the countries for the years mentioned, and continued:—
"In addition, the annexed questionnaire should be completed. Its purpose is to secure detailed information which will enable the committee to draw up a balance sheet of resources and requirements in respect of the most important items of agricultural produce, foodstuffs and means of production for the participating countries as a whole."
There is nothing about borrowing in that.
There is this request in paragraph 3, a vital paragraph, to submit a balance sheet from each country showing both resources and requirements:—
"Committee No. 1, on the basis of the replies to this questionnaire, will draw up a balance sheet showing import deficits and export surpluses of all participating countries for essential products..."
What have export surpluses to do with borrowing, I would like to know? It continues:—
"(a) which enter substantially into their trade with the Americas and
(b) other countries which constitute an important element in international trade."
What does "import deficits" signify?
This particular query refers not alone to the United States, from which came substantial Marshall Aid, but it also refers to those other countries which constitute an important element in international trade. It continues:—
"It is essential that countries should ensure that all other commodities not specifically included in this questionnaire are included by them in the balance sheet which they will be submitting to the Committee of Cooperation for the purpose of a study of over-all balance of payments problems.
In respect of export surpluses, countries should distinguish between that part available for export to all participating countries and that part available for all countries not participating in the Committee of Co-operation."
Paragraph 5 contains a reference that Deputy Dillon refused to quote at all, when these estimates were read out in Dáil Éireann. This was the falsehood by which Deputy Dillon wanted to put over on this House and on the country that this document had something to do with Marshall Aid:—
"The information asked for in the attached tables should be expressed in tonnages only in so far as category A is concerned but in quantity and estimated value for category B in tables III and IV. These estimated values should be based on prices ruling on the 1st July, 1947, f.o.b. or f.o.r. in the countries of origin for export surpluses and in the principal supplying countries for import requirements. Values should be expressed in United States dollars at the official rates of exchange ruling on 1st July, 1947."
This was the query asked of those countries, the European democracies, concerned in O.E.E.C.
Sweden and Switzerland also.
These countries were asked to estimate not alone their requirements but also the surpluses which might be available to help other countries, through this organisation. This is the reply to this document. The particulars are given, the estimates are given, both of our requirements and of our surpluses. This is the document that Deputy Dillon tries to put over on this House, to involve us in some way as being responsible for the Marshall Aid borrowing he and his colleagues did. These are the facts and all the ballyhoo, all the illusions created round about this document, will not get away from those facts.
At that time we gave those particulars the same as the other two countries I have referred to, Switzerland and Sweden, which did not in fact apply for Marshall Aid and did not avail of it. They certainly did not wish to have the millstone of Marshall Aid borrowing around the necks of their people, as Deputy Dillon and his colleagues did when in office. I often wonder why Deputy Dillon and his colleagues fell for the borrowing. I often wonder why otherwise reasonable and sensible men should not realise that the party who goes a-borrowing goes a-sorrowing, and that the time would come when the Irish people would be bled white, as they are now bled white, to pay back for the borrowing. This may be a six-marker for Deputy Dillon.
What is the annual payment on the Marshall Aid?
The Deputy will get it, if he has the patience to wait. He knows quite well that the policy of this country and of the Government, before it had the misfortune to fall into the hands of himself and his colleagues, was to pay its way and that, as regards our need for dollars at that time and long before the Deputy started borrowing, we were entitled as a matter of right to draw our needs of dollars out of the dollar pool used by the British. At that time we had approximately £500,000,000 or more in sterling in Britain, tied up there as a result of the fact that they could notpay us in goods during the war years. We had that money there earned by our feeding them during the war years. Our policy then and up to the time of the change of Government was a successful policy. It was a policy recognised by the British, that we were entitled to draw from the dollar pool against the balances that we had there.
It was only when Deputy Dillon and his colleagues went over to the late Sir Stafford Cripps that there seemed to be a sudden change in the policy of this country. As far as this dollar pool was concerned and as regards our necessity to borrow dollars from anybody at all, the dollars were there and we were entitled to them. Why, then, was it necessary for Deputy Dillon and his colleagues to put this millstone of borrowed dollars under Marshall Aid round the necks of the people? Was it a fact that there was a change—I am only surmising myself but I would like to know—that the late Sir Stafford Cripps put it over on Deputy Dillon, as being an old friend of the British people, that he should ask the Irish Government now not to draw on the British dollar pool and ask them instead to borrow under Marshall Aid?
There must be some reason why these men, instead of insisting on this nation's rights in sharing the dollars they were entitled to share out of the British pool as against our balance built up there, were driven to borrow from the United States at a cost which the Irish people have now to pay.
I should like Deputy Dillon or some of his colleagues to answer that question. I should like to hear why these men did not avail of the dollars that we were entitled to out of the British pool and why they plunged our country into debt by borrowing under the Marshall Aid provisions. Deputy Dillon is a great man in scaling the peaks of the imagination. He is only second to Sherpa Tensing in scaling peaks. In most of the flights of fancy he indulges in he tries to suggest that this side of the House had a share of the responsibility for the borrowing that he and his colleagues did, but he will have to produce more tangible evidence thanthis document by which, in his most flagrant way, he tried to mislead the House and the people.
It is better than borrowing at 5 per cent., anyway. You did not vote against Marshall Aid, nor did the Fianna Fáil Party.
I am very glad that Deputy Moran has taken the opportunity of exposing Deputy Dillon for the deliberate and mendacious way in which he endeavoured to mislead the House. There has been an attempt to confuse the public in regard to these Marshall Aid transactions——
Hear, hear!
——an attempt to confuse two very separate transactions. Everybody knows, of course, that on the 5th June, 1947, the then Secretary of State for the United States made a speech in which he suggested——
And his name was George Marshall.
——made a speech in which he suggested it would be possible for all the countries in Europe to get together and co-operate with each other for the economic reconstruction of devastated Europe. The only issue which was put before the then Government as a consequence of that speech was whether we, like the other 16 countries who eventually participated in the O.E.E.C.——
Commonly known as the Marshall plan.
The Deputy will please keep silent.
Was it not known as the Marshall plan?
——whether we would join with the other 16 countries who eventually did form the O.E.E.C. and would agree to become members of that organisation. That was the only issue which was raised and dealt with by the Irish Government in June and July, 1947. There was never at that time any proposal before the Government for the raising of a loan orfor the request of a grant. We were mainly concerned with this issue, whether it would be in the best interests of the Irish people and of humanity as a whole that we should pool our resources with the rest of Europe in order to enable devastated Europe to rebuild itself and to resume its normal social and economic life. That was the only issue which the Government were called upon in July of 1947 to determine and which they did determine. As a country with ancient and historic associations with the Continent of Europe, we did decide that we who owed so much to these European countries in the past, having been spared by Providence from the ravages of war, would co-operate to the utmost extent of our disposable resources with these wasted regions and help them to reconstruct their social and economic life. That was the purpose for which the Minister for Agriculture, as he was then, and the Minister for Industry and Commerce were sent to Paris, to signify that, though we were on the very outermost fringe of Europe, we here in Ireland regarded ourselves as good Europeans.
When the Minister for Industry and Commerce, Deputy Lemass, went to the opening session of the Paris conference as Ireland's principal delegate he made a speech which I do not propose to quote at length but from which I think I may quote some passages of very great pertinence to the statements which Deputy Dillon has made. He said:—
"The Government of Ireland gladly welcomed the initiative of the British and the French Governments in proposing a conference of European States to take the first steps in a co-ordinated effort to European recovery."
Deputy Dillon has made great play here with the fact that the then Toaiseach visited the British Embassy.
In September.
In September. Of course we are very closely associated with the economic life of Great Britain, as Great Britain is veryclosely associated with our economic life, and jointly, we were and are very closely concerned with the whole problem of economic recovery in Europe. Both countries buy a great deal from Europe. Both countries export either directly or indirectly in very great measure to Europe, and it was our concern as well as theirs that the economic recovery of Europe should be expedited by any joint effort which we could make.
The Minister for Industry and Commerce, Deputy Lemass, referred to the fact that we welcomed the initiative of the British and French Governments in proposing a conference of European nations. We were entitled to make that statement having regard to the fact that it was the British and French Governments which took the initiative in trying to assemble a European conference following the speech made by General Marshall, and we have nothing to be ashamed of or nothing to apologise for in the fact that we followed, with other European countries to which I have referred and whose names I will retail in a moment, the initiative which was taken by the British and French Governments.
In the Marshall Aid.
No, let us be quite clear now, we must get at least the nomenclature right. The Marshall Plan was a proposal to put the economic resources of the United States behind European recovery. What was involved in the French and British initiative of July was this: The setting up of an organisation for European economic co-operation Now, there is a very great difference between them.
Between water and H 2 O.
It is quite right to say that this economic co-operation would not have come to very much unless the resources of the United States were behind the organisation but what was set up in Paris was this particular organisation, if you like to put is so, to give body and substance to a suggestion that had been made by General Marshall.
And commonly known as the Marshall Plan.
The Deputy need not try to confuse the issue. I want to keep the record right. There is no reference to the Marshall Plan but there is reference to European economic co-operation and it is with that I am dealing and it is with that proposed organisation that Deputy Lemass was dealing at the time when as the then Minister for Industry and Commerce he went to this conference in July, 1947.
If you——
The Deputy has been interrupting long enough. He has been ringing the changes upon the E.C.A. and the O.E.E.C. long enough.
Will the Minister read the last paragraph of Mr. Lemass's speech?
I will read my text in due course:—
"The development of a co-ordinated plan," said Mr. Lemass, "for the restoration of full productivity in Europe generally and the expansion of international trade facilitated by confidence in the stability of political and economic conditions is essential to the prosperity of all European countries, including our own. That is why we are glad to participate in the work of this conference."
It was not in the borrowing arrangements of this conference—for there were none—but in the general work of this conference which ultimately manifested itself in what might be described as a comprehensive survey of economic conditions in Western Europe with the idea of ascertaining what the overall deficit or current deficiency in economy might happen to be.
"We will be prepared," went on Mr. Lemass, "to consider any proposals which may emerge from the deliberations of the conference as to how we can most effectively ..."
Now, mark, we have been told this was a borrowing conference, that it was a sort of beggars' conclave, according toDeputy Dillon, but this is how the Minister for Industry and Commerce then regarded the tasks of the conference and defined them:—
"We will be prepared to consider any proposals which may emerge from the deliberations of the conference as to how we can most effectively increase our contribution to the pool of European resources."
And the questionnaire which was sent to us in July and returned initialled, as Deputy Dillon has told the House, by the then Taoiseach, was in order to enable the organisation as a whole to assess the extent to which we would be able to increase over the years from 1947 to 1951 or 1952, how we would be able to increase our contribution to the pool of European resources; and it had nothing whatever to do with the three subsequent transactions entered into by my immediate predecessor, Deputy McGilligan, when he signed three promissory notes borrowing $128,000,000 from the Export and Import Bank of America.
And which you voted for in the Dáil.
Mr. Lemass went on to say we were a small country and our resources limited.
"Nevertheless, I can undertake," he said, "that, within the limits of our resources we will make the maximum effort to help. We believe that the conference is beginning on the right lines in recognising that each State is the proper judge of the nature and extent of the contribution it can make. The strongest associations are those that are free. Of our own free decision and in our own interests, we have come here to gain greater strength and wider opportunity to build up our own economy in the secure environment of a properous Europe."
That was the type of statement which Deputy Lemass made at the opening of the conference.
Surely you are not going to omit the last paragraph? Go on and read the next paragraph.
I have a limited time at my disposal and I am not going to be led down highways and byways.
You should not suppress the last paragraph.
Deputy Dillon this morning referred to the text of the statement which was made by Mr. de Valera who, as Taoiseach, was at the concluding session of the Paris conference.
Will you not read the last paragraph?
This is what Mr. de Valera said—I must ask the Deputy to let me quote.
The Minister is entitled to make his contribution without these interruptions.
On a point of order, if the Minister purports to read a statement made by the Tánaiste on behalf of the Irish Government, is he entitled to read all the paragraphs and to suppress the last paragraph?
The Chair has no function in that matter. It is a matter entirely for the Minister.
That settles that; he may suppress the paragraph but we will ask a parliamentary question.
Deputy Dillon this morning quoted some of those extracts from Mr. Lemass's statement as Minister for Industry and Commerce at the Paris conference in 1947. I have merely expanded the quotations.
On a point of order, I do not think Deputy Dillon did.
I propose now to go on to the statement which was made by Mr. de Valera who, as Taoiseach, attended the concluding session of the Paris conference in 1947.
You will read all this.
The Taoiseach said:
"We should be very grateful to the American Secretary of Statewhose speech at Harvard gave our nations this great opportunity for coming together in mutual help."
Where was the question there of borrowing under the Marshall Aid Plan from the United States?
You voted for it.
Mr. de Valera continued:
"We are all pleased that the opportunity has been so well availed of. May I express the hope that the co-operation now so significantly begun will continue long into the future?"
Then the Taoiseach went on to use these words which Deputy Dillon quoted as if they were something shameful:
"To seek from another what one could supply by one's own efforts is always unworthy."
Deputy Dillon suggested that the general implication of, and the real construction to be put on, that sentence was that we were begging something from the United States of America but that sentence has to be related to the first paragraph and particularly the last sentence in the first paragraph of the Taoiseach's statement which I have just read:
"May I express the hope that the co-operation now so significantly begun will continue long into the future?
To seek from another what one could supply by one's own efforts is always unworthy."
Go on.
If this task could be solved by co-operation, by mutual help and assistance, it would be unworthy for the European States to go looking for help elsewhere.
Go on.
He stated further:
"It is doubly so when the assistance is requested from a friend who has proved himself generous repeatedly."
Hear, hear!
We had had no monetary assistance from the United States during the whole period of the war. We had, let me say, this: We had indeed the assistance of America, in a very generous measure, when we were fighting to secure this country's independence without the help of Deputy Dillon.
There were Dillons fighting for this country before you were ever heard of and there will be Dillons after you.
A Deputy
The Commonwealth.
I am glad to say that we had the generous co-operation of America when we were fighting the economic war and when we wound up that war victoriously by the 1938 agreement, a struggle in which we had no assistance from Deputy Dillon or Deputy MacBride.
The farmers fought that war.
He continued:
"I am happy to sign this report on behalf of Ireland because I believe it to be an honest report."
Hear, hear!
And the honest report does not contain one of those tables to which Deputy Dillon referred; they were not embodied in this report.
It is.
"I am happy to sign this report on behalf of Ireland because I believe it to be an honest report. In it, self-help"——
Sinn Féin, which Deputy Dillon so strenuously opposed all his life—
"is recognised as a primary duty and no more aid is sought than is absolutely necessary if the damage of the war years is to be repaired within a reasonable time and the nations of Western Europe restored to a position in which they can provide for their own needs and preserve their traditional civilisation."
Is it not quite obvious that that sentence was directed to the conditions prevailing in devastated Europe and not to the conditions of comparative peace and plenty prevailing here in Ireland at that time? The statement continues:
"The manner in which the members of the Committee of Co-operation and the Technical Committees have devoted themselves to their work is beyond praise. They have compressed into a few months an effort which ordinarily might have extended over years. Their report is a model of presentation. It can be read and understood by every citizen. The advice and inspiration of our American friends has been invaluable.
I would like to express our deep appreciation of what has been accomplished. The work we are doing to-day is good work. I pray that it may have a prosperous issue."
That is the statement which Deputy Dillon used in his mischievous and malicious effort to try to confuse the minds of the Irish people by making them believe that the transactions which took place in Paris in July, 1947, were the same sort of transactions as those which Deputy McGilligan, as Minister for Finance, entered into with the Export and Import Bank of Washington in October, 1948, in February, 1949, and in December, 1949, when he signed three promissory notes under which $128,000,000 of Marshall Loan was borrowed by the then Government and spent before the last promissory note was signed. They had already, in fact, begun spending these dollars in April, 1948. The first dollars secured under the promissory note of the 20th October, 1948, went to recoup the British sterling pool for transactions which had been entered into in April, 1948.
We heard Deputy Mulcahy this morning talk about the Minister for Finance being subservient to British Government policy. Let me put on record the actual facts in regard to this Marshall Loan transaction. On the 8th June, 1948, the question as towhether loan accommodation would be sought in Washington in respect to the current quarter was submitted to the then Government. When that submission was made, the then Minister for External Affairs was very strenuously opposed to the loan being sought. On the 11th June, 1948, the Government decided that no loan for the current quarter should be accepted and that future quarters should be considered on the facts. No further action was taken to look for a loan; but on the 17th June, 1948, discussions began in London. Negotiations began in London for a renewal or continuance of the 1947 Trade Agreement or an extension of the agreement of 1947. These negotiations continued until the 22nd June, 1948. When the mass delegation—I do not think any Minister in the inter-Party or Coalition Government was left at home during the period when these negotiations were proceeding in London in June, 1948— came back from London, whether it was a mere coincidence or whether it was the result of gentle pressure and persuasion put upon them by the then British Chancellor of the Exchequer, the late Sir Stafford Cripps, on the 25th June, 1948, just 14 days after they had taken the decision not to look for a loan, the inter-Party Government reversed that decision.
They decided they would look for a Marshall Aid loan. As a result of that decision, these three promissory notes, under which we shall be paying interest and repaying principal to the 31st December, 1983, were signed by Mr. McGilligan. These are the plain facts.
Now, let us see what happened about the Marshall Aid. I have already told you how that money was spent. All the Marshall Aid dollars were spent in fact virtually before the end of 1949. There was built up, it is true, what was described as a Loan Counterpart Fund against the Marshall Aid dollars. That fund was built up in this way. If a person wanted to import dollar goods into this country he had to make arrangements with his bank whereby the bank bought dollars from the sterling pool and his sterling account, inturn, was debited with the appropriate amount in sterling for the dollars which he had secured. Then, after a period, when the transaction had been vetted by the E.C.A. in the United States of America and the necessary documents cleared, the dollars were advanced and passed into the possession of the Irish Minister for Finance, my predecessor, Deputy McGilligan.
We have heard a lot here to-day, as we have heard on other occasions, about the non-viability, so to speak, of sterling currency. We have been told that sterling assets are not 22 carat gold, that sterling securities are likely to depreciate, that sterling is no longer a hard currency, that it is a soft currency, and, generally, that we should endeavour to dispossess ourselves of all the sterling securities which we have. That, of course, is the policy of the Coalition Party when it is in Opposition but, when it was in Government what happened these Marshall Aid dollars which we got under the terms of these promissory notes? The gentlemen who are now condemning us because we are not squandering sterling assets with the same rapidity as they endeavoured to do, went off and sold these dollars to the Bank of England for sterling. They then took that sterling and deposited it here in the Central Bank, in the general account of the Minister for Finance and, with the full cognisance of the Minister for Finance of the day, that sterling was used to buy short-term sterling securities which remained in the Central Bank until they were realised and the proceeds transferred either to the Loan Counterpart Fund or to the Grant Counterpart Fund, as the case might be, depending upon the manner in which the dollars had originated. When they were there in the Loan Counterpart Fund and when my predecessor, the Minister for Finance, Deputy McGilligan, wished to draw on them for the ordinary purposes of balancing his Budget—of meeting the deficit which there was in the Budget for 1949-50—he proceeded to draw out of his own account and the Central Bank had to realise some of these short-dated securities. The positionwhen we took office in the middle of June, 1951 was that there had already disappeared out of the Loan Counterpart Fund over £18,000,000 worth—
And £24,000,000 remained.
——and, as the Deputy has reminded me, there remained £24,000,000.
Have the Deputies opposite got a note of that?
Yes. The point is this. Every penny of that £24,000,000 had already been hypothecated by the commitments which our predecessors entered into.
Oh no, no.
That is the point. These obligations, these debts, these commitments which we inherited——
There were no debts.
I can assure the Deputy that there were. These commitments, these obligations, these contracts which we inherited were of such magnitude that, before six months were out, the whole of the £24,000,000 had to be expended in meeting the obligations of our predecessors. Here is how they were met. There was acash deficit on the 1951 Budget on the 31st December of at least £5,000,000.
There was none.
There was spent on voted capital services £6.3 million. There was advanced to the E.S.B., to enable them to carry out plans that had been projected and that were actually in course of implementation when we took office, £6.4 million. There was advanced to the Local Loans Fund £6.3 million. There was advanced to Bord na Móna £.86 million. Telephone capital required £1.6 million. £.24 million had to be found under the Transport Act. In all, that came to over £26.7 million. Those three items—the deficit on the current Budget, voted capital services and below-the-line issues, amounted to over £26.7 million, thus absorbing much more than the £24,000,000 which you left behind you. Every penny of that, the Government found itself committed to when it put you out of office. We had to take over and try and get the country out of the mess in which you left it.
Bog development, housing, rural electricity. All of these we made you do.
Tá.
- Aiken, Frank.
- Allen, Denis.
- Bartley, Gerald.
- Beegan, Patrick.
- Blaney, Neil T.
- Boland, Gerald.
- Brady, Philip A.
- Brady, Seán.
- Breathnach, Cormac.
- Breen, Dan.
- Brennan, Joseph.
- Breslin, Cormac.
- Briscoe, Robert.
- Browne, Noel C.
- Buckley, Seán.
- Burke, Patrick.
- Butler, Bernard.
- Calleary, Phelim A.
- Carter, Frank.
- Childers, Erskine.
- Cogan, Patrick.
- Colley, Harry.
- Collins, James J.
- Corry, Martin J.
- Little, Patrick J.
- Lynch, Jack (Cork Borough).
- McCann, John.
- MacCarthy, Seán.
- McEllistrim, Thomas.
- MacEntee, Seán.
- McGrath, Patrick.
- Maguire, Patrick J.
- Maher, Peadar.
- Moran, Michael.
- Moylan, Seán.
- Ó Briain, Donnchadh.
- Cowan, Peadar.
- Crowley, Honor Mary.
- Crowley, Tadhg.
- Cunningham, Liam.
- Davern, Michael J.
- Derrig, Thomas.
- de Valera, Eamon.
- de Valera, Vivion.
- Duignan, Peadar.
- Fanning, John.
- ffrench-O'Carroll, Michael.
- Flanagan, Seán.
- Flynn, John.
- Flynn, Stephen.
- Gallagher, Colm.
- Gilbride, Eugene.
- Harris, Thomas.
- Hillery, Patrick J.
- Hilliard, Michael.
- Humphreys, Francis.
- Kenneally, William.
- Kennedy, Michael J.
- Killilea, Mark.
- Lemass, Seán.
- 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.
- Barry, Richard.
- Beirne, John.
- Belton, John.
- Blowick, Joseph.
- Browne, Patrick.
- Byrne, Alfred.
- Byrne, Thomas N.J.
- Cafferky, Dominick.
- Carew, John.
- Cawley, Patrick.
- Collins, Seán.
- Corish, Brendan.
- Cosgrave, Liam.
- Costello, Declan.
- Costello, John A.
- Crotty, Patrick J.
- Crowe, Patrick.
- Davin, William.
- Deering, Mark.
- Desmond, Daniel.
- Dillon, James M.
- Dockrell, Henry P.
- Dockrell, Maurice E.
- Donnellan, Michael.
- Doyle, Peadar S.
- Dunne, Seán.
- Esmonde, Anthony C.
- Everett. James.
- Fagan Charles.
- Finan, John.
- Flanagan, Oliver J.
- Giles, Patrick.
- Hession, James M.
- Hickey, James.
- Hughes, Joseph.
- Keyes, Michael.
- Kyne, Thomas A.
- Lehane, Patrick D.
- Lynch, John (North Kerry).
- McAuliffe, Patrick.
- MacBride, Seán.
- MacEoin, Seán.
- McGilligan, Patrick.
- McMenamin, Daniel.
- Madden, David J.
- Mannion, John.
- Morrissey, Daniel.
- Mulcahy, Richard.
- Murphy, Michael P.
- Murphy, William.
- Norton, William.
- O'Donnell, Patrick.
- O'Gorman, Patrick J.
- O'Hara, Thomas.
- O'Higgins, Thomas F.
- O'Higgins, Thomas F. (Jun.).
- O'Leary, Johnny.
- O'Reilly, Patrick.
- O'Sullivan, Denis.
- Palmer, Patrick W.
- Reidy, James.
- Reynolds, Mary.
- Roddy, Joseph.
- Rogers, Patrick J.
- Rooney, Eamon.
- Spring, Dan.
- Sweetman, Gerard.
- Tully, John.
This Bill is a Money Bill within the meaning of Article 22 of the Constitution.
The Dáil adjourned at 6 p.m. until 3 p.m. on Tuesday 14th July, 1953.