The Department of Industry and Commerce may be described as one of the most important Departments of State, as it covers such a very wide field and has so many branches. Consequently, the Estimate for this Department, when it comes before the House, certainly deserves the closest possible examination; and it is only right that it should be given a close and thorough examination. The Minister for Industry and Commerce, having charge of both industry and commerce may shoulder the responsibility for the cost of living. The cost of living in this country may, without fear of contradiction, be described as the highest in the world to-day. As a result of the present Government's policy, it has gone completely out of the reach of not alone the poor sections of the community but the middle-class and even the well-to-do sections, which are now feeling that, month after month, they become poorer and poorer. There seems to be a continuous strain on the pockets of all sections of the people in their endeavours to exist.
Committee on Finance. - Vote 50—Industry and Commerce (Resumed).
I do not wish to interrupt the Deputy, but I would like to say at this stage that the matter of which the Deputy has given the Chair notice that he wishes to raise on the Adjournment is a matter which might be raised relevantly on this Estimate.
I do not think the Minister for External Affairs has any functions under this Estimate.
I am speaking about the question yesterday which he asked the Minister for Industry and Commerce. I would consider that relevant.
Do you rule that is so?
I am not suggesting that. I am telling the Deputy I will consider that that matter could be raised relevantly on this Estimate, in order to avoid duplication.
Very well, Sir. On the question of the cost of living, one can hardly help protesting in the strongest possible manner against the carelessness and the lack of interest displayed by the Government regarding price control. This House knows quite well that the prices of bread and flour have gone up to such an alarming extent that it is impossible for the poorer sections of the community to purchase bread. In our large towns and cities bread is the main item of diet, and in the working class homes it is consumed three times a day. In the country one may have recourse to vegetables and other items of diet, but in the cities you have flour and bread and in the large towns it is certainly the main item of our people's food. In 1951 flour was 2/8 per stone; now in 1953 it is 4/9. The cost of flour has certainly brought about a shortage of bread in many homes and there are housewives who are forced, owing to the increase in price, to cut down the amounts of bread and flour made available to members of their household for their meals. The Minister must know that there are in parts of rural Ireland to-day people who are hungry because of the price of bread and flour. He must also realise—and take the responsibility for the fact—that school children, turf workers and forestry workers who have to bring a lunch of bread with them are forced, owing to the cost of bread and flour, to eat less.
With regard to the cost of tea, I cannot understand why the Department will not permit licences to be issued to anyone who desires to import tea. We are told from a very reliable source that tea can be importedby private concerns at a much cheaper rate than it is being imported at the present time. When it can be imported at the cheapest possible price and when the cost of living has gone to the extent that poor sections of the people are put to the pin of their collar to eke out an existence; when we have certain people prepared to put tea more cheaply on the market with the assistance of the Department and when it is in the interests of the consumer that that should be done I fail to see why the Department will not allow tea to be imported and sold at lower rates than at present.
Some time last February we were faced with a further increase in the price of sugar. Disgraceful tactics were used by the Government in that respect. The Budget had passed over and people were feeling they were freed from any further tax imposition on foodstuffs. Then they were immediately stunned to find that a further increase of something like ½d. a pound was imposed on sugar. The cost of foodstuffs in this country has certainly gone sky-high.
It is only right for one to ask whether the Prices Advisory Body is functioning at all at present. I do not know if the Minister has at his disposal a list of the items which the Prices Advisory Body have under consideration for increases. I do not know whether he has records of the number of commodities on which requests were made to that body to permit increases. It would be interesting for Deputies to know in how many cases that body recommended increases that the Minister has not approved of. It should be well understood—I think it is well understood by the House and it would be well if it were understood by the people—that the Prices Advisory Body was established only with the intention of advising. I do not know in how many cases the Minister has refused to accept their advice when they advised increases. The cost of living has certainly gone to such an extent that people can no longer endeavour to exist here. The general complaint is coming not alone from the housewifebut from every section of the people.
The Department of Industry and Commerce is, in the main, responsible for the administratin of Bord na Móna. I want to take this opportunity of saying, from my experience, that quite a good deal of useful work has been undertaken by Bord na Móna. I think the Minister would be well advised to instruct that body to give more consideration to the question of increased rates of pay for its employees. Bord na Móna displays advertisements in all labour exchanges and Garda stations asking people to come forward and take part in its turf development schemes. Now, the rates of pay are not attractive. In my constituency we have Bord na Móna hostels and some consideration should be given to the high charges for food and lodging that the bog workers availing of these hostels are asked to pay. I think these workers are being charged too much for their food and lodging. In my opinion, as many more men could be employed by Bord na Móna as are being employed at the present time but labour is not coming forward because the pay is not attractive. The Minister and Bord na Móna are asking these workers to engage in work of national importance and, for that reason, they should set a headline in relation to the payment of proper rates of wages for the work. A good deal of dissatisfaction exists in that respect at the present moment.
This is the first opportunity we have had of debating the Department of Industry and Commerce since last year. When he is replying, I hope the Minister will make some statement in connection with the sale of the Tramore Hydro. This House has been made aware of the grave dissatisfaction that exists as a result of the Minister failing to keep his promise. The Minister gave an assurance to the town commissioners—the chairman of that body is a supporter of the present Government—that the hydro, the casino, the pitch and putt course and the boys' club would not be disposed of by An Bord Fáilte except by public auction, thereby giving to public-spirited citizens interested an opportunity of purchasing this establishmentand its amenities. Yet, approximately 60 acres of land, together with the buildings and amenities thereon, were sold privately to three gentlemen in County Waterford for a sum of £22,500. The erection of this hydro cost £67,000. Does the Minister not consider it very bad business to sell that building privately for £22,500 and to throw in the boys' club, the pitch and putt course and the casino? I want to protest as strongly now as I did two days ago against public property being sold by private treaty. I think it is wrong that the Minister in this particular instance should have denied the public an opportunity of purchasing, particularly when an undertaking had been given that, if the property was changing hands, it would be sold by public auction. A number of people were anxious to purchase the property and proof has been forthcoming that they were willing to pay more than £22,500 for it. I suggest it was not in the interests of the development of this particular tourist resort that this property was bought. It was bought for the purpose of swelling the purses of private individuals and the Minister had no right either to permit or allow that to happen. The Minister and the House in common decency should have permitted the holding of a public inquiry into the whole transaction. There is still a distasteful odour emanating from that transaction and the citizens of Waterford and the adjoining counties view the whole transaction with a certain amount of suspicion. The Minister's name has not been too clean in this respect. He gave an undertaking to the Tramore Town Commissioners and he ought to tell us now why he did not keep that undertaking to ensure that the sale would be carried out by public auction. Public property of this kind should never be permitted to change hands except through the medium of public auction.
With regard to An Tóstal, this is the greatest farce and the greatest cod ever inflicted on this country. I regard it as a huge joke and a waste of public money. We have many thousands of people unemployed. We have manypeople who have to cut down on their three meals per day because of rising prices. Yet here we have public money spent on a so-called festival— An Tóstal. An Tóstal this year was a complete flop. Indeed, it was a disaster. The Minister told us that the purpose for which An Tóstal was inaugurated was to attract more visitors, to provide them with more amusements and with a certain variety of entertainment throughout the country. What do we find? We find that there are no figures available as to the number of visitors who came here for An Tóstal. We have been given certain information as to the number of people who travelled by sea and air during the month of April, 1952, and the month of April, 1953. An Tóstal took place on the 4th April, 1953, to the 26th April, 1953. I am told that huge sums of money were spent advertising An Tóstal in the United States of America, in South America, in Canada, in England and on the Continent. The Department of Industry and Commerce was expecting people to flock into the country from the 4th to 26th April, 1953. What happened? In 1952 we had 49,780 people coming into this country by sea and air. This year during the same period we had 48,448 people coming into this country by sea and air during the month of April—approximately 1,000 fewer people. In April, 1952, 37,400 passengers came by rail from the Six Counties. Only 34,587 passengers arrived for An Tóstal. Despite all the money that was spent in the Six Counties, England and America in an effort to bring people to this country, a fewer number of people came than came the year before. An Bord Fáilte and the Department of Industry and Commerce almost sent free air and rail tickets. An invitation was sent all over the world to Ireland of the Welcomes. Despite the fact that thousands of pounds were spent on advertising, fewer people came than came the year before.
Posters were displayed advertising An Tóstal. Country printers estimate the cost of a poster as being £1 to 30/-. It was a disgrace, a scandal and a waste of public money. Certain jobhunters were given jobs by An Bord Fáilte for the purpose of fostering An Tóstal—fostering nothing.
In April of this year there were 4,168 fewer passengers than in April of the year before. We can judge the benefits that An Tóstal brought to the country by studying the returns of passengers leaving the State in April, 1952, and in April, 1953. In April, 1952, 50,200 passengers left by sea and air. In April, 1953, 50,533 left by the same routes.
It is quite clear that the Tóstal of last year was a complete flop. The energies of those who were engaged in publicising An Tóstal should be devoted to something else, such as price control or the provision of employment or some other scheme that would be of national benefit.
No figures are available that would indicate the total expenditure incurred by local authorities, such as Cork, Dublin, Limerick and Waterford Corporations, in respect of An Tóstal. There are no records whatever of the amount of money that State corporations, such as the E.S.B. and private local Tóstal committees, spent on this project.
The Tánaiste, in reply to a question in this House some time ago, gave particulars of the moneys spent by An Bord Fáilte, Fógra Fáilte, the I.T.A. and the Board of Works. An Bord Fáilte spent £30,000. On top of that, Fógra Fáilte spent £47,000. The I.T.A. and the Board of Works also provided moneys for this purpose. The total was £79,700. That money was spent on the greatest codology this country has ever experienced. While all this money was spent last year in respect of An Tóstal, the Department of Industry and Commerce tell us that there were additional moneys spent by other Government Departments. The Department of Defence provided large sums of money for the purposes of An Tóstal.
The Government should give up that codology. We all want to attract tourists. We want to care for and foster the tourist industry. But you cannot fool the people. It is a waste of time and energy to have a Tóstaland the Department of Industry and Commerce would be very well advised to cut out this sort of rot.
Instead of having a Tóstal it might be better to encourage by way of financial assistance small hotels in the country to carry out improvements. The Minister has in mind schemes of loans and grants for hotels. If that £80,000 of public money that we are told was spent on An Tóstal last year were devoted to grants to various country hotels it would be much better employed.
The E.S.B., Bord na Móna, An Bord Fáilte, Fógra Fáilte and C.I.E. all come within the Minister's Department. Each of these concerns has its own publicity manager and its own method of publicity. Would it not be wise to have one section of the Department of Industry and Commerce for publicity which would carry out publicity for Aer Lingus, An Bord Fáilte, Fógra Fáilte, Bord na Móna and C.I.E.? A fabulous amount of taxpayers money is spent on publicity by all these concerns. If there were one section of the Department dealing with publicity there could be wiser administration and a better system of organisation. Very little publicity is carried out by Bord na Móna, despite the fact that a very big sum is provided for that purpose. We do see posters displaying sleans and healthy bog workers cutting turf. We see the Aer Lingus advertisements and those of An Bord Fáilte. We see the Irish tourist bulletin issued by An Bord Fáilte. We see other advertisements issued by the Tourist Board. We see the C.I.E. advertisements. There should be a director of publicity in the Department of Industry and Commerce who would be responsible for publicity for all the concerns that come under the Department of Industry and Commerce.
I do not give very much for the publicity carried out by An Bord Fáilte. It is not very attractive. The most attractive publicity that we have is that of Aer Lingus. Aer Lingus publicity is good. That is indisputable. That is so because the publicity director of Aer Lingus is a man whoknows his job, a man who has ideas, and who employs the proper methods.
I would suggest that the Minister should call a conference of the publicity managers of C.I.E., Bord na Móna and all the other concerns under his Department under the chairmanship of the director of publicity for Aer Lingus who seems to have a thorough knowledge of his job and, consequently, the publicity campaign undertaken by Aer Lingus has brought benefits to the company.
I have seen the booklet issued by Aer Lingus under the title Let Us Go to Ireland.It is most attractive and in very simple language. It contains very elaborate scenes of Collinstown Airport, a map giving details of Dublin Airport, historical places and tourist centres, such as Glendalough, Cashel, Blarney, the Vale of Avoca, Kells, the Giant's Causeway, the Cliffs of Moher, Killarney, Glengarriff and other places. Surely to goodness if the publicity manager of Aer Lingus was for two years in charge of An Bord Fáilte, the I.T.A. or C.I.E., an endless amount of beneficial publicity could be given, and I recommend very seriously to the Minister for Industry and Commerce that he should reorganise or advise to be reorganised the whole system of publicity, as far as the companies of a semi-State nature for which he has any responsibility are concerned; and if the same publicity was given in the same manner and under the same wise administration to C.I.E. as it is given to Aer Lingus I venture to say that it would be a considerable asset to C.I.E. Again, if you had the same publicity given to An Bord Fáilte as we have for Aer Lingus I believe it would be of considerable benefit and very great advantage. There is one interesting booklet, published recently by An Bord Fáilte, of plans to encourage local effort and enterprise in the development of the tourist industry. That is a very short and simple booklet and, in my opinion, has been the best of the publicity produced that we have seen for An Bord Fáilte. In the interests of proper publicity somesteps should be taken towards bringing the publicity of all the companies under the Department of Industry and Commerce under the direction of one director.
I fail entirely to see why, when I raised recently, by way of parliamentary question, the opening by the Minister of the Córas Tráchtála Teoranta offices in Montreal, there was so much secrecy about the staffing of that place and the cost of it. I am completely dissatisfied with all the explanations the Minister for Industry and Commerce gave me on the 26th October here in the House when I asked some questions relating to the cost of the new office and why this office was really necessary. Have we not our legation or our embassy in that country? Why should we have numerous different offices in those countries? If our embassies or our legations are doing their job well and properly, there is no necessity for other offices to be established there. When this House voted funds for Córas Tráchtála Teoranta, and when it is under the responsibility of the Minister, it was only right and proper that this House should be given some idea of the cost of the erection and construction and the furnishing of that building. I also inquired recently, in connection with the Montreal office, the total number of the staff that was employed there. I further inquired as to who was in charge and the rates of pay to each of the employees who are employed in that office, and I asked who made the appointments. I further asked what qualifications were required. I got two lines of a reply when the Minister said that he had no information about the day-to-day administration of Córas Tráchtála Teoranta, and that the information sought was not available in his Department. But there was something in his Department when he was going to open it. There was something in his Department about the office when he used it for the purpose of an enjoyable tour at the taxpayers' expense in Montreal. He knew about the office in Montreal when he wanted to visit Montreal; and I respectfully say this, that there have been certain appointments made in connection with the Montrealoffice which were not in accordance with public decency.
I cannot for the life of me see why the Minister for Industry and Commerce is refusing to give this House or to give the taxpayers of this country the information concerning the expenditure on this office in Montreal. I further fail to see why he should fail to tell us who is in charge of the Montreal office and what are the qualifications of the gentleman for its administration and full charge. The Minister should know that all this information can be got and will be obtained through other channels but he tells this House that he has no information at his disposal concerning the day-to-day administration of this office in Montreal. He should have information at his disposal and for this Córas Tráchtála office in Montreal there should be weekly returns to his Department of its activities and a diary kept giving an account of the day-to-day administration of that office. Have we any idea of what money is going to be spent? Have we any idea of what benefits this office in Montreal is going to bring? Have we any idea of the qualifications of the personnel of that office, and are we satisfied that our money is being spent on the employment of the right and proper type of citizen to be employed in Montreal in that office? I think they are reasonable questions. I cannot see for the life of me why the Minister fails to give the House that information. I think that the House is entitled to that information and I think, further, that the Minister has good and sound reasons for refusing to give the House the information concerning the Montreal office, and for that purpose I can say that there are people in this country who view with very great alarm the manner in which the Montreal office has been surrounded with great secrecy.
Again in connection with the Montreal office, why was it necessary for the Minister himself to go to open it? Could no representative in Montreal of the Irish Government, either a high-ranking officer or some member of the staff of the embassy in Canada,not have performed the official opening? Could the office not have opened without this ceremony, with the Minister's speech that was published in all the daily papers and from Radio Eireann before he made his speech at all, a speech that was given full publicity? If my memory serves me right the office was opened on the 29th and the Minister's speech was published on 28th, both from Radio Éireann and on all the papers. How do we know he made that speech? The Minister's explanation for the publication of his speech in Montreal before he made the speech at all has not been satisfactory. I think that this office in Montreal is a waste of time, and it will be interesting to know as years will go on what benefits this office is likely to bring.
As a matter of information I would be very interested to hear from the Department the amount of dollars spent by the Government for the purchase of prunes and raisins form California. I am told that prunes and raisins from California have been purchased this year. During the term of the inter-Party Government raisins and currants and other dried fruit were secured from the sterling areas. They were secured from Greece, Turkey and the Middle East. But since Fianna Fáil took office the raisins from the Middle East or from Turkey or from Greece would not be up to the standard of Fianna Fáil. They want seedless prunes and raisins from California; and whilst we see dollars being spent on prunes and raisins from California, we see the police having to control the queues for unemployment benefit in the City of Dublin. Is it not a fact that during the years 1948, 1949 and 1950 no dollars were spent on prunes and raisins from California, and it was only after 1951 that they were so spent?
We are told that great discretion has to be used in the allocation of dollars. We are told that there is a shortage of dollars for the purchase of excavators and other types of machinery that are required both by the Department of Agriculture and by the Board of Works. We are told that there is a shortage of dollars for essentials that have to be importedfrom the dollar market. Yet here we see that dollars were allocated for the purchase of prunes, raisins and dried fruit from California, while at the same time, ample supplies of the same types of fruit can freely be obtained from the Middle East for sterling and without having to expend as much as one dollar on their purchase. But no: the raisins and dried fruit had to be purchased from California by the Fianna Fáil Government. I want to stress that these supplies were secured from the Middle East for sterling by the inter-Party Government and that since Fianna Fáil resumed office it would appear that the fruit from the Middle East is not good enough and that it must be obtained seedless from California.
It was interesting to hear Deputy Dr. Esmonde to-day raise the matter of the price of pigs in relation to the price of bacon. I understand that the Lower Prices Council have petitioned the Minister for Industry and Commerce to have an inquiry into the price of bacon. I wonder if that inquiry will be held. It is extraordinary that the price of bacon should be so high. Certainly, the price of rashers, ham and bacon merits close investigation and a full inquiry. I hope and trust that the question that has been raised by the Lower Prices Council will be given the closest possible consideration and that the inquiry will be held.
This year?
Yes, certainly.
It might be held next year.
The Lower Prices Council look upon the matter as one of urgency. Housewives in Dublin and, indeed, throughout the country, view with great alarm the prices they are being charged at present for bacon. It will be very interesting to hear how Deputy Dr. ffrench-O'Carroll will explain these prices to those in his constituency who make representations to him about them. Speaking in this House this time 12 months ago, and since that again, Deputy Dr. ffrench-O'Carrollstated, in the hearing of the Minister——
The Minister is not responsible for what another Deputy says.
He will be responsible from now on for what that Deputy will say.
The Minister is responsible for his own statements and for the administration of his Department.
I am only refreshing the memory of Deputy Dr. ffrench-O'Carroll.
That could be carried very far, in respect of all the Deputies of the House.
I am concerned only with the one Deputy.
And somebody else might be concerned with some other Deputy. If the Minister said it, it is quite relevant.
The Minister listened to it.
The Minister listens to a great many things.
I want to join now in the protest which Deputy Dr. ffrench-O'Carroll made in this House this time 12 months ago, and again since then, against the rise in the price of bacon. I hope that now that Deputy Dr. ffrench-O'Carroll is in a position to do so, he will use his efforts to effect a reduction in the price of bacon—a reduction which he advocated very strongly and in respect of which he stated he would use his influence and his good offices to bring about. I hope that, now that he has the opportunity, he will use his influence and his good offices towards seeing that there will be a proper and rigid price control. I think that these were the very words he used when he was speaking about the matter. As I have said, Deputy Dr. ffrench-O'Carroll is now in a position to do so and I hope that we shall hear moreabout it from him on this Estimate, as we heard about it last year.
The Minister for Industry and Commerce made a promise some time ago that a biscuit factory would be established in Ballina. On more than one occasion he made that promise to the people of that district. To his knowledge, a list of all the unemployed and the semi-unemployed in the area was taken with a view to securing jobs in the proposed Ballina biscuit factory. Numerous applications for the management of the factory were received. Local people were canvassed in connection with the sale of the Ballina biscuits. The people in the area were told that the Ballina biscuits would be superior quality biscuits and that they would be sold at a reasonable price. Everybody in the West of Ireland was smacking his lips with great longing and desire to taste the Ballina biscuits. What happened? Not even a dog biscuit was made in Ballina.
By-election biscuits.
The present Tánaiste and Minister for Industry and Commerce has the extraordinary knack of being able to promise this, that and the other and then to go away after having left his hearers under the impression that these promises would be carried out. That knack is a great gift which very few politicians have but the present Tánaiste and Minister for Industry and Commerce has it to a very marked degree. He can promise a thing and actually make his hearers believe that they have it. Only when they come to their true senses and give the matter calm consideration, on an occasion which is not graced by the Tánaiste's presence, do they discover that it was only just another mere promise by the Tánaiste which was made in his very highly persuasive manner. They then sadly realise that it was no more than just another wild dream and promise. Is the Minister not ashamed of himself and this type of behaviour? Is he not ashamed to promise industries which he knows will not be established and which he knows there is no intentionof establishing? Is he not ashamed to make these promises when he knows that his Department have no intention whatever of implementing them?
In connection with the Minister's administration of his Department during the past year I want to take this opportunity of saying that I protest vigorously against the behaviour of the Minister in going into his Department and getting a certain file and withdrawing from that file a certain letter and reading the contents of that letter at a public meeting. I want to condemn the disgraceful tactics of the Minister for Industry and Commerce at Avoca. He stayed in his office until the sun was rising in the morning, delving through the various files in connection with the Avoca mines and, with the aid of a full office staff working during the hours of the night, he successfully placed his finger on a document that was addressed to his predecessor in office. With the greatest pleasure and delight the Minister proceeded to Avoca the next morning and addressed an assembly there and read out the contents of that personal letter that was addressed to his predecessor in office—a letter in connection with the Avoca mines.
It had not the desired effect, either.
It was despicable, disgraceful, unbecoming and unworthy of any decent Minister of State, and I advise the Minister to dissociate himself in the future from the disgraceful tactics in which he has partaken in disclosing the contents of private documents addressed to him or to his predecessor by reading them in public at the church gates and seeking to capture a miserable vote by misrepresenting the contents of the private letter addressed to his Department. These tactics did not, and will not work, and it is a nice thing to know that there is a little self-respect and decency left in some people in public life. It gives those of us who are in public life some encouragement to follow the path of honesty, dignityand straightforwardness. When one sees the mean, cheap and low tactics of the second in command in this country, it makes one ask oneself what depths the country has fallen into when it entrusts the destinies of the country to these people.
Mr. Brennan
Should these corrupt documents be all hidden from the public?
All the correspondence in connection with the Avoca mines was not read by the Minister when he visited Avoca. He wanted only a particular letter, and, having secured it, he went on to quote paragraphs from it with a view to creating ill-feeling and discontent between good neighbours in a friendly and what is probably the most beautiful spot in the Garden of Ireland. The Minister would be well advised to examine his conscience in this respect and realise that he failed to defeat the people, that he failed as the sponsor of the revival of bitterness in that area, particularly amongst the workers engaged in the Avoca development. That has been proved beyond yea or nay by the result of the election in Wicklow.
The Minister took great pride yesterday in announcing that a number of new factories are to be established. I hope he will bear in mind the growing demand, and the ever-increasing determination behind that demand, for decentralisation of industries. Only to-day a question was asked in connection with the shortage of tyres and the delay in procuring them. I had the impression that Messrs. Dunlop were in a position to cope with all the demands for rubber and tyres and the Lord Mayor of Cork has very graciously said that there is room for will. I believe that there is room for development in the rubber industry and that no one firm should have a monopoly of supply. Encouragement should be given to the establishment of an alternative tyre manufacturing company.
Messrs. Dunlop can supply what is wanted.
If they cannot, let them open another factory.
I say that they can supply what is wanted in the country.
If they can, I do not see the necessity for Deputy Esmonde's question. I am very reliably informed that there is a shortage of tyres and rubber at present, and, if that is the case, there is room in the City of Cork for further development of the industry. I hope the Industrial Development Authority are actively engaged with regard to the decentralisation of industry. We have all the industries together here in the City of Dublin but, while that is so and while there may be records of some few more being employed in industry in the city, it is quite evident that there is a huge unemployment problem to be tackled. What is the use of endeavouring to solve that problem on the lines or solving it in Dublin and encouraging hundreds of people to come up from the country to the city immediately after? You are really robbing the country of its manpower, and I say that the Government would be well advised to insist that future industries be established in rural Ireland.
My own town of Mountmellick was the first town in Ireland to engage in the sugar and beet industry. It was once known as the Manchester of Ireland—there were a beet factory, a distillery, a candle and soap factory and numerous other factories there. To-day the buildings which once housed humming machinery are rookeries for crows. The last industry in that town was the Mountmellick Maltings, an industry which was closed down under the administration of Fianna Fáil.
The one industry in the town now is the Mountmellick Products, which is liver oil, extract of malt and malt tablets. I suggest that the Department should provide the necessary facilities to make a market available in this country for the products of that factory and that imports of commodities similar to those being manufacturedin that factory should be cut down. I suggest also that further development be undertaken with regard to the sugar and beet industry because in that industry we have the raw materials coming from the land of Ireland for the benefit of the farmers. If we encourage the production of beet and pay attractive prices for the crop I feel sure that there is room for further development of it.
It would be well that we should hear what improvement has taken place in the Tuam area in connection with supplies of beet to the beet factory for conversion into sugar. Everybody who has any idea at all with regard to the establishment of an industry to suit a particular area, the raw materials being at the door of the industry, knows that the town of Tuam was no place for a beet factory in the first instance. We do not object to the factory being in Tuam but these factories should be established in the areas where the beet is grown. The Mallow factory is in the right area; the Carlow factory is in the right area, as is the Thurles factory, but when we see beet having to be brought from Stradbally and Portarlington, in the County of Laois, only 18 miles from Carlow, to keep the Tuam factory going, it suggests there is something radically wrong somewhere.
The people in the immediate vicinity of Tuam will not grow beet to give employment in the local beet factory, and, irrespective of any representation any Deputy may make, the Minister should take it on himself to go down to that district and say: "If beet is not grown, we are going to close the factory" and make the people grow the necessary beet. Let them be well paid for it and, if necessary, encourage the growing of beet in the area by an increased price compared with the price in other areas, the difference being made up by not having to pay the cost of transport of beet from the Carlow area to the Tuam area.
I am glad Deputy Davin is here at the moment because he knows, from his very long and valuable experienceas a representative of the constituency —I think he represented the constituency in the year I was born—the amount of propaganda being carried on at present in connection with the worsted mills at Portlaoise and Salts (Ireland) Limited, at Tullamore. Some time ago, there appeared in the papers a note that 500 mill workers employed by Salts (Ireland), Limited, were on short time and all the blame for that situation was thrown on the inter-Party Government. Now the Minister goes down there and tells the local people that it is as a result of his efforts, and his efforts alone, that the industries are going in these districts. The Minister deserves no credit whatever for bringing Salts (Ireland) Limited, to Portlaoise.
Mr. Brennan
Is that what Salts (Ireland) say?
He had nothing whatever to do with the worsted mills.
Mr. Brennan
Who says that?
I say it. Deputy Davin is the man responsible for it, in the first instance. and that is well known and appreciated locally. If the Minister were interested, he should be examining the possibilities of giving greater and further encouragement to extensions of both the Portlaoise and Tullamore mills, so that a greater amount of employment would be given. If he were really interested, he would have used his influence to have the carding and combing factory erected convenient to the Salts (Ireland), Limited, concern at Tullamore and the Irish Worsted Mills at Portlaoise, but that combing factory was erected elsewhere, in Dublin. If Fianna Fáil wanted to show that they were definitely interested in the promotion of the textile industries in Laois-Offaly, they would have given additional facilities to the promoters of the industry for the establishment in that area of the carding and combing factory which would have served the Portlaoise and Tullamore factories and I recommend that the Industrial Development Authority give consideration to the establishment in the not too distant future of the necessarycarding and combing industry convenient to the two factories in that part of my constituency.
In connection with the production of Irish coal, there has been a good deal of dissatisfaction in Irish coal mines and we have had no very clear statement from the Minister with regard to the matter. Coal is produced at the mines at Wolfhill, in my constituency, and it is not very many weeks ago that a meeting was called of all the workers to ascertain who was responsible for the short time and slackness of work in these coal mines. If serious consideration is to be given to the development of our mineral resources, very special consideration should be given to the development, to a fuller and greater extent, of our coal mines. We got no satisfactory reply whatever as to why the men at Wolfhill coal mines were put on short time.
We were told that no market was available for the coal already mined— that was one excuse. We were told, and the Minister has it on his records, that the services of quite a large number of experienced miners at Wolfhill were dispensed with. They were put on two and three days a week work and told to go to Athy Employment Exchange and sign on for unemployment benefit for the remaining two or three days, while, at the same time, English and Welsh coal mines had advertisements in all the daily papers asking for experienced miners to apply for employment, with very attractive rates of pay and a guarantee of fulltime and permanent employment. In addition to the attractiveness of the rates of pay and the guarantee of fulltime employment, housing facilities convenient to the mines were made available for these workers, and from coal-mining districts of County Laois, the coal-mining areas of Arigna and of Castlecomer, there embarked into the emigrant ship numbers of workers for the purpose of working in Welsh or British coal mines to produce coal for British industries, or to produce coal to be sent back here to be burned in the ranges and fireplaces of the wellto-do snobs who would not burn turf and who looked on it with disgust. Wesee the best of our Irish miners, the hardest and toughest of those engaged in that work, men with long experience of mining—and it takes years to qualify as a properly skilled miner who knows his job—leaving the country to work in these British and Welsh coal mines. We are told that no consideration whatever was given to keeping those skilled miners or the best apprentices at home to help in the coal mines of Laois, Kilkenny and Roscommon.
To-day we have the best of these miners engaged in the production of coal in the coal mines of Great Britain, while here at home we have a market for our anthracite. A good deal of the coal produced in the Wolfhill colliery could and should be used in the beet factories and in various branches of industry. A certain amount of it could be used in our hospitals and in industries where there are extensive boilers. I am sure that a substantial order could be obtained for some of that Irish anthracite from C.I.E. If the Irish market is not there for that coal, the man in charge of this Department has the remedy. The remedy that he has was very vivid in his mind in 1932 when he was travelling over the whole country shouting: "Burn everything English but their coal." Of course the days when he was shouting that are gone. Those days served their useful purpose; they laid the foundations of the happy 17 or 18 years that he has occupied the office of Minister.
There is no question now of giving a guarantee of employment to the Irish coal miner. Instead of that we see the coal miners in the Wolfhill area working only three days per week and the majority of our skilled miners sending home money from England in order to keep the lifeblood flowing in the veins of their wives and families and relatives, while at the doors of these people we have the mines and the coal. We have a market for that coal if it were properly provided for. The Minister has not given the serious attention to this problem that should have been given to it.
I feel that I am entitled to be told why the men are working short timein the coal mines in my constituency. I feel bound to ask why there are fewer workers employed there than there were two and a half or three years ago. I think I have a right to ask why unlimited supplies of coal are allowed into the turf areas by the Department of Industry and Commerce while no encouragement has been given either to the production on a large scale or the consumption on a large scale of turf in the Midlands. The Minister knows quite well, Deputy Davin knows quite well, and I am sure Deputy Larkin, who is associated with turf production in another capacity in every part of the country, must know that there is no employment given to-day by the private producers of turf and that turf is not produced on a large scale except by Bord na Móna.
In order to develop our bogs to the fullest possible extent and to give employment during the emergency large sums of money were spent usefully in producing turf. The bogs of Ireland were alive with industry, the men of Ireland had work at their own doors on their own bogs developing what God gave them to develop, their own bogs.
If the Department of Industry and Commerce has a scheme to develop the hotel industry and the tourist industry by loans and grants to hotel owners, why can they not try to develop the turf industry by grants and loans to private turf producers? Private turf producers should have a market provided for their turf and an organisation should be established whereby either loans would be advanced to them for the cutting and saving of turf and the payment of employees to produce the season's crop or grants paid on the tonnage of turf produced and on the record of employment given. Does the Minister not think that that would be a scheme worthy of consideration?
In areas where we have the power stations, such as Allenwood and Portarlington and the power station under construction in another part of my constituency at Boorha, would it not be wise that a certain amount of turf should be bought from the localpeople each year for consumption in these power stations? I think the private turf producer during the emergency was the best and the most generous employer that the Irish worker had during the emergency. Some consideration should be given to encouraging work in rural Ireland and to keep our people there. In areas where there is no industrial employment work should be provided by encouraging private producers to produce turf. It is the Minister's job to get a market for that turf and not ours.
If the Minister is anxious to cooperate in the development of our bogs some consideration should be given to the encouragement of the private producers in the parish of Rhode, near Edenderry, or Raha and other districts where there is no other source of employment, where there is no land suitable for tillage and cultivation, where there are the finest and best bogs in Ireland, and where the people are setting an example by producing turf and giving employment but find that there is no contract for them and that the surplus turf is left on their hands. The Department of Industry and Commerce should interest themselves actively in the provision of a market for all this turf.
The Minister tells us that he is going ahead with the transatlantic air service, again at the expense of the taxpayer. We all knew that the Government were going to revive that matter, because the transatlantic air service is the twin brother of Dublin Castle. Who will benefit by this service? Is this the right time to go ahead with it when there are 80,000 people unemployed in the country, when we have wages kept down, and when we have an intolerable cost of living? There is something else worry air service. They are more concerned ing the people besides a transatlantic with where they are going to get a day's work, where the next meal is going to come from and the price of essential commodities in order to keep body and soul together, than they are with seeing that film stars, American bankers and continental businessmen are provided with air liners and airtivationcraft to take them from New York to Shannon for the purpose of having a meal at Shannon and then leaving for London, Paris or the Continent. I think this is no time for us to develop the transatlantic air service. If we have money to spend on such a service, rather should it be spent on restoring the subsidies on bread, butter, tea and sugar. It should not be put into the clouds for the purpose of bringing film stars, bankers and others who would avail of the transatlantic air service.
Is there even a small percentage of our people ever going to sit in one of those liners? Has not a very small percentage of our people ever seen Shannon Airport? We are not against the transatlantic air service but we believe in putting first things first. I would be the first man in this country to recommend the transatlantic air service if we had full-time employment, a decent standard of living and if the cost of living was at least some points below some countries and not eight points ahead of them.
The present Government are more concerned with living in the clouds than they are with living in the country. They are more concerned with putting thousands of the taxpayers' money into the clouds over the Atlantic between Shannon and the United States than they are with providing work in Dublin and giving employment and a decent standard of living to our people at home. I protest strongly and in a most determined manner against the expenditure of public money on a transatlantic air service while we have 80,000 unemployed and while we have the highest cost of living in the world. I think it is uncalled for and unnecessary.
What good is the transatlantic air service to the thousands who are unemployed to-day? What good is it going to be to the mother of a large hungry family? I think that the Government has at last reached the committal stages of insanity in this respect and that it is time to call a halt. It is time that some determined protest came from the people, and the only protest that can come must comefrom the elected representatives of the people in this House.
If the truth were known the majority of the members of this House believe that instead of spending thousands on a transatlantic air service to provide speed for millionaires and film stars it should be utilised to give decent employment to our own people at home.
The question of an airfield for Cork has been spoken of here on very many occasions. We were told that it was decided to provide an airfield for Cork but that the site was not definitely decided upon. Is it not late in the day that the Government, after their long years of administration, decided to establish an airfield for Cork? Was there not always a case for an airfield for Cork? I hope and trust that no time will be lost in providing the airfield for Cork.
In addition to that, it would be of very great benefit if some of the funds which are about to be spent on the transatlantic air service were spent on providing the most suitable and the best-equipped airfield that can possibly be provided for Cork.
Are you in favour of closing Shannon?
I am in favour of establishing an airfield for Cork-nothing more and nothing less. I am 100 per cent. in favour of it, because I am satisfied with the case that has been brought to my attention by Cork Airways Limited, in their circular, copies of which, I am sure, other Deputies have received. In that circular, the Cork Airways Company directed the attention of public representatives to the sound and reasonable case Cork has put forward for an airfield.
Are we to have airfields and no airports?
Do not let the Tánaiste get vexed again.
I am only amused.
There is no necessity for the Tanaiste to lose his temper and speak loudly on this Vote.
Is it Fine Gael policy to have airfields and no aeroplanes?
How different is that from having bogs and at the same time coal being burned in every house around the bogs? Is not that your policy?
What about the coal generating station you brought in?
I say there is a case for an airfield for Cork. The case put forward by Cork Airways has convinced me that there is a genuine claim for an airfield for Cork. For that reason, I support it 100 per cent. At the same time, I am against the transatlantic air service. When we advocate an airfield for Cork, that does not mean to say we are in favour of the transatlantic air service.
Where do you want air services to?
It is very late in the day that the Government are giving consideration to Cork's claim for an airfield. It is long overdue.
You missed the bus there.
If the inter-Party Government had been in office for the past two years, more steps and quicker steps would have been taken in relation to the matter. We would not be waiting until now to arrive at the question of the site for Cork airfield. It would have been done. Perhaps, Deputy Fanning is looking for an airport in Newport?
Borrisokane!
Since the Ceann Comhairle has given me permission to raise the question of the Russian timber on this Estimate, I will now deal with that. I want to take this opportunity of protesting in the strongest possible manner against any trading whatever between this country and Russia. On the one hand, we see the Department of External Affairs sending messages to the Head of the Catholic Church and to the IrishHierarchy expressing the Government's sympathy and regret at the persecution of the Bishops and Hierarchy in countries under Russian jurisdiction; and, on the other hand. the Department of Industry and Commerce permit Russian timber to be brought into this country. I think that is wrong. I think that it should be stopped, and if the Government were sincere in their protests against Communistic activities, they would not permit a Russian ship to enter any of our ports. They would not permit the entry of any Russian timber. Our trade unions should take steps to boycott the handling of Russian timber.
The customs authorities should take steps to have a complete boycott of Russian ships and should not take hand, act or part in the handling of Russian timber. What is the use of Ireland posing as one of the greatest countries in the world in the upholding of the flag of Christianity and saying how determined we are to see that Christianity must live, survive and prosper, while, at the same time, she is taking in timber from Russia?
The timber that was procured for this country by the inter-Party Government was sold to Belfast by the present Government. It was procured to build houses for the people in Dublin and the country generally, but to-day it is being economically used for the building of houses in Belfast, thanks to the Fianna Fáil Government. The Fianna Fáil Government have done more to provide cheap timber for housebuilding and shipbuilding and for other essential purposes in Belfast and in the North than anybody else. and by the North I mean the Six Counties which are so much the subject of criticism when it suits the Government. At the same time, when it suits them they find a market there for timber that was brought here by the inter-Party Government to provide houses for our own people.
We find that we have now reached the stage when the Department of Industry and Commerce stands for Irish citizens trading with the Russians. The Minister stated in the House yesterday that he would notstop the importation of Russian timber, but if he was doing his duty he would stop it. It should be stopped and no apology should be offered to anyone for stopping its import. The names of the companies and dealers purchasing Russian timber should be published so that we might know the use to which this Russian timber is being put. I think it is a terrible disgrace that in a country like Ireland, which is sending its young men and young women to the four corners of the world to preach and to teach Christianity, an Irish Government should give its support to the purchase of timber, hides and skins from Russia.
The last Government did it.
If the inter-Party Government did it, it was wrong. That is no reason why the present Government should continue to do wrong.
Was it wrong?
It was wrong and every Deputy knows that it was wrong. Every Deputy in this House will stand up and condemn, in no low tone of voice, Communistic activities. They will condemn the Soviet Administraiton and will denounce the persecution of the Church, but at the same time Fianna Fáil say that they will buy their timber—£85,000 worth of Russian timber. Does the Minister seriously tell the House that the only timber that is suitable is Russian timber?
It is the cheapest.
If I got it for nothing I would not accept it on principle, because I think there should be no negotiations whatever with the Russians. On principle there should be no possible connection with Russia. I think it is the duty of every Party, and of every Deputy who really sympathises with the Church in its persecution by the Soviet Administration, to see to it that Ireland should be the first country in the world toboycott, ignore and condemn and to refuse to give a reception to a ship or a vessel or even a match that would be manufactured in Russia. We know very well that it is going to be very hard to beat the old dog off his track. We know that between the present Government and Russia there was always a high bond of friendship, always a tight bond of friendship.
They are more Irish and Catholic than you are.
Who? The Russians?
No. This Government.
Deputy Flanagan should be allowed to make his speech without interruption.
I think it is high time that steps were taken by the Government to cancel all future and outstanding orders and negotiations between this country and Russia. Further, steps should be taken by the responsible Department to inform those merchants and dealers who are trading with Russia that they should find alternative markets for the purchase of their timber. I do not think that anyone in this House, or in the country, would object to that. I think everyone would commend it as the action that a Catholic Government would be expected to take.
The Constitution says that the recognised faith of this country is the faith of the Roman Catholic Church. Yet, despite that Article, here we are trading with the greatest enemy of the Church. I think it is scandalous and disgraceful. I think that every possible step should be taken to bring pressure on the responsible Minister to see that trading between this country and Russia should be immediately brought to a standstill. If we are sincere in our protest, we should prevent the landing of a Russian ship at any of our ports, dissociate ourselves in every way by cancelling orders and thus fulfil our obligations as a Christian country apart from a Catholiccountry, and end all our dealings and communications with Russia.
I want to deal with one other branch of industry, that is, the manufacture of clay drainage pipes. On the 27th October last, a statement appeared in the Irish Pressthat the production of clay pipes is far below the demand and that until home production is considerably stepped up the Department are importing these pipes from Holland and also receiving quantities from the Six Counties. When it suits the Government to skin and fleece the Six Counties they do it, but what do we find? They are importing from the Six Counties clay drainage pipes for work under the land rehabilitation scheme, the land drainage scheme and for sewerage schemes. TheIrish Pressgave full publicity to the fact that these pipes are coming from Holland, that we cannot produce sufficient to meet our requirements, and that because the production of pipes has fallen so low they must be secured from either the Six Counties or Holland.
We in the inter-Party Government who were responsible, and still are responsible, for the employment given under the land rehabilitation project, rightly boast of our achievements in that regard. Under that scheme, thousands upon thousands of clay drainage pipes are being used, which means that that scheme is providing employment indirectly for workers in the Six Counties. It is doing more than that. It is providing employment for workers in Holland while, at the same time, in the Twenty-Six Counties there is unemployment in the same industry.
The statement in the Irish Presshas been denied completely by the Slane Brick Company, Limited, no truth whatever in it. What steps are the Government going to take, not in the future, but this very evening, to see that the import of clay drainage pipes from the Six Counties is stopped? We have the unemployed men in the Twenty-Six Counties singing the “Soldier's Song,” while we are keeping the lads in the Six counties in employment to sing “God Save the Queen.”
They are our own people up there.
It cannot be denied that they are the subjects of a foreign power and that they have often stated that they do not want to have anything to do with us. Even though the Six Counties would be our nearest friends for trade relationship, why in the first instance do we have to go even further than the Six Counties and import drainage pipes from Holland? Is there not an avenue wide open for the Minister for Industry and Commerce, first of all, to explore the possibilities of extending and developing the clay pipe manufacturing industry in this country, of giving increased employment to the existing industries that are engaged in manufacture of pipes for drainage schemes and secondly, to see that when the Irish farmer is going to drain his land by the assistance of funds provided by an Irish Government, at least they have pipes draining that land made and manufactured by Irishmen in their own country? When I say that, I mean under the jurisdiction of Dáil Éireann and not in the Six Counties. I would the Six Counties if we could make it at home in the Twenty-Six Counties. Our own people are nearer and dearer to us than those under another flag. They are the responsibility of another Government, and if our Government were alive to their responsibility in regard to the clay pipe industry they would see to it that the occasion would never have arisen for these imports.
That is not the worst of it. In connection with the clay drainage pipe industry the Irish Pressstates that production is far short of requirements. Not alone is that a falsehood but it is a brazen lie that has been denied publicly by the Slane Brick Company, Limited, who state that not alone have they sufficient pipes ready for the home market, but they have 1,000,000 pipes ready for immediate delivery. Surely this is something that warrants at least meritorious consideration from a responsible Minister.
The Deputy says the excerpt is from adaily newspaper. The Minister is not responsible for what a newspaper says.
Appreciating that very fully and realising the accuracy that is alleged to come from the columns of the Irish Pressand the closeness of theIrish Pressto the heart of the Minister and his associates, one would expect at least that theIrish Presswould have published a report in accordance with facts. The Minister knows well that the Slane Brick Company, Limited, can supply 1,000,000 clay pipes for land drainage, and whilst they have them in stock millions of pipes are coming from Holland and the Six Counties. All I ask is that those pipes be stopped from coming in and that the 1,000,000 pipes in the hands of the Slane Brick Company be used immediately. One would imagine that to be a reasonable request to make to an Irish Minister for Industry and Commerce.
The position is a little more serious than that. The attention of the Government has not been directed to the question of the development of the clay pipe industry yesterday or the day before, but the Irish taxpayers' money to the extent of £434,987 was spent on pipes imported from the Continent lately for land drainage schemes and £20,000 was spent on pipes imported from the Six Counties. Frequent representations have been made over a long period, particularly since 1951.
And before that, when the previous Minister was in office.
I only know since 1951.
I know before that.
Did you make representations?
I am not here for cross-questioning.
If you are not here for cross-questioning, you are here to listen to facts.
I am here to representthe public, not to play-act, as you are doing.
I want to impress upon the Minister the importance of the representations that he has received since 1951 and which he has May I ask in what way certain vested interests have made representations to his Department to keep the continental clay pipes coming in here? I want to know what vested interests and what influence certain manufacturers in the Six Counties have on the Department to see that the pipes are brought in and that £20,000 of the taxpayers' money should go into the Six Counties instead of being spent in the Twenty-Six Counties.
Was there not another factory established since 1951—established last year in Clare?
Frequent representations were made to the Minister on the subject, and he was informed that the clay goods manufacturers in the country are capable of supplying all the land drainage pipes needed each year. The Minister got that guarantee on more than one occasion from concerns similar to, and in addition to, the Slane Brick Company, but steps were not taken to cancel the continental orders and Six-County orders and give them to the development of industry in the Twenty-Six Counties. I have known from my personal contacts that in the clay manufacturing business here there is both short time and unemployment. When we have unemployment associated with the manufacture of clay drainage pipes, is it any wonder that the unemployment problem is becoming a more and more serious problem day by day? This is an industry that should be fostered and encouraged rather than allowed to die an angry death through imports from Holland and the Six Counties.
I want to demand the immediate stoppage of the import of clay pipes from Holland and the Six Counties. I want to see that the pipes manufactured by the Slane Brick Company, Limited, are taken off their hands so that more and more men may be employedin that industry producing those land drainage pipes that the company is capable of producing to comply with each year's requirements under the land drainage scheme.
Mr. Brennan
What length of time are the Slane Brick Company in production of the pipes?
I want to go further and say that, in addition to stopping the import of the clay drainage pipes, I would recommend to the Department the encouragement of another branch of the same industry-the stoneware pipe. In my constituency a very valuable and flourishing industry prevails in the manufacture of glazed stoneware pipes which are suitable for all sewerage schemes throughout the country. In 1912, when a Royal Commission was set up in Sydney to investigate the failure of some thousands of miles of a sewerage scheme, that commission decided that stoneware glazed pipes were the most suitable that could be used in sewerage schemes because of the fact that the glazing protected the pipe against deterioration by the acid contents. I respectfully recommend that steps be taken to see that in all sewerage schemes throughout the country stoneware pipes are used for a lasting job and for the promotion of the stoneware pipe industry. The industry we have in the manufacture of stoneware pipes, glazed specially and suitable for sewerage schemes, is an industry that we are very proud of and that gives great employment in part of my constituency. I hope and trust that that industry will not meet the same fate as the Slane Brick Company has met. I do not want to see imported every year from Holland or Denmark or the Six Counties, or anywhere else, stoneware glazed pipes for sewerage schemes, as we have an industry in that part of Laois which is competent and capable of supplying such requirements for very many sewerage schemes. I hope and trust that the stoneware pipe industry will be given more and more encouragement.
I do not know what steps will betaken towards the provision by the Department of Industry and Commerce of more Irish ships. The Department would be well advised to develop and expand Irish shipping and some steps should be taken to increase our tonnage for the purpose of trading, etc.
I am interested in the provision of an additional power station at Mountlucas near Daingean in Offaly. In the opinion of the local people this would be a suitable area in which to erect a power station. I understand that matter is under consideration at the moment.
Mr. Brennan
Will coal be burned in it?
It was in Portarlington they burned coal and the coal was brought there by the Deputy's own Minister. Picture a turf fired power station burning coal at the instance of the Minister for Industry and Commerce! That actually happened. It may be news to Deputy Brennan but it is quite true. That was akin to bringing steel to Sheffield or turf into a bog. I ask that every step be taken to expedite the arrangements for the erection of this additional power station at Mountlucas
I protest strongly against the outrageous and unreasonable E.S.B. charges. On every occasion on which this body makes a request to the Minister for increased charges, that request is acceded to by the Minister without cognisance being taken of the capacity of the consumer to pay. I protest against the increased charges to local authorities for public lighting. I protest against the disinclination on the part of the Minister to investigate to his satisfaction and to the satisfaction of this House the justification for the existing outrageous E.S.B. charges.
We pay £1,700,000 interest and we are bound to have increased charges.
Does the Deputy want increased taxation?
Deputy Flanagan is in possession.
The point made by Deputy Hickey may or may not be correct. I maintain that if electricity was available to a greater extent at a more reasonable price there would be much greater consumption. The greater the consumption the cheaper the commodity consumed should be. Apparently that is not the case where electricity is concerned. If a local authority decides that in the interests of the proper administration of public lighting in its area additional public lighting services are required the charges for that will be assessed by the E.S.B. at a wholly outrageous figure. If the Minister intends to inquire into excessive prices of essential commodities, may I say that there is nothing more essential than lighting and heating?
And power.
And power. Our people are becoming more electrically minded, as it were. More electricity is being used in the home. More electricity is being used on the land. Rural electrification was supposed to brighten up rural Ireland. Despite the increased consumption of electricity there is not in contemplation by the E.S.B. any reduction of its present outrageous charges.
They cannot help that. It is this House that should do something.
The lead in that matter should come from the Minister for Industry and Commerce. I appeal to the Minister to inquire into these outrageous E.S.B. charges and to ascertain at the same time what the increased consumption would be if these charges were reduced. People would take advantage of rural electrification and avail of the services supplied, but they have no guarantee that the price they are charged will be a guaranteed price and that the Minister will not approve of an Order to increase charges which will mean the dismantling of fittings, the removal of facilities and the consequent expenditure involvedin such an operation. Would the Minister give a guarantee now that the existing E.S.B. charges will not be further increased? If he examines the position, he will find that if charges were reduced there would be a far greater consumption of electricity and we would have none of the numerous cancellations that have taken place in the past in connection with rural electrification in different areas throughout the country.
There is an even more serious cause for complaint in relation to the overhead charges of the E.S.B. These overhead charges are daylight robbery. What steps have been taken to investigate these charges? What steps have been taken to investigate the cost of fittings, the cost of equipment? These charges have been paid 20 times over by consumers. Yet the overhead charges remain. These overhead charges prevent people from availing of the facilities provided by the board. If they were to disappear, or be substantially reduced after a period of years, the consumer would have some consolation. I would ask the Minister carefully to consider the position of the big industrial consumer and that of a tenant of a two-roomed cottage. There is a continuous burden represented by the payment of overhead charges. In my opinion, these charges should be wiped out when the cost of the equipment that has been installed has been met.
In recent years the E.S.B. have brought great benefits to the country. I want to take this opportunity of paying a very high tribute to the chairman, engineering staff and skilled workers of the E.S.B. and to those who have been engaged in the development of power stations and rural electrification. The chairman of the E.S.B. is a man of very wide experience, knowledge and common sense. The engineering staff is composed of men of a similar make-up. If there is any section under the Minister's Department staffed by men who know their job, it is the E.S.B. The engineering staff deserve appreciation and gratitude for the valuable work they have done.
The E.S.B. has served a very useful purpose. It has made progresspossible in rural Ireland. Country churches, parish halls and farms all have a supply of electricity. The engineering staff endeavour as far as possible to meet the reasonable wishes of the local people. That is something that deserves a word of appreciation in this House. I am only sorry that the same business-like methods have not been adopted by other concerns and other branches of industry and commerce as have been so widely adopted by the chairman and board of the E.S.B. I hope that during the next few years this House will make funds available for further schemes of rural electrification. There is no necessity to spur a willing horse such as we have in the case of the E.S.B. If further rural electrification schemes are carried out I am sure it will be possible for the E.S.B. in consultation with the senior officers of the Department of Industry and Commerce to arrive at a scheme for the provision of light, heat and power at a more reasonable cost than obtains at present.
New power stations have been built. Allenwood and the Portarlington stations are in full production. Other stations are contemplated which will be in production by the end of 1955. When there is sufficient output of electricity I hope it will be possible to give the consumer substantial relief. When that happens the demand for electricity will increase.
I wish to comment very briefly, if I may, on the administration of Bord na Móna. Bord na Móna could provide more employment and extend its work. If, with the consent of this House, greater schemes were undertaken in parts of the Midlands, the energies of Bord na Móna could be directed to the development of some hundreds of acres of virgin bog. I am glad that, after years of persuasion, influence, requests and recommendations and on considerations of merit, Bord na Móna have decided to undertake the development of Garryhinch Bog, which is situated between the towns of Portlaoise and Mountmellick. To some extent that scheme will help to relieve unemployment in those areas.
I want to impress upon the Ministerthe need for the establishment of additional turf camps. When the turf camp at Boorha, Offaly, closed down—the local people protested very determinedly against its closing—we expected that a guarantee would be given by the board that the workers in that camp would be retained in the service and would be transferred to the production of milled peat. That has not been done to the extent expected locally.
With all respect to the presence in the House of Deputy Lahiffe, I want to say that I visited Attymon turf scheme quite recently and thought the camp dreary and lonely-looking and not half as attractive as camps sponsored by Bord na Móna elsewhere, even though these could be improved considerably. To me the turf history or the turf development that is in progress in the Attymon district of the Deputy's constituency falls far short of expectations of Bord na Móna in the West. Its appearance is dreary, very little encouragement could be given to remain there, and Bord na Móna should certainly take steps towards making that area a little more attractive than it is. It is hardly necessary for me to recommend that the Deputy would actively interest himself in that, because I presume he has already done so, but I only mention for the purposes of the record, that there is room for plenty more improvement in this particular area than in the other areas that I have had the pleasure of visiting. I would say, though, that in the case of the expenditure of money by Bord na Móna I do not feel satisfied that we get a really clear and detailed account of the spending. The report submitted by Bord na Móna could be far clearer and the expenditure by Bord na Móna could certainly be given in greater and better detail. After all, public representatives are entitled to see how public money is spent, and the Minister would be well advised to consult with the secretarial staff of Bord na Móna and see that more elaborate and detailed accounts of the expenditure would be given in the report
I think that I have covered the main points that I had intended to raisehere, and I want to conclude on the note of dissatisfaction with the whole administration of the Minister's policy, particularly referring to the cost of living. He has gone completely off the track and the Government, having regard to the cost of living at the present time, is certainly on the very verge of insanity in that respect. I would certainly say that the cost of living to-day has the condemnation of every citizen of all classes and creeds and that the only method by which we can return to better times and cheaper prices, particularly concerning cheaper prices of foodstuffs, will be the removal from office of the present Government. The sooner that takes place the better for everyone concerned. One would imagine that, having regard to the high prices, the cost of living and the Minister's failure even to attempt to reduce the cost of living, shame would be sufficient to encourage the Minister to say that he did his best, his best was appreciated but it was a bad job, he could do no better and that he would pack up and get out.
Having listened to Deputy Flanagan so long it might be worth while to go back to a few statements he has made. I would like first to tackle his statement with regard to the clay pipes. One wonders what efforts were made for the establishment of a clay pipe industry to meet the needs of this country up to 1951. Since then the Minister whom Deputy Flanagan has been abusing for the last two hours established one clay pipe factory in County Clare, one in Arklow and one in County Wexford.
A what?
A clay pipe factory.
How many are employed in that?
Their total output is purchased according as the pipes are produced and we have not enough of them. That is the position as regards that. That is a change, and that is the reply to Deputy Flanagan's abuse.
Next, I was very glad to hear his very fine comment on the turf workersand the way he appreciated the hard work they did during the emergency If Deputy Flanagan gave ten minutes of the hour that he devoted here to praising them—if he gave that ten minutes in 1948, when the turf workers for publication, that we are only getting the high road and the wattle from Deputy Morrissey, they would appreciate it far more.
On a point of order. Has Deputy Corry special permission to speak twice in this debate?
The position is that last night Deputy Corry moved to report progress after speaking for five minutes. Unfortunately, he was prevented from being in his place to-day when the debate was resumed, and Deputy Flanagan was called in his place. I cannot see that any Deputy has a grievance because I now call on Deputy Corry.
I am not taking exception to that, because I heard Deputy Corry here last night when he spoke for five minutes, but I assume that this rule will be applied in similar circumstances.
It has been applied in similar circumstances.
On that point, it would be a pity if the House would be deprived of Deputy Corry's eloquence.
I am not making any objection to Deputy Corry's speaking.
Deputy Corry.
Those are two small instances of the manner in which Deputy Flanagan has wasted his eloquence here in the past two hours—those two items alone. The third was the attack on the Minister for not closing the beet factory in Tuam. Apparently it was not alone the activities of Bord na Móna that were dreary in Deputy Flanagan's eyes in County Galway but even the Tuam factory and the workers also came in for their meed of opprobrium. He did not like the Galway people at all.
I think you have turned against your constituents, too.
You were finished there very quickly.
Your own constituency, East Cork.
You would get a crowd to come to hear a clown.
I understand that Deputy Corry has referred to Deputy Flanagan as a clown. Deputy Corry will withdraw that expression.
I did not allude to anybody in particular.
May I take it it is withdrawn?
I am very glad to see that the Minister has made up his mind that despite Deputy Flanagan's appreciation of airfields we are going to get one in Cork, and in that respect I would like to deal in the first place with the Minister's reply to my question last week on that matter.
You should wait to hear the report on what is going to happen in Cork.
I have no objection, Deputy Hickey, to any friendly rivalry as between one area and another——
Wait till we hear the result of the inquiry.
——but I say that friendly rivalry ends when the test ends, and when the test ends I expect all Cork to stand together, and if the Cork citizens are so small-minded that they hate——
You are prejuding.
What about Youghal Bridge?
Youghal Bridge will be there despite the Deputy. I succeeded in everything I tried, and I am certain of that; and I hope to have Deputy Hickey's assistance now in seeing thatthis airport is established immediately in Midleton.
Do not prejudge the decision.
In column 181, on the 21st October, 1953, I asked the Minister for Industry and Commerce if he would not make an announcement on the provision of airport facilities for Cork at Ahenesk, Midleton; and, if not, when he expected to do so. The Minister replied:—
"An inspection of possible sites of Cork airport has been made. A report is at present being prepared for submission to the Government. Until the Government have considered the report, I will not be in a position to make any statement in the matter."
I then asked the Minister for Industry and Commerce if he would state whether the same meteorological tests were being carried out on other proposed sites for Cork airport as had already been carried out at Farmers' Cross and Ahenesk; and, if so, if he would give the locations of the proposed sites. The Minister replied:—
"Meteorological tests were carried out at Ballygarvan and at Ahenesk. It has not been found necessary to have tests carried out at other sites."
Therefore, Midleton is fixed up and finished.
I hope not.
I hope yes.
Speaking in this House on that matter on the 16th July, 1952, as reported in the Official Report, Volume 133, No. 8, column 1047, the present Minister for Industry and Commerce stated:—
"During the war the question of an airport in Cork, as a post-war development project, was again taken up and in 1944 we carried out an investigation of possible sites in the vicinity of Cork. That inquiry revealed that there were two possible sites. One was near Midleton and the other was adjacent to the place where the present private airportexists. Supplementary to that investigation of the terrain and its suitability for the construction of an airport, meteorological investigations over a number of years were carried out and, on the basis of those investigations, the location of the present airport was ruled out and Midleton was deemed more suitable. The report to me was that not more than 80 per cent. regularity could be ensured at the Ballygarvan site because of the incidence of fog."
That opinion was come to as a result of meteorological tests carried out on both sites over a number of years. If there is any other site in the Minister's mind now, or any other site proposed, I am entitled, in my capacity as a Deputy representing East Cork, to demand that the same tests will be carried out on any new site over the same number of years as were devoted to the Midleton and Farmers' Cross sites so that we can arrive at a definite result. However, I take it that the Minister's reply to me last week, as reported in column 181 of the Official Report, Volume 142, No. 2, in which he said that there was no occasion for carrying out any tests at any other site, means that Midleton has now been chosen.
No.
Like Deputy O. Flanagan, I think that the time has arrived when we should get our Cork airport——
At Farmers' Cross.
——on the site that has been selected and that has been approved as a result of tests which were carried out by the Minister's Department.
At Farmers' Cross.
If Deputy Hickey still thinks that, I would remind him of the extract which I quoted from the Minister's speech which he made here on the 16th July, 1952, in which he said:—
"Supplementary to that investigation of the terrain and itssuitability for the construction of an airport, meteorological investigations over a number of years were carried out and, on the basis of those investigations, the location of the present airport was ruled out and Midleton was deemed more suitable."
The Minister said that the inquiry revealed that there were two possible sites—the one near Midleton and another site which was adjacent to the place where the present private airport exists. That means that Farmers' Cross was turned down.
Oh, no!
The Minister's exact words were:—
"...the location of the present airport was ruled out and Midleton was deemed more suitable."
As I have already said, these are the Minister's own words and the reference is column 1047 of the Official Report of Wednesday, 16th July, 1952.
Meteorological tests are not the only tests.
The Minister stated that, as a result of the meteorological investigations that were carried out over a number of years, the location of the present airport was ruled out.
That does not say that it cannot be approved of.
To come back again to the Minister's speech on the 16th July, 1952, I again quote from column 1047 this statement by the Minister:—
"The report to me was that not more than 80 per cent. regularity could be ensured at the Ballygarvan site because of the incidence of fog."
That is Farmers' Cross, and Midleton was contemplated as being more suitable. Deputy Hickey is amazed.
I am.
I suggest that if the Minister intends to consider any further the ideas of those citizens of Cork who can never see beyond the boundary of their own parish, heshould consider putting up an airport at the Coal Quay in Cork. I think it would be a most suitable site for the project.
However, we have heard the decision of the Department and I am sure that it is a decision which cost the State a pretty considerable amount of money. You do not get experts to come down to Farmers' Cross and Midleton and stay there for a number of years, making tests, without some expenditure of State money. There is the decision of the experts. If the Minister has decided on providing an airport for Cork, I expect him to carry out the advice of his experts and I see no other way out of it.
The Mallow Beet Factory should have been in New Ross, according to the experts.
I will deal with all these things in turn. I am glad to see that Deputy McGrath, who is the Lord Mayor of Cork, has now come into the House and is consulting Deputy Hickey. I am glad to see that he is keeping Deputy Hickey quiet over there. I am sure that Deputy McGrath has not such a narrow and parochial outlook that, when he finds that the site nearer to Cork is unsuitable, according to the departmental experts, he will not throw in his lot and assist us in getting a site in Midleton—and we want no further delay in the matter. I do not wish to go any further now than to say that the Minister's experts carried out these tests and their decision has only coincided with that of other experts who went that way before. When the Americans wanted to put down an airbase, round the time of the 1914-18 War, they came down to within a few miles of that site at Midleton, and established their base there and a further one at Ahenesk. These two places are on either side of the present airport.
I hope the Yanks will not have any say in this matter.
Do not draw me on that. It only remains for me now to congratulate the Minister on his commonsense in coming to a decision to establish an airport in Cork which will have scheduled air services from that city. I should like to point out to him that the line of service would be far closer to Ahenesk than it would be to Cork City. The distance between Cobh and Ahenesk is only a few miles. Therefore, I hope there will be no delay.
How far is it from Cork?
I hope the airport will be established in Midleton within the next few months.
Do not take any bets on it.
I also wish to point out, for publication that we are only getting what we are entitled to get, after tests on other sites have been carried out and have been found wanting.
On the same day, when I asked these questions in the Dáil. I received another reply from the Minister in connection with the oil bunkering facilities at Haulbowline. I should like to congratulate the Minister and the Minister for Defence on bringing to an end the scandal that existed. during the inter-Party régime, in connection with the naval base at Haulbowline. If one of our corvettes wanted to get a gallon of oil to travel anywhere, it had to go to Dublin to get that oil. That was about as big a joke as ever I have seen perpetrated in the Irish Department of Defence. If a ship wanted fuel, it had to come to Dublin to get that fuel. I am glad to see that that scandal has been brought to an end and that our corvettes can now be supplied on the island of Haulbow line.
There is a further matter which I should like to urge on the Minister in that connection. We have had several proposals there in regard to the extension of the pier. Now it has been discovered, I am very glad to say, that there is no occasion for the extension of the pier, and that it will be sufficient to dredge the anchorage outside. I would suggest that that dredging should be proceeded with immediatelywithout any further delay. Surely with all the oil firms that are operating in this country at present, it should not be impossible to get one of these firms as a commercial transaction to take over the oil bunkering facilities in Haulbowline. The present position entails a loss of revenue to the port and there is a lack of facilities which, in my opinion, should be provided in what is the first port in this country. It should not take too much, anyway, to dredge the anchorage.
Another question I raised with the Minister on the same day was the position with regard to Cobh pier. The Minister informed me that the Harbours Act imposes on harbour authorities the duty of maintaining the harbour works under their control. I hope that the next time we shall have the pleasure of having the Minister in Cobh he will take a look for himself at the condition of the pier. I should also like to inform him that any statement that he got that the pier was not condemned as dangerous in 1937 by the harbour board's engineer is not correct. I hope to be able to give him the report of the harbour board engineer on that pier. I should like to remind him also that the pier is being used by some hundreds of men every day on their way to work in Haulbowline. To think that that pier which was reported as being in a dangerous condition in 1937 is still in the same condition is appalling. That is largely due to the fact that proper representation from the harbour and town of Cobh is not allowed on the Cork Harbour Board. That is a matter that I hope will be rectified in the near future.
The next matter with which I should like to deal is the position of Irish Steel, Limited. I have spent five or nearly six years constantly asking questions as to the extension of that industry. I admit freely that the establishment of the so-called Industrial Development Authority has held it up and that that authority has evidently been used as something to which the buck could be passed. A large portion of the machinery necessary for the establishment of a sheetmill in Haulbowline is there on the ground. In Cobh and in the surrounding district you have an industrial population dating back for generations. You have a line of skilled workers there who are second to none in this country and there is an opportunity there to provide a very large increase in employment. It would not alone mean a large increase in employment but would save a big expenditure in bringing in from foreign countries goods that can be produced here. I would, therefore, urge on the Minister to speed up the starting of that sheet mill. This is an industry which is absolutely essential to the town of Cobh.
To the whole nation.
I should like to take a step further and urge the Minister also to start immediately tin plate mills on the same site. These joint industries were envisaged in the first articles of association when the project was started. During the past 12 months, we paid something over £2,000,000 for foreign tin cans and tin plates. Unless I am very much mistaken, a pretty considerable amount of the machinery for that industry is also in Haulbowline already. If these industries were brought into being in Cobh, they would not alone relieve unemployment in the Cobh area but in the area across the water, in Passage as well. I think it is essential that these industries should be brought into operation immediately and I, for one, cannot understand the reason for any further delay. I spent long enough here when the inter-Party Government was in office making representations to that effect. Now that we have a Minister back in office who has done so much for Irish industry, I expect him to make every effort to push that industry ahead and to finish the job he so very ably undertook in 1939 when he first opened the factory.
I should like to pay the tribute to him that I do not think any other Minister for Industry and Commerce in this or any other country would have done as much for Irish Steel as the present Minister has done. As one who had to go through the mill with him, and whohad to come up here repeatedly on appeals to him to resurrect the industry when it had gone bankrupt and was threatened with extinction, I must admit that he met the case put to him always sympathetically and well. I ask him now to put the coping stone on his good work by getting the industry going fully.
I admit that there has, undoubtedly, been an improvement in the condition of affairs in my constituency, as a whole, during the past 12 months, but there are still evidently delays in some directions that I cannot understand. I cannot understand why these delays have been so long. For that reason, I put down a question last week in connection with the Fermoy project. I received a reply stating that it was hoped that production would commence by August of this year, but a delay had been caused by circumstances unforeseen by the promoters and outside the Minister's control. Let us hope that the reasons for this delay no longer exist. I should like to point out to the Minister the claims that Fermoy has on any national Government in this country. Fermoy was a prosperous garrison town during the British régime, but the people of Fermoy, and the young men of Fermoy in particular, did their part nobly during the national struggle, even though by their action, they, so to speak, deprived themselves of their own bread in getting rid of the British. They did their part, as I say, nobly and well. The town has been left almost derelict for the last 30 years. We are looking forward now to the establishment of an industry in that town that will give employment to the people there so that the unfortunate citizen of Fermoy will no longer find himself in the position that he has to look at his family growing up around him in the full knowledge that when they reach school-leaving age they will have to go somewhere else to seek employment. The opportunities are there and the industry is there. If, as the Minister stated, the machinery is now ready for shipment, it should not take so long to put it into position and so put the people of Fermoy in the happy position of beingable fully to provide for those who are seeking employment in their midst.
The next matter to which I should like to refer is the position at Clondulane Flour Mills. We have seen, with dismay, the closing down of these mills and we have seen something further. I have seen recently stores taken over by that firm in other towns in my constituency and being used for the storage of corn. I have seen barley held up when the mills in Cork could not take it in, not having storage room, whilst the large flour mills and the stores in Clondulane are left there idle. I say, speaking for the agricultural community, that we are not prepared to be informed that there is no room for our barley and that our barley cannot be accepted at the mills because they have not storage capacity whilst other stores, the property of the millers, are lying there idle. Surely if they are not going to be used for flour milling they should take barley in there and give some employment in the handling of barley.
Another matter with which I should like to deal is the position of Rushbrooke Dockyard. I would say to the Minister in that respect that there is too much centralisation in Dublin as regards dockyard work. I cannot see any just reason for moving ships to Dublin for repairs, ships that are deriving most of their trade from Cork Port. I am aware of the business associations existing between the managers of the B. & I. Line and the Dublin Dockyard Company. I should like to point out to the Minister that, apparently with his consent, certain reductions in port dues have been given by the Cork Harbour Commissioners to these shipping companies. If reductions in dues amounting to a couple of thousand pounds a year are given to certain shipping companies trading in the port of Cork, we at least are entitled to expect that any necessary repairs to these ships will be carried out in the dockyard attached to Cobh. That is not asking for too much.
I happened to be one of a deputation which some years ago waited on the managing director of that steamshipline in Cork and which got from him certain guarantees as to the amount of business that would be given to Rushbrooke Dockyard. I can also say that no guarantee that he gave to that deputation was afterwards carried out. I think it is high time that the shipping company either fulfil these guarantees or else that they be no longer treated as the petted friend of the Cork Harbour Commissioners. If they are relieved to the extent of a couple of thousand pounds of harbour dues legally due, somebody else has to pay for it. These are matters which I should like to bring to the Minister's immediate notice.
I should like to congratulate the Minister on the activity that he has shown since 1951. The establishment in this country of some 187 new industries since he came back again as Minister is an achievement that any Government could be proud of. He will pardon me if, in my anxiety, I want to see a fair crack of the whip given to the constituency I represent. If it is not given, then it is my duty as its representative to come here and fight for it.
I should like to deal with a few other matters that in my opinion need attention. I should like to know from the Minister whether there will be any subsidy needed for C.I.E. this year. In view of the manner in which transport is restricted in this country and of the fact that an ordinary lorry owner, despite all the restrictions, can still make sufficient to make ends meet and that the smaller companies here and there round the country have succeeded in holding their own although charging a lower price than is charged by C.I.E. for transport, I cannot see any sane reason for imposing any burden on the taxpayers in order to keep C.I.E. going. I think there is no justification for it.
There must be something wrong with a company which, having all the facilities at their disposal, cannot pay their way. They are so conservative that they are 50 years behind the times. It is all very well to put on diesel trains and all the rest of it, but, as representing those who supply somethinglike 60 per cent of the total freight trade carried by C.I.E., namely the Beet Growers' Association, I think there should be some move by C.I.E. in the way of providing us with facilities.
Some five years have passed since we received guarantees from the management of C.I.E. in regard to mechanical loaders at railway stations and pick-up points. At that time we used the horse for opening the drill for the beet and for setting the beet. We used manual labour for singling, weeding, pulling and crowning the beet. Since then, the sugar company, at great inconvenience to themselves and after a lot of mechanical research, have relieved the agricultural community of a lot of the slave labour attached to the growing of beet. The only people who have not advanced since that time are the C.I.E. They are still back in the donkey stage in dealing with an industry which supplies something like 60 per cent. of their total revenue as far as freight is concerned.
Surely the beet growers are entitled to a fair crack of the whip from C.I.E. Those mechanical loaders have now been turned out by the sugar company. They are at the disposal of C.I.E. if they are prepared to take them and use them. They would save the company at least 25 per cent. of the present loading time on lorries and wagons. I can see no justification for having a lorry waiting for an hour at a pick-up point to be loaded when it can be done with a mechanical loader in a quarter of an hour far more efficiently. Why are those in charge of C.I.E. so blind that they cannot see that for themselves? I suggest that the Minister should bring it home to them.
I do not think there is any other matter I wish to deal with except to apologise for not being here in time to resume the debate to-day. Unfortunately I thought the Dáil was meeting as usual at 3 o'clock, and I thank you, Sir, for your kindness in allowing me to finish my speech.
After the Department of Agriculture, I would say that the Department of Industry and Commerce is the most important Ministrywe have. I do not intend to go over the field of industrial activity in the country after listening to the various speakers both last evening and this afternoon and I shall confine myself to a few points. As I say, this is a most important Ministry and the Minister in charge, I have no doubt, will pay heed to the few requests I propose to make to him.
I shall first take the E.S.B. rural electrification scheme. That undoubtedly is spreading over a considerable portion of the country and is in great demand in many parts of the constituency I represent. I suggest to the Minister that where the current is installed in country villages and people are prepared to take it there should also be a public lighting system. I have a few villages in mind in East Cork where the electricity has been installed for the last eight or 12 months and yet they have no public lighting. The only light in the streets comes from inside the various houses. I ask the Minister, as the E.S.B. comes directly under his control, to bring that matter to their notice. We all realise that rural life in Ireland, which is talked about here so often, requires to be brightened up, and certainly where electricity is installed in the villages the streets should also be lighted. When you drive into one of these villages at night you find all the houses lighted by electricity, but the streets outside are as dark as a dungeon. I ask the Minister to bring that to the notice of the E.S.B.
Within the past few weeks in my own town of Youghal I spoke at a meeting of the local urban council, of which I am a member, and I referred to Youghal as being one of the worstlighted towns in the country. It is, too. In my travels around the constituency of East Cork I can safely say that every other town I visited is better illuminated and the luminosity of the lamps is far greater than it is in the town of Youghal. I protested on numerous occasions at the urban council and to the E.S.B. authorities. The lamps in the public lighting system of Youghal at the moment are the very same lamps that were there during the war. I will not say thatthe bulbs are the same. All the lamps are cowled just the same now as they were during the war period.
We have made repeated requests to the E.S.B. authorities to have these cowls removed and so radiate the light of the lamps over a wider area. Being cowled, the lamps shed their light over a restricted area, say, within a circumference of 30 or 40 feet. From that to the next lamp one has to travel through a dark, black pocket. The last time the matter was mentioned we received a reply from the E.S.B. authorities that they proposed installing a new lighting system in the town.
At the moment the urban council pay £500 per year for public lighting. They are amazed that the E.S.B. propose to give them extra and better lights and charge them £300 per annum extra. We do not want any further lamps. I think we have sufficient. We certainly do not feel in the humour to pay £300 per annum extra for what the E.S.B. authorities propose to give us and what we did not ask. I would ask the Minister or the Parliamentary Secretary, who is deputising for him at the moment, to bring that to the notice of the E.S.B.
Personally, I think nothing earns more favourable comment from people passing through the countryside than well-lighted towns and villages. All the cities are well lighted. They are all right, but I want to see the smaller towns and villages lighted. Some of those villages at the present time are more like the Black Hole of Calcutta. The gas lighting system is a thing of the past. Electricity has replaced it, but when you go to the E.S.B. you find that they will not do anything for you. I feel very aggrieved with the E.S.B. about this. It seems farcical that cowls put over the bulbs during the war are still there and will not be taken down in deference to the numerous requests made to the E.S.B. by the local authorities.
My colleague, Deputy Corry, prefaced his speech by appealing that the proposed airport for Cork should be at Ahenesk, Midleton. Being the senior Deputy for the constituency, he wasentitled to speak before me. He reported progress last night. Most of the points that I intend to cover will have to be over somewhat the same ground. It is definitely about time, however, that we had an airport in Cork. The world of to-day is a world of speed, speed on the roads and speed everywhere. That may not be a good thing from the point of view of human life, but speed counts in the world nowadays more than ever before.
I should like to place my humble view before the Minister on behalf of Ahenesk. We have Cork Deputies advocating the claims of Farmers' Cross and you have the East Cork Deputies—Deputies Corry, Barry and myself—advocating the cause of Ahenesk. During the Summer Recess I made it my business to visit both areas. I went to Ahenesk, accompanied by friends of mine. They showed me the whole layout of the place. Not being a meteorological expert, I cannot offer any opinion in that respect, but Ahenesk seemed to be exceptionally suitable, far more suitable than the one we hear the most talk about from the Cork Deputies, Farmers' Cross. I know that in the last analysis this is a matter for the Minister to decide.
Some years back—in pre-war years— experts visited that locality and made a report. I have the report here and I will read an extract for the benefit of Deputies. The Minister, no doubt, got the report. It states:—
"Ahenesk has the advantage of being comparatively close to a railway station but not bounded by a railway line. Similarly, it has easy access from a main road but is not bounded by such a road. The surrounding country is open and there are no high hills. A certain portion of the ground will require drainage and a small rectification of the contours on the higher portion of the ground will be necessary. Removal of the banks which cut up the site and the diversion of a road are also entailed.
We are quite satisfied that in this site Cork has an airport adequate forboth present and, as far as can be foreseen, future requirements in suitable surroundings and within easy reach of the city. We believe this to be the only site on which a practicable and entirely satisfactory aerodrome could be made at a moderate expenditure and within a reasonable period of time."
Would the Deputy give the reference?
It is a report passed on to me by Midleton Urban Council. I trust that the Minister will bear that in mind. It comes from a very well-known meteorological expert. I do not blame the Cork Deputies fighting for Farmers' Cross. I think that owing to the incidence of fog the Farmers' Cross airfield site is not suitable.
After all, we in East Cork have the gateway to Ireland in the town of Cobh which is only ten or 11 miles from this proposed airport which, I hope, will materialise. Every liner which comes to Ireland drops its passengers at Cobh before proceeding to Liverpool or Southampton, so that having an airport there would, in my opinion, be the most suitable arrangement. As I have said, it is not for me to judge but a few points made by the other Deputies for the constituency, and by myself, should impress on the Minister that Midleton is, to use racing parlance, "sticking out a mile" for the proposed airport.
There are just a few little matters in regard to the question of tea. Tea is a very imporant item in the diet of most Irish people. The Irish people are the greatest connoisseurs of tea in the world. I think that is pretty well known. I have received repeated complaints from various householders that the quality of the tea we are getting at the moment is not suitable for the Irish palate and the sooner businessmen revert to the system of one buying tea from one particular firm and another from another, the better it will be in the interests of everyone. I know that, for many reasons, it may have been necessary to control tea during the war, for example, to stop blackmarketing and other activities which most people deprecate but which take place at a time like that. I think, however, that after six years from the end of the war the time has arrived to throw the market open and allow customers to buy from the people best able to supply them, the people who will be able to supply retailers and customers with what they want.
We have heard a lot of talk in this House on this and other occasions about An Tóstal festivities. Personally I think An Tóstal is a good idea, but that it is becoming a bit of a joke, if I may put it that way, with many people in the country at the moment. It is no joke, however, for the Irish taxpayers who have to foot the bill for the Tóstal festivities which took place last year. My sole reason for mentioning this is that I feel quite certain that the date fixed by the Tóstal authorities in Dublin for these festivities is at the wrong time of the year. Every Irishman, irrespective of where he comes from, wants to see An Tóstal develop and flourish.
A few years ago, when speaking on this Estimate, I suggested, I think, to the present Minister for Industry and Commerce, that holidays should be staggered, that they should start earlier in the year and finish later than they do. I had in mind then the month which I consider the best holiday month in the year, and that is May. Last year, An Tóstal was held for three weeks during the month of April, when we had blizzards blowing in from the North and the Arctic regions. In fact, the weather at the time was appalling, and it was really a joke to invite people to come here at that time of the year when people needed to be wearing their crombies and heavy underwear to keep out the cold.
I want to see An Tóstal develop. It is a national festival, and we all want to see people attracted to it from America, England and elsewhere. I was given some cards last year by the local An Tóstal committee to send to friends of mine in England, France and other countries. I did not need to send any to America. People did not come and I do not blame them. If they did come they would get their noses bitten off with the cold. That,in my opinion, is the reason why An Tóstal is being regarded as a joke. There has been considerable discussion about the date of it at meetings of An Tóstal committees throughout the country and there seems to be unanimity amongst them that the month selected for the festivities is the wrong one. We all know that the weather in the month of April can be as cold as it usually is in January. Let us not blind ourselves to the facts, and these are that people are not going to come to Ireland in the month of April when we have howling gales, and when the weather is in its worst behaviour.
All sections of the people are anxious to see An Tóstal developed. I come from a tourist resort myself—from Youghal. The local committee there work very energetically, all of them being imbued with the desire to see the festival do the greatest possible amount of good for the town. I can truthfully say that not one solitary person came to Youghal last year for An Tóstal, and Youghal, as I have said, is a tourist town. When the public are asked to subscribe to festivities of this kind they do so generously, and I suggest that their wishes should receive attention.
This year, at the initial meeting of the local committee, very severe criticism was passed by the members, one of their complaints being that they had never been even consulted about the date. May I respectfully suggest that next year the Minister should ask those running An Tóstal in Dublin to pay heed to the views expressed by people down the country? After all, Dublin is not Ireland. It may be in many respects, but when a national effort is being made to do something for the country the views of the people in the little towns and villages throughout the country deserve to get as much consideration as those of people who reside in the metropolis.
There is another matter on which I propose to speak with a certain amount of hesitancy. It is not one that appeals to me, but I feel that I should mention it, and that is the importation of timber from Russia into this country. The idea that such a thing should takeplace is nauseating to many people. I think I am speaking for every -ism in Ireland—Catholicism, Protestantism and every other -ism—when I say that every one of them resent very much that Catholic Ireland, or, perhaps, I should say Christian Ireland, should have had any dealings with Russia or should get in timber from that country. Surely, there are other countries from which timber could have been imported, countries that are on far more friendly terms with us than the U.S.S.R. I do not like it, and, speaking as an Irish Catholic, I think that the importation of this timber should not have been allowed, in view of the treatment that is being meted out to people of all faiths, Catholic, Protestant and others, behind the Iron Curtain, and in those countries which are under Soviet control. Many of us in pre-war days visited Czechoslokavia and many other countries in middle Europe that are now behind the Iron Curtain. It seems a terrible thing that to-day the people there are not allowed to give expression to their religious beliefs. I do not want to prolong a discussion on this. Every Deputy present realises as I do that it is a horrible thing that the importation of this timber should have taken place. I hope it is the last time that anything of the kind will occur.
There are some other matters that I should like to refer to. Lately, I attended a meeting in the town of Cobh where, I regret to say, there is considerable unemployment at the moment. I said earlier that Cobh is the gateway to Ireland. When I visited the town within the last month, I was horrified to find that there are approximately 250 men unemployed there at the moment. There are from 130 to 140 fewer people employed there than there were at this time last year.
I suggest to the Minister that there has been a lot of talk here as to who started Irish Steel and all the rest of it. It was the money of the people of this country which put Irish Steel on its feet. Irish Steel went wallop twice —that is away back in 1930. I do not care who gets the credit for IrishSteel, it meant a lot to Cobh. I am not going to say that it was Fianna Fáil, Fine Gael or any other Party. What started the Irish Steel industry in Cobh was the money that came out of the pockets of the taxpayers. I do not want any Deputy to be taking credit he does not deserve. Any industries that have been started in Ireland were started by the people who had the courage, the foresight and the business acumen to put their money into them, that is, the Irish people, and nobody should come along and take credit that belongs only to the Irish people. It does not matter what Minister is in power, it is the people whose money goes into a concern that deserve credit.
I would ask the Minister, if he intends going on with the erection of the sheet mill in Cobh, to get it into production at the earliest opportunity because that town wants it badly to relieve an unemployment situation that is becoming rather serious. Cobh is a town like many others that, when occupied by the British garrison in days gone by, experienced affluent times. That has changed and now were it not for the liners which call to the port and give a considerable amount of employment periodically and were it not for the work provided by Irish Steel, there is no great industry there. I do trust the Minister will expedite the erection of the sheet mill.
The same applies to Rushbrooke Dockyard. I was amazed to learn when I visited there with my colleagues, Deputies Barry and Corry, that no local ship calls to Rushbrooke for repairs. They may have, I have been informed, one or two ships in the year and that has to pay for all who are working there, the many ship-wrights, carpenters, fitters, glaziers and plumbers. They are all highly skilled professions; they are professions just the same as those of doctors, solicitors, and so on. It is rather disheartening to hear these men telling you that unless something is done to provide work for them they will have to emigrate across the Channel where they can earn very high wages. However, most people would prefer to earntheir living in the town where they were born and reared. Why should ships that are using the dock at Cork and passing down through the town of Cobh—one of the grandest towns in Ireland commanding an excellent view of the Atlantic and having a splendid dockyard—come up to the Dublin Dockyard to be renovated, fitted out or have other minor repairs done? I appeal with confidence to the Minister to see that there is no recurrence of that.
There are many other matters I would like to touch on, but on an Estimate like this, one could keep talking for hours and I see a general desire on the part of both Deputies and others in the House that speeches should be short and to the point. I have tried to act in accordance with that but when I mention points in this House I do like to have them attended to. I think those I have mentioned to the Minister are worthy of his consideration and I would ask him to give a gee-up as regards the points I have made. I must say the Minister is amenable at all times when you make a reasonable request. Any requests I make in this House are, I hope, always reasonable. I speak for my constituents on matters with which I am conversant. That is all I have done in the ten or 15 minutes I have been speaking and I trust the Minister will pay attention to them.
Mr. Brennan
I shall take my cue from the previous speaker and be brief. I think Deputy O'Gorman has made what is a reasonable and balanced speech coming from the Opposition, a speech with which nobody could find fault or on which nobody could have any desire to recriminate or retaliate. The only thing to which I would take exception—and I only take that in reference to other speeches—is his reference to the Steel Company in Cork regarding which he said it was the taxpayers' money that was to be thanked for any success achieved in that direction and not Fine Gael, Fianna Fáil or any other Party.
I am not disputing the logic of that statement except to the extent that many of the previous speakers fromthe Opposition side who contributed so far to this debate were loud in their condemnation of the Minister accusing him of not having started an industry here or an industry there or in their own immediate village or town. Therefore, it would seem that so far as the Opposition are concerned, when an industry is not started in a town the Minister must be blamed but when an industry is started the taxpayer is the only man who must be thanked as responsible for it.
There is a great deal of muddled thinking in regard to this particular Department and its function as far as industry is concerned. We are sometimes inclined to forget that private enterprise is the system by which we hope and are endeavouring to build up industry. Only on those rare occasions when private enterprise is not getting on with the job has the State stepped in to assist an industry such as the E.S.B., Bord na Móna, the Sugar Company and such companies as were sponsored by the State originally and subsidised afterwards by them if necessary.
The policy of the Department of Industry and Commerce, which has been given particularly strong impetus and careful guidance by the present Minister, is to sponsor industry through private enterprise by giving every possible encouragement to private enterprise to play its part. Any speaker in this House who does not pay due tribute to the present Minister for Industry and Commerce for the part he has played in fostering, expanding and developing the industrial resources of this country is failing in his duty. We have talked time and again about unemployment and the ways and means of solving the problem and I think we must all agree that the only solution to it is to find employment for our people of the type that is permanent and that holds out hope of future success, and employment of a type to which people can turn and find themselves a future in which they can settle down in a degree of comfort.
All kinds of temporary employment schemes are very good in themselves. They are good in so far as at certain times of the year they provide thesmall farmer with a little supplement to his income when he has nothing else to turn his hand to. However useful they may be in the work they accomplish or however useful they may be in the employment they provide, these schemes can never be looked on as a means of solving the unemployment question. Everything possible should be done to give full and permanent employment to the people, by putting them into industry to develop all our resources, so that we may be able to employ all our surplus agricultural population. If that surplus, which must come from the farming community, is to be absorbed permanently, it can be done only by the full development of our industrial resources.
There are many ways and means by which the Minister can assist the development of industry even through private enterprise. All the encouragement that can be given is being given by the present Minister. He cannot just take by the scruff of the neck people with money to invest and compel them to put it into industry, nor is it advisable that the State should step in and organise industry in competition with private enterprise, except, as I said at the outset, where private enterprise cannot undertake that particular type of industry or is unwilling to do so.
During the last few years the decentralisation of industry became a popular theme with all Deputies and for the first time in the history of a native Government a serious attempt was made to decentralise industry when the Undeveloped Areas Act was passed. That Act is not in operation for very long, but it has already shown that its trend is in the right direction. As time goes on, more and more industrialists will realise the generous provisions under that Act and will avail themselves of them. It will eventually succeed in having many of those industries, which otherwise would be set up in Dublin or Cork or along the eastern coast, moved to the western coast from which the people are fleeing. As I said here on a previous Estimate, that Act in itself will not solve the problemof the lack of industries in the congested areas, nor was it intended to solve that problem. The best one can hope for under that Act is to secure the setting up of new industries in some of the larger towns within the undeveloped areas. As for those areas in the backward distant parts on our sea-coast and for the Gaeltacht areas, people who have money to invest in a large undertaking do not desire to move back into the mountains or to those villages on the outposts of the Gaeltacht.
In this respect, I would like to make an earnest appeal to the Minister for Industry and Commerce to proceed on the lines indicated by him when he spoke in the closing debate on the Second Reading of the Undeveloped Areas Bill. He pointed out then that further effort would have to be made by the Government to sponsor industries in those congested areas. Gaeltacht Services is already doing a good job, but we wonder whether it should not go faster and do more. I would appeal to the Minister, who is primarily responsible for the development of industry, to look into that problem immediately, in order to ensure that a further effort is made to establish industries in those areas, either through the existing organisation in Gaeltacht Services or directly from his own office. If he does that, he will be going a long way towards putting an end to all this talk about emigration and unemployment in the Gaeltacht. I do not believe that we should compel people to stay at home, but at least we should reach the position where we can offer a job to every man who wishes to stay at home and earn a living in this country.
Taking the broad view of industry as a whole, there is one thing for which we must be grateful to the present Minister, that is for the high prestige which Irish manufacturing industry has attained, as compared with the time when the first all-out effort was made in 1932.
Far too many people in this country and in this House were prepared then to cast aspersions on the attempt being made to manufacture Irish goods. Whether it was due to an inferioritycomplex on their part or for the purpose of discrediting for political reasons the all-out attempt that was being made at the time, there was far too much talk about "incompetency," about "industries sheltered behind tariff walls," about "exploitation of Irish industry," about "back-lane factories" and "factories in stables." Any other Minister for Industry and Commerce might well have thrown up his hands in disgust, but he carried on with determination. He applied to that important task which was allotted to him all the ability, all the tact and all the energy that any man could ever apply in the important duties of a Minister for Industry and Commerce. To his great efforts and energy down through those years, to his work alone, is attributable the high precision and the high respect in which Irish manufactured goods are held to-day. If in those days when Irish industry was cutting its teeth, if in its infancy there were cases where the articles produced were not up to the standard of the world market, that was to be expected. We could not start producing world competitive goods overnight. Many of the industries which then found it difficult enough to produce satisfactory goods are to-day producing goods that are not merely equal to but better than those produced elsewhere. Having achieved that stage in Irish industry we have possibly accomplished more than many of us realise. We have shaken off our complacency. We have got rid of any inferiority complex we may have had and we are producing goods to-day not merely for our own requirements but for other world markets.
Listening to Deputy O. Flanagan one would think that the Minister was not alone failing in his job but was deliberately trying to kill Irish industry. I am sure nobody will take the Deputy's statements seriously. I am sure he himself realises that they will not be regarded by responsible people as an accurate representation of the position here.
I was interested in Deputy Flanagan's statements in regard to turf. He condemned the Minister for not having done more for hand-wonturf or privately produced turf. He referred in glowing terms to the boom in hand-won turf during the emergency period. He said it was a great industry that provided work for many people. In my short memory I can recall the years when we in Donegal and the people in the turf producing areas throughout the country were doing their best to provide the nation's fuel. I can remember that Deputies like Deputy O. Flanagan did nothing but sneer at that effort, make slighting references to the poor turf sent into Dublin and bemoan the fate of the people who were compelled to burn that turf. To-day they bewail the fact that more are not employed in the hand-won turf industry. Deputy O. Flanagan forgot to remind the House that the Minister has announced the establishment of four new, turf-fired, generating electricity stations in which privately produced hand-won turf will be utilised. In that way a market has been provided for all the hand-won turf that can be produced in the four counties in which these stations will be situated. I shall not make any reference to the stations that were planned a few years ago but I think the present Minister deserves at least a few words of commendation, even from the Opposition, for the action he has taken to provide an almost unlimited market for hand-won turf. As one who comes from a turf producing area, I congratulate him on that. We are proud of the efforts he has made and of the hopes he has raised for the future.
Deputy Flanagan also referred to the importation of pipes in connection with land drainage. I would like to tell the House a story about that. During the inter-Party régime a number of representatives were sent to America to study the most suitable type of machinery for the production of land drainage pipes. Having travelled a number of States and inspected a number of machines they came back and reported that the most suitable and economical for use here was a little machine called "the Champion". The cost of that machine was well under £1,000, but in certain circumstances even that can be a lot of money. Many people were encouraged,if not in some cases directly requested, to import these machines. The machines were here for only one month when it was found that owing to the prevalence of an acid in the soil concrete pipes were liable to disintegrate after a very short time. Therefore, the concrete pipes produced by the "Champion" machine were useless, particularly in the congested counties along the western seaboard, where the soil is peaty and acid. I know some of the people who imported these machines. They have approached the Department of Agriculture and the Department of Industry and Commerce in an endeavour to find out if they would be compensated for these machines which are now lying idle on their hands. No attention has been paid to them, good, bad or indifferent.
As a result of investigation, it was discovered that clay pipes would have to be used. At that time there were scarcely any clay pipes of the kind required being produced here. To-day, home production is meeting a large part of our requirements. Huge quantities of these pipes are being used and in every case preference is given to the home-manufactured article. I question the statement made by Deputy Flanagan that any Irish firm is as yet capable of supplying the needs of the home market in so far as clay pipes are concerned, although production has been stepped up ten hundredfold in the last two years.
There was no use for them up to three or four years ago and it took the factories a long time to get under way.
Mr. Brennan
It took them a long time to get into their stride and for that reason it is ridiculous for Deputy Flanagan to blame us for importing pipes. Pipes had to be procured and we could not wait until they could be produced at home. No doubt in time the home producers will be able to manufacture all our requirements. I hope that day is very near.
In conclusion, let me repeat what I said with reference to the void left by the Undeveloped Areas Act in so faras the undeveloped areas are concerned. I would again impress upon the Minister the absolute necessity of examining immediately the question of providing industries in those areas which will never be served by private enterprise mainly due to the fact that local capital is not available and outside capital, when it is encouraged to move into those areas, naturally selects the more suitable centres, the larger towns.
I am satisfied that the Undeveloped Areas Act in so far as it relates to the towns that I refer to, has proved a success. I am satisfied that many of the proposals at present under consideration, some of which relate to my own constituency, will bear fruit in the near future and that we shall see the benefits of that Act applied to the areas where unemployment is prevalent and the areas that the Act was originally intended to benefit.
I congratulate the Minister on the many achievements for which he has been responsible in this important office. In any effort he makes to give an impetus to the fostering, establishment, development and expansion of industry, he will be assured of the full co-operation of the people who so anxiously await the development of industry and the solution of the unemployment problem.
Deputy Brennan seems to feel that a number of us are not giving sufficient credit to the Minister for his efforts over the past 20 years in securing development of Irish industry. There is no difference of opinion in regard to the efforts or the achievements or the desirability of those efforts. Nobody quarrels with any and every attempt made to expand our industrial economy. Generally, differences of viewpoint arise in regard to the methods. Deputy Brennan should bear in mind that, great as is the importance of the debate on the Estimate for Industry and Commerce and great as is the responsibility of the Minister, it is not solely the Minister's responsibility; it is the responsibility of us all. We have all an equal concern although the Minister of necessity must carry the greaterresponsibility. Many of the criticisms made in respect of various aspects of the industrial expansion and the industrial activity in this country are to be heard not merely from Opposition speakers; they are to be heard from the Minister himself. It is the Minister himself and the Government that he represents that have found it necessary to take certain precautionary steps to deal with many of the difficulties.
The common concern that we all have to secure the proper and rapid expansion of Irish industry should not allow us to close our eyes to defects or abuses lest abuses become so great as to interfere with future progress. Therefore, when we refer to various aspects of Irish industrial development our words should not be twisted into an attempt to oppose that line or to suggest that we want to take away from the Minister the credit to which he is duly entitled.
Whether it is because the debate is taking place at this time of the year or not, the Minister appeared to be suffering yesterday from a sense of complacency or perhaps from staleness. I do not think his speech was up to his usual standard. It is interesting that, whatever members of the House may lack in paying tribute to the Minister, the organ of his own Party thought his speech was of such importance that they put it on the back page and spread the whole front page with a report of an event that we had known had taken place some time ago. That is the relative value of news. The Minister has added three Deputies to his Party.
Mr. Brennan
If he lost three Independents it would be on the front page.
I do not know who has lost and who has gained.
Who gained?
That does not arise on the Estimate.
The Minister, in a fairly extensive report, dealt with a large number of heads. There is a possibilitythat not only the Minister but many of us are suffering from a certain complacency in regard to the whole problem of industrial development. I do not think that either we, as individuals, or Parties or the public have yet measured the size and the difficulties of the problems facing us.
I was reading a short article by the Minister in a journal early this evening in which he set out the achievements secured since 1932 in the creation of some 200,000 additional jobs in the country. Again, as I say, nobody would quarrel with the fact that these jobs have been created but where I see the complacency, at least in our debates here, is in the failure to recall and bear in mind and keep in the forefront of the debate some very important figures that have also become available of recent date. While there has been success in creating those additional jobs, the over-all and net gain is not of the order of 200,000 jobs but a much smaller figure. I do not intend to blame the Minister for that but it is important that we measure the progress made not merely against the starting point but against the objective we are trying to reach.
In the period from 1926 to 1951 our net gain of jobs created, that is, jobs created in industry generally as against jobs lost in agriculture, has been 12,000. It becomes of great significance when we get the figure given by the Taoiseach the other day that last year there was a drop, not of 10,000 or 15,000 in the number of male workers employed in agriculture, but of 22,000. Therefore, when serious economists tell us that the measure of our efforts must be something of the order of placing some 25,000 additional persons in employment each year in order to absorb the numbers of boys and girls leaving school and the numbers coming from agriculture, we have to think in that term. When we find that in one year, instead of the surplus from agriculture being of the order of 10,000 or 15,000, it has jumped to 22,000, we start to realise that the problem is very great. Any suggestions, therefore, that can be made require very careful consideration.
Frankly, while Deputy Brennan pays great tribute to the Minister, I feel that the least satisfied person in this House is the Minister himself, because he has probably greater realisation than many of us because of being nearer to the problem of how great the problem still is and how much remains to be done.
The Minister mentioned in the course of his speech that in the last 12 months there had been 68 new industrial concerns established here and a further 200 proposals were before his Department, many of which he expected would result in actual establishment of new concerns. He did not, I think, give the actual figures for the new employment involved. It may be very considerable but again, as I say, it has to be measured against the needs that are facing us now—not merely the fact that we have at the present moment some 52,000 unemployed but that that figure represents not an increase of 1,500 over last year but, more important still, an increase of four or five thousand over two years ago. Those are the figures we should keep in mind; and in order to ease this unemployment problem which is not merely bad in so far as it affects the people actually unemployed but represents an economic weight dragging on the whole community we have got to provide some 20,000 or 25,000 jobs to bring that figure of unemployment down to a reasonable percentage of the total number insured; and even if we achieve the reduction by 25,000, say in the next 12 months, we are then facing the necessity to provide a further 25,000 jobs in the following year. This is a tremendous problem, which is not the problem of the Minister either in his ministerial or his political capacity or of the Fianna Fáil Government or of any political Party. It is a problem on which a great many minds have to do a great deal of serious thinking.
I was somewhat perturbed when I listened to a Deputy like Deputy Brennan, who was serious in the matter, and deeply concerned, being completely illogical in his approach. On the one hand he emphasised thatthe whole basis on which the economic and industrial policy of Fianna Fáil is formulated is the furtherance and the encouragement of private enterprise, and he kind of criticised in a backhand way anybody who departs from that very rigid path. There are different viewpoints on the value of private enterprise and its ability to do the job. But we had only to wait five minutes till we found Deputy Brennan advocating the opposite of private enterprise in regard to the western seaboard. I think that Deputy Brennan was correct, and the Minister thinks he is correct because he has followed the same course as Deputy Brennan advocated. Deputy Brennan like, I think, most Deputies in the House, understands that in regard to industrial development and the provision of employment in the congested areas it is most unlikely that we are going to induce private enterprise at least by any measures within our power, to undertake that task of establishing the industries and providing the employment. When Deputy Brennan accepts that as a reasonable assumption in respect to the congested districts, why then does he object to others of us formulating the same type of approach to problems in regard to the big industrial centres, and, possibly erroneously, coming to the same kind of conclusion, that private enterprise is not going to do this job even in relation to large centres like Dublin? There are no fundamental differences.
Mr. Brennan
Capital is not available in one case and it is in the other.
The capital is not available in many instances in Dublin for the job of industrial development and expansion that is necessary if we are to continue expanding; but I do not have to argue that. The best advocate of that is sitting over on his bench there, the Minister himself, who has been told, I think on a very famous occasion, that the Fianna Fáil Government in fact has given more socialism to this country than the Labour Government did to England. The only difference is that they have not got the advantages of calling it by its proper name and that they have gone through all the difficulties of trying tocarry on what is in fact a system of public and socialist economic policy arising out of necessity under the guise of a system of private enterprise, which is in regard to this country very limited in its capabilities.
Mr. Brennan
He only stepped in where private enterprise could not undertake the job.
Yes, Deputy Brennan, at the moment anyway even I do not quarrel with that, and maybe I have even more advanced views than that. Nobody has come forward with the proposition that private enterprise, because of some belief in formulated socialist policy, has to be completely substituted by socialism. Nobody has gone that far, but what has been suggested is that in our circumstances private enterprise is not capable of tackling the job as quickly and as radically in this country. That does not mean that it is the fault of private enterprise, but of the conditions in which private enterprise has to operate. Certainly even if we fear that in certain industrial spheres private enterprise cannot undertake these tasks I think there is criticism to be made.
If the Department of Industry and Commerce takes as its main objective the making available, if you like to put it in that way, of the conditions for private enterprise to enter into and establish or extend industrial activities in this country, and provides various forms of encouragement devised to see that this is done, clearly it should be done in such forms as to make that encouragement effective. I have not got very many contacts with businessmen that would give me very deep information about their private concerns, but I have had enough to know that one of their greatest complaints is that when they go to the Department with projects based on the principle of private enterprise it is almost as if they were trying to break into a besieged fortress, breaking through the red tape and the delay and the endless inquiries. I have met a number of them who have taken the attitude that it would be a whole lot easier not to bother their heads any more about it and let somebody else take on the problem. I recall oneinstance of a matter that Deputy Brennan is interested in with regard to the West, of an individual, not a native of this country, who was coming forward with a proposal and I had the pleasure—I do not know whether I should call it a pleasure—of sitting listening to him explaining to representatives of the Department what he had gone through up to that point. I finally said that if it was my case I would have given up long ago. He was trying to establish a small factory in Mayo.
Even if we should now proceed on the assumption that private enterprise is to be afforded the main responsibility of bringing about further industrial expansion, further industrial uplift, and the absorption of our unemployed and surplus population, it still means that we have to examine in very great detail the manner in which we deal with that problem and the machinery available.
I still frankly feel, though the word is very largely discredited in this House, that even if the Department of Industry and Commerce and the Minister are going to place the greatest emphasis on the activities of private enterprise there still could be a good deal more "planned approach" as to the manner in which private enterprise can take advantage of the conditions available here. I frankly think that the system in the Department itself could be very much overhauled. If we are trying to deal with business problems there must be some relaxation of the ordinary Civil Service procedure. This morning I was talking to a small businessman who was interested in a particular project. He made inquiries from the Department and I do not know whether he is going any further in the matter, because, he said, "after I wrote to the Department I got a letter back asking me for reams of staff statistics which will take me days, and possibly weeks, to collect in support of my submission, and then at the end I might get turned down." Granted that a businessman has to make his case, all those statistics he was asked to collect are readily available to the Department and the Central Statistics Office and if a businessman has a proposition that has any merit thatwould justify consideration surely there is no reason why our civil servants should not get out the figures and see that they will sustain and support the case.
My understanding is that while the I.D.A. give a great deal of assistance in regard to projects coming before the Department, in many instances where it is not a question of the establishment of new projects but probably of the alteration of existing provisions in regard to tariffs, quotas and so forth, a great deal of the statistical preparation has to be done by the individual businessman in order to secure any attention by the Department.
I mentioned the I.D.A. On a previous debate on this Estimate I said I thought the present Minister was correct when he changed the basis on which the authority was operating when he went back into office and relieved it of a great volume of routine work, which could more properly be discharged by the Department's officials themselves, and brought the I.D.A. back nearer to the original project of being both an advisory body and a body to study projects as a basis of formulating advice and guidance to the Minister.
I do not know any more about the I.D.A. than any other member of the public. The other day I asked the Minister if it would not be possible to publish something in the way of an annual report. Granting that most of the matters coming before the I.D.A. are confidential, as between the authority and the particular individuals putting the matters before it, I think that at the end of 12 months it would be possible, with a due sense of discretion, to issue something in the way of an informative report. That report would give information as to the general activities of the I.D.A. and, more important still, it would build up public confidence in the I.D.A. I do not think that this country can expect one man to do the whole job. Granted that the Minister is the type of genius that Deputy Brennan says he is, nevertheless he is still only one man.
The study of modern industrial developments and the establishment of modern industrial concerns involve a whole wide range of technical knowledge and a special type of ability. I think that the members of the I.D.A. have, on the whole, given satisfactory service, but for many reasons I think they have not been given the public credit they are due and that sufficient public confidence has not been built up in the I.D.A. to give it that status of authority which could make it of even greater help and assistance to the Minister. I have attended certain meetings and I have heard ordinary workers complain and ask what the I.D.A. are doing about their particular problem, and it was a very proper question. I had to explain that the I.D.A. could not take any steps unless their organisation or the Minister asked them to do so. Clearly, if we have this tremendous problem of trying to carry forward the impetus of industrial development and extend it to meet the figures I have mentioned earlier, it requires that there shall be a more planned approach to the problem and that bodies such as the I.D.A. will be made full use of and given all the facilities and assistance they may require.
In connection with the I.D.A., we have another institute—the Institute of Industrial Research. I notice that the Minister says that it is proposed to seek an increased grant over and above the £15,000 per annum at present provided. Nobody would think that the Institute of Industrial Research could even open letters on a grant of £15,000 per year. In this country we lack many of the resources of material that have been the basis of industrial development in other countries. We are starting late in the race and we are suffering from many great handicaps. Probably there can be no more important factor in our efforts to achieve industrial expansion than an institute such as the Institute of Industrial Research. If we are to achieve industrial expansion, we have to find not merely gaps in this wall through which we can walk and find scope for development, but we have to find a new "know-how" and maybe a new technique and development.
At the present time, we are spending less on this basic type of research than many small individual industrial companies in Britain and America are spending in relation to their purely industrial problems. Even in Britain, where the amount spent on industrial research does not compare with what is spent in America, there are industrial concerns which are spending more than 100 times what this country is spending on industrial research and they are spending that money on their own specialised industry. There are individual firms in Britain spending that much more than we are spending on our industrial research which is so important to the economy of the country. The Minister should take his courage in his hands and go and look for a very much greater sum for that institute than that which he has in mind at present; I think he will have the support of the majority of the members of this House in that regard. If the Minister or the I.D.A. approach the Institute of Industrial Research for technical advice on a particular problem, it is a physical impossibility for them to give that advice —and yet, the giving of that advice, and all that goes with it, may quite well mean the difference between the establishment of some industrial unit or the expansion of some existing unit. Therefore, any sums we may spend on industrial research will immediately have benefits in so far as the employment of our people is concerned.
Lately, there has been a growing emphasis on the importance of the export market. It is interesting to note that the high hopes held out in regard to the dollar market have been somewhat douched by cold water during the past few weeks. Nevertheless, there is still the emphasis and the statement has been made by the Minister and by spokesmen of various industries that many of our Irish industries can hope to maintain their present position, and improve it, only on the basis of their ability to enter the export market. Exports in themselves, from the technical point of view of industry, may be desirable. Exports are desirable but there is another factor which we should notlose sight of. I do not know of any Irish industry producing consumer goods in which our own people find their own needs being fully satisfied. In other words, our people could use more of these goods if they could buy them. Take, for example, the boot and shoe industry.
At the moment, we are exporting footwear to Britain and France. We are doing that, not because all our people have got their full requirements in footwear, but because some of our people are going without footwear they could use if they could buy them. Therefore, there is the other problem of seeing whether our home market, which is protected for these industries, can be expanded in such a manner as to provide, if not the complete market for the product, at least a greatly increased market compared with that which is available at the moment. That revolves around the question of the purchasing power of our people. We have 52,000 persons unemployed at the moment. We have unemployed single men trying to exist on a rate of benefit which, at the present value of money, represents a smaller sum than we provided for them in 1939. That shows that quite a large number of our people have practically no purchasing power at all. In fact, it is a wonder how they live.
They only exist.
In 1939, we thought that a single man required 15/- per week when he was unemployed. Now, in 1953, we think he is able to manage— in terms of 1939 money—on 10/3 per week. Apparently, we have decided that his stomach has got a little smaller. That, I may say in passing, is a reflection on our whole conception of social welfare and social security. Every man and woman out of work is another unit substracted from the real effective purchasing power in the country. The great mass of men and women working for wages and salaries who find that their weekly or monthly income is not sufficient to meet their full domestic needs represent another section of the potential purchasing power in the country which is not at present available to our Irish industries.
If we are to see an expansion of the Irish economy, we require both demand, that is, expanding demand, expanding purchasing power in the hands of the people, and additional capital to provide the additional productive forces. From that point of view, we in the Labour Party find it difficult to follow the Minister's attitude on this question of the cost of living and the control of prices. The Prices Advisory Body, so far as I understand, has practically been dormant, at least since January of this year. I do not think it has even had a meeting, but I should be very glad to learn if it has. There have been many suggestions made to it with regard to investigation into various prices and in many cases, beyond a formal acknowledgment, nothing further has been heard. I know very well that the Minister does not like the Prices Advisory Body. He has been quite frank about that and he mentioned in his speech that he is facing the problem, in line with other Ministers, of deciding by March next year whether to abolish our present temporary system of control and to substitute a more permanent form of legislation; but, in the meantime, there is a great mass of people facing the ordinary everyday problems of the cost of living, of how much it costs to live.
The Minister says it is very satisfactory that the index figure has more or less remained stationary for some period, and has in fact dropped by one point, but it has remained stationary at a high figure, a figure which expresses in terms of living difficulties a growing problem for a great mass of people. While all of us welcome the fact that the index figure has halted in its upward movement—we hope that it can start to move backwards—we should not lose sight of the fact that the recent increase in the figure, which to some extent was the outcome of political decisions by the Government which we need not argue out here again and also the result of ordinary changes in the price structure, took place not merely because there were increases in the prices given to Irish farmers for Irish products but also in regard to quite a large number of manufactured products. The indices for food, clothing,fuel and light all moved up. They moved up in a period when wholesale and import prices had fallen.
I was reading to-day a statement wherein an Irish industrialist said that "the only kind of control everybody in this country seems to want is control of profits and we hear stupid people"—I do not know whether he was referring to me or not—"saying that if we only wiped out profits, we could reduce prices tremendously." I may be stupid, but I am not quite so stupid as that. I am also not so stupid as not to realise that there is something to look at there. I do not propose to give the name of the firm because I do not want to pillory them, but the figures are taken from official sources and we find that this firm engaged in the distribution of essential building materials had a capital, actually subscribed, in 1936 of £50,000 and, from 1945 to 1952, its net profits totalled £351,000, that is, the actual investment was repaid seven times over in eight years.
There is something to be looked at there even if we never dealt with prices and even if we still believe or accept that private enterprise is going to be the basis of our industrial structure. There is something to be inquired into, whether it be in the field of profits or prices, because I do not think one can be separated from the other. Prices, profits, wages and the various other categories that go to make up industrial costings are all matters that require consideration; but I am making the submission that, in relation to the price structure in this country, there is a need for the activities of the Prices Advisory Body and it is regrettable that it has not been much more active than it has. We have stressed this point continually in the House.
I have quoted one case. Let me now quote a few more. We have often mentioned the question of the issue of bonus shares and we are told that there is nothing immoral about it, that it is quite a normal feature of the finances of private concerns and that we should not make too great a hullabaloo about it. We find, however, that, in the case of one firm, a capitalised bonus of 166? per cent. was paid in October, 1947, out of reserve for contingencies,which means that that company managed, not merely to pay its ordinary dividends but to put aside certain moneys into reserve for contingencies, which reserve, in 1947, had accumulated to such an extent that a total sum equal to 166 per cent. of the original capital was paid out to the shareholders, without any demand being made on the shareholders for the shares given to them. In the case of another company, a capitalised bonus of 100 per cent. was paid out of reserves in May, 1952; in another, a capitalised bonus of 100 per cent. was paid in June, 1950; and in the case of a further company, a capitalised bonus of 300 per cent. was paid in 1938, of 125 per cent. in 1948 and of 27¾ per cent. in 1950. These instances do not apply to every company, but they are significant, and they are becoming more numerous.
When we look at the table of company profits, more and more we see a symbol set down referring to a note at the bottom, and more and more of these symbols turn out to be an explanation that a capitalised bonus was paid out. In practically every case, there has been little or no diminution in the rate of dividend paid. If a company pays 10 per cent. this year on £100,000 and, by an issue of bonus shares, makes that £100,000 £200,000, and next year earns the same net profit and pays 5 per cent., one may possibly not like it, but there is no basic change there that would immediately merit an inquiry, but when we find a company giving a capitalised bonus to the extent of 100 per cent. of its existing capital, having paid 10 per cent. last year, and paying 10 per cent. this year, there are then grounds for inquiry, without in any way suggesting that, in respect of Irish industry as a whole, there is profiteering or undue profit taking.
We must emphasise, however, and I think Irish industrialists should be told it, that when they cry out against the subsidisation of food for the ordinary people, and particularly the provision of measures for social security for those who are unable to maintain themselves by reason of unemployment, sickness and so on, whenthey object to the State subsidising these individuals, they should be very sharply reminded that on the whole the most subsidised section of our community is the Irish industrialist. Granted that the Irish worker in these subsidised industries gets the benefits, too—nobody is quarrelling with that— but we should remember that we are each making our contribution, through our system of protective tariffs, for the benefit of these industries and that the benefit of our system of protective tariffs is being secured by those who have invested their money in Irish industry. Therefore, Irish industry is not a complete system of private enterprise.
I grant you that individuals have invested their money in the shares and in debenture stocks of these industries, but every single citizen of this country has also got an interest in every Irish industry operating behind a tariff wall and enjoying a protective duty. They are paying for that interest every time they buy the products of that industry. Therefore, it is not unfair when we get instances of companies engaged in the production of essential products, such as those required in the building trade, or engaged in making consumer products, distributing these large blocks of bonus shares and maintaining their old rate of dividend, to ask that there should be an inquiry. The Minister says that there is a continuous review of the profits of such companies by the Department. I am not doubting that but it is not sufficient. It is the public who are paying these duties and it is the public who should be assured, and to whom it should be made known whether in fact there is anything open to objection or anything to be corrected in the operation of these industries.
The Prices Advisory Body could quite well of its own initiative not merely hold inquiries to see whether prices should be reduced—that may not always be the outcome of such inquiries—but they should hold inquiries to educate the public and to ascertain whether there is a good and satisfactory reason why these bonus shares have been distributed, why rates of dividend are being maintained on theincreased capital and whether it can be shown that the company concerned is doing a good job, working under good conditions, paying proper rates of wages, making a good product and not securing an undue rate of profit. That is what the public ought to know and I doubt if the public will ever get that through the medium of a private inquiry conducted by the prices branch of the Department.
That is why I think it is regrettable that a body such as the Prices Advisory Body is not made more use of. In 1947 the Minister had a Bill before the House which provided for a combination of price control and an inquiry into protected industries. It was not a bad Bill in that sense although somewhat limited in its scope. It is quite clear that there is something of that nature required if we are going to maintain public confidence not so much in Irish industry, because that has been established, but in the policy of continuing to operate such a system of industrial protection and support as requires every single citizen to share to some extent in the cost of maintaining and providing that system of protection. The members of the public, every man and woman from the youngest to the oldest, whether they be workers or employers, farmers or those engaged in industries, are entitled as of right, because they are all indirectly interested in Irish industry, to have these matters inquired into and to be satisfied that everything is fair as between the industrialist and consumer and that the system is operated to assist the future development of Irish industries generally.
There are one or two other matters to which I should like to refer before I finish. On and off during the year, I have asked the Minister by parliamentary question what has been the progress in regard to the building of a graving dock at the Port of Dublin. He has indicated, of course, that he has no direct responsibility, but inquiries made to the Port and Docks Board have not secured very much more information. This graving dock is of such great importance, both to the Port of Dublin and to the Irish ship-buildingindustry in general, that greater attention should be paid to the rate of progress in the erection of that dock. From recollection, it seems to me that we must be now very near the completion date laid down in the contract. I frankly doubt very much if the completion date will be met, and I would ask the Minister, now that we have got so much unemployment in the City of Dublin, if it would not be possible to increase the labour force engaged on that dock. I know myself from practical experience that on occasions, in the erection of this dock, the cost of which is something over £2,000,000, there have been less than 60 men working and nobody is able satisfactorily to explain why more men are not employed. The port authority apparently is satisfied that they have no authority to intervene until a crisis arises, and if a crisis should arise it will mean that we shall have to take emergency measures to deal with the problem.
The Minister referred to Irish Shipping. I do not want to broach this subject at the moment further than to say that I do not see the justification of one branch of Irish industrial development, which has been brought into being directly by the State through the generous support given it by industrial policy, itself refusing to give the same kind of support to another branch of Irish industry. The attitude of Irish Shipping to Irish ship-building is not commendable. We have a small shipyard in Dublin, and we have another one mainly for repairs in Rushbrooke. They have to compete under tremendous difficulties with cross-Channel yards. First of all, they are providing wage levels which are higher than those granted by their cross-Channel competitors, and they generally give better conditions to their workers. They have to import all the materials for their work. Yet they are able to keep within competing distances, as far as prices are concerned, with the cross-Channel yards.
So far as workmanship is concerned I am satisfied that the workmanship on boats built in the Irish shipyards has proved far superior to that found on boats built across Channel. IrishShipping, while they expect to be given encouragement and support by Irish importers and Irish industrial interests generally, seem too prone to apply the rigid competitive yardstick to everybody else. I do not want to go into its history but I do think that such an attitude of one native concern, especially a semi-State concern, to another similar concern is wrong and that in fact they should bend the twig the opposite way. If there is a difference of £5,000, £10,000 or £12,000 in a tender for the building of an Irish merchant vessel, I frankly do not see why ways and means could not be found to make it possible for the Irish yard to secure that work. A great many of our industries are subsidised. You cannot very well subsidise the building of a ship by putting on a protective tariff but you can recognise that the Irish ship-building industry is an essential industry struggling against many difficulties. It is an old industry in Dublin and there are many young boys apprenticed to it who would like to continue in that industry. They naturally are anxious to see that there is some future for them in it. It has got an excellent record in regard to ship-building from the standpoint of workmanship but you cannot maintain indefinitely a ship-building centre if there is no new work coming in and you are going to have only casual employment. The men engaged in the industry will not put up with that continually. You will have a continual rise and fall in the number in employment and, eventually, at some point when there is a big demand for repair work the men will not be there. They have not been there on occasions when certain work was available recently because of the lack of security for them in recent years. Those two shipyards are very important as repair centres, but the workers in them are entitled to look forward to some continuity of employment, and continuity of employment in a shipyard can only be provided by new construction.
I have no hesitation in saying that Irish Shipping, a semi-State concern, is not entitled to apply the same rigid competitive standard to the Irish ship-building industry as would normally beemployed in the industrial world outside. I think the Minister should bear that in mind and convey it in a very strong manner to them. Certain ships have been allocated to the Dublin yards in the present building programme of Irish Shipping, but things happened in the past which should not happen, and I hope they will not happen in future.
I hope Irish Shipping will continue to develop its building programme and concentrate a bit more on the building of the smaller coastal type of vessels which can in time take over a greater share of our coastal traffic. We have a very small share of it carried at present in Irish bottoms. There is a field there for exploitation by Irish ships, particularly vessels of a tonnage which can get in and out of the small harbours in the West and South. These vessels can not only be readily built by Dublin yards and by the yard in Rushbrooke if it is extended and equipped, but could be built at a cost which will not be prohibitive as against the cross-Channel prices, and they would certainly be built, I am satisfied, with a higher standard of workmanship and at least would be built by Irishmen and Irish yards.
There is one matter which possibly the Minister might touch upon in his reply, although I am not clear whether it comes within his province, and that is in regard to the dead meat trade. Granted that it comes more directly under Agriculture, but it is a form of industrial activity, and the workers engaged in it are industrial workers. I understand that there have been some 40 packing plants operating in the export of dead meat. As far as I know, I may be wrong, practically all except one are shut at the moment.
Around Dublin none of them are working, and the biggest development in that field, the new plant in Grand Canal Street, has had its domestic difficulties, but I think it has also had other difficulties like the other plants. That is an industry of immense importance to the whole economy. One Deputy referred to the importance of developing industries which had a direct link with agriculture, but no industry could have a more direct contact with agriculture than thatengaged in the exportation of dead meat as it carries on the work of killing and dressing cattle. That work is carried on here by Irish workers, all the by-products and the offals being handled in Ireland, and dead meat is shipped instead of meat on the hoof. Some of these plants are very modern. The latest one in Dublin is up to the standard of anything in any other country. They are all at a standstill and it looks as if one more effort to establish and develop the dead meat trade in this country is running very close to a failure. I hope it is not.
Granted that the problem does not find its origin within the immediate field of the Minister or the remedy lie in his hands, being largely due to the price of cattle. But the Minister is not only Minister for Industry and Commerce but also Tánaiste, and because he is Minister for Industry and Commerce he probably carries a greater responsibility in regard to these matters than any other Minister. I urge that he and the Minister for Agriculture and the Government should give immediate and special attention to this problem of securing the reopening and the restarting of activities in the plants engaged in this trade.
It is a most serious matter. A great number of workers, I imagine something in the region of 4,000, must have been earning a good livelihood in these 40 plants. They were earning on the whole not only good wages but high wages. It would be regrettable not merely if these workers should not find employment again at this period but, even more important still, if this one further effort to establish this type of export trade should again meet with failure. As I say, the price of cattle is not a matter that we can discuss and settle, but this is a matter which we can ask to be considered by the Minister in particular.
Finally, the Labour Court comes within the purview of this Estimate. It has been rather quiet of late because probably we have not given it too much work. But I want to touch on this point because it is a matter personalto the Minister. When the legislation establishing the court was going through the House, the question was raised as to the extension of a similar type of machinery to the employees of local authorities. There was a definite undertaking given by the Minister that when we had experience of the operations of the Labour Court and how it functioned and found it was a success the problem of applying in principle a similar type of machinery to local authorities would be studied. I am not raising a question of Party politics in this, but that statement was made in 1946 and there have been Ministers of various Parties sitting on the Front Bench since but that undertaking has not yet been given effect to. The result is that we have a large body of employees of local authorities who are denied the ordinary elementary rights of having acceptable arbitration and conciliation machinery made available. I ask the Minister to look over the reports of the debates at the time we were establishing this court to see if my recollection is not correct and he may feel that not only has he got a personal responsibility but that there has been one devolving on Deputies since 1946 which has not yet been discharged.
Much has been said during the course of this debate on the Estimate of the Minister for Industry and Commerce on international and national economy. I am going to ask your indulgence and the indulgence of the House for a few moments to touch on what I will describe as a local economy. Since I became a member of this House a short while ago I have made on one occasion a special and particular plea for the town which I have the honour to represent in Dáil Eireann and I am going to reiterate now, in the presence of the Minister for Industry and Commerce, the plea that I made then. I was sent here from a constituency, and from a town called Fermoy which was famous at one time, and its fame dimmed owing to something which should make the Minister for Industry and Commerce think about it now. It was famous then because it was a garrison town.
Strange as it may seem, even though it was a garrison town, the pockets of the business people were full then. In many cases these people are not there at all now. Even though Fermoy was a garrison town and did well out of the headquartering of the British military there, Fermoy took its place in the fight for Irish freedom. It was in the vanguard of the fight for Irish freedom. I respectfully suggest to the Minister that this town has been sadly neglected by successive Governments since the going out of the British military. If I am the first Deputy to come into Dáil Eireann from Fermoy for 27 years I think I would be remiss in my duties if I did not make a claim here, especially when the Vote for the Department of Industry and Commerce comes before the House, for the town of Fermoy which did so much for Ireland and for the liberties which we all enjoy now.
When the Minister made his opening statement a few days ago, he said— and I was glad to hear him say it— that there was in contemplation the establishment of factories throughout Ireland. I seriously and conscientiously suggest to him now to give special consideration to the plight of the people of the town of Fermoy which is a town he knows and which he knows is sadly neglected. Not one factory has been established in the town of Fermoy for the past 25 years. I know it is true to say, as the Minister said, in reply to a question asked in the Dáil a few days ago, that there is a factory being erected there now. So there is. That factory will, in my opinion, as chairman of the Fermoy Urban Council, employ about 20 people most of whom will be females. I still do not think that is proper treatment for a town that did so much and lost so much by the departure of the British.
I know the Minister for Industry and Commerce—and I will say this as a member of the Opposition—to be a man who will, if he can, help provincial towns which have done something to make Ireland what young men like myself know it to be to-day. I heard Deputy Corry, for whom I have some regard, say this evening that Fermoywas neglected. I know, too, that Deputy Corry was very lax about his fight for Fermoy until Deputy Barry came into the Dail.
Without going into personalities, I know that during the past 18 or 20 years something over 200 factories were doled out by the Fianna Fáil Government and I still fail to see why there was not one substantial industry established in the town of Fermoy or why one person was not put into gainful employment as a result of any activity on the part of the then Government.
Before I ever became a member of this House, I had reason, as a member of the Fermoy Development Association, to approach the I.D.A. in Stephen's Green. I think it was a good thing that the I.D.A. was set up but I now suggest to the Minister that its activities are too limited. I came up on two or three different occasions with other people from Fermoy seeking information in regard to the establishment of industries. We discussed with higher officials of that authority the possibilities of starting industries in towns like Fermoy. We were satisfied with the talks we had and we thought the officials were sympathetic towards our case. When we left, however, we found that nothing happened.
Instead of those people staying inside the premises of the I.D.A. at Stephen's Green, Dublin, they ought to be sent to provincial towns like Fermoy, Mitchelstown, Cobh, Youghal and other towns to find out the needs of those towns in regard to factories and the type of factories suitable. I think the scope of the I.D.A. is too limited. I know the Minister will tell me that it is up to the people themselves to start factories in the different towns. There are many influential people in those towns who would take heed of the officials coming out and explaining to them the possibilities of factories being established. They would take more heed of them than they would of people like me and other Deputies.
While I agree that the setting up of the I.D.A. was for the betterment of Irish industry, I suggest that by sittinginside the premises in Stephen's Green they are doing very little to promote Irish industrial activity. Whatever scheme is devised by the Minister, I think the people in the I.D.A. should be sent out to establish contact with the people in the different provincial towns. Every one of us knows that most provincial towns are struggling for existence at the present time.
In the course of the debate this evening someone mentioned the question of decentralisation. Everyone in the country is aware of the problem of decentralisation. Might I suggest to the Minister that henceforward no industry be started in the City of Dublin? Everyone admits and agrees that it is top-heavy. Enter Dublin from any direction and you are met by factories. At the same time we, who come up to Dublin, try to make a case for the provincial towns. I rose especially to suggest to the Minister that henceforward, until he is satisfied at least that the provincial towns are kept on their feet by the establishment of industries, no factories of any kind be added to this abominable and abnormal list of factories we have in Dublin. I have already made a special plea for Fermoy.
The Deputy must address the Chair.
Many towns, as well as Fermoy, that were garrison towns in the old days have suffered much from the freedom we have achieved. I make a special plea for those provincial towns which have lost by our freedom. With regard to the town of Fermoy, there is at the moment an unemployment problem there. I have never seen it as bad for the past 25 years. Whatever the Minister may say about the recession and depression in trade being improved, I personally cannot see it in the town of Fermoy.
During the past month, four old-established premises were advertised for sale. If the recession and the depression in trade has improved, that would not be the case. I am not particularlyreferring to Fermoy in this connection. I know the same position obtains in other towns, especially in East Cork.
I hope the Minister will take special cognisance of the fact that Fermoy is sadly lacking in industries. He has already mentioned in his opening statement that a number of factories were to be started in the near future. It was amusing but disappointing for a Corkman to listen to Deputies Corry and Hickey talk to one another across the floor of the House about the establishment of an airport in Cork. It was more amusing still, to me in any case, to see another Corkman, Deputy Jack Lynch, who was deputising for the Minister, listening to them. Before ever I became a member of this House, I believed that everything was done by the members of the Cork County Council and by the local representatives of the different Parties for the establishment of an airport in Cork. Now, whether it be Midleton or Farmers' Cross that was thought of long before now, we had a statement from the Minister during the week, in reply to a question, that the report was before him and that he was giving it his consideration. It is too late now for Deputy Corry or Deputy Hickey to be talking as to whether the airport should be in Fermoy, Midleton or Farmers' Cross. The report is there, and I believe the Minister will give it his favourable consideration. He will decide which is the more advisable site. Speaking as an East Cork man and without any meteorological experience, I believe, personally, that Ahenesk, Midleton, would be the ideal solution of this problem. I hope that the Minister, in spite of the controversies that we have seen in this House between Deputy Corry and Deputy Hickey, will give Midleton at least a fair trial in this regard.
I agree with Deputy Brennan when he said that Deputies, no matter on what side of the House they sat, should congratulate the Minister on his efforts to foster industry here. I definitely do so. The only fault I have to find with him is in regard to this problem of centralisation in Dublin. There is no doubt whatever but thatmany industries have been started over a number of years. I give the Minister for Industry and Commerce all the credit that is due to him for that. I think that any Minister, no matter what Party he belonged to, is justly entitled to the credit due to him for work of that kind. I have done my best to make a case for the provincial towns, and for Fermoy in particular.
I should like to remind Deputies of the speech I made here on the 22nd July last, in the course of which I made a plea for brevity in speeches. I am glad to note that in some cases my plea met with a good response, but I am disappointed to know that in many cases it did not. If some Deputies continue to make ridiculously long speeches, I propose to ask them, through the Chair, to be more brief in what they have to say. In conclusion, I would ask the Minister's special consideration for the points which I have mentioned. If the Minister does that, I believe that as a Minister in the Republic of Ireland, and no matter what Party he represents his efforts will be justly appreciated.
Major de Valera
We are already familiar with the general pattern which might be summarised in this way, that in a period of 20 years there has been a revival of industrial activity in this country which must be regarded as satisfactory, and that after the depression of the war years, because it did amount to a depression in that sense, there came a recovery which enables one to make the statement that I have made, that industrial development heretofore must be regarded as reasonably satisfactory.
In addition to that, not only has there been a rise in industrial output but, corresponding to it, there has been a marked increase in the numbers engaged in employment and industry. Therefore, from two points of view the picture is creditable, and I think everybody will admit that a very large part of the credit indeed for that achievement must go to the Minister who is the present Minister for Industry and Commerce as it was he who initiated the drive and piloted it through very difficult years.
It would be tedious to delay by going through figures in that regard, but whether you take gross output, net output or employment content, there has been a substantial advance made in this sphere. It does make one, however, ask: what is the future for industrial development in this country, and there, I think, there is room for thought. Twenty years ago, when Deputy Lemass assumed office as Minister for Industry and Commerce, there was a certain field available for immediate attack, and through the efforts that have been made these particular gaps have been largely filled.
The question is, how far we can, and on what lines, we should go ahead for the future. Now, in the first instance, in regard to what has been done and what can be done, you have this problem that we are—I think the phrase was used by Deputy Larkin— starting rather late in the race. The competition for exports and export markets is already exceedingly keen in the world in regard to manufactured goods, particularly manufactured goods which are most commonly in demand and which are consumed in the greatest quantities in the world. The competition is so great that the handicap imposed on us by starting late in the race is likely to tell, and, in fact, has been telling. The resources of nations and peoples who started earlier in the race are very often greater than ours, and were marshalled earlier. Consequently, in this intense competition, in the organisation of the world as we know it to-day, the big industrial powers, with all their equipment and capacity, have an advantage. There is one thing, in particular, that will be difficult for us in industrial expansion and we had better realise it—I think it is realised —and it is this, that the more we can market and the bigger the output within certain limits the more favourably we are placed because within these limits overhead costs do not rise in proportion. Whether an industry is economic or not may depend on this factor.
That problem is there and it seems to me that it is going to impose a limit; in other words, you cannot hopeto go in for big manufacturing industries that will be able to live on very considerable exports. Then, there is the question whether the quantity that can be consumed at home will suffice for economic operation. When you are going to be denied the chance or when you have not very much hope of exporting in a number of lines on a competitive basis, you will not easily get a basis for industry in these lines on consumer capacity at home.
What Deputy Larkin said in that regard may go very well for a number of commodities, but it will not go for quite a number of others. As regards the production of a lot of the commodities we consume here, take clothing and footwear, we have largely filled the gap which was there. That has been a real contribution and a really important thing in our industrial life, but we have come more or less to the limit of possible expansion along those lines. We are virtually denied the possibility of going into big industries such as that of motor cars for export or similar industries such as the bigger countries depend on. The problem then is to see what is the future and what is the outlook for our industrial development.
In order to do that I think we must get right back to the basis. Fundamentally we must regard the problem as one of developing our agriculture and our agricultural economy. Mere indiscriminate industrialisation is not going to be a workable answer. It is a question of tying in our industrial development with our main source of wealth, our real basic industry, agriculture, and the development of agricultural production. In the world as it is to-day in regard to trade, the real basis of our export trade must be agricultural production. By all means, if there are other lines—and there will be other lines—let us develop them. Let me not be construed as decrying industrialisation that can foster these other lines and bring profits. What I am trying to do is to bring things into perspective. There will be other lines; we have Waterford glass being produced again, and I am sure other such enterprises will be developed. Wehave Irish whiskey which possibly could be developed into a useful export, but the main export must be, has been and probably will be, agricultural produce.
The future for agricultural production seems reasonably good in so far as one can judge from current and recent reports about food production in the world. Our industrial development should go on with a view to that basic set-up. If that is so, industries connected with agriculture—to service the farmers' agricultural machinery, to make available materials like fertilisers which the agriculturist needs —or on the other hand, industries such as the canning industry which is processing products of the farmer or the condensed milk industry, all these things fit very naturally into the picture and are extremely important. Our future development will lie more naturally along these lines than on those of building industries of another type. As I have said already, our potentialities in regard to producing goods consumed at home, such as footwear and clothing, have been already exploited almost to the full.
With that background there are, of course, some gaps to be filled still. In order to balance things up they should be attended to ; we should try as far as possible to relate them to our main purpose. Two of the gaps that are there are: an industry approximating to a heavy engineering or semi-heavy engineering enterprise; and an industry producing the chemicals required, and certain other raw materials, too, for agriculture.
In regard to this second requirement, it is very welcome news to hear that this question is again being actively considered, that after the good work done by Bord na Móna, the Sugar Company and so on, we are more actively thinking of industry in relation to agriculture and to the possible production of fertilisers. I know there are many problems involved in that, and that we have only had the announcement that the matter is being actively considered. However, it was being considered back in 1948 and was then in abeyance for a number ofyears. It is good to hear of this project again. This is one of the ways in which to step up agricultural production, to make agriculture self-supporting so that you are not relying on imports as the basis of agriculture. That is a move in the right direction and I mention it now as something very commendable and also conducive to industrial expansion. From it will flow other industrial activities in the satisfaction of the demand for other industrial goods as sidelines arising more or less naturally in contradistinction to setting up industries without relating them to the economy of the country as a whole. Of course that is for more detailed discussion on another occasion when the Minister is in a position to give us more information. It is sufficient to say that it is very gratifying to hear that news. The idea is fundamentally sound and the Minister is to be congratulated on taking that line.
The other matter is a sore point. It is a pity that in connection with our railway problem, and so on, one opportunity has been let slip in the past which could have provided an approach towards this difficult problem of a heavy industry. Again the arguments against the heavy industries are the ones I mentioned earlier in regard to our consumer capacity at home and the impossibility of securing an export outlet for an industry of that nature. Two aspects of the problem are that, per se, such an industry would be uneconomic but fortunately, as in the case of the chemical industry, relating it to the economy as a whole. an approximation to the solution of the problem could be found.
Some approximation could have been got by developing our railway workshops, but unfortunately the Inchicore chassis factory was abandoned and the machinery sold. There is a gap there to be filled, a lot of water has flowed under the bridge, time has passed and the nature of that problem will probably change and the desirable solution will change with the times. Let us hope that some time in the future that and similar other gaps will be filled.
Over all, the position is that we have now reached a stage in our industrialdevelopment where there is natural expansion in certain lines, in certain types of goods such as clothing and footwear, but where already the need has been more or less met and it is a question of keeping those industries going and keeping them economic. That has happened in a large number of spheres in the years that have passed. The opportunities for that type of development naturally and spontaneously are passing as the demand or opportunity for them is saturated. That seems to bring us to direct State intervention for the setting up of the bigger type of industry and the fundamental type of industry that still has to be supplied here. We should recollect that much of the industrial development that has gone on has been to a certain extent secondary. We have developed industries here but very often they would be classed more or less as secondary— either secondary in importance from the point of view of relating the product to other products consumed by the community or secondary in the sense that they are dependent on other products which are not processed here or on raw materials which are not produced here by the community.
We still have largely the question of producing basic requirements. Fertilisers are a typical example. In the past is has been easy to stimulate private enterprise to put up the capital for industries and they have been successful as the record shows and they continue to be successful. If you take even the last years on the record, you will find that their gross output, employment content and net output are increasing in spite of the talk that has been going on here—and which must frighten anybody who has any capital to invest in industry. Incidentally, that is one of the dangers of talking indiscriminately or irresponsibly about private enterprise and the funds going into it. You are putting the load right back on the State and rather frightening off people who might be prepared to invest, if you press that line too far. These industries were founded largely by private enterprise. Some of them had certain tariff protection, some of them had encouragement from the Department and hadcertain advice, but basically most of them were private enterprises. They have been successful and have flourished, they have given services to the community, they have given employment and have contributed very largely to redressing a position where this country was too dependent on outsiders.
As I have said, a cursory glance at the present situation seems to suggest that that particular form of development is likely to slow down rather than increase in the future—either because of saturation or because the projects that still remain to be tackled economically are too big. It is there we will have to face, before we can go any further, such things as power expansion. If you can expand your power supply and particularly if you can cheapen the power output, in other words, make cheap power available, you will do an awful lot to help the smaller type of industry, the type that private enterprise is likely to undertake, and you go a long way towards making it economic. That development can be undertaken only with State aid, as in the case of the E.S.B. and Bord na Móna. The development of Bord na Móna along the lines it is going is another example. If we come to the bigger things I have mentioned, like fertilisers, there is no option but to proceed on somewhat similar lines. It is going to be futile to hope for development of that nature carried out by private enterprise alone.
On the other hand, as the Minister said here, the fact is that private enterprise will always be more efficient —efficient in the sense that the return for the output in expenditure will be greater. That seems to be the universal experience. A firm run on private or semi-private lines will show profits more regularly and will become economic more readily than the public institution. Nationalisation has this unfortunate drawback that it tends to be uneconomic. Let us face that fact, no matter what our views may be on nationalisation or socialisation. The experience in Britain and our experience here is very definite—that private enterprises, or at least organisationswhich are run on the lines of private enterprise companies, are likely to be more economic and more efficient than public ones. Whether you take an example at home or an example from Britain, where there have been some recent experiments, I think that conclusion is valid. If that is so, the prospect and the policy for the future seems to be that in certain major regards, such as continuing power expansion, the developments that could be summed up in the words, "Bord na Móna", the developments that are being sponsored by the Irish Sugar Company in some respects, the developments which are envisaged in regard to fertilisers, the manufacture of basic chemicals for fertilisers, such projects will have to be initiated and stimulated and given continued attention by the State. I think we have no choice, as we are placed, about taking that view and operating that view, as we have done heretofore, or else going without.
After that, the emphasis and the effort should be on the off-shoots, wherever possible, of a particular industry, whether they are off-shoots, derivatives or are subsidiaries; and they should be, as far as possible, on the private enterprise basis. That is likely to give the best return to the community and nationalisation is to be avoided as far as possible. In certain cases, where some form of it is required, it is better that it should be done in even an indirect way, as it has been done in some cases, rather than through direct running by the State.
We have certainly developed industry in a creditable way in 20 years, notwithstanding the war and all the setbacks it involved, particularly for industry. There is a future for industry, but we have reached the point on the road where the picture has to be looked on as a whole, where we have to orient the new projects in relation to our basic economy, which is largely agricultural. Thereafter, the more we achieve, the more of necessity must come a limit to the potentialities of industrial expansion, and we shall then have to look towards agricultural expansion and mobilise the resources of industry to agriculture as far as possiblein order to safeguard our economic future.
Several Deputies have stressed the employment problem. That, again, has to be related to facts. Industrialisation has given us a certain blottingpad, so to speak, for unemployment, and the numbers engaged in industrial activities have certainly increased. The numbers engaged in production have increased. There has, however, been a decline in the numbers employed on the land—that has already been pointed out—but there we are up against the fact that the mechanisation of agriculture must of necessity tend in that direction.
The situation in the building trade must give us some cause for thought because our present rate of building cannot go on for ever. At some stage we shall complete the programme. There is still work to be done, but it is not too soon to start thinking of the future in that direction and to examine the position from the point of view of the transfer of that labour force into some other activity. We have all talked about this employment problem and it is not easy to see where one can absorb that force as things are. One thing that has been attempted here in Dublin to some extent is an effort to stimulate local work.
That can be done but that is only a palliative. So far as the building industry is concerned it must, in the last analysis, be a question of deciding ultimately in what work one can absorb the present labour force all over the country. I am not quite so sure whether on that basis certain long term development projects might not be considered. The main difficulty is that we have already reached the stage where we seem to be expanding beyond saving capacity; in other words, we will have to work a little harder and get a lot more out of ourselves to achieve the development we desire.
The Minister mentioned, and I am not quite clear on the point, the proposal to make available for C.I.E. a sum of £10,000,000. If I understood him correctly, he said that the result of this allocation would be roughlyto wipe out the existing deficit. I am not altogether satisfied that a proposal of that nature at this stage is entirely economic. If one makes available £10,000,000 now merely to wipe out an annual loss for a certain foreseeable future it seems to me to be capitalising the debt without any great guarantee of financial stability for the future. I am afraid we must face the fact here that one of the chief difficulties in regard to C.I.E and public transport generally has been the cost of the undertaking itself and the cost involved in its organisation. I see very little hope of rationalising the position unless we face up to that problem. What are the costs and what rate of overheads does it carry for the earnable return? If these overheads cannot be covered by that return, then there is only one answer. We may adopt some artificial device such as the diversion of traffic unnaturally—there may be natural and workable arrangements—into the railway system. But that will not bring the results we want to achieve. That merely introduces further and greater complications. It is very difficult to know what is the best thing to do
There has been one move after another in regard to this transport system. We were told four or five years ago that the answer had been found. A new arrangement was formulated and the former chairman went. We were assured we would have a new era of profit, stability and efficiency. That has not come and frankly I am pessimistic about the outlook in regard to that organisation unless we are prepared to face the fundamental problems. Those problems are so many and so varied that a onesided approach to their solution will not be enough. I must confess I cannot see what the solution is.
Deputy Larkin, as usual, made a reasoned and interesting contribution to the debate but I am in some difficulty in dealing with one particular point raised by him because our fundamental approach is different. Deputy Larkin's approach is frankly socialistic; the State should control and intervene actively in practically every phase of our economic life. I differ from him in that and, from that pointof view, it is somewhat difficult to join issue with him. In relation to his comments on industry, he quoted cases of Irish industries which had issued bonus shares. From his point of view, that is the socialistic point of view, he made a sustainable case. He cited a firm that had so much capital so many years ago. It issued bonus shares. It has in effect doubled its capital but it still pays the same rate of interest. Having made that statement, he left it to us to conclude that this was a shocking state of affairs and should not be allowed to continue. It may be a shocking state of affairs from a socialistic point of view but let us look at it from another point of view. I am trying to look at it fairly. I do not suggest that there was any element of unfairness in the way in which Deputy Larkin formulated his case but I want to be fair on the basis of what happened in that transaction. Supposing you go back to 1939 or 1938 and take somebody who put £100 into a business and the business prospers. Omission No. 1 in Deputy Larkin's argument is that the whole increase in the value of that business and in profits when reckoned in money is not completely due to the output of employees which he seemed to have in mind. It is also directly related to the change in money values. Take that particular business at the present time in its value, assuming that it has maintained its real actual value, as in 1939 and no more, it has in terms of money value doubled because of the relative change in money values over that period. On that basis alone it is equitable and very correct to say that the capital value of that concern has doubled. If the capital value of that concern has doubled, what is wrong with issuing a bonus share to its equivalent?
Now let me come to the earning side. Supposing a man put £100 into that business as capital in 1939 and was earning 10 per cent., he got £10 dividend a year. If it remained £100 and the firm was in the same way to-day he would still get £10, but that £10 is now worth only half what it was worth. It would be very fair to leave it that way if the pattern was the same all over. I have already shown the appreciationin connection with the value of the firm merely on the basis that things remained static, but let us recollect that during that period wages of employees and of everybody else deriving profit from that firm have gone up.
Doubled.
Major de Valera
All right—doubled. The Deputy hands it to me on a plate.
No.
Major de Valera
I know the Deputy and others would try to represent me as a friend of the capitalist, but I may be talking for the widow who had a few stocks and shares or for many orphanages and convents and other people who have money invested in this country which went a long way towards helping industrial expansion. The point I want to make is, if values have changed and wages have gone up, what is wrong with the man who had £100 in 1940 or before and put it into a business on the basis that he was getting 10 per cent., getting £20 now? Would it not be only keeping him in level with the other increases that the wage earners in the industry and elsewhere have got?
I am stressing that point out of fairness, because I know a lot of us are very shy to defend justice in these quarters when it is necessary. We should not be. It is a question of elementary justice, that is, of course, if you accept the system.
I know that there are other problems involved in the long-term view of money and capital. They are of a different nature altogether. But, to suggest that because the value in money of profits has doubled in that particular period, and to leave that by itself, without pointing to the fact that the value of output and wages has approximately doubled, is, to say the least of it, giving an incomplete picture. Provided we have the complete picture, I am prepared to argue with other people about other factors in the situation.
In regard to profits, also, this much must be borne in mind: there is a lot of talk about the profits of industry and the profits to the investor but, infact, is there a number of people in this State who are getting away with murder, as some people would suggest, and what murder are they getting away with? To draw that conclusion from the balances as shown in company balance sheets is a very hasty thing to do because, first, the profits shown are practically invariably in the main applied one way or the other back into the community. First of all, any firm, under the system as it is, needs to make substantial profit to live and to continue living. That is elementary. The putting of money back in reserve one way or another is a necessity for continuity in most businesses. The actual profits distributed, overall, will not be found to go far out of relation with the change in the wage picture. Secondly, if certain people do earn more than others, that is going back to the community. Here again, of course, we have to face the socialist approach. If the socialist wants to level everybody, there is no answer to that but, if you have a gradation, that gradation is not without its advantages. Remember that the money that is earned is largely money spent. The people who get that money put it back, even if they only put it back to maintaining people in employment in the semi-luxury class of trade. We hear a lot of talk here about big motor cars, about the hotels, and so forth. A lot of it cannot be substantiated. Even if it could be substantiated, a fact should be taken into account which frequently is not taken into account, that that very activity is providing employment and is a means of circulating money. The people who have been talking about motor cars or other things like that, would be the most shocked in the world if something were to happen on the lines that they have been suggesting and they found that so many people were out of employment in the motor trade or some trade like that.
Let us not forget that this whole system is not without its advantages. As far as I can see, there are no grounds for the innuendo, and sometimes the direct statement that the profits earned in industry are excessive. In any event, the revenueauthorities take their share of these, and most of that money is finding its way back into industry or commerce in some form or other and is doing its job.
I feel compelled to make these remarks in view of the picture given by Deputy Larkin here to-night. It is difficult to argue because, if I were to approach it on the same frankly socialistic basis as Deputy Larkin does, very possibly I would find an answer much nearer agreement with him than I am finding now but, in giving the answer I am giving now, I do not want in any way to be construed as, shall I say, a high Tory. There is an old saying, a Latin tag, In media stat virtus—in the middle is virtue. That is the way in life. If somebody goes far too much to the Left, to bring the whole picture back to the middle you have the complexion of going a little too far Right yourself. I move to report progress.