During the course of my speech last night, I was concentrating mainly on the fact that the matter of capital development and the system of financing it only really assumed importance about the year 1949, and that when the inter-Party Government programme was produced great objection was taken to it by the Fianna Fáil Party on the ground, apparently, that the schemes were not to be regarded as development schemes and also because the proposals with regard to the financing of these schemes did not meet with their approval. I welcomed the view indicated in the speech by the Minister for Lands at the bankers' annual dinner which was held on the 23rd instant,but I also pointed out that his remarks seemed to be somewhat delayed and rather out-of-date. The Minister for Lands spoke of the necessity for having these capital development schemes speeded up as otherwise the situation would be that our national resources would remain neglected. In that context, I referred to the record of Fianna Fáil since 1932. I went through the accounts of the years they were in office. I indicated what moneys had been allocated year by year during Fianna Fáil's 15 years of office, and also below-the-line services. I indicated how much was spent to show that it was very considerably less, on the whole, than what had been proposed. It emerged from my calculations that the average amount allocated for below-the-line services was something like £1,000,000 or £1,250,000, and that the amount spent was something over £750,000, with the solitary exception of the year in which a sum of £10,000,000 was raised by the Anglo-Éire Agreement Loan for the purpose of paying that immense sum of money to Britain. I had not indicated the items on which the moneys were spent. I will come to that later this afternoon. Clearly, this matter has been the subject of some consideration by the Government since 1951. I have been interested to note how often the question of saving and of providing the money for capital development occurred in the speech the Minister for Finance made when he was introducing his Budget this year. Quite early in that Budget speech, as reported at column 1181, Volume 138, No. 10, of the Official Report, he spoke of the approach to monetary stability which he said had been secured. He accredited that—
"in large measure to the greater tendency of the community to save and to the increased readiness of its thrifty and industrious members to entrust their savings to the Government for investment in works of national importance."
He continued:—
"The record response which the saving and investing public gave to the National Loan in September last was a striking manifestation of confidence and the Government are particularly appreciative of it."
Of course, that was criticised, as it will be criticised for many years to come, in an article in The Statist,which said that that National Loan was the worst effort at mistiming that had ever been made. One looks forward with some amusement to next year to hear what the same Minister is likely to say with regard to the relative flop which the last loan turned out to be. He thought fit to boast of the record response in 1952 and regarded it as a striking manifestation of confidence of which the Government are particularly appreciative. The note struck in that Budget speech was that there was a tendency on the part of the community to save. This is what he said:—
"A closer approach to monetary stability has been secured. This has been due in large measure to the greater tendency of the community to save and to the increased readiness of its thrifty and industrious members to entrust their savings to the Government for investment in works of national importance."
Let me point the contrast at once. The loan was a £20,000,000 loan. Fianna Fáil, in their whole period of office, had never before approached a loan of that magnitude. Apparently, it was a recognition that works of capital development were awaiting completion and that some method of financing them was required. Later on in the same Budget speech, as reported at column 1192, Volume 138, No. 10 of the Official Report, the Minister is reported as follows:—
"I am glad to be able to say, and I am sure the country will be no less glad to learn, that without curtailing capital investment in any form——"
"...without curtailing capital investment in any form..." That was the capital investment that had been objected to when it was embarked upon by the Minister's predecessors in office.
"——we managed to finance it in a much less inflationary way than in recent years. For this we have inthe main to thank once more the Irish public who, despite the higher cost of living——"
No account is taken of who caused the higher cost of living but, despite that——
"——decided to spend less on consumer goods, so as to save more and have more to invest."
The Minister continued:—
"When introducing the Budget for last year, I ventured to forecast that there would be a ‘return to more normal habits of spending and saving' among the thrifty and industrious elements in the community. That prediction has been fulfilled and indeed the improvement has been even better than could have been foreseen."
This next phrase was unfortunate in the light of later events:—
"In consequence, a National Loan for £20,000,000, the largest ever floated here, was not only fully subscribed without recourse to the banks, but attracted a record number of investors, including many people of small and modest means. That the improvement has persisted——"
—that was into this year—
"——with the consequence that more money is available for investment, is evidenced by the unprecedented support which was given to the last public issue made by the City of Dublin."
At a later stage still, the Minister spoke this way:—
"But in the year just ended the greater part of the State capital programme was financed from the current savings of the community; production is on the upturn, import prices are tending to fall, money incomes all round are higher and there has been a reversion to former habits of thrift and providence."
Every one of these statements has been falsified by the event.
The Minister continued:—
"In short, people now feel that if they have more money, it is money which is worth while to save. In thesecircumstances, while our task will remain difficult, we may face it with some optimism."
He returned once more to it:—
"Last year when outlining the capital programme which we wished to finance, I said that the response of the public to the loan which I then foreshadowed would determine in large measure the Government's capacity to carry the programme through. The ultimate response indicated beyond any doubt that the public were fully behind the Government and were prepared to support in a practical way the programme of national development to which we were committed."
I made the comment on that at the time that it seemed to have a threat about it, if the public did not fully subscribe to any future loan, the capacity of the Government to carry the programme through might be limited and that they might have to have a new view on the programme. Later again, the Minister spoke in this way:—
"Taking everything into consideration, it would appear that the capital programme which I have outlined is within the capacity of the community and can be carried through without damage to our economy. Yet in that connection a certain reservation must be kept in mind."
He then went on:—
"It is only in recent years, and largely on the basis of the American Loan Counterpart moneys, that State-financed capital expenditure has reached its present proportions. While we may see our way safely ahead for another year, it is not yet possible to say definitely whether a programme of the present size can be continuously sustained, without imposing too great a strain on the balance of payments and without depriving private enterprise of its capital needs. As a general proposition it is clearly unwise to aggravate the obvious difficulties of financing the State capital programme by adding unduly to its magnitude, for the assignment of an item to the capital budget does not relieve us of the embarrassment of paying for it. Onthe contrary, to the extent that the State capital expenditure proves to be unproductive, it increases the ultimate burden on the taxpayer and reduces the ability of the community to cope successfully with economic vicissitudes. Moreover, it has to be remembered that, however desirable new capital projects may seem, the resources available to finance them are not inexhaustible and that in this realm, as in most human affairs, means are much more limited than desires. It must, therefore, be the duty of the Minister for Finance to prevent the unwarranted expansion of State capital outlay and, within the programme itself, to ensure a greater concentration on directly productive projects."
On that excerpt, it can be said that the preamble is completely wrong. It was not largely on the basis of American Counterpart Fund money that State capital expenditure reached its present proportions. The American Loan Counterpart Fund money had been used for three years sparingly and only to provide such extra money as was required after an appeal had been made to the public and resort had been had to State Department funds. It was only in respect of what was the difference between the demands of the State capital Budget and whatever these resources were that any resort was had to the American money at all.
Speaking of the previous capital Budget, the Minister said:—
"I excluded from the charge against revenue every single item in the Supply Services which had been classified as ‘capital' in my predecessor's 1951 Budget. About the capital character of several of these items I had misgivings which have not since abated. This year again, however, but for a different reason, I must postpone any reform of the procedure. If there is anything in the view that we are poised between inflation and deflation, then it follows that this is not a year for categorically assigning to taxation charges which for some years past have been met by borrowing."
I suppose we can say that at that pointwe bid farewell to all the old controversy as to whether the capital Budget outlined in the inter-Party days was good or bad. The Minister said he had set it aside although he had misgivings which had not abated, and had decided to postpone any reform but for a different reason. The fact, however, which most people would regard with some satisfaction is that no effort was being made to cut down the capital Budget, the schemes for which had been established in the inter-Party period.
Later the Minister spoke of regaining the confidence of the saving and investing public:—
"...so that we can look forward with assurance to the continuance of a well-ordered and sound programme of productive capital investment."
Later on he had two references, one of which was completely wrong and which drew groans from the people who listened to him—that the improvement in the balance of payments had been achieved without any marked or general disturbance of the country's economy. Secondly, he boasted that the reductions which had been necessitated, as he thought, had been carried through in such a way as to cause the minimum of embarrassment to domestic interests. The last phrase brought into this sort of context was that "taxation pressed so lightly on the land that there is little scope for any stimulus under that head."
I deliberately set about taking out from the Budget speech of this year all the phrases used about capital development because there was no Fianna Fáil Budget in their first 15 years of office that paid any attention to it, nor was there any question of there being a big programme which required to be carried out or anxiety as to whether there was money there to provide the resources from which a capital Budget might be financed. In the early stages of Fianna Fáil they had on an average about £1,000,000 below-the-line and they spent about half what they provided. In the end it is possible to see, from their resorts to the public for borrowing,that in the period in which they were in office they went for loans on three occasions, leaving out the conversion loan and the loan to raise the money to pay the British.
These three loans amounted to £21,000,000 and they got from the people £13,750,000. That was the whole operation of a capital nature, in so far as borrowing represents it, in 15 years. That, however, is putting it far too high as I showed yesterday from a memorandum I had been faced with when I sought to find out for what I could use the first moneys I had borrowed. I discovered that they were all mortgaged by old debts left to me by my predecessors—over £10,000,000 worth, and it was apparent from the lecture which Mr. Eason gave and the acknowledgment on all sides of his figures that there had been £10,000,000 of ordinary Budget deficits in a particular period. I have made the calculation from it all that the Budget deficits which had to be financed, apart altogether from any capital projects, were in the region of £20,000,000 towards which the last Government made certain provision, leaving me to provide the remainder. The rest, whatever it was—it was a small sum relatively—went on capital development.
However, it is a welcome change and if the speech of the Minister for Finance represents a new financial policy the country can have less anxiety because there is going to be no quarrelling about the necessity for schemes of capital development which we ourselves had investigated and approved of and going to be even less difficulty than ever before if the Government have the proper mind in the matter and know how to direct themselves on the question of securing the necessary finance.
In the years before the war, whatever below-the-line services Fianna Fáil decided to finance were items which recurred year after year. Some came in every year and some came in at a later stage and then became recurring. In the early stages, money of a capital type came under two headings, the Shannon Act or electricitysupply. It was for the development of electricity in the country but it all depended on the original Shannon development. There was no mention of any other development, other than, possibly, the Pigeon House, in relation to the putting in of new boilers. Until the war was almost on us, when there was any such talk, it was with regard to the Liffey and it was not, in itself, primarily an electric scheme but a scheme to provide Dublin with extra reservoir equipment. For years it had been understood that Dublin went through a crisis which occurred whenever a season was comparatively dry, because there was not enough water in the reservoirs to supply the city.
Money was also applied under the Telephone and Telegraph Acts. I do not regard either of these as proper for taking into consideration in this connection, because there is a return from the moneys applied under these Acts—it comes back—and a country like this would have to be gasping for financial aid before it would refuse to put money in under these two Acts. I think the same remarks can be applied to anything which has to do with electricity. There is a completely good return—a better return than could be got from investments in national loans—from investments in either electricity or in whatever equipment is required under the Telegraph and Telephone Acts.
Outside that, Fianna Fáil in its early stages put money into the Road Fund, but not very much. They had a little below-the-line service in regard to unemployment at one time. That was in the change-over from unemployment insurance to unemployment assistance. It was 1936/37 before the Local Loans Fund made its appearance as a below-the-line service. The moneys that go into that fund are mainly paid out for housing and public health services. Up to the year 1936/37, there was nothing in the nature of capital moneys or below-the-line moneys associated with Local Loan Fund services. Air matters made their appearance in 1939/40. The tourist matter made its appearance in the year 1943/44. The National Studemerges in 1946/47, and there was a new entry in regard to turf, the modest sum of £400,000. Turf takes its place as an item in below-the-line services from 1946/47. Certainly, looking back in retrospect from 1953 on these performances, I think it will be agreed that the resources of the country were neglected. It can hardly be called a programme that would cheer any man who looks back on it. Remember that these were the days before the war when capital was more freely available than it is to-day and when it could be got at a much cheaper rate than it can now. There were not the same pressing necessities on people with regard to their ordinary lives. Savings could have been more easily acquired than in these days; life was cheaper and easier than it is to-day even comparative to moneys paid for services. These were the wasted years; these were the 15 years which the locusts have eaten. These were the years following that in which Fianna Fáil came in with promises of gigantic developments. In the end, they put money into electricity —a matter which they widely disparaged when it was initiated. They carried on financing telephones and telegraph development; they added a few items such as Aer Rianta, something for tourist development, the development of the National Stud and some developments in regard to turf.
That is the situation which has been built up. In that situation, on a festive occasion the other night, the Minister for Lands, deputising for the Minister for Finance, could describe this as a country with neglected resources requiring the investment of big moneys. Associated with that phrase was the statement that, as the public had not responded in the required manner to recent loans, the banks would have to be asked to provide more money for Government purposes this year. How that is to be extracted from them, or what rate of interest is to be paid, still remains a mystery.
However, the new programme has been announced, not by the Minister for Finance at present absent from the House—one knows the reason and regrets it—and not even by the person who deputises for him to-day. A third Minister was deputed to develop thenew financial policy at the bankers' dinner and to develop it in terms that have been much commented on and to which I shall have occasion to refer several times during the evening. The results of the Fianna Fáil policy in regard to these neglected resources had been apparent to anybody who thinks. There is no doubt unless the country makes changes, unless something new is going to develop as the result of what the Minister for Lands said the other night, there must be a decision taken. The facts stare us in the face. There has been no improvement during Fianna Fáil's 15 years of office. It is a question of whether the implications, almost the necessary consequences, of their policy—the lack of developments, etc.—have been recognised and accepted or whether Ministers are now living in the hope that something will turn up, that something will come along by the sheer force of inevitability.
I should like to refer for a moment to the twin evils of emigration and unemployment. It is not very much use, I suppose, harking back to the old days when there was a great mood of enthusiasm among the members of the present Government and when they were propaganding up and down the country at an early stage before they became the Government. In these days the present Minister for Industry and Commerce was always most vociferous in regard to unemployment. He said that the outstanding fact about unemployment in this country was that it need not exist at all. When that phrase was thrown back to him in the Dáil—it was said outside, of course—he did not shrink from it. He said the problem could be solved at once. When I was timid enough to suggest that it would require some years to get rid of unemployment he said, "No. You can get an immediate solution for unemployment to-morrow."
The Taoiseach at the 1929 Ard Fheis of Fianna Fáil gave his view in this way:—
"The more I consider this problem, the more convinced I become that the problem of unemployment in Ireland is quite capable of solutionand the more certain I feel that it was a crime against the unemployed and against the nation to leave it unsolved."
I could fill this whole debate with abundant quotations of that kind.
The Minister for Industry and Commerce, now the Tánaiste, wrote of the great plans in The Nation.In one copy, dated March 1st, 1930, he detailed the Party's great plan for unemployment, and he said: “Of course there is no reason why unemployment should exist at all in this country and it is not unlikely that after some time the necessity for the Fianna Fáil plan will not arise.” That was not just something said for the sake of talking. All these things were said in that way to create the impression that there was a plan and that people were criminal who did not solve unemployment because any person of sound economic sense must understand the plan and see the solution. There must be something perverse in the make-up of certain people, it was suggested, when unemployment had not been solved and when they did not see their way to do it. During one election the slogan went out from Fianna Fáil that this country had the solution for unemployment staring it in the face and if people did not take down, from whereever it was, that solution for unemployment, it was because they were not nationally minded and were not even humane in their outlook in regard to that problem.
Much the same thing was said in regard to emigration. We had the Taoiseach on the occasion of a visit to New York—he wept here but he wept more in New York—grieving to see the Irish people leaving this country. He said: "Ireland has been a country where mothers rear their children for export." It grieved him to see the people, particularly the young people, leaving this country. This went on for years. We get a description, I think from the year 1932, in a series of excerpts from journalists talking about their discoveries all along the western seaboard and in a number of islands off the seaboard which they visited. They visited someof the employment exchanges in places like Donegal and were shocked to discover that 600 people were signing on in Ballyshannon Exchange, and the comment made was that this signing on was only a preliminary to those people shaking the dust of the country off their feet and going to live abroad. We have the statistical return that 78,000 people fled from farm work in six years, and the addition was made that the result of that ordinarily would be that people who fled from farm work passed through some temporary period at work of some kind in Dublin before they cleared across to England.
I made a calculation before with regard to what was then accepted as the emigration figure over a particular period. The figure I was then referring to was something in the neighbourhood of 300,000 and I drew the comparison that the three Ulster counties left to us had at the 1936 Census 280,000 people. Therefore, the result of the emigration that Fianna Fáil brought about in their period is the same as if every single man, woman and child in the three Ulster counties left to us had disappeared. The figure, according to the last return, shows that over 500,000 people have emigrated since 1932. According to the 1936 Census, County Galway had 168,000 people in it; Leitrim, 50,000; Mayo, 161,000; Roscommon, 77,000; Sligo, 67,000, and the tot of these for the whole of Connacht is 523,000 people. I want that to be taken as the comparison for the future. The Fianna Fáil operations in leaving the resources of this country undeveloped and neglected resulted in an export of population almost equal to the whole population of those counties of Connacht. It is the same as if these counties had been devastated of population in 1936.
I felt at the time that the Government should be asked to state their position. They always parry this by stating their aim or desire. They ought to accept that the aim and wish of everybody dealing with this country is that we ought to retain the population we have and what can be added to it by way of natural increase,provided there is a natural increase through development economically which will enable us to keep people at home to live happily in decent conditions.
Leaving aside that as an objective and wish, what about facing realities? Is it accepted, as one newspaper has often put forward, that this country cannot support more than, say, something like the 3,000,000 which the country has? Are we to take it that there is nothing in the way of development which will enable us to keep more people than, say, 2.9 million at home? Must we export the growing produce of our own population? Is it accepted that that is now facing us and that, even when we export them, we will carry roughly from 65,000 to 70,000 unemployed after we have poured out a number equivalent to the natural increase in the population year by year? That is the problem as I see it, that one must accept a situation in which people will continue to fly the country and people will continue to be permanently unemployed unless there is development on a considerable scale. We should not approach it in the timid way which comes from the phrase of the Minister for Finance, that the resources of this country are far beyond what have yet been tapped. The only thing is that they are in bad hands at the moment because the system we have inherited has not allowed the resources there are to be applied to the proper development of the country.
I always feel that it is somewhat of a menace that the person chosen by the Taoiseach for the Department of Finance in 1951 was the man who is still Minister for Finance, because in 1945, when the Beveridge full employment plan had occupied a certain amount of attention, he went to a student society in University College, Dublin, and decried planned economy. He animadverted on the Beveridge plan and he clearly had his mind made up at that time. He stated:—
"Within the legitimate province of the State they should not fail to strive to give to the people better conditions of life, better houses, schools and public services, and allthe collective comforts and amenities that their economy, founded as it was on agriculture, could afford them. Supposing that by using all the means that Sir William Beveridge proposed they succeeded, temporarily at least, in creating more jobs than men, what would be the reaction? One of two things would happen. The first and most natural would be that the too few men available would demand higher wages for their labour. Further, they would not refrain from putting their demands higher and higher until a point was reached at which those who wanted work done would have to consider either the abandonment of their projects or the substitution of machines for the men."
That was the considered view of the man who is now Minister for Finance, speaking as Minister for Local Government in 1945. I therefore regarded with apprehension the placing of that gentleman in charge of Finance. That view, of course, leads to acceptance of the view that at one time was fairly common: that, to put it crudely, to keep labour in hands one had always to have a pool of unemployment, and that any scheme which would take away from the pool of unemployment and would not leave us folk scrambling for anything they might get for some kind of work they were asked to do would be bad in the result. The then Minister for Local Government, Deputy MacEntee, accepted that view. The note at the head of this was: "The difficulties of giving effect to the Beveridge Plan." The papers had the comment that the Minister discussed the full employment plan and decided against it. That is the individual into whose hands there came the Central Bank Report a couple of years ago. There is no necessity to remind the House in detail of what was in that report. One of the things pointed to was that there had been a very high level of employment in the country and that was certainly spoken of, not in any tones of praise or encouragement or satisfaction, but was apparently regarded as something which would cause anxiety and, possibly, a little bit of terror.
That report, going to the person who had his mind made up that full employment would lead to a worse situation must have been grist to his mill. We saw the result of that in the Budget of 1952 and we have seen it carried forward in the Budget this year. I believe that it all springs from that particularly bad economic viewpoint: that it is bad to have too much employment, because you cannot keep all the people under control. Keeping labour under control was always the view which Fianna Fáil had.
This House has often had quoted to them the complaint of the Minister for Justice, Deputy Boland, when he said that what Fianna Fáil actually wanted to prevent was a certain thing. He lamented the increase in Civil Service salaries which, he said, would cost £700,000 in a full year. He also said:—
"The Army, the Gardaí and teachers are also entitled to increases, but the total cost is not yet disclosed. Local government officials will naturally expect increases also, as will workers all over the country. This was the situation which Fianna Fáil was determined to prevent, and would have prevented if three of the six lost Dublin seats had been held, for that would have given Mr. de Valera a majority on February 18th last."
That was the lament of Deputy Boland after the event. We know from an examination of the files that came into our hands when we became the Government, that the present Tánaiste had sent a minute to his Department in October, 1947, demanding a new wages standstill piece of legislation. Part of his minute was to the effect that "On the assumption that discussions with the Trade Union Congress will not result in any agreement on the stabilisation of wages rates, legislation will be required." He then gave his instructions that immediate steps should be taken to prepare a draft Bill, the main purpose of which would be to prohibit any employer from paying any worker a greater wage than he was receiving on the 15th October, 1947. This ominous paragraph followed,that the Trade Disputes Act was to be withdrawn from any strike, the purpose of which was to compel an employer to pay wages above that sum. The Minister directed, according to the note that I took, that "The duration of the Bill will be two years. Penalties should be severe." So the plan was on foot again. Of course, it had been publicly announced in October, 1947, when the present Taoiseach, speaking in Tipperary, said:—
"The Government wanted to control wages so that they could have a level set of prices, such as they had from October, 1943 to February, 1947."
That was the ominous period chosen. He went on to say:—
"We have a scarcity on the one hand and increased prices on the other, and no Government can settle that. These are things that are determined outside the country."
In the Dáil, on the 15th October, 1947, a few days before he had spoken in Tipperary, the present Taoiseach said:—
"The Government regards this temporary limitation of wage increases as vitally necessary in present circumstances, and if the trade unions cannot undertake such an agreement as I have outlined then the Government will produce proposals for legislation to the same effect."
The Tánaiste, speaking in the Dáil on the day after the Taoiseach had spoken, said:—
"I want, however, to make it clear that the Government regards it as an essential safeguard to the interests of the general community at the present time that some check upon the upward movement of wages should operate."
About the same time, the Taoiseach spoke again of the dangers and difficulties of 1947, and said they were greater than at any time during the war. The retort of the Government to all that was made through the Tánaiste, in asking his Department to prepare new legislation for the pinning of wages to what they were in October,1947, and for the withdrawal of the Trade Disputes Act. That was to force employers from paying any higher wages.
That was the idea which Fianna Fáil had over the years—that wage contracts should be kept at a certain point. That is what Fianna Fáil really intended to prevent. As Deputy Boland had said, these increases were scandalous things—they were bad in the eyes of the community. The civil servants got an increase, and it was clear that the Army, the Guards and the teachers would naturally expect that some increase should be given to them. Local authority employees would naturally look for some increase in their emoluments corresponding to what the Guards were likely to get.
The middle-class people got very little help from the Government over their whole period in office, and particularly during the period of the war and since. The recent Budget, of course, hit the middle classes harder than any other class. Among those who had suffered were people who had served the State in different ways and had gone out on pension. Professor Duncan, of Trinity College, lectured on "Fixed Incomes and Purchasing Power" to the Local Authorities Retired Officers and Servants Association in June of this year. His lecture got flash headlines in the newspapers. In the course of his lecture he said:—
"It was no longer a question of easy extinction of the pensioner or the property owner but a question of direct and savage starvation of a great number of people in a short space of time."
That statement of Professor Duncan's is printed in black headlines in the newspapers. In smaller type he is reported to have said that:—
"This financial position was not a visitation of nature or a visitation of God but a direct, immediate and only consequence of the financial incompetence of Governments."
Later he said that:—
"They could no longer hope for Government action and must try to adapt themselves to looking forward to a continuous and steady depreciationin the value of money. They could only look forward to a compromise between injustice and inexpediency."
Two people were called upon to deal with the pensioners' position. One was the deputy Minister for Finance who is now facing me. On the Superannuation Bill which was discussed in the Dáil in October, 1947, he was asked about the position of pensioners at that time when other emoluments were being raised. His reply was:—
"There never was anything in a civil servant's contract or a teacher's contract that the pension he would draw at the end of his days would be sufficient to keep him at a reasonable standard of life. What they were told was that they would get a certain pension which they could draw after a certain number of years' service. They were not told at any time that that sum of money would be able to keep them in all cicumstances."
He went on to say:—
"It is not a social service. They can draw the pensions whether they are rich or poor. We have small pensioners who have other means of income, and we have large pensioners who have no other means of income. I do not believe anybody wants to establish a means test for ex-State servants, seeing the violent objections there are to a means test in relation to the ordinary social service payments that we make."
At that point, Deputy Norton interrupted to ask:—
"Can the Minister say what the cost would be of revising the pensions of those who retired prior to 1940 to the level of an index figure of 170?"
The Minister's reply was that he did not know. The question was not discussed in the background of any information indicating that the burden was going to be very heavy on those people. Those people qualified for pensions and they were getting their pensions, and that, according to the Minister, was good enough.
The Independenthad this headingto an editorial of May 20th, 1953, this year: “Minister's Callous Attitude”. The editorial went on to say:—
"The Government will do nothing about the pensions of former officials. This decision, announced yesterday by Mr. MacEntee, Minister for Finance, will be regretted by all with a sense of fairness. Even more regrettable is the strange line of defence taken up by the Minister."
It was no strange line of defence to anyone who had heard the Minister opposite speaking here in 1947. The editorial went on to say:—
"‘After all,' said Mr. MacEntee, ‘'they are having the pensions they are entitled to.'
"The logic of this argument, if any logic were in it, would, of course, have prevented any adjustment of wages, salaries or pensions to meet the depreciation in money values. It would, for instance, have been a good argument against increases in ministerial salaries and Deputies' allowances; but we have no recollection of hearing it said on those occasions that Ministers and Deputies were getting what they were entitled to."
Later, the Independenteditorial went on to speak about the pensioners:—
"The pensioner's pound may have had 20/- purchasing value when his pension was fixed; now it is not worth half as much; he has to spend 45/- to get the commodities that 20/-of his pension secured before the war. The Government's attitude, that he is getting what he is entitled to, is both callous and inaccurate. No doubt, the pensioners have not much political or voting power, but that is hardly a reason for allowing them to live on the starvation line, as many on a low scale of pensions must."
This year, while the pensioners are being left in the background and while wage control, to the disappointment of the Government, I am sure, is no longer possible, feasible or expedient, we are going to have reliefs for certain people. We are to have a taxation inquiry by a new body. Itwas set up by the Minister for Finance and was addressed by him in October of this year. The committee is being set up under the chairmanship of a judge, as a result of what was said in the Budget speech of this year. It is expected that it will be mainly concerned with certain things such as the depreciation of plant—obsolescent plant and machinery—and with certain matters in regard to the protection of people who are running industry or who are engaged in commerce in this country. These are the folk whose plight is so precarious that a special inquiry has been set up to deal with them.
I take a certain table from the 26th annual report of the Revenue Commissioners, the one that runs to the 31st March, 1949. I add to that certain other figures that I have got from the 29th annual report of the commissioners. That report takes the figures up to the 31st March, 1952. I take Table 70, giving figures for gross incomes, Schedule D, the profits from businesses and professions, etc. In the year 1937, I have a figure written in representing the gross income at a level of about £30,000,000. That is an insertion in my own handwriting. The printed document shows that for 1943-44 that figure went up to £39,000,000; in 1944-45 it went up to £43,000,000; in 1945-46 to £46,000,000; 1946-47, £49,000,000; 1947-48 to £54,000,000; 1948-49 to £64,000,000; 1950-51, £69,000,000; and in 1951-52, the last figure I have, £76,000,000. It has risen from £30,000,000 in 1936-37 to £76,000,000 in 1951-52.
If I take a period after the war, say, 1945-46, the gross income figure Schedule D has risen from £46,000,000 to £76,000,000. It has gone up by an additional £30,000,000 on that £46,000,000 in the period since the war. It was right to say that was profits from businesses, professions, etc., and I was advised that the figure included not merely income derived by profesional people but income from investments and I was also advised that the figure for investment and for profits in the gross income remained relatively stable. Between them they would not amount to £13,000,000 andif you substract £13,000,000 you get the increase for any period. Therefore, if that £13,000,000 figure be correct, it would leave such gross income in 1945-46 at £33,000,000, and in the year 1951-52 at £63,000,000.
These, then, are the people whose needs must be catered for by a special commission to inquire into whether they are granted enough money to replace plant and machinery or look after the premises in which they carry on business.
There is one other figure comparable to that—it is really the same figure taken from a different angle. It is the figure for corporations profits tax. That is Table 80, from the similar two volumes of the Revenue Commissioners. The assessments made in each year for corporation profits tax were: in 1945-46, the taxable profits were within a few thousand pounds of £15,000,000; in 1951-52 they reached £27,000,000. They have risen from £15,000,000 to £27,000,000 over the period from 1945 up to the last period that was given. That is a figure which can be analysed and many other comments made on it. I just want to put it there in contrast to what has been done for other people.
The Budget of 1952 deprived the people of this country of the help that had been given in the subsidies to foodstuffs. It was done on the solitary argument made in the Budget that salaries and emoluments had been increased by a higher amount than the increase in the cost of living. Therefore, there was no necessity to continue these subsidies any longer. The cost of living in that speech was measured back to 1939 so that I suppose we were to take it that the Government was of the view that the standard of living enjoyed by the people of this country who were depending on wages and salaries had risen to a desirable point by way of height in 1939, and because of the difference in the increase in the cost of living and the increase in wages and salaries they had bettered themselves to some extent. Then, the Budget made provision to remove that from them because in the end theargument must have been that the standard of living had advanced beyond 1939 and that apparently was something not to be easily accepted.
It could not be said that pensioners had increased their standard of living beyond what they expected to get when their pensions were fixed. The cost of living had chipped so much off the pounds or shillings they were getting that they were reduced to a point very much below what they expected when looking forward to retirement from State service. But in contrast to that, just because there was propaganda carried on by a certain number—I do not blame all our industrialists and commercial people on this account as I know that quite a number felt that they had done very well, and a certain other number felt that whether they had done well or not they ought not to talk about it and direct public attention to their position—but there are certain people with whom the desire to have gain and profit is inordinate and they have for years been trying by propaganda to get what is called the system of dealing with machinery and plant investigated so that you could allow them more for plant and machinery because it is said that machinery costs so much more and they made the case that you should allow them sufficient to buy their own new machinery as though they had nothing in the way of secret profits accumulated since they first started business. That plan has been put up so that the position of these people can be bettered, the people whose gross income-tax and whose taxes under the corporation profits tax so increased as I have described in the extracts from the revenue tables. These are the people who have to have special commissions set up to cater for them. Of course, if there is any report in their favour, by the extent of which they are favoured the income revenue to be derived from direct taxation will drop. And if that revenue has to be maintained, then extra impositions will have to be made on the people who cannot escape or get any benefit from the matter of increased charges for obsolete or worn-out machinery.
Outside of that, the Government hasgone back to its old idea of relief schemes. It has not taken long—barely two years—to get back to the Fianna Fáil idea of pumping money into the roads because they say there is great labour content in roads: we can absorb a great many people on the roads. These are people who, through the depression that the Government by its budgetary policy has produced, have been flung out of occupations of a productive type and occupations of a much better type with better wages than they will get on the road schemes. We are back to relief schemes, because road schemes are, in the main, relief schemes. We are back to a few other schemes and I want to comment on some of these because it shows the difference between the orderly approach made to the problem of unemployment by the inter-Party Government and the chaotic, muddled sort of approach made nowadays.
Early this year a bit of propaganda started to have Dublin Castle built up again. It was started first of all, I think, by Deputy Briscoe, who used to come into this House, metaphorically, with a handkerchief before his streaming eyes thinking of the plight of the civil servants who had to accommodate themselves under shockingly bad conditions which led to inefficiency in their work. Deputy Colm Gallagher, in the intervals of his efforts in dealing with the horse trough on O'Connell Bridge, also got quite excited about the civil servants and the desperate plight they were in in Dublin Castle. Various other Deputies, mainly from the City of Dublin, took up the cry. First of all I think it is proper to recall that these people did not cry anything over the £1,000,000 arrears of payment which the Government did not give to the civil servants when it was awarded to them by an Arbitration Board which the Government itself set up. The whole idea was to get the Dublin Castle scheme going in the interests of the civil servants. Later it became a matter of getting the civil servants to work efficiently. How, it was asked, could you expect efficiency and good work from people who had to live under such shocking conditions asthose that were to be found in the Castle at this moment. It all came to a head at the Fianna Fáil Ard-Fheis in October of this year when Deputy MacEntee, Minister for Finance, said:—
"I know that certain organs of the Press were following the lead of certain politicians who had tried to create a great deal of prejudice throughout the country in regard to Dublin Castle. Messrs. Norton, McGilligan and Dillon used to talk about ‘kitchen workshops, basement workshops and sweatshops'. It would rather surprise the workers of Dublin to know that these gentlemen were prepared to allow a considerable body of human beings to be housed and to work in quarters in Dublin Castle which were formerly coach-houses. The Commissioners of Public Works had reported... in 1948 that these buildings could not be described as sound. The bulk of the civil servants came from the country and they could not be expected——"
these rural inhabitants transferred to Dublin—
"to live and work in such circumstances."
There it was. Deputy Norton, Deputy Dillon and myself were inhuman because we were condemning civil servants to work in unsound, filthy quarters in Dublin Castle. Apart from all that there is the utilitarian aspect that one could probably get more work out of these civil servants if one gives them better quarters and humanitarianism and utilitarianism, therefore, now join hands and we are all going to march together towards this grandiose scheme of rebuilding Dublin Castle.
It does not matter if the neglected resources of Ireland discovered by the Minister for Lands at a dinner the other night go by the board. It was not all of a sudden that these buildings became unsound and unhealty. It cannot be said that the three years of inter-Party Government caused any more deterioration in the condition of Dublin Castle or in the quarters in which the civil servants housed thereare working. I would imagine that problem had existed for many years before that. When I saw the plans for the reconstruction of Dublin Castle, I never saw any minute that based the necessity for such reconstruction on the safeguarding of the health of civil servants working there or on the utilitarian grounds of getting more work and better work out of the civil servants housed in those particular quarters.
First of all, what was the Dublin Castle scheme that I, with the help of my colleagues in the inter-Party Government, turned down? It was estimated in the scheme that I saw that the proposed reconstruction would cost something in the region of £4,500,000. In reply to an inquiry made by me to the Office of Public Works as to whether that would be the cost in the days when I was dealing with the matter, I was told that those costings had been applied to the rebuilding of the Castle many years before and they would have to be very considerably increased to meet the costs then operative. As far as I remember, there was a minute on the file with a manuscript note from some of the officials of the Board of Works, and my memory flicks back to the fact that either by a note added to the typescript or as a result of a telephone message, I was given to believe that I might consider the costs to have doubled. What we were facing, therefore, at that time was something between an £8,000,000 and a £9,000,000 scheme. I would ask those who are interested in this scheme to press upon the Government the desirability of putting somewhere in a public building to form a background to the pleasant Christmas decorations, or in one of the windows of the Stationery Office, the model encased in glass that we had in the council chamber for many days.