I move:—
That a sum not exceeding £34,560,000 be granted on account for or towards defraying the Charges that will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1956, for certain public services, namely:—
£ |
||
1 |
President's Establishment |
2,600 |
2 |
Houses of the Oireachtas |
76,000 |
3 |
Department of the Taoiseach |
9,200 |
4 |
Central Statistics Office |
42,720 |
5 |
Comptroller and Auditor General |
11,300 |
6 |
Office of the Minister for Finance |
54,000 |
7 |
Office of the Revenue Com missioners |
611,720 |
8 |
Office of Public Works |
160,000 |
9 |
Public Works and Buildings |
1,300,000 |
10 |
Employment and Emergency Schemes |
232,000 |
11 |
Management of Government Stocks |
43,200 |
12 |
State Laboratory |
8,300 |
13 |
Civil Service Commission |
18,000 |
14 |
An Chomhairle Ealaíon |
6,500 |
15 |
Commissions and Special Inquiries |
4,200 |
16 |
Superannuation and Retired Allowances |
306,000 |
17 |
Rates on Government Pro perty |
10,000 |
18 |
Secret Service |
2,500 |
19 |
Expenses under the Electoral Act and the Juries Act |
— |
20 |
Supplementary Agricultural Grants |
1,150,000 |
21 |
Law Charges |
39,200 |
22 |
Universities and Colleges |
270,000 |
23 |
Miscellaneous Expenses |
6,000 |
24 |
Stationery Office |
181,000 |
25 |
Valuation and Boundary Survey |
22,750 |
26 |
Ordnance Survey |
20,150 |
27 |
Agriculture |
2,468,500 |
28 |
Fisheries |
38,880 |
29 |
Office of the Minister for Justice |
29,660 |
30 |
Garda Síochána |
1,536,000 |
31 |
Prisons |
61,910 |
32 |
District Court |
27,840 |
33 |
Circuit Court |
46,000 |
34 |
Supreme Court and High Court of Justice |
31,500 |
35 |
Land Registry and Registry of Deeds |
32,100 |
36 |
Public Record Office |
3,180 |
37 |
Charitable Donations and Bequests |
1,720 |
38 |
Local Government |
1,790,000 |
39 |
Office of the Minister for Education |
117,000 |
40 |
Primary Education |
2,907,000 |
41 |
Secondary Education |
350,000 |
42 |
Technical Instruction |
400,000 |
43 |
Science and Art |
60,000 |
44 |
Reformatory and Industrial Schools |
105,000 |
45 |
Dublin Institute for Ad vanced Studies |
20,000 |
46 |
National Gallery |
3,560 |
47 |
Lands |
833,700 |
48 |
Forestry |
470,100 |
49 |
Gaeltacht Services |
170,000 |
50 |
Industry and Commerce |
2,686,000 |
51 |
Transport and Marine Ser vices |
509,000 |
52 |
Aviation and Meteorological Services |
107,600 |
53 |
Industrial and Commercial Property Registration Office |
7,800 |
54 |
Posts and Telegraphs |
2,795,000 |
55 |
Wireless Broadcasting |
139,380 |
56 |
Defence |
2,371,400 |
57 |
Army Pensions |
536,300 |
58 |
External Affairs |
130,300 |
59 |
International Co-operation |
14,000 |
60 |
Office of the Minister for Social Welfare |
170,000 |
61 |
Social Insurance |
921,330 |
62 |
Social Assistance |
5,860,500 |
63 |
Health |
2,070,000 |
64 |
Dundrum Asylum |
15,500 |
65 |
Oifig na Gaeltachta agus na gCeantar gCúng |
1,500 |
66 |
Tourism |
133,400 |
TOTAL |
£34,560,000 |
|
This Vote on Account begins the financial business of 1955-56. It is for a sum which is just under one-third of the total of the Estimates and will cover expenditure on the Supply Services until roughly the end of July next. During the next few months the Dáil will be dealing not only with the individual Estimates but also with the Budget and the Finance Bill. It is only when these last two measures are disposed of that a full picture will have been presented of the financial arrangements for the new year. Any assessments of the financial position made at this early stage—when only the Volume of Estimates for the Supply Services is available—are founded necessarily on incomplete information and are, therefore, liable to be mistaken.
While, as I have said, the Estimates Volume is merely part of the financial picture, it is nevertheless an important part. The Supply Services, capital and non-capital, have in recent years accounted for about three-fourths of the total State expenditure. The remaining fourth is made up by Central Fund Services and direct issues from the Exchequer for capital purposes. In framing the Budget the revenue side is of at least equal importance to the expenditure side but, for the present, this part of the picture is missing and we are at the moment concerned only with the provision to be made for Supply Services.
Deputies will have observed that the total of the Estimates for 1955-56 is £105,488,093, a decrease of £2,774,380 on last year's figure of £108,262,473. If account is taken of Supplementary Estimates in 1954-55, other than that for the National Development Fund, the decrease is £4.83 million.
Deputies will remember that in 1950-51, when the present Attorney-General was Minister for Finance in the first inter-Party Government, the Estimates were segregated between capital and other services. The last Government, for budgetary purposes, made exactly the same deductions from current expenditure but they gave no indication of this intention in the Estimate volumes they presented. Their action was of no advantage to the national finances and only served to befog the issue in the relevant discussions in this House. I have, therefore, taken the same capital items— now traditional—and have openly segregated them from the other Supply Services both on the title-page and in a preface to the volume. This division reveals that of the decrease of £2.77 million as compared with the original provision for the current year, £1.63 million relates to capital services and £1.14 million to non-capital services. It is the reduction in non-capital services which is significant in relation to the current Budget and it is on that account particularly gratifying. The reduced provision for capital services is due mainly to a fall of £1,250,000 in the amount required to supplement the Hospitals' Trust Fund grants for the building of hospitals. This arises partly because of increased Hospital Sweep income and partly because physical progress with the building programme has not been as rapid as was first thought possible. In the last year, for example, for which completed figures are available, 1953-54, expenditure was £1.6 million less than estimated. In the current year, expenditure will probably work out at £1.5 million less than estimated.
In giving a brief account, as is customary on this occasion, of the principal variations in the Estimates as compared with 1954-55, I shall distinguish as I go along between capital and non-capital services. I would remind the Dáil that, as I announced in November last, the Government have arranged for a detailed review of the State capital programme as a whole. When this review is completed and considered by the Government, and Deputies will realise that the review to be exhaustive will take some considerable time, it is possible that some changes may be made in the capital Budget necessitating adjustments in voted capital services or other forms of State capital outlay. Though not directly relevant to the consideration of the capital services detailed in the Volume of Estimates, I might perhaps add that the Government also arranged for an examination of the facilities available to Irish industry for obtaining capital. These two reviews when completed should be of real advantage in planning and promoting capital development for the future.
As Deputies are aware the Book of Estimates itself shows Vote by Vote and item by item where variations occur as between 1955-56 and the current year. I shall only refer, therefore, to the more important changes and for convenience I have attempted to group similar services together.
Turning then first of all to the non-capital services, Deputies will find that there is a net increase of approximately £359,000 in the provision for the remuneration of State employees including the Army, Garda Síochána and teachers, but excluding staff directly engaged on works of a capital nature. The post office accounts for approximately £199,000 of the total increase, chiefly because of pay increases awarded to postmen and other employees under conciliation and arbitration machinery. A further £100,000 or so represents additional provision in respect of labour for forestry work of a non-capital nature such as maintenance and timber conversion. Obviously as our forests increase with the years the numbers employed in their maintenance also grow. The provision for superannuation payments to State employees shows an increase of about £260,000, or £210,000 if account is taken of a Supplementary Estimate for £50,000 which was found necessary in the current year.
The provision for social services under the Social Insurance and Social Assistance Votes shows a net decrease of £247,900. I am happy to say that this decrease is due almost entirely to the better employment situation, in consequence of which there is a reduction in the provisions for unemployment benefit and unemployment assistance. I saw some comment over the week-end suggesting that the decrease in these two Estimates represents a reduction in benefit. This is, of course, untrue. The fact is that it is unnecessary to provide as great a total amount to give the same individual benefits next year because of two factors we are all pleased to note, namely, the improvement in employment and the decrease in unemployment. Owing to an increase in the number of beneficiaries an extra £120,000 is being provided for children's allowances.
The provision for flour and bread subsidy in the Estimate for Industry and Commerce shows a decrease of £681,000 as compared with the original provision for the current year which, however, will have to be augmented by Supplementary Estimate. Taking account of the prospective supplementary, which has yet to be introduced, the decrease is of the £1,000,000 order. The two items principally responsible for the decrease are, first, the new prices fixed by the Government for native wheat and, secondly, an increase in the world price of wheat offals which will be reflected in the price obtainable by native millers for this by-product. Nevertheless, I should make it clear that the provision now included ensures that the Irish farmer will be paid for his wheat of the 1955 crop a price much above that at which foreign wheat could be landed here at present. The differential would be further increased if world prices were to fall towards the minimum provided by the International Wheat Agreement.
A further reduction of £84,650 in the Estimate for Industry and Commerce arises from the deletion of the provision for the repayment of advances for rural electrification. The E.S.B., which showed a profit of almost £250,000 on its operations in 1953-54 and is doing well again this year, has reached a position in which it can assume responsibility for rural electrification and thus relieve the taxpayer of the subsidy which was originally provided when rural electrification had hardly advanced beyond the planning stage and actual experience of the effect on the board's finances had yet to be gained.
In the case of Defence, the provision for defensive equipment, while being still substantial, shows a reduction of £1,000,000. In deciding upon the provision to be made for defensive equipment the Government had given anxious consideration to reported developments in the discovery and manufacture of new and more terrible weapons of war and feel that in this age of transition to nuclear warfare it would be imprudent for them to spend more than a moderate amount of public money on the purchase of such conventional—and possibly obsolete— weapons as this country is in a position to obtain.
In the case of Agriculture, the principal variation in non-capital services relates to the provision for butter subsidy, which shows an increase of £2,015,000 over the original provision for the current year or an increase of £915,000 when account is taken of the Supplementary Estimate for £1,100,000 which was passed last July. This subsidy is the means by which butter is made available to consumers at 5d. per lb. less than is actually paid to the producers. The return which the creameries, and through them, the farmers secure is 4/2 a lb. This means that the price of milk is kept substantially higher than it would be in a free market, as any butter surplus to home requirements can be disposed of only at a loss.
Other important variations in the Estimate for Agriculture are the appearance of new provisions of £262,000 and £100,000 for the eradication of bovine tuberculosis and the pasteurisation of separated milk. It will be noted, however, that the bulk of the proposed expenditure on these schemes and all the expenditure on ground limestone subsidy is expected to be recouped from American grant counterpart moneys. The Estimate is relieved this year to the extent of almost £250,000 by the disappearance of the provision for recouping losses incurred by Eggsports, Limited.
Additional provision is made for the national farm survey which is being carried out by the Central Statistics Office and provision is made for the first time for the parish plan launched by the Minister for Agriculture. We are without certain basic information in regard to our agriculture and we hope that the farm survey will fill, at any rate, part of this void. It cannot be too often stressed that it is not intended that the survey should confine itself either to the very good farmer or to the bad farmer but rather that it should provide us with an analysis indicative of general conditions and standards.
The parish plan is part of the effort being made to provide better advisory services for agriculture. Having its roots in the parish, it will grow in the more natural way—from the bottom rather than from the top. It must be clearly understood that the rôle of the parish agent is not to control or to dictate to farmers but to act as their friendly adviser.
The decrease of £398,000 under the heading of C.I.E. arises from the ability of the company, in its improved financial circumstances, to operate without an Exchequer subsidy. In fact, the 1954-55 provision for a grant towards operating expenses will not be issued and a comparison of actual payments rather than of provisions made for this purpose would show no change as between the two years. The amount included in the Vote covers only the repayment to the Central Fund of advances made to C.I.E. to meet interest on transport stock.
In the Estimate for Primary Education the provision for ex-gratia payments to certain retired teachers shows a reduction of £144,000. The reason for the decrease is that the instalments have now been paid to all living pensioners and to the estates of many deceased pensioners. The sum of £5,000 proposed for 1955-56 is to meet outstanding cases where there are probate or intestacy difficulties.
The only other variation in the case of non-capital services to which I think it necessary to refer is the increase of £160,000 in the amount required for grants to health authorities. The latest estimate of expenditure in the current year is £6,130,000 so that we are actually providing for an increase next year of £760,000. As Deputies are aware, certain provisions of the Health Acts, 1953 and 1954, were brought into operation last autumn. Further sections, providing for new health schemes, will become effective during the coming year.
Coming now to capital services, it will be observed, from the summary inserted as a preface to the Book of Estimates, that, in the case of public works and buildings, the provision for the purchase of sites and buildings shows a reduction of £410,000. This is largely due to the fact that in the current year provision was made for the purchase of Arus Brugha and the Paris embassy.
In the Estimate for Agriculture an additional sum of £218,000 is being provided for the farm building scheme and water supplies while an extra £208,850 is required for the land project. In the case of advances under the Grain Storage (Loans) Act, 1951, applications are tapering off and it is expected that issues next year will be down by £375,000.
It is expected that allocations of grants for houses, both for new building and reconstruction, will rise, and, accordingly, an extra £250,000 is being provided for this service in the Local Government Vote. The provision of £100,000 for grants to local authorities towards the cost of housing schemes represents a reduction of £120,000 as compared with the provision in the current financial year. This provision is merely of historical significance; it is made to honour the outstanding liability of the Transition Development Fund in respect of housing schemes carried out by local authorities and it is estimated that, with the payment of £100,000 in 1955-56, the balance still to be made good at the end of that year will have been reduced to £50,000.
An extra £235,500 will be spent on forest development and Deputies will see that of this extra sum £151,500 will be spent in the form of wages. Those figures are, of course, in respect of capital expenditure and are in addition to the increased maintenance expenditure to which I referred earlier. The extension of our forests not merely utilises, in the creation of a valuable future asset, land which might otherwise be of little value, but at the same time gives substantial employment.
The new provision of £150,000 for the G.N.R. is a provisional estimate of the contribution which it may fall to us to make towards approved capital outlay by the board in 1955-56. It will cover such things as new diesel rail cars, cement wagons and lorries.
So much for the details. I think I have mentioned the main items in which there are differences of a substantial order between this year's provision and that for next year, and I have given the reason for such differences. As I said, the total shows a decrease of £2.8 million including £1.14 million in non-capital services. This reduction is all the more notable when Deputies remember that it has been achieved after this Government, by a deliberate policy decision, added a sum for next year of £2,000,000 in respect of the butter subsidy. If it were not for this additional provision there would have been a reduction of over £3,000,000 in the amount required for current services next year as compared with the proposals of our predecessors. My colleagues and I can claim, with justification, that this is a satisfactory achievement. When the previous inter-Party Government left office in 1951, the Book of Estimates was at the figure of £83,000,000. The last Government in their three years of office increased that sum by £25,000,000 or something over 25 per cent. Once a trend has been started it is very hard to arrest, but we have succeeded in arresting that upward trend in expenditure.
We are, of necessity, committed to much of the increased expenditure that was made by the previous Government, when, by their deliberate policy, prices were increased in 1952. That policy brought with it direct increases in the cost of government through the necessity to increase the salaries of public employees, through increased costs in commercial and business activities and higher prices, even outside the range of commodities directly affected. All had their impact on Government expenditure. That influence still remains but we have reversed the rising trend this year and have reduced the proposed expenditure on Supply Services below the Estimates for the preceding year. This is something our opponents were never able to do since the war but which we have achieved in a short period and to an extent never equalled by them at any time in their years of office.
The time has not yet arrived for a complete review of the financial or economic picture of the country as a whole. That must await the Budget.
While that is so, I would like to indicate, just briefly, the framework of these Estimates which is also the framework of Government policy since we took office. As I said a moment ago, the last Government, by deliberate policy, in 1952 increased the prices of essential commodities. That increase was followed by a rise in costs in industry and in the costs of Government. Our approach has been exactly the reverse. We cannot expect to keep our people absolutely immune from world economic forces, but we in this Government do strive to ensure that the harmful effect of outside economic influences will be reduced to the minimum, particularly if we feel they are only temporary. We believe, as I have said on many occasions since we came into office, that our future economic prospects depend, in the first place, on confidence and stability. We can justly claim that not for many years has there been such confidence amongst our people in the future of their Government and in their institutions, national and economic, as there is to-day. The Deputies opposite who are laughing at that can go down the country and if they do they will find that it is true, even amongst their own supporters.
We want to ensure that, in addition to that confidence, there will also be stability. It was to that end that last summer we provided that the Exchequer would take on the additional liability for butter subsidy. The reduction of 5d. per lb. in the price of butter, now some eight months effective, was one of the things upon which we determined for the purpose of improving the prospects of stability. Not merely did it ease the cost of living but it also had the advantage of helping the consumer at a time when consumption was lagging behind production and our surplus butter could be sold abroad only at a price much below the equivalent of the return received by our creamery farmers for their milk.
It was that same concern for stability that motivated us, as a Government, in making arrangements to cushion our people against what we believe is going to be a passing rise in the price of tea. We were criticised at the time we took that decision by people who said that we were wrong, that we did not understand the signs or symptoms of the tea market. On the contrary, everything that has occurred since has shown that our appraisal of the market was better than theirs. Deputies will have seen that large tea interests in Britain, in the last few days even, are bringing down their prices. Various well-known tea companies are all now advertising lower prices. I admit, at once, that prices still have to drop substantially to reach a satisfactory level but with larger coffee supplies available at lower prices in America the world demand for tea should fall and, with the prospects for next year's crop, world pressure on supplies and, therefore, on prices should not be so acute. Would we not have been precipitate and unwise, if what we have had is a temporary famine in tea, had we let our prices rise and in so doing had, in that phase, jeopardised the stability of our economic and industrial machine?
It was also in pursuance of that aim of stability that I made representations on behalf of the Government last week to the banks so that if at all possible interest charges here would not increase, though, as I said last week, any such question of our economic position is one that must be watched almost from day to day and, certainly, from week to week. The general national welfare must be our primary objective rather than the immediate interest of any one section of our economy.
All these actions of ours are evidence of our efforts to avoid any spark that might set off another spiral, bringing with it damage to the productive machine, difficulties in respect of our balance of payments by our being priced out of export markets, and higher costs of Government; and that would, in the end, bring no easement but in fact place additional burdens in terms of real expenditure on the wage earner. It is to avoid that that we have directed our policy since last June.
I mention these things to-day so that the public as a whole may understand and appreciate the pattern which shapes our policy and because I hope the public and the leaders of opinion, outside this House as well as inside it, will assist in ensuring that this economic plan is not jeopardised and that we are enabled, in consequence, to go forward with steady progress.
As I have said, a more complete review, financial and economic, must await the Budget but, meanwhile, I must repeat the warning I gave earlier about attempts to appraise budgetary prospects on the basis of the incomplete indications now available. The Estimates for the Central Fund Services have yet to appear and the Estimates of Revenue are still only in preparation. I have not yet, therefore, been able to assemble all the information which I shall need in framing the Budget. When I remember that I will not be able this year, as my predecessor was last year, to call upon C.I.E., for instance, to provide £1,000,000, I do not approach the task with optimism.
An increase in the Central Fund Services is, of course, inevitable. We are providing, and properly providing, every year from the Central Fund amounts to amortise our capital expenditure as well as to meet the interest on the national debt. This must cause year by year an increase in Central Fund Services but it is for capital development which is accepted by every Party in this House as being essential to national progress. As I said in an earlier speech this year, an interval elapses before an improvement in our economic circumstances is reflected in the revenue returns. There I must leave the matter for the moment. These Estimates represent a cut in expenditure, and yet we do not believe in cutting expenditure merely for the sake of cutting it. We work to ensure that we will get good value for the money that is spent and, at the same time, we are cutting out expenditure that does not bring an adequate return.
The effect of these Estimates can easily be read also when one goes back only a few weeks to a speech that was made in this House on 10th February, 1955. It will be found at column 197, Dáil Debates, Volume 148. In that column a Deputy states:
"I say on the contrary that the costs of administration in almost every Department have gone up. I say that, in a few weeks' time, each one of these Departments will come with a bill for administration for 1955 higher than that which they presented for 1954. The Book of Estimates is almost due to appear. That prophecy of mine will soon be tested as to its accuracy. We shall have that book in our hands presumably before the end of this month. Unless something has happened, of which no indication has been given to the Dáil or to the public, every Department will be showing higher administrative charges. In many places that may be due solely to the increased remuneration paid to Civil Service staffs; it may be due to larger staffs in some cases."
The Estimates that are before the House are normally grouped for the purposes of accounting into 12 different groups. We were told there, a few weeks ago, that almost every Department, if not every Department, would show an increase. Out of the 12 groups, seven show a decrease. The Book of Estimates that is before you contains the total of 66 different Votes. More than half of those Votes—34—in respect of non-capital and exactly half in respect of capital show a decrease in the costs on which the administration of this country will depend next year. That shows the value of the prophecy that was made by Deputy Lemass.