Before the debate was adjourned, I was adverting in detail to the patent dishonesty and distortion that have been a feature of the rather grotesque performance by Deputy Aiken this afternoon. Among other things he tried to depreciate the development that has been effected by the E.S.B. in rural areas. Far from the situation being as suggested by Deputy Aiken, I am happy in the knowledge that in my own constituency areas like Inchigeela and Ballingeary, long denied development, are now scheduled for development within the year. I cannot see on what premises the Deputy bases his argument. He apparently is not able to appreciate the fact that that development has enabled substantially increased earnings to come back into the E.S.B. through the medium of the power supplied; and it is significant that as the amount of current being used increases not only is the revenue of the E.S.B. likewise increased but the board is in a position to make certain adjustments.
The picture painted by Deputy Aiken in relation to agriculture was a somewhat amazing one, to put it mildly, coming from the member of a Party which succeeded during its short period in office in causing more confusion and upset to the agricultural economy than can ever be wiped out. When I see crocodile tears being shed over the plight of the farmer to-day my memory instantly goes back to the economic war, to John Brown and all the other people who at one time had the entire farming community completely under their sway in the days when we saw the bailiff put in and all sorts of impositions on the farmer to bring him to heel. Let us face the fact that the agricultural community is getting a better deal to-day than it has had for many years.
Consider the over-all picture. The farmer is now relieved from unwelcome interference. He is relieved from the dire threat of compulsion, so lucidly and graphically described by Deputy Smith when he threatened to pull down their ditches and recruit not one but ten fields of inspectors. Fianna Fáil should realise that it is the confidence the agricultural community had in the expansionist ideas and development plans of the previous inter-Party Government and their continued confidence in this inter-Party Government to carry out those plans and implement that development that is the chief reason for Fianna Fáil's early return into opposition. The agricultural community has confidence that it will be looked after and that adequate provision will be made for the marketing of agricultural produce to the best possible advantage. It is no use Fianna Fáil crying crocodile tears over the Irish farmer because the Irish farmer knows what kind of treatment he got during the long years in which Fianna Fáil were in office, from 1932 to 1948.
Fianna Fáil should realise that this Book of Estimates is but an indication of a new development in the economic sphere. This Government has been taunted by the Opposition on the question of prices and reductions at the rate of millions per minute. I would not sing that song too loudly if I were a member of Fianna Fáil because Fianna Fáil is thereby focussing attention on the mess that they left behind and on the harm that was done to the whole economic structure. Consider the position when they came back into office in 1951: "Came back into office" may not be the correct description— they got into office someway. At that particular time they took control of an economic structure which envisaged an expansionist development by the use of the Counterpart Fund for syphoning in moneys, where moneys were necessary, to make good deficiencies in projects requiring immediate financing. It was estimated that over a period of years this reserve could be used to augment and support capital development. With its usual profligate regard for sound economic theory, that complete fund, which should have been held in reserve for a period of years, was dissipated within six months.
As I mentioned earlier, we also saw the consequences of the 1952 Budget with its disastrous borrowing policy at the interest rate which the last Government had chosen. We had that picture. We had confidence within the State shaken by the inept attitude of the Government, with the complete lack of capacity which they were revealing from day to day. We saw a panic and expansionist type of activity and the efforts made by them to bolster up in an unrelated way, various schemes. We saw them flummoxed in an effort to try and deal with an alarming rise in unemployment. Now, that is not a very pleasant economic heritage, or a very pleasant premises for the Opposition to argue from, but these are unassailable facts.
This Government has to face the problem of getting the expenditure side of the nation's business thoroughly examined. We have seen that it has been enabled to stop the upward trend and to show some reasonable trend towards a reduction. But the real purpose of this Government, and what the Minister for Finance has to face in his responsibility to this House, is that we expect more and more of these reductions in expenditure. We expect to see the implementation, month by month and year by year, of a coordinated plan that is going to see more and more people put into gainful employment. We want to see a proper impetus put into land drainage and land reclamation, and into the development of all schemes that are going to prove, on the capital side of the Budget, to be valuable national assets.
It is easy for people to talk of reducing the price of this and the price of that. I myself have often conceded that, in relation to prices, the Government's sphere of influence may not be very considerable, but there is one thing which this Government can and must do, and there is one thing which Fianna Fáil will have to sit for years in opposition watching it do, and that is to bring about an improvement, year after year, in the national income of this State. Fianna Fáil will have to sit there year after year, watching this Government improve the earning capacity of the people, because once you can give the people the capacity to earn more and maintain prices at their present level, the increase in the people's pay-packet will help to offset the economic stringency which has arisen purely as a consequence of direct Government action which started with the black Budget of 1952.
This Government must be alive to the fact that the people do not expect miracles overnight, but they do expect as I said previously, a concerted coordinated plan that will ensure the advantageous use of the moneys allotted for capital development. I want to see, and have always advocated courage and vision in relation to capital expenditure. I do not ever want to see the Government facing, with temerity, the problem of doing a worth while job, just because it is too big to tackle. I think the Opposition can fairly take this Vote on Account as an indication of the fact that the Government's activity is going to be directed towards curbing dead weight administrative costs and of working up in a coordinated way, an expansionist policy for this nation.
We have seen many improvements over the years. We have seen in the recent past uncertainty and instability in Government. That era is gone. We now have an effective and strong Government in the State. The Government have the opportunity of sitting down and, in a deliberate fashion, of planning a policy of development over a period of years. We, on this side of the House, say to the Government, that, while we welcome the practicality of its approach to the administrative costs and supply end of the Book of Estimates, we look forward to ever increasing activity on the investment side of our development. It would not be any great source of contentment to us if we could curb rising administrative costs if, at the same time, we could not show to the Nation an effective co-ordinated expansionist plan that would bring hope to the people who are flying from this country or who are seeking, for other reasons, employment outside its shores. We accept the earnest that we have got in the spirit in which is was given, but at the same time we look forward to an era of planned, step by step development in this Nation which will give us the forests we require, the drainage of our rivers that we require and the settlement of the many problems that have aggravated our people over the years.
As regards forestry, I want to see the Forestry Department getting down to the job of spending the money it is given in the year in which it is voted rather than see the Forestry Vote coming in here with large Appropriations-in-Aid, these being shown as unspent moneys in the following year. We have all complained, not of cuts in the Estimate for Forestry, but of interminable delays in getting on with afforestation. I take the classic case that I have raised on more than one occasion with the present Minister for Lands, even when he was in the previous inter-Party Government, the question of the Leigh-White estate in Glengarriff. That is typical of forestry ailments. The voting of an extra £100,000 in these Estimates makes no difference if the Land Commission or whoever deals specifically with land acquisition does not get after the acquisition and the development of land. I do not want reserve pools of land built up for afforestation. I want to see land being acquired, not notionally, but in fact and nurseries being planted, not being put into Books of Estimates in an ephemeral way.
We face the future with confidence in our support of the Government because we know what it is to have a rising surge of confidence. Not only in the people in general but in every particular indicator, whether it be commercial or business, we can see the effect of stability and strength in the Government. There is a will among the people and all sections of the people to get down to the task of geting a job of work done. You will not get that job of work done on the basis of schoolboy pranks, spurious arguments based on misconception. You will get it done only by the Opposition realising that for a long period of years the only part it can effectively play in Irish affairs is to be a useful constructive Opposition and to help us to get on with the job. It is a job that will take a lot of doing.
I hope, as the years go by, we will not be coming in here to argue on decreases in the administrative costs of running the State. I hope we will be coming in, as year follows year, to give more and more encouragement to a Minister to go out on the expansionist side in the capital investment of Irish money in the land of Ireland, in the homes of Ireland and in the over-all project of putting more and more Irish people into effective and gainful employment in their own land.
Let Fianna Fáil realise that they made a most disastrous and most retrograde contribution to our economy from 1951 until they were put out of office last year. It is not easy to measure how deep that serious blow has gone, any more than it is possible for us even yet to gauge the calamity that this nation suffered from the stupidity of their economic war. Let them leave their mistakes behind them and be patient and watchful and they may be able to learn, in the course of the next four years, that sane reasoning, effective planning and co-ordinated effort can even undo much of the harm that they have done and may enable this nation to march forward on the road of progress that will give us all the things we require, that will make our economy sound, that will give us increased agricultural production, improved fertility of our soil, the eradication of bovine tuberculosis, improved and better-developed marketing facilities for all our live stock, increased industrial potential and, above all, step by step, the Ireland that it was the ambition of those who paid the supreme penalty that we might have the right to have.
