Dáil Éireann debate -
Wednesday, 9 Mar 1955

Vol. 149 No. 2

Committee on Finance. - Motion by the Minister for Finance (Resumed).

Minister for Social Welfare (Mr. Corish)

I should like to refer to some remarks that were made yesterday and that need correction. It was alleged that there was a substantial increase in the number of claimants for unemployment benefit. I want to correct that allegation by giving the figures for the 26th February this year and for the 26th February last year. The numbers who were claimants for unemployment benefit on the 26th February this year were 40,127; on the 26th February last year the numbers were 39,679. I do not think anybody will say there is any substantial difference in those two figures. On the 28th February, 1953, there were 55,421 claimants for unemployment benefit, but in view of the fact that the Social Welfare Act in respect of unemployment benefit did not come into operation until the 1st January, 1953, the figure of 55,421 claimants for unemployment benefit is not really comparable with the figures for similar periods in 1954 and 1955.

In any event I fail to appreciate what case is being made when one has reference to the numbers who are claimants for unemployment benefit. The complaint by the Opposition is that this figure has substantially increased. As I have shown, it has not but if a certain regulation that was made by the then Minister for Social Welfare in the last Government had been put into operation the numbers who claimed for unemployment benefit would be substantially lower. This particular regulation was designed either to make a reduction or throw approximately 12,000 people off unemployment benefit to unemployment assistance. That regulation was changed a few days after the formation of the present Government. As I said before, it meant a reduction or a toal disallowance in respect of 12,000 claimants for unemployment benefit. But I do not think these figures are as important as the over-all figures for unemployment.

Many statements were made here yesterday with regard to promises and guarantees in respect of employment. It was alleged by the Leader of the Opposition that statements to the effect that unemployment could be cured in 24 hours were made either by members of this Government or members supporting it. As I said last night, I do not think there is much use in going back to throw into the face of our opponents certain of these allegations. We all may be guilty of giving certain guarantees and making certain promises, but it ill becomes the Leader of the Opposition to throw such statements across this House when we remember that on one very famous occasion he said, as a Government, the Fianna Fáil Party would stand or fall on their ability to solve the unemployment problem. I do not think they did that during their 16 years. I do not think even in their whole 16 or 19 years there was any substantial reduction in the figures for unemployed in the country.

I am not alleging that at the present day the figures for unemployment are satisfactory. They are far from satisfactory, but it is heartening to know that the latest figures available show that at the present time the unemployment figures are the lowest that have been recorded for the past four years. That, in itself, is a heartening sign and the reduction compared to last year shows a downward trend as far as unemployment is concerned. We have, it is true, 72,000 odd unemployed. Last year at the same time we had 77,000 unemployed. At a similar period in 1953 we nearly reached a record inasmuch as we had practically 90,000 people unemployed and even the year before that there were 73,000 unemployed. Therefore, I say it is a heartening sign that the latest figures available show that unemployment is at the lowest it has been in the last four years. This Government's 12-point programme is designed to increase further that figure.

I explained last night in respect of the different Estimates that whilst economies have been effected, not for the sake of economy, these economies, or cuts as they have been described, did nothing to reduce employment or to cut any of the services. I do not think it can be challenged, as far as health services are concerned, that more will be spent this year than was spent in the past year. The other services that are legislated for under the Health Act of 1953 will be implemented this year. As I said last year, what we are interested in is not so much health services on paper, but health services in operation. That we are determined to have.

As far as the other Votes are concerned there are no cuts, and I do not think anybody can point out any cuts or decreases which will have an effect on employment. As a matter of fact, the general Government policy has been designed in order to ensure that many of the tens of thousands who are now unfortunately unemployed will be provided with work as soon as possible.

Mr. Aiken

By a decrease in capital services?

Mr. Bartley

I think it is well that it should be pointed out that not alone the completely unemployed, but the partially or the under-unemployed were, for the first time, given official notice that there was a register prepared for them after Fianna Fáil came into office in 1932. Before or about the time Fianna Fáil assumed office those industrially unemployed were the only class entitled to register at the time. The number was in or around 50,000. It is not true to say that large strides have not been made in dealing with that problem. We know that under the development of industry before the war the round figure of 100,000 people formed the new insurable jobs, and if that had not taken place that 100,000 could be added to the 50,000 whom we found on the register when we came into office in 1932, making a figure of 150,000 who, of those industrially classified, would be unemployed.

There is one significant fact about the reduction of the under-employment, and it is this: that the direct cause of the reduction of this figure has been the bringing in of a National Development Fund. It is the unemployed, then, who benefited directly from the expenditure out of that fund. In fact, it was for that type of unemployment that the fund was brought in. We have figures to-day which show that that result was achieved. The Minister took me to task because I was not prepared to accept that a similar improvement in the industrially unemployed took place since the change of Government last June. The Minister gave me a figure, in particular, which I gather he chose because it was suitable to his point of view.

From recollection, I made reference to a number of leaflets which were issued — we get them once a week or once a fortnight — and which did not show any such trend. I think it is no harm to remind the Minister that, when the Coalition Government came into office in 1948, a similar trend showed itself in industry; that industry for some reason or other showed a nervousness which was reflected in reduced employment. When the materials for industry became available after the war, about 1945, the statistics show that there was a progressive increase of 3,000 in insurable employment each half-year. For the first year the Coalition were in office that figure was wiped out. I contend that that phenomenon reproduced itself again on the coming into office of the Coalition Government, but Irish industry has been given such a fine momentum under the direction and aegis of the former Tánaiste that it is not easy to check it for very long.

What I want to ask the Minister is this: Can he not get in simple language a statement as to what is the position of the national finances, seeing he is so interested in comparing his achievement with that of his predecessor? I would refer him to a newspaper which is not favourable to this side of the House. In its issue of the 5th March the Irish Independent gives a treble column head indicating that there had been a drop of £2,700,000 in the Estimates. Then it gives us another figure that the decrease was £7,000,000. On that particular page, the paper more or less walks in joy with the Minister in doing a little bit of bragging. On another page the heading of the leading article is “A Grave Disappointment”. Surely the Minister cannot be too touchy about criticisms from this side of the House when an organ like the Independent castigates him on the handling of the national finances.

Mr. Sweetman

Is the Deputy aware why the article was written?

Mr. Bartley

No, I have not the slightest notion.

Mr. Sweetman

If the Deputy makes some inquiries he will ascertain, the same way as I have ascertained, that it was not written by the usual editorial sources, or rather it was not the direction of the usual editorial sources.

Mr. Aiken

Let the Independent apologise for itself, not the Minister.

Mr. Sweetman

I am not apologising for it at all.

Mr. Aiken

If the Independent has an excuse, let it make it.

Mr. Bartley

I wonder does the change of editorial attitude, of which the Minister seems to be aware, and which has taken place privately, alter any of the figures which the article contained?

Mr. Sweetman

I am not challenging any of the figures. It was not the editorial attitude; it was a direction. There was no slip up.

Mr. Bartley

The Minister says there was no slip up and if there is not, what is the purpose of this private apology that apparently has been made to him?

Mr. Sweetman

There was no private apology. I did not say there had been one.

Mr. Bartley

Did he not say the article was written as a result of a mistake on the part of somebody?

Mr. Sweetman

No. I did not say that.

Mr. J. Brennan

The Minister went very near it.

Mr. Sweetman

I most certainly did not say it.

An Ceann Comhairle

The Deputy should take the article per se.

Mr. Bartley

I was going to do that.

Mr. Sweetman

I made the reference deliberately.

Mr. Aiken

Then there was a slip up on the Minister's part.

Mr. Bartley

Would the Minister repeat what he said in his first reference?

Mr. Sweetman

Certainly. I said: "Does the Deputy know what motivated or directed"— I forget which word I used —"that article"?

Mr. Bartley

Yes, and I said "no" and then I understood the Minister to amplify his reference when he heard my reply. I wonder if the Minister would now repeat his amplified reference.

Mr. Sweetman

Yes. It was that I did not think the article was in accordance with the usual editorial policy of that paper.

Mr. Bartley

And if I interpreted that as a slip up am I very far wrong?

Mr. Sweetman

The Deputy is.

Mr. Bartley

That is what I call straining the meaning of words.

Mr. O'Sullivan

We have not got them in our pockets.

Mr. Aiken

The Minister must have because he got an apology from them.

Mr. Bartley

The Parliamentary Secretary must have taken notice of the very strong contrast which was obvious to the most uninformed on public finances in two consecutive pages of this paper. I should like the Minister to indicate — he has been making comparisons between this £7,000,000 of a supposed decrease between the total Estimates for the current year now coming to an end and the coming year — that this Book of Estimates takes in a number of Supplementary Estimates which were introduced after the Fianna Fáil Government left office. In other words they were introduced by the Ministers of the present Government. They are adding these now, which seems to me an extraordinary piece of arithmetics for the purpose of making political capital. They are adding these Supplementary Estimates, which they themselves introduced, to the figures which Fianna Fáil produced in the Book of Estimates last year, and deducting from that the figure which has now been presented to us for the coming year, and saying to the public — at least this paper says — that there is a decrease of £7,000,000 produced by the present Minister for Finance between the Fianna Fáil bill for 1954-55 and the Coalition bill for 1955-56. That, on the face of it, is completely dishonest.

The Minister himself has taken these Supplementary Estimates and has deducted from them the sum of £3,000,000 for the National Development Fund and he gives us a figure then of £2,774,000, which is the difference between the two books as introduced —last year's and this year's — and adds to that difference the total of these supplementaries of over £2,000,000, and gives us a still further £5,483,000 as being the difference between the figures for the two years. There is one thing at any event which I think ought to be referred to here. We agree that any figure of a capital nature, such as the National Development Fund, can properly be extracted and not taken into this comparison, but we have had an announcement from the secretary of the Congress of Irish Unions, made on the authority of the Minister for Social Welfare, that there is to be an increase in old age and blind pensions, and I think the Minister himself has referred to that statement as being correct and that there is to be an increase in these allowances.

Mr. Sweetman

That is in the 12-point programme and there is no secrecy about it.

Mr. Bartley

The most publicised information about that point was the reference made to it by the secretary of the Congress of Irish Unions. The usual figure of social welfare benefits since the 1952 Social Welfare Act was brought in is 24/- a week. We know that cases happen where people in receipt of that figure of weekly benefits, when they reach the age of 70, find themselves reduced to a non-contributory old age pension of 21/6 a week and I take it that the Minister for Social Welfare will correct that anomaly in the new scale of benefits which he intends to bring in. It seems to me, taking a rough calculation on the figures which already apply to this service, that the Minister cannot make a lesser amount available than £1,000,000 annually to meet this increase. That figure of £1,000,000 has not been included by the Minister in his supply services for 1955-56, and the Minister had also given us a figure of £2,200,000 as being the figure necessary to keep the price of tea at its present level. Nobody will claim that the increase in old age and blind pensions, and the amount required to stabilise the price of tea, is a capital item; and surely nobody making up a Budget for any purpose — for the whole nation or the private business — would take account of items of this sort in current expenditure.

The ordinary man who reads the news or who takes any interest at all in public finances will add these two sums to the figure the Minister has given — the two sums being £1,000,000 for the increase in old age pensions and £2,200,000 which the Minister has mentioned as the sum necessary to stabilise the price of tea for 12 months —and is entitled to add these sums to the figure which the Minister has given us for the year of £105,500,000. Is it not quite clear that these two items, which should properly be brought into the year's accounts, will mean, in fact, an increase of £2,000,000 over the sum for last year?

The whole discussion on this Vote on Account has been rendered somewhat unreal by reason of the Minister's introductory statement. He said nobody can jump to a conclusion — to any final or firm conclusion — on the Book of Estimates at the moment, that other information will have to be made available at the end of the financial year before anybody can form a firm opinion of what the financial position will be in the new financial year. At the close of his remarks I think he made a similar statement and in between these two statements, which he erected as a signpost with red lights on them, he developed an argument which must be of very doubtful value in view of the warnings which he later issued that it was impossible to form an opinion of the financial position until the final figures were available.

We think that the method by which the Minister has sought to prove that his financing is wiser and his schemes better designed to serve the public good does not bear a close examination. The 1952 Budget which was denounced as a savage Budget, is still very largely effective to-day; it is that Budget that is still providing the taxation from which the Minister is procuring the funds necessary for his purposes.

We were asked what we would do in relation to rising tea prices, in relation to food subsidies, etc. I think the reply to that question has already been given by this Government. The Minister made the extraordinary statement that by the reduction of food subsidies we, in fact, actually put up the cost of government. Now we may not be well schooled in public finance but it requires a good deal of credulity to swallow the statement that the reduction in subsidies actually put up the cost of government. Certainly I cannot follow the line of reasoning the Minister adduces to bring that point home.

We feel it is neither a fair nor an equitable distribution of the burden to reduce the incomes of people earning something below £500 or £600 per annum who are engaged in agriculture. We do not think it is fair that their subsidy on wheat should be reduced and that large incomes should be increased at their expense. I know that the increase in these incomes was brought into force by Fianna Fáil and that the difference in our treatment and the subsequent treatment by the Coalition amounts to a specific lump sum; not alone is that lump sum being obtained by a reduction in the subsidies and one payment made to honour the Coalition's obligation but the reduction will be a permanent one; this reduction of the farmer's income will continue from year to year.

Is it fair that the price of tea should be stabilised irrespective of income? Is it fair that those with an income of £1,000 a year, and upwards, should have the benefit of stabilised tea prices and reduced butter prices at the expense of the primary producer who kept us going during the war years? If a case can be made for these groups of public servants above a certain salary level how is it there is such delay in meeting the case of the milk suppliers, who say they are producing milk below cost? It has to be remembered, too, that the report of the commission set up to inquire into that matter has not been published. How is it there is always a bias against the agricultural section of the community, delay, hesitation and prevarication when it comes to dealing with their claims and such alacrity in dealing with urban claims?

We on this side of the House have never attempted to drop a curtain between any sections of our people. We have never discriminated between the town and the country. I think we proved that after the war, and even in the 1952 Budget which was denounced so roundly. We stated our policy. We said that in the main subsidies were a war-time measure, a device for meeting changes over which the Government had no control. When, however, Government gets back some degree of control in economic affairs one tries to apply those controls in a way which will be fair all round. I think a good case can be made for allowing wages and salaries to increase and increasing social welfare benefits while, at the same time, allowing prices as far as safety permits to find their proper economic level. That was the policy of the Fianna Fáil Government, but unfortunately our Government was not able to pursue it to its fullest extent because in the 1952 Budget £7,000,000 roughly was provided to stabilise the price of bread. If we had our way we would continue to reduce the price of bread still further this year. Last year when there was a little benefit to be got out of the Budget, that benefit was duly passed on. It was applied to bread. It seems to me a pity that that benefit is not being passed on by the Coalition Government to the public this year.

The present Government must know that butter is not a food item through the medium of which the benefit can be most evenly distributed amongst the most deserving sections of the community. They must know that catering establishments have gained more by the butter subsidy than have the poor. The effect of that subsidy is that one has a deputation to the Taoiseach, the Minister for Agriculture and the Minister for Industry and Commerce from the milk suppliers asking that some steps be taken to curtail the consumption of margarine; that in itself is proof that the position is as I have stated.

Different Governments will have different policies. We took bread as being the item which deserved the most assistance, and we acted accordingly. I would like the Minister to tell us what his attitude is in relation to supplying the public with figures for these two new services which have not been taken into account in the calculations he has given us. Will he indicate what figure is to be provided for the Minister for Social Welfare in relation to old age pensions? Will he tell us how the moneys for the stabilisation of tea prices will be accounted for?

We cannot have it said about us that we are to continue indefinitely borrowing money for the tea we drink. I do not think the specious arguments put forward by the Government speakers of the possibility of a drop in the price of tea can possibly justify that attitude. The Taoiseach, speaking at the Fine Gael Ard Fheis, indicated what he thought the position would be next September when he said that the increased price of tea will have to be borne by the taxpayer and by the consumer. If one may hazard a guess as to how that burden is to be disposed of, I would say that the 1/4 by which the Prices Advisory Body suggested that tea should go up, will be borne by the consumer and that the other 2/- will be borne by the Exchequer. Will the Minister for Finance tell us what that bill will amount to in respect of one year's stabilisation of the price of this particular commodity?

We believe that these makeshift methods are producing no real improvement in the lot of the people. The people did not expect that they would be treated to small debating points as to the difference between the 1954-55 figures and the 1955-56 figures. They believed there were to be sweeping changes. The Leader of the Opposition indicated some of them— the £20,000,000 reduction which was to take place in 20 minutes; the absorption of the unemployed into employment; the reduction of the cost of living by 30 per cent. All these statements were made and it was on the expansiveness of the claim that was made by the Coalition that they got the results in the urban areas which produced the change of Government.

The statement by the Minister for Finance, circumscribed as it is by his warning that we are not to take what we have got so far too seriously, certainly falls very far short of the claims that were made before last June.

The Taoiseach

I certainly can fully agree with one statement that was made by Deputy Bartley, that the 1952 Budget is still very largely in effect. Unfortunately, that is the position. Unfortunately, it is true that very many of the difficulties with which we found ourselves confronted when we came into office and with which we still try to grapple are the conditions which had been brought about, and which still remain with us, by the Budget of 1952. I will have occasion in the course of my remarks to make some observations on the effects which those conditions in our economic and financial fabric, brought about by the Budget of 1952, have had on us in the formulation and the shaping and putting into effect of our policy.

I have listened to most of the principal speakers in this debate and I think I can say that anything that has been said has not in any way minimised the remarkable fact that the Estimates for the public service have been reduced by the sum of £2.77 million and that that reduction has not in any way being achieved at the expense of the reduction in the price of butter. Had we not, in the interests of the consumers of butter and in our desire to keep down the cost of living and to reduce the cost structure that is such a feature of our economy, reduced the price of butter, we would have been able to show on the face of this Book of Estimates for this year a reduction very nearly in the region of £5,000,000. That, I say, is a remarkable achievement. It would be remarkable for any Government, in the conditions which we faced and which we still face, to come into this House with a Book of Estimates with any substantial reduction but having regard to the very substantial reduction of £2.77 million at the very time when we have reduced the price of butter by the use of the subsidy, involving expenditure of over £2,000,000, I think we are entitled to say, and the public believe us, that we have achieved something of which we are entitled to be proud.

Not merely have we achieved that reduction in face of tremendous difficulties, to some of which I will advert hereafter, but we are entitled to say that, with the significant exception of the year 1949-50, the year when the first inter-Party Government prepared and stood over its first Book of Estimates, this is the first Book of Estimates since the outbreak of the Second World War, to show a reduction. For 14 years, with the single exception of the first year of the inter-Party Government, there has not been a reduction in the amount of money for the public service appearing on the face of the Book of Estimates but during every one of those 13 years the Estimates have regularly and monotonously shown an increase. In our first year as an inter-Party Government we showed a decrease of over £5,000,000. This year, if it were not for the butter subsidy, we would have shown a decrease of nearly £5,000,000 but, in fact, having reduced butter, we show a decrease of £2.77 million.

Faced with that situation, the Opposition have resorted to the tactics or the technique of accusing us of breaking promises which we never made and of failing to carry out undertakings which in fact we never gave. Deputy de Valera yesterday afternoon, when, trying to make the best of a bad job, he tried to say something against the situation in which he found himself, where for the first time in 13 years there was a reduction on the face of the Book of Estimates, resorted to the technique of saying that we took over office and we became the Government through falsely representing to the people, as I think Deputy Bartley said a few moments ago, that we would reduce public expenditure by £20,000,000 in 20 minutes. Deputy de Valera referred in that statement, untrue as it was, to the statement that was alleged to have been made by the present Attorney-General, Deputy McGilligan. He is supposed to have said that he would reduce public expenditure by £20,000,000 in 20 minutes.

The Attorney-General will, I hope, before this debate concludes, tell the House and the people what exactly he did say. He did not say what the Leader of the Opposition alleged he said. He spoke, I think, shortly after the Budget of 1952 and said that if we then got office we would reduce the amount of taxation that was being imposed upon the people by £10,000,000 in ten minutes. That had reference to the state of affairs in 1952 and to the fact that if we took over office then— before the effects of the Budget of 1952 or its impact on the people had become apparent—we would reduce the amount of taxation by £10,000,000. Deputy de Valera alleged that those statements were made to the public during the course of the general election and that we got into office on the basis of false representations and promises we made at that time. No such promises were, in fact, made. I have already stated in this House — and I am not going to fight the battles all over again beyond reiterating this statement which I have made at every meeting from Ringsend to O'Connell Street from the beginning of the campaign to the end — that anybody who voted for me or who voted for anybody who was associated with me, or who would be associated with me, was voting on the understanding that neither I nor any of my colleagues was making any promises. The Leader of the Opposition and his colleagues in the Fianna Fáil Party are trying to use the old propaganda trick of repeating lies in the hope that some people may eventually believe them to be true.

In the course of his speech on the Supplies and Services Bill on the 10th February last, Deputy Lemass said, as reported at column 189 of Volume 148, No. 2 of the Official Report:

"We never contended that the Government could prevent prices going up when wages and material costs and the prices of imported goods were going up. But Deputy Costello then said that all these factors could be neutralised or reversed by some action of the Government. He committed himself in the most definite way to the people of this country, that if he became head of the Government here that Government would bring back prices to the level at which they were in 1951."

Yesterday, the Leader of the Opposition was good enough to suggest that I was endowed by Providence with certain oratorical or rhetorical powers. Had I all those powers, conferred upon me by the Leader of the Opposition, it would tax my powers, within the limits of parliamentary propriety, to say what I feel about that statement of Deputy Lemass or adequately to describe its untruth. I never made such a statement. The Leader of the Opposition, Deputy de Valera, went on to quote yesterday afternoon some words I had used characterising certain falsehoods that were being utilised by the Fianna Fáil Party during the general election. The words which he made use of yesterday afternoon were words which I used in the broadcast I made during the general election campaign. In reference to certain of these falsehoods I said that they dishonoured those who made them, insulted those to whom they are made, besmirched the dignity which had attached to public life and offended the obligations of Christian charity. I named the falsehoods in that broadcast — and they were not contradicted. I said that Fianna Fáil propagandists and speakers from Fianna Fáil platforms alleged, amongst other things, that the victims of the Fine Gael policy would be the employers and investors in the glass bottle factory at Ringsend, the motor assembly trade and the fertiliser factories. I said those were lies — and I was not contradicted. I said it over the air to hundreds of thousands of people who were listening.

The Leader of the Opposition said that if I were in his position and he were in mine and his Minister for Finance had the cheek or audacity to bring in this Book of Estimates, and make the claim we make for it, it would tax my rhetorical and oratorical powers to deal with the situation. I agree that it would. I should be struck dumb at the spectacle of a Fianna Fáil Minister for Finance bringing in a Book of Estimates which showed a farthing decrease. Almost every year during the period of their office the Estimates went up — certainly over the 13 years I have mentioned from the Second World War until last year. It would be a remarkable thing to see a Fianna Fáil Minister for Finance bringing in a Book of Estimates which showed even a farthing decrease. Certainly, I should not be able to use my rhetorical or oratorical powers: I should be struck dumb at the unexpected spectacle.

When Deputy MacEntee was Minister for Finance in 1953 he rather seemed to indicate that he proposed to effect a reduction in the Estimates in the following year. For the financial year ending 31st March, 1954, the Estimate was £100,548,106. I characterised that figure, in a speech which I made during the debate on that Vote on Account, as a record figure — as, indeed, it was. At column 167 of the Official Report of the 11th March, 1953, Deputy MacEntee is reported as making this statement. Having criticised members on all sides of the House for what he called their clamant demands for ever-increasing public expenditure, and their failure to realise the responsibility they had to keep down public expenditure, he went on to say:

"I have no doubt that there would be clamant resistance from them to any measures designed to reduce existing services or to estop proposals to increase them. It is inevitable, however, I think, that serious measures will have to be taken to bring State expenditure into line with the capacity and, what is equally important, the willingness of the public to bear the cost and in the coming year this will be the main purpose of the Government. The Supply Estimates have now passed the £100,000,000 mark and it is imperative that the rise should be halted."

There was a public profession of the then Minister for Finance of what he was going to do in the coming year. He was going to see that various measures would be taken to bring State expenditure into line with the capacity and the willingness of the public to bear the cost. He asserted that that would be the main purpose of the Government and that it was imperative that the rise should be halted.

That was said during the year ending the 31st March, 1953, and they had another year in which to carry out that promise; in the result, so far from there being any decrease in State expenditure, so far from the rise being halted, the figure on the Book of Estimates went up by nearly £8,000,000. The figure on the face of the Book of Estimates for the year ending the 31st March, 1954, was the figure that I have stated—£100,548,106. For the last year of Fianna Fáil administration the figure on the face of the Book of Estimates was £108,262,473, an increase of very nearly £8,000,000. That is the record of Fianna Fáil in the matter of public expenditure. That is the result of the determination of the Minister for Finance to bring State expenditure down and to see that the rise should definitely be halted — nearly £8,000,000 of an increase.

We are suffering from that to-day and we had the task of seeing that the rise in public expenditure was halted —that some effort, at least, was made to bring public expenditure into line with public capacity and willingness to pay. That was the difficult job we had to do this year and how well we have done it is seen by the reduction we achieved. It may not be — and it is not —as much as we would wish it to be, but if we had only held the line or even brought the total down by a very much smaller amount, at least we would have put our policy into effect and established the principle that the Government was setting itself to the task of trying to bring down public expenditure to a point where it would be not merely within the capacity of the public to pay but where it would be possible for us to do the things that we want to do in the interests of the country and in the interests of all sections of the people.

It is in this context perhaps relevant to inquire what figure would have been on the face of the Book of Estimates if Deputy MacEntee or one of the Fianna Fáil Front Benchers occupied the position of Minister for Finance. What would be the pattern of expenditure having regard to the fact that in the year following the statements to which I have referred and following Deputy MacEntee's statement that it was imperative to bring down public expenditure, it was increased by nearly £8,000,000? What would have been the figure of increase this year? That is not a matter of mere speculation. We have the material on which to base a definite judgment to hand. The Minister for Finance yesterday, in opening this Vote on Account, read a statement that was made by Deputy Lemass in this House some few weeks ago. I take leave to occupy the attention of the House for a few moments in repeating that statement, because it bears repetition not merely because of what is said in it but because of another statement that was made a few days afterwards.

At column 197 of Volume 148, No. 2, in the Debates of Thursday, February 10th, 1955, Deputy Lemass said:—

"Not in a single Department of the Government — from the Department of the Taoiseach down to the Department of Lands — has a single real economy been made. 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 in 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 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."

There is a prophecy by Deputy Lemass. I have sympathy with Deputy Lemass in making such a prophecy, because each time when he was in Government, up went the Book of Estimates every year and accordingly he saw no means of making any reduction this year and he wanted to be in first with his prophecy. What he said at that time was that he prophesied that there would be increases in the Book of Estimates in every Department unless something happened——

Mr. Aiken

Administrative expenses.

The Taoiseach

Something did happen.

Mr. Aiken

What happened?

The Taoiseach

The Government happened, and as he himself knew, we set up the sub-committee that was referred to in the Irish Press, which was charged by its colleagues with seeing that something happened, and that that something was going to be a reduction in public administration. That prophecy was made in this House on the 10th February, and somebody coyly and shyly hiding themselves, their names or their identities, under the title of “Our Political Correspondent” in the Irish Press— I wonder who is “Our Political Correspondent”? It is not hard to guess. —but, at all events, on the 22nd February, that is 12 days after Deputy Lemass made his statement, the prophecy to which I have referred in this House, there appeared a long article from “Our Political Correspondent” headed “Making Out the Taxpayers' Bill”. It referred to the fact that a small Cabinet Committee had been working in the past few weeks on the Estimates for the coming year, and said:—

"It is reliably reported that it is having a difficult task in its efforts to prune down unnecessary expenditure and reduce the already alarming increase in the bill which Mr. Sweetman will present to the taxpayers next May."

And then he goes on to say:—

"It is now known that the expenditure required for 1954-55 will be up by between £10,000,000 and £15,000,000 at least over that of the preceding year."

Now there were no references to "administrative expenses" by "Our Political Correspondent". I am sure Deputy Lemass would not try to make out that when he said "administrative expenses" he was saying something different from "Our Political Correspondent" when he said:—

"It is now known that the expenditure required for 1954-55 will be up by between £10,000,000 and £15,000,000 at least on that of the preceding year."

Taking these two statements together —Deputy Lemass's in this House and "Our Political Correspondent's" in the Irish Press, one giving precision to the other, Deputy Lemass prophesying an increase in every Department in administrative expenses and “Our Political Correspondent” in the Irish Press saying there would be an increase in expenditure this year of £10,000,000 to £15,000,000 — the public can realise what the extent of expenditure would have been this year had they not been saved from Fianna Fáil by the general election of last year. Ten million pounds to £15,000,000 was the increase which they expected and they were right in expecting that because that is what would have happened had they been in office.

Notwithstanding what the then Minister for Finance said in 1952 that steps were going to be taken during the year to bring it down, notwithstanding that apparently firm determination of their then Minister for Finance, their Estimates for the following year went up by £8,000,000. It is not surprising, therefore, to find Deputy Lemass anticipating that we would not be able to prevent expenditure or administrative expenses, whatever you like to call it, from going up by £10,000,000 to £15,000,000. Not merely did we prevent it from going up by £10,000,000 to £15,000,000 but we reduced it by over £2,750,000 and we reduced the price of butter to our people at a cost of over £2,000,000.

We are entitled, if not to present that achievement — because it is an achievement — with any smug complacency to the public, at least to say to the public that we have given a solid, concrete indication of that part of our policy and that while we have achieved some measure of success this year, our efforts in that respect are not at an end.

I said at the outset that this was a difficult task. It was difficult because of various factors in the situation and it was difficult because of the legacy we inherited from Fianna Fáil and the Budget of 1952 which, as Deputy Bartley said, is still with us. This difficulty arises from the automatic tendency of certain items of expenditure to increase and from the extent to which the pattern of expenditure is becoming more and more rigid each year. It was difficult to achieve a reduction because we set ourselves a headline, which was referred to in a speech by the Minister for Social Welfare, that whatever reductions were going to be made — and reductions were going to be made — they would be achieved by taking account of the effect which those cuts would have on the administration of Government and on the general economy and by ensuring that whatever cuts in expenditure were made there would be no cuts in essential services and no cuts that would bring about unemployment.

These were the headlines we set ourselves. That was the difficulty we had. As I said, we had the difficulty to contend with that Government expenditure has shown over the years almost an automatic tendency to increase and to become inflexible. Amongst the items which tend automatically to increase is the service of the public debt. With capital expenditure regularly exceeding some £30,000,000 annually, this charge is rising by over £2,000,000 or, if account is taken of certain off-setting receipts, by over £1,000,000 net. Other examples of this automatic tendency to increase are superannuation payments to civil servants, Gardaí, national teachers, Defence Forces, etc., housing loan subsidy charges and, when local rates are increasing, the agricultural grants in relief of rates.

There are many examples of those types of expenditure which are becoming so inflexible as to be almost rigid. There are payments in respect of social welfare and in respect of health, housing, education and so on. These payments, which can be grouped under the heading of "social services" account for about one-half of Exchequer expenditure. There is little in the line of economy to be got in that direction having regard to the Government's social policy. There is little in the line of economy to be got from the remuneration of civil servants, Gardaí, teachers, members of the Defence Forces, and so on, which is now running at close on £30,000,000 a year. Of that £30,000,000 nearly £15,000,000 is referable to the remuneration of the Civil Service. The scope for reduction in that direction is practically non-existent. Since we have over the years, and in this year particularly, given proof of our care for our public servants, we do not intend them to be singled out for execution by the economic axe; we gave concrete proof of that when we honoured the arbitration award this year. Notwithstanding that difficulty, notwithstanding the very narrow scope that exists, we are still determined that the cost of public administration shall be brought down.

Mr. MacEntee

By £20,000,000?

The Taoiseach

We are determined to do that not by cutting salaries but by economies in the use of staff. We are fully aware that those economies will be hard to achieve. Achievement will be slow and arduous and may indeed involve some new thinking about our existing financial and administrative techniques.

Those are some of the difficulties with which we are confronted. They are small compared to the difficulties we had to face because of the policy that had been in operation from 1951 to 1954 when the country got rid of the Fianna Fáil Government. The 1952 Budget, as Deputy Bartley rightly said, is still with us. I have said how difficult it is to get economy in the public service. We had the slashing of the food subsidies in 1952, the deliberate policy adopted by the Government at that time because of their philosophy that the country was too well off and was living beyond its means, because incomes generally, as the then Minister for Finance said in his Budget speech, had gone beyond the cost of living. Therefore, incomes had to be cut down and the cost of living had to be deliberately allowed to rise as it did rise by 15 points over that period of three years during which they were in office.

That philosophy brought about the conditions from which this country suffered in the last three years and from the effects of which the country is still suffering and which we have not yet got completely rid of — unemployment, depression in trade, a steep rise in the cost of living bringing about demands for increased wages which could not be pressed home — as they could have been and would have been in different circumstances — because of the fear of unemployment that was ever present in the mind of those people who were asking for more wages to enable them to keep up with the cost of living.

Deliberate Government policy brought about unemployment, a depression in trade, a depression in money, a fall in the purchasing value of the £. Panic measures were taken in 1953 by the Government to try and alleviate the unemployment which was brought about by the adoption of their financial policy, panic measures resulting in public money being poured out without any regard to whether or not any productive results were obtained from it. Public bodies were told: "Get on with schemes which will do something for unemployment. Do not wait for sanction. Do something, for heaven's sake". That was brought about by the policy deliberately adopted by the Government, and when I referred to that we were warned off. Civil servants' salaries were increased, and other salaries, and the cost of Government services were increased, because of the fall in the purchasing power of the £ brought about by that policy and because of the other conditions brought about by that policy. I referred to this matter on previous occasions.

While I do not think that I have the gift of prophecy that Deputy Lemass assumed to himself during the recent Supplies and Services debate, and at frequent intervals in this House, speaking on the Vote on Account for the financial year 1953-54 on the 12th March, 1953, in column 254, Volume 137, having referred to the evil effects which were then abundantly apparent from the policy of the Government in the measures put into operation so unjustly and so unnecessarily by the Budget of 1952, I put this rhetorical question:

"What has been the cost of this to the commuunity?"

I answered that by saying:—

"It is incalculable, perhaps it is irreparable. If it is not irreparable, it certainly will remain as an injury to the economic fabric of the State for very many years after the present Government have ceased to be the Government. The position has almost become frozen. Any Government that succeeds the present Government will have a task of appalling difficulty to contend with."

Every word of it was true. Now that we are the Government we have found how true it was. We have realised, even more than we had at that time when I was speaking, what an appalling task a Government succeeding that Government would have to deal with. Now, in spite of those difficulties we have, by subsidy, reduced the price of butter at a cost of over £2,000,000, and have reduced the face of the Book of Estimates by over £2,750,000. That is no small achievement.

In the course of the debate on Supplies and Services — I think in the course of the remarks made by Deputy de Valera — reference was made to those promises which we never made and the non-fulfilment of undertakings which we never gave. It was stated that I had, in some way, retracted my position by the speech I had made on behalf of the Government when I was speaking on prices, particularly those prices which rise because of economic forces outside this country, over which we have no control. I am told that that was something new which we never stated until we took over Government. I said it a long time ago in extenuation of Fianna Fáil policy.

Mr. Aiken

You must have whispered it to yourself.

The Taoiseach

I did not whisper it to myself. I am going to read it out for the purpose of again ramming it home though I have no hope of convincing those people who are responsible for the lie. On the 3rd of January, 1952, two and a half years ago, in column 561 of Volume 135, I had been speaking on the Supplies and Services Bill. Deputies will remember the famous or infamous White Paper that was produced at about that time. That White Paper contained a statement subsequently repeated by the Minister for Finance, that there was no prospect of any expansion in agricultural production and exports. That was one of the foundations of Fianna Fáil policy. They could not look forward to any expansion of agricultural production or exports and they reached record heights the next year, and reached further record heights, I am glad to say, this past year. I was speaking about prices. I made the statement:—

"I have called attention to the facts in connection with the price rise. We do not accept that the rise in price and the rise in the cost of living need necessarily have been too sharp, that the recession of business ought to have been so grave or that the increase in unemployment ought to have been so considerable."

I would ask Deputy Aiken to listen to this whisper:—

"I realise at once that some of the rise in prices is due to factors beyond the control of the present Government, and beyond the control of any Government. I appreciate that the rise in import prices was bound to bring about an increase in the cost of living, but we think that it should not have risen to the extent which we have experienced. The rise — which we say was unjustifiable —was due entirely to the policy of the Government in the sudden withdrawal of the food subsidies, and to the unjustifiable increase in taxation."

I was somewhat amazed by Deputy de Valera's effort yesterday to try to make a case against this Vote on Account. When he tried to make out that we had some way represented to the people that we were going to reduce taxation by £20,000,000, I say that no such statement was ever made by us. Then he found himself in this dilemma: that being disappointed with the fact that there was a reduction, he had to say it was negligible and that it did not, in fact, exist. And then he had to try and attack the reduction— trying to have it both ways. He said there was no reduction but he wanted to criticise the reduction. And everyone of the speakers from the Opposition have carried on in that way— there are no reductions but we will criticise the reductions. Deputy de Valera spoke about a £60,000 reduction in forestry, having said the reductions were negligible.

I shall leave it to the Minister for Lands to deal with that point later. I shall only say now that that reduction is a genuine reduction and is due to the fact that there was more money in the kitty than was necessary, and that it is possible for us, in spite of that reduction, to buy more land for forestry this year than ever the Fianna Fáil Government bought in the years of their office.

That is the reason for that reduction. That is a genuine reduction, but it is not at the expense of forestry or of employment in forestry because more land will be bought with the money we have after the reduction than was ever bought by Fianna Fáil in their time. Then Deputy de Valera spoke and criticised the reduction in the Army — though of course he had said that there was no reduction. Rather implying that he disagreed with the reduction, he criticised the saving made on fire insurance, as he called it. We like, when we do insure ourselves, to see that we are not paying for a bad cover and that is the difference between us and Fianna Fáil. It would be bad cover for us to spend this £1,000,000 on the Army this year. But we still have a grand insurance and a grand Army.

That was Deputy de Valera's contribution. Then he went on about wheat and said that we were enabled to make this reduction, such as it is — there being no reduction according to him— by a windfall, the windfall being the moneys from America and the reduction in the price of wheat to the producer. What about the windfall that we left behind us in 1951 — over £20,000,000 in Marshall Aid? It was dissipated in six months when we had intended to keep it as a cushion, spreading it over three or four years as capital expenditure. The public did not get any benefit from that.

That was a windfall. If we had got such a windfall last year we would have given the benefit of it in this year's Book of Estimates. Deputy de Valera talked about wheat. We cut the amount the taxpayers had to give to the growers of wheat by £1,000,000. Deputy de Valera was always fond of saying that no Government but a Government formed from a single Party would be competent or would have the courage to make unpopular and difficult decisions. We are what is called a Coalition, what we call an inter-Party Government. We had to take that courageous decision — to reduce the price of wheat. We had the courage to face up to that and it was not a very easy one. We had to tell the farmers who supported us that, though we knew their difficulties and their problems and that we sympathised with them and appreciated what they were doing, they were getting some money to which, having regard to the interests of the taxpayer and to the general interests of the community, they were not entitled and therefore we had to take it from them this year.

We faced that unpopular situation in spite of all the efforts made by Deputy Corry and the other Deputies on the back benches of Fianna Fáil to try and work up political agitation against us. We did that in order to save the taxpayer. That was no windfall but something that required courage and competence. It was something which Deputy Corry and all the Fianna Fáil propagandists will be making use of in the years to come. I am glad to say, however, that what we have done is gratefully appreciated by the public in general.

I was again amused — I suppose if I were younger I would get indignant but now I am getting, as my colleague, the Minister for Agriculture says, longer in the tooth, I get rather more amused — when Deputy de Valera spoke about the audacity of my colleague, the Minister for Finance, in coming in with these so-called reductions. Deputy de Valera weeps when he remembers all the promises we made, all the undertakings we gave, all the promises that were broken, all the undertakings which were not carried out. He is grieved to think of the deceptions we practised on the voters. I really cannot help recalling again the point in the programme through which Fianna Fáil got into office in 1951. Not a few people on Deputy de Valera's benches got into office on this particular point of policy, which reads as follows: "It is the policy of Fianna Fáil to maintain subsidies, to control the prices of essential foodstuffs and operate an efficient system of price regulation for all necessary services." The leader of the Party, who became Taoiseach on that false representation, is illadvised to speak of audacity or of cheek or of false representation or broken promises.

This Book of Estimates, as all Books of Estimates produced by democratic Governments in democratic States, gives some indication of Government policy. This Book of Estimates gives such an indication of our policy to the public. We have a different approach to the problems confronting this country from that which Fianna Fáil had and which they followed in the years in which they were in office — during the past three or four years. We approach our problems on the basis that it is essential for the economy of this country that money must be borrowed for capital expenditure of a productive character and that the money must be borrowed cheaply. They approached it on the basis of being afraid to spoil the ship for the ha'porth of tar, giving the investors 5 per cent. when some of the municipal enterprises across the water could get money at 3½ per cent. or 3¼ per cent. or less.

An essential part of our policy is that the price of money borrowed for capital expenditure must be low. Ours is the policy of cheap money as against borrowing it at dearer rates — the policy of money at a reasonable rate of interest for productive expenditure as against dear money. We do not want to spend in the way Fianna Fáil spent the money that our people saved and lent to the Government. We want to spend that money in schemes of constructive expenditure. We do not want to send that money down the roads or the drains and get nothing for it.

We want to spend productively. We do not want, as has been said by the Minister for Finance, to cut expenditure merely for the sake of cutting expenditure. We want to cut in order that we may save. That is very different from what the policy of Fianna Fáil was when that Party poured out money last year planning schemes to relieve the unemployment they had themselves created by their deliberate policy. Every year their Book of Estimates went up and up and up. Every year public expenditure went up and up and up. We want our Book of Estimates, so far as we can achieve it, to come down and down and down so that we may have sufficient money to implement the social services we want to implement, to increase our existing social services, and to bring into existence productive schemes which will create real wealth in our country.

We have been frequently twitted by Deputy Lemass and other Opposition speakers who try to draw us by saying: "How can you increase social services and at the same time decrease taxation?" We did that when we were in office before. We hope to do it again. We hope by our policy to create wealth in the country. We hope by our policy to make the money in the hands of our people real money, with a better purchasing power. We hope by increasing the real wealth of the country to put more money into our people's pockets, to increase business and thereby increase the national revenue, so that by buoyancy of revenue, an increased national income and lower taxation we may get a better yield of revenue for the purposes for which money is required by our Government.

The lineaments of our policy have been emerging in our actions and decisions from day to day, from week to week, and from month to month, over the last nine months. When we floated the National Loan with, I am glad to say, the loyal co-operation of the Opposition, last autumn, we insisted that the rate of interest should be downwards. There was much eyebrow raising. There was much foreboding. But the Minister for Finance insisted on that downward trend. The result is that we got the money at a cheaper rate and the stocks now are standing higher, higher not merely than when they were floated but higher in comparison with those stocks issued by Fianna Fáil, when they were in office.

That was the first indication of our policy. The next indication came a few weeks ago when we were able to secure the agreement of the banks to the proposition that it was the economic interests of the country and of our people which were to decide whether or not there should be an increase in the rate of interest on advances. That was the first time in the history of this State that was done. I have little doubt that it would not have been done had Fianna Fáil been in office.

That is another indication of our policy, showing that we are not going to allow the banks to put up the price at which moneys will be lent to our people for business, for the development of agriculture and for the development of industry. The figure in our Book of Estimates is another indication of our policy. Again, it is a downward trend; public expenditure down; the cost of loans down; the cost of advances kept from going up, and we hope in time we will get them down.

We kept the prices of some essential commodities down. We have at least held the line in relation to others, though it has not been easy. We were criticised for our policy in relation to tea. Audacity was the expression used by the Leader of the Opposition to describe our actions in that respect. At least one wants courage, if one does not want audacity, to deal with some of the problems that Fianna Fáil left behind. We were proved right in our policy in relation to tea. I can imagine the disappointment of Fianna Fáil when we adopted the device we did to keep down the price of tea. Can you imagine the howl that would have come from those benches if we had not taken the action we did? "You said you would keep down prices. Why did you let tea go up?" There would have been a chorus of denunciation here and throughout the country had we not adopted the device we did. But that was not the reason why we did adopt it. We adopted it because we felt it was essential in the interests of our policy, our economy and our people. We have no money inflation but we have cost inflation. We had to keep costs down in some way. To do it even to the small extent we did has been worth it.

We have kept down the price of butter for similar reasons and for human reasons, because we knew that the one thing that all sections of our people wanted was a decrease in the price of butter. Apart from that, that decrease kept down the cost of living and illustrated the trend of our policy. Indications of our policy are now emerging as demonstrated by our actions over the last nine months. The Minister for Finance in his opening statement yesterday referred to the confidence that had been born as a result of the change of Government and to the necessity for keeping that confidence and keeping stability.

The people have confidence in this Government. They have confidence in the stability of this Government and its institutions. We set out to achieve public confidence in a situation wherein the country was sick of political histrionics and political agitation. We have given the people quiet over the last nine months and we want to maintain that situation. We want to continue to give our people quiet so that they can go quietly about their business, secure in the knowledge that they have a Government which is trying to look after their interests and not just the Government's interests. In that framework of necessity for maintaining confidence and preserving stability we have not sought to present our people from day to day, or week to week, with spectacular changes of policy, with anything that could be said to capture the imagination of the people.

We stated our policy when we formed our Government. People know what that policy is and what we are endeavouring to do. We are going about our task quietly, I hope effectively, and unspectacularly. If we fail it will not be our fault for want of trying. Our policy is known to the people. We have given indications of the way in which we are carrying it out. We have never said that we will do everything at once. We have never said that we would decrease prices, increase employment or old age pensions within a few weeks or within a few months of our attaining office. We have a long-term policy. Ours is a difficult job and we have no illusions about the task we have to fulfil but at least we have loyal colleagues, a firm purpose and a determination to achieve what we set out to achieve and hope, in time, to achieve.

Mr. MacEntee

I have listened with a certain amount of amazement to the Taoiseach's speech, but I must forbear to criticise it at any great length because, if I did, I should have to use the word "audacity" and the Taoiseach does not like it. But is there anything more audacious than his statement that the cost of tea has been kept down? The Taoiseach when he made that assertion was quite obviously ringing the changes on two words — the word "cost" and the word "price".

The price of tea to the domestic consumer, as a consumer and as a purchaser, has been kept down but the cost of tea to the community as a whole and to the consumer as a taxpayer has not been kept down. It remains at the equivalent of what he would have to pay if this dubious device of financing the purchase of tea out of borrowed money had not been resorted to by the Government.

Therefore, it is quite misleading to say that the price of tea has been kept down when everybody knows that the consumer has got to pay, in the first instance, one instalment of the cost of that tea over the grocer's counter when he is purchasing it and another instalment to the tax collector when he comes round. One way or other, the cost of tea remains at the world price and the Government has not done anything and cannot do anything to reduce it.

The speech of the Taoiseach which we have just listened to was remarkable in another way. It was remarkable for the fact that the Leader of this forward-looking Government spent all his time looking backwards. He was not discussing the volume of Estimates for 1955-56; he was discussing what I said or some other person said in 1952-53. We were told, so that the Taoiseach might find some extenuation or some excuse for the flagrant breach of public faith which he and his colleagues had been guilty of since the last election, that it was impossible for the Government to cut expenditure, that they had inherited public services which were costing £108,000,000. Very well, then, let us see what was responsible for that figure.

The Taoiseach himself in concluding his speech admitted that the cost of the social services, of the Social Welfare Act, of the Health Act, had a great deal to do with the fact that the total expenditure on services was of the order of £108,000,000. He says we are responsible for that. We have been responsible, he says, for the legislation which has made that necessary. Very well. The Minister for Health came into this House a few months ago and brought in a Bill to suspend almost in toto the operation of the 1953 Health Act. If the Government really want to secure the economies to which they pledged themselves when they were in opposition, what is to prevent them following the example of the Minister for Health and securing these economies and cutting these services which the people enjoy, for which Fianna Fáil was responsible, for which the present Government is claiming credit but is not prepared to accept the concomitant obligations?

That is a simple matter. The Taoiseach has the remedy in his own hands. He can reduce public expenditure by amending the Social Welfare Acts for which the Fianna Fáil Government was responsible and, if he refuses to amend those Acts and to cut expenditure upon these services in that way, then he must carry the responsibility for the cost of these services. The Taoiseach's speech exemplifies the fact that he is an old hand at the Bar and that he has not forgotten the old forensic motto, when you have a bad case, blackguard your opponent.

I do not think we should accept the Taoiseach's apologia as though it were something out of Holy Writ. I think we are entitled to pin the Taoiseach down, if not to some of his own pronouncements, then to some of the pronouncements of his leading colleagues. In that connection I should like to compliment the Minister for Finance. I should like to compliment him on the skill with which he has shaken himself free, not only of the Attorney-General but also of the Parliamentary Secretary to the Government.

All of us will recall the astonishment with which we listened to the Taoiseach when he was submitting his Government to Dáil Éireann. When the Taoiseach asked the Dáil to approve of his proposal to appoint Deputy Sweetman, as he then was, as Minister for Finance, he was careful to explain that Mr. McGilligan as Attorney-General would hold a watching brief with Deputy O'Donovan, whom he proposed to make Parliamentary Secretary to the Government — I think that is his title, but there has been such a proliferation of minor patronages since the Government took office that one cannot be sure — however, as I have said, the Attorney-General and the Parliamentary Secretary to the Government were to be appointed as sort of tutelary deities to make sure that this wild young neophyte would do nothing foolish.

I think that was an unwarranted and gratuitous reflection on the Minister for Finance who, in my opinion, is abler than both his whilom mentors put together. He is, I think, one of the ablest men in the Government and I think, and I hope I am not wrong, one of the most tenacious and courageous. Unkind people, indeed, have said that the present Minister was the only man who would step into the breach, that he was appointed because my predecessor, the present Attorney-General, funked — to use a word which may not be very elegant but is very expressive — taking the post.

Mr. Sweetman

Funked cleaning up the mess you left — is that the position?

Mr. MacEntee

The present Minister, in fact, people were saying, was installed to carry the Attorney-General's baby. His qualities, I think, deserve a greater consideration than that. Just listen to what sort of baby was handed on to him.

Mr. Sweetman

That is the one we would like to hear about.

Mr. Donnellan

He was stillborn.

Mr. MacEntee

Precisely — he was stillborn. I could not find a better expression for Deputy McGilligan's baby than to say it was stillborn. Here is how the doting parent described it in his final broadcast winding up the Fine Gael campaign at the last election —he said it was a beautiful child which would provide many economies to hand for a Minister who is serious. Apparently, the Minister for Finance does not measure up to the Attorney-General's criterion of seriousness. He said in regard to this baby that there is little doubt that savings amounting to several millions a year could be secured without much effort and, as the broadcast continued and as his frenzy rose until he was like a whirling dervish, Mr. McGilligan proclaimed that nothing less than £20,000,000 or upwards would satisfy himself and his Party.

Now, £20,000,000 and upwards is a lot of money and it is what the taxpayers of this country were promised in May of last year. What a lot private individuals could do for themselves if £20,000,000 and upwards were to be given to them this year. That was the bait, as I have said, which the Attorney-General held out to his listeners to persuade them to vote for him and his colleagues in May of last year. That was the reward — let us not forget it — they were promised they would get in this year's Budget. That is what they were looking forward to. I have no doubt that there are many innocent people in this country who, when they read Deputy Costello's speech, will still think that that £20,000,000 is going to fall into their laps like a windfall. Yesterday, however, the Minister for Finance told them at some length that the £20,000,000 was only Mr. McGilligan's pipe dream and that they had better forget it. Not only is expenditure not being reduced by £20,000,000, not only are savings of many millions not being secured but, so far as the Volume of Estimates unfolds the story, there is no reduction whatever in overall public expenditure.

The Minister for Finance has quite properly warned us that the Estimates which we are considering represent only one side of the account — only, in fact, a portion of one side of the account. For a full picture, as he has told us, we must await his Budget statement. But we need not await that statement to investigate some of the items in which he suggests reductions have been made.

Take, for instance, the sub-head in the Defence Vote for defensive equipment. In the 1954-55 Volume that item as published appeared as £1,800,000. In the Budget, however, it was cut to £1,000,000. Therefore, even the notional reduction is not from £1.8 million to £1,000,000 but £1,000,000 to £.8 million, that is from £1,000,000 to £800,000. But, of that £1,000,000, it was announced in the Budget that the then Government felt justified in borrowing £600,000 of the £1,000,000, leaving £400,000 to be met by the taxpayer. What does the Minister for Finance propose to do? Perhaps he might, even in advance of his Budget statement, tell us that now, so that——

Mr. Sweetman

The Deputy must think I am terribly soft.

Mr. MacEntee

I am prepared to wait if it is more convenient for the Minister—if it will afford him a little longer to keep that particular illusion still before the public that he has reduced expenditure on defensive equipment from £1.8 million to £1,000,000. He has done nothing of the sort. He knows that and his colleagues know that; but the general public do not know it. What I am coming to is this: is the Minister going to do as we did last year? Is he going to find £400,000 of this £800,000 out of revenue and is he going to borrow the remaining £400,000? If he is going to tax in order to get the £400,000, there is no saving whatever to the taxpayer and there is no such economy as has been claimed in relation to this particular item for defensive equipment.

I want to diverge a little, perhaps, from the financial aspect of that question to come to another aspect which I think is of some importance. In dealing with this item for defensive equipment, the Minister for Finance mentioned, in justification for its reduction, that it would be imprudent to spend money on obsolete weapons. Certainly it would be imprudent to spend money on obsolete weapons, but are conventional weapons obsolete? There are many authorities to whom a layman might bow who deny that they are. Nuclear and thermo-nuclear weapons are terribly destructive. We all know that. But they are also terribly expensive in terms of time, materials and labour. There are warlike situations of defence and attack where it would be, from a military point of view, wholly uneconomic to use them.

In such conditions, conventional weapons, as they are called, must be relied on. In an attack on this Island, it is probable that only conventional weapons would be called for — though, in the frenzy of war, others might be used. In any event, whatever weapons might be used to attack us, the only weapons we can make available for our defence are conventional weapons. I suggest that in a situation in which certain organisations for their own ends and their sympathisers in other organisations appear to wish to provoke reprisal and counter-reprisal— which, indeed, may lead to a condition in this country tantamount to civil war—it would be folly on the part of this Government or any other Government to leave this community powerless to defend themselves.

There is another aspect of this Defence Vote to which I would like to refer also. Equally important from the point of view of public safety, is the utter neglect on the part of the Government of the problem of civil defence. Even if there were no danger of involvement in any general European conflict there is still the probability— indeed, almost a certainty — that if such a conflict broke out and we were left to maintain our own peace within our own borders we should not escape the dire consequences which flow from the use of nuclear weapons. These consequences are very grave and real, as the effects of recent explosions have shown. If the H-bomb were exploded over Liverpool or Bristol or, indeed, over virtually any city in Great Britain not to speak of over Belfast, our people would not escape unscathed.

Elsewhere, they are alive to this problem. They are alive to it in the Six Counties. So far as the present Volume of Estimates shows, the Government appears to be concerned only to ignore it. I trust, however, that this is not the general attitude of the more responsible among them. They cannot continue to ignore it. Civil defence has become a grave problem for every country. It has become a grave problem for those countries which hitherto have been able to maintain a traditionally neutral position. I read an article last week in an English periodical written by a Deputy of this House, a member of the Fine Gael Party. In that article he referred to the fact that Switzerland and Sweden had both been able to establish a traditional attitude of conventional neutrality, and that, therefore, they had been saved from and had been relieved of the heavy burden which defensive armaments have imposed on the people of other countries. The Deputy quite forgot the fact that Sweden is taking extraordinary precautions, extraordinary measures to provide for the civil defence of its people. Even though Sweden may hope, as we may hope, to maintain a strictly neutral attitude in any world conflict, Sweden is not putting its head in the sand. Sweden is spending huge sums in trying to provide, as I have said, for the civil defence of its people. I move to report progress.

Progress reported; the Committee to sit again.