In the course of the debate on this Bill last year, the Minister said that permanent legislation was under investigation and he has repeated the statement again this year. He has made the excuse that there are some special conditions prevailing this year which would make any new permanent price control legislation unpopular or unacceptable to the country. I should like to ask the Minister whether there has been any year since the war in which any kind of new price legislation was liable to be accepted by the public, unless the Minister clarified for the public, once and for all, the extent to which a Government can control prices when there is competition, except in the case where prices can be artificially raised either by monopolies or through the kind of control of prices which has been the subject of two Orders under the new Restrictive Trade Practices Act.
The Minister's excuse for deferring the making of new price legislation is simply that he has not properly considered the matter. He has never faced the lessons that have been learned since the war. He has not faced the fact that ever since 1947 we have engaged in sordid discussion on the cost of living, that it has been the subject of three general elections, that it has prevented the public of this country from considering the far more fundamental issue of productivity. It has prevented a great deal of sound thinking about greater investment and more productivity, and it has brought the public mind to a state of cynicism which is bad for the nation and which certainly, I must admit, would make it difficult for the present Minister to bring in legislation which would be considered effective by the public at large.
Everyone knows there has been an inflationary situation. There was an inflationary situation after the outbreak of the Korean war which lasted for two years. The same situation occurred then but the attitude of the Minister at that time, when he was in Opposition, was entirely different from what it is now. The fact remains that there is no clause in the Constitution which, in reality, permits the continuation of emergency legislation of this kind. If we are to have faith in our Constitution, if we are to observe its import, if the people are to respect the Constitution, we cannot go on prolonging year after year emergency legislation which was meant to be based on conditions of war.
Naturally, Ministers dislike relinquishing their powers. Naturally, they dislike the idea of setting up new legislation which, if it is to have any value, should in many respects remove the Minister from the immediate examination of many of the matters involved in this Bill because hardly anyone can deny that, if there is to be permanent price legislation, it should be performed by some kind of commission, some kind of body, which, while having to report to the Minister and leaving the Minister in many instances special powers, will, nevertheless, take away from the Minister a good many of the powers which he enjoys to-day. In fact, this is a case where, as is so well known in political life, inertia breeds inertia. Ministers and officers of State fear to make alterations. They are afraid that, if they promote any new price control legislation, the only result may be that they will be criticised by the public. Because of that, they continue in a tradition that has gone on in this country since the war, trying to create more powers than they intend to exercise and than can, in fact, be secured through any legislation of this kind.
The whole of this price control discussion has bred in this country not only a contempt for Government but an entirely contradictory sense of dependence upon Government. The public have learned to depend on the Government and at the same time to condemn it when it is unable to carry out acts which should be to its advantage. It is a dilemma from which we will have to escape. It was referred to on a number of occasions by the American experts, who came here and prepared the Ibex Report, that this country has never made up its mind since the war whether it wishes to be an entirely socialist economy or a private enterprise economy. The Minister, in not introducing new legislation and grasping this nettle firmly, is simply going to promote the loose thought, loose thinking and loose action, which have characterised the whole of our discussions on price levels since the war.
We have had a number of general elections in this country in which, on this side of the House, we were faced with appeals to the lowest sentiments of our people. Elections have been reduced to the level of trying to persuade people to vote for the man who will bring down the price of bread and bring down the price of stout. The whole of the controversy in regard to productivity and increasing investment, has been side-tracked by this dispute. We have had an utterly false idea spread among the community as to the extent to which the Government can control prices in peace time. The conception of profits, for example, is considered by a very large group of the community in an entirely false light. Profits that are high are automatically bad; profits that are high automatically are an act of hostility against the consumer; whereas in fact, as we well know, some of the cheapest products in this country are sold by companies whose profits are enormous. The whole conception of profits is something which includes the capacity to reinvest money in new machinery, new capital investment. We never yet had an opportunity of considering it because of this prolonged dispute, in which the Party on this side of the House is being accused continuously of being responsible for the rise in price levels which has taken place in this and every other country of northern Europe at the same rate since 1948.
Equally, the public mind is being deterred from the more fundamental problem of increased output per worker and output per unit of capital investment. The war brought a flow of new inventions to the world of which we have not yet taken sufficient advantage. Changes have taken place since the war in our relations with our nearest neighbour, Great Britain. There is envisaged a full employment economy with an ever-increasing rise in wages: a section of the workers enjoying a far higher share of the country's national wealth. We have been placed in the position that many of our standards have perforce to be related to those of Great Britain and automatic increases in wages take place here, although in fact the productivity of the country has not increased sufficiently to meet them. All of those changes have taken place but again the public mind is being deterred by this sordid dispute from considering them and from making legislation which would have the effect of assisting the whole community to take part in a great productivity drive.
Emigration since 1947 has become so considerable as to be an automatic control on the economic activity of this country. If prices rise people can leave, leaving smaller incomes for each family. The rate of emigration has become the most serious economic factor at present operating in connection with our whole economic activity.
Going back to the history of this legislation, in 1947 there was a sharp rise of 10 per cent. in the cost of living. At that time we were accused by the Opposition of not making use of the very powers which are now recommended by the Minister for continuation in the Bill. When the Opposition got into power at that time, they were not able to find any profiteers; they were not able to prosecute any profiteers; they were not able to reduce the cost to the community, taking it large and wide. The proof was evident that the legislation then in operation could not prevent increases in prices that were occurring because there was the small inflation that takes place at the end of a war when money flows into circulation more quickly than goods. Fianna Fáil at that time produced a Bill. It was condemned by some Deputies in the Opposition as being defective and by others as grossly interfering with the activities of private companies.
The Fine Gael Party, which has so praised and has accepted the Restrictive Practices Bill, at that time were criticising us for introducing a Bill in which the powers were even less than they were in the recent enactment which has now been accepted by all sides of the House. The Labour Party at no time has shown itself satisfied with the present price control arrangements. Deputy Larkin on a number of occasions said he was not satisfied with the price control machinery, that it should be scrapped and that it had not got the confidence of the public. Deputy Larkin, on a number of occasions, demanded a rigid and immediate revision of tariff levels and suggested that excessive profits were being made under the tariff umbrella. On a number of occasions he also said that the public had lost confidence in the Prices Advisory Body.
The Prices Advisory Body is in a most unfortunate position. It has been constantly examining the prices of commodities and sanctioning rises and it has become known to the public as a body which is a kind of subsidiary sanctioning body for increasing prices, a kind of cushion between the Minister and the public. While I think the members of the board are honest and hard working in their activities, no one believes that that body can effectively control prices when they rise as a result of increases in wages or increases in the cost of the raw materials or increases in the cost of commodities produced by our farmers or the farmers of other countries. Every effort made by the present Government to try and pretend they were carring out their promises to reduce the cost of living has eventually proved ineffective.
There is no need to go into the whole question of the action taken in connection with tea prices. We know the result has been that the public are now paying whatever sum is required for the bank interest on the money borrowed to keep the price of tea down. The only reason why the price of tea did keep down was that reserve stocks purchased directly from India were available to the community for a considerable period.
We can well understand why the Minister hesitates to introduce price control legislation because, of recent months, since the steady rise in the cost of living, it is quite evident that Ministers of the present Government are not agreed in regard to the price situation and show open disagreement. Their speeches in public reveal the deep cleft between the Fine Gael group of Ministers and the Labour group of Ministers. The Labour Party promised the sun, the moon and the stars in the last election in the direction of lower prices, lower food costs, reduced taxation, and so forth. There is no need at this stage to repeat in detail all that they promised in regard to that matter.
Wages have risen. There have been two rounds of wage increases of recent months and the Labour Ministers go around the country and state specifically that they have redeemed their promises through the increases of wages that have been effected and that the workers need not complain, that so long as wages have gone up to meet the cost of living, so long as they may have gone up in certain instances more than is required to meet the increase in the cost of living, the promises made by the Ministers of the Labour Party in the Coalition Government have been fully redeemed and all is well. But the Minister for Finance and the Taoiseach move through the country and, when addressing chambers of commerce or groups of businessmen, or on the more important occasions, warn the public that the increases of salaries and wages are largely illusory, the only effect of which will be a further increase in costs of production, a further increase in the cost of Government and a further increase in prices.
It was interesting to note that the Taoiseach actually used the word "illusory", and said that salary and wage increases are largely illusory in so far as they can ultimately affect the cost of living and the position of the consumer. So you have, one week after the Civil Service pension award, the Minister for Finance warning the public that all these increases in earnings, all these increases in salaries and wages, unless they are accompanied by increased production, are entirely ineffective and, at the same time, you have Labour Ministers going around the country, trying to account to trade unions for their failure to redeem their promises by claiming that all is well now that wages have gone up.
In fact, there is no leadership demonstrated in this present crisis through which we are passing. Some Ministers say there is a problem and not a crisis. Other Ministers say that there is a problem, not a crisis, but the worst has yet to come. They all refer to mounting difficulties and none of them can genuinely agree about what action should be taken and none of them can devise or promote any fundamental schemes for increasing productivity rapidly, which is the only real solution to our troubles.
No prolonged and detailed conferences have taken place between the Government, the employers' federations and the trade unions over this problem of wages. The problem of wage increases is complicated. For certain classes of the community, wage increases are inevitable, if the cost of living rises. For other groups of workers, there have been anomalies in connection with the comparative wage rates now and in 1939. A general examination of wage and profit levels, conducted on either a socialist or a conservative basis—we do not mind which it may be—in which the growth of productivity must have some relationship to the total earnings of the community, whether employers or workers, has never been undertaken by the present Government, in spite of the growing inflation that is taking place.
The Government has made statements about the need for more savings. We have had a savings committee appointed. We have seen no dramatic action taken by the Government, either through the interest rates on small savings in the Post Office, or Savings Certificates, or by any joint form of co-ordinatioen between employers, workers and the savings administration, to encourage more savings, to siphon off at least some of the increased earnings in savings, to enable the capital construction programme to go on. We have merely heard very quiet pleas for greater savings.
There has not even been established by the present Government an agreement on what the meaning of productivity is and even compared with Great Britain, where we read only of disputes between employers and trade unions of a dramatic kind, where there are sensational developments, the development of a steady concept of increased productivity of goods sold at lower cost to the public, enabling the public to buy more goods and so employ more people—the whole of the concept that has brought about the prosperity of Holland, Denmark, Great Britain and America—has never been fully accepted as a live thing in this country. It has been merely accepted in a passive way and resisted by many groups. Many trade unions and many groups of employers, equally, fearing that there would be no definite acceptance by both interests concerned, failed to pay attention to the need for increasing productivity.
The whole of that discussion needs more publicity in this country. We have not yet accepted the very thing which has brought prosperity to other countries. Workers are afraid of redundancy. Employers feel that the level of taxation is too high to justify their making efforts at greater productivity, and so we have an increase in production in both industry and agriculture which is utterly inadequate to enable us to maintain the standard of living which we have in the country at the present time.
History has shown that, although there are sometimes temporary redundancies in employment, in the long run, the principle of greater productivity pays, so long as the worker shares in the increased profits made. The trade union movement is sufficiently well organised to ensure that, if there are increased profits as a result of greater productivity, the workers will get their due share and the workers in turn, who enjoy greater wages as a result of higher productivity, can purchase more articles and so swell the total volume of employment. As I have said, we have never had any great concerted effort made in that regard.
Part of the difficulties faced by the Government at the present time has been solved by our selling out our savings in order to maintain the consumption of goods and maintain our standard of living, selling out our savings in Great Britain, not for productive purposes, but for the purpose of maintaining a standard of living which we cannot afford, because production is not sufficiently high. The Government claim that they are not responsible for the inflationary situation that has occurred. Of course, we have to accept that much of the inflationary situation has taken place in Great Britain and in the sterling area at large but every day that passes without action being taken makes the Government more and more responsible for the loss of savings which should be used for productive purposes and which have been wasted and which will not be available for productive purposes in the future.
We have been told by the economic experts that something like £500,000,000 is necessary for the complete rehabilitation of the agricultural industry—an enormous sum requiring tremendous saving, tremendous effort and tremendous technical advances— and we have already spent £100,000,000 of savings in 1951 and 1954 largely for non-productive purposes. We have had the position that the percentage of saving in this country as a percentage of the national resources has steadily decreased since 1953.
In that year it was about 15 per cent. and I believe in 1955 the savings were only 10 per cent. of our resources and yet there is very little protest about it. In reality, it is as serious as though there were a major outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease in this country, but because of the futile controversy over the cost of living and the immediate price of this article and that article, there has been no chance for the public to appreciate the gravity of a reduction in savings developing in a country without one-tenth of the resources of Great Britain.
The maintenance of saving is the foundation of our wealth. The only way we can increase our productivity and invest new money is through our savings abroad and at home and when both start diminishing, that is not a problem—it is a crisis. It is a crisis because it is a habit into which one can get and even though we could continue for two or three years on the same basis as last year, the longer the habit persists the more difficult the cure and the less the savings left for new capital investment. There are two kinds of society in Europe to-day, the static society and the dynamic society and we have become so accustomed to easy and sentimental talk about our economy that we are almost alone among the northern European nations in not facing the realities of our position. I suppose Deputy Seán MacBride and Clann na Poblachta have more responsibility than anyone else for introducing the idea into this country at the end of the war that by some special Divine guidance we could increase production without special effort and sacrifice on the part of the community, without the arduous learning of new methods, without sacrifice or difficulty. That is neither a socialist nor conservative concept but simply the concept resulting from the sentimental attitude in our national life which we have had as a result of the accusation made against this Party of having been responsible for increasing the cost of living. An attempt was made to get everybody to believe that an increase in productivity would be easy for them so long as they voted for a particular Government.
We may all have different views about investments. Neither the conservatives nor the socialists disagreed on the fundamental facts of new investment.
Ever since the war, both here and in every other country, in Norway, neutral Sweden and Denmark—which was relatively undevastated—whatever disagreements these parties had, they were united in one thing, that there was no easy course by which a nation could increase its production, and that it would require to rely upon the efforts of its own citizens, their sacrifices and the forgoing of pleasures if they were to achieve greater prosperity later on. You will find very little comment of that kind in the speeches made by members of the different Government Parties in either by-elections or general election campaigns. You will find that almost alone in northern Europe we have been accustomed to this foolish talk, a silly appeal to the people, telling them that so long as a particular Party was elected everything would be easy and that no great effort would be needed to enjoy a high standard of living and increased productivity.
Again we have very considerable disagreement about this question of the balance of payments. We have the Minister for Justice parading around Kerry telling the people that he is more interested in prosperity than bank balances. No one quite knows what that means but I take it he wants to persuade the people of Kerry that bank balances abroad are held by rich bankers and have no concern with the poor people of Kerry. Again this is gross deception practised on the people which has no reality. Any bank balances we hold abroad are held on behalf of the Irish people, both rich and poor. They are the balances which, in the main, are essential for the import of commodities to maintain our standard of living. That kind of talk is a typical example of what I mean; it is just slush talk with no significance in it.
We then have the Taoiseach and when he speaks at an important banquet or on an important occasion he makes it absolutely clear that increases in wages and salaries have immediate results in increased imports, so making the balance of payments position all the more serious and so diverting savings we have abroad from the productive purposes to which they should be applied. We will never get the Minister for Justice going around the country saying that all increases in wages and salaries merely have the effect of increasing imports and making the problem to be faced by the Government worse instead of better. You have a complete diversity of views in regard to this serious problem.
We had recently in the course of the Kerry by-election the Minister for Defence saying that the country's total investments, private and public, abroad were in the region of £500,000,000. He said we had lost under £50,000,000 in 1955 and then he gave some figures that bore no relation to the present economic position merely citing the increase in the value of cattle. He gave a few other figures and he said what did it matter if we lost under £50,000,000 out of a total invested saving of £500,000,000 abroad. He was in disagreement with the Minister for Finance and the Taoiseach, who quite clearly indicated that they regard the balance of payments position as serious. They regard it as serious because, of course, they know the position. The Minister for Defence only gives one side of the picture; he referred to the assets abroad and he did not refer to our liabilities which amount to—the last figure which was given, I think, was in 1950 when I think they were £250,000,000. No figure has been calculated since. But neither the Taoiseach nor the Minister for Finance has contradicted Deputy de Valera when in the course of a recent speech he said that the total gap between our assets abroad and our liabilities abroad was in the neighbourhood of £100,000,000 and that we, therefore, could not afford to lose from £30,000,000 to £40,000,000 every single year. Deputy de Valera's statement has not been contradicted. In fact, that balance is very difficult to strike and it would not make very much difference if it was £100,000,000 or £150,000,000 or even £200,000,000 because once a diminution of our savings continues at that rate the policy to overcome that leakage and restore the position becomes progressively more difficult to implement.
There is no reason to suppose that we are different from any other country, and when a leakage of that kind starts the longer it goes on the more difficult it is to repair. Therefore, it is essential not to exaggerate and not to say we are on the edge of anything like financial collapse or loss in the value of our sterling, but what we do need is to ensure that the problem of stagnancy in production, stagnancy in the number of workers in the field and in the factory, stagnancy that has occurred for many years of our history and which is still with us and has not been solved is faced courageously. We are solving our present problems by massive emigration and by a reduction in our savings, neither of which can be regarded as good policy nor as any good omen for the future.
Some Ministers referred to the fact that we are facing the difficulties of the British people. The British people have immense raw material resources and a great tradition of trade abroad with numerous countries. Their difficulties are not the same as ours. In a great many industries last year in Great Britain, the increase that took place in wages was more than met by increases in productivity. Exports continued rising. They had not the same position as here where imports had been rising and exports falling. To some extent, because we have greater savings abroad, our position is not so immediately difficult as that of Great Britain. Our resources are smaller but the thriftless habit can continue because we have the savings to spend.
It has been said by some cynics that this country will never progress to the level of Denmark or Holland in its agricultural production because those huge savings we have abroad will always act as a cushion in time of emergency but sooner or later we will have to face the issue if we want to end emigration, increase production, increase our standard of living and continue to afford our present standard of living. At the moment we are rather like the head of a household who would come back with £5 and say to his wife: "This is not £5 but £7 10s. Spend the lot." That is the economic condition of this country at the moment. Quite obviously, we cannot continue indefinitely like that. We faced an adverse balance of payments of £100 million in 1951 and 1954 taking the two years together.
It is extraordinary to think what we could have done with that money; it is extraordinary to think of the millions of pounds that could have been devoted in the shape of subsidies for fertilisers. We could have completely reorganised the entire pig and bacon curing industry of this country. We could have given far greater undeveloped area grants for new industries. We could have engaged in a productivity drive in which the cost in relation to that total sum of £100,000,000 would seem negligible. We could even have afforded to give price support guarantees to farmers for agricultural products. We could have employed a great part of that sum as a capital sum for that purpose so that whatever difficulties faced the farmer one would not be an uncertain price level over a period of years.
I am aware that certain types of cattle prices are guaranteed by agreement with the British Government which prevents prices falling below a certain level. It would appear that in many countries the farmers have enjoyed greater price support guarantees than we have enjoyed. I mention that by way of illustrating how this £100,000,000 of savings which have been dissipated could have been used for productive purpose and with the object of increasing our productivity and enabling us to sell our greater productivity abroad in a satisfactory way.
When I first started to speak I mentioned the fact that the time was long overdue for new legislation to control prices. In our view, when the Minister considers legislation, as he should do, he should try to consider the positive aspect of price control rather than the purely negative aspect of restraining increases in prices. His legislation should have some relation to the 1947 Bill which was before the House when we left office and which now needs revision and complete re-shaping in the light of present circumstances. That Bill had for its object measures designed to increase efficiency and either prevent prices going up, as much as they would otherwise have gone up in the time of inflation, or actually decrease prices when the economic conditions made that possible.
For that purpose it would seem essential in the course of this debate to point out the difficulty that we face in regard to all these matters and give some idea of how legislation should come forth which would have the effect of stimulating the conception of productivity in the minds of the people and getting away from the purely negative aspect of price control. Everyone admits that there is under-investment of capital in this country. Everyone admits that our exports have not increased sufficiently to meet our needs.
There are some startling facts which I think the public have not appreciated. In connection with industry, the total amount of savings available for productive investment has, during quite a number of years since the war, been slightly less than in 1938 in real terms, allowing for the change in the value of money. We have this peculiar concept of profit unrelated to the amount of profit that can be re-invested in new industries. There are many companies which, in fact, have profits that are less in real terms than they were in 1938.
The amount of capital and cash available for industrial expansion in a considerable number of companies to-day is less than it was in real terms in 1938 because of the enormous growth in the replacement cost of machinery. The amount of capital spent by the industrial world since the war is but a fraction of what is being spent in countries where the profit incentive is present and where, along with very great increases in workers' wages and in the conditions of the workers, there has been encouragement to invest savings in new enterprises.
There is the question of plant depreciation allowance which has been up to now more in Great Britain than in this country where there is no tradition of exports of great magnitude abroad, no tradition of massive industrial investment, no inherited wealth of any great kind to use for investment purposes. The whole incidence of taxation, in fact, in so far as industry is concerned, needs examination rapidly in order to encourage investment.
With regard to the position of the tariffed industries, many of them have done very well. The prices at which a number of them sell goods are highly satisfactory. Some of them are still in the initial stage and can hardly be considered as mature industries. Others have been in operation a considerable time, but there is no country where tariffs exist where there are not the inevitable adverse circumstances associated with protection. A tariff umbrella frequently covers the weakest member of a group and is, in fact, no longer necessary for the strongest member of a particular group.
While there have been a number of works studies and efficiency investigations in this country since the war and a number of firms have adopted, in conjunction with their trade unions, plans for increasing industrial productivity based on the advice of outside consultants, taking it by and large, that process has not developed in the main in the great body of Irish industrialists. Many of the trade unions have shown the same attitude as in Great Britain where they have been satisfied so long as they could achieve security of the workers, so long as they could protect the interest of the redundant workers and so long as they could share in the interest from increased productivity. A great deal more needs to be done.
The cost of consultancy is a very heavy one. A good industrial consultant may cost as much as £120 a week, which is far beyond the capacity of the smaller units to pay. In Great Britain, industrialists combine and share the collective cost of the consultant. Whatever legislation is devised to control prices, it should include the formation of some commission or body which will examine the efficiency of industry in the most sympathetic way. We feel that this body should employ firms of consultants and other experts in the fields of engineering and industry and that, before a formal inquiry commences in regard to the efficiency of an industry, it should be possible for the industry itself to apply to the commission in order that it might have the benefit of its advice.
The Minister might even consider the making available of some grant-in-aid to defray the cost of the consultant in certain cases, or the commission might make use of its powers to arrange for collective payments of the cost of such consultants. This efficiency legislation should be based on the idea that as far as possible there should be voluntary co-operation between the commission and the industrial group involved. Quite obviously, the commission would eventually need powers to insist on an investigation and to make use of all the powers envisaged in the 1947 Industrial Efficiency Bill.
The point is that we would like to see greater collaboration and greater use of industrial organisations. We want to see greater collaboration between workers and employers in these industries. In the 1947 Bill, there were proposals whereby workers and employers could collaborate in an effort to achieve greater industrial productivity. There has been much criticism of that by many employers' organisations, because in Great Britain it so happened that such people as shop stewards, who played a great part in such productive councils, had frequently been of Communist opinion and caused disruption rather than agreement between workers and employers.
It is hard to believe that in this country, where industries are new and where you have not the background of the appalling 19th century attitude towards labour, we could not engage in greater co-operation between workers and employers at the council level to promote the efficiency of industry, without having fractious disputes. I believe, in any event, that legislation should be passed to ensure and to encourage this development. I think that such a commission should have power to co-ordinate with Córas Tráchtála, Teoranta and to recommend export outlets. I think it would be possible for such a commission to see that certain industries would spend a certain proportion of accumulated profits on export market explorations. At the same time, it must be recognised that there must be a retention of power to control prices, retail and wholesale, under certain circumstances. The Minister by now should have a very realistic viewpoint on this matter, though he may not, in the light of the utter failure of the Coalition Government to give the public a realistic idea of how far prices can be controlled under certain circumstances.
I think the envisaged commission should co-operate with the Institute of Management. The Institute of Management could afford useful information to the commission and there could be co-operation between it and the group of industries being examined in any particular tariff field. Quite apart from promoting new price control legislation, I think the Minister will have to examine more speedily the whole incidence of taxation for the encouragement of new industries. The only encouragement given to date was under the recent Mining Act passed to assist a certain type of mineral exploration. There is a considerable case for applying that principle to other export industries.
If the Minister imagines that the exports of certain classes of goods to South American countries is fraught with less risk than mining non-bedded minerals, he is making a mistake, and, although the O.E.E.C. prohibits us from any long-term modification in taxation in regard to new exports, it does not forbid temporary concessions. The Minister will have to examine the position under the Undeveloped Areas Act to see whether the powers and the money available are sufficient. He will have to examine the amount of money made available to Córas Tráchtála, Teoranta, to see whether or not more joint action is needed between groups of individuals and that body. He could see if it were not possible to have joint groups formed out of the suggested commission, Córas Tráchtála, Teoranta, and outside bodies for the exploitation of export markets.
It is quite impossible to outline in detail the kind of legislation we would like, because the Minister has more information on these matters than is available to us. It is impossible for us on this side of the House to examine the whole of the price structure in this country. The Minister can do that and can bring before this House a Bill which will relate to modern conditions and to the inflationary situation through which we are passing. Nobody could foresee in 1947 that we would face the kind of stagnancy that has been the picture since that year. Despite increases in production, demands for a higher standard of living by the public are not met by increased production.
The Minister is well aware in connection with industrial development that we now face this inflationary situation accompanied by an adverse position in regard to our balance of payments. Industries which depend solely on the home market where the labour content is very small may not have any effect on the balance of payments at all. There may be more workers, but the workers expend half of their wages on imported commodities, and somebody has to pay for the imports brought in by the workers. Particularly in the case of new industries where the labour content may be small, if one takes payments abroad for materials, royalties and patents and one relates the fact that half the wages and salaries paid to these workers are spent on imports, the ability of those industries to reduce our import commitment may be negligible. We presume that the Minister's own comments on the need for greater exports are related to that fact, which all of us have to face now, which has become of far more importance since the growth of the full employment world of Great Britain and its accompanying effects here.
I do not wish at this stage to detail the whole history of price levels in this country since 1948. There will be other speakers on this side who will remind the Government of the promises they made and the fact that in failing to introduce permanent legislation they are simply not facing up to reality. As I have said, the public is being deluded for too long about this promised reduction in the cost of living, and told that no matter what happens abroad the Government should control the cost of living. For too long has the cost of living become the mere plaything of Coalition Party politics, and it is time we got away from that to face the realities of the situation. With that in view, as I have said, we can only condemn the Minister for his failure to introduce legislation and for the excuse he has made that in the present circumstances there might be harmful consequences from the introduction of legislation. As he is well aware, there is an enormous need for legislation and assistance of every kind to increase production, to increase efficiency, to lower costs and to expand exports from all of which workers will benefit.
