When we adjourned we were discussing the impact of the Budget on agriculture. I was asking the Minister for Finance why he made provision for £150,000 to convert a proportion of the wheat crop into animal feed. As I understand him, he gave me two separate reasons: (1) because we had too much wheat and (2) because the 30,000 tons of wheat he proposed to convert into animal feed were bad.
Committee on Finance. - Resolution No. 5—General (Resumed).
Debate resumed on the following motion:—
That it is expedient to amend the law relating to customs and inland revenue (including excise) and to make further provision in connection with finance.—(Minister for Finance)
Notice taken that 20 Deputies were not present; House counted, and 20 Deputies being present,
I do not think he said "bad". It is inferior.
He said it is bad wheat.
It would be bad wheat to carry over.
He said "bad" wheat.
I think that what happened is that this is wheat which the millers do not want to mill. They made the case very strongly to me—and I saw their point—that they should not be asked to mill sprouted wheat. I pressed the view on them that they should, but I said I recognised that if any undue proportion of sprouted wheat was pressed into the grist it would put an unreasonable handicap on them. I said: "We are quite prepared to see that you get a sufficiency of grade A wheat——"
Imported.
——imported, if needs be —to enable you to carry any quantity of sprouted wheat you may have to incorporate into the grist.
You gave them a guarantee that they would get 50 per cent. imported——
No. They got 50 per cent. from September until about October. Then we sent for them again because at that time we did not know what the wheat crop would be like as it came in. The general undertaking was: "Whatever it is like, we will see that you get enough Grade A. wheat." When the crop was in and we knew the position we sent for the millers and said: "It is not reasonable to look for 50 per cent. with this crop. Try 66?rds." I said to them: "I hope you will be able to raise it to 70 but we are going to lean backwards in implementing our undertaking to you that you will have a fair deal inasmuch as you did your duty in taking in the crop."
Some of the millers—I think quite bona fide—made the case that they could not mill sprouted wheat. We suggested: “You can. Try it with 66?rds.” Some millers said: “That is quite impossible.” However, by experience, they discovered that it was not impossible. Then the point was made to me: “That will leave us with a carry over of 20,000 or 30,000 tons.” I said: “It may be even larger but there is no difficulty about filtering that into the grist next year”.
The carry-over is 80,000.
The crop turned out to be much larger than we anticipated.
The astonishing position is that I am now told that we produced too much wheat. Yet you will find plenty of warriors sitting on these benches who will tell me that the inter-Party Government destroyed wheat in this country. Now you hear your own Minister saying we produced too much.
No. There would not have been enough wheat if the crop had been harvested safely. There will be a much bigger harvest this year.
Exactly. There will be a much bigger harvest this year.
And will it be harvested properly?
It depends on the weather.
We have too much wheat. One of the defences for appropriating £150,000 in this year is that there is no place to put the wheat. I assure the Minister that he is mistaken. There is store. It is quite possible to carry forward that wheat and filter it into the incoming wheat next year with such proportion of Manitobas as may be requisite to produce baker's flour.
I warn the Minister that he is walking straight into a very awkward situation if he once concedes that wheat which has sprouted is unfit for conversion into flour. He does not realise the land-mine on which he is putting his foot. The Minister thinks that by "sprouted wheat" millers mean wheat with visible sprouts upon it. But they do not mean that at all, if you ask a miller's technician. If you once concede to millers——
The wheat we are talking about now is not sprouting.
What is wrong with it?
It is wheat which is millable but of a very low grade. It will not keep—at least, we are so advised.
Do not believe a word of it. They tried to sell me that cup of tea and I just laughed at them. It is nonsense. I assure the Minister there was not a barrel of wheat taken into storage and dried from the last harvest that will not keep for an ample time to permit of its being incorporated into suitable grist.
There is a new crop coming in——
Yes.
——which will be a very large crop, according to the acreage, and there must be accommodation made for that crop. We cannot leave that out.
No, but I do ask the House to face this interesting fact: how many members of the Fianna Fáil Party believe that one of the results of the inter-Party Government policy was that we had too much wheat, that we had so large a crop of wheat in hands and growing——
We only had too much wheat because we had to use 50 per cent. imported wheat.
The Minister knows that that is not true.
100,000 tons of Canadian wheat imported on "tick" and not paid for yet.
Order!
Here is the position. The first explanation is that we have too much wheat and nowhere to put it. I want to warn the Minister for Industry and Commerce against this and here is the reason I think it is so deplorable that there is only an acting Minister for Agriculture——
That will be remedied to-night.
——the millers will come and say that sprouted wheat is not fit for conversion into flour. The next step will be that the millers will explain to the Minister for Industry and Commerce that sprouted wheat does not mean wheat with the sprout on it. They will explain that the maltose content of wheat rises above a certain level before it makes a sprout and that therefore wheat with a maltose content above a certain basic figure is technically sprouted wheat and must therefore be rejected under the same decision as has apparently been taken this year.
I want to say most emphatically there is no wheat in storage in this country at the present moment, dry, from last year's crop which is unfit for conversion into flour. I am not saying that by guessing: I am saying it from certain knowledge, and I am warning the House to watch its step in regard to this matter. If it is ever conceded that the contention is true on this occasion, it will be widely expanded. I ask the House to note this astonishing fact, that for the first time since the State was established, according to the present Government, we have too much wheat——
No, we have not.
Too much imported wheat.
Too large a carryover.
And it is not paid for.
Deputy Corry must restrain himself.
It is because an exceptional amount of wheat had to be imported.
You are backing up the millers now.
As Deputy Allen ought to know—and I believe does know, because he is a cute operator beaming over there for the last 25 years——
Longer.
——we got the present crop used, and should get it all used——
Then why did you permit so much foreign wheat to be brought in?
——by the skilful use of sufficient quantities of imported wheat. Has the present Minister for Industry and Commerce reduced the grist?
No.
If the Minister changed the grist——
Is that not the point? If imported wheat had to be brought in, that explains the carry-over.
Yes, but has the Minister thought it expedient to reduce the grist?
I am told that the quality of last year's Irish crop was not good enough. I consider the present grist to be the proper grist.
I disagree with him entirely.
Now, we know.
I disagree.
Well, you see, he is the Minister for Industry and Commerce.
And I disagree with the Deputy also.
I think the Minister for Industry and Commerce is right in that it would be foolish to press for a higher percentage than 66?. He might go to 70, but I would not press it. I think he would be wrong to force them to use grist higher than 70/30 in this year, but there is no reason whatever for converting the carry-over into animal feed. That ought to be filtered into the grist next year and the full economic price recovered for it. It is wrong to charge up to the taxpayers of this country £150,000 for the purpose of enabling that stuff to be converted into feed. If that principle is once admitted, it will be brought up against the Minister year after year by men who quite honestly believe that they ought to be allowed to have 50 per cent. Manitoba and 50 per cent. native wheat in any grist.
I think they are wrong, but they honestly believe that, and it is their desire to turn out a first-class product that makes them press that view. If it is conceded that 30,000 tons of last year's crop are fit only for conversion into animal food, that contention will be expanded, and it is wrong and foolish.
I had occasion to query the Minister for Finance who, I notice, with great discretion, has not come back——
I share your hope that he will not be long.
I do not blame you. One more salvo from Deputy Allen and Deputy Corry and the position of the Minister will be untenable.
I have a more material reason than that.
The Minister for Finance has been out now for an hour and a quarter, having tea, and when he was going out, I was expressing some surprise at the method he employed for informing us that the present Government was going to put on butter not only the 5d. consequent on the withdrawal of the subsidy but something between 1d. and 2d. in additional levy. He said: "I stated that in my Budget speech," and I queried that. I did not have his Budget speech before me when I was speaking and I said that I did not think any Deputy in the Minister's own Party understood that. He said that he had stated it most explicitly, but here is what he said, and I quote from Volume 161, No. 8, column 947:—
"As from to-morrow, 9th May, payment of subsidy to reduce the price of butter to the consumer will cease."
That is quite clear: that is the 5d. a lb.
"Control over wholesale and retail prices of butter will be removed. The price to creameries for butter will, however, be supported by the Butter Marketing Committee at a level sufficient to continue the existing price position for milk supplied to creameries and to meet the cost of cold-storing butter for winter requirements. The appropriate subsidy paid on butter not yet sold to consumers will be recovered, as far as possible, by a levy on existing stocks. On that account, it may be expected that the retail price of butter will shortly reflect the withdrawal of the subsidy."
Mark those words: "On that account, it may be expected that the retail price of creamery butter will shortly reflect the withdrawal of the subsidy."
Is there a Deputy who would interpret that as meaning that the price of butter will go up by 7d. a lb.? In the paragraph dealing with this arrangement, the Minister ends with the words: "On that account it may be expected that the retail price of butter will shortly reflect the withdrawal of the subsidy". Does that not amount to saying, to any man who was listening, to a declaration that the Minister is in fact taking steps which will result in the price of butter going up by the amount of the subsidy, to wit, 5d. a lb.? It is only when the butter starts being delivered from the creameries to the shops that it transpires that not only has the subsidy been removed, but the production allowance and the cold-storage allowance have been added to the price and the price control removed, with the result that there is an additional impost of 2d. per lb., though the Minister for Finance now says that he thinks 1½d. would be enough.
We are all conscious of what that means to the consumer, but was there a single member of the Fianna Fáil Party who knew that that additional impost was to be put on butter at the expense of the consumer?
It was announced in the Budget.
Did Deputy Allen know, cross his heart and hope to die, when that speech was made in this House, that there was 7d. a lb. going on butter, or did he think it was 5d.?
I knew it would be more than 5d.
Did the Minister for Finance have time to refer back to what he said on the Budget in regard to butter? I want to ask the Minister for Finance, now that he is here, does he think the paragraph in which he announced this did fairly inform the House of his intention, not only to withdraw the subsidy, but to add something between 1d. and 2d. to the charge to be levied on the consumer?
Why is the Deputy repeating that? Why does he want to repeat that? Did he not go over all that before?
Since that was asked, I got a copy of the Minister's speech.
Why is the Deputy allowed to repeat his speech like that?
I am not repeating.
Of course, you are.
No.
The Deputy went over all that before.
I had not got a copy of the Minister's speech then and I am asking the Minister now if he thinks it was fair to say:—
"The appropriate subsidy paid on butter not yet sold to consumers will be recovered, as far as possible, by a levy on existing stocks. On that account, it may be expected that the retail price of creamery butter will shortly reflect the withdrawal of the subsidy?"
Was that not a suggestion that the impact of the Minister's proposals would simply be that prices would go up by the amount of the subsidy?
As I said before, I made an hour's speech. If I had to weigh every word, as the Deputy wants, I would have taken months to prepare the speech. Everything was included in the subsidy.
I would have thought the subsidy was generally deemed to be the 5d. subsidy.
That may be the Deputy's opinion but the subsidy was there, paid by the Government.
That is perfectly clear. That is the Minister's version. The House has heard my version. Which does the House think was the disingenuous way of approaching them, to communicate that information to them? Certainly, no newspaper in Ireland, no member of Dáil Eireann, no consumer in Ireland knew until the butter started being delivered that the price was going up by 6½d. or 7d. a lb. All believed, when the Minister sat down, that this referred to 5d. But, what I am concerned about is this— there is nothing in the Minister's speech about what is going to happen, now that all subsidisation of the milk and butter industry is withdrawn and all control removed. There is nothing in the Minister's speech as to what is to become of the surplus.
Wait now. What is the point? What could I gain, seeing that the butter was going up the next day, by concealing it?
Had you not divisions to face?
Divisions?
Did you not get Independents to vote for you in that division?
And we will get them again.
I think it is important that the facts should be stated and what I am anxious about it what the repercussions of these proposals will be on the industry. We know now that the price of butter——
You knew it the day afterwards.
——is going to be in the order of 4/3d or 4/4d. I reckon that that will result in reduced consumption of butter on the domestic market. There is a clear undertaking here that whatever surplus over and above the domestic market there may be will be exported by the Butter Marketing Committee.
Yes. I heard that before. I heard it all before from the Deputy. I heard it an hour ago.
Heretofore, the Treasury recouped the Butter Marketing Committee for any losses they made on that transaction.
That is right.
What is the Minister's intention in the coming year?
What is the Deputy's intention in repeating the speech?
I am only asking a question. I can find no provision left in the Estimates, after the Minister's speech, to meet the charge that may come in course of payment if there are exports of surplus butter by the Butter Marketing Committee and where is that going to be provided?
The Estimates were printed.
But, after the Minister's speech and his announcement of his intention to withdraw all subsidies here mentioned, it does not seem to me to leave anything in these Estimates to provide for the contingency of the Butter Marketing Committee having to export surplus butter. Who is going to pay for the export of surplus butter, if a surplus transpires? I reckon that it will cost about £10 a cwt. to export butter.
How much did it cost last year?
Any that we exported last year cost about £7.
How much butter was exported?
It is in the accounts.
One million or half a million?
Last year, no—nothing like it. We only started exporting butter about January and only the exports for January-March came into that account and in this year, prior to the Budget, in the month of April, the Minister had to export certain butter which will probably be paid for out of the Vote on Account. It is quite simple. The Minister can simply say to me now that for any butter the Butter Marketing Committee have to export the loss will be met by the Exchequer.
Of course, yes. There is no doubt about that.
He said that in the Budget statement.
No.
Any Deputy could ask that simple question.
Could the Minister say what provision is being made in the Estimates for the charge?
There is enough left to pay for anything that is likely to arise before 31st March.
The Minister has not made an estimate. If there is any Supplementary Estimate required to support the export of butter, it will be forthcoming?
It will have to be brought in.
That is a very important step.
That was said on the Budget statement in answer to questions by the Deputy.
Not at all. These are two interesting facts that we have extracted: first, that we have too much wheat; and, secondly, that not 5d. a lb. but between 6½d. and 7d. is going on the price of butter, but for the reassurance of the industry, the Minister undertakes to subsidise the export of any surplus that may arise at the price level at present obtaining on the domestic market.
I want to revert for a moment to the speech of the Minister for Defence. He wound up by saying: "We did not know the ravages wrought by the previous Government." I think I am entitled to ask, what are these ravages? The total agricultural production of this country increased by over 32 per cent. from 1947 to 1955.
By how much did it decline from 1954?
What I am concerned about is——
Answer that.
——the situation obtaining at the latest date for which we can get the total gross agricultural production, which is the year 1955. The figure for 1956 has not yet been published by the Central Statistic Office. I have no doubt that it will show a further improvement on what we already know. It represents an increase of 32 per cent. in the gross production of the agricultural industry in this country, provided you take into account the changes in the numbers of stock on the land. I have read out for the House the highest figures over recorded in the history of this country for exports of cattle from Ireland in January, February and March of this year, with the trend, so far as we have the figures, appearing to be in the right direction for the months of April and May as well. We have more cattle on the land of Ireland at the present time than we ever had before in the history of the country.
Question?
I merely give the figures as published by the Central Statistics Office. According to those figures, more cattle were reared in 1955 than we ever had, and more sheep, I believe, than we ever had before in our history. We have twice as many pigs as we had in 1947 and the numbers are going up.
After ten years of famine war.
I am not casting any reflections on anyone. All I am saying to the Minister for Defence is that if these are evidence of ravage, then ravage has a meaning which I never attributed to it before. We had the biggest wheat crop in terms of yield last year than we ever had and we got as much beet from 340,000 acres last year as we got from 620,000 acres in 1948.
Yes, without any manure.
I am not talking in terms of abbis or anything else, but I am asking: is it evidence of ravage that we got more wheat than we ever got in any harvest before and from one-half the acreage of land? Nothing approaching that quantity was produced in Ireland before. We grew more barley in Ireland last year than at any time since it was first introduced into the country. Is that evidence of ravage? On 1st April this year, we had 1,300,000 acres of land rehabilitated, or in the process of rehabilitation, under the land rehabilitation process.
At what price?
Well, now, Deputy Allen thinks all that is wrong.
Does Deputy Allen object to that expenditure?
I do.
Oh!
That is fair; I shall accept it. Everybody is entitled to his own view. I am for it, but I can understand Deputy Allen's view.
Half of it was wasted.
We rehabilitated that land; we had photographs of it in this Lobby and out at the R.D.S.; and it has been seen by people all over the country who are still applying in numbers far greater than the existing staff is able to cater for. I do not think that is evidence of ravage. It is work I am proud to have done.
Half of it was wasted.
I do not think that is evidence of ravage.
£500 an acre was spent on some of it.
I think it is evidence that we have something in this country on which money was well spent. We have provided £100,000 with which we built or reconstructed over the past eight years. We have carried rural electrification into almost every area in rural Ireland. Let us look at the record. I am looking at what we got for our money and which I am not sorry to have got. I think it represented good value for all that was spent. We have also built sufficient hospitals to accommodate every person who requires hospital accommodation at present. We have provided sanatoria which are adequate for every human creature who may require sanatorium treatment within 48 hours of his medical adviser prescribing it for him. We have carried the telephone service to every rural post office in Ireland so that there is no farmer in rural Ireland who has not got that amenity within his reach. Mind you, it has cost us £100,000,000 to provide the houses. It has cost us £12,000,000 to provide the telephone development and £34,000,000 to carry electricity to rural Ireland. We have spent £7,000,000 on bogs and as much more on purchasing a fleet of ships to sail the seas.
Will the Deputy say who "we" are?
The successive Governments of Ireland.
The people of Ireland?
Yes. They spent it. I do not know that we have any reason to regret any of that expenditure. When we begin counting up our assets, I think we should remember that we have all that property now. We should remember that this country is that much better off that we have it. We also have the extra stocks on the land and extra fertility which we have been putting into the land in the shape of lime and fertilisers that we had not got some years ago.
Let us suspend for a moment the eternal wailing and moaning with which Fianna Fáil seek to justify their present policy. I know that economists can say with conviction that we are in a state of acute crisis. I would like to ask Deputies this question: is there any country in the world in which a man can have a better life than in Ireland? There are a lot of people in this country who believe that living in America is like living in the Saturday Evening Post, but it is not. It is only a very small minority of people in America who live a la Saturday Evening Post. Most of our people do not labour under such obvious illusions about Great Britain, but a lot of our people believe that to live in America is to live in comparably better conditions than those which obtain here. I do not think that is true. I think conditions are different. Some prefer them but a great many of us prefer what this country has to offer.
Could we not stop wailing and moaning and denigrating this country before the world? Is it not time for our people to show to the rest of the world that other countries are quite welcome to what they want but that we have what we want here and intend to keep it? I am sick listening to people bawling and moaning about emigration. There is no living creature who has to leave this country as an emigrant from want, certainly in rural Ireland. So far as I know, all the people who are going abroad from rural Ireland are going from good employment, but they are going because they believe they can earn more, in terms of money, in Great Britain or America, and that they can live in a freer and less supervised land, and that appears to attract them. They may be wrong. Those of us who elect to live here presumably think they are.
We have got to ask ourselves the question: If they choose to go has anyone a right to stop them? I do not think anybody has that right. I think the most sacred liberty our people have, and must retain, is to go where their hearts listeth. So long as this is a free country some of our people will choose to test their fortunes in the wide world and others will elect to stay at home.
I do not believe there is any human creature in rural Ireland who is constrained by want to emigrate from this country. I believe there are hundreds who elect to go because they would rather earn £20 a week in London, Birmingham or Manchester than £6 or £7 a week in their own town. I am not at all sure that, when all the bills are paid, they are very much better off on the high wages they get in England. However, they think they are. They are entitled to live their lives the way they want to live them, not the way I think it is good for them to live them. This House should never have the power to abridge that freedom. Once that freedom is taken from our people, they are no better than slaves in prison camps.
I believe that at the present moment this country is one of the best countries in the world to live in. I believe we should be proud of it. I think we have to face the fact, however—and the sooner we do it, the better for everybody—that we will never be rich in this country. If we fix our eyes on the far horizon of material wealth, such as is displayed in Great Britain and the United States of America, we are chasing chimeras. So far as this country is concerned, we are primarily an agricultural economy whose material resources consist of 12,000,000 acres of arable land and the people who live on it. That will never provide in terms of money and goods the same standard of living as is available in great industrial economies such as Germany, Great Britain and the United States of America. If we make up our minds to that and adjust ourselves to the fact, I believe it is possible to get for our people in this country a better living than is obtainable in any other country in the world. If we make it our heart's desire to emulate in Ireland what they have in Birmingham, Pittsburgh and the Ruhr, we will never know peace and contentment in Ireland.
I believe that our policy of establishing stability and developing our resources was yielding an ever-growing result. I saw around me in my own town and in other towns of Ireland a standard of living being enjoyed by the small farmers of Ireland that certainly my father never hoped to see. I rejoice that the people in one short lifetime were tenants at will in mud cabins, the most of which were roofed in thatch, and came to the market towns in their bare feet, while their children are now living in security on their own land, not infrequently driving a car and many of them a tractor, wearing clothes and enjoying a standard of living comparable with that enjoyed by any rural community in the world. I heard conditions here compared with those in Denmark. I rejoice that our people value correctly freedom, the right to leisure and the right to labour hard, in truer proportions than many Continental peoples seem to do.
I wholeheartedly agree that the whole future of this country depends on increased production for export and that the maintenance of the kind of standard of living for our people that I want, and which I believe they can enjoy, ultimately depends on our capacity to get from the land the maximum of which it is capable of yielding. The whole purpose of the policy of our Government was to bring within the reach of the farmers of this country the means to get from the land of Ireland the best living it was capable of yielding for themselves, their wives and their families, in the certain knowledge that, if they did that, it would be the wisest thing they could do for the nation as a whole.
I apprehend that the departure embarked upon by the present Fianna Fáil Government is throwing all that stability away by inviting sections of our people to bear wholly disproportionate sacrifices for a purely economic theory which has no intrinsic value except as a means of achieving the balance of payments that we all desire, and putting the whole programme we had in mind in jeopardy. I am afraid of the consequences of that. Let us be clear on this. On the heads of Fianna Fáil be it. I do not think the people knew what Fianna Fáil intended to do. I think Fianna Fáil is entitled to say, "You told them and they did not believe you." I agree that is true —I admit that. I do not think they wanted to believe it. I do not think they could persuade themselves that any Party professing to be a national Party in this country could do to our people what Fianna Fáil are doing in this Budget. They were wrong. Their most treasured right in the sphere of politics is their right to do wrong in politics, but it is a right which could be purchased at a terrible price if our people elected to exercise it.
I think in this Budget they are only paying the first small instalment in the debt they contracted by electing Fianna Fáil with a clear majority in this Parliament. They have got the majority; they have got the assurance that no attempt by anybody to set that authority aside, except by the will of this Oireachtas, will receive support from any responsible Deputy. I think they are using their authority like madmen and I deplore the catastrophe it will bring upon our people.
I wonder where the boys found the neck. There is no doubt but that they have neck. On the last three attempts they made to get a loan, they were refused. That was the total of their credit. Last night, I heard a lot about the wisdom of the prize bonds scheme. The total amount of credit that Deputy J. A. Costello, Deputy Sweetman, Deputy Mulcahy, Deputy Dillon and the whole bunch of them together could get from the Irish people on the prize bonds was £200,000; but, as soon as they were going, the people came in and subscribed up to £5,000,000. There is their total credit for you. If the people of this country knew what those creatures had done, they would take them out and hang them and, in my opinion, hanging would be too good for them——
Would you be the hangman?
I would not mind the hanging, so long as they did not cut our throats——
There is "Jamesie" again.
The Deputy may not refer to a member of the House in that manner.
Deputy James Dillon. When that crowd were leaving office in 1952 I asked the then Minister for Finance a question. I asked him if he would state the total amount payable and paid in interest and sinking funds in the financial years 1947-48 and 1952-53. The answer was that there was payable in 1947-48 for interest £3,095,000 a year and for sinking fund £1,128,000. On the day of the election there was payable for interest £7,300,000 and for sinking fund £2,725,000, a total of £10,080,000 a year or over £6,000,000 a year of an increased dead-weight debt to be paid by the people of this country because the boys were in office for three years.
To-day I asked a question of the Minister for Finance because I was curious about the present position. Here is the answer: payable for interest, £10,188,964 and for sinking fund, £5,219,529, a total of £15,408,493. It was £4,000,000 for interest and sinking fund on the day the Irish people had the misfortune to throw that mixum-gatherum gang into office. They have to pay now for their foolishness a sum of £15,000,000 a year, a dead-weight debt that must be paid before there is a penny for anything else. Eleven million pounds a year those heroes have cost this nation, to be found by taxation out of the poor man's pint and the poor man's bread and butter.
Those are the facts. Will any Deputy over there contradict them? Only one of them. I noticed that Deputy M. J. O'Higgins, during his speech last night, showed great fondness for quotations. But he stopped at March, 1956. Apparently there was a blank in the ammunition bag between March, 1956 and March, 1957. I have no delusions whatever. I told the people no lies. I told the people that the only reason that gang were going was because they could not get, beg borrow or steal, one bob more to keep them there. That was proved by the way the prize bonds were received. People in this country would not subscribe to them, would not give them a bob for anything.
Look at the tale they are leaving after them. I will give it as closely as I can. I should like to quote from the Official Report of May 7th last. During his statement on that day, the Minister for Local Government said:—
"There was, however, another factor contributing to the decline in activity as shown in the figures for 1st April last and that was the hold up, for financial reasons, of the commencement of new works between last summer and the spring of this year. That has had the effect, not so much of considerably reducing the number of dwellings completed in 1956-57, as of diminishing those in progress and those ready to be undertaken now. This in turn will probably have the effect of reducing the number of dwellings which we may expect to have completed in the present financial year."
Later the Minister said:—
"Since assuming office, I have recommended the issue of £1,340,000 to liquidate the obligations of local authorities outside the Cities of Dublin and Cork, to banks, to contractors and to persons awaiting payment of approved grants and advances for private housing."
And those gentlemen informed us yesterday that they left a clean sheet behind them. That is only one of the little tales they left after them. We know what happened as a result: private individuals owed money to the contractors who built the houses, the contractors owed it to the builders providers, the builders providers owed to the banks, and no credit was available. That was the mess those bucks left after them. There was in addition to that, a sum of £2,000,000 due on sanitary services.
Later in his speech on the Estimate, the Minister for Local Government said:—
"The outstanding liabilities of the Road Fund at 31st March, 1957, in respect of road maintenance and improvement grants and other liabilities, amounted to £4,212,000."
Be adding them up, boys, if you want to know why we had to withdraw the subsidies from bread and butter. These are all part of the little tale left behind. The Minister later said:—
"Payments in respect of the existing liabilities of the Road Fund to road authorities will be the first charge. These amount to approximately £2,600,000."
Of course the local authorities had to go in and borrow in the ratepayers' names and pay 5½ per cent. interest for the money. This is only some of the tale left behind; I am dealing with only one Department. The Minister's predecessor walked out of office leaving over £6,000,000 due to contractors, to private individuals and to local authorities. It is no wonder the incoming Minister did not know where he stood until the bills came in.
I have another little docket here. I heard Deputy Dillon speak about wheat. I wonder is this little docket, dated October 5th, 1956, yet paid: "Negotiations are at present on the point of completion for the purchase by the Éire Government of 100,000 tons of Canadian wheat"—on three months' tick.
Where does that quotation come from?
That was from the Corn Exchange News of the 4th October, 1956.
That is the chaff.
Well, it has won a general election and two bye-elections. I should like to hear the Minister for Finance, when he is concluding, say whether the £3,500,000 has yet been paid to the Canadian Government for that wheat.
I do not know.
I suggest the Minister should find out. He might have to put another penny on the pint for it.
Jaffa oranges.
It should be the Minister's business to find out.
I could not pay it.
That was three months' "tick", to bring over the Canadian wheat. The Deputy over there looks pretty well for a hungry fellow.
I got it in time—which you did not.
Those are the bills which the Minister has to pay. It is no wonder he said he would wait a while until they were all in. Has he found out that one and, if he has not, I might suggest a few more to him. I might suggest he inquire of the Indian Bank how much is due for the tea which was ordered there last October. I am creditably informed that there is £2,000,000 due to the Indian Bank for tea. I want to know if that has been paid. Those are the items which go to make up the reason why we have to come in here to clean up the mess and put extra taxation on the unfortunate people of this country. It is just as well to be clear about it. I hope there is somebody taking all that down, who can add them up in a minute.
He never knew it until the Deputy told him.
Deputy O'Sullivan was very anxious about some things. I shall deal with him in due course. I have a few nice gems here for him. Speaking of wheat, I notice in the Budget Report the Minister says there is a certain quantity of wheat left over. If those are the circumstances, I wonder why those boys over there went over and purchased 40,000 tons of soft wheat—that is, the kind of wheat which is grown here, not Manitoba stuff at all—and brought it into this country at a cost of £1,300,000 within the past three months. This is where the surplus soft wheat came from. That is the reply I got here in this House three weeks ago from the Minister for Industry and Commerce, when I asked what quantity of soft wheat was brought into this country. I was told that 40,005 tons of soft wheat were brought in, at a cost of £1,300,000. That is the wheat of which that caricature of a Minister for Agriculture we had some time ago told use we were growing too much. Now, as the result of that, I wonder how much of that soft wheat, of the 40,000 tons those gentlemen brought in, is turned over for animal feeding.
You will get your share of it, so.
Now, I will say nothing to Deputy Giles, the unfortunate man.
It would be hard to come back on that one.
I have a kind of sympathy for him; he sits up there and lets an odd grouse out of him and that is all.
When it comes, it is good.
However, that is one other question we should like to have answered—instead of this pretence that the Irish wheat was not good enough.
Do not forget the offals.
I will not—nor anything else. I said here on three occasions——
You got your answer, from the acting Minister for Agriculture.
——that the former Minister for Agriculture sat down there, whilst the poor emaciated gentleman who sits here in this corner now looking as if he were going to die of starvation the following morning, came along and extracted from the pig feeders of this country £1,091,000 in two years and four months to pay the flour subsidy.
Deputy Aiken said he was right.
Order! Deputy Corry.
I say that there is no Minister for Agriculture worth his salt who would allow any Minister for Industry and Commerce get away with it and, if our Minister for Industry and Commerce tries it, I do not believe he will get away with it. That is plain enough, now.
We have an acting Minister now.
That is the position as regards that matter.
The Deputy would be all right if he were able to take his place. He is greatly disappointed that they did not take him and had to go outside the House for a man.
I have given here, as briefly as I can, some of the reasons why there is that burden on the ordinary people of this country to-day. There they are, item by item, all lined up; and I challenge any Deputy over there, either in the Front Bench or in the tail end of them, to deny that their Minister for Local Government walked out leaving £6,000,000 after him in unpaid bills; that there is £3,500,000 due to the Canadians for the bread which has been eaten here from November up; that there is £2,000,000 due to the Indian bank for tea.
The Deputy has already adverted to those matters.
I am hoping, Sir, that they are taking it all down.
The Deputy overestimates himself.
On top of that, there is a dead weight debt which must be found by whatever Government sits on those benches. For the next 30 years they must extract from the Irish people £15,000,000 a year to pay for two interParty sprees.
There were a few more questions I asked recently and I got some further information. The information is that there is still an increasing Civil Service. I saw in the Budget statement that the Minister for Finance has allowed £250,000 for reductions. I would like to remind him that the cost of the service has gone up from £10,000,000 to £17,000,000 in just six years. I would further suggest to him that that is something which the people cannot afford. We know how all this came about.
During the emergency a large number of temporary officials had to be brought in here because of the rationing of bread, butter, and so on. Subsequently, the inter-Party Government with one sweep of the pen, made them all permanent, whether they were wanted or not. Their jobs had gone as a result of the end of rationing, but they were kept on. In addition to that, the doors of the Civil Service were still kept wide open. You still had full-belt recruiting, with the result that if an unfortunate member of a local authority writes up to a Department requesting sanction for the building of a labourer's cottage, by the time it has passed through the hands of the last official, there will be a new Government in office.
I suggest to the Minister for Finance that it is his duty, first, to stop recruiting to the Civil Service for five years and, secondly, to appoint some three members of this House to investigate the conditions and the position in the Civil Service. I am saying that with the full knowledge that there are at least 50 per cent. more civil servants in every office in Dublin than are required.
Unfortunately, the example shown here is being followed by the faithful copyists, the county managers down the country. I gave an instance here, when I spoke on the Local Government Estimate, of four officials going out to examine the site for one labourer's cottage. When such a request for sanction for a labourer's cottage goes up to the Department, there are 14 officials there to pass it from one to the other, each one holding it for a fortnight until the next cottage comes along for fear that he will have nothing to do.
Did you not bring an official up from Cork to-day?
That is my business and the business of the Cork County Council, and the Deputy should be very thankful. I suggest to the Minister that, instead of a saving of £250,000 this year, there should be a saving of well over £1,500,000 on the Civil Service, and that it is his duty to achieve that saving.
The last matter I want to deal with is the Minister's allusion to a famous team who were brought together, known as the Capital Investment Advisory Committee. I heard Deputy O'Sullivan last week making inquiries from the Minister in this connection and demanding to know——
I said no such thing. I was talking about the Savings Committee. Can the Deputy not differentiate?
They are the same team.
They are not.
I wonder how thankful Deputy O'Sullivan's constituents would be to him if some of the recommendations that were brought in by these gentlemen were carried out. The Minister for Finance in his Budget statement said that owing to the position of affairs this year he did not intend to do this at the moment. I want to quote now from page 7 of the Report of the Capital Investment Advisory Committee.
"Grants to local authorities in relief of rates on agricultural land should be discontinued. These grants which in the present financial year are estimated to amount to £6,000,000 are not economically justifiable as at present applied since they are made available indiscriminately and not directly related to increased production."
The same report winds up by suggesting that some of that amount should be given to the farmers in the shape of vouchers for lime and fertilisers. This agricultural grant is payable, first, on the first £20 of the farmer's valuation and, secondly, is allocated strictly from that on in relation to the labour employed on the man's land. In the first instance, I do not think it wise of a Government to bring in advisers on matters of that description who have a definite financial interest in the findings.
On a point of order. This is a definite allegation against people outside this House, that they brought in recommendations as a body set up by the previous Government, and that they were influenced in their findings by personal financial interests.
If Deputy Corry has made such a charge he should withdraw it.
Deputy Corry did not allude to personal financial interests.
We heard it not two minutes ago.
The Deputy is a dope.
Is the Deputy right in using that expression?
I withdraw it. When I read this document, I put down a question to the Minister for Agriculture asking what was the position of the lime subsidy fund. I was informed that the lime subsidy fund was going out at something like £800,000 a year to two firms. There is not sufficient money left in the funds to continue the subsidy for the next seven months. There is £500,000 left. Now that that is gone, the agricultural grant which the farmers are getting is to be taken from them. A sum of £570,000 per year has been drawn as lime subsidy by C.I.E. and £100,000 as lime subsidy by the Irish Sugar Company, and both of those firms still have money to draw.
Who took off the supplementary allowance on the over £20 valuations?
We will bring in a Supplementary Estimate to cover what you owed, or at least what your Government left after you. The Minister for Finance assured me that he did not know if the £3,000,000 due for the wheat was paid or not. This is what I want to emphasise, that definite advice was tendered by a body set up by the previous Government that the agricultural grant be taken from the farmers and, they be given back in its place, vouchers for lime and fertilisers. I have been accustomed all my life to calling a spade a spade. Since I read that report I took immediate action to find out what was left in the funds. I wanted to know the reason why there was a recommendation to take the agricultural grant away from the farmers and give them vouchers instead. I was not long finding out.
I can assure the Minister that as far as that report is concerned it will be seen to that the agricultural grants are not taken from the Irish farmers. The gentlemen who signed their names to that document did not even know what the Irish farmer is paying. They were of the opinion that the Irish farmer was paying less rates now than in 1948. The rates actually paid by the Irish farmer since 1948 have increased by 110 per cent. and that information was given by an arbitration board on 6th January of this year. I have examined that increase myself and 67 per cent. of the 110 per cent. was due to the direct action and legislation of this Dáil. Now there is an extra £5,000,000 to £6,000,000 a year to be taken from the farmer if the agricultural grant is removed on the advice of a body set up by, I presume, the former Minister for Agriculture, Minister for Finance, and Minister for Industry and Commerce.
We have heard a lot over the past few days about the increases this Budget will place on the rates. Can the ratepayers afford to pay an addition £5,000,000 to £6,000,000, if this report is acted upon? I am not going to go into the details of it. I hope we will get an opportunity in the near future to do that and I am determined to give an opportunity to the Deputies in this House to discuss it. The democratic institutions of this State are on trial. The public proved that they had not enough confidence in the team across there. They proved conclusively they were not going to stand for broken promises.
I remember the guarantees that were given. The subject of guarantees was questioned here last night by Deputy Norton and I was very glad to hear our Minister for Industry and Commerce stand over them. I want to suggest now that there was another guarantee given very definitely in this House and given by, I think, something like 68 Deputies, including the present Minister for Finance and the present Minister for Industry and Commerce who walked into the Lobby in support of that guarantee. That was a guarantee that the Irish pig producer would no longer be taxed on his wheat offals. That is a guarantee which should be honoured now when we are dealing with production. I gave in this House details of the disgraceful bargain that was made between Deputy Norton and Deputy Dillon.
This would be a matter for discussion on the Estimate for the Department of Agriculture rather than on the Budget.
No, Sir. This is the time to deal with it, remembering that this brought an income in to the relief of the Budget of £1,091,000 in 28 months. That was the amount levied on the pig feeders. The result of that levy was a reduction of 20 per cent. in our pig population in 1955 followed by a reduction the next year of 58,000 more. The State gained some £600,000—£600,000 extracted from the pig feeders. But the State lost, and the country lost, some £3,000,000 worth of bacon which would have been available for export if that penal tax had never been levied.
We are now setting our faces towards increasing production here. Let us start by taking off this penal tax off the raw material of the pig producers. Consider the outrageous camouflage under which the gentlemen in the last Government operated. They imported a couple of thousand tons of foreign offals at a cost of £25 10s. per ton. The Minister for Agriculture, Deputy Dillon, reduced the price of wheat by 2/6 per barrel thereby increasing the price of home-produced offals which had been officially depressed by him. If the value of wheat offals was £20 a ton whilst the late Deputy Walsh was Minister for Agriculture, and it never went above that £20 a ton whilst he was Minister for Agriculture——
The Deputy should have stepped into his boots.
——what should have been the price of wheat offals when the price of wheat was reduced by £5 per ton? I suggest that the price should have been somewhere around 18/6 instead of £20. That was increased deliberately by bringing in a couple of thousand tons of foreign offals in order to give the Minister for Industry and Commerce an opportunity of increasing the price to £25 10s. per ton.
I suggest the time has now come to remedy the position. If we intend to increase production we must start by removing the handicaps on the producer. I hear a good deal of advice here: "Oh, give the farmers credit. Give them a loan." Farmers want no loans. What the farmers want is the price of their produce and the penal tax taken off their backs. I was very disappointed in the reply I got here from the Acting-Minister for Agriculture in relation to the price of wheat for this year. As I stated earlier, democracy is on trial. That team over there was tried and found wanting, with 50 broken promises. That is all the more reason why the present Government should endeavour to honour their engagements.
Deputy Dillon boasted to-day that he got 350,000 tons, I think it was, of wheat into the mills this year. That 350,000 tons of wheat carried in every bag a tax on the producer of that wheat to the tune of £1,780,000. That is what the farmer was taxed for growing wheat. I was very disappointed to find that that tax will not be removed for this year. Thousands of farmers, when they found that gang was on the run, started ploughing and growing wheat. The extra acres are in and the wheat is growing. They did that in the knowledge that, with their help, the country would get rid of Dillonitis. They got rid of that all right.
I suggest the Minister should review the position now. If we are to go ahead with increased production, let us go ahead knowing exactly where we stand. The cost of production has gone up for every tillage farmer by something like £11 per acre in the past four years. In the last 12 months the cost of producing an acre of beet went up by some 84/– or 7/– per ton. That, thank God, is the one guide we have as to how the cost of production affects the farmers. The farmers can see that industrial firms can go to the Prices Advisory Body and get an increase there. They can see every industrial firm increasing their costs in the same manner. It is not my intention to hold up the House. We will have plenty of opportunities of dealing with these and other matters on the Estimates. I think I have covered the matters I wanted to deal with in particular.
The position is very serious. It is a position where the people have to find in taxation an extra £11,000,000 a year for the service of the public debt. That is practically £500,000 per county or nearly £1,000,000 in respect of the County Cork which has to be found by taxation each year. I do not believe the people will ever again be as idiotic as they showed themselves to be in these two elections. I do not believe they will ever again take the chance of piling on the load on their backs. I think they would be very foolish if they did.
It is now, after 19 years, the country has to pay for it.
I have been 30 years here and I hope to be here 30 more. I have seen sweeping changes in personnel on the opposite side. The situation is too serious. I gave reasons why this Budget had to be imposed and why this extra taxation had to be found. An extra £6,000,000 has to be found to pay the debts left by the Minister for Local Government. I have not got a list—I hope we will get one in the course of the Estimates—of the debts left by the Minister for Health. I am sure they will make interesting reading as will the debts left by every other Minister who deals with local authorities. I could keep the House engaged not only to-day but to-morrow, were I to read the sheaf of documents I have here containing an account of what is due to the local authorities. Were I to read out the letters I received from unfortunate contractors in Cork who built houses——
The Deputy is travelling a bit from the Budget.
No, Sir; I am dealing, with all respect, with the manner in which the debt was piled up which made this Budget essential.
That is not how I understand the Deputy's statement. However——
I will tell——
The Deputy is travelling into the realms of administration. I would advise him not to pursue that line.
It is not irrelevant to state how the £1,300,000 that has to be found in this Budget was left due to the banks, the contractors and the local authorities.
The Deputy is speaking on administration. I have advised him not to pursue that line.
I accept your ruling, absolutely, Sir. The Minister for Finance is the man who must find the money and I hope he has found it. I want to warn the House again that unless there is an absolute change, the next Budget brought in here or into future Dála will be tougher. The service of the public debt in 1948 was £4,224,000; it jumped up to £10,080,000 in 1952; in 1954-55 it was £11,000,000; in 1955-56 it was £13,000,000; and in 1956-57 it is £15,500,000. I hope that shows accurately the Rake's Progress.
The only reason it is not £30,000,000 is that no one would lend the previous Government any money. If they could get a "bob" anywhere, they would be sitting over here yet. Even in regard to the prize bonds, about which all the noise was made yesterday and the day before, the total amount subscribed on the day that Deputy John A. Costello, then Taoiseach, stated he was throwing in the sponge, was £200,000. That was the credit they were prepared to give him. Then there was a change of Government and £5,000,000 were subscribed. Is that not a fair example of the credit they hold in the country?
It came out of the socks.
It should be a very good example. I do not wish to delay the House. I have given the facts.
First, let me state that I regard the total abolition of the food subsidies as immoral and unjustifiable, particularly by virtue of the state of unemployment in this country. I listened with attention to speakers on both sides of the House. I recall Deputy Costello stating that he did not know what he would have done in this connection, if returned to power, notwithstanding the fact that a commission was set up under his Administration and, I understand, recommended the abolition of the subsidies. The Tánaiste states that the Minister must have a balanced Budget and that it is necessary for stable Government. One can balance figures, but can one balance figures, on the one hand, and humans, on the other?
Deputy Norton in his post-Budget speech was very anxious to know what the Taoiseach intended to do in this regard. I did not hear deputy Norton in his pre-election speech state what he would do or what his Party would do in this same connection.
The Labour Party said what they would do. They would not abolish the subsidies.
Deputy Blowick made reference to the increase on the bag of flour, but only in a very slight way to the increase in the price of the loaf. I understand that the Minister for Industry and Commerce is considering the reintroduction of the transatlantic air service. I have aways held that the inter-Party Government were wrong in abandoning that project. However, I feel that its promotion could be deferred at present and that the £X that would thus be saved might be added to the sum that goes towards this less than 2d. relief to those unfortunates of the lower income group.
I am new to this House and for that reason I will be brief. In conclusion, may I bring in a matter which is relevant and appeal to Deputy J. Murphy, for the sake of his wife and children, to abandon the hunger strike he has undertaken. May I ask him, through the Chair and through this House, for the sake of his wife and children and particularly for the sake of his colleagues, to abandon this project now? Deputy Murphy may consider me presumptuous in making this appeal but, as one who has had experience of a similar occurrence 35 years ago which was an abject failure, I urge him to abandon the hunger strike, as Deputy Kyne did, and reserve his strength to join me and others in our protest against the total abolition of the food subsidies.
Deputy Corry told us he knows the reason for this Budget. We know the reason very well for this Budget. The reason for a Budget such as this is that Deputy Corry and 76 other Deputies are sitting behind the Minister for Finance. This is the first instalment of the strong Government of which we have heard so much since the Fianna Fáil Party were returned to office with an overall majority.
There might be a case for a gradual desubsidisation of flour, bread and butter, but there is no excuse for the taking, at one fell swoop, of £9,000,000 out of the pockets of the wage-earners of this country. There is no excuse for the manner in which it was taken and for the effects that will flow from it. Every man and woman who helped to put these 77 Deputies back behind the Minister for Finance about two months ago will recall that they did not put them back on terms that the subsidy would be removed from bread and butter.
I would point out that no member sitting on the Government Benches, not even the Minister for Finance himself, gave any inkling to the Irish people, when seeking their votes, that if returned to office they would take the drastic steps which have been taken in this Budget. I guarantee to the Minister for Finance and to Deputy Corry, who knows the real reason why this Budget was introduced, that if the Irish people had had the slightest inkling of what was in the mind of the Taoiseach and those members sitting on the Government Front Bench, they would again have sought the protection they got from the inter-Party Government and we should not now have this experiment of a strong Government foisted on us.
I believe the Minister was completely thoughtless as to the results which would flow from the removal of the subsidy on bread and butter. Certainly he did not consider the men and women who have to bring up families on very tight budgets. Let me remind the House of the man who was encouraged by the Minister and his predecessors to invest in purchasing a house, who is now paying the mortgage weekly and who, as a result, is trying to live on a very tight budget indeed. The Minister did not consider the average wage-earner to whom an extra expenditure of 10/– per week is indeed a very great tribute to have to pay to the mistake the electorate made when they returned Fianna Fáil to Government.
I have already said that while there may be a case for a gradual desubsidisation, there is no case whatever for the raid to the extent of £9,000,000 perpetrated by the Minister on the pockets of the Irish people. That is especially so when one remembers that the Minister did not make even a token raid on the profits of those who engage in luxuries or pastimes such as soccer, rugby, G.A.A., racing, dancing, and so on. The Minister sought no source whatsoever other than the pocket of the husband, the father of a family, or of the wage-earner.
I have been told that the imposition of an extra 6d. a gallon on petrol will cause grave disorder to small businesses. I was talking to a small builder in Cork to-day. He said that whilst the larger builders may continue to prosper under the new dispensation, the extra 6d. a gallon on petrol will put many small builders and businessmen out of commission. When the Minister for Finance was dealing with this question of the increase in the price of petrol the first point that sprang to the mind of every member on this side of the House and probably, indeed, to the mind of every member on the Government side of the House was whether or not it would mean increased bus fares. All that the Minister could say to us was that the increase in petrol prices would leave bus fares almost entirely unaffected. I do not know what that statement means. Does the Minister mean that they will be affected or that they will not be affected? I take it, from what he has said, that he does not mean that they will be unaffected. If they are affected at all, then I would point out that I have never known a bus fare to be increased by less than a halfpenny in respect of the shortest stage available on a bus. Consider what that will mean to a man whose wife has to go to town to shop every day, who himself has to go to business by bus every day and who may have to send three or four children by bus to school every day.
The Minister should not trifle with the House. He should tell us definitely either that bus fares will not be affected or that they will be affected, so that the people of the country may know the full depths of their woe at this stage, rather than have to wait and hear it by degrees. The House deserves to be given that information and the people deserve to be given that information. They should be told whether, on top of the increased bread and butter prices, they will now have to pay more every time they get into a bus. If bus fares are still further increased then, in addition to paying tribute to their mistake at the last general election every time they butter a slice of bread, they will have to pay tribute every time they step on a bus to go to work or for any other lawful reason which any member of a household may have for boarding a bus.
The Minister for Industry and Commerce explained that point.
I was not here when he did so, but I must say I am glad he has explained it. The Minister for Finance should have explained it himself rather than have left it to the Minister for Industry and Commerce to do so, if he has done so. Here is another point which I hope the Minister for Industry and Commerce has explained, too, because I imagine he is in a better position to explain it than anybody else. A present of £230,000—roughly, a quarter of a million pounds—has been made to the bakers of this country on the recommendation of the flour and bread committee. I do not know whether or not that payment was justified. I am not making any allegations against the present Government on that ground. I do not know whether it is justified or not, but I say that every man or woman capable of reading the Minister's Budget statement feels exactly the same—they doubt if this £250,000 should be made available to the bakers. I think it would be in the Minister's interest and certainly in the interest of the science of Government if the £ s d of that payment of £250,000 of Irish taxpayers' money were made abundantly clear to the Irish people before the payment was made. I hope the Tánaiste has explained it, and if he has not, I hope the Tánaiste or the Minister will do so. It is something that requires explanation; it is not sufficient to come to the House and say that the Flour and Bread Committees recommended that it should be paid.
As we are on that subject, it is known to us in my constituency—and I think it is known in many other constituencies—that within the last year a large combine, a cartel in this country, bought up a large number of small bakeries. It is to the small bakeries, to the people who sold out to that large combine that the money is due, if it is to be paid at all, if it is lawfully due, in fact. If the Government sees fit to pay it, to whom will that money be paid? Will it be paid to the owners of the small bakeries who sold to the large cartels not knowing that the recommendations of the Flour and Bread Committee were to be implemented? Or will it be paid to the large cartel? That is a matter upon which the Irish people deserve to be informed by the Minister for Industry and Commerce or any other Minister who sees fit to explain the situation.
I have no intention of keeping the House much longer but I want to ask every Deputy in the House who listened to Deputy Corry here, to expunge every word Deputy Corry uttered from his memory because every syllable uttered by Deputy Corry plumbed the depths of his own insincerity. Deputy Corry comes in here and assails his own Minister. He says the Minister should save £1,500,000 on the Civil Service, that he should give better wheat prices and that he should remove the tax on wheat offals. Deputy Corry has persisted in that clap-trap since the first day he came into this House and not only in the House but outside it as well.
He is not here now.
If Deputy Corry wants to walk out of the House it is his own responsibility, but if the Deputy likes to call him in here I shall wait and say it all when he comes in. If Deputy Corry wants to be sincere in his efforts on behalf of his constituents, and if he wants the Minister to listen to him, there is one way in which he can do it and that is to walk up those steps——
Do not point.
I shall point if I wish. When he walks up those steps there is one way in which he can show he is sincere in what he says. There is no good in going back and telling his constituents: "I abused the Minister today," when he can enforce his views on the Minister who sits there supported by his vote. I would ask him if he is really sincere to take the steps that will show his sincerity.
There is one section of Deputy Corry's speech with which I would like to identify myself. He told us that the next Budget would be tougher than this. It is a pity he did not say that before last March. I doubt very much if he or any other Deputy sitting behind the Government would be sitting on that side of the House to-night if he had said it. The eventual test of what the Budget meant was here last Wednesday night when, looking across at those Deputies sitting behind the Front Benches one found every Fianna Fáil Deputy with a face on him like a cat whose kittens had just been drowned, horror and disgust written on every face, aghast, just as every man and woman who read about the Budget that night was aghast. That is the test of the impact of the Fianna Fáil Budget, not alone on the people, but on those who are keeping the Fianna Fáil Government in power.
You were all in good humour, were you not?
The Budget was absolutely unjustified. The Government had no mandate to impose it. Again I should like to say, like Deputy Corry, that I believe the next Budget will be a tougher one because we have at the moment what the Fianna Fáil Party calls "strong Government".
Deputy Barrett seems to have forgotten that we were left with an unbalanced Budget, an unbalanced statement of receipts and expenditure——
Nonsense!
——to the tune of £8,000,000, and we had to have recourse to taxation and removal of the subsidies in order to balance the Budget. We have further found that all the promises made by the previous Government to reduce expenditure on Government services, all the promises made by Deputy McGilligan in 1954 when he said that the cost of Government could well be reduced by £20,000,000—all those promises were not fulfilled. We found that the previous Government had placed the country in a position whereby they were unable to face the present economic facts of which most of us are aware.
I want to get away from the issues in this discussion which relate to taxation and to the severe character of the Budget so that we can face realities and face the future of the country with full knowledge of the work to be done. I think we should make it clear that the position which we inherited was far from satisfactory. We found that, whereas in nearly every other country in northern Europe, exports were increasing, exports here were some 6 per cent. below the best figures of two or three years before. We found an excessive import excess; we found we were importing too many goods and that only by the most severe curtailment of imports has the position been rectified for the moment. We found the net external assets of the banks which had been utilised for capital expenditure, were down by one-third from their previous high level. We found agricultural production had become static and that industrial production was 1 per cent. above the 1954 figure.
We found that the finances of the State had been regulated in such a way that the amount of money immediately available for capital development was closely restricted through increases in the Exchequer bills, increases in ways and means advances. We found, far from what the former Taoiseach said, that there was a burden of debt left upon us to face and to handle. We have done our best to balance the Budget and to make it clear to the people of the country that we must have our accounts well balanced. We must show that this country is going to pay its way, but of very much more importance than that is the fact that we are now starting a new era in the history of this country. There have been continuous economic changes in the last four or five years which compel us to reexamine every aspect of Government policy in so far as they affect the national life.
I think the Government should keep a House to listen to the Minister.
Notice taken that 20 Deputies were not present; House counted and 20 Deputies being present,
The position that we find in this country and with which we have to deal is not the question of whether we should have removed the subsidies on bread and butter, but the fact that we are gradually approaching as near as possible to British standards of wages and salaries, British standards of consumption. We aspire to these standards and we have still exactly 55 per cent. of the British trade per head in this country. That is the fundamental problem we face and there is no other problem of really serious import for the people to examine.
The causes are manifold. Some of them relate to the encouragement to the spending of our savings by the Coalition Government during the last ten years. Some of the causes relate to our proximity to England. Some of the causes relate to the tremendous demands for labour in Great Britain, but the facts are there, that we have 55 per cent. of the trade per head of English people and that we are naturally beginning to aspire to British standards in the whole of our life.
Naturally, everybody wants to aspire to higher standards of living. The position is now being reached that we have got to increase our trade or we cannot justify the maintenance of even the existing standards, still less the improvement of standards that might otherwise eventuate.
For ten years we have failed to emphasise the need for greater production. We have failed to emphasise the need for preparing for competition in our agricultural trade. We have failed to emphasise the need for developing industrial exports, for gearing ourselves to greater production, for overcoming all the deficiencies we have in regard to raw materials, in regard to minerals, by making greater and greater efforts to improve our export trade. For ten years we have spent more on social capital works of a kind that do not bring about an increase of production than any Northern European country, although our productive resources are still very much under-developed.
For ten years we have spent more on building than devastated countries in Northern Europe as a percentage of our total capital investment. In the last ten years only 10 per cent. of our total capital from private and public sources has been directed to the development of agriculture. Just 10 per cent. of the whole of our capital development has been directed towards the improvement of our farming methods and to preparing us to face competition in regard to the export of every single commodity.
How much did Fianna Fáil spend?
We spent over £1,000 million altogether in the last ten years, and of that £1,000 million about £28,000,000 of capital have been advanced by the State towards the agricultural industry.
These are the facts we have got to face. We have been indulging in a process of alignment with British standards of living and the process has gone on in a number of different ways. Huge numbers of people have left the land, leaving a higher income for those who remain behind. The character of our land tenure has radically changed within the last ten or 15 years. We now know that there are some 52,000 sons and daughters left to inherit the farms of under 30 acres which now belong to 108,000 farmers, indicating a process of consolidation, a process of growth in the size of farms which will accelerate rapidly in the next 20 years, again indicating a very natural aspiration to a higher standard of living, but all affecting the future policy of the State.
We find from reports prepared by the Department of Statistics that, because of lack of capital, lack of cooperative effort and distance from markets, practically the whole of the increase of production in agriculture, the small increase that has taken place since 1938, has been in the provinces of Munster and Leinster and has been largely on farms of 100 acres and over. We find that, although the smaller farmers continue to produce much more per acre than the larger farmers, the distance between them is being gradually reduced and that most of the advantages that have been made available to farmers since 1938 or since the end of the war have accrued to larger farmers in the eastern parts of the country who have been able to benefit by such products as wheat and beet and who have access to capital, greater access to technical knowledge, closer access to markets. We have that problem to face.
We find that, in industry, wage and salary levels in a great many industries approximate to those in great Britain, if overtime is not counted as a factor, and that in comparison with the larger British factories, the better organised factories, those that have greater facilities for sale and for export, output here is two-thirds of the British.
Various side effects are inevitable as a result of the natural aspiration of the people to come as close as possible to English standards of living. For one thing, the demand for labour in Great Britain induces emigration and naturally diminishes pressure upon increased capital investment because emigration offers an immediately easier course. Another result is that there has been a decrease in the demand for some of our industrial products owing to the reduction in population. There has been the continual process of adjustment that has been taking place along those lines ever since the end of the war. One notices them in many fields. For example, agricultural wages have gone up continuously, and rightly, but the number of agricultural workers employed has decreased, not only here but in other countries.
There is only one solution to this problem and that is greater investment, preparation to face intensive competition, agricultural production based on high quality goods bought on merit by countries abroad and other agricultural produce of medium quality bought on a strictly price-competition basis. We all of us know that. We all of us know that the problem lies there ahead for us to solve and that it can be solved as long as we make up our minds that there is no short-circuit to prosperity, that that is the only way we can bring it about, by greater investment and greater production.
When the decision is made in regard to the free trade area, whatever the decision may be, we are going to face still more intensive competition on foreign markets. We will find that we will have to integrate and improve the marketing of our produce on a scale never before envisaged. Quicker turnover of cattle will be essential. The quality of our meat will have to improve. We shall have to engage in the production of far more agricultural specialities. Such surplus production of milk as we have will have to be processed to a far greater degree.
In regard to industry, at the present level of salaries and wages and in relation to the present output, the home market has become far too small. We shall have to look for exports on a scale never before envisaged when the policy of protection was first instituted. We hear a great deal in this House about subsidies on bread and butter. It is time we heard far more about increases in productivity. It is time we heard far more about encouraging our industrialists in regard to making use of time and motion study courses. It is time we heard more about productive inducements to raise workers' wages so that they can pay for the bread and butter. If we had Deputies arguing about the best methods of increasing production we would be advanced far more in our prosperity.
We hear Deputy Norton telling us about the feelings of the workers towards the reduction in the subsidies. We have not heard Deputy Norton talking about the productivity councils in Great Britain, Holland and Denmark where workers and employers get together and where the workers themselves demand time and motion studies and examination of their industries in order that they can compete abroad in exports; in order that they can produce more and sell more exports and in order that they can go to their employers and say, without any regard to the cost of living or to butter and bread subsidies, "We can demand a higher wage because we know production is going up in our factory as a result of improvements in methods."
If we had more discussion about such things in this House we would be further along the road to prosperity. It would be better if we had Deputies asking in how many industries were these developments taking place. It would be better if we had Deputies asking where such examinations were taking place and where further educational facilities were required and whether employers and workers needed further encouragement by the State to get together and solve this problem. If that was the case we would have advanced more than we have advanced in the last ten years.
We could have Deputies citing the case of one very well-known factory not far from here, in County Kildare, which doubled its production with the consent of the workers and where the workers, through their trade union, were anxious that the result of the doubled production should not militate against them. They feared that they might become redundant but within two years the factory was producing £150,000 worth of export goods, the number of workers had increased and wages went up as a result. If we had had more talk of this kind in the last ten years we would be further on the road to prosperity and it would be a substitute for discussions on bread and butter subsidies. It would be a grand thing if we could hear proposals for combined exports by groups of industries; if we could hear a discussion on whether the Government is doing enough to encourage export by a combination of industrial groups coming together and forming their own individual export corporations, which would make it easier for small individual units in widely scattered areas. That is the sort of discussion we require. It would be better if we had discussion on what we mean when we say we must invest foreign capital. We should have an economic policy so that there would be some permanent encouragement for a certain type of investor to put his money into this country. It would be better if we had a permanent accepted economic policy to encourage our investors and to encourage those who at present prefer to invest abroad.
We have got to get rid of a great lot of sentimental thought about our national life. If we had more talk in this House on the basis that the best definition of "national" is now the will to outsell our competitors, this would be some contribution to the problems of the present day. We have got to get away from the belief that spending money with the object merely of providing immediate and direct employment is by itself automatically a solution of our national problems. We may find ourselves compelled to invest money in projects where there is no immediate yield in direct employment but where the result of the investment will in a few years' time provide far more employment than any money spent on something which could immediately yield employment.
I had occasion to examine, in a very superficial and preliminary way, the work done by the Department of Fisheries. A great deal of the work has been splendid. The production of fish has, undoubtedly, increased. The catching of fish and the processing of it have advanced considerably in the last ten years, but because we have failed to face the realities of our position as a near neighbour of Great Britain, and aspiring, as all of us naturally do, to getting as near as possible to the sterling standard of living, never in the last ten years, by any Government, has the true commercial value of our fishing potential been examined with a ruthless realism designed to produce greater exports at all costs. I find that there are no memoranda and no proposals of that kind in the Department of Fisheries. It is for the very human reason that there is always the desire to please this individual or that individual, to please fishermen in this port or that port. There is always the desire that the money spent will yield immediate results in the terms of employment or production.
I suppose that as good an illustration as any that I can give of the position of this State can be summed up from this one simple fact. We are the only maritime nation in Europe without a proper fisheries school and without exploratory vessels which would enable us to find the fish, to locate the large shoals and to encourage more high grade commercial fishing. That can be given as an example of the kind of job that has got to be done by this Government—hard, scientific endeavour and thinking, greater capital investment, and longterm thinking with a view to greater commercial production. It is not going to be an easy job and the money for it will not be found easily but it is that approach to our life that is going to enable us to pay for our bread and butter subsidies. That approach to our future will make this Budget appear comparatively light in the years to come and possibly bring relief in taxation in its wake. It is that approach to every national aspect of our life that will produce results. It is absolutely useless to consider that any kind of temporary measure or wishful thinking is going to get us out of our difficulties. The future lies in better markets, more scientific production, greater technical instruction and the use of the brains that exist in all parts of this country and the fostering of our courage and ambition towards making this State a high grade commercial proposition in ever facet of its existence.
Let us take another illustration, a comparatively ordinary product, the pig. Britain imports £80,000,000 worth of pig products each year of which we supply just over £2,000,000—after 30 years of independence and the ideal opportunities made available to us after the end of the war. We in this country did nothing much about it, and the reason was that the formulation of our policy towards an integrated, modern pig export organisation is difficult. It involves dozens of changes in methods and attitudes by thousands of people; it requires capital with absolutely no immediate increase in employment to begin with; it requires changes in methods by bacon curers, it requires big changes in the entire structure of our pig collection organisation, big changes in pig breeding, a tremendous amount of persuasion for every farmer who produces pigs, the maintenance of sufficient financial guarantees not only to maintain supplies of pigs to Great Britain on a continuing basis but also a price maintenance guaranteed and standardisation of the export marketing organisation in Great Britain to sell Irish bacon—all involving a multitude of changes difficult to bring about, bringing no political popularity.
Why did we not do it? We did not do it for a number of reasons. We did not do it because we were able to spend £200,000,000 of war savings since the war. If those had not been there to spend, there would have been greater pressure exercised on us to get those jobs done, to get them done well and done quickly. We did not do it because the atmosphere was, generally speaking, that cattle prices were rising, more people were going off the land leaving greater incomes to those left on the land, and there was not the sense of absolute urgency about facing competition on a heavy and mountainous scale as occurred in greater measure after the period of food scarcity in Great Britain ended.
Every effort was, consequently, not devoted to that stage of our history when we must face heavy competition. It takes some time for the people of the country to assimilate facts about our economic position, one of which is the expenditure of our war time savings; and the spending of these savings, at the same time, has been the equivalent of the expenditure of £64 by every household in this country since 1947. Money has circulated among us, money which we spent, which meant a postponement of the dire necessity for getting on with productive enterprise, gearing farmers for higher production.
As I have said, those are the facts we have got to face and the sooner we face them the better. I am not suggesting we can achieve the intensive high grade form of production that is to be found in certain other countries, but if we could advance a little bit further in the intensive production direction, with the soil and climate available to us and the natural initiative the people have, we should be able to succeed. It should not be impossible to increase production sufficiently in the next ten years to enable us to forget the unpleasantness of this Budget.
The difficulties we have were expressed by Miss Margaret Rutherford very well in the Olympia Theatre on Monday night when she described this country and, in parenthesis, said "if a little inconsequential". The little inconsequential factor has been to our country's disadvantage.
She is a powerful authority on agriculture.
She put is as well as it could be put.
The Minister goes to the queerest sources for his information.
In regard to the fundamental problem, we must realise that we are living in a modern world, in the sterling area, and if we wish to have large scale investment in this country, however much we may disagree in the political field and in this House, I hope it will be accepted that we need to have a diamond hard, crystal-clear attitude on our economic policy. We must have balanced budgets; we must have in evidence continual saving, uninterrupted by flights of fancy; and we must cease spending those savings on non-essential items. We must have a general atmosphere in the country that money invested must be dedicated to increasing production. We must accept the fact that the best way to bring up production is not to engage in excessive social capital expenditure but to concentrate upon exports. We hope that the trade unions who protect the interests of the workers, who protect them against increases in the cost of living, will themselves accept the idea that productivity is the only solution to our difficulties and that ultimately the worker must benefit by higher production.
We have faced the end of the era in which our accumulated savings during two world wars made the economic problems more easy to solve. It is now an entirely different proposition. If we are to produce more, if we are to invest in new industries and better agricultural practices, we must realise that the world of 1957 is a very different one from that of 1947. It is very different, even quite apart from the differences we have had on either side of the House. For the sake of argument, even eliminating all these differences and assuming that we in this House were always united, that we never had any elections fought on the cost of living issue, on the prices of bread, butter and cigarettes, if we had carried on in the same way as other countries did, where there were no serious differences of policy, there would still have been an enormously different world to face now. If we all consider the need for greater production and for modernising our techniques, we will get somewhere, but if we continue to talk on the less important facets of our national life we will not progress and we can then anticipate only further integration with Great Britain.
We all hope to preserve our distinctive pattern of life. We will not, unless we can build our production per head to a greater level so that we can afford the standards of living which have been impossible up to this. The whole existence of Irish nationality as a separate force in the life of our people depends on our building up that productive strength. Without it we might as well consider ourselves a province of Great Britain such as Scotland. Those are the issues. Let us face them manfully. Let us have more talk in this House on the occasion of this Budget about real productive essentials than about how we are going to get over the difficulty of the subsidies on butter and bread.
I think all of us will agree that the Minister for Lands usually makes a pretty intelligent speech but he is rather naive in assuming we are not going to talk about the Budget proposals. He has suggested to us on two or three occasions that we should talk about methods for increased production and other such things. This is the General Resolution on the Budget and, despite what he says, I, for one, intend to talk on the proposals before us.
I regard the very good speech the Minister for Lands made as a criticism of the Fianna Fáil Party and even as a criticism of the present Ministers within that Party. I am sure even Fianna Fáil members do not assume that all the difficulties which beset us now arose during the last three years. It is not just an empty phrase to say that Fianna Fáil were the Government of this country for something like 20 years. Surely they must take the larger share of responsibility and blame for the difficulties and ills which the Minister for Lands so eloquently described? All of us must admit—and Fianna Fáil themselves admit—that the year 1956 was a very difficult year.
I think it is true to say that, in our difficulties as a Government, we did not receive the co-operation from the then Opposition which the Government now expect from the present Opposition Parties. We had various serious difficulties. The Suez situation was extremely difficult and lost the Government quite an amount of revenue. That was not of our making; neither was the fact that cattle exports declined and prices fell. These developments represented a loss in revenue for the last Government.
There was a serious situation so far as employment was concerned. I do not deny that and, as a member of the last Government, I am prepared to take my share of responsibility for it. However, there were many reasons for that unusual unemployment. One thing which intrigued me about Deputy Lemass's plan for full employment yesterday was that he said the reason Fianna Fáil had to bring in such a hard Budget was that they did not know the financial state of the country. Yet in his inimitably brazen fashion he attempts to set down a plan for full employment and gives the people to understand that he did know at that time the complete economic position of the country.
The one thing that struck me in his plan for full employment was that it threatened the workers of this country. He said they would either have to contribute 5 per cent of their savings voluntarily or it would be taken from them. In my wisdom, I told the people of my constituency—and I think my colleague, Deputy Seán Browne, heard me—that that meant either of two things: a reduction in their wages by 5 per cent. or a decrease in food subsidies, so that their consumption of food would be cut by 5 per cent. That is exactly what has happened in this Budget——
That was not in his full employment proposals.
It was, as I read it.
It was in his proposals for recovery. There are two different documents.
It does not matter about the name of the document. It is a proposal to decrease consumption by 5 per cent. He did not make any mention at all of the method he intended to employ to carry out his proposals for full employment. Neither do we see, either in his speech or that of Dr. Ryan, any hope that there will be an easement of the unemployment problem at present. There is no reduction in the unemployment figures compared with the same period last year. I do not expect miracles from the Fianna Fáil Party, sincere as they may be. However, they have been in there for two months now and still they have not "got cracking". The only contribution we have seen is a niggardly one— £250,000 for the relief of unemployment through relief schemes. Is there any more money for housing in Dublin and Cork? Is there any increase in the money provided for housing to any local authority in this country? There is not one penny more.
I fail to see what plans there are in this Budget or what hope there is for increase in employment. There are vague references to other plans that will be introduced. Deputy Lemass mentioned them yesterday but did not go into them in any great detail. I know that Deputy Childers is very anxious for us not to talk about bread, butter, sugar, cigarettes, stout and so on. He always seems to be planning for the future. It is grand to plan for the future. Possibly that is something Fianna Fáil should have done ten or 15 years ago. Fianna Fáil always seem to thrive on crises. They are usually artificial crises——
Created by the Coalition.
If there had not been an inter-Party Government, there would not have been a squeak out of Fianna Fáil. For the next 20 years or 20 months, whichever it may be, they will come along with the old parrot cry: "We are paying your debts." They cannot mention any debts. There was no complaint this time last year when our Budget was being framed. They did not challenge revenue or expenditure and that was the time they should have done so. They did not say that we were anticipating that we would get more than we really got or that we were expending more or less——
Was there not a deficit of £6,000,000?
There was and I can explain that. Suez was responsible for that to the extent of £1,000,000 and no titter from the back benches of the Opposition can controvert that fact. The fact that cattle prices went down was also a contributory factor and we had no control over that. We also had to impose levies which in some cases meant a loss of revenue. The import levies were the best thing ever done for the Government now in office. They corrected our balance of trade in 12 months—a shorter time than even we anticipated.
And created 80,000 unemployed.
I am taking my responsibility for that. I do not gloss over the fact that there were 96,000 unemployed. The fact Deputy Childers wants to hide is that this Budget has imposed an increase of 3½d. on the loaf. Can we believe any statement that comes from the front bench of that Party when I mention what Deputy de Valera said in Belmullet, that the food subsidies would remain and that Deputy Lemass said many times that the food subsidies must remain? I think Deputy O'Carroll, an Independent Deputy here, made the challenge that the Labour Party had said nothing about food subsidies before the election. We did say it. I said it in a wireless broadcast. I said that, as far as the Labour Party were concerned, the food subsidies would have to stay. It was embodied in the election address of every single member of the Labour Party who was a candidate at the last election, that under no circumstances would we have allowed these food subsidies to go.
Deputy Norton knew all about the report of the Advisory Committee.
I read it and said it was "poppycock".
Was that why he made the prophecy that the food subsidies would be abolished?
He said that as far as the Labour Party were concerned they would not go. In any case, let me repeat the litany of increases. Butter is increased by 5d., sugar is increased by ½d. per lb.
Sugar by 2d. and butter by 7d.
Wait now; I am referring to the withdrawal of the subsidies. Stout is increased by ½d., petrol by 6d., and, the meanest of all, the health services by up to 4/– per day. The 3½d. on bread is not the whole story. As every Deputy knows, the withdrawal of the food subsidies also means decontrol. It means, as is now happening, that 4d. extra is being charged for the 2 lb. loaf. It means that bread can skyrocket to any price and it seems that Deputy Lemass and Deputy Dr. Ryan, the two Ministers, have no concern about it.
One thing that struck me about the Budget speech by the Minister for Finance was that there was no talk about prices at all. There was no mention of any intention by the Government to attempt to control prices. Now the sky is the limit as far as all commodities are concerned. There were plenty of admonitions to the workers not to look for increases in wages, but none to those who manufacture and none to those who sell. They can charge what they like. Not once did I see any reference to a determination by the Government to stabilise prices. The alleged justification, of course, is the Majority Report of the Capital Investment Advisory Committee. They recommended that it should be done. If that was the case, why then did the Minister for Finance not implement the proposal in respect of the agricultural grant? Because it would have been too difficult, in my opinion, because it would have lost them too much support. But the easiest thing to do and the laziest thing for the Fianna Fáil Government, was to grab the £9,000,000 off the food subsidies.
If the inter-Party Government had been still in power this year, we would have had a very difficult task but, believe it or not, I give this guarantee —we would have explored every single possible method before attempting to impose any burden on the ordinary people by asking them to pay any more for food. That was proved in the last two Budgets which Deputy Sweetman introduced. He used ingenious methods —methods which could not be questioned and were not questioned—in those two Budgets.
And which worked out at a deficit of £6,000,000.
For which you had the revenue.
I should like to give Deputies some little idea as to what this increase in bread prices means. Of course, according to Fianna Fáil, all these increases can, to certain classes, be offset by paying the shilling. It reminds me of the Saxon shilling.
What about the smaller loaf?
The shilling is to pay for all these things. I am glad to see Deputy Beegan is here. I quote no member of the last Government but I quote Deputy Beegan, to show what this burden will mean for the average family of five. He used this example last year. Talking about the criticism there was of the last Budget Deputy MacEntee introduced, when he reduced the 2 lb. loaf by ½d. per lb., he tried to prove that this ½d. was better than a reduction of 5d. a lb. in the price of butter. He said, as reported at column 425 of the Official Debates, Volume 157, on the 15th May, 1956:
"Take the 2-lb. loaf of bread. Each member of the same family, if physically fit, and if depending on bread as many people in the cities have to, would consume a 2-lb. loaf in the day. That would mean a saving of 2½d. per day. Multiply that by seven and you get 1/5½d. if my calculation is correct."
It was correct. He continued:
"That means that the much despised halfpenny reduction on the price of the loaf was of much greater advantage to that family than was the reduction in the price of butter. Most of these families exist solely on bread because they cannot have potatoes or vegetables."
That referred to the 1/2d. increase. That would mean a burden of 1/5½d. per week on a family of five. The increase of 4d. will mean an additional burden of 11/8. I ask Deputy Beegan is that correct? I assume, if he remains silent, that it must be correct.
Last year was not this year, of course.
The Government expressed great concern about the bakers and were so much concerned they decided to pay them £230,000 on the pretext that it had been promised by Deputy Norton. The Minister for Industry and Commerce, Deputy Lemass, yesterday tried to justify that, but he failed miserably. There was no commitment. There was nothing in writing in the Department and no evidence which could be brought forward by any official of the Department of Industry and Commerce, to substantiate that allegation by Deputy Lemass, that the £230,000 was promised. If it was in the report of the Flour and Bread Commission, it was rejected by the Minister for Industry and Commerce at that time and by the Government then—because we did not believe we should make a present of £250,000 to people many of whom were making substantial profits.
This decontrol of bread prices, whilst it is a serious burden to place on the ordinary people, means something else as far as the small bakeries are concerned. In my opinion, it means the virtual destruction of every single small bakery in the country. Does every Deputy not know what is happening at the present time? You have the big bakeries from the City of Dublin and other centres peddling their bread 100 and 150 miles away, selling their surplus. Possibly they will reduce the price of bread temporarily.
That is a useful admission—when you say they will reduce it temporarily.
Until they can squeeze the small bakeries out of existence. Then they will come back, shove up the price and the sky is the limit, because they have the monopoly. I am certain that the fate of the small bakeries is that they will be completely wiped out in a relatively short space of time.
The rise in the shares of the bigger ones would indicate that.
Even the Irish Press admits that the withdrawal of the 5d. subsidy per lb. on butter is not the whole story. Butter according to the Irish Press, was selling in Dublin two days ago at, I think, 4/4 per lb. The sky is the limit as far as butter is concerned.
There does not seem to be much concern on the part of certain Fianna Fáil Deputies—probably there is in their hearts, but not in their speeches —and certainly not on the part of Deputy Childers, the Minister for Lands.
And the small creamery will be squeezed out, like the small bakery.
According to the present Minister for Agriculture yesterday, it seems that a further burden is to be put on the consumer, in certain costs which were previously paid by the Department of Agriculture, or were a charge on the Exchequer.
The 4/4 contains that.
The 4/4 may contain that, but as far as the price of butter is concerned the sky is the limit, because there is no control, and no attempt at control, by either the Department of Industry and Commerce or the Department of Agriculture.
Sevenpence is about the limit.
Of course, the ½d. in the lb. of sugar slipped through in the week or two before the Budget. The people's eyes were on the Budget and the ½d. a lb. slipped through. Let it be known that the last Minister for Industry and Commerce refused an increase of ½d. on sugar. The Deputies of the Fianna Fáil Party seem to have a harder neck than I would have, in going back to my constituency and defending some of the things which were done in this Budget.
Cigarettes have been increased by twopence. We increased cigarettes last year by, I think fivepence; and we had a shocking outcry from the members of the Fianna Fáil Party. Of course, in a very good speech, to some extent, by Deputy Booth here last week, he was appalled that the members of the Opposition did not offer suggestions. Some member of the previous Government had the temerity to ask Deputy Lemass, last year, what he would do and in a very enraged manner he said it was the duty of the Opposition to criticise and he was not going to attempt to provide a solution for the Government then sitting there. He said it was pure impudence for any member of the Government then to ask for suggestions from members of the Opposition, that the Opposition were watchdogs and it was their job to criticise, to tell the people what was happening, but not to make any suggestions.
People might say the increase of 2d. in the packet of 20 cigarettes is a very small increase, but listen to what Deputy Briscoe said about the increase last year.
He will smoke only cigars now.
The workers and their trade unions have been told they should use restraint now. Do not rock the boat. We should all be prepared to co-operate. Another round of wage increases might upset the boat entirely. The price of cigarettes was increased last year and Deputy Briscoe, who is a very shrewd businessman and who purports to be a very good friend of the workers, said this at column 293, Volume 157 of the Official Debates of 9th May, 1956:—
"Might it not be that we will be faced with another demand? Are we sure that, as a result of this new form of taxation, employers in the industrial and agricultural fields will not be faced with increased demands from their workers in order to meet, in the case of a person who smokes one packet of cigarettes a day, the extra 5d. a day for seven days of the week? I do not say that such a person would have any claims on the grounds of the petrol increase, but he would have on the grounds of the increase in tobacco and cigarettes."
How can he reconcile that attitude with the attitude displayed by the Minister for Finance and the Minister for Industry and Commerce? That was surely a direct invitation to the workers this time last year to make their demand for a sixth round of wage increases.
Deputy Norton said that one of our main aims during the past three years was to stabilise prices in order to stabilise wages, and I think we succeeded in doing that pretty well. Deputy Killilea is hah-hah-hah-ing but he has not the foggiest idea what he is hah-hah-hah-ing about, because wages were stable and prices were stable without either the implementation or threat of a wages standstill Order. It was done voluntarily because the workers appreciated that there was a genuine effort to keep prices stable. I do not say nothing went up in price in the past three years, but, in accordance with our stated promises, the prices of essential foodstuffs did remain stable over the past three years.
Unemployment rose.
We were told last year the price of petrol had reached saturation point and still the easy method is employed—6d. on the gallon of petrol. That also will have its effect on prices. It is not for me to go into the details. Every single Deputy knows how, where and when it will be passed on.
Then we had the 20 per cent. increase in motor car insurance, another thing that had slipped quietly through when people were thinking for two or three weeks about the Budget. Might I say again for the benefit of Fianna Fáil Deputies that that increase was refused by the previous Minister for Industry and Commerce? Personally, I did not see any justification for it and I am sure he did not see any justification for it, but for some peculiar reason—maybe somebody else has a better guess than I have—the present Minister for Industry and Commerce allowed it.
The increase of a penny per pint in the price of stout is again not the whole story. There are two Budgets this year. There is the Budget that is announced by the Government and there is the Budget that is announced by those who control prices. The price of the bottle of stout has not gone up by the halfpenny proposed in the Budget—it has gone up by a penny. Again, surely the Minister for Industry and Commerce should not have done what his predecessor refused to do, decontrol the price of stout, of ale and of porter in a majority of the districts in the country, but the Minister for Industry and Commerce said the sky should be the limit as far as stout, ale and the pint are concerned.
As I said before, the meanest of them all was the increase in health charges—and this from the Party who took full credit for the implementation of the Health Act. The main portion of that job was carried out by the former Minister for Health, Deputy O'Higgins. I do not say the legislation was introduced and passed by the last Government, but he had the sticky job—and it was a sticky job—of trying to implement the major portion of the Health Act of 1953.
Whilst I do not want to go into the merits or demerits of the Health Act, I do not think it has been everything we expected and I will not say everything Fianna Fáil pretended it to be, because I thought the Health Act of 1953 was going to confer a certain amount of benefit on the people in the middle and lower income groups. There are many people now, who, prior to the implementation of the Health Act, were receiving certain services who are now not receiving them, and there are tens of thousands of people who find themselves much worse off than they were before this Act was implemented. People from the middle income group who thought they would get some benefit from it now find that, if they go into hospital, they will be required to pay an additional 4/– per day. Somebody may say the charge may be anything from nothing up to 6/– per day, but, in practice, and contrary to what the Minister for Health said yesterday, in the majority of the local authorities—in mine certainly—the charge is 6/– per day. There is no 5/–, 4/–, 3/–, 2/– or 1/– per day. It is always 6/– per day, as far as I am aware.
The person who has to survive on disability benefit of £3 1s. for himself, his wife and three children and who is refused the medical service card is now required to pay £3 10s. per week in hospital and is charged for the X-ray service as well—possibly not the total amount but some contribution towards it—and also has to make a contribution towards specialist services. These things were not divulged by the Fianna Fáil candidates at the election. They said they were going to get cracking, that people were going to be put back to work. If they had not been returned to office, at least things would not be worse than they were. Food subsidies would not have been withdrawn. The health services position would be better, but now it will be infinitely worse for people depending on these health services.
Some other Deputy mentioned the burden on the local authorities. They will have to pay more for bread, butter and sugar. They will be affected by the increase in petrol. They will also have to pay more for their stout and cigarettes for patients in some of their institutions. This will mean an increase in the rates, something which Deputy Corry and many members of the Fianna Fáil Party have so violently attacked to-day in their speeches.
Then we are all supposed to make sacrifices and to swallow this Budget. The only reason we are asked to do that is that Fianna Fáil have a majority, with 78 Deputies behind them, and as far as loyalty is concerned, there is no Party more loyal than the Fianna Fáil Party. They can be kicked in the stomach and belted in the head and as soon as somebody says: "The chief says you must do it," it is done. Have they any regard for the people who will be affected by this Budget, and do they seriously think that there will not be a wage demand from the workers in all our trade unions?
Who is doing the inciting now?
I am doing it as Deputy Briscoe tried to do it last year because cigarettes went up. I am not doing it as Deputy Briscoe tried to do it last year because cigarettes went up. Could Deputy Haughey tell me who are supposed to make the sacrifices in this Budget?
All of us.
Is it the people who are now allowed to take in television sets tax free? Is it the people who are allowed to bring in the £1,200 motor cars tax free?
That gives employment. Ask the workers in these television factories what they think of it.
Deputy Childers said our standard of living is too high, that we were trying to attain the same standard of living as the British and that we had no right to television sets. He said that no less than 20 minutes ago.
That is right.
I believe it is the ordinary people in the middle income and lower income groups who are expected to make the sacrifices. It is true that some compensation is offered in social assistance, but was there ever a smaller increase given in social assistance?
Who implemented the first Act that gave social assistance?
Fianna Fáil. Now, is the Deputy satisfied? It was because the Labour Party forced them into it.
We had a majority without the Labour Party.
These people are going to get a maximum increase of 1/– per week.
Fine Gael gave them nothing.
Deputy Corish must be allowed to make his speech.
That 1/– maximum increase is the smallest ever given in this country. Does the Minister for Finance expect the old age pensioners, the widows and orphans, in receipt of contributory pensions and the unemployed to make sacrifices equal to those of people who are better off? I know there is a school of thought in this country, led by the Taoiseach, who believe we are spending too much on social welfare. I am not one of those who believe that. It is a popular thing to say now.
They had no widows' and orphans' pensions before Fianna Fáil gave them.
The Deputy can come back to-morrow and make a speech. It was announced last year in the Budget that a certain sum was to be made available for increases to those in the social insurance group, those in receipt of national health insurance, those on the stamps and those in receipt of widows' and orphans' pensions. The increase that was given was 25 per cent. Since the rate was first announced in March, 1950, the cost of living had gone up by 23 per cent. and we compensated them to the extent of 25 per cent. and that is as it should be. The first speaker on that occasion was the present Minister for Finance and he said he welcomed the proposal; the only criticism he had to make was that it was not enough. The man with a wife and two children getting £2 10s. a week up to last September got an increase of 11/–, at a time when there was no such thing as an increase of four points in the cost-of-living index. Deputy Ryan said it was not enough and Deputy Gogan wept salt tears for those in the national health group, the widows and orphans and those drawing unemployment benefit. He said it was mean of the Government and of the Minister for Social Welfare to give such a skimpy increase as 11/–.
What do they get now? They get an increase of 1/– a week and 4/6 for the second child in children's allowances. On the basis of the figures I have given for the increase in the price of bread to a normal family of five, how far is this 1/– increase for the man on the dole, and the 1/1½ per week in respect of the child drawing children's allowances, going to meet the increases caused by this Budget? I do not care what anybody says, we have a duty at this stage towards old age pensioners and especially towards those in receipt of unemployment assistance, and to widows and orphans drawing noncontributory pensions. There is a school of thought fast growing in this country which thinks we should not increase our social welfare allowances any more. I say that in respect of these people we should give something that will enable them to live at least in meagre comfort.
In respect of the insurance groups many people are under the impression that all this is paid by the State, forgetting that the principle is accepted in this country by all Parties that there are three contributors to it, the worker, the employer and the State. If there are increases such as last September's, the workers and the employers are willing to pay their portion of the increase and the State to contribute its third. In respect of those people who are not insured I believe, and I have often said it, that we should have a special section of the Budget whereby a tax would be allocated and raised for these people so that it would be known that the tax on every cigarette smoked and on every bottle of stout drunk, would go to the old age pensioners and the widows and orphans.
Are the workers expected to stay quiet? Are they expected to believe that every section of the community is to bear the same burden? I do not believe the Minister when he says that other sections of the community, better able to afford it, are contributing their fair share in this Budget. Of course we have exhortations, with which every one of us would agree, to all and sundry in this country, that we should produce more. I agree we should do that. I agree we should have made a better attempt, very many years ago, to produce more and export more but when people talk, and especially politicians and certain other people, about more and more production they infer by that that the worker is not pulling his weight. They would give one to believe that the worker can work a little harder and produce more.
I know workers in foundries in Wexford—Deputy Seán Browne also knows them—and I do not think that anybody in this House would be able to stand the eight and a half hour day that they have to work in the foundries. It is not true, as the Minister for Lands alleges, that the workers are lazy, or reluctant to work, and that the bulk of the unemployed are people who would not work. That may be said of a small section but the vast majority of those unemployed at the present time are anxious to work. They are not content to stay on the dole and unemployment benefit. They want work and above all they want security in their work. They want constant work.
That is what we want to give them.
I would like to ask why cannot we produce more? I have seen many examples of it where workers have worked hard and listened to the call for greater production and produced themselves out of a job. They have done that in Wexford town. They have piled up so much that they could not dispose of, for one reason or another, and they found themselves down at the labour exchange again. They want to have a guarantee that, if they work harder, it will mean a greater return for them and more constant work and greater security.
The emphasis is on greater production from the land. How can we get more out of the land? I am far from being an expert on land or agriculture. I know little or nothing about them, but the one question that comes to my mind is: Can we get more production by putting substantially more money into land and agriculture? Can we get in by increasing the grants? Is that the best method? Is the payment of agricultural grants, to which Deputy Corry referred, the best method of increasing production? I merely pose these questions. I do not know what the best method is.
The previous Government were criticised and abused, and many sarcastic remarks were made about their decision of October, 1956, to set up this advisory committee, or council, between the farmers' organisations and the Government. Fianna Fáil said: "What? Another commission? Another consultative body?" But Deputy Lemass yesterday said, at the tail-end of his speech, that that is exactly what Fianna Fáil are going to do now, that was the first thing they were going to do in order to see how much more could be got out of the land. I think it is a good method. I think the previous Government excelled themselves in consultation with the public and in consultation with the people. We have never said that any other body outside this House should, or could, control the affairs of this State, but we believe in consultation with industrialists, with manufacturers and with the agricultural community, and we believe that such consultation is for the benefit of everybody. It was for that reason that a consultative council, or association, was established by that Government or—might I say? —by the Minister for Agriculture in that Government.
There is one point that has not been mentioned in this debate. Indeed, since I came into this House in 1945 I have never heard a mention of it from anybody on either side of this House. I refer to a "Buy Irish" campaign. We irritate this section of the community and that section of the community by imposing tariffs for the protection of Irish industry. The Minister for Lands talked about incentives. We are all of us patting ourselves on the back and telling one another what great Irishmen we are. It is all very fine to stand up and sing the National Anthem and wave the national flag and proclaim that we were out in 1916, and all that sort of thing, but we can be as good Irishmen as any of the generations that have passed if we make a contribution by buying Irish, thereby helping to ensure that Irish industry will survive.
I remember on one occasion a proposal, which was accepted by the Government, to impose a tariff on agricultural machinery. Agricultural machinery is manufactured in Wexford. Mark you, there was an outcry, despite the fact that the Irish-made article was cheaper, far cheaper than that which was being imported; but the Irish farmer in many districts—not in Deputy Corry's constituency—refused to buy the Irish-made article, preferring to buy the British or foreign article at an increased price. If we can induce the people to "Buy Irish" we will go some way towards solving our unemployment problem.
The people in Kilkenny, for instance, are very conscious of Irish-made shoes. In Wexford, we are very conscious of the importance of Irish farmers buying Irish manufactured agricultural machinery. Possibly the people in Wexford are not much concerned whether they buy Irish or British shoes; possibly the people in Kilkenny are not much concerned whether they buy Irish or British manufactured agricultural machinery. If everyone could be made to realise—trade unions can play a big part in this—that if they buy Irish to the exclusion of the foreign manufactured article, they will be making some contribution towards the solution of the unemployment problem, we would go a long way towards solving that problem.
I cannot see in this Budget what immediate hope there is of creating more employment. There is some money for housing; there is a very small sum for the relief of unemployment by Public Works schemes; but that is not enough. We shall await with interest the plans to which Deputy Lemass referred yesterday. As far as the Labour Party are concerned, we are not opposed to proposals for remedying the situation. We have no prejudice against Fianna Fáil in measures we considered good for the people. Indeed, since 1945, we voted with Fianna Fáil in measures that appeared to us to be beneficial. When measures did not appear to us to be for the good of the people, we voted against them. We did not oppose merely for the sake of opposing. This Budget, however, is something which the people did not believe could really happen. They did not believe that such burdens and such impositions would be cast upon them. It is for that reason that we believe the Budget is not one suited to the times in which we live or to the circumstances of 1957, that we shall, as a Labour Party, vote against it.
During the past year, and particularly during the period leading up to the introduction of the Budget, the previous Government on many occasions pointed out that we were in a difficult period. Repeated statements were made indicating that a number of problems had to be solved and that we could not look forward to an improvement in our circumstances, unless certain steps were taken. The first steps to remedy the problems which existed were taken last year, initially in March and again later in July.
Looking back now on what has happened, we can, as Deputy Costello said, regard with satisfaction the fact that it was possible to remedy a difficult situation. It is true, and we never pretended otherwise, that any steps taken to remedy the difficulties that existed must impose certain disabilities, and possibly hardships, on some sections of the community; but, comparing what was accomplished with the dangers that were averted, and realising the necessity for the measures taken, we can appreciate now that very substantial improvements have shown themselves in the trading position, and the returns for the first three months of this year are confirmation of the wisdom of the policy of the previous Government.
That confirmation is the best justification of the policy that was implemented and demonstrates, in fact, that the programme, which was initiated first in 1948, of expanding agricultural production has not only borne fruit to the benefit of the agricultural community, but has enabled the country to expand its export trade considerably, and has, in fact, provided us with the income wherewith to purchase goods which are not produced here and to provide for the essential imports of capital and other equipment.
Progress reported; Committee to sit again.
The Dáil adjourned at 10.30 p.m. until 10.30 a.m. on Thursday, 16th May, 1957.