At the outset I should like to express my appreciation of the fact that the Taoiseach continued the practice initiated some years ago of making a survey on the Estimate for his Department of the economic and financial position of the country and the relationship between general Government policy and the results achieved. I appreciate his action all the more because I know the difficulty of doing so and also because of the fact that it was, of course, quite impossible for very many reasons to give any clear indication of what general Government policy is or as to what its results may be in the future.
Towards the close of his remarks the Taoiseach made some few observations and to them I hope to devote the greater part of the speech I have to make on this Estimate to-day. The Taoiseach said he hoped that the people would make up their minds to a continued national effort so that we might overcome our present difficulties. He said these difficulties are by no means insuperable and that if we can get our people back to that intense love of country so evident here some years ago it would help us in that national effort.
It is some satisfaction to us to know that the Taoiseach, and his colleagues I presume, realise that there are difficulties, economic and financial, not to speak of political difficulties, confronting this Government as they confronted the last Government, difficulties that will confront any Government faced with the task of carrying on the Government of a nation in the present modern, complex and difficult conditions. We are human enough to remember the kind of propaganda that was carried on by members of the Party now forming the Government. We remember the effects that had, not so much on the political fortunes of the inter-Party Government or the Parties included in that Government, but on the economic and financial fabric of the nation.
It is to be hoped that when this present Government do realise that the difficulties which confront them, and which have been lessened and eased by the work done by the inter-Party Government, are difficulties that would confront any Government they will be generous enough to pay tribute to the work done by their predecessors and they will then have done a good day's work for democracy and for the respect that is due to the democratic institutions of this country.
The Taoiseach made reference, as I have said, to an endeavour, which he hoped would be secured, to get our people back to that intense love of country which was so evident some years ago. I rather thought that that statement of the Taoiseach carried the implication that our people now, and particularly our young people, did not possess that intense love of their country, that outstanding patriotism, for which the Irish nation has been noted throughout the centuries in the same degree as was evident, to use his own expression, in the generations, I suppose, that preceded the establishment of this State.
I think that the present generation of our people have as intense a love for their country and as deep a patriotism as any of the generations of young Irish men and women who worked, suffered and died to secure the freedom of the nation. But the quality of that patriotism is different. Their aims and objectives are, as they ought to be, different from those of their predecessors. I do think that one of the paramount problems facing us here to-day is to ensure that our young people are properly directed and guided and that their intense love of their country is channelled into proper courses to secure the well-being of the nation.
If we have not reached the end of a chapter in Irish history, at least we are nearing the end. You have only to look around you in this House and see that those people who bore the brunt of the effort to create the State, and subsequently to maintain it, are passing on. Those who are in touch with the young people to-day know that there does exist a kind of note of interrogation, nearly a spirit of disillusionment, and the future of this country will be determined by the way in which their efforts will be fashioned and the idealism that is latent in them will be brought into practical effect.
I agree with Deputy Healy that the young people to-day are not confined to any political Party, although I am glad to say that many of the young people are supporting my own Party. But I certainly repudiate the suggestion made by Deputy McQuillan, or implicit in his remarks to-day, that the entire of the patriotic effort of the country, all the idealism and all the patriotism, rests in a handful of people who are bringing national disaster upon the country by the use of arms. We have a duty. We have a heavy task and a heavy responsibility to hand on the torch to the younger people who must sit in the front and back benches of this Assembly in the future. We have had perhaps too much politics, if I may put it that way, in the Dáil and too little outside it. If there is disillusionment among the young people at the present moment, if they are searching for something to which to harness their patriotism and their enthusiastic effort, then the fault lies with us and the responsibility lies with us to ensure that they are given sufficient light and sufficient guidance to bring them away from paths which will lead to national catastrophe and put them to the hard and heavy tasks which true patriotism at the present moment requires.
In this context I shall repeat a phrase that I have used on numerous occasions both in this House and outside it: What the country requires at the present time is not people to die for it but people to live and work for it. There is perhaps greater sacrifice sometimes involved in doing hard work and in making the necessary personal sacrifice to do the task that the national interest requires than there is, as there was in the past, in dying for Ireland. It is our task to bring a realisation of that fact home to our young people, to make them appreciate that they have as high an ideal to aim for as ever our patriotic young people had in the past, in working and living for Ireland.
The Taoiseach last night made a plea for harder work. There is not, I suppose, much drama or glamour in hard work but there are greater results to be got from enthusiastic patriotic endeavour expressed through hard work in various directions and in different strata of society than there are by the efforts of those who cross the Border into the North, injure the national interest here and offend the moral law. We have had unfortunately a spirit of pessimism in the country for some time past.
I wish, so far as I can, to avoid topics of heated controversy and political dissension, but I think it is beyond controversy to say that in their endeavour to secure what they now have secured, namely, Government of this country, the Fianna Fáil Party damaged the economic fabric and the reputation of the country both at home and abroad. Go back to the first period of our inter-Party Government when there were three brass balls, the insignia of the pawnbroker's trade, posted around the city and elsewhere, suggesting to the public that the inter-Party Government had pawned the finances and the resources of the country. We had every effort made during the period of the last inter-Party Government to suggest that there was a crisis and that the country was burst and in bankruptcy. That had such an effect that it did indeed lead Fianna Fáil back to Government, but it also had the deplorable effect of damaging the prestige and the credit of the country both at home and abroad.
This Government has undoubtedly to face many difficulties. I indicated the policy which will be pursued by the Party to which I belong during the period of office of this Government on the occasion of their election. I said that we would regard ourselves as a responsible Opposition, that it would be our task to seek always the national interest, and that we would endeavour to give constructive criticism and help to the present Government, realising always that it was essential to undo the damage that had been done, even though it had brought in its train our own political downfall.
The present Government has difficulties. They are difficulties that any Government would have to face, but they are softened and rendered rather easier by the efforts which were made by the last Government, not caring for their own political future but realising that what had to be done had to be done and that, whatever political unpopularity might ensue, it had to be done in the national interest. It is some gratification to us to know that people are beginning to realise now that what was done at that time was necessarily done and the present Government are reaping the benefit of it.
I think it would be desirable that the young people should realise that every country in the world has its difficulties and that those difficulties, in the complex conditions of the modern world, are changing every day and that, if there be, as I believe there is, a feeling in the country against our democratic institutions because of the fact that we as an inter-Party Government ran into those difficulties and had our setbacks, that there is something wrong with democratic institutions and something wrong with political Parties, it is the task of all Parties in the House and all leaders of opinion to bring a realisation of the facts and the difficulties of Government to the young people, to dissipate their disillusionment and to harness their patriotic endeavour away from the gun and into hard work and the real job that must be done for Ireland.
We had the unfortunate experience which has been referred to by several speakers to-day—Deputy Desmond referred to it—that every little doubt, every little difficulty and every little setback, even minor difficulties and minor setbacks, that confronted the inter-Party Government before the real difficulties that emerged in 1956, were publicised and propagandised by the three newspapers supporting the Fianna Fáil Party and, indeed, suggestions that it was the inefficiency, the incompetence or the incapacity of the inter-Party Government to govern that was responsible for those difficulties. Headlines brought to the public notice every minor problem that arose.
Of course, the only motive was to make political capital out of the then inter-Party Government's difficulties. This was done with complete disregard of the national interest and matters of the gravest danger were treated with the same irresponsibility as minor problems. I think we can promise the present Government that they will not be subjected to the same treatment by us. I endeavoured, so far as I could, inside and outside the Dáil, to bring home to our people the realisation of what had been achieved over the years, in spite of difficulties, since the establishment of this State and to try to dissipate the pessimism which was being engendered to the great detriment of the national interest. What is required now it to replace that pessimism, which, as I say, has been largely engendered for political purposes, by a confidence soberly based on an appreciation of realities.
I want to say a few words more, before I get on to more general topics, on the task that lies before us to lead and guide and stimulate the young people who are coming along and who are suffering from disillusionment. We have had, perhaps, a reaction to the politics of the last two or three decades but, while we find that these young people outside are groping for some enthusiastic headline to which to harness their endeavours, it is desirable that they should be reminded, as the country as a whole should be reminded, of what has been achieved in the last 35 years and what is being achieved at the present time.
There is much quiet work going on outside, work that has certainly given me confidence in the future of the country, work that has given me hope that the young people who are coming along do appreciate what has to be done and are not, as Deputy McQuillan would have the House believe, merely giving this Government or any other democratic Government in this State the last chance and then it will be the gun.
Associations such as Macra na Feirme, the National Farmers' Association, the Country Women's Association, social study groups of various workers, colleges, cultural groups interested in music and drama and the arts —they are all doing quiet, effective, necessary and good national work and contributing at all levels to improve various aspects of Irish life.
One of the matters that frequently depressed me was the official attitude towards cultural organisations and culture generally in the country. Any expenditure on culture is officially regarded as non-essential expenditure. Cultural activity is as useful, indeed, as essential, as economic and financial activity for the well-being of the nation. What we have to engender is the spreading of a true patriotic spirit of endeavour and sacrifice, forgetting the controversies of the past, looking to the future, realising that government of the country can be achieved in this country effectively by democratic institutions and that there will be setbacks and difficulties facing any Government and that because each Government as it came along in this country added a quota to the well-being of the nation and had a record of at least some achievements to its credit, that because each year something was added by some Government to the well-being of the nation, it does not follow that the people have a right to expect that benefits must inevitably accrue from a change of Government.
If we can bring to our young people the realisation that true patriotism now lies in working for Ireland, that democracy has in fact proved itself in this country and been a success, that we have a pretty good reputation abroad, that our name stands high and that it is an enthusiasm that should operate and act within them, then they will have something to rally around, something to dissipate their disillusionment and to encourage them to give effective service to the nation in future.
I should like to deal with some of the remarks that Deputy McQuillan made to-day. I doubt if they are worth giving him the credit of dealing with them or wasting time referring to them. I do want to repudiate the suggestion that those people who are inflicting national injury on the country and moral damage to themselves by the use of force represent the young people of the country. As I said before, I take encouragement from those groups of people whom I have been meeting, who are interested in social affairs, in social studies, who are interested in our international affairs and all those other people, at various levels, who are giving service, unselfish, unpaid service, to the State.
I had the privilege of meeting some young people at an interesting debate recently. It was a great source of satisfaction to me to see these young people, men and women of the younger generation, able to debate amongst themselves upon the question as to whether or not we should join the Atlantic Pact. There is hardly a Deputy in this House who would not be afraid to say what his precise opinion is on that question. That, of course, is pretty irrelevant but it was heartening to see these young people well informed, giving logical reasons for and against, in a debate on a matter of national importance in the affairs of this country, and coming to a conclusion adverse to that which the Government had arrived at before.
Similarly there were other groups of young people whose meetings I have attended, who were showing interest in the science of Government and in the art of administration. If we can direct their efforts into the proper channels, towards the proper objectives, then I think the future of the country is safe.
Deputy McQuillan passed some scathing remarks upon what I said in New York about the function of Ireland as a member of the United Nations— that as far as Partition is concerned we did not intend to be a sore thumb. That was the policy which I intended to carry out if I continued as Taoiseach. It was the policy which I believe was my colleagues' policy and that is the policy of my Party at the present time because it is realistic. It is easy for Deputy McQuillan to get up, to rant and to talk about Partition and ask: "What are you doing about Partition?" Anybody who has experience of attending international conferences, as I have had over the years, will know that the surest way for any nation to make absolutely certain that the point it wants brought home, or the grievance it wants remedied does not get attention, is to become a sore thumb.
I have no hesitation in asserting that if we were to adopt the suggestion made by Deputy McQuillan, not merely to be a sore thumb but to be a pain in the neck, there would be much shrugging of international shoulders and many sneers when we licked our wounds in the face of the public at international conferences, particularly when other nations are suffering far more seriously in their liberty, in their religion and in their lives. I stand over the statement I deliberately made to a meeting of representatives of newspapers attached to the United Nations that it would be the worst of policies for Ireland to be a sore thumb in the United Nations.
I have seen at Geneva when I attended meetings there countries with legitimate grievances being regarded just as nuisances. I have the greatest belief and faith that if we use our membership of the United Nations in the proper way and take the effective steps which we had laid down when we were in office then we have in that way the only hope of securing the end of Partion.
It is futile for anybody in this House, or outside it, to think that the United States will take a hand directly, or as a matter of diplomacy, in the controversy we have with Great Britain in reference to the unjust partition of our country. International affairs are conducted on a basis of stern realism. We, as a Christian country, a full member of the International Society of Nations, have taken our place with considerable pride in the United Nations. We have a duty to fulfil as a member of the U.N.O. As a Christian country, we have ideals which we try to put into practical effect in our day-to-day affairs and in Government. At least we are recognised by the members of the International Society of Nations as a country that has an influence far in excess of that which its size, its stature, or its natural resources would justify. There is no doubt that we are regarded with respect and a considerable degree of admiration by the other nations.
If we continue as we have started, to offer our services as a country interested in bringing into operation in international affairs Christian principles which form the basis of our own lives here in this country, and if we can contribute materially and unselfishly to the many serious problems that confront international organisations and peoples to-day, then we will gain for ourselves and for our country a position of prestige and influence which will enable us quietly, not by virtue of being a sore thumb or a pain in the neck, but because of our moral influence and our effective contributions to the problems inflicting the world at the present moment, to get a degree of sympathy and help from the big nations of the world that will be of material assistance to the problem of ending Partition.
That is my solemn and sincere conviction, that we have a chance in the United Nations, if we take our part and play our part in international affairs, play a full part in international affairs, casting away from us the blight of isolationism that has afflicted us so long. By building up for ourselves that degree of respect and dignity, and by creating through our efforts respect and prestige, the very fact of our influence will, in my very firm conviction, lead to such a position where more effective results towards the ending of Partition will be achieved.
Again I repeat that the surest way to prevent this country from using the organisations of the United Nations in ending Partition is through the licking of our wounds in public, making nuisances of ourselves, talking at every time and hand's turn on Partition. That is the surest way of preventing our having the slightest effect in securing any international support for the ending of Partition. That ought to be brought home to the House and to the people.
I believe, and it has always been my conviction, that this country has a great rôle to play in international affairs. I deplore the criticism that has frequently been made in the House and outside it, that we are spending too much on our Department of External Affairs. It ought to be the policy of the present Government, as it was the policy of the last Government, —both the Governments which I had the privilege to lead—to put an end to our policy of isolationism, to put a finish to that sort of national introspection which spells danger to our people. Otherwise this county will be nothing but a cabbage patch, as George Bernard Shaw referred to it some years ago. We have got opportunities. We have duties as well as rights and our duties, if properly carried out, will enable us to see that our rights are better respected and will produce satisfactory results.
I had the privilege at the time of the establishment of this State to assist in building up the Department of External Affairs. According as I became aware of the working of that Department I had the experience of attending international conferences of one type or another in various countries, and the more I saw that Ireland's interests, not merely from the point of view of prestige but of our material interests, were necessarily involved in playing our full part and taking our proper share in international affairs.
I have heard in this House and outside sneering references to our representatives abroad. It was said sometimes sneeringly that they were engaged in cultural activities, as if that were something to be ashamed of, or that they were doing nothing but attending cocktail parties. I do not regard the work of our Department of External Affairs or the necessity for this country playing its full part in international affairs, as something whereby to get more prestige. Looking at it from the narrow point of view of our material interests, it is absolutely necessary that we should play the fullest part in international affairs and put aside the policy of isolationism.
It is not for nothing that every country in the world has its diplomats spread throughout the world. They do not do that just to enable them to attend cocktail parties. It is not for nothing that the biggest nations in the world spend millions of pounds in endeavouring to promote cultural activities and to have other nations understand their cultural affairs. There is a very material basis at the root of all that. I heard my colleague, Deputy Mulcahy, quoting an Irish proverb on one occasion which I now repeat, the advice of a father to his daughter on getting married: "You can do without your father and you can do without your mother, but you cannot do without your neighbour."
We cannot sit here and devise means by which our export trade can be developed, by which our economy can be strengthened, by which our balance of payments difficulties can be overcome unless we make friends amongst the nations to whom we hope to sell our goods. International trade is a highly competitive business. It is motivated by stark realism and, in my own experience, I have seen that when a country wants a benefit from another country, that benefit will be secured on the basis of a quid pro quo or of some good turn having been done for it at an international conference on some previous occasion. We require therefore, in my view, that the Government should work out in detail a proper foreign policy for the benefit not merely of the prestige of the State but for the benefit of its economic well-being. I should like to commend that policy to those young people who are groping and searching for some light towards which they can make their enthusiastic endeavours. They can work for Ireland through working for other afflicted countries and playing the fullest part in international affairs.
Coming back to our own problems, I would hope that we are coming, if we have not already come, to an end of a chapter in Irish political history when the mistakes which have been made in the past and which have endangered our democratic institutions will be rectified. Let me take an illustration without, I hope, being too controversial. Milk, wheat, Irish industry, health and even religion have been made use of in the past as pawns in the political game. People have been asked to vote for this or that Party and many of them, I am sorry to say, have made up their minds to vote for a particular Party on the basis that they would make more money out of that Party if it formed a Government than they would out of some other Party. There are many people who have this deplorable outlook. They are not interested in politics. There is nothing in it for them, and why should they bother?
It ought to be recognised that there is a duty on every person, and particularly on educated and responsible people in the community, to play their full part in public life, and many of them are not doing that. Many of them shrug their shoulders at politicians. Many people and many newspapers sneer at our politicians and institutions. If we are to have respect for our institutions, if our young people are to be imbued with the enthusiasm which is essential as a motive force for patriotic endeavour in future, the Press, politicians and responsible people in the country must realise that they must safeguard our political institutions and our democratic machinery.
In bringing the remarks I have to make to a conclusion, I shall come down to a slightly lower level, namely, general Government policy. I did some time ago say that one of the best guarded secrets in modern political history was the policy of Fianna Fáil during the last general election. I have endeavoured during the last few months to watch the progress of the Government in their policy to see where it was leading. Pondering on what remarks I should make to-day on general Government policy, I formed the conclusion that, with two exceptions, the general Government policy of this Government has faithfully followed the policy of the inter-Party Government. Those two exceptions are the abolition of the food subsidies and the relaxation of the conditions on hire purchase agreements and some of the levies. On the matter of the subsidies, I do not intend to speak beyond saying that if Fianna Fáil policy during the progress of the general election campaign was a well guarded secret, certainly their intention to abolish the food subsidies was even more closely guarded.
