I remember Deputy Sweetman saying he was irritated by the cryptic introduction which the Minister for Finance gave to his Vote on Account. Having listened to the rambling platitudes of the Minister for Lands, which all adds up to precisely the same effect as the Minister's cryptic, non-committal speech, it would seem to me that the irritation at the address of the Minister for Finance was unmerited. He obviously took the wiser course. He had nothing to say: he said it and sat down.
In discussing this Vote on Account it is quite clear that all it implies to our people, whether they are farmers, in business or people in the social services group, is that the abject failure which it confesses on all these fronts is not the result of what has been called with a certain amount of aptitude, the activities of a Government of the snorers, as related this Baldwin. However, in relation to this Government it is not entirely due to their inactivity, the fact that they have done nothing at all in their year of office, that we are in this very serious near-bankrupt, crumbling and decadent society to-day.
It is quite clear that this position is forced on them as a result of the activities of the old men, the Tories, not on one side but on both sides, over 35 years of an intensive attempt on their part to make doctrinaire conservative social and economic policies work. These old men are passing on to their reward. Unfortunately, it is our generation which has to deal with the realities and the chaos, to which Deputy Costello referred, in which we now live. It would be well if the picture were as simple as all that. It would be a good thing if old and the prematurely aged young men, as I called them earlier, could only accept once and for all that the conservative social and economic policies which they have tried to work over the past 35 years cannot and will not work.
All over the world to-day, you have people who tried to work these conservative economic policies. In America, for example, there are 5.2 million unemployed. The Minister for Lands has referred to a recession. Of course, there is a recession. It could be foretold by anybody with a knowledge of the inevitablity of recession and boom and boom and recession which is invariably associated with the whole capitalist economic system which the Americans believe in and which no doubt they will come to believe in less fervently in time.
It is the same way in West Germany, where between 6 and 7 per cent. of the population are now unemployed, or 1.4 million people. In Belgium, France, and in practically any other country you care to look at, where they have tried to make these policies work, they have failed. I am not an economist; I make no pretence of being an economist; but it comes as no surprise to me to see that we here have failed to make these policies work.
Nobody can be blamed for having failed to do something. It was no doubt done bona fide on both sides of the House in the fervent believe that they were doing the wisest and best thing for our people in trying to create a socially just society and a prosperous economy. That can all be forgiven, but what cannot be forgiven is the fact that we still continue to pursue the identically self-same policies in the hope that, for some unexplained reason, they may prove successful at some unspecified future date. I think the Minister for Lands mentioned a period of 20 years or so on one occasion, but 20 years, plus the other 20 years, is a long period for any political Party to ask in order to put the affairs of a relatively tiny community like ours into order.
It seems we have arrived at a situation somewhat similar to the situation in Russia, but in a different way. In Russia, you are presented apparently with a series of candidates and you can vote for whichever of them you like, but the policy is the same. You get the Communist Party policy, whatever that happens to be at the time. Here, the unfortunate people are presented with exactly the same thing. The people are presented with a series of names and different political Parties, with exactly the same policy and the same point of view. There is no difference between them that anybody can see. The proof of it is that, in a recent by-election, despite all the political Parties, an Independent candidate was returned, not because the people like Independents in particular—they prefer members of political Parties—but because they had become so disgusted and disillusioned with the activities of the political Parties over the years.
Speaking as an Independent, I say that is a very bad thing for democracy, but that is certainly the position in Dublin. People have reached a stage of despair, disillusionment and cynicism as regards the political Parties. This is due entirely to the inactivity of the political Parties and their failure to solve the social and political problems over the past 35 years.
I think the Opposition has a certain grievance inasmuch as they were put out of office on foot of a particular policy. The grievance arises from the fact that there is no substantial change in policy, with certain reservations, since the change of Government. Deputy Sweetman proudly claimed that the inter-Party Government of the time had a clear and unambiguous financial policy and that it concerned itself with maintaining a balance in our external payments. That phrase seems to have become a sacred totem pole among all the political Parties once they cross the floor of this House. That is the important difference.
Before they got into power, the phrase which I heard Deputy Sweetman use as to what he was going to do, was not to preserve the balance of external trade but to lower prices, lower taxes and ensure better times. There is nothing wrong with that. It was a perfectly desirable aim for a politician, if he knew how to carry it out, but he went to the other side of the House and then there was the continual parrot-cry about the maintenance of the balance of external trade. Those on this side of the House, prior to the election, asked us to "get cracking" and exhorted the women to get their husbands back to work. Deputy Costello is right. There was, in my view, a deliberate confusion created generally and certainly in my mind, on the issue of the full employment plan.
It was a sleight-of-hand trick. The people saw it before the election and then it disappeared. I was one of the people who listened to the enunciation of what I thought was in many ways a creative dynamic idea which might have provided us with full employment. Now we have the boasts of all the Ministers in precisely the same way about the balance of payments. There is no more talk about getting the husbands back to work or "getting cracking". As far as I can see, the Government have done nothing since taking office.
I was one of those who were opposed to a policy which created a position in which there were 94,000 people unemployed and 40,000 people had to emigrate. That was an unforgivable position, in my view, for a Government to create. It is all very well for the chartered accountant to fiddle with figures and balance his books, but these are human problems. The man without a job, even if he is only one man, is a person. He is subjected to unnecessary humiliation in a modern society which he should not be subjected to. He should not be subjected to it. The man who has to break up his family, leave them behind and take the emigrant ship is, under the Constitution, guaranteed a job in this country. He is not guaranteed a job in England; he is guaranteed one here. We should so order our social and economic policies that we can honour that guarantee. We fuss enough about the other social guarantees. Why not about that one?
One of the opponents of that particular policy was myself—that policy which I believe failed to create what it should create in a society, namely, prosperity and full employment. It seems to me that Deputy Sweetman confused his position as a Minister for Finance. He seemed to think his primary function was that of a glorified clerk or chartered accountant. He seemed to think that if he could balance his books, then everybody would clap him on the back when he walked in here and say: "What a fine fellow you are." That is not my conception of a Minister for Finance. Sir Stafford Cripps seems to me to set the headline for finance ministers, that is the creation of a planned economy, the expenditure of money over a period of years to create employment for the number of people who require work. That has been done; that has been successful.
For instance, it is interesting to note that the present unemployment figure in New Zealand is 420 persons; it has gone up recently by 100. I have no doubt they will meet it. Where would we be, from the employment point of view, if Britain had not had Sir Stafford Cripps' socialist economic policies, state capital investment, in spite of the damage the Tory Government has done in trying to upset it? If he had not provided full employment in Great Britain, we would not be able to export the 40,000 to 50,000 persons who have left this country each year in the past five or ten years and we would have something like 250,000 persons on the unemployed list—then you would be prepared to change your policies and go outside the system, as the Taoiseach once promised a long time ago, if this system did not work.
I was not the only opponent of that policy. The present Minister for Finance was a very articulate opponent of Deputy Sweetman's policy, the deflationary policy which led to unemployment and emigration. I think Deputy Sweetman has a legitimate grievance, because the Minister has done nothing but continue—and that is my complaint against him, as it was against Deputy Sweetman. My criticism is precisely the same. The Minister for Finance has made no fundamental change in the policy put forward by Deputy Sweetman in his time of office—with the one substantial change, which I will concede to the inter-Party Government, namely, the removal of the food subsidies with the appalling and very serious consequences on those in the lower fixed income section, not the people who have been compensated by increases, but the people who have not been compensated by the 1/- a week increase.
I will make this further concession that, in a multi-Party Government, it is very difficult to get agreement. Its great weakness is that it is government by compromise, which is not always the best solution. The Minister and his Party have no such excuse. It has the strong overwhelming majority with which the people invested it—in my view, deliberately and intelligently invested it, as they thought at the time; no longer, obviously, intelligently. However, to the best of their ability, they said: "Let us give one of them a strong overall majority and see what they can do." They have done nothing in the year in which they have been in office.
The figures here emphasise a very sad feature in the political life of our country in recent years, that is, the marked deterioration in standards from the very high humanitarian and radical political policies of the Fianna Fáil Party from 1932 onwards up until, I think, 1940. I find this curious departure inexplicable because it was on the basis of that well-known and well-demonstrated, in a practical way, interest in the welfare of the masses of the people, of the ordinary worker and the under-dog, that the Fianna Fáil Party retained the support of the mass of the electorate until 1948. It seems to me that the departure from these high standards and practices started from 1948 onwards. It may be that the Taoiseach still bears a resentment against the public decision in that year to relieve him of office for a period and that he is determined, ever since, to do all he can to hurt particularly the under-dog, the lower-income group, the social welfare sections of our society.
Very few people, as far as I can see, are fully aware of that remarkable development which is becoming more obvious as we go along. The last Budget helped to clarify the position, but very few are fully aware of it. In a recent debate, I listened to Deputy Loughman courageously attempt to defend Government policy on the question of increasing payments to social welfare beneficiaries. He said, in effect—and I think he meant it: "We have the greatest sympathy for these people, the old age pensioners, the widows, the orphans and the blind." I think that is the current impression about the Fianna Fáil Party held by the average man in the country and that that is why they have had mass support for so long because it was true—I say it was true—but I do not think it is true any longer.
In my view, the first instance was the removal of the subsidies. That was capable of being explained, but the removal of the subsidies taken in conjunction with the attitude towards the master bakers and flour millers, and taken in conjunction with the remission of taxation for industrialists, shipping interests, and so forth, seems to me to provide one of the first indications.
These figures in this book give another instance, which should demonstrate to the rank and file of Fianna Fáil that the leadership has gone very badly wrong on this great ideal, the ideals of the democratic programme upon which the policy of the Party was based. I say that for this reason. I have been through the Book of Estimates and I have been struck by the facts disclosed by certain increases and certain deductions in the subventions in it. There is a reduction in some items—in the subvention for old age pensions, for unemployment assistance, for school meals; there is a reduction in the subventions for the welfare of the blind, for the supply of fuel to necessitous families and in the provision for secondary education and university scholarships. Those, again, could be understood in certain circumstances if, to counter them, there were not increases in other heads. There is an increase in the case of wireless broadcasting, but I do not mind about that. There is an increase in the case of the National Gallery and Institute for Advanced Studies; an increase for publications in Irish and for the Royal Irish Academy.
Can any sane man defend that, if he has his feet on the ground, if he knows how the average unfortunate man or woman is trying to make ends meet in our society to-day? If he is a worker, he is probably getting by, but take the other people, some of whom I know— the old age pensioner living on something just over £1 a week, the widows and orphans, those trying to bring up three, four or five children. If they only knew that that was the attitude of Fianna Fáil, their new attitude to the preventable and avoidable hardships visited on them during the present months by the Fianna Fáil policy of last year, would they still hold the view they once had every right to hold, that Fianna Fáil was the people's Party, the under-dog's Party?
The man in need, the woman in need and the child in need could depend on that Party once. It is quite clear to me that in their system of priorities Fianna Fáil has changed over. Its priorities now are with the company director, with the banker and the flour miller, with the master baker, the ship owner and the big businessman. Then we have this Advanced Studies, National Gallery and Royal Irish Academy. What a curious predicament for a once great Party, a great humanitarian and radical Party, to find itself in?
I have no specific objection to these people or the grants made to them. My objection is that if money is to be cut, if money is to be saved, it should not be saved at the expense of the unemployment assistance groups, at the expense of school meals, of families needing fuel for their fires or children needing nutrition. It shows the callous indifference of the leadership of the organisation, which has moved far away from its democratic programme, far away from the Proclamation of 1916 and far away from the time when Deputy de Valera, only in 1948, proclaimed it was the Party of James Connolly. He blasphemed when he used that phrase in this present context.
Throughout the year, to grapple with the immense problems which are certainly there—I do not want to under-estimate them—we have had the Agricultural Institute, which was a present from the Americans; we had a Bill for the running of dog racing more efficiently; we have had a tea cartel established and proposals for television. Outside these, has there been one really constructive move, or one move likely to be effective, made by the Government to create work for 80,000 people—in addition to the 57,000 who have had to emigrate?
We have listened to lectures. The Taoiseach has lectured us interminably on subjects such as household budgets and the need for increased production. It is clear that to these matters, at any rate—whatever thought he may have given to matters of the language, and I am sure he has given a lot of thought to them—the Taoiseach has given very little thought. Certainly, his speeches read as if he has given very little deep, considered thought to these things at all. He talks about increased production; he urges our people to increase production before they can get an increase in their standard of living. He says increased production must precede and not follow an increase in the standard of living. That is the battle-cry, that is the panacea for prosperity that he offers our unfortunate people—when what they want are jobs, work for their husbands and food for the children.
But how can these people increase production? How can a person working on a conveyor belt increase production? He is standing on the conveyor belt and must wait until what is coming to him comes to him. He cannot increase production, no matter what he does. The man who is working on piece-rates is already working as hard as he can, for the faster he works the more he is paid. How can the local authority worker increase his production? How can the civil servant or the professional man increase production? How can a skilled craft worker, whose product depends on his taking his time, increase production? How can 85,000 to 90,000 unemployed men increase production in order to merit the better standard of living which the Taoiseach promises them at the end of the road, at the end of the rainbow? That is the position of the industrial worker, leaving aside all the others who are dependent on those people—the widows and orphans and the old age pensioners. How can one ask them to increase production?
Take the farmers. We have heard from farming Deputies here on both sides what happens when they increase production. If they increase the production of wheat, of beet, of barley, of dairy produce, of eggs, pigs, milk or butter, there is either a fixed price, a limited price, a contract price or a reduced price. Is it not time we had an end to this fatuous and inane lecturing by this old man—who, it is true, has done great service for this country? But these times are serious. They need a man or men who know how to grapple with modern contemporary problems.
What was good enough for Sinn Féin is not good enough to-day. What good is there in producing more in a society where we have no export markets, and where the market is already saturated? If you produce more, as the Minister for Lands told us a minute ago, the employer has to knock you off your job. We have no export markets to speak of, except in a very limited range of goods, for reasons I shall deal with later. Produce more and what happens where there are restrictive trade practices? You produce more, increase efficiency and lower costs, but they will not allow the prices to be lowered. Restrictive trade practices, rings and cartels which beriddle the whole of Irish industry will not allow you to pass on your increased efficiency and lower costs to the consumers.
Clearly if there is a panacea for prosperity, there is little merit in that suggestion of the Taoiseach. The other major suggestion made by the Government speakers from time to time— aside from the innumerable platitudes we have listened to—is a strange one for Fianna Fáil and a stranger one still Commerce. We have put all our money on private enterprise. We are going to make it easy for private enterprise to create prosperity. We are going to create the position in which it will be easy for private enterprise to operate so that we shall get full employment. That is a strange policy declaration by the Fianna Fáil Party because, again in its early radical days, it was Fianna Fáil who laid the foundation of the magnificent State enterprises of which all of us are so proud, and so rightly proud to-day, because they have proved so many things.
They have proved that our people are as good as those of any other nation, as highly skilled, as good craftsmen, as fine technicians, as clever administrators as the people of any other society if they are but given the chance to make good. We have Aer Lingus, Irish Shipping, Irish Steel Holdings, Bord na Móna and the E.S.B., every one of which we can be proud. I give Deputy McGilligan full credit for the E.S.B.; the sad part is that he lost courage so early and did not pursue the basic idea inherent in the whole E.S.B. project. I think the major credit can go to the Fianna Fáil Party for having started the general idea that the State is capable of initiating and operating successfully any worthwhile enterprise in any intelligent, responsible well-educated society.
That point has been established beyond question; at any rate it seems to me beyond question. On the other hand, we have private enterprise. It was given its head nearly 25 years ago in order to establish, or create, a state of prosperity. I think we made a number of serious blunders and the effects are showing themselves now. In initiating these enterprises, we did not adhere to the idea that the State could equally start with private, profit-mak-industry just as in the utility, functional type of industry to which we have largely confined it. So profit-creating-business, or industry, was handed over to private enterprise and there is no doubt in the world that it has failed in the most abject way to meet the challenge of the great needs of the time. I think the proofs are there to be seen; they are in the speech of the Leader of the Opposition in his recitation of the nearly disastrous situation which faces the country.
Both sides of this House have put all their faith in private enterprise to create prosperity; instead it has created a state near bankruptcy, near destitution. It failed to create the employment which it was meant to create —and it did not matter which Government was in office. The emigration figures have continued to rise over the last three or four decennial periods. They started with an average of 16,000 a year. They were 18,000 a year in the next decennial period; 24,000 a year in the next decennial period and 40,000 a year in the next decennial period. I believe the present figures are something between 50,000 and 60,000.
The net increase in employment created by private enterprise industry has been, I understand, a total of 1 per cent. in about 25 to 30 years. The total emigration is something between 750,000 and 1,000,000. I understand that in the best year the average figure in regard to finding jobs for the 80,000 people who need jobs is 800. That is the best figure we can arrive at—800 new jobs for about 60,000 to 80,000 people.
Does anybody, even the simplest person—I am not an economist and I make no pretence to be one—make any attempt to defend a system which has created such economic chaos in our society, a society in which the Tories on both sides of the House have a dedicated belief in the efficacy of the whole idea of private enterprise? You gave it every encouragement; you put nothing in its way. On one side we see thriving industries under the State corporations of one kind or another, things like Bord na Móna, the E.S.B. and Comhlucht Siúicre Eireann, where one had to start from scratch—magnificent triumphs, magnificent achievements of all sizes, all State industry, State controlled and State operated. You might as well accept it; this is Socialism. On the other hand, we have the confusion, muddling, inefficiency and restrictive trade practices—which is the only way private enterprise can exist. It exists only behind the screens and barricades of restrictive trade practices. You are afraid of competition in private industry. When you talk about the European Free Market you must remember that private business here cannot compete with itself on the home market, never mind trying to get into the foreign market.
If a case has ever been made for failure, it has been made in our society at a tremendous expense of human suffering and hardship over the past 35 years. There has been a continual average figure of 8.8 per cent., nearly 9 per cent., chronically unemployed and yet only last year we had this very intelligent man, very gifted, and very talented, the Tánaiste, telling us that he believes private enterprise can solve our economic problems and can give us the employment we need. When we talk about the figures for unemployment we must remember that, in addition to the 80,000 unemployed, there are 50,000 who have emigrated, making a total of 130,000. If it were not partly for the continued freewheeling of British trade and the late Sir Stafford Cripps' magnificent planning for full employment we would certainly have revolution on our hands. It would be a damn good thing in my view, sad as it would be for the unfortunate people who are unemployed, but if anything could stir you out of lethargy and futility it would seem to me to be well worth the effort.
We have now got, no matter what Government has been in office, government by company directors, government by the vested interests. One of the very serious blunders which was made was the acceptance of industries which, in the majority of cases, were mere subsidiaries of parent British companies. The obvious consequence of that is that it is futile for us to try to export to the British market. The British parent companies will see that we do not get access to the British market even if we were able to compete in it. Why they should continue to keep these pocket industries going after the Free Trade Area is declared is beyond me. They may decide, to use the phrase of An Tánaiste, "to keep our industries going as pets", but I cannot see any other good reason why they will do it.
We have developed no export markets. The reason is that under private enterprise the person controlling an industry is interested only in his own personal, private fortune and private welfare, and in those of his family. He is not as interested, as public enterprise is, in national prosperity and in the welfare of the people as a whole. He is concerned only with earning £3,000, £4,000 or £5,000 a year and in supplying himself with yachts, boats or cars, with the luxuries of life, with education for his own children and so on. That is the fundamental weakness of the private enterprise system. You cannot depend on its going to work for society as a whole. It is not interested in society as a whole. It is interested only in making good its own small family business and, having done that, is not concerned with the rest of society. That, of course, is the essence of the conflict between most of the people in this House. In one way or another, they are tied up with the vested interests of private enterprise, whether in manufacturing or merely in shops. It is absurd to have a multiplicity of shops selling the same article at the same price and pretending that it is free competition. The whole retail and distributive trades based on private enterprise are wasteful, unnecessarily costly and grossly inefficient.
What is needed is the patriotism of people who recognise the terrible conditions to which our nation has been brought as the result of the activities and failures of Governments over the years. A decision to make a fundamental change in our whole economic system is absolutely necessary. We must do as the Taoiseach once promised: "If this system does not work then I am prepared to go outside it." If anything is clearer than that this system has not worked, I should like to know it. The time is more than opportune for us to go outside it.
I do not know that there is much use in making suggestions to the Government, considering their attitude of mind. It is clear where their loyalties lie but if I were forced to make a decision on what should be done I would first of all suggest one small, short-term, superficially relatively unimportant but in its effect a significantly psychologically important measure. I would suggest to the Government that they attenuate very considerably the whole presidential establishment. Let us share sacrifices equally.
I think the presidential establishment is an absurd incubus on a society such as ours. It is costing something in the region of £50,000 a year to keep that vast mansion in operation with all the flunkeyism and flummery belonging to Viceregal Lodge days. We cannot afford that and it is time we recognised that we cannot afford it. It is time we put the President—I make no personal reference to any particular individual—into a detached house in Blackrock, or elsewhere out in the suburbs—that is, if you want a President, but personally I do not see any reason for one. If you must have one, let him live in the suburbs and, if he wants to entertain, let him entertain in the Department of External Affairs. That whole set-up in the Park is an outrageous luxury at a time when the Government is asking for so much stringency, hardship and self-denial on the part of our people.
I should like to deal with our embassies. They are costing £290,000 and, again in them, we have the knee-breeches and top hats of Victorian and Edwardian days which should have no part in our society. We are a relatively poor agricultural community and, in order to create a prosperous society for our own people, we should cut our cloth according to our measure. These embassies should be abolished. Attachés are much more badly needed in Birmingham, Liverpool, London and Grimsby, rather than in the heart of Mayfair, to say nothing of the palatial anachronism in Paris.
I have asked question after question here, addressed to the Minister for Education, seeking scholarships to secondary schools and scholarships to universities for our children, and the Minister on every occasion has told me that we cannot afford them. We had a Health Act introduced here to increase the number of means tests in our health services for the sake of a mere £70,000. We cannot afford to supply footwear for our children. We cannot afford to supply fuel for needy families and old age pensioners who sit shivering in the cold. We cannot afford to help the blind. We cannot afford any of these things, but we can afford all the other nonsenses— the embassies and Arus an Uachtaráin, and all the rest of the hang-over from the bad old days which Connolly and Mellows and all the others fought and died to change as well as to secure independence for our people. I do not believe they died to perpetuate that state of affairs. They died in the hope that the man in the street would face a better future and would get a square deal. But he, unfortuately, is not getting a square deal from those who survived and who have betrayed their sacrifice by their actions since they came to power.
Likewise, I would abolish the Seanad. We could save quite a bit on it. We could have advisory councils to the different Departments. I would institute a realistic policy for the language revival.