Skip to main content
Normal View

Dáil Éireann debate -
Thursday, 13 Mar 1958

Vol. 166 No. 2

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

Last night I was dealing with the situation as this Government found it when they took over office and I gave some instances of what that position was. I dealt with the position under which the county councils were given authority to anticipate road grants that would come into operation during this year. I also dealt with the complete ending of housing grants under the instructions of the Minister for Finance and I wound up by giving the appalling condition of affairs under which a Minister for Health was unable to reply to three letters sent to him by a local authority in Cork, during an epidemic of polio, seeking sanction for 20 extra beds in the Orthopaedic Hospital. The reason given was that because of financial stringency, the letters could not be replied to. The condition of that Government last December was that they had not sufficient money in the Department of Health to pay 50 per cent. of the cost of a number of beds.

We are also aware that it was practically impossible for any local authority to get from the Government the grants due to them under the housing scheme and the grants due to private individuals under the same scheme. Close on £500,000 was due to Cork County Council under those heads when that Government went out of office. You had the further position of the dead weight of loans. When the inter-Party Government first took over in 1948, the amount to be paid in principal and in interest on borrowed money was £4,500,000 per year. On the day they left office that had increased to £10,000,000 per year; when they left office a second time it had reached the appalling sum of £17,000,000 per year —a dead weight load that had to be paid by taxation before the people had one halfpenny to put anywhere.

In dealing with this Vote on Account there are some items which were alluded to by the Minister for Finance yesterday. They are put down here as agricultural subsidies. How they come to be subsidies on agriculture is more than my intelligence can appreciate. One of them is for a sum of £200,000 subsidy on superphosphate. That is a subsidy which should appear on the Vote for the Department of Industry and Commerce, and not on the Vote for Agriculture. It is a sum of money which is being paid to artificial manure manufacturers to enable them to compete with the prices at which farmers can get superphosphate imported here. Therefore, that sum should be transferred from the backs of the farmers who are credited with it and put instead into the Department of Industry and Commerce.

There is a sum of £520,000 for farm buildings. I might suggest that 50 per cent. of that sum would also be properly applicable to the Department of Industry and Commerce Vote. It is directly due to the neglect of the Department of Industry and Commerce that we have a condition of affairs in which three-quarters of a sheet steel mill is lying idle, with the result that sheet steel has to be imported. I suggest that 50 per cent. of that subsidy is to cover the difference between what we have to pay Britain for sheet steel and the cost at which it could be manufactured here. A sum of £250,000 was voted by the Dáil in 1953 presumably for the purpose of finishing that sheet steel mill. I do not know what became of that £250,000 when the gentlemen opposite took office. We have been placed in a position to-day in which no other country can supply sheet steel, under a cartel, and we have to pay the British whatever they ask for sheet steel.

I also suggest that the greater portion of the sum for ground limestone subsidies should be transferred to the Department of Industry and Commerce Vote for C.I.E. The greater portion of the American Counterpart Fund for this purpose did not go into the pockets of the farmers but into the pockets of the incompetent, inefficient C.I.E. establishment. I have given instances of this before and I give them again now as I find them. The owners of ground limestone plants, even though they had their own transport to carry the ground limestone into the farmers' fields and spread it there, still had to pay 7½ per cent. of their takings to C.I.E. That is a scandalous conversion of the money that was meant for the assistance of the agricultural community and I see no justification whatever for it. Let us hope that a different attitude will be adopted by the Department of Agriculture this year in relation to the £448,000 that is being voted, and that it will go directly in subsidy for transport, without having to pay commission to C.I.E. "as the old man of the sea" in this instance.

A lot of play was made yesterday in connection with the Government's attitude towards wheat, barley and milk. In approaching that matter, I have a very divided mind. For some 20 odd years, an organisation, of which I have the honour to be a member, carried out all the negotiations on the price of wheat and feeding barley with whatever Minister was in office. A change was made some three years ago and a few gentlemen with hyphenated names took over the job. I ask members to place themselves in the position of a Minister who meets such a body to negotiate prices. That body, according to themselves, this year, demanded a price of 38/- per barrel for feeding barley. Was the Minister to tell those people: "Look, run away and reconsider that and come back here and ask for 48/- per barrel, instead of 38/-"? Was he to tell them that or was he to say they were looking for too much? What was the position? I leave it to any Deputy to judge for himself. If a farmer at a fair was asking £40 for an animal, would a buyer come along and say: "I am going to give you £45"?

The Deputy is criticising the body rather than the Government.

I am criticising the negotiations.

The conduct of the negotiators is not a matter for criticism in this House. The conduct of the Government and their policy in respect of expenditure of money are the subject matters of the debate.

They asked 38/- per barrel for feeding barley. On wheat——

The Deputy may not proceed to discuss the body which discussed the price of wheat with the Government. He may discuss what the Government did on the matter.

He might compare their efficiency.

They were the people who suggested to the Government that there should be last year's price for wheat.

The Government's reaction to their demand calls for discussion; that is all.

I do not agree either with the price fixed for feeding barley or the price fixed for wheat, or with the method by which the job is being done in either case; but, disagreeing with all those, then where am I to turn? What line is left for me in relation to these matters? A former Minister for Agriculture here, dealing with wheat, said at column 2050 of Volume 106 of the Official Debates:—

"We had the enthralling, stimulating and surprising experience of eating bread made out of Irish wheat. Before you eat it you have to hold it out in your hand, squeeze the water out of it, then tease it out and make up your mind whether it was a handful of boot polish or a handful of bread. If it was boot polish you put it on your boots or shoes, and if it was bread you tried to masticate it, if you were fit."

That is the Minister whom those people would put in charge of agriculture and, unfortunately, I have to judge between the two.

It is a tough problem.

There is one other statement I would like to read at column 2042 of the same Volume:—

"Some day I am convinced that peat will go up the spout after the beet and the wheat. God speed the day."

Who said that?

Deputy James Dillon, ex-Minister for Agriculture.

I must remind the Deputy that it is the policy of the present Government that is under discussion and not the policy of the previous Government.

That is so, but I am giving the only alternative that is left.

Would Deputy Corry himself not be a good substitute?

He would not take it.

Order! Deputy Corry.

Those are the circumstances in which we have to approach this matter. I note that in 1946——

Now, that is very far back.

——this Dáil brought in an Act dealing with industrial research and standards. From 1946 to 1958, the gentlemen in this institute have been receiving each year a pretty considerable amount of public money from the taxpayer.

I cannot see the relevancy that has to the Vote on Account at present before the House.

These gentlemen had a particular job to do. It was their task to find out whether a palatable loaf could be made out of all-Irish wheat. The first result was in the shape of an experiment carried out in the Curragh during the last 12 months and that proved a palatable loaf of good bread could be made out of all-Irish wheat, despite what the ex-Minister for Agriculture said to the contrary.

Had the Department of Industry and Commerce and the Institute on Industrial Research and Standards worked as they should have worked for the 12 years they have been in existence, surely it would not be beyond their intelligence to have trained the millers and the bakers into producing an all-Irish loaf, a loaf which would solve the problem with which we are now faced. Instead of that, we had the spectacle of wheat being sold for animal feeding, while, at the same time, foreign wheat was imported to the tune of £3,250,000. There should have been no necessity whatsoever for the importation of that foreign wheat, had the institute and the Department of Industry and Commerce done their job and educated the millers and the bakers. It was their bounden duty to do that.

In relation to the manner in which the job is being done, I must register a most emphatic protest. From 1940 to 1947, we had compulsory wheat growing. There were farmers who, appreciating their duty to the nation, grew far more wheat than they were compelled to grow by law. They were the vast majority of the ordinary small tillage farmers. The Government succeeded some five years after a half-crown bonus was given on wheat in paying every man on the quantity he delivered to the mills. There should be no difficulty to-day in implementing the same principle. The quantity delivered to the mills in 1956 was 400,000 tons and there should be no difficulty in instructing the millers to instruct each farmer to grow the same tonnage of wheat as he delivered in 1946, plus 50 per cent. Let the gentlemen whom the present Minister had to threaten that he would break down their walls and drive in tractors to compel them to produce wheat continue to ruin their good land. They refused to grow wheat then because they said it would ruin their land.

I can see no justification for throwing overboard the decent hardworking farmers, and thrown overboard they have been. The section of the community who refused to till in those years were making money out of ranching and the sale of bullocks. It paid them because the price of store cattle went up; they sold the fat cattle and they bought no more. They put in the plough and the tractor, tore up the land and grew wheat. The activities of that section of the community have left the country with a surplus of wheat.

Surely it should not be beyond the intelligence of the Department of Agriculture to find a remedy, without penalising the ordinary farmer who grew wheat in the ordinary way? A man growing 500 or 600 acres of wheat can afford to grow it at a profit of £2 per acre; but take the case of the ordinary farmer who has five or ten acres out of 40 under wheat. If he has £20 profit out of ten acres, what does he live on? Those are the circumstances in regard to which I would examine this matter and deal with it. I consider that the manner in which this problem has been dealt with is wrong and I have no hesitation in stating that.

I cannot yet understand the wide difference in treatment of the agricultural community and the industrialists. A while ago, I referred to the £200,000 given for the production of superphosphate. Those gentlemen are also entitled to walk in to the Prices Advisory Body and say: "We are working at a loss and we are going to raise our prices," and under the legislation in this country to-day, there is no alternative but to give them that increase.

The position of the agricultural community is far different. I note here that a sum of £200,000 is being given as a Grant-in-Aid for industrial development this year. That has been given, I take it, under the Act of 1956. Under that Act, industrial firms are entitled to come in here, put up a factory for the export of manufactured goods and receive up to 75 per cent. as a grant for the erection of that factory and the machinery in it. If a foreign industrialist comes into this country, claims that grant and gets it, nobody in this House dare question who got it, how they got it and how much they got.

The administration of all that is vested in some bunch of people outside. We have no power. Within the last month, I put a question down here asking the amount that has been given out under this Act to non-nationals and the amount given to Irish industrialists. The Minister told me he had no power to reply to that question. This £400,000 is being given out blindfold to a body of men appointed outside who apparently can do what they like with it. They can tell Mike: "You are entitled to it," but they can tell Mikey: "You will get nothing."

If we examine the case of one of these industrialists who comes in here and gets a grant of £300,000 or £400,000 towards starting an industry for export, we probably find he exports anything from £20,000 to £50,000 worth of goods per year. That is one side of the picture. On the opposite side, you have an industry in this country that is exporting goods to the value of £75,000,000. In order to get that £75,000,000 you have to pay roughly a subsidy of £2,250,000. I think it is money well spent. But when I look over there and see what they gave me, what am I to do?

I take up Volume 106, column 2048, and here is what I find there:—

"We are subsidising butter production to the tune of £2,000,000 per annum. How long will that go on? Do we expect butter to get dearer in the markets of the world? Do we expect the time in the early future when the price of milk will become so adjusted that it will be possible to suspend this subsidy or do we intend to continue producing milk for conversion into butter in creameries at an annual cost to the taxpayer of £2,000,000 per annum? I want it to go on record most emphatically that I think such a policy is sheer insanity and is purely pursued for the purpose of maintaining the prestige of incompetents in the office of the Minister for Agriculture."

This is a statement made by Deputy James Dillon. Now where am I to go? This man told me he will give me a "bob" a gallon for five years.

You will not say anything for five years.

That was the guarantee given by the last Minister for Agriculture.

You are a penny nearer to it.

Penal servitude for five years is a lot worse than six months' imprisonment. That is the judgment I make on this. We would be well advised to bring this matter before the Prices Advisory Body. I have examined this as closely as I could without going into the 980 pages of lines contained in the Report of the Milk Costings Commission and I find that the labour hours per cow are practically the same as the labour hours per ton of beet. In 1948, the price of beet was £4 8s. 0d. per ton——

The Deputy is going into a matter that is more relevant to the Estimate for Agriculture. What is generally discussed on the Vote on Account is the general overall policy of the Government.

I am referring to the milk costings published a few days ago and on which apparently the Minister has acted.

Does the Deputy not see that it is more relevant to the Estimate for the Department of Agriculture?

Or the Supplementary Estimate yesterday.

He will say it again on the Estimate for the Department of Agriculture.

It seems to me that we have not a reduction here.

We have not. The gentleman who dwelt so long on the foolishness of giving any subsidy and who flooded us out here with his statements about the extra number of cows in the country and the extra millions of gallons of milk, put into this Estimate last year only £666,000 for the butter subsidy——

Perhaps the genius over there——

That is the amount that was in it after the Fianna Fáil Minister for Finance revised the Estimate in June.

I maintain there was no revision of that amount.

There was.

There was not.

Will the Deputy have a bet on it?

He will not take that up.

The result was——

Again I must suggest to the Deputy that all this would be more relevant to the Estimate for the Department of Agriculture. We cannot go into the items of every Estimate on the Vote on Account.

I am going into an item of over £1,000,000 allocated this year as a subsidy on butter.

That is more relevant to the Estimate for the Department of Agriculture.

Surely I am entitled to say on the Vote on Account that this Estimate is wrong and should be revised?

The general principle followed in discussing the Vote on Account has always been to discuss the general policy of the Government, not details of any particular Estimate.

He is caught.

I am dealing with the general policy of the Government and a statement made by the Minister when he introduced the Estimate yesterday.

The Vote on Account yesterday?

Yes, Sir. He said that the amount for subsidisation of butter for export was up by £734,000 and I am dealing with that. I am suggesting that, taking it on the only heading of costings that we know—and I have given, as near as I could, the labour hours in both cases and that is the factor that increases or reduces costings—the price of beet went up by £1 12s. 0d. per ton and that surely the price of milk should have gone up by a corresponding amount per cow.

Why did it not?

If Deputy Donnellan, whom I saw supporting it here in this House——

Supporting what?

——by trotting around this Lobby, would consider the matter, I think the least the farmers could expect from him now would be his silence.

The Deputy would help them with his silence now.

I maintain that policy is foolish. We have reached a crisis so far as the cattle industry is concerned. In the next couple of years through the bovine tuberculosis scheme we shall have to get rid of all our milch cows suffering from tuberculosis. I take it that will mean roughly 40 per cent. of the milch cows. When that is done we shall be faced with the question as to whether it is worth while to replace them and the policy of any Government will be very seriously considered by the farmer when he sells or gets rid of a tuberculous beast and has to replace it at a cost of £70 or £80 for a springing heifer. If these cows are not replaced the £45,000,000 brought in last year by our cattle exports will fall by 50 per cent. If that happens there will be very little to boost industry and less to pay the £17,000,000 to the civil servants.

This is one of the greatest steps in my opinion that has been taken up to date here. The farmers are entitled on costings to an increase and instead they are getting a reduction. I can only give my own reaction and that is that if I am to pay a subsidy or portion of a subsidy because we have too much butter I shall take care that we will not have too much butter. It is only a few years since another Minister for Agriculture had to bring Brian Boru's butter in here and we know how the people took that. We do not want the reintroduction of Brian Boru's butter now. The nation depends for its economic existence on the dairying industry and the number of cows in the country, because we have not yet invented a machine to give us a bullock without having a cow. Therefore, the whole cattle trade depends on whether the southern farmer keeps dairy stock or not. He will have to reduce or he will reduce his dairy herd. He is a fool if, under the circumstances, he does not reduce it to such an extent that he can lay down the law on the price of butter. There is a remedy for everything. If over-production means a cut in price, there is a remedy.

As an example in the opposite direction, I shall cite another great industry which is being kept going here by the agricultural community, namely, the beet industry. Instead of a cut for over-production, there is a bonus for every extra ton of beet produced. There was a bonus this year of 5/- a ton for those who could produce a certain quantity and 2/6 a ton for a smaller quantity. In some areas such as that which Deputy Hughes represents they were lucky enough to get the 5/-. Farmers in other areas got only the 2/6. That is the opposite policy to the policy at present being put into operation with regard to wheat, barley and milk. I do not think the policy in regard to these commodities can work out.

In connection with beet we had the advantage of having the price based on costings carried out in 1948. Costings were taken of some 400 farms. The amazing difference between that and the famous milk costings which took five or six years to produce is just the difference between people doing a job themselves and allowing it to get into the hands of civil servants. In the case of beet we carried out the costings. Farmers are paid on the cost of production each year and the cost of production of an acre of beet has gone up by about £19 since 1948. It should not be too difficult to discover the increase in the cost per gallon of milk in the same period, taking the labour content in each case.

I think the action is wrong but, as I said before, no man who has to face the alternative can face it. No man can face the alternative suggested by another Minister who told us that he would not give any subsidy on butter and that the production of milk for conversion into butter in this country is sheer insanity. That is the statement I read out here by the former Minister for Agriculture, Deputy Dillon.

I have been rather disappointed by the position in regard to civil servants. When the emergency ceased there were some 4,500 surplus civil servants who had been employed under the rationing system in Ballsbridge and elsewhere. They were taken into the permanent staff then but recruiting for the Civil Service did not stop despite the fact that there were 4,500 surplus civil servants. Therefore, there are still 4,500 surplus civil servants. I alluded to the dead weight debt of £17,000,000. Another £17,000,000 has to be added to that for civil servants. That is £34,000,000 that the people must find before they find anything for the ordinary public services.

I suggest that £17,000,000 is too heavy a burden for producers to bear. I had hoped for a substantial reduction in that figure. I expected to hear from the Minister for Finance in his speech introducing the Vote on Account some reference to the guarantee that he gave that that sum and that burden would be reduced. Those on the other side of the House who said "Hear, hear!" are unfortunately in the position that their Minister for Finance reduced nothing in that line, despite the fact that he knew what the situation was, despite the fact that he was a member of a Government that sanctioned the establishment of these 4,500 temporary staff and allowed recruiting each year for the Civil Service.

There were more recruited this year than there were last year.

The Minister who left this country in such a condition that the local authority's cheque was dishonoured——

We had that story before.

The Deputy had. Let him have it now again and deny it again.

It was proved wrong on the last occasion.

The Deputy need not go beyond his own County, Kildare, for it.

Sir, I do not mind what charges Deputy Corry makes against me. They are only amusing. But I object to his saying that the cheques of Kildare County Council were dishonoured. They were not.

I say they were.

The Deputy is about as accurate in that as he usually is.

Yes, and I would back my word against the Deputy's any day.

Put a little money on it.

Let the people judge. You offered money for a little job before and you ran from it. I would suggest that, in the present financial condition of the country, that £17,000,000 must be reduced to £10,000,000. It could be done; £10,000,000 a year would be sufficient for a small country like this to pay for civil servants.

What does the Deputy suggest he would do with them?

Send them to Whitegate to me and I shall get jobs for them. There is a very simple way out. You need not sack any of them. I would like the Minister to tell us, when he is concluding, the number recruited into the Civil Service in the last 12 months.

Look at last week's question.

I would advise the Deputy to keep his tongue in his cheek for a little while longer.

Look at the question and you will see that more came in this year than last year.

If I were in Deputy Sweetman's boots, having given instructions to the county managers to the effect that not one penny was to be pent on housing, I would keep outside that door. It is not the first time I said that to Deputy Sweetman.

And it will not be the last.

Deputy Corry on the Vote on Account.

We know the instructions that were issued.

We know that several letters were sent from the county councils to the Department of Local Government looking for grants that were not forthcoming.

The Deputy mentioned all that last night.

As I said, I do not think that an industry that has given us some £75,000,000 a year in exports is an industry to which we should refuse £2,250,000 in subsidy. I challenge the amount that is to be spent here in grants by the Industrial Development Authority and the amount which that money is to bring in in exports as against the £75,000,000 provided by the agricultural community in the export of stock. I am prepared to accept from the Minister the same proportion in subsidy to the farmers as those industrialists are getting. Under the Constitution of this State, equal rights are guaranteed for all citizens, and the agricultural community are entitled to the same rights as any tuppence-halfpenny industrialist who comes in here to cash in on us, as they are doing under the famous Act that was brought in here by Deputy Sweetman. We will get an opportunity in this House to deal with the amount given in those grants and who gets it. I hope we will have an opportunity of bringing this development authority under the control of this House and then we will have some funny stories.

I have covered the ground as fairly as I can and as I said, where is the alternative? On the one hand, you have the people who left this country bankrupt and, on the other hand, those who are endeavouring to bring it back to a reasonable state as regards finance. You have a choice between the man who says: "You got £660,000 last year; I will give you £1,400,000 this year," and the man who said: "I will withdraw the subsidy and give you a ‘bob' a gallon." You have a choice between this Party and the Party whose Minister for Agriculture said he would not be found dead in a field of wheat and who said he "would drown us in eggs.... Do we intend to produce milk for conversion into butter at an annual cost to the taxpayer of £2,000,000 per annum? I want to go on record as saying most emphatically that such a policy is sheer insanity." The only alternative we have is the man who guaranteed a "bob" a gallon for milk for five years.

I have given what, in my opinion, is the alternative in regard to wheat, in regard to milk and in regard to barley. The Government that found it a good policy to reduce the price of feeding barley from 48/- to 40/- in order that they might rake in in taxation from the unfortunate pig feeder the sum given by the Minister for Industry and Commerce as £1,096,000, must face their responsibility. On top of that I want, on behalf of the farming community, to repudiate in the strongest possible terms, those people who attempted to negotiate a price without authority. Who went in and demanded an uneconomic price for feeding barley and who proposed this outrageous price for wheat?

That is not relevant on the Vote on Account.

Yesterday afternoon the Minister for Defence in the course of his introductory remarks rather plaintively complained that it would appear to him that the approach to the matters arising on this Vote on Account by the Opposition was not sufficiently objective. Last year, on 20th March, when this Government was formed, I stated that we, who had gone into opposition, would tend to be a constructive Opposition and that we would not indulge merely in recriminanations and bickerings. I drew attention to the fact that we had every reason to know the kind of task and problems that would confront the Government who were then setting out upon their task. I said that we would, so far as it was possible, give them assistance, but that we were not going to lie low in the Opposition Benches; that we would give constructive opposition, but at the same time would be a vigorous and a vigilant Opposition.

The circumstances confronting us to-day, after 12 months of the present Government, call for that vigorous Opposition. I would have been prepared to give at least some measure of sympathy to the Government in the tasks which confronted them and with the full knowledge of the difficulties that must confront any Government in present circumstances governing the affairs of this State. I think we are entitled to take strong exception to the oblique references of the Minister for Defence and his colleagues and to the express references made by one of his colleagues during the past week-end to the conditions that they found when they came into Government—what they are pleased to refer to as the "Coalition mess."

If they wish for our co-operation, if they wish for some sympathy in the difficulties that confront them, at least they should extend to us not sympathy or generosity, which we do no expect, but some measure of appreciation of the difficulties which faced the Government and which they had to tackle in the very difficult year of 1956 and the beginning of 1957. I shall have occasion here this afternoon to compare the conditions which we, as a Government, faced during that critical period with the conditions that subsisted since this Government took office just 12 months ago.

We have now to examine the record of the Government over the past 12 months. I do not say that everything they did was wrong or that they have done nothing or achieved nothing, but, very largely, what they have achieved has been the result of carrying out the readymade policy which we handed to them when we left office 12 months ago. While some good has been achieved, nevertheless, critical, and I believe, impartial examination will demonstrate that the present Government has done nothing and certainly has not done sufficient to justify the shift-over of power which was effected as a result of the last general election.

Let me just very quickly and very inadequately recall the conditions that we had to face in the year 1956 and the beginning of 1957 and the conditions in which we had a general election last year. Have Deputies forgotten the dumping of Argentine cattle, causing the depression of cattle prices which occurred in 1956? Cattle prices fell and all our export prices collapsed also. Import prices rose at the same time. We had the world boom bringing up freight rates and import prices in practically every commodity.

We had in this country an unexampled and unprecedented expansion of bank credits which led to another round of wage and salary increases and consequent increases of taxation. We had the position where credit was scarce and where it was practically impossible to get the necessary capital to carry on the capital expenditure of the Government and bring to fruition its capital scheme. We had the credit squeeze by the banks but, above all, we had the problem of the balance of payments. The problem of disequilibrium on external account is one that has afflicted the country from time to time for some years past but in 1956 that problem became one of major importance.

A huge deficit, something like £94,000,000 threatened to repeat itself in 1956 and rigorous measures were necessary to ward off what might have been a serious and permanent injury to our country. We had to take measures to deal with that situation and we took the necessary measures. We were very glad to see that, as the months went by, those measures were effective. In 1956 the trade deficit was reduced by something like £20.6 million and in 1957 by a further £21.9 million with the result that the balance of payments deficit was only £14.4 million. In 1957 the figures indicate that there was a surplus and, as Deputy Sweetman pointed out yesterday, there was obviously going to be a surplus. We had brought that balance of payments into equilibrium at the time we left office in March of last year.

That was a serious position with very serious economic reactions on the country, causing very serious unemployment. All these matters were something over which we had no control but in addition to the difficulty of getting capital, on top of the bank squeeze, the restriction in business and economic activities and the necessity to take steps to correct the deficit in our balance of payments account, there came, towards the end of the year, the Suez crisis causing a further disruption just at the very moment when it appeared that we had—in fact, we had as it subsequently transpired—gripped the situation, and solved the problem. We had hopes then of ending unemployment and there was a clear cut and definite written-down policy for production which I announced in October, 1956, to deal with the situation in the future after these adverse economic conditions had been corrected.

We were then faced with another economic crisis entirely apart from anything over which we had any control. Everybody knows, although our political opponents very conveniently forget, when criticising us in this House and outside it, that the Suez crisis caused a further deplorable and almost disastrous effect on business and unemployment in this country. It was in those conditions, and following upon the result of those conditions, that we had to face the electorate in March of last year.

The various promises that were made by Ministers and their political supporters during the general election have been adverted to in the course of this debate. Doubtless it will be a long time before they hear the end of those promises. For my part, I do not intend to dwell upon them to-day. I say, just in passing, that both the present Taoiseach and the present Tánaiste, in particular, made statements in the course of the general election campaign which, to say the least of it, were imprudent and which certainly will be acutely embarrassing for both of them for many years to come.

I do not intend to base my criticism of Government policy, or lack of it, or of the results of their operations in the administration of this State in the past 12 months, on those broken promises. I would recall to Deputies the epitaph by an anonymous rhymer on Lloyd George after one of his famous election campaigns—a rhyme that has found its way into the leading books of comic rhymes and comic verses and which is peculiarly appropriate to the promises referred to here which were made particularly by the present Taoiseach and the present Tánaiste in the course of the last general election. It runs:—

"Count not his broken pledges as a crime.

He meant them, how he meant them,

At the time."

The promises were very useful at that time and they may have secured votes. The number of votes secured by them was small, in my view, in comparison with a very much more effective campaign carried on during the years, particularly the last years, when we were in office and right throughout the length and breadth of the country during the general election. I did not object to that campaign merely because it was both unjust and uncharitable but because in practically every respect it was untrue. The real reason why I objected, and why my colleagues objected, to that campaign and to the disruptive tactics that were pursued from this side of the House against our efforts to deal with the national dangers in 1956, and in the beginning of 1957, was not merely that it gave us difficulty but because it had very serious repercussions in the national life of the country. It was very largely responsible for that mood of disillusionment and cynicism with political institutions that was so rife in the last few years. It threatened the very basis of our political democracy. Their propaganda, during those years when we were in office, was designed not in the interests of the national affairs of the country but solely to put us out of office and secure office for themselves.

Over those years, the really effective propaganda which has put them where they are now was the propaganda against the inter-Party system of government, "Coalitions" as they called it—co-operation between Parties in government—and the call to the country for a strong Government, a Government with an overall majority, that would be able to tackle the difficult problems and deal with them effectively in such a way as a weak Coalition could not. They have their strong Government now and we see the results. Throughout the country, the Taoiseach gave expression to his obsession against inter-Party government. His colleagues gave vent to the same views—all designed to put them back into office and all designed to secure what they did, in fact, secure in the most favourable circumstances possible for them—an overall majority in this House.

That campaign succeeded because it came to its full effect in circumstances most favourable to them because of the conditions facing the Government at that time. The words "strong Government" became a blessed formula to a number of disillusioned people, to a number of people suffering from unemployment, to a number of business people whose business was affected by international affairs and the economic circumstances of the country. "A strong Government" became a blessed formula by which every economic and financial ill that afflicted the country was to be cured.

It will be my duty now to examine whether this strong Government, with its overall majority in this House, has made any impression upon the problems that face them and which they were called upon to solve in circumstances very much different from those which faced their predecessors. We endeavoured, in the course of the election campaign, very unsuccessfully to counter the argument of "A strong Government". We endeavoured to draw the attention of the electorate to the fact that a Government that had such a record in the country—a Government that brought about the various economic crises with which we were afflicted and a Government with its record of disaster—were not the Government to be entrusted in difficult times with the handling of the affairs of this State.

The people decided generally to support them—and they decided to do so because they were of the view, which was brought about by the propaganda of Fianna Fáil, that all the problems and all the evils afflicting the country were due, not, as they were, in fact, to conditions of economic forces and financial considerations over which we had no control, but to the existence of an inter-Party Government. Because of the difficulties at the time, very many people—in fact, a sufficient number of people—voted because they wanted a strong Government to make the difference between a Government incapable of forming a Government and a Government with a clear majority.

It is our task to examine what the Government, having got that clear majority, have done with it. But, in the background, helping along this propaganda, were not merely the promises that were made but the £100,000,000 plan of Deputy Lemass which was to provide full employment for the people. He, as Deputy Sweetman pointed out yesterday, kept probing at that, kept harping at it, disseminating suggestions about it, but, all the time, there were the suggestions, inferences, or innuendoes that it was not the official policy of Fianna Fáil. They gave themselves that let out, that bolt-hole. But, all the time, it was put over that Deputy Lemass had a £100,000,000 plan for the solution of the problem of unemployment and for the attainment of full employment. It can be readily imagined now, even in retrospect, how people suffering from the fearful terror of unemployment and from the actual experience of unemployment, must have grasped at that ideal and that figment of the imagination of Deputy Lemass, as he then was.

The other people, those ordinary conservative people who shrank at the notion of £100,000,000 and whose talk has so frequently been about native Government expenditure, those people, Tory in their outlook, did not like the £100,000,000 plan, but they took refuge in the innate conservatism of the present Taoiseach, then Deputy de Valera, and his colleague, Deputy MacEntee, who had been the most Tory Minister for Finance this country ever had occupying this office.

At all events, they came into office. We took the view that we had gone through a sea of trouble in the year 1956 and the beginning of 1957, though we had that situation then in such a position that we hoped to build upon it in such a way as to increase the prosperity of the agricultural industry, and of all sections of our people. We also hoped to increase employment by means of the incentives we gave to the export trade and the policy I had outlined then. It looked as if we had some chance, as if we had some light in the darkness. Knowing, however, that the darkness still subsisted, we wished the present Government well in their task.

Now we are entitled to ask what the Government has done in the last 12 months to increase the national wealth and the income of the people, to give additional employment, to stem emigration and control, as far as it can be controlled by Government action, the increase in the cost of living. What are the results? I suppose the most dramatic action of the present Government was their abolition of the food subsidies in the Budget of last year. The people who voted for them and for a "strong Government" clearly had the view that it was only a strong Government which would be able, which would have not merely the courage but the ability, to do what was done by the present Government in the Budget of last year, to abolish the food subsidies. They did abolish them.

I would remark here in parenthesis that these food subsidies, having been abolished to the tune of £9,000,000, can never be restored by any Government that succeeds them. That fact had better be faced by all sections of the people. They took away a certain amount of the food subsidies by the Budget of 1952 and, just as they failed and failed miserably to give the benefit of that painful operation to the people in general, the food subsidies were swallowed and the economy of the country got no benefit whatever from them by the Budget of 1952.

The same fate has overcome the saving that was effected, or appeared to have been effected, or that it was claimed would be effected, by the present Minister for Finance by the abolition of the food subsidies. Nine million pounds were the cost, according to the Minister for Finance in his Budget speech last year, of the food subsidies to the taxpayer. These were abolished in full. There was no tinkering about it; they were a "strong Government". There was no question that it was to be given in little pieces to the people, so that they would bear the burden over a number of years. It was all taken at once and in the first year of office—following, as I said, in my Budget speech, the Machiavellian principle. It was all taken away, £9,000,000. There was £1,500,000 of it in last year which had to be provided out of the saving, for compensatory payments in the way of social benefits. That was estimated at £2,500,000 in a full year, as necessary because of the increases in the cost of living that would be bound to ensue from the abolition of the food subsidies.

Taking £2,500,000 from £9,000,000 leaves £6,500,000. This Book of Estimates which was presented to us the other day ought to have been down by at least £6,500,000. We find that the Book of Estimates is down only by an apparent sum of £1.7 million odd. When the other payments are taken into account that were detailed by Deputy Sweetman yesterday, they show that the result of these transactions and manoeuvrings is that the £9,000,000 saved by the abolition of the food subsidies is again swallowed up. In fact, when analysed, the Book of Estimates shows that expenditure on Supply Services and Capital Services this year is up by some £300,000 instead of being down in amount. That is the achievement by this dramatic stroke of the "strong Government" as its first act—to take £9,000,000 in ease of the taxpayer as the unfortunate taxpayer thought, but it is swallowed up and now where has it gone? Instead of having a decrease of £6,500,000 at least on the face of the Book of Estimates this year, the figure has gone up and the public expenditure is shown to be increased by £300,000.

I take the view and have taken it very strongly—some economists differ— that very many of the difficulties confronting us then and which may confront the present Government now are traceable to the disruption of the economy caused by the Budget of 1952. The food subsidies were taken away at that time. It seems to be the pet theory of economists that food subsidies are unjustifiable and they produce arguments to that effect with great cogency and force. All we know, however, is the result to this country of abolishing the food subsidies. We know what happened in 1952; we know what happened in 1957, when the food subsidies were abolished. What benefit has the taxpayer got? What benefit has accrued to the economy by promoting the expansion of industry due to the decrease in taxation which is so urgently required if business is to be activated and industrial expansion to be achieved? We had nothing, as far as I can see, but bad results from the taking away of these food subsidies.

In 1952 they were justified on the grounds that at that time there was no possibility or reasonable prospect of an increase in agricultural production. That was the basis on which the Budget of 1952 was framed. We now know what expansion of agricultural production has taken place since that year, in spite of everything that may be said against the unfortunate farmers. Because there was to be no expansion of agricultural production, everything had to be increased in taxation by the Budget of 1952; foodstuffs had to be increased and the result was that there was no easement of the taxpayers' burden as a result of it. I cannot see at the present time how there is to be any easement of the taxpayers' burden as the result of the abolition of the £9,000,000 in the food subsidies—or, at its best, from the point of view of the Minister for Finance, £6,500,000.

There are the first fruits of this "strong Government". In so far as there was anything of a new character in the Budget of last year, there was that proposal of abolishing the food subsidies, which had certainly given promise of some easement of taxation and expansion of business. There was the development of the policy we had initiated of giving incentives to export. There was the provision for £250,000 for agricultural marketing improvement. I have dealt with the effect of the abolition of the food subsidies.

The effect of the export tax remission was merely to develop the policy that we had initiated and as regards the £250,000 provided for the development and improvement of agricultural marketing, there has not been one penny piece of that £250,000 spent for the purpose of improving agricultural marketing. All that has been done is to set up some sort of advisory body to advise the Minister how he is to spend that money that has not yet been spent and apparently will never be spent. The farming community is in a state of ferment. Whatever views people may hold about the desirability of reconciling the interests of farming, the national interest and the interests of the taxpayers and the dwellers in towns and cities, the way that the farmers have been treated here is no way to treat the principal industry, on which the whole State is founded.

The milk producers are up in arms to the point where they are making statements—which I feel sure the farmers will repudiate when they calm down and look upon it not merely from the point of view of their own interests but the interests of the nation as a whole—that they will boycott the bovine tuberculosis eradication scheme and, like Samson, pull down the pillars of the temple, destroying themselves and everybody else. While we sympathise with the milk producers and fully appreciate their importance and vital necessity in the national economy, no body of decent farmers would stand over the resolution which appears to have been fathered by the erstwhile friends of Fianna Fáil.

Various speakers have referred to the effect on the farmers' income of the price of wheat, the price of milk and barley and the reduction in their incomes through the levy. I do not intend to go over that ground, because I am not competent to do so, but may I remark two things in passing? One is that if the financial stringency of the country was such that it required the imposition of this levy on the milk producers, at least this strong Government, with its clear majority, with its penchant for plans, should have had some plan of an alternative character rather than the imposition of the levy to export cheap butter to the British for the utilisation of surplus milk. Surely there is some plan by which that milk could be disposed of rather than disposing of it to the British market at cheap prices. Has the Minister and his advisers ever considered the desirability of, if not the necessity for, developing the cheese industry in this country? It is a matter that I had views about when I was in office, views perhaps that I was not fully entitled to hold because it was a matter on which I had no very great knowledge. It was brought to my attention by an expert from Denmark that, after the war, the Danes, who had no knowledge of the technique of cheese-making, no experience in that technique, had built up a vast export trade in cheese. I had hoped, if we had not been interrupted in the course of the development of our constructive policy for agriculture, that that matter might have been considered.

I understand that years ago there might have been some very great difficulty in manufacturing the various ranges of cheese that are developed on the Continent, in Switzerland, in France, Holland and Denmark. Now, however, the scientific advances in research have been such that the bacteriological considerations affecting cheese are now pretty well established and well known. In any event, whether or not that was merely a bee in my bonnet, I think it devolves on the Minister for Agriculture to find some alternative plan rather than the one he has adopted for the easement of the milk producing industry.

I would then ask, for the second remark on the subject of agriculture, if it is indicative of a strong Government that, when matters vitally affecting the agricultural industry are being dealt with by conferences, by those taking part in the Free Trade Area arrangements in Europe, the Minister sent to those conferences is the Minister for Industry and Commerce and the Minister for Agriculture is left safely at home? We all know that one of the stumbling blocks in connection with the establishment of the Free Trade Area, and the conditions under which it will be set up, is the question of how agriculture is to be dealt with. That is a matter of the most vital importance to this country.

It is a matter, as everybody agrees, of the utmost importance to us, how we are to be affected by the establishment of this Free Trade Area. Are we to be left out in the cold? Are we to be left out on the edge of the Atlantic Ocean to impoverish ourselves still further, or are we to take part in it and see that we get conditions which will enable us to make use of that Free Trade Area and, above all, to see that our interests, as a primarily agricultural country, are safeguarded and that the benefits which the first inter-Party Government got for the farmers in the Trade Agreement of 1948, and which Fianna Fáil never got, are not frittered away? Are we going to see to it that the manoeuvrings which take place in these international gatherings, when every nation is out for its own selfish interests, will not be such as to leave us out in the cold?

The Minister for Industry and Commerce is looking after industry primarily, but agriculture is one of the stumbling blocks there and one of the matters in which we are vitally concerned, and yet the Minister for Agriculture is left at home. I suppose it would be imprudent to say what many people do say, that he should not be in the Government at all; but certainly when he is in the Government, at least he should be looking after the interests of agriculture at international conferences which may vitally and very markedly affect the agricultural community for many years to come.

I suppose perhaps it might be too trivial a matter, where very wider interests are involved, to draw attention to the position of the Government's policy on television, to indicate that in that matter, while one Minister says one thing, another Minister says another. Nobody knows where this strong Government stands in connection with a vital matter of that kind, but I do take the view, and I think my colleagues take the view, that the expenditure of moneys very urgently required for much more important purposes are being spent upon the so-called Irish transatlantic air service.

Does anybody doubt that the moneys, to whatever extent they are being spent in that futile performance, merely, I suggest, to pander to an obsession of the Tánaiste, would have been very much better used giving tax reliefs to Irish industrialists in order to get further into the export market and particularly into the market in America, or in improving agricultural credit facilities, or in much needed expansion of educational services? This strong Government has gone back on its tracks and has set up a transatlantic air service that not 5 per cent. of the people outside Fianna Fáil or their most devoted adherents want, and which will not be of any advantage to this country. Even if it were of advantage, there are such things as priorities and certainly the transatlantic air service is a long way down on the priority list as compared with those matters which are urgently required for development. The aim would seem to be to have this air service used by the Irish who are going to America as emigrants, rather than have them go by boat.

We are entitled to ask is it a mark of strong Government to throw away the levies on luxury articles as one of their first acts after they were appointed last year? If they had left those taxes on luxuries in operation, there would have been, I suggest, sufficient, and perhaps more than sufficent, money available to finance the export of butter and to save the farmers from the imposition of a levy of a penny a gallon on the price of milk. That is a matter that is deserving of the severest criticism. Those import levies were put upon these articles by us, admittedly, as a temporary expedient, and were to come off as soon as national conditions permitted. Some of those import levies were made permanent levies of a revenue-producing character, but some of them were taken off the luxury articles. The proceeds of those levies would have enabled the Minister for Agriculture at least to have stayed off the imposition of the levy on the milk producing sections of the farming community.

It is a new thing in Irish politics to have farming organisations passing votes of censure on Fianna Fáil. It shows, at least, whatever the views may be about these farming organisations, that the present Government have lost their confidence. We took the view that it was desirable in the national interest, not merely in the interests of the farming or agricultural community, that there should be the closest possible co-operation between representatives of the farmers and the Government at the very inception of policy. As part of that policy, we took the view, and still have the view, that these farming organisations should keep outside politics. They are desirable to have there, so that there can be a definite connection with policy, when it is being formulated by any Government and any Minister for Agriculture, affecting the representatives of the farmers, but they should keep outside politics. It is deplorable, therefore, that the Minister for Finance saw fit to make the very disreputable remarks which he made in a speech at Enniscorthy last week.

That is because I agree with Deputy Costello. They should keep out of politics.

But the Minister did not prove they were in politics.

I said they should keep out.

The Minister charged that they were in politics.

There are ways and ways of saying things.

That is true.

I think the Minister took the most undesirable method of expressing it. I gather he agrees with me that they should keep outside politics.

That would be a simple thing to say simply and courteously, but why drag it in and say that Fine Gael were mixed up with them?

That is how I ended up —that I hoped they would not join Fine Gael, as the rest of them did.

It was the kind of thing the Minister for Finance, on reflection, ought never to have done.

I got enough lectures from that side.

Perhaps some of them had some effect.

One of the greatest hopes aroused throughout the country by the coming into office of this strong Government with a clear majority was that, by virtue of the wonderful plan of £100,000,000 drawn up by An Tánaiste, or by virtue of the plans Fianna Fáil said they had, the unemployment problem would at last be solved. Other speakers have dealt with that aspect of the Government's inaction, failure and blunders during last year. I will content myself with referring to the City of Dublin.

Despite the fact that last year the unemployment figures in February were staggering, if you like, as a result of the ferocious economic blizzard that hit the country in 1956, as was admitted by the Taoiseach last week during the debate on the Supplementary Estimate for Agriculture and which was still further aggravated by the Suez crisis, in spite of the fact that the February figures for unemployment were aggravated by those conditions, all that the Government have been able to achieve in the past 12 months, with those conditions gone and with very much more favourable conditions existing, is a reduction of 2,500 in the unemployed in the City of Dublin. At the same time—and I think it has been admitted—something like 57,000 people emigrated during the past 12 months. That is certainly not anything that can be put to the credit of this strong Government.

There was some talk yesterday about the increase in the cost of living, about whether the cost of living is increasing or not, or whether it has decreased by one point between August of last year and November of last year. The position is that, in 1956, between February and November of that year, the consumer price index figure rose from 132 to 134. In that bad year, it rose by only two points. Between the same dates in 1957, February and November, it rose from 135 to 142, that is, by seven points. That is the result of strong Government.

There has been an expansion of banking credit according to the documents that we have available, an expansion of something like £7,000,000. It would have been thought that if the banks, all of whom have raised their dividends, had increased their credit by £7,000,000, the net result of the injection of some of that money into business and industry would have made itself felt, either in the prosperity of business or in increased employment. Everybody knows the straitened conditions in which business is carried on at the moment and everybody knows the position of unemployment. The fact of the matter is that most of that £7,000,000 was secured by the Government and though, on the face of it, there appears to have been an increase of £7,000,000 in bank credit, very little of it was given to business, industry or agriculture.

In the months from June to November, the number of State-aided new houses declined from 5,291 in the year 1956 to 3,241 in the year 1957, while, in November of last year, the number was less than half that in November of the previous year. The volume of industrial production in the second and third quarters of the year 1957 was less than that in the corresponding periods in the previous year, during which the economic blizzard was in full force.

The Taoiseach and the Minister for Finance pin their faith upon having equilibrium in our balance of payments. I hope they continue to do so and, if necessary, I hope they will have the courage to take the steps we had to take in order to achieve that equilibrium; but may I point out the result, and I hope it is only a temporary setback, in January of this year during which this strong Government was in office? The January figures for our external trade show some disquieting features. Cattle exports are considerably reduced as compared with the same period in the previous year. Over £3,000,000 of our exports of last year were due to the export of butter. Are we to rely upon balancing our international payments on the export of butter that we cannot sell here?

In the year that is just ending, international commodity prices have been falling. They are down by a significant percentage, by about 11 per cent., from the beginning of 1957 to the present time as compared with the previous year; so that, with import prices tapering off at least, if not actually coming down, and with import prices now possibly lower than last year, we ought to have had some better results economically and we certainly ought to have had some reduction in the cost of living. If those trends in international commodity prices continue and if import prices continue to come down, even Fianna Fáil will not be able to prevent a reduction in the cost of living.

I have given some, not by any means all, of the criticisms that can be made of the fruits of this strong Government's policy over the past 12 months. I could go on in greater detail into this, but my purpose here is not so much to criticise the Government. That is necessary; it is part of our duty and part of the democratic process that we should criticise when criticism is required; but what is really required and what is really essential is that there should emerge from our discussion here some sort of hope and some sort of policy for the future. The Taoiseach and the Minister for Finance seem to count it a virtue when they say that they are determined to balance our Budget: "We are determined to balance our Budget; we are determined to produce equilibrium and balance in our international payments." That is not the beginning and the end of all economic and financial policy. That, of itself, may be very virtuous economically and financially, but it will not produce employment and it will not stimulate business.

We have had, necessarily, in the past few years a very considerable amount of restriction; but we had a very considerable amount of it unnecessarily between 1952 and 1954, as a result of the Budget in 1952. It is about time that a little bit of expansion was tried. What is the good of having a balanced Budget and having your international balance of trade in complete equilibrium, if you have mounting unemployment, increased emigration, falling business and a depressed agricultural community? There must be something wrong and it is about time that the Minister for Finance and his colleagues in the Government proceeded to mould their economic and financial policy towards expansion and development rather than restriction.

It will be admitted by all economists that a very small and temporary disequilibrium in our balance of payments may be necessary in certain conditions in order to achieve the necessary stimulant to expansion in business, industry and agriculture and that such a slight disequilibrium is a small price to pay for achieving that object. It had been our policy, when the international balance of our external trade was achieved, to build upon that solid foundation, and it was the view of the then Minister for Finance that the way to achieve some measure of prosperity was, having achieved that sound basis, by means of the greatest possible permissible amount of capital expenditure on productive enterprises to achieve the expansion so urgently necessary. We were not given the opportunity of putting that policy into operation. It is about time the Minister did it.

There is a limit to what can be done by Government in the way of capital expenditure, but nevertheless I am convinced of the necessity for having that capital expenditure on productive enterprises at the highest possible level. It seems to be the catch-cry that Government expenditure is too high. The level of Government expenditure is the mark of economic sanctity. That is what makes you a good conservative in the eyes of certain sections of the community. Even Deputy Haughey paid lip-service to that doctrine yesterday, though he carefully added that he did not regard the keeping down of Government expenditure as some kind of magic and sacrosanct in itself. While we must keep in existing circumstances the capital expenditure of the Government at the highest possible level, provided that expenditure is on productive purposes, at the same time, there is a most urgent necessity to create conditions in which the private sector of the economy may give its full—or perhaps I should say, less ambitiously, its fuller—contribution to the desired economic development of the country in existing circumstances.

It is about time all controls were taken off the private sector of the community. It is of the utmost importance that that private sector, private business and private enterprise, should have sufficient capital to enable it to expand. That capital can be acquired only by decreased taxation. It can be acquired only by increasing the purchasing power of the money in the hands of the ordinary people. You cannot get that increase in capital and expansion in business, unless there is a reduction in taxation. You cannot get that increase in business activity which can give its full and essential contribution to the ending of unemployment and emigration and the development of the country, unless we can get foreign capital in here. We have been preaching that doctrine for years, the doctrine of the necessity for getting foreign capital in here.

We did apparently convert the Minister for Industry and Commerce to our point of view some years ago. You will not get any foreign capital here so long as you present to American or English industrialists, who may be tempted to come over here, three or four statutes of a complicated character which are frightening them off and which the most expert lawyer in the Bar Library will not try to interpret. We have been prevented, to an extent that God only knows, from getting capital to our advantage here in building up our undeveloped resources, our industry and agriculture. God only knows the amount of capital we have lost because of the Control of Manufactures Act.

Speak to any American industrialist and tell him "Do not mind them. You can get over it. There are devices of which any lawyer of a few years' standing will tell you to enable you get over those Acts. The Minister for Industry and Commerce has full power to give you a licence." He will wave you aside and say: "Government control. We will not adopt fraudulent devices. We are coming in on our own merits, on our own money and in our own way." Until that is stopped we shall not get into the country sufficient foreign capital to make any indentation on our problems. Until we get foreign capital here we shall all the time be starved of capital and be in the position that we cannot finance worth-while schemes that are at hand to be done, even by private enterprise, if only the necessary funds were available.

Lower taxation, availability of capital, restriction of control and, as soon as possible, the reduction of the bank rate. What is the justification of the continuance of the bank rate now? Why should we have to pay 7 per cent. because the British appear to be in trouble? It would seem that the efficacy of the raising of the British bank rate for the purposes they have in mind has been practically admitted to be of little avail. The bank rate should be reduced at the earliest possible moment.

It does not devolve on us as an Opposition to put forward at this stage, clear, definite, detailed points of policy. The present Government took office under conditions far different from those that I outlined, and very shortly indicated, which we had to face. They faced the condition when they came into office that the balance of payments had been rectified, that they had a basis upon which they could have built very solidly and very soundly for industrial and agricultural expansion. They had a policy ready-made and tailored to the conditions then existing, which we handed on to them and which they took and put into operation in part.

The Suez crisis had ended. They had not to meet the conditions when they went for a loan that we had to meet. The day after it opened the British bank rate was increased and any chance we had of getting capital was practically destroyed. World conditions were different, more money was available and there was less international tension. Those conditions, under which they have operated in the last 12 months, were far more beneficial to economic expansion than the conditions which faced the inter-Party Government in the 15 or 18 months before they left office.

The only results of 12 months of this so-called strong Government—that has its clear majority, that can do anything, that can snap its fingers at the Opposition, that has had ample leisure during the last 12 months and ample freedom from parliamentary work to devise a sufficiently effective and forward policy—are something very little short of chaos in the agricultural industry, little hope for the ending of unemployment, scant hope for the reduction of taxation and no hope for the ending of emigration.

The Minister for Lands.

With your permission, Sir, I want at this stage to lodge a protest on behalf of the Independent Deputies. This debate has been on now for nearly nine hours. In that period, nine Deputies, representative of the Parties in the House, have spoken. I have been present here for something like six hours of that period and I have offered myself on a number of occasions to the Chair to speak. I think it is a most undesirable line of approach that all the back benchers of the various political Parties are getting preference now over the Independents. It is a very bad way to treat Independent Deputies, who may have views that are not in agreement either with the Government or the Opposition. I want to express that view on behalf of Independent Deputies.

I would point out that the Chair at all times endeavours to call speakers from the different Parties in the House and to afford an opportunity for the expression of different viewpoints. While I have sympathy with Deputy McQuillan's point of view, I would point out that, since the debate on the Vote on Account commenced, the following speakers have been heard from the various Parties: four Fianna Fáil, three Fine Gael, one Labour and one Clann na Talmhan.

In addition to taking into consideration the number who have spoken for each Party, the Chair must also take cognisance of the time factor, and in this instance, the time occupied by the various speakers has been: Fianna Fáil, 2 hours, 19 minutes; and all others, 6 hours, 5 minutes. The Deputy will be called as soon as possible, as the Chair is always prepared to give Independents every possible assistance.

I wonder would it be possible to get a series of long playing records here so that Deputies on both sides could record to-day what they will say for the next five years?

It would be a good job if Deputy McQuillan would bear that in mind himself.

First of all, I want to deal with the charges that have been made by the Opposition that during the course of the general election the Fianna Fáil Party made all sorts of specious promises suggesting there were no difficulties that could not be immediately overcome and promising the people of this country that all the problems left to them by the Opposition when they were in office, could be solved in a moment of time.

We have already had the experience of Coalition election promises, of the promises made in 1954 to reduce prices, to reduce taxation, to build up agricultural production and industrial production. We had a welter of these promises in 1954, none of which materialised and all of which were broken in fact. As a Party with long experience of dealing with Coalition propaganda, we were quite determined that in the general election we would speak our minds honestly to the people of this country.

I have been going through all the speeches made in the general election by those Deputies who are now Ministers and I find their realistic and plain speeches were something of which we can be proud. I have been through all the speeches since the 21st February and I can find in no single utterance by any Minister a suggestion that these problems could be solved or that work would be found for hundreds of thousands of people overnight.

Most of the Ministers in almost every speech pointed out the difficulties that had to be met. They pointed out that any policy for bringing about greater production and employment must of necessity be of a long term character. The only promises made of an immediate character were that, as far as possible, we would put into operation housing grants and provide money for roads, the issues of which had been rapidly declining in the latter months of 1956. Over and over again it was stressed that it would take time and would require to a greater extent than ever before the effort of the people themselves to overcome the difficulties.

Many of the problems related to marketing; many to getting costs down; many related to exporting more goods at lower cost, overcoming difficulties that would arise when the world boom ended and to overcoming difficulties that had arisen because of increases in taxation that had made costs too high in many spheres of economic life.

The Taoiseach himself—and he needs no commendation or praise from me because he is beyond that—was extraordinarily scrupulous in all his speeches. He was scrupulous in pointing out that it would not be easy to overcome the work of the Coalition Government, of people who did not know their own mind, people who had dissension among themselves. Right from the beginning to the end of the election campaign he stressed the difficulties that had to be faced and said that we must have faith, that just as we had overcome the difficulties of 1952, just as we had met the problems left us by the Coalition Government of 1951, if we got the whole people behind us we could eventually triumph again.

I should like to quote from many of these speeches. I do not think it necessary to record them all merely for the sake of repetition but as I went through the election, from one week to another, I found that, if anything, the warnings of the difficulties became more insistent towards the end than at the beginning. Every effort was made to persuade the people that it would take a very considerable time to provide all the solutions to the many problems that faced us. I then examined official Party political statements, many hundred thousand copies of which were circulated and in which the whole of the promises made by Fianna Fáil of a specific character were listed. I found that so far as those plans were concerned a great many of them have already been put into operation. Where we made a specific statement of what we would try to do immediately, we have been able to carry out promises we made of an immediate direct character. We did restart many forms of Government activity the grants for which had dried up. We did decide to make an examination of agricultural credit with all its complicated problems and that is now being done. We did decide to step up the anti-tuberculosis bovine campaign and that is being done. We did decide to put into operation the plans for promoting an agricultural institute and that is now being effected.

We did decide to go on with the promotion of turf burning power schemes. We did restrict food imports as far as possible, in order that we could produce the maximum for ourselves. We did take every step to cut down expenditure and to introduce economies wherever possible in Government administration. We did invoke further legislation in the Finance Act by reducing taxation on Irish company dividends. We did step up the remissions on taxation on the profits of exported goods; we did modify the import levies, abolish many of them, and stabilise some of them in the form of permanent revenue duties.

Plans for expanding forestry plantation are in preparation and are likely to be announced in the course of the discussion on the Estimate. Tariffs to give further employment in industry have been imposed in considerable numbers. Encouragement to foreign investment has been given by changes in the Control of Manufactures Act and the issue of a new Act to deal with that question. We did get the Small Dwellings Acts loans and the grants going again and we paid the many people to whom money was owed at the time we reached office. We have ensured as far as possible that capital should be available for productive purposes.

Those were specific promises which we made in the general Fianna Fáil Party statement. Those promises have already been fulfilled as far as possible in the light of the Budget situation we had to face when we took office. There was nothing more in the official Party programme than the items I have mentioned; there was no further specific promises made guaranteeing to do certain things other than those I have mentioned and in every case those promises have been fulfilled or else in certain cases the problems are under very active consideration.

It is not easy to fulfil all of them. We found a Budget deficit, a position in which it was extraordinarily difficult to raise money for any purpose. We found a position in which previous loans issued for State capital purposes had not been filled; we found ourselves in the middle of a crisis in which there was a large number of unemployed. In the light of the circumstances we found we did not break any specific promise made in the general Party statement issued in thousands and thousands of copies all over the country and upon which we stood.

Apart from that, we made it perfectly clear that the rest was a long term job and that it would take time to deal with it. I want to make it quite clear so that nobody can have any doubt in regard to the present problems we have to face here. The easy work of increasing production and stimulating employment has been completed; most of the projects were devised by Fianna Fáil. Naturally one always begins in the life of a new State with the easy things. There are very few things we can do of a dramatic kind such as we did in our earlier period of office. All the easy tasks have been completed and all those Fianna Fáil projects are still in operation—such as protection for new industries, grants for new industries, grants for industries in western areas, the first Fianna Fáil land reclamation grant, the first soil analysis, encouragement of tillage, encouragement of housing, rural electrification, building of new power stations burning turf. All those plans to assist the country to increase employment and production or the great majority of them were devised by Fianna Fáil and are still in operation.

The easy work of that kind as I have said has been done in a large measure. There may be other dramatic proposals that will come before the people from time to time; there may be other and dramatic successes, but we rely largely now on work which requires not only the assistance of the Government but the initiative of the people. We have to keep our costs down if we are going to export. We have to encourage people to believe that this is a country with a stable economy into which investments will flow. We have to meet the many changes in world conditions that will come upon us now that, at least for a period, the world boom is over.

I might add that during the election conflict at the end of 1956, during the by-elections of that period and even during the general election, there were no general signs of the end of a world boom. There were some economists who predicted that the mounting employment in America, mounting exports and mounting production may have reached their maximum figure but there were no facts upon which we could rely which would suggest that within a year of gaining office we would begin to face a new series of difficult conditions which would affect not only this country but every country in Europe. None of us knows how long the recession in the United States will continue. It may be only of short duration but, nevertheless, there has been a change in the economic climate which will be as big a change as that which took place after the second world war had ended. And, just as everything was only to easy for us from 1947 until 1955, just as during that period it was only too easy to postpone all the major problems relating to marketing, investment and production, so now we find that we are facing immediate difficulties, immediate challenges to our initiative, immediate challenges to our capacities to compete on more difficult terms in respect of nearly every export that we have.

We also face the position that the period of easy money that was obtainable during most of the last ten years, obtainable from the sale of our foreign savings, obtainable by our being able to incur foreign liabilities against those savings, has ended. We in Fianna Fáil were not responsible for this. During our brief period of office from 1951 to 1954 we did our best to stay the loss of our savings. Many of us at that time made speeches, which were laughed at by the Opposition, pointing out that it was essential to maintain these reserves for the time when the post-war boom would end so that there would be savings available both for investment and for meeting trade recessions when they came. The fact remains that during the whole of those six years every effort made by Fianna Fáil to warn the people of this country that they must preserve their reserves for productive investment was laughed at by the Coalition Parties. Now we face a position when a great deal of productive investment has got to be effected through our own savings or else through the money that we can encourage to come from abroad to help us to start factories for our export trade.

During that period, because it was so easy to spend saved-up money, the people, encouraged by the Coalition, got the impression that they could vote themselves a higher standard of living, that wages and salaries could go up without prices going up in their turn, that wages and salaries could go up without our having to face permanent increases in costs that are inevitable in the case of an island community with extra freight costs and with all the additional difficulties that affect both the Twenty-Six Counties and the Six Counties in varying degree. We now have to face all those problems and overcome them.

It would be far more profitable to talk about methods of encouraging both employers and workers to establish incentive bonus schemes in factories from which both employers and workers could benefit in order to keep down costs, in order to stimulate industrial exports, in order that a great many factories that have not yet had an opportunity to export can do so than to try to charge Fianna Fáil with making promises at elections.

If we could have members of the Opposition telling us and informing us as to the degree to which the present Minister for Industry and Commerce has failed, if they think he has failed, in stimulating that kind of talk among industrialists, the Opposition will be doing immense service. They would find it difficult because, ever since the election, all those of us who have any experience of business have been going around the country encouraging people to think of incentive bonus schemes, methods of increasing productivity and reducing costs in order to get into markets where we have no access at the moment, in order to maintain markets that we have in the event of reducing prices.

That is the kind of task we have to face and, as I have said, it is not dramatic talk that will get us anywhere; it is not talking about broken promises in an election; it is not making grandiose phrases about not paying too much attention to the balance of payments that will get us anywhere. It is the hard work of exploring new markets and of encouraging the people to explore markets themselves. The reorganisation effected by the Minister for Industry and Commerce in CÓras Tráchtála Teoranta, the explorations being made by that body, are all far more important to the people than anything in relation to the recent arrangements for wheat. These are the fundamental problems that we have to deal with—collaboration between employers and workers who will have the courage to face increases of production without the fear of workers becoming redundant, which is now affecting many groups of workers and employers alike, who in many cases are afraid to take the steps necessary for fear that, instead of production increasing and exports increasing, the workers will simply be fewer in number. These are the difficulties we have to face.

In connection with agriculture, we have an agricultural marketing committee which is investigating the immense problems that affect our agricultural exports, problems in the case of almost every product where there is competition on a foreign market, problems of regularity of supply, of standard packing and grading, problems of advertising, the difficulties of overcoming the freight costs which our competitors do not have to meet in a great number of instances.

There are many heartening signs of progress. Many new types of exports have been initiated in the last 12 months in our industries. We have had agriculturists who proceeded on their own with new exports. For instance, the plans that have been announced in Wexford for the export of fruit juice is one small example of the kind of progress that we have to make in a great many different directions. There is another example of the kind of progress we can make. There was a firm which succeeded in 1956 in exporting feed oats to the West Indies in terms of hundreds of tons and found that this year the farmers grew too few oats to enable them to achieve the supply they require in order to continue that trade.

There are, for example, opportunities for the export of fishery products which are a perfect illustration of the problem which affects this country. It is not a dramatic problem but one which requires continued investigation and hard work and effort by everyone concerned. It is only a very tiny section of our trade; it is the export of what are known in this country as Dublin Bay prawns to the U.S. where there is a very ready market available but they all have to be of one particular size and have to be caught in the right kind of waters. The catches have to be very rapidly deep frozen and the trade contacts have to be made with the U.S. of an acceptable character. These are difficult marketing problems that are a challenge to us and that have to be overcome if we are to swell our exports and, as a result, give the kind of employment which will help to do something to ease the problems of unemployment and emigration.

There has been a kind of despondency which has settled over the people of this country from the beginning of 1956, and which I hope is passing away, because of the impression that has been created that we seem to be isolated in regard to this difficulty of high emigration and high unemployment. It is a challenge to us to realise that the people of the Six Counties, with overwhelmingly greater advantages in many respects, have exactly the same kind of problems as we have. Anybody who has read the Ibec Report on economic conditions in the Six Counties will find that in many instances they could substitute the Twenty-Six Counties for the Six Counties and then appreciate that the problems here are the same, the difficulty of bringing capital into an island community, the high freight rate costs across the Channel, the small home market. All those difficulties affect the whole of the 32 counties. They are the challenges to our island community.

It is no good trying to deceive the people by trying to make it appear there is an easy solution or that Fianna Fáil ever promised that they could solve the problems with ease. All these problems must be overcome by hard work and by Government action in the form of finance, in the form of marketing assistance, but they must be overcome. I believe that with time we can overcome them. One of the most heartening things one can see is the number of people engaged in economic activities of practically every kind covering almost every commodity from bacon to aluminium wire, to fruit juice, to seed oats, to almost every type of activity in every industrial field, who have succeeded in overcoming these difficulties, who are able to compete abroad with other countries and who are able to increase their exports.

The job of this Government is to give the greatest possible aid to expand the numbers of persons engaged in those successful enterprises. If we could have a debate based on those technical and marketing problems and have suggestions made to enable us to get over our difficulties we would be doing more for the people of this country than by making a blind accusation against the Government that we made wild promises during the election when in fact every one of us, so far as we could do so, warned the people that it would be a long uphill task.

The Government in the Budget of 1957 took several steps to aid the export of our produce and to encourage foreign investment. Since then in every single month successive steps have been taken in that direction. The marketing of our agricultural produce abroad is the greatest single problem we face. The Agricultural Committee is working on that and, as I have said, we may have to make changes which at the moment seem not feasible in order to ensure growing agricultural exports. There are many steps that may have to be taken of a kind we have not taken before. Consideration will have to be given to their practicability.

For example, in the increase of certain agricultural exports it is so necessary to guarantee the supply of the right product at the right price, graded and packed in the right way, that preference may have to be given to the export market even at the expense of the home market in order to ensure that an export can be set going and that it can be regularly supplied. It would be a wonderful thing if, instead of wrangling over the price of cigarettes, the price of tobacco and the price of drink, we had been wrangling over the far more serious problems of trying to provide such an expansion of exports in a seller's market that we would form a marketing organisation that would ensure that when competition came the machinery would then be in existence to enable those exports to continue, that there would be if necessary a saved-up levy fund available during the time when prices were high to save the difficulties the Exchequer now meets in paying subsidies on exports.

We never had that climate of opinion in this country. The Coalition were too much determined to keep people thinking how they could vote themselves a higher standard of living now, how they could get cheaper drink and cheaper tobacco, while all the serious issues of building up economic strength to face competition were postponed and postponed and postponed. During our brief three years of office with a very uncertain majority the most we were able to do was to stabilise the financial position and leave this country in a better position financially to face the prospects of meeting greater competition later on.

I do not intend to deal with all the issues in this Vote on Account. I merely want to try to bring the debate back to reality, to the realisation that this country has to develop in a very short period of time many of the elaborate marketing systems that have been in operation in other small countries for a generation or more. It is simply a question of whether the people wish to have that form of organisation, whether they are prepared to make changes in habits and methods of a very drastic kind in order that we can export many of these products. That is the real problem that faces us and let us get down to it now and stop talking nonsense about what the Government were supposed to have promised during the general election.

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.

The Deputy would have to alter the Constitution for that.

I would not mind.

Probably not, but the Deputy may not advocate it on the Vote on Account.

These are minor suggestions. It is clear that for the long-term solution of our problems, we must have a considerable capital investment by the State in profit-creating enterprises. The Minister for Industry and Commerce the year before last outlined the need for such an investment policy in order to create jobs for at least 20,000 people per annum. He was, of course, on the right lines. Now, £100,000,000 sounds a lot of money to spend, but I am sure we have spent £100,000,000 before this. We have spent a lot of money, anyway, on different State enterprises over the years. I am sure a considerable sum of money had to be found to finance those enterprises. I am equally sure that it can be found again. The Government must decide fundamentally to go into the profit-creating type of business, in competition with private enterprise, if necessary, and depart from the purely utility type of undertaking.

There is no need for large-scale nationalisation in a country such as ours. There is nothing worth nationalising. Our industries are too tiny. If private enterprise wanted to start a business big enough to compete in the world market to-day, it has not got the capital to do so, even if it has the enterprise, the will, the wish or the wit. No group of private businessmen could afford to put up the money needed to organise and gain admission to the tremendously competitive foreign markets. Only the State has the capital with which to do that. It has come to the stage now when only the State can provide capital in the amounts required. Private capital could never have started Bord na Móna, the E.S.B., Aer Lingus, Irish Steel Holdings, or any of these other undertakings. The time has come when a fundamental decision must be taken and the Government must cease to potter about with the problem of creating employment for the thousands upon thousands who need it.

The P.U.T.U.O. put forward proposals which have great merit. To me, they are more attractive than those put forward by the Minister for Industry and Commerce two years ago because they come down more nearly on the side of State enterprise as against private enterprise. New industries must obviously be based on agriculture—food processing, food canning, food curing and food packing. Agriculture is the backbone of our entire economy. Nothing should go out on the hoof. Everything should go out processed in some form or another. In that way, we will be able to give the farmer a return for his investment and his work. His products can compete in world markets. There is no rational argument against that proposition. We know that State enterprise can do the work efficiently. We know it can do it well. We know that the capital can be found, if we set about finding it. The agricultural produce is there. The farmer has shown that he is well able to provide the goods, if he is assured of a market and a reasonable price. The State should set up some form of productive enterprises based on agriculture, thereby ensuring the farmer a constant and remunerative market.

The co-operative societies should be developed to the maximum. At the moment the farmer is at the mercy of the rings and the cartels—the suppliers of the implements of his industry. He is, too, at the mercy of the middleman, who gives him one price and charges the consumer something entirely different, making unreasonable profits in the process. Clearly, the farmers will have to develop the co-operative movement themselves. Judging by the experience of Norway, Sweden and Denmark, that is the obvious line along which the farmers will get a constant outlet for their products at reasonable prices.

In relation to markets, I am always amazed at the attempts made to break into the British market on the purely industrial side. That cannot be done because most of our enterprises are subsidiaries of British companies and these companies will not allow competition with the home market. Another absurd activity on the part of our Government over the years has been these senseless peregrinations around the United States of America at considerable expense to the taxpayer. I can see no discernible advantage of any kind to the community as a whole in these tactics. Is it not clear that, in attempting to break into the American market, we are trying to break into one of the most highly competitive markets in the world—automated, organised and, on the technical side alone, extremely efficient?

In ordinary industrial textile products, other than cottage industry and farm products, how can we hope to break into the American market? Even if we did, it is quite clear that if they did not price us out, they would keep us out with tariffs. They have shown us that already. They are not interested in keeping us as a pet. That is all very well on St. Patrick's Day. But they are hard-headed businessmen. Anybody who goes over to the United States these days with 5.2 million unemployed and asks them to come over here and help us out of our troubles is certainly looking for a hard answer. They have got plenty of worries and troubles of their own at the moment, without putting ours on their backs as well.

It seems to me that the obvious markets for a country such as ours are the Afro-Asian countries and the Middle East, countries who would have goodwill to a country such as ours, with much the same history and much the same relations with colonial Powers. Consequently, they would have a certain sympathy for us. They represent tremendous markets, in so far as there are tremendous numbers of people there, and quite small orders would be a great help to industries here. The Middle East, India, Africa, the Sudan—in countries such as that we are much more likely to make progress than we are in Great Britain and America, who are cutting each other's throats for markets in Europe and in each other's countries. We might as well face reality and not be wasting money sending people around on these goodwill tours—holidays at the taxpayers' expense.

It is clear, therefore, that the position now, as we see it in this Book of Estimates, is a very sad one indeed. After 35 years of government by the old men on both sides—young in their time—it is clear we have failed completely to create either social justice for our people or a prosperous system of economy in Ireland. If the Taoiseach, who is the present Leader of the country, failed as a young man with radical ideas, with a dynamic policy and a dynamic approach to the problems of running society efficiently, what reason has he to think, or what reason have we to think, that he can solve them now in his very advanced old age?

I wonder do the old men on both sides realise to what extent they have failed? In regard to the major objectives of our country in the past 35 years —any of them you like to mention— they have failed to find a solution for any of them. Whether it is Partition— the Taoiseach can answer me on this —the revival of the language, the ending of emigration, the creation of full employment, the creation of a socially just order in a prosperous society—as long a list of failures and as spectacular a list of failures as it is possible for any group of politicians in any society to have to admit to, after 35 years of their best endeavours.

One could forgive them that failure; one could forgive them the hurt, the sorrow, the misery and the unhappiness that all that has meant to our people, if we could only get an assurance that at this late date they at least appreciated that they had failed, that their policies had failed, that their old-fashioned ideas cannot succeed and that the time has come for the Taoiseach to honour his promise, made so long ago, that if this system failed him, then he would be prepared to go outside it.

I am interested in hearing the repeated demands from Deputies for monuments to past generations. That is all good in its own way, but, as a believer in James Connolly and all he believed, I think that the best monument he would like is the Latin text: Si monumentum requiris, circumspice. He wished to see a radical and fundamental change in our whole social and economic system—the creation of a society where the important things of health, education and security from want in old age would be the common birthright of all. The monuments that you men will leave behind you are the derelict schools, the unfortunate children in their overcrowded classrooms, the emigrants in their masses, the fact that we have one of the most backward educational systems in Europe, the fact that we have health services which are grossly unjust, ridden with means tests and that the treatment you will get depends on the money in your pocket.

How often do you see in the paper that old persons are found dead, because they have starved to death on 25/- or 30/-, the pittance that we offer in order to get them by from one and of the week to the other? These are the monuments to your generation; these are your creations. I am speaking in particular to the Taoiseach. While the last vestige of political reputation lies with you, in God's name, go, and let the country make some progress. Go to an honourable retirement, which none of us begrudges you, but we cannot afford—that word has been used so much—your blundering leadership any longer.

The debate on this Vote on Account affords the electorate, through their elected representatives in this House, an opportunity to reflect over the past 12 months, to assess the deeds or misdeeds of the Government and to ask the Government to give an account of their stewardship. That is a relatively easy task for any Deputy in the Chamber. But we have always felt, and it has been accepted, that the Vote on Account should also present an opportunity to the House to assess the merits of the stated programme of the Government for the coming year. I have listened carefully to two Ministers and to two or three back-benchers on the Government side speaking on this Vote, but I must confess that I have failed to glean any indication of what the Government's policy is over a very wide field of important aspects of the economic life of the country. I have failed to elicit any clear, definite statement of policy on any aspect of our economic life.

We on this side of the House—and I suspect the back-bench Deputies on the Government side also—are left to our own devices to ascertain from the information available in the Book of Estimates what Government policy is to be for the next 12 months, if there is a policy at all. We are entitled to review the work of the past 12 months and call upon the Government to give an account of its stewardship. To do this, I would invite members of the House to bring their minds back with me in an endeavour to recapture the climate that prevailed immediately before the last election and during the campaign that preceded it.

I think it cannot be disputed that the unfortunately high level of unemployment this time last year played a big part in the defeat of the outgoing Government because of the criticisms that were levelled—and rightly levelled, to my mind—for some months beforehand. Unemployment played a big part, chiefly because the electorate was given to understand unmistakably that all they had to do to reduce considerably the number of unemployed— if not, indeed, to achieve full employment—was to return a strong Fianna Fáil Government.

In my own constituency in Cork City, the highways and byways were littered with posters and pamphlets clearly stating that the Fianna Fáil Party had a dynamic programme for full employment. The dynamic programme was there; they were in the process of working out the details, and they were anxious to "get cracking". The only thing missing was the power they sought. They went to the electorate on the plea that they were seeking an opportunity to rectify the unemployment situation, and they got it.

To augment their arguments and propaganda on that occasion, they trotted out at every suitable occasion the blueprint of the Minister for Industry and Commerce for full employment. We have since been told, and told by the Minister for Lands during this debate, that this blueprint for full employment with which the Minister so cheerfully regaled the country when he was in opposition was not a blueprint at all, that it was not even a plan. We are brazenly told that it was nothing more than a basis for a discussion on unemployment problems within the Fianna Fáil organisation. We are told it was simply so many words printed on paper to be tossed into the debating society of Fianna Fáil.

I want to make it quite clear that the blueprint was not presented in that manner to the electorate at the general election and I shall quote very briefly in support of that statement a pamphlet issued by Fianna Fáil in Cork City. In an article headed: "Fianna Fáil Plans the End of Emigration—Quick Action Needed to Avert National Disaster"—it says, in regard to the document we are now told was nothing more than a basis for a discussion within the Fianna Fáil Party:—

"The full employment proposals recently announced by Fianna Fáil show how the Party intends to deal with the problems of emigration by providing work for all our people at home. The Fianna Fáil plan proposes an increase over five years in the number of new jobs by 100,000. This would result in full employment and the end of abnormal emigration."

Could any statement be clearer than that? Could anybody, accepting plain English for what it is, take any meaning out of that other than that the plan was there to be implemented, should Fianna Fáil get back. There is no suggestion in this that it was simply the title of a debate to be held at some undetermined future time by members of Fianna Fáil. I think we are entitled to say, as the people are saying up and down the country, that it was a hoax, and a hoax from the very start.

Even after the election and on coming in here, the very first words of the Taoiseach to the Press were to the effect that the unemployment situation was one that he regarded as serious and one which would be his very first concern. I have no doubt in my mind that the Taoiseach was genuine when he said it and that he did intend to use all the power and resources he had to grapple with unemployment, but I think we must record that whatever efforts he made have ended in dismal failure. In spite of the propaganda, in spite of the Minister's blueprint and in spite of the obvious desire of the Taoiseach to do something about it, the position now is that there are considerably fewer people employed than there were even then, at a time when unemployment was so high.

For some months past, scarcely a parliamentary day has passed without some Deputy tabling a question regarding the unemployment position in his area. The Deputy usually asks for the unemployment figures at the present date and at the corresponding date last year. These are figures that can be argued and that can be fiddled around with. One side claims that there are fewer people unemployed; the other side claims that there are more people unemployed, to suit their own book. People say that the figures for emigration affect the unemployment situation. Undoubtedly they do. Very significant figures were given here yesterday that should clarify the position. We were told yesterday, in reply to a question by Deputy Michael O'Higgins, that in agriculture and industry, in the year 1957, there were 705,000 people employed and that the figure for 1956 was 729,000. It is plain for everyone to see that in the year that has gone by, the first year of Fianna Fáil Government since their return after the last election, there were 24,000 fewer jobs in this country.

In spite of all the promises, in spite of the propaganda, in spite of the ballyhoo, the Government's record on employment over the past 11 months has been that approximately 500 jobs per week have been lost and for every working day in the past 11 months, 84 jobs have been cancelled out. That is a problem to which the Minister might address himself, when concluding the debate.

It might also be of benefit if the Minister for Defence, who is not in the House at the moment, were to do some serious thinking about that problem rather than come in here with the plausible type of speech that he made yesterday on this Vote.

The question of housing has caused concern for many years not only in this House but in every local authority. It should be said, first of all, that successive Governments have made tremendous strides in the rehousing of our people. Successive Governments have realised the great social problem that existed in that respect and have not spared themselves in tackling it, with remarkable success. I say that in contrast to the speech made this evening by Deputy Browne, who felt that nothing had been done by any Government over the past 35 years. He should remember the housing programme, the hospital programme, to which he made such a tremendous contribution, the programmes in respect of the E.S.B., Bord na Móna, the sugar factories. All of us on all sides of the House should take tremendous pride in these achievements.

To return to the housing question, I grant that in very many local authorities, the problem has been largely solved through the efforts of successive Governments, but, nevertheless, in Dublin, Cork, Limerick, Waterford and in the larger centres generally, there is still a great need for rehousing. The Government cannot be unaware of that situation. Because of that, I am disappointed that there is a definite indication that, following the slowing down of housing programmes experienced over the last year, there is to be a slowing down during the coming 12 months.

I tabled a question to-day to the Minister for Local Government regarding a scheme in Cork City. I got the reply that sanction in relation to that fairly large scheme was being withheld, because the corporation had not answered some technical question regarding slum clearance.

That would be a matter for the Estimate for Local Government.

Very well, Sir. I am simply commenting on the fact. My comments arose from the fact that, in the Book of Estimates, one of the main decreases has been in the provision for housing grants. There is a cut of £700,000 in that connection. Having regard to the fact that the improvement of the position in many areas would require a house building programme at a proper tempo, it is regrettable that one of the savings attempted by the Government should be in respect of housing.

When the Government sought the support of the electorate on the last occasion, a main plank in their platform was the question of wages and prices generally. For many years, particularly since the war, the question of wage levels and price levels has been a major bone of contention between the various political parties, and rightly so. Wages and prices are matters that vitally concern all working-class families and families of every description. What has been the record of this Government over the past year in this regard? It will suffice to say that, in relation to prices, the Government has adopted and implemented a policy which is the virtual abandonment of any semblance of price control. That cannot be denied. That has been advocated for quite a while by many supporters of the present Government. They are entitled to advocate that, if they wish, but the complete abandonment of price control is a policy which I and my Party deplore.

The cost of living, of course, has increased. I do not want to embark on the controversy that has been raging here as to whether the Taoiseach says there is an increase in the cost of living or there is not an increase. Everybody knows that there has been a very steep increase in the cost of living and that has very many serious effects.

I was interested in a question on yesterday's Order Paper which asked for the figures of consumption of butter and margarine per head of the population in the years 1956 and 1957. The reply showed that the consumption per head of butter in 1957 as compared with 1956 had decreased considerably. We do not have to search very far for the answer. That was chiefly because of the increase in the price of butter and the increase in the price of other commodities, giving the people less purchasing power, irrespective of what their incomes were.

Consumption of margarine per head of the population has risen significantly. It is clear that in respect of butter, which is of such importance from many aspects, consumption per head of the population has decreased and consumption of margarine has increased.

Turning to the question of wages and the apparent policy of the Government as illustrated over the past 11 or 12 months, it would be well to reflect for a moment or two on exactly what transpired. Following the removal of the subsidies in the Budget, with the consequent increase in the price of essential foodstuffs, the consequent rise in prices and the consequent lowering of the standard of living of the workers. it was quite apparent that organised labour would do the job that it was set up to do, that is, to maintain the standard of living of its members. It was obvious that there was to be an all-out attempt to have increased wages and it was indicated by the Government at that time that that would have very serious consequences for the country.

The Government interviewed and appealed to the trade union movement not to have a free for all demand, a free for all struggle which would end in the survival of the fittest. The Government, the trade union movement itself and the public generally, realised that there were bodies of workers who, because of their organisational strength, because of the type of services they were rendering to the community, might be in a position to command a higher increase than other sections of the community.

At the behest of the Tánaiste, and with his blessing, the Provisional United Trade Union Organisation went into conference with the Federated Union of Employers, and the net result of their deliberations was, as we all know, that there emerged an agreement outlining the general principles to be observed by both sides, so as to ensure that the increases in wages would not have any serious adverse effect on the economy of the country generally. A tribute should be paid to the two sides of industry that negotiated that agreement. The fact that so many claims have since been fixed with the minimum of industrial upset is, in itself, a tribute to the wisdom of the agreement.

The Governments having got the Federated Union of Employers and the trade unions to draw up and honour such an agreement, the Minister for Health in this Government appears on the scene and makes a very serious attempt to welsh on the agreement drawn up at the behest of his colleague, the Tánaiste.

That matter does not arise on the Vote on Account. It is one mainly for the Estimate for the Department of Industry and Commerce.

I am simply commenting on the general policy of the Government on wages and prices.

The Deputy is entitled to do so, but he is going into too much detail.

I bow to your ruling, Sir. I am merely pointing out that an attempt was made surreptitiously to implement a standstill Order on wages as far as local authority employees were concerned. If the Minister had got away with imposing a standstill Order on this type of employee, it would have had repercussions on other State and semi-State employees.

That question may not be argued at this stage.

Of course, it has been made quite clear to civil servants that they are entitled to no increase at all. When I refer to civil servants, let us not forget that we are not referring specifically to people in higher posts in the Civil Service. We are referring to postmen, porters, Gardaí, members of the Army, and so on, many of whom are living on depressed wages.

Almost since its implementation, the matter of the administration of the Health Act has been a bone of contention between the various political Parties. I introduce this subject because I can well remember that during the last general election campaign, one of the cries from the Fianna Fáil platform was: "Fianna Fáil introduced the Health Act; Fianna Fáil is the only Party that can make it work properly."

That does not make it relevant on the Vote on Account.

It makes it relevant in so far as there is an amount in the Vote on Account for health services.

The Deputy is aware that the Estimates are not before us. He is also aware that the administration of the Health Act does not arise at this stage.

I submit that he is entitled to refer to every item listed in the Vote on Account.

Policy, yes, but not administration.

It has already been pointed out that Deputies may refer to the broad outlines of Government policy, that details of the Estimates are not before us and that it would be out of order to refer to them.

Might I suggest that the previous Government on general lines were criticised because of the manner in which the Health Act was being operated and it was clearly put to the people, in my constituency, at any rate, that Fianna Fáil, if returned to power, would remove the confusion that existed in the minds of the people in relation to this Act. I can see you are not pleased, Sir, so I shall leave that.

The Deputy will get every opportunity on the Estimate for the Department of Health to refer to these matters.

I shall avail of the opportunity, but, before leaving the matter, may I say that the only change in general policy I have seen adopted by the Government who claimed in advance that they would remove the confusion was the introduction here of the Act adding new charges which only confounded the confusion already existing.

Turning to the Government's policy, or lack of policy, perhaps I should say, in relation to our hospitalisation programme, let me say very briefly that those of us on all sides of the House who are members of local authorities are aware of the many necessary and desirable projects which are at the moment held up. It is true to say that over the years, during the time of all Governments and particularly of one Fianna Fáil Government, great advances were made in hospitalisation. When the present Minister for Health came into power on this occasion, he said he required some time to review the whole hospital building programme and that all plans in his Department for expansion, rebuilding, or new buildings would have to be held up, pending his examination of the situation.

That was a most reasonable request for any Minister coming into a Department to make, and I think the Opposition readily gave him every opportunity to examine the situation. But it is a bit thick that, after 12 months, we have not heard anything from the Minister as to what the programme may be in the next 12 months. I am suggesting that the examination of the hospital building programme should now cease and that it would be of benefit to the country, to the local authorities and to the people awaiting hospitalisation, if he would make a clear statement in regard to his findings in the matter. Whether it is good news or bad news, he should let us have it.

I notice that the vote for new school buildings has been reduced to the extent of £174,000. I think that is regrettable. Practically every Deputy in this House must have personal knowledge in his own constituency of schools which need reconditioning and reconstruction, particularly the very old and dilapidated schools which require to be demolished and new schools put in their place. I grant that this must be a headache for successive Governments.

Many of our schools are very old. They have served their purpose and I think that for some years at any rate it is inevitable that there would be arrears of work. It would be unfair to criticise any particular Government for not solving the problem 100 per cent. in one, two, three, four or five years. It is regrettable that when those arrears of work are there and when there is such a pressing need for these new school buildings, one of the cuts for the coming year should be under that heading.

That is not true.

That is my reading of it. Perhaps the Minister might tell me in his reply——

It is not true. I do not blame the Deputy because it does not appear in the figures.

I am very glad to hear that, but that is my reading of it. As I am dealing with the Department of Education, I want to say this. Generally, for some time past, there have been comments, both inside and outside the house, on the question of the revival of Irish.

The Deputy may not argue that question on the Vote on Account. The Deputy will get every opportunity to deal with that matter on the relevant Estimate.

I simply want to say——

It is out of order. The Deputy may not proceed any further with the question of the Irish language on the Vote on Account.

At any rate, I want to say that over the past year the history of the present Government has been a particularly sad one. They went to the country making specific promises. They gulled the electorate into thinking that all that was needed to cure very many of our social and economic ills was a strong Fianna Fáil Party with an overall majority in this House. They got that and what have they to show after 12 months? This is the record. They will go down in the history of this House as the Government which in one short year was responsible for a severe Budget which abolished the subsidies and thereby filched £9,000,000 out of the pockets of the ordinary people of this country.

They will go down as the Government which is responsible for a very serious increase in the unemployment situation, a serious decrease in the employment figures and a further slowing down in the housebuilding programme. They will also go down as the Government responsible for adding confusion to an already confused Health Act and as the Government which apparently sits by complacently while there is a complete paralysis in regard to the hospital building programme. They will further go down as the Government that made a very serious attempt to impose a further Standstill Order on wages. Finally, they will go down in history as being the Government which has virtually abandoned price control and which has made no progress this year, at any rate, towards the problem of the revival of Irish or the solution of Partition. The Government throw their hands up in the air on every occasion, stating they have no money to do this or that.

Deputy Dr. Browne, during the course of his contribution to the debate, pointed out that while it may be true that there is a certain shortage of money in very many directions it is regrettable that money should be cut for housing grants, Local Authorities (Works) Act, new schools, farm building schemes, Gaeltacht Services and many other necessary projects. There is no money available to give relief to those mostly in need—the aged, the widows, the blind, the disabled and the sick. There is nothing extra at all for them but, as has been pointed out here, there are increases in relation to such things as the Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies and an increase in the Department of Defence to the extent, I think, of £37,000, bringing the overall expenditure in the Department of Defence to £6,200,000 That type of expenditure is very questionable at the present day.

I think we must stop and ask ourselves whether that money is being well spent. Could it be more profitably spent? Is it justifiable to expend it and say to the underprivileged sections of our community that there is nothing for them but that there is plenty for defence, runways, new airlines and the Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies?

I shall conclude by asking the Minister a few questions. They are questions which the present Minister for Health asked on this Vote in March, 1956, when he outlined the hardships the people were suffering and concluded, as reported at column 813 of the Official Debates of the 20th March, 1956, by asking the then Minister for Finance:—

"What does the Minister propose to do for them? Rates are rising, costs are rising and taxes are certainly not coming down. How does the Minister intend to put the farmers of Ireland in a position to export more in the face of increasing competition? What about the country shopkeepers? Their shops have been empty and trade has been stagnant over the past month... What relief has he in store for the country shopkeepers. What about the self-employed person, the tradesmen, the retired civil servants, the superannuated employee of a private concern and the elderly folk living on the fruit of their small savings?"

Those were the questions the present Minister for Health had to ask on this Vote in 1956. I now conclude by asking the present Minister for Finance to answer the same questions.

On the cover of the Book of Estimates circulated last week the Minister for Finance presents his annual bill of which this Vote is a part and the bill is for £110,002,220. Admittedly, there is a reduction of £2,500,000 from that which appeared last year, but we have only to look for two items when we shall see that they account for that reduction. There is a reduction of £1,800,000 for subsidies to C.I.E. and a reduction of £700,000 in respect of housing grants for the coming year. The reduction in housing grants will depress further the building industry in this country and cause further unemployment.

As well, there are reductions in the land project, forestry and in various other items which have been mentioned already by other speakers. All these are bound to affect considerably the employment position in the country. One is forced to ask what became of the £6,500,000 which the Minister for Finance had to play with in the current year? A sum of £6,500,000 was saved through the abolition of the food subsidies, but that saving is not reflected in the Book of Estimates.

Are we to assume that the £6,500,000 has gone to meet increases in the various items shown in this book? It is for the Minister for Finance to answer that. The minor reductions are welcome. Nevertheless, the bill is disappointing because of its magnitude, because of the hope the Minister inspired 12 months ago that he would effect considerable pruning, that all extravagance would be eliminated and that he would make every effort to bring about a reduction. The bill is disappointing because we are facing a difficult period and, in fact, are already in a difficult period. People's incomes are shrinking and they will be disappointed when they consider and analyse this whole matter.

One of the causes of our present difficulties is the staggering taxation which people have to meet year in, year out, and from which they see no hope of relief. That taxation has a serious impact on employment. It is causing unemployment and contributing to emigration, about which we hear so much talk. I know of young men who were earning £4 10s. to £5 a week and who have left this country in order to avoid income-tax. That is a common feature of life in this country to-day and I am sure other Deputies are familiar with it.

Local authorities are now estimating their requirements for the coming year and public representatives are doing their best to make the bill appear more reasonable. That is the only hope the ratepayers have. The local authorities, especially in the present year, are facing the anger of the people. Of necessity—apart from any question of doing it of their own volition—they must try to get the rates pegged down because, at their present levels, they are a nightmare. Furthermore, people fear a visitation from officials of the Valuation Office. Surely that is a reversion to the old days when, if a person improved his premises, the rent was automatically raised? It is just the same now in regard to the improvement of buildings and dwellings throughout the country.

The Deputy will appreciate that we cannot argue that point now.

At the moment, our local authorities are suffering from the same contagion from which Governments of this country have suffered down through the years. The spending contagion has seized local authorities and individuals. We find ourselves to-day trying to live up to a standard which we cannot attain or maintain on our present output and production. I am sure the Minister was perfectly sincere last year when he said he would make every effort to bring this bill into more reasonable proportions. However, his efforts have not been entirely successful. In a minor way, they are successful but only in a minor way. Is it that the State has grown too cumbrous to be manageable and that the Minister for Finance cannot impose his will and determination to bring the annual bill into proportion with present circumstances? Is it just like the reply we sometimes get to Parliamentary Questions—the reply that the Minister has no function? Is it that the Ministers are functionaries without function? If that is so, this House is considerably to blame for that state of affairs.

The Government has also been criticised here in connection with their policy as regards wheat, barley, butter, and bacon and their general approach to agricultural policy. Last evening, the Minister for Defence was at pains to convince the House and the country that his Party was responsible for wheat-growing. We concede that they gave a great impetus to wheat-growing from 1932 onwards. Most Deputies will admit the truth and facts. In spite of the circumstances that created the impetus during the economic war when our live-stock trade—which has since become so valuable and which this year is of such vital importance to our economy—was in jeopardy, people turned their activities to wheat-growing. Nevertheless, the economics of wheat-growing did not appeal to our farmers and that was proved during the emergency when there was compulsory tillage in order to meet our requirements.

The production of wheat has now become part of our general economy. Farmers have invested in machinery and have been geared-up to wheat production. Two factors brought about permanent activity in wheat-growing. The first is that spring varieties have been found most attractive. Since the spring varieties have come within the ambit of the farmers, they have taken up wheat-growing with regularity, determination and goodwill. Secondly, science has come to the aid of wheat-growers in the way of machinery for sowing and harvesting. Were it not for these two factors, wheat-growing in this country would not be at its present-day standard.

The Party now in Government were responsible for the impetus that wheat-growing got in this country and it is because of that fact that there is now so much disappointment with the Government's policy in regard to wheat. I think it is the first time in this country that there has been a penalty on production. Appeals were made from all sources for farmers to produce more. They did so and now they are being penalised for their extra production. I feel the Government were not right in that policy and that some other means should have been devised to deal with the wheat problem. One good thing will emerge in so far as wheat-growing will no longer be associated with political campaigns in this country. The week before last, the Taoiseach referred to the wheat motion from this side of the House as a political motion. Unfortunately, wheat-growing has been closely associated with politics down through the years.

The Government's policy with regard to the fixing of the price of barley has been very much criticised and has brought disappointment. Many people believe that, with our surplus of wheat and with the lowering of the extraction from wheat, we shall have so much offal that it will interfere considerably with the production of feeding barley in future years. I was amazed to learn from the Minister the other day of the amount of oats imported in the current year. The former Minister for Agriculture, Deputy Dillon, announced when he was in office that he had arranged with the oatmeal millers to ensure their supplies by contracts with the farmers. That was a desirable approach. What has become of that arrangement? Why have we had to import oats this year? Why had we to import so much of a crop that we had always produced so well, so efficiently and so abundantly ourselves? Why had we to import such a large amount of a product which at one time we exported in large quantities, even in the memory of some of the men in this country?

I come now to the vexed question of milk. All have conceded that the cow is the foundation of the whole dairying industry. The cow is responsible for our present live-stock trade, a trade that is indispensable now to the survival of this nation. Any trifling with the dairying industry is dangerous at the present time, because milk is a national product. Wheat is produced by a limited percentage of farmers; barley is grown only in certain areas; but milk is the activity which most farmers have to depend on—milk and the products of milk. I doubt if the Government have been wise in penalising milk production.

There is a good deal of criticism, of course, of the fact that we subsidise butter going to Great Britain, but in times of depression our object and aim should be to try to hold on to the market we have in Great Britain, even if it means subsidising the products we send into that market, such as bacon and butter. We see in the papers to-day the wrangling that goes on between nations supplying butter at present to Great Britain. We are a traditional supplier there of butter and bacon. At all costs, we should try to hold on to that market, in the absence of any other market. That begs the question about the £250,000 made available by the Minister last year in his Budget. It is extraordinary that that has been lying idle all the year and no efforts made to provide alternative markets for the surplus we produce.

That would be a matter for the Estimate for Agriculture.

Very well. With all this spending over the years, when we meet high unemployment, we have no money to initiate useful schemes to absorb the unemployed we have amongst us. The figures which have been quoted here we should shudder to quote, even if they show 10,000 lower than the number of unemployed last year. It is, nevertheless, a stigma on our whole structure, that we have to carry that number of unemployed. If there is anything that saddens any Irishman, it is to meet a man who is anxious and willing and able to work and who cannot find work. It is a sad prospect. It is grand to see the American nation, with all its wealth and resources, embarking on huge schemes and trying to absorb the unemployed with which America is faced at present. Unfortunately, we have not those resources, but we should have built up some contingency fund over the years against lean times like the present.

Side by side with that, we see the life-blood of the nation ebbing away. No Government has been able to solve that and no Government will solve it, except by a united effort and a common understanding of that serious problem, which has been traditional, but which has now reached dimensions that give rise to despair. There are many families who have left this country—fathers and mothers—and who have left because they have no hope in the future and they want to bring up their children trained to take up some vocation in life outside these shores. That is a very sad reflection on our whole economic and financial system.

What we want, what we badly need, is some basic reform, a recasting of our whole parliamentary system. That is a place where the present Minister for Finance and his Government—now that we have "a strong Government," as we are told—could very well and very effectively take a hand. Is it not true that in 1957 the Dáil was closed down for eight months on the aggregate and that in the four months in which the Dáil met the meetings scarcely averaged two meetings a week? Does it not clearly demonstrate the futility of Parliament? Does it not clearly demonstrate that this House is over-representative of the small population we have—2,900,000? We maintain two Houses of Parliament, with a membership of 207, to legislate for that small community. I suggest to the Minister for Finance that he could save very many thousands of pounds if the meetings of the Dáil were arranged on alternate weeks and if we then had a full meeting in order to obviate the necessity for duplication of travelling and duplication of expenses incurred in travelling.

It is quite true that when power is delegated to a Cabinet, the functions of Deputies become very limited. I do not think any fairminded Deputy—and I assume that all Deputies are fair-minded—can contend that we should, in the face of our limited circumstances, maintain a House of the magnitude of the one we have now. We are certainly proud of our own Parliament here, proud of our territorial freedom which gave us this Parliament, grateful to the men who made the sacrifice to see it established; but I think we are not faithful to those men if we cannot make a better success of our contribution to enable this country to survive as an economic entity. Certainly, our struggle here will be long and dour, because we are in an isolated island. When we see the free nations, the old-established nations in Europe to-day, because they feel they are insecure, come together in a Free Trade Area and in a community of free nations adopting a common market to maintain security, we certainly should ask ourselves whether there is any hope for us, isolated as we are in these far-away parts.

Territorial freedom has lost much of the glamour it had 40 years ago. There is no such thing as economic security or economic dependence for us here in this island—an exporting country and an importing country. We are at the whim of every fluctuation abroad and there is very little chance of our survival, unless we try to perfect some stabilised economic system which will be able to stand up against the reactions of time and place.

Deputy Casey mentioned the amount to be spent on the Army during the coming year. I was not aware that the amount was as gross as it is. The world over we see armies being disbanded and we know that armies will become obsolete in time and that trained technicians will take their place. It is extraordinary that we here are spending such a colossal sum on maintaining an Army of that standard. The money would be better employed in trying to relieve the hardships which face our people.

Deputy Costello mentioned to-day the money which is to be spent on transatlantic air services and television. Surely first things should come first. We should get back to fundamentals, to a more realistic appraisal of the necessaries which we should provide before we embark on luxuries of this kind. I hope the Minister for Finance will make an effort to bring these reliefs and that he will not allow the money, which the hard-working taxpayer provides for the services of this country, to be dissipated in luxuries that have no real advantage for us.

Of the recent speakers, I can agree only with part of what one said—that is, Deputy Casey. He regretted in general that there had to be certain reductions in expenditure. I think we all agree with him in that regard. It would be very gratifying if the Budget were unlimited and if we could increase expenditure on housing, on social services, on everything which is very dear to our hearts; but unfortunately the situation is, very simply, that before you spend the money, you have to collect it. There is a limit to the national Budget and the first consideration is how much money the Government can collect. Having decided that, then comes the extremely difficult question as to how that amount is to be apportioned between the various Government Departments.

Deputy Sweetman confessed ignorance of the Government's policy. He stated that from his perusal of the Estimates he had not been able to find any evidence of policy whatever. Sometimes I believe that members of the Opposition who speak in that way cannot really be as stupid as they make themselves out to be, because the question is not so difficult, if they only approach it in the right way. At the same time, a mass of figures such as those set out in this Book of Estimates is confusing to anybody, and it is impossible to expect that, by perusing this mass of figures, anyone can get a clear idea as to what exactly the Government proposes to do on any particular point. It may, and I think it does, give a general outline.

This constant harping on not being able to find Government policy is, to my mind, very disappointing. It is as if there was some magic formula which some political Party would be able to discover and which would simply have to be repeated with magical effects. As the Minister for Lands stated very clearly earlier this evening, during the election campaign, the Fianna Fáil speakers made it increasingly clear and I stress the word "increasingly" that the task which would face the incoming Government would be extremely difficult. We have never shied away from the difficult factors which have faced us and we have always tried to place them squarely before the people.

We are blamed for making promises, but somehow it is always very difficult for members of the Opposition to quote those promises. I hope that it may be of some assistance to the Opposition if I try to help them on this question of policy.

It is, generally, the Government's policy not so much to create employment or to create prosperity as to help to create conditions in which private enterprise can develop. Private enterprise has come in for a lot of criticism, especially from Deputy Browne, but it has never been set out as part of Fianna Fáil policy that the State is able to take over from private enterprise altogether.

Admittedly, there have been cases, such as those quoted to-night—the E.S.B., Bord na Móna and so on— where what are really public services are being organised, and have been organised, and extremely well organised, by the State. Our policy at the moment is to try to adjust our expenditure in such a way as to put the emphasis on production, to make sure that any money which is spent will be as nearly as possible an investment for the future. There has been an increase in the amount for the Department of Agriculture and I was delighted to see that the increase was in respect of technical instruction, in respect of which we are still sadly behind many other countries.

I am surprised in a way, though rather pleased, that there has been no adverse criticism of increased expenditure for tourism, which certainly is a good investment. Then we come to an increased Estimate for Aviation. Back we go to the same old misunderstanding—which I cannot honestly believe is a completely innocent misunderstanding—about the expenditure of millions of pounds on a transatlantic airline. It has been stated so often and so recently that Aer Linte will finance its own operation and that the increased Vote for Aviation is in respect of the development of Shannon Airport, which has no relation, or very little relation, to the development of Aer Linte. That is a long-term investment to attract traffic to that airport. It is expenditure without which that airport would inevitably close down in the very near future.

We have had, too, criticism on several occasions to-day about the reduction in the subsidy for ground limestone, in spite of the fact the Minister for Finance has made it clear that the actual expenditure from the Exchequer on subsidies for ground limestone is greater this year than last year and the expenditure last year was financed very considerably from American Loan funds.

During the debate, we have had frequent references to the efforts of our predecessors in dealing with the crisis of 1956. Deputy J.A. Costello has referred to the resolution with which his Government tackled that difficult situation by the imposition of import levies. I do not know how anyone could get any satisfaction from, or take any pride in, the imposition of those levies, because anyone who has the slightest connection with business will know that the oft-repeated claim that they were only temporary made them even more damaging than ever to the whole economy. I know that from my own personal experience. It nearly put me out of business. If people feel that the price of an article has been increased by temporary levy and are assured that that levy will shortly come off, they will not buy the product and the business handling that product will shortly close down.

It was the most lunatic imposition that anybody could imagine and how the Labour Party could join in support of that proposal is beyond my comprehension. What actually happened was that the rich people were able to live exactly as before, though at slightly higher cost, while the poor people were put off the market altogether. That was the action taken by those who are now raising such heartrending cries about the increase in the cost of living. They claim that, in their time of office, they kept down the cost of living, which is a complete illusion. Subsidies do not really keep down the cost of living. It simply means that somebody else, apart from the consumer, is paying the producers. It is taking money out of one pocket and putting it into another.

Our unemployment is, of course, the main point which has been mentioned and which is most prominently before our minds all the time. The Government is blamed for failing to deal adequately with unemployment. The situation is not one which is peculiar to this country and it is not one which Governments have been able to solve simply by increased Government expenditure. It is interesting that, in the report of O.E.E.C., which I have quoted before in this House and which I do not propose to quote again in detail, it was pointed out that for a recovery of economic prosperity, it was essential that Government pre-emption of capital should be reduced. In other words, the Government should spend as little as possible, so that private enterprise may have more for the development of its business.

That was a recommendation of a working party of O.E.E.C. experts. So far as we know, they were not prejudiced in favour of one Government as against another. They were an impartial body and their impression, after a detailed study of the whole situation in 1956 and 1957, was that quite definitely the national income dropped steeply in 1956, whereas, up to that time, it had been increasing. Their impression also was that unemployment increased steadily up to the early months of 1957 and only began to show some signs of recovery in June, 1957. These are figures circulated by O.E.E.C. and, even though the members of the Opposition are not prepared to accept the statistics of the Central Statistics Office, I do appeal to them to read this impartial report which pointed to the definite signs of recovery during 1957.

Granted, that recovery is not nearly as good as we would like it to be, but it must be remembered that a rectification of a state of depression is much slower than the creation of that depression. It is much more difficult to undo the damage than to do it, in the first place. Great damage was done in 1956. It was done to every aspect of our national economy.

During the debate, we heard again from the Opposition side the famous speech at Belmullet on the policy of cutting subsidies. It is so childish to go back to it, again and again, when the explanation is so very obvious and has been made by the Taoiseach himself. It was never the policy of Fianna Fáil to abolish subsidies, but Deputy Norton, as Minister for Industry and Commerce, knew that, if elected, we would have to do it. He had appointed a commission to advise him on the question of food subsidies; he had received the report of that commission before the general election and he knew they had advised that food subsidies would have to go.

He did not tell us that, and he did not tell the public, but I believe he knew Fianna Fáil were going to win the election and all he had to do was to say to himself: "I know that report is there; I know my successor, Deputy Lemass, will have it before him when he comes into what is now my office and so I will give this as a prophecy of what Fianna Fáil policy is." We denied it and very properly so. We denied that we were coming into office with a policy of abolishing food subsidies, but now we are accused of going back on our word. We did not promise; all we said was that we did not propose to do it, because we were not in full possession of the facts of the economic emergency arising.

We have been blamed for our preference for private enterprise by Deputy Desmond, and for allowing profits, which he appears to think are very dreadful things, to be made in any private business.

I think he said "excessive profits".

He was very much against anything which might involve a bonus issue of shares. That, apparently, was the very worst that could happen in any business. If they could actually issue bonus shares, they must undoubtedly be corrupt. We do not stand over that for a moment. A company which is able, from its reserves, to issue bonus shares is putting itself in the position in the public market of being able to raise additional capital on good terms for its expansion. That is the idea of issuing bonus shares, to increase the value of shares on the market, so that people will be anxious to buy up any shares which a company places on the market. Deputy Desmond does not want anything possibly more than limited profits. He believes he is adopting the correct attitude from a Labour point of view, but he is about 50 years behind the times, as far as proper Labour thinking is concerned. Any really thinking Labour Party forgot that 20 or 30 years ago at least.

The only security for the working man is a business which is making profits, which is well organised and managed, and which is developing. Any business which stands still will very shortly go down. It is only in a business which is making profits that security is given to staff. A business without reserves will have to dispense with staff at the first sign of any recession. We are not in favour of that. We want to see business developing under its own resources.

There was one reference by Deputy J.A. Costello to industry this afternoon when he described the Control of Manufactures Acts as being entirely negative in their effect, and quite clearly felt they should never have been enacted in the first place, and that amendment would only make the situation worse. Personally, I agree with him to some extent in believing the purpose of the Control of Manufactures Acts has largely been served. That he, as Taoiseach of two previous Governments, both fairly recent, should blame us for not widening out those Acts in our first year, when he had practically six years in office during the past ten and took no action whatever, seems to me a trifle unfair. If the Acts were as bad as he now says they were, it was within his power to wipe them out, and he did not. Is he in earnest now or was he in earnest when he was in power?

He painted a very gloomy picture of agriculture. He said it was in a complete state of depression, that it was almost—I think he said—in a state of revolt. That sort of statement is not helpful to the national economy, and it is not true, either.

What does the Deputy know about it?

I am very glad I was asked that question. I was afraid that if I told what I knew about agriculture without being asked, I might be accused of advertising. What I would like to tell the Deputy is—I shall tell him later the precise articles we sell in our establishment—that we sell tractors and agricultural equipment generally, including combine harvesters, at very reasonable prices.

I wonder whether it is permissible for a member of this House to avail of any opportunity here to advertise his own products?

The Deputy asked him what he knew about it. Sit down now and listen to him.

I did not ask him to advertise his own products in the House. In my six years here this is the first time that has been done.

Deputy Booth on the Vote on Account.

If I have offended in any way I must tender my apologies, but it was an opportunity I felt I could hardly miss. The fact remains—I shall say no more than this—that I am in touch in a business capacity with the agricultural community and I know from my dealings with hire purchase companies that the number of tractors purchased in January of this year was double the number purchased in January, 1957. If that means that the agricultural community is in a state of complete confusion and wild revolt, then I must be a Dutchman. When you find that combine harvesters are being sold by many people in January, February and March, does that mean that the farmer has lost confidence in the tillage position? I do not think so.

I admit that the farming community is far from satisfied and, to be perfectly frank, I do not blame any farmer for being dissatisfied. As a city man, I cannot think of anything which would satisfy me if I were a farmer because I think it is one of the riskiest and hardest jobs there is. But just because the farmer is dissatisfied with prices is no reason to go round telling him the situation is desperate and hopeless, that he has lost heart and that there is no future for him. I am very thankful that the farmer has more sense than to believe that.

The crisis in 1956, which was our introduction to taking over power in 1957, was serious. It was partly financial because of the adverse balance of payments position but, even more, it was due to a complete loss of confidence and loss of morale, if you like, on the part of the then Government. They were faced with a difficult situation and, instead of taking a long-sighted, careful and well-calculated decision, they panicked. They said the balance of payments position was going wrong and they stopped the importation of virtually everything. Not unnaturally, as was pointed out in the O.E.E.C. Report, unemployment followed. That meant a reduction in purchasing power, which caused further unemployment, and there was a chain reaction with desperately damaging results.

We were faced then with a very difficult situation. We had to build up public confidence and build up our confidence in ourselves. We are trying in every possible way to do that but we are not getting that constructive support, or constructive opposition about which Deputy John Costello spoke to us for the second time in this House this afternoon. He pointed out that he had pledged himself, when taking over as Leader of the Opposition, to being a leader of a constructive Opposition. If his speech this afternoon was the nearest he could get to being constructive, I am disappointed. I should have thought he could have done better. He could hardly have done worse. So far we have had no constructive suggestions from anyone.

We have heard about emigration. We know about emigration. Let it be made perfectly clear now that emigration is not a purely Irish problem. It is a problem which is greatly troubling Scotland and Wales, the central areas of France, many parts of America and practically every country in the world. There is a flight from the land all over the world. Do not let us think that it is just because we are inefficient, and poor, and Irish, that we are faced with emigration. Emigration is a world problem and nobody has yet succeeded in solving it.

We were criticised, too, by Deputy J.A. Costello in relation to the European Free Trade Area in that we had not paid sufficient attention to agriculture. He criticised the Government because during the negotiations the Minister in attendance was the Minister for Industry and Commerce and not the Minister for Agriculture. Now, I can understand his difficulty there because he has never had the proud privilege of leading a united one-Party Government. In a Fianna Fáil Government there is, of course, no danger that one Minister will fight for his own Department to the exclusion of another. When the Minister for Industry and Commerce, who is also the Tánaiste, goes abroad as a Minister of the Government he goes, not to look after the interests merely of his office in Kildare Street, but the interests of the country as a whole.

I can understand that the Leader of the Opposition might not appreciate that because, in his case, he was leading a Government of Ministers who, as far as we could see from the outside, appeared always to be in opposition to one another. I hope he will accept my assurance and, if he is not prepared to accept it, he can consult with some of his predecessors who had the privilege of leading a one-Party Government. They will assure him that is the fact. He need have no concern whatsoever that agriculture will not be adequately covered simply because it is the Minister for Industry and Commerce who represents us in relation to the negotiations in connection with the Free Trade Area. It would be just as reasonable to criticise the British Government for putting the Postmaster-General in charge of the Free Trade negotiations, as if he were trying to get into the Free Trade Area simply to sell more stamps.

The Deputy is mistaken. It is not the Postmaster-General. It is the Paymaster-General.

Then simply in order to pay more cheques.

No, no. He is a Minister without portfolio. He is specially detailed for that job and nothing else.

He is known as the Paymaster-General and not as Minister for the the Free Trade Area.

He does not pay anybody. The Deputy can look it up. He will find that I am right. I am merely trying to correct him.

I am convinced the Deputy is right. The British Government, whether it is relevant or not, do not send the Minister for Agriculture or the President of the Board of Trade. They send one of their Ministers.

Without portfolio.

Whether with portfolio or without portfolio, it does not make any difference.

The whole point is, it is a united Government, so it is all right.

Deputy Dr. Browne raised many points. I was sorry in a way, glad in a way, that he spoke as he did. It made it perfectly clear to us all, or to everyone who did not know already, why he is not sitting on these benches to-night.

He made some incredible statements. One was that Irish industry could not compete with industry abroad, and he apparently blamed that on the Government by some process of reasoning which escapes me. He said that not only can Irish industry not compete with industries abroad but that Irish industries cannot compete with one another. If anyone can work that out, they are better than I am. Presumably it means that nobody can sell cheaper than the next fellow. If not, then it does not seem to make any sense to me. It is just one of those rather stupid exaggerations which lead the Deputy into lunatic situations.

He stated that he adopted the strictly Socialist attitude. I do not say that in any spirit of abuse. I admire genuine Socialists but there are very few of them around. He stated he placed all his faith in State enterprise and blamed the Government for not setting up more State enterprise. He went so far as saying that the Government was failing in its job because it had not set up enterprises in competition with private enterprise. It is all very well for a doctor to make those suggestions but, to put it mildly, it would be a little disappointing for a businessman who is a taxpayer to find his taxes were being used to subsidise a business which was in competition with his own. To my mind, that is quite intolerable.

He also made some pleas for non-profit-making State industries. We all know by now what a non-profit-making State industry is. It is a State industry which makes a thundering loss. The State industries which have been set up, like Bord na Móna and so on, are not loss-making industries. But they are monopolies, and I do not think that it should be taken as criticism of private enterprise that these State industries are so good. Admittedly, they are very good, but they are not competitive and do not have to be. Nobody else cuts turf or mills turf. Nobody else makes sugar. Nobody else makes electricity. There is no competition there at all. The only one which is in competition is C.I.E., and it makes a thundering loss. That confirms me in my opinion that this Government is right in restricting State intervention in industry to public services and only those public services which cannot be properly developed in any other way.

Deputy Dr. Browne stated that there were virtually no exports from this country because of the motive of private profit. That is just utter drivel. There is an amazing amount of exports by private enterprise businesses, exports to the very far end of the earth, too. I do wish that that Deputy would not make statements which are so completely opposed to the facts. He jeered at private enterprise, with its filthy profit motive, and he accused private businessmen of buying yachts, boats and cars. I have not a yacht; I do not own a boat; I have a car. Deputy Dr. Browne certainly has, or had, a yacht and a boat and a car, and he is not a filthy capitalist. At least, he does not say he is.

Yet the peculiar thing was that he was the only man who tried to make any positive suggestions. What suggestions they were! Send the President to live in a semi-detached house in Blackrock. I certainly would like to welcome him to live in my own constituency, but I cannot see that that would really help unemployment or production to any appreciable extent. Abolish our embassies abroad. Those embassies may be large to some extent —perhaps not as large as people may think—but they are our shop windows and I hope they will be developed more and more.

What members of the Department of External Affairs are now going around in knee-breeches and top hats is a mystery to me. I had no idea we had members of the Diplomatic Corps or of the staffs in our embassies abroad equipped in that way, and I do not believe we have. I cannot imagine we have.

"Abolish the Seanad," was another suggestion. Not unnaturally, that was ruled out of order. Still, it was a suggestion. "Do something about the language." That is very vague. There is the situation. After hours and hours of debate those were the only constructive suggestions which could be brought forth—abolish the Presidency, cut the embassies and do something about the language.

It is so easy to say that the Government has not done everything. We are the first to admit we have not. I would love to have done more, if there was more which we in our limited way could do, but it has been made perfectly clear to us that this is not the time for the State to go into large-scale public expenditure, that this is the time for economy on public expenditure in the hope that now, or as soon as possible, there might be some reduction in taxation which would enable the country to develop on better lines. But it is perfectly clear that increased Government expenditure at this stage would not produce an immediate solution of the problems of emigration and unemployment.

Deputy Casey criticised us because, according to him, and according to the reply to a question yesterday, the average number of jobs had fallen during 1957. He did not state so clearly to-night the actual fact that it was the average number over the whole year. That can be anything. I am not trying to dodge away from what may be an unpleasant figure. That figure may mean that emigration has gone up very considerably. That is quite possible. But it is very dangerous to take an average figure for 1957 and assume that that gives a definite indication of what the situation was at the end of 1957.

He criticised the Government for abolishing price control. Surely everyone has realised by now that price control is virtually impossible? You are only codding yourself if you believe you can effect a general control of prices through Government legislation. He deplored the decreasing consumption of butter, from which he asked us to assume the country was now bankrupt and could not buy enough butter to eat. Yet, I am sure he knows perfectly well, just as any other Deputy knows, that we still have the highest consumption of butter per head of any country in Europe.

I am not saying that everything is all right but I shall not have people getting up here and saying that everything is all wrong, spreading alarm and despondency everywhere they go, positively relishing any chance they have of saying how bad the place is, how crowded the emigrant ships are and how packed the transatlantic planes will be. That is not the way of getting the country back on its feet, not the way of getting private enterprise business expanding and not the way of getting men back into jobs, or of expanding our agricultural markets abroad.

If we say to the world that we are just a bankrupt, can we wonder if we do not get people to come here and invest their capital in the country? If the Opposition do not really believe we are bankrupt and destitute, will they, for heaven's sake, stop saying so just to try to secure Party advantage? Do they not realise the damage they are doing to the country? I am not just whistling in the dark to make myself brave and saying that everything is all right. I would not say everything is all right, but I believe there is a feeling of confidence being built up which will result in improved conditions as this calendar year goes on.

I believe also that if we go forward with confidence in ourselves, these things will happen, but if we are bleating all the time about the difficulties, the mounting emigration and mounting unemployment, it will get us nowhere. I hope, therefore, we will become more united to the extent at least that false reports of destitution, starvation and so on will not be put about by men in public life.

Deputy Browne referred to frequent cases of people being found dead from malnutrition. That is not a fact, as he well knows. I am inclined to think the Deputy was born and brought up on a Left Book Club and has never outgrown it. He just loves to believe that these horrible things happen that he invents out of his own imagination. These things do us no good and do the country no good. There are not people dying of starvation to-day throughout the country. We do get an occasional case of a lonely individual found dead in bed and possibly being unnoticed for some days. That does happen, but it is not a question of people dying in bed from starvation. We have never put forward the case that social services should give a man, a father, or even a widow a full living wage. It is more in the nature of a grant-in-aid, something to help, but it is not our policy as a Government or a Party to adopt the full Welfare State which would take every responsibility off the individual from the cradle to the grave.

We do believe that, where possible, the State should help and should supplement private charity, but the fact remains that good neighbourliness in this country does enable those who are in need to get by, at least. All the State can do with its limited resources is to make sure there is no actual starvation and that those whose need is greatest are helped to the maximum. This jeering at the policy in regard to the millers, the policy in regard to shipping, the jeering at the taxation concessions of some sort, as if this was all a Fianna Fáil scheme to enable everybody to cruise around the Mediterranean in luxury yachts will do no good. That is not our policy for a moment, but it is our policy to build up the private people, to build up the farmers and the industrialists.

We do not want collective farms or State farms, or that kind of nonsense, but we want to build up the private individual, and if somebody can make a thundering success of his business or his farm, we say: "More power to him." By doing so, he is increasing the resources of the country, giving secure employment which would not otherwise be available. We need men of enterprise, men with money, and we want them to make more money. I would love to make more money myself, if I could, and I am not ashamed of it. That is why I am in business. I do not want to make a fantastic amount, but I want security. I want to build up a business which is expanding, where I can say to the staff: "We will stand by you if you stand by us. If business goes a bit bad, we shall not fire everybody straight away."

I want a business with reserves so that we can keep a continuous, regular staff in constant employment. That is the general rule in business and I hope no one will believe that businessmen are such callous and cruel capitalists as has been suggested. That is a figment of the imagination which people should have got rid of 100 years ago. They probably derived it through reading Dickens too much and believing that nothing has happened since.

The private employer now has to behave himself and he knows it. He is faced not only with State intervention but with very powerful trade unions. He has no chance of getting away with crooked or restrictive practices. Everybody is on his heels. He is well looked after, but at the same time if he is hounded too much, or abused too much, can you blame him if he loses heart and says: "I shall make just enough to keep me going and I will not bother with anything else?"

We were criticised here for not meeting more often in this House and for not passing enough Bills, as if the value of a Government was to be judged solely by its production of legislation. It is not the purpose of a Government just to pass new Acts. The Government has to administer the country, and very often, with scarcely any amendment of legislation, there can be a difference of emphasis which can produce quite different results in the case of one Government as opposed to another. I do not believe in legislation as such and certainly we shall not engage in mass production of it.

May I just make one final appeal, therefore, to other speakers: please get your facts straight; please do not spread alarm and despondency, unless and until you can produce facts, but I do not think you will be able to do that. There is plenty of ground for optimism at this stage and there is every reason to believe that if we pull together and use our heads, we will make this country vastly better than it has ever been. We have opportunities for exports, for development of our agricultural products, and of our food processing industries which alone could make an enormous difference. We have the chance of foreign investment behind the barrier of the proposed Free Trade Area. This could altogether transform many parts of the country.

Let us go forward in confidence, therefore, and let us not feel that just because the Estimates are down for some Departments this year, this is done wilfully. If the Government had more money, no Department would be restricted—everybody should know that—but with this Vote which has been put forward and is being discussed on general principles now, we believe that we will be able to provide the stable conditions in which progress can be made. We do not believe in the complete necessity for State interference at all costs. We would much prefer to give an opportunity to private individuals to work out their own salvation. We have sufficient confidence in our own people to know that, given sufficient encouragement and facilities, they will be able to do it.

With that, I leave this Vote on Account to the House with confidence. I believe it has been complied with courage and I am sure with much heart-searching, at the same time. It has been taken with courage, and the emphasis is on spending as an investment. Certain things have had to be cut back which would not give an immediate return. That is regrettable, but we have done the best we can and we are not ashamed of it.

Deputy Booth devoted most of the time he was speaking to a defence of private enterprise in this country. We are at one with him in his defence of private enterprise as being the most suitable system in relation to our community. The challenge that Deputy Booth took up came from one who was jettisoned by his Party just about the time that Deputy Booth became a member of it. He was a useful man for quite a little while until he became an embarrassment to one who is now a Minister in the Government. That is a domestic quarrel into which I should not like to enter. I do not quarrel with Deputy Booth taking into himself the defence of private enterprise. In the course of his remarks, however, he said that the agricultural community were not particularly concerned at this time and gave as a reason for that the fact that in January of this year sales of tractors in his firm were double the sales in the corresponding month of last year.

I can quite understand that. In the month of January this year, was there a wheat-grower in the country who thought that wheat would be cut, possibly as much as 11/- or 12/- a barrel, by a Government which stated at election time that it would pay the top price of 82/6 if it got back into power? That guarantee was quite sufficient for thousands of wheat-growers. Who would not buy combines in January of this year? Who would not buy tractors? Who would think that the Party that stormed about feeding barley prices would reduce the price by 3/- per cwt.? Why would they not buy tractors, why would they not buy combines, in January? Would they buy them to-day? That is the question to ask.

It was not any member from this side of the House who went into Wexford and made the allegations against the National Farmers' Association; it was the Minister for Finance who was intemperate, lost his head, and made the allegations against the organised farmers' association in that respect. That arose out of the information that had come to him from many sources in recent weeks in relation to the Government's remissness in not living up to what they said they would do in relation to grain prices, in relation to dairying and many other aspects of policy.

Let me return to questions of more general interest in relation to the Book of Estimates. In recent weeks we noticed remarkable reticence on the part of Ministers in contributing to debates in the House. Last week there was a motion discussed in the House relating to social welfare benefits and neither the Minister for Health and Social Welfare nor the Parliamentary Secretary attached to that office could be constrained to intervene and to give a lead in the debate. That discussion was not nearly as important as the present discussion and in the introduction of the Vote on Account, which is the prelude to the examination of the entire economy of the country, the Minister for Finance came in and read off a lot of figures. If these figures were being given in reply to a Parliamentary Question, the Minister would have asked the Ceann Comhairle for permission to have them circulated in the Official Report because the reading of them would not convey the information the Deputy would require.

In the Minister's speech introducing the Vote on Account, was there any indication as to whether the Government had a policy or not? That was a grand opportunity for the Minister to uphold what Deputy Haughey claims, that the Government policy is quite clear. That is not what the Minister for Agriculture believes. Here we have strong Government, one-Party Government, collective responsibility, one united, consolidated team. The Minister for Agriculture says, "We got a blank cheque." Deputy Haughey says that the Government have a clear policy. The Minister for Finance, Dr. Ryan, says nothing. It was left to the Minister for Defence to launch the discussion on the Government side.

Let us turn to the Book of Estimates and see what it represents and, in the absence of an interpretation by the Minister for Finance, try to make out from it what the position is likely to be in the year that lies ahead. First of all, there was countrywide criticism of the level of expenditure of the last inter-Party Government. The jettisoning of Deputy Dr. Browne and the adoption of Deputy Booth happened at a time when there was a very distinct swing to capture the ultra-conservative vote and everywhere the Party now in office went at election time, there was constant criticism of the level of expenditure and claims that that could be reduced. Above all, there was dangled before the political economists the saving that would accrue to the Exchequer from the withdrawal of food subsidies.

Of course, this was not said in Ballyfermot; it was not said in the housing scheme in any rural town; it was not said in a labourer's cottage or in talking to a road worker or small farmer. It was said among the highbrows, at meetings of Chambers of Commerce, to people with a stake in the country, who were extremely attracted by the carrot dangled before them of a reduction in State expenditure and the benefits that would flow therefrom. What do we find? An increase of £300,000 in the Book of Estimates this year.

Deputy Haughey is the only Deputy on the Government side so far who put forward a real claim of an improvement on the part of the Minister for Finance. He claimed that there was an improvement of some £4,500,000. He said £4.7 million in one Estimate and £4.8 million in another but I will not quarrel with his variation. He based that on a comparison of last year's Book of Estimates, including the Supplementary Estimates last year, and the Book of Estimates this year. Was that a fair comparison—assuming that there will be no further Supplementary Estimate? I am not surprised that the Deputy would veer away from the subject of Supplementary Estimates.

We had an authority at Budget time in 1957 in relation to Supplementary Estimates, no less an authority than the Minister for Finance. I quote from his Budget statement:—

"The Government are resolved to resist any further additions to the year's commitments."

This is strong Government.

"It would, however, be unwise to ignore the possibility of unforeseen contingencies arising."

That is fair enough.

"The allowance made for such contingencies in each of the last four years has been £750,000 but that has never been adequate. I am allotting a somewhat larger sum this year, £950,000, which, with the items I have already specified, entails a total supplementary provision for current services of £2,500,000, approximately."

The aggregate of the Supplementary Estimates that this House passed in the last fortnight was £7,250,000. Is it any wonder that any Deputy on the opposite side would veer away from an attempt to estimate what the Supplementary Estimates may be in the next 12 months? This Government have nailed their flag to one mast—a balanced Budget; no borrowing. There we find the explanation of a transfer of over £1,300,000 from what was a current item last year to the capital side. No doubt that is a little forerunner of what the Minister for Finance will have to do in seven or eight weeks' time.

The former Minister for Finance, Deputy Sweetman, when opening the discussion on this side, referred to his disappointment at the non-segregation of capital and current expenditure. It is a great pity that Deputies cannot this week devote themselves solely to the current Book of Estimates. I say that because the public at large do not realise the necessity to the future of the country of maintaining a capital programme and of obtaining the money to pay for that programme. They are not quick enough to realise that, as an undeveloped nation, we are not to be compared in our budgeting system with a nation that possibly is overdeveloped. Here we have the problem of unemployment, the problem of emigration and the problems of an undeveloped country. To meet those problems we must have a capital programme distinct from our current commitments.

In that there is very little difference in policy between this Government and the Government that preceded it, because when this Government returned to office for a few years, they did not jettison our capital investment programme which we were trying to steer away from being mixed up with current commitments that any Government would have to meet—housekeeping expenses, as it were. In some respects they did not give sufficient impetus to that programme but, in any case, it was not jettisoned. What we all complained about and what I should like to take up with Deputy Booth is this. He made an appeal for a generous view on the part of the Opposition, that we should get together and inspire confidence. That, of course, is essential to the future of the country. However, when that programme was being initiated the Tánaiste of the present Government went out to depict with a pawnbroker's sign the financial policy then pursued, at a time when the former Government was seeking a national loan. The success or failure of a national loan floated by any Government should not be dragged across this House for Party advantage. It is something on which the Government and the Opposition should be united, in the effort to make it as successful as possible.

I detest the action of members of this House, whether on by-election platforms or elsewhere—and I am sorry that Deputy Allen of Wexford is not listening to me—who will use for Party advantage any setback the Government may encounter in the effort to maintain that capital programme, even the impact that we suffered from the increase in the bank rate in Britain on the second day on which our loan was opened. The day may come—I hope it never will—when this Government or some future Government may face a similar setback, but if so, the Government will have sympathy from those who realise the blow it is to the economy of the country.

The Minister for Lands was at his old antics to-night when talking about all the problems left to this Government. He mentioned a number of things but he conveniently forgot the prize bonds. The Minister for Finance does not forget them. He realises the advantages to this Government when it came into office of that method of acquiring capital. I am glad he has adopted it and that it is continuing to be the success we knew it would be and will continue to be for many years to come.

Deputy Booth used some extraordinary expressions in describing the action taken by the previous Minister for Finance in meeting what was then a challenge to the ingenuity of our people to overcome as serious a situation as the country had to face since the last Great War, that is, the imbalance of payments in 1955-56. Was it not an amazing thing that the Party of which Deputy Booth is now a member did not then suggest some alternative way of remedying that situation? What criticism was offered then? "Too little and too late." Deputy Booth described it as a lunatic imposition. I appreciate his personal interest in the effect it had but was it not true also at that time, affected as we were by the dumping of Argentinian cattle, that people tried to gain political advantage and said there was no future any more in the cattle industry. Little did they think we would have £47,000,000 worth of cattle to export in 1957.

In that year not alone were we faced with the decreasing value of exports but also with the increased cost of our imports. We were also faced with a certain amount of inflation and we had a situation where our people were buying luxury goods which the country on its production could not afford. It was necessary to apply a steadying hand. That was done through certain restrictions on hire purchase and by the imposition of those levies at a time when the people were not prepared to give the Government in office, or any Government in any year, the capital that was necessary to support the capital programme.

The revenue from those duties was not applied to our current services but was channelled into the fund to maintain our capital programme—afforestation, rural electrification, housing and all other necessary amenities. Deputy Booth takes pride to-night in the influence which he and a limited number of beneficiaries had in relaxing certain of those import duties. We were told it was to improve employment. The Minister for Finance told us it was estimated that there would be a loss of £1,750,000 on these remissions which will be offset by the £500,000 per year which is now a permanent charge in substitution for the temporary import duties.

Deputy Booth made the point in relation to these import duties, that there was a reluctance on the part of people to buy certain goods—we know what the goods were, motor cars— because they did not know how long the duty would remain and that consequently there was a natural reluctance by people to pay the price carrying the extra cost caused by the import duty if there was a possibility that that duty would be removed within a matter of months.

I can recall the Government of that time meeting a deputation from the very people about whom Deputy Booth talks. Following that, there was an announcement by the then Tánaiste indicating, so as to steady up the position in that industry, that the duty would not be removed over a certain period. That announcement had the advantageous results which Deputy Booth looked for. It was not necessary to transfer it into a permanent charge or remove certain other levies on luxury cars to provide the employment talked about. That brings me to the question of employment and emigration.

There is a desire in Government circles to divorce these two matters, but, when the Government assumed office, the Taoiseach was approached by some foreign journalists and was asked particular questions. The first question he was asked was what was his view on emigration? The answer he gave was that it was a long-standing evil. It had become more serious of recent years partly due to economic factors and partly due to other ones. The proper place to start, he thought, in regard to the economic side was to try to secure that there would be sufficient employment available for our people so that they would not, through economic necessity, have to go abroad. That, therefore, would be their first task.

Would the Deputy give the reference?

The reference is the Irish Press of 9th March, 1957, and it carried in banner headlines: Employment is Our First Task. When these duties were remitted it was announced with confidence by the Government at the time that it would result in an improved position relating to employment. There is no need for me to go back on the posters exhorting housewives to get their husbands to work and the slogan: Let us get cracking. That is known to every member of this House and every elector in the country. I need only refer to the fact that seemingly the only thing they did was to remit £1,750,000 which would have accrued to the Exchequer for capital development purposes.

What results do we see? When we put down a parliamentary question and find out how many worked in industrial employment at the latest available date this year and compare it with last year, we discover there are 14,000 fewer in industrial employment and this is the year the Taoiseach describes as one of steady recovery. There are 10,000 fewer employed in agriculture. In the face of these figures, how can the Minister for Defence stand up in this House and say that there has been a 6.7 per cent. improvement in employment in the country? I grant that the unemployment figures show a reduction of 10,000, but the employment figures show a reduction of 24,000 in all—14,000 in industry and 10,000 in agriculture. We do not have to think very deeply to find out where they have gone.

For the past 12 months, the Government cannot claim that the Opposition have been very unfair to them. They have had facilities in relation to the meagre legislation they have introduced during that period. They have not had the type of criticism which the previous Government was subjected to during their first 12 months in office. They were given an opportunity of settling in and attacking those problems they said they would deal with and which they conveyed to the people they proposed to deal with.

We on this side of the House are not, indeed, the only people who are perturbed with the Government at this moment because the Government have not succeeded during their occupation of office—I will not say in their governing of the country. In North Tipperary at a convention in Nenagh, the Minister for Defence presided. It was stated there that Deputy Lemass came to Nenagh and told the convention that the object of the Government was to relieve unemployment. He asked them to get cracking; that they had waited for the Government to get cracking and the results were very poor.

It was not alone in relation to unemployment and emigration that the Party now in office secured office. They did it in consequence of a number of other undertakings. Amongst those other undertakings was one in relation to agricultural prices. Any Deputy who knows anything about the country realises that the dairy industry is in a very angry mood. I will not describe it in any stronger words, although I could. Let us see whether they have reason for their anger or not. Were they not led to believe that with the change in Government they would fare far better in relation to milk prices? Is it not a fact that in the West Limerick by-election the interrupters were primed on every occasion a Government speaker spoke to ask about the Milk Costings Commission? The implication was there all the time that there was in the report of that commission something that was embarrassing to the inter-Party Government then in office—something they had and could release, but would not.

In the North Kerry campaign, I can recall a member of the Seanad who is no longer a member going round and handing out the protest march posters at the booths on polling day and in one instance there was lashed to the railing with the same rope another poster: "Protest march for the creamery milk suppliers in Dublin. Vote Moloney No. 1." It was very good propaganda. Unfortunately for the dairy farmers it did not quite succeed, but there were other parts of the country in which it did succeed.

The dairy farmers over the past five or six years have invested more in their industry than the much-vaunted industrialists ever invested in their industry over the 30 years they have been nurtured and sheltered behind the very many tariffs which they got, in addition to what they got over the past 12 months. Let us go back to the commencement of the land project and come right up through the farm building schemes and then to the mechanisation of the farms in Munster. Let us come to the various problems overcome, pasteurisation in the creameries and the cost of meeting the immense charges which fall on the individual herd owner as well as on the State in relation to the elimination of bovine tuberculosis. Let me emphasise in that respect, as I did earlier on the Supplementary Estimate for the butter export, that the charge which falls on the State in relation to that will inure as much to the benefit of the town dweller as it will to any man who is resident on a dairy farm.

The whole economy of this country depends on the amount of live stock we can export from this country. That is agreed on all sides of the House. We have the Government by deliberate action dissuading the people from going in for even as much wheat as they had last year. We have them dissuading the people from going in for as much feeding barley as last year. We have the price of Grade "A" bacon coming down in June by 5/- a cwt. and the levy on pigs delivered going up by 2/6 per head. All of that is intended to decrease production in each of these spheres. What remain? Live cattle. The Government have not yet gone the complete road in saying it, but the Taoiseach neatly hedged around it in his contribution on the wheat motion. It was quite clear that that was the only item of agricultural produce we could profitably export without a single penny charge on the Exchequer.

If the unrest which exists in the dairying areas to-day worsens, and if by any ill means, the unfortunate threats which have in some instances been made come to fruition, we will have an absence of the co-operation which is so vital in facing the problems that have to be met in relation to the foundation industry, agriculture. If there is any drop-off in the flow of infant stock to the West and ultimately on to the finishing of the fattening process, and then to export, will it not affect the entire economy of the country?

This, therefore, is the very worst time in which to depress that industry. The Minister is imposing this charge at a time when the individual creameries have already to meet the very high capital charge involved in pasteurisation together with the running expenses that have to be met in the increases the workers employed by them are looking for and the increases that have evolved with the increased tax on transport in the last Budget. All of these impact on the cost of producing butter in our creameries.

Then, on top of that, we have this levy of four-fifths of a penny. We claim that our farmers could produce butter as economically as those in any other country if they had not to carry on their backs the charges on their raw produce, on fertilisers, on every implement they have to buy, in order to uphold Irish industry. That must be remembered. Consequently, if, to-day, as a result of the way they over-produced last year, there is the surplus which we now have, and which we rejoice in having, in butter, bacon and any other commodities, is it not the result of the appeals that all sides have issued to this sector of our community to produce more?

Was it not the intention of the land project to make it possible for them to produce more, to add 1,000,000 acres to the number of acres already in production in the country, by the giving of partial grants to assist people in replacing outworn farm buildings, in bringing water supplies to their farmyards, and so on? Was the whole scheme of things not directed to bring about exactly what we now have and, at the same time, to keep up that foundation stock—the store cattle industry—and the fat cattle industry— which is such an important factor in our economy?

Let me come back to the current Estimates and the campaign that was pursued, to which I have referred, in conservative quarters in relation to the advantage that would accrue to the Exchequer and ultimately to the country from the withdrawal of food subsidies. We are now in a position to look objectively at this aspect of budgeting. We are now in a position to judge what has occurred by the situation, not as it may be in six months' time, not as it was six months ago, but by the position as it exists to-day. The production in the Book of Estimates of the figure which is now presented bears out the contention repeatedly made by members of this Party when in Government, and which we are now making in Opposition, and which we made at every fair meeting and at every chapel gate during the general election campaign, that, no matter what sound arguments may be advanced by the theorists, the withdrawal of the food subsidies would bring about hardships which any Government would have to make some effort to alleviate and, in consequence, would have to impose certain other charges on the Exchequer, and that it could not be claimed that the Exchequer could benefit from a total withdrawal of food subsidies.

Let us see what has happened. If the Fianna Fáil contention was correct, the Book of Estimates this year should stand reduced by a £6,500,000— £9,000,000 in a full year—saving on food subsidies. The pitiable effort made to compensate the hardest hit classes—the shilling a week class; the old-age pensioner; the improvement in the family allowances and certain other benefits—amounted, in all, to £2,500,000 in a full year. When organised people come before a Labour Court, it is there adjudged that the impact of the increased cost of living on a household is as much as 15/- in the week, but all we give is £2,500,000 out of the £9,000,000 to compensate those classes. What of the people who are not organised?

Then we have the agreement, which was hailed with some pleasure by everybody concerned with the situation, whereby it was agreed between the union of employers and the trade unions that an increase of 10/- a week would be accepted as the basis of compensation in relation to the increase in the cost of living. Were the employers not extremely patriotic in coming to that quick agreement, or am I being a little bit cynical if I say that there may exist the possibility that they were aware that they could pass on that charge to the consumer by way of additional charges on the products they were manufacturing or handling? Had we not the experience of 1952? Did it not happen then?

What of the charges now falling on the local authorities? What of the position of the voluntary hospitals? What of the position of our public institutions, the expenses of which have to be met by charges on the rates? Have we not the impact on the rates? Have we not the impact in every single Department of State of the increased cost of running these institutions in consequence of the withdrawal of the food subsidies?

Let us go on again, from that, and take the small farmer, the man living on the side of a hill with five or six cows, the man whose income is now being slashed by the at least 1d. a gallon reduction in the price of milk which he will obtain in the next year. Let us take the man in North Tipperary and consider the reduction in the price of his wheat—estimated at anything between 9/- and 11/- per barrel. Let us take the man whose income in the coming year may be derived from the fattening of pigs. Is there anybody who cannot see to-day the wholesale selling-off of sows in the markets at slashed prices, in consequence of the loss of faith in that industry?

Consider the position of the small farmer who balanced his budget by the few pounds he made on the fat pig with the guaranteed price for grade "A" bacon, but which will stand reduced by 5/- a cwt. in a few months' time, thanks to an increase in the price of flour, bread, sugar and every other commodity that has risen in price since the advent of this Government. Deputy Michael O'Higgins was provided yesterday with a list of three and a half foolscap pages of items which have gone up in price since the Government came into office. Is this cut in the income of the agricultural community designed to assist them in meeting the charges they have to bear?

When we discuss the cost of living and the abolition of food subsidies, it is often claimed by the urban dweller that he is the only person in the community who is affected. I am strongly of the opinion that the man who works in the open, the road worker who has to take his satchel out with him in the morning, the man who goes to the bog, the man who works in the field, is more affected by the abolition of the food subsidies than any man in an office, any man in a city or town. He is called upon to meet the greater charge. Any of us who see a countrywoman go into a country shop and take her supply of flour and bread and butter can readily see that she is as entitled to an increase in her income, to meet that charge which arises out of a deliberate Government act, as any other member of the community.

No matter what effort this Government may make, if they got a windfall to-morrow morning that gave them a surplus of £12,000,000 in the Budget and if they were to apply the whole of that £12,000,000 in trying to find out who the people were in the community who were affected by the impact of the withdrawal of the subsidies, they would never reach them.

Consequently, we stand over the view we held all the time in relation to this, that what was vital in the circumstances that then existed was the holding down of the cost of living figure, preventing any alarming rise which would spark off that extra round of wage increases, that would be reflected again in the higher cost of producing the goods we have to export in competition with other countries— and then be priced still further out of the markets to which we pay so much lip-service from time to time.

Have not all these difficulties flowed from the fact that this Government withdrew these food subsidies and that, on the other side of the ledger, as was palpably shown in the Book of Estimates, they have not had the benefit of being able to say to the people: "Here was State expenditure which we have cut down on, and here it is to the credit of the taxpayer". As Deputy Booth said, they are taking it out of one pocket and putting it into the other. The only thing which has been shown by this Vote on Account is that they took it out of one pocket and they have not even put it into the other.

Where did it go?

That is just it. It should be reflected in this £6,500,000, as the Deputy will agree. If you subtract the £2,500,000 of the compensatory benefits from the £9,000,000, there should be £6,500,000 of improvement here. But we forget that the master bakers had to get their cut. Of course, it was only £250,000, I know; but do Deputies opposite know what that £250,000 would have done? It would have saved the 4/- a ton on the ground limestone which those in Deputy Loughman's constituency and mine will have to meet in the coming year. Instead of that, a few privileged pets had to get it—and get it without making any case for it—and people are getting it that never paid a penny increase in wages.

Is that not dreadful?

I agree with the Deputy. It is shocking and it is a disgrace.

It was a bargain you made and we honoured.

No. It was quite clear to the inter-Party Government that the casting vote which recommended that increase was not sufficient authority; and the Government were not to be influenced by any outside recommendation. They made their own mind up on it, having seen what the certified profits were of the combines which are now wiping out the small bakeries in every town and village in Ireland. These are the people who are getting the compensation. Take the firm that bought out three big bakeries in Cork City; they bought them out since the higher wages were paid. They are now getting the compensatory benefit, instead of the unfortunate firms that sold to them, not knowing that this retrospective compensation was coming up. I ask any Deputy—Deputy Booth is a businessman and so is Deputy Haughey— is that good enough? That is £250,000 I have disposed of. Who knows but that we will find in the course of time where the rest of it has gone?

The integrity of the Government was at stake.

There is one thing I do know—it is not to be found in the assistance to the unfortunate women who are buying a half-bag of flour or a pound of butter. It is not to be found there. There are levies imposed in recent weeks on the industry which everybody says is the basic industry. There is a reduction in income in the coming 12 months that makes it very hard for the people in those categories to face up to conditions that prevail now. Despite any effort the Government may make to make up to the people for the impact of the budgetary policy last year, it will be a sheer impossibility for them to do it.

There are some reductions in the Book of Estimates. There is a reduction in relation to housing. Shades of Deputy Briscoe! There is a reduction in the farm building scheme. Surely if we are to combat a disease such as bovine tuberculosis, this is not the time to have the grants for the people who have to incur heavy expense in the replacement of live stock and in the improvement of outoffices? Then we have the elimination of the Local Authorities (Works) Act. Again, this will be presented to the conservatives as being a saving of £250,000. We are informed by the Department of Local Government that there were 4,000 men working on the Local Authorities (Works) Act last year. Is that a complete saving—or it is possible that we had reflected in the Supplementary Estimate for Social Welfare the £3.1 a week that must be paid to these men idle at the exchanges who were formerly engaged on that scheme? What has the present Government against the Local Authorities (Works) Act? Was it not a good scheme? Did it not do the work?

That scheme could be discussed more relevantly on the Estimate.

I agree, and no doubt it will be referred to again and again. In fact, at the Fianna Fáil convention in North Tipperary, they did not forget to pass a resolution asking the Government to reintroduce the Local Authorities (Works) Act. I say that down in the ranks in the Government Party there are many people fully aware of the advantages of that scheme. I feel it is relevant to this discussion, inasmuch as there is in this Book of Estimates a reduction from the amount in last year's Book of Estimates for that scheme. Unfortunately, we will have reflected, on the sum we will have to find to maintain people in idleness, two-thirds of the amount which it would have cost to give them full employment and put them on work productive and beneficial to the community as a whole.

These are the comments I intended to make in relation to the Book of Estimates. I deplore the fact that the Government have not produced any solution in the past 12 months. They had the advantage of a year in which legislation seemingly was very meagre and unnecessary; it was a period in which Ministers had so much additional time to devote to their respective Departments. Despite the undertaking which secured them office, despite the promises in which it was expressly said that they would "get cracking" and in which they told wives, "get your husbands back to work", we have now on record 24,000 fewer in employment. The situation facing the country now is one of an extraordinary rise in the cost of living, reflected again in higher costs to the community at large. This is the type of Government the people are experiencing as a result of what they did some 12 months ago.

I want to revert to the fact that the Minister for Finance appeared to be very cocksure and confident at Budget time last year in relation to the economies he could effect in running the country. In that respect he referred particularly to the Civil Service, and there were encomiums from the provincial newspapers, as well as the daily newspapers, complimenting him on setting out on the praiseworthy task of effecting economies there. To-day we see there was increased recruitment to the Civil Service in the course of the last year and the reduction shown in the Book of Estimates in the number of civil servants is in consequence of the transfer of a section of a Department to an outside body formed to replace that section. Consequently there are no grounds for complacency in relation to the Minister's assurance that he would, right away, get down to eliminating these charges on the Exchequer which he claimed were superfluous. There is no indication that the Government has any idea of the policy they intend to pursue in the coming year. The Minister for Finance failed to advert to it when he was introducing this Vote. If the Government have a policy it is so nebulous as to be almost invisible.

Ba mhaith liom tagairt a dhéanamh do cúpla Meastachán atá ós cómhair na Dála. Siad na Meastachán atá i gceist, ná Uimha. 46 and 47, mar atá, Tailte agus Foraoiseacht. Sin dá rud a bhaineann leis an Dáil Ceanntar atá, Tailte agus is Meastacháin iad ina gcuirim suim.

I hope that Government policy, and the policy of the Minister for Lands, with regard to the Irish Land Commission will be given a reappraisal during the coming year. The Land Commission Vote and the Land Commission itself are being very severely criticised all over the country and in particular in my constituency where we have so many small landholders. I do not know whether to refer to the activities or the inactivities of the Land Commission——

The Deputy would not be in order in discussing the administration of the Land Commission on the Vote on Account.

May I discuss policy in relation to the Land Commission? I notice that it is proposed to make provision for more or less the same amount this year as last year. The net decrease is only in the region of £26,980. The policy of the Land Commission over the past few years has been to stick to whatever it has acquired in the line of estates, to disappoint everyone expecting to get an addition or increase and to persist in its policy of constant letting. In view of that, the reduction in the Estimate, to my mind, should be far greater than £26,980.

The Land Commission is always very reluctant to rid itself of the holdings it acquires and in my constituency small landowners, congests and people who expect to get holdings or extensions are constantly complaining of Land Commission policy.

The Deputy is getting away from the Vote on Account and going into details which should be raised on the Estimate.

Very good. The second matter to which I want to refer is the Vote for Forestry. It appears in the Summary of Capital Services as Vote 47. I strongly approve of the increase shown in the provision for the acquisition of land. It has been my experience, and the experience of others, that land has been offered to the Forestry Section, that the offers have been repeated time and again but that no action has been taken. I trust that the increase of £50,000, practically 50 per cent., will result in more speedy acquisitions of lands offered over the last 12 months and some of which have been offered over the last two years.

If the policy of the Forestry Section is to acquire land, when suitable land is offered it should be taken over immediately. If, at the risk of being ruled out of order, I may again refer to my own constituency, I have reason to know that large tracts of land in a South Galway area have been offered to the Forestry Section, and the price agreed on, yet the Department has not taken over these lands. In consequence, workers at this time, at the tail-end of the financial year, find themselves out of employment, due to the policy of the Forestry Section.

There has been a great deal of talk about civil servants. They seem to be the whipping post for politicians who think that all economies could be effected, if the civil servants were reduced in number. Many people have conveniently forgotten that, although we have something like 32,000 civil servants, three out of every four are earning less than £600 a year. The total sum of £17,000,000 paid to the Civil Service works out at an average of about £500 a year per civil servant. Many tradesmen and most professional men earn far more than that and, when it is realised that the brains of the country have been channelled and funnelled into the Civil Service, this unwarranted criticism of civil servants and their salaries should not be tolerated. Some of them earn big money, but postmen, and other employees of the Department of Posts and Telegraphs, who comprise more than 50 per cent. of the civil servants, are earning very small salaries and wages.

The policy of this Government with regard to production has been criticised. We have been told that the solution to all our economic ills lies in increased production, but I am afraid, while we all agree that increased agricultural production is of vital importance to the nation, steps were not taken to provide an outlet for that increased production. That is why we find ourselves in the position in which we are to-day. The Government has been criticised with regard to its policy on wheat. The difficulty with regard to that was that the small farmer, the tillage farmer, who was the backbone of the nation during the last war, who provided the food for the people in our cities, was left out in the cold when the war and the emergency period ended. Speculators were allowed to take over and plough the rich lands of the Midlands, lands which, according to the owners, were not good enough to plough during the war.

I would suggest to the Government that a system somewhat similar to that which has been adopted by the sugar company should be adopted in regard to wheat, whereby the millers would contract with small farmers and others for their requirements. In that way, the activities of the big speculators might be curtailed and the small farmers, who saved this country during the war and who were willing to do that work without being compelled or threatened, would reap the benefit of the Government policy with regard to wheat, and would not be penalised and put on the same plane as the land speculators of to-day. These speculators are ploughing up hundreds of acres of land because they see there is something good in it for them.

The Government had a very serious situation to face when they took office 12 months ago. Let nobody on the Opposition Benches deny that fact. The whole country knew that the fate of the nation was at stake. Surely they do not expect us to take the country out of the rut in one year? The Estimates we had to present last year were the Estimates of our predecessors. The present Estimates are the first ones prepared by the Fianna Fáil Government and they show a reduction of £4.8 million. That, at least, is the right trend. Every time we see a headline in any of our daily papers, it is asking for reduced Government expenditure. Now that the Government of the day has tackled that problem, and shown that reduction of £4.8 million, we have speakers from the opposite side of the House saying that the reduction should be £9,000,000 or £12,000,000 but, while they were in office, the figure mounted and mounted year after year. Now that we have effected a reduction, we are challenged that the reduction should be greater still.

The Government are making an honest effort to pull the country out of the position in which it was left by the Coalition Government and we should not be despondent about the trend. There is a rising wave of confidence in the country, despite all the cynicism with regard to emigration and unemployment. The Government are making a serious effort towards national progress and it is the duty of every citizen to help the Government in that effort. There are too many Jeremiahs amongst the citizens to-day who are spreading that cynicism. It is like a snowball which grows and grows. One person says that business is not good and that statement is repeated by his neighbour. It goes on and on, so that cynicism and despondency mount.

The Government have been challenged because they have not introduced a lot of legislation. As Deputy Booth said, it is not its duty to spend its time in devising new laws and bringing new Bills before the Oireachtas. It is the duty of a good Government to administer the country properly, to lay emphasis on things that should be emphasised, and to look at things in their proper perspective. As far as this Government are concerned I compliment them on the fact that they have not been introducing a surfeit of new legislation. We have plenty of laws in this country. I trust that before the term of office of the Fianna Fáil Government expires, the country will be well on the road to recovery. I trust that the recovery initiated in the first year of the Fianna Fáil Government will be maintained, that the pace will be increased and that the tempo will grow from year to year, so that, whenever it is decided to have another general election, this Government can go to the people with confidence and ask for their support.

It is important to stress other aspects of Government policy with regard to agriculture, which was considered here in the Dáil during the past few weeks. I cannot agree with those people on the opposite side who say this Government have no policy. The people who voted for Fianna Fáil, this time 12 months ago, knew what they were voting for. They knew they were voting for a Party, the members of which could agree among themselves on a policy, and a Party the members of which were drawn from all sections and classes of the conmunity. They knew they were voting for a Party that would be prepared to do unpopular things and to take unpopular decisions in the light and in the knowledge that these decisions would ultimately be of benefit to the country. We have not here a Government being pulled and dragged by Labour, by Fine Gael, by conservative interests or by any interests except the interests of the country at large. That was the big weakness of the Government which preceded us. Their policy changed from day to day, from hour to hour, because of the sectional interest to which heed had to be given by the Ministers of that Government.

The Fianna Fáil Government is drawn from a Party with a great past, with a belief in Ireland. For that reason, no matter what breezes of unpopularity blew across the Party, it has always emerged sure of itself, strong in its faith in itself and strong in its faith in Ireland. For that reason, I have high hopes that this Party, this Government, comprised of people who believe in Ireland, will advance the national recovery and will, if necessary, be prepared to do things which at the present moment are not popular with the masses of our people, but which are of benefit, and which will be of benefit, to the nation.

Progress reported; Committee to sit again.
The Dáil adjourned at 10.30 p.m. until 10.30 a.m. on Friday, 14th March, 1958.
Top
Share