Vol. 170 No. 4
I move:—
That a sum not exceeding £78,790 be granted to complete the sum necessary to defray the Charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1959, for the salaries and Expenses of the Central Statistics Office.
The service given us by the Central Statistics Office is an excellent service, as far as it goes. I wish to be quite clear that, in making any comments or criticisms on it, I am not in any way challenging the accuracy of the information they produce or the energy of the personnel concerned. However, I am afraid that the statistical service they have is not sufficient for our need. It is far too late when we get the vital statistical information on which the course of Government policy and the course of consideration by this House can be framed.
I know that the Minister, and indeed, every Minister for Finance, is always anxious, so far as he can, to pare the Estimates put up to him by the Departments. That is not only natural but also right and proper. But if we are to have a worthwhile economic service we must do something even if it does cost more money to ensure that statistical information is available more speedily. Advances have been made in the provision of statistics over the last few years, and all credit for them. The people, however, in the last three years have developed a much greater awareness of the need for statistics and economic information. That has happened partly because of the deliberate policy adopted of trying to ensure that the economic facts which affect their lives will be appreciated. This is a very good development and I think it a pity that the Minister has not carried on the practice of making more information available about the economic policy, the aims and objects of the Government.
Although that is a pity, it would be difficult for him in certain respects to do it when he has not got up-to-date statistical information. Some of the information made available by the Statistics Office is, perhaps, not quite so necessary while some of the vital things that we must know should be made available far more quickly after the relevant dates. The Statistical Survey, for example, published a fortnight ago should have been available before the Budget debate, if the members of the House were to consider the budgetary policy introduced by the Minister in its true and proper setting. Having been in the Minister's seat, I know that frequently the Minister for Finance has to formulate policy on economic matters without having all the latest data available to him.
Money spent on the provision of a more up-to-date service would be money well spent and I hope that the Minister will give the matter his consideration in the coming year so that, in addition to having more up-to-date information, he will endeavour so far as possible to ensure that such information will be disseminated more widely than heretofore.
I wish to pay tribute to the Central Statistics Office for the very valuable information made available, not merely to Deputies, but to the people generally. If I have any regret in this respect, it is that these statistics, which are circulated so freely and publicised by the newspapers, are not generally read by the public at large with the result that when one comes to discuss our basic economic trends one finds that the information which has been freely disseminated has not been read, or certainly has not been absorbed by a large section of the community.
It would be worth our while—the method of doing this is not obvious to me at the moment—to endeavour to develop among our people a greater interest in the economic trends which are shown by the statistical information issued by the Central Statistics Office. That office has made enormous strides over the past 15 years, a development of which we all approve. I should like the Minister to ask the office to consider in what way they could more effectively publicise the valuable material which they make available. I agree with Deputy Sweetman that some items of information are much more important than others. For example, we could wait to receive some of the material in due course after some little delay which would not matter very much. But there are statistics which it is desirable to get with the utmost expedition.
I also agree that the publishing of the Survey, say, in the seventh month of the year, seven months after the year closes is really not giving that Survey the priority which I think is desirable. This is a most valuable publication, a most thorough-going examination of economic, agricultural, industrial and employment trends, and I hope the Minister, with the assistance of the office, can devise some means by which that very valuable publication can be produced much earlier than at present, or that some of the more valuable or urgent information contained in it will be published as a preliminary survey even if we must wait for a later date to get the details contained in the complete volume.
Subject to these comments, which are intended to be helpful and not critical, I think the Statistics Office does a very good job but I wish the material it disseminates would be more carefully studied by the people generally so that they would know and observe trends in our national development.
I wish to join in the tribute to the Central Statistics Office. It is a well-run office and the information supplied is very useful and is lucidly compiled. I agree that we do not make the best possible use of the service, and I think the public generally may be confused by tables of figures. I wonder if the information coming from the office could be given in diagrams rather than in tables and in sets of figures? Such a system has been used to indicate trends in other activities. If the public were more aware of the position, particularly the difficulties of the country, people would give more support to action designed to surmount these difficulties because they would recognise what the Government of the day was up against. They would be in a position to judge the efforts of the Government of the day to overcome difficulties.
I agree with Deputy Norton that the Survey might be published in two parts —a preliminary survey which would come out before the Budget and could be used in the Budget debate, the second part coming out, possibly, later on. We seem unable to get in this House anything like accurate figures for emigration. I put down a question in the Dáil in the early months of this year and the reply I got was to the effect that the only accurate figures for emigration are those revealed by the census every five years. I suggest it is not beyond the competence of the very efficient Central Statistics Office to arrive at a reasonably accurate figure for annual emigration in the early months of the following year. They might be asked to turn their energies to that task.
First of all, I do not think I could agree—I may not have got exactly what Deputy Norton said—that the Statistics Department should present their information more attractively, as it were. That is a matter for journalists, and so on. If they get the figures, they can pick out things that attract people by giving examples of figures, and so on.
I quite agree that we should try to get out figures as quickly as possible. On the other hand, it might be unfair to give the impression to the public that we are very dilatory about these figures. I believe we compare fairly well with other countries. The Trade Statistics come out on 13th of the month; the unemployment figures come out five days after the week is over.
As regards the Economic Survey, I admit it does not come out fully until July or August. However, the most vital figures in that Economic Survey are published at Budget time, around the middle of April. On the whole, we should be pleased that our Statistics Department are doing very well. At the same time, I do not want to give Deputies the impression that I would not like to see things done better if at all possible. I am sure that without being urged, they will do that. They seem to be very keen on presenting figures of all kinds and with the greatest possible expedition.
In any discussion I had about emigration with those in the Statistics Department, they said they cannot see any way of giving a correct figure, except at census time, every five years. That is understandable. People can go across the Border, for example, and no enumeration is possible of the numbers of people going backwards and forwards. If there were, they could take the figures of people going out and coming in and, with births and deaths, could give the correct figure every year. Deputies must see the difficulty of giving a very precise figure on emigration, except at the time of the census.
Do I understand the Minister to say that the trade figures for every month are available on 13th of the month?
Yes.
Those figures are not circulated to Deputies.
I think they are. If the Deputy will put his name down, he will get them.
The Deputy has to ask for them.
