I was referring to the fact that the Minister had introduced an all-time record as far as the Estimates are concerned, that he is doing that as a colleague of the present Taoiseach who on the 8th of May, 1956, speaking in this House announced the decision of the Fianna Fáil Party regarding taxation and the fact that, in their view, taxation had reached the danger limit. I am quoting from the Dáil debates of the 8th May, 1956, Column 49, in which the present Taoiseach, then Deputy Lemass, is reported as having said:
In 1953, the Fianna Fáil Government, of which I was a member, took a decision that taxation in this country had reached the danger limit. We announced that we had made up our minds on that fact and that, so far as we were concerned, there would be no increase in tax rates above the 1953 level. We made it clear that, if any Budget difficulty arose, that difficulty would be met by a reduction of expenditure and not by increasing the burden on the taxpayers.
On the same day, as reported at Column 68, the present Minister for Health, then Deputy MacEntee, speaking from these Benches, said:
That is what the working class people in our rural areas are paying for the fact that the Government has not tackled what is the basic difficulty in all this matter, the phenomenon of rising Government expenditure. Until we can manage to curb and curtail that, there will be no relief for any taxpayer in this country and the burdens upon the workers, upon the poorer sections of this community, are going to be increased. That is what is at stake here in this Resolution.
Just four years after the Taoiseach and the Minister for Health expressed those sentiments from these Benches, and after a general election which took place less than a year later and returned them to office, we find the Minister for Finance presenting this House with a Book of Estimates for very nearly £30 million more than the Book of Estimates for the year 1952-53. I do not pretend to know what plans the Minister has in store, so far as taxation is concerned, arising from the Estimates which he is presenting to us, but certainly I should be very pleasantly surprised if any of the Deputies opposite could convince me that in a Book of Estimates totalling something over £123 million there will be any relief for the taxpayer such as was spoken about by the Minister for Health and the Taoiseach when they spoke here on the 8th May, 1956.
What effort has this Government made towards reducing Government expenditure? What effort has been made by the Minister for Finance or any of his colleagues? Deputy O'Malley, when speaking here a short while ago, said that the increases in the Book of Estimates were due mainly to increases in wages and salaries. He inquired if Deputies on this side of the House were opposed to that. He asked if we did not criticise that, where did our criticism lie?
Assuming Deputy O'Malley is right in regard to this colossal Book of Estimates produced by the Minister and that the increases are attributable mainly to increases in wages and salaries, is it not pertinent to inquire how did those increases in wages and salaries come about? How were they occasioned? The trade unions, and those whom they represent here have not, I think, by and large over the years, proved themselves unwilling to meet, discuss and co-operate with employers' representatives on matters of wages and working conditions. Certainly, more than once they have shown very commendable restraint in face of what must have seemed to them to be provocation at the hands of Fianna Fáil Governments.
If it was necessary to increase wages and salaries, how did that necessity come about? Surely, it was because of the deliberate action of the present Fianna Fáil Government, or Party in any event, in pushing up the cost of living by deliberate positive Government action, increasing the cost of living and making it necessary to give wage increases? Was that the Fianna Fáil Party's contribution to curbing Government expenditure? Was that their contribution to avoiding increased taxation? The present Fianna Fáil Party, since they formed a Government in 1957, have not once but twice deliberately by their Budgetary and their financial policy implemented through this House, increased the cost of living and necessitated any wage increases there were.
When this Government were last in Opposition, occupying those Benches, the Estimates for the year 1956-57 totalled something more than £109 million. The following year, 1957-58, they were up to £112½ million approximately. There was a slight reduction in 1958-59 to £110 million. Of course, there have been Supplementary Estimates since that. Now we are faced with a Book of Estimates amounting to practically £123½ million.
In the face of that situation, I was amazed to see the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Finance use so little time and a great deal of energy in exuding confidence and Government complacency with regard to the position in this country, and exulting in the pride which he and his colleagues in the Fianna Fáil Party thought they were entitled to take in the housing figures for the past year in dealing with the question of unemployment.
I have not seen the Parliamentary Secretary's speech in the Dáil Debates yet because it has not been published yet but, according to the notes which I took, he said that his Party were rightly proud of housing figures for the past year. He went on to say that local authority housing is tapering off and that the emphasis is now on private housing. I want to examine whether or not the Parliamentary Secretary and his colleagues can be rightly proud of the housing figures for the past twelve months and of their record in housing since they took office.
If members of the Government and Deputies behind them feel inclined to stick out their chests about housing, I would advise them to be very careful that they are not sticking out their chins as well. I remember during the period of office of the last Government the hullabaloo set up on this side of the House on the question of housing, how the then Government were charged with falling down on the job, how we were told that the whole building industry was in a state of chaos caused by the ineptitude of that Government. All of us can remember the propaganda disseminated by Fianna Fáil spokesmen both inside and outside the House at the time of the general election and leading up to it, on the question of housing. We remember the charges levelled against the inter-Party Government. It is in the context of that campaign that I think it is right to examine now, as best we can, the Fianna Fáil record since they took office.
I want to support what I am saying regarding that Fianna Fáil campaign by a few references. I am sure Deputies opposite are sick and tired of some of these references and I hope that before this Dáil has run its course not only will they be sick and tired but also heartily ashamed of some of the propaganda that came out in their interests and over the names of some of them prior to the last general election, during it, and even since then.
The first quotation I want to make is from propaganda produced on behalf of Deputy Galvin when he was contesting a by-election in Cork City. In this Fianna Fáil pamphlet produced in his support it is proclaimed that private house-building was almost at a standstill. The Fianna Fáil Party in their efforts to get Deputy Galvin into the Dáil told the people: "Private house-building in Cork City and suburbs has almost come to a standstill. Hundreds of people, young married couples especially, who had hoped to build their own homes are being forced to abandon their plans as a result of the breakdown of the Small Dwellings Loans."
Fianna Fáil succeeded in putting Deputy Galvin into the House. Before the Dáil ends, I hope we may hear Deputy Galvin's vindication of the propaganda used on his behalf. It did not rest there. A pamphlet was produced for the Fianna Fáil Party as a whole, on behalf of all the Deputies in the Party, including the Minister for Finance, Deputy Corry and Deputy Gogan on the occasion of the last general election. It had a photo of the former Taoiseach, now Uachtarán na Éireann. The big, black, bold heading was: "Let us go ahead again—vote Fianna Fáil." One of the articles in it is headed "Homes for Irishmen." It says: "One of the most serious problems facing the new Fianna Fáil Government will be the question of the building industry which has been thrown into a state of chaos. Private house-building is almost at a standstill; the loan system has broken down while local authority operations have been greatly curtailed. Many thousands of building workers have lost their jobs." Then it goes on: "It will be a first task of Fianna Fáil to see that life and vigour are restored to the building trade so that Small Dwellings Loans once again become available for house purchase." That was a document produced, I think, in every constituency to assist in putting Fianna Fáil back as a Government.
Shortly after they had got back, there was a by-election in one of the North-side constituencies in Dublin which ultimately returned Deputy Sherwin to the Dáil. Fianna Fáil produced their usual type of election pamphlet. I do not know where it was printed; they are all the same type of thing but, if they are dreary in the monotony with which they come out, they are brightened by some of the articles which appear in them and some of the promises held out.
In support of the Fianna Fáil candidate in Dublin North Central by-election in November, 1957, Fianna Fáil had this to say regarding housing. The heading was: "We are going ahead with housing." The article goes on: "During the last year of the Coalition Government there was an almost complete close-down of housing. Not merely was there a serious slowing of house construction but many schemes due to begin last year or early this year were held up. In Dublin City the number of dwellings in tender on April 1st was only 222 compared with 815 last year. Private house building was in no better position due to the collapse of the Small Dwellings Loans scheme. During 1956 the number of grant houses under construction fell by almost 1,000. Action has now been taken to deal with this position." I want to remind the House again that notwithstanding the complaints made in those Fianna Fáil pamphlets regarding both private building and local authority building —which is referred to in the last quotation I read—Deputy Brennan, the Parliamentary Secretary, now assures the House that local authority housing is tapering off and that the emphasis is now to be placed on private housing.
Let us look at the record of the present Government since they got back to office early in 1957 and examine this record within the framework set by the Fianna Fáil Party themselves in the propaganda to which I have referred. If we consult the statistical abstract published by the Central Statistics Office for the year 1959, on page 190 certain figures are given with regard to new houses and houses reconstructed for each of the years from 1952 to 1959.
Starting in the year 1956—that, mark you, is the year which according to Fianna Fáil, according to their speeches, propaganda and all the hullabaloo they were kicking up from this side of the House, was the black year as far as the building industry and employment were concerned and was the main cause for Fianna Fáil's success in defeating the last Government in the last general election— according to the Statistical Abstract there were 9,837 new houses built in the year 1956 and 6,494 houses were reconstructed during the year 1956. According to the Statistical Abstract the number of new houses in the year 1959 was 4,893 and the number of houses reconstructed was 6,909. So that, after three years of Fianna Fáil Government, when they were telling the people that if they were elected work was to start at once, we find that, as between the years 1956 and 1959, there is a decrease of 4,944 in the number of new houses erected and as between 1958 and 1959 there is a decrease of 253 in the number of houses reconstructed.
If we turn to the local authority housing for the same years, there were 4,011 local authority houses erected in the year 1956 and the last year given in the Abstract—it does not go to 1959; it goes to 1958—shows that, as between 1956 and 1958, when Fianna Fáil had been in office for something over 12 months, there was a decrease to 3,467 in the number of houses erected for local authorities in 1958. This is the record which the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Finance feels entitles him to say that the Government and the Party of which he is a member are really proud of the housing figures.
I examined these statistics in more detail, having regard to the Fianna Fáil campaign against the previous Government and the fact that Fianna Fáil Deputies now feel entitled to stick out their chests in pride at their record in house building. I think some other interesting figures are worth recording. In the Statistical Abstract new house building by private persons and public utility societies is shown for a number of years. Remember the Parliamentary Secretary claimed that the necessity for local authority houses was now tapering off and that the emphasis must be put on private houses. Let us see what has been happening as far as private housing is concerned over the last few years. Let us look at this record about which the Government apparently feel they are entitled to stick out their chests.
I should say that these figures are to the 31st of March in each year. To the 31st March 1957—and remember these figures would apply to the period in office of the previous Government because the Fianna Fáil Government took office only as a result of a general election held in March, 1957—the number of new houses built by private persons and public utility societies in rural areas was 4,066 and the number built in urban areas 1,495. After Fianna Fáil had been there for a couple of years, taking the twelve months to the 31st March, 1959, we find that the number of new houses built by private persons and public utility societies in rural areas was 1,651—in other words, a decrease of 2,415 as against the year ending on the 31st March 1957. Taking the same two years again, the 31st March, 1957, as against 31st March, 1959, on the 31st March, 1957 the number of new local authority houses built in rural areas amounted to 1,617 and the number of new local authority houses built in urban areas amounted to 3,167. Two years afterwards how does Fianna Fáil's record in the field of local authority housing compare when measured against those figures? To the 31st March, 1959, the number of new houses built by local authorities in rural areas under the Fianna Fáil Government amounted to 648 as against 1,617 to the 31st March, 1957. The number of local authority houses built in urban areas for the year to the 31st March, 1959, was 1,164 or more than 2,000 fewer than the number built for the twelve months ending on the 31st March, 1957.
I wonder if in face of those figures the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Finance still feels he is entitled to come into the House and say he is rightly proud of the housing figures for the past year? If he is rightly proud of them and if he feels he can stick out his chest, I wonder does his Minister agree with him? Does any Deputy representing the city of Dublin agree with him? That is the Fianna Fáil record so far as housing is concerned.
Only last week or the week before we had a discussion here regarding the state of affairs existing so far as housing grants are concerned. Every Deputy knows that a situation had arisen in the Custom House where houses were passed for grants and listed for payment but the grants could not issue because the money was not there to pay them and it was necessary for the Minister for Local Government to come into the House and get a Supplementary Estimate passed in order to enable the payments to be made. There were a number of private citizens and house builders who were gravely embarrassed and financially embarrassed because the present Government had allowed that situation to develop and exist.
Deputy Corish, I think it was, when speaking here yesterday referred to a question he had asked regarding the numbers employed in local authority building for the past five or six years. If any Deputy in the benches opposite doubts the figures I have given with regard to the number of houses built by Fianna Fáil as against the number of houses built before they took office, they can check and counter check those figures by reference to the numbers employed in the building of local authority houses for the past few years.
The note I have of the figures given to Deputy Corish in reply to his question showed that the number employed in local authority building to 31st January, 1956, was 6,147; to 31st January, 1957, 4,580; for the year to 31st January, 1958, it dropped to 2,604; there was a further slight drop to 31st January, 1959, when it was 2,583 and another drop to 31st January this year, when the total was 1,781. In other words, on 31st January of the present year, there were practically 3,000 fewer persons employed in local authority building than in the year to 31st January, 1957, the last year for which the previous Government were responsible. That is the record of this Government and of the Party opposite, so far as housing is concerned.
I would advise the members of the Party opposite, particularly their Ministers and junior Ministers, to show less confidence and less complacency when dealing with this question of housing. The Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Finance must feel he has a lot of facetious Deputies behind him because one of the questions which he posed for the consideration of the members of this Assembly was whether or not any serious Deputy contended that unemployment could be ended in a short time? I want to remind the Parliamentary Secretary, and every other Deputy opposite, that that is precisely what the members of the Government Party contended before and during the last general election, and it was because they contended that, and because they persuaded the voters that they were right in their contention, that they now form the Government.
If any Deputy opposite does not believe what I am saying, I would refer him to the Fianna Fáil pamphlet which was produced during the last general election to persuade the people to give their votes to Fianna Fáil and to entrust the Fianna Fáil Party with the government of this country. The Parliamentary Secretary now asks if any serious Deputy can contend that unemployment can be ended in a short time. This Fianna Fáil pamphlet has a big black heading on page 3, "Action Can Start Now", and the article starts this way:
Over 90,000 people are now out of work. The Coalition say they can do nothing for them now. Fianna Fáil believes that work must be provided at once...
and the words "at once" are in italics. Surely that was contending exactly what the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Finance now says cannot be contended by any Deputy who approaches this problem seriously? Every member of the Fianna Fáil Party occupying a seat in Dáil Éireann is there partly because of his success, or the success of his Party, in persuading the voters that Fianna Fáil could do something immediately in regard to putting people back into employment. I do not think it necessary for me to labour at any great length the fact that that was the Fianna Fáil effort and their campaign during the general election.
We have already had—not in this debate but in other debates—some quotations from speeches of the Taoiseach during the course of the general election campaign, and every one of us remembers the posters with which the Fianna Fáil Party candidates placarded every wall up and down the country, the notorious posters addressed to the housewives of this country: "Wives Get Your Husbands Off To Work—Vote Fianna Fáil." We remember the theme of the propaganda that unemployment was the test of Government policy and that no Government policy was good enough which allowed any people to remain out of work or in idleness. What is the record of the Government since taking office in March, 1957?
At the end of last year, just before Christmas, we had an opportunity of discussing that record in this House on the occasion of the Adjournment Motion. I want to go back on that because I have not heard any explanation, which is satisfactory to me in any event, of the figures given by the Taoiseach in reply to a question put by Deputy T. Lynch on 11th November, 1959. I propose examining those figures again and asking the Minister for Finance to say, when replying to this debate, if he can give any better explanation for them than that which was attempted by the Taoiseach and some other Fianna Fáil speakers when they immediately sounded the retreat after the figures had been published and appeared in the Official Report. All of us recall how, as soon as the seriousness of the position as disclosed by the reply given to that question was apparent, the bugle sounded immediately and the Government went into a huddle to try to give this House some explanation which would prove that the position was other than as disclosed in the reply to that question.
According to the figures given by the Taoiseach on 11th November last, there were approximately 41,000 people fewer in employment in the year ended 31st March, 1959, than there were in the year ended 31st March, 1956, based on the estimate of the number of persons in insurable employment. That was after two or 2¼ years of Fianna Fáil Government. They had succeeded in driving 41,000 people out of employment, 41,000 people who were in jobs, who were earning their living in this country at the time Fianna Fáil were sticking up their posters "Wives Get Your Husbands Off To Work." At the time Fianna Fáil speakers were campaigning through the country, promising action at once as far as the unemployed were concerned, there were 41,000 people earning their living in jobs and those people, two or 2¼ years later, under a Fianna Fáil Government, found themselves out of jobs and, presumably, either having to sign on at the labour exchange or emigrate and look for work elsewhere. Those are not figures that are manufactured by anyone on this side of the House. They are figures issued by the Taoiseach's Department in reply to a Parliamentary Question.
Fianna Fáil have failed dismally on the housing programme. They have a dreary, dismal record. It is one of God's mercies to them that the Deputies now in Opposition did not take advantage of that position as Fianna Fáil Deputies did when they were on this side of the House and it is another of God's mercies to the Fianna Fáil Party that the Government's political opponents do not control a powerful string of newspapers to give publicity to the position existing over the past few years, as far as housing is concerned, because if there were publicity or even half the magnitude of that given by the Fianna Fáil string of Party newspapers in 1956, the Government would not have lasted for six months.
Fianna Fáil have failed in housing. They have failed in dealing with the unemployment situation. I do not think it necessary to dwell at any length on the question of emigration. I do not believe that even Fianna Fáil Deputies, even if they tried to whistle up the same type of confidence as the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Finance endeavoured to whistle up when speaking in this debate, are foolish enough to feel complacent as regards emigration. There may or may not be a slight improvement in the emigration figures, but, whether there is an improvement or not, every Deputy, no matter which side of the House he occupies, will concede that emigration is running and continuing to run at too high a figure and there is nothing the Fianna Fáil Government have done since they came back to office that has alleviated that position.
I shall not rub their noses in quotations any further. I invite them to look back over the propaganda which they issued during the last general election and they will find that they dealt with the question of emigration in exactly the same way as they dealt with the question of unemployment.
There is one other topic I want to refer to, that is, the cost of living. Before Fianna Fáil succeeded in getting themselves elected Government at the last general election, the Government immediately preceding them had faced an extremely difficult year. It had faced a year in which a balance of payments problem arose and had to be dealt with. As a result of the political and moral courage of the members of that Government in dealing with that problem, they incurred, and knew they would incur, a certain amount of political unpopularity, but I think it is true, and I think it will be conceded even by their political opponents, that one thing which ran through every action of the previous Government, one motive which was there all the time, was to try to minimise the effect on the weaker sections of the community of any of the actions which it was necessary to take, and right throughout the period of office of that Government, and indeed of the previous inter-Party Government, all the time they were in office, they did whatever they could by Governmental action to cushion the weaker sections of the community against anything in the nature of increases in the cost of living or anything which might affect their standard of living.
When the previous Government were in office, one of the matters in respect of which the Fianna Fáil Party campaigned against them was the question of the levies which were introduced and, generally, the question of the cost of living. We now have it on record from the Taoiseach that the action which the inter-Party Government took, in face of the balance of payments problem, was an action which remedied the situation. Speaking in this House on 14th May, 1957, the Taoiseach, who was then Tánaiste, dealing with the action taken by his predecessors in office in connection with the balance of payments problem said, at column 1151:
I did not think they were dealing with it the right way but we certainly recognised their obligation to do something about it and as a result of the measures they took that balance of payments problem was solved for the time being.
So that, at last, we have it on record now from the head of the Government that when he and his colleagues took office, the danger and the problem which had arisen regarding the balance of payments was solved and that it was solved by the action of his predecessors.
Since the Fianna Fáil Party came back to office, I do not think they can afford to be complacent with regard to trade figures to-day, with regard to the question of the balance of payments. In any event, the point I want to make is that whatever problems existed in that respect before they came into office were solved by the methods taken by their predecessors and yet, when Fianna Fáil came back to office, despite what I believe were at least implicit commitments to the electorate not to increase food prices or not to increase the cost of living, the Fianna Fáil Party, in their very first Budget, increased the cost of living by deliberately removing food subsidies and shoving up food prices.
I tabled a Parliamentary Question on 9th December last, in which I asked the Taoiseach to state the commodities included in the calculation of the cost-of-living index figure which have increased in price since March, 1957, and the price of such commodities on 1st March, 1957, and the latest convenient date, and the percentage increase in each case. I got a reply from the Taoiseach's Department in which 197 items were listed, items which were included in the calculation of the cost-of-living index figure and, since March, 1957, since the Fianna Fáil Government took office, 149 out of those 197 items had increased in price. There were decreases in 42 of the 197 items and there were six where the prices were unchanged. That is the Fianna Fáil record so far as the cost of living is concerned and so far as prices are concerned. I do not believe that any member of the Fianna Fáil Party, indeed any member of this House, can feel in any way complacent with regard to the Government's record. They have now well passed the half-way mark of the lifetime of this Dáil. Unless they are able to render a very much better account of their stewardship, whenever the next general election takes place, than they can now after three years in office, I have no doubt at all that they will get an opportunity from the people of resting from their political activities for some time. would consider it cheap and false if The Government will shortly be introducing their Budget and presumably on that occasion they will lay down the pattern of their financial policy for the next 12 months. I should like to express the hope, although I believe it is a forlorn one having regard to the record size of the Estimates introduced by the Minister, that some consideration will be given to the taxpayers. I do not want to go into that subject now but I do feel that practically every section of the community has been harshly treated by the operation of the policies of the Government. The people have been badly let down by the Government in their last three years in office. Without wishing for the success of the Fianna Fáil Party at the next or future elections, for the sake of the people I hope Fianna Fáil will now pull up their socks, take off their coats and, for the remainder of the lifetime of this Dáil, "get cracking."
