When I moved to report progress on Thursday last, I was commenting on the speech by the speaker who preceded me, the Minister for Transport and Power. He expressed the wish that the House and the country should get away from the gloomy speeches and utterances of recent times and that we should have confidence in the Government and the county. Briefly, I pointed out to him that I personally, and I am sure the Labour Party, would not wish to hinder him in any way in his ambitions in that direction but I felt that the wish he expressed was very unrealistic because there was a really gloomy atmosphere pervading the country at the moment and that the Government could not just wish themselves out of the situation. I felt that the only way in which that could be rectified was by actions of the Government which would convey to the people that there was a definite programme and a definite policy before them which would get them out of the situation in which they now find themselves.
This debate affords the House the opportunity to reflect on the performance of the Government since its election and particularly on its performance over the last 12 months. We have an opportunity to pass judgment on the deeds and the misdeeds of the Government and to assess the merits of the stated programme of the Government in the coming 12 months. I do not think I shall be regarded as unreasonable if I invite Deputies to bring their minds back with mine in an endeavour to recapture the climate that prevailed when this Government was elected at the last general election.
The inter-Party Government had three years in office at the time we went to the hustings. Nobody can deny that the chief plank in the Fianna Fáil Party Programme on that occasion was the solution of the very high unemployment problem which then prevailed. The figures were higher than any of us, whether we supported the Government or opposed it, would have wished. Nevertheless, the Fianna Fáil Party went to the people and the main plank in their platform was that they had a panacea, not alone for the employment situation, not alone for the problem of creating extra opportunities for employment, but for emigration as well.
I can well recall in my own constituency in the City of Cork, and no doubt the same conditions obtained in every other constituency throughout the length and breadth of Ireland, the posters and pamphlets which outlined to the gullible electorate the alleged policy of the Party then seeking power, which eventually secured an overall majority in the election. On that occasion we were told that the Fianna Fáil Party had a dynamic policy for full employment. They were not just going to fiddle around with the problem; they did not simply undertake to reduce the number of people who were unemployed; they did not simply undertake to increase the number of opportunities for employment. Not at all. They were much more ambitious than that. We were told that in regard to the dynamic policy for full employment they were working out the details of the policy and they were anxious to "get cracking". That was the carrot held in front of the electorate on the last occasion.
Lest the House might think that these pamphlets and posters were concocted in the mind of some local election agent in Cork or anywhere else, we must remember that they were much more authoritative than that. These local election agents were simply spurred on and encouraged by a brief statement of Deputy Lemass, now Taoiseach, when he published what was at the time called by the Fianna Fáil Party his blueprint for full employment and his plan to end abnormal emigration. We were told by him that the plans were there and that he envisaged, within the next five years, if his Party were returned to power, 100,000 new jobs would be provided for those seeking employment. He planned that over a period of five years and therefore the electorate, by simple arithmetic, were entitled to think that over five years approximately 20,000 new jobs would be made available annually.
They had the plans, they had the blueprint, they had the men to implement all that and all they needed was to be given the power to get back into Government. The electorate, as it now turns out, were gulled by these false promises. They gave them the power and returned the Fianna Fáil Party with a majority greater than has obtained here in the past quarter of a century. They were scarcely in power, of course, when the then Minister for Lands, now the Minister for Transport and Power, stated in this House that the people misinterpreted this alleged blueprint for full employment; that in fact it was not a blueprint at all, it was not even a plan, but simply a subject for debate within the debating society of Fianna Fáil. Brazenly, the Minister said it was simply a subject for debate and proceeded to debate it. So far as I know, the debating society of the Fianna Fáil Party has been debating it ever since, but that is not how it appeared to the electorate during and before the last general election.
I well remember—and, if necessary, I can produce—a pamphlet issued by the Fianna Fáil Party on that occasion which said in two-inch type: "Fianna Fáil Plans to end Emigration. Quick Action needed to avert National Disaster." That was the kind of stuff that was put out, that if we were to avert a national disaster, the people would have to elect a Fianna Fáil Government and that not only would we, by doing so, avert a national disaster, but we would have a land flowing with milk and honey, with full employment.
That pamphlet went on to say:
The full employment proposals recently announced by Fianna Fáil show how the Party intends to deal with the problem of emigration by providing work for all our people at home. Fianna Fáil plans propose an increase over the next five years in the number of new jobs of 100,000. This would result in full employment and the end of abnormal emigration.
It was on that basis that the people were invited to come out and support the Fianna Fáil Party and elect them to Government. That pamphlet was trotted around the country and nobody outside of Grangegorman could think there was any suggestion in it that it was not a concrete plan. Yet the Minister for Transport and Power subsequently interpreted it as being purely a subject for debate at some future undetermined date, by the coherent members of the Fianna Fáil Party. The people now recognise what it was from the start. The people recognise that it was a hoax at that time. It is still a hoax. It was one of those stunts which emanate regularly from the fertile mind of the Taoiseach.
I suggest, without endeavouring to gain any Party kudos, that that is the kind of suggestion that brings public life into disrepute. All of us on both sides of the House have deplored, at crossroads, street corners, and outside chapel gates, the mentality that the people who submit themselves for election to this House, and are elected, regard the whole thing as a game of bluff. It is performances such as those given by the Taoiseach and his supporters that have brought public life into disrepute.
We have not got the 100,000 new jobs. We did not expect to have them in three years but we did expect them in five years. Not only have we not had an increase in opportunities for employment, but we have not even held the line at the same level as it was at the general election in 1957. We were told at Budget time last year that there were 10,000 fewer people in employment in 1958 than in 1957, in spite of the promises made, in spite of the speeches made by the Taoiseach, in spite of the blueprint of his plans for the ending of emigration and in spite of the plans for cutting down on the unemployment figures. No doubt at Budget time this year, we shall have official figures again, and I am sorry to say—I wish it were otherwise—that I feel that, far from having an improvement in the figures we got at Budget time last year, it will be revealed that we have slipped further down the slippery slope in 1959, so far as employment opportunities are concerned.
I do not think mine is the only voice crying in the wilderness in this connection. I do not think we on this side of the House are the only people who have been pointing that out. I have read over the past year or two that members supporting the Fianna Fáil Government, at meetings of local authorities, have expressed the view that things were never gloomier, and never duller, and that this country never before faced such dismal prospects. I recall Deputy O'Malley saying at a meeting of Limerick Corporation, not so very long ago, in relation to the unemployment situation, that, in his experience, things were never worse. I do not think anybody will regard me as being unfair or unreasonable when I quote that criticism by Deputy O'Malley of his Taoiseach and of the Government he supports. He expressed that view, and similar views have been expressed by members of local authorities up and down the country, who are supporters and members of the Fianna Fáil Party.
The fact of the matter is that while there may be a theoretically small decrease in the unemployment figures which are made available to us from month to month, all of us know that the emigration situation is such as to make these figures quite unreal. When I try to assess the unemployment situation, I look at the number who are employed rather than at the number registered as unemployed at the labour exchanges. For many years now, successive Governments have used the numbers employed in the house building industry as the yardstick in judging the general unemployment situation. It is no harm to bring to the notice of the House the most recently published figures of those employed on local authority building. On 31st January this year —I see the Chair is getting a little flash and I shall probably be pulled up——