When I moved to report progress last evening I did so in an atmosphere that was rather peculiar, an atmosphere which I thought I would never sense in a national Parliament. I was giving details of houses that have been closed and of whole families who have fled from portions of my constituency, of which I have accurate data, when the Minister for Finance laughed, not to controvert what I was saying, not to deny the accuracy of the figures, but in an effort to make unheard the bitter truth which I was trying to convey. There was the rather extraordinary occurrence of a Minister for Finance laughing at the appalling situation which I was revealing, laughing at a description which disclosed that in one-half of a parish in my constituency, the parish of Achill, since 1957, 143 houses have been closed and a similar number of families have fled, due entirely to the nefarious Budget of 1957 and the continuation of Fianna Fáil administration ever since.
I was going on to say that that was the treatment meted out to a part of the constituency which deserved better of the Fianna Fáil Party and the Fianna Fáil Government, because over the years the people there have been extremely loyal and extremely consistent supporters of that Party. Nevertheless, that does not deny me the right or deprive me of the sense of duty to speak for them, having regard to the sufferings which they are enduring under the Party to which they have given such loyalty and service.
Out of one-half of that parish, 143 families have fled. Before the debates on the Budget and the Estimates conclude, I shall have put on the record of the House the exact number of families who have left every part of the constituency and I shall have pinpointed the dates and the reasons for their leaving.
Prior to the unruly interference of the Minister for Finance, I had intimated that 20 families had left the parish of Ballycroy. In the rather narrow strip of inhabited territory from Mulranny to Newport 12 families have left. Is that position, in respect of only one parish and two portions of other parishes, in keeping with the picture painted by the Minister for Finance in his Financial Statement of a happy, well-contented people, well-fed, well-housed and living in a peaceful, organised society? I do not think it is.
There are other areas, such as the Ballycastle area on the north coast, where the population has been reduced by practically one-third in recent years. A similar condition obtains in the Foxford, Attymass and Bonniconlon districts. I shall produce the accurate data in the course of the appropriate Estimates, and I hope I shall have some support in protesting on behalf of these people who have left and on behalf of those who remain, from my colleagues on the Government side who represent the constituency and who know as well as I do how badly this area has fared as a result of the twin evils of unemployment and emigration.
At this juncture, I do not propose to say any more on that aspect of our life in the west of Ireland, but, as I have intimated on various occasions in this House on similar debates, the economy of the planners would appear to be the economy of the good land and of the good land only. The old process was to banish our people into the hillsides and glensides and to the coast. They are now being pushed further afield by what appears to be the deliberate and planned effort of a Fianna Fáil Government. I do not think they deserve that or that they ever expected it from such a Government. I firmly hope that those who remain have had their eyes opened to what is likely to be in store for them from a similar Government in future.
It must be appalling to people so circumstanced to have to read replies given in Parliament to the effect that £6,000,000 is being spent on three jet airplanes for so-called prestige reasons while their plight is consistently ignored, with the exception of a few isolated places where money is being spent, not on lines of sound national economy, but on lines of political expediency. Time will tell how ill-rewarding expenditure on such projects is.
Deputy Booth made an effort yesterday evening to pin us on this side of the House to the proposition that we would rely on agriculture to the prejudice of industrial exports. Such is far from the case. Nobody ever made that point. There is no necessity to rely on agriculture to the prejudice of industrial exports. Both can be shepherded side by side. If they were guided properly in as many cases as possible, one being complementary to the other and closely related, ultimately, from the point of view of raw material, we would be able to produce the best and what it is consistent with our resources to produce.
Deputy Booth deplored what he said was our intention to concentrate on agriculture alone or to pay too much attention to it. It is quite obvious from what I read last evening from the two Economic Statistics booklets issued prior to the Budgets of 1959 and 1960 that far too little attention has been paid to agriculture and that what Deputy Booth said is perfectly consistent with what, obviously, is Fianna Fáil policy, having regard to the drop both in livestock and agricultural products generally. There was a considerable drop shown in the year 1958 on 1957 and again in the year 1959 on 1958. That is the atmosphere in which the Taoiseach invites us to regard the year 1959 as the year of progress, in a country such as this, which is recognised the world over for agricultural products.
I want to say a word about the references in the Financial Statement to reorganisation in the Civil Service, with particular reference to recruitment to the executive grade, with a view to giving recruits University education while ostensibly in the Service, drawing salaries and attending lectures during normal hours of work, unless they are to attend lectures in the evening, in which case they can qualify only for minor degrees. I do not think that would be the position because the object of the proposal would appear to be that the highest possible qualifications be obtained and that persons of the greatest ability be recruited to attain such qualifications. I do not know that that is the best way to recruit people with a view to their being University-trained.
Greater reason should be sought for the lack, if there is a lack, of suitable persons applying from among University graduates already. If University graduates can command a higher rate of remuneration anywhere else, either in teaching, in business or even abroad, they will not bother coming into the Civil Service with qualifications which it may take years to acknowledge by way of promotion and monetary reward for the time spent in their attainment. I notice the Minister says that for both University students and for Civil Service candidates the minimum salary for administrative officers is being raised and more definite prospects of promotion are being offered.
Is it not enough to increase the salary in the administrative grade and so invite University graduates as before? It is not fair to people competing in other grades of the Civil Service to be denied this privilege which is now being offered and which, by the way, is being published by advertisement under nobody's name, neither that of the Civil Service Commissioners nor that of the Department of Finance, which advertisement has appeared on two occasions, the second one obviously bluffing out of the mistake of the first, if mistake it was. Is it fair to the people already in the Civil Service, of such age and of such ability as must be recognised by now by their superiors, that they should be deprived of facilities given to those now to be invited in? I do not think it is. It is a departure that must be a matter of resentment among certain age groups and among those of recognised ability that this type of recruitment is about to be used to their detriment.
Let me go further. When people of ability have been invited into the executive grade, who would not otherwise come into the Service were it not for this attraction of being afforded free University education, what guarantee will the Minister for Finance, the Government or the Civil Service Commissioners have that these people, having got their degrees and having qualified for even higher appointment elsewhere, either here or abroad, will not leave? How can you keep them? What will the condition be? It certainly cannot be, except through interference with the freedom of the individual, any more than that they will have to pay back whatever is expended by the State on University fees.
In the case of a man who as a result of receiving University education while in the Civil Service and while enjoying his salary, finds that either at home or abroad he can command a salary one and a half times or double that which he would get in the grade to which he is appointed within the Civil Service, what is to prevent his paying back the fees and leaving immediately? This is a dangerous innovation, one which will cause discontent within the existing ranks of the Civil Service, and give rise to dissatisfaction, because for reasons of human frailty when a better offer comes, those who have taken advantage of this ladder of ambition will scorn it for a higher one where the remuneration is better and the opportunities more attractive.
This Budget Statement, as somebody else has said, is rather flattish although we are told it is one made in the happiest of circumstances. It is one made in this extraordinary atmosphere of finance that the tax-gatherers have been able in the course of the past year, to gather more from the few, because fewer and fewer they are becoming and, curiously enough, more and more it is costing to administer for the few. That is a situation which cannot continue, which the people will not allow to continue. It is in those circumstances that the Minister for Finance presented his not very exciting Budget in which, apart from tax reliefs for which he is indebted to the recommendations of the Association of Chambers of Commerce, the only other item is a shilling a week for social service recipients.
He carefully avoided all mention of higher prices for postage and higher telegram charges. He carefully omitted any reference to higher rents either now or in the near future as contemplated under a Bill before the House. He carefully omitted the costs that may well become a charge through television and civil aviation. He omitted entirely any reference to the fact that the people are now paying 4/7d. a lb. for their butter.
Why was all that done? It was done so that the Bill could be presented with the greatest piece of sugar coating imaginable and so that it would become palatable to the people. However, the people who have to supply household necessities from the pay packet available or from the social service benefits available know exactly how far the money goes. They know who is responsible for this situation and they know the reasons for it. They know that it is the failure of this Government to live up to the promises they made or to face the responsibility which they undertook on assuming office in 1957.
The people know, too, that these promises were made. They know, particularly in this city, that the Taoiseach, in spite of his denial of yesterday, offered 100,000 jobs in Clery's Ballroom in October of 1955 as published in the Irish Press of the 12th October of that year. I invite the Taoiseach, not so much by way of challenge as by way of pity, to come into this House with a personal explanation either through himself or through the Minister for Finance to deny that he made such a statement or that such a statement could have the meaning that every normal person attributes to it. I am sorry the Taoiseach saw fit to deny that statement, and I hope the punishment he will receive as a result of such denial will not be as great as he deserves. However, punishment there will be, because lack of dignity, lack of regard for the truth, lack of regard for office must ultimately take its toll and the people when they strike will strike to kill.