Dáil Éireann debate -
Wednesday, 4 May 1960

Vol. 181 No. 5

Committee on Finance. - Resolution No. 11—General (Resumed).

Debate resumed on the following motion:—

That it is expedient to amend the law relating to customs and inland revenue (including excise) and to make further provision in connection with finance.—(Minister for Finance.)

Mr. Lindsay

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.

Mr. Kyne

The Minister in his speech on the Budget struck a very optimistic note. He gave a glowing account of the progress made during the past year, and high hopes of a continuation of that improvement in the year to come. This, I presume, was under the Government economic development plan. While I accept that it is the duty of the Minister to endeavour to promote confidence in investors at home and abroad, and that it is only right and proper that he should put forward all the advantages we can offer to those people, I cannot accept that he has any right to rebuke and chide the members of the Opposition who failed to agree with him in his views as to the prospects for the country or that the Taoiseach should follow the Minister yesterday in sternly rebuking Opposition speakers on the basis that their action in expressing any doubts about the future prospects of the country made them actual enemies of the country itself.

I remember that in 1956, speaking on the General Financial Resolution for that year, the Tánaiste, Deputy MacEntee, as he then was, expressed doubts of a much more serious nature about the prospects of the country at that time. In May, 1956, in Volume 157, column 188, of the Official Report, he said:

... rumour has it in Dublin—I give it for what it is worth—that certain members of the Government have threatened to bulldoze the banks into bankruptcy if they do not meet the Government's demands for increased accommodation at every turn. Other Ministers are bringing pressure to bear on insurance companies. There is widespread apprehension about the position of the funds of the Post Office. These are the things which more than anything else are responsible for the fact that people are not going to put their money into loans ...

I suggest that statement was much more damaging to the country than anything that has been said since this Budget debate opened. I do not dispute the right of the Tánaiste to make any statement he felt he was justified in making, but I do dispute the right of the Government, having agreed with him and taken that very action, now to endeavour to label as enemies of the country all of us who refuse to accept their views.

The electors and the people of the country depend, in the main, on reports of the speeches made in this House, either in the Press or on the radio, to get a grasp of what is happening. They have not the time, or possibly the inclination, to examine the various books—Economic Statistics, Central Bank Reports or booklets of that kind—which might give them that information in their ordinary reading. They form their views very largely from the reports of the discussions in this House. It is only right and proper, in view of the fact that within the next two years, at the outside, these are the very people who will be called upon to decide by their votes which group or Party should form the next Government, that they should be informed of each side of the question and left to decide, when the time comes, as to where the truth lies. In that way they would have a clearer picture when they are deciding whom they could depend upon in future to give them correct information.

Throughout the country in general, the reception of this Budget was: "It was not a bad Budget." There is very little use in claiming other than that. At least the ordinary people I came into contact with during the weeks since the Budget Statement was made are generally agreed that it was not a bad Budget. Of course, the people have been conditioned to accept any Budget that does not impose heavy increased taxation as being "not a bad Budget". When, in addition to the fact that a small amount of taxation only was imposed, many minor concessions were granted, the people reached the position of believing that this Budget is almost good.

The Government and the Fianna Fáil Party in general are past masters at adopting tactics which appear, unfortunately, to fool the people for quite a time. The method of producing a Budget which really gives nothing but which comes to be accepted by the people as almost a good Budget is a very simple trick. During your first two or three years in office, you impose harsh and heavy taxation on the pretext that it is necessary for the salvation of the country because of the spendthrift bankrupt policy of the previous Government, and during the last year or two years, you grant concessions on the plea that it was the prudent administration of the Government during the previous years that now made available the finances or the surpluses which enabled those concessions to be granted. It is as easy as that. That was done this year and I have no doubt it will be done next year, only more so, because the nearer you come to an election year, the closer you come to getting the best Budget of the period of office of that Government.

Had this Budget been examined against the conditions and obligations with which the inter-Party Government of 1954-57 were faced in 1956, we would have found that instead of a small surplus, as claimed by the Minister, there would be a deficiency, which would have to be met, of £8,000,000 to make up for the £9,000,000 worth of food subsidies which had to be carried by that Government to enable the ordinary people of the country to purchase essential foodstuffs at a cost within their means. Not only would almost £8,000,000 have to be found, but additional money would also have to be found to provide for the increase in the price of milk which is now being met by an increase of 3d. per lb. on the existing price of butter.

That amount of money and the further amounts that became necessary by reason of the removal of the food subsidies have now to be borne by the ordinary working people. It has to be borne by that most defenceless section of the community, those who are dependent on State aid, the social welfare non-contributory group. Although admittedly scarcely able to survive, that group has to pay its share together with the ordinary working class by paying increased prices, but in this Budget of 1960 concessions could be given to industry, to cinema-owners, to publicans and to various other people who could at least have struggled on for another year without any undue hardship.

I was amazed to read in the Sunday Independent, a journal not very famous for supporting the Government, a comparison of this Budget with the prevailing weather—sunny and productive of good tidings for the future. The old age pensioner, the widow and the unemployment assistance group who depend completely on the State allowance for their support will find it difficult to see that ray of sunshine which the leader writer of the Sunday Independent could discern when writing that article.

Even the Minister did not claim that the 1/- a week increase granted to the various categories did anything other than preserve the status quo as between what they had before the increased price of butter and cigarettes and what they will now receive. While the Minister admitted that their position was not being improved, that they would not share in the prosperity they saw, he made them a promise. He said, in effect: “Provided you qualify under certain conditions such as taking out insurance, being 60 years of age, having 48 stamps in each insurance year, and provided certain other things happen, many of you will qualify next year for a contributory old age pension which will be 40/- instead of 27/6d. a week.” I presume that statement sounded very useful and very hopeful to those people that, even next year, this improvement in the position will take place.

Unfortunately for the Minister, a Dáil Question yesterday revealed that, in order that this gift of the Government may be granted to the limited few who will qualify under the Social Welfare (Amendment) Bill, a sum of £4,000,000, namely, £2,000,000 from the working people and £2,000,000 from the industrialists and the employers, will have to be provided. If ever there was a case of feeding the dog with his own tail, it is that of giving an increased pension on the one hand and taking £2,000,000 on the other hand.

It is quite clear now why the social welfare group received an increase of only 1/- per week. Had the Minister instead of imposing an increase of 1d. on tobacco, increased the amount by a further 2d., it would have been quite easy to give the social welfare group at least 2/6d., 3/- or 4/-. I do not think the country would stagger under the burden. I do not think there would be any great outcry if that tax on cigarettes and tobacco was earmarked solely for that group. However, it would unfortunately have reduced the differential between the proposed 1961 contributory old age pension and the existing old age pension to such a degree that small as is the welcome that it will get at the moment, it would get no welcome at all by the time the Bill became law.

The Minister claimed that the recovery in the economic position is steadily being reflected in the reducing number shown on the live register. There is a drop in the numbers year by year but there are factors from which this drop may result other than that of increased employment within the State. From 30,000 to 40,000 boys and girls, insurable workers, leave the country annually. The Department of Social Welfare, through its officials, is making it more difficult to secure unemployment assistance and there is the fact that there has been an alteration of the date of the employment period orders so as to manufacture an apparent reduction in the number of unemployed.

While we accept and welcome the fact that the sale of insurance stamps indicates an upward trend in employment, it is not at all clear from the booklet Economic Statistics issued recently—it is not even claimed by its compilers—that there were over 11,000 more insurable workers in 1959 than in the previous year.

I am quite willing to accept and acknowledge some improvement in the position. I hope that next year again the Minister will be able to report a much greater improvement but I am not at all satisfied that there is not too much complacency about making provision for short-term employment periods to give an opportunity to those 62,000 people who are unemployed to survive until the hopes of the Minister and the promises of this Government are realised, if they are to be realised.

Last evening Deputy Booth said it was strange that the flour milling people had now to publish advertisements to encourage people to buy more bread and flour. He felt, he says, that the answer to that was that the standard of living had so increased that bread and "spread" were being dropped. I wonder is that true.

Mr. T. Lynch

They are all eating cake.

Mr. Kyne

Yes, like Marie Antoinette. I wonder would it ever strike him that with 30,000 people leaving the country every year for the past four or five years or even longer, the time must come when there will be less bread eaten. If the population is declining and if the people are forced to emigrate—the workers are the people who depend on bread and "spread"— surely it is only natural that less bread will be eaten. For Deputy Booth's information, I can tell him that not only that but less sugar is being used because the people who consume it had to leave the country to seek employment that is not available for them here. Unfortunately, that is true.

Deputy Dillon yesterday and Deputy Lindsay last evening gave very harrowing, and I am sure, very true pictures of the conditions in the west of Ireland, where small farmers had to lock up their homes and emigrate to England because of economic circumstances in those areas. I am unable to give similar examples from areas in my constituency, but I can say that within the past 18 months in the street of the town where I live, at least five families, the husband, wife, and family of young children, have all left and gone to Great Britain, there to remain indefinitely. All that is the result of economic factors, to the fact that neither the husband nor wife could obtain sufficient employment in the country to provide for their families. I am quite sure that Deputies on all sides of the House could speak of similar happenings in every village, town and city in Ireland.

It is quite true that the Minister spoke of emigration in his Budget speech. He indicated some of the factors that govern it. He said that when the situation was bad here and good in England, we naturally had heavy emigration. If it were good here and bad in England, the emigration would be lighter. Presumably, if it were good in both countries, it would be of a medium amount or bad in both countries with the same effects.

The Minister claims it is good here at the moment or, if not good, improving. Certainly, I think it is good in Britain. In these circumstances, we have from 30,000 to 40,000 people leaving the country each year. What in Heaven's name will happen if it gets bad there? The Minister is quite sure, as any intelligent person is, that at no time can the situation get out of hand in Ireland. The emigrant ship to Great Britain is like the safety valve on a boiler. When the economic pressure becomes too strong, the Minister can always count upon emigration easing the pressure.

The workers cannot hold out. They will have to leave. That is all right as long as England continues on the up and up. Please God, she will continue to do so from the point of view of the welfare of our Irish exiles, but if the day comes, as well it might, when circumstances in England compel them to give preference to their own citizens at the expense of Irish nationals, then Irishmen will be forced to return here and demand from whatever Government is here the right not only to live in the country in which they were born but to secure work here.

With over 60,000 people unemployed and with 30,000 to 40,000 people leaving the country each year, the Minister speaks of prosperity. To use a pun related to a recent controversial play, let me conclude by saying that if this be prosperity, then prosperity be damned.

Mr. MacCarthy

One would think that in the debate on the Financial Resolution the principal considerations would be to peruse the national finances and the national economy so that, within the capacity of a balanced Budget, the funds for our national administration, housing, health and the various aspects of local government, for the provision of our national services, would, in a constructive way, be examined in the best interests of our economy. Instead of that we seem to be rambling over many fields, attempting to fight elections that have taken place years ago and going into extraneous matters simply to confuse the issues before us.

Last night Deputy Lindsay travelled south for a while and criticised the location of our steel industry at Haulbowline Island. He said it was not on the mainland and that there was too much expensive handling involved and so on. That is just like the other points he made. He did not get down to fundamentals. The facts are that ship repairing was carried on on that island under another Government, the buildings were available and they seemed adaptable to the steel industry. Not only has that steel industry been a success on the island but an export market has also been created, which I say is a big achievement for this country.

Now we have a development— about which I am sure Deputy Lindsay is not very concerned because he seems to criticise any expansion or any money spent on trying to keep our industrial progress up to modern standards—that just across the narrow channel we are not only repairing ships but building them. There is a market there for Irish steel, just near at hand, which, to my mind, justifies the Government's policy of expanding that industry.

He also criticised the jet planes provided to allow our emigrants to go to other lands but again he does not come down to the fundamental issue that our ports for many years were just harbours for foreign shipping of all kinds and from many lands. The great potential which was there was not being handled at all by our own people. We know quite well that the trade between Ireland and England amounts to £200,000,000 a year; surely that alone was an attraction for many of those who had an industry in mind which would give employment. Now we have not only the pleasure of seeing our own ships using these ports but of seeing ships of various sizes being built in our own dockyards.

In the same way, in regard to the jet planes, if we are to keep up to date on these matters we must take action speedily. Too much ground has been lost already. Deputy Kyne suggested that these things could be allowed wait for three or four years —until other nations have captured all the trade and then we would have to try and recover lost ground. That was the position when this Government came into office three years ago. That was the biggest problem to be met, to try to recover lost ground. We can be very proud of the achievements that have taken place in the meantime. At any rate, in my constituency all the anxieties which the people had at that time in regard to the prospects of employment have now been dissolved. Towns like Kinsale, which now has three industries, were derelict. Across the harbour, in Whitegate, there is another industry. I am not saying that there are not some few industries in which the previous Government had a hand. I do not want to say that at all, but the progress was too slow and their scope was too narrow.

As Deputy Lindsay travelled south, he will not find any fault with me, I am sure, if I travel to the west. I like the west and I like to go there. Undoubtedly it has been a discouragement over the years, coming from West Cork as I do, to see the position of Mayo which in our national struggle played a very successful part. It was discouraging to see so little development there. That picture is now being changed, slowly I admit, but at any rate the prospects and the movement are in the right direction.

I went to the west last year, or the year before, and I saw none of the despair there which Deputy Lindsay mentioned. As a matter of fact there would be very little attraction for industrialists or anybody else to go there to establish industries if Deputy Lindsay were right because he painted a most despairing picture of the whole position. Surely that is not the attitude which one should adopt. He made no attempt whatever to provide any remedy. I travelled to Galway and out past Salthill and I heard the people conversing in their own language and going about their business in a most encouraging way. At Screebe I saw the new turf station and the prospects which existed for those in the turf industry along that seaboard. I also saw those who are engaged in the growing of tomatoes and so on.

That is a side of the picture which Deputy Lindsay ignored entirely. I travelled up to Westport and on by Knock and I could see that there was a good deal of land which one would have thought could be used for forestry or some such purpose. That is a matter to which the local representatives could direct their efforts and try to initiate something which would enable these lands to be utilised. It is all very well to come in here and complain. All of us could do that, but surely an administrative assembly such as this, a legislative assembly as well, should have some approach to these matters other than the banshee approach and groaning all the time in regard to some parts of the country which need development.

If they came along with some suggestions and tried to encourage people to go there rather than raise this despairing cry, we might have some hope that the people whose memory we honour to-day did not die in vain, that the people of to-day would get hope from past sacrifices and be prepared to make some sacrifice themselves, to bring about the position which those who have gone before them envisaged and for which they sacrificed their lives.

I have seen houses closed, doors locked and windows boarded up in certain parts of my own constituency, but it is because the people went into better and more modern homes and not because of emigration. I have seen families come back and the pictures they painted of the prospects abroad were not always very bright—quite the contrary. I have been abroad myself as I am sure many other members have been, and I am sure they found, as I did, many in other lands who are anxious to come home and live their lives among their own people in their own nation. There are also people— and always will be. I presume—who are anxious to go to far, foreign fields and perhaps seek a livelihood and a home there. That happens in every country. What we must deplore is that as a nation we have not perhaps made all the progress that we should have made since we gained control of a substantial part of our own country.

The Government have a programme of expansion and that is what we should turn our minds to, and, as the Taoiseach said yesterday, come together and make it work. Why criticise the Government because they are giving £300,000 next year towards retirement pensions? Some Deputies opposite said more should come from the Exchequer: if so, why do they not suggest a tax to bring more into the Exchequer? They think taxation is too high: if it is, surely an effort should be made to lower it. Some contribution from those who get the benefits has always been a trait of the Irish people through ages of hardship in the past. They try to pay at least a little for the services they get and so maintain their personal pride and independence. Once we get away from that and look for everything for nothing, we are losing our national courage and prestige, to my mind.

The movement from the rural areas in other countries has been greater than here, even in countries like Denmark. Two-point-one per cent. is an average which seems to be a trend of the modern world. We must do our best to counteract that. Certainly, there are many uneconomic farms in the west of Ireland and the young boys and girls of today are not prepared to stay on them when these holdings are too small to provide a livelihood in accordance with modern standards. Perhaps the division of land, which means the movement of people from one area to another—migration—is too slow a process but we cannot expect to do everything all at once. If we move in the right direction and as speedily as we can with cooperation rather than obstruction from the people by speech or deed, then the future of the country is not as dark as it has been painted. I think it is bright. I think the developments in the country, if enumerated, would be a very striking example of the enterprise of the Government over the past few years.

I have every confidence that with the support of the people—and they are the first to recognise when things are going well—we should make considerable progress. I should like to see some of the critics coming to the south of Ireland for a while and making an examination there. Perhaps if Deputy Lindsay did that instead of the surveys he has been making and if he went into areas that have made progress and tried to find out how that progress was brought about and then tried to bring part of the same initiative into his own constituency, he could talk with some confidence that he was advocating progress that would be of real benefit to the country.

This is a time for action and not for despair and I feel sure that if there is a proper response to the call of this Government, we shall have action. The social welfare benefits provided in the Budget are small indeed, but, as the Minister said, it is perhaps discouraging to find that so little costs so much, that a shilling on our national services, on old age pensions, widows' and orphans' pensions and the rest, will cost £1,000,000. That £1,000,000 will have to be either saved or collected from the taxpayers.

The new retirement benefits are a step in the right direction, but let the members of the House, when they criticise these, remember the responsibility the Government are taking, and realise what it means. With the contribution of 5/- between the employer and the employee, the employee would have to work eight years to provide the same benefits, even for himself, and would have to work 16 years to provide the benefits for one year for himself and his wife. In those circumstances, surely, the Government are taking a financial responsibility on behalf of the people who, I am sure, will support that attitude. That scheme will, at any rate, provide for their declining years something that the people have contributed to themselves, and they can be proud of it because, in their years of vigour, they made some contribution towards provision for their old age.

That is how our minds should be directed and how the picture should be drawn, because this land is not, as Thomas Davis said, a sandbank thrown up by a recent caprice of the earth. It is an ancient nation built on the courage of its people through years of oppression. It is a disheartening thing to me and to others, I am sure, who have passed through the times that we saw to find people coming in here, evidently with all courage lost and no hope in their minds except to criticise others who are trying to do what the nation is calling for, and being satisfied with that attitude.

Government policy is producing good results and I should like to congratulate the Minister on what he did in the last Budget and in this one in balancing our accounts and in setting the foundation for a native economy which will be an encouragement to the people who, if they have a Government who can manage national finances and provide benefits from the resources of the State, will see that they can go ahead with some hope of being properly and efficiently led.

Mr. Cosgrave

The most significant figure in the publication Economic Statistics which was issued prior to the Budget is contained in Tables 7 and 16. These Tables show that there has been a decline of 51,000 persons in the numbers employed in 1959 as compared with 1956, representing a drop of 25,000 persons employed in agriculture and 26,000 in non-agricultural economic activities. The numbers on the live register as shown in Table 17 show a slight drop in 1959 as compared with 1956, but, when account is taken of the fact that there were 51,000 fewer people employed in 1959 as compared with 1956, it would appear that emigration continues at a high level.

The reference to emigration at page 6 of the Budget Statement has to be taken in conjunction with preelection talk by Fianna Fáil spokesmen. Posters were liberally displayed bearing the caption: "Wives, put your husbands to work." Moralising in an economic climate in which emigration increases has a hollow sound, particularly when one remembers the lavish promises so recklessly made during the years prior to 1957 for the purpose of getting votes.

It is no harm, I think, to recall for a moment a speech made by the Taoiseach in 1955; he was then in opposition. The speech was published in the Irish Press in October, 1955. It contained a number of interesting statements but I shall confine myself now to some of its salient features. He said:—

As a first step to the attainment of full employment, Mr. Lemass said that the Government should undertake a positive spending programme spread over a five-year period.

This spending ... should be financed otherwise than by taxation or by borrowing from current savings and — taking into account private activities—should be planned on a sufficiently large scale to raise the total national outlay so as to set up a demand for the whole of the available labour force.

This is the sliding scale on which Fianna Fáil suggests that employment-making expenditure should be stepped up:—

FIRST YEAR: Public investment outlay to be expanded by £13 million, thus raising total national expenditure by £20 million and creating 20,000 new jobs (at this stage no private contribution is reckoned with).

The statistics issued by the Central Statistics Office show that there has been a drop of 51,000 persons in employment, including agriculture and non-agricultural economic activity.

SECOND YEAR: Gross national expenditure again increased by £20 million, bringing total increase to £40 million, with a corresponding effect on employment.

THIRD YEAR: A further £20 million rise is assumed, likewise in the FOURTH YEAR. By the FIFTH YEAR, on this calculation, full employment should be achieved and 100,000 new jobs created.

I notice a marked tendency on the part of Fianna Fáil spokesmen to avoid all reference to that public statement. According to that statement, by the fifth year "full employment should be achieved and 100,000 new jobs created". Statistics show that there are fewer people in employment. Although there are some few thousand fewer on the unemployment register, it would appear as though emigration has continued at a high level.

According to the Taoiseach, speaking prior to the last general election, Fianna Fáil would be judged by their record in relation to employment: Employment, he said, was the acid test. It is significant that there were fewer persons employed in 1959 than in 1956. It is equally significant, and even more important, that both those who are employed and those who are not are paying substantially more for the essentials of life: the 2 lb. loaf costs 5½d. more today than it did in 1957; butter now costs 4/7d. per lb., which is substantially more than it cost in 1957; postage, telegrams and telephone charges are higher than in 1957; beer has increased in price; cigarettes cost 3d. more for 20 than they did in 1957.

Yesterday, the Taoiseach said it was remarkable that so much could have been done with an increase of 1d. on tobacco. He omitted any mention of the earlier 2d. that had been put on. He omitted any reference to the fact that only a few weeks ago there was an increase of 3d. per lb. in the case of butter, and butter is an essential commodity. Since Christmas, bread has increased in price. The maintenance of a patient in hospital has increased from 6/- per day to 10/- per day in the case of those who come within the social welfare ambit. It is also much higher for those who are outside it. Rates have increased and health charges are higher.

The increase in industrial exports over the past 12 months is certainly a satisfactory feature of our economy. That increase is directly attributable to the tax relief given by the previous Government in the Finance (No. 2) Act, 1956. Appeals for increased exports, increased production and greater efficiency are of little practical value. If we are to stimulate industrial output, provide a direct incentive to increased production, get people "export-minded", as the phrase goes, a practical inducement is the most likely one to achieve results.

I have said before, and I repeat now, that I have always had the feeling that exhortations by Ministers at public gatherings, or functions organised by industrial undertakings, or meetings of chambers of commerce, or other bodies of that kind, have little practical effect. People are influenced by two factors in matters of this kind: either the prospect of a greater gain economically, a direct return, or the fear of competition. Either may be a driving force or may have a value as an incentive.

These increased industrial exports are all the tangible result of a relief in taxation and consequent improvement in the financial position. It was with that objective in view that we introduced the Finance (No. 2) Act, 1956, in order to provide a tax relief in respect of exports. That Act was had a very desirable effect in encouraging expansion in exports, and traders, exporters, manufacturers and industrialists have benefited by it. It was a practical contribution towards providing a means of encouraging increased exports.

One of the depressing factors about the present position is the extraordinary complacency of the Government. The Government are complacent about the way things are going, because the Minister says that according to the standards of four-fifths of the world's population, we are not too badly off. It is well to dwell for a moment on the countries in Europe, who are regarded on the bases adopted by O.E.E.C. as having a lower standard than this country. I may mention only two of them, Greece and Portugal. They are on the very lowest rung, and we are higher than both of those countries. It is a dangerous attitude to adopt that because we are higher than the economically poorest countries in Europe, we are well off.

I do not for a moment suggest that our standard is not much higher than that enjoyed by the people in Greece and Portugal, but remember the people in those countries are not satisfied with the present standards there and, both on their own initiative and in conjunction with O.E.E.C., have endeavoured to secure and, in fact, have secured, preferential consideration under O.E.E.C. trading arrangements.

The figures show that we are well below the European standard. We are above the countries I have mentioned but we are below other countries who are all striving to expand their economies. We cannot be satisfied with these standards. I hope we aspire to a higher standard. I have no doubt that our people do aspire to a higher standard than these accepted cases. The complacent attitude of the Government is a depressing approach towards providing a remedy for our economic problems. It is significant that we are not yet back to the employment position we had in 1956, which was so severely criticised by the Government when they were in Opposition.

It has never been our policy to belittle any progress made by any Government, and where progress has been made, I am quite prepared to give credit for it. The fact that our people are dissatisfied with the present rate of progress is probably attributable to the very lavish promises made by the Government. These promises were not made in an off-the-cuff fashion or in the heat of debate. They were made in the course of a prepared address by the Taoiseach, then a prominent member of the Opposition, when he spoke in Clery's Restaurant and made the speech in which 100,000 new jobs were promised over a five-year period.

One could well understand that it might not be possible to achieve a spectacular rate of progress year by year, but it is significant that in the two Tables from which I have quoted, there is shown a very substantial drop in the numbers employed in 1959 as compared with 1956. That is dismissed by the Taoiseach on the basis that there is a comparable rate of emigration and rate of departure from rural employment in other European countries. Even if that were true, it accounts for only 25,000 of the 51,000 fewer people in employment. According to the statistics in Table 16, which were issued prior to the Budget, in 1959, there were 26,000 fewer people employed here in non-agricultural economic activity than there were in 1956.

I believe that the attitude and mentality displayed in the speeches and promises made has been a contributing factor. People become disillusioned and cynical when they see these lavish promises made for the purpose of securing office. We do not begrudge people office but we believe it is not in the national interest that wild, lavish and excessive promises should be made for political purposes.

It has been obvious for a great many years that if progress is to be made here, it can be neither spectacular nor dramatic. The Government have the benefit of extraordinarily advantageous circumstances of a continuing fall in important prices for over two years. Despite that fall, the cost of the essentials of life—bread, butter and other commodities—are not only higher than they were two years ago but are substantially higher than they were in 1957. I do not believe that, even with the increase in industrial employment and with things going well, dramatic results can be secured. If some particular schemes are completed and if they are not followed up by other schemes of a continuing and progressive nature, the numbers of those in employment will be subject to fluctuation. An increase for a period will be followed by a decrease. When public authority schemes, Board of Works schemes, land drainage schemes and so on come to an end, a vacuum is then left in the areas in which they have been in operation. If we are to make progress, we must have a continuous policy based on the recognition that we must compete on an efficient and economic basis in world markets.

It is now recognised by the Government that the traditional policy of this Party that the bulk of our trade must be with Britain is sound. We have held the view that while we must exploit to the full our preferential trading position, we should at the same time, wherever possible, seek outlets elsewhere for our exports. In that connection, we made a number of trade agreements with European countries, but the time has now come when many of these agreements should be reviewed. These agreements have been in operation for a great number of years and it is a peculiarity that, without exception, our balance of trade with these countries is heavily adverse. In those circumstances it is appropriate that the closest possible attention should be paid to our trading arrangements to see what alterations or changes can be made to remove that adverse trading position by insisting upon our rights to export, wherever we have rights or arrangements to that effect under these trade arrangements.

I referred previously to the particular case of trade in lambs and sheep with France in which definite discriminatory practices were adopted against our rights, and in which our farmers' interests were jeopardised to a considerable extent. A definite breach of that sort in a trade agreement should not be tolerated without effective retaliatory action.

There is one specific matter I wish to refer to and that is the fact that in this Budget the Minister for Finance has not raised the income tax relief for persons over the age of 65 years from £600 to £800 per annum. As the Minister is aware, income tax relief in respect of persons over 65 years of age was raised in Britain to £800 and last year, when the income qualifying limit in respect of insurable occupations was increased to £800, the position was recognised here. It is a very serious burden on a great number of elderly people, most of them retired, living on small fixed incomes, who derive their emoluments either from pensions or, in some cases, small house property. In that particular category because their income limit is fixed at £600 a year it is regarded as unearned income whereas, if the qualifying income rate was raised to £800 a year, it would be recognised for taxation purposes as earned income and be entitled to the statutory allowance of one-fourth.

The majority of these people are between 65 and 70 years of age. Some of them are even older and persons of that age are obviously unable to increase their emoluments, except in exceptional circumstances, and because of their income they are outside the scope of any social benefits provided by the State. Also because of their age they are excluded from any benefits under the voluntary health insurance scheme and have to provide for medical and hospital treatment from their own resources. They are probably in the position of being an under-privileged section of the community and it is anomalous, being denied social benefits by the State, in circumstances in which the State has increased the qualifying income limit from £600 to £800 a year, that the the present income tax relief does not go to £800 in their case, and the fact that it is kept at £600 means they are not entitled to the one-fourth statutory relief.

I would urge on the Minister the justice of providing for the very serious position in which a number of elderly people find themselves— retired pensioners, State pensioners, in some cases pensioners from local authorities, pensioners retired from other sources, and people who derive a small income from property which enables them to live on whatever they had acquired and put by for their later years. It is, indeed, distressing to hear of the serious difficulties under which many of them exist and, in view of the social welfare changes elsewhere, they have a very strong case deserving of sympathetic consideration.

Minister for Transport and Power (Mr. Childers)

Apparently in this Budget debate the Opposition still want to be reminded of the past. They remind us of the past and apparently they are not willing to take the suggestion of the Minister for Finance in his Budget speech that we should look forward to the future and, while recognising that successive Governments in their own way believed that they were forwarding the interests of the community, the time had come to think of the future and to look ahead. Unfortunately, Deputy Dillon, the Leader of the Opposition, makes it impossible for us to leave unanswered some of the extraordinary statements he made in his speech yesterday.

He first of all referred to the fact that the people of the country now pay £11,000,000 more for certain classes of foods than in the last year of the Coalition Government. Part of those increases were due to the withdrawal of subsidies, but he did not tell the country that his Government left an unbalanced Budget of about £6,000,000 for us to face in 1957, and that we found at the end of that financial year there were commitments which were unavoidable, which should have been foreseen, but which left us with a further imbalance in the Budget in that year of again nearly £6,000,000.

I should like to ask Deputy Dillon just how he proposed to raise the money to continue the subsidies? We are very well aware of the fact that to continue the subsidies as they then were would have cost enormous sums in taxation, shillings on the income tax, and large and uncollectable taxation on cigarettes, petrol and beer. We are very well aware of the fact that we had reached a position in our economy when subsidies had become utterly ludicrous, presenting a completely false picture of the country's economic position. We were the only country in Europe continuing to pay subsidies. People were taking money out of one pocket, paying it to the Government and getting it back again in the form of reduced prices for foodstuffs. Regardless of what incomes the various classes of the community earned, they were all getting the same value for the subsidies, and it was perfectly obvious the time had come to end them completely so that the earnings of the community, both agricultural and industrial, would be based on the true cost of living.

Yet we had Deputy Dillon suggesting that in some way or other the increase in the cost of foodstuffs could be avoided, but he did not make any suggestions as to how the money was to be provided. He made no suggestions as to how we were to avoid increases in the cost of commodities which originate outside this country. It was all part of the old propaganda we have listened to for years and years—ever since 1948—that a country living in the sterling area can somehow seal itself off from changes in price levels that are taking place everywhere, that the cost of living can rise by 50 or 60 per cent. in the rest of the sterling area but by some bogus Coalition miracle can be retained at the old level here.

The people of this country were bedazzled for ten years by Coalition promises to keep the cost of living down. The prices of cigarettes, of beer, and of the pint were made much more important, given a ridiculous importance, in comparison with the job that should have been undertaken by the Coalition which was to prepare the people of the country for the ending of the post-war boom, and to warn them of the danger of the dissipation of the savings earned during the Second World War.

Deputy Dillon again invites us, instead of looking forward to the future, to answer his charges against us by reminding us of the completely unnecessary economic depression of 1956. Study the figures for trade, for production, and for consumption in every country in Northern Europe and you will find in no other country was there a depression of the level suffered here. We have been, for the last three years, gradually escaping the effect of what I have said was a completely unnecessary depression.

It is true that in the year 1955 the terms of trade went against the economy. If the Coalition Government had not spent ten years boasting about how important it was to get rid of external reserves and laughing at everyone who suggested that we should keep sufficient reserves to deal with just the kind of crisis that took place in 1955 and 1956, that depression could have been faced with equanimity. If there had not been this completely insensate desire to prove how nationally-minded they were and to advocate the spending of external assets, if the external assets had been maintained at the proper level, there would have been no need to restrain imports or to reduce industrial production in 1956. The imposition of levies would have been completely unnecessary. Because of this eternal economic kite-flying by the Coalition Government, forced on them, as far as I can make out, by a former member of this House, Mr. MacBride, we had to face a depression which it has taken us a long time to overcome.

The Opposition continue to harp back to the alleged promises that we made in Opposition as to what we would do if we were returned to office. I wonder how many times we shall have to go on repeating the hard facts in regard to that matter. Deputy Lemass, as he then was, the present Taoiseach published a blue-print of how the economy of this country could be remoulded, could be invigorated, in which he illustrated the numbers that could be employed in relation to the expenditure of a given amount of capital. It was a blue-print for study, published by the Fianna Fáil Party. It was giving an indication to the public as to the method by which the economy could be restored.

As the economic position slowly deteriorated from October, 1955, until October, 1956, it became necessary, in the interests of political realism, to revise that document and a revised blueprint was issued in October, 1956, by the Fianna Fáil Party, in which it was made doubly clear that the economy had so far deteriorated that even the theoretical study made without the necessary information being available should be regarded in a modified light. In October, 1956, as I have said, it was made perfectly clear to the public that the statements in regard to the amount of capital that could be raised in order to reinvigorate the economy and the statements made about the relationship of employment to capital, would have to be examined in the light of the financial state of the country as we would find it when we took office.

Then, finally, the general election came. Anybody who reads the official Party statement issued in four pages at the time of the general election will find that we have carried out practically every legislative promise made in that document in regard to the kind of financial changes that would be necessary, the stimulus that would be required for industry and agriculture. They will find that the promises made in the official Party document published in the general election, for the whole country, have been largely implemented and they will find, if they read that document, that there was nothing grossly excessive beyond the normal and natural optimistic flavour that would be given to any document issued by a political Party which was trying to restore the people's confidence in the future.

I do not know how many times we have to go on repeating these statements. The strange thing is that when we repeat them nobody answers us back, nobody tells us that these documents, issued in October, 1955 and 1956, if they are read in detail, were anything but blueprints for study for reviving the economy. We never hear the Opposition speak of the reservations made late in 1956 when it became obvious, as I have said, that people might be deceived by the character of the earlier document. As we saw the external assets slowly disappearing, as we saw the entire economy of the country beginning to grind to a halt, in December, 1956 we realised that it might be difficult, if not impossible, even to promote a part of that programme and put it into action. So, when we came to the general election, as I have said, the statement we issued was an entirely reasonable one.

I deny explicitly, even at this stage —I do not know how much longer we have to go on arguing this—that during the general election the speeches made by Fianna Fáil speakers, taking them by and large and with the inevitable exceptions and with the inevitable gloss that can be given on certain matters, were anything but realistic.

Some two years ago I brought to this House a very large number of quotations—they are on the records of the House—showing the realistic attitude taken by the Government and the fact that they made it perfectly clear that, although they believed they could do the job, it might take time and the path would be hard. We emphasised always that, no matter to what extent the Government could lubricate the economy by grants, loans, incentives and personal leadership, in relation to our type of economy it would be the personal initiative of the individual which would largely count in the revival and that apart from any unforeseen international changes. We made it clear that we would have to rely on private enterprise, that the Government would promote any kind of State enterprise that by itself might pay, that if there was a certain type of enterprise which could be reasonably carried out by the State, we were willing to do it but that, because of the agricultural character of the country and because of the fact that most of the industries which normally might be State enterprises were already State enterprises, we would rely largely on the initiative of the people, on their ambition, on their desire for new ideas, new methods of production and on their desire to go ahead industrially and agriculturally.

Perhaps, some day or other, we may cease to hear this nonsense about the excessive promises made. It was an excellent thing for the Fianna Fáil Party at that time to publish those blue prints and to give the people the idea of the massive amount of capital required to provide people with jobs. So far as I know, a recent estimate by the O.E.E.C. is to the effect that, taking it by and large, it requires £3,000 of additional exports or £3,000 of capital to provide one average man or woman with a permanent job a year. We were indicating in that blue-print the massive problem that faced any country desiring to reintegrate its economy, that capital, expertise and good marketing are required and that you cannot reinvigorate an economy by making fancy speeches promising to reduce the cost of living, as was done by the Coalition Government so ably and so continuously ever since 1948.

Deputy Dillon, again, spoke about the increase in the cost of living during our recent term of office. Again, the Opposition seem to wish to deceive the people in regard to this cost of living question. Take the cost of living index based on 1953. For £100 of average goods in 1954, in 1956 the people were paying £107; in 1957, £111 and in November 1959, £114. The cost of living went up during the period of the last Coalition Government. All this suggestion that they have some magic method of keeping down the cost of living is nonsense. The cost of living went up, generally speaking, as much in their term of office as in ours. They never mention that. They tell us only about the withdrawal of the subsidies.

Again, the Opposition continue to make and to publish statements in regard to the decline in agricultural employment. We have been perfectly honest about that. Agricultural employment has been steadily declining for many years. It declined all during the period of the first Coalition Government; it declined, with the exception of one year, all during the second period of Coalition Government. It is declining everywhere in the world and unless we are realistic about it, we shall simply be deceiving the people. The only thing we can say about the decline in agricultural employment is that out of 10 leading European countries, we are fifth in order of migration from the land. There are four countries where emigration from the land is more intense than it is here.

I was reading an account the other day of agricultural life in Minnesota, one of the most prosperous farming States of the United States. It was exactly like reading about this country, so far as agriculture was concerned. What did it state? That farms were getting steadily larger, that employment on the land was getting steadily less, that the earnings of Minnesota farmers had not increased as much as the earnings of Minnesota manufacturers and those in other types of business. In spite of that, the price of farms in general had gone up in Minnesota, so that there was still apparently a great desire to continue farming.

So far as the general position is concerned, this country is no different from any other country in the continued decline in agricultural employment for which there is absolutely no substitute, save employment in industry. That statement can be slightly modified. I agree with the Taoiseach, we have not begun yet to develop the processing of foods before export. I am perfectly certain that this new venture of the Irish Sugar Company is of very great importance. If you study the growth in the standard of living in Great Britain and other countries, it is perfectly obvious that the consumption of fruit and vegetables should markedly increase, and it is in connection with horticulture and vegetable and fruit processing that some progress can be made, and that even in agriculture, although there may be a continuous decline, there could be an additional labour content if we could find profit in the processing of fruit and vegetables and in the export of raw vegetables, for which there are various types of market available to us, not to speak of cheese.

We, on this side of the House, naturally believe that agriculture is our primary industry and that even if employment in agriculture does decrease, the farmers should have higher real earnings and increase the home market potential for industry. It is vital we should make the utmost use of our soil and that everything should be done to assist the farmers to overcome the difficulties they are now facing through the eradication of bovine tuberculosis and the failure up to now to market our bacon profitably. Having said that, it is useless for any Government to pretend that it can arrest a world-wide decline in agricultural employment, which in our case is only fifth in order of intensity in Europe. There is no solution for that except providing employment in industry—for those people who continue to leave the land and who, no doubt, for a considerable period, will continue to do so—using both agricultural produce and other materials.

As against a great deal of what has been said by Deputy Dillon, there are facts in regard to the earnings of the people which it is well to mention in relation to the increase in the cost of foodstuffs. During the last Coalition Government, between 1954 and 1957, the cost of living went up from 100 points to 111 and industrial earnings of workers went up from 102 to 117 points, base 1953, 100. In the past three years, from 1957 to 1960, the cost of living index, base 1953, 100, went up from 111 to 114 but industrial earnings went up from 117 to 133, showing that, relatively speaking, the purchasing power of industrial workers increased more in the past three years than it did during the three years of the Coalition Government. Who got most advantage during that period?

It is true, as the Taoiseach said yesterday, we have to take very great care in even mentioning the question of increased earnings because that relates in turn to productivity and to our capacity to export. However, taking the question by itself, the workers have had more compensation for increases in the cost of living in the past three years than they had during the period of the second Coalition Government. They have been able to catch up on the increase in the cost of foodstuffs and more than compensate themselves for it. The last round of wage increases, in relation both to the increase in the price of butter and the increased price of bread and all the other increases that have taken place, more than compensated the worker. Naturally, they want their standard of living to rise. Naturally, they always feel that their earnings should be more and more, but, bearing in mind their wishes and their desires, their earnings have improved, relative to the cost of living, more in the past three years than during the three years of the Coalition Government.

A great deal has been said in this debate in relation to the total number of persons employed in non-agricultural industries. It has been clearly indicated that over a considerable period, five years, there has been no improvement. We have made it clear that in December of last year, there were 11,500 more persons in insurable employment than in the previous year, showing that some progress has been made. There again the incentives, the taxation remissions, all the other work of a Government to promote industry, to promote trade activity here, have as one of their objectives the compensation for the terrific decline in the number of building workers. This is a problem that would have faced any Government in office. Governments, for one reason or another, decided to complete the housing programme as rapidly as possible and there were in employment for constructional purposes in 1951 some 85,000 persons and the number has declined steadily, through a decline in municipal construction, to 61,000. Many of those people unfortunately could not be retrained for other industry. That presents a very difficult social problem which has unfortunately been solved in many cases by emigration.

Although there has been a very welcome revival in constructional activity both in relation to the reconstruction of houses and to industrial buildings of recent date, the fact remains that in addition to promoting the economy, we have to provide enough people with jobs in industry to overcome that decrease which took place because we had in fact replaced, so far as I remember, one in every three houses in the community. We were beginning to complete, with the exception of Dublin city, Cork city and one or two other areas, one of the most intensive housing programmes in the history of the world. Unfortunately, the completion began to show itself rather rapidly in a great number of places.

That accounts very largely for the fact that, taking non-agricultural activities as a whole, which includes workers on the roads for example, where mechanical devices replaced the workers in many instances, we have not yet caught up on the decrease that has taken place largely due to the decline in construction of various types. As everyone knows, grant incentives have now been given for reconstruction and for sewerage and water schemes. The Government have launched a general plan for regional water supply schemes which will provide employment.

As I see it, so far as real employment is concerned, we face one great difficulty: almost the only sure hope of continuous employment on the land comes from forestry and forestry land is not easy to get in many counties. The forestry planting programme increased enormously in the west of Ireland last year, where I think, some 30 or 40 per cent. of the planting was carried out because the land there is so poor and has been so continuously eroded by over-grazing that land for forestry could be obtained. In other parts of Ireland, sheep are competing with forestry and land is secured at a slower pace. No one can say that the Government have not provided sufficient money for all the land available in order to see what could be done to assist rural employment.

There are many other features of our economic position which show very considerable progress. Savings last year were £63,000,000 in comparison with £50,000,000 in a recent period. Savings do not improve in a country where there is no hope and confidence in the future. One of the most important symptoms of national recovery is a growth in savings and a belief on the part of the people that it is a good thing to put their money in the banks, in investments or into Government saving schemes. The sharp increase in the rate of saving last year is a most helpful indication that people are beginning to have confidence in the future and the banshee atmosphere which overcast this country for so long is beginning to disappear.

Again last year the total capital formation was £100,000,000 in comparison with £69,000,000 in 1957, again a symptom of confidence, a symptom that the people are beginning to invest their savings in projects, believing that there was hope in the future. There was an increase of 3½ per cent. in the real national output of the country. I have already mentioned the increase in the numbers in insurable employment in the last quarter of 1959. Again there was the very helpful reduction in unemployment of 7,600. Some 20,000 fewer persons were unemployed than in the corresponding period in 1957, at the end of the totally unnecessary depression which took place at that time. No mention has been made by the Opposition of the increased investment in industry, or of the fact that in a period of five years investment in industry has increased from £½ million to £6 million. State investment in agriculture has increased from £6 million to £12 million.

Little has been said about the fact that in spite of the difficulties they faced in relation to the eradication of bovine tuberculosis, the farmers had borrowed from the banks in January, 1958, £17 million and in January, 1960, they had borrowed £29 million, and that increase in borrowing relates very largely to productive schemes of investment prepared by the farmers and accepted by the banks as a reason for issuing credit. In spite of the difficulties with regard to the reduction in cattle prices that has taken place, the farmers apparently are willing to invest in the future to a far greater degree than before, in improving their cattle stocks and replacing their reactors, again showing hope for the future.

Deputy Dillon had the effrontery yesterday to suggest, by implication, that the Government were responsible for the recent unfortunate decrease in the price of cattle. I thought we had got over such childishness by now. He did not say it directly but he implied it. Cattle prices alter from time to time for different reasons and everyone knows the reasons for this recent decrease, namely, the drought in 1959 and the difficulties experienced in the eradication of bovine tuberculosis. I could equally accuse Deputy Dillon of being responsible for the decrease in the price of store cattle of not £10 but £12 between 1955 and 1956. We, on this side, are honest enough to realise that it is unlikely that Deputy Dillon's Government at that time were responsible for that decrease which occurred because of the change in marketing conditions in Great Britain.

We would like at least to have the Budget debate held in realistic vein, and that people would not try to deceive the farmers into believing the decrease in cattle prices—which are not guaranteed except to the extent that the British guarantee them—can really be laid at the doors of the Government. We should have got over that type of thing by this time.

Mr. Corish

Hear, hear!

Mr. Childers

We have heard so much dreary pessimistic talk from Deputy Dillon that it is just as well to show some of the good symptoms in relation to our economy. We have had difficulties in relation to exports of cattle which everyone knows, and we have faced difficulties in relation to exports of bacon which I hope the promotion of the new reorganised Pig Marketing Commission will help to cure.

There have been some improvements in the exports of foods of various kinds which I think augur well for the future. They should at least be stated and put on record. Our exports of chocolate crumb, in 1959, went up by 7 per cent. Exports of chocolate to the United States, made partly from Irish raw materials, went up by 150 per cent. in one year, and exports which were not mentioned in this House by any of the pessimists—the export of cheese—increased in value two and a half times in one year to £224,000. In my view, we should have emphasised the importance of cheese exports 20 years ago. There should have been a special section in the Department of Agriculture teaching the new processes, because increased consumption of cheese is an invariable corollary to better living standards in the countries to which we export.

The fact remains that there has been that noticeable increase in one year. The export of preserved vegetables has gone up by 125 per cent. in one year. The export of whiskey went up by 12 per cent, and so did that of other foodstuffs. In the export of manufactured goods, there was a tremendous increase of 40 per cent. in one year. The value of manufactured exports went up to £24 million in 1959 so that now the manufactured exports come very close to the net income from tourism as forming the most important element in our economy. For the first time in our history, we cease saying that live animals, foodstuffs and tourism, in that order, constitute the major items in the economy. We are now able to add manufactured exports.

One has only to look around the countries of Europe, countries such as Denmark or the Netherlands, which have few raw materials, little cotton, steel, iron or coal, to see that the one essential element in the invigoration of their economy since the war has been the increase in the exports of manufactured goods whether the raw materials were home-produced or otherwise. Some of these exports have been truly remarkable. The exports of clothing and footwear went up 25 per cent., taken together, in one year and now total £4,000,000. Anybody who knows anything about the footwear and clothing market abroad, particularly in the United States, will know that that must have been the result of very careful marketing and very excellent production and a very keen costing for that success to be achieved.

Exports of machinery more than doubled from this country and totalled nearly £3 million in 1959. If we go back to the good old days when the then Cumann na nGaedheal Party were deriding all our efforts to start industries and were saying we should have no industries except those made from milk and beef, we can now laugh at some of their statements when we can manage to export nearly £3,000,000 of machinery in one year and more than double the value in 1959.

Exports of agricultural machinery showed a very considerable expansion. They totalled only £228,000 but there we are in very great arrears still. If we examine the exports of Denmark and the Netherlands we will find that 25 to 30 years ago agricultural machinery formed a very important part. We are now beginning very late but we have achieved a big increase in exports of agricultural machinery.

Exports of glasswear went up by 50 per cent. in one year. We are exporting it to distant countries and to places as far away as Hong Kong. I now come to the export of raw materials which, I imagine, largely due to the operation of the Avoca Copper Mines, went up 36 per cent. in one year. It is important to recognise the progress being made and then to point out that there are still not half enough enterpreneurs, promoters of industry.

We need to see more Irish people promoting new industry, in addition to the foreigners who are so welcome to come here and assist us with their skills, technique and capital. We need to see the 1959 result increased fivefold before we can provide the sort of employment that is essential if we are to employ those living on the land and provide a counter attraction to the tremendous draw which Great Britain is to our people where they can find work and high wages immediately.

Reverting to the question of agriculture, we hope that when the Pigs Marketing Commission is reorganised we shall be able to tackle in a fundamental way the difficulties we have experienced in taking a proper share of the British market for our pig products. That work should have been begun in 1948. At that time, everybody seemed to be of the opinion that we could live in a post-war boom indefinitely and that, because the world was starving, it did not matter how we organised the marketing of commodities such as bacon.

The pig marketing plan is designed to get over some of the worst evils that have affected the pig industry for a long period. The Danes send over half their bacon products to Britain but they have only about four wholesale distribution points in the whole of Great Britain but those distribution areas are marvellously well organised for the sale of the product. Up to now, we have had some 30 distribution points for a mere £4,000,000 to £5,000,000 of pig products. We hope that the steps that can be taken in relation both to the cost of curing and the cost of collecting the pigs in addition to the standards adopted in preparing bacon for export will be sufficient to revive the industry.

Again, in the face of the pessimism on the opposite benches, the Government reiterate their belief in the future of the cattle industry. We may have to pay far more attention to quality than ever before. Although the quality has always been good, it could have been very much better. The Government stand by their belief that with the slow growth of the British population and the slow but steady increase in the standard of living, it should be possible for our cow population to increase to 1,500,000 and that the progeny therefrom should be exported at reasonably profitable prices. We must get away from the idea that prices can be lavish. The future depends on low cost production, good grassland and a reasonable profit.

I want to say just a few words about the Budget in general. It so happened that, for newspaper space economics, there was one very important statement in the Budget speech that did not reach the public. The speech was very long and there had to be certain inevitable excisions. However, there is one thing which I should like to say and which was mentioned by the Minister for Finance. In spite of the incidence of taxation which we should all like to see reduced, compared with the average Northern European country, the total taxation charges upon the community, including central Government and local Government taxation, does not show a percentage which compares unfavourably with that of a great number of countries. The total amount spent by local authorities and the central Government, expressed as a percentage of the total national product of the country, is lower here than in Great Britain, Sweden, France or the Netherlands. It is just a little higher than it is in Belgium or in Italy.

Mr. Sweetman

I wonder if the Minister has taken out the percentage, excluding Defence?

Mr. Childers

I have examined that. The figures still compare fairly well. It seems that most Northern European countries find it impossible to take very much more than from one fifth to a little over one fourth of the people's income. There seems to be a limit which has been reached since the war, with exceptions.

Mr. Sweetman

I should have thought it varied between 25 per cent. and 30 per cent.

Mr. Childers

Figures can be extracted. If they are, it will still be found that our position is not a relatively bad one, even if we eliminated the Defence expenditure from this Budget.

In relation to gross national product, the costs of central government have actually diminished. In 1956-57, central government costs amounted to 22.2 per cent. of the gross national product. In 1959-60, they decreased to 20.7 per cent. We should not have any complacency about these comparisons. In a country where the economy is still relatively undeveloped, one faces two difficulties. The first is the necessity of trying to provide as good a standard of living as possible immediately, particularly if you are near a country in which the standard of living is very much higher and to which people can go easily to work, and secondly, of making incentives available for the people to provide a better standard of living by more industrial production. For that purpose, taxation should be kept as low as possible. All we can say is that the record at the present time is not a bad one compared with normal European countries. We should like to see production expanding to the point where we can still further reduce taxation.

I should like to express the terms of the Budget in, perhaps, a different way, simply by way of variation to illustrate what the Minister for Finance has succeeded in doing. The Taoiseach spoke about the good value obtained for a penny. The public should be made aware again of what actually happened. In the course of the Budget, we took nearly £1 million in extra taxation on tobacco, and we took off taxes and levies of one kind or another affecting a large number of the general public directly, relieving their tax expenditure to the value of £735,000, represented by the reduction in the levies, represented by the remission of taxation—through the increase in the children's allowance from £100 to £120—and represented by reductions in taxation on savings deposits and the remission in respect of death duties.

Then, we took taxes off production worth £655,000, including fuel oil, the assistance given to the small mineral waters factories and the abolition of income tax for harbour authorities. Provision was made in regard to the type of Irish manufacturing company whose dividend could be tax free.

Then, we gave relief indirectly affecting the public but covering a very small sphere not likely to affect the cost of living in any noticeable way, the relief of entertainments, the dance duties, tobacco and the retail liquor licences. That amounted to £465,000, so that we gave relief totalling £1,855,000, of which three-fourths benefits the public in general and production. At the same time, we spent £2,600,000 more without taxing the public. We gave £800,000 more for agriculture to assist agricultural production. Increased pay and pensions, admittedly, to limited classes but to quite a large number of people, resulted in an increase of £805,000.

Then we gave increased social insurance and assistance payments totalling £605,000, covering the increases in old age pensions, widows and orphans and unemployed and covering also the increased payments by the State as a result of the new social insurance scheme coming into force. Then we provided additional amounts for a number of miscellaneous purposes, including Radio Éireann, totalling £390,000. The general public were relieved to the tune of £735,000 and they secured in benefits £605,000, totalling £1,340,000. Production was aided to the tune of £1,455,000.

I do not think that is a bad Budget, considering the fact that two-thirds of the increase in the Supply Services was due to increases in remuneration that were inevitable because of the parallel trend going on here and in the country across the sea about which we have to take such great care if we are to ensure an increase of exports.

I should like to repeat, in conclusion, what the Minister for Finance said in the course of his Budget speech. I should like to see the Opposition looking a little bit more towards the future. I should like to see them for the first time—and it will be for the first time—taking the Programme for Economic Expansion and tearing it to pieces and suggesting amendments to it, telling us it is a bad programme. It would be helpful——

Mr. Sweetman

Most of it was cribbed from me.

Mr. Childers

It would be helpful to us if we had some constructive criticism. It would be helpful to us if the Opposition proposed ways and means of reinvigorating the economy more rapidly than we are doing. The Government can always benefit from constructive criticism but harking back to the past and talking about the abolition of the subsidies on food and about the alleged promises made by Fianna Fáil in 1955 and 1956 will get us nowhere at this stage.

Mr. Sweetman

I am not surprised that the Minister wants to forget them.

Mr. Childers

What we need are some constructive suggestions. We should be glad to get their suggestions. It would be more useful for the country and would spur the country towards greater production. It would add to the greater air of confidence that is beginning to spread among the community if we could have that sort of constructive suggestion instead of harking back to the past and forcing us in turn to go over the pages of history. We should have the kind of speeches that would enable us to forget that period and look forward to the future; thinking of new ways of developing agricultural markets; making proposals so that we can secure a greater proportion of the £1,000 million worth of food imports into Great Britain; promoting schemes that we need for better marketing of our agricultural products.

It would be much more valuable if Deputy Dillon criticised, even in a general way, the proposals for the improvement in bacon marketing instead of talking about the abolition of the food subsidies which have absolutely no meaning in the present state of our economy. Even if we were wrong to abolish them, and we do not believe this, they have absolutely no relation to our present production problems. The present day problem is the investment of more capital, the stimulation of new promotional activity, the encouragement of new skill, the development of people's minds to consider the country as one in which there must be a dynamic economy. If we could hear more about that from the Opposition, we would be able to make better progress.

Mr. Jones

I am not surprised that the Minister is rather annoyed by the fact that he has been reminded of the promises of the Government prior to the last election. It seems to be a common technique to make them first and then afterwards, by this type of speech, to attempt to get away from them. Unfortunately, the Minister was present when the Taoiseach's speech was quoted by Deputy Cosgrave, and at no time did he see fit to question the Deputy as to whether it was a blueprint or whether it was a plan. In any case, the Minister's statement is as sobering as the Budget. He has highlighted some of the problems facing the country. Anybody coming from the country will certainly think hard on what he had to say about the decline in agricultural employment.

Coming to the latter portion of his statement, in which he recorded the various things which it was possible to do in this Budget, it was rather hard to follow how, out of £1,000,000, the Minister gave away several million pounds. Of course, the Minister explained some of it, because he stated that in the previous Budget there was an over-estimation figure and an underspending. These two between them amounted to something like £3¾ million which it was possible to use at the present time.

At present, there is a feeling in rural areas that there is not much outlook in the Budget so far as agriculture and employment on the land are concerned. Everybody admits that our hope lies in increased agricultural production, and the Minister, in his Financial Statement, mentioned an increase of approximately £2,000,000 being made available for farms. I represent a dairying county and in that respect an increase of approximately 1.3 pence per gallon for milk has been announced. If we take an average 500-gallon cow, it would amount approximately to an extra £2 14s. for the farmer. That might in some way compensate him for other increases which he has had to meet.

Of course, this whole question is bound up, as far as the dairying areas of the south are concerned, with two problems. One is the bovine tuberculosis eradication scheme and the other has to do with increased production. The recent increase in the price of butter to native consumers would lead one to expect that home consumption of butter will decline and that consequently if the production of butter is increased somewhat, we shall be faced with the problem of exporting it. That, of course, immediately brings in its train the question of whether a levy, such as that imposed previously, would have to be reimposed.

The figure for butter production has been declining over the years. The figures for the year ending 31st March, 1960, show that our total butter production was 774,934 cwts. In 1957, it was in the region of 978,000 cwts. and in 1958, 934,603 cwts. That is a very considerable decline in production. Admittedly, they were bad years for dairy farming, but that is a problem which now faces dairying areas.

Recently, I inquired from the Minister for Agriculture if the scheme for the testing of cattle had been suspended. The Minister informed me that the scheme was in force but herds which had previously been tested, and where reactors had not been eradicated, were not getting a second test. That is the kernel of our whole problem in the dairying areas—the replacement of reactors and the expense with which the dairy farmer will be confronted in trying to eradicate from these herds an unfortunately high proportion of reactors.

This is not the only problem the farmer has to face because the eradication of bovine tuberculosis is linked up with the provision of proper water supplies and proper houses. As a matter of fact, at present on the average farm, a farmer would actually need two sets of houses if he were to attempt to deal with the problem in an effective fashion. Despite his best endeavours, he meets with reversals when cattle that have been free fail on the second or subsequent tests.

The amount then that has been provided in the Budget to support dairy produce is not over-generous. The Minister did mention that further amounts could be made available. I think the present figure has been brought up to around £750,000. The present support for butter is in the region of £9 per cwt. so that that would seem to indicate that we should have, especially if the present support price remains static, enough to finance the export of some increased production of butter.

In another way, this has hit the dairy farmers of the south inasmuch as with the eradication of this disease abroad and with the new marketing conditions, there is a greater discrepancy in prices, a discrepancy which is being felt in the sale of attested cattle as against cattle which are unattested or reactors. There is in the country at present the feeling that people do not know where we are going in this matter. The scheme as operated at the moment is one in respect of which the farmers need more encouragement to enable them to recoup in some way their losses or their outlay in the struggle to eradicate this disease.

The Minister for Transport and Power mentioned that borrowing by farmers had increased and that this represented an investment in the future and the development of more hope. We sincerely hope that is the case. So far as I know quite a number of farmers availed of the schemes announced for loans for the purchase of heifers and the improvement of housing conditions and the provision of water supplies. That may be regarded as an investment in the future but equally it is an indication that they were not able to finance these projects on their own. They had to borrow and will have to meet both repayments of principal and interest.

The Minister spoke of the decline in agricultural employment, and indicated that he did not see any hope of a new remedy for that. He referred to the tendency to have larger farms and spoke of farming in Minnesota. To take Minnesota in the United States, a large industrial country with vast potential and capacity, and regard that as a standard by which to judge our own farming community either on investment or earnings is misleading. He said the decline in agricultural employment was not confined to this country, that we were fifth in a list of ten countries. That may be so, but it is no consolation to the people who have lost their employment on the land or to the people in the small villages and towns who depend on the agricultural community for a living. The greatest tragedy of the present time, I think, is that people are deserting the countryside and creating a larger social problem.

The Minister spoke of declining employment on roads and other such work and referred to the use of machinery. As I have already mentioned—and probably will again— that is something that is not at all desirable in our circumstances. If this were a country with a shortage of labour, there might be some sense in encouraging the use of machinery, but here, where our people need employment and where, when they earn wages, they spend them locally and so aid the local economy, I think it is more desirable that we should keep the people locally employed and not use so many mechanical devices which tend to deprive people of employment and, thus, cause disruption of family life and lead in some cases to emigration. Rural employment is something that is vitally necessary if we are to maintain the present population which is not very large. The population at present tends to get out of balance leaving a larger proportion of elderly people and the very young while the middle group emigrate for employment abroad.

I was interested in what the Minister for Transport and Power said about housing and his statement that in a great many cases we had reached the point of sufficiency in that regard. In my constituency I do not think we have reached that point and, in reading about the neighbouring constituency, I saw recently there had been a discussion on planning for a large number of new houses. There has been a considerable decline in house-building and in the last year in my constituency we built, I think, only 29 rural cottages.

I notice that the latest figures for the building of local authority houses have declined. For the year ending 31st March, 1960, the number was 2,414 as against 3,467 in 1958. The number of houses built by private individuals also shows a decline from 4,893 in 1959 to 3,190 in 1960. Even a moderate increase in the number of houses being built at present would mean a welcome degree of employment for those in the building trade and it would also help to alleviate the need—grave in some cases—of families for proper houses.

Exports of cheese, the Minister said, had approximately doubled and I was glad to hear that. That is a product that we might with profit consume at home. We should encourage increased consumption of cheese. The Minister said it leads to better health and I think I mentioned on a previous occasion that if we could get our people to double their cheese consumption— that would not be remarkable because we are among the smallest consumers of cheese in the world, eating only about two pounds per head of the population—we could profitably take into the manufacture of cheese something like 18,000,000 gallons of milk.

I think we might reasonably expect that there should be an increase or a speeding up in land division. I see no reason why the provisions which are there for the purchase of land in the open market could not be availed of for the purchase of land for those waiting on it to increase their holdings, for migration or, as I mentioned previously, to provide holdings for eligible young farmers so as to keep them in this country even if they are unmarried. Everybody knows that a young man, even if he has a training in agriculture, is not eligible for land. I do not think that is a wise policy, but I shall have an opportunity of pursuing the matter further at a later stage.

The Minister mentioned forestry as providing one of our best hopes from the point of view of employment. I quite agree with him in that. In my own constituency, and in County Tipperary, the speed-up in afforestation is most satisfactory. It is particularly noticeable around the Newport area. The Minister said there is plenty of money available for land for this purpose. That may be, but what type of money is it? Another representative from my constituency referred to this aspect of the matter last year; he said the price offered for land was deplorably low. It is only right that we should give a fair price. If we do so, more land will be available and more employment will be provided.

I should have liked a more definite provision for assistance to the farming end of our economy. The industrial arm is very valuable, but it can never substitute for the vast potential in the agricultural industry. This new development by the Irish Sugar Company is heartening, indeed. We all hope it will be successful. If it is successful, small-holders in particular will have an outlet for the fruits of their labours in the growing of vegetables and fruits, soft and otherwise, which will be suitable for use in this new process.

I listened to the end of Deputy MacCarthy's speech on this Budget. I do not think it is wrong for people to criticise. The Minister for Transport and Power said he welcomed criticism. It is the duty of an Opposition to criticise. Criticism is one of its principal functions. They must criticise when criticism seems to be warranted. There is criticism outside the House. Why should there not be criticism in the House? If promises are made, and are not kept, why should not those who make them, and break them be brought to account?

Mr. Cummins

The dominant feature of this Budget is that it is presented at a time when the Government appeal to all sections of the community to help in their programme of economic expansion has borne fruit. The proposals made and inducements given over the past two years have resulted in steady progress. There has been, therefore, no crisis, no panic, no fear of inflation or economic collapse. This is a rational Budget founded on logic. It must commend itself to all who think seriously about our problems.

This is the second Budget of which I have had experience as a member of this House. Listening to the criticism to which it has been subjected, my first feeling is one of sympathy for the Minister who introduced it. Listening to the speeches from the opposite benches one gets the impression that the speakers expect the Minister to cure all our ills, social and economic, by a stroke of the pen. No Minister for Finance can give absolute social security and complete economic stability through the medium of a Budget. No Minister for Finance can do more than pave the way for these excellent consummations within the limits at his disposal. I believe the Minister has done just that.

We are told that no mention is made in the Budget of unemployment. Surely the object of the tax reliefs given is to permit of expansion and the speeding-up of production? That is the way in which employment will be provided. These reliefs, allied to the credit now available to industry and agriculture, and available as never before, are surely the stimuli needed by private enterprise to push ahead with its contribution to the Government's programme for economic expansion.

If we are to judge by the favourable reception given to the Budget by commercial and industrial organisations throughout the country, it must be admitted that the opportunities provided for the business community are recognised and will be availed of. It is difficult to reconcile the various criticisms which have come from the opposite benches. On the one hand, a picture of gloom and depression is painted, with emphasis on the necessity for drastic measures, and, on the other hand, there is a call for more and more concessions. Fianna Fáil used to be criticised for their hair-shirt Budgets. I submit that one could hardly apply that description to the Budget now under discussion. I think it would be as well that we should remember these unpopular Budgets of the past. Their introduction proved that Fianna Fáil were never afraid to do what they thought best in the national interest. When sacrifices have to be made, Fianna Fáil say so. Equally, when a shot in the arm is necessary, it is always given.

The Budget must be viewed in relation to the Government's long-term policy aimed at stabilising our economy and creating prosperity by putting men to work at productive employment. It is agreed by all sections of opinion that the creation of wealth is the only answer to our economic problems. The distribution of wealth already there by voting moneys towards putting men to work at non-productive employment, designed to placate the people not fully aware of the true position, is the trap into which successive Governments have fallen. The net result is that when the temporary schemes are completed our last position is worse than our first. That is not to say that such schemes are unnecessary. They are necessary and often essential, but their operation must go hand in hand with an all-out effort to expand and increase our production of goods and services. Only by this expansion and increase in production can we make the money required to finance the non-productive schemes.

Some Deputies opposite have been rather bitter in their criticism of the reliefs given to the entertainment business. I am taking that as one instance. The same Deputies expressed concern over unemployment problems. Surely there is a contradiction there somewhere? In the modern world the cinema and the theatre have ceased to be merely luxuries. They have developed into great industries, giving employment to thousands of people. Fear has been expressed by the heads of these industries that the prevailing high rate of taxation might result in their having to lay off some employees. The Minister has certainly allayed the fears of both managements and workers by reducing the entertainment tax.

It was inevitable that false motives would be attributed to the Minister when the tax reliefs were announced. It has always been so. Fianna Fáil, say the Opposition, are always trying to bamboozle the people into voting for them at a coming general election. Such criticism is hardly valid. If as a result of their actions the Government help to make people happier, and thereby create confidence in the administration, surely they cannot be blamed for that? Is it not the aim of every Minister for Finance to please the people by subscribing as far as circumstances allow to the general prosperity of the community?

With the Budget the Government are taking the next step towards implementing their programme for economic expansion. On that account the Government are worthy of the same confidence in the House as they have inspired outside it. It is to be hoped that the business community will avail themselves of the reliefs given and accept the Government's invitation to co-operate in the work of national recovery. I believe the Government are looking much further ahead than the next general election.

Mr. Manley

The Budget is always the highlight of the Parliamentary year. It is the one measure in which the people evince great interest and it is very often a headache for the Minister for Finance who is responsible to the Government and to the people for the Budget. It is nothing more than the nation's balance sheet, in which the Minister gives an account of how the money was spent which was raised in revenue during the previous twelve months and of the revenue he contemplates collecting in the current year, giving an estimate of how that money will be collected.

The Budget very often gives rise in the pre-Budget period to a good deal of conjectural predictions, apprehensions and hopes of various kinds. As a matter of fact, it is well known there is a recession in business because of the uncertainty of what may be in the Budget. Usually business people will not engage in any expansionist policy until after the Budget. When Budget day comes and the great secrets are revealed, there are sighs of relief, the usual disappointments, criticisms and post-mortems. That is natural. But my honest conception of Budgets is that they are much ado about nothing. They are simply national balance sheets. Those who have their eyes and ears close to the national position will realise full well what to expect in a Budget period. There is a good deal of luck associated with a Budget. I have no doubt that nobody will more readily admit than the Minister himself that he has had that luck this year because last September or October nobody could have anticipated that this financial year would end in such happy circumstances as it has ended. We are all glad of that. We are glad for the sake of the Irish nation that the Minister has had that luck.

Deputy Sweetman spoke here about the buoyancy in revenue which was obvious to us. We are delighted that is there. We are pleased that there has been an increase in savings in recent times. Deputy Sweetman pointed out very effectively that the recent seventh round of wage increases had a good deal to do with that buoyancy in the revenue and with that activity that now shows itself, according to the Minister and his colleagues. I believe there is something in that but I believe as well that the liberalisation of private credit by the commercial banks has had more to do with the buoyancy in the revenue than the seventh round of wages has done.

The Minister for Transport and Power, speaking here this evening, pointed to the fact that up to the January period of this year £29,000,000 was advanced by the commercial banks to the farmers. Certainly the farmers are relieved to some extent by the credit that money makes available to them; they can use their private resources, and all that activity must have had the buoyant effect. At the same time let us beware, because in recent days the British Government have brought in proposals to restrict the expansion of private credit. I am not saying that for any motive whatever except to point out that possibility might eventuate in this country so that even though the Budget is balanced—and I am glad it is—we could still fall on a lean period and face difficulties.

I was rather amused to hear the Minister for Transport and Power speak this evening. I have no intention of following him as he followed Deputy Dillon, who spoke yesterday, but he made one or two assertions that are worth noting. One was that the levies were altogether unwarranted and unnecessary. If that were so, why did the present Government retain them for so long, and why do they still retain some of them and make them part of the permanent revenue of the State? The Minister for Transport and Power also referred to "the unnecessary depression" of 1955 to 1956. That depression was not of the Government's making, any more than if there were a period of depression in the morning would we accuse his Government of being responsible for it.

We are a small island nation; we have to export in order to buy imports and we shall always be subject to fluctuations abroad. I should not like to see a period like 1955-56 again in this country but, in the ordinary cycle, these periods of depression arise and we have to face them when they come. The Government at that time were faced with a hard, unpleasant task and they had to take unpopular measures to protect our balance of payments. The present Minister for Finance benefited from those measures last year and in the year previous to that, and I sincerely hope that the measure of prosperity about which he spoke will be permanent for the sake of the Irish nation. If we are to survive as a nation it is about time, after 38 years of effort, that we should be getting some sort of permanent financial and trading stability.

While balancing his Budget, and all credit to him for that, the Minister for Finance has created at least two records. One is that the Irish people are facing the highest State expenditure in any year since the State was formed and the Minister is providing the highest revenue ever provided in the country. These are two important factors and in addition the ratepayers during 1960-61 will be called upon to pay the highest rates ever demanded of them in any year. I shall be talking about that in a moment, but I should like to see greater surpluses that could be used towards the relief of taxation and that would provide more liberal reliefs than the Minister gave in his Budget last week. We realise he was limited in the possibilities facing him but, with prudent administration and the chopping of expenditure in various lines where it is unnecessary, I think it should be possible to bring the cost of running the State into line with our circumstances.

It is somewhat ironic to give reliefs when at the same time people have to pay more for their butter, more for certain articles they send through the post, and have to pay more if they travel by bus or train. It is not at all as rosy as the Minister paints it, though we realise and appreciate the fact that certain well-deserved reliefs were given. The relief from death duty of estates up to £5,000 was very welcome. When Deputy McGilligan was Minister for Finance some years ago, he made all estates under £2,000 free of death duties. It was a very welcome measure at that time and I am sure the extension of that relief now will be gratefully received. The relief of the duty on hotels is also very welcome and the increase of income tax free allowances for children was very prudent and wise on the Minister's part. I have congratulated him on his provisions for liquor licences. I have nothing at all to do with the liquor trade but I think it was a good step on his part, a step that helps to obviate the rather outmoded principles that applied to these things in the past.

The Minister told us he was actuated by the reform motive and I hope that when he is in the reform mood he will bring about necessary reforms in other lines also. There are many reforms that could well be applied to our State institutions, and to this very House itself. I know it is most unpopular to suggest it but one reform that would do an immensity of good would be if the Minister would influence his colleagues in the Government to provide that no member of the Dáil should sit on a local authority. I say that because in the present year there are to be local elections.

An Ceann Comhairle

That does not arise relevantly on the Budget.

Mr. Manley

I am trying to make it relevant to the Budget.

An Ceann Comhairle

I think the Deputy will find it difficult.

Mr. Manley

There is this conflict between central and local authorities and it is becoming more and more acute as the years go on. No man can serve two masters. If a man is a Deputy, and at the same time is a member of a local authority, how can he face up to his duties in that local authority?

An Ceann Comhairle

The function of the Budget is to collect money. I do not see what this had to do with the collection of money.

Mr. Manley

It has when demands are made from Central authorities——

Mr. O'Malley

It is a very good point.

An Ceann Comhairle

It may be a good point but there are many good points one cannot make on a Budget Resolution.

Mr. Manley

In any case we have this rates position which is causing a great deal of anxiety to all householders throughout the country. I pity members of local authorities who are trying to be fair to the people but who have to increase the rates. I do not envy them their task. One thing that is most penalising is when the valuation officials go around the country to increase valuations at the instance of local authorities, thus adding a further burden on ratepayers.

Great play was made yesterday by the Taoiseach about the pessimism that, he said, comes from this side of the House. While Dublin may not show any sort of recession, or lack of business in any sense, business people in many provincial towns in the south with which I am familiar all tell me that business is not good. In the rural areas, with which we are more familiar, the past year has been a difficult one for our people. The full effects of the year have not yet come into evidence but will eventually be felt.

With regard to cattle prices, to which Deputy Dillon referred at length yesterday, there is no doubt that they are causing a very serious problem for farmers. Nobody is able to tell us why prices have receded so much. Some people say—the Minister himself said —that it is due to the drought of 1959. That is a long time ago. There does not seem to be that demand for Irish cattle that one would expect, especially at this time of year.

The people are not satisfied with the progress of the T.B. eradication scheme. There seems to be a lull at the moment, in the south of Ireland at all events, in the drive for T.B. eradication. Are we to rest on our oars because we have until 1965 to get the clearance necessary in order to hold our place on the British market?

The Minister for Transport and Power this evening talked about the marketing of pigs and suggested that it should have been tackled in 1949. I doubt if the pigs were there in 1949. I know that one could not get bacon in the shops in 1947 and it took some years to build up stocks of pigs. Having been built up, stocks are now becoming depleted.

Reference was made to the pessimism prevailing on this side of the House. There is no undue pessimism on this side of the House. There may be a little over-realism. How can we but be pessimistic when we realise that we carry a big volume of unemployment and that our people are still leaving the country? The Taoiseach, last evening, suggested that it was a good thing that these people were able to go out and fend for themselves abroad. At the same time, it must be realised that these young people are brought up in this country and educated by their parents, which is not always an easy matter. They go to secondary schools and universities and then have to leave the country in search of a livelihood. That is a very sad reflection on and an indictment of those responsible.

The immense emigration that has taken place in the past 12 years is shown by the fact that the representation in this House will be reduced in the next Dáil. No matter what we say about emigration, it still continues. It is a drain on our manpower. It is a sad thing to see people leaving the country, where they could use their brains and physical capacity, if only they had the opportunity. That is a reality that must be faced. I am not saying it for the sake of criticism but it is a sad feature of our economic life. Every member of a local authority knows that every Christmas special employment grants are given in local authority areas and that, also, is an indication of the economic stringency that obtains in those areas.

These are some of the criticisms I have to offer. I realise that the Minister has done what it was possible for him to do in this instance but I do not approve of his taking the tax off dance halls. If people want amusements, they should be prepared to pay for them. I should have preferred if the Minister had retained that tax and increased the amount he is giving to the old age pensioners. Any money spent on the aged is well spent. The aged people always remain at home and spend the money at home. If they got an increase in their pensions, they would not have to depend so much on relatives or others to look after them. It would give them independence at the end of their days. It is rather inconsistent for the Minister to take the tax off dance halls and to give a paltry increase of a shilling to the aged.

Mr. O'Malley

Would the Deputy have taken the tax off cinemas?

Mr. Manley

The Minister implied that he took the tax off cinemas in order to save the revenue from cinemas and to avoid creating unemployment.

Mr. O'Sullivan

He did it to save the cinemas from television.

Mr. O'Malley

Exactly.

Major de Valera

I am prompted to intervene at all because the last speaker referred to luck and seemed to imply that the Minister's good Budget —because it must be admitted to be a good Budget—was the product of luck. Normally, I do not think I would bother to answer such a suggestion, except that, coming from the Deputy who spoke, I think he is entitled to an answer because he is one of the more reasonable contributors, generally, to debates in this House and I hope he will take what I have to say in the same spirit as that in which he made the remark.

I think the Deputy is wrong when he says that the present good Budget was merely the product of fortune. The essential point to grasp here is that this Budget is a demonstration of what can flow from good Government consistently applied. If you want evidence of what can come from consistency and certainty of policy, from stability of Government and from the fact that a stable Government are in office long enough to do their job, the evidence is in this Budget.

The importance of this Budget over all, in the present situation, is simply this: it underlines again the importance in our political system and in our political life of securing consistency and certainty of policy implemented for long enough to be effective. That happens to be the secret of this Budget, that there was such a policy, that there was stability in Government, and that there was continuity in government guaranteed to that stable Government.

None of us will claim that by any extraordinary right, there are extraordinarily favourable circumstances or extraordinary abilities to be associated with any particular Party in government but the factors that have put the Minister for Finance in the relatively happy position that he is in to-day are just the factors I have underlined.

In the same way, by contrast with the last speaker, I should like to make this further point, that there are the problems which the last speaker mentioned; there are still the problem of development and the problem of unemployment, but it is by proceeding on the present lines that we have best hope of dealing with these. If it so happens that the situation today is favourable and that there is a Government here with sufficient stability to be able to make the best of favourable circumstances, these facts are very fortunate for the country and give us our best hope of being able to cope with these problems which we all admit are there and none of us can benefit by minimising them.

Deputy Manley spoke about unemployment and the need for dealing with it. We are with him in that but I should like to point out to him that it is by a Government and a Minister and a Budget such as we have now and a succession of progressive Budgets and administrative acts that we have the best chance of dealing with that problem. By contrast also, I could remind him of the corresponding difficulties in 1956-57, when, I am sure, the then Minister for Finance and his Government had as good intentions as any other Government, but, in the exceptional situation with which that Government were faced, they were not in the same favourable position for dealing with the problems which arose as a stable Government might have been. That is a fair comment to make.

Comparing the present time with 1956-57, Deputy Manley talks about buoyancy and he mentions the cause. Let us not deplore that. These are favourable circumstances which I relate to the continuity of the past few years. That situation is the best one to have created for dealing with unemployment and similar problems. Contrast the present situation with the difficult position of 1956-57. The depression of that period was not confined to this country. That depression was common to this country and other countries but with that depression there was a marked increase in unemployment and emigration. In a more buoyant situation such as we have at the present moment, the circumstances are more favourable for tackling the unemployment problem and for improving the opportunities for development and expansion.

The remarks I make on this Budget are general ones. It would be a mistake to look upon the situation as a question of luck. This Budget is a product of consistency and certainty of policy, of stability of Government and of continuity in the pursuance of that policy by that stable Government. That is the whole secret as to why we have had progressively successful Budgets and this year's Budget, as many outside have remarked, is extraordinarily good.

Mr. T.F. O'Higgins

I would regard this Budget which pleases Deputy de Valera so highly as an extremely bad Budget. That is condemnatory enough, but it is also a cowardly Budget. It is a Budget introduced by a Minister on behalf of a Government who are afraid of what they have done, afraid of what they are doing and who hope to delude the people.

Instead of the Budget being the occasion on which taxation is imposed upon the people and on which reckoning is made of what money is required to run this State, the practice has grown in Fianna Fáil for the Government to impose their taxation before the Budget and then to present the Budget, with Deputies supporting the Government saying: "What a grand Budget this is. We did not impose an increase in taxation." Let us not forget that this Budget did not start last Wednesday. It started some three or four weeks before. The first step in this budgetary operation, which I think could be defined as butchery, was to impose taxation on the food the people must buy in order to keep body and soul together. The Government started this Budget by taxing freely and voluntarily—they cannot blame anybody else for it—the pound of butter the ordinary people must eat.

Mr. O'Malley

To pay your debts.

Mr. T.F. O'Higgins

And Deputy O'Malley's constituents will ask him why when he goes before them at the next election.

Mr. O'Malley

I shall tell them why.

Mr. T.F. O'Higgins

I have no doubt Deputy O'Malley will have invented some cock and bull story.

Mr. O'Malley

You left us with debts of £11 million in 1957.

Mr. T.F. O'Higgins

This is a case in which what we left is immaterial. This is a Fianna Fáil decision.

Mr. Loughman

I wonder what Deputy Jones thinks of it.

Mr. T.F. O'Higgins

I do not know what Deputy Loughman will have to say down in Tipperary. Certainly Deputy Jones knows that if the Fianna Fáil Government had not come in and there was an increase in the price of milk, it would not have been visited on the consumer in the way Fianna Fáil have done it. This Budget is designed to preserve the seats of a few Fianna Fáil Deputies but I do not think it will succeed. The people of this city, Limerick city and elsewhere throughout the country now have to pay 4/7 for a pound of butter. That is the Budget that pleases Deputy de Valera, who has now fled the House. I wonder will he visit his own constituents in this city and tell them: "This a grand Budget. You have to pay more for butter now but it is a great thing to be able to do it."

Mr. O'Malley

Did they not get an increase in wages to pay for the butter?

Mr. T.F. O'Higgins

Deputy O'Malley is worried about wages. By this Budget, an eighth or ninth round of wage increases will be started.

Mr. O'Malley

The Deputy is trying to tempt the trade unions.

An Ceann Comhairle

Interruptions must cease.

Mr. O'Malley

Hear, hear!

An Ceann Comhairle

I hope that commendation will be observed in practice. Deputy O'Higgins is entitled to speak without interruption and it is the duty of the Chair to see that he gets that opportunity.

Mr. O'Malley

He has been inviting interruptions.

Mr. T.F. O'Higgins

The extraordinary thing about Fianna Fáil Deputies and particularly Fianna Fáil Deputies like Deputy O'Malley is the fact——

Mr. O'Malley

Do you see what I mean, Sir?

Mr. T.F. O'Higgins

——that they are intolerant of any other point of view. Everything would be calm and orderly in this House and the Chair would not have found it necessary to draw Deputy O'Malley's attention to the rules of order if I joined in the chorus of the Deputies who sit behind the Minister for Finance and said: "This is a wonderful Budget." But I do not intend to do that because it would turn my stomach to do it. This is a shocking Budget. It is a cowardly Budget. It is a Budget introduced by a Government that tries to tax without the people knowing it. What worries Deputy O'Malley is that he knows that very well. This Budget started four weeks before the Minister for Finance introduced it here.

Mr. O'Malley

It started in March, 1957, on the day we came into power.

Mr. T.F. O'Higgins

This is like an old record; they keep on playing it. In 1957, if this Budget had been introduced, no doubt the Minister for Finance would say: "Do not blame us. Sure, they left debts behind." They cannot say that now.

Mr. O'Malley

We paid all the debts.

Mr. T.F. O'Higgins

This is the fourth Budget introduced by Deputy Dr. Ryan as Minister for Finance on behalf of the Government. By their own deliberate policy, they have decided to increase the price which the people will have to pay for butter. That is the deliberate policy which was announced by the Taoiseach on the Vote on Account some weeks ago. Therefore, let them not run away from it. If it is their policy, let them at least defend it. Deputy O'Malley is afraid of it. He does not wish to defend it.

However, let us examine it. It is now the policy of this Government to start to find the money for the operation of their policy not in the Budget but before the Budget, to impose, in relation to an essential article of diet of the people, a positive tax. That taxation will represent a very heavy burden on the insured industrial workers throughout the country. It will represent a heavy impost on the working people of this city and elsewhere. They have had no opportunity of expressing their views on it. They have to face it but, at least, let us not tell them such unctuous nonsense as we have heard here, that this Budget does not affect them in the slightest. It does. Deputy O'Malley says I am encouraging a fresh round of wage increases.

Mr. O'Malley

Hear, hear!

Mr. T.F. O'Higgins

That kind of stupid intervention will not deflect me from what I have to say. I have little doubt that that kind of crazy policy will lead to just that result. If it does, and if the cap finds a head to fit it, I have very little doubt that the heads will be found on the left of the Chair. We know also that when the Minister for Finance started his budgetary operations, he increased postal charges. That does not appear in this Budget.

Mr. O'Malley

The inter-Party Government did exactly the same thing.

Mr. T.F. O'Higgins

If the inter-Party Government imposed taxation, it was done in the Budget.

Mr. O'Malley

They had three Budgets in one year. Am I right, Sir? In one year, they had three Budgets.

Mr. T.F. O'Higgins

We did not budget for Deputy O'Malley.

Mr. O'Malley

That is a good point.

Mr. T.F. O'Higgins

For that reason, I assert that this is a very bad Budget indeed, a Budget which imposes upon the people a very heavy impost of new taxation, and because that item of fresh taxation is not contained in the Financial Statement, it is a cowardly Budget. We have to consider also——

Mr. O'Malley

Dance halls—get on to them next.

Mr. T.F. O'Higgins

If Deputy O'Malley wants to dance off a pound of Fianna Fáil butter, let him leave the House and do it. He is not adding to the good sense of this Assembly at the moment.

In the Financial Statement, there is an indication that some concession will be given to the old age pensioners and the poorer sections of the community. Those sections which have to pay 5d. more for a lb. of butter will now get 1/- a week—not now, but some time in mid-summer—increase in their old age pensions. I suppose we on this side are expected to regard that concession as something to make this Budget notable. I would say to the Minister that he is wasting his time. If he thinks an increase of 1/- in the old age pension in any way makes up for the increase in the cost of living, he is very much mistaken indeed.

I was interested to read a statement made by the Taoiseach on one of his peregrinations. He was speaking on Partition and, in effect, he indicated that it would be the object and purpose of his Government to bring our level of social services as quickly as possible up to a standard which would accord with those enjoyed in the six of our counties which are governed by the Stormont Parliament. Following that statement by the Taoiseach, this miserable 1/- has been added to the old age pensions. Does that mean that the Taoiseach and the Government regard this 1/- as a serious contribution towards an increase in our social services here?

Mr. O'Malley

No.

Mr. T.F. O'Higgins

I am glad to hear Deputy O'Malley say that.

Mr. O'Malley

The Minister said it himself——

Mr. T.F. O'Higgins

I am glad——

Mr. O'Malley

——and as on and from next January, they will have £2 a week old age pension.

Mr. T.F. O'Higgins

They will pay 9/- a week for it.

Mr. O'Malley

They will not have to look——

An Ceann Comhairle

If Deputy O'Malley wants to contribute to the debate, he should make a statement and not interrupt Deputy O'Higgins.

Captain Giles

He is hot-headed.

Mr. T.F. O'Higgins

It is an indication of the guilty consciences of the Fianna Fáil Party that, so long as no hard word is spoken, Deputy O'Malley will put on dark spectacles and look over the head of the Ceann Comhairle into nothing, but the moment——

Mr. O'Malley

The Deputy is casting aspersions on the Press Gallery.

Mr. T.F. O'Higgins

——anything is said about the Budget, off come the dark glasses and he is wild-eyed and annoyed.

Mr. O'Malley

I often have a reason for the dark glasses.

Mr. T.F. O'Higgins

The Deputy has good reason now. The 1/- increase in the old age pension is just——

Mr. O'Malley

Not sufficient, we agree.

Mr. T.F. O'Higgins

——an aggravation. It is so small as to result only in annoying people and, in fact, politically it was a very foolish thing for the Government to have done. I am glad to say it is not a decision the effects of which will worry me.

Mr. O'Malley

Hear, hear!

Mr. T.F. O'Higgins

In relation to the general situation, running through the Minister's statement one can see a great deal of wishful thinking. This Government took office in the circumstances obtaining in March, 1957. They predicated their claim for power upon an assertion that they had the means and the policy to beat what they called "the crisis". Three years ago, the Irish people, affected by the oratory of Deputy O'Malley and others, began to feel the Fianna Fáil Party was a wonderful Party, that one could vote oneself a job, ease one's times and better one's conditions, by simply taking pencil in hand and putting the number "1" before the name "Ó Máille" or "O'Malley, Donogh" and the names of the rest of the Fianna Fáil Party. That was the suggestion made and the propaganda built up before the last general election.

They were sent into office, and it is now pertinent to inquire whether that crisis that could be beaten, has, in fact, been beaten by them. It is pertinent to inquire now on the occasion of their fourth Budget whether the women of the city who were told they could get their men to work by voting for Fianna Fáil have, in fact, got their men to work. It is pertinent to inquire whether the promises made—simple promises intended to appeal to simple people—have, in fact, been carried out.

I mentioned wishful thinking. There is wishful thinking—I shall use no harder term—running through the Minister's Financial Statement. He wishes to believe that things are better than they have been, and he wishes us to believe that, too. There is obviously an effort on the part of the Government to practise Coueism: if we keep on saying things are better we shall convince ourselves and may convince others. That kind of approach will solve nothing. It will merely lead to complacency on the part of the Government and Deputies.

I believe the country is very badly off. I believe there was never a stage at which business was poorer. The situation is not in any way improved by Ministerial assertions that things are booming. They are not. Fewer people are working to-day than were working last year or the year before or three years ago. More people are emigrating. If we think we have made any real progress in solving our problems, we are deluding ourselves and that is foolish in the extreme.

Unemployment—1956—this crisis year; this year which demanded, according to Fianna Fáil, the destruction of a Government doing their work and their replacement by a Fianna Fáil Government. 1956—this bad, awful year. Is it realised that 25,000 more Irish men and women were in gainful employment in this country in 1956 than there are now? It has taken the Fianna Fáil Government just three years to put out of work 25,000 people who were working before they got back into office. Where is the achievement there?

What is the meaning, in the face of those figures, of a Minister of this Government or anybody else standing up and patting himself on the back and asking this House to applaud him and his Government as if progress had been made? There are 25,000 fewer people in employment in Ireland to-day than there were before Fianna Fáil got into office. These are disturbing figures.

Apart from the drop in employment, I do not believe there is a Deputy—certainly there can scarcely be a Deputy outside the province of Leinster—who cannot feel in his bones the drain and the drag of accelerated emigration in the past three years. Deputy O'Malley may be fortunate in his constituency: I do not know. If he goes a little south or a little north, if he goes to Clare or to Galway, I have little doubt that he will find visible evidence in empty, deserted, derelict houses that have been vacated in the past three years— these years in which, we are told, outstanding progress has been made towards the solution of our problems.

Deputy Sweetman pointed out last Wednesday that the deficit in our balance of payments for last year is about £9,000,000. That deficit accrued at a time when the terms upon which we traded with other countries had moved substantially in our favour. If the same terms of trade operated last year as operated in 1957, our balance of payments would have been something around £35,000,000 or £36,000,000 in deficit. These are the facts of the situation that Fianna Fáil would have us conveniently forget as they would have us believe, through a smokescreen of Ministerial verbiage, that progress is being made. It is not.

The plain fact is that this Government have made no progress in the solution of the real problems that face this country—how a young Irish boy or girl can be assured of suitable employment here at home; how our people can be taught to believe again in this country and to have faith in its future. These are the real problems that remain to be solved. Progress has not been made towards their solution.

I have little doubt that Deputy O'Malley or any other Fianna Fáil Deputy who may care to intervene in this debate will say: "If these are problems now, they were problems when your Government were in office." True—quite true; it is no credit to either of us. It does not suggest that the policies pursued by Governments here in the past two decades have succeeded in what must surely have been their objective, namely, increased employment and reduced emigration.

There is a need for very drastic and radical rethinking in our approach to many of these problems. In that rethinking and radical approach, I would hope the lead would be given, as I believe it will, by Deputies on this side of the House, particularly Deputies of the Party of which I have the honour to be a member. I hope we can forget and put behind us many of the ideas and notions we have talked about so often in the past and get down in the future to some more rational and realistic approach towards the solution of this country's problems.

To have that day come about, we must first of all have a change of Government. That will come inevitably and, when the possibility of that takes place, new policies and new ideas can be put before the people. Meanwhile, I have said as much as I want to say now.

I believe this is a bad Budget; I believe it is a cowardly Budget; I believe it is a Budget which is intended to hoodwink the people. I hope it will not succeed in that aim. Deputy O'Malley may believe it has and if it has, then it is a worse Budget even than I have described it.

Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Finance (Mr. J. Brennan)

Coming towards the end of this debate, it is becoming more difficult for Opposition speakers to find adjectives to describe this Budget. The last speaker referred to it as a cowardly Budget. I was wondering, when the Minister completed his Budget speech, what line of attack the Opposition would adopt this time. I remember the occasion of the 1952 Budget when the Opposition even read in advance a copy of the Minister's statement. I remember the atmosphere of glee which surrounded the entire Opposition on that occasion. They knew that, by reason of a certain action then necessarily taken, they had material for efficient propaganda which would eventually lead to their election to office. It was a joyous occasion for them. They were not concerned with the fate of the public. They were not worried about the outcome of the removal of the subsidies. The one great point they saw was that that 1952 Budget provided them with ammunition to misrepresent the Government and thereby to obtain another chance from the public to set up a second Coalition Government.

On this occasion, the Opposition are rather disappointed. They expected some better ammunition. They expected something more with which to flog the Government but they did not get it. In the absence of any criticism of the Budget, we are treated to speeches such as that to which we have just listened and which refers to practically everything except the Budget. Most of the speakers on the other side content themselves by referring to how Fianna Fáil found themselves in office on the last occasion. Some say it was the slogan: "Wives, put your husbands to work". Others say it was a promise of 25,000 extra jobs.

Do they think they were the only people who fought that election? Do they think the rest of us were in bed all the time? I, in common with most of the Deputies now in the House, fought many an election but I never fought an election where it was so easy to get support from the public. In fact, I found myself, when speaking at public meetings, pointing out that we were not making any extravagant promises; that we were pledging ourselves to do our best in the circumstances in which we would find ourselves when we took over from the Coalition.

There was an eager desire on the part of the public to get rid of a situation of which they were tired. They were only wondering when it would end. That is a true analysis of the situation as every Deputy found it in the last election. People had three years' experience following a previous three years of Coalition Government and they had quite definitely made up their minds that a Coalition Government did not work. That was the story of the last election as I found it from practical experience.

There is no use in people trying to delude themselves by saying that extravagant promises resulted in the Coalition being put out of office. On returning Fianna Fáil to office, the public expected nothing more than that we would in our first efforts restore confidence and get back again on the road to recovery. I want to assert here and now that in the last Budget and in this Budget, all the implications are that we are definitely, though, perhaps, more slowly than we would have liked, on that road.

I listened to a speech made by Deputy O.J. Flanagan here yesterday. I would ask anybody inside or outside the House to read that speech and ask himself if it is a responsible statement. What is the use in someone getting up on the other side and saying that this is a bad Budget; this is a disgusting Budget or the Government are a rotten Government and that the Coalition were the best Government we ever had? That is what the speech consisted of. People expect a little more than that now and the indications in public life are that they will expect it more and more in the future. The people think for themselves and the last election definitely proved that. Many people refused to indicate what their political sympathies were. They went to the polls, did their duty and the result was reflected in the ballot boxes when they were opened.

I do not think anybody will be persuaded by an Opposition member or any other member who gets up and simply says that this is a bad Budget or a cowardly Budget. Somebody else described it as a "flat" Budget. It probably is flat from their point of view because there is not enough meat in it for criticism.

We are politically mature enough to know that any Budget produced in any Parliament must always be criticised by an Opposition. Perhaps, you might have an occasional exception in the British Parliament where, in time of war, there might be unanimity as regards the type of Budget produced but that is not always the case. It has yet to be recorded in any Parliament that the Opposition said: "This is a good Budget we agree." They always level criticism at the Budget but they try to criticise it in a constructive way and in a way which will be acceptable to their supporters in the country.

I do not think the approach to this Budget from the Opposition on this occasion can be regarded by any reasonably thinking persons as a constructive approach to the criticism which they would like. In other words, if they think the Budget does not indicate how we are moving on the road to recovery, then they should be told why. They should be told what the road to recovery is.

We could not too often repeat the reliefs that have been given in this Budget on the basis of demanding so little. Not one word is heard about them from the Opposition. They all talk about the shilling in respect of the old age pension and the removal of the tax on dance halls. If the very same people went out to their own constituencies and the company did not suit them, they would have something different to say about the removal of the tax on entertainments. Somebody asked whether it was thought that a shilling is enough for the old age pensioners and what would be sufficient. Surely to goodness, if it were a mere matter of bidding for popular support, anybody could get up in this House and say he would like to see the old age pensioner getting £10 per week and he could go on to justify it.

Captain Giles

The old age pensioner would drop dead, if he were offered that.

Mr. J. Brennan

He would. We ought to realise, too, that what we give in social benefits must be consistent with our ability to meet them and that good Budgets are not based merely on giving benefits to people by way of social welfare payments. The benefits flow from building and strengthening the economy of the State and directing money to the channels which will result in prosperity from which can spring better social benefits. Any Minister for Finance can, by imposing extra taxation on some luxury or semi-luxury commodity, give five shillings to the social services, whether old age pensions or other social welfare payments.

No person familiar with the rudiments of economics will stand up and say that is good budgetary policy. This Budget is designed to encourage the giving of incentives and reliefs consistent with the situation as we find it. For that reason, I do not describe it as either a cowardly Budget or a flat Budget. I describe it as an honest Budget. If there is one thing more than another that has done more damage to the economy of this country—I have said this many times on Budget debates in this House—it is the vote-catching Budget —that is where the damage is done— which disregards everything except political expediency and from which the country does not recover for at least two or three years afterwards. We are not in a position, even if we decided it was required, to bring in a vote-catching Budget.

We have a good strong majority in this House and we got that majority for the purpose of conducting the affairs of this country in a decent, honourable way. I claim that we are making a decent effort to do that. We do not need a vote-catching Budget. A Coalition Government can be made up of decent component parts—and I do not want to criticise anyone in this House because anybody who finds himself in this House has to tread a fairly thorny path to get here—but a Government consisting of various sections must necessarily find themselves in a difficult position, at any time, to introduce anything other than a vote-catching Budget. In fact, it is the inherent weakness of a Government comprised of component sections with divergent views, which are not always expressed openly. It is impossible— and there is no reflection intended when I say this—to bring in a Budget which will please the Labour political section of the country and the representatives of the land holders and agriculture, and also what is regarded as the Conservative Party of the country, with occasional sidekicks in different directions as well.

To bring in a Budget that will be in the interests of sound economy and proper planning in these circumstances is, if not impossible, certainly very difficult and it can be understood that when we took over the reins of Government on at least two occasions it took some time to remedy the position in which we found the finances of the country. That has been done and that is the first tribute one must pay to us for the road we have travelled since 1957. I do not see what sense there is in any Deputy on the opposite side saying that there is nothing in this Budget for anybody except dancehall proprietors.

I tried, at random, to take out some of the reliefs from the Budget Statement and I find that for the imposition of £1,000,000, as has already been mentioned, reliefs and incentives amounting to almost £2,000,000 have been given. That is no mean achievement. We find that provision is made for a broadcasting and television service and most Deputies, if they admitted it, expected to find some extra imposition of tax to meet that. We find subsidies on dairy produce to the extent of £250,000 and the Minister in his Budget provisions makes an allowance for an extra £550,000 to cover possible Exchequer liabilities for the export of butter.

Before we pass from that, the previous speaker said that this Budget was brought in in instalments, before the actual Budget day. To illustrate the point he was trying to make, he referred to the increase in the price of butter. Is the addition to the price of milk which goes into the dairyman's pocket really a Budget tax brought in before or after the Budget? Can it be described as anything other than a sound and necessary incentive to the people responsible for giving us our cattle population? Mark you, the dairy farmer has been agitating for this for a long time and we must all admit he has to get some incentive if he is to keep producing the cattle on which, we are told, our economy depends so much and which we know are so important to the country.

I remember the occasion of one election when Fianna Fáil had imposed these famous subsidies about which so much talking has been done in this House since their removal. When one came to Dublin, one found a Fine Gael Deputy soliciting votes on the strength of the increased price of butter. When you went to the dairy farming parts of the country, that had to be kept quiet. You dared not mention the increase in price because the man who was selling it was glad of it and you had to refer there to the increase on beer and on the packet of cigarettes. I remember, too, when these great subsidies about which so much is spoken there, were applied in the Budget and I have been looking over the relevant volume of the Official Reports and reading some of the speeches which were then made. Deputy McGilligan compared the position to the boy taking water out of a tank while another boy was pouring water in at the top. Others described it as taking money out of the right pocket and putting it into the left pocket.

The subsidies about which there has been so much lament were applied by Fianna Fáil and were used by the Opposition in four months' time to beat the Government and to bring the first Coalition Government into being. If they were wrong then, they must be wrong now and if the people are wondering where all this inconsistency is coming from, it is not surprising. Surely if those subsidies were wrong when they were applied, and if they were misleading the economy and taking money from one pocket and putting it into another, would the Opposition not say now: "They were never the right thing to do, as we told you when you introduced them."

There is £155,000 in this Budget to meet the social welfare bill and £500,000 which can be described as an incentive to agriculture, in so far as it is a relief on fuels mainly used in agricultural machinery. We never heard a word about that from a single speaker on the opposite side. At least somebody should have said it was a step in the right direction.

Mr. Blowick

What figure?

Mr. J. Brennan

£500,000 in respect of hydrocarbon heavy oil. There is £106,000 relief for the retail liquor trade and goodness knows, they wanted it, and I am glad——

Mr. O'Donnell

The reason they wanted it is that the people cannot afford to drink because you have put the prices up so high.

Mr. J. Brennan

No; they are giving such a good service at such competitive prices that they have cut their profits rather small. If the Deputy looks at the consumption and the turnover of beer and spirits, he will find that. There is £150,000 for certain pension increases, which includes a small increase in special allowances. There is £50,000 for the easement of death duties and £20,000 tax relief designed to encourage savings. There is £50,000 to encourage the marketability of securities which can be nothing other than a direct incentive to invest. I think these are marvellous things, all designed in the proper direction.

Mr. Blowick

Marvellous is rather a big word for it.

Mr. J. Brennan

The sum of £1,855,000 may be small to Deputy Blowick who would be happier if we were imposing extra taxation——

Mr. Blowick

I would not.

Mr. J. Brennan

——because he would be weeping for his constituents in Mayo.

Mr. Blowick

No, I never adopted that attitude.

Mr. J. Brennan

I listened to Deputy Lindsay speak about emigration. Mayo and Donegal are two counties which know a little about emigration, and I think Leitrim is possibly worse than either of them. Everybody deplores the effects of emigration. Deputy O'Donnell should know a little about it too, but why use it for purely political purposes and speak about it as if it started yesterday?

Mr. O'Donnell

Fianna Fáil got into office by saying that they would abolish it.

Mr. J. Brennan

Fianna Fáil has no monopoly of that statement.

Mr. O'Donnell

Well, we can produce——

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

Perhaps Deputy O'Donnell might wait until the Parliamentary Secretary has concluded.

Mr. O'Donnell

I bow to the Chair.

Mr. Palmer

Donegal is well represented anyway.

Mr. J. Brennan

One has only to glance at the census figures since census figures were first taken. Unfortunately, we find that since 1847 there has been a steady decline in population, and for a Deputy to get up here yesterday and to describe it as something that has just commenced is, I think, at least using propaganda— whoever may use it or may claim a monopoly on it—that is pretty well worn out.

I know as much about emigration as anybody, and probably more than anybody, in the House. I know that when we had real emigration from 1934 to 1940, convoys like funerals went out over the hills to the railway stations en route to America and, worse still, never returned. I heard a prominent member of the Hierarchy in an after-dinner speech one day refer to emigration and he said that it was a social and economic evil not always caused by economic circumstances. But if we could reach the stage where we could at least say: “There is a job for you if you want to stay”, that is possibly as far we could hope to get, as long as there is a better employment market on our doorstep. If a man is working in Donegal for £6 a week for the county council and knows that by coming to Dublin he can earn £9 a week he is likely to come, but if he is in Dublin getting £9 a week and knows that if he goes to England he might get £18 a week he is likely to take the mailboat from Dún Laoghaire. That is a social problem which I challenge any Government to solve unless we aspire to the standards enjoyed in Britain where there is over-full employment in a highly-industrialised economy.

Somebody writing the other day said that to a large extent, it was a question of whether we were able to distinguish between one means of living and another. You might have a small farmer content to own his own house and live on the side of a hill with a considerably lower standard of living than was possible in some industrial city in England or he might look at it in a different way and consider that he had many benefits which could not be measured in terms of money alone. However that may be, the fact remains that when we continue to apply British standards here, while we make comparisons with the British industrial cities, a boy on a small farm in Donegal, or Mayo or any other county who has not a pay packet every week from his farm will not resist the temptation to go abroad where he can get that pay packet.

I would remind those Deputies opposite who sometimes accuse Fianna Fáil of being converted to a policy—as the Leader of the Opposition said the other day—of grass, that we do not now, and never did believe that agriculture alone could provide a solution for our problem of more jobs for our people. We believe, as I have said, that we can reach the position where we can at least say to the people who are emigrating that there are jobs for them if they want to stay and it is their own business if they go. If we are to reach that stage, we shall never do it by agriculture alone. Visualise agriculture developed to the utmost, with every possible branch prospering to the very fullest, will that support an increasing population? Will the small farm support five or six members of the family who are brought up on it? One of them marries and settles down; what becomes of the others? We must develop our industrial arm in every possible type of manufacturing process that we can think of to absorb surplus labour from agriculture. It has been pointed out by many previous speakers that the tendency today is for the numbers employed in agriculture to decline just as they are declining in practically every country in the world. Only recently the figures were given for France where the problem is very acute and, in most cases, agricultural production is increasing at the same time, due, no doubt, to the mechanisation of farms. We have a problem which is a world social problem but we are not afraid to tackle it as we are tackling it and the increase in the value of agricultural exports of some £9,000,000 last year is certainly a very good indication that we are on the right road. The same applies to various other fields in which we are attempting expansion such as forestry, peat development, fisheries, power and so on. These are all important matters.

I remember some members of a Government—they are no longer members of this House—who, no longer than ten years ago, were insistent that afforestation would solve all the economic problems of the country. Now, we shall not find the panacea for our ills in any single direction, let alone in afforestation. We have now reached the stage in afforestation in which a Deputy who, in the past, was tortured with requests to dispose of land, is approached to prevent forestry expanding to the detriment of sheep grazing land. I have frequently been approached to prevent the sale of land, it being held that the land in question was essential as hill grazing for sheep. In saying that, I do not in any way want to belittle the importance of forestry. But forestry is only one direction in which we have expanded. Admittedly, we are leaving in our forests an asset to posterity worth all the effort put into it today. We have already three industries based on our young forests.

Speaking on the Budget last year, I said that nobody expects a miracle to be worked overnight by any Government. All of us, however, expect one thing; we have a right to expect it. We expect that the indicators will point in the right direction. I do not set myself up as an economist but any Deputy who has been a member of this House for a number of years must learn something, if he is serious about the important work he has to undertake, and he must at times weigh up the situation, analyse the figures available to him and make his own deductions. I am satisfied that the green light is showing in every possible field of expansion. I believe that the policy pursued is being pursued persistently, and without the Minister for Finance succumbing to the temptation to bring in a vote-catching Budget, as was done on certain occasions in the past. Since that is the approach, we are bound to find ourselves ultimately in a position in which we shall be able to give greater employment, enjoy a higher standard of living and support an increasing population. Is that not what we are all anxious to see?

This Budget shows an honest effort not to exaggerate and not to pretend that there is something in it which does not actually appear in it. To utilise all the resources available to him was obviously the desire of the Minister. It was also his desire to allocate reliefs, to give incentives in directions in which those incentives would have the effect of increasing production. It was his anxiety to impose as little burden as possible by way of extra taxation. What is wrong with that? I see nothing wrong with it. The country sees nothing wrong with it. No matter how many Deputies on the opposite benches say that it is a flat and a cruel Budget, the fact is the country has acclaimed it as a decent, honest Budget, and that acclamation has been mirrored in the Press.

Deputies on the opposite benches may prefer to ignore the proposals in the Budget and discuss instead what happened ten and twenty years ago. One can understand that. As I said earlier, one has yet to find a Parliament where Opposition members, when a Government introduces a Budget, stand up and say that the Budget is a good one, that they agree with it. They have to find something to criticise but, remember, they are judged on whether that criticism is constructive or destructive, honest or dishonest. Criticism is not accepted as criticism alone. In criticising, they must point the way to what they consider would be the better approach. When a Deputy gets up here and refers to "a paltry 1/- to the old age pensioners"——

Captain Giles

What is wrong with that?

Mr. N. Egan

It is better than taking a "bob" off anyway.

Mr. J. Brennan

——it would be easy for him to follow up his criticism by saying they should get £2 per week. But Opposition Deputies here have made no effort to show where they would get that £2 per week. Not one single speaker indicated the directions in which he would impose the necessary taxation to provide that £2 per week for the old age pensioners. No Deputy would have any difficulty, as Minister for Finance, in putting an extra 1/- on the package of 20 cigarettes in order to give an extra 10/- to the old age pensioners. That would be comparatively easy. But is that what we want? Or are we to use what we have at our disposal in the best way we think fit without imposing extra taxation?

I said at the outset that good social services are very tempting, particularly if one feels one is on the eve of a general election and one is a member of a weak Government. In those circumstances, it would be very tempting to increase social services. We believe that the only way in which social welfare benefits should be increased is by strengthening the economy of the country as a whole, thereby creating the prosperity necessary to support better social welfare benefits. That is the fundamental way to approach the matter. If we pile on the load, making it disproportionate to our ability to carry it, we shall find ourselves with a lopsided economy, an economy which would not meet with the approval of any orthodox economist. I believe this is a good Budget. It is the correct follow-up on a sound Budget last year, and it should be the forerunner of a better Budget next year.

Mr. Blowick

The Parliamentary Secretary must have his tongue in his cheek when he says this is a good Budget. It is a Budget which confers very little benefit on any section of the community. The only thing that can be said in its favour is that, as the Parliamentary Secretary has said, it does not do a great deal of harm to anybody. Because of the buoyancy in revenue last year many people, without being over-optimistic, looked forward to better things being done. In my opinion the Minister for Finance has squandered in this year's Budget certain revenue which came to his hand.

The Parliamentary Secretary says people are carping about the 1/- on the old age pension. It is not carping. It is not undue criticism. In view of the fact that the Minister had so much money to play with, he could have done better for the old age pensioners.

I come now to the worst part of this year's Budget: that the agricultural community have been completely neglected by the Minister for Finance and the Government. The Parliamentary Secretary just made use of a grand expression we all know to be basically true: that we must have a sound economy. Will the Parliamentary Secretary tell me how we can have a sound economy with the present flight from the country? He told us that three counties in particular— Donegal, Mayo and Leitrim—have emigration problems. While I have spoken on emigration on every occasion I could, I have never laid the blame for it on any Government. The roots of this problem go back further than the Famine. But every Deputy is entitled to complain about the Government's failure to take steps to remedy or check this problem.

The Parliamentary Secretary had great talk about vote catching. I could not help but remember that a very short time ago the Taoiseach made a definite promise that there would be 100,000 new jobs. That was vote catching. There is no person in this country with the resources at his disposal to create 100,000 new jobs. There was also a definite promise that the food subsidies would not be removed. We all know the Party most famous for breaking promises and for making the most scandalous vote-catching statements prior to elections.

I want the Parliamentary Secretary to cast his mind back to a statement he made that there is a relief of £500,000 in respect of fuel used on farms. There is no relief because fuel used on farms is not liable to tax, apart from the fuel used by the few remaining petrol tractors: and I do not believe there are more than five petrol tractors on the land of Ireland to-day. I was not aware there was any tax on the fuel used in tractors other than petrol tractors, and the amount of petrol used to-day is negligible.

If the country is in a healthy position to-day, it is due to the good management of the inter-Party Government, of which the Minister for Finance is now reaping the benefit. The Minister can laugh to suit himself, but he is now reaping the benefit of the unpleasant and unpalatable actions our Government had to take in order to put the country right after the mess Fianna Fáil left from 1951 to 1954. It definitely cannot be claimed that this is a good Budget, seeing that unemployment is rife all over the country and that emigration is taking such a heavy toll.

No account has been taken of a feature of Fianna Fáil policy since they came into power, that is, passing measures in this House which place a burden of payment on ratepayers all over the country and raise the rates to an alarming extent. Does the Minister for Finance realise that the position in regard to rates in practically every county of the Twenty-Six is such that there is a danger they will not be collectable next year or the year after? If he does not, he should.

While I do not want to see it happen, I hold that a very serious position has arisen in respect of rates. County councils have no authority to cut them down because of the peculiar position that county managers can pass them over the heads of county councils. The same applies to city corporations. The outcome of this Fianna Fáil policy has been that rates have increased so much that it is dangerous to have property because it is simply taxed out of existence. I want to warn the Minister that the time is fast approaching when even the smallest ratepayers will find the rates a burden they cannot possibly bear.

In view of a hint thrown out by the Minister for Local Government that the Local Authorities (Works) Act would again be operated, I was expecting the Minister for Finance——

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

That would be a matter for the Estimate rather than for the discussion on the Financial Resolution.

Mr. Blowick

I understood that the Minister for Local Government was to put the Local Authorities (Works) Act into operation again and that the Minister would have to make provision for it in the Budget. The Minister for Local Government made a statement to the effect that after the Budget the people could expect the return of the Local Authorities (Works) Act. That is the reason I thought it was in order to raise it here.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

I feel that it would be a matter for the Estimate and not for the Financial Resolution.

Mr. Blowick

The Minister for Finance has to find the money for it. He gave relief in many directions— to dance halls and cinemas—and if he intended to provide money for the Minister for Local Government to operate the Local Authorities (Works) Act he would have mentioned it in the Budget. However, Sir, if you rule that it is a matter that may not be dealt with here, I shall pass it by with only one comment. It is a pity the Minister did not make provision for it. It did a vast amount of useful work in the country and opened the way for the reclamation of land. If the Minister had any money to spend, it is a pity he did not spend it in that way.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

It is a matter for the Estimate for the Department of Local Government.

Mr. Blowick

I shall not dwell further upon it. I want to ask the Minister for Finance if the Government have any plans for increased employment in the countryside. It is in those areas where the holdings are smallest and the quality of the land not so good that we have the greatest flight from the country. Another very disturbing feature is becoming more and more noticeable every day. In the past, only sons and daughters, mostly sons, emigrated in search of employment or some use for their youth. Now we have a different situation altogether, in that we find whole families moving out. That is happening in county Mayo. I am not in a position to say whether it is happening in other counties but it is only reasonable to suppose that it is happening elsewhere. If something is not done to check that, we shall have the countryside denuded of population.

It has been said to me several times during the last 12 or 18 months that since the price of cattle, sheep and lambs has almost vanished, and since the products of the land have failed to command any worthwhile prices or sale, the country has been going back again into big ranches and the conditions that obtained in farming in the 18th century. I myself cannot see anything else happening, considering the outlook that now obtains in Government circles. Agriculture is completely forgotten and people are given no incentives whatever to stay on the land. The Government are not providing any incentives and the Minister for Finance must be fully aware of the dissatisfaction of farmers because of the disastrous 12 to 14 months through which they have just passed.

Even to-day's market report shows a further drop in cattle prices; it looks as if the cattle trade has been completely killed. Eggs have gone down in price and the egg trade itself has gone. The pig trade, which was a very useful adjunct of agriculture and formed a very useful part of the economy of small farmers, is practically gone, and the sheep trade is not at all what it used to be. If we take other aspects of farming into consideration I suppose that last year we had the finest harvest conditions known for 70 or 80 years——

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

Surely, these are matters for the Estimate for the Department of Agriculture and do not arise on the Financial Resolutions? The whole question of agriculture cannot be debated at this juncture.

Mr. Blowick

No, Sir, but I always understood that one could talk generally on any matters during the Budget debate. It is the one chance we have in this House of bringing home to the Government the importance of serious matters amounting almost to a crisis in the country.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

The position is that matters that arise relevantly on an Estimate should not be raised on the Financial Resolutions. The Deputy will get an opportunity of raising these details in another debate.

Mr. Blowick

All right, Sir. The Parliamentary Secretary referred to forestry and said that one person who was a member of this House ten years ago claimed that forestry was the panacea for all our ills. I never heard it described as such but I do know that forestry has contributed very handsomely in its own field towards providing employment, providing a great national asset for the country in stemming emigration to a certain extent. Forestry was never intended to be a panacea for all our ills but certainly it was intended to be a very useful help, and has proved to be a help, in keeping a lot of our people at home. The proof of that is that ten years ago the number employed in forestry totalled 1,100 and it rose in the period from 1948 until the present to a little over 5,000. That is not a bad contribution.

The Parliamentary Secretary also mentioned that at one time Deputies were besieged by requests to expand forestry in certain areas but now the shoe is on the other foot, and he said that forestry is encroaching on sheep farming areas. For the information of Deputies I want to say that the sale of all land to the Department in charge of forestry is voluntary and, if an owner has no wish to sell his land, the Department has no means of compelling him to sell it. The second point in that regard is that dealing with the type of land which the Department may buy. There are two very serious checks on the Minister for Lands in regard to the lands which he purchases, one by the Department of Agriculture and the other by the Minister for Finance.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

I am sorry to interrupt the Deputy again but the question of the acquisition of land for forestry does not arise on the Budget.

Mr. Blowick

I am dealing with the situation in regard to forestry.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

The Deputy is entitled to refer to forestry generally but not in the detail into which he is going.

Mr. Blowick

To come back to the plight of farmers, I want to ask the Minister for Finance do the Government think that farmers with small and medium sized farms are being sufficiently recompensed, or does he himself think that the reliefs he introduced in his Budget are sufficient to stay the flight from the land? If he does then he is a very long way out, and I want to warn the Minister that the provision of employment in the countryside is the only means of checking the flight of our youngsters. The Government have their own ways and means of determining what employment should be provided and what they can do. They have many Departments and Deputies well able to instruct them and give them sound ideas as to what lines they should follow. I have said that in this House previously but I think it will bear repetition.

Young men particularly do not emigrate simply for the love of emigration. They emigrate because they cannot find employment at home. If the Government are serious in their intentions to put an end to emigration, as the Parliamentary Secretary has told us, there is only one way to do it and that is to give employment. I agree with the Parliamentary Secretary in one respect. He said that the Government would be doing well if they could at least offer a job to a prospective emigrant and then let him please himself as to whether he took it or emigrated. I think that if nine out of ten of those who emigrate were offered a middling job at home there would be no such thing at all as emigration.

The Parliamentary Secretary also made a great boast that the Government were tackling our problems. I am weary listening to that type of talk. I have been listening to Fianna Fáil saying they are tackling the problems of the country since 1932. That is quite a while and they are still tackling them. They have had plans and plottings to do that, to help the State and help the people of the country stand on their own feet, from 1932 to 1960, with the exception of the seven glorious years the inter-Party Government were in power that did put the country on its feet. With the exception of two periods, for the best part of 20 years and more, we have been listening to Fianna Fáil telling us they have a plan to tackle our problems. We have heard their old catch cries dished out in different forms such as: "We will bring the emigrants back", "We will stop emigration completely" and lately: "We will provide 100,000 new jobs".

Two years ago at the Fianna Fáil Árd Fheis the Taoiseach, then the Tánaiste, promised to find £220,000,000 to spend on employment. What became of that? I never heard a word about it from that day to this. He spoke of either £200,000,000 or £220,000,000, but really all he was trying to do was to fool the delegates to the Árd Fheis, and I believe he was referring to the ordinary amount of money that would be provided in successive Budgets to run the country. If he has that £200,000,000, I wonder why he has not told the Minister for Finance where it is? I should like to ask the Minister for Finance what has become of the £200,000,000 which was promised two years ago at the Fianna Fáil Árd Fheis? At a time when pure mishandling drove the bulk of the people in the country into despair and the depths of gloom, the Taoiseach came out with his £220,000,000 plan to throw oil on troubled waters for the time being. If that was not vote-catching I do not know what is.

The Parliamentary Secretary deplored any vote-catching tendencies in Budgets, either in those of his own Government or of other Governments, and he thanked high Heavens that this was not a vote-catching Budget. It is not, but neither is it a Budget that is doing any good. One shilling is thrown to the old age pensioners. I think that amount is an insult to them. The policy is to take something from them first by making them pay more for food, drink, tobacco and everything else they must buy, especially the male old age pensioners, and then give this increase of one shilling to cover up the increased cost of two, three or four shillings which they must pay for these items. I think the Minister could have left dancehalls, cinemas and other things alone when making concessions and given more to the old age pensioners. I regret that he did not find ways and means to provide more employment in the country.

The Minister must be aware, as is every Deputy from rural constituencies, that there is not a tap of work in country districts, and that there has not been any for the past three years. The policy seems to be that if a young man wants to go to England, to America or Canada, he can go. The young men say to themselves: "Fianna Fáil will not give us anything. It is better to go while the going is good," and then they are gone. If the Minister attends after-Mass meetings in country districts, as I do from time to time, and stands up on a stile and looks at the people coming out of church, he will see the very old and the school children, but he will not see any middle-aged men, any men between the ages of 20 and 40 years. In any congregation of 500 or 600 people coming out from Mass in a country church, there will be only 40 or 50 able-bodied men.

That is the population that is supposed to produce more and, having produced it, having produced an abundance of the best quality food that could be had in any country in the world, it is left on their hands unsaleable. Still the Minister and the Parliamentary Secretary tell us that we have a prosperous economy and a prosperous country. We cannot have a prosperous economy if the foundation stock of the country, the peasant stock, is flying from the land. We cannot possibly have a prosperous economy while there is poverty in many homes and while the load of taxation is being increased still further. If the Minister wanted to give any real benefits of a lasting nature, the first question he should have asked himself is: "How do I spend this money to give more employment in the rural districts?"

Mr. Johnston

I think a great tribute has been paid to the Minister in the feeble attempts made by the Opposition to criticise this Budget. Over the past few days, many of them have spoken at length but were very careful to avoid the word "Budget". They were more taken up with the alleged sins of omission of the Government. The Minister appears to have taken his cue from a very prominent statesman who once said: "For the greater good of the greater number," a principle with which I heartily agree.

Certainly I have never heard less criticism of a Budget than I heard of this one, which goes to show that the people must be very satisfied with it; otherwise, they would be very vocal about it. I did hope that it would be possible to increase old age pensions, widows' and orphans' pensions and benefits to people who have to exist on social welfare payments. For my part, I certainly would be prepared to pay the extra penny on a packet of cigarettes to achieve that, but perhaps the Minister felt that the goose that lays the golden eggs might be in danger of extinction.

Amongst the reliefs afforded in the Budget, there are two of which I should like to make special mention. One is the remission of the five per cent. duty on imported newsprint. That was a tax which lay heavily on small provincial newspapers, newspapers which do a very hard job and give a very good service. Incidentally, they are of very good service to politicians and they are very grateful for that remission. The other relief is that in respect of public house licences for which the Minister has decided to lay down a standard rate of £4. It is very many years since any Government gave any relief to this harassed trade and for such relief the members of the licensed trade are duly thankful.

Deputy Lindsay bemoaned the number of people who are closing up their homes in Mayo and flying from that county, but should Deputy Lindsay come down to Meath, I and my colleagues will show him quite a number of these people prosperously housed and making a decent living.

Captain Giles

At our expense.

Mr. Johnston

The Deputy also referred to mass unemployment in rural areas, but, if he comes to my native village, I shall show him that there are 600 people gainfully employed, at good wages, within a two miles radius of it and what has been done in that area, with initiative and drive, can also be done elsewhere. If the people he refers to bemoan their fate, a great deal of it is their own fault. I agree with the Parliamentary Secretary when he says it is a good Budget. It is, and I believe it is the forerunner of an even better one.

Mr. Russell

The most significant feature of the Minister's Budget is its size. While Deputies may disagree on whether it is a good or bad Budget, I think everybody inside the Dáil and outside will agree it is a very large Budget for a very small country. Looking over the figures of current and capital expenditure, both central and local, one begins to wonder if we are getting value, particularly in terms of employment and the expansion of the economy, for the very substantial annual outlay which the country has to find every year, including the very substantial imposts which taxpayers, particularly direct taxpayers, have to meet each year.

During the past three years, which the Minister reviewed during the course of his lengthy Budget speech, he took credit—rightly so, in my opinion—for the fact that over all he did manage to present the country with a balanced Budget, taking one year with another. In fairness to the Minister's predecessor, a great deal of the credit for being able to balance his Budget must go to the painful impositions which Deputy Sweetman introduced in the form of the levies. Secondly, I am sure the Minister has not forgotten the fact that in May, 1957, when he introduced his first Budget, he made a net saving of some £6,000,000 through the abolition of the food subsidies. These two factors, more than anything else, have enabled the Minister to present what is, in effect, a reasonably happy picture to the House this year.

We have also, of course, had the benefit of favourable terms of trade over the past three years, a position which was not enjoyed in years prior to that and, in fact, is not enjoyed permanently in this country, due to various factors which probably do not come within the scope of the Budget discussion. I should like to refer to the total expenditure. As I estimate it, taking the Minister's figures, taking his Budget figure of £136.6 million, taking expenditure through the local authorities, after giving them credit for subventions from Central Funds, of approximately £30,000,000 a year, and adding on the estimated capital Budget this year of £54,000,000, our expenditure, capital and current, is running at the rate of something like £222,000,000 a year. I do not think it makes much difference if it is called above the line or below the line expenditure, whether it is called voted capital expenditure or outlay, or some other name; in the final analysis this very substantial sum of money can be found only by taxation and borrowing. That is the picture we have to face here every year.

It is an unfortunate fact that a smaller number of people are each year being asked to carry a larger burden of direct and indirect taxation, and perhaps the Minister cannot be called to account for that. In the sense that this Minister's Budget and that of every Minister for Finance is being taken each year more and more as an indication of Government policy, the Minister must accept criticism on those grounds. This criticism which Deputies offer each year to the Budget does not and may not include criticism of increases which may take place in between Budgets, increases in the cost of goods and services which are made by direct Government action and which are conveniently forgotten when the House has been presented with the Budgetary figures and the Minister's statement.

Another fact which must cause grave concern and which is not adverted to in the Minister's review is the growing, the rapidly growing, size of the national debt. The figure is now in the region of £400 million. The servicing of that debt is a completely unproductive outlay. Only a few years ago, in 1957, the service of the national debt amounted to £18 million. The Minister estimates that in the coming 12 months the service of the national debt will cost £23.3 million, an increase of almost £5 million, in the space of three years. It would be wise to take cognisance of the seriousness of that figure because it is quite certain interest rates will not come down and all indications are that they will go up. For that reason we must look with some concern at the fact that the annual charge for the service of the national debt is becoming a bigger and bigger proportion of the Minister's Budget.

Another matter to which I should like to refer is the connection—that is if there is a connection; I have never been able to find out in Dáil Questions what is the connection—between the capital expenditure programme of the Government and the number of additional persons put into employment. Since 1957-58 the capital expenditure programme has necessitated the spending of sums ranging from £41 million in 1957-58 to £44 million last year. Yet when one looks at the statistics which are supplied to each Deputy one is very much concerned to find that over the same period of years—and to be quite fair over a longer period of years—the total number of persons at work is gradually getting smaller and smaller, and the total labour force, which is the total at work and those available for work but not working, is also getting smaller. Therefore one begins to wonder if the hope held out for this large capital expenditure programme of successive Governments is giving the return anticipated. If it is not, the time is opportune—particularly in the light of the five-year plan which was submitted to us a year or so ago and which has now run its first year—to go over the different items covered by the capital programme to ensure that they are in fact giving an adequate return for the money invested.

In saying that I do appreciate the fact that a plan of public capital expenditure is not the same as a plan for expenditure by a private concern and that it is not expected to make a profit in the same sense as a private undertaking would have to do. However, every item of public capital expenditure should at least be financially self-sustaining so that the money expended will not create the illusion of prosperity for a few years while the money is available and then leave the country worse off than ever having lost some very valuable capital which our country can ill afford to lose.

It is also well to have a look at the terms of trade over the past three years. I refer again to the past three years because the Minister has taken that period in the review of his stewardship over those years. Exports in terms of value have certainly increased; so have imports. Those exports in terms of base 1953, have steadily decreased since 1957 so that when we speak of a substantial increase in our exports it is as well to take cognisance of the fact that in terms of a static year like 1953 our exports do not show the same encouraging picture.

Again I refer to the statistics made available to Deputies before this debate began. In 1957 the volume of exports on 1953 valuations, was to the value of £117 million; in 1958 it was £114 million, and in 1959 it was £109 million. Imports, on the contrary, showed an increase, again in terms of 1953 valuations, from £88 million in 1957 to £108 million in 1959. I think it safe to assume that part of the reason for the increase in imports was the increase in the amount of manufactured goods which went out of the country particularly last year.

If I might give another indication of our prosperity, or lack of it, the figures for gross national expenditure are not as encouraging as they might appear to be. In 1957 the figure was £538 million. There was a drop in 1958 to £521 million, and in 1959 the figure had recovered to £539 million, which is approximately the same as three years earlier. The Minister has pointed out, and it is an encouraging feature, that total savings on capital formation have shown a substantial increase in 1959 over 1958. However, as far as I can see, he omitted to point out in his review that the total of £63 million brings them back only to a little over what they were in 1957 at £60.5 million.

For some reason I do not understand, the total for personal, company and public authority savings has not been shown in the statistics for 1959. It was interesting, however, to refer back to personal savings in the years 1957 and 1958, which show a fall from £38.5 million in 1957 to £26 million in 1958. I would be very interested to know how the total increase in 1959 came about. Was it under all three headings or was it under personal or company savings alone? Perhaps the Minister would give those figures in his reply, or make them available.

With regard to the estimated receipts again shown in the financial tables presented to us, I notice the Minister estimates an increase from income tax of £3,000,000. That may be due to the fact that the introduction of P.A.Y.E. may make the collection of tax easier. From 165,000 to 170,000 income tax payers will be affected in the years ahead. If that is so, it adds in some way to my argument that a small number of direct income tax payers in this country are carrying an altogether disproportionate burden of the cost of running the State.

The Minister estimates that from corporation profits tax he will get rather more in this current year than last year. I wonder is he right in making that estimate? I doubt if business activities in the past 12 months have been as buoyant as the Minister would seem to infer. I shall be very surprised if the returns from corporation profits tax are, in fact, larger than they were last year.

The Minister mentioned that the main tax revenue increases for 1959-60 were from tobacco, oils, stamp duties, beer and motor cars. I suppose it is a good thing that there are increases under those headings, but I suggest that it shows a certain unhealthy tendency. I personally would like to see the Minister in the happy position of being able to report an increase in revenue from other things rather than from ones which indicate certain illusory prosperity, if I may use that term, but certainly in respect of motor cars, we have an altogether disproportionate figure in this country.

Last year, I was among those who doubted the Minister's wisdom in estimating £2.5 million for errors of estimation. I think it is only right that I should retract my views in that regard now. Certainly the Minister was right and the figure £2.5 million proved, in fact, lower than the actual figure. I do not know how long the Minister can go on happily taking this annual figure to cover errors of estimation. There must come a day of reckoning, perhaps not this year, but it will certainly come, when either the Minister or some other Minister will be caught on the wrong foot for a very substantial sum.

The Minister and other speakers from his benches, particularly the Parliamentary Secretary, referred to the necessity of increasing employment in agriculture. I cannot possibly support them in that regard. I hold the view very strongly that the—I shall not use the word "only"—main hope of securing increased employment in this country, and the quickest way certainly, is to expand employment in industry. It is quite true that all over the world there is a tendency in agriculture for the numbers employed to fall and the position is no different in our own country. However, there is this difference, that we, unfortunately, are not in a position to offer alternative employment to those leaving the land.

If they leave the land, they go to England and the reason they go to England and secure employment there is that the general status, if I may use the word, has gone up so much that the average Englishman will not do the rough types of work which the Irishman is only too glad and willing to do because the wages are good. Certainly he regards it as a better opportunity to work in England at comparatively hard work for £12 a week, than on the small farms in the west of Ireland which were mentioned here by other Deputies for very uncertain wages, and possibly only at certain times of the year. We cannot blame him for that.

Recently, the Taoiseach talking of the Anglo-Irish trade agreement, mentioned the fact that there is now a practically unlimited market in England for the products of Irish factories and industrial goods. Although I questioned his statement in certain regards, on that point there is undoubtedly a very big market there amongst the 50,000,000 people living in that quite small island, for industrial products. I suggest that the mere fact of saying there is a market there does not solve the problem. Unless we can produce the goods that England, France or America wants in sufficient quantities, of sufficient quality, and at reasonable prices, we have no hope of getting into that market.

I, for one, cannot see how a large number of small firms—many of our firms are small and some of them are small family firms—in present circumstances could hope, without some form of Government assistance, to compete in the export market. I shall go even further and say that if the protection which a big number of industries enjoy were to be taken away, a great number would go under in a very short space of time. How then are we to take advantage of this potential market in Britain? I think the Government have a very important part to play in that. I was sorry the Minister did not deal with that at greater length and give greater encouragement to our manufacturers to assist them in getting these markets.

As I see it, there is this point, too. If we are to export profitably to England, to the Continent or elsewhere, there must be an amount of rationalisation. Small industries are bound to go. Some of them will merge, but generally, by and large, it is the bigger industries which will do the export trade. If we look back over the history of this country, we find it is the very big industries whose names are known all over the world that have successfully competed with outside industrialists in the markets of the world, mainly without protection.

I should like the Minister to have given some indication that he was concerned about the very small amount of assistance which the Government have given to science and technology. One of the essential things in expanding our industry and opportunities of employment is that we should spend more on science, on technical training and technology. Unless we do that, I do not see how our people will be skilled enough or will learn the various techniques which are required nowadays for a successful export trade. I am sorry the Minister did not see his way to giving very substantial assistance to scientific and technical training in this country.

The Minister said that the Budget should be kept in balance so that resources will be husbanded for the increased capital programme of 1960. The mere conservation of our capital resources, the mere balancing of the Budget, will not affect the position as regards employment and emigration, unless the capital programme which the Minister and the Government have outlined is a genuinely productive programme. Unless some of the expenditure shows a return on the capital involved, no matter whether it is £50,000,000 or £100,000,000, the money will inevitably be wasted.

The Minister compared total taxation and expenditure of public authorities here and elsewhere. He said the percentage in this country is lower than in Britain, France, Sweden and the Netherlands and a little higher than in Belgium and Italy. I suggest, with respect to the Minister, that it is hardly fair to compare this country with those which he mentioned as all of them carry a very heavy defence programme. Most of them are engaged in very expensive developments such as nuclear energy. Their standards of social welfare are far higher than ours. I would prefer if the Minister had taken some of the less highly-developed countries and compared them with this country.

Again, for about the third time, the Minister touched on the question of Civil Service reorganisation. As one who has been somewhat of a critic in that regard—a critic only in the sense that I have taken the Minister's own words which he used in 1958 and reiterated last year and the year before —I am glad that some practical move is being made to make the Civil Service a more efficient machine. I should like to make my position clear in that regard. I do not suggest that we are not getting a fair return from our Civil Service; I think we are. However, the system seems to produce more and more public servants not necessarily for a greater amount of work. It might be better to approach it from the point of view of possibly a smaller force doing the same or even a greater amount of work because it ensures that those in the public service will be better paid for the work they are doing.

In the main, the concessions the Minister has given have been well received. I would be less than honest if I said otherwise. I have in mind in particular concessions such as the abolition of the duty on newsprint which on a number of occasions the Minister has been approached and asked to end.

As a member of a harbour authority, I welcome the decision to exempt harbour authorities from income tax. This is a very welcome concession.

Another very welcome concession is that given to manufacturers of table waters. A small number of firms throughout the country manufacture this type of product. They welcome particularly the abolition of the 1/- per gallon excise charge.

I join with other Deputies who have criticised the meagre increase the Minister has given to the social assistance group at, I appreciate, a cost of £450,000. That sum is only half the amount the Minister will raise through the extra penny on the packet of 20 cigarettes.

If the Minister could have related even the penny on the packet of 20 cigarettes to the social assistance he intended to give he would have found more support for that taxation than in fact he did. The Minister could have said to us: "I am putting a penny on the packet of 20 cigarettes. I intend to give that £1,000,000 to the various classes in receipt of social assistance." I think that that suggestion would probably receive better support. The amount the Minister has given this group is very miserable. He will appreciate how difficult it is for the under-privileged to exist on the pittances they are now receiving. Consider the position of a man, his wife and four, six or eight children who must live on 43/- a week. That is a sad reflection on our Christian ideals.

The extension of the child allowances from £100 to £120 is a welcome move in the right direction. Has the Minister ever considered giving an allowance in respect of a housekeeper or a servant? I presume there would be difficulties in introducing such an allowance but it might encourage families to have them. Young married people, in particular, might be encouraged to employ a girl of 15, 16 or 17 years of age and give her a start in life. It is not the most rewarding work but it is better to employ the girls in good homes than see them emigrate even for a larger sum of money.

The relief in respect of death duties is also a welcome innovation. I join with other Deputies in appealing to the Minister to take the courageous step of abolishing these duties altogether. His courage would be well repaid and the country in general would benefit.

I am glad the Minister has acceded to the many requests in recent years to extend to all exporters the tax relief at present allowed to manufacturers and also the extension of the tax relief period to a maximum of 15 years. The only suggestion I could make in that regard would be to extend the period further. If the Minister took the bold step of extending the 100 per cent. tax free period, say, to 20 years it would encourage a number of outsiders to set up worthwhile industries. In our circumstances we need bold thinking. The Minister would have the support of this House if he went a step further and brought the concessions generally more in line with those at Shannon Airport which are, generally, for 25 years.

I congratulate the Minister on the additional relief he is giving to mining enterprises. Might I suggest a small addition to these reliefs? He will recall that there is an allowance in respect of development work undertaken underground. It would be well worth extending that concession to open-cast mining. There has been quite a revival in mining in the past seven or eight years. Any further encouragement by way of taxation reliefs would pay handsome dividends in the years ahead.

From time to time we hear criticism of the private enterprise system. I do not know how many times I have been told here that private enterprise has failed and that the only hope of expanding employment, particularly industrial employment, is through State or semi-State enterprise. I have a very high opinion of many State enterprises —not all of them—and semi-State enterprises. I feel that the impetus we require to expand employment and production can come only from the private sector.

I should like to ask the Minister to carry out in effect the sentiments expressed in the Government's Programme for Economic Expansion where it says:

... it remains true that, in recognising and developing opportunities for profitable manufacturing activities, there is no substitute for private enterprise, and the main objective of Government policy in this field is to create the conditions in which it will be stimulated and encouraged to embark on new activities.

I suggest that the best possible encouragement to the private sector would be a substantial reduction in taxation to allow the private entrepreneur to accumulate capital from reasonable profits and to expend them on his own enterprises. I think that capital employed through private enterprise will be found to be capital better expended than capital employed through any other media. I think that if the statistics are available, they will show that the amount of money invested in private capital investment on the average to employ a man would be far less than that required to employ him through State enterprise.

I do not want to argue the merits of private and State enterprise. I think a very valuable part can be played in this economy by semi-State enterprise. I have always held the view that the main impetus to expansion in our economy must come from the private sector and that the private sector cannot expand unless the Government create a climate in which it can properly carry out its enterprises. The best way to do that, as I have said already, is a substantial reduction in taxation.

During the concluding portion of his statement, the Minister made some caustic references to persons whom he described as spreading pessimism or belittling the national advance made over the years. I am glad to concur in those sentiments completely but I should like to be equally clear about this point. It is equally false for a Government, an individual or anybody in the State to create a false sense of optimism.

The best service this or any other Government can do for the country at the present time is to justify the confidence of the country by their own policy, by making the people realise that the Government know what they are doing and that the money they are spending is being well spent. In the final analysis, if they can rely upon the support of the people, their policy will pay dividends.

There is a good deal of cynicism, whether we like it or not, still very prevalent in this country. In order to dispel that cynicism among the young people, the Government have to create the feeling that they know where they are going; that they know what they are doing; that their efforts are honest; and that they have the necessary capacity and skill to put their plans into operation. If they can do that, our people will give them their support as they have always done down through the years.

Captain Giles

There is a serious disagreement as to the financial and economic position of this country as between the different Parties. While the Budget is not a bad one, it is not a good one. It is a Lanna Machree Budget. It is easy to know why the Minister produced this Budget. There are county council elections in June. If the Minister were just and honest, he would have done something decent for the people in need, the old, the sick and the infirm. If he had money to lash around, he should have given it to them. They are in a dire plight. The nation would thank him if he did something for them. It is a gross insult to offer the old age pensioner 1/-, while at the same time relieving dance halls, cinemas and public houses of certain obligations. It would be quite right to relieve those dance halls of tax in good times, but at the present time, when we have people in need, it is to them the money should go.

I cannot understand how the Taoiseach is happy about the present situation. It is very bad and the country knows it. Nobody knows it better than the people outside, especially the people living in rural Ireland. It may be all right in big towns and cities where industries have developed in recent years but in areas where there is no industrial development, things are very bad. I can tell the Taoiseach and his Ministers that the villages and small farms in rural Ireland are in decay. It is on those that he should have spent any money he could afford, relieving the small farmers of this country. He did very little for them.

Any relief that goes to the farmer always goes to the farmer with the bigger valuations. Very little relief is given to the farmer with 5, 10 or 15 acres. He has no money to start with and the relief he gets is so small that it is no use to him. These people should be kept in rural Ireland and if that is not done, the nation is doomed. Our attention should be focussed on rural Ireland. The people in rural Ireland should be able to cling on to their holdings and rear their children, not for export but for Ireland.

The position is very alarming. We have a National Debt of over £400 million and it is mounting up. Local debts are mounting up. There are 60,000 in permanent unemployment and 40,000 are leaving the country. Is that not a sad and bitter story? Can any man deny that the position is grave and serious? We want a man with vision to give us a lead and we have not yet got that lead. There has been nothing talked about for the past four years but blueprints. The Minister for Transport and Power never opens his mouth without talking about blueprints. Let him stop talking about blueprints and give us something tangible.

Nothing is being done as far as agriculture is concerned. It is in a very bad position after two very lean years. There was the drought which has serious consequences for the farmers. At the same time, there was the drop in cattle prices. Bovine T.B. is an enormously costly matter for the farmers. The Government do not realise how costly it is for the farmers and the way it has upset their whole business. I would ask the Minister to spend millions of pounds on that scheme so that we can hold our position in the British market. If we are not able to produce the cattle and send them to Britain, we shall lose that market. The Government will have to do far more in the matter of the eradication of bovine T.B.

The farmers want this done. They have made every effort themselves to co-operate. Agriculture is topsy-turvy. We produce too much wheat one year and too much beet another year and we have a glut. We do not want gluts but we want to be able to hold the fort until the period of good prices comes again for many of our commodities.

I want to see horticulture developed in a big way and I welcomed the remarks of General Costello in that respect. I have great hopes that this new venture will develop and I see a ray of hope there that it will help the economy of our small farmers. I would ask the Government to do all they can for the small farmers in order to keep them secure on their little holdings. One thing which is certain is that one of the worst things the Fianna Fáil Government did was to do away with the Local Authorities (Works) Act. It should be revived immediately. In my area, we gave employment to some 1,500 men up to three or four years ago, but now the number has dropped to 150 and the others have nowhere to get work except in England. These people should not have to leave their homes. They should be able to get employment in their own neighbourhood.

As far as industry is concerned, we are beginning to make slow progress in entering foreign markets. There is a new phase of industrial development which was opened up during the past few years and I want to say that I am very concerned about that new phase, so far as the nation's economy is concerned. We should be careful that we do not sell this country to foreign monopolies. We are clamouring too much to get people in from outside to set up industries here. For the past 30 years, there was plenty of money here if only it had been directed into the proper channels and Irishmen could have built up industries.

Now we are giving grants, factories and free sites and begging people to come in. Why did we not do that for the Irish people? We did not do it but instead we taxed them to the hilt and bow and scrape to the foreigner. In a few years' time, the Jews and such people will have control in this country. I have no objection to decent heavy industry which we are not able to set up ourselves coming in from outside but we are stabbing native industry in the back and fawning on the outsider but there is nothing for the men who carried industry for the past 30 or 50 or even 100 years. They built up industry and were able to get into the export markets.

I have no objection to foreigners coming in, provided we know who is behind them. I should like to know who is behind them. The chain monopolies are a curse in the world to-day and they are not coming in here for the good of the country but to exploit it. If we had controlled Irish credit and capital and put it into Irish business over the past 30 years, we would have done far better for the country. We did not do that but we allowed the money to be syphoned out of the country from the banks and the insurance companies to build up industries elsewhere. What could the Irish people do but follow it? Why did we not control the flow of that money at the time and give Irish industry a chance of being revived? Now we are falling over ourselves to get the foreigner in and to shake hands with him and to entertain him to big dinners. There is plenty of money in Ireland to build up the country if a Government had the courage to control it.

I see very little hope for the country if we do not step in and take control of our money and the things which are the lifeblood of the country. Ireland is not Cork or Dublin. It is the hills and the valleys in the country where the scores of little people live, the people who are worth something. They should be kept in comfort. That is the Ireland that Pearse and the others knew, the hills and the valleys from which men came out to do, to dare and to die and for which they got very little in return.

Those are the people for whom I want to see the Government and the Minister fighting and spending money. What money did we ever spend on the small farmers? They never get anything from anybody except the boot and taxation. If they want to buy a pint of beer, they have to pay tax on it and if they want a pair of boots, they pay tax on them. The bigger farmer is not in the same position because he is in a big way and big things come his way. Nothing comes the way of the small farmer. After 40 years' of native government, it is a shame for the Fianna Fáil Government and for the whole House that they have not made an effort to hold the people in the countryside. In my own constituency, I see dozens of small farms being sold but they are never sold to a small farmer but to the man with a 300 acre farm who brings them in around his big holding. We are getting back now to the ranches.

This is the great Ireland of to-day where heroes march to Bodenstown and Arbour Hill and bow and scrape in memory of the men who died for Ireland. You are a lot if hypocrites. I never went to Bodenstown or to Arbour Hill and I never will until I see the Ireland we were asked to get by the men who died for it. We should try to realise what the people died for but we are not doing that. We are putting up memorials at every crossroad for those who died and, mark you, some of them died doubtfully. Let us unite and make an effort to honour the dead and the living, to give rural Ireland a chance, control the money of the country and the interests of the people and see that it is spent in the right manner. Do not give the Jews and others the right to come in and spend it for themselves. If they can make nothing of them, they will leave the empty shells of the factories and go away.

Why not give the Irish people, the Irish industrialists, a chance? Why did we not build factories for them a few years ago and give them free sites and millions of pounds? That is Fianna Fáil for you, bowing and scraping to the stranger. At the same time, they will say: "Oh, to hell with England and the British market" and in a few weeks' time, we see them in their frock coats giving dinners for the same people. They have this country bled white and they have a £4,000,000 debt which is hardly ever likely to be paid but they go around parading at Bodenstown and Arbour Hill.

An Ceann Comhairle

This does not seem to be very relevant to the Resolution.

Captain Giles

The people in this country who want the help are not getting it and never got it. The Deputy from my own locality spoke here to-day. He is in the happy position that he lives in the village of Slane where there is an enterprise giving good employment and which will be able to hold its own because it is able to get into outside markets. I do not like to see industries starting up in villages and drawing workers from the farms in a six to eight miles radius. We have got what I call the "Briscoe Factory"—the chewing-gum factory—which will give employment to 40 or 50 people but it is taking them off the farms. I should like to see a pool of men being set up in England or Scotland and Ireland and being sent to those factories. Then we should not have to be taking them off the farms and shoving them into the factories. For six or seven months the factory is going "great guns" with 60 or 70 people employed. Then, for three months or so it is down to 30 and for another month, perhaps, to only 20. There is no stability. We should not take people off the land. They should be kept there no matter what it costs even if it is scores of millions of pounds. It should be spent on the small farmers.

If we can make horticulture a paying proposition and get the big freezing plant working in the Carlow factory, we should go full steam ahead. If we are able to produce the goods and land them on the London market as fresh as when they come off the land I am satisfied about the future of the country. I would ask the Minister to concentrate on that because there is very little hope of the small farmer making a living in the cattle trade, rearing two or three calves and selling them as stores to the bigger fellow who gets all the profit.

This is at once a good and a bad Budget. It is a good and bad in spots. Some fair reliefs are given but some reliefs are provided that should not be given until we have relieved the old, the sick and the infirm. I know men and women who are almost hungry today and another penny or twopence on cigarettes or tobacco would have made them comfortable, but it would not have pleased the Minister to have done that. He could have done it and given them a reasonable chance to live as decent people in their old age.

Mr. W. Murphy

I understand that in this debate the speaker must first deal with the Budget and then give his own views as to the position as he sees it. My first statement will seem very strange to everybody in the House. It is that I feel that the Minister must be complimented on the way he has put his Budget statement to the House. I follow that with another statement that the other Ministers and the officials of the Government must be still further complimented for having paved the road for the Minister to put what might be called "a very nice Budget" before the House. They paved the road to what we might call this second Budget with the hard things they did by increasing prices of bread and flour and other commodities. That paved the way for the Minister to give us what undoubtedly is a really good Budget for those who have gained under it.

While saying that, I believe that the Minister is entitled to the congratulations of those to whom he gave those easements which in many cases were badly needed. At the same time, when one realises that bread and butter are the main articles of food going into every house, rich and poor, I believe that bread and butter should be the first things the Minister would consider in this Budget. In doing so, he would ease very much the burdens which increased prices have imposed, not alone on a section of the people but on all the people of the country.

I have no statistics before me, because I do not believe in them, but, thank God, I have fairly good eyesight and I have lived among the rural population of Clare. I fully realise their difficulties today and this Budget has not eased them very much. I believe more money is to be spent in the current year and that, taking all the expenditure into account, it will amount to £177 million. I am subject to correction on the figure. What I cannot understand is how it is that, as far as I can see, not one penny of that is to be spent on the unfortunate business people in rural towns and villages. I have no hesitation in making it perfectly clear that some future Government will have a much greater problem to deal with in these rural towns and villages than they have to face at present in regard to unemployment and emigration.

It is extraordinary that every Act that has emanated from this House since I came into it has, instead of relieving the burdens in those places, added more and more to them. That applies to all the Acts and even to the Health Acts. Good though they may have been, they are proving to be an added difficulty as I shall explain. Even in my own town I have seen people, such as butchers and those dealing in groceries of all kinds, who were forced by law and under threat of penalties to improve their business premises. They did so, but the extraordinary thing was that immediately afterwards they had a man down from Ely Place with a tape that had a big ring on the end of it. He needed no one to hold it for him; he measured those places, noted the improvements and increased the valuations considerably.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

Perhaps the Deputy could deal more relevantly with that on the Estimate.

Mr. W. Murphy

This is very relevant.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

It does not arise on the Financial Resolution. It would be relevant on the Estimate.

Mr. W. Murphy

However, I want to go a little bit further. I am considering only the fairness and justice of the matter. It was extraordinary that while what I have described was being done, another man could buy an old van and put anything he liked into it —paraffin oil and food of all kinds— and so long as the food was wrapped that was all right. He could travel the roads of the country with no sanitary accommodation, no hot water, not even a towel. I do not think that is right. I think, too, with respect to you, Sir, that valuations are relevant on this.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

I have tried to make it clear to the Deputy that valuations are not relevant.

Mr. W. Murphy

It has been said that the Budget is an optimistic one and that the future holds something good for us. There can be neither optimism nor progress while valuation officers can go down the country and, immediately a man adds on a little bit of a room, a bathroom, or anything else——

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

Perhaps I did not make myself clear to the Deputy. The matter of valuations is not one for discussion on the Budget debate on the General Financial Resolution and the Deputy will have to leave the matter over until the appropriate Estimate comes before the House.

General Mulcahy

On a point of order, I should like to submit that we are discussing the economic foundations upon which it is proposed to raise the structure of taxation. Deputy Murphy is not criticising details of legislation. He is not proposing changes in legislation. He is pointing out the economic conditions to which a substantal proportion of the smaller people in rural towns have been reduced and the weight of taxation they are compelled to bear. He is speaking now, I submit, of the condition in which they are in relation to the burdens placed upon them.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

Deputy Murphy is entitled to point out the plight, as he alleges, of the shopkeepers in small towns, but he is not doing that. He is discussing details of valuation which do not relevantly arise.

Mr. W. Murphy

The Chair will pardon me. I do not wish to be too persevering. It is seldom I speak here. I hold that valuation has a relationship to taxation.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

And I hold that, if the Deputy continues on that line, I shall have to ask him to resume his seat.

Mr. W. Murphy

That is that. I heard the Taoiseach speak emphatically about optimism and the great things that lie ahead. He said, and it is quite true, that prosperity will not come by pressing a button. We must work. It is all very fine to make the statement, but we must ask ourselves some questions. Where is the work? Who will provide the work? How will prosperity come if there is no work?

Much of the debate here has centred upon emigration. What would be the position of the country if we did not have emigration? We would all like to see a position here in which every child born in the State would ultimately be able to find work in his own country. Many a home would not be as happy as it is tonight, were it not for emigration. I appreciate the problems facing the Minister. I know what his problems are. I know he cannot cater fully for everybody. I know he cannot give us all the things we would like. It is indeed an achievement that he can introduce a "Penny Budget". That is what I call it. That "penny" will bring him in £1,000,000. I do not want to cavil with what he will do with that £1,000,000, but I think he could have given the old age pensioners something more than just 1/-. The Taoiseach and every member of the Government taking part in the debate have expressed optimism. They have talked about the good things that lie before us. Surely the Minister could have given the old age pensioners another 1/6d. I suppose he is the best judge. He was lucky in being able to balance his Budget this year. I hope he will get a good return for the money he proposes to spend and that this time next year, if it is his privilege to introduce another Budget, we shall be able to congratulate him on the good work he has done.

There is very little use in our going down the country preaching optimism. The people in the country see no cause for optimism. They see the stark reality. Cattle are unsaleable at the moment. The increase in the price of butter will mean less butter consumed at home, and more for the export market. We shall pay the Englishman to eat it. Our own people will have to eat margarine. Everybody has stressed the importance of the agricultural industry. The cow is the mother of that industry and anything that adversely affects the cow must inevitably react upon the whole industry. If the consumption of butter decreases, somebody will have to pay for its export. Who will pay? Surely it will not be the farmer who will have to pay?

No Minister has an easy job. I dare say that all of us here, Ministers and Deputies alike, try to do our best in the interests of the country as a whole. Remembering the money the Government will get under this Budget, I hope and trust that this time next year, if I am in the House, I shall be able to congratulate the Minister and the Government on the good work they have done for the people and for the country as a whole.

Mr. Ryan

The only big thing about this Budget is the size of the Minister's "neck". The relationship of the Minister's "neck" to what he does in the Budget is similar to the relationship that exists between Nelson Pillar and a matchbox. Deputies on the opposite side have seen fit to say there has been no criticism of the Budget. Yet we find ourselves in this third day debating it, and the attack on the Minister's hypocritical and dishonest speech shows no sign of abating. The efforts of the Government supporters to endorse the Minister's inaccurate and shabby remarks have done the country a very great disservice. In spite of the lambasting the Minister has given to those of us who seek to have the truth brought out, it is timely to draw attention to some unpleasant truths—unpleasant as far as the country in general is concerned and perhaps indigestible as far as the supporters of this rather hopeless Government are concerned.

The Minister delivered a speech of hope and confidence. He delivered a proud speech. He was proud of an economic situation not half as healthy as the situation in the last year of Deputy Costello's Government. In the present situation, we have lower industrial output, lower agricultural output, fewer people employed in agriculture and industry, but we have greater external assets earning a measly three point odd per cent. in foreign markets. Emigration, on the admission of the Minister for Finance speaking on the Vote on Account, was higher last year than in the previous year or in any of the periods of years he sought to review in the course of his Budget statement. I would feel rather smug and we of Fine Gael would have reason to be glad if we felt the Minister was happy about the economic situation because it was coming near what it was in 1956. Of course, that is not what the Minister is happy or smug about. He is happy and smug about something entirely different.

It is very necessary for our national well being that the country be told and understand that we are in a rotten economic position and that we have a Government unable, incapable and certainly unwilling to do anything about it. We have an economic fabric which is applauded by the "orthodox" economists. I use that word "orthodox" in inverted commas because by orthodoxy I would understand the philosophy of doing the right thing. However, in relation to our slow-moving and stagnating economic situation, it is not orthodoxy we want; it is fresh views and a different approach. It has been said that a different approach would mean risks. I would certainly prefer to take risks for another 10 years and run down our external assets by at least 50 per cent. rather than run what is not a risk but a danger—the annual drain of 50,000 of the best brawn and brain this country can produce.

We talk about miserable little doses of foreign investment. Has anybody tried to capitalise the value of even one Irish emigrant? Has anybody tried to put a figure on his annual labour in the factories of Birmingham, Coventry and Manchester? Has anybody tried to put a figure on his annual contribution to the wealth of America or his contribution to the prosperity of Australia and other places abroad? Think of what that might do for our economic prosperity here at home. Instead, what have we? The sorry picture of widows, fathers of families and others waiting for miserable allowances from their emigrant children abroad. If we had not remittances amounting to £1,000,000 every month, or £250,000 every week year after year, our balance of payments position would be very much worse than it is, and goodness knows, it is bad enough as it is.

Many of our difficulties arise because of the conservative and outmoded policies in finance and economics generally being applied here which are most unsuited to our needs and requirements. I must honestly confess that I personally had some hopes that there might be a change in that situation under the Taoiseach. Instead, I find that the enthusiasm and fresh approach he displayed at one time have now vanished. We now have not a statesman of vision or of courage in charge of affairs but a man steeped in despair. Never in my experience of people talking on economics—and I have had to listen to a good deal of it, both as a student and in after life—have I heard any speech so full of despair and hopelessness as the speech of the Taoiseach on the Vote on Account. Contrasting the Taoiseach's speech with the speech of the Minister for Finance, the former would seem to be a speech delivered in the middle of a black famine while the latter seemed like one delivered at a time when we had a continuing balance in our favour on international payments of about £10,000,000 per annum.

The Minister for Finance in the course of his peroration—which I respectfully suggest comes directly from his own pen, because nobody else would have the nerve to write it—recites that by the standards of four-fifths of the world population, we are very well off. Of course, when we look at the starving millions of Asia, Africa and Russia, we probably are a little better off, but that is the talk of the Tory boss who is always telling his underling and labourer that he is already paid too much, that he does not deserve what he is getting and that cheaper labour can be got elsewhere. Of course, it can. We could compete on the markets of the world if our industries and our agriculture were being run by coolies and if we were paying people the miserable pittances paid in these undeveloped areas. If that is an indication of the test the Minister is applying to our economic needs, then the sooner he quits office, the better and the sooner the people of this country are made aware of his smugness and complacency, the better.

I shall not be unfair to the Minister in any campaign outside this House in which I may see fit to engage, but I shall leave the people to judge this statement of the Minister:

By the standards of four-fifths of the world's population, we are fairly well off. The great majority of our people are reasonably well fed and well housed. The conditions of life in Ireland are good.

If conditions in Ireland are not worse than they are for those of us who are left, it is no thanks to the Fianna Fáil Government with their long period of office. Rather it is thanks to the fact that we have beside us, on both sides, a large labour market only too ready and willing to absorb the people from Ireland who have not been absorbed because of the outmoded and crazy economic politics of the Fianna Fáil Government.

The Minister may feel that our people are reasonably well housed. I certainly do not join with him or with the Government who feel that a good reason for slowing down on the housing programme is that, with the high rate of emigration, it will be solved in any event. That was the official reply from the Department of Local Government to the Cork Corporation of only about a year ago. When the Cork Corporation sought more funds to house the people in reasonably good conditions, they were refused by the Government, not because there was no need for the housing, but because, in a short period, emigration would solve everything in any event. In the long run, of course, we shall all be dead and perhaps we should not be worrying our heads at all. This type of policy, this type of approach, is to my mind something so frightening that it is very, very necessary, if we are to survive and to avoid a complete collapse, that public attention should be drawn in a very direct way to the absolute poverty of policy on the part of a Government which gave every impression, before they came into office, of getting things "cracking" but, since they have got in, have been the most stagnant Government that this country has ever had the misfortune to have.

The Minister and Deputies on the Government side of the House have given us the impression that the country is going forward by leaps and bounds. Yet, figures produced by the Central Statistics Office and furnished to all Deputies and referred to by the Minister for Finance in his Financial Statement show quite clearly that, instead of going forward by leaps and bounds, we are still dragging ourselves very slowly up slippery slopes to the situation that we were in four years ago and have not yet reached that position, despite all the ballyhoo of the last three or four years and despite the green, white and yellow papers— papers of all the colours of the rainbow—about economic policy. Why? Because the Government allowed a stagnant Department of State to issue over the name of the Secretary of that stagnant Department a statement which was to be the be-all and the end-all of our economic policy. I take the strongest exception to any Government allowing any Department to dictate policy to this House, and that is what has happened.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

The Minister is responsible for policy.

Mr. Ryan

I quite agree, Sir, but apparently there has been a shifting of responsibility because the Minister and the Government have allowed the Department to outline policy on economic and financial matters and that is a matter which needs to be denounced, I share with you the opinion as to what the Minister's responsibilities ought to be.

I am not saying for one moment that there was not a great deal of wisdom in what was said in that Report but at the time it was published—and events have since proved me to be right—I had the suspicion that that would be the limit of the Minister's endeavour, that that report would be the horizon beyond which the Government could not look. It is something like the Banking Commission Report of the '30s. Events change and change very rapidly and it is the inability of the present Government and of the Fianna Fáil Party to change with events and the fact that they are all the time about ten years behind the time that have brought the country into the mess it is in.

It took the Fianna Fáil Party about 30 years to admit that a market of 40,000,000 people on our doorstep was the greatest asset we could have. Because of their tardiness in that regard, the country has had to pay and to send, not four-legged beasts, but two-legged beings abroad every year for 30 years since they first assumed the reins of office. The sooner the Government extend their horizons and the limits which have been set by the conservatives and so-called orthodox financiers, the better for the country in general.

If the Minister would only take his courage in his hands, he would find that it would be an extremely popular thing for the Fianna Fáil Party if they did it. I certainly should be glad if the backbenchers of the Fianna Fáil Party could persuade the Minister but his whole attitude and his smug complacency indicate that he could not care less and that things, so far as he can see, are not too bad at all.

In his speech on the Vote on Account the Taoiseach gave utterance to a phrase which I think is offensive. He spoke about emigration "in so far as it is due to economic causes", suggesting by that that a large number of our emigrants went abroad seeking the bright lights of foreign cities or the excitement of travel and adventure. The Taoiseach knows well that it is economic problems which send the vast majority of our emigrants abroad and if he and the Fianna Fáil Party are not prepared to acknowledge that and to do something about it, let them clear out. It is just too unfortunate that, in the midst of all the misery and plight of these people, the innuendo is thrown out that only a small number of our emigrants go abroad because of economic causes. It is mainly economic and the fault lies with those who have the opportunity of doing something about it and have not done anything about it.

The Taoiseach said in the same speech that the rate of emigration is "an indication of the inadequacy of measures adopted." These are the words of the Taoiseach on 10th March—that the rate of emigration which, on the Minister's own admission, was higher last year than for several years, is an indication of the inadequacy of measures adopted. I had hoped then that we would see new and adequate measures being adopted to provide a remedy. What measures were adopted? A little sum in arithmetic was given weekly to the cinema owners. We had a halfpenny here and a penny there, just to distribute income already in the country, but nothing whatsoever done to improve the economic fabric of the country.

That is my condemnation of the Budget—that it makes so little change when it ought to have made very great changes. That is where the Government deserve to be condemned. In a situation calling for radical measures, in a situation calling for adequate measures—to use the Taoiseach's own words—absolutely nothing was done except to relieve the Revenue Commissioners of collecting some tobacco fines or licences and to relieve the same people of collecting the licences that are paid for by dealers in the street.

I honestly think that the degree of the Minister's cheek is something which even the Central Statistics Office could not measure. In a situation calling out for radical changes, nothing has been done. It is like a doctor or surgeon boasting when the patient is dying on the bed that the best thing to do is nothing, instead of performing a radical operation or instead of changing the course of treatment. The patient is left there to linger and to lie and ultimately to die. Because of that, we have the Fianna Fáil backbenchers cheering the Minister at the end of his hypocritical speech regarding the economic situation of the country.

I wonder would the Minister be prepared to extend the tax allowances given in relation to our exports to the parents who have invested money, labour and love in their children and who see them, when they come to their prime, going abroad? Of course he will not. It is only the older people who are being left behind.

When I spoke on the Vote on Account a month ago the answer I got from the Government benches, when I complained of these things, was that it was the same 50 years ago. It is like my generation being asked to accept that things must be the same 50 years hence. We do not find that philosophy acceptable. We of Fine Gael believe that if risks have to be taken and new policies implemented that must be done and done quickly and if the present conservative Party holding Government are unwilling to do that, the sooner they hand over the reins of office to a Government who will bring about these changes, the better for the country in general.

The Minister tried to explain that earnings last year were higher than they were, say, compared with 1953. Of course, that is not strictly true. It was an unfair comparison in the first instance and he knows that only too well. If we were to take the real value of earnings last year and compare them with the pre-1952 Budget position, we would find that, far from earnings being higher, they are much less. It is most unfortunate, in that situation, that the Government should have attacked earnings in the manner in which they have been attacked in the Minister's Budget.

May I say, Sir, that the Minister's Budget has extended since the beginning of this year? It is not something presented to us on the 27th April. It is something which has been growing up since the beginning of this year. Earnings, in particular, have been attacked in the Ministers' Budget by reason of the increased price of butter and milk, by reason of increased transport costs and they will be attacked shortly by reason of a measure under which the Government hopes to subtract another 1/9d. a week from the pay packet of the worker, believing that the worker is being paid too much, when in reality he is still getting much less than in 1952.

In relation to the balance of payments, the size of the Minister's neck was very clearly demonstrated. He chose three years to show that he balanced our exports and imports. He took as the first year the year in which our balance of payments position was £9.2 millions in our favour. I thought he might have had the magnanimity to give credit for that to his predecessor, Deputy Sweetman. It was his work, and his work alone, which, in 1957, gave this country such a large favourable balance of payments and it is since then that the Minister has been riding on the tide, the tide which turned in our favour in 1956. He is riding in on the tide of our balance of payments in 1957 because in the following year he had an unfavourable trade against him of £1 million and last year it was £8.7 millions, meaning that over a period of three years the balance of payments against us has been only £½ million, which, of course, is a negligible sum when one considers the very large increase in our external assets over the same period. For instance, the net external assets of the commercial banks increased from £85.7 million to £103.5 million in that same period.

It is desirable that the country should be warned that this Government, which has been riding on the wave of the external balance of payments situation created by the outgoing inter-Party Government, will not be able to ride on that wave in the coming year and, on that account, the Minister has no reason to be as complacent as he was in his Budget speech. He can no longer rely upon the favourable balance of £9.2 millions built up by his predecessor. That is exhausted; he knows that well and he has made no provision whatsoever for it for the coming year.

Already, our imports are on the increase. Last year our imports were higher than ever before although we had a declining population and a population earning less money. Despite that, our imports increased and the very sad aspect of them is that the larger portion of these imports were not in respect of capital goods but in relation to consumer goods. So that, we are in a most unhealthy situation at the moment and the Minister has done nothing whatsoever to cater for it.

Mention has been made by my colleague, Deputy Giles, by Deputy Russell and others, in the course of this debate, of the servicing of our national debt. It is advisable for people, when they consider our national debt and contrast it with that of other countries, to remember that our national debt is relatively large in relation to our population mainly because there are items in our national debt which in other countries would be furnished out of private investments. That is clear when one consults the list of capital investments for the coming year or for any year. Take electricity, fuel production, steel and items of that nature. In many wealthier and more developed countries these items would not be regarded as national debt items; they would be treated as private investments. So that, we have no reason, or little reason, to be so worried as many people are, as the orthodox economists are, about the size of our national debt. Relatively speaking, if one deducts the items which in other countries would be handled by the private sector, our national debt is not all that large. We should not be so worried about the size of it.

Another aspect which is not taken into account when considering the national debt is the interest earned by the State on the money which it advances, money which is collected by the State and then advanced by it. If these figures are set off against one another there is not the need for worry in relation to our national debt which is so very often exploited by the old-fashioned, laissez faire economists whose views are about 100 years out of date.

The charge has been made—I think it is made by every Government Party in every Budget debate—that the Opposition have made no helpful comments, that they have only criticised and not assisted. I should like to refer to a report, the authorship of which I have already criticised but which in some respects has many helpful hints, the Programme for Economic Expansion. In that report there was a suggestion that we should consider whether or not it was necessary to have 100 per cent. external backing for our currency. Not only have we 100 per cent. external backing for our currency but we have 110 per cent. external backing for it. Our currency is one of the most stable currencies in the world.

I have often felt it would be good for our national wellbeing if we performed the ceremonial rite of burning in College Green the Report of the Banking Commission. However, it has been put to me that it would be better to keep it, in order that we would see what we should avoid doing. I do not know why but this Government has, unfortunately, steered clear of availing of that sensible avenue for getting capital. I appreciate the view that we are paying too high a price for the capital which we so badly need but there is available to the Minister this easy access to capital without having to pay the price which he has to pay on the open market. I would urge upon him to resort to that in view of the urgent need for vast capital investment. At the present time the amount of currency in circulation is less than the amount of backing which we have available abroad so that even without crossing the line of safety there is ample room for the Minister to manoeuvre.

In relation to the same matter, discussions are taking place in some circles in regard to the alteration in the manner of paying workers and the possibility of paying workers by means of cheques instead of cash. The effect of that might be to reduce still further the amount of currency in circulation and it is to be hoped that, if that development does take place, the Central Bank will have the wisdom and the foresight to move with the times and realise that while it has its function in relation to currency it also has very necessary functions in relation to the economy which it has seriously failed to discharge throughout the years.

The fact that the Government have faced the question of the reorganisation of the Civil Service bravely is very fortunate but again great credit must go to the Minister's predecessor who is the person mainly responsible for insisting against the conservative nature of the Civil Service, that changes would have to be made. However, there is a very serious constitutional issue involved which has not been properly weighed, I believe, because if it had been I do not think the Minister could have proposed the system he has proposed. Under the scheme proposed it seems that the intake of males into the Civil Service will be restricted. It seems that there is to be a new and larger class of junior civil servants, higher than writing assistants but lower than clerical officers, and that boys will be prohibited from applying for these posts. If that be so I trust the Government will have second thoughts about it.

I am far from being a woman hater; I have no criticism whatsoever to offer of the girl who wishes to make her career in the Civil Service but the fact remains that under our Constitution we guarantee, as far as possible, that the women of the household will not have to work, on the one hand, and there is a necessary corollary to that, that we must provide the men of the country with decent opportunities of employment and reasonable wages. If we exclude boys from the lower grades of the Civil Service, they may never have the opportunity of going to higher grades.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

The details of recruitment to the Civil Service would be relevant on the Estimate. I do not see how they arise on the Budget debate.

Mr. Ryan

I appreciate that I may be drifting away from the strict financial provisions of the new organisation but the sooner the Government reflects on that aspect of the problem the better. On the financial aspect of the organisation of the Civil Service, I think some second thoughts should be given to the proposal to afford University scholarships to a limited number of entrants to the Service. The Minister did not make it clear whether it is intended to provide the happy scholarship holders, during that period of being undergraduates, with the same salaries and emoluments as they would receive if they were full time civil servants. This matter needs to be considered because if these scholarship holders are to receive full pay as civil servants, they will be the most affluent undergraduates that any University ever had.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

That seems to be a matter of detail which could be raised on the Estimate.

Mr. Ryan

I bow to the Chair's ruling. If the Minister would consider not merely the staffing of Civil Service grades but whether a more dynamic approach could be made, he would get some very useful results. One of our major national industries has a reputation for efficiency and in recent times, without any increase whatsoever in staff, it increased its business by 20 per cent. With a little dynamism in the Civil Service the Minister might attain the results he hopes to attain by these rather questionable methods which he intends to introduce. I do not mean the word "questionable" in any offensive way but I would say that the methods he proposes to introduce are open to some question.

One might wonder in regard to this Budget why the Minister had to rush to give relief to the cinema and dance hall owners and delay giving relief to people far less fortunate. Surely the Minister is not suggesting—though his action clearly indicates that this is what he believes—that the cinema and dance hall owners need more relief and need that relief more rapidly than the widows, the orphans, the aged and the blind.

This development of post-dating benefits should be checked. At the rate at which it is going the Minister will be introducing in 1961 a Budget which will not be implemented until 1962. It is open to serious criticism that we have this growing tendency to post-date benefits which arise out of the Budget, and which is obviously an effort by the Minister to get the kudos for making an improvement while in fact, delaying making the improvement. Either the shilling is vital and necessary, or it is not. If it is, it is justified by the increased costs that old age pensioners and other beneficiaries have to bear now and, on that account, it should not be delayed.

The Minister would have been far better occupied had he increased by yet another penny the price of cigarettes in order to provide the necessary relief for the less well-off members of the community. If the Minister had not the courage to do that, then he shows himself unfit for the office of Minister for Finance. This is an office which needs courage and, if the Minister has not got courage, then I would respectfully suggest that he should make way for somebody who has. The only aspect of the improvement under social benefits which deserves any degree of praise is the increase in the benefits made available to parents with large families.

Progress reported; Committee to sit again.

The Dáil adjourned at 10.30 p.m. until 10.30 a.m. on Thursday, 5th May, 1960.