I move:
That the Dáil at its rising this day do adjourn until Wednesday, 8th February, 1961.
Adjournment Debate: Government Policy.
It seems not unreasonable that on the occasion of the adjournment this House should call on the Government to render an account of their stewardship, to give their reasons for their failure to perform what they undertook to do. It is bad enough for a Government to make promises and, on foot of those promises, to secure the suffrage of the people and then to find themselves in the embarrassing circumstances that, after a lapse of nearly four years, they are obliged to confess their inability to perform what they undertook to do. It is much worse, both from the point of view of the country and the whole tone and standards of public life of the country, when the Government having made their electoral promises for the benefit of the electors, and having gained the suffrage of the people and having failed to carry out their promises come into Dáil Éireann and deny that they ever made them.
I want to put in issue again, on an occasion when the Taoiseach will have the fullest opportunity of explaining them, two very specific undertakings that he gave and on foot of which I believe he successfully deceived a large part of the electorate. I refer first to the undertaking he gave in 1955 when he was opening a campaign for the ensuing general election and as reported in his own newspaper, which I describe as the Fianna Fáil "Pravda," on October 12, 1955. He set out there what he described as the Fianna Fáil plan for full employment, and in the course of that speech he stated:
It will be noted that in the first year of the proposed programme, it is contemplated that public investment outlay will be expanded by £13 million, raising national expenditure by £20 million and creating 20,000 new jobs.
By the fifth year, on this calculation, full employment should be achieved, with the level of gross expenditure raised by £100 million, and 100,000 new jobs created.
These are the words of the present Taoiseach, as reported in his own newspaper on October 12th, 1955, and the heading inserted by his own newspaper was: "100,000 New Jobs After Five Years." I would direct his attention to the fact that the figures furnished in the trends for employment and unemployment, issued by the Central Statistics Office in 1959, show that since that speech was made the total number of people employed has declined by 51,000.
In Volume 183 of the Official Reports of Dáil Éireann at column 1940, on the 20th July, 1960, I referred to this matter and the Taoiseach challenged me to quote him. This is the relevant passage:
The Taoiseach: Go ahead and quote me.
Mr. Dillon: 100,000 new jobs after five years.
The Taoiseach: Quote me.
Mr. Dillon: Oh, no. That is a very astute procedure. I am looking at what the people read— 100,000 new jobs after five years.
The Taoiseach: That is a headline put in by a skilled editor.
Mr. Dillon: The last reference I had to that was from the Minister for Transport and Power who told me when I said that this was the Fianna Fáil plan that it was not a plan but a blueprint.
The Taoiseach: Read it.
Mr. Dillon: 100,000 new jobs after five years.
The Taoiseach: I asked you to quote me. Read what I said.
Mr. Dillon: 100,000 new jobs——
The Taoiseach: The Deputy is only a phoney. Forget it.
Mr. Dillon: I shall not forget it.
The Taoiseach: The Deputy will not quote what I said.
Mr. Dillon: I shall quote what you published. I shall quote what the people read.
The Taoiseach: Forget it.
Mr. Dillon: I shall not forget it— 100,000 new jobs after five years— that is what the people read.
The Taoiseach: Quote what I said.
Mr. Dillon: The Minister for Transport and Power says that it is a blueprint, not a promise.
Mr. Childers: The Deputy is grossly insulting the electors. He imagines that no one in this country reads anything but headlines. Quote what he said.
When they speak contemptuously about the headlines inserted by a skilled editor, they speak about the headlines inserted by the editor of their own Pravda. The headlines was justified by the context because, as I have read out today, the Taoiseach said: “By the fifth year of this plan full employment should be achieved on a level of public expenditure raised by £100 million and 100,000 new jobs created.” I want to say quite deliberately that I think it is deplorable that a responsible public man in this country should get up, at a time of some difficulty, and give an undertaking of that kind when he had taken not a single precaution to make up his mind whether it was possible to deliver the goods.
It makes it infinitely worse when he has the brazen-faced audacity to come before the House and seek to deny that he said it and then, when it was proved that he did say it, and that it had been published in his own paper, the Irish Press, to say that it was only an attractive headline put up by a skilled editor. Again I read the context and when I did that a heavy silence fell. That he failed to perform what he undertook to do is regrettable but that he had the audacity to deny that he made the promise is conduct well calculated to undermine confidence in the public mind of the country.
We have all been aware of a deplorable and regrettable tendency on the part of many young people to shrug their shoulders and speak of politics as an ignoble calling. I think that such sentiments are encouraged in the young by the evidence of responsible public men misleading the public and then, even now, when that is referred to, having the audacity of attempting to deny that they ever used the words when the written records show that they were used for the regrettable purpose of seeking the suffrage of the people by fraud.
That is not all. I want to recall, and I have the right to recall to the present Taoiseach, another undertaking which, in my submission, he clearly gave to the people in the course of the election when he was actually out looking for votes. I want to draw the attention of the House most particularly to the fact that this announcement was made in circumstances obviously calculated to create in the minds of the people the belief that a considered decision had then been taken by the then leader of The party, the present President of the Republic and shared by the deputy leader, the present Taoiseach and by other members of the Government, because, on the 28th February, in the middle of the election campaign of 1957, the present Taoiseach, Deputy Lemass, betook himself to Waterford.
Addressing a public meeting on that occasion he said: "Some coalition leaders are telling the country of terrible things that will happen if Fianna Fáil become the Government. They are threatening the country with compulsory tillage, wage controls, higher food prices and a lot of other things. A Fianna Fáil Government does not intend to do any of these things because we do not believe in them. How definite can we make our denial of these stupid allegations; they are all falsehoods."
There is a definite assurance in that statement and here is what causes young people to shrug their shoulders and say that politicians are all frauds. On the very same night, in Belmullet, the leader of the Fianna Fáil Party, now President de Valera, told the people listening to him: "The coalitions Parties are asking the people not to vote for Fianna Fáil because of what would happen. You know that we have never done the things they say we would do. They told you that you would be paying more for your bread but they do not say that it would result from a trade deficit of £62 million and a budget deficit of £15 million."
That is an awkward passage.
It is a deliberate falsehood. I want to pass over these statements as charitably as I may because the man who made them is now President of the Republic, but if I am forced by members of the Fianna Fáil Party I shall deal with every single one of them and they will not like it over there. That statement was a shameless falsehood. He went on to say that if they cut out the food subsidies they would cover the deficit of £15 million, but that they did not cut them out because they did not want the price of bread, so important in the diet of the poor people, to be increased. He said: "We left several million pounds for the subsidy on bread." Those statements were made by the leader and deputy leader of the Fianna Fáil Party on the same night.
If there could be a more emphatic commitment to maintain the subsidy on bread, it would be hard to conceive what more definite terms could be employed but, within six months of those undertakings being given, the price of bread increased and the price of the 2 lb. loaf today is 6½d. Higher than on the day on which those undertakings were given. "How definite can we make our denials of these stupid allegations? They are all falsehoods.""We did not cut them out because we did not want the price of bread, so important an article of diet for the poor people, to be increased." Less than four years after those undertakeings were given from a public platform, the price of bread has gone up by 6½d. on the 2 lb. loaf and the price of flour by 40/- on the ten stone bag. The price of the butter that the people put on their bread has gone up by 10d. per lb.
Deputy Booth yawns with boredom at this reference to the diet of the poor. I can imagine the crocodile tears he shed in the shadow of his leader four years ago when these charitable sentiments were enunciated from a public platform in Belmullet but today he yawns in boredom: "What is 6½d. on the 2 lb. loaf, 10d. on the pound of butter and 40/- on the ten stone of flour? Let them pay it and be grateful." But, quite apart from the actual hardship involved for a great number of our people, Deputy Booth would be well advised not to yawn because it is that kind of betrayal of the people that causes the upcoming generations—who must take their place some day in this Parliament if this Parliament is to survive— to claim, as Deputy Booth knows many of them do claim, that politics founded on fraud such as I have described in Belmullet and Waterford is an ignoble occupation for an honourable man.
None has been more ardently concerned than I to rebut that proposition. None has been more ardently concerned than I to exhort the rising generation in all sections of the community to play their proper part in the public life of this country but, faced with that kind of fraud, it is difficult to explain to them that there are elements in the public life of this country who have never sought to achieve political victory by methods of that kind. But, there are the Leader and the Deputy Leader of one of the principal political Parties to my mind betraying the fundamental trust of our people. It behoves the Leader of the present Government to render an account of how and why those undertakings were given, how and why they were so shamelessly betrayed, how and why he has had the effrontery, and his colleagues have had it, to deny that such promises were ever made or such promises were ever broken.
I have watched the campaign conducted over the last few months by a number of members of the Government to create a kind of euphoria in the public mind that everything in the garden was lovely, that culminated recently in the Tánaiste, Deputy MacEntee, being challenged in this House with the fact that the cost of living and steeply increased by reference to the price of bread, flour and butter and his declaring from the Front Bench that the statistics issued by the Central Statistics Office clearly demonstrated that there was no increase in the cost of living.
Fortunately, Dublin Opinion has published an appropriate cartoon in its Christmas number of Deputy MacEntee sitting on a fairy hill surrounded by fairies represented by statistics living in a statistical fairyland and there was published by the Central Statistics Office three days later the current cost of living figure of which, like Deputy Booths, Deputy MacEntee had no apprehension or understanding. The cost of living in the last 12 months has gone up by four points, from 144 to 148.
What do you imagine the people of this country think of a Minister who occupies the portfolios of Health and Social Services and is himself the Tánaiste in the Government who can say from the Front Bench of the Government that there has been no increase in the cost of living that he is aware of one week before the Central Statistics Office produces an official declaration that in the last 12 months the cost of living has gone up by four points? Is it any wonder that many people are reaching the conclusion that this Government has lost all contact with the realities of the situation in this country?
I rejoice with everybody else in the increase in the industrial exports from this country but there is no use in rejoicing in an economic development in this country if we do not have some regard to the methods by which it was brought about. Nothing can be more disastrous than to attribute results to the wrong causes and then frantically to pursue policies which in fact have had no advantageous results, in the belief that their expansion and development will increase the desirable events which are in the process of transpiring.
There has been a remarkable expansion in industrial exports in the last few years. I ask Deputies to examine the trade returns and to enquire into the source of these increased industrial exports and I invite Deputies in the course of this debate to challenge this statement: The increased industrial exports of the current year are mainly derived from three sources. One is the Oil Refinery at Whitegate, which is contributing up to £3,000,000 of it. Now, the Oil Refinery at Whitegate is a project the plans for which were finalised in 1955. The second source is the export of copper ore from Avoca, a mine which was opened in 1955 or 1956. The third source is the increased outputs of the established industries of this country which were induced to undertake them as a result of the financial inducements offered to them by the 1956 Finance Act, which has been adopted by the present Government, releasing the profits on increased exports from the impact of income tax and corporation profits tax. So, we see boot factories that were in fact, operating one shift a year or 18 months ago now operating two and three shifts because they have discovered that the export of their surplus production, relieved of income tax and corporation profits tax, has made that operation profitable and desirable.
All of us should rejoice that these things have come to pass. Unless they had come to pass this country would be in a very much more awkward situation than it is, but it is important to understand the causes for these developments, and it is important to realise that it is an act of folly to suggest that this desirable development, the expansion of industrial exports, is due to the ballyhoo or the bruhaha that Fianna Fáil are carrying on at the present time about many projects, the advantages or disadvantages of which we have yet to learn by experience of their operation.
I want to turn from that to a situation which I think should cause the Government the gravest possible concern. I see the Minister for Transport and Power speaking in New York has little to say by way of praise for the agricultural community in this country. I would suggest to him that whatever his views about the agricultural community of this country are, if he wishes to criticise them adverserly he should reserve that for the home territory. It is not becoming, in my respectful submission for a Minister of this State to avail of a public platform in New York to tell the people of the United States of America that our agriculture is backward and the people who are engaged in it incompetent.
Laggard.
"Laggard" was the word he elected to use. These people whom he so eloquently described in New York as laggards have, at the instance of their Government, increased. their indebteness to the banks for the purpose of expanding production by £16,000,000 in the past five years. Farmers who borrow on that scale, with the background of our farmers, show no evidence of laggard enterprise in their efforts to meet the national need of expanding production.
When we turn to the figures of national income and expenditure for 1959 published by the Central Statistice Office we find there one of the most alarming and depressing facts that any Government could have drawn to its attention. The income of our farmers has declined between 1957 and 1959 by £19,000,000 per annum. The farmers, large and small, have received for their labour in the past 12 months £19,000,000 less than they received in 1957. Is there any other section of the community of whom that can be said?
There are 350,000 families—not individuals but families—involved in that decline of income. All these families have been called upon to pay the same 6½d. extra on their 2 lb. loaf of bread; all of them have been called upon to pay the same 40/- extra on their bag of flour; all of them have been called upon to pay the extra 10d. a lb on their butter. But they alone in this community have been asked to undertake that increased burden of the cost of living from an income reduced in the past two years by £19,000,000 per annum. The result of it is that the whole social structure which was painfully built up in this country during the past 75 years is being undermined and destroyed under out very eyes. I challenge the Fianna Fáil Party now with being secretly in sympathy with the Minister for Transport and Power when he says that the agricultural industry is a laggard industry.
I did not say that.
I am glad to hear it repudiated.
It was wrongly reported.
It has not been denied up to now.
In the New York Times?
I said it was wrongly reported.
It is very gratifying to learn that it was wrongly reported but the Minister for Transport and Power must forgive me if I recall that when I quoted certain previous statements to him he said they were wrongly reported and it was only when I read out the printed word in his own newspaper that he was reduced to silence. None of us would wish to reject Deputy Childers' assertion that he was wrongly reported but it was very unfortunate that he should have used words that could be so wrongly reported. It is some consolation to know he did not use the words reported.
If the Minister did not say so publicly, I charge him and the Government with believing in their hearts that the small farmers ought to be wiped out. I charge them with believing that it is a good thing to see small farmers leaving the land and abandoning the attempt to maintain families upon it. I want to warn them that facile thinking of that kind may destroy the whole social structure of this country.
I would direct the attention of Deputies to the fact that I saw in my own constituency and in the area where I live, Mayo-Roscommon, for the first time in my experience whole families emigrating because they could no longer earn a living on the land. There is a different type of emigration now from that with which we have all been familiar for years past—that is that where there were five or six children at home one, two or three of them went abroad to America or Great Britain because they wanted to go. Either they migrated to the neighbouring city, Dublin, or went to Birmingham, London or New York. However, an entirely new pattern of migration is now showing itself throughout the West, North West and South West of this country, that is, the abandonment of holdings by the family and the emigration of father, mother and young children to Great Britain in search of industrial employment because the father can no longer make ends meet.
When I first reported that development in this House a few years ago it was angrily denied by members of the Fianna Fáil Party. They cannot deny it now but what is tragic is that they continued to deny it long after it was an established fact and, denying it, they refused to face the cause of it and the cause of it was that while they forced up the cost of living of these people their income was steadily going down.
It is sometimes held against me personally that my only concern is for the farmers. That allegation often is so framed as to suggest that I have no interest in trade or industry which is an essential part of the economic fabric. To hear that allegation made against me by members of the present Fianna Fáil Front Bench often amuses me. I have personally employed more men and women than the whole Fianna Fáil Front Bench ever has and I have employed them in industry and distribution in a country town.
Talk a bit of sense.
Whom did the Deputy ever employ?
Ask yourself the question.
I have learned through all the industrial operations with which I have been connected directly or indirectly—and I speak of myself as being connected with them indirectly if I am no more than a member of a board administering the affairs of an industry—that every industry in the country and every distributive activity, whether it be transport work, retail shops or wholesale distribution or manufacture is vitally affected ultimately by the condition of the agricultural industry as a whole. Bear in mind that more than half the entire population depend for their living and standard of living on the income derived from the land. The more experience I have had of industry and business the more certain I am that, if this country is to be maintained as a viable economic unit, the first essential is to ensure that the principal national wealth we have, the 12,000,000 acres of arable land, the buildings and stock upon it and the families who work it must be made to prosper or this country cannot survive as an economic unit.
There is £1,000 million sterling of our national wealth invested in the land, the buildings and the stock upon it and we have 350,000 families depending for their livelihood on the success of that land to make a profit. It is an illusion to imagine that you can allow the whole structure of the cost of living to rise against that sector of the community and at the same time see its income reduced by £19 million a year without precipitating a catastrophe which, if allowed to continue, no successor of the present Government will be able to correct. If the people go, the land they leave will go largely out of production and one of the urgent and critical decisions that have to be made at this time is whether the Government can take effective measures to restore the profitability of that land to the people who live upon it or whether they are going to be allowed go down the drain.
I warn the House that it if the present trend is suffered to continue, the economic fabric of this State will collapse. I see—and it irritates me to read in the papers—the obscurantist and foolish statistical misinterpretation that habitually goes on. It is certainly true that at a certain point people who have cattle must sell them for whatever they fetch and it is certainly true that the cheaper those cattle are brought by dealing men and factories for processing the more likely their product is to be exported in the long run, but to depend on statistics exclusively of export volume to determine the condition of the people who produce the goods is to deal in illusions. There is no greater tragedy for a man than when he has to sell three, six or 12 cattle for less than he paid for them. But the fact that he has to sell them because he cannot afford to keep them any longer may substantially contribute to an apparent expansion in agricultural exports.
In the last 18 months—it is right that this House should advert to the fact—so far as the dairy farmer is concerned, the price of his calf has dropped by 50 per cent. from £20 or more down to £10 or less. So far as the yearling is concerned—on which a great many of the farmers in the West of Ireland depend—its price has fallen from £20-£22 in the last 18 months. So far as pigs are concerned, and despite the guarantee which we provided for Grade A pigs, the tendency has been for a lower average return on pigs for the past 18 months. I want to warn the House that the condition of the small farmers in Monaghan, Cavan and Donegal, all down through the province of Connacht and in West Cork is becomeing more acute. Unless we can devise some means—and I believe we could —to help them out of the slough of despond into which they are at present sinking we shall be faced with a virtual exodus from this part of the country for no other reason that that the people can no longer live there.
We have never seen that in our lifetime before. The last time it happened was about 1879 and prior to that in the years before 1848 and on both occasions that development precipitated something approximating to revolutions in this country. On both occasions the revolution was directed against a foreign Government. One ended in 1848 in catastrophic failure; that which was initiated in 1879, to meet the kind of situation with which we are confronted in the West of Ireland at the present time, resulted in a very large measure of success but the fruits of that success in the settling of our people on their own lands as their own master are being frittered away at present.
I have the uneasy feeling that at the back of the minds of a number of leaders of the Fianna Fáil Party, they think that is a good thing. They believe that it would be better to amalgamate the small farms in the West of Ireland and to put them under competent farm managers and let those who are now their own masters in their own homes go in as hired workers. I believe that is present in the minds of many of the Fianna Fáil leading figures. I should like to remind them that experiment was tried before. Lord Lucan, who was not unknown to the relatives of some members of the Fianna Fáil Party, was locally known as "the Great Exterminator." His idea was to wipe out all the small holdings in the West of Ireland and to bring in Scotch managers and to let his tenants go in as hired labour so that he might ensure them what was then a relatively liberal agricultural wage.
Those families fought Lord Lucan at great cost, drove him out of the country and established themselves as owners and masters of their own land. I believe they were right then; I believe they are right now. I believe it is wrong to aim at a system designed to eliminate ownership of the land of Ireland in the people to work it. I believe that the present policy of Fianna Fáil, which is operating to squeeze these people between the upper and the nether millstone of a rising cost of living and a declining income, is operating to drive them off the land and to drive them either into industrial employment or into becoming the servants of a new race of landlords, whatever form that race may take. I believe that policy is fundamentally wrong. I believe it will result in a great disaster for this country and I am convinced that it is the duty of anybody who really values the future of Ireland to ensure such a development will never be suffered to take place in this country.
I often wonder if people realise that in the last four years, since 1956-57, the expenditure of this Government has increased by something over £25,000,000. Now I want to make that clear and, in order to do so, I sought to get the figures as accurately as I could. The expenditure in 1956-57 was approximately £114.6 millions. lions; the estimated expenditure for 1960/61 is £130 millions. That represents an increase of £16.6 millions. But, during that period, the Government divested itself of responsibility for £9,000,000 of food subsidies which they transferred from the Exchequer on to the actual cost of bread, flour and butter. Although they drew into the Exchequer that extra £9,000,000, continued to draw it in and ceased to pay it out in relief on the cost of food, they added £16.6 millions with the result that today they are spending £25.6 millions more than the Government spent in the financial year ending 31st March, 1957. Whether that scale of expenditure can be indefinitely maintained without crippling the whole economy of the country is something to which, I think, very careful consideration should be given.
We should not hesitate to spend on capital account where that will produce corresponding results in the years thereafter, but the expenditure to which I am referring has nothing to do with expenditure on capital account. It represents the actual outlay of the Treasury, the bulk of which represents the everyday inescapable expenditure of the administration of the State.
I have referred to the record of the Government in connection with the creation of jobs in this country. Far from adding 100,000 jobs to those available four years ago there are, in fact, more than 50,000 fewer people working here today than there were then. Some people, quite understandably, will say: "But look at the unemployment return. There are far fewer registered unemployed than there were four years ago." We ought to bear in mind, of course, when we look at the registered unemployed that that figure must be read in the light of the figures for emigration. There are two different ways of reducing the register of unemployed. One is to provide employment for them and the other is to ship them out of the country. Will anyone deny that in the last four years over 100,000 young men and women have left this country as emigrants?
What about the previous four years?
I am referring to the claims of Fianna Fáil—(1) to provide 100,000 jobs; (2) to reduce the cost of living: (3) to eliminate emigration. They have sought to establish that they have performed that undertaking by forgetting the number of people in employment and by dwelling on the unemployment figures.
I want to recall to the House the fact that there are two ways of reducing the register of unemployed. One is to provide them with work. The other is to export them out of the country. The register of unemployed shows a decline of about 20,000 or 30,000 over a period in which we have exported over 100,000 employable persons out of this country; and, when we see 100,000 go, the statistic that it would be most profitable for us to study closely is: "Who is going?" You discover the alarming fact, as a result of your study, that the great bulk are boys and girls between the ages of 18 and 25. But there is now being induced into that flood a new element—the fathers of families, their wives and children from the agricultural holdings of the West, from Cavan, and from Monaghan.
These are the principal points to which I want to direct the attention of the Government this morning and to call them to render an account of their stewardship. I am quite convinced that, given the proper measures, we could restore the profitability of the agricultural industry. I am quite satisfied that certain of the measures that we took in the industrial sphere for the promotion of industrial exports and for the expansion of industrial activity are paying handsome dividends now.
I hope, I sincerely hope, that the Government's activities in the dockyard in Cork and on the transatlantic air routes will, in their time, yield corresponding results. But I am bound in honesty to say, and it is right that I should go on record as saying, that I have had no evidence to date that the opening of a dockyard in Cork, at a time when the dockyard in Belfast is closing down and every dockyard on the east cost of Scotland is threatened with being closed down in the first six months of next year for want of orders, is calculated to yield a handsome dividend on any Irish capital invested in it. I have been unable to find out how much foreign capital has been invested in it, but I believe we are committed to an investment of £4,000,000 or £5,000,000.
There are other matters to which I think the attention of the Government should be directed, and still others which, I imagine, will be still with by other speakers in greater detail in the course of this debate, but I do want to say that it is certainly a horror to me, and I believe it is to most other Deputies who know the west of Ireland and Cavan and Monaghan, to watch the extent to which our people are being swept out of their homes. I urge on the Government that any opportunity to provide supplementary employment to tide those people over the extraordinarily difficult times through which they are passing should not be overlooked. The Government have, for reasons best known to themselves, but I believe actuated by a stupid jealousy, wound up the Local Authorities (Works) Act and part of the Land Project. Both of these enterprises provided useful and productive employment for small farmers in these areas during a period of the year when the additional income made all the difference between failure and success in their operations. I would urgently exhort the Government to reconsider their decision in that respect and reopen the Local Authorities (Works) Act and to restore Part B of the Land Project.
During the last year the Government passed a Licensing Act. I am assured by reasonable and responsible persons, who are concerned for the promotion of the tourist industry in many of our seaside resorts and places of that character, that parts of that legislation are reacting disastrously on our tourist business. I urge most strenuously on the Government that reasonable representations of that kind should be attended to before the next tourist season begins and that something be provided by way of amendment of that Act.
I am not going deeply into the question of the transport policy because I imagine others may have more to say upon it but I cannot refrain from commenting on the fact that one of the new Ministers who have been initiated since the Fianna Fáil Government came back into office was the Minister for Transport. As far as I am concerned the only benefactions the Minister for Transport has conferred upon me, as a representative for County Monaghan, is that every mile of railway line in the whole of Monaghan has disappeared since he took office. I think it is the only county in Ireland of which that could be said. Since Deputy Childers' advent as Minister every inch of railway line in the county has disappeared.
The Deputy understands that he cannot develop that argument.
I do not think it requires it.
The Government are directly responsible only for Government policy.
They may not be responsible for removing all the lines in County Monaghan——
There is the question of mandatory control which was handed over to C.I.E. by an Act of the Oireachtas.
All I have to say is that any Government which conceives itself to be a disinterested observer of the lifting of every inch of the line in County Monhaghan ought to have their heads examined.
I cannot allow discussion of that kind. The Government is not directly responsible.
Does that mean that I shall not get in a say about the old West Clare Railway?
I assume the Government has a transport policy. Did they not put a Minister for Transport and Power in the House? Has he any function at all.
Has the Deputy any transport policy?
I have—to provide the people with the facilities they require.
A vague generality.
My policy such as it may be, vague, general or specific, will not be repudiated by me three years hence after the people have voted.
Would the Deputy put back the lines in Monaghan?
The Chair cannot allow any discussion on any——
Transport.
I can allow discussion only on major Government policy. An Act of Parliament has been passed by Oireachtas Éireann handing over control of the railways of this State to Córas Iompair Éireann and discussion on the activities of Córas Iompair Éireann would be discussing the legislation of this House which I cannot allow.
May I discuss the Minister for Transport?
Will I get an opportunity of saying anything on the West Clare Railway because, if I do not, I do not want to remain sitting here?
I have pointed out that Oireachtas Éireann passed legislation handing over the control of the railway system of this country to Córas Iompair Éireann. Discussing what they are doing in respect of the railway system of this country is tantamount to discussing legislation passed by the Oireachtas and I cannot allow that.
I respectfully submit that as that legislation was secured by a guarantee by the Taoiseach, when Minister for Industry and Commerce, that he would not close down any line without prior consultation——
There is no such thing in the Act. Oireachtas Éireann has passed over the control.
Can we get any guarantee that this House will meet again before these lines are ripped up?
That is not a point of order. The motion is that the House adjourn until the 8th February, 1961.
Yes, and we have before us a Minister for Transport and Power. May we inquire what he is paid to do? He certainly is not paid to run the E.S.B. or the Gas Company and, if you ask him questions about either, he is far too chary to answer. Surely he must have some function as Minister for Transport. Presumably the Government have some transport policy or they would not have appointed a man responsible for it is to this House. It seems to me an astonishing proposition that if in future the transport company proceeded to tear up all the lines throughout the country, the Minister for Transport and Power would be forbidden from discussing that development with the House. Perhaps it would be relevant to ask the Minister for Transport and Power at what stage would be consider himself obliged to take an interest if the Board of the national transport company said they would tear up all the lines in Ireland?
Might I suggest that one way of making the transport system pay would be to dismiss all the personnel, to tear up all the railways and live out of the income of the investment? One way of developing the transport policy which would pay would be to reduce all the lines and all the trains to scrap, to sell the scrap and to invest the money in securities. The resultant dividend would provide a profit for the transport undertaking which would ultimately be available to the Exchequer, but I cannot think that that corresponds with the transport policy of this or any other Irish Government. I assume at some stage we shall be entitled to discuss with the Minister for Transport and Power at what point we reach the stage when the activities of the national transport undertaking approximate to a complete abolition of the railway system of this country.
The Deputy evidently has not read the statement of the chairman of C.I.E.
I am very reading statements. The fundamental difference between this Party and the Fianna Fáil Party is that we are more concerned with performance and less concerned with talk. The Fianna Fáil Party is predominantly concerned with declarement, but in fact the raise have gone out of Monaghan, gone out of West Cork and gone out of Tramore. That is a very much more eloquent statement than anything the chairman of C.I.E. or the Minister for Transport and Power can say.
The Deputy still has not read what the Chairman of C.I.E. has said.
I have read volumes.
He has made a very definite declaration that, from 1st April, the railway system, as it then will be, will remain until the declarations of the 1958 Act terminate and have to be renewed by the Oireachtas. Therefore, this absurd suggestion of tearing up all the rails of the country is ridiculous.
Wait a moment. The Minister will please show sympathy for me when I recall to him that not only the chairman of C.I.E. makes affirmations. The Taoiseach, Deputy Seán Lemass, in Waterford on the 28th February said:
How great can we make our denial of these stupid allegations? They are all falsehoods.
Yet, within six months, he swallowed his words and did the very thing he had pledged himself on the 28th February he would not consider doing.
We get tired of listening to these passionate affirmations that certain things will never be done when we discover a few months later they are done. It is because we tire of that procedure that we avail of this occasion to remind the Government of the promises they have not kept. I want to draw the attention of the Government to the strange absence of benefits accruing to our people from anything they alleged they have done during the last three years. I want to direct the attention of the Taoiseach to the fact that he has not, apparently, been kept informed of the condition of the rural community of this country. I want to warn him that their condition is steadily deteriorating and to remind him that we are still waiting for the 100,000 new jobs he promised and has not yet produced.
I want to urge on him that it is a bad thing to discredit the whole coinage of public life by repudiating his own undertakings. I want to urge on him at the earliest possible moment to recognise the urgency of the problems at present confronting a great part of our people and to do something—to stop talking about what they are going to do, to stop dwelling in the fairyland of statistics, to come down to earth and realise there are a great many people in this country hungry and poor for the first time in 15 years and that it is urgently necessary to do something about it.
I want to end on this note. I have not seen for 15 years in this country the evidence of hunger and poverty that I have seen in rural Ireland in recent times among smallholders who used to be independent, self-sufficient and courageous family men. If that is allowed to go on, it will have its repercussions in every village, in every small town and, ultimately, in every city in Ireland. Let no one persuade themselves it will not. When it does, it may be too late to do anything about it. I urge this Government to face that problem now, or better, to get out and make way for others who are prepared to face it and who have demonstrated on previous occasions that, confronted with equally catastrophic consequences of Fianna Fáil rule, they were able to reverse what Fianna Fáil were doing and put this country back on the firm road of progress.
The Dáil is going into recess in what, I think we all agree, is the most critical part of the year so far as employment is concerned. I want to deal mainly with the question of unemployment. The recent figures issued by the Taoiseach's office indicate there are now about 51,000 people unemployed. The corresponding figure for this time last year was 62,000, and for the year before that, 65,000. I am afraid that the Government, looking at these figures, are inclined to become somewhat complacent about unemployment. There is no reason for complacency especially when one tries to discover the reason for this reduction in the figures for the registered unemployed.
It is significant that within the past two weeks the number of registered unemployed has increased by about a thousand. It is inevitable, because of the system we operate, that there is an increase in the number unemployed at this time to year until some time in March. We should refer also to the fact that the number of unemployed represent about seven per cent. of all insured persons. It is not a fair comparison but it is interesting to mention that in relation to Great Britain it represents four or five times the number of unemployed there. That is, a percentage of the insured workers.
There is, and always has been, complacency about what is described as the seasonable increase in the number unemployed. We are inclined to accept as normal that the unemployment figures rise gradually from about September and October of every year up to March of the following year. We should analyse that a little further and not be content by telling ourselves it is normal, that there is a slackness of work in certain industries at that time and in the rural industries generally.
I should like to give a figure to the Dáil and ask the Taoiseach to take special account of it, to see what can be done to alleviate what must be suffering to many thousands of people. In August, 1959, as an example, 45,300 persons were registered as unemployed, and in January, 1960, the number had risen to 74,300. That means that in that short period from August to January, there was an increase of 29,000——
The Deputy must allow for the employment period order.
I do, I think the Taoiseach, on reflection, will also realise that the employment period order mostly affects people who are, in fact, unemployed. In any case, in a short five months, there has been—and I will take off a few thousand if the Taoiseach likes—an increase of 25,000 persons rendered unemployed. That has been happening this year, last year, the year before and all the time for the past 10, 20 or 30 years. It is a situation we should not be prepared to accept because it means a tremendous amount of suffering for many thousands of people.
Again, I am afraid in this country —whether we are different from other countries, I do not know—we should be concerned about the question of seasonal employment. There is an attitude amongst certain people in the local authorities and in Government and business circles, that if a man gets six or nine months' employment, be should be satisfied. I hope the Taoiseach realises—I am sure he does —that there is an attitude amongst many county councils that if a man gets nine months' employment on road work, or any other work in which county councils engage, he should be satisfied. There is also an attitude that if a man gets a certain amount of employment during the year with a farmer he should be satisfied. We should all appreciate that there is no man, no family which can afford to be employed for nine, 10 or even 11 months of the year. None of us would be satisfied with that: no civil servant would be satisfied with it and no man in business or industry would be satisfied with employment, and a wage or salary, for portion of the year. As long as we have that sort of situation in the rural areas, we will have unemployment.
There is no point in anyone saying to me: "Well, there is a shortage of labour in the agricultural industry." There always will be shortage and a severe shortage of labour in the agricultural industry as long as our agricultural workers are treated as they are treated. There will always be unemployment amongest that section and amongest road workers and forestry workers until we provide 12 months' employment for them, because a man who can get a guarantee that he will be employed for 12 months in a British city will immediately emigrate.
Our emigrants have often been criticised. We hear of an agricultural worker who had a constant job with a farmer and emigrated, or a road worker who had what is described as constant work with the county council, and emigrated. Of course he emigrated, because constant employment so far as many farmers and county councils are concerned, and constant employment in the rural areas so far as many State Departments are concerned does not mean 12 months' work. There are few people who will tolerate the situation where they have none or 10 months' employment and then must go to the labour exchange to draw £3 1s., or three guineas, or whatever it will be in January, when they see the possibility of getting something like £10 a week in Cardiff, London, Birmingham or Liverpool. No one can blame them if they emigrate.
That is a pretty serious situation for the country and its economy. I know that, unfortunately, machinery has replaced men, especially on the farms. In my opinion, a time will come when the farmers, the county councils and the forestry division, will be crying out for workers if the workers are not treated better and given security and continuity of employment. In 1960 or 1961, no man will be content with employment for part of the year.
I have dealt with the position in the rural areas. I have not gone into it in any great detail, but I am sure the Taoiseach and the House appreciate what I means about insecurity and lack of continuity of employment. The same position obtains to a smaller extent in industry. I believe it is morally wrong that many of our industrialists should, at the slightest sign of slackness in industry, lay off their men. We all know of people with thriving businesses or industries who, when a slack period comes, lay off their workers for two or three weeks. That is morally wrong. Apart from anything else, it is doing harm to the economy of the country. I know several industrialists and businessmen who engage in that sort of practice, lay off the men and say: "We will take you back when business bucks up."
I do not suggest that the Taoiseach could tackle that situation by direct Government action, but he could do so by way of speeches and discussions with businessmen and industrialists. If that situation continues whereby workers are laid off, even for two weeks, three or four times during the year, there will be emigration. There may be a false boom for a decade in Britain when men can get full-time employment and overtime, and if there is that attraction in Britain, men will not tolerate a situation in which they cannot get a full year's employment in their own country.
I thought I detected—I hope I am wrong—a note of complacency in recent speeches made by the Taoiseach and members of the Governments since last autumn. Some months ago, the Taoiseach said we needed only 50,000 jobs. Some years ago, he spoke in terms of the provision of 1,00,00 new jobs to satisfy the needs of the workers. I was surprised to hear him drop down to the figure of 50,000. I think it was about four years ago when he was in Opposition that he spoke of a need for 100,000 new jobs, and in 1960, he said we needed only 50,000. I wonder how he reduced the figure from 100,000 to 50,000.
If one has regard to the figure of registered unemployed at the present time, 50,000 new jobs would be sufficient. Strictly speaking, 50,000 new jobs would be nearly too many. The registered number of unemployed is now 51,000 and, in those 51,000 people I have no hesitation in saying there are some people who are unemployable. There is no doubt in the world about that. Some are sick but not sick enough to qualify for sickness benefit under the Social Welfare Acts.
Let me go back again to those people who have to depend on casual employment, on relief work or work at harvest or sowing time in the rural areas. They are people who must be added on— not all of them, but allowance must be made for those people in the country who have casual employment or do not get full-time employment.
If the Taoiseach is satisfied that the flight from the land has stopped, then probably his figure of 50,000 new jobs is correct. From what I have seen and from what the Taoiseach must know, the flight from the land and the lack of jobs on the land still continues. 50,000 new jobs may be right if we write off those who had to emigrate to Great Britain over the years and who want to return. I do not think we should write off many of the thousands of Irish people in Great Britain. It is well known that even those workers now in receipt of, say, £20 per week in Great Britain would be prepared to come back to this country to work for somewhat less. Apart from the fact that prices of certain commodities are lower, many tens of thousands of workers in Britain would be prepared to come back to work in this country for a lesser wage but with the guarantee of security and continuity of employment.
I said earlier that we have 51,000 persons registered as unemployed. Last year, the figure was 62,000 and the year before, it was 65,000. I do not think the 51,000 persons registered as unemployed represent the number actually unemployed in the country. The Minister for Social Welfare has been pretty diligent and conscientious in his task and by various devices has cut down the figures of unemployed. He changed the Employment Period Order. He brought the Employment Period Order a month back in the spring and a month forward in the actumn. That was unfair and it was challenged in this House. There did not seem any justification for it. The majority of the members of the Government voted it was a good thing to do and that was the end of it. That is one reason why the average number of unemployed over the past two years appears to be less than what it was three or four years ago. The Minister for Social Welfare, through his officers, has also ensured that many people who in the past four, five or six years, or even since the Social Welfare Acts were introduced, were entitled to be registered as unemployed are not now eligible. It may be said that whilst they are not entitled to benefits, they can also sign not alone for credits but as being registered unemployed. Over the years, the experience has been that people who do not receive unemployment benefit or unemployment assistance are very reluctant to sign merely to be listed on the register of unemployed.
It is obvious to everybody and it must be obvious to the Taoiseach, that there is another reason for the apparent reduction in the number of registered unemployed, that is, emigration. I do not want to flog emigration here. It does not seem that emigration has abated. One would expect that we must soon reach satuation point—to our shame—but we have not yet reached it. The most recent figures we can get indicate that in the year ended June, 1960, 40,000 people emigrated. They are the most recent figures and are based on the passenger movement between this country and Great Britain.
I do not believe that emigration to countries other than Great Britain is very substantial. It is there but it is not substantial. However, 40,000 people emigrated for various reasons in the year ended June, 1960. When the census of population figures are completed next year, we may expect to see a big decline in our population. It will not represent the true emigration figures. For many years past, the natural increase in our population has been about 25,000. Consider that figure in conjunction with an average of 40,000 people emigrating each year for some years past and it means that the population figures which will be disclosed next July or August will reveal a still further decline compared with the figures the last time the census was taken.
There are people who would give us examples of men and women who left good jobs to go to England to take up employment there. I do not think there are very many of that type of person in the country. There are a few who emigrate for various reasons other than the fact that they cannot get employment. But, over and above these small examples that may be given, the main reason for emigration is that people cannot get employment or cannot get employment that will guarantee them 12 months' work in the year.
Another reason for emigration—it is not the main reason—is lack of opportunity for our young people. I met two or three people recently, fathers of families, men with reasonably good jobs. They were about 45 to 50 years of age. They decided to go to Great Britain, not for themselves but for their children who are now about 15 or 16 years old. They believe there are not any opportunities for employment for these young folk here. I have a certain sympathy with them, especially in my own part of the country.
According to my information, there has been an increase in the number of persons employed in transportable goods industries between June, 1959, and June, 1960, to the extent of 3,000. Whether or not that is a formidable figure, I am not prepared to say. I do not think it would be fair merely to mention that and give it as an example of how the employment situation has improved. I suppose it can be said it is quite a good increase in the numbers employed in that sector of industry. In June, 1959, there were 155,774 persons employed in transportable goods industries; in June, 1960, the figure had risen to 158,926.
There was also an increase in the numbers engaged in the building industry. I think we all know the reason for that. There has been a boom in the past two years in a certain type of building, not in the building of houses, but in reconstruction. Side by side with that, the Government have given pretty generous grants to those people who now want to reconstruct their houses or reconstruct, renovate or build hotels. There has been an increase in that sector of the building industry but the numbers engaged in the industry are not at all comparable with the numbers so engaged four, five, six or seven years ago. Unfortunately, it is only a temporary boom. The Governments should make plans to ensure that these workers will not have to leave the country.
We had a boom in houses building generally from 1948 to about two or three years ago. When that boom came to an end, many thousands of carpenters, masons, plumbers and builders' labourers had to leave the country. The country was not ready to absorb them into any other type of work. The present boom is not going to last—it will be very short indeed. There is a reasonable amount of employment for small building contractors and for many of the building tradesman, but in three months it could end and our carpenters, masons, plumbers and builders' labourers find themselves unemployed.
I think the Government should make their plans whether in Local Government, Industry and Commerce, Transport and Power or any other Department to ensure that these people who are not employed in the building industry will not be rendered unemployed and will not be required to emigrate. As I have said, there has been that increase in the numbers employed in transportable goods industries. There has been an increase compared with last year, at least in the number of building works but there is still the decline in the other sectors. There is the decline in agricultural employment to which I referred and in road-making employment. There is no use my bewailing in 1960 what I spoke about here over the past two years in respect of road work, that is, the too rapid increase in the use of machinery. I do not want to revert to the time when the farmer was required to work with a pair of horses all the time. I do not suggest we should stay at the stage where men were engaged in reconstructing roads with shovels but we went on an absolute spree so far as machinery was concerned in the rural areas. Apart from the fact that tens of thousands were rendered unemployed, I believe that many farmers, who could not afford it, burdened themselves with the cost of machinery —machinery which they would use for two or three or, at a maximum, four months of the year. Apart from the tractors, there is no use for it and they are paying for it all the time. Now they have the machinery round their necks. With workers it would be somewhat different, although I do not condone it. Men were sacked for the few days. In regard to county council work, the same obtained.
Where does all this machinery come from? It is machinery built in Britain, Germany or some other country. It gives employment to workers there but its use here has displaced tens of thousands of Irish workers. Indeed, there could have been a compromise. I do not suggest that we should stay at the stage where farmers work with a paid of horses all the time or road workers with shovels. As far as the roads are concerned, really we have the most elaborate machinery that could be got if one is to judge from the things we see along the road. Farmers are equipped as well in respect of the agricultural industry. I think it is somewhat of a burden round their necks but that cannot be corrected now.
It is unfortunate to think that Irish road workers are displaced by machinery built in Britain and that they were required to go to Great Britain to make that machinery to be sent back to Ireland to displace more Irish workers. That seems to be a very simple example but I know it has happended. It is something we cannot correct now. Whilst we in the Labour Party do not object to progress to a degree, we do not think that the economy should be upset to the extent to which it has been upset, especially in the rural areas.
Let me say this for the third or forth time. There was an increase of 3,000 in employment in transportable goods industries but quite a few have been dismissed, however one may describe it, in C.I.E. There are 1,000 fewer employed in C.I.E. this year than last year. I am not going into the policy of C.I.E. as to the closing of railway or anything like that. That is the fact. Against this increase I mention, we must put the decrease in employment in the rural areas and, in this instance, in the E.S.B. There has been a decrease in the numbers employed in rural electrification in the E.S.B. I am stating that as a fact and not as a complaint because the E.S.B. have come to saturation point almost as far as the electrification of the rural areas are concerned. I do not suppose anybody is to blame for that.
The Taoiseach should make a clear and concise statement about one matter, that is, the famous circular letter sent to the local authorities circular which asked local authorities to submit, I think, to his Department, schemes of work which they believed could be undertaken with advantage. As far as I could gather, the last person we questioned was the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Finance who said nothing at all came in. It is something the Taoiseach should have followed up. I believe that employment, if only for employment's sake, in this country during what we all regard as a transitional period, is worthwhile. There has been too much emphasis on the expenditure of money for productive purposes.
That is the perfect way in which money should be spent by a Government but we should be prepared to spend money to keep Irishmen at home. We have not done that. Every scheme was examined from the point of view of its productive merit. The Government must have confidence in our country. They must have confidence in what they rightly describe as the new industrial revolution. If they have confidence that we are going to have factories, industries and employment in this country in the foresecable future, then they should be prepared to make sacrifices in the expenditure of money to keep workers at home to man these factories.
We had cases—whether they were right or not, I do not know; with all due respect to the newspapers, we know that if they get a story, they will print it—in the newspapers in recent months of factories which could not get workers. I do not know whether it was because the workers were not there or whether or not they were skilled. Publicity was given to the fact that somewhere in the west of Ireland there was no response to an appeal for workers. Probably there is a good reason for that, an explanation for the allegation that appeared in this particular newspaper. but I do not know what it is.
Would it not be a fine situation if we have so many factories in the Shannon area, so many factories in the west, so many in Kerry, and places like that, and we have no workers to go into them? If emigration continues at its present rate it will be useless to build factories to any great extent. I know that in the next two or three years, if we get the normal number of factories that we have been getting in the year, there probably will be workers but if the Government have confidence in the establishment of more industries they should take steps to see that we will have the manpower.
Apropos of that, I should like to say this to the Taoiseach. The control of Manufactures Act placed certain restrictions on people from outside the country who wanted to establish industries here and everybody applauded when the Act was repealed. I think we all agreed that it should be repealed, but there are people coming into this country now who desire to establish industries and who eventually establish them. Some of them do it for a particular purpose. It may have certain advantages vis-á-vis the Commonwealth. I do not want to be pessimistic and I do not want it to appear that I am opposed to the setting up of industries by Germans, Swiss, or what have you, but there is a danger that after some years, conditions will have so changed in Europe and the world that these people will not find it convenient or economic to carry on in this country.
Here is the situation as far as west of the Shannon is concerned. Say somebody from Germany or Poland decides to establish a factory to manufacture, say, chairs. The Government examines their bona fides and says “O.K.” They are going to give employment to the people in the area and the Government under the terms of our legislation says: “We will give you the factory and one-third of the cost of the machinery.” If they decide to pull out, they do not lose very much. I do not think that they lose anything, unless somebody can point out to me that they do lose. Getting a factory is a big thing and getting one-third of the cost of the machinery is also a big thing and they will not have much to lose if they pull out. I do not want to see them pull out but a situation may arise in which changes in Europe will be effected to such an extent that it would be better for them to go to their own country, to England, or to some other country. With all the talk about free trade we do not know what the situation will be, even in two years' time.
For that reason, the Government should have a greater financial interest in all of these industries. If we have a factory over in Mayo or Galway employing 1,000 people and Messrs. So-and-So decide that they should go elsewhere, they pull the bottom out of the whole thing and 1,000 workers are left unemployed. I am not being critical of anybody for doing that but I am merely saying to the Taoiseach that he should try to safeguard against a situation where we are creating what will turn out to be an artificial industry which may disappear in that way and leave us with so many unemployed workers on our hands. I may not have made myself very clear but I think there is a case for having a greater Irish interest, financial and otherwise, in these factories to ensure that they will be of a more permanent character than would be the case if the control is to be absolutely in the hands of foreigners. After all, if I establish a factory in Wexford, Kerry or elsewhere, I have a financial interest in it and the change will have to be pretty big before I get out.
A Belgian, a German or a Chinese will go where he can get money and if it is more advantageous to him to go to Britain or elsewhere he will go there. He has no responsibility for the workers or for the economy of the country. I have advocated before that the Government should play a greater part in the establishment of industries. The Government have all the resources and have all the information at their disposal and, as the Taoiseach often said, plenty of finance behind them as evidenced by the fact that the Industrial Credit Company and other authorities have paid out such huge sums to people who have established industries and businesses here.
I would not see anything wrong with the Government establishing factories. They did it in Dundalk. I do not want to argue with the Taoiseach about that. I am convinced they did it. The Taoiseach knows that practically every penny that went into it was public money. I am not going to talk about its success or otherwise, nor of the competition in which it. seemed to be engaged at the time with an industry in another part of the country, but I would not see anything wrong with the Government behaving in a similar way in other parts of the country. The people may call that nationalisation or socialisation or put various other names on it, but I do not see why, after a period of 10 years, the Government should not say: "Here is an industry, financed and established with Government aid and money and we offer it now to the public." In that way we would get industries established more quickly.
Every Deputy in the House hears about "Mr. So-and-So" or "Messrs. So-and-So" and every public representative has had contacts some time or other with potential industrialists. Local authorities and public representatives can lose enthusiasm for that sort of thing but the Government have at their disposal information about what factories are required and what factories are liable to have an export potential. With the money available they could engage in a far greater way in the establishment of industries than they appear to be doing at the present time.
I would ask the Taoiseach, if it is in order, to make some sort of statement about the State and semi-State companies. I think he has seen evidence of a certain amount of frustration on the part of members of this House with regard to State and semi-State bodies. He sees it on our part because we are in Opposition and have occasion to ask more questions than Fianna Fáil Deputies. On occasion others speak about the matter, and we heard Deputy Seán Flanagan expressing his views yesterday about semi-State companies and their relation with members of this House generally. Every year we seem to be establishing more and more State and semi-State bodies. I could not fully list them, but there are such companies as C.I.E., Bord na Móna, Aer Lingus, the Sugar Company and so on.
Ordinary people in the country believe that these are Government-controlled bodies and that every Deputy has a right to ask a question about them in Dáil Éireann and receive an answer. I am merely telling the Taoiseach that that is the belief of the people. I know that the position regarding legislation is different but he and members of his Cabinet and his officials should try to devise some system whereby we could get more information than we are getting from these companies, even if it meant setting up a special committee of this House which would have power to interrogate the officers of these companies. I think that would be a help.
There is an impression abroad in the country that, as far as many of the semi-State bodies are concerned, they are little dictatorships. I do not say that they are but that is the impression and people think that, in regard to the price of a commodity or the closing of a railway line their word is law. I know that that is the position as created by legislation and I accept that but we have given so many powers and responsiblities to bodies like C.I.E., Bord na Móna, the E.S.B. and the Sugar Company that it seems we have divested ourselves of a tremendous amount of our own powers and responsibilities.
I would ask the Taoiseach to consider the possibility of establishing a committee of this House with the right to interrogare these bodies so that the Dáil could get what information it should get. There is a feeling abroad that these bodies are more powerful than the Government. The person down the country does not understand that the E.S.B. can increase its charges without reference to the Government, that the price of sugar can be increased when the Dáil did not say it could be increased. The ordinary man in the street does not understand how. Aer Lingus can do this, that or the other thing without reference to the Dáil or the Government.
The last question I want to refer to is that of income tax. The Government are doing a through job on the collection of income tax in respect of a certain section of the community. I do not object to that. The worker finds it pretty tough going to have such big deductions made from his wage or salary from week to week. That is in accordance with what this House agreed to. It seems to me, and the Taoiseach knows, that when on the 31st March next the account is totted up he will have a pretty substantial income from income tax this year, to such extent that the Budget, apart from being an election Budget, will be a pretty attractive one.
I hope the Deputy is right.
As I have said before, this Budget will not be planned in February or March or the beginning of April next year. This Budget was planned four years ago. I wonder would the Taoiseach and the Government try to devise some means by which they could get income tax from those people who are not evading it. The builder's labourer, even the single man, who gets £7 a week pays his income tax on the dot. He is fulfilling his obligation to the State. He is making his contribution to paying us, to paying the Taoiseach, the Civil Service and all the expenses of Government. He does it in other ways as well, through cigarettes, beer, the cinema and everything else. He is paying income tax every Friday night. The man with the wife and two or three in family who has £15 or £16 a week is paying his contribution as well.
I am sure the Taoiseach has often thought of the many people who do not pay their income tax, the people from whom no effort is made to get that income tax. The wage and salary earners cannot escape one halfpenny of their income tax now. They cannot fiddle with expenses and various allowances. They have to pay it down to the last halfpenny every week. Do the people who engage in cash transactions, the people who dabble in this, that and the other thing, lots of professional men, pay their fair share? It is a difficult problem but I think the Revenue Commissioners should be more diligent to get such people in this community to pay their just share. The single man with £7 a week pays his share, and the person with an income of £1,500, £2,000, or £2,500 should also be required to pay his share in accordance with his income and down to the last halfpenny.
The first thing that strikes one in connection with this debate is the tremendous contrast between the wailing speech of Deputy Dillon, Leader of the Fine Gael Party, and the challenging statements made by Deputy Corish. We were all delighted to hear Deputy Corish speak about the problems facing the country and make it quite clear that he, like ourselves, is far from satisfied with the employment situation and with the growth of the national economy. One could see from his speech that he agrees that real efforts are being made to restore the economy and he made a number of interesting suggestions, some of them involving State investment in one way or another to provide more state employment.
One got the impressions, listening to Deputy Dillon's speech, that there is almost no future left for the country and, if one listened to Deputy Corish, that there is some future and that we can anticipate a better Ireland in the future, even if the present Government are not making the maximum contribution to it, in Deputy Corish's view. We, in Fianna Fáil, have no doubt that the general economy of the country is in a far better state this year than it was last year and that it is infinitely better than it was in the last full year of the Coalition Government's term of office in 1956. We have no doubt whatever about that.
If visitors come to this country, and I have met many of them, they ask the ordinary man in the street what is happening and the reply will be that there is a far greater spirit of confidence amongst the public as to the future. If they ask about agriculture, the average person will reply that the farmers are going through a very difficult time due to the eradication of bovine tuberculosis and that they have had to face the heavy burden of three years of extraordinary weather conditions but that, nevertheless, the foundation is strong and that it is quite apparent that continuous improvement is taking place in agricultural methods and that there is a continuous if slow modernisation of the industry by the farmers.
That is what the average visitor would be told and I challenge anyone to deny that there has been a very considerable improvement. The outcome of the work of this Government proves that more money is being spent and more money is being saved. It has been possible for the Government to increase the capital programme, balance the Budget and give reliefs in the burden of taxation on productive effort on two successive occasions. We in Fianna Fáil stand on that general statement.
I do not know whether it is necessary for me to repeat the entire history of the development of Fianna Fáil policy and the preparation of the blueprints and then to describe what happened thereafter but since Deputy Dillon seems to have made that the main challenge of his speech I suppose I will have to record for about the fourth time in the records of the House our answer to it.
In 1955, the present Taoiseach published the blueprint of policy showing how by means of capital investment full employment could be achieved, indicating that it was possible, provided the capital was there, provided the private enterprise was sufficient, provided that private initiative was evident, and provided the Government contributed its share of public capital.
The very serious and totally unnecessary crisis of 1956 took place and in the autumn of that year the blueprint was amended by the Taoiseach in order to make quite sure that people might not think that it would have any connection with the immediate Party programme which would be announced at the time of a general election, which quite obviously seemed imminent. If the 1956 amendment of that blueprint is examined, it will be seen that the general statement, the general belief, was that, provided all the conditions were satisfied and provided that private enterprise was sufficiently available, full employment could be given but the statement included a fundamental modification. It was stated that in the light of the deteriorating financial position, it would be most unwise to predict that when the Fianna Fáil Government obtained office, it would be possible to put in a programme at the level or the tempo suggested in the earlier document. Any Deputy who has a file of these documents in his possession will see the difference.
When the actual election took place, in 1957, the official Party policy published in a four page leaflet that had very wide distribution had no mention whatever of any specific promise of employing 100,000 people. There was nothing of that kind in the document. The statement included certain promises in regard to specific items of policy, the vast majority of which have been fulfilled and far exceeded. The Party promised that the Government would make a supreme effort to find employment for the people. The main atmosphere of the 1957 election was simply this: "Get the Coalition Government out. Look at what they have done to the country. We will do our best to restore the economy."
By fair means or foul.
It is a poor best.
I went through the newspapers for the whole period of that election in order to satisfy myself that my impression was correct in regard to the general tone of speeches made by Ministers of this Government and their colleagues in the Dáil, because, when I went around the hustings in 1957, I never heard anything but the coldest realism and I certainly myself never indulged in anything but the coldest realism in regard to the making of promises.
I went through the speeches. It took me nearly three hours to peruse them. I think it was the Independent newspapers I examined on that occasion. I found that, with some quite obvious exceptions that are inevitable, humanly speaking, in any election, the atmosphere of the election was coldly realistic. If any impartial persons were to examine the published speeches during that time they could only agree with what I am saying.
Naturally, at a time of election in which there is a great feeling of emotion, certain people may at certain moments say something which may perhaps be regarded as too optimistic but the atmosphere of that election, on the country, was cold and realistic in tone. It was based on the conception that there had to be a firm stable Government, that we had a firm policy to offer to the people and that we would see what we could do if we were elected to office.
I also want to say that the blueprints that were published by way of study of the economic position of the country in 1955 and the amended version in 1956 are still in the main valid statements. The method by which full employment can be secured is still in the main that indicated in those blueprints.
Did not you say three years ago that full employment could never be achieved?
It is still, and it will be, the ambition of this Government to maintain the high level of capital investment and the employment that will ensue in the mannerss generally indicated in those two blueprints and quite evidently we are beginning to make some progress towards that.
I must admit so far as I am concerned, and I think I could speak on behalf of my colleagues in the same way, that we were surprised at the length of time it took to repair the damage inflicted on this country by the crisis of 1956. That we could underestimate the length of time it would take before the economy showed signs of being restored was not abnormal. It was not until the latter part of 1958 that quite evident improvement was setting in.
When I hear Deputy Dillon talk about the blueprints of 1955 and the alleged promises made in the general election and look back at the 1954 election, which was the worst election ever held in the whole history of this country, the election that did more damage to the mentality of the people than any other election in the whole history of this country, I do not know how he dares to talk.
In 1954, the House will recollect, the post-war boom was just about to end. The period was ending when we could live off the savings made during the World War, when we could keep on disinvesting foreign savings, when we could take advantage of the fact that for a temporary period, agricultural prices were rising higher than farmers' costs and could take advantage of the period when there was a scarcity of food all over Europe.
Anyone with any knowledge of economics would know that the period was coming when a tremendous campaign would be necessary to develop new industries, to reduce the costs of production in agriculture and to face world wide competition in regard to everything we sold.
The whole of the 1954 election was taken up with utterly fraudulent promises to reduce the cost of living, to reduce taxation and, in fact, during the period of the Coalition Government the cost of living went up nine points. For at least 2½ years of the present Government's term of office, it went up by about the same amount. None of those promises was fulfilled, but my chief objection to the atmosphere of the 1954 election was that there was no specific warning to the people that it was not the cost of living that mattered, that what mattered was the cost of production and the need to get into the competitive European market and to forget the wholly unreal atmosphere which pervaded this country and which was largely created by the first Coalition Government.
Deputy Dillon in referring to the increase in the cost of living which has taken place since we took office did not refer to the fact that workers' earnings have increased more than the cost of living. That is the ultimate test, that workers' earnings have increased more than the cost of living through successive rises in wages. Very luckily, there has been a very considerable increase in productivity so that although workers' wages went up, at the same we have been able to take advantage of the expansion of industry that has taken place and we have been able to increase our industrial exports.
I should say something about the agricultural position since Deputy Dillon referred to that in his speech in no small measure. There is no question that in regard to the export of live cattle the position has been extremely difficult and nobody knows better than Deputy Dillon the reasons for it. First of all, there was the extremely abnormal weather for three years and, secondly, the difficulty of disposing of cattle in Great Britain until bovine tuberculosis is eradicated. The result can be seen in the statistics for exports for the first ten months of this year. The export of cattle did show an improvement with a total increase of £3,000,000 for exports for the first ten months of this year as compared with the corresponding period in 1959.
The exports of processed foodstuffs show an increase in value of 13 per cent. and that is a very satisfactory feature. The more we can process our foodstuffs before they leave this country the better for us. I should like to give the figures for the export of foodstuffs, including drink and tobacco, taking the first ten months of 1956, 1959 and 1960. The figure for 1956 was £22.2 million; for 1959 it was £30 million; and for 1960 it was £35.5 million, showing that we have made very considerable progress in the export of processed foods which provided the greatest amount of employment since the last full year of Coalition Government. There has also been, I am glad to say, a very definite increase in the exports of carcase beef, both fresh and frozen.
Although livestock exports have shown a recent recovery no one can be satisfied with the position. However, no one has suggested any other good reason for the difficulties experienced than those I have outlined Deputy Dillon can wail from Monaghan down to Kerry about the position of the farmers but he himself in his speech offered no solution to this difficult transitory phase; nor did he suggest that the Government were responsible for the difficulties experienced by farmers in regard to exports of live cattle. We should like to have heard some suggestions made by him of a constructive kind whereby this transitory phase could be speeded up.
I want to clarify the position in regard to the agricultural price level. We have to face the fact that agricultural price levels have stabilised largely in the market to which the vast bulk of our produce goes. It is absolutely no use for Deputy Dillon to talk about calves having gone down in value from £24—which in any event was an abnormally high price—to £10 or £15. Although we can sell more cattle and better cattle to Britain and get a higher price because of improved quality, we cannot get over the fact that, taking it large and wide, the agricultural price level in Great Britain has been stabilised since 1954.
I want to give figures in this connection. The price index for all agricultural prices in Great Britain as established by the British Minister for Agriculture is based at 100 in 1954. The figure for 1938 was 33 and for 1959 it was 102. So far as livestock is concerned the figure for 1938 was 32; for 1954 it was 100; and for 1959 was 98. I am not quarrelling about two or three points one way or the other. What I am saying is that unless the British change their policy we must face more or less stabilisation in the agricultural price level. It may be that prices will increase, in which case we shall, I hope, take advantage of that, through the Anglo-Irish Trade Agreement, but up to now that has been the position.
If you consider that fact and then consider the difficulties experienced by British farmers when buying 14-day tested cattle, and all the difficulties known to exist in relation to the bovine tuberculosis eradication campaign, it will be seen that a very great improvement in cattle prices is not likely —let us hope it takes place. The British agriculturists, of course, are getting far higher subsidies than our people because it takes only 1½ per cent. of the total industrial turnover of Great Britain to provide British farmers with a subsidy amounting to something like 25 per cent. of their gross income. Granted they have a subsidy but nevertheless our exports to Great Britain will continued to have some relation to their agricultural prices level and the Programme of Economic Expansion is based on the policy of seeing what can be done to enable us to take advantage of the market that exists there. There has been a satisfactory growth in the exports of fat cattle. That may not immediately benefit small farmers but a growth in the exports of fat cattle, which have been very considerable in the last year, will be of benefit in the long run.
If there is to be a repetition of argument in this House such as we have had over the Fianna Fáil blueprint, we shall have to have a repetition of argument in regard to policy. I think it is necessary to remind the people that the Government have a specific economic programme, the major part of which has never yet been challenged by any of the larger Parties. One of the ways of giving the small farmers, who have been facing a most difficult time for reasons I have already stated, some hope in the future is by reminding them of Fianna Fáil policy and by making quite clear that so far it has continued to operate unchallenged. It is our belief that there will be continuous growth in the prosperity of the people of Europe over a long period. It is natural optimism to feel that will be the case. We believe there will be an increase in the consumption of better class foodstuffs and in particular of meat. As a result, our programme assumes that it is right and proper to encourage the expansion of the cattle population of the country by encouraging the expansion of the cow population from 1,200,000 to 1,500,000 over a period of years. That is no easy task because bovine tuberculosis must be eradicated and new stock has to come into the picture. Nevertheless that is our belief. Quite obviously the success of that policy depends, as has been clearly stated by the National Farmers' Association, on having first quality cattle, thrifty cattle, increasing in weight for a given absorption of food and for having the whole cattle industry operating on a low cost-high output basis through the improvement of the fertility of the land. That we are going to succeed in that and that there is a silver lining to this cloud over the cattle industry can be very well seen in the every much enhanced prices that are being received for attested cattle. According to the Farmers' Journal of recent date—a paper which I think could hardly be described as optimistic about agriculture; at least it defends the farmer to the utmost of its ability—attested cattle recently are selling for an additional £8 to £10. That is the silver lining.
If the bovine T.B. scheme continues, I think we can reasonably hope for an improvement in the price level. That campaign is extremely burdensome to the farmers and along with the bad weather we have had, one cannot blame the farming community for feeling a sense of depression, even though, as I have said, a great programme is in operation to assist them.
That programme includes the subsidies for fertilisers and we are very proud to be able to announce that the consumption of fertilisers has gone up by some 30 per cent. since the subsidy was provided.
Thanks to Deputy Dillon.
The programme includes intensified improvements in the arrangements for providing cattle of good pedigree by the Department and—also of very great importance— progeny testing of cattle has been commenced by the Agricultural Institute. This, I think, will prove of great benefit to farmers in years to come.
I think I have indicated for the House some of the agricultural policy. There are, of course, in addition the other familiar features most of which were inaugurated by us such as support prices for crops and with such aids as land reclamation which was mechanised and expanded by Deputy Dillon; the farm buildings scheme which was ready for initiation in 1947 and other aids to the farming community.
The Government in its efforts to assist the farmers over their present difficulties succeeded at the time of the Budget—with an almost negligible increase in taxation—in increaseing the price of milk, providing export subsidies for fat reactors, providing additional subsidies for potash fertilisers and providing a special, increased price for super Grade A pigs of 245/- per cwt. The value to the farmer will amount to £2½ million in one year. I can assure Deputy Dillon that the farmers have appreciated that aid. They have very much appreciated the exports subsidies and the assistance given for the export of fat reactors. Everybody accepts the wisdom of that move and, as I said, even though the farmers are going through difficulties they are very much aware of the contribution made by the Government to the agricultural community in the last Budget.
The Government are making a tremendous effort to establish on a sound basis once and for all the marketing of pigs and dairy produce. It would take too long to go into detail but suffice to say that a Bill is coming before the House in regard to pig marketing which I hope will have a substantial effect in enabling us to market our pig products. A Bill has already been passed by the House in respect of dairy products and this should help us to achieve more scientific exports of dairy produce.
When Deputy Dillon wailed this morning in the course of his speech about the position of the small farmers, he made no reference to credit. We admit the farmers are going through a very difficult phase but we must nevertheless view the situation with a balanced mind. The farmers have borrowed for specific production schemes arranged with the commercial banks many millions more than in 1956.
They did not need to borrow then; they had their own capital. Now they are bankrupt.
Agricultural credit is still increasing.
They were on the verge of bankruptcy then.
The Government are about to bring in a measure which will deal with the Government's side of agricultural credit and I think with the innovations by the commercial banks in regard to credit schemes, plus the measures that will be undertaken by the Government before the close of the next session, agricultural credit facilities will have been improved to a reasonable degree.
Deputy Blowick interjected to say that they did not need to borrow. I can assure the Deputy that so far as my constituency is concerned a very great part of the borrowing has been done by the very small, hardy farmers who lead very difficult lives, whose incomes are modest and who have borrowed the money for specific production purposes and not to save themselves from bankruptcy. They have borrowed to improve their farms according to specified plans which they have indicated to their bank managers and in respect of which there has very frequently been consultation with the agricultural adviser. I hope that Deputy Blowick will not add to the difficulties these farmers are facing by going around telling the people that that is panic borrowing on the verge of bankruptcy because that is nonsense. It is credit based on sound constructive planning——
Does the Minister really believe that?
The Deputy knows nothing about agriculture, whatever he knows about Glauber Salts.
We know all about Mrs. Cullinane.
What about the Fenian movement? Was not the Deputy's grandfather an informer?
The Minister should be allowed to proceed.
We could go on to discuss the Deputy's brother and the way he got that job. The Deputy is in a weak position.
The Deputy should say that outside. Who appointed Commissioner Sweetman?
We shall tell how the Deputy's brother got the job.
I was in jail at that time. It was the Republican Army that carried out that operation officially.
The Deputy is still being paid for it.
If Deputy Davern cannot restrain himself, he should leave the House. The Minister must be allowed to proceed.
Deputy Blowick was asking me whether I really believed what I was saying. I know a great many farmers who invested in a loan from the banks, who worked out exactly how they were going to spend the loan, how they were going to buy a heifer, how they would make allowances for putting more fertilisers on the land, so that they could feed extra stock. They made provision in their farming plan so that they would be able to carry the extra stock produced by the heifer and by means of which they could repay the loan.
If Deputy Blowick does not known a great many such cases, I am surprised, because that is going on steadily all over the country. Some people may have met with disaster, but they are few in number. The Deputy has only to inquire from the commercial banks and he will find these loans are proceeding very satisfactorily. The loans are given for a great many different projects and are part of specific production procedure. They show a very great advanced in thinking by the banks generally. As a result of that thinking farmers have been able to borrow something over £15,000,000 more than they could in 1956.
I have given some indication of Government policy in regard to agriculture. I want to make it quite clear that the Government are not discouraged by the transitory phase through which we are passing. They are not discouraged by the appalling weather and its adverse effect on our harvest. They are not discouraged by the difficulties experienced because of the T.B. campaign and the regulations now in force in Great Britain. There is no reason why they should be discouraged provided we get the cooperation by means of which we will rid our stock of T.B. The Government believes that unless some extraordinary change takes place in the European economic sphere, there will be a market for our livestock products in the future, sufficient to absorb the increase in the turnover that we hope for and anticipate as a result of the operation of our agricultural programme for economic expansion in the agricultural industry.
I should say in that connection that one of the most helpful features in regard to agricultural prosperity will be the growth and production of ancillary industries such as fruit and vegetables. General Costello was perfectly right when he said the British imported £1,000,000,000 worth of foodstuffs and that we had not yet taken advantage of or exploited properly the fullness of that market. I hope the initiation of his vegetable processing plant and the initiative shown in particular by the small farmers of Wexford and the small farmers of Athlone in developing the production of vegetables will be successful because it will provide a very valuable ancillary income to the small farmer. I do not believe we have anywhere nearly exploited the market which should be available for that particular type of production.
Deputy Dillon said a good deal about emigration. He hinted that there was some hidden feeling in Fianna Fáil, and that we felt that the whole of the farm land of this country should be run—I think he said—in units of very big farms run by companies or combines; he implied that we did not really believe in family farm life. In view of that statement, it is a strange thing that we should have had a record period of land division and allocation in the year 1958/59, and another record year in 1959/60. It is a strange thing that we should have expanded State forestry plantations which form the only real permanent sources of employment in the rural areas while simultaneously believing that the small farmer is coming to an end.
It was a continuation of the policy set before the Government by their predecessors.
The one thing we must ensure is that we take a realistic attitude towards migration from the land. There is no purpose in any Party claiming they can reverse in full a tendency which is universal, which is experienced in every country, including those countries where agricultural incomes are highest. It is fantastic to suggest this country could provide the absolute exception to that general trend taking place all over the world. A study has been made of the position recently and that study shows Ireland fifth in order of intensity in regard to the numbers of persons agriculturally employed migrating as a proportion of those who remained.
The first problem is to provide the maximum opportunities for the farming community through our programme and our policy and through an improvement in the level of agricultural exports. Secondly, after doing that, it is our aim to encourage the formation of industries so that those who are leaving the land can find alternative employment in their own country. Despite that, we still hear speeches which suggest that we can be unlike every other country and that, by waving some magic wand, we can retain upon the land a population far in excess proportionately to that retained in order countries.
It was interesting to read the other day an account of the agricultural economy and production in the richest farming state in the United States of America. I refer to Minnesota. It was very interesting to see that in Minnesota the problems are identical with ours. In Minnesota there is a very strong belief amongst all in the preservation of the family farm and a fear that the growth of corporation farms run by companies will increase to the ultimate detriment of the life of the people of Minnesota as a whole. There is a very big increase in migration from the farming area to the industrial area. In common with Great Britain, and in common with this country, there is a level of agricultural prices which shows very little change since 1953 while, at the same time, the manufacturing income is increasing. It was recorded in Minnesota that the price of land continued to increase despite that position. There is a great demand for the land and there are features similar to ours in regard to the agricultural economy there. I mention that because those who imagine there is something unique in our rural migration are simply not looking facts in the face. I should add, too, that we deny on this side of the House that the character of migration from the land is any different now from what it was.
What?
We deny that specifically. There was colossal migration from the land in the time of the Coalition Government. It reached unique level in 1956, and continued on into 1957.
Ask any shopkeeper and he will tell you the story.
Will the Minister support that statement with figures?
The Deputy knows full well that the figures we have are only approximate until the census is taken. We do not deny there has been a very high level of migration during the last three years. I have not denied that.
When Deputy Dillon claims that a very large proportion of the tremendous emigration during 1956 and 1957 were farm owners as distinct from farm workers and farmers' relatives, I can only tell him there is a sample record in the Land Commission of farms of under £10 valuation where the owners emigrated. The record shows in fact that over the past ten years there had been this regrettable, but by no means new tendency for farm owners to emigrate. So it is no good trying to pull the wool over our eyes by saying that it never happened before.
There is, unfortunately, a very high level of emigration still taking place, but, compared with the last year of the Coalition Government, at least it has been restrained to some degree.
In 1956, the number of people who gave up Dublin Corporation tenancies amounted to 500. Last year it was 1,500. How can the Minister reconcile those figures with what he is now saying?
One can give but approximate figures.
Surely the people giving up local authority houses are the test. They represent entire families going. The Minister can take the figures I have given as correct.
The figures in 1956 and 1957 were very, very high. I can say that because I had occasion to investigate them at the time. I have not denied that we have not been able to steam emigration but the level of emigration in 1956 and 1957, taken with the high rate of unemployment, was a far more serious social menance than today when unemployment is 20,000 less. Even with the tremendous level of emigration in 1956 and later in 1957 we had also 20,000 more unemployed.
They were in the country then but they are not here now.
I think the Chair should take note of all these interruptions of the Minister's speech.
The new judge of order.
Does the Deputy remember the Mr. Cullinane job and the Kidnapping?
Order! There are interruptions from both sides of the House and they must cease. The Minister must be allowed to make his statement.
Deputy Dillon may not have any doubts as to our policy as regards employment on the land. Our policy is realistic. We say that if the farmers' incomes are increased through better agricultural methods it will enable the farmers to keep more of their families on the land for a greater period. We say that if the farmer's purchasing power goes up he would buy more Irish products made in Irish factories, that he will provide more employment in these factories, perhaps for some of his own family. We know that whether or not there will be greater direct employment on the land is very doubtful. In Great Britain, America and in other countries, incomes have been constantly going up on the land while the actual employment on the land went down. As the agricultural incomes increased, the combined effect of bringing more services to the farmers did not mean a larger community working on the land but it meant a higher level of ancillary employment in rural areas.
We do not claim that an agricultural programme by itself will increase direct employment on the land, but if we are able to expand that part of our economy we should be able to provide greater income for the farmers and more indirect employment in ancillary industries. I can go on further than that. What I have said is something that has been universally true in several European countries. If we can expand forestry, it is another method of improving employment on the land. Equally, if we can develop the tourist industry sufficiently, it would bring a market to the farmers' doors and provide a greater amount of indirect employment in rural districts.
The main solution to the problem of migration from the land is the establishment of industries distributed throughout the country. Everybody knows that Denmark possibly has the highest agricultural industry per acre in the world. We still depend on agricultural for about 30 per cent. of our national income. In Denmark, the percentage is something like 19 per cent., showing that they, with a record of constitutional freedom over the years unlike ours, despite their specialising in agricultural production and high class markets, have been forced to adopt industrial development as a means of expanding their economy.
I am going to leave the question of our industrial development largely to other speakers who will, I hope, attempt to overlay the pessimism of Deputy Dillon. I would, however, point out the very great progress we have made, and would like to say one thing in relation to our economy which I think gives the lie to Deputy Dillon's wailing. There is today in our rural community a growth in public enthusiasm for development and that is the real answer to Deputy Dillon. There has never been over the years so many development associations established in every small town and area of our country, all taking advantage of the Government programme for economic expansion and engaging in every kind of economic, cultural and social activity based on the conception that this land is the best land to live in and I defy any member of Fine Gael to deny that.
The Minister is being prophetic. I deny it.
There are very many people in these areas co-operating and helping to get an industry for their own community which will help to expand their area and attract business to it. We also have the activities of the younger farming groups—societies who promote visits by farmers, young and old, to places of interest, agriculturaly speaking. The number of younger people taking in interest in industrial productivity, the discussions taking place on how to increase productivity, the efforts being made by the younger generation of economists, accountants and industrialists to get more productivity and to get industries to adopt modern methods, the controversies going on in regard to that the number of people who attend meeting and discussions throughout the country wherever our economy is involved—all this activity is at an absolutely record level. That is so because a very large number of people believe there is a bright future for the country and great hope that we can expand our economy.
Tell us about C.I.E. now.
One of the difficulties we have had to face is that the amount of employment being given as a result of the industrial drive and of the very great growth in industrial exports has been limited by the fact that productivity in industry was at a very low level in 1956 because of the desire of both workers and employers to ensure maximum employment in a difficult position. Now we have taken up the slack of that. The idle machinery is working in many industries and new machinery is being installed. I hope we can expect a greater growth of employment as a result of our increase in exports than was the case previously.
I should make the observation in that connection that we in Fianna Fáil recognise there is going to be a hard, competitive race in regard to our industrial progress, that there can be no subterfuges and no way out of the difficulties we have to face in competition with other countries and in competition at long distance. We recognise that this new industrial development, if it is going to succeed, will have to be accompanied by a full recognition of the competitive world in which we live.
I do not know whether I need give some indication to the House of the variety of new exports which are typical of the industries drive—all sorts of exports to which we have been quite unaccustomed. I may give as an example of new industrial effort the export of radio sets of Pakistan and Ceylon: the export of sisal carpeting to 40 different countries all over the world; the export of numberous textile products to the West Indies; the growing exports of footwear and clothing—all indicating industries enthusiasm and that, if we make up our minds, we can do anything we like in this country as well as if not better than anybody else, to quote the Taoiseach speaking at the Fianna Fáil Árd Fheis in 1959.
The wailing of Deputy Dillon, if it is going to have any effect, will discourage the kind of initiative that enables us to do that kind of thing. No matter how much we may be able to process our own products or develop the limited mineral deposits existing within the country, we cannot make ultimate progress save by exporting industrial products which are largely new to this country and for which, in many cases, the raw materials have, at least in part, to be imported. That requires confidence, initiative, skill and capital. People are going to be discouraged from engaging in that absolutely fundamental effort to expand the economy if they are going to listen to the exaggerated tales of woe and the wailing we heard from Deputy Dillon today, and which is in such contrast to the very much more constructive speech of Deputy Corish, whom I hope is setting out on a new course for the Labour Party. I think the contrast between the two speeches is most remarkable and significant.
There is another example, which was referred to by Deputy Corish and into which I need not go in detail. There has been undoubtedly an expansion in private housing and a very much greater interest in property in general. I should like to mention that in 1960 some 9,220 houses were reconstructed as compared with 6,620 in 1956. I should like to mention also that institutional building at the moment is at a record high level. Important concerns are providing themselves with modern premises, a sure sign of a belief in the future of the country. I should also like to point out that Bord Fáilte believe hotels will be spending something in the region of £2,500,000 within the next 18 months to provide more accommodation, and that in itself is a sign of confidence in the country.
I think I have covered the ground fairly completely. There will be others who will follow me later. I should like to say, in conclusion, that in relation to the operation of the 1958 Transport Act, the Government will be willing any time in the next session to have a discussion on the operation of the Act, and that if somebody in the Opposition does not put down a motion, we might put down one ourselves.
May I put a question to the Minister? Pending this discussion, which the Minister now informs the House we may have, will the Minister ensure no line will be affected between now and the discussion?
No.
We may discuss it when the lines are removed and not before? I want to get that clear.
I was not talking about the removal of lines.
We can only deal with a fair accompli?
I shall confine my remarks of Government policy on the building industry. As the son of a plasterer, one of my earliest memories as a child is of my mother telling me before I said my prayers: "Say a Hail Mary that your father may get work for Christmas." That shows that the building industry is at a very low level around that period of year. I was wondering could we so arrange the placing of contracts to ensure that we could partly overcome that difficulty? I know it has been done with success in other countries. The position in regard to the industry in 1949 and 1950 was so good that Dublin Corporation were seeking tenders from other countries and even considering the erection of pre-fabricated houses. We had a vast programme of hospital building. Nobody could deny it was a boom period, but it might have been better to have staggered the contracts. We had a £1,500,000 hospital being constructed in Crumlin and at the same time, another being constructed in Galway.
This Government, or any Government, are desirous of having the best possible conditions prevailing, but the question of planning must be considered. There is also the question of relief work. In this city a man is not offered relief work unless he has five children. That means that the young married man or unmarried man has no alternative but to emigrate. I would suggest that a classification of workers returning home at Christmas should be made. They should be asked at the port or airport into what classification they fall. In that way, we would have concrete figures and could classify them as building or agricultural workers. It would be a good thing if we had such statistics, in order that we could consider them in the light of Government policy.
The Housing Act was introduced to help people whose financial position did not permit them to carry out necessary repairs to prevent their property falling into a state of complete dilapidation. That Act could have been a big factor in increasing employment in the building industry, but I say, from experience and without fear of contradiction, that it is an utter failure. Yet, it could have been a wonderful success.
Let us take a case in point. A person submits an application to the local authority. An inspector sees the property and he may agree that the job should be put in hand. In whose hand is it put? We would expect, if we were to get full advantage of the Act, that the work would be executed by registered contractors or builders, rather than done at night by people who hold down a job during the day.
The Deputy is now dealing with administration.
I suggest that approval should be given only after a tender or an estimate is received from a reputable firm and that the work should not be given to people who hold down two jobs. That is the present policy and I should like to see it changed.
Admittedly, many youths emigrate, when there is no necessity for them to do so, for the love of adventure. It has been our experience that the time arrives when they desire to return. What planning are we doing so far as housing is concerned to cater for their return?
Housing in Dublin is a matter for the local authority, but I am not satisfied that it is, because when the Dublin local authority submits a tender for approval, the Department refuses to sanction it. That situation is facing us this week and, consequently, work that is at a vital stage is being held back. In considering such matters, one must take into consideration that for work which begins in April or May, a contractor will give a tender which may be at least 25 per cent. cheaper than he would give if the work commenced in November or December. That is a matter of policy by virtue of the large contributions made by the State for the execution of that work.
The last Minister who spoke today referred to income tax. The fact is that under the P.A.Y.E. system the building industry is a very large contributor.
I hope consideration will be given to the suggestion I made three times before, that a commission to deal with building, planning and actual industry as a whole, should be set up. The Taoiseach might consider setting up a different Department, a Ministry of Works, where someone conversant with these matters would deal with them. After all, the Minister for Local Government decides at what time of the year it is feasible to hold an election, but he does not decide at what time of the year these major projects should be started. I believe there could be a very great improvement if the Taoiseach would consider that aspect of the matter.
I should like, if I am in order, to refer briefly to the pay of our Forces in the Congo. I understand that private soldiers of other Armies receive more money than our commissioned officers, who consequently feel a certain degree of embarrassment. I merely mention the matter for the consideration of the Taoiseach.
I hope the case I have made with regard to relief work and road work is strong enough. At the moment contractors have approval to execute works, say, in asphalt. Admittedly, this is not the best time of the year, but that shows bad planning and I trust the Taoiseach will give consideration to the matter before the next session.
Notice taken that 20 Members were not present; House counted and 20 Members being present.
A debate of this sort offers an opportunity for a general review. I do not consider it should necessarily be used for the purpose of arraigning the Government on what they have or have not done as the people will have an adequate opportunity later of expressing their views on the record of the Government. Nevertheless, the House is entitled to question various aspects of Government policy and entitled to information on what decisions have been taken and how these decisions have operated.
The great problem have facing the future of this country is the provision of additional employment and the production of goods, agricultural and industrial, which can be exported at a profit. Looking at any set of figures or statistics, it seems that there is a continuous drop in the numbers employed on the land. Whether the number of persons leaving the land varies between one year and another, the general tendency has continued uninterruptedly. Certain short periods show a bigger exodus than others but, over the period, whether the figures are taken from the statistics published last year prior to the Budget or from the Statistical Abstract, it is evident that there is a continuous exodus from rural areas. That has often been referred to by people who have written and talked on this subject. It is accompanied by emigration from urban areas.
It seems to me that this problem has never been properly appreciated or understood in so far as general plans or programmes are concerned. Repeatedly, views have been expressed about the provision of employment and the establishment of industry to absorb those who leave employment on the land. It seems, from the various efforts that have been made, that so far the additional employment provided in industry has not nearly kept pace with the combined numbers of those who leave employment on the land and those who reach adult status each year.
I have always taken the view that the claims made by the present Government when in Opposition that they could provide full employment would not be justified in practice and certainly were not warranted on past experience. Some time within the past couple of years I listened to an address by a well-known economist in this country. He expressed the view that this country could enjoy its present or even a higher standard of living, both those directly employed in agriculture and those employed elsewhere, and still have 200,000 fewer people in agriculture than are employed at present. That talk was given about two years ago. When studied in that way the figure sounds somewhat startling.
If we look back at the various figures that have been published over the years for the numbers leaving rural occupations or occupations as farm workers or family help on farms, it is seen that that figure is likely to be attained in quite a measurable distance of time depending on the rate of exodus which could be acheived in 15 or 20 years. The serious fact which seems to emerge from that is that, once an exodus of that sort is attained. It will have cumulative effects.
From time to time many people refer to the rate of emigration or migration, as the case may be, from areas on the western seaboard and in the more congested areas. Looking recently at figures for agricultural employment in other provinces, I notice the tendency is not confined to these areas and the common to other parts of the country though the emphasis is heavier in the congested areas. It seems to me that the efforts to provide additional employment have so far not measured up to the requirements or the needs of the community as a whole.
In particular, I want to deal for a moment with efforts in recent years to attract industry to certain specific areas. We are all familiar with the efforts to attract industries to the free zone at Shannon. Considerable effort has been made to provide facilities and to attract industries to that area. It seems, from what has happened, that so far the effort has not met with the success expected.
I want to repeat a view I expressed here previously. The facilities and encouragement provided for the Shannon zone should be provided not for Shannon but for Limerick or Ennis. With the exception of limited industrial projects where goods are exported through the airport or where the raw materials can readily be imported by air, it seems that there is no merit, per se, in undertaking such a project at Shannon. The obvious places for that development are the city of Limerick or the town of Ennis where natural facilities exist. A ready pool is available for employment in Limerick and in Ennis. If there is a slack in employment at a place like Shannon, the people concerned come either from Limerick or Ennis. Very few live at Shannon Airport. The encouragement provides, the facilities offered could be more effectively provided either in Limerick or Ennis without having to provide additional ancillary facilities or services required at Shannon and that are already available in these other places.
There is one aspect of this matter to which I wish to refer. It is not confined to this project but generally to the encouragement which has been afforded to new industries. Many of these industries have developed under strong State stimuli. They have been encouraged and facilitated in many ways by the remission of tax on export, by generous facilities in the form of loans and by the assistance which is available, through the Industrial Credit Company, and so on. That is all undoubtedly to the good and has succeeded in establishing or encouraging the establishment of industries which would otherwise not have been started.
The tax remissions and reliefs provided in 1956, and since expanded, undoubtedly operated as probably the greatest incentive ever given for industrial export but I notice in a few remarks on occasions—the most recent one was the speech of the Chairman of Seafield Fabrics, Ltd., Mr. Declan Dwyer—a note of anxiety and even of criticism of the facilities afforded to new industrialists. Comparison is made with the expansion programmes and costs which Seafield Fabrics and other existing industrialists have undertaken.
This speech was reported in the Press on the 13th December. At the 14th ordinary general meeting of the company held on Monday, 12th December, Mr. Dwyer said:
I would mention in passing that the total capital cost of these developments in both companies will be in excess of £270,000, not one penny of which was received in the form of a Government grant, which these days is so much in evidence for foreigners starting industries here.
The chief deterrent to the further expansion of the bulk of Irish industries (excluding the new "spoonfed" class which is bolstered by Government grants and tax-free concessions) is the abnormally high level of direct taxation.
I mention that for the reason that on another occasion somewhat similar remarks were made and I want the Government and the appropriate Departments to ensure that no facilities will be denied to existing industrialists which are being offered to those about to commerce new enterprises. Quite recently, I had a similar complaint from a firm alleging different treatment from that afforded to an established firm in a similar line of business, although in actual fact the firm which communicated with me had been established for some considerable time before the other one which was competing with them. I suppose it is inevitable that some conflict may arise from time to time but I think that we ought not, on the one hand, provide incentives and encouragement and, on the other, operate in such a manner as not to facilitate to the maximum extent existing industrial undertakings.
I have been struck by the very considerable evidence not only of people leaving the land but by the fact that, despite the efforts made, there are now substantially fewer people employed than in 1956. These figures have already been quoted and I do not propose to labour the point but it is significant that, in the figures of the Budget which were published at the time, about 50,000 fewer people were employed then than four years previously. If we take into account the very large numbers emigrating and that over the past three to four years I suppose no fewer than 150,000, on a fairly conservative estimate, have left this country, we can realise the magnitude of the problem that has to be overcome.
I do not believe it does anything to help this problem either to exaggerate it or, on the other hand, minimise it such as the Minister for Transport and Power was doing a short time ago. The fact that in certain quarters, in individual industrial or commercial undertakings or other undertakings, there may be a spirit of optimism or that certain sections of the community are now better off than they were, does not justify the claim made that very many of the people find it just as difficult as ever to live and that many of them, because of that, are forced to find employment elsewhere. Certain sections of the community undoubtedly have had their position improved. In that regard, it seems to me that the State companies should set a headline.
Up to recently the Government claimed there had been very little rise in the cost of living. The recent consumer price index refutes that claim but, even prior to the publication of that, it is, I think, generally known that the E.S.B. recently granted a wage increase of 12½ per cent. That is a fairly substantial increase. If it was made on the basis of the change in the cost of essentials and in the falling value of money, it indicates the views of the conciliation machinery or the E.S.B. wage tribunal of the changes that have taken place.
But it does pose the question of the standards State bodies establish and how these standard will impact on the rest of the community. An increase of 12½ per cent. must have an effect on the price of electricity. Whether the the price is that which the domestic consumer has to pay or whether it is felt by the agricultural community or industrialists, it will have an effect either on the cost of living or on the cost of production. While it is conceded and recognised that, as the cost of living rises, the E.S.B. employees are entitled, just as any other section, to an increase in their wages or emoluments, these other factors in a State undertaking must be recognised and adequate allowance made for them. Only in the accounts which were published recently and in the statement made by the Chairman of the E.S.B. was reference made to the increased costs which had to be met by the E.S.B. and as a result the charges were increased from October. Is it a fact that this recent increase will be passed on to the public in the future or was it budgeted for in the additional charges which were already imposed last October?
Reference has been made during this debate, and during the discussion yesterday, to State bodies. I might as well refer to the matter now as later. There is an impression that State bodies do not give sufficient information to the public and that Ministers in the House do not give sufficient information when queried on the activities of these undertakings. The growth of State-sponsored bodies and State companies has increased greatly since the war and the tendency is for their number to increase. This development undoubtedly makes it important to see exactly what the position is vis-a-vis the statutory authority for these undertakings and the information which is furnished here to the Dáil and which is made available to the public.
In one form or another, State bodies are established by the State, either by statute or the provision of capital, and those employed in them, like all of us, are public servants. The fact that these organisations have been established under statute and that statutory authority defines their responsibility, does not mean that those organisations can adopt a somewhat authoritarian attitude to the public or that they can ignore the public or the Dáil. I would say that, in the majority of cases, the staffs of these companies are most courteous and helpful whenever their services are sought, but there are other occasions when they are not and these occasions often create the attitude of the public towards the manner in which these bodies deal with public queries or where public questions or interests are concerned. No one experts, nor would they be justified in expecting, that the day-to-day questions of administration of these bodies should be open to query in the Dáil, but undoubtedly important decisions should not only be made public but the reasons for them should also be given.
This question was considered some years ago in Britain and when we were in Government we considered the matter without, I admit, getting a satisfactory arrangement under which the various matters could be brought under review. There is provision in most of these statutes for discussions when the annual reports are presented to the Dáil and an opportunity is afforded to members to discuss particular problems. In a way, that affords an opportunity for the matter to be brought before the Dáil and to enable public attention to be focussed on it but from experience over the years that rarely happens. With very rare exceptions, an occasion of that sort is afforded when legislation is introduced which increases the capital or provides additional capital or finance for capital development or when, as in the case of C.I.E., a Transport Bill comes before the House. It does, however, seem from what has been said here, and at very many meetings and gatherings throughout the country, that there is dissatisfaction with the manner in which decisions are taken and the complete refusal to discuss the terms of these decisions except on the basis of predetermined lines laid down by the company. This applies particularly in the case of C.I.E. where branch lines are concerned, but in other matters other State companies should also afford the public the fullest information in, I believe, their own interests.
The closing of branch lines by C.I.E. has already been ruled on by the Ceann Comhairle. It does not seem to be a matter for the Adjournment Debate.
I refer to it only in passing. It seems from the experience of those who have interested themselves in these matters that, in the interests of the company concerned, the best policy, the soundest policy and the policy that will secure maximum public support, is to give the public and the House the fullest possible information. Much of the criticism would have been avoided if the people knew the reasons behind the decisions of these undertakings, which as I have mentioned, set a headline in many ways and in this particular instance could do likewise if they offered an explanation and information on the occasion of particular decisions or actions. I feel the Government and the Taoiseach should have another look at the question which was considered some years ago and, in the light of the information furnished by various State bodies, reexamine the question. As there is an ever-growing tendency for the number of these bodies to increase, with so many ramifications in so many spheres of economic, social and national activity, it is vital that the public interest should be so understood and recognised that public confidence in whatever action is taken would be readily forthcoming.
Another question to which I wish to refer has reference to the effort to provide and develop the industrial potential and the tourist industry. While great efforts have been made and are being made to establish new industries, the effort made so far as tourism is concerned seems to be inadequate and is not achieving the desired results. Is the publicity campaign which is being undertaken directed into the right channels or has it achieved the aims and objectives outlined when that programme was initiated? I do not want to re-tread old ground or reexamine the background which has prevented Bord Fáilte from getting support and which has militated against its effectiveness. Most of that is now water under the bridge, but certainly the past difficulties of that body have prevented it from playing the part which it might play in the industrial expansion.
It is well recognised that the accommodation available is not sufficient and that on many occasions we have lost large conferences because we could not provide adequate accommodation on a particular occasion or at a particular period. I have been struck by the growth in tourist trade income for this country compared with other European countries.
In the annual report of O.E.E.C. a study was made over a period of the three years, from 1955 to 1958, of the increased income which resulted from tourism in a number of European countries. The figures showed that Austria increased its income by 103 per cent., West Germany by 64 per cent., Italy by 48 per cent., France by 12 per cent., Britain by 25 per cent. and Ireland by 12 per cent. It is true that there was one country, Switzerland, which had an increase of 5 per cent. but I presume that was so because of the already highly developed state of the tourist business in that country. Our percentage increase was substantially lower than any other country engaged in developing the tourist business.
Quite recently the Irish Banking Review commented on the fact that State allocation for the development of tourism, a most important contributor to the economy of the country, was only £3.55 million out of a total of £53.4 million for the period 1960 to 1964. I deplore that for the reason that tourism expenditure or the scope which expenditure on tourism enjoys, offers the greatest return for a comparatively low outlay. If anything like the same effort were devoted to developing tourist facilities as is employed in other spheres—it is true that additional facilities have been provided in the way of hotel and bedroom accommodation—the scope for expenditure, and the benefits that would follow from it, would be felt by almost all areas in the country. The benefits would be dispersed throughout our cities, towns and rural areas.
One of the matters complained of here has been that of transport. This matter was referred to again this week in the course of a discussion in the House of Lords. Reference was made to the unsatisfactory nature of the sea transport arrangements, particularly at the peak periods of travel, either at holiday periods or at the Christmas and Easter rush periods. I believe that the Minister for Transport and Power, in conjunction with any other Minister interested in the matter, should convene a conference of all interested parties, and, if necessary, responsible British as well as Irish interests. I notice that the has had some such discussion.
Unfortunately, in the past any discussions taking place have never produced the desired results because when there was a peak period of travel the same or similar problems arose again. While I agree that an effort was made, when these problems arose, to remedy them or to obviate the same mistakes later, past experience justifies the belief that up to the present the travel facilities are nothing like adequate. It is of some significance that this matter was the subject of comment in the recent debate in the British House of Lords.
It does seem to me that it would be better to provide encouragement for the development of tourist facilities rather than to develop some of the undertakings to which I have referred already. In the tourist business we have available not only potential travellers from Britain; no doubt the majority of those are our own people returning for holidays but we have untapped opportunities where the United States is concerned. It is quite significant that although there was growth in the number of United States visitors to the Continent and Western Europe, the increase in the number coming to this country was not commensurate.
I believe that we should now capitalise on the fact that the new President of the United States is of Irish extraction. It is surprising how many people in America have never heard of this country and are not familiar with it. Undoubtedly the election of a new President will focus attention in America on his background and we should capitalise on that to the fullest possible extent.
Another point to which I wish to refer is the recent decision to increase the interest charged on Small Dwellings (Acquisition Acts) Loans. It seems a rather extraordinary decision at a time when interest rates are falling to increase these charges. It comes at a time also when there is a drop in local authority housing and employment in building houses because of the fact that in many cases the schemes planned have been completed. The prospect of maintaining employment in the building industry depends to a considerable extent on the Small Dwellings Acts schemes. These have always been good schemes from every point of view in so far as they encourage people to build houses for themselves and encourage groups to come together for the purpose of providing housing schemes. They have been characterised by individual and group initiative as the case may be. There is no justification for the decision to increase interest rates, especially when the tendency everywhere is for interest rates to fall. I believe there is need for an explanation of this decision and, if possible, a change in if it is not to affect detrimentally employment in the building industry at a time when the opportunities of employment in local authority housing schemes are greatly restricted.
These schemes and the Small Dwellings Act schemes have in the past proved not only satisfactory but have inculcated a spirit of initiative and self-help in providing accommodation for many people who otherwise would be forced to look for local authority houses, for which they would be ineligible, or who could not otherwise provide themselves with accommodation and who had not sufficient funds available to purchase houses or to build them out of their own resources.
The Small Dwellings (Acquisition) Act loans facilitated a group in the community, particularly the white collar section, who were not catered for under other schemes and who depended on these loans to provide for their needs. I believe, therefore, that it is a bad decision and one which should be altered before damage is done to the employment prospects as well as the prospects of providing accommodation for this section of the community who endeavour by their own exertions to assist themselves.
I do not think there is much point in trying to convince the present Government of the seriousness of the situation, at least in the rural areas. If they believe their statements, it is quite clear they have their eyes completely closed to a very dangerous situation in the rural areas. It would appear from their speeches— and I believe them—that the large centres of population are not feeling the pinch as badly as others but is there any use in adding my voice to the many others to try to convince this Government that the situation of the farming community is pretty desperate? The Taoiseach is not a farmer but, if he analyses the statistics furnished by his own office each month and each year, he will realise that there is a pretty serious situation existing for all farmers but especially for those who are trying to eke out a living on holdings of 30 acres and less. I am taking farms of 30 acres and less, in a rough and ready way, because they are the smallest range of holdings, from which, naturally, the income is smallest.
Figures issued by the Central Statistics Office reveal that in the three quarters of last year the income from cattle exported was £22.1 million. This year there is a slight improvement; the figure is £23.5 million. In 1958, for the first three quarters, January to September, inclusive, the income from exported cattle was £32.5 million. In 1957, the year in which Fianna Fáil took over from the Inter-Party Government, live cattle alone brought in £37.5 million. These figures show that from 1957 to 1958 there was a drop of £5,000,000 or, in other words, that the farmers got £5,000,000 less for their cattle. In 1959 there was a drop of £15.4 million on the 1957 figure and in 1960 a drop of £14,000,000 on the 1957 figure.
I listened to the Minister for Transport speak here today. He told us that he thinks the agricultural industry is in good shape and in good from and is getting adequate assistance from the Government. One of the boasts he made was that the fact that farmers had borrowed £19,000,000 from the banks was a good sign. It comes as news to me that any group of persons who are in debt is in a better position than they would be if they had their own capital and did not need to borrow.
I challenge the Minister for Transport and Power to disprove that when the Inter-Party Government was in office, from 1954 to 1957, the amount of borrowing by farmers was negligible, the reason being that they had their own capital to finance their own projects but, as a result of the rise in the cost of living and the disastrous fall in income that I have indicated, the farmers have been badly hit. The Taoiseach is a businessman. Will he tell me what industry in any country, even in the United States of America, could withstand the blow inflicted by a loss of £15½ million in one year, £14,000,000 in another year and £5,000,000 in another year, with no prospect of improvement in the situation?
The present Government took office in the month of March, 1957, on a shoal of false promises. The Taoiseach made the statements that Deputy Dillon read out today. We all read them at the time and some of us were soft enough to believe that the present Taoiseach and the then Leader of the Fianna Fáil Party, who is now the President, made those statements in good faith.
And the Deputy believed them?
When two men who have held responsible positions in the country for 16 years or more go on a public platform at the time of an election and make a solemn statement to the electors that they know will be published in the Press and read in every household, one cannot help believing it.
If the Deputy believed it he should have voted Fianna Fáil.
I did not believe it. Why should I support Fianna Fáil? We had kept the cost of living down by food subsidies and Deputy Murphy supported us in that. Fianna Fáil said that some of the propaganda used against them was that they were going to do certain things and the present Taoiseach and the Leader of the Party at that time, Mr. de Valera, said: "No. That is all wrong. We will not do away with the food subsidies." Even if they did not do away with the food subsidies, the position was no better than it would have been if the Inter-Party Government had been left in. They got there on false promises which they must have known they would not live up to. It is difficult to see how the work of any man laid on a foundation of such falsity could have success. That is the principal reason why the present Government has not had any success in the handling of the country for the last four years. It was not enough to make promises before the election but at the Fianna Fáil Árd Fheis following the general election of 1957 the Taoiseach promised an expenditure within the next five years of £220,000,000. What has become of that £220,000,000?
Do not ask me. I never heard of it.
I suppose the Taoiseach never made the promise,
I never heard of it.
Either the Taoiseach never made the promise or never intended to carry it out. Which is it? I do not want to recall the promise of 100,000 new jobs. That was fantastic. Anybody soft enough to believe that, deserved a Fianna Fáil Government.
I understand that the Deputy said he did believe it.
No, I did not believe that, I said did not believe that they were going to remove the food subsidies. I genuinely believed that they were not going to do that. I did not believe the promise of 100,000 new jobs.
That was not the main carrot dangled at the time.
Very few believed that. The average Fianna Fáil supporter said: "The poor things want to get back to power at all costs and must say something." That was the attitude about that. Most people thought that the food subsidies would not be touched and that the cost of living in food, bread and butter in particular, would remain unchanged.
Several things have happened since that. The most notable is the complete lack of employment in rural areas. The Minister for Transport and Power can tell us that the unemployment register is down by 20,000. The wonder is that it is not down by a greater figure because people have fled from the country. All those who want to make use of their time and to make a living have had to fly from the country. The Local Authorities (Works) Act, under which useful and productive employment was given, was completely cut out by the Fianna Fáil Government.
The Government tells us that migration of whole families which has been brought to their notice is not a fact. Would the Taoiseach ask the Garda Síochána or the enumerators of the census how many houses that held families in the past five or ten years are now shut up? I notice a whole table given of holdings of farmers. I know from my experience in the Land Commission that these tables can be misleading. Many people hold two or three small holdings and these are described as homesteads but they are really three detached parts of the one homestead.
If the Minister wants to get a real picture of what is happening in the country, I am giving him at least two pointers on how to do it. First, he can get the list of homesteads at present occupied and another list of the homesteads which have been vacated in the past 10 years. This will reveal a wholesale clearance is going on under our eyes. There is only one way to meet that situation. The Government must find markets for what the farmer is producing and cannot sell and, secondly, they must bring employment into the rural areas.
The cost of running the country this year is roughly £177 million. Less than £3 million of that is spent on direct employment and then we wonder why people are leaving the country. The reason is obvious: we are taxing the people for every grandiose scheme under the sun but sufficient attention is not being given to employment by the Special Employment Schemes Office, the Board of Works, the Forestry Section, the Land Commission, Bord na Móna and so on. The only sensible thing for people to do in these circumstances is to fly from under this heavy tombstone of taxation placed on them by this Government. The minor employment schemes and rural improvement schemes which used to give employment in the winter months are being reduced. The Minister for Transport and Power is taking credit for expansion in forestry. We need not take any credit for that because any credit that is due goes to the inter-party Government who first put forestry on its feet.
Would the Taoiseach tell us what plans Fianna Fáil have for increasing agricultural production and, if they have any plans for increasing agricultural production, what plans they have for the marketing of it once it is produced? The farmers have increased their production of cattle, pigs, butter and everything else, but it is left on their hands.
On the subject of the production of butter, it is peculiar that we have the Government asking for harder work and increased production while yesterday I was on a deputation representing 700 small farmers who were trying to establish a creamery and who had the proposal rejected. We went to Foras Tionscal who always gave grants for the establishment of industries provided these industries would not have a damaging effect on existing industries.
These small farmers, trying to help themselves, put up £6,000 capital for this project. They were seeking a grant of £3,500 towards the erection of the creamery and the reason their proposal was turned down was that the Government feel there is too much butter being produced.
If a foreigner wants £250,000 to establish a factory at Shannon, in Cork or in the city of Dublin, it is given without any demur but when 700 farmers who cannot sell their produce and who see no other course open to them, seek to establish this industry to increase their incomes and give a certain amount of employment, they are turned down, notwithstanding the fact that a Bill to help the marketing of butter passed all Stages in the House last night. The Minister for Transport and Power said that no Party has or could have plan to stop emigration. I do not think anybody has ever made the claim that he could stop it completely.
They did.
If we look at a table in the agricultural statistics, issued about a month or six weeks ago, we shall find that in 1934 there were 579,409 males engaged in occupations on the land; in 1954 the number was 421,309, a drop of 158,000 approximately. That means, if you look at it in another way, that one out of every seven males working on the land in 1934 was gone by 1954. Until the new census appears we shall not know what the drop is for the last six years but I take it it will be in proportion or that the number will be even greater than that shown in the Table in respect of 1934 to 1954.
The policy of this Government seems to aim at the elimination of small holdings; anyhow that is what is happening. If that is Government policy the Government should come out in the open and say so. Many people are trying to remain in holdings on a very reduced standard of living in the hope that some day the tables will be turned and things will begin to brighten up; instead of that they are getting darker day by day. The wise ones—and I call then wise—have gone while the going is good; whole families, father, mother and children, have moved over to England. The net result of Government policy is the extermination— there is no other word for it — of farmers of under 30 acres.
The Government have been done two things to bring that about; they have increased the cost of living and they have—and this is the most charitable expression I can use—failed to find a market for what the small farmer has to sell. The small farmer depends particularly on a few cattle, sheep and lambs, pigs, eggs and turkeys. The market for all these has vanished.
They cannot get enough turkeys.
What about last year and the year before?
We are talking about this year.
Does Deputy Moher think the farmers are fools? They went into production and produced enormous numbers of turkeys last year and the year before and when they had them, the Government could not find a market for them.
The Minister for Transport and Power told us about all the radio sets they were selling in Pakistan and India and the merchandise we were sending to the far ends of the world but what I want to know is why scrap the principal industry that is already established with the necessary capital and machinery—because every single holding is a potential factory? Why scrap that and let it die? Should that not be the first thing to get our attention? We are supposed to have 380,000 holdings or farms in the country and each one is staffed with at least the necessary skill, equipment and livestock. Why not take that and see that it, in any case, was in a good healthy condition? Why not find a market for the output of those farms instead of going to Pakistan to find a market for radio parts—which may be admirable in itself? Why scrap the main industry we have?
I admit that the farmers who have the land for it and are employing it to grow wheat and barley on a big scale are getting a fairly good return because they have fixed prices but the small farmer gets no assistance and no help from the Government. I know that Deputy Moher is thinking that they are getting a subsidy on fertilisers and relief of rates but while these things are a certain help, that is not the way to tackle the problem.
The farmer works the whole year round and the principal part of his job is to find a market for what he has produced. That is where the Government fell down on the job. We heard the details about the flight from the land in every country, but there was no reference to the flight from the land in England because actually the number on the land has increased.
What about Scotland?
The same applies. The number working on the land has increased.
The Deputy should check the figures.
Since 1938, the number has increased. England learned the lesson and poured money into the development of agriculture. I put this to any Deputy as a challenge: when Fianna Fáil took over from us in 1957, agriculture was never in a better or healthier condition.
Why were you pushed out then?
The 100,000 jobs.
We were pushed out as many a good Government were pushed out, by fraud—a nasty word but I cannot find another for it. The farmers were never as well off as when we went out in 1957.
(Interruptions.)
Order!
The proof of that is that the people had so much money in 1955 and 1956 that they were purchasing wholesale with the result that we had to put a tariff on certain goods coming into the country. Where was that money coming from? Scarcely from people who were borrowing money from the bank. It was scarcely the £19,000,000 the Minister for Transports and Power spoke about that upset the balance of trade so much that the Government had to put on tariffs to stop them from buying.
A Deputy
You could not get a loan during the Deputy's term of office.
(Interruptions.)
I would say to those Deputies opposite who are interrupting: let them wait until they go to the country and when they do, they will get a wallop that they will not forget for many a long day.
I hear they are planning not to go to the country now but they will have to go.
The sooner they go, the better, but God help any Government that have to take over the mess they have created. It will be beyond the power of any Government to bring back the 60,000 or 80,000 families that have emigrated. It would take a lot to convince them now, scattered as they are through the towns and cities of England, that they should come back when they had to go with their caps in their fists to their former enemy to beg for a living after 40 years of self-government.
If it is the policy of Fianna Fáil to exterminate the small farmer and if it is best, in their opinion, for the country, in the long run, let them come out in the open and say they are doing it, but let them not be like the Minister for Transport and Power, rubbing salt into the wound and trying to cover it over with oil when, due to the high cost of living and the failure to find markets for their products, the people have been forced out of the land. Let them come out in the open and say what the Government intend to do about it. Let them take a chance and perhaps it will pay off. Let them forget the false promises on which they got in in 1957. We will forget them if the Government now come out in the open and turn over to the truth and say exactly where they stand.
In case any Deputy might think that I am opposed to industrial development, let me say I am not. The one fault I have to find with it is that it is not going fast or far enough, at least in the west. We have got a bad deal from the Government in the west in spite of An Foras Tionscal and the Undeveloped Areas Act. But no amount of industry the Government could establish could undo the damage that is already done. The two things most needed are to find markets for the produce on our hands and provide a great deal more employment which is so badly needed. There is plenty of productive work to be done in the rural areas and the men who could do it are going away. If the Taoiseach looks over his figures again, he will find in the £177,000,000 it costs to run the country, less than £3,000,000 is spent on direct employment of working men and perhaps there he will find the reason for the large scale emigration.
I welcome a debate such as this because it can be a check on the Government and a check on the Opposition. It gives the backbenchers an opportunity to review the position over the past year. I believe it is our responsibility to try to make suggestions to the Government about how we might try to remedy the ills of the particular sections of people for whom we speak.
I understand that in this debate it is permissible to debate general Government policy and, in particular, the policy implemented by the different Departments of State. I shall take the Minister for Local Government first. Speakers here have referred to unemployment. I admit that Ministers, other than the Minister for Local Government, have a certain responsibility where the provision of employment is concerned. It is only natural, however, that those of us who are members of local authorities should be particularly interested as far as the provision of employment is concerned in the policy of the Minister for Local Government.
Some months ago, we received a lengthy circular letter from the Minister. The genesis of that communication was that the Minister was cutting down on a number of labourers' cottages being built. Admittedly, there was no specific statement to that effect in the circular, but that was the clear implication. It was more or less pointed out that, when an application was received for a labourer's cottage, it was the duty of the county council to inspect the home of the applicant and, if it was found unfit for human habitation, an estimate should be made of the cost of putting the house into a condition which would render it fit for habitation. It appears to me there is a deliberate "go slow" policy on the part of the Minister for Local Government where building is concerned. We are exhorted to give more employment but, when the opportunity of providing employment arises, we are advised to adopt a different policy.
Twelve months ago, I raised the question here of building houses for small farmers. The Minister was enthuasiastic in his approval of that idea. He pointed out, as the record will show, that there is an income limitation and a valuation limitation where the building of houses by local authorities is concerned. I do not suppose my views carry much weight. Certainly nothing has ever been done along the lines I suggested.
It is up to the Deputy's county council to do that.
It is not up to the county council. It is the responsibility of the Minister to give a direction in the matter. I firmly believe the Minister for Local Government agrees with my suggestion, but we want a direction to build houses for small farmers up to a certain valuation, without loss of subsidy, grant or anything else to which we may be entitled.
We have built such houses and we did not lose.
I am pleased to hear that. I believe there is a "go slow." policy. We sent up a scheme for 145 cottages. After a delay of roughly six months we were informed the plans were not acceptable. We submitted further plans and, after some months delay, some cottages were sanctioned and others were not. At the end of the financial year, instead of having built 145 cottages, we had built only 48. If North Tipperary send up plans for 150 cottages, South Tipperary plans for another 150, Laois and Offaly likewise, right down through the 27 local authorities, and if it is assumed that each cottage costs £1,000, and the Minister reduces the number by more than 50 per cent., that represents a saving of £100,000 per year over all the local authorities. There is an aphorism in my part of the country that, if you want to hold a man on the land, the safest way to keep him is to take £1 off him every week. At the end of four years give him back 5/- out of that £1, and he will thank you. He will forget that you are responsible for depriving him of the other 15/-.
We hear a lot of complaints about unemployment, with consequent requests for the employment of workmen. Several Deputies have spoken about tourism but no one suggested that people coming into the country each year, who are described as tourists, should have their names and places of birth noted. The Minister for Transport and Power referred to the 50,000 fewer unemployed in the country. What was the reason for it? It was because whole families emigrated en masse during the past few years. If the places of birth of the supposed tourists coming in here each year were noted, I can guarantee that more than 90 per cent. of them would be found to be persons returning to visit their fathers and mothers or other relatives.
The Minister for Transport and Power insisted on repeating that there were fewer unemployed in the country. I accept his figures and I have explained the reason. Why would an able-bodied young man or woman stay here and try to exist on a pittance of 38/- a week? Why would they not be taking ships for Liverpool, Glasgow and elsewhere in Britain? If you compare the 1956 census figures with the, figures for the present time, it will be found that there are four times fewer able-bodied young men and women in the country capable of taking up employment.
I want to sound a note of warning. We are facing a very dangerous situation in this country in the not so distant future. If the flight from our shores of all our able-bodies young men and women continues at its present rate, in a few years we will have a nation of very old people with very few young people. That is the rock upon which we will perish.
If I may turn to agriculture for a moment and deal specifically with the operations of the sugar factories, I can point to an indication of our population trend. People will say, of course, that our people as a whole are not consuming as much sugar as they were years ago. I say that is a fallacy. The real reason is that the population is getting smaller and smaller and the consumption of sugar as well as of everything else is growing less and less. As the population dwindles, and we produce more, the less we have to sell at home to the detriment of our small farmers.
That is a tragedy because when this country was in dire straits it was the small farmers who served the nation best. I refer the House particularly to their efforts during the last war. In many parts of Lower Ormonde, long before the Thurles Beet factory was established, the small farmers were carting their beet to the Grand Canal stores for shipment to the Carlow factory. It was not a very popular occupation in those days to grow or harvest beet. In fact, in many parts of Lower Ormonde, it was looked upon as a disgrace. Yet these small farmers put their beet into common horsecarts and took them miles to the Grand Canal depot where sometimes they had to wait for very long periods because the barges were held up by storms or high water or various other conditions over which the canal company had no control.
But did Deputy Dillon not say to grow no more wheat or beet?
Who started the first beet factory?
I shall not allow these interruptions.
Fianna Fáil were not there in 1926 and 1927.
Other Deputies may, if they wish, try to put me off by gibing at me, but I believe our duty is to come here and see if we can improve conditions for the people we represent. I remember at the time of the tillage regulations, when people could be brought into court and convicted for not reaching their quota, there was not a single prosecution in Lower Ormonde. Now the people who kept the beet factories going during that time find that their acreage is substantially reduced, even though they are supplying a factory less than 40 miles away. Last year, their acreage was substantially reduced and although some growers were granted an increase this year, it was not granted to portion of my area.
I want to pay a tribute to the managing director of the Irish Sugar Company. While I reserve the right to criticise the company, I think Major-General Costello is the right man for the job. It is not his fault that the subsidy given to all farmers previously has been withdrawn and is now confined to those living a certain distance from the factory. The Minister should point out to those concerned with the company that the farmers affected are those who helped to build up the industry. Now that it is a flourishing industry, they are being denied the subsidy. I hope the Taoiseach will make representations to the Minister for Agriculture in this regard.
Barley growers are not getting a just price for malting barley. The barley and wheat growers in my area are being badly treated. I have a newspaper cutting here which tells me that one barrel of barley will make eight proof gallons of whiskey. The excise duty on that is £70. A fair average crop of barley is 16 barrels per acre. Therefore, the Government get £1,054 per acre for barley. Admittedly, a small increase in the barely price was given. But take the price of barely 10 or 12 years ago and compare it with the price of intoxicating liquor at that time. Take the case of the pint of stout. I sold barley at £4 per barrel at a time when the print of stout was 10d. Now I sell barley at 37/- a barrel and the price of stout in Dublin is 1/6d. and down the country 1/4d. or 1/3d. Who gets the difference? I agree that barely made £4 4s. 0d. per barrel in one particular year but, in the years following, those manufacturing stout paid the same dividends. This year, we got, at a rough estimate, 37/- per barrel, and the firms concerned paid 33? per cent. dividend at the expenses of the small tillage farmers.
For the past couple of months, Questions have been put down by other members of the House with regard to the importation of oats. I want it to go on the records of the House that I agree 100 per cent. with the Minister for Agriculture in refusing to allow the importation of feeding oats. I can understand that, possibly, the Minister will have to allow the importation of oats for seed purposes. There is a section of people in this country, whom, I am proud to say, I do not represent, who, when buying, whether oats for horses of food for themselves, do not buy one iota of Irish manufacture.
We have reached a poor stage in this House when there is a demand from this or the other side of the House for the importation of farm oats to feed Irish racehorses. Why Irish oats are not considered good enough is hard for me at least to understand, when we consider our Irish land, our Irish limestone, our good soil, good grass and good hay. We have been able to build up Irish horses to that point of perfection where they are taking prizes all over the world and people pay £10,000, £20,000 or £30,000 for horses reared on Irish Limestone grass of hay.
I was speaking to a trainer not so long ago and he told me that he put all his horses through the Curragh racing stables on Irish oats and would not use important oats. The Minister will want to stand firm or he will be "shot down" by people who will say the Irish farmer is not growing the amount of oats he used to grow some years ago. I do not blame the Irish farmer. He was growing oats for a long number of years and could get no one to buy his crop, with the result that today many have gone out of the production of oats.
I will be fair to the Minister. It is quite possible that pressure will be put on him to remove the embargo on the importation of foreign oats. I will also say that he will be fair and straight about it. If he could get from these people who are pressing him to remove that embargo, a guarantee to a certain group of Irish farmers that if they grow a substantial amount of good oats—and there is a big difference in the growing of oats between good, bad and indifferent—they will get a guaranteed price. If that were done, the Minister could say to those people: "Yes, gentlemen, we will have Irish oats suitable for feeding Irish horses."
I thoroughly agree with the Minister on the stand he has taken on the question of the importation of foreign oats. My only request to the Minister is that he will take the same stand with regard to the price of malting barley, leaving wheat out of it completely, and that he will take the same stand with regard to the areas with which the Sugar Company are concerned.
The people who live far away from Thurles, Mallow or Tuam will not have the haulage of their beet subsidised by the Sugar Company. It seems that there is a small group in the Thurles area who never grew beet before and are now growing it on a large scale. We are the people who helped in a small way to build up that factory and we are being cut away completely from it. I want to point out that beet plays a large part in our agricultural drive. Lest some paper might say I criticised the factories in am, Mallow, Thurles or Carlow for criticism's sake, I want to pay tribute to those factories. Beet is one of our main industries in North Tipperary.
We have been in a bad way in North Tipperary for the past three or four years in regard to river drainage. In the Cloughjordan, Lorrha and Carrigahorig areas, we had to seek the help of the Minister concerned with drainage. In my time, Governments have changed. One went out and another replaced it. When the Government which replaced the previous Government came into office, they completely cut off the Toney county councils used to get for river drainage.
Would this not be more appropriate on the Estimate for the specific Department?
I understand the Taoiseach gets in at 4 o'clock. I should like Deputy Tierney, to give some little time to others. I am sorry to have to say it but. I do so because of the position.
The Deputy will be allowed to speak so long as he is relevant.
I want 10 minutes if I can get it. I want to tell the Taoiseach about the unemployed in Dublin. Independents spoke once today. There are nine of us.
You are all the same, as far as that is concerned.
Deputy Tierney.
I may give someone 10 minutes. So long as I am relevant, I may continue to speak even until 4 o'clock. Therefore, you will have to take me easy.
I want to kick up a bit of dust about the West Clare railway line.
Deputy Tierney.
The Ceann Comhairle is in a very peculiar frame of mind at the moment.
There is a tradition behind our railway line which cannot be allowed to drop.
We are in very peculiar circumstances——
The Deputy has said enough about that.
Deputy W. Murphy is under a wrong impression. We are not on roads at all. I am dealing with rivers.
Deputy W. Murphy is only wasting time when he interrupts him. Let him continue.
Deputy Tierney.
I was pointing out the position that existed when the previous Government went out and this Government came in. At that time, a small amount of money was spent on the Carrigahorig River in North Tipperary. I think the then Minister made it clear that if any county council in Ireland spent any portion of money on a river or group of rivers and wanted to continue with the work, he would sanction the amount of money they wanted to spend. The Carrigahorig River is flanked by, roughly, 5,000, 6,000, or 7,000 acres of good fertile land which our old people can remember was used extensively for tillage. Today, one would need hip boots to walk that land; top boots would not do. Our council have spent a certain amount of money. We employed our engineers to make a survey and we employed other people to take the levels.
The Minister has refused to allow our council to spend any money on the drainage of the Carrigahorig River. I want him to realise the injustice to the people in that area. It affects farmers as far north almost as Portumna in County Galway whose land is now flooded year after year, due to neglect. Possibly a lot of the blame can be laid on the farmers concerned and a lot of it on the council concerned, inasmuch as we promised that we would get the work done and assumed we would be enabled to get it done. Just as we were about to get the work done, the Act was put into abeyance. I believe I could perhaps finish now.
The Deputy has 15 minutes to go.
At the same time, I shall not finish in such a friendly atmosphere as people think.
It is the old Christmas spirit all the time. You cannot beat it.
It is only a few years since I was elected to this House. The picture of those elected before me has been one of Deputies fighting and arguing on behalf of the poorer sections of our people. I must do my share and the prospect is that those who come after me will have to continue with the work. I must admit that there has been a small improvement in the case of old age pensioners. Some people boast that our old age pensioners are now drawing 28/6d. a week. I assume that the majority of them will draw more than that when the new Bill is eracted.
They will, of course.
I was shocked at something in this House yesterday. A Deputy asked a question of the Minister for Justice about the amount of money a Garda was getting for minding a dog and what it was costing to feed the dog per week. The Minister replied that the Garda was receiving 15/- per week for leading out the dog and that it was costing £1 per week to feed it. I trust that none of the old people will think I am comparing them with the dog. However, can anybody explain how we can feed an old man or an old woman on 28/6d. a week when, on the Minister's admission, it costs £1 a week to feed a dog? Is that not a good case for a vast increase for our old age pensioners?
And does the Deputy not want an increase on the 37/- for oats for racehorses?
We should be satisfied with 37/- if we could get anyone to buy them. Does Deputy O'Malley know of anybody?
If the horses can be got to eat them.
With the increased money which I assume the Government will receive as a result of the introduction of the P.A.Y.E. system— because a vast number of people will now pay income tax who have not hitherto done so, some of them very unjustly—I trust they will see their way to meet some of the points I have raised. Having regard to the vast amount of money at the disposal of the Government, I assume that, in their generosity, they will give credit to the people on whose behalf I speak this evening.
I will have to abbreviate what I wanted to say but had I the opportunity, I could speak for at least half an hour. I represent a Dublin constituency. There are quite a large number of unemployed in Dublin city —approximately 15,000. There would be a much greater number unemployed but that the Minister for Social Welfare and his assistance adopt a sort of Gestapo practice of disallowing unemployment assistance on the ground that they are not genuinely seeking employment. As everyone knows, there is no employment for manual workers in Dublin city. There may be work for some technicians, tradesmen or girls, but, for manual workers, there is no employment.
About a year or so ago, I asked the Taoiseach what schemes he had in mind for such workers and he gave me a rigmarole about schemes of economic merit and suggested that we should pile up the proposals. He then went on to say that something big was to turn up at the North Wall which would absorb a lot of manual workers. I have heard nothing about that since.
I want to protest against the practice of the Department of Social Welfare in disallowing unemployment assistance on the ground that they are not genuinely seeking employment. I am sure that most of the people who are unemployed are "browned off" going round getting "No" for an answer. I think it should suffice that they sign and accept work from the labour exchange when it is offered. If they refuse to take work, then there are some grounds for saying they did not want it and for the Department refusing to allow any assistance. Most people who want workers now seek them from the labour exchange. You cannot go direct to the Corporation for a job. The workers are sent from the labour exchange but to tell people that because they are not genuinely looking for what does not exist, labouring work, and that they are not entitled to any money, is a shame.
That is one of the ways the Government have of telling us of the limited number, whatever it may be, drawing assistance and officially passed as unemployed. There are actually thousands who have been disallowed assistance in one way or another. For instance, if they are earning a little by selling newspapers, they are disallowed. They may not sign up any more, although it is only a hand to mouth affair.
Apart from that, the Taoiseach now tells us that there is a need for only 50,000 more jobs. That is, of course, because they have all gone away. They are not going to stay here to have the Gestapo down on them by the Department of Social Welfare. They are not going to stay here for this miserable amount of assistance. I think it a shame that those people should be driven to England because a large number of our people in England are actually living a life of misery. It must be remembered that the wages there are not much better than what we pay here. The sum of £9 per week is approximately a worker's wage. Unless a worker labours on the weekends and does overtime, he would not be able to live at all.
What is the position of the fathers of families who are compelled to go to England to work? They work until 8 and 9 o'clock at night. They go from bed to work. They might have a few beers on a Friday. I was in England for a fortnight during the summer. It was not enough but I went among the people. I did bed and breakfast in about half a dozen little satellite towns around London. I visited working class people in Camden Town and Hammersmith. I visited their homes because I had a long list of people I knew formerly. I went into the pubs. with them, although I do not drink. Unlike those people who go to a hotel and act the T.D., I acted the plain guy I am.
A Deputy
On holidays.
Not on holidays. What I want to impress on the House is that those people go from bed to work. They have only a few beers on a Friday. It is a terrible thing to see married people driven to that kind of existence. Then, of course, there are the temptations as a result of being away from home. The House knows what I mean. I think it is disgraceful that married men have to emigrate. I know the way they live. They eke out a miserable existence. They live on £3 per week. The Taoiseach may flatter himself that there are only 50,000 more jobs required. If everyone were to do as the Taoiseach does, they could brag, too.
These workers have responsibilities. They have to maintain their families. The crowd at the top say that things are rosy. We have created an artificial prosperity in circumstances where the population is smaller and where a large number of our people are forced to live in England. We are told by the Minister for Transport and Power that the people here are doing all right but how are they living? There are 4,500 people who are unable to pay their rent every year.
Most of the people here are living from hand to mouth. They buy things on the H.P. and from the point of view of food values they are no better off now than their forbears were who ate potatoes and salt. It is disgraceful that people should be permitted to buy on H.P. It means that people are handing out more than half their income on purchasing junk goods. A great deal of it is produced for home consumption. Before the stuff is half paid for, they have to buy again. If the goods were not junk, the people would not be so much involved.
I would ask the Taoiseach to do something about the junk toys and goods coming into the country from outside. Kids are being robbed. They have to pay 1/- for a small toy which is a big amount to them. If you blew on one of these alleged gelatine toys, you would dinge it. I would ask the Taoiseach to do something about all these junk toys.
The Deputy should see Santa Claus.
I want to ask the Government about the setting up of so many State boards and denying members the right to ask questions about these boards. I do not object to statutory bodies; they may mean efficiency and I am all for efficiency but I hold that we should have the right to question them because injustices are being done by some statutory bodies. I quoted one case of an old age pensioner who used 9d. worth of electricity and had to pay 13/9d. for a meter fee. I argued that with the Minister for Transport and Power and he tried to palm me off by saying that they were to put in saving boxes. What are the savings boxes for? To save 13/9 meter fee? That is not an answer and, for the Minister's information, the E.S.B. has decided not to go ahead with the savings box idea. A sum of 13/9d. is charged for a meter and 9d. for electricity but we are not supposed to ask questions. I have no objection to efficiency but we should have the right to ask questions.
Christmas comes but once a year but when it comes it brings Deputy Dillon's annual outpouring of gloom and depression. I gather that his view is that the country is in such a deplorable condition that it could be said to be a broken-down horse.
A total of 64,494 people emigrated to Great Britain last year.
The Deputy stressed his pessimistic views very strongly to-day. He believes the country is like a broken-down horse and there is nothing left to do with it except to hand it over to be killed off inhumanely, by putting in another Fine Gael Government. What a depressing Christmas message to the Irish people! I am not going to suggest that the picture of the national situation is all in bright colours but certainly it is not composed of all the blacks and greys with which Deputy Dillon painted it.
I am going to indicate to the House —and I hope to send members away to their Christmas festivities encouraged—some of the bright patches here and there, in a picture which is not inconsiderably brighter as compared with this time last year. I hope Deputies opposite like to get good news, because I am going to give them some whether they like it or not. In this year, 1960, the indications are that the national income will be £20 million higher than last year, that is an increase of four per cent. In other words, the country in this year will have achieved an increase in the national income as compared with last year at double the rate we attempted to forecast as being possible when we prepared the Programme for Economic Expansion. If we can keep that up, and I see no reason why we should not, we shall reduce by one-half the time required to double the national income, which was the objective aimed at when the programme was being framed.
The value of the country's production, the total output of wealth by effort expended in agriculture and industry, this year is also likely to show an increase of four per cent. and to be the highest ever recorded in the history of Ireland. Deputies need not start cheering yet; there is better news than that. Last year Deputy Dillon was very depressed about the prospect of a deficit emerging from the country's international payments and he spent a long time in his pre-Christmas speech expressing his deep anxiety about the country's future because of that anticipated deficit. He will be glad to know—or will he?—that this year all indications are that the country's international payments will be well and truly balanced with the possibility of a small surplus. The deficit on visible trade is this year running at about £9 million below last year and all the indications are that a surplus will emerge on the invisible items. That balance on international payments was achieved notwithstanding the fact that there was a slight but inevitable increase in imports due mainly to increased purchases of materials for industry which are both evidence and a consequence of our country's industrial expansion.
The exports of Irish products in this year have reached the highest total ever recorded. They were no less than 17 per cent. in value above those of last year. What are the Deputies opposite looking so gloomy about? This is good news. Exports in this year to the 12 months ended November last are no less than £20 million in value over the highest ever previously recorded which was in 1958.
It does not include the 64,494 people who left the country.
I shall deal with that. The outstanding features are the rise in the shipment abroad of manufactured products and also increased exports of live cattle. Exports are running at no less than 33? per cent. —one third—above the average level achieved in the three years, 1954 to 1956. The volume of industrial production and the number of workers employed in manufacturing industry are also the highest ever recorded in this country. Will some Deputy opposite even smile?
A Deputy
They are very disappointed.
We have not yet got statistics for the total agricultural output in 1960. I anticipate that some increase will be shown. It is true that national production and income figures for agriculture can be misleading in many ways. Agricultural incomes could be rising in Wexford and falling in Donegal. Agricultural conditions could be better in the milk-producing counties than in the store cattle counties and these are factors which we must take into account when determining agricultural policy. We realise very well that conditions in recent years have particularly affected small farmers in the western areas dependent on store cattle and sheep and that their position requires consideration by the Government. We are fully aware of that problem and we are giving constant attention to ways and means of helping those affected by it. My expectations that the overall figures for agricultural output this year will show an increase over last year are based on these facts.
We know that milk output is up very considerably and that farmers are now receiving a higher price for milk delivered to creameries than they obtained last year. We know that the number of cattle, sheep and pigs was found to be higher at the June enumeration than last year. Cattle exports have increased by 35,000 head and the value of these exports increased by £2,500,000, while at the same time the value of our processed meat exports increased by £2 million, an increase of £4½ million in that sector.
The acreage under tillage increased by 15,000 acres, but we are all aware that harvest conditions prevented that increased acreage being expressed in higher yields. A further significant fact is that the number of agricultural tractors in use on the farms this year rose by nine per cent. over last year, from 39,300 to 42,900.
There are other favourable figures which Deputies may be pleased to hear. There is first of all the very significant jump in electricity consumption; the significant recovery to which Deputy Corish referred of activities in the building and construction trades and there is—and I would personally attach considerable importance to this —the absorption of a general wage increase with much less effect upon the overall price level than might reasonably have been expected. We know that these facts do not tell the whole story. There are other features of the national situation which are not so cheerful, but no account of the national circumstances is accurate which does not give full weight to them. Deputy Corish in his reasonable speech attempted to do that but Deputy Dillon just ignored them.
I do not think that is true.
The Government, like Deputies who have spoken here, constantly have in mind the position in regard to unemployment and emigration.
I have never in the past declined to accept that developments in regard to these two national problems can be taken as indicative of the success of the policy of the Government. I do not deny that it took longer than we hoped to arrest the downward movement in the national economy which began in the final year of the previous Government. That was not checked until 1958. The year 1957 was the year in which we regarded ourselves as fighting a rearguard action against that inherited slump; 1958 was the year in which we were planning for recovery, the year in which the decline in the national economy was stopped with the first signs of recovery towards its end; 1959 was the year in which national recovery began. The upsurge was not sufficient to be really noticeable until about the middle of last year.
Employment, calculated on the average weekly number of people in employment, is now increasing at the rate of 9,000 a year.
Did the Taoiseach say 9,000,000?
9,000.
I thought I was listening to another Clery's Restaurant speech.
In this year, employment has on an average for each week been 18,000 higher than 1958 and 9,000 higher than in 1959. While that is satisfactory enough, this country needs to at least double that rate of expansion to wipe out the backlog of unemployment and remove the economic cause of continuing emigration.
That is the result which the Government are trying to bring about.
Deputy Corish spoke about the unsatisfactory situation that there is for a worker when his tenure of employment is uncertain, when he has not got continuous employment week in and week out throughout the year. As the Minister for Transport and Power indicated, all the evidence from the available statistics is that the higher employment levels now achieved represent in the main the taking up of the slack in our employment situation, longer spells of employment, with fewer breaks for the existing labour force. A better ratio has been established between the weekly average of persons at work and the total number of insured workers.
That is one explanation of the fact that the percentage increase in output in manufacturing industry is so much greater than the increase in the total number employed. I think it is reasonable now to expect that that position will tend to change and that henceforth an expansion of production will be reflected more directly in higher employment.
That does not explain the situation in the rural areas to which I specifically referred.
I appreciate that but I am speaking only in general terms now and not with reference to particular sections. One other fact is that approximately half the increase in employment is attributable to manufacturing industry and about half to other circumstances. It is interesting to note that our experience in that regard supports a theory which I put forward in a speech in 1955, which many Deputies opposite have since misquoted but which very few seem ever to have read.
Deputy Dillon suggested that that speech, made in 1955, two years before the general election took place and four years before it was expected to take place, was intended to be an election manifesto or programme published on the occasion of the election and designed to mislead the electorate. That is a complete falsehood. The proposals I then put forward were clearly described by me as presented for comment and criticism and not as a final programme and I invited co-operation from all sections in completing them. Deputy Dillon also ignored the fact that in the following year, again three years before the election was expected, I made another speech to the same audience and which was publicised in the same way in which I said that the rapid and extensive deterioration of conditions since 1955 had rendered out of date some of the plans which were publicised then.
I therefore refute the suggestion he made that anybody could have been misled or that these speeches did any more at the time they were made than to convey to the public that Fianna Fáil were making full employment the objective of their economic policy and were trying to work out ways and means of bringing it about.
I think it would be useful now, briefly to carry out, in relation to the circumstances of to-day, the type of calculation I attempted then. Full employment is the objective of the Government's economic policy.
Not by forcing the people to go to Great Britain.
It seems clear from the examination of date now available that the number of new jobs necessary to bring about full employment should be greatly reduced from the figure I put forward in 1955. First of all, we must get a definition of full employment. Sir William Beveridge in his book "Full Employment in a Free Society" described full employment as a condition in which no more than three per cent. of the wage-earning labour force was unemployed on the average over the year. On December 10, the latest date for which figures are available, the number of persons with unemployment insurance benefit claims current plus the number of persons without means with unemployment assistance claims current was 34,000 5.7 per cent. of the insured labour force. The average for the full year, as Deputies should appreciate, would be less than that.
It seems that if we could create about 20,000 new jobs to cover the residue of the unemployment situation carried over from the past and so develop the national economy that it would expand at a rate which would create 15,000 or 16,000 new jobs per year, we would have a situation that could be fairly described as full employment and one which would mean the end of emigration due to non-availability of employment. Deputy Corish rightly pointed out that the situation is not, and could not be, as clear-cut as that. With employment here increasing at that rate, or any rate, some numbers of Irish workers will be attracted home from England and some number of farmers and their sons will offer themselves as wage earners. There is always a question whether the employment register provides an accurate picture of the extent of our unemployment problem. Everybody knows that young people after they leave school do not normally come on to the unemployment register until they have had one spell of employment and to that extent the register may underestimate our problem.
On the other hand, there is this remarkable fact which I will mention and from which Deputies can make their own deduction: on the date of the census of 1951 the number of people in the country who described themselves as being on that date "farm workers unemployed" was less than one—third of the number who on that date were receiving unemployment assistance as unemployed farm workers.
It is against that background of information, that analysis of the dimensations of the unemployment problem of this country, that I ask the Dáil to consider the calculation that I have made that the country must double its present rate of expansions to solve its unemployment and emigration problems completely. I think we can do it. I do not say that it can be done next month or even next year, but I contend that it is not beyond the capacity of the country to achieve that result.
The argument that I was trying to establish in 1955 was that, big as the unemployment problem appeared to be then, the resources of the county were sufficient, if properly utilised, to bring about a full employment situation in time.
Between 1956, when the previous Government was in office, and this year, we have changed from a situation in which employment fell by 20,000 on weekly average to one in which employment is increasing by 9,000 on weekly average in each year.
The reason for that was the action of the Minister for Social Welfare in bringing in more people.
That is not the entire explanation. The point I am making is that, although it is not nearly enough, what has been that a is an encouragement to believe that a higher expansion rate is realisable.
I want to put these propositions to the Dáil: If the present rate of expansion of output in manufacturing industry can be maintained and if employment in manufacturing industry can henceforth be expected to increase in closer relationship with the rate of increase of output and if it continues to be correct that employment in other sectors will expand at about the same rate as employment in manufacturing industry, we will be very near realising that target of full employment in a very few years. Those are three "ifs," but I suggest to the Dáil that they do not altogether represent unrealistic assumptions.
In next year, the Minister for Industry and Commerce tells me, 70 new industrial concerns will come into production. These are projects promoted by private enterprise, the plans for which have been completed and all the necessary facilities and grants arranged. That represents two new factories every fortnight on the average over the year and the employment potential of these industries will rise to 7,000, an average of 100 for each factory.
If we assume that there will be also next year a continuing growth of employment amongst existing industrial concerns, then, on the basis of the other assumptions which I have mentioned, we could be coming to within sight of our target.
Deputies have discussed here the problem of emigration. As we know, and as I think I have made very clear, this is not a problem that the Government is anxious to conceal. We want to get it out in the open so that people can take a long, careful and objective look at it and all the factors that are operating to sustain it. We have no completely reliable statistics about the volume of emigration. There are 10,000,000 journeys in or out of this country every year and, in the circumstances, Deputies will understand that the Statistics Office is reluctant to commit itself to any final figures regarding the volume of emigration when it is clear that a one per cent. error in calculating the number of the journeys in or out would bring about a more than 100 per cent. error in the residual figure representing the net balance of passenger movement outward. The only information we have regarding the volume of emigration comes from these figures, that is, the net outward balance of movements by people by sea or by air. The number of journeys by sea or by air represents only about one-half of the journeys in or out of the State, the other one-half being across the Border.
These figures such as they are suggest that in the 12 months ended 30th September of this year, emigration was less than in any year since 1954 except the year 1959. It is still very much too heavy. I do not want to appear to be complacent because the level of emigration which is shown by these calculations seems to be somewhat lower than it was some years earlier. Indeed, I have prefaced my remarks by pointing at once to the unreliability of the statistics available to us but I put them forward to refute the suggestions which underlay the speeches of Deputy Dillon and some other Deputies that this is a phenomenon which has grown up and developed now or has become more serious now than it was previously.
Deputy Dillon was very unwise to make his suggestion that the reduced number of registered unemployed is attributable solely to the higher rate of emigration. He should have thought, if he gave it thought at all, that that would immediately invite comparison with 1956, in which the number of people returned as having emigrated was 11 per cent. higher than in this year but the number of registered unemployed was nearly double.
What is the Taoiseach's estimate of emigration in the last year?
I am not prepared to commit myself to a figure because it is quite obvious that no figure that I could give would be one that the Statistics Office would be prepared to stand over. I will concede at once that the level is far too high, that the figure has remained at far too high a level since the end of the War. I contest the argument that it is heavier now than it was in 1956 or 1955. The available information, such as it is, suggests otherwise.
The British Board of Trade says 64,494 as against 58,317 in 1958.
That has no relation to and is far in excess of any figures that we can produce.
Those are the figures for the number of persons who registered for employment for the first time in Great Britain, published yesterday.
I suggest that the non-availability of employment, while it is certainly the most important cause of emigration, is only one cause. Deputy Corish mentioned cases where to his knowledge workers, because of dissatisfaction with their conditions of employment or other reasons, left a job to emigrate. There is not a Deputy who does not know of people who have left employment in this country for the purpose of emigrating. My personal post contains letters every week from former employees of the E.S.B. or C.I.E. who quit their employment here and went to England and want to come back and get their old employment restored to them.
We all know that there are other factors operating than the non-availability of employment, important though that is and, as I have said, probably the most important factor. The social, psychological and other factors which are clearly there require to be brought out and studied.
Emigration has been a feature of Irish life for over 200 years. The idea that it is something that started, say, with the Famine and continued only because of the conditions resulting from the Famine is disputed by the Commission on Emigration which the Coalition Government in 1948 set up, which showed that even before the Famine emigration averaged some 27,000 a year. It is clear that a situation which has continued for such a long period must have its effect upon the outlook of the people as a whole and have created amongst them a feeling of inevitability which has to be eradicated, not merely by the development of economic policy but also by an educational process which can perhaps be best undertaken by people who are not directly associated with Government at all. In so far as the availability of employment is concerned I am prepared to agree that that is a sphere in which Government policy predominates. Through the expansion of industry, through the development of our fisheries, forestry and tourism——
And agriculture.
——we can hope to bring about a situation in which that cause will be removed simultaneously with measures which will increase the productivity of agriculture, which will create the possibility of bringing livelihoods earned in farming sufficiently close to urban standards, together with the other attractions of farming life, to stop the movement of people out of agriculture.
I have said previously that, in my view, agriculture is in a period of transition. I do not want to develop that point now but it may be that many people occupied in agriculture have not yet understood that important changes are taking place.
Least of all your own people.
A higher farm income must mean increasing the output per farm acre. How that is to be done is the key question of agricultural policy. It may be that the increased use of lime and fertilisers is the answer. Certainly the policy of the Government is based upon the belief that it is a large part of the answer. It is for that reason we have been increasing very generously the subsidies designed to reduce the price of fertilisers to farmers and to bring about an expansion of their use. It may be that changing the pattern of agricultural production is another part of the answer.
Store cattle are our main agricultural product and, as Deputy Blowick said, it is the product which is of vital significance to the small farmers in the West of Ireland who, notwithstanding the dimensions of their holdings, are endeavouring to procure a livelihood by a pastoral type of farming to which those holdings are not altogether suited. What are the prospects regarding the store cattle trade? It is difficult to be dogmatic in this regard, but all the indications are that the prospects are good. In so far as the world situation is concerned, a deficiency in beef production is likely to persist for some years. In regard to Britain, we see that the average per capita consumption of beef per year is still 10 lbs. below the pre-war level, but that it is coming up to the pre-war level. It is expected that within the next year it will come closer to it than is was previously and consequently a steady demand for store cattle by British farmers is to be expected.
This would not be the occasion for a detailed discussion upon agricultural policy, but certainly Deputy Blowick, when speaking here today, did not seem to know what is happening when he talked about the Government coming in to help farmers with their marketing problem. Does he not realise the Dáil spent the whole day yesterday discussing proposals for the improvement of marketing arrangements for milk products based upon the recommendations of the Marketing Committee we set up? He has been told that proposals for new marketing arrangements in relation to pigs and bacon will come before the House in the next session again based upon proposals of that Committee, modified as they have been to some extent by subsequent discussion with the parties directly concerned.
You cannot market what you have not got.
In so far as there is a problem in marketing—nobody denies there is—what the Government did was to call in the representatives of several sections of agriculture, put them on this committee, and say to them: "try to solve this problem and we will act upon your recommendations unless it seems to us there is a good reason which we can publicly defend for not doing to," and only in one important respect did we find ourselves unable to accept their recommendations. The decisions which were taken by the Government upon the report of that committee were published to the Dáil and to the country in a White Paper which Deputy Blowick does not appear to have read.
We read it.
The pillars on which all forms of production rest are three: availability of markets, availability of capital, and technical competence in efficient methods of production. As far as marketing is concerned, we took the course which I have described. I am not going to suggest that there is action open to us which can solve the current international problems in respect of agricultural products. Everybody knows that great industrial States are, for political and other reasons, subsidising their agriculture to an extent that countries like this could not attempt and that, as a result of these subsidisation arrangements and the restrictions on trade to which they give rise, agricultural products are passing in international commerce at prices which are well below their economic cost of production.
I believe the world must come back to sanity in that regard soon and indeed all the efforts of Irish Ministers at international conferences where trade matters are discussed are directed towards bringing world attention to that problem and having some remedial action taken in regard to it. That was done only this week by the Minister for Industry and Commerce at the conference in Paris which set up the new Organisation for Economic Development in Europe.
In regard to capital, I think it is true to say that Irish farmers never had access to so much capital and credit as they have at the present time because of the changed policies of the banks in that regard. To the extent that they have not got it, we have introduced here this week a Bill which will be designed considerably to extend the resources and the powers of the Agricultural Credit Corporation to make good any deficiency in existing facilities in so far as we can.
Irish farmers are, in the main, highly competent but they require information and advice regarding new processes, new seeds, new fertilisers, new methods of production which are becoming available to them. It is the aim of the Government, through the organisations which have been set up for that purpose, to extend the advisory services available to farmers. We recognise that at the present time there are practical problems arising mainly out of the availability of the personnel trained and competent to give that advice——
We are exporting them all over the world.
——which prevent our extending the services as rapidly as we would like. I think no Deputy who has heard me will accuse me of exaggerating the magnitude of our achievement in the economic field. I assert that achievement there has been. We recognise that we have not done much more yet than made a good beginning. I do say, however, that we have made a good beginning and it is now clear that the lines of policy on which we have decided and along which we are now proceeding are capable of bringing about the improvement in the national economy that we desire. In so far as changing circumstances may necessitate a modification of any of these policies, we are prepared to make these modifications, but the basic soundness of the policies we are following has been demonstrated by the results achieved to date.
In view of the highly—political note that has been introduced into this debate, I cannot conclude without contrasting the situation as it now exists with that which existed in 1956.
Whether this is our last year of office or not, I do not know yet. The election is not due to be held until 20th April, 1962.
Have we the Taoiseach's word on that?
Loud cheers from the Fianna Fáil benches.
Need I assure Deputies opposite that it will be my natural anxiety to make sure that the date will be the one most advantageous to them?
(Interruptions.)
Contrasting the situation that exists now with that in 1956, we find that in 1956 the national income fell. It was the one year since the war in which the national income showed a decline, notwithstanding the inflationary pressures then in operation. In that year, total national production fell. It was the one year since the war in which total production fell substantially and in which the drastic decline in employment then recorded was experienced by the country. In that year not merely were income and production and employment falling, but there was throughout the whole country an atmosphere of despair and despondency.
(Interruptions.)
One thing that every objective commentator on Irish conditions is saying now is that despondency is gone, and confidence restored and that the people believe our rate of progress is evidence of our capacity to go ahead and that lines of policy have been settled which will ensure that the rate will be accelerated.
May I say that it is quite obvious in any further development of national thinking on this matter people are going to get very little assistance from Deputy Dillon, judging by his speech here to-day? There was an indication of a very rational approach in the speech of Deputy Corish. I would advise Deputy Dillon to study Deputy Corish's speech and learn how a Party Leader should behave.
(Interruptions.)
Might I ask the Taoiseach if his attention has been directed to the figures published by the British Board of Trade?
The debate is over. I am not going to stand for any cross-examination.
That is the same speech as the Taoiseach made 30 years ago.
Question put.
The Dáil divided: Tá, 70; Níl, 43.
Tá
- Bartley, Gerald.
- Blaney, Neil T.
- Boland, Gerald.
- Boland, Kevin.
- Booth, Lionel.
- Brady, Philip A.
- Brady, Seán.
- Breen, Dan.
- Brennan, Joseph.
- Brennan, Paudge.
- Breslin, Cormac.
- Briscoe, Robert.
- Browne, Seán.
- Burke, Patrick.
- Calleary, Phelim A.
- Carty, Michael.
- Childers, Erskine.
- Clohessy, Patrick.
- Collins, James J.
- Cotter, Edward.
- Crowley, Honor M.
- Cummins, Patrick J.
- Cunningham, Liam.
- Davern, Mick.
- de Valera, Vivion.
- Doherty, Seán.
- Donegan, Batt.
- Dooley, Patrick.
- Egan, Kieran P.
- Egan, Nicholas.
- Fanning, John.
- Faulkner, Padraig.
- Flanagan, Seán.
- Galvin, John.
- Geogheagan, John.
- Gilbride, Eugene.
- Gogan, Richard P.
- Haughey, Charles.
- Healy, Augustine A.
- Hillery, Patrick J.
- Hilliard, Michael.
- Humphreys, Francis.
- Johnston, Henry M.
- Kennedy, Michael J.
- Kitt, Michael F.
- Lemass, Noel T.
- Lemass, Seán.
- Loughman, Frank.
- Lynch, Celia.
- Lynch, Jack.
- MacCarthy, Seán.
- McEllistrim, Thomas.
- MacEntee, Seán.
- Maher, Peadar.
- Medlar, Martin.
- Millar, Anthony G.
- Moher, John W.
- Moloney, Daniel J.
- Mooney, Patrick.
- Moran, Michael.
- Ó Briain, Donnchadh.
- Ó Ceallaigh, Seán.
- O'Malley, Donogh.
- Ormonde, John.
- O'Toole, James.
- Ryan, James.
- Ryan, Mary B.
- Smith, Patrick.
- Teehan, Patrick.
- Traynor, Oscar.
Níl
- Belton, Jack.
- Blowick, Joseph.
- Burke, James.
- Byrne, Tom.
- Carroll, James.
- Casey, Seán.
- Coburn, George.
- Coogan, Fintan.
- Corish, Brendan.
- Cosgrave, Liam.
- Costello, Declan D.
- Costello, John A.
- McGilligan, Patrick.
- McMenamin, Daniel.
- Manley, Timothy.
- Mulcahy, Richard.
- Murphy, William.
- Murphy, Michael P.
- O'Donnell, Patrick.
- O'Higgins, Michael J.
- O'Higgins, Thomas F.
- O'Reilly, Patrick.
- Crotty, Patrick J.
- Desmond, Daniel.
- Dillon, James M.
- Esmonde, Sir Anthony C.
- Fagan, Charles.
- Flanagan, Oliver J.
- Giles, Patrick.
- Hogan, Bridget.
- Jones, Denis F.
- Kenny, Henry.
- Lynch, Thaddeus.
- MacEoin, Seán.
- O'Sullivan, Denis J.
- Palmer, Patrick W.
- Reynolds, Mary.
- Rogers, Patrick J.
- Rooney, Eamonn.
- Ryan, Richie.
- Sherwin, Frank.
- Sweetman, Gerard.
- Tierney, Patrick.
Tellers:—Tá: Deputies Ó Briain and Loughman; Níl: Deputies O'Sullivan and Crotty.
Question declared carried.
The Dáil adjourned at 5 p.m. until 3 p.m. on Wednesday, 8th February, 1961.