The Minister had a great deal of foresight when he allocated £500,000 to the Irish Sugar Company which has been making such good progress. Not so long ago, perhaps only 20 years ago, that company——
Committee on Finance. - Resolution No. 7—General (Resumed).
Debate resumed on the following motion:—
That it is expedient to amend the law relating to customs and inland revenue (including excise) and to make further provision in connection with finance. —(Minister for Finance.)
Was called a white elephant.
——was not going too well. They saw that the best way to improve their business was to have full co-operation with the growers of beet, the farmers who supplied them. Now they have reached the stage when they have a surplus of sugar and the idea was to try to create another market. They have gone into freeze-drying and they expect to use up more sugar and so, naturally, be able to give more contracts. The number of growers they have at present is 20,000. That is a big number of farmers who are directly interested in the sugar company and by giving this money to the company to develop freeze-drying, the Minister will help the company to spread its wings and so bring in more farmers to supply the materials required. It will enable the company to have a greater range of products.
The company's foresight must also be acknowledged because they were the first in the world to start freeze-drying. It is a very costly process. The plant they have installed in Mallow cost £1,000,000. By foreseeing that it would be a success, that there was a market, or that a market could be created, for these products, they secured free publicity all over the world. The number of periodicals, industrial and economic, as well as more general publications, that have written about this freeze-drying process in Carlow is extraordinary and the company secured publicity it would not have been able to pay for. The results of this are now coming to light. Last year, they brought in £132,000 from exports. In the coming year, they are expected to realise between £1,500,000 and £2,000,000. They are being taken into the homes of people all over the world, including that of the President of Iceland. They are a blessing to housewives because they will, to a great extent, do away with the necessity for refrigerators. The housewife can go into a shop and buy a packet of steak, for example. She can put it on her pantry shelf and not worry about it for a year. She can put it under the tap and in two minutes, she has a juicy, bloody steak ready for cooking.
People in other countries have seen the value of this process and I am glad to see the Minister saw its importance to such an extent that he is giving the Irish Sugar Company every encouragement to expand the process. I can foresee that as the years go on, this will become of benefit also to the farmers, particularly small holders, because it is mostly small farmers who will produce the raw material for the sugar company. Accordingly, the Sugar Company are to be complimented on their farsightedness in this matter.
This Budget is another Fianna Fáil Tory Budget. It gives tax reliefs to the wealthier sections of the community; it gives inadequate assistance to the poorer sections and taxes the general public at large. The Government can be criticised for having missed the opportunities which the past couple of years would have given to a Government with the good of the country at heart. Since 1961-62, the revenue has expanded by over £20,000,000. If account is taken of the fact that increased taxes were imposed this year, the increased revenue made available to the Government in the period was £23,000,000. If the Government were asked two years ago what action they would take if such an increase in revenue were made available, it should have been possible for them to suggest the kind of things they would do with the larger amount of money.
It should have been possible for the Government, for instance, to plan for an increase in the school-leaving age, for better health services, for an improvement in the social welfare benefits —for all the improved social benefits so badly needed in this country. On the contrary, the Government have frittered away the opportunities given to them and we are now faced with this Budget which gives inadequate relief to the poorer sections of the community.
A number of things characterise this Budget. One of the important things noticeable is the lamentable retreat of the Government before the political pressure put on them by the National Farmers Association. This retreat was illustrated in the relief of agricultural rates to the extent of £2,500,000. There can be no doubt that the agricultural industry is one that required a great deal of assistance in the past. There can be no doubt the agricultural industry is deserving of public attention, in view of its importance in the country's economy, but I challenge the Government to prove that the proper way to give assistance to agriculture is a relief in agricultural rates and I suggest they gave this assistance purely as a result of political pressure and of their failure to stand up to that pressure.
It is worth while to recall what the Capital Investment Committee says in its first report on the matter. It says that rate reliefs were not economically justified as at present applied since they are being made available indiscriminately and are not related to increased production. The section of the people who will enjoy the benefits of this £2,500,000 in reliefs are the more well-to-do farmers. The poorer farmers will get little or no assistance and we have the extraordinary situation in which we are giving away £2,500,000, not to the people who really need it but to the more well-off. I feel this is an inversion of all economic and social thinking at the present time.
It would be of considerable assistance if the Government would enlighten the House concerning the facts of the entertainments duty which is being abolished. Until we have some enlightenment on this tax, there is bound to be suspicion that again political pressure was the main reason for the abolition of the entertainments tax. It is stated that the abolition of this tax will cost £450,000 and I think it would be of interest to know what its abolition will cost in a full year.
The latest figures available to Deputies are contained in the last report of the Revenue Commissioners for the period up to March 31st 1960, and it is interesting to see that the Commissioners, referring to the effect of an entertatinments tax, state there is no general decline in attendances and no indication that there was any considerable momentum in the decline in attendances during the year. It is important for the House to know what were the figures for the general decline in cinema attendances in order to justify this tax abolition and also why it was not possible to devise a scheme by which the cinemas affected in suburban areas would be given relief of a discriminatory nature. Was there any reduction in the number of attendances in dance halls or in the amount received in taxes from dance halls in the past year? Until these figures are given, the suspicion must be there that there were reasons other than economic reasons for the reduction, and indeed, abolition of the entertatinments tax.
It is a curious coincidence that in fact if the entertainments tax had not been abolished, the State pensioners could have been paid the full amount which it is admitted they are entitled to. The Government have admitted that they were not giving the State pensioners the amount which they were entitled to by reason of the increase in the cost of living. It is admitted in the Budget statement that the cost of giving State pensioners an adequate increase to compensate them for the rise in the cost of living would be over £1,000,000 and the Government have stated, that, for budgetary reasons, they are prepared to give the pensioners only half the amount they are entitled to in equity. The result is that because of the abolition of the entertainments duty, it is not now possible to give to State pensioners the increase which it is recognised they should get. It is extraordinary that in these times we are prepared to give tax reliefs to the proprietors of cinemas and dance halls and, at the same time, deny to public servants the increase to which it is admitted they are entitled.
Notice taken that 20 Members were not present; House counted, and 20 Members being present.
I wish to refer to one of the financial aspects of the affairs of this country, namely, the recent changes that have been made in the Central Bank. It has been urged for some considerable time by many people that it was wrong at this time for Irish currency to be backed entirely by foreign securities. Those of us who made that suggestion were regarded as being unorthodox and our suggestion was scorned. It should be noted that the Government have taken notice of that suggestion at long last and that during the year, changes were made in the holdings of the legal tender note fund. Our legal tender note fund is now partly backed by Irish Government securities.
The Government are being very coy about this recent development and it is extremely hard to get any information concerning it. It is hidden away in the official reports and no references were made to it by any Government spokesman, other than the one statement which was made on 29th August of last year. The fact is that the Government have done something for which we have been pressing for some considerable time, namely, they have accepted the fact that at the present stage of our development, it is foolish indeed to require full backing of foreign securities for our Irish legal tender note fund. I sincerely hope the Government will go further still in regard to the relationship between the Government, the Central Bank and the commercial banks.
I have been suggesting for some considerable time that it is of great importance that there should be greater control over the credit which is granted by the commercial banks. At the present time the position is that the Irish Government have no control over the granting of credit by the commercial banks. Their weapons are merely of an advisory nature. The fact is that the banks are completely free to expand or contract credit. They have this tremendous power, pretty well regardless of the Government's attitude to it. In view of the likely developments in the near future, and the possibility of our joining the Common Market, I feel that it is of considerable importance that the Government should bring our banking system into line with the banking systems of nearly every civilised country. They would then have more effective control over this important means of expanding or contracting the economy of the country.
Reference has been made in many publications to the Government's capital programme during the past few years. It has been admitted — and again it is an admission that is glossed over by Government spokesmen—that behind the Government's economic programme was the concept that social capital investment was to decline and money was to be made available for productive capital investment. I think it is ridiculous to suggest that anyone would be in favour of reducing the amount of capital available for productive capital investment. I charge the Government with having wrongfully reduced the social capital invested in this country, and I charge them with wrongly reducing the amount of money available to Dublin Corporation for its housing programme and with reducing the number of houses Dublin Corporation has built in recent years. The Government must bear responsibility for the literally appalling situation of many of our people in the city of Dublin at the present time.
I feel that the facts concerning the housing situation in Dublin city should be put on the records of the House. They show an extraordinary decline in housing in the city in the past few years. In 1956-57, the total number of dwellings handed over by the Corporation was 1,564; in the year 1960-61, it declined to 277; and in the year just ended, there was a slight increase in that figure. In the past four or five years, there has been a disastrous decline in the number of dwellings built by Dublin Corporation and it is nonsense to suggest that the demand for houses in Dublin city has been declining in the past few years. Whatever about the programmes of the local authorities in some of the rural areas, the fact is that there has been a great demand in Dublin city for adequate housing for the past few years, a demand which has not been met, and a demand which has resulted, because of the failure to meet it, in great social hardships in the city.
It is apposite to point out that the number of persons on the waiting list for houses from the Dublin Corporation in July, 1956, was 6,520; in November, 1958, it was 5,895; in November, 1960, it was 6,823; and in May, 1961, it was 7,199. In that period of the past five years, there were between 6,000 and 7,000 families waiting for houses from the Dublin Corporation. In that period, the peak was reached in 1956-57 when 1,564 houses were built, and there has since been a disastrous decline in the number of houses erected by Dublin Corporation.
Deputies and members of Dublin Corporation know the conditions of many thousands of people in the city of Dublin. They know of families of 12 and more living in two-roomed Corporation houses waiting for a house. They know of families of four or five living in one room and waiting for a Corporation house, and they know the appalling social conditions in which many of our citizens are forced to live as a direct result of the failure of this Government to see that the Dublin Corporation housing programme was expanded or, at any rate, continued at the level at which it was when the Government first came into office.
It seems to me that this brings out very clearly the necessity in this country for proper economic planning, that our economic planning has been rudimentary and inadequate and that the Government have failed to undertake the task which most modern Governments now undertake, namely, to plan properly the economy of the country. The fact that they publish their economic programme, call it a programme, suggests that it is merely a blue print, suggests that it is not in any way meant to be an economic plan in the sense in which modern Governments now use the term, and indicates that this Government are either unwilling to plan properly the economic development of the country or unable to do so.
We have got to face the fact that in the future development of this country the public sector of the economy will be called upon to play an increasingly important part in the development of the economy. We are all anxious to see that Christian social principles are applied but it seems to me that in the circumstances in which we find ourselves to-day, in the circumstances of continued emigration and unemployment, in the circumstances of inadequate living conditions for many people, the application of these Christian social principles involves a greater degree of State control and a greater degree of State enterprise in the community.
In fact, the whole problem of the role of the State in this country has been largely ignored and its development has been rather haphazard and done on a purely pragmatic basis. As a result of this all sorts of problems have developed which demand solution. At present, as Deputies are only too well aware, it is impossible for them to have any say in the control of the many State companies that now control so much of the economic life of the country and give employment to so many of our citizens. The control of these State companies is largely outside the purlieu of Parliament. One of the matters which urgently requires consideration is the relationship between Parliament and the State bodies which have been set up. It is only necessary for Deputies to investigate the increase in bus fares, for example, to find out that the Minister has no control over them; to find out that the executives responsible in CIE do not wish to see Deputies. Deputies have also found out, in relation to the Electricity Supply Board, that the Board is no concern of ours, that they have a statutory responsibility. The time has come when there should be a Parliamentary examination of the affairs of these State companies. The time has come when there should be something in the form of a Public Accounts Committee which would have the power, which it has now over the Civil Service, to investigate the affairs of the state companies which are expending so many millions of the taxpayers' money.
This necessity will be all the greater as the activities of the State expand as they are likely to do in the future. It does seem to me that one important matter is the necessity for increasing capital formation in this country. The figures in the Budget of the State's Capital Budget are largely illusory in this connection because if the figures are examined, and if Deputies examine the increase in the State's Capital Budget, it will be found that a great deal of that increase is in respect of items for purely budgetary considerations and treated as capital but which are not in any way designed to increase the capital formation. One of the matters about which this Government is most open to criticism is in regard to the decline in the efforts made by the State and local authorities in connection with capital formation. They are most open to criticism in regard to the decline in the social investment which has occurred in recent years, the decline which is eloquently shown in the figures in the Dublin Corporation.
The Taoiseach, at the end of his speech on this Budget, said that everything that has been achieved has been merely a prologue and the best is yet to come. We have been waiting for a long time for the best. We have been waiting for a long time for the play, to which this has been a prologue, to be developed. It is my view that the times which we are facing will be very difficult and could, indeed, be very dangerous times, that the developments which this country will have to face if it becomes a member of the European Economic Community may be hazardous and it may be necessary for us to undertake risks of a considerable kind if we become members of that Community. I have long held the view, and impressed it here in this House, that it is of great political importance for us to become associated with, and if possible members of, the European Economic Community. The political advantages to us would be considerable and I feel that the political considerations which would weigh that decision would all point one way but no doubt there are considerable economic difficulties to be faced by this country and I feel that this Budget is yet another example of the inadequacy of the present administration and its incompetence to deal with the problems we have to face.
I thought, in the first instance, as the Minister for Finance mentioned in the course of his Budget address the decision by the Government to complete rural electrification and to continue with the scheme, that I would say a few words over and above what has already been announced in order to indicate the progress we hope to achieve. Up to 31st March this year, some 775 areas out of 792 areas have been developed, each area having an average of about 500 residences in it. About 266,000 households have received current at the normal service charge and some 14,000 at an additional service charge, By the end of this period we will have yet to deal with 17 areas which up to now have been found uneconomic in the sense that the income produced from the fixed charges, expressed as a percentage of the capital cost, would be insufficient to avoid a very grave economic loss and far greater than the target set by the ESB and of a kind which would make the whole scheme impracticable. In other words, a certain standard has to be set in regard to the percentage to be received from each area as a whole. In addition to that, there are some 112,000 residences as yet unconnected in the development areas. To date, the total cost of the scheme has been £31½ million of which the ESB has contributed £25¼ million from their resources and the State £6¼ million. The consumption of electricity in rural districts together with the high costs, even with the subsidy, of installation has resulted in a very considerable loss on rural electrification on current account, which has grown steadily from £46,000 in 1952 to about £760,000 in the last financial year ended on April 1st, 1961. That is discharged through the payments made by urban consumers and through the receipts from industrial power. I should say that, of that loss £529,000 a year can be attributed to the fact that the subsidies were stopped from 1955 to 1958. The Government subsidy would have amounted to over £9 million. Therefore, that loss is very considerably due to the fact that the subsidy did not continue.
We were glad to announce the continuation of the scheme, because although some 69 per cent. of the rural householders have now been connected, this figure still compares not too favourably with a number of Northern European countries where the percentage varies from 90 to 95 per cent. and is even as much as 96 per cent. in some cases. From a careful examination I am satisfied that the cost of carrying out rural electrification here is very economic. I know there have been quite a number of groups coming over to this country to see how the work was done by the ESB. The United Nations Report on Rural Electrification — a very long document from which I do not wish to quote to any great degree — shows that, in so far as you can make a comparison between one country and another, the cost per installation here is very reasonable having regard to the social problem we face, which is not of our devising, that our farm houses are more scattered and separated from each other than in any other European country except Sweden. The number of what are known in statistics as clusters of population of 200 or less as a percentage of the total population reaches a very high and record figure in this country. We are not a villaged community and, as a result, the cost of rural electrification is very high. That would account in part for the need for Government subsidy.
At present the result of the subsidy is that the Department of Transport and Power have in their current Vote the sum of £280,000, which will increase to £330,000 and will remain at that figure from 1963 to 1984. Thereafter, it will diminish until by 1987 it will have gone to £50,000. This is the sum to provide the sinking fund and interest to enable the Central Fund to advance the capital to the ESB.
Everyone will agree that rural electrification is essential for both the social and economic improvement of farm life. As has been already announced, the Government propose to deal with 17 uneconomic areas by providing the special subsidy of £90,000 as the backbone of trunk circuitry in order to enable the connections to be made. It is reckoned that out of the 6,000 residents therein, some 2,500 or 3,000 will be able to join at normal rates of charge. In addition to that, the Government have agreed to increase the subsidy for installation in the already developed areas for a period of five years in order to try and induce as many people as possible to join the system.
At present with the existing subsidy, out of 112,000 households, 54,000 could now join without paying any special service charge. By increasing the subsidy the position is that some 77,000 out of the 112,000 can get current without any additional service charge. It is my hope that once the vast majority are in development areas in that position, they will get together, talk matters over in their local rural organisations, such as Muintir na Tíre and Macra na Feirme, and that there will be, perhaps, a more satisfactory development of rural electrification because of the larger number of people living in the same neighbourhood who will be able to get power and light without any increase in service charge.
The effect of increasing the subsidy to 75 per cent. has, at the same time, had the effect that 19,500 people will be able to get current in the developed areas at a special service charge of not over 50 per cent. and many of them at under 50 per cent. but at something over the normal service charge. That in many cases would be an extremely modest amount, such as £1 5s. extra per year, and would result in many people being able to get into the rural electrification installation system. There will not be anybody who will have to pay increased service charges of from 50 to 100 per cent. They are completely eliminated. All these move into the class where they will only have to pay up to 50 per cent. additional service charge.
There are left a very small community of some 12,000 people who will have to pay 100 per cent. or over additional service charge. Generally, they are living in remote areas up at the end of valleys and the cost of attaching their premises would be completely prohibitive. The Government is offering in their case a subsidy for bottled gas installations of £10, on the assumption that, if they should get electricity at a later stage, they would have to refund the subsidy made to them for gas.
I think that in general the plan will meet with the approval of all sections of the House. It is going to cost the country a little more. If we had gone on with the 50 per cent. subsidy arrangement, the total cost would have been something in the neighbourhood of £8.19 million. It will now cost £10.8 million. The Government's contribution will go up from £4.14 million to £7.2 million. We would like people to get together and arrange for installations as rapidly as they can. We hope that some people who have been hesitating up to now will reconsider the matter in the light of the subsidy. I think that over a period of years that extra capital involvement is well worth while.
I suppose it would be well to record at this stage, since it is mentioned in the Budget, the extra cost to the taxpayers because of interest and sinking fund, of the 75 per cent. arrangement as distinct from the 50 per cent. arrangement. In so far as the improvement work is concerned and the installation of electricity in the houses not at present connected in the country districts—I am speaking of those only, and very roughly because one can only give these figures very approximately —because they depend on many things —if we had instituted the 50 per cent. arrangement in the next financial year, and assuming the pattern of electricity continued on the basis expected generally by the ESB as being likely over a considerable period of years, the additional taxation over and above the amount required now to meet existing sinking fund and interest arrangements would be some £46,000 for the first time, rising by £22,000 per year until, a great many years later, about 17 years, it would reach nearly £400,000.
Under the new arrangement, the amount would be £60,000, which would rise by £36,000 a year and in ten years' time, would reach the figure of £570,000. Although this represents an increase in relation to the total capital budgets, it will not involve any great increase in relation to the very large sums already provided for sinking fund charges because these charges increase considerably each year as we expand development. There will be a slight decrease in the loss anticipated by the ESB. Nobody will be at a disadvantage who has already had electrification installed. The position will be examined and service charges will be reduced for 6,000 out of 14,000 people who paid extra charges in order to place them in line. The E.S.B. assure me that the whole matter will be worked out in a fair way in that regard.
I was interested to hear Deputy Costello say that we had taken some kind of a hostile attitude towards social capital services. To make the record right, I would remind the House that when we took office the economic state of the country was extremely serious and we decided that we would concentrate on productive investment, with the object of improving the country's financial and economic position. Arising from that improvement and with such surpluses as are available, we would then begin to go ahead again with the social capital programme. That applies to all aspects of social expenditure. We have spent more money on social services and, in relation to housing, the Minister for Local Government has not at any time refused money for housing. That particularly applies to Dublin Corporation.
The situation with regard to Dublin Corporation is a peculiar one. As a result of the extensive emigration that took place in the early period and which continued until recently Dublin Corporation had a considerable number of vacancies in their houses. They appeared to be unwilling to go ahead with further housing until it became evident that there was a restoration of the demand for housing. The Taoiseach has already said that the Minister for Local Government has been doing all he could to encourage Dublin Corporation to go ahead with housing. There are now considerably more employed in total housing construction in the country than there were in a recent period. The building of new houses by private individuals is satisfactory and a great number of people are taking out reconstruction grants.
I think it well to point out again the economic progress that has been made since 1956. We are always being told that we have not made enough progress but the fact remains that when we came into office we had to deal with a very serious economic situation. We had a situation in 1955 when because of the expenditure of the savings which had accumulated in two world wars and because of the derision with which the Coalition treated our efforts to conserve and control the expenditure of these savings, we had an adverse balance of payments which should have been easy to meet. However, there were not sufficient reserves to meet that adverse balance of payments and, as a result, disciplinary action had to be taken by the Coalition Government which brought a feeling of despondency to the whole community.
At the present time we hope we shall not have any balance of payments difficulties. It is difficult to predict what the effects of the eighth round of wage increases will be. It may lead to an increase in imports but we have been urging the people to try and save as much as possible from their increased earnings. However, we have a greater volume of external savings to call on than we had in 1956. We have that because of the great increase in exports and because of the fact that, for a considerable period of our Government, there was a balance of payments achieved as between visible and invisible exports on the one hand and visible and invisible imports on the other hand. We hope that exports and productivity will expand so that we can absorb the effects of the eighth round of wage increases about which a good deal has already been said by the Taoiseach and the Minister for Finance.
The total exports of goods and services in 1956 was £183,200,000. By 1961 that figure had risen to £270,000,000 which shows what progress has been made. It is interesting to note that in spite of the difficulties through which farmers have passed and in spite of the criticism of our agricultural policy, the exports of carcase beef and bacon have increased enormously since 1956. That, with an increase of nearly £100,000,000 in our industrial exports, is the sign that we have been making solid progress.
Sometimes it is well to be extremely realistic in giving facts about our progress. One of the ways in which we can best realise the changes for the best that have taken place is to assume that there have been no increases in prices and to take our gross national production for 1956 and compare it with the present gross national production. The gross national production amounted to £540,000,000 in the year before we took office. It has risen now to nearly £600,000,000 which is a sign of solid progress.
We have heard a great deal about the number of persons at work in nonagricultural occupations and we have been charged with being responsible for a reduction in the number of persons so engaged. In 1954, when we left office there were 725,000 persons and when we resumed office it had gone down to 703,000. It took us a considerable number of years to restore the economic position and to achieve a solid increase in the number of people so employed. We can show the progress we made by the reduction in unemployment from its highest figure of 93,000 in 1957 to some 58,000 at a recent date. We can show the progress we made by the fact that in the year 1955 or 1956, emigration was 44,000 and that in a recent 12 months period, it has been reduced to 22,000. It is absurd for the Opposition to suggest that if you have a very great decline in unemployment and a very great decline in emigration, which we hope will persist, we are not at least making inroads on that problem which has so long been with all of us.
There are other interesting facts to note. The volume of industrial production in transportable goods, taking 1953 as 100, had risen to 136 in 1961, again showing a steady improvement. We experienced a great feeling of relief when, in 1961, the numbers of persons reckoned to be living on the land showed a reduction of only 2,000 as compared with the previous year. People are leaving the land in every country and a great many of us in this country have not been realistic enough to face the issues absolutely frankly in regard to that. There are countries in Europe who are determined to maintain the family farm as a viable unit and who at the same time, recognise quite frankly that a growth in agricultural prosperity, without exception in any country in Europe, is accompanied by migration from the land to industries within the country.
I was interested in seeing that the figure had reduced only by 2,000 because I note that in the case of Denmark — a country with a magnificent agricultural organisation, with a very much higher output per acre than we have and able to negotiate with two separate markets, the British market and the north European market — 15,000 people left the land in 1961, showing that even the most highly developed communities, with admirable co-operative organisations and admirable marketing methods, felt the effects of migration from the land, at least in that particular year, even more severely than we did.
I might add that in the case of Denmark, the figures are all the more remarkable because, in Denmark, of their national income or production, 42 per cent. is derived from industry, whereas in this country, although our industrial development is proceeding apace, still today only 28 per cent. of our national income is derived from industry. Therefore, although the Danes had a greater industrial potential with which to absorb employment from the land, they experienced this very great reduction in the numbers on the land in a year as recent as 1961.
It would be far easier for us to examine the problems of agriculture, of rural improvement and rural living if Deputies on all sides of the House would cease to talk as though it were something peculiar to this country. We shall never get a realistic attitude towards solving these problems until we recognise that we simply have not the ability, or, shall we say, the difference in personality or in habits of rural living to be utterly unique in Europe where, as I have said, migration from the land is a continuous process.
If one looks at the provisions of the Rome Treaty or the very wise statements in Mater et Magistra, one will see in both of these documents, emanating from very different sources, recognition of the inevitability of migration from the land. At the same time, in both cases the statement is made that everyone desires to preserve family farm life, to stabilise farm prices, to encourage better marketing methods, to raise farm incomes so that they compare favourably with industrial incomes. Indications are given as to what the social and economic policies should be and then in the case of both documents, schemes for retraining in industry of agricultural workers, for the development of industries in rural districts, are suggested as part of the general panoply of plans designed to maintain rural living as far as possible. We still hear a great deal of vague talk suggesting that in some way we can escape from the realities which affect all countries.
I next want to say a few words about prices. The Fine Gael Party have long proclaimed themselves the Party with the secret of how to keep down prices and how to reduce them. In 1954, there was an election in which most of the propaganda on the part of Fine Gael and other Parties related to very specific promises to reduce the cost of living and to reduce taxation and blamed the Fianna Fáil Government for all the increases that had taken place. No effort was made, for example, to compare the increase in prices from the end of the war to 1954 with those in the general sterling area. No effort has been made even yet by the Opposition to see how far prices have increased here compared with the average in Europe. An all-out attack was made on Fianna Fáil as though we had allowed thousands of profiteers to escape unnoticed, as though we had misused the nation's finances to such a degree that prices and taxes had gone up unnecessarily.
No effort was made to examine the situation calmly to see where we stood. There have been some recent estimates made of the increase in the cost of living here and in other countries. As far as I recall, the increase here was about the average and certainly nothing exceptional. There was nothing to suggest that we had a degree of inflation which placed us completely out of the northern European picture. It is true there are countries with more controlled economies, particularly those which were destroyed or devastated during the war, countries with very extreme problems of war recovery who were able to have a greater hold on the price structure than we were. Equally, it is true there are countries, particularly in Southern Europe, where the cost of living went up so much that we could say that there would not be any particular picture either in relation to ourselves or Great Britain which would indicate carelessness on the part of the Government or indifference to the needs of the consumer.
However, the Fine Gael Party are the great proclaimers of their capacity to control prices. It is just as well to repeat what has already been said and to keep on putting it on the record, that between 1954 and 1957, the cost of living rose by 11 points, or roughly three per cent. per annum and that between February, 1957, and February, 1962, the cost of living rose by 19 points or at the rate of roughly 2.8 per cent. per annum. Could we ever get down to realities in this House and give up this controversy on the cost of living bogey? There would be much more constructive criticism from the Opposition if they would only give up trying to tickle the palate of the consumer by giving the impression that in some way or other the Fine Gael Party, in particular, have some great system by which they have been able to, or could in the future, keep down the cost of living, because the facts show, as I have said, that our record and theirs in the period from 1954 to 1962, shall we say, has been roughly the same, with our annual increase just marginally less than theirs.
The interesting point to note in that connection is that during the period of Coalition Government there had been some degree, if I remember correctly, of price control and also the subsidies. Yet, although we had to abolish the subsidies, because they left us with an appalling deficit to handle in 1957, and as a result the cost of living immediately rocketed by a certain amount, the stability of prices from then on until the recent rise did not bring the average increase in the cost of living above their average increase during their period of office.
As I have said, it is about time we heard the last of the cost of living bogey being raised because it is really a little absurd and, of course, the main point about prices is really, first of all, whether our export prices remain competitive and, secondly, whether the earnings of workers rise either at least as much as the cost of living or, as we hope, more than the cost of living, representing a real gain in purchasing power.
I see that the increase for industrial earnings, if taken as 100 in 1953, had risen to 153 by 1961 — an increase more than twice as great as the increase in the cost of living. It is interesting to note also that after productivity had descended and descended during the period of economic crisis, placing the gravest difficulties upon the national economy, productivity rose thereafter and that up to the eighth round increase of wages we could have been said to have absorbed the successive rounds of wage increases before then and at the same time increased our exports — a very satisfactory position.
I should next like to deal with a truly revolting bit of propaganda which is circulating through the efforts of the Opposition, namely, the absolutely absurd comparison of the increases in the salaries of judges and justices with the amounts that will be awarded in a full year in increases in social services. I did not have time to get the precise figure but, as far as I can make out, the increase in the cost of the judiciary between now and the Coalition period works out in the neighbourhood of between £30,000 and £40,000 a year and the total increase in the cost of social services in a full year in connection with next year's Budget and awarded during this Budget and not paid until August will be roughly £3¾ million. It is nauseating to spread propaganda among people who, perhaps, have not the time or the inclination to read statistics or to compare values with values suggesting that we have shown an indifference to the social welfare classes by the minute increase in the total amount paid for judges between what they were paid in 1956 and what they are now going to be paid. The Opposition are very good at it. The propaganda goes from mouth to mouth and you would really imagine it had some perceptible effect on the whole structure of social welfare payments, which, of course, is absolutely ridiculous.
I wanted to mention that because it seemed to need stressing. We surely should get away from juvenile politics of that kind. I hope and believe the vast majority of our people are incapable of being influenced in that way any longer.
There have been a good many criticisms by the Opposition in regard to the alleged meanness of our increase in social services. I have already indicated that in a full year we are going to spend far more than the Coalition Government ever dreamt of in one year — £3¾ million — and in addition to that there will be a very considerable sum, if the Minister for Social Welfare's provisional prediction is to be taken as fairly accurate, from the increase of 5/- in contributory pension rates. There will be a very large sum for our contribution towards contributory pensions which will be payable sometime beyond January next.
I thought it just as well to emphasise the extent to which the Coalition Government in practice have really done anything about social services. The story indicates very clearly that if people want to have increases in social welfare services they had better come to this Government for they will not get much hope or much heart from reading an account of the past so far as the two Coalition Governments were concerned.
Take, for example, children's allowances. They were at no time increased by the two Coalition Governments. The only time they were increased was by us — on two occasions. Take old age pensioners—non-contributory rate. The total increase was 17/6d. of which we gave 12/6d. and the Opposition gave 5/-. So that, if there is any talk about the niggardly increases in old age pensions we can just refer to that fact.
Then we take the rates for unemployment assistance. No Labour Minister for Social Welfare and no Fine Gael Minister for Finance has ever increased unemployment assistance since the War and if you take for example the non-contributory widows' pensions you will find this record, just for the widow herself: it was increased in 1948 by 2/6d.; in 1952, by 6/-, under Fianna Fáil; in 1955, by 2/6d., under the Coalition Government; in 1957 by 1/-, by Fianna Fáil; in 1959, by 2/6d.; in 1960, by 1/-; in 1961, by 1/6d.; in 1962, by 2/6d. I think the total of that is 19/6d., of which they gave only 5/-. So, they need not talk much about increases in widows' non-contributory pensions either because the vast proportion of the increase has been given by us.
It is just as well to stress the successive increases in social services long before this Budget. They never can be too high because the rates in Northern Europe with which we are associated as a people are very high indeed. They never can be enough. But, at least we are making progress. Far too many people have been thinking in terms of what has been termed by the Opposition the "Shilling Budget" or the "One and Sixpenny Budget" or the "Two and Sixpenny Budget". So, it is just as well to hammer home some of the facts about what has happened before the present Budget because you have to take the whole period from 1956 to the present day in order to illustrate the effect of the Government's successive increases in the amounts of pensions and in the amounts awarded to dependants and children.
It is quite obvious that, from the standpoint of the community, it is families or widows with fairly large numbers of children who have most need of these allowances. The widow's non-contributory pension, in September, 1956, was 36/6 for a widow with three children; it has now gone up to 52/6. That is an increase of 16/- per week. As I have said, we should like to have made it more, but, nevertheless, that is a very substantial increase. If you take the widow's contributory pension, in which, admittedly, there are contributions by the family as well as by the State, in September, 1956, a widow with three children received 46/-; in August, 1961, after last year's Budget, she received 60/-, an increase of 14/- per week. It is only fair to point out that these increases are very, very much more than the increase in the cost of living in the intervening period. These are substantial increases.
If one takes an unemployed man — let us take five children this time — with a wife and five children living in the urban districts, in September, 1956, the figure was 38/- per week. In August, 1961, before the present Budget, it had gone up to 60/-. If you take unemployment and disability benefit for a man with a wife and three children, the benefit has gone up from 61/- to 77/6. I give these facts so that the House and the public will understand and appreciate that there is just no use thinking in terms of odd shillings. It is the total cumulative effect of steady rises in the payments made under our Government that has brought about the very great improvement and, as the national economy grows, we have undertaken to contribute some of the surplus from that every year to increasing social services. We are well aware that we have a long way to go and, if one compares the position with other countries in Northern Europe, we have a very high target to reach. We are not in the least complacent about the position.
When I quote that figure of 52/6 for a widow with three children, I am well aware that it is an inadequate sum. As the Taoiseach said, and this should be repeated, social services in this country total some 20 per cent. of our total tax revenue. In Great Britain it is slightly less than ten per cent. because Great Britain, with her long history of development and resources gathered from her Empire, is a very much wealthier country and can pay out gigantic sums under her social welfare plan, taking only ten per cent. of tax revenue in order to do so. It is as well to remember that when comparing our efforts with the targets reached in Great Britain. It is something everybody should know. We are still far off the target.
I should like to point out also that, in fact, 2/6 is not the sole rate of increase. Certain classes are receiving much more than an increase of 2/6. In the case of a widow with two children the sum will go up from 47/6 to 51/-, an increase of 4/- and not just 2/6. In relation to the unemployment assistance class, a person with an adult dependant and two child dependants will receive 44/- instead of 36/6 per week, and there will be an additional 5/- per week in respect of each child in excess of two. Therefore, a person who is unfortunate enough to be unemployed and who has exhausted his stamps, will get a considerable extra increase if he has five children. There, again, one should not remember just the 2/6. There have been other increases for the dependants of the assistance class which make the position more satisfactory.
I do not think I need say any more about social welfare. I just want to point out we are doing the best we can. We have a very good record as compared with that of either of the two Coalition Governments. We can stand on that record. The facts are there. They are incontestable.
I come now to agriculture. A great deal has been said by the Opposition in regard to agriculture, most speakers implying that the failure of agricultural incomes to expand at the same rate as industrial incomes, since 1953, is something for which the Government are to be blamed exclusively, as if that failure had no relation to the pattern of farming in Europe, export prices in Europe, the position of the rest of the agricultural community, and the fact that, although there are widely differing practices in agricultural countries in Northern Europe, they are all bound to the wheel in relation to agricultural prices and industrial prices with very few exceptions. It is important to go over the ground again so that the House and the public can appreciate the position.
We have made some progress since 1953. The Central Statistics Office reckon that agricultural profits, after allowing for costs, and so forth, increased. The figure I have here for 1957 is £108,000,000. In 1961, it was £116,000,000. Our cattle population has increased. It was suggested that the reduction last year was due to Government policy, whereas it was quite evident it was due partly to sudden changes in export prices, for which we have no responsibility whatever, and also obviously to the continuous effect of the elimination of reactors. It is splendid that, having cleared many counties of bovine tuberculosis, the cattle population is up by 100,000 on some 4,000,000 odd in five years, when one considers the revolution that has taken place and the elimination of so many reactors.
Quite obviously, many farmers have been making progress and borrowing to restock their farms. Quite obviously a good number have managed to make progress in spite of the inevitable effects of bovine tuberculosis eradication. It is also worthy of note that the pig population has gone up by 200,000 in the past five years.
We should, I think, hammer home again the fact that Government expenditure on agriculture — it can be calculated in different ways — is just about three times what it was during the last Coalition Government, no matter what way we calculate it. When related to stocks or acreage, it is far, far greater now. The amount that is being pumped into agriculture is far higher than any amount devoted to agriculture when the Coalition Governments were in office.
To those who think the farming community is being ignored our answer is that we are all the time trying new ways of assisting our farmers to reduce their unit cost of production and expand profitable lines for export. Not a year has passed, since 1957, in which there has not been one or another of many plans, designed to assist pig rearing, progeny testing, soil fertility and the elimination of bovine T.B. The list is too long to recite now, but we have reached the point where Government expenditure on agriculture represents 6 per cent. of the gross national production of the country. We know from our studies that there is no country in Europe where more than 6 per cent. of the Country's total gross national production is spent on agriculture.
People are constantly referring to what goes on in the Six Counties. They are constantly referring to the lavish subsidies paid in Great Britain. They are constantly referring to the fact that the British say they give between £700 and £900 in subsidy to every farmer, on average. They are able to do it because of their gigantic industrial capacity. What results here in an impost of 6¼ per cent. on our total production absorbs slightly more than 1 per cent. of British production. There is a great difference, therefore, in their ability to finance the subsidisation of agricultural products. Equally, it should be added that if our country and Britain join the Common Market a great deal of that subsidisation principle will end, over a period of years.
We have heard it said that agricultural credit is lacking to the farmers. The farmers have been borrowing money in increasing amounts over the past five years. A very satisfactory proportion of the total bank loans issued to the public is now issued to farmers. As I understand it, while some farmers have been affected unfavourably by wind and weather, the total farmer indebtedness to the banks is remarkably low, showing that their capacity to repay their obligations holds good, as it always has in the past.
I want to talk about the background in relation to local authority expenditure and the farmers' position. Here again, we have announced rating relief for farmers inasmuch as we felt that as agricultural incomes had not expanded as quickly as industrial incomes from 1953 to 1961 and as industrialists had been given reductions in taxation as a group of producers, it was time the farmers had some reduction. Therefore, we provided the rate relief announced in the Budget. It should be made clear that, although rates may have borne heavily on the farming community, we made some effort to relieve them already. I shall explain the position in my constituency, County Monaghan.
Out of every £100 spent by Monaghan County Council, £63 was received from the Government either in the form of rate relief or in the form of State central grants to health and other services. I wanted to try to work out, in a way that could be understood by the ordinary farmer, how the rate relief affected his position, whether it could be compared to any item of production. Per gallon of milk delivered to the creameries, the rate relief through the Budget works out at 5½d. If you work it out per holding, as classified for agricultural purposes, it works out as a contribution of £15 per holding.
What size?
The average of all the holdings. There are some 10,600 holdings in County Monaghan. The contribution worked out at about £15 per holding or about 12/- per arable acre. Then I wanted to find out, again to illustrate the contribution of the Government last year, which was exceptionally bad from the point of view of sudden declines in the price of exported bacon and difficulties in regard to the beef market, how much of the total of £36 million spent on all agricultural services to the farmer would reach Monaghan. The only way I could do that was to take the total farm land of County Monaghan and to compare it with the total farm land of the country. It worked out at £1 million. Naturally, the farmers there will not pat the Government on the back for giving them that because it consists of a variety of expenditures and aids. A great deal was spent in bolstering up prices: the farmers saw none of the money directly. Some of it was of an invisible character. For example, the farmer could do land reclamation at a lesser cost. However, nobody can say that a government which gives £1 million to a county is not considering the position of the agricultural community. Nobody can say we are niggardly or completely indifferent to the needs of agriculture. All these statements have been made by the Opposition and obviously they are quite ludicrous.
I also wanted to say, again to drive home to the community in general and to the Opposition in particular, that this position in regard to the failure of agricultural incomes to expand in recent times is not in the least peculiar to us. There again, if we are to have intelligent discussion on agricultural development we must try to find out our particular needs, our particular problems, and not drive the farmer into a state of despondency by making him feel he is isolated in Europe as a member of a community whose fortunes have not prospered as much as those of the manufacturing community.
The very best example I can give is a recent report by OECD on the problem of Danish agriculture. Denmark has these advantages over us. First of all, she has had a long history as a free country, with an established settlement of land problems as far back as 1820, with universal primary education in the early part of the 19th century and with many other advantages. She is not entirely dependent on the British market. She has a very considerable and noteworthy trade with Germany, and always has. Therefore, she is able to balance her interest to some extent between one country and another, though in many ways she is just as dependent as we are on the British market when her economy, in the ultimate sense, is considered. This report should at least be some consolation to farmers who may have been influenced by Fine Gael propaganda that there is something exceptional in the failure of the agricultural income of this country to expand quite so much in the second part of the post-War period as compared with the first part.
Let us consider the remuneration to the Danish family for manual work and management. If we take the index of 1950-51 to 1954-55 as 100, the figures are as follows for the subsequent years: 93, 90, 101, 94 and 106. Just remember that last figure. Therefore, the remuneration for manual work and management was only six per cent, above what it was for the period I have indicated, 1950 to 1955. In the same period, the wages of workers in industry rose. Taking as 100 the period 1951 to 1955 to 1961, the index figure rose by 65. Therefore, you have that comparison in Denmark, a country with superb agricultural organisation, a country with a long history of freedom to develop their economy and a country with markets available around them. There is a six per cent, increase in remuneration to a family for manual work and management and a 65 per cent. increase in industrial workers' wages.
If anybody has any doubts about our responsibility in general for farm prices, taken as a whole, or for the general farm price structure; if anybody believes we have been responsible, through negligence, for the comparative subsidisation of farm prices, again taking the period 1953 or any period one likes since the War, the following are the figures in Denmark. We may take what they call the index of prices for output of products exported — shall we say — off the farm. It does not give any distinction between home prices and export prices, but just general prices for farm outputs. Taking the average figure for the period from 1950-51 to 1954-55 as 100 for animal products, there was absolutely no change up to 1960-61. There was complete stagnancy while industrial wages rose 65 per cent. For total agricultural products, including what they call animal and plant products which include grain and vegetables and so on, there is a reduction of one per cent.
Did the Minister say agricultural wages rose by 65 per cent?
I am sorry—industrial workers' wages. These are pretty clear figures. I do not think we could get a better comparison. One might take the United States which is very different in many ways. If one were to say that the total agricultural income of 21 billion dollars dropped to 15 billion dollars in spite of price support between 1948 and 1961, I suppose it might shake the belief of those people in the community who think our agricultural difficulties and problems are exclusive to ourselves. If I were to give the figures of decline in American farm populations, it would be even more remarkable, but, as I said, Denmark is a very good country to take, being mainly agricultural but with a great amount of industry also. Although they seem to be more reputed for their agriculture, they have a great industrial structure.
Just to give some more figures which might relate to the increase in rates levied on farmers in this country as compared with Denmark — I do not know what the increase in rates was here; I have not the figures with me — here are figures for Denmark of the increase in property taxes since the period 1950-55. In the last year, 1960-61, property taxes on farm incomes were up 47 per cent. and farm wages were up 40 per cent. That is the figure Deputy Tully required.
Can we not take that example and put them up 47 per cent. here?
If the Deputy looks at the increase in wages here in the same period, I think he will find it is fairly big. I do not think the comparison would be very wrong. Building costs went up 20 per cent. in the same period and implements and machinery went up 20 to 25 per cent. Then, in reading this study of Danish agriculture, I note that the contribution of the Danish Government until a very recent date in money aid to agriculture was such that ours would compare very favourably with the figure there. They, like us, are beginning to find it necessary to pour more money into agriculture but looking back on the previous period, I find we have done fairly well by the farmers in the matter of direct Government aid.
I thought it wise to mention those facts because it is well that the public should know that although the position has been exaggerated in regard to the comparison of farm and nonfarm incomes, nevertheless, we are facing the same kind of problems as other countries. When one looks at those problems squarely, one appreciates the optimistic but desirable provision of the Rome Treaty offering the alternative of completely controlled marketing arrangements by which farm prices are steadily jacked up. But it is made clear in the Rome Treaty that there must be a very great improvement in production and the application of scientific methods on the farms themselves and that the jacking up cannot be done without these improvements in production taking place on the farms.
I should like to repeat what the Minister for Finance has already said. Let us take the profits per family member in agriculture, forestry and fishing — I cannot separate those three items; they are taken together and no doubt they are approximate — I think our own Central Statistics Office has always had a reasonably good reputation for the accuracy of the information it provides — if we take the figure for 1960, the profit per family member in agriculture, forestry and fishing was £374, while the average earnings by workers in transportable goods industries was £395. That means that the profits per family member were 95 per cent. of the workers' earnings. The figures are not really comparable in the sense that you have to think of a family with full responsibility for property facing the hazards of winter and weather and so on, and you must also take the general level of improvement that has taken place since the War, but it is a valid argument. We only make matters worse by exaggerating the position. We want to do what we can for agriculture, for the farmers, but exaggerating the position would make it far more difficult for the Government or for the Minister for Agriculture to sit at a table and negotiate or discuss the real needs of the situation. That applies if, on the one side, we are too conservative in our attitude and also if, on the other side, these very exaggerated statements are made. It means intelligent discussions and negotiations become far more difficult.
I wanted to give those facts so that everybody could understand the position in regard to agriculture. I defy anybody in the Opposition to cite the comparative growth of farm incomes in any part of Northern Europe and compare it with the growth of nonfarm income and produce figures that in any way would indicate that we were not, generally speaking, in the same position as those countries. There are some where there has been a slightly greater improvement in agriculture than has taken place here. There are others where, even if there has been improvement, other adverse factors operated such as, for example, the fact that in Denmark in 1961, they lost 15,000 workers from the land in one year. That indicates they have a problem of migration. Danish farmers' costs went up by £7,000,000 while their incomes went down £6,000,000. That illustrates what can happen in other countries apart from our own.
In conclusion, I should like to suggest that it is very important that we should discuss agricultural difficulties in a calm way with all the facts before us and also in relation to the problems we shall have to face if we join the Common Market and the fact that there will be a reorientation of the whole farm price structure. A great many of the problems posed in this debate can be given no certain answer until we know whether we are joining the Common Market or not. It would be useless for the Government to plunge into big expenditure on subsidies at this stage and would make our problems all the more difficult and serious when we have to reorganise our agricultural and farm production on a different basis in the future.
It is a pity the Minister for Transport and Power spoiled his speech somewhat. He is usually calm and objective but he has recently got into the habit of lecturing the Opposition.
There is a quid pro quo in that.
He wants the Opposition to give up what he usually describes as stupid criticism and he asks them to be a little more constructive. He goes on to talk about sabotaging by the Opposition in their criticism. He made one brief reference apropos of this in respect of agriculture and told us that when the Opposition spoke about agriculture and its failure to expand, they forgot, or omitted to mention in relation to the Government's and the farmers' difficulties, the change in the agricultural pattern in Europe and the variations in prices and export conditions in recent years. I do not want to dwell on it too much, but I think it would be well at this stage to remind the Minister for Transport and Power that in 1955, and in 1956 particularly, when conditions were really difficult, there was not the same sympathy from the Minister, or indeed from the majority of those on the Fianna Fáil benches.
That was the time when there was near-crisis in Britain, when the British had to take such unusual measures to correct a situation which they regarded as worsening and which also affected us. I am not basing my speech on a defensive argument in respect of the period 1954 to 1957, and particularly 1956, but I think the Minister should also have had in mind the behaviour of some of his colleagues at that critical period.
However, that was not the gist of his whole speech, but I thought I might just refer to it at the outset. The Taoiseach, when speaking on the Budget, said it was a good Budget but that the best was yet to come. The sooner the best comes, the better, because I do not think it can be said there is much in this Budget that can be described as anything like the best. He also described it as a Budget which transferred the purchasing power within the community. How far it does that I cannot imagine. If it does, it does it in a very small, inadequate way.
The main provisions in the Budget were the increases to old age pensioners, to widows and orphans, to recipients of unemployment benefits, the relief in agricultural rates and in taxation on cinemas and dancehalls. These reliefs will certainly be welcomed for what they are by those who receive them, but this is not a Budget of any radical changes and is certainly not one which one would expect would be introduced on the eve of our possible entry into the European family, the EEC. It seems to me that the Government in framing this Budget do not seem to visualise the changes that will be necessary to prepare this country for its entry into the Common Market.
We in the Labour Party have, in the past few weeks, been criticised for our opposition to the new taxes. We opposed these taxes, as was said by members of this Party, because we believed that in this Budget not enough was being devoted to social welfare. Our criticisms have, in turn, been criticised by the Minister for Finance in recent weeks. He has attempted to detail what was done in what he describes as two Coalition periods. In that respect, I would again stress that our criticism in respect of the amounts devoted to social welfare was that they had been reduced when one compares them with the tax revenue in recent years.
For the record, I want to quote again the tax revenue in the past three years, including the present one, to show the percentage which has gone to social welfare. In 1960-61, the tax revenue amounted to £114.9 million and of that sum, £26.2 million went to social welfare; in 1961-62, tax revenue, was £126.2 million, of which £25.6 million was devoted to social welfare; and prior to the Budget this year, the tax revenue was estimated at £132.5 million of which £26 million is to be devoted to social welfare. These figures show that social welfare, as a percentage of tax revenue, fell from 1960-61 from 22.8 per cent. to 19.6 per cent. It will be found when one has regard to the increased tax revenue estimated for the present year in accordance with the provisions of the Budget, that the percentage spent on social welfare will be in the region of 19 per cent. Therefore, our argument that the percentage devoted to social welfare has fallen was valid. There has, in fact, been a reduction of 3.8 per cent.
I think more than the members of the Labour and Fine Gael Parties expected a higher increase in old age and widows' and orphans' pensions. We had one Independent Deputy who supports the Government in many things, talking of an increase in the region of 5s. a week. I think that was the consensus of opinion among the public generally, and I am not talking about members of the House or politicians in general. People throughout the country believed conditions were such that much more than 2/6 would be given to old age pensioners and recipients of widows' and orphans' non-contributory pensions.
It has been said that when I was Minister for Social Welfare in the inter-Party Government, I gave 2/6 a week extra to these pensioners. That is true. During the period 1954 to 1957, there were two Budgets and in each of those years, provision was made for social welfare classes — for non-contributory old age pensions and widows' and orphans' pensions. We provided an extra 2/6 a week in the first period and then in the second period, we provided an all-round increase of 25 per cent. The Minister for Finance has said that since 1957, the Fianna Fáil Government have given increases to old age pensioners amounting to 8/6 a week. That is a fact and cannot be denied, but alongside that should be mentioned that while they got an extra 8/6 over that period, food subsidies to the tune of £9 million were withdrawn. When one talks about increases given from 1957 to 1962, one must have regard to the two sides of the story.
I think it fair for me to mention — I do not expect members of Fianna Fáil to mention it — that in 1955 when an increase of 2/6 was given, butter was 10d. per 1b. less. That is a substantial amount in the budget of an old age pensioner. Milk was 1½d. a pint less; the two-pound loaf was 6½d. less; flour was 3/10½ less; tea, about which one cannot be absolutely clear, since quality and price vary so much, was about 1/3 a 1b. less than today; rashers and sausages were 3½d. and 5½d. respectively, less. I, therefore, suggest that in 1955 and in 1956, the old age pensioner was a little better off than has been suggested by Fianna Fáil spokesmen, and by the Minister, in recent weeks. Since then clothing has gone up by seven per cent.; fuel and light by 14 per cent.; and housing by 25 per cent., that is, rents. Smoking, and possibly drinking, are important to the old age pensioner and they have gone up by 30 per cent. Therefore, let me say again, that when one talks about old age pensions one must relate them to the cost of living, not to the ordinary cost of living index figure quoted from time to time, but to the index figure for the essential food commodities on which the social welfare section of the population are particularly dependent.
Fianna Fáil assume a Simon Pure attitude when they talk about opposition to taxation. They said that the opposition voted against what they call necessary taxation to raise the money to pay those benefits. One would imagine that they had never behaved like that themselves. Does any Deputy in the Fianna Fáil Party recollect the attitude of that Party in 1956 to the Budget proposals which provided for an increase to all those who were sick, to all those in receipt of unemployment benefit, to all those in receipt of contributory widows' and orphans' pensions, and to some of those in receipt of State and local authority pensions? Do they remember that when the Government, at that time an inter-Party Government, asked them to vote for increases in respect of tobacco and petrol the Fianna Fáil Party, led at that time by Mr. de Valera, who was the Leader of the Opposition, walked into the division lobby and voted against them?
According to the Minister for Finance and the other spokesmen of the Fianna Fáil Party one would imagine that this was the only time — and that this Opposition was the only Opposition — that an Opposition voted against increased taxation. Some of the increased taxation in 1956, which I mentioned, was to be devoted to social welfare recipients and State and local authority pensioners and on that occasion the Fianna Fáil Party had no hesitation in the wide earthly world in voting solidly against the taxes that were proposed.
The Taoiseach said that this taxation had a dual purpose: one to increase revenue and the other to curtail consumption. As an aside, may I say it is rather difficult to reconcile that statement with the terms of the new Intoxicating Liquor Bill that has been introduced. The Taoiseach also talked about the burden of taxation and said it was not increasing as a percentage of the national income. I do not deny that. I suppose the burden of taxation is not increasing as a percentage of the national income but what we, in the Labour Party, are concerned with is not the actual figure of the national income — we are glad when it goes up — not the figure of tax revenue, not the figure for the taxes that are imposed, but how they are distributed. We are concerned with the distribution of the national income. The national income might increase by 50 per cent, but it might increase in respect of a certain class or of certain people, but what is important about the national income is how it is distributed and if it is distributed fairly amongst the various sections of the community.
Similarly, it could be said as well about tax revenue, without having regard to the figure at which it stands, whether it is big, small or fair, that what is important is how it is distributed, and how the burden is placed on the various sections of the community and on the various individuals. While we are pleased that the national income has risen in recent years, we are not pleased with its distribution when we remember the small amounts that are being doled out from week to week and from year to year to people who have little or no means, to people who are dependent on home assistance, to people who are doled out a miserable pound from the local authorities, and to people who are dependent on the disabled person's maintenance allowance — on the 22/6d., or from next August the 25/- per week. The national income may have increased by 5 per cent. but those people have not got their fair share — and I do not say a percentage increase but a fair share of it.
The Minister for Transport and Power reiterated what was said by the Taoiseach, by many prominent politicians and many other prominent people, that as the country becomes prosperous then and only then can we afford to give more to people who cannot fend for themselves and work for an income, wages or a salary. I am not satisfied, and neither is the Labour Party, that either the national income or tax revenue has been distributed properly or placed properly over the entire community.
I gathered from the Minister's Budget speech that he was somewhat proud of the fact that his Government and he relied to a large extent on indirect taxation to raise revenue. That may be Fianna Fáil policy and they may believe in it, but I do not think it is right. We have one of the highest percentages of indirect taxation of any country in Europe. The Minister may be able to get the exact figures, but so far as I can find out 70 per cent. of tax revenue is raised by indirect taxation. Britain has been quoted from time to time in regard to prices, wages and unemployment, but I think it should be said that in Great Britain tax revenue raised in indirect taxation amounts to only 40 per cent. I think the trend towards increased indirect taxation is bad because indirect taxation hits the most modest sections of the community and hits particularly the poorer sections. We in the Labour Party would be in favour of a greater tendency towards direct taxation in order that those who can give most will be required to give more, and those who have little will get a little more.
Unemployment, employment and emigration have also been referred to in this debate and in the Minister's speech. There has been an improvement in the figures of registered unemployed. There is no doubt about that. I am not trying to tell the House that the solution of unemployment has been entirely emigration. Emigration has been responsible for a reduction in part of the unemployment figure. I would be the first to acknowledge that there has been a fair improvement in industrial employment but, again, the fact is that even at present we have something like 55,000 persons unemployed, and our employment figures are not anything to boast about.
One would get the impression from certain newspapers that industrial employment was increasing by leaps and bounds. It is increasing, but it is not increasing by leaps and bounds. The plain fact is that compared with 1955-56 there are fewer persons in employment in this country in 1962. Compare 1955 with 1961 and the Government's figures disclose that we have 62,000 fewer employed. I must confess I am not impressed by the figures given for emigration from a source other than the usual source on which we depend here. I have heard figures of 54,000 and 64,000 thrown around the House as representing emigration in the year 1961. The figures I rely on are the figures from the inward and outward flow by sea and air particularly between this country and Britain. They show me that last year, or should I say up to February and March of this year, we still had 22,000 persons emigrating every year. That still represents a pretty figure and there does not seem to be much evidence that people are coming back.
I think it was the Taoiseach who, when he was speaking on the Budget, said that people were coming back to Dublin to work. There may be some individuals, there may be a few dozen people coming back, but there is no evidence in my part of the Country that there are many persons coming back to be settled in employment. It is not a great boast for us to say that the emigration figures have been reduced to 22,000 per annum because one must reach saturation point and we have reached saturation somewhat in many of our provincial towns. We have certainly reached it in the rural areas and I visualise a time in the rural areas when the much criticised agricultural labourer will be in very great demand. He has been run off the land through lack of wages and through bad treatment generally but we will all see the time, no matter what age we may be, when the agricultural community will be down on its knees looking for these people to work on the farms.
The Taoiseach said that as a formula for national progress we must have three ingredients. Number 1 is a sound plan; number 2 is that we must have enterprise and number 3 is that we must have hard work. The Government announced a plan some three or four years ago. I forget what name they gave it but it was described as a five-year plan. It has shown results but certainly not spectacular results and not the results that this country needs in the year 1962. The plan, apart from some investment here and there as far as employment is concerned, seems to be merely the encouragement of foreign investment. The encouragement of foreign investment is a good thing and we welcome foreigners coming in to establish factories and provide good and remunerative employment, but I do not think that is sufficient. I do not think it is sufficient merely to say: "Here are the inducements. If you come in you can get them. If you do not come in there is nothing more to be done." I believe that the Government will have to show greater initiative. They will get the support of the Labour Party if they show initiative in the establishment of industries where they believe it is necessary to establish industries. Assuming that we have 55,000 unemployed and nearly 500 people leaving the country week after week in 1962 there is a case, a case that we will support, for greater initiative in the establishment of industry and the creation of employment.
The second ingredient for national progress the Taoiseach said was enterprise. Enterprise on whose part? While some industrialists and business people may show enterprises, the overall evidence is that there is not much enterprise in Irish industry. We have not seen great evidence of it. As far as Irish industry is concerned it is in the main industry which has been built up by protection and there has not been any suggestion by these people that they would willingly shed this protection and go into either the European or world markets. For that reason, if enterprise is a second ingredient of the formula for national progress, I am afraid the Government will have to give the lead and will have to show the enterprise which does not seem to be forthcoming from the ordinary industrialist.
The Taoiseach said that the third ingredient was hard work. I do not think that anybody would take exception to that as an ingredient to national progress but it seems to me — I do not say the Taoiseach has done it particularly on this occasion — that the lectures about hard work are usually directed to one particular section. It may be said that this is a Labour Party or trade union prejudice or bias but when a Taoiseach or a Minister for Finance talks about hard work those who do not do the hard manual work believe such an exhortation is not for them. The workers can only work so hard. It is physically impossible to work harder than many, or should I say the majority, of the workers do in this country at present. I have seen them in the factories, in the foundries and in the mills. They just cannot work any harder in many cases because they have not got the proper machinery. They cannot produce more because they have not got the equipment or because in many cases they are not being directed or managed properly.
For that reason this call from the Taoiseach, which I assume is backed by the Government, should be made to all and sundry whether they are productive workers or not, whether they are manual workers, carpenters, builders' labourers, agricultural labourers. It should be directed to everybody, the professions and so on, and to all in the State services, because it is only by example from these latter people that the general body will be inclined to work harder so that we may fit ourselves and prepare ourselves for entry into the fierce competition of the Common Market. As a matter of fact, in recent years workers, as I said some weeks ago, have shown that they have matched increased wages, increased income, with higher production. Government figures have shown that and the Taoiseach himself paid a tribute to them when he spoke on the Budget proposals just before the Recess.
I was disappointed that the Taoiseach made such a scant reference to the possibility of our entry into the Common Market. I do not know what the attitude of the country is to the Common Market. We seem to be approaching it in a sort of fatalistic way. Whilst the reason for our application for membership of the Common Market is Britain's application, I do not think it is sufficient merely to sit back and say "Well, if Britain goes in we go in, and if Britain does not we do not." That is a lazy way out. It is the sort of attitude that whatever will be, will be. Whether we go into the Common Market or not we will just have to pull up our socks because if Britain does not go into this community of nations, in which as I said there will be fierce competition, they are going to be much more vigorous in the trading bloc in which they are at present. In respect of these blocs, whether it is the European Free Trade Association, or the Common Market, we will find we will have to compete in a much keener way.
The Committee on Industrial Organisation made their report a few days before the Budget proposals. Deputy Norton, speaking here on 11th April, as reported at Column 1818 of the Official Debates, quoted from the report of that Committee, which I assume has been accepted by the Government. One paragraph in that report stated:
Irish firms and industries will survive under free trade only if their products are competitive in design, style, quality, delivery dates, marketing techniques and price with those available from other countries within the EEC. It would be unwise to assume that local patriotism, consumer ignorance, market friction, permissible restrictive practices or any other consideration will modify this conclusion significantly.
I am sure that paragraph has not been read by more than a few thousand people in this country. This Committee, established by the Government, should be congratulated on their forthrightness in presenting to the people the fact contained in that paragraph, because it is a fact that no amount of local patriotism and so on will win the battle of the Common Market should we become members. In a further paragraph of their report, the Committee go on to say this:
It will take a certain period before this equipment can be got and consequently it will be a certain time before we can meet the competitive impact of association with the Common Market.
That paragraph followed on from a recommendation that Irish firms and industries could not survive unless they equipped themselves to meet new competition.
What we are concerned about is the transitional period. If we enter the Common Market and if the terms applying to the six existing members are applied to us, it will mean we will have to reduce tariffs immediately by 50 per cent. and over a period of from seven to eight years the remaining tariff protection will have to go. Seven or eight years, or even two or three years, could make a great difference in this country if that transitional period is a tough one. If our industries do not prepare themselves and equip themselves to meet the conditions of the Common Market, many heads will roll — and unfortunately the bulk of them will be workers' heads. The Committee exhorts private industry here to equip itself to meet the Common Market, but I want to put this question to the Government. If private industries do not prepare to meet the Common Market and if they throw in the sponge and say "We cannot compete", what plans have the Government? Are the Government prepared to face up to and meet a situation like that? If there are firms who throw in the sponge and say they cannot compete with the Germans, the French, the British, the Belgians and the Dutch, I believe the Government have a responsibility. If a firm employing 400 people here decide not to meet the challenge of the Common Market and decide not to install the proper machinery or employ the proper techniques, what will happen to their 400 workers? This can happen in any part of the 26 Counties. The Government will be faced with the decision of whether or not to accept the decision of private enterprise and allow another 400 workers to emigrate.
I do not want to appear to be over-dramatic about this. All of us are aware of the position. The Minister for Industry and Commerce said quite frankly that if we become members of the Common Market there would be unemployment within the transitional period. He did not attempt to give any figures and nobody could expect him to, but I think it would not be unreasonable to think in terms of thousands of unemployed in particular industries. As against that, I know many firms, I know firms in my own home town who ever since we made application for membership are preparing and doing their best to ensure their products will sell as well and as cheaply as any similar commodities from the Continent.
The Government will have to do as we have often suggested they should: they will have to decide whether or not they will take a hand in the establishment and promotion of industry here to ensure that our own people will be kept in useful and remunerative employment at home.
One of the problems that will face our industrialists if we are accepted into the Common Market is that of holding on to the home market. At present industrialists are pretty well protected so far as the home consumer is concerned.
But visualise a situation here where all tariff barriers are gone and where people can get clothing, footwear, machines and so on from any of the six or seven other countries in Europe, possibly at cheaper prices. That will mean the home market will be gone for the Irish producer, the market he has had "on a plate" for the past 20 or 25 years. I never objected to him having it "on a plate" but Europe has changed and we now face a situation where even the home market will not be available to the Irish producer.
As I said, we should not approach this question of our entry into the Common Market in any fatalistic manner. If Britain had not been forced, as apparently she was, to apply for membership of the Common Market, I suppose we would have been perfectly happy and possibly far better off engaging in our usual trade with Great Britain, which has been described as accounting for something like 75 per cent. or 80 per cent. of our total trade.
The big difficulty about talking about the Common Market here is that if one attempts to be objective or realistic, one is immediately dubbed as being an opponent of the Common Market or an opponent of European unity. As far as we are concerned, we accept the inevitable, that is, our fate in respect of the Common Market depends on the decision in respect of Britain's application. But we are not prepared to close our eyes to what may happen and to the things that will undoubtedly happen should we become members.
It is not good enough for people here, not particularly politicians but people representative of certain organisations, to tell their members that membership of the Common Market will be something like Utopia. This is being done to some extent in respect of the agricultural industry. All of us certainly would welcome the day when our farmers could get good markets for their produce. We would welcome the day when the income of farmers and their workers would shoot up. But I think it is foolish and wrong to give the agricultural community, whether they be farmers or farm labourers, the idea that there are vast markets in Europe and that we can sell our dairy produce, cattle and some of our cereals in this vast market of the six existing members. It should be stressed all the time that if we are to get into these markets, our prices will have to be very keen. Even with keen prices, the farmer has to remember the market available is very limited.
As Deputy Norton said here some time ago, globally these countries are self-supporting in respect of agricultural produce. Germany is not fully self-supporting. There is room there for exports of Irish produce but other countries will be competing for that limited market. The Irish farmer will have to compete with those other nations if he wishes to get into the limited German market.
In all this the Government have the primary responsibility to lead. It would be wrong for me to deny that the Taoiseach has spoken about the Common Market at various public functions recently and that he has to some extent warned as to what may happen. He has asked all sections of the community to prepare themselves. But apart from that there seems to be an air of secrecy about our application. I know our application is dependent upon the outcome of Britain's application but it seems to me that the British have their ears closer to what is going on in regard to the negotiations than we have. I know our application is not being considered but we should be much closer to the decision with regard to Britain's application, on which the fate of our application depends.
We are vitally concerned in that matter because we are so closely attached to Britain in trade and so are the member nations of the Commonwealth. They are vitally concerned and the Commonwealth and Britain have been and still are discussing and communicating with each other over the whole matter.
The Taoiseach and the members of the Government may know much more than they care to disclose. I will not say that it makes people suspicious but there is a lack of confidence in the country when we know so little about what is going on, not merely in respect of the political implications, but particularly in respect of the economic implications of our joining the Common Market. I think the Taoiseach should have a little more confidence, not merely in the members of the Opposition, but in the people as a whole. He has been questioned from time to time and always seems to be reticent, to be holding back and to have the attitude that the members of the Opposition merely want to embarrass him. I want to say on my own behalf and on behalf of the Labour Party that any questions we ask the Taoiseach in respect of the economic or political implications of the Common Market are not designed to embarrass him or his Government.
This is a problem not exclusively for the Government. It is not sufficient for the Taoiseach to carry the Fianna Fáil Party and the few Independents in this House on this issue if and when it comes up. The best situation which could be wished for by the Taoiseach would be one in which any proposals to the House in respect of the Common Market would be supported by every member of the House. This is not a question on which we can afford to be divided and the Taoiseach would be better off if he were more frank and took the members of the House into his confidence in regard to our negotiations with regard to the Common Market, political and economic.
Mr. Ryan
It is extremely difficult to speak with any enthusiasm either for or against this particular Budget, the reason being that the Budget does so little to enthuse one one way or the other. The only outstanding feature of the Budget is that it compelled the Lord Mayor of Dublin to revisit his city and afforded the people of Dublin an opportunity to see their Lord Mayor and allowed him an opportunity to see his old city. Notwithstanding that unexpected pleasure I do not think the Budget was sufficient to justify the expense of bringing home that dignitary to do so little or nothing at all.
What is interesting is a leakage which has occurred over the past few weeks as to what really happened in Government circles when the Minister for Finance introduced his proposals to the Cabinet. There was a blowup between the Minister for Finance and the Minister for Social Welfare, who had anticipated not less than 5/- a week for Social Welfare beneficiaries. We know he was demoted some months ago because of his mishandling of the Department of Defence, and when he was threatened with complete dismissal unless he accepted this insult he accepted it although, if he were a man and if he were really concerned about the welfare of the people, he would have resigned.
This has been referred to as the halfcrown Budget but over the next twelve months the old age pensioners will receive less than threepence a day from it. This mean contribution of a half-crown is not to be given to them until next August and the poor can live on God's good sun and air over the next few months. In the next twelve months that old age pensioner has to pay for the many commodities which, by deliberate action or default of the Government, have increased in price. The threepence a day alone would not cover the cost of increased bus fares, the cost of bread, butter, tea and sugar, the cost of the price of stout or a few cigarettes.
It was difficult to hold one's patience when the Minister for Transport and Power brought in his petty little statistics in which he tried to compare an increase of 5/- a week during six years of inter-Party Government with an increase of 12/6d. given by Fianna Fáil. Fianna Fáil over these years increased substantially the prices of bread, butter, tea and sugar. They increased them once in 1952 and again in 1958. They increased substantially the staple diet of the poor people of this country. It would take 10/- alone to compensate the poor for those increases in the basic commodities without bringing any other figure into consideration. We find that over 11 years of Government, Fianna Fáil increased social welfare benefits by about 2/6d., leaving out the necessary increases which had to be brought in, on their own admission, to compensate for the removal of food subsidies. Yet their opponents, whom they endeavour to criticise in this House, gave increases without increasing the price of bread, butter, tea and sugar, the staple diet of the people.
The Minister for Transport and Power is very good at reading figures. He is not so good at adding and subtracting but when he produces statistics to suit his own purpose, he can be like the devil quoting Scripture. He asked us all to be mellow old men and to approach the economics of this country and the welfare of the poor from his own statistical range. I would not accuse him of being dishonest. I do not believe he has even the wisdom or the cunning to be dishonest; when it comes to statistics, he is exceedingly childish in handling them. It is about time he gave it up because it gets a very poor Press. Besides anybody who knows anything about statistics can easily read through them.
Let us compare what social welfare beneficiaries get now or what the old age pensioners get now with what they got in the 1920's. If you take the figure of 9/- a week given to the old age pensioner in the 1920's and relate it to the present-day valuation of money, the old age pensioner should be receiving 45/- a week because 45/-a week is the equivalent of what the old age pensioner was getting 30 or 40 years ago, notwithstanding the fact that the standard of living has improved and that we ought to be trying to give the old and the poor a little more than they were given when the social conscience of our people gave them the equivalent of 45/-. That is the standard which the Minister for Finance should try to achieve, the standard which existed so many years ago. If he did that, it would be a great advance on what he has done, which is an extremely shabby effort to buy over the votes of a certain number of undependable Deputies known incorrectly as Independents.
Party secrets are things to be cherished and not things to be disclosed, but for what it is worth, I think it is important that it should be known that when the Fine Gael Party were considering last October the economic situation and determining what they could put to the people, it appeared beyond any possibility of contradiction that the lowest increase which could be given to old age pensioners and other social welfare beneficiaries was 5/- a week. A large section of the Fine Gael Party were in favour of announcing to the public Fine Gael's determination to increase old age pensions and welfare benefits by not less than 5/- a week. Unfortunately, I suppose, because of Fine Gael's shyness in pronouncing things or their fear that their declaration would be interpreted by Fianna Fáil as only an election slogan put forward by a Party which had no intention of carrying it out, it was not formally declared that that was the intention of the Party. I can only feel now, after the event, that we were most unwise not to declare it. I do not think, however, there was any member of the Fine Gael Party who for a moment thought that if they got back to power, Fianna Fáil would give less than 5/- a week when the Budget came around the following year, and I think that was the general impression in the country.
That was an understandable impression. The vast majority of wage earners have obtained over the past year increases varying from 18 to 20 per cent. of their incomes. An increase of 5/- in old age pensions would have been much less than 10 per cent. and to have offered only a pittance, as the Minister now does, is to say in regard to the poor, the old, the widow, the orphan, the sick and the unemployed that the State is not concerned about them, that the State does not intend to allow them to share in the increased wealth of the country and that if other people have done well, the poor will not obtain an equivalent benefit.
It is an appalling situation for which it was difficult to find an explanation until one heard the speech today of one of the typical Tory members of this Government who enthused over the fact that Fianna Fáil were no longer primarily concerned with social investment or with keeping down the cost of living. He said that when Fianna Fáil went into power in 1957, they turned their back — that was the phrase he used — on the social investment policy which had been pursued by the inter-Party Government from 1948 onwards and indeed to some extent pursued by Fianna Fáil when they were in office between 1951 and 1954 because at that time they had thought it would be politically unwise to abandon it altogther. In any event, he enthused about the fact that Fianna Fáil were turning their back upon social investment. I am glad to say that Fine Gael are very much to the fore in progressive social policies and intend to stay there. If Fianna Fáil, now that they have moved to the extreme right, decide to stay there, perhaps it is as well because their days of power in this country are assuredly coming to an end and a progressive Party like Fine Gael will replace them.
There are many of us who have been pressing the Minister for Finance to abolish Schedule A income tax. I should have thought the Fianna Fáil Government, who seem to do nothing until the British Tory Government do it, would, when the British Tory Government abolished Schedule A tax, have done likewise. I suppose there was not time for them to make up their minds about it on this occasion. I suppose it is inevitable that it will be in next year's Budget. However, it is dangerous for a Fine Gael man to talk about inevitability because we thought a 5/- increase for old age pensioners was inevitable. Perhaps it will need a Fine Gael Government to abolish Schedule A tax.
If there ever was a pernicious, useless tax producing nothing except a justification for Parkinson's Law, it is Schedule A tax. Schedule A tax is yielding a net return of about £150,000 to the State and no more than that when all the considerations which ought to apply are taken into account. In order to justify this £150,000 there is a whole cumbersome system of taxing property.
Where Schedule A tax is applied to business premises, an allowance is given under Schedule D in respect of that Schedule A tax, so that there is something like £4½ million which hundreds of civil servants sit down laboriously to calculate and then to notify to another Department and which is then wiped off since income tax on another account is concerned. Never was there so much waste of time by so many people to so little purpose.
There may be those who doubt my interpretation of the facts. I have no doubt there are, particularly on the opposite side of the House, but three years ago, the Commission on Income Taxation which was set up by Deputy Sweetman when Fine Gael Minister for Finance reported that, in their opinion, Schedule A tax ought to be abolished, with certain modifications which by the casting vote of the Chairman, were inserted, although in fact there was an even number of members of the commission of the opinion that it ought to be abolished altogether.
I would refer, Sir, to this Report on Income Taxation because it appears the Minister for Finance and his advisers have forgotten about it, but it is very proper that the members of this House should have it brought to their minds because the sooner this Gilbertian waste of time on the part of the Revenue Commissioners and the Department of Finance ceases, the better.
Indeed, I believe that if you could get the cost of collecting Schedule A tax and all other considerations brought into account, the State might actually make a profit rather than suffer any loss, if the wretched thing were abolished. It is a very difficult thing to calculate official time and labour but I think the figure of £100,000 which the Minister gave to me recently as the estimated cost of collecting Schedule A tax is considerably on the low side. Be that as it may, even if it cost £500,000 to abolish, I believe it would be well worth while abolishing it.
The references I want to quote are to be found in the Second Report of the Commission on Income Taxation. At paragraph 67 of that Report, the Commission said:
We recommend the abolition of Schedule A assessments on buildings and of both the Schedule A and B assessments on owner-occupied lands, used for the purpose of a trade, profession, or vocation; and that no Schedule A or B deductions be made in assessing under Schedule D the rents or income from such properties.
Again, at paragraph 88, the Commission recommended:
that owners of property who pay ground rents or head rents be no longer charged to tax on these rents, nor entitled to deduct tax on paying them; and that the tax payable, if any, be collected by direct assessment on the person receiving or entitled to them, except where the Revenue Commissioners (or, on appeal, the Special Commissioners) are satisfied that this course is impracticable; the Revenue Commissioners to be empowered, in cases of exceptional difficulty in collecting tax from the person receiving or entitled to a rent, to direct the house-owner to deduct such tax on paying the rent for later periods, and remit the tax to the Exchequer.
The effect of that recommendation would be no longer to charge Schedule A tax on the owners of property who are paying ground rents.
We find yet another recommendation in paragraph 110 — and remember that these recommendations were made three years ago:
We recommend that premises, not exceeding £30 valuation, in which an owner-occupier normally resides be exempted from Schedule A tax payable on owner-occupation, and that premises exceeding £30 valuation be similarly exempted in respect of the first £30 valuation; in the case of owner-occupied premises not fully used for residential purposes, the exemption to apply to only the residential portion of the premises.
On page 50 of the report, there is a minority report signed by five members, although the original report is signed by only ten members, but apparently it was carried by the casting vote of the Chairman. The five of the learned commissioners recommend the total exemption of owner-occupied property from Schedule A tax. They say:
While agreeing with the majority recommendation that residential premises owner-occupied should be exempted up to £30 valuation, we recommend that this exemption should extend to all owner-occupied houses.
There the Minister has the advice of ten people who are considered to be the best brains available for the purpose of appointment to a Commission on Income Taxation and they recommend that this ridiculous tax be done away with.
On page 44 of the report, some figures are quoted which substantiate what I have already said about the cost of granting the exemption. The figures indicate that the net cost in income tax and sur-tax at current rates, of exempting owner-occupiers from Schedule A tax up to a valuation of £30 would apparently be in the region of £200,000. That would be the total cost of relieving the unfortunates who have to pay ground rent, as long as the Fianna Fáil Government allow ground rents to continue, the burden of having to deduct tax from their ground rent and then having to be the taxpayer for the ground landlord who is already making a profit and having to waste postage by separate payments.
The cost of putting an end to all this nonsense, which involves, I suppose, the better part of 100,000 house-holders in unnecessary payments, would be £200,000 per annum and if Schedule A tax were to be abolished for all properties, not only those of a valuation of up to £30, the most it would cost would be £250,000, but against that we must set off the cost of collection which the Minister for Finance recently estimated at £100,000. That brings us to the figure of £150,000, working on the Minister's figures, and it is well known that the Department of Finance which is reluctant to change and does not want to change anything, always errs on its own side in the production of any figures.
There is a further justification for the abolition of Schedule A tax. This tax is imposed upon a man or woman who invests savings in a home or who, as in most cases, is buying a home through a loan. There are very serious social considerations in this matter. Home ownership develops a sense of responsibility and loyalty and I think it is common case that it also helps to cultivate social virtues of various kinds. That is a moral or social consideration and I believe it would not be unworthy of the Minister for Finance to have that in mind. But there is a financial consideration of another kind. At present local authorities are subsidising in local authority houses many people who could well afford to buy houses of their own. If a person goes in as a tenant of a local authority house and if he has a big family, many years later, he will be in receipt of much higher pay because of having achieved a senior position in his employment. In the meantime, many of his children will have left school and will be earning. Let us face it. There are many people in subsidised housing at the moment who ought to be buying their houses. Various little vexations are stopping them from doing so. One of these is this farcical Schedule A tax. It frightens people off because they do not want to have more dealings with the Revenue Commissioners. There is also the penalty of having to pay stamp duty. Many of us have pressed the Minister to do away with that, but so far he has not seen fit to do so.
If a man invests £1,000 on deposit in the bank and leaves it there at 2½ per cent., he will pay no tax whatever on the £25 that money earns under Schedule A, B, C or D, or X, Y or Z. He does something negative, something of little social value. He has probably far too much money already. If he puts that money into a house to provide a roof for himself, his wife and his children, he will have to pay this Gilbertian Schedule A tax. If he puts the money into saving certificates, he will collect interest, and he will pay no tax. The money invested in saving certificates is probably spent by the State on subsidising houses for people who ought to be buying their own houses. If he invests the money in certain Irish securities he will get exemption from tax. He can use the money for buying annuities or life insurance. He will be exempted from tax. If he does the laudable thing of investing the money in bricks and mortar, thereby relieving his fellow citizens of the responsibility of housing him, the Minister for Finance, at great expense and at great waste of official time, collects tax. That situation ought not to be allowed to continue. I have no objection to the Minister obliging those who receive ground rents to pay tax, but I am very much against imposing the obligation to do so on these unfortunate people who are not compelled to pay it. It is the person who collects the pound of flesh from whom the tax should be gathered. It is he who should be salted instead of being relieved of the burden.
It is a customary thing not to suggest any new taxation in Opposition. The Fianna Fáil Party were particularly efficient in that respect. I will suggest a tax now which will net £1,000,000 approximately per year for the Minister and, at the same time, serve a most laudable social purpose. There are on this side of the House 47 Deputies pledged to introduce legislation to put an end to the ground rents system. The Labour Party is of the same view. The Government have seen fit to set up a Commission to inquire into this matter. It will be a long time before the findings of that Commission are published and before the necessary legislation is introduced.
In the meantime, there is a considerable traffic in ground rents. Febulous amounts of ground rents are changing hands. A State-sponsored insurance company is buying up ground rents right, left and centre. One of that body's subsidiaries is at the moment under investigation by the Minister for Industry and Commerce. The parent body may not be so far from investigation itself into its own affairs than it may think at the moment. But this is an atrocious situation. A Government Commission is inquiring into ways and means of putting an end to a private system of taxation on private individuals. A large proportion of this House has pledged itself to abolish ground rents. It is outrageous that, in that situation, people are selling ground rents at fantastically inflated prices. They deserve no mercy whatsoever from this House whenever legislation is introduced to compel them to get rid of them. A warning should go out now that those who are trafficking in ground rents at extravagant prices need expect no mercy.
There is a way in which the Minister can put an end to this ridiculous traffic. He can impose a stamp duty of 50 per cent. on the sale of ground rents. That will put an end to the fanciful ideas of some of the large insurance companies. These people will not permit individuals to buy the ground rents. I have personal knowledge of that. The stamp duty I suggest would net the Minister about £1,000,000 a year. Certainly that would have been the yield in the past year. If he imposes the duty there will, of course, be a considerable reduction in the number of ground rents changing hands. That is socially desirable. It may save the State a considerable amount of money in many years to come because if it is decided to abolish ground rents, these people will be looking for 20 years' purchase, something for which there will be no moral justification. Anyone paying more than 5 per cent. is either a fool or a knave. If he is a fool, he ought to be certified. If he is a knave, he deserves no mercy. There is an easy £1,000,000 for the Minister for Finance to collect, if he has not got some personal interest in some of the vested interests that are now making so much.
One of the things that baffle me, and baffle the country, is the extraordinarily large discrepancy between the emigration figures produced here and the figures produced in Britain. The Taoiseach and the Minister for Transport and Power gave a figure of 22,000 people as representative of emigration last year. The fact that the Minister for Transport and Power quoted the figure convinces me that it must be wrong, because his statistics are generally open to question. Britain has no axe to grind in this matter. Last year there were 68,000 employment cards, more than double the number in previous years, issued for employment for the first time in Britain to Irish nationals. It has been said here before by the Taoiseach, in reply to a question of mine, that some of those represent seasonal labourers. Of course, that is quite wrong.
If a person registers for employment in Britain once, he retains that registration indefinitely unless he tries to avoid paying income tax, in which case he might try to dodge, but I do not think that the number is very large. Therefore, we have a situation in which, according to the Government across the water, 68,000 registered for employment in Britain last year. Yet our Taoiseach trots out a figure of 22,000 — a figure which the State went to great expense to prove in the Supreme Court last July was not in any way reliable because it was subject to a wide margin of error. Apparently it does not matter whether the Taoiseach or the Minister quotes a figure which is liable to be very erroneous.
In 1960, the British figure was 73,000 as having registered for employment from the Republic of Ireland and the previous figure was 58,000. The British figures do not take into consideration wives and children. I appreciate that the majority of our emigrants at one time were single people or were married people who left their wives and children at home. But the pattern of emigration under Fianna Fáil since 1957 has been the shocking number of whole families who emigrated, and is proved by some figures which I shall mention in a few moments. That is the situation and that is what we have to consider against the figures produced by the Minister to suggest there is more employment and less unemployment.
We concede that there is less unemployment. Perhaps, we advanced a little further at school than the members of the Fianna Fáil Party. We can subtract as well as add and we can read figures. If you subtract those who registered for employment in Britain in each of the past three years, it is not difficult to understand why there are fewer registering for employment here at home when such a vast number of people from the Republic of Ireland registered for employment in Britain. The important thing is not the number of unemployed but the number of employed. This is the angel quoting the devil. At the 1957 election, Fianna Fáil had a slogan "Employment is the Test." It was not "Unemployment"—"Employment is the Test." Let us now apply their test which, I suppose, is still scientifically accurate.
There are now 62,000 fewer people receiving an income here at home than there were in 1955. I wonder how many that represents in the number of people who are not living here. If most of them are married and if most of them have a few children it is easy to understand why the census of last year disclosed a drop of 250,000 in our population over a relatively short period.
I represent a Dublin constituency. Dublin is regarded by many people as the wealthy section of this country. Although its population does not equal as yet one-third of the total population of the country, nevertheless, the emigration from Dublin in each of the past five years has represented more than one-third of the emigration from the whole State. That the western seaboard is being depopulated, I agree. That places in the Midlands — particularly the Northern Midlands, counties such as Cavan, Monaghan, and Leitrim — are suffering severely from the closing of houses and the departure of people, I agree. Some of these people come to Dublin and always have come to Dublin, and Dublin will always be glad to receive them. There are few of us "Jackeens" who have not our roots, within the last generation or so, somewhere in the country. Since the Pale went, that pattern has always been followed. When you take into consideration the movement of the rural population of Ireland into Dublin, you have a situation in which the increase in the population of Dublin ought to amount to 20,000 per year, allowing for the natural increase.
The figures produced by the Central Statistics Office on behalf of the Department of Health show that the average natural increase — that is, deducting the number of deaths from births in Dublin in any year — is about 10,000. It is apparent that the number of people from rural Ireland who flow into the environs of Dublin in any year is about the same figure. That is how it is easy to calculate that the emigration from Dublin over the past five years, under Fianna Fáil, has been more than one-third of the total emigration of this State. There are other figures to convince us of these things. It is essential that they should again be recited, not because it gives us any pleasure to do so but in order that the lesson may be driven home.
The Minister for Transport and Power was in great teaching form today, almost a lambasting form. He trounced the public at large as well as the members of the Opposition. He made it quite clear he was not speaking to the Opposition only but to the public at large and he was telling them a thing or two because he thought it was about time they stopped their nonsense and criticism. It was very severe and undemocratic conduct by a Minister of State. I intend to help him by repeating his words outside so that the people can understand what he is at and the contempt in which he holds them. He treated them in the same manner as he treated the Opposition and I know well he holds us in contempt.
For several years past, until Fianna Fáil came into power in 1957, the number of tenants of the Dublin Corporation who handed up the keys of their houses, who gave the houses back again to the Corporation, ran at about 300 or 400 on average. Now, people will surrender their keys under various circumstances; perhaps due to death, perhaps, due to the fact that they are buying accommodation, perhaps, due to the fact that they are going to live with somebody else, perhaps, due to the fact that the whole family is emigrating. Taking the average of 300 or 400, we find that once Fianna Fáil came into power, there was an appalling change.
The death rate did not multiply in Dublin. The number of people leaving Corporation houses and buying their own houses did not multiply in Dublin. The number of people abandoning their own houses and going to live with relatives did not multiply in Dublin. However, what did multiply to the greatest flow experienced in the whole history of this nation — not this State but this nation — was the flow of emigrants from Dublin. Whole families packed up their homes. This disappearance of families galore, fathers, mothers and children, although it has fallen off somewhat, has not yet come back to the level at which it was before Fianna Fáil came into power.
Deputy Lemass was kind enough to remind me that he had previously said here that he had been informed by an official of the Corporation — I hope I am being fair to him — that there were three times as many coming back as were now going. If I am wrong he can contradict me. He said that the situation now was that we had not enough houses to house the people. Of course, that is true, but the fault lies entirely with the Fianna Fáil Minister for Finance and with the Fianna Fáil dominated Housing Committee of the Corporation.
Nonsense.
Mr. Ryan
——and with all the corruption and political nonsense engaged in by Fianna Fáil——
We have not got a majority on the Housing Committee.
Mr. Ryan
Whether you call them Fianna Fáil or Independents on that Committee——
(Interruptions.)
Deputy Ryan should be allowed to make his speech.
Mr. Ryan
There has been a rot in relation to the housing situation for many years and I want to explode the balloon here tonight if it is the last thing I do no matter how much it may aggravate Fianna Fáil, whether they are members of the Corporation or not.
The ultimate responsibility in relation to housing does not lie with the local authority but with the Minister for Finance. In 1956, the year in which the Corporation, according to Deputy Briscoe and the then Deputy Larkin, were experiencing great difficulties in getting money the Corporation received from the Government for capital purposes £6,308,000. In the following year they received £4,700,000. Then Fianna Fáil comes into power and there is a drop from £4,700,000 to £2,630,000. Another year of benevolent Fianna Fáil administration and there is a drop to £2,090,000. Another year of benevolent Fianna Fáil administration and we are down to £1,975,000. Then there is the prospect of a general election and so we go up a little in order that we can boast that we gave more than we did in the previous year. It went up to £2,043,000. But in each of those years the amount was far below what was offered by the inter-Party Government during the so-called financial crisis of 1956. In fact, over the four years of Fianna Fáil administration only £7,000,000 was given as compared with £10,000,000 in two years of the Government that has been slandered and abused here and throughout the city by Fianna Fáil which has denied the money so urgently needed to house the people of Dublin despite the fact that every time the Corporation has held a count of heads to see how many people want houses there were on average about 6,000 or 7,000 applicants. That figure can be multiplied by five to give the number in the families. The bottom has been knocked out of the housing programme in Dublin, a programme which was lying dormant until the inter-Party Government came along in 1948. The programme reached its pinnacle of success under the inter-Party Government and achieved the depths of failure under Fianna Fáil.
The greatest number of houses made available for the people of Dublin at any time since the war was made available in 1950-51 when 2,782 houses were available. Of that only 194 resulted from vacant houses being available and in that 194 were vacancies due to deaths and circumstances other than emigration. Last year we had the lowest number of houses made available in Dublin since 1948 — 1,248. These figures I only received this afternoon. Of the 1,248, 856 were given to the Corporation by people vacating their houses and a miserable number of new houses was built last year although we were told that people were now flowing back into the country and that special mailboats were almost necessary to bring back the crowds from Holyhead and Liverpool. We were practically back in 1932. Had we a harbour big enough I suppose we would have the Queen Mary, the Queen Elizabeth or the America bringing back the people. Despite that the great Fianna Fáil Government with all its foresight could only build 392 houses.
Let us leave the financial figures alone and take another aspect of the matter. I hope the Minister for Transport and Power can interpret these figures — he is a wizard at interpreting figures — in some way other than what I am doing. We find that in 1956-57 when the inter-Party Government were in power 1,564 new houses were built. In came Fianna Fáil who sliced the number by over 500 down to 1,021. They were not short of an excuse. They said that was planned by the wicked men of Fine Gael. They had a year to put it right and so in the following year they cut the figure by nearly 600 and brought the Fianna Fáil contribution of new houses down to 460.
I should be fair to them and say that in that year they had 1,293 vacant houses on their hands because of soaring emigration from the city which they tried to conceal but which cannot be concealed when you get the keys, the empty houses and the corrugated iron on houses and flats through the city. That cannot be concealed. We went down to a miserable 460 houses in two years of Fianna Fáil Government. In 1959-60 they improved a little. They must have expected the emigrants to come back. They built 505 houses. But the emigrants did not come back and instead of 1,399 leaving, 1,605 left houses idle and handed back the keys to Dublin Corporation. That really gave Fianna Fáil the shivers because that was in the great revival year of 1960 when all was well. Then we find they got cold feet and went down to only 279 houses built for the people of Dublin at a time when about 40,000 of them are listed as acceptable applicants for houses, men, women and children, many of whom are in bad health, many in bad buildings. Again, we must be fair. The old problem is still there, not as great as in previous years, but big enough to be concerned about. There were 1,260 emigrants and there having been an average emigration rate for the previous four years of about 1,400, naturally it gave the Minister for Finance cause for worry.
Then, last year, when one would have thought the great revival would be a complete success, apparently the Taoiseach thought of it only as a prologue. There were 392 houses built at a time when tens of thousands of Dublin people are living in miserable homes. Of course, the blame lies with the Minister for Finance and Fianna Fáil. In 1959, the Cork Corporation applied for money for their housing programmes and received back a letter asking them to reconsider their application, in view of the fact that their housing problem would to some extent be relieved by emigration. That letter is on the records of this House. I am sorry I have not got it at the moment. It was quoted here by Deputy Barrett and the Minister did not deny that his Department, on his instructions, wrote to the Cork Corporation saying that the money would not be available and asking them to reconsider their programme which would be relieved by the emigration rate.
In Dublin, the same trick was not resorted to. Each member of the Fianna Fáil Party in the Dublin Corporation, and some other people they could catch, were sent abroad with weeping and gnashing of teeth howling for money in 1956. One of their bright boys went to America— he is still there—and announced he would collect money for the capital purposes of the Corporation. That was the Right Honourable Robert Briscoe. So much were we in need at the time that he had to go to collect money for the capital programme of the Corporation. If he brought back any, the Corporation did not see it. Recently, when challenged, he said that was because the Government made the money available.
What do we find? We find that the Government gave £4 million less than in 1955 and that in each year the amount of money has been going down. The Government and the Fianna Fáil Party and their lackeys had to say they would cut down the housing programme because they were afraid of the degree of emigration. Because of it, they slaughtered the housing programme in Dublin and one does not have to study official reports or statistics to prove that.
Let the Minister for Finance ask the Deputies behind him what our major problem is. It is housing. Day after day, families are being refused houses and all this flows from the tricks, political buffoonery and the machinations of Fianna Fáil. The price is the misery and the bad housing suffered by countless numbers of unfortunates in this city and throughout the country at the present time.
As I said at the beginning, it is difficult to be enthusiastic about this Budget. If one confines himself to it as such, it may not appear to be Fianna Fáil's worst, but when one goes on to consider what it does not do and the problems of the unfortunate people who have been led astray by Fianna Fáil, one cannot but be exceedingly angry. Another aspect which I shall comment on in brief is the immense amount of money being spent on an utterly useless and inefficient health service, the money being wasted at national and local levels——
The Deputy may not discuss the administration of the Health Services on the Budget.
Mr. Ryan
Except in so far as some 50 per cent. of the money collected in the Budget for the health services is going in administration. I shall not delay on it, except to say that we should not have to go collecting money for this purpose if, instead of putting down a ridiculous motion last October to set up a ridiculous Select Committee of the House to consider at great length the health services, the Government had adopted the Fine Gael suggestion of providing a comprehensive national health code which would have done away with the inefficient administration and the means test now applied.
One wonders why the Minister for Finance or the Taoiseach made no reference to the Common Market. It appears to be something which is only brought on by a good dinner consumed in a dress shirt. I cannot remember when a Minister of this Government has attended a public dinner during the past few months that he has not come up with it in his hand-out to the Press, but it is extraordinary that we have to go to the last three pages of the Budget Statement to find any reference to the great dawn to which we are to awaken when the Common Market comes along. For as long as Fianna Fáil have been operating, there has always been a dawn ahead but never a night. It seems to be a very long dawn. Whether we go into the Common Market or not, there will be a dawn all right, but it will be a frosty, cold dawn with a considerable amount of fog and many of us are likely to go astray, particularly the Fianna Fáil Party.
It is rather unfortunate that when he was planning the economic future of this country, the Minister for Finance did not take us more into his confidence on this matter. He knows, and the Government ought to know more about the Common Market than has yet been made known to us. It is unfortunate that the Opposition, in order to get some information on the Common Market, should have to read foreign newspapers and consult foreign sources. I do not think that is a proper way to handle the country.
Goodness knows, Fine Gael have made it clear they have no desire to play politics, as far as Common Market membership is concerned, but if the Government continue this ostrich-like conduct, the ostrich is likely to get a kick in a part of its anatomy which Parliamentary regulations forbid me to mention and we shall see to it that the truth and the whole truth is disclosed to us. If the Government are in difficulties—and we believe they are in serious difficulties—now is the time to mention them because it is common knowledge that there are many members of the Government who are utterly unacceptable to some members of the EEC. This fact, which any diplomat knows long since, may sooner or later be disclosed to the great embarrassment of the Government. It would be no harm if an all-Party committee were to be established to consider this matter.
Having been so critical so far, I suppose the Minister for Finance will be suspicious if I offer any compliments. However, there are two things for which I would praise him. One is the change which he made in the holdings of the Legal Tender Note Fund last October and the second is the time of the year at which he did it. I am just thinking what would have happened if Fine Gael did the same thing. We have been arguing that there is no need to have so much foreign backing for our currency. The present Minister for Finance has ridiculed us from time to time when we gave voice to such sentiments, but on August 31st last, when most of us were enjoying a hard-earned rest, there was a small note in the newspapers, seemingly of no consequence, to the effect that the Government had changed the system of the backing of our currency. What would have happened had Fine Gael done this? I think this is one of the reasons, if not the principal reason, why the Minister has been able to ride down the spiral of inflation. That is the only reason why the top of the spiral is not stuck in him to-day. I believe that if this had been done 20 years ago, we would not have experienced a cycle of bad or difficult Budgets.
The Minister has done it but I wonder what his colleague, the Minister for Health, would have said if Fine Gael had done it. I wonder what the Fianna Fáil Party would have said. One remembers that when Fine Gael introduced their capital programme, David Allen's hoardings were used to carry advertisements that Fine Gael were putting the country in pawn because they were using the savings of the people for industrial and agricultural development and social investment. One can imagine what a hunt would have been started and how deliberately Fianna Fáil would have tried to upset the financial and industrial interests of the country, if we had changed the backing for our currency. It is, however, a compliment to us on this side of the House and to the people who were regarded as unorthodox economists that at long last our conservative financiers have seen fit to adopt what should have been adopted many years ago.
Another great source of disappointment to many people was the increase given by the Minister to retired civil servants and officials. It was deplorably and exceedingly mean. The Minister had an opportunity this year and, indeed a better opportunity last year, to do away once and for all with the basis of our present pension code which was established about 1870 in order to cater for the soldiers of the Franco-Prussian War. Some of their pay was kept back from them so that when they came back into Civvy Street, there would be some money to pay for their pensions. So far as I know, we, and of course Tory Britain, are the only countries that have continued that archaic system in respect of public service pensioners, military, police, the people we know as ordinary civil servants, or those in extra-mural organisations such as teachers.
We have maintained that system, notwithstanding the fact that experience since 1914 has shown, particularly in more progressive countries that have the engine of economics and finance ticking over fast, that there is a general trend towards inflation. We have continued to try to relate pensions to what an individual earned on the date he retired, even though that might have been 10 or 20 years before.
Take the situation of pensioners who retired about 1947 or 1948 or earlier—and there are still some of those people among us. Their pension is related to what they earned, for all practical purposes, in 1940, because there was a standstill in relation to their income during the years of the war. Apart from some artificial increases that have been given, their pensions are still related to those figures. It is grossly unfair, to my mind, that if we increase the cost of living—and I use the word "we" as the nation or the State or arms of it— and if it is found necessary to increase the wages and salaries of serving officials—and surely that is a recognition of the fact that the cost of living has increased—recognition should not be given to all sections of the community and, in particular, to all retired public servants.
Some people try to make debating points on the basis that a pension scheme is deferred pay. When he speaks of deferred pay, the emphasis of the Minister is always on the word "deferred" and never on the word "pay". If pensions are paid, then they should be related to the pay currently being earned by people of equivalent status. Let us forget the word "deferred". I do not think it is fair to say that because a man retired at a time when the wage of, say, a clerical officer or an executive officer was at a certain level, his pension must remain based on that figure.
The figures given by the Minister in his Budget are based upon that old principle. While I understand there might have been financial difficulties in providing more, and I suppose we should be grateful for small mercies, it would have been better if the Minister had distributed the same amount of money in another manner. The total cost of putting into operation the policy which I believe is a fair one would not be very great in the long run. I do understand that in one year it would probably be difficult to do so, but it is a pity the Minister did not start this year. For instance, he could have done half the job this year and the remainder next year, because I understand from the Taoiseach that there will be loads of money lying around next year and that the best things are yet to come. I hope he will not be annoyed if we remind him of that next year. Some of us may be small in stature but we have elephantine minds and we shall remember, and I trust that the Parliamentary Secretary will be smiling as broadly next year.
My colleague, Deputy O'Donnell, touched upon what I consider to be an important opportunity for this country. One of our great difficulties is to encourage people to invest money in Irish securities, not simply in national loans, which, after all, are gilt-edged and not the ESB, once maligned and now a most respected institution and really a gilt-edged security, but in small industries. We must overcome that reluctance. One reason why people are slow to invest money in Irish industry, the stock exchange or elsewhere, is that they feel they will be investing money in a small industry which will be subject to very strong repercussions, if even something slight happens in the economic field outside.
We need to establish here under the protection of the State a form of investment unit trust. It might be said that the Industrial Credit Corporation or the Agricultural Credit Corporation are a form of unit trust because the State collects money and gives it to them and they lend it, but I do not think that completely answers what Deputy O'Donnell and I have in mind. If there were a State guaranteed investment trust which would take the small savings of people, a trust that would open a book of securities over a large field of industrial effort, ranging from the processing of fish to the making of ladies' garments and steamrollers, then the risk would be spread and if the State were behind such investment operation to guarantee it, we would have far more money available for Irish industry.
At the moment there are a large number of private limited companies which have not got sufficient status or nerve to go on the open market to get money in the stock exchange. I believe if there were such a system as we are suggesting, many of these companies could avail of the stock exchange and would get considerably more money made available to them. As things stand, the bank managers are perhaps the worst people to go to and possibly the next are the Industrial Credit Corporation. There is no doubt that many worthwhile small industries are at present being starved of capital because of the fact that people who have money to invest are looking for safe securities, and it is not always easy or opportune when you have money to invest it in State loans.
Finally, I have a word of encouragement for the Taoiseach. He said in Monaghan last October that he did not wish to be a Taoiseach relying on the support of Independent Deputies and that a vote from an Independent was not a vote for but a vote against Fianna Fáil. I pity this reluctant Taoiseach. If he does not wish to be in power relying on the votes of Independents, there is nobody holding him there except his own avarice, and the avarice of his colleagues, for office. We have seen the fruits of a Government depending upon a few Independents for power. I am sorry for the individuals concerned because many of them have done serious violence to their consciences but it is an indication of how strong this Government can be and how intolerant they are and how they have not learned the lesson of the autumnal election except that it gave them an indication of how Fine Gael thinks and now they are trying to take away the glory of that.
This reluctant Taoiseach who said that a vote from an Independent was a vote against Fianna Fáil and that he did not wish to be in office relying upon Independents is now in a very embarrassing situation. I would urge him either to relieve his own feelings by allowing these persons to join the Fianna Fáil Party or indicate to them that he is not prepared to support them any longer.
Surely this does not arise on a Budget debate?
The Independents claim that the Budget is a result of their warning to the Government.
We are dealing with the question of taxation and not with any Independent or Party member.
Mr. Ryan
We are criticising those who impose taxation and the manner in which they distribute national wealth. It was this reluctant Taoiseach and his unwanted Independents who did this, as Deputy O'Higgins correctly points out. It seems that the Minister for Finance has little part to play but, however, for the time being, he must accept the responsibility. It is a miserable Budget. About all the Minister for Finance can say is that it is not much but it is his own. Perhaps it is the last one he will be giving us. Perhaps there may be a change of Government before he gets another opportunity to do so little. The fact that he did so little when he had the opportunity to do so much is a serious reflection on himself and on his Party. It is a clear indication that we have a Government who are incapable of any innovation and if ever a time were ripe for innovation, for new policies and for new faces on the Government benches, now is the time.
The country can console itself that the patience of the Taoiseach is bound to go and the opportunity will be given to the Irish people to elect a progressive Government which may restore once again the housing that the people of Dublin so urgently require; which may give us a health policy suited to the social requirements of the 20th century, which may give us the necessary encouragement and initiative in industry and agriculture and the financial reforms, particularly taxation reforms, which are crying out for implementation and which have been recommended by a commission and which Fianna Fáil, because of fear of change or improvement, are reluctant to put into operation.
I was interested in some figures on unemployment and emigration given by Deputy Ryan and I shall comment on them later. The people have had an opportunity of considering this Budget and it is generally recognised as being a good and sound Budget. Indeed, in the course of conversations which I have had with many people in various walks of life in my constituency, the wonder has been expressed that increases could be given to the social welfare groups, public servants, Gardaí and teachers, and a considerable sum of money devoted to agriculture from such a small adjustment in our tax code. When we come to consider how this was possible we find general agreement that it was because of the sound economic approach of the Minister for Finance to our problems and the policy which we have always practised as well as preached, the balanced Budget policy.
Two terms of Coalition Governments caused almost irreparable damage, but looking back on them now, we find that there is at least one bright spot in that the harm caused by the Coalition Government, taught the people that balanced Budgets and the balance of payments are important and that weather clock economics can lead only to disaster. Never again are we likely to hear a Fine Gael candidate state, as one stated in 1951, in my constituency, that Fianna Fáil were always harping on the importance of the balance of payments but what might they, his audience, care as long as they got what they wanted. He failed to explain that if the balance of payments went wrong, they would not get what they wanted but would get unemployment and all its attendant ills. However, his Party have since taught the people this in a manner they are not likely to forget.
The question of employment, unemployment and emigration has been dealt with at considerable length in this debate. With regard to employment Deputy Ryan has given us figures and we have on previous occasions been given figures by Deputy Corish, Deputy Norton and various other Deputies which, unless they are examined, would give a false impression. Here again the fact that we had a Coalition Government is helpful, if only for purposes of comparison. In Economic Statistics published prior to the Budget, we are given employment figures from 1951. Fianna Fáil took office in that year, after the collapse of the Coalition, and they found employment falling both in industry and in agriculture. Their first task was to endeavour to right the financial mess in which they found the country. As a result, the downward trend in employment was reversed. In 1954, there was an upward swing and more people were in employment than in 1953. But the Coalition came back in 1954 and the upward trend was reversed. We had a downward trend and this has come to be so much associated with Coalition Governments that the word “Coalition” or “inter-Party” has come to be a rather dirty word and is taboo even among the former partners of the Coalition.
During the second Coalition, we had a crisis which was brought on simply by the fact that the Government refused to recognise basic economic principles. We had the shocking position of having a downward trend in employment, not only in agriculture but in industry as well. One could see certain causes for the fall in employment in agriculture, but when this was accompanied by a fall in industrial employment, the country faced a hopeless position. Despair gripped our people and we had the beginning of the exodus of our people from this country which reached such flood-like proportions that it took us several years to bring it back to manageable figures. When we came back in 1957, our first task was to endeavour to stop the rot and to infuse hope and courage into our people. We introduced the Programme for Economic Expansion in 1958 and from then on our people took a grip of themselves and we began to advance. The year 1960 saw an upward swing in employment and in 1961 the swing was accelerated. We find there were 6,000 more people in employment in 1961 than in 1960.
In a grave matter such as this simple subtraction, such as was indulged in by Deputy Ryan, is hardly important. What is important is the trend in employment, whether employment is rising, static or falling. The figures clearly show that during the Coalition time employment figures were falling catastrophically, while in our time they are now rising. But if we are to interest ourselves in subtraction, perhaps we should do some subtraction on this side of the House.
First, I should like the House to note that Deputy Ryan—and, as far as I can remember, Deputy Norton and Deputy Corish—when subtracting for us in the House found it necessary to go back to a very early year in the Coalition term of office. This is peculiar, because if an Opposition is to discuss the employment policy of a Government, one would expect they would confine themselves to the years in which that particular Government was in office. When they find it necessary to go back to an early year in their own administration, obviously there must be some reason for it. Of course, the reason is that they could not find a figure acceptable to themselves unless they did so. They could not find a large enough figure to quote to this House unless they went back almost to the beginning of their term of office.
They took the year 1955. I shall go back a step further than that. I shall take the year 1954, the year the Coalition came into office. From 1954 until this year there were 66,000 fewer people in employment. From 1954, when the Coalition took office, to 1957, when the Coalition went out of office, there was a fall in employment of 49,000. The number employed in 1954 was 1,185,000 and in 1957 it had dropped to 1,136,000. From 1957, when we took office, to 1961 there was a fall in employment of 17,000. When we came into office in 1957 there were 1,136,000 in employment and in 1961 there were 1,119,000 in employment, a fall of 17,000. Out of a total drop of 66,000 in employment from 1954 to 1962, 49,000 took place during the Coalition's time and 17,000 during our time.
As I said, I am not concerned with this subtraction, but with the trend. I should like to give the House some figures to give an idea of this trend. From 1953 to 1954, our last year of office, there was an increase of 3,000 in employment; from 1954 to 1955, there was a fall of 4,000; from 1955 to 1956, a fall of 18,000; and from 1956 to 1957, a fall of 27,000. That was the final Coalition year. We came into office and from 1957 to 1958 there was a fall of 15,000; from 1958 to 1959 a fall of 9,000—from 1959 to 1960, a rise of 1,000—the trend is now going in the right direction—and from 1960 to 1961, a rise of 6,000. In other words, at the end of our last term of office, the trend in employment was upwards. Now the trend is also upwards. During the Coalition's time, the trend was all the time downwards.
There is no need for me to say much on unemployment because it has been discussed on numerous occasions. I might mention, however, that just before the Coalition left office there were over 90,000 unemployed. That figure has now been reduced to approximately half. Of course, we are not complacent about that figure. Obviously, however, the manner in which we are dealing with the question is having results. We are at last getting the unemployment figure down very considerably.
The number emigrating now is declining rapidly. Of course, we have no strictly accurate figures. Our estimates are made on the basis of the number of people entering and leaving this country by sea and air. On that basis, we get a figure of approximately 22,000. This figure has been scoffed at by the Opposition. They have quoted a figure given by a British Department. To test the accuracy of our figures, it might be no harm if we took the year 1960. For that year, the British Government Department gave a figure of 73,000 as the number of Irish people who applied for the first time for employment in Britain. The figure we had, reckoned on the basis I have mentioned, was very much at variance with the British figure—in fact, it was only about half. The Opposition, being anxious to have as big an emigration figure as possible, continued to bandy the British figure across the House during the year. However, because there was such a discrepancy between the two figures, we queried the matter. We knew that many of our people who had already been employed in England went there and registered anew for reasons best known to themselves. The British admitted publicly that the figure they had given was not reliable but this had no effect on the Opposition who kept on throwing it across the floor of the House.
Recently, an organisation in Britain known as the Economic Intelligence Unit issued a report called "The Immigration Communities". It gave the net number of immigrants into Britain from Ireland for 1960 as 36,750. That is a substantial figure but as the House will note, it is much closer to the figure we claimed for 1960 than the figure issued by the British Office. The investigation undertaken by this organisation was a scientific investigation and there is very strong evidence to support the accuracy of the figure given. Our economic statistics for 1961 further confirm this figure when we note that the number of people at work here has increased by several thousands.
I mention this fact to show that the figures issued by this body for 1960 are almost identical with the figure we gave for emigration in that year. This scientific investigation proves that the figure we give for this year of 22,000 is an accurate figure, in so far it is possible to be accurate in these matters. It also proves that the bulk of the people who emigrated from this country emigrated in the years of the Coalition Government and in the early years of this Administration.
The Minister had devoted £2½ million in this Budget to help agriculture. I am very glad that he has done this. Agriculture is our basic industry and other industries depend for the money to pay for the raw material that keeps them going on our exports of agricultural products. The farmer's complaint is that while his income was rising, his costs were also rising rapidly and his income was not rising in the same degree as that of the industrial worker. The farmer had a just grievance. It has been said here, particularly by Fine Gael, that this money was allocated by the Minister because of the NFA protest marches. This is not true. It would be a serious matter for future government in this country if it were true and it would be unfortunate for the farmers themselves if it were true. The money was allocated because the Government recognised the justice of the farmers' claim. It is not only now that the Government and this Party have concerned themselves with the question of rates.
When the Institute of Economic Research was opened by the Taoiseach, he asked them as their first task to undertake an examination of the whole problem of rating. Some time afterwards, as evidence of his anxiety with regard to this matter, he set up an inter-departmental committee to report on it. It is evidence of the interest of the Government in this matter that the Minister for Finance took the action he did take. Attempts have been made by the Opposition to denigrate the Government's efforts in this respect by breaking down the total sum given to the farmers to show how it affects the individual farmer.
It must be clearly understood that the manner in which the money was allocated by the Government was in line with the main demand in the NFA programme which was that rates be reduced. Their demand was that the road and health charges should be taken off the rates and this was roughly tantamount to a demand that the rates be reduced. They had other demands but this was very much in the forefront. Personally, I believe that the NFA were pressing in the wrong direction as far as the advantage of the small farmers was concerned. There were other objectives which, I feel, could have been of much more benefit to the small farmer. However, the N.F.A.'s demand was met in the manner in which they wished it to be met.
The fact that the farmers of this country have organised themselves is an important development in the life of the community and one which has a valuable contribution to make to the economic growth of the country. It is a young organisation and, like other young organisations, has its teething troubles, but when it reaches maturity, it will not content itself with simply making demands but will help the whole agricultural set-up to develop more rapidly. In my opinion, there are signs that this development is taking place.
The NFA recognised that one of the worst dangers to its existence was to become involved in Party politics. They had seen farmers' organisation after farmers' organisation gobbled up by Fine Gael or their predecessor. They very wisely wrote into their constitution that should a member of their organisation become a member of a public body, he could not hold office in the NFA. During the past few months, the Fine Gael Party in my constituency has made every possible effort to turn the farmers' protests to their own political advantage. This was done by the Party which, when they were in Government, were mute when it came to presenting the grievances of the farmers.
However, again the fact that Coalition Governments had been in office helped the farmers to take a balanced view of these activities. They remembered the treatment which was meted out to them by Coalition Governments. They remembered for example the way the wheat price was slashed; and they spurned the overtures of the Fine Gael Party in my constituency and told them in no uncertain terms they were not wanted. When we find a former Minister of the Coalition writing to his county councillors and asking them to make all the capital they can out of the farmers' parades, we can see how widespread this conspiracy was. It is to the credit of the NFA that they succeeded in overcoming that threat to its existence. It was not easy to overcome it and I am proud of the fact that both my Party and myself played an active part in exposing this effort to smash and absorb the NFA.
Hypocritical was the stand of the Fine Gael Party when, although all over the country they were howling for a reduction in rates, they went into the lobbies in this House and voted against the provision of £2,500,000 which was mainly being devoted to reducing the rates. One excuse offered here, as far as I can remember, by the Opposition was that they were not satisfied with the framework of the Budget and that that was why they voted against this money for the farmers. I can quite appreciate that they did not like the framework of the Budget. From my past experience in this matter I realise that the Fine Gael Party were interested mainly in keeping the farmers in a state of turmoil, and the very fact that we now have given the farmers £2,500,000 would be sufficient to make them thoroughly dislike the framework of the Budget.
Another statement was made here that the reason they voted against this proposal was that if the Fine Gael Party were in power there would be a bigger cake, that the national income would be bigger, and that in dividing it round the farmers would get more. That is a rather cynical statement coming from a Party which left the country not only with no cake but without a crust.
Industry has got its share in this Budget. Money has been made available to industrialists to refit themselves and to reorganise so as to be in a position to face the problems which may confront them in the Common Market. We cannot impress too strongly on our industrialists the necessity for refitting themselves to meet this competition which is inevitable. I have no doubt that many industries will be able to face up to the stresses and strains which will confront them in the Common Market if we are admitted. On the other hand, I fear there are some industries which because of bad management or for some other reason will not be able to face up to these problems. The Government has over the past year or so been making an assessment of the position in which various types of industries will find themselves in Common Market conditions. If it should happen that fundamental changes are necessary in these industries, then the Government should with all speed inform the industrialists of what is expected from them.
While we might be inclined to say that industrialists who are not taking due cognisance of what the future may hold for their industries, who are not endeavouring to refit themselves for this competition, should be let stew in their own juice, we must remember our responsibility towards the workers employed in these industries and we must be willing to take extreme measures to protect their interests.
The various groups entitled to social welfare benefits have received increases in this Budget. These increases are not by any means as large as we would like them to be. However, it is only right to say that we have an excellent record in regard to consideration for those who are unable to help themselves. Down through the years we have introduced practically every worth-while social welfare measure that has passed through the Dáil. From those who are now weeping and moaning about these people, they got little or nothing except promises of new social welfare legislation and proposals which never materialised.
It is reasonable to assume that the leaders of the Labour Party who condemned the social welfare increases in this Budget were speaking with their tongues in their cheeks when we remember that from 1948 they increased old age pensions by only 5/-while Fianna Fáil increased them by 12/6d., that Fianna Fáil were the only Party which increased all ranges of social welfare benefits, and further that we were the Party that introduced the contributory old age pension. The Labour Party is extremely outspoken about the ills and the difficulties of the pensioner when in Opposition, but the miserable record of the two Governments which they supported and the miserable record of the two Labour Ministers with regard to the paltry increases they gave to the old age pensioners are there for everyone to see. They voted against the increases in this Budget on the pretext that he did not consider them sufficient, but surely their unhappy record in this regard hardly gave them an excuse for doing so.
The Minister is to be congratulated on this Budget. It is a Budget which continues along the sound financial lines the Minister has followed in his previous Budgets, and it is a Budget which has been acclaimed even by his opponents when outside this House.
This Budget has been fairly well discussed and criticised and its many weaknesses have been exposed by Deputies who are more competent and more able than I am. At this stage, there is not much that is new that can be said about it, but every Deputy without exception has an obligation both to himself and to the people he represents to declare himself on the many important matters which arise on the Budget.
This Budget is a disappointing, a dull, colourless Budget. It is the Budget of a minority Government holding on to office and fearful of moving too far in any direction, lest it should lose the few vital votes on which its existence so precariously depends. It has neither imagination nor foresight and with the exception of the granting of certain aids to industry on particular conditions it is completely without incentive.
That might be, perhaps, a slight overstatement because it is right to say that an amount of money has been made available to the Sugar Company to assist the processing and marketing of agricultural produce. But, in regard to the rate relief which has been given to farmers and which in the case of small farmers is insignificantly small, no matter what Deputies on the opposite side may say, I maintain very strongly that it was just meant to keep their mouths shut and intended to save the Government further embarrassment and to save them from having the farmers marching on Dublin, as they had planned.
There is absolutely no incentive to increase production, no incentive to become more efficient and better equipped to do the job that will be required of the farmers in the very near future. There is no indication on the part of the Government that they will make an all-out drive to sell the farmers' basic produce and there is no undertaking that they will provide the farmers with the breeding stock that is essential, if we are to compete on anything like equal terms with the other members of the European Economic Community.
The Taoiseach's reference to agriculture clearly showed that any significant improvement in agricultural production would seriously embarrass the Government and in fact was to be definitely discouraged. I hold that the reliefs given are just simply cushions to comfort disease and that there is no indication of an agricultural policy that any Government could be proud of.
The Taoiseach is trying to discourage the farmers from producing milk. At the same time as Holland is doing its utmost to set up its own sales organisation in Asia, Africa and South America for dried milk and condensed milk, we on our part are trying to discourage production. Where will we find ourselves, if and when we are accepted as members of the European Economic Community? We will not be ready to take advantage of the opportunities that that very big market promises to us and, worse still, we are not trying to get ready.
Take the case of pigs. There has been a recent reduction in the price of pigs. It is not a direct reduction; it is a reduction that has been imposed by the creation of new and higher standards, but it is a definite reduction. Coupled with that there is an increase in the price of feeding since last December of 50/- a ton. Again, in connection with the same matter, we have been waiting for six years for a second progeny-testing station.
I do not want to interrupt the Deputy but he is going into agricultural matters that could be discussed on the Estimate for Agriculture.
A Cheann Comhairle, I am referring to the provision that is made, and the provision that is not made, for agriculture.
Nobody prevents the Deputy from doing that in a general way but when the Deputy comes down to references to a particular matter appropriate to the Estimate for Agriculture it is duplicating discussion.
Let me say then that I personally feel that there is insufficient money provided for agriculture, insufficient incentive, insufficient opportunity for farmers to put themselves into a position to complete in the market that we hope to get into in the very near future.
We come then to industry. The Government opposite always contrive to give the impression that they have done a marvellous job as far as industrial development is concerned. I cannot understand how it is possible for them to attempt to create that picture in view of the fact that after 24 years of Fianna Fáil Government there is still large-scale unemployment and large-scale emigration. I shall not dispute whether the figures in respect of unemployment and emigration are being reduced or not. They may be going down and if they are I am very glad of it. Personally, I believe we are still preventing industry being established in this country due to the fact that the machinery we have for establishing industry is totally unsuitable and inadequate. The organisation we have here for the establishment of industry is the Industrial Development Authority, An Foras Tionscal. This is a body that is composed entirely of civil servants. In France, for instance, where they are sincerely trying and have achieved extraordinary advances in recent times they have tackled the job in a much more effective and sensible way. Instead of a board composed entirely of civil servants they have the leaders of industry, the trade union leaders and civil servants considering all these matters and advising the Government and the Government accept the advice. The Industrial Development Authority that we have here is overworked. The fact that it is entirely composed of civil servants means that we have an excess of caution and there are avoidable delays. These avoidable delays and excessive caution result in worth-while industries being lost to the country.
There is also over-anxiety to push industries to backward and remote parts of the country, where it is completely impossible to carry on worth-while industries because the various requirements of a big industry are not there. What we want is largescale industries with established markets abroad. Such industries just will not be pushed to a remote part of the country.
Some time ago in my anxiety to get small industries established here I asked the Minister to provide grants for the establishment of mushroom factories, and that was refused. Why it was refused I do not know because I know one such small industry in a rural part of the country that is giving employment to 25 people. The produce is entirely for export and I think it is a very suitable industry. Today I asked a Parliamentary Question as to why there was not tax exemption for horticultural produce. Really, no explanation could be given. There is no worth-while explanation. There is tax exemption for mushrooms and tax exemption for processed horticultural produce but other horticultural produce will not be exempted.
The Minister for Transport and Power tried to draw a comparison between the advances made in Denmark and the progress in agriculture in this country in recent years. He endeavoured to show that we are keeping reasonably in step with progress there. He omitted to tell us that agricultural development in Denmark at the beginning of that period was so high that there was very little room for improvement while, at the same time here, it was at a very low ebb, and there was enoromus scope for improvement. He referred to the difference in the increases that took place in agricultural production in the early post-war years and in more recent years. He indicated that, while there was a drop, the overall position since the war was very good. During the two short periods when we had a Minister for Agriculture who knew his job, agriculture enjoyed many spectacular improvements. We have no commensurate improvements under the present Government. That Minister for Agriculture was responsible for so many things that it would be difficult to list them all in this debate. The land project improved the land of this country almost out of recognition. There was the lime scheme. There was the soil testing, and so on, and so forth. I think that explains the second argument put up by the Minister for Transport and Power.
Generally speaking, I regard the Budget as a bad Budget. Consider the reliefs given to pensioners. They are entirely inadequate. If it was considered equitable to give industrial workers anything from £1 or 30/- per week increase, it is hard to see how it can be considered equitable to give a mere half-crown to pensioners and social welfare classes generally. In providing for these people, we should be prepared to make a much bigger effort to give them reasonable standards, even to the point of making certain sacrifices on their behalf.
This Budget has been described as a colourless Budget. I think that is quite a good description of it. Some of the speeches, however, from the Government benches were not alone colourful but were lurid in the extreme. Those who almost went into ecstasy about this wonderful Budget produced by their Minister for Finance were either not listening when the Minister was introducing his Budget or did not subsequently take the trouble of finding out for themselves what it was all about.
We had, of course, the lecture from the Taoiseach in which he talked about the effect of the eighth round of wage increases and the hard work necessary if the country is to survive. As far as the eighth round is concerned, not everybody has yet got his or her share. Certain sections, including a number of State servants and farm workers, workers in the primary industry, as it is called, have still not got the eighth round increase. Indeed, some of them have missed out on quite a number of rounds. Those who did get the increase are contributing more than their share to the running of the country. That is reflected in the returns under PAYE. Possible a number of people who were not being caught in the net are now being caught, but it is admitted that one result of the eighth round increase will be that revenue under PAYE will contribute another £3,000,000 to the Exchequer. The Minister did not refer to that as extra money coming into the Exchequer. He talked glibly about the buoyancy of the currency. He said the increases given to certain State employees would cost a great deal of money, and the money had to be provided. We believe the money needed will come in from those people and from the others who have got wage increase and that, without any extra taxation at all, the money will be there.
As far as hard work is concerned, there seems to be an idea rather prevalent in this country that Irish people do not work hard at home; but if they go abroad, particularly to England or America, for some unknown reason they work exceedingly hard. People say the Irish are great abroad but they will not work in their own country. I heard this odd creed referred to by an employer some time ago. He has quite a number of employees in this country and he has a very big number of employees in Britain. His comment is worthy of repetition. He said it was not a fact that Irish men and women worked harder in Britain. The difference was that, no matter how hard they worked here, they did not get much appreciation; neither did they get very good wages. In England they got both. For that reason a kind of belief had grown up that Irishmen worked much harder in Britain just because they earned more money over there, money they could never earn at home.
When the Minister for Transport and Power was talking he commented at length on the ESB. He referred to something to which the Minister for Finance had made no reference in his Budget. Perhaps, the Government had not thought of it at the time, or, perhaps, the ESB had not been consulted. The Minister for Transport and Power held forth at length here today on the assistance which is being given to the ESB in order to develop areas which, up to now, have not been developed for one reason or another. When replying to the debate, I wonder if the Minister for Finance would tell us if this means that those in the pocket areas and those within three or four poles from the current will now be able to get current without having to pay a very high service charge and, in a number of cases, a down payment of £70 or £80, which they just have not got. I shall be very interested to know if these people will be covered under the proposed new arrangement.
Which is not in the Budget.
Which is not in the Budget——
And, therefore, is not relevant.
—— and which was not in the Budget when the Minister for Transport and Power referred to it here today for an hour and a half. I was talking about what he said.
We have heard a good deal of comment on both sides relative to the Common Market. Anybody who has gone to the trouble of studying the matter must agree that the position is that Britain has applied for membership. Britain provides us with our biggest market. We export between 75 per cent. and 80 per cent. of our produce to Britain. If Britain goes into the Common Market, and we do not, we will have a tariff barrier erected against us and we will not be able to export to Britain. Judging by the figures I have here, we are not making a very good job of exporting to any other country and our Government could not do anything except apply for membership of the Common Market also. What is going to happen if Britain is accepted and we are not will be just too bad.
With Deputy Corish, I agree that if we could cry quits and if neither Britain nor this country were accepted, it would be the best thing that could happen. Whilst it may be all right for certain back benchers of Fianna Fáil and, indeed, one Independent who apparently spoke more from ignorance of the Common Market than from knowledge of it to give the impression that if we do go into the Common Market and Britain goes in, we shall have a wonderful time, that there will be lán a'mhála, that Ireland will be a land flowing with milk and honey and that everybody will have plenty, it is not just good enough when Government Ministers talk like that, with their tongues in their cheeks. They must know, better than anybody else, that, even if we do go into the Common Market and Britain goes in there, we shall have a very hard fight for survival.
We have heard all the talk about the reduction in emigration and the reduction in unemployment. While it is true that there appears to be a reduction in both, it is legitimate to point out that if we get into the Common Market, it is almost a certainly that there will be quite a big close down in a number of our industries which are at present subsidised. In fact, some people are prepared to give an estimate that at least 25 per cent. of our labour force in industry will be looking for jobs that will not be there. Those facts should be put before the general public.
It is wrong for Minister of State and, indeed, for people outside this House who should have an interest in the matter, and who should speak with some authority, to give the impression that that will not be the case. The unfortunate part of it is that, while at the present time those who find themselves out of a job here and despair of getting one can go across to Britain and find employment, if Britain and Ireland go into the Common Market, the people leaving here and looking for employment in Britain will be competing with the people from the other continental countries who are members of the Common Market and it may not be so easy to find employment over there.
No matter what we do, we should, even at this late date, make every effort to see that the firms in this country which are at present giving widespread employment——
Hear, hear!
——and which have not so far been put out of business by the Government——
Who put them into it?
——will be encouraged to try the new methods which will be necessary in order to compete with the continentals.
It is quite true that in rural Ireland the land gives the highest proportion of employment. Like Deputy Clinton, I was interested to hear the Minister for Transport and Power juggle with figures like an adding machine that was slightly out of order. It was interesting to watch him moving the figures around and coming up with the answer which suited him but which in many cases did not appear to be the right one. He talked about what has happened in Denmark and what has happened here since the war, knowing full well that the comparison between what happened in Denmark and in this country was not a fair one. The Minister knows full well that agriculture in Denmark had been brought to a very high state very many years ago and that therefore it would be unreasonable to expect the same increase in output as one would expect from an underdeveloped country such as this unfortunately is.
The reliefs given in the Budget and why the Labour Party voted against the Budget itself and the various provisions in it have been referred to by quite a number of Deputies on the Government benches. Again, as Deputy Corish pointed out, it would appear to those without experience that it is an unheard of thing for an Opposition to vote against a Government on Budget Day. In fact, it has been the practice in this House, if the Opposition are dissatisfied with provisions, to vote against them. I suppose that when we were on the Government benches, we accused Fianna Fáil of being unfair when they voted against the provisions of the Budgets introduced by the inter-Party Governments since they were voting against improvements in unemployment benefit, unemployment assistance, and so on. No doubt, Fianna Fáil consider it is fair to say the same thing to us.
There is a lot more in this debate which Fianna Fáil have been avoiding. They do not want to lay too much stress on the fact that while they have promised, not given, old age pensioners and certain assistance classes an extra 2/6d. a week from next August, if they live and if the Government live—I suppose they will get it, anyway—they have given certain concessions to the farmers. Coming from a rural area and a rural constituency, I honestly believe that there are certain sections of the farming community who are not doing well. I believe that the farmer with less than £50 valuation, even with good land in County Meath, is having a fairly tough battle for existence.
I do not agree that the farmer with over £50 valuation and up to £100, £200, £300 and even as high as £1,000 valuation, such as we have in County Meath, is doing badly. Therefore, I think it most unfair that when the Government found they had some money to spare—which, incidentally, they took off the working man again, the fellow who smokes cigarettes, the fellow who has a pint now and again, the old age pensioner, the recipient of unemployment benefit—instead of giving it back to those of that particular class who are in need of it, they gave it not in small portions but in fairly sizable handfuls to the very large farmers of this country.
It is true, as somebody said earlier, that the small farmers gets very little out of it. Some of them will get 9d., 1/- and, if they are lucky, 1/6 a week off their rates. However, the big farmer will be getting £6, £7, £8 and I know of one case of almost £10 per week. If it comes to the division of spoils, it is the duty of every Government, including this one, to see to it that the needy are the first to be considered.
That was not the attitude adopted by the Government. They decided to give it to those with influence, those who would be of assistance to them later and give nothing to the poor and the needy and certainly nothing to the struggling small farmer who needed help. If we are making any attempt to encourage the small farmer to do well we should give him every assistance and the biggest trouble seems to be that so far, while the Government can claim that farm subsidies have been increased, these seem to have been given out indiscriminately or possibly with the discrimination in favour of those who need it least.
I was also interested in the reference by the Minister for Transport and Power to County Monaghan. He worked his book and pencil and proved that everybody in Monaghan was getting money. He quoted figures and I am sure everybody in Monaghan, particularly the small farmers in the county, if they read the speech, will be checking up generally to find where the money went. He did not mention there are quite large areas and at least one village in Monaghan that can be described as Oliver Goldsmith described one in Westmeath many years ago in "The Deserted Village." The people have left, closed their houses and moved away, not because of the wonderful Government we have or because they knew the Government would help to keep them in comfort if they made an effort to help themselves but because they knew from the attitude of the Government over the last under few years that under present circumstances there was no hope for them but the emigrant ship. If the Minister does not believe that I can take him along some day and show him quite a number of cases. He might make a different speech when he next addresses the House.
There has been much talk about the necessity to take away the entertainment tax. While I agree that cinemas in some towns in rural areas have fallen on very lean times—I have no knowledge of the city—and that it was necessary to give some concessions, I am not satisfied that the same necessity was there for dancehalls. Not too far from where I live is a dancehall which holds 3,000 or 4,000 people and when you find somebody who calls himself a singer—we might not agree on that——can come there and be paid £1,000 for one night and find that hall packed to the door and the street half full also with people clamouring to get in, it makes the question of giving concessions to that type of dancehall proprietor very doubtful. This does not happen once or twice but every time some of those people are brought along. The hall is filled and even if not, there is usually enough present to pay the proprietor for his expenditure on building the hall and supplying the music—if you call it that—for the entertainment of the patrons.
I think the money which the Minister for Finance so generously gives back to the dancehall proprietors could have been collected and put to a much better purpose. The widows and orphans and the old age pensioners would be very glad even of the small amount which an increase amounting to that sum would mean for them.
There are people in this House who, when talking of old pensioners and recipients of any type of assistance, speak as if those people belonged to a different race. They feel that some little thing must be given to them but that they do not count very much and that, in any case, none of them are really very badly off. There seems to be a general impression that if somebody in the country is getting a £1 or 32/6d. they can live comfortably on it. Have people with that idea ever gone to the trouble of going to the house of an old age pensioner living alone in some country district, finding one of those people who, because of some technicality, is in receipt of a non-contributory pension of 30/- a week and has to pay for a house, for light when he uses it, for coal and various odds and ends he must buy and asked him how much of the 30/- he can spend on food?
One might be astonished to find there are people existing in this country spending slightly over 1/- a day on food. You will also find people on the dole living practically on potatoes and salt. A few weeks ago I had a request for assistance from somebody who, because there was doubt about his claim for unemployment benefit or assistance, found himself and his wife and three children had to live for almost a week on nothing but potatoes and water. They were too proud to beg. In this country even in 1962 you have people living like that.
The Parliamentary Secretary is laughing at that. Possibly it is amusing to somebody like himself who never had to miss a meal. Unfortunately, I have not had the same experience. I know well what it is to miss a meal. I also know what it is to see unfortunate people being starved because the Government found it would suit them better to give the money left over from the Budget to the dancehall owners and the big farmers rather than try to help the helpless. The people concerned do not find it amusing.
We heard a great deal about the amount of money the State is spending on social welfare. The Minister and his supporters seem proud of the amount the State is spending on social welfare but if you take into account the fact that in 1957, 24.8 per cent. of tax revenue was spent on social welfare and in 1961-62 it had declined to 20.3 per cent. and this year it is down to 19.6 per cent., the picture does not seem so good. I am quite sure somebody in the Fianna Fáil benches will point out that the reason is there are fewer people signing at the labour exchanges.
The Deputy would want to give what the revenue was in each year.
I am talking about percentages and one does not give the sum when talking in percentages.
You can considerably improve the benefits without keeping the percentage at the same rate all the time.
I am afraid the Parliamentary Secretary misses the point completely. The position is that the Fianna Fáil Government consider that even though the tax revenue has been increasing over the years, the amount of money being spent on social welfare has been correspondingly decreasing.
The percentage has. Twenty per cent. of £10,000,000 to the same number of people would not be as good as 20 per cent. of £80,000,000.
The Parliamentary Secretary should have been here earlier when the Minister for Health was explaining about aural appliances.
I was not here, but I am quite sure he made no mistake.
The position is, whether Fianna Fáil Deputies like it or not, that the amount being spent, as a percentage of tax revenue, has been steadily reducing. While the case has been made that the number of people signing at the labour exchanges as unemployed has been decreasing and that the number of people emigrating have been decreasing, I am afraid the figures produced in the last census have proved beyond doubt that those not now singing at the exchanges have left the country. It is quite possible that the number who have left may not be as great as that stated by the British newspapers but I feel sure it is a fairly large figure.
The British figures are always better.
I did not say it. I am prepared to accept the Minister's word. If he says the British figures are better, I am prepared to accept it.
I am accusing the Deputy of saying it.
I did not say it. I am saying that the numbers unemployed this year are very much smaller than they were in 1957. Perhaps the Minister in his reply will attempt to prove where those people have gone. I should like now to refer briefly to the question of contributory old age pensions. Let me say straight off that I think it was a very good idea to introduce the contributory old age pensions and that the Government are to be complimented on it.
Hear, hear!
There is no doubt they did a good job, something which has been appreciated throughout the country. I should also like to remind the Parliamentry Secretary that the higher old age pensions are taken into account in the percentage of social welfare benefits being paid and that despite the fact that the contributory old age pensions are being paid for by the insured workers of the country, the percentage of revenue spent on social welfare has been reduced from 24.8 per cent. to 19.6 per cent. in the present year. I am sorry that a number of Deputies appear to be very anxious to take part in this debate at once. I shall give them an opportunity later of making their own speeches and I hope they will be able to elaborate on the figures I have given.
The Deputy did not give a figure.
I gave two figures which the Deputy did not like.
Deputy Tully could give a third.
This harking back to what was said in a rash moment by the principal speakers for the Government will not do any good. They have been reminded of it often enough but it has done no good. However, I should like to give some figures for Deputy Moher's benefit. In 1955, when the number in agricultural employment was at its peak, there were 1,184,000 people at work. In 1961, the figure was 1,119,000. In fact, at the end of 1961, there were 65,000 fewer people at work than in 1955. Perhaps when the Minister is replying, winding up on the wonderful progress that has been made in the past few years, he will try to explain that one away.
I most surely shall.
I am sure he will. I am sure he will not say they are employed at Shannon or that the new industries have them hidden away ready to take out when they get into full production. That is what the Minister for Industry and Commerce said a few weeks ago when he gave very sketchy figures and added that those industries hoped, if successful, to employ those people in 20 years' time. Perhaps those 2,000 workers are locked away in boxes from which they can be taken out when work becomes available for them, but if the number signing at the labour exchanges has dropped and the number emigrating has dropped, where have they gone? The Minister, who is very good at explaining things, would perhaps explain that one.
One big point about the Budget seems to be that it was introduced with an eye to the left—not to the left wing of the House—and I was very interested to read a report of a speech by the Minister in his native Wexford over the week-end to the effect that the old age pensioners could thank Fianna Fáil and three Independents for the wonderful 2/6d. which they will be looking forward to in August.
Deputy Sherwin said he got it for them.
Deputy Sherwin gave no credit to the Minister. He said he gave them the half—crown. He went further and said that if it were not for the fact that he put his foot down, they would have been given only 1/6d.
That is all right. I do not mind what he said.
Deputy Tully, on the Financial Resolution.
We in the Labour Party believe that the Minister could have given more, even more than the 5/which Deputy Sherwin was demanding a few days before the Budget——
And the Deputy would vote against it.
I do not want to know what happened in the meantime. That is between the Minister and Deputy Sherwin. Deputy Sherwin said that if he had not put his foot down, that 2/6d. would have been 1/6d. If the Minister is proud of the 2/6d.—I do not think he knows much about the old age pensioners——
I voted for it and the Deputy did not.
Deputy Sherwin said he would vote for the 2/6, and you voted for it with clear consciences.
The Deputy voted against it.
I voted against increased taxation and when the Minister was on this side of the House, he also voted against increased taxation with far less reason and the Minister knows that. Do not come the old soldier, Minister.
The Deputy should address the Chair, and not the Minister.
If he always follows my example, he will be all right.
I do not know the Wexford accent and I do not understand what the Minister said.
If the Deputy always follows my example, he will be all right.
I missed it again. The position is that the Labour Party voted against increased taxation which we believe was imposed for the purpose of doing something of which the Labour Party did not approve. We did not approve of taking away the tax on dancing, or the rates remission which the Minister has given to the big farmers. If he had come in with a Budget that would increase taxation for the purpose of giving something decent to the recipients of old age pensions and other assistance, he would have had our support. If he also brought in a proposal to increase the amount of subsidy given to the small farmers who are finding it very hard to live, he would have had our support, but so long as the Labour Party are in this House, they will not support the "big shots" at the expense of the poorer element.
And you would not support the Government, either.
We would; we did it before.
The debate on the Budget so far has not changed very much from the pattern of former years. As previous speakers pointed out, it is to some extent the duty of the Opposition to criticise whatever Budget the Government may bring in, and I suppose that as we change from one side of the House to the other, that has been very much the pattern. The public expect to get some guidance from the type of the debate and from the criticism levelled at Budgets one year after another. It is only by that means that they can derive from the Opposition some idea of what they would be like, should they be in office. It is the means which the Opposition have of indicating by constructive criticism—if it is constructive—what their views, intentions or policy would be, if they were on the other side of the House.
I do not think that if one were to take the published reports of the debate on the Budget since it opened, and read the entire Opposition speeches, one could come to any conclusion other than that they were at a great loss to find any fair criticism, nor did they in any single instance indicate what they considered would be, say, the Fine Gael, Labour or Coalition outlook, or what would actually be their policy, should they be in power. I have failed to find any such indication in the entire reports.
On the other hand, I take it from what they have said it must be a rather good Budget. I remember in 1952—the famous year about which the Coalition yet speak—when the food subsidies had to be reduced, they found a tremendous lot of enjoyment in listening to the Budget speeches because they said: "Here we have something to talk about for the rest of our lives. This will beat them."
There are two different things in the minds of the Opposition at Budget time. One is: what can we use out of the Budget with which we might ride back into power? The other is: what can we usefully say that will convince the public that we are really serious and constructive in our policy? There is no difficulty in ascertaining from the debate so far which of these two is the dominant factor in the minds of the people on the opposite side of the House, who have discussed this Budget.
I do not think it is necessary to go over all the benefits that have been given here and there in the Budget. The main thing one must find and take heart from is the fact that the Budget Statement, which is the annual financial statement, reveals that the economy of the country is moving in the right direction. The benefit which the old age pensioner gets in the Budget this year is as good as he ever got, and better than he got most years, but that is not as important as the fact that our whole economy indicates that his future outlook is good——
If he lives until next August.
——and that he has a better chance of obtaining a further increase, when the time comes. The household in which he is living— I hope there is a certain amount of love and affection for parents left— will be in a better position to look after him in his old age.
Those are the main features of the annual financial statement which the Minister had to give and no one in the country should be ashamed of that statement. Indeed, I believe that if Opposition members were to go abroad and were asked how the economy was at home, they would say: "Things are going in the right direction; things are moving well." There is no denying a factual statement which shows: national production increased; national income improved; exports, highest ever figure; national savings increased; industries expanding; the whole economy buoyant; revenue improved; the balance of international payments in line; and every sphere of national endeavour showing an upward trend in the graph.
That statement was not always possible from the Ministerial bench at Budget time in this House. One does not have to be an economist or an advanced student in economy to appreciate that it is a very sound statement which holds out good hope for the future. There was nothing in the Budget to retard that expansion, that upward trend in the economic graph. That, to my mind, is the important feature of the whole Budget Statement this year.
This is an occasion for Deputies to go back and talk about the time—at least my colleague from Donegal, Deputy O'Donnell did—when people were cutting the throats of the calves. Those things may be irrelevant but they are sound reading in the local Press later on. That does not impress anyone. We have only to look back to past elections to see that parish pump politics count less than ever before. The people are quiet. They are thinking intelligently. They vote in large numbers and give a decision in accordance with what they think. The trend is more and more in that direction. We should abandon a lot of the nonsense we talk and the more we get down to hard facts the better the people will like it.
The previous speaker does not indulge in bitter or personal comments but I was amused that at one moment he painted a picture of dancehalls all over County Meath with thousands outside the door who could not get in to hear a singer who got £1,000 a night, and the next moment told us about people dying because they have only potatoes and salt to eat. Of course, neither picture is true, but that is the inclination we have to exaggerate when we want to make a case and drive home a point with a little too much enthusiasm. That sort of thing is not really useful to us on either side of the House.
I am pleased with the Budget. At one time I used to meet people around the country who would say; "I do not know where you are going to get the money this year to balance the Budget. You have had the eighth round wage increase, a huge expenditure on bovine tuberculosis and you have had to meet vast sums during the year. Where is it going to come from?" Most people expected, and I myself expected, a much more severe imposition of taxes and the fact that no essential consumer goods were touched, that nothing but what we may call absolutely luxury goods were affected by taxation, is a remarkable tribute to the housekeeping which the Minister has conducted since he took over the budgetary arrangements of this Government. It is indicative of a sound, buoyant economy. Nothing that the Budget could give by way of immediate relief could be more heartening than that fact. Nobody can deny that. I would not have minded hearing the Opposition criticising the Government if they got up and said: "We are glad the economy is sound as it obviously is, but if we were in power, we would have done a certain thing which would have made it better." I have not heard any Deputy approaching it on those lines.
When we decided on the Programme for Economic Expansion to have as much money as possible channelled into schemes which would tend to increase production, we moved in the right direction. The Minister for Industry and Commerce at the time, now the Taoiseach, when the programme was being prepared, pointed out that it was flexible, that we were not going to hold ourselves to any particular rigid course, that where we saw good result could be obtained, we could press forward in that direction; where we found our plan of campaign, so to speak, was meeting with insurmountable difficulties, we could take another line. I think it was a very excellent set of targets to set up at the time and how they have been pursued since leaves little room for criticism. Nobody on this side of the House expected a 100 per cent. success. Certainly all of us have been very agreeably surprised by the fact that we have surpassed the targets in many cases, particularly in relation to the annual estimated increase in national income.
I do not think I should sit down without saying something about the criticism of how the Independents voted, those few Independents who voted with us. None of them is in the House at the moment. As Chief Whip of this Party, I am responsible for the voting and I must say that I did not even discuss with them what they were likely to do. I said I do not care. As a matter of fact, I said it is a Budget on which I would not mind being beaten and going to the country and we would come back, that I did not give too hoots——
Of course you did; you were shaking.
The shaking was all on that side of the House.
Not at all.
There was a fair amount of wrestling with consciences. The Deputy who is now on the Front Bench was once an Independent, but never showed his independence. If there was ever a budget on which an Independent should have voted on the side of the Government, it was the 1962 Budget. He could easily satisfy his conscience that he was justified in supporting the benefits given and the very slight changes in taxation and the vast benefits to the agricultural community. Those Deputies who saw Independents supporting the Budget, and some of them who tried to indicate to them the way they should vote, were quite relieved when they did vote. Deputy Flanagan said that we were shaking. No; even looking back on it, I think it is a pity we were not defeated, if our only interest was to improve our strength, but we have a responsibility to the country and the people do not want an election every day. We had material there which would undoubtedly assist our Party in coming back here. I am prepared to challenge anybody on that.
There is only one way of taking up that challenge and that is to go to the country.
You are quite safe; we will leave you there for a while.
That is a matter for Deputy Sherwin. None of us has any say over that.
The last budgets were described as being gloomy and reactionary; this year, the adjectives were becoming scarce and very few derogatory adjectives were used. Deputy Tully referred to it as being anaemic. I do not know exactly what he meant, because it is everything but that. A motion was introduced some time previous to the Budget—Fine Gael were using it, and no blame to them if they could get any benefit from it, as a vote-catching device— seeking increase in everybody's allowances everywhere. I remember the Minister saying that if he gave allowances, he hoped, when the Budget came along, they would vote for the taxation required. That is exactly what the position is now.
We have had references to the 2/6d. increase as being too small. Everybody knows that if we gave £1 extra, the Opposition would say they should be getting £2 and they would oppose the heavy taxation accordingly which would have to be introduced to give it. We have long since passed the time when people are prepared to believe us when one day we talk about giving everybody benefits and the next day, oppose the imposition of taxation. It is the same thing when county councillors appeal for benefits for individuals and schemes and when it comes to the annual meeting to have the rate struck, they all condemn the figure and then the next year they continue to press for the same benefits. I do not think that illogical approach is likely to be acceptable to anybody taking an intelligent interest in either the Dáil or the Seanad.
That approach is negative and unacceptable. Yet it is one which could easily have put every Deputy into a position where he could justifiably have supported that Budget without letting it go to a division. I do not think that anybody, with the exception of the Independents, who were free to reply on their own consciences, followed that line. It was a case where all the Independents, if they were not prompted by some ulterior political motive, could have supported the Budget and defended their action to their constituents. Those who did so have a right to be proud of their action in having demonstrated their independence in that way. Some people think an Independent must always oppose the Government. That is how Deputy Flanagan interpreted being an Independent in his time. I never saw him support a Fianna Fáil motion, anyway.
That is right.
Finally, he had sufficient sense to say to himself that he was only codding himself and he threw in his lot with Fine Gael.
I want to make some reference to what is the greatest benefit directly conferred by the Budget. I refer to the additional abatement of rates. With some calculations, the Opposition tried to show what little benefit this would be for the farmer with small incomes. That type of farmer predominates in my own constituency, where 75 per cent. of the farmers are under £20 valuation. Such a farmer is already getting three-fifths of an abatement off his rates on land up to £20. With another 10 per cent, is he not getting from 60 to 70 per cent? He is getting a very considerable benefit and he did not feel at any time the pinch of rising rates to the same extent as the man with the valuation of £20.
I know Dublin Deputies have no reason to have a lot of sympathy with the rates problem. Indeed, I remember deputy Byrne making a convicing case that not alone should the farmers pay heavy rates but that they should also pay income tax. Some of the Fine Gael Deputies, who tried to ride the NFA hobbyhorse, claim that it was as a result of NFA pressure that that benefit was given. I can assure them that that had nothing to do with the decision taken. No decision ever taken by a Fianna Fáil Government was motivated by such artificial reasons but was always taken in the best interests of the national economy at the time and that can be seen from past records. It was obvious that the farmers had been passed over in the eighth round wage increase and they were entitled to some measure of assistance from any decent Government, something to cushion them against the impact and to wipe out the difference between their income and that of industrial workers.
We in Fianna Fáil are sometimes glibly accused by irresponsible Opposition members of not having a greater interest in the small farmers. We are the Party who have a greater interest in the small farmers than any other political group. We are the Party who gave to the lower-paid classes any worthwhile benefit they ever got. I say that with all sincerity. We have a problem on our hands to do something for the small farmers. It is a difficult problem and I have not heard a single suggestion from the other side as to what can be done for them on a permanent basis. I discard temporary reliefs, which have been used sometimes in the past as political gimmicks but have had no long-term effect. The small farmer finds himself in the position that his holding is not able to give him the standard of living he requires, although our general standard of living has gone up year by year over the past 40 years. As the report submitted to us the other day stated, no person has come forward yet with any solution for the problem. It is certainly a problem which the Fianna Fáil Party are tackling, must tackle and will continue to tackle. I have no doubt that, despite the variety of farms concerned, we will find a generally acceptable solution.
One solution for all the evils of any country is sufficient employment, the creation of productive employment from every possible source. That would allow us to move from success to success, but there will not be rapid progress. We find that it requires a huge sum to put one person into industrial employment. Therefore, we should not hesitate to give the small farmer the assistance suggested under the headings of this brilliant report. It is controversial and will certainly provoke a good deal of discussion on this problem, which is directly associated with unemployment and emigration.
Deputy Tully spoke with some obvious authority on the Common Market. I thought he was rather selfconfident and that he flattered himself when he derided what the Minister for Transport and Power said earlier in the day and referred to his own statement as an important one which should be made known to everybody. I was not sure that some of his statements were as sound as he pretended them to be. Personally, I should not like to set myself up as an economist so sound as to be able to forecast what our future will be with regard to every aspect of our activity when we become members of the Common Market.
He said that the Government have been telling the people that this will be a paradise when we enter the Common Market. We have not been doing anything of the kind. What Deputy Tully was trying to convey to the public through this House was that we will be ruined when we go into the Common Market. That is not true either. There are certain broad principles on which we all can agree and I did not think there was any disagreement on them.
Deputy O'Donnell made references to what would happen to our industries once we entered the Common Market. He referred to Fianna Fáil starting back lane industries and imposing a tariff wall to keep them going. He added that we had now come to our senses and were prepared to allow in foreign capital and to tear down the tariff wall. I think that a tribute ought to be paid to the Irish industrialists of 1932 and onwards who started industries in this country when it was difficult to get the Irish people to believe that the goods we produced ourselves could be used in our own country. Those were the days when the pioneers of Irish industry broke through the barriers with the assistance of Fianna Fáil and of the tariff walls which were then essential. These industrialists can today compete in the markets of the world and they have put us in the position in which we can meet the challenge of the Common Market. Anyone who talks of the back lane factories of those days is doing a disservice to the country.
If tariffs were essential in those days it was in order to get people to put their money in Irish industry because very few would put in their money for patriotic reasons. Therefore, the tariffs were necessary to secure the home market for home industry. If that industrial drive had failed we would have been told by the Opposition that we had made a ridiculous effort which could never have succeeded. Thank God it did succeed. It withstood the test of a war when raw materials were not easily available, and it was able to overcome the effects of that setback. We can now be proud of the people who made that effort. Some of these industries may have started in back lanes but they are now situated in beautiful buildings which are a credit to the country. Some of the greatest industries in the world had a small beginning.
What I find encouraging in this Budget is that the Minister's statement, which was a cold and factual one, showed that our economy is advancing in every sector. Whether the old age pensioner gets 2/6d. or 5/-, whether the recipients of social assistance get 2/6d. or 5/- or what the farmers get is not nearly as important as the fact that the future holds more for them. The Budget speech of the Minister did not hold any of the gloomy warnings and forebodings that the Budgets of the Coalition Government held. I would like the members of the House to read a few of the Budget statements of the last Coalition Government and they will find there warnings by the Minister that the future was gloomy and that it was necessary to take serious action to prevent unnecessary spending. It is not necessary to sound any such warning now. The only overall picture that anyone could get from the financial statement of the present Minister is one of hope and we should make our best effort to ensure that next year the position will be twice as good.
I am more concerned with what is not in this Budget than what is in it. For that reason I have been asking myself, while listening to the last speaker, if there is any such thing in this country as a poor person. Are there any poor farmers, any striving industrialists or is every section of the community wallowing in riches?
I fail to see anything in this Budget for agriculture, for land development or for drainage. I can see no hope in it for an industrial revival to meet the Common Market challenge. I can see that this Budget provides nothing for the higher standards of education which our people must have if we go into the Common Market. I can see nothing that will improve our health services and that will provide our people with a decent health service which they have not got at the present time. I can see nothing in the Budget which will revieve the housing drive. I can see nothing to provide for large scale forestry development or to bring back the fishing industry from the doldrums into which it has fallen. I can see nothing to stimulate the tourist industry.
Some speakers have said that this is a Budget based entirely on Fianna Fáil policy and that the fact that they had to depend on a number of Independents did not sway the Government from introducing the type of Budget which they would have introduced if they had an overall majority. I wonder did the Minister for Finance read the statement made on the day following the Budget by Mr. Deasy, the President of the NFA.
In regard to the Minister's reference to £3,000,000 aid for agriculture this year Mr. Deasy said the NFA did not agree with this figure and would welcome an opportunity to have the matter examined. In a statement which was supplied by the Irish Creamery Milk Suppliers' Association and which appeared in the Irish Independent on the same day as the Minister's statement appeared, it was pointed out that the Budget provisions could not be more insulting to the dairy farmers. How does the Minister for Finance reconcile his statement with that of the President of the NFA and with that of the Irish Creamery Milk Suppliers' Association?
It it all very fine to say that £2,500,000 has been provided for the relief of rates. That is a concession which benefits the big farmers but it must be remembered that there are publicans, shopkeepers, grocers, drapers and other business people living in our provincial cities and towns who must pay the full extent of our high rates to-day and they are not benefiting one penny piece by this Budget. The only type of farmer the Fianna Fáil Party appear to be interested in is the big man who is already very well off, who has a credit balance in the bank and carries around his cheque book with him. There was no relief, however, for the poor small farmer who is put to the pin of his collar to exist. The price of his wheat is reduced; the price of his oats is reduced and so also is the price of his malting barley and feeding barley. Pig prices and poultry prices are down and practically everything that he produces on the land he must sell at depressed prices, while his rates have risen considerably without any shadow of relief in this Budget.
That is why I say that the small man is being squeezed out of existence by this Government and this is not the first attempt of this Government to rid Ireland of the small farmer. There is no time or no room for the small farmer while Fianna Fáil are in office. That is evident from the manner in which emigration has taken such large numbers of small farmers from every part of the country and particularly from the West of Ireland.
There is a great deal of talk from the Government and, indeed, from all sections of the community about the Common Market. Some people from Fianna Fáil speak about the Common Market as if they were talking about Ballinasloe fair. Do we realise that if we are admitted to the Common Market we must compete with the world's best in industry and in agriculture? From what we read of the industrialists on the Continent and in Britain, we know they have already been planning for the past 18 months for entry into the Common Market. Most of the industrialists in the large factories on the Continent are planning expansion and have employed consultants and engineers in that connection.
What planning is taking place in this country? None whatever. There is a lot of loud talk and after dinner speeches. It is very easy to make speeches but are there any steps being taken in this Budget which will give our Irish farmers practical assistance with the least possible delay for the completion of the bovine tuberculosis eradication scheme? There is a number of counties still lagging behind. Is there any provision in this Budget to enable the farmers to produce more, to purchase additional stock, to provide themselves with extended buildings or even to provide themselves with proper accommodation? In many instances they have not got such accommodation for themselves and their families. There are many small farmers whose out-offices are better than where they are living themselves and that is quite evident in many parts of the midlands. There are many small farmers in this country whose financial resources do not permit them to build their own houses. The grants and loans available are not sufficient to erect a house and the farmers have not the money to complete the job.
I shiver when I think of what the Irish farmer is facing if we are admitted to membership of the Common Market because, financially, the great majority of our farmers are not in a position to compete with the Danes, for example, in the production of either butter or bacon. Fianna Fáil are turning the blind eye and giving the deaf ear in so far as giving practical financial assistance is concerned. This is a bare, empty Budget. It is presenting the farmers with a skeleton to work on.
When we are entering into a year in which Ireland's application for membership of the Common Market will be either accepted or rejected one would imagine the Minister for Finance would have taken it upon himself to say: "Here is an important Budget for Irish agriculture and this is a year in which we propose to announce our plans in preparation for the Common Market. Here is a year in which we want to put the Irish farmer in a position to produce more and to produce for export. Here is a year in which we want to see that no small farmer will be hindered from producing the best because of lack of capital or because of the lack of stock on his hands."
There has not been a single word of encouragement in preparation for the Common Market. Our Minister for Industry and Commerce must know, because he is a man of intelligence, the scheme of preparation which is taking place in Britain at the moment, jointly between the trade unions and the industrialists, for the Common Market. What conferences have taken place in this country between the trade unions, the industrialists and the Government? What steps have been taken to survey the industries that can be expanded? Is the advice of industrial experts being sought? Are the opinions of Continental industrial experts being secured as to what industries may be squeezed out of existences and those that can be developed and expanded to produce more and to provide employment for Irish workers? These are matters of the most vital importance, particularly in the era we are now entering.
What do we get from the Government? An empty Budget, with 2/6d. for an old age pensioner if he lives until next August and an increase of, in some cases, £10 a week for the judges, back-dated to November last. This, from a Government who are supposed to be concerned about the poor. This is a big farmers' Budget and a judge's Budget. There is nothing in it for the small farmer. There is not a word of encouragement for the unemployed man. Listening to the Parliamentary Secretary to the Taoiseach, one would imagine that there was no such thing in this country today as an unemployed man. Bord na Móna are cutting down their staffs considerably. The Forestry Division are letting men off from every State forest today. Outside every labour exchange, there is a long queue of fathers of families in search of work. Then we are told that emigration is not too bad. It is not too bad because all those who can go have gone and in rural Ireland today only the very young and the very old remain. Anyone who wants a clear picture of the trend of rural population can see outside every church on any Sunday that it is the very old and the very young who are there. All the young boys and girls have gone. The girls are working in England as nurses, waitresses, mill hands and the young men are in Coventry, Bristol, Birminghan, Liverpool, Hull and are working in every sphere of activity around London.
Hurling clubs, GAA clubs, all had to be abandoned in parts of this country because of the lack of young men to take part in Gaelic League sports. They are all in England. The proof of that is the growth of the Gaelic Athletic Association in Britain. There are hurling and football clubs in every county in England today. It was the young men of this country who set them up. Hurling and Gaelic football is played on various English sportfields today, while there are old, hanging goalposts and long grass to be seen in most sportsfields in our provincial towns. The evidence is very clear.
The Government say that maybe next year there will be a better Budget. Those are the words of the Parliamentary Secretary to the Taoiseach: "Next year there may be a better Budget". Of course, we all know there will be a better Budget next year, if Fianna Fáil are there, because, if Deputy Frank Sherwin is reported correctly in the Evening Mail of 11th April 1962, he said, despite the fact that the Minister for Finance will probably take credit for giving the old age pensioners the 2/6d. a week, that the Government had decided to give the old age pensioners 1/6d. a week. When Deputy Sherwin went into the Taoiseach's office, he said: “I am sorry; you must go and out you are going this very day, unless they get 5/- a week.” There was a four hours' discussion to persuade Deputy Sherwin and in the heel of the hunt, he put out his hand and it was clapped upon and they said: “We will settle for half-a-crown” and Deputy Sherwin said: “Right, and will you give the other 2/6d. next year?” and they said “Yes”. That 2/6d. will be forth coming next year and Deputy Sherwin admits that, if he is correctly reported in the evening papers. He goes on to say in a statement to the Evening Mail:
I believe that I am largely responsible for getting about £400,000 extra for these pensioners.
He is reported as saying:
...the pensioners would have got only 1s. 6d. were it not for the fact that the Government was afraid of the Independents.
He is also reported as saying:
If the present Dáil lasts another year, the Government will be in the same position when the next Budget comes around—and I will be holding out for that other half of the 5s.
Will the Deputy give the date, please?
The Evening Mail, 11th April, 1962—front page. Now we see where the strong Government is; now we see where the bargaining is. These are the people who talked about inter-Party bargaining. These are the people who talked about strong Government. The old age pensioners are to get 2/6d. per week from next August. It must be realised that they are put to the pin of their collar to exist and existences is very difficult for them on the present rate of pension. The 2/6d. increase represents seven fourpenny stamps to put on letters to their sons and daughters whom Fianna Fáil forced to emigrate, The pensioners who are scholders—and they are scholars because they have been taught lessons by Fianna Fáil— are given in this Budget seven fourpenny stamps to enable them to write seven letters to their sons and daughters and relatives there. There is the price of seven fourpenny stamps for the old age pensioners and £10 for the judges back-dated to November.
It is difficult to understand how Fianna Fáil can stand over that at any church gate. It is difficult to understand how a Minister for Finance can justify that kind of conduct and can brazenly stand up in this House and say that he is doing it in the interests of the poor. I should like to know what consideration the Minister was giving to the business that publicans throughout this country are doing when he put 2d. on the glass of whiskey and 1d. on the pint of stout.
I cannot say I would be a good customer for any publican. At the same time, I do not want to display my own virtues like some political Pharisee, but the penny on the pint and the twopence on the small whiskey will have a very detrimental effect on the distilling and brewing industries. There is a distillery in my constituency. We have had statements from the brewing industry. Every time the Minister increases the tax on beer and spirits, that increase adversely affects both these industries. Does everybody not know that today there is less business in licenced premises? Does everybody not know the trade is experiencing great difficulty, faced with high taxes, high rents, high rates, while simultaneously, less business is being done because of high prices? Fewer customers are patronising these establishments. Less money is going into the till. The Minister acted unwisely in increasing still further the tax on beer and spirits.
Why the entertainment duty was removed, I cannot say, but I have my suspicions. Whenever Fianna Fáil remove a duty, I became very suspicious. They are not people who throw money away except when they throw a sprat to catch a salmon. If they give what looks like a concession, it is a foregone conclusion that they intend to reap a reward of some kind.
That is the Deputy's experience.
When the entertainment duty was removed, the dancehall owners, I believe, came forward with their cheque books and wrote out substantial cheques for the Fianna Fáil organisation.
The Deputy must have been used to that.
I cannot understand why the Minister should show anger. He knows that happened in the past. It has happened again now in relation to this latest Budget. I would be long sorry to make a charge not in accord with fact.
The Deputy would, I am sure!
My case is that the Fianna Fáil organisation were very well rewarded for wiping out this duty.
They will not get much from the publicans anyway, according to the Deputy.
We will talk about the publicans later on when the Minister for Justice introduces his new Bill. We will devote a couple of days to the subject then. Mark you, if Section 15 is not dropped, there will be no publicans to talk about. It will be very easy to talk then.
What is there in this Budget directed towards reducing the cost of living? I remember the Minister's sympathy in the past. I saw him on many platforms literally weeping because of the cost of living. I knew him to weep particularly when the inter-Party Government were in office. Now he is in a key position. If he wanted to, he could bring down the cost of living. What has he done in his latest Budget to reduce the cost of living? Is it not true that the necessities of life —bread, butter, tea and sugar—were never so dear as they are today? There is no comparison as between the prices prevailing under the inter-Party Government and the prices prevailing today. In this Budget we have portrayed a record high cost of living; and the Government are now hoisting the white flag. They hold out no hope to the fathers of large families, for instances, of any reduction in the prices of essential commodities. Butter is now out of the reach of most people in the lower income groups. Old age pensioners and the other social welfare groups know that, as far as they are concerned, butter is a luxury. Sales of margarine have gone skyhigh. Sales of butter have dropped. People can no longer afford to buy it. Surely the Minister should have taken stocks in an effort to ensure butter would be provided for consumption by our people at a price within the reach of those most in need.
Again, the Minister should take stock in regard to farmers' incomes. The Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister claims there are no poor people in the country today. Has he ever paused to consider the plight of the small farmers? Did he read the statement, reported in the Evening Herald on 28th April 1962, made by the President of the Federation of Rural Workers at the annual conference in Dublin? He referred to the fact that farm workers are the worst paid workers in Ireland today.
Deputy Dillon, when he was Minister for Agriculture, said he regarded the farm workers as equal in importance with the farmer. How can farm workers be expected to remain on the land, instead of flying into the cities and towns, when they have no encouragement to remain on the land? Steps should be taken by the Government to assist farmers to provide more remunerative employment on the land so that the income of the farm worker will increase and the position will be made more attractive with a view to encouraging these workers to remain on the land.
Progress reported; Committee to sit again.
The Dáil adjourned at 10.30 p.m. until 10.30 a.m. on Thursday, 3rd May, 1962.