I move:
"That the Dáil, on its rising to-day, do adjourn until 3 p.m. on January 22nd, 1963."
Debate on Adjournment: Government Policy.
On this occasion of the adjournment, we have asked that time be provided for a discussion on the general state of the country and such other matters as are appropriate for discussion on an occasion of this kind. There are some minor, routine matters to which I wish to draw the attention of the House which I consider deserve our attention at this time. One is that I deprecate, and invite the House to share my condemnation of, a growing practice of the Taoiseach and Ministers making statements on policy at every dinner and dogfight in the country.
A practice has grown up now—I suspect, in the rather venal desire for a publicity build-up of the Leader of the Fianna Fáil Party—of availing of every kind of social occasion, significant or insignificant, to make relatively important statements on policy, always provided that the television camera is present. They cannot even present trophies at Jacob's biscuit factory without every recipient of a trophy being invited to shake hands with the Taoiseach in the presence of the television camera. I think that general line of conduct is unbecoming and calculated to bring the Oireachtas into disrepute.
If we are to have decent Parliamentary Government, it is the duty not only of the head of the Government but of Ministers, if statements of policy are to be made, to come and make them here, where they can be reviewed and discussed on the occasion of their being made, and not to resort to this dismal expedient of seeking cheap publicity through radio and television for the obvious political purpose of presenting the Leader of the Government as a kind of young Lochinvar. It is a long time since either he or I were young Lochinvars. Lochinvars we may be, but to maturity both of us must plead guilty.
Another relatively trifling matter, but one that I consider venal and deserving of reprobation, to which I direct the attention of the Taoiseach as head of the Government is that one of his junior Ministers, the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Finance, has resorted to what I think is a disreputable procedure when the annual lists of minor relief schemes and similar projects are circulated to Deputies. It has come to my notice with documentary proof that the Parliamentary Secretary has been indecent enough to circulate these to members of the Fianna Fáil Party eight or ten days before they are circulated to the members of any other Party in the House, with the result that these are distributed in the constituency by a Government Deputy a week or ten days before other Deputies representing the same constituency are afforded a similar opportunity. This in itself is not a matter of consequence or significance but it is a venal, disreputable practice which I think should be brought under control and ended.
I do not think it is right to pass without comment another matter which I think requires justification in public. It not infrequently happens that any of us, speaking here in regard to public affairs, is obliged to declare a private interest and it is perfectly reasonable that, none of us being in the accepted sense of the term a professional politician but having to earn our livings outside public life, we may find ourselves constrained from time to time to deal with matters in this House which affect us personally. There is a decent convention obtaining that, in such circumstances as these, the member concerned should declare to his colleagues that the matter to which he is about to refer has not only a public interest with which he wishes to deal but also a private interest of which his colleagues should be made aware.
Recently three public companies decided—and it is a decision from which I do not dissent—to substitute the services of commercial auditors for those of the Comptroller and Auditor General. It is true that a strong case can be made, where you are dealing with a commercial company, that the organisation of the Comptroller and Auditor General's Office is not appropriate for the control and examination of commercial accounts of a public company, but I think that if it is determined that one of these public companies, of which the Minister for Finance is the principal shareholder, elects to choose the accounting firm of Messrs. Haughey and Boland, one partner of which is the son-in-law of the Taoiseach and another partner is brother of the Minister for Social Welfare, there ought to be some public appropriate statement saying that this decision was taken and that the House is notified that, on its merits, the firm in question has decided to choose this particular firm of accountants.
I readily concede that, simply because we enter into public life, we must not be asked to abandon our ordinary means of livelihood but the fact that we do enter public life puts on us certain obligations, one of which is to avoid the possibility of the imputation of allowing our position in public life to secure for us any sort of preference at the hands of the Government or any body controlled by the Government. I could well imagine that firms of the sort to which I have referred might ordinarily say they were much obliged to the public company but, in the circumstances, they did not choose to accept the assignment or, in the alternative, asking the Minister for Transport and Power, when dealing with his Estimate, to note these changes, made with his approval, and that the board had in fact surveyed the scene of professional advice and had elected to choose Haughey and Boland and that it is right for that matter to be brought before Dáil Éireann at the earliest possible moment.
Failure to do that, and persistent silence in regard to it, lowers the tone of public life and gives rise to justifiable malaise in the public mind. It is for that reason that I bring the matter specifically to Dáil Éireann, in order that a suitable démarche might be made either to justify or terminate the arrangement to which I refer.
On the broader questions of general policy, I want to direct the attention of the House to an alarming trend in the trade position of this country. In the 12 months ended October 31, the adverse trade balance amounts to approximately £95,000,000. That closely approaches the highest figure ever reached in the trade position of this State. But that situation is accompanied by an interesting phenomenon and that is that the net external assets of the joint stock banks, Government funds and other identifiable funds, remain constant or even are increased by £1,000,000 or £2,000,000. That would suggest that over and above the invisible terms of trade which are substantial, and which contribute to offset the adverse trade balance, there are substantial capital movements taking place between this country and the outside world.
It is very important that we should identify the nature of these capital movements for two reasons. One is for the purpose of determining whether they are of a character which we may reasonably anticipate will be recurrent, because if they are not and the adverse trade balance continues at its present rate, or shows a tendency which it at present shows, of growing, then we will be heading pretty rapidly for a very serious situation, the repercussions of which it will be very hard to measure.
Alternatively, we must ask ourselves how far do these capital transactions represent the sale of our assets to foreign interests. We know there is a very considerable area of land being purchased in this country by continentals. We know that a great many foreign firms are coming into the country, investing funds and buying out domestic interests and, in part or in whole, building substantial property which is in foreign ownership. It is a good thing to bring in foreign capital. It is a good thing to bring in foreign industrialists to provide employment on satisfactory terms for our people and under the jurisdiction of our own Government, but it is not a good thing if we are selling our land and our other tangible assets and spending the proceeds on consumer goods, which we are importing, at a rate that the community cannot afford.
Of course it is true that, in the very considerably expanded imports that appear in the trade returns, there is a substantial element of raw materials coming in for subsequent export but there is a menacing feature in the trade return as revealed by the last return which has been circulated, the last Economic Series issued on 10th December, 1962, and which brings the figures up to the end of October. That is, that while there is a steady increase in the volume and value of our imports during the year, there has been a corresponding decrease in the volume and value of our exports. If we had a steeply rising volume and value of imports with a corresponding increase in our exports we might say with some degree of equanimity that that was satisfactory, that raw materials were coming in and were subsequently exported, but if we find the two trends operating in opposite directions, and the import figures up in January, February, March, April, May, June, July, August, and October, I think it is time for the Government to tell us how long will that trend continue, and what is the nature of the capital transactions that are keeping the net external assets and the Government funds in joint stock banks and the Central Bank, in a state of relative stability. It may indicate a situation which requires careful consideration, particularly if it suggests we are selling our tangible assets and that we are faced with a situation that that process must sooner or later reach the limit we are prepared to tolerate, in which event capital transactions which are maintaining equilibrium at the present time must be reasonably anticipated to stop. We must then consider ways and means of financing our adverse trade balance which has reached unprecedented proportions in this calendar year.
All those factors should be considered with special urgency in the light of the fact that we are on the threshold of the European Economic Community. Let no Deputy in this House nurse the illusion that any brassy boasting by the Taoiseach, at dinners or dog fights, will operate to pull a veil over the eyes of the cold statisticians who advise the European Economic Community. Affirmations by the Taoiseach in Enniscorthy or elsewhere may elicit enthusiastic applause from his deluded supporters, but they will cut no ice at Brussels where they are concerned only with figures and what they indicate about the economic potential of this country.
I want to say that this country, when it presents itself on the threshold of the European Economic Community, should be in the modest position that we have maintained so far of being able to say that we want nothing from anybody, and are prepared to make our modest contribution to the common weal. We cannot do that if we allow ourselves to drift into a position in which our economic condition reveals weaknesses which the trained economist and statistician can only too readily discern from the inescapable facts to which I have just referred.
That situation which I have just described would ordinarily evoke a classic employment pattern in which there would be a rapid run down in the number of unemployed in our community. That would happen in any community, but here in Ireland where during the past seven years we have exported close on 300,000 people— 300,000 emigrants in the past seven years—one would expect in the context of the economic development to which I have referred that we would have an acute and growing labour shortage.
The fact is—and it is a fact which I find very hard to understand — that taking the unemployment figures on the total live register for 1962 as compared with 1961, in every week since August 4th, 1962, there were more people unemployed in Ireland—registered as unemployed on the total live register— than there were in 1961, with the exception of the week the 3rd to the 10th November, when the operation of the employment order varied a little as between this year and last year. What the explanation of that is I frankly confess I do not know.
The fact remains that although we have exported 300,000 employable persons, boys and girls, in the past seven years, although we have an adverse trade balance running at the rate of £95,000,000 for the past 12 months, although there is apparently a very substantial influx of foreign capital— the reasons for which we do not fully know—the unemployment figures are standing higher than they did this day 12 months. That is a matter which calls not only for investigation, but for a very explicit and informative statement from the Taoiseach when he comes to intervene in the debate.
On the subject of the European Economic Community, there are certain observations which I want to make. I want to say—and I might as well say it bluntly and plainly—that the brassy impudence of the Taoiseach's recent public statements do not deflect me by a hair's breadth from the policy which I consider it right to follow, and which I laid down, of maintaining, in so far as public duty will allow, an atmosphere of co-operation with the Government in the implementation of foreign policy in times of acute difficulty and stress.
I observed that policy during the General Election, at a time when the Government were much pressed by the urgent developments in the Congo.
There were, at that time, abundant opportunities for either me or the Leader of the Labour Party, if we had chosen to press the Government and increase their difficulties, to make a savage attack upon the Government in the tragic situation that was developing in the Congo. I certainly felt, and my colleagues certainly felt, that our prime concern must be do all in our power to help the Government to retrieve the situation, which had involved the loss of many gallant Irish lives in the Congo and which was causing—and we had no reason to doubt this—the acutest anxiety.
I believe that despite subsequent revelations—and I can only describe them as revelations—our attitude of forbearance was the right one, and served the best interests of the country, and best helped to retrieve the unhappy situation which I think we are bound to admit to ourselves now was precipitated in some degree by the improvidence of the decisions and activities of someone whom we must admit Ireland was partly responsible for placing in a crucial position at a crucial time.
All those facts being now known to me, I am convinced that in the operation of foreign affairs there should be, in so far as public duty will allow, an effort on the part of all of us to lend a hand, and help an Irish Government confronted with great events in which they are endeavouring to the best of their ability—whether successfully or not—to serve the fundamental interests of this country. At the same time, we acknowledge the strict obligation on us, where we feel their efforts are not measuring up to the best that might be done, to bring to their attention as effectively as we can, where we believe better efforts might produce better results.
If we are to live in a free country we have to acknowledge the fact that the people are entitled to choose their Government, and when they make that choice in a free election, we may deplore the choice, but we have to accept it. I believe that if the people had chosen us in the general election Ireland's position vis-á-vis the Common Market might be a great deal stronger than it is today, but they did not. They chose the present Government. That is their choice; that is their decision. Our road is to see that Ireland suffers as little as possible from what we believe to be a most unhappy choice.
Accordingly, I recall that as long ago as last Feburary I had occasion to speak at the Árd-Fheis of the Fine Gael organisation and I made quite clear what our position was in regard to the Common Market. I said:
In connection with the whole problem of Ireland's entry into the Common Market I think it right to make one thing clear, we in Fine Gael decided that it was the right policy for this country to enter the Common Market if Great Britain entered it, so as to protect the vital economic interests of our own people. We believe that Fine Gael could have better conducted these negotiations than Fianna Fáil, but the people in the general election entrusted this task to a Fianna Fáil Government. Some people would have us harass the present Government by propounding an endless series of hypothetical dilemmas and challenging the Government to answer these in public. This might provide entertaining political fireworks for those who are interested in sensationalism rather than statesmanship, but it would also make the task of any Irish Government negotiating on behalf of this country in Brussels utterly impossible.
Whatever political grist it might bring to the Fine Gael political mill, it could do the national interest little good. We in Fine Gael have never put the political interests of our Party before the vital interests of our country, and accordingly while we will continue to discharge our duty as the principal Opposition in Dáil Éireann by keeping every aspect of the Common Market negotiations, agricultural and industrial and political, under constant review, and will insist on the people getting full and adequate information before irrevocable decisions are taken, we do not propose to use Dáil Éireann for the purpose of paralysing Irish negotiators in the discussions that must be undertaken in preparation for the achievement of satisfactory terms for this country for entry into all the advantages and responsibilities involved in adherence to the Rome Treaty.
I noticed recently that the Leader of the Government chose to describe that attitude as failing in the duties of a responsible Opposition, frustrating him and forcing upon him the obligation to go it alone. I believe that kind of language can only be described as the brassy impudence of an irresponsible politician who wants to cover his own failures in the discharge of his public duties in regard to this matter by an invitation to a perennial dogfight in which he can end up weeping before the country and asking his colleagues: "Am I to be hit with the baby in my arms?" I have no intention now or hereafter of hitting him with the baby in his arms but if he proceeds to smother the baby by incompetent handling, then it is my duty to clear its nose and throat before he finishes it off.
That is part of the purpose for which I asked this debate to-day. I could have made in the course of the past 12 months any number of effective debating points against the Taoiseach at various stages of the proposals. I did not choose to do so. I found myself in Strasbourg recently representing this country. I hope I will not unduly distress my colleague, Deputy Colley, if I refer to one aspect of our proceedings there. I spoke in the economic debate at Strasbourg. The political debate was opened by my old friend and colleague, Mr. Pflimlin, who was the French Minister of Agriculture at the same time as I was Minister for Agriculture. Mr. Pflimlin very kindly welcomed me personally and invited me to participate in the debate.
In the course of the debate I understood my colleagues, Deputy Colley, Deputy Cummins and Senator Ryan, representing the Fianna Fáil Party, to say that they had been charged to inform the Council of Europe that the decision of the Irish Government was to enter the Common Market, whether Great Britain did or did not.
No.
Let the Deputy hear me out. I went to the Council of Europe in order to say in an emphatic way that the Government of Ireland were supported by all Parties in this country in their application for admission to the European Economic Community. I thought that would be useful and constructive. I had to ask myself in the course of the debate would it serve the best interests of this country for me to flatly contradict what they had said and say that the head of the Irish Government never said any such thing? What he actually said was that he would wish to pursue the Irish application for admission to the European Economic Community if it were economically possible to do so.
Everybody understood that was a euphemism designed to say that if Great Britain entered we would go in and if Great Britain did not we could not go in. I could have torn that to tatters and pointed out that that was the kind of double talk the Taoiseach thought it was desirable to engage in. I thought, possibly, this arose from some pressure which existed in Brussels and that the Taoiseach had chosen this form of words when talking to foreign correspondents to meet a situation which he felt required to be met. Deputy Colley is quite mistaken if he believes that I was the only one at the Council of Europe who misunderstood what he and his colleagues said. When Senator Voss was concluding the debate — the Deputy will remember that he was rapporteur with Mr. Pflimlin of the political economic committee—he said that he had noted with great interest the statement of the Irish delegates from the Fianna Fáil Party that the Irish Government had decided to proceed with their application for admission to the European Economic Community, whether Great Britain adhered to it or not. He said that was a matter that they would have to report to Brussels as it put the whole application in a new perspective.
The reports are available and I challenge the Deputy to point out anything that will bear out what he says.
Does the Deputy challenge the fact that it was said?
I challenge the fact that any Deputy in the Fianna Fáil delegation said what the Deputy said he said.
Perhaps they did not phrase it well but Senator Voss thought they said it, too.
Senator Ryan is on record. I read it myself. He is the only one who referred to it but he did not say what Deputy Dillon said.
I felt it prudent in those circumstances to refrain from comment. I did not speak at all. I fully appreciate that there are many amongst my friends and opponents who say that I chose a degree of restraint which goes beyond all limits of political prudence. I want to say quite deliberately that I pin my flag to this mast. My duty in this House is to oppose the Government when they are wrong. My duty is, when the Government are negotiating for this country with foreign countries, to support them to the limit to which I can conscientiously go.
Deputies
Hear, hear!
If that is wrong, I am wrong, but that is what I believe to constitute decent and responsible parliamentary opposition in a civilised democracy and that is the policy I propose to pursue so long as I am the Leader of the Opposition in this Oireachtas. Anybody who does not like that can lump it.
I have been 30 years in opposition to Fianna Fáil. I have never known them to react to any kind of responsible attitude adopted by the Opposition in this House except with the tactics of the guttersnipe and the cornerboy. I am not in the least astonished or surprised to encounter that reaction in the present context at the present time. I am not in the least surprised to hear the Leader of the Fianna Fáil Party suggest that that effort at co-operation in the successful prosecution of the foreign affairs of this country is evidence of lack of policy or reluctance to discharge the duties of Opposition. But what they say in that regard or what they do not say does not in the slightest degree alter my view that so long as an Irish Government are negotiating in Brussels on behalf of this country, it is the duty and function of everyone in Ireland to make their task as easy as they can while at the same time pressing upon them their duty, if it seems clear that they have forgotten it or have failed in any regard.
I want to say that I now am obliged to state here in public that I believe the Taoiseach, either through want of information or through a conscious desire, is misleading the House in a very vital matter regarding the negotiations in Brussels. I put down a question to the Taoiseach, reported on 22nd November, 1962, at column 1685:
To ask the Taoiseach whether his attention has been directed to the statement that the Danish negotiations with the EEC are relatively far advanced; and, if this is correct, why it is that no progress has been made with the Irish negotiations in the same matter.
The tough guys in public life would have told me that I went too far in sending the Taoiseach a note to say that the reference quoted in my question occurred at column 398 of the House of Lords Report, of Thursday, 8th November, 1962, and is contained in a speech made by the Earl of Dundee speaking on behalf of the British Government in the House of Lords, when he said:
I think your Lordships will remember that it was agreed and recognised then that the formation of this European Free Trade Association was not intended to be a rival to the European Economic Community, not a rival to the Common Market, but a means of eventually bringing us all into it; although we did consider that, if that object should fail, EFTA would still be a viable concern in itself. Our EFTA partners are all now either conducting or expecting to conduct their own negotiations with the Community. The Danish negotiations are furthest advanced, but the Governments of Norway, Switzerland, Sweden and Austria have made their opening presentation to the Community, and Portugal hopes to do so very soon.
These words led me to believe that it appeared that to the knowledge of the Earl of Dundee the Danish negotiations had in some measure progressed. Accordingly, I put down a Question to the Taoiseach to ask, if that is correct, why it is no progress has been made with the Irish negotiations.
Deputies can read for themselves the reply the Taoiseach made, but he says at column 1686:
According to my information, negotiations in the real sense have not yet begun in the case of any applicant State other than Great Britain.
I asked the Taoioseach would he make further and better inquiries and Deputy Sir Anthony Esmonde asked could the Taoiseach tell us where he gets this information and the Taoiseach replied:
From a variety of sources.
Deputy Norton asked:
So that we are not at the end of the queue?
The Taoiseach: Not at all.
I said:
Negotiations are proceeding with Great Britain, negotiations are proceeding with Denmark, but with Ireland no negotiations are proceeding at all. I am not in a position to say what is happening about Norway but at this moment negotiations with Great Britain and Denmark are proceeding. With Ireland, nothing is happening at all.
The Taoiseach then said:
The Deputy should not use the term "negotiations" in any sense which might be misleading. There have been meetings, I know, between Denmark and the Six. To what extent they were engaged in negotiations is a matter on which I have no information.
He had said a moment before that he was satisfied there were no negotiations. He added:
So far as Norway is concerned, I understand the Council have not opened negotiations.
I want to suggest to the Taoiseach that, far from there being no negotiations with Denmark, it is common talk in Europe that negotiations with Denmark have reached a very advanced stage and that, in fact, in the event of Great Britain entering the Common Market, there is little or nothing left for Denmark to do except to sign the corresponding agreement; that with the exception of a few minor details, all outstanding matters have been resolved between herself and the Six.
I feel that if the Taoiseach's information is no better than that, it is urgently necessary that he should improve his sources of information and that this House is entitled to be kept more abreast of what is happening than it has been heretofore.
I want to direct the attention of the House to another matter of very great consequence. When I was speaking here on Thursday, 26th July, 1962, I stated very exhaustively at column 3373 of Volume 196, No. 19, our general attitude to the Common Market and amongst the matters I called in review were the political and defence implications of applying for membership and, having forecast at column 3379 what I believed to be the likely issue of the political negotiations that would take place in the Common Market consequent on our adherence to it with Great Britain, Norway and Denmark, which would then turn the Six into Ten, I went on to say:
I do not think that any nation participating in the united Europe into which we intend to go can declare itself disinterested in the fate of that united Europe, should it be attacked by an aggressor from outside. We will share defence liabilities with all our partners in that association. Surely that is a reasonable, intelligent anticipation of the situation which must inevitably arise? We have the consoling thought that unless that association of European nations is prepared to collaborate most closely with the United States of America, as I said at Strasbourg and elsewhere, the European Community has as much prospects of survival as a snowball in hell if it cuts itself off from the US and other freedom-loving nations of the world or if, by its politics, it forces America to cut herself off from Europe.
When the Taoiseach came to reply, he did not deal with that aspect of the situation at all but he did return to the discussion at the Árd-Fhéis of his organisation and here is the remarkable clarification which he provided for his supporters—and it is an interesting and significant fact that he began his reference to this matter in the presence of television cameras and with loud attendant applause. This is what was televised, and the report appears in the Irish Press of November 21st:
We are not a Party to any international agreement involving commitments of a military character, other than those arising from the Charter of the United Nations. It is understandable that we should have asked ourselves whether this fact was likely to have any bearing on our application for membership of the European Economic Community. We are now satisfied, from our discussions with the Governments of the member states, that it is not a factor in its consideration, nor have we been asked to accept any obligations of that kind as a condition of our entry.
Loud and prolonged applause by Deputy Dolan, who is greatly relieved by this declaration of neutrality.
After the television cameras were turned off, the Taoiseach returned to this topic:
It is reasonable to think that the Convention when negotiated will reflect the minimum level at which agreement is found to be possible between the member governments and—as of now—judging from the known position of some existing members, this would suggest a loose form of confederation, designed primarily for the co-ordination of policies, the member states being bound only by decisions to which they have given positive assent.
As a basic reason for the existence of national states and confederations of states, is their defence. It is to be assumed that within such an arrangement, when it has been brought about, discussions will, at some point, cover this question, but nobody can say now what may be their outcome.
Is that a clear and honest appreciation of what entry into the Common Market involves for this country, if we successfully prosecute such a policy? The Taoiseach knows perfectly well that the distinction drawn between States like Sweden, Switzerland and Austria, which have conveyed their intention to remain neutral under their existing treaty obligations, or their existing constitutions, is that they have been told bluntly that membership by them is not acceptable or discussable but that, when the Community is definitely formed, treaty discussions can take place between them and the Community for trading arrangements, which, it is hoped, will be mutually beneficial. But there is a fundamental distinction between those who aspire to membership of the Community and those who aspire to be linked to the Community by subsequent trading arrangements. It is not honest, it is not right, and it is not fitting in the leader of an Irish Government to push, or lead, or drag our people into an irrevocable commitment of this kind without honestly telling them what the implications of that commitment are likely to be.
There are those who say, in the light of these facts, that it is preferable that we should contemplate association, but I recall the present Taoiseach in one of his excursions outside this House stating to Mr. Sulzberger of the New York Times as the considered policy of the Irish Government on 18th July, 1962:
We are prepared to go into an integrated union without any reservations at all as to how far this will take us in the field of foreign policy or defence commitments.
I ask this House to compare that statement made to Mr. Sulzberger with the wriggling dishonesty of the declaration made for the edification of poor Deputy Dolan. I also ask does Deputy Dolan ever ask himself the question why does the Taoiseach say to Mr. Sulzberger: "We are prepared to go into an integrated union in the field of foreign policy and defence commitments" and then come to the Fianna Fáil Árd Fheis and pour out all that ráiméis? Which is the truth? Which is the honest declaration? To whom has the Taoiseach the graver obligation to speak the truth honestly and clearly? Is it to Mr. Sulzberger? Or is it to Deputy Dolan? It may seem incongruous, but I think the obligation of the Taoiseach is to speak it to Deputy Dolan. He is entitled to hear it, and to understand it, before Mr. Sulzberger is; and it is only when the Taoiseach has told Deputy Dolan, and all the Deputy Dolans who support him, that he is entitled to say to Mr. Sulzberger: "That is the commitment and that is what we stand for".
There are a number of people in this country—we might as well face it —who are uneasy about membership of the Common Market. They speak nostalgically of association rather than membership. They will all say: "If Great Britain goes in, of course we cannot suffer ourselves to be cut off from the British market. We could not survive". Mark you, that was not always the common doctrine in this country. I have been denounced by the Deputy Dolans at every cross-roads in Ireland for seeking to sell this country down the drain because I stated, as I state now and always, that this country cannot survive another Fianna Fáil Economic War.
We cannot afford to be cut off from the British market, if we want to preserve the sovereignty and independence that generations of our people fought to win; and I do not want a situation to develop in which people have made vast sacrifices to give us the sovereignty we are now at this moment exercising only to have historians tell the tale that, by folly, we threw it away. It is for that reason I want to preserve the economic foundations of this country. I have always said frankly, openly, and in public, that a sine qua non of economic survival in this country is access to the British market for the agricultural and industrial products of this country, and it was to that end that we went to London in 1948 to negotiate the Trade Agreement.
Hear, hear.
There are those who say: "We admit all that, but we prefer association". Are they closing their eyes to the fact that there is only one basis of association with the Common Market? Now, that is an association which leads to membership. You cannot be an associate of the EEC in perpetuity. The only basis on which that character of association is recognised under the Treaty of Rome is that it leads ultimately to full membership. What does that involve? The Taoiseach, by elaborate phraseology, seeks to withhold from people like Deputy Dolan the fact that there are political implications. There are defence implications. Association means that we get a longer period, perhaps, in which to adjust our domestic economic situation for ultimate membership but, when the time of membership comes, we are going then into something the political and defence obligations of which have been laid down and codified——
By civil servants.
——without the voice of Ireland ever being heard. I understand the Government believe, and I think the Government are right in their belief, and I am not ashamed to defend it, that if we are going into an association with the European Economic Community, which involves us in political and defence liabilities, then our voice ought to be heard when these are being determined. There is only one way in which it can be heard, that is, by becoming a member of this community at the earliest possible moment and before irrevocable decisions are taken, decisions which will thereafter bind every State which attains to full membership of the Community.
That does not mean that, having taken that decision, we are to forget all the problems that a decision of that kind involves us in. I should like to remind the House that I was discussing this matter on 26th July, but sometimes, reading some of the publications in this country, one would imagine the Common Market had never been discussed in this House at all. If some of the scribes who are so eloquent on that topic would take the trouble to burn some midnight oil, they would find in Volume 196, No. 19, of the Official Dáil Report, a fuller discussion on the European Economic Community in Dáil Éireann than has taken place in the British House of Commons or House of Lords at any time. In the course of that discussion, speaking on behalf of this Party, I said, and asked the House to listen carefully:
To my mind, the most vital and difficult business in our adjustment to Common Market conditions will be the preservation of employment. The nightmare which haunts my mind is that in the process of adjustment, you will have hundreds or thousands of men thrown out of employment by alleged redundancy. That could create such a spirit of confusion and dismay as to affect our whole future. If we can instil into the minds of the workers of this country that their interests will be provided for and every effort made to avoid redundancy we would create a much better reaction than we can hope to create so long as uncertainty and anxiety continue to exist.
I want now to challenge the Taoiseach. We have heard a lot of speeches made to federated unions of employers, at banquets given by federated unions of manufacturers and at hoolies given by federations of this and federations of that, but where can I find in any scheme that has been adumbrated by the Government any tangible reassurance with which I can go to any body of workmen who have come to me and say: "Listen, we took work 20 years ago as young men of 24 and 25 years of age in industries set up by our own Government with the help of tariff and quota protections. We are now rising 50 years of age and we are told that this is about to be swept away and nobody bothers to tell us what will become of us."
I want to say this, and I want to say it most emphatically, that I do not consider this Parliament has done its duty by simply telling our people that in the long term economic interest of the Irish nation, it is desirable to embark upon a certain policy that involves me in going to a man with a wife and family, my neighbour, who says: "What does that mean to me? I have my son with the Christian Brothers; I have my daughter with the nuns; we are able to afford a television set and maybe a little car and it is all being done by hard work. I want to know does this visionary concept of the free passage of men, money and goods throughout the free world, does this visionary concept of an Atlantic union which will bring the United States of America and free Europe into a collaboration which will assist Africa and Asia, mean that in Drumcondra, in Finglas, in Ballymote, in Tubbercurry or Mullingar, I will be told it is unfortunate that I am one of the eggs that had to be broken in order to make this glorious international society possible, because I will say that as far as I am concerned, it is a matter of relative indifference to me what the world is going to look like 25 or 50 years hence. What matters to me is whether my daughter is going to finish her education with the nuns, whether my son is going to finish his education with the Brothers, or whether my wife will have the standard of living that I worked to get for her and that she helped me to work to get for her, or are we to be sent out on the road? Am I, after my long life's work, to be sent down the country or to the Labour Exchange to take the dole which I never took in my life?"
What shocks me is that, despite my representations 12 months ago, despite the renewal of the representations I made on behalf of my Party in July of last year, with all the banquets, with all the hoolies, with all the television appearances, nobody on behalf of the Irish Government has come forward to say: "Our resources will be mobilised and the first charge upon them, before there are any loans, any grants, or anything else is the assurance to the working man with a family to support that if as a result of our decision to enter the European Economic Community, he is thrown out of work we will do either of two things: we will either give him a pension appropriate to his age and circumstances—mind you, you may have a man in the late fifties or early sixties who is not able to start training for a new job after spending his life in another one—or we will provide a period of adjustment of a year or two in which he will have to re-train himself at an inconvenience which we are prepared to acknowledge, and which we are prepared to ask of the industrialists and the farmers. We are prepared to say that he will not be asked to go it alone, that we will see he will have an income while he is making that adjustment that will enable him to keep his car, his boy with the Christian Brothers, his daughter with the nuns, and his wife in reasonable comfort, because if we are to enter the EEC as we hope to do then we can afford to pledge part of that future to ensure that that man's present, his wife's present and their children's future will not be sacrificed, and that that family will not be a broken egg in the optimistic omelette of the European Economic Community."
People will say, perhaps, that the notes of warning I struck last February at the Fine Gael Árd Fheis and again in July of last year were inadequate, that I should have returned to this topic with more vigour since then. That is a question of time. I believe the Government are entitled to get their breath. I fully appreciate that they have their problems. I fully appreciate that the Government in office have to measure and examine what they are in a position to guarantee to do with very much closer perception than those in Opposition who have not available to them sources of information, statistical calculations and technical advice, that the Government have and are under an obligation to hear and weigh up before they make a commitment.
Bearing all those factors in mind, I affirm most emphatically that there is a great deal of public anxiety first of all in respect of the matter to which I have referred—the man who will lose his job—but also there is anxiety among many of us who look at certain industries which cannot possibly survive in the Common Market. I am extremely reluctant to start naming industries that I think cannot survive. I could name several and if it is of any assistance to the Taoiseach I will send him a note of those industries which are hopelessly unviable, no matter what they do, in the atmosphere of the Common Market.
I can take one and name it in public. What is to become of the motor assembly business, of which the Taoiseach has a special knowledge? He was a director of a motor assembly firm when he was out of office between 1954 and 1957. How can it hope to survive under the Common Market arrangement? If there is to be free and unrestricted traffic amongst the various countries, how can we prohibit the passage of motor cars and insist on their coming in here in parts?
Take an industry of that kind. What are we doing now to save the operatives in that industry? "You will be expected to carry on at your job, so long as the industry is maintaining its present form, but we are in consultation with the industry to provide alternative employment for you chaps when this industry ceases to function in its present form. That means that we are going to do A.B.C.D.E.F. and G. to help to replace you in employment. But, amongst you, there must be a number of enterprising, ambitious young chaps. If you want to look around to see where to start afresh, get a job in a garage, go into a metal engineering works, see if you can get into light industry, and so on."
If I were that young chap, instead of waiting to become a social problem in two, three or four years' time, I should go ahead now and see if I could get alternative employment in some light industry. "Go while the going is good. However, that does not qualify the obligation which we accept that whether it be four, five or ten years' time, in so far as it is humanly possible to do it, we shall retrain you and place you in alternative employment, or we shall accept responsibility to ensure that you will be able to keep your children at school and your wife in decent existence until such time as alternative arrangements are made for you."
I have not seen any declaration on the part of the Government of their intentions in that regard and it is long overdue. If plans of that kind are not forthcoming in the very early future, anxiety on this score will grow and expand to the point at which a considerable volume of opinion could develop in this country declaring that, acknowledging all the benefits of the EEC not only for Ireland but the world, they are afraid to face it when they think of the sacrifices it could mean for individuals who would be hurt by the developments to which I have referred.
This is a topic of such wide interest that it might be pursued almost indefinitely. Other Deputies want to contribute to this debate. I do not want unduly to delay the House. I therefore touch only on what I consider to be the outstanding and urgent matters that arise. I want to conclude by recalling to this House that, in their legitimate anxieties about the problems which this country will be called upon to face in the event of our entry into the EEC, we are not alone. Other countries in Europe who joined the Common Market felt the same kinds of apprehensions and alarms. There were people who felt it would mean economic catastrophe for them— France, if she entered into relative free trade with Germany in the industrial field; French farmers, terrified of the impact of Belgium and Dutch competition on their farms.
Yet, there came a day when they made an act of faith and signed their own treaty. There was a long list of unresolved problems outstanding between them. They opened what they called "List G." They put all those unresolved problems into List G and they said, in effect: "When we are together as a unit, we shall resolve them." I think Deputy Esmonde, Deputy Colley and others who have been to Europe and who have met these men will confirm that they told us of what a revelation it was. They told us how insoluble those problems had been when they were part of the preliminary to a final commitment but how, once they sat down around the table as committed partners, the problems melted away. They told us that once it became inevitable that they had to be solved, because they were now all together and there was no escaping, ways and means were found to get around them. They told us that there was understanding and forbearance by one for the other to make the resolution of those difficulties conceivable.
When we talk of the EEC, some people—and I acknowledge their right —are intoxicated by the vision of Europe. I have never concealed from my colleagues or from this House that I believe the concept of a United Europe to be a noble one but it is not that vision that has ever dazzled me. I want to say to the House again that on 4th July, 1962, on the steps of Constitution Hall in Philadelphia, a speech was made by the President of the United States which historians will yet have to tell was the most significant speech made in the 20th century. In the course of a long address, the President of the United States said:
With the passing of ancient empires, today less than 2 per cent. of the world's population live in territories officially termed dependent. As this effort for independence, inspired by the American Declaration of Independence, now approaches a successful close, a great new effort for inter-dependence is transforming the world about us. And the spirit of that new effort is the same spirit which gave birth to the American Constitution.
That spirit is today most clearly seen across the Atlantic Ocean. The nations of Western Europe, long divided by feuds far more bitter than any which existed among the 13 Colonies, are today joining together, seeking, as our forefathers sought, to find freedom in diversity and unity from strength.
The United States looks on this vast new enterprise with hope and admiration. We do not regard a strong and United Europe as a rival, but a partner. To aid its progress has been the basic object of our foreign policy for 17 years.
We believe that a united Europe will be capable of playing a greater role in the common defence, of responding more generously to the needs of poorer nations, of joining with the United States and others in lowering trade barriers, resolving problems of commerce and commodities and currency, and developing co-ordinated policies in all economic, political and diplomatic areas. We see in such a Europe a partner with whom we can deal on a basis of full equality in all the great and burdensome tasks of building and defending a community of free nations.
It would be premature at this time to do more than indicate the high regard with which we would view the formation of this partnership. The first order of business is for our European friends to go forward in forming the more perfect union which will some day make this partnership possible.
A great new edifice is not built overnight. It was 11 years from the Declaration of Independence to the writing of the Constitution. The construction of workable Federal institutions required still another generation.
The greatest works of our nation's founders lay not in documents and in declarations, but in creative, determined action. The building of the new house of Europe has followed the same practical and purposeful course. Building the Atlantic partnership now will not be easily or cheaply finished.
But I will say here and now, on this Day of Independence, that the United States will be ready for a declaration of inter-dependence; that we will be prepared to discuss with a united Europe the ways and means of forming a concrete Atlantic partnership, a mutually beneficent partnership between the new union now emerging in Europe and the old American union founded here 175 years ago. All this will not be completed in a year, but let the world know it is our goal.
That is a dazzling prospect for the world and there are those who missed out on the capacity of the nation on whose behalf President Kennedy spoke that day to grapple with the devious complexities of the Cominform's diplomacy and aggression. The doubters have learned a lesson on the island of Cuba which may open their eyes.
I rejoice to see the prospect of the emergence in this world we live in of the great Atlantic union which holds in it the promise for our children and our children's children of peace and security. Ireland has a part to play in that and I believe her voice should be heard at the earliest possible moment in the structure of the European part of that great vision. If we do not join Europe with Great Britain, Denmark and Norway, our voice will not be heard and the European union into which we shall ultimately enter dragging our feet as inferior associates will have taken its irrevocable form, with all its liabilities and responsibilities, before our presence is seen or felt.
It is because we believe Ireland has this part to play in what ultimately will be the hope of the world and the salvation of free men that we stand for the entry of Ireland into the European Economic Community and that we charge the Government to be zealous now to press our case at Brussels and, no less important, to have regard to the humblest of our neighbours and to bring them reassurance quickly, in which we shall give the Government full support, that in this departure there will be no broken eggs amongst our own people to make the omelettes of European union.
When the Taoiseach spoke on the Adjournment Debate on 26th July last, he forecast a heavy programme of legislation for the winter session and gave the impression that that heavy programme would include a lot of legislation of very great importance. I trust the session which is now ending is regarded as the first part of the winter session because so far we do not seem to have had any of this heavy programme of legislation that he forecast in July. While Bills like the Companies Bill, the Planning Bill, the Vocational Education Bill and the Official Secrets Bill are important in themselves, in the circumstances in which we find ourselves I do not think they could be regarded as being madly urgent when one considers there is other legislation of which the Taoiseach has made some mention and which needs to be dealt with as a matter of urgency.
Some of these pieces of legislation to which the Taoiseach referred were introduced yesterday and we trust this is the heavy and important part of the winter programme of legislation and that the legislation introduced will bring the radical changes that are now needed in our present circumstances and especially on what seems to be the advent of our membership of the European Economic Community.
On the 26th July the Taoiseach was in rather a bouncy mood. I assume that, like most members of the House, he was pleased he was about to get a respite from the Dáil. However, he appeared very optimistic in that speech and, in concluding, having said practically nothing in reply to the debate, he said something to this effect: "I shall have some more pearls for the admiration of the Deputies when the Dáil resumes on 30th October." I do not know where the pearls have been since 26th July. We certainly have not seen any evidence of Government pearls up to 30th October. Since then, rather than the pearls of which he spoke, there has been some evidence of very disquieting trends, trends which have not been referred to by the Taoiseach or members of the Government since 26th July. I think all of us could subscribe to the criticism that the Government are too prone to make important announcements outside Dáil Éireann. The Taoiseach has been unfair to this House. Any comments he has made about our prospects of becoming members of EEC or his views in connection with membership of EEC have not been made in this House but outside it. We realise the Taoiseach and other members of the Government must attend these functions where there is wining and dining but if there are important announcements to be made in regard to Government policy they should be made here.
Another significant thing about this matter is that the Minister for External Affairs has never, to my knowledge, opened his mouth about the Common Market. One would imagine that one who is charged with responsibility for External Affairs would have some comment in that regard. I would not go so far as to suggest that the Minister for External Affairs finds himself in conflict with the attitude of the Taoiseach or other members of the Government but it is of some significance that he has not made any comment on this question, either inside or outside Dáil Éireann since this House decided to apply for membership of the EEC.
There seems to be reluctance on the part of the Taoiseach and other members of the Government to answer questions in connection with our application for membership of the EEC. We are anxious to know what will happen and it is not good enough for the members of the Government to say these are hypothetical questions. We are dealing with a hypothetical situation and we are entitled to ask these questions and to assure ourselves that things will not be as bad as some people expect they will be in the initial stages of our membership of the EEC.
A question was put down by two other Deputies and myself concerning the rhythm of our tariff reductions. The proposals on this matter made by the Government to EEC were leaked out by some commercial journal in Brussels. We had to ask the Minister for Finance what proposals were in fact made. This was the first statement from Irish Government sources as to what these proposals were. These proposals had to be dragged out of the Minister for Finance.
The Deputy has just commented that they were published. How then could they be dragged out of the Minister for Finance?
They were published by a commercial journal.
They were published all the same.
They were not given by the Irish Government.
They certainly were not dragged out of the Minister for Finance if the Deputy could read them in the papers.
Is Parliament not the place for publishing them?
The first time the question was asked it was answered.
It should not have had to be asked. This should not have been leaked out. It should either have been confirmed or denied by the Minister for Finance. It was only when a Question was asked here by a member of the Fianna Fáil Party that we had an announcement to the effect that there would be a first tariff reduction of 10 per cent. from 1st January. I do not see any significance in the fact that a certain Deputy asked that question. That is a lot of nonsense, but it gives rise to suspicion when that sort of announcement is made only in reply to a Parliamentary Question. The Minister for Finance himself should have taken the initiative and made that announcement without being put in the humiliating position of appearing to have engineered it by way of Parliamentary Question.
The big question of a purchase tax was also mentioned in connection with the tariff reduction. That had to be dragged out of the Minister for Finance also. There was no formal announcement by the Minister, either inside or outside the Dáil. The information we got was very sketchy indeed. Even though we are only three or four months from the Budget, nobody knows what form that purchase tax will take. I wish to say on behalf of the Labour Party that if tariff revenue is to be replaced by way of purchase tax we will violently oppose any effort to have that purchase tax imposed on what are generally regarded as the necessaries of life. We will not have any serious objection to such a tax going on the type of imports regarded as luxury imports.
I said that rather than the Taoiseach presenting us with pearls for our admiration, we have had some disquieting trends. Deputy Dillon referred to the trend in unemployment. I believe it is a real trend because it has obtained since January of this year up to last week. The evidence in respect of unemployment is that, as compared with last year, there has been an increase in every single month since June of this year. The same upward trend in unemployment is also shown for the first weeks in December, as every Deputy knows from the figures with which he is supplied. The latest figures show there were 48,400 unemployed in November, 1962, as against exactly 48,000 in November, 1961. That represents an unemployment rate of between 5 per cent. and 6 per cent. I grant that is lower than it has been in the years immediately past. In Britain, however, the unemployment rate is about 2½ per cent. and they regard it with some sense of urgency more or less as a crisis. There seems to me to be a certain amount of complacency about our unemployment figures. In the course of his reply the Taoiseach should tell the House why he believes there has been such a consistent trend and what the prospects are for a downward trend.
Everybody will concede there has been a reduction in the rate of emigration, but we cannot be complacent when we still have emigration at the rate of 19,000 or 20,000 per year. There is no point in comparing that with a figure of 30,000, 50,000 or 60,000 in any other year. So long as people are going out of the country because they cannot find employment, it should be a matter of concern to this Dáil and especially to the Government. We must remember they cannot emigrate for ever. There is a limit to the number of people in the country. In present circumstances, it should be a matter of deep concern to all of us to know that people are still leaving the country at the rate of 20,000 per year.
I do not think the trend in employment is as spectacular as members of the Government would have us believe. I want to preface my remarks by conceding that, as far as my information goes, there has been an increase in overall employment of about 6,000 in the past 12 months. However, the impression is being created, by way of speeches at the opening of factories, petrol pumps or what have you, that thousands and thousands are going into new employment every week. Such is not the case. It is true there has been a spurt in employment in some areas, but what we should remind ourselves of is—I know the Taoiseach does not like to be reminded of it— that there are now substantially fewer in industrial employment that there were in 1955. The figures for the first six months of 1962 show that we have 291,000 in industrial employment. In 1955, we had 299,000. So far as industrial employment is concerned, therefore, we have 8,000 fewer.
The figures are no more encouraging when we come to consider overall employment. The fact still remains that compared with 1955 there are 56,000 fewer in employment. That certainly is a far cry from the Taoiseach's blue-print in 1955-56 for something like 100,000 new jobs. We seem to be making rather slow progress. It is better to face up to these facts and be realistic rather than do what members of the Government appear to be doing —whistling in the dark as they go past the graveyard. We have been described as pessimists because we talk about it. It is only realistic to talk about the figures of unemployment and employment in order to find out what the problem is.
If that is our rate of progress with the industrial protection that we have, if that is the progress we can boast of with the Trade Agreement we have with Great Britain, is it unreasonable to ask what is to happen when we go into the Free Trade Area? It has seemed to me in this House for the past six or 12 months that anybody who asked a question about the European Economic Community, or talked about it, was guilty of treason. Deputy Dillon has spoken about his concern for workers and what is to happen to them: Will a father be able to continue the education of his child in a convent? That may have been Deputy Dillon's concern for the past 12 or 18 months. It has been our concern ever since Ireland decided to apply for membership of EEC. That is why any speeches we make, inside or outside this House, have been made in an effort to ensure that workers who may be disemployed here will suffer the least possible ill-effects on their homes and their lives.
I certainly deprecate some of the speeches the Taoiseach made recently. I do not know whether he wants to make the Common Market his own baby, as his predecessor wanted to make the policy of neutrality in the last War his own baby. I do not think we should be required to reiterate, time and time again, our attitude towards our application for and eventual membership of EEC. We have stated it time and time again; we made no bones of the fact that because Britain was to apply, we supported the application of this country for membership also. I had occasion at our conference last year in Galway, when the Taoiseach was speaking here last July on the Common Market, to say:
Our decision as to whether we should enter the Common Market will be a decision to be taken by Dáil Éireann. It should not be a Party matter and should not be the sole responsibility of the Fianna Fáil Government, a Fine Gael Opposition or of the Labour Party. This is a national matter so far as my colleagues and I are concerned and we want to approach this whole problem as a nation, without political bias because, in the final analysis, it is the people of this country who are concerned. We may be concerned with the peace of Europe and the peace of the world but, primarily, our interests and your interests should be in the workers you represent.
It is deplorable that the Taoiseach should make this scandalous type of speech that he made recently in Enniscorthy.
He cannot go it alone. He represents less than half the people and without the remainder of them, he cannot do it.
I do not think anybody can deny that there will be unemployment as a result of free trade. The Minister for Industry and Commerce has admitted that on many occasions. Eighteen months ago, when it was suggested that we would make application for membership, the Minister for Industry and Commerce feared and forecasted unemployment and from the CIO reports that we have to hand, there is evidence that there will be unemployment.
It is all very fine to talk about our cultural association with Europe and that sort of thing and, with respect to Deputy Dillon, it is all right to quote what President Kennedy said. It is all very fine to talk about the missionaries we sent abroad to Europe in the past seven or eight centuries but they are not the important things in present circumstances. The important things are those that Deputy Dillon spoke about, the ordinary working-class people. That is what we are concerned about. They have short lives to live and the first year of our membership of EEC is important to them. So is the second and the third and fourth and fifth and, for anybody to say that eventually things will be fine, eventually the nation will prosper, eventually German and French people will come in and establish factories, is of little avail. It may be all right for the fathers and mothers, the young men and the young women who will be living in this country ten or 15 or 20 years from now but what we are and should be concerned about are the workers who will be immediately affected by membership of EEC.
In linen, cotton, rayon and footwear industries, there will be unemployment. I do not say there may be unemployment. The report of the CIO Committee which surveyed the industries reports that there will be unemployment. We should face that fact, and I do not think it is sabotage or treason for anybody to talk about the report of a committee set up by the Government which suggests we are going to have such unemployment.
They suggest certain changes but they say that even if these radical changes are effected in these industries, even with that there will be people in those industries who will be rendered unemployed. They have recommended changes in these industries but what I am anxious to know is will these changes be made? Even if they are made, it is said, there will be some unemployment in these industries. These represent only two of the industries they are charged with surveying. I am informed there may be approximately another 50 industries to be surveyed. The pattern, as far as these industries are concerned, shows that there may be 2,000, 3,000 or, at most 4,000, rendered unemployed. Even if these industries change their systems and re-equip, if they do all these things, there will still be numbers who will be rendered unemployed. As Deputy Dillon said, is it pessimism to assume that the motor-car industry will scarcely be able to survive? I do not think we ought to go into these things, but it must be abundantly clear that they have less chance of surviving in the Free Trade Area.
All the reports suggest disemployment. I do not think we should argue about the figures. Some economists say 40,000; other double that figure; and still others have said 100,000. I do not think we should discuss whether it will be 40,000 or 100,000. If it were only 8,000 or 5,000, this House and the Government should be concerned about these people. We want to know how they will be provided for.
It has been suggested that they will be provided for by the European Social Fund, a fund to which we will have access, if we become full members of EEC. I fear there are some people, and at least one Deputy, judging by a speech he made last week, under the impression that this Fund is to be used for compensation for unemployment or that, in fact, it is a sort of slush fund. It should be clear to members of this House at least that it is nothing of the sort but the Taoiseach has not helped the House in the replies he gave when questioned about the purposes for which the European Social Fund might be used. It is not unfair to say that on many occasions his answers have been evasive.
There does seem to exist a wrong impression among some members of the House and among many people outside that the European Social Fund can do more than it is really intended to do. There is a pretty clear definition of the purposes for which this Fund can be used, the details of which are contained in a regulation drawn up by the EEC Commission which states that this Social Fund may be devoted to two particular purposes: one, the re-training or re-settlement of workers for productive employment; and two, as assistance towards wages of workers who were temporarily unemployed as a result of plant conversion and who engage in the production of a new line or range. It seems clear from that that the Fund cannot be used as a slush fund and it certainly cannot be used merely to compensate for absolute unemployment.
There are conditions set out also under which this money may be given to a Member State for the purposes I have mentioned. Assistance toward occupational training of unemployed workers can be granted only if the workers fulfil these conditions: (1) that they have not been able to obtain employment in activities similar to, or on the same level as, the activity they were previously engaged in; (2) that after re-training, they enter new productive employment in the operations for which they have been re-trained and (3), that they have held productive employment for at least six months during the twelve months following the end of the period of training.
It must be pretty clear that this Fund is only to be used to assist workers who are being re-trained for new jobs or rendered unemployed during the period when an industry is being re-equipped or changed in order to fit itself to engage in the production of a new line or a new range. It must also be remembered that any scheme for re-training must have the prior consent of the European Economic Commission. It has been pointed out here that this Fund will contribute only 50 per cent. of the cost of re-training and re-settlement and that this country as a member must contribute its share in accordance with its national income.
Granted, in any case, that we can use the Fund, the question which then poses itself is this: for what are they being trained and for where? It comes down to this question of whether we are going to have the new industries to absorb these people, who will undoubtedly be disemployed as a result of our membership of EEC or, should I say, as a result of the stripping of protection from certain industries. What new jobs will there be?
The Taoiseach hopes there will be new industries. The Taoiseach was questioned about those who will be rendered unemployed and have no chance of re-training or re-settlement. He said, in a sort of aside, that there would be so many industries that we need not worry about unemployment. Questioned further, he said he hoped there would be these industries. I suggest if the Taoiseach has any information he can disclose as to the establishment of new industries, now is the time to give it so as to assure these workers especially in regard to the industries which have been subjected to surveys and reports by the CIO.
The Minister for Industry and Commerce spoke recently and the speech he made on that occasion was not dissimilar to the speeches he frequently makes when he has occasion to open a new factory or a new petrol pump. He spoke last Saturday at the annual dinner of the Insurance Institute of Ireland and said, according to the Sunday Independent of December 9th, that in the first half of the year, 57 new factories were opened or were in course of construction, involving a capital investment of £18,000,000 and with an employment potential of nearly 10,000 people when they were in full production. I do not know how often we have heard forecasts like that. Every factory that is opened starts off with 30 people and eventually, we are told, it will employ about 500. If we added up the maximum forecast for all these industries, we would have to send to Australia, America and England to get people to come to man them.
I hope the Minister's optimism in regard to the 57 factories will be realised but it does not seem to me that these factories, and any other factories we already have in operation, are going to absorb the numbers which will be rendered unemployed. The Committee on Industrial Organisation was charged with this job of surveying industries that they believed might be affected by free trade. They were charged also with making recommendations to the industries which they surveyed and to the Government.
In an interim report, the CIO made certain recommendations to the Government. The principal recommendations are listed in the report and, on page 17, a summary of these principal recommendations is given. They recommend that legislation dealing with industrial grants should be increased to enable An Foras Tionscal to make grants in respect of projects which involve a switch over from one field of activity to another. They say there should be a change in respect of the scheme of technical assistance grants paid by the Department of Industry and Commerce; they make recommendations in respect of the initial allowance and advise that it should be raised; they make a recommendation in respect of loans to industry and in respect of credit facilities; they also make certain recommendations to the Revenue Commissioners.
The Government have accepted all these recommendations and the Government have even gone further and have said that when legislation is introduced and passed in Dáil Éireann to give effect to these recommendations, they will be given effect retrospectively to December 1961, so as to assist those who may be wavering or reluctant to make any change and those who made it any time since December, 1961.
The Government are to be applauded for the speed with which they gave their approval to those recommendations and the way in which they acceded to the recommendation that any changes that would be made would be made retrospective to December 1961. But I want to ask, not so much the Taoiseach, but the House and the country, is there any guarantee or any indication that industries will avail of the Government aid which will be made available to them, when the new legislation will be, we hope, passed in the next session? The Taoiseach himself is sceptical as to whether they will or not. I wonder has there been any change since he spoke here on July 26 last on the Adjournment Debate when, at column 3371 of the Official Report he said:
The number of industrial concerns which have already submitted proposals for State financial aid for re-equipment of their plants and for the expansion of their operations, is still far too few.
I do not know whether or not it is still far too few because we have not any information on them. It is only when an Adjournment Debate is asked for or through Questions that the Government says anything about the Common Market. That is the last we hear of that aspect of the matter and of what is described as the challenge of the Common Market.
It is five months since the Taoiseach made that statement. I want to ask him frankly does he believe, five months afterwards, that Irish industry is measuring up to those responsibilities that the CIO has talked about in regard to certain industries? As I said, the Taoiseach and members of the Government said immediately that they would accept the recommendations of the CIO but there are other recommendations by the CIO. In respect of certain industries, they made particular recommendations and I should like to ask the Taoiseach if there is any evidence that these recommendations are being given effect to. The Government are going to do their job, as far as the recommendations of the CIO are concerned, but is there any indication that Irish industry is going to do its job? If Irish industry either fails or refuses, if it fails to re-equip itself, to change its methods, and to accept the recommendations in respect of marketing, purchasing and so on, what is going to happen? Will we just sit back and say: "Oh, well, Irish industry is not going to do it. What can we do then?"
The Committee on Industrial Organisation in their Third Interim Report had this to say at paragraph 3:
The primary responsibility for preparing itself to meet the trading conditions which will obtain when Ireland joins the EEC rest with industry. A necessary part of these preparations will, in most cases, be the creation of the appropriate organisations to sponsor the measures likely to improve the competitive position of individual industries. It is most desirable, therefore, that the maximum possible initiative in the formation of an Adaptation Council should be taken by the industry concerned. Since the problems to be dealt with by these organisations will vary from one industry to another, it would be unwise to attempt to lay down a standard pattern for them. Each industry must create the institution most suited to its needs.
Paragraph 4 of the Third Interim Report of the Committee on Industrial Organisation goes on to say:
The difficulties facing Irish industry under free trade conditions are so great, however, that means will have to be found to surmount these obstacles. We would urge firms to be guided by the inescapable needs of the situation in approaching the question of setting up these organisations.
The Report goes on to deal with the main purpose of adaptation councils and it makes recommendations in respect of joint marketing, joint purchasing, factory design, training of workers and retraining and resettlement of redundant workers.
I wonder what is being done in respect of those recommendations? It is not an adequate reply for the Government to say: "We have done everything we have been asked. We have provided legislation to assist in re-equipping and changing and we have provided money." If industry does not measure up to what has to be done, what do the Government propose to do? I think the Government will be expected to take steps to ensure that those industries which have a prospect of success in the Common Market are not allowed to fold up. Many workers and many families of workers depend on those industries, industries, which as has been said, have given valuable employment for 20, 30 or 40 years. We as the Parliament, and the Government as an Irish Government, have a duty to ensure that not only will the Government do what is required of them, but that industry will also.
I want to make a brief reference to the speech the Taoiseach delivered himself of in Enniscorthy recently. I would not describe it as a very advisable sort of speech. There is no significance in the fact that he delivered it in Enniscorthy, except, I suppose, the fact that Fianna Fáil did so badly in Wexford in the last general election. I do not think that speech is calculated to get enthusiastic co-operation from all sections of the country. No matter what anyone else may think, I have always regarded the Taoiseach as a very forthright man, a man who did not engage in the same sort of ballyhoo at Fianna Fáil conventions as did his illustrious predecessor.
The Taoiseach seems to be a different man when he gets up before a Fianna Fáil Árd-Fheis, cumann meeting or convention. I would say that the Leader of the Fine Gael Party went even a little overboard during the past 18 months in appearing to give somewhat of a blank cheque to the Taoiseach in regard to our application for membership of the European Economic Community, in the matter of negotiations and in his general attitude. It is not for me to defend Fine Gael— far be it from me that I should have to defend them—but in Enniscorthy the Taoiseach rejected absolutely the support Fine Gael might give, and he wrote off the Labour Party as being a conservative party. The Taoiseach said:
We know from experience that we can expect nothing from the Dáil Labour Party except the repetition of almost meaningless generalities and clichés with a continuous background chorus of pessimism.
The Taoiseach should read the speech which he delivered to the Fianna Fáil Árd-Fheis in which he tried to pretend that the only thing that induced him to go into the European Economic Community was Partition. He trotted out the usual things which his predecessor used to trot out. It is unusual for Deputy Seán Lemass to have to resort to such tactics. I do not think that sort of speech is calculated to get the support — forget about the politicians — of the ordinary people who have so many fears about membership of the European Economic Community, who agree that we should join it in view of our circumstances, but who are fearful of what may happen.
I think the Taoiseach should know also that the questions we have been asking from the Labour Party are the questions the trade unionists of this country are asking. They are the questions which were asked by members who attend the Irish Congress of Trade Unions and by members of the Taoiseach's Party. We have consultations with the Irish Congress of Trade Unions on the various questions which arise in connection with our application for membership of the European Economic Community. We do not want to be the sore thumbs in this business of the Common Market at all. We know that ultimately the fate of all of us will be affected by membership of the European Economic Community, and we hope that membership will have good results.
In the course of his speech, in an effort to whip up support for his Party, not support for the Common Market, the Taoiseach said that Fianna Fáil knew they would have to "go it alone." but that did not worry them. They are brave words but they will not be allowed to "go it alone".
Hear, hear.
They do not represent even 50 per cent. of the country and but for the support of Deputy Sherwin and—I forget who the other distinguished Deputy is——
Two ex-Blueshirts.
The Common Market is not the concern of Fianna Fáil alone. It is my concern; it is the concern of the Labour Party; and it is the concern of every individual in the country. The Taoiseach imagines that he should get a blank cheque for everything, but he will get no blank cheque from the Labour Party if it means that we cannot ask questions in this House, and if it means that we cannot make speeches and tell the people what, in our opinion, membership of the European Economic Community means, what, in our opinion, the results will be and what, in our opinion, should be done by the Government and by private industry. I do not think it is unreasonable that that should be our attitude.
I said some time ago after the Taoiseach made a speech at the Fianna Fáil Ard-Fheis that I would not quiz him about our neutrality any more. He must admit that over the past nine months, he has been sending his outriders to various places in the country, not making specific statements, but trying to insinuate us away from neutrality. It would be much more worthy of the Taoiseach if he came to the House and made a statement to the effect that we should retain our neutrality or abandon it, and then as the elected representatives of the people, we could discuss it in a calm and deliberate way and take a decision on it. His spokesmen made so many different statements that nobody knew what the attitude of the Government was in respect of defence commitments, foreign policy, neutrality and what have you. I suppose it is for that reason that the Minister for External Affairs is afraid to open his mouth on the general question of the European Economic Community.
However, there is another aspect of the European Economic Community I want to mention very briefly as well, that is, the question of association. The Taoiseach dismissed the idea of association in one sentence when he spoke in this House on 5th July, 1961 —"I do not now contend that associate membership is the best thing for us." The Taoiseach did not enlighten us very much in that respect. He should have taken occasion to describe what membership means and what associate membership means. He could have pointed out: "These are the advantages of full membership and here are the full advantages and disadvantages of associate membership" rather than just dismiss the matter in one sentence on 5th July, 1961.
We support the Government's application for membership of the EEC. Let me qualify that by saying that we do so because Britain has made her application. It is inconceivable that we should not be in when Britain is in or out when Britain is out. In saying that, I again want to assure the Taoiseach that as far as the people we represent and the trade unions are concerned, we will continue to ask these questions in Dáil Eireann. We will continue to press the Government to ensure that they will do the job for which we believe they are responsible and that in regard to agriculture and industry, they will also face up to the responsibilities to ensure that membership of the EEC for this country will not mean disruption of people's lives but will mean benefits and advantages for them.
I could speak for hours on this question of Ireland's application for admission to full membership of the Common Market but I do not propose to take up very much of the time of the House because this grave decision on the part of the Government will, I think, in the long run, and in spite of the Government, have to be decided by the people, either through a general election or a referendum.
I should like to start with a quotation from a Dáil debate—an Adjournment Debate, too, which took place in this House on 26th April, 1960. I am quoting from Column 54 of the Official Report:
The best situation possible for us would be association with the Common Market, if Britain were also a member of it, on a basis which satisfactorily took account of our economic circumstances.
That statement was made by the present Taoiseach. That is the stand which we propose to take and which we have taken in connection with Ireland's position vis-à-vis the Common Market countries. We believe that Ireland's best hope is association with the EEC, provided Britain becomes a full member but only if Britain becomes a full member.
While it was in many ways very useful and desirable to have the Fine Gael position clarified, at the same time, I am convinced that Deputy Dillon was not completely frank with the public on what the advantages of association would mean over and above the responsibilities and the commitments attached to full membership of the EEC. In spite of all the talk in the past, in spite of all the talk from the Government about sinking the ships, burning the British coal, the British market being gone forever, it is beyond contradiction that Britain is our best market today.
There is nothing illogical in suggesting that we can have the same access to the British market if Britain is a full member of EEC and we get terms in association with the Common Market. We still have the same right of access to the British market as we have today and we will not have the commitments to which the Taoiseach is trying to commit us if we become full members. As it stands, our biggest export is agricultural produce. At the present time we supply only 5 per cent. of the British market, although we have preferential rights in that market. We have the same rights in that market as the Commonwealth countries, although we are not members of the Commonwealth. We have the best of two worlds in that regard. We have preferential treatment in the British market over and above the European countries but we have never taken full advantage of that market. It is ridiculous to suggest that this small country, which was described by the Taoiseach in this House as a so-called less developed country, can hope to compete with the highly industrialised members of the EEC, if our application for full membership is accepted.
I am very glad of one thing so far. We know where Fine Gael stand. I think that all along the line there was one individual in this House consistent in his approach to this matter, that is Deputy Dillon. He was consistent down through the years. He was consistent in 1943 and 1944 when he left his Party on the question of neutrality. He was consistent right up along the line and his attitude today is perfectly consistent with his attitude in the past. I should like to know whether he has converted the people who support his Party to the view which he held from 1940 to 1945 and by reason of which he had to leave his Party. He is perfectly consistent and honest in his approach but I am afraid the same cannot be said of Fianna Fáil, of the present Government.
I do not propose to go into detail in regard to the various statements made by the Taoiseach there, at dinners, to American Columnists, European journalists and all sorts of people. In this House, Deputy Dr. Browne and I have sought all along every week to pin him down so that not alone we but the Irish public would know what was in his mind or to which of those statements or policies he was committed. Deputy Dillon pointed out here that at the recent Árd-Fhéis, for the purpose of calming the fears of the members who were present, the Taoiseach suggested that there was no question at all of the defence or political implications to which Deputies referred, that, naturally enough, if there were a loose federation in Europe there would be a certain amount of co-operation on defence, and so forth.
While he was at that, around the same time, we had Senator Ryan speaking in Strasbourg on the position as far as Ireland was concerned. He was repeating what his leader had said to the American journalist: we were prepared to accept full political commitments and defence commitments in EEC; and the same Senator had the audacity to go on to say that he had sympathy for Sweden, Switzerland and Austria as neutrals. He begged the EEC members to try to fit in these three neutrals in some form of association. He regretted the fact that it was difficult for these three neutrals to get in. The Swedish delegate, a member of the Swedish Parliament, who was present, thanked Senator Ryan for his sympathy and said that he recollected that it was not so long ago that Ireland was in a difficult situation of being a neutral as well.
Overnight, we threw overboard the idea of neutrality and the suggestion is now made that those who stand firm on the issue of neutrality are to be described either as Communists or, in the words of the Taoiseach, as well-meaning people who are the dupes of Communist propaganda.
I should like to quote from debates in this House on the question of neutrality a speech made by a former Taoiseach not so long ago. At column 931 of Volume 112, on the question of Partition and neutrality, the former Taoiseach said:
This island as a whole is national territory .... We have this single unit which was the national territory and that has been cut up.
He went on to say:
It seems to us to be ridiculous that we should be asked to join in and create a large block in Europe or anywhere else, that there should be this attempt to bring nations together that have been separated and try to unify them when, at the very same time, a nation which has been one for all these centuries is being kept cut in two despite the expressed will of the vast majority of the people.
That statement was made by the then Taoiseach, Mr. de Valera.
In 1955, in this House, the then Taoiseach, Mr. de Valera, commenting on a speech made by Deputy Liam Cosgrave on the danger of isolation of this country in the debate on External Affairs, said—Volume 152, column 550—
As I have said, we have to be careful once there is a suggestion of entering into arrangements which involve military alliances.
He went on to say:
I do not know what precise significance has to be attached to the Minister's phrase—
the Minister was Deputy Cosgrave—
but if it simply means that it is not right to suggest that we wish a policy of isolation, a policy of keeping apart as if we alone existed on this planet, then, of course, that is common sense and everybody agrees with it.
This is the significant bit:
However, if there is behind it a suggestion that we should enter into warlike combinations, then I think we would want to watch our steps very carefully indeed. Our history is there with a warning finger to us as to what is likely to happen if we do it. I know all the arguments that would be put forward, but we ought, at least, to learn something from our past and I hope that those warnings from the past will be borne in mind by the Government.
That was the speech of the former Taoiseach on the question of joining any military alliance in Europe and on the question of neutrality and today the suggestion is made that those who support the view expressed by the former Taoiseach of Fianna Fáil are well-meaning dupes of Communist propaganda, or worse.
The major Parties in this House will have to reassess the position. They have no mandate at this stage from the people to say that neutrality goes by the board. Nobody except Deputy Dillon, to my knowledge, questioned the idea of neutrality from 1949 until 1961. It was not a dirty word then. While Nazi Germany exterminated human beings all over Germany, Ireland saw nothing wrong with standing by and being neutral. Mr. de Valera, the then Taoiseach, paid the usual tributes by lowering the National Flag to half-mast on the death of Hitler. We were neutral then. and the Russian Bear was still in the background. We were neutral then. But overnight—overnight—we changed our views.
From 1949 until 1961, the people were told by the inter-Party Government and by Fianna Fáil that we could not enter into any military alliance with Britain on the ground that, if we did enter a form of alliance known as NATO, we would be recognising Partition, recognising Britain's right to the Six Countries. The Taoiseach, who was then Tánaiste, went to Ottawa in 1953 and spoke to the Bar Association there and said that we could not join NATO, that we could not even consider joining NATO because if we did, the Articles of NATO are such that joining it would mean we had to recognise that Partition exists.
The then Tánaiste came back and the matter was discussed in this House when I raised some questions on it. His leader said: "Of course, that is correct." But here, last March, in reply to a Dáil Question in which I asked the Taoiseach what was the present position, he is on record in this House as saying:
I never read the articles of NATO until the Deputy's questions were put down and when I did read them I found they did not carry the implications which have been put on them.
Yet, he went to Ottawa in 1953 and said we could not join NATO on account of the implications of these Articles. Who is going to believe this man?
I want to make it quite clear that I think the attempt of this Taoiseach to use the apartheid tactics he has used in this House and outside it is contemptible. I can assure him that I am not afraid or ashamed to stand up in any part of this country and say that I stand for neutrality, that I am prepared to stand for that and I do not give a damn what I am called. It is a weak argument that the only description the Taoiseach can give of me is that I am a dupe of Khrushchev or somebody else. I have quoted his former leader on this question of neutrality but the situation is even worse than that.
Deputy Dillon referred to the fact that Fine Gael restrained themselves over the past 18 months and did not talk about the Congo, or the particular occasion when Irish troops were used, or misused, whichever is the case. What is the position now? As far as the Taoiseach is concerned, we are committed to the idea of a European defence pact, if we join the Common Market. We will abide by what the Belgians want, what the French want, and what the British want; and they are the three nations at the present moment which are likely, through their machinations behind the scenes, to cause the deaths of Irish soldiers in the Congo.
In the United Nations, we are preaching neutrality, or, at least, up to last month, we were preaching neutrality. We were asked to supply soldiers to the Congo because it was believed in the United Nations that we were neutral. We have allowed Irish troops to be slaughtered in the name of neutrality. Now it is tried to suggest that we are not neutral. Do the deaths of these young Irish soldiers mean nothing to this Government and to the Leader of the Opposition?
The Minister for External Affairs spoke at the United Nations. I should like to have what he said on the record in case Deputies, and others, do not believe my word. Speaking in March, 1961, he had this to say to the General Assembly:
We, too, wish not to be drawn into the cold war, and have consistently avoided being drawn into it. We are an independent country, not a member of any military alliance, and not subservient to any state or group of states, but it is precisely because we are not involved in the cold war and do not wish the world to be frozen into a system of blocs or divided into zones of great power influences that we think it is necessary to speak up in the United Nations.
If that is not good enough for Deputies, I shall quote his speech here on 7th July, 1959:
I should like to put this question to the members of the principal Opposition Party, whether we should by loud mouth and bellicose participation in a cold war help to speed up the nuclear war in which, as I see it, there could be no victory for any nation or for any cause, including the cause of Christian civilisation.
That is in reply to the bellicose talk of Deputy Dillon about joining the big bloc, helping to increase, if only in a small way, international and world tension. But that is exactly what this Government propose to do now, in complete contradiction of the views expressed by the Minister for External Affairs.
I charge the Government with the misuse of young Irishmen in the Congo. If they are serious in their statements that this country is not now neutral, then we are not entitled to risk the lives of Irishmen in the Congo in the cause of world peace. We were sent there to keep peace because of Ireland's great stand on neutrality over the years and her policy of non-alignment, as expressed by the Minister for External Affairs in the United Nations, then and for the future. But that has gone by the board. The minute the Taoiseach changed his mind about that he should have sent a cablegram notifying the Secretary General of the United Nations that we were no longer neutral, and that we can no longer leave our troops in the Congo. We can no longer risk Irish lives because our policy has changed and our Irish troops should be here at home in Ireland, if the Government are genuine in the views they are expressing now. I hope that nothing will happen as far as our troops are concerned.
I have to refer now, though I hate having to do so, to this propaganda campaign engaged in all over the country by Fianna Fáil that those of us who ask questions on the Common Market here and who oppose Ireland's full membership of it are Communists or Reds. The Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Lands spent his time going into every hole and corner of Roscommon whispering that I am a Communist. He has got the support of a local paper now which prints huge posters, plasters them all over the constituency, suggesting that because I oppose Ireland's entry as a full member into the Common Market, I am a Communist.
Let me clarify the position. I am on record at the last general election as stating openly and publicly that I was against Ireland going into the Common Market on a full membership basis and that associate membership, with access to the British market, was the proper approach by the Government. For that speech, I was attacked as being a Communist. The man who attacked me scraped in on my surplus votes. I headed the poll in the county. That should be a lesson to everyone tempted to engage in that campaign in future. They may do this, and more, but I am not concerned for my own personal security. I am concerned for the unfortunate gullibles we have in our midst who swallow that filthy type of propaganda. Thanks be to God, the number of such people is growing less as people become more educated. There is a limited number of them now.
I shall not bore the House with quotations, but I remember the President, as Deputy de Valera, making a speech four years ago at the Árd-Fheis, speaking of Ireland's independence, her work in the United Nations, and her neutrality. He got a standing ovation for four minutes. They nearly lit candles to him, his Party henchmen in the Mansion House. Last October, when the present Taoiseach got up and gave away the whole show that we were no longer neutral, the same people got up and cheered him four minutes. By that, we can judge the standard of intelligence at these meetings. Let them not think for a moment that the Irish people are behind them.
I shall say no more about this question of neutrality, but I should like to comment briefly on the situation with regard to the economic implications involved for this country if our application for membership of the Common Market is accepted. As I see it, Ireland is in the position of the amateur versus the professional. I do not think any Irishman would attempt to run in the Olympic Games unless he had first-class training and the technique and experience necessary. I do not think any Irishman would attempt to box in these Games. If he did go into the ring, he would be slaughtered. We have the position politically that this country has been cut off by this Government for years. Now, overnight, they want to go in and join the professionals.
Is it sensible to go for full membership? I pose this question to the Government and their supporters: Is it sensible at this stage to go for full membership? Is it not a fact that only three years ago the Taoiseach and all his advisers in their discussions with EFTA agreed that Ireland, Greece, Turkey and Iceland—I will quote the Taoiseach's words—"were the so-called less developed countries". Those are his words taken from the Official Report of 26th April, 1960, column 51.
Deputy Dillon said here that all the blarney and all the talk by the Taoiseach was not going to pull the wool over the eyes of the cold statisticians and economists who would examine Ireland's case for full membership. All the blarney and high-faluting talk by the Taoiseach will not impress people who have listened to the Irish technical advisers, who for the last five years have been in Strasbourg and at discussions between EFTA members, putting up the case for special treatment for Ireland, saying that Ireland, Greece, Iceland and Turkey should get special treatment because they are under developed and that we could not stand the full blast of competition with the other members of EFTA and EEC. How did we come overnight to be in a position to compete? How did we come overnight to be in a position to break down all the tariff walls, how do we come to be in a position overnight to say that full employment will continue in this country, that we are not afraid of an influx of foreigners here to purchase the land of Ireland?
I cannot understand what kind of lunacy is in the Government's mind in face of the fact that, three years ago, they were pleading for special treatment for Ireland as an under-developed country. Now the Taoiseach pushes out his chest and says we are as good as any of them in the Common Market. I think I am more realistic than the Taoiseach on that. If he wants to go for full membership of EEC, why does he not take his time and try out associate membership first, where we can get the very same terms as Greece has got? But no. As far as I can judge—and the same applies to the Fine Gael Party—the word "association" seems to be a dirty word. Sweden is looking for association; Austria and Switzerland are looking for association. Do they come under the same suggestion that they are the dupes of Communism because they apply for association?
It has been suggested in this House, and I will not quote the figures or statements again for the Taoiseach's benefit, that access to the European Development Fund and to the European Social Fund was solely available to countries which had full membership of EEC. Deputy Norton—I do not know whether deliberately or for the purpose of bluffing—came along and asked the Taoiseach: "Is it not a fact that, unless we are a full member of EEC, there will be no access to the European Social Fund for the retraining of our workers"? The Taoiseach's reply was: "That is so."
If these two Deputies took the trouble to look up the agreement made between Greece and the Common Market countries, they would find that they have access to the European Social Fund. In the first five years of her association, Greece has got 125,000,000 dollars for development purposes and she has from 12 to 24 years for the lowering of her tariffs, so that her industries will not be wiped out overnight by the competition which would come if she looked for full membership. I think the terms which Greece has got as an associate of the Common Market are first-class. She has got special facilities for her chief agricultural products.
Are not the same facilities available to us, if we want them? Evidently we do not want them. In spite of what Deputy Dillon says about unemployment, apparently we are not interested. We only want to be in in time to have a say in the EEC policy on defence and on the political commitments. Did anybody ever hear anything so daft in their born days? A minute later Deputy Dillon asked us how he would explain the position to an unfortunate man in Sligo, how that man was to fare as regards his job, how he was to be able to keep his daughter in a convent and his son at school. He said he would not be able to tell that man, and I agree with him.
I can tell Deputy Dillon he will be perfectly safe in telling him that there is no effort being made by the Government to ensure that that man's occupation is maintained or that he will be re-trained for a job here. Deputy Dillon can tell that man that it is quite likely he will get a job in Germany or France as a result of Fine Gael's support of Fianna Fáil on this question of full membership, because the two major parties are in it now up to their necks. They are deliberately putting the question of prestige, or so-called prestige, before the livelihood of the Irish people in this country. They want to have a say in the Common Market in the making of defence policy. Did you ever hear anything so daft?
At the same time, all they do is to worry and deplore the fact that anything from 70,000 to 100,000 Irish men and women will lose their jobs if we are given full membership. To me, the most important thing is the livelihood of Irish men and women and their right to live and work in this country. We have had too much talk in the past about prestige; we know where it led us and where it will lead us again.
I make no apology to anybody for raising questions here. Somebody asked what will happen to the car industry? Will it not go to the wall? Will there not be big unemployment in the footwear industry? Is it not a fact that 80 of the firms in this country concerned in the manufacture of iron and steel have been told that unless they amalgamate into six units and spend £1,500,000 immediately, 2,500 of their workers will straight away lose their jobs out of a total of 4,800?
Is it not a fact that, as far as grants are concerned, while the Government are now giving to industrialists replacement time to bring in new machinery, that machinery could not be got within the next two or three years? I am at a loss to understand why the Government cannot do what they did two or three years ago—say realistically that we are not up to the standard of France or Germany, that we are underdeveloped, that it is not our fault, that we would like to have association at this stage instead of full membership which would be non-sensical at this time.
I have yet to hear a word in this debate about the future of the small farmer in Ireland in the Common Market. Any reports I have read or any study I have made of reports by experts, or so-called experts, and economists on the implications for agriculture of full membership lead me to the belief that Ireland's role in the Common Market will be, as far as agriculture is concerned, that of a beef ranch. No one among the bigger farmers in this country or in the Government can honestly suggest that things will be all right as far as agriculture is concerned. In my opinion, they will not be all right.
It may be suggested that Irish milk, Irish butter and Irish bacon will have access to Germany, France and other countries in Europe. Is it not a fact that these countries are self-sufficient in all of these commodities that we produce, with the possible exception of beef? Do we not know that beef is the only foodstuff at the moment that Ireland is noted for producing? Therefore, is it not the position that Ireland will be moving into the European market on beef alone? There is no suggestion that the higher prices that may obtain for milk and butter will be of any benefit to Ireland, if we are to pay transport charges from here to the Continent and then compete in countries where costs are equal or even a little higher.
Even though we will have free access to these markets, we will not be able to sell, where the market is full, and at the present time there is a likelihood of surpluses in these countries. If that is to go on, where do we stand? Why not concentrate on the British market? Why not stick to the idea that, if Britain did go in, we should look for associate membership at this stage and try to retain our rights on the British market?
This Government would be far wiser—instead of going over to meet representatives of Western Germany and making a big hullabaloo with the Chancellor there, and other people— to look across the sea where the British market is available for us. I do not say anything about Germany or France at this stage except to pose a question for the Christians in this House who believe that this European set-up will save Christianity. The two biggest Communist parties in Europe, outside the Iron Curtain, are in France and Italy. If there is a question of General de Gaulle going and if, as is quite likely to happen, the situation in Southern Italy does not improve, it is quite possible that the very people about whom the Taoiseach is worried, the Communists, would be in a very strong position in EEC.
It would be priceless to see the Taoiseach, the Tánaiste and Deputy Dillon sitting on the benches in the European Parliament side by side with these people. It is not as strange as it may appear. The stability of some of these Governments is very doubtful. I shall not go any further into it. There is the other possibility. Germany, which has never been really democratic, may be the cause of another war over the partition of Germany. Is this small country, which itself is divided, to be dragged into an alliance that would cause Irish troops to be used to fight in respect of a divided Germany? All those points should be mentioned. The Irish people should be told about them.
Having said all that, I want to conclude on this note. I believe, and I have said it quite openly all along, that our application for full membership will not be accepted. I also believe that in Britain there will be a general election before any final decision on the Common Market is made. I believe the British public have their ear to the ground.
The unemployment situation in Britain is getting worse. The British people consider that employment is a most vital thing. They do not want a repetition of what happened before the Labour Government went into office in 1945. I believe they will have an election in which a decision by the British public will be made. My forecast is that they will elect a Labour Government who will not accept the terms being put up by the people in Brussels. Taking all these things into consideration, is it not fair to suggest that the Taoiseach was most unwise to jump the gun, to put in his application for full membership even before the British made their formal application?
I appeal to the Taoiseach, at this stage, to have the whole question reconsidered as far as the Irish public are concerned. The best way he can do that is to let the people decide. No decision has been made by the Irish people. All the talk in this Parliament about our being committed to full membership is tommyrot. The Irish people will have to make that decision through a referendum. There is a duty on the Government to put all the aspects of the proposition before the public—the implications, military and defence commitments, political commitments, dangers of unemployment, advantages and disadvantages of association. All these things should be put before the Irish public. I think all of us, as democratic people and as a democratic nation, will accept what the Irish people want. However, I think they should be given the truth and then be allowed to decide.
I am reluctant to intervene and I shall not keep the House long. This debate is an occasion for a field day for the Opposition. I feel impelled to intervene because Deputy Dillon some time ago wrote a letter to the newspapers in which he made a rather Delphic reference to speeches by the Fianna Fáil representatives in Strasbourg. Subsequentially he made a similar reference in this House. Only this morning did he elaborate on what he was referring to. I feel I should set the record straight.
In the course of the debate this morning, Deputy Dillon said:
In the course of the debate——
—referring to the debate at Strasbourg——
—I understood my colleagues, Deputy Colley, Deputy Cummins and Senator Ryan, representing the Fianna Fáil Party, to say that they had been charged to inform the Council of Europe that the decision of the Irish Government was to enter the Common Market whether Great Britain did or did not.
Let me say by way of comment on that that the representatives of the Fianna Fáil Party, the Fine Gael Party and the Labour Party in Strasbourg are representatives of this Parliament and not of the Government.
Deputy Dillon continued:
I had to ask myself in the course of the debate would it serve the best interests of this country for me to flatly contradict what they had said and say that the head of the Irish Government never said any such thing. What he actually said was that he would wish to pursue the Irish application for admission to the European Economic Community if it were economically possible to do so.
Later on, Deputy Dillon said:
Deputy Colley is quite mistaken if he believes that I was the only one at the Council of Europe that misunderstood what he and his colleagues said.
I should like to make quite clear, and I challenge Deputy Dillon, from the records, to contradict this, that neither Deputy Cummins nor I when speaking at Strasbourg made any reference whatsoever to this matter. The only one who did so was Senator Ryan and he said, as reported in Document A.S.(14)C.R.15 issued by the Council of Europe:
Although we would wish to join the Community, even if Britain did not find it possible to do so, nevertheless it is true that if Britain were not a Member it would create very special and very difficult problems for us.
Deputy Dillon suggested, as shown in the previous quotation, that other people at the Council of Europe besides himself had been misled in this matter. He referred to Senator Voss, the rapporteur, and said that, when replying to the debate, Senator Voss said he had noted with great interest the statement of the Irish delegates from the Fianna Fáil Party that the Irish Government wanted to go into the Community, whether or not Britain entered it. What Senator Ryan said was the only reference made in that regard.
I suggest that Deputies can judge whether, on the basis of what Senator Ryan said, Deputy Dillon or anybody else could possibly have been misled as to the position. While it may be unnecessary in some people's view to hold up the debate to deal with this rather small point, I suggest it is worth while to have the record set straight. I trust Deputy Dillon will not repeat the statements he made and hinted at in the past in this regard.
The Taoiseach should be very grateful to Deputy Dillon for the extensive survey he gave in relation to the policy and outlook of the Fine Gael Party on Ireland's application for membership of EEC. I hope that, when the Taoiseach comes to reply, he will make a constructive speech. I hope he will not make the sort of political speech he made at Enniscorthy which has no meaning and no relevance to the actual facts.
First of all, I should like to deal with the agricultural prospects of Ireland's application to the Common Market. I hasten to reassure Deputy McQuillan that it does not necessitate this country's becoming a cattle ranch. The possibilities within the Common Market for agricultural produce are extensive. It must be borne in mind that the European Economic Community, consisting of only six countries, is short of beef and coarse grains and is importing considerable quantities of processed horticultural, agricultural and other products. It must be remembered also that the application by the Irish Government, in spite of what the Taoiseach says, boils down to the fact that if the United Kingdom goes in, we go in and that, added to the already existing European market, there will be the purchasing power of the United Kingdom. Therefore, I hazard the guess, as one who has had an opportunity of studying the agricultural position both at the Council of Europe and the Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations, that there are considerable potentialities for the export of Irish agricultural material into the Common Market, considerably so in the event of the United Kingdom being a member but also failing the presence of the United Kingdom within that body, in the light of the shortage of beef and coarse grains and processed agricultural products which will remain into the forseeable future.
That does not mean we are entering an economic paradise and that we need not try to put our house in order agriculturally as well as industrially. We must try to be competitive and to produce the agricultural article that is actually sought within the confines of that market. Great study will have to be given to that. A heavy job lies ahead of advisory bodies such as the Agricultural Institute, the Committees of Agriculture, the Department of Agriculture and those who are responsible for our agricultural policy. Whether they have taken any strong action in that regard already, I am not in a position to say. They may have done so. Beyond certain action on the part of the Agricultural Institute itself, I have not noticed much activity in the Department of Agriculture to prepare this country for the European Economic Community. Perhaps they have been lulled into a sense of false security that the potential is so great for agricultural produce that it is not necessary to do that. I hasten to tell them it is one of the matters to which they should give the most active and urgent consideration.
With regard to our industrial future in Europe, there is no gainsaying that in entering free trade and free competition we shall be facing terrific difficulties. We face these difficulties by virtue of the fact that our industries, as a result perhaps of our political history, and so on, have been built up under the shadow of extensive tariffs. Last May I was in the Federal Republic of Germany as a guest of the German Government and I had the opportunity of speaking to many industrialists there who had their parent firm in Germany and a firm in this State. I discussed with them the potential they considered would exist for Ireland in the event of our joining the European Economic Community as a full member.
I got this information from them definitely and dogmatically, that where the parent firm had a branch here for the purpose of developing and enabling them to meet the market they were unable to develop themselves by virtue of a shortage of manpower, and so on. Where the product was exported back under the marketing jurisdiction of the parent firm, they believed these firms could survive and expand. However, I was also told that in many cases this would not be so. Many of these industries were open today by virtue of the fact that industrialists felt they would like to have an investment in some other country, far away from the Iron Curtain, which, of course, is a source of apprehension for every European who lives near it. Where they set up here for the purpose of having an investment in the event of the European Economic Community embracing Ireland in full membership, those firms would have little or no hope of surviving.
Our industrialists will face great difficulties within the Common Market if we are a full member. I do not consider that the Taoiseach who is supposed to be the architect of industry in this country has taken the public into full consideration. In all these long rambling statements made at Chambers of Commerce in Bonn and elsewhere, I do not think he has attempted to make clear to the Irish people, to industrialists, workers and others, the difficulties and dangers we must face.
One of the things which is absolutely essential is that there should be some body to co-ordinate all the different types of industries into one section, so that they may export together. There may be half a dozen firms manufacturing some products here in competition with one another but that does not mean they need be in competition when they are trying to export. Where they have the economic viability to exist alone, they could unite among themselves for the purpose of exporting their products into the markets which will be so competitive in the future.
A small example of that is what has been done by the Irish distillers, though not to the extent I would like to see. While they are rivals at home in the domestic market, they unite in trying to secure the best terms they can for an export market. We cannot hope to succeed otherwise. We cannot hope to compete with the bigger industrial organisations in Europe, unless we make this united effort here at home. It would be far better if the Taoiseach's efforts were directed towards creating that attitude of mind rather than towards making speeches indicating that we are fully competitive and that Irish industry is geared to meet the competition it has to face.
It is the duty of the Government to give leadership in that regard. Therefore I welcome this debate. We have tried, as Deputy Dillon said, to avoid creating embarrassment for the Government when they are negotiating abroad but I want to make one or two references to the negotiations abroad. Listening to Parliamentary Questions in this House and to the statements of ministerial representatives mostly outside this House, I can find no evidence of any official negotiations of any kind having taken place with the United Kingdom in relation to the Common Market. Only last week I put a question down to the Taoiseach in reference to the negotiating body of civil servants we send to London to try to ascertain if they were in any way concerned with the Common Market negotiations, and the answer I got was "No." I categorically questioned the Taoiseach on several occasions as to whether there were any negotiations, and the answer I always got was "No." Still, according to the Taoiseach, we are accepting the full political implications of the Common Market and, by inference, we are accepting apparently the defence commitments. Politically, Europe will be one and, as such, will have the same political and defence policies.
I should like to tell the House something about my visit to Bonn. When I was in Bonn last May, I was invited to a function at which there were present ambassadors and higher civil servants. A question was posed to me by a distinguished European civil servant, whose actual work is in the office dealing with applications for membership of EEC. He repeatedly asked me was Ireland going to join NATO. I replied I had not the decision in that matter, one way or the other. He posed that question time and again. Eventually I asked him what he meant by it, what was the inference behind it. The answer was: If Ireland joins NATO, everything else will follow.
I do not know if there is any connection but it was when the Taoiseach went to Bonn—I think I am correct in saying in October—that he made the statement that Ireland was prepared to accept the full political implications of the Common Market and, by inference—I do not think I am doing him any injustice when I say this— the defence commitments as well. I wonder if he was asked the same question as I was asked? I wonder if that was what inspired him to say that? I wonder had he got a whisper that if Ireland was not prepared to accept the full implications, politically and otherwise, our application might not be as successful as he is endeavouring to lead the Irish people to believe?
The Taoiseach has misled the Irish people. He has tried to create the image that he is leading Ireland triumphantly into the Common Market. I do not think it is unjust to say that. No member of the Government has suggested or categorically stated that any negotiations whatever are going on. It is of course true, as Deputy Dillon said this morning, that the Danes and the Norwegians are negotiating, and everybody knows the United Kingdom is negotiating and that the negotiations are going on slowly. From my experience of international organisations and the general usage concerned with them, it is possible to have observers there. I have never known anyone with an interest in any discussions going on within an international organisation to be refused observer status. Once or twice I suggested to the Taoiseach that we should have observer status at these negotiations. His answer was that he did not consider it necessary, that he had all the information he wanted from our ambassadors abroad.
I cannot understand that attitude at all. The negotiations we will have in this country must be difficult. It is not a question of walking in, signing the treaty and getting in as full members. There are many factors to be discussed, political, technical and otherwise. Are the Government serious in their approach, or are they just waiting and hoping the United Kingdom will get in? According to the applications they have made, if the United Kingdom gets in, then the Danes and the Norwegians will get in. Are we waiting in the hope that we will quietly go in after them without any negotiations? The Taoiseach should clarify that position in the House.
Reference has been made to external association and the views of the two major Parties in reference to it. There are five applications for external association at present—not three, as has been stated. There are the three neutralist countries, Sweden, Austria and Switzerland. Sweden has more or less become a traditional neutralist. Austria has to be neutral by virtue of her treaty with the Soviet Union, who cleared out of there after the war. The Swiss are traditionally neutral for various reasons. The other applicants are Spain and Portugal. Turkey is making an application for externalassociation also and negotiations are actually in progress at present.
The Greeks made an application for external application and received exceedingly favourable terms. But there is this to remember in the terms the Greeks received. They received particularly favourable terms because they have very heavy defence commitments. Defence accounts for about 46 per cent. of the Greek Budget. It is as high as that. For that purpose, the economy has been taxed severely, and therefore they were given these particularly favourable terms. But they had to negotiate hard and long for them.
That brings me to the Social Fund. It was stated here that the Social Fund is one of the facilities confined purely to full membership. In this case, the terms were waived so far as the Greeks were concerned and they were allowed access to the Social Fund to the extent of about £40,000,000 over a certain period. They were also allowed very advantageous loan terms, but they had to negotiate hard and long for them.
I want to pose this question to the Taoiseach. In the event of Ireland not being accepted as a full member, has he ever given thought to negotiations for external association? If the United Kingdom were accepted and if, for any reason or other, we and the other countries were not accepted, has he ever given any thought to any negotiations to clarify our position? The situation we are facing is serious. The Government are not taking into full consideration all these implications. The fact that while every other country is negotiating, we are represented in London solely by civil servants and are represented in Brussels, Bonn, Rome and Paris by our ambassadors is indicative of the fact that the Government are merely chancing their arm. The Taoiseach is trying to create an image of himself as the great European who is going to lead us into the Common Market. To do that, much negotiation is necessary and there is much hard work to be done and the Taoiseach cannot hope to come back and give us the full picture of the situation unless he is properly advised over there and unless he has people to advise him.
In conclusion, I say the time has come when somebody at the political level should be present and should be privy to all the negotiations and, if that is not the case, we shall find in the end that we will be sold down the river.
I prefer to be more homely in my contribution to this debate than all the contributions so far and to suggest where the Government have failed and where they might not have failed in the preparations for our eventual entry into the Common Market.
The Taoiseach, in his speech on the Estimate for his Department on 26th July, 1962, as reported in No. 19 of Volume 196 at column 3360, said:
Agriculture's contribution to the national income has fallen from 29.3 per cent. of the total in 1953 to the 1961 figure of 24 per cent.
There have been no spectacular increases in the other spheres of our economy since 1953. It is a dreadful condemnation that over that period, with not one field in five giving its optimum production, the percentage share of agriculture in which we have a wonderful potential, has dropped by five per cent.
In his speech then, the Taoiseach made no further reference of any importance to agriculture but, when the Dáil was safely adjourned, he betook himself to the Muintir na Tíre rural week at Thurles on August 14th. He there outlined, as Taoiseach and Leader of the Government what should have been a more important statement than any that could have been made by his Minister for Agriculture, his plans for land and for agriculture.
I listed some of his proposals and the first was that there would be 45-acre holdings because, within the Common Market, it would be impossible to have people here trying to compete from the much smaller holdings the Land Commission were giving. Of course, he did not give any more money for this and he has had all the opportunities in the world since August 14th until now, almost December 14th to introduce any supplementary estimate he wished for the Department of Lands but he did not do it. All we have in relation to that facet of his policy, in regard to entry into the Common Market and the size of holdings, is a reduction in the number of holdings that can be given to those who require them because no money has been provided.
The next statement he made on this occasion was that he would provide 50 per cent. of the purchase price and cost of development for these 45-acre farms. The truth is, if one looks up the relevant Estimate, that the cost at the moment of development and purchase of any Land Commission holding is far over 50 per cent. and that must be so by the time you provide outbuildings related to the size of the holding. The same must be the case in regard to 45-acre holdings.
Here we have two examples of the Taoiseach, with his wonderful language and his beautiful way of glossing over facts, producing something that the man down the country is expected to understand in the way the Taoiseach means him to understand it, while it is really only hot air and means nothing. Yet, he had to compete with the statement of the Fine Gael Party that, if elected to office, they would provide, if the farmers would co-operate with the advisory services, £1,000 free of interest for any approved project and he said in Thurles that he would give interest-free loans restricted to those who got exchange holdings. That meant, in fact, that he would give interest-free loans to those who gave up a small farm to get a bigger one from the Land Commission. Deputy Blowick on my left could tell us how many people that would be. The whole thing means that the Taoiseach and his Party have no interest in increasing agricultural production.
One aspect of that speech in Thurles was most objectionable. The Taoiseach said that he intended, also as a measure to fit Ireland for the Common Market, to introduce legislation to enable the Land Commission to purchase holdings from old people and acquire them compulsorily. I have had some experience of this and it is true that there are times when old people for 10 or 15 years may be resident on a farm but are physically incapable of working it. It is socialism of the worst description in my opinion that the State should change legislation so as to make it easier to take the farms from these people.
I say that because usually you find there is a nephew or some other relative ready to take over the land as soon as the old people have passed away and they do not take it over during the lifetime of the old people because the old couple want to live there in retirement. If that is the Taoiseach's main list of suggestions for Irish agriculture in the Common Market, it is no wonder the share of agriculture in the national income has fallen since 1953 because our greatest potential, so far as production is concerned, is being starved.
Fianna Fáil have changed their attitude towards grain-growers. The great slogans that we had, "Grow More Wheat" and "Speed the Plough" seem to have become a little rusty. We gather this more by the silence of the Minister for Agriculture and the Taoiseach on these matters than by anything they have said. Fianna Fáil always say they want to increase agricultural production but if you take their performance rather than what they say, you find that they do not want to increase agricultural production because the marketing of that extra production would be to them something unwanted and quite difficult.
It is necessary to point out that there are facets of our agricultural production which if neglected will have a very serious effect on our economy. Apart from the purchase of fertilisers, of machinery and all that, wheat, for instance, produces a market at a minimum value in money of £6,000,000 per year and this at a much lower inclusion of grist than is normally provided. At the same time purchases of feed by farmers, coarse grains as referred to by Deputy Esmonde, cost £19,000,000 on the average yearly. We have 12,000,000 acres of arable land which could produce this grain and yet the Taoiseach and his Government are embarrassed by the fact that we have, perhaps, a little bit too much wheat and they have made an arrangement, perhaps, to get the barley crop taken up. They have given free imports of offals to certain people.
The question is simply one involving nothing more than changing the setup. There is no reason why a change cannot be made. I pose the question as to how the ordinary man or, indeed, an extraordinary man, can understand why at the moment we are importing pollards at £21 or £22 per ton, why, at the moment we are exporting our own feed wheat at £17 15s. per ton and at the same time charging our own people £22 per ton for the same product.
These are figures that I have provided from my own knowledge of the business and they are not a week old. Nobody in my opinion, from the most informed person down to the farmer living at the end of a farm who reads only one paper each day, can understand that. There are anomalies in the agreements and they can be changed but the Taoiseach must accept that this particular cereal market for the Irish farmer is far more important than the size of the acreage would indicate, because notwithstanding the fact that we have a wonderful market for beef in the Common Market, beef is a low gross profit production per acre and cereals are a high gross profit production per acre. At the same time, it is necessary to have a rotation by which you have got your new grass which allows you to get far more output not only of grain but of beef from those new pastures which you would not have if you had not moved your plough around the farm.
Fianna Fáil policy has changed, as shown by the figures I have given, including the prices at which we are importing and the low prices at which we are exporting, the prices being charged to our own people and also the prices at which we are importing offal. Need I say that the figure for the last recorded year for the import of offals was £1,500,000 and the Minister for Agriculture has nothing to say about all that?
Last week I asked him whether or not the activities of the Grain Storage (Loans) Act, 1951 would be reinstituted and his answer was that money was available for the creation of grain storage through the Agricultural Credit Corporation as well as the banks for that purpose and also for drying. He must have thought he was speaking to an extremely simple-minded person.
The Grain Storage (Loans) Act, 1951 provided money at 4½ per cent. for 35 years and the security for that money was the building which was created. Through that Act, which was passed by the present Leader of the Opposition as Minister for Agriculture, we reached the stage where we had at least some drying facilities and some storage facilities for barley. The Taoiseach can be assured that during the last harvest farmers had to wait eight to ten weeks before their grain was picked up and, during that time, they had to leave their sacks standing and bear the cost of deterioration which was very serious. The Minister tells me then that a commercial bank, which would issue money at perhaps 6¾ per cent. for five years, or the Agricultural Credit Corporation which would give it for a maximum of 10 or 12, is a substitute policy designed to change the fact that we were unable to produce all our own grain and particularly all our coarse grains for which this wonderful market is available inside the Common Market.
But the Minister for Agriculture is disinterested.
Let us face the fact that because Britain knows that when she goes into the Common Market, she can no longer pay high deficiency payments to her farmers she has, within the last three months, reorganised her system of farm building grants and has voted an extra £35,000,000 per year for this purpose. I believe it is an absolute necessity to do something similar. I do not suggest we can produce the sort of money which Britain can produce for her farmers; because with her colossal industrial wealth a little of it can be filtered off for that purpose. At the same time, we should have reorganisation and the Minister for Agriculture and the Taoiseach should have something to say. The Taoiseach had an opportunity to say it when he spoke in August but he never mentioned it; yet he is going to lead us into the Common Market where the farmers will have to compete.
I was at Smithfield Show last week and I went out to see grain installations on farms there. I saw in one farm a grain installation where there was a simple dryer and simple storage where the farmer's produce was stored and held for market. That is the sort of thing we are going to have to compete against but here, apparently, nothing is going to be done and the Minister for Agriculture suggests using the Agricultural Credit Corporation or commercial banks. Nothing has been done about the reorganisation of our farm improvements schemes.
Is the Taoiseach aware—this may not be a popular thing to say—that two-thirds of the milk supplied to creameries is unfit for cheese production? Is the Taoiseach aware that, outside the Dublin milk sales district, there is no provision for a minimum standard of cleanliness for houses for cows for the production of milk for industrial use? We are going to have to go to this Common Market and we are at the moment selling the cheapest world product as far as milk is concerned in our greatest volume, namely creamery butter, and two-thirds of our milk is only fit for the production of creamery butter. Yet, in the last debate on the Adjournment, and in his statement in Thurles, a major statement of agricultural policy was not made by the Taoiseach or the Minister for Agriculture. There was no mention of any effort to try to improve production, improve quality or produce minimum standards of cleanliness over the entire dairy farming area. We are going into the Common Market with our eyes closed and the Taoiseach will still undoubtedly have nothing to say.
Suggestions were made from this side of the House that our cattle population was not what it should be. I want to assure the Taoiseach that our grasslands are not, in many cases, carrying one-third of the stock they could and he has now got to consider what is the best method of increasing cattle stocks. Every time there is a balance of payments difficulty you can take it that cattle come straight into it because it is either that prices of cattle were too low and people were keeping them, or that they had been relatively high and people had previously sold them. There is only one way in which we will make an economic success of it and that is if we can increase our basic stocks and our breeding stocks to the stage where there will be a constant flow of cattle for beef for export, as well as store cattle.
Suggestions were also made from this side of the House that there might be a subsidy on the calves and on the first mating of TB free heifers because the truth is that the largest recorded figure of heifers mated in this country is 137,000. Yet, if you take the bull and heifer calves as 50 per cent of the average total, the number of heifer calves in each year is 500,000. The Taoiseach might remember that and see if there is anything he could do to ensure that we do mate, on the first occasion, a great number of heifer calves so that, in fact, he will get the exports of beef which would help to free him from the difficulties in our balance of payments.
I have already dealt with the policy on this side of the House on interest-free loans in so far as I pointed out how the Minister in his speech in Thurles endeavoured to mislead the farmers into thinking he was going to give them something, whereas, in fact, he had no such intention. I want to impress on the Taoiseach that it is far more important than it would seem to be in relation to the amount of money, because it is a correlation of the advisory and educational services with real material help for the farmer, and it is an aid to production. That is the sort of thing we want and that is the sort of thing the Taoiseach will have to face up to.
There is no doubt, of course, that there will be some unemployment in industry inside the Common Market. I believe that many of our industries are making efforts to fit themselves for the Common Market but, unfortunately, it seems that the weaker industries are not in a position to do so. That is natural enough because if they are struggling for their very existence, they cannot start any sort of development schemes or any rationalisation policies which would perhaps fit them for the Common Market. Notwithstanding the indications that have been given by this Government, and also by their predecessors, of the help and advice available, enough has not yet been done. The Taoiseach might look again at the industrial policy and see whether or not he could produce greater initiatives for industrialists to compete in the Common Market.
We are facing a change. The Taoiseach has been upbraided because he said one thing five years ago, and another perhaps a year or a year and a half ago, about our neutrality. Personally I feel that Deputy Dillon's attitude is the correct one. You have to be pragmatic about these things and you must accept that changes will occur. I am not commending the Taoiseach for it, but I think it is natural that you reach a stage when you realise what you said five years ago is not necessarily the right thing to say to-day or the true thing to say to-day. It is just as well that indications have been given of our commitment on defence and the political implications of our joining the Common Market. I think Deputy Dillon's criticism was quite correct, that the first place to say it was here, and not to any correspondent of the New York Times. I suppose there are such things as “leaks” and perhaps the Taoiseach leaked information although I do not think he is the type who normally does so.
There is no doubt that the Taoiseach has the full support of the Fine Gael Party in his negotiations for entry to the Common Market, but I must insist again that if something is not done immediately in relation to the agricultural industry, it will go in, not in any position to enjoy what I believe to be the greatest potential market and the greatest opportunity it has ever had.
We still have emigration with us, despite statements made here in the House and outside it, from time to time, that emigration has dropped. It may be somewhat less now than it was in the peak years gone by, but that is due to the fact that such vast numbers have already gone. Those who are emigrating now were at school a few years ago and have only now reached manhood or womanhood.
The cause of emigration is nothing more or less than lack of employment. Until we get down to a realisation of that fact and do something to provide employment, we are only talking through our hats here and elsewhere. I want to tell the Taoiseach—in no spirit of bitterness and with no wish to introduce politics—what is happening in my county and in other counties along the western seaboard so far as emigration is concerned is happening because there is no employment. Much more could be done to relieve unemployment. I know for a fact that many small and medium-sized farmers have to emigrate simply because during the slack months of the year from November to February or March, there is no employment for them. It is all very fine to blame the Government, the Opposition, the Dáil and everyone else for the evils of emigration, but I want to make a suggestion which I think might be useful.
The distribution of money and relief schemes by the Special Employment Schemes Office is confined to the electoral divisions with a certain registered number of unemployed from the first week of January of the previous year to the October or November during which the schemes are prepared. We have just as much emigration from the electoral divisions which have not the requisite number of unemployed registered, and I think it would not cost a great deal if £2,000 or £3,000 a year were given to the most urgent applications for the repair of roads and small drainage schemes during the winter months to the electoral divisions which do not qualify for the full cost grants. I would ask the Taoiseach to look into that suggestion and see if anything could be done about providing a small amount of money to give small and medium-sized farmers four, five or six weeks' employment during the dead time of the year, which would tide them over until they were self-employed again on their holdings in the spring.
Those people do not ask for big hand-outs. A very small amount would do, and it would speed up the work of the Land Commission, and would also speed up afforestation where land is available and can be purchased. It would give some relief during the winter months and would be of immense benefit and would go a long way towards stopping quite a sizeable slice of the emigration which we have during the winter months. The Taoiseach should realise that a man would feel he was a slacker and was not treating his wife and family properly, if he sat down during the winter months and did little or nothing. He takes himself off to England, and in many cases he does not come back, and the next thing we hear is that his wife and family are brought over and we have lost still another family. Four, five or six weeks' work during the winter months would help to stop quite a lot of that.
There has been a lot of talk by the Taoiseach and others about some new land measure which is supposed to be appearing. I do not propose to say anything on that subject until I see exactly what the proposals are. A number of statements made on the matter seem to be pure window-dressing.
Again, on the question of employment in and emigration from the poorer areas, there is a general feeling that too much money has been put into the trunk roads to the absolute detriment of the by-roads and boreens. I have spoken many times on that subject here. Our trunk roads are not so bad. The improvements on them could be carried out at less expense. I think that more attention should be paid to the access roads to villages and so forth. Young people who leave Ireland and then return are disgusted when they have to traverse a mile of dirty road in wet weather to their homes without any hope of getting the road improved or repaired. The result is that they generate a contempt not only for their own local authority but for the country as a whole. Some of the money spent on the main roads should be diverted to these roads I speak of. Those people who are unfortunate enough to be living on a bad road have to pay their taxes, their rates and contribute to the running of the country just the same as their more fortunate neighbours who happen to be living on the side of a steamrolled or tarred road.
I want to assure the Taoiseach that rates are approaching the point where they will not be met or where there is a danger that they cannot be paid. Something should be done about that. The Government took a small step last year towards easing the situation. It was a very badly needed step but the assistance afforded was meagre.
Again, on the question of rates we have a carry over from the British in relation to valuations. When a farmer or a shopkeeper spends quite a sizeable slice of capital on improvements, his valuation is immediately increased. In other words, the farmer or shopkeeper is taxed for making the improvements.
Take the case of two farmers living on opposite sides of a road. One is an up-and-doing industrious man who improves his outoffices. His rates go up as a result of the increased valuation clapped on him. The man across the road may be a useless good-for nothing sort of fellow who if he does not spend half his life in bed, probably spends it in the local public house. The strange thing is that he can get the valuation struck off. That surely is something that should be looked into. Whatever about the useless fellow who neglects his property— perhaps there is some medical reason involved—I am interested in the industrious man who is taxed because he is industrious and inclined to improve not only himself but also his country.
The Minister for Lands has been talking about a 45-acre holding. I hope we will see the day when that is a reality. In the meantime, it might be no harm if the Land Commission were asked to speed up the relief of congestion. They ought not to be too rigid about the one-mile limit outside of which it is not the policy of the Land Commission to give an addition to small holdings. In many areas, there simply is not land available near a number of congested small farmers. They might happen to be a mile and a quarter or a mile and a half from the nearest land available. The mile limit in such cases could be waived in respect of these people.
In a few moments, I will be asking the Taoiseach a question and as I will not be permitted to give an explanation of my question, I want to offer a little explanation now. Twice in the past fortnight, there was a debate in Stormont on the question of the release of prisoners. The Minister for Home Affairs gave as an excuse the fact that there might be a renewal of the armed attacks. It is for that reason I put down the question. The Taoiseach knows that there is no likelihood of any renewal of those attacks in the immediate foreseeable future. What I want the Taoiseach to do is to convey that news to the Minister for Home Affairs in Northern Ireland so that he will be robbed of the excuse that he fears a renewal of the attacks.
I do not believe there will be attacks. I believe those people have learned their lesson as we did in the Civil War. As the Civil War progressed, the effort of the Republican side was aimed at ending it and never having it again. In regard to the attacks of which I speak, I do not believe the people involved have any desire for their renewal. I am not saying that some individuals may not do something but I do not believe there will be any organised attacks.
For that reason, when the Taoiseach is answering the Question, I want him to understand why I put it down. I should like to rob the Minister of Home Affairs in Northern Ireland of that excuse. There should be clemency now that there is peace in the country and likely to be for a long time. If the Taoiseach made a gesture, it would go down well and might result in those unfortunate people being released for Christmas. Twelve months after the war in 1916, the 1916 prisoners were released by the British Government. Even the Free State Government commenced to release all prisoners within six months of the termination of the Civil War. It is the accepted practice in civilised countries, when there is no further need for that sort of thing, to act with clemency. Now is the time and I am asking the Taoiseach, when replying, to bear this in mind.
On a point of explanation, I gave a quotation to the House earlier but as I did not give the reference, I should like to do so now. The quotation was:
Mr. Voss (Netherlands)—I should like to thank all the members of this Assembly who have spoken for their contributions to the debate. I will take first the two outside countries, countries outside the Six and the Seven, but both part of Europe. Our Irish colleague, Mr. Ryan, directed attention to something which I did not know before. He said that the Irish application would be valid even if the negotiations between the EEC and the United Kingdom were to fail. I hope that they will not fail, but the Irish application will, I think, have to be considered in Brussels in the light of this new possibility.
The reference is Council of Europe Document, Consultative Assembly AS (14) CR 17, pages 62-63.
Debate adjourned.