Vol. 204 No. 10
I move:—
That it is expedient to authorise such payments out of moneys provided by the Oireachtas as are necessary to give effect to any Act of the present session to amend and extend the Old Age Pensions Acts, 1908 to 1962, the Unemployment Assistance Acts, 1933 to 1962, the Widows' and Orphans' Pensions Acts, 1935 to 1962, the Insurance (Intermittent Unemployment) Act, 1942, the Social Welfare (Children's Allowances) Acts, 1944 to 1957, and the Social Welfare Acts, 1952 to 1962.
I take occasion to recall to the Minister's mind something that appears to have upset him greatly. I sympathise with him and with his colleague because it must be a cause of mortification and distress to them to see the consequence of their own actions. They are very much given to handsome gestures in public but they do not like to have them examined in their consequences. We have been discussing here during the past six weeks the Fianna Fáil proposal to tax food, fuel and clothing and the Minister for Social Welfare very sensibly said today: "You cannot divorce these things. Taxation policy of that kind cannot be divorced from the social services policy." I quite agree with him, but I gather from his speech here today that he bitterly resents the fact that I directed his attention to that close association between these two things last night.
Fianna Fáil policy in regard to taxation on food, fuel and clothing was first implemented when Fianna Fáil reduced the food subsidies by £9 million when they first got into office. I told some of the backbenchers of Fianna Fáil then that they would live to see the day when Fianna Fáil would require them not only to tramp into the lobby to remove the subsidies on food but also to put a tax on foodstuffs. A great many Fianna Fáil Deputies derided such a policy as unthinkable and said I was trying to malign them in the public mind. However, they have had to do it. They are now taxing foodstuffs; they are taxing clothing; they are taxing fuel and they are going to raise £7,500,000 this year in addition to the £9 million they took away.
We seem to be getting away from the measure before the House.
I am saying that the Minister——
There may be no debate on the food subsidies on this Bill.
You knew the food subsidies had to go. That is why you broke up.
The Minister is again getting incensed and I do not blame him.
I am not getting incensed. It is just in case I do not get the opportunity of replying on the food subsidies.
I know the Minister's slow and pedestrian mind is opening slowly to a realisation of what I have told him. This Bill provides 35/- a week old age pension and everybody feels this is a very material step forward in the provision for old age pensioners, but the fact is that if regard is had to the inevitable consequences of Fianna Fáil legislation since they came into office, it will be found the real value of the old age pension we provide here is 11/8 in terms of 1939 money and we are to-day, after a quarter of a century, increasing the old age pension by 1/8 a week. Those are inescapable facts founded on the statistical material supplied by this Government. What I want to direct the attention of Fianna Fáil to is this: they have now set their feet on the slippery slope of taxing foodstuffs and other essentials and they will be pushed further along that line if the people do not throw them out.
This debate is on the Social Welfare Bill.
Surely I can point out that if this line is pursued, what we are in fact doing is taking back from the beneficiaries of social welfare with our left hand what we give them with our right hand? The rate of old age pension, to my knowledge, was three times increased by the inter-Party Government and three times increased by the Fianna Fáil Government since 1939. The net result is that they are getting 1/8d. more than they were getting in 1939. Why? Because the value of money has been steadily depreciated by the Fianna Fáil policy of taxation. Do they realise what they have done? There is £16,500,000 from foodstuffs and now they have started on clothes and fuel and there will want to be a social welfare amending Bill passed every three months if that continues and if we are to keep abreast of depreciation in the value of money. In regard to the old age pensioner, I want to make this prophecy. Today the 35/- pension is worth 11/8 and they have not got it yet. By the time they get it it will be worth 11/6.
They will surely get it.
They will surely get it next November if it is the law of this House. I want to warn the Deputy his Party will have brought the pension down from 11/8d. to 11/6d. next November but with the help of God, we will shift you before the end of the year and thereafter we will restore stability.
Order.
We must show every sympathy. This kind of truth maddens them. It is good for them.
Would Deputy Dillon explain how, if this allegation relates only to the Fianna Fáil Party, the same phenomenon appears to have occurred all over the world?
So high is my esteem for Deputy Colley that I am prepared to listen with respect to any alibi he produces, however disreputable, though it is not his custom to seek to shelter his nakedness behind such threadbare rags. I suggest to Deputy Colley we here in Ireland are responsible for our own people. I agree that in Brazil, with which we now seem to be declaring some affinity—its manners and customs were commended to us last night—inflation has run mad and I quite agree with Deputy Colley that in places of that kind, the value of money melts like snow in summer sunshine. I think he will agree with me that it would not be a desirable situation to see developing here.
I do not think at present we are in any immediate danger of runaway inflation of that character but it is dishonest and disreputable to be thumping a tub, to be glowing here in Dáil Éireann about increasing the old age pension and rejoicing that you are able to do so much more in the sphere of social services when those of us who really know the facts and understand them realise that in 25 years, the real value of the old age pension has gone up 1/8 as a result of the Fianna Fáil policy of taxing food and now fuel and clothing as well. As surely as we are in this House, that 11/8 will not be worth any more than 11/6 by the time they get it next November. Think well on that. Examine your consciences, because you will have to answer for it and, when you are called upon to do so, you will want a better alibi than Deputy Colley; it is not good enough to say: "You cannot blame us for this when it is happening in Brazil."
