(South Tipperary) asked the Taoiseach if he will state the statistical data on which he based his recent statement that the gap between income and output is now approximately closed.
Ceisteanna — Questions. Oral Answers. - Incomes and Output Gap.
3.
The most relevant data are those derived from the quarterly industrial production inquiry. These indicate that between the June, 1958, and the June, 1963, quarters real weekly earnings in Manufacturing Industry increased by 21.8% while output per wage-earner increased by 22.0%. The corresponding picture in February, 1963, was based on the figures for the September quarter, 1962, which showed a real earnings increase of 20.1% over the September quarter, 1958, compared with an output increase of 17.2%.
Needless to remark, the Government's attitude does not depend on these statistics alone. In February, 1963, the realisation that our national growth rate was somewhat lower in 1962 than in the preceding years affected the Government's assessment of the position, indicating caution in the matter of incomes policy. In recent months it has become apparent that national production has improved this year. The prospects for next year are also thought to be good.
Does the Taoiseach recall that in the White Paper which the Government submitted to the House Closing the Gap, a diagram appears on page 4 called Diagram No. 1 which has led people to believe that it represented the extent of the gap, and in terms of that diagram, has the gap been closed?
There has been a considerable improvement in that regard, although, of course, as the Minister for Finance pointed out in a recent statement, the process of closing the gap was in part secured by an increase in prices.
Am I right in suggesting, if we are to believe the gap has been closed and if we are to compare the situation today and the situation last February in terms of the diagram, that the gap, in fact, never existed, that it is a figment of the Government's imagination? Both the diagram last February and the diagram now cannot be true.
That statement is just nonsensical.
No. Last February, there was presented to this House a diagram suggesting that there was a gap in the terms of the last available figures which are for the June quarter. There is a reduction in that gap of one point, leaving, in terms of that gap, a gap of nine points. Either the diagram was a falsehood in February or else the statement that the gap has been closed is a falsehood. Which is the case?
Neither.
I suggest more likely both are false.
What about the 1956 gap?
Has the Taoiseach any figures for incomes and output from February up to date or to any recent date?
He has only to the end of the June quarter.
Yes, the end of the June quarter. In the June quarter, while real earnings had increased by 3.4 per cent, output increased by three per cent.
Are they the latest figures?
The latest that have been published.
Was it on that basis the Taoiseach wrote to the Federated Union of Employers and the Trade Union Congress?
As I explained in the reply, those were not the only considerations the Government took into account.
Where are the other figures? They have not been published.
Most of them have been.