I have no intention of developing it, but I am trying to say that private enterprise here is pampered and State money is being wasted on its development and on its aid, when the State should be taking steps itself to get into these industries through State companies and to expand them in the interest of the farmer who is the grower and in the interests of the Irish public who would reap any benefits we would get from the increased export of the commodities produced.
This Blue Book is aimed at membership of EEC by 1970. There is in it exhortations to industrialists and farmers, and advice to various sections of the community as to what they should do—this from a Government who have, over the past four years, an obsession with the idea of membership of the EEC. I have here the report of the Committee on Industrial Organisation which was published in February, 1962. On page 8 of this report, the committee deal with the question of readaptation and the installation of new equipment in our factories so that they would be modernised and fully equipped for the competition of the Common Market the following year or by 1964. This is what they had to say:
This means that even if a firm now decided to re-equip on a substantial scale, the new equipment would not, in most cases, be operating efficiently before mid-1964.
What is the position in regard to the new equipment referred to in this report? Is it not a fact that the Minister for Industry and Commerce has in the past 12 months spoken on at least three occasions exhorting industrialists to take advantage of the special readaptation grants, loans and all the allowances which are made available by this Government, which are dated back to 14th December, 1961, and which would enable them to modernise their factories? Is it not a fact that although the Minister has made three major speeches on this, the response to his speeches has been most discouraging? I challenge the Minister for Finance or any Fianna Fáil Minister to say here that the Government are satisfied with the response to this appeal to modernise industries which has been made by the Government, an appeal that goes back over the past two years and which so far has met with the deaf ear from industrialists and manufacturers.
Is it not a fact that the Minister for Industry and Commerce also made appeals about modernising design in industry and that those appeals have fallen on deaf ears? I do not want to quote at length from ministerial speeches but we know now that these appeals, to put in new machinery and to get the latest type of design in presenting the finished commodity, the most attractive type of packaging and so forth, have met with little success and that little or no effort has been made by those who have been given grants over the years, who have been given taxpayers' money over the years for their industries, who were given protection up to, say, 75 per cent against foreign firms coming here, that they have all fallen down on the job.
The School of Design, which is very valuable, might as well close down for all the interest that is being taken in it by these pampered, petted children of Deputy Seán Lemass, namely, the industrialists who started here in 1932, who got protection and aid from the Government since then, who have lived and fattened behind tariff walls since 1932 and who up to the moment have made no attempt whatever to expand their industries in order to meet this competition of the EEC which the Taoiseach is anxious to face.
I think all this talk about the freedom in this country for private enterprise is the greatest humbug. It is a disgrace to allow these private industrialists the grants which are available, to allow them the huge depreciation allowances which are available and to find after all this that they are making no effort whatever to modernise or to safeguard the welfare of their workers, who will be hit badly if free trade comes in. The Government are allegedly worrying about restricting anybody in this country and they believe that private enterprise must not be interfered with, that this is a democracy and that we will have no control exercised here in any totalitarian fashion.
That is the outlook apparently of this Government, who are preparing as fast as they can to bring Ireland into the European Economic Community, where our country will be controlled by a bureau of international civil servants, where our industries and agriculture, in fact our entire society, will be rigidly controlled by those bureaucrats of the Commission in Brussels.
Here at home we have the Government pledging freedom to all those who are now exploiting the community, pledging freedom on the one hand and, at the same time, leading us all into Europe where there will be no democratic control, as we have seen up to the present and where, if there is to be any parliamentary control, our say in it will be completely negligible. We cannot have it both ways and I should like the Government, if they are really serious about preparing for membership of the EEC, to start planning in earnest at home. They will have to have re-planning here if they are going to submit to the expert planning which will be forced on top of them by the European experts.
I should like to emphasise at this stage, after what I have said here about the attractive allowances which have been given, back to December, 1961, to the industrialists, in spite of all the exhortations and everything else to them, in spite of all the aids, that no efforts have been made to get us ready for admission to the EEC. In spite of all that, if the Leader of the present Government had his way, we would have been in the Common Market for the past twelve months. I wonder does any Deputy in this House realise what it would mean to us if we were allowed into the Common Market on the basis the Taoiseach had bargained for—that we were a developed country and that we were able to take our place with this highly developed European community. Where would our workers be today? Where would our farmers be today, with the exception of a few large ranchers, if they were hit with this sudden blast of competition? This type of airy-fairy talk, that we would be able to compete, especially in agricultural production, with the European countries is sheer nonsense.
Deputy Desmond mentioned one specific instance which happened in Germany in the last fortnight as far as the production of eggs was concerned. Do you think that because the hens in Ireland are good layers we would have a good case with this European group, that Irish eggs should be allowed into Germany? Eggs were one thing mentioned. It could be butter or it could be beef. We know that as far as each of these countries in the Community is concerned their own interests come first. There is no such thing as accepting Irish butter because they like the smile of Deputy Dillon or the grin of Deputy Lemass.
I should like to say that this country should be thankful at this stage for the fact that, if we are going into the Common Market at some stage, we have got this merciful pause. The verdict, as far as we are concerned, was a merciful one. So far as the European Community is concerned, I should like to repeat that I do not believe that even if Britain did get in at the time we would have got in. I believe, on the basis of our development and our conditions generally, that the most we could get was associate membership. You could not expect an invalid like this country to be allowed in like the top class athletes were admitted. The most we could expect was a long period in which we could repair the damage and let the patient grow and give him a chance.
I think the workers of this country should realise that this gamble of the Taoiseach, which did not come off, was one of the most dangerous things he tried and would have been disastrous for the Irish workers if it had come off. The Taoiseach is hoping it is another chapter which is closing just as the Minister for Justice also suggested that Deputies on the opposite benches should not refer to speeches which were made five or six years ago. The Government do not want to be reminded. The Government do not want to be reminded in any circumstances of what they said five or six years ago, only of what they said twelve months or two years ago.
The attitude of the Government on this question of EEC admission is completely unrealistic. We have had report after report over the last twelve months from the CIO pointing out how lacking in competitive sense the Irish industrialists were. We had reports on linen, cotton, rayon, car assembly, boots, footwear and a number of other industries, and we found that no matter how carefully reorganisation and readaptation took place that these people would lose their employment. No efforts are being made at the present time to ensure that retraining will take place. Is there any industry that the Minister can name for me at the moment that is now retraining its workers and preparing for this big day of admission to the Common Market? Is there one major or minor industry in this country that has taken the Government exhortation in that regard seriously? If there is, I should like to hear it now.
I shall not delay very long on the question of our admission to the Common Market but I want to emphasise that the approach of the Taoiseach that we were able to compete with the Common Market countries was dishonest. As a result of the investigation into the reorganisation of the industries I have mentioned, some of the findings were that the production costs in many of these industries were ten to 35 per cent higher than in similar industries in Great Britain. I should add to that by saying that in spite of the fact that their production costs were from ten per cent to 35 per cent higher, wages in those industries were lower here. How can we expect those industries to compete with the streamlined industries already prepared in Britain for the Common Market?
Figures were given in a recent study by the Economic Research Institute. In a total of 168 products produced here and in Britain, the price of these products in Britain was seven per cent to eight per cent lower than here. That is not all. The cost of many of these products was lower in Italy than in Britain. I wonder where that left us. In their haste to get into the Common Market, the Government are pinning their hopes, not on the Irish industrialists who have had protection since 1932, but on an influx of foreign industrialists. A new breed is coming in and getting all possible types of incentives to come to Ireland.
I do not want to be taken as objecting to these foreign industrialists coming in here. In fact, they are welcome if they give good employment at trade union wages, but there is every reason to insist that where large sums of the taxpayers' money are paid out to foreign industrialists, some control is exercised over the expenditure of that money. Surely there are ways of doing that. One way suggested by the Labour Party is control in the form of a directorship of a particular industry. Part control should be given to the State through a directorship. The Irish people would then have an inside knowledge of how their money was being spent, and they would not be in the position of finding out some morning that a foreign gentleman had folded his tent and cleared off, having taken the grant in aid with him.
In paragraph 3 of the Blue Book, the Government have sought to suggest that over the period from 1958 to 1963, "employment created in industries and services has come closer to offsetting the continuing and not unexpected movement of manpower from the land. During 1961-62 the long-established excess of emigration over the rate of natural increase of the population was reversed." They go on to say:
These achievements demonstrate how effective a positive, integrated statement of attainable objectives, backed by State aids and incentives, can be.
They go on to claim credit from what they suggest has happened as a result of their alleged programme or plan. In the next paragraph, they say quite clearly that this programme is only a series of targets. There is a contradiction there.
I do not accept the statement that: "Over the period 1958-63 employment created in industries and services has come closer to offsetting the continuing and not unexpected movement of manpower from the land." That is a very clever piece of covering up the true position. In the manufacturing industry, the fact is that in 1962 only 4,000 extra jobs have been made available over those available in 1955. Instead of starting off at this 1958 date, we should go back three years and have a look over that longer period and see the true position.
Only 4,000 more people were working in the manufacturing industry in 1962 than were working in it in 1955. An increase of 4,000 over that period of years is something no Government can be proud of, and to suggest that the increase in employment in the manufacturing industries and services "has come closer to offsetting the continuing and not unexpected movement of manpower from the land" makes nonsense of the Government's statistics. Only last year we had a figure of 1,900 people odd missing from the statistics of people leaving the land. To my knowledge, they have not been accounted for since. It is anything but true to suggest, as the Government have, that the number of people leaving the land has been offset by a similar, or almost a similar, number being placed in industry. That is not true.
The Government have claimed—and it is a claim the Minister for Transport and Power has often made—that this movement from the land is common to other European countries. I say categorically that there is no comparison whatsoever between the movement from land here and the movement in European countries. In the European countries, any movement that has taken place is within the countries themselves. The movement in Ireland has been out of the country, and those who left the land have never been re-employed in this country, so the comparison is not a true one. Secondly, the movement from the land in the European countries is a new post-war movement. It was not there prior to the last war, whereas the movement in Ireland has been there for the past 100 years. It is a disease in Ireland, and no effort is made by the Government to cure it.
There was far greater congestion in the European areas and a much greater need to move people into industrial centres. There is no justification for the suggestion that people were leaving the land here in the same way as they were in Europe, that it was something we could do nothing about, and that we must accept it. That is a tragic way to look at the lifeblood flowing from rural Ireland. It is a tragic way to deal with it.
This Blue Book has sought to suggest that the first programme achieved wonderful things, that the idea of setting targets in Ireland was something about which the Government could clap themselves on the back. They seem to have an idea that the public should be grateful for the increase in the gross national product over that period and that credit should be given to the Fianna Fáil Party for it. What are the facts, if we compare the situation with the relevant European countries? It is, I agree, a fact that between 1958 and 1961, our gross national product increased at an average rate of 4½ per cent per annum.
I gather that the Government's target was 2 per cent and on that basis they claim that a near-miracle was achieved. In other words, they laid their sights very low at the beginning and said: "We shall say 2 per cent and then when it goes over 2 per cent, we can always claim credit". Of course, what happened was that they did not know what would happen. What result do we get from a comparison with the European countries during the same three-year period? I have figures for Germany, Italy and France, in all of which the gross national product exceeded ours for the three years. Not alone that, but in those countries, the gross national product has been maintained at a higher figure over the previous ten years.
When referring to these figures for Germany, Italy and France, we must look at the background in which they were achieved and compare it with the background in which our achievement was made. The increase in those countries was against a background of collapsing trade barriers, of the complete removal of such barriers. What was the background here? There was petting and there were stimulants by the Government but these will not be available once we get our feet inside the door of the EEC.
Therefore, before the Government start blowing their own trumpet full blast on this question of the increase in the gross national product, they should humble themselves in front of the miserable growth here, achieved with incentives and the attractions of State aid, by comparison with the growth in the other countries against hard competition. In France, they were told: "Our German competitors are reducing their prices by 20 per cent; we will have to do the same."
In this Blue Book, the Government take credit for the fall in a few years of emigration. The public are getting very sick of being told that the numbers emigrating are dropping, only to find that in a year's time there is another surge forward in emigration. Fianna Fáil cannot take credit for what is happening in Britain. We know that the numbers employed here on the land and in industries and services, do not warrant the belief, or give credence to it, that those who normally emigrated each year are being absorbed in employment here. If that were the case, there would be at least 25,000 more in employment here.
I agree there is a pause in emigration, but that is because conditions in Britain worsened during the past two years and Irish boys and girls who came home at Christmas and for summer holidays stayed here. However, we have 61,000 unemployed in Ireland under a Government who say they are aiming at full employment by 1970. We have that number unemployed, in spite of all the talk about a reduction in emigration and in unemployment here. All that has happened is that there has been a temporary pause until there is a change of Government in Britain, a change of planning, and I am sure that will take place in the next 12 months.
I do not wish to bring this problem of unemployment down to local level, but I can tell the Minister and his colleague, the Minister for Local Government, that the number of people employed in my constituency is lower than it has ever been since the keeping of records was begun. The people in my constituency have nothing whatever to be thankful to this Government for in so far as the cost of living is concerned, in so far as any ameliorative Government action is concerned.
I want to take a page from the book of the Minister for Justice when he analysed what he described as Fine Gael policy. I want to point out to the Government the futility and the fallacy of producing a Blue Book like this, which is inaccurate and which seeks to give a wrong impression to the public on emigration and employment. In the paragraph dealing with employment and emigration, the Government cannot get away from the background of the EEC. The paragraph says:
In modern conditions, the tendency is for business firms to move into and expand within communities where labour is abundant, and the EEC countries have expressed themselves as supporting this.
That is a statement we are expected to believe. Is it true? Does the industrialist follow the labour? Does the money follow the worker, or does the worker follow the industrialist and the money? Which is correct?
What has happened in England? Is it not a fact that in the north of England they have a surplus of labour, but the industries are in the south? In Scotland, there is plenty of labour, but there were no industries there until a Tory Government directed them north. Therefore the question of incentives did not arise there. What is the position in European countries on which the Fianna Fáil Government have their eyes fixed for so long? Does the industry go to where the workers are plentiful or do the workers go to where industry is? What is the truth? Is it not a fact that in Germany they are able to swallow up all the workers they can lay hands on from Spain, Italy and Greece? Is it not true that the voracious industrial maw of Germany is swallowing the unfortunate labourers from European countries? Are the Government really serious in suggesting that if Ireland becomes a member of EEC, the firms in Germany will rush to the west of Ireland where there is an abundance of labour and say: "Here is where we shall set up our factories?" Is that what the Government seek to suggest in what they allege is a responsible document drafted by responsible advisers? Do we not know that if Ireland did become a member tomorrow of EEC, our manhood and womanhood would go in their thousands to German industrial centres as slave labour for German industrialists, just as Italians, Spaniards and Greeks are going?
The saddest thing in Europe today is the industrial slave living in compounds close to the large industrial cities, large communities of Italians unable to communicate with other nationals, large groups of Spaniards isolated from the trend of civilisation, all living in their own centres and all being exploited by German industrialists. This is the new technique of expansion in Europe. Are these the industrialists who, according to this Blue Book of the Government, will be attracted when, as it says: "In modern conditions the tendency is for business firms to move into and expand within communities where labour is abundant." We are told that the EEC Commission have expressed themselves as supporting this. If so, they have shown very little sign of being able to do anything about it because the rush is to the heart of Europe and the people who are going are to a large extent unskilled, and it is their labour that is being used by industrialists in the central European industrial area.
If it is any attraction to the Irish labourer and the Irish colleen who work in England, or who in the future would work there, they can, instead of Manchester, Liverpool or Birmingham, have the opportunity of heading for Hamburg or other European centres. One of the difficulties involved will be the language. Perhaps they can speak Irish over there as one of the little closely-knit communities like the Spaniards or Italians.
