Dáil Éireann debate -
Wednesday, 16 Dec 1964

Vol. 213 No. 8

Adjournment of the Dáil. - Debate on Government Policy (Resumed).

Debate resumed on the following motion:

That the Dáil at its rising today, do adjourn until February 10th, 1965.

Mr. S. Collins

This is the opportunity to inquire searchingly into the facade of progress the Taoiseach so proudly asserts exists. In the final analysis, it is not the statistical rubbish indulged in by the Minister for Transport and Power, or the truculent assertions of the Taoiseach that decide what the real position of the country is. There is no doubt that the wonderful situation so vehemently asserted by the Taoiseach has not yet reached the small farmers or the hardworking people of my constituency. It appals me to hear assertions made which are patently false when we should be endeavouring to approach our problems in a constructive way.

I have always been appalled and I still am, despite my many years in this House, that some of our major problems are either skated around or not tackled at all. There is nobody can tell me that we can in any way change the simple fact that in so far as Ireland's development is concerned, we must inevitably get back to the land of Ireland, to what is grown on it and to the people who get their livelihood from it. While I have always lent, and always will lend, my support to the development of sensible industry and will always exult in the development of major industries and in the development of proper relations between employer and employee, we will always have to get back to the fundamental fact that in this country, no matter how the Taoiseach tries to convert it into an industrial country, we must still get back to the land.

It is on this facet that I am going to attack the Government for a policy that is inept and, in fact, non-existent. The complete cause of our present stagnation may lie in the years of neglect rather than in any immediate neglect. I was interested to hear the Deputy from Mayo speak about drainage and the problem that arises in the west of Ireland because of the drainage situation there. That is a problem that is widespread in the State and I cannot see how any Government planning any expansion can do so without tackling the problem of arterial drainage and the drainage of the subsidiary rivers throughout the State. The present piecemeal system of drainage not only makes for difficulties and differences between the different parts of the country but also holds up the bringing into full heart of land that is badly wanted.

We have not heard of any major effort to correlate our drainage schemes or to get moving on a broad basis rather than on a provincial basis. Fianna Fáil started a gamble with £15 or £16 million on the drainage of the Shannon but the Roscommon by-election was lost and I do not suppose the Minister for Justice now has any interest in seeing that that money is spent there. We had great mutterings of what was to be done in East Galway. There is an immense number of problems to be dealt with there and the Government when talking about policies of expansion surely can give us some explanation as to why, apart from the fact that they got this salutary lesson in their former stronghold, they still allow these problems to exist in East Galway without doing anything about them.

This Government must have some regard for the realities of the situation. The amount of industrial expansion this country can have is limited. Anybody with any practical horse sense knows that unless we can develop our industry on the basis of raw materials available to ourselves, we are moving into an era of industrial development in which it will be impossible to import raw materials, manufacture them here and then export them to compete with their country of origin. In this country, if we are to have sound economic expansion, we must have every additional acre available to us drained and put back into fertility; we must have a vast improvement in the quality of our grasslands and the stock that feed on them. These are the unassailable assets that we should put into our national economy.

My complaint is that the Government are not getting down to the problem. Let us face the realities of the situation of the small farmers who are the backbone of the country. I will not challenge the fact that the big rancher, the big cattle grazier is getting a fair return at the moment and that the man who can afford to run heavy stock on his land is doing very well out of the £15 heifer scheme.

I am interested in the condition of the vast bulk of Irish farmers, who are the small farmers producing the bulk of our agricultural produce. They are going through the highest period ever of mounting costs, although it is unquestioned that they are now getting the lowest price in Europe for their milk. These people are not able to carry the increase of stock that the man with the multiple acres can carry. They cannot hope to benefit from the £15 heifer scheme which the Government are inclined to boast about as their one contribution to obliterating the years of the squealing calves and the slaughtered livestock.

Whatever about the heifer scheme, my constituency is full from one side to the other of people waiting to be paid money due to them under the bovine tuberculosis scheme. No Christmas cards from the Minister for Agriculture will hide the fact that there is a tremendous backlog in those payments and that a tremendous problem is being created by that backlog. It is vital for those of us who are interested in our economy from the point of view of farming stock that we should get our country clear of bovine tuberculosis as quickly as possible. From that point of view, it is important that all reactors should be removed and all sources of infection eradicated.

It is no good telling us that everything in the garden is lovely, that the national income is mounting, because that does not impress the small farmer I represent. In the past four or five days, we have had unprecedented rain and flooding in West Cork. The real problem is the speeding up of drainage because lack of drainage is causing havoc in areas where land is scarce. That is the position in Inchigeela, Ballingeary, Skibbereen and Clonakilty. Drainage has been neglected. The main catchments are not being done. The Government have abandoned the schemes under the Local Authorities (Works) Act under which a certain amount of minor drainage could be done.

It is no good telling the farmers in my constituency that everything in the garden is lovely and he will be wafted on clouds of artificial prosperity, when he can see all round him the difficulties he has to face, the periodic flooding and the problem of the supply of raw material or new strains in both animal and cereal production. This Government have the neck of Old Nick and they are getting away with it. They are trying to create an impression of up and doing. They are producing books in all the colours of the rainbow—blue for the Second Programme, black for the agricultural addendum. Everything goes back to this Second Programme. There having been no First Programme, they talk glibly about the Second Programme and the Utopia in 1970 at the end of the Second Programme.

All this is done in an effort to hide the fact that we have never had more unemployment than we have at the moment, never had as big a figure of emigration as we have at the moment, and all that since the start of the so-called First Programme for Economic Expansion. That is dead and buried now, but we still have increased figures over last year and the previous years of unemployment and increased figures for emigration, and that in a period in which the number of people employable is less and the number available for emigration is also less.

No matter what the Government and the Minister for Industry and Commerce try to tell us, the fact is the turnover tax had a disastrous effect on the cost of living. The index figure shows an increase running from 16 to 19 points. We know that, even though the Minister for Industry and Commerce refused to investigate, before ever the turnover tax came into operation there was a general increase in the prices of all retail goods, for which, as yet, no justification has been shown but for which the Irish people had to pay. We are now in the position, in this wonderful year of development, as the Taoiseach describes it, of having the highest cost of living ever.

We are living in economic circumstances in which the increase given to the workers has been absorbed by the impact of the increased costs the workers have to meet. Certain items are not now included in the cost of living but the cost of these items is of vital importance to workers and salary earners. You may argue until the cows come home but you will not convince anybody who has to face the problem of feeding and clothing a family that the cost of living has not gone up out of all proportion.

The Taoiseach and his Ministers claim big increases in the national income. They talk in millions. It is our task here to improve the lot of the worker and the salary earner by an expansionist economic policy. I said before, and I repeat now, that the Taoiseach was gambling when he gave, as he alleges, the 12 per cent increase under the National Agreement; he wanted to win the Cork by-election——

Mr. Barrett

And Kildare.

Mr. S. Collins

——and Kildare. I knew then that he was only saying he gave it. He was trying to make a good bluff and to take credit for something——

Mr. Lenihan

The trade union movement negotiated that increase.

Mr. S. Collins

The Taoiseach tried to claim he was the great maestro who was able to get the trade unions and employers to agree to this increase. I have always regarded the trade union body as a responsible one. I have always regarded the employers' body as equally responsible and, no matter what the Taoiseach may say about what he did, this country has always enjoyed a very happy relationship in the main between employers and trade unionists. The amelioration in working conditions has always been a great source of pride to me. I believe in the trade union movement. I warn the Government now—this was hinted at by the President of the Congress of Trade Unions—that unless the Government do something to arrest the increase in the cost of living, to make the 12 per cent a real increase and not something that is absorbed immediately——

Mr. P. Hogan

(South Tipperary): Hear, hear.

Mr. S. Collins

——they are heading into a situation in which the people will have to take steps to protect their own interests and, in doing so, force further increases. There is no use in the Taoiseach coming in here and trying to tell us that everything in the State is lovely when we know, whether we are Labour or Fine Gael, the fight that is going on at the moment between these alleged increases that we got and the rising cost of living. Let us face the facts. This country wants leadership and a planned economy with a proper agricultural bias and on a proper agricultural basis. We know that we can improve the land and we can drain the land. We know that practically every acre of land that is not arable can be used for afforestation. We know that we can improve our bogs and bring cutaway bogs into heart. We also know that we can increase our cattle, sheep and pig numbers.

We know we can improve our cereals and our grassland. That is an investment from which no Government can fail to get a return. That is why I am impeaching the Government because they are neglecting the investment where there is a real capacity for expansion and a real return. We have seen the gamble of postponing the Cork by-election and then trying to get credit for a 12 per cent National Agreement, but since then, we have seen Roscommon and Galway, when the shouts and exultations of tremendous achievement had died away, and when the people were facing the reality of this alleged 12 per cent increase and what it was worth to them. They were facing the reality of the increased costs which occurred before the coming into operation of the turnover tax, and then subsequently.

We were down in what the Taoiseach described as a traditional Fianna Fáil stronghold. We were in a constituency in which the Taoiseach said it would be a very serious reverse, if not a catastrophe, if they did not win and that if things became a little more difficult, we would be going into the disaster area. The disaster has come about and I will tell you why.

Mr. Lenihan

Indeed, that is true.

Mr. S. Collins

Because you have been found out. You were always cods. The only thing that gives us a new ray of hope and a new sense of freedom is that you have come to the end of the road, but of course with cynical indifference you will not accept the challenge which is obvious to a Government which has lost caste. You will not accept the challenge to go to the country but you are going to get a rude awakening.

An Ceann Comhairle

I suggest that the Deputy address me.

Mr. S. Collins

I am using the word "you" in the sense of the Government and not in the personal sense. Let us come back again to the Fianna Fáil boasts. The Minister for Transport and Power tried to suggest that there was some satisfaction in the position of the social welfare recipient group. He has a brass neck if he has not awakened to the fact that there is no section of the community who have suffered more fiercely than they as a consequence of recent Government activity. There is no doubt that the impact of the increased cost of living has hit this section harder than any other section and they have received less compensation to face their difficulties. It is complete cynicism on the part of the Government that they refuse to recognise that fact.

I know what the hardly annuals of Fianna Fáil will say. They will say that we took a shilling off the old age pensions and they will conveniently overlook the period in which an inter-Party Government made the biggest single adjustment to try to get social services back into a reasonable situation vis-à-vis the economic situation. We are being cynical about these people if we do not face the fact that a very substantial adjustment is necessary to make their position even tenable, particularly, as the Leader of the Labour Party pointed out, in the case of the single person, or the widow with a large family, who has received no compensation under recent social welfare legislation for the increased cost of living.

Let us ask ourselves where does the balance of this great economic progress lie. Where does the reality lie in what the Taoiseach has tried to assert? I am going to try to contrast very simple things. There is no doubt that the economy of the small type farmer is more difficult today than it ever was. Costs of production are up and credit, no matter what the Minister for Agriculture may try to say, has become more difficult. If we want a worthwhile expansion in the economy of the small farmer, we will have to make available to him quickly either interest-free loans or capital at a rate of interest which will be within his capacity to pay. We will have to provide advisory services and improved seeds and we shall have to provide the type of improved strain we want to develop. There is nothing in the Government's programme to provide that impetus and you cannot get the drive in agriculture that is needed without that type of impetus.

I was interested to hear the talk to-day about the farmer getting a £500 loan, or any kind of loan, from the Agricultural Credit Corporation. I do not know what the Minister's experience has been but I hope he does not find the Agricultural Credit Corporation as tough to get money from as my constituents do.

Mr. Lenihan

No.

Mr. S. Collins

It has been the experience of practically all Deputies that they are tougher than the banks, and the banks are tough.

Mr. Lenihan

They have been very good in the past few years.

Mr. S. Collins

Has the Minister good relations with them? Has the Minister got good contacts with them?

Mr. Lenihan

No.

Mr. S. Collins

Because I would like to try to get something for my constituents in West Cork. There is no good in talking about the Second Programme for Economic Expansion on an industrial basis until you get your agricultural industry on a proper footing. This programme for agriculture alleged by the Taoiseach is cod. We have got to get more land drained and into heart. We have to improve and consolidate the land we have. We have to improve production methods and, above all, marketing methods. It has been my belief that, if we had devoted as much money and time to market research and development for the Irish farmer as we did to following will-o'-the-wisp markets in other fields, we would have established years ago a worth-while sale of the maximum production of this country for the benefit of our economy. Instead, we are only tinkering with the problem.

We have a Government in difficulties in regard to one side of their arrangement with the British Government, and only kept out of trouble on the other side because of the ingenuity and skill of the negotiators of the 1948 Agreement, who tied our livestock prices to the British livestock prices. As a result, we are able to survive that side of the economic blizzard brought about by this 15 per cent import surcharge. That had nothing to do with Fianna Fáil. It gives the agricultural community a chance to play their part in helping to overcome what may be a temporary substantial difficulty for industry. The Government are codding nobody. In the final analysis, it will be the agricultural community who will carry the burden, and, maybe, properly carry it in these circumstances.

It is amazing that this Government, who have made so many spurious claims in the past, find themselves in the position that they are beholden to an inter-Party Government for the circumstance that permits them to survive the action of an outside party. I am completely in agreement that, in so far as industry is temporarily affected by this extraneous matter, it should be helped. It is a good thing to see the Department of Industry and Commerce trying to keep these industries going and to enable them to compete again when the temporary circumstances are ameliorated. We are always up against this problem. Unless our industry is so planned that we have the raw material for it at home, we will always be subject to this type of difficulty outside our control that could arise from the economy of a neighbouring State. If the Government are going to talk about industrial expansion and development, they will have to view industry with a very tough and searching eye to see whether it can of itself develop an efficiency and efficacy that will ensure its survival in the tough world of competition.

I will be honest. I was horrified to think that, after years of protection, after all the incentives to efficiency, to replacement of plant, to improve methods of production, after all the co-operation they got from their workers, some of our smaller industries were not sufficiently efficient to be able to face a fight for existence without straight away crying for help. I know some industries were able to do it. I suggest to the Government that, if they want to develop worthwhile industry here, they will have to ensure that the standards and methods of production and the quality of the article are improved to the extent that we can fight in fluctuating markets.

It interests me to see the Government now suddenly getting a violent Buy Irish slant. As a boy, as a growing adult and as a man, my father all his lifetime insisted we buy Irish only. That was the tradition in which I was born and grew up. I am amazed we have to wait until 1964 to start a drive to buy Irish of the kind now on. In my lifetime, I have been satisfied that the shoes and clothes I wore were of Irish manufacture and the equal in quality of any I could buy anywhere else.

The time has come when this Government should realise that spurious figures, doubtful booklets on economic growth, backed by figures supplied by themselves to external bodies to try to boost their ego, do not alter facts. The people of East Galway said they did not want you. The people of Roscommon said "Get out." In the very near future, another constituency is going to give you another salutary lesson, to get out and leave the people who can do the job, and have done it, do it. As Deputy Dillon said this morning, the foundations of this State were securely laid against your opposition. The nation's initial growth was there before you were heard of and its substantial blossoming into a worthwhile country will have been achieved when you are gone into oblivion. The sooner you accept the notice given by the Irish people, the sooner we can get down to the job of making Ireland a better country for all sections, whether Fianna Fáil or not, and give the country the leadership it needs.

Minister for Justice (Mr. Lenihan)

The only directive which has been given by the Irish people to the present Government is to carry on with the work of government until the full democratic term of office has expired in 1966. The Taoiseach has interpreted the mandate of the people of October, 1961, in that manner. Indeed, contrary to the view which has just been expressed, the by-election results since 1961, in so far as we can draw any conclusions from by-election results, bear out his decision in that respect. Taking these by-elections together, the net result is an improvement in the Government's parliamentary position in Dáil Éireann, a net increase of one member supporting the Government, compared with the situation when we formed the Government in October, 1961.

Indeed, apart from the particular circumstances of Galway where, I think it is fair to say, highly emotional circumstances existed, the percentage trend in every other by-election has been strongly in favour of the Government. Mention has been made of my own constituency in which a by-election was held during the summer where the increase in the Fianna Fáil vote was of the order of 12 per cent, sufficient to guarantee us an extra seat again west of the Shannon when the next general election comes about.

I merely say that to show that if the Fine Gael Party wish to draw optimistic conclusions from highly emotional circumstances such as may have existed in Galway, they are welcome to live in that sort of fools' paradise but the reality of the matter is far nearer the present parliamentary representation in East Galway and it will be the same again after the next general election, when, undoubtedly, there will be three Fianna Fáil seats out of five in that constituency.

The plain fact of the matter is that the main reason why we secured the majority support in 1957, again in 1961 and would still in the event of a general election in the morning, is on the principal issue, in fact, the fundamental issue in any community, of confidence in the Government of the day. It was quite plainly shown during the Kildare and Cork by-elections where the issue was not, as has been suggested, the 12 per cent wage increase which was concluded by mutual agreement between the employers and the trade unions concerned and which had nothing got to do with the Government. This was not the issue in these two by-elections. The issue was plainly put by the Taoiseach in the course of a main speech which he made in Athy during that campaign when he made it quite plain to the people of these two constituencies that if we did not succeed in getting a mandate from the people in these two by-elections then there would be a general election. So, it can be fairly said that the by-elections in Kildare and Cork last February were of the nature of a minor general election in that the people of these two constituencies were made aware by the Taoiseach that in the event of Fianna Fáil not succeeding in these by-elections there would, in fact, be a general election. So, the issue was narrowed down in these by-elections to the fundamental issue of Government and whether the people wanted Fianna Fáil to continue as a Government.

The issue was not so narrowed down or so fundamental in the by-elections in Roscommon and Galway where emotional considerations entered into the particular decisions made by the people of these constituencies and where the fate of the Government was not at stake. I am quite certain that in any by-election in the morning, if it were made an issue of the Government or not, then the people would respond as the people in Kildare and Cork responded last February.

Mr. Donegan

Say that in Cork. You will have the opportunity.

Mr. Lenihan

The Parliamentary situation last February in Dáil Éireann was such that in the event of Fianna Fáil not securing those two seats we would have had to go to the country by reason of lack of parliamentary support, not having a majority in the House. The people saw the issue quite plainly and that was the only issue concerned in the by-elections. The thing was narrowed down to the fundamental issue of whether the people wanted the Government and a Government which would command the confidence which is so essential for the maintenance of any administration or Government. Confidence is the lubricant of the economy, the lubricant of the social order, the thing that keeps any community going.

The fundamental fact is that in 1957 the people had lost confidence. The ordinary people, the people with finance, the people who would invest, the people from top to bottom, in every sector of the community, had lost confidence in the Government of the day. That more than any other single reason was why the Coalition Government of that time, facing economic crisis, was rejected decisively by the people and that is why that decision was taken again by the people in the general election in 1961 and by the people in what I would call the minor general election of February, 1964.

I do not need to elaborate on this question of confidence. We have seen a very practical example in recent weeks in Britain of what can happen in regard to the sensitivity of finance where a question of confidence may arise. None of us can deny that this question of confidence was certainly absent when Deputy Sweetman as Minister for Finance went to the country in 1956 seeking two national loans to carry out the essential development which the Government of the day was committed to and on going to the people, large investors and small investors failed to subscribe to the loans. In one case they failed even to half-subscribe the loan which he sought from the people at that time.

This is the real indicator of any economy or any community: whether or not the people of the community have sufficient confidence in the Government of the day to lend it money.

I like to reduce things down to practical terms. The practical facts of 1956 were that the people, large investors and small investors, just would not subscribe any funds to the Government of the day to enable them to carry on their work and for that simple reason the Coalition Government, in late 1956, faced with the crisis of lack of confidence, faced with a situation where they were not getting the necessary funds for development, where a mounting balance of payments difficulty was combined with that situation, foundered as they did in the early months of 1957.

I am not going to place any great emphasis on balance of payments difficulties. I am very glad that under the present programme for economic expansion we are adopting a progressive attitude towards balance of payments. It is expressly recognised that we can run a planned deficit in regard to our balance of payments and at the moment, although there is contemplated a balance of payments deficit in the region of £30 million for the current year, at the same time you have this remarkable outcome of confidence in that our external reserves are rising and the recent national loan floated by the Government for £20 million was over-subscribed, despite the fact that that national loan got something in the nature of a body blow when the British Government suddenly increased interest rates during the period of the flotation of the loan up to seven per cent. Despite the increase in the British bank rate in the middle of the flotation period, the loan which was by that particular step of the British Government rendered much less attractive was over-subscribed.

This all adds up to something. When a country can afford to run a planned balance of payments deficit, can have its external reserves rising, can have its national loans over-subscribed, it all adds up to the single word that I have mentioned—confidence. There is confidence on the part of the investors in this Government to-day, and I venture to suggest, on the basis of the experience of 1955, 1956 and 1957, that in the event of a return to that sort of government setup here there might not be the same confidence, there might not be the same interest, both from outside and at home, to invest in the future of this country and that, I think, is the most salutary lesson that we have learned from the experience of the Coalition Government.

A very important step which has been taken since 1957 by the Government has been the introduction of the idea of planning for the future. I do not subscribe to the suggestion that it should be called programming. I regard it as planning. I regard any attempt to quibble between the words "programming" and "planning" as merely incidental. The First Programme for Economic Expansion, which was the first time a blueprint of future Government planning was ever drawn up by a Government was produced in this House of the Oireachtas for the first time in 1958. We had set down the targets of growth we hoped to achieve. A growth rate of two per cent, which was planned, and which was 100 per cent over what had been achieved during the Coalition period, when there was a rate of only one per cent, was more than doubled to a growth rate of between four per cent and five per cent. That figure of between four and five per cent has been accepted as the rate of expansion between now and 1970 in the Second Programme for Economic Expansion. This is a much more detailed programme. The targets have been set out in greater detail.

I am very glad to see that on the industrial side, at any rate, the targets this year set out in the Second Programme for Economic Expansion have been endorsed in a very recent report of the National Industrial Economic Council on which were represented the leading trade union people and the leading employer representatives in this country. Some of the finest minds in the trade union movement and in the employer movement who were on this council brought in their report endorsing, with certain minor differences, the targets which had been set down. After a very detailed study, industry by industry, of the plans and proposals of specific industries, they reported that the overall target rate of a net increase in total employment of 81,000 between 1964 and 1970 could be attained. That increase of 81,000, of course, by reason of the inevitable surplus coming from the land envisages a total increase in employment in industry and services by 1970 of 117,000.

Mr. Tully

Did the Minister say an increase of 117,000?

Mr. Lenihan

The figure of 117,000 is the planned figure endorsed by the trade union people in the National Industrial Economic Council.

Mr. Corish

In what period?

Mr. Lenihan

Between 1964 and 1970: employment in industry to rise by 60,000 and employment in services to rise by 57,000, giving an increase of 117,000, I agree, to be netted down in regard to total employment having regard to the possible diminution of employment on the land, to a total increase of 81,000 by 1970.

Mr. Tully

And only 1,000 of it this year.

Mr. Donegan

We heard it all before.

Mr. Lenihan

The increase in the current year is of the order of 10,000 to 12,000.

Mr. Corish

The Second Programme for Economic Expansion visualised an increase in employment of 78,000 within a ten-year period from 1960 to 1970.

Mr. Lenihan

I am talking about figures which have been endorsed by the trade union representatives.

Mr. Mullen

Do not blame it on the trade union representatives.

Mr. Lenihan

It is a very full council: Mr. W.J.L. Ryan of the Department of Industry and Commerce; Mr. J. Conroy representing the trade unions; Mr. C.R. Cuffe, representing the employers; Mr. J. Haughey of Córas Tráchtála; Mr. L. Keogh, Mr. J. Larkin, also representing the trade unions; Mr. P. Lynch, Chairman of Aer Lingus, Mr. C. McCarthy, Mr. J. McCarthy, Mr. D. Nevin, Mr. J.J. Stacey and Mr. J.J. Walsh.

(Interruptions.)

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

Perhaps the Minister might be allowed to make his speech without interruptions, just as other Deputies were.

Mr. Lenihan

These are the figures.

Mr. Corish

I just want to get it right. The Government's Second Programme for Economic Expansion specifically said 78,000.

Mr. Lenihan

I am mentioning a variation from 78,000 to 81,000 from the more detailed analyses prepared by the National Industrial Economic Council which represents the labour movement and the employers. However, we shall not quarrel as between 78,000 and 81,000. We shall take a round figure of 80,000 of an increase in industrial employment between now and 1970.

Mr. Donegan

What about agricultural employment?

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

Other Deputies were allowed to make their speeches without interruption.

Mr. Lenihan

In this connection I wish to refer to emigration which has been endemic in our country over many years. I do not like to make political capital out of our emigration but it is grossly inaccurate to state, as Deputy Collins has stated, that there has been an increase in emigration. I have got the exact figures here in regard to emigration and population over the past few years. If the year 1958 is taken, the year following the departure of the Coalition Government, the number was 60,000. To be accurate, since Deputy Corish has taken taken me up on hundreds——

Mr. Corish

It was thousands I was taking the Minister up on.

Mr. Lenihan

——it is 59,860. That emigration figure for 1958 is now down to 25,000-odd, and the figure for 1964 showed a diminution from 60,000 in 1958 to 25,000 in 1964. In regard to emigration, it is planned again under the Second Programme for Economic Expansion to reduce that 25,000 further to an emigration rate of 10,000 by 1970. That will be done, of course, by having the greater employment which I mentioned, particularly in the industrial, building, construction and services side of our economy. These figures are salutary and it is no harm to mention them to get the matter into perspective.

I suppose the most important figure of all in regard to any economic debate is the net figure for population. I think Deputy Donegan challenged me a while ago to mention the increase in the agricultural sector. I agree the increase in the industrial sector is where we must look for employment expansion in the future, that you will not get the same employment expansion in the agricultural sector. The position revealed in the population figures is that in 1962, for the first time since 1949, the year after a certain catastrophe occurred here in the form of the first Coalition Government, our population figures are going up. I have here in front of me the full table of population figures from 1945, including 1949, when they first started to go down. From 1945 to 1948, there was a rising curve in regard to our population. In 1949 the first danger sign appeared when there was a drop of 4,000 in our population and from 1949 until 1961, that drop continued: down 4,000 in 1949; down 12,000 in 1950; down 5,000 in 1951, and so on.

Mr. Corish

Give us the figures for 1952 and 1953.

Mr. Lenihan

I shall give all the figures. I shall give the full picture because it is very illuminating, and I like trends. I shall take the post-war period, regarding the war as a watershed period: in 1945, there is a rise in population of 8,000; in 1946, a rise of 5,000; in 1947, it is up 17,000; in 1948, when the first Coalition Government came into office, it is up 11,000. In 1949, the population went down by 4,000; 1950, down 12,000; 1951, down 5,000; 1952, down 8,000. In 1953, when we came to rescue the situation, it was down 4,000, the least drop so far. In 1954, the figure is down 8,000; in 1955, when the Coalition Government came back, the population figure was down 20,000; in 1956, during the next year of the Coalition Government, it is down 23,000; in 1957, a further year of the Coalition Government, it is down 13,000; in 1958, it is down 32,000—we are trying to recover; and in 1959, it is down 7,000; in 1960, it is down by 4,000; in 1961, it is down by 14,000. There is a picture of the haemorrhage in regard to our population between 1949 and 1961.

Mr. Corish

You take no responsibility for that?

Mr. Lenihan

For the first time that minus trend is brought into a positive trend with a rise in population of 6,000 in 1962, in 1963 a rise of 17,000, and in 1964 a further rise of 8,000. Those are the facts and no amount of juggling with the figures for increased industrial employment against a diminution of agricultural employment can affect those figures of population which present the complete picture, which shows that in the immediate post-war period between 1945 and 1947, there was a rise in population and then a continued decline in population between 1948 and 1961. From 1962 to 1964, we have reversed that trend and it is hoped to restore our population to a much higher figure, which we all wish for, a reasonable figure for a modern community fully employing all its resources. I just mention those figures as I think they are very illuminating.

Mr. Corish

Very.

Mr. Lenihan

It is no harm that they should be gone into. Much has been made of the importance of agriculture. While undoubtedly our main reliance for increasing employment and thereby increasing the population must rest on the industrial sector, it is essential from the the point of view of our balance of payments and our export earnings to have a strong agricultural section which may not absorb more in the way of employment but through its own efficiency, through increased mechanisation and by its own up-to-date methods of production, can earn more for our farmers and the State and so provide for increased employment in industry and eventually in agriculture, once the efficiency is stepped up to that degree.

In regard to agriculture, we had, I thought, a most hysterical outburst from Deputy Dillon this morning. He mentioned the fact that we had miscalculated in regard to the amount to be expended on the heifer grant scheme. This scheme was, I may say, very destructively criticised up and down the country when introduced but it has proved a tremendous success. Deputy Dillon said there was something amiss in the fact that we calculated on an expenditure of only £400,000 while in fact the expenditure looks like being in the order of £3 million. That is an excellent thing and it is excellent also that the farmers have so responded to this excellent scheme that the Department of Agriculture may have erred on the pessimistic side in estimating the response of farmers to the extent that what was expected to cost £400,000 at the planning stage is now going to cost £3 million. It is an excellent expenditure and one that has meant an increased amount, not merely for the medium and larger-size farmers but also for the small farmers of the west who rear and breed store cattle that are the foundation of the cattle industry. These are the people who rear the cattle that may be sold afterwards as stores elsewhere and the people who have primarily benefited from the heifer grant scheme.

The destructive misrepresentation, from Fine Gael particularly, at the initiation of the scheme was that it would benefit only the medium and larger-size farmers and would not be used at all by small farmers. The plain fact is that we are spending £3 million instead of £400,000 because the small farmers of Donegal, Sligo, Mayo, Galway, Roscommon and Leitrim, the areas where the store calves are reared, are availing of this grant. It is there the small man is going in for an extra cow and where he is being encouraged to have an extra heifer by reason of the existence of creameries now in the west of Ireland for the first time. He, therefore, has an outlet for milk which encourages him to go into rearing heifers and cows, and, along with the provision he can make for milk, he is in fact also adding to the stock of beef stores for the British market.

This development has been so successful that Deputy Dillon's only point against it now is that it has been too successful and he says we miscalculated in some way in regard to it. I hope we similarly miscalculate in respect of every such scheme that is of benefit to our economy. Miscalculations of that kind are to be welcomed, where people make greater use and avail of schemes to a greater degree than is anticipated by those planning for them.

The essential point I should like to make here—I have said this before— is that we have much more in common with the Labour Party than with the Fine Gael Party because we in Fianna Fáil have always believed in planning for social justice. So long as I am in politics, I shall always subscribe to that. I do not think the Fine Gael Party set this target consciously before them. They are essentially a conservative Party working on opportunism and expediency, without any belief in the fundamental importance of social justice.

What does social justice mean, it might be asked. I suggest it is the duty of every Government to ensure that every section of the community advances in accordance with every other section. You must provide the framework and the goals for economic achievement, but within that framework and in the achievement of these goals, it is essential to ensure that no section lags behind another section. There is no point in having targets which may result in an overall improvement of the national economy if in the achievement of these targets certain sectors of the community lag behind other sectors. I regard it as a fundamental duty of the Government to ensure that all sectors of the community move forward together. That is why I place very great reliance on the evolution of a national incomes policy. I am not going to say it can be evolved overnight: it can be done only by consultation and by mutual agreement between the parties sitting around a table and planning for its fulfilment. I believe the National Industrial Economic Council has made considerable progress in this field by sitting around the table together and planning for the future.

Mr. Corish

Does the Minister mean a national incomes policy or a national wages policy?

Mr. Lenihan

An incomes policy.

Mr. Corish

That is, for farmers and industrialists?

Mr. Lenihan

I agree this must be the eventual target. I regard the conclusion of the National Wage Agreement earlier this year as the first step towards that. I do not regard that as an end objective but a first step towards what I feel we can evolve in our community over the next few years. We can evolve an incomes policy in respect of wages, salaries, dividends and profits, an incomes policy which will require that the farming community's incomes must be raised so that they will come within reasonable distance of what can be got in urban employment.

We have only started to tackle this problem. I welcome the fact that we have made this agreement as our first step towards the solution of this problem. In certain parts of the world, notably Holland and Sweden, very great progress has been made towards this complete integration of the whole community in a planned incomes policy. The first psychological step towards this target must be a recognition by the various sectors of our community of their inter-dependence.

This has not been emphasised nearly sufficiently. I should deplore any emergence of an urban versus farmer attitude or labour versus employer attitude. In our community we have not so far had these disagreements to any great degree, largely, I suggest, because our larger Parties, Fianna Fáil, Fine Gael and Labour, have had representatives in each of the three parties from all sections. I should like that situation to continue. The closer we get towards having a single community policy for the whole country, the better. I think in the National Industrial Economic Council and the National Wage Agreement and in steps of that kind, we are approaching the evolution, by consultation first and then by agreement, of an incomes policy covering the community as a whole.

This is practical social justice. Similarly, any increase in aids to agriculture should be looked on in that way as being necessary from the Central Exchequer to ensure that people working on the land are able to earn from the land incomes which are comparable at least to some extent with incomes that can be earned in urban employment. No doubt at the present moment we are far from realising that ideal but that should be the target, to raise farm incomes until they become comparable with those obtained in urban work.

We must avoid any emergence, such as was mentioned by the Taoiseach this morning, of a gap between earnings and productivity. This is a matter concerning the employers and the trade union organisations and one to which attention must be paid. We cannot allow incomes, wages, profits and dividends to outstrip productivity. I am not saying that productivity is merely a matter of the workers increasing productivity. Side by side with that, it is a matter of the management increasing its own efficiency and making use of the various grants and loans available to improve output, adapt its working methods and its machinery, using all State aids that exist to make our industrial organisation more efficient. This, again, is an important matter which must be emphasised. No matter where the blame lies, no matter how it is apportioned between management and labour or between capital and labour, we cannot allow, at any rate for any indefinite time, a gap to emerge between productivity and earnings. That is sound commonsense.

We have introduced legislation in the last month or two to encourage both foreign investment here and to extend grants to industry in order to ensure an increasing level of employment. On the social side, and here I think Fine Gael have shown themselves conservative and reactionary, we have had the Succession Bill and the Land Bill, two measures with which people who think in terms of social justice will agree. Both of these measures made some inroads on a principle which was brought here from Victorian England, that absolute property ownership and the absolute right of disposal of property were inviolable. The principle of social justice would ordain that property ownership should have its responsibilities and duties.

The principle of absolute rights in regard to property functioned in Victorian England where labour was organised in sweat shops at low rates of pay with unlimited right to the owner to do as he wished with his human chattels. Property owners could also dispose of their property after death without regard to the rights of their wives and families, and if these outdated principles referring to a particular period of English history are to be regarded as sacrosanct in this country in 1964, the people who would regard them as such are completely out of touch with the facts of life in 1964.

In the Land Acts pushed through by Parnell in that time and later extended by successive Irish Governments, you have the principle that land and property ownership has its responsibilities as well as its rights. People who own property have the responsibility to use that property for the common good. This is a principle enshrined in the first Land Acts passed by the British Government which cleared out the landlord class who had reneged their responsibilities as landowners and had become an absentee class and replaced them with the tenant farmers of Ireland. If, in 1964, there is land left unused or land worked by absentee people, the Land Commission should have the machinery necessary to acquire it, to pay full compensation for it and to divide it amongst those who need it. This is the social principle embodied in the Land Bill.

It is the same principle that is enshrined in the Succession Bill in which we accept that a man has responsibility to his wife and to his dependent children and that this responsibility should be carried on after his death so that men just cannot renege that responsibility if they happen to be the owners of property. I was surprised to see the Labour Party not voting with us on the Succession Bill. They voted with us on many of the sections of the Land Bill but I would have thought a Party who are devoted, like ourselves, to the principles of social justice would have seen that the Succession Bill contains the elementary principles of social justice to which our Party and the Labour Party have always been committed and to which I would say Fine Gael are diametrically opposed because of their conservative and reactionary nature.

We must keep before us these essential objectives of social justice in carrying out the Second Programme for Economic Expansion. We must also ensure that in carrying out that Programme and while we are in the process of achieving the targets set out there, no section of our community will suffer. We should try to establish a situation in which all our people will move along towards better standards in as far as it is possible for us to do it. At present our people have been convinced by the advances made since 1957 that they are travelling forward under proper leadership. I discount the unfortunate circumstances which gave rise to the building strike which was the only black spot on the economic horizon in recent months. There were particular circumstances in regard to the building strike which I feel will not be repeated. I discount that single black mark on the general picture of progress. The former picture was that our people did not have full confidence in the leadership that was being given to them. That leadership is now being given by a Government who have set their targets for achievement and are leading the people towards those targets.

The success of the Buy Irish campaign is an instance of the confidence which the Fianna Fáil Government have given to the people. Ten years ago, that campaign would not have had a chance but now you have had a great patriotic effort by our people who now believe in the future of our country. Ten years ago, the feeling of the people was one of cynicism. Ten years ago, the people believed that there was no future for the country. Now the people believe in the future of the country and have responded magnificently to the appeal made to them to buy Irish, as others have responded to the appeal to sell Irish.

I feel that provided this Government continue to keep the twin objectives of economic progress and social justice before them and as long as we continue to follow our present plan for the achievement of these targets, we will continue to have the support of the Irish people as we have been given it taking all the by-elections of 1964 into account. We feel that the people will reject any policy of opportunism which may be put before them and that they will continue to repose their confidence in the leadership given to them in the past seven years. We believe that when the general election of 1966 comes, we will have the support of the people as we had it in the minor general election earlier this year.

Mr. Tully

Let me start off by saying that we have no apology to offer for voting against the Succession Bill. The Succession Bill before the House last evening was not the Succession Bill the Minister has been talking about. It was one which he himself had to tear to pieces and which he proposes to reassemble in different form. No one in his sober senses would vote for the measure put before the House by the Minister's predecessor and the Minister will agree with me that that is the only reasonable approach to it.

As far as the present debate is concerned, we have heard a lot of talk about the National Wage Agreement. Some of the people speaking here about that agreement obviously do not know what they are talking about. The National Wage Agreement was not a proposal that the workers or the employers should mortgage the future. An increase of 12 per cent with a floor of £1 was agreed upon because that was the least sum the trade unions thought would cover the period from the previous agreement up to the date the last agreement was made. How that can be counted into the increase which has taken place since, I do not know, but, by some peculiar method of reasoning, certain people have been making that assertion. And they have been doing something else.

When it suits, the Fianna Fáil Party, the Government Party, claim the Taoiseach gave the 12 per cent to the workers. The Minister for Justice may shake his head but I know the propaganda and comment used all over the country and in the cities, too. When they found in certain areas that was not a very profitable line of argument, they promptly said the trade unions got the 12 per cent and were ruining the country. We all heard it. We all know this little political game, but, believe me, the game is played out now because it is quite clear to anybody who thinks that the 12 per cent was achieved by negotiation between the employers and the trade unions.

Mr. Lenihan

Agreed.

Mr. Tully

The Taoiseach suggested there should be an increase per year of slightly under what the increase in national production was. At that time it was averaging about four per cent and the increase he suggested was only eight per cent, though, on his own figures, the very least that could be expected was, in fact, 12 per cent. Again, he was trying to have it both ways and it just did not come off. The 12 per cent was granted and paid, and the only thing that happened was that the Government did not do what they should have done. It was quite obvious to everybody, taking everything into consideration, that there might be a slight increase in the cost of production, and had the Government been courageous enough to say to the manufacturers: "Because of the adjustment which may occur, you are now entitled to increase your profit by not more than four per cent and, if you want more, come into the Prices Advisory Body and make your case for it", we would then have had the industrial sphere remaining at a fair level and we would have the economy in a better position than it is today.

What happened? When the increase was granted, almost immediately certain manufacturers decided they were not going to lose the opportunity to try to get ill-gotten gains and manufacturers increased the prices of their entire range of products by ten per cent, by 12 per cent, and some of them eventually got the jackpot of 15 per cent and, when they got that, they felt they were getting away with something. When the matter was brought to the notice of the Minister for Industry and Commerce, and he was asked to investigate, he just did nothing about it. He told us he was sending out inspectors to have a spot check on certain articles, and he mentioned soap, and I understand he did have an investigation into the price of soap and eventually agreed the price was justified.

Mr. McGilligan

No. He said there was no undue increase.

Mr. Tully

It amounts to the same thing.

Mr. McGilligan

It does not.

Mr. Tully

When it came to petrol, because the Fianna Fáil Árd Fheis occurred at the same time, the Minister took quicker action. He did not say it must be investigated. He said: "No. You may not increase the price and you must reduce it" and it was reduced, and it has not been increased since. The Minister has the power, if he wants to use it.

We have been hearing a great deal here, and outside, from Ministers about an incomes policy. At a social function, I listened for over an hour one night to the Minister for Transport and Power talking about an incomes policy. After listening to him for a quarter of an hour, I was quite sure that at last all the things that have been said from this side of the House to Ministers and all the things trade unionists have been asking about an incomes policy had eventually reached their goal and Ministers were beginning to see the light. I thought: "Here is a Minister who knows what he is talking about," and then the little twist came, and eventually I discovered he was talking about the same thing as all the Ministers had been talking about before and since; he was talking about a wages policy. Do not let the Minister for Transport and Power and the Government think the workers do not know the difference, because they do. It is no use trying to put across the story that, if you ensure worker's wages do not go up, that is the whole story because, if you want an incomes policy, you will get the full support of the Labour Party and the trade union movement to put it into operation. But it must be an incomes policy and not a wages standstill, as we had before.

What is the position in industry? They have been making profits. I will leave out the names of the firms but I will give you a few quotes from a weekly journal called Business and Finance. This is from recent issues. The first is: “Excellent results have come .... Net profits have soared from £94,000 to a best-ever £119,000.” The next one is: “Record profits are reported by ... much to the surprise and delight of many ...” The next one is: “A cheerful report comes from ...” The next is: “With the issue of a capital bonus by ... comes news of yet another record advance in profits.” The next one is: “The profits of .... show a jump of around 50 per cent.”

These are the poor people who are running industry and who feel they are not getting a fair share and the workers' 12 per cent is dragging them down and almost putting them out of existence. Another extract says: "Sparkling results and a big increase in dividends were announced ..." and the last one is: "Brilliant results ..." If we are to talk about an incomes policy, then let us talk about it. Let us sit down around the table and talk about it, because, mark you, since the National Wage Agreement, no discussions have taken place between the trade unions and the Government and the employers on an incomes policy, and I do not think the Government have interested themselves very much in it. All they are interested in is a wages policy: Tie the workers; if you are able to tie them, then our friends can continue to make as big profits as they like. That will not wash very much longer and, as far as we are concerned, we will not stand over a policy which ties those who are getting very little, and working hard for that little, and gives the unproductive higher profits than they are getting even at the present time.

Reference was made to the Buy Irish campaign. Personally, I think there is a great deal of hypocrisy about that campaign or, as someone said a moment ago, the "Sell Irish" campaign. During the debate here a few weeks ago, I produced a document, one of hundreds of thousands issued by the Department of Posts and Telegraphs. It was printed in the USA. The same Ministry gave an order for materials a few weeks before that to a firm in Dundee against a firm in Balbriggan for £13,000. If we went around the various Ministries and local authorities, one by one, we would find every one of them, to save a farthing here or a farthing there, exporting Irish money for products which could very well be bought here, but which they do not want to buy.

Recently I heard a report about a hospital which had pots of jam. The people in charge asked where the jam was produced. Was it Irish? The reply was: "Oh, yes; it is produced in this country". A little further questioning elicited the information that in fact it was fruit juice imported from Holland which had been processed in some back lane in Dublin, dumped into jars and sold a penny cheaper than the Irish product. Can any Government stand over that kind of thing? Is there any reason why we should allow local authorities, State and semi-State bodies to do that kind of thing?

The Minister for Finance was asked a question about pencils. Perhaps it was only a small thing involving £700 or £800, but he made a very significant remark. He was asked were further orders being laid and he said: "No; there would be no further orders for this type of pencil laid in Britain, or anywhere else, as long as the 15 per cent levy remains". That means that so soon as the levy is over we are to forget all about buying Irish and go back to buying from the cheapest producer. It does not seem to be appreciated that, when we do that, every £ we spend abroad leaves someone unemployed here. I felt when this 15 per cent went on it would have this merit that even if it did tighten the strings here, at least it would bring home to many people who were not buying Irish that they must do it now. I am afraid, however, that the lesson does not seem to have been learned and apparently, according to the Minister for Finance, while the 15 per cent remains, we will buy Irish, but as soon as it goes, then we are free to go back to the bad old days and buy anything we like.

At present Christmas shopping is going on in this city and I would suggest to the Minister that he can go into practically any shop, even into those with "Buy Irish" in their windows, and if he asks for an article that is worth more than £4 or £5, then in nine cases out of ten a foreign-made article will be placed before him. It is only if the buyer asks for Irish goods that he will be given them. Otherwise, if he looks at the article he will find that it was made in Italy, France or England. The situation has got very much out of hand. As well as talking about buying Irish, we must buy Irish if we are to get anywhere. The Government should give the example not alone by buying Irish themselves but insisting that local authorities and State and semi-State bodies will do the same. I remember Bord na Móna buying forks from West Germany because they said they were a few pence cheaper than those made in Navan or Cork. We should buy the foreign-made article only if there is a big difference in price and in such cases we should ask the Irish firm to produce at the same price.

Deputy Corish referred to the social welfare picture. I do not want to go very deeply into this as I know there are many speakers anxious to contribute but I should like to point out that what he said is quite correct. Those living on fixed incomes, particularly on social assistance more than social welfare benefit, are in a pretty bad way at present. When the 12 per cent increase was applied to workers, the social welfare recipents did not get anything like a corresponding amount. The result is that many of them—and this is a terrible thing to have to say in Parliament—are in dire want.

We know the old story that people do not like applying for home assistance if they can avoid it but there are many who have been forced into that position at present. There is nothing so tragic as to find a father or mother, or both, whose family perhaps have emigrated, left at the end of their days without enough money to buy food. I know that in a few years' time with the change in the social welfare contributory old age pension position, more people will have a good deal more than they have now.

I give credit to the Government for introducing this pension. It is an excellent idea and it is working well. In the meantime, those who for one reason or another are left in the situation that they can get only the social welfare non-contributory pension, which is in the same category as social assistance, should have something done for them. With regard to the old age pension itself, I pointed out the week before last on a motion that when it was first introduced in 1909, a farm worker was able to get a pension amounting to one-half of what his wages were if working fulltime. Even with a contributory pension now he is getting only about one-third.

When this matter is raised the question is always posed: where is the money to come from? I remember what happened here, although I was not a member of the House, when war was declared. There was no trouble at all in finding the necessary money to put a very large standing Army in the field and there was no objection by anybody to producing that money. It was a national emergency and therefore the money was provided from then until the end of the emergency. I say to the Minister that this is a national emergency as far as those people are concerned. It is far more serious for them than war in Europe. I would ask that something be done for them and done in the near future.

There is another thing indicative of the attitude of mind of some people in authority here. I have always given credit to the Department of Social Welfare because its officials, and to a certain extent, the Minister, have been doing a fine job as far as they can go, but just within the last few weeks I found that a number of people in my constituency, and I assume it applies elsewhere, have been examined by doctors for some extraordinary reason at this time and have been declared fit for work, even though their local doctor said they were unfit for work, and their payments have been cut off. When this applies to a man with a wife and six or seven children, such people do not think very much of the Government responsible for it, and I do not blame them. This sort of thing should be dealt with and dealt with pretty quickly.

One Deputy dealt with the drainage problems of the whole country. We know that the Government are doing a certain amount of arterial drainage but at present we have a situation which has existed for a number of years in and around this city and in County Meath. It is the situation that exists in regard to the River Tolka which runs from Meath into Dublin. Not alone has it recently flooded the Dublin-Navan road to a depth of three or four feet, and not for the first time, but it has also flooded acres of small farming land. The Government should make an attempt to remedy this situation, no matter whose corns they may tread on, because I understand there are certain vested interests involved who do not want to see it dealt with. We have a somewhat similar situation in regard to the River Nanny which is on the intermediate list. Deputy Burke has jumped the queue more than once in Dublin and I suppose we will have to wait until his area has been dealt with. I can assure the Minister, however, that the people down there are just as much entitled to consideration as are the supporters of Deputy Burke or any other Government Deputy.

In regard to the question of agriculture versus industry, I have some rather significant figures here. First of all, I would ask again if the Minister knows why agriculture is still not represented on the NIEC? Is there any reason why it should continue to be left out, particularly in view of the figures I am about to give? I have here the Farm Research News for November-December 1964, which gives a table setting out that agriculture imports only approximately seven per cent of its raw materials and exports 50 per cent of its product, and that represents 60 per cent of the total exports of this country. That is a very significant figure. Despite that, we still have the National Industrial Economic Council without agricultural representation on it. How does industry stand? Industry imports 38.4 per cent of its raw materials and exports 40 per cent of its total products, that is, 40 per cent of the total exports of the country. Industry is represented, and well represented, on the NIEC and I feel there is no reason why agriculture should not also be represented.

One thing which I can never understand is all the talk we hear about money being made available for agriculture. I could not agree more with the speaker who pointed out that in agriculture the man who has plenty is always able to get loans and grants and the small man, who really needs them, has to prove he does not need it before he gets a loan. He has not the money to avail of the grants. The heifer subsidy was discussed up and down here for the past couple of weeks. We all know there was a bad miscalculation in the estimate—from £300,000 to almost £3 million. Definitely somebody slipped up. The sum for the entire period of three or four years will be spent in one year. I am not quarrelling with that.

What I am querying is this. We are facing the situation where this has been left for one year. Are we to find the people who have drawn their £15 going back to dry stock again next year when they find they will have to have additional heifers for the purpose of getting a further grant? Is it not true, as somebody said earlier, that the farmer has not got the finance or, if he has, that he cannot get the land on which to keep the extra heifers, with the result that he is left in the position that he must get rid of them as soon as he collects the bonus of £15?

Somebody said that this was a wonderful thing, that this £15 represented a lot to the small farmers in the West. I have heard this question debated in regard to rates, as to what difference a few pounds make to the small farmer. I do not care whether he is a small or a big farmer. I can assure the Minister that he will not come to Dublin on a spending spree with the extra £15. If that is the best that can be offered as an encouragement to the small farmer to stay on his holding, there is not very much hope for him in the future. He has to be content with his lot and realise that he is one of the forgotten men.

The question of the increase in the cost of living has been mentioned. Could I again point out that the increase which has taken place will not be tolerated by the trade union movement? If the Government are not prepared to tie prices, then the tenth round wage increase is around the corner. Neither the trade unions nor trade unionists want a further wage demand at present. If they could get a guarantee that an attempt would be made by the Government to stabilise the cost of living, they would be far happier. If no attempt is made, it simply means that what they get is taken from them within a few weeks. The people living on fixed incomes, the small farmers and small shopkeepers, find themselves worse off than before a wage demand was conceded. Despite that, the trade union movement have strength enough to get an increase for their own members. Unless there is a serious attempt by the Government to face up to the position and realise they cannot allow the increases they have got to be taken away from them, the Government are in for serious trouble.

Somebody spoke about bureaux to look after the Irish worker when he emigrates. I think that speaker was either being funny or did not appreciate the position. We cannot start telling people in other countries how they should carry on. The remittances which come here from emigrants still represent a very big proportion of our income. If we did not get them, there would be a very lean time this Christmas for many people depending on them. While we like to get them, we would be much happier to have those people working at home. There is no point in the Minister for Justice talking about an increase in employment when that increase is not there. The figures do not show that there is sufficient increase in industrial employment to absorb those leaving agriculture. In addition, we can see, unfortunately, that the figures for emigration appear to be rising again. We can pick certain periods, as was done a few years ago, and give a favourable figure. Two years ago, the figure of 12,500 was quoted by Government speakers all over the place. At a later date the Taoiseach admitted that figure was wrong. Unfortunately, the necessary steps do not yet appear to have been taken to change it on the record. It still seems to be accepted by some people as being the figure two years ago.

Mr. McGilligan

I thought he corrected that to 25,000?

Mr. Tully

It was corrected, but no figure was given. It would appear that the figure is on the increase again. As long as we have that type of figure for emigration, as long as we have the figure of unemployment running up to 50,000, as long as we have prices increasing in the country without any attempt by the Government to hold them, the Government cannot claim to be a success.

Mr. Carroll

Listening to speakers this evening, one would think the future was bright. We were told by one Opposition Deputy that we could drain our rivers, increase agricultural production and all the rest. Perhaps we could do all these things. We are prepared to give £500 to assist individual farmers. I have nothing against that. We are prepared to buy Irish, but we do not seem to be prepared to build houses in Ireland. We have an appalling situation in this city. We are considering housing three families who have seven children and have not had a home for two years. They are living down in Griffith Barracks, and the husband, a Catholic, is in the Iveagh Hostel.

There have been references here to social justice. Does that represent social justice to the family? It is only a question of building houses to give an opportunity to the newly-weds, to the fathers who cannot get a home for their married daughters. I have been in houses where sisters and brothers and brothers-in-law were lying on the floor. We have heard much condemnation of CIE today, but so long as Dublin Corporation remains as presently constituted, the Government can feel satisfied. They can unload their responsibilities on to them.

As an Alderman of the Corporation, I still have people coming to me, people who had two children before I was an Alderman, and who have not yet been offered accommodation. If another loan were floated, this time for housing, it might be possible, instead of giving £500 to build a haggard for cattle, to create a home for a family. The people of Dublin are sadly disappointed. The revelation today that we are to build 3,000 homes will be welcome. Whether we are considering support for Fine Gael, for Labour or for Fianna Fáil, a person who needs a house does not care who gives it to him and will support whoever will.

We have heard from Deputy S. Dunne about the management of the business of CIE. There is one request I would make on behalf of old age pensioners who have given their best and who are now out in a home in Dundrum. It is that CIE extend the route of a bus by half a mile or so during the valley periods, which would take people to and from that home, at least during the Christmas period. That is not a wonderful Christmas present but it might prevent some of these people from getting pneumonia. CIE would like to do it but cannot do it. We are not asking for a free bus. These people are prepared to pay. They cannot get the opportunity. Surely, this is a case where CIE could be approached or its administration interfered with by the Minister for Transport and Power.

The question of general Government policy or the policy of the Opposition does not influence me. It is my opinion that any group of financiers who could create houses for the people could succeed at any election.

It is rarely that I attempt to take up the time of the House in putting my views. When I do so, I usually find that it involves sitting here for five or five and a half hours to get the opportunity of saying even a few words. I have no objection to that.

I am not trying to change Government policy but I should like some assurance to be given at the conclusion of this debate tonight that the provision of housing will be immediately accelerated for the people of this city. All that these people are asking for is just a place in which to live. They are not querying the cost of it. It has been stated that we are not in need of money. Even if we were in need of money, there would be sufficient justification for raising the money. The young couples would be perfectly prepared to pay. They do not even want a deposit for nothing. They would be prepared to pay it back. The £275 Government grant is no good at the present time when they must have £400 to £500 even to get into a house on a caretaker's agreement.

I would certainly support any move by the Government or any Department in regard to the cost of building but surely we can undertake the sponsoring of the necessary capital for housing because, as has been stated today, under the Small Dwellings Acquisition Act loan scheme, there have been no failures. We have gone halfway with the work. We are providing chalets for the people and not even enough of them.

That is the burning question so far as I am concerned, not the £½ million or £2 million or £2½ million increase in the heifer scheme, because I am convinced that if there were a proposal tomorrow to increase children's allowance by £½ million, it would never rise to £3 million because there is no opportunity to have children.

Mr. Corry

Deputy Collins this evening was trying to create the impression that this Government were becoming unpopular. It is a kind of habit with our people that after a while every Government become unpopular. We have to remember one thing: we are a sentimental race and thank God for it. But for that sentiment, which opened the doors of the farmhouses and the cottages to our boys from 1918 on to 1924, this would be a different country today and we would not be here. It is the same sentiment that led me, when there was a by-election in Roscommon, to say that I would not go up there against a neighbour's daughter. The same sentiment prevails.

Everywhere there is a Fianna Fáil vacancy existing, we win the seat. In the constituency of Kildare we again won the seat. That is the position as I see it. As long as this House places itself in the position of making no provision whatever for dependants of Deputies, so long will the present condition of affairs arise in regard to constituencies, because we are a very sentimental race.

I know Deputies who have been in this House for 12, 14 and 15 years, who died and who died in debt. The widow has nothing to get; her children have nothing to get under the present regulations in this House. What are the people expected to do? As far as I can judge, the people are well satisfied and happy with the present position. There is one thing they do not want; they do not want Deputy James Dillon, white, red, black or blue. That is my opinion.

Deputy Seán Collins was moaning and complaining, as usual. What has Deputy Seán Collins to complain of? Under this Administration an industry is at last going up in his constituency in Skibbereen, an industry to which the State is giving a grant of £400,000. That factory is at present being built and all I hope is that the people there will not take the advice of the politicians who advised them before when help was forthcoming to them from the same source. When they were invited to grow under contract sticklings for beet seed, they refused, or at least they so bedevilled it that in two years it had to be taken away from them and sent down to Deputy O'Donnell's constituency in Limerick, where they are making money out of it. I hope the same advice will not prevail now in regard to the new industry being established in Deputy Collins's constituency and for which there is a grant of £400,000.

There is one thing worrying our agricultural community today. It is imports, and what is being imported into this country? I have here before me trade and shipping statistics. There was £792,000 worth of musical instruments, tambourines and showband instruments, imported into this country last year, and in the first eight months of this year, that was followed by £580,000 worth more. Farmers produce milk at practically an uneconomic price, sending it to the creamery to be converted into butter. That butter has again to be subsidised by the taxpayer when it is sent to Britain. It would remind one of what happened long ago when people went out to the Indians and got nuggets for a handful of glass beads. We send over a box of butter from our farmers and get back a tambourine. If certain sections of our community are as well off as to be able to afford to bring in £1,500,000 worth of musical instruments in a year and a half, I suggest to the Government that that is the place to get the 15 per cent.

Some banks in this country are importing even their cheque books. I wonder what banks are doing that. Surely with all the printers we have in this country, somebody would be able to print cheque books for the bankers. It is the same in regard to tickets. There is over £2,500,000 worth of printed material being imported every year. These are the things which, to my mind, are creating our adverse trade balance, imports of luxuries.

About 12 months ago, a colleague and I went down to one of the biggest drapery establishments in this city. We travelled from counter to counter and from one end of the store to the other and we could not get a pair of Irish socks. These are the boys who, I suppose, now have a poster in the window saying they have Irish goods.

What extra commission is being paid to the gentleman behind the counter to sell foreign clothing and foreign shoes? These are the things we should find out and end. Every pound spent in that manner is an increase in our adverse trade balance, in the first instance, and is depriving some of our people of employment, in the second instance. I have no room for those whose policy seems to be deliberately to endeavour to knock down any industry giving employment to our people. It is an absolutely lunatic move. We had the example of Rushbrooke Dockyard; we had the example of Irish Steel. We have the example anywhere that employment is being given to the people of our country to keep them at home.

Mr. Barrett

Irrespective of the cost. It does not matter so long as it is in the Deputy's constituency.

Mr. Corry

I shall tell the Deputy for his information, if he has not found out at the last election, that 80 per cent of the employees of Rushbrooke Dockyard come from Cork City. That might satisfy him. That was shown in the ballot boxes for Deputy Mrs. Galvin.

(Interruptions.)

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

Deputy Corry should be allowed to proceed without interruption.

Mr. Corry

Deputy Barrett will probably learn that in 1966 when we shall give him the next gallop. Their leader showed them an example of making vicious attacks; he started the ball rolling and kept at it. If you want examples, I shall give them to you. There is the beet industry which last year paid £7 million to our farmers but here is what the Leader of the Opposition thinks about it, and here is his contribution to the beet factories as reported at column 1512, Volume 101 of the Official Report of 6th June, 1946:

Do Deputies realise what the beet sugar is costing this country? The present price of beet sugar consumed by the consumer in Ireland without any customs and excise duty of any kind, is 5d. per lb. and that price is based on the present rate paid for beet. Does any Deputy anticipate that the price for beet is going to be materially reduced in future or does he not agree with me that if the cultivation of the beet crop is to be maintained in this country, the price must be raised, if not at least maintained at the present figure? Do I exaggerate when I say that, prior to the war, the price of cane sugar, refined, delivered free on quay, Dublin, was about 1½d per lb. and that, postwar, we may anticipate, when things have settled down, it will fluctuate around 2d per lb.? If that estimate is correct, the cost of the beet scheme in this country is 3d per lb. of sugar; call it £30 per ton; £30 per ton on 100,000 tons is £3,000,000 of money per annum. Give me that money and tomorrow morning we can increase the family allowance going into every home from 2/6d to 7/- per child. Is there any Deputy who would argue with me that our community is getting better value in the maintenance of that draft scheme at a cost of £3,000,000 per annum than it would get if we were in a position to raise the family allowance in every poor house from 2/6d to 7/-?

The Coalition came in in 1948. Our prices are based on costings and the very first job that the then Minister for Industry and Commerce. Deputy Morrissey, and Deputy Dillon, then Minister for Agriculture, did was to send a letter to the Sugar Company, stating that "The previous Government had been far too generous to the agricultural community and that they could not agree for a moment with any increase in the price of beet for the coming year." What happened? The beet acreage dropped. We imported 75,000 tons of sugar and paid £12 a ton more for it than the best Irish sugar would cost leaving our own factory. That was the result of Deputy Dillon's manoeuvres in beet.

We hear a lot about the 1948 Agreement but Deputy Dillon and Deputy Norton went to England in 1956 and made another agreement. Deputy Dillon could not forget that ruffian beet and he came back, having signed an agreement allowing the British Government to put £16 per ton on every ton of sugar exported by us to Britain. Those are facts. We had to fight that. It is very hard to get something back when it has gone, but, all credit to our Minister for Industry and Commerce and our then Minister for Agriculture, Deputy Smith, they did get the situation restored and the result is that 10,000 tons of sugar left the country this year between January and July for Britain at the lovely price of £84 per ton. That was obtained under a special agreement to undo the damage the other people did while we had to ration beet for four years.

Consider those facts. I want to warn the Government again that in this regard a very grave position is arising today. During the past two months, I had to put down a series of questions to the Minister for Agriculture and to the Minister for Industry and Commerce. My question to the latter was on exports of sugar and my question to the former was on the imports of sugar for stockpiling. From January to August of this year, we imported 37,989 tons of unrefined sugar at a cost of £2,626,000 or £69 per ton. We imported 1,693 tons of refined sugar costing £124,200 or £73 per ton. The cost of the best Irish sugar leaving our factories today is £61 per ton. On that basis we have paid for this quantity of sugar over half a million more than we would pay if our own farmers produced it.

Let us look that fact in the face. That creates a situation as bad as when Deputy Dillon was fumbling around back in 1952. I suggest that situation should be remedied immediately. We wonder why people are leaving the land. It may be great for an industrial concern to cut down expenditure but until we have a position in which the agricultural producers will be able to pay employees at least as well as industrialists are able to pay them, you will have people flying from the land. Nobody can blame them because anybody with only four bones to sell must sell them in the dearest market. We must face these facts.

We have succeeded in getting industries going that will give employment to small farmers and keep them on the land. I have proved that to my own satisfaction. We started one of these little processing factories such as there is in Skibbereen and it is in production in East Cork for the past three months. At that factory farmers are getting as much as £160 per acre for cabbage and £200 an acre for carrots. The whole aspect of agriculture is being rapidly changed in this regard because a man can live on a small holding if he is able to get £200 or £300 an acre for what he produces on it. Those are the things we need, not the business of the man who put up the cry that the proper thing to do with our beet factories was to import unrefined sugar and refine it there thus depriving the farmers of £7,000,000 they got for beet last year. That man is the Leader of a Party, the Lord between me and harm.

Those are the things I want remedied. My job is to look after my constituents and to see that anything that may hurt them will be brought out in the open. While I am here, I intend to do that and I do not care what Party are sitting on the Government benches. I shall do my own job as I see it. I know time is short and I do not wish to hold up the business, but there is no justification at present for paying out on the one hand a 15 per cent tariff on what our people produce and on the other hand, allowing into the country something for the pop boys at a cost of £1,200,000. That is what the pop boys are costing in imports. It is a very poor day when the Irish people must export a box of butter to bring in a tambourine.

We hear a lot about agricultural subsidies. I examined those subsidies the other day; they are shown on the Vote for Agriculture, but I think they are in the wrong place, that their proper place is the Vote for Industry and Commerce because the bulk of them enable the farmer to buy material produced here. By that, I mean grants for farm buildings and things like that. Those subsidies should be put in their right place and not put in where they are just words shoved in to show what they are doing for agriculture when, in reality, they are a subsidy to support industry.

I realise what the situation is. I realise that in my constituency, in any portion of it into which I go, the southern part at any rate, there is not an idle man. There used to be unemployment in Youghal which was alive for three months of the year and dead for nine months. When, at election time, you went there from door to door you were told by the woman of the house that she was sorry, that Michael had gone to England to earn a few shillings. Today you will not find ten men registered at the employment exchange in Youghal. Those are the things that count in my area.

When we came to open a new industry in Midleton, we had to go to Cobh for female labour as there was none available in Midleton. That is the Ireland we want to see, not the Ireland where we will close down the beet factories for the crazy idea of a crazy leader. That is the work that must be done if we are to give employment to our people and to provide what our comrades died for, a decent home for our own people. It would be better for Deputies on the other side of the House if they came in here with that idea, than that they should come in with the idea of sabotaging these things.

Mr. Barrett

I do not believe, and I think the Taoiseach will agree with me, that Deputy Corry is typical of the Fianna Fáil Party, but I am afraid that in some ways he is. We have just heard it from him by inference that the industries that went to Youghal went there because Deputy Corry is a member of the Fianna Fáil Party and Fianna Fáil were the Party in power for the greater part of 30 years. This is the kind of nonsense which we should explode here on an occasion such as this. These are the faults which I find existing in Fianna Fáil, that they attribute every industry to themselves and that no tribute is paid to the business acumen and ability of the ordinary Irish businessman.

Deputy Corry knows that the industries which were set up in Youghal were set up there because there were high-minded Irish businessmen prepared to invest there and work for the development of these industries. Deputy Corry claims for himself and his Party that Youghal would still be idle for nine months of the year, if it were not for them, if it were not for the fact that Deputy Corry is a member of the Fianna Fáil Party and that Fianna Fáil are the Government. That attitude does immense harm to Irish industry. It would be better to take the view that Irish industry flourished no matter what Government were in power and will continue to flourish.

Mr. Corry

Tell us one industry established by you.

Mr. Barrett

I am making my own speech. Another thing that is typical of Fianna Fáil is that if we pass criticism on the Government, we are immediately accused of sabotage. I do not think that it matters that Deputy Corry says these things because most people pay very little attention to him, but when the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Finance went out of his way to say the same thing not so very long ago, I regretted it very much. The least the Government could do is to attribute to this side of the House a sincerity and a willingness to see the country prosper, to see the schemes which they believe to be prudent prosper. They should also give us credit for sincerity when we criticise matters which we believe to be imprudent.

One can sympathise with the Government who find themselves faced with a situation which they did not foresee possibly because they were motivated by an enthusiasm which a more prudent Government would not entertain. I do not think we should be accused of sabotaging these activities. The members of the Government Party should admit that there are good Irishmen on both sides of the House and that all the major Parties are interested and enthusiastic for the progress of Irish industry.

Much reference has been made to the success of the Buy Irish campaign. A funny thing about the success of that campaign is that it was entirely involuntary. It was thrust upon us by the measures imposed on our exports by the British Government. A feature of its success is that every member of the House will have to ask himself whether, as a result of this very success, the marketing side of Irish industry is prepared to meet that success. If you go into many of the shops in my constituency and ask for an Irish article, you will be offered an English article instead, partly for the reason that there is not a comparable Irish article but mainly because you will find that there has not been built up here an appreciation of the importance of every person who stands behind a shop counter in this country.

I make an appeal to everybody standing behind the counter to foster the Buy Irish campaign as far as he can. One of the results which would appear to arise from the success of the Buy Irish campaign is the inadequacy of some sectors of Irish industry to deal with a market that is very large. The Christmas card market is one that large numbers of people have in mind at the moment. I think there is a big potential here for an industry that would supply a need which is not supplied at the moment. It might be a small industry but it might be better for the Government to foster this type of industry than some of those we have got. If we could foster this type of small industry, we would be employing well paid tradesmen in doing a job which would be amply rewarding.

I believe we have gone through one of the most anxious years of our existence. More important still, I believe we are facing a still more anxious year. What makes the coming year more anxious is the apparent complete absence of anxiety on the Front Bench of the Government. The former Minister for Agriculture, Deputy Smith, showed his anxiety and, at a dinner in Dublin, the Minister for Finance was moved to admit that he was appalled at the prospect of finding certain demands being made upon him. With these two possible exceptions, no other member of the Government has shown any anxiety at all.

These things should be brought home. The Government should appreciate exactly what is happening. The great tragedy is that the only anxiety displayed by the Government is an anxiety to stick their head in the sand and avoid facing the inflationary and other problems that confront us and that reaction is unfortunately seeping down into the general public, in so far as the Government can make that possible. There is one very good side, however, that is, that of the last five by-elections held to this House three went against the Government. I wish the Government would read the signs and portents indicated by these defeats. The important thing to remember is that the two by-elections the Government won were what I describe as the 12 per cent by-elections, during which the Government deliberately misled the people into believing that, unless they won the by-elections in Cork city and Kildare, something dreadful would happen and the people would not get any increase of 12 per cent in their wages.

The Leader of the Government and every member of the Government Front Bench and the Government backbenchers who went out in these by-elections deliberately made a political commerce of this fallacy, fooled a large section of the Irish electorate into giving an alleged vote of confidence to the Government on premises which were entirely false. They convinced the Irish working man and woman that unless the Fianna Fáil candidates were returned in Cork and Kildare, there would be no 12 per cent increase. We on this side of the House were intent to point out, and did conscientiously point out, that in fact there would be no increase. The fact is, as we know, that after these by-elections there was no increase and even though a large number received an increase of 12 per cent, that increase was actually taken from them before they put it into their pockets.

Over the past 12 months, we have had in this country a Government without compassion and without compunction. They were without compassion when they deliberately increased the cost of living for pensioners and those living on attenuated fixed incomes. They were without compunction when they deliberately misled people into believing that if the Government Party obtained a successful suffrage in the by-elections, they would, in fact, get something which they were not going to get. They were without compunction, too, because they knew they were deliberately damaging the Irish economy by shifting on this 12 per cent to prices, thereby pricing us out of the export market.

It was a Government without compassion or compunction because there is no doubt that there is more window-dressing done by this Government than actual service given. I refer to the fact that whilst people are festering in slums in Cork and Dublin, the Government are deliberately diverting building operatives and tradesmen away from the building of houses for the working classes to the building of luxury hotels and public buildings, such as the skyscraper offices for the Cork County Council.

I may be accused here of playing politics. I am doing no such thing. I am talking about the needs of the ordinary Irish man and woman and trying to remind those on the other side that these are the people we are here to protect and help. I am trying to remind them that no matter what show they make or how loudly they whistle passing the graveyard, fundamentally their first obligation is to those people who have had to live in houses until they collapsed or until they were washed out of them. I speak in particular for my own constituency in that regard because this Government have failed tragically in relation to the needs of the people to whom I have referred.

When we were in power, we built in one year 387 houses and in another 491. Today the needs of the people in Cork are just as great but last year only 223 houses were built and this year only 191 by the Cork Corporation. If the Minister for Local Government were here, he would, I know, say that that was the fault of the Cork Corporation. Can the Minister reconcile that with the fact that when the inter-Party Government were in power, Cork Corporation were suddenly impelled to tremendous activity while, immediately there was a change of Government, Cork Corporation returned to a policy of inertia in respect of one of the biggest social problems in the country?

That is why I say this is a Government without compassion and compunction. In saying that, I am very glad to feel that I am no longer a member of a minority Party and I speak now as a member of a Party who have won a successful suffrage in three by-elections, the last two of which it was not anticipated would be won by Fine Gael. If that proves a warning to the Government and makes them mend their ways, I shall be happy but I believe that not until they have been beaten in more by-elections will they come to realise that the people are looking for a more realistic policy.

I noticed today a suggestion in the Belfast Telegraph that the Minister for Industry and Commerce might engage in trade talks with his opposite number in the North. That is the sort of suggestion I welcome. Irrespective of what may happen with regard to Partition, there is a wide field for co-operation between this part of our island and the Six Counties. I would impress upon the Government the importance of fostering good relations in every way possible between the people in the Six Counties and those in the Twenty-Six.

On the question of our balance of trade, I want to say a few words on the amazing disparity which persists in relation to the balance of our trade with the Communist countries. For years, year after year, I have been putting questions to find out from the Minister for Industry and Commerce or the Taoiseach exactly why there should be such a disparity and exactly why we should continue to trade with Communist countries on such an unsuccessful basis.

On the 2nd of this month I put down a question, which will be found in Volume 213, column 271 of the Official Report. The reply at columns 272 to 276 revealed the remarkable fact that during the 12 months ended 31st September, 1964, we imported from the Soviet Union £964,872 worth of stuff. We exported, in the same period, £82,263 worth. That is a disparity of nearly £900,000. In the same period, we imported from Bulgaria £12,833 worth and exported £552 worth. In regard to Hungary, we imported £125,566 worth and exported £3,260 worth. From Communist Poland, we took £1,560,326 worth and exported £283,760, while from Roumania, we took £17,220 and exported £265 worth. From Czechoslovakia, we took £388,269 worth and exported £289,242 worth to them. In relation to Czechoslovakia, there has been only one improvement in the pattern over the past few years. Up to about two years ago, we used to import a large amount of religious objects from Communist Czechoslovakia and I am glad to see from the details supplied to me that practice has stopped at last. From East Germany last year, we took £1,450,583 worth and in return, we exported £447,336.

How long is this to go on? What was the purpose of the Restriction of Imports Act, 1962, except to stop the sort of trade disparity portrayed by these figures? I feel that the Minister introduced this Act only as a result of the type of question I have been putting down over the past few years. The Minister is empowered under it to prohibit the import, save under and in accordance with the licence issued by a specified Minister, of goods manufactured or produced in or consigned from a specified country. On economic grounds and on moral grounds, there is no reason for our trade with Iron Curtain countries. Some people might disagree with me in relation to the moral grounds but nobody can disagree on economic grounds. It is about time the Government were frank with the people and explained why it is necessary to bolster up the economy of Communist countries and import these huge amounts from these countries when we get little if any co-operation from them.

The country cannot afford to engage in trade like that. Even if it were remunerative, it would still, in my opinion, carry a moral stigma. I have no doubt that next year when I come to speak on this debate, I will find a similar position because the Government are impervious to advice on this problem.

Mr. Donegan

It was quite extraordinary to listen to the Minister for Transport and Power expressing a view and drawing conclusions from recent by-elections which not even his most ardent supporter would draw. It perhaps portrays a political adventurer, somebody who thinks he will sell anything provided he sounds sincere enough and tries hard enough. But this is a debating Assembly and we have to examine the statements made on both sides of the House. He could tell us that the last two by-elections were ones in which there were highly emotional circumstances and he was satisfied that in East Galway three out of five Fianna Fáil Deputies would get in at a general election. Of course, mathematically, if the votes stay as they are, and the swing has indicated that possibly they are going to go more against the Government, he has not got a chance of getting three out of five. At the same time, he said that the issue in Cork and Kildare was a little general election and that there the Taoiseach had said that if he was defeated, he would go to the country and that if he said that in any constituency the Government would win that by-election. Mark you, if he believed that before the East Galway by-election, it is a great wonder he did not say it, but he nearly went as far because he said it would be a disaster for the Second Programme for Economic Expansion if the people of East Galway indicated they were not behind this Government, that the confidence was not there——

Mr. Leneghan

That is what the Deputy thinks.

Mr. Donegan

I am merely quoting what the Taoiseach said. He then, I presume, inspired leading articles in the following Saturday's Irish Press and the following Sunday's Sunday Press. He then said that of course this was of no consequence, this was something that did not matter; it was merely a by-election in which a seat held by an Opposition Deputy had been filled by an Opposition Deputy and it could not matter less. At this stage we were all expected to have it both ways, but both the Taoiseach and the Minister for Justice are mortals and you cannot have it both ways in this world; you have to come down on one side or another.

The Government have now been in office for seven years and it is wise to remember the manner of taking office in the first instance. The manner of taking office was that at that time there was a crisis during which there was a scarcity of capital.

Mr. Leneghan

An Irish crisis.

Mr. Donegan

It is all very well for anybody to say it was an Irish crisis or a localised crisis but you had exactly the same situation in Britain where there was a credit squeeze, an increased bank rate, and all the traditional steps taken to put some sort of brake on an economy which is expanding too rapidly. We had to do this, too, but the great difference between how that crisis was met on that occasion, and how what could be a similar crisis in the next six or 12 months is being met at the moment, is that the then Opposition in Dáil Éireann and outside it in every possible way exposed the weaknesses of the Government. At least it can never be said that we will go out and do anything that will affect the livelihood of one person.

Anybody who wishes to consult the record will find that the present Minister for Transport and Power spent as long as six months in this House, at a time when cattle prices were dropping, demanding to know what the Government were going to do about it. At the same time, we had the Taoiseach opposing measures which were introduced to increase industries here, opposing and bringing his Party into the Division Lobbies to vote against the Industrial Grants Bill, 1956, and against the Finance (Miscellaneous Provisions) Bill, 1956, which two Acts were designed to improve exports of our industrial products and improve the employment of our people in industries. When he got into power he took a different line. He enlarged the provisions of these Acts. He carried them on. This shows the duplicity of a completely professional Government, of people who can walk into the Division Lobbies when they get an opportunity of gaining power by whatever trick they can and when in power see there is nothing they can do but implement the good decisions of those they unseated by a trick and who are far better suited to the job of expanding the economy.

The whole trend of the speeches this morning by the Taoiseach and the Minister for Justice was that we are now in a transitional period and must not be interrupted. There was jam yesterday, and they were concerned to show they had provided it. There would be jam to-morrow, and they were going to give it to us. But there is never jam to-day. They suggested that the Government must not be interrupted—that criticism was a sin not only against Fianna Fáil but against patriotism; that it was wrong to oppose Fianna Fáil or to vote against them. For the first time, the people have not swallowed this line of thought. That will be the saving of the plain people of Ireland, who have spent the years voting for a flag which Fianna Fáil sought to prostitute by saying it was their own. They had their noses against the windowpanes looking into the warm, heated atmosphere within for a few pets of the Government who could keep them in power by their large subscription to Party funds.

Mr. Leneghan

That is an allegation of bribery. Is it in order?

Mr. Donegan

I shall abide by what the Chair says. If the Chair asks me to mend my ways, I will. That is more than can be said of some Ministers.

If we are to examine the results of the Government over a number of years past, we will find they are exceedingly good at promising things. They have been exceedingly clever at putting together systems and programmes which, however, did not indicate any detailed planning but were meant to be swallowed by the people. Take all the wording in the First and Second Programmes. Take the speech made by the present Taoiseach when out of office. It was made in Clerys Restaurant and reported in a supplement to the Irish Press of October 15th, 1955. At that time there was an international crisis. Things were difficult and we were doing our best about it.

Mr. Leneghan

Like the barley for Guinness you bought yourself.

Mr. Donegan

I never attacked anybody in his personal capacity in this House and I have never been attacked before. It came from an odd quarter. I suppose that is the explanation.

The Taoiseach was saying all they would spend if they got into power. Here is the quotation from page 2 of this supplement, headed "1,000 New Jobs After 5 Years":

It would be noted in the first year of the proposed programme, it is contemplated public investment outlay will be expanded by £13 million raising national expenditure by £20 million and creating 20,000 new jobs. No contribution from the private sector is reckoned in this year. In the second year, it is assumed gross national expenditure is again increased by £20 million bringing the total increase to £30 million with a corresponding effect on employment, so that this will result from £18 million increase in private capital outlay plus £15 million of further public expenditure adding £22 million.

In case anybody might believe this was merely an indication, we will take column 1 on the same page. Here is what he said:

It is safe to assume, however, that an increase over five years in the number of jobs by 100,000 or an average rate of increase of 20,000 per year would result in full employment as ordinarily understood and the end of abnormal emigration. Indeed, this calculation may exaggerate the position but it is wiser to plan on an adequate rather than an inadequate scale. At the end of the five years 15,000 new jobs per annum should enable full employment to be maintained.

In the event, what has occurred? We now have 73,500 fewer people in employment than when the inter-Party Government left office in 1957. We have 50,000 people signing at the labour exchanges. That is what happened. There is the forerunner of the First and Second Programmes. We are told we are trying to seek office, that if we attain office, all this planning and programming will stop. The people of the West have rejected that suggestion. My interpretation of the last by-election and the Roscommon by-election is that the people in every constituency have come to realise that, even though in individual instances Fianna Fáil can show something that may gain them votes, some improvements they may not be responsible for, overall they have been a dismal failure. The figures prove it. Nothing can be as salutary as figures, but not the sort of figures thrown at us by the Minister for Justice, which leave out the birth rate when talking about population figures and leave out the death rate. We seek the truth. You cannot play around with population. On the figures for population, the Government stand accused, and that is all about it.

Last year the farmer's income, as indicated in some of the booklets circulated with the last Budget, was down by £1 million. This is at a time when costs have risen in 12 months by as much as ten per cent. While at the moment the price of what the farmer sells is up something over ten per cent, up to a few years ago before cattle prices improved, solely as a result of the 1948 Trade Agreement——

Mr. Fanning

Do not forget that part of it.

Mr. Donegan

We will try very hard to gain office but we will never say anything that will cause a drop in prices or lose a job. The fundamental difference between Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael and the Labour Party is that Fianna Fáil are the only Party in this House who will do that to gain office, because they are largely a Party of professional politicians who do not care tuppence about the country.

Mr. Medlar

Thanks!

Mr. Donegan

That is my considered opinion of the Fianna Fáil Party. The farmer's income is down by £1 million. At the same time, the cost of living is up by ten per cent. Over the past few years the value of money has declined by something between 15 and 20 per cent. Is it any wonder there is a reduction in the number of persons on the land? Is it any wonder that when the Minister for Justice projects today something which I will discuss later, the report of the NIEC in relation to industry, he subtracts 21,000 from the figures of the new jobs which he hopes will be created in the next number of years in respect of reduced employment on the land?

The difference between our approach in relation to this and the Government's approach is that we do not say that there is not an opportunity for new jobs on the farm. While we agree that there is not the slightest shadow of doubt that, with mechanisation, a man on the farm will do more work, nevertheless, increased production and new production on the farm must employ more people. While you have a subtraction from the total number of persons at work, at the same time there will be an addition in respect of these new productions and all the different marketing efforts and production efforts that should be indicated.

Does anybody suggest that the old age pensioner to-day and the recipient of any social welfare payment are not in dire straits? I have quoted the figures showing the increase in the cost of living. It is not necessary to do so in this Assembly. Everybody should know the relevant figure for each day and each month. What use is 2s. 6d. in those circumstances? Do not the Government stand accused if it were for nothing else than the fact that these poor people are at the moment left destitute and that the only source from which they can supplement the old age pension or other social welfare payment is home assistance? Any of us who is a member of a local authority realises that home assistance is one of the few things which come one hundred per cent off the rates. That is at all times a depressive factor when members come to vote at local estimates meetings.

This situation, which is so serious and which is being disregarded by the Government, must be regarded as a festering wound by any fair-minded person observing political thought and political action in this country to-day. The Government remind me of a book that I was reading the other night in which a story was told of Huey Long, a Governor of Louisiana, a bit of an eccentric. He was speaking from a platform and was adverting to the fact that in the State of Louisiana, the old age pension was 72 dollars a month and that in the State of New York, it was only 39 dollars. He told the story about an imaginary political opponent who went up to St. Peter, having died, and St. Peter said: "Down", whereupon the political opponent said that in 1911 he gave ten cents to an old woman. St. Peter, with his attendant angels, went through the ledger and eventually found the ten cents and said: "Well, ten cents in 1911: forget it." The political opponent then said, "After the war I gave 15 cents to the widows' and orphans' fund" and St. Peter looked at the ledgers and discovered the 15 cents. He said: "That was 25 cents in all. Forget about it, too." The political opponent then said, "In 1950, I gave ten cents in charity", whereupon St. Peter said, "Give that fellow his 35 cents and tell him to go to Hell."

That is the way in which the Government are approaching the question of social welfare. These poor people are hungry. They are restricted in the matter of the extra payments they can get by the fact that the legislation prescribes that home assistance is 100 per cent off the rates and in that situation some of them have no recourse except to the Society of St. Vincent de Paul. It is a poor situation. If Deputies want this backed by figures, it is clearly demonstrable that even compared with countries like Italy, where there is a huge population and where weather conditions are not as severe as they are here, our social welfare payments are far below any continental standard outside the Iron Curtain and that of any other country that has developed to the extent that we have. It is an undoubted fact and anyone who has gone to the trouble of studying the figures must accept it. The Government on this point alone stand accused. They have no answer. The Government cannot justify the payment they make to the old age pensioner in relation to the increase in the cost of living.

Mr. Fanning

The Government never reduced the old age pension.

Mr. Donegan

Some of the hair is coming off my head and I am not as young as I used to be. This all happened when I was seven or eight. If one were to relate sins that were committed in 1927 or 1928, this debate would become like the fairy tales of Ireland. The one thing I do not want to do is to start a discussion as to who was wearing bullet proof vests or what somebody was doing in 1927. The Fianna Fáil Government did many good things. The inter-Party Government, in conjunction with us, did many good things. So did the Labour Party. These things are past history. We are talking to-day about the behaviour of the Government over the past seven years and what is going to happen in the future. Personally, I am far more interested in what is going to happen in the future. The only criterion by which we can judge the Government is what has happened in the last seven years. Handsome is as handsome does.

I mentioned in relation to industry the completely destructive line that was taken prior to the change of Government in 1957 by the present Taoiseach when he, as shadow Minister for Industry and Commerce, walked his Party through the Division Lobbies against the Industrial Grants Act, 1956 and against the Finance (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act of the same year. He voted against freedom from income tax for exported goods and the giving of grants for new factories. Recently in my constituency Deputy Faulkner got up at a Fianna Fáil meeting and adverted to four new factories. They are all in my town. In some of them girls are employed, which is not so good. Two of them employ men. Not one of these factories would be there today were it not for freedom from income tax in respect of new exports and we are the people who put that through and we had to walk through the Division Lobbies to do it. I was here at the time, a young T.D. It was in my second year as a member of the Dáil and I walked into the Division Lobby to vote for it. Anyone who wants to look up the records can see that Fianna Fáil voted against it. That was how they gained office—by completely destructive lines.

Remember, even though they implemented the provisions of these Acts, they have done it in a very odd way because, in reply to a Question here some time ago, the figure was given to us that of grants for new industries 91 per cent went to industries being established by people from outside the country and 9 per cent went to existing industries.

The Minister for Justice adverted to the fact that the National Industrial Economic Council have produced quite recently a report in which they say that it should be possible to get 80,000 new jobs in industry before 1970. That is merely a mathematical figure which economists and persons skilled in industry have produced. It depends now on whether or not the Government will take steps to reach these targets.

I want to relate the sort of thing that is happening in relation to grants for existing industries. The National Industrial Economic Council is representative of the people who sat on the Committee of Industrial Organisation. We all know what they produced— that there would be a fall in employment before 1970 of 25 per cent in some areas and of 30 per cent in some other areas.

I want to refer now to what happened in a particular industry in my constituency which employs 200 persons. I refer to a bakery that wanted to modernise their plant and sought an adaptation grant. The adaptation grant scheme was introduced by the Minister for Industry and Commerce a few years ago with a great flourish, as being somewhat wonderful. I quote from a letter sent to the managing director of this industry by An Foras Tionscal:

It should be pointed out that the enlargement and adaptation grants are intended to assist industries to fit themselves to meet competition from imports in conditions of free trade while the protective tariffs are removed. In considering your grant application and those received from other bakeries——

All bakeries are going to get this treatment.

——the Board have regard to the reference in the report of the survey on the flour milling industry carried out under the aegis of the Department of Agriculture to a statement by the Master Bakers' Association that if bakers in the 26 Counties have to compete on fair lines with the Six Counties, the following would be necessary:

(i) Abolition of the Night-work (Bakers) Act;

(ii) Freedom to purchase flour from the same sources;

(iii) Abolition of duties and restriction on materials:

(iv) Equalisation of Road Tax on vehicles.

This man was told that if we are to enter the Common Market exactly similar conditions would pertain for us as for Britain and the Six Counties in relation to the supply of raw materials. The application of the Night-work (Bakers) Act is something for negotiation between the unions and the master bakers and if the Government are going to take credit for the 12 per cent wage increase, then surely they shoud enter into negotiations on this point. The equalisation of road tax on vehicles is something which will come. There are three items there which are entirely related to Government action and Government legislation and one item which is related to negotiations between the unions and the master bakers. All grants to bakers who desire to increase their production, who desire to be more efficient, who desire to continue to employ their 200 people who would be disemployed if they are working with obsolete machinery, are being refused.

Is it not the position that if you come from Germany or Holland and you want to make any article and the local Fianna Fáil Deputy can point to a new factory and say there are 30 people employed there that were not there before, you will get the grant? If it is an existing industry suffering under the fear that when we enter the Common Market there will not be 200 people working but maybe 20, then the industry will not get the grant.

I brought a young man to An Foras Tionscal. This young man was beginning in the production of illuminated signs. This was something small, something related to a parish and something that had not got the tinsel on it. It does not concern the sort of friends the Taoiseach, the Minister for Agriculture, the Minister for Justice or the Minister for Local Government would have. It was a little local effort related to a man's brother who was leaving the biggest factory in the country to start off on his own. It was a little effort of the man himself and a man who was a qualified electrician and who was going in with him. The case was thrown out; it would not even be considered. I am proud to say now that in that parish they are employing from 12 to 15 people and a great portion of their production is being exported to the North of Ireland.

This man was standing outside a school, an election booth, in East Galway. Up came a Fianna Fáil car with a poor man who was crippled and who was unable to walk into the booth to vote. There was an appeal made that his voting paper should be brought out. My man who had not got his grant but who had the 15 men employed and 60 per cent of whose production is being exported to Northern Ireland and who had nothing for which to thank Fianna Fáil, said: "No. It would invalidate the entire election if you bring out one voting paper to that man." They had to carry him in and it did not avail them anything in the end.

That is the position in relation to industries: nine per cent of grants to date have been given to existing industries, and anybody who wants to look at the reports will see what will happen to existing industry and how much loss of employment there will be. It is all very well for the Minister for Justice to say that NIEC have said there can be new jobs before 1970. Undoubtedly there can, but what about the old ones? What about the situation in relation to all the industries that have found themselves unable to provide the colossal capital required to tool up and at the same time are refused grants that can be transferred into loans by the loan-grant system with the Industrial Credit Company? They are there waiting either for things to remain as they are, in which case they will continue without expanding, or things to become freer, such as will happen if we enter the EEC, in which situation these people go to the wall.

There is another industrial factor which must be adverted to in relation to the Government's performance, that is, their spectacular failures. They were told in 1958 that the shipyard in Cork would hardly be a good employer and we on this side of the House, had to go into the Division Lobbies or, if not, had to agree to two separate subsidies, not subsidies to tool the industry or to provide liquid capital to carry on with but direct subsidies on the losses of ships, ships that were sold and sailed out of Cork and will never be seen again, and one of those was for £1,800,000.

There is considerable fear in a first-class industry in Limerick that the operations of another industry set up by the Government in Cork will result in considerable unemployment in the industry in Limerick. These are matters which must be adverted to.

Was there, for instance, proper attention to the question of the Equitable Insurance Company? The Minister for Industry and Commerce is responsible for the actions of his staff. Was there sufficient examination of the books of the Equitable Insurance Company in the Department of Industry and Commerce? If there was not, it is the Minister and the Fianna Fáil Government who must bear the bame.

I want to tell the Fianna Fáil Government and the Minister for Industry and Commerce that at the moment there are unfortunate people in the country who have had civil processes served on them, even though they had their payments made to the Equitable Insurance Company. After all the legal processes, the solicitors and barristers are taking the line, as they can, that the individual is responsible. If he has the money, it will be taken from him and if he has not, it is a great worry hanging over any man's head. The delay that has occurred can be laid at the desk of the Minister for Industry and Commerce who must accept that blame. We on this side of the House say the degree of delay is quite extraordinary and unexplainable.

In relation to industry, apart from the activities of Córas Tráchtála, which are excellent, has there been any major scheme of market research on the Continent and in Britain? Can the Minister for Industry and Commerce or any other Fianna Fáil speaker here tell us of a major scheme of market research to find out exactly what we could sell of the products we produce, in Britain, on the Continent or in America? Undoubtedly there have been travel grants for persons who wanted to go to investigate markets, and so on, but in the highly specialised 1964 business situation, these things are only scratching the surface. I want to know have the Government initiated any of these things? If they have, I do not know about them and that also is something with which they can be charged.

There is another matter which is largely personal. When we talk about personalities here, we talk of them not as people but as political people, as they are in their offices. People in the west have defected from Fianna Fáil in two constituencies at least. You may talk about emotion all you like but we could not have gone ten years ago into those constituencies, even in the best period of the inter-Party Government and had the resounding victories we had in Roscommon and East Galway. We freely admit that. That indicates a swing to us and away from the Government. Does this mean the swing has occurred for rather personal reasons, because the present Taoiseach is a Dublinman, the present Minister for Agriculture is a Dublinman, the present Parliamentary Secretary in charge of Fisheries is a Dublinman, the present Minister for Social Welfare is a Dublinman, the present Minister for Health is a Dublinman, the present Minister for External Affairs who represents my own constituency, resides in Sandyford, the present Minister for Transport and Power resides in Dublin and I understand the present Minister for Local Government is buying a house here at present?

Have they lost contact with their people. Are these Ministers now proud, unable to make contact with the people they knew, not mindful of their needs? Have they left the position of being plain people of Ireland and got into the situation where they succumb to a sort of Dublinitis of attending functions, knowing the right people, knowing the industrialists, attending the receptions at the Intercontinental Hotel, meeting the contacts, doing the things you can do in Dublin? Do they think all this is really Ireland? I believe that is part of their trouble. I might be doing them a service by telling them this because they might mend their ways but I do not think there is much hope of that.

If this is so—and this is fair political comment—how do they operate in relation to their constituencies? As far as I know, some of them operate on a distasteful Tammany Hall-Mafia system, from far away. This system is one whereby you manage to get a local Senator elected and he is your hatchetman. He passes on word to you and you can do it all from behind the desk in Dublin. There is no use in denying this because it is happening. If it is not a Senator, it is a would-be Senator or a would-be Deputy, or a member of the Hospitals Commission or of some other body.

This whole system, in my view, is repugnant to the idea of political representation that grew up here, the sort of representation in which Deputy Corish succeeded his father in Wexford and keeps contact with his people. That is the sort of representation we knew and believed in and that can give this small country the very close-knit contacts necessary for its survival and advancement; but if we are to have a completely Dublin-minded Government, doing all their business in a series of conclaves at the Intercontinental Hotel and doing it all away from the people, it will be a case, as I mentioned before, of their being in a centrally-heated room with a plateglass window, outside which are the plain people of Ireland with their noses pressed against the pane. If they think it is going to succeed, I do not agree. This is fair criticism of Fianna Fáil and the fact that they have lost contact. It may be all right to say that you can go down the country again and regain the people but they are not fooling the people who are fully aware of what is happening.

This evening, as I was listening to the Minister for Justice, a small point occurred to me. I think it was the Minister for Justice who adverted to the highly emotional circumstances in East Galway, the particular circumstances relating to this candidate and so on. I knew what he was talking about and he knew that we all knew what he was talking about. I saw as many football jerseys in Roscommon when Dr. Gibbons was a candidate for Fianna Fáil as we had in Galway when John Donnellan was a candidate for us. Perhaps it was different but to me it seems the same.

Another point we must remember is the question of whether or not a certain group within the Cabinet are asserting undue influence. I asked a question a short time ago and I had a few words with the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Finance in relation to an industry which was almost in Drogheda and which in the twinkling of an eye was flashed to Limerick. The Taoiseach may laugh——

The Taoiseach

I was just visualising the process.

Mr. Donegan

——but there is the question of whether or not the Minister for Local Government, the Minister for Agriculture, the Minister for Justice and the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Finance are not, in fact, a group of young men who are very slick and very able in many ways, who are asserting undue influence not only in relation to Government decisions but also in regard to departmental decisions and decisions of outside bodies related to the Government. We all know the friendship that exists in this group and we know their activities. We know they are known as "the slick chicks". I wanted my 200 men employed in Drogheda to make plywood but I was on the outside looking in, out in the cold with my nose against the plateglass window.

The then Mayor of Drogheda went up to finish the deal with the directors and came home satisfied that the industry was coming to Drogheda and, as I said to the Taoiseach—he rather cynically laughed at that—in the twinkling of an eye it was gone to Limerick. Are this group, in a sinister way, exerting too great an influence in many cases? I do not know. I am fairly close to it, but I think the plain people of Ireland believe they are.

Mr. Corish

They must be very slick to slip one over on Deputy Aiken.

Mr. Donegan

Yes, you must watch that. There is also the fact that this group are people who promise absolutely anything. In the Roscommon by-election, what happened? The great promise was held out on the previous weekend but it bought nobody. The promise was made: I quote from an item headed "Roscommon and South Leitrim By-Election" in the Sunday Press of 5th July, 1964:

A £15 million 10-year plan to drain the River Shannon area starts next spring, Mr. Donagh O'Malley, Secretary to the Minister for Finance, said last night at Castlerea, County Roscommon. One of the largest schemes ever tackled in Western Europe, it will cover 3,000 miles of arterial channels, and employ nearly 5,000 men for a decade.

Five thousand men in this year of machinery!

It will be a long and tedious undertaking, Mr. O'Malley said, but the reclamation of many thousands of acres of good land will play an important part in the economic upsurge of the area, and of the whole country.

Drainage of the main artery will, Mr. O'Malley said, cost about £6 million; the tributaries about £9 million.

The Parliamentary Secretary said that he was instructed by the Government more than two years ago, that as soon as the necessary staff was available a start should be made.

There has been an improvement, he said, in the position with regard to the recruitment of civil engineers, and many are coming back from abroad.

In reply to a Parliamentary Question not three weeks ago, he said that planning would start next spring. Do the Government stand accused of this sort of duplicity? Were the people of Roscommon right when they did not believe the Government?

The June figures for agriculture in 1963 show drops in many sectors of agricultural production. There is an increase in the number of calves and the number of cows because of the heifer grant. Apart from that, let us look at the decreases. In grain crops, there is a decrease of 32,000 acres. In root crops, there is a decrease of 33,000 acres. In three year old and under cattle, there is a decrease of 11.6 per cent or 26,400 cattle. In two years old and under, there is a decrease of 39,900 and in one year old and under, a decrease of 10,000.

Mr. Fanning

What about the heifer scheme?

Mr. Donegan

Heifers and cows are up.

Mr. Fanning

What about the cows?

Mr. Donegan

Milch cows are up by 70,000. The position in relation to cattle numbers is that the farmers, even though improved grassland conditions are continuing every day and should enable them to carry many more cattle, carried only 1.9 per cent more because they had to sell their cattle to live. Many cattle from one to two years old and from two to three years old were sold for that reason. I am not decrying the heifer scheme. I am talking about other cattle and the reason that their numbers have not risen is that the farmers had to sell them and I hold that they sold them because they had to live.

In pigs, the position is that the numbers are down by 6,100 or .6 per cent. In poultry, there is some increase, probably because of the miracle hens in Raheny. The actual figure with regard to our livestock population is not as good as Fianna Fáil would like us to believe. There has been an increase in cows and heifers and when you get there, you are finished. That is the only increase.

Now let us consider the situation in relation to the wheat crop. At the present moment the wheat crop has produced 197,000 tons and the total requirement of the country is 265,000 tons. Some years ago when there was a decrease in the wheat tonnage which brought it down to 275,000 tons, the late Tom Walsh, Lord rest him, and his successor spent every day they could in this House shouting about it. Now the tonnage is down to 70,000 tons less than we need, according to the Government's Second Programme for Economic Expansion. This is a crop which has been included as human food at human food prices. There are only three of these crops, and Fianna Fáil, by their bad handling of the wheat crop, have succeeded in reducing it below the national requirements.

Coming to milk prices, our farmers have the lowest price for milk in Europe. Fianna Fáil may point to the fact that they gave 2d per gallon some months ago. When Fianna Fáil were expecting office, one of the things they talked about was agricultural marketing. When they came into office, they voted £200,000 for it, but, during the five years they were in office, all they spent was £13,000. They had to get rid of the remainder and they gave it to Bord Bainne in order to do so. They set up committees, and they had these committees sitting for six years on agricultural marketing and they did nothing about it. As a result we are now six years behind. We should have started six years ago.

The Taoiseach is an abnormally clever politician and I suppose his idea in getting his Minister for Agriculture to set up these committees was all a facade. It was intended to get the farmers off his back but the farmers of Roscommon and East Galway gave him his answer. You could go to any farming constituency in the country today and you could no more sell Fianna Fáil to them than you could sell a sick bullock at a fair. It has been proved that if you pay the farmer for his produce, he will produce. Fianna Fáil have never succeeded in doing that or in providing the advisory services necessary.

And what about the Minister for Agriculture? Here is an account given in the Farmers Journal of 12th December, 1964, of what he has. It contains:

Three Irish wolfhounds; three brood mares; three hunters; three ponies; one greyhound bitch; one Jack Russell terrier; one cocker spaniel; one cat; three hives of bees (what James Dillon will do with that when he hears it), plus, of course, the 2,000 wonder chickens and the non-egg-laying greyhound. He had eleven heifers but he sold them on Tuesday, so you can be sure heifers were making good money this week.

An Ceann Comhairle

That does not appear to be relevant.

Mr. Donegan

It may not be relevant but it does point to the sort of man we have got in charge of agriculture. I hope there is a good export trade in Jack Russell pups next year.

Mr. Fanning

Tell us about your own stock.

Mr. Donegan

Will you come down and have a look at it? You are more than welcome. I have a few cows and things like that but we do not like talking about our personal possessions in this House. Deputy Tully will tell you all about our place. Come down any day you like for tea.

Finally, there is the question of housing. A bank manager in Drogheda said to me recently that the people of Drogheda should be glad they had a good corporation because through them the people of Drogheda succeeded in getting a fair share of houses. He said that if people were well reared and grew up in healthy houses, they would have a chance of getting some new industries. But here is where Fianna Fáil have failed. They have failed to house the people.

In 1954 the total number of local authority houses built in this country was 5,643. The number built in 1953 was 5,267 and the number in 1956, the year in which we had a world wide crisis, was 4,011. In 1957, a worse year, we built 4,784 houses and in 1958 when Fianna Fáil were in office, they built 3,467. In 1959, Fianna Fáil built 1,812, in 1960, 2,214, in 1961, 1,463, in 1962, 1,238 and in 1963, 1,828. This is our record for the years which members of the Government say were such bad ones for this country. A few weeks ago a parliamentary question elicited the fact that 52 Dublin families were living in barracks. Some months before that, the fact came out that fathers of families were allowed in for one hour per day to see their wives and families.

If there were no other reason why Fianna Fáil should be put out of office, that is a good and valid one.

If they had any shame, they would go to the country forthwith. Remember, it will be a different situation from that which obtained on previous occasions. It will be like the case of the fox who runs into his den; the hounds will be all around it and the master will have to put down his hand, catch the fox by the tail, pull him out and throw him to the dogs. The people of Ireland will have to do the same thing with Fianna Fáil.

(Interruptions.)

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

Order. The Parliamentary Secretary.

Parliamentary Secretary to the Taoiseach (Mr. J. Brennan)

I have been a member of this House since 1951. For some years before that, I took a fairly active interest in the political affairs of this country. If there is one thing more than another that I learned during all those years, it was the absurdity of the repeated calls from the Fine Gael Opposition for an election. They were perpetually asking for an election and telling this side of the House how well they would do if they had one.

(Interruptions.)

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

Order.

Mr. J. Brennan

Looking back on the record now, they never seem to have been very good at winning elections. In fact, the performance does not reflect any great credit on them, and I would not be surprised now if they abandoned this hungry whistling about elections. Their record is sufficient to show what the people have thought about them down through the years. These are facts which cannot be denied.

Scarcely an adjournment of this House ever took place that I did not hear the same taunts, taunts without either reason or logic behind them. We were never afraid of elections. We never will be because we know that righteousness prevails.

General MacEoin

Hear, hear.

Mr. J. Brennan

I remember one adjournment debate in 1956. The Opposition must think we have lost our memories completely and cannot recapture the atmosphere that prevailed all over the country at that time. There were the bannerlines in the Irish Independent day after day: One Hundred Per Cent Unemployment: No Work To Be Found In Dublin: Hunger Marchers In O'Connell Street: Unemployed Marching On The Dáil. That was the atmosphere in 1956 when we adjourned for the Christmas Recess.

There was gloom and despondency and a complete loss of hope in the future. I defy anybody to deny that we left this Chamber in 1956, both sides of the House, completely despondent and nobody with any hope in the future. There was no money to pay for building. It had to be admitted that was the position. Deputies on the opposite benches talk about housing. Day after day at that time houses were falling vacant in Dublin and a stranger could come in, apply for a house overnight and have it the next day. Deputies opposite talk about building houses. There were houses vacant in every road in Walkinstown and Ballyfermot. These are the facts. Have we forgotten them in seven short years?

We went to the country in 1957 and, God knows, it needed no rhetoric or no great ability in speechmaking to get the people to understand what the position was. Strong supporters of Fine Gael up to that time had come to us, asking us to "take over the reins of Government again, for goodness sake, but it will never be again what it was anyhow." It was out of that despondency that the Phoenix of the economic programme rose, a programme the Opposition attempt to deride now. Apart from the huge amount of capital that went into development then and since, I think the lifting of the people out of their despair was nothing short of a Fianna Fáil miracle. This Christmas there is neither gloom, nor despair, nor despondency in the country. Contrast that with the position when we walked out of here after the adjournment debate in 1956.

Talk about housing and investment and listen to the last speaker going into details in an effort to manufacture illusory mistakes made by Fianna Fáil. Explain away the fact that our exports have reached a limit never reached before. We are concerned with the future but we cannot help thinking about the past, if we are to be guided by the mistakes of previous Governments.

I remember Deputy Dillon spending two hours making a mockery of the Fianna Fáil effort at industrialisation. He said Fianna Fáil were interested in nothing but industrial development; they would put Aspros on a string and call it a factory. Those were the days when patriotic Irishmen, with the assistance from protection, laid the foundation stone of the industries of which we are so proud today and for which we are all so solicitous. Those were the days when we were taunted about backlane workshops and factories which would never come to fruition. Fianna Fáil were accused of giving them a shelter of tariff walls in order to produce what were described as inferior products. These are the people who formed the nucleus of the great industrial drive, the drive which will put this country on its feet. It is doing that right now. It will gather strength as the years go on.

The last speaker talked about the decrease in the numbers employed in agriculture and he implied that someone on that side had some scheme for increasing the numbers in agricultural employment. Has it not been pointed out here time after time that, if a family is reared on a farm, they cannot all find employment on the farm and some must find employment elsewhere? Was it not for that reason Fianna Fáil set out in a serious way to develop the industrial arm?

There is one thing more outstanding than anything else, that is, the rapid growth of development there has been in the past seven years. Nobody can explain it away. The fact remains that Fianna Fáil only invested in national development and in the expansion of the economy in every sector during those years. That is the only explanation and if the rapid growth which took place during that time threw up its inevitable problems, we were not afraid to tackle them as we have tackled many very difficult problems down through the years and will tackle during the years to come. Improved standards of living have their inevitable problems. When people have money to spend, there is more luxury buying. When there is industrial expansion, workers feel they should get a greater share of the loaf. All these problems that result from better standards of living and expansion generally are, in the last analysis, signs of industrial expansion and improved standards.

You have the people who feel that their incomes have not increased in proportion to those of other sectors. Nobody will deny that it is impossible to bring all sectors up equally and there are bound to be those who feel that for the time being they are lagging a little behind. As far as social services are concerned, it will always be the main theme of an Opposition in this House to cry for more money for old age pensions. Whoever lives to be here in 50 years time, when the old age pensioners will probably have £10 a week, will find people over there saying they should have £15. Let us give them an increase commensurate with what our resources will justify but let us not start bidding against each other for political reasons to see who is going to give the most.

There has been a lot of talk about the result of by-elections. I think that Fianna Fáil could confidently face the electorate any day, any time and the more intelligent thinking there is the better will be the result. We have Deputies talking about the results in Galway and in Roscommon. As the Taoiseach said, if we maintained the same percentage vote all over the country we would have nothing to fear. If we maintained the same increase in our vote as we experienced in Roscommon, we would sweep the country. If we got the same results as we got in Kildare and Cork, when a real issue was at stake, we would virtually obliterate Fine Gael. There was an issue then because people in Cork and Kildare knew that if we did not win, there would be a general election and they said: "We do not want it; we do not want 1956 back again; carry on." That was the decision and we would have won those two elections with any name on the ballot paper. A personality did not come into it as it did in Galway where it was a question of the candidate. Why did Fine Gael not put up the candidate who ran in the last general election? They would not have got ten per cent of the votes in Galway if they had and they know it. These are the facts.

There is one enigma posed by the Opposition down through the years and one which cannot be explained by any intelligent listener to Fine Gael. Fine Gael have attacked everything that Fianna Fáil have done. They have said that anything that was good was due to the suitable climate and anything bad was a result of bad Fianna Fáil Government, and Fine Gael were always in power as a Coalition when there was a crisis. There is one thing that has not been and cannot be explained and the electorate will have to have it explained one day. It is how Fine Gael promise to do everything better than we do it and reduce the burden of taxation at the same time. Nobody has attempted to explain that. We were told at one time that the turnover tax would be abolished. I do not think anybody is saying that now. Perhaps it is being inferred at times if Fine Gael get in, there will be no turnover tax; yet they are going to spend much more money in every Department than we have been spending and we have increased the amount of money in every single sector of the national economy. They are going to spend more and they are going to reduce taxation.

We talk at times about constructive and destructive criticism but surely if criticism, and the Opposition generally, are to be constructive some explanation has to be offered on that score, even for their own good. Must the people not be told, if they are going to reduce these costs, where they are going to be reduced? Is there to be less money for afforestation, less money for fisheries, or less money for education? Is there to be less money put into the development of tourism, less put into the industrial grants and less put into agriculture? These are the things which we have increased very considerably over the past seven years and we are told we are guilty of extravagance, and high and unnecessary costs: yet we are promised from the other side bigger and better and greater things.

Is anybody going to believe that? Are people not entitled to an explanation? I do not know if that makes sense but anybody who comes into this House—and God knows it is not all that easy to come here and the person who makes the grade is good— is, every day, entitled to learn something if we have anything in the top storey at all. Are we to go on after all these years of native government believing that we can perpetrate that fraud continuously on the electorate, that we can have twice as much at a lesser cost?

We are reaching the time when it must go down in black and white what the programme is to be, what this will cost and how much is to be put into every section of that programme, and if there are to be economies, where they are to be effected. Are you going to sell the transatlantic planes as you did before, or are you going to close the Verolme Dockyard? There has been a lot of criticism of Verolme. Are you going to close it? Say "yes". If you are not, leave it alone and stop criticising. Are you going to close down Irish Shipping at which you jeered so much when we purchased the original boats? Let the people know your programme and then they can decide. Then we can consider what the future programme is to be and stability will be maintained, even at the risk of a change of Government. We have a right to ask these things. The actual fact is that Christmas 1964 has a smiling atmosphere compared with the gloomy Christmas of 1956 when people expected no Santa Claus.

Mr. Mullen

I could not agree more with the last speaker when he said we have to see where things are coming from. The Government are responsible for giving leadership in that matter. Listening to the Minister for Justice this afternoon I wondered when are we going to get away from the past. I heard him going back years to compare emigration and employment figures. He referred to the work done by the National Industrial and Economic Council and also adverted to the Programme for Economic Expansion. When the Minister or anybody else talks in terms of the present, he must also have an eye to the future. I agree we can take a lesson from the past, but our people are tired of hearing: “Why did you not do it?” or “We could have done it better”. Today we are facing a situation in which the people want to know what improvements are to be made and not what has been done in the past.

There was a reference to the National Wage Agreement. I was delighted to hear for the first time a clear statement from a Minister of State as to exactly how this agreement came about. There was only one thing he overlooked, that is, that the agreement was brought about as the result of long and intensive negotiations. It resulted in bringing an increase of wages not only to take care of the increase in the cost of living but purported to be a certain measure of compensation for improved productivity.

We had certain people believing that this was automatic. Therefore, I was glad to hear the Minister state clearly that it was not automatic. Some people thought this was something the Government said they must get. We in the trade union movement had people saying to us: "What about this increase the Government said we must get and, after that, what about the other?" This is the way people are inclined to be misled.

I am concerned about the loss of effectiveness of the National Wage Agreement because of the increase in the cost of living. There is no denying that this has happened and is continuing to happen. The Labour Party have repeatedly urged the Minister for Industry and Commerce to do something positive about price control. Up to the moment that has not been done.

What real improvements have come about for our people as far as health services are concerned? Can it be said we have made any progress in that connection? Can it be said by what time we will be in a position to have a satisfactory health scheme? It does not take a great deal of inquiry to find out the amount of dissatisfaction, certainly in Dublin, with the dispensary service. It does not require a great deal of imagination to ascertain the people's feelings with regard to obtaining the medical card. Promises have been offered to the people by way of political sops and encouragement to vote for certain people.

The same thing can be said in relation to social welfare benefits. The Parliamentary Secretary to the Taoiseach said that in 50 years' time perhaps the people on these benches will find that the old age pensioners are getting £10 a week but will be saying: "Why not £15?" I honestly hope that is not the line of thought in the minds of the Government. I hope they will forget about the £10 a week but will give real value to the old age pensioners for their money and give them the assistance they need. Do not wait until 1970 to do that. We cannot forget that the old age pensioners of today are the men and women who established this country as it is. We may not be completely satisfied with it, but they made sacrifices for it. Nobody can tell me that it is easy for them at present.

We still have the situation where the Minister for Social Welfare has failed to conform with the repeated representations made to him by the Irish Congress of Trade Unions in connection with the ceiling of £800 in respect of social welfare benefits. At the same time, the worker is told to keep his eye on the target. We know that money values have fallen. It is only commonsense to take that into consideration. This figure of £800 has been in existence for a number of years. Obviously there have been improvements in wages. Spending power has also been reduced. At the same time, this figure has remained static.

In relation to the Workmen's Compensation Acts, when is the Minister going to tell us he intends to do something positive to improve the benefits? We all know that no man who comes within the ambit of the workmen's compensation scheme can exist on £4 10s. 0d. a week. These are the things we have to bear in mind when thinking of the future. I do not think it would be impudent of me to ask the Government if they intend to improve social welfare benefits by 1970. They have told us that many other things within the ambit of the Programme for Economic Expansion will improve by that period.

We have also numerous problems affecting the Department of Transport and Power. There are many things I could talk about in that connection. To be brief, I will speak about tourism. Having regard to the advocacy in the Programme for Economic Expansion that the income from tourism should be doubled by 1970, I am amazed that up to the present the responsible Minister has not brought both employers and workers together to find out exactly how this is to be done. No effort has been made in this regard. I also deplore the fact that on more than one occasion the Minister has neglected to maintain peace between employers and workers in the bodies under his control. There were occasions on which there were disputes and he washed his hands of them. At the same time, we had to take notice of the fact that the Minister for Industry and Commerce came in and did a job which was more in keeping with the function of the Minister for Transport and Power.

Recently an announcement was made to all of the workers available in Dublin Airport that there was to be a change there. The Minister for Transport and Power, apparently, is to take over but nobody has yet made a positive statement about this, other than that a member of the management called the workers in and told them that they might expect this change. The trade unions have not been brought into discussion in this matter.

This is an important matter. If there are to be changes in the method of working at the Airport, it is proper and right that the people who work there should be made aware of what those changes are, what is likely to happen to their employment, and so on.

This afternoon, in reply to a question, the Minister for Transport and Power said that there would be no effect on employment. We have heard stories like that before. I am not one to engage in rumour-spreading but the obvious thing is for the Minister to make the details known and ensure, if he does not want to do it himself, that his representatives will meet the trade union representatives so as to avoid rumours as to what will happen while the people vitally concerned do not know the position.

I now want to refer to the question of education. Many people have been stressing the importance of education. There is provision made for education in relation to the Second Programme for Economic Expansion and yesterday a Supplementary Estimate was passed providing for £2 million to £3 million for education. The Parliamentary Secretary to the Taoiseach referred to the fact that the money has to be found. The Labour Party did not challenge that Supplementary Estimate yesterday. We are anxious to ensure that this spur to education will be effective. The opportunity for education should be provided now and should not be a matter of a pious promise because there is many a working man's child who will be out of school and working before 1970.

I should also like to refer to a matter affecting the Department of Posts and Telegraphs and to ask when something will be done, particularly in housing areas, to provide a proper telephone service. Many parts of the constituency which I represent are devoid of a telephone service. We all realise the necessity for a telephone service, especially in the event of sudden illness or fire.

There is also a marked absence of proper postal services. Representations have been made to the Minister and he has not done what he should do about them. I will not say that he has done nothing about them.

There is a battery factory operating in this city. I acknowledge that it was brought to fruition by the Fianna Fáil Government. This factory is now manufacturing all types of dry batteries. The Department of Posts and Telegraphs sees fit to import foreign batteries to maintain their postal services. Then we get all this talk about buying Irish and being Irish. Instructions are going out to all Departments to buy Irish. I would have thought that that would have been a standing order and that we would not have had to wait until 1964 to adopt the idea of buying Irish, being Irish and selling Irish.

Finally, I must advert to the situation so far as the Department of Local Government is concerned. There has been a great deal of talk here this evening about the building of houses and the number of houses built in the past. There is no denying the fact that in Dublin thousands of houses and flats are still urgently needed. I do not blame the present Government for that but I do think the Minister for Local Government should take off his coat and get down to this job, in consultation with the officials of Dublin Corporation, and do something positive in connection with this matter. At the moment there is a considerable number of houses on the dangerous building list. There is a considerable number of people living in overcrowded conditions. Then there are the people living in one room. All of these people are looking for a home and wondering when they will be accommodated.

The position is so bad at the moment that the Corporation have been obliged to bring in a regulation, which, to my knowledge, is still in existence, that young married couples with no children, living in a dangerous building, cannot be accommodated. The Corporation have no accommodation for them. I understand that that situation is likely to continue for some time. Dublin Corporation have been obliged, by reason of the emergency created by dangerous buildings, to abandon the houses for newlyweds scheme. That scheme has been abandoned for months now.

All these are real problems and every member of Dublin Corporation, no matter to which Party he belongs, is plagued by people asking when they will be housed. It is bad enough trying to explain matters to people living in dangerous buildings but there are large families who cannot be accommodated because of the lack of housing.

The Minister for Local Government should give more serious consideration to the case of people who are setting out to buy their own homes. There is a real problem there which hardly requires elaboration. In many respects the problem has been brought about by certain restrictions and limitations on people's entitlements. Persons who are classified as of the working class are entitled to a loan from the Dublin Corporation and to a grant. Upper and lower income limits are prescribed. As a result of the progress that has been made with wage increases, a number of persons have found themselves disqualified because their annual income is a few shillings above the higher income limit.

In addition, such persons are faced with the effects of the recent building strike. Deposits for houses have risen tremendously. Persons intending to get married are being asked to put down deposits of £500 before they can secure a house. As I have said, they might as well as asked to put down £5,000. I do not know if these things are happening outside Dublin but in Dublin they require immediate and constant attention.

I am taking advantage of this occasion to make these points. I am not doing it for political motives. I am fully conscious of the fact that there are many people who are being dissuaded from staying in this country, who are about to throw in the sponge, who ask: "Where can we go? We had better get out." That is not good. The persons concerned are the persons on whom we will be depending in 1970, 1975 and 1980. I would entreat the Taoiseach to use his influence with the Minister for Local Government to have something positive done in connection with the building situation and to have a check made on the increase in deposits on houses. I am not satisfied that the building employers are not cashing in on the situation.

Mr. Sherwin

I had intended to open on a different matter, but as the question of housing has been mentioned, I shall deal with it. The housing problem has eased. In fact, there will be a meeting on Friday next of the Housing Committee of Dublin Corporation to rescind the crisis regulations of 15 months ago and we expect next week to be back to the usual priorities, so there is progress. It is no fault of the Minister or the Government whether there were houses or not. We have gone into this before —and I hate repeating myself—that in 1959 and 1960 people did not want houses. We were housing families with one child. Surely when a family with one child could get a house, there was no crisis in 1959 and 1960. In fact, 1,000 families who were offered houses refused to take them. Deputy Ryan of the Fine Gael Party asked the question which I quoted some months ago from the minutes of the Corporation meeting as to how many houses were lying idle and the answer was that 170 houses were lying idle. I quoted that and it has not been denied.

There was no crisis in 1959 and 1960 and it was on the advice of the City Manager and the housing allocation officer, advice which was accepted by the Committee headed by Deputy Larkin of the Labour Party, that we suspended building houses but continued with flats because of the difficulty in regard to people accepting houses and because the ratepayers were moaning about the amount of destruction going on in empty houses.

If there was any crisis since 1960, it was because people started to come back from Britain. We have a list of 1,100 back from Britain inside two years. People stopped going away. Perhaps that would be due to increased prosperity. Admittedly, many houses which should have been demolished ten, 20 or 30 years ago, since we got our freedom, were not demolished, but if they were not demolished, that was the responsibility, if we are to blame a Government, of all Governments; if we really want to attribute responsibility, then we must blame the Housing Committee.

The question of housing has as much politics. I am fed up repeating myself on this matter. Suffice it to say that we shall take the usual priorities. In regard to the Minister exerting himself, he has more than exerted himself. He alone is responsible for initiating this big drive which will give us an additional 3,000 houses by system building, and we hope to have the factory in operation within seven months.

The question of housing has as much to do with politics as has the Succession Bill which was argued recently. I am sure the Government were just as anxious to do justice to Fine Gael widows and orphans as to Fianna Fáil widows and orphans. It would not be right that the Succession Bill should be made a political issue because the principle was meant to be applied to all persons where injustice might be done.

I was going to start off by referring to by-elections because other members have referred to them. Let me refer to the recent Galway by-election. It was quite obvious that the Opposition did not look upon that by-election as an Opposition victory, because it was not. I am a good judge of elections. I ought to be. I came in here myself in a by-election. I am the only individual who ever won a by-election. One other man came in—I think, Alderman Byrne's son—but he had the whole Fine Gael Party behind him. I was on my own.

On the occasion of the Galway by-election, I said to myself and to my friends that if Fianna Fáil had Deputy John Donnellan, he would have got 30,000 votes. He would have got the 20,000 Clann na Talmhan votes and those of the football crowd. One could not make any point out of the fact that Deputy Donnellan won. If he had stood for his father's Party, he would have won or if he had come up as an Independent, he would have won. I am satisfied it was not an adverse decision as far as the Government are concerned. It was a football victory. It was a tribute by the people of Galway to the captain of the winning team, the team that brought honour to Galway. So let us forget about the by-election.

We must consider this matter of celebrities being put up for the Dáil. There will be a few pop artistes going up in the next election. One reads letters in the paper by people advocating a reduction in the number of Deputies. If we are to have a whole army of people who have no real knowledge of or interest in politics, an increase in Dáil numbers will be necessary because there will not be sufficient material from which to form a Government. I do not want to be personal. Everyone has a right to come in here, whether he is pop singer, footballer or anyone else. I believe if I passed out tomorrow, my wife would be in here. She is more popular than I am in my area.

What is really at issue is how the country is faring and I am satisfied it is faring well. Statistics are there to show that expenditure on drink, tobacco and cigarettes has jumped considerably. That is good proof that the economy is improving. Only a few weeks ago, I was watching on Telefís Éireann Mr. Ulick O'Connor, who was one of the Late Late Show panel, being cross-examined by a Labour Party supporter, Proinnsias MacAonghusa. He admitted the country was doing well over the past three years and he is an opponent of the Government; he wrote a book in which he attacked the then Taoiseach, Mr. de Valera, and the Government. If he admitted the country is doing well, you can accept that. I would accept that more readily than what an organised Opposition would say whose job it is to distort things.

We are told the population is increasing. We are told there is a slight decrease in the numbers employed. Maybe so, but those who are in the country are doing well. The agricultural community are no longer living on 2s. 6d. and a fiver from their "da" for a few woodbines. Everyone is living well, except of course, those sections that are being used because they are good tear-jerking material, the old age pensioners and so on. I am satisfied that the key to the improvement in their position does not lie with the Government; it lies with the Opposition. The day the Opposition agree to vote for taxation to make the old age pensioners better off, that is the day their position will improve.

It has been admitted that there will be a deficit to meet in the Budget and that there will be no spare money. It is said that if there are any further demands, there will be increased taxation. Therefore, whether we like it or not, if the position of the old age pensioners is to improve, it can be done only by increased taxation. What are you asking the Government to do? Make more enemies? They tried to save the country last year by the turnover tax which was simply intended to pay for the balance of cost of the eighth round, the ninth round, social welfare, education, housing and so on. These are the purposes for which the money was spent.

If you want to increase social welfare, I am all with you, but it will mean increasing taxation and seeing that you made play with the turnover tax even though the money was put to good use and seeing that the Government made so many enemies, you cannot blame them for their present position. It is the lot of every Government in power to make enemies and I pity the Opposition when they get into power. I do not object if they gain office in the next election. I support the Government for the good things they do and if there is a change of Government, I shall probably support the Opposition Government if they do good work. But I pity them because they are digging their own grave. They are attacking the Government for everything, demanding more services and making all sorts of promises. The moment they get into office, they will be confronted by a powerful Opposition who will demand that they do all those things and they will not be let off the hook.

Will they be able to stand up to this like the present Government, which is one body of people with the support of a few Independents? How will the Opposition stand up with five or six groups that are easy to attack? I was looking at a programme on Telefís Éireann recently and the lesson there was that the attack was always made at the weakest point between the British and the French. The Opposition, if they gain power, will be in the same position and, not only that, but each group in it can be shaken up. Each will be shivering in the fear of being manoeuvred into a position they will not like. They will have no hope at all.

The Opposition should co-operate with the Government on taxation and hope that in turn the present Government in Opposition will co-operate. If the Opposition now went to the Government and asked them to increase social welfare benefits and agreed to support certain taxation, I believe the Government would do it but what the Opposition are asking the Government to do is to make more enemies. They are suggesting what should be done; they want the Government to do the dirty work and then attack them for the extra taxation. People outside do not know the difference and they will think Fianna Fáil are no usue and that the Opposition are great fellows.

Fianna Fáil are not fools and the Opposition are not really helping the old age pensioners. They are leading them to think something is being done for them but the Opposition undo that case when they attack the Government if they attempt to get money. Therefore, I hold, the key to social welfare is the Opposition. The day they vote for more taxation to improve social welfare, they will be all right. I hope social welfare benefits will increase. While it is not true that the increase in the cost of living was more than the increase in benefits in the past few years, it is true they should get a larger share of the national income. There should be a reassessment of what they should get. I believe the contributory old age pensioner should get at least one-third of what a working man would get and that a non-contributory old age pensioner should get one-forth, but if that were to be done, it would probably cost another £6 million or £7 million. The Opposition want the Government to tax the people now after the turnover tax so that they will make more enemies. Do not blame them if they will not do it.

The Opposition proposal is a deception; they are not honest about it. If they were, they would bring in a practical proposition and would vote for the extra taxation. Will that be done? It has not been Opposition policy up to now. They might argue that Fianna Fáil did not do it for them but is it not nearly time that there should be some understanding in regard to social welfare classes and that they should not be the football of political Parties, which is what they are? There is a solution to every problem. It all depends on the purpose behind what you say and I do not believe the Opposition purpose is to help those people at all.

I do not like going back to the past but 1956 is not very far back. I could go back much further. For 17 years the old age pensioners never got as much as a button. In 1922 they had 10/-. The Fine Gael Party reduced that by 1/- in 1924. They gave back the 1/- later but gave nothing for the remainder of their term of office. I admit Fianna Fáil did not do anything for a long time and the pensioners got nothing for 17 years. I do not know what the people were doing here. Now the pensioners at least get something every year but if the Opposition want anything better, the key to the situation is with themselves.

Health services have been mentioned. Again, the suggestion is that the Government can relieve the ratepayers and those who are looking for blue cards and so on. It all boils down to money. It is taxation, which means the same thing. As in the case of the old age pensioners, money is needed. If the Opposition agree to vote for the taxation, it will be done; if they do not, they cannot blame the Government for being a bit tight because they are not foolish enough to make more enemies. They are just as much entitled not to make more enemies as are the Opposition. This is a business and I pity the people outside because they are fooled, but I am not fooled.

Comparisons were made between this country and other countries. You cannot make such comparisons: it all depends on what people have to pay out in other countries. I was on the Continent a few months ago and at the last minute I decided to get some sweets for the children. I got chocolate which cost 2/6 a bar and each bar was worth only 6d. I told the children that there was 10/- worth of sweets and they said: "Why not give us the 10/-? These are only 6d. each." That is the answer as far as the Continent is concerned.

I admit things are not so bad in Britain but the cost of digs is higher. Although the contributory old age pensioner will get £4 in the next Budget, remember the employed people will have to pay, females 9/- and males 13/- per week as their social service contribution. In a sense, even at the present rate they are not giving in Britain any more than this Government are giving when you consider what is demanded from the employees.

Another thing I saw on Telefís Éireann—there are a few good points on it occasionally—was a social worker who was referring to the number of dependants here and in Britain compared with the number employed. Only about a month ago, this lady said that compared with those employed, about 50 per cent of the number were dependants in the form of adults and children but in this country 75 per cent were dependants. Surely we have responsibilities much greater than Britain and, taking it all round, we are not doing so badly. I am all with the Opposition the moment they propose to vote for taxation and I shall vote with them, but it is up to them.

Regarding Partition, which was not mentioned in the debate, I suppose it is a difficult problem, but the fact remains that there was a general election in Britain which involved the North only a short time ago and, due to the personal ambition of various individuals, they made a "hames" of it. I think the Government should, in some fatherly way, try to bring about some sort of unanimity among those people. I know the Government might be told to mind their own business. There are other sections there that do not want to talk about Partition; they want to force the issue and, in a sense, they are right if they had a chance of winning, but I am satisfied they have not. The Government should try to bring about some unanimity in regard to the North because it is difficult to go to the United Nations and elsewhere and make a protest when people who know nothing about our politics here and who judge by figures can say to you: "They won all the seats up there and you won none." It is bad for us and the Government should be more active even to the extent of subsidising some effort to bring about unified or agreed representation in Northern Ireland.

To get back to the Health Act, many people are asking when we are to have the findings of the Select Committee on Health Services. It is nearly time we got some results or some information from that Committee but it would be wrong for people to think that the Committee is going to perform any miracles with regard to health. Again it is money all the time. It is just as if parents were asked by their children to give them steak for dinner instead of black pudding. The answer to that request is: "We will if you can give us more money."

What that Committee is considering is an insurance scheme. Certain people may think that the workers will be better off under such a scheme. They may be, but they are going to pay more. The suggestion is that the workers should in future pay all these expenses but there are thousands of people who are employed and, because they have children, they get a blue card and get health facilities for nothing. Under this suggestion everyone, even those who have the blue card, will have to pay and the only people who will be exempt from payment will be the unemployed.

If anybody is expecting miracles from this Committee the only miracle they can produce is that the people will have to pay. The ratepayers will be saved but the man in the street will have to pay 2/- or 3/- more per week for this facility. If such a scheme is in the interests of propertied people, it is not so much in the interest of the man in the street. It is all a question of money, money, money, money, and if the Opposition are prepared to vote the money we will all agree with them. They hold the key. The Government have made enemies on this matter and I do not blame them if they are not prepared to make more enemies. If the Opposition are prepared to come in and share the burden, we will have an El Dorado in this country.

Mr. O'Connor

I have listened to the contributions to this debate of two of the senior Fine Gael Deputies and it was very interesting to note the great divergence of opinion between them on matters of national importance. Are we to gather from that that Fine Gael are still in the wilderness looking for a policy to put before the people? Deputy Barrett ended up behind the Iron Curtain and some time later Deputy Donegan undertook a flying visit to Heaven and had a discussion with St. Peter. Are we to take it that the new policy which he announced to his Fine Gael executive in south Louth arose out of that discussion? The Irish people would be very glad if at last his Party came out with something worthwhile rather than promising policy after policy which never come to anything.

Deputy Barrett claimed that the initiation of the industrial drive in this country came about through people who saw the opportunity to develop those industries. Surely Deputy Barrett will have to concede that some body had to prepare the position so that those industries could be started? Everybody will agree that the efforts of our present Taoiseach in the early days opened the road for the industrial drive in this country. Deputy Donegan claimed that some legislation introduced by the inter-Party Government in 1956 was responsible for the industrial drive. It is amazing that Deputy Barrett should have a different point of view.

Deputy Barrett also claimed that housing in Cork was not undertaken at the rate it should be and he claimed credit for the inter-Party Government for housing development. He completely forgets that that Government were forced out of office, not because they were defeated by any vote of this House but because they disintegrated for the reason that there was no money available and the people who had money had no confidence in the Government. That is the answer to the housing position we saw in later years. Fianna Fáil had to spend a number of their first years in office trying to find the necessary money to clear off the payments due to concerns all over the country. That took three to five years to straighten out.

It is amazing how short the memories of some people can be and how today they can claim credit for developments brought about by other people. Deputy Barrett did make a useful contribution when he suggested some form of organisation behind the counters to push the sale of Irish goods. Deputy Mullen said he thought there was no necessity for a Buy Irish campaign because it had always been there. Earlier Deputy Corry referred to the position when he and I went into a very large shop in this city and were sold British goods. I assume the assistants behind the counters are members of a trade union. I am sure they must be. Surely it is not too much to expect that they would be instructed by their unions to present and sell Irish goods?

Mr. Tully

The onus is on their employer to stock Irish goods. They are only servants.

Mr. O'Connor

I went in and I was served British goods. I did not ask for them. I did not know I had them until I arrived home. They were put up by the person behind the counter. There was no compulsion on him to do so. I did not ask for any particular goods.

Mr. Corish

Then the Deputy is responsible, too. He should have.

Mr. O'Connor

I did not think it would be necessary in Dublin to ask for Irish goods in one of the biggest firms in the city, but I arrived home with British material sold by an assistant in the firm concerned.

Mr. Corish

The Deputy was very careless.

Mr. O'Connor

That may be, but at my end of the country that position does not obtain. All our people sell Irish goods as far as possible. Unless the customer asks for something specifically, the customer always gets Irish goods. Surely it is not asking too much to have that position obtain in Dublin? I put it to the Deputies concerned that instructions should go out from the trade unions to all personnel to push Irish goods and to sell Irish goods. Other countries sell their own goods first. If there is an organisation to get that type of approach, in a short time we will have Irish goods readily available and sold all over the country.

We are in the unfortunate position that the very big firms controlling the goods sold are themselves under alien control and their main interest is to import. They are a menace to the general trade of the country, and have been for many years back. The trade unions could usefully accept my suggestion and impress on their members the necessity of having Irish goods displayed and available as far as possible. I have a vast experience of the different firms because my own firm trades with many of them. They are always trying to push and expand the sale of imported goods. They say their livelihood depends on bringing in foreign materials. They try to get entire control of the market and, when they cannot do that, they import and put up an opposition material. There is a very old and reputable firm in Waterford which manufactures bedding. It is going out of business because it cannot compete with the imported material.

Mr. Corish

Does the Deputy not agree it is up to the shopkeeper to stock all Irish goods?

Mr. O'Connor

I agree, but unfortunately all the shopkeepers do not see eye to eye on that.

Mr. Corish

As long as the Deputy does, I am satisfied.

Mr. O'Connor

I have a very good reason. I am Irish and I am proud of being Irish. I have every reason to be proud——

Mr. Corish

And better still, Kerry.

Mr. O'Connor

We try to keep our local industries going. We buy Kerry material all the time, and, if we cannot get it, we go to Cork or Limerick.

Mr. Tully

Sticking to Munster.

Mr. O'Connor

However, that trade stranglehold still prevails to a certain extent and something must be done to loosen it. I think the trade unions are in a good position to do something about it and they certainly should do something about it.

Deputy Barrett talked rather vaguely about the 12 per cent increase and he said it was no advantage at all. Is it the policy of Fine Gael to keep wages down? If we have any hope of taking our place with the other countries, and keeping our own people at home, it lies in being able to pay our people wages comparable at least with those paid by our nearest neighbour. I would never agree that our people are not entitled to the same wage as they could get elsewhere, provided our economy can support it. We are heading in that direction and those of us who will be alive ten years hence will see the changes. That position will obtain. Our workers will have wages comparable with those paid elsewhere.

Our people are alive to the immense effort required to increase production. Our young farmers are doing an excellent job of work but they need all the help, advice and support they can get to help them through the difficult time ahead. They have to modernise their farming and spend vast amounts on machinery and equipment. They are already doing that and I believe they will achieve their objective.

Deputy Donegan attempted to decry their efforts, certainly the efforts at cattle, wheat and beet production, and other commodities, too. He referred to the fact that there are fewer cattle to-day than there were some years back. That is true. It is true because our farmers no longer carry an animal to the two or three year old stage. There is no demand on the Continent for these beasts and in some of the British markets, they no longer take that type of animal. The three year old has too much waste in the form of gristle and fat and is no longer acceptable in world markets. Farmers know that and they are bringing about the position in which they produce the animal to the necessary weight at some one and a half to two years. That is another job they are doing well.

Deputy Donegan also referred to the reduction in wheat but made no reference to the increase in barley, which is playing a very important part in our export trade, in as much as we are producing the feeding material for the different animals we have to sell outside. Farmers on my side of the country find that barley is much more profitable than wheat and have turned to its production and are producing barley all the year round and feeding it to their livestock. They have made a very wise decision in view of the bad harvests we have been having for a number of years and the losses incurred in wheat growing.

The farmer is the wisest man of all where his own policy is concerned and he has turned to doing the job he is best suited to do and which he knows the best. Deputy Donegan referred to Government policies and said that the farmers were let down because the advisory services required for the expansion in agriculture were not provided by the Government. That is not correct. The extra finance was made available this year to bring the necessary personnel up to standard. In the Kerry County Committee of Agriculture, we have an adviser for every two and a half parishes, and if we count the number of agricultural instructors also, we have an adviser for practically one and a half parishes. This gives an idea of what can be done and is being done. Some counties have objected to having instructors and I think they are losing out.

During the Roscommon by-election, I was amazed to see the number of houses closed and farms lying idle. I could only wish that we had a whole lot of those farms in Kerry. They were farms of 20 to 30 acres with lovely new houses on them. They have better land in Roscommon, generally speaking, than we have in Kerry and extensive acreages of bog for development and it is amazing, especially in a county like Roscommon, which has a Gaelic tradition, that an effort is not being made to promote agricultural activity and also industrial expansion through the turf available. I found Galway to be much more advanced. The people there are hardworking. They need advisory services but they are certainly tackling their job in the right way.

As I stated earlier this year, we have the honour in Kerry of being the second highest agricultural producing county. Kerry produces £37 10s. per acre, whereas most of the better counties produce between £11 and £14 on the very good land available. It shows again the necessity for the development of modern advisory services and which are now available to the people of those counties. If they go about it properly, they can get the same number of advisers as we have and as a result of which we have been expanding our agricultural industry far beyond our expectations. We know we can go much further. There has been a big development in the pig industry and our people are going in largely for this development. I do think, however, that the provision in the western counties of cheap feeding stuffs, whether by way of subsidy or imports, is necessary to give them the standard of living they require.

Many changes are required in the general policy that obtains in the west. The Unemployment Assistance Act, which has played such a big part in the lives of our people over the past 20 to 25 years, is militating against them today and should be operated on a valuation basis only and not on a means test. I know of a man who had three cows on his holding and who was persuaded by the local curate to put two more cows on it in order to keep a local creamery, which was in danger of being closed down, going. He was getting £6 5s. a week assistance but when he increased the number of cows to five, he was taken off it completely and the result was that in his overall takings, he was £35 short in the year. This Act militates against a man going into maximum production and a change is necessary. A holding of ten, 12 or 14 acres is not sufficient to provide even the necessaries of life, let alone a first-class standard of living and a planned Unemployment Assistance Act is necessary for the congested areas to allow people to receive assistance on a valuation basis and to let them go ahead and produce everything they can.

Other schemes are also necessary for the west, such as drainage schemes and roadmaking schemes. The present trend towards reducing the county road grant, which played such an important part in the building of roads in the west and which is being steadily reduced, should not apply to western counties. The only hope for people today is to have decent roads. The mileage of roads in the west is far beyond what they have in the midland counties where they have all their byroads and small roads tarred and completed. We have not reached that stage along the western coast and I would ask the Ministers concerned to examine the position and make the county road grant still applicable to the west until we have our roads completed.

Deputy Donegan also said that hundreds of thousands of people have been unemployed since the advent of the Fianna Fáil Government. He forgot to mention that the mechanisation of the land forced this unfortunate position on us. The advent of the tractor, which meant that the farmer required labour only for about three or four weeks in the spring, the summer and fall, has displaced many of our agricultural labourers, who have to emigrate if they do not find other work.

It is necessary to face seriously the problems before the county. We have many of them because of the vast changes that have taken place, particularly in the agricultural sphere. Our people need all the encouragement they can get from every Deputy. I would ask the Opposition to face up to that position and join with us in giving them the encouragement and direction they need in building a better Ireland. The people have their coats off to build the Ireland we all want to see in the future. I think we are on the proper line, irrespective of what Government are in power. I would appeal to all Deputies to look on the problem from that point of view. Let us go out at election time or any other time and put sensible policies before the people, but let us not decry what the other fellow has done or try to claim he has no plans or policy. That is misleading the people. At the end of 1964, facing a new year, Deputies could do a very good job for Ireland if they approached the problem in that fashion.

Mr. P. Hogan

(South Tipperary): It seems hard to divorce domestic Government policy from recent by-election results. It was in February, 1963, that the Taoiseach brought in a White Paper called Closing the Gap. That White Paper, by implication, seemed to herald a pay pause. It was not received too kindly. It was described at that time as the red light. His argument was that salaries and wages had outstripped productivity and that a halt was desirable. He produced figures to substantiate his argument in the White Paper. Later, in the 1963 Budget, he produced the much talked of turnover tax, taxing for the first time essential commodities like food and fuel. That Budget was in general received very badly by this side of the House and by the public in general. Traders by their very nature and occupation are not inclined to nail their colours to the mast politically. They have to live from everybody. On this occasion, however, they were incensed at the idea of becoming the unpaid tax collectors of the community.

Shortly after that, a by-election took place in Dublin North-East because of the lamented death of Deputy Jack Belton. There was virtually a landslide against the Government. Now the yellow light goes on. The Taoiseach panicked. The yellow light was switched on by the people of North-East Dublin. He saw it was necessary to do something to retrieve himself in the eyes of the people. He proceeded to establish a wages policy or incomes policy. He got the Federated Union of Employers to sit down with the Congress of Irish Unions. He got them to come back on three different occasions before finally the 12 per cent round was hammered out.

He told us at that time that the gap was closed. The red light that was on in March had in a few months become a green light. Our economy had so improved that we were now ready to enjoy the fruits of the increased productivity. There was some doubt in the minds of some professional economists at that time as to the cogency of his arguments and the accuracy of his pronouncements. It seemed it was rather extraordinary that an economy which was staggering in the spring could in a few months become so buoyant. We are all aware in our ordinary household affairs that if you are poor in the spring, you are usually poor in the autumn as well.

The inescapable point was that there were two by-elections pending in Cork and Kildare. Before the Cork by-election, a Telefís Éireann programme was broadcast in which several people were interviewed in Cork. On two occasions—it looked palpably like a sponsored question—the people interviewed were asked: "Are you not looking forward to your 12 per cent increase?", and they all smilingly answered "yes". When the Taoiseach was making his broadcast, he said something to the effect that everybody's income was now going to be increased. When wages and salaries are increased, there would be increased money going over the counter to the shopkeepers, and what was wrong with that.

On the face of it, there seemed to be nothing wrong with it. On the face of it, the people of Cork and Kildare apparently thought there was nothing wrong with it, because they did what the Taoiseach wanted them to do. They walked in and gave him a substantial majority in both by-elections. Then time passed and the nigger in the woodpile gradually emerged — the nigger of increasing creeping inflation. The salary and wage earners gradually found, as they have found out now, that what they got with one hand was taken back with the other. No attempt whatever was made to control costs and prices. We had the situation of one worker writing to the evening papers saying: "For heaven's sake give me no more 12 per cent wage increases. I cannot afford them." That was the position—a worker standing up at a meeting stating: "This is 12 per cent has been no use to any of us. The only man who benefited by it has been An Taoiseach. He won two by-elections on it."

The attitude consistently taken by the Minister for Finance here is that any measure of price control is out of the question. We are dependent, he states, on the normal commercial competition as between one trader and another. Inflation was at the same time under way in England but it must have been obvious to the Government here that the British Government, facing an election, could not employ deflationary measures very readily and hope to win the election. It was equally obvious that once the election was over, there would be a tightening of the belt. We were prepared to proceed gaily on an inflationary policy, spiralled off and initiated by the turnover tax which made the ninth round inevitable.

I accept the fact that if there was never a turnover tax, there might have been a ninth round. There would have been but it would have been one which we could meet. I believe the demand would have been less. The Congress of Trade Unions could not have made such a powerful case as they were able to do by virtue of the turnover tax. I am satisfied that from that stems the present inflationary trend which we are all experiencing now.

Recently we had a 15 per cent tariff applied against our industrial exports by the British Prime Minister. The Taoiseach was reported in the newspapers as saying that this was a body blow to our industrial expansion. How much better we would be in our economic position today and how much better would we be able to take that body blow if the inflationary spiral which the Taoiseach set in motion did not obtain. I submit that the body blow was dealt to the Irish economy, not by Mr. Wilson, the British Prime Minister, but by the Taoiseach, deliberately, in order to win two wretched by-elections, one in Cork and one in Kildare, two by-elections which were vital to his political existence.

Indeed, it seems as if there is a lack of unanimity in Government circles on the question of policy. That lack of unanimity become apparent a short time ago when one of the Taoiseach's Ministers resigned. He could not stick the going any longer. This lack of unanimity is apparent in recent pronouncements by the Minister for Transport and Power and the Minister for Finance. The Minister for Finance speaking here in Dublin and the Minister for Transport and Power speaking elsewhere, attributed much of our present difficulties to the inflationary effect of the 12 per cent round, completely misleading the public on this issue. Let us not forget that the inflationary measures initiated by the Government are the major cause of our present position. The 12 per cent increase contributed but it certainly did not contribute more than one-half of the problem which we are facing at present of an increased cost in prices.

Our economy here is an open economy. We must export to live, and unless we are in a competitive position, our general economy will suffer and redundancy will arise. Our local position, if inflation is allowed to go as the Taoiseach has allowed it to go, means that those who are in the lower income bracket will find the purchasing power of their money steadily falling and their position becoming poorer and poorer but the door is wide open for the professional financier who, by buying real estate or moving into the stock exchange, can provide himself with a hedge against inflation.

The various difficulties in Government circles—the Party who always taunted us with not having a policy and who now appear not to have a policy of their own—are apparent in the matter of the recent Land Bill. I was completely set aside by the Minister for Lands when I introduced a simple amendment here, to the effect that in the case of land purchased by foreigners, the land should not be vested in the purchaser until it had been inspected by the Land Commission to see if it was suitable for division or if there was local demand for it. That was the essence of my amendment. It was repudiated by the Minister for Lands on very feeble grounds but a few months later when the by-election arose in Galway, the then Minister for Justice appeared in Loughrea to announce that they were introducing precisely these measures. Then you have another competition between the Minister for Justice, Mr. Lenihan and the former Minister for Justice, Mr. Haughey. Deputy Haughey introduces a Succession Bill and Deputy Lenihan does not approve of it. Deputy Haughey runs away from it and Deputy Lenihan is now trying to make the best patchwork job of what the former Minister for Justice has left to him.

Indeed, it does seem to me that when one considers this Succession Bill, for instance, the very first question put to the Taoiseach on the Order Paper today by a member from these benches, asking for the setting up of a Dáil Committee—a matter about which the Leader of the Labour Party has often expressed his interest— should now be considered because it is clear, when one considers the Succession Bill, that the Parliamentary draftsmen and the bureaucratic arm have got completely out of hand. This seems to be the brain child of a Department and not of a responsible Minister.

I mentioned that we have been told repeatedly that there is no question ever of any control of prices here, that it is impracticable, and that the ordinary commercial competition should operate. A most important aspect of our economy is to avoid labour unrest. There will always be labour unrest if you proceed to give something with one hand and then take it back with the other. By all means, fight labour demands if you think them excessive, but, having given them something, at least, you have a moral duty and a duty which a statesman would recognise, of preserving the purchasing power of whatever you give them.

This has not been done here. While we allowed all this inflation to occur bringing in its wake increased labour unrest, other countries have recognised the difficulties. Federal Germany, for instance, gave price stability a high priority, as reported in the OECD Observer“in part because of past experience with inflation. Recent measures taken by the German Government to equilibrate the balance of payments have been partly motivated by a concern for avoiding imported `inflation.' ”

In a small country, the Netherlands, they took measures there again to curb inflation and to preserve price stability. In Belgium, likewise, wages, which were tied to the cost-of-living index, rose, both because of the increase in that index and because of new collective agreements but at the same time the prices of basic commodities—flour, butter and wheat—which had been mounting were stabilised by price fixing. In Austria an agreement was made which froze prices and wages for a period of three months, later extended to six months. All these countries made an effort to control costs and prices and particularly to control the costs and prices of essential commodities while we proceeded for the first time ever to introduce a turnover tax on these commodities, with the result which is now too obvious to all.

We have been criticised by Deputy Lenihan, the Minister for Justice, on the point that we were a conservative Party. I thought that duck had died a long time ago but apparently she is a good duck to rise now and again when it suits the political protagonists. As regards our policy on health, in no other white country that I know of is there one-third of the population being served by an obsolete dispensary system 100 years old. That it works at all is due to the dedication of the medical profession who try to make the old machine work in some fashion.

We have a position which is socially unjust and unsound when 100,000 of our people, for no other reason than that they are poor, are compelled to go to a State-appointed doctor, to a State-established dispensary at a State-fixed hour to get a State-prescribed bottle of medicine; while his neighbour who happens to have a couple of more pounds in his pocket can go to his private doctor at his appointed hour and go to any chemist he likes to get the bottle of medicine. The Fine Gael Party do not like this situation. We think it is wrong and that nothing has been done to rectify that although we have a Committee sitting for the last two years and I do not know how many more years it will be sitting.

We are criticised as being a conservative Party even though we are prepared to provide all forms of education irrespective of people's income, to everybody who can reasonably benefit by it and as far as economic conditions can allow. We have been criticised as being conservative athough the records read out here to-night have shown that during the last inter-Party Government, in association with the Labour Party, we did more for housing for the underprivileged than has been done since by the Fianna Fáil Government.

Mr. Fanning

I would not intervene in this debate, were it not for the remarks of the last speaker. He started off talking about the by-election in East Galway. He referred to the Land Bill and the Succession Bill and attributed the winning of the by-election in Galway to them. It is surprising that this Deputy did not think it worth his while to vote against the Land Bill. It was not the question of the Land Bill or the Succession Bill that won the Galway seat. It was a vote for a man in a football gansey holding the Sam Maguire Cup.

Reference was made today to unemployment and emigration. We have in the town of Thurles in my county of Tipperary a thriving industry. If the policy of the Cumann na nGaedheal Party had been followed many more people would have emigrated instead of enjoying steady employment at the factory there. The previous speaker also spoke about the cost of living. The cost of living is high enough but at least workers have more money to buy what they need than they had in 1956 or 1957 when they were going around looking for a day's work with only half the amount of money in their pockets. As regards the old age pensioners, according to the old Cumann na nGaedheal Government they were the only well-off section of the community because the Government reduced their pension by a shilling. In regard to providing employment the statement was made at one time by Deputy McGilligan that it was not the duty of the Government to provide work for the unemployed.

General MacEoin

Nonsense.

Mr. Fanning

People could die of starvation. It is on the records of this House. The country was never as well off but Deputy Donegan spoke about the decrease in the cattle population, although there has been an increase in the number of yearlings. He said that people had to sell their cattle to live. What do they rear cattle for if it is not to sell them? We heard all about the Land Bill and what we are doing to the farmers from members of the Fine Gael Party. Deputy Harte had his photograph in the Sunday Independent beside a falling-down house. It is a wonder he would not consider it his duty to do something practical about it instead of making propaganda for the by-election. I can tell the Fine Gael Party that they could never succeed in defeating a Fianna Fáil farmer candidate in Tipperary. We are prepared to face an election at any time.

The Taoiseach

Believe it or not, this full day Adjournment Debate was arranged at the request of the Fine Gael Party and for the life of me, I cannot understand why they wanted it. Why did they want to expose their utter bankruptcy of policy and ideas? Look at them—three members in the House, two of them half asleep. This is the Party that is supposed to be, according to the Press commentators, full of beans after their by-election victories. They have as much buoyancy in them as a child's Christmas balloon with a hole in it.

Mr. Dillon

Go down to the Party room and you will find why they are not here. We are celebrating East Galway and a few other events. It is a far more cheerful place than this is.

(Interruptions.)

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

Order.

The Taoiseach

May I dispose of East Galway? I should like to congratulate Deputy John Donnellan on his victory in East Galway. I also congratulated him last September at Croke Park when his team won the All-Ireland Final. That is more than any Fine Gael Front Bencher could do because none of them was there.

Mr. Donegan

Are you sure?

The Taoiseach

I am certain.

Mr. Donegan

What about me?

The Taoiseach

Were you there?

Mr. Donegan

Yes, but I was not on the Hogan Stand.

The Taoiseach

Nor anywhere near it.

Mr. Donegan

I was on Hill Sixteen.

(Interruptions.)

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

Order.

The Taoiseach

It was certainly made clear today that the Fine Gael Party do not expect anyone in the Dáil or outside it to take their political pretensions seriously. We have had the reiteration of their usual speeches. We have been listening all day to their chorus of complaints and grumbles and all the time I sat here listening to them the thought kept running through my mind: what are they for? They told us what they were against, what they do not like, but, what are they for? If they are for anything it certainly did not appear from any speech made from the Fine Gael benches today.

Deputy Dillon said the Government is disintegrating. I know he would like to think that but let me say that there never was, not even in a previous Fianna Fáil Government, greater cohesion, greater unity in aims, than in the present Government. Of course we have arguments: I regard it as my duty as Head of the Government to encourage argument at Cabinet meetings. This is the way we get to see every side of the question and learn the path of wisdom. That is how a normal Government functions. Of course I know Deputy Dillon never had experience of a normal Government and never will. It was, I think, President Franklin Roosevelt who said that there were many ways of going forward but only one way of standing still. We do not intend to stand still.

May I, on behalf of all Deputies in the Dáil, on both sides of the House, in the interests of common humanity, ask Deputy Dillon to use the Dáil Recess to devise a new speech for himself? It would at least make the Dáil more interesting for a week or two in the New Year. If he cannot go to the full extent of preparing a new speech, will he at least attempt to re-edit the old one? I do not blame Deputy Corish for leaving the Dáil when Deputy Dillon started to speak. I admit that Deputy Corish came back and that Deputy Dillon left when Deputy Corish started and did not come back. Deputy Corish, like myself, knew by heart every period of this speech that Deputy Dillon was going to deliver. We could perhaps even have delivered it better than himself because I think he omitted some of the passages we had been accustomed to hearing during the year.

I know Deputy Dillon never allows his eloquence to be disturbed by things like facts. If the facts do not suit his oratorical periods he just disregards or distorts them. I was very interested, as a psychological study, in Deputy Dillon's new-found interest in emigration. He appears to suggest by implication that emigration is something that started in this country in the last few years since the Coalition Government left office. The fact is, of course, that the rate of emigration is now half what it was during the period when Deputy Dillon was in the Government. When he was in the Government, he did not disapprove of emigration at all. I remember that he spoke of it approvingly as a safety valve. We have never thought of it in that light.

Also, Deputy Dillon has suddenly become interested in housing. Deputy Sherwin gave the facts about housing in Dublin here this evening. Deputy Dillon laughs because he is not interested in facts but there is one additional fact that I want to give. The total amount invested by the Government in housing this year was more than 50 per cent higher than in any year of the Coalition Government and the increase in the investment in housing this year over last year was the highest ever attempted.

Mr. Dillon

Go and tell that to the people in Griffith Barracks.

The Taoiseach

We recognise that there is a housing problem; otherwise this expenditure would not be necessary. We have not now the situation in which there were 1,500 empty houses in Dublin because the occupants had to emigrate, when Dublin Corporation could formally take a decision that because of these empty houses it was not necessary to build any more. We are glad the empty houses are filled up. We are glad the emigrants are coming back.

Mr. Dillon

A quarter of a million have gone.

The Taoiseach

We are glad of the fact that, because of the increased employment opportunities in Dublin, the demand for housing is expanding and that demand is going to be met. The output of Dublin Corporation is being expanded to the fullest limit of the planning capacity of the Corporation's staff. Because that is not enough the Government, through the National Building Agency, is stepping in to build 3,000 more houses in Dublin to add to the Corporation's output.

Mr. Dillon

It is damn near time you started.

The Taoiseach

I must say that I have no idea what Deputy Dillon had in mind in one prepared part of his oration this morning. He seemed to be trying to cast doubt upon the soundness of the Irish £ and the adequacy of the backing for it. I do not think what he says is very important because nobody is likely to pay much attention to it but he referred to the Government as going to foreign bankers in Zurich and elsewhere. This sounded to me like an extract from a speech from Sir Alec Douglas Home and had no obvious relationship to our circumstances. We have not had to go to any foreign banker. We have never even drawn on our quota in the International Monetary Fund although, may I make it clear, we shall not hesitate to do so if it becomes necessary to maintain the momentum of our economic progress. The need for it has not appeared yet.

Mr. Dillon

Hear, hear. Look at them all smiling over there now.

The Taoiseach

The rise in the cost of living was fair subject for comment. It is a subject that is of concern to the Government, and rightly so. However, in so far as it is due to better prices for farm products, that is good for the farmers and because it is good for the farmers it is good for the country. So far as it is due to external causes outside our control there is nothing much we can do about it. So far as it is due to higher taxes, they represent the method by which the people provide money to finance the developments they desire in housing, hospitals, schools, social welfare and so on. In so far as they are due to internal causes we can regulate or control, it is clearly desirable that we should apply the measures which will keep the rise in prices within reasonable limits.

Mr. Dillon

Hear, hear.

The Taoiseach

But when all that is said and done, when all the complaints and grievances of Fine Gael have been trumpeted, when all the disparaging remarks they can make about conditions in the country have been recorded, it is still true that the standard of living of our people is higher now than it was ever before in our history and it is still rising. I do not know whether anyone else saw the humour that I did in Deputy Dillon posing as the latter day Wolfe Tone, the modern father of Irish republicanism. While it appeared to shock even some of his own backbenchers, one or two of them had the grace to laugh.

Listening to Deputy Corish after Deputy Dillon was a relaxation because, although I do not often agree with Deputy Corish, to him facts are of some consequence. He said that my speech was sketchy. I think this is fair comment and in reply to that comment I want to say that never before in the history of this Dáil has the Government supplied more detailed or more readable information about the state of the nation than at the present time. I did not think it was necessary for me to repeat orally information already supplied to Deputies in print although it is perfectly obvious that some of them did not read the documents sent to them.

Deputy Corish said I made no reference to social welfare and this is perfectly true. No speech could be made within the time limits of this House without resorting to the marathon effort which Communist leaders appear to love, without being subject to the criticism that some subject was not mentioned. When criticism of the Government's social welfare policy is voiced, we have to make clear our position on the matter. We know that our arrangements for social welfare could be strengthened. It is our desire to strengthen these arrangements but we also know that it will cost a great deal of money and involve much higher expenditure.

Deputy Corish is entitled to criticise the inadequacy of the existing arrangements but he is not entitled to criticise our motives because our policy has been defined as one of bringing about a steady increase in social welfare arrangements in line with the advance in the national economy and as the financial resources become available to improve our social welfare arrangements without excessive taxation. If our motives are to be justified by our actions I am prepared to put the record of this Government against the record of the Coalition Government in which Deputy Corish was a Minister for Social Welfare. In no single year since 1957 did we fail to make some improvement in our social welfare arrangements and I ask the House to contrast that with the one solitary increase of 2/6d, confined to old-age pensioners, given in all the years of the Coalition Government.

Mr. Dillon

Rubbish.

The Taoiseach

The record is there. They are better off now than they were and it is the policy of the Government to keep that improvement going on continually.

Mr. Dillon

Rubbish.

The Taoiseach

This appears to be the new watchword of Fine Gael. When Deputy Dillon was speaking he asked me a rhetorical question which I answered and every Fine Gael Deputy in the House rose to say that Deputy Dillon must not be interrupted. I know that they were trying to embarrass the temporary Chairman and I did not expect them not to try to interrupt me. I hope they will keep on trying to do it. This debate would be very dull indeed if I could not get some spark of life out of them.

Deputy Corish referred to the control of prices. Let me make this clear. We do not believe in the control of prices unless it is carried back to the factors that determine prices. It would be a sham to set up any form of control of prices that could not be effective. This appears to be a feature of all Labour parties. The Labour Government in England is also talking of a price investigation committee. We will see what that will do.

I read in the papers this morning that the Bakers' Union is seeking a rearrangement of their working conditions in bakeries in circumstances in which it would appear that a rise in the price of bread may follow. If the Minister for Industry and Commerce were to say now that he would not permit a rise in the price of bread, would Deputy Corish say that was a proper exercise of Government authority or would he describe it as unreasonable interference in the free negotiations about working conditions?

Mr. Corish

I would say that all factors should be investigated.

The Taoiseach

That is the proper course.

Mr. Corish

But the Prices Advisory Body are precluded from considering anything but limited factors.

The Taoiseach

If we are talking about a general system of price control it would be a mockery, a delusion and a snare unless that control could also be exercised on the factors that bring those prices into being. I do not believe that would be a good system. I have more experience in the exercise of price control than any other Deputy in this House and it is my belief that price control puts up prices because it can never be as effective as free competition. That has been our experience and the experience of every other free enterprise country. If ever a Government applies a system of widespread price control the cost of living will increase.

Mr. Corish

You were pretty good on petrol.

The Taoiseach

Yes, and I hope we will be equally as good in other specific cases. Deputy Corish says that the Irish Congress of Trade Unions is a responsible body and I agree. As a responsible body they know very well that the ninth round of wage increases has not yet been absorbed by increases in productivity and they know, therefore, that any further increase in labour costs now would be reflected one hundred per cent in the cost of living. Workers would get no benefit in real terms and considerable unemployment might follow. If I have any complaint to make, it is that the obligation of expressing this fact and of reiterating it day after day is being left to me and to the Government. It would be a tremendous help to the whole community if that fact were also reiterated by the other political Parties in the State and by the trade union leaders to whom workers look for guidance.

Deputy Corish asked if the Government have in mind further measures for the expansion of industry. The aim of the Government is to set up such a momentum of progress as will ensure that expansion will go ahead of its own accord without any need of adding to the inducements the Government are offering.

He asked for information regarding the Government's attitude to the idea of industrial growth centres, which was put forward by the Committee on Industrial Organisation. The CIO urged the formal designation by the Government of certain localities in the country as most suitable for industrial development, the allocation of Government grants to be confined to industries setting up in these centres. We have not taken a decision on that proposal and, indeed, the disposition of the Government against any excessive regulation of that kind will certainly influence our decision when we take it. However, before bringing the matter to finality, we decided to attempt to carry out an exploration in depth of the social as well as the economic consequences of the adoption of the recommendation and that is in progress.

Mr. Corish

There is no decision made yet?

The Taoiseach

No decision made yet.

Mr. Corish

The Taoiseach will appreciate, I think, why I raised it.

The Taoiseach

Oh, yes, and the Deputy referred to the Minister for Justice, Deputy Lenihan, designating Athlone and the Parliamentary Secretary, Deputy O'Malley, designating Limerick as probable growth centres. I think they are right in that because geographically these areas have certain advantages to offer which will ensure their becoming growth centres, irrespective of whether or not they are officially designated as such by the Government.

Mr. Corish

But it is an opinion rather than a decision.

The Taoiseach

I prepared notes for a 15-minute speech, fairly confident that, with the help of interruptions, they would last me for the full hour. Is there no life left in the Opposition at all?

Mr. Dillon

Do not be whining half the time about interruptions and then, in the next breath, complaining there are none.

The Taoiseach

Let me give Fine Gael a word of advice: Go around the country and see what is going on in it.

Mr. Dillon

That is what we have just been doing and with very satisfactory results.

The Taoiseach

There are things happening in the country in which Deputies opposite should be capable of taking pride. There are also a number of problems left to be dealt with concerning which Deputies opposite might at some time feel an obligation to produce a single new idea if they want the people to take them seriously.

Mr. Dillon

They voted for us.

The Taoiseach

Deputies opposite must have some awareness of what is going on and some capacity to produce even a glimmering of an idea of the matters yet to be remedied.

Mr. Dillon

The people voted for us. That is the test.

Mr. MacEntee

Or for Sam Maguire.

The Taoiseach

When the chips are down and we go to the country, not to choose an individual Deputy for a particular constituency but to choose a Government, I cannot see the people voting for a gaggle of banshees and, when you set off this evening on your broomsticks, or whatever banshees use, and go ullagoning down to your constituencies, give some thought to the possibility of a New Year resolution, that when you come back here in February, you will try to table for discussion here one single, concrete, constructive suggestion which will indicate that you have the capacity to produce one.

Mr. Dillon

We will discuss that in Mid-Cork.

Question put.

The Dáil divided: Tá, 70; Níl, 61.

Tá

• Aiken, Frank.
• Allen, Lorcan.
• Bartley, Gerald.
• Blaney, Neil T.
• Boland, Kevin.
• Brennan, Paudge.
• Breslin, Cormac.
• Briscoe, Robert.
• Burke, Patrick J.
• Calleary, Phelim A.
• Carter, Frank,
• Carty, Michael.
• Childers, Erskine.
• Clohessy, Patrick.
• Colley, George.
• Corry, Martin J.
• Cotter, Edward.
• Crinion, Brendan.
• Crowley, Honor M.
• Cummins, Patrick J.
• Cunningham, Liam.
• Davern, Mick.
• de Valera, Vivion.
• Dolan, Séamus.
• Dooley, Patrick.
• Egan, Kieran P.
• Egan, Nicholas.
• Fanning, John.
• Faulkner, Padraig.
• Flanagan, Seán.
• Galvin, Sheila.
• Geoghegan, John.
• Gibbons, James M.
• Gilbride, Eugene.
• Gogan, Richard P.
• Booth, Lionel.
• Boylan, Terence.
• Brady, Philip A.
• Brady, Seán.
• Brennan, Joseph.
• Haughey, Charles.
• Hillery, Patrick.
• Hilliard, Michael.
• Kennedy, Michael J.
• Kitt, Michael F.
• Lalor, Patrick J.
• Lemass, Noel T.
• Lemass, Seán.
• Leneghan, Joseph R.
• Lenihan, Brian.
• Lynch, Celia.
• Lynch, Jack.
• MacCarthy, Seán.
• McEllistrim, Thomas.
• MacEntee, Seán.
• Meaney, Con.
• Medlar, Martin.
• Millar. Anthony G.
• Moher, John W.
• Mooney, Patrick.
• Moran, Michael.
• Ó Briain, Donnchadh.
• Ó Ceallaigh, Seán.
• O'Connor, Timothy.
• O'Malley, Donogh.
• Ormonde, John.
• Ryan, James.
• Sherwin, Frank.
• Smith, Patrick.
• Timmons, Eugene.

Níl

• Barrett, Stephen D.
• Barron, Joseph.
• Barry, Richard.
• Belton, Paddy
• Browne, Michael.
• Burke, Joan T.
• Burton, Philip.
• Byrne, Patrick.
• Carroll, Jim.
• Casey, Seán.
• Clinton, Mark A.
• Collins, Seán.
• Coogan, Fintan.
• Corish, Brendan.
• Cosgrave, Liam.
• Costello, Declan D.
• Costello, John A.
• Crotty, Patrick J.
• Dillon, James M.
• Dockrell, Henry P.
• Dockrell, Maurice E.
• Donegan, Patrick S.
• Donnellan, John.
• Dunne, Seán.
• Dunne, Thomas.
• Esmonde, Sir Anthony C.
• Everett, James.
• Farrelly, Denis.
• Flanagan, Oliver J.
• Governey, Desmond.
• Harte, Patrick D.
• Hogan, Patrick (South Tipperary).
• Hogan O'Higgins, Brigid.
• Jones, Denis F.
• Kenny, Henry.
• Kyne, Thomas A.
• Lynch, Thaddeus.
• McAuliffe, Patrick.
• MacEoin, Seán.
• McGilligan, Patrick.
• McLaughlin, Joseph.
• McQuillan, John.
• Mullen, Michael.
• Murphy, Michael P.
• Murphy, William.
• O'Donnell, Patrick.
• O'Donnell, Thomas G.
• O'Higgins, Michael J.
• O'Higgins, Thomas F. K.
• O'Keeffe, James.
• O'Reilly, Patrick.
• O'Sullivan, Denis J.
• Pattison, Séamus.
• Reynolds, Patrick J.
• Rooney, Eamonn.
• Ryan, Richie.
• Spring, Dan.
• Sweetman, Gerard.
• Tierney, Patrick.
• Treacy, Seán.
• Tully, James.

Tellers:—Tá: Deputies J. Brennan and Geoghegan; Níl: Deputies O'Sullivan and Tully.

Question declared carried.