Committee on Finance. - Motion by Minister for Finance. – Dáil Éireann (17th Dáil) – Tuesday, 16 Feb 1965

Committee on Finance. - Motion by Minister for Finance.

Minister for Finance (Dr. Ryan)

I move:

That a sum not exceeding £74,387,400 be granted on account for or towards defraying the Charges that will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1966, for certain public services namely:—

	£
1 President's Establishment	5,000
2 Houses of the Oireachtas	170,000
3 Department of the Taoiseach	14,000
4 Central Statistics Office	124,000
5 Comptroller and Auditor-General	18,000
6 Office of the Minister for Finance	276,100
7 Office of the Revenue Commissioners	1,249,900
8 Public Works and Buildings	3,199,800
9 Employment and Emergency Schemes	307,000
10 State Laboratory	12,500
11 Civil Service Commission	31,500
12 An Chomhairle Ealaíon	14,000
13 Superannuation and Retired Allowances	605,300
14 Secret Service	3,000
15 Agricultural Grants	3,130,000
16 Law Charges	80,000
17 Miscellaneous Expenses	16,000
18 Stationery Office	316,000
19 Valuation and Ordnance Survey	94,000
20 Rates on Government Property	25,000
21 Office of the Minister for Justice	80,600
22 Garda Síochána	2,964,300
23 Prisons	134,300
24 Courts	167,600
25 Land Registry and Registry of Deeds	75,100
26 Charitable Donations and Bequests	3,900
27 Local Government	3,188,100
28 Office of the Minister for Education	400,000
29 Primary Education	6,500,000
30 Secondary Education	1,500,000
31 Vocational Education	1,600,000
32 Reformatory and Industrial Schools	115,000
33 Universities and Colleges and Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies	1,600,000
34 National Gallery	8,500
35 Lands	1,373,600
36 Forestry	1,157,000
37 Fisheries	279,000
38 Roinn na Gaeltachta	350,000
39 Agriculture	10,589,000
40 Industry and Commerce	3,000,000
41 Transport and Power	2,602,700
42 Posts and Telegraphs	6,785,000
43 Defence	3,480,900
44 Army Pensions	792,400
47 Social Welfare	11,836,000
48 Health	4,085,600
49 Central Mental Hospital	27,700
TOTAL	£74,387,400

Following the procedure introduced last year, the Vote on Account for 1965/66 is being moved in advance of the publication of the Estimates volume. The volume itself will be circulated before the middle of March.

The Vote on Account is designed to provide funds for the Supply Services during the first four months of the coming financial year pending consideration by the Dáil of the individual Estimates and the enactment of the Appropriation Act. The amount of the Vote now required is £74.39 million which is approximately one-third of the total Estimates figure.

Deputies have before them in the White Paper the totals for each Estimate for 1965/66 together with the corresponding figures, adjusted for Supplementary Estimates, for the year now ending. More detailed information will, of course, be made available in the Estimates Volume and will be at the disposal of Deputies when the individual Estimates are before the House.

The total Supply Services expenditure of £220.8 million proposed next year is £20.9 million greater than the figure of £199.9 million provided for in last year's Budget. On the basis of existing classifications, £16.8 million of the increase relates to current services and the balance of £4.1 million to the voted capital services.

Expenditure on agricultural services, the social services, including health and education, public works, post office services and pay account for £18 million of the increase of £20.9 million. The increased expenditure on agriculture and the social services reflects the improvements granted in last year's Budget in accordance with the Government's stated policy for those services. Part of the extra cost of public works relates to national schools in furtherance of the Government's aims in the sphere of education.

The large increase in the cost of public services remuneration is due largely to the 9th round and the unexpectedly costly terms of 8th-round adjustments mainly arising from arbitration.

One of the factors contributing to the high cost of the Supply Services generally is the rise in prices which has taken place during the past year. This was part of the inevitable effect of the ninth round in which pay rose faster than productivity. In the present year every effort must be made to avoid further price increases. A further rise in prices at this juncture would seriously jeopardise the prospects of continued expansion by impairing the competitiveness of our exports on which we are so heavily dependent for growth. It will be more difficult to maintain in 1965 the rate of expansion of exports achieved in 1964 because of the operation of the British surcharge on exports of manufactured goods and a possible slackening in the growth of demand in other export markets. It is imperative, therefore, to avoid any further increase in the general level of internal costs and prices.

As will be seen from the White Paper the largest single object of expenditure in the Estimates is agriculture. The various services designed to increase agricultural efficiency, to reduce farmers' costs and to promote production and exports account for £45 million, or over 20 per cent of the total expenditure on the Supply Services. This figure is £6½ million more than last year's budget provision. I may mention that farming incomes went up by some 16 per cent last year and that there are good prospects of a further substantial improvement in 1965.

A large proportion of state expenditure in 1965/66 will be on social services. This general term includes health and education and, on that basis, accounts for £49 million of expenditure, exclusive of pay. Pay is, however, a large element in the cost of our educational services and a straightforward addition of the provisions for social welfare, health and education in the White Paper would, in fact, show a total of £82 million.

Social Welfare recipients benefited from the 1964 Budget to the extent of £¾ million in this financial year. The full-year cost of that benefit is included in the figure of £35½ million for the Social Welfare Estimate—the largest single estimate in the Supply Services.

The Estimate for Posts and Telegraphs, at £18.7 million, is another outstanding item in the White Paper. Large as it is, this figure does not represent the full extent of expenditure on the postal, telephone and telegraph services since the cost of telephone development is met from non-voted moneys.

Finally, I should like to draw attention to the provisions for Industry and Commerce and Transport and Power. Only a token provision has, as yet, been made in the Estimate for Industry and Commerce in respect of the temporary assistance to industry arising from the effects of the imports surcharge imposed by the British authorities last autumn. A firm estimate of cost cannot be made at this stage, but I hope to be able to make the necessary adjustment when framing the Budget.

The provision for Transport and Power for next year includes the annual grant of £2 million for CIE under the 1964 Act for which provision is not included in this year's total as it has still to be made by way of Supplementary Estimate. The net increase of some £700,000 on the current year's provision for Transport and Power is due mainly to increased expenditure on tourist development. The Second Programme for Economic Expansion aims at doubling income from tourism between 1960 and 1970. It is hoped that the increased provision in the Estimate will make a major contribution towards that end.

The Vote on Account before the Dáil is based on Estimates which have been carefully examined at departmental level and submitted to further rigorous pruning by the Government. The size of the total estimated requirement which has survived this process indicates that the task of framing the Budget will not be an easy one. It is not appropriate, however, on the Vote on Account to discuss the budgetary outlook because all the necessary data are not available. I can only say that, so far as expenditure is concerned, the Government have made, and will continue to make, every effort to ensure that the expenditure side of the Budget is kept to a minimum.

I ask the Dáil to agree to the Vote on Account.

Mr. Sweetman

The Vote on Account for which the Minister asks on this occasion is, and it is banal really to say so, the largest Vote that has ever been asked for in this House. It is obvious in the present pattern of Government expenditure that the Vote on Account will increase as Government expenditure increases each year. The point is not, however, by how much the Vote has increased but whether we are, in fact, getting value for the increases over recent years.

As the Minister has said, the new system adopted under the Standing Orders last year for the Vote on Account means that we have this discussion before the Book of Estimates is available to us. That means that we are not, therefore, in a position to discuss detailed aspects of the Estimates, detailed aspects that make up the total, even in a general way but we are able to see from the totals summarised in the White Paper before us the general pattern the Government propose in relation to the expenditure side of their Budget this year.

While, as the Minister says, the budgetary outlook is not yet by any means final, at the same time we must consider more than the mere expenditure of this money for which he is now asking because the expenditure must be regarded against the background of where the money will be obtained. It is a sobering thought, I think, that in the ten months to the end of January 1965, the Minister received in revenue £25 million more than he received in revenue in the same period last year. Yet, he and his Leader, the Taoiseach, and his colleagues in the Government are going around bewailing the fact that revenue will not be sufficient. This year in the ten months to the end of January, 1965, revenue came in at £172,615,763 compared with £147,388,952 last year. That is taken from the statutory return published in Iris Oifigiúil on the 2nd of this month —£25 million extra drawn in by the Minister for Finance from the people and he is already shouting that he will not have enough, even with £25 million extra in ten months.

It is impossible from this side of the House, even with the information that is published, to judge how the out-turn is likely to arise for the current year's Budget, but one thing is certain: revenue will be booming and the Minister, by the end of this year, will have taken out of the pockets of the people more money than he budgeted for last April and, God knows, that was enough. It is inevitable, of course, that he will have to budget to extract more money from the people while estimates are continuing to rise in the manner in which they have been rising in recent years.

It is, I suggest, another sobering thought for the people to realise that the figure for which the Minister is now asking for the Supply Services, a figure of £220,854,000 for the year 1965/66, is exactly double the Estimates for the Supply Services for the year 1958/59. In that year the total Estimates were £110,002,000. This year he is asking the House to give him exactly double what he requested in 1958/59. When a Minister for Finance asks for double that amount and suggests budgeting is going to be difficult, notwithstanding the increase in that short period, I suggest the onus is on him far more clearly and in a far more detailed way to justify that increase than he has so far done.

For reasons which I shall endeavour to show later, we have had that increase without any commensurate improvement in the value for the additional money spent. As I said, it is not the amount of the increase that is to be considered but what value we are getting for that increase or whether indeed we are getting value at all. The Minister in the tail of his statement suggested he was going to ensure at Budget time that there would not be any further increase in the Estimates, barring the increase in the Industry and Commerce Vote. We are entitled to judge the value of the Minister's promise by the record of his performance so far. In 1964 in his Budget statement, he added £5,370,000 to his Supply Services Estimate; in 1963, he added £3,780,000 and in 1962, he added £4,485,000. Bearing in mind the increase in the amount this year it is certain we are going to have to pay for a substantial increase at Budget time.

As the Minister said in his speech, of the increase now granted, about £4 million is on capital services and about £60,800,000 on current services. The increase of £4 million on capital services seems to me to be virtually the same increase as there was in the first nine months of this year, when, up to 31st December last, capital services had risen from £17,729,000 to £21,741,000. Therefore we can perhaps take the information from the nine-monthly statement that capital services, as included in the Vote now before us, are expected to run at the same total figure as they were running in the current year. Bearing in mind the increase in the cost of everything everyone has to buy and the decreased value of money, which is another way of saying the same thing, it means we are going to get next year a smaller volume of work done for the capital services than is being done this year. The increase in costs will be operating and, as far as one can see from the note in the statement issued by the Department of Finance on 31st December, it was running then at the same rate.

As far as one can see in the same statement, there appears to be more or less an equivalent intake on tobacco duty. In that connection, although we are not going to discuss revenue in detail, it is interesting to note that the deferment of tobacco duty under section 11 of the Finance Act, 1959, was this year only £30,000 more, at £2,430,000, than the figure for last year. I have said on previous occasions, and I repeat it now, that the manner in which our Revenue depends to such a very large extent and to such a high percentage on the proceeds of the duty from tobacco alone is something extremely unhealthy and something which, at the same time, does not mean that other bad forms of taxation should be substituted for it. But it does mean that the expenditure is something we must watch with the greatest possible care. The fact that the figure for expenditure on the Supply Services Estimate has doubled since 1959 shows that the Minister has not bothered at all to examine that expenditure as a Minister for Finance should.

There are a couple of small things in relation to expenditure that occurred to me while the Minister was speaking. One of them concerns his own Department. His Parliamentary Secretary has been issuing a very nicely turned out magazine or pamphlet entitled Oibre. It does not follow, however, that the taxpayers are getting good value for it. I want to state that quite an unnecessary number of copies of that pamphlet were put into circulation purely for the glorification of the Parliamentary Secretary. It is common knowledge all over the city that more copies went into the wastepaper baskets in 51 St. Stephen's Green than went to people who took any proper care in reading the material.

The suggestion that every single person in the Department was to be given a free copy of such a pamphlet is indicative of the waste of money and of the attitude engendering waste of money, just like the waste of money over the message by the Minister for Agriculture to which reference was made last week. It is not a very large amount, but if one has that type of mentality at the head of a Department, it is utterly hopeless to expect people down the line in the Department to take any proper steps themselves to save money.

The main reason why these Estimates have risen and why the Vote on Account for which the Minister has asked has risen to such an extent is the increase in the cost of living. That increase in the cost of living commenced, as the Minister was then warned it would, by the initiation of the spiral caused by the turnover tax. The Minister was then solemnly warned from this side of the House that if he went on with that project, he would start a spiral of inflated costs which would mean that in the long run the amount of duty he would collect would be swallowed up in increased costs of administration. It started the spiral and then, as we all know now, there came the by-elections in Cork and in Kildare when the Taoiseach, as the Leader of the Government, decided that he would throw aside the appropriate national requirements and deliberately, for political purposes, proceeded to mortgage the future with the settlement which had not then been justified in any shape by our productivity and has not since, indeed, been justified by productivity.

Everybody knows the manner in which, from the Taoiseach and the Minister for Finance down, that settlement at that time was claimed, not as an economic settlement of labour rates, but as a political settlement and, as such political settlement, it has brought in its train since a serious economic disadvantage—a serious economic disadvantage for the Minister for Finance at the present time because it is by reason of that settlement jumping productivity that he has to meet a substantial part of the cost in this total of the Estimates put before us.

Costs of administration have gone up. Naturally enough, if we are to be in a position to keep the able people necessary in the Civil Service properly to administer the Government machine, they must be paid the rates appropriate to their work as would be paid if they were in outside employment. It would be quite wrong to suggest that because they happen to be in the employment of the Government, they are not to be treated in the same way as people in outside employment doing the same kind of work are treated.

The national requirements were deliberately thrown overboard by the Taoiseach for the purpose of endeavouring to get a temporary political benefit and the Minister for Finance today when he brings in this motion is carrying some of the burden which was introduced by the Taoiseach, for political purposes, into our economic life.

Between August, 1963 and November, 1964 the cost of living index figure went up by 15 points—from 160 to 175. I suggest to the Minister that that rise in that period of 15 months is a rise that is quite unprecedented in a period of international peace. It was a rise that was started by the Minister himself when he initiated the spiral. It is a rise that has created considerable difficulty and will have further effect, not merely on our home front, as we are discussing in relation to these Estimates, but also on the export front where we are in the gravest danger of being priced out of our export markets.

The Minister, perhaps understandably, has been unable to give us any indication of the amount that will be necessary in relation to the alleviation measures for the 15 per cent British import surcharge. Nor has he given us any indication at all of the effect that surcharge has had on our exports since it was imposed. It would be only an estimate but it would be desirable to have an estimate, brought down to terms of pounds, shillings and pence, of the manner in which that gross breach of contractual treaty obligations by the British Government has affected us here.

We see, too, these Estimates introduced by the Minister in a pattern in which our import prices are also steadily rising. Luckily, we have had some improvement in export prices in such a way that the heavy increase in import prices has not influenced the terms of trade as it would otherwise have done. There is undoubtedly abroad in this city a substantial volume of opinion that the increased export unit value figures that we are lucky to have at the present time are not likely permanently to continue in future.

It is, of course, a matter of regret that the Economic Series issued on 9th of this month—the last statement of the Economic Series so issued—does not include any figure after October and, therefore, after the introduction of the British levy. It is a matter for sobering thought that we are increasing and have so increased our costs that we may find it extremely difficult to complete abroad and it is accepted on all sides that if we fail so to compete, then we cannot possibly hope to have any adequate economic growth.

We have heard nothing yet from the Minister or his colleagues as to the prognostication for a growth in this year. The only forecast that I have seen of the outlook is the Swedish one. The Swedes feel that there will be a reduction in their growth this year of something over 20 per cent on their figures for last year. If that is indicative of a general trade recession all over, we may very easily find ourselves caught up in the same pattern.

Wherever one looks down the list of figures in this demand the Minister has made on us today, one cannot help being struck by the fact that there has been such a heavy increase and so little real worth in it. As I said, revenue in the first ten months of this year has increased by £25 million. In fact, going back to the same period in 1958-59, it would appear that, this year, revenue will run at about double the figure of revenue of that year.

What have we got for it? Is it not true to say that the greater part of the vast increase in revenue has been frittered away by the Government without providing for the increase which are so urgently and absolutely necessary? We all accept, for example, that there must be a substantial increase in the cost of development of our educational services. Our educational services must be improved if we are to take part in the improving world conditions. What is included in this list we have been given by the Minister for increased facilities for education? There is included, and properly included, the increase in pay needed, for example, for primary teachers to enable them to compete with those who have been given increases in outside employment. But there is no real provision here for anything more than increased administrative costs in the amount that is included for primary education or indeed for secondary education, or for vocational education—there is perhaps a slight query there until one sees the details.

There must be a substantial extension of our educational facilities and the tragedy of it all is that this additional money being collected by the Minister for Finance has been so frittered away that it is not there to meet that increase that should be available. Indeed it is a sorry commentary on the 49 Votes put before us that there is only one Vote in the whole of the 49 that shows a decrease, that is, Vote 33, the Vote for the universities. One would have thought that in relation to university education, there was a tremendous case for making an increased amount available for further and better facilities. Vote No. 33 is the only Vote that shows decrease, of approximately £100,000 a sum of £2,981,000 dropped down to £2,889,000.

We all also agree that we must make more funds available for those in the community amongst us who are not so well off. It is another tragedy that the amount of extra taxation collected has been frittered away rather than made available for a solid increase in social welfare benefits on all sides. It is true to say that virtually the whole of the increase for which the Minister is asking arises from administrative costs rather than improvements in the benefits given by the several Votes.

In the tables issued last year at the time of the Budget, we were told that current Government expenditure was running at the rate of about 22.7 per cent of gross national income. It would seem pretty certain, as a result of the figures the Minister has brought in now, that that percentage will be quite substantially increased. However, that is not the whole story. It is perfectly clear from another figure given in this list in relation to Vote 15 that the Minister is budgeting for a heavy increase in rates for local authorities. The provision for agricultural grants for last year was £9,422,000. According to the figure for this year, it has gone up by £3 million, approximately 30 per cent. I presume the 1964-65 figure includes the budgetary provision which usually includes any adjustments that have been made up to the time of publication. If that is so, it means that the Minister for Finance is now telling us that we may expect rates throughout the country to rise by an average of 30 per cent. Because of the spiral created by the Minister, it was felt that rates would be likely to rise from about 7/-to 10/- according to the local authorities, concerned, but on these figures, if they do include that Budget increase of £1,400,000, then we must look forward not to an increase of about 10/- in the £ in our rates but an increase running at the rate of 12/6 or 15/-, hardly a record on which a Minister for Finance can compliment himself.

There is bound to be an increase of about £4 million in the Central Fund Services, bringing up the additional taxation which the Minister is going to extract from the pockets of the people to about £21 million more again next year, even though this year it is going to be about £29 million more than last year in a full 12 months, an increase in two years of about £50 million in taxation. This is hardly a record in regard to which the Minister should introduce his Vote on Account in a few terse pages. This Vote on Account shows that he has failed to take any proper steps to curb Government expenditure in undesirable ways and has frittered away all the additional taxation he got on tobacco, beer, petrol, with its increased costs of distribution, and also the additional £14.1 million he got from the turnover tax.

This additional revenue is not available for any of the Votes for which it is needed. It is not available for the increase in educational opportunities for our people, for the advances that must be made by science and in research if we are to keep our place in the modern world. It has been just frittered away by an incompetent administration. The administration must all the same be paid for. For that reason, therefore, we have no option but to provide the necessary funds to meet the incubus Dr. Ryan created as Minister for Finance, notwithstanding the fact that his first speech as Minister for Finance showed, or pretended, that during his term of office he intended to reduce substantially the cost of Government administration.

Mr. Corish

Prior to last year, the Vote on Account could be treated in a much more detailed fashion than it now can and even with that it was regarded more or less as a preliminary discussion on what I would consider the main financial discussion of the year, that is, the discussion on the Minister's budgetary proposals. This is even less than a preliminary discussion because while all Parties agree that this should be the method for the introduction of the Vote on Account, I think some of us feel at a disadvantage in not having had the details that are made available in the Book of Estimates. It was only when the Minister rose this afternoon that we had some idea as to how the increasing expenditure could be broken down as between capital services and recurring expenses.

However, I should like to avail of this occasion to give some of my views not on expenditure but on the state of the economy generally. It is, I think, important to say in the first instance that many of the Government speakers who are now protesting that it will be necessary to increase taxation in order to provide for greater development of the country are entirely wrong and entirely misleading. They have made statements to that effect in the past. It is dishonest for them to pretend that taxation, such as the turnover tax, tax on cigarettes, tobacco and the like, is intended to provide for the greater development of the country. It is true of course that such taxation is drawn upon in order to service the money that is usually raised by way of loan. In any case, the first account we have from the Minister for Finance that the nation has to pay means an increase of something like £21 million. I suppose it is inevitable in view of recent occurrences and present circumstances that there should be an increase in expenditure and the Minister in his brief speech indicated in the beginning why in his opinion it is necessary.

I imagined on reading the White Paper on expenditure the main increase would be in respect of salaries and wages. That was being substantiated to some extent by the Minister for Finance. However, the percentage increases on the various Votes seem to me to be somewhat up and down. They vary from 50 per cent in respect of vocational education, and I might say we in the Labour Party welcome, as I am sure every member of the House welcomes, increased expenditure on education generally and in particular, on vocational education. I do not know whether it is a proper interpretation on the part of Deputy Sweetman to say that the provision of an extra one-third for agricultural grants necessarily means a similar increase in the county and borough rates. That figure needs explanation in greater detail by the Minister.

I notice also an increase in respect of last year. What proposals the Minister will have in his next Budget we do not know. Social welfare seems to be the Cinderella in having accorded to it over the past year an increase of five per cent. I suppose there are many Votes that could be increased, particularly those in respect of investment for the greater expansion of the country for future years. This is an estimate and we must await the Minister's proposals in the Budget to see whether or not any of these will be cut down and, particularly, to see whether or not any of them will be increased. Needless to remark, we are particularly anxious to see the Vote for Social Welfare increased as well as that for Health. Provision is made for an increase for education this year, but these are the things with which we are primarily concerned.

I listened to the Minister's speech and he said these Estimates would be carefully pruned. The Minister for Finance has been Minister for a long time—27 or 28 years—and has given long and good service to this country as a member of the Government. I wonder did he ever consider what pruning by the Civil Service means? It is well open to question whether we are getting full value for the money we are expending, particularly in respect of investments and in respect of aids, whether to industry, agriculture, fisheries, lands or forestry, and so on. I am not suggesting, and I do not think I need say this, that as far as salaries and wages are concerned, there should be any reduction or that there is any overpayment in either wages or salaries.

It is true to say we have the Committee of Public Accounts to examine expenditure in respect of the various Departments to some extent, and I say deliberately "to some extent." It is not possible for a Committee such as the Committee of Public Accounts to examine these accounts in such detail to assure themselves and their Parties that we are getting the best value for expenditure in this country. I think, therefore, and this is not the first time I said it, a committee of this House, plus, if you like, civil servants, ought to be established to examine all these schemes of investment and aid to see whether or not these aids and grants are applied in the right direction. I have no hesitation in saying, and I say it again, that there must be some schemes in industry and, I would say, particularly agriculture, where grants and aids are given that could bring better results. Various aid schemes have been operated in the past five, ten, 15 or 20 years and I am doubtful whether the money thus expended gave a proper return.

As far as investments in the agricultural industry and capital expenditure are concerned, I suppose we have not a great problem. That has been demonstrated over the years in respect of practically every single loan. Any time the Government have gone to the nation asking for £X or £Y invariably these loans have been over-subscribed. Again, I suppose it is inevitable that they should be over-subscribed because down through the years generous terms have been offered to people with money to invest in national loans. It is a good bet for them because they get generous rates and when the loan comes to be redeemed, they get a generous return.

The ordinary current services are another problem. I suppose one could say this is an investment in that the taxpayer who pays for the services gets something back. We are concerned about the payments for these current services which run into millions of pounds. Again, let me refer to the oft-stated policy of the Government through their various spokesmen, particularly in recent weeks when we had a statement from the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Finance that the emphasis would in the future be more and more on indirect rather than on direct taxation. I do not think that is a good policy. The Labour Party believe that the emphasis should be on direct rather than on indirect taxation. We believe that those in this country who have money also have a responsibility to contribute according to their means and I refuse to believe that the burden of taxation is fairly placed on the shoulders of those best able to bear it. We should get, at some stage, a detailed statement from the Government with regard to their policy on taxation. The Taoiseach and some spokesmen of the Government told us on some occasions that their aim was to reduce direct taxation and increase indirect taxation.

We believe the emphasis in relation to taxation should be on luxuries and there should not be a tax, such as the turnover tax, on the cost of living. We believe higher incomes could bear a further burden of taxation. It is ludicrous that luxury goods, no matter what one's definition of "luxury goods" is, should be taxed at the very same rate as the essentials of life. We refuse to believe it is fair and just to tax luxury goods at the very same rate as tea, bread, sugar and all the necessaries of life are taxed.

If the nation is to meet the increased expenditure this year, the Government should consider what return might be secured from a capital gains tax. Many of us know that considerable sums of money are being made over the years by people buying property and selling it at a big profit. That is not subject, as far as I know, to any sort of taxation. The workman, who has to work through the whole year, has to pay income tax on every single penny he earns, after the usual allowances, but the man who can make many thousands of pounds on a quick deal has not to pay any tax at all. I do not know how much money could be realised from a capital gains tax on such a transaction. A man who knows assures me that you could make £1 million on this. I may be wrong in asserting that in the Dáil, but even if the tax yield were only £250,000 or £500,000 and if it did not cost too much to collect, I suggest it should be got.

A short time ago £750,000 gave 2/6d. a week to the old age pensioners. A capital gains tax or a similar tax would surely be desirable. I am sure everybody in the House wants to give the people in receipt of social welfare benefits a little more comfort. Our efforts should be directed towards increasing production and so increase the wealth of the nation. Of course, merely to increase production or even to increase the wealth of the nation is not as important as the distribution of this wealth.

I am sick and tired reading speeches by certain Ministers or listening to some of the Ministers talking in statistical terms about the progress made in this country. Granted, progress is being made, but it is equally important to see how the various sections of the community are participating in this progress or in the new wealth that may be created. I consider, in any case, that much more could be done to ensure greater production. Every section of the community should be imbued with that sort of spirit.

Incidentally, one of the Government agents, the National Productivity Council, so far as my experience goes, seem to be tackling the problem in a sensible way because they emphasise the need for certain things to be done both by the worker and the employer. They have demonstrated in their booklets and from platforms how there can be greater co-operation between the worker and management to ensure greater production. They also emphasise something which the Labour Party and trade unions have emphasised, that is, frequent consultations.

Everybody welcomes the more friendly atmosphere between workers and employers in recent times but there is still a long way to go. Formerly, the only time these two sides met was on the question of wages or on the question of employment. Therefore, we welcome these consultations on a wider level in some industries. It is a change for the better. It is only by mutual trust and greater consultation that we can get the increased production which this country so dearly needs and which is not likely to materialise for a long time to come.

The worker wants to be assured about certain things. There have been instances in the past of workers deciding to produce more by making a greater physical effort. Thank God, because of recent innovations, it is possible to produce more without killing oneself or sweating to death. There have been instances in the past of workers gearing themselves to produce more and then finding themselves out of jobs because their employers could not get a market for the goods they produced.

The worker needs greater safeguards. He needs to be protected against redundancy. Redundancy was a term which was used in practically every speech in Dáil Éireann when we were talking about what seemed to be then a certainty—our becoming a member of the European Economic Community. There was talk about industry having to change its methods, having to readapt itself and all that sort of thing. I think I would be at one with the Taoiseach when he reprimanded somebody, either an employer or an industrialist, recently about the apparent complacency in this country. The majority of the Fine Gael and the Fianna Fáil Party believe that we should become a full member of the European Economic Community by 1970. It is only five years until that time and we have quite a long way to go before we are fit to enter the European Economic Community.

We questioned the Minister for Industry and Commerce about motor car assembly in November or December last. He was somewhat indignant about the questions put to him about the slowness of the motor car industry to go after its own business and to ensure that the workers would be engaged in some sort of industry by 1970. As far as I can gather from the newspapers, they seem to be doing nothing in respect of that particular industry. I am afraid that is also the case in respect of other industries. Employers, during the next five years, no matter what industry is concerned, must do everything to ensure that Irish industry will be maintained and, particularly, that employment in Irish industry will be maintained and will expand.

The Government have a part to play in this problem as well. It appears from the CIO committees that there will be redundancy. Ministers have spoken about plans that were being made to provide for redundancy and to provide for compensation, resettlement allowances and maintenance allowances in respect of workers who find themselves unemployed. They would be retrained over a period and would be resettled in jobs all over the country. I wonder whether there has been any progress in that matter or whether the Government have any plans in respect of redundancy, retraining and resettlement of workers who may be redundant within the next few years.

I do not know whether the views of the National Productivity Council are necessarily the views of the Government, because in one of their publications, they have suggested what is tantamount to a manpower policy, something to which the Taoiseach referred very briefly in his speech on the Adjournment Debate on 13th December last. I want to assure the Taoiseach, if he needs assurance, that this is an immediate problem that has to be tackled because workers are going to be sceptical of any scheme to provide for greater production unless they are to be secure. I do not think anybody could regard that as being a selfish attitude.

I have listened to speeches by a few Ministers recently inside and outside the Dáil and I recognise an air of complacency in some of these speeches. I do not mind any Minister boasting about the achievements of Fianna Fáil or what he considers to be the achievements of Fianna Fáil. They are entitled to boast of anything they have done, but on the other hand, they have a duty to talk about the country's problems. They have a duty to talk about the distasteful problems, the problems that need urgent attention, the problems that need to be tackled vigorously. Everybody would concede that there have been improvements for certain people in that there have been improvements in the standard of living. Mark you, in regard to any taxation policy, there should be a word of warning as well, that if the standards have been increased, and they have been increased mainly through the efforts of the trade unions to which the workers belong, any attempt to depress the standard of living will be resisted very strongly.

There is an attitude among certain Ministers that things are rolling along well now. Of course it is inevitable that we should make progress, or that we should make the minimum progress, because we are in an era of relative world peace. I do not think any country in the world could report a lack of progress or certainly any going back. In the situation in which the world finds itself at present, I suppose an average effort would ensure improvements.

I do not believe that the rate of progress is fast enough. In the Second Programme for Economic Expansion adopted by the Government, an increase of four per cent per year in gross national product was forecast. When the First Programme was being discussed here, the view of the Labour Party was that the targets were not set high enough. I had occasion to express the same view, about this time last year, that the targets were not aimed high enough and in reply, the Taoiseach said that if the targets were raised too high, people would regard them as fantastic and would not make any effort to attain what seemed to be the unattainable. His own record over the past two or three years shows that we have set them too low. In the year 1964, the gross national product increased, not by 4.3 per cent but by 4.5 per cent. That may appear to be good; it certainly is good, I suppose, in comparison with the past decade or the past two or three decades, but in present circumstances it is not good enough. Certainly it is not good enough when one compares it with the progress in other countries.

Members of this House are furnished with the OECD Journal which gives information with regard to gross national product in respect of its member countries. Mark you, we do not fare particularly well in that. To Irish eyes, 4.5 per cent may be good but if we are thinking in terms of association with other countries and in terms of competing with other countries in the sale of our products, we will also have to think in terms of the competition that is coming from them. As I said, in 1964 there was an estimated increase in gross national product of 4.5 per cent. I think I heard the Minister for Justice saying that it may be 4.3 per cent. In Austria, it was 6 per cent; in Belgium, 5 per cent; in Germany, 6.2; in Japan, 9.9 per cent; in Norway, 6 per cent; in Switzerland, 5.9 per cent; in the USA, 4.8 per cent; in Canada, 6 per cent; in France, 5.1 per cent; in Italy 2.7 per cent; in Holland, 5.5 per cent; in Sweden, 6.2 per cent; and in the United Kingdom, 4.3 per cent.

Mr. Lenihan

That is not bad, mind you.

Mr. Corish

The Minister for Justice says it is not too bad. We are the third lowest of all these countries.

Mr. Lenihan

We are higher than Britain.

Mr. Corish

We are higher than Britain but we are the third lowest. I am not trying to make an odious comparison; I am trying to impress on the Minister for Justice the necessity for greater effort and in all that the Government must lead. An increase in the region of 4.3 per cent or 4.5 per cent last year would mean that the Government's target as outlined in their Programme for Economic Expansion would be achieved by 1970 but that may be a statistical target that will be achieved as far as general economic growth is concerned. It will be achieved by 1970 if we continue as we have been over the past few years. I am afraid the targets we have set ourselves for people—and they matter very much—will not be achieved if we are to continue again as we are going at present.

There was a certain amount of complacency again within the Government about the provision of jobs and about unemployment. Last year was supposed to have been a particularly good year and there seems to have been evidence that it was a good year. Again, a fair trial would be the matter of unemployment. What is the Government's record as far as unemployment is concerned? The last figures we got, on last Friday or Saturday, showed that on 5th February 1965, we had 61,015 persons registered as unemployed, but on the very same date, 5th February in 1964, we had 61,067 so therefore the unemployment problem improved to the extent of 52 persons fewer unemployed in a full 12 months.

I do not think that is a good record. I do not think that is something one could place against what are described as the achievements of the Government in other respects, in respect of gross national productivity, for example. I do not think we can be particularly proud of ourselves in the fact that in 12 months we reduced the numbers of unemployed by 52; that represents 6½ per cent of the unemployment rate. Again, it is, I suppose, an odious comparison, but in Great Britain last year, and Great Britain did not have the same success as far as increase in gross national product is concerned, the unemployment rate was 1½ per cent. As far as our unemployment rate is concerned, I do not say it is, but I have been told it is the highest in Europe.

Mr. McQuillan

A drop in the figure of unemployed of one per week in the past 12 months.

Mr. Corish

The Second Programme for Economic Expansion envisages that by the year 1970 emigration will have fallen to 10,000. The evidence for the past two years does not suggest that, unless there is some dramatic change. I do not think we will achieve a target of 10,000 emigrants in the year 1970. From the usual sources quoted by the Taoiseach and his Parliamentary Secretary, there is evidence that, for the 12 months ended November, 1964 we had 26,800 people leaving the country. That was a sharp increase on 1963 in which we find, from the same source, that emigration was slightly under 22,000. It seems, therefore, that emigration has increased by something like 5,000 in 1964 as compared with 1963. I do not know whether there is some reason for that but, if there is a reason, I should like to hear it. In any case I believe that the target of a reduction to 10,000 emigrants by the year 1970 is overambitious, having regard to the fact that the national increase per year in population is something like 25,000.

I wonder will we reach the target that has been set by the year 1970 in the matter of employment. According to the Second Programme for Economic Expansion, and the Taoiseach spoke about this here a few months ago, unemployment at that stage should be a mere 1½ per cent. It is true that more jobs are being created in industry each year. Nobody can deny that because the evidence is there, not alone in statistics but all around us. However, this again is not sufficient. Between June 1963 and June 1964, there was an out-flow, or a flight, from the land to the tone of 10,600. That does not take into account women who may have been working on the land. Rural Ireland in those 12 months June 1963 to June 1964 lost 10,600 men. As far as industrial employment is concerned — that is, transportable goods — the figures went up from June 1963 to June 1964 by 7,700. That still leaves a balance of jobs to be provided. From September 1963 to September 1964 only 5,600 new jobs had been provided. It seems to me that the provision of jobs in industry did not go as well in 1964 as it did in 1963. I suppose one could assume that there was some increase— I have not the figures to substantiate this—in the numbers employed in the building industry, but it is unlikely there was an increase in employment in other sectors of the economy as far as insured workers are concerned. Instead, therefore, of increasing overall employment we have been losing up to 3,000 each year over the last few years.

Finally, I should like to refer to something the Minister mentioned in his opening speech. Apart from the things I have mentioned, there are very many problems to be dealt with in this debate, many urgent and pressing problems which will be discussed here, particularly over the next two or three weeks. There is the problem of housing, social welfare, health. These are all colossal problems. I want to say a few words finally about prices. The Minister said some time recently that prices were the latest hobbyhorse the Labour Party were riding. We are still riding it because the people are gravely concerned about prices. The Minister in his speech today also appears to be concerned about prices. He said:

I do not think that is correct. I think the increase in productivity in the first half of last year — I have not any recent figures—is pretty substantial. I gave figures here some time ago to show that. The Taoiseach on that occasion acknowledged that, despite the ninth round of wage increases, they had not been matched exactly by the increase in productivity in the first half of 1964 but it seemed that productivity would match the increase in wages in the second part of 1964. The Minister knows that this wage agreement is to obtain for 2½ years from the beginning of last year. There can be no increase and, therefore, by the time that agreement is replaced by another, the workers will have shown that they have more than matched productivity against the increase in wages that they got.

The Minister went on to say, very simply: "In the present year every effort must be made to avoid further price increases." That is surely a pious resolution. Who is to make the effort? It seems to us that since the introduction of the turnover tax, little effort has been made by the Government to ensure there will be no further price increases. The Minister has no guarantee that there will not be an increase in prices and he admits that the increases that have taken place were directly precipitated by the introduction by him of the turnover tax. In fairness to him, it is also true to say that, had there not been a turnover tax in operation from 1st November, 1963, the trade unions would have sought an increase of some dimensions to compensate them, first, for an increase in production since the eighth round of wage increases and, secondly, for the increase in prices that has taken place since the same date. It is a bit naïve for the Minister for Finance simply to say, in his speech introducing the Vote on Account: "In the present year every effort must be made to avoid further price increases." Prices have risen spectacularly over the 12 months from November, 1963 to 1964. They are up by a record 6.7 per cent.

The Government and the Taoiseach seem to be particularly shy about treating of this great problem of prices. Think what you like about them—in any case I hope that they have a measure of success—the British Government are facing up to this problem. I think the Taoiseach made some remark about them, to the effect that we will see how they get on, meaning, I assume, that they are not going to be as successful as they hope, but they are at least showing their concern about prices to the public. This weak statement by the Minister for Finance surely is no indication, if words can indicate anything, that the Government are concerned about higher prices. The Minister for Industry and Commerce assures us that he is keeping his eye on the situation, that he has initiated dozens of investigations into the prices of certain commodities. I do not doubt that he has initiated or instigated these investigations, but there is no evidence of it; there is no evidence as to whether or not the price increases are justified. That evidence ought to be forthcoming, particularly as I have said before, in respect of essential foodstuffs.

The Prices Advisory Body established by the late Deputy Norton was successful. It had its failings. It was established for a short time, but I think the Government will have to get back again to the idea of having these investigations carried out and the evidence published, because the main thing in this or any other country is to let the public know that somebody is concerned, and to let the public know, if they have to pay higher prices, the reasons why there are higher prices.

The Taoiseach said—I do not quote him—in a speech recently something to the effect that there was no room for profiteering in the building industry. Everybody will agree with him on that. I believe that the inference was that there might be profiteering somewhere in the building industry. If there is profiteering in that industry, surely there must be profiteering in other branches of industry and excess profits which the public are paying.

We were told when the turnover tax was introduced that it would not necessarily mean high prices. I do not know who said it, but several Ministers stated that there would be such fierce competition between manufacturers and suppliers that the possibility was not that prices would remain stable but that there would be reductions. I would like the Minister for Justice, who I know is going to speak this evening in this debate, to give some instances of prices that were reduced since the introduction of the turnover tax. The people are concerned about prices. The Minister for Justice and the Taoiseach know that from their own constituents, and I am sure if the truth were told, they know it from members of their own families who are frank about the increases that have occurred in recent times.

I had occasion the last time I was speaking here on an Adjournment Debate to refer to the attitude of the Irish Congress of Trade Unions on this question of prices. I think I would be right in speaking for the trade union movement when I say that if there is an attempt to increase the turnover tax, as has been vaguely forecast by some Ministers, there will be a reaction from the trade union movement. There is no doubt about it. I would not initiate it. It will be a voluntary, spontaneous reaction by the trade union movement against any other increase in prices.

The President of the Irish Congress of Trade Unions spoke at the Dublin Institute of Catholic Sociology on 27th November last — I do not think anybody could regard him as a very rash man — and said this:

The Irish Congress of Trade Unions is concerned at the danger of further price increases reducing the purchasing power of wages. We have repeatedly asked the Minister for Industry and Commerce to institute effective investigations into price rises so that at least a psychological atmosphere will be created that will influence business against taking the easy course of pushing up prices. The Minister has been successful in having increases in the price of sugar and the price of petrol set aside. Doing this he has in fact established the case that Congress has consistently sought to make. Investigations of other commodities would, we are satisfied, also indicate scope for reduction in prices. I might point out that the national recommendation on wages and salaries makes provision for a review in the event of very exceptional circumstances. Should there be a tendency for prices to continue to creep upwards Congress will have to consider seeking such a review. It is up to industry and the authorities to see that such a situation does not arise.

I do not think that anybody could consider that as a threat by the President of the Congress of Trade Unions to the Government. It is purely a statement of fact in which he says if I may paraphrase it, that the members of the unions affiliated to it would not be able to bear further increases in the prices of essential commodities.

Let me come back to the Minister for Industry and Commerce and tell him that the trade unions are playing their part. They have a treaty on wages for another 18 months. They negotiated this freely with the employers. They are doing their part to improve the economy of the country and to improve living standards. As far as prices are concerned, we should not have any more of these pious statements by the Minister for Finance, but should get action from the Minister for Industry and Commerce.

Minister for Justice (Mr. Lenihan)

We have just heard two contributions from Deputy Sweetman and Deputy Corish on the Vote on Account and I would like to deal first with some of the remarks by Deputy Corish towards the end of his speech in regard to price control. The coming 12 months will, in effect, be the test on this matter because, as he has mentioned, there is a national wage and salary agreement providing for industrial peace for the coming 18 months as there has been for the past 12 months. The impact from the point of view of the cost of living came shortly after the 12 per cent increase was negotiated. This together with other factors such as increased import costs and an increase in the price of meat, which of course redounded to the benefit of the Irish farmer, accounted for the increases in the cost of living over the past 12 months. If the National Wage Agreement is honoured and if productivity continues to rise at the rate it has been rising, we should maintain a stable price level in the coming 12 months.

Everybody in the country, I believe, welcomed the National Agreement. Any disadvantageous factors were bound to be reflected in the cost of living index in the initial months after the agreement was negotiated. From now on, we should see benefits from that agreement which was honourably concluded between the employers and the trade unions. In the coming 12 months, with stability on the wage and salary front and with industrial peace guaranteed, we should see also a stable price level and a stable cost of living index figure.

I think that Deputy Corish would agree that the criterion of Government success on the economic front must be an increase in the employment rate, that the objective in a democratic society today must be spelled out as being full employment for all our people. Our objective on the economic front must be a situation where every Irish boy and girl educated here to the fullest degree possible can look forward to a job within our community. This objective is the basis for the reasoning behind the two Programmes for Economic Expansion, the first one which concluded successfully in 1963 and the second which has now been initiated and has established targets for 1970.

This programming or planning—I shall not go into what I regard as a fallacious distinction between the two, but I prefer planning—has resulted in a rising graph of non-agricultural employment. For instance, the situation in the last three years of the last Coalition Government was a falling graph in regard to industrial employment. I shall just mention the figures. In 1955, non-agricultural employment fell by 7,000; in 1956 it fell by 9,000; and in 1957, it fell by 25,000. The total for the three years was a drop in non-agricultural employment of 41,000.

We have not got the full figures for 1964. Deputy Corish made some comparison between months in 1964 and months in 1963. The last three years for which we have full figures are 1961, 1962 and 1963. In these years, as against that falling graph of industrial employment or non-agricultural employment in the three years I mentioned, we have a rising graph in regard to non-agricultural employment. The figures are: 1961, employment in non-agricultural activity up by 9,000; up by 9,000 again in 1962 and by 9,000 again in 1963.

The total rise in non-agricultural employment for the last three years for which we have figures is, therefore, 27,000. That increase of 27,000, which is a plus graph and a rising graph, can be compared with the minus graph or the falling curve for the last three years of the Coalition Government when 41,000 people lost their jobs or went out of employment in non-agricultural activities.

Mr. Corish

Has the Minister the figures for transportable goods?

Mr. Lenihan

I am not breaking down the total figure. There is substantial employment in services not included in the category of transportable goods. One obvious one is the hotel and tourist services in which substantial employment is given but not included under transportable goods. It is only by examining the total graph over a period of years that one can get a true picture. It is wrong when arguing statistically to isolate statistics, to compare one month in one year with a month in another year. The correct thing to do is to take the trend in order to get the true picture. The trend over the past three years has been a rise in employment over all categories, including the transportable goods category, which comes to 27,000. The total drop for the last three years of Coalition Government was 41,000.

The net effect is that for the first time in 1963 a new pattern emerged, where employment outside agriculture was in excess of the decrease of employment in agriculture. There was a plus increase in 1963 in employment in non-agricultural activity that for the first time more than absorbed the decrease in agricultural employment. For the first time since the Famine, our population is rising. That trend appeared first in 1963 and has continued at a greater rate in 1964. Every other year for which we have statistics shows a continuous drop in population. Again, this is an overall figure which gives the truth. The population is now rising for the first time and the trend will be up further in 1964, when we get the full population figures for that year.

The main purpose behind Government planning is to provide for increased employment. We have said fairly and squarely that we will be judged on this test and on this test alone. We have spelled out in the Second Programme that we hope to achieve a net increase of jobs in industry of 86,000 between 1960 and 1970. That, of course, being a net increase will involve the creation of many more jobs, probably the creation of jobs in the region of 150,000, if one has to take into account inevitable redundancy and matters of that kind.

Despite what Deputy Corish says in regard to growth figures, the only way you can judge our likelihood of achieving the 1970 employment target is the rate of economic growth and the rate of increase in national income. As I stated, the planned rate of increase in national income under the First Programme was doubled. The planned rate was two per cent and we achieved a rate of four per cent. I might say that the rate of increase in national income in 1958, and for some years prior to that when it was not a minus category, was never more than one per cent. Under the Second Programme, we are planning for an increase of 4.3 per cent for each year from now until 1970. We have not got the exact final figure for 1964, but it appears to be in the region of 4.5 per cent—a little in excess of the actual target of 4.3 per cent. We are now in excess of the target set for 1964 and if we maintain that rate until 1970 we say we will achieve the situation where there will be an increase of 86,000 in the number of people working in industrial employment, and we will have in agriculture also increased output, increased production and a better living for the people who remain on the land.

Mr. Corish

78,000.

Mr. Lenihan

86,000.

Mr. Corish

Your programme says 78,000.

Mr. Lenihan

No, you are incorrect.

Mr. McQuillan

How many are going to leave the land in that period?

Mr. Corish

Let us put the record right. I quoted from the same source as the Minister quoted.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

The Minister should be allowed to speak without interruption.

Mr. Corish

I am not interrupting.

Mr. Lenihan

I should mention that in 1957 there was a further figure, not relevant to the Programme for Economic Expansion but only relevant to the Coalition record. In 1957, when the Coalition Government finally scuttled out of office, the emigration figure was 60,000 against a figure of 10,000 which we will achieve in 1970.

Mr. Corish

He is getting his rag out now. I will have to go.

Mr. Lenihan

The main basis for this has been, of course, the increase in public capital expenditure. This is a matter to which the Labour Party have always subscribed — the importance of the State taking a greater part, both by way of direct investment and by indirect investment in the way of capital grants and loans towards private industry and agriculture. In regard to public capital expenditure, the figure was £38 million in the first year of the Programme for Economic Expansion, 1958/59. The figure in the current year is £96 million. So that we have well over a 100 per cent increase since the start of the First Programme in public capital expenditure by the State, direct and indirect investment by the State in social and economic development.

There is of course a price to be paid for that, in that debt incurred under this expenditure has to be serviced out of the annual Budget. I would defend a rise in national debt as long as that rising graph of public capital expenditure enables us to reach the employment targets I have mentioned, and the main purpose of capital expenditure of that nature, of course, again, is to ensure that more of our people are gainfully employed here at home.

Deputy Corish — and I am very thankful to him for this—quoted the figures in regard to growth rates for other European and American countries. Certainly, our growth rate which is planned, of 4.3 per cent, and the one achieved, of 4.5 per cent, come out very well by comparison with our two large industrial neighbours. The rate of growth increase last year in the United States of America was 4.8 per cent. The rate of growth increase in Great Britain was 4.3 per cent. Our increase was 4.5 per cent, which was an increase on the figure for Great Britain and slightly below the figure for the United States of America but which certainly is on all fours with the expansion which is taking place in those two countries.

We in this island as a developing economy have achieved the same rate of economic growth as these two highly developed industrial countries. This, I feel, is a matter which at least gives sound basis to the economic reasoning that went into the preparation of the Second Programme for Economic Expansion.

Coming down to the actual increases which are set out in the Minister's statement on the Vote on Account and in greater detail in the figures which have been published, I should like to disagree with Deputy Sweetman who sought to show that the increase in the Estimates for Education, in fact, did not signify anything in the way of expansion of educational facilities. In particular. I welcome the figure for vocational education expenditure which has risen from £2.3 million to £3.4 million. Agreed, that expenditure will relate largely to, as it were, the running expenses of vocational education. Deputy Sweetman sought to say it related only to an increase in salaries. It will also relate to increased personnel to staff the further facilities which are planned by way of capital expenditure on technical and technological facilities.

To illustrate what I mean: we have not got the final capital figures for the coming year but in the current year the increase in capital expenditure on education rose from £1.9 million to £2.4 million—an increase of £½ million in capital expenditure on education in the coming year. That means a growing extension of our technical facilities which will have to be serviced by more and better trained personnel to provide the necessary education. This extension in vocational education, of course, is the most important need in the education sphere today. There is no question that in order to bring a greater volume of our people into the industries of the future skill will be the great criterion and it is the skilled occupations that will pay best, give a better standard of living and provide the outlets for our boys and girls in the future.

That is why the Government, from the capital point of view, have spelled out a scheme for establishing regional technological colleges throughout the country that will enable advanced technological courses to be made available in key centres throughout the country where boys and girls can go to the highest technological level and where these facilities will be immediately available to most of them from the location point of view. This will mean, of course, expansion in industrial growth in areas adjacent to these technological centres and this, of course, is a development which shows the forward planning which is uppermost in Government thinking at the present time.

I have mentioned the increase in vocational education from £2.3 million to £3.4 million. This is an increase, of course, that will not be challenged by anybody in this House openly but it will be challenged by people who will challenge the need for taxation, who will challenge the need for taxation at all, when, in fact, taxation is needed, of course, to provide the funds for increased expenditure of this particular kind.

Dr. Browne

Not necessarily indirect taxation.

Mr. Lenihan

Not necessarily any particular form of taxation. The particular form of taxation is a matter to be decided.

Mr. Donegan

Are we to have more taxation? Is that what you are saying?

Mr. Lenihan

I did not say that. On the general principle of whether to provide services or whether to cut down taxation, I and the Fianna Fáil Party will always stand behind progressive expenditure where necessary and we will not tolerate any cut-back in Government expenditure in directions such as I have mentioned and we certainly would not propose any cut-back in expenditure on vocational education. We will budget for an increase in that direction and I am certain that nobody in the Fine Gael Party will come out openly and say: "No; you should not spend an extra £1.1 million on vocational education," but they will run away from the problem and will refuse to face up to the fact that progress, expansion, further employment, all of these matters for which we are geared in the Second Programme for Economic Expansion, have a price, and taxation is the price.

Nobody can deny that this is the central issue in Irish politics today: whether our people are prepared to face up to that problem, that economic expansion has a price and the price is taxation in order to expand the economy, to provide more employment and to work towards the goal of full employment in our society.

There are a number of other matters reflecting increases of expenditure and which, when examined home, will not be controverted by Fine Gael speakers but, again, they will run away from the implications of their policy. I believe that in their heart of hearts the Fine Gael Party are a Party of reactionaries, fundamentally anti-progress, and, if they really spelled out their feelings, they would be against any expenditure on education, against any expenditure on social welfare services, against any expenditure in the social and economic fields because, fundamentally, they believe in reduced taxes and reduced rates and a cut-back in Government expenditure in these essential fields. In their heart of hearts, that is their mentality and that has been their traditional attitude, but, from the political point of view, they will not say that because they know that in the democracy in which we live, our people will not tolerate any cut-back in expansion, our people will not tolerate any cut-back in Government expenditure, if it is to mean less educational facilities or less social welfare services or less investment in the social and economic expansion which they desire.

I can go through the rest of the details of increases. There is the amount, £35.5 million, in respect of social welfare, which is completely defensible, of course, and which nobody will stand up and oppose in this House. There is an increase of £800,000 in Local Government Estimates, primarily designed to ensure that the personnel are available to prepare for the expansion in housing which has already been planned and announced by the Government — the expansion of housing both in Dublin and in the rural areas where there are increased local government grants for the construction of houses for our small farmers. In regard to the Department of Lands, the increase is £500,000. The expenditure there is primarily to ensure that, when we pass the Land Bill into legislation, that Bill, which was supported here by the Labour Party and opposed by the reactionary elements of Fine Gael, will enable the congestion problem to be tackled in a serious way for the first time in the history of this State.

For example, within that £500,000 we will ensure that where there is an elderly couple, a man and a wife, an incapacitated brother or brothers and sisters, people of that kind who are no longer interested in working the land the Land Commission may by agreement make a deal with them to give up their land, stay on in their homes and have made available to them what amounts to a retirement pension of £4 a week each which will not count against them for old age pension purposes. Under that section which was avoided by Fine Gael during the debate on the Land Bill in the Dáil, we expect a substantial addition to the pool of land needed by the Land Commission for the relief of congestion. For the West of Ireland largely we have provided an increased sum of £.5 million for expenditure under the Department of Lands Estimate in the coming year. I do not expect any West of Ireland Fine Gael Deputy to oppose land division in this House. Any West of Ireland Deputy who openly opposed land division and opposed activity by the Land Commission would not last one week in this House. There would be a complete revulsion of feeling against him in Counties Leitrim, Roscommon, Mayo and Galway. Through the Land Bill we are giving the Land Commission the necessary powers to tackle the problem of congestion.

Another major increase in the Vote on Account is one of £700,000 for tourism. Here again is an aspect of economic development that has contributed greatly to our progress in recent years. We have such confidence in the further expansion of tourism that we have allocated £700,000 to Bord Fáilte for its promotion and development purposes. Our targets in this field are probably the most ambitious outlined in the Second Programme for Economic Expansion. By 1970 we expect that the income from tourism will be doubled, that is, that it will be close on £100 million.

This is the sort of advanced thinking that is necessary. We can make progress only by planning ahead and facing up to the fact that increased expenditure under these desirable social and economic heads is needed to provide more employment. The funds can only come out of revenue derived from taxation. In order to enable the Government to plan accordingly this Vote on Account is introduced in respect of these highly defensible social and economic projects.

There is only one item for which there is only a token vote and to which the Minister for Finance referred— this is the question of what sum will be necessary to compensate our exporters arising out of the British 15 per cent surcharge. Again this is an example of prompt action taken by the Government to ensure that export markets which had been hard won by our exporters would be maintained, that there would be no cut-back in the supply of Irish manufactured products that have made a mark on the British market. Due to prompt Government action towards the end of last year, our exporters have received guarantees enabling them to proceed with their programming in regard to market development and sales on the British market.

This again costs money and the Fine Gael Party may say "no" to that if they wish but I know they will not. As in the case of the other headings, they will not say our exporters should not be assisted but they will oppose any taxation designed to ensure that our exporters are assisted in this way. That is another example of running away from the situation. The key issue in Irish politics today is that of facing up to these matters squarely as we have been doing.

There is only one way in which progress can be made. The Government can lay down the framework, as it has done in the Second Programme for Economic Expansion. The Government can provide the panoply of grants, loans and incentives over the whole field ranging from housing, to industry and agriculture. However, what really counts is confidence on the part of small people, medium people and big people, people at all levels, from the factory floor and the farm, right up to the people who invest in business. They must have confidence that there is a future in the country, a confidence that is reflected in the fact that they are prepared to invest money in practical projects which will benefit themselves and the community. That is what is happening here. Certain targets have been set and our industrialists realise they can go ahead and establish more factories. The farmers have confidence that they can use more fertilisers and buy more stock.

The result of all this revival of confidence is that we had before Christmas a successful national loan floated in rather difficult circumstances, at a time when there was a great lack of confidence in financial circles in Britain where there was a run on the £ which the British Government managed to shore up. In those circumstances we floated a loan which was over subscribed. That is in sharp distinction to the situation which obtained in the latter years of the Coalition Government when, under Deputy Sweetman as Minister for Finance, two National Loans were under-subscribed. One loan for £20 million was under-subscribed to the extent that only £8 million was secured.

I shall not go into any more detail but the fact of the matter is that there was no confidence in the administration of that time. Lack of confidence is reflected by money. When money does not come forward it means that people have no confidence in the Government. The people are not happy with the administration and refuse to advance money. Two loans floated by the then Minister for Finance failed miserably and they eventually led to the economic bankruptcy of late 1956 and early 1957.

I should like to refer to the section of the population which is basic to our economy, the farming section. Without agriculture in a healthy state we just would not survive. From the point of view of our balance of trade and balance of payments we must have expansion in agriculture. We must, in particular, put more money into our farmers' pockets. Last year there was an increase in farm income of 16 per cent, the highest increase in farm income for a number of years. That again has prompted the Government to display its belief in the future of Irish farming and under the heading of Agriculture in the Vote on Account we are going to spend an extra £6,500,000 making a total of £45 million, which represents 20 per cent of total expenditure.

This is the highest single increase in the Vote on Account going to a section of our community who are now coming into their own and who are now showing that, with the assistance of the various Government schemes, they have it in them to make an economic living on their farms. The expansion in agriculture last year was reflected by more money in our farmers' pockets which was a great economic achievement in the past 12 months. We are going forward on the industrial front also and there is a reduction in unemployment, an increase in employment and a reduction in emigration. This has been made possible, I emphasise again, by an expansion of Government expenditure which has been sustained by the confidence of our people who have paid their taxes and their rates in the past number of years in a buoyant economy; the confidence of our people who have fully subscribed to national loans, and this confidence has sustained an increasing level of Government expenditure and has made possible the expansion of our economy in recent years, which will lead to the planned increase in employment, which I have mentioned, by 1970.

Mr. Donegan

I listened to the Minister for Justice with some amazement and not a little admiration because of the brash method by which he throws statistics — the ones he happens to like — across the floor of the House. When he began, he said he was going to discuss some of the statements by Deputy Corish and Deputy Sweetman. He did not get round to Deputy Sweetman because he was not in the House when Deputy Sweetman spoke. He told us the line we were going to take in relation to this Vote on Account. Having done this, which amused me, he came back to the old Deputy P.J. Burke speech to which I have listened since 1954 when I came here, except for a short time in the Seanad, when I read the Dáil debates. This speech simply said that if you vote against the Budget, you are voting against 2/6d. for the old-age pensioner. The sum total of his speech is that the Government will do wonderful things, everything in the Vote on Account is something we look forward to as a success. If you vote against it, you are voting against more houses, against more money for farmers, against more money for the Department of Lands and all sorts of other things. The truth is, as we say in the country, there are more ways of killing a cat than by choking it with butter.

We on this side of the House are quite entitled to believe and insist that we would act differently, if we were in Government, from the present administration. We are quite entitled to say we do not agree with the Land Bill. As an example, the Minister for Justice went into great detail in relation to the good in the Land Bill, whereby old people can hand over their farms and receive a pension. That is an excellent provision. He did not mention that when the Land Bill gets under way, the Minister for Lands can enter on and inspect a man's holding and then have it frozen for three months. He will then tell the Secretary of his Department, who will be a Lay Commissioner, to start proceedings. This means, of course, that a man's holding can be frozen and taken from him just like that.

I do not want to go into details, although the Minister for Justice did, but I want to say that we on this side of the House cannot be labelled by any member of the Cabinet as against them, and particularly the Minister for Justice, who would sell refrigerators to Eskimos. We will not be labelled by them as people who object to progressive expenditure. We would indicate the ways we would spend money, the aims we would have and the results we would hope would come from the activities we would engage in. These need not be the activities which the Minister for Justice feels are the right ones for the country.

The Minister was extremely detailed in relation to some of his statistical figures. I do not want to bore people with a lot of statistics. The figure asked for in the Budget last year was almost £200 million. We have not reached, in relation to the financial year, the heel of the hunt yet and the Vote on Account before us does not include any Supplementary Estimates that may be passed after 31st January, so that we do not know what increase there may be, even from the figures in the last column referring to the total Estimate for 1964. We know that the actual amount up to date is £200 million and we know the figure asked now is £220 million. We have to think of the effect this will have on the cost of living. What effect will it have on the poor person and what effect will it have on the Minister for Finance himself when he comes to add to these figures the increases in social welfare benefits which he must add? The 5/-or 2/6d. which has been the regulation increase over the past few years just will not do in 1965. These people are at the edge of starvation and we have to think of the effect of this increase on them.

As well as that, what results have come from the Government's policies over the past seven years? Have we got value for our money? That was the kernel of the speech of Deputy Sweetman. We on this side of the House reserve the right to criticise the results that have not been forthcoming from Government policy and from turnover tax. The first thing to be done is to examine the cost of living index figure. The position is that the cost of living increased in this country between mid-November, 1963 and mid-November, 1964 by 5.5 per cent. The comparative figure for the previous year is only half that amount.

This means that the ninth round, the 12 per cent which should perhaps have been negotiated over another one, two or three months, with retrospective payments, was rushed through by the Taoiseach in time for two by-elections in Kildare and Cork. He succeeded, but it is his last success. As a result of rushing this through, we have a figure and a period of time which, in my view, are wrong, even though these figures were agreed by the employers, the employees and the trade union representatives. In obedience to the Government, to the State, the power of the State and the elected representatives, they did this and settled for two and a half years and 12 per cent.

I want now to say to the Taoiseach that the chickens are coming home to roost and to say to the Minister for Finance that the working people have now to face a situation that for the 1½ years they will have to look to a very much greater increase in the cost of living, no matter what the Minister for Justice says about stability. They already had an increase of 5.5 per cent and something of the order of 2 per cent in February, 1964.

Deputy Corish suggested that the Minister for Finance might have to increase the turnover tax this year. He quoted the President of the Irish Congress of Trade Unions who stated in very measured terms in a recent debate that if that were so, the trade unions would have to look at the situation. We have now arrived at the manoeuvre, which was only a manoeuvre, before the Kildare and Cork by-elections. The Government have now to face an impossible situation. They have to face rising costs, an increased Budget and a situation in which employment will be very seriously affected.

What is the other factor which still awaits culmination? All over the country we are at the present moment striking the rate. As everybody knows, the arbitration system of fixing payment for local authority employees works quite well except that it works slowly. When we fixed the rates last year in March and April, all over the country the effect of the ninth round had not come into effect. Some made some provision for it in their estimates but nobody foresaw the colossal increase which would in fact accrue. I should like to say that my judgment is when we meet in Louth next Monday morning to strike our rates they will probably go up by 7/-. What will be the effect of this? There will be further increases in the cost of living. The stability which the Minister for Justice talks about just could not be for the next year.

The Minister for Finance in his Vote on Account shows an increase of £21 million. That does not take into account the Supplementary Estimates that may be passed in this financial year after 1st February. After that he has got to find something for the unfortunate recipients of social benefits. Just as in progressive legislation, if it is capital, he has to refund that capital sum as well. As far as I can see, the situation is that before we start examining the figures at all, we should examine the period from 1957 to 1965 during which the Fianna Fáil Government have been in office. In 1958 they produced this thing which they called a programme and which is in fact a set of targets. They have spent a lot of money since and have not got results. The people are paying for something which they have not received. The Minister on page 2 of his speech said:

A further rise in prices at this juncture would seriously jeopardise the prospects of continued expansion by impairing the competitiveness of our exports on which we are so heavily dependent for growth.

Some pay awards in the Civil Service have yet to be implemented. Has the Minister taken account of those?

I have mentioned the question of local authority rates and some pay awards which have yet to be implemented. I have mentioned County Louth where the rates will have to be increased by between 6/6d. and 7/-. I believe that will be paralleled in many other counties throughout the country. In Deputy McQuillan's constituency and in others in the west of Ireland, this figure will be greatly exceeded. In that sort of economy, the rates bear far more heavily on the people as a whole. Fine Gael object to these increases. It is quite clear that as we become further involved in the lives of the people the Government must have increased expenditure. It might be a far better thing if we could get that by increasing private expenditure and so keep out of the lives of the people.

Let us now examine what the Government have brought about since 1958 so far as the people are concerned. Let us look at the figures for employment and the figures for unemployment. When we look at the figures for employment we must also take into consideration the figures for emigration. I agree with some of the figures given by the Minister for Justice. When I quote the figures for employment, I do not take the line which suits me and the particular section which suits me. I produce figures from Economic Statistics published at Budget time, 1964. The information given at Table 15 shows that there are 16,000 fewer people at work than there were when the Government instituted their Programme for Economic Expansion in 1958. If you take the period in which they were in office, that is, from 1957 to the present day — you will agree with me at this stage I have not picked the figures that suit me but the figures when they started the Programme for Economic Expansion— you will find also on Table 16 that there were 32,000 fewer people employed than we had in 1957.

There is another figure which can be got also from the same volume, the total work force. If we look at Table 15 of that volume, we find that the total work force dropped as between 1957 and 1963, that is, including unemployed, by 49,000. There are 49,000 fewer people seeking work or at work than there were when we left office. What is the unemployment figure? We have heard what the British and continental figures are and what they define as unemployment. What is our unemployment figure as a percentage of the total work force? It is six per cent.

Mr. Tully

It is 6.6 per cent.

Mr. Donegan

I am glad of the correction. That means 6.6 out of every 100 men are seeking employment in this country. What is the emigration figure? I find it extremely difficult to get this figure. Deputy Corish gave a figure of 25,000. The Minister for Justice said there were 65,000 in one year. I find it difficult to get an authentic figure. Let us take Deputy Corish's figure of 25,000 a year. We find 175,000 people left this country during a period. Add to that the 49,000 and you find the figure given from these benches over the past 12 months is correct, on the basis of even the lower figure given by Deputy Corish. In fact 200,000 people, during the Programme for Economic Expansion, left this country because they could not get work. At the same time, there is a drop of 49,000 in the number of people in employment.

I think it was the Leader of the main Opposition who, on one of the economic debates last year, referred to the rumour circulating in this city to the effect that when the Programme for Economic Expansion first appeared, its title was “The Framework of a Programme for Economic Expansion”. That is all it is; it is a set of targets. Individual decisions have been taken and they could have been taken by the Government as easily without any splash or programme or without any suggestion that to go against the Government — this is the whole political line-up — is to vote against expansion or an increase in employment, or the fight against emigration, and all the other things we all believe in. The Government's idea in relation to economic expansion is that if you vote against them you are voting against the country. From the figures I have given — authenticated figures from the Goverment's Economic Statistics published with the Budget of 1964 — it has been proved that the results of this programme have been very bad for the people. Two hundred thousand of them emigrated and there are now 49,000 fewer seeking work or at work, and 33,000 fewer have found work. Those are the figures and they are quite incontrovertible.

The Minister on page 2 of his introductory speech made a statement which I question and I would be very grateful if he would elaborate on it when he is replying to the debate. I will quote from the last sentence on the page:

I may mention that farming incomes went up by some 16 per cent last year and that there are good prospects of a further substantial improvement in 1965.

I do not know what methods the Minister used or what criterion — to use the word of the Minister for Justice — he employed to find the figure of 16 per cent. If he is using Table 6 in his book, Economic Statistics, page 30, for the value and volume of agricultural output, I would not agree that the improvement was 16 per cent. This Table sets out gross output less input of feeding stuffs, fertilisers and seeds. There is something one must remember. Rates also come into the picture, as do tractors, oil, other costs and labour. The position at the moment is that the farm worker is reaching the stage where he will not work for the minimum wage.

Mr. Tully

More luck to him.

Mr. Donegan

More luck to him, as Deputy Tully says. If you were to look at it from his personal point of view he is quite right. The farmers must pay more. This figure is not a real figure; it is merely the figure for gross output. If the Minister has been using any other criterion that is quite all right. I hope he will go to the trouble of giving us some explanation as to how he arrived at the quite extraordinary conclusion that farming incomes improved by 16 per cent.

Let us examine what happened in relation to agriculture from 1958 to 1965. The Minister for Justice went into some detail to explain what the Government had been doing about it. Prior to the 1957 election I remember sitting over there in the back benches listening to the present Minister for Transport and Power. He used come in here sometimes with three brief cases, asking all sorts of questions, making statements and appeals. The subject was agricultural marketing. He sold the idea to the farmers' organisations — or he got on the bandwagon with the idea — that agricultural marketing was to be the saviour of the farmers and that what they had to do was market their produce and that we in Government were not doing the job.

The younger members of the Cabinet would freely sell refrigerators to Eskimos but the Minister for Transport and Power exceeded even their efforts in that regard. The Government changed and the present Minister for Finance included in the Book of Estimates one change, that is, the figure of £250,000 for agricultural marketing. Deputy T. Lynch, then in Opposition, put down a question every month to find out how much of it they had spent. After six years the Minister transferred the balance to An Bord Bainne when it was established. The balance was over £200,000; nothing had been spent except in relation to the expenses of some committees. A good way to get rid of a pressing question is to give it to a committee. The committee has to investigate everything and you shelve the problem for about 12 months. At this stage the Government shelved the problem of agriculture for about six years. It was only when there were warning signs from the west of Ireland, and other areas, that their political supporters were leaving them that the Government started to do anything about it. Six or seven years too late they started An Bord Bainne. It is doing good work but it did start with six or seven years leeway to make up. The Pigs and Bacon Commission was also six or seven years too late.

Therefore, we have the situation in agriculture where, even though the great framework of the ground limestone scheme, the Land Project and the agricultural advisory services is still there, the covering for the framework — if you like, the flesh on the skeleton — has not been put on. Fianna Fáil for seven years have been talking about agriculture and they are now waking up because of their losses in Roscommon and East Galway and because the people from the west of Ireland are defending their own area. The Government now see that they have got to do something about agriculture and they are making tentative approaches to the problem. One of the tentative approaches was to appoint the present Minister for Agriculture who is one of their best sellers. In fact, talking about selling refrigerators to Eskimos, he would sell two refrigerators to each Eskimo. There are things that could be done and there are things we would do.

I wish to take up the Minister for Justice on this. He went into great detail on agriculture and, indeed, with respect, perhaps he may have been almost out of order because he went into such detail and referred to all the things the Government were doing and what they would do. I shall tell him what we would do, but merely en passant, as I would be out of order if I went into detail. We will derate all farmers with valuations of under £25. We have done our homework. We know what it will cost and we will do it when we become the Government. Mark you, I should like to justify this in relation to Budgetary provisions. Does anyone believe that a farmer with a valuation of under £25 and no other income should have to pay income tax. Does anyone believe that if one were to assess him on the basis of income he would have to pay it? He pays rates on his house and on his outbuildings. Then he starts to pay rates on land and that is his stock-in-trade. He might as well pay rates on his cattle. At the moment he pays not alone on his farm buildings and on his house but also on his land. The justification for the measure we will introduce when we gain office is that one cannot ask a man with a valuation of £20, and who is not qualified to pay direct taxes, to pay rates on the land itself. These are things which could be done now. These are things which should have been done.

The Minister for Justice went into great detail and I must now do the same to some extent. It has been stated that 66,000 people will leave the land by 1970. So the Government say. If it were true that we have reached optimum production, if every field were giving its maximum production towards the nation's gross output, if every farmyard were geared to produce the maximum amount possible in pig meat and everything else, then I would agree that there should be some reduction in the numbers on the land. If all these things were so, then, as more machinery was purchased and more economic and efficient methods used, one man would do more work and fewer men would be needed.

When one looks at all the fields in, perhaps, 25 per cent production and all the farmyards in which there is not a decent shed, and all the other spheres in which improvement is needed, one realises that not only will there be a decrease in employment on the land because of increased efficiency, a more viable economy, and greater mechanisation, but, at the same time, there will be an increase in employment because of new productions and the expansion of old productions.

This is where we absolutely part company with the Government and with Fianna Fáil. We do not say that 66,000 people must leave the land by 1970. We refuse to accept that. We say instead that there are measures we can take. These measures are simple enough. Step up the farm buildings schemes, give grants and loans for them, make sure the buildings are recommended by the Agricultural Institute, see that the farmer has agreed with his agricultural adviser, and justified the advice, and that he will not only be able to make the repayment but will have a greater income for himself when the repayment is made.

When Deputy Dillon was Minister for Agriculture, he gave the IAOS a grant of £12,000; he increased the grant from £8,000 to £12,000. The great and glorious Fianna Fáil Government who say they are interested in the small farmer, who must look to co-operation for his increase in income, have left the figure at £12,000 since 1957 to the present day. The income of the IAOS comes largely from the co-operative societies. We will increase that grant to £50,000 and match £ for £ the contribution of the co-operative societies to the IAOS so that machinery and processing plants can be put at the disposal of the small farmers.

The rural businessman has, we believe, been excluded from the agricultural effort. Perhaps that is one of the reasons why the 66,000 people are supposed to leave the land by 1970. If rural businessmen can produce plans to process and market the produce of neighbouring farms, we will give them grant and loan facilities in the same way as we gave grant and loan facilities to foreign industrialists. We will give these facilities to the men who will process and market the produce of neighbouring farms.

We will restore section B of the Land Project. People do not realise that Fianna Fáil removed the credit provision whereby poor farmers could get their land drained and the cost added on to the annuities over a period of 30 years. The rich man can get his land drained but the poor man cannot. Could there be any greater anomaly?

Their health policy not only is disastrous, but is being pursued in an undemocratic way. Their education policy is restricted largely to an increase in technological education on the higher side. In agriculture, they have not even brushed the surface. As far as the announcement by the Minister for Justice on the Land Bill is concerned, in effect, all he could give us was the one good provision that the old age pensioner could retire and leave his farm to somebody else. He left out the most ridiculous proposals in other sections of the Bill.

In social welfare, the policy of the Government which has been started by this price spiral has created a situation which it will be extremely difficult to correct in the Budget, because any payment provided to these people would have to be far greater than the previous payments if they were to measure up to even bringing them back to where they were a few years ago.

These are our criticisms and these are the things that we will set right when we get an opportunity. I should like to say that we will have a further opportunity on the Budget, but this statement by the Minister for Justice, who has just left again, that if we vote against the Vote on Account, we vote against the Budget and against Ireland obliges me to say that we have heard it all before. We are nearly voting against the flag. We have heard it since around 1922, which was a year before I was born. I have heard it since I came into public life, but it does not cut any ice any more. They have not the prerogative of patriotism in the inception of industry and the expansion of agriculture or working for the people of this country.

Mr. McQuillan

Various Government spokesmen, particularly the Minister for Justice, have all stated that the Government are to be judged on their record in regard to emigration and unemployment. I want to be fair to It must be realised that they have now been eight years in office. It is not unfair, after an eight year unbroken period of responsibility, that we should examine their record, first, in relation to unemployment and, secondly, in relation to emigration.

After eight years of Government by Fianna Fáil, the position in February, 1965, in regard to unemployment, is that on 5th February, 1965, the number of registered unemployed was 61,015 and 5th February, 1964, the figure was 61,067. Therefore, in the 12 months that have elapsed between February, 1964, and February, 1965, there has been a drop in the number of unemployed of 52. Those figures will not be denied by the Minister. Surely that record is something Fianna Fáil cannot be proud of? In the past 12 months, there has been a drop of only 52 after all this ballyhoo by the Government about their plans for the solution of the various problems in the future.

There are about 70 Deputies in the Fianna Fáil Party. Is the best they can do to reduce the number of unemployed by 52? It could be done without any grants or attractions for industrialists. The record is there. I think it is a clearer way of presenting the picture than the way it was presented by the Minister for Justice.

I shall now give the figures for the nearest available date in regard to emigration. Here, again, the Government must be judged on their record in this field, and I do not think it is unfair to judge them over this period of 8 years. They cannot say that an imprudent type of Government intervened during this period. They have had uninterrupted Government authority for eight years. The position as far as emigration is concerned is that for the calendar year 1963, assessing it on the basis outlined by the Minister for Justice, 21,840 people left as emigrants. Up to November, 1964, a total of 26,800 people emigrated. There was, therefore, an increase of 5,000 in the number of people emigrating between 1963 and 1964, according to the latest available figures. The Government may say some of those people were building workers who went on a temporary basis. Perhaps, but the figure of an increase of 5,000 over the previous year cannot be explained away as building workers.

This Government have told us that they are on target at the moment in regard to their planning and programming for the golden era of 1970. I do not think that is correct if the figures are as bad as I have outlined. However, I will not pursue that matter further, because other Labour Party speakers will give further details.

Dáil Éireann debate - Tuesday, 16 Feb 1965

Committee on Finance. - Motion by Minister for Finance.

Dáil Éireann debate -
Tuesday, 16 Feb 1965