I hope to be quite short but I should like, briefly, to thank the Minister for Transport and Power for his tributes to what he is pleased to call the Coalition Government. He did not intend them to be tributes. While I was listening to him, I asked myself, if the Coalition Government were so bad as he made it out to be and as, perhaps, some other speakers hinted, why did he bother to waste his time with it? He has been in office now for the past eight years. All he need do is produce evidence of progress during that time under this Administration to establish the thesis he sought to establish here this evening that everything in the country is prosperous, everything is going well and the people are happier now at the end of eight years of Fianna Fáil Government than they ever thought they would be and there is nothing in front of them but a stretch of increasing prosperity.
When I got the White Paper showing the several services for which a Vote on Account was required for the year ending 31st March, 1966, the first thing I did was something the Minister for Transport and Power said, in effect, I should not have done. I looked at the last page of this White Paper to find out whether or not there was any increase or reduction in the total of the estimated sum required for the service of the following financial year. I found that on the figures there was an increase of £20,238,746 over last year's Estimate, to which were to be added, I think, the various Supplementary Estimates.
The Minister for Finance when moving this Vote on Account said, at column 381 of the Dáil Debates of 16th February:
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 in last year's Budget.
I deduce that the difference between my calculation and the Minister's statement is explained by the fact that the White Paper contains the Supplementary Estimates. That is a pretty substantial figure. That is a figure in regard to which the people are entitled to ask themselves: what justifies its imposition? Are we so prosperous? Is unemployment so well on its way to being, if not eliminated, at least brought to a point where we can say we have almost full employment? Are old-aged pensioners satisfied? Are health services adequate? Where is the wealth that should have been produced by this extraordinary expenditure last year and which is proposed to be increased by £20¼ millions next year? Where is the wealth going that must have come from that? That is the first question one must ask. Then, when one finds that in fact the proportion of our resources attributed to social welfare in Ireland is exceptionally low, one asks what sort of evidence has been produced for the Minister for Transport and Power to suggest the thesis he proposed to-day —that the country is prosperous, that there is a greater mood of prosperity and that, but for Fine Gael and all their works and pomps, we would be even more prosperous in the future?
When moving this Vote on Account, the Minister for Finance also said, at columns 382 and 383 of the same volume:
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.
I shall come back to that later on. I want to comment on another statement by the Minister for Transport and Power. He exhorted the people of this country and, I suppose, particularly Deputies, to stop their oldfashioned thinking about taxation. He left it at that: "old-fashioned thinking". As far as old-fashioned or new-fashioned thinking about taxation is concerned, all the people on whom the burden of taxation falls—be it national taxation or local taxation in the way of rates—know about it is that they have to pay it, that it is increasing year by year and that there is no reason why it should ever stop. The Minister says you are not to take that into account, that it is bad and bold of Fine Gael and the Labour Party to point out all the expenditure being incurred or that it is proposed to incur in the future.
That was my first action in connection with the White Paper. I found there was this very great increase and, appreciating the enormous increase in rates, the question arose: where are we going? As a second action, I looked at the figures for the Department of Posts and Telegraphs. I found in the White Paper that last year the total Estimate for that Department, including the Supplementary Estimates, was £15,066,000. This year's Estimate is £18,727,000. According to those figures, the expenditure for next year in connection with that Department is increased by the sum of £3,661,000. The Minister for Finance made this observation at column 383 of the same volume:
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.
Certainly, the Minister was justified in describing that item as an outstanding item in the Estimates. It is all the more outstanding when I recall that the Taoiseach during the debate on the General Budget Resolution last year. dealt with the criticisms he anticipated would be made of the increases in postage, parcel post, telephone, telegraph and all the rest of the postal charges, which were being increased, not by means of ordinary taxation imposed by this House but by decree or by whatever machinery the Minister for Posts and telegraphs increases these charges. A vast increase in the cost of telephone and other postal services was made in that year and was criticised.
The Taoiseach said at that time, at column 1781, Volume 208 of the Dáil Debates:
The principle that the Post Office should pay for itself and not be subsidised from taxation is not merely sound but, as far as I know, has never heretofore been questioned in the Dáil. There is, I agree, an obligation on the Government to ensure that the cost of these Services is not unduly inflated and the Minister for Posts and Telegraphs is now about to initiate a drive for economies in the Post Office by the adjustment of the services to the reasonable needs of the people and by changes in procedures which will, it is hoped, increase individual productivity.
I criticised that statement in the observations I made on the Budget and I took as the basis of my criticism of the charges that these economies ought to have been sought and found before the charges were increased and that it was wrong to seek economies after the charges had been imposed. It was not apparently, until the Taoiseach came in to speak in the debate on the Budget that he said he directed these economies.
Now, I look at this year's Estimate and find the position to be as I have just stated. The Department of Posts and Telegraphs has a budget largely exceeding what it was last year and, large as it was, according to the Minister's phrase, it does not represent the full extent of expenditure. From that we can only deduce either that these economies were not sought or, if sought, were not found and that no real effort was made to carry out any sort of retrenchment in that service to offset the very heavy expenditure imposed last year. From that I again deduce this proposition, based as it is on another feature of this debate, that no real effort has been made by the Government to see that the costs of the services have been properly regarded and economies properly sought.
"Economies", in the context and the interpretation I give the word, does not merely mean cutting down for the sake of cutting down. It means taking out expenditure that may not be required at the moment, that can be postponed in deference to urgent requirements for the present. But it is significant—this is an element I referred to a moment ago—that in the entire of the speech of the Taoiseach, the word "economies" does not occur. Neither did it occur in the speech of the Minister for Justice, nor in the speech of the Minister for Transport and Power.
It is true that the Minister for Finance at the end of his speech did say that the Estimates have been carefully examined at departmental level and submitted to further rigorous pruning by the Government. Having had some considerable experience and knowing what happens when you start at departmental level in trying to do anything about the Estimates and also having had the experience of trying to do it at Government level, I have very little confidence in and pass little heed to that remark of the Minister for Finance as to what was done in an effort to take away unproductive expenditure, to cut down waste, to see that the Estimates were cut to the bone, and above all, to see that economies were effected.
The word "economies" does not occur in the Minister's speech, nor in the Taoiseach's speech, nor anywhere else and we therefore, have this position that when you examine all the speeches that have been made, including the one we heard today, the theme of the Government case here and the theme of their speeches consists if three or four things: expenditure, taxation, and budgetary difficulties.
The Taoiseach gave promise of further expenditure to be met by taxation and he said that he had presented what he called the budgetary difficulties—column 586, volume 214. He said:
Against the background of budgetary difficulties the growing cost of public services, the need to provide a wider basis for public finance if the national economic and social progress is to continue ...
We had there expenditure adumbrated by the Taoiseach. It is clearly to be on a pretty vast scale, according to the White Paper. We had budgetary difficulties to anticipate, the growing cost of public services and then we had this somewhat cryptic phrase, "the need to provide a wider basis for public finance". I do not know what that means. Does it mean what the Minister for Transport and Power said this afternoon, that we must get away from old-fashioned taxation? Neither of them said what he means by "providing a wider basis for public finance" or "old-fashioned taxation" but, it would seem that the country is certainly facing additional taxation of a pretty serious character, or else the Government may be playing a game because both the Minister for Finance and the Taoiseach indicated there were going to be budgetary difficulties and they both were corroborated by the Minister for Justice. The Minister for Justice elaborately made comments on the various people who will not face up to the necessity for taxation in order to pay for the increases in expenditure.
At all events, that is the picture which, according to the Minister for Transport and Power today, we are wrong in bringing before the public but I want to paint the picture in a rather different way from what has been done by the various speakers on behalf of the Government. The Taoiseach had certain sombre hues in his picture. That is all part of the way he gets on in order to show how responsible he and his Government are.
There is certainly a very great increase in the public wealth of this country and in the amount of money that is floating around. There cannot be any doubt about that. That cannot cause any surprise. The Government could not possibly have avoided doing it. In the year 1958, the first year after the change of Government when they had control of the finances of this country, the amount on the face of the Book of Estimates was £112,570,620. According to the White Paper, it is now the figure that I have given here earlier this afternoon. It has gone up and up all the time. With that vast increase in expenditure in that period from £112 million to the present figure of £220 million—going up and up every year—how could they avoid having an increase in the money floating around? But where is it going? It is relevant to inquire into that. What sort of society have we as a result of those eight years and of all that vast expenditure of money?
There is no doubt there are many people richer than they were years ago. There is no doubt there are many people better off. There is no doubt, in my mind at all events, that the position we have here now as a result of that wealth, as a result of the prosperity that is boasted of here, is not quite what the Minister for Transport and Power would have us believe —a prosperous society, everything well, everything getting better. This, in my view, is the era of the expense account. It is the era of the expensive restaurant. It is the era of the motorcar of a particular type as the status symbol and it is the era in which such an announcement could be made as we read in the press just a short time ago where a trader on behalf of a restaurant proprietor paid the sum of £135 for a salmon. That such a thing could happen in this Christian country is indicative of the kind of society we have and of the infirmities and weaknesses that exist in it.
I cannot do any better than repeat certain phrases in a letter that appeared in the Irish Times on the following Monday, after this announcement was made:
We must be returning to the age of Nero ... when such an outrageous price for one fish can be recorded. Who are the emulators of the Caesars and their courtiers now living amongst us who can eat at such a cost in this time of the Freedom from Hunger Campaign?
That is the kind of position that is avoided here by Government spokesmen. That such a thing could happen is no doubt indicative of wealth in somebody but we see the other side of the story, that there are people looking for houses in the city of Dublin. At the same time as there are these expense accounts, not merely for restaurants but for expensive hotels and the other places that are supposed to be attracting tourists, the housing situation is of such a character that it is almost impossible to describe.
Deputy Cosgrave gave the housing figures in his speech. Deputy Ryan in much more detail referred to the conditions in Dublin, and in general, and they are pretty bad. I can only speak from what I know and I have quoted one case which is typical of the position in the city here. Any trouble I have as a Deputy comes from people coming to me looking for houses. I say to them: "I can help you to get you into Heaven but I cannot get you a house from the Dublin Corporation."
I had a case which I quoted twice recently in public speeches. I saw a similar instance on Telefís Éireann. This latter instance was not a political broad cast but it was shown on Telefís Éireann on the very night that Deputy Ryan was on Telefís Éireann in a political broadcast when he dealt with housing. This shows that there must be many similar cases. There is the case in my own constituency, of a family of six, four young children, the eldest of whom is only about five or six; they are living in one room without any method of cooking, without any toilet facilities, some of the youngest sleeping in a cot, some of them in chairs and some of them in the one bed.
I brought this case before Dublin Corporation and I got the standard reply, that there was no possible chance of accommodation. I kept pressing it and finally I got indirectly a message that it was hoped that in a few months time, the cases of people in Dublin with six in family would be reached. Cases of six in family have not been reached. That is the position here now in regard to housing in Dublin and there is no use in anybody talking about the number of houses that are being or will be built.
There have been sneers at what is called the Coalition Government. At all events, we made it absolutely clear that no question of finance would interfere with our housing programme, not merely in the city of Dublin but in general, and in the last year of the last period of our office when everything was going wrong—the terms of trade were against us; the balance of payments was against us; and, on top of that, the Suez incident came, bringing with it unemployment; and the bankers were against us—we gave the Dublin Corporation the full measure of their requirements, the same measure of their requirements as they got the previous year. Deputy Cosgrave has given the figures for the Dublin Corporation since that time.
I get annoyed with official replies from the Dublin Corporation but in fairness to these officials, I have always to say and to remember that they are only doing their duty and they could not give houses because the Government did not let them give houses.
In regard to the social service recipients, I have already quoted the remark made by the Minister that the Social Welfare Estimate was the largest single Estimate in the Supply Services. To go back to what the Minister for Transport and Power said, or what I thought him to have said, he said it is an old-fashioned idea to imagine that the more prosperous you become, the less taxation will be required to finance public services and he said the reason for that was the need for financing these social security requirements. According to the Minister, everything is going grand; this famous Second Programme of the Government is riding high, wide and handsome but we must put up with taxation. That is always in the background. Provided you get enough money from taxation, everything is grand.
However, I wish to quote from a publication by the Economic Research Institute which cannot be said to be favourable to any political Party, much less the Fine Gael Party. It is entitled "Social Security in Ireland and Western Europe" by P.R. KaimCaudle, published in June, 1964. There is this pregnant observation in page 11 in regard to expenditure on social security in Western Europe:
A comparison of social security benefits in cash and kind expressed as percentages of Gross National Product and market prices brings out a number of interesting facts....
There is a table setting out the figures for Belgium, France, Germany, Italy, Netherlands, U.K., N. Ireland and Ireland. I quote again:
Germany's expenditure on benefits is much the highest, about two-fifths above the average of the other countries—UK, Belgium and France —which have similar incomes per head. The Italian expenditure on benefits is remarkably high, up to the standard of the other EEC countries in spite of Italy's distinctly lower income per head. Ireland's expenditure is least, a quarter less than Italy's which has the same income per head.
I wish to expand that very slightly in relation to the Government's Programme for Economic Expansion. As I said before, the proportion of resources allocated to social welfare is low. The payments made by various countries have been given in the table to which I have referred in this paper by the Economic Research Institute.
This publication continues:
However, far from proposing any such improvement in the social services, the Government's Second Economic Programme involves a further decline in the proportion of resources devoted to transfer payments—which was slightly lower in 1963 than in 1957. On the basis of the Irish definition of transfer of people in institutions (items not included in the figures used for international comparisons) the proportion of resources devoted to transfer payments actually declined fractionally from 6.5 per cent to 6.4 per cent in 1963 (2) and is projected to decline to 6.2 per cent in 1970.
Even if over the period of the Second Programme we moved only half-way towards the ratio of social expenditure to national output that at present exists in similarly-placed European countries such as Austria and Italy, this would involve an increase of over 70 per cent in the volume of social expenditure in constant money terms between 1963 and 1970—as against the government's proposed increase of 33 per cent.
So much for social security. We know the position of the old age pensioners. I have spoken here again and again on a way in which possibly the lot of the old age pensioners might be improved. We know, because we have had experience of it, that to give even a paltry sum of 2/6 extra to old age pensioners costs a very large sum of money.
I remember soon after I was first elected to the House listening to the Budget speech of the then Fianna Fáil Minister for Finance and being horrified—I was young at the time—at one phrase in which he indicated that he proposed to save by what he called administrative methods a certain amount of money—the precise figure I forget, but it was a very large amount. In other words, he was to harry the old age pensioners to the point where he would prevent them from earning a few shillings extra and thereby he would balance his Budget.
That has been going on ever since. Widows who have uncovenanted benefits, those who have not got a pension as of right, have given up trying to work because they were so harried and worried by Government officials asking them about where and when they earned a shilling or sixpence. It would certainly help the old age pensioners and cost the taxpayers nothing and the Government very little if an effort were made to cut down on that sort of inquiry into the means tests of pensioners and let them get help from the St. Vincent de Paul Society or from daughters or sons or some other source to supplement their income by small amounts. At the moment they are not allowed to do this and are finding it almost impossible to live.
That is an addition to the picture to offset this prosperous society we are supposed to have. It is not as healthy a society as Government spokesmen would have us believe. I do not wish to decry the economy. I do not wish to put any obstacles in the way of the country's progress but there is no use in the Minister for Transport and Power telling us we have no right to talk about increased Government expenditure or to believe in old-fashioned systems of taxation. Have the Government, in the processes of collection and expenditure of taxation, in mind the obligation to spend the money properly, to distribute the wealth that exists in the proper proportions among worthy objects?
The Minister for Justice last week came back to the question of taxation after the Taoiseach had dwelt on the necessity for taxation. As reported at column 415, volume 214 of the Official Reports, the Minister for Justice said that progress, expansion and further improvements have a price, and taxation is the price. I interpret that as meaning that the only policy the Government have is increased expenditure but that if you increase expenditure, you must have taxation. They say they are prepared to increase expenditure and they challenge anybody to say where they are wrong.
Surely there is something more than the simple proposition of expenditure and then taxation? The Government I happened to belong to from 1948 to 1951, when Deputy McGilligan was Minister for Finance, acted on the principle, which produced results, that more money could be spent while taxation was reduced. It was done on the basis that if you have an expansionist programme, properly ordered and properly directed, you will get more revenue from the same or less taxation. That is how Deputy McGilligan increased expenditure on social services particularly, and at the same time reduced taxation. There was implicit in that programme the creation of wealth by the promotion of public capital expenditure for productive purposes.
There has been much talk about the money spent by the Government in the past seven or eight years on capital projects. They forget that when the inter-Party, or Coalition Government as they liked to call it, are being criticised by Fianna Fáil, neither truth nor Christian charity has any place. I am answering now what has been said here by various speakers, particularly in reference to taxation, and I say it is not as simple a proposition as the Taoiseach would like to make out: expenditure and then taxation.
There is, or ought to be, some method of producing wealth in times of prosperity other than merely taking the lines of least resistance by increasing direct taxation. There was another principle in Deputy McGilligan's thoughts and actions in the running of the finances of the country. The inter-Party Government were the first to divide the housekeeping accounts into capital services and other services and I have here in front of me the volume of Estimates for Public Services up to 31st March, 1951, in which capital services and other services were set out separately. I certainly do not want to waste the time of the House in attempting to justify the actions of the inter-Party Governments—that can be done by history or by anybody who likes to do it—or in answering criticisms in this House, and were it not for the various sneers about the inter-Party Government, I would not have referred to this. At that time it was a source of constant criticism, before the change of Government in 1948, that Fianna Fáil did not know anything about capital services. We increased those and we showed them how to do it and we put on the cover of the Book of Estimates what was capital to be paid by borrowed moneys and serviced as part of the national debt, and what were the ordinary housekeeping moneys. Not merely did we show them that but it was pointed out again and again by Deputy McGilligan, then Minister for Finance, and apparently Fianna Fáil do not know this principle, that in addition to getting more for less taxation, the very subject matter of capital projects, the productive objects you produce as a result of capital expenditure, are themselves a source of additional taxation.
When we are asked: "Do you object to expenditure on education?" or expenditure on this, that or the other, it is nonsense to ask us to say because we cannot say until we know whether the matter has been properly considered and that every possible economy has been effected, not economies in the sense of economy for economy's sake but economising for the purpose of getting at first things first.
The Minister for Justice made a remark which provoked me and I cannot possibly let it stand on the records of the House without controverting it. At column 415 of the same volume to which I have referred, he said:
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....
I am not going to waste time justifying anything and everything the inter-Party Government did, but so long as I am here, I will allow nobody to say that either I or anybody concerned in Government with me was a reactionary. Younger people who are now voting were hardly born then. Certainly they were not born in 1948 and those voters do not know what happened at that time and they are not let know, but as far as we are concerned I want to repudiate that charge.
We were the people who first framed a policy, and put it into action, for the development of our exports. The Minister for Transport and Power spoke with great pride today about our exports. We were the first to do this and we did it at a time of extreme difficulty when the terms of trade had gone against us and when the necessity arose for doing what the British had to do in the past few months, to put on these export taxes. When the Suez crisis was looming ahead, we announced the incentives for exports. That had never been thought of by Fianna Fáil in 19 years of office. Our exports have gone up and up because of the beginning we made at that time and this policy, and other policies to which I shall refer, were thought out by our own people and by our own supporters, and not by civil servants. Those incentives to exports were announced for the first time by me in October, 1956, in the Engineers' Hall and were taken up by the next Government and by the Governments ever since. As I say, however, justice, truth and Christian charity do not come into politics as far as Fianna Fáil are concerned.
Arbitration in the Civil Service was mentioned. We brought in arbitration for the Civil Service, the Garda, the Army and others. I want to remind those who have forgotten that Fianna Fáil were defeated by a motion in this House by Judge Lavery and myself calling on the Government to give arbitration to the Civil Service. The then Taoiseach went to the Park that night and had the Dáil dissolved because he did not want to have anything to do with the Civil Service. In the subsequent campaign, Deputy MacEntee, then Minister for Finance, went around from Haddington Road to Irishtown, to Rathgar and other places addressing three or four people but giving complete scripts to the newspapers, raising the hair on the heads of the taxpayers about the amount of money and taxes it would be necessary to raise in order to finance a scheme of arbitration for the Civil Service. They were returned to office but it was not until the inter-Party Government, or the Coalition Government, if you like to call it that, were returned to office that arbitration was brought into operation. They are now very fond of it. We also brought in the capital Budget scheme and other schemes which I shall not waste the time of the House referring to, but I am giving these as examples of what was done, not to justify the inter-Party Government but to repudiate this charge that this Party are reactionary.
So far as I am concerned, for every moment that I belonged to the Fine Gael Party and from the first time I went into active politics, it was my effort, and when I got the opportunity I put it into practice, to show that we were not reactionary. I hope to do so again. I do not think it does anybody any good to hear the type of speech which came from the Minister for Transport and Power—and even from the Taoiseach on certain occasions and the Minister for Justice—about Coalition Governments and the reactionary Fine Gael. Stand on your own record and prove your own case from your own facts and what you have done and you will get every help from this side of the House when anything is being voted to help the people secure prosperity, and particularly to bring further relief to those sections who have not yet got their due.
I thought there was a certain sombre note in the speech of the Taoiseach's. I think he referred to, but I could not verify it in the actual report in the Dáil Debates, the fact that while everything was beautiful, there was no saying what would happen and the terms of trade next year might go against us. In 1956 on the Taoiseach's Estimate, I took figures as the Taoiseach took them the other day, from the statisticians and from the financial records and all the economic indicators at that time were shown as set fair. That was in July, 1956. In March of the following year, everything was going wrong and we had to bring in these levies. That may happen—I hope it does not. Is there any indication of everything not being as good as the Minister for Transport and Power would have us think in the announcement that appeared in the Press quite recently?
I would like to take the liberty to quote the Irish Times even after the attack made on it by the Taoiseach. I quote from the issue of Saturday, 20th February. There is a big heading—“Advances only for productive aims”, followed by a smaller heading of “Deposits harder to come by”. The writer goes on to quote: “We are having to restrict advances only to those of a productive nature,” said Mr. G. Francis, Klingner, Chairman of the Royal Bank of Ireland at the annual general meeting. The writer adds “This is the sorry story moulded on the lips of Irish bankers today.” Deposits are becoming harder to come by, or rather, they are totally inadequate to cope with the demands on the bank's resources, or in Mr. Klingner's words “it is difficult for banks to increase deposits as they used to”.
Is that not an indication of the ageold device of the bankers, that they are going to restrict credit? They did it to us. Now we have an indication that something is going to happen. I warn the Government against complacency in announcements such as those made by the Minister for Transport and Power this afternoon. There is an indication of the banks' intention to restrict credit and that they have entered into an agreement that if a customer is refused credit by one bank, no other bank will make an advance to that customer. It happened to us and we were given the length and breadth of the vituperating tongues of Fianna Fáil on the attitude of the banks at that time.
Everything is not as good as it is supposed to be. We want this country to be prosperous but we think that other methods might secure better results. Above all, we think that there must be a wider field of obligation and a greater sense of duty in doing far more for the poorer sections of the community and those who fall within the category of social welfare recipients.
