Handicapped as we are by the Minister for External Affairs who busies himself with the Afro-Asian groups, and with affairs that always seem to be 5,000 miles away, Fine Gael have been campaigning for at least three years for an international agreement to protect our trade and see that we are kept "with it" in this situation where the freeing of trade is progressing all over Europe. We have the EEC and EFTA and now Britain is moving closer to Europe. Therefore, my Party, while feeling that the Agreement was not everything that could have been got, and feeling that the Government had not done as good a job as the people would wish, are not voting against this Agreement. At the same time, we are ready to point out the deficiencies in the Agreement, the things that should have been secured and have not been, and the mistakes that have been made. We feel that if we had had the opportunity to negotiate such an Agreement we would have done a better job. I propose to try to tell the House why such is the case.
We have been regaled by statements from the Minister for Agriculture and these have been so extravagant and so impossible that there is only one question before us, whether or not the Minister for Agriculture is a genius, who deserves the best of every Irish man and woman, or a political bombast and a fraud. That is the choice because his statements have been so extravagant that we must accept that if they are true then he is a genius and has exceeded all the things we would expect from a man in his position.
I should like to deal with the claim by the Taoiseach that this is a permanent Agreement. There is no such thing as a permanent Agreement in international law and there is no penalty for infringing an Agreement. The only penalty there can be is force. Everybody knows that because of the size of our economy we can never use force. In the 1930s there was such an idea but surely that idea has passed and people realise now that there can be no question of force. This Agreement is not a permanent one. It can be infringed by Britain any time they decide to do so. Let us remember that the 15 per cent levy, which was reduced to 10 per cent and is now continued, was applied to us in direct contravention of the 1948 Agreement. When Britain placed a quota on us, recommended by GATT, she again infringed the 1948 Agreement. There was no penalty except the use of force and the only force Ireland could use would be an atomic bomb and, thank God, we have not got that.
There is no need for a breach in the future because written into the Agreement there is power for Britain to impose levies in its balance of payments difficulties. The effect of such levies imposed bilaterally would have, as it were, 40 times the effect on our economy as they would on the British economy. Why should this tiny economy have to give the power to Britain to impose levies on us, as they have already done? Why did we not succeed in having ourselves excluded from this? I think we could have so succeeded. If we had succeeded, it would have been an inducement for industrialists to come here from abroad. I believe that this levy, serious as it is in its financial implications, difficult as it is for exporters, is far more difficult inasmuch as it implies to industrialists wishing to come here and export to England that the levy can be applied. There is provision for its application. This is one of the most serious factors preventing industries from coming here.
Let us consider the claims of the Minister for Agriculture that this Agreement will be worth £10 million for the Irish farmers in the first year. I would have wished that the Minister for Agriculture or the Taoiseach had been more particular on this matter. I should like to know where the money is coming from. If a Minister makes such a statement, the House is entitled to have that information, to know that there will be so many millions from one item and so many from another. It is not sufficient to say that this is worth £10 million.
The Minister boasted about the relatively small quantity of beef and lamb for which there will be an Exchequer payment from Britain to the Irish Government. Deputy Tully mentioned that there is now to be consultation about how this money will be spent. The British Government will ensure that it is not spent in any way that will affect their trade. It can operate to ensure that the beef factories here will not get the full benefit of this money and to see that the farmers do not get the full benefit. Last year there was a heavy export of beef on the hoof to Britain. The people who bought it were in a position to pay 2d or 3d deadweight more than the Irish factories. This was because of the disposal of the offals and the multitudinous uses that can be made of them in a huge economy such as that of Britain and because of the factories set up near the main factory. This money may be used to help the Irish factories but it will never reach the Irish farmer. We must face that fact and also the fact that the payments for last year in respect of deficiency, or subsidies, were, for one fortnight, .4 of 1d. in the pound.
If Britain is moving nearer to GATT, it will be incumbent on her to dismantle deficiency payments. If we get any of these payments in the short term, certainly in the long term we will get none of them. When Britain abolishes these deficiency payments they will not be there for us, yet this is based on the British fatstock subsidy scheme. The Minister for Agriculture said that this Agreement gave access to Britain for all agricultural products and I quote him from the Irish Times of January 6th:
Britain had now given up the right to regulate imports from Ireland except only in the context of an international commodity agreement covering all the major suppliers of the product including British producers themselves.
The Minister for Agriculture is noted in political circles for being a "slick chick". Further down the report continues:
The solution arrived at was the letter in which we agreed that in certain circumstances we would be prepared to grant a waiver from our right of duty free access so as to enable the UK to introduce a minimum import price system. The question of the introduction of a minimum import price system could arise only in the context of an international arrangement.
What is the difference between the words "agreement" and "arrangement"? Let us turn to the Minister's letter. I quote:
Having regard to the provisions of those Articles the Government of Ireland undertake that, in the event of the Government of the United Kingdom, after the consultation referred to in paragraph (2) of Article VIII or in paragraph (4) of Article IX, wishing to implement an arrangement of the sort referred to in paragraph (1) of Article VIII or in paragraph (4) of Article IX, which involves the regulation of imports of an agricultural product by means of a minimum import price system enforced by levies, they will be prepared to waive their right under Article I of that Agreement to duty-free access to the United Kingdom for the agricultural product in question, provided that Ireland is accorded no less favourable treatment than that accorded to any other country...
That means that all the talk of the Minister for Agriculture is as straw in the wind. At the stage when Britain is moving closer to Europe, the stage when she will have to implement the GATT reference, as she will, our access is no longer there, and everything we had in the 1948 Agreement is in danger and we will get no better treatment than any other country. Yet we are the people who traditionally supplied that country with her stores, traditionally supplied her with many of her agricultural requirements, and we are the country closest to her in the agricultural trade.
I want to know is the Minister for Agriculture prepared to say, or is the Taoiseach prepared to say on his behalf, there is no difference between the two words "agreement" and "arrangement" and that when he claims he has duty-free access letter No. 1 means nothing? If you read the Irish Times— the Official Report is not, as yet, available but I am sure the Irish Times have recorded the matter correctly—you will see he has given away everything in the 1948 Agreement and all we await now in a movement closer to Europe is the removal of benefits we have long enjoyed.
Deputy Sweetman dealt at length with the question of butter. The situation is that it was unlimited under the 1948 Agreement. We could send as much as we liked. The same applied to bacon. The phrase "or more if available" was included in the phraseology of both Agreements. We are now limited in respect of both butter and bacon. The prognostications of the amount of butter we will have to export suggest that by 1968 we will have too much butter again. We will have to go to world markets to sell it at greater losses. Yet this is the Agreement lauded by the Minister for Agriculture as the greatest thing that ever happened for Irish farming. The figure of 23,000 tons is nothing more or less than the projection of what butter we will have available for Britain in 1968. After that, I know not.
The Minister for Justice has apparently become an agriculturist. I am assured he said here today we had exported carcase beef worth £35 million in the past year. I leave it at that. I do not want to deal with that sort of thing. Let us deal instead with this question of the supply of 638,000 stores and the guarantee to supply beef and lamb.
The heifer scheme exploded in this country in quite an extraordinary way. The Government set out to spend £350,000 in the first year, and found they had to spend £2 million. This meant that a lot of people not in that trade traditionally suddenly turned over and cashed in on the £15 per head. All I hope is that they will not move straight back into dry stock. There is some evidence a lot of them are. The figure of 638,000 is merely the estimate of what would be sent maybe in two or three years' time. Without fresh measures taken, they may not be there or may be just there. In that situation, have we undertaken we will restrict our exports elsewhere and first send our cattle to Britain? I contend we have.
Turning to the cattle agreement, one finds that Article V states:
If, in any calendar year, the number of store cattle imported into the United Kingdom from Ireland falls below 638,000 head, or if, in any United Kingdom fatstock year, the quantity of carcase beef and carcase lamb so imported is less than 25,000 tons and 5,500 tons respectively, the two Governments shall consult with a view to taking such measures as are practicable to meet the situation.
There are no measures practicable if the cattle are not there, except the restriction of our exports to other places.
I want the House to turn their minds to the lamb trade, which I am sure the Minister for Agriculture knows very little about. The week that France comes in for lamb, we who have lambs to sell know that the price of lambs will go up on the Dublin market by as much as £1 per head. Even though France comes in only for three weeks at a time and perhaps does not take any more for six or seven weeks, it is the price of lamb in Paris that makes the price here. Have we given away our right of access to that market to try to make the British pay a higher price?
I have spoken to many cattle exporters since this Agreement was produced. Many of them are extremely worried. At present there is a strong reaction in Britain to high cattle prices from Ireland. If this is so, surely the way we had to make the price was to try to move towards the prices on the Continent? If we do not have 638,000 head of cattle, are we to restrict our exports to other countries? It is largely a gamble. If the heifer scheme has progressed, very well, we will have them. If the system of the £15 payment and no more unless herd numbers are increased is not effective and if they go back to dry stock, we will not have them. In that situation, have we given away something extremely important? The extravagant boasts of the Minister for Agriculture brand him as a bombast and a political fraud. There is no £10 million there. He did not tell us where it is to come from. He just gave it as a figure.
If in agriculture we at least held part of our position, in industry the position is very different. Nobody in this debate mentioned the question of the choice and range of industrial consumer goods. You may have all the Buy Irish campaigns you like but when our wives go into a shoe shop for instance at present for a pair of walking or high-heel shoes they probably get a choice of four or five pairs of shoes to suit them. But, if British footwear come in here, clearly the position will be that they will get a choice of 15 or 20 pairs to suit them. If I know wives, a lot of them will not buy Irish. Maybe that is not a patriotic thing to say, but it is true and we must speak the truth in these matters.
The Taoiseach came back and left us in the dark about this Agreement for three or four days and the Minister for Agriculture went out on his bombastic mission. To give the Minister for Industry and Commerce his due, he did not do that. We believe that in Part II of Annex B there was a section of goods which could be protected by quota until 1975. In this annex we had footwear, laminated springs, sparking plugs, electric filament lamps, brushes, brooms and mops and some varieties of hose. We now find we are dismantling our quotas on footwear by 1968 and on electric bulbs by 1971. Is it not true that, when the Taoiseach and the Minister for Industry and Commerce were negotiating with Douglas Jay in London, they knew that? Yet they came home and flaunted this Agreement in a political way and did not give us copies of it.
Half of the footwear operatives in this country are in my constituency. Therefore, this is a major problem for me. In 1968, when the quotas have been removed, surely the position will be that footwear from Britain will flood the market here? I am using footwear simply as an example. When the choice and range of consumer goods from Britain is put at the disposal of the Irish people, I feel the share of the home market available to us will drop substantially.
Let us consider how much that home market really is. I quote from the NIEC Report of 1965, in which there is a very useful table giving the percentage of gross output of our industries exported. Of our linen and cotton industry, only 14.1 per cent at present is exported; of our jute and canvas industry, only 15.3 per cent; hosiery, only 18.7 per cent; and footwear, only 26.7 per cent. That means that we are fighting, in this situation that I portray in which information was given to us in slices over the days, for 74 per cent of our trade. We are in a position where this 74 per cent can vitally be affected and we have no better access than we had as far as the British market is concerned.
In women's and girls' clothing, only 26.4 per cent is exported. In wood and cork, furniture and textiles, only 18.5 per cent is exported. So, as far as furniture is concerned, we are fighting for 80 per cent of our total output in our home trade.
The question of choice and range is one of the most dangerous things in this Agreement and the safeguards that were secured are not sufficient.
I want now to suggest that, as usual, Fianna Fáil have seen fit to pick a few pets. I am very glad to see the pets picked and I wish them all the best. In a situation where the Minister for Industry and Commerce can talk about the fact that musical instruments have been looked after, and that this will create a good situation, one wonders whether the Minister for Industry and Commerce was more worried about a musical instrument factory at Shannon than about items of far greater importance and far greater employment potential.
I want to suggest, also, that there are factors that could have been looked after that were not looked after. As usual, the Fianna Fáil Government have seen to it that the right things, as far as they are concerned, have been looked after. Article 4 of this Agreement is quite an extraordinary Article because it indicates that fiscal charges against imported goods to this country shall be removed. The new position will be that not only shall no new one be put on but that they shall be removed. As far as I can understand it, this means that, in a few years, there will not be an extra duty on foreign gin, on Scotch whisky, and so on. The Taoiseach may smile, but that is the fact. You are not allowed to put an extra fiscal charge in your Budget on articles that are imported. Whether or not the Taoiseach will be in a position to prove that Scotch whisky is a different product from Irish whiskey, I do not know, but, in his effort to do so, perhaps he will find that the British are the people with the power and he is the person without it.
In the engineering trade of this country, there is a very serious danger of unemployment. The position in Britain is that in all these engineering business one finds that many of the component parts are made in as many as 12, 15 or 20 factories. Here, we have not this wide variety of factories. We find it difficult enough to produce a finished product with the few we have. We find that the trade here is wide open to Britain. We find that the duties are progressively reduced and that the quotas have been removed. In my view, the situation will then be catastrophic.
There is another matter that must be considered before we come to the safeguards, which I believe are inadequate, and that is that, in the wholesale and retail movement of goods in Britain, the normal mark-up is 50 per cent. The normal mark-up here is 25 per cent. The truth of this is that when they have removed four slices of ten per cent from a tariff, we are in for trouble. We are in a position whereby the price of the British article with the tariff paid may well be below the price obtainable here.
This brings up the question of dumping. What constitutes dumping? If you produce 5,000 articles and sell them here at five shillings and the British manufacturer produces 5,000 articles and sells them there at five shillings and sends over 1,000 to this country, and pays the tariff out of his profits and sales at five shillings, is this dumping? As far as I can read it from the Agreement, it is not. Yet, if you have a run of 5,000 articles and you just run another 1,000, the sixth thousand cost probably half of what the other 5,000 did but you have only a little market here that can assimilate the 5,000 and Britain is in the entirely better situation. The safeguard provisions do not give the sort of protection we need. In five years' time, we have a review and we can continue protection on three per cent of our imports. I do not think that is sufficient. I think the range of industries that will vitally be affected will be far more than can be protected by this provision.
We can, if there is gross unemployment in an industry, put on protection for 18 months. Eighteen months in the life of an industry is an extremely short period. I do not think these provisions are sufficient and I honestly believe that better provisions could have been got and should have been sought. Therefore, the balance of the Agreement seems to weigh against us. Assessments have been made of what this is worth in ten years' time to Britain. One assessment has been that it is worth £50 million to Britain in ten years' time. Even the Minister for Agriculture did not set any such figure on the advantages to us. So as far as I can see, this Agreement is unbalanced. Britain is getting the better of the bargain and we are not getting the safeguards a small country would need.
Then the question arises whether we are fit for freer trade and why could we not make a better Agreement. I hold we could not make a better Agreement because the Taoiseach went to London with financial chaos at home, with industrial chaos at home and with a prices situation at home which did not allow him to come back with nothing because the moral effect of that would have placed him in an impossible situation and so he had to take what he got.
What is the situation in which we now find ourselves? We find ourselves in a situation with a balance of payments deficit of from £45 million to £50 million. We find ourselves in a situation where there is a shortage of money at a time when the Government did not accept the discipline they placed on themselves in the Second Programme for Economic Expansion and spent far more than they said they would spend. We find ourselves in a situation in which the Government now have to remove from the private sector of banking far more money than it is safe to remove, thus leaving people who have to adapt their industries in the situation that they have not the money with which to do it. We find ourselves in the situation that the grant such people will get is exactly half what a foreign industrialist would get on coming in here and building a new factory. All that seems to be wrong. The result has been industrial chaos.
The other evening I was looking at the prices of certain articles. A woman said to me: "How would you like to be a workingman today with three children and a wife to feed?"—and that is merely an average family man. Looking at those prices, I said I would not. I do not blame people for looking for extra money here today. I blame the Government because they have allowed this prices situation to develop to the stage at which people cannot live. That is what is wrong with this country. People can no longer live and rear their families in decency here and it is the fault of the Taoiseach and of nobody else because, when two by-elections were pending, he went in and arranged for a 12 per cent increase which he knew could not be given. We know that everybody who got the 12 per cent is now worse off than they were before they got it. This is the fault of the Taoiseach.
The Taoiseach has now created a situation, with shortage of capital and with industrial strife, where we have had a colossal increase in unemployment in the past week. Before I advert to this, I may say I understand the Government are fearful of unemployment in the next quarter with the result that they are changing the manner of giving us the figures. I hope they will be honest enough to give us both sets of figures for at least the next six or 12 months until the new set bears comparison, the one with the other. From the week of 17th December, 1965, to the week of December, 31st, 1965, there were 7,310 more people unemployed. Let us remember that there are 63,714 people unemployed in this country today. This is the highest figure since 1958 and, worse than that, 53,620 of these people are men. That is the state the Government have got us into. They went to England and they had to come back with an Agreement. They came back with one that was not treatment for us as equals. Now there is nothing we can do—it is a fait accompli— except to make comments and hope that, as soon as possible, the Government will be removed from office and we can go back on other terms and put the country back on its feet.