The Minister for Finance who, I am glad to see is restored to health after his bout of influenza, began his Budget speech this year with the very strange phrase, as reported at column 1286 of the Official Report, Volume 221, No. 8: "What went wrong with my Budget of last May?" Is that not a strange introductory paragraph for a Minister for Finance and is it not made even stranger still when we recall that Deputy MacEntee—who had been his predecessor in the office of Minister for Finance and had been in the House and had sat with him in Government over five of the last seven years— undertook to answer Deputy J. Lynch, the Minister for Finance, in the columns of the Irish Times—the Irish Times, note—two days after the Minister had asked that dramatic question: “What went wrong with my Budget of last May?”
There is one thing certain and it is this: The problems with which we are struggling today were begotten and born of no administration other than the Fianna Fáil Party. They have not got the alibi of saying: "We are the heirs to somebody else's iniquity. Our problems today are the consequences of their administration." Deputy MacEntee, in the Irish Times of Saturday 12th March, 1996—answering the question asked by his colleague, Deputy J. Lynch, the present Minister for Finance, on the previous Wednesday, in Dáil Éireann—asks the question:
May I, who was Minister for Finance from 1932 to 1939 and from 1951 to 1954, and have been responsible for 11 Budgets, answer that question?
Outstanding among the chief culprits, I place the economic astrologers and soothsayers who deluded our people with fantasies of the affluence which awaited when they got to the end of the rainbow some years hence. Unfortunately we converted that roseate future into an opulent but fleeting present and spent prematurely the wealth which we had not produced and, even today, are not beginning to produce.
Does anybody remember Deputy MacEntee's participation in the byelections of Cork and Kildare? I did not hear him say on any platform in Cork or in Kildare, that we were converting a roseate future into an opulent but fleeting present and that we were spending prematurely the wealth which we had not produced and which, two years later, he would have to say we were not, even then, producing.
Deputy MacEntee goes to to say in his letter to the Irish Times:
Next in order of malign influences I rate those who were responsible for what has been euphemistically styled a National Wage Agreement. It is true that this instrument did not initiate the inflationary trend—that was done by a long series of deficit Budgets— but it accelerated it enormously.
Who did that? Was it, or was it not, the Minister for Finance of the Government of which Deputy MacEntee himself was a member, as Minister for Health? He went on to say in this letter:
The agreement—or in view of the differences which arose in regard to its interpretation, should it be disagreement?—injected an enormous quantum of new purchasing power, uncovered by production, into the consumption sector of the economy. Moreover, far from encouraging an increase in production it retarded one. Tied up as the workers felt themselves to be, it led to demands for shorter hours and for uncovenanted, sometimes even previously unthought of, benefits of one sort and another, resulting in prolonged strikes in essential industries.
Why does Deputy MacEntee, speaking as a Fianna Fáil Minister who introduced seven Budgets, blame those whom he describes as the economic astrologers and soothsayers? Is it Fianna Fáil who have introduced into our public life, for the first time in the history of this country, the doctrine that our affairs are to be run by soothsayers and astrologers and not by the elected Government of the country? Is it not Fianna Fáil who have produced the grey book signed by Mr. Whitaker as the book of revelation on which all subsequent activities of Fianna Fáil were to be safely founded and if anyone dared to criticise any extravagance into which Fianna Fáil were plunging themselves, he was charged with challenging the wisdom of the disinterested prophets, whose words were sacrosanct. We are now in the ridiculous position—and in the shocking position—that I find myself referring by name to the Secretary of the Department of Finance who should be absolutely unknown in the deliberations of Dáil Éireann or of any part of the Oireachtas. Who was it then introduced the astrologers and soothsayers into the economic life of this country? Fianna Fáil, because they wanted an alibi under which to shelter as they dragged this country steadily into the economic disaster in which it finds itself to-day.
I am only sorry that Deputy MacEntee has chosen to make his communications to the public through the medium of the Irish Times and not through Dáil Éireann, where he still retains the right to speak. I remember years ago walking beside him through the corridors of University College, Dublin and he turned to me and said: “James, I wish I had your freedom to speak out tonight.” On that occasion I replied to him: “At a great price bought I that freedom but it is a price you could pay, too.” He shrugged his shoulders and he did not pay it.
I want him to read that taunt because it is a taunt now. He says that he beheld the slow destruction of our economic affairs by a surge of soothsayers and astrologers. But this was not done on 9th March; this was done on 1st July, 1964, not 1965, eight months ago, but 1964, 20 months ago. When I was speaking on the Taoiseach's Estimate—and it was Deputy MacEntee's right to intervene, to counter what I had to say and I believe he was a member of the administration then; he was Tánaiste and Minister for Health; I refer to column 1364 of volume 211, No. 8—I was speaking as Leader of the Opposition and I said then, in spite of the astrologers and the soothsayers of whom Deputy MacEntee complains today:
If we can go on expanding exports and earning a profit on them, our standard of living will continue to grow, but our ability to export, particularly in the industrial field, is controlled by our ability to complete. The plain truth is, to anybody who studies these matters, that on the right of us and on the left of us, pretty brisk inflations exist at present in the USA and in Great Britain. We know perfectly well the reasons for these inflations: both countries have general elections pending at the end of the year and both are quite resolved that in no circumstances will there be any restriction on the expansive tendencies which have been so sedulously promoted for electoral purposes. In that atmosphere, our capacity to compete is made all the greater by the relative inflation which is proceeding in our two principal markets. If, as is highly likely, at the conclusion of the general election in Great Britain, a different atmosphere obtains, unless we can control the rising cost of living and the tendency for our industrial costs to rise, our competitive capacity in our principal market, in Britain, is likely to disappear. If it does, Nemesis will come upon this country.
Was Deputy MacEntee on his feet then to say: "Well said; that is the corrective to the soothsayers and the astrologers; that is what needs to be said"? As Deputy Prime Minister, he was as silent as the proverbial mouse. Deputies can all judge as well as I can the reasons for the silence. I do not like to judge any man but let him be the judge of his own conscience. July, 1964 was the time to say what Deputy MacEntee—whether it be from pique or patriotism—deems it expedient to say in March, 1966, when the damage has been done.
I want to say quite deliberately the truth as frankly as I can express it. I want to say most deliberately to Dáil Éireann that this Budget and the disasters which will flow from it are the price, the rotten corrupt price, which was paid by Fianna Fáil for cheap electoral victories in Cork and Kildare. I recall the atmosphere obtaining in those two by-elections. I recall the members of the Fianna Fáil Party describing the 12 per cent increase as the Taoiseach's means of correcting the increase in the cost of living which had been precipitated by the accursed turnover tax which the electors of North-East Dublin so emphatically repudiated.
Do not forget the dialectic which took place. The turnover tax was brought into this House on the false representation, supported by Deputy MacEntee and by all the other Members of the Government, that the traditional sources of taxation were no longer able to yield the revenue necessary to carry on the administration. We challenged them and we warned them—"If you have recourse to this, you will open a dialectic of inflation in this country which will carry us to the verge, if not over the verge, of economic disaster. We carried that argument out into the constituency at present represented by the Minister for Education and the Minister for Agriculture, North-East Dublin. We defeated their candidate in that constituency on the issue of the turnover tax. Then came the Cork and Kildare by-elections and I now allege that deliberately Fianna Fáil purchased those elections by what Deputy MacEntee now describes as the "malign influence" of "those who were responsible for what has been euphemistically styled a National Wage Agreement". I now allege here —let him challenge me if he dares— that none was more active then in claiming credit for the Taoiseach than was his Tánaiste, Deputy MacEntee.
This is a terrible indictment to make of the leaders of the national Party from whose membership the Government of Ireland are drawn. I hate doing it, but sometimes the truth must be spoken. Some time we have to call a halt to the slithering down, and the sleazy methods which it is now becoming fashionable to employ in the public life of this country. I call this the boomerang Budget. As certainly as I am standing here today, when we defeated them in Galway and Roscommon, Fianna Fáil believed that a general election was coming upon them which they would lose. I now allege against them that they built up a burden of commitments, and undertook a vast programme of expenditure, in the belief that the result of the ensuing general election would be that there would be an Inter-Party Government in office, who would be required to introduce a Budget along the lines they are now forced to introduce themselves. Up to the time Deputy Corish made his speech in Tullamore, they thought they were going to be beaten, and they hoped to be in these benches to challenge us with responsibility for this Budget, and to be in a position to say: "If you had only let Lemass lead on, none of this need have occurred."
I say that is a great crime against this country. I say we ought to pull ourselves together, stop a moment, and ask to what limits we think it right to go in public life in the pursuit of electoral victory. I think the methods I have described belong to a school of political thought which is new to this country and which, in my judgement, can only fairly be described as sleazy political stunting which new entrants to our political life like Deputy Haughey, the Minister for Agriculture, Deputy O'Malley, the Minister for Health, Deputy Lenihan, the Minister for Justice and perhaps, to some degree, Deputy Blaney, the Minister for Local Government, consider appropriate in order to secure political victory.
I have been for a long time in public life. I have been in public life in periods of great stress, of violence and great depth of feeling. Say what we like, in the great conflicts that took place in the Thirties and Forties, though we profoundly disagreed with one another, there was a kind of mutual respect that we were disagreeing about fundamental matters about which we felt deeply and basically. Somehow or another we did not enter into the phase of purchasing the public's votes with public money.
I feel now as I look at the catastrophe with which we are faced at the present time, and recall the past two years of electoral experience in this country, that there is emerging a a new philosophy in our political life which is represented by the young men to whom I have referred, of selling a bill of goods to the voters under any false description, and no matter how they fail to fulfil the quality or delivery, it does not matter, so long as they have got the votes, and if it is all subsequently exposed as a confidence trick, they feel the appropriate reaction is to shrug their shoulders, snigger and say: "We are in office in any case, and they will have forgotten about it before we have to face them again." I do not think it is right to believe that there are no standards of political principles which are not for sale if the price is high enough. I do not believe that in the long run that will work, and I believe it is the supreme folly of selling your soul for a penny roll and a lump of hairy bacon and not even getting the penny roll or the lump of hairy bacon. It may take time for that lesson to sink in, but these young men have time to learn. It will be for the good of this country if all young men entering public life learn that lesson and bear it in their hearts.
I particularly resented the bland inquiry of the Minister for Finance as reported at column 1286 of the Official Report of Wednesday, 9th March, 1966: "What went wrong with my Budget introduced last May", because I recall that on 16 separate occasions I warned the people of the country of the road we were travelling. I do not claim that it is the duty of the Minister for Finance to read all the public speeches I made, but when the Minister for Finance asked the question: "What went wrong with my Budget of May, 1965", I should like to go on record that the answer was available to him in speeches made before, during and after the period that that Budget was being drafted.
I want to go on record as saying that those speeches were made at the Kildare convention of 9th January, 1964, in Ballybay on 15th March, 1964, at Malahide on 11th April, 1964, at the Fine Gael Árd Fheis on 19th May, 1964, at Harrison's Hall, Roscommon on 14th June, 1964, at the regional conference at Navan on 25th October, 1964, at the East Galway constituency convention on 30th October, 1964, at Portumna on 15th November, 1964, on a television broadcast during the Galway by-election on 26th November, 1964, at Ballinasloe on 28th November, 1964, at Loughrea on 1st December, 1964, in a telecast on the general election in March, 1965, at Carrickmacross on 20th March, 1965, at Waterford on 22nd March, 1965, at Carrick-on-Suir and Thurles on 23rd March, 1965 and Limerick on 25th March, 1965. I do not know how in more explicit language I could have told him what would go wrong with his Budget of 1965 if he chose to listen.
There was one occasion when I know he had to listen and that is in volume 215, No. 10, column 1333. I want to compare what I then said with what the Minister for Finance said. We were discussing the General Resolution, as we are doing now, relevant to the Budget, of which the Minister now says: "What went wrong with my Budget of 1965?" I said, in concluding my opposition on that occasion:
I could elaborate at length on a variety of other aspects of the cost of living, but I elect deliberately, for the purpose of bringing this whole problem into focus, to dwell on this tripartite dilemma—rising cost of living, rising adverse balance of trade, rising adverse balance of payments. That cannot go on indefinitely. What remedy do the Government propose whereby to correct this deadly evil which, if allowed to continue, will one day have to be faced? The longer we wait to face it the greater menace it will become for the survival of this country, not only in economic freedom but in political freedom too.
I want to read now for the House what the Minister himself had to say in the same debate at column 1878. Is it small wonder, when you hear this, that he should stand bewildered before us last week with the query: "What went wrong with my Budget of 1965?" Here is what he believed and hoped for in 1965. He was concluding the debate on a General Resolution on 20th May at volume 215, No. 13, column 1878. He concludes with those words:
I have dealt in some detail with most of the points raised and I do not wish to delay the House longer. We have in this Budget not only a good social welfare Budget but, from the fact that we have made provisions for increased expenditure on agriculture, industry, housing and other forms of productive effort, a good economic development Budget as well and, please God, with the assistance we have been offered from the other side of the house——
Of course, Deputy Dillon was the sore thumb there——
——and the co-operation we can expect to get from the country, we can have greater development, greater progress and perhaps even a better Budget next year.
Is it any wonder this poor, bewildered man—he is a nice, likeable man— should get up and ask in desperation in the presence of the House: "What went wrong with my Budget last year?" It was well he got Deputy MacEntee out of the Cabinet before this Budget was introduced or he would have got a very dusty answer at the Government meeting before he came in to present his Budget to Dáil Éireann because Deputy MacEntee seems to have known all the time what went wrong with it but when he was in the Cabinet and when he had the right to speak, he kept the same discreet silence he will remember keeping in 1943. Well, in the realm of eschatology, I suppose the quintessence of free will is that we have the right to choose damnation; so in the sphere of politics and economics, the essence of individual liberty is that the people have the right to do wrong. Mind you, that is a principle that was challenged at a very high level in this country at one time and one of the wrongs the people have the right to do is to choose Fianna Fáil, even if the majority of our people choose bankruptcy and anarchy as well.
Mind you, the stability of this country and of its institutions lies not only on solvency, it rests on the conviction of our own people and our neighbours abroad that the legitimate Government of this country is capable of government. When I see our country teetering on the very verge of bankruptcy—I will define that in a moment— while at the same time a group of anarchists can go down to the centre of our city and blow up Nelson Pillar while the gardaí are bustling around putting traffic tickets on their neighbours' motor cars, I begin to ask myself: "What has happened to the Republic to which we were all so proud to belong?" What has happened to the public administration when the National Army is called out to complete the work initiated by the anarchists and the corporation are called, like Philistines, to shatter the artistic treasures that decorated the plinth of that silly old familiar monument we have all grown up beneath? Many of us have looked on it as a symbol of a foreign power in the country we were committed to make free; many of us have watched it change into a symbol of the triumph of the struggle to be free. He stood with his cocked hat and his bronze sword inviolate, the symbol of the power they sought to impose on us which we have brushed aside and left its silly symbol there to remind us of the glory of those who made us free. I am humiliated that we should allow members of our National Army to complete the work of a cheap Mafia. That is what one would call anyone who defies the authority of the legitimate Government of this country —a Mafia.
