I have listened to the critics from the Opposition during the past few days and not one constructive statement was made by any of them. We have reached the stage now that anything you can do I can do better. If that is Irish politics by the Opposition——
Committee on Finance. - Resolution No. 12: General (Resumed).
Debate resumed on the following motion:
That it is expedient to amend the law relating to customs and inland revenue (including excise) and to make further provision in connection with finance.
—(Minister for Finance.)
(Interruptions.)
Order.
Put a bag of cement on his back.
One would imagine the Minister for Finance introduced this Budget for fun or to try to persecute people. I admit it is a tough Budget. A number of my friends and I are all feeling the effects of it but what was the Minister to do? Was he to do the same as the inter-Party Government did in 1957? Was he to leave this country on the rocks and rush out of government? They did not make any positive decision at that time. We are trying to make a positive decision now to rectify the financial position of this State.
I want to say that we intend to keep this State going, to keep full employment here and to see that the programme we have set before us will be achieved. We will do that in the interests of every single person in this nation. If we fail in that duty and if we do not face up to our responsibilities as a Government, posterity will treat us very unkindly. We are very proud of our financial position and our economic and political philosophy and we will try to sustain it as far as possible. The Opposition are anxious on all occasions to get better social services, better this, that and the other, and every chance they get they criticise what we are doing. They do so down the country when they talk at every chapel gate and in every hall. They say: "We will do this and we will do that but directly the position arises in which the Government and our Party try to bring about those things, it is just like the Merchant of Venice. You can have your pound of flesh but do not draw any blood at all. That is the philosophy of the Opposition. When our country is up against it, they criticise the action taken by the Minister for Finance to rectify the financial position.
(Cavan): No man has a better right to rectify it.
Thank you for an intelligent interjection. That is what we are faced with, and if the Opposition have any constructive statement to put up here, surely we should at least get beyond this little sing-song we have been listening to for years: "This serious position facing our country."
Hear, hear.
It is a serious position which is facing our country. When a serious trade balance is facing any country, it is up to the Government to do their best with regard to it. They should go beyond politics to rectify it. That is what we are concerned with. In 1955, 1956 and 1957, the adverse trade balances of this nation were wrong and we found ourselves in a shocking position. I never want to see that happening again, if it is God's will. In my constituency I saw hundreds of people leaving hundreds of houses and going to England, America and elsewhere.
When was that?
In 1956-57, my dear man. On top of all that, came an adverse trade balance and I shall make a statement on that position. I do not want to see it again. Surely the Members of the Opposition, whether they be Labour or Fine Gael, have a national duty to perform? If they have any suggestions to make, constructive and not destructive, to help the Minister for Finance, they should stand up and make them and they would double their votes in their respective constituencies because the people would realise they had put country before self. We had an adverse trade balance last year and we tried our best, as a Government, to rectify it. The great British nation had the same problem, as had the United States and other great countries.
One effect of a financial crisis that concerns me is a possible recession in house building. I have had experience of travelling in Israel with other delegates when we went to a town planning conference in Jerusalem.
Are you going to Tokyo?
We gathered a good deal of experience as a result of that conference.
I am sure.
There were more than 2,000 delegates.
Is Deputy Cluskey going to Tokyo?
We should look to Deputies who were there before.
A Leas-Cheann Comhairle, could we get some little toy to keep some of the Deputies quiet for a while? I am at a very serious part of my speech.
Did the Deputy bring back any from Israel?
The Minister for Justice will not like hearing his interruption called unintelligent.
I was referring to the Opposition. In Jerusalem I was impressed by the great things they have succeeded in doing since 1948. I was impressed by the way they have housed their people. I do not know how it was done.
Slave labour.
It was done by the Jewish people in America, by the supporters of the Jewish people all over the world.
Mr. Barrett
The Irish people in America did not do the same for us.
There are millions of Irish friends in the United States and all over the world.
Unfortunately.
If we could influence our people to act as the Jewish people did, we would be the greatest nation in the world and from this Assembly I should like to make an appeal to our people abroad to invest in the future of this country. If they bought only one £5 bond each, and that is a small investment——
Experience of past bonds might not encourage them.
I shall sit here and listen to the Deputy and not say a word but would be mind closing his mouth while I am making my speech? We have reached a turning point and we have a very big programme ahead. Our second economic programme is under way and I appeal to Deputies and to the Irish people at home and abroad to invest in the welfare of the country. We have been criticised for going to Jerusalem. One thing I can say about it is that it gave me great pleasure to address the 2,000 delegates and invite them to a similar conference here. If the Irish people abroad gave us a small percentage of the support Israel has got from her people and friends abroad, we could, as I have already said, be the greatest nation not only in Europe but in the world. If the steps the Minister for Finance has taken are not sufficient to remedy the problems facing the country, I appeal to the members of all Parties, to the representatives of church bodies and to all the people to give even sixpence per week per person towards a pool of goodwill to ensure that the nation will go on with any programme——
(Cavan): I knew the country was in a bad way but I did not realise it was that bad.
Do not draw me on you now. I will give you all you want of it.
Order, Deputy Burke must be allowed to make his speech.
When other nations were up against it, they rallied behind their Governments. If the German nation could come back after six years to become one of the richest in the world—I am not an anti-Hitler preacher—I do not see why we cannot do the same. It is no use our speaking about the Minister for Finance having done this or that. We all know that any Minister for Finance will be unpopular when he brings in a Budget aimed at securing the wellbeing of the nation. God forbid that we should see a year like 1956-57.
What about 1965-66?
There was not the price of a bag of cement left.
There is not the price of a bag now, not to talk of the cement.
Deputies on all sides of the House are entitled to speak without interruption. That applies to the Government side as well as the Opposition.
I had thought that when making this national appeal I would at least have some co-operation from the Opposition but they are so blinded by political considerations and so concerned with the interests of their Party that they cannot see the national interest. We are concerned with the interests of the nation as a whole, irrespective of politics. We have always and will always put the interests of Ireland before the interests of our Party and anything we can do for the benefit of the country, we shall do it. Little can be done, even if the Minister for Finance were ten times better than he is, unless we get the wholehearted co-operation of the people. We must do something practical and worthwhile and that can only be done by the people as a whole rallying behind the Government, whatever Party are in power.
I heard Deputy O'Higgins on television and one would imagine that he had just arrived in this country and knew nothing about the background. One would never suspect that he was a Minister in the Government who ran away from their responsibilities in 1957. He criticised the present Minister, the Budget and everything else. If that is Irish politics and if all we can expect in 1966 is that type of dishonest approach, it speaks ill for our prospects. While the Deputy is a very nice fellow personally, a gentleman, he spoke in a very brazen way in so far as his speech on Telefís Éireann was concerned. It was the most dastardly thing I ever heard. One would imagine he had cures for all the ills.
He must have told the truth when he annoyed you so much.
Can the Deputy say anything constructive? To say the least of it, it was an extraordinary performance by Deputy O'Higgins who knew the background and all that we had undergone in that period and who knew the humiliation of leaving office with an unbalanced Budget and the country in a chaotic condition. Had he said that he did not agree with the harsh taxes that had been imposed in this Budget and that other items should be taxed instead or had he made some constructive proposals, the people would have said: "That is an honest man."
They would have thought he was Deputy Burke.
But the people know that Deputy O'Higgins was a Minister in the inter-Party Government when the country went as low as it could go. That was political play-acting and that is what is retarding the progress of this great old country.
I shall finish by expressing the hope that the Irish people will really behind the Government as the Jewish people have rallied behind the Government of Israel and I hope that the national aim will be to ensure that there is no unemployment, that we shall not be retarded in our progress towards the aims we have set for ourselves and that we shall all do everything we can to make this country a better country than it was when we were born into it.
Mr. Barrett
I am very grateful to Deputy Burke at this early hour for giving us the heartening news that in Jerusalem they can build houses and raise American loans. I am sorry the Deputy did not remain to reflect that possibly the secret of Jerusalem's success is that there is not a Fianna Fáil Government in power because here we cannot raise American loans and we cannot build houses and these are among other things we cannot do. This day week we trooped into this House to hear the Minister for Finance in a dazed way asking the House what went wrong with the Budget of last May. That is a remarkable statement in a number of ways, remarkable because I think it was the first time in the history of the House that a Minister for Finance had to ask such a question. It was also remarkable in that it was a wrong question for the Minister to pose for himself. The proper question for the Minister to pose for himself, those sitting behind him and the country was: what went wrong over the past few years?
It is all very well for the Minister to ask in this dazed way: what went wrong with the Budget of last May, as if everything that happened only began since last May. The difficulties from which we suffer today are long-standing, not something that happened in the past few months, between now and last May. We are now reaping the harvest of inept frightened government over a long period. There is no doubt that the Government have failed to govern since they went back to power in 1957. They have encouraged people to believe that the land flowing with milk and honey which they promised in 1957 had been attained and that nothing could go wrong with our economy. Having set themselves up as the dynamic force which was going to put Ireland ahead of any other European State industrially and commercially, they are afraid to turn back and say: "We must put on the brake."
During one of the major debates since January—I think it was on incomes policy—I said that what was wrong with the Government was not that they had done too little too late but had done too much too soon. They had failed to face the possibility that if they did put on the brakes, people might have become disillusioned. Unless we find Governments ready to face that, our little life in this Dáil is quite likely to be rounded with a sleep. Unless we do our duty we are not going to get a proper state of affairs here.
Deputy Burke spoke about 1957 and about the policy of the inter-Party Government. If the inter-Party Government did go out in 1957, they went out because they were ready to do the unpopular thing and because they felt it was necessary to do so. The Fianna Fáil Government saw the cancer growing in our economic body and were afraid to apply a scalpel of any description lest it would frighten the people.
This Government have deliberately courted popularity at the expense of those who elected them to govern. They have failed to govern. They have failed to tighten the reins when the reins should be tightened. They have kept the people on a loose rein and have let them gallop ahead until we find the Minister coming in here last Wednesday to say that the root of the present inflationary troubles in which we find ourselves is that public and private spending have outstripped our resources.
If that is so, who is responsible for it? Was there one note of warning issued from that front bench? Was there one note of warning issued at any of the dinners to which the Ministers went, up and down the country, to address responsible bodies such as chambers of commerce, over the last few years? Was there one note of warning sounded by the Taoiseach, by the Minister for Finance or any of the other spokesmen of the Government Party who went on television and radio before the general election in April last year inviting the support of the people? Did they say anything except: "Let Lemass lead on"? implying that if Lemass led on, he would lead on to further economic progress and when we of this Party asked the very sensible, logical question which followed the invitation to let Lemass lead on, "Lead on to what?" When we sounded a note of warning, when Deputy Dillon came in on 17 occasions, according to himself here yesterday, and sounded the same note of warning and made the same sort of speech that this ersatz prosperity could not continue, it was dismissed as a political gimmick.
As I said, every whim of the electorate was indulged so that the people might believe that at the wave of a wand the Fianna Fáil Government could erect factories and create industries overnight. Nobody ever stopped to ask where was the money coming from. We were suffering and still are suffering, as I hope to prove at a later stage in my speech, from that most dangerous and pernicious of symptoms, delusions of grandeur. We thought we had money for everything. We thought that any foreign industrialist who came into this country could get millions at the wave of a wand. Down went the people's money; up went the factories, without there being the slightest investigation as to the potentialities of those factories, without the slightest investigation as to the past history of some of the people who came here looking for those factories, so that this country was left in the sad situation that on at least one occasion a convicted British criminal could get the people's money to set up a factory on the understanding that 200 persons would be employed. He got the money. Up went the factory; down went the people's money and, instead of 200 persons being employed there, there are, I understand, and have been over a long period of time, six persons employed for the expenditure of tens of thousands of pounds of the Irish taxpayers' money.
I mention that as a classical case but it is not the only case. There is the case of the Potez factory; there is the Dundalk fiasco and many other cases.
When we asked the Minister for Finance to justify certain expenditure on certain matters, the Minister was able to say: "Look; I have got specialist advice and I am told I can build ships here. I have got specialist advice that we can produce fertilisers here." The Minister forgot that specialists are people who know almost nothing about almost everything; they specialise in their own field and cannot look into the more extensive background which surrounds such things as new industries.
We came into this House year after year—particularly Deputy John A. Costello and myself and a few more who travel the roads extensively—and we asked the Government was it right that millions and millions and millions of pounds should be spent on our main highways, allegedly for tourist purposes, when the people could not get houses, and we were unheeded. It was plain and still is plain to anybody who travels our roads that we have spent and will continue to spend unnecessary millions upon the roads. I am very glad that these monuments to Fianna Fáil ineptitude exist because they show plainly that the Government as a result of many years in Government both since 1957 and prior to 1954 have become completely out of touch with the people.
I remember fighting a by-election in 1954 when the people of Cork were crying out for housing. At that time the Government's contribution to easing the lot of the unhoused thousands in Cork and other cities was to purchase a horse called Tulyar. I succeeded in that by-election. I still believe that much of our success in that election arose from the fact that we had a slogan, "You wanted a house and you got a horse." That kind of thing still happens. People want houses; they get roads. People want houses; they get factories which are likely to close down. The people in Cork wanted houses; they got an opera house.
I was very roundly criticised in certain circles when here in this House I reminded the Minister for Finance, who comes from my own constituency, when he came looking for £35,000 extra for the completion of the Cork Opera House, that whilst I had no objection to the Cork Opera House, I thought it meet that we should consider was there any other better way in which that money could be spent. In all, from public funds there went towards the building of the Opera House £160,000. If that money from public funds could now be recovered, would we still spend it on building the Cork Opera House?
That gets us back to a remark that the Minister passed when introducing his Budget last week, a remark which appeared to the Minister evidently as being completely original. It was, admittedly, original thinking from the Fianna Fáil benches but as far as this side of the House is concerned, it is as old as Methuselah. The Minister said that this year various desirable improvements have necessarily to be postponed until the means of paying for them can be more readily found. We have been appealing to the Minister over the years to adopt exactly that philosophy, to approach economics in the same way as he would approach his own problems of household management and to ask himself, not what was desirable but what was necessary and to spend first on the necessaries and then get along to the things which were not necessary but which were desirable when the resources could be more readily found.
I am very glad that this day week the Minister, for the first time, enunciated that principle as a cornerstone of Fianna Fáil policy but I regret deeply that that policy was not adopted by the Government three, four or five years ago, in time to prevent the situation developing in which we now find ourselves.
These are not recriminations. They are reflections on the grim facts of political history so that the mistakes, the effect of which we are now suffering, may not be repeated. Never again must we see the depressing spectacle of the Minister admitting that both the private and public spending have outrun our resources and that we are in the grip of a frightening inflation. The remedy for it is not in our hands; the remedy for it is in the Government's hands. They were elected to govern and we are entitled to say: "You are in Government and do not come in bleating and blahing about the private expenditure which has outstripped our resources." If private expenditure has outstripped our resources, it is because the Government were afraid to put on the brakes, afraid to pull on the reins, afraid to say: "the golden era of Fianna Fáil prosperity is over and you must tighten your belt."
Deputy Burke asked if we had any constructive proposals. Constructive or not, there are certain comments which can be made on the present economic situation which are worth making. They go back to my earlier suggestion that this Government are completely out of touch with what the people want. They go back to the day when the Government informed the banks that credit should be restricted and they exist today in the situation that if I go into a bank and ask for £1,000 to build a house, I am told: "I am terribly sorry, sir, there is no money". However, I can go down the street to a hire purchase company, which is a chip off the same bank, and say: "I want £1,000 to buy a motor car", and I will get it. I will pay more interest for it but I will get it. But in no circumstances anywhere—and when I say anywhere, I mean anywhere, Government sources or elsewhere— can I get money to build a house in which I can bring up my children in the fear and love of God.
That is the sort of constructive criticism the Government might think about. There is no use in the Minister coming in and saying that private spending has outstripped our resources if he is not prepared to do something about private spending and say: "Look; young men and women cannot afford motor cars on the nevernever system and we will make it very difficult for them to have them". My advice to the Minister is: "Be a man." My advice to the Government is: "Be a manly Government; govern the people and do not be governed by them".
The Minister spoke here in depressing terms about his Budget. He admitted that it was a difficult and unhappy Budget to introduce and he said that it was all take and no give. He explained it by saying that all the giving had been done already, implying thereby that the giving had been done to the people, that the nice Minister for Finance had said: "Here is £1 for thou, here is £1 for he and here is £1 for she." Where was the giving done? I have already suggested where the giving was done—to foreign industrialists and into our roads and various such projects, not into the pockets of the people. Now the taking is being done from the pockets of the people and the great tragedy is that the giving has not stopped.
Over the past year and a half we have had the most prodigal expenses in keeping our forces in Cyprus. In External Affairs, we are the bullfrog of the United Nations, blowing ourselves up to the point where we nearly burst, blowing ourselves up and saying: "We know that it is costing nearly £1 million to keep our forces there but please do not offer us payment because we will not take it." It was only when suggestions came from this side of the House that that was the kind of thing we could not afford that the Government began to think that maybe they could get some of that money. Despite our sorry experience over the past one and a half years, the Government are now considering keeping our forces in Cyprus and it is very plain that if they are kept there, they will not be kept at the expense of the United Nations but at the expense of the Irish taxpayer. I trust that if the Government are asked to keep a force there for the next six months, they will consider first whether or not they will be paid for them. If they are not paid for them, they will answer at the bar of public opinion which is outraged by the fact that the most glaring economies are exercised at the expense of the FCA but evidently we can spend as much as we please on keeping our forces with the United Nations.
However, there is the still more amazing example contained in the book of Estimates on page 174 where under the heading "United Nations," we have "Contribution towards the United Nations Emergency Force: The expenses of the United Nations in respect of United Nations Emergency Force are being met by contributions from member States assessed on a percentage basis." We pay £12,350 for that. Not alone that, but we are giving £18,000 to the United Nations Voluntary Fund for Cyprus to meet the cost of the United Nations forces there. Under the heading "International Co-operation" we are voting £204,300, almost £20,000 more than last year. In addition, this House was horrified to hear in reply to a Parliamentary Question asked recently, that about £8,000 had been spent by the Minister for External Affairs in flitting from here to New York and staying there and coming back now and again to see how his constituency was doing. The Government who say that they are flat broke and might have to come back to us again in the autumn with a Supplementary Budget might well consider every reasonable economy.
I refer the Minister to the fact that we on this side of the House, both in the House and in the local authorities to which we belong, have protested time and again against the horrible prospect of some £100,000 of the taxpayers' money being unnecessarily spent in holding the local government elections on a day separate from the Presidential election. I remember the Minister for Local Government coming in here and saying that he would give us the reasons for this the following week. He gave us the reasons and none of us was surprised that he had postponed giving them. They were so shallow, so unreal and so divorced from the economic circumstances in which we find ourselves that even the Minister for Local Government could well hesitate to have the brashness to come in and give them as reasons. We heard the Taoiseach on Saturday night, when being asked ex tempore questions by Mr. Barrington, regretting that there was so much cynicism about public life in this country. The decision to which I have just referred the House is a breeding ground of the cynicism the Taoiseach regrets so much.
The local bodies which were to be elected in the local government elections this year got a mandate from the people to govern for five years in their particular areas. That was up last June. Many of us who are members of local bodies probably look around us in the local authority chamber and say so-and-so is past his prime and they might say we ourselves are past our prime. But past our prime or not, the only mandate we got was to stay in office until June, 1965. This Government for reasons best known to themselves alone have decided, irrespective of the will of the people and by a wave of a wand by the Minister for Local Government, that people not elected to govern shall continue to govern. That is a denial of the democratic right of the people to elect their own local representatives.
Another pressing aspect of the Budget is that small savings have dropped by some £5 million. The Minister mentioned it but did not try to explain it. The fact is, of course, that a people running on the loose reins held by the Government are spending their money. Those who are not spending it are not encouraged to invest in small savings. The Minister was down in Cork recently opening a new branch of the Cork Trustee Savings Bank. He explained in a comforting sort of way that although the investors in the bank got only 2½ per cent of their money it was all right because that money came up to Dublin but came back again through the Local Loans Fund. He forgot to mention to the grateful people of Cork that their money invested in the Savings Bank at 2½ per cent, sent to Dublin and conduited back to Cork came back at 6¾ per cent. Is that any encouragement to people to invest in small savings? If we had a reasonable, logical Government approach to this matter we would long ago have had an announcement from the Government that some new incentive was being given to people to invest in small savings. I regret very much we have to refer to these matters. Possibly Deputies on the other side feel it gives us some gloomy satisfaction. If this country fails we all fail. It is not just the Fianna Fáil Party or those who support it who are going to feel the lash.
I was interested to hear the Taoiseach being interviewed by a Mr. Barrington on television on Saturday night. We saw the back of Mr. Barrington's poll. The questions appeared to come from that area— from some posterior area of Mr. Barrington. The Taoiseach was suitably surprised by the questions thrown at him by Mr. Barrington. The Taoiseach explained that these questions were just the questions that you, the people in the drawingrooms of Ireland, would ask. The people in the drawingrooms of Ireland could have thought of much more embarrassing questions. I would like to pay tribute to the charitable approach Mr. Barrington took towards the Taoiseach when he framed his questions. I would like also to pay tribute to the artistry of the Taoiseach, the surprise he showed, when the questions were thrown at him and the manner in which he was able to answer. Despite the fact that it was an excellent piece of showmanship, it satisfied nobody in this country that they were the sort of questions the people of Ireland wanted answered. The people of Ireland want answered the questions I have posed here. Why must we continue to waste money in keeping troops in Cyprus when we could have been paid for them all along? Why must we continue to build roads, footpaths and various other things which are desirable but not necessary? The Minister for Finance said last Wednesday that we must postpone the desirable things so that we can spend our limited resources on the necessary things.
I want to finish on a note which was sounded by the Taoiseach on Saturday night during this interesting interview on television. He told Mr. Barrington all he could really hope for was that provided certain assumptions were well founded we could expect a much more impressive growth of production in 1967. That is the Achilles heel of the Fianna Fáil programme. Everything is founded on certain assumptions. If these certain assumptions are proved to be correct everything will be wonderful. We have been living in an age of assumptions for the last four or five years. This year instead of that we have descended to reality because the hard facts of our lack of economic progress have forced us to do so. We found ourselves in a situation here last Wednesday in which the Minister, in his own nice, inimitable fashion, apologised to the House and said he was terribly sorry that this thing had to be done. Then all the gentlemen behind him clapped. I want to congratulate my colleagues in the constituency of Cork, Deputy Healy and Deputy Wyse, for clapping the Budget. It was the most courageous action I have seen. But I would like to assure them that they are the only two citizens of Cork I have met so far who have clapped the Budget. The Budget is a measure of the manner in which we have continued along the roads of assumptions which have led us into the difficulties we are now experiencing.
Deputy Burke asked us for some constructive proposals. I have done my best to give them. I have done my best to indicate that the people do not want to send our brave boys out to Cyprus when they have to put their hands into their pockets. In addition to paying extra PAYE, extra income tax, more for petrol, cigarettes, drink and other things, they do not want to have to pay the extra money that obviously will be involved in keeping our troops in Cyprus. They do not mind driving on roads which are quite reasonably fitted for the growth in Irish traffic at present. They do not mind having a few holes in footpaths if they can save expenditure. I would suggest to every member of the Fianna Fáil Party as well as members of other Parties who belong to local authorities that if their estimates are not already completed they should approach matters like that on the basis suggested by the Minister, so that instead of the inspiration coming from above it might come from below and percolate into Government circles. From this on until we are able to look our creditors in the face we will not waste our money on desirable things. We will confine ourselves to necessaries and never again will Deputies have to face the spectacle of being told by the financial spokesman for the Government that both Government and private spending have outstripped our resources and that despite the fact that a blistering Budget is being inflicted upon the people in the month of March, 1966, there might be further bad news ahead in the autumn.
Progress reported; Committee to sit again.