Political considerations are the paramount consideration of the present Fianna Fáil Government and supersede all other considerations. The position is that this plan has failed. Deputies remember, and the public remember, the claim that 100,000 new jobs would be provided. But the rider was never added that these jobs were to be in Birmingham, Coventry and Montreal.
What are the facts? This year, we have the lowest number in our history in employment in Ireland and the highest rate of taxation since the State was founded, or even before that. On pages 24 and 25 of the NIEC Report —we have so many bodies reporting now and offering comments that it is difficult to keep in touch with them— we are told that the total number expected to be at work in 1966 is approximately 1,046,000 compared with 1,056,000 in 1963. In this respect, the growth in employment has fallen short of the target in all sectors.
But that is not the whole story. The drop in the numbers employed on the land has risen to twice the former level. There was a drop of 24,000 between 1963 and 1965 and of 14,000 between 1964 and 1965. In the Second Programme, the projected drop was 5,000 a year. In other words, the flight from the land is more than double—almost three times in one year —what was projected and the numbers in employment are lower than projected. But taxation is substantially higher. In fact, the present level of taxation shows that, in four years, it has increased to £110 million—almost a two-thirds increase. This year, taxation will absorb 58 per cent of projected increases in national production —this, in any event, is unlikely to be achieved—leaving only 42 per cent in the hands of those who produce it, that is, the farmers, workers and industry.
Taxes on income in the past five years have doubled. Government taxes on expenditure in the same period have increased by two-thirds. Is it any wonder that the price stability which was promised has not occurred? The consumer price index in mid-February, 1966, was 2.3 per cent higher than in mid-February, 1965. The figure for mid-May shows a further rise of 3.39 points. That does not take into account increased bus and train fares. It does not take into account the increase in the price of butter. It does not take into account the increases imposed since yesterday or the projected increases in turnover tax from next October.
What has been the experience in respect of agricultural output? The volume of net agricultural output in 1965 was estimated to have fallen by about one per cent below that of 1964 although cattle stocks were up. In respect of transportable goods, the volume of production rose by only 3.3 per cent in 1965 as against 9.9 per cent in 1964. But, most significant of all, and the test which the present Taoiseach said was the acid test of any economic policy, in the last quarter of 1965, the number on the live register of unemployed rose by 5,000 or more than ten per cent compared with the last quarter of 1964.
In respect of production in agriculture, not merely are we static but we are slightly down. In respect of the increase in production in transportable goods, we are only one-third of the figure of increase in 1963, the increase being 3.3 per cent as against 9.9 per cent. Unemployment is up by more than 9,000 and the workers' situation has shown no worthwhile change or improvement.
That is not the whole story. CIE has recently increased bus and rail fares. The public statement announcing the increase indicated that these would be of modest proportions but I know of one item which a medical man has to send twice weekly by passenger train in the form of a parcel from Bray to Blackrock. The charge up to Monday last was 1/1d and on Monday last, it was 2/6d, an increase of over 100 per cent. We have reached the situation in which even a modest parcel charge has to be increased at an excessive rate to ensure that CIE can meet its commitments.
There have been certain talks about CIE and about certain payments to which I do not wish to refer, but the pensions of the average CIE workers are the lowest pensions paid to any sector of the community or by any undertaking I know of. Bad as that is, small as these pensions are, there are CIE workers who have been retired for over seven years and who are still awaiting a superannuation award. They cannot get a decision in respect of their superannuation. Many of these workers have died without being able to make a decision as to whether they should commute their pensions so as to be able to pass some on to their widows and families. If the Minister for Transport and Power has anything to do, and as far as anyone can gather, he has no responsibility for anything, this is a field in which some action could be taken by him to ensure that a decision will be given in these matters and some increase given on these small pensions. These people who have retired on these small pensions, these people who have to wait so long for a decision as to their superannuation awards, become enraged when they see that a quick decision can be reached in other cases. It makes them feel that they are neglected and ignored.
The increase in CIE rates and fares will have a widespread reaction and the present increase in the tax on petrol must increase the cost of distribution. It must increase the cost of distribution for the variety of business firms who run petrol-driven vans and lorries. This is the second time in the space of ten weeks that these costs have risen. There have been appeals by the Taoiseach and his Ministers to traders and the business community generally to try to absorb price increases, to try to ensure that the benefits of price reductions will be passed on to the consumer. Two weeks ago the petrol companies indicated their intention, and applied that intention, to reduce the price of petrol by a worthwhile figure. This was a worthwhile reduction but the Government immediately offset it.
There was similar action in the case of an increase last year. When the price of petrol was increased, there was a great furore at the Fianna Fáil Árd Fheis and there was an inquiry about it. Because the petrol companies had then increased the price of petrol, the Government ordered a reduction in the price and, subsequently, in the last Budget, increased the tax on petrol in order to get more revenue. The reduction in price recently granted by the petrol companies has now been nullified by the extra taxation brought in yesterday. What is the use of suggesting to the business community that they endeavour to absorb price increases when the Government immediately nullify such action by a further increase in taxation?
In this present Budget, there has been no statement by the Minister with regard to revenue and expenditure. There is no reference in it to these matters except one by the Minister which is made in a very vague fashion. It is the practice of the Government recently to be vague on some matters. The proposed increases in pay to State-paid personnel will absorb an undefined sum this year. It may be £3 million; it may be £2 million. We are told that the cost in a full year will be of the order of £4 million. The only reason there can be for putting it in that way is to avoid saying when it is proposed that these increases should be paid. It is possible to say that the increases in the old age pensions will be postponed until November but it is not possible to say when it is proposed to pay the increase of £1 per week for males and 15/- per week for females within the income limit of £1,200 per year for these categories in the State service.
On the assumption that these increases will cost either £2 million or £3 million, they may be paid from 1st July next. In addition, there is a sum of £2.36 million required to provide for increased farm incomes and £.5 million for increases to the Garda. There is £100,000 for social welfare benefits but whether this is in addition to the £2.5 million contained in the first Budget this year has not been stated. A further £3 million is necessary for beef and lamb exports. These figures amount to £6.2 million.
In page 8 of his statement, the Minister said that buoyancy of revenue would provide another £2 million, although he had earlier stated that there was no sign of any such buoyancy up to the present. If there is no sign of any buoyancy of revenue up to the middle of June, how does the Minister expect that there will be any buoyancy during the remainder of the year? The Minister's tax increases for the remainder of this year come to £3.1 million, which leaves an extra £1.1 million to be found elsewhere. It may be said that these figures will vary according to when the proposed increases in respect of State servants come into operation. The Government should be the first to tell the House when it is proposed that these increases will operate.
Every other section has applied the increase from May last and surely the State, in a matter of this kind, should not be less generous or set any less defined headline than other institutions and private employment in respect of wage and salary adjustments. The really serious situation about this present Budget is that the increase in taxation contained in it provides no additional benefits in respect of the health services. The health services are being neglected. The Minister for Health has talked on a variety of topics. He addresses himself from time to time to certain conditions in hospitals, and so on. He will talk about anything except providing more money for health services. The Minister for Education has spoken at length on education. He has addressed himself to a variety of questions concerned with it. But there is no more money in this Budget or in the last Budget for education, nothing to help people to increase the opportunities of education except what they can do themselves.
There is nothing more for housing. I have already spoken here on the serious situation which presents itself as far as Dublin County Council are concerned. Approximately one-third of the total building in this country takes place in the Dublin area. The total sum available to Dublin County Council in respect of SDA loans has been entirely absorbed by the applications which were in before 31st December. There are 300 or 400 additional applications since. They have been told there is no money to grant any of these loans this year and there is no prospect of any of these applications being dealt with. As far as Dún Laoghaire Corporation are concerned, they have under construction at present a scheme of 23 houses. There are over 350 applicants on the waiting list and there is no other scheme in sight. Every local authority in the country without, I think, exception have not sufficient money to carry on their existing housing schemes. In respect of SDA loans, they are all in a position more or less similar to that of Dublin County Council, but possibly less acute because they have not as many applicants.
In respect of social welfare recipients, increases have been postponed until 1st November. In the meantime butter, milk, bus fares, beer and tobacco have all been increased. Worse still, when the British Government recently gave an increase to British pensioners living in this country, the Minister for Social Welfare here applied a stringent means test under which the increases granted have now been absorbed. He was a bit vague here yesterday. He tried to imply that the £268,000 would be for the benefit of less well off recipients. What less well off recipients have got any increase under this? What less well off recipients will get one 6d out of it? The only recipient will be the Minister for Finance and the Exchequer.
The general dissatisfaction that has arisen, the fact that so many people are concerned about the future and that there is so much industrial unrest have all been stimulated and prompted by the cheap publicity and propaganda indulged in by the Government last year when they asserted: "Give us a majority. You can vote yourselves prosperity. You can vote yourselves jobs, increased incomes, an increased standard of living, increased advantages, better housing, better health services, better education, provided you vote Fianna Fáil". Now people find that the cost of living is higher. There are thousands more on the waiting lists for houses. There are no improved health services. The increases granted to social welfare recipients do not even compensate for the increases being imposed in the two Budgets this year. There have been increases in CIE fares and freight rates, increases in respect of almost every commodity. If one takes the Consumer Price Index, one sees there has been a rise in the price of even the humblest commodity. Last year alone the price of potatoes rose by over 47 per cent. I know that the Taoiseach or someone else will say that that was fortuitous last year. But the year before the price rose by 17 per cent or 18 per cent. So that in less than two years we have a rise in the price of the humblest commodity, the very ordinary food produced here, of over 50 per cent. That must be coupled with the steep rise in the price of meat and other essential foodstuffs and the steep rise in prices of beer, spirits and tobacco. At the same time, there are exhortations to save and to lend money to the Government.
Is it any wonder in the light of that situation, in which expenditure continually outruns revenue, in which every section of the community is taxed at a higher rate than ever before and taxed at over eight per cent higher than was projected in the Second Programme, in which it is impossible to get additional money for housing, impossible to proceed with school building, impossible to get loans from the Agricultural Credit Corporation, impossible to get advances under the SDA Acts, that when the Government seek a loan abroad, no one has any confidence in the loan? It was only possible for this country to get a loan at the most onerous terms any Government in any country in any circumstances ever secured a loan. We had to hawk our credit around the world from New York to London and ultimately to Bonn before we got it.
Contrast that with the position in which three oil companies with world-wide ramifications, of their own volition, because of their confidence and faith in the country, invested £12 million a few years ago in an oil refinery, possibly the largest single investment ever made here. Contrast it with the circumstances in which for the first time Messrs. Guinness, who have world-wide operations and interests, were so impressed by the soundness of the project in respect of the briquette factory that they themselves of their own volition advanced half a million pounds and invested in it. Today we have to pay the very dearest prices. Surely it is time to employ Deputy MacEntee as he was employed some years ago when he put up the pawnbroker's sign in circumstances entirely different? At that time it was possible to get money not merely at home from our own people but abroad when it was sought. Compare that with the circumstances now in which it is common knowledge that every single device—financial, monetary, economic, banking—that can be adopted has been adopted by the Government, by the Central Bank, by the Department of Finance and by every institution under Government control and direction to make available sufficient money to keep the ship afloat.
Our concern is not for the Government. Our concern and anxiety is not for the fate of the Government or of individual Ministers. Our concern is for the fate and future of this country. We are satisfied that in spite of lack of leadership, lack of direction, lack of a sense of purpose, lack of a conscious realisation of present problems largely created by Government mismanagement, ultimately if this country is properly led and given opportunity and effective direction, it is capable of pulling itself out of the present economic difficulties. Before it can do that, it will require not merely a change of heart but a change of Government.
The present increases I have referred to in respect of taxation show that in this year alone taxes on income will have risen by over 15 per cent—a total of £15½ million compared with last year, from £79.8 million to over £94 million in the current year. Taxes on expenditure will have risen by almost £18 million. Total taxation will have risen by over £30 million or 12 per cent. The burden of taxation taken as a percentage of production will have risen in full by seven per cent. That situation is even more clearly emphasised when we look at the central and local taxation. In 1966-67, after the second Budget, compared with 1965-66, taxes on expenditure amount to £149.3 million and in 1965-66 they amounted to £134.7 million. Rates last year were £30.3 million and this year the figure is £33.5 million. In the first case, there was an increase of 82 per cent and in the second, 48 per cent and local government increases are static at 1.5 per cent. The total increase was 74 per cent. Between 1963-64 and 1966-67, over the same period, there was a rise of 40 per cent. These increases have all been imposed, as I said, without any increases in respect of housing, education, social welfare services, or health services.
The present position is one in which the Government have shown no direction and no leadership, in contrast with the decision which was announced by the present Taoiseach during the Budget debate in 1956 when he said:
In 1953, the Fianna Fáil Government, of which I was a member, took a decision that taxation in this country had reached the danger limit. We announced that we had made up our minds on that fact and that, so far as we were concerned, there would be no increase in tax rates above the 1953 level.
It is well also to recall, for the benefit of newer Deputies, that one of the functions of an Opposition laid down by the Taoiseach, Deputy Lemass, when speaking on the Finance Bill in 1954 was that:
It was the duty of the Opposition, of every individual Deputy outside the Government——
that is a bit of an obligation on some of the Fianna Fáil Deputies——
to criticise every proposal submitted by the Government if it was open to criticism and to expose its defects and faults.
I noticed yesterday that Deputy Cunningham has decided to resign from the chairmanship of Donegal County Council because of the failure of the manager to do certain things. There is, of course, another way in which dissatisfaction can be expressed. A member of a county council, particularly a man who enjoys majority support, can put down a motion calling on the manager to do certain things. If Deputy Cunningham's dissatisfaction is really dissatisfaction at the failure of the Government to provide money, then it is understandable, but I do not think it should be shoved on to the manager particularly when there is a remedy provided in the Local Government Act, 1956, by which the council, by a majority, can direct the manager, and if he refuses in those circumstances to comply with the direction, they can suspend him. The Fianna Fáil Party have a majority in Donegal. It would be more impressive if that majority was used to take effective action rather than to use the occasion as a pretext or as a gimmick similar to the practice operated here by the Taoiseach last week when in order to deflect attention from the serious economic and financial position, an announcement was made that Fianna Fáil had been converted to the idea of a Minister for Labour. We will have something further to say on that at a later stage. However, that announcement was designed to deflect attention. In that regard it is common knowledge that half the Government are passengers and the other half do not know where they are going, and even if they did, they would not know how to get there. The best expenditure that could be made in the country would be to give each member of the Government a golden handshake and let each of them retire.