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Dáil Éireann debate -
Thursday, 7 Jul 1966

Vol. 223 No. 14

Adjournment (Summer Recess).

Debate resumed on the following motion:
That the Dáil at its rising this week for the Summer recess do adjourn until Tuesday, 27th September.
—(The Taoiseach.)

Discussion on the housing problem, which has been grossly neglected by the Government, brings one inevitably to the question of the rents being charged for local authority houses. I was dismayed, and the tenants of Dublin Corporation and Dublin County Council houses were appalled, at the recent announcement about the possibility of exorbitant increases in rents for the houses in which they reside. This has been counselled by the Minister for Local Government to the managers in Dublin and throughout the country, and indeed has been put into effect in respect of persons transferring from one house to another in Dublin Corporation administrative area. We have in Dublin city and county a new manager and I look forward to many years of very efficient administration by him. However, the beginning he has made has been somewhat inauspicious and no little public commotion has been occasioned by the announcement of his intention to review rents upwards, on the instruction of the Minister for Local Government. Tenants and those desperately seeking houses from Dublin Corporation and Dublin County Council have been distressed to learn that in some cases these rents may reach £6 a week. Imagine such a figure being charged for a local authority house anywhere, especially when one considers the kind of tenancy agreement which has to be entered into by those who take up the occupancy of corporation and county council houses.

Is that the responsibility of the Government?

The Minister certainly has a responsibility and I assume the Cabinet has a collective responsibility. The Party who now constitutes the Government made a big thing about the collective responsibility of the Cabinet. The new maximum figure mentioned for these rents is £6 a week. As a background to that, you have the corporation tenant who is uniquely divested of his rights in so far as tenancy is concerned. A tenant of Dublin Corporation, and perhaps of the county council, can be put out of his house, according to his tenancy agreement, and can be evicted, without the corporation having to give any reason whatever. All that the corporation need do to recover possession from any tenant in any corporation scheme is to go to court and ask for it and the court under the law must order the tenant's eviction. Therefore the corporation tenant is a person without rights in so far as tenancies generally are concerned. Yet the Government propose that the already high rents of these houses, which are around £2 a week, inclusive of rates, shall be substantially increased. This proposal by the Minister for Local Government will be resisted by the tenants with all the power at their disposal. I want to impress, so far as it is possible at this remove, upon the City Manager, that he is hastening towards a disastrous position——

This motion is directed to the Government. The Deputy should confine himself to directing his remarks to the Government.

Then I will delete the words "City Manager" and refer to the Minister for Local Government, hereinafter to be known as "the Government," who is the person responsible.

The Deputy is a draftsman.

Far from it, indeed, although a certain dexterity in shifting is essential in this House. I want to say to the Government that they are advancing towards a disastrous position from every point of view. The tenants will resist this. Already throughout the suburban and city housing schemes they have been showing signs of concern and worry about this matter and they have come together in large numbers legally to express their objections to any such move. Indeed, if an attempt is made to put this into effect the social consequences could be calamitous because the increase of rents on such a wide scale—Dublin Corporation housing estates consist of almost 20,000 houses —must inevitably lead to inflationary effects because inevitably the workers who occupy these houses must seek further wage increases. Any step the Government deliberately take which results in giving an impetus to this move is socially wrong and harmful to the whole economic fabric.

If ever we are to reach economic stability and if the new Minister for Labour, Deputy Dr. Hillery, is to have any success in the very arduous task of discovering a via media between the two warring sects with which he will have to contend, the Government will have a duty at least to prevent any of their Ministers from encouraging activity by the local authority which must inevitably lead to further demands for wage increases, because that is the logical and inevitable result of any move to increase rents. The Labour Party stands solidly against this from the point of view of its gravity and in so far as it represents an added imposition upon an already hard-pressed working population.

As an instance of that, recently I circulated in this House a sample budget of a Dublin workingclass family which anybody could see erred on the side of conservatism, in which it was proved that this family would have just the bare necessaries upon which to exist, taking the average wage of a Dublin worker at £12 per week, plus children's allowances in respect of three children. Averaging the whole thing out, one discovers from this document which I circulated that, even living at the level of self-denial of the most rigorous kind, such a worker must inevitably find himself in debt. That budget did not provide for any luxuries such as the pint, which many do not regard as a luxury and which, certainly, I do not regard as a luxury for the working man. It excluded that, and it also excluded washing machines, which are very often thrust upon workingclass households by highpressure salesmen, and various things of that nature. It showed clearly that the average worker in this city and county, living on a very tight budget, is unable to meet his financial responsibilities.

In that situation, we have Dublin Corporation, at the instance of the Minister for Local Government, saying they are going to increase house rents from £2 to £6. This would be criminal and it must be stopped. This is one of the reasons why we have put down this motion of no confidence in the Government. I am sure this is news to some members of the Government, although this circular was issued by the Department several months ago. I am willing to bet quite a number of members of the Government are not aware of what has happened. Of course that is only symptomatic of the lassitude for which this Government have become notorious in the past few years.

Similarly, the slipshod methods of determining what our housing needs are call for condemnation. In 1964 when the White Paper on housing was produced, Dublin Corporation had over 10,000 applications from families needing houses. However, by some process of analysis known to and understood only by officialdom, it was determined that the effective housing list was something like half that number. It does not matter that there were 10,000 families in need of housing. The effective housing list, which meant the number of families living in completely intolerable conditions, was about half that number. It is this conservative approach to housing which has been present in the very stones of the Custom House over the past several years which has us as we are today, certainly in Dublin city and county and, I would say, in the rest of the country as well.

Today there is utter frustration in regard to housing. For the young man and woman or for any family seeking a house, the outlook is hopeless, and I am continually being told by them: "We will be left with no alternative but to clear out and go to England." When I say to them, as I have done on hundreds of occasions, that they will have the same problem about housing there, they will say: "My brother or sister is over there and they do not have to wait as long for a council house in England as we have to wait here. We do not want to leave Ireland. We do not like the prospect of raising our children in England because of the obvious dangers, but there are obvious advantages, too. We can get education for our children at a far more reasonable price than we can get it here. In some cases it is free education, which we have not got here. We can get free medical service at all levels, whereas here there is a means test so far as medical service are concerned." No matter how one discourages them, they have these things in mind, and it is hard to blame them.

It is impossible to refrain from the strongest condemnation of the Government who permit this situation to drift in the manner in which it is drifting. If there were no other counts—and goodness knows, there are many other counts—on which to convict the Government for neglect, this one would suffice, and it should be sufficient to run any body of men with any decency out of office. It is very easy to permit one-self to be lulled into a sense of euphoric "all is well with the world" in this House, and indeed in the corridors where exist delusions of power. But in the houses of the people it is a different matter, where they come face to face daily with the harsh realities of life and how to make the £1 stretch to cover what it takes 25/- to buy.

We have had many examples, in this year particularly, of the Government dancing out of reach of local authorities who want money for houses. Schemes have been put up by county councils and by corporations which require money from central funds to enable the local authorities to build, and Question Time here for all of this year has unfailingly shown cases where local authorities of one kind or another have been put on the long finger by the Government and have not been able to build because the money has not been forthcoming. This has not been actually stated by the Government but everybody knows that the Government have so maladministered the affairs of the country that the Exchequer is practically on its knees. There is nothing in it.

I recall the references of my learned and esteemed colleague, Deputy Burke, to the last inter-Party Government and even yet one seldom hears him deliver his homily outside any parish church but he will produce the bag of cement which, he says, was all that was there when Fianna Fáil came back to office in 1957. That bag of cement has stood him in good stead and it seems to be still as good as ever. There is not even a bag of cement now. There is absolutely no money for essential services of this kind. How has this happened?

It can have happened only because of the lack of capacity of those in charge to plan properly and to foresee income and expenditure. There is no other way of looking at it. It is like people running a business. If they do not run it properly, they will run it into the ground and they will end up by talking to Mr. Justice Budd. Unfortunately, there is no justice before whom this administration can be brought to account for their stewardship. The only justices in this case are the people and wild horses would not drag this Government before the people just now.

This is resulting in the development of a completely cynical view of policies among the electorate, something which is fundamentally bad. People are coming to the conclusion that political Parties are composed of groups of adventurers who get into power by promising anything that comes into their heads, by slick advertisements in the Madison Avenue style, and once they are in power, that is all that matters. It does not matter what they do as long as they stay in power and the end of political activity and promise is to secure a seat in Dáil Éireann. This is bad, because one is aware that there are earnest and sincere men in all Parties in this House, just as there are the opposite. Certainly the present Government have not given evidence sufficient to convince the people that they were in earnest in the things they promised and in the things they said.

I want to leave the question of funds for housing with this remark, that the position of the Government in this matter underlines what I have been saying with regard to deceit and concealment. There has been no open expression by the Government of the fact that the money is not there. They have been telling the people that everything will be all right in the sweet bye-and-bye. Recently the Minister for Finance made a speech in which he said that things would improve. Let us hope there will be an improvement in spite of the Government's ineptitude and that there will be a de-restriction of bank credit. This is a fundamental question with the Labour Party. We believe that the banks, because of their all embracing activities—they control every aspect of the nation's economic life—should be controlled by the Government for the people and by the people.

I am afraid the Deputy is emptying the gallery.

If that is all the Minister is thinking about, it is a matter for himself. I am trying to make a serious contribution to this debate and the Minister is likely to find that this act of playing to the gallery is not paying off, particularly as far as he is concerned.

All you have succeeded in doing is emptying it.

The act of playing to the gallery is not paying off. Those that loveth the danger perish therein and the Minister should watch that. It is something that he should take to heart. I am not concerned about the number of people in the Gallery which is apparently all that concerns the Minister. I do not consider myself to be a performer in that sense as the Minister apparently considers himself to be.

I am concerned with the position of the banks in relation to the community. The position at the moment is that the banks are closed and we have no sign that the Government have exercised themselves unduly to secure a settlement of a dispute which is causing such dislocation in the commercial life of the country. It is as if the Government did not care about the bank strike and are letting it run on to come to whatever conclusion it may. The Labour Party believe that, not alone in this matter of the bank strike, but in the matter of bank policy generally, in the matter of the Central Bank, the Government should be vitally concerned because credit governs housing and every other activity in which we engage.

There has been restriction of credit in the past couple of years, a deflationary measure, through the influence of Government statements, made more often than not at luncheons or banquets and seldom made in the House. Restriction of credit, influenced by such Government statements, has driven many worthy men to the wall and out of business and has driven many employees out of the country. In this connection, also, the Government merit the proposition in our motion of no confidence.

There is another matter which also falls to be dealt with by the Minister for Local Government. I refer to the absolute inactivity on his part, on the part of his Government and on the part of local authorities, whom he is anxious enough to influence, apparently, in order to get higher rents, in relation to the provision of such amenities as adequate playing fields in places such as Ballyfermot, recreation or assembly halls in built-up areas and swimming pools. These matters may seem not to be very important but take the great Dublin suburb of Ballyfermot with a population of 40,000, which is nearly twice the population of Waterford, as has been mentioned; that area has not got a hall in which people can meet; it has not got a swimming pool. There are playing fields for Gaelic enthusiasts but not for those who may play other games. The Minister and the Government are just as responsible as Dublin Corporation, of which Deputy Moore is a member, for the inactivity which has characterised Dublin Corporation and whatever committees of the corporation deal with matters of this kind.

The Deputy was himself a member of the corporation.

For a short time. Unfortunately, circumstances required that I should dissociate myself temporarily from that body, as the Deputy will recall.

We miss the Deputy.

I hope to remedy that difficulty in the very near future.

I hope the Deputy will.

I am glad the Deputy pays me the compliment of assuming that had I been a member of the corporation down the years, these needs would have been supplied. I appreciate that, and there is more than a grain of truth in what the Deputy says.

As a member of the John Fitzgerald Kennedy Memorial Committee, I want to ask what the Government are doing about the erection of the John F. Kennedy Hall. This Committee was constituted some years ago by Dáil Éireann, unanimously. Its members are drawn from all Parties. A great deal of work has been done of a preparatory nature. There is no question that we have an obligation to honour our great compatriot, as I think we are entitled to call him, because of his race. Because of his tremendous stature in the world, he has made us proud. We undertook to commemorate him in what we considered to be the most fitting way, namely, by erecting a hall dedicated to music which could also be used for purposes of assembly. Such a hall is very badly needed in this city.

The site was chosen; plans were prepared; members of the Committee went to considerable trouble to acquaint themselves with what was desirable in the way of amenities to be associated with the hall. At the moment, we are not at all clear as to what the Government's real intentions are in this matter. The people are entitled to know what will be done in this connection. The building of the hall will take a considerable time. In a major city such as ours, it is a sad commentary on our lack of artistic appreciation that we have not had long before now a hall suitable for the enjoyment of music. One is tempted to include this as just one more item which induces an absolute lack of confidence in this Government and in the manner in which they have been behaving.

The administration of justice requires a completely new approach. It requires the urgent attention of the Government. Recently, I put down a Parliamentary Question asking for the views of the Minister for Justice in relation to the manner in which district justices through the country were ignoring public opinion and the public good in their punishment, or, to put it properly, lack of punishment, of persons charged and convicted of offences against the person, gang assaults and assaults of that nature. Happily, we have not as a country more than our share of this type of crime. Examination has shown that possibly there is a lesser incidence of this kind of thing in this country than in most other countries but such as there is of it and such as falls to be dealt with by the courts is not dealt with as it should be. It would appear that there is a laxity at certain levels of the Judiciary in the administration of the law.

I must point out that the Minister for Justice is not responsible for the decisions of district justices and there is no precedent for criticising judicial decisions in the House.

With great respect, I was permitted to put down a question about this which was answered. In fact, the Minister indicated to me that there were meetings of district justices where these matters were discussed. There were some supplementary questions asked and there was no objection from the Chair on that occasion.

The Chair has always intervened when the question of judicial decisions has been raised in the House to point out that the Minister has no function in the matter.

I can only comment that it is an extraordinary thing that this most essential aspect of our activities cannot be discussed here. If it cannot be discussed in a debate of this kind, then it cannot be discussed ever in the House. Are we not encompassed round and trammelled sufficiently by rules, orders and regulations without being obstructed in expressing on behalf of the people— not our own opinions—the people's opinion as to the lax administration of laws by the district justices? It seems very wrong when it is quite possible for anybody who does not want to reveal his identity to write to the newspapers anonymously and discuss this very matter while we, who were elected by the people to come here, are not permitted to discuss it in the way we would wish. One would almost want to be a constitutional lawyer to know when he can, with full authority and in accordance with Standing Orders, legitimately raise a matter here. This is very unfortunate because the primary function of Parliament is to enable those appointed to come here to air the grievances of the people. If it has not that function, it has no function.

As I have pointed out, the Minister has no responsibility so far as the decisions of district justices or judges are concerned and since there is no Ministerial responsibility, the Deputy would not be in order in continuing.

Would the Chair say, if Deputy Dunne inquires whether or not the correct amount of money is made available for the administration of justice, if that is a point he can elaborate in this debate? A number of my members will be speaking afterwards and I would like to have that made clear.

I cannot give any opinion until I hear Deputy Dunne.

I asked the Chair a question: is the question of the amount of money available for administration of justice a matter which can be discussed in this debate?

Yes, but Deputy Dunne is not discussing the question of money at the moment. He is discussing the question of decisions by the court.

Surely he can discuss whether the money is being expended in the correct way in his opinion?

That is something I was about to come to, the question of the amount of money and the manner of its disbursement. It may very well be that district justices are not paid enough but this should not show itself in the facts to which I have referred. Perhaps district justices are paid too much; I do not know, but I would certainly think, as I have said, that we are being gagged by regulations progressively in this House as the years go by. This is a matter on which I feel very strongly. I may get the answer that if you feel that way, put down a motion. You put down a motion but when does it come up for discussion? When everybody has forgotten about the original cause of contention. You may not even be here. You may have been taken from your place by an irate electorate or by Providence. To put down a motion is no answer.

I always understood that this Adjournment Debate was the time when one could really travel the whole scene of national activity and express one's views thereon on behalf of one's constituents. It was in that sense I was approaching what I regarded as a very important matter, the activities of district justices regarding the implementation of the law as it relates to persons guilty of offences against other individuals, assaults and gangs and so on. The public are amazed on opening their evening newspapers at what is permitted to pass as if it were a light misdemeanour, when, in fact, serious violations of the law are tolerated by district justices who do not see it as their duty even to support the Garda who have a difficult job to do.

The Deputy may not continue to discuss decisions of district justices. It is not in order and there is no Ministerial responsibility.

I shall move to another Department. I am glad the Minister for Posts and Telegraphs is here because I wish him to be present to hear what I have to say. I think his Department is completely and utterly unnecessary. A worthy man himself, I should like to hear the justification some time for the expenditure of money on this Department. It is one of the Departments which could very well be run by a civil servant. It is true it is a money-making Department but that is not the final test of whether or not it should warrant a Cabinet portfolio. I do not think it should. This dates from the days when the State was being founded and the Provisional Government and the early Free State Government were being formed. Somebody thought that since they had a Postmaster General in England, we should have a Minister for Posts and Telegraphs here. That is how it happened.

A man of the Minister's talents is wasted in the GPO, in my view. He should be in some other Department where he could use his energies to greater effect. In this I am expanding the view expressed yesterday by the Leader of the Labour Party who said there were some Ministers who had less to do than Deputies, and that is a fact. I know Deputies—I am not including myself, although I have enough to do, but ten or 12 hours daily gets me through it every day— from rural areas of different Parties who are producing letters and documentation that would frighten the most confirmed bureaucrat. On one occasion one of them remarked to me that he had left his letters on the table of the room for a few minutes and he would have to go back and turn them over in case they would heat.

It was five hours he was away, on that occasion.

That is the position. What I have said has been said without any intention of being personal to Deputy Brennan. If he seeks to respond to it, he can do so in any way he wishes.

I am not satisfied that our pretensions in the matter of external affairs would bear close examination. Our Minister for External Affairs is seldom or ever here and one is quite likely, on inquiring about his whereabouts, to learn that he is lecturing Russia and the United States in the UNO. If they take much notice of our Minister, they must be very impressionable. This pretence of being a mighty nation of international importance has little relevance to how my constituents in County Dublin are going to get a living or a better living in their own country. Much, if not all, of the activities of the Minister for External Affairs in UNO and elsewhere are completely over the heads of the ordinary people. Even those of the people who take an interest in it see little or no point in this continual rushing to and from Washington, as if the great powers were waiting there breathlessly for what we have to say about their problems. A sense of proportion is called for. We are as important as any nation in the world, of course, but let us not develop delusions of grandeur because that seems to be the direction in which this Government are going. It is all part and symptomatic of Government ineptitude in so far as these policies are concerned.

I wonder if I am in order in referring to speed limits? This is a matter which affects the Department of Justice. The Minister for Justice is a member of the Government. I am relating all these matters to the Government in this way because of the principle of Cabinet responsibility. Speed limits may be thought a matter of minor importance but let me tell the House—admittedly, an attenuated House—that they are a matter of great importance. Motor cars are to be found all over the place: the roads are thick with them. Speed limits become very important to people living in villages and towns. I challenge anybody to go out in my constituency of County Dublin on a summer Sunday and cross the main Dublin-Drogheda road at, say, 3 o'clock in the afternoon. Either he will wait for hours or he will have to go to a pedestrian crossing in Swords.

There are people living in labourers' cottages outside Swords and little children are running around playing and cars are going by there. I am talking now of Feltrim which is on the seaboard side of Swords as you approach Swords from the city. Motors are flashing by there as if it were Le Mans——

Brooklands.

That is closed. So bad is the situation there that many people have made representations about it to the Minister for Local Government. This comes under the Department of Local Government and the Minister for Justice comes into it in so far as the Garda have a function in determining where and when speed limits are established. The need for speed limits there and at Blanchardstown and, indeed, all around the county area has been brought to the attention of the Minister. All Deputies, I am sure, who drive cars around the city will have an appreciation of what this problem is like and the danger that the public are in continually through this tremendous urge for speed, this hurry to the cemetery.

I asked the Minister for Local Government to introduce speed limits. At various times he told us that speed limits will be reviewed as part of a general review. Speed limits have been instituted in one or two cases but, in the majority of cases where applications were made for speed limits, decisions have not yet been taken, although in some cases, as in the case of Feltrim, the request was made a very long time ago. The situation there is so bad that the people along the road put up their own speed limit signs. They were compelled to remove them when it was pointed out by the authorities that, should any accident occur as a result of these signs being there, it could have serious consequences for the people.

We learned to our amazement that, before a speed limit can be instituted, a decision must be taken by three people—three civil servants, I assume —and that nowhere in Ireland can a speed limit be instituted without examination and sanction by these three people. We may look forward for the rest of our lifetime, if the administrative situation is not changed by the Government, to a gradual examination of every road and by-road in Ireland to see if a speed limit is necessary. We shall be dead and gone, and those who come after us will be dead and gone, before that work is finished—three people to do that tremendous job. This shows the Government's complete unconcern in dealing with the problem of traffic which is one of the major problems of our time.

I happened to be in three large cities in one day—Strasbourg, Paris and London—and in each case I observed the same thing happening as happens in Dublin, that is, a policeman going around taking the numbers of cars parked illegally in the centre of the city. The problem of traffic is worldwide. It is no small local matter— and speed limits come into it. One can say with justice, I think, that we can judge the Government's efficiency or otherwise by their ability to deal with what should be dealt with and what could be dealt with in a very simple way. The way in which this administration deals with this problem is to appoint three people to look after the whole country. That is scandalous.

As we are on the subject of traffic, let me say a word about bus fares. I do not know how many times I have put down questions to the Minister for Transport and power concerning the administration of CIE. There have been occasions when I was compelled, deliberately, to break the rules of order which is something I am loth to do as I have too much respect for this House to enjoy that kind of activity. I have been compelled, on occasion, in other years to ignore the rules of order so as to draw attention to this relinquishing of responsibility by the Minister for Transport and Power—the Minister for Transport and Power without responsibility. On those occasions, I was trying in particular to raise the question of bus fares.

I do not consider that when bus fares are increased it is simply a matter of administration by CIE: they are a positive contribution to the cost of living. They are a positive influence on an increase in the cost of living and must, therefore, be put in their proper context as part of general Government policy. It should be possible and it must be possible for us to discuss this question of bus fares in that context of general Government policy. We have no confidence in this Government because of the manner in which they have handled the question of increases in bus fares. It is to be thought that the Dublin working people constitute a bottomless well so far as revenue for CIE is concerned and that, for all time, it will be possible—whenever difficulties arise regarding expenditure in CIE—to put up the bus fares again?

Very soon bus stops in this city will be separated by a matter of a few yards. They will be not very much nearer than at the present time. All these devices designed to extract money from the pockets of the Dublin workers have been pursued relentlessly by CIE, not alone with the consent of the Minister and the Government but with a policy of absolute silence on the part of the Government and the Ministers. We have had the Minister for Transport and Power, sitting like a pouting diva, refusing to say anything about CIE, refusing to discuss what he calls the administration of CIE, making of CIE a kind of sacred cow.

We believe this policy has been totally wrong and that is one of the reasons which prompted us to put down this motion of no confidence. I am glad the Minister for Transport and Power is here because I think CIE is the outstanding example of Government incompetence. It was handed over to a public servant. I understand that at the time it was handed over, it had liabilities to the tune of £1 million and the instructions were, and the news was, that CIE was going to be made an economic proposition. God knows, the axe was applied relentlessly. Branch lines were chopped right, left and centre: so were the workers. If they were not absolutely essential they were got rid of, some of them with pensions of 21/- a week after up to 40 years service.

At the end of it all, after his association with CIE, the Chairman will leave the organisation more in debt than he found it. His reward is not the reward of the operatives on the shop floor or of the men who did the real work over the years, some of them employees of the old railways. His reward is the munificent sum of over £8,000, a pension of £65 a week, and a spare-time job at £1,000 a year.

If the Minister for Transport and Power had been here this morning, he would have heard me giving details of the case of a servant of the State with 30 years service who, when he came to 65, was booted out and, of that 30 years, he got 15 years service counted for pension purposes—15, half the actual number of years served. He got a lump sum of £160 at 65, after 30 years service, and a pension of 26/-a week. This was a few months ago. He got his golden handshake too; he got a gold medal because he was one of the handful who were in the GPO. A gold medal.

These occurrences, these comparisons I make, show the complete lack of proportion on the part of this Government in the circumstances of today, a complete disregard of the hardships of the people. We have this flaunting of wealth—it is no more than that—in front of the people, this arrogant flaunting which says, in effect; "We do not care about you. We are going to do this, and it is immaterial what you say". Although the entire population is disgusted with the performance, it makes no difference to the Minister for Transport and Power; he seeks to defend him.

There are many other matters to which I could refer but I hesitate to occupy the time of the House for an unduly long period. I would like to have an opportunity at some time to do justice to the complaints, which are many and varied, of my constituents concerning the malfeasance of this group in temporary occupation of Government Buildings. I will draw my remarks for the nonce for this session to a close by saying that we ask the support of every well-intentioned Deputy for the Labour Party motion of no confidence before the House.

We are discussing with the motion a motion in the name of Deputy Cosgrave that Dáil Éireann has no confidence in the present Government. One would have expected, after the result of the Presidential election, and in the light of the extremely difficult circumstances in which the country finds itself, that we would have had here today a Cabinet prepared to defend their term of office against the best and the worst that can be charged against them by those who put down this motion of no confidence and those who put down a similar motion in the name of the Labour Party. No speaker on the Government side has entered the debate, except the Taoiseach, and his contribution was weak in the extreme.

Why is this? Is it bred from the belief that they cannot reply and their best hope is that there will be a natural improvement in the economy, which could not be worse than it is, and getting certain people home for the summer and away from this House so that the opportunity will be there for Minister to make statements but no similar opportunity for the Opposition to find as much publicity for their replies? Or is it the well-known Fianna Fáil arrogance that seems to break out every time the Party are seven or eight consecutive years in power? I do not know which it is. Perhaps it is a combination of both, but I would suggest that, whichever it is, then it shows evidence of a beaten Government and a Government who have failed to achieve the objectives the people expected them to achieve. I refrain deliberately from saying the objectives they set out before the people, because, apart from their publication of the Second Programme for Economic Expansion, which is nothing more than a set of targets it was hoped would be achieved, we have had nothing but slogans in two elections. Their policy was put before the people almost in terms of seeking a blank cheque from the people.

Let us cast our minds back to 1961 when the entire policy of the Fianna Fáil Party at that time in the election, in which they were successful, was "Wives, put your husbands back to work" and "Let's get cracking". In 1965, without any attempt on their part to tell the people what they wanted to do, we had the one slogan: "Let Lemass lead on"—everything was all right in the country. Housing was being carried on. There was plenty of money for saving. We had the timing of the wage increase. We had this before the election. After the election we had the difficulties. We had the restriction of credit. We had all the unfortunate consequences visited on the people.

It is wise to refer, I think, first of all to one of the most serious defects of the present Government, that is, in respect of housing. The inter-Party Government of 1954-57 were blamed by Fianna Fáil because they built too many houses. There was a credit squeeze in 1957 resulting from the Suez crisis and the Korean War. The way to cure that was quite simple. The biggest single expense of Government that can be halted is housing. There is no difficulty at all about seeing to it that the building of houses stops. All we have to do is to see to it that planning and sanction for sites is delayed and that the Department of Local Government act as a stopping block in regard to the building of houses. This was not done. The inter-Party Government in 1957, before the present Government assumed office, built twice as many houses in that year as Fianna Fáil built in any year since. Arriving at a situation in which their arrogance led them to believe there was no need for priorities, Fianna Fáil loosened up a little and up to the time of the credit squeeze 12 months ago, were in the process of increasing house building. They have now stopped it completely.

From a detailed examination of different local authorities, both in my own county and bordering it, and having listened to the reports of my colleagues in Dublin city, the situation is quite clear. The large housing schemes now being completed will see the end of local authority building for as long as 12 to 24 months. If the Minister for Finance saw fit last Saturday night to suggest that the credit squeeze was eased and that things would become easier in the private sector and the Government sector of the economy, that was because the harsh remedy had been applied. People living in one room with five or six children and those living in Griffith Barracks because they cannot get even one room have no hope of a house in the next 24 months from this Government of failure.

Remember that we also had a situation in which I was told by the Government there was plenty of money for swimming pools, in which I was interested, and a situation in which industrial grants were given to all and sundry. For instance, they were given to a project which was to employ 1,700 people making executive aircraft in a factory on the Naas Road. We have £1,319,000 invested in that by way of grants, not by loans. Instead of employing 1,700 people, the number is nearer to 17. Remember that the Civil Service has been expanded. There was no effort on the part of the Government to introduce new methods and techniques into the Civil Service and to ensure that more work and more efficiency are got from each person in a Government office. That has never been mentioned since 1957.

Of course, all this means bad housekeeping. When you have bad housekeeping, particularly bad housekeeping on the capital side of the Budget, it is not very long until it overflows into the current side of the Budget. Then you have to increase taxation to such an extent as to make it unbearable for the community, particularly the poor. That is what has happened under this Government. In 1963 we had the turnover tax. Let us examine a few facets of that in the light of what has occurred since. Remember the then Minister for Finance said it was physically impossible to have a selective wholesale tax. He said he did not care on what you put the tax so long as you paid 2½ per cent on retail sales. If you wanted to put it on tea and not on sugar, he could not care less so long as you put 2½ per cent on all your sales.

What was the result of that? I am in the retail trade. The retail trade is not its own master, more so now since the advent of large supermarkets. The turnover tax was used to overturn completely the retail price structure. Those articles which the people selling in the large supermarkets wanted increased in price were increased and those they did not wish to increase were kept at a lower level. Those increased were the things that mattered to the poorer people. There was no suggestion that bread, butter, tea and sugar should not be involved in the turnover tax. If it suited the man behind the counter, he put the increase on the necessaries of life and did not put it on smoked salmon. If he had more profit on the luxuries, he could put the 2½ per cent on the necessaries. The Minister for Finance at the time said he could not care less.

The Minister said another important thing: that you could not have a selective wholesale tax. Now a different Minister for Finance from the same Party has produced a selective wholesale tax. We have been debating it here over the past few weeks and I do not intend to repeat what has been said. They now make a complete volte face and find it is possible to have a wholesale selective tax and not interfere with the turnover tax. All that has overflowed into the cost of living and into the current Budget. Let us remember the expediency with which the present Government met their responsibilities. After the turnover tax, they had to face two by-elections in Kildare and Cork. The Taoiseach laughed at the Fine Gael suggestion of a prices and incomes policy. He said it was completely impracticable. He had to find some way out of defeat in Kildare and Cork. The method was simple. The employers were stuck at eight per cent and the unions were stuck at 14 per cent. He went in and settled it at 12 per cent for 2½ years.

Whether 12 per cent was right or wrong, Deputy Dowling, who is smiling now, and Deputy James Tully, who knows his business as a trade union operator, will agree that 2½ years was wrong because prices must follow costs inside nine to 12 months. If we are to be fair to the decent working people and given them an increase in wages to compensate for the increase in the cost of living, that increase must be spaced on the basis of a period of nine to 12 months, in the realisation that with creeping inflation, which is always with us, they will be either back where they started or worse off within 12 months. The Taoiseach settled it and Kildare and Cork were won.

Something that has not been mentioned in the House of late must also be remembered. That was that a Minister of State resigned on the basis that the Taoiseach's action had increased the income of one section of the community while another section, the farming community, lagged behind. The Minister who resigned was the Minister for Agriculture. He resigned because he felt the people he represented were not getting a fair "do" and that their share of the national cake was being reduced to such proportions that it was impossible for them to live. What occurred between the by-elections of 1951 and 1965 in the constituency of Cavan whence that Minister came to find his disagreement with the Cabinet and to resign? In 1961, Fianna Fáil received 13,690 votes out of 27,819 in Cavan County. In 1965, that figure was reduced to 11,903 votes. That is what happened when the political king of Cavan suggested that the Taoiseach was a political fixer. We have to decide whether those 2,000 people in Cavan believed that, when they withdrew their allegiance from Fianna Fáil, because the valid poll was almost exactly the same. If they did not vote for Fianna Fáil, they voted for somebody else and therefore let us accept without doubt that the action of this Minister of State was accepted in his own constituency as a proper one and as a severe criticism of the behaviour of the Taoiseach and the Government.

What is the great necessity in Ireland today? The necessity today, if we are to be able to finance all the things we need, and that matter, is an expanding agriculture which will pay for the raw materials of our industry. We must preserve our balance of payments. We can let it go wrong for a year because of our assets, but we must start correcting it in the second year. Of every £100 of agricultural goods exported, it is quite possible that £90 worth is a real export and from it comes the money to pay for the raw materials of our industry. When a Minister of State found that he was with a craven Government and resigned, his constituents realised the truth. What is the truth and what are the results? I would like to quote very briefly some figures from the Progress Report for 1965 of the Second Programme for Economic Expansion. I should first like to give the position in relation to agricultural production and on page 12, in paragraph 13, you will find that in 1965 agricultural production was down in comparison with 1964 by one per cent. We all know that if we look at these things on the basis of an expanding economy, we would like to see something in the order of five to seven per cent of an increase in agricultural production. As far as weather was concerned, 1965 was not a bad year. The Government's figure of 3.7 per cent increase in agricultural production in each year during this period has been corrected to 2.9 per cent. It is completely inadequate and they have deserted agriculture. Nevertheless, the actual result was that they were 3.9 per cent below their target because they had a reduction of one per cent in 1965 compared with 1964.

Let us now turn to page 111 of the same Report where we find the figure for agricultural exports. Agricultural exports for 1964 were to the value of £115.5 million and in 1965, they were £108.8 million, or a reduction of £6.7 million. Thus are the Government charged and thus are the Government's figures and targets completely and absolutely exposed as failures. Let us remember as well that if you turn to page 98 of the Progress Report, you will find that total employment in 1965 compared with 1964 was down by 7,000 people; yet the Taoiseach, when he was out of office in 1956, was talking about over 100,000 new jobs in 1966 and says that there should be 30,000 new jobs as from 1965 to 1970. The Government's defence is that they are spending more money than ever before. If they are spending more money than ever before, then they are guilty of bad housekeeping and of not getting results. There is only one way in which that can then be decided, one way in which it can be tested, that is, by putting it before the people.

Why is it that the Government have not got these results? They have not got them because they insisted, and the Taoiseach insisted, that there was no need for priorities, that there was plenty of money for all. I am sure we are sophisticated enough in this House to know that there was a heavy inflow of foreign capital over the past six or seven years. We were aware that the greatest single stoppage to that inflow of capital was caused by the Government's decision to have all bank deposits of over £1,000 open to examination. Up to that time and afterwards the Government insisted that there was no need for priorities: there was plenty of money for the swimming pools I wanted for my constituency and plenty of money to do all the things they have done. There was plenty of money to lend to young boys and girls who wanted to build houses for themselves and plenty of money to provide cash for local authorities to do the essential things and also to help the poor old age pensioners.

This was the situation in which we were living, a land flowing with milk and honey. Three weeks ago we Deputies and Senators and Ministers —I suppose I should have mentioned them first—occupied a building that cost £500,000, a building within 100 feet of where I am standing. At the same time, there are 40 families living in Griffith Barracks whose fathers get in to see them once a day. The parents have not even one room in which to house themselves and their five or six children. Which was the priority? Is that not the great condemnation of the Government, that they should have no priorities?

I used go to Griffith Barracks to sit on the Joint Labour Committee for the provender milling industry in the Labour Court. Deputy Tully went there also. I went as an employer's member and he went as representative for the trade union, and I am sure he will agree with me that the accommodation there was quite adequate. Now, however, we go to another £500,000 edifice down along the canal. And there are 40 families living in dormitories whence, we came. Is this right or is it wrong? Were there proper priorities set down at the Cabinet table or not? I say there were not and I defy anyone to rise from the far side—although there is an extreme scarcity of Deputies there—to prove that there were priorities in relation to Government capital expenditure.

What did we do at the same time? We allowed the Minister for Agriculture to go to Ballsbridge and there rent, not a complete block of offices but one floor of a block of offices for An Bord Iascaigh Mhara for £14,000 a year for 21 years, and guarantee when he went in that he would spend £10,000 on its decoration. He tried to defend that situation in reply to a Parliamentary Question by me. This is at the same time as I have had to tell boys and girls in Drogheda town that it will be 15 months before they will get the loan for the houses they are building, and when the greatest monuments to the Government's failure can be seen on every hill in every parish in the constituency, where the building of houses had to stop because there was no money to proceed. Where are our priorities? We have invested £1,319,000 in Potez Limited on the Naas Road, where there are 20 or 30 people making aeroplane wings, and not a wing left the building since they started to make them.

There were no aeroplanes when you were there because you sold them.

I arrived here in 1954 and Deputy Dowling arrived here somewhat later. At a time when there was a Suez crisis and a Korean war, about which Deputy Dowling might or might not know anything, it probably was right to sell jets. Now we need these as prestige emblems. However, if I could rehouse those people who are in Griffith Barracks—and there are only 40 of them—by selling a jet, I would sell one. I am not in favour of selling them. I want to see the Irish flag flying at Kennedy Airport and at other airports throughout the world. I want to see a service developed that will bring tourists here. We all want that, but this is an example of somebody not knowing anything about priorities.

Sabotage.

Is it sabotage when there are 40 people in Griffith Barracks who cannot get houses?

To sell the jets.

Deputy Tully and I were quite content to go to Griffith Barracks. There were more than enough offices to accommodate the Labour Court without spending £500,000 on a new building. Is it right that Deputies should have plush carpets when there is this difficulty in regard to housing?

You did not object.

I have had this before from no less a person than Senator Farrell from County Louth. I said at a meeting that I disagreed with him, and he replied: "You approved of the plans." Certainly, anybody can approve of the plans. You approved of the priorities. While we stroll around on plush carpets, the unfortunate people in Griffith Barracks are without houses. The Deputy cannot talk his way out of that. I suggest he should keep out of the debate, as his colleagues are doing. He is making a great mistake by coming in.

Every year we in the Louth County Council desire to provide sewerage for some villages in the county that have not got it. We knew we could not expect the Local Loans Fund to provide loans to do the job all at once, and we reached the stage when, perhaps, only six or seven installations were left. Naturally they were the most difficult ones, the ones that could not be done as easily as the ones that were done. We decided to employ consultants, and we were worried because if you employ one consultant for one big job, he takes about five years to do it. We employed three consultants and we have now got our plans for the last six or seven villages in Louth that need sewerage. We received the bill for the consultants' fees which amounted to £20,000. Our allocation for sewerage in Louth this year is £10,000, and we instructed the county manager to write to our consultants and say: "Thank you very much for the plans. You have done a great job. We cannot do anything about them. We are sending you half the fees this year and you will please wait until next year for the other half". I would prefer not to be strolling on my plush carpet so that more money would be available to the Louth County Council to provide these necessary sewerage installations.

This is the Government who said there was no need for priorities. This is the Government who a few months ago gave as much as £900 a year of an increase to senior civil servants, and produced within six weeks the figure to which they felt staff under £1,200 a year were entitled, and that figure was three per cent; then in another six weeks they had to back down because the Labour Court had produced the figure of £1 a week. This is the Government who produced the slogan "Let Lemass Lead On." Where is he leading us? He produced the three per cent at the time of the first Budget as something which could not be contradicted. Of course, his mathematics were ridiculous. He based the three per cent on the expectation that there would be a three per cent increase in gross national product. It was unrelated to what we could afford to pay. Again, in another six weeks he produced the selective wholesale tax which he suggested was impossible in 1963.

Then when things were going really badly, the Minister for Industry and Commerce produced the Prices Stabilisation Bill. When that became an Act inside a few months, it resulted in a loss in one company of £458,000 which had a profit the previous year of £150,000, and in another company, the best employer in this country, it resulted in a loss of the order of £600,000.

At the same time, it is clear the increase in revenue that was hoped for has not materialised. It has not materialised because the Government, in their extremity, have taken so much money from the available capital coming forward that there is no capital for the private sector to increase and expand its activities. Worse still, the private sector has had, on many occasions, to cut down on its activities, and the figures for employment, when they come out, will without doubt show a decrease. Figures for unemployment were given here this morning by Deputy Cosgrave, but the figures for employment take a good while longer to produce. When they are produced, I venture to say that, while we had 7,000 fewer people at work last year than the year before, that figure will be still greater this year.

The figures are clear. Last year the Government took £31 million of the new money coming forward through the commercial banking system. This year, before they get into trouble at all, before there are any Supplementaries, they say they are going to take £28 million and there is no place that can be got except back from the banks' customers. This I believe to be the greatest single reason why there is no activity in our economy today, why the private sector is not in fact producing the elasticity that was expected and why the results hoped for have been completely disappointing.

This was not enough for the Government. They went to Germany to borrow £8 million at 7½ per cent or thereabouts, and they went to the Bank of Nova Scotia to borrow £5 million at about the same rate of interest. We are told by the Minister for Finance that before the end of the present financial year, he will have to borrow from external sources another £5 million. I do not doubt it. I believe that with the rising costs that inevitably occur, that £5 million of capital money will be greatly increased before the end of the year.

I would like to point to one particular facet of these loans from Germany and Nova Scotia: they are for ten years. If you borrow in a national loan of long term, the amount to service that debt which must be charged to the current Budget is relatively small, but if you have to pay off 7½ per cent and pay back the principal in ten years, the amount that you have to write into the current Budget to service that is probably three times the amount you would have to write in if you borrowed it through a national loan. That means that the people have to be taxed to the very hilt to pay for that. The selective wholesale tax is, we are told, to produce £5 million per annum. I believe that in a full year it will produce far more and what is going to happen is exactly what happened in relation to the turnover tax, that although there was little addition to the price of the particular articles, we all found that there was less money in our pockets. The general increase was more severe in its application than it would have been if we had put 6d on the cigarettes and 6d on the beer, high as that might have appeared at the time.

Let us remember that this short-term borrowing to which the Government have had to have recourse is a very serious matter for the country. It will increase the cost of living. An unduly large amount has to be written into the current Budget for its repayment and it proves the failure of the Government to do their housekeeping properly. Last week I asked a question of the Minister for Finance. It was Question No. 34 on the Order Paper of 23rd June. The record is:

Mr. Donegan asked the Minister for Industry and Commerce how the expansion in the private sector of industry and commerce indicated in the Second Programme for Economic Expansion can be achieved this year while new bank credit is unavailable.

You will get an adaptation grant of 25 per cent for industry. That leaves you with 75 per cent which must be found from investors, private sources or from the banks. The Minister said:

I have had no complaints that expansion in the private sector of industry and commerce is being prevented by inability to obtain bank credit.

That is the greatest nonsense we have ever heard from a member of the Government. Does everybody not know that bank credit is restricted, that the ordinary businessman who may have had an overdraft even before expansion had a letter on his table from his bank asking that the overdraft be either radically reduced or wiped out altogether? Does everybody not know that the restriction on bank credit is designed to reduce consumer spending?

The Minister, in his innocence, suggests to me that people should publicly complain of the fact that there is restriction of bank credit. Who ever heard of a businessman or industrialist going out and publicly telling of his difficulties? If he did, every traveller to whom he owed money would be at his door next morning asking to have his account cleared up. These things do not happen out in the open. These things happen behind closed doors and result in 15 men being sacked in one industry, perhaps one in another and perhaps a hundred men disemployed in some other industry. These are the things in respect of which the Government have shown complete ineptitude. These are the things for which we are entitled to criticise them and for which we will continue to criticise them.

The Minister for Finance said last Saturday night that credit restrictions should ease off. We as a Party have talked about this and our view is that they should ease, that if the Government had the ability and if anybody would still believe them, particularly the bank directors, it should be possible for them to set up and operate a plan whereby over the next few years, the economy of this country would come slowly right and whereby restrictions on bank credit would be eased and so save many of our people from unemployment and emigration. We believe it is the duty of the Government to put such a plan to the banks but we see no evidence that they are examining the present critical situation in that way.

The Taoiseach used to be known as a fast man on the draw, as a good politician, as a slick operator. I have never seen anything so dreadful or so completely cynical as his performance over the past six months. It was so bad that it appeared to most of the people of this country as if he were ill. They were constantly asking if it was true that the Taoiseach was sick. That is the truth. The Taoiseach gave no leadership and has given none during the period of this credit squeeze. He was hopeless, inept, and impossible.

What is wanted now is someone who will get down to it with the financial institutions and present them with a plan for national recovery. Even if you had to tell the people that you could only build two-thirds of the houses needed every year for the next three years and then that you would resume building at full force, it would be better to let them know the truth. At the present time the people believe the worst and worse than that is the fact that we do not know what the worst is. We do not know whether the Government have reached the bottom, but we do know that if they go any lower, a lot of their passengers will drown.

While we propose to the Government that they should get down to it with the financial institutions, we are well aware that the backlog of payments that have to be met from Government sources is such that it will be two or three years before things will be on an even keel again. All this arises because of the lack of efficiency by the Government. The full impact of the stoppage in building has not yet been seen. No new building works are being sanctioned by the Government. If they are sanctioned, we cannot enter into a final tender for them until the Minister for Local Government tells us to do so and he is not telling us to do anything of the kind. When certain housing schemes at present in progress are finished, there is going to be a complete stoppage in building for 12 or 18 months and this is entirely the fault of the Government.

The same is true of building in the private sector. If the allocation to local authorities were doubled next year, it would not catch up with the backlog of payments that have to be made. At best, the Government have two to three years of difficulty to ride. That makes it twice as important that they should produce a plan and tell the people what the worst is and when things will be better, or else they should go to the country and discover whether or not the people want to have them or to have somebody else.

Let us examine whether the people want them or want somebody else. In the 1961 election, Fianna Fáil polled 512,072 votes and Fine Gael polled 374,106 votes. That left Fianna Fáil with a majority of 138,966 votes over their nearest rival. In 1965, Fianna Fáil polled 597,414 votes; Fine Gael polled 427,981 votes. That left Fianna Fáil with a majority over their nearest rival of 169,433 votes.

In the Presidential election this year, Fianna Fáil polled 558,818 votes; Fine Gael polled 548,240 votes. The majority for Fianna Fáil was 10,758 votes. A swing of one-half of one per cent removes that majority and produces a majority for Fine Gael.

What about the Labour Party?

The backbenchers of Fianna Fáil have to prevaricate and cause trouble if they can. My good friends of the Labour Party will understand that when I was making this comparison I did not include their figures because I felt that would not be the right thing to do. If the Deputy wants them, it will not take long to get them.

Deputy Clohessy wants to make his maiden speech.

The Labour supporters in the country as a whole— and I measure my statement very carefully—have given more preferences to Fine Gael than to Fianna Fáil. I have no desire to suggest that they should do so in future because that is not my right; it is theirs. They are entitled to give their preferences where they like and Deputy Clohessy should not come in here and put his oar in and annoy people. We think deeply before we speak. I am sure Deputy Clohessy would wish to hear what "Pravda” said the day after the Presidential election. He will be pleased, of course, to hear that I do buy the Irish Press occasionally. This was one of the days. Let us consider what the leading article said. Not surprisingly, the leading article is headed “The Result”. I quote:

To the very many Irish men and women at home and abroad who have always honoured Eamon de Valera as the most distinguished spokesman of our people for the last half-century the outcome of this presidential election comes as a shock. The slender majority accorded the President on this occasion will be construed by opponents as a devastating reverse and by his supporters as a victory which only he could win in the many adverse circumstances of the battle.

That included Deputy MacEntee and Deputy Moran.

Indeed, it did. I continue the quotation:

Fine Gael campaigned in the election not on the personal merits of the candidates but on the record of the Government. The result must be interpreted as a partial success for these tactics. Whether the Government can be fairly blamed for the widespread industrial unrest and other current difficulties in the country does not matter: they were indicted.

On the other hand, the efforts of the Fianna Fáil party to present Mr. de Valera to the country on the basis of his great national record and international stature, without attempting to defend the record of the government or apportion the blame for the economic situation, were also successful, but only just. It is clear that a candidate of lesser stature who could not command the same loyalty and faithfulness from the majority of the electorate could not have succeeded in such unprecedented circumstances. Against desperate odds, the Legion of the Rearguard carried the day for their Chief.

The public dissatisfaction in recent weeks in the realm of industrial relations and the difficulties encountered in promoting a rational approach to an incomes policy in place of the industrial free-for-all created a widespread mood of dissatisfaction. Fine Gael spokesmen both initiated and promoted a transfer of this mood from its appropriate arena of political activity and injected it into the presidential election. That they have succeeded cannot be doubted.

On a point of order, is it in order to bring the position of the President into a debate on the Adjournment of the Dáil?

He was a political character for a long number of years.

He was a political character in the last election. He was nominated by the Fianna Fáil Party.

Acting Chairman

Deputies will please cease interrupting. Deputy Donegan is in order.

I will say before I continue the quotation that I mean no disrespect of any kind to the President. I have not any complaint against his being there. Now that the election is over, and it must be discussed as a political election, I wish him every success in the office. We must have regard to the fact that, as Deputy Lindsay has told the House, the President was selected and nominated by Fianna Fáil and I am sure the Minister for Transport and Power, Deputy Dowling and others all signed his nomination paper, just as I signed the nomination paper of Deputy O'Higgins. Deputies opposite cannot claim that they are angels. They are just like us. There is no difference between us.

There was a film called "Angels with Dirty Faces".

I continue the quotation of the leading article:

These are political issues. Fine Gael have exploited to the full the destructive potential of the "protest vote". It remains to be seen whether they or their current political allies can propound a constructive policy. The real political battle has still to be fought. Meanwhile, Eamon de Valera remains President.

What has the Deputy quoted from?

The Irish Press of Friday, June 3rd, the leading article. I shall have it sent to the Deputy if he likes. I should like to discuss another matter now. I have suggested that the policies of the Government, because they fell down on priorities, failed. I think I have succeeded in proving that by figures that can be read in my speech. Deputies opposite may not agree but I am entitled to my belief that I have proved this.

It has been said that the Government should come out and tell the people how bad things are and what is planned to remedy them and try to get the banks, trade unions, the employers and the employees, the farmers and the general body of the people behind them to raise the country from the rut into which they have put it. I suggest an alternative. I do not think it was believed until the Presidential election that any Party could mount a political campaign with the expenditure and intensity associated with Fianna Fáil. Fine Gael have proved beyond doubt that, first, they can raise the finance freely within the country to pay for printing and other costs; secondly, that they have the people to man the campaign; and thirdly, that in the Presidential election their campaign was better than any Fianna Fáil ever mounted and they came within a cat's whisker of victory at a time when they were opposing a man who, I agree, has reached a height of national appreciation greater perhaps than that of any other living man, now that the late William T. Cosgrave has gone, God rest him. When we could meet them with the President as their candidate and come within a half of one per cent of beating them and mount a better campaign than they did, I suggest that we are the alternative Government.

The Government now have the choice of either producing an answer for their mistakes and producing for the people of Ireland a way out of the dilemma the country is in or going to the country which they have so long avoided and meeting the people. If they meet the people, we shall mount a campaign better than the last one and we shall beat them and we shall be the next Government.

I shall try to bring the people over there back to reality if I can. If they claim this was a trial of strength as between two Parties in the Presidential election, I want to take up two points. First, I will not allow any comparison with the last Presidential election, the election in which General Seán MacEoin was a candidate because those people put up General MacEoin as a scapegoat. They did not back him. They had only one thing against him, that he was an Old IRA man.

Nonsense.

As proof of it, they are over there now and they cannot point to a single individual in that Party who had one hour of national service.

They never burned banks.

No; they were with the Tans.

They were not sons of RIC.

Deputy Corry is entitled to be allowed to proceed.

I said I was making no comparison with the election in which General MacEoin was opposing Eamon de Valera as President of this nation. Fine Gael put up a horse. They did not back him or even give him a jockey and they ran him blind. In the last general election, the Fianna Fáil Party, on the figures, were 52,000 in a minority. If we succeeded in changing that 52,000 of a minority into a 10,000 odd majority, where does the crowing come in?

Is Mr. de Valera still leading the Fianna Fáil Party?

He is leading this nation and that is good enough for you.

He is not leading the Government or the Fianna Fáil Party.

I am dealing with the attack made over there——

On the Fianna Fáil Party, not on Mr. de Valera.

I shall leave Deputy Corish to explain whether he or Deputy Donegan will form the next Government.

We shall look after ourselves.

I should like to hear something of that later. You can look after each other.

The Deputy does not consistently support his own Government.

I am speaking of a Party who were beaten by 52,000 votes in the last general election and who changed that into a 10,000 majority. They have the people behind them. I do not worry what any paper says. The figures are there for any Deputy to read and judge. It is on that result that those gentlemen opposite started crowing because they were beaten by 10,000 votes instead of beating us by 52,000.

I am not a bit worried about what happened in Dublin. I am well aware of what has happened to nationality in Dublin city and county. We were beaten by 18,000 votes in the city and county of Dublin in the last general election. We were beaten this time in the city and county of Dublin by 41,000 votes but the rest of the country gave us 51,000 to beat that. I do not give two hoots about Dublin. The only pity is that the Germans did not do a decent job when they came in there.

(Interruptions.)

The other 25 counties of this country changed the tune and gave Eamon de Valera a majority of 50,000 odd votes.

What about Cork city and county?

I am not worrying about it. I am near enough to deal with it myself.

What did they do?

In my constituency, the majority against us at the last general election was 17,000 odd. I changed that to a de Valera majority of over 3,000.

He is out of politics now, is he not?

On that record, the Deputy should be included in the reshuffle.

What were you discussing there for the last half hour when the Minister for dirty milk was talking, the gentleman who said that every farmer's wife in his county has dirty milk in cans? Let us look at facts as they are. Let us judge facts as they are. Those are the facts.

When we first came into Government here, we set out to implement the policy laid down for us by our comrades who gave their lives for it. Step by step, we carried out that policy, and hard steps they were. We had to turn this country from being one inhabited by hewers of wood and drawers of water for Britain into an industrial nation giving employment to our boys and girls. We did that. Industry after industry tells its own story and proves that the work can be done. If there is any constituency in which the work is not being done, then it is the fault of the Deputies representing it and they can take that, every one of them.

I came into a constituency where there was no employment. Up to 1933 the total amount of work given in the town of Cobh was three weeks' work to half a dozen men every year smashing up the machinery in Rushbrooke for the scrapheap and there was an auction there each year when the scrap was sold. With the help of the Fianna Fáil Government, that industry was set in motion. It went bankrupt twice. On each occasion, the Fianna Fáil Government stepped in and provided the cash to bring it back on its feet again. That was done first of all by Deputy Seán MacEntee, at a time when Deputy Seán Lemass was ill, and on a second occasion by Deputy Seán Lemass himself. Today, there is full and constant employment in that industry at Irish Steel Holdings, Limited, for 650 men.

Let us examine the industry about which those gentlemen opposite went to the country. There was a little slip in an election address issued by Deputy Fitzpatrick which stated that it was their financial policy to close down Rushbrooke, the Verolme Dockyard. There are anything between 800 and 1,000 young men employed in that dockyard at present. If those gentlemen over there were sitting on this side of the House, they would state they had a mandate from the country to close it down and they would: they had it in their election address. Those are facts.

When we took over in 1932, all that was in that dockyard was a caretaker minding the door. When the war came on, even the machinery in it had been sold for scrap. I saw one unfortunate ship that was holed during the war having to go up to Passage docks and, outside of Passage, the hole was filled with cement to enable the ship to get out of this country. Not alone did they close down the industries but they did their damnedest to ensure that never again would they start off. They sold every bit of machinery that was in them. When we took over, Rushbrooke Dockyard was in the hands of two gentlemen, David Frame and Thompson of Carlow, who used to auction the scrap and frames. All the machinery in the dockyard was sold out and we had to improvise machinery there to enable ships to be repaired during the war so as to provide food for this nation.

Because they have faith in this nation and in the advancement of this country, foreign people come and start industries here and those people on the benches opposite immediately start off and try to wreck them. They did that and they did their damnedest. We had a rotten debate in the House on the Verolme Dockyard before the election and every form of sabotage to close down that dockyard was availed of. The records of this House are there for anyone who wishes to read them. Read them and learn. Then they talk about the unemployed and unemployment. They have done that.

In my town of Midleton, there were 20 men working three days a week in the flour mills. In 1932, when we were first taking over as a Government, Messrs. Ranks bought in, assisted by ex-Deputy McGilligan. I would say that, between the election and the appointment of a Taoiseach, I was faced with Messrs. Ranks coming down to Midleton and endeavouring to remove the machinery out of Midleton mills up to Cork. I had to go to the Hallinan family, whose grandfather started that mill there, in that connection. I had to threaten to throw a force of men into the mill until the Government and the Minister for Industry and Commerce were appointed and their policy made known, and I did it. The mill was there and held there through that. That was all the employment that was given in that town when we took over.

The late William Dwyer started two factories there and today these factories are giving employment to 500 people. We started a little factory, too, out of nothing there four years ago. That was started by the farmers and last year we paid £45,000 in wages out of that factory and over £70,000 to the farmers. We are now expanding and, please God, in the next 12 months, instead of the 100 employed now, there will be over 250 in jobs there. That is advance. That is progress.

Take then the town of Youghal. I often canvassed it and, on one occasion here, I read the statement of the late Deputy Gorman, God rest his soul, on the position in the town of Youghal. It was lamentable. For three months of the year you had the visitors and for the other nine months, the whole town was closed up. Today you have Dwyer's factory, the carpet factory, the furniture factory. There is not a man or girl idle in the town today. I could go right through my constituency. I know it and I am proud of it. My constituents, despite all the manoeuvring, showed appreciation of what has been done in the Presidential election and their gratitude for the employment that Fianna Fáil provided for them. The only pity is that Cork city did not do the same. These are the facts.

I agree with Deputy Corish on one matter and I could not emphasise it enough. I refer to the priority that there should be in expenditure. There should be two joint priorities, providing (1) further employment for our people and (2) housing for them. I hear a great deal of noise and shouting about housing, but I am very happy about housing. I am happy to know that houses are wanted because that means there are people in employment now who, thank God, because they have constant employment, can look to a future. If they are young lads, they are looking around for a nice girl with the intention of getting married, and they want homes. The priorities should not be theatres or the Cork Opera House. The priority should be the provision of houses for our people. I never felt more disgusted than I did when I heard three Parties here, one after the other, giving their blessing to the expenditure of £500,000 on two amusement houses.

To what Party does the Deputy belong?

The Abbey Theatre and Cork Opera House. Cork Opera House got a sop of £35,000 and nearly a quarter of a million was given to Dublin.

That is the way the money always goes.

Acting Chairman

That hardly arises on this debate.

I am giving illustrations of what is happening. I am sure Deputy Tully in his local authority has to spend day after day and week after week, as I do in mine, endeavouring to find ways and means of getting money for housing, and more money for housing, and more money on top of that again. You have to watch where the money we have is going. As I say, I was disgusted with the three Parties in this House joining together, with the benediction of Deputy Dillon, to give £500,000 to two centres of amusement, one in Dublin and the other in Cork, while our people are crying out for decent homes.

To what Party does the Deputy belong?

If I had my way tomorrow, that asylum we have out there would be handed over to the Dublin housing authority to be turned into flats for those who need houses. The 144 Deputies in this House could live happily enough as they were without this building. The beetles in this building were in Deputy Dillon's nut. If anyone wants the reference, I will give it to him. I refer to a speech made by Deputy Dillon in which he told us about the bats in the belfry and the beetles in the woodwork, and all the rest of it, 20 years ago; he wanted a new Oireachtas. That is on the records for anyone who wishes to read it. If any Deputies have any doubts about it, as they had about the closing of Verolme Dockyard, I will produce the volume here and read it.

The Shannon scheme was a white elephant and the British market was gone and gone forever, and thanks be to God.

The British market sent the Deputy in here and if I were Deputy L'Estrange, I would keep very mute in this House until the bad taste of what he did to a decent Old IRA man is forgotten. I am giving the Deputy advice and I suggest he take it. God knows, there is a wide gulf between Deputy Seán MacEoin and Deputy L'Estrange. There is a whole sea of difference between them.

The sea of time.

I am giving the facts. There was practically no industrial employment in this country and we had to start out and create that employment. We had to create confidence so that people would come in and bring in money with them to start further industries to give employment to more people. We did that, and we did it for a very definite reason. We did it because the comrades who were with us from 1916 to 1921 were not the "toffy" people of this country, not the people living on ground rents, not the aristocrats. They were the ordinary workers, be they farmers, farm labourers or industrial workers. Thank God, those of us of the old guard have never forgotten that. We have a duty to them. If the Taoiseach, when bringing in the ninth round, gave a little too much to the ordinary workers —as is alleged by the people opposite who shouted from the housetops during the Presidential election that it was the cause of all our labour unrest —his heart was there and I am proud of it. But there is a wide difference——

Between that and Dr. Andrews getting £8,000.

Will you shut up sometime? You are like a blooming hen that never produced a chicken. There is this difference between the Fianna Fáil Government in financial difficulties and those people over there. They came in as a Coalition Government in 1948 with a big majority. They lasted three and a quarter years. When they could not get a bob anywhere, not even from the Jews——

Be careful now. You had to go to the Eskimos for the last loan.

They ran out at a time when they had a clear majority here and left Fianna Fáil to come in and clear up the mess for them. When the mess was cleared up, they returned again and lasted two and a half years out of the five. They ran again when Deputy Sweetman could not get sufficient money out of the tax he put on ladies' curling pins to pay the debts.

Fur coats are not included now.

Seán MacEoin is looking over your shoulder. We had no intention of walking out and leaving the mess behind. We have got over the bulk of our financial difficulties while remaining in office and have succeeded in changing a minority of 52,000 votes at the last election to a majority of 10,000 votes at the Presidential election.

I object to the Deputy including the personality of the President in the Fianna Fáil Party.

Surely any product of the King's Inns for which Deputy Cosgrave made such a moving appeal last night, should have sufficient books at his disposal in the Library there to enable him to make up his sums?

Are they all in Irish?

Now, Dick, you and I are too good friends to be fighting. We live in a different world altogether. I am not one bit afraid of the position of the country today.

Why should you? You have no responsibility.

I will say this much to you aboveboard. If you go to your little constituency and do there one-tenth of what we do in ours in 12 months, you would not have so many of your working people waiting for our whistle to come down for employment with us.

That is because your leader has failed.

That is because we work. We have all our own people employed. We have to go up to Mayo every year and bring down a couple of hundred to thin the beet. Instead of spouting here and endeavouring to put a face on a bad lie, Deputy Lindsay should go back to Mayo and see what he can do about providing industry for his people.

I thought that was the Fianna Fáil great objective?

After all, he was not elected to sit down on his tail and do nothing for the people who elected him.

There was no work for the Mayomen in Cork this year.

You and I will be talking later. I will have you down with me to open another industry in my constituency within another 12 months.

Acting Chairman

Deputy Corry should be allowed to make his speech and he should not carry on a conversation with his colleagues.

The only way in which we can achieve what we are trying to do is by providing more industry and employment to keep our boys and girls at home instead of having to go abroad for work. That is the principle on which I have worked during the 39 years I have been here. I told you yesterday what we had to do with the ground rent landlords in the town of Cobh 34 years ago. I found that an appeal to this House was a waste of time.

Acting Chairman

That has nothing to do with the present debate. That was yesterday.

It has, surely. Every penny that leaves this country makes this country poorer. By my efforts and the efforts of my comrades in Cobh, we took from those ground rent landlords a lump sum to date of £183,000. Surely that is a nice bit of finance? It would nearly help build another Abbey Theatre if we had a mind for it.

Or a Cork Opera House.

No. For every shilling that Cork got, Dublin gets £10. Seventy per cent of the total revenue of this State, collected from all sources, is spent here in this dirty city. Seventy per cent—and they showed their gratitude.

Are there any Dublin Deputies around?

That is not going to be forgotten, be sure of that. However, this, to my mind, is the manner in which we can go ahead. Every additional industry that is started, especially those connected with the agricultural industry, will show results and will give employment, and constant employment in the future. For example, take the case I have already mentioned, East Cork Foods. It started in a small way with £30,000 collected from the farmers of East Cork and it was helped by a man whom I am proud to call a friend, even though like every other friend, we have to fight him at times. He is a man who has proved his worth. He could do like Deputy Lindsay is doing, sit there quietly and say: "I have a nice job and I am all right." He did not do that. He endeavoured to find out how we could find further employment for our young men and women.

He visited the Continent and discovered that processed foods were the coming thing. Today, over 2,000 people are employed in food processing between Carlow, Mallow, Thurles and Tuam, and not forgetting Skibbereen and Midleton, people who would be in a foreign country looking for employment were it not for the work of Lt.-General Costello. This little industry to which I have referred employed 100 people last year and we paid out £45,000 in wages. I admit that there was periodic employment there because the factory had to go idle for portion of the year. Now, however, we have found a cure and nobody will be laid off this year and we will have 215 people employed in it. We will spend £250,000 expanding that industry and there will be no bother about the money.

That is what I want Deputies to do in their own constituencies and not be coming in here moaning and groaning. I had to go to Deputy Lindsay's constituency to provide a month's or six months' work for the unfortunate people——

Who are forgotten by Fianna Fáil.

What have you done for them?

I will tell the Deputy when I am speaking.

You can tell us something about the industries you started in Mayo.

You did not start any industries. You have the capacity for chipping in and taking credit when that happens. I am sick of that line.

You are so useless yourself you are endeavouring to say everyone else is.

I wish I were as useful at taking credit.

You were not even getting briefs before you came in here. I do not want to be personal——

I have been able to earn my living at all times. If the Fianna Fáil Party are so bereft of ideas that they have to have people making personal attacks, they are in a very bad way.

(Interruptions.)

The Deputy's record in the law courts is not so good.

The Deputy's record is straight. It was never crooked.

(Interruptions.)

I am endeavouring to point out that this country is progressing. I would say that 15 years ago, if anyone will go back 15 years nowadays, there was very little demand for houses. Nobody was looking for extra houses. I remember in 1947 when I started putting through the first non-municipal scheme outside the borough boundary of Cobh, a scheme of six houses, I thought we would not get tenants for them. We did, and they were followed by eight more and then by a further 24 and by a further 24. After that, there were 18 more and a further 18 were followed by 52.

That is what is called arithmetical progression.

Corry progression.

There would be little use building those houses if you had not got Irish Steel and the other industries there to keep the people working. There is little use building houses for unemployed people because they cannot pay for them. The more anxiety I see about housing and the greater the demand is, the happier I am about the progress of the country and about employment in the country. People would not be looking for houses unless there is constant employment. I am not speaking in any Party spirit but I am urging that we should go ahead, not in one constituency, but in all of the constituencies, to find industries which will provide employment for our people.

If there is to be a priority in regard to money, let it be that it will not be spent on Abbey Theatres or opera houses but on homes for our people. If there is money to the tune of £17 million odd lying around unclaimed, as we discovered yesterday, then the same legislation as was brought in to give that money to the Abbey Theatre and to the Cork Opera House could be brought in to ensure that it is spent on the two top priorities, industry and housing. Instead of the money being used to glorify a yoke which turns out the Deputy Lindsays, in the King's Inns, instead of spending public money on things like that, it should be spent on providing further industries and on building houses. In that way it would be far better spent.

I am satisfied that the financial crisis which existed here during the past three months is on its way out and now we can continue with the advances we were making in providing employment for our people and keeping them happy.

I have one other thing to say. Since we are talking generally here, it is well that I say this. I suggest, whatever labour court we have in this country for dealing with industrial unrest, the court should have power to make a decision and power to enforce that decision. I would be quite happy to let the Trade Union Congress appoint a judge, but in heaven's name, let us not have the drain we have had here through strikes and industrial revolution. Surely, as I pointed out in this House before, if all Parties in this House can come together and elect a Ceann Comhairle, it should not be any more difficult for the trade unions and employers' unions to come together and set up a court, give that court power, not power to recommend, but power to enforce the decisions come to.

That would end the present unrest. It would, in my opinion, satisfy everybody. It would satisfy the worker because he would know he had a friendly court he could go to, a friendly place where he could plead his cause with satisfaction. The employer, on the other hand, would know that he could expect justice there. I see no reason why we could not have a court of that type. I believe nine-tenths of the unrest in this country is caused by the fact that we have a Labour Court in this country which has not the power to make a decision and enforce it. I say that frankly to all Parties in this House. I think I am right.

There is a great deal at stake today. The result of one of those strikes hits too many people. I am not, never was, and never would be, against the worker getting a decent wage, a wage sufficient to enable him to keep his wife and family in comfort, any more than I would be against the agricultural community doing the same. I am against a small number of men being able to drag the whole lot out of employment in one day or even in a couple of hours.

When the ESB strike first took place, we were told in the public press that essential industries were being looked after. At 8 o'clock on that first morning, when the ESB strike took place, I had to put an apron on, go out and milk the cows with the rest of them because the electric current went off. You had the same thing all over the country. There is so much which depends on industry at the moment that unless there is some fair and honest means of having those matters rectified, we will have a continuing picture of strikes and labour unrest.

I am happy to think, and to believe, that people have confidence in this country and that they will have continued confidence in it. I hope, within the next few months, to prove to my friend, Deputy Barry, and the other Deputies in my constituency, that the people have that confidence and that people are prepared to come in here, invest their money here and give further employment to our people. I am happy in that position and I am happier still in the knowledge that when the financial crisis came, this Government stuck to their guns, did their job, and weathered the storm.

Mr. O'Leary

In tabling this motion, our Party had in mind the economic indicators of the present situation which did not, to our mind, inspire us with any confidence in the present Government. It is for that reason that we tabled this motion. The motion specifically refers to the lack of progress in creating new employment, reducing existing unemployment and emigration and also refers to the crisis in the provision of finance for housing. As a result of those clearly observable facts in our economy at the moment, we tabled our motion of no confidence in the present Government.

Those are facts which have arisen largely because over the past year or two this situation has been building up. What is more ominous to our mind, and what is really behind our decision in putting down this motion, is that we do not see any prospect in the Government's policies that the problems, to which the motion refers, will be overcome in the near future. This year, I suppose, has witnessed the greatest period of open industrial warfare, since the war years, affecting this country between employers and employees. Our strike record this year has pushed us up to the top of the international league in the strike table. The strike pattern this year has differed from previous outbursts of industrial disputes in that the major portion of the disputes occurring this year have been caused as a result of cash problems, the lack of the implementation of the £1 a week increase by employers generally.

This Government have not throughout the current year been notable for their ability to grapple with the industrial unrest and the realities of the relations between employers and the unions. This Government have to take responsibility for that situation. The Leader of the Government, earlier this year, spoke of an advance approximating to three per cent which could be tolerated in our economy for wage increases. The unions, it will be recalled, at their public conference this year, looking at the rise in the cost of living, the plight of their members at the end of the National Wage Agreement, the soaring cost of living, and looking also at the state of the economy in a responsible fashion, considered they would be absolutely right in looking for £1 a week increase. The Taoiseach, however, with his three per cent, dashed that idea. He did not encourage the trade unions in their responsible claim for £1 increase. He was backed by the employers in this.

This is the background of every dispute which has occurred this year. The Labour Court, very belatedly, some months after the trade unions had actually made the decision of looking for this £1 increase, supported the £1 ceiling of the unions. This has now become the pattern of the negotiations: the £1 which would break the economy if it were conceded earlier this year can be conceded now. This is after a spate of industrial disputes, after many people have been put out of work and many people have been losing their purchasing power over these disputes. There is no strike now for more than £1 increase.

This Government show signs of a great deal of fumbling in their approach to the problem, in their indecision and certainly show no clearminded approach to this problem. First of all, they gave one figure; then they changed their minds and a neutral body comes in and gives another which apparently coincides with the trade unions. Very late in the day the Government appear to acquiesce in this particular situation. This is surely not the portrait of a Government who are determined, sure of themselves and know the facts about the economy and what it can bear.

Figures have been mentioned during the day that spell out the areas of our concern and the failure of this Government's record in these areas. We have mentioned the fall in employment; we have mentioned the increase in emigration; we have mentioned the fall in GNP. There is a slight improvement in the balance of trade position, but, again, you can have absolute equilibrium in your terms of trade and this does not mean that economic activity is going ahead purposefully.

The prices position does not give us any room for complacency. There has been a big increase since last year and, of course, the position in housing which we referred to repeatedly today shows a sharp decline. In fact, the records of the House during the past year show that we have been asking day in day out questions of the Minister for Local Government who must now be the master tactician of this Government for giving double-meaning answers in a situation in which it is only too clear to be seen no new houses have been built.

The overall policy of this Government is entry into Europe. That is the grand design of the Government apparently at the moment which the Taoiseach mentioned this morning. I would like to examine the position of Irish industry which this Government propose to lead into Europe as it appears to be at the moment. The most recent report available on the current position in Irish industry is that on arrangements for planning at industrial level brought out by the NIEC recently. In fact, this close examination of official documents which are coming out in great numbers on the economy would appear to damn the record of the Government because one can see there how far we are falling short of the targets of the Second Programme. They set down in black and white what the misgivings of these economists are in looking at the progress of the economy. The NIEC explained in their most recent report that we cannot consider economic planning in our situation apart from the progress of adaptation in Irish industry towards conditions of freer trade. It does not make sense to talk about economic planning if the industry you are talking about is not itself adapting itself to meet a rather more hazardous future. On this hazardous future, the report put out last week by the NIEC speaks in a very gloomy fashion about the amount of co-operation that has been forthcoming from Irish industry in the process of adaptation.

When the adaptation councils were set up originally by the Committee on Industrial Organisation, they were to be bodies which would keep a sense of urgency alive in Irish industry, which would look at the problems industry would be facing in freer trade and would consider action and remedies in cases where they were called for. The CIO considers that joint action by firms is absolutely essential if they are to survive in conditions of freer trade. It looks at the small size of many of our firms and considers that co-operation and co-ordination are essential in tackling problems like specialisation of products and standardisation of product and that it would be necessary to examine new export outlets.

Now, it is apparently the conclusion of the NIEC Report that very little of this type of activity has in fact gone on. There have not been many examples of agreement on standardisation in firms in the one industry and there have not been examples of specialisation. There have not been many agreements on improved design promoting awareness of the need for it in industrial circles. There have not been any attempts at joint marketing of products and there have not been any agreements on joint purchasing, or the improvement of trainees and operatives generally by training schemes.

Irish industry, therefore, does not appear to be too concerned in this regard, on the original basis of the CIO, and there do not appear to be anything like the adaptation councils envisaged. They do not appear to be doing the work it was contemplated they would do. Few of these adaptation councils have succeeded in co-ordinating the activities of individual firms in industry. There appears to be an element of secrecy, each firm looking suspiciously at its competitor, even though they share the one market, and there appears to be little worrying about the future of the Free Trade Area and of the dangers involved for small industries in this respect.

In the textile and clothing groups, for example, no discussions have taken place on prices, on reduction of tariffs or the methods to be taken to combat unemployment which might arise as a result of the dismantling of our tariffs. Another thing contemplated three years ago when the Committee on Industrial Organisation gave its final report was that we should have established trade union advisory bodies of workers in each industry, that we should set up adaptation councils and that we should also have a trade union advisory body to represent workers' interests and should consult with the adaptation council for the particular industry.

We see that meetings have taken place rarely between the trade unions advisory body and the adaptation councils. This is an extraordinarily serious situation. It apparently means there is a widening rift between the workers' interests in each industry and the free trade of the future. There appears to be no consultation between adaptation councils in industry and little record of progress made. Over this unfortunate state of affairs and over industry with its very rickety small-scale structure, this Government preside with a complacency bordering on a mania and have continental ambitions. A Government with ambitions of entering into Europe, seeing the situation as it is and the little progress made in modernising Irish industry, cannot command the confidence of people who are worried about the future of this country.

Admittedly, there have been difficulties in Irish industry. There has been a lack of any kind of agreement or co-ordination between the business elements in Irish industry. The only area in which there appears to have been any degree of collusion would appear to be in that obvious one. the determination of wage rates. There is uniform agreement amongst firms about wage rates, but, among other things, there appears to be ignored co-ordination between one firm and another.

We must ask a question then, when Government Ministers—and this Government in particular—are nailing their colours on the mast and talking about going into Europe. We must ask them to come down from the top of this mountain and look at the realities of Irish industry, look at the possibilities before us, the problems which face us and the hardships which appear, on examination by this Party, to be in store for many of our working people as a result of this Government's complacency and their obession with Europe without doing their homework of modernising our industry, if we might go into Europe. It is no secret that this Party's opposition to the Free Trade Area Agreement was based upon our awareness of the unprepared state of Irish industry. Nothing has happened in the interim which convinces us that Irish industry will prepare itself for conditions in the future.

In the last CIO Report three years ago, there were—if Deputies recall— 22 industries surveyed. It will be remembered that, at that time, we were living in monthly expectation of entry into Europe: at least an agreement on our eventual entry being concluded. They had, in surveying the 22 industries of that period, examined the jobs of over 87,000 people—58 per cent of the total employment in manufacturing industry had been examined by the different survey teams, and they came to the conclusion that there need only be redundancy of around a figure of 5,000 on entering the Common Market, if adaptation measures were taken. Since adaptation measures are not being taken, we must ask ourselves what the redundancy figures will be in these areas of industry. There was a forecast figure, apparently, that, if adaptation measures were not carried out, we would have a redundancy figure of 20,000 by 1970 and, allied to that problem, we must see the record in employment as it is at the moment; the fall between this year and last.

I got the impression this morning that the Taoiseach was talking about a different country. He spoke in the weary tones of a university lecturer talking to a class of students who were inattentive and not really concerned about the problems of our country. He spoke about the easing of our credit position and about the possibility of catching up on the targets envisaged in the Second Programme for Economic Expansion, the actual possibility of providing ourselves with 23,000 new jobs a year between now and 1970. This is the Leader of a Government who asks for the confidence of the country. I do not see any prospect for the success of Irish industry either in Deputy Corry's constituency—where wonderful things are happening—or elsewhere when we have to get 23,000 new jobs between now and 1970. All the indications are there to show that employment is falling; it is falling in the building industry, an extremely important industry, with its connections with many other types of industry. In fact, it is a barometer of the state of our economy at the moment. That barometer certainly does not give us much room for confidence when it is falling in employment.

There are no schemes, as we can see at the moment, for any agreement between different firms to buy raw materials together. This was one of the recommendations mentioned in the CIO Report some years ago. It mentioned it particularly in the case of the furniture industry. I see no sign from the furniture industry that it wishes to do this. It mentioned joint buying of materials and other forms of agreement in the footwear industry, in the case of paper products, in the case of the carpet section of the wool industry. In none of those areas do we see the kind of co-operation in the management of their economic affairs which was originally envisaged for these industries. One NIEC Report after another records their disappointment at the lack of progress on the industrial front in, at least, bringing in the measures they deemed necessary for conditions of freer trade.

I do not see any sign of awareness or worry in sections of our industries controlled from outside to a great extent. A major part of the production of the chocolate industry, chemicals, electrical equipment and the wireless industry are controlled from outside this country and a big question mark hangs over those industries, as to whether they will continue after 1970, when we will be one trading bloc with Great Britain. I do not see any sign of the chemical pulp mill which was considered necessary for the paper industry. There has been no talk about it, at any rate, in recent years. Instead, in fact, we see the paper industry locked in a particularly bitter dispute which shows absolutely no sign of settlement and we see that that dispute is controlled by certain former employers.

Again, the Government's answer to this industrial situation, which has been getting worse, is a reshuffle in the Cabinet and the appointment of a Minister for Labour. I shall come to that in a few minutes but the fact is that the things thought necessary by experts, looking at Irish industry some years ago, have not been done and there does not appear to be much indication on the side of Irish industry that, in fact, they will be done in the years remaining.

Our attitude has always been that, if Britain goes into Europe, then this country does not have much chance of staying outside. Many people think that Britain will go into Europe. There are certain forces within the British Labour Government which would go into Europe at the moment but there are many big conditions to be met before they do. Meantime this Government, through their supernatural diplomatic standing, has decided that Britain is going into Europe and there is no doubt about it. This was the only basis for their certainty that they will be accepted into Europe because, remember, our acceptance into Europe implies a larger degree of agriculture than is at present being reached in Europe. We may not be a great competitor in the industrial field but our cattle and other agricultural products could prove an embarrassment to the Community's dilemma at the moment in agricultural policy.

But there appears to be an appeasement of the Government's complacency in other areas; there appears to reign absolute certainty that we will be accepted into Europe in the present Government. How much of this is public relations, I do not know, because there is one field in which this Government are unrivalled, that is, their command of public relations. In the middle of a crisis in industrial relations for some weeks now, we have been flirting with a reshuffle of the Cabinet. This, of course, is one of the oldest political ploys known—to fiddle around with names for some weeks and take people's attention away from the real problems facing the country. It is a pity that we have commentators in the newspapers who concentrate on the rather trivial business of the choice of four new Ministers and their names; from a very restricted circle, there could not be much choice in names. It is rather a pity that such commentators fall for political ploy as to who will be the new incumbents of these offices. This is the Government we are dealing with—a Government who deal in propaganda gimmicks.

Now we have a Minister departing from the office in which he has promised good tidings by the end of next year. The Minister for Health has blazed a trail of non-conformity through that Department. He has shown himself to be the golden boy to the discontents in that Department. Now, before the results can be brought home, he is getting out of that Department. It is a great pity that in the present situation one man in the Cabinet who appeared to be doing a good job in the Department of Education is to be moved now into the Department of Industry and Commerce. All these moves must cause the ordinary people some worry as to the dedication of the men who are doing these jobs when they are shifted on such a casual motive as Press publicity,

Our look at all the official reports and the surveys made of Irish industry leave us extremely uneasy about our future, and more uneasy when we do not see the Government sharing the same unease. The Government appear to be content to go around the country speaking about the inevitable challenge of the future and doing nothing else. That is not sufficient. If industry does not appear to be taking the measures and the steps which the CIO considered necessary some years ago, the Government must step in. In the interests of the community, there must be more Government participation even in the decisions of private firms. For too long there has been an impression that the Government's economic activity in industry must be confined to the State bodies. This Party are seriously considering the suggestion that the Government must take part in the decisions of boards of private enterprise. We must take part in their decisions because if they do not make the proper decisions, our employment figures will be considerably worse in the years ahead.

There has been some easing in the credit squeeze. This is long overdue because the credit squeeze has afflicted large sections of business and that is not conducive to any kind of pick-up in the economy if it continues. I referred earlier to the fumbling of the Government in the field of industrial relations. It appears to me that they have not learned from their experience in the past because there are different rumours that they consider that their role in the sphere of industrial relations should lie in a revision of the existing industrial legislation.

Speakers from this Party have consistently warned the Government about the dangers involved in this course. We have warned them about the difficulty in deciding legally the difference between an official strike and an unofficial strike. We have warned them that so far as we can see they cannot achieve a legal short-cut to industrial peace. We have said that there is no substitute for honest negotiations between employers and employees. In our system the chief job of the Government is to see that economic growth goes forward. On their reading of the situation they have taken a completely different attitude, and they now propose to weigh down the law against the free association of workers. They propose to hedge in with many restrictions the use of the picket and the strike weapons. Far from improving the situation, this might make it much worse. We have repeatedly said that the records of countries that have tried a similar course prove that there is no escape from a high incidence of strikes and industrial disputes when such a course is adopted.

This Government have always been noted for a lack of contact with and a lack of appreciation of trade union problems and trade union objectives. They have shown in their handling of the preparation of this new industrial legislation that they are just as much out of touch, because the consultations they are supposed to have had with the Congress of Trade Unions have not, in fact, been consultations in the real sense of the word. Congress has been faced with a fait accompli. The Government have gone to Congress and said: “Here are our proposals for changes in the industrial law. Look at them and tell us what you think of them. They are our last word.”

The Government are embarking on a dangerous course if they proceed to rely exclusively on that type of consultation with the trade unions. Where was the anxiety for a change in the trade union law? The only anxiety that was felt by the trade unions in recent years about trade union law arose as a result of a High Court case about an education company. There was a decision that seriously restricted the trade unions from ensuring that there would be full trade union membership in that employment. As a result it appeared to the trade unions that in order to make certain that full organisation of members would be achieved—this power was seriously curtailed—the position should be cleared up in the law of the land. The Government seized the opportunity to introduce a global survey of industrial relations. It has been four years in gestation, and the Minister has now been passing around a note to the trade unions saying: "This is our final attitude on where the trade unions should fit into our society in the future."

We again issue a warning that things could be far worse. There is no limit in industrial relations to how far we can go in disputes. Parnell's words can apply in that area as well as to national freedom. The system which has worked reasonably well in the past, apart from this year, might work reasonably well in the future, provided economic growth is resumed. In the main, strikes arise as a result of conditions of work, dismissals, holidays and matters of interpretation between employer and employees. The strikes we have seen this year, by and large, are concerned with the implication of the £1 a week increase. The Leader of the Government has added his own quota to the confusion this year in the implementation of that £1 a week increase, because at the start of the year he gave a totally different figure of three per cent as being the absolute limit the economy could bear by way of wage increase. Subsequently this was changed.

In our contributions to this debate we have mentioned the rather crazy upsurge of price increases in recent months. In the past month or two there have been increases in petrol, clothing and admission to dances, not that there is any need particularly to worry about admission to dances. The fact is there have been tremendous increases in the cost of living. This is the real dilemma of trade unions. The £1 a week increase which should have been conceded without trouble, the £1 a week which was unpopular with the unions because many members felt that the actual increase in the cost of living and the cut in the standard of living demanded a far higher increase, the £1 a week which should have been conceded easily was not conceded easily. It arose as an easy figure for negotiation only after months of bitter industrial dispute.

The Leader of the Government did not improve the situation by his periodic ambiguous remarks. Our position in this year might have been easier had the National Wage Agreement, ushered in with such great hopes, been given any chance of living. Had the people of the country been given any hope that the new industrial era was here, had it been given any chance by the Government, we might not have had a crisis. But the laissez faire attitude of the Government in allowing prices to take their own level wrecked the National Wage Agreement. Rather late in the lifetime of the National Wage Agreement we supported the Government when they came in here for machinery on prices and we are proud to say our action on that occasion at least kept some prices down.

However, this was too late in the day. Many of us in this Party were becoming rather monotonous in our insistent calls for some policy on prices. One of the feelings which prompted us in tabling this motion of no confidence is that, overall, this is a Government ruling by propaganda, by distant prospects of prosperity, but which at the present time tightens our belts for us; in other words, a Government in power and using a hell of a number of clichés to remain in power. One of the clichés with a different sound in the country has been the incomes policy.

The Trade Union Congress will meet later in the month and a resolution on the programme will be to record their disappointment that the Government have done nothing about an incomes policy for incomes other than wages. This Government have done nothing about a policy on dividends, concentrating purely on wages and salaries. They should drop the pretence that they are chasing an incomes policy because they are not. Last year at a similar meeting the trade unions, asking the Government to bring in an incomes policy, drew attention to the necessity for bringing up the incomes of lower-paid workers and to the possibility of the Government, in that way, ensuring economic growth in the country. This year, Congress will be recording no progress in that area.

The possibility of controlling incomes has been tackled in other countries courageously and the unions here have put it on record that they are willing to participate in an effort to control and plan incomes. During the next five years, the plan of the unions is a brave attempt, in face of Government inactivity, to aim at a pattern for our industrial future. At the moment we cannot see any lifting of the present economic clouds in the near future. We cannot see the 23,000 new jobs the Taoiseach spoke of yesterday before 1970. We cannot see, as has been so emphatically stressed by the Government, that we will be in Europe by 1970. We cannot see Irish industry preparing to meet this situation. Irish industry does not appear to be doing any of the things the adaptation councils were set up to do.

The NIEC Report makes sad reading and the really sad reading must be for the employees who in recent months have been pulled around the country in election campaigns with promises of this, that and the other. It is because of our extreme uneasiness at the Government's inactivity and their frivolous actions that we have put down this motion. As a Party, we have shown ourselves to be responsible; we have shown in relation to many of the measures the Government brought before us that we sought to achieve the good of the country by supporting them. Long before the Presidential election was announced, we had decided to put this motion down and the election and its result had nothing to do with the motion. This motion relates purely to the economic difficulties besetting the country, to the sad record of this Government in housing, in adaptation in industry. We accuse the Government of not living up to their responsibilities, of flirting with their responsibilities, and we are not prepared to stand for that.

On the motion for the Adjournment, generally introduced by the Taoiseach, the whole range of Government policy, or lack of policy, comes under the observation of the House and must submit itself to the criticism of individual Members. So far on behalf of the Government, the Taoiseach has spoken. To support him he could have had 13 Ministers yesterday, today 14 Ministers and five or six Parliamentary Secretaries, with a very handsome quota of Corkmen, to open up in his defence. So far in support of the Government, in support of their policies, all we have been asked to accept as an oratorical contribution has been the expectoration of malodorous political saliva from Deputy Corry.

Deputy Corry never disappoints. He keeps to the low level to which he is accustomed, the level of personal insult and, above all, of seeking to establish what to the detriment of this country has long been the cherished aim of the Fianna Fáil Party, that when there is agricultural improvement or industrial progress due to individual or collective effort, they either collectively or at the level of individual Members in constituencies seek to claim credit for it. That political philosophy has bedevilled our agricultural and industrial life for a long time.

Deputy Corry, in support of the Government, has proved one thing: he has proved that the aim of cashing in on whatever progress there might be through individual or collective private enterprise is still the aim of the Fianna Fáil Party, and particularly his. He proved this to the hilt today in boasting about getting a factory for this, that and the other place in the various areas which have surprisingly returned him for many years. All he proved to me, at any rate, is that, as ever, he is nourishing his capacity to cash in on what is done by others and claim the credit for himself. Permit me to say, by way of concluding my references to Deputy Corry's contribution, that I become more and more surprised when I think of the number of Cork Deputies supporting the Fianna Fáil Party who have to remain silent while this low level is thrust upon us in defence of the Taoiseach and the Government.

Deputy Corry, in a passing reference, felt obliged to cast aspersions on the labour content of the constituency I represent. All I hope is that, when Deputy Cronin from a neighbouring constituency in County Cork goes to North Mayo again, as he has often done before, recruiting labour for the beet fields to supply the Mallow factory, these people will remember the aspersions cast upon them by Deputy Corry in this House today. These are decent people. These are specialists in this matter of beet growing and beet cultivation. They learned it the hard way in the fields of British farmers, when the promises of Fianna Fáil perennially failed to keep them at home in the employment which was offered to them so often from the political platforms when their votes were being sought.

I propose this evening to make the theme of my contribution on this debate the survival and revival of the West. On the occasion of the last general election the Taoiseach came to my constituency and other constituencies in the west of Ireland and enunciated what he said was Fianna Fáil policy, and in the town of Ballina, on the Sunday prior to the election, supported by his candidates at that time, he said that the last major national problem confronting the country and the Government was the survival and revival of the West. By that, I take it he included the whole of the western coast from Donegal to west Cork. He assured the people in my constituency at that time that the last major national problem—that was before the Presidential election when they had two other aims—was the survival of the West, and that it would occupy the Government at once on their return.

He was supported in that view by the Minister for Agriculture who came to Belmullet and gave us a blueprint for prosperity which occupied virtually the whole of the front page of the Western People and, I am sure, of other Mayo and Galway newspapers. In that blueprint everybody's woes and worries had been taken fully into consideration, on paper at any rate. Their worries and their needs are still on that paper, and neither the Taoiseach nor the Minister for Agriculture has done anything significant to relieve the lot of the people there, to stem the flood of emigration or to provide adequate employment.

Our population is decreasing. More and more houses are becoming unoccupied. More and more land is becoming fallow through want of cultivation, through want of people to cultivate it. While all this is going on, we hear of the wonderful workings of the Land Act that will change all that. Nothing that I can see has yet changed and nothing has happened to improve the lot of these people. On the contrary, a very queer thing is happening in the west of Ireland at the moment and it is this. The House will know, as indeed the country knows, that from that part of the country there has been, over very many years, an annual outflow of migratory workers. That in itself at the beginning was not too bad a pattern, when it was seasonal, and when heads of families or the young men of families were not separated from their homesteads for too long.

Each year these people came back, attended to their own particular sowing and came back again at harvest time and gathered it. During that time, these men, and sometimes women, through their contributions pursuant to enactments brought in by the British Government of the day, earned for themselves contributory pensions at 65 years of age. Then, having toiled for so long and having undergone the domestic difficulty of being separated from their families, they returned to settle down in the homestead, enjoying this pension from the British Government.

Later on when they became entitled to incomes from our own Department of Social Welfare, the income from the British Government was taken into account as means. Many times here I have pleaded with respective Ministers for Social Welfare not to take these incomes into account, on the simple argument that for 40 years and upwards this country has failed these people, and when, by their own efforts abroad, they make some provision for their old age in the land in which they cannot perpetually stay and earn a living all the year round, they find themselves punished by their own Government by having this taken into account.

I think it was about last April when, through the negotiations between the Department of Social Welfare and the British Ministry of Pensions, the British decided to give pensioners in the Republic of Ireland the same rate of pension as those living in Great Britain. It was quite an achievement for our Department of Social Welfare to secure that. But what happened? Immediately upon the increase being given by the British, our social welfare officers scoured the country from Donegal to Cork taking up the Irish pension books, conducting further investigations and reducing the Irish pension by the amount by which the British pension was increased, and sometimes more, depending upon the particular evaluation by the social welfare officer.

I do not think that is fair. I do not think Deputies in the Fianna Fáil Party who come from the constituencies where this applies think it is fair either, but I want them to say so. I do not want them to be tongue-tied behind a Minister who refuses to do anything about it. It is their duty to speak, just as it is mine. I am not doing it because I am in opposition; I am doing it because I am struck by the injustice and the unfairness of this method of assessment of means in these cases. These are in areas which have been traditional supporters of this Government, areas where speakers seeking votes for the Government have trafficked in their innate patriotism. I hope that it is still not too late in the day for the Minister for Social Welfare and the members of this Government to change their attitude towards these people whose lot for so long has been so difficult and not to make it more difficult still for them in their old age in their own country.

We were told, too, on the change in the system of assessment of means for unemployment assistance purposes, that the value of the produce of land would not be taken into account. It is being taken into account and I have had occasion many times to take the matter up with the Department of Social Welfare when their officials are now insisting on returns from creameries being made available to them. It was asserted by the Taoiseach, the Minister for Finance and the Minister for Social Welfare when this change was being made that these would not be taken into account. In practice, the situation is quite different and I am sure that Deputy Calleary of my constituency has in his bag several letters of complaint of this kind but he will not come in here and say anything about them.

Instead, he will engage in some hugger-mugger with the individuals concerned, making excuses for the Government, but he will not come out in the open and show that he is behind these people in their efforts to make life more comfortable for themselves. From Donegal to West Cork, we had employment schemes under the headings of rural improvement, minor employment and bog development. A change has also been effected there. Bog development and minor employment schemes were the subject of free grants. These have now been discontinued and all are incorporated under the general heading of rural improvement schemes where a substantial contribution by way of a percentage of the total cost has to be made by the people before any of this money can be sent.

Not alone have these people not got that kind of money but it is necessary that the rutted, sandy roads into their farms, in many cases into their villages, should be kept in constant repair. It is also necessary for the father of a growing family that there should be available to him the employment these schemes give. The wages earned from that employment, however short the period, were the wages that were expended on paying what used to be the small rates, on buying in the Christmas stores and on providing clothing for the family. Those were the only earnings available to supplement whatever profits these people made from the sale of their restricted agricultural produce.

Not alone have these free schemes been cut and amalgamated but the total annual grant for them has been cut by half, thereby reducing further the volume of earnings and in consequence, reducing the ability of these people to provide the amenities to which they are entitled. If we take just those few matters, it will be understood that this is the means which the Taoiseach and this Government are adopting in their effort to bring about the revival and the survival of the West. It does not matter how many brazen assertions are made or how many high hopes are held out for the future.

Since I was a boy, I have listened to the great things that have been planned for the future of the West but nevertheless each year we are watching a declining population and more and more empty houses. In our Gaeltacht areas in the past four years, the number of recipients of the £10 deontas for Irish-speaking children has been reduced by about 1,000, from about 9,000 to about 8,000. That does not mean in itself that there is a decline in the number of Irish speakers but it does mean that the number of Irish speakers has declined through emigration and that the number of families in the Gaeltacht is not being maintained.

We now have another situation which exemplifies what I am saying. We have the former Minister for Education, Deputy Colley, engaging in a bland campaign that schools were not being built because, on the one hand, he planned to build comprehensive schools, and on the other, because he was closing down the smaller schools. The fact is that nothing was being done because the money was not there to do it, and Deputy Colley knew that. He has now been enabled by the gimmick of the reshuffle in Government to be relieved of the obligations entered into by him with regard to the closing of the small schools and the building of comprehensive schools, the training of teachers and the replacement by Irish of English all over this country. Now he has gone to Industry and Commerce. It is too soon to judge.

From the realm of Health comes Deputy O'Malley who has promised more than any other Minister of this Government, with the exception of the Minister for Local Government, in his short time as Minister for Health. He was photographed in many of the newspapers with the matron of this and that institution and with nurses here and there. He promised the nurses shorter hours; he promised more hospitals and more pay for everybody. Apart from the appearance of these photographs in the papers, not another thing has happened. Now he has gone into the realm of Education.

Again, it is too soon to judge but permit me to say that we have our fears, not so much for educational planning but that education will now be made more and more the subject of political manoeuvring and that the Taoiseach and the Fianna Fáil Party are trying to find a way to do a rearguard action from one of the aims stated at the GPO prior to the Presidential election and, more recently, in Dublin Castle when the Fianna Fáil nominee, successful in the election, was being installed as President of the country. We hope that the aim so stated by the President can be reconciled in the years to come with the speech of Deputy O'Malley in Trinity College not very long ago.

Every Deputy's bag is full of letters seeking the payment of grants for houses from the Department of Local Government and the payment of supplementary grants from local authorities. This particularly applies in the case of Deputies from the congested areas. The Department of Local Government, under the aegis of Deputy Blaney, say that there is no undue delay, but there is no payment. Of course, the word "delay" prefaced by the word "undue" is a very relative term. One cannot be trucking in relative terms when people want money and are asking for the money to which they are entitled and to which they became entitled once sanction was given and the authorisation to pay was made on examination by the engineers.

The provision of water schemes is falling far behind. When we draw attention to the fact that towns are suffering by reason of no supply, or lack of adequate supply, or faulty supply because of an outdated system, we are told we must wait for the comprehensive regional water supply, all of which means, of course, that there is no money available for either the regional or the local schemes. Such a situation obtains at this very moment in the town of Ballina. I should like Deputy Calleary, who is the town engineer there and who calls himself the senior Deputy for the constituency of North Mayo, to come in here and make a plea for a water supply for the town which he claims to represent so strongly. I am sure that if he does not do it here, he will do it elsewhere. It is to be hoped that my public appeal, coupled with his private exhortation, will bring about the result which the people of the town of Ballina so badly need and so very much desire.

I want to say a word or two in a general way about loans and credit restriction and their effects. We were told recently either by the Taoiseach or the Minister for Finance, or both, that we were around the corner, that we were emerging from the slough of difficulty. These are phrases we have heard before. There can be no doubt in anyone's mind that there is, and has been for a considerable time, a serious credit restriction, due to the fact that the banks have been told to cut down on loans for private enterprise so that the Government's needs can be accommodated. It must have come to a very bad pitch when banks, thus directed, have obviously failed to meet the Government's requirements. The Govvernment have had to go to America for a loan, where it was refused, to Germany where a loan was procured at a considerable rate of interest. In passing, let me say that they have got it from a country that I do not think had the luxury of a Second Programme for Economic Expansion. Germany planned on the ashes of the last war and now we find them in a position to lend us £7 million, at appropriate interest.

The Government got another loan from the Bank of Nova Scotia. Where will it end? The Minister for Finance told us that a further loan will be necessary. This is only July. This financial year runs until 31st March next. If the revenue is not sufficiently buoyant in that time, the Government may have to look for much more than the Minister for Finance now considers necessary and we may, indeed, be faced with a third Budget. Enough has been said about the Budget—the first one which came somewhat prematurely before the end of the last financial year, and then what is called the mini-Budget of recent times, a Budget which incorporates in it the idea of turnover tax at wholesale level which I understand from wholesalers will cause them considerably more expense in the administration of their affairs and a considerable volume of bookwork and the employment of people to do it.

This Budget, of course, excludes some of the things for which definitions cannot be found, such as fur coats. I always thought a definition could be found for a fur coat in the amount of money which was paid for it. It should be possible for the Revenue Commissioners to classify a fur coat of whatever variety. They are very good at classification. They do things extremely well in that regard. I do not accept for a moment that the Revenue Commissioners and their assistants are not able to find a definition for a fur coat. During the Roscommon by-election the Minister for Justice said they were going to impose taxes on luxuries, including fur coats, cosmetics, and items of that kind. Maybe we should not take it too seriously. That was at a time before Deputy O'Malley was entrusted with the great responsibility of promising big for the Department of Health. Before that he had what was called by the Minister for Agriculture, at the request of the Taoiseach, a crash programme to drain the Shannon. We have had a crash programme to drain the Shannon and the Shannon still flows high and over its banks. We have had a crash programme for health by way of promise and out of the hot seat goes, as the Irish Times would say, young Mr. O'Malley. Now he has moved into Education where we will have another crash programme, although in what direction the crash will take place, I would not care to venture a guess.

A university for Limerick.

More power to him if he succeeds. I think that project is very dear to Deputy O'Malley's heart and I hope he will succeed in getting it through. I am sure the Limerick people will be terribly disappointed if they do not get it.

Did we not have crash programmes in 1956? They crashed——

(Interruptions.)

We had no crash programmes.

You were flinging rocks out of Connemara into the sea and building glasshouses.

Does the Deputy not know that under the aegis of the present Minister for the Gaeltacht, who did a three weeks refresher course before he started on his Ministry, in the Island of Aran, more glasshouses were built and more heat put into them and that on the occasion of the last or last but one great storm in the West, they were all blown down and never replaced and that they have been sold? Did the Deputy not hear of that crash programme?

No, but I heard of the previous one.

People in glass houses should not throw stones.

Our national loans have reached an incredible sum and our national debt is around £720 million, the servicing of which costs over £50 million a year. People who are encouraged to invest in national loans—and I say this generally—suffer a severe let-down as each year passes. Say a national loan is floated at five per cent and people put their money in at something like par. The next year there is one at 5½ per cent, perhaps at 99 or 98, and down goes the previous one in value and, as each year passes, these loans go down in value as each succeeding one is offered with increased interest.

I know some bodies that have invested in national loans to a considerable extent each time they come out as a matter of patriotic endeavour, and I applaud that endeavour, but one company that has been investing like that has told me that over the past four or five years they have lost nearly £45,000 through the depreciation that follows on increased offers. That must be particularly difficult for people investing small earnings or money they have got if, for any reason, they have to cash their investments or sell them in an emergency. This is something our finance experts should take into consideration and they should try to evolve some system whereby this resultant unfairness will not occur. I am not blaming the Government for this. I am speaking generally on the point. All Governments have increased the interest payable on loans year by year but it is a trend that should be watched and about which we should take care.

This Government have, for once, promised too much in the sense that we now have the beginning of a feeling among the people that they can no longer be trusted. How that feeling of trust lasted so long is beyond comprehension. Promise is easy but performance is sometimes, though not always, difficult, but when you bring promise to the pitch of any kind of expediency, then performance becomes increasingly difficult and people are disillusioned, become pessimistic and worse still, cynical. When they become cynical about their leaders or rulers, democracy is in peril.

The Taoiseach has seen fit to attack the Press, the columnists and writers of newspaper articles generally. From the Opposition point of view, that is a good sign, a sign that the Taoiseach is not happy with the situation. When you are unhappy with your own situation, you attack others. The predominant thing in all this—and I do not suppose the people will be silent about it until the historians come to write about it—is the strange fact that the Fianna Fáil Party claim a monopoly of patriotism at all times. Nobody else has the right to express an opinion or think of doing something in any way different from what they say is the right way. Each side in any discussion or argument has a point of view and it is very important that one side should admit the other has a point of view. When we reach the stage of all being out of step but Johnny, we must look out for trouble.

I think the Government, shuffle or no shuffle, will only be able to shuffle on from day to day, grasping expedient after expedient, because they have no plan, and no amount of committees, councils or commissions will solve their problem if they have not the capacity, the energy and ability to give directions from the top. No amount of whitewashing by committees, councils or commissions can relieve the Government of their responsibility. We hope the day is not too far distant when the people will be given an opportunity of relieving the Government, not of their responsibility—because they do not appear to have any—but of the opportunity to pursue a course of irresponsibility, without a plan, simply relying on expediency.

It is an advantage to be on the Opposition benches in a debate like this.

We will swop with you.

That is for the people to decide and fortunately they have decided. Opposition speakers can recite a litany of difficulties through which the country is passing and can make capital out of that to slate the Government and it is all accepted, I assume, as part of the democratic process under which we work. It is accepted by everybody that the country is and has been going through difficult times and that there is a period of financial stringency. Many of those difficulties arose from reasons completely outside our control, such as the British levy and restrictions of credit in other countries. If we are honest, however, we must admit that many of the difficulties we experience are caused by people in our own country. I do not think it serves any useful purpose to try to apportion blame for the industrial unrest we have been experiencing in the recent past to employer or worker. The system is probably wrong. If the new Minister for Labour does nothing but persuade both sides of industry that a settlement must eventually be arrived at if the industry is to continue, and that it is much better to compromise and reach a settlement before strike action is taken and before a great deal of hardship is caused to individuals and often a great deal of damage is caused to the economy, then I think he will have done a good day's work.

It is easy to blame everything on the Government and to expect to get away with it but Deputies on the opposite side of the House who do that do not believe it themselves and we may be quite certain that the people outside do not believe it either. Like most human beings, the Government make mistakes but they are certainly not making all the mistakes and they cannot be blamed for creating all the problems and difficulties that face us. Unfortunately, extravagant statements are commonplace in this Assembly. We get used to hearing assertions that the country is "bust", that the country is broke, that we have not the price of a wheelbarrow, and so on, which may make some performances in this House rival those to be seen at the Cork Opera House or at the Abbey Theatre. Nevertheless, it does not do us much credit or serve any useful purpose.

Like most people in public life, I have an interest in housing. Because we cannot get all the money we now need, we are told that the country is broke. In 1960-61, we spent £9½ million on housing; in 1962-63, £11 million; in 1963-64, a little more than £11 million; in 1964-65, £15 million; in 1965-66, £20 million and this year, £21.8 million. I am not saying all that because I feel the money should not be spent—far from it—but obviously nobody can justly accuse the country of being broke while that kind of money is being put into housing.

Practically every Department of State is getting more money now than it got in those years which Deputy Corish cited this morning as fairly good years—1962, 1963 and 1964. I think you will find that much more money is being spent on various services now than was spent in those years because the people demand a higher standard of living, and rightly so. People demand better housing accommodation, better hospitalisation, better medical facilities, and so on, and it all costs money. It is a fact that we have not got enough money for our needs and we are certainly far from being broke and we are certainly a very creditworthy nation.

For a time, last night, I listened to one of the Labour Deputies who said he was speaking not only for his Party but on behalf of trade unionists and their fear of what may happen under the Free Trade Agreement with Britain. He painted a very doleful picture of the future. I do not for a moment admit that the Labour Party have any more right to speak for trade unionists than the members of my Party. Generally speaking, we get at least as much support from trade unionists as any Party in the House and therefore I do not accept what he said.

I do not find that trade unionists are in any way afraid of competition, when and if it comes, from across the water. They are quite prepared to match their skill, if they get proper conditions and proper equipment, with anything that comes from across the water. Instead of undermining the confidence of our workers and, through them, of our industrialists, we should do the opposite and point out that they have proved themselves, at home and abroad, as good workers as can be found in any country. Given the proper conditions, they can face any competition. I should consider it a poor reflection on us if what I say is not the truth.

I do not indulge in personalities but I deplore the personal attacks on a Minister in this House during the past few weeks. It is a peculiar thing that people who shout loudest for more State control of industry are also loudest in their criticism of Ministers in charge of those Departments. Nobody in private industry would have to suffer what the Minister in charge of a State concern has to suffer from the members of this House. There should be some other way of rectifying any faults, if faults there be, in that industry rather than have the disedifying scenes we witnessed.

There was a reason for it, then?

I do not think there was any justification for that type of behaviour. There may be reasons for an attack on how an industry is run but certainly not for an attack on any one person.

The Deputy inferred that there might be some other system of examining these industries than discussing them in this House.

I should be very sympathetically inclined towards a solution of that kind. No credit was given in my hearing during all that time to the taking over of the British and Irish Steampacket Company, Limited. We were told about the losses it sustained but, during the recent seamen's strike in Britain, we should have been in a very bad way, infinitely worse off than we were, but for the foresight of that Department in acquiring that company.

I hear many criticisms of the Verolme Dockyard and of the B and I Steampacket, Company Limited. We cannot have it both ways. The Verolme Dockyard and Irish Steel Holdings Limited, employ at least 800 men each. Is it not better to subsidise an industry to a certain extent and to keep the men in Ireland than to bemoan the fact that we are sending people on the emigrant ship, as Deputies opposite like to do? I should be prepared to keep people at home and, if necessary, to subsidise the industry to a great extent to keep them employed in their own country.

We have heard about the good years. I am long enough in this House to know that, whether they are good years or bad years, we hear much the same criticism and much the same speeches from the opposite benches. I regard that as a part of the system under which we work. It is a good democratic pastime to use this House as a safety valve to get that sort of thing off one's chest. I have no reason to worry about it. If I had the gift of prophecy. I would prophesy that Fianna Fáil will weather this storm. Already the clouds are beginning to break. When we come in here after the next general election, Fianna Fáil having been returned to power once more, we will have the same people making the same speeches as they have made throughout the past ten years, alleging that Fianna Fáil have fooled the people and were returned under false pretences. That is the poorest possible reflection on the intelligence of the Irish electorate because you cannot fool the people all the time.

The fact is Fianna Fáil have had the confidence of the people on so many occasions because the people feel they can trust Fianna Fáil and, even if there is a difficult period, there is not the slightest doubt in the minds of the vast majority that Fianna Fáil will weather it and the country will climb to even greater heights, greater heights than it achieved up to a little over 12 months ago. This motion of no confidence is a political gesture made at this time every year. It is a motion nobody expects to see taken further than the precincts of this House.

I was somewhat amused at the surprise expressed by Deputy Healy over the criticism levelled at the Government because of the economic state of the country. Surely the criticism levelled at the Government in office in 1956 was of the same character as that levelled at the Government today and, if that criticism was warranted then, it is equally warranted now. The Opposition Parties and the people are entitled to criticise both the Government and the state of the economy. The Government are there to govern and we, in the Labour Party, in tabling this motion of no confidence earnestly believe, and are confident in that belief, that we are expressing the viewpoint of the vast majority of the breadwinners, the housewives, the potential breadwinners, the boys and girls leaving school, the social welfare recipients, and all those other categories who are worried because the type of society they were promised has never been realised under a Fianna Fail Government.

We lay special emphasis on housing and all the statistics quoted here this evening by Deputy Healy are no consolation to the people of Mid-Cork and elsewhere who are living in appalling housing conditions. Over the past few months, I have visited a number of houses. It is a miracle that they have remained standing at all for the past three or four years. It is doubtful if they will withstand the coming winter. The inhabitants of these houses have been told by Cork County Council that there is no possibility whatever of having these houses replaced this year. They are held up for one reason, and one reason only, lack of money and it is very hard to expect people living in the conditions in which these people are living to have confidence in a Government they regard as responsible for their situation.

Deputy Corry was quite glad to find so many people needing houses. Indeed, that sentiment has been expressed by many Government speakers. They maintain this is a sign of prosperity. Some of those I know seeking houses are, in fact, not employed at all. They are widows with large families, old people and social welfare recipients. Their housing needs are not an indication of increased prosperity. What these people want to know now is when houses will be built for them.

The Taoiseach, speaking here this morning, said:

...the Government are also considering the feasibility of relaxing in some degree the limitations on the capital programme which were unavoidable earlier in the year....

I do not know what exactly the Taoiseach intends to convey by that sentence. I do not know if he means to convey that more money will now be made available, or made available before next winter, for the housebuilding programme so that houses will be provided for those who need them so badly. That is what the people want to know and, until they are told, they will have no confidence in this Government.

They also want to know when this promised health plan will be implemented. The promised plan raised their hopes considerably. It is difficult to blame them if they are now becoming a little doubtful about the plan. People are naturally inclined to ask from where will the money come. They have become so used to having no money made available for promised projects that they are a bit doubtful about the health plan being put into operation. We hope they are wrong in that and that it will be put into operation earlier than any of us think.

Rural Deputies, in particular, will agree that we have a big problem in relation to water and sewerage extensions. Those of us in county councils have throughout the past year or two tabled many motions for extensions of existing schemes. Hopes were generally raised that regional water schemes would be supplied in different areas. Local authorities have all been told this year that such schemes cannot be proceeded with. In the southern area of Cork County Council, we find we are £51,000 short of what we need to meet the commitments we have undertaken and people want to know what the prospects are for the future. Promises will not satisfy them; neither will the statement that we are over the worst, that we have turned the corner and that the economy will right itself if we all tighten our belts. They are growing more and more dubious of the ability of this Government to rescue the country from the morass in which it is.

The Taoiseach spoke today, too, about the decision of his Government to give priority to education. What the parents of schoolchildren in my constituency will ask themselves, when they read that statement is: "Will the dilapidated, unfit school to which my children are going now be replaced? We were told earlier this year that there was no prospect of replacement because the school does not appear on the Department's priority list. Are the Government now going to relax the limitations on the capital programme and does that mean that there is some prospect of our school being built?" That is what the people want to know. They do not want generalisations that everything will be all right in a year or two. They want facts and they want them now.

Is the Taoiseach's statement that education is to receive priority consistent with a circular which vocational committees received recently from the Department, asking them, for the first time ever, to balance their books this year? They are asked to increase school fees, regardless of the fact that this may place education outside the financial competence of many parents. If they do not increase the fees, they are asked to cut back on educational equipment, regardless of the fact that this may be detrimental to technical education. This is the first time we find education treated as an economic rather than a social issue. It is rather extraordinary that, on the one hand, we have the Taoiseach stating that education will get priority and, on the other hand, the Department asking that fees be increased or equipment not installed. Up to this everybody has looked on education as a social issue. Now, vocational committees are being asked to pay their way, to balance their books, and, when schemes are sent for sanction, sanction is given with the proviso that the books are balanced. I hope the Taoiseach's statement this morning is an indication that that kind of thinking will not continue in the field of education.

The Taoiseach spoke also of the Government's role in increasing the earning capacity of the people. We have heard a great deal about investment in education and about the lack of technical training and the shortage of technicians. Surely, if this situation is to be rectified, it cannot be reconciled with the circular issued to committees instructing them that fees must be increased or that equipment must not be installed if its installation is likely to cost the State more money?

Our redundant workers and our boys and girls leaving school are asking at the moment what the Government are doing about them. Many of our emigrants left this country convinced that their stay would be a short one. They were led to believe by the Government that employment would be freely available for them all in their own country within a short time, but the employment position today is worse than it was when they left. They and our boys and girls leaving school cannot be blamed for their lack of confidence in the Government. We cannot have confidence in a Government who have so dismally failed to keep their promises in this regard.

Deputy Corish stated this morning that the Government must take positive steps to create new employment. That is a reason for our no confidence motion. He stated that he believed private enterprise had failed this country and that the time had come for the State to take over. That is our Policy as a Party. The State must intervene if justice is to be done to the section of the community to which I have referred. I was amused to hear Deputy Corry—maybe what he says is true but I am sure Deputy McAuliffe knows more about it than I do—say a few months ago that he had seen to it that there was full employment in his constituency. He said the industries there were based, as they should be, on agricultural raw materials. He said they had to import some labour from Galway and Mayo. I would suggest to Deputy Corry that if this is the position in East Cork, although I doubt it, he might influence his Government to come along to the neighbouring constituency of Mid-Cork and set up one or two or more of these industries there. Some efforts have been made over the past few years to establish industries of this nature but unfortunately none has succeeded. I hope Deputy Corry will do in his spare time for Mid-Cork what he has accomplished in his own constituency.

This morning the Taoiseach touched on the subject of an incomes policy. How can the ordinary man or woman, or indeed the ordinary Deputy, know what he means by an incomes policy or if he is sincere at all about his plan for it? Speaking at Mullingar in the Spring of 1965 the Taoiseach said that this incomes policy could not be worked except in Communist countries. Yet in October of the same year he said it could be worked by consultation and by agreement. We would like to know more about it. We agree an incomes policy is necessary. A minimum income is necessary but it is not enjoyed by a large number of our workers today. We do not know what he has in mind in regard to this.

Neither does he.

During this year some workers have already got, and others will get, an increase of £1 per week in their wages. Female workers will get only 15/-. I feel very strongly on this but I do not suppose this is the place to pursue that at all.

Why not? Speak up, Ma'am.

I shall come back to the question of the breadwinners who got £1 per week increase. For some people living on the outskirts of Cork city this £1 has already been absorbed. The parents there send their children to school on the buses to Cork city each day. The bus fare cost a child 4d per trip prior to the increase. That meant ¼d per day. That has now been doubled. I do not know how CIE work it out but it is now 2/8d. That represents an increase of 6/8d per week per child. For parents with three children, that works out at exactly £1 per week. Therefore, the increase of £1 has been completely absorbed for vast numbers of these workers. We are told prices have been controlled. They have to some extent. However, we know that following increased taxation on petrol, road tax and transport over the past two months, prices will rise again. The cost of household commodities and utensils will rise in the near future due to purchase tax. We know that house prices will rise because of the increase in the cost of building materials.

We hear a great deal from the Taoiseach and the Minister for Finance about the need for a redistribution of the national wealth. The people I am speaking of cannot be expected to take that seriously with the burden of taxation imposed on the essential items of food of the lowest paid worker. These people with three children living on the outskirts of Cork city cannot possibly cope with increased prices. Their last state will certainly be worse than their first. So will the state of social welfare recipients. We know social welfare is a tremendous drain on our economy, with a proportionately small working population. At present there is a group of social welfare recipients who are expressing very unpatriotic sentiments. Their Irish pensions have been reduced because their British pensions have been increased. It is a pity that people should be forced to make the statements these people are understandably making. The system of means test with regard to social welfare recipients must be relaxed if fair play is to be done.

There has been a great deal of talk recently about the place of agriculture in the economy. This is particularly so since the introduction of the Anglo-Irish Free Trade Agreement in which so much emphasis has been placed on agriculture. That is only right. As we stated at the time, industry will have some difficulty competing, and in some cases surviving, in terms of free trade. If the effects are not felt this year, they will be felt next year and the years after. Therefore, we are more than ever dependent on agriculture to tide us over the transitional period.

There is one aspect of agriculture to which I should like to refer. There is one effort I feel the Government have not made which would encourage farmers to increase production as they have been exhorted to do, that is, land drainage.

Hear, hear.

Down in our county, ever since my arrival on Cork County Council, we have had a number of deputations of landowners living along the banks of our rivers. We have listened to and been impressed by the cases they made. We have contacted the Board of Works and, strangely enough, we find their place in the priority list is exactly the same as several years ago. They never seem to move up. We requested that a deputation be received in connection with this in an effort to speed up the drainage of the land in which we are interested. We are told, as always, by the Minister for Local Government when we request him to receive a deputation, that it could serve no useful purpose. I do not know how these farmers who live along the river and who are expected to increase production, whose lands are under water year after year and who see no hope of their being drained in the foreseeable future, can be expected to have confidence in the Government, especially when the scheme to have their lands drained never seems to move up on the list.

I do not see how the ESB workers can continue to have confidence in a Government which takes away the rights which they have always enjoyed, to withdraw their labour. I do not know how any group of workers, knowing that this could be applied to them in the morning if the Government felt like it, could continue to have confidence in the type of Government we have, with so few of the targets in the Second Programme for Economic Expansion being reached and with no likelihood of the promises now being made being carried out in the foreseeable future.

Day after day the Taoiseach and his Ministers refer to the type of society they are working for, without taking any of the necessary practical steps to make that society a reality. With so much hardship being allowed to continue, and being allowed to increase for some of the lower-paid sections, we believe that the Government no longer enjoy the confidence of Dáil Éireann. We are certain they no longer enjoy the confidence of the people whom they continue to govern.

The Taoiseach recently, apparently in jest but, I suspect, substantially in earnest, jeered at a recent address which I gave to this House, because in reference to industrial relations, I stressed the importance of the fundamentals—the fundamentals in industrial relations being the human relationships which exist between employers and employees. In the course of the Taoiseach's reply, he appeared to make little of the virtue of love, suggesting that I had gone so far as to say that God is love. I am prepared to concede, as the Taoiseach has a sense of humour, that he was overstressing the points I made, but I do think it is important that we should appreciate the intrinsic value and virtue of love, love of one's God, of one's fellow man and love of one's nation. The tragic thing in this country is that the exercise of patriotism has become very rare because the Fianna Fáil Party under the Taoiseach have indicated to the people that patriotism should never be exercised unless one is sure a temporal reward is available because of the exercise of it.

Hear, hear.

So it is that people are not prepared to make the sacrifices which once they felt it easy to make. Now, before any task is done, they want to know the price, the reward, and they want to know what they are going to get out of it. There are very few tasks that this Government perform for which there is not some ulterior motive, or which for them there is not a good, calculated chance that they are going to profit substantially out of it, if not politically, then personally. All this——

Do not forget about love.

All this obliges me out of love of my fellow countrymen to make them aware of the dangerous trends and to make them aware of the fact that the Irish soul is being destroyed and damaged because of this new greed, the greed which is the philosophy of Fianna Fáil, because it is primarily the personal philosophy of the Taoiseach and most members of the Government. They have polluted and soiled many streams of national activity, cultural, agricultural and industrial. They have polluted them with their philosophy, greed for their personal gain. Combined with this, they have approached the problems of the nation and the people with an outrageous arrogance which is greater than the imperialism which was once the burden of this country when the Union Jack flew here. We now have a new imperialism under the badge of Fianna Fáil.

There may be members who feel that I am stressing it too much but I feel that when we have a Government activated solely by their own greed for power, a Government who allow that philosophy to percolate down to the humblest people in the land, then we have become the slaves of a new tyranny, the tyranny of Fianna Fáil. As I said this tyranny and this philosophy are combined. Last year I had to condemn the Taoiseach because he had personally addressed an appeal for subscriptions for the Fianna Fáil Party to many senior civil servants. That was for the last general election for which he sought funds for the Fianna Fáil Party and he asked that the subscriptions be sent to him personally and he undertook not to publish the list of names. He did not, of course, undertake not to keep it.

Hear, hear.

In the case of the recent electoral contest, the Presidential election, this piece of contemptible and deplorable arrogance was again repeated by the Taoiseach who sent out appeals for funds, not to industrialists alone, not to the rich and wealthy, not to the people of independent means, but once again to senior civil servants in their offices. They were addressed not alone by their own names but also according to their rank and title in the State service. Just what can we as an Opposition and as an essential political Party do to warn the people of the inevitable consequences of a trend of that kind? How can we have independent civil servants, public servants with integrity, when they feel that the consequences of their declining to send a personal subscription to the Taoiseach will be to deprive themselves of a fair promotion according to their ability? How can the most able civil servant who is entirely inspired by principles, not have regard to the fact that his own fortunes and the fortunes of his wife and family can be jeopardised unless he sends along a subscription to Seán Uasal Lemass?

How can the Taoiseach who did it face the people?

None of them subscribed and all are still there.

He can do it as long as he is——

(Interruptions.)

——and as long as the people allow their souls to lie in the moribund spirit that Fianna Fáil have created in this country so far as matters of integrity and conscience are concerned.

Is Dr. Andrews giving them much?

It might be said that we should press for the publication of the names of the people who subscribed to the Fianna Fáil Party but that is not necessary. Instead, all one need do is stand at the gate of Dublin Castle whenever the Taoiseach throws a reception there. Then you will see going along the ill-bred and ill-mannered people of so many Fianna Fáil cumainn and many of the people who have taken out their cheque books and sent funds to the Fianna Fáil Party. At a recent jamboree, at which the Taoiseach was the nominal host, spending the taxpayers' money, there were three times as many people present as were present on a similar occasion in 1952. There were twice as many people present as there were present in 1959. One wonders where the extra thousands have come from since 1959? People with some knowledge of the rank and file members of the Fianna Fáil Party saw there, in so far as it was possible to see anybody, because of the vast multitude that were shouldering one another in the place, 27 chairmen and 19 secretaries of Fianna Fáil cumainn and their spouses, five members of the headquarters staff of Fianna Fáil, two members of the employees of the Fianna Fáil Party, who were seen with shears cutting down the posters of Deputy Tom O'Higgins, who was the opponent of the Fianna Fáil candidate. Also seen and heard there was a gentleman who admitted that, although he hated their guts, he had subscribed £100 to their funds.

Like Paul Singer a few years ago.

When he was in a state of rather disgusting inebriation, and was reprimanded by his wife for being in that condition, he said: "I paid the so-and-sos £100 to be here and by God, I am going to get my value out of it." There used to be a phrase of contempt used here in the days when we had British imperialism as distinct from Fianna Fáil imperialism, in reference to those people: they were known as Castle Catholics. Now we have a new brand of contemptible citizens. We have the Castle-following crowd, those who want to be seen there, those people who have to be rewarded for the services given to the Fianna Fáil Party.

I was present earlier this year at my one and only jamboree of that kind because I have no particular appetite for such functions. I went to the one which was thrown to commemorate and honour the survivors of 1916. My heart went out to the unfortunate septuagenarians and octogenarians, people who quite obviously were seriously disabled in the autumn of their days, and people who were very feeble and unable to get a chair. They were pushed and thrown everywhere between the many thousand members of the Fianna Fáil cumainn, who were being rewarded for their menial services, by being brought along, to be wined, dined and intoxicated at public expense. What a contemptible way to honour those brave men who sacrificed so much that Ireland might be free. Is it any wonder that many of them wondered if it was worth while when they had to witness such a contemptible performance to honour them after 50 years?

This thing is very wrong. It is entirely wrong that State functions of that kind should be graced by people who are in public service or, because of the rank they hold in the Fianna Fáil Party, have to be rewarded for the services they have given as officers of Fianna Fáil cumainn and comhairlí ceanntair, their directors and their various hierarchy. That is entirely wrong. If they want to do that, let them do it at the expense of the Fianna Fáil Party. If the Fianna Fáil Presidential candidate wants to do that, let him do it at his own expense on the green lawn of Arus an Uachtaráin rather than in Dublin Castle at the expense of the taxpayers.

Subscribers are more important.

Those things count as far as the Fianna Fáil Party are concerned. It is their helpers and subscribers who must be rewarded. Those are the important people and not the survivors of our fight for freedom. It is not those who on merit alone deserve to be there who are invited but those other people because of the jobs they hold. A symbol of the sickness and the decay of this country stands at the foot of the lower yard in the Castle. There is a building there which was evacuated 15 years ago because it was dangerous and unfit to house people. We were told even five years ago that this building was to be demolished three years ago. The paint on that particular building was peeling off like huge white horses on a stormy sea. Although the paint was peeling off that building, it was not doing people any particular harm. Then, just before the jamboree, one had the rather amusing sight of gentlemen up on ladders with garden houses knocking off the peeling waves of decayed paint and plaster. This was followed by putting on one coat of paint to impress, according to the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Finance, the distinguished guests attending the Presidential inauguration.

The interesting thing is that the distinguished guests, as distinct from the not so distinguished members of the Fianna Fáil organisation, had no occasion to go into the Lower Castle Yard at all. I was amused yesterday morning to read that one of our most skilled and able journalists suggested that remarks of mine about this referred to eminent clerics in the rank of members of the Fianna Fáil Party. Of course, one must be punctilious about this. The two eminent clerics had no occasion to go, and did not go, into the Lower Castle Yard. That was reserved for the lesser folk who drove their own cars and had to park them there. The eminent people referred to, and the other distinguished guests at ambassadorial level, went in by the Upper Yard so they never saw the symbol of the decayed building in the Lower Castle Yard that has now had a fresh coat of paint put on it. This only impressed those who came along at the behest of the Fianna Fáil Party.

This is not being said lightly by me; it is not being said just to have a go at the Government. I have not said all of this to hit back at the Taoiseach or anybody else. I want to say that this underlines the rottenness of the moral fibre of this country which has been damaged almost beyond repair by the activities during the past decade of the Fianna Fáil Government, without going back any farther than that. We think it essential that the people become aware of the horrid nature of those activities and being aware of them, that they will do something to put an end to what is happening. We have the Castle crawthumper, the member of the Fianna Fáil Party who demands that he be rewarded for his services by an invitation to the Castle, and I feel that people will reject that type of activity.

We in Dublin are proud of the fact that the people have at long last in Dublin become conscious of the arrogance of the Fianna Fáil Party. We think that the recent tremendous vote against Fianna Fáil in Dublin is not only a condemnation of their economic policies, social policies, or lack of them, but is also a condemnation of their arrogance and lack of patriotism; but the people in Dublin for a long time seemed to be inadequately concerned about the fact that tens of thousands of their neighbours were not properly housed. When I saw the vote which the Fianna Fáil Party secured in the last general election in Dublin, just a short 18 months ago, I was disappointed, not because of the insufficient number of votes which my Party achieved on that occasion, but because it seemed to indicate a frame of mind on the part of Dublin people who were well housed, who were fortunate, that they could not care less about the less fortunate amongst them. But, I do feel that the people of this country at long last realise that there are in Dublin 10,000 families who urgently require decent houses. They have not got them and cannot get them and cannot hope to get them in the present housing output for at least ten years.

This makes no allowance for all those as yet uncreated and unestablished families, unborn children, who will come into the housing market in the years ahead. We regret the Government have not taken steps over the years to watch the marriage figures, to watch the figures for births. Those figures are readily available to the Government through the Central Statistics Office. They are collected through the registry of births, deaths and marriages and also through the workings of the Department of Social Welfare, and the work of this Department and the information collected shows that over the past decade the number of marriages has been increasing, the number of early marriages has been increasing and, consequently, the number of births is increasing and the increasing demand for housing is multiplied, but the Government have failed to make any provision whatsoever for any of those additional burdens which are inevitable and they certainly have not allowed for them in their White Paper on housing requirements.

That is bad enough, but what is worse still is that they have not even yet bothered to tackle the problems which are so obvious. There are 10,000 families in need of houses and we are told in this House and elsewhere that there are not 10,000 but only 5,000 families in Dublin who require to be urgently housed. The situation is that of the 10,000 families, 5,000 are so critically in need of housing that the chief medical officer says there is a medical need for them to be rehoused, an urgent compelling medical need to have them rehoused. One can appreciate how low he sets the standard when there has been no building, no basement room, no attic room, no room with insufficient light or full of dampness or with fungus on the wall, condemned as unfit for human habitation since June 1963.

In Dublin, so considerable is the housing problem that the public authority, through the Department of Local Government and through the Government and the influences they exert on the local authority, do not want to acknowledge that the appalling housing situation is any worse than they are forced, by the number of applications, to accept. But, prior to this stoppage of condemnation as being unfit for human habitation, Dublin had on average 300 houses annually condemned as unfit for human habitation because they were damp or because of an insufficiency of light, because of rotten floor boards, or because of the fact that they were generally just decayed. But the only condemnation there has been in Dublin in the past three years is in respect of houses that were in danger of imminent collapse, that is to say, the walls were going to fall out or in, and there was danger of a catastrophe through the forces of the laws of gravity.

The kind of appalling conditions that would lead a farmer to be prosecuted if he had those conditions for his animals are being tolerated in this city and throughout the country because the Government do not wish to accept that the housing conditions are any worse than the figures given. We have the tomfoolery which followed the Ballymun scheme. We were promised houses there almost a year ago. Then we were told that was excessive enthusiasm and the first house would not be available until last December when Dublin was to get a Christmas gift of 20 houses or more and a house per day in Ballymun thereafter.

Now, Sir, we are in July and there is not as much as a square foot in Ballymun that has been handed over to be occupied by the 700 families of five and more in one room crying to be housed in Dublin, not to mention the thousands of families of four in one room and many other people who urgently need houses.

There are a few holes dug out there.

People will say that we speak with too much heat in this House but parliamentary rules exhort us to speak with a limited vocabulary. But were we to express the remarks of the mothers who are forced to look after their children, to rear them, to dress them, to wash them, to feed them and make them sleep all in one room, and were we to recite the remarks of those women who have to eat, sleep and wash, all in the one room, the records of this House could not carry the language which these people out of their justifiable anger are using every day and there is not one member of the Dublin Corporation sitting opposite me who will dispute this.

The Deputy does not know what he is talking about.

In all fairness to them, nobody is more disappointed than the three Fianna Fáil members of Dublin Corporation opposite me because they know they have failed, and failed miserably, in the most contemptible way we have had ever to endure in this city of Dublin.

The Deputy's Party solved that by emigration.

(Interruptions.)

We saw, when houses could have been built in this city at less than half the present cost, the Fianna Fáil Government build only 270 houses in a year when, in fact, 2,700 were required, and not until we have in power a Government who will return to the record set up under a Government in which Fine Gael were the guiding party, will we have houses.

In which the late T.J. Murphy was the driving force.

I have the record here.

(Interruptions.)

In one year, 15 years ago, 2,750 houses were built and until we return to that record, this miserable litany of human misery will be repeated day in day out and week in and week out. One would have thought that those who were brave enough this time last year to forecast houses for October would, in July, 1966, be able to forecast when the first house would be handed over. They are still not prepared tonight, unless there has been a change of heart this day, to say when the first keys of Ballymun will be handed over.

Next Wednesday.

They tried to suggest recently that it was all due to the fact that we had bad weather. The fact is that the provision of houses in the traditional manner was held up for a couple of months earlier this year. But was it held up for 12 months; was it held up for eight months? It most certainly was not, because it is known and can be proved from the records, that the weather this year, apart from a rather large amount of rain in the early part of the year, was better than normal.

That is not correct, and the Deputy knows it.

The weather is now being blamed for a plan which was ill-conceived, which was much vaunted and much boasted about. It was held out like a carrot to the people at the last general election that all their housing problems would be over because we were going to have what Deputy Noel Lemass called the "Blaney Heights". Would he call it "Blaney Heights" today or would he call it "Burke's Hole".

Or "Ryan's Sewer".

Methinks it is time some people remained silent on the question of Ballymun. We in Fine Gael cannot, because we share the desperation of the people, because we felt that if you were going to build houses for them, we would let you try. We gave the project our blessing when it was first proposed because we felt that if instead of these buffooneries, there was to be some house building in the traditional way, it would at least relieve some hundreds of families. But we are told by Deputy Moore that the houses are there and he expects us to thank them for that. I hope the 700 families of five in one room tonight will be glad to hear from Deputy Moore that the houses are there for the past six months but they cannot be let into them. It is strange to say that people should be grateful because they have houses there for them but they will not be let into them. That only makes matters worse.

One thousand seven hundred families emigrated during your time.

The Deputy is entirely wrong, and he knows it. The figures for emigration of Dublin Corporation tenants were high in 1959-60 when yourselves were in power. Today your greatest contribution towards the relief of the housing crisis in Dublin is not the provision of houses but the emigration of fathers, mothers and children who have no hope of getting houses and who are obliged, because of that, to go, even when they are in jobs, to fly from the misery of the appalling housing conditions, or bad health itself. Their daily experience, as long as they live, has been not alone five in one room but sometimes 13, 15, 18 and, yes, 20 in a house which was only intended for five or six people.

We have built all around the perimeter of our city and these houses, as Deputies will know, are occupied by two, three, and even four families and, because they do not comply with the Fianna Fáil priority of statistics of five in the family of the applicant they have no prospect of being housed this year. God knows when they will ever have a chance of being housed. If you have any more children to comply with the Fianna Fáil requirements, you will be overcrowded. Mothers are suffering serious ill-health, physically and mentally, but all these things are not measurable according to the pitiable priorities we now have, that you must be able to establish five people per room in the family of the person applying. Even when you can establish that, you will probably have a fourth or fifth child before you can even get a house.

I have no wish to dwell upon the misfortunes of our fellow citizens but when I come up against the smug complacency of those who say that people should not complain—Fine Gael should not complain, Labour have no right to complain because there are houses there, but they will not be given out—I cannot refrain from doing so. I think it is time to expose the callousness of people who speak in that way. But, why? Because they are full of defects. Houses which were built six months ago cannot be given out because there are defects in them.

(Interruptions.)

The great secret in Dublin is: "Do not tell anybody why the houses are not being given out in Ballymun. We will dig a hole and let Deputy Paddy Burke fall into it and that will be a good excuse for another few months." We must be the only public authority in the world who build houses and leave them standing there for a long time while 10,000 people remain on the housing lists, but we will not give the houses up to them. This is a very strange approach to it.

The Deputy heard last Monday night.

What happened?

Deputy Paddy Burke fell into a hole but he was lucky enough to be dragged out. This is simply not good enough. We had about three years ago a great deal of clamouring and excitement, the kind of thing we will have again in view of recent changes in the Department of Education. But we will just test how valuable is the excitement you hear about today in the Department of Education. We were told that 66 per cent of the cost of providing new secondary schools was to be paid for by a benevolent Fianna Fáil administration. We learned this week, from that tremendous democratic weapon, that not as much as one brass farthing has been paid in respect of any new secondary school, not as much as a farthing has been paid.

We found out today that it takes the Department of Education up to two years to process an application before any sanction is given, and the consequence of all this has been that a large number of secondary school authorities who proposed, out of their own resources in 1964, to build new secondary schools were tempted by the carrot which Fianna Fáil put before them to postpone the operation of their plans until they got sanction from the Government so that the Government would share the burden of repaying the capital they borrowed and upon which they had to pay interest.

Now we see the purpose of this. When these promises were made in the summer of 1964, the Government knew then, as any person with reasonable understanding of economics knew then, that we were slipping down a slope towards a severe restriction in credit and they enticed all those secondary school authorities to postpone their building plans until they had gone into the Fianna Fáil web. Once they got them there, they would not be allowed out of the web until credit restrictions made it impossible for them to get the loans they could have got in the summer of 1964, The result is that all over this city urgently needed secondary schools have not gone up in the past two years, which would have gone up if Fianna Fáil had not held out this carrot. Although they held out this carrot, nobody has, as yet, got a nibbling of it, a smell of it, or even a sight of it, because nothing whatsoever has been paid.

Those who, out of sheer desperation, decided to get loans to build, pending the availability of the Govearnment money, now find themselves with colossal bills of interest to pay and no assistance from the Government towards meeting them. In the meantime the cost of building these schools has risen by ten to 15 per cent and the Government, with typical Fianna Fáil munificence and generosity, have insisted that not only should the classrooms which are urgently needed be built but that ancillary facilities which are not essential should also be built for children who will need secondary education during the next four or five years. I believe that kind of activity is contemptible.

Now the great promiser of all kinds of things has gone to the Department of Education. Promises have been made by people who are inclined to be reckless and that is how they will be broken in the future. We will know little by little but we know from past experience that very little will be achieved. We have seen what is happening in matters of health. During the past general election, under pressure from Fine Gael, the Taoiseach said something which gained the headlines of the newspapers, not only the Irish Press.

The Taoiseach said he hoped it would be possible to prepare a social programme on the lines of the economic programme and that he proposed to do so, if returned to power. What has happened is that we got no programme so far as an extension of social assistance or social welfare is concerned—none whatsoever, although they are there for the past 18 months. We did get this document in relation to the health services in which something like 40 per cent of the improvements which Fine Gael would give within months of being returned to power were promised in three or four years time. Before the great promiser had any opportunity three or four years' time. Before the his lack of performance, he was shifted to a safer stage.

All this must be considered in the light of the tax situation which is now 50 per cent worse than what was forecast by the Government's prophets. The burden of taxation is now 50 per cent higher than it was supposed to be in this great programme, and although it is 50 per cent higher, our rate of expansion is less than half of what it was promised it would be. We are not to be put off. The great optimist, the Taoiseach, says that because we held back at the beginning of the race, because we did not run as fast as we could or should have, we will have to put on an extra spurt in the closing stages. That is all very well, but when we see that it is the intention of the same coach to remain in control until the end of the race, we cannot see any real prospect of improving our rate of growth over the next four years. The result will be that while we are going further and further down the field, the rest of Europe which we had hoped to accompany across the tape at the end of the race will be several miles ahead of us.

This simply is not good enough. The nation cannot afford it. Because of that, we in Fine Gael and our colleagues in the Labour Party are confident that, although the Fianna Fáil Party, aware of their dwindling political fortunes will not accept our motions of no confidence, once the people get an opportunity, they will say in as clear a voice as that in which it was said in Dublin, Cork and other urban centres recently, that they have no confidence in the present Administration. One wonders why it is that there appears to be such a clash between the urban areas and the rural areas at present so far as political awareness is concerned. The reason is probably perfectly simple. It is that in many parts of rural Ireland the people are on subsistence level. Their ambition and their prospects have been stultified through the maladministration of the Fianna Fáil Party. They have never known better days and they have little to look forward to I suppose blessed is he whose ambition and whose hunger is not too great. The result is that they are not as acutely aware of the failure of the Fianna Fáil Party as are the people in other parts of the country who respond immediately——

That is a slur on rural intelligence.

——to any slackening by the Government in the tempo of public affairs. That is no slur upon rural Ireland. We are delighted to see that such a large proportion of the people of Ireland appreciate how much the Fianna Fáil Party have let them down. These people have swung in unprecedented numbers towards the Fine Gael flag. We are quite certain from recent events that the thought processes of these people are in operation again, that the light is shining, and that it is only a matter of time until the Irish conscience, the Irish mind, the Irish economy and outlook for the future will be purged of all the lassitude, indifference and greed which polluted it, and we can look forward to a better Ireland under the leadership of a man of intelligence, a man of ability, a man of new enthusiasms and new outlook, Deputy Cosgrave.

I listened to Deputy Ryan speaking for the past hour or so. He spoke of love of his fellow man. He spoke of pollution and corruption. He had many other phrases befitting a front bench member of the Fine Gael Party.

Phrenetic phrases.

We listened to the slime flow from the Fine Gael sewerpipe for some considerable time. We listened to the political hawkers in the Fine Gael Party, and unfortunately members of the Labour Party, who associated themselves with these censure motions. There is no doubt that the Parties opposite are very good on censure motions. They should be, after the number of years they have been in Opposition. They will probably perfect them in time.

Hear, hear.

It must be gratifying for responsible members of Fine Gael —and there are responsible members of Fine Gael—to have to listen to Deputy Ryan speaking on behalf of their Party. Deputy Ryan spoke about the housing situation. He spoke about the situation in Ballymun. Of course, Deputy Ryan knows nothing about the housing situation in Dublin. During the past seven years, he had the opportunity, week after week, of attending the meetings of Dublin Corporation Housing Committee. He could have done that even if he had not been a member of the Committee. He could have been there to make suggestions for improving the situation. But only once in the seven years did he attend a meeting.

I am not a member of the Committee.

The Deputy may not be but he could have attended the meetings.

People can express themselves without sitting for several hours on a certain part of their anatomy.

Deputy Dowling must be allowed to speak without these interruptions.

The members of the Housing Committee of Dublin Corporation accept responsibility to the full. Fine Gael have been trying to tie the responsibility, as do some Labour Members occasionally, on Fianna Fáil. Deputy Ryan is not alone in this effort to distort the truth about the position in relation to housing. One would think there were plenty of houses when the Coalition were in power. They say there were 1,500 houses vacant in Dublin then. There were because 1,500 families had emigrated, driven out by Coalition policies.

In 1959.

They were shoved out by the efforts of Fine Gael and Labour together.

There were 857 in 1957 and 1,800 in 1959.

Let me quote what Deputy Larkin said. He is reported in volume 160 of the Official Reports at column 2060:

The picture facing us in Dublin this year is not too pleasant. The number of houses completed in the period from 1st April to 31st October last year was 644: this year the number is 449. The number of men employed on housing, housing development work and allied occupations in Dublin city last year was 2,199: this year the number is 1,854. Bear in mind also the fact that last year's figure represented a 50 per cent reduction on the employment in 1951.

Bear in mind also that Deputy Larkin said that in this House on 6th December, 1956. Earlier, Deputy Larkin had this to say about the Dublin Corporation's housing programme:

The first step required the cutting out of the new contract for the Finglas area. That has been approved by the Minister, but now we will have to tell the contractor: "Sorry, we cannot continue with this contract now." That involved a reduction of £61,000 in the estimate.

That would be very appropriate now.

Deputy Larkin went on:

The next was in reference to the direct housing scheme for the Finglas area. That scheme was not to be proceeded with either. It was also suggested that there should be a gradual diminution in employment on direct housing schemes and a gradual laying-off of the workers concerned.

So the position was not so good when the other gang were in office.

What about this year? Tell us about it.

I shall tell about Ballymun, a scheme which Fine Gael and Labour try to decry. When the scheme was introduced in the corporation, the Fine Gael and Labour members accepted it. They said the scheme was a very good idea. The Corporation were producing fewer houses at the time because the traditional methods and labour services available would not meet needs. The Minister for Local Government sent members of the Corporation, including Fine Gael and Labour members, to the Continent. They came back and Ballymun was begun. It was indicated that the programme laid down would take a certain course. Then there was a dock strike and the materials could not be landed at Dublin.

How long did the strike last?

They were returned to France. When eventually they were landed in Dublin, some of the materials were found to have been damaged and as no workshop in the country would undertake to carry out the necessary repairs, they again had to be returned to France. There was also the problem of the laying of the underground services—water, sewerage, electricity and so on. That work had to be done in adverse conditions. At the time, Fine Gael and Labour members agreed that tremendous work was being done in the circumstances.

However, I shall leave the housing situation. I am quite sure they heard enough about the situation when they were in power to keep them going for a while. One would think every house in Dublin had been built by Fine Gael and Labour. In this House there is no lack of experts on topics such as housing. There is, though, a terrible lack of honesty. We have Deputy Ryan, a past master in dishonest dealing.

Tut tut.

The lost leader. All day they have been going from one inaccuracy to another. They will be all dealt with one by one before this debate concludes. They know nothing of the realities before us. Not one constructive suggestion has come from them.

Yes—get out.

Get out quick.

Resign. That is a constructive suggestion for you.

Many of the problems before us require very hard thinking.

Hear, hear.

We must take into consideration our resources and our prospects for the future. The Government are examining them in real terms. The message for the survival of the economy is that there must be collective responsibility and the Opposition are included in that. They have responsibility just as the Government have but they have always shied away from responsibility.

The Government?

No, the Opposition. Not one suggestion——

Yes—resign, go away.

We must examine the record of the people who are trying to censure the Government now. Take the Labour Party. They tried to indicate anxiety for the workers but in actual fact they do not represent the workers.

And we shall continue to represent them. The Deputy misrepresents them.

What have that Party done in the past 12 months? What single suggestion for the workers' real benefit have they made? They have made nothing but destructive suggestions during the debate on the supplementary Budget.

"Supplementary" is not the word.

It was opposed by Fine Gael and Labour. The moneys necessary to give the workers in Government services the additional £1 a week——

It was not provided in the Budget.

——and the women the additional 15/- a week were voted against.

That was not provided in the Budget.

Then there are the farmers about whom we heard so much from Deputy Dillon and his colleagues prior to the general election. Salt tears were shed for them but when the Government indicated that they were prepared to make money available for farm reliefs, Deputy Dillon and the Labour Party turned their backs on them. They stabbed the workers in the back; they stabbed the workers in the Department of Posts and Telegraphs, the workers in this House and in other sections of the Government service. It is not the first time they stabbed the workers in the back.

It is your last time to do it.

You are a disgrace to the workers of Dublin.

You got rid of the aircraft and the chassis factory and many other factories.

It is the Potez factory he is talking about.

It is a good job that they were not in production or you would have sold them out, too.

Will Deputies allow Deputy Dowling to continue?

These people are unable to take any kind of criticism whatever. The only people allowed to criticise the Labour Party and the trade union movement are the paid officials. Otherwise, nobody is supposed to say a bad word about them or to say anything that might bring about a betterment and an improvement of the trade unions. Let us see what one of these paid trade unionists has to say about it. In the Irish Independent of 9th June, 1966, under the heading of “Union Official Warns of Pink Ginger-Groups” Mr. John F. Carroll has this to say:

We have got to be prepared to speak out and not allow ourselves, either at individual union level, or at national congress level to be steamrolled, unduly pressurised or hamstrung, because of sentiment, too liberal expressions of the right of the individual or fear of splinter groups being formed, or pink ginger-groups making their pressure felt.

He went on to say:

There can be no denying that the broad structure of the Irish trade union movement today is out of line with modern concepts and requirements.

Do you know that he is a member of the Labour Party?

I have the greatest admiration for this man. If the Labour Party think anything about the workers or the country, they will attempt to put their own house in order first. Quite recently there was a meeting in O'Connell Street organised by the Labour Party to discuss the housing situation in Dublin. It was addressed by the vice-chairman of the Labour Party, Proinsias Mac Aonghusa and Members of this House spoke at that meeting. The Chairman of the Housing Committee of Dublin Corporation was not invited to that meeting or, if he was invited, he did not go. That was one of the Red-style rallies held in this city. Twelve months ago we had one or two Deputies marching to Griffith Barracks and they seemed to have very original ideas.

Is Deputy Dowling adopting the role of character assassin in this House tonight?

These people appeared before the television cameras and in the photographs in the yellow press and down at the corner of Abbey Street we had one of these less well-known agitators and disruptionists kicking people in the back because they would not clap. When an attempt was made to protect one of these people, the vice-chairman of the Labour Party pointed and said: "The police are taking the man away". These same people also took part in a march carrying banners which said "We want homes" and the man who carried that particular banner was not married. The same people marched outside the gates of this House. They interfered in other strikes too. It is a pity that some of them could not be got to interevene with some of the people who are on strike here at the moment.

They are being kept out on strike by an American strike breaker whom you encouraged to come into the country.

I would appeal to Deputies to cease interrupting. Deputy Dowling is entitled to make his speech.

He has not told us about Singer going out of this country with £1 million of Irish money.

Deputy L'Estrange should restrain himself.

The Party opposite, the Fine Gael Party, are responsible for much of the disruption that has taken place in this country over the years. We listened tonight to Deputy Donegan, the man with the tinhut mentality, who felt that there were too many carpets in the Fine Gael rooms. It is the same type of mentality as wanted to retain the corrugated structure at Aston's Quay some years ago. Deputy Mrs. Desmond spoke about the unfortunate men and women who are on low wages and we all agree that £1 and 15/- a week is too low. There are better times coming.

Live horse and you will get grass.

Deputy Donegan— unfortunately he is not present—spoke about aircraft and said he would probably be prepared to sell them again, dislodge the workers and let them go to far distant shores.

He gives more employment than all the Fianna Fáil Party put together.

One would think, to listen to members of the Fine Gael Party and the Labour Party, that there was no industrial development in the past four or five years. The facts of the situation are that in 1965 there were an additional 47 factories established with a share capital of over £10,000.

Ten thousand pounds is a bit low.

In 1966 to date, there have been 23 factories with a share capital of £10,000 either started or in the course of extension.

Where are they— on the Dublin Mountains?

They are scattered throughout the country. The industrial policy of Fianna Fáil is to provide factories in various centres.

And send the workers to Birmingham and Coventry.

These factories are attracting back people who had to go to Brimingham and Coventry during the term of office of the Coalition Government. I have a deep interest in the welfare of Irish workers, in seeing that they enjoy proper conditions of work. I want to see full employment coming about and the necessary improvements being made. I am quite certain all these things will come in time. Many progressive steps for the betterment of workers have been made under the Fianna Fáil Government. On no occasion did the Fine Gael Party or the Labour Party, who shout so loudly about the rights of workers and about the conditions under which they are employed, bring about any easement of the situation.

Tonight there has been a new injection into the Front Bench of Fine Gael when one member spoke about the lot of his fellow-man and proceeded to stab him in the back or cut his throat.

The poor nation's throat is cut.

The housing position is certainly not as it was in 1956 when the Coalition Government ran away from their responsibilities.

Tell us how many houses were built this year, never mind 1956.

Deputy Dowling is getting very little opportunity to tell anything.

He has nothing to tell.

I would advise the members of the Opposition to read Volume 202 and if they do I am sure they will learn something.

It was amazing to listen to Deputy Dowling speaking on the housing situation at the present moment. One would get the impression that there was no slowing down in housing and that every effort was being made to improve housing conditions. We are tired listening to statements of that kind for a long number of years. I was amazed at the time of the last general election in North-East Cork, the area where I have the honour of representing the people, when in the town of Mallow public speeches were delivered by the Taoiseach and by the candidates of the Fianna Fáil Party. A large procession gathered outside the town, headed by four pipe bands who paraded to a platform in front of which was the slogan: "Let Lemass Lead On." They promised more houses for the people, more work, increased pay, better conditions—everything that could be promised was promised that night.

Deputy Corry stated today there was no unemployment at the present moment. I represent North-East Cork, the very same place as Deputy Corry, and I know the amount of unemployment there now. I do admit that in some of the bigger towns, large industries were established but not by the Fianna Fáil Party. I will give credit to anyone who provides employment in North-East Cork, and it was the late William Dwyer, who was a member of this House, who put the towns of Youghal and Midleton on their feet many years ago. As a result of that, we have two towns in particular where no unemployment problem exists. However, throughout the remaining parts of North-East Cork, unemployment is just as rife today as ever it was.

The Deputy stated that migrants had to be drafted in to do a certain amount of work this year. Everybody knows it is customary in the large beet-growing areas of Cork County for people to come from Mayo and Galway for the beet harvest. That is nothing new. They have been there over a long number of years and are still coming down.

Having regard to what has been said over a long period and the promises made to the people, the time is ripe for the Leader of the Government to decide to test the country. This Government have not lived up to the promises they made. In 1932, at the Market Square in Kanturk, the former leader of Fianna Fáil said that if Fianna Fáil were returned to power their first job would be to bring down the price of the poor man's tobacco to the prewar level of 3rd an ounce. That statement was made by the man who now holds the highest post in this country. It is interesting to note the price of tobacco at the present time. That promise was, like many others, completely forgotten.

We are told now that the country is not in any financial difficulty. I have been a member of Cork County Council for 25 years. Not once before in that period have we ever had to take a vote in the county council as to whether we would erect cottages in one town or village as against another place. The Minister for Local Government has continually written letters directing local authorities to formulate plans and submit plans and specifications. What happens when they are submitted? There is delay. The plans are not returned to the local authorities because there is no money to meet the cost of the erection of the houses. The only suggestion forthcoming from the Minister for Local Government during the past three months in regard to our financial position was that Cork County Council should sell any property they had. What property do local authorities possess?

Poorhouses.

That is right. We have a considerable number of labourers' cottages but the Minister for Local Government has put an embargo on the sale of labourers' cottages to tenants. That will have the effect of halting cottage purchase, a matter in which everyone here has been interested for a long number of years.

In Cork county, our housing programme has come to a standstill. In North Cork, which is equal in size to the entire county Limerick, we had a programme in October, 1965, to erect 39 houses. We accepted tenders for 13 houses. Tenders had been received but not approved in respect of the remainder. The result is that quite recently the manager informed the members that we could proceed only with the erection of the 13 houses and could make up our minds where they would be built. Even at that, the manager pointed out that the amount of money available would not be sufficient to complete the 13 houses.

I have listened to Deputy Healy here tonight talking about the amount of money now available for housing and the amount available roughly ten to 14 years ago. Everybody knows that the cost of erecting a house is twice what it was in 1950 or 1951. In 1948, the late Deputy T.J. Murphy was Minister for Local Government. We decided on a large scheme of housing for Cork County. The same applied probably to other counties. In 1951-1952, we were in a position to hand over to 354 persons 354 new rural cottages in the North Cork rural district. In addition, we had large schemes of houses in Mallow, Fermoy, Midleton and Youghal, where the urban councils are operating. That came about as the result of activity within the Government and, in particular, within the Department of Local Government.

And he killed himself doing it. The Lord have mercy on him.

He did. He went to Cork. He was not satisfied even with the progress made by the officials of Cork County Council and employed a housing inspector to make quite sure that sites were selected and houses erected as speedily as possible. At that time the Northern Committee of the Cork County Council needed only submit an application for the erection of a house to the Custom House and within a month or, at longest, six weeks, the matter was attended to.

There are housing schemes in the Department of Local Government for a long time, in some cases a year or a year and a half, and we are now told that there is no scarcity of money, that we can go ahead with the job. Surely the people are not fools? Surely the Members of this House are not fools? Everybody in the country knows what the position is. Throughout Cork county there is an outcry for improved housing. There are people living in mudwall cabins and slums. Our ambition is to provide the people with houses. The Government have failed in their responsibility in this connection and, as a result, the Labour Party have moved this Motion of no Confidence, which is fully justified. The people should be given the opportunity to decide the type of Government that is best for them.

I have said enough about housing. I now come to the local sanitary services. In this connection we are not in a position to do any extra work this year. I had the honour of participating in a by-election in mid-Cork. During the campaign I listened carefully and attentively to the Minister for Transport and Power speaking at Millstreet on 1st March, 1965. Having listened to him, I was quite sure that the country was to be made a paradise for all time. Every good thing was promised in regard to the housing of the people. The interests of the agricultural community were to be safeguarded. One got the impression that the Department of Transport and Power was the most important aspect of government, that the Minister had done a perfect job. One month later there was a general election, immediately after which the truth came to light. Those who had been prophesying prosperity found that they were not in a financial position to create prosperity. There was a by-election in mid-Cork. The Government had failed in the by-election in Roscommon and made quite sure that they would offer everything possible to the electorate of mid-Cork in an effort to secure the return of their candidate. There were promises of houses, retention of railways, provision of new schools. All these were offered to the electorate of mid-Cork on the eve of the by-election.

(Interruptions.)

Before I was interrupted, I was dealing with the promises made to the people. We knew the purpose of the promises. Be it known to this House that I never knew I was such an important man until the by-election for mid-Cork took place and I was director of elections. They sent the Taoiseach down to Boherbue where I was bred, born and reared and he spoke at 3 o'clock on a Saturday afternoon and outlined the position of the country. His message was to go out and tell everybody that this was a land flowing with milk and honey and that there was no fear of anything but that Fianna Fáil might lose the election.

"Let Lemass Lead On."

Immediately after the general election, the picture was different. I was interrupted a while ago by Deputy Meaney about what occurred in North Cork and what can be done in North Cork at the present moment. As a member of the Northern Committee, I want to tell the Deputy now that his father is a member of the Northern Committee——

Private individuals should not be dragged into this debate.

(Interruptions.)

He was a former member of this House.

Yes, a decent man.

We embarked on a water scheme which covers the entire area of Newmarket, Cullen and Knocknagree. We engaged a consultant, and members who have experience on local authorities know the fees consultants charge, and he submitted plans and specifications. The planning documents were sent to the Department and the Minister for Local Government had a good idea and wrote to us saying that we would have to re-examine the plans because there was a considerable amount of the locality in which this scheme was to operate already served by private pumps and minor water schemes. Back came the plans of the consultant and despite the fact that this water scheme had been promised to the people of Mid-Cork in a by-election and in the general election that followed because it would serve the entire Mid-Cork area, nothing has been done because the Minister has not tuppence ha'penny to spend on any scheme. I have been a member of the Northern Committee for upwards of 25 years and I know that the same applies as regards sewerage schemes. Probably before the next general election, they will all be revised, and we shall have somebody coming along trying to resurrect things of the past for the purpose of fooling the people of the future. I think, however, that business is rather overworked. Our people are more enlightened today than they were years ago.

I was dealing with the Minister for Transport and Power. When he spoke in Mallow and when the Taoiseach spoke to the electorate there, they did not tell the electorate, nor did Deputy Meaney or Deputy Crowley or Deputy Corry point out, that they would be closing down the railways and closing down the schools. They concealed that from the people.

We have now reached a stage when everybody knows that the Government have not sufficient money to run the country and as a result we are closing some of the schools and closing some of the railways. They are cutting down on sewerage, water and housing schemes. In addition, very little attention is paid to the weaker sections of the community and those in receipt of social welfare benefits. It is a very strange thing that when you have an increase given to a specific section of social welfare recipients, the old age pensioners, they are not entitled to get these increases until a specified time. It is no wonder that people are alarmed and starting to grumble and grouse about the Administration when they find the unfortunate old age pensioners, those receiving disablement allowances and widows' and orphans' pensions, must wait until next October to get their increase but the retiring Chairman of CIE got £8,000 and a £3,000 a year pension for life.

The people are sick of this and as a result we in the Labour Party decided to submit this no confidence motion to the House. No doubt it will have its effect in the country. Surely every Deputy is aware of the position. I want to tell the personal representative of the Taoiseach who is present that we have a considerable number of disgruntled people because they know how things are going at present. They know that down through the years they have been fooled by Fianna Fáil when they voted for Fianna Fáil. The writing is on the wall for the Government and I believe that if the Taoiseach gave the people an opportunity to vote they would quickly make up their minds on what form of Government they want.

The Minister for Posts and Telegraphs.

I understood speakers were to alternate.

It is usual to call a Minister when he offers.

I would prefer the Deputy to go ahead, if he wishes. I do not mind.

Your side put up Deputy Dowling. I think I should be allowed to speak.

No, I have called the Minister.

It is usual to call alternate speakers. Is the Minister afraid to listen to me? I rose before the Minister.

The Chair called on the Minister.

I think the Chair has done wrong.

In fairness, I should say that so far Fianna Fáil have taken up 2 hours 13 minutes; Fine Gael, 3 hours 2 minutes and the Labour Party 4 hours 20 minutes.

I belong to the Fine Gael Party.

Fianna Fáil Deputies did not offer.

I am 34 years in this House and I have never yet seen any other procedure but that Fianna Fáil will offer to speak followed by Labour, followed by ourselves, followed again by Fianna Fáil, but if the Minister is afraid to hear me tonight, he will have to listen to me tomorrow.

(Cavan): On a point of order, could the position arise where 11 Ministers would troop in one after the other and speak one after the other for two hours each and exclude everybody else from this debate?

It would be most unlikely. The Chair would not agree to that if there were opposing speakers offering as debate would not be balanced.

Why does the Chair agree to it now?

Since the debate opened, four Fine Gael Deputies have been called, five Labour and four Fianna Fáil.

Fianna Fáil did not offer.

Fianna Fáil Deputies did not offer for nearly an hour.

Why then should the Chair be blamed when a Fianna Fáil Deputy does offer and is called on?

Yes, because it is out of turn.

The Chair has not given an answer.

I am calling on alternate speakers.

May I say with respect that whatever the ruling of the Chair is, it does not reflect much credit on the Minister or the Government to which he belongs but he will hear me tomorrow.

I am prepared to forego speaking now but the Chair has called on me.

If the Ministers sits down, the Chair will call Deputy Dillon.

The Chair has called the Minister for Posts and Telegraphs.

But the Minister can sit down.

If the Chair gives me preference tomorrow morning, I shall yield to the Deputy.

Be the next Fianna Fáil speaker.

I mean no personal discourtesy to the Minister. I merely claim the right on behalf of individual Deputies to be here. I am now a back bencher. I know that back benchers are entitled to the same protection from the Chair as Ministers or members of the Front Bench. This old tradition has existed which makes the House work. We are all equal here for the purpose of being heard. I am particularly anxious to intervene at this stage because of two things. Deputy Dowling, whom I always like to hear, complained that we had offered the Government of the day no advice. I want to submit to the Chair that we offered the Government of the day the only advice relevant to the situation in which we find ourselves: get out; go away; we will pay you to go away.

Get lost.

You are shouting for that for the past 30 years and, when you get the chance, you never can win. You could never win an election.

(Interruptions.)

Let me deal with him. I shall go into the whole story. I have a great affection for the Minister for Posts and Telegraphs. I represented him, and all belonging to him, for a long time here, before he ever got here at all. They are decent people. There are no better people in Ireland than the people of Donegal.

It does not arise.

Coming from the part of the country from which he does, the Minister for Posts and Telegraphs ought to observe better behaviour.

For God's sake, let me deal with him. I know him all my life.

You could not win an election. You never could: you got in once.

So far as Deputy Dowling is concerned, he got what he sought—constructive, useful advice, not from the point of view of any particular political Party but from the point of view of the country as a whole. I was particularly anxious to intervene at this stage because I was grateful to Deputy McAuliffe for dealing with the housing problem and I am particularly grateful to him for recalling the work of one of the most disinterested men I ever knew to sit in this House, the late Deputy Tim Murphy. I do not think it exaggeration on my part to say that he is amongst that select company of persons who killed himself in the service of our people. I remember the day he first fell ill at a meeting of the Government of which we were members together. He fell ill through overwork and his obsession was the housing of the people. I am happy to remember that that sense of obligation passed on to the late Deputy Michael Keyes and, in due course, to Deputy Pa O'Donnell. The Minister for Posts and Telegraphs said today that we put Fianna Fáil out of office only once and never got back again. Of course we got back again. We got back in 1951 and that was the period——

You did not really get in.

We did better than you did sometimes.

You formed a group after you got in.

We got in by the authority of Dáil Éireann.

Of the people.

Would you do that again? Would you form another Coalition?

Yes, as surely as there is an eye in a goat——

You voted for three different policies and you will not do it and you announced that you will not. You have officially stated that you will never do it again.

In respect of the period of the first inter-Party Government, 1948-51, I look back with satisfaction and gratification on the fact that we took the tubercular out of houses where they were dying and built sanatoria to such good effect that half of the sanatoria we built are now standing empty today. That was part of the work the late Deputy Tim Murphy did and the then Minister for Health, the former Deputy Dr. Browne, a disinterested public servant of our people. But that is not the end of the story.

When we returned to office in 1954, we found that the work to which we had put our hands to help our people had been allowed to falter and had been arrested by the Fianna Fáil Government but we put our hands to it again. I do not call in evidence any Deputy sitting on this side of the House. I call in evidence the present Taoiseach, Deputy Seán Lemass. He had it to tell in my presence in this House, within the past 12 months, that when the Government of which he was a member returned to office in 1957, he, as Tánaiste and Minister for Industry and Commerce, sent for the Dublin City Manager to know what requisitions Dublin Corporation would make on the resources of labour and material for housing in the city of Dublin and the City Manager's reply to him was, in effect: "Minister, we want no resources. Our problem in Dublin is that we have too many houses." That involved us in considerable financial difficulties but they were difficulties of which I am proud.

I consider that a good Government of this country is a Government that gets itself into financial difficulties housing the people. When I was Leader of the Fine Gael Party and an aspirant to the position of Taoiseach, I warned the people that if ever they elected me to that high office, I would put the finances of the country in jeopardy as often as necessary to house the people and that that would have a first charge upon the resources of this Party before skyscrapers were built, before any luxury offices were built to be leased by Government Departments for the accommodation of the bureaucrats of this country.

I do not deny that if we were the Government of this country, there might not be skyscrapers built in this city but we would not have it to tell that no Christian or other family in the city of Dublin today living less than five in a room will even be considered for a house—because that is the result of the nine years Fianna Fáil have been in office since 1957. Let us put this clearly in issue. If I had been Taoiseach, if Fine Gael had been the Government of this country, no skyscrapers would have been built until those families living five in one room had been housed in Christian decency. Let us join issue on that. Should we have had the skyscrapers or should we have had houses for the people? I said we should have houses for the people and those who did not like that could lump it so far as I was concerned and the plutocrats and the bureaucrats and all the other "crats" could sit wherever they sat for the past ten, 15 or 20 years——

On their fannies.

——while I was providing houses for the people who are now living five in a room, with nowhere to go. But do not imagine that that truly paints the picture.

Do Deputies realise that since 1963 not one single residential unit in this country has been declared unfit for human habitation by Dublin Corporation? I know rooms in houses in this city which are rat warrens. I know rooms in this city in which elderly people are dying of neglect, through damp and cold, because Dublin Corporation does not dare to declare their place of residence unfit for human habitation until the architect warns them that, if they do not so declare it, it is liable to fall down.

Do you realise that at this moment, over and above the 700 families who have five people living in one room— and there are hundreds of families, in addition to them, who are four in one room and three in one room—there are hundreds of residents in this city who do not come within that category— elderly people, elderly married couples, elderly people living alone—who are living in accommodation that would have been, and should be, condemned as unfit for human habitation, but is not being condemned because, if it were, they would go on to the list of people in a preferential position, and Dublin Corporation has neither the money nor the means to house them?

Now, let us put these two policies in issue. I am proud of our effort. I am proud of the fact that the day we went out of office we were straining our resources, and asking the people to bear substantial burdens to get the economy back on an even keel, because we had deliberately sailed straight into the teeth of a storm in order to house the people; and, when the winds grew adverse, and the storm began to blow, there were a great many people in the Fianna Fáil Party who said: "Trim your sails; pull back; you are running into danger." Bill Norton's answer, Michael Keyes's answer, John A. Costello's answer, Gerard Sweetman's answer, and Pa O'Donnell's answer was: "We will ride it out until we put roofs over the people of this country and we will ask the people to bear whatever burden of inconvenience that may involve us in." And we did it, and we so disposed the resources of this country.

Having created an adverse balance of payments of close on £40 million a year in order to do it, within 12 months of the remedial measures we initiated, we presented this country, for the first time, outside the years of the war, since the State was founded, with a favourable balance of payments of £12 million. That is the bequest we left to the incoming Fianna Fáil Government. Before I am finished talking in this House on this motion of censure, I am going to tell the story of how they used that. I am going to tell the story of how they frittered it away; and I am going to tell it because it is part of the reason why the time has come to give them the answer that Deputy Dowling cried out for today: "Tell us," he asked, "what we ought to do?" The answer is: "Go away."

We will give every single one of them, and we have more Ministers in the Government today than we have ever had before, the maximum number that the Constitution will permit, and I will bind this Party now to give the whole gang of you a life pension of your total salary, if you will do one thing: simply go away. And it will be the best bargain the people of this country ever struck; and I am prepared to certify before the people value for their money they could not conceive or get.

The Deputy will be certified all right.

We will do that cheerfully and, mark you, some of you are lively enough young pensioners, but I will take a chance on it, and I wish you well. And even if you lived to be nonagenarians, it would still be a good bargain.

Or centenarians.

It is true to say, I think, that with all the asperity of our debate, which is a healthy thing, no one will doubt that we would all wish to see you all nonagenarians in your own good time, as no doubt you are hoping and praying I also may be.

I would not say "praying."

I agree that reflection on things past—rechercher le temps perdu—is perhaps an appropriate occupation for Marcel Proust, but not for Dáil Éireann; but, nevertheless, from le temps perdu there is much to be learned. I see some of the younger members of the Fianna Fáil Party here who find it hard to believe that what I am saying is true. I would urge them not to be too tragic about it. It is all true. It is the seamy side of the political life on which they are embarked. But they have all got the remedy in their own hands, and they can use it in God's good time: when these younger chaps have found what frauds they have for leaders, there is always the honourable course to follow—cross the floor.

Mr. O'Malley

Aprés nous le déluge.

Very aptly spoken, but luckily this country is in a formidable position and can build the dam to keep the deluge back. I will take the risk. Here is one finger that will go into the hole in the dam which your absence may create, and there will be no irreparable deluge, and that is something we ought to rejoice in. I once said to a distinguished fellow citizen that I thought the great difference—perhaps I had better not tell that story here. But there is a topic upon which I want to touch, and this also is for the instruction of the younger members of the Fianna Fáil Party.

We will listen anyway.

You will. I have great hopes of you. You are sitting very conveniently. You have only one more river to cross.

Mr. O'Malley

It is but a step from the Capitol to the Tarpeian Rock.

The exact relevance of that escapes me at the moment and I am anxious not to pursue it further, lest I strain your admirable patience, but, more especially, because I want to place it on the record that the matter with which I wish to deal now is the American Loan Counterpart Fund. It has been alleged by Fianna Fáil that we borrowed this money and spent it recklessly.

Squandered it.

Squandered it. I want to make this clear now; not one single penny of the money received by way of grant or loan was spent by the Government of the Irish Republic. And, remember, it was we who declared that Republic. Every penny of that money was spent by citizens, who used the currency we borrowed from the United States of America to finance essential transactions, to preserve the housing industry, to preserve the agricultural industry——

Mr. O'Malley

No.

To beggar the country.

I am only beginning. I will tell the rest of the story tomorrow. Here it is, 15 pages of it, an account for every year from 1949 down to today. I will read every figure in it tomorrow and I will show that we left the incoming Fianna Fáil Government £24 million intact and Fianna Fáil spent it in one month.

Mr. O'Malley

And you spent £128 million.

Debate adjourned.
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