Dáil Éireann debate -
Wednesday, 9 Nov 1966

Vol. 225 No. 4

Committee on Finance. - Vote 50—Labour (Resumed.)

Debate resumed on the following motion:

Go ndeonófar suim nach mó ná £38,600 chun íoctha an mhuirir a thiocfaidh chun bheith iníochtha i rith na bliana dar críoch an 31ú lá de Mhárta, 1967, le haghaidh Tuarastail agus Costais Oifig an Aire Saothair.—(Minister for Labour).

Mr. Dillon

Sir, in resuming one's observations in a debate on an Estimate such as this, it is necessary to ask one's colleagues in the House to bear in mind that one's concluding remarks must be read in the context of what one had to say in opening one's speech on the previous day and I would ask my colleagues to bear in mind now that these concluding remarks are to be read in the context of yesterday evening's contribution.

I want to draw the attention of the House to a very significant table of figures arising out of the general topics on which I touched yesterday in connection with the Department of Labour. I venture to suggest to the House that we in this country had a fundamental decision to take: that was to be rich as the province of a wealthy industrial nation or relatively poor in freedom. We elected to be free and to live within the standard of living the resources of the country would make available to us. Certain consequences flow from that decision. If we chose to sell our freedom for the fleshpots of Egypt, then to tell the truth, I do not give a fiddle-de-dee what you do and I do not propose to pursue the consequences that would follow on such a procedure. If we elect to remain a free and sovereign state, and a free people in our own country, there is immense significance in the publication produced in the current number of Trade Union Information issued by the Irish Congress of Trade Unions research services, October, 1966, page 4:

One of the elements determining ability to sell abroad is price though price-competitiveness is only one of the factors that determine the level of export sales. While international cost comparisons are notoriously difficult to make it is possible to calculate the changes over time in certain of the costs entering into the prices of industrial products in different countries. A comparison of these changes in costs for various countries gives some indication of cost-competitiveness. The most usual subject for such comparisons is the labour cost involved in the production of industrial goods. Thus by relating changes in output per man-hour with changes in hourly earnings, a measure of the change in unit labour costs (i.e. labour costs per unit of output) can be got.

Then a table is set out and I ask the House to note carefully that that table deals with the percentage changes between 1963 and 1965 in output per man-hours, hourly earnings and in unit labour costs as defined in the extract I have just read to the House. The change in the Netherlands is an increase of 9.5 per cent; the change in Belgium is 8.7 per cent; in Austria it is 6.9 per cent; in Ireland it is 5.6 per cent. Listen now to the list of countries in which change is less: Switzerland 5.1; United Kingdom 5; West Germany 4.7; Norway 2.4; France 1.7; Sweden 1.6; in the United States of America there has actually been a reduction of .8 of one per cent in the unit labour cost of its industrial production. These are figures of deadly significance to this country.

On the day that the turnover tax was introduced here, I remember warning the Taoiseach, and the members of his Party, that they were detonating a dialectic of inflation that would ultimately destroy our competitive capacity in foreign markets. I remember saying to them on that occasion: "Remember, there is a general election proceeding in the United States of America. There is a general election proceeding in the United Kingdom of Great Britain. In both these countries inflation is being promoted for purely political reasons. When these elections are over, they will be followed, whatever government is elected, by a sharp deflation to bring down unit labour costs"— unit labour costs as defined in the extracts I have read—"and when that time comes, your turnover tax here will operate in exactly the opposite direction. Our unit labour costs will go up." The consequence will be that the industrial potential of the country will be ground between the upper and the nether millstone of the two greatest industrial countries in the world on either side of us.

Look at Germany and the Common Market, and Sweden and EFTA, both operating on equal terms, in EFTA on preferential terms and in the European Economic Community as against Ireland. There is no means on God's earth of correcting the unfavourable consequences offered by the competition of these two great bodies except that the Minister should succeed in persuading our employers and trade unions to sit down together, if necessary with him, and take the fundamental decision: do we want to stay free? If we do not, then we ought to sell out to the highest bidder but let us be sure, if we are going to sell our souls, that we get the best price for them. I would be happy to think that I will not be present when that transaction is consummated. But if you take the decision as between labour and capital and the community represented by the Minister, that you desire to remain free, will you get that table brought up to date? If we are not prepared to bring ourselves nearer to the bottom of that table with Sweden, the United States, France, Norway and Germany now, then the industries of this country and the employment they provide are doomed to extinction.

These are the ugly facts of life that most people want to shy away from, and it is because we have been shying away for base political purposes from these facts since the day Fianna Fáil bought the Cork and Kildare by-elections, because we have turned our backs to these facts, that we are in the desperate situation in which we stand today. Let no Deputy underestimate the gravity of the situation in which we are. I warn the House now that things in this country are going to get worse before we can hope to see them get better. I warn the House that we are in a situation at the present time in which we are living from hand to mouth, in which we have no reserves, actual or potential, and God deliver us from any unforeseen emergency. If such an emergency should come upon us, we should have to beg for charity in a world where charity is very rarely available at the present time. Since this State was founded that has never been the case before.

I want to recall again that in 1956, when Deputies Bill Norton and Michael Keyes, God rest them both, and Deputy Brendan Corish who is still with us, were joined with us in an inter-Party Government, when we were using the same criteria of finance the Government of today are using, we had a reserve of between £150 million and £200 million and yet we put on the levies to prevent the situation ever arising in which we find ourselves today. Deputy Everett is still a Member of this House. He was with us and he knows as I know how anxiously we weighed the question: should we continue to run into balance of payments difficulties or should we take precautions so as to keep in bond the reserves to provide against contingencies? We took the hard decision, and politically perhaps we paid for it but we have it to tell that we handed over to our successors in Government a favourable balance of payments the first year they were in office.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

I am afraid the Deputy is getting away from the Estimate. A general discussion on the economic situation does not arise on the Minister's Estimate.

Mr. Dillon

The Minister's job is to try to explain to the trade unionists and employers of this country the nature of the decision they have to take. The whole theme of my discourse today is based on an exchange which took place at a meeting in Ballina when I was expounding a prices and incomes policy, and a man asked me: "What would you do if they will not play?" The answer was:

"I shall have failed. If they will not voluntarily help but elect to cut one another's throats, there is nothing I or anybody else can do about it." If we are to get people to collaborate with the Minister on the work he is appointed to do, they have got to know the facts and have to have them explained. They have got to be told that what the inter-Party Government did in 1956, that what Deputy Bill Norton and Deputy Michael Keyes agreed to do in 1956, was done for the protection of the working people of this country, and that has not been told often enough.

Signs on it, in 1957, when we handed over to our successors, this country was standing on a rock, with abundant reserves and a favourable balance of payments. But this Government, the Fianna Fáil Government, when they made up their minds to buy Cork and Kildare, launched the country into a dialectic which leaves us today with an appalling deficit in our balance of payments, with immense domestic debt due by the Government, with debts due to the Federal German Government in Bonn, with debts in Washington to the International Monetary Fund, with debts due in London, not to willing lenders but to underwriters who had to take up £4½ million of a miserable £5 million loan which the sovereign government of the Irish Republic offered for tender.

Can you not see the emergency that threatens the country? Can you not see that if you cannot carry conviction in these highly complex matters and explain them to the average trade unionist on the one hand and to the employers on the other, and I may add that some of the employers can be just as obscurantist as the average trade unionist, then there is no means of solving the problem. I do not deny that one of my great difficulties in leading the Fine Gael Party at the last general election was that I knew the issues were so complex that to explain them to the people was extremely difficult. I could have taken the course, the Fianna Fáil course, of denying that they existed but I knew it would be a lie to do so. I know it was a disgraceful falsehood to ask the people to let Lemass lead on when he had no intention of doing so.

I rejoice in his announcement that his retirement is for political and not for health reasons. I rejoice that he has taken a leaf out of my book and laid down the burden before his health was impaired. He has my sincerest good wishes in his retirement and I hope that his decision to leave down the burden will lengthen his years. May he have plenty of them in happiness and prosperity. But I knew it was a falsehood. I knew he was leading the country into the position in which we now are and I tried to tell the people. I know that in large measure I failed to carry conviction to the ordinary people. I know that many relatively sophisticated members of the audience did not understand. All they could say was "he is playing the same old gramophone record for the fourteenth time" because they could not grasp it. They thought they were sophisticated but they were not. I sympathise with the problem that lies before the Minister in trying to get both sides to understand it now, but that is the key of the whole problem and it all goes back to the fundamental decision: do we want to be rich and in bond or relatively poor and free?

It is time Fianna Fáil examined their own consciences in regard to that. One of the blessings of sitting on the back benches is that one can sometimes speak more frankly than when one is the mouthpiece for a large Party. I committed my Party, when I was their Leader, to every pronouncement I made, but speaking in my present position I commit nobody. How wise is the Taoiseach, Deputy Lemass, to follow my prudent example and acquire the freedom which I did so timely for myself. I hope his contributions in the House hereafter will be as valuable to our deliberations as mine manifestly are.

Dr. Hillery

Diffidence is in vogue.

Mr. Dillon

What is the point of diffidence at my time of life? I do not give a damn, and I am not giving the Minister a short answer. When Deputy Treacy was talking yesterday, one of his questions was a very relevant one. Where are the jobs for the trainees, Deputy Treacy asked. If I could engage the Minister's attention for the moment I think this is an important question. I want to suggest that Deputy Treacy's question might be more appropriately addressed to the Irish Congress of Trade Unions rather than to the Minister for Labour. I have known occasions when I went to look for jobs for fellows who had received training and I was told that the union would not give them a card. I even know of unions who wanted to know was the father in the trade. I have known of trade unions who claim for their progeny rights that the most reactionary duke or duchess never dreamed of claiming in the corrupt ages of the British aristocracy. Am I unjust when I say that there are certain qualifications for entrance into certain unions? Is that not so? In other cases are there not other strict restrictions on admissions to unions based on the total number of the union's estimate of jobs available related to the total number of its membership, efficient or inefficient? In regard to Deputy Treacy's question, we must also ask ourselves where are the trade union cards for the trainees? If we train the boy, can we be assured by the Irish Congress of Trade Unions that if he reaches the appropriate level of skill to qualify, he will be guaranteed admission to the trade?

I do not want trade unionists to think that that rebuke is directed exclusively to them. The professional organisations have suddenly twigged to the trade unions' restrictive practices. When I entered the profession to which I belong, all one had to do was to pass the final examination and get called. Of course, there are never any restrictive provisions attached to admission to such exalted circles. What happens is the standard of examination begins to rise and rise and rise, and you suddenly discover that in the first year only 70 per cent of the entrants passed the examination and in the following year, the same level has been maintained and if necessary, the level of entrants drops. This is not necessarily only in law; there are other professional organisations. This is something the Minister for Labour might think about. It is extremely difficult to resolve. If a professional organisation says: "Certainly, the doors are wide open but there is a qualifying examination which must be passed", that qualifying examination can be turned into a competitive examination. Therefore if we say to the trade unions: "Open your doors subject to a qualifying examination", which I would be quite prepared to admit was a just requisite on the part of a craft union, then at what stage does the qualifying examination become a competitive examination? When the trade unions can reasonably answer that question it will be appropriate for Deputy Treacy to address this question to the Minister for Labour of the time being. It is a matter primarily for the trade unions and it should continue to be a matter for the trade unions because they represent the men and they are the protectors of the rights of the workers and they should be worthy of the trust that they will protect the legitimate interest of the trainee.

I would go into greater detail in regard to this question of admission to jobs but I understand that my Labour colleague wants to contribute to this debate but that he has an appointment elsewhere. I shall therefore confine myself to wishing the Labour Minister luck in his new assignment. However, I want to tell him that I believe he is merely a gimmick, like the meeting between the Taoiseach, the Minister for Agriculture and the farmers. He is being created as a kind of general alibi and diversion as the Government's camouflage for the mess in which they are in. I want a lot of convincing that he is anything more. I hope he will be able to convince me and I agree with Deputy Treacy when he says that the Labour movement as a whole welcomes the appointment of a Minister of Labour but I have grave doubts as to the probability of his providing the solution of all the problems that confront him. He may be successful in the task to which he professes to set his hand. If he is, I shall be the first to congratulate him but if he is not, I shall remind him—I hope—this time 12 months of the prophecy I made today, and I am gravely apprehensive that the event will justify me as amply as it has done in connection with the prophecy I made on July 8th.

Mr. P.J. Burke

First, I should like to say to my colleague, the Minister for Labour——

Mr. Dillon

Thanks be to God for the wonderful work he has done and that you wish him many happy years to continue to do it in the future. Now go on.

Mr. P.J. Burke

It is nice of Deputy Dillon to intervene so kindly. He always succeeds in doing that.

Mr. Dillon

You are very welcome.

Mr. P.J. Burke

Deputy Dillon has spoken about the difficulties the Minister for Labour has to deal with. The Minister has the hardest problem of all and I feel he will succeed in doing a very good job.

Mr. Dillon

Raise your hand now and give him your general benediction.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

Order. Deputy Burke is entitled to speak without interruption.

Mr. Dillon

He is, but we are trying to remind him of things he is forgetting to say.

Mr. P.J. Burke

Deputy Dillon was making a very practical statement which was constructive in some respects and if he had continued in that vein, I would have congratulated him but he destroyed a good speech by adopting a pessimistic note and prophesying the failure of the Ministry of Labour in 12 months' time, saying that it was just a Fianna Fáil ramp and so on.

No matter what our calling in life is, if we do not take the initiative, nothing is done. The Minister for Labour now has the task of trying to restore peace and improve relations between employer and employee on the industrial front. He must also try to ensure that both young and old secure the employment they are anxious to get. It is a huge task and I am very pleased that the Minister was appointed to this post. He will find as time goes on that he has done a great deal of good.

As an old negotiator between employers and unions over a long period, I want to offer my sympathy and co-operation to the Minister in facing the problems confronting him. I would prefer co-operation between employers and unions. I am a great believer in getting people together and hammering out an agreement rather than having legislation to compel them to do something. When the Industrial Relations Act was going through the House, I resisted any compulsion because I felt, and I still feel, that the good that has been done through getting employers and employees to agree to a certain course or settlement in disputes in a spirit of harmony and goodwill far outweighs the few strikes that occur from time to time and make headlines. I have had experience of dealing with CIE strikes and hotel strikes and others, with which I do not want to bore the House, but what I found was responsible for strikes on a number of occasions was bad human relations, especially in the big semi-Government bodies. I should much prefer to have five volunteers working with me in a spirit of goodwill than have 20 working for me because they were compelled to do so under an Act of the Oireachtas.

I appeal to my colleague to move slowly in order to go more quickly. In that way he may be able to build up goodwill between the two sides. He will no doubt get reports of cases of bad human relations in certain firms and cases where individual bosses or work study groups in certain employments I shall not mention are responsible for disputes arising. I believe such factors are responsible—that has been my experience—for a good deal of the unpleasantness and strikes we have had. A boss may get on a man's nerves but if a man is no use and will not pull his weight, no boss should be afflicted with him. In certain firms, bosses may not like certain individuals and have prejudices against them. That may happen in a newspaper office or here in the Dáil, and I often feel it is a great pity that there should be a lack of training in human relations in men responsible for maintaining goodwill between employer and employee. That is a matter of deep concern to me and has been for a long time. I think we should examine the position and see if we have the right people as labour relations officers and the right people as chairmen dealing with labour relations. The Minister should begin by building up goodwill and understanding so that people will respect their bosses, so that bosses will get the co-operation and respect of their men.

I often receive complaints from my constituents on both sides. Sometimes it is an employer who has an unsatisfactory worker and cannot get rid of him. On the other hand, there are employees who are unjustly dismissed. There is a case to be made on both sides. Some bosses think very little of sacking a man. The Minister has a very big problem on his hands. I would ask him to inquire specially in regard to semi-State bodies where there are a large number of employees and where there is a lack of human relations. It is extraordinary that certain junior bosses who have come up from the ranks, who were trade unionists themselves, think nothing of sacking fellow workers, sometimes for very little. They are not concerned whether they have a wife and family. Heads of firms have said to me on a few occasions: "I have to transfer them to some other part of the firm. They have created chaos because they want to boss immediately they get promotion."

The Minister and his Department will have to tackle this problem of human relations: are we putting the right men into control? It would not be possible for the Minister to go to a firm that employs 500 people and say: "Are you putting the right man in charge?" However, when disputes arise, the Minister will have an opportunity of examining this problem. I am not so keen on all this work study business, especially in some big firms like CIE. If John Jones has a job to do, it is undesirable to have somebody watching him to see how long he takes to lift the hammer, how long he spends driving in the nails, and so on. It causes a great deal of nervous tension when workers are being watched like that.

It is up to the Minister and his Department to solve all these problems in a human way and if any worker will not co-operate, then there should be some other way of dealing with him than just saying to the remainder of the workers: "We shall have to watch you as well as him." The whole kernel of my address to the House is the necessity for better human relations in all industries being built up through the employers' federation and the trade union movement. I hope the trade unions and the employers' federation will co-operate fully with the Minister in the job he is doing. The Minister has the toughest Ministry in the Cabinet. No matter what he tries to do, he will be up against snags. However, my advice to him is to hasten slowly in regard to this very serious problem. In the words of another—I was going to say in the words of the Gospel but I shall refrain from that in case Deputy Seán Collins may say something to me: "They hate you and they do not know why and they will hate me and they do not know why." The Minister for Labour has the most ticklish Ministry and labour relations are the most difficult matters to deal with. I have the utmost confidence in the Minister's ability to do the job. I wish him good luck and hope that God will bless his work.

Mr. S. Collins

I am afraid that I shall not be in quite the "benediction" mood that Deputy Burke was in but I would not be honest if I did not say that, fundamentally, I wish the Minister every success in the task he has undertaken. However, it is necessary to get certain aspects of that task right and on the record.

In this country we are going through what I have time and again described as an avalanche of whitewash, an avalanche of ministerial speeches preaching certain doctrines while the Government are carrying out the direct opposite. As a consequence of the repetition of governmental claptrap, the situation in industrial relations for a period worsened to an extent that became alarming. We had the extraordinary situation that there were all kinds of preachings in relation to restraint while in so far as the Government were master of certain situations, no restraint at all was being exercised. Before the creation of this Ministry, the situation had developed where we were heading for chaotic conditions in industry. It is in that situation that we had a new Ministry and have brought into charge a person like the present occupant of the office, Dr. Hillery, who has, I hope, and have always believed, a capacity and flexibility that enable him to exercise a human control over issues and who has sufficient steel in his make-up to be able to hold a definite situation.

What difficulties face him, outside the question of his own capacity, his personal ability which, in fairness, I say we do not question on this side of the House? Nor, indeed, would we for a moment question the sincerity and strength of purpose that he will bring to the job. He is up against this difficulty, that we have a situation in which things are becoming more difficult, where the earning capacity of the general worker is losing the battle against the increased cost of living, where the atmosphere is being conditioned for more and more demands for increases. While we get lengthy verbal gestures suggesting what should be done, we are still in the situation that even though many of the increases that have been given to various State servants, whether they are civil servants or persons allied to them in local authorities, or in the Garda, the Army or any of the Forces, might be well merited, they seem inopportune and certainly not in the pattern of an effort to encourage restraint among the workingclasses and among the more lowly paid sections of the community generally.

The time has come, if the situation is deteriorating, for somebody to have the courage to say that this general situation is not to apply only to the working-class people, only to trade unionists. The time has come when somebody must have the courage to enforce the overall restraint or retrenchment on everybody in a voluntary, understood, national effort to rectify our economic situation. While I have tremendous sympathy with the Minister for Labour, I think he will have to exercise tremendous influence if he is to get the kind of goodwill that is necessary to get employer, employee and, indeed, State employee, to accept the situation that certain voluntary restraint must be copperfastened on all sections of the community to enable us to stabilise the economy and to grapple with the future.

The Minister is in a complex situation. We have to gear up the capacity of our industry, we have to gear up productivity to make our end product competitive in increasingly highly competitive markets. I know the difficulty the Minister is up against in trying to get greater output from skilled workers, if at the same time he has to tell them to postpone any claim for increased payment for their efforts to enable us to get our end products, particularly exports, into the market at competitive prices. There would be a far better atmosphere in which to do that if at the same time the Minister can persuade the owner, the stockholder, the shareholder, the dividend recipient to accept restraint so as to enable the reserves of individual companies, like the reserves of the nation, to be stabilised and increased.

I say this to the Minister in all earnestness, because there is nobody who would be more anxious for his complete success in the creation of a proper atmosphere for continued industrial expansion and development than I, that it cannot be done unless all elements are brought into the circle and all elements are prepared to make their voluntary, reasoned contribution on the basis of understanding and knowledge.

I say, as emphatically as Deputy Dillon made his point, that I do not subscribe to the belief that the country is as badly off or is going into as bad a situation as some people envisage. I feel that it is lack of understanding, lack of appreciation of the situation that makes people at times make unwarranted predictions of bankruptcy or inevitable doom. In spite of Governments, Fianna Fáil or otherwise, I have never lost my basic trust and confidence in the Irish people, whether in the agricultural industry, fighting for that export drive that is vital to our economy, or in the industrial arm, trying to make a full contribution to development. We have got to the stage —and I think the Minister understands what I am driving at—that people are fed up to the teeth with skimping in one branch when they feel, in many cases unjustifiably, that other people are being treated far more generously, far more leniently and, indeed, in some cases getting plush treatment, while the more limited income groups are getting it hard.

With the increased effective incidence of taxation, even the most lowly paid worker is now feeling the far-stretched tentacles of the Revenue Commissioners. The success of PAYE, the turnover tax and now the wholesale tax is eating into the real value of small incomes. Take the tradesman and the factory worker. Because of increased efficiency of tax collection, they are more and more feeling the squeeze on their pay packets.

Far be it from me to deny any man in any avocation a just and reasonable salary. I am not one to be frightened by the payment of very large sums to our most senior and experienced civil servants, consultants, technicians and other specialists. But it is impossible to create an atmosphere of understanding if increases, ranging from £700 to £800 a year can be announced when people on pittances of £8 or £12 a week are copperfastened by a different limit. It may be unfair to make that analogy, but we have to have regard to what is in the mind of the ordinary person. I have not entered into controversy and argument about the gratuities and pensions paid to people. But the ordinary person I meet around the country is allowing that to escalate into an unreal argument. This is creating an atmosphere the Minister will have to break down before an atmosphere of peaceful co-operation and effective negotiation can develop.

I do not want to delay the Minister with fripperies and nonsense. I want to say something it is timely to say. The workers are basically our forward troops in the fight to improve our economy. We cannot get the best out of them if we allow employers and shareholders to have a greater portion of the world's goods than that to which the workers are entitled. I say, with all the conviction of a person who knows, that you cannot ask a man in the lower income group to accept restraint on the basis of national necessity—and this restraint must be reflected by stringency in the home— when he feels somebody else is getting more than a little more.

The Minister might have to stop his colleagues preaching rubbish or else make it clear that, if the worker is prepared to accept restraint, the company director will have to accept it also. The higher paid officials, while they are perfectly entitled to their increases, will have to forgo them until such time as we have got this economy moving again. The more goodwill you can create in getting this accepted, the more hopeful we will be for the ultimate success of the Minister's Department. It would be unfair to level criticism at what I call the new infant until it has got over the initial squalling stage. We will come back in 12 months to assess, perhaps with a more critical eye, the efforts the Minister has made.

Without going into the problems we see escalating at the moment in certain industries, the strikes that seem to be inevitable, I say to the Minister: your problem now is to set the standards, set the scale of restraint, making argument for it on the basis of its being necessary in order to put industry right. Do that on an overall basis and, first and foremost, give a genuine earnest from the Government themselves that they will not ask people not to do as they do but to do as they say. Make us all do unto others as we would want them to do in the present situation of trying to achieve industrial export efficiency to condition us for EEC. Get management to accept a situation in which they will be expected to leave more "in the kitty" for the present. Get workers to understand that, if they have to accept a little less in order to bring about increased efficiency, they will not only be contributing to the nation's wellbeing, but ensuring for themselves that when this period of restraint is over, their skills will be recognised and ultimately recompensed to the extent they merit.

That is the kind of philosophy I ask the Minister to bring to his Ministry. That is the type of effort which I feel will create the confidence he requires in all sections of the community. In that atmosphere, I feel he will be able to prove as effective in his own quiet way as he did—I will be one of the first to acknowledge it —during his period as Minister for Education. With quiet, efficient, undemonstrative action, I believe the Minister may be able to create an atmosphere to ensure that not only will his job be done but well done.

Mr. O'Hara

I shall try to be brief because I am aware the Minister is anxious to get in this evening. I want to join with other speakers in wishing the Minister luck in this new Department. I sincerely hope he will be a success. Famous people have said that personality counts and I am sure the Minister's personality will be an asset to him in this work. I think it is generally appreciated throughout the country that he does possess that great quality.

The Minister and I entered this House on the same occasion away back in 1951. I do not know if he was luckier than I because he was elected to this House all down through the years and he has risen to his present high office. I was out of this House for a number of years and, although I cannot say whether it was for better or for worse, one finds, when one gets away from the atmosphere of this building, that one learns quite a lot from dealing with the public and in the rough and tumble of resuming one's normal occupation. I found that the business I engaged in had changed considerably in the intervening period. I had an opportunity of viewing at first hand the problems these changes brought about from the point of view of employers and from the point of view of the labour force engaged in some of these businesses.

Criticisms have been made of the Government, of the Taoiseach and of Ministers. Some Deputies seem to think that the Government are responsible for the whole trouble, for the mismanagement and unrest that have been evident for some years past. I have been critical of the Government on various occasions and I hope to be critical of them again this evening in some respects, but I must say that many of the problems that arose were not of our own making. Those of us who have had experience know and appreciate that many of the problems were created as a result of conditions across the water, particularly in England.

This country was embarking upon industrial development and was finding itself in violent conflict with countries that traditionally engaged in industry, countries that had many advantages over us in experience and skills and also in the very important matter of the availability of raw materials right beside them. Therefore, we laboured under many disadvantages. We had the difficulty of training personnel. We had the problem of people leaving the land to go into industrial employment and we had the problem of trying to gain experience in the export field. We had to get markets and to hold on to these markets when we got them.

Having engaged in the export trade, I realise how difficult the problems can be, particularly when we appreciate that we were up against a big industrial country with long experience of this type of work. I therefore feel, as other Deputies have said, that the problem facing the Minister is a major problem. We shall have to try to enlist the goodwill of all concerned in order to get out of the rut in which we have been for some time past.

The economic situation generally— the problem of the balance of payments and the restriction of credit—has helped to create more problems than would normally apply. The Minister should take a hard look at the position as it has prevailed over the years in some industries. I have in mind one such industry in my town which has stood the test of time. It was established there without any Government assistance. In fact, it was established in the days of British rule in this country when we had no trade unions or, if we had, I did not hear of them. That industry aimed at producing a high quality article. There were good relations at all times between management and workers and, for 80 or 90 years, that industry has operated without a strike or a hold-up. They had their problems and their difficulties but they surmounted them because the management and workers pulled together. They were, as it were, one family— something like the type of goodwill for which Deputy Burke asked this evening.

There are a number of long-established industries in this city and in rural areas. I do not want to embark upon an advertising campaign by mentioning the names of some of these very old-established firms. One is a biscuit manufacturing industry and another manufactures stout. It is only in recent years that one of these companies experienced labour problems.

It would seem that sometimes misunderstanding arises between management and labour because the working man thinks that his company is making an enormous profit. When a man earning £15 or £18 a week hears that his company has made a profit of £100,000, then, if he is not accustomed to thinking in terms of money, it seems a tremendous profit to make in any one year. Some companies may have to carry on for periods of two or three years without making any profit. Now and again, one finds that the working man forgets that side of the picture but will draw the attention of the whole country to the fact that the company has made a large profit. I know that because I deal with the ordinary public and meet members of the public regularly. It appears in the paper that a company has made a profit and straight away the workers feel that, just because the company have had a good year, they have nothing to do except increase the workers' wages. In some cases that is not fair to the company.

On the other hand, we know there are companies which have workers working for them for a mere pittance. Time was when bad employers could get labour. The people did not have the backing of the trade unions; they were not members of trade unions and there was no one to fight for them. Some employers got rich on the backs of the poor working men. Thank God, that day is passing. As Deputy Dillon put it, in the course of his eloquent address, if workers have grumbles today, they are due in the main to two causes: the workers do not belong to a trade union or someone in the trade union movement is not looking after their interests. I can hardly visualise the latter situation occurring today because trade unions generally are competing against one another to improve membership.

I believe there is need for greater enlightenment. The workers should be made aware of the employers' problems and management should be considerate of its workers. That type of good relationship between management and labour is most desirable if we are to have further expansion and greater progress, particularly in the industrial sphere. There seems to be some doubt with regard to our position in relation to joining the European Economic Community. That doubt is creating an atmosphere of suspense and tension. It would be to our advantage, in my opinion, if we could get into the Community on well defined grounds and with guaranteed prices. All down through the years, we have been in the position of having the one traditional market and, when we had a surplus, the British were always prepared to take advantage of that situation to decrease prices. I know that to my cost.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

The question of markets is a matter for another Minister.

Mr. O'Hara

These things are fundamentally tied up with workers and good labour relations. Now and again firms engaged in export find themselves in the unhappy position of having to lay off workers. A company may be carrying a very heavy overdraft on which they pay interest. Employers have problems as well as workers. Deputy Burke referred to the case of the ruthless employers who tell a worker he is no longer wanted and he goes down the road to tell his wife and children there will be no pay packet; that is a dreadful situation.

The Taoiseach in the by-elections in Cork and Kildare was responsible for misleading the people and creating the impression that increases could be granted to workers. They were granted because the Taoiseach and Fianna Fáil Government thought they would win votes on the strength of these increases, and they did win votes. I was not a Member of the House at that time and I had plenty of leisure time in which to read the daily papers. I got the impression then that things were very much better than turned out to be the case later. The Taoiseach went so far as to say that it was hoped the workers would get further increases. I do not accuse the present Minister of being guilty of making statements like that. I did not read any statement made by him of that type but the leader of his Party, the Taoiseach, did make them and that created a state of unrest; it was as a result of these statements that we have experienced all these strikes and other problems.

Mr. Mullen

Before I comment on the Minister's speech, I feel obliged to make a few points in relation to some of the things said by some of the speakers so far in this debate. The first is a statement made by the last speaker, Deputy O'Hara. Deputy O'Hara was at considerable pains to show how workers reacted to firms' profits and he also said that the workers have alleged on some occasions that their employers are living on the backs of their workers. There is no denying that latter statement. Deputy O'Hara is obviously au fait with what is going on when he says this is a matter for the trade union movement. I am sure Deputy O'Hara knows, as every Deputy should know—perhaps some Deputies do not want to know—that every worker is not a member of a trade union and it is not every employer who welcomes the entry of a trade union into his firm. Those who like to see trade unions operating are in a minority, not a majority. A considerable number of employers are anti-trade union and take every possible precaution to ensure that their workers do not join a trade union. That attitude is very prevalent throughout the whole country. I expected that the Minister, when making his opening statement, would advert to that situation and point out how archaic such an approach is, particularly if it is our ambition to make progress in regard to employer-worker relations. I could mention a case in point. I do not think it is necessary to exercise one's imagination to any extent in order to substantiate what I am saying.

With regard to Deputy Dillon, Deputy Dillon can express all the concern he likes and make as many forecasts as he likes as to what will happen to advocate that there should be a proper understanding between employers and trade unions. He must take into consideration that he is talking about organised trade unions and organised employers. He has not said a word about the employers who are not organised or who are organised in either of the two big employers' associations and who will not subscribe to trade union agreements. These are the people who should be, and who deserve to be castigated.

Deputy Dillon saw fit to admonish my colleague, Deputy Treacy, when he made a very pertinent inquiry as to where are the jobs for the trainees. He continued to castigate us and the trade union movement and suggested that this is a matter for the Irish Congress of Trade Unions. What nonsense! It is a clear indication of how much out of touch Deputy Dillon is when he makes such a statement. Is he not aware of the existence of the Apprenticeship Act, an Act that has come about as a result of the operation of the Irish Congress of Trade Unions and its constituent bodies? Is he aware that one of the main reasons why the trade unions combined in the early days was the absence of jobs and opportunities? Would it not be in order to direct his attention to the case of the other side? Many employers in this House can answer him with regard to the number of opportunities they give to their employees to become managers and directors.

It is not a case of the haves and have-nots. Everybody knows that there are certain walks of life into which the working man is forbidden to enter. For that reason, the working men had to combine. There is no continuation nowadays of the practice which Deputy Dillon quoted when he said that "you cannot be a member of a trade union if your father was not a member." That is the practice that obtains today on the employer's side. No one can be a director or manager unless the post is handed down to him from his father.

Deputy Dillon suggests some examination of human beings as to their suitability for employment. This is the kind of treatment we would be getting if Deputy Dillon had his way, but, thank God, he is now confined to the back benches. I cannot join with him either when he says that this Department is a gimmick. I do not regard it as a gimmick. We in the trade union movement, who know much more about the operation of industry than Deputy Dillon, have been clamouring for a Department of Labour for a long time. It is a pity this Department did not come sooner. In the early days of this State, we had a Minister for Labour and why that situation was ever departed from is beyond me. If we bear in mind the continual agitation of the Irish Congress of Trade Unions, we will understand why this Department has come about.

In the Minister's speech, he refers to the progressive improvements in the social welfare code. It is quite pertinent to ask him to define these comprehensive improvements. If we look at that code at the moment, it could never be described as comprehensive. It can only be described, when we take into consideration what is happening in other European countries, as a backward code, a code crying out for attention. Let us hope that in so far as this Department is concerned with aspects of the social welfare code, those aspects will be turned into something that can be described as progressive.

In the second paragraph of his speech, the Minister says that in pointing out the limits imposed on those seeking improvements in pay and conditions, he does not suggest that workers and others should suspend efforts to secure improvements. Who are these others? I understand that the Minister is talking about working people and later he goes on to refer to the employers. Perhaps we would hear from him when he is replying whom is he referring to when he mentions these others.

In dealing with safety measures, health, and general welfare, the Minister gave a fair outline of what is in existence at the moment except that he neglected to indicate how badly serviced the Factories Act department is. Recently by means of a question I asked in this House, I elicited the information from the Minister that so far as factory inspectors are concerned, we have a staff of one chief inspector of factories, five senior industrial inspectors, 19 industrial inspectors, one information officer, one industrial psychologist and one industrial officer. I should mention that of the factory inspectors, only three are females, while at the same time a considerable number of females are employed in the State.

I also elicited from the Minister that in the matter of the employment of females as factory inspectors, it has been difficult to get them for this work and that he did not have sufficient response to the advertisements declaring these posts vacant. He did say that there was the same minimum salary for males and females but he also said that as far as the maximum salary was concerned, there was a difference. This is a very serious situation, particularly in the Department of Labour where we have given lip service to the ideal of equal pay for equal work. It is a poor inducement to employers to offer equal pay if this is to be the condition in State employments.

Progress reported; Committee to sit again.