I gave notice, Sir, at 10.30 this morning that I wished to raise a matter on the Adjournment.
Adjournment Debate. - Road Fund Grant Allocations.
Is the Deputy proceeding?
Yes. I did not know the Minister for Agriculture had actually finished.
Could I draw your attention to the fact, Sir, that at 11 o'clock this morning, I was told that this question would not be raised on the Adjournment, but that the matter of which Deputy Dunne gave notice would be raised.
May I say this, please?
The decision was that both questions were within the province of what might be raised on the Adjournment and I decided in favour of the question which Deputy Dunne was raising. Afterwards, I heard that Deputy Dunne was not raising the matter.
At what time did the Chair receive that information?
With your permission, a Cheann Comhairle——
We can understand the reluctance of the Minister to defend his action in relation to the Road Fund.
The reason the matter is not raised now by me is that it was dealt with by way of question just a few minutes ago.
Yes.
I can raise this matter and go into it in full detail but I fail to see the utility value of taking up the time of the House.
The Deputy is running away from the question.
In that case, I now ask for permission to proceed.
We cannot see-saw up and down.
The Minister is now challenging me to take up the matter.
I am saying that this was a bogus notice which the Deputy gave and that, since then, he has conspired with Deputy Sweetman to withdraw it. Knowing that the matter had been dealt with because it was published in the papers yesterday, the Deputy put down this bogus notice of motion on the Adjournment in order to try to arrange that I would not have documents here——
That is a lie which can be confirmed in these terms by Deputy Sweetman.
It was published in the public press.
The Minister indulged in political trickery since last week in order to try to gain a few votes.
It was a concoction between Deputy Dunne and Deputy Sweetman, a thimble-rigging.
That is a lie.
The Deputy will withdraw the word "lie".
I put the figures through an adding machine and I discovered what the Minister was up to.
Deputy Dunne will leave the House.
I refuse to leave the House but I protest against this piece of political trickery on the part of the Minister.
This is a concoction between Deputy Dunne and Deputy Sweetman. I know it: it is obvious.
As I have been brought into this matter, may I say——
Deputy Sweetman and Deputy Dunne have been closeted together in regard to this matter.
Order.
If the Minister cannot have manners and behave properly so far as the Chair is concerned——
This is a concoction——
If the Minister cannot behave towards anybody else except with bowsiness, perhaps he might listen to the Chair? I have not spoken to Deputy Dunne since yesterday. I never mentioned the question or the subject of the question, or his question, to Deputy Dunne. In fact, so anxious was I to get this question in that I deliberately pipped Deputy Dunne at the post by asking this morning, as the Chair will remember, for permission to raise the matter on the Adjournment. May I say, further, that I gave notice at 10.30 a.m.?
The Deputy gave notice at 2.15 p.m.
If the Minister cannot come into this House and behave himself——
I must regularise this matter. Deputy Dunne must withdraw the expression "lie" towards the Minister.
He is afraid to go ahead.
The Minister is being childish.
Of neither you, Boland, nor your breed, was I ever afraid——
Deputy Dunne is about to be exposed.
——nor of anybody on that side of the House, the lot of you together.
Deputy Dunne will withdraw the expression "lie" towards the Minister.
I refuse: I do not feel I can withdraw it because it is a lie.
I must ask Deputy Dunne to leave the House.
Good riddance.
I will leave the House because I do not want to interfere with the——
The Deputy is afraid to deal with the question he pretended to raise.
I shall deal with the Minister any time, anywhere and especially in Ballyfermot. He is afraid to face his constituents there.
Deputy Dunne is running out.
If this proceeds, I shall adjourn the House.
May I make a point of order?
Maybe it was Deputy Tully who made the bargain as whip.
I shall wait until Deputy Dunne leaves the Chamber.
Deputy S. Dunne withdrew from the Chamber.
May I say that there was no collusion good, bad or indifferent and the Chair is aware of the fact because I informed the Chair that the request for permission to raise the subject matter of the question was being withdrawn. There was no collusion. None of us had an idea——
The trickery is obvious.
Manners, please. If the Minister has not manners, we shall teach them to him.
Order.
The trickery is obvious. I know Deputy Tully was involved in it.
A Minister of State should not adopt such tactics here at the conclusion of a day's business.
In collaboration with Deputy Sweetman, Deputy Dunne put down a bogus motion for the Adjournment.
That is a lie and I shall withdraw from the House in protest.
Deputy James Tully withdrew from the Chamber.
The Minister knows he did not tell the truth on Tuesday and that is why he is behaving in this manner now. I have got the Minister and he knows it and he is trying to avoid being caught out in it.
Not at all. The Deputy thought he had tricked me into coming here unprepared but I shall deal with it all right.
The withdrawal of this question by Deputy Dunne is most unusual. It is without precedent. I think it should not be done except within a particular period, within a stated period. However, in the circumstances of the case, I am allowing Deputy Sweetman to proceed to make his case.
May I repeat to the Chair and to the House that I discussed with nobody——
Who did it, then? Was it Deputy L'Estrange? Was it the Whips? I know Deputy Tully was——
I wish the Minister for Local Government would learn how to behave himself in this House.
Was it through the Whips it was done?
On Tuesday last, I asked Question No. 32 which read:
To ask the Minister for Local Government the amounts allocated to each local authority from the Road Fund for the years 1966-67 and 1967-68 respectively and the amount of the decrease in each case.
The Minister for Local Government chose not to answer that question. He chose, instead, to lump a whole lot of questions together and to pretend in the reply he gave in this House that he was giving full statistical information. In fact, the statistical information he gave never replied to the last part of the question. It never gave the amount of the decrease in each case.
I want to suggest to the House, as I shall prove in a moment, that the answer given by the Minister for Local Government on Tuesday last was an answer deliberately calculated to mislead this House and deliberately calculated to mislead the Press of the country. In fact, the Minister did succeed to some extent and I do not blame any newspaper for being misled because they would imagine, as I imagined, that a Minister of State was above the type of thing that he did.
One would expect it, anyway.
It just so happened that, last night, when I was looking at the figures, I was not very happy about them. I put the figures through an adding machine and then I found exactly what the Minister had done and that is why I gave notice this morning that I wished to raise the matter on the Adjournment.
In the irrelevant part of the Minister's statement, he referred to 1966-67 and to the current year in the circumstances of the two years. In 1956-57, we had an economic situation in the country in which not merely, in my view as Minister for Finance was disinflation necessary but every economist in the country also thought it was necessary. Deputy Éamon de Valera, the then Leader of the Opposition, Deputy S. Lemass, the then Deputy Leader of the Opposition, and all the other members of the Fianna Fáil Party who were at that time sitting on these Opposition benches were shrieking to high heaven that the disinflationary measures I had put into operation were not enough and that I should be very much more vigorous. One of the measures was in relation to the Road Fund and I make no apology for it whatever.
This year, however, the position is entirely different. Every economist in the country writing in relation to the state of the economy before the Budget, the Organisation for European Co-operation and Development, OECD, reporting on our position and the Minister for Finance himself all said that what we wanted here was not deflation or disinflation but reflation. The decision that has been taken in relation to the Road Fund is exactly the opposite from the economic point of view of the advice given by everyone. In one case ten years ago we followed the appropriate economic advice and arguments; in this case we are going exactly in the teeth of it. I mention that only to dispose of the irrelevancies which the Minister for Local Government mentioned on Tuesday. The gravamen of my charge against the Minister is this: that I asked him to give the amounts allocated to each local authority and the amount of the decrease in each case. He begins: "The following is the statement: Total Road Fund Grant allocations. 1966-67=£9 700,000" and for "1967-68=£8,942.000." He then goes on to details and he puts on the side of the details: "Does not include Main Road Upkeep Grant: see note below." He told us in his answer that he could not give the figure for the Main Road Upkeep Grant because he had not yet got the figures from the local authorities.
Everybody assumed, including one newspaper, that the Road Fund Grant allocation figure of £8,942,000 was to be increased in due course by the Main Road Upkeep Grant allocations which the Minister said he could not then give. But, in fact, when we put the adding machine to tot the figures we find it has been included and the totals of the details that were given were as follows when they were totted and when the facts as requested by me in the question were brought out. Last year the total Road Fund Grant allocation was £9,700,000. The total in the first page of the Minister's neostyled reply which deals with county councils, county boroughs and corporations comes to £9,594,072. The total on the second page for urban councils et cetera is £101,112, giving a figure of £9,695,184 or £9,700,000 as the Minister correctly says in round figures. But the total, when you come to the current year, which the Minister is trying to hide—and I believe the Minister created this fracas with Deputy Dunne when he realised that I had stumbled on the answer and he wanted to prevent the House and the country knowing it before the local elections—already allocated to local authorities, to county councils, county boroughs and corporations is £6,417,742 and to urban councils £71,680, making a total together of £6,488,000. At the top of his reply the Minister said that the total Road Fund allocation was going to be £8,942,000. There is a difference of approximately £2.5 million. That £2½ million that the Minister endeavoured to hide and calculated on to mislead the people is in respect of the Main Road Upkeep Grant that is to come. What it means, in fact, is that this year, the year in which OECD, every economist and the Minister for Finance said we needed reflation, the Minister for Local Government has chosen to cut the Road Fund allocations, even after taking into account the things that he said on Tuesday he could not take into account, by a figure of over £¾ million in the current year.
The manner in which that was presented to the Oireachtas last Tuesday was a disgrace to an Irish Minister. Let us see how that affects individual counties. I asked for the figure in relation to individual counties and if the Minister for Local Government was able to put the total in, as he did at the very outset of his circumlocutory circulated statement he should have done it on the same basis for the individual counties. I agree that it is not possible at this stage to say exactly what the Main Road Upkeep Grant would be if he has not got details from each local authority. I can give him the figures for Kildare. Last year the total grants for Kildare amounted to £241,350. This year they are £130,940. The amount of the Main Road Upkeep Grant for last year was £58,713. On the basis of the figures that were adopted by the Kildare County Council the amount of the Main Road Upkeep Grant this year will be £58,711, a difference of only £2 in the latter case. This means that County Kildare is losing in grants from the Road Fund this year £110,000.
I have particulars of estimates of the Kildare County Council which I would not have in respect of other counties but one of the things that struck me in relation to this business was that there are certain counties which, perhaps, would not be hit in the same way. One of the things that occurred to me in looking at this business was that it seems strange that County Donegal was likely to come off better. I wonder was that because the present Minister for Agriculture was previously in the Department of Local Government? I see also that the County Borough of Dublin gets an increase. The individual figures do not matter so much. But what does matter is that a Minister should get up here and calculatedly and deliberately mislead the House by saying one thing when, in fact, another is the case and that the £¾ million reduction in the total road allocations is one that has been made after a provision of £2½ million for Main Road Upkeep Grant which is approximately the same figure, as far as I can make out, which was provided for last year.
It is as well that the House and the country should realise that is the standard of presentation in relation to statistics that we can expect from the Department of Local Government so long as the present Minister remains.
First, I think I am entitled to object to the trickery that obviously went on between Deputy Sweetman and Deputy Dunne in regard to this matter. I cannot describe the actual comings and goings or how this was, in fact, contrived but the objective is quite obvious and that objective was to try to ensure that I would appear here prepared to deal with one subject and be confronted with another. This, of course, is particularly obvious when we know, as everybody here does know, that it was announced in the public Press of yesterday that the matter which Deputy Dunne gave notice of his intention of raising here today had, in fact, been dealt with so that it was obviously a bogus intimation of intention to raise the matter on the Adjournment. Therefore, it was obviously, as I said, a bogus intimation of intention to raise the matter on the Adjournment, and the reason behind this only became obvious shortly before Question Time, when the true situation—which had been planned for between Deputy Sweetman and Deputy Seán Dunne—was disclosed just before I came in here to answer Questions.
I am sorry Deputy Dunne withdrew to allow this matter be raised, because he was quite right.
On Tuesday I gave the Opposition Deputies all the information for which they asked. Not alone that but, recognising the fact that statistics do not, of themselves, supply all the information that might be desired—that they can be confusing to people who do not know the full details of how the operations on the roads are financed—I went further and explained these figures and how they arose, so that wrong conclusions would not be drawn from them. It is noticeable that on that occasion Deputy Sweetman studiously avoided giving notice that he would raise the question on the Adjournment.
Because I believed the Minister had told the truth until I added the figures on the machine.
Since then he has concocted this method, with Deputy Seán Dunne, of trying to get it raised in a surprise manner here; he adopted this manner of circumventing the rules of giving notice of raising the matter on the Adjournment.
Having listened to what Deputy Sweetman had to say on this matter now, it is obvious that he apparently is not satisfied with succeeding in wrecking the country's finances when he was Minister for Finance; he is not satisfied that in the short period of three years—which ended ten years ago—he succeeded in reducing a sound economy to a state of bankruptcy. Not only did he do that for the country's finances as a whole, but he also did it in regard to the Road Fund. He is, apparently, not satisfied with that; he also wants to try to make me do the same thing while he is in Opposition. I do not intend to co-operate with Deputy Sweetman. I am quite well aware that there is an election on within a week but I am not going to do what Deputy Sweetman did in 1956-57 for election purposes; I am not going to reduce the Road Fund to the insolvent condition to which he reduced it.
Is the country not insolvent at the present time?
Even if it was not inherent in Fianna Fáil Governments to behave responsibly in finance matters, the mere fact that I have such a vivid recollection of what resulted from Deputy Sweetman's type of financing would prevent me from taking the risk of bringing this country to the state of disaster and chaos to which he reduced it within that short period of three years. I think people generally will see the undesirability of ever again conducting the nation's finances in that way.
Since it is a question of the Road Fund Deputy Sweetman has seen fit to raise here, it might be no harm if I disclosed just exactly what happened to the Road Fund during the last year in which Deputy Sweetman was supposed to be in charge of the finances.
Will the Minister answer the charge?
The income of the Road Fund in 1957 was £4,762,000; administrative expenses were £462,000. In addition to that, Deputy Sweetman —in order to try to balance his fake Budget—took from the Road Fund another £500,000.
The Minister is taking £1,500,000 now.
——making a total of £962,000, which he abstracted from this Fund of £4,762,000, and which left available for grant payments in 1956-57 a total of £3,800,000. In addition to that, on the 31st March, 1956, there were in existence outstanding commitments in connection with road grants, amounting to £2,800,000, and the total amount available for grant payments was £3,800,000. But how much did Deputy Sweetman allocate? Out of £3,800,000—and with £2,800,000 commitments—he allocated £5,177,000. He allocated £1,377,000 more than he had available, without taking into account whatever all the outstanding commitments.
Look at the question on the 13th June, 1967.
The result was that the total commitments, counting the outstanding commitments on 31st March, 1956 on grants for the year 1956-57 were £7,977,000, and Deputy Sweetman had a total of £3,800,000 available against that.
Look at what your own Minister said on 13th June, 1967.
The result of that was that when we had to take over and try to repair the damage Deputy Sweetman had done, we found there were outstanding commitments for the road grants, on 31st March, 1957 of £4,133,000, and that every county council in the country was howling for money which was not there; it was not in the Road Fund, because of the disgraceful manner in which Deputy Sweetman had allowed the finances of the Road Fund to be whittled away, and in particular because of the fact that he himself, as Minister for Finance, had taken £500,000 from it.
The Minister is taking £1,500,000 now.
It was not only in connection with the Road Fund that this applied; the same situation applied to sanitary services, housing and everything else.
As I said in my reply earlier this week, the first thing we had to do to try to restore the Road Fund to a solvent condition was to borrow £900,000 from the Exchequer, in order to pay the most pressing of the commitments that could not be paid because of the way in which the Road Fund had been disgracefully mismanaged under the so-called control of Deputy Sweetman, as Minister for Finance. Now he wants me to do the same thing, but I will not do it. He is not Minister for Finance now. He might have been able to control the Minister for Local Government at that time; he might have been able to get him to give him £500,000 to try to cloak up the fake Budget that he presented; he might have been able to get him to agree to allow the Road Fund to become insolvent, by purporting to pay out more than was in it, but he will not get me to do it. I expect to be here next year, and the year after, and the year after that, and I intend to ensure that the roads programme— which we have developed to such an extent since then—will continue. I am not going to leave it in an insolvent position for somebody else to handle, merely in order to do the same thing as Deputy Sweetman conspired in doing ten years ago.
Will the Minister answer Deputy Sweetman's question? He cannot answer it.
I will answer that; that is only a red herring.
No red herring for the roadworkers!
It was clearly stated in the reply I circulated that the total included an estimated figure for Main Road Upkeep Grants.
It was not.
It was clearly stated in the reply. If Deputy Sweetman is able to read and can spare the time from conniving with Deputy Dunne, he will find that in the reply that is clearly stated, but because of the fact that the proposals of the individual county councils have not been received in my Department and have not been processed there, it is also clearly stated in the reply that in so far as allocations to individual councils are concerned, the amount which will be allocated to them for the Main Road Upkeep Grant has not been included. I want to point out that the total expenditure on the roads, despite the fact that the Road Fund was in such an insolvent condition when we took over, has increased. The total expenditure in 1956-57 was £10,383,681, of which £5,665,468 was from State grants. The figure for 1965-66, the latest year for which complete comparative figures are available, is £15,399,501, of which £9,170,820 was from State funds. The reason that improvement came about was that we have a progressive roads policy, that we want to improve the roads and the reason I will not do what Deputy Sweetman wants me to do now is that I am determined to carry out that programme.
And to hell with the roadworkers.
The Dáil adjourned at 3.45 p.m. until 3 p.m. on Tuesday, 4th July, 1967.