I should like to compliment the Minister on balancing his Budget the previous year. This was certainly a great achievement when one considers the amount of planning that must go into the running of the State. It reflects great credit on both the Minister and the Government that they were able to work within their allocation for the year, even despite unforeseen events.
Committee on Finance. - Resolution No. 9—General (Resumed).
Debate resumed on the following motion:
That it is expedient to amend the law relating to customs and inland revenue (including excise) and to make further provision in connection with finance.
—(Minister for Finance.)
We had eight or nine Supplementary Estimates.
But he balanced his Budget, which was more than you boys did in 1956-57.
Revenue was buoyant.
A most significant feature of the Budget for the previous year was the room it gave for expansion. We have had a growth rate of four per cent in the past year. It is most important in the running of any business or country that the growth rate increases all the time. The Budget did not interfere with that trend but encouraged it. In getting a greater growth rate you are providing a better income and better revenues to the State. In this way the Minister can expend money over many fields, as he has in this Budget, fields such as social welfare and education, which is to provide for the people who will be running the country in the years to come. We certainly need the best brains we can get.
The Minister is providing the confidence so necessary in the industrial field. Unless there is long-term planning you cannot have any prospect of change. A Budget needs to encourage that. A complete switch of programme in an industry takes a minimum of two or three years and most industries usually plan at least five years ahead. The Minister would be doing a great disservice to industry if he did not ensure they would be free from interference and would be left to expand and provide employment and revenues of various kinds. Most of the industrialists who have been quoted in the papers as well as those with whom I have spoken have been pleased with the Budget.
I was glad to see that the Minister has increased from 50 to 60 per cent the rebate for industrial re-equipment. As time goes on and we enter the Common Market, we will have to meet freer trade and we need to be fully equipped. We need to encourage existing and new industries to expand. I know of one factory in my own constituency which has been continually expanding each year. They have a target of increased employment of five per cent each year, which means at present an extra 50 people. There are many towns in Ireland which would be glad to get an industry employing 50 people, but here is one giving that increase in employment each year. The Government are providing the incentive for that. It shows how with good management and good planning, the Government have been able to increase their capital investment in this country. This year it has risen from £110 million to £135 million, an extra £25 million.
The Government get capital from quite a number of different sources. It is really good to see this increase when you think that only a couple of years ago there were credit restrictions in England which had an effect on capital here and on borrowing. We were able to keep to our target at that stage and we have now increased it from our own resources, our own wealth, the labour of the country. This gives more employment and encouragement because our capital programme carries all aspects of the country and all aspects of the Government. We are always striving for more industries so that we will have further employment for our population which is rising. The onus is on us to give more incentives to keep people at home.
I have been dealing with the productive end of the Budget and I now come to taxation. Most people will say this Budget did not hurt anyone. The man who has to pay 2d extra for cigarettes, a penny extra for a pint, and extra taxation on petrol, knows they are luxuries. No one minds paying a little extra when we consider the assistance given to the less well off sections of the community. No one in his wildest dreams, even in the Opposition, anticipated a rise of 7s. 6d. a week for all social welfare recipients. This was an across the board increase through the generosity of the Minister who realised how these people needed to be helped. I can assure him that this has been very well received all over the country. These people cannot band together into pressure groups to look for anything. The Minister has always been their champion, like every Minister for Finance since we took office in 1957.
Some of the retired State pensioners have their own different organisations, but when people go out on pension, they do not seem able to bring pressure on the Government. The emphasis is usually on the people who are producing. Here, again, the Minister has given a five per cent increase to all those pensioners. He has included those who fought for our independence and he has excluded the £80 income which was taken into account when calculating their means for special allowances. This means an extra 30s a week for them, and the Minister has shown that he recognises the valuable work these people did in the fight for independence. He has given them this extra comfort and this extra money in the autumn of their days.
The Minister has also given this increase to people with DPA and other pensions and allowances administered by the county councils. The Government have set an example which needed to be set. Many of these people do not come under the Department of Social Welfare. They have been incapacitated all during their lives. Much work has been done for them up to the present, and will continue to be done, by voluntary bodies but it is good to see the Government setting an example which will encourage the voluntary bodies to continue their good work in this field. In England under one of the Industrial Acts 3 per cent of those employed in a factory must be disabled persons. We could not afford to do that in our new industries, but the voluntary workers are doing an immense amount of good.
I should like the Minister to consider in some future Budget giving a tax relief to people in wheelchairs who have their own cars. It is hard for them to afford a car without assistance from voluntary bodies or county councils. To give them a motor tax relief would not cost very much and it would help them a great deal.
In his Budget Statement the Minister covered all aspects of our life. He gave an allowance to the arts. With a five-day week people have much more leisure time on their hands. They have more time to spend enjoying themselves. It would be a pity if the Government did not give assistance to the arts so that our people can see the valuable works of previous generations in our libraries and museums. Quite an amount has been done in this field, too, by voluntary organisations. Large sums of money have been left for this purpose. The Government have now given them an incentive to continue this good work so that the people can enjoy the arts in their leisure time.
I was glad to note the amount of money spent on education in the past year. Because of the introduction of free post-primary education, it was particularly heavy. This Government are not prepared to stop at that. We have heard about free school books and other facilities. It is now proposed to provide free university education for students who obtain four honours in the leaving certificate examination. We all know of children who were able to obtain a secondary education just because they lived in or adjacent to a town but many children living too far from a secondary school had to leave school on completion of the primary school course because their parents could not afford to pay even for their transport to secondary school. Students who received a good leaving certificate but one just not good enough to enable them to be called for teaching had no alternative but, for instance, to take an office job as the parents could not dream of sending them to a university. We are now providing that facility for them——
If they obtain four honours in their leaving certificate.
This is a start. Give us time.
A student with four honours could become a teacher.
Many people in high places would not be there today if they had not obtained four honours in their leaving certificate.
I am quite sure the Minister and myself got four honours.
It is a fact that very often the effect of a spectacular move fades away. A gradual and sustained improvement is much better. That is what this Government have been achieving over the years and that is what is keeping our country going. No big industry was ever built to its fullest potential overnight. Practically all of the world's big industries were built gradually over the years. This Government set their targets and it is good to note the headway being made. Our four per cent increase in GNP compares very favourably with that of any country in Europe.
Britain had the same credit restrictions two or three years ago as we have. We are now achieving growth and we are able to give incentives without too much taxation. By increasing taxation in Britain this year, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, in one step, brought about almost a 50 per cent increase in the revenue of the Government. I should hate to think what the Opposition in this House would say if our Minister for Finance did anything even remotely approaching what the British Chancellor of the Exchequer did this year in that regard. With good government and good planning, we have been able to keep going, to expand and to give encouragement and confidence to our people. For all that, I should like to thank the Minister and to compliment him on this fine and successful Budget.
It has truly been said in the course of this debate that all the financial indices were with the Minister when he was preparing this Budget. All the pundits and experts told us he had an opportunity of producing a good Budget. At the same time, he had the responsibility of looking towards the future, of looking where we are going and not to regard the economics of the year as one would regard the balance sheet or the profit and loss account, say, of a small tobacconist shop, where the changes would not be great, taking one year with another, and where one would not have to look at production figures, stock figures, and so on, as well as purchases and changes in regard to purchases.
Many of the pundits and many of the people who said this is a good Budget might have qualified their remarks by saying that, from the figures available to us here, it is clear that this Budget was a challenge. I want to prove that the Minister did not accept the challenge of that Budget and did not address himself to it. The question we must seek to answer is whether or not this is an election Budget, a Budget related to a referendum or possibly to a general election. Unless there is a leak, it is a question nobody outside the Cabinet can answer. If the challenge is not met, it would appear that there is a danger that this Budget is either a referendum or a general election Budget.
Account might have been taken of the failure of the Government over the past number of years to employ the numbers leaving the land and to preserve the numbers in employment. A few days ago, the Taoiseach spoke of a £27 million grant by the State for investment in industry and of a total investment there of over £90 million so that 40,000 new jobs were provided. In 1956, the then shadow Minister for Industry and Commerce, who later became Taoiseach and who has since honourably retired, Deputy Seán Lemass, said there was a need for 100,000 new jobs. The other day, the present Taoiseach, Deputy Jack Lynch, blandly told us, as a matter of achievement, that 40,000 new jobs were produced as a result of an expenditure of £90 million. If that is so, we have probably spent more than £2,500 per job. Anybody even remotely engaged in industry today knows it costs £2,500 to produce a new job. However we look at it, it is clear that we did not produce enough jobs to employ our people and to give us hope that the boy and the girl we are rearing will get a chance of employment in their own area and, if not in their own area, in what we hope will be the whole of Ireland in the days to come.
The Taoiseach made a different speech the other day, also. He said that 30 per cent of our home industrial market will be open to the full blast of competition within the Common Market or in the present framework of the Anglo-Irish Free Trade Area Agreement. The Taoiseach is as good a man as the rest of them to gild the lily. When it comes to an exercise in the opposite direction of non-magnifying the weed, he is as good as any man at that, too. The fact of the matter is that far more than 30 per cent of our industrial market will be open to the full blast of competition within the framework of the Anglo-Irish Free Trade Area Agreement and, more particularly, within the Common Market. We have all seen it in our own areas.
The answer to the problem is rationalisation. The introduction of efficiency experts and rationalisation has demonstrated that, in the cold blast of free trade, certain of our industries could not continue to employ the numbers they now employ. We have found that the efficiency experts' recommendations in many instances resulted in the disemployment of people. I find that in this House and everywhere else people are extremely keen on rationalisation except those who find themselves about to be or are being rationalised.
There were, I felt, in this Budget the main heads of attack, the main things that could have been looked at and which tended to defend us from the situation of fewer jobs as a result of the full blast of competition from outside. The first thing we must turn to—and I do not want to say this by way of repetition—is agriculture. The whole basis of our being able to preserve our balance of payments in decent equilibrium and to buy raw materials from abroad rests on our agricultural exports. If that is so, what has been done in this Budget to encourage agricultural production? If we produce more, presumably in a society that we hope is becoming more affluent, it will mean more for export and what to any extent has been done in this Budget to increase our agricultural exports?
I was at London Airport a few weeks ago talking to two industrial friends of mine when the Minister for Agriculture in his usual jaunty way walked past with a great swing in his step. He was coming back from a most unproductive meeting with the British Minister of Agriculture. You know, there is a good joke about that incident because the two gentlemen to whom I was talking when the Minister was not inclined to talk to me were brothers-in-law of the Minister for Industry and Commerce but the Minister did not know it.
Who were they?
They are good friends of all of us but we will leave it there. He might have spoken to them but what he had to say to reporters was far more important than what he had to say to me. What he said was that we would have 200,000 fewer cattle to export in 1968 than in 1967. I think he is right because the livestock enumeration for 1968 has suffered to a slight degree inasmuch as it was affected by the foot and mouth disease and we have to compare February, 1968, with January, 1969, and so take credit for the birth of a large number of spring calves. We have a 13,000 decline in milch cows and a decline of 124,200 defined as "other cattle" and a general decline of 2.3 per cent in our cattle numbers.
I hold that if the enumeration could have been safely carried out in January this fall in cattle numbers would have been greater. All of us know that once Christmas is over you get more cows calving. But if we have 200,000 fewer cattle to export in 1968 and if stocks at the same time are down, it would appear to me as if our balance of payments situation could not be as rosy at the end of 1968 as it was at the end of 1967.
A further feature is the anticipated rise in demand for consumption goods which in my view is inevitable in the second half of this year. To predict this trend in cattle numbers and decide whether we will have an improvement or a disimprovement, one has only to go to the Book of Estimates and look at the amount of money provided for the heifer grant scheme. The amount last year was £1,400,000 and this year it is £450,000 less, or 150,000 fewer cattle.
Having said that, I want to turn to the question of milk products. The biggest single item in the agricultural Estimate is the provision of money for subsidy for milk products. Lest anybody should think that this is going into the farmers' pockets for the purchase of luxuries or for his personal profit, it is wise to say that there is a surplus of milk products in Europe and in the rest of the world and that farmers are paying more than the selling price for these products. When we look at the figures, I agree that £1,790,000 was something in the order of eight or nine per cent. I have looked at the records and see that there has been a record production every year since the GATT Agreement, before the Anglo-Irish Free Trade Agreement. The quota allowed to us to send butter to Britain increased month by month as other exports fell short.
If we take advantage of selling on the best market there has been—and this year there is a huge surplus in Denmark and in Holland and we have no hope at all of getting extra monthly quotas—the figure included in the Estimate for milk products will be far exceeded. If one goes further than that and looks at the selling price of milk powder, one finds that the selling price of milk powder is no more than 60 per cent cashwise of what it was last year. This would show that we are facing a disastrous situation in so far as milk products are concerned but the Minister is inclined to say that everything in the garden is rosy and that things will not be so bad.
I am not advocating a tough Budget. I am advocating the facing up by the Minister to the challenges that are there, facing up to challenge after challenge which in his Budget speech he has glossed over or not mentioned at all. The position is that in the Capital Budget the Minister mentions the figure of £33 million as the amount he intends to take by way of loan from the banking system. It appears the banking system is doing well at the moment as far as money is concerned and that it is possible to take a larger sum than before. It seems, however, that the removal of £33 million from the banking system this year will mean that there will be less overdraft facilities available to the private sector. Whatever government loans we give it is in the private sector that the most expansion, most capital expenditure and most productive improvement must occur. Whatever we do for a man by way of grant or Government loan, if you have not your policy properly aligned to give him an opportunity for profit and for the employment of his fellow men, he will not avail of it.
Most of the people who are making these decisions do not have to worry about their own future. They have reached the stage in life where they are able to make sure they can look after themselves without great personal worry.
I notice that our Leader was criticised here by good friends in the press for quoting a large number of documents including Challenge. Therefore, I shall take the plunge and quote Challenge, too. This is a publication issued by the Federation of Irish Industries in Dublin and on page 21 it has verification of what the Taoiseach said in relation to outside markets and their interference with us. It says:
On balance, we are going to face much more severe competition on the British market than we have at present. Exports which can compete with equivalent British products, but not with Continental goods, will not survive.
Here is a further quote from the publication:
Like the British, we must recognise that for us these must largely be found in Europe.
Shades of the Minister for External Affairs! Maureen Potter, when asked in her pantomime if the Minister for External Affairs were living in the past, replied with great gusto: "No; he is living in New York." Further shades of the Minister for Industry and Commerce and his great tour of Australia when there were so many places nearer home which he could have visited! We are then in the position whereby we have a challenge from abroad. We have a situation whereby Britain increased taxation to the extent of £911 million. If we take the inevitable supplementaries which cannot be avoided, the probable extra taxation in Britain this year is £1,000 million. They are facing a fantastic challenge and we seem to have failed to meet it.
I am not advocating increased taxation or increased expenditure. I am saying that the Government should warn the people and, in addition, should take such steps as they consider necessary rather than take no steps, as they have done, to tell the people that at the present moment we will have 200,000 fewer cattle to export. This year we will have a far worse market for our milk products. We estimate that there will be 150,000 fewer births of calves from heifers and that we will, at the same time, produce a gradh mo chroí mo chushla Budget which does absolutely nothing to tell the people what can happen in 12 or 18 months. The Budget does nothing to provide them with some sort of weapon with which to defend themselves.
As a further reason why we should have faced the challenge through this Budget, I point to the Second Programme Review of Progress, 1964-67, to Table II on page 12. One finds that in the Second Programme the projected increase in resources in agriculture for the period was £55.9 million in terms of 1960 prices, but the actual increase in resources for the industry on which we depend to keep our finances right was £5.8 million, a shortfall of £50.1 million. During the same period, our projected increase in resources at the same level of prices in industry was £152.7 million but the actual increase was £127.4 million, the shortfall here being £25.3 million. In other domestic lines, the projected increase was £102.8 million but the actual increase was only £77.6 million, a shortfall of £25.2 million.
Therefore, from 1964 to 1967, out of the mouths of babes and sucklings, or the Government, came shortfall in increasing resources of £100.6 million. In this situation no challenge was faced up to in this Budget. Does this Budget show any change in policy? It shows one thing, that the Minister for Finance is interested in the arts. That is the next joke Maureen Potter will have in her pantomime. Sir, in case I might be ruled out of order, I hesitate to say "Charlie and the arts".
What is so funny about that?
It is no criticism. I do not mean it by way of criticism.
Does the Deputy say that the Fine Gael Party disapprove of this act of the Minister?
The increase for the arts? No, not at all, but when you see one Minister pursuing the arts and failing to face up to the situation the country is confronted with, one begins to wonder. I tried to be a little facetious. Maybe I did not succeed. If I had, the Parliamentary Secretary would be in better form.
I am in good humour, but I thought it was gratuitous.
I apologise to the Parliamentary Secretary. I should like now to talk about the across the board increase of 7/6 a week in social welfare benefits to which Deputy Crinion made reference. We appreciate that the increases in social welfare benefits which we can give are limited by one thing only—our ability to pay. Deputy Crinion was specific when he said that since Fianna Fáil came to power in 1957, each Minister for Finance had been solicitous for the old and the poor. I agree that all Ministers, including Dr. Ryan and Fine Gael Ministers for Finance during the years, have been solicitous for social welfare classes but the limitation always has been the resources within the State, resources from which increasing taxation can be secured to finance increasing social welfare benefits. If we have a shortfall of £100.6 million in our projected increased resources, of course we cannot finance increased social welfare benefits. If, on the other hand, the Government had faced the situation, they would this year have been able to give increases of 12/6 or 15/- a week.
We have had total failure on the part of the Minister for Industry and Commerce to expand the policy of industrial estates. We have the situation in which we must ask supplementary questions, as we did today, in relation to that place, the "Gateway to the West", where everybody says it is clear there should be an industrial estate. I am speaking about Sligo. The Minister told us he has set up a commission composed of an organisation of international consultants to look into this matter. I wish to point out, without consulting any international organisation, that Sligo, backed by Leitrim, is the gateway to the West where there is more need for an industrial estate than in other places. Of course Fianna Fáil are worrying about votes in all this and must therefore take certain political action. Apparently they are extremely worried about their vote position.
I should like to refer to the question of wages and rents. First of all, I shall refer to the fact that the working man in this country is largely within his trade union, with one extraordinary exception not far from where you, a Leas-Cheann Comhairle, live. These men who find themselves hard pressed in their family lives will always try to retrieve anything that is taken from them and if there was, for instance, a very tough Budget this year and if the working man of Ireland felt that a certain amount of his purchasing power had been removed from him, there is no doubt about the fact—and I do not blame him—that he would make every effort to retrieve that purchasing power. That is a simple fact of life and it is one of the limitations of a government who depend on universal suffrage for re-election, that when they remove purchasing power from people within the country they have to meet those people on the next occasion. Anybody will accept that fact.
I would like to deal now, Sir, with the question of rents, particularly as they affect places such as Limerick, Drogheda, Dundalk and Dublin, rents as they are affected by a change of Government policy which is reflected in the capital allocation for housing in this Budget. I want to refer to the fact that up to 30th March, 1966, the whole line of country on housing was that the man who entered his house and paid his rent lived in his own castle and that in fact as well as that, if he wished to buy out his house, the house could be bought out at a price directly related in money to the cost of the house in the first instance. Then two things happened.
There was the 1966 Housing Act and there was the Modification of Deficit Principle Review of Rents Circular No. H3/66 from the Department of Local Government. In this circular, it was pointed out for the first time that the surplus, or profits, which could be derived by a local authority on houses built prior to 1953 in urban areas and prior to 1st April, 1960, in rural areas, could be devoted to the relief of rents on new houses. At the same time within this Capital Budget, there is the provision for moneys for new houses, but the total amount which the Minister for Local Government instructed by the Minister for Finance can give to a local authority by way of remission of principal and interest repayments over the next 35 years is two-thirds of these principal and interest repayments, up to a maximum of £1,650, when the cheapest urban council house that I know of costs £2,670, leaving a gap all over Ireland on urban council houses between their cost and the amount on which the Government will pay two-thirds subsidy, of £1,000 or more, a figure that must be met from somewhere—from the rates of the local authorities, from the rents of the tenants or from the tenants in the old houses.
When the practical financial approach to this was made all over Ireland, the position was that the increases that would have been necessary on the rents of the new houses were far more than any working man could be expected to pay. In most urban authorities in Ireland, when the members refused to do anything, the Minister indicated to them—and I want to quote Drogheda Corporation as an instance—that if they did not strike a rent, he would not provide any money for new houses. That leaves people in a town of that size with 600 or 700 people in the category of room dwellers, people with four or five children living in one room. In most cases, as happened in Drogheda, in the case of Dundalk Urban District Council, in the case of Limerick Corporation and Dublin Corporation— and I do not know about Dublin County Council—the city manager or county manager, or whatever he was, invoked his powers, when the members refused to go with the Minister, whether they were Fianna Fáil, Fine Gael or Labour, and struck a rent on the houses. I use my local corporation as an example for the House. The rent struck was an increase of 5/- on all houses except those just built, each year for three years, or 15/- in all. The right to purchase was granted before the second year came, not under the old system, but under the system of a valuer going in and valuing the house at its present value. My information is that the cost of that purchase will be very much higher than the rent at present being paid, which includes a figure for repairs, painting and such like. The result of all this is that the people now find themselves not ready to pay 15/- more rent. They say they are not going to pay it. The view of the Labour Court, which strangely enough does not seem to have been as fully reported as the 12 per cent increase before the two by-elections, granted by Deputy Lemass, the then Taoiseach, is that the present increase is something in the order of 22 per cent to 23 per cent.
Let us consider what these people all over the country who are faced with an increase of 15/- to £1 in their rents have done. Let us not blame them: I would do the same myself. Why should they not try to retrieve their purchasing power? That is a hidden tax within this Budget and what has been the result? I can only quote from one instance I know. If Deputy Tully were here, he would bear me out as he was a trade union member of a joint labour committee of the Labour Court and I was an employers' member. Deputy O'Leary was for a time a trade union member also. I am still there myself. We settled in five days on a recommendation to the Labour Court of 17/6d from 4th April, 1968, 17/6d on the anniversary day, being 35/- within 12 months, two and a half hours reduction in working hours, 5/-after ten years service pay, two extra days holidays this year and three more to make up three weeks holidays next year. They sought it because the hidden tax in this Budget was an increase of 15/- in their rent.
I do not blame them, but I want to point now to the challenge that has not been faced and the question as to whether or not this is a referendum Budget or a general election Budget and whether or not, as I said in Limerick last Sunday morning, there will be, when things are nicely over, a Supplementary Budget. I could quote another figure—Cement Ltd.—4d an hour plus 3d an hour plus 3d an hour, or 10d an hour, a decrease in the number of hours and the other benefits, all refused by the workers as a settlement. Why? Because of the hidden tax in this Budget of 15/- in their rent.
What effect will that have on our exports? I have already quoted 200,000 less cattle for export next year, less cattle on the land, less money for the heifer grant scheme to prove that you expect less heifers mated, the drop in world prices in milk products, and a 35/- increase in wages to try to retrieve the hidden tax, inside the next 12 months. Are we heading where we headed for when Deputy Lemass, then Taoiseach, produced his infamous 12 per cent to cod the working people and make them think they were getting something decent when they were heading straight into further unemployment and less purchasing power within 18 months? Do we or do we not want a wages and incomes policy? Do we or do we not want some facing up to the situation? Do we or do we not want to take every item into our calculations and reach a stage where the Government have the guts to stand up and say: "The economy of this country can stand so much and that is our criterion." Why was it not done now if it was right to do it in 1966? It has been said by various observers that this range of wage increases, which, as I say, I do not object to, but can point the reason for, will be concluded in the first half of 1968. We here as representatives have sat for years getting no increase at all. Why? There was a by-election here; there was a general election there; and there was a Presidential election coming along and the vote-crazy Government had not the guts to give increases as and when they were required.
Can we expect a decent working man in this country to see us getting £2,500 a year, to see Ministers getting £6,000 a year and the Taoiseach getting £8,000 a year and be reasonable about it? Of course the situation developed whereby there had to be a change. Of course the situation developed whereby there were people spending £1,500 being a TD and getting £1,500 for it. Of course the situation developed, and this is well known to many of us, where people were in fact in financial difficulties. It was the fault of this Government who did not give proper increases at the proper time and who were not prepared to produce a wages and incomes policy which would indicate the headlines and the guidelines to everybody. We now have to face a situation wherein the percentage of goods for export and everything else which really matters is suffering. That was not mentioned by the Minister for Finance.
We know that the Minister for Labour has had his proposal for the control of trade unions and the proper working and structure of wages and incomes policy rejected by the trade unions. That was as long as 15 months ago and nothing has been done since. It is because of this that I perhaps feel very strongly about the Budget which many other people think was one of those nice easy Budgets. I feel very strongly about it not for what it did but for what it failed to do. I feel very strongly about it because that challenge has not been faced up to. I would like to quote from the last sentence of the Minister's Budget Speech:
We are placing our faith in expansion and in the capacity of our people to meet from their own resources any challenges the year may bring.
Who sits in the saddle? Who has got his feet in the stirrups? I do not think the people should be confronted with those platitudes. I do not think they should be allowed to ring in their ears, that the impression should be given that everything is right in the country when most of the things I have mentioned, and I challenge anybody in the Government to refute anything I have said here, are wrong. It is on that basis that I regard this as a bad Budget.
Many things have been said about this Budget, and as is natural to expect, praise has been lavished from the Fianna Fáil Benches on it but when we come to the basics of the Budget, and how it affects most of our people, we find that it is a Budget produced to soften the cough and the blow which will be delivered some time around next October by way of the referendum. We who are mostly concerned about how people live, and about people who live on a limited income, realise what effect this Budget has on the people generally. I have in mind, and I am sure every Deputy here must think selfishly on those matters, the welfare of the people whom I have the honour of representing.
I find that in my particular area the Minister for Finance has avoided the problems which confront the people of Limerick and its surrounding area. We have been clamouring, and rightly so, with justification about the needs of Limerick. All Parties have combined in efforts to expand the limits of the Shannon development area and to industrialise outside the Shannon area, which is well suited to it, and is crying out for industrial development. We produced our needs to the Taoiseach and to the Minister, by way of correspondence, but when we tried to face him and reason with him, both the Taoiseach and the Minister refused to receive a representative deputation from the city of Limerick. This was a combined body of the Junior Chamber of Commerce, the Harbour Commissioners, trade unions, members of Limerick City Council and all interested bodies. All those have made their individual representations to the Minister for expansion of the industrial area for Limerick. When that was fruitless, we combined together and sought an interview either with the Taoiseach or the Minister, but were flatly turned down.
Instead of that, the Minister saw fit to receive a selective group. You know what that implies. Some three or four people who had no right, good, bad or indifferent, who had no mandate from the people of Limerick to discuss those important matters, were received by him. However, I am sure they all have their cumann cards paid up to date, if they were not in a position to be members of the higher society of the brigade, whom I am sure were represented also. I refer to the £100 a year people of whom we have a plentiful supply in the city of Limerick. I now produce a menu card of 29th February and I can assure you that we are well represented on this in Limerick.
You produced it before.
I will produce it again at the by-election.
That is the lobster one.
It is the Galway salmon one. It is an unfortunate thing that the people depending on industry in Limerick have neither the lobster nor the salmon. As I say, we have been pressing in the city of Limerick for expansion of the Shannon industrial area but we have not got within arm's length of the Taoiseach or the Minister concerned in those matters.
I come now to the most important industry we have in the city of Limerick, that is, the bacon industry. In the Second Programme for Economic Expansion, we have a short paragraph on the bacon industry and the projections expected for 1970. While I have been pressing for years to get the Minister to see the light with regard to the future of the bacon industry the Minister on many occasions assured me that there was no need to worry about the future of the bacon industry, that the pig population was increasing, that employment was secure and that we could rest assured in Limerick that the bacon industry was safeguarded for generations to come. The facts proved the Minister wrong. Only last Friday night, 22 men were laid off from one of the country's biggest bacon factories. In the past 12 months, another bacon factory closed down. Despite all the Minister says and the advice he is listening to, the fact remains that there is a steady decline in the pig population.
I have the figures for killings in one bacon factory in Limerick, which is a progressive factory. These killings dropped from 80,606 in 1962 to 16,799 in 1967. Pork killings in 1962 were 3,636 and last year they were 1,721. Whatever the Minister thinks, this is what matters and the laying off of men and the closure of another bacon factory do not coincide with what the Minister has been told in regard to the position of the bacon industry.
Further on in this Second Programme, we are told of the amount of money and the grants the Minister has given for farrowed sows and construction of piggeries. What is the use of building houses when you have nothing to put into them? Why build a hotel on top of Croagh Patrick? Nobody will go there. Any sensible person knowing anything about the business realises that you must first produce the bonham and rear the pig. Instead of finishing up as the Minister and the Department are doing. we must begin at A and end at Z. But he has turned the picture completely round. There is very little use in giving grants for farrowed sows when people will not rear pigs and no use in giving grants to build piggeries if there are no pigs to put into them. That is the stupidity of the Department.
People who know more about the industry than all the advisers in the Department of Agriculture say that there is only one way to save the bacon industry, that is, to make it profitable for the man who sends his pigs to the bacon factory. At present that is not happening. The present price for 1 cwt, of live bacon, a one cwt. pig is £10. The cost of ration to feed that pig is £9. It takes nine weeks to produce a pig for killing so that for an investment of £9, you get £10 if you are lucky and everything goes smoothly. It is all because the price of the ration, £9, is excessive. It does not pay the farmer to feed the pig. Large co-operatives, well supplied with skim or whey milk, can feed from 500 to 800 pigs and are doing so. I hope the Minister and his officials have seen how this is done. But that is not the type of pig required for killing. They will never produce grade A pigs. It is a soft pig that does not take the brine for curing. There is only one way to achieve our aim and that is to subsidise the ration for feeding pigs as is being done in other countries.
I do not want to interrupt the Deputy but such detail should be reserved for the Estimate.
We said this on the Estimate and might as well have been talking to the wall. All over the country bacon factories are closing and men are being laid off because of the ineptitude and incompetence of the Department.
Another industry very close to the Minister which is being completely neglected is the bloodstock industry. We have a world reputation for the production of top-class bloodstock but there is no relief from the Minister. We have in the Racing Board a competent body set up to deal with the industry. They give good employment and are doing an excellent job. They have saved the industry, but no thanks to the Minister or the Government. They have done excellent work in the production of animals and in the projection of Ireland's name in regard to bloodstock all over the world. If the Minister had concerned himself with saving the industries we have, his first concern would and should have been the bloodstock industry which is on its way out. Some six or eight race meetings were threatened with closure two years ago and another venue has been on the market for the past six or eight months. This is something the Minister should be well aware of. It is not an industry in which the people are directly concerned. Indeed, some people look on it as a day's sport, a day's outing. But behind that there is long and expensive planning and expensive arrangements to be made to produce the article that is to be seen either on the racecourse or at Goff's sales at Ballsbridge. If the Minister is interested, I have the figures from the Racing Board which are available to any member of the public——
These figures seem irrelevant to the present discussion.
With all due respect to the Chair, I want to impress on the Minister that this industry should have been helped in this Budget. Consideration has been given to it in every country in Europe by way of State aid except here. Because of the employment content and because of the export value and because of all the other things concerned with it, I think it deserves special consideration from the Minister and the Department. This is the only country in Europe, the only country in the world, in which there is no Government aid for this industry.
Is the Deputy referring to the Minister for Finance or the Minister for Agriculture in this case?
I am referring to the Minister for Finance, who controls this. Despite the fact that figures have been tumbling down, that representations have been made to the Minister that this industry is on the wane, no relief has been given. If the Minister wants any verification of this. I can give it to him briefly. In 1966, our bloodstock exports were worth £4.8 million, a sizeable sum. The betting turnover has been falling. In 1966, it was £8,146,000; it fell to £7,343,000 in 1967, and is still falling. The bookmakers' turnover and tote turnover are the only means by which this industry can stand on its feet. There has been a fall in one year of £1,200,000 in the bookmakers' turnover, and a fall of £130,000 in the tote turnover. The revenue derived from off-course betting is all channelled to the Department of Finance. The Minister captures 2s 6d of every £1 invested over a betting office counter, and not one penny of this is channelled back into the industry.
There are 3,143 people directly employed in this industry. I am not including in that figure catering staffs, transport staffs or other people who are employed indirectly. The bloodstock industry it going through a critical period and urgently requires assistance.
I come to another industry, the grey-hound industry, which exported last year over £1 million worth of greyhounds to England, America, Portugal and Spain.
Details such as the Deputy is discussing are not appropriate to the Financial Resolution.
I want to impress on the Minister the need for assisting these two industries, industries in which I am directly concerned and about which I know something because I am directly concerned.
The Financial Resolutions are framed in such a way that they should be taken in general. Details should be kept for the Estimates.
I bow to your ruling, but I want to say we are gravely disappointed that the Minister has overlooked these two important industries in his Budget. We know the predicament the Minister is in and that we have to take cognisance of the future as he sees it, but this relief he is giving with one hand he is taking away with the other. I want to be specific. The cost of living has gone skyhigh and, while the Minister has given relief to the old and the infirm, that relief should have been much more generous. The Taoiseach tells us about the increase in economic growth and produced figures to bamboozle and deceive the people. We will not dispute his figures, but we must take him to task because the people who are prospering by this increase are the people attached to his own Party. They are well protected, and for the £100 they pay for membership, they have got the cream of whatever expansion has been achieved. The unfortunate people who are trying to live on fixed incomes and who have to meet their PAYE commitments are mulcted in the very last penny.
We had an example last week of some of their followers queueing at a certain rendezvous in my city and putting down £50 in advance as a by-election earnest, as we call it in our part of the country. These are the people who have done well out of the figures quoted by the Taoiseach. We know where the growth increase is going, and if those people want to be named, we will name them. We know the people who have benefited and the day will come when we will be naming them. There are some thousands of unfortunate people in the city of Limerick who are getting one meal a day delivered to them through the charity of people engaged in the meals on wheels effort.
This is the situation as we see it in our city. This is the picture that cannot be blotted out. Let the Minister justify it and tell us, as we will be asking him, why he did not give these unfortunate people relief. Deputy Donegan spoke about the concealed increase by way of rents. We solved that problem in Limerick because we organised the tenants to refuse to pay. We asked the Minister for Local Government, an affable gentleman, reeking with hospitality, to receive a deputation to discuss it but he refused; yet he met the chosen few from the cumann. However, the rents were not paid and the Minister had to come down. We will defeat him also in the vote on the referendum. If Deputy Donegan wants a solution to his problem in Drogheda, we in Limerick can solve it for him as we have done it for ourselves.
This is the only way in which these people over here, in their plush seats and Mercedes cars, will get a true picture of how the people live and on what they have to exist. If the Minister for Finance thinks he has done a service to a certain section of the people, he can take it from me that he has but he has done it for a section which is well able to look after itself—the people who can pay their £50 contribution to the by-election fund, the people who met in the Gresham Hotel on 29th February and paid their £100. These are the people he looked after. What does the miserable 7/6 which he gave buy for the old people? Three pints of stout in the week or 30 cigarettes in the week. It buys less than four packets of fish and chips in the week because they cost at least 2/-each. That is what the 7/6 means to the people I am glad to represent. This is a camouflaged Budget, a deceptive Budget and we in Limerick will show the Minister on the 22nd of May what we think of him and his Budget.
First of all, I should like to refer to a quotation from the Minister's speech wherein lies the key to the thinking behind the Budget and which helps us to appreciate many of the difficulties which face the Minister and which are beyond his control. The Minister referred to various international events which occurred recently and which were of significance to our economy. If one looks around the world today, one sees the state of complete unrest which exists and one is glad that at least in this small backwater we have retained some sanity and that the Minister has brought in a Budget which will help the economy to expand and while it is expanding he will be able to think of the weaker sections and regard them as being of paramount importance when he is budgeting for next year. In the two years in which the present Minister has been Minister for Finance he has changed the thinking of our people in regard to social welfare benefits. This year the people did not ask: "Will the Minister give us anything in the Budget?"; instead they asked: "How much will the Minister give us?" This has given confidence to the people who are without jobs, people who must be helped along.
We appreciate that the Minister has not got a bottomless purse from which he can draw. Going back a decade or so, when the old age pensioners were not given anything, the plea was that the economy could not stand it, but thanks to the present Government, the economy has been built up to the extent that in each Budget these people have been catered for to some extent. I do not wish to score any political points off the Opposition but it is necessary, in order to have clear thinking, to remind them of these things. The economy, as Deputy Donegan said, must be strong to afford these benefits. I hope that next year the Minister will be able to give even greater benefits to social welfare recipients and that the whole scope of social welfare will be enlarged to cover every person who needs help.
The Minister referred to industrial relations. This is a phrase which I always suspect and it would be better to refer to human relations. I do not accept that because a man works in a factory or office, he is changed as a human being. Today we must view our industrial unrest with much apprehension. We should try to find out why there is so much unrest, not in the private sector of the economy, but in the semi-State bodies or the public bodies because that is where the trouble is. It may be said that the trade unions are claiming too much but I do not agree with that. If a group is seeking a more equitable distribution of the nation's wealth, I am all behind it. In this age we have to throw aside some of the Victorian misconceptions of what a man should get from his country and give him what he is entitled to.
The worrying thing about the present unrest is that it is not official strikes that are taking place and that in the past month or so trade union leadership has been flung aside. Practically every big strike which has taken place in the last month or so was unofficial and trade union leadership was disregarded. I will not deny that in most strikes the men have a grievance but let us remove these grievances in a proper disciplined manner which will not involve suffering for a lot of our weaker sections, people who have no way of defending themselves. If my words go to the men involved in the various disputes, they have my promise that they will have my backing in their agitation for a greater share of the wealth they are helping to create but the agitation must be in a disciplined way through their trade unions.
I have no idea what the new legislation for trade unions will involve. I hope the guiding principle will be to strengthen the trade unions so that the elected leaders of the unions will be the men given the task of helping to solve the problem that exists in the industrial sphere all over the country. I believe there is enough goodwill in all sections to ensure that any body of workers with a legitimate grievance can have that grievance examined and, if possible, remedied; but that, I think, should be done through the trade union officials and not through the medium of unofficial strikes.
I mentioned an article I read some time ago which referred to port authorities. In that article it was stated that, if a port gets a bad reputation for industrial unrest, international shippers put a special levy on goods going into that port in order to cover any possible hold-up of ships in that port. Naturally, that will tend to drive ships from that particular port to some other port, depriving the former of business. The men who go on strike, therefore, gain nothing in the long run; they only succeed in destroying themselves by driving business elsewhere. Perhaps the Minister would consider next year making funds available to organised labour and management for the purpose of enabling them to improve relations between workers and management. There is so much unclear thinking about the whole matter at the moment, particularly in this city, that we are simply crucifying ourselves to no good purpose.
I listened the other day to Deputy Dillon speaking about housing in Dublin. When I came in here originally, I also listened to Deputy Dillon; I heard him speak about the housing situation in Dublin when he was in Government. I was appalled by his abysmal ignorance of the facts. I shall not go back to that point of time because such an exercise would not build one extra house in this city, though I might possibly score debating points, but I should like to refer to an agitation that is going on by people who are going around this city with placards: "Ten Thousand Homeless Families in Dublin." We have not even got 10,000 applications for houses in Dublin and, in the next four years, providing the present Minister is still in office, which, I am sure, he will be, and if he is as generous as he has been this year to Dublin Corporation in the allocation of money for housing, we shall provide almost 17,000 dwellings in the Dublin area. We believe that by that time the housing problem will be of very minute dimensions.
People who appear on television show an amazing ignorance of the whole situation. That is true equally of the clerics and the laity. The people generally are taxed to provide this television service and I think the distortion that takes place even on so-called religious programmes constitutes an abuse of the service. People, whose political affiliations are suspect, to say the least of it, are brought on to these programmes; these are the people who, a few years ago, when the workers in Hungary were being trampled underfoot by the Stalinists, were holding meetings in Pembroke Road, in my constituency, jubilantly celebrating what was to them a victory. These are the people who are now being lauded by some of the clergy as true spokesmen in regard to the housing situation in Dublin.
Hear, hear.
If the clergy want the truth, let them go to Dublin Corporation and get the truth there. Let them bring on an official or member from Dublin Corporation to give the facts, tell the people what has been done and what is being done.
Hear, hear.
I am a member of Fianna Fáil because I believe it is the best Party. One thing about Fianna Fáil is that they never allowed our housing programme to be slowed up because of lack of money. That is a record of which any Party could well be proud.
I doubt if we can adversely criticise any provision in the Budget. Opposition criticism is halfhearted. The Minister has produced an expansionist Budget which will help to create more employment. On this point, I think the people should now start thinking, as the Minister obviously has been doing, about those who have no jobs. Those who have jobs are not too badly off. Let us think now of the men and women who have no jobs. Even though the figure for emigration has decreased, we are by no means complacent about the situation. As a result of this Budget, I believe that next year the emigration figure will be much lower and the figures for industrial employment, which show an increase in the past year, will be even bigger.
The expansion in education is due in large measure to the late Donogh O'Malley. It must be remembered that when the Minister for Education planned this expansion, it fell to the Minister for Finance to provide the money. Education, like everything else, must be paid for. The recent announcement with regard to the expansion of university education is to be commended but we must remember that, even if we have free university education, not all will opt for it. What the masses will want is vocational education to equip them for trades or professions. So equipped, they are given wealth and, in turn, they can increase the wealth of the nation by making their individual contributions to it. It is only in a very sound economy, indeed, that we can look after all sections of our community. It is no use blaming the Minister and the Government. The Minister has to consider the amount of money available in juxtaposition to the wealth created.
No one likes taxation, but I am sure very few, if any, would criticise the Minister for increasing the tax on cigarettes, drink and petrol. I speak now as one of the foolish ones who still smoke; I have not heard one word of criticism of this imposition. I suppose one could call it "the old reliable". It is. It is a tax which defies the law of diminishing returns because, the greater the tax, the more people seem to smoke. That may be regrettable, perhaps, from a health point of view. I am merely trying to justify, if justification is necessary, the Minister's action in increasing the tax on cigarettes.
Next year, when the Minister is reviewing the taxation system, I hope he will have the report of the inter-departmental committee which is examining the rating system. The system as it operates at present is inequitable. It should be replaced by some other system. The Minister may be in the happy position of placing taxation on the shoulders of those best fitted to carry the burden, but that is not the position where rates are concerned. They bear heavily on young couples purchasing or renting houses. I hope there will be a change in the system next year.
This year we shall have new health legislation. I should like now to make a plea for families with retarded children. I know it is possible for a health authority to help, but there are cases in which the health authority refuses to pay disability grants. I have in mind a family; the father is an unskilled worker; the family are fairly well grown but the very fact that the youngest child is badly retarded has the effect of making this family cling together. There is no direct State aid for that family in respect of that boy. It may be due to tardiness on the part of the local health authority, which will not give a grant.
The provision we made last year for medical expenses for income tax purposes applies to such cases.
It does, certainly.
The Deputy was talking about an allowance.
It is a direct cash allowance I am talking of. The Minister has also stated that he will review the operation and scope of children's allowances. In that review it may be possible to make provision for the cases I have in mind. At present, children's allowances are given irrespective of the parents' means. That is right in principle. In my view, however, a family in which there is a retarded child should be given an allowance irrespective of their means. That would, at least, show that the State recognises the burden which a family has to carry. One great anxiety that parents of handicapped children have is as to what will happen to the children when the parents die. It would be a very Christian procedure if the State were to ensure the care of such children after the death of the parents.
One other point I want to make is in regard to our efforts to create more jobs. One estimate made last year was that it took £5,000 to put one man into employment. That calculation should be re-examined and it might then appear that the cost would not be quite so high, but the estimate gives some idea of the difficulty of creating full employment, which we are pledged to do. The people would be behind the Government in any effort to achieve full employment for those who wish to remain in this country. It is maddening to hear unjust criticism of a Minister or of a Government whose efforts are thwarted to a degree by ill-informed criticism. One hears criticisms expressed both inside and outside the House of the investment of foreign capital in this country. It is generally realised that we cannot of our own resources create that economy which will provide full employment and the best possible social services. Therefore, it is necessary to attract outside capital.
We are not alone in this. Every country in the world is doing it. Recently it was suggested that a public board of which I am a member might try to borrow money on the Continent. A leading businessman who had just returned from the Continent told us that we could save ourselves the trouble, that European governments were seeking capital for the development of their own countries. One way in which foreign capital can be attracted to this country is by demonstrating that we are an industrious people, by publicising the fact that while there is no welcome here for the speculator, any reputable firm that can give us something and can get something in return will be very welcome here.
The various industrial grants and aids which the Government in their wisdom have provided are very generous in comparison with what is available elsewhere. We must publicise that fact. The investment of foreign capital in this country will help to build the economy and provide the employment which will give our people a good livelihood.
As one who lives close to the ordinary people, I want to compliment the Minister, for the second successive year, on his Budget. I look forward to greater things next year. In the circumstances obtaining on the international scene, it is my view that if the Minister can do as well next year as he has done this year, he will be doing a good job.
On page 7 of the Financial Statement, the Minister said:
But this, as all the reports have warned us, requires that care be taken not to generate too much domestic spending and to keep cost and price increases tightly in check.
That statement entitles one to ask the Minister and his Government what effort have they made or do they intend to make to keep cost increases tightly in check. Over the past 12 months, the price of essential foodstuffs has been increasing rapidly. Last year, the price of bread and flour went up on two different occasions and there is some rumour abroad at the moment that the price may move up again. The price of clothes and foot-wear moved up. The price of domestic coal increased by about 30/- per ton last year. Therefore, one is driven to the conclusion that very little effort is being made by the Government to keep prices tightly in check. In addition, the price of tea and sugar increased substantially over the past few years. It is time that the Minister for Finance made some attempt to keep prices tightly in check and at a level that the consumer would be able to pay.
Also at page 7 of his Statement, the Minister refers to more money being available in the banks. Again, one must ask how the Minister arrives at that conclusion. What change has come about that the banks are prepared to extend credit? The Department of Local Government have over the past few years been notifying local authorities to borrow their funds, where possible, from banks. The fact that the local authorities borrow from banks means that money for the private sector is much scarcer. Business people will find even in the current year that bank managers are insisting on their overdrafts being kept down. As a businessman, I can see no easing of credit.
A bank manager will not advance money to an ordinary farmer on the security of the deeds of his holding. He may advance some credit to him if he can produce an insurance policy or some such security. If the wish to provide capital for the agricultural community is sincere, the Government must see to it that banks will advance to farmers as much as his creditworthiness will allow. In present circumstances, a farmer will not get any bank credit on the deeds of his holding.
The Minister also referred to saving. Every Deputy, no matter on what side of the House he sits, will give the Minister every encouragement in his efforts to get our people, particularly the younger people, to save more; but there is not much point in the Minister saying that he is going to strengthen the National Savings Committee and that he is going to issue a new type of Savings Certificate. These two steps will not be sufficient. He will have to go much further and be prepared to pay a higher rate of interest on savings and make that interest income tax free. If he follows that line, he may be able to encourage our younger people to save money. It would be a great achievement if we could get them thinking in that way and I am hopeful the Minister will encourage them in every way.
When we turn to the question of the closing of rural schools, we find the Minister had this to say:
The policy of closing the smaller schools and the free transport arrangements will result in children attending larger and better equipped schools where a full range of subjects can be thought.
That is probably all right in the case of children aged seven, eight or nine. In the constituency I represent, there are very remote places where schools have been closed and the children have to travel from four to six miles by transport. One can imagine a child of four leaving his home, walking down a boreen probably full of potholes, and being saturated by the time he is collected by the bus. Then the class he is in probably finishes at 2.30 p.m. or 3.30 p.m., but he still has to wait for the older children to come out before getting the bus. It means that that child is not home until 5 o'clock in the evening. No children of that age would be able to bear the hardship caused in that way. It looks to me that, if this policy of closing the smaller schools is to be carried through, a number of children in the rural parts will not attend school until they are seven or eight.
I should like to support Deputy Moore's plea for an allowance to the parents of mentally handicapped children. Very often these children are kept at home usually because they cannot get into an institution. Whether that is the position or whether it is because of the parents' love they are kept at home, it would be well—even at this stage—if the local authority or the State were prepared to give an allowance to the parents of such children. Deputy Moore's plea was a fine one and the Minister should look into it.
Dealing with the health services, the Minister said:
Doubling in the past five years and trebling in the past decade, Government expenditure on health services has mirrored the trend of expenditure on education. The Exchequer is required by statute to pay 50 per cent of current expenditure by health authorities but it is in fact contributing £2.2 million more than this in 1968-69. In no case is the Exchequer contribution to a health authority less than 54 per cent of its outlay and in many counties, mainly in the west, it exceeds 57 per cent.
That may be fair enough but when the present health scheme was being introduced in 1947, we were told by the then Minister for Health it would cost no more than 2/6 in the £. One has only to look at the figures for every health authority to find it is costing much more than 2/6 in the £. A figure of 22/6 would be much nearer to it. Even the Minister's figure of 57 per cent in some counties is not nearly sufficient. It is certainly not what was intended when these health services were introduced.
A number of Deputies have asked when are we to get the new Health Act. As far as I can judge, it will be a very long time before it is introduced. If there is any credit to be claimed for the Health Act, that credit can be claimed from this side of the House. When Deputy O'Higgins was Minister for Health, he introduced the Voluntary Health Insurance Scheme, despite the opposition he got from the Fianna Fáil Benches. I often wonder what the position of our health services would be if we had not the Voluntary Health Insurance Scheme. Some years after Fianna Fáil came back to office, this House set up a Committee to look into the health services. This Party charged Deputy O'Higgins with the task of preparing a scheme and submitting it to that Committee. He put a tremendous lot of useful work into that scheme, dotting every "i" and putting in every comma, and submitted it to this Committee.
It does not arise in the debate on the General Resolution.
It was not accepted, but now we have the Minister mentioning the same scheme in this Budget. He has decided that the Central Fund and the rates can no longer bear this burden and has suggested that an insurance scheme be operated. That is the very same scheme as was submitted by Deputy O'Higgins to the Health Committee.
Those of us unfortunate enough to smoke a cigarette, drink beer or drive a car were asked to make our extra contribution to taxation from the day after the Budget was introduced. People who are getting an increase in non-contributory pensions and disabled persons allowances must wait until August before they get the increase. People who are getting an increase in contributory pensions are asked to wait until January before they get the increase. As I said before, the people who must make their contributions to the Exchequer had to pay increased prices for cigarettes, beer and tobacco the day after the Budget was announced.
The Minister also said:
The increase in farm income is in large degree due to Government measures of various kinds including price supports for all the main farm products, fertiliser subsidies...
On the question of fertilisers, I should like to point out that the prices have increased substantially in the current year. In the early part of the year, the popular brands were £37 per ton with a subsidy of £9 ex Dublin which brought them down to £28 10s. Today the price of the H Unit, of the 1, 10, 10, 20 is £31 10s in Dublin. The price has increased but the subsidy has remained the same. I do not think it would be unreasonable to ask the Minister to increase the subsidy at the same rate as the prices increase. Not only has the H Unit increased but other popular brands such as potash and eight per cent super have increased by £3 per ton. The price of slag has increased by 20/- per cwt.
With regard to the figures for pigs, the guaranteed price for grade A specials is 278/-. But the factories are actually paying 280/-. For grade A pigs, the guaranteed price is 266/- and the factories are paying 270/-. It was advertised in the papers some days before the Budget that the guaranteed price is not as high even yet as the price paid in the factories. In some cases it is 2/- per cwt less, and in other cases, it is 4/- and even 5/- less. So there was no great achievement at that end. The new scheme of grants for large scale pig fattening units is suitable for the big farmer or the commercial feeder.
How does the Deputy make that out? This is for the small farmers in the West mainly.
Very few small farmers will take advantage of the pig fattening units.
There is one in Balla.
There might be isolated ones.
There is another in Portumna.
There is also Killeshandra but very few small farmers will take advantage of them through lack of capital.
The whole purpose is to get over the lack of capital. The small man will not need capital to get into pig production.
You will find it will not work. Take the figure of £5 for farrowed sows.
It is £10.
It is now increased by £5. That will not be sufficient for the small farmers. It is evident that £5 last year was not sufficient, and you will find that this £10 will not be sufficient to encourage them to get into it, because even in the past year, the price of feeding stuffs has moved up to the extent of £4 per ton. I often wonder if we are subsidising the price of bacon and pigs sufficiently because we have on our doorstep a very good market in England, and we supply only five per cent of the needs of the British market, whereas the Danes with a much smaller country supply 50 per cent of the bacon and pork needs of that market.
We are rather tight about the subsidy we are giving to the pig industry. We have roughly 40 bacon factories employing in the region of 4,000 people. We also have a number of mills and compounds which employ in the region of 6,000 or 7,000 people and 85 per cent of their output is solely pig fattening. I think there is a great case for encouraging the Minister to subsidise the pig industry further. We have a number of small farmers who help to supplement their incomes by the production of pigs. I realise that the bacon factories are probably passing through a rather rough financial period, but, at the same time, if a further subsidy were considered, I think it should go to the producer. It would be a great asset to the small farmers in the west of Ireland.
Most small farmers in the West felt last year that a two-tier price system for milk would be in operation this year. I know the Minister set up a committee and that the committee reported back, and not very favourably with regard to a two-tier price system. I think that is a pity and I do not think the Minister should lose sight of it at that. He should have another look at it some time, and see if it would be possible to introduce a two-tier price system because the cows on the bad wet land of the West cannot produce the same amount of milk as the cows on better land can produce.
When reliefs were being given, I thought the tax-free allowances of those paying PAYE would have been increased. It is a desperate situation that a single man or woman can get a tax free allowance of only £234 a year, that a married couple get a tax free allowance of only £394 and that the allowance for one child is £150. A married man with a wife and child gets a tax free allowance of £10 3s 6d per week. That figure should be pushed up substantially and fast. It has been fixed for some years and the cost of living has increased substantially since it was fixed. The Minister should take another look at that in the near future.
I should also like to make a plea for a tax-free allowance for people who work in the coal industry. They should get a much higher tax-free allowance than any other section of the community because of the amount of clothing they have to purchase and because their work is dangerous and strenuous. The Minister should give some special thought to these people in the coal mining industry.
In this Budget we had the usual taxation. When Dr. Ryan was introducing the turnover tax, he commented, I think, that beer, tobacco, cigarettes, wines and spirits had been overtaxed and that it would be dangerous to tax them any further. I think they got a free year that year and they got a free year the year that followed but, every year since, beer, tobacco, cigarettes, whiskey and petrol have all taken the rap. It is all right to say it is only twopence a gallon. Last year, probably, it was sixpence and the year before it was another sixpence. That comes to 1s 2d in a period of two or three years. It is desperate to see them carrying the brunt. Those of us unfortunate enough to smoke cigarettes, to drink spirits and to run a car are certainly making our contribution to the finances of the country.
Before concluding, I want to refer to emigration from my constituency. In 1956, the population of County Roscommon was 83,556. In 1966, the population was 56,228. That represents a reduction of 27,328 people in a period of ten years. One must then ask oneself what is in this Budget for that constituency. I cannot see anything in this Budget to ease that problem which is solely one of emigration. The same situation exists in County Leitrim. In the past ten years, the population of County Leitrim dropped by 25,335.
Even in the past five years, the population in County Roscommon dropped by 2,989 and the population in County Leitrim dropped by 2,898. It is all very fine for various Ministers, from the Taoiseach down, to tell us that emigration has ended because such is far from the fact. I wish to quote from an article in the Irish Times of Thursday, 25th April, 1968, written by Mr. Andrew Hamilton. The information was given to him by a Mr. Mulqueen who was in charge of the agricultural research farm at Ballinamore, County Leitrim. The article concludes as follows:
But perhaps we should leave all the statistics aside for a while. Instead, we could travel the lonely road from Ballinamore where there are only the aged, the infirm and the dying.
That is the situation in most of the west of Ireland.
I certainly think this Budget has failed to do anything to solve the problem of the depopulation of our rural areas and that, over the years, this Government have failed to do anything to solve this problem. Although we have no emigration figures available, it was announced only the other night that 33,000 new emigrants secured employment in Britain last year. I am sure most of those people were from this country and that most of them were from the west of Ireland. There is an obligation on the Government to do something to solve the problem of emigration from the west of Ireland. The thinking of some higher officials in various Departments may be that some of these counties should be allowed to fold up. It is not good thinking and the Minister should not allow himself to be carried away by it. These are Irish people. If the Minister does not move fairly fast to help them, I fear the counties concerned will certainly fold up.
The Budget has been referred to as uninspired. This is no time for sudden changes in budgetary policy. It is a time, above all, when industry and the economy generally need a period of at least comparative stability because only in such a period can advance planning be made and further progress achieved. This is a very workman-like and sound Budget. I am not at all disappointed that there is nothing strange or startling about it.
Certainly I am not disappointed because of the lack of surprises. I was greatly impressed by the warnings given by the Minister that, at this time, in spite of the fact that our external reserves are in a very strong position, we must be careful not to generate too much domestic spending. I do not like a boom in the economy. I am always very conscious that after a boom comes a slump. What we want, and what I think we are getting, is steady progress in the right direction. If any provision of the Budget encouraged too much domestic spending then much of the progress we have already made would be nullified.
The Minister stated quite clearly that incomes are going up. The banks are in an ever-stronger position. The volume of consumer demand may be expected to rise more rapidly in this year than in the past year. I agree with the Minister that this is a time when we must exercise considerable care in our management of the economy generally so that things do not get out of control which would necessitate our having to take very strong restrictive deflationary measures to correct them.
I was glad the Minister referred to the adjustment of wages. He said that, when the adjustment of wages is approached on an industry by industry or firm by firm basis, it is possible to provide for the elimination of restrictive practices and the increasing of productivity. I would agree with that. A national increase in wages is apt to create the impression that it has not really cost anything, that it is just money from heaven—and that is not where money comes from. It is far better that there should be a normal discussion between employers and employees on a firm by firm or industry by industry basis so that everybody can see what the cost will be and what the net result will be in the end.
There was something to be said for a national wage increase. Certainly, national wage increases in the past have at least given some greater realisation of the fact that the greatest need for wage adjustment is in the lowest income group. This question of wage negotiation is sometimes confused with the whole problem of industrial relations, to which the Minister referred. He warned us that we must realise that industrial unrest could retard our economic development.
I do not believe wages are the main cause of industrial disputes. In nine cases out of ten, wages are not the real cause at all, although sometimes they are alleged to be the issue. Far more often the trouble is lack of communication between employer and employee, and sometimes, as we have discovered in recent times, even more seriously, a lack of communication between trade union executives and their own members. This is no time to apportion blame because I think it is an unprofitable exercise, but the fact remains that a lack of communication has already manifested itself in the trade union movement and some action will have to be taken by the trade union, or, failing that, by the Government themselves, to remedy the very serious situation such as that which has developed over the last day or two. We must set up some system which will have the support and the full confidence of both parties in our industry.
I believe, too, that one of the main points with which we should deal in so far as industrial relations are concerned is security of employment, which I believe is the main worry for any employee. They dismiss their staff allegedly because of a claim for additional wages, but the claim for additional wages is not because the man or woman has not enough for his or her immediate needs. It is because they are trying to provide for the future which is uncertain, trying to make sure that if their employment is suddenly terminated, they will not be completely on their uppers. For that reason, I hope we will make further progress on the industrial side by some codification of the whole employment situation so that both employers and employees will know precisely where they stand and where employment cannot be terminated suddenly. I know the Government have made considerable progress with the redundancy payments measure which is quite a considerable step forward, but it is not the final answer and in due course I am sure we will get an opportunity of discussing this matter in greater detail.
This Budget has followed its predecessors of the previous nine years in that it has taken very seriously the obligation of the whole community to those of its members who are less well-off. I think the increases given this time are very well justified and no one can say that they are enough for the recipients. We all hope that we can do better and better, but we must, first of all, make sure that the economy as a whole is sufficiently strong to pay its bill and the bill is a very large one.
I was delighted to hear the Minister refer to the need for greater attention in future to ensuring that our social services eliminate hardship and want as accurately and as effectively as possible. This is always a problem with any system. We try in this House with all goodwill to ensure that better provision is made for those who need it but in any regulation there is apt to be something for which we have not provided. So I think we have to keep under constant review the whole structure of our social services to make sure that certain people who are in great need are not overlooked. In this regard I would strongly support Deputy Moore in the case he suggested to the Minister, that some special allowance should be given to the parents of retarded or handicapped children.
These parents certainly are, as he said, haunted by the fear of what may happen to these children if the parents or the breadwinner dies or becomes incapacitated. Anyone who has a member of the family who is retarded or incapacitated in any way is inevitably involved in additional expenditure in bringing the child to or from hospital, clinics, special schools, and so on, and also in the provision of special equipment at home. The number of retarded or handicapped children is large enough, but I do not think it is so large that the rest of the community should not be able to bear some of the load which parents of such children carry at the moment. Sometimes, though not very often, it does not get the way it is most needed.
I believe that the strength of our whole social welfare legislation has always been that we have maintained a certain amount of selectivity. This, as the Minister said, would involve, if we developed it further, some form of means test. These words "means test" have a rather nasty air about them which is quite unjustified in present conditions. Some of us who are perhaps a little older remember the tremendous trouble in Great Britain over means tests many years ago with reference to unemployment benefits, and it was in that connection that the words "means test" became almost a term of abuse.
It is very wise that we should learn from the British experience and see some of the inherent weaknesses in any system which gets frightened by means tests, and which gives equal benefits to every member of the community regardless of need. During the Emergency we did have something similar when we had the subsidies paid on certain essential foodstuffs. This was very good for those who were in need but cases did arise where subsidies were being paid for bread which got fed to greyhounds and it certainly seemed quite ludicrous that butter should be subsidised in the most expensive hotels and restaurants in the country. Any objective analysis of the situation as regards social services, or even the health services, in Great Britain now reveals that, without selectivity, the whole system is almost bound to fail. I think we should congratulate ourselves to a certain extent and be grateful for our luck that we have not fallen into this error of handing out benefits to people who have no need whatsoever of them.
I do not believe that if we introduce means tests any deserving case need be excluded but I believe that a number of cases would be revealed where benefits are being distributed to those who have no need of them at all. Where there is excessive amount of benefit, it reduces the amount which can be afforded for those who are in great need. I should much prefer, for instance, that a great number of people be excluded altogether so that children's allowances could be increased for those in the lower income group to a figure which would be something which a normal wage earner or parent would appreciate and which would be a real help.
The Minister has referred to the cost of the health services and to an examination of the feasibility of introducing an insurance or contributory scheme to finance at least part of the cost of the service. This was a matter which a special committee of this House looked into in great detail some years ago. In this matter, too, we should examine very carefully the experience across the water. The British health scheme was alleged to be a national health insurance scheme. It never was and is becoming less so every year. At first the aim was that about 50 per cent, at least, of the cost of the health service would be paid for out of insurance contributions but during the years the proportion covered by insurance has been reducing rapidly and now only 10 per cent of the cost of the British health service is paid for out of insurance contributions. I understand that eight per cent is paid for out of local revenue, making a total of 18 per cent and the remaining 82 per cent must be paid for out of central revenue, ordinary tax revenue.
There is something to be said for introducing some further element of contribution in order to finance our own health services but we do not believe for a moment that insurance by itself is the answer. It is for that reason that we have never shown any enthusiasm for the suggestions from the Opposition benches that national health insurance on a wider scale would be a solution to all our problems. It certainly would not be. I wish it were, but the hard facts of the case are to the contrary. The Voluntary Health Insurance Board have done an excellent job but in itself this introduces certain elements of selectivity. They have done extremely well as regards their own finances and as regards the increased benefits which they have been able to give but in many cases those who are in a position to make contributions to the Board are probably not as likely to avail fully of the benefits.
I should approve, therefore, of some element of contribution being added to assist our health services but I should hope that in both our health services and our social services we should retain a very definite element of selectivity and I should prefer to use the term "selective" rather than "means test" because a means test tends to frighten people. I do not approve of any system which just hands out benefits to Tom, Dick or Harry whether they are millionaires or paupers. That, to my mind, is just crazy.
The social welfare increases will be most welcome and we will have to add to those more and more as time goes by but it is encouraging that the Minister has taken his share of impressing on the community as a whole its responsibility for the old and those in need. I do not think the cost of the free radio and television licences is very great but this in itself shows imagination and a real understanding of the position. An extension of the same concession to the Old IRA veterans is obviously something of which everyone will approve. This is the very least we can do for such people.
There was reference to milk prices and the Minister obviously felt with regret that an increase in the price of milk this year could not be justified in view of the disquieting picture of the international market for dairy produce. All the indications in Europe at the moment are that the Ministers for Agriculture of the EEC are having considerable difficulty on the question of the price of milk products. They are also suffering from a surplus of supplies. In such a situation we should not forget to congratulate Board Bainne for the terrific work they have been doing. Many people think that Bord Bainne are concerned only with selling Kerrygold butter on the British market but the extent of their activities is quite enormous already and is growing rapidly. The recent securing of a very big contract in South America for skim milk powder was a great achievement. especially as skim milk powder also is in over-supply at the moment. Bord Bainne and their staff deserve congratulations. I believe they will continue to progress but it will be at a very low profit margin. This is bound to continue as long as there is this surplus of supply on the world market generally.
I was delighted to see the relief of tax under Schedules A and B. This again is a wise, possibly unexciting, change but it is a step in the right direction and a general tidying up of the whole income tax code. We have already passed the Income Tax Bill which codifies the whole income tax law and I hope that was only a start—that, having got the whole law into one small amendment Bill, the Minister will at length be able to take further steps towards the clarification of a taxation system which has become almost impossible to understand. In fact, it is so impossible that it is difficult to resist the impression that the Revenue people would prefer it that way because they have a far better chance of getting their own interpretation agreed.
The same applies to estate duty. This is a very complicated form of duty, with every conceivable sort of loophole in it. I think the Minister has done well with the form of relief he has given to widows and orphan children but when he says the cost is estimated at £50,000 this year—£200,000 in a full year—I think it reveals a sort of revenue thinking against which I rebel instinctively. This whole business of estate duty needs to be radically reviewed. It has been stated in the past that we could not afford to abolish estate duty because it would cost too much. That to my mind, is nonsense. I agree that if we did not collect estate duty, we would collect that much less under that particular heading but the amount of additional revenue which such abolition would create would, I think, far outweigh any possible loss.
There are many people who complain about the cost of living but there are many rich people who complain with equal vigour about the cost of dying in this country. I would like to see the Minister and his advisers looking very carefully into this business of attracting people with money into this country and if possible, abolishing estate duty on all assets which are Irish. There are many people who would come to this country and who would invest their money here if such a concession were given. We cannot get a Chester Beatty coming to us every year but there are many other people with money who would be prepared to come here to invest their money, to give employment here, to pay income tax and surtax here as long as they knew that when they died, the State would not step in and hold up the distribution of the estate for a very long period and finally take a large proportion for itself.
This is something which deserves very serious consideration. I have quoted in the House before the case of a man from Northern Ireland who decided to come here. He bought a very big farm and gave employment in County Kildare. He had a beautiful house in my area and gave more employment there. Then our death duty position became almost as bad as the United Kingdom one and eventually he sold up and moved on elsewhere. That was our loss. It was not just the estate duty that we lost. We lost the income tax and the surtax and all the money which that injection of capital into the country would have given.
In spite of the fairly healthy situation at the moment, we must never put any obstacle in the way of those who are prepared to come here and bring their capital with them. While I am delighted to see this estate duty relief for a very needy part of the community, I feel that it is time we reconsidered the matter to see if we could get rid of this tax altogether. It could be retained for assets outside this country so that those who left their investments abroad or still had land and property abroad could still be taxed and the fact that they were taxed on external assets would make them all the more keen to realise those assets and reinvest their money here. There was a time obviously, when this tax was introduced originally in the British Government days, when there was a possibility that certain people or certain families would accumulate enormous riches and I quite agree that that is thoroughly unsound and undesirable from a social point of view, but with the careful control of the collectors and inspectors of taxes, it is increasingly difficult for anybody to acquire enormous riches these days. I think we can forget about that possible problem and look at the whole thing in a more realistic way.
It is encouraging to see that the Minister did not forget the arts, and the new institutional arrangement setting up three councils instead of one is I think a good one because there must obviously be difficulty in having one institution to cater for the visual arts, drama and literature, as well as music, opera and ballet. I think the £60,000 to An Chomhairle Ealaíon at the moment is obviously well justified and the additional £100,000 to meet new expansion is a very wise and far-sighted use of a comparatively small amount of money when one regards it as a proportion of the total Budget.
Dealing with taxation policy generally, the Minister referred to new policies abroad and especially in the EEC. I go back to a period of at least ten years when I advocated in this House a continuation of the switching from direct to indirect taxation. We have always had a considerable amount of indirect taxation and I was advocating as long ago as that that we should develop it still further but there were those in this House who stated that anything like that would be very regressive. I do not think so. I think the whole business of our taxation does need to be reviewed, and although some years ago we did think that tobacco, petrol and alcohol could not be taxed any more, the steadily increasing standards of living and the higher incomes generally have tempted successive Ministers more strongly than they could resist and the fact remains that additional taxes on those three items have continued to yield increased revenue, but sooner or later the taxation will kill the goose that lays the golden egg. We have to devise or accept some alternative general system of indirect taxation such as the added value tax which is coming in in the EEC countries.
In an effort to put more weight on our indirect taxation system, we have had the introduction of the turnover tax and later the selective wholesale tax. Maybe I am prejudiced, but I am absolutely against any form of selective wholesale tax, probably I suppose because I know very well that the stuff which I am trying to sell is bound to be selective. Basically speaking, I do not think a selective tax of that sort is or can ever be fair. It is far better to work on taxes such as the turnover tax or much better, the added value tax as in Europe. The trouble with turnover tax and selective wholesale tax is that they are part of what is called a cascading system where you are getting tax which increases the value and tax on that. You are getting a tax on the value and on the previous tax and prices do get inflated out of all proportion.
It is far fairer and causes less up-heaval to any economy to work on a TVA system where at each stage of manufacture tax is paid only on the amount of value added at that one stage. I look forward very keenly to the publication of a White Paper giving full information about the TVA system. I hope such a system will be introduced at the very earliest opportunity, not as an additional tax but in place of taxes which are very burdensome at the moment. I am encouraged to hear the Minister state quite definitely that reliance will continue to be placed chiefly on indirect rather than on direct taxation. Broadly based taxes on goods and services, as the Minister stated, offer the best possibility of a substantial move in that direction.
On the question of decimalisation of currency, I can see it is very difficult to justify the adoption of a system different from that across the water. It would be possible, I suppose, but when the weight of opinion in industrial and banking circles generally was against any differentiation, it was obviously very difficult for the Minister not to be influenced, and probably correctly influenced, in that regard. At the same time, I cannot help feeling sorry that we have gone for the £ system instead of the florin system, which would have brought us nearly in line with European currency and would have avoided the necessity of introducing the new half penny into what is supposed to be a decimal system. I suppose we will get used to it and I suppose money values will continue to change and that the new half penny will become less and less significant. The net result of all this will be a certain amount of confusion. I hope care will be taken by the Minister and his Department to make the changeover as painless as possible.
We are always hearing criticism of the number of civil servants. Almost every member of the public who is not directly involved in the Civil Service is firmly convinced that there are too many civil servants. Anybody in political life is continually being bombarded by the criticism: "Why are you increasing the Civil Service?" Almost in the next breath the same constituent will say: "What are the Government doing about controlling this or that?" I find it extremely difficult to convince people that you cannot have a Government interfering in this or that, controlling this or that, initiating new moves of one sort or another, distributing capital and distributing benefits without employing an increased number of civil servants.
I agree that there is need for some sort of control and we must try as far as we can to avoid the full implementation of Parkinson's Law. The idea of holding a special open competition for positions as executive officer for candidates above the present age limit is an excellent one. I believe that in the Civil Service there is always danger of people who are recruited at the lowest level on their way up becoming so tied up in red tape and the whole system that they become almost incapable of original thought. There is constant need for an infusion of new blood into the public service. The only way this can be done properly is by encouraging people to enter the Civil Service after having had experience of some other form of activity, such as employment in industry or some other sector. This is an excellent idea and I look forward to good results from it.
The prospects for this coming year appear to be good but I hope that no one will get the feeling that effort is not still required if we are to make the most use of our opportunities. There are plenty of difficulties. There are difficulties inherent in a situation of possibly reducing demand in the United Kingdom, which is our best market. There are difficulties which will arise in the European Economic Community owing to their high protection which affects our agricultural produce in particular but there are hopeful signs in that devaluation will enable our industrial exports to do probably better in Europe and in America, and because we have devalued equally with Great Britain, we ought to be in a strong position, at least to hold, if not to expand, our share of the market, both on the industrial and on the agricultural side. We have, therefore, every reason for confidence and no reason at all for disappointment with this Budget. This is no time for sudden changes or for drastic reviews of this or that. Least of all, it is no time for a sudden lavish injection of spending power. Personally I like spending money.
I never noticed.
I would love to give the Minister some demonstration. Even if we do not all like spending money, we all like to have it to spend.
Spending other people's money.
That is very much better. I believe at this time we can usefully restrain our spending, and if as a community we can do this, it would be an excellent investment for the future. Any sudden unjustified wage increases could upset the whole position. I believe that if we can get more co-operation between trade union executives and their membership, and a very real spirit of communication between employers and their employees, we will be able to work out comparatively long term agreements which will be of tremendous benefit. We will be able to work out long term agreements, not just limited to wage increases in the cost of living and so on, but long term agreements relating to productivity, restrictive practices and above all, to my mind, long term agreements dealing with security of employment. One of the difficulties has always been that there is very little security of employment for trade union officials. I hope the trade unions will regard that as a matter of real urgency as well. I have had experience where a union official has been a little nervous about his position lest he should not be reappointed at the end of the year.
Thank you very much.
The lack of security is enough to upset any normal spirit of negotiation. It is apt to make a trade union official feel that little bit aggrieved and anxious to convince people of his cause. He should have no need to do that. He should be judged on his merits and it should be realised that he is really an able man at his job. There are many men of top class in the trade union movement who are well able to stand on their merits. I believe if we can get the maximum co-operation between employers' organisations and the trade union movement, we can have a great future ahead of us.
In closing, I should like to say that I think a great weakness exists at the moment in that there are so many trade unions and so many employers' organisations. At least the trade union movement has Congress, although I still do not believe that Congress has nearly sufficient authority, but employers are, comparatively speaking, in a state of disarray. The number of employers' organisations is quite ridiculous and I ask all those engaged in industry to consider very seriously making a real effort to get employers' organisations to form one large organisation with which Congress could co-operate and negotiate, but so long as you get small organisations trying to negotiate at a very low level, it is difficult to make final decisions.
On the whole, I think this is a very sound Budget giving a good basis for further progress over the year. While I am not disappointed about any drastic alterations in taxation policy or revenue collection generally this year— I am quite happy to see a period of stability first—I hope the Minister will be more adventurous in his general view of taxation policy in the future.
The pros and cons of this Budget have been pretty well covered over the past three days of discussion, especially by the leaders of the various Parties, and it is very difficult for an ordinary Deputy, coming along at this stage of the debate, to find any material on which to base an effective speech. I am aware that normally the duty of the Opposition is to draw attention to any injustices or omissions, and while I accept that, I think it is also the duty of a Deputy to welcome and applaud any good points in the Budget. I am in complete agreement, naturally, as a Labour Deputy, with the improvement in social welfare and with the free licences for television and radio for old age pensioners and Old IRA pensioners. I am in complete agreement— and this may seem a little out of line with Labour Party policy—with the suggestion of the Minister that he will re-examine the children's allowance code, with a view, I take it, to endeavouring to find a way of seeing that those who need most get most and that those who need least can go without.
I do not agree with Deputy Booth's view of selectivity. Calling a means test by that name does not make it any less odious. I think the Minister agrees with us in the belief that any type of means test if it can be avoided should be avoided and I hope that the Minister and his officials will find a means of doing so. It was, I think, Deputy Corish who suggested that possibly including children's allowances as income liable to tax for those in the higher income group might afford a means of giving with one hand and taking back with the other, but whatever the Minister decides, those who earn least and who normally have the most children should have children's allowances in much greater measure than the present.
I also agree with the Minister's proposal to increase the Capital Budget by £25 million so as to stimulate industry and employment, and with his decision not to add to the external reserves but to use them as a means of building up the capital necessary for industry in this country. I agree very much with his proposal to institute a requirement that professional people and people making money who do not normally keep accounts will be obliged to keep accounts so that they will have to bear their just share of income tax. It is regrettable that an ordinary worker with £6 a week, if he is single, is liable to tax whereas professional men, doctors, dentists, solicitors and so on, are well known to get away with sums that are undisclosed to the income tax authorities because proper records are not required from them. I commend the Minister's decision to ensure that in future they will pay their just share of income tax as the ordinary worker has to pay it.
Having said that, I want to draw attention to what I feel are, if not injustices, omissions in the Budget in the hope that the Minister may now or in the future do something to rectify them. I believe injustice is being done to non-contributory widows. There is a ceiling below which they get a full pension. I think it is £52 per year they are allowed to earn, a very meagre sum. If that were increased to £100, widows who really need additional money could find some part-time work such as office cleaning, but at the moment, these widows have to exist on the amount they get from the State. Unfortunately, the moment they take up employment and begin to earn £1 or 25s a week, they lose their complete pension. That is a ridiculous situation. It would do no harm to the State if these widows could supplement their income, and I think the Minister should suggest to the Minister for Social Welfare that the present ceiling should be raised, allowing them to earn more than £52 a year and still enjoy the full pension. They should be in a position to earn £104 a year and still get the full pension.
While I agree with the Minister's proposal to permit paying the full State pension to Old IRA pensioners, I regret that he has not seen fit to improve the special allowances to Old IRA men who have not yet reached 70. Those who have to depend almost totally on the special allowance—I know a number of them—last year got a 12 per cent increase which averaged out at only about £12 per year. Surely, in the Minister's giveaway spirit in regard to the Old IRA, he should consider adding to the meagre pensions of persons depending on the special allowance between their present age and the time when they reach 70 when their positions will improve. The Minister should do something about this type of person. They are dwindling in numbers and in a few years there will not be any of them with us. As years go by and people get old they die away, and unfortunately many of the people who took part in the fight for freedom have reached the age where they are about to pass on to their eternal reward.
One of the faults I would put to the Minister in connection with income tax is that workers who adopt an incentive bonus system are taxed on the bonus they earn as well as on their basic wages. They are also taxed if they are in a differential housing scheme under a local authority, because their earning of an incentive bonus will cause their rent to increase. Not only that, but they are also liable to lose their medical card. I would suggest to the Minister that he is defeating his own objective. This country wants workers to produce more. Incentive bonuses are designed to get the worker to do that, but surely any worker with commonsense will not work for the pleasure of earning another £1 or £2 a week when it means he will pay more income tax and extra rent and lose his medical card? There is great potential in the incentive bonus if it is used as it should be used, as a means of encouraging extra production rather than taxing people immediately in three different ways.
In connection with the TV licences for old age pensioners, I should like to know if this will be granted under the same rules as those for free electricity and free transport. If so, it will be of very little use to the old age pensioner who has even, say, a son who is on unemployment assistance, living with her. She does not qualify for free electricity, unless she is living on her own or with somebody who is in charge, if she is disabled.
I cannot see any old age pensioner living alone, or a husband and wife with a pension each, being able to pay the 20 per cent reduction in rental that has been advertised during the week by certain TV rental people. Even with the 20 per cent reduction, the weekly cost, 5/-, is too much to expect these people to pay. The only way I can see any old age pensioner having the benefit and enjoyment of television is if some son or daughter makes them a present of it. Some inducement should be given to manufacturing firms to present old age pensioners, at very minimum cost, with TV sets on something the same basis as radios were given to blind people over the past number of years.
I noticed during the week that the Taoiseach said there was a grave danger that one-third of our home market would go to foreign competition as a result of reduced tariffs under the agreement with Great Britain. The Minister in his Budget speech said there is very little prospect of any great improvement in the EEC markets due to the tariffs imposed there. When this agreement with Great Britain was passing through this House we in the Labour Party were the only people to recognise this great danger, and I am not quite sure that our home industries will not find that the Taoiseach has made a great mistake by saying that just one-third of the home market will go. We believe there is a great danger that the home market will be practically flooded with competitors from Great Britain, and that our people will consequently lose their employment. It was for that reason and because we did not believe that we were about to enter the EEC as we were being told some two years ago that the Labour Party decided, as they did, to vote against this agreement with Great Britain whereby we would have a reduction of tariffs yearly to a point where our home producers would be unable to compete with the huge volume of highly geared manufacturers in Great Britain who could send in their products here at a much cheaper rate than our people, because of the smallness of our consuming public, would be able to do.
I was interested to hear the Minister's remarks about industrial unrest, and, indeed, to hear Deputy Seán Moore speak very honestly on that question. I heard Deputy Booth, but I cannot always say I agree with Deputy Booth's views about industrial unrest. Of course, he is looking at it from a completely different side from that of the ordinary working people. He suggested that if workers were guaranteed pensions at the end of their time there would be very little unrest. I do not think that is the cause at all.
Significant enough is the fact that it is in semi-State bodies that the main unrest is, CIE, the ESB, and Bord na Móna. These three must have taken up 60 per cent of the lost labour hours over the past two years in this country which has the unhappy distinction of being at the head of the poll in Europe in this connection. What is the cause of this situation? I am told by those working there the reason is that no matter how or when a claim is made the official side will dilly-dally until sometimes more than a year passes. The trade union movement is pressing for discussions and endeavouring to remedy grievances. Finally the workers lose patience and realise that the only way to make the ESB or CIE or Bord na Móna come to talks is to walk out. That is what has been happening and will continue to happen unless the Government can pressurise these semi-State bodies into meeting honest claims by workers immediately, discussing them and coming to a decision on them.
I have been a trade union official for over 20 years and I know what happens. A small grievance crops up, but instead of being examined, it is delayed and various excuses are advanced for this delay. It may be said that the company is dealing with the Employers Federation in Dublin. The Federation write and say they have got the case and will have an opportunity of meeting the management but it is five, six, seven or eight months before there is a conference. When there is a conference, there is a breakdown, and after a time a concilation officer comes down and then there is another breakdown. The case is then presented to the Labour Court, which perhaps does not hear it for 18 months, especially if a small local concern is involved. Having the Labour Court split into halves to deal with all cases in the country is not adequate. A Labour Court would require to be set up in practically each area so that cases could be heard and a decision reached within three months at the latest.
These long delays, which are quite common, as industrial cases go through all the processes of law as the Minister is asking them to do, can take up to two years. That is ridiculous and it is what is leading to unofficial action. As a trade union official who has never condoned unofficial strikes, I have a certain sympathy with workers when we find that the Labour Court has made an unreal decision such as giving an increase of 6/8d a week to men after two years and double that after three years. In such a case the workers can answer, as they have answered, by saying: "You can offer us what you like but you will not make us take it and you will not make us work, although you can put us into jail." The Government learned the folly of attempting to put men into jail because they would not work. We warned them of this when the Electricity Supply Board (Special Provisions) Act was going through the House. I remember saying: "You can pass this Bill and impose penalties but you cannot put in jail men who will not work."
I hope we will not have a repetition of that no matter how today's talks go, and let us hope that they will be satisfactory. None of us wants huge unemployment because a group of men are dissatisfied, either rightly or wrongly. It is deplorable to hear talk about disciplining the men and about the men being unreasonable. Surely when you get an offer of 6/8d a week in the present day, it is being unreasonable and foolish? The Minister for Labour should consider establishing more Labour Courts so that cases could be heard quickly. If that were done, much industrial unrest would be avoided. No matter how long a strike lasts, it will have to be settled finally around a conference table and the quicker you get people around the conference table the better.
Like other Deputies, I was disappointed that no specific statement was made by the Minister in regard to the implementation of the proposals in the White Paper on Health Services. It is some three years now since the late Deputy O'Malley announced that the matter was under consideration and again we are told this year that it is still under consideration. I heard Deputy O'Higgins say that the Fine Gael Party had produced a blueprint for the Government which the Government had failed to implement. I might remind Deputy O'Higgins that in 1956 the Labour Party produced that same blueprint which varied only in that the figures had been adjusted in regard to increased costs which had taken place in the intervening period.
Recently I read in the Evening Herald a letter which has caused some uneasiness among farmers in my constituency and I should like the Minister to clarify this matter. The letter stated that when the Schedule B tax was abolished, a farmer who was normally taxed under this Schedule would be taxed instead under some completely different system, that instead of its being a relief, it might turn out to be the means of catching them for a considerable sum of money —the writer suggested up to £10 million. On whether it is a good or bad thing that farmers should pay income tax, I do not intend to express an opinion at this moment, but I want to know whether this allegation is true or untrue. The people should know whether the abolition of Schedule B tax will be, as the Minister appeared to convey, a relief or will it turn out to be an imposition.
The previous speaker referred to milk powder. In my constituency, there is a large concern which produces an enormous amount of skim milk powder and they have at present in stock some 3,500 tons of that powder for which the market price has dropped, I am told, by some £30 a ton. These people were induced to go all out to accept milk and turn it into milk powder and now they find that they will be at a considerable loss, that they cannot sell unless they sell at a loss of £30 a ton. Will this new sale made to the Mexican government affect the position? Will it take from the milk powder factories the surplus which they have? If it does not, I suggest that the Minister should consider subsidising the sale of present stocks and then let the factories start with a clean sheet and decide for themselves, in view of the prevailing low price, how much they will manufacture.
I am not a farmer and I have little knowledge of the pig or cattle industries but I do know that in Waterford city we have two large bacon factories, the workers in one of which have been warned that the factory may have to be closed down within a year or 18 months. That would seriously affect the employment position in Waterford city, which, despite the new industrial estate, is not at all good. It would be dreadful if one of these factories had to close down. I trust that the effort to produce more pigs by the granting of a subsidy for the piggeries will be effective. If it is not, some form of subsidy should be given to the factories to enable them to continue until such time as the pig industry can be revived.
(Cavan): This Budget is a disappointing one in a number of respects. It has failed in what should be the objective of a Budget in many respects. It has, in my opinion, failed to raise taxation fairly and justly; it has failed to distribute the national wealth equitably over the various categories of citizens; and it has failed to provide incentives for more production so that a better standard of living may, in years to come, be enjoyed by all.
This Budget has been introduced in an atmosphere of revenue buoyancy. It has been introduced in favourable circumstances. The Minister has been in his Department now for well over 12 months. This is his second Budget. Revenue during the past 12 months was buoyant. There was for all practical purposes no gap to be filled and one would have thought that, in those circumstances, the Minister would have shown some imagination both in the manner in which he raised taxation and in the manner in which he distributed that taxation. In spite of all that, we have a Budget following the same pattern as Budgets introduced 20 years ago. We have 1d on the pint, 2d on cigarettes, a little for the old age pensioners, and so on.
This Budget is, I think, being evaluated by the Fianna Fáil Party in the light of Budgets introduced by that Party since 1965. When I heard the jubilation over the Budget, I was reminded of the unfortunate individual in an institution who was knocking his head against a wall; someone asked him why he did that and he said: "It is nice when I stop." It is only in that light that this Budget could be welcomed. The Government have been knocking the heads of the taxpayers and of the social welfare classes against the wall for the last few years and the fact that this Budget has not been as severe or, perhaps, as unjust as its predecessors brings some relief and in that respect may, I suppose, be welcomed, just as the man knocking his head against a wall was relieved when he stopped.
There is an increase of 7/6d per week for social welfare classes. That is to be welcomed, but it is to be welcomed in its true value only. We should not be complacent because we have given the social welfare classes 7/6 a week from 1st August next. We should bear in mind that money has depreciated in value, that that 7/6 is not worth today what it used to be worth, that it will practically be consumed by the purchase of 20 cigarettes and one pint of stout in a week. These items can hardly be described as luxuries. Of that 7/6 which will be paid for the 20 cigarettes and the pint of stout more than 50 per cent will go back into the Exchequer. In considering then this increase of 7/6 a week to the social welfare classes, we should bear these facts in mind.
The increase of 7/6 will bring the pension of an old age pensioner living alone, to £3 5s per week provided that old age pensioner has no roof over his head or bed to lie on, or even any assets of any kind; if an old age pensioner—this is a sorry state of affairs; I came across a case of it the other day—has £40 in the bank to defray his or her funeral expenses so that he or she will be buried decently, which is a tradition with Irish people, thereby relieving the rates of the cost of burial, he or she will not qualify for the £3 5s per week; he or she will qualify for only £3 per week.
In this year, 1968, the very minimum we could do would be to provide this 7/6 a week. It is equivalent to 2/6 a few years ago. I do not want to be unreasonable but we should, I think, be realistic about these things. When we hear the Minister say he will give free television licences to old age pensioners, we should ask ourselves what exactly will this mean. It will mean, if it is to be operated on the same basis as free electricity, that the old age pensioner must be living alone or have no person over 16 years of age living in the house with him or her, unless that person is a cripple or a social welfare recipient. It is a nice gesture but it is a little bit cruel because the old age pensioners who can afford to purchase or rent a television set are few and far between. I appreciate that it would be difficult to operate the scheme if a free licence were given to every household which had an old age pensioner in it. It would be difficult to operate such a scheme because abuses might creep in, but, for goodness sake, let us not cod ourselves into thinking that we are doing something big by giving a free television licence to an old age pensioner on condition that he or she is living alone and has no other source of income whatsoever other than the old age pension.
In so far as there is some increase in social welfare benefits, they are to be welcomed, but does anybody think that in the atmosphere prevailing at the moment the Minister for Finance would dare to introduce a Budget in which he did not provide at least 7s 6d a week for the social welfare classes? It is the minimum. I stress this because I think we are shortsighted and sometimes fail to evaluate things properly. This cannot be described as a social welfare Budget. The increase cannot be described as generous. I regard it as being the bare minimum which could be given in all justice and if we are to have any regard to social justice,
The Department of Local Government has come very badly out of this Budget and in that respect the Minister has displayed little or no imagination. One of the most unjust methods of raising money for public purposes is the system of poor law rates. It is absolutely unjust. It cannot be defended. It has no regard for the capacity of people to pay. Not alone is it unjust and inequitable in so far as the people who contribute the rates are concerned but it reacts in a manner that is very much to the disadvantage of proper local administration and of matters proper to be financed out of local rates.
Surely it is acknowledged in this year, 1968, that education is a national charge? Surely it is now accepted that education is in the nature of a social welfare matter proper to be financed out of the national Exchequer? That is what free post-primary education is. That is what the extension of the university scholarship system is. I am not referring to the extension of the university scholarship system in any way offensively. I know that it is only a step and that eventually we will have the full free education as advocated by the Fine Gael Party. But, in that atmosphere, why do we still charge on the rates at least 2s 6d in the £ in respect of technical education? If the answer to that is that this has been going on for years and that we have not got around to changing it, the next question I want to ask is, why, when introducing the Bill to provide for further university scholarships, did the Government build into that Bill only last week a further charge on the rates? Because the contribution from the rates to secondary scholarships and university scholarships has been frozen and will continue to be a charge on the rates. This was an opportunity for the Minister for Education and the Government to indicate that they proposed to shift from local taxation to national taxation that which is properly a national charge and in existing circumstances I do not think anybody can deny that education is a national charge.
Health still remains a charge on the rates notwithstanding the fact that, as Deputy Kyne has said, we debated in this House about three years ago a White Paper on Health which promised before the end of 1966 a new Bill which would change the whole health system and relieve the rates and which promised that in 1967 the scheme embodied in the promised Bill would be in operation. We are now well into 1968 and the Bill has not even been introduced but we are promised that the Government will continue to think about it.
When Deputy O'Higgins, Minister for Health in the last inter-Party Government, suggested a contributory health scheme here some years ago he was ridiculed. He was ridiculed by the then Taoiseach; he was ridiculed by the then Minister for Health; he was jeered at here and in the country by the Fianna Fáil Party. Now, when the health services still continue to be inadequate, unjust and unfair and to blister the ratepayers by a very substantial amount, we have, years afterwards, the Minister for Finance saying, in effect, that they accept Deputy O'Higgins's proposal and that they are getting around to thinking about it.
Housing should be taken off local government and made a national charge. There is no reason why the people of a town who own houses should house the houseless. The general taxpayer owes the same obligation to those who have not a house as does the man who has a house. Under the present system a very considerable portion of the cost of housing the people known as the working classes falls on the ratepayers notwithstanding the fact that a very well-off man or woman, residing in a hotel, attended on by a suite of servants, may not contribute as much towards the housing of the houseless as does a man occupying a house in any town in Ireland the valuation of which is £30 or £40. That is unfair.
I am very disappointed, then, that the Minister for Finance in this Budget did not indicate the intention of the Government to modernise local taxation and to charge on the national Exchequer items such as housing, health and education which are properly matters to be paid for out of the national Echequer. I do not believe, and I do not want to be taken as pretending, that you can remove from the rates housing, health and education and get the money by a stroke of a magic wand. I know they will have to be paid for out of general taxation, but I think that is how they should be paid for. Notwithstanding the efforts of Tidy Towns committees and of Bord Fáilte, there are many towns in Ireland which are a disgrace and which contain public buildings that are eye-sores. There are many towns which have not proper water services, proper sewerage or other necessary amenities. The reason is that the present system of rating is unjust. Before the members of an urban council sit down to strike a rate they are already presented with a crippling bill in respect of health, housing and education. Unless they are to put the people out of business completely, they have to cut down on urban roads, on water supplies and on sewerage schemes. They have to neglect their public buildings and other items which should be regarded as proper for local taxation in the true sense of the word.
Therefore, in two respects this system of rating is a curse and is not good for the country. At the moment the rates have gone up to £4 in the £ and they are on their way to £5. You have two people living in neighbouring houses, each with a valuation of £20. One of the occupiers may have an income of £1,000 or £1,500 a year and the other may not have enough or barely enough to eat. Yet each is called upon to contribute in round figures £80 to local taxation. Is that fair? Can that be justified? Has that regard for the ability of the person to pay? I say that is immoral, but that is the system—the system which this Government in this Budget have done nothing to remedy.
I do not think there is enough for housing in the Budget. In a Capital Budget which has been increased by £25 million there is something over £2 million of an increase for housing. That covers incentives both to private housing and public authority housing. We know—it cannot be denied—there is a housing problem in this country. There is a local authority housing problem and a private sector housing problem. I venture to suggest that the £2 million odd provided here will do little more than keep pace with the increase in the cost of housebuilding and that in effect no more houses will be built this year than last year. Last year we were short of our target and this year we will be short again.
In a year where there was buoyancy of revenue something should have been done to catch up with the backlog in the field of housing. The Minister for Local Government loves talking about 1956 and 1957 and the shortage of money there was then. At any rate, there was plenty of housing. The shortage of money was brought about by world conditions. The Minister for Finance had a considerable amount of money this year and in my opinion has not gone for enough to catch up with the housing backlog.
As a rural Deputy there is another matter I would like to deal with under the heading of Local Government. We hear a lot of talk about the flight from the land. I believe, as I said some place else, it is not really a flight from the land but could be more properly called a drive from the land. In my constituency we have many smallholders. Most of them are prepared to live on their farms, small and all as they are. Many of them are able to augment their incomes in one way or another by working on the roads or by a member of the family working in a town at some occupation or other. But many of these people are being driven off these small holdings, in particular the younger people, because the means of access to these holdings are deplorable.
Many metropolitan Deputies might be amazed to know that in rural Ireland at present when a woman of the house in one of these lanes is going to Mass or to town she starts off with two pairs of footwear — a pair of wellingtons, which she wears to the tarred road, where she parks them, and a pair of more presentable shoes, which she wears into town or to Mass. That is really only an improvement on the state of affairs which existed 50 years ago before wellingtons became fashionable. In those days the people had only one pair of shoes. They solved the problem in a different manner. They walked in their bare feet from the house to beside town and then put on shoes. I suppose that was because shoes were dear at the time and roads were bad. What I am saying now is a fact. These lanes which serve a number of houses—that is the problem—are so bad that the people have to wear wellingtons until they come to the tarred roads and then they change into shoes. I am saying the Minister for Local Government did not get his fair share of the national cake to enable him to do something about these lanes.
The Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Finance is at present in the House. He knows that up to a couple of years ago his Department operated a Rural Improvements Scheme under which these lanes were improved and then taken over by the county council. The Parliamentary Secretary shed himself of this responsibility last year and handed it over to the Department of Local Government. As a result in 1966-67, which was a bad year under this scheme, approximately £30,000 came into County Cavan either from the Department of Finance or the Department of Local Government to deal with these lanes.
This year the Minister for Local Government also shed himself of the scheme and handed it over to the county councils to operate. I am sorry to go into such detail and I am doing so in an effort to explain a point. The Minister handed the scheme over to Cavan County Council, and he handed over an accumulated list of undone lanes amounting to 91. The County Manager had received about 50 up. As I say, in 1967-68, which was a bad year, £30,000 was expended, and the princely sum of £14,000 was handed over that year to Cavan County Council to operate that scheme. I tried to extract from the Minister for Local Government earlier in the year if there was any hope of an improvement and he held out some sort of vague promise that when he saw what amount of money was available, he would see if any improvement could take place. I cannot see sixpence in this Budget to improve that state of affairs.
That is a twin problem with the problem of charging on local taxation items which should not be charged on it. It may be said to me: Why cannot Cavan County Council raise enough money themselves to do these things? The answer is that they are too busy paying for national responsibilities such as health, housing and education. If they were relieved of those things, then perhaps the Minister for Finance and the Minister for Local Government could say to them: "Go and look after your lanes." These people are being driven off the land literally. If that is Government policy, well and good, but we should know it is Government policy. In effect, that is what they are doing.
I was reared in the country and spent all my life in the country. I know from personal experience that all these people are still happy to live on these small farms and augment their incomes in one way or another, provided they get a fair chance—and means of access is a must. Indeed, many of these houses the roads to which are impassible are little palaces. The people cannot make the roads themselves. These lanes accommodate five or six people. Therefore it is a problem which they cannot tackle. That is all I want to say about that particular item.
I have said before that the Minister was not fair in his approach to taxation, and in particular, in his approach to reliefs in taxation. Income tax is no longer a tax on the wealthy. It is now a tax which falls on the man of moderate means. Indeed, a single man with an income of over £6 per week is liable for income tax. Therefore in our approach to the question of this form of taxation, it is essential that we should be just.
We were not just in the 1967 Budget or in the 1968 Budget. It is many years since the personal allowance for single or married people has been altered. There have been paltry adjustments one way or another in the allowances for dependent children, depending on whether they are under or over 11 years, but by and large, the personal allowance for married or unmarried persons has not been changed for many years in so far as income tax payers are concerned, and so far as earned income allowances are concerned—and that is very important for the purpose of the point I am making.
In last year's Budget there was no relief for income tax until a person reached the surtax level of £2,500. Then an allowance was made under which the next £1,250 was completely free of surtax. In other words, until the 1967 Budget, a person started paying surtax at the rate of 3/- in the £, I think, when his income was £2,500, but under the relief granted in the 1967 Budget, surtax did not begin to operate until his income reached £3,750, so that a present of approximately £125 or £150 in round figures was made to him. At that time some people shouted "Taca". I do not think I have ever used that word in this House before, but you could not blame people for saying "Taca" because this meant that people who were subscribing to the Government Party through Taca were given a relief in that Budget of something in excess of the accepted contribution of £100.
There was not any relief for road workers or for technicians earning £12 or £15 a week, or for the man earning £20 a week. There was no relief until you came to £2,500. Comparatively little was said about this at that time. I think more should have been said about it. Perhaps if more had been said about it, the Minister would not have repeated the dose this year as he did. There is no relief in the Budget for the personal allowance for a married or single person except the incentive to people who are getting married, and it could nearly be called a trap. There is an extra allowance of £100 for the first year of married life and then, bang, after all the wedding presents are gone——
The honeymoon is over.
(Cavan): The honeymoon is over with a vengeance. There is no relief in the Budget for them, but the surtax classes are having their earned income allowance increased, if I am correct, and I think I am, from £1,250 to £2,000, and surtax on earned income will not come into operation until the salary is £4,500. I would not be discharging my duty if I did not say I think that is a dangerous trend because many of the people who frame the Budget are in the category that is benefiting from this relief. I want to say I think that is a dangerous trend in Irish taxation.
Furthermore, a Government who, round the Cabinet table, decide on the Budget—as I understand they do—to grant this £2,000 of unearned income relief, are also in that category and that is why I say I think it is a dangerous and undesirable trend. The excuse is that it is necessary in order to attract to industry here, from Britain, the managerial type who will not come here unless we can do that. I doubt if that is necessary and I wonder how many of these people have come here as a result. I wonder how great a success they have made of the undertakings they came to manage. If it is necessary to grant this relief in surtax allowances in order to attract people from abroad to come and manage specific industries here then I say to the Government that they should find a way of granting relief either to the industry which they manage or to their particular salaries. If it is not possible to grant relief to the salaries and if, for some reason or another, that might be held to be unconstitutional—I do not know whether or not it would—I am sure it would not be beyond the genius of the Minister's financial advisers to find a way to give relief to the companies which they manage and, in turn, that could be passed on. It is a dangerous trend to give this type of relief without giving any relief to the lower income classes.
Still on the question of income tax, Deputy Kyne raised a point on the proposal to abolish Schedule A and Schedule B tax. I am sure the proposal to abolish Schedule A tax will be welcomed. I would say it was a source of considerable irritation, especially in the city of Dublin, among the fixed income classes. I am sure the amount it brought in did not justify its collection. Schedule B tax is also being abolished. These abolitions will come into effect only from 1969-70. In giving his reasons, the Minister said:
The removal of these two Schedules will simplify the administration of income tax. Because of the considerable preparatory work involved, the decision to abolish them can become effective only from next year, 1969-1970.
I should like to pose this question to the Minister: What is the considerable preparatory work involved? Schedule B is the schedule under which the farmer paid income tax or, indeed, in a great number of cases, did not pay it because he was not liable. I want to ask the Minister for Finance whether or not he proposes to subject farmers to income tax. I want him to say, before this debate concludes, whether he intends to abolish the option now enjoyed by farmers of paying income tax under Schedule B or Schedule D. If that is his intention, I want to know at what level of poor law valuation he intends to bring his scheme into operation. Is it the intention that, as and from next year, every farmer will have to submit his accounts to the inspector of taxes in his area, just as has been done in Northern Ireland for the past number of years?
I do not think it is good enough for the Minister, in introducing his Budget, to deal with this matter of Schedule A and Schedule B tax in a few sentences and to dismiss it at that. We are entitled to know, and to know now, what the proposal really is. The farmers are entitled to know whether they are to be called upon to make returns and whether they are to be taxed on the net income from the farm. Some people may say they should be but I for one say they should not be. I want an assurance from the Minister that that is not his proposal and I want the answer now, before we have the referendum, before perhaps we have a general election, instead of the referendum, or a general election early next year. When the coating of this pill is penetrated, I think it will be found to be a bitter pill.
I think the Minister should abolish Schedule A tax on houses. I know it applies on land, too. However, he could abolish it on houses on the basis that it was an irritant and was not worth collecting. The Minister should have left Schedule B as it was. Certainly he should leave it as it was if it is his intention to substitute it by the imposition of income tax on the agricultural community at a time when we should, in fact, be getting away from income tax altogether.
I do not very often find myself in agreement with Deputy Booth but I agree with him when he welcomes the proposals regarding death duty. I notice that, in a full year, the reliefs given in death duty will cost £200,000. I think this proposal will relieve a lot of estates from death duty. I will go all the way with Deputy Booth and say that the Minister should, when he was doing this, have considered the possibility of giving further relief under the heading of death duties for the purpose of attracting wealth into this country, for the purpose of attracting wealthy people here and to spend their money here. I believe that if such people came here they would not merely be satisfied to live here but they would also take part in the life of the country.
If we attract wealthy foreigners to live in retirement here—if they were that wealthy they might not have to retire as they may never have had to work—we would get an injection of capital into this country which is badly needed and which could be very well used. Members of this Party have been advocating this for a long time.
I should like to know what amount of revenue the remaining provisions of the death duties code will bring in. Is it worth while? Would the results which would flow from its abolition not be more beneficial to the country when you take the cost of collection into account and contrast that with the benefits that would accrue from these people spending and investing their capital here as I believe they would?
Money is provided in the Budget for industrial development. I believe that in the years gone by we have not been spending this money as wisely as we should. I know that the argument from the Government side of the House is that if you do not make a mistake you will never make anything; if you ensure that every concern will be a success you will never get any industries going. That is all very well but there are too many failures. I know two of them within a radius of 20 miles of where I live. I believe that more care should be taken to select these industries: more care should be taken to select the personnel who manage them.
Above all, I think if an industry fails or never gets off the ground, as one that I have in mind did not get off the ground, in those circumstances the Department of Industry and Commerce should have some control over these concerns to ensure that they are not left there as white elephants but should see that they are put to productive work.
I also believe that under the heading of industrial incentive and industrial development some directive should be given to industrialists as to where they should set up their industries. I know that we are told by the Department of Industry and Commerce they do not influence industries to go to any particular place. That is partly true and partly false but I believe that in order to distribute productive employment or the opportunity for productive employment, grants should be available in specific places, in definite places that have not already been catered for and that there should be an assessment made by the Government or a Government agency as to the amount of employment, unemployment and emigration in a particular place and that where the emigration and unemployment justify the setting up of a factory a certain sum of money should be earmarked for that particular centre and it should be made known that that amount of money was available to industrialists who are prepared to set up a factory there.
If that were done you would have a better distribution of population all over the country and there would not be all the necessity for the tolerance measures that we hear talked about recently. I do not think anybody could object to that proposal.
On education, I should like to say that anybody would be less than reasonable were he not to approve of the advances that have been made by way of the provision for post-primary education and the first step towards university education. I say it is only a first step towards university education because it is only an extension of the scholarship system. I appreciate that there must be teething problems in education in this new scheme but I should like to say that there is considerable dissatisfaction and it is believed that there is one type of secondary education for one category of people and another type of secondary education for another category.
That stems from the fact that small technical schools are classified as post-primary educational establishments for the purposes of the scheme. That is reasonable enough but some of these technical schools are sub-standard through no fault of the vocational education committees. They are sub-standard because it is impossible to get teachers for them or to get teachers to stay in them.
The Department of Education will either have to up-grade these small technical schools to a standard comparable to the other post-primary education establishments or close them down. Otherwise, you will have this injustice and if a man has his family living within three miles of what I call sub-standard technical schools his children must stay there up to intermediate certificate if they are to avail of further education. I want to make it perfectly clear that I am not one of those who are against technical schools. On the contrary, I am all in favour of them and of the common intermediate certificate which will give a pupil the opportunity of operating his head and his hands until he comes to the intermediate certificate and then make up his mind. What I am against is this distinction, this hardship inflicted on some families who happen to reside near sub-standard schools.
The Deputy will also agree that this is a matter for the Estimate rather than the Financial Motions.
(Cavan): It is perhaps a little detailed, I admit, but it is part of a vast new scheme and for that reason I might be pardoned for taking this opportunity of dealing with it.
I spoke about incentives for further production. There is not much or any incentive for an expansionist programme in agriculture in this Budget. There is a guaranteed minimum price for pigs of 12s 6d in excess of the present guaranteed price for high-class bacon but everybody knows that these pigs are fetching more than that at present and that the bottom has fallen out of the pig industry. Really the way to tackle this matter, which is part of the agricultural activities seriously concerning my constituency, is to reduce the cost of feedstuffs and in that way to increase our competitiveness at home and abroad.
The question of milk seems to be in chaos. If I interpret the Minister's Budget Statement correctly, the milk problem seems to be beyond him. Everybody knows that unless there is a market for skimmed milk, milk will not pay. The market for dried skim milk powder should be tackled by way of incentive, by way of something being done to remedy the present state of affairs.
There are one or two other little points I should like to deal with. If I have read the Budget Statement correctly, less money will be spent on the telephone service than last year. That is a shame. Somebody has slipped up. Everybody knows there are mile-long queues waiting for telephones but we are told the amount of money provided last year was not spent and for that reason no more is being provided this year. Is this the last Budget we shall have this year?
It is the first one.
(Cavan): It is the first one but I want to know if it is the last. We are entitled to know.
This is the Budget before the Treaty of Limerick.
You cannot get away with a thing.
"...before the ink was dry."
(Cavan): There are precedents for it. Even since the last general election we had a couple in one year. The Minister told us that if excessive spending is generated with unfavourable effects on the balance of payments, the Government will have no option but to neutralise some of the increases in incomes and spending by heavier taxation. I assume that when the Minister said that, he was not talking about next year's Budget because that would be a normal time to re-assess the position and readjust taxation. We had him on 23rd April, 1968, the day he introduced this Budget, making this profound statement:
I must stress that if excessive spending is generated with unfavourable effects on the balance of payments, the Government will have no option but to neutralise some of the increases in income and spending by heavier taxation.
I invite the Minister, when he is concluding, to tell us does that mean that he will introduce another Budget this year or that he will not introduce another Budget this year. Does it mean that in certain circumstances he will introduce another Budget this year? Will he spell out those circumstances for us? If, as Deputy O'Leary has said, this is a pre-Limerick election Budget, will he tell us? The by-election in Limerick has taken on a new look compared with other by-elections. In the Wicklow by-election, proportional representation and electoral reform were dirty phrases.
It is not relevant.
(Cavan): It is relevant only to the extent that I want to know if this is an election Budget. Words which were taboo during the Limerick election seem to be in order now.
It is a Limerick ham-Budget.
(Cavan): This Budget was a relief in the way that a man hitting his head against the wall gets relief when he stops. If the remarks of the Minister which I have just quoted mean that we shall have another Budget before the end of this year, then the operation of knocking the head against the wall might well be resumed again before the end of the year.
Various speakers have tried to describe the Budget in a word or phrase. The word "neutral" has been applied but I do not think anybody has succeeded in getting a name or a few convenient phrases to describe its nature. They have said it is unimaginative and comfortable. There is nothing wrong with comfort if the times call for comfort. There is nothing wrong with the Budget being unimaginative if the times call for sober, steady legislation; but what people have been trying to do in relation to this Budget is to express their disappointment. They were expecting a Budget that would deal faithfully with the social priorities of a Government in touch with the social problems, the economic problems of the country at this time.
It is a fact that despite a plethora of so-called economic planning bodies in the country and the common assessment that we are living in a new age of sophisticated economic know-how, the Budget still shows the same hardy annual look shared by all its predecessors since this House first began Budget-making. We could describe it, I suppose, as an ivory tower Budget which either does not understand, or does not seek to understand, or to meet or tackle the problems of contemporary living for the majority of our people and citizens. One might say that no one but a Minister with Department of Finance spectacles would suggest that £3 5s per week represents or ensures for pensioners the standard of living they rightly should have. The misery of these pensioners —and it is not a melodramatic word to use in this context—living on £3 5s per week has been relieved admittedly in this Budget but no one can doubt that their misery must continue in the circumstances of obtaining £3 5s per week.
This 12-year-old Government — I think it is about 12 years old now on its present run—has been bombarding the people of this country with announcements of the principles of social justice which animate their every action. It has been a recent conversion but nevertheless a well-publicised conversion for the Government are now committed to social justice and all that that entails. Yet after this Budget, a Budget presented in one part of the Minister's report against a background of buoyancy in the economy, therefore in more or less favourable circumstances, old people will still climb their stairs to fireless or lonely rooms. One could say, again without being melodramatic, that poverty will still be the daily companion of our pensioner citizens after this Budget, a poverty which is given expression very often in remote paragraphs of our press which disclose that this or that solitary old person died from some kind of malnutrition or over-exposure to inclement weather.
It is clear, therefore, that what we were expecting from this Budget was that we would see the first evidence of a distinctive social welfare policy worked out and suited to the needs of this country. We did not get it and therefore our major reason for disappointment is located in the area of social welfare. It seems to us that for this Budget to have avoided the feeling of disappointment which many of us share it should have aimed at family welfare in our country. It should have aimed at providing adequate provision for the family in times of economic adversity when the wage-earning power of the parents is perhaps reduced or cut completely. It should have aimed at family welfare for children with an allowance proportionate to the family size.
We hear from many official sources that the family unit is the natural unit in our society. In fact, the family as a unit receives more praise in this country than possibly any other country in Europe. We like to think of ourselves as being the last bastion of regarding the family seriously as the most important unit in society, as the fundamental unit, in fact, in society. Yet this Budget shows no evidence that official policy has any special plan or concern in its social welfare provisions for the Irish family. In fact, one might go further and say that this Budget does not seem to acknowledge that there is very real poverty and hardship for both parents and children in our larger families. In this situation one would have thought that the scale of children's allowances would have been appreciably increased for every child after the second.
The first child gets it now.
The Budget refers to the gains made in education last year. One might say there that there is a little bit too much back-slapping around for the puny efforts we have made in the area of secondary education for improving the participation rate. One must commend the efforts made but one must not make the mistake of thinking that our social policy for Irish education has changed overnight. The remarks which the Minister makes in his Budget Statement seem to me to make the mistake common to many official sources at the moment of imagining that the nature of Irish education which has gone untouched for nearly half a century has changed fundamentally. We must remember that it has still got the Victorian features of its origin unchanged practically over the entire system, that it has not greatly changed. There have been improvements but the nature of that Victorian system which is our education structure has not changed radically.
We must remember that, taking the family again as our unit, the vast majority of the schoolchildren of this country are receiving an education only to the age of 14 years, that they receive no satisfactory continuing form of education after that age and the purpose of a welfare policy which would include children and their education should be to see that they participate in education, secondary, vocational and so on. Many people talk about racial discrimination but educational discrimination is practised in this country. It is true, and the Lynch Report bears it out, that a child who does not receive adequate education and proper training is victimised and discriminated against in the employment to be offered in after life.
These are some of the reasons why we have a feeling of disappointment in looking at the provisions of this Budget. It could have come from the 1920s, the 1930s or the 1940s. There is no evidence of the imprint of the enlightened economic thinking that we are told goes on in the 1960s in this Budget. It sets out in the same humdrum fashion to collect its revenue from the same sources as every other Budget has collected from. It takes the attitude that apparently nothing has changed in this country and that the situation continues as it is.
It is interesting to note on the children's allowance section that the family of two children which would receive 18/- in the Republic would receive £2 12s 0d in the North of Ireland. It is interesting to note in getting the priorities of this Government that the Budget presented by the Labour Government across the water, who, as we have been told in all our papers, are in some trouble as a result of their economic difficulties around the world—and their Chancellor came very frankly about a week ago to tell the British people about the nature of the problem before them and described it with an honesty rare in this country on the part of any public representatives as a hairshirt Budget—admitted to be a hairshirt Budget, but at least showing some evidence of having social priorities in their correct order, actually increased children's allowance by 3/- per week.
We have this problem of the larger family in which undoubtedly there is a great degree of poverty, because the man earning, say, £14 a week with two children is undoubtedly better off than the man earning £14 a week with six or eight children. Therefore, there are at the moment many of those larger families who need help. They are certainly in need of legislation. Admittedly, as the Minister says, it is a complicated question. When any question is described as complicated in this country, we have to have an investigation. The Minister has announced that we have been investigating and inquiring into the nature of the Irish family with the idea of increasing children's allowances for the larger families. It would have struck me, without waiting for the necessary legislation, that what was needed here for the larger family is that if one were worried, as the Minister appears to be, that some people are using children's allowance cash for purposes other than that first conceived, it should be possible by a taxation policy to see that those people who are not in very great need of children's allowances could be looked after by making it taxable. This would certainly have been one way to bring in those improvements in as short a time as possible. It would also have eliminated those people who have not in fact need of this cash.
The Budget Statement refers to the jobs situation. We have for a long time considered, and I think anybody looking at the situation in this country must consider, that the job situation is a real register of economic progress and development. The number of new jobs we produce every year in the industrial sector is the only domestic measurement standard we can see which is a true measure of the advance in our country and the progress of our economy. It is extraordinary therefore that the Minister should describe the 2,500 new jobs produced last year as a sign of progress. I would be surprised if there is any town in any part of Britain, with all its economic problems at the moment, say, an average industrial town in Britain, a small town or a medium town, which could not produce 2,500 new jobs in the year. When it is produced with a flourish as successful government policy, that there were 2,500 new jobs last year, this is really taking the biscuit.
We have a different situation from that in most other European countries in this matter of the provision of extra employment. First of all, there is the number of people on the land and the tremendous exodus from the land which continues year after year. Last year 11,000 left the land and there is no reason to think we will not have the same number next year and the year after. Against this background, the provision of 2,500 new jobs is simply a confession of economic failure in this area. If we are going to provide new jobs, it is important also that we do not lose sight of the important matter of the investment needed in this country. The current policy has been to get as much foreign capital into the country as possible and that that is the way to keep up new jobs in this country. It has been felt that increased investment in the economy of the country can in fact produce an increased number of jobs. The policy, up to now at any rate, has been to attract in here foreign capital at pretty attractive rates and to hope for economic development and more new jobs from this type of development.
This is a very shaky thing. The Minister referred to it. We should not have to rely so much on the continuance of capital inflow into the country. It is not mere propaganda belonging to any one political Party to say this, because the NIEC said recently that there could be very dangerous social, economic and political consequences in capital flowing into this country when we did not know very much about the particular areas in which it was being invested. We must ask ourselves how much of the Irish assets are being swallowed up in any capital coming into this country. We must ask ourselves what proportion of this capital inflow into the country is being swallowed up in property speculation because in the long term, there is not much economic advantage if capital inflow into this country is buying up property in the country and buying up our assets. We should take steps to ensure that this does not happen on a widespread scale throughout the country.
In fact, it is already happening in the distributive trade. Up and down the country, there are neon signs and supermarkets which are already beginning to show us the first free trade in our home market. Those supermarkets have their own interests in mind first. They push their own business interests, they push their own manufactures and their own British wholesalers. Only last week I ventured into one of those commercial temples, not to purchase anything, but to see how this pushing forward of their own goods was taking place. I noticed they were pushing British biscuits, British cheese, British confectionary and so on. The question must be asked whether this should be allowed to continue. Industry in this country has been told that it will have to fight for export markets and that it can expect competition from abroad but I do not think industry in this country is sufficiently aware that the enemy competition is appearing on attractive display counters in supermarkets around the country where British goods are being pushed and the British people who control those supermarkets push their own economic interests.
One must ask how much consumer loyalty we can expect in this sector. One must ask whether those people are interested in the ultimate economic good health of this country. We find that the distributive trade is largely controlled by foreign interests. Other European countries, who do not appear to have our frenzy or enthusiasm for internationalism, take measures to defend their distributive trades, but here in this country up to a year ago the Minister for Industry and Commerce saw no cause for alarm. He was not aware of any complaints. I notice that individual trade groups have been bringing some of those complaints to his attention since. It is extremely important to examine, as the NIEC asked us to do, and take action so that investment in this country, if it is to come into this country, is designed for our own enterprise and should take into account the workers who are employed in these industries.
Several municipal bodies in this country fall for this current idea that there is nothing wrong with capital participation from abroad in any particular activity in this country whatever. Dublin Corporation itself is in partnership with a cross-channel company—or large cross-channel interests are involved in it, at any rate —Irish Property Trust Ltd. They have made plans on a £40 million deal to develop the older centre of the city, Moore Street-Capel Street and this area. Dublin Corporation are involved in this development. It is regrettable that foreign cash should in any way be getting a grip on property or lasting assets in this country. Indeed, this idea of foreign enterprise coming in here has not been without support from Members of this House. Important Members of the House who held important Ministries themselves participate in such cross-channel development in this country and give ample evidence of the lack of objection the Government have to capital inflow from abroad. I think we should have far more stringent requirements on the kind of capital development we want here.
We have repeatedly asked the Minister for Industry and Commerce to ensure that when attracting foreign capital into the country, the foreigners should at least be told some of the ancient customs we have here in the conduct of labour relations and other matters mentioned by the Minister in his Budget speech when he referred to the necessity for good industrial relations. Good industrial relations will not be helped if we bring in here companies which refuse to acknowledge the realities of Irish life, or which seek to ignore them, companies which consider trade unions as practically the nearest thing to Bolshevism and which evidently do not understand the position won by the trade unions at great cost in our community. It must be asked whether such developments are welcome in the long run if their promoters do not appear to wish to understand some of the quaint customs we have here, because in the long run our requirements for foreign enterprise coming here should be that it would be in areas where we need new expertise rather than in areas we can truly manage ourselves.
One notes, for example, in this matter of capital investment and inflow here, great investment of cross-channel firms in our hotel industry. One notes the manner in which such companies are taking over in an industry in which native industry should be involved. It is regrettable that Irish private enterprise does not appear to be interested in investing in this area and I think it is not in the long term interests of the country to find the hotel industry falling into foreign hands also.
The Minister mentioned that he intends to acknowledge at least what the NIEC referred to and to examine the external assets of the country, the amount of money we have invested abroad, the Irish money that is doing work of economic development abroad and which we seek to have done by foreign capital here at home. The NIEC asks if there is any reason why our assets abroad should continue at the phenomenally high figure of £295 million. It is a good question and there is no reason why it should not be examined and further, there is no reason why it should not be checked if we come to the conclusion that it should be.
I had occasion to mention the desirability of attempting to set up a money market here at home on the occasion of the last devaluation, the devaluation which is referred to by the Minister in his Budget Statement. We must seek to get Irish money to work for Ireland's economic development at home and we must bring in the financial institutions to make it possible to provide adequate outlets for that money at home. It is true that the powers of the Central Bank have recently been increased and that they now have some check on the volume of credit in the country, but it is still true that the Central Bank, alone in Europe, has no power over the interest rate charged by our banks. It is substantially true that our Irish interest rates are determined by the Bank of England. Therefore, to make sure that interest rates and that our Central Bank and financial institutions here answer to Irish institutions and do not jump to British conditions and British economic realities, it is important that we should get some check on the short-term flow of capital from here to Britain. This is extremely important and it is something that any other country in our position would consider.
We must do something about the situation in which in the year 1967 our external assets increased at the rate of £50 million. The Minister says he is examining the problem: I hope it is not the kind of problem that, when examined, will lead to a series of White Papers until, in fact, no action is taken. Indeed, throughout this Budget, many problems are falling by the wayside of White Papers and investigating committees. It is said to be the way of modern governments to set up a committee to investigate a problem and when that is done, there has to be consultation with representative bodies, and so we go on in the vicious bureaucratic circle and in the meantime, the problem grows worse and worse. I hope that in this area the Minister for Finance, who is given to the production of elegant reports and elegant Budget Statements, will take a bit of crude action and do something about the problems that underlie the money situation here and set up financial institutions to do something about the Dublin and Cork stock exchanges. What their purposes are in relation to the future benefit of the economy in this country I do not know; I wonder if they know themselves.
On the decimal currency question we have acted as usual. After setting up a commission, producing a report on the matter and having consulted all the authorities involved, we do as the British do. One wonders why it is necessary to go through the nonsense of investigating Irish problems when, in fact, in nine cases out of ten, what the British Chancellor did yesterday, we do a few weeks later. We were told by the Irish Minister for Finance last week that the British decimal coinage would not be legal tender in this country. Yesterday we saw the Standing Committee of the Irish Banks state that it would be accepted as is the other illegal tender of British coinage in this country. The Minister is, of course, technically correct as Ministers usually are but, as is apparent in the case of many things that are technically correct in this Budget, the realities are otherwise.
However, in dealing with coinage, we have followed suit with the British in their allegiance to the upper unit of the British pound. Of course there was argument in Britain about it. Many people there felt that the upper unit should be the ten shilling note and that there should be a more logical breakdown of the decimal coinage than the old pound. The only people in the British arena who apparently agreed with what the British are now doing, paying allegiance and respect to the pound, were the very people in the City of London who are probably more responsible than any other section for Britain's economic difficulties at present, the British financiers. Apparently, they won their fight in the teeth of opposition from British industry and some sections of the British banking world, and the pound continues as of yore to be the upper limit of the currency.
This decimal coin system that is being brought in here could result, unless we are very careful, in a three per cent rise in the cost of living. If the lowest unit is to be 2.4d, future price increases will be very extraordinary indeed. It should be brought to the attention of the officials who draft our Budgets that still in our country, there are very many purchases in grocery shops that one can make for under 2s 6d, and if we bring in this coinage system of which the lowest unit is 2.4d, future price increases will greatly affect the cost of living. Certainly it looks as if the British will be forced to produce a halfpenny in their decimal coinage, and to resurrect the farthing once more, and presumably we will have good reason to follow suit.
Other European countries with common land boundaries deal with a bewildering array of currencies and one wonders how this Government can think that the Irish public would be too puzzled because we decided to give a more radical breakdown of the ten shilling note, and make it a little bit different from that in Britain. The people in other European countries are not perplexed, although they may, especially in border areas, deal with three or four different currencies, and I do not see how it could cause any problems here.
The Government appear to have swung from a dislike of all things British and to have gone to the other extreme. We are probably the last Anglophiles left in Europe. When the rest of Europe has not much time for the British, this Island of Saints and Scholars, the Republicans of yesterday, have become latterday admirers of British institutions. The provisions in this Budget are typical. Most of our legislation is spawned in Britain and produced here in Leinster House a short while later. I deplore this tendency. Although all countries acknowledge that there must be limits on their independence, there are some uniquely Irish problems, and possibly there is no other reason for having a National Assembly than the fact that there are such things as distinctive Irish problems. Most of our legislation does not acknowledge that there should be a separate manner of dealing with questions in this country from the way they are dealt with in Britain. The Minister tells us we cannot ignore external events. Apparently we cannot ignore external events as long as they originate in Britain.
This Budget could be criticised for its lack of innovation and interest in social welfare and the problems of families in Ireland. It could also be criticised from the businessman's point of view for its lack of interest in attempting to increase our exports, for its failure to make the best of the situation after British devaluation. It is regrettable that our Minister was forced into the situation last year where he had to step in hastily after the British Chancellor. I think we won the world contest for the number of minutes we took to announce devaluation; maybe the Fiii Islands were ahead of us. It is regrettable that we cannot make the best of the situation, and it is extraordinary that this Budget seems to include no incentive to our exporters to seek out new markets at this time.
One would have thought that now would be the time to encourage exports to all countries in Europe, to attempt to find new markets everywhere. This Budget gives no evidence that the Government are aware that there might be a consumer market for Irish products opening up in Eastern Europe. Seemingly when we look at Europe, we do not recognise that there are any countries there other than the Six associated with the Common Market. We have gone a long way from the rather naive conception we had some years ago that to trade with a country with whose regime the Government did not agree was necessarily to support that regime. These countries have shown that they can survive with or without our exports and that our trade with them in the years ahead will not strengthen these regimes appreciably. We shall have to explore far more diligently now if we are to take advantage of the markets that are opening up particularly for agricultural products in Eastern Europe. Admittedly, the recent Polish transaction is welcome, but I feel that far more trade could be done in this area.
This Government had not their priorities quite right when it came to the under-privileged people in our country. When it came to the old age pensioners and people like that, they fundamentally misunderstood the mood of our society if they thought that an increase of 7s 6d would be seen by anybody as a satisfactory answer to the plight of these people. Even at the risk of damping down concessions in other areas, I think the people would have been happy if the older people could have been given an increase of £1 a week. However, the Government had not their priorities right in this area. They most certainly had them right when it came to those people in our population who pay surtax, because for the second year running, a Minister for Finance of this Government had pity on these unfortunate people in our midst who are forced to pay exorbitant surtax rates. The cost of this concession amounts to £120,000. Last year we gave them an equal concession. He explains why, that because of the rate of surtax here, the right man was not being attracted to the upper echelons of management. If, however, we cannot meet our obligations in pretty severe cases of hardship, I do not think we can afford the kind of concessions we have been giving in this area. I do not see how it will appreciably change the quality of our management, the bad management we have, if we improve the sur-tax rate to the degree the Minister has mentioned.
He also had his priorities right when he changed directors' remuneration. That part of our legislation which put the upper limit for tax-free allowances to our companies at £2,500 has now been changed to £4,000. Possibly the Minister may try to explain whether it is a conservative estimate that the cost is not expected to be more than £50,000 a year for the companies listed. I should be glad to hear any further details he can offer in regard to how he arrives at a figure of £50,000 a year. I was glad to note that in this area of company taxation he is having a look into the whole taxable situation of companies. He quoted the previous report which suggested that company taxation should be kept separate from personal taxation. This is wise and this is why it should be a tax merely on undistributed profits. The results of this survey which the Minister is carrying out should be of immense interest to many of us in this House but he should also inquire into the situation, and if necessary change the Companies Act where it excludes companies from any kind of scrutiny or disclosure of profits and also, of course, into the whole field of limited liabilities.
Many business people are annoyed at the way in which these companies can apparently manage their affairs under a limited liability and enjoy privacy. It is important that one should understand more of the economic set up of these companies. One of the weaknesses in the whole set up of our economy is the number of family concerns around the country, the fragile basis on which this country is hoping for economic expansion in the future and in which we cannot be sure that good management will be obtained over a wide area of economic activity because so many are solely answerable to the dictates of individuals or families. I would ask the Minister therefore, when talking about this field of company taxation, to look into the area of limited liability companies.
We have not provided, of course, the jobs about which I have been talking. We produced 2,500 last year and we have hopes for next year, because in January, 1969, we will be inaugurating the Third Programme for Economic Expansion. Formerly we produced economic programmes in the summer months but it has been slipping further and further backwards into the winter season and next year it will be in January. The period covered by the Third Programme for Economic Expansion will last until 1972. More and more the periods covered by these programmes take on an air of unreality. As each failure mounts up, we announce that another programme will be produced some months ahead. This is the answer to the failure of the preceding programme.
The Minister states hopefully that by 1972 we should be in a position to know about the EEC. This is an extraordinary confession, that the Government are practically robbing themselves of any initiative in the period up to 1972 by which, hopefully, we expect we will know about the EEC. The Minister also stated that he hoped the Programme would be prepared within the framework of the NIEC Report on Full Employment, and the Government Information Bureau said in March, 1967, that it would produce, free of charge, a booklet on the Report. The Information Bureau further stated, quoting very carefully from the Report, that a national endeavour as long range as full employment which is backed up by no compulsion, national or personal, requires the support of the entire community. It seems to me there is a tremendous desire on the part of the Government to regard the problem of full employment as a matter for individual decision in the community and to avoid the question of real responsibility. Can anyone doubt which agency in our economy having so much invested in State or semi-State concerns can absolve itself of the responsibility of acknowledging that it must have chief responsibility for bringing in full employment? We must demand more of the Government in policy matters than the production, free of charge, of a synopsised version of any report produced by the NIEC.
It is important that this be seen to be done. It is important that in their efforts to aid private industry, the Government will see that good management is brought into play in these concerns. It is important, and this must be mentioned, that if we are to be serious the Government cannot ignore the responsibility of seeing where the taxpayer's money goes to aid a particular firm or industry to adapt itself and if the plans are not carried through we must have some form of sanction, some means of bringing to heel any firm which takes public cash and does not carry out its public responsibility. We can no longer be content with stating ad nauseam that since we believe in private enterprise, private enterprise will either do or not do the job.
The responsibility of governments in our time must mean this. If we acknowledge that the employee has certain rights, that the State provides certain social welfare benefits, or that the State provides this or that for the citizens, then we must also recognise that the modern State has the fundamental duty of providing adequate jobs for its citizens. If companies within the State receive State assistance and do not attempt to get the proper management in control of their activities, or if a company shows itself to be lazy in expanding production, then the State must take action to see that the companies learn to mend their ways, or at least see that the taxpayer's money will no longer be put into any of these leaking vessels. It is no longer necessary to see that these companies continue without any interference in any section of their activities, from the State.
The Minister states that he will continue to rely on indirect taxation. He explains, of course, that indirect taxation is less reprehensible apparently to the majority of our citizens. That only means, of course, that it is a less painful way of extracting cash. One receives one's pay cheque; it is larger than it would be if there were direct taxation. But, when one goes into a pub or one's wife goes into a shop one may give back far more by indirect taxation, with less painful feelings perhaps, than would happen under direct taxation. Indirect taxation is, of course, an extremely dishonest way of collecting revenue. It increasingly permits any government to collect by stealth from taxpayers over a wide range of commodities. In the long run it must give a fillip to inflation. It is a mistaken policy.
Tourism is agreed by all to be a very important part of our economic development. Every other day the Minister for Transport and Power is telling us, in his delightful Monaghan accent, about the fauna and flora of our country and rhapsodising over the colours of our skyline and the friendliness of our people. So far as tourism is concerned I think we have reached saturation point. We suffer the disadvantage of being an island. Being an island, let us be honest about it, adds to the cost of building up a strong tourist industry. We are competing with rockbottom car ferry prices between Britain and the Continent. We are competing with European countries which have very few natural barriers between them and which have excellent transport systems. A large part of the cost for the tourist coming here is in transport. Unless we improve the price structure and make tourism attractive in terms of pounds, shillings and pence the market, instead of expanding, will dry up because of the many counter attractions and cheapness other countries can offer. These will naturally make a strong appeal.
The price of petrol was increased under the Budget. We ought to consider whether, in fact, tourists should be supplied with cheap petrol for the duration of their stay in order to attract more tourists into the country. Increasing prices over a wide range of goods and services will make holidaying in Ireland that much more expensive and that much more unattractive. It is not enough to say that tourists will come here because our people are friendly. I never met anyone in either France or Italy who barked at me and I do not know that we have any great edge on friendliness over other European countries. It is evading the problem to imagine that tourists will grow like grass without any particular effort on our part. It is regrettable that one should have to seek concessions for tourists, but I do so on the basis of improving the numbers of tourists coming in for the ultimate benefit of the ordinary people.
The Minister advised us that there should be, as he said, no "bidding up" in wages. He made an omnibus statement on the peculiar approach of this Government to these matters. He referred to problems and, having mentioned one problem, he then referred to some other problem. He referred to the problem of incomes. He suggested that the productivity agreements signed over the last two years had, in fact, been only token productivity agreements. I have said on earlier occasions in this House that the real heroes and heroines in the present economic situation are the faceless men and women up and down the country enrolled in trade unions who, without any official incentive from the Government, have signed productivity agreements against a background of inflation and in an economy in which the Government have shown very little signs of real leadership. It is, to say the least of it, very bad form on the part of the Minister to single out groups who have signed productivity agreements against a background of increasing prices and without any effort on the part of the Government to keep the cost of living at a reasonable level. Yet, the Minister has the temerity to suggest that these are merely token productivity agreements. Taking the Minister's own evaluation it can be said that the increases the workers received were in the order of token increases. These men and women are, as I have said, the real heroes and heroines in our economic situation.
This Government courteously refer to the reports of the NIFC and other bodies. Three years ago they were told by the NIEC that they should set about implementing an incomes policy. I know of no progress made by the Government in that particular area. They have a Minister for Labour who appears in the middle or at the end of an industrial dispute; he makes pronouncements about holding back the flood. In peacetime, however, week in and week out we have seen little evidence on the part of the Government of their interest in an incomes policy. Admittedly they labour under severe handicap in this matter because the father figure of their economic philosophy, Deputy Seán Lemass, brushed aside the possibility of such a policy; he said it just could not work.
If an incomes policy will not work, then a wages policy will not work either. If the Government believe that no incomes policy can work, then they have no licence to go before any trade union or any group who are looking for an increase in wages and say: "Your wage should reach £X." If the Government are so lazy that they cannot do their homework in regard to an incomes policy for all sections, then they must descend from the pulpit and stop preaching to trade unionists as to how high wages should go because the price of lecturing to the workers must be earned by a Government which shows equal concern for every type of economic income in the country.
Valuable time has been lost over the last two years from the point of view of really constructive work in this sphere It is very doubtful that the Government ever intend to follow the advice of the NIEC and implement an incomes policy. It seems to me and to many others to be the only real hope of orderly economic development at least to frame an incomes policy and it seems to me that we are being dishonest from this position in this House if we go about maintaining that we do not understand why we have so much industrial discord in our country, if we are not doing our duty in this House. If the Government are evading their responsibilities in this area, when they see a certain section of people in our community coming out for more wages, forced out into strikes or disputes for a better deal in their salaries and incomes because of rocketing prices around them, they cannot seek to absolve themselves of the blame for this situation because the Government of the day was requested specifically by the National Industrial Economic Council two years ago to implement further an incomes policy. Nothing has been done on that matter.
I have mentioned tourism and industrial relations. There is one small point I want to make. The Minister, in a very interesting aside, in talking about directors' remuneration, said that the provision in the Budget to raise the tax free facilities for company directors from £2,500 to £4,000 would cost £50,000 per annum but—I found it rather interesting—that he hoped that this would be paid for by the taxation now being imposed on continental brandies. I do not know if there is any relationship between the two things or if there is an extraordinary intake of continental brandies on the part of these directors. It certainly is a rather interesting sidelight. If the Minister has any figures on the intake of continental brandies on the part of company directors, I should like to have them.
There was a ten per cent increase last year in the consumption in this country.
Yes. The Parliamentary Secretary will agree that it is a rather interesting aside. It lights up an area of social habit.
Continental brandy always lights up things.
Quite right, I suppose, but it is one rather interesting thing in this rather dull Financial Statement. It had a certain amount of interest for me.
Next year is to be productivity year also. The Minister mentioned this. I do not think we are going to get the increased productivity which all of us feel is necessary if we do not look a bit more deeply at the set up of Irish industry, at the kind of management we have in Irish industry, to see that our investment is properly looked after in Irish industry where we do invest. It seems that there is too little interest being taken by the Government in this area. I know that the Minister for Industry and Commerce has plans referred to by the Minister, that they are going to review the whole area of adaptation in industry to see exactly how it can be changed in the future. In the past it has been the unhappy experience, borne out in the figures, that the adaptation grants have in fact not been utilised by existing Irish industry. Either through a fondness for the machinery they have had since protection was inaugurated in the 30s or lack of interest in their future, there is no doubt that little interest is evinced in adapting for conditions of freer trade.
It is very interesting to note that the President of the Federation of Irish Industries last week at the annual jamboree in Killarney of the Irish Management Institute mentioned that he felt there was not a sufficient degree of urgency in Irish business circles about freer trade. In fact, he quoted the leader of my Party, Deputy Corish, on much the same topic, that Irish business was not, apparently, interested in the problems of freer trade. The Government have consigned all creative thinking in this area to waiting— this appears to be their attitude—until the present deadlock vis-á-vis Britain and other European countries is resolved but much could be done by way of interim settlement with countries already in the EEC. We should certainly explore the possibility of having individual arrangements with selected European countries.
In January, 1972, when we are coming to the close of the Third Programme and will probably be producing the Fourth Programme for Economic Expansion, we will be getting the full lash of that other agreement, if you remember, brought in in January of this year—the Anglo-Irish Free Trade Area Agreement. There is no doubt about it, the Anglo-Irish Free Trade Area Agreement is producing very many skeletons in cupboards throughout the country at the present time.
The chief objection that can be made to the Government's proposals in their effort to see that we were economically prepared for freer trade is that they rushed too quickly from a regime of cotton wool for industrialists and business men who flourished under protection into this agreement with Britain. In their efforts to get Irish industry to wake up to the "challenge of free trade"—this over-worked phrase—they rushed into this agreement with Britain. Year by year, we are witnessing the effects of this agreement with that country. We are seeing them in many sections of industry. I do not know if it will change under the wider impetus of free trade on the Continent but the reaction, unfortunately, of many Irish business circles appears to be to close the door, to consider, first, the problems of their shareholders. Apparently, the order of priorities in many Irish business circles is: "Your shareholders first and let us then see whether the employees will be satisfied with the redundancy provisions made by the Minister."
In fact, at the conference last week of the Irish Management Institute in Killarney, they had one man who spoke on the challenge of free trade for Irish business who, a bare fortnight before, had presided over the winding up of his own company. I do not know if it is indicative of the attitude of many Irish business firms to the challenge of free trade to close down but it struck me as significant that such a body as the Irish Management Institute should learn of the experience of a gentleman who had just put three or four hundred of his employees out of work.
It is too serious a matter for the members of my Party to be expected to be satisfied with a situation in which the future of all of us, the future of the workers and their families, should be completely under the control of private enterprise in this country. Fair enough, if it is a business community that shows itself to be aware of the problems, if it can prove itself through its management, the kind of export markets it is seeking and if it has won its spurs in competition with other countries abroad. But it is our experience that the approach of many Irish companies is to either wait for a cross-Channel take-over or else to close down at the first breath of competition and pay off its shareholders at the first opportunity offering. It is regrettable at this time that a great deal of Irish industry apparently has a death wish. So long as we are in this House we have no intention of allowing them to continue without intervention by our Party, our policies and, we hope ultimately, by the Government.
Last week, in a tribute to the laissezfaire attitude of the Government towards business failures in this country, the President of the Federation of Irish Industries said they had a Government with whom they got on too well, a Government that was over-indulgent with the failure ratio in Irish industry. Times are becoming tougher. If circumstances are such that our policies must oversee the efforts of private industry, we are not going to be too timid to produce these policies and no sloganising or name-calling will prevent us from doing so. I would call upon the Government to consider whether, in fact, the reference to its being an over-indulgent Government, too friendly towards the failures of Irish business, is the best thing to be said about the Government at this time.
The Minister in his omnibus statement, his quick run-through the problems of the country, referred to the efforts of his colleague, the Minister for Labour. He referred to the rather comfortable situation the Minister for Labour had now provided for any employee losing his job. When the Redundancy Bill was going through the House we said there was no substitution for the provision of a job, that a few quid a week for a few months was no substitute. Even though we had backed the Bill and brought in any amendments necessary, we still suggested that the real desire of any man in his working prime was to get an alternative job. I remember asking the Minister for Labour recently if there was any attempt to ensure in the case of an employee whose firm was the victim of a takeover bid that alternative employment would be provided for him. The Minister referred me to the employment exchanges. It is not sufficient to brush this matter under the carpet by referring to our puny efforts in this area. Year by year we are approaching a situation in which freer trade will become an increasing possibility. Other countries are already well advanced in the matter of training and retraining their workers. As I said, the Minister for Labour is only heard either on the eve of a dispute or in its aftermath. On the constructive problems of his Ministry he is apparently marking time. He is certainly marking time in the provision of the training and retraining facilities for the man who loses his job. He is certainly marking time in the replacement of a man who loses his job in a takeover.
Take the case of an employer who is saying goodbye to his investment in a firm he probably has had for 30 years. This firm has probably grown up with community participation and under protective tariffs provided by that community, enjoying the loyalty of the community to that product. It must be understood that the responsibilities of such an employer cannot be seen to end in paying off his shareholders. It must be understood he has a responsibility to his employees, and surely one of those responsibilities must be to see to it that his employees are placed in gainful employment. This should be understood more fully by employers in our community. That it is not is apparently the practice, because here in Dublin in the builders providers especially, we have had people laid off with no possibility of getting alternative employment. We are, therefore, losing key workers, skilled workers, whom we are told we will need if our economy is to expand.
This whole matter of the loyalty, commitment and responsibility between one section of the community and another is extremely important, especially at present. The necessity of Irish industry holding on to the home market must be better understood. Living so close to Britain, having policies which have tended especially in recent years to follow closely on British legislation, it is open to question whether, in fact, we have built up in this country a loyalty to Irish products. It is questionable whether we can depend, as other countries can depend on the loyalty of our consumer public to our native products. Therefore, we must emphasise to Irish industrialists and explain to them that not alone must they face competition from exotic European names when this or that statesman may die, but from the results of the Government's activity in signing the Free Trade Agreement with Britain, competition which will become especially stronger around 1970. We must explain to them that they must be up and about making their businesses far more competitive. This means that our business community must see to it that their management is improved both in its training and education.
I would suggest that in the INPC year we are inaugurating next year one of the things we should be concerned about is whether we could not make better use for the training of management of the many agencies sprouting up about us. I think the IMI is doing an excellent job. We must ask are there any ways in which the IMI could co-operate with the INPC. Many of these bodies which were hoping to improve the productivity of the country received quite an amount of cash grants from the State, and it is incumbent on the State to see that such bodies do not become monuments to Parkinson's Law. They should co-operate as closely as possible to see where saving could be achieved.
We have the Institute of Public Administration, the Irish National Productivity Committee and the Irish Management Institute, all in one way or another involved in the training of public service and management people. One must ask whether there is over-lapping, whether we can economise or in fact, produce better service for the same amount of money. I have said that the Irish Management Institute is doing a pretty good job.
Any company participating in the training schemes of the IMI receives tax concessions. This is a good thing I suppose, but one must ask what has been the rate of participation by Irish companies in the courses run by the IMI. Are they spread over a sufficiently large area, or do we find that the management people attending the IMI courses are confined to a few large companies? Are they in their courses getting down to the small companies, because most Irish companies are under the 100 mark? Are they reaching down into these companies? Are these courses getting down to the places where they are really needed? One must ask if there is only a small spread of companies taking part in the courses run by the IMI?
We must ask whether the range of fees being charged by the IMI are a bit too steep, or are we, by our tax concessions to the IMI, artificially inflating the size of their fees to their client companies? I do not know whether that is the case, but it is something that should be asked, and something that should be checked if it is so.
All in all we cannot have sustained economic growth unless we look after our social priorities. This Government over the past two years have announced their conversion to the principle of social justice. They discovered a year ago in several vital by-elections that the principle of cherishing all the children of the nation equally was written into the 1916 Proclamation. Some of us may feel that was a belated discovery, but no doubt we are grateful that they discovered it at all.
There is little evidence in this Budget that the Government are living up to the social priorities in which they protest they now believe. There is little evidence in it of a proper social policy related to an expansionist economic policy. There is no evidence in it of a feeling that family welfare should be the objective in any welfare programme of an Irish Government. There are the usual hardy perennials of a little of this and a little of that, without any real breakthrough being made in the social sphere.
In the past we have had the experience of there being no jobs and therefore too many houses. Because of a lack of planning the mistake was made of thinking we had built enough houses for ever. We did not continue to build and therefore we had a housing shortage. We will be making a big mistake in the future unless we see to it that our social policy keeps pace with our economic policy. We have drawn attention to that in this House during the past year.
In the Budget there is no evidence of any fresh thinking on social welfare or on housing. There is an extremely serious impediment to the expansion of industry because in many parts of the country the housing accommodation required is not available to see that people are properly housed. This is certainly true in Dublin. I am not suggesting there are too many jobs. There is a certain degree of emigration because there is not sufficient housing accommodation. I am sure every Deputy has experience of a man with a job in his own town or city being actually forced to emigrate—this is certainly true in Dublin —because the housing accommodation was not up to the mark. We must ensure that we have decent accommodation for our people. Otherwise we will have the jobs question settled to some extent, and no accommodation or no social policy to go with it.
On this whole matter of economic planning, we must give credible evidence of learning from the failures of the past. Our answer to each successive failure apparently is to bring out a different coloured booklet. We do not cod anyone by that kind of treatment of economic problems. There is no doubt that while the NIEC and other bodies produce elegant descriptions of our problems, they still leave the job of legislating to the Government and the Government must do more than just refer to the statements of these bodies. It is important that the Government be seen to govern. I would suggest that the Government should consult with all the economic interests in the country and call, if you like, a national council of the existing bodies to see what changes must be made, what kind of economic planning we have been doing up to now, and whether we should put some kind of teeth into our economic planning.
I know there are many arguments about the difference between programming and planning. There is no doubt that it does not settle the real economic problems to believe that we can be content in a situation in which we merely extend the economic progress of one year into the remaining years and suggest that is our graph for economic recovery in the future. It is true that we increased our productivity last year but it is also true to say that is a selective way of looking at the statistics because we came to a full stop in the previous year. The NIEC suggest that there is not much of a possibility that the features which made our balance of payments surplus possible this year will in fact continue next year. If we are now using up unused capacity from last year and if that accounts for the increase, we must look for more determined measures to see that our productivity increases next year.
There is a tendancy on the part of this Government to believe that problems are solved by holding press conferences and producing booklets without taking any action. I would hope that National Productivity Year will not consist merely in splurges and after dinner speeches in the interests of higher productivity. The number of dinners consumed by this Government over the past ten years or so would lead one to think that we should be well on the way to becoming the economic miracle of Europe. The Parliamentary Secretary to the Taoiseach, Deputy Carty, is blooming as well. It is a good thing to have dinner when one's work is done. I trust the National Productivity Year will consist of more than dinners and press conferences. We have a very difficult problem and it will have to be solved by a more serious approach.
We cannot get the real co-operation of people in economic activity unless the Government can show they are serious about settling economic relations between different elements in our community. The Minister says the Government are worried about our getting an internationally bad reputation for strikes. I do not think there is any trade unionist in this country who would believe there is any great economic benefit to be conferred on him or on his members by a policy of continued strikes. There are no fans for the strike weapon in the trade union movement. There are reluctant followers when conditions force them out on strike in a dispute with their employer. In this country, the Government are directly concerned with State-sponsored bodies and therefore have a large say in economic activity. They must shoulder their part in bringing about satisfactory relations between management and worker in the interests of the economy.
The Government must take some part in the ordering of economic activities in various sections of our community. Different reports have called on the Government to do just this. It is useless to continue to misunderstand the reason for industrial disputes if we do not appreciate that there is an economic kernel to the problem. I am not suggesting that all industrial disputes can be summed up under this heading. Many industrial disputes can be summed up in the context of faulty communications. However, in a great many cases, there is an economic kernel to the problem. It is one that should be tackled by the Government outside the period of an industrial dispute. The time for Government action in this area is not when the fire has started but long before the fire engine leaves the station. The Government should be on the job of seeing that harmonious relations exist between certain sections of the community, though the Government may labour under the impression that it is a tough proposition and something that it is impossible to achieve. I suggest that the Government would gain more respect by being seen to be anxious about the possibility of bringing some sanity into the relations between different elements in our community.
Government spokesmen can be very deliberate, authoritative and severe in the middle of a dispute in saying that the rule of law must obtain. It is a different situation that the rule of law can solely solve. If public interest and justice are to be safeguarded in an open struggle between employer and employee steps should be taken to ensure that that situation will be achieved. Therefore, this Government cannot take refuge behind NIEC reports and cannot suggest that the responsibility lies elsewhere.
The Government are the chief agency for seeing that we have a proper order in the economic relations between different elements in our community. Under this heading, the Government stand condemned for their laziness in not seeking solutions and for their lack of interest. Either way, they stand condemned. I do not think there is a trade unionist who would refuse, tomorrow morning, to sit down to discuss in equal partnership, a decent incomes policy. None of us is committed to perpetual war with employers in order to look for the few increases we get which are, in fact, very quickly afterwards filched away in taxation by the Government. It should not be beyond the wit of man to work out incomes commensurate with our contribution in the community. This Budget ignores the problem completely in its lack of tackling of the matter of social policies.
One cannot expect the complete co-operation of elements who work for a living in our community if they cannot, on their present incomes, save for the morrow and provide to some extent for their old age through saving. One cannot expect complete co-operation from this element in our community unless a very active principle is seen to be at work in our Budget. The Budget is more than a mere book-keeping exercise. It is an important economic instrument of Government for the year ahead in the life of the nation. Surely, then there should be seen, in its social policy— which, this year, is lacking—an awareness of the responsibilities of Government? A good and just Budget should reflect the thinking of a Government with a real social conscience and there should be evidence that their taxation policies take cognisance of the principle of redistribution of income. That is another point which hinges on increased productivity.
Undoubtedly, in our country, wealth has a habit of remaining in the same sector of our society. We believe the social side of any Budget should reflect redistribution of income and that our taxation policies should be seen to transfer money from the over-wealthy to the under-privileged. Under our piecemeal social policy, money circulates among the rich while the poor become poorer. This is the result of borrowing bits and pieces of social welfare legislation from West-minister.
From first to last, we have not attempted to tackle the problem of getting a social policy which would be capable of dealing with the needs of our country. We have not attempted to explore the areas of poverty which exist in our country. We have not attempted to diagnose the areas in which such poverty occurs. We have not brought forward legislation suitable to cope with these problems as they exist in our country. It is understandable, therefore, that large pockets of poverty should exist in our country because we merely borrow our inspirations from Westminster, a Parliament that legislates for another country. When we borrow those inspirations we do not borrow to the extent of the full benefits being given by that Parliament. In the redundancy payments provisions introduced by the Minister for Labour, and referred to in this Budget, as covering all employees affected by redundancy in industrial employment, there are no provisions to give us what, in fact, our fellow-countrymen in the North of Ireland receive under the Westminster legislation in redundancy payments.
There is an awful lot of "bodhar Uí Laoghaire" going on.
There is. It is quite obvious that we cannot tackle the real problems—
Is that the only contribution the Parliamentary Secretary can make?
Let Deputy O'Leary finish.
I am grateful to Deputy Kyne. It is quite understandable why we cannot, apart from a lack of will possibly in this area, tackle the problem of social priorities which affects mainly large families of six, seven and eight children. We cannot tackle the poverty in our midst unless we conscientiously examine the situation and introduce legislation suited to our needs.
Progress reported; Committee to sit again.
The Dáil adjourned at 10.30 p.m. until 3 p.m. on Wednesday, 1st May, 1968.