I am going to talk now on a topic which is of interest to Deputy Corry and to myself.
Committee on Finance. - Vote 3 — Department of the Taoiseach (Resumed).
Debate resumed on the following motion:
That a sum not exceeding £56,200 be granted to defray the charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1969, for the Salaries and expenses of the Department of the Taoiseach.
—(The Taoiseach.)
I do not interfere with Deputy Dillon's business and let him steer clear of mine.
I am going to talk about affairs that are of concern to him and to me because we are both entering that category of humanity which could aptly be described as senior citizens. Much as I have crossed swords with Deputy Corry, I recognise his right to veneration and respect in this House as a Member who has been here for 40 distinguished years.
I want, Sir, again, to deplore the Taoiseach's absence — I assume for good reason — from this debate. Perhaps there is good reason for it but I do not understand it. However, he is not here. The Minister for Lands for the moment represents him.
I have tried to confine myself to questions of broad policy concerning the Government, but, as you will remember, a Leas-Cheann Comhairle, during the past 12 months the Government have been concerned, as every government are in every year, with certain adjustments in the social services. I want to submit to Dáil Éireann that we are all making a terrible mistake in that regard. We have got into the habit of believing, through, I think, want of though, that all social problems can be resolved by voting money and I think that is profoundly untrue in respect of a growing section of our community. I refer to the aged. I believe that in our community, as in every other community, the really grievous problem in regard to the aged is a dual problem — one, when they are no longer able to look after themselves, which involves the whole problem of their domicile and future happiness; and the other, when they are not physically incapacitated or even poor to the point of destitution. I now acknowledge the arrival of the Taoiseach on whose absence I animadverted.
I am glad to notice that you missed me.
I am speaking of the problem of old people. In dealing with the social services, all of us had, I thought, in some measure overlooked the fact that there were certain social problems that the provision of finance did not actively resolve and that notably in that connection arose the problem of the aged and that their problem was of a dual nature — one, old people were no longer able to look after themselves and needed care but, apart from them, there is another problem of old people who are not destitute and whose primary problem is not finance but the far greater burden of loneliness.
I remember recently I was troubled by a phenomenon I had noticed constantly during my life of middle-aged and elderly people suddenly appearing in the streets, notably in the cities, shouting and very often most incongruously shouting obscenities at nobody at all — striding through the streets, sometimes relatively respectably dressed, often in a state of considerable disarray, but having the common characteristic that they were shouting at nobody.
It often puzzled me what the basis of that syndrome was, what its ideology was. I asked a distinguished psychiatrist who happened to be a personal friend if that had ever come under his attention. I was greatly struck by the compassion with which he described to me his familiarity with that syndrome. I asked him what caused it. He said simply "loneliness". These are people very often not desperately poor — some of them are but some of them are relatively comfortable. They get to the stage where they are living in one room or in a flatlet in Dublin. They get so lonely that they begin to talk to themselves. Then gradually the figment grows in their minds that there is somebody in the room with them to whom they speak and from whom they get no reply. The next stage is that they suddenly burst out into the streets, shouting at all who pass. They are really suffering now from a form of mental instability born of the yearning for companionship.
On a point of order, Sir, might I point out to the Deputy that he is at present discussing the Taoiseach's Estimate and not something on the Adjournment? I say this to correct his false impression a while ago. I suggest he should learn a little more about the procedure of the House.
The beetgrowers proceeded well with you.
Deputy Corry is feeling lonely: Leave him alone.
There is no use dwelling on Deputy Corry's age because we are both approaching senior citizenship. I am talking about a problem which I think is guaranteed the sympathetic understanding of all sides of this House when it is expounded to them. I asked that psychiatrist if there was a ready remedy for that situation. He replied, "Yes. There is not any difficulty at all. If these people can be committed to psychiatric care, companionship and nothing else — simply to bring them into company where they can have somebody to chat with— relieves the whole problem and they can be returned to perfectly normal living, but with the virtual certainty that if they return to solitude, exactly the same syndrome will manifest itself."
That condition I have described is, of course, the extreme end condition of a problem I believe is borne patiently by hundreds of our fellow citizens of whom we here in Dáil Éireann know nothing. Strangely enough, I want to make the case on the Taoiseach's Estimate that this is not a matter I can with propriety draw the attention of the Minister for Social Welfare to, because I do not think there is anything the Minister can do about it. I do not believe it is susceptible to bureaucratic control or remedy. But I believe that a Government — whether it be the Taoiseach or a Minister to whom he designates the task, be it the Minister for Health or the Minister for Social Welfare or whomsoever he may consider the appropriate Minister — can find a solution.
I think the solution is this. There are a number of voluntary charitable bodies in the country, such as the Legion of Mary and the St. Vincent de Paul Society, and particularly a number of charitable voluntary associations the personnel of which are primarily young people anxious to be of some disinterested public service. If an appropriate Minister of State would act as a co-ordinator of these charitable institutions by meeting them once a year, discussing with them that kind of problem and saying to them: "How best can we co-ordinate these activities so as to ensure that those who are alone and lonely will be visited?" it would require no more than that. If there were individuals in similar circumstances, these people could call on them with a quarter of a pound of tea and ask could they have a cup of tea with them. They could brew a pot of tea, share a cup of tea with them and spend an hour or an hour and a half chatting and talking with them. They could visit them once a week or more often, if that were possible.
One has to be tactful in approaching this extremely delicate problem. I have myself visited the destitute poor in the casual ward of St. Kevin's. One of the great difficulties is that at that level you frequently find that an approach to the lonely and destitute is not received with much enthusiasm. You must be prepared to be received in certain cases with an extremely violent reaction in which your approach is characterised as an intrusion on their privacy. In fact, that may be a symptom of their desolation, but I want to emphasise that the solution of this problem is one calling for a high degree of tact and discretion and it is not susceptible to the ordinary processes of bureaucracy which are not adapted to meet this peculiar social problem which is present in our midst and which, with the present trend of extended life — in my own lifetime, life expectancy has grown by five years — threatens to become an ever-growing problem which all of us are only too prone to forget. I commend that matter to the Taoiseach. I believe it will receive sympathetic consideration from him.
There is also the problem of the destitute poor. In my experience, it is very largely a rural problem. Certainly, the solution I want to propose to it is the solution primarily adapted to rural conditions. I am appalled at the policy decisions taken by this Government to spend millions on the rehabilitation of what are euphemistically described as county hospitals but which we used to call workhouses. To take an old person from any town in Ireland, an old person who is living alone and who admittedly is no longer able to look after himself or herself, and bring them to the county hospital miles away is, to my mind, a tragedy. The ordinary picture in rural Ireland is that neighbours will go in and bring soup, clean up the house and so on until the day comes when the old person falls in the fire and it is manifest that they are no longer safe alone. Then there is the appalling tragedy of the arrival of the ambulance and the old person leaves and goes, perhaps 30 miles from home, and drops out of everybody's memory.
I remember an old friend whom I shall call Charles, although that was not his name, who used to be up every morning at 5.30 and was a hardworking man all his life. The time came when he could no longer work. Neighbours came round to clean the house and give him a meal. Then the day came when he fell in the fire and it was generally agreed in the locality that it was no longer safe for him to be alone. The ambulance came and he was removed to the county hospital. Five years later I was visiting that hospital and as I walked through the ward, an old man called me from a bed. It was Charles. I thought the man was dead and buried for three or four years. He had simply vanished completely and everybody had forgotten about him.
I do not know if many Deputies received a circular that I got recently from the Gift Houses Restoration Committee at Kinsale. That describes what is very widely known as rural Ireland, medieval charity. There is another in Castleblaney and another in Mitchelstown. They are scattered all over the country and are all medieval endowments designed for the provision of accommodation by way of cottages or sometimes flats for the parish. In Castleblaney, if such a person as I have described becomes helpless and unsafe alone, he can aspire to become elected to residence in the local charity and he has a room of his own. If it is a married couple, they may have two rooms. There is an endowment attached and they get about 12s 2d a week, in addition to the old age pension.
There is a lady almoner who lives there and those people are as happy as kings and queens because not only can they go down the town and visit neighbours and have a cup of tea with them but what is infinitely more precious is that they can invite a neighbour in and make tea for him. If they fall ill, the lady almoner is there and she will look after them or, better still, go to some more active person living in another room in the charity who will be delighted to have the opportunity of being of service to her neighbours.
Instead of spending millions building workhouses, we could create charities of that kind. I have no hesitation in using the word "charity"; it is the loveliest word in the language. If I ever had to go to the workhouse — I do not think I shall, as I have my pension— I would rather go to a charity in Ballaghaderreen than to the County Home in Roscommon even though it is very well run by the Sisters of Mercy who have devoted their lives to that extraordinarily difficult work. To be near home, to be near your neighbours——
It is a huge problem.
I am directing the attention of the Dáil to it. No problem is too huge for us to work at over the years, gradually whittling it down. I am asking that instead of committing ourselves to large capital expenditure on county homes, we should try to consider the alternative of keeping the old near their neighbours so that they can visit and be visited. These are two matters urgently needing sympathetic consideration. We could do something here in Dáil Éireann to remedy one of them by the provision of charities such as the Gift Houses in Kinsale.
In Dublin city we have many of these people but we have no room for them.
Come, Deputy, we have room for the old.
We have not, unfortunately. We have about 5,000 beds under the health authority but we have not enough room.
Can we not provide them?
Deputy Dillon is arguing that they should be at home and not in institutions.
I am sure Deputy Burke misunderstands when he says there is no room. I am sure he agrees that we can make room but the important thing is to try to keep them near their own town or village. I have no doubt I shall have the sympathetic understanding of Deputy Burke in urging on the Taoiseach that between us all we should turn our minds to the resolution of this problem which is a very real and growing one, not confined to any particular stratum of society because old age and loneliness are a menace which hangs over all of us, rich and poor, and very often the lonely rich are worse off than the lonely poor.
May I draw the Deputy's attention to the fact that under the allocation of time order, a Member of the Labour Party is to be called on at 4 o'clock?
I have one minute left I have spoken on certain matters relating to the universities to which I have directed the Taoiseach's attention. I want also to say to him that livestock is the basis of economic life in this country and the metamorphosis that has taken place in the face of rural Ireland in the past six months is a drama to behold. I cannot say all I would wish to say about the economic stability of the world in which we live but I commend to the Taoiseach's attention an article in last week's "United States World Review" by the Chairman of the SEC in which he joins his voice to mine and that of others in saying: I smell 1929 in the air and it would be well for every country in the world to watch and prepare their own domestic economic situation to meet any tornado that may come sweeping in.
I am very tempted to go a small bit of the road on the subject which Deputy Dillon was discussing five minutes ago, that is, in regard to the aged in the country. I have said here again and again that we may call ourselves a very Christian nation but the treatment of the aged by the young is something of which we cannot be very proud. There are far too many cases where men and women who rear big families, and experience great hardship in doing so, finish up in what is now called the county home.
Unfortunately I cannot agree with the solution suggested by Deputy Dillon as being one that is at all possible. The cost of running such institutions, of providing staff and medical care is so great that, as things are at the present time, I fail to see how it could be possible to introduce a system which would compare with the old charitable institutions which do cater for large numbers of these people.
A two-tiered system: a sick house and a better house together.
One looking after the other.
I studied this problem in a number of countries, and while it is possible to deal with the people who are able to do something for themselves and to make them very comfortable, even away from the environment in which they have been living, but living with people of their own age, it has not yet been found possible to deal with the people who are not so much ill as just old, becoming senile. I do not think what Deputy Dillon has suggested is the solution to it. Let me say just in passing that the problem of senility in the county homes is now becoming a big problem. While it is true, and it is a shame, that we have long waiting lists of people, not those who want to go to these homes but who have to go there from sheer necessity, many of them will ultimately finish up in mental homes because they are mentally deranged through senility.
Until we are prepared to allocate a reasonable amount of money to deal with this problem we just cannot do anything about it, and having regard to the priorities which this Government seem to have, this one would be pretty low on the list. This has taken me away from what I had intended to say.
I listened to the Taoiseach yesterday and when he was finished, I felt he had not said very much, that he did not seem to be very enthusiastic about what he had to say; in fact I wondered if he felt it was worth while saying it at all. Then I thought maybe it was a cockeyed view I had and that I was not doing him justice, until I took up one of this morning's papers and found that the Taoiseach's Estimate speech, which corresponds every year with what is known as the State of the Nation speech by the American President in which he runs the whole gamut, in which he highlights the good things and glosses over the bad things, and gives a fairly good account of what has been happening in the nation up to that part of the year, has been allocated less than a column in one of the morning papers. To show how little it appeared to count, I turned over another page and found that a photograph of the Taoiseach sucking a lollipop gets as much space.
I am not responsible for the editorial lay-out of the Irish Times.
There is nothing wrong with sucking a lollipop. We have all done it from time to time.
I was opening a factory employing 100 people.
As I say, there is nothing to be ashamed of in sucking a lollipop.
It was a choc ice.
He had better write to the Irish Times because the Irish Times refers to it as an iced lolly. I think there is a distinction between the two.
It was a choc ice I ate.
The point I am making is that this seems to bear out my conclusion that the Taoiseach's speech was a very uninspiring one. The Taoiseach is well known as an excellent orator who has the gift of putting things well if there is anything to put well, and it would appear from what I had listened to yesterday that there was nothing very much he could say.
The Taoiseach dealt briefly with the fact that devaluation has had a certain effect on the balance of payments, the import-export balance, and said we would appear to be buying more than we are selling abroad. Of course, if what we are buying is costing more and if we must export more for the same cash £ for £, this is only natural, but there is more than that in it. The Taoiseach should have admitted that the Free Trade Area Agreement with Britain, as Deputy Corish said here yesterday, is turning out, as time goes by, to be a worse and worse bargain. The fact that we got very little for agriculture and gave away a great deal in regard to industry seems to be having an effect. I challenge the Taoiseach to go to any shop in Dublin or Cork and ask for a shirt, a pair of socks, any kind of wearing apparel, and he will find that three British-made articles will be put on the counter before he will get one Irish-made article. The same thing will happen with shoes and other goods. People are getting into the habit of not worrying what is happening to Irish industry. It is no concern of theirs. Their job is to make a profit for themselves or for their employers. The Irish people are beginning to realise, apparently, that they can buy cheaper stuff sent in here from Britain; in some cases it may not be as cheap as the Irish-made article, but they will never try to find an article made here and consequently give employment. This is one example of the effects of the Free Trade Area Agreement with Britain. It is getting worse as time goes on, and the Taoiseach should have the matter reviewed before it goes too far.
The Taoiseach also said that our exports to the EEC countries were disappointing. I do not know whether anybody else has noticed it or not, but up till about six months ago, everybody on the Fianna Fáil Benches was saying: "Let us get into Europe as quickly as possible and everything else can be forgotten." The suggestion was nearly made that the farming community would not have to get up more than a few days a week, and that there would be money for the picking up for agricultural produce if we got into the EEC.
This has now become something of a bad word so far as the Government are concerned. They are not inclined to talk about it. As a matter of fact, when the Taoiseach was asked the other day if it was now likely that we would get in by 1970, I thought he was almost relieved to get away so handy when he said he did not think it was likely. He knows as well as I do that in Britain it is now being accepted that even if the bar to Britain's entry were removed, it would take about five years negotiations before Britain could become a member. If that applies to Britain, I am sure we are not blind enough to say that it does not apply to us as well.
As Deputy Corish said, we entered on a Free Trade Area Agreement with Britain, as the Taoiseach and the Minister said, for the purpose of preparing us for entry to the EEC. Now that it appears that the EEC is as far away as ever, and going further away, would the Taoiseach reconsider the whole matter? The Taoiseach was quite correct when he said there were mountains of butter in the EEC. Deputy Dillon commented on our whole economy being based on the cattle industry. If we have cattle, we must find something to do with the milk. Apparently all we can do with it is make butter, and cheese to a certain extent, and send it to markets where we sell it at a highly subsidised price.
This problem does not seem to be faced by the Government. They should start trying to sort that one out. We are encouraging people to go into the dairying industry, but it is becoming increasingly evident that in a relatively short time a serious crisis is likely to arise and it will be impossible to sell our butter on our traditional markets because it will be selling at a fraction of the price. There is no use in waiting until this is at our door. Now is the time to do something about it.
Reference was made to the fact that towards the end of last year we had a tremendous increase in our exports to Britain particularly. It is said that it is an ill wind that blows no one any good. There was foot and mouth disease in Britain as a result of which, or partly as a result of which, there was a huge demand for Irish cattle. We were able to sell many cattle to Britain and it was good that this was so, but the Taoiseach himself commented that our cattle population was down. We were also told that last year the pig population had dropped, and that this year it was up. The pig population should never have been allowed to drop. It seems ridiculous that the biggest obstacle to selling Irish bacon in Britain is not the quality but the fact that it has not been possible to guarantee supplies. We were talking about peat briquettes the other day and about the fact that when markets were found across the water, supplies could not be maintained. It is only natural that when people find that the Irish are not able to maintain the supplies they originally said they would supply, they find another supplier.
The Taoiseach referred to the increase in the population. He is an honest man but he suggested that one of the main reasons why the population seems to be increasing is that even though we have fairly hefty emigration to Britain, the number of people who are not now staying in Britain has increased, and that there are people coming back who if they were out of a job would normally go to Britain, and staying here because of the economic conditions there. I am quite sure that results in the number of extra people in the employment exchanges.
The Taoiseach says we are up 4,666 on last year's figure as of now. He makes the rather ridiculous suggestion that this increase is apparently due to the fact that persons on unemployment benefit can now draw that benefit for the full year instead of six months as was the case formerly. I am sure that, on reflection, the Taoiseach will realise that if they were not able to draw unemployment benefit for the full year, they would be drawing unemployment assistance, and would be on that register. People do not sign on the register and stay on it because they like it. They stay on it until they can get a job. There are some chronic unemployed who have been so long unemployed that they have become unemployable, but mainly the people who sign on are praying to God for the day when they will get a job and can go back to work and get away from the exchanges. The Taoiseach should not have made the statement that they are staying on because they get a few shillings on unemployment benefit more than on unemployment assistance. On reflection, I am sure he will agree he was wrong.
We hear talk about employment and unemployment. The Taoiseach went into a fair amount of detail. He talked about industries not coming in here. He referred to strikes discouraging people who might otherwise be inclined to set up industries here. I agree that industrial unrest is bound to create a situation in which people might not be too anxious to go into a country where strikes are endemic. I am sure the Taoiseach must agree that these strikes are caused mainly by the stupidity of those who are allegedly managing industries. I am sure he will agree from recent events that this matter must be cleared up.
We now have the Minister for Labour setting up a committee to investigate a strike which occurred in Bord na Móna. I suggested in this House when that strike started that something should be done to have the matter investigated and cleared up, and the Minister said it had nothing to do with him, that there was machinery to deal with it. Similarly, we have had other disputes, and investigations carried out for the purpose of finding out what caused them. We should try to find out what is creating the situation which will cause the next strike because, like the next war, it will come inevitably unless some effort is made to try to solve the problems which cause strikes again and again.
Negotiations take place for wages and improved working conditions. When they take place, the trade unions are usually able to deal reasonably with reasonable management. When management is reasonable, the trade unions are reasonable too. We have Ministers of State holding forth on every possible occasion about the necessity for good labour relations, the necessity for speedy negotiations and the necessity for employers to deal with these matters as quickly as possible; yet the State itself pays the worst wages in the country. It pays forestry workers, Land Commission workers, Board of Works employees, and anyone else at that level of employment, ridiculously low wages. When negotiations are opened with the State, it takes longer than anyone else to make an offer.
This year the local authorities on whose rates wages are normally based, offered an increase of £1 a week with effect from 1st April this year, with service pay of 5/- for five years, 10/-for ten years, 15/- for 15 years and 20/- for 20 years and over, and between three and five days holidays extra. The Office of Public Works and the Department of Lands sent for the trade unions and offered them 15/-flat.
On a wage of £9 1s.
On a wage of £8 15s.
Worse again.
When the matter was disputed, they said they would consider it and a month later when I put down a question in this House, an agreement was made that the employers' representatives would meet the unions again. This morning, knowing quite well that this debate was coming up, the Department of Lands sent for me and an official of another trade union and offered us £1. When we asked about the other matters, service pay and extra holidays, they said they had not had time to consider them. They had these demands before them since December of last year. These are the people who tell us we must show restraint and that the employers must, at all times, make arrangements so that reasonable offers will be made.
Nobody knows as well as those in the Department of Lands and in the Department of Finance that the matters which have been asked for—and which have been conceded generally— must eventually be conceded by them. Do Deputies know why this matter is not being dealt with now? It is not being dealt with in the way it should be dealt with because the Government Department feel that their employees —most of them what they term "unskilled labourers"—cannot, under the circumstances in which they work, go on strike because forests will continue to grow and the rivers these men are cleaning have been left there for hundreds of years without being cleaned and will remain that way. The Government are in for a rude awakening if they think they can carry that on much longer. That attitude has just got to stop. We cannot have industrial peace, we cannot offer to prospective employers coming in here any hope of industrial peace, so long as the Government themselves are responsible for causing so much unrest—and unrest they are causing.
We have had a discussion on education. Apart from the fact that the Minister for Education was this morning pretty anxious to score off anybody he could, particularly Labour Party, he seemed to be more inclined to deal with those who were or were not former members of the Party than he was to deal with his own Department. However, in passing, he did comment on a number of aspects of it. I should like to comment on a few more.
I think that Deputy Dillon was quite correct when he referred to the scandal of university students attending for lectures but no lecturer turns up. It may be said that only a small number of lecturers are concerned. Nevertheless, it is true that, in certain faculties, some of these people feel they are not answerable to anybody and that it is quite all right if a student gets up at 6.30 a.m. in order to be present at a lecture at 9.30 a.m. only to find that there is no lecturer, and not even an apology on that day and maybe the same on next day, too. That should be stopped. If the Government have not responsibility for it, they should take responsibility for it. After all, our first-year students, if they fail, have to sit it out until they succeed in getting their pass. It is most unfair that they should be treated in this way.
The Minister for Education referred to the wonderful improvements in educational facilities, particularly in past 12 months. Along with other people, I should like to refer to the late Deputy Donogh O'Malley who did make a great effort—I believe mainly because of his strength of character— to have certain things done with regard to education. Probably I was not amongst his most ardent admirers when he was alive but nobody, certainly not myself, will try to take credit from him and his efforts to improve educational facilities for the children of this country. It is to be noted, however, that the Government do not seem to be whole-heartedly in support of what he started.
Last week, I asked a question to find out how many untrained teachers there are in my constituency and where they are located. I was horrified to find that there are over 50 untrained teachers in primary schools there. Previously I had asked the number of schools in my constituency which are unfit for use. The number—between those unfit which could not be repaired and those unfit which could be repaired —is more than 50. I understand that the same is true in every constituency. Yet, this is the type of school in which, we are told, extra educational facilities are being provided.
It is ridiculous to start talking about what will be spent on education so long as we have the situation that we have neither the teachers to train the children in their early years nor the schools in which to put them. The size of classes is another problem which we all come across from time to time. While it may not be as bad in the country districts as it is in the city, nevertheless we have the scandal of one teacher trying to teach three or four classes in one room at one time in a country school. It is true that the classes may be small but it is a miracle that any of these children pick up the rudiments of education at all under these circumstances.
While the free transport for children has been a great boon to many of them there is the terrible problem of those who are just inside the three-mile limit and who, therefore, are not entitled to free transport. I have been in correspondence with the Minister for Education for the past three months about a little boy of six years of age who lives 100 yards to the west of neighbouring children who have only to walk a mile to a bus and get free transport to school. There is a school within two miles of this little boy and he is expected to walk, all on his own, that two miles to school while everybody else travels on the bus to the other school. All the children he is growing up with must go to one school while he must go to the other. I understand that examples of this kind can be instanced all over the place.
We also have the situation that the bus will bring children who were formerly brought to school by parents lucky enough to have a car—and who carried other children on the way— while the children who got the lift have to walk even though a half-empty bus passes by them. The Taoiseach may say this has nothing to do with the Estimate but it causes dissatisfaction and unrest and it is easy to deal with it, if the will is there. At least, let the Minister be human in dealing with these matters. Let him cut the red tape and deal with the matter as if he himself were directly affected by it.
We have had an awful lot of talk in this House about housing. According to the Minister for Local Government, if one needs a house all one has to do is to write to the local authority or to the Department of Local Government and a house goes up by magic. Over a number of years in my local authority area, for one reason or another, we failed to get any satisfaction from the Department of Local Government with regard to the building of houses. After the last local government elections, there was a change in the council there. The Fianna Fáil Party who, up to then, had controlled it, no longer controlled the council. Following this, it was possible to submit applications to the Department for permission to build quite a number of houses. The Department agreed that they could be built and tenders were sought. The tenders were submitted to the Department of Local Government.
After many months, the tenders were sanctioned. Then applications for permission to borrow from the Local Loans Fund were sent up but the Minister, being a very busy man, has not got around to dealing with them yet. Meanwhile, month after month after month, people are living in virtual hovels. We have over 300 people in County Meath alone who require the county council to house them. Yet, the Minister for Local Government says the housing problem is being dealt with and that nobody has any valid complaints about housing.
I do not propose to comment on what is happening in this city except to say that I am more than surprised when I see Deputies stand up here and brag about the fact that the housing situation is almost solved, that only a few thousand families require housing, that the figure of 10,000 homeless people is wrong and that it is only 5,000. This morning, one Deputy said that nobody in Dublin is homeless. He felt it did not matter if ten people had to live in one room so long as they were under cover. That was all right, they are not homeless. This is the attitude and the approach which we have to housing. As long as we have that approach, then we are still going to have complaints coming in to all of us, with all of us bringing them on to the floor of this House.
The question of building a new house or reconstructing a house has become a nightmare. It does not matter what anybody does because for the past four or five months the Department of Local Government do not seem to be terribly anxious to inspect or to pay on inspected houses. Responsibility for this must go straight back from the Minister to the Taoiseach because if the complaint is brought to him and if nothing is done about it, he must carry the can. For months we have had the time of this House being wasted by the Minister for Local Government who again and again repeated the same excuses he had for introducing the Bill to abolish PR. When I listened to him, it became obvious to me that he must wake up at night time, screaming in case a Coalition has got him because every time he was cornered, he went back to the Coalition as if they were going to do something to him. If he spent more time——
The inter-Party Government.
No; Coalition is the word he used. I want to give the poor fellow my full sympathy. Apparently he has this on the brain and he cannot give the time which he should to important matters in his Department. Planning was mentioned earlier today and somebody said that the appeals system stinks to high heaven. I do not know anything about that. A long time ago I stopped advising anybody to submit an appeal on houses to the Department. I felt after the experience of about 12 months of the handling of this particular section of the Planning Act that it was a complete waste of time. Therefore I am not in a position to comment on the situation at present.
We have heard a lot about social welfare in recent times and I do not intend to dwell too much on it except to say that it appears that the Department of Social Welfare feel that if they give what they call a percentage increase to old people, they are treating them fairly. How they can decide that if a married man gets a £1 a week increase plus £1 service pay, which makes £2 per week, and they give 7s to his counterpart on social welfare benefit, it is going to compensate him is something I cannot understand. We all know that when prices go up, they go up for the person on the fixed income just the same as they go up for the person who can have his income adjusted. The result is that unfortunate people on social welfare are being left behind.
Again and again it has been pointed out in this House that the percentage of the national income being spent on social welfare is dropping. I do not know why that is so. It is no excuse to say: "It is quite all right; we are giving these people an increase." I should like to point out that when the non-contributory old age pension was introduced in 1908, an old man who reached the age of 70 got 5s and when his wife reached 70, she got 5s as well, making 10s. The wages for a farm labourer at that time were 9s per week and when he reached 70, he had one shilling more than if he were working full time. Now the labourer's wage averages something around £10 per week and the most he can get from the non-contributory pension is £2 17s 6d for himself and if he is married he gets less than £5. If he is married and has had stamps all his life, he will get £5 7s 6d. We are supposed to be dealing with social welfare sections fairly but it does not take very much to see that that is not a fair way to deal with them.
In addition, there is this scandal of delays. The person who applies for a change from a non-contributory old age pension to a non-contributory widow's pension, or from a contributory widow's pension to a contributory old age pension, encounters delay because the pension book has to be returned to the office and months will pass during which the unfortunate concerned will not have a shilling unless he is able to get credit in the local shop. I have raised this matter before and so have other Deputies until we are sick and tired, but it does not matter. Apparently there is some system in the Department which prevents these matters from being dealt with quickly. On one occasion when the 5s increase was introduced—which was not given to all—the excuse given to me when I inquired why an old age pensioner who had sent in his book to have the 5s added only got it six months later, was that there were thousands of books all over the place and not enough staff to deal with them. However, there was enough staff to call them in and no doubt the people dealing with them got their fat cheques at the end of the month and they did not have to go hungry while something to which these people were entitled was not given to them.
We heard the Minister for Finance talking about children's allowances and about the investigation he was carrying out for the purpose of having the system of paying children's allowances altered. I wonder when he is likely to do something about this? We all know that there are those who do not need these allowances drawing them while those who do need them are getting a miserly sum. As I said on the Estimate for the Department, while I do not agree in principle with means tests, if a means test is the only way in which this can be dealt with, then something like it should be introduced to ensure that whatever children's allowances are being paid will be given to those who need them and not to those who do not need them. If an unfortunate old age pensioner has to undergo a means test, surely the person with £10,000 a year should have a similar test before he draws £3 or £4 a week in children's allowances. There must be something wrong with the system when this can happen and it will need the intervention of the Taoiseach before the matter can be dealt with.
The White Paper on the health scheme was mentioned here this morning and all sorts of arguments are going on whether or not our hospitals alone are being regionalised or whether the whole area is being regionalised, but all this is getting us further and further away from whether or not we will in the foreseeable future have a system of a choice of doctor or free medical attention or medicines without people having to take off their caps and beg for these services. The introduction of the medical card system, the general medical services register, as it is called, is only a substitute for the old red ticket. We have the unfortunate position that people who under the red ticket system were entitled to free medical treatment find that because they did not go through the routine of applying for a medical card, they are unable to get free treatment under the system which replaced it.
Whether we like it or not, we must face up to the fact that there are far too few facilities for medical attention at present. I shudder to think what happens the unfortunate person who has an accident or becomes seriously ill and goes through the routine of having medical attention without being able to follow it up. I know somebody who was discharged from hospital and who but for the intervention of those who were able to pull strings, would according to the surgeon who operated a week later have been dead in two days if the person had not got the attention which was needed. What happens to those who have no one to pull strings for them?
The whole system of medicine will have to be changed. We have literally thousands of dedicated doctors and nurses, thousands of people working day and night in order to deal as best they can with those who are ill. The whole system is wrong. We have people who become ill transported 30 and 40 miles for treatment, despite the fact that there is a hospital immediately adjacent to their homes. Because of red tape, they are prevented from using the nearest hospital. This happens in 1968 and it is certainly not improving the position of the sick in this country.
We must face up to a new health system, and that pretty quickly. It is not right that the Minister for Health should simply say he is having discussions about this, that and the other. Deputy O'Connell asked a question here about the discussions taking place with the Medical Association to find out if doctors will participate in a new scheme giving a choice of doctor. The replies he got from the Minister could hardly be termed courteous. The Minister may have his own views on this, but we have ourselves built up a new form of procedure in this House. I have been in the House since 1954 and it is only within recent years that this new procedure seems to have evolved. The procedure is that Ministers consider that, instead of giving the information for which they are asked by way of Parliamentary Question, they can give a smart answer. They will, in fact, be both insulting and arrogant, if they think they will get away with it.
Now that is wrong and the Taoiseach will have to do something about this because the blame will eventually be laid on his shoulders. If any Deputy, be he a Government supporter or anyone else, wants to ask a question and that question is allowed by the Chair, then the question is supposed to be answered by the Minister. Formerly, it was the practice of only the Minister for Transport and Power to say that he had no function in the matter; that has changed. We now have Ministers who say: "I will not give the information." This has happened on more than one occasion. I ask that that whole approach be changed completely.
Agriculture has been mentioned. We all know the kind of mess into which agriculture has got itself over the past few years. One Minister after the other seemed to have his own private war with farmers' organisations. I do not want to add fuel to fire, but it is quite clear to anyone, who wants to see, that the result of the beetgrowers' election recently is evidence enough that that body of farmers are well able to look after their own business. They have proved that, if they join together to make a decision, then that decision will be made. In view of what has happened, instead of entrenching themselves, as I believe the Minister and his Department are doing, in their old positions, I suggest that both the Minister and the NFA should now have a new approach to this whole matter. They are, after all, adults. The interests of the country are at stake. Agriculture, whether we like it or not, is our most important industry. I ask the Taoiseach to use his influence, now that there will be a breathing space, to try to ensure that this stupid cold war between the farmers' organisations and the Department of agriculture ceases. I think a cessation of hosilities, so to speak, can be brought about by reasonable discussion and I am quite sure the Taoiseach is the man who can mediate successfully, if he wishes to do so.
With regard to the Department of Lands, the old system of purchasing land and holding on to it indefinitely still operates. Two years ago a decision was made that all land must be distributed within two years. That decision has changed and we now have a situation in which land is held on to year after year and let year after year and, if anything, the position is worse than anything that prevailed under the landlords.
In conclusion, when the Taoiseach was addressing the House yesterday, he should have laid down the blueprint for the nation for the next 12 months. Instead of doing that, he dealt with simple matters, matters in relation to which he could claim a certain amount of credit. Sooner or later the Taoiseach will have to decide that three things must be done. First of all, we must have full employment and unless the Government make up their minds to have full employment we will not get out of the mess in which we have been for so many years now; secondly, we must make some attempt to try to control our finances so that money will be available for the important things; and thirdly, we must have our priorities right and, when spending money, the Government must ensure that the money is spent on the things on which it should be spent and not on some harebrained schemes which the Government feel will give them kudos for a short term.
I am in agreement with Deputy Tully when he says the Taoiseach availed of the opportunity yesterday to give us a set of statistics rather than a policy for the future and a headline which the country could copy. I want to take him up now on one figure he gave. It was the figure for the number of insurance cards, a figure on which he tried to prove there was actually more employment. I could produce statistics to prove that there has been less employment since the Government took office in 1957, but I will content myself with just one statistic. It is not up to date because we get the final figures a year late. I will quote from the volume Employment and Unemployment which is circulated to Deputies from time to time: the work force in 1957 was 1,207,000 persons and in 1966, which is the last year for which final and clear figures are available, the work force was 1,118,000, or a drop of 89,000. I am using this statistic deliberately.
Does the Deputy know what the work force means?
It means the persons who are working, whether they are self-employed or stamping insurance cards. The Taoiseach will have plenty of time——
I will not interrupt the Deputy again. I wanted to know if he knew what the work force meant.
Plus the unemployed.
Yes. The figure shows that there are 89,000 fewer in employment and the figure for unemployment is 5½ per cent of that work force which, by any European standards, is extremely high. The figure given to us in the Second Programme for Economic Expansion in regard to the necessary increase in productivity year by year to produce full employment in 1987 is an annual increase of eight per cent. During the 11 years from 1957 to 1968, this Government have never exceeded in their best year, remembering the fluctuations there were, an increase of 4½ per cent. This means that, no matter what way we look at it, we are falling behind and, if Fianna Fáil continue as they have been doing for the past 11 years, we will be faced with a future of unemployment and emigration.
I want to refer now to our efforts to increase industrial employment and industrial production. We accept that, as farms become more mechanised, a great many people will have to leave the land. These will have to be employed in industry. I have said before, and I was not contradicted, that the risk we run in encouraging new industries is that we seem to have a far greater number of failures than we should. We all agree there is a risk. We all agree that any developing country must take risks, but when we find that between £10 million and £20 million have been wasted on ventures that collapsed, it is all too obvious that the Government have not done their job, and it is no defence to say it was Foras Tionscal or some other body which was at fault, because the major failures occurred where grants or loans of over £250,000 were made, and, in that case, it was a Government decision and responsibility for the failure must rest with the Government. Collective responsibility for the high degree of failure rests with the Government. There is no point in numbering them out because we wish well to those who are staggering along and trying to rejuvenate themselves. Let the Government accept that that is true.
At the time when the Prices Stabilisation Order was in operation what happened was that when the cost of raw materials went up and it was obvious that there would have to be an increase in price, there was delay of six or nine months during which time certain companies in this country—I am glad to see that one is starting a new industry in my constituency—lost as much as £½ million, which does not encourage investors to come here and start new industries. In one case where there was control of price, the Minister for Industry and Commerce had to come in here for a Supplementary Estimate of £½ million for price increases that he had refused to give previously.
In all this effort to employ people existing industry has been entirely neglected. All that you could get by way of grant for existing industry was half of what one could get for a new industry. At the same time, existing industry which was supplying largely for the home market was paying income tax, corporation profits tax, rates and everything else whereas the new industries which were producing for export got huge grants—which I do not object to—and paid no income tax. It is highly questionable whether or not the accent on that side of the scales of justice was proper or right. The first point is that it has not employed our people and the second point is that there has been far too high a degree of failure.
Let us consider the housing position. The Minister for Local Government stands up and blithely says that we are building more houses now than ever before. Remember that at the end of the credit squeeze in 1957, when by a trick the Government succeeded in getting the inter-Party Government out of office, their manner of curing that credit squeeze was to reduce the number of houses being built from 10,000 per year to 4,000 per year. That figure was maintained as an average until 1963. That means that from 1958 to 1963 there was a backlog of 30,000 houses not built. That is the reason why Deputy Tully can advert to the fact that there are five and six people living in one room in his constituency and in mine. It is true that in the administrative areas of Drogheda and of the Louth County Council, in my constituency, there are pitiful cases of young married couples who cannot get a house. We are trying to do something about it now, I agree, but it is the backlog that was built up during their term of office from 1957 to the present day that is the cause of that position.
Let us also consider the fact mentioned here today that the percentage of Government spending on social welfare is dropping year by year. In 1958-59, 20.1 per cent of Government spending went to social welfare recipients. I do not want to bore the House with the details of every year since but in 1968-69 that figure has been reduced to 14.4 per cent. I want to point to the fact that when producing his own figures yesterday the Taoiseach included, as far as I can see from a scrutiny of the figures he gave, things like workmen's compensation which have been included now in the stamp for which the employer and employee are paying a very high premium. It is from these sources that it is coming— the employer and the employee—and not from the Government. At the same time, of course, they must cover themselves in the normal way against common law actions because the number of compensation cases that go through the courts as opposed to common law actions, as the Taoiseach knows very well, is not more than ten per cent because most industrial accidents result in common law actions and not in workmen's compensation cases.
We have been 11 year waiting for a comprehensive health scheme. I have read the circular sent out by the Irish Medical Association a fortnight ago. It tells us that the Irish Medical Association and the Irish Medical Union have again reached violent disagreement with the Minister for Health and that we are as near to a comprehensive health scheme now as we were 11 years ago, and that is not very near. The answer is the insurance system proposed by Fine Gael.
The beet growers' elections have shown the Government that neither their farming TDs not their Minister for Agriculture are acceptable to the farmers. Deputy Corry had a question here yesterday which is interesting and I will deal with it next. He was routed in his own area and he is the man regarded as the father of the Beet-growers' Association. The Taoiseach can take note that the farmers will have no dealings with his Minister for Agriculture. The action of putting a political Machiavelli into this office instead of someone who knew something about it was prompted by nothing more than a desire to crush the farmers' organisation and to see to it that Fianna Fáil would be the centre of power in this country. Their entire ideas are based on power.
The Irish Farmers' Journal is the main farming paper circulating in this country. Do not think that I hold anything for it in my heart. In fact, I have a letter in it this week disagreeing with their editorial of the previous week. It is the paper read by 90 per cent of farmers and has five times the circulation of any other farming paper. Because of a row with the Minister for Agriculture and because of disagreement, the Department of Agriculture no longer places advertisements with that paper. That means that the farmer who buys the Irish Farmers' Journal cannot see what he can get by way of grant or loan or what the Department's policy is and must buy the Irish Press or some other daily paper in order to consult the advertisements that help him to conduct his business. That is nothing but pure spite, malice and vindictiveness. It shows that Fianna Fáil believe that they have the power to rule and that nobody can take it from them. Let it be known to the House and to the people of the country that I have checked today deliberately, so that I could say it in this House if it were true, that from the time of the farmers' row, not one Department of Agriculture or Government advertisement has appeared in the Irish Farmers' Journal, the main farming paper. As I have said, I hold no brief for that paper and have a letter in it this week criticising the leading article of the previous week.
There was the infamous calf subsidy. Deputy Corry obliged us yesterday by asking a question as to how much it cost. Up to the present date it has cost £8,797,470. I now want to advert to a statement by the Minister for Agriculture a few months ago when he came back from the British Minister for Agriculture with his tail between his legs because he could not get any extra subsidy on beef above the quota of 25,000 tons of Irish beef included in the Anglo-Irish Free Trade Area Agreement. His statement was that there were 200,000 less cattle to export this year than last year. I listened to the Taoiseach's statement last week that there are less cattle in the country. Three years ago we proposed a heifer subsidy whereby every heifer would get a smaller amount of money but just because we proposed that sound and detailed scheme, Fianna Fáil had to do something different. The first year they included a figure of £350,000 in their Book of Estimates for their heifer scheme and so wrong were they when the entrepreneurs jumped in and got their 100 heifers and £1,500 and got out, that they had to introduce a Supplementary Estimate in the same year for £1,900,000.
Let us face it then, there is no solace for the farmers from Fianna Fáil. There is no means, no policy, that can substitute for the long-term Fine Gael policy of consultation with the farmers on agricultural credit and agricultural investment and the building up of production on the farm along the right lines at the same time as you build up your marketing arrangements. That has been Fine Gael policy for many years and all we want is the opportunity to get in.
The Taoiseach devoted much time to education. He adverted to the school buses and the devil-knows-what. I want to advert now to three matters. First, the technological colleges all over this country, which were to educate our boys and girls for industry after two years in the ordinary technical schools, have not yet been built. It is years ago since we were discussing at Louth County Council the site for the technological college for Louth, Monaghan and Cavan.
Four contracts have been signed.
It is not before time. Second, no matter what the Taoiseach says and no matter what gimmicks he produces, after 11 years of continuous Fianna Fáil Government and most of the time since 1933, the school-leaving age is still at the miserable figure of 14 years. In rural Ireland, most children are being taught by unqualified teachers because there are not sufficient qualified teachers. The Taoiseach regarded it as a great step forward that we had the same number of pupils but had 1,000 more primary teachers. You have been in office most of the time since 1933 and most of the boys and girls in rural Ireland are still being taught by unqualified teachers. That is another reason why you should be out.
The vital business of this session of the 18th Dáil has been the Fourth and Third Amendment of the Constitution Bills. The Fourth Amendment is to remove proportional representation— the people's right is the phrase to use for that. The Third Amendment is to allow Fianna Fáil to make three votes in one place the equal of one somewhere else. I do not think anybody is innocent enough to believe that this is being done for the good of the people. Everybody will agree that it is being done for the good of the Fianna Fáil Party and nothing else.
Deputy Donegan will appreciate that we had a long and exhaustive debate on this question in the Dáil and I cannot see how we can have a repetition, unless he wishes to mention some particular point?
I just wish to advert to certain voting trends in the country and draw my conclusions from them. I shall endeavour to keep my remarks in order. In the last six by-elections, certain trends were evident. In the cities, Labour made spectacular gains. Fine Gael held their ground in the cities and increased it spectacularly in the rural areas. Percentage-wise Fianna Fáil lost votes in every one of them. Those trends are there, but before they were established in the local elections last year certain studies were made—I am not claiming Fine Gael are going to get a fantastic increase—by two well-known economists: Senator Dooge of Cork and Senator Garret FitzGerald, both Fine Gael men. I have no doubt that Fianna Fáil and Labour made their studies, too, but I am presenting the result of our studies, whether it bodes ill or well.
If the next Dáil contains 145 seats instead of 144, the results would be as follows: Fianna Fáil, 65 seats; Fine Gael, 55; Labour, 25 seats. I now want to advert to the state of the 18th Dáil. At present the Government have 75 seats. One of them is your own, Sir. You have come to occupy the office of Ceann Comhairle. That leaves an ordinary voting strength, except in the event of a draw, of 74 for Fianna Fáil. Three of those seats are seats won in by-elections which under PR could never be won again by the Government. For instance, they could never hope to have a second seat in Waterford or in some other place where they had their maximum number. This means that, if one takes away your luck, the figure in the 18th Dáil would be 71 seats.
If we then take into account the trend in the by-elections away from the Government, a good increase for Labour in the cities, Fine Gael holding their own in the cities and increasing spectacularly in the country areas, there is no doubt at all that in the 19th Dáil Fianna Fáil will not have an overall majority. I want everyone in the country to know that this is an inescapable fact. Unless the Government can wave a magic wand and reverse the trend in some way their position will go from bad to worse. The Referendum will be defeated and the next election will be held under PR. In that situation we are going to have something of the order of a majority of 80 seats against the present Government.
Nothing sickens me more than all this talk about coalitions and loss of integrity. Fine Gael distinguished itself in two inter-Party Governments, and I use that word deliberately. From 1948 to 1951, 1,000 people were put to work for every month of 36 months. Fianna Fáil before they went out of office had removed the food subsidies, but never forget that the inter-Party Government restored £9 million of food subsidies in their first six weeks of office. That is a record of integrity worth repeating.
The inter-Party Government were removed from office by the "spoiled five of Irish politics", the five defectors. We all know that the day of the Independent in Irish politics is gone. The position now is that the Parties are so well organised in every constituency that possibly one Independent might be returned at the next election. As we will have a Dáil composed of Party members, if there was a Party supported by a majority of the Dáil or if an inter-Party Government were sitting, they could not be got out. Let us consider those five Independents. Some of them, God rest them, are now gone to their reward. A while ago I adverted to one of them—he is still living—and said that his reward was that he was made chairman of the Hospitals Commission at £1,000 a year. I want to apologise to you, Sir, for making a slight error. I understand the figure is £2,000.
The second inter-Party Government was brought down by the defection of Clann na Poblachta, a small Party. I want to ask the people outside and the skilled politicians here: is it likely we are going to have any more small Parties here? If the Fine Gael Party is organised in every constituency as it never was before, if Fianna Fáil and Labour are similarly organised, is it possible that there is an opening for small Parties such as Clann na Poblachta?
I am suggesting that, if there is a majority against the Government after the next election, as there surely will be, whatever Government will follow will not be Fianna Fáil. I want to suggest to the 18th Dáil, which I hope is largely the same people as will be in the 19th Dáil, that the Fine Gael policy for a Just Society is the only policy that can possibly succeed where Fianna Fáil have failed. I want to show the difference between Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil. The difference is that they exist for power and we exist for policy.
That man's father, the late Mr. W. T. Cosgrave, God rest him, is the proof of that. He did not seek to get back into power when the people indicated they wanted somebody else. He retired in decency. When we came to bury this man we know how many people thought so much about him. He had the biggest funeral ever seen in this city and country. His son does not seek power, but his son will work for a policy. One thing will happen Deo volente after the next election, and that is that Deputy Cosgrave will be proposed as Taoiseach and will be proposed on the basis of this policy, the policy of a Just Society. As regards industry, we are a private enterprise Party and we will encourage and help private enterprise in every possible way, but when private enterprise has failed to give us the full employment that Fianna Fáil could not give us and which, judging by all the trends, they cannot give us by 1980, we shall, horse, foot and artillery, by any means in our power, see to it that we have full employment and that our gross national product is increased by the necessary eight per cent per year in order to achieve that target.
I use the phrase "horse, foot and artillery" deliberately. At the same time, I want to assure businessmen that Fine Gael has its feet on the ground and that its policy will be stable and will allow them to get their chance, as Fianna Fáil did not allow them an equal chance with foreign industrialists coming in here, to defend their jobs in the case of 75 per cent of our industries which will be wide open to competition under the Anglo-Irish Free Trade Area Agreement in 1975.
It is highly important that we should discuss this: there is no great need in this country for a father figure at 84 years of age sitting in the Élysée Palace who sacks a 38-year-old man and puts in a 61-year-old man because the 38-year-old man does not believe in the full co-operation of labour in management and industry. We are not a nation of monopolists, not a nation in which we have a great number of monopolies or cartels. We are a nation—thanks to Deputy Dillon's forbears—of farmers who own their own land and are proud of that, and they now, as proprietors, can work their lands and get profit for their families, and of shopkeepers who are not getting too much profit—in many cases, getting too little—and of industrialists who are not getting too much profit but in many cases too little, and are not organised in cartels or monopolies. There is no need for any kind of nineteenth century socialism or for the kind of thing we see in continental countries. We are a country of people who, apart from the unfortunate social welfare recipients, are more or less all in the same income bracket. Therefore it is impossible for us to make wild surges to the right or to the left.
May I advert to labour relations? I was proud of our Leader, Deputy Cosgrave, yesterday when he spent a full 30 minutes talking about labour relations. Let it be recorded here and now that the 42-point plan put up to the trade unions 18 months ago is rejected and that nothing has been done since. Labour relations, particularly with Government Departments, have assumed the appearance of catch-as-catch-can wrestling. The Fine Gael policy enunciated some years ago of contract service taken up by such firms as Aer Lingus, Guinness and many others is the only means by which we can have good labour relations. On that basis we can all go forward.
Fine Gael policy is this: we will work for the people of the country, not for power but for policy. We will work with anybody supporting us and we will do that on the basis that not one iota of integrity or policy was sacrificed in 1948 or in 1954 and there is no intention of sacrificing one iota of the integrity of our Leader or our Party in the 19th Dáil. One thing is certain and it is that on the figures — and the people should know — Fianna Fáil are out and most probably we are in.
I should like to begin by referring to Deputy Dillon's observations on my absence during the forenoon. I am sure the Deputy is aware that the office of Taoiseach is a fairly busy one and that there are many calls on his time, and that on no particular day can he devote his attention to only one particular topic. I was unfortunately called out of the Dáil this morning to attend to a number of matters, including consultations with some Ministers. It was not my deliberate intention to be absent from the Dáil during the debate. Certainly, it was not by my choice, although what capital or what point Deputy Dillon wants to make out of this I do not know. I am sure he realises the position as well as I do.
I am sorry that Deputy Donegan has gone because I am sure there are knees quaking in the Élysée Palace today after that speech which I think might as well have been delivered from a fence at the crossroads——
He has been called out to the phone.
I am not objecting: I am just expressing regret that he has gone. In introducing the debate yesterday, I said we had made very good recovery from the economic difficulties which beset us as well as every other country. I said, however, that we were not satisfied with the rate of progress we had achieved or with the number of new jobs we have created. Nevertheless, I highlighted the advance and the progress we had made and since then Opposition speakers seem to suggest that no progress whatever had been made in the past couple of years since the recession was overcome.
The rate of economic growth, the level of employment, the level of exports, are all generally regarded as firm and reliable indicators as to how the economy is going. The rate of economic growth which is estimated, as I said in my opening statement, at 4½ per cent this year is higher than the average rate between 1960 and 1965, and is, I think, one which would indicate progress. A big increase in employment is another. The remarkable increase in our exports, both agricultural and industrial, is another indication of the progress that has been made.
I agree that one of the main tasks in any economic development is to create new jobs in industry, not only to absorb those coming off the land but to absorb also the increasing population which we now happily enjoy. Another of the main tasks, even though we must admit the phenomenon of people leaving the land, is to ensure that as many as possible will live on the land, in reasonable comfort. The guidelines for full employment were, as the House is aware, set out by the NIEC Report on Full Employment a couple of years ago. It is the full attainment of that objective to which this Government are committed and which will be the mainspring of all our economic policies and plans for the future. It is within the framework of that NIEC Report that the Third Programme will be framed to highlight the policy changes which the Government envisaged and the action which will be necessary in order rapidly to advance towards the achievement of this national objective of full employment.
Deputy Donegan, in the course of his remarks made what appeared to me to be some disparaging references to our efforts to attract foreign industrialists. As I understood it, the policy of all Parties, as endorsed by the Leader and Deputy Sweetman in the Fine Gael Party, and to some extent initiated by the late Deputy Norton when he was Minister and Leader of the Labour Party, was, to the fullest possible extent consistent with our own concept of national progress, to encourage industrialists from abroad to come to this country. We encourage them not only because they bring in foreign capital, which is needed in any event, but also because they bring to us technological know-how in which we have been, and still are, deficient to a considerable degree. As well as that, they bring access to markets which they, as already well-established international industrialists, have and which would be difficult for us to attain without their presence.
This country is far from being the automatic choice for the location of industries for those from abroad who have the skills, the capital and the markets. Other countries have the same kind of inducements — in some cases, they claim better inducements— to attract these industrialists to particular locations. In order to attract industry, in order to attract people with investment, whether they are native or non-native, we must first be seen to be able to run our own affairs in a prudent and reasonable way. We must ensure that not only Government affairs but management and industrial affairs and trade union affairs are also run on proper lines.
First of all, we must ensure that if we have industrial disputes, they are settled in a reasonable and civilised way. If we cannot settle our disputes in that way and if we are going to have the reputation, as Deputy Cosgrave pointed out yesterday, of being the second highest country in Europe in the league of lost days through industrial disputes, then we will not succeed in attracting this type of industry. Furthermore, outbursts against industrialists, whether they be foreign or native, will not help to solve the kinds of problems we are trying to solve here.
I want to go back to one of the main points raised by Deputy Cosgrave when he spoke about consultation with industrialists. Deputy Cosgrave is obviously not aware of the kind of consultation that has been going on in recent years between the Government and the Minister immediately responsible, the Minister for Industry and Commerce, and industrialists. Exactly that type of consultation that he proposes now has been going on in a variety of ways. I should like to spell them out. For example, the Minister for Industry and Commerce has been in continual consultation with the Federation of Irish Industries. He has established a system of periodic meetings with them, of periodic meetings with representatives of different sectors of industry and also with the chairman of the adaptation councils. The Minister personally conducts these conferences, and a wide range of matters of mutual interest to the industrialists and to the Department are discussed.
As well as that, the Industrial Reorganisation Branch was set up about six years ago in the Department of Industry and Commerce and has regular contacts with industry. Representatives of the branch regularly visit factories, finding out what the problems of industry are and what suggestions industrialists have to make. They have been carrying out these visits in the past few months at the rate of about 50 or 60 per month. If that is not consultation, I do not know what is. As well as that, contacts with individual industrialists are made by the Branch and not only with individual industrialists but with the chairmen of the different adaptation councils.
The Branch is also responsible for conducting the annual reviews of industrial progress, and these afford further opportunities of making these contacts, of getting the views of industrialists, of hearing the problems with which they are confronted and seeing how best they can be solved mutually. Apart from these direct contacts by the Department itself, by the Minister, by his officers, there are the other agencies in the Department. The Industrial Development Authority, Córas Tráchtála, the Institute for Industrial Research and Standards, all have regular contacts, regular seminars and regular meetings. In addition, as the House is aware, the industrialists are represented on the National Industrial Economic Council where their views on behalf of industry are expressed, and I might say very well expressed, and conveyed in regular reports from them to the Government.
Therefore, far from there being no consultation with industry, as Deputy Cosgrave seems to suggest, there has been no complaint on that aspect, that there has not been adequate opportunity for consultation; indeed the complaint might well be that executives in the various companies have much of their time, too much maybe, according to some of them, taken up by these consultations.
Speaking of consultation with industry, we are anxious to establish and to keep established proper consultation with the farming community. Four years ago, the then Taoiseach pointed out that it was difficult for the Government to have the degree of regular and close consultation with the farming community they desired because of the existence of different farming organisations, many of which did not appear to see eye to eye. Indeed, it was difficult to achieve that degree of close co-operation with farming interests as long as that situation persisted. Unfortunately, at the time, the organisations did not respond to the appeal made by the Taoiseach and the disunity between the different organisations persisted.
For the next two and a half years, as the House is aware, there were innumerable and separate contacts between the then Minister for Agriculture and the different farming organisations. In that period, he or his Department had no less than 150 meetings with the organisation that claimed ultimately they were being ignored. This was the situation that the present Minister for Agriculture faced when he came into office at the end of 1966. Therefore, early in 1967 he proposed the setting up of a National Agricultural Council. Let me say at the outset that this was welcomed on all sides at the time. When it was set up, it was stated that it was not an inflexible organisation, that all farming interests would be welcome to serve on it and that the members themselves within their council would determine what form it would take and how it would operate.
Although the council, through no fault of the Minister, did not include representatives from the NFA, it did extremely useful work since its setting up. It can take credit for promoting the introduction of many useful schemes for the benefit of farmers. These range from the derating of agricultural land up to £20 valuation to the establishment of the small farms incentive bonus scheme. That scheme, as the House is aware, was first recommended in a certain form by a committee set up by the Minister to investigate the suggestion of a two-tier price for milk. They came up with the suggestion of this incentive bonus scheme. It was examined and processed by the National Agricultural Council, and happily it is now in existence.
The Minister for Agriculture has recently stated in the House in reply to a question on this very subject that all aspects of the constitution of the National Agricultural Council are receiving consideration and that a statement would not be appropriate at that stage. I should like to repeat what the Minister said on several occasions, that he personally has no quarrel with farmers as such. The Minister is not in dispute with farmers or with any organisation. He is prepared to meet and deal with a council representing the major organisations, if such a council is formed by them. What is needed now is a dialogue between the farming organisations themselves to see if they can establish a council that will serve all farmers and ensure that no one farming organisation can arrogate to itself the function of speaking on behalf of all farmers. I want to repeat again that this Council was set up to be a flexible one in which the members themselves could determine its form and function, and that is still the case.
I was surprised to hear Deputy Cosgrave comparing Government expenditure on education in the current year with that in 1930-31. He made the point that the proportion of State expenditure devoted to education in 1930-31 as against the present time was 22 per cent compared with 14 per cent. He failed to make the point that currently expenditure now stands at £49 million, and is no less than 11 times as great as it was in 1931 in absolute terms. Deputy Cosgrave did not make another comparison which he might lawfully have made between 1930-31 and the current financial year, that is, a comparison between the amount of money allocated to agriculture which has increased no less than 55 times. If any Deputy wants to check that, he can look it up in the Book of Estimates.
I was also surprised to hear Deputy Cosgrave speaking about education because, as he knows, the record of the Government of which he was a member in 1956-57, in their desire to improve our educational facilities, was that when they were seeking a retrenchment in the economy, they turned first to education and cut the grant payable to vocational schools by six per cent, and the grant payable to secondary schools by ten per cent. Is it any wonder that we regard the announcement by Fine Gael of plans for education with a great deal of suspicion?
Deputy Cosgrave spoke at great length on industrial relations, as Deputy Donegan just mentioned. As I said already, unless we can settle our industrial problems and industrial disputes in an orderly and civilised way, we will have great difficulty in attracting industry from abroad, or in inducing our own people who have investments to make anywhere, to invest in this country. Unless we can do that, we will stand condemned not only before people abroad, but before our own people, people for whom we are anxious to procure new employment. Industrialists are certainly not likely to invest in our industries if they are to be characterised by people who ought to know better as hooded crows and international ghouls. I do not think that that kind of outburst coming from the man who made it recently, or any responsible person, will serve the cause of increasing industrial employment. Neither will the wanton destruction of property which was associated with at least one dispute in recent times.
I agree with Deputy Cosgrave that the old barriers which existed between workers and employers should be broken down. The old days when the workers were regarded as only another chattel in the stock in trade of industrialists will have to go. It is not enough nowadays to employ a personnel officer and entrust all personal relations to him. The personnel officer must be trained and, if the organisation is big enough, he must have a properly trained staff. He must not only ensure that as they arise the grievances of the workers are properly investigated and eliminated where possible, but he must also seek out different areas where grievances are likely to arise. He must not be only a buffer between management and workers but must take the part of the workers when he sees it to be his duty and he must bring up problems, if they do not raise them themselves, before the management. That is the role I see for a personnel officer in our modern industries and our economic set-up.
Much has been said about industrial democracy by people who do not know much about what it means. It is something which the Government are anxious to examine, and if we can ensure that if we introduce it, it will be to the better advantage of our industiral expansion, we will do so. The Irish Congress of Trade Unions have recently made an examination of it and, if they have not published a report, they have certain views to disclose on it. Some time ago the Minister for Labour asked the Federated Union of Employers to examine this question and make their comments to him. These, and many other problems, are some of the items which are engaging at present the active and continuous attention of the Minister for Labour.
Deputy Corish said glibly the other day that the Minister for Labour saw his task as one of introducing legislation only. I am very glad that a Fianna Fáil Minister for Labour introduced the type of legislation for which he was responsible recently. I am happy that he introduced legislation which provided for retraining and resettlement grants, for the setting up of An Chomhairle Oiliúna, and also legislation providing for redundancy payments for workers who, through no fault of their own, find themselves out of employment. This is an important aspect of his work but, as Deputy Corish knows well, it is not all he is doing.
Does Deputy Corish forget the part the Minister played in resolving the recent EI dispute, a dispute which apparently the trade union leaders themselves were unable to resolve? After the failure of the trade union leaders, the Minister for Labour got back into the picture himself, and not only by himself but through his officials, and fortunately a happy settlement in that situation has been brought about. Similarly in the recent ESB strike, it was the personal intervention of the Minister for Labour which resolved the breakdown of communications between the trade unions and the trade union leaders themselves.
Deputy Donegan mentioned a few minutes ago that they have some plan for the betterment of industrial relations. We should all like to have improved wages and conditions of employment without the destruction, without the disturbance and hardship, which usually follow in the wake of strikes. To accept the freedom which we believe should exist, that is, freedom in negotiations between workers and employers, is to accept the inherent risk that this freedom may well lead to strikes, or to a degree of inflation, or even both. If Deputy Cosgrave or Deputy Corish has a different policy, I should like to hear it. I should like to see how that different policy could be proved to be better than the one which now exists, of free negotiation. If they have a different method, it could well have worse faults, but, as I see it, we are prepared to have the faults and the merits of the system we now have examined, to eliminate the faults and enhance the merits where possible.
Whatever system emerges our policy, like that of anyone else, is to ensure that conditions of employment, or wages and working conditions, will be improved, consistent with the improvement generally in our economy. There is no point in Labour Deputies who are in trade unions defending their own side when, in defending their own side, they disregard the consequences of that defence or close their minds to any change that is necessary. They can talk about a breakdown in the relationship between workers and management, but there is one aspect of communications and relationships which I should like to put to the trade unions, that is, the continuous breakdown of relationships and communications between the workers and the trade union officials themselves. In strike after strike, what is happening nowadays is that it is an unofficial strike. An unofficial strike obviously means one that is effected, first of all, without the knowledge, and secondly, without the approval, of the trade union leaders.
I believe there is an onus on the trade union leaders in particular to ensure that the system of communications between themselves and the people they represent is properly established and maintained, and to ensure, as far as possible, without merely decrying unofficial strikes, that, within their ranks, they will eliminate whatever imperfections there are that may cause unofficial strikes.
I said at the outset of these few remarks that our main task is to increase employment. I agree with Deputy Corish in the point he made in that respect. In the review of the National Industrial Economic Council of our industrial potential generally, they estimated, in their Report on Full Employment, that it would be necessary for us, in order to achieve full employment by 1980, to increase our industrial output one-and-a-half times in the intervening period. That, possibly, is an understatement. Even if it is an understatement, it will be difficult for us to achieve it but I believe it is within our capacity. I believe the plans we are now putting into effect will achieve what we seek in this respect.
As the House is aware, we announced a year ago that the whole concept of industrial development inducements, aids and assistance was to be reviewed by the Minister for Industry and Commerce. Since then, there have been further announcements — the establishment of the Small Industries Scheme, the availability of the re-equipment and modernisation grants to replace the old adaptation grants that were of limited duration only and, as well, the plan for regional re-organisation for industrial development. The plan for the re-organisation of the Shannon, Limerick, Clare and North Tipperary region has been started. The committee embraces the Shannon Free Airport Development Company and, in addition, represents the county councils of these areas and the development councils. If this is not the type of consultation Deputy Cosgrave suggests, I do not know what is.
All of these things are being done and at a considerably increasing rate. Our aim is to ensure that the facilities to assist industry are expanded as a matter of urgency, that procedures for dealing with grant applications are simplified, improved and as streamlined as we can possibly make them and that the range of incentives which this country has to offer to our own or to incoming industrialists will be at least as attractive as that in any part of the world.
In the light of the reports of the Committee on Industrial Organisation and its resolve to encourage existing industry to do everything possible to adapt itself to free trade conditions, the Government, through that scheme of adaptation grants and the modernisation and improvement grants, have succeeded in bringing about an upsurge of capital investment in new plant and machinery which I think everybody will agree is the basic need for the expansion of employment. As well as that, the Minister for Industry and Commerce announced the other day new proposals he has in mind for the improvement of our industrial grants system. He announced the re-organisation of the Industrial Development Authority and other measures. Many of these measures are already in existence. Their implementation is now under way, even though, in some cases, the necessary legislation is not passed, but the Minister will be introducing, in the coming session, the legislation necessary to cover what is being done now and to cover what it is not possible to do without that legislation.
Furthermore, in last year's Budget, the Minister for Finance introduced a system of free depreciation allowance on plant and machinery in western areas: in other words, he left it to industrialists themselves to decide when they would choose to take advantage of the tax allowances which free depreciation gives them. In the rest of the country, he increased last year from 40 per cent to 50 per cent the initial allowances on depreciation of machinery. This year, he has increased it to 60 per cent but this 60 per cent rate will operate only up to the period ending 31st March, 1971. That is to ensure that the necessary degree of expedition will attend the efforts of our industrialists.
A number of Deputies mentioned social welfare in the course of the debate — the deficiencies of social welfare and the things that ought to be done. I do not propose to go into it in any detail now because it is only a little over a week since the Estimate for the Department of Social Welfare was discussed in this House. However, as I announced last year, I charged the Minister for Social Welfare to undertake a complete review of our social welfare system. I do not know if he told it to the House last week but I can now say that not only has that review been under way but that the recommendations, as a result of that review, are now before the Government. I think we can reasonably expect that we can implement some of the recommendations in the near future. Let me say, however, that it is one thing to make a review but another thing to introduce legislation to cover the details of that review. The important thing is to ensure that we generate sufficient economic activity whereby we can pay for these services which we know our people so badly need. Nobody owes us a living from any part of the world. Unless we create it for ourselves, unless we create conditions whereby we can help the weaker sections of the community out of our earnings, we cannot have the sort of social services everybody desires.
Housing was mentioned on a number of occasions during the course of the debate. I should like to refer to some of the criticisms. I welcome criticism so long as it is constructive. Many people in this House make criticisms and I readily admit they are entitled to do so. However, many people outside this House have been criticising our housing progress for their own ends which are not always wholesome ones.
From 1959-60 up to the present time, we have expended more than £300 million on housing in this country. That is three times more than was spent in any ten-year period since 1930. People can say, as was said yesterday, that the value of money has decreased considerably but nobody will tell me that the value of money now, as compared with some few years ago, has depreciated by three times. Out of that £300 million, the Government provided £164 million in direct subvention of houses, the rest coming from private sources — building societies, insurance companies and others. Let me take 1959 as an example. In that year, the total expenditure on housing was £12.7 million, of which the State provided £7.88 million or almost £8 million. This year, the total will be £52 million, of which the State will provide £28.8 million or almost £29 million.
Time and time again, we hear about the empty houses that existed in 1956-57. I was a member of a local authority in 1956 and in the early part of 1957. At that time, as a member of a local authority, in company with other members, I was refused a loan for necessary housing in Cork by the Munster and Leinster Bank. At that time, as everybody knows, there was a slump in housing. Housing dropped off. No new building commenced in that year or in the following year and the industry began to recover only the year after that again. The result was that of the 10,000 houses or so built about that time, there was a gradual reduction because it takes a cycle of about three years for the houses planned now to come out of the pipeline in three years' time. There was a fall-off by reason of the fact that money was not available and only 6,300 were built in 1959-60. There was a slow recovery but it was well-advanced by 1964. Then the Government announced that in the next six years up to 1970, they aimed to build between 12,000 and 14,000 a year. We have made that recovery and last year about 12,000 houses were built and this year there will be no less than 13,000 houses built. Therefore, we are back on target again and we hope, and I am confident, that the target of 14,000 houses per year by 1970 will be reached.
I should like now to deal with remarks made by Deputy O'Leary yesterday. He made what I regard as a cynical speech, a rather cynical approach to our problems generally. Deputy O'Leary is a young, able and versatile Deputy but I do not think that the type of tactics he used yesterday in sneering at his opponents will get him or his Party very far. For example, he sneered at my visits to the capitals of the Common Market countries. I do not like to conduct this or any other debate in this House on a personal basis, but he said that he wondered whether I had discussed with the heads of Government of the Common Market countries hurling "or some other subject dear to my heart," and he tried to belittle these efforts and to suggest that because I have an attachment to a particular game, I can exclude everything else from my mind. I want to assure the Deputy that when I went abroad, the subject dearest to my heart was the advancement of the Irish nation and our earliest possible accession to the European Economic Community. I am not going to refer any more to what he said, except to say that he ended his speech with an announcement of the publication of a new labour policy in about a fortnight. I do not mind Labour competition with Fine Gael over which Party can get out more policies in the shortest time but I would like to know if this policy——
Who is being cynical now?
This is general: I am not being cynical in a personal way. This policy will be out in a fortnight's time. I should like to know whether it is going to be an amplification of the policy announced recently at the Labour Party conference, that is, the socialist workers' republic, or a replacement of it. It will be particularly interesting to know how this policy will affect the coalition which has been advocated here today by Deputy Donegan.
Inter-Party.
Whatever you like.
There is a big difference.
In any event, you do not deny your advocacy of this inter-Party——
I said we would work with anybody's support for policy not for power.
Then could I put these questions to Deputy Donegan and his colleagues? If the Labour Party policy will be announced in a fortnight's time, will it include, as Deputy O'Leary said, the taking over of our banks and our other financial institutions? Will that be a basis for co-operation between Fine Gael and Labour?
The Taoiseach can read my speech.
If the policy, as we are told by the Deputy Chairman of the Labour Party, is not only the taking over of our financial institutions but of Guinness, Waterford Glass——
He was not the Vice-Chairman. It is all right for a back bencher——
Was he expelled, too?
He left you.
There will be 86 against you after the next election.
Deputy Donegan said that the second Coalition failed because a very small minority of Clann na Poblachta left them but this Labour speaker — I do not know whether I should call him the Deputy Chairman of the Labour Party — said that he would have no hesitation in cutting the ground from under the feet of his colleagues, so if he is going to be in the Cabinet you had better watch out.
(Interruptions.)
A year ago, when there was talk of a Coalition, I challenged the Parties opposite to come clean with the electorate — they have done it since to some extent — whether they were preparing for another coalition or not. There were signs that the manoeuvring and the throwing of kisses were going on at the time and more recently we have heard Deputy O'Higgins coming out bluntly with the suggestion — I understand it was with the approval of many of his Front Bench colleagues, and certainly with the knowledge of Deputy Cosgrave— and I do not know what reception it got from the Labour Party——
The Taoiseach should read the Irish Press; it gave my reply.
I saw that, but nevertheless I could ask how many of the Fine Gael Party are hungering for a coalition——
I speak only for the Labour Party.
——and how many of the Labour Party are equally hungry for it. It would be interesting to know, and it would also be interesting to know on what basis this coalition would be effective. Would it be on the basis of a policy of retrenchment of our capital programme which Deputy Sweetman foreshadowed a couple of weeks ago? Deputies will remember that when we announced our capital programme of £130 million, Deputy Sweetman said that it was too much and that we should cut back on something or other but he did not say on what.
Would it be on that basis or on the basis of the policies of the workers' socialist republic, or on the basis of Deputy Cosgrave's Ard-Fheis speech which Deputy Dillon has since characterised as the policy of Lord Lucan, of the Great Exterminator, or would it be on the basis of membership of the EEC which Fine Gael say they favour and which the Labour Party say they are against? It is going to be very interesting, but now is the time to clear the air in order to help the people make up their minds.
You do that.
Our policy has always been quite clear. That is the reason——
Self-preservation.
——we can continue to get the majority of the people with us. They are never in any doubt where Fianna Fáil are concerned.
(Interruptions.)
We represent the people as well as you and we are entitled on behalf of the people to find out what are the policies of our opponents.
Deputy Donegan told us that he worked it out that Fine Gael are going to have 55 seats and Labour 25 seats. He was very kind to them and gave them five seats extra in the next election. That is going to be a handy majority over Fianna Fáil's 65. The people are entitled to know what the policy is going to be between the two of you. If there is an election next year, please God, in the interests of the people, this will all be worked out; it will all be worked out what part Fine Gael will adopt and what part the Labour Party will adopt.
(Interruptions.)
Order. The Taoiseach.
I was told that at one stage of the debate yesterday some things were ruled out of order but, since then, many Deputies have been allowed a certain latitude.
We will let the Taoiseach have some latitude, with the permission of the Chair.
I think I can claim permission. I want to pick out one statement made by Deputy Dillon, not in the course of this debate but in an earlier debate. He said something to the effect that, if I had the strength of character I ought to have, I should ensure that the referendum proposals were dropped. That is a fairly strong statement coming from a man who himself has not got the strength of character to maintain what he believes in, to maintain his opposition to the proportional representation system as a fraud and a cod. He now says it is no longer a fraud but something that is going to protect the Labour Party. Deputy Dillon is very concerned about the Labour Party.
Neither the Taoiseach nor Deputy Dillon need be concerned about the Labour Party.
We have no problem at all. It is the Labour Party who have the problem. As I understand strength of character, it means that, if a person believes a thing is right, then it is his duty, and he accepts it as such, to ensure that he acts accordingly and not like a coward who, for the sake of expediency, runs away from what he believes to be right. That is what I believe strength of character is and it is because we believe that what we propose to the people in the referendum is right that we have vigorously pursued these proposals, without amendment, in this House. It is because we believe that, that every member of the Government and every member of our Party will fight hard and often to ensure that these proposals are, first, properly explained to the people and, secondly, adopted by the people. We believe these proposals are in the long-term interests of the people.
The Parties opposite claim that it is because we are anxious for power. Of course, we are anxious for power because, without power, we can do nothing to implement our policies. The Parties opposite do not seem to want power. At least one of them seems to be glad to sit it out, waiting for Labour to give them a piggyback into power. We are anxious for power in order to implement our policies. To the Parties opposite I say that we will fight not only the referendum but the next election every inch of the way in order to ensure that we will continue in office to implement our policies of economic advancement.
Deputies
Hear, hear.
If the Taoiseach could speak for all the fellows behind him, it would be all right for him to say that.
(Interruptions.)
Three boys there all ran against him for Taoiseach and all on his own Front Bench.
The Taoiseach.
I want to let Deputies off on their holidays as soon as I can. I suggest to Fine Gael — I do not think this is too much to ask them — that they should try to sort themselves out during the Recess and make up their minds what kind of Party they are, make up their minds what they stand for and what they stand against, and then tell the people whether they are serious about these coalition overtures. In the meantime we will continue to give the country good, solid government. We will continue to work relentlessly in the pursuit of our policies and, when the time comes — we have won six times out of seven in recent years — we will fight the Parties opposite and beat them, individually and collectively.
Vote put and agreed to.