This interim Budget, or moiety of the Budget, or whatever we might call it—we certainly cannot call it a "mini-Budget"—seems to me to be the proof, if proof were needed, of the sensible attitude taken by the Irish people only a few weeks ago when they refused, in no uncertain terms, to give this Government the mandate they sought to continue in office for an indefinite period of perhaps 20 or 25 years. Coming at this particular time of the year, this Budget proves beyond all doubt, if proof were needed, that the Fianna Fáil Government is incapable of leading this nation other than up the never-ending cul-de-sac to which we have become accustomed down the years. We seem to be in an economic and social rut out of which this Government do not seem capable of leading us. As evidence of that statement, one could go back over a long number of years but I do not propose to do that now. For instance, we could cast our thoughts back to 1965 and the occasion of the last general election, the one in which I became a Member of this House. I remember that, just before that election, we seemed to be going ahead very well as a country. Indeed, according to the words of the then Fianna Fáil Government, we were entering upon a long period of prosperity. No sooner was the general election over than all the economic ills, in precisely the same forms as now, reared their heads. The new Fianna Fáil Government took precisely the same steps as are now being taken to curb those economic ills. This seems to be an ever-recurring facet of life here down through the years.
From that period in 1965, practically to the present day, we have had stagnation. Those of us in public life had repeatedly to make the standard excuse to people who sought local authority services and, in fact, who sought services of any kind that financial measures were taken to correct the ills that were apparent in the economy with the result that no money was available for such schemes. The tragedy is that the corrective measures taken down through the years have tended to aggravate our basic ill which appears to me to be a lack of employment and a high rate of unemployment. Until the provision of more and more jobs becomes a priority over every other consideration, our social and economic ills will never be solved. We have, I believe, a small proportion of our people in productive employment—that is, in proportion to the numbers in our community—on whom the aged and the young depend. Until we increase that proportion, our economic ills will certainly never heal for any length of time and our social ills will not be cured at all. We have a relatively small work force with a wide disparity in the ranges of remuneration paid to that work force.
We have an unjust taxation system in so far as the emphasis is on indirect taxation and in so far as direct taxation weighs most heavily on the section of the community least able to bear it. Some of the items taxed may be considered luxury goods but the fact remains that they are goods which are essential to some members of our community. While 4d on the packet of cigarettes may be an insignificant increase to a highly paid worker, to a man on £8 or £10 a week it represents a very large slice of his income on this one commodity alone.
About three years ago we talked about a minimum living wage. Surely with this never-ending spiral of taxation, taxation which, as I say, weighs most heavily on the poorer section of the community, the time has definitely come to introduce a minimum living wage? However, I believe that all these ills to which I have referred, and many others to which in the course of the next few minutes I shall also refer, cannot be eradicated until we increase the number of people in productive employment and the number of people who will be able to contribute to the revenue of the country.
The wholesale tax has been represented as not weighing on essential goods such as food and clothing. However, it will have the effect of slowing down our economy, of slowing down housebuilding and very many other activities. The increase in postal charges will have a similar effect. The result of all this will be further stagnation and a further retraction in the number of our people in employment.
Hardships have been imposed and hardships continue to be imposed, but they are not solving anything. The basic problems remain, and this Budget, in spite of what Deputy Burke says, far from solving them, will only aggravate them. Deputy Burke stated we have spent more money on water supply and sewerage schemes and other such local authority services in the past two or three years than we have ever done before. That is a wild statement. My recollection of the last few years is that we never had a longer list of schemes waiting for sanction, waiting for money and waiting for the go-ahead from the Department of Local Government. The people's needs are not being met in regard to housing, water supplies and sewerage schemes. Arrears are being built up year after year and it would appear to me that the present policy of the Government will not solve them within the foreseeable future.
We have basic problems in regard to agriculture and in regard to land drainage. People are facing a situation where more and more acres of their arable land are becoming incapable of being cultivated and are being lost to the economy. Large sums of money are required and I cannot see this Government being able to provide the necessary finance. Therefore, I can see this problem being aggravated to the point where it will be a very major one indeed. Large tracts of arable land are being lost to us, a tremendous source of wealth which is not being explored and does not look like being explored in the foreseeable future. Similarly large sums of money are required to arrest coastal erosion which is a very serious problem, because such land could be lost to us forever.
Then there is the big problem of agriculture itself. I do not intend to go into it in detail on this motion. Suffice it to say that we should be gearing this industry to the future; otherwise we shall find ourselves facing serious problems which could well have been avoided if the appropriate measures were taken in time.
Going back to 1965 I remember we had the good news of a White Paper on health. It was not all that this Party would wish for, but it promised to go a long way towards eliminating some of the basic ills in the health services at the moment. We were told this scheme would be in operation in a very short time, in a matter of months. Years have passed. We have had various negotiations and various reasons have been put forward as to why this health scheme is not being put into operation. Of course, the simple reason is that there is no money available to implement it.
Deputy Burke also spoke about education, and, perhaps, tomorrow we shall have an opportunity of going into some of the difficulties that remain in the field of education. On this motion I shall confine myself to the remark I made in regard to the provision of jobs. Education is a worthy goal in itself, but we must bear in mind that, having educated our people, we must find jobs for them. This Government have fallen down badly over the years in this regard.
We have intermittent Budgets and intermittent efforts to collect money for various purposes one of which is to improve the social welfare services. I suppose they have been improved in some small way, but not alone as a result of direct Budget reaction but as a result of lack of price control, these improvements have been vitiated. Whatever the Government may say, if you ask any Irish housewife about price control she will tell you there is no such thing.
Because of the spiral of price increases and because of the big disparity year after year in the incomes of the various sections, our social welfare classes are no better off, relatively, than they were a few years ago. The same applies to our lower paid workers. They are the people to whom we must give particular attention in the future. They have been sadly neglected and they have been paying more than their fair share of the burden of all taxation. In spite of that, there does not seem to be any long-term solution to their problem.
I come back to the basic problem with which we should be able to get to grips—that of providing more wealth by way of putting more people into productive, taxable employment. Unfortunately, we are as far away from a solution as ever. Another basic problem is our unjust taxation system. Our taxation system has been unvaried over the years. Under it, people with £6 5s or £6 10s a week must pay income tax. All of us on these benches have agitated for the upgrading or the increasing of the personal allowance but we have been told of the big figure it would involve by way of loss of revenue. This is another basic injustice which the Government do not appear capable of ever solving.
I do not wish to detain the House longer on this subject. We have many ills in our economy, industrial and social ills. Occasionally we appear to recover from them temporarily, but always only temporarily. The rut is still there and it calls for a lot of new thinking, for a fresh approach. First of all, we have got to make employment a first priority. The Government have to see that our economy develops to the point where there will be more and more jobs and they must take positive steps to intervene to ensure there will be more jobs. Whatever the effects of such a policy will be, if we are to get out of this rut we have got to take action. It requires a fresh approach and it is clear now that this is not the Government to consider such an approach.