When I reported progress I was dealing with the Minister's statement that Ireland has enjoyed two excellent years. In making that statement he did not, of course, take into consideration that they were two years involving a period of strikes and rumours of strikes, a period of industrial unrest. It was in that period especially that we had the farmers marching for the first time from all over Ireland to the city of Dublin. That period will go down in history not as the period of two excellent years but as the period when the farmers of Ireland were allowed to sit on the footpaths of Merrion Street in the dirt and slush. They would not be accepted for a discussion with an arrogant Minister for Agriculture and Fisheries.
Nowadays, even at this moment, we have the students on the march. In all of this the Government appear not to realise that there are two strata of society arising in this country, one, the affluent society, sponsored by Taca no doubt, and, the second, social welfare beneficiaries. Anybody who looks around him can see that the middleman is being squeezed out as well as the small farmers in the west of Ireland. I notice the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Finance is smiling but he may come from a very good area——
