The Taoiseach this morning gave some figures which show that in 1972 we shall have a growth rate of about 3 per cent. He also gave figures to show that emigration is at what I believe is an "all-time low". Some Opposition speakers have criticised the emigration figures and refused to accept them. I am no statistician; the proof I have of the low rate of emigration is the number of people coming to me and to other Deputies in Dublin and from them one learns the numbers that have arrived back here from Britain. It has been said that they have come back because of the trade recession in Britain where almost 1,000,000 are unemployed. It is true that people have come back because of that but they have returned for other reasons and many who have come back have been able to find employment. They have rejected the British way of life and shown a natural desire to settle in their own country. We certainly welcome them. There should not be any disappointment such as was shown by Fine Gael Deputies this morning at the fact that the emigration figures are so low. Surely we should rejoice to find the population rising through the natural birthrate and the return of many of our people from Britain and perhaps elsewhere. If Fine Gael do not want to make capital out of emigration they should show that they welcome the great reduction in emigration figures. Let them try to take emigration out of party politics and stop trying to gain political kudos out of the emigration rates.
It cannot be denied that many families are coming back and to this city particularly. I hope that any other Dublin Deputies or Cork or Galway Deputies can also show that people are returning. Preliminary census figures show an increase in the population for the second time since the Famine. Therefore, we are given a foundation to build a State which can offer each individual the right to live and work here and pursue happiness as he sees it, bearing in mind the rights of others.
Before passing from the opening remarks of the Taoiseach and Deputy Cosgrave I must say that I deplore Deputy Cosgrave's cheap jibes at this party. In mentioning the trouble in the party he spoke very derisively of members who are no longer members of this Parliamentary Party. Let me remind him of the Statement by Deputy Richie Ryan a little over a year ago when he warned Deputy Cosgrave to beware the Ides of March, that the long knives were being brought out by some people in the Fine Gael Party and that they were going to knife their leader. I do not know if this was true but I believe Deputy Ryan thought it was true and this is the point. He did not meet with any cheap jibes from us at that time because it does neither the party nor democracy any good to have this jeering and sniping when there is trouble in any party.
This happens in every State where there are democratic parties and where members are free to speak their minds. If Fine Gael are suggesting we should have some kind of set-up here where people will not express their views on any matter you would then have a very poor type of democracy which would not last long and would develop into either a communist or a fascist state. Despite all our faults we have not and do not want either type of government. We have a democratic Government well led by the Taoiseach who has shown, particularly in his handling of the northern situation, that his basic ideas will pay off if we are to have peace, not just peace at any price. We want peace, but not peace at any price. The peace we seek will give rights to the minority in the North and will stop the bloodshed.
The population is increasing and a considerable number of our emigrants are returning. We welcome this but we realise that there will be financial and economic problems as a result of our increased population. Economists tell us it is easier to solve an unemployment problem when there is a rising population rather than when there is a decline in the population. Like other urban Deputies, I am concerned about the impact on housing. In the Third Programme for Economic Expansion it was stated that we would need 17,000 dwellings each year in order to meet the backlog and to provide housing for new families and for people returning to this country. Last week the Minister for Local Government issued figures which showed that we are making progress but we cannot afford to be complacent about the housing situation.
We realise that no country in the world has solved its housing problems, whether it be totalitarian States such as Russia or China or democracies such as the United States of America, France or Germany. Housing is one of the basic needs of man; more of our problems arise as a result of bad housing, particularly in Dublin, than any single other cause. In 1972 we must invest to a very considerable degree in the provision of housing.
In Dublin city there are 4,000 families on the approved waiting list. I am not impressed with the word "approved" because any person in need of a house, who cannot provide it himself, must be housed. There are another 4,000 people on the unapproved list, making a total of 8,000 applicants. When we allow for the increase in population and the fact that houses become obsolescent and must be replaced, we can calculate that we need 10,000 houses in the city. Even if the Government were in a position to allocate the necessary money to provide these houses, we would not be able to build them because I do not think the building trade could expand its operations to such an extent. It is true that many of our craftsmen are returning to this country and I am sure that they will find jobs readily.
In addition to having the necessary funds and the craftsmen needed to build houses, we must plan the new suburbs and urban renewal of the city areas; by city I mean not only Dublin but Cork, Waterford, Galway and other areas. In most of the cities there are areas that need re-development. In Dublin there are some dilapidated and run-down areas but it is encouraging to see that there are not so many slum areas nowadays. This is thanks to the efforts made by the first Fianna Fáil Government. They set in motion a housing programme and it became the "in thing" to build more houses and flats for the people. We are reaching the stage where we can claim to be among the best housed nations in the world but this is no reason for complacency. We should not be content until all the applicants are housed.
I do not think any country will ever have a surplus number of houses except a country that is dying. When a country is dying it has not a housing problem but I am thankful to say that this is not the case with our country. In Ireland there is a demand for better housing and social services. Young people are not prepared to accept the standards their parents accepted. They set their sights high and this is desirable because, with this kind of attitude and thinking, we can build a good society.
Many young people today have difficulty in getting deposits for their houses. In this connection I welcome the efforts of the Minister for Local Government to provide low-cost housing. Young couples deserve the chance of starting off their married lives in proper accommodation. Our Constitution gives protection to the family and one of the best ways of doing this is to provide proper housing. A tremendous amount is being done but I should like to see added impetus being given to the housing drive so that we can clear the slum areas in this city and provide accommodation, properly planned by competent architects and planners. Young families should know they are part of a society that cares for them. Our country has an opportunity of showing what a small nation can do. We are blessed that we have no ghettos where people of a certain persuasion must live but it is sad to read of the ghettos that exist in another city.
The older people in our community deserve more consideration. With the increased expectation of life, the care of the aged presents some problems. It is sad to go into a local authority hospital and see the many old people in these establishments. It is no reflection on the hospital authorities or the dedicated staff who look after these old people.
Our whole conception of this problem is wrong. It should be our ambition to keep people out of institutions and not to force them into them. In recent years there has been a great drive forward in the provision of flats for old people by the local authorities and by religious societies like the Methodist Church, the Presbyterian Church, the Catholic Housing Aid Society, the Legion of Mary and a few others. Last week I attended the opening of some flats. The site was given by the builder, the merchants contributed the material, and the workers built them. They were handed over free to the Catholic Housing Aid Society. This shows an awareness in all sectors of the needs of old people.
Awareness is not enough and sympathy is not enough. It will take hard work and perhaps heavier taxation to provide the old people with proper housing standards. We should show our appreciation of these old people not by putting them into institutions but by giving them proper accommodation in flats or houses. They should receive proper attention from welfare workers. Let us show the world that we care for our old people. It is said that the mark of any civilisation is how it treats its old people. Let us make a big effort in 1972 to drive forward relentlessly on the housing front so that by the end of 1972 we will have cleared up a lot of the backlog. We must be prepared to give until it hurts to provide for our old people.
From housing to social welfare is a small step. Some of the most heartening remarks I ever heard in this House came from the Minister for Social Welfare when he announced that he is preparing a new social welfare code. I am sure we all feel that, while our social services are not the greatest, they are not the meanest. We took £134 million out of the economy for social welfare this year. By a reorganisation of our social welfare structure and the injection of more money, we can come up with a model social welfare system which will not be a copy of some outside system. Each country tries to suit the aspirations of its own people.
In 1972 I hope we will have the opportunity and the privilege of seeing a new social welfare code introduced. It is not our intention to create what is known as a welfare State. Welfare states in other countries provided money but they did not promote the welfare of the aged. The fears of old people in some of these countries are realistic. Our system must be in keeping with our beliefs and our teachings. When we have the new code completed we will be able to say: "Here is a system devised by the State aimed at giving old people the greatest possible benefits which the State can confer: not only a pension and a house but welfare workers to ensure that they are not cast aside and left in some old flat or house but that they will be remembered each day. It will be brought home to them that our society does not forget them and that, far from being a burden on our society, they are a great asset because of the service they gave the State when they could do so and because of the fact that an aged population has a very stabilising effect on a society."
The Taoiseach mentioned the National Pay Agreement. We all realise, without being economists, that unless the economy is buoyant and inflation is curtailed the weaker sections of the community will suffer. The National Pay Agreement is due for renewal I hope. Unless we are all going crazy we must have such a renewal. The national wealth created during the year will have to be distributed in the most equitable way possible. I have great confidence in the good sense of the Congress of Trade Unions and the employers' organisations. I am sure we will have peace on the industrial front and that an equitable settlement will be reached on wages and salaries and that the worker will be given a just return for his work. We must build up the economy so that we can disburse the wealth we create to the workers — the use of the word "workers" is a bit out of date in that sense because everybody works, even the man who will draft the agreement— and to everybody concerned. I hope and, indeed, pray that an agreement will be worked out between all concerned.
We are accused of being very bad at industrial relations but this is one of the few countries in Europe with only one Trade Union Congress. I welcome this fact, and long may it be so. It shows that there is a great degree of unity in the trade union movement. We have one Trade Union Congress which operates both North and South, with a slight variation. Therefore, the trade unions can speak with one voice. I wish the employers' organisations would form one body also so that the two voices would be heard with the blessing of and under the jurisdiction of the Government.
In a few months time we will be facing the Referendum which will make it possible for us to go into Europe. The changes put forward are necessary, we are told by the lawyers, if we are to join the European Economic Community. This is a great task to put before the people. We must all think very hard on this whole question. Never before have we had to face the problem of whether we should integrate with a united Europe or stay outside. Many people say there is no alternative. There may not be an alternative but I do not think our attitude should be that we are going in because we cannot stay out. This country can contribute quite a lot to Europe. We will have a voice in the European Parliament. We can play our part in making a better Europe. If the Germans and French who were involved in two world wars in less than 50 years could sink their differences in the pursuit of a common goal surely we can do the same.
However, we must tell the people that for us the Continent will not be a land flowing with milk and honey. There will be tremendous problems to be faced on entry. Perhaps this is the greatest issue that has confronted this State since its foundation. Membership for us will entail severe competition with countries that have an industrial history which goes back to the industrial revolution. So far as our agriculture is concerned, we might say that we can hold our own with any of the other countries and, indeed, on the manufacturing side, we have many firms whose modern plants and techniques qualify them to face the competition that will have to be met. Their ability has been proved by our increasing exports not only to Europe but to the United States and to some of the Iron Curtain countries. At the same time, membership of the Communities will require tremendous effort both by the Government and by the people generally if we are to avail ourselves of the many benefits that membership offers. We must gear ourselves to meet this great challenge.
In joining the European Communities, we will be helping to ensure that there will not be another war in Europe in the foreseeable future. Some of the socialists here criticise membership on that point and say that we are too trusting and that what is being created in Europe is another power bloc. At the moment there are at least one or two countries who, because of a threat from a mighty power close to them, are afraid to join the Communities but I hope that, eventually, other countries will join. It was shortly after the war that caused death and injury to 28 million people in Europe and elsewhere that interest in a European Community was first mooted. Those who conceived the idea had in mind the safeguarding of Europe in the future. For that reason we should join but there are other issues involved. For instance, membership for us would mean a better standard of living for our people in a peaceful environment. Therefore, it would be unworthy of Ireland not to join. From the earliest times we have been associated with Europe although there were times when that association was not a free one. In the past, too, some of our people were forced to seek refuge on the Continent. The fact is that we are more orientated towards Europe than we are towards Britain and I hope that our membership of the European Communities will enable us at last to cut our ties with Britain and that we can start thinking in a "European" way rather than in an "Anglo" way.
In the context of the EEC it will be necessary to amend certain articles of the Constitution. Perhaps some of its Articles are not particularly important but, during the past few years, there has been a demand from certain quarters for the amendment of the Constitution on certain matters. I believe that I speak for many people in this regard when I say that any attempt to amend the Constitution so as to give us all the advantages — I use the word derisively — of the Anglo-American society, will be met with strong opposition. Our Constitution is a good one. It was drafted by Irishmen for the Irish people. Of course, no Constitution is so sacrosanct that it cannot be amended, but let those who are demanding the scrapping of the Constitution or the wholesale amendment of it tell us what they would put in its place. We have not heard from them so far on that point. One can only be suspicious of the motives of those who are exponents of the liberal line all the time. What kind of society do they want? However, our people are capable of making up their minds on these matters and I am sure they will not be prepared to forsake the principles they hold dear in order to jump on the liberal bandwagon.
Any changes that are contemplated will have to be examined in great detail to see whether they are justified. The Constitution reflects the sentiments of the people and I wonder often whether, if we had the power to extend it to the whole of this country, there would be the present bloodshed and hatred in Northern Ireland. In relation to the North one is always a little nervous of saying anything that would kindle the flames of hatred and brutality that are part of that territory. The blame for the trouble there cannot be laid at the door of the Orange Order or of the AOH or anybody else, but the blame must rest with Great Britain because she was the author of partition and it is partition that has given rise to the injustices and inhumanities of that area. If Britain tomorrow morning wants to end this she can act with statesmanship as General de Gaulle acted with Algeria. She can tomorrow do what he did with the Algerians — pull out of there, compensate them for losses and assure them of an income for X number of years. Perhaps there is not an exact parallel between Ireland and Algeria but there is a rough parallel. It is near enough to call on any statesmanship which the British Prime Minister or his Home Secretary may have to make some attempt to stop this disgrace, which is not Ireland's but England's. She can see, only 100 miles from her shores, this going on and she is subsidising it all the time.
I, for one, do not want to see the British subsidies cut off from the people of the North but this is not a matter of Catholic versus Protestant. It is a clash between the "haves" and the "have nots". In the North they have the highest unemployment rate in Europe, the jobs are just not there, and the Unionist oligarchy will hold on to power to the very end so that they can give out the jobs and the gifts of office.
It is a strange thing that Britain where they are always talking about democracy, still sends over subsidies but when any section, whether it is a democratic party or an illegal organisation, tries to take some of the goods sent over by Britain, the British Army is sent in, not as a peace keeping force, it was never meant as that. An army of occupation is an army of occupation and they all act in the same way. When we saw a youngster in Belfast a week ago being arrested by the British Army we were reminded of the last war when we say photographs of Nazi troops doing the very same thing. The only difference was in their headgear. The Nazi soldiers wore helmets, the British wear tam-o'-shanters or berets. There is no difference in outlook.
The British Government have a blind spot in regard to Ireland but there is evidence that there is some thinking going on. Whether it is being forced by the British Labour Party I do not know. I do not trust them an awful lot. It was a socialist Government that brought in the 1949 Act which made Partition permanent. Unless Britain at this eleventh hour takes matters seriously and stops fooling around and unless she controls her soldiers who are carrying out all sorts of intimidations we may have a situation in the North and outside it a thousand times worse than we have at the moment. I was told this week by a man from the North that one of their new tactics is to go into a Catholic area and as people pass them by to mouth profanities against the faith of the minority there and utter lewd words. This is the peace keeping force.
I am not a man of violence by any means but the British should ask themselves how far can you push people before they revolt. When the French people revolted against Nazi occupation Britain named them the freedom fighters. In the North they call them gunmen. The analogy is that the French people were suppressed by the Nazis and the people of the Six Counties are suppressed by the British.
I never accepted that this is a matter of Catholic versus Protestant. I have seen the Protestants living in Shankill Road, in Sandy Row and in parts of Derry and their conditions were no better than those of the Catholics but the Unionist politician, with his cunning, has succeeded so far in keeping these two sections apart by telling the Protestant workers what would happen to them in a united Ireland or if the Catholics got control. I know it is hard to say it but even now I see a gleam of hope from the Protestant workers. I look forward to the day when the Protestants who live in the Shankill Road or anywhere else or who work at Queen's Island or in the linen mills will cast off the Unionist yoke and realise that they are Irishmen and that their place is in a Thirty-two County Republic. We are prepared not to make concessions or sacrifices because I believe we have made all we possibly can but we will ensure that when we eventually have a Thirty-two County Republic the man from Shankill or Sandy Row or the ship worker from Queen's Island will have his place not by any grace of ours but because he has a right to his status in society and we respect his right.
I believe the Government have handled the situation as well as it could possibly be handled. The Taoiseach has said that Stormont must go and I think that even the people in the North who thought that Stormont was sacrosanct are beginning to think differently. At the same time, we do not want to suggest simply that Stormont must go. This would be a kind of signal for illegal organisations to do their work. If Stormont goes there is enough common sense in the Six Counties and down here to work out a solution to the problem.
First of all Britain must get out of this and stop acting the hypocrite, shedding her crocodile tears over the happenings in Ireland, when all the time she, by her subsidisation and the attitudes of her Prime Minister, is encouraging the Unionist Party to hold on and that eventually they will have all the subversives conquered. To the Unionist mind a subversive is any man who speaks his mind against the establishment. That is why today there are hundreds of people in Long Kesh internment camp. They have never been given a trial so the Unionist Government cannot say they are guilty. This is all done in the name of British democracy. The Government have done everything possible to bring home to Britain that this is her problem, that there is only one Irish nation and that Britain cannot, by any kind of trickery, create two nations. This is 1971 and we have had peace in Europe for quite a few years. If Britain requires the Six Counties as a status symbol of dominion power she must forget this. If she pulls out with good grace I am convinced that the minority and the majority there and the people down here under the common name of Irishmen will be able to work out a solution so that we will not have any more Shankill Road or Ballymurphy ghettos. We will have a society where a man, irrespective of his faith, will be guaranteed full rights of Irish citizenship and where he will be, I hope, assured of employment and housing and all that kind of thing and where, if these things are scarce, as they are scarce in Britain and the Six Counties today, he will be assured that it is not because of his religious or political belief that he does not get a job or a house. We will build a society here, with their help, which will be able to afford to each one of them who wants to be an Irishman a full life and full freedom.
Perhaps, judging by the news we heard last night, there is a change coming over British thinking. Nobody minds Mr. Heath conducting the London Philharmonic Orchestra or sailing his yacht in the Irish Sea but we could point out to him that there are much more serious things, not alone for this country but for the British Prime Minister because we saw in other countries that where a strong power held a weak power the weak power was not beyond going to another strong power and asking for their help. The Algerian settlement may not be the ideal one but it is something to go on and I would prefer an Algerian settlement to a Cuban condition.
A matter that we must always dwell on is that we have, as has been shown, in our society a small but militant subversive group that will not bother about the niceties of democracy in trying to achieve their aims. When people in this House condemn the Government for not maintaining law and order, they are just playing politics because, knowing of the actions of some of the men in these subversive groups, I think the Government and the Garda are doing a very good job.
I come back to the point that I mentioned at the outset, that subversive groups thrive on British stupidity and as long as the British are so stupid as to try to maintain a border which is completely out of date they will only attract people into subversive organisations. Even at this late hour it is time, as the Taoiseach thought some time ago, that Stormont must go and at long last the native people in the North must start to rule.
