——or if they do not leave the conference table like two teams in a rural area who have not only come to blows but who have stung the referee during the course of the match they have not done their duty. That is the way the Opposition approach the conference, and indeed have invariably approached any conference to which the Government have been, that they must come back with a cornucopia of plenty, leaving stunned and enraged people behind them. Of course that is not the way international affairs are conducted and Deputy O'Kennedy, who is now retiring from the field, knows that very well. He is a reasonable person until he rises to attack the Government. He starts off in the good old way of blaming them as much as he can for not having come away waving the green flag and singing hymns of hate. That certainly did not exist in the last Government. The former Taoiseach, Deputy Jack Lynch, did not go into such conferences in that fashion and still less did he leave them in that fashion.
I believe the British Government stand as aghast before the appalling and terrible situation in the North as we do. Whether all their actions will turn out to be as wise as they think them is certainly a matter for discussion but we know they do not go into it to exacerbate the situation. Far from it. Nobody has been able to find a solution yet to that delicate situation. I wish sometimes that in searching desperately for a solution the people who criticise our own Government and the British Government would apply the same strong criticism to the men of violence. I wish we could have a situation in the North, even for a few weeks, in which, if the lion did not lie down with the lamb, at least the lion would stop pouncing and growling. The difficulty is there are several lions roaming around in that jungle of terrible creatures.
Deputy O'Kennedy referred to the Reverend Parker who is to go to Canada, having suffered grievous and tragic family loss. There are many other people in the North who have suffered and are suffering tragedies. Our hearts go out to those people but we have failed to do anything to help the overall situation. The only way in which ordinary individuals can help is by creating a climate of disgust, abhorrance and hatred of people taking the law into their own hands and taking other individuals' lives away from them wantonly and blindly. By blindly I mean with bombs which may strike at anybody. Only the solid opinion of the people of the North and of the South can bring that about. Somehow all our efforts have failed in that and our Churches efforts have failed. I am not blaming them but somehow they have failed to put before the people the real brotherhood of man and what it means, what it means in power-sharing and power-giving-up, ecumenism and helping one's neighbour. Some of our Ministers have tried hard to put that point of view but somehow the people of the North still must continue on their weary, tragic Calvary.
I wish the Minister and the Government well. We need a man like the late Gandhi, though God knows when he was alive I did not think all that much of him but now that he is dead and gone I think that if we could have a man with his ideas on nonviolence, with the character of a Father Mathew and the strength of a great Calvinist preacher, it might help to lead the North out of the impasse in which it is. It lies mainly with the people and however much the Opposition may chip at the Government for saying this or not saying that the answer lies with the people of the North in the first place and of the whole of Ireland in the second. We can pray that some day we will see that and then everything will fall into its place.
Mention was made of what we in the South have lost through years of frustration, through years of Partition. It has hindered our two communities. It has driven us into ourselves in an introspective way which is not natural to Irish people. We are an outgoing, open people; we show our joys and our sorrows, and yet we have this one subject inhibiting us. We do not approach it with the open mind that we have in regard to many other subjects in our body politic.
Somehow the Nationalists and Unionists in the North or, if you like, the Catholics and the Protestants, owing to their intense respective love of their own religions, have been impelled by their respective branches of the Christian faith to forget the overall message of Christianity. They have forgotten that, as if they had never heard the message. That comes back to their communities in a way we do not like to face. We do not like to face what the outside world must be feeling, what they do not normally express in newspapers—one some times comes across it in books. But it makes their protestations of Christianity a savage joke. Perhaps Parliament is not the place to talk about that but it is the side of it that is rarely mentioned and hardly ever mentioned here. It lies very close to the heart of the problem. I may come back to the North from a different angle later.
I congratulate the Minister on his fine presentation of the Estimate and on the work he has done. We must speak here of the EEC and its regional policy. I am a member of the Joint Committee on Secondary Legislation of the EEC. With others, I have been in Belgium and Luxembourg. I have met the Regional Commissioner who has been to the west of Ireland. Before I discuss the EEC regional policy, I should like to recall that when the joint committee went to Brussels and Luxembourg we learned something of great value and of great importance to us. We saw the offices where the work of this great bureauracy is carried out. They travel around like the court of Louis XIV. Luxembourg, Belgium and France all would like to have the honour and, I daresay, the profit of housing this vast body of European civil servants.
We met many of the commissioners, including, Monsieur Lardinois, who visited the west of Ireland. I met him and had an interesting talk with him in Westport. He saw that part of Ireland, its beauty and its remoteness. It was very good that he was able to see the problems there.
Our visit to Luxembourg and Brussels, as I have said, had an immediate effect on us. It helped to educate us on the new responsibility which not only have we got to the EEC but which they have to us. I should like to see such visits extended to all Members of this House so that they would be able to see and appreciate the work being done there. I would go further and express the hope that people outside the House, such as members of farmers' organisations, chambers of commerce and so forth, would be able to do likewise. I realise it would cost some money, not a terrible lot, but it would spread valuable knowledge throughout the length and breadth of Ireland.
In regard to our EEC membership, I should like to say to the Opposition that we should not be screaming and begging and howling. We are not a group of itinerants with our hands out. This howling at the Minister and howling at the Government that only £30 million were got and we expected more comes somewhat ill. We would like more, but we did not go into the EEC—at least, I certainly did not— just for EEC hand-outs, glad as I am to get them and important as they are to us. This is a beginning and all this howling comes ill from a party which by and large were in power for over 30 years and who did nothing. Now they have suddenly woken up to what needs to be done in the west of Ireland. Why the devil did they not do something themselves? God helps those who help themselves. There was a book written in Victorian times— I never read it—called "Self-Help" and I am sure there was a great deal of truth in it. It is on self-help I would like to see the emphasis laid and then, by all means, get more if it can be got.
Coming back to the matter of negotiations—this is what this debate is all about; it is about our relationship with other countries, individually and as exemplified by the EEC—there has been this trouble in Wales with the Welsh farmers. I believe it will be settled. What will help will be a firm attitude on our side and a firm attitude on the part of the British Government. I certainly cannot see a Labour Government in Britain so sympathetic to farmers, even to Welsh farmers, that they would stand for the relationship between this country and Britain being adversely affected by the actions of farmers in riotous assembly, great as their need may have been. I understand that the balance of votes for the Labour party in Britain comes from the cities where cheap food is of importance. Neither could I see a Conservative Government, if the Conservatives were in power, tolerating this sort of thing, even though it might be taken that the majority of those engaged in these activities would be supporters of that political persuasion. I do not think we can teach the British very much about how to handle their own farmers, especially when those farmers are stopping food passing through England to other countries. If we keep our heads and leave the matter to the two Governments who are well able to settle it and if we do nothing to exacerbate it, that will be the best contribution we can make to the situation.
I have always been afraid that some day somehow in the course of our relationship with Britain the historical pendulum might swing back. Remember, pendulums do not always swing on the same plane. But, where Britain is concerned, we have been in a period of dealing with British Governments who are certainly for settlement. If, however, a period came in which, through the ravages of war perhaps, perhaps through the loss of empire, the viewpoint might grow up in which there was a very great hardening of attitude towards this country, relationships might become very difficult. I wonder was there any small element of that in the actions of the Welsh farmers in the last couple of weeks. I hope not. But this is something we should think about. This is the first time I have expressed this view here, but it has often been present to my mind. I refer to the fear of a recrudescence of some form of jingoism, for want of a better word, or something like that, which could react to our very grave detriment because, whilst we are a very important market for Britain they are a vital market for us and they are just as well aware of that as we are. I believe, however, that the goodwill of the two Governments plus the indisputable legality of our position vis-á-vis any riotous assembly in Wales; or anywhere else, and the complete illegality of the action taken vis-á-vis the EEC and, in particular, vis-á-vis the treaties we have with the British Government, will solve any difficulties, real or imaginery. I hope these problems will fade away.
The last speaker talked about oil and Rockall. Truth to tell, I get rather lost, as do most people, as to the position and as to how far our sovereignty over the shelf extends. I think the last Deputy got mixed up between Rockall and the shelf. As far as I know, it is not part of the shelf. It may be on the shelf but, as far as I know, it is not. It is very complicated, legalistic, geophysical matter as to the extent of any oil there and the extent to which we wish to lay claim to whatever may exist there. I believe we will lay claim to what we believe to be our rights in the matter. I am sure the Government will do so. In laying those claims we will not make up extravagant claims.
Sometimes people have pressed the Government to take up an attitude which the majority of the Irish people would find it hard to justify. Successive Irish Governments have not made extravagant claims and, as a member of the comity of nations, they have always been amongst those who claimed their due right but did not put themselves out of court by making extravagant claims. In that respect I hope we will do all that can be done. I doubt that we have the money to do a great deal ourselves. The financing of any oil company in this country has not yet been spelled out. It would take a long time and it would take even longer to settle some of the mining problems nearer home.
As I said, the Minister has produced a very good document and made a very good speech. He has given us an excellent resume. His speech is a mine of information concerning our relationships with various other countries. We are all very anxious that the terrible situation between Palestine and the Arab States should be settled amicably. That conflict has cost us very dearly. The closing of the Suez Canal years ago put up the cost of oil and now, of course, the cost of oil has gone to astronomic heights.
We in a country like this cannot do very much vis-á-vis a settlement of the escalation of oil prices. It is partly due to the conflict between Palestine and the Arab States who were so poor and are now wealthy and have seen a triumphant Palestine helped by some of the great powers in the world. We are now suffering very much in our pockets through paying more for oil, but that is one of the least things we have to suffer. We will have to go through a whole lot more because other things follow. Unemployment and financial difficulties flow from that situation. We will just have to do what we can. I leave it to the Government. I have no easy solution to offer for the Minister's consideration. We will have to do the best we can.
I now come to South Africa and Rhodesia. This is where I differ slightly from the Minister. South Africa and Rhodesia present a thorny question. We do not like apartheid. Nobody likes apartheid. I was in South Africa and the people I met did not like apartheid. I read a great deal about South Africa and I try to keep in touch with it. There are tremendous forces for liberalism in that country. Sometimes when we— and when I say "we" I mean liberal-minded people in western Europe— take too hard a line, when we boycott certain sporting events and so on, we do far more harm than good. We cut the ground from under the feet of the liberal people in South Africa.
The Government there appear to be very firmly entrenched but there are other big political parties which have a tremendous following. They are not in favour of apartheid. I believe the South African Government are genuinely trying to drop many of the harsher aspects of apartheid. This is a subject one could discuss at considerable length. One can say a lot about it but one is mainly discussing opinions. There are certain facts, of course, but in my opinion the way to help the liberalisation of South Africa is to treat that Government as we do many other Governments—not showing any agreement with apartheid but sympathising with the liberal elements and showing that we wish to help the country in its move forward.
There is also the question of the USSR. Sometimes some of our people blame South Africa or Rhodesia or, perhaps, Chile—I do not know much about Chile—but one must be very careful about what one reads because everybody is shooting a line on these things and to understand them properly and not waffle needs a great deal of study for which very few Deputies have very much time.
We now have a Soviet Embassy in Dublin. There is no need to pretend that the majority of Irish people are in sympathy with the aims, as expressed many times, of the Soviet Union. They are not, and it would be no service to the Government, or to anybody else, even to the Soviet Union, to pretend that there were aspects of these aims we liked. There are aspects of Soviet legislation which are not bad—in certain directions their legislation is excellent—and there is no reason why we should not be able to get on with them. I believe they are very interested in our system of treating our bogs, turning our peat into briquettes and also using it for horticultural purposes. They are also interested in the technicalities and engineering problems raised by all that.
I understand that Russian engineers are interested in the work we have been doing on our bogs. This is not surprising when one considers that we lead the world in our treatment of peat, our handling of the raw material and the finished product. There are a number of lines on which we can have a common front with the USSR. I am sure that while they are in Dublin an eye will be kept on them. On the whole, it is a good idea to have the Russians based in Dublin, particularly for the exchange of trade and ideas.
To return to Northern Ireland, Deputy O'Kennedy raised the question of money being wasted by the British Government. I believe he was making the point that because the British forces were in the North the British Government were wasting money. When a Government spends money on a vast scale there is bound to be plenty of waste. However I think the position is, as has been stated by our Government, that there is a necessity for having the troops in the North at present. Nobody, least of all the British themselves, want to see the troops staying in Northern Ireland any longer than they have to and the day will come when they will get out. I do not view this as a waste of money. It may be wasted effort but the position, bad as it is now, would be worse without them.
I wonder if we will sometime see United Nations troops based there? I do not know what the end of that terrible situation will be but the Irish people can rest assured that never, since the foundation of this State, has there been a Government more anxious to settle the Northern situation, and to settle it from the point of view of justice and right for all concerned, than this Government.
The Labour element of this Government are desperately anxious to settle the Northern situation; their unions go North and across the water. Our links also go North and we want to settle it just as much as anybody else. I know that Fianna Fáil also wish to settle it. They do not wish to see another person harmed, still less another person killed, in the North whilst it is possible for people in political places to heal the wounds and bring that carnage to an end. They are as keen as we are.
With goodwill on both sides, and the very strong desire of all of us to see peace—not peace at any price but a lasting peace with justice—we will have peace there. We do not want to pass on a patched up solution which will endure only for a few years. We, as a Government, and above all the people in the South, want to see an end to the troubles in the North. Although it is not our fault it is, in the eyes of many people, a lasting shame and crime on us in this House, in the North and in Westminster. We should be able to settle this problem or at least help in its settlement. One of the ways to do this is not to exacerbate the situation.
