Before Questions I was referring to the speech of the Minister for Foreign Affairs. If one were to follow the Minister's argument one would be more destructive than constructive. I do not propose to be destructive if I can avoid it. The Minister spoke about our paper. He raised questions based on the hypothesis that we would be self destructive in the policy we issued and that it would not work. I want to get away from that and get down to some of the ministerial statements in the budget. If we want democracy to work, if we want to shape it and to further the prospects of democracy, it would be better if we were constructive rather than destructive, no matter how nimble our arguments may be or how poor they may be on the one side or the other.
I said earlier that the Minister not only in this budget but in last year's budget appealed for restraint in incomes and in relation to the current demand for increased incomes. Everybody knows that rising incomes not met out of production lead nowhere. It might be all right in theory to talk about an incomes policy and how a Government could regulate such a plan. I believe no Government in Europe have a plan for an incomes policy. They only have a plan for restraint.
It is the same as trying to curb violence. One often has legitimately to use violence in order to bring the total violence occurring under control. In order to curb the demand for excessive incomes the Government must be ahead in leadership and they must practice what they preach. The Government have not in the past three years supported the resolutions they made. The community are crying out for rising standards of living and better incomes not met out of production. If we are to try to bring our economy into line and to bring stability into the purchasing value of money we will have to have a second look at this matter.
The Minister expressed a number of aims in the budget and he has taken some of the steps to try to implement them. Last year he imposed something like £80 million extra taxation. When he levied the extra taxation he taxed the most progressive members of the community, the people who work hardest. They can only bear a certain share of taxation. Some of them said after last year's budget that roughly one-third of their income went in taxation and in social welfare deductions. The House should welcome the reliefs given in the budget. It is better to give reliefs by lowering taxation because it gives an incentive to those with good ideas to implement them.
Last year was quite a good farming year when there was a good return from crops. It was much better than 1974 and 1975. There was a decrease in cattle numbers in 1975. We should see that we have good cattle numbers in the future. Farmers will need a certain amount of credit for development. They will need a more progressive policy with regard to land leasing, something which the Land Commission for some reason refuse to implement. Four or five years ago Macra na Feirme brought out a very useful booklet on succession. They have also brought out a document on the leasing of land. There is not enough land in the hands of young farmers prepared to engage in good husbandry and earn sufficient income for themselves and their families.
The price of land is astronomical at the moment. No young farmer could be expected to purchase land. Firstly, he would not be able to raise the necessary money and, secondly, he would not be able to pay the interest on it. We should give some thought to this matter. The Land Commission are behind the times in not having a proper land leasing system which would give land to good, young farmers. This would be much better for our economy than having speculation based on tax levels. People who have a lot of money are very anxious to invest in land. We should see that the Land Commission have a proper leasing policy, the same as is available in Europe and that we speed up the rearrangement of holdings. I do not believe that there is a very great deal of land left. I should like to see a more forward policy pursued in this regard.
I was glad to see the announcement last week that the Agricultural Institute decided to extend their activities to include research into meat and products. Meat and meat products could mean a bright future for our farming community if we invest money in such research now.
Before the introduction of the common agricultural policy there was no great incentive in this regard because the British market was the road to nowhere. At the time we relied on the export of store cattle on the hoof but we did not give enough thought to the full development of the meat trade or the downstream products. Now that we have the assistance of a guaranteed market for our products at a guaranteed price we should develop our trade in meat and meat products.
Last year was quite a good year for farmers. While the yield could have been greater we came out fairly well, even though we experienced difficulties in regard to drought. May was a good month and when that happens it is a good sign. It pleased me to hear the Minister for Agriculture and Fisheries recently encouraging the spread of tillage in spite of the high price being paid for cattle. In the past when a product went at a high price everybody trooped after it. Irrespective of what price is available for meat and meat products we should continue to have a good tillage policy. Such a policy would protect the farmers, the home market and our balance of payments. In this way it saves us in times of scarcity from placing undue demands on outside resources.
For many years now we have had a very dear money system here. It is impossible to buy money at present because it is too dear. It is not possible to have a proper set of priorities in this regard and, instead of having a subsidy and grant system, relying more on the initiative of the farmer or businessman? If they could borrow money at cheaper rates they would make better use of it. I urge the Government to study this matter. Because of the present situation we must rely on the grant and subsidy systems and we all know that they are like the dog at his tail, wasteful. We should try to aim at a cheap money policy for capital development. It would be better than having a range of grants and subsidies administered by expensive Government Departments. I am not decrying the effort of the officials of those Departments because they have proved their worth in the community but we should rely more on the worth of the individual. At present there is no respect for the worth of the individual and down the years "profit" was a dirty word. People enter business with the profit motive although one would think it is a crime now.
We should return to the idea that the profit motive is a good one, provided it is not exercised by a multinational company with no regard for the aims or objectives of the government or the people of the country in which they are operating. More scholarships should be provided for business methods and more scholarships should be given to those anxious to enter agricultural colleges. We should help our people rather than throw stones at them and do everything to bring them down. Time and again I have come across the notion that the person who starts a business in his own country with a profit motive in mind is an enemy of the people. We should change that frame of mind and show better example.
I was very impressed while watching the "Late Late Show" on RTE on Saturday night with the variety of food dishes produced. Unfortunately, there is not a great desire on the part of girls to take up the subject of domestic economy. If we were moving in the right direction every second girl would be involved in domestic economy courses. We should upgrade this subject which at present is not considered by our pupils because they all want to do office work which is not there for them. They want to crowd out the typing pools.
Now that married women are continuing in employment we have feweropenings for school leavers. I suggest that some of them should considerdomestic economy. Associated with domestic economy was the idea that one was a household drudge. We should get away from that idea and we would give a lead to youngsters; otherwise, with some exceptions, they will not move in that direction. Some hoteliers who talk so much about the tourist trade and who are sometimes ready to find fault with the range of aids available should do more to encourage this type of activity.
I think we can get away from the situation of loss of value in money by becoming more independently-minded and getting rid of the idea that the State can provide for us from cradle to grave. Perhaps I am indulging in generalities but we could do a good deal more to foster the worth of the person in the directions I have mentioned.
It is almost impossible to be competitive in industry today because we have Third World countries and countries outside them all competing, with different standards of living and of wages, which are able to dump goods in certain parts of the world. We should first have a thorough examination of our agricultural methods and then of the downstream products based on agriculture. I mean that in a blanket sense. Also, we should examine the whole range of assistance available to young farmers and we should study the question of how quickly we can get them into production. Those are some things that might help to reduce our dependence on the State, reduce calls for monetary incomes and earn ourselves better incomes. We should also aim to get back respect on the hearthstone where it should be. When I hear some of the professors I often say that it is no wonder life has drifted away from the hearthstone. They talk in percentages; they juggle figures and make comparisons between one country and another and they have some hypothesis and theory thrown in, but without very much practice, with the result that they miss the mark sometimes.
I blame the Government for not giving more attention to private building. No matter what the Minister for Local Government or the Minister for Finance may say, we could do much more in the construction industry. I say that in good faith. I offer the suggestion that we could do this without the fear that it would further endanger the value of our money. Building products are mostly produced at home, and that is one of the greatest incentives in this direction. We are now at a stage when for a few years, with the techniques available now, we could use some of our own timber. We have the labour and the other necessary raw materials. The construction industry is a wonderful employer and a wonderful agency for distributing and redistributing money. Therefore, the Minister should use his influence at Government level to get this aspect of the economy examined again with a view to a new drive. It is all very well to talk about public building which is going ahead strongly, but this is very dear building especially if we have not concurrently a good competitor. We could have a leader in private building, by which I mean the man buying a site for a house, building it himself or getting somebody to build it for him. Much could be done in that regard with greater co-operation.
I am not briefed for prepared today to go into the Minister's speech in detail. He says all the right things; let us hope he will practice them also. If I could find fault with him or his colleagues in the Government it is for expressing intentions and not following them home to the hilt. Unless we do that we shall not get the results from the budget which the Minister hopes to get from it. Unless the example is shown in this House it is doubly certain that we will not get these results. As regards administration in general we have the best of personnel. I was talking to two public servants the other night who, between them administer nearly £100 million, ordinary fellows like myself. It is a wonderful tribute to our public service that we have men of this calibre and that we have never had a major money scandal in our community. That is a great incentive for our youngsters. If they are right-thinking youngsters they will have respect for such people. We should foster those people in the community because they set a great example.
We can only try to implement the aims of the budget even though we may disagree with some things in it. We may disagree with the range of taxes and say that the Minister gave insufficient relief. He may reply he could not afford it and that may be so. We should all resolve to get away from over-dependence on the State because the Government can become inured to this and become a kind of sugar-daddy. This is a bad situation in a democracy. We should realise that a man should earn his bread by the sweat of his brow. We are getting away from that precept and many people think they should not work at all. There are those who say that possibly we shall never again have full employment. If we want to have sensible, balanced human beings in the community we must have employment and it must be shown that everybody has a job to do.
Those are my sentiments on the implementation of some of the aims in the budget. I may not agree with all of them but I defend the Minister's right to say what he said, to levy taxes and so on. We should not rebel, because there is another way of fighting this on democratic lines. Despite the fact that the Minister for Foreign Affairs found so many faults with our programme for economic expansion I ask him to look at it again and he will find some good points in it. He did not give us credit for anything. I offer this programme to the country and consider it should be read and studied. We have a right to our views and the Minister has the right to condemn them but not totally.