How many minutes have I left?
Private Members' Business. - Price Increases : Motion (Resumed).
The following motion was moved by Deputy O'Malley on Tuesday, 8th March, 1977:
That, in view of the existing severe inflation, Dáil Éireann deplores the further price increases announced on 2nd March, 1977 and, in particular, calls on the Government not to sanction the proposed ESB increase.
Debate resumed on the following amendment:
To delete all words after "That" and substitute the following: "Dáil Éireann recognises that failure to implement price increases arising from unavoidable cost increases and the need for an adequate return on capital would increase unemployment."
—(Minister for Industry and Commerce.)
The Deputy has 15 minutes left of the time allotted to him.
May I ask, on a point of order, what time the debate will finish?
There will be six minutes left over. They may be forfeit or they may be taken next week.
Again on a point of order, with regard to the possible vote, will we be permitted to vote if we call a vote?
Certainly. If the vote is called before 8.30 p.m. the vote will take place in the normal way.
Would I have 15 minutes to reply? Would I get in at 8.15 p.m. in the normal way?
Yes. In the normal way the Deputy would have 15 minutes.
It is not my fault that this difficulty has arisen.
(Dublin Central): If Deputy O'Malley takes his 15 minutes will we be in time to vote?
When we adjourned last night I was pointing out that the main reason we have had these price increases over the last three years has been that the Government made no attempt to deal with the energy crisis. Although Deputy Bruton, the Parliamentary Secretary, blamed the green £ for the escalation in prices he at least conceded that the energy problem was one of the main causes for that escalation. The energy problem has been with us since October, 1973. In October of that year oil products to the Irish consumer were running at £200 million per annum. They are now running at between £600 million and £700 million. The Government have taken no action of any kind to deal with this problem. It is the Government's responsibility.
Last night we were told that we should have a policy on price increases. For the information of the Parliamentary Secretary, we are the Opposition. The Government are the people elected to deal with matters such as this. Theirs is the responsibility. Not only have the Government failed to deal with the energy problem but they even contributed to making the problem more serious than it need have been. They imposed taxation on oil products. First of all, it was petrol and then in the 1976 budget all oil products were taxed making the problem that much more serious for industry. We have had three or four very wasteful years as far as this Government are concerned from the point of view of energy.
Energy is all important for the ESB. There is talk of a further 10.47 per cent increase in ESB charges due to a large extent to the cost of oil. The turf harvest last year was much better than it was in previous years. More peat was available to the ESB. What was the effect of that on ESB costs? If more native fuel is available it should be possible for the ESB to cut down costs. On what date did the ESB apply for permission to increase charges? Was it in October? The increase has been granted. We claim it should not have been granted.
Many other increases have been sanctioned by this Coalition Government. Because we were attached to the outer UK zone system that was the justification for the price increases granted in the case of petrol over the last three years. Now, despite being included in the outer UK zone system, petrol here costs 10p per gallon more than the dearest petrol in Britain. Surely we ought not to be paying 10p a gallon more than consumers are paying in the UK. This is yet another area where the Government have failed to take any action. We have other costs imposed on our industrialists, costs which make them less competitive and aggravate an already bad employment situation.
Over a year ago, when An Bord Gáis was being formed, we advocated that this natural gas should be made available through a national grid to industrialists and others. We argued that it should not be made available to the ESB because the ESB would waste almost 75 per cent of the thermal value of the gas. We argued that a national grid should be established to make the gas available for domestic use in certain towns between Cork and Dublin and also for industrial purposes. That would have resulted in low cost energy. This has been done very successfully in Britain, so successfully that the Coal Board and the electricity authority were seeking 12 months ago a tax on natural gas.
We should utilise every natural resource for the maximum benefit of our people. Natural gas would definitely have created low cost energy in certain areas and the result of that would have been more employment. At the outset of the energy crisis in October, 1973, and subsequently, we said it was the duty of the Government to make the country self-sufficient in refining capacity. It takes three years to set up an oil refinery. It is now three and a half years since we said this should be done without delay and we are now in a worse position than we were then because oil is costing a great deal more. Surely common sense would dictate that by being self-sufficient in refining capacity we would have some control over the supply of oil and the cost. It is not difficult to realise what this would mean to the ESB. Instead of having to buy oil from Russia or the Middle East at exorbitant prices we would now be in a position to supply our own fuel oil to the ESB. That would be a tremendous boon to domestic and industrial consumers, but instead of setting about achieving this they have done nothing.
As well as wasting almost 75 per cent of the natural gas to which the board will have access the ESB are now contemplating the erection of a new generating station at a cost of between £50 and £60 million. Based on annual reports of the ESB over the years I believe this money will be borrowed from outside the sterling area. It appears, from the most recent report, that ip in every 4p, or 25 per cent of every ESB bill, is going towards the foreign borrowing between capital repayment and readjustment of interest rates due to the fall in the £. In spite of this the ESB are permitted to borrow more.
If the board were permitted to borrow more money to supply low-cost energy the consumers would get some satisfaction from that action but they are borrowing to waste a natural resource which could be of great importance to our economy. In those two instances the Government have failed to take proper action. Very definite action will still have to be taken in the areas of the refining of crude oil and the utilisation of natural gas in order to deal with our energy problem. That problem will stay with us even though the Government hope it will disappear overnight.
After the next general election Fianna Fáil will set out to tackle these two problems. By creating more refining capacity we would not only be establishing control over its supply and cost but we would also be helping to create more downstream industries which normally spring from an oil refinery. We would also be creating more employment. Instead of accepting any application for price increases we would be attacking the very base of the problem by creating more buoyancy in the economy and improving the employment prospects of our people, unemployed or otherwise, who must bear the price increases such as those sanctioned last week. Those increases included a 25 per cent increase granted to CIE in respect of bus fares and a 26 per cent increase in suburban rail fares. It is interesting to note from the statement of the Minister for Transport and Power that the total cost of the increase in school transport will be £300,000. Based on his own figure of £11 million for school transport it represents approximately 3 per cent extra for school transport this year. How then can CIE justify an increased cost of 25 per cent for users of the Dublin buses and 26 per cent for those who use the rail service in that city?
On the issue of prices, if we are to be effective in controlling them it is necessary to try to unravel different causes and indicate quite clearly which we cannot influence and which we can influence. In relation to the ones we can influence it seems to me to be extremely important that we tell the truth about the situation and that we have a rational debate and not one which releases forces in society which could be destructive both on the price front and on the much wider front. Other Deputies have referred to some of the major external causes which, apart from enumerating, I am not going to repeat. The external causes include the inflation we have had to grapple with during our period in Government and the very dramatic increase in the price of oil. Deputy Barrett told the House that the extra cost amounted to hundreds of millions of pounds over the interval. Other commodities expanded in some cases by hundreds of per cent as well. The Parliamentary Secretary, Deputy Bruton, gave some figures on that last night. He also made reference to the downflow of the £ and of the historically high interest rates which exist in London, not out of the considerations of the requirements of the cost of money in our economy but for the sake of defending the £ sterling. All those have inflationary effects on us.
The major domestic sources that we can influence are the rate of evolution of wages and the rate of evolution of Government spending and, therefore, of taxation because these two are closely related. Before going on to the question of wages and taxation and the realities of our circumstance vis-à-vis other places I should like to add another cause which is relevant to our period of office. It is the growing free trade between us and the other eight countries of the Community. While we had some movement towards free trade with the UK, and considerable movement under the AIFTA agreement in the late sixties and early seventies, we had uniquely in the period of office of this Government the dramatic freeing of trade in relation to an area where prices are very much larger than ours. That, in relation to the commodities we imported, had an inflationary influence but so of course had it an influence in relation to the price paid our farmers and, therefore, in the price that consumers pay for food. Since we validly are now in a free trade circumstance with the UK and with the other seven member states it is proper now to make comparisons in that free trade circumstance and where the prices of many things, especially food, are settled centrally in the Community. The comparison I should like to quote is from the Evening Press of 3rd March, 1977. An article in that issue stated that once again Dublin remained at the bottom of the price league in a survey of the nine Common Market capitals for a basket of ten basic foods. The basket costs £5.20 in Dublin compared with £9.14 in Brussels, the dearest.
Would the Minister now care to give the wages in Brussels as opposed to those in Dublin without which, as he knows, that kind of comparison is meaningless?
I thought we would get some interruptions. It is one way to divert the House from the issues.
Wages in Brussels are more than twice what they are in Dublin. The Minister has been caught out already.
(Cavan): This is the first time there has been an interruption during Private Members' Business in the last three weeks.
Since great play has been made about the cost of butter I should like to put the cost of that item on the record. It was 53p per lb in Dublin, by far the cheapest of the nine. The nearest rival is London where it is 57p per lb. Dublin milk prices were by far the cheapest of the nine capitals. Our price was 8p compared with 26.5p in The Hague. It is relevant to make those comparisons after hearing the speech of Deputy Andrews last night.
I should now like to talk about two important internal forces, wages and public spending. With regard to wages, that is something we can influence if we get a calm, reasonable and decent social atmosphere. The essential thing is that wages must not increase more rapidly than gross national product in real terms because if they do a larger section of GNP is moving into wages and is, therefore, moving out of investment and out of growth. I have already indicated that I believe that growth in the public sector is the key to price control. I shall deal with that later. This leads me to refer to something Deputy Andrews said last night. I know that in political debate any sort of accusation of bad faith or cheating towards politicians seems to be permissible but I want to protest on behalf of the Government and also on behalf of the National Prices Commission and the staff of the Department of Industry and Commerce against the accusation that we deliberately held up the publication of the December report of the National Prices Commission, that we cheated with it and, therefore, that we were not playing fair with the workers' side in the voting on the national wage agreement. The obvious inference was that if that was done to them they had the right to break the agreement. It was a move designed to produce wreckage on the wages front and it is fair that I put a few facts about it on the record as well as repudiate the suggestion vehemently, which I do.
The November report was published on 28th January, 56 days after it was sent to me. The December report is the one which we are concerned with and about which the accusation was made. If the December report were to have been published before the day the national wage agreement was accepted it would have meant that it should have been published less than 25 days after the November report, at a holiday period and when the Government were preoccupied with the budget. The interval may reasonably be compared with the 56 days for the November report. I put those facts on the record not because I personally am particularly affronted by accusations of bad faith from the Opposition—I am used to that—but because it is an extremely damaging accusation in regard to the maintenance of order on wages which is one of the most important contributions in the controlling of inflation. It was both a wrecking and an inflationary accusation and that is why I have spent this time in dealing with it.
With regard to the effects of taxation in the public sector, I am not going to talk about these matters in any great detail because the Minister for Transport and Power is here and will contribute to the debate. However, if one calls for the avoiding of the price mechanism in regard to electricity, transport and broadcasting, the only other mechanism is increased State subsidy which involves a very large amount of money. I am not talking about subsidies on food but subsidies on the State sector companies. They are already large but if they are made bigger it is done by higher taxation. They are already at and even beyond the limit and I welcome the reduction in taxation in the budget. If we are to have the kind of economic growth that will solve all of our problems we will have to reduce taxation as a percentage of GNP, not increase it. Therefore, the suggestion that one interferes with the market mechanism and puts more and more State money at the disposal of these companies is not a solution to the problem but is an inflationary suggestion itself.
Yesterday Deputy Andrews referred to OECD statistics on the relative inflationary performance of different countries in the Community and in the 22 countries of the OECD. Since it was raised by Deputy Andrews it is proper that I reply. Much as the Opposition may hate it, I will remind them again of what we inherited. I will remind them of the last quarter before we came to power and I will use the OECD figures. In the quarter November, 1972 to February, 1973 we were inflating more than twice as fast as the UK. For that quarter the UK figure was 1.8 per cent and our figure was 4 per cent, at a time when there was no world crisis, no explosion in commodity costs, no devaluation of the £ and no adjustment with regard to the EEC. It was 4 per cent here and 1.8 per cent in the UK—less than half as fast. Let the Opposition remember that. It is what we inherited.
How did the Government survive?
Interruptions again when we come to the sticky point.
(Dublin Central): Give the figures for the year.
Order. The Minister should be allowed to make his speech without interruption.
I will give the Deputy figures for the three and threequarter years before we came to power and the three and three-quarter years since. We have not got figures up to the present. In the three and three-quarter years before we took office in the inflation league of the OECD we were ranked fourth from the top in the rate of inflation.
(Dublin Central): Let the Minister give the percentage.
He only gives the figures when it suits him.
I draw attention to the continuous interruptions.
Order. Interruptions are most unwelcome in a debate in which a time limit applies.
We were the fourth fastest then. After joining the EEC, and having regard to the other effects I mentioned, we are now sixth fastest. We have come two places down in the league. Let me give Deputy Fitzpatrick the figures he requested. In the period May, 1969 to February, 1973 we inflated 7 per cent faster than the UK. In the period of three and three-quarter years from 1973 to 1976 we inflated 1 per cent less fast.
That is not what the Minister was asked.
More interruptions. The half year before we came to office and up to the present is more interesting still because in that half year the UK inflated at 4.1 per cent while we inflated at 5.5 per cent. However, in the most recent half year the roles are reversed. Our inflation was 5.8 per cent while their rate was 6.8 per cent. In the circumstances I have described we are moving down the rank and instead of inflating more than twice as fast as Britain—a condition we inherited—we are now inflating more slowly than Britain. A whole number of countries that did not come above us in the inflation league of the OECD which Deputy Andrews mentioned are now before us in the league.
I shall not refer to the level of subsidies because this has been dealt with. In place of argument I heard Deputy Andrews bleating about bread, butter and flour. It is no harm not only to remind the House but to remind the electorate that the present Opposition on two occasions on their return to office removed or reduced food subsidies. They did it in 1952 and in 1957. On those two occasions the subsidy was removed from bread, butter and flour.
What will happen when we return to power in 1977?
The people who are so vociferous about the need for increased subsidies in Opposition are precisely the people who on two occasions removed them and produced a dramatic increase in the price of those staple items of food. We are entitled to consider the protestations hypocritical in the light of that fact.
I thought the Minister did not like going back on what happened 25 years ago.
In regard to price control in general——
1957 was the year the Minister was active in Pembroke Lane.
The Minister has a limited time.
In regard to price control in general if one uses the existing mechanism—we have used it much more extensively than our predecessors as was indicated by the Parliamentary Secretary yesterday—to rob enterprises of profit one has inevitable consequences. The first of those is that you simply de-industrialise. If you de-industrialise you disemploy. In our circumstances if you de-industrialise and disemploy, you depopulate. During our period of office we have had a net inflow into the country and we have had the most rapid growth in population the country has had for more than a century. We are coping with more people than the country has coped with in living memory. If you make demands that do not permit industry and all sorts of enterprise to re-capitalise and reequip, you are killing the goose that lays the golden eggs.
That is great stuff at a crossroads. It is great stuff to quote the profit margin but it is destructive of the whole economy, the population and our industry. In regard to the State companies I will make the general observation that when you get a shrinking level of production and, worse still, a shrinking economy and a shrinking population, with certain fixed things that you have got to maintain, a fixed number of telephones, of miles of railroad, a fixed number of buses that have to run at certain times and all those things, then you are spreading the costs over fewer and fewer users. The way to help on the prices front in the public sector is by economic growth. Then you have more and more people spending more and your overheads are spread. This is inescapable.
The contribution to the costs of State companies in the recent recession came because of a diminished volume of economic activity. The cure is the opposite. Therefore the cure by economic growth this year will be four per cent in terms of GNP. The stimulus given to that economic growth by the budget and by taxation reductions is precisely the sort of stimulus which makes the best possible contribution to controlling costs in the State sector, which is necessary. It is a public service and it is essential that those costs are spread over the largest number of people, each spending the largest possible amount of money.
We are a little fragile economy that has almost completed its five annual adjustments to free trade. If we tell the truth we can have a stable, balanced and sensible atmosphere inside the country with a reasonable evolution on the wages front and a reasonable evolution on the taxation and public expenditure front because we have not released uncontrollable forces. If we behave decently and truthfully and reconcile different sectors of society we can prosper. If, on the other hand, we exaggerate, if we raise impossible hopes, if we decry things, if we present them in the blackest possible light, if we do our utmost, for example, to wreck a national wage agreement, then we release impossible hopes for wages and for public expenditure, requiring greater taxation. We have then the precise causes of releasing another wave of inflation. It seems to me that, far from having any suggestions to make about the control of inflation, for perfectly obvious reasons in an election year the irresponsibility of the Opposition is tending, unsuccessfully, precisely in the direction of producing the inflation they purport to decry.
(Dublin Central): I welcome the late conversion of the Minister for Industry and Commerce in relation to overtaxation of business and industry. If we look back over the policies pursued by this Administration we can see that the problems we have today were brought about by the overtaxation of business and industry the Minister is talking about now. The Minister for Industry and Commerce stated that before we left office we were inflating twice as fast as Britain.
The Coalition published a 14-point plan shortly before they came into office. Among the objectives of that plan were control of prices, control of inflation, bring down prices and halt redundancies. We were told that the new cabinet was one of the most brilliant cabinets in Europe. If they had the information that we were inflating twice as fast as Britain before we left office they should have set about controlling inflation. They either made a false promise in their 14-point plan or they did not know what they were talking about.
The situation we are facing at the moment and the reason for the introduction of this motion is because the Government have failed to see the basic causes of our having the highest inflation rate in Europe. We have to cast our minds back to the time the Coalition Government took office to see the pattern of what exactly took place. We know that the fiscal measures they introduced over the past two years were disastrous as far as economic expansion is concerned. We know that without economic expansion there will be a contraction of money flowing into the Exchequer and finance will not be available to keep desirable services financed.
I believe the Coalition Government started off on the wrong platform. They embarked on a scheme of excessive borrowing. They borrowed for non-productive purposes. All those non-productive purposes have to be financed. Much of the taxation which was introduced in this year's budget will go to finance and service the loans which have been spent on unproductive purposes during the past four years. It is the unfortunate taxpayers who will have to carry this burden.
The policies pursued by the Coalition Government have created unemployment, caused redundancies and contributed to a great extent to the rate of inflation today. In January, 1976, when inflation was rising to between 20 per cent and 25 per cent and when prices were increasing roughly in the region of 20 per cent, they introduced a budget which was the most disastrous budget ever produced in the country. The high inflation we are experiencing today is a direct result of the 1976 budget. Many of the increases that have been announced over the last week can trace their origin to the 1976 budget.
The Minister for Finance in January, 1976, stated in the House that he would have a budget deficit in the region of £327 million. In order to balance that he imposed huge taxes on cars, petrol, beer, wine and spirits. The direct result of that budget was that it increased the cost of living between 4 per cent and 5 per cent. Most people at that time were aware inflation was rising, prices were increasing, our goods were becoming uncompetitive so that we were failing in the British market and were failing to attract industries to create employment. Yet the Minister for Finance embarked on this disastrous budget from which the country is suffering today. If it was necessary to impose such taxation at that time well and good, but in 1977 the Minister has stated in this House that the deficit at the end of the year was only £201 million. A sum of £126 million excess taxation was imposed in a year when the country had rampant inflation.
Surely that must have had a disastrous effect on all aspects of the economy over the past 12 months, especially during 1976. Of course it discouraged industry from coming in here. That is why there is so much unemployment. It caused massive redundancies. It affected the standard of living, and the trade unions were compelled to seek increases for their members to keep in line with rising prices during 1976. If the Minister had used common sense at that time and if his projections were accurate, as they should have been, he could have reduced taxes by £126 million, which would have had a beneficial effect on the whole economy and particularly on prices. The wage structure, on the one hand, and the Minister's increased taxation, on the other, are the main causes of our difficulties today. The underlying inflation is there and will continue to be there during 1977 despite the wage agreement negotiated recently.
It is all due to incompetence, despite what the Minister for Industry and Commerce may say about imported inflation. I am prepared to concede that there was a certain amount of imported inflation, but I am certainly not prepared to concede that the total inflation over the past two or three years was imported. The Government must take responsibility for the price rises which have taken place over the past fortnight or three weeks. There have been astronomical price rises in transport. Thousands and thousands of Dublin city workers are affected. Due to the corporation's siting of houses, workers have further to travel by bus every morning, from Ballyfermot, Tallaght, Finglas and such places, into the city. How does the Minister reconcile the figures in the national wage agreement, which gives roughly an 8 to 10 per cent increase in incomes with such an enormous increase as 25 per cent in transport? Is there anything dishonest in stating that? This vast increase in bus and train fares for Dublin city workers will have an adverse effect on their standard of living, if it is borne in mind that they must use transport five or six days a week.
The same argument applies to the Department of Posts and Telegraphs. If there was ever a scandal in regard to price increases by a Department it must be in connection with the Department of Posts and Telegraphs. A 25 per cent increase in telephone charges and a 13 per cent increase in postal charges have been sanctioned recently. Since February, 1973, up to and including the charges which will come into operation on 1st April, there has been an increase of 137 per cent in telephone charges and of 138 per cent in postal charges. That is after four years of Coalition Government. When that is contrasted with the 14-point plan for curbing prices and inflation, the hypocrisy of the present Administration will be evident.
There might be some justification if it could be said that people had a reasonably good service from the Department of Posts and Telegraphs, but anybody who has to use the telephone experiences utter frustration. The Minister did not apply to the National Prices Commission for his increases. In answer to a question yesterday he told me there was no obligation on the Department so to apply, which there is not under the regulations. The people who have had telephones installed pay a substantial amount for this service, between rental and other charges, and they are paying for a service they are not getting. I am not by any means criticising officers within the Department. There is an excellent staff in the Department of Posts and Telegraphs. It should be borne in mind that there is a work force of about 24,000 people employed in the Department of Posts and Telegraphs. That is a large concern. It is the largest Department and contains more than half the total number of civil servants. It is a Department that needs constant attention. If there was any private enterprise with 24,000 under its control it would demand the undivided attention of its managing director at all times. Telecommunications are of vital importance to the private sector. In business and commerce it is a key facility in the expansion of our economic base. This country has the worst telephone system in Europe, which does not provide great encouragement to foreign investors to come here.
The Minister is not giving his undivided attention to such a large Department as this. He must be there to boost morale or else, as in any other business concern where the manager or managing director does not give a lead, the enterprise will decline. The onus is always on the head man to give a lead and set an example. The Minister for Posts and Telegraphs has not given that lead. Instead, he directs his attention to other Departments with the result that his own Department has suffered considerably. That Department is much too important to be neglected in this way. After four years of the Minister's administration we have reached the stage of total increases of 137 per cent and 138 per cent respectively. Such a situation is not indicative of a healthy sign in the Department. I am not in any way criticising the personnel within the Department but they are entitled to the full-time attention of their Minister. Matters such as these are of vital importance to our economic development and it is the economic development situation that dictates whether prices can be kept at a reasonable level. If the proper climate is not created within the economy there can be no hope of creating the necessary wealth to relieve the burden on the weaker sections of the community because if sufficient moneys are not accruing to the Exchequer those in the social welfare categories cannot be helped.
When we consider that prices have increased by about 85 per cent during the past three or four years and compare this increase with the increases that have been given to old age pensioners and other social welfare recipients, we realise that the standard of living of those people has been reduced. I know of many old people living alone in my constituency and for whom meat and other foods are a luxury of which they might partake at Christmas time, if they are lucky enough.
All of this has arisen from the Government's failure to control inflation. Failure in this regard must result in continuous price rises and, consequently, in the disastrous situation in which we find ourselves. However, there was some sign of conversion in the last budget. We are very pleased and complimented that the Government should have adopted some of the recommendations of our White Paper on economic policy. If they had adopted and implemented all of our recommendations, we would be in a much happier situation.
Let us take the changes in the taxation system as announced in the budget. It is an interesting exercise to consider the adjustments that have been made in this area. We find, for instance, that a single man, irrespective of his income, will receive much more by way of tax relief than will a married man who has two or three children. In the latter case the tax saving as a result of the new structure will be £62 a year or, approximately, £1.18p a week while the single man earning from £15,000 to £20,000 per year will have his income tax reduced this year by about £40 per week. That structure is wrong. It is obvious that the standard of living of a man earning, say, £3,000 to £4,000 per year will be diminished considerably. On a recent radio programme the Minister for Industry and Commerce said it was hoped to keep inflation at about 15 per cent this year. I do not believe this will be possible and that the figure will be more likely to be in the region of 18 per cent.
If there is a decline in purchasing power there will be a decline, too, in retail sale. This trend is likely to manifest itself about mid-year. It must happen in a situation in which inflation is running at between 15 per cent and 18 per cent while incomes are increasing by 10 per cent. This situation is bound to affect industry, too.
The Minister for Industry and Commerce referred to a recent publication of the National Prices Commission and he went on to imply that there was no undue delay in this regard. In this context let us consider some dates to show the periods of time that elapsed from the date on which the relevant letters were sent to the Minister and the issuing of the publications. The letter in respect of March last was received by the Minister on the 14th April while the date of the publication was May 13, a delay of four weeks. In regard to April the letter was sent on the 7th May while the date of publication was June 14th. In the next case the letter was sent on June 8th while the date of the publication was July 9th—again, a delay of four weeks. On the following occasion the letter was sent on July 8th and the date of the publication was August 13th, a delay of five weeks. There is always one publication for the months of August and September. In that regard the letter was sent on October 7th while the date of the publication was October 17th. That was one-and-a-half weeks after the letter being received.
There was no national wage agreement then.
(Dublin Central): In that case it was possible for the Department to have the publication ready in such a short time. Now we come to December 1976. The Minister received the letter dated 6th January, 1977, and publication did not take place until 2nd March, that is approximately 8 weeks. There is no time when it took eight weeks for the publication of the National Prices Commission Report.
(Cavan): I do not know what the Deputy is talking about when he says it took 34 days.
(Dublin Central): What took 34 days?
This is a limited time debate. Deputy Fitzpatrick is in possession.
(Dublin Central): The Minister received this on 8th January and it was published on 2nd March. How many days is that?
(Cavan): It was received on 1st October and published on 4th November.
(Dublin Central): What is the Minister talking about? I am talking about the December report.
(Cavan): The Deputy is wrong.
Deputy Fitzpatrick is in possession. The Deputy should be allowed to make his own case and the case can be answered.
(Dublin Central): The Minister for Industry and Commerce received the December report on 8th January from the Prices Commission and it was published on 2nd March. That is more than 34 days by anyone's arithmetic. It is approximately eight weeks.
(Cavan): The 1976 one was received on 6th February and published on 20th March, that is 43 days.
Deputy Fitzpatrick should be allowed his time.
(Cavan): The December one was received on 6th January.
Deputy Fitzpatrick has only three minutes left and he should be allowed his time.
(Dublin Central): When was it published? It was published on 2nd March. When the Minister for Finance was framing his budget he had that National Prices Commission report in his hand. The Minister talked about reduction in his income tax although he had that report. The Minister for Industry and Commerce and Deputy Ryan who sat in on the national wages agreement had that report. Is that deception? I was rather sorry that the Minister for Industry and Commerce left so early. If the Minister feels like checking those dates and going over the majority of the National Prices Commission reports over the past 12 months, he will find that this National Prices Commission report was held longer than any one over the past 12 months.
The Deputy has two minutes left.
(Dublin Central): It is very hard to debate a subject like this in such a short time. The tragedy of the whole situation is that this administration by their lack of knowledge in relation to handling the economy have forced the weaker sections of our community especially to take a cut in their standard of living, due to their allowing inflation to go out of hand. That is the situation we shall find ourselves trying to cope with when we get back into office. The people of this country will realise exactly what has taken place over the past six weeks, first the budget and then the deception. I can assure the Minister that the majority of the people in this country know exactly by now what the budget contains. The Irish people cannot be fooled. That type of deception has never worked in the past and will not work in the future. If these facts were revealed to the people at the budget and during the negotiations at the national wages agreement, they would have much higher regard for the Government for their honesty. Dishonesty was never rewarded in this country.
The Minister for Transport and Power. The concluder on the motion will be called at 8.21.
No he will not, he will be called at 8.15. That was the arrangement I made with the Ceann Comhairle. I am entitled to a quarter of an hour to reply.
The position is that the debate has to run its time and 8.21 is the time which is marked down for concluding the motion.
It is not. The Ceann Comhairle made a mistake and apologised to the House for the mistake and he told me on my specific inquiry that I would not be penalised because of his mistake. I will not be penalised for it. I made that arrangement with the Ceann Comhairle, and it was announced here in the House.
The position is that a question was asked of the Ceann Comhairle as to when Deputy O'Malley would be called and it says specifically here that it is 8.21.
I never asked the Ceann Comhairle that and he never told me anything about 8.21. I asked "Will I have my usual 15 minutes to reply?" The Ceann Comhairle said that I would have it, that I was entitled to 15 minutes.
The position as the Chair sees it at the moment is that this debate will run on six minutes, the next time Private Members' business is taken, to allow for the 15 minutes in conclusion.
The difficulty that has been created by the over-running of the time last night has been compounded by the fact that the Chair did not carry out the order of the House which was made at half past ten this morning to commence this debate at 6.54 p.m. I came in here at 6.54 p.m., and I drew the Chair's attention to it privately. I understood then that this debate would commence and after a couple of minutes when I realised it was not, I drew the Chair's attention to it publicly and he apologised, and said that it was his error and that I would have 15 minutes to reply as I am entitled to.
(Cavan): The Deputy can have it. Nobody is depriving the Deputy of it. He can have it the next evening, next week.
In fairness to everybody this matter should be clarified before the Minister for Transport and Power speaks because I was specifically informed by the Ceann Comhairle that in accordance with the Standing Orders of this House I would have 15 minutes in which to reply to the debate. The Ceann Comhairle apologised twice to the House for the error which he made.
(Interruptions.)
(Cavan): On a point of order, Deputy O'Malley is effectively wasting what little time is left to me.
When I started this evening, the Ceann Comhairle informed us that time would be allowed for a vote this evening.
The position is that Private Members' time will end in the ordinary way at 8.30, unless the motion is by that time concluded. The concluder on the motion has 15 minutes and that will be available to the concluder on the motion even if that entails six minutes of Private Members' time on the next occasion on which the Dáil sits on Private Members' time.
(Dublin Central): Deputy O'Malley was specifically promised by the Ceann Comhairle that he would have 15 minutes to reply and it was understood that the debate would conclude at 8.30.
The position at present is as the Chair has announced it. This is just wasting time at the moment. The matter is being checked and in the meantime we will have the Minister for Transport and Power. Although Deputy O'Malley alleges that he has an undertaking in this matter the time that the Chair has here for Deputy O'Malley to be called is 8.21.
The present occupant of the Chair seems to totally overlook the fact that this whole problem was caused by the Chair's mistake. The Chair was amazed when I pointed it out and did not believe me until he read the Order which he had read out this morning. The Ceann Comhairle said that he had completely forgotten about it, that he was very sorry and that it was his mistake. He apologised twice to the House publicly for his error and told me that I would not be in any way penalised for the error for which he took full responsibility.
(Cavan): The Deputy can have all the time he is entitled to.
My 15 minutes was for tonight.
On a point of order. Why should Deputy O'Malley be victimised six minutes because of a mistake made and acknowledged by the Chair?
The mistake will be fixed, Deputy. Deputy O'Malley will not be victimised at any time.
On a point of order. Could the Leas-Cheann Comhairle cause inquiries to be made from the Ceann Comhairle who was in the Chair at the time this error was made as to whether or not he agrees that he made an error, whether or not he apologised twice for it and whether or not he told me that I would have my 15 minutes tonight in which to reply.
The Chair has already informed the Deputy that inquiries will be made in the matter.
Will be?
(Cavan): The Deputy has succeeded in wasting three or four minutes.
I am informed that the Deputy was told he would be called on at 8.21 p.m.
I was not told that, a Leas-Cheann Comhairle.
The position is that the Deputy was informed evidently that he could forfeit his six minutes or he could avail of his six minutes.
I was not told that.
The Chair can only accept the position as it is.
That is not the position as it is, a Leas-Cheann Comhairle, and I was not told that.
(Cavan): A Leas-Cheann Comhairle——
This is contemptible. The Chair makes an error and then apologises for it and makes an arrangement and a subsequent occupant of the Chair goes back on it. It is contemptible.
The Deputy is accusing the Chair of being contemptible.
(Cavan): In the few minutes left to me I would like to draw the attention of the House to the fact that the Opposition are again indulging in the luxury of speaking without responsibility. At their recent Ard-Fheis we had the experience of the Fianna Fáil Party advocating schemes which would cost about £150 million, and at the same Ard-Fheis they demanded that taxation be reduced by £50 million and condemned borrowing as being irresponsible. The week before last we had the Fianna Fáil Party in here demanding that railway facilities be kept in operation irrespective of cost. They said the people were entitled to them. Well and good. Last week the same party were here protesting loudly against the proposal to increase fares to keep those very same services in operation. How inconsistent can they get?
The prices that are the subject of this motion were vetted and scrutinised and approved of by the National Prices Commission and the NPC were satisfied that these prices were justified before they recommended them. Indeed, one of the national daily newspapers, the Irish Independent on 3rd March, 1977, stated that to criticise these prices or to pretend that something could be done about them was counter-productive because it raised hopes that there was some form of action which the Government could take to alleviate price rises when there was in fact none. A leading article in the same paper on 9th March said that no Government would introduce or approved of these price increases in an election year after a popular budget if that could be avoided and it went on to say that of course it could not be avoided.
(Dublin Central): It could be avoided.
(Cavan): I have not time to go into and answer all the points made by the Opposition because I have only a few minutes. It is obvious, if the Government were dishonest and fraudulent, as is alleged that after the budget these prices would not have been sanctioned or approved of but there would have been a general election.
(Dublin Central): The Minister could not stop it.
(Cavan): The Government believe these prices are necessary in order to avoid unemployment and that is the reason they come in here honestly and tell the House that they have approved of them.
I draw the Chair's attention to the fact that it is now 8.15 and, according to the transcript in the hands of the Chair, I was informed by the Ceann Comhairle earlier that I would get in at 8.15.
(Cavan): The Deputy succeeded in wasting five minutes of my time.
If the Chair would read out from the transcript the question I asked the Ceann Comhairle and his reply, it would clarify these matters.
(Cavan): I will be concluding in five minutes. One point I would like to deal with as Minister for Transport and Power is that the Opposition have made no attempt to say what they would do about these prices, with one exception. The spokesman for Transport and Power, Deputy Barrett, speaking last night and dealing with the proposed increase in the ESB charges gave his recipe. It is not a new one from Fianna Fáil. He stated that the ESB should have been told to cut their current costs and to curtail further capital expenditure. I would like to ask Deputy Barrett where he proposes to cut the expenditure. Is it in the work that is going on at Poolbeg generating station here in Dublin, which is the most efficient in Europe? Is it at the Tarbert extension in County Kerry across the Shannon? Is it at the Aghada new generating station or at the Marina station in Cork? These are the proposals he has put forward. Maybe he proposes to ask the ESB not to proceed with the line from Tarbert to Galway underwater across the Shannon and overland through County Clare. These are the proposals that Deputy Barrett asks this House to adopt in lieu of increasing ESB prices—to curtail current costs and to stop all further expenditure.
What about natural gas?
(Cavan): That is a strange recipe coming from Fianna Fáil, because for their last few years in office they starved the telephone and the telecommunications service of capital——
It is well starved today.
(Cavan):——and it has taken an enormous amount of money to put it back where it should be.
It is the worst telephone service in Europe.
(Cavan): Those are the proposals coming from Fianna Fáil. Deputy Barrett should tell the people and I hope Deputy O'Malley will, when he is concluding——
I will not have enough time to tell anyone anything.
(Cavan):——whether he believes that the way to cut down ESB prices it to sack 2,000 men.
Who asked anyone to sack 2,000 men?
(Cavan): The Deputy asked me a question and I will answer him. Deputy Barrett said the ESB should be told to cut their current costs and curtail further capital expenditure. What result can you have from curtailing further capital expenditure other than unemployment?
The Minister has one minute.
Where are the 2,000 men? They are in the Middle East.
(Cavan): That would be a cut of 5 per cent on the west coast, in Cork and in Dublin. The Deputy has mentioned the Middle East. The ESB are a most efficient organisation, proud of their performances. Not alone is the Poolbeg station regarded as the most efficient in Europe but the ESB have built up a consultancy service all over the world, which they are operating at a profit. Just as the Germans came here 50 years ago to instal the electricity supply system, now Irish people are going from the ESB all over the world.
The Chair must now call Deputy O'Malley.
(Cavan): It is a sorry day when Fianna Fáil advocate the cutting of expenditure.
A Leas-Cheann Comhairle, would it not be very difficult to know, unless you had an Order Paper in front of you, if you had been listening for the last 15 minutes or so to the Minister for Transport and Power that this debate was about inflation? Would not one be very proud to be a member of the Fianna Fáil Party, because there was virtually nothing else that the Minister could talk about except the Fianna Fáil Party? One would never dream that this country at present had the highest rate of inflation in Europe and indeed in the 27 OECD countries. The only thing the Minister for Transport and Power and his colleague, the Minister for Industry and Commerce, could talk about tonight were the defects which they found in the Fianna Fáil Party. It is not surprising that they do not like to talk about the fact that this country is now in the banana republic league. The banana republic was defined some years ago as one of those South American countries where you had astronomical rates of inflation every year. When somebody inquired as to what was an astronomical rate of inflation the reply was anything in excess of 20 per cent. That is the situation we are in today and we are the only EEC country in that situation. The Government are the men who have us in that situation.
There are no greater problems afflicting this country today, and afflicting more people in it, than the problems of inflation and prices. Yet there is not one member of this Government sitting around the Cabinet table who has any responsibility for that problem, because the responsibility has been shifted for the past two years to the most junior Parliamentary Secretary in the Government—he is not in the Government of course; he is attached to it—who is not entitled to attend Government meetings. When discussions take place at Cabinet level, when various Ministers have various proposals to make about increases in all the sorts of things—and we have seen increases in the past week or two not by private industry but by Government Ministers themselves—there is no one there to cry halt to all that. There is no one who has responsibility for that situation. Is it any wonder, therefore, that we are in the mess we are in today?
Indeed, we were very honoured that the Minister for Industry and Commerce saw fit to grace us with his presence this evening for 20 minutes. He ducked in and said his little bit. He gave another lesson in how to use statistics dishonestly and ducked out again. That was his contribution to prices and the problem of inflation in the past two years. That was his contribution during 20 minues of dishonest statistics. In the terribly short time I have on this matter as a result of the mess the Chair made of the whole situation, I have not time to deal properly with these things, but I should like to give as one example of the dishonest use of statistics, in which there is no better practitioner in this country today than Minister for Industry and Commerce, his comparison of the price of a basket of groceries in Dublin and Brussels.
The Dublin basket costs £5 odd and the Brussels basket costs £9 odd and he said, therefore, the people of Dublin are almost twice as well off in terms of prices as the people of Brussels. How stupid does he think we are? Does he think we are as stupid as some of the people who trot into those division lobbies behind him every time?
The Deputy should not allege that Members of the House are stupid.
Some of them obviously are.
I do not need to allege it, Sir. The facts speak for themselves.
The Deputy may not make that allegation.
People outside are saying it too.
The wage rate in Brussels bears not the faintest comparison to the wage rate in Dublin. Therefore, the price of commodities in Brussels and the price of commodities in Dublin most certainly cannot be compared, and would not be compared by anybody who tried honestly to use statistics or comparisons.
We might as well take an example of wage rates in Brussels which are topical in view of what happened yesterday, or today, or whenever it happened. Let us take the comparison of the wage rates of a Member of this House and a Member of the European Parlaiment which sits in Brussels. I understand a Member of this House gets £5,300 odd and it is about to go up to £5,800 odd, subject to tax I might add. The equivalent in Brussels gets £20,000 a year free of tax. By God, if I had £20,000 a year free of tax I would not mind paying £9 for my basket of groceries which I can get in Dublin for £5. I would be a hell of a lot better off in real terms and my standard of living would be enormously higher.
To give another example of the kind of salaries which are quite common in Brussels, the job which the Minister for Industry and Commerce tried so hard to get and spent so long trying to stab in the back the present Commissioner for whatever he is, Mr. Burke, in trying to get it, pays £40,000 a year tax free. Is there anyone in this country getting £40,000 a year tax free, apart from the Bula beneficiaries and their potential income which will be considerably in excess of £40,000 a year tax free? I venture to think there is no one else in this country with that kind of salary. This is proof of the dishonest use of statistics in which the Minister for Industry and Commerce is a past master.
I made a list of the things which have gone up in price since 1st January of this year. When I came to the eleventh item I discovered I probably had only about half of them. They are so common now, and so fast moving, and coming on top of one another so often, that unless you retain an enormous number of cuttings and handouts and so on, it is impossible to keep a proper record. This list shows that in this year alone the great majority of those items which were savagely increased are not items which are affected by the green £ which the Parliamentary Secretary told us last night was the root of all our evils or by the new word we got from him last night, the oligopolies—that was another great problem for us.
The third "in-word" this week, in case the House did not know because this Department are a great Department for "in-words", is bunching. We are told we always have bunching in the spring. It appears it is necessary for all these firms to put up their prices in the spring. Why should television licences go up in the spring any more than in the autumn? What seasonal factors affect them? What has the green £ to do with television licences for colour or black and white sets? What has the green £ to do with the ESB? What has it to do with CIE? What has it to do with car insurance? What has it to do with cement? What has it to do with social welfare stamps? What has it to do with health stamps? What has it to do with cigarettes? In all this list I have here the only things I can see it has anything to do with are bread and flour. What has it to do with telephone charges? What has it to do with postal charges?
Is it not a fact that most of these things are not in the domain of private industry? They are in the domain of the Government themselves. When they are faced with a big problem like CIE wanting to put up fares, which are already far too high and bear hardest on the weakest members of the community, what do they do? They shrug their shoulders and say "There is nothing we can do about it", instead of trying to tackle the problem in CIE or in the ESB in the way in which Deputy Barrett has suggested at great length. Not at all, all that sort of thing is impossible and they shrug their shoulders and say "We are not interested. Let it happen."
All this comes from a Government who, if they were elected on any one single plank above all others, were elected on the plank that they would control and stabilise prices. When the Minister for Local Government was asked to explain exactly what he meant by that he said stabilisation of prices meant maintaining them at the level at which they were on the day they became the Government. That was four years ago. Today, in general, prices are just fractionally under 90 per cent above what they were on the day some small number of the people were gullible enough to swallow that lie. I can assure you, a Leas-Cheann Comhairle, that they will not be gullible enough to believe anything they hear from those benches opposite in the general election which is coming up.
Amendment put.
The Dáil divided: Tá, 66; Níl, 58.
Tá
- Barry, Peter.
- Barry, Richard.
- Begley, Michael.
- Belton, Luke.
- Belton, Paddy.
- Bermingham, Joseph.
- Bruton, John.
- Burke, Joan T.
- Burke, Liam.
- Byrne, Hugh.
- Clinton, Mark A.
- Cluskey, Frank.
- Collins, Edward.
- Conlan, John F.
- Coogan, Fintan.
- Cooney, Patrick M.
- Corish, Brendan.
- Cosgrave, Liam.
- Costello, Declan.
- Coughlan, Stephen.
- Crotty, Kieran.
- Cruise-O'Brien, Conor.
- Desmond, Barry.
- Desmond, Eileen.
- Dockell, Henry P.
- Dockrell, Maurice.
- Donegan, Patrick S.
- Donnellan, John.
- Dunne, Thomas.
- Enright, Thomas.
- Esmonde, John G.
- Finn, Martin.
- Fitzpatrick, Tom (Cavan).
- Flanagan, Oliver J.
- Gilhawley, Eugene.
- Governey, Desmond.
- Griffin, Brendan.
- Halligan, Brendan.
- Harte, Patrick D.
- Hegarty, Patrick.
- Hogan O'Higgins, Brigid.
- Jones, Denis F.
- Keating, Justin.
- Kelly, John.
- Kenny, Enda.
- Kyne, Thomas A.
- Lynch, Gerard.
- McLaughlin, Joseph.
- Malone, Patrick.
- Murphy, Michael P.
- O'Brien, Fergus.
- O'Connell, John.
- O'Donnell, Tom.
- O'Leary, Michael.
- O'Sullivan, John L.
- Pattison, Seamus.
- Reynolds, Patrick J.
- Ryan, John J.
- Ryan, Richie.
- Spring, Dan.
- Staunton, Myles.
- Taylor, Frank.
- Timmins, Godfrey.
- Toal, Brendan.
- Tully, James.
- White, James.
Níl
- Allen, Lorcan.
- Andrews, David.
- Barrett, Sylvester.
- Blaney, Neil T.
- Brady, Philip A.
- Brennan, Joseph.
- Breslin, Cormac.
- Briscoe, Ben.
- Brosnan, Seán.
- Browne, Seán.
- Brugha, Ruairí.
- Burke, Raphael P.
- Callanan, John.
- Calleary, Seán.
- Carter, Frank.
- Colley, George.
- Collins, Gerard.
- Connolly, Gerard.
- Crinion, Brendan.
- Cronin, Jerry.
- Crowley, Flor.
- Daly, Brendan.
- de Valera, Vivion.
- Dowling, Joe.
- Fahey, Jackie.
- Farrell, Joseph.
- Faulkner, Pádraig.
- Fitzgerald, Gene.
- Fitzpatrick, Tom (Dublin Central).
- Gallagher, Denis.
- Geoghegan-Quinn, Máire.
- Gibbons, Hugh.
- Gogan, Richard P.
- Haughey, Charles.
- Healy, Augustine A.
- Hussey, Thomas.
- Keaveney, Paddy.
- Kenneally, William.
- Lalor, Patrick J.
- Leonard, James.
- Loughnane, William.
- McEllistrim, Thomas.
- MacSharry, Ray.
- Meaney, Tom.
- Molloy, Robert.
- Moore, Seán.
- Murphy, Ciarán.
- Noonan, Michael.
- O'Connor, Timothy.
- O'Kennedy, Michael.
- O'Leary, John.
- O'Malley, Desmond.
- Power, Patrick.
- Timmons, Eugene.
- Tunney, Jim.
- Walsh, Seán.
- Wilson, John P.
- Wyse, Pearse.
Tellers: Tá, Deputies Kelly and B. Desmond; Níl, Deputies Lalor and Browne.
Question declared carried.
Motion, as amended, put and declared carried.