Adjournment of Dáil: Motion(Resumed).

Debate resumed on the following motion:

That the Dáil at its rising this week to adjourn for the Christmas Recess.

—(The Taoiseach.)

An Ceann Comhairle

Deputy FitzGerald, replying for Fine Gael, has 45 minutes.

I will deal with him later, a Cheann Comhairle. Before dealing with the domestic aspects of the Taoiseach's speech in introducing this debate, which are controversial and on which I may find myself, to say the least, in disagreement with the Government, I should like to deal with the Taoiseach's remarks about Northern Ireland. He made the point that the security situation in Northern Ireland seems to be getting better, and this is something we are all glad of and hope it can be sustained. However, one has to comment that it seems to be getting better to a degree at our expense and that there seems to be an increasing tendency for those who are engaged in terrorist activities in the North to engage in them here at danger to human life and considerable cost to the community. It does raise the question of the disposition of our security forces with a view to ensuring that these activities are kept under control. The Taoiseach made particular reference to the care that needs to be taken in the disposition of security forces of a certain type or tradition in particular areas in Northern Ireland, which he said is a matter that can cause great trouble. I endorse what he says in regard to this matter; indeed, I go further and say that where we are talking of a particular unit of the security forces it is not just that there is a problem about it serving in particular areas in Northern Ireland. I think it is a question of its service in Northern Ireland at all in view of the record of one particular group, and it should be seriously reconsidered by the UK Government. We have sufficient interest in the maintenance of peace in Northern Ireland from every point of view, from the point of view of this State, from the point of view of our concern for the people of Ireland as a whole, to have a right to take this matter up with the UK Government.

The Taoiseach says he does not need to underline the sensitivity of this matter. It would seem that he does need to underline the sensitivity of this matter to the UK Government and it might be no harm if he did that and if it were done rapidly before the provocation that could be given by this particular force operating in Northern Ireland heightening the tension again and creating a recrudescence of terrorist activity which has, as the Taoiseach said, been dying down.

In regard to his remarks on the discussions aimed at an interim devolution arrangement, I can only endorse his hope that these discussions will come to something. For them to do so will require considerable skill and openmindedness on the part of the UK Government and the Secretary of State, an openmindedness in putting forward proposals which are related to the desires of the two sections of the community to make some progress towards devolution but within certain constraints that arise from their divergence of attitude to the question of power sharing. No pre-occupations or preconceptions on the part of the UK Government should stand in the way of proposals being made that are likely to secure a measure of support in Northern Ireland. It would be a pity if a basis for agreement were to be at least possible—one cannot put it higher than that—if this were to fail because of a reluctance on the part of the UK Government to put forward proposals along the lines that seem to interest many of the potential participants. This would include a significant measure of legislative devolution. I shall not pursue that further on this occasion but I feel it right to add that comment to what the Taoiseach has said.

This debate has been and necessarily is primarily concerned with the affairs, above all the economic and social affairs, of this State in this part of the island of Ireland. When I originally considered my remarks for this occasion, I had intended to spend a good deal of time in putting on record the state of the country when we left office. With a single exception, the Taoiseach has done this job excellently for me. I could hardly have produced better figures for this purpose. The only exception—and I do not fault him for it because the information was not available to him at the time he spoke —relates to inflation, the latest figures for which were published only today. These figures show an increase of no more than 1.7 per cent in the consumer price index for the latest quarter, which gives an annual rate of inflation for the last 12 months of only 10.8 per cent, significantly lower than the best hopes we had in Government ourselves; indeed, significantly lower than what we committed ourselves to in the election campaign as being feasible and achievable on the basis of the policies we had been pursuing.

These figures show that for the second half of the year, even if one makes full allowance for the effect of road tax abolition, the impact of which on the consumer price index Fianna Fáil are entitled to the credit for, the inflation rate is down to 3.4 per cent, an annual equivalent of 6½ per cent. If one compares the annual rate of 10.8 per cent for the last 12 months and the 3.4 per cent for the last six months, leaving the road tax abolition aside, these figures compare extraordinarily well with the 25 per cent inflation rate at the height of the post-oil crisis inflation of two-and-a-half years ago when the extraordinary inflation in Britain communicated itself to us with particular force; indeed it compares remarkably with the 20 per cent inflation rate of as recently as 12 months ago. I do not think any other country in Europe has achieved a comparable reduction in inflation in recent times by a virtual halving from 20 per cent to 10.8 per cent within 12 months. That is an achievement which except for a fraction of 1 per cent relating to the road tax, is the achievement of our Government. It derives from our actions when in Government and, most important of all, our actions in relation to the national wage round which is at present in force and the negotiations of which we sought to facilitate by tax concessions and where we secured a very satisfactory outcome.

Having made that point about inflation which the Taoiseach was not in a position to make yesterday because the figures were not available I should like to remind the House about what he said about other aspects of the economy. On the growth of the economy, which he put at around 5 per cent this year—this may be an underestimate because the ESRI has suggested a figure of 6 per cent—he described this as being near the top of the league table internationally. I agree with him; in fact, only Japan and the United States have similar growth rates this year. Within the EEC and with respect to the other non-EEC industrialised countries growth rate this year are now projected at 2½ per cent in both cases. The Taoiseach told us that investment was dynamic with the principal impetus coming from the private sector. He said that investment in equipment and machinery was up 15 per cent. Indeed it is. The achievement of a dynamic rate of investment at a time when the rest of the world economy is drooping is indeed one of the great achievements of our Government. The Taoiseach referred to the significant improvement in private consumption and said that consumer demand was up 4½ per cent. He also stated that it grew throughout the year and added that the improvement in consumer confidence had played a large part in inducing the revival in consumption. Given that this revival in consumption has occurred throughout the year it, therefore, began before this year started. The question of who secured the improved confidence causing this recovery is one that admits of no doubt or argument; it was the Government that was in power in 1976 and the first half of this year. They created the confidence that has led to this recovery.

The Taoiseach also told the House that exports were up by 35 per cent in value. Indeed they are. As far as I can calculate from the price indices, it means a 17 per cent increase in the volume of our exports overall. It is an unprecedented increase and is almost three times the rate of increase of exports for industrialised countries generally, now projected at 6 per cent for the current year. The Taoiseach told us that industrial output was more than 8 per cent higher in the first half of the year, on top of last year's 10 per cent. He added that the July-August figures were also encouraging. All of that is as a result of our efforts when in Government. He told us that employment in industry continued to rise and that it was up by 6,500 between the second quarter of 1976 and 1977. When he referred to industry I believe he should have said manufacturing industry. If one includes mining, quarrying and turf, not taking into account the building industry, the increase is 8,000 in that period. The Taoiseach said that for the year as a whole there had been an average rise of 7,000 in industrial employment and I assume he was referring to manufacturing industry.

The Taoiseach told us that the trend in cement sales was encouraging but he might have added that the trend was encouraging since May when the weather improved and not since the Government changed, as he may have sought to imply. He might have added that the number of houses completed in the 12 months up to September was fully 25,000 in spite of all the propaganda that we were in some way failing in the housing drive. We maintained that figure of 25,000 houses per year to the end of our period of office. Throughout most of our period in office we exceeded that figure and it ran at 26,000. The question which the country will ask is: can Fianna Fáil continue this rate of house building which they never achieved in their periods in office? The highest figure they ever attained, at the end of their period in office after a long slow movement upwards from a desperately low figure in the first six years they were in power, was 21,000.

This year has been a good year for farmers. The Taoiseach told us—I was interested in the figure—that the volume of gross output would be up 9 per cent. I find the figure interesting because it is very much higher than the figure recently suggested by the Central Bank of a 5 per cent increase. This means that the Central Bank's estimates of agricultural incomes, involving a 35 per cent increase, must be understand if the volume of output is going to be 4 per cent more than the Central Bank thought. Then the true increase in farm incomes must be of the order of 40 per cent. This will give farmers a family farm income this year of £750 million, almost three times the £275 million they had under Fianna Fáil in 1972. Incidentally, the Taoiseach's attempt later in his speech to suggest that farm incomes have risen less proportionately than other incomes is based on a selected choice of years, omitting the 1977 figures from that calculation although he had spoken of them earlier in his speech. The true comparison to make is between 1972, when Fianna Fáil were last in office, and the current year, and in that period I find that both family farm incomes and total wages and salaries have risen by 270 per cent. Incidentally, taking full account of the consumer price index increase over that period, that means an increase in real incomes in agriculture and the rest of the economy of almost 30 per cent in those five years, despite the world economic crisis. I wonder whether any other European country has achieved a comparable increase in real incomes during that crisis.

To all the Taoiseach has said I would add only one further fact, something to which insufficient attention has been drawn. It is the fact that in this year we have had an enormous inflow of capital in here, at least in the first eight months—the figures for the later period are not to hand yet. In that period, which fell almost exclusively into the period of office of the Coalition Government the autonomous private capital inflow which is the best test of international confidence in any economy was £425 million, four times the average of the preceding years. This is a figure which is exclusive of Government borrowing and which represents the ordinary free flow of funds as people choose where to put their money to get the best return and to keep it safe. They chose this country on a massive scale during this period. That is the most remarkable tribute to the performance of the Coalition Government which the Taoiseach summed up so well in his speech. What words did the Taoiseach use to summate all his remarks on the current year? He said—and I thank him for it:

This is the sort of foundation on which we can build if we manage our affairs properly.

The words, "if we manage our affairs properly", were added very wisely. I accept that that is where the doubt lies.

I could have sought no better testimonial from our successors than the Taoiseach provided us with, but the question is: will they manage our affairs properly? It is the nagging doubt with regard to that which must concern us all. As a political Opposition it might suit us if the Government failed but as patriotic Irishmen we must hope that, in spite of everything, they succeed. However, we must have doubts and others have doubts also. The EEC seem to have some doubts. In its report on the economic situation of the Community, No. 3 for 1977, published a fortnight ago, the Commission, after saying that the new Government's policies would mean that the balance of payments would move further into deficit added:

Under these conditions, economic policy will have to be based primarily on a careful regulation of domestic demand so as to avoid the dangers inherent in over-stimulation of consumption demand. Although it would bring about a temporary improvement in the employment situation, such a development would ultimately necessitate undesirable measures to curb activity.

That is precisely our fear, a fear so diplomatically expressed by the EEC Commission, and they always express their criticisms in diplomatic language as we know from our period in office. They fear that all the work we did to get the economy moving ahead, and what the Taoiseach has accurately described as a place near the top of the league internationally, may be undone by the consequences of an unscrupulous attempt to deceive and bribe voters to put back into office: Fianna Fáil Government.

I should like to state that achieving this extraordinary economic success described so fully by the Taoiseach was not easy. Firstly, it had to be done in the face of a reduction of more than two-thirds in the growth rate of the industrialised countries between the pre-crisis years, 1969-1973, and the crisis years, 1974-1976, a reduction in the growth rate from 4.7 to 1.5 per cent. It had to be achieved also in the face of the collapse of sterling which declined in value by more than one-third in the spring of 1975 and the autumn of 1976, thus pushing up our import prices by one-third in 18 months. As a country which imports half our needs, that alone involved automatically, discounting any impact it might have on domestic inflation, an inflation rate of 17 per cent over that period of a year-and-a-half.

How, in the face of these difficulties, in the face of a reduction of one-third of the world's growth rate, in the face of the collapse of sterling in the 18-month period from the spring of 1975 to the autumn of 1976, did the National Coalition Government achieve the remarkable results described by the Taoiseach in his speech? First of all, and it is a precondition of success in this area, we created confidence in our ability to control public expenditure which was out of control when we took over. In our period in office for the first time non-paying expenditure in real terms was held steady for several successive years. That is important because there is a large amount of Government expenditure—it is not particularly productive except in so far as it employs civil servants to spend it, but it is necessary— and that cannot be got rid of without disrupting the economy. Its expansion will not, of course, necessarily achieve either any particular economic improvement or any social improvement, such as an increase in social welfare expenditure. The fact that we held down this part of Government expenditure and kept it steady for several years, which no previous Government had done, promoted that confidence in our ability to control the economy, a confidence which had previously been lacking.

Secondly, and most important, our Government secured the confidence of the social partners and, even more important—and I do not apologise for saying it because it is the fact of the situation—the confidence of the trade unions. We did this by pursuing a policy of social justice. I need not dwell on the record of the gaps left in the system by Fianna Fáil after 16 years. Neither need I dwell on our efforts to plug those gaps and what we had to do to raise the purchasing power of pensions for widows, the aged and other underprivileged groups from below the subsistence level at which Fianna Fáil had left them. These moves were not only right for their own sake but were an essential part of our commitment to social justice, a commitment which the party opposite so notably lacked.

But they were also important for our economic future because they made possible the social contract. They made possible agreement on this year's wage round because the confidence the trade unions had in us as a Government dedicated to social progress was a critical contributory factor when it came to negotiating this wage round and creating the conditions in which a moderate wage round could be negotiated. Indeed, that wage round, the negotiation of which was achieved because of our commitment to social progress, underlined our commitment by its impact in the trade unions and this has had its effect on competitiveness and provided the key to the extraordinary growth we have seen throughout the current year.

I must in conscience here warn Fianna Fáil, who seem grossly insensitive on this issue and who can be seen to be so from their manifesto, which is totally devoid of social content, that the failure to do justice and to be seen to do justice to the underprivileged could undo the atmosphere we created which made a moderate wage round possible and made possible the economic growth we have observed. The tone of the Taoiseach's speech offered no encouragement to the idea that Fianna Fáil in Government again will be any more socially concerned than they were in Government before or in Opposition when they were preparing their manifesto of goodies for the "Haves", for those who have cars on which road tax could be remitted, those who have houses on which rates could be abolished, those who have savings to buy a house, savings that can be supplemented—it is very hard to believe, as it turned out, that the supplement is purely marginal—and those who have enough income to benefit from remissions.

Let us note carefully what the Taoiseach said yesterday morning on social welfare, if you can find it. It is very brief. It takes up half a page of a 23-page speech. There are three sentences reciting how many beneficiaries there are and the percentage increase in numbers. The tone of these sentences leaves one undecided as to whether the Taoiseach in reciting these facts is doing so with neutrality, approval or with an element of disapproval. These three sentences are followed then by one sentence which says that we must ensure that expenditure is directed "to where it is most needed and can do most good." Is this merely a platitude such as one finds in ministerial speeches, in the best of them, or is it a hidden threat of cutbacks to come?

Finally, the last sentence in this short paragraph of five sentences devoted to social welfare says it is the intention of the Government to ensure that the value of welfare payments is maintained "and where possible to increase those payments especially where there is greatest need". Note the double qualification—two wheres. I have to warn that this type of attitude if it persists will in the experience I had of Government certainly threaten the possibility of agreement with the social partners because our ability to achieve that agreement was based on confidence and trust in us that the benefits of growth would be fairly spread, as we did fairly spread them despite the fact that this led to criticism from the people over whom those resources had to be spread, and they are 75 per cent of the community, the poorer sections of the community. Fianna Fáil may think that by playing to the "haves" and ignoring the underprivileged they can govern successfully. They certainly cannot govern justly in that way. Neither can they govern successfully because I do not think the trade unions would be willing to do business on that basis.

I have dealt with two of the measures we took to get the country moving at the rate at which it has been moving, the creation of confidence in our ability to control public expenditure and our concern for the underprivileged, thereby securing the co-operation of the trade unions. The third step we took was to introduce major incentives for enterprise, incentives having no parallel in our previous history. Fianna Fáil in Government over 16 years had raised the maximum tax rate to 80 per cent, hitting people with incomes which, while well above average, are not abnormal for executives, technologists and others with key skills. We cut the rate marginally first to 77 per cent. The rate then was, I think, lower than in any other country in Europe and lower than in the United States of America. This year then we cut the rate dramatically to 60 per cent leaving these groups with twice as big a share of their incomes over a figure of about £7,000 or £8,000. That was an important major incentive for people who seemed to feel the need for an incentive, people who, if they are allowed to retain a reasonable proportion of what they earn, will be willing to work harder in the interests of expanding output and increasing employment.

The second measure we took was designed to help domestic firms which hitherto had not benefited from tax reliefs. Tax reliefs went to exporters and, most notably, to new foreign firms investing here. We halved the rate of company tax for those who increased their output and employment, even marginally, over the three years beginning this year. By these three means we created a climate of confidence with trade unions which gave us a moderate wage round, a wage round of about 7½ to 8 per cent increase in wage rates, negotiated at a time when the inflation rate was still 20 per cent. This required at the time an act of faith that inflation would come down to well below 10 per cent within a year or, indeed, one could say 7 per cent in the second half of this year. We inspired that act of faith and a willingness to accept an increase in wage rates far below the rate of inflation in the belief that our Government would succeed in getting inflation down and with the tax remissions the workers would be better off, and we were right. The Taoiseach has given the figure in his speech. He says the real incomes of workers this year are up 3½ per cent. They are up because we succeeded in halving the inflation rate and that, together with tax incentives and the increase in wage rates and earnings, has left workers better off this year.

At the same time this moderate increase in basic wage rates has given us the dynamic investment described by the Taoiseach, and has given us the unprecedented growth that we have achieved in the face of the slowing down of the entire world economy. Through the effect of this moderate wage round on the competitiveness of our goods, we secured a massive growth of manufacturing exports in this year —50 per in the value of manufactured exports for the first nine months which implies a 30 per cent increase in their value. We also secured a fair share for Irish firms on the home market against competing imports, because Irish firms were competitive and able to compete without losing further ground against imports. In many cases they gained something. The result of the massive expansion of exports and the expansion and strengthening of the home market has been booming output, and the spare capacity in industry has been largely used up by the steady growth of industrial output since the end of 1975. It has meant this year for many workers the end of short-time working, the reintroduction of overtime, and in many cases the reapplication of productivity agreements that had been in abeyance during the crisis. As a result the increase in workers' earnings has been well beyond the increase in wage rates. This has ensured for workers the 3½ per cent increase in their living standards to which the Taoiseach referred. It is the increase in workers' and farmers' purchasing power this year which has boosted home demand by the 4½ per cent figure mentioned by the Taoiseach. This boost to the home demand for goods has helped to increase manufacturing output. We are launched on a beneficial cycle of growth if only it can be maintained, if only this cycle is not destroyed by unwise action on the part of the Government.

What has the Fianna Fáil manifesto to offer industry to keep up this extra-ordinary growth? The first thing I find in it is the "Buy Irish" campaign, which is to yield the extra 10,000 jobs. Where is this campaign? The Taoiseach, as head of the Government, told us, and the House must have been excited to hear, that it is at an advanced stage of consideration after almost six months of Government by a Cabinet which claimed to have a comprehensive and effective programme ready when it came into office. By "at an advanced stage of consideration" the Taoiseach may mean that we may see some modest little effort dropped into the pool, not causing any great splash, sometime next year or may be the following year, or we may never hear of it again. Of all the ideas in the manifesto this was not the most brilliant, as the Taoiseach can probably see.

The manifesto also offered a Seán Lemass type of industrial development consortium. Why drag Seán Lemass into it? He certainly never undertook anything as half-baked as this. Seán Lemass tried and failed to turn Government Departments individually into development agencies. By saying he failed, I am not imputing blame. It is a difficult task, as I can appreciate, after four-and-a-half years in Government. Seán Lemass never deluded himself or tried to delude anybody else that by bringing nine Departments and agencies together in a committee he would solve Ireland's problems. No one knew better than Seán Lemass the iron law of public administration, which I trust after I have enunciated it will be called "FitzGerald's first, second and third law": it is that the time taken to get anything done increases as the square of the number of Departments and agencies involved in the decision making process. What one Department might do in a month—supposing any Department could move that fast—would be done in four months with two Departments, nine months with three Departments, and 81 months with nine Departments, which is the lifetime of one-and-a-half Governments. If that means that we will inherit this consortium the next time we get in, we will take very rapid action to replace it with something a little more effective.

Deputies

Hear, hear.

(Interruptions.)

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

Deputy FitzGerald without interruption.

Dr. FitzGerald

We cannot exclude the possibility that when the next election comes this consortium may be approaching its first decision, which it may turn up with like a bone in a dog's mouth when we replace Fianna Fáil in the benches opposite.

The manifesto also said that a new export credit finance corporation would be considered. It does not say they will do anything about it. We know what "considered" means, especially when we see how long it has taken Fianna Fáil to implement the things they decided in Opposition, never mind the things they considered in Opposition. Apart from this the manifesto offers so much waffle to industry. There is nothing else of any content in it. What must concern industry more than the absence of anything concrete or useful is the danger hinted at politely by the EEC Commission: that the Government's programme will overheat the economy by expanding consumer demands instead of stimulating exports and enterprise and will lead to the need to deflate the economy in a year or two.

We initiated the expansion of jobs first in the industrial sector and then through job creation programmes in the public sector. In the industrial sector our efforts were so successful that in our last quarter in office the number of industrial jobs increased by 2,500, an annual rate of 10,000 jobs. The acceleration of industrial employment in this period owes much to our employment incentive scheme. We also put into effect through the capital programme and through selective increases in current expenditure, to meet situations where new posts were badly needed—for example, in education and in the health services—a job creation programme in the public sector providing for 7,000 new jobs in addition to the new jobs to be created through the employment incentive programme, premium employment programme, the youth employment schemes and so on.

What has happened to these jobs since the 5th July? I undertook some careful research into this. I studied the issues of capital to State bodies up to 2nd December. That is the best indication as to how much of the capital programme we provided for State bodies is being expended. Secondly, I studied all the Supplementary Estimates and they show that on that part of our special job creation programme, which took the form of capital investment, of £37 million no less than £14 million of this is not being spent. That was an extra £37 million on top of the normal budget which itself involved some expansion. In addition £7 million of our normal basic capital programme is not being spent. Fianna Fáil, allegedly concerned about jobs, have failed to produce any significant visible number of new jobs. Their best claim for new jobs filled that I can find in the official record of the Dáil is for 1,900 jobs.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

The Deputy has five minutes left.

Dr. FitzGerald

I do not think so. I have ten, with respect.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

The Deputy has five minutes remaining.

Dr. FitzGerald

The Chair told me that I had just 45 minutes.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

Under the order of the House I must call the final speaker at 4.15 p.m.

Dr. FitzGerald

The Chair has unintentionally misled me, and I shall certainly have to make my remarks.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

I did not mislead anybody. On the order of the House——

Dr. FitzGerald

I am entitled to continue without interruption even from the Chair if the time is as short as that. The best claim of Fianna Fáil is for 1,900 new jobs including 900 allegedly arising from new grants and loans to the building industry. What about the jobs we provided for? The Supplementaries for youth training and employment schemes, for which we set aside £1 million, amounted only to £250,000. Fianna Fáil have not even bothered to ask the Dáil for three-quarters of the sum for youth employment that we provided. They have also sought less than we provided for the employment incentive scheme and the premium employment scheme. Only £300,000 of £1.5 million extra for Bord na Mona has been issued— 200 jobs not created. Less than half of the £2 million extra we provided for public works has been sought—100 jobs not created. Only £3.15 million of the extra £6 million for educational building has been sought under the Supplementary Estimates—225 jobs down. Only £130,000 of the £1.1 million which we provided for fishery harbours has been sought—another 150 jobs down. In the Taoiseach's own area of the £1.3 million which we provided for the Cork Harbour development scheme only £0.6 million has even been sought from the Dáil— 150 less jobs.

The failure to use £21 million of what we set aside for employment creation led to this job shortfall of, as far as I can estimate, 2,500. But they have not totally sabotaged our job creation programme. Dáil Questions have revealed that 4,500 jobs in the public sector have been created since 5th July out of moneys provided in the January budget, and 2,000 have been created in the same period under employment schemes financed by that budget. With 6,500 new jobs created from moneys provided by the National Coalition and with the high rate of employment growth in industry— 2,500 in the second quarter alone— why has unemployment not fallen sharply in recent months? It dropped by 1,000 between July and November. The Taoiseach and Tánaiste may say that this is a period of seasonal increase. Allow for seasonality and what do you get? A reduction of about 4,000 in unemployment in this period, but that is more than accounted for by the new jobs which, in parliamentary replies, the Government have stated have been created out of the moneys in our budget.

Where then are the Government's jobs? Why is it that unemployment has not fallen further than that? What has happened to the Government's crash programme? Has it crashed before take-off? The Taoiseach is not very convincing about it. He talks about creating 600 additional posts for teachers in secondary and vocational schools. Have the teachers been appointed? We are told they have authorised 500 more gardaí. When will they be recruited and trained? We are told that funds have been authorised for the creation of close to 4,700 jobs in building and construction and more than 3,500 new posts in the public service. What does "Funds have been authorised" mean? Authorised by whom? Not by the Dáil in the Supplementaries Estimates. Does it mean that the Government have been passing pieces of paper backwards and forwards between one another? Where are the 5,000 new jobs promised to be created by the Government before the end of the year? If even a fraction of them had ben created, then with the 6,500 jobs which the Government have said in their replies to Parliamentary Questions have been created since 5th July out of moneys provided by our budget, unemployment would not be 107,000 today; it would be down almost to 100,000. The Government have failed abysmally in the first test they set themselves which was to act quickly to get unemployment down. In the meantime we have had endless speeches, above all from the Minister for Economic Planning and Development, starting to explain away the Government failure. Sometimes it is the unions who are being warned that they are going to be blamed. Sometimes it is the world economic situation and sometimes it is the Irish people as a whole. On 15th September the Minister said that success can come only if the Government's efforts are supported and reinforced by all sections of the community. We are all going to be blamed when Fianna Fáil promises are not fulfilled.

I say to Fianna Fáil, "Drop the excuses and get on with the job. Stop sabotaging our job creation programme as you have done by cancelling £21 million of expenditure and leaving 2,500 people out of work who would have been employed had we been in office. Get on with implementing your own programme in a way which will not sabotage the Irish economy which we have handed over to you in first-class shape".

Dáil Éireann debate - Thursday, 15 Dec 1977

Adjournment of Dáil: Motion(Resumed).

Deputies

Tá

Níl

Dáil Éireann debate -
Thursday, 15 Dec 1977