Dáil Éireann debate -
Thursday, 15 Dec 1977

Vol. 302 No. 10

Adjournment of Dáil: Motion (Resumed).

Debate resumed on the following motion:

That the Dáil at its rising this week do adjourn for the Christmas Recess.—(The Taoiseach.)

Mr. Horgan

It is customary at this stage of a Government's lifetime that we should talk about the end of the honeymoon of the Government. I am very much afraid that the present Government's honeymoon is following a pattern which is all too evident in many Irish honeymoons. There have been a few splendid nights, the unfortunate bride is now chewing her nails in the hotel bedroom while her husband is out gallivanting around the town drinking all the money he had saved for the fare home from Salthill. This is the situation in which the present Government find themselves. The truth of this situation will be borne in on the Irish people before long. Unluckily, the Irish Constitution, although it does not provide for divorce of the civil kind, provides divorce of the political kind in general elections. I have no doubt that a political divorce will be arranged in due course.

During yesterday's debate speakers from the other side chided the Opposition for being naïve and for talking as if we expected the Government's entire programme to be implemented within six months and they chided us for not producing policies of our own. I can guarantee that my party in the period between now and the next general election will produce policies which will command electoral support. It might be remembered that it was not until comparatively lately in the lifetime of the last Dáil that the present Government produced anything that might remotely be called a policy. The Government have been chiding us for our alleged lack of policies. If the Government ask us where are our policies, can we not ask them where their Ministers are? It is extraordinary that in a debate of this kind, which is effectively a motion of confidence in the Government, we had to date, apart from the Taoiseach, only the Minister for Foreign Affairs and the Minister for Economic Planning and Development and they could not be described as the most weighty members of the Government. Where are the others? I suspect that they are locked in mortal combat upstairs over a rapidly evaporating financial cake as they seek to get a larger slice for themselves in an attempt to honour a small proportion of their election promises.

The Taoiseach in opening this debate surprisingly, and unlike many other members of his party, did not blame the present level of unemployment on the previous Government. The Taoiseach blamed it in part on the recession, for which the previous Government was not by any means responsible as it was of an international and uncontrollable dimension, and he blamed it in part on the distribution of our population. That problem could not be laid at the door of the previous Government either. When talking about the need to provide jobs the Taoiseach said that the stability of society is at stake. There are two ways of looking at the unemployment crisis. One can look at it in the pessimistic way in which the Taoiseach looks at it: that we must provide jobs because if we do not society will tear itself to pieces. This is an unworthy and a negative way to look at it. We need to provide jobs not because society will tear itself to pieces, if we do not, but because it is everybody's right to have a job and because the task of providing jobs for everybody is a challenge which any Government should be proud and honoured to face up to.

On the question of employment generally there has already been a substantial failure on the part of the Government to meet the simplest, most basic and most factual of the commitments that they made in their manifesto, a commitment to reduce the level of unemployment by 5,000 by the end of 1977. It was not a commitment towards 5,000 new jobs; it was a commitment to reduce the level of unemployment by 5,000. On the best available figures the level of unemployment has been reduced since the Government came into office by something over 2,300 jobs, and many of those jobs, it is now evident, were created as a result of budgetary strategy adopted by the last Government and by the general betterment in the economy which had partly national and partly international dimensions. To show how few of those 2,300 jobs the Government can claim credit for let us look at one simple figure. A week after the Government came into office the unemployment figures were reduced by 500. Where did these 500 come from? They were not all Fianna Fáil TDs or Ministers, although it may have appeared like that at the time. This reduction in the unemployment figure occurred not because the Government were in office or because the identity of the persons sitting in the State cars had suddenly changed, but because the economy was heading that way. It has been heading that way ever since, as it was before the general election.

When we look at the longer-term figures in the manifesto and tot them all up—and these again are figures for reducing unemployment, not the creation of new jobs—we realise that the Government have undertaken to reduce unemployment by a grand total of something like 80,000 by 1980. Taking as our base date the date on which the Government came into office we realise that if the Government are to honour that commitment they will have to reduce unemployment to a net figure of 30,000. The lowest that unemployment has ever been in the history of this State and under several extended periods of Fianna Fáil Government has been 60,000. It has been twice the figure to which they propose to reduce it now in less than four years. With Deputy Cluskey I wish them well, but I doubt very much their ability and competence to deliver, not just because the job is difficult in itself—it would be as difficult for us as it is for them—but because their approach to the question of job creation or unemployment cannot give any reason for optimism on this scale. This is not just optimism, it is pie in the sky. The only possible basis on which they could reach that figure would be to accept the figure of 160,000 unemployed as given in their manifesto, but they are precluded from using any figure because the Minister for Economic Planning and Development has already gone on record in this House as saying in answer to a question from Deputy M. O'Leary, "I see no reason to change the basis on which the unemployment statistics are calculated".

It would appear that the Government are still popular. A recent survey carried out and published by RTE indicated that the Taoiseach was extremely popular and that the Government as a whole were also popular, but when you examine the fine print of that you will see that in some areas things are not going as they should be. People approve far more of the Taoiseach than they do of the Government and even now less than half of the people polled think of the Government as doing well in any single key area. In two key areas, the provision of jobs for young people and industrial relations, for reasons which I do not need to go into here, more people think the Government are doing badly than think they are doing well. The Taoiseach is more popular than the individual Members of the Government. I wonder if the Taoiseach personal popularity in some sense cloaks the strong sense of dissatisfaction with their performance in key areas. The danger here is that ultimately we are not governed by referendum or by democracy but by general election, and the Taoiseach ability to act as an asset to his part is not indefinite. He is mortal like a men, and his party cannot rely indefinitely on whatever pulling power he may have to cement them together through the difficult years that lie ahead. The Taoiseach would not indefinitely be a lifebelt for a disorganised and incompetent administration.

Referring again to jobs and job creation I would like to refer to another portion of the Taoiseach speech when he put on record a fundamental aspect of Fianna Fáil policy.

He talked about a climate for growth when he said, and I quote:

The second part of our strategy involves the creation of conditions in which the private sector will take over as the primary agent of growth and generate additional sustainable employment.

This is precisely what Fianna Fáil see as being a certain amount of investment in the service industries, a lot of pump priming to private industry. As a member of this party I must point out my belief that private industry has failed in the past and will fail again in the future if it is relied on virtually solely as the agency which will generate employment. We need a balance between public investment and private investment. It is our contention that that balance has never been sufficiently directed in favour of the public sector.

Getting back to the Taoiseach's speech, unless I have misread it I did not see any notable contribution on the subject of the famous consortium, and we are entitled to ask the question has this white elephant gone the way of its predecessors to the graveyard in the sky? Again on the question of industrial development we are entitled to ask the Government, on the Bula question, what are they going to do about it? The State have 49 per cent in Bula and 49 per cent in Tara. It may be argued that that is substantial. We may have 49 per cent of these enterprises, but are the Government going to give it back to private industry? It was stated in the debate on Bula that if the Government had been in power at the time State equity participation would not have been achieved. We must have a clear statement from the Government on their industrial strategy in areas like this.

I should now like to turn to the more specific area which is my personal responsibility on these benches, the area of education. Looking at what has happened since the general election, I sometimes ask myself whether the broad shoulders of the Minister for Education are being made to bear a disproportionate share of the burden of fulfilling the Fianna Fáil election promises. In the Taoiseach's speech, the education area was virtually the only area to which he referred with any confidence as an area in which new jobs have been created by the reduction of the pupil-teacher ratio in secondary schools and in vocational schools. It is true that a certain number of jobs have been created by the introduction of a new scheme for graduate teachers in primary education. Even here the Taoiseach over-states the case. In his speech he gave a figure of 400 graduate teachers. The actual figure which was available last week and must have been available to him is 320.

Even though these 320 people are being paid a salary as of now, the point is that they are only in training. They will have to complete their training satisfactorily before they go into the schools to start teaching. Remember there are only 320 of them. One of the great claims by the Government when they came into office was that there would be 600 of them. Through successive episodes of mismanagement and hesitation, this figure has been reduced to approximately half of what the Government originally said it would be.

On the question of higher education there has been some movement. The Minister for Education has raised the higher education grant to a maximum total of £500. This may take the edge off the protests by the students, the parents and the university authorities, but it does not by any means go far enough to meet the real needs of the situation. The real needs of the situation are only partly the cash needs of the individual students. They are partly also related to the eligibility criteria on which the allocation of grants is made.

In so far as the cash needs for students are concerned, the Government are still saying they are expecting students to live on £7 a week. That is an improvement, but it is not enough. Even if it is an improvement, it is a cheap improvement because, by failing to raise the eligibility limits, the eligibility criteria for access to these grants, the Government are making a gesture which is very much larger in appearance than it is in reality. You could raise the grants to £1,000 and you would not exactly save money but you would not have to spend very much more than if you refused to raise the eligibility limits. In a time of rising money incomes more and more people will find themselves outside these limits.

It is true, as the Minister for Education said when he made this announcement, that you cannot raise the eligibility limits and criteria in the middle of an academic year. The Government have been in office since before the beginning of the academic year. They could have taken a decision on raising eligibility limits well before the last date student applications for grants are made sometime in September, I believe. I suspect the delay on this issue until the last sitting week of the Dáil in this session is precisely related to that fact. The Minister and the Government had to wait until the closing date for applications had passed so that they could raise the amount of money for the grants, a cheap enough gesture if you are not going to make any more people eligible to avail of them and simultaneously say you cannot do anything about eligibility criteria because we are now in the middle of an academic year.

On this whole topic I should like to refresh the memory of the House with a reference to a speech made by the Taoiseach, one of his better speeches in Opposition, when he addressed a meeting of the Maynooth Historical Society at Maynooth College on Thursday, 3rd March, 1977. He said that the present level of student grants, even allowing for the projected increase of 16.7 per cent next October—that was the increase announced by Deputy Barry—does not allow for inflation since the last realistic review. He said his party promised such a realistic review so that young students will not have to bear a disproportionate degree of hardship. He said that even more important was an immediate review of ceiling levels for the allocation of student grants. He said the present levels were totally unrealistic and must be reviewed in line with a very severe inflation rate.

The Taoiseach established in that speech a clear order of priorities. The level of grants is important but even more important is the ceiling level. What the Government have done is to tackle to some extent only the less important of these two areas and to leave the more important area, because it is the more expensive one, to another time. Whatever about the reference to inflation—and here as in so many other things there is the appearance of commitment without the substance—in order to avoid the kind of scenes we have had over the past few months, the very minimum the Government can and should do is to institute, in co-operation with the Union of Students in Ireland and the higher education authorities, an annual review mechanism so that studies are not disrupted, the Minister's time is not unnecessarily wasted and grants are raised in an appropriate way.

I should now like to turn to the general question of the Government's incomes policy and specifically to the effect upon incomes of some of the steps promised in their manifesto and which they have now brought into operation. The first of these is the question of rates, which we were told in the manifesto, and since, is linked directly to the Government's plea for a 5 per cent voluntary limit on income raises next year. It might be argued that there is little difference between Government and Opposition on the question of the rates, but that is not necessarily the case.

It is true that there is a difference of timing. What is not so clear is that there might not have been other differences in the implementation of the scheme. The Government have taken off the rates on all domestic dwellings. There is a very good case—and had we been in Government I would have been making this case very strongly— for confining that concession to owner-occupied premises. The net effect of giving a rates waiver to many premises which are let out in flats is to provide a cash bonus to the property owner, not the tenant. The more properties such a property owner has, the more he will benefit from this financial concession.

The latest available figure for the number of householders occupying rented accommodation, according to a Parliamentary Question answered by the Minister for the Environment on 13th December, other than local authority dwellings, is 96,884 as set out in the 1971 census. I doubt that the figure has gone down. It has probably gone up. We are talking, in other words, about 100,000 households, and goodness knows how many people that comprises the huge majority of whom, I suspect, will not benefit from the Government's policy on rates.

Incidentally we are also talking about the poorest of the poor, the people who benefit from a total or a partial waiver of rates. In 1976, again according to a Parliamentary reply from the Minister for the Environment on Thursday, 1st December, 17,875 people were entitled to partial waivers of rates and 24,000 people to total waiver of rates. I do not know what the practice is in local authorities other than the Dublin County Council, but I suspect that everywhere in the country the means test adopted to decide whether somebody is entitled to a waiver of rates is very severe and you have to be practically destitute before you will get a concession of this kind. These are the people who will not get any benefit from the concession announced by the Government.

Let us look at the question of car tax. In reply to a question on the 6th December, 1977, the Minister for the Environment said that there are approximately 750,000 cars in the country, of which approximately 540,000 were 16 hp or less. Of these 750,000 cars, only two-thirds were in the private car category. If we assume that the same proportions exist for cars under 16 hp we will see that 30 per cent of the Government's concession on car tax is a direct subsidy to industry because these are company cars. We will also recollect that the pattern of car ownership in this country is very sharply distinguished between the west and the east. Car ownership in Dublin is practically double what it is in Mayo. This is a concession which gives more to the people who have more.

The same is true of the Government's income tax concessions. At the moment on the present level of income allowable against tax, a man with a wife and two children can earn about £1,700 before becoming liable to tax. Very large numbers of people are not earning very much more. According to a Parliamentary Question on the 24th November, there were 500,000 incomes, about two-thirds of the total, of less than £2,500 a year. These people are paying tax of maybe £20 a year. They will include probably all the people who are not paying rates. They will include probably a substantial proportion of the people who do not have cars. Their net benefit from the Government's incomes policy will be of the order of 45 pence per week. Not only is their net benefit so low, but there is a very distinct chance that any raise which puts them over the £50 a week limit will actually leave them worse off. They will now lose in terms of take home pay because the rise will put them over the £50 level and they will have to pay another £1.87 in social welfare contributions.

The Government are creating a new and bitter poverty trap into which inevitably an increasing number of people will fall. During the period of the last Government there was hostility in Opposition on behalf of the lower paid to very necessary increases in social welfare payments because they felt their standard of living was threatened and that they were personally subsidising these increases. This was not and never should be the case. The kind of legacy that it left is going to pale into insignificance beside the emotions that will be experienced by people who find that now because they get a raise they will have less money to take home. There will be substantial numbers of people in that category.

When we look at the Government's incomes policy overall, and especially those of us who are doing well out of it, we should ask ourselves: if I am doing well out of it, who is doing badly? This is the question legislators should be asking themselves and posing to the electorate. I believe firmly that the main parameters of the Government's incomes policy are such as to ensure that the people who are doing well out of it will not have to find the cash in another way. Those who are doing badly are precisely those who have the least strength to bear the burden. This is, and always has been, the hallmark of Fianna Fáil's economic policy.

Mr. Callanan

I listened to this debate yesterday and today and it has taken the usual trend. People on this side are trying to put up the best case they can for the famous manifesto and people on the other side are trying to bore holes in it. I really do not know if we are doing what we should as legislators. We had a general election. The people decided that this Government should rule for the next five years. When I was in Opposition the then Government admitted that I always gave credit where it was due and criticised if it was necessary. I may be unique in this House and I may be a bad politician because I like to give credit where it is due and do not like to be too severe a critic.

I will take a look at the Taoiseach's statement, which must be looked at objectively. The Government have been only six months in office. There are a number of things in the manifesto which admittedly could be done by the stroke of a pen and they have been done. I was astonished to hear the last speaker criticise some of those matters, for instance, the raising of the higher education grants and not increasing the income limits. I agree that the income limits should be increased, but the Opposition should give the Government a chance. If, this time two years, the income limits are not increased, then let the Opposition lacerate the Government. I pressed hard for increased education grants because I thought they were not high enough.

When I was in Opposition a famous phrase was quoted time and again—"you had 16 years to do it". The Coalition had four years to increase the income limit. It was increased last year but not by a very great amount. We must be fair when criticising. We want to give the public the impression that we are here to offer constructive rather than destructive criticism.

As I said, I have the name of being unique and being a bad politician. I do not mind having that name if I am a good citizen.

Mr. Kelly

I never heard the Deputy called a bad politician. There are many fellows who could take lessons from him.

Mr. Callanan

I am a politician who is inclined to be critical of both sides of the House. We are living in an age when we have a very educated electorate. Soap box politics are out. I am one of the older generation and have seen all that. Now we must produce the goods. As I said in another debate this Government have a mandate to carry out their manifesto. If they do not do that we could lose 20 or 30 seats at election time. People now vote for what they are told and if the goods are not delivered the people will let you know how they feel.

Nobody can say that the Minister for the Environment has not made a good attempt to do all he promised. I heard criticism of the £1,000 grant. I do not see why it should be criticised. Very few people were getting the old £900 grant. Only very small farmers qualified for it. Now everybody buying or building a new house for the first time is getting a £1,000 grant. Nobody is suffering. I cannot see why this grant has been criticised, because it has been welcomed by practically everybody.

It was said yesterday by an Opposition speaker that we were discriminating against the man who could have got a grant previously. Prior to this if a single man had an income in excess of £1,950 he could not get a grant. Two years ago the procedure was changed. At one time anybody could get the State grant but there was a change made in January, 1976, and from then onwards unless a person qualified for the two grants he got none. It is obvious to everyone that an income of £1,950 is very low. People will now be entitled to a grant of £1,000 and, therefore, nobody suffers.

The previous speaker said that the abolition of car tax was discriminating against the poorer section. In the west of Ireland practically everyone has a car. It is not regarded as a luxury because people have to use it to travel long distances to work. Many people from my area travel 30 miles to Galway and it is quite common for two members of a family to have a car. It must be admitted that many cars were not taxed because the owners could not afford it. Everyone must insure his car but the tax is another matter. The abolition of car tax had enormous appeal and I regard it as a good move.

With regard to housing loans, time and time again I appealed to the previous Minister to raise the loans. I had great respect for him but I am afraid my appeals did not succeed. In order to qualify for a local authority loan a person could have an income of only £2,350. The loan of £4,500 was completely inadequate and in many cases people had to give their deeds as security. I am delighted that the promise made in the Fianna Fáil manifesto has been implemented and credit is due to the Minister concerned. He is doing a very good job. The matter of education was mentioned. The Minister for Education has done worth-while work. He has created quite a number of jobs and he has increased the grant for higher education which I agree was totally inadequate. I hope the Minister will increase the income limit. It must be admitted that he has made a good start in his Department.

The Minister for Health is doing a good job. He is creating new jobs in the health boards. I agree with speakers who suggested that it might be a good idea to examine the health boards. They are very large bodies and it could be said that they are somewhat out of touch with people. If county councils had as much money available to them as the health boards have now I wonder if they would do a better job. They would be nearer to the people, and this is what true democracy is about. The personnel in the health boards are decent people but their organisations are very large.

On many occasions I have made suggestions to the former Minister for Health on how money could be saved for the State while providing a better service for many old people. If a person takes into his house and cares for someone who is not a relative he will be paid for that, but many restrictions and limitations are imposed when the person is a relative. County homes throughout the country are filled with old people. It costs approximately £50 per week to keep each person. Many of these people should be at home, and if the allowance in respect of their care was increased the situation would be improved considerably.

In St. Brendan's Home, Loughrea, there is a long waiting list for admission. There are many people in that institution, and in similar institutions throughout the country, who should be cared for at home. If an aged parent falls ill quite often it is impossible for their children to care for them at home. If relatives were given, say, £15 more in addition to the old-age pension to keep old people at home it would save the State a considerable amount. At present the old age pension is retained by the county home and they give back £2.50 to the pensioner. The county home will retain about £10 but it costs much more to keep aged people in the institution. If an allowance of £15 or £20 were given to the relatives they could care for the old people in their own homes. I am as much a socialist as anyone in this House. Unfortunately in our world today money talks all kinds of language. If the money were available to the relatives the old people would be cared for in their own homes and beds would be available in our institutions for those who are really in need. I had great respect for the former Minister for Health who was a thorough gentleman but I am afraid I could not get him to adopt my suggestion. I do not know if I will have more success with the present Minister. By adopting my suggestion the State would gain a considerable amount.

The question of employment of young people is one of our major problems and I should like to hear constructive suggestions from all sides. Yesterday evening an Opposition speaker made a good speech on this matter, and he referred to the danger to democracy if young people are not employed. I dealt with this subject in depth when we were discussing the Bill relating to industrial development. Members of this House may not be sitting here in the future if they are not able to provide work for young people in the next ten or 20 years. In his speech the Taoiseach referred to the uneasiness felt in Brussels with regard to the number of young people who were unemployed. I put forward a few suggestions about this problem. They may not have been heeded, but at least I had the courage to say what I thought.

There will have to be some control on automation within the Community, on this question of replacing people by machines which is not absolutely necessary. I mentioned the other day that shorter working hours will have to be introduced with, probably, less overtime. These are the things we will have to do to employ an increasing number of young people in Europe. I understand that we happen to have the largest number of young people within the Community under the age of 25. This is a complete reversal of the wheel. When I was a young fellow the priests used to preach that people should get married young; there were no young people in the country; they were all old. The clock has turned right around in a very short period. Are we now prepared to meet that situation? Should we not retain and utilise the best brains in the country? That is why I said I would not criticise the Minister for Economic Planning and Development. God knows he needs a chance and he should be given every help from both sides of the House. It is not a question of Fianna Fáil or the Opposition; it is the whole question of democracy that is at stake if we fail our young people.

I will touch on the subject of industrial relations. This is something the larger unions must examine. I am not a trade unionist but I am very much in touch with them in my area where there are perfect industrial relations; that is why I know so much about it. Anywhere there is a factory with one union there is usually to be found good industrial relations. I would pose the question to the larger unions: are they keeping in touch with the man on the factory floor? That is something on which they should examine themselves. Why are all these small unions getting into industry all over the country—because there is a lack of confidence felt by the man on the factory floor that if a union gets too big, just as anything that gets too big——

Mr. Horgan

Could the Fianna Fáil Party get too big?

Mr. Callanan

Perhaps so; I think even the Taoiseach expressed that view. Perhaps we are in a very dangerous situation with a majority of 20. Perhaps the Deputy is right. I would be inclined to agree with him in the interests of democracy. But it is up to us here to ensure that we do not allow power to go to our heads, because we have complete power. Mind you when people hold too much power there is that danger.

I am in close contact with members of trade unions. I know the small union fellow who comes in and says: "Listen, there is nobody looking after you; these fellows are way above you; why not come and join my union when you will be made an officer immediately." This is the inherent danger and where the rivalry starts on the factory floor. I know of a few industries in my town where there are perfect industrial relations but they are dealing with one union only. When this rivalry occurs inside—the same goes for farming organisations or anything else—it can be the greatest cut throat situation of all time. I would ask the larger unions to seriously scrutinise how they disseminate information; how they deal with the man on the factory floor; have they enough representatives on the ground to inform them when something is about to happen so that they can act beforehand?

I agree with the last speaker that the State should be more involved. Whereas I believe we should give every support to private enterprise, the task is so big now, without the State getting involved, it might create an impossible problem.

The west of Ireland telephone communications are abominable. The first question any industrialist coming to this country will ask is: what is the telephone service like? The answer is that it is shocking, and I would ask the Minister responsible to seriously examine the situation.

I come now to retaining people on the land in agriculture. I shall try to be as brief as possible. Every Deputy who spoke made the case that it was important—because of the raw material we have here—that we should have industries wedded to agriculture. I agree with all of them. Every Deputy who spoke made the point that it was important to keep as many people on the land as possible. Deputy Bruton made a very good speech, when he referred to the expanding development category proposed in our manifesto. That is the most important part of our manifesto, that we propose to abolish that disgraceful, humiliating tab of "transitional farmer" into which category 80 per cent of our farmers fall. In that context the word "transitional" meant—just for a transitional period we will give you a certain amount of money until you go. It is as simple as that. The figures for the whole country at present are: commercial farmers 4 per cent; development 16 per cent and transitional 80 per cent.

In our manifesto we proposed that the transitional farmer be abolished. I made the suggestion—and I think the IFA afterwards agreed with it—that if we could not do that we should have a pre-development scheme, something like the old small farm scheme. If we could achieve this target we would be doing the biggest favour for our farmers, that is, that the whole question of the transitional farmer be done away with, when we would have rather the expanding, development farmer, any man working to a plan. I should like somebody to allay my fears in this respect, because we will become full members of the EEC on 1st January next. Part of that directive—even though it was never enforced—states that, after that time, only for a certain number of years will certain types of farmers be entitled to any support at all. What I am worried about is that, within that time if 15 per cent more of those farmers reach development status, or even 20 per cent, that would leave us with a ratio of 60:40. Could we reach the stage that, in six or seven years time—in accordance with that directive—the other 40 per cent, who had not reached that status, would get no support at all?

I maintain the only way people can be kept on the land is by the means stated in our manifesto, that is, to do away with the "transitional farmer" altogether, that any farmer working to a plan should be entitled to the full grant available to development farmers at present and that he would also be favourably considered as regards land.

I shall not have time to go into the whole question of land settlement, which is very important.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

The Deputy has five minutes left.

Mr. Callanan

When we are discussing the state of the nation at the end of the year it is a pity we have not more time available to us. On the question of the importance of land settlement to this country I had reservations when the Departments of Lands and Agriculture were amalgamated. The situation was entirely different at that time; there was no EEC then. There was never a necessity for a man to be in charge of Lands with the idea of trying to keep as many people as possible on the land. As I stated also when I was in Opposition, the Minister for Agriculture spends half his time in Europe. Therefore, no matter how good he may be how can he look after Lands? It is just not possible. I am hoping somebody will be put in charge of Lands and, by God, he will have to work because this is what is needed at present; we must get our farmers more land.

There was a suggestion of setting up some kind of development committee on the whole question of land, that these people would have a panel available to them. I think Deputy Killilea mentioned yesterday that there is a place for the Land Commission. We might not always agree with the Land Commission; they may do things with which we do not agree. Surely no Deputy here would say that local people should have a say on who should go on the panel. It has been suggested that our advisers, with local people, would place people on a panel and that they would give State grants and loans to people to buy land. I would say that about 30 people in my parish would qualify for that panel.

Suppose 30 acres go up in that area are you going to have those 30 people competing with one another for those 30 acres? There must be some kind of committee in which local people are not involved. The local advisers must not be involved. They are there to give advice to the farmers, and farmers will lose confidence in their adviser if they are used to say who should be entitled to land and who should not be so entitled. These are aspects that must be considered seriously when the report is available after Christmas. I look forward to very lively debates here. I shall certainly be giving my opinion. I will not drag my feet on matters relating to land or anything else.

The aim should be to put as many people as possible on the land. I hope that can be done. We have two classes of farmers, development farmers and commercial farmers. The development farmer should get all the grants available. Remember, it is the man who is important, not the acreage. If a farmer seeks a loan the bank manager is more interested in the man than he is in the security he has to offer.

With regard to a sheep policy, such a policy is vitally important, and I wish the Minister well in any efforts he makes to get export markets. Sheep numbers are almost half what they were in 1965. They are down from 5,500,000 to 3,500,000.

There is, too, the question of money for drainage west of the Shannon. The Dunkellin River has put hundreds of acres out of production in my constituency. I hope something will be done about the tributaries of both the Suck and the Dunkellin so that these acres can be brought back into production.

I understand the regional fund will be increased. I trust it will be accounted for separately and not just go into the maw of the Exchequer. I trust the moneys will be spent where they should be spent.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

The Deputy's time is up.

Mr. Callanan

Just one minute.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

One sentence.

Mr. Callanan

A great deal of time was spent this morning arguing about procedure, time which could have been better spent.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

The Deputy is now wasting his minute.

Mr. Callanan

I hope all the western counties will be recognised by the EEC as a disadvantaged area and get the full grants.

Mr. Kelly

I will begin rather than end by offering my best wishes to the House for a happy Christmas. So far this has been a very peaceful and, on the whole, mannerly Dáil despite the passage at half past ten this morning. It has been a kind and relatively friendly Dáil.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

Up to yesterday.

Mr. Kelly

I would like to give credit where credit is due, and I think that is due in quite large measure to the restraint with which the Government party have conducted themselves. Despite their victory they have not been overbearing, insolent or unmannerly towards their defeated opponents. I give that degree of credit for the way this Dáil is turning out. It is also in part due to the very low profile many Ministers are maintaining —a pancake shaped profile one could call it. It may be a sensible thing to do but I think it is one of the reasons why people may perhaps be disappointed later on at finding so little done and one of the reasons why this session so far has been so civilised.

The style of this Government should be by now becoming evident. Deputy Callanan spoke a moment ago about the Government being elected for five years as though the five years were still to run, but I would remind him that about 10 per cent of the Government's term is already up. We are not any longer starting out on a long road. About 10 per cent of the time of an ordinary Dáil is up, perhaps much more than that if some crisis of a kind I cannot now foresee were to arise, but certainly enough time has elapsed for us to be getting an idea of what the Government's style is going to be. What I would like to know in examining the Government's record so far is whether they have shown any sign of radical thinking or radical planning on our major problems. I have in front of me the Fianna Fáil manifesto, and I would be a fool if I did not occasionally peep into it to see what is going on and then measure them by their election promises. But I do not attach a great deal of importance to this footling manifesto or to whether or not this or that achievement promised has been reached. It is a question of whether the country is being led in the right direction, and in the long term it is a question whether the long-term major problems are being faced in the right way.

I list these problems—they are not by any means all economic and I am sure the House will not disagree with most of them—as chronic under-employment, chronic energy vulnerability, chronic 100 per cent dependence on the stability of neighbouring economies, chronic difficulty in deciding for ourselves in a way that would satisfy everybody what is an appropriate calculus of social justice and social distribution, a chronic ambivalence in the minds of many people in regard to the sphere covered by the idea of law on one side and violence on the other, a chronic bad conscience about national objectives and a guilty feeling that we have not done as well as we should have in regard to reconciliation of the Irish peoples and the saving of the Irish language as those who founded Deputy Hussey's party and my party once hoped and, finally, a chronic ministerial ineffectiveness in formulating political decisions and making sure they are put into effect.

I shall give an example of the last thing, which is one of the most serious problems we have got. Politicians are full of answers until they get into office. Once they get in files rain down on their desks and they are covered like children in a snow storm by files and this is the reason for delay and for not making decisions. We have seen that here in the last two days. We have seen the Minister for the Environment, in regard to firm promises about absolutely firm commitments endorsed by his leader about a motorway in south County Dublin, still awaiting a report of some committee before he can give a final commitment and actually build this motorway. We have seen the Minister for Justice, Deputy Collins, over the last two days—I regret uttering a jibe at his expense yesterday because I have had great consideration and courtesy from him during these last few months and I am sorry I said something to offend him—in reply to repeated questions from these two parties give instance after instance that something was under consideration, under earnest consideration, being considered in depth. In other words, he himself was not making the decisions. Maybe he is not able to make the decisions. I do not blame him for that because he cannot have all the facts at his finger tips. But decisions are not being made or, if they are being made, they are being made by other people for him.

The third example—it is a very serious one and within my spokesmanship—is that Government party policy in the clearest terms before the election promised there would be weekly publication of comparative household prices and we heard the Minister for Industry, Commerce and Energy say here the other day that that had not been achieved because his Parliamentary Secretary, Deputy Mrs. Geoghegan-Quinn, had not succeeded in twisting RTE's arm into showing this material. The Minister has a statutory power here. He said it would not be appropriate to use it here. I did not like to challenge him because the Chair was getting testy at my repeated supplementaries. Why would it not be appropriate? Is this not a thing that would interest the people far more than prohibitions on RTE under the very same section in regard to the dissemination of subversive material? What an excuse for a man who is supposed to be the cutting edge of this Government, that Deputy Mrs. Geoghegan-Quinn had not been able to persuade RTE to do this simple straight-forward thing.

That ministerial impotence runs right through the performance of the Government and bears on all the chronic problems that I have mentioned.

We all operate under a kind of presumption that the recession from which we have just emerged was a once off disaster like the famine or the flood and that it cannot happen again. We are convalescing from a very serious recession, from a disease which does not leave one immune as some diseases do to its incidence thereafter. Some event over which we have no control could throw the Western world and ourselves into another recession, and then what will we do? Our strategy should be directed not towards providing a few thousand instant service sector jobs but should be directed towards making ourselves self-sufficient and independent as far as is possible of what goes on outside this country. There has not been much sign from this Government that they are giving any radical thought to the chronic problems. Since July virtually the whole work of the Dáil has been to do with unfinished National Coalition legislation. Coalition Bills have been reinstated as they stood, or else some of the entrails were removed and put into the form of a new Bill as was done with the ground rents measure a few weeks ago. The only other legislation passed was routine continuation stuff which was uninteresting and had no contentious value whatsoever. There has also been self-decorating legislation intended merely to upgrade the titles of office holders. The seven Parliamentary Secretaries were promoted not because of anything they do, but in title. I wish them well, but they have been given promotion as though this was a major step. It is like Snow White giving a little kiss to the seven dwarf before they set off in the morning. Where is there a trace of serious public service reform in that gesture. The changing of the name of the Department of Local Government to the Department of the Environment sounds a lot grander, but of what use is it? That kind of thing is contemptible coming from a Government which promised to do the devil and all to get the country moving again. These retitlings and reshufflings within Departments and Ministerial offices, is about the only original legislation which this Government has produced.

Everybody here is concerned with our chronic unemployment. There were four legs of the Government's platform in this regard set out in their manifesto. I do not believe that my party should spend the next four years waving this manifesto, and I have no intention of doing that, but we were shackled to our 14 point programme, of which we achieved 11 or 12, and for some time I did monitor this Government's performance by reference to what it promised to do and what persuaded the people to elect them.

The Fianna Fáil Party had four specific proposals in relation to job creation. The first of them was in relation to direct job creation, but when the Minister for Finance was asked on the 24th November by Deputy Bruton to give details of these direct job creations he could give no details later than the 30th September. The Minister's figures to that date were that about 1,900 jobs had been filled. The Minister did not say that a very large number of those jobs were jobs for which financial provision had already been made in the 1977 budget of the National Coalition. Nineteen hundred jobs, even by the end of September, and discounting what jobs were already provided for in any case, is a far cry from 20,000 jobs that were promised in the first year of the Fianna Fáil administration.

The second leg on which the Fianna Fáil employment platform rested was the "Buy Irish" campaign. It was a campaign which would switch 3p in the £ from imports to home products that yield 10,000 extra jobs, according to the manifesto. In reply to a question put by me on the 7th December, it emerged that that campaign had not yet been planned let alone launched. That campaign has missed the Christmas selling period. That is obviously a period that any selling campaign should try to catch. That is a time when people throw restraint to the wind and buy all round them. What can be made of the sense of urgency, the sense of crisis, the sense of necessity for a crash programme of a Government which can allow the Christmas period to come and go without putting this "Buy Irish" campaign into effect? I am not trying to throw cold water on it, but I cannot see how this campaign alone can produce 10,000 jobs. I do not see that there is an extra dimension of cleverness that some advertising agency will be able to think up, which will distinguish this campaign so radically from previous campaigns, so that 10,000 new jobs will be clearly attributable to it. I do not wish to discourage the Government. By all means let them promote the buying of Irish goods, but let them get on with it, particularly since they have attached this national figure of 10,000 jobs to this part of the programme which has not yet even been planned.

Thie third leg, the Industrial Development Consortium which was heralded in the manifesto as a Seán Lemass type of industrial development consortium, has not been planned either. It has not held a meeting. It is not a consortium in the accepted sense of the word. A consortium is a business partnership; it is there to do business; there is a pooling of resources and a sharing of the risks and profits. This thing is only a committee. It is clear from the Minister's replies and remarks about this on the Industrial Development Bill that this is not designed to be more than a committee. Committees can do useful work, and from inquiries I made in relation to semi-State bodies I believe that this committee could do useful work in co-ordinating the activities of semi-State bodies and preventing them from walking on each other's toes. I hope it will do useful work. This was intended to be the answer to the National Development Corporation which originally the Labour Party and then the National Coalition advocated. At least a National Development Corporation, if it can identify useful tasks can go out and do them; it can spend money and employ people. This consortium is a pale shadow of that, and to dignify it with the name of Seán Lemass is contemptuous of the memory of the late Seán Lemass. This humble consortium has not yet been set up. The Minister told me on the 7th December that arrangements for the establishment of the consortium were well advanced but had not yet been completed. I know the Minister is very busy, but surely it is not impossible to call a meeting of a consortium which has no statutory base, which does not need any money and will not be getting any money. What is the problem about that? It is because they cannot think of anything for this consortium to do. The arrangement is to try to find some useful, visible task for the consortium to do that will not leave it in the absurd situation of the next leg of the employment action team, which has turned out 800 athletes.

Its first lot of cogitations has produced 800 PT jobs. I do not want to deride PT any more than I want to deride "Buy Irish", but how serious a response is that to our unemployment problem? The first raft of proposals by this team chaired by a distinguished athlete produced 800 athletic jobs. They are not wealth-producing jobs, they are wealth-consuming jobs. That is the complaint I have about the job creation programme of the consortium, and I want to include in that some of the things my Government did. Job creation as a social rescue operation and perhaps even as a constitutional rescue operation, should be undertaken in an area where wealth can be produced because that is what we are depending on. No one is going to feed a nation of clerks and PT instructors. Someone has to grow the food, to produce the clothes, to build the houses and import all the stuff which will be paid for with visible, palpable exports which people in other countries want. We cannot go on a job creation spree—it has been a very Olympic operation so far—which simply creates essentially service sector jobs, the icing on the cake, while leaving enormous quantities of wealth unexploited.

I am glad to see the Minister for Agriculture here. If I say something absurd he will have a chance to put me right because I do not claim any expertise here. The jobs created by any Government ought to be related to our economic needs and resources and the jobs created ought to be, as far as possible, wealth-generating jobs and not jobs which simply consume wealth. That programme has rested far too much on the titles, on names which are voguish sounding. "Consortium" sounds grand and you can dazzle people with it. "Action team" sounds even better, but what do they boil down to? A pitiful handful of real jobs created and all of them in a wealth-consuming sector. That is a lackadaisical approach, and I miss the sense of urgency and crisis which the Opposition at the time created, quite rightly. The Government's use of the expression "160,000 unemployed" was dishonest. If there were 160,000 unemployed in May or June there are 157,000 unemployed now. This is a marginal improvement if it is an improvement. Even a thing like the British temporary employment subsidy, which has been instrumental in throwing hundreds if not thousands of people out of work in the clothing, textile and footwear industries here, elicited from the Minister for Industry and Commerce last week when I questioned him nothing more than the reply that he had twice protested in Brussels about it. This is a concrete case of people being thrown out of work because Irish competitiveness is being impaired by this subsidy which the British are giving to firms in danger of closure. That means that Irish firms cannot sell competitively even in the Irish market, let alone in Britain or further afield.

Scapegoats are being set up for what is going to be a failure by the Government, who are failing not because I belong to Fine Gael and would have been saying this anyway, but because their strategy in regard to job creation is directed the wrong way. The unions are one of the scapegoats, and I instance the case of Ferenka. Another is the private sector. Private employers may think they are holding hands under the table with the Fianna Fáil Government but they are in for a rude shock. They are not going to escape without punishment from that Government, and this is building up already. Every other day the Taoiseach or some Minister puts out a script in which he talks about the unemployment problem and says that the Government alone cannot solve unemployment, the Government alone have not the answer; it is up to the private sector to take over. The Government will prime the pump and then it is "over to you". It is over to us to mind our own money in the supermarkets and not be expecting the Garda to do it. It is over to us to bring up our children properly and not expect the police to control vandalism. If things get worse we will know where to put the blame.

I am going to give the Government four constructive suggestions in regard to an unemployment programme. They are not original and I have used them several times before. No-one need expect miracles. Firstly, agricultural activity must contain a huge employment potential. I am not relying on my own eyes or ears or virtual total ignorance of the subject in saying that Dr. Tom Walsh, Director of An Foras Talúntais, pointed out on 18th November that there are three-and-a-half million acres of land lying almost derelict in this country. What is the employment potential in reclaiming that land and utilising it? I am not a doctrinaire socialist but I am not afraid to say that I would not mind direct State involvement in that area. Let the State prime this pump. The State already owns 100,000 acres of land via the Land Commission. Let the State start even taking on conacre, or change the law so as to enable estates with less than full freehold to exist in the registry of lands. Let them acquire land and let them initiate directly programmes of reclamation and then of utilisation, of growing the foodstuffs which we have to import annually— the cost was £50 million this year. I can see all kinds of difficulties here for the Minister for Agriculture. Objections will rain like snowflakes upon him, but only something radical like that is going to seize the people's enthusiasm and get them behind a wealth-producing as well as a wealth-consuming programme.

Secondly, I would like the State to give serious thought to the promotion of modest-sized local co-operatives. In urging that upon the Minister I have the authority not merely of the men from An Foras Talúntais but also of Fr. McDyer, a man with no axe to grind except to look after his own parish and his own people, but who has shown what is possible in a disadvantaged area. He said in a paper which he read in Cork about a month ago that he could envisage 800 small local co-operatives, but I am not talking about enormous ones with turn-overs of millions of pounds. I am talking about small local efforts each creating employment for 200 people. That is a crude model which cannot be taken literally. It is Utopian, but it corresponds roughly with the way people should be made to think by the Government. Any legal obstacles in regard to the formation of a co-operative society should be swept aside. People should not be afraid of organising in this way. They organise for charitable, religious and political purposes. There are credit unions and all kinds of local undertakings which indicate an enormous explosion of unofficial, non-Government-directed energy. Why can people not be locally organised for their economic survival as well as for the provision of jobs for their children?

My third suggestion is somewhat trendy. There are large possibilities in the short rotation forestry in which so much interest has now been created from the energy point of view. On the energy front, short rotation forestry is still experimental and it may be that, unless the price of oil goes up very high, it will never be really economic. It has got alternative industrial uses and it is very labour intensive. I hope this economic plan, when it arrives, will contain a recognition of this possibility.

Finally, there is a large possibility for work in waste recovery and waste recycling, another trendy idea, not mine, not original, or anything like that, but one which is conspicuously absent from the Government's programme and manifesto. I am not a bit ashamed of putting it forward in a country like this which finds itself importing waste paper from America. Imagine a ship-load of waste paper coming from the United States into the Dublin docks. Every time we buy half a dozen eggs they are packed, as I understand it, in an imported carton made of waste paper.

The employment possibilities implicit in these four suggestions have the severe political nettle lurking among them that they do not measure up to the job expectations and the career expectations of a very large secondary school population. The Taoiseach hinted at that political nettle in his speech only a month ago. If they do not, the expectations of the people will have to be changed. The world does not owe us a living. German workers will not get up at six o'clock in the morning, work very hard and be three times as productive as our workers, so that we may be a nation of clerks and physical training instructors. No one will look after us except ourselves in the long run.

I do not mind this footling manifesto. What I am afraid of is that the Government might succeed in fulfilling some of its heads and then regard their task as done. That task is being planned in the wrong direction and in the wrong way. I hope when we see this economic plan which we have been promised after Christmas, it will incorporate plans for employment based on real productivity and the generation of real wealth. We will worry and fight about how to distribute it later.

Minister for Agriculture (Mr. Gibbons)

The programme the Government put before the people in the pre-election manifesto recognised the key role agriculture can play and must play in the recovery of the national economy. We have the potential to be one of the world's greatest producers of the most basic foods in demand in the biggest consumer markets. It is vital that we exploit the potential we have, and I have every confidence in the ability of our farmers to respond to the opportunity they now have to contribute in full to the effort needed to get the economy back on an even keel.

It is already clear that the farming community are well set for expansion in the years ahead. As we have already been told by the Taoiseach, 1977 has been a good year. The likely out-turn for the year can leave no doubt that we are at the start of a period of expansion. The value of the gross national agricultural product is expected to be up by about 30 per cent. There will be an increase in the volume of output of about 9 per cent, which is direct contrast with 1976 when output fell.

This increase in volume, coupled with the greater prices available for farm produce, is expected to give an increase of approximately one-third in family farm incomes in 1977 as compared with the year before. After allowing for inflation, the increase in family farm incomes in real terms will be in the region of 15 per cent. Nearly every sector of agriculture has registered an improvement this year. Milk, beef and grain have been the main contributors but the pig industry and horticultural producers have also shown up well.

For a number of years now the volume of milk production for processing has been rising steadily every year. This trend has been maintained in 1977 and I expect an increase as big as 10 per cent will be recorded in the years ahead. Even at that, I am certain we are nowhere near the limit of what we can achieve in milk production. Although the average cow yield has been improving over the past few years, there are still a great many low yielding herds throughout the dairying industry. Our aim in the years ahead will be to try to bring all these closer to the standards of the better producers. This will mean better incomes for many of the smaller farmers who rely on milk production as their main source of income.

Disposals of cattle from farms will be about 20,000 more this year than last year. Most of the extra output of cattle has gone for slaughter in meat factories. For the coming year the market outlook for beef is promising. With the end of the transitional period, producers should be able to look forward to a strong and firm demand.

Cereal output for 1977 is expected to exceed one million tons. This is a record. For 1978 the Government are encouraging farmers not merely to maintain but to expand the tillage area. Producer prices generally have been particularly buoyant this year. It is plain that, given reasonable prices and market stability, farmers will respond and expand production. I am confident this will be reflected in performance in the coming year.

While producers' prices increased very significantly in 1977, the cost of inputs such as fertilisers and feedstuffs have not advanced at the same rate, and the ratio between output and input is therefore favouring farmers. This must stimulate a greater use of basic inputs and should give us a further increase in output next year. At the same time, capital reinvestment in stock, grassland improvement, better farm buildings, and land reclamation is being maintained at a high level. These investments must lead to better husbandry, better management and better returns for farmers.

As I see it, farming is ready to embark on a new era of expansion. It is ready to fill the vital role assigned to it in the Fianna Fáil programme to speed up the economic recovery. Farmers realise now that increases in support prices over the next few years will not be of a kind we experienced in recent times during our annual accession increases. That period is behind us and most farmers know it. We must get away therefore from the idea that improvements in farm incomes can come only from further price increases. Present farm prices and the prospect of stable market outlets fully justify expansion. There is plenty of scope for improving incomes through greater productivity, better milk and crop yields, better stocking rates, better husbandry to reduce the incidence of disease and especially in the case of calf mortality. Farmers can and must help themselves in all these areas and I will do all I can to ensure that the Government will back them.

As Deputies will be aware, the EEC have published their agricultural price proposals for 1978-79. As usual, they are very complex and will have to be carefully examined over the next few months. I cannot give the House many details about them now. I made it quite clear at the meeting of the Council of Ministers on Monday last that the price package eventually agreed must compensate producers for rising costs and permit the continued development of agricultural production.

The sheep industry is one sector of farming which has not benefited from our EEC membership. As Deputies will have read, when I was in Brussels last week I was able to continue the talks I have been having with my French colleague in recent months on the subject of access to the French market for our sheep meat in the new year. I cannot say much about these talks at the present time but I am satisfied that we made useful progress and I am hopeful that we will reach an early and satisfactory outcome.

In simple terms what I want to see is that on the 1st January Irish lamb can enter the French market, as it is legally entitled to do, and that we get the best possible price for our exports to that market. I am conscious that a sudden big increase in the supply on the French market, especially if quality suffers, would be very much against our interests and against the interests of producers. The need to maintain quality will be a permanent consideration when the market, as we hope, opens to Irish producers.

I do not want to say more just now. Producers in the meat trade here are being consulted and I hope the whole question will be settled next week. Such a development would stimulate farmer confidence in the long term future of sheep production and put it on a more competitive footing with other farm enterprises.

Also in Brussels this week the Council of Ministers had a preliminary discussion on the proposals made by the Commission for modification of the structural directives. In presenting their proposals the Commission have given recognition to the special problems of poorer regions, and this is a step in the right direction. I welcome in particular the proposal to give assistance for both arterial and field drainage in the west as we requested Commissioner Gundelach when he was in Dublin and since then. I am glad to see our representations to him have borne fruit in the case of provisions being made for drainage in the west.

Drainage can contribute more to the viability of farmers than any policy of land redistribution and it can make an immediate impact. I hope, there-fore, that this proposal will be adopted quickly. If it is, I intend to have a special effort made to accelerate drainage activity in the west. My Department and the Office of Public Works can co-operate to this end and I will be asking the Parliamentary Secretary, Deputy Hussey, to make this matter his special concern.

With our present high unemployment I consider it important that greater assistance should be made available to all those farmers who rely solely on agriculture for their livelihood in the foreseeable future. This will be my aim in the discussions on structural measures in the months ahead.

The question of special assistance to Mediterranean areas in France and Italy was also before the Council of Ministers last Monday. I made it my business to point out that the difficulties encountered by the disadvantaged areas in France and Italy can be matched by similarly disadvantaged areas in Ireland. We got an intimation from the commissioner that he recognises this fact and will take due cognisance of it. It is, however, proper to recognise that there is an increasing awareness in the Community of the problems of the poorer regions. As I said, we have had an acknowledgement from the commissioner that he is aware of these circumstances.

I am glad my decision to introduce a beef carcase classification scheme has been supported in the industry. It will make our beef more competitive particularly on continental markets and will give exporters the opportunity to supply to required specifications. I believe also that it will help producers to recognise the importance of producing quality products, and it has been accepted by the farming organisations with acclaim.

Although it is only a week since I last spoke on the subject of disease eradication, I make no apology for referring once again to this important topic. The fact that we live on an island is our first defence against disease. In the matter of epizootic diseases which are the scourge of many continental countries, we have a very enviable position. It assures access for our livestock products to most world markets.

We still have a long way to go before we can be satisfied with our progress to date in combatting bovine tuberculosis and brucellosis. I regard the struggle against these diseases as the greatest challenge I face as Minister for Agriculture. I am determined, given the complete co-operation of farmers and their organisations, to make real progress towards the goal of eradication. We have to get away from the stagnation and indifference which have plagued these schemes in recent years. General rounds of testing will begin in January. We must be determined that 1978 will go down as the year when we turned the corner in disease eradication. I appeal to everybody involved in the livestock trade, perhaps most of all to farmers and veterinary surgeons, to see that these rounds are carried out promptly and effectively.

I am always hearing reports of time wasted and difficulties being encountered because adequate testing facilities on farms are not provided. The least a herd owner worthy of the name should have is a decent cattle crush, for which grants are available from my Department. Cases have also come to my notice of herd owners not presenting all their livestock for testing. Apart from the fact that this is a breach of the law, farmers behaving this way are only making a mockery of the eradication schemes and ensuring that reservoirs of infection remain amongst our herds. The full rigours of the law will be applied in any cases that come to my notice.

On a number of occasions recently I expressed the view that the rates of compensation for reactors are inadequate and are badly in need of adjustment. The Government have now agreed that there should be significant improvement in the compensation provided. In the case of reactor cows, farmers have to pay high price for replacements. To help them in this, the rate of compensation will be increased from £85 to £130 per cow or in-calf heifer. Because of the low carcase value of small and young cattle it has also been decided to raise compensation for animals of less than 400 lbs deadweight to £100 from £55. There is not the same need for an increase for heavier animals which normally realise fairly good market prices. Therefore, compensation for these will increase marginally to £60. These increases will come into effect when the new round of testing starts in January.

I also intend to provide for hardship cases in the coming round. This will not be paid out of a special fund as heretofore but will be met out of the ordinary Vote provisions. I shall be consulting the animal health council about the criteria to be applied.

I am determined to press ahead vigorously with the eradication of animal disease. As I said, the full rigours of the law will be applied in the event of breaches of disease regulations. We can no longer afford to tolerate irregularities or evasions. They are not in the best interests of the farmer and are grossly unfair to his neighbours whose livestock is put at risk. Disease does not disappear or go away of its own accord; it has to be eradicated and this requires action by the State, by veterinary surgeons and by the farmers. The State has spent many millions of pounds in disease eradication campaigns and the results achieved are unsatisfactory. The situation cannot continue indefinitely. The State cannot be expected to go on paying out large sums of money year after year without achieving any really effective results.

During the next few months I intend to have the whole programme of disease eradication examined thoroughly. The position of farmers and the part they should play in the disease eradication programme will have to be considered fully. While I do not wish to anticipate the outcome of the study, significant changes in the whole approach cannot be ruled out of consideration. I want to emphasise now the need for all concerned to tackle the disease problem with renewed drive and determination. At their meeting this week the Council of Ministers approved the regulation providing for Community aid for accelerated disease eradication programmes in member states. This is an added reason for taking effective steps now in order to get on top of disease problems. All concerned will have to play a part.

My views with regard to the National Agricultural Authority established by the previous Government are already on record. I expect to introduce legislation as early as possible to provide for the amalgamation of the advisory and training services. An Foras Talúntais will be retained as a separate autonomous body in the form in which they have operated successfully up to now. I have already set in motion the procedure for preparation of the amending legislation and I am confident that I shall be in a position to put definite proposals before the Government very shortly. All going well, this should enable me to introduce amending legislation in the Dáil early in the new year. I do not wish to anticipate the debate on the legislation but I am convinced that under my proposals expansion and improvements can be achieved in such a way as will enable the advisory and training services to make the maximum contribution to the advancement of Irish agriculture. The expertise is already there. What is needed now is a more effective structure in which they can operate and flourish.

Our pre-election manifesto placed particular emphasis on the need for more intensive processing and packaging through to the consumer stage. The food processing industry is a vital link in the food chain between farmer and consumer. It has a special contribution to make both by increasing the value of our exports and by giving employment in rural areas. Employment on farms has been declining but the critical factor is the rate of decline. The slower the rate of decline the more jobs will be preserved on farms that might otherwise be lost. Provided these retained jobs are economically productive they are surely as good as, if not better than, alternative jobs created in industry or services.

Growth in agriculture is an objective that must be pursued in the national interest. I am determined that all efforts in the development of the industry will be concentrated towards the achievement of the greatest possible rate of expansion. The contribution that agriculture can make to the economy, to employment and to our balance of payments depends on the achievement of these objectives. The more rapid the rate of growth the greater the contribution that farming can make to national employment. This employment will be further augmented if we can exploit every opportunity to intensify the processing of the raw materials on our farms. This must be the road to follow in the future. I intend to work with farmers to make sure that we make the best possible contribution to the economy.

Mr. Lipper

I wish to congratulate the three Deputies who were yesterday elevated to the office of Minister of State. While I do not know them personally, I want to assure them of my full co-operation during their term of office. I wish them well.

Listening to the contributions from the Government side since I became a Member of this House I must conclude they are still celebrating their outstanding victory in the general election. It is blatantly obvious from their speeches that they think they can afford to be very complacent because they have a large majority in this House and can win every vote. I should like to remind them of a significant statement made here on 5th July by a very experienced legislator, a man who held most responsible portfolios in previous Governments. The words of this Member merit serious consideration by all. He warned the Government that if they did not fulfil their promises to the unemployed, if they did not create jobs for them, they would not be in power for four or five years as is so confidently assumed now. He told them that after a year or 18 months, if not sooner, the unemployed will take to the streets and force the Government out of office. The words of that distinguished Member of the Dáil should be carefully considered.

Much has been said and written about Ferenka. I wish to make it clear that I know the workers of Ferenka and their families and, like the Minister for Industry, Commerce and Energy, I know of their problems. These workers are as good as the best to be found anywhere in Europe. They have received a fair amount of flak, but how justified has been the criticism? Let us examine the reasons for the strike, a strike that is now conveniently being used as an excuse for closing the factory.

Men were asked to clean toilets. They refused and they were suspended. There was an unofficial stoppage but this was resolved and the men returned to work. The shop stewards of that unofficial stoppage were singled out for victimisation. Hence the protracted strike. Surely this is not the best way in which to treat workers. How can management expect the goodwill of the men when they hand out such shocking treatment, such abuse of all human standards of good industrial relations and, most serious of all, the disgraceful attempt to degrade the human dignity of the Irish worker? Any time there was occasion to go to personnel with a complaint, no matter how trivial, the workers were met with a blank refusal. Apparently the manager of personnel there was known as "Mr. No". Of course, it is not generally known that a team of reputable consultants were seconded to carry out an in-depth investigation into the poor industrial relations within Ferenka as far back as 1973. Following a most thorough investigation a comprehensive report was prepared and presented to top management in the Netherlands. It contained a very critical account of incompetence on the part of local management which was never refuted by the top management of Ferenka in the Netherlands or in Ireland. Worse still, no corrective measures were taken. Therefore, what chance of success was there within that factory, bearing in mind this type of disgraceful disregard for the dignity of the worker not to mention his rights under our Constitution?

The real danger is that workers at Ferenka could be blamed very easily for the failure of the Government to attract further investment to our region. I want to make it perfectly clear that this is not the case. I should reiterate that the workers at Ferenka are among the finest that could be found anywhere in Europe. All they need is proper management and they can produce the goods. Remember, over 2,000 men have come and gone since the Ferenka factory opened. Most of them have told me that the conditions prevailing within that factory were similar to those of the old workhouse times when men were treated like peasants with little or no regard for their feelings as human beings.

Let me make it perfectly clear also that this is no reflection on the unions involved. They were fighting a very difficult struggle from the beginning; their task was never easy. In fact I would say it was next to impossible in view of the attitude of management, which was anything but enlightened. Whether the blame rests in Holland or in Ireland is of little consolation in this unfortunate chapter in the history of industrial relations in Limerick.

I do not doubt the sincerity of the Minister for Industry, Commerce and Energy when he strongly pointed out the seriousness of the unemployment situation in Limerick. Might I say, as a member of the Opposition, all of us in public life in Limerick were concerned but we are even more concerned today. Apart from the Ferenka tragedy I have been listening to rumours now for the past week or so of another 200 jobs perhaps being lost in the city of Limerick when a company of soldiers will be wiped off the register at Sarsfield Barracks. I wonder what is happening in Limerick. Why should Limerick, as a community, be expected to sit back and accept such suffering and misery in the form of unemployment and hardship? I do not believe it would happen in any other part of the country; people would stand up and be counted in defence of their rights to live and to work.

That is why I am convinced that if the creation of jobs promised to the unemployed is not fulfilled we need not think we are going to enjoy a honeymoon period of four, four-and-a-half or five years: the workers of this country will take to the streets and will put every one of us out of office.

I do not see any great point in holding an inquest here or anywhere else into the closure of Ferenka. Neither do I see any point running with cap in hand to the almighty multinationals who, as has been proved around the world, constitute a serious threat to any government and to the democratic way of life which is our hard-gained tradition. What is needed is action, and I mean immediate action. I am not looking for surveys or anything else that might take months, even years to materialise. I am seeking desperate action to deal with desperate circumstances. I want to see the huge plant at Annacotty opened again to provide employment for the people of the area. I do not know if it is possible. But that is what I want explored to the limit in a manner that will lead to action and not merely false hopes.

I fully appreciate the serious concern and deep human interest felt by my colleagues. I know they do not wish to give the impression in any way that this is a political football. I am not prepared in any circumstances to take any part in anything that could be regarded as making a political football out of this, the worst industrial tragedy in the history of Limerick, where we have workers equal to those to be found anywhere in the world. Let there be no misunderstanding in that respect. I call for immediate action by the Government. Accordingly, I make this desperate appeal.

I am not here merely for the sake of looking into problems in the past or of finding pleasure in blaming anyone. There is too much of that taking place to the detriment of our country, a country that could and should be the best in the world. I call on the Government to try to get a united front in so far as this terrible tragedy is concerned, to get these 1,400 people back to work, as a priority; to find ways and means of regaining the massive employment lost to our city for reasons which continue to elude most of us. To mention but a few of our industries, there are those such as the clothing factories and also Clover Meats and Cleeves. Let us stop the placation of multinationals at the expense of our heritage and the dignity of our people. Let us come together to fight what I regard as the biggest challenge facing the country in its industrial history. I would go so far as to call on the leaders of all sides of the House to come together, to show the nation the way forward and end recrimination once and for all.

It is very easy to criticise workers, unions and, possibly, Governments. Removed 120 miles from my city, criticism without a sound basis and the hope of a lesson is of little value. What I believe is needed now is unity on the national front without political wrangling. Every idea offered to save the plant should be and must be explored to the very utmost. We must not forget the families, the wives and children of the men affected by this tragic closure. They too are human beings. They are intelligent people. They were doing their share to improve their own lot and the lot of this little country of ours. They are the people who ultimately wield the power and, if there is blame to be levelled at any of us, they are the people who at the next election, no matter how soon or how remote in time, will tell us who is wrong and who is right. Thank God, we have a democratic way of electing Governments here and giving power to people. Long may it remain so.

One of the worst features of this closure is the plight of the apprentices. Fourteen of these now find themselves unable to finish their training. I appeal to the Minister to make special arrangements to ensure they will not be the victims of this closure. If the Minister makes a special appeal to employers in the electrical and engineering fields asking them to facilitate these young people in finishing their time so that they will qualify as fully-fledged tradesmen I am convinced there will be an immediate response, and a response that will show at least the goodwill that still remains. The first year, second year and third year apprentices will be catered for by AnCO training centres and the regional technical colleges.

The idea that the plant should not have been located in Annacotty is completely and utterly ridiculous. Limerick and the mid-west region are ideal locations for industry. Despite all the unfavourable publicity in the Ferenka case the record shows that our area is one of the very best in the country from the point of view of trouble-free working in very large industries. There are several large industries which are foreign owned and controlled and which are highly successful. It should be made clear that we have in the Limerick-Shannon region large industries doing better than their counterparts in other countries. Ask any of the successful industrialists in the area and you will find that Limerick workers are easy to train, quick to learn and, indeed, among the best in the world.

Again, I regret what happened to Ferenka. It is a great tragedy. Certain statements were made here during the debate on the motion on Tuesday, 6th December. Shocking insinuations were made by a Deputy that obsolete machinery was installed in Ferenka and that the money for the new machinery went into a sister industry in Germany. Is the Deputy suggesting this happened through a Government agency? It is very easy to make statements like this, and what I would like to know is what substance there is in them. If there is substance in them then people have a right to have the full facts made known. People should be told whether or not the Government or their agents were negligent. If they were negligent they must know they were negligent. I find it very difficult to accept that a criminal act like this could be perpetrated without the Government's knowledge and it would be interesting to know what their reaction was. It is easy to make these charges within the confines of this House where privilege is enjoyed and those making such statements are protected.

The Minister for Industry, Commerce and Energy issued a warning that we will not have many more strikes of the Ferenka type. If Irishmen—presumably he meant women too—did not sit down together and talk to one another and have a bit of sense certain steps would be taken. I am sure the Minister must appreciate that there is good reason for the high degree of unofficial strikes in industry, and there is nothing to be gained from making threats such as the Minister made. Many could interpret that statement as nothing short of blackmail of workers. I do not believe for one moment the Minister intended the statement as such.

The Minister for Industry, Commerce and Energy and his colleague, the Minister for Labour, Deputy Gene Fitzgerald, will have to work much harder if they believe they can just wish away one of the greatest scourges we have in Irish industry. As a worker and a trade unionist—something I have been all my life—I should like to put on record the fact that no worker wants to go on strike, because every worker knows only too well that he will be the loser, no matter what the result. Workers know full well that the greatest weapon they have at their disposal is the picket. They are also well aware that the moment they have to use the picket it in itself becomes a failure. Take it from me as a worker, workers and unions go on strike as a very last resort, and the unofficial strike is used generally because of the bullying tactics of management in dictating far too hasty, cruel and unjust decisions, not to mention many wrong decisions for their own good.

More often than not there are long delays in having cases brought before the Labour Court even at conciliation level. When the cases are finally brought before the court there is a long delay for the result. These delays cause tremendous frustration. The unions and the workers' representatives are very often blamed for doing nothing when they have gone through all the available channels. It is because of the frustration caused by official delays that unofficial strikes flare up. This is not intended as a reflection on the Labour Court, which I believe is inadequately staffed. Most of the workers there are grossly overworked. Because of this they are not as efficient as they should be. When I attended the Labour Court last year, the Court retired for three minutes and we were warned not to leave the room as we would not be able to get back in.

An Ceann Comhairle

The Deputy has four minutes left.

Mr. Lipper

The long delays in the hearings are leading this country into bad industrial relations. The sooner we recognise this, the sooner we can look forward to some progress in industrial relations generally. I strongly urge the Government to increase the staff in the Labour Court, to expedite all cases and to give the unions and the Labour Court every chance to have disputes heard within a reasonable time. It is difficult to convince workers that everything possible is being done to have their cases processed through the Labour Court.

The House should note that very often far too few union members attend their meetings. The militant members always attend, of course. We cannot blame the unions for this state of affairs. The trade unions can convene meetings but they cannot force their members to attend. The Minister for Labour should sit down with the representatives of the unions and industry and carefully consider the idea of experimenting with having regular half hour monthly meetings of trade unions in places of employment where members will attend with the blessing of the employers. This could be a useful exercise. From my experience I believe that this would certainly reduce the number of unofficial strikes. An appeal could also be made to managements to look into their departments of staff relations. Staff relations are of paramount importance. Those responsible for good staff relations should know every worker by his Christian name. It is their duty to foster and promote good relations and be at all times impartial. This is an area of industry where the deep understanding and appreciation of human problems, held by most Irish women, is invaluable. I urge the House to encourage women to show to a male dominated society that they can do a far better job in industrial relations. I believe women will succeed where men have failed miserably. If my suggestions could be put into effect we would rarely have official strikes.

I do not envy any of the Ministers their portfolios. They have very difficult jobs, and I wish them very well.

Mr. Moore

What time do I have at my disposal?

An Ceann Comhairle

Thirty minutes.

Mr. Moore

The Taoiseach in introducing this debate put the emphasis on unemployment. Emphasis has been put on unemployment from all sides of the House. This emphasis shows the dedication of the Government to solving this problem. No country in the world except totalitarian countries are without unemployment, but we do not accept their methods. Democratic countries will always have marginal unemployment, but there are acceptable standards. The unemployment rate here at the moment is unacceptable, and as the Taoiseach said the whole stability of society is at stake in this problem. I sympathise with the parents whose growing families are seeking jobs. They have a very difficult task. It is very depressing not to be able to help more of the people who come to me with unemployment problems.

The Taoiseach outlined the steps the Government has taken to create employment in the construction industry. The construction industry offers the best opportunities for investment and development so as to create a society where employment will be available to those who seek it. It is a reflection on our society that while people are queueing for dwellings other people are queueing at the employment exchanges to obtain benefits. There is a great contradiction here. The late Mr. Eamon de Valera would have said that if we could not solve the problems under the present system we should work outside of it. We should deeply examine any causes which are hindering our efforts to create employment. We should examine the construction industry from the labour and employer sides, to see if anything is holding back the expansion of that industry.

We are all aggrieved that so many young people, because they lacked proper accommodation when they married, find that their marriages have failed. Bad housing is a major factor in the down-grading of the marriage rate. If these young couples get proper accommodation they may have to pay exorbitant rents for it. If they do not get proper accommodation and have to live with in-laws there may be more trouble there. We have not enough dwellings to meet the demand and despite the achievements of the present Government in this regard the demand for housing is as great as ever. The Government should first tackle the financing of the housing drive by increasing loans, by giving grants, by generally encouraging the building of more dwellings, and in this way, in cidentally, provide employment. We are not building enough dwellings. A figure of 25,000 houses a year is good, but if we are going to break the back of the housing problem in a reasonable time we must encourage people to provide their own accommodation and local authorities must be put in a position to build many more houses.

A fact of housing which must be tackled is the provision of well-run hostel accommodation for the thousands of young people who come each year from the provinces to cities like Dublin. We talk of "flatland", and I know from my constituency canvass at election time the conditions in which many young people live in these flats. Many of them are being exploited by landlords who are charging exhorbitant rents. The landlords may say that because of rent restrictions they cannot keep their premises in proper order.

I would like to see local authorities and even private enterprise providing hostel accommodation which is well-run and modern even to the point of being luxurious so that such young people would not be condemned to living in insanitary flats and houses in the city. When they come here and enter employment their wages are fairly low and they are put to the pin of their collar to meet the rent. I hope people at the top of the construction industry will look into this matter.

Three or four years is a long time out of a person's life to have to wait for housing, and many young people cannot stand the strain of living in a flat. When they have children they come under the censure of the landlord. They live in cramped conditions and when the family comes along they are in an even more cramped condition while they are waiting for the local authority to provide housing or until they can buy a house. We must take some blame for this social evil, because even though the Government have tried strenuously to reduce the backlog of housing they have not succeeded. People nowadays marry younger than formerly. They want housing earlier and they want higher standards. If we solve this social problem we will in fact be solving the two problems of lack of proper housing and shortage of jobs in the construction industry. With a lot of goodwill from employers and trade unions, the construction industry, with Government backing, can ensure that these problems will be swept away.

The Taoiseach has warned us solemnly that the stability of our society is at stake because of unemployment, and a contributory factor is the dissatisfaction of many people on the housing waiting list. Every year in Dublin alone many houses become obsolescent and cannot be kept in repair at an economic price or they may have to be demolished for street widening. The housing problem will never be completely solved. People say that if you build too many houses you will cause further unemployment later on. This will not happen. Only living cities have housing problems. We have to overcome the great bulk of these. If you eradicate bad housing you are going to eradicate grave social problems also. If the goodwill we have at the moment determines the Government to press ahead with plans for job creation, this time next year we will be able to look back and say that there is a job well done; that we have not solved all our unemployment and housing problems but we have perfected the means which will help us to do the rest in a reasonable time. We can do it, but we must recognise the enormity of the problem. We must call on the goodwill of the Government, the employers and the trade unions. We may well then be on the road to recovery and a new prosperity.

The building industry offers the best opportunity for the creation of a climate of growth. Apart from the building of dwellings, there is a demand for materials, furniture and everything that goes to the making of a home. These spin-offs will increase the momentum of the drive towards recovery and greater prosperity. My suggestion about unemployment is that we must expand the construction industry so that it can absorb many people leaving the land and give us the houses and flats we need so badly for families and for young people coming from the provinces.

Industrial relations have been mentioned. The Government and the Minister for Labour are very well aware of this matter. Deputy Lipper was quite right when he spoke about strikes. Once a strike takes place, the unions and the workers have lost. The threat of a strike is effective but once you implement that threat you have lost the battle. The men lose their wages. They are on strike pay which is not equal to the wages they were drawing. Ill-will is created every day the strike goes on. We need to look at the Labour Court and our industrial machinery to see how we can prevent strikes.

We must look at the trade union movement and the employers' side also to see where are we falling down between the two of them, and how we can eradicate the "them versus us" attitude. We should say to the employers and the trade unions that we are all in this together. If a strike takes place there are no real winners. We are all losers. The economy loses. The man who is trying to keep his home together loses. The employer loses his profits and his means of livelihood. In our own interests, we should come together and try to remove the "them versus us" attitude which is crazy in this modern age, especially in a country like ours which is underdeveloped. We are not like the United States or West Germany or Japan. We have not got a powerful economy. We have a fairly weak economy, but it is capable of being greatly developed. If we gave more time to resolving our industrial relations problems, it would be another step towards greater prosperity.

We must keep a sense of proportion. We hear about strikes through the media, but thousands of our factories are working all the time without strikes. Because there is no trouble in them, we do not read about them. Some of our firms reach as high a level as firms in any part of the world in the matter of industrial peace. When we talk about industrial relations we are talking about human relations. The man on the shop floor does not change. He is the same man as he was outside. The same goes for the employer.

When we get into a confrontation situation we lose our sense of proportion and it is a fight to the end. Recently we lost many jobs. No side was blameless. Having attributed blame to every side, it is time we stopped talking about it and planned for the future. It must never happen again. In the trade union movement we have a very powerful medium for industrial peace. Many people say the trade unions are too strong. When the late Seán Lemass was asked many years ago were the unions too strong he said they were too weak. Our troubles come from weakness. In some cases negotiations are successful, the problem is solved on paper to the satifaction of both sides, and one man appears outside the factory with a placard on unofficial strike and workers refuse to pass that picket. We are back to square one and we add to our list of man days lost because one person can stop people going to work.

When I speak of trade union strength or weakness, I feel the Congress of Trade Unions must be strengthened. It should be the fountain-head of power in the trade union movement. I do not believe in the Government interfering in these matters. If we had a proper system, the Government would not need to interfere and the unions and employers could solve their own problems. In this State, Governments generally are benevolent. We do not tend towards dictatorships. We have to depend on the goodwill of people in industry. We must try to bring it home to people that an unofficial strike can cause tremendous suffering and destruction. The Congress of Trade Unions should be able to ensure that where a union by a majority vote in a secret ballot have accepted a decision, that decision will be safeguarded and nobody has the right to disrupt the majority decision of a union.

Deputy Lipper suggested that trade unions should be allowed to hold their meetings on the factory floor. This happens already in some cases. What he had in mind probably was a works council, which they have in many continental factories. If management want to make a change, the council meet—the trade unions give them their blessing—and management have to tell the council why they want to make the change and, unless they convince the council that the change is for the better, the change will not be made. That is why these continental countries are prosperous. Not only do they work hard to produce goods but they also work hard to ensure that there is no disruption by unofficial strikes or by any strikes. This is a voluntary agreement.

A recent happening which was published in many parts of the world has done us harm. The year 1978 gives us an opportunity to redress that harm and to show that there is peace in the vast majority of our industries. Some of our industries have an amazing record of no strikes. Be it noted that they are the most successful firms.

Deputy Lipper also referred to the fact that women might do better in industrial relations than men. That may be so, but there is no reason why they should be. It does not matter whether we have men or women in charge of human relations, if goodwill exists we will have peace. We cannot depend on a fairy queen or a wizard waving a magic wand and solving all our problems. We must face facts. Employers and trade unionists are in this together, and unless we face this fact we will have trouble.

The Taoiseach referred to Northern Ireland and gave the heartening message that things are improving there. There are fewer killings, bombings and outrages. I hope that before the end of next year there will be peace there. Of course, it must be peace with justice and justice for all sides. When we talk of our people in the North we mean all the people. We can discuss with Northern politicians the problems of the people who have no jobs, no proper housing and are suffering from ill health. These are the basic problems facing this island and we can solve many of them with mutual goodwill. We must prove to the people of the North that we have concern for their welfare and are prepared to sit down at any time to discuss their problems. Nowadays there is sufficient goodwill to help overcome these problems. Earlier this year Dublin councillors went to Belfast and Belfast councillors came to Dublin to discuss mutual problems. We understand each other better now and as a result are better friends. I hope 1978 will see an end to the real problems of the North.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

Deputy Fitzpatrick has ten minutes. I must call the final speaker for the Labour Party at 1.45 p.m.

Mr. T. J. Fitzpatrick

(Cavan-Monaghan): In the short time at my disposal I would like to put at few matters on the record. One thing has emerged clearly from this debate, and that is that the National Coalition Government managed the economy carefully and well between 1973 and 1977. They brought us through one of the most severe international economic recessions that hit the world for half a century. We handed the economy over to the present administration in good shape. There is no denying that. It has not been denied in this debate nor has it been denied by economic commentators or economists.

The next point that emerges clearly from this debate is that Fianna Fáil are having second thoughts about unemployment. They have no solution for it. They are preparing the way for failure to deliver on their promises in regard to the creation of employment. The Taoiseach is reported as saying that the very stability of our democracy depends on the provision of employment. Deputy Callanan also spoke about the danger of dissatisfied youth, and Deputy Moore followed on the same lines.

The greatest danger to our democracy lies in the danger that politicians should mislead or disillusion our youth, or that they should hold out to the young people great expectations which they could not fulfil. I want to charge the Fianna Fáil Party and this Government with having been guilty of shabby, shady and disgraceful conduct in the promises they held out to the young people before the last general election.

They promised full employment, higher and full education grants with a very relaxed means test, and a full programme for youth with all sorts of amenities, if Fianna Fáil were returned. They have not delivered on those promises and it does not look as if they are going to deliver. The sad and tragic thing for this country would be if our very big population of young people, as a result of the failure of the Fianna Fáil administration to deliver on youth, should become disillusioned with politicians and with the democratic system. There is a serious obligation on this Government to deliver on their promises to the youth.

There is no good in Deputy Moore coming here and saying he has sympathy for the parents of young people who cannot get jobs. In view of the promises made before the election and the statement in the election manifesto that tens of thousands of jobs were there for the creating of them, sympathy is no use. Jobs are required. Time does not permit me to develop that point further.

The next question I want to mention, in my capacity as Fine Gael spokesman on the environment, is the proposal to abolish rates. The abolition of rates on private houses and other hereditaments in that category has my full support. This party removed the health and housing charges from the rates during our term of office. In that way we kept down the rates by up to £3 or £4 in the £. In our last year of office we started to reduce in an orderly way the rates on private houses by 25 per cent, intending to complete the job this year and next year. We did that without in any way taking away from local democracy or from services provided by local authorities. As an election gimmick and in a desperate effort to get into power, Fianna Fáil said they would remove rates from houses entirely and in one operation beginning on the 1st January next. They are going to fulfil that part of their promise. I hope they also abolish the rates on schools, residential schools as well, without any qualification.

What they did not tell the people was that they were going to put local government into a straitjacket, that they were going to tell the local authorities how much they could spend and on what they could spend it. They did not tell the people that they were going to reduce substantially the services provided by local authorities. If I had the time I could go into this in great detail.

In reply to a parliamentary question I put down yesterday, I was given details of the rates struck by local authorities for the past seven years with particular reference to variations in one year as compared with another. I have time to deal only with last year. I find that only nine county councils out of 29 were able to keep to the figure of 11 per cent and that about ten were far above that figure. I shall give some examples. One county council had an increase of 16.9 per cent last year and others increased by the following amounts: 19.9 per cent; 21.9 per cent; 17.8 per cent; 17.3 per cent; 16 per cent; 18.7 per cent and 17.8 per cent. Dublin Borough Council increased by 16.5 per cent; Limerick by 16.7 per cent and Waterford by 13.7 per cent.

All these authorities are being told by the Minister for the Environment that they must confine their increase to 11 per cent. I have time to give only a few examples of the consequences. Kildare County Council were told by their county manager on 7th December that because of the Minister's circular it was necessary to reduce his carefully prepared estimate by 57 per cent. The result will be a reduction of £155,248, in the amount to be spent on county roads, a reduction in public lighting of £5,000; a reduction in water maintenance of £10,000; a reduction in respect of sewerage maintenance of £3,000; a reduction in public assistance of £36,300 and a reduction in the health grant of £35,900, making a grand total of £245,448. The result of that circular issued to all local authorities is that there will be a wholesale cutback in services with a consequent reduction of employment. That was not promised by Fianna Fáil before the election. Promises and sympathy are no good from the Government. They must deliver on their promises.

Mr. M. O'Leary

It is apparent from the Taoiseach's opening statement in this debate and from other statements by Government spokesmen that unemployment is recognised as a serious problem by the Government and one that should be tackled. Such a recognition on the part of any Government obviously is a necessary prelude to the adoption of correct policies.

It must be conceded also that this Government have committed themselves to very specific annual reductions up to 1980 in the numbers on the unemployed register. They recognise the social evil of unemployment and, in addition, they have solemnly committed themselves to specific reductions in the number of unemployed for this year and for the succeeding years of their administration. That is a necessary prelude to the adoption of realistic policies to advance towards solution of the problem. The administration should be legitimately concerned about the malevolent effects of unemployment for the population generally and especially for the category for which they voice such great concern, the young people.

It is necessary to identify the nature of the problem and to be concerned about the ill-effects on the community generally. This is commendable and admirable and so far as expressions of concern go this is the most concerned administration on the issue of unemployment. Some people might say it is perhaps too soon to expect anything but expressions of concern from a Government who have been in office for only six months. We have had many speeches from them. In this debate the Taoiseach expressed his concern once more and, in doing so, he joined with most members of the Cabinet who have voiced their concern on many occasions in the past six months. The Minister for Labour has set up what he calls an employment action team. We have not had any results from the team as yet but it has been established and the Taoiseach referred to it at the start of this debate.

It is fair of Opposition spokesmen, even six months after the Government have taken up office, to ask for some evidence of action. I am not raking over the embers of the election campaign when I refer to the 5,000 jobs pledged by the end of 1977. In referring to that pledge I am confining myself to criticism of present shortcomings in the activities of the Government. I am criticising a lack of progress towards the fulfilment of employment targets set for 1977.

This is the last day of this session of the Dáil and we can say with some certainty that the first instalment of the Government's undertaking to reduce unemployment by 5,000 will not be honoured in 1977. They have another undertaking of a 20,000 reduction next year. Perhaps that will be honoured but on the evidence of the first instalment of their programme one must entertain serious doubts.

The downturn in the latest unemployment returns—it stands at 4,362 on last year's return for the same week —cannot be attributed to any action by the Government. If any credit is to be given for the definite, if still unsatisfactory, improvement in employment that has taken place this year it must go to the budgetary action taken by the outgoing administration at the beginning of the year. I am assuming the Government do not wish to rest on the withered laurels of a defeated administration. I am assuming the Government are interested in the effects of their own actions on a subject that is of such vital concern to the members of the Cabinet. I assume that they would not be satisfied with a situation—on a subject so dear to them, one of such seriousness to them —that they would rest on the budgetary actions of that administration in tackling the problem of unemployment. On their own actions, their own measures, what works have been carried out by them since July, apart from speeches?

On the unemployment question we look in vain. There is the employment action team which, so far as I have been able to observe, has been prolific only in expressions of concern to date. Its structure is very unreal, its purpose very vague. I read of proposals in the last week or two that we would see suggestions or recommendations for the employment of physical training instructors—a laudable objective— but nowhere near the youth target in employment set for the work of that employment action team. Remember that the establishment of that employment action team—with so few actions or positive proposals to its name as yet—is cited as a main plank to prove this Government's commitment to settling unemployment at present.

I take it that this administration, so anxious to settle this problem, so sure of their superiority over the remedies of the outgoing administration, would not take to their credit actions undertaken by the previous administration in relation to the undoubted improvement that has taken place in the area of unemployment, unsatisfactory but an improvement nonetheless.

The Taoiseach, I think, concedes that some credit must be given to that administration, which was so culpable in many respects, if we are to believe Ministers of this Government. There is some grudging tribute paid to the work of that defeated administration in the Taoiseach's speech when he says:

What is even more encouraging is that employment in industry continues to rise. In the second quarter it was 6,500 higher than a year earlier.

—the second quarter is scarcely the quarter of the Fianna Fáil rule in this year. The Taoiseach continues:

For the year as a whole, numbers at work should show an average rise of about 7,000.

The Taoiseach finishes this paragraph:

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

As a member who served in that outgoing administration, not one member of it would begrudge the present one their ambition, in the Taoiseach's words, to build on the "foundation", the foundations of our budget; we would not begrudge them that ambition, that budget which laid such very sturdy foundations in the amounts on the capital side, in job investment, for expansion and recovery, a recovery fuelled by rising exports, of products that were competitive in price. If, in the Taoiseach's words, they are building on that foundation at least they are going in the right direction. But they are not speaking of their handiwork when they speak of that foundation. Again, to quote the Taoiseach:

We have not come into office to repeat or perpetuate the confusion and despondency of the past four years.

There is the comment at the end of the Taoiseach's speech that this is a Government of "leadership, of courage and conviction". If those words of the Taoiseach are to be taken in their literal meaning—that they are not out to perpetuate the confusion, despondency, the half remedies, the policies that did not fully work of the last administration, as they would see it—then it must follow they are under-taking to reduce, by 5,000, the numbers unemployed in 1977. That is an undertaking based on policies brought into being by this administration. They contend that these undertakings and policies are additional to any good wrought by the budgetary actions of the National Coalition.

It might be considered somewhat unfair on our part to chide this Government on lack of progress on the employment front so early after six months, in their career as a Government. But so specific have been their undertakings in the area of employment, so certain have they been that their policies and remedies would be additional to those of the outgoing administration, that criticism on lack of progress in this area at this time is deserved and legitimate. It is fair to say that the earliest casualty in the economic programme on the job creation front appears to be this administration's undertaking to reduce unemployment by 5,000 this year. The recent statements by the Minister for Finance, for one—a very comprehensive reply was given in this House to a Parliamentary Question recently— show that progress to date on job creation makes it abundantly clear that the target set at a 5,000 reduction will not be reached this year. The likelihood of reducing unemployment by 20,000 in 1978 is even more remote on the evidence of policies propounded so far in their first six months in office as we come to the end of the last day of this session. The fundamental weakness of the Government's proposals to stem unemployment is that they contemplate no institutional change, no new gathering, no new mandate given to the State sector. They appear to be basing their policy on a total reliance on short-term increases in jobs in the public sector, a response which, in our view, would prove to be inadequate.

Speaking about the present administration's lack of institutional innovation in dealing with the question of unemployment it is regrettable—and gives us an interesting insight into the way they view the trade union movement that whilst the members of this administration who, after all, are so talkative on the subject of the need for co-operation from the trade unions in the wage and salary sector; who are so anxious to secure their co-operation, ever counselling them on the need for moderation—that whilst the Government are anxious to secure the co-operation of the trade unions when it comes to moderation in wages and salaries, there appears to be no two-way traffic in ideas, in solutions or suggestions on how our performance in the job creation area can be improved. The trade union movement have repeated to this Government, indeed asked them quite recently, to go ahead with the establishment of a national development corporation, something we would have proceeded with. The most recent meeting with the trade unions at which this recommendation of Congress was referred to was that of 23rd September last.

In discussing with the Government and Ministers concerned with the economy, the trade unions at that meeting again suggested the advisability of setting up that national development corporation as an aid to tackling unemployment. Just as promptly that request of the national trade union centre was turned down by the Minister for Industry, Commerce and Energy. As he told them at the meeting, it was his intention as per manifesto to establish a consortium, a consortium which, as he has explained in the House and elsewhere, would not be a new organisation, not that everything has to be totally new in this area.

This cannot be described as innovative. It will simply be a gathering of existing State organisations that will meet periodically. From what one can see of the description of the working of this consortium, it is another example of the kind of spreading bureaucracy which increasingly seems to be the Government's only organisational innovation to the genuine problems of unemployment. The employment action team now has grown into a committee of 25. As the committee spreads in numbers, its proposals become fewer and any action appears to be converse to the size of the committee. There-fore, it is not unfair to suggest that many of the Government's responses take the form of appointing yet one more committee, suggesting fancy names for the kinds of committees being set up—in this instance it is a consortium; in the case of the Minister for Labour's pet, it is the employment action team.

In his speech the Taoiseach touched on the subject of the national agreement. As someone who had responsibility for liaison with the social partners in the events that led to the ratification of that national agreement, I would be the first to say to the House that that national agreement would not have been possible without the general understanding that every action possible to reduce unemployment would need to be taken by the Government of the day. That is why the National Coalition accepted the submission of the Congress that a national development corporation should be established. It is also one of the reasons why we decided to go ahead with the establishment of the National Manpower Authority. I would also be the first to say that, though our national agreement was not as ambitious as the comparable British social contract, and nothing as ambitious was envisaged by the unions, the employers or the Government, yet the ratification of the 1976 agreement by the trade unions would not have been possible without the tacit acceptance, understood by all who participated in the negotiations, that a binding obligation rested on the Government to manage the economy in the direction of job expansion.

It is difficult to see the present policy proposals for tackling unemployment leading to any lasting improvement. Their proposals are for the immediate and short term, concentrating overmuch on short-term expansion in the public service. Their proposals cannot be described as serious policy inputs on the steps that need to be taken if unemployment is to be reduced in the period ahead.

Despite the fact that they are committed to specific reductions in the unemployment register, it is difficult to see how the results they seek will be obtained, though I readily admit that what I call the Bingo politics which brought this Government to power make it difficult for the spending profligates of June last to become the economic statesmen of December, who are now lecturing the trade unions on the virtues of moderation. Anyone who holds a responsible view on the matter will not contest the need for moderation in incomes if conditions in which employment is to expand are to be maintained. Wage and salary earners must not be asked to carry the burden of moderation on their own. If we are to have moderation in the economy next year and if we are to seek the ideal conditions for job expansion, lectures must not be addressed solely to the trade unions on the advantages of moderation.

I believe that national agreements have notably contributed to the standard of living, particularly the last national agreement. I am glad to note that in his final words the Taoiseach takes back charges that were made earlier in the House that the last national agreement had not led to an improvement in the standard of living of the wage and salary worker, and he quotes trade union information to the effect that it did lead to an improvement in the standard of living of those covered by that agreement.

Mr. B. Desmond

And repudiated Martin O'Donoghue in the process.

Mr. M. O'Leary

Unemployment is a subject of much concern to the members of this administration and their concern is voiced daily. It cannot be gainsaid that the national agreement, particularly the last national agreement, has been the most important contributory influence on this year's improving employment position. Without it, it would not have been possible to see the all-time high record gained in exports. This is why the outgoing administration fought and worked so hard in getting a national agreement in liaison with the social partners that would lay a secure foundation for job expansion. We would be the first to admit that the recovery which has been notched up this year in the economy on the jobs front is far from satisfactory. We would agree with the Taoiseach that unemployment is still intolerably high, but we were going in the right direction and we at least had the courage to accept the kinds of innovative changes that are lacking in the present proposals.

It was our desire to ensure that moderation should apply in regard to wages and salaries. The burden must not be placed unilaterally on the shoulders of wage and salary employees without similar moderation being exacted from other elements in the community. In this connection, if the intention that was announced by the Tánaiste at a recent dinner to review both the capital gains tax and the wealth tax leads to a decision to fundamentally alter the regulations, I believe he will be endangering the securing of support for moderation on the part of wage and salary earners. I do not know whether the Tánaiste is winding-up for the Government, but I hope that at the earliest opportunity he will spell out clearly his intentions in respect of both the wealth tax and the capital gains tax.

I am in favour of moderation in relation to that agreement. Moderation is essential if we are to improve conditions for job creation. I would go further and say that the growth forecasts for the economy of 6 per cent in 1977 and 6¾ per cent in 1978, which are realistically drawn up and put forward by such organisations as the Central Bank and ESRI, provide a genuine basis for an increase in real incomes for salary and wage earners in the negotiations at Employer-Labour Conference level. I doubt if the recent statement by the Minister for Economic Planning and Development enhances the possibility of securing that kind of free agreement on a real incomes increase that would also allow for job expansion. His statements make nonsense of previous Government statements, which were to the effect that acceptance of the Government's proposals would result in an average range of income increases of from £8 to £10 per week. As a result of the disclosures of the Minister for Economic Planning and Development in the Dáil it is now clear beyond any shadow of ambiguity that all previous Government statements setting out the feasibility of income increases ranging from £8 to £10 per week must be reconsidered.

Apparently, if we are to believe that Minister who is in charge of the Government's economic thinking, those Government spokesmen who have advocated acceptance of the 5 per cent plus tax reductions have been assuming all along that such elements as the reduction in rates, the abolition of car tax and the reduction by £1 in the cost of the insurance stamp are an integral part of the Government's tax offer. Single people, who constitute a large category amongst taxpayers, will receive virtually no increase if the Government's proposals as we know them on the tax front are endorsed. Wage earners with large families will suffer a similar fate, receiving nominal increases, if the disclosures of the Minister for Economic Planning and Development are to be believed. I assume they are to be believed because he is in charge of Government thinking in this area.

On the Government side it is important that if they are to get a moderate increase agreed freely this year they must revise the kind of tax offer they have been offering up to now because it is clearly not adequate. In calculating the rate of inflation at 7 per cent for next year the Minister for Economic Planning and Development appeared to take advantage of the reduction in rates twice over, since it is included by him both as an element which contributes to holding the projected rate of inflation next year at 7 per cent as well as contributing to the cash package he has been advocating up to now. Even when using the reduction of rates in this double fashion there are many who contest the forecast of an inflation rate next year of 7 per cent. If I remember correctly, the ESRI do not believe that figure. At any rate it remains the hope of all who are seriously committed to the achievement of full and sustained economic recovery that success will attend the talks for a new national wage agreement.

Negotiations which have such crucial consequences for future progress in the economy require a spirit of straight talking and dealing if satisfactory results are to be obtained. Statements on the taxation front which appear to be extremely unfair have been made by Government Ministers with the nominal hope of improving and enhancing the climate for agreement have succeeded in doing the reverse. Unnecessary misunderstandings have been created. I question the wisdom of Government Ministers announcing before talks have opened what the detailed cash components of a final settlement should be, but if such a course is adopted, as it has been by the Government, then the settlement figures proposed by the Government side must be clearly seen to be supported by incontestable factual material. The present improved economic situation makes it possible that a real increase could emerge in the present talks, not the increase lifted so far on the tax figures from the Government but it is possible that a real increase could emerge that would not endanger the prospect of job expansion later.

Since this is the Government whose members have initiated the process of publicly declaring their settlement expectations then it is opportune at this point that the Government Ministers should review the basis of their present tax offer. It is said that this is a Government enjoying a honeymoon period; they may be coming to the end of it but they are still enjoying it. Recently the Taoiseach and the Minister for Foreign Affairs attended their first European Council meeting. I do not think the convention of observing a honeymoon period for a new Government should deter us from the task of realistically assessing their performance thus far. In relation to that attendance at the European Council meeting one may legitimately ask whether the cash figures agreed by the Taoiseach and the Minister for Foreign Affairs in respect of our contribution over the next few years, and their agreement on what will be coming to us from the regional fund, meant that they have given over the principle of reallocation of resources within the Community. It is a fair question to ask whether the Taoiseach and the Minister for Foreign Affairs were sufficiently consistent in arguing for a massive transfer of resources in finance, manpower and technology from richer to poorer regions at their first meeting of the European Council. The policy of going to Europe for the summit meetings and coming away with a slight improvement on the cash benefits, to us obviously will be attended with diminishing success in future, especially with the prospect of fresh entrants to the Community, Greece, Spain and Portugal.

Early in the life of this administration we must assess performance and cast judgment on the performance on issues encountered by the Government thus far. In talking about meetings of the European Council fisheries come to mind. One longs for the simple Fenian purity of the 50-mile national fisheries limit enshrined in the motion tabled by the present Minister for Foreign Affairs when in Opposition last year. He sought an exclusive 50-mile zone. The election manifesto also makes a reference to the fisheries question. It is put in the form of a credo in the fisheries section. The manifesto stated that Fianna Fáil firmly believed that to protect the livelihood of our fishermen a 50-mile off-shore limitation on foreign trawlers and factory ships was of urgent necessity. That is almost akin to the renewal of baptismal vows. The motion moved by Fianna Fáil last year called for the reservation exclusively to Irish fishermen of a 50-mile zone. Now, instead of the unambiguous assertion of what we understood to be the case in the manifesto and in the motion debated here last year, there is talk of a fall-back position. I do not know what figure the fall-back position is, but it is certainly a departure from what I understood to be the unambiguous policy announced in the manifesto and contained in last year's motion. I do not know, whether through all this talk of a fall-back position, it is not too fanciful to foresee the Minister for Fisheries finally protecting the rights of our fishermen by obtaining for them limits which extend only so far as the paddling limits off our beaches.

I do not know if the Minister for Agriculture has any fallback position in relation to his negotiations in the agricultural area, but I would like to point out the contrast between what the electorate took to be simplicity, clarity and lack of ambiguity in the Fianna Fáil catechism which won them the last election, namely, the manifesto and the reality.

The electorate understood the taxation provisions quite clearly spelled out. Yet we learn now that the taxation provisions are dependent on other matters being agreed. Unhappily the electorate has learned that the so-called manifesto is as complicated as the Talmud or the Koran, needing a great deal of interpretation, with ambiguities lurking in every clause and paragraph. That manifesto in which every line was filled with goodies for the gullible is now, we find, a very complicated document indeed, needing a good deal of interpretation and contingent on a number of circumstances coming about and being fulfilled. Trade unionists must accept moderation. Our European partners are implicated when it comes to bargaining. Unemployment largely depends on general virtue.

If there was any theme clearer when this administration was in Opposition it was that, if they were elected to Government, they would be a Government with all the answers, a Government which believed that Government action on its own could bring about desired results. Somehow there was a hope on the part of the electorate perhaps when the "real Taoiseach" was back in office things would be different and certain problems would be solved. He has, after all, the magic wand of his 20 majority. He is now flanked by 25 Ministers, the strongest mandate in the history of the State. Yet, in his opening statement on this debate, close to Christmas, he brings unhappy facts to the attention of the House.

The proposals in the Manifesto are a package. They cover incomes, prices, taxation, welfare and employment. The pleasurable items cannot be abstracted and the rest discarded. We are not living in easy times and any action of ours based on the supposition that we are would be folly.

I like the emphasis. "We are not living in easy times and any action of ours based on the supposition that we are would be folly". That is the Taoiseach speaking, with a majority of 20 and 25 Ministers. That is the Taoiseach who won the election on a manifesto which declared that most solutions lay within our own grasp and most of the problems which the outgoing administration encountered could be resolved by a Government with leadership, conviction and courage.

The Taoiseach implied these are the attributes of the present administration. Many of us in the last administration suggested that the problems were not as easy of solution as our opponents seemed to believe and that a good deal of community co-operation was necessary to overcome them. Extraordinary events which affected costs and prices at home were talked about by the then Opposition as if the Arabs and the oil crisis did not impinge on our economy. Indeed, listening to them, one would think the Arabs were living in a county in the country and were susceptible to our control, such was the ridicule with which the then Opposition treated the Government when dealing with fuel and energy costs.

We know that things like unemployment, prices and industrial relations require, as well as leadership, a great deal of co-operation from the general public as a whole. It is on this Government's head that the illusion has been created that all problems affecting the electorate can be referred to Merrion Street for solution.

Mr. B. Desmond

And Trinity College.

Mr. M. O'Leary

It is the Government who have created this illusion. One would have thought that a Government of such strength, ministerial talent, and with such a large majority, could have handled a local issue like Ferenka in a more satisfactory way. What did we see? We saw division. We saw two Ministers fumbling a job that should have been a job for one Minister. One may fairly ask, in the wake of the Ferenka tragedy, what is the role now for the Department of Labour? Is there any role for the Department of Labour and its master when all other solutions to an industrial problem have failed? We had the statement from the Minister for Industry, Commerce and Energy saying that it was none of the Government's business, resulting in 1,400 jobs being lost in Limerick. Who now is Minister for Labour? Is it Deputy Dessie O'Malley who is Minister for Labour for Limerick, and does he deal with disputes in his constituency when other solutions have failed?

I am not saying the State should intervene in all disputes. The Government should remain out of as many disputes as possible and leave the existing agencies to resolve them. Intervention is often unavoidable and, looking up the record, I find I intervened as Minister for Labour in major disputes on 25 occasions. When the Department of Labour was established by Mr. Sean Lemass one of his primary concerns was that it should play a role in industrial relations when other solutions failed. We now have a Fianna Fáil Government in the main traditions of that party and yet we find the present incumbent saying it is none of his business to intervene even when all other solutions have been tried and failed.

Recently I saw on our television screens where a former member of a Fianna Fáil Government discovered very late in the day that his idol had feet of clay. Increasingly we see this administration, with its majority of 20 and its phalanx of extra Ministers of State, beginning to fail as it encounters problems. Despite the Government's majority and the way voting goes, it will be our task here constantly to assess their performance in fisheries, industrial relations and unemployment and bring them to book on the basis of the undertakings they gave in the book that brought them to power.

Debate adjourned.