I am sorry. There seems to be a peculiar concept developing in our society. The days when we helped the poor have gone effectively. The poor appear to be a different race and a different quality of human being. But they have to live and eat. They need shelter. They can get cold. They can be hungry. We talk about employment and unemployment as two different words and we talk about old age pensioners as a bundle of words. I met a young woman in a clinic the other night. She had three children. Her husband is unemployed. She has to pay back money that accumulated during the rent strike in which she was involved. It was quite clear that she was giving everything she could to her children and her husband. She herself is under six stone. Her husband has no hope of employment.
I cannot understand how gentle, thoughtful people in an advanced civilised society can tolerate this kind of thing. I cannot understand how, when this kind of society is there, they want to give concessions by removing wealth tax and so on from wealthy farmers, industrialists, entrepreneurs. This money should go to the people about whom I am talking—the old age pensioners, the unemployed and the widows.
Someone did a sum for me which shows that a man who has £1 million worth of property is given in this budget enough money to pay 13, 14 or 15 old age pensions a year. He has been handed back that money. Why do we discriminate like this? What has the wealthy person got which makes us think he should live differently, with two houses, three motor cars, better medical care when he is sick and when he grows old? We give back £25 a week to the people with incomes of £15,000 a year and we could not give 25 pence towards children's allowances. We advocate the family in our Constitution as the basic unit of our society, but we still resist attempts to bring in family limitation. We encourage the growth of large families. One of the advantages of large families up to this—I always disagreed about this for different reasons —was that every time increases were given to the social welfare classes children's allowances were also inincreased. This year the Minister could not even give 25p in children's allowances but he could give £25 a week to the man with £15,000 a year. Is not that extraordinary, or am I odd when I consider that to be an extra-ordinary sense of values in an alleged civilised society or, to use an abused word, Christian society?
What has this budget to do with values and concern? The record of the previous Government was a little better. There was the October review. There is now no promise of a review in October and so these increase in social welfare will have to last over an 18-month period. Because the cost of living is rising inevitably with every day that passes the living standards of those on social welfare will go down and down and down.
The Press frequently get annoyed about the worker who will not work. When work was created in western capitalist countries the worker worked. The worker will always work if there is work. Being unemployed is a most humiliating experience for a human being. I believe unemployment will be permanent for many thousands of our people. Worst of all, changes are taking place in the unemployed. Of the 107,000 on the live register, 46,000 are on social assistance and that 46,000 have 61,000 children. When talking about the unemployed we are talking about children affected by unemployment, children who go hungry because of unemployment.
I defy the Minister for Finance, the Minister for Economic Planning and Development or any Deputy here to live on the pittance they are throwing to the social welfare groups here—£16, £17, £14, £14.60, £14.35. It would be a terrifying prospect for any of us to be handed this money on Monday and keep going until Saturday for shelter, food, lighting, heating, clothes; nothing else, there cannot be any comfort. Is it not an appalling admission for any society to say that there are thousands and thousands—107,000—unemployed? I say it with hesitation because I still find it difficult to believe that there are over 100,000 unemployed, astronomical figures even for Ireland, a backward country. It was always 70,000 or 80,000. But it is now 107,000 and we have got used to it. Those 107,000 have living with them their dependants, the youngsters, approximately 100,000 children altogether, a quarter of a million people, I suppose, in round figures living on starvation allowances. If a proper survey was carried out I guarantee that those children would be shown to be suffering from malnutrition. I guarantee also that most of the women would probably be suffering from malnutrition. Most old age pensioners are suffering from malnutrition.
Are we not ashamed of that as a society? A most extraordinary people, so proud of their generosity, their principles and values. I remember that was one the great cases for entering the Common Market—we would Christianise Europe; we would bring our civilisation, culture and values into Europe. God forbid. We are the lowest in Europe in everything, on all standards of generosity, concern, compassion, consideration for other human beings. We are the most cynical, hard-hearted, frighteningly cruel, indifferent to human suffering. This is not just an opinion; it is on the record and these figures can be proven. We are the last of the barbarians, of the savages. Why did they let us into Europe with these values, with this kind of poverty-stricken, hungry hinterland of human beings behind us dependent on us for our charity which we deny them because of our hedonist values? What is it—approximately a million a day spent on drink. I think it is a million a week on gambling and another million on tobacco. Is there no shame left in this society? I have been saying this for a long time, but it is getting worse. That is the shocking part of it. Connolly talked about the capitalist society where the biggest pig gets the most swill. Our trotters are in now and we are snuffling away, those that can, I regret to say, largely unashamed.
Over half the people who are out of work at present have been for six months and a third of them have been out for 12 months. Imagine oneself living for 12 months and more—because it is going to continue; nobody has any doubts about that—on what-ever it is—£16, £26 if you have got dependants £14, £10, £11.35 and so on. Imagine living on that week after week, month after month, year after year and nobody caring. One is a prisoner in this dreadful society. One cannot get out any more because the emigration ship has gone. John Bull is not going to feed our people any more for us, too bad; we will have to do it ourselves. When we starved them to death he fed them, clothed them; he looked after them when they got sick, he gave them houses. We do none of these things. They are our own people, second-class citizens—Vorster's apartheid—ours are not black but we treat them the same way, second-class citizens because they happen to be poor Irish—cattle in Irish history—remember the British used to say that. We are saying that about our own people now.
Pay-related goes, redundancy payments go, flat-rate goes; more and more people are going from the unemployment benefit rates which are minimally better than the assistance rates. Gradually there is a greater number of people drawing benefit. In 1976 it was 45 per cent on the assistance rates. In 1977 it was 52 per cent, and I am certain that will continue to go up. Incidentally the only feature of the budget I feel worth talking about is the fact that young girls will now be able to get assistance. What an appalling admission to say that we are educating young people to go straight on to the labour exchange, and we must take that as a kind of virtue in this budget. That is one of the nice things of this budget, that the youngsters can go straight into the labour exchange. What a society. However, on 1 October next it will add 17,000 to the live register. That is worth thinking about.
It is not desperately difficult to kick an old person about, to treat him like scum, like dirt, with contempt, the way we do. I cannot be challenged on that. I will bring anybody who wants to visit some old people and see how they live; likewise unemployed people to see how they live, how their children live, see the effect of living in an unemployed man's home, the effect on the children. They cannot get higher education, they cannot afford it. Indeed half the time in primary or secondary education—whichever it may be—they cannot get books, or they cannot carry on into secondary or third level education because they have got to get out and try and make some money, get some work. Therefore, the effect is simply much more than hunger or malnutrition while the wealthy go away with their gold. Or the lady about whom I read the other day who flew back from Spain to get a tooth out. Her husband could not come back because he was afraid of having to pay tax. We have that type of person in the country at present.
These youngsters, who are the children of the unemployed, are those who will be discriminated against, not only in the kind of bodies they will have because they will have grown up suffering from malnutrition, under-sized and under-weight but also under-educated. penalised because their father happened, in his time, to be under-educated, unskilled in work, anyway unable to get a job because of the successive failure of Governments here since the State was formed. Of course this unemployment is not at all a new development in our society. It has been there always except that it was cloaked by emigration when one in three had to get out. That was wonderful for us who were left; the liferaft was there for the rest of us who were able to stay on it. The others were kicked out and nobody cared where they went. That is one class we can kick around, and we do. We treat them with contempt.
The Minister introduces this completely discriminatory budget against the social welfare classes of which he and his Government should be thoroughly ashamed, epitomising the theme of the Ard-Fheis: taking from the wealthy to help the poor went out with Robin Hood. But there is another class they have taken on. There the story is rather different. That is, the working class, the workers, the trade unionists.
The successive Governments have had a great time since 1970. There have been five national wage agreements. I have never understood why a trade unionist would negotiate any kind of settlement with monopoly capitalists to preserve the capitalist system in a society which discriminates so blatantly against ordinary workers. The businessmen and the industrialists believe in capitalism. Let them make it work. I do not see why a worker should make any sacrifice to preserve that iniquitous injustice which discriminates against them repeatedly. Five national wage agreements were negotiated and we now have this extra-ordinary proviso in the manifesto and in the budget, and continually on the radio in the Press and on television, this continuous driving propaganda telling the worker that he should take not just a wage freeze but an assault on living standards.
I remember the late Deputy Lemass running into great trouble about that when he tried to freeze wages. Living standards have been driven down. The idea under any kind of economic system is that everybody's standard of living improves. It should not just stand still. Under the system operated here during recent years and in a number of other western capitalist countries living standards have not just stood still, they certainly did not improve, they have gone down. Why in heaven's name should any conscious, literate, educated man attempt to preserve that kind of society where he will be discriminated against, where he will possibly find himself unemployed, and where certainly if he goes to buy all the usual goods in the shopping centre he will find great gaps in the basket that can be bought? Gradually people will have to make do with a loaves and fishes job day after day, and make do with gradual varying degrees of malnutrition. The standard of food with which a person wishes to feed his family can no longer be given to them.
Why should a worker or a trade unionist make sacrifices for the preservation of this system? Fortunately, the people are declining to do so. It has taken them a long time, because they trusted some of the trade union leadership who for their own reasons decided to go along with this assault on working-class living standards. Even that could be considered an assault on working-class living standards in a good cause. I am sure the worker would consider it if he felt that he was getting an even spread all through the community of the product of his labour. There was no such promise or undertaking, there is no such promise or undertaking. In fact £10 million of the hard-earned money has already been handed away to these very wealthy people, and because it had to be handed away the old people, the widows, the children, the unemployed and the employed will pay for it in various ways, by reduced social welfare benefits or by increased taxes. This is the kind of system in which they negotiate wage freezes. This is where the sense of confrontation has been injected into our society in a particularly stark class-centred way in the last year, particularly in this budget, but also in the manifesto. Five per cent was the wage freeze fixed. It is not a miserable 8 per cent and the trade union leaders accepted the 8 per cent, their only worry being the strike clause. They have been offered this 8 per cent and at the same time I heard the Taoiseach say, and many of his predecessors said, that the wealthy will not invest and will not give us the benefit of their brains, ability, intellect, talents and so on unless they are allowed to have unlimited profits. There is no 5 per cent for them. I asked a question about limiting the amount the banks are making, but that is inconceivable, it is them and us. They are completely different from us. The worker can take 5 per cent but for the banker the sky is the limit. There are countries in which this kind of thing could be tolerated, some of the unfortunate South American countries where there is a high level of inflation and totally fascist governments.
We are dealing with two marvellous changes in our society—the improved literacy which for their own reasons they had to concede to the workers over the years in order to make them into reasonable technicians and technocrats, and in addition to that something which those of us who wanted to see radical change here over the years had to wait for, that is, the workers cannot now be shed to John Bull like they were, for him to feed them, because they were too mean to do it themselves or to clothe them or to give them homes, because they were too mean to do it themselves. The Government are faced with them now and unless I am very much mistaken they nearly have their fill of it. They will not take being kicked around any more, and the trade union leaders know this.
I regret and dislike saying that the trade union leadership which has now decided not to accept or recommend this new wage agreement is doing so not because they are convinced that they cannot get a square deal in this kind of capitalist society but because they are frightened of shop floor activity. They are frightened of more Ferenkas. Remember 22 unofficial stoppages with the biggest trade union in the country having unionised the place.
The trade union leadership know that this is a wide-spread development. They will no longer accept either restrictions on strike action or freezes in regard to wages. Either capitalism must be made to work or thrown out altogether as has happened in one-third of the world while the rest of the world is moving steadily towards the day when capitalism will be no more. The failure to recognise this is one of the most awesome parts of the Minister's speech. It indicates a total misunderstanding of what is happening. However, the trade union leadership are beginning to know what is happening. Now there is conflict between the official leadership and the shopfloor leadership. The latter will no longer take cropping or orders to remain quiet. Good shopfloor leadership is taking over and this trend is proliferating throughout the industrial scene. We are getting the first signs of it in the refusal to recommend acceptance of the wage agreement on the basis of the strike clause. I am astonished that the trade union leadership would even consider accepting an 8 per cent increase having regard to present circumstances. Only the other day the British Government allowed a 10 per cent increase plus a 5 per cent productivity deal for the tanker drivers but our trade union leadership consider 8 per cent to be sufficient. However, there is a long way to go yet.
How can the trade union leadership accept such a situation in this free-enterprise, free-competition society in which the weak go to the wall? The worker has nothing but his skill, his labour to sell in the market place; but he may not compete and may not use his enterprise. He is to be limited while we read in the financial columns of the national press of the huge profits achieved by Smurfits, by the banks, by Cement Limited and all the others. Included in these reports are references to the wonderful entrepreneurial skills of the people concerned. But should the worker endeavour to negotiate for whatever he can wrangle from the employer he is accused of rocking the boat. His actions are regarded as treacherous, as unfair, as something that will bring down the State. He is told that he is undermining our standards, our values and cultural attitudes, that what he is doing is engaging in revolution. Of course, we are witnessing the beginning of revolution.
All the time it is a question of them and us, of 5 per cent for the croppy boy and £10,000 for the wealthy industrialists and businessmen. Do the Government not realise that the worker sees the conflict in the incentives proposed in the budget? The worker is not stupid. He is one of us, having as little or as much intelligence as the rest of us.
Private enterprise does not work except in some kind of Fascist-structured society. In our sort of society there must be the use of the strike weapon, and it one believes in private enterprise one must allow each union to negotiate for the best deal possible. The worker should be able to say that he is selling his craft, his labour or his profession to the highest bidder. That is all he is doing when he is negotiating. He is exemplifying the underlying philosophy of the private enterprise society. But all that is considered to be a disincentive to industry and therefore is not permitted. It is gratifying to know that the trade union leadership who—with the exception of Matt Merrigan, who spoke out against these wrongs down through the years—are accepting that the worker is becoming rather more meddlesome and questioning, that he is asking why his children, his wife or his parents should be discriminated against vis-à-vis the other fellow. The worker knows that he has nothing to lose in the event of this kind of society going to the wall.
Ferenka was particularly interesting because it represented the great multinational concept of western capitalism. Despite our experience in that regard we have put all our money on the Ferenka-type company in this budget. The multinational situation is becoming frightening for everybody. Fundamental changes are taking place in the operation of multinationals. Another such company is to begin operations in Limerick and we have also the Asahi plant and others. In addition there is the EEC. All of these, we are told, will solve our problems.
What happened at Ferenka was dramatic to the extent to which it emphasised this new development. That company pulled out but started another factory in Bolivia. I am not particularly worried in regard to the multinationals because I am convinced that eventually they will destroy one another, but what should concern the Government is that our national sovereignty is gone, so far as multinationals are concerned. Individual governments have no power over multinationals. The board of the multinational, wherever it may be based, decide for whom, how much and what will be produced. This little emerald isle may appear in green on the map but that is as far as it goes in their consideration of whether the children of the workers in Limerick, for instance, could not have Christmas trees or Christmas presents. However, their lack of consideration is not specific to Ireland. It applies to all western European countries who are now finding that their wage rates are too high. I have here some hourly wage rates for the various countries. These are: West Germany, £4.67; Holland, £4.62; the US, £4.64; France, about £3; Italy, £2, Japan, £2; Britain, £1.97 and much the same for ourselves. This gives some idea of how greedy is the Irish worker in asking for 8 per cent. How marvellously can these matters be distorted by suppression of the facts. While the West German worker is getting £4.67 per hour the Irish worker hopes to get an increase of about £3 per week and the trade union leadership is rather pleased with this increase. The only thing they are worried about is the right to strike. They know that if there are not official strikes there will be unofficial strikes and they will not be in control. That is all that is worrying them.
The multinational has thought of a completely new development. He is pulling out of the Limericks of the world and heading, with all his marvellous technology, to South America. Brazil is where they are going to from here. The wonderful thing about Brazil is that there are no trade unions or they are under-unionised and have a Fascist type of society where nobody is allowed to strike or protest.
