Dáil Éireann debate -
Thursday, 22 Feb 1979

Vol. 312 No. 1

Financial Resolutions, 1979. - Financial Resolution No. 8: General (Resumed).

Debate resumed on the following motion:

That it is expedient to amend the law relating to customs and inland revenue (including excise) and to make further provision in connection with finance.

—(Minister for Economic Planning and Development.)

Mr. B. Ahern

Last week I was talking about the present state of our borrowing and the fact that the Government appeared to be moving away from the policy of borrowing abroad by raising resources within the country. The Government have stated that it is their intention to continue to try to raise their borrowing requirements at home and in this connection they hope to float a number of new loans in 1979. Any money to be borrowed outside the country will be raised through the European Investment Bank. Prior to the election Fianna Fáil made a commitment to try to restore order in the economy and they have kept to that promise by reducing the percentage of GNP for borrowing from 13 per cent last year—a figure which was boosted purposely to create employment and undo the stagnation that had crept into industry—to 10½ per cent. They hope that that percentage will continue to decrease. That policy pleases me because for many years the major portion of our borrowing has been for non-productive purposes.

In 1973, 15 per cent of our total taxation was allocated to service the national debt. That now stands at 20 per cent. Everyone who understands finance agrees that that is a ridiculous figure. That means that before we decide how to allocate any money one-fifth of the total sum must be put aside to service the national debt. It is a terrible thought that so much money must be spent in this way especially when one remembers the size of the capital budget and the demands made on it for roads, hospitals, schools and so on. Hopefully over the next few years this Government will reduce that figure to the 5 per cent proposed in the manifesto.

A section of the budget was devoted to the public expenditure review. This is another way of seeing how the best use can be made of the money spent on the public service. There are many old schemes which need to be modernised and if they are looked at in depth more savings will be made. Various Departments are setting up new sections to streamline the way money is spent and to make sure that they get the best value possible for their money.

None of the money that could come to this country under the EMS has been included in the capital figure. When we get this money hopefully it will be used on the various infrastructural schemes badly needed throughout the country. Last week I spoke about production and the best ways of being productive, but that is very difficult without proper transport and communications. Our ports and roads should be of the highest standard and perhaps the money we get from the EMS will be used to achieve this end.

On the Adjournment Debate last year there was a great deal of discussion on the Green and White Papers. People were saying that there had been a cutback in local authority housing. The figures in the capital budget for housing last year were £143 million and the out-turn was £136 million. The estimate for 1979 was £165 million. This shows there has not been a cutback in the housing programme either in the local authority sector or in the loans and grants for the private sector. House building creates a great deal of employment and 40 per cent of the total output in the building and construction industry is spent on salaries and wages.

In 1979, £76 million is being provided for grants and loans for new houses and for house improvements compared with £45 million last year. There has been a massive increase in the number of applications for house improvement grants. That is a major contributory factor to the housing programme. Sufficient money should be provided in the Estimates to maintain existing houses and to ensure that proper maintenance of existing houses does not fall behind in any year. There has also been a steady increase in the demand for the £1,000 grant. Prices have continued to rise. I agree house prices have increased too much in the last year or two, but they would have increased even if the £1,000 grant had not been provided. Once again building societies are opening their doors for new loans.

Recently the Leader of the Opposition made a point with which I agree. When I look at the amount allocated to education, especially third level education, I am amazed to see how it is allocated. An ordinary person who decides on part time third level education does not get a grant. He works during the day and does not even get any tax relief for any money spent attending the university. Our education system is to the advantage of the wealthy. The children of wealthy parents attend full-time university courses and can study at home. It is only fair that they should pay their fair share. Under the present system a professional person will be able to educate his sons for a profession. He gets large grants which come through taxes from the working man. If the working man visits him professionally he has to pay him high professional fees. The son, in turn, exploits the very person who helped to educate him by also charging high professional fees. I would like to see this situation corrected. In other words, those who gain from our educational system should work in this country for two or three years after they qualify if they have been given any educational grants.

Mr. Tully

Having over a long number of years listened to various Ministers for Finance introducing their budgets and being aware of how budgets are drawn up, let me say at the outset that this budget was a great disappointment not alone to me but apparently to the majority of our people. The Minister appears to have achieved almost the impossible: he seems to have pleased nobody. He seems to have been able to antagonise those who when they heard the announcement first felt they did not come out of it too badly, but when they studied the matter fully found there was a great deal of window dressing. They were given the impression that they were getting something with one hand and it was being taken away with the other.

Let me start with one section of the community with whom I am very well acquainted having lived with them all my life—the farming community. I want to make it very clear that I believe the farming community who are doing well should be taxed in the same way and at the same rate as everybody else.

I do not think farmers will object to that. The wealthy farmer should, therefore, have to pay a very much greater amount than the small farmer who has very little. I remember very distinctly the night before the last general election attending a meeting of IFA people in County Meath at the Ardboyne Hotel in Navan at which a guarantee was given that the Fianna Fáil Party would do exactly the opposite to what they have done in this budget. They gave a solemn guarantee in the manifesto. People present at the meeting who were candidates in the election and representatives of the party also guaranteed that if Fianna Fáil were returned to power they would not interfere with nor increase the multiplier and they would not reduce the valuation. Indeed, they would not dare to put a 2 per cent levy or any other levy on everybody producing in agriculture. However, less than two years later we find this is changed. I do not blame the Minister for Finance because he is doing what his Government have instructed him to do and what the Fianna Fáil Party must have agreed to despite the squeeze by some of the people who are being pressed locally.

The Government have introduced a system which I consider to be a very penal system. Perhaps the idea of increasing the multiplier to 125 is for the purpose of forcing farmers to present their accounts. Were the IFA, who negotiated with the Minister and his officials, aware that in doing that they were being tied to present accounts for two previous years if asked for them? I do not believe they were aware that this was in it. If they were I imagine they would be very slow to agree to this.

In addition to that the reduction in the valuation to £60 makes the whole strategy of the Government look rather ridiculous. It is only a very short distance away from the type of farmer in the West of Ireland who is entitled to draw the dole. It looks as if, having quite recently taken away the rates remission from those farmers, they are adding insult to injury. When they decided they were going to include them in the tax net they then rubbed salt into the wound by introducing what I consider is an outrageous tax, a tax on production, a tax which will apply to every farmer even to the farmer who only rears a few beasts and who only has a very small production on his farm. That man will be caught by the 2 per cent tax and he will have to pay. All the small farmers who are entitled to draw the dole and who produce anything at all will be liable to pay the 2 per cent tax.

I quite agree that the Government were in a very awkward position because they had to find some substitute for the £11 million wealth tax which they threw away. Who better to take this money from than the little man at the bottom of the pile who has not been paying very much? Catch the little fellow who has very little who is only of value on election day and the time to catch him is when the Government need money badly. I do not believe that ever in the history of the State, even during the period of recession when we were in office did we have the difficulties which Fianna Fáil have deliberately put themselves into.

Let us start off with the preparation of the budget. My experience of budget preparation is that the preparation starts shortly after mid-summer. A Government who do not know about the middle of October what they propose to do in a general way are no Government at all. Not alone did the Government not know what they were going to do but we had the spectacle of the Taoiseach in the House two weeks before Christmas asking that a debate should be deferred until the Thursday before Christmas because they wanted the Tuesday and Wednesday of the following week in order to finalise the budget.

The Government made their own troubles. They started off with the EMS. They were building on the EMS to provide a lot of soft money which they could use and did not mind that somebody else would be paying it back. They would get what they could and they would use those loans if they were big enough. They found that not alone were they codded in the negotiations but, having concluded them, they did not even know what happened. They did not know what the terms were and they did not know that the matter was finalised. When it came close to the date it was to come into operation they found that the people who really counted, the French and the Germans, were not prepared to agree with them and they found themselves short of a lot of money which they had to find elsewhere.

The Government struggled along until they produced the budget. Some weeks before the budget was introduced I was discussing the whole matter with an old man, who is very good at accountancy. He told me that the budget would be balanced by using what he termed the X factor. I asked him what he meant by that. He said that he meant the Government would be desperately short of money and they would pretend that the money was there and that the books were balanced. He said that by the end of June it would be evident to everybody that the books are not balanced and then they would produce money by way of taxation after the elections are over for the purpose of balancing the books and an X would fit in for the money they have not got. I consider that a very shrewd observation because it appears to me that we have now reached the situation where the Fianna Fáil Government have shown their hand. They have not got the money. They are struggling along as best they can and are trying to cod everybody. Whether or not the farmers will get anything after the Ard-Fheis has been stymied by the decision taken by the Government and announced by the Taoiseach yesterday. His reference to what the previous Government had done with regard to petrol was rather childish. I have very grave doubts that the action taken by the Government in this case is legal. The Government are introducing this legislation by ministerial order.

Deputy Bruton asked on Tuesday when the final wind-up debate on the 1978 budget would take place. He seemed surprised it was not concluded when the 1979 budget debate had started. He should not have been surprised because at least every couple of months there is a budget of one kind or another. Nobody knows from day to day what will be taxed next and householders do not know if what they have budgeted to bring them through the week will carry them through.

Let us start off with the price of goods in the shops and the report of the Prices Advisory Body. During our period in office we had a very fair system when the Minister for Industry and Commerce published a list of price increases so that everybody knew what the price increases were. The Fianna Fáil Government took a definite decision that they would not allow that list to be published and for some extraordinary reason the mass media have co-operated by only publishing three or four items out of each list of price increases sanctioned. I make this statement very deliberately. Increases in the prices of three or four items may be announced on the radio and a further one or two increases may be mentioned in the newspapers. Yet if one reads the report of the prices body, as sanctioned by the Minister, one sees that anything up to 50 items have been increased. The shopper finds out about these increases only when paying the bill. Recently I went into a supermarket to meet my wife and a person at the checkout had to put back on the shelves several items which she badly needed because she did not have enough money to pay for them. She had budgeted very tightly and the Government might well follow that example so that they would know from week to week where they stand.

If there are any people who think that prices have not increased dramatically they should go not only to supermarkets and grocery shops but to shops selling children's shoes and clothing. As much as £7 may be asked for a very ordinary pair of shoes to fit a three-year-old child. Then we are warned by the Taoiseach or by the Minister for Economic Planning and Development about the grave dangers of workers looking for too large an increase. I was a trade union official for over 30 years and I have as much experience as anyone in this House of what is required by workers in return for their labour. The worker who has a family to support needs to be able to set some money aside as well as supporting his family. I often hear people comparing workers with employers and saying that the workers are now looking for as much as the employers are getting. When they retire most employers have an industry or a farm, while workers finish up with an insurance card which they can hand in at the exchange. The State pension is not nearly adequate to compensate the worker for what he loses. The strategy of the Government is wrong. They seem to have the idea that we should ensure the Government get enough money to run the country and it is just too bad if those working for a living have not enough money to run their own homes.

I am glad the Minister for Health is here because he is one of the few Ministers to whom one can talk about a problem, though whether there is a result afterwards is another matter. However, he is courteous and that is a rather unusual attribute in a member of the present Government. My experience of this Government is that they are rather reluctant to talk, particularly to an ex-Minister, and are not too anxious to help. The Minister must be aware that the social welfare increases announced in the budget are a very big step down from what was being given previously and the same applies to the increases granted last year. Those who are dependent on social welfare are in very poor circumstances and need an adjustment to their income more than once a year. The present Government have decided that is not to be done and one relatively small increase is granted. A number of people have complained to me that they were under the impression their benefit would be increased substantially and they now find there is not a hope of the increase meeting the extra demands which not only will apply during the coming year but have applied since the removal of food subsidies.

It was a Fianna Fáil Government who solemnly declared some years ago that they would not in any circumstances interfere with food subsidies if they were returned to office. They told everyone whom they thought they could influence that they would not interfere with the cost of living. Having returned to office, they did not take two years to remove food subsidies, town gas subsidy and the cheese subsidy. When they found that an outcry had not been raised, they proceeded to remove the subsidy on bread and butter. Despite what some statistics seem to prove, there are a remarkable number of people on a low income for whom bread and butter or margarine is the staple diet. Meat and meat products seem to have disappeared completely from the menu of a great number of people and I shudder at the effect this will have on children. The father of a family who is earning £67 per week gross—which the Government consider an enormous amount of money—must pay income tax of about £2 per week and also pay for his stamp and any outgoings; he would not have very much to bring home. Such people cannot afford to pay present-day prices for food, clothing and footwear required by them and their families. This Government, having such an enormous majority, think they have the right to ignore everything.

Many years ago someone pointed out to me the pattern of Fianna Fáil budgeting. During their first or second year in office Fianna Fáil usually go fairly easily; in the middle year they put the boot in and in the last year they try to hand out sops which might get them back into office again. This is the year when they would normally put the boot in, but because of the local and European elections they have had to change the system. I should like some Minister to give a solemn guarantee that another budget will not be introduced this year after the local elections. Deputy Peter Barry challenged the Minister for Finance on television to state whether he would resign if he had to introduce another budget this year. The Minister did not hear the question or did not answer it. We have reached a stage where so many people have become disillusioned with what has happened that if a further impost is put on the people, as I suspect it will be, we will have a rough time.

There have been complaints in the past that national agreements did not do what they should have done. It was decided this year to have no national agreement and, although there has not been precisely a free for all, there has been the closest thing to it. We have a number of strikes and, as a trade union official, I do not like them because the workers and their families suffer a great deal. It is a ridiculous situation that some State organisations get exceptional treatment and others are told that they cannot but must abide by the rules. What is likely to happen if this situation gets worse? I am sure everyone would hate to see the country grinding to a halt as happened across the water because of people's dissatisfaction with their incomes.

While I do not wish to become involved in the dispute between the Minister for Finance and the Leader of the Fine Gael Party over budget figures and while I do not have the same capacity for figures as Deputy Dr. FitzGerald, I was satisfied, listening to the budget, that the figures could not be right. I am also satisfied that it is unfair of the Minister to attempt to claim that his officials are being attacked. The Minister is responsible for his Department and what is put down is what he says should be put down. The officials are not running the country. It is the Government who are doing so. There is no point in saying that it is an attack on the officials.

The Taoiseach and various Ministers have repeated again and again the necessity to keep wage increases down. Mention has been made by some Ministers of 4½ or 5 per cent, while others have mentioned 7 per cent. It is estimated that there will be an 18 to 20 per cent increase in the income from PAYE workers. That will not produce the desired result, nor is it the answer to say that the decision taken by the previous Government to change the system of taxation in the civil service will produce the result. I hope that when the Minister for Finance is replying to the debate he will use the scales on which he made up the budget figures.

We hear a lot of talk about the fact that when we were in office there were 25,000 people unemployed in the building industry and that the first action of the Minister responsible was to ensure that these people would be put back to work. It is rather ironical that the then shadow Minister, who was so vociferous about this issue and raised it on every occasion in the House, is the same Minister who has not been prepared to open his mouth at all over the number of disputes in his own Department. I am referring to the Minister for Posts and Telegraphs and Tourism and Transport. In fact, the difficulty is to get him to answer anything. I am not attacking him personally. I am attacking him as a Minister. As an Opposition spokesman, he was very talkative but, as Minister, he does not say very much. The present Minister for the Environment is a decent man and I am sure he will do his best within the confines of what he is allowed to do. There is no way he is producing the number of jobs which Fianna Fáil claimed were in the building industry when he was in Opposition.

The number of houses being built by Fianna Fáil is good, but the figures for 1977 should have been better. The figure for 1978 should be somewhere between 25,000 and 26,000 on the basis of what was planned and under way before I left office. We will know what the figure is in a few weeks. What they are doing with regard to local authority housing is outrageous. One of the things I set out to do—I thought I did it with the full co-operation of the House until I had my eyes opened by the present Taoiseach in December 1976—was to try to house people who could not house themselves particularly those with families and old people.

It should be the Government's objective to house such people. However, the first thing they did was to change the policy. If someone applies for a local authority house they are told they should look around and see if they could build a house for themselves. They are told that the Department of the Environment will give them a loan of £9,000 to build that house. Provision has been made in the Estimates for that. I met a man last week who pointed out three things to me.

Mr. Haughey

The Deputy seems to meet a lot of people.

Mr. Tully

I know I do and I know that Fianna Fáil are not anxious to meet people at present, particularly the backbenchers who were afraid to go home last week. This man told me that the local authority told him that they could not allocate a house for him, although he had five children, because he had an income over the magic figure of £67 per week. They suggested they might be able to give him a loan of £9,000. He asked how much the repayments would be and was told they would be something short of £22 per week. Then they discovered that as he had £67 per week he was ineligible for the loan. He mentioned that he had tried to purchase a site but the cheapest one would cost between £2,000 and £2,500.

The Government have reversed the decision of the previous Government to supply houses to those who need them. They have reached the stage where such people must remain unhoused if they cannot afford £22 per week plus the cost of the site. The Taoiseach made the comment that our Government were building too many local authority houses. The number of people looking for houses has grown enormously. The number of houses built in 1976 was 7,263. On one occasion during my time we had almost 8,000 local authority houses. There were 6,333 houses built in 1977. My bet is that there were 6,000 built last year. Next year it will not reach 6,000 if Fianna Fáil do not change their policy.

The cost of houses is increasing but the amount of money being provided is not sufficient, and they are not entitled to be rehoused if the local authority consider they have an income. For the first time, even under many years of Fianna Fáil Government, the income of the applicant is being taken into consideration. His family and housing circumstances do not matter, but if he has an income which the Government have informed the local authority is too high he is not entitled to get a local authority house. This is entirely wrong and must be changed.

The budget does not provide enough money for housing, particularly for local authority housing. I am proud of the fact that, even though I am not a Dublin man, I encouraged the development of the inner city to such an extent that there was hope for those living in it that they would be rehoused in the city where they had been born and reared rather than being sent out to the wilds. Apparently the people now in authority have decided that it is too costly to buy sites. The Government have a simple answer to that. If the prices asked for the old coal yards and the tumbledown shacks in the centre which have to be demolished for the purpose of building new houses for working-class people are too high, the Government should take action to ensure that they are acquired at a reasonable cost.

The whole programme that was built up by Dublin Corporation is being destroyed by the Government, who do not agree with what their predecessors did because they have no feeling for ordinary people. They believe their responsibility is to those with wealth and they are trying to ensure that not too heavy a burden is put on them if they can get away with it.

The Minister for Health, who is present, is aware of the situation with regard to medical cards. Recently he has been talking about pill-pushing people and advising that doctors are giving too many pills. Like himself, for many years I took part in various types of athletic activities; I still do within my own capabilities. It is no answer to a person out of a job or to someone who is ill and unable to get treatment to tell him that he should go out and jog. It is no answer to say that the doctor should not give him pills, that there are other ways, that he should have a walk. Some of those people are unable to walk. The waiting list for serious cases in hospitals has reached a stage where it is an insult to the intelligence of ordinary people.

I am sure the Minister for Health is man enough to take his own decisions, not the decisions that have been given to him. The Fianna Fáil Government before the term of office of the National Coalition Government took certain decisions on hospitals and we were prepared to carry them out. I give the Minister credit for altering some of the decisions, but I want to make it clear that what we did was handed down to us. The Minister should go further and alter many other decisions, because there are certain kinds of illnesses that require immediate attention but are not getting it because the facilities are not available. Perhaps they have not been available for a long time but they have now reached epidemic proportions. An illness that comes to mind is arthritis, which is far too common in this country. The number of people awaiting treatment is outrageous. Some priority must be given in this area.

There is also the question of dentistry, particularly school dentistry. There is no use telling a primary school student that he is entitled to treatment. If he does not get that treatment there is nothing in writing that will be of any use. The cost of private treatment is extraordinary. The same situation exists for people who require dentures. What old age pensioner can pay £100 for a set of dentures, particularly when the people who make the dentures claim they can be made for £25? The responsibility does not go any further than the Minister who is sitting on the front bench representing the Government. He knows the situation and it is up to him to ensure that it is rectified.

When I was sitting on the Government front bench representing a Department I took my own responsibility. While I had to report to the Government and get a Government decision on various matters, if I thought it right I made my case. If I got the right to do something I did so without going around and asking people if it was right or wrong. The Minister for Health has that responsibility. I do not know what is the situation with regard to medical cards. Too often we hear of people who have applied for medical cards and have not got them. Sometimes people want everything for nothing. That is one of the unfortunate things. But there should be some special way of dealing with people who have an illness which requires special treatment and which would entitle them to medical cards. Officials in the local offices have been quite considerate in dealing with these cases but they are bound by regulations. The Minister should study those regulations and ensure that they do not create hardship.

I am applied at some of the things I found out with regard to social welfare. It comes down to administration and the cost of administration. I am aware—and I have repeated this on a number of occasions—that officials in the Department of Social Welfare are doing a tremendous job, but here and there a knot comes in the line and people get badly treated. The Minister got great credit when he was Minister for Finance in allowing certain artists to be given income tax remission but I brought to his notice a half a dozen times the case of an artist who was down on his luck and who had nothing except the dole. He was offered dole of £2.47 per week on which to live. The man in question is an RHA. If he was earning £20,000 per year that would be tax-free but because he has nothing the Department could not see their way to give him the few shillings necessary to keep him alive. If that is social justice, then I know nothing about it.

I know of a case where a man who had worked for 25 or 30 years had then to sign for unemployment benefit for one month. He became ill and sent in certificates for three weeks. Even though he had a wife and six children, he found it impossible to get a shilling from the Department of Social Welfare. I have taken up that case personally. Recently I brought it to the notice of the Minister and I assume that he will have the matter dealt with.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

Matters of administration such as these are much more relevant on the Estimate debate. We are getting away from the budget to some extent.

Mr. Tully

I agree these are matters to be dealt with on the Estimate, if the Estimate is ever to be brought before the House, but since we could not finish the budget debate last year there is not a snowball's chance in hell of the Estimates coming before the House this year.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

The Chair is not responsible for what comes before the House. The Chair is responsible for carrying out the rules of the House.

Mr. Tully

I am responsible to my constituents and I have gone as far as I can. Thank you for your courtesy in allowing me to have this matter dealt with. The whole question of social welfare has got to be looked at carefully. I am told that one problem in relation to social welfare has not been dealt with because of the cost. I refer to the case of old age pensioners who have free travel permits. A male old age pensioner can travel free on his own but his wife cannot unless he accompanies her. I know of pensioners who have been confined to bed and whose wives must pay more than £1 to get in and out of the local town because the Department of Social Welfare cannot afford the cost to CIE of transporting them. The Minister for Social Welfare, I am sure, will deal with this because that is the sort of person he is.

The trend of the debate so far has been confusing, particularly because of the number of contradictions. Introducing the budget, the Minister for Finance read a 74-page document during which he referred to many things. I refer particularly to page 12 where he referred to an incomes policy and the "unrestricted pursuit of self-interest" in pay talks. He continued:

Price restraint and the creation of jobs on the scale needed in our country would be totally incompatible with such an irresponsible attitude.

Am I wrong, or did the Fianna Fáil manifesto state that on condition that there would not be an irresponsible attitude on pay they would reduce unemployment by 25,000 before the end of December 1978? Is it not true, whether job creation figures are 13,000 or 17,000 for last year, that the number of unemployed on 31 December last was almost 104,000, which is roughly 6,000 to 7,000 fewer than the previous year and not more than 10,000 fewer than the highest number ever unemployed?

Would the Minister for Finance try to explain that set of figures? Taking the Government's figures for February of last year—we have not got those for February of this year so far—the number of people who emigrated from the country—God knows, if they emigrated to Britain they must have been in a bad way—was 11,000. A priest in charge of a social centre in London said he knew of 15,000 young people who had gone over there looking for work. Have the Government any programme for reducing the unemployment numbers except emigration? It does not appear as if their other schemes have been successful.

I was highly amused a few weeks ago to hear the Taoiseach and the Minister for Economic Planning and Development referring to the complete abolition of the unemployment register. Perhaps they have suddenly become like Hitler, that they will put them all into gas chambers and do away with them, because there does not appear to be any other way to deal with the numbers on the unemployment register. They spoke about doing away completely with unemployment in a matter of three or four years. I am not surprised to see the Minister for Health smiling because from his experience he must be aware that such statements are utter poppycock, that there is no way in which they can suddenly deal with unemployment. I noted that the date they were talking about it roughly 12 months later than the date on which we expect the next general election to be held. I suppose they were giving themselves a safe margin within which to perform the miracle.

This sort of thing is not funny any longer to those who were promised jobs but who have not got them, the young people who have come out of universities, secondary schools and colleges of technology, all of whom were told that the return to office of Fianna Fáil would guarantee them employment. They were told that if they did not get it they could go on the dole and that Fianna Fáil would see to it that even the girls could draw the dole. What has happened? The jobs have not turned up and those young people are entitled to be angry. Those who signed for dole and who are living with their parents or other relatives were lucky if they got less than £1 a week. Indeed one person I know gets 27p a week because it was estimated he was getting £12 a week because of the food and lodgings he was enjoying in his parent's home.

This is the kind of thing we are getting after two years of Fianna Fáil Government and 74 pages of a speech by the Minister for Finance. A number of Ministers, like the Minister for Posts and Telegraphs, appear to have acquired the ability to disappear when anything sticky occurs. If it is so difficult to get them in the House, it would be extremely difficult for the people outside to lay eyes on them. The Minister for Health is an exception in this respect. He has been telling people not to drink or smoke. It has not affected me because I have never had a drink or a smoke, so I do not know whether his exhortation will be good or bad. However, I know it rings a little hollow for people who are looking for other things to be told they must not do this or that. It is doubly exasperating when one looks at the situation in which those who have been asked not to do these things have nothing else to do. It is an unfortunate situation when we have so many young people who have not got anything to do. We have been told certain things happen in our universities. I am sure there would not be any more than two or three per cent of those in the universities who are disruptive. Most of the people who go to universities, who can afford to, do so to prepare for life afterwards.

We can go right down the scale to the national schools, where no effort is being made to implement the Government's guarantee that the pupil-teacher ratio would be reduced to not more than 20 to 25 pupils per teacher. In a school in which I have a great interest there are excellent teachers, but how can any teacher be expected to look after two classes and then to deal with homework? It is not a question of accommodation, because it is adequate. There are far too many pupils in schools throughout the country vis-à-vis the numbers of teachers. Clever students will get on all right because they are capable of looking after themselves, but those who are a bit slow are being left behind. It is a pitiful situation when we see advertisements in the newspapers about classes to teach young adults how to read and write. It is evidence that something is terribly wrong with our educational system. The Minister for Education talks about having sufficient money to have teachers trained and to put them to work. That is not being done.

The responsibility for this situation must rest with the Government. The situation must be bad when university students are being asked to pay more than they or their parents can afford to pay. It is no answer to say that £1,000 is being paid per student. That grant applies to students regardless of their nationality or background. If the children attending primary schools are not properly taught, children who will never be able to attend university, the future will be bleak.

We were told that between 13,000 and 17,000 jobs were created last year and that a large sum of money is being made available this year for the creation of employment. I should like to ask the Minister if it is possible to create jobs overnight and what is the average time from the first approach to a firm until they are in production. It is true to say that the industries started in 1978 were first negotiated for as early as 1976. Apart from sending people abroad to return after a week or two with promises from 30 or 40 industries, have the Government done anything else to create industries? How many industries have been negotiated by the Government since they came into office, when do they propose to put them into operation and what will the actual employment be? For the purpose of making the price per job look small, firms establishing business here often quote high figures. If we are serious about this problem we must take action now. A song and dance was made of the IDA's job creation policy for Dublin. Three years ago we had to agree to restart industries in Dublin because the city had suffered so badly. A few years ago a number of industries were started in my constituency but the IDA schedule does not list any new industries for that area.

If the Government are serious about reducing the number of unemployed they will have to ensure that industries are not delayed through State failure to meet the requirements of its employees. To expect people to work a full week for 50 in this day and age, which is the weekly wage of a great number of State employees, is ridiculous. Instead of talking about jogging, pill-popping and the necessity to keep wages at a low level, the Government should face the situation and try to get the country going again. During the previous administration they said, "Put back Fianna Fáil and get the country on the move". I suggest that they start to get the country moving again, otherwise we are in for a rough time.

Minister for Health and Social Welfare (Mr. Haughey)

For a very large section of our community the only part of the comprehensive review of our affairs which the Minister for Finance puts before us at budget time which is of interest is the section which deals with the increases in social welfare allowances. They are not really interested in the general economic outline or in the estimates or projections contained in the budget statement. Perhaps they should be but who will blame them if their real interest is focussed exclusively on the rates of increases in the different allowances. These are the things that immediately affect them and determine their prospects for the coming year.

I think that this year's increases have been widely welcomed. While they are not as generous as many would have wished, they are better than most expected. The decision this year to depart from the pattern of a uniform percentage increase in all benefits and to provide a higher rate of increase to those receiving long-term payments has also met with general approval.

Pensioners deserve special treatment and there is an increasing understanding throughout our community that more must be done, particularly for the old and the infirm. The additional 4 per cent which is being provided for those receiving long-term payments is an acknowledgment of that social need. The rates of increase, 16 per cent for long-term and 12 per cent for short-term benefits, must be related to the cost of living. It is only in this context that it has reality. It is only in this context that these rates can be realistically assessed and their real impact on the lives of the section of the community concerned accurately measured. There are different ways in which this can be done, different bases of comparison which can be used.

To try to get a realistic view of the actual position of the recipients we can take a simple straightforward comparison, while recognising at the same time that there are many refinements and qualifications which can be made to any such bases. Consumer prices increased by approximately 8 per cent between November 1977 and November 1978. That increase can be legitimately compared with the flat rate increase of 10 per cent in benefits which came into effect in April 1978.

Correspondingly, the increase of 16 per cent and 12 per cent, which will come into operation on 1 April can be related to the increase in the cost of living between November 1978 and November 1979. The exact amount of what that increase will be between those dates is not at present the subject of debate. While it is probably running at present around 8 per cent or 9 per cent, it was projected in the Budget Statement that it will fall to 5 per cent towards the end of the year. Here I may point out that the Minister for Finance in the Budget Statement has emphasised that these are targets, not forecasts, and that they can be affected by a number of factors. Should they be realised, however, then social welfare recipients can expect to fare reasonably well during 1979. When the Government decided to reduce the food subsidies, they recognised that this step would affect seriously the household budgets of social welfare recipients and lower paid workers. We were anxious that the effect on this section of the community should be cushioned to the greatest extent possible. Deputies will recall that, as an interim measure, compensation was given to persons in receipt of assistance payments by an adjustment in the value of the EEC butter scheme vouchers.

Children's allowances, however, offered the best mechanism to offset the effects of the reduction in subsidies for families with lower incomes. These allowances have not been increased for some time and were in need of adjustment in any event. The increases now provided of 52 per cent for the first child, 34 per cent for the second and 13.4 per cent for all other children should help to ease the burden of increasing food costs for social welfare recipients and lower income families.

Because the reduction in food subsidies took effect from 1 January, the Government were very anxious to bring these increases in children's allowances into operation from the earliest possible date, and this is something which has not attracted much comment but I would like the House to take note of it. We decided to pay the increases from 1 April next instead of 1 July, which is the normal date. That represents a major administrative achievement and will involve special arrangements being made with the Department of Posts and Telegraphs. It will not be possible to have the new allowance books, which will incorporate the increased rates, issued by 1 April, and arrangements have been made with the Department of Posts and Telegraphs to pay the new rates on the books current for the three months April, May and June, even though these books would indicate the old rates. I would like to emphasise this matter and draw as much public attention to it as possible, and I hope Deputies will take note of it because they are in as good a position as anybody else to advise their constituents and the general public about the situation. We wanted this year to bring these increase in children's allowances into operation almost immediately and, despite the difficulties involved, we are going to start paying them from April.

Mr. Tully

Back to our date.

Mr. Haughey

No, it has never been 1 April before for children's allowances. The Department of Social Welfare are going to undertake an extensive information campaign to ensure that everybody concerned realises that the amounts shown for April, May and June in their children's allowances books—£2.30 for the first child, £4.10 for the second child and so on—are to read as £3.50 for the first child and £5.50 for every child thereafter, and that payment will be made accordingly. Of course, from 1 July the new books will be out with the new rates shown on them but in the interim it is important for everybody to understand that the mother should bring the book she has along to the post office and even though it says £2.30 she will get £3.50 for the first child or even though it says £4.10 for the second child and she will get £5.50 for every child after the first.

The White Paper "Programme for National Development 1978-81" stated that, while agricultural incomes have increased in recent years, only relatively minor adjustments to the basis of assessment for eligibility for unemployment assistance have been made in the smallholders' assistance scheme. It went on to indicate that additional reforms to the scheme would be made in 1979.

The changes proposed in the budget are reasonable in present circumstances, particularly as the increase of 12 per cent in assistance rates will be applied fully to all recipients at the same time. That is another important point I want to make, that, unlike what happened in some previous years, the 12 per cent general rate of increase will be fully applied right across the board in the case of the smallholders' assistance scheme. At present the notional multipliers used to assess the annual income of smallholders covered by the scheme are £20 per £1 land valuation where the valuation is £15 or under, and £30 per £1 valuation where the valuation is between £15 and £20. The first multiplier, that is the £20 multiplier, has remained unchanged since it was first introduced in 1966 and the second one, the £30 multiplier, has remained unchanged since 1976, even though farm incomes have increased. It has, accordingly, been decided that those multipliers should be increased along the following lines from the beginning of April next. For those with valuations of £10 or under, and these number almost 13,000 of the 20,000 smallholders on notional assessment, the multiplier will be increased from £20 to £30. For those with valuations over £10 and up to £15, of whom there are almost 5,000, the multiplier will be increased to £50 and for those with valuations over £15 the multiplier will be increased to £60 per £1 land valuation.

Mr. Tully

Is this another budget?

Mr. Haughey

No, this was announced before the budget. This was announced in the plan of the Estimates.

Mr. W. O'Brien

Was it announced in the budget?

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

The Minister is in possession. We have had no interruptions up to now.

Mr. Haughey

At budget time last year I initiated a programme of improvement in the different social welfare schemes and I thought that Deputy Tully, who takes such an interest in the detailed administration of the social welfare system, might have commented on some of these. That programme aims at removing a number of anomalies and restrictions which can cause undue hardship or operate unfairly for particular individuals or small categories of persons. Many of these had surfaced during the year in the form of complaints by Deputies or others interested in the welfare of the weaker sections of our community. The improvements made last year included the removal of discrimination against single women and widows, and the elimination of the five-year residence test after the age of 50 years for old age pensions and the two-year period residence test for widows' pensions and related schemes. Deputies will recall that the maternity grant was doubled and the death grant was increased from £35 to £50. Important changes were made in the provisions for children of broken marriages, and the new scheme of allowances for bottled gas and free telephone rental for old people living alone were introduced. Improvements of this nature, while they do not attract the same degree of attention as the general increase in rates of payments, are, nevertheless, well worth while because of the benefit or alleviation they bring to individuals or small groups of persons.

This year we are following on with an additional list of significant improvements of this kind. The discrimination against single women and widows in the social services was ended at the beginning of October last and we are making a start this year on the elimination of discrimination against married women by doubling the period of unemployment benefit to which they are entitled. At present that period of unemployment benefit for married women is restricted to 156 days and from 1 April that will be increased to 312 days—doubled, in fact—as a start on our consistent programme of elimination of discrimination against women in the entire social welfare code. I do not hear any little round of applause in the House.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

I am afraid, Minister, that applause is coming from the wrong place at present. I ask the Gallery not to applaud.

Mr. Haughey

It has always seemed a bit unfair that where a child arrives before the date the learned doctor in his wisdom has predicted, the mother should lose part of the maternity allowance. To rectify this, the allowance will in future be paid for a minimum period of twelve weeks in all cases.

At present an unsatisfactory situation exists in which a number of widows with non-contributory pensions have their pensions reduced when they reach old age pension age. The reason for this is that the more favourable treatment of income from capital as means in the case of a widow with savings changes and her pension is reduced when she transfers to the old age pension. This is an obvious source of confusion and hardship. That is being rectified by allowing a widow to continue to retain her widow's noncontributory pension after she reaches 66 years of age. A number of other anomalies affect widows or old age pensioners or both and I propose either to eliminate or mitigate them in their effect. The first £200 of capital value will be disregarded in assessing income from capital for old age and widow's pensions, as against £25 for old age pensions and £100 for widow's pensions at present. A widow at present is assessed with portion of any unearned income which her children may have. That it being abolished. Under the old age and widow's pensions scheme a certain amount of a pensioner's earnings is not assessed as means if the pensioner has dependent children. The amount disregarded in respect of each child is £39 in the case of old age pensioners and £78 in the case of widows. That will be increased to £104 in all cases.

At present in cases where there are qualified children, the definition of earnings which may be disregarded as means for old pension purposes confines such earnings to those derived from employment under a contract of service. That is restrictive and the definitions for those earnings will be changed to earnings derived from personal exertions, so that in future earnings from small farms and self-employment up to £104 a year will be disregarded. There is a provision whereby old age and widow pensioners do not suffer an overall reduction when other statutory pensions to which they are entitled increase and this applied only to pensions payable under statute or by another Government. In future it will be extended to all occupational pensions as well.

A serious anomaly has developed in the case of pensions being paid at less than the maximum rates. Prior to April 1976 the rates of the pension were reduced by £1 per week for every £1 increase in weekly means. The effect was that the sum of the weekly means and the pension paid was the same, at all levels. Since 1976, a common percentage increase was applied to each pension rate, with the result that at present a drop of £1.40 occurs for every £1 increase in means. That would increase to £1.65 as a result of the increase in the rates of pension in this Budget. It would, in principle, be more equitable to equate the total of weekly means plus pension at all points in the scale. Most Deputies would agree with that. We propose, accordingly, to move towards the restoration of the pre-April 1976 position by providing this year for stages of £1.30 in the reduced pension rates. We will consider sympathetically the further progressive phasing out of this anomaly. This change will benefit those who receive reduced rates of old age and widow's pensions, deserted wife's, prisioner's wife's, unmarried mother's and single women's allowances.

Free travel facilities are available to blind persons over 21 and to mentally handicapped people. Some blind persons between the ages of 18 and 21 have to travel to training centres and it is proposed to facilitate them by reducing the age of eligibility to 18. In the case of mentally handicapped people those attending training centres and sheltered workshops have in the past been exempted from the restriction applying to peak hour travel. That exemption is now being extended to all mentally handicapped persons entitled to free travel.

Cases sometimes arise where a woman receiving a deserted wife's allowance will not satisfy the contribution conditions for widows' contributory pension, if her husband dies. This could occur where the husband after desertion worked in a country outside the EEC as his social insurance contribution in that country could not be reckoned for the purposes of a widow's contributory pension. In such cases, in future, the widow's contributory pension will be substituted for the deserted wife's benefit. At present the allowance paid to a prisoner's wife ceases immediately the man comes out of prison. It is desirable that we should try to help a prisoner to rehabilitate himself in a stable home environment during the period immediately after his release, so the payment of the allowance will continue for a period of four weeks after his release to facilitate this.

The free telephone rental scheme introduced last year applies only to persons living alone. With a view to meeting special cases of hardship the scheme will now be extended to include pensioners where the only other person in the household is permanently incapacitated.

These are a number of improvements of greater or lesser impact which will be of considerable importance for individuals and small groups of people. They will not attract a great deal of public attention but they will help to give our social welfare code a more humane face and try to ensure that the social welfare offices will not have to engage in little niggling irksome exercises to the detriment of individual applicants. We made some progress in this last year and we are going ahead with our programme in making these additional changes. When we take all these things into account, and the increases in allowances under the Health Acts, £42½ million extra will be necessary to finance the social welfare system this year and that will amount to £55.8 million in a full year. The annual rate of expenditure on social welfare services will as a result amount to £687 million approximately in 1979.

This year will see a major recasting of the whole structure of social insurance. On 6 April next we will go over to a system of pay-related contributions bringing to an end the stamped insurance card system and the flat-rate of contribution. The new system will be of considerable benefit to the lower paid wage and salary earner. The present flat-rate contribution is regressive in that it is exactly the same for the highest and the lowest paid worker. The new contribution will be related to ability to pay. For the lower paid worker it will reduce the amount for which he will be liable and will thereby increase his take home pay. For the employer, it will provide a more secure and efficient method of payment generally, and for the State a more secure and unified system. The ceiling which was provisionally set at £5,000 per annum must now be revised in the light of the latest available figures for average industrial earnings. As I pointed out yesterday if we were to apply the one and a half times formula to the average industrial earnings as at March 1978 the figure would be £5,187. Because of our desire to meet strong representations from the trade union movement we intend to fix the ceiling at £5,500. I should like to remind Deputies that the changeover in general to £5,500 will mean a considerable improvement in the situation in regard to pay-related benefits because the upper limit for pay-related benefits will now be £5,500. As Deputies know, it was £2,500.

Despite the enormous demands made on the Exchequer this year and the very considerable resources that have had to be devoted to capital development and employment-creating projects the Government have, I believe, done their duty reasonably fairly by that section of the community for whom it has special responsibilities, the old, the infirm, and the under-privileged. We have endeavoured to protect the position of social welfare recipients in the face of rising costs and at the same time we have brought about major and minor improvements in the general structure of our welfare services. In the budget also adequate provision has been made for the efficient administration of our health services and for their improvement in a number of respects. A total of £25.5 million has been allocated for capital projects representing an increase of £4 million on last year's outlay. That will enable all the major hospital building projects on hand to be carried out as expeditiously as possible. At the same time it will enable no less than 127 new projects to be started during 1979.

These projects cover the entire country and cater for every area of need in the health services: clinics, health centres, welfare homes, accommodation for the mentally handicapped, the psychiatric and geriatric, sheltered workshops and extensions and developments of all sorts. I think it is true to say that there has never before been a time in the history of our health services when so much building and improvements have been going on. For instance, in the case of the mentally handicapped—a subject of great concern to many people—490 additional places in residential homes will be commissioned as well as accommodation for 140 persons on a day-care basis. Thirteen health centres will be opened and in these a wide range of community-based services will be provided, including child health clinics and immunisation facilities; eight new homes for the aged will make modern accommodation of a high standard available for persons who can no longer live independently in the community but who do not require to be kept in hospital. There will be extensions to hospitals to provide for 130 additional beds for the acutely ill. These are all projects that will open this year as distinct from new starts of which there will be 127 altogether.

On the current side £419 million is being provided from the Exchequer and that is an increase of £79 million on the Estimate for last year. That figure has enabled me to provide adequate budgets for the health boards and the voluntary hospitals and all the different health institutions to enable them to carry on their services at a satisfactory level in 1979. All the services will be carried on either at the existing or improved levels and more moneys will be made available for improvements in some areas where such improvements are urgently needed. I mention just a few of them. This year, 1979, is the international Year of the Child and I am placing special emphasis on services which are specifically aimed at children. One important way in which we will mark this year will be the publication of the final report of the Task Force on Child Care Services. The task force is expected to make recommendations on the administrative structure for the delivery of child care services, a system of juvenile justice and the law on procedures in regard to the welfare of children generally. Whatever legislation may be required arising from the recommendations of the task force and the need to update our law on children will be introduced without delay.

Meanwhile much has been done to implement the recommendations of the interim report of the task force by the establishment of neighbourhood youth projects in Dublin, Cork and Limerick and through the support of the special services provided for children of travellers provided by the Dublin Committee for Travelling People. In addition, organisations and homes dealing with homeless and emotionally disturbed children will continue to receive our support. To help tackle the problems of children of Dublin inner city I shall be making additional provisions for a number of special projects to provide new types of day and residential care in the area. My Department and the Eastern Health Board will co-operate with Dublin Corporation in implementing the plans that have been drawn up to provide better care for itinerent children frequenting Dublin city centre.

Many adolescents also have emotional and psychological problems for which they need professional help and the development of counselling services could do a great deal to help these young people grow into mature adults and overcome their problems of adolescence. To that end I am making a grant of £30,000 available to the Mater Dei Institute in Dublin to support a pilot assessment and counselling centre for young people in the north city area. Children deprived of normal family life have special needs. One of the best ways of helping them is to provide substitute parents to foster them. I am aware of the need to increase the number of people willing to accept foster children, particularly difficult children or children for short-term placement only. During the coming year I shall explore the possibilities of increasing the number of special foster parents. I look forward to studying the outcome of the special fostering campaign organised by the Eastern Health Board. Every child is entitled to a home and I appeal to people particularly in Dublin to consider the major contribution they can make to the life of a child by giving him or her a secure, loving and caring home.

The voluntary organisations have a special importance in the field of services for the elderly and the active interest of the younger members of the community is essential for the success of programmes aimed at helping people to live out their lives in comfort and security in the family surroundings as long as possible. There are 250 social service councils and care-of-the-aged committees throughout the country. A number of useful booklets providing advice for old people are available and a personal information service is provided through local community information offices in about 75 different locations throughout the country.

The Health Education Bureau has run a special campaign for the aged in support of the Retirement Planning Council in producing a booklet of facts for those coming up to retirement age. One sometimes hears the criticism, a fairly sweeping type of statement, that we do nothing for the old. I want to rebut that as a general proposition. I know that a great deal more can be done to look after our old people and over the last year or so special areas which need attention have been highlighted by people who are very concerned and working in this field. On the other hand, a great deal is being done and it is very encouraging to see what is happening in certain areas of the country. In some counties, in some health board areas, great success is being achieved in different schemes for looking after the old and the infirm.

It is interesting to see the way the services are developing along different lines in many areas. In Donegal, for instance, there is a very encouraging situation with a very comprehensive approach to the whole county. In other counties also systems of welfare homes, of special housing schemes related to nearby hospitals, have been established. It is wrong to suggest that this area is not receiving constant attention at statutory official level and by voluntary organisations. It is always a source of satisfaction to me to remind the House that we have a service for the old people in the form of free travel which is unique and is looked upon enviously by other communities. There is a great deal that needs to be done and it is a situation to which I am giving very special attention at present to see whether better structural arrangements can be made, in particular better structural arrangements to support and encourage voluntary effort in this field.

The development of the community care programme has been of substantial benefit to the older members of the community and the handicapped. The public health nursing service has been strengthened so that it is close to the target provision. It is being reorganised to ensure that its efficiency is maintained as the numbers employed grow. The provision of multi-purpose day centres is now an accepted part of the strategy of health boards to keep people within the community while at the same time easing the burden of care for the relatives and friends of the old and the handicapped.

One of the things that continues to worry me most is the growing abuse of alcoholic drink and its toll in human and social terms. The great problem here is that there is no easy answer to preventing it or dealing with its consequences. I can now see clearly that it requires many initiatives in many areas. The only thing we can do is to promise to undertake as many as we can of these initiatives that seem beneficial. I should like to mention that this year I have allocated funds to enable the training of selected personnel for the health services in counselling in alcoholism. Trained counsellors have been found elsewhere to be very effective in dealing with the alcoholic and his family and the time has come to develop a service of that nature throughout the country. I am asking the Irish National Council on Alcoholism to take on the responsibility of organising and operating that course and I expect it will start within the next month or so.

In the same area we will press ahead with emphasis on community psychiatric services rather than on residential psychiatric care. The funds which we will be allocating this year will encourage this trend. It is comforting to note that recent statistics indicate that the development of the various community psychiatric provisions is now being reflected in hospital admissions. Since 1974 first admissions to psychiatric hospitals have been stabilising at about 8,900 annually. Before that there had been a constant annual increase. That is a reason for satisfaction because it means that more mentally ill persons are being treated without the need for admission to a mental hospital. It is clear from recent statistics that those who must be admitted to hospitals are, on average, spending a shorter time there. To a large extent this is because they can be discharged after a short period in the knowledge that supporting community services are available for them if required.

Of course, I am not forgetting the long-stay patients in our mental hospitals for whom the community psychiatric service is not a feasible alternative. Undoubtedly, conditions are bad in some parts of our mental hospitals and nobody wishes to close their eyes to that situation. This year's capital programme contains provisions for improvements in the hospitals with the worst units, notably St. Brendan's in Dublin, and I intend to make an additional allocation of funds until all our psychiatric hospitals and all our psychiatric patients have reasonable living conditions. The picture is not satisfactory but it would be wrong to think, on the other hand, that it is entirely unsatisfactory. There are a number of psychiatric hospitals in which conditions are excellent and where wonderful work is being done. There are systems being developed which demand liaison between the hospital and the community and where the central psychiatric hospital is used, more or less, as a base from which the community psychiatric services are developed. They are very satisfactory systems.

Following the major building programme for the mentally handicapped which I initiated last year I found it necessary to undertake a further programme of new starts this year. The additional projects this year will provide 700 more residential places particularly for the adult mentally handicapped as well as many day-care facilities. The provisions for the Dublin area include the replacement of the old building at St. Vincents, Navan Road, and the development of a residential centre in association with day services operated by St. Michael's House in Ballymun. I have provided funds to allow the Eastern Health Board to acquire premises at Ballyboden, Rathfarnham, which will help to ease the present demand in the Dublin area for accommodation for adult handicapped.

Deputy Tully mentioned that there was room for improvement in the dental and ophthalmic services. I accept that and I have admitted openly in the House on a number of occasions that the dental service for our people was far from satisfactory. I have also pointed out that the problem in that area is not just of finance. One of the real difficulties is the shortage of personnel. However, we now have in the Department of Health a chief dental adviser and in conjunction with this new officer I am examining the different alternative solutions with a view to trying to achieve some fairly substantial progress in 1979. As part of that I hope to be introducing a new Health Bill.

In a modern community, the range of health and welfare services which can be envisaged is almost limitless. Peoples needs and expectations are now completely different from what they were even a decade ago. The demand for services is insistent and relentless. In that situation the Deputies will understand that the sorting out of priorities is a difficult and complex task. The resources of the State, no matter how carefully managed or widely allocated, can never meet all the demands, encompass all the needs. Increasingly the vast reservoir of voluntary effort which fortunately is available throughout the community will have to be mobilised to supplement the efforts of the State. That is another matter to which considerable attention will be given this year. There is no doubt that in many areas in regard to many of our problems voluntary effort—dedicated, well organised and cohesive effort—at local level is the answer to our problem. It must become a vital element of our social policy to try to encourage communities to involve themselves as communities in welfare, environmental, cultural and health matters and to try to create a sense of community at local level. I intend to do everything possible to support voluntary effort in the health and welfare services in the coming year. The contribution that voluntary bodies make is a major one and it is perhaps the most effective way we can go about developing a really caring and responsible community. No matter how efficient, well organised, adequately financed statutory services are—and they are the backbone of the whole structure—or how humanely they are administered, there is still large scope for the sort of service and attention to needs that only voluntary bodies can give. Very shortly I will be meeting the chairman of the National Social Service Council to have a full discussion about how this area can be further developed and supported during the coming year.

There have been many criticisms made of the budget and different aspects of it have attracted very favourable comment. So far as my areas of responsibility are concerned, the budget is a sound progressive one. The provisions which have been made in that budget are adequate to enable me to maintain and improve the social welfare and health services available to our people in 1979. For my restrictive area of responsibility that is a good budget.

Mr. Hegarty

Having listened to the Minister for Health I was impressed by his comments and by what he is trying to do. However, I am not happy about the number of medical cards being withdrawn. While we accept that wages have improved in the past few years I still think that the qualifying limit for medical cards should be raised drastically. He made valid comment that he did not wish to see social welfare officers and their superiors in the invidious position of having to decide niggardly matters, but I am afraid that is the situation. We as public representatives have to appeal to the social welfare officers to grant certain concessions to some people because of health problems, when a simple matter of raising the qualifying limit would solve the problem. Sometimes in their assessment the HAOs are inclined to take into account how many visits per week a doctor will make to a certain household, but if the family cannot afford to pay the doctor this criterion is open to question.

This is a budget of highest hopes and juggling of figures. I do not see any real benefit in it for anybody. Even where benefits are granted you find the inevitable sting in the tail. All this budget has done is to provoke the community with this give and take approach. It does not take the community long to figure things out for themselves. Something we will have to face up to in the future, if we have not faced up to it in the past, is the more sophisticated approach by the public to the budget. Doling out a great deal of figures, projects or prognostications will not impress anybody. The only thing that concerns anybody is: what will it mean to me at the end of the week? In the case of people in the PAYE bracket who have large families it means nothing. It is as simple as that.

I consider this to be an inflationary budget and I will give my reasons. The withdrawal of food subsidies on basic food items is bound to reflect, and is already reflecting, a greater demand for increased wages. In 1978 we saw the Government's complete failure to control prices despite the wonderful promises given at election time by the Taoiseach—we saw him on television in supermarkets weeping for the housewives—that in the event of his getting into power all this would be put right. What has he done? He has removed food subsidies, a lever brought in by the National Coalition Government to try to stabilise prices, and this Government have sanctioned increase after increase.

In 1978 we saw this wonderful thing called the consumer-spending explosion. This reached an all time high and the Government boasted of car sales of 100,000—the barrier was broken. Where was job creation here with imported motor cars? All this has done is to add to our balance of payments and ensure the continued exorbitant use of a diminishing resource.

What are the Government plans with regard to the conservation of energy? The top priority of every other European country is involved in the conservation of energy and the development of new methods of supplying energy. In Britain and European countries householders who decide to insulate their homes and provide central heating are getting practically 100 per cent grants. We are advising people to do this but we are not providing grants. What are we doing to investigate the advantages of solar heating? What are we doing to find out how much power could be generated by wave control, wind and so on? Nothing.

In their budget the Government have decided to go for what they call deficit budgeting. This could be regarded as an effective tactic provided we put the money to good use and show beneficial results. With this budget of 1979, inflationary though it is, there are still 102,000 people unemployed and large numbers are emigrating, as was said by Deputy Tully. We must question the validity of this type of budget.

Last year we borrowed over £800 million, 13 per cent of GNP, and we need to cut borrowing by over £200 million. Current provisions, however, do not propose to cut back borrowing by this amount. In fact, borrowing for 1979 is in the region of £797 million and the target of 10 per cent has not been reached. The cumulative effect of repeating last year's borrowing level will result in a severe burden for the country. On top of that we have the proposed addition, assuming that it goes ahead, of a loan of £200 million from the EMS which will have to be paid back as well. It is supposed to be a subsidised loan but it will have to be repaid.

The Government are banking on a growth situation which I consider to be completely unrealistic. Already our balance of payments situation has disimproved. We boast of the fastest growth in the EEC but we are growing at the expense of our balance of payments. The other EEC countries are balancing their books. That is the way they go about their business. I believe that we are living dangerously beyond our means and that our growth for the past year is completely artificial. It is fuelled by consumer spending. It is all right to borrow for capital expenditure but we are borrowing more and more for current expenditure. That leads to a vicious spiral which will eventually put us in a situation where we must borrow in order to pay interest on existing borrowing, the dog eating its own tail, the sure recipe for self-destruction.

We are now the heaviest borrowers in the EEC. That is not a very proud boast by a Government who in 1977 promised to take us places. At that time even their own expert Senator Whitaker, pointed out that the previous Government had the right ideas, that they had done right in preaching that everyone should economise. We were criticised for being a type of hair-shirt government, that we should all make sacrifices to ensure that the country would expand, that we should all make sacrifices for the sake of our children and job creation. The Fianna Fáil Party at that time said that there was no need to do that, that if they were elected everything would be all right and they would show everybody the way. The country has moved. It is moving downhill faster than I like to see it go.

A previous speaker on this budget said that we were now discussing the second budget of this year. That appears to be the case when one considers the partial removal of food subsidies. The Taoiseach said that those subsidies only added on something like .75 per cent to the consumer price index but that can be misleading. It is true in the case of a householder who spends between 20 per cent and 30 per cent of his income on food. What about social welfare recipients and the very low paid workers? They are spending up to 80 per cent of their total income on food. We have a different situation here. We are now talking about an increase of 10 per cent because of the removal of food subsidies. How can the Taoiseach justify the statement in his budget speech that, in his opinion, food subsidies had outlived their usefulness, when he should know that the removal of subsidies in the case of a pensioner receiving £13.65 a week will mean an increase in the cost of living of 10 per cent?

There is another aspect of food subsidies which I do not believe has been mentioned. When the Coalition Government subsidised food they did it for many reasons. I felt at that time that the Government were actually helping food sales and helping to create jobs at home. There was a massive campaign then for the use of imported margarine and all sorts of substitutes which one could get but there is no substitute for real food. When food subsidies were introduced butter sales jumped overnight. This proves that if people use margarine it is not because they like it but because they cannot afford butter. I believe that now we will have a swing away from good food which is so necessary for young families and there will be a move towards other products which do not compare with good home grown healthy food.

There was a reference in the budget to extra allowances for married people and working wives. I have said on many occasions that the Minister for Finance should consider giving an extra allowance to the wife who works at home. If a substantial allowance was given to married couples with young children, where the wife attends to her family at home, a lot of these young wives who are now out working would stay at home and would make more jobs available for single girls.

I am rather confused that there have been no proposals by the Minister in relation to job creation. I do not know what the solution to our crime problem is but we certainly need extra gardaí. There is almost daily a list of bank robberies and crime of all types. I would like to compliment the gardaí for what they are trying to do against the mighty odds of reckless armed men, who seem to have no regard for life or limb and are making the lives of people going about their ordinary business more difficult. We need more protection and more gardaí and I suppose the public service also need extra personnel. Important as these jobs are, they are non-productive except from the point of view of the Revenue Commissioners. I cannot discern any emphasis by the Minister or the Government on real job creation. We have a golden opportunity in this area, without going cap in hand to anyone.

I will give one example in relation to farm machinery. Together with my wife and family I have carried out a small survey at a number of recent shows and noted that 85 per cent of machinery on display was imported. I am not referring to tractors or sophisticated combine harvesters but to the type of machinery which could be produced in any small industry. The Government should invest in this field. Not only would this create jobs but the manufactured products could be readily sold at home and could be exported as well. I should like to compliment the Sugar Company on what they are trying to do on a shoestring budget. Money must be poured into this area. It is ridiculous that 85 per cent of machinery is imported. There are many small family enterprises endeavouring to get going but they have not sufficient money and would need large grants from the IDA.

Our food processing industry could be developed if we had better facilities and more investment by the State in the marketing of processed foods. Agriculture is our basic industry and gives a large amount of employment on and off the land. We have achieved only about 50 per cent of our potential in this area. The Government should encourage enterprises such as East Cork Foods and IMP. There are no problems regarding raw materials or markets. If the Government would spend money on marketing we could easily sell our produce. It is the best in the world. We can make blue cheese etc. better than any other European nation.

In my own area I cannot see any evidence of new jobs and we are supposed to be living in a comparatively wealthy industrialised area. We have approached the Government for some sort of small industry for Youghal, for light industries for Cobh and additional industries for Midleton; so far we have had nothing but the promise of an advance factory. Advance factories are useful when industrialists want something in a hurry but that is not enough.

The Coalition Government were firmly committed to the development of modern port facilities at Ringaskiddy. We cater for industrial land in excess of 2,000 acres, 1,000 acres of which are in public ownership. The Coalition commitment can be seen in a very tangible way with civil engineering works well advanced and the water supply within 18 months of completion. It is most regrettable that the present Government have not succeeded in attracting a major industrialist in order to complete the initial drive of their predecessors. With all this talk about mythical job creation, what are the Government doing about pursuing negotiations with Du Pont in relation to Ringaskiddy? Why did the Government lose 1,500 Ford jobs at Carrigtwohill? These jobs have now gone to Wales. Why was not the Minister on the site when the Ford managers were there? Why did he leave this job to someone else?

The Minister of State was right in saying that we should not have lost to Japan an order to build ships. It was a mistake and we should admit it. Only one naval vessel is being built at Verolme dockyard. That was described by a Fianna Fáil Deputy as a fortnight's work. We have half a promise of another vessel for B & I and I have been trying to elicit more information on this. I should like to see immediate confirmation of this order so as to avoid the lay-on lay-off situation there.

In view of the tragedy in Bantry Bay, should not the Government now consider building the nucleus of a modern tanker fleet for Irish Shipping in conjunction with Gulf Oil? This could be done under the close scrutiny of Irish marine technologists and the vessels could be built to the highest standards, thus ensuring that floating bombs would not enter our ports. This would give good employment and the technology, the men and apprentices are available. Recently there was an EEC debate on the safety of the vessels. Rumour had it that we were dragging our feet; I hope not. There will now be devices in lorries to ensure that drivers will drive only for short periods and in the same way seagoing vessels will have to conform to standards of safety.

The Government have failed in the budget to recognise the initiative and dynamism of the Irish entrepreneur. The budget does nothing to encourage real job ceration. There is no encouragement to the Irish industrialist to diversify and seek new outlets for his products by way of export concessions and tax reliefs. What are the Government doing to create new jobs? What will happen to the 2,000 employees in the Cobh-Whitegate area when the Nitrigin factory and the ESB plant are built? Where are the major projects to take their place and absorb the skilled men? We should be doing something about this. I am not interested in all the wonderful talk about numbers. I would like to see something concrete happening and, when it does, I will praise it. I cannot see anything happening to give hope to young people who are trained or educated except for the old solution of emigration. The best educated and most skilled people are going abroad because they know that their skills are needed elsewhere and their qualities will be recognised. They know that if they stay at home they will have to settle for less and they are not prepared to do so. We are losing real wealth, the wealth of our young people. I hope the Government will revert to the situation that existed in 1976 when we had little or no emigration and were approaching a genuine state of full employment.

The Government's approach to the farming community has been particularly shabby. Deputy Tully mentioned that in his constituency, on the eve of the election, the farmers called the public representatives together, and asked them what they proposed to do if they voted for them. In all cases the Fianna Fáil candidates said that there would be no increases in the multiplier, they would be allowed to claim rates as a first instalment of their tax and there would be no question of lowering the valuation for tax purposes. Everything would be grand. The reality, however, is entirely different. The multiplier has been raised and the primary allowance in the rates has been removed. The Government appear to be hell-bent on penalising Irish agriculture which is our primary industry. Farmer confidence is badly shaken. There was a swing to Fianna Fáil in the last election as a result of a commitment to have a lenient tax system which would favour expansion. What has happened? The multiplier has been clobbered as an alternative to keeping accounts. Rates have been doubled. Farmers in the £50 to £60 valuation bracket can ill-afford this heavy burden. Rates are becoming another form of income tax.

If we compare the Irish farmer with his European counterparts, what do we find? The British, Dutch and Belgian farmers pay income tax. They have no rates or levies. If they have a good year they pay tax and if they have a bad year they pay nothing. Regardless of whether he has a good or bad year, the Irish farmer with 50 acres could be paying up to £1,500 as well as income tax. Why should Irish farmers be put in this unfair position? The Government need not apologise to anyone for treating farmers the same as everybody else. The trade unions will have to accept that, once farmers are paying income tax, that is it. Whether or not enough money is realised out of that income tax is another matter. All it means is that farmers are not making the money they are supposed to be making or, if they are, they are investing it.

The Irish farmer has always been badly off and European farmers had a head start over him. We are now competing in the same market places as they are. We have the additional disadvantages of our outlying location, the Irish Sea and the journeys to the market places. We have the disadvantage of trying to break into new markets which are guarded by multinational companies. On top of that we have a Government who promised before the election to bring about an economic climate that would encourage development and production but who have produced a budget which has brought gloom to the agricultural industry because of rates and the levy. The levy is a diabolical contrivance of some financier to extract money from farmers regardless of whether or not they can pay.

A person grows £50,000 worth of sugar beet, his fertiliser bills alone could be £15,000 or £20,000, but is he given any credit for that in the levy? No, he has to pay 2 per cent on the £50,000. Take the case of a pig farmer. One thousand pig places will turn out 4,000 pigs per annum, a gross turnover of £250,000. The levy on that is £4,800, but the net profit could be as low as £6,000. What farmer would continue to employ people and build pig units if he has to pay his net income into the levy? He would need to have his head examined if he did. As regards beef, there is a massive investment between sheds and slatted floors not to mention the cost of buying the cattle. The margins given by the experts are between 3 per cent and 6 per cent net profit in beef fattening. The Government now come along and say that they will take 2 per cent of that. They will not, because the people will not produce. They would be daft if they did, because a year of losses would wipe them out. The 2 per cent could be their bare margin but, regardless of this, they have to pay.

The farm levy does not stop with the farming community. Jobs are affected by it. In every town there are flourishing industries based on agriculture. If gloom sets in, as it could for a combination of reasons—for instance, a man with a brucellosis or TB problem in his herd—this levy could be the last straw. It could make a farmer decide to get out of dairying and to go into tillage. Dairying is difficult and involves working on Sundays when everybody else is free. If many farmers decide to get out of dairying there will be massive job losses in that industry, in the food processing industry, in transport, in the fertiliser industry and in exports. The Farmer's Journal pointed out that the levy on farm produce will encourage smuggling of beef cattle from Southern to Northern meat plants. They will have a £10 per head advantage over Southern plants. The paper stated that the levy will erode the competitive position of Southern meat plants bidding in the North for supplies and it will seriously affect the profitability of pig-fattening and lamb-fattening co-operatives. The paper also stated that the levy will reduce the benefits of the mountain lamb and hogget ewe subsidy given by the Government. Most of all, it will damage the case of the Minister for Agriculture when he is fighting the co-responsibility levy in Brussels—I assume he is fighting that terrible levy. What battle can the Minister put up when the people in Brussels tell him that the Government are doing the same thing at home? They will ask him what objection he can have to a co-responsibility levy in view of the fact that we will have our own levy at home. The Minister will weaken the case of the other European nations, and we will be the most unpopular people in Europe because of the levy.

I tell the Government to forget about watering down the levy. They should get rid of it without apology to anybody. The National Coalition Government collected £7 million and even without the levy the Government will collect nearly £100 million from farmers. That should be enough for starters. The Government need not apologise to anybody. Once farmers are paying income tax, that is it. They will be the same as everybody else and there should be no more cribbing or talking about it. Farmers will not be able to compete if they are saddled with extra taxation.

I do not think the Government took into account the massive borrowings that have gone into farm investments in the past few years. This worries me very much. It will not be easy for a farmer who has borrowed heavily to give up. He will have considerable commitments to the ACC and the banks. In the past few years those commitments have increased enormously. There is an interest rate of more than 15 per cent in addition to everything else. Because of their financial commitments many farmers will have to stay in the game. Many of them have young families and they get little State aid with regard to education and health. The farmers are very upset and disturbed. When they say they will not grow certain crops, the Government can be sure that the warning lights are on. In the past it took them a long time to interpret what was happening but eventually they had to see the light. Let us hope they will see it now before it is too late.

At a recent meeting a group of farmers involved in food processing emphasised a very important point. At a stage when investment is really in its infancy, when land project works are starting, the Government should not come in at this crucial point to hit farmers with this levy. They stressed that this move would hamper and hinder investment. This was a valid point. Bankers will not give money to everyone. When I was starting in farming it was very difficult and bankers would hardly look at farmers. The same situation could arise again. Bankers are shrewd people and they will take many factors into account. On a 100-acre farm rates of £2,000 will have to be paid irrespective of whether the farmer was able to work the land or was ill in hospital. The banker will take account of the fact that this levy will have to be paid in addition to what may be due to the bank. He will make his own calculations and he may decide that the farmer will not be able to undertake any new commitments. Farmers who have borrowed already may be called to discuss the matter with their bank managers and there may be a panic situation.

All of this is completely unnecessary. In fact, the Government should be subsidising loans to the ACC instead of putting on this levy. They should offer money for proper investment—not for cars or for holidays, which the farmers do not take anyway. Farmers should be encouraged to invest more and more because in this way jobs can be created. These will be jobs where it will not be necessary to import material. They will be created out of the produce of Irish soil. Whatever about the Government, God has been very good to us in giving us a good soil and a good climate. I have seen some of the difficulties in other countries such as Malta and some other places. We have been blessed with good soil, a good climate and good farmers.

Farming here is on its way, and I appeal to the Minister not to stop that growth, because if he does he will not only affect farmers and their families but jobs throughout the country, not just now but in the future. All over Belgium they are now manufacturing farm machinery which we are importing. We could be manufacturing that machinery here and export it. The same applies to Holland. Farmers should be encouraged by putting the emphasis on farm education rather than farm levies.

Even in the sphere of university education farmers are being hit. There has been a 25 per cent increase in university fees and the vast majority of farmers' sons and daughters do not qualify for university grants. We have not had a response from the Minister to our request to improve the number of places in our agricultural colleges. For instance, we urged him to have such a college built on Fota Island in Cork, which has since been bought by the university authorities. There is a growing demand for farm managers and farm technicians to service the increasing number of farm machines, yet every year candidates for admission to agricultural colleges are being turned down.

These are the areas on which the Government should be concentrating their attention. "Creating" jobs is an inappropriate term. All the Government are doing is making jobs for the sake of making them. Creating a job is a long-term process which begins with proper education and training. We have the machinery to help to train our young men and women in agriculture. The Farm Apprentice Board put in an application for a substantial amount of money this year to meet the great demand for trained farm managers and technicians. The money would have been used effectively to create worthwhile lasting jobs. What did they get? They were given a pittance of £3,000. Now that the farming community have accepted taxation I appeal to the Minister not to proceed further with the levy.

We have seen report after report on the damage being done to farmland and fishing harbours by coast erosion. It would benefit us if we went to Holland to see what they have done there to protect the coasts and their farmland in much more difficult circumstances than ours. When we commission a report, the most distressed areas are left out. When the survey has been completed, they are forgotten about. There is the case of Ballycotton, a village which is being almost swept away. It has been forgotten about completely.

Minister of State at the Department of Finance (Mr. Wyse)

I will speak about that later. That is not true.

Mr. Hegarty

Since last Christmas a large slice of property has been washed away. Let us forget about reports and get down to the practical work of protecting our beautiful beaches, our farmland, our fishing harbours. Six boats have been sunk this year in Ballycotton because of inadequate port facilities. Activity on the ground is what we need, not reports.

We need to put more people to work on our roads, particularly after storms. We need to build better roads. We now know that with trans-European traffic we must put up with juggernauts on our roads—they are part of the new pattern. It is no use saying they are too big. We must cater for them. We have gardaí pulling up beet lorries because they are over-loaded. What we should be engaged in is building bridges to take bigger loads.

Deputy Tully mentioned housing. The £1,000 grant offered for new houses has been swamped by inflation. Young couples cannot afford to buy new houses and the Government must do something concrete to help them, like acquiring land, servicing it and offering sites to young people who would be only to glad to build their own houses.

The only way the country will go ahead is through better agriculture, better industry, more people at work. Get our young people out, train them for the jobs which are there. We should be devoting more time to this than to talking. By training more of our young people for the jobs which will be available for properly trained workers we would also be easing the crime problems in our cities, because the devil finds some mischief for idle hands.

Fianna Fáil codded the farmers in 1977. In my area the farmers were offered lenient taxation and a great grá mo chroí approach, but after the election the farmers were penalised with higher rates of taxation, with a system which put the multiplier out of reach of practically everybody. A previous Minister had given a commitment to build in an inflation clause in regard to capital acquisitions tax. Fianna Fáil have not honoured that and the tax is now vicious. A farmer cannot leave an 80-acre farm to his family because of the cost. It means in effect a return of death duties, because the capital acquisitions tax is just as bad.

The Government are not treating farmers like everybody else. They should be serious about being just to all the people. Even a socialist government, even a Russian government, would not treat farmers as this Government have in the matter of the levy. I urge them to stop talking about watering down the levy. Get rid of it.

Mrs. Lemass

I think that "treated the same as everybody else" is a great phrase. The PAYE workers would be very happy if the farmers were treated as they are. I hope the farmers are treated the same as everybody else. As a Dublin Deputy I do not talk about farmers too often but I believe that the farmers have been electrified by the 2 per cent levy. Suddenly they are screaming to be brought into the tax net. On radio and television their spokesmen are saying "We want to pay tax". Suddenly they are falling over each other in the rush to be taxed. I hope they realise that people in urban areas have been paying large amounts of tax over the years while a pittance has been collected from the farmers. A man spoke on this subject recently on television. He drew a triangle. At the top of this he drew a line to show the comparison between the tax collected from farmers and the tax collected from other sections of the community.

Old age pensioners with small incomes are asked to complete tax forms. Widows trying to rear and educate their children on the proceeds of part-time jobs are taxed. Single women trying to live on £20 a week are also taxed. I do not understand why all farmers are not taxed. There is not a farmer in the country earning less than £20 per week.

The previous speaker said that there would be gloom in the country. There has always been gloom in the farming community. Farmers are the gloomiest people and are always moaning and complaining. I am very happy to hear that they are now willing to pay their fair share of the tax burden and I accept that they will do so. If the levy has done nothing else than make the farmers realise that they will have to pay their share, it has done a good day's work.

When the Government are preparing the budget they try to do the best they can for all citizens. It is my opinion that people should help by looking after those in need of care. As the Minister for Health said earlier, they must help each other and be prepared to share what they have with those who have less. We have a great number of old people and a great number of young people in our community. The burden falls on the middle age group to provide for the young and the old. In their budget the Government did their best to provide the moneys needed to care for the aged. I am horrified when I hear of couples trying to get their elderly parents into homes and hospitals so that they will not have the expense and trouble of caring for them. Recently I heard of a young couple who managed to get an old person into a surgical hospital in which there were no geriatric beds. When the old person was better and ready to go home, the young couple refused to accept him and the hospital had to keep him for a year at a cost of £6,000. In the good old days, as they say, families looked after their old people and kept them in comfort and happiness. Old people are happier and better in their homes and should be kept there as long as possible.

The State is doing its best to provide adequate accommodation for geriatrics. This morning the Minister said that seven extra geriatric units would be built in the coming year. There is now a community care programme run by the Eastern Health Board which is of tremendous help to the elderly. It means that old people can remain at home and have daily help with their shopping and laundry. It is cheaper to provide this type of service than to keep old people in hospitals or homes.

The Minister referred to the various increases in social welfare benefits. None of us is satisfied with social welfare benefits, which are never adequate. The Government have gone a good part of the way in trying to keep social welfare benefits in line with inflation, which has been reduced to a low percentage in comparison with two years ago when it was 20 per cent. We have done our best to care for those who are in receipt of social welfare benefits.

I am always speaking on behalf of widows. They are one section of the community who need extra help because they find themselves in a new situation which they have to cope with emotionally and financially. I am glad that they will be receiving the extra £250 tax-free allowance as well as the extra widowed person's allowance, and their total tax-free allowances will now amount to £1,350. However, this is still not enough because a widow has a dual role. She has to be mother and father to her family. She has the very same expenses and outgoings as when her husband was alive, and he probably had a much higher income than she as a widow would have, maybe three or four times the amount that she has to try to manage on as a widow. She has to try to educate her children, and it is almost impossible for a widow to get them past secondary school if she is fortunate enough even to get them so far. She has not the means to send them to college or university. Children's allowances stop when the child reaches 18 years of age, at a time when, if she is trying to educate that child to third level, she is most in need of that money. I suggest for future budgetary considerations that widows would receive an extra child allowance when the child reaches 18 years of age if that child is going on for further education. Apart from education grants, which I will speak about later, she needs extra money to maintain that child. Let us not forget that the child in third-level education has to be clothed and fed during the time he or she is at college and this all requires extra money.

I make another rather small point. Widows find themselves in a situation where they have to employ people to do various jobs in the house that would have been undertaken by the man of the house when he was alive. In my experience these maintenance jobs, decorating jobs and gardening jobs cost a large amount of money; they are extremely expensive. Even to have a television set repaired is expensive if someone has to come to the house to do the job, whereas the man of the house might have been able to adjust it. All these things that seem incidental become extremely important to a woman who has to find somebody to do all these jobs for her. She finds that she is charged possibly more than she would have been charged if her man had been dealing with the situation. I am loath to say it, but widows are sometimes overcharged for jobs which they cannot do themselves and for which they have to employ somebody.

This morning the Minister referred to the large capital amount being put into the provision of extra clinics, health centres, hospitals, workshops for the handicapped, new homes for the aged and so on which will be going ahead this year. I have been a member of the Eastern Health Board for a long time, and I remember three or four years ago that there was a complete and utter halt and cutback in all these areas. The whole health programme was stopped, the taxi service to bring old people to and from hospitals was stopped, the free milk for children was to be stopped and the examination of children in primary schools was cut back. I am happy now that this Government have put so much money into these areas and that in the coming year we will see new clinics, health centres and workshops for the handicapped. This last is one of the most important aspects of the rehabilitation of people who are mentally or physically handicapped. To be able to do something, to be able to create something, to be productive even in the smallest way is extremely important for those people as it helps them to recover their dignity and gives them a place in society.

This is the Year of the Child. I have mentioned that the people at both ends of the scale, the elderly and the very young, are two groups of people who must be looked after by the middle group. The task force report to be produced soon will, hopefully, bring about legislation to help children, to see that they are properly cared for and that they have their rights as has everybody else. A lot can be done to secure the rights of children. We also hope that in the coming year the children sleeping rough in the city of Dublin will have somewhere to go at night where they will be looked after.

The fostering of children is another area which is worthy of attention. I hope that in this Year of the Child families whose financial position has improved, who are fairly well off and who would like to look after another child, will think of fostering one or two children. This can be of great satisfaction to the family as well as a tremendous help to the child. I hope that the advertisements and the promotional effort being put into this area of fostering children will be considered by families whose children are grown up, whose youngest child is now at least going to school and who would have room in their home and in their hearts for one or two children for whom they could care for a certain length of time. It would be a wonderful act of charity and such a family would gain a tremendous amount from doing this. It would bring a lot of happiness into their own lives.

We have heard during the debate on the budget that employment is the most important factor that this Government have to deal with. No country can be happy or can improve its economy unless people are working, and unless people are working we cannot hope to have the income tax which provides the revenue to care for the other members of our community. Our first task is to get as many people as possible into jobs. The most important thing in a person's life is to work and to have a job, and this spins off into a lot of other areas. When people are working there is less vandalism, less trouble in the home, less disruption between husband and wife, and so there is happiness where the children are concerned. There is better housing, because if people are working they can afford better housing, hopefully. All this makes for a better and happier community. Therefore, employment first and foremost is the most important item on the agenda of this Government. If we can get that middle group of people earning and working we can look again at the plight of the people like the old age pensioners, the widows and the unemployed of whom I hope there will be very few in the next five years. We can increase the money needed to help them, and we will all have a better standard of living.

In the past year the environmental improvement scheme implemented by the Department and the corporation has been a tremendous success. The Department and the corporation are extremely happy that an extra £2.6 million has been allocated for the extension of this scheme. A lot of young people are working successfully on this scheme, but when it was first implemented they found it difficult to work. One of the officers in the Department said that they did not even know how to hold the implement they were working with. Next year the scheme will be even more successful. I am glad that £500,000 extra has been allocated for this type of work in the inner city area. During the last decade the inner city has become an eyesore with derelict sites and dirt. Even a little tidying up would improve the look of the inner city for tourists and for the people who have to live there. At the moment it is a horrible place to live in and the environment creates an unhappy atmosphere among the residents.

I welcome the extra tax-free allowances for married people. However, the allowance for widows should be on a par with the allowance for married people because the widow is in effect doing the job of two parents. The gap between the married person's allowance and the widow's allowance should be closed. We have gone some way towards that in this budget but we should go still further in coming years.

I am delighted with the increase in children's allowances. It was only this morning that I realised that the new children's allowances will be paid from 1 April on production of the old children's allowance book. This increase is to help to mitigate the effects of the removal of the food subsidies. I congratulate the Minister for Health on ensuring that the new allowances will be paid rapidly.

In relation to food subsidies, it is better to give extra money in other ways to people who need it. In implementing food subsidies the Government are subsidising the people who can afford to pay, for instance, the two million tourists who come here each year. The people from France and Germany who come here on holidays find the cost of living extremely reasonable by comparison to the cost of living at home. They get a good deal here and I do not see why the Government should subsidise food for tourists. The best way to help the people who need it is through increased children's allowances, old age pensions and so on.

Most of the allowances given in this budget are small but they are going in the right direction. I was particularly happy to note that the married woman's unemployment benefit will be given over 312 days as against 156 days. The discrimination which has existed over the years against women has been a disgrace and Fianna Fáil are now trying to eliminate it. Maternity allowance will now be paid for 12 weeks no matter when the baby arrives. In future blind people will be able to avail of free travel during peak hours. This might seem a small item but in my constituency disabled and blind people who are not allowed free travel during the peak hours have to schedule their day so as to travel in the morning or the evening and many of them who work cannot come home for their lunch, for instance. I am glad that these people will be able to travel whenever they wish, now.

In relation to the free telephone rental scheme I am glad to note that where two old age pensioners are living together and one is permanently disabled, the scheme will be extended to include them. Old age pensioners living together are frequently very much in need of a telephone but they cannot afford the rental and this improvement is very important to such people.

The fact that university fees are to increase by 25 per cent from October was referred to recently and the people affected are very hostile to the increase. These people can afford to pay so why should university fees be subsidised for them when the grants are not sufficient for people in the lower income bracket. The eligibility limits were raised over the last two years from £4,200 to £6,100. That is a fair wage. If one earns under £6,100 one will be eligible for the grants. The eligibility limits have been raised. If you earn under £6,100 you will be eligible for educational grants. That is a fair amount. Raising the fees will give more money to give to the people who have not the kind of cash needed to go to the universities. It will help to ensure that people from the lower income group will manage to get a third level education. The grant has been raised by 100 per cent and this will give many people the opportunity of entering the bracket in which they can seek this grant. Hopefully, it will help people who up to now were not in a position even to think of sending children to university.

The Minister for Education has a couple of million pounds extra to put into improving the educational system. If possible, I hope he will increase capitation grants and give money for the maintenance of schools. Some years ago a certain type of school was built which was not exactly a pre-fab but a regular building. These schools could be erected quickly but they were built in such a way that the maintenance of them is very costly. They are not of the old solid type. Schools are not able to cope with maintenance costs in these cases. They need decoration, both inside and outside, more often than the previous type of school. The work must be done every two or three years whereas with the other type of school it might be ten years before redecoration is required. Schools cannot afford this maintenance cost. I hope the Minister will consider this problem and where necessary give grants towards redecoration and maintenance.

I am extremely interested in what we call slow learners—people who find it difficult to read and write—and I should like to see more special schools for them. They need special teaching and special schools—perhaps, three- or four-roomed schools—are essential to give these young children from the age of six up special educational facilities so that when they come to the age of 14 or 15 they are able to read and write properly if they want to go on. Too often children come out of school at 14 or 15 and they cannot spell, read or write. They must then look for a dead-end job; they can do nothing to improve their position by finding a job with a future in it. I appeal to the Minister to set up these special schools to cater for slow learners of whom there seems to be quite a number. They need a couple of years ground work before they are able to go into ordinary primary and secondary schools.

I have heard much criticism of the Government since I came into this House. We hear that they are incapable of doing anything right, that this budget and the previous one were dreadful, and yet I heard the Fine Gael leader say on radio the other day that we now have a dynamic economy—everything is great. That can be said on the radio, but according to Opposition speakers here the economy is finished. However, I was very glad to hear the Fine Gael leader admitting that we have a dynamic economy. I congratulate him. I agree with him in that, if nothing else. We are certainly going very well. Business people find that since Fianna Fáil came back into power they are doing well, which is what the economy is all about—more jobs, more money and more tax. When there is more tax we are able to look after those who need help, old age pensioners, widows, deserted wives, and so on and all social benefits can be increased.

I wish to congratulate the Minister for Finance on this budget. He has so contrived it that, if we do not jump into the upper tax bracket, everybody will have enough to go on with. There is 12 per cent or 16 per cent extra on social welfare benefits and extra children's allowances. I also congratulate the Minister on taxing drink and cigarettes. This was long overdue. I do not think I have heard one complaint about this. I have even heard people say it was not enough, that he could have taxed them more. I see people from all walks of life and in all areas and constituencies, whether working class or middle class, jamming public houses. These public houses are full to the doors most nights of the week. People do not seem to find it difficult to get a lot of money for drink and cigarettes. People even said before the budget that they hoped the tax would go on drink and cigarettes because they could afford it and that it was only right that these things be taxed and provide more money for the Exchequer.

I am very glad the Minister imposed these taxes, but I do not think it will actually encourage people to give up drink or cigarettes. The Health Education Bureau are doing a very good job at present in encouraging people to smoke and drink less, as these are not the best habits to foster. I do not think the fact that the tax goes up will stop anybody who wants to drink or smoke: they do not think about it that way. If we want to encourage people for the sake of their health to drink and smoke less we shall have to do it through agencies like the Health Education Bureau, which is doing an excellent job.

It has now gone out of fashion to be a cigarette smoker. Very few young people are forming that habit. A decade or two ago, boys and girls of 14 or 15 years of age, and even younger, were smoking cigarettes. Now it is not done. It is not popular among young people. More and more of them are not even starting to form that habit. They find it rather repulsive. They do not agree with it. They think it is a very bad habit. It seems rather a turnabout that young people are showing an example to older people in this respect. They are encouraging older people to try give up smoking cigarettes.

All in all, this was a good budget. I am quite confident that we have a good year ahead of us. I hope the rate of inflation will remain low. This will ensure that the people who got increases will get value out of them. If the rate of inflation is 20 per cent, there is no point in giving increases of 20 per cent. It is much better to give a smaller increase and to keep inflation down to the minimum. It means more to people on small incomes if inflation can be kept down to the minimum. I hope it will remain low this year and that old people and widows will be able to benefit from the extra money they got in the budget.

If we can solve the problem of unemployment in the coming year, if we can get work for another 20,000 or 25,000 people, we will begin to feel the benefit of that at the end of the year. We will be getting in more in taxation. I hope this time next year the budget will be even better than it was this year, and that we will be able to give bigger increases to people who really need them, who really need our care and sympathy, and who really need us to look after them. There are people who cannot look after themselves any more who need help, backing and sympathy, and an increase in their social welfare payments to keep them level with the rest of the community.

I am looking forward to a good year. I appeal to the community in general to help each other and to help the people who are in need of care. I am asking communities to look after their old people. This has improved tremendously in the past couple of years. People are doing a great deal, but I would ask them to try to do more, to call on old people and make sure they are all right and have what they need. I would ask the communities to look after their children in this Year of the Child. If they know of any children who are being treated badly, or neglected in any way, they should have the courage to bring that to the attention of the authorities concerned.

I am afraid there is a fair amount of child abuse. We do not like to talk about it. It is difficult to bring it out into the open. There are always the neighbours. There is always somebody who will sense something is wrong. If they have any idea that a child is not receiving proper attention, or is being neglected in any way, I appeal to them to bring that fact to the attention of somebody so that the child can be looked after. Children are helpless. They cannot tell. They cannot look after themselves. They are dependent on adults to take care of them. When the Minister for Health receives the report of the task force he will do all in his power to bring in the necessary legislation. I congratulate the Minister on his budget and I look forward to a good year for the country and plenty of tax from the farmers.

Mr. Bermingham

I should like to make a few observations on the budget. I will try to be concise. I heard some boasting from the previous speaker about the increases in social welfare payments. Some of those increases were pretty good. I want to be quite honest. This is the first time in the history of the State that a man who is sick at home will be treated differently from other social welfare recipients. A man receiving sickness benefit is being told he is not entitled to as much as an old age pensioner, no matter how sick he is, and he may even be living alone and unable to look after himself. He got an increase of 16 per cent while other sections got more. This is niggardly and miserly. It is the first time there was not an across the board increase in social welfare. That is a retrograde step.

The old age pensioners got what Fianna Fáil probably considered a decent increase. I suggest strongly that they got less than they deserve. But the man drawing sickness benefit needs the same increase, or a greater increase in many cases. I disapprove of one section of the community getting a different increase from that given to another. It creates two classes. A man of a certain age gets an increase of 16 per cent and another man gets an increase of 20 per cent because he is a year older. I know the criteria the Minister had in mind when he did that. He was wrong. It was a mistake. There might be only six months in the difference of their ages between two people and there is no good reason in the world why one man should get 16 per cent and the other 20 per cent.

I am not saying for one moment that the increase of 20 per cent was enough. It has been said that it is a bigger increase than the increase in the rate of inflation, but it is a bigger increase on what? The basic incomes of those people were always too low. No matter who was Minister for Finance, I have always said the increases in social welfare payments were increases on such a low starting point that we should not talk about increases in percentages. I will not pursue that any further except to say that the person getting the 20 per cent increase may be in a better position financially than the person getting the 16 per cent. I do not want it to be taken that I am vaunting the 20 per cent increase. I am merely saying that 20 per cent is not sufficient. But to cut it back in respect of certain categories of social welfare recipients to 16 per cent is criminal.

During the four-year term of office of the previous Government there were effected reductions in the qualifying age for old age pension of a year in every year of their term of office. That is something on which we can look back with pride. Fianna Fáil in two budgets have failed in their duty to those people. In almost every civilised country where there are social welfare benefits an old age pension is provided at 65 years of age. Fianna Fáil have failed to complete the job so well begun by the previous Government. Yet we hear them boasting of the great job they have done in social welfare. The qualifying age for old age pension was 70 when Fianna Fáil left office in 1973—it was the same when Lloyd George introduced it in 1905 but that is beside the point—and that was progress under Fianna Fáil. In the four years of Coalition Government that qualifying age for old age pension was reduced by four years. But since Fianna Fáil resumed office there has been no further reduction, something of which any Fianna Fáil Minister for Finance has a right to be ashamed.

These things matter a lot. I want to be fair and to point out where the Government I backed in this House for four years failed slightly in an important aspect of the employment field as far as social welfare is concerned, that is, that the qualifying age for a retirement pension under the Social Welfare Acts was not reduced from 65 in line with the reductions in the qualifying age for old age pension. If this Minister was doing his duty the qualifying age for old age pension would be 65, or even 64, and the qualifying age for a retirement pension—I mean a decent retirement pension which would encourage and enable people to retire and live the remainder of their lives in some kind of comfort—should have been reduced to 60 or even 59.

Fianna Fáil did nothing about reducing the qualifying age for old age pension in the 40 years or so they were in Government and they are going to ensure that no more is done about it now. That illustrates the kind of Fianna Fáil thinking in respect of people in the social welfare categories. However, I shall not pursue that matter any further. I have made valid points in respect of things the Minister should have done. There is no question in anybody's mind but that he should have continued the downward movement in the old age pension qualifying age. Indeed, he has taken a retrograde step in providing one set of social welfare benefits for one sector of the social welfare community and another set for another sector.

I want to speak now about the removal of food subsidies. Coming around Christmas time, this was a great shock for the unfortunate poor of this country. Nobody expected that that would happen. Knowing that there would be certain festivities and so on around Christmas it was announced in the hope that it would not be noticed too much. It was quietly announced that food subsidies were being reduced in line with the provisions of the White Paper. We had been telling the electorate at the last general election that Fianna Fáil had a tradition of doing away with food subsidies whenever they were returned to power. They did so in the 1950s, when they abolished food subsidies introduced by the previous Coalition. These subsidies were introduced in order to protect the living standards of our people, but they were removed in one fell swoop. This time they decided they would phase out the food subsidies.

I want to ask the Minister for Finance when the next phase will begin, whether he will give us a little notice, and not just do it in one fell swoop a month before a budget. Will he do it next week, because we are beginning to learn that Fianna Fáil introduce budgets daily? For example there was one introduced here this morning by the Minister for Health and Social Welfare. However, I shall not talk about that just yet; I want to allow it to sink in. That type of budgetary system is unfair. People have a right to expect that the existing tax structure will continue throughout a year. However Fianna Fáil slipped in this announcement in the hope that, amidst Christmas festivities and so on, it would be forgotten and would not be construed as part of the budget. As a matter of fact, in the minds of the well off and fairly well off, this is more or less what happened. The first reaction to the budget in this House was: "Ah well, it was not too bad. It did not slaughter us altogether". However, it was inclined to be forgotten that £20 million in taxation, or in the reduction of subsidies, which amounts to the same thing, had been applied just a few weeks beforehand.

I want to speak about its effects on the unfortunate poor. It is claimed that extra butter vouchers and so on will be issued to people on social welfare. I am thankful that something is being done and I am not trying to downgrade those efforts. However, there are people in very poor circumstances, other than those on social welfare. In many cases it is the bread winner of a large family earning a low wage. In other cases perhaps the mother is the breadwinner, when she must undertake all of the housework and the rearing of her family as well as going out to work in an endeavour to provide for her family. The removal of these food subsidies in the manner in which it was done constitutes a criminal act, one of which any Government should be ashamed, and illustrates complete lack of responsibility towards the poorer sections of our community.

During the last general election campaign the last speaker did a good job for the Fianna Fáil propaganda machine on television and radio with something called the shopping basket.

Debate adjourned.