Having listened to the debate yesterday and today one would get the impression that the members of the present Government do not come down to earth at all but travel around by helicopter or other methods. They can hardly bring the executive jet home with them. The Minister for the Environment talks about the good state of the roads, and it is quite plain that he does not know what he is talking about. The roads within a radius of 30 or 40 miles of Dublin which were traditionally good are now in many cases a morass. What must they be like in the constituency which the Minister represents?
Estimates, 1980. - Vote 3: Department of the Taoiseach (resumed).
Debate resumed on the following motion:
That a sum not exceeding £3,638,000 be granted to defray the charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of December, 1980, for the salaries and expenses of the Department of the Taoiseach, and for payment of certain grants-in-aid.
—(The Taoiseach).
Very good.
I was last in the area about six months ago and I would certainly not describe the roads as being in a very good condition. There is no use in talking about the building of new roads because there is no money even to repair existing roads. The Minister has mentioned various figures showing what he describes as a tremendous increase in the amount of money allocated to local authorities for road works, but he seems to have forgotten that inflation must be taken into account. If he compares what we spent with what Fianna Fáil were spending when we took over, he will realise that his arguments ring very hollow. Local authorities all over the country are for the first time in ten years facing the problem of having to lay off regular road workers, pensionable servants of local authorities. The Minister should look at the facts and figures, because either someone is codding him or he is trying to cod the House. One local authority have laid off as many as 60 regular men. Not only do I know the managers and engineers in most local authorities but I also know the staff, because during 30 years I organised them and helped to make a decent living for them. They tell me that if repairs to the roads are carried out they will not have money to keep the men in employment. The result is that they are spending their time cutting weeds, opening watercuts and filling potholes with sand. The sooner the better the Minister realises that this is the situation.
The Minister also talked about housing. Deputy Kelly gave figures showing that an ordinary house now costs exactly twice as much as it did when the Minister took office. The Minister must also remember that the number of houses being built must suffer. I took over from a Fianna Fáil Government who thought that 17,000 or 18,000 private and local authority houses per year would be sufficient for the eighties. They put that on record. When I became Minister I brought up the figure to 26,000 and the present Government should be attempting to keep the number growing. Because of inflation they are not prepared to find the money and the numbers are not as high as they should be and will continue to drop steadily.
There are two reasons why money is forthcoming for private houses. The first is that during the term of the Coalition Government I brought the building societies back from the 19th century. They were operating under an Act passed in 1899 and I brought in a Bill in 1976 which allowed various types of organisations to invest in building societies. The Government now guarantee building society finance, which they did not do previously. When we joined the EMS, for good or ill, money came back from abroad and much of it was invested in building societies. That money is now running out, and the Minister must be careful that he does not find a situation in which the building societies are unable to lend any more money. They are tightening up on their lending system, and some of them now require £2,000 to be invested for six months or £1,000 for 12 months before they will give a loan. If the societies run out of money the Minister will realise the seriousness of the position.
The building societies pay a common rate of interest and there is no competition between them in regard to lending money. However, some of the societies seem to consider that they are entitled to spend substantial sums of money on sponsorship. If extra money is available it should be to the advantage of those who are paying mortgages or those who are lending money. Perhaps the Minister would consider this situation.
Local authority houses which were planned long ago are now being finished off, and these are the houses represented in the figures the Minister has given. Does he know that he himself has given an allocation of money only once this year for houses started up to 31 March? Not only has he not given a second allocation but there is no money available from the Department to enable local authorities to start any new houses after 31 March. Will the Minister deny this before he leaves the House? Will he say whether or not there is money for the erection of local authority houses started after 31 March? My information is that there is no such money and that there will be a dramatic drop in the number of local authority houses being built.
When the Minister took office he admitted in a document published shortly afterwards that in June 1977, 70 per cent of families looking for local authority houses consisted of a man, his wife and one child. Would the Minister care to hazard a guess as to what percentage of those on the housing list is represented by families of that size? We again have big families on the housing list who have as many as five or seven children. I received a letter from a man this morning stating that he is living in a rented house and paying £10 a week. He acquired a site and offered it to the county council who told him they were building only three houses this year and had already started them and that, therefore he had not a hope in the world of getting one. Is that not a lovely spectacle for a man with a family? I know a man who has five children and who is living in a caravan. He has a site but the local authority cannot build a house there because they have no money. The Minister does not seem to be au fait with the situation and he should own up to that before he comes into the House to tell us the facts as he sees them.
Does the Minister know that local authorities have money only to carry out essential repairs to less than half a dozen local authority houses for the purpose of selling them during the year? Does he know that each local authority has a list as long as my arm of people who want to buy houses but cannot do so because of this? It is all right to say that they will be able to buy them at the price which was operative when they first applied for them. There is nothing about the rents they will have to pay in the meantime for months and perhaps years. It is a bit much to ask a man to pay a rent of £11 a week for years when if he could buy a house he would be paying that off the price of it. Instead of that he is putting it down the drain.
The Minister announced a new rent scheme this year and said that he had prior consultations with the National Association of Tenants Organisations. I should like to put on the record of the House that there were no negotiations carried on as such with NATO. What happened was that the Minister read a long speech to them in the Custom House. He refused to give them a copy of the speech subsequently. One of his officials handed across a list of the new increases and said that they were not negotiable. If that is the Minister's idea of carrying out negotiations with a representative group he should have another look at it because he does not know what he is talking about.
There were negotiations.
There were no negotiations on the proposals which the Minister put up. I am glad the Minister of State. Deputy Connolly, is here because during the week he referred in the newspaper to this kind of thing and said that statements made by an organisation, which in the past had not been found to be so reliable, were not correct. When I took over that office there was a two and a half year rent strike going on because the former Minister for Local Government had been carrying on the same antics. I settled that strike and a guarantee was given by the then Minister for Defence on behalf of the Fianna Fáil Party before the 1977 general election that if they were returned to office they would continue to negotiate on the same terms as had been agreed with me. Now that has been thrown overboard and the Minister has the hard neck to say he carried out negotiations when none were carried out.
Does the Minister think NATO would agree with a case I came across in Ballivor, County Meath, of a deserted wife with eight children, the eldest 12 years of age and the youngest three years of age, paying 93p a week? She was drawing social welfare benefit of £60 a week. She got a bill from the local authority for the new rent rate of £6.53. When she queried it she was told this was the arrangement set down by the Department of the Environment and that there was nothing that could be done about it. Is it not a fact that the poorest of the poor in such houses have been asked to pay rents they cannot afford? The only way they can afford them is by going hungry or allowing their families to go hungry. This is the caring Fianna Fáil.
I was looking at the manifesto and what it said about rents. It appears as if when Fianna Fáil were writing the manifesto they had their tongues in their cheeks and thought it was something that would go down well. They thought the people would swallow it hook, line and sinker and as a result vote for them. There is no way if Fianna Fáil knew the facts that they could have written what they did about rents in black and white in the manifesto and then make people pay the rents they are asking now.
I know it is popular for Ministers and Fianna Fáil backbenchers to talk about new wage agreements and what is happening about unemployment. We know, according to the Fianna Fáil bible, the manifesto, that they were going to wipe out unemployment overnight. The former Taoiseach, Deputy Lynch, said there would be no dole queues. I do not know whether he knew what he was talking about or not. I believe he did not know because if he did he would not have spoken like that. He said there would be no dole queues and that they would find work for everyone, particularly school leavers. They would have to be looked after because they were our future. Of course they are but they do not have much chance of a future from the present Government. Having got the votes to put them back into office they conveniently forgot all about school leavers. A number of them have been employed on AnCO training schemes. They build something which is required and are paid about £20 a week. Most of them are glorified labourers but they are told they are being trained to be plasterers, bricklayers, painters and so on. It is not good enough.
The Minister for Education spoke about £5 million which would be given out but nobody was told it would be matched pound for pound with what local people put up. If a local organisation cannot pay up the money they will receive none of the £5 million. We heard of cases where organisations were told they would get grants of £70,000 if they could put up £70,000. How can such money be found? Why not tell the truth and say one will get the necessary money if one is able to raise the same amount and give people time to do so?
The situation under the present Government appears to be one of making lots of rash promises and suddenly finding there is no way they can be carried out. In order to get out of them they try to colour the situation by pretending things are what they are not. We heard a lot about what working people would get back under PAYE. We were told the budget would make a lot of people very happy. I wonder if it has. Most of us dealing with working class people know that very few of them are getting anything out of the budget. Not only that but because of the changes which were alleged to have been made and the understaffing in the income tax office I have received many complaints from constituents.
I received a letter this morning from a married man who has five children and works with Bord na Móna at Ballivor. That man told me that he has sent two income tax forms to Dublin seeking his tax free allowances from April 1980 but had not heard anything since. He expressed the view that £42 per week was not much good, after tax, to him and his family. His income is £70.22 per week but, because he does not have his tax free allowance he is getting £40 per week to feed his wife and five children. That is Ireland under Fianna Fáil and it is the same situation that exists under the social welfare scheme. How many social welfare recipients have written to Members, called to them or begged them to get something done about their social welfare benefits? The greatest mix-up that ever occurred here was in relation to the introduction of the PRSI. For some extraordinary reason nobody was able to ascertain whether or not cards had been stamped, and people who had been stamping cards for 20 or 30 years, and never drew any benefit, were told that their 1978 cards had not been received although they were sent in in bulk from builders, manufacturers, local authorities and the Department of Posts and Telegraphs. Yet, people were told that sickness benefits could not be paid, that they could not have their teeth seen to or obtain optical or maternity benefit because their cards were not in. The cards had been sent in but somebody made an almighty mess of this with the result that benefits were not paid.
Every meeting I attend people complain to me that they have not received their benefits. I receive letters daily from old age pensioners complaining that they have not received their due benefit or, when they get their benefit, they are not paid the increase due to them since last April. The only reason I think this situation exists is because the civil servants are very much over-worked. I have sympathy with those civil servants who deal with social welfare and income tax. Those in the Department of Social Welfare must deal with up to 60,000 claims for sickness benefits weekly and more than 100,000 unemployment benefit claims. Those officials are very pushed, but people are left for weeks and months without benefit although they have contributed to the scheme for years. That is not good enough and something must be done about it. Of course, there is little point in asking any member of the Government to do anything about it. We will chase it ourselves and, eventually, we will get it cleared up.
Since there are now 15 Ministers of State and 15 full Ministers, including the Taoiseach, there should be enough people going around to the offices to ensure that the jobs which should be done are done. As Deputy Kelly stated, we have the extraordinary position of having 30 Ministers, an Attorney General, a Ceann Comhairle and a Leas-Cheann Comhairle, out of the Fianna Fáil Party and, although the service should be better, it is not. People are complaining that things are getting worse. There is little point in taking things easy.
I should now like to deal with the question of education. It is difficult to try to explain to parents who have children going to school why the books they are now being asked to buy cost so much. I met a woman today who has six children going to school and the cost of books for one of her girls was £11.50, for one of the boys £10, and so on down to the lowest which was £7. Her husband's net take home pay is £55 to £60 per week. How can she pay money for those books? That woman was told that the money must be sent to the schools by tomorrow or otherwise the books cannot be bought. Free education, how are you! In addition, practically every school committee sends out circulars asking for subscriptions to buy what is required in the schools. Who can resist such appeals? A primary school was supposed to have been sanctioned for Navan months ago but, at last, the sanction has just been received. We are told it will be opening in September, but construction work will hardly have commenced by September. What are the children in that area to do in the meantime? In relation to St. Oliver Plunkett school in the same town it was announced that children under five should not be brought to the school although there are 70 ready to start, 79 on the waiting list for next year and 83 for the following year. I have no doubt that that school will be looking for old pre-fabs that are not in use elsewhere to try to accommodate those children. Is that the type of education we were promised by the Minister when in Opposition? The Minister said a lot then about reducing the sizes of classes and the necessity to have better accommodation for children.
I should like to read a letter I received on behalf of Drogheda VEC which states:
We wish to make representations on behalf of Drogheda VEC, Drogheda Vocational Schools' Parents Association, and Drogheda branch of the Teachers' Union. We are protesting against the inordinate delay by the Department of Education in dealing with the following problems which have arisen mainly through the vast increase in numbers of students attending the day schools in Drogheda and the proposed opening of a community college for 900 students in September 1980.
(1) The VEC cannot accomodate all students for 1980-81 in one school. Yet the Department have not sanctioned the proposals of the committee to retain the King Street school for day classes. If this is not done many students will have to be turned away in September. (2) The Department of Education have not sanctioned the appointment of principals for the schools.
(3) The Department have not sanctioned caretaking staff for the community college although this is liable to be handed over by the builders at any time. Vandals could wreck this £1 million school in a couple of days.
(4) The Department have not sanctioned the committee's proposals for office staffing sent in almost 12 months ago. Additional staff is needed for the additional work and responsibility arising from the great increase in numbers of students and activities over the period 1979, 1980, 1981 and projected for many years to come in this expanding industrial town.
(5) Additional teaching staff for the additional intake of pupils has not been sanctioned.
We feel that this go slow attitude on the part of the Department sets at nought the endeavours of the committee and its staff to build and equip their very large new school, that it is irresponsible to the students and is, in fact, impeding the VEC from properly carrying out its duties as laid down in the Act of 1930.
That statement is an indication of how strongly the people of that area feel. I could go on if I had time outlining the number of schools in County Meath that require extensions and areas where new schools are required. For some extraordinary reason the Department succeed in holding up such work by, after agreeing to one site, suggesting an alternative and going back over the ground again. When the project goes eventually to the Office of Public Works the Department sit back. Of course, the person who can get money quickly out of the Office of Public Works would need to be a magician, and the Minister is aware of that.
Another matter which is very wrong — it is possible that more than the Government are to blame for this—is the condition of many Garda stations. A number of Garda stations are new and others are well looked after, but many of them are atrocious, appalling. I have tabled a question about Drogheda garda station, which is located on the corner as one approaches the town from the Belfast road. Those coming from the North with an inquiry call at that station. The station is filthy, dirty and with old electric wires pulled out of the walls. The accommodation is the worst I have ever seen in a public building. It has not been painted or cleaned for God knows how long. The two cells have dirty stinking matresses in them, and those held over from the courts are detained there. The two toilets were originally in the Garda station and have been transferred to the prison part of the station — Two holes in the ground in 1980. In such a station gardaí and bean-gardaí are expected to operate. Many of the offices are in the cellars with little light coming through and rubbish thrown in the corners. There are pieces of old electric fires, mattresses and broken furniture thrown around those rooms. The day room where the general public meet the gardaí must be seen to be believed.
The best thing the Minister can do is to have a look at the accommodation. There is little point in the Office of the Public Works saying that they are looking for new accommodation, because that is three or four years away. A large number of gardaí who are operating in that station require accommodation now. They required it two years ago. Perhaps we were as much at fault as the Government are but Fianna Fáil had a long time before that to do something about it. But nothing has been done about it. Linoleum on the floor is creased up, covering bits of the floor and not covering other parts; there is no paint and the windows are dirty. I do not know how any official Garda station can be operated in those conditions. The sooner the Government realise that there are more important things than buying an executive jet to fly people to and from Brussels the better. They should be spending that money on things the country really needs.
Yesterday in the House, a crack was made by a Fianna Fáil backbencher who obviously has not been reading the signs. He does not realise that since the Taoiseach has already scraped the barrel he is hardly likely to go down to him to make a Minister of State of him. Obviously he came in in an effort to show that he was still there. He said that the Labour Party had no policy except on divorce. Labour have a motion before this House that there should be an all-party committee set up for the purpose of considering what can be done about divorce, if anything can be done. Anybody standing up in the House and starting to talk or proposing a motion — or any of the parties on their own attempting to do it — is simply looking for publicity. What we want is what the Taoiseach himself suggested very recently, an all-party committee to deal with this matter. There is no other proposal from the Labour Party before this House, nor is there likely to be.
I would suggest that those who are looking for something to criticise might go a bit further than that because the 1967 committee on the Constitution, of which I had the honour to be a member, made a recommendation that in certain circumstances divorce might be considered. I understood from Mr. Lemass, who had just retired as Taoiseach, that agreement had been reached between himself and some of the Hierarchy that it was necessary because there are a big number of people who have got Church annulments, who are not married ac cording to the Church but who are according to the State and they are left, like Mahommed's coffin, between heaven and earth and they can do neither one thing nor the other. They are entitled to have their situation looked into and there are many other cases which need attention.
There are many people not of the majority faith who have no objection at all to divorce if it is necessary. I do not believe we should have the kind of free for all divorce that exists in other countries. But it is a matter that we cannot hide away from. It has to be discussed. The floor of this House is the place to discuss it; an all-party committee should be set up and if we do not want it so be it, and if we do want it the Constitution must be amended or a new Constitution introduced. I do not want to have anybody saying that we want to introduce divorce on our own. Even if we did it would not be possible but we do not want to do so anyway.
When Fianna Fáil were in opposition they said that they would do great things for the Department of Posts and Telegraphs. They were going to completely revamp labour relations to prevent the trouble that they felt might be caused. There were no strikes in the Post Office for many years except one by the engineering staff. Fianna Fáil were not rightly in office when there was a strike and there has been one strike after another since. They promised to update the telephone service but if the telephone service could be worse I would not like to see it. Up in the office that I occupy there is one telephone for internal calls and one for outside calls. Yesterday I dialled 20 times before I got through on a call and when I did there were two other people talking on the line. This is happening in 1980.
My time is up on this item and I will not detain the House any longer except to say that Fianna Fáil TDs, and particularly Ministers, might do some reading during the summer Recess and they might learn something. I was in this House for over 20 years before I became a Minister and I had my own views on how Governments should be run. After four-and-a-half years in the Department I realised that there were two sides to the story and now I can see things in a very different way. I would suggest that if Fianna Fáil Ministers in particular would read the election manifesto of 1977 over the summer Recess, they might come back here, call the Taoiseach up to his office and tell him to, for God's sake, offer his resignation to the President because Fianna Fáil are either the greatest crowd of charlatans this country ever saw or they have been conned into producing something which has really got them into trouble.
I wish to make a few remarks about housing. The Minister has already referred to the level of housing completions. Last year we completed almost 26,400 houses. Our commitment in this line still continues. When we took office the SDA loans were only £4,500 and the income limit was only £2,150 for a single person and, for a married person with a family the maximum was £2,350. When I was appointed last December I asked the Minister to have this increased. I am glad to say that the SDA loan on new houses is now £12,000 and the income limit is £5,500. Some here in the House have said that the £12,000 SDA loan is not enough.
My information from the local authorities throughout the country is that there is a very heavy demand on this new house loan and it shows that it was a step in the right direction. The same applies also to the reconstruction loan. It was increased to £4,000 and the income limit has been increased also. I have not heard any criticism from anybody about this. The Opposition have not said what they would do about the economy, about finance, about inflation. They have a duty to do that. Opposition Deputies cannot come into this House and criticise what we are doing without making suggestions.
(Interruptions)
I did not interrupt Deputy Tully. I never got into any hassle with him and I do not intend to. Deputy Tully referred earlier to the telephones. When the Coalition were in office the Minister of the time was preoccupied with other matters and of course he had no time to look after any of that. We had to take over and try to rectify the position which was left by the Minister of the time who chose to go to a foreign land.
Industrial relations were also at that time in a mess and things suddenly came to the boil. We had to take over from there and we have a programme in that respect. The Minister for Communications has been dealing with that aspect in great detail since taking up office and his predecessor did, also. It is all right for the Opposition to come in and complain about what we have done. All the Opposition Members — I am not referring to any one individual—en bloc have failed to produce proposals. The people will want to know what they intend doing and will expect to be told. Nothing has been produced so far in the House.
Deputy Tully commented on the manifesto. Nearly all of what was stated in the manifesto has been implemented with regard to income tax, housing.
The Minister has forgotton it already.
I have not forgotten it and the people know all about it.
They sure do.
They do. The matter of differential rents was raised on a number of occasions. In March last, details of changes in the national rents scheme for local authority dwellings were circulated to local authorities. The changes provide for a revised formula for fixing maximum rents of new and existing dwellings which will result in a more equitable spread of maximum rents over all rented dwellings. Minimum differential rents have been increased from 10p to 15p per week and fixed rents by 30p a week. Subsidiary earners in differentially rented houses will continue to contribute one-seventh of any income over £14 a week, up to a maximum contribution of £1.50p a week. The income to be assessed for differential rent is the income from any sources including social welfare payments allowances for shift working, children's allowances, disabled persons' allowances.
Considerable play has recently been made on the increases from 50 per cent to 100 per cent in assessment of social welfare payments. This change was made to eliminate the anomalous situation under earlier differential rent schemes where some social welfare payments were assessed at 50 per cent and others at 100 per cent. To compensate for the effect of any rent increases which arise from the assessment in full of income, particularly in the lower income groups, I have made substantial increases in the present assessable income to which rent fractions apply. The lowest fraction of income hitherto assessed for rent purposes was one-twelfth of income up to £19 a week. Under the 1980 scheme, incomes up to £36 a week will be assessed at only one-twentieth and the upper limit of one-seventh will apply only where assessable income exceeds £55 per week. The new scheme is designed to ensure that tenants who can afford to do so will pay their fair share of rent. I am satisfied that it provides that no tenant will be required to pay a rent which he cannot reasonably afford. I want to elaborate a little on that.
What about the disabled?
If there is a case of hardship and it is brought to my notice, I will look into it, and the local authorities still have the power to do that. I want to make this quite clear — the average rent per week on all local authority rented houses in the country is £3.50 a week.
Average does not mean a damn thing. It means nothing.
I did not interrupt the Deputy when he was speaking. I have never interrupted anyone in the House.
No interruptions, please.
I have never interrupted anyone and I do not intend to. I want to give the facts and if Deputy Tully, or anybody else, does not want to listen to the facts, that is all right. These are the facts of the situation. Where there is hardship, it is open to the local authorities to investigate the case and the managers that I know of the local authorities throughout the country in my opinion are all fair-minded men. Let us have a look at the average cost, all over the country. It is costing only £3.50 a week, on average. We must get the record right. There has been I admit a lot of talk in regard to rents and in regard to the new scheme. I am putting the facts here as they are and as they were given to local authorities.
In relation to private housing, Deputies are no doubt aware that my Department administers a scheme for house price control in relation to new houses. In August last year the Government decided that all the main lending agencies should require loan applicants to furnish a certificate of reasonable value where a dwelling was being purchased. As a consequence of that, there has been a substantial increase in the number of CRV applications and we have been able to maintain a satisfactory service. Decisions are normally issued within three weeks of the receipt of the necessary information. The fact that average new house prices stabilised in the second half of last year reflects the success of the Government action. In the first five months of this year price reductions as a result of CRV applications resulted in a saving of £1.27 million. That is to be highly commended. The six year structural guarantee scheme operated by the house building guarantee company with the co-operation of my Department registered in the first two years of operation 913 building firms and 13,600 houses have been protected. The fee charged by the Department for providing three inspections under the guarantee scheme has been revised to take account of the increased cost of the service, and it now stands at £20 a house.
In relation to local authority housing I am reasonably satisfied that we will be able to maintain progress, and I am satisfied with the improvements in relation to house loans brought about by increased income limits. The improvements in this area are most attractive.
In relation to house improvement grants, Deputies know that with a few exceptions they were terminated early this year. We have 60,000 applications on hands and there must be at least one inspection in each case so the House will appreciate that it is impossible to arrange an inspection and pay the grant immediately the work is finished however much one would like to do so. However, I am doing everything in my power to ensure that delays are kept to a minimum. The fact that in the first five months of this year 16,000 house improvement grants were paid reflects the urgency with which the Department are treating this matter. I have no doubt that some Deputies are frustrated, but I am doing my best to accommodate all Members of the House who approach me with the problems of constituents. I will always continue to be fair. Extra accommodation has been provided in O'Connell Bridge House along with extra staff to deal with the problem and inspections are now running at around 2,000 a week. I am also employing extra inspectors to speed up the process, and any improvements that can be implemented will be implemented.
A question was asked earlier as to whether I had given any direction that all correspondence in relation to grant applications should come through my office. I gave no such direction either in writing or verbally. Anyone who wishes to contact a member of the Oireachtas or any official in my Department is free to do so. I expect help and to be told what the position is. I have been informed recently that things have improved a lot. I hope to be able to make still more improvements. I am not happy with some aspects, but we are working on them and the House can rest assured that anything that can be done will be done.
On behalf of the Minister, the Government and myself I thank the staff in my Department, especially in the housing grants section, for the manner in which they have dealt with the people and the Members of the Oireachtas over the long months.
Have I many more minutes?
Acting Chairman:
The Deputy has six minutes.
Yesterday evening Deputy Willie O'Brien said that the position in O'Connell Bridge House was so bad that he could not get up the stairs. I have been there every day and have never seen that. When the grants were terminated there was a big number of people there for a week but from then on there have been no queues. It has been a very orderly process, I am glad to say, and I am grateful for the forbearance of the public.
I should like to have more money to undertake more projects that I have in mind in my Department, but anybody who was in Government knows there is a limit to the money available as there has always been. We must make the best possible use of the money at our disposal. In saying this I am not alluding to any particular local authority, but I should like to put this question to county councils and corporations: are we getting value for our money in respect of hire of machinery for road work and other works? In part of the country I pass through I see machinery lying idle perhaps for an hour or two. These machines cost local authorities a lot of money and in the end it is the taxpayer who must pay. I would like to suggest — and it would not mean any loss of employment — that some of this work might be put out for tender and we might get better value. I have no firm views on the matter, but it is worth examining, because I am not satisfied that in hiring machinery we are getting value for money. Local authorities should look into this question.
(Cavan-Monaghan): Is the Minister aware that at the moment some county engineers as a matter of policy and in order to maintain employment are transferring work from machine to men — going back to the stone age way of doing things?
The Deputy will appreciate that that is a matter for the local authority. I was talking of machinery hired by local authorities. It is open to question whether we get value for money under this system. Some people maintain that if some of the major works were done by contract we might get better value without any loss of employment, and this should be examined.
As regards my responsibilities in regard to houses and grants I assure the House that I shall do my utmost to ensure that the steady progress made over the years will continue.
I should like to compliment the Minister for replying to Deputies. That is now happening and is welcomed. It is not often we get that kind of response from a Minister or Minister of State. There is just one point — the Minister probably hands it over to the Department at that stage and the follow-up does not seem to be as good as the initial reply. Perhaps this is something he could check. It is a service we got in Government but we are not getting it in Opposition. If we decide to follow a political line we are committed to it. If we go to a Department, we follow a departmental approach. Some of us, for reasons best known to ourselves, decide to make a political approach and that approach should then follow through to the end.
I shall have that matter fully investigated.
As regards rents of local authority houses I raised a matter with the Minister by way of Dáil Question. I happened to be abroad at the time it came up in the House. Members of the Defence Forces, of the Naval Service and the Army do not get overtime; they get allowances. These allowances are added up when it comes to determining their weekly rent. If they worked in industry only their basic pay would be considered, without overtime. They are being discriminated against in the assessment of rents. Those allowances should be excluded and only basic pay should be taken into account in fixing their rents.
I am not satisfied that we are doing enough in regard to local authority housing. In our area where there is massive growth as a result of an industrial explosion so to speak this is a matter that should be examined urgently. It may not always be a question of money. The situation in the south Cork area is so serious at present that we should think in terms of system built houses. The delay is so long in dealing with builders and the whole set up so cumbersome that we must think about system built houses or otherwise we shall become an area of caravans. Nobody wants that to happen.
Our roads are in a bad state. As one who knows something about maintaining farm roads I am concerned lest we allow them to deteriorate too far. The patchwork being done at present is not good enough. Unless something is done quickly we shall face a major roads problem. Much the same argument applies to the whole Government approach to transport. Despite the fact that our roads are being allowed to deteriorate and that there are more and more heavy vehicles appearing on these roads, railways are being closed down. This is something that cannot be tolerated now. We made mistakes in the past and some railways were torn up. We can now see what a mistake that was.
The Cork-Youghal line has proved a very important link in the past for sugar beet and summer travel. I appeal to the Government to ensure that that line is maintained and that the trains continue to run. A year or two ago it might not have been such a good proposition to transport goods by rail because road transport was freely available and accessible, but I can see a time not so far distant when sugar beet growing in the east Cork area might be just viable by having a good rail link to Mallow or wherever the processing station is. The same applies to fertilisers and all agricultural inputs. Without that link a very vital supply line for farmers could be cut off.
We welcome the Minister's new idea of a cheaper loan with overseas borrowing. I would like to be a little more reassured about how cheap that will be in the end because a deutschmark at 10 per cent could very well end up as a deutschmark at 20 per cent. I hope we know where we are going with regard to this borrowing. This loan is supposed to go for future development. I am more concerned about those people who have already developed and have spent substantial sums of money in doing this. Any money we can lay our hands on should go towards helping those people. They are mostly farmers who are on the way up. They are progressive people and they have spent a lot of money. At the time they decided to spend it they did not bargain for the inflation situation. They could not have bargained for 20 per cent interest rates. They must be helped now. There is no use talking about confidence in agriculture, because there can be no confidence in it until the Government make a positive move to help those people.
Those people are the leaders of the future. Some of them may have been a bit too courageous and may have overspent, but a man who is not courageous in agriculture or anything else will not achieve anything. They could not have foreseen the disastrous situation we are facing this year. Everything possible will have to be done to help those people. The only way to help them now is that the ACC and the commercial banks should be given money to subsidise loans to those people. That is not a unique concept as is has been done on the continent. We are already doing this in the Department of the Environment, where certain categories of people qualify for local authority loans at preferential rates. The same thing should be done in regard to agriculture. This is not money down the drain. The spin-off will come in confidence, the continued progress of the agricultural sector, and it will take the gloom and eventually the doom out of the air.
We are talking pure rot about land at the moment. We are waiting for a new land structure but in the meantime nothing is being done in that Department. There were 40 acres of land in my area put on the market by a multinational oil company, Irish Refining and the Land Commission had not the price of the 40 acres. There are young farmers looking for this land. Nobody from the benches on the other side can deny that the Land Commission had not the money to buy that land. We are not buying land. I hope that realism will come into this matter. We are not talking about hard cash in relation to this. Even though I do not like land bonds why can they not be used in the case I am referring to and in many other cases to buy land? If people were given this land they could be made viable and we would prove that there is a future for agriculture, that we are not at a standstill and that the Department of Agriculture have confidence in their industry.
I welcome the Taoiseach's statement about the removal of the resource tax. Farmers already have about five different taxes, such as the co-responsibility levy. There is no credit due to the Government for removing this tax because it was a penal tax and should never have been introduced. The Taoiseach should tell the Minister for Finance that this tax is being removed. The Minister defended this tax in the Seanad the other day. All the Fianna Fáil Senators voted for it. I hope there is some communication between the Minister for Agriculture and the Minister for Finance in relation to this matter and that they will both say that this tax is really going.
The whole trend of the Taoiseach's statement was on a European inflationary situation and a difficult European situation. There is no such thing as a difficult European situation. The European farmers are doing extremely well, because most of them are dealing with single figure inflation, bank rates of 8 per cent and 9 per cent, growth rates of 5 per cent and 6 per cent, and they are very happy with the package offered by Brussels this year. What about the Irish farmer and the Irish industrialist? He is talking about 20 per cent inflation, 20 per cent bank rates and less than zero growth rates. The Irish farmer is expected to compete with the European mainland against those conditions. If the Government are serious about doing anything for the people the inflation rate will have to be reduced. It will have to come back to single figures. Our bank rates will have to come down and money will have to be put into growth areas. We cannot bury the púnt in the ground so that nobody can touch it. Money will have to be released to the people who know how to use it, at the right rates.
I was very pleased to hear the Minister for the Environment refer to pollution. Pollution and pollution control will cost money in the future. Our inland fisheries and estuary fisheries will be determined by pollution control. The local authorities are the worst polluters of all. They have now decided to put raw effluent into Cork harbour. It is all very well to have done that in 1014, when people did not know anything better and when there was not the same problem. It is only since chemistry and industrial development took over that we have problems in our estuaries. Human effluent is bad enough but it is not as bad as chemicals and the various biological treatments which are killing our fish. The Minister should take this statement and his document, recently produced, to its logical conclusion and direct all local authorities, before our fishing industry is wiped out, to treat all urban, municipal and industrial effluent.
Industry is going through a bad period at the moment. I appeal to the Government to look at places like Youghal and the textile industry. This industry can be saved. In a couple of years' time there will be a swing round again and we will not have those industries. While the buildings will be there we will not have the skills going back for one hundred years. We are telling those people now that they will get their redundancy pay, their pay related and we will bring in a new industry. A new industry is badly needed in the Youghal area. I welcome the efforts of the IDA to bring in new industry but I would like to see more effort being put into keeping the industries we already have. We are doing nothing to rescue industries which are going through a bad time.
I want to refer to the industry in Cobh, the Verolme dockyard, which has such a large employment content. What is the reason for all the shilly-shallying about the two naval vessels? Why are they not on the stocks? When the people opposite were on this side of the House they succeeded in bringing the whole work-force concerned on to the streets of Cork city. The Minister for Labour should impress on his colleagues the urgent need for putting those ships on the stocks. This would convince the work force that the Government are interested and that the ships will be built. We are waiting also for a B & I boat and for an ICL vessel. In this regard there have been many promises but not any action.
There is chaos, too, in the fishing industry. I have no desire to talk about the manifesto, but there was much emphasis in that document on a 50-mile limit. Would the Government reiterate that such a limit is needed badly in the light of such factors as the size of overseas vessels, the types of nets involved and because of the numerical strength of these vessels? A 50-mile limit is imperative if we are to save our fisheries. We are not being either parochial or insular in this instance. We are talking about saving an industry that has supplied herrings to the fishermen of Europe in the past. We have the breeding grounds for the herring, and if we are not to be allowed protect those breeding grounds nobody else will do the work for us. These other peoples are totally ruthless and irresponsible. The only way we can cope with the situation is by pushing them outside a 50-mile limit. Our fishermen would not have any effect on these stocks if they were to fish them up to the year 3000. Apart from our not having the vessels, we have not the will. We were always a cautious and responsible people.
When we talk about fisheries we are including the salmon fishermen, to whom all sorts of promises were made in 1977. I appeal to the Government to allow the salmon fishermen a full season and to give them some latitude with regard to nets, to allow them the 45 mesh net. If we do this we will find that we will have their co-operation.
Another aspect that is regrettable is that our fishermen are in conflict with the Navy. That situation could be resolved by allowing the salmon fishermen a full season and by giving them some latitude in regard to nets. If we do this we can rest assured that the Blackwater as well as the other rivers will be stocked with salmon.
My main responsibility is in the area of tourism. We should be doing everything possible to help this very valuable industry. It is an industry that has grown from a second-rate and neglected source of revenue to an industry in its own right involving revenue in the region of £400 million. It is an industry that is 99 per cent Irish owned and controlled but it is beset by many problems. These include very high inflation rates, the Northern Ireland troubles and the high costs that prevail here. In addition, the industry is confronted with a new problem, that is, strong overseas competition. I have not been a prophet of doom so far as this industry is concerned but the forecasts are not good. There are many cancellations with the consequent empty hotel rooms.
I should like to compliment Bord Fáilte for fighting so hard not only this year but last year also. They realise that their accountability is to the nation, that their shareholders are the taxpayers of Ireland and they are endeavouring to do the best job possible. However, if we could recognise the problems in regard to tourism we would have won half the battle. In the past we had few problems so far as this industry was concerned. We were known as Ireland of the welcomes, a country made up of friendly people, but while some of us at any rate may still be friendly, our country is not any longer considered to be the place to come to for holidays because word has got around about the high cost of such items as petrol, cigarettes and drink here.
Another factor that is militating against us is the savage competition among the various countries for tourists. Countries which up to now have not been involved in the tourist sphere, for example, Yugoslavia and Greece and even the United States, are competing very hard for tourists. The US are launching a massive campaign that might be regarded as being less than fair. For instance, there are advertisements for two weeks holidays in Miami for £300 but when people go there they find that the two weeks are spent in sizzling temperatures, an aspect that is not referred to in the advertisements.
Our inflation rate is higher than is the corresponding rate in any of the other countries with whom we are competing for tourists. The Government's fiscal policy and their budgetary decisions are a direct blow to the tourist industry.
Apart from these considerations, there is the all-embracing factor of transport, both access transport and transport within the country. In the area of access transport the various bodies involved, Bord Fáilte, Aer Lingus, CIE and the B & I face a dilemma. The carriers are obliged to pay their way and, consequently, they give priority to commercial rather than to tourist interests. Carriers are inclined to rationalise at times of recession but this is a time when they should co-operate with Bord Fáilte in order to help the board. At the end of the day the carriers would be the beneficiaries. At this time, too, there is need for much courage on the part of the carriers. We are asking that the Government underwrite the carriers' risk. That is a fairly minimal requirement, but it is one that must be implemented.
There is a clear-cut case for the Government to offer petrol subsidies to tourists. It has been pointed out to me that overseas visitors rightly resent paying this penal tax to another State. Car hire firms are at a serious disadvantage vis-à-vis their UK and USA counterparts because car hire is 50 per cent more expensive here than in those other countries. This is due to the high cost of motoring here which results from the savage import tax on cars as well as to the 15 per cent VAT on car hire turnover. Obviously, the removal of that 15 per cent would help the car hire firms to a large extent.
All the factors I have mentioned add up to more costly holidays for those who decide to come here. If the hotel and guest house industry is to survive and prosper the Government must begin treating it as an industry and not merely as a reliable source of revenue. In order to encourage hoteliers to improve their standards finance must be made available to them from the ICC at preferential rates of 12 per cent as is the case in respect of industry and of a 10 per cent top rate of profit tax.
Yesterday the Minister for Industry, Commerce and Tourism talked about cheap money for industry. This money has been there all the time, and it is to be welcomed, but in this context the Minister stopped short of tourism. He should go further and extend this facility to hotels and guesthouse owners for development work. Such development is necessary in the interest of encouraging tourists to come here. Because so many tourists nowadays do not wish to become involved in the high cost activity of travelling around the country once they have reached here, every effort should be made to help hoteliers and guesthouse owners to provide such facilities as tennis courts and so on. But some action in this regard should be taken now. There will not be any point in talking about the industry when the House resumes in the autumn. By then the 1980 tourist season will be history. Now is the time to make cheap money available for the development of the sort of facilities I am talking of.
Other action that the Minister, in conjunction with the Minister for Finance, should take now is to remove VAT from food consumed in hotels and to remove the VAT that applies to farm guesthouses the owners of which are operating on very low margins. Then hoteliers would see that the Government were serious about helping them and they would be able to hold their prices. There is no doubt we are pricing ourselves out of the game. Many hoteliers are trying to exist on bank loans at high interest rates and they are unable to pay back their loans.
When talking about pollution I said that an important factor is the general appearance of the place, and we have been falling down badly. Our roads are a disgrace. The potholes have begun to make an appearance even in the streets of our towns and cities and it is not unusual now to find trenches all over the place. Our roads must be put in order and our hedgerows will have to be trimmed. In the Cork City Hall we have the audacity to put up a notice warning people about the penalties for not getting rid of noxious weeds but anyone driving along our hedgerows will see buachallans, docks, thistles and all other sort of weeds flourishing and the first south western wind that comes along takes the seeds away all over the countryside.
In the interests of tourism we must let visitors see that the country is still inhabited, that we have not deserted it. We must improve our roads, trim our hedges, clean up our beaches and provide picnic areas with proper facilities.
It has been forecast that tourism will be the world's greatest industry by the year 2000 and therefore the long-term future of the industry here should be a matter of prime concern for all involved. VAT should be removed from all hotel meals. At present it adds 10 per cent to hotel meals. VAT should be removed completely from the farm guesthouse operation. It should be removed from car hire turnover on which it is now standing at 15 per cent. Loans at preferential rates should be offered to all hotels and guesthouses, a rate similar to the ICC rate for industry — 12 per cent.
Tourism merits a special Ministry, not just tagged on as an afterthought to any old Department. It received only scant attention when the Minister was presenting his Estimate last week. A full Department of Tourism would mean proper financing for the industry and a recognition of its importance.
Every section of the industry and everything relating to the industry must receive detailed attention. Applications for grants and loans must be dealt with promptly. Finance must be made available to encourage young farmers and house owners to provide tourist accommodation of the highest standard.
I now call for a nationwide clean-up of the countryside. With regard to this we must surely be the dirtiest nation in Europe. Everywhere you look you see the results of the litter louts. Even local authority dumps leave a lot to be desired. Our rivers and streams must be cleaned up not merely of visible debris but pollution-free as well. Our beautiful lakes and estuaries merit special attention. Here I must make an urgent appeal to save our harbours. Where in the world will you find a more beautiful amenity than Cork Harbour, a source of joy not merely for overseas tourists but for the many thousands who live in the area? We must oppose with vigour the reckless proposals by the Cork County Council to dump raw sewage into the most beautiful area of East Ferry. A "Save the Cork Harbour Campaign" must be initiated and supported by everybody in the harbour area.
In any future engineering programme involving sewage the terms of reference must be clearly stated to the engineers concerned: all municipal effluent and industrial effluent must be treated. Our tourists coming to the coast for recreation will demand clean estuaries, high environmental qualities on beaches, dunes and coastal waters.
With regard to our roads we have reached a crisis situation, with potholes spreading like a disease, infecting city streets and quiet country roads. Public transport is grinding to a halt in Dublin and Cork. In other parts of the country it is practically non-existent. A road closure in one street can halt the traffic in the entire city. We have never had a properly integrated transportation policy. Nationally, the road improvement programme is carried out, where at all, on a hit and miss basis. Any future transportation policy must take into account the role of public transport within our cities and between them, otherwise we will have continuing chaos and a declining environment.
Our major tourist attractions are our castles, churches, round towers, fine old buildings, dolmens and other ancient ruins. What would the Americans not give for a Wood Quay or Cloyne Cathedral with its round tower, when their own history starts out with skyscrapers and suspension bridges. Many of these historic buildings are now in danger. They are urgently in need of being restored and in many cases made safe. This would be money well spent. These buildings indicate an ancient culture unequalled anywhere in the world. Ireland was really once an island of saints and scholars and we have the proof in stone and scroll.
If tourism is to flourish in the future we must endeavour to end once and for all industrial unrest. We as a nation cannot afford it. We have a clear example in the UK of the results of industrial chaos. Tourism is a major industry with a huge employment content. This figure could be doubled with effort, given good will all round. The Government must work towards full industrial peace. Bord Fáilte have certainly done their job in promoting "Ireland of the Welcomes, a happy friendly people". Let us all endeavour to do justice to this reputation.
As a Christian people violence should have no place here. The Mountbatten murders and other atrocities have done untold damage to our tourist industry and to our image abroad.
Credit is due to our many towns who sponsor festivals each year. In Cobh we have our international Folk Dance Festival which is responsible for bringing many overseas groups of dancers each year and thousands of tourists to the town. Every help must be given to the promoters of these events who rely largely on voluntary subscriptions. Substantial grants must be made available. At present they qualify for little or no aid.
Because of a worsening energy situation the likelihood of a changing pattern of tourism is inevitable. In future our visitors will be inclined to settle in at one venue for a few weeks and hence we will have a demand for a wide range of amenities to keep them happy. As I have already stated, no one hotel or guesthouse has sufficient finance for this work, hence the necessity for proper amenities expecially at our tourist resorts. Many of the tourists I have met indicated our lack of boating facilities expecially on our seaboard. There is a demand for proper slipways and boat rental facilities at all our resorts, especially popular among European visitors. Sailing is now a major Eurosport and we must cater for it.
I have dealt with some of the problems as I gleaned them from people involved in the industry and from tourists. I welcome all suggestions for the betterment of tourism and in my capacity as Fine Gael spokesman will forward its cause to the best of my ability.
We in this country in common with the other western parliamentary democracies have been overtaken by economic events in a way that was completely unforeseeable a few years ago. We now face the resulting crisis and have not a choice but to face it in the same manner as our fellow states in the western world. We must exercise restraint, there must be moderation in demands throughout the whole spectrum of economic activity in regard to wages, salaries, profits, rents. Metaphorically we have to tighten our belts as a nation. It is not just the Irish nation that must do so. The strong industrialised nations of the world are engaged in a similar exercise.
The seven strongest met in Venice last week, Japan, Germany, France, Italy, Britain, Canada and the US. It is quite clear from the statements issued by them following that meeting that we are in for a very difficult economic situation. Briefly there is a background to this which is raising a mammoth problem for the world as a whole, not just the western democracies but for the developing world which is struggling to make its way. In the past year alone there has been an increase of 135 per cent in oil prices. This resulted in an income loss by OECD countries — western countries and North American countries—of about 150 billion US dollars, or 2 per cent of the GNP of the OECD as a whole. Those 150 billion dollars have been transferred from the OECD world, or the developed world, to the OPEC countries specifically and have not been fully recycled into the mainstream of financial institutions throughout the world that cater for development and expansion particularly in the Third World.
The real sufferers of this are not so much the nations in the developed world but rather those nations in the developing world, the nations in the Third World, that do not have oil or other energy resources. These are the new deprived in this situation. Of course the increase in oil costs has also limited the capacity of the developed world to transfer resources to the undeveloped, Third World, that does not have oil or other energy resources. This comes at a time after a very enlightened report on the whole North/South problem issued by a Commission under the chairmanship of Will Brandt, in which he emphasised and underlined the urgent necessity of removing the growing disparities between the developed and the developing world. Just when this report, with its very thorough analysis is presented and the apparent situation that it can be met only by a massive transfer of funds from the developed to the developing world, the developed world itself is hit by countries in the developing world who have oil resources and who have decided to hike the prices to the extent I have mentioned, when the main sufferers are their own friends and neighbours in the Third World.
Unfortunately that is the realistic situation in which the world finds itself at present, in which we must play our part within our nation to grapple with the problem.
I wonder will we sell our oil at cut prices.
The fact of the matter is that we have got to find from our own resources the wherewithal to pay for the oil we need for our essential requirements. That is the situation in a nutshell. If we decide to compensate ourselves by wage, profit and rent increases, to compensate ourselves for increased oil prices, then we are really on a mad gallop towards hyper-inflation in a very serious manner. This applies when one considers that the wealthy or industrialised nations, such as Germany, the USA and the Netherlands, are in the course of concluding wage agreements with their trade unions that discount oil price increases. When the most advanced industrialised countries in the world are adopting that sort of attitude in a spirit of co-operation between the social partners and the governments of those countries then surely it would be suicidal for us, as one of the weaker economies in the developed world, to follow a course that would widen still further the gap between the better-off countries and ourselves within the developed world. It is quite clear that we must face up to this fundamental situation obtaining at present: that if there are to be wage and salary increases, increases across the board in the other areas I have mentioned, and price increases, all increases must not take into account oil increases. Otherwise we would be into a situation in which we take on a recipe for disaster.
The Taoiseach pointed out yesterday the fundamental truth linked with what I am talking about, that is, that we are an open trading economy. In percentage terms we do a higher proportion of trading than any other country within the Community in relation to our GNP. In that situation we cannot in any way provoke cost increases that interfere with our export competitiveness. Of course within a democracy this calls for considerable, concerted and co-operative effort from all sectors of the community, and that includes the Opposition parties in this matter as well, who should address themselves to the serious problems affecting our economy rather than engaging in some of the verbosity we have witnessed here over the past two days. At a time when the world economy is in recession it is unavoidable that we in Ireland cannot escape these effects. We can of course minimise their effects but we cannot escape them. The challenge with us is to minimise the effects. It lies within our own resources and competence to do so by having a rational and controlled attitude in regard to spending and in regard to increases at every level in coming months. We just cannot maintain a satisfactory standard of living without having a close relationship with other countries. Our imports amount to over 58 per cent of our gross domestic product while our exports amount to over 46 per cent of our gross domestic product.
These facts alone demonstrate that we are bound to be affected adversely by unfavourable economic developments elsewhere. Having said that, it would be wrong to adopt a fatalistic approach because much groundwork has been laid in the past three years to build up the economy so that it is now in a position — provided we adopt the necessary measures of discipline — to withstand the buffeting which inevitably lies ahead. That is why I want to emphasise the very real progress that has been made to establish an economic base that can survive the storms ahead provided we, as a nation, and as individuals, take the necessary choices and make the necessary decisions to batten down the hatches and ensure that discipline obtains at every level, particularly at the level of wage increases.
We have had in recent years remarkable progress in regard to our industrial exports. Last year alone they increased in value by 24.5 per cent and in volume by 13.5 per cent. OECD figures show that in volume terms total Irish exports increased at twice the rate of the overall figure for all OECD countries in 1978. In 1979 total Irish exports were also above the OECD overall rate. The development of these exports is all the more vital to our economy now in times of difficulty. We all have a part to play in bringing about export expansion. But reverting to the central point, we need to be competitive if we are to export. Through the development of our industrial base we have now become a trading country in the most positive meaning of that word. That means that cost-competitiveness is vital to maintaining the export position of a trading nation.
Our standard of living depends on our capacity to produce competitively and to export competitively. That is the vulnerability of the situation in which we find ourselves by reason of following a policy of full employment, seeking to ensure that as many young people as possible are absorbed in gainful employment. It is quite obvious that the home market could not provide the industrial base on which this employment could be developed. It is quite obvious also that export-orientated industries only could do so. But export-orientated industries are vulnerable in two respects, firstly in regard to oil increases, or other energy price increases and, secondly, in regard to cost-competitiveness at home. Cost competitiveness means a wage and salary structure built into the cost of goods being produced at home. We will not be competitive if we pay ourselves more than the value of what we produce. Neither can we deliver on time and sell at competitive prices if our factories are closed through industrial disputes, another area in which there requires to be the exercise of national will at every level.
The Minister for Labour is at present engaged in talks with the trade union leaders to secure a new national understanding. I would make a particular plea on this occasion that the phrase "national understanding" be understood in its fullest context, in the full content and meaning of those words. What we require today is national understanding of the problem, and a national understanding of the problem at present confronting us leads on to the fundamental conclusion that, unless we moderate our costs and export competitively, we are into an unemployment situation. We cannot maintain the rising level of employment which is planned and forecast by the IDA, who hope to have 30,000 new jobs in the coming year, if we have job dislocation whereby existing jobs go to the wall because of rising costs, immoderate wage demands and weeks lost through industrial stoppages. There is not much point in having a highly expensive job promotion campaign run by the IDA while at the same time older industries are going to the wall and creating unemployment.
I should like to pay tribute to the quality of Irish labour and management in building up our industrial base. I am certain that knowledge of such basic factors as the present world situation, our dependence on moderation at home and our vulnerability to oil price increases, will induce a mood of reasonableness in the approach of both employers and trade unions during the coming discussions on a national agreement.
One factor which will help to stimulate the economy is the guarantee announced yesterday by the Minister for Industry, Commerce and Tourism and the Minister for Agriculture to underpin any risk involved in raising foreign capital for industry and agriculture. That aspect is all important, because it would be fatal in the face of present difficulties to adopt a mood of defeatism. We are not in a situation which requires the monetarist type of approach which has been adopted by the British Government and which is fashionable in the Federal Republic of Germany. Monetarism is not the right type of financial management in our circumstances. Ours is still a developing economy which must face the storms ahead but which requires expansion to cater for an expanding population.
The Government themselves are now in the course of asking senior officials and executives of State-sponsored bodies to accept a policy of moderation, and we must ask for a similar moderation in regard to increases in prices and in profits. At the same time we must continue a policy of controlled expansion so as to ensure that we do not allow deflation to take over from inflation. We have an inflation problem caused by the cost increases I have mentioned, but it would be wrong to lurch forward into a situation of deflation. We must steer the ship with a steady rudder in between the two, and this implies combining methods to control inflation by moderation in increases with the stimulus to the economy which is essential in industry and agriculture.
One of the real difficulties facing industry and agriculture is the rise in the price of money, largely caused by the monetarist policy being pursued by the British Government. Money has become dear but it is available on the European exchange markets, particularly in Germany. One of the main intentions behind the decision taken by the Government last Tuesday and announced yesterday by the two Ministers was to persuade business men and farmers to raise the necessary credit to reflate in areas which can be reflated and to restock businesses which can be expanded and to lead them to where money is available in Europe at cheaper rates than obtain in regard to sterling loans. As far as sterling is concerned, there is both a credit curb and a rise in interest rates, and the combination of these two factors renders money difficult to obtain and, if it is obtained, renders it very difficult to incorporate in the plans of any farmer or business man because the rates of interest range between 18 per cent and 25 per cent.
With money available on the German money market and other money markets within the Community and within the EMS, loans are now freely available, particularly in deutschemarks, at interest rates in the region of 12 or 13 per cent. This amounts to a saving of between 5 and 10 per cent on interest rates currently obtaining in the sterling market. This is a positive attempt by the Government to instill confidence into the business and farming community. We are telling them to go out into the money markets where capital is available, utilise our membership of the EMS to obtain this money and the Government will guarantee them against any costs which may arise by reason of exchange fluctuations. We believe there is very little risk, because we do not anticipate any exchange fluctuations. The fact that the Government guarantee to underpin these loans shows their belief that while there is a very serious economic situation at present it should not deter a small developing country such as Ireland from going ahead with its expansion.
The most practical way in which we can help expansion is by stimulating the people in the private sector in industry and agriculture who wish to expand. It was precisely because progressive people in these two basic areas were being hit very hard by the scarcity of credit and high interest rates that the Government decided to show that we have confidence in them and in the fact that there will not be exchange fluctuations and we are willing through the ICC and the ACC to ensure that low interest loans are freely available from the EMS money markets. There is a way open for people who wish to reinvest and expand. In the last analysis these are the people on whom we depend to get the nation out of its present economic difficulty. We depend on the entrepreneurs within industry and progressive farmers within agriculture who are willing to raise working capital and embark on a programme of expansion and marketing.
Export earnings are essential if we are to maintain our standard of living, and the winning of foreign earnings is essentially a matter for business men and workers. We will give them full backing directly and through the agencies I have mentioned, the Industrial Credit Company and Agricultural Credit Corporation. This move by the Government highlights the importance of our membership of the EMS. Were we not members, this would not have been possible.
The single most important asset we have at present is our young people. It is often said that the population explosion here during the past ten years poses difficulties for us and raises problems. Of course this it so, but we should welcome these difficulties and problems because an expanding population means an expansion of brains, ability and capacity. This means that a community cannot remain static but must move forward and that the creative thinking and imagination of young people is available to a greater degree. Many Opposition speakers and politicians of all parties are running behind public opinion and young people in their thoughts and imagination. I meet young people and they are far more intelligent in their assessment of the current economic and political situation than many people here imagine. They are aware of the difficulties caused by the oil crisis and of the fact that we are a small trading nation in a large world and must take our place in that world and meet the winds and storms it generates. They are aware that the Government, no matter from what party or group of parties it is drawn, can do little more except manage. It is the effectiveness of the management of the State we will be judged on.
Damage I would call it.
No intelligent person will blame the Government because this difficulty and that difficulty beset us. Young people fully appreciate that difficulties are there and will always be there. The test I am willing to submit this Government to when the next general election comes around is, how did we manage in times of difficulty?
How did they manage?
It is easy to manage with a fair wind behind one. It is easy to manage when the tides are rising. It is difficult to manage when the storms are about and the sea is raging.
Jump.
As long as we are judged on managing the ship of State through stormy seas over the next 15 months or two years I will be quite happy to abide by the intelligent judgment of people.
The Minister is exploring.
At least he has a sense of humour.
Much of the harking back to 1970 which we have heard about in the House in the last few days is sterile as far as young people are concerned. It is a form of incestuous behaviour, the kind one would see in a goldfish bowl. The commentators, our good friends on the press bench, lobby correspondents and ourselves, tend to get into this incestuous dance in a goldfish bowl. The people outside are not interested in the whys and why nots of what happened in 1970. It is irrelevant at present in regard to people's assessment of their position in 1980 and where they will stand in 1984 and 1990. That is what people are concerned about. The 18 year olds who were eight years of age in 1970 are not interested in what went on in the affairs of this House at that time. I have relegated those matters to history and let history judge them. As far as young people are concerned their view is that there is a difficult period facing the country, so get on with the job. They want to hear what we are going to do about it.
As far as we in the Government are concerned we are continuing to fulfil our employment targets. No money will be denied to the IDA in their pursuit of the target of 30,000 jobs. We are concerned to save existing jobs and this is why we are bringin in the currency guarantee arrangements I have mentioned, particularly in the industrial area, to ensure that businessmen can raise the necessary finances to continue with their industrial operations and so maintain employment. We will continue with our positive policies in regard to ensuring that the State finances above all else are properly managed and that the budgetary situation is kept under control even if it means a legitimate curtailment of public expenditure. It is on that basis that we ensure our financial credibility and are enabled to raise the necessary moneys when we require them for capital and expansion programmes and within the ambit of the EMS.
We should avoid at all times doing anything that would undermine the confidence and ideals of young people. It is upon them that we depend as a nation in the future. The kind of language used yesterday by Deputies FitzGerald and Cluskey does not enhance the prestige of the House. As far as Fianna Fáil are concerned our parliamentary behaviour will always be such as can command respect from young people. We certainly do not intend to engage in job filling that disgraced the last days of the Coalition Government of which Deputies FitzGerald and Cluskey were members. There was a situation where defeated Deputies, Deputy Toal and Deputy Esmonde, were launched into jobs in the dying days of the last Government and where the head of the Government Information Services was launched into a controlling position in RTE.
Who did they learn from? Fianna Fáil are the experts.
The Deputy is talking to a former Minister for Justice who was responsible for the appointment of the present President of the High Court who was a Fine Gael Deputy——
(Interruptions)
The Minister without interruption.
——and who was responsible for the appointment of the late Deputy FitzGerald to the High Court and subsequently to the Supreme Court, who was the election agent for the now Chief Justice, then Deputy O'Higgins, when he campaigned for the presidency. I am proud of that fact. I am proud that Deputy Herman Good, who also stood for the Labour Party, was appointed by me as a District Justice. The late Sean Lemass and I insisted that during my time as Minister for Justice there should be fairness in relation to judicial appointments and that they should be spread across the board among all political parties.
Deputy FitzGerald with sanctimonious posturing here yesterday ignored the fact that in the dying days of the last Government jobs were handed out right, left and centre. I mentioned defeated Deputies being launched into judicial capacities and the head of GIS being launched into a controlling position in RTE. That is not the politics we stand for. We regard that kind of politics as reprehensible. It is the kind of politics young people in this country will not wear. They are ahead of us.
That is what happened in Cork.
They want us to get on with the job, behave ourselves properly and not like a group of infants. They are aspiring towards the future. They recognise there are difficulties and want them spelled out. They want the Government to spell out how they are dealing with them and they want to see that there is management of the economy that can sustain their hope for the future and their hope to live and work in Ireland. That is the objective of this Government. We will sustain our aspirations in that manner and do not propose to be obsessed by yesterday's headline. It is not yesterday's headline. It is not yesterday's headline or the arms trial of ten years ago or today's decisions that are important; it is tomorrow's and next year's.
I hope Fine Gael and Labour continue with their present negative policies and attitude. I am trying to help them out of it. In the interests of Ireland I would like to see them raising their sights and thinking idealistically, constructively and responsibly. That is the only way they can secure government of the country from the young people. If they want to sink down into depression and negative thinking, irresponsible contributions, harking back to the past, chasing yesterday's headline and so on, they are welcome to it. I hope they pursue it because as long as they pursue the paths of negative thinking, as sure as night follows day, Fianna Fáil will be the next Government. The Opposition will be committed to what they appear to be, a permanent Opposition except for the occasional four years in every 20 years when the people say: "Perhaps there is something in them and perhaps we should give them a chance".
I realise that an Opposition must oppose, but opposing all the time in a negative way is no contribution to the political upbringing and the political thinking our young people are asking from us in Dáil Éireann. Our young people are looking for leadership and what we can give, above all else, as politicians is leadership. What we in Fianna Fáil propose to continue to give is leadership and, for the sake of Ireland, I would like to see it coming from Labour and Fine Gael. Unfortunately, because of their inadequacies there is a spin-off benefit to Fianna Fáil as a political party. I would rather see a spin-off benefit to Ireland as a whole coming from positive thinking and positive leadership from the Fine Gael and Labour parties.
The Minister should read the speeches he made in the Seanad in 1976.
I listened to most of the contributions yesterday and took seriously the content of them but today, to the credit of the Minister for Foreign Affairs, a sense of humour has been introduced into what is a serious debate. It is a pity. I advise the Minister, before it is too late, to take up his true position, that of comedian. There is no doubt, having listened to him, that he is far removed from the reality of the situation that exists today. He is as far removed from reality as was the now redundant Minister, Deputy O'Donoghue, when he tried to convince our people that we would have full employment by 1982. On that occasion I told Deputy O'Donoghue that he should go to the people who are qualified to prescribe treatment for such a mentality. I advise the Minister for Foreign Affairs, who has a very responsible position in the Government, to become a little more serious. The nation demands, and deserves, serious and genuine politicians occupying high office.
I intend to assess the Government on what they have done to date and to refer to the promises made in 1977. There is no doubt that in that year Fianna Fáil worked the greatest con trick on the nation and they did that very well. They obtained such an unprecedented mandate that they could afford to have a Cabinet meeting while a vote was taking place in this House and win that division. I accuse the Government of seriously damaging our economy to such an extent that it will take generations to put it straight. Irrespective of what Fianna Fáil claim, they took over a sound economy in 1977. It was not in the condition we would like to have left it but, with a united Government, it could have been built on.
In Opposition Fianna Fáil highlighted the deficiencies of the National Coalition. They continued to remind the people of the shortcomings of some of the members of the Cabinet and took full advantage of the fact that they had no control over certain situations. Those members of the Cabinet were not given the credit they were entitled to. Fianna Fáil kept reminding the public of the increase in inflation. Some of the finest Ministers that ever graced this House lost their seats because of continuous Fianna Fáil barraging. Fianna Fáil told the people that they should put out the National Coalition and give them the responsibility because they would be able to control prices. They promised cloud cuckoo-land, full employment and the increase in the cost of living kept to 5 per cent. They told school leavers that they could look to the future with confidence in the knowledge that they would not have to join the unemployment queues.
What is the record of the Government? Forecasts for 1980 are that inflation will be in excess of 20 per cent and there is no visible sign of that figure decreasing. Where will it end? The Central Bank, and the ESRI, have forecast that personal consumption will fall by between 1 and 2 per cent this year. The Minister should not leave the Chamber; he is the person who asked for a tightening of belts. He made a plea to tighten our belts but to what? Should we tighten our belts to a forecast of a drop of between 1 and 2 per cent? That means a drop in the standard of living, and that is a rare occurrence. The Minister has removed himself to the luxury of the dining room or, possibly, of the bar, which he is entitled to do, to order——
That is not nice.
The Deputy should continue through the Chair and in third person. Where the Minister goes after leaving the Chamber does not arise.
I am trying to tell the Minister, and the Government, that they assess the economic situation of the country from the restaurant in Dáil Éireann, not from where they should be assessing it. They should be assessing it from where their mismanagement is felt more, with the proletariats and those down the country. The increase granted to old age pensioners a few weeks ago has been completely eroded because of inflation caused by the mismanagement of the Government who promised so much if they were put into power. We have a very intelligent young electorate and in the next general election the people who were elected here in such unprecedented numbers will get their answer from those young people who are suffering because they have no jobs and no prospect of getting jobs. Deputy Colley, when Minister for Finance, announced that these young school leavers would qualify for unemployment assistance, but they never got it. That is the situation as I see it. These are the realities. Thousands of young people are looking for unemployment benefit because they did not get the jobs they were promised. But they are not getting the benefit either.
On the unemployment front the situation is frightening. There are now 94,000 people unemployed. The CII have said that unemployment is increasing at the rate of 1,000 a week. Redundancies are now running at twice the rate of last year. The forecast for this year is that 100,000 will be unemployed when only a few short months ago the Minister at the time, Deputy O'Donoghue, told us that by 1982 we would have full employment. That is the economic picture. Inflation is running at 20 per cent, 100,000 are unemployed and there are cuts in the standard of living. The only response of the Government is to cut back on both current and capital expenditure. Nothing is going to the local authorities for spending. There has even been a substantial cutback in environmental schemes. The same is true in relation to the hospital capital programmes. If local authorities do not get more finance there simply will be no money to pay the salaries of their employees.
Recently Labour introduced a Bill to reduce and control the price of land required for urban and industrial development, because the country cannot afford to continue to pay artificially inflated prices for lands required for housing, industries and social facilities. It was envisaged that this Bill, if accepted, would reduce the price of houses for young couples by as much as £3,000. That was the reason for the Bill. But we, as a party, were also conscious of the impact and influence of the spongers. The speculators, of course, are with Fianna Fáil. In those circumstances this party fully realised that the odds were stacked against the Bill. The Bill was rejected and only the Labour Party moved to the lobby to vote in favour of it. Again, because of the policies pursued by the Government——
Fine Gael pursued the same policy on that occasion. They did not support Labour.
I said only the Labour Deputies moved to the lobby. That should be clear enough for anybody to interpret. That is what I meant. That Bill was defeated. Who are the sufferers? The youth of our nation will suffer, the young boys and girls contemplating matrimony and building their own homes. They are crucified and sacrificed for the benefit of the wealthy 5 per cent here. In Limerick city alone there is a waiting list for local authority houses of about 900 to 1,200. It is poor consolation to the young families that the Government have no money to provide them with the basic need of any family, a house of their own. It is morally and socially unjust that young families should be condemned to live in appalling conditions because the Government have reneged on their responsibilities. Because of the policy pursued by the Government local authorities are in a very serious position. There is no money to maintain the existing services, let alone expand on them. There has been a cut-back in the very essential services in the urban areas because of the inadequate allocation of moneys. Financial restrictions are placed on city managers. There is no money for repairing and maintaining local authority houses. Finance is not available to purchase materials for that very important work. Consequently the houses are allowed to deteriorate, losing their value and causing great frustration and annoyance to the tenants. Operators who are out of work ill are not replaced. This is depleting the staff.
That is the style of the Minister in charge of the economy. One of the greatest national assets is the housing stock and here we have a Minister not prepared to live up to his responsibility of having proper standards and efficiency in housing. The same Minister recently introduced a revised differential rent scheme whereby the tenants of corporation houses had to meet increases of 500 and 600 per cent in their rents.
Debate adjourned.