I was speaking yesterday about the 125,000 people on the unemployed register. We can add to that 10,000 people who are on short-time. Within the next few months there will be another 40,000 school leavers. As far as the unemployment figure is concerned it will get a lot worse before it gets better. The magical figure of 150,000, which has never been surpassed, is likely to be surpassed under this Government. Listening to the Minister for Finance introducing the budget I wondered if we were doing the right thing as far as unemployment is concerned. We are in a recession and foreign industrialists who had been induced to come here are leaving because of that. What we should endeavour to do is look at our natural resources as far as fisheries, forestry and tourism are concerned.
It is hard to realise how much the tourist industry is suffering under the present Government. Last year was probably the worst year it had. Before 1980 the forecasts were that it would have its best year. At the end of 1980 all the tourist experts admitted that it was one of the worst years the industry had experienced. During the week Bord Fáilte estimated that in 1981 the industry would show a growth rate of 8 per cent and they said that tourists would come from Great Britain. They mentioned the fact that the £IR is worth 74p against sterling and that this should induce English tourists to come here. The troubles more than anything else have probably hindered English tourists from coming to Ireland.
It is now 18 months since Lord Mount-batten was murdered, an event many English people have not forgotten even now. I would be very wary that we could increase our tourist revenue from Great Britain. I hope Bord Fáilte are right in their estimations but I doubt them particularly as we are basing everything on the devaluation of the punt. I was very disappointed that the Minister for Finance did not give some type of incentive to the tourist industry. In the past two years hoteliers and guesthouse owners have been seeking some new ideas by way of inducing more people to come here on holiday. What have we seen? Petrol has been increased recently by 15p a gallon, as has the price of cigarettes and drink in the recent budget. This in no way helps an ailing tourist industry.
I hope, when I am speaking this time next year, I will have been proved wrong but I am afraid our tourist industry is in for another very severe year as far as numbers are concerned. Last year the figures were down not only for English tourists. Americans did not come in such great numbers and neither did the Germans or Scandinavians. The message being brought home to people in the tourist industry is that we are gradually pricing ourselves out of the market. Anybody travelling abroad visiting countries like Germany, France and Scandinavia — noted to be expensive tourist countries — will have noticed that a lot of their commodities are cheaper than ours at present. I know people contend that the devaluation of the punt is really against sterling and not against the other EMS currencies. Can anybody explain to me why it should be that when one changes £100 in sterling or £100 in Irish money one still gets 30 per cent less for one`s money regardless of the currency one is changing one's money into. Surely the proof of devaluation is the amount one gets for one's £100.
In regard to the EEC I wonder sometimes have we, as a nation, gone completely mad. The EEC are able to tell us that we cannot put import duties on goods coming in here. Import levies are gradually being reduced which means an awful lot of goods are imported completely free of duty, most from Great Britain, but some quantity from other continental countries. In border counties this is particularly noticeable in that one sees so many of our traditional — and I emphasise the word "traditional"— industries now in trouble. For example, there is the footwear industry, textiles and bakeries in respect of which one sees bread coming in from Northern Ireland. It is unbelievable that in an agricultural country like this 25 per cent of the eggs consumed in Southern Ireland are imported or dumped here from Northern Ireland. We have also concrete products and electrical goods being imported from Northern Ireland. We must ask how many cars are manufactured in this country. The position is that practically all of the cars sold here are imported ready-made. What about frozen foods? Ninety-eight per cent of the entire consumption of frozen fish here is imported from other countries. For instance, it is incredible that most of the chickens eaten here are imported also. If one looks along supermarket shelves one sees large quantities of English, Scottish and continental biscuits competing with brands like Jacobs and Bolands.
One only has to go into any large supermarket today to see the amount of goods being imported. Of course the supermarket bosses themselves are largely to blame because they are not really promoting Irish commodities. They are interested only in getting goods at the cheapest possible price regardless of the consequences for the economy. I ask myself: have we really gone mad in that we are not endeavouring to impose some kind of levy on such imported goods? Certainly this is affecting our employment prospects and some part of the 125,000 people at present unemployed have been hit directly by such imports. Sixty per cent of the goods we use or food we eat is at present imported. And it is not sufficient merely to ask our people to buy more Irish. It is up to our Ministers when they go to Brussels not to allow this free market situation to obtain, allowing the larger countries to use Ireland as a dumping ground, as they are doing in regard to chickens and eggs at present.
Let me emphasise this point by elaborating somewhat on the egg situation in Northern Ireland. At present 25 per cent of the eggs consumed in Southern Ireland are imported from Northern Ireland even though the punt is worth only 74p against sterling which means that already they are trading at a 26 per cent disadvantage. Were it not for that fact every egg farm in Southern Ireland would be bankrupt today. If one traces the history of this industry one sees that in Northern Ireland egg producers receive grants for their sheds and machinery which the Southern Ireland producer does not. Up to very recently the same industry in Northern Ireland also received a subsidy on their meal which meant that the meal fed to their stock was at a cheaper rate than that at which the Southern producer could purchase his. The Northern Ireland producer used to export the bulk of his eggs to England. In the last two years there have been large markets available, particularly in the Middle East, when the English have at times, quoted a price to supply that market. Any time that English egg producers could not avail of the Southern Arabian market there was a glut on their own market which, in turn, meant that Northern Ireland producers could not supply the English market. Therefore those Northern Ireland producers dumped their surpluses down here leading to the erosion of our market. That has been allowed to continue. I see the Minister of State at the Department of Agriculture sitting opposite, I would draw his attention to this very unfair competition. I am trying to highlight one point only. This practice should not have been allowed to continue. It is ludicrous that one in every four eggs consumed in this country at present is imported. Indeed one could easily name 250 articles in respect of which jobs are being affected here. It is high time that our Ministers stood up to their EEC counterparts, stating that they will not allow this practice to continue because it is affecting our job situation and economy generally.
As far as manufacturing is concerned, I do not have to tell the House that every other country in Europe is working on lower overheads in relation to diesel, fuel oil and petrol. I do not have to tell the House that we have the most expensive telephone and postage stamp set-up in Europe. We are paying more for insurance contributions than any other European country. We are gradually pricing ourselves out of business. I can see no sense in allowing those goods to come into our country. The result is that factories are closing. Factories, like Hanson in Sligo, which were welcomed with a fanfare and were expected to give employment not only to the people in the immediate area but to people from three or four counties, are on short time and near to bankruptcy. GT Carpets had to close because of the cheaper carpets coming from the North. I could name at least 16 factories in my own constituency.
But we have natural resources that are not being used. In regard to forestry we are exporting timber at £1 per ton to the Swedes because we have not got the processing plants here to process it. We are offering £125 an acre to private forestry to encourage them to grow more trees.
We have to do something far more radical. Last year the Minister did not even reach his planting target of 25,000 acres and that is the minimum target that any Minister should be interested in replanting. He tells us that there is yet another plan. Every day we hear about plans but we are not seeing any action. The latest is that there is a new plan whereby the EEC will give pound for pound to develop another 50,000 acres in the underdeveloped areas over a ten-year period. It is high time that the State itself started to look at the forestry industry and, as private industrialists do not seem to be making a go of the State forests, the State should decide to plant, thin out and set up large saw milling enterprises and processing of timber and market it here. The forestry is the most neglected industry we have here and it is an industry where we could probably give work to 10,000 more people.
This budget has proved that we have borrowed to spend. Some day I would like to see a Minister borrowing to invest in national resources, to make use of all these wonderful resources that we have, to secure full employment based on something long term. The three most long term things in Ireland at present are forestry, fisheries and tourism. The Government should give the other industrialists that come in here from abroad the right incentives by making sure that our products are at the right price and putting a stop to all these terrible imports coming in from other countries that are so damaging to our economy.
