When I moved the adjournment I was speaking on aspects of the budget which showed that it was a caring one. There are increases for recipients of social welfare, the provision of medical cards for the elderly, and the discrimination against single people in regard to local authority loans was removed. The very important provision of £3,000 mortgage subsidy has been restored.
Agriculture is our single most important industry and, as a rural Deputy, I will never be satisfied that any Minister for Agriculture is doing enough for the industry. I welcome the fact that the 5 per cent cut in the grant under the farm modernisation scheme has been made good. Grants for mobile equipment have been restored to the pre-September 1981 level. I was concerned at a provision brought in by the previous Minister for Agriculture where cattle and sheep numbers were combined in assessing the number of livestock eligible for grant under the headage scheme. I am glad that this has been done away with.
I hope a further review will be carried out on the severely handicapped areas within the disadvantaged areas. My neighbouring county, Mayo, is totally included for increased headage grants but only a small proportion of County Galway is included for the higher rate payment. Reviews have taken place in the past but very few areas of County Galway have been added and I hope the whole county, like Mayo and Leitrim, will be included for payment under the severely handicapped areas.
It is regrettable that the farming community are not getting a fair deal from Britain in that farm prices have not been implemented. It is unfair and unjust that the debate on the British contribution to the EEC is holding up this scheme. An estimate in today's paper puts the loss for farmers at £50 million for the delay to date. Farmers are losing up to £½ million a day with the delay in implementing farm prices. I hope that this lost money — it is indeed lost money to the farming sector — will be made good to them, especially to the farmers in severe financial difficulties. That money should be put into a fund to help farmers who have suffered because of this delay in the agricultural price review. I suppose it can be said also that there was some discrimination against farmers who got approval to do work under the farm modernisation scheme with a reduced grant because this 5 per cent reduction in grants that I spoke of was brought in last September and, obviously, some farmers got approval at a lower rate of grant. I ask the Minister for Agriculture to look at some way of helping any farmer who was unfortunate enough to be approved for work at the lower rate of grant because now we know that the grant is back to its pre-September 1981 level and in all fairness that rate of grant should be applicable to all farmers who were approved from last September.
The one proposal in the budget which seemed to gain unanimous approval amongst what I might call the book public was the decision to take VAT entirely from books. The book public embraces quite a number of people, and one can imagine all the people who are involved in the book industry. I suppose the most important of all would be students, school children and their parents. The decision to remove VAT was very welcome because all through the years the argument has been that VAT on books was a tax on knowledge.
A very good case was made for its removal by the Booksellers' Association of Ireland. In their submission they spoke not only of the tax on knowledge which VAT was but they were very concerned — as I am sure all of us are — at the number of closures of bookshops that took place and the resultant unemployment in the book industry. As a member of the County Galway Libraries' Committee I was concerned that every year it was costing more and more money to stock our libraries. Not only had we the VAT imposition, but as most of our books are bought from Britain we also had to pay extra on account of the exchange rate of sterling. At least now we can do something about VAT, whatever about the exchange rate. The immediate removal of VAT means that a book which cost £5 will be reduced to £4.30. It is amazing to think that a book would be cheaper in this day and age when generally the cost of living is increasing. The decision to take VAT off books was welcomed by teacher organisations, writers, journalists, publishers and printers particularly, librarians and the general book-reading public. I am sure that parents who have children doing examinations this year and in future years — as we are all aware, children doing examinations seem to have a large number of books to study — will be very happy at this news.
I would like to speak for a few moments about the financing of local authorities. One aspect of the budget which did not get much publicity but about which the Minister for Finance tried to do something concerned putting a limit on the statutory demands placed on local authorities. By that I mean that he has tried to do something about the fact that it has been taken for granted up to now that Central Government decide that a certain scheme is to be implemented and that automatically the local authority will be able to administer that scheme. In the light of the various schemes which our local authorities are implementing we must question that assumption. Local authorities at present have quite a large number of services to administer and run. I mention briefly housing, roads, water and sewerage, planning, various amenities to be provided, contributions to agriculture, health and social welfare and even responsibility for the cost of courthouses, higher education grants levy, coroners' inquests and slaughterhouses. They have such varying responsibilities that it is unreasonable to expect that they will administer all these schemes and look after all that is requested of them. For that reason I am glad that the Minister for Finance saw fit in the budget to put an 18 per cent limit on some of these demands.
Up to now it seems that, for example, a demand is presented to the local authority from the OPW for arterial drainage and that demand could be up to 45 per cent. If a rate increase is allowed to the local authority of 15 per cent that is like giving somebody £15 and asking that person to do £45 worth of work. We are all aware that that just could not be done. I question why so many demands are made on the local authorities and I hope that this is the first step towards doing something about these demands. When the Bill for supplementary welfare was going through this House we were told that 60 per cent of the financing would be by the Government and 40 per cent by the local authority. These demands have accumulated over the years to such an extent that Galway County Council are in great difficulty in having to pay over £0.5 million to the Western Health Board. The same is true in regard to the OPW and because of statutory provisions we have no opportunity even to negotiate or discuss these demands.
ACOT was set up with a resultant further demand on the local authority. I point out here in the House that the local authority have no input into ACOT. The same is true regarding the vocational educational demands. There is no room for negotiation there either. However, one of the most unfair demands on the local authority at present is the administration of the higher education grants. The former Minister increased the grants and we are all glad that he did so last year in time for their operation in the new university year. Perhaps he did not realise when increasing the grants that he was putting local authorities into financial trouble because they had to stay in an overdraft situation for over a year. The grants were paid by the councils and repayments came quickly from the Department for the first instalment but the councils did not recoup the second instalment for a year. That situation cannot be allowed to continue and more satisfactory arrangements must be made.
County Councillors are entitled to more recognition for their work than a travelling allowance for attendance at local authority meetings. It is not necessary for me to make a case for them since they have now formed a federation and have met various Ministers in an attempt to get some assistance in their difficult work. They are seeking either a postage allowance or a number of so-called "free" envelopes and some tax allowance in recognition of their work.
The Minister for the Environment has been generous to a number of local authorities. The members of my own local authority will be meeting him shortly and I hope he will be as generous to them as he has been to others.
I wish to draw attention to the inequitable system which operates in relation to the maintenance of courthouses. Local authorities are responsible for this work but when fines are collected they do not go into the coffers of the local authorities but to central Government. This is one area where extra finance could be made available to local authorities.
A number of Deputies have criticised Fianna Fáil for doing away with what they called "tax credits". They do not refer any more to the proposed payment of £9.60 to housewives working at home. I feel sure the majority on this side of the House consider that this scheme was hastily devised and served only to deceive housewives. I have always felt that there should be recognition of the work of full-time housewives and this might be done through the child allowance rather than through an administratively difficult scheme. I welcome the Minister's announcement in regard to family income supplement and his decision to give a double week's payment in September and December for the child dependants of weekly welfare recipients. That is a far more practical way of making a direct payment to housewives.
The problem of unemployment and the need to create more jobs was dealt with by the Minister in his budget speech and by many other speakers. Social welfare abuses were also mentioned and I agree that there is a relationship between the two. However, I cannot accept that social welfare increases are a disincentive to work. I have seen articles about young people not availing of the youth employment scheme but before the budget some young people were being offered only £20 per week on some of these projects. That amount should be increased.
Unemployment is a major problem in the EEC and throughout the world. The latest OECD report gives a projected unemployment figure for 1982 of 28.5 million. We are very good at giving the facts about unemployment while not doing enough to solve the problem.
We must try to attract investment in this country as we have succeeded in doing in the past. I congratulate the Taoiseach on his attempts during his recent visit to the United States when he met business people and put a strong case to them on the need for American investment here. I am also glad that the Minister for Industry and Energy has singled out small industries for special help. In my constituency the operations at Tynagh Mines have now closed down and a large number of skilled adults are seeking employment. I am sure they will be very encouraged by what the Minister has said regarding small industries. I have every sympathy with the IDA in their efforts to attract industry to an area where a factory has failed, because they must ensure that the second enterprise will succeed.
The towns of Loughrea and Ballygar in my constituency have problems in this regard. The Westphalia carpet factory in Loughrea has closed, as has another factory in Ballygar. We must consider the possibility of alternative industry. There is an advance factory in Loughrea and we are hoping a suitable industry can be found.
Amid all the gloom and doom, I am very glad to say that this morning we had a statement from the Minister for Agriculture to say that the future of the sugar factory in Tuam is secured. He met the action committee of the workers this morning and he gave them a commitment to preserve that factory. It employs more than 600 people when in full production. That statement will remove the uncertainty that existed and the cloud that hung over the factory because the previous Government gave it only one year's reprieve. The factory is the major one in the town and it has meant much to the people of Tuam. During the two recent election campaigns I was told on every doorstep of the importance of keeping the factory for the people of Tuam and the surrounding areas. There are more than 600 people unemployed in the town of Tuam and there are 2,500 people unemployed in the greater Tuam area and it would have been catastrophic if the factory were to close.
I do not wish to play politics with this point but it must be said that the previous Government put an embargo on recruitment to the public service. I must be honest and admit that we did not remove that embargo but I understand we are appointing one out of every three vacancies. That is not to say that if there is need in any area of the public service to employ more people we will not do so. When we needed additional teachers the Minister for Education announced that 300 additional teachers would be employed. During the week there were calls from both sides of this House for extra gardaí and I am sure we will agree to provide them if they are needed. The same situation applies with regard to nurses.
I am rather concerned about the letters being sent by the Civil Service Commission to young people looking for employment for the first time. The letters are not satisfactory and do not give an idea of the likely date of appointment. I have here a letter sent to a young man in April 1981 following an interview in November 1980. The post was for executive officer. The letter stated:
You will be called in due course, probably in a few months.
However, in February 1982 he received another letter from the Civil Service Commission stating the following:
It is not possible to say at this stage if a sufficient number of vacancies will arise to enable all those on the panel to be appointed.
That letter was sent many months after the first letter which assured him he would be called in a few months. It is very frustrating for young people to have to wait such a long time before they get definite news regarding appointment. I hope the position will be rectified.
I was glad that the Minister for Health was able to make an additional allocation to the health boards. This has taken some of the strain from them. I was also glad that the Minister for Education has given a commitment to employ an additional 300 teachers. We are told we have the highest pupil-teacher ratio in western Europe and it is only right that we should employ more teachers. Fianna Fáil have restored to parents the right to send their children to school when they are four years if they wish to do so and extra money will be needed in this area. I am glad also that we have a building programme for the schools. The ideal thing would be to replace all prefabricated buildings with the traditional type classrooms and I hope that this can be done. The vocational schools seem to be the cinderella of education. There are too many prefabs in the schools: in fact, many vocational schools have more prefab classrooms than the traditional type classrooms and this makes conditions for teachers and pupils very difficult.
I welcome the decision in the budget to remove VAT from footwear and clothing, which will help the industries in question. We should be in a position to protect our home industries by the imposition of VAT on imports at entry points. Purchasing power will still be maintained. The food subsidies on milk and butter will be of considerable help. The budget will cushion the less well off and it will help the needy and underprivileged.