People have become rather alarmed in the past couple of months. I do not want to amplify that alarm unnecessarily, but even among the most unexpected types of people there has been a kind of feeling that the country's finances are in a serious condition, and that the kind of policies we have been seeing from the Government are not improving matters. I should like to outline what I think the public here may be seeing in the next six months or year or year-and-a-half.
We ourselves, in this party, must appreciate that unpopular measures may have to be taken. It is possible that in the next year or two or three the finances of the State will not be capable of being conducted in an orderly way and that we will be faced with bankruptcy and disaster and revolution if the people are not willing to carry burdens from which politicians heretofore have been anxious to keep them free.
If we were to return here in two or three years, assuming we will still have a free system, I would not mind betting that apart from a great deal of economic hardship which the people will have to endure, we will find that services which are now free or virtually free will be charged for. I would even predict that ordinary social services no longer will be free. I would predict that the school bus service will not be free. The school bus service has been part of a highly-subsidised education system since the sixties and I would not suggest that that service should be charged for. It has been of great benefit to parents and children, particularly in rural areas.
What I am saying is that it may not be possible to afford such subsidised services. I say that personally, and I elaborate that from the bench from which I am making this prediction. It does not matter who will be sitting over there in three years. Even if Deputy Sherlock is sitting over there he may find himself forced to admit that some of his ideologies are untrue in the circumstances and be forced to realise that the very existence of a heavily subsidised secondary education system will have to go by the board. As Deputy Wilson now sitting over there knows, many of the secondary schools lack capital, are starved for funds. That is not just happening today: they have been ground by millstones for some time.
I would predict that many local services will have to be charged for. I speak of services which have become almost a figure of speech for things that are free, like supplies of clean, fresh water. Even that involves the investment of public money in many ways — personnel, plant inspection and so on. This element already has been creeping into correspondence I have had with Dublin Corporation and Dublin County Council on behalf of constituents. The kind of services the people have become used to, like the removal of refuse, will have to be charged for. People throw empty cigarette packets, bottles, other types of litter in the streets and it is the people who are guilty of such littering who will be most reluctant to pay for their removal. People complain about insufficient cleaning of streets but soon they may have to take some responsibility for it themselves because they have brought the littering on themselves. Local authorities may have to charge for such services. I am not sponsoring it. I am not arguing in favour of it. I am simply saying that the way the State is moving these are conditions into which the public may find themselves forced, conditions in which they may find themselves, whether they wish it or not, whichever Government is in office.
They may find on the health side that they will no longer have, even with the medical card, free prescriptions. They may find prescription charges being levied on them. In regard to social welfare payments about which Deputy V. Brady was speaking a moment ago, they may find much tighter restrictions placed on unemployment benefit, not out of the motive which Deputy Brady mentioned and which I recognise is a good motive, namely, not out of the motive to remove the absurd situation where it is more profitable now to work for three days than to work for five days, or to work none at all in any shape or form, not out of that motive, but simply because the money can no longer be afforded to keep a system like this on its feet in the shape and style it has had up to now.
I am sure some of our friends in the Workers' Party if they were over here would find some way of relating all this to what they think of as the gombeen mentality in the two big parties here. It would be easy for them to do so, as long as they are a minority, and they probably always will be a small minority, if the two big parties here keep their heads and do their job and do their duty. If they do not do that we are paving the way not just for the Workers' Party but for a whole lot of persons who have not yet surfaced and who, when they do, will give us all a very nasty shock.
As time goes on we may find some profitable enterprises will have to be ruthlessly mothballed. I do not say closed down for good, I do not say broken up and sold for scrap, but they may have to be ruthlessly mothballed. When I say that we are, of course, dealing with enterprises in which there is a very large element of political sensitivity. It may be that no matter who is sitting over there in Deputy Barrett's seat, or alongside him, it simply will not be possible for us any longer to run things like the Aer Lingus transatlantic service. I pluck that example out of the air. I have no special opinion about it and I hope I shall not be interpreted as recommending the shutting down of that service. I do not. I simply have not got the technical knowledge or the financial foresight to make such a recommendation, but it is a service which, no doubt for reasons for which Aer Lingus is in no way to blame, has been losing enormous sums of money, and they may lose such sums that they will get to a size at which the State cannot pay for them any longer. They cannot pay for them unless literally they print money down in Dublin Castle, run it off on a 24-hour basis, sheaf after sheaf after sheaf of £100 notes which, of course, is the first step on the way to the State's destruction. It may be that there will have to be a rule of thumb whereby any enterprise which is not clearly justifiable on economic criteria and not clearly commercially viable must have the word "No" said to it by the State so far as State involvement or subsidisation is concerned.
We had a debate here two nights ago about fuel control. I forget the name of the Bill, but the effect of the Bill is to enable the INPC to arrange what is called "mandatory disposal" of the Whitegate product to the oil companies. I repeatedly challenged — possibly in a disorderly way — the Minister for Industry and Energy, Deputy Reynolds, to publish whatever independent reports he had about Whitegate. His reply to that was that the INPC say it is viable; the INPC say it will not involve dis-economies; it will have the cheapest oil in Europe. I would not mind predicting that the Minister, Deputy Reynolds, although he may have a thicker skin than some of us, will be made to look very foolish when that forecast is produced in evidence against him in future years. At any rate he steadfastly refused any suggestion about publishing the independent consultants' reports on Whitegate. I do not mind, even if I had no knowledge of my own in the matter, saying that that invites the inference, compels the inference, that he knows there is no independent consultant who has sat in judgement on the prospects of Whitegate who has said anything except "Close it down".
I am not recommending closing it down. I do not want to see the men who work there lose their jobs. I do not want to see a diminution of prosperity in the Whitegate district which would result from closure. But the crunch is coming. It is upon us and, when it arrives, something will have to give. We saw the Government put up a rearguard fight in regard to Fieldcrest here last week in which they hardnosedly refused to allow themselves to be shamed or put out in any way by the talk about the loss of jobs which the Fieldcrest situation will involve. That same hardnose — I say it admittedly from the safe position of somebody who is paid a public service salary and who is in the safe position of not being in any danger of being disemployed, and I recognise that means from a position of moral vulnerability which will intensify resentment against this kind of talk — but that kind of hardnosedness may have to be displayed, not forever but certainly for a period, in regard to a whole range of enterprises, a whole range of gestures, ideas and promotions which in happier and more prosperous times may have been desirable.
Who will have the courage to bell all these cats? Fianna Fáil will not do it, or they will only do it by stealth, and they will do it too little and too late. The main reason they will not do it is because they are afraid of Deputies over here on my side going around the country saying: "Did not Fianna Fáil close down this? Did they not take that away? Did they not put so and so, hundreds and thousands of people, out of jobs? Did they not refuse to give these hundreds and thousands education for their children? Did they not charge for the buses?" And so on, and so on.
When we are in office again we will be hampered by the very same apprehensions. When we take any of these measures, none of them desirable in the sense of people being willing to accept them, we will be hagridden by the same fear, although I think we have more of a backbone even if it is not always of steel, than the Party on the far side of the House, we will be apprehensive of Deputy Reynolds standing up at the church gates at Ballymahon and Deputy Barrett in Doolin telling the people it is we who have done them down by a mixture of incompetence, malice or possibly even fraud — one does not know what is said into the wind in these distant places, one cannot keep track of every slander. These things will be said about us and we are afraid of that.
I know that one ought not, perhaps, to recommend a restructuring of the Irish political scene simply in order that each side may avoid the consequences of its own cowardice. I recognise that is a fairly putrid reason to be calling for anything; but when the consequences of that cowardice become so horrifying, as they have here, so intimidating, so awful, then I think even that alternative has to be looked at. If it were a bizarre alternative and really unthinkable, except in time of cataclysm or in a time when literally every other possible trick had been tried, one might not advance it with such confidence, but what I am trying to raise a voice in favour of is an associative government of this State by two forces which were divided 60 years ago for reasons which were not good then and most certainly are not good now. When I say an associative government of this State I am not putting any particular form on it. I am not putting particular conditions on it; and I hope nobody will be so foolish as to suppose that in suggesting it I in any sense lack confidence in the power of my own party. Indeed, I believe in the strong likelihood of my party continuing to advance in terms of political support at a tempo similar to that which it has displayed in the last four or five years, and which it is still continuing to display. I have every confidence that it will. But where will it get us?
Let us suppose that after the next election Fine Gale have got 75 seats or 80 seats or 85 seats, and suppose the Fianna Fáil seats around the country fall like ninepins, Fianna Fáil would not be destroyed. As Deputy Lenihan said once in one of his inspired, unforgettable phrases — not forgotten by me anyway —"you can shift us but you can't shunt us", or it may have been "you can shunt us but you can't shift us". In other words we can put Fianna Fáil out for a time, perhaps for a long time, but for the reason, the irremovable reason, that they represent very much the same kind of people that we do and in roughly comparable volume, the political element which Fianna Fáil represents can be extinguished only by a miracle. The very same is true of my party and, for so long as that competition between similar parties continues, cowardice will be the first instinct to be consulted by either Government.
That was not always the case. It certainly was not the case in Willie Cosgrave's time; it was not the case in Mr. de Valera's time; it was not the case in John Costello's time, and it was not the case in Sean Lemass's time. These four Taoisigh never heard of a current budget deficit. They most certainly never heard of a budget deficit based on election manifestos of the kind which in 1977 provided a milestone for disaster, a major turning point in this country's history. I am not saying this with hindsight, because we said it clearly then and we have been saying it ever since. They never heard of such a thing. But in those seventies and since, cowardice is the first emotion or instinct consulted by the Government now in office, and we ourselves could not claim to be free of it either.
I really see no long term way of belling all the cats I have mentioned, not for their own sake, but in order that some financial sanity will return to this State and that we will be able to do the things we are always talking about in regard to providing a proper infrastructure and a proper stream of investment money. I see no other way of doing it than for the two parties that are most heavily represented in this Dáil to put behind them — and I know that I have been a major offender and still am every day of the week — the bitterness and the hard words which are increasingly disgusting the people, particularly the younger generation, and to see whether it would be possible, even if only temporarily, for five or ten years, — we can resume the fighting where we left off in five or ten years time when things are back to normal — to agree. We do not need to live in one another's pockets; we do not need to go to one another's dances; we do not need to take in one another's social washing. But we could see whether, even at arms length and with no more than a modicum of civility, we can agree on a programme where we will not be under the fear of losing seats, or not enough seats to make any difference, and which will pull this economy and the finances of this State around to where they should be. Afterwards, let us go our own way again. No doubt splits and personality differences will develop and it might be natural to let the ordinary play of political forces take over again. But that is the only way I see to bell, quickly and fearlessly, all the cats which are going to require that obscure operation if this State is to be rescued from the disaster which is now so plainly ahead of it, and which even ordinary people, whatever their political affiliation, can see staring them in the face.
I have met plenty of Fianna Fáil voters in the East Galway by-election, just as I met them in West Dublin. I do not make any silly predictions about one by-election any more than I did about the last one. These people, for all I know, are probably still going to vote Fianna Fáil. But they are all wagging their heads sadly and saying they do not know where they are going. They do not know where we are going. They do know the State is in deep trouble, and I do not believe they will thank a party or a Government that conceals that from them, and cods them along until they wake up one morning and find that Fine Gael, Fianna Fáil and all that are swept into the dust bin, and they are being run, if not directly by the Cubans, by people who take their line from them and resemble them in style of management.
In addition to the immediate measures which may be necessary here, really ruthless emergency measures to pull the finances of the State around, the division that I am speaking about creates an even deeper problem here. It is that it encourages the growth of blindnesses on the one hand and mythologies on the other. Let us take a purely hypothetical point of view. Please do not attribute it to me; I do not say I have it. No doubt in the hypothetical form I am stating it in, it may seem extremely crude. But let us suppose there were the opinion in this country entertained by the ESRI or by the NESC or by any individual inside or outside politics that the underlying problem of our economy was a combination of demography and expectations. That theme could not be debated openly as between Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil. It could not be debated; because each side would be afraid of the chapel gate gligeen getting up and shouting into the wind "that crowd are in favour of birth control, or in favour of emigration" or something like that. It could not be debated.
None the less let us just pursue that hypothesis for a minute. Suppose that hypothetical point of view did exist. Suppose one were to say that the Irish family is a well established, well understood institution which has been the sheet anchor of the State and of society, and the source of a great deal of happiness and goodness, nearly all of it that there exists in the country. At the same time the inescapable consequences of the average size of the Irish family is that we have a very large dependent population, at a time when the progress of modern technology is such that it tends to shrink the number of jobs rather than increase it; and that the countries with which we are in competition, as though almost in answer to that ineluctable economic progression dictated by technology, have very small families indeed. It is estimated that by the end of this century there will be 15 million fewer people in the German Federal Republic than there now are. What would have been the standard of living in the German Federal Republic if their families, ever since the Second World War, had been the same size as ours? It would be very easy to talk to them if their population had been increasing for the last 35 years in the way that ours has in the last ten; and if the emigration from which we used to suffer were not open to them. It would be very easy to talk to their standard of living. None the less — I repeat I am pursuing this hypothetical chain of thought — we do not want to know about the implications of this, and we keep talking, and Deputy Reynolds has talked about it, and I have talked about it, and everybody on all sides has talked about it, and it is almost like a very long extended cliché, that we want to "provide jobs for all our young people."
But the theme that "we can provide jobs for all our young people", at least at the standard of living to which we have become accustomed, may simply not be within the realm of what can be done, is not debatable in this House. Birth control is a private matter for people themselves anyway, and the State has absolutely no role in the matter, which is why I so strongly supported the Coalition Bill in 1974, imperfect though it was. So let us suppose that this hypothetical speculator were to rule out birth control, what then remains in terms of beneficent intervention or direction on the part of the State? What remains is something which is also a taboo subject between Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil. This hypothetical thinker might say that, if there is no question of trying to limit or induce a limitation of family size, and indeed that would be a ludicrous thing to do here — the Indians and the Chinese do it but their problems are of a quite different order — what then remains if, on an objective assessment, there is no chance of our providing jobs here for the rate at which our young population is growing? What then remains is trying to make use of the facility which the European Common Market offers and was designed to offer, constructed to offer, namely, the facility of mobility of labour and mobility of professional employment.
The speculative or hypothetical thinker might reflect on the idea of working in the very rich industrialised area of Northern Europe, only one-and-a-quarter hours flight from Dublin, which is experiencing a steep decline in its native population. That is the place in which it would be more natural for us to seek gainful, worthwhile, valuable and fulfilling employment for such of our own people as cannot find employment at home. This has implications for our educational system. That theme, because of things which happened in 1922, cannot be discussed. The political system which rules out discussion of such a hypothetical theme has something rotten in it. It is up to the political parties on both sides to see whether they have a joint responsibility to clear that rotten element out of our political life.
I have said some wounding things lately about the Labour Party. Individually I like and respect them. The Labour Party are the only party from which one hears ordinary common sense in certain areas of the kind about which I am talking; and this is because they have nothing to fear. Deputy Barry Desmond can speak as he did the other evening, and Deputy Higgins can speak as I heard him do at a chapel gate in Milltown, County Galway — not on this particular theme but on similar themes — which would be taboo as between these two big parties. Deputy Higgins knows that his man will not win in Galway, and a loss of votes because of a speculative opinion expressed by him will not worry him. As between the two big parties, serious reflections on themes of this kind are out of court. That is a scandal for which we all have the responsibility of finding a cure.
