When last I spoke on the budget I was remarking on the political fact that Coalitions here never seem to run for a second term and that this fourth and most disastrous of all Coalitions will be the final one — I doubt very much if there will be a fifth. Apart from history, I hope we will not have another Coalition. We have had the obvious capitulation of the Labour Party, as indicated by this budget, and then the departure of Deputy Cluskey from the Cabinet like the sudden descent of a gas filled balloon. This marks the end of an era in Labour politics. That party are peculiar in one way: a former leader of the Labour Party could not live with the Fine Gael and had to leave them, and a former leader could not live without them and moved house to live with them. By the time the next Coalition are mentioned, and that will not be for some time, Fine Gael will not have any willing partners to coalesce with them. We all know the object of Fine Gael is to go it alone, to have an overall majority, but I forecast they will never walk alone.
The principal criticism of the budget is that it has no direction, goal or strategy. People knew what Fianna Fáil's intentions were, they may not have agreed with it, but we had a long-term objective which was the long-term good of the country. As well, we had a short-term policy as to how we might cushion our people against the worst of the recession and help them to ride out the storm. Above all else, our objective was to keep as many as possible of our young people employed, to give them confidence and hope in the future. We may have been criticised for being too optimistic but is it not better to have tried and not succeeded in full than never to have tried at all?
That is the worst feature of this budget. It did not even try, it did not do one iota to help to improve the unemployment situation. Everyone agrees that our greatest problem is unemployment. One quarter of a million people are unemployed. It is getting worse. The figures released at the end of January are positive proof that the Coalition put more people out of work than ever before. The Government said the news was disturbing. That is a nice euphemistic expression. I would call it disastrous and diabolical. They said unemployment would get much worse and that they realise that 30,000 more people will be out of work before the end of the year. Judging by recent figures that might be a conservative estimate. Some statistical pundit said it was not as bad as the figures indicated because the rate of job loss was slowing down. This is utter nonsense. If a person is bleeding to death he will bleed more at the beginning than at the end. The fact that the blood loss is lessening is no indication that the person is getting better. The more people who are out of work the fewer people there are left to be unemployed. I defy any Government member to point out anything in the budget which will provide extra jobs or put people back to work. That is the real failure of this first Coalition budget of 1984.
The current budget deficit of £1,085 million will be about the same again next year. That is no consolation. People will be worse off and more will be out of work. There is no improvement as regards borrowing. The budget deficit will not be eliminated in 1987 as originally promised by the Coalition or in 1997 for that matter, but with a little help from certain quarters perhaps the Coalition will be gone long before that. They will be gone but not forgotten. They will not be forgotten by the building or construction industry. Here is an opportunity for any Government to restore confidence to an industry which utilises 95 per cent of Irish materials and labour and has the capacity to provide essential jobs overnight to turn a green field into a job-making construction site. Although 45 per cent of building and construction workers are out of work nothing was done despite pleas from all sources. It is quite clear that the Public Capital Programme is under-financed.
Why was the road programme not reactivated? Fianna Fáil provided money for the Naas by-pass. We gave the go ahead to that project. The Tánaiste arrived to open the road and lead in our winner that we bought and paid for. Everyone realises that was a good job. Kildare County Council decided that people would travel freely on that road and would not have tolls to pay. However, with the assistance of the chairperson of the council and the Minister — he was then Minister for the Environment but has moved house since — they reactivated the idea of charging tolls. He used his position that day to bring this up again. I hope it will not happen. Motorists, PAYE workers and those fortunate enough to have jobs are paying though the nose for the privilege of working. The motorist is repeatedly screwed in every budget and now they want to charge him for going to work. That proposal emanated from the Government and should be stopped. There is no logic behind it.
There was a second phase to that road programme. We had the expertise, planners, workers and a team capable of doing good work. A road was to be built which would by-pass Newbridge and Kilcullen. There is also the long awaited western by-pass which would by-pass Leixlip, Lucan, Maynooth and Kilcock and help people travelling to the west. Anyone travelling that road agrees it is a bottleneck. If an industrialist was brought to the west, by the time he got to Kilcock he would feel like turning back because he would say that the infrastructure was so outdated he could not dream of investing capital in such an area. We need vast capital expenditure for our outdated infrastructure. There is nothing in the capital programme to help that.
We need to look at our road system and the funding of our roads. Our secondary roads are a disgrace. There is no funding available and that answer comes back from the county engineer every time we write to him. I represent a county which once had a proud record of good roads. That record is badly tarnished. When I had the use of a ministerial car if I was out late I might doze off but I was always sure to be awakened when I crossed the Kildare border with the bumps on the road. We need to look at how we spend money and how we supervise engineering sections. It has come to light that out of every £100 that is spent by the engineering section in Kildare, 77 per cent goes on administration and 23 per cent on labour. No industry could afford to operate like that. We need local authority funding and a proper road authority to look at the problem nationally. It should have powers of supervision and ensure that we get value for money.
It has been recommended that we charge for specific services such as water and refuse collection. The first thing we should look at is what will happen when the people pay in their money. Will the people get value for money? In Kildare we have two systems which are comparable. One is direct labour and the other is run on a tender system. It can be seen that the tender system is £60,000 a year cheaper than the direct labour system. We can learn from that.
There is nothing in the capital programme for housing. In my area there are 400 applicants for 40 houses. That is an average of ten to one. Needy people have been denied houses for years. In towns like Newbridge, we build 50 houses where we would need 500. Great play was made recently about an extension to the contract which would enable 50 extra houses to be provided in that town. There were letters in the local newspaper saying that the Minister for the Environment told the Ministers, Deputy Dukes and Deputy Bermingham and Senator Conway about the good news of this extension. He neglected to tell us anything about it for one reason or another. I should like to tell the Minister that we need ten times as many houses in Kildare and the good news he has announced is frustrating to those waiting for houses. The local authority housing allocation system has failed to meet the needs of the people. We have a crisis in housing. I was led to believe that the inner city of Dublin was even more needy. My recent experience in a by-election there did not confirm that.
Our county has a crisis and we need help. If the local authorities do not have the capacity to deal with this problem, why not initiate joint ventures between local authorities and private builders and let them fill the gap? This needs to be done. Young couples and their families are living in dear, damp flats or in caravans and mobile homes. No real attempt has been made to help them. We could kill two birds with the one stone. We could provide for a serious need because we have the capacity to build the houses and we would give employment at the same time. I hope that something specific will be done about that matter.
The budget figures show that the Defence Estimate has been trimmed back as usual. We pay tribute to the members of the Defence Forces when they are dealing with security matters, with the maintenance of law and order or when they are called in to cope with every nasty job that must be tackled, such as some strike situation that becomes intolerable, but then we expect them to exist on a shoestring. When Mr. Tidey was rescued by the Garda and the Army we were all pleased. Indeed, the Ministers for Defence and Justice basked in the glory of that achievement. I was very pleased, too, because I have absolutely no time for the Provisional IRA. I regard them as despicable. However, shortly after the rescue operation when the hiccups and the mistakes began to emerge in respect of the operations at Ballinamore and Claremorris, the Ministers who had taken the credit for the rescue were not too happy about taking the blame for the mistakes. Consequently, they sought to find a scapegoat. Commissioner Wren looked to his subordinates while the Minister for Defence looked towards the Church and suggested they were wrong in their attitude and that they should excommunicate members of Sinn Féin for joining that party at all.
The Government should look towards themselves. Apart from the 300 men whose recruitment to the Army we had provided for in our budget there has not been further recruitment with the exception of those who had to be taken into the Naval Service to man a fishery surveillance vessel for which, incidentally, we also provided the money. I suppose one can understand a ban on recruitment in times when money is scarce. There are probably more people in the Defence Forces now than at any time since the Emergency but it is unfortunate that all those people who are anxious to join the forces cannot be recruited. However, what is unforgiveable is, as I was informed here, that the FCA is closed for recruitment.
It is unfortunate that the many young men leaving school and who have plenty of time on their hands have no legitimate avenue open to them in the event of their wishing to give national service voluntarily. This Government have failed to provide the necessary moneys for the FCA in terms of training and materials. If the Minister has made a conscious decision in co-operation with the Cabinet to bring about a situation in which young people are not in a position to give of their services voluntarily for the country, surely it is wrong for him to look for a scapegoat, whether that scapegoat be the Church, the Cardinal or any other and to say that the Church's attitude in not excommunicating certain people contributes to recruitment to illegal organisations.
I have some observations to make on the agricultural industry with particular reference to the sheep industry. The sheep industry is profitable and could be even more beneficial to our economy if sheep numbers could be doubled. This is a facet of farming that can respond quickly to any incentives given. The markets are available. We have explored the market situation in the Middle East and elsewhere and there is room for expansion of those markets. The greatest concern of sheep farmers is that of marauding dogs. Recently I attended a seminar in Athlone where I heard a farmer say that there is no point in talking about sheep unless we deal first with the dog menace. There is evidence of this menace from all over the country, evidence that was provided graphically some months ago in St. Stephen's Green. The problem has become very serious. I became involved in it to the extent that I was in a position to help provide a site on the Curragh for a dog shelter. The IFA and the local authority became involved at that time. The shelter is ready now but there is nobody prepared to fund the ongoing cost of running it. Neither the Government nor the sheep owners will fund this shelter. We were prepared to appoint a dog warden who would round-up stray dogs, whether they be unwanted pets which when they became a nuisance were dumped on the countryside or any other. These animals would be either kept in a safe place or homes found for them.
In the hinterland of Naas, which would include Two-Mile-House, Rathmore, Caragh and in Naas itself, there have been only 350 dog licences taken out. I venture to say that on any day one would see more dogs than that on the main street in Naas. It is obvious then that people are no longer buying dog licences. Not many people may be aware that since 1 January the fee in this respect is £5. Regardless of when a licence is taken out, it expires on the last day of the calendar year so we may presume that after the months of January, February and March, people do not bother to licence dogs. It might be well if the licences were on the basis of being current for a year from the time of the year at which they were taken out. I suggest that the whole system of dog licensing be handed over to individual local authorities, though perhaps the licensing might be done in some counties by way of private schemes, with the dog wardens being responsible for the collection of the licence fees so that there could be set up a system which would be self-financing. In this way we would be allowing sheep farmers to rest a little more easy at night. I hope my suggestion will be taken up. It is one that I have discussed with various farming organisations and they are confident that it is feasible and possible.
One of the most important questions of today is the question of jobs. Often we point to the failure in our industries. People have become openly critical of big foreign firms who agree to set up here and to provide employment. Perhaps one of the motives was that their operations here would give them a foothold on the EEC market, but now for some reason the word "multinational" has become a bad word. We were glad to see firms such as Ferenka, Polaroid and in my own county, Black & Decker, come here and begin operations. These firms came here in good faith when trade was booming. We made a great fuss of them then so I suggest that it is wrong to be critical of them now when things have gone wrong. At least it can be said that they tried, which is more than we can say for the Government in so far as the budget is concerned. I am tired of hearing these critics of the multinationals who say that these companies moved out when the tax-free holiday was over. In many cases that was not the reason at all. This carping approach is far from the céad míle fáilte image on which we pride ourselves. Now it is a litany of lamentation and of nagging.
We have been fortunate in the micro-chip high-technology field. It is an area in which we have been reasonably successful and this gives us hope for the future because it will help the people in the mainstream of technological progress. We were fortunate that the decision was made for us to become involved in that aspect of new manufacturing but it is important to realise that at a time when we are not in a position to provide hundreds of jobs we must think small. I am glad that the IDA have adopted this approach and are encouraging the smaller local industries and crafts. There was a tendency in the past in such areas of activity as joinery, concrete products or light engineering for the IDA not to give help. The stock answer then was that this was a very sensitive area and that if, say, employment were to be provided for ten people in a certain locality 20 others working nearby would be put out of employment. We must re-evaluate this thinking and try to meet local demand to the greatest extent possible. We must concentrate on import substitution. I have seen the good work done by local co-operatives. This is the sort of effort that should be encouraged. Every help should be given to small local efforts particularly in relation to the utilisation of indigenous produce.
One of the greatest examples of a need that can be met locally is given to us in the startling figures for the imports of food. In the future the emphasis must be on food processing. I am especially conscious of the need for this in the meat industry. In Kildare we have three factories and unfortunately not all of them are functioning full-time at the moment. Very few of the factories are venturesome enough to process meat and give it its added value. There is also the problem of continuity of supply, a subject I shall deal with later.
We have fallen down very much on the marketing of our produce. In many cases intervention was seen as a safety valve but it was counter-productive and was a crutch we used for far too long. We do not need stop-gap measures in agriculture. We need at least a five-year plan. If a person is to be encouraged to increase his herd numbers, whether dairy or beef, and if he embarks on such a programme he wants to know where he will be in five years' time.
Another industry that should cause concern is the flour industry. In 1980 we imported only 2 per cent of our needs of flour but that figure has become 22 per cent. Large firms have closed. Some have moved to England where the parent firm is located and possibly it suits them best to export their goods here. In farming there has been a major change over to winter wheat. If one is to judge by appearances and the mild weather we have had, the present crop looks excellent. It is up to the Government to ensure that it is utilised for milling and not for animal feed. We can grow our own wheat and we have proved we have the capacity to be self-sufficient. A country like England has never been noted for its flour milling and it has never been able to export to us. Why are we not in a position to utilise our wheat for flour? It could happen that in an emergency again we would be glad to have that capacity but if it is neglected now we will not have it.
One facet of the budget that has not received much attention is that dealing with social welfare recipients. They have fared very poorly. This year they will not keep pace with inflation. The 7 per cent increase they received should have been at least 9 per cent to enable them to break even. The social welfare increases have been staggered: some will be paid in July and the family income supplement will be paid in November. The reason is that the Government want to save money. VAT on clothes will operate from 1 May. At one time people used say "Don't cast a clout till May is out": the new Dukes ditty will be "Don't buy a thing once May comes in". The sum of £2.70 means very little in presentday terms to a non-contributory old age pensioner. The pensioners got a poor deal in the budget. I do not understand why 2p was put on the pint. This is generally considered to be the poor man's drink, although a person could not drink too many pints nowadays if he was poor. At the same time, there was no extra charge on spirits. It is hard to understand the thinking behind the charge on the pint. Maybe it was purely for financial expediency and what would yield most.
The Minister in his speech devoted three paragraphs to agriculture. It could all be summed up in the sentence when he said that the prospects for the coming year would depend on the outcome of the common agricultural policy talks on agricultural prices. Now we find the whole future of Irish agriculture will depend on the Minister, Deputy Deasy. I believe we are disadvantaged already in that respect because this Minister has shown his weakness from the word go. It is my belief he threw in the towel far too quickly. People have the sense to realise that the farming industry accounts for almost 50 per cent of our GNP and that it affects everyone. The super-levy is one of the greatest dangers to our economy and it is the most serious situation we have had to face in the EEC. Now the Minister dismisses all of that and says it will depend how we get on in the CAP talks. I am very doubtful about the present Minister. He was a very truculent Fine Gael backbencher; there are those who would say that quality was the one that caused his exaltation to his present post but he has been meek enough in his ministry and he has been very ineffective in Europe.
I should like the Minister for Finance to clarify the changes he has made in the method used for assessing for stock relief. Will the Minister say if he will allow for the building up of our national herd? This matter is causing great anxiety among farmers. If it impedes the building up of our stock it will do much harm to agriculture. Our country has the capacity to carry twice as much stock but farmers need incentives and help.
I have a relative in England and at one time I visited some British farms. There I could see signs of a thousand years of uninterrupted progress. I was lucky enough to visit the south of Italy where I saw the great advances that were made as a result of EEC money. They had entered the Community long before we joined and they were able to utilise the funds they got to bring their farms up to standard and to make them as productive as possible. They have an excellent infrastructure that enables people in the south of Italy to get their produce to the central European markets within a day, something that is denied us.
I thank the Minister for ensuring that the lime subsidy will be continued. People should be encouraged to use fertilisers. A proper crop rotation system and drainage system are necessary and that depends on the farm modernisation schemes. In many cases stock is still out in the fields. They are being fed on the dearest commodity of all during the winter months: they are drawing on the resources of their own flesh and it will take them months to catch up. We need proper housing for them. What is needed is a five-year co-ordinated plan that will cover all these measures.
The bloodstock and racing industry is a matter of great concern in my county. This time last year I had the temerity to speak on the Adjournment to explain how serious was the stealing of Shergar. We had many guffaws from the opposite benches. These people did not appreciate how serious this matter was and what a bad advertisement it was for our country. It is necessary to impress on people that racing is not solely the sport of princes or the preserve of the rich. It is a means of living for many people. On the Maddenstown and Brownstown side of the Curragh, there are three trainers who provide over 100 jobs. Even in the recession those jobs were there. They got no grants or handouts. This is a way of life for many people.
Some years ago I gave the Minister for Finance a dossier drawn up by people involved in the apprenticeship scheme for stable lads — Race — housed on the National Stud lands near Kildare. That would provide an opportunity for 45 jobs every year to train people to work in racing stables — some to become jockeys, some farm managers, stud farm managers, learning a little about grassland management, book-keeping and so on. One million pounds would have set up a scheme which would have provided 45 extra jobs every year. The demand is there for these jobs and all we need is the will to get this scheme going.
With regard to the racing industry, we should not be fooled by our victories in Britain, France and even Japan last year or the fact that prices are booming because oil sheiks will pay big money for horses. The industry is not that sound and it is not being helped by successive Governments. The main reason for this is that we take out almost £1 million by way of this 1½ per cent on course betting tax. This is never ploughed back into racing. The bookmakers' association visited the Minister and thought they were being well received. They hoped something would be done about this in the budget but I regret to say that nothing has happened. We have a climate that is conductive to a good blood stock industry. Our name is recognised all over the world. If the Government are not prepared to help this industry, at least they should not hinder it. Again I appeal to the Minister for Finance to remove this 1½ per cent on-course betting tax.
Everyone who speaks on television and radio about job creation has suddenly become very conscious of our forests and forestry programmes. Moves have been made to increase tree planting every year, but there is a limit to what the State can do. The State and private enterprise, such as companies with pension funds, should get together and invest in these projects because we have one million acres yet to be planted. We cannot wait 100 years and plant at the rate of 10,000 acres a year. We must accelerate this programme. I will clap the Minister on the back if he succeeds in getting private entreprise involved in this area. He should also look into the area of social welfare when people hand over their land because they are afraid that any provisions made under the farm retirement scheme will affect their pensions.
During our term of office we realised that Scarriff was our last timber processing industry making chipboard. We took a decision to keep this company going with a certain amount of State aid and local subscriptions. It can be said that that decision was justified in view of the recent figures which show that they can make a profit. It would be wrong to allow Scarriff to close, as the present Government appeared to be thinking of.
I would like now to deal with propaganda which has been heard a lot recently. It has been said that we are exporting timber at a £1 a tonne. I was responsible for that scheme and I am glad of this opportunity to explain the situation. When I became Minister for Fisheries and Forestry I inherited a situation where Scarriff was the only outlet for timber thinnings. Munster Chipboard and Athy Wallboard had closed. We had 300,000 tonne of thinnings every year and nobody wanted them. In the long-term I set a target to find somebody who would utilise that timber to the maximum extent, and in the short-term I did a deal with a person who was prepared to extract the timber, provide the labour and do the work the Department would have to do anyway, because if you want timber to mature properly, thinning must be done at a certain time. The Department would have had to do this work but this man took on this work and even set up a training school. The most he succeeded in exporting from the Waterford port in any year was £26,000 worth of timber. That was £26,000 into our coffers which we would never have had and we were saved the bother of getting this work done. This man's contract was for three years and he was told it would not be renewed. As I told this House, there is still ten times as much timber left and I told Deputies if they knew any local person who wanted this timber he should go to his local forester and he could have it. But nobody turned up with a chainsaw, because people have become increasingly lazy.
I will illustrate how, in my term of office, we succeeded in solving the long-term problems with the help of the IDA and officials of my Department. We brought a firm to Clonmel who are producing a medium density fibreboard. They have a market for this project in the EEC. They employ 250 people in the factory and a further 250 jobs will be available upstream when they are fully operational. They will utilise every bit of forestry thinnings, waste timber and sawdust we have. It must be said that the Department of Fisheries and Forestry are not geared to dispose of timber or with the future development of the industry. There was a reluctance to consider this. The returns from our forestry programme should be paying bigger dividends by now because it has been said that although we can grow trees more quickly than any other country, we are very poor on the marketing side. We need to encourage precision sawing, the presentation and drying of our timber and so on. This industry has great potential for employment. I would not like anyone to think I was being too critical of the Department. If anyone wanted to know how successful the Department have been since we got the reins into our own hands, he could be brought to our State forests. It is generally accepted that we have done more about afforestation than most other countries, such as the United States where they have considerable forests but do not worry about afforestation.
One of the failures in the present budget has been the state of PAYE workers. Everyone remembers the marches which took place some years ago because these people bore a burden to taxation which was out of proportion to their income. I would like to mention two points which came across in this budget. The Minister mentioned that 71,000 people paid tax in the 25p in the £ band and that he was pleased to announce that 15,000 would be removed from the tax band and would no longer pay income tax. The Minister neglected to emphasise, as I should like to do, that 56,000 of them are now paying tax at 35 pence in the £, that there will be 30,000 more out of work this year than ever before — that is on the admission of the government. In effect, therefore, 40,000 fewer workers on PAYE will be paying £300 million more in tax. These are indisputable hard facts. I do not know whether the unions realise this. It can be contended that the PAYE workers constitute one section of the community that have been bled white.
To turn now from them to another section of the community who appear to have lots of money. I do not know much about the intricacies of the stock market and I am not acquainted with the bond washing business, but I heard the matter discussed on television the day business on the Stock Exchange was brought to a standstill. The Minister was inclined to brush this aside saying it was a normal reaction to any budget. Immediately the Minister had concluded the commentator from the Stock Exchange — who apparently was there every day — said that never before had that happened on the Stock Exchange. It denotes a frightful loss of confidence in Government stocks. It is difficult to understand, when there is such loss of confidence at home, how we can face foreign buyers, asking them to contribute the money we need, when it has been illustrated in such a dramatic way that the people at home have lost confidence in Government gilts, stocks and shares. We need to borrow £1.8 billion this year. In normal years we would borrow £1,000 million of that at home and probably go abroad for the balance, the £0.8 million. I wonder will that now be available to us. I remember not so long ago the present Taoiseach was the very person who indicated that, because of certain attitudes in Fianna Fáil, confidence in our economy abroad had been undermined. What happened on the stock market the day following the most recent budget and on successive days was an indication that confidence was further undermined not alone abroad but at home as well.
The ESB have been mentioned this morning. They are back in the news again. Not very long ago they intended taking a decision that would reflect not alone on their workers who would be made redundant in peat-burning generating stations but also on Bord na Móna workers engaged in supplying those needs. It is our firm belief that these stations must remain open, using native fuel. I have seen no compelling case for their closure with regard to price or anything else. Even from an economic point of view it is quite profitable to keep them open. But, when it is a case of Irish turf versus foreign coal and Irish jobs versus jobs for coal miners in the United States or Poland it is economic madness for anybody to make such a suggestion. In addition we need to utilise the turf, we need to have cutaway bogs available to us eventually so that they can be developed under a proper management system.
It is my belief that some State bodies should remain in control of the drainage system and management of these vast tracts of cutaway bog so that they can be utilised for production. I notice certain farming organisations have a new-found interest in cutway bogs now that they feel they will be available to them. There have been experiments carried out and great experience of the potential of these bogs for horticulture, agriculture, biomass and for leisure pursuits. I want to see a conscious, continued effort made so that the midlands will not be denuded of jobs when the fuel has expired, that alternative industries will be established to provide employment for those who will then be out of jobs. I would not be so despondent because, as has been pointed out, the micro-chip and computer industries will in future do all the work, that people will no longer be needed to undertake such work — that should not be the end of the world at all. If the work is done profits will be made and, if those profits are shared out in any sort of an equitable fashion, people will have more leisure.
I see a great future in tourism. I believe it to be our second greatest potential industry after agriculture. Some time ago we had an image in tourism, when we were looked upon as being reasonably friendly. Those people who were unfortunate enough to leave their few belongings and money in the Welsh dressing-room last Saturday would feel that that image has been tarnished somewhat. But we still have good food and reasonably good hotels. However, I do not see that we should embark on a programme of producing counterparts of foreign hotels. Rather it is necessary that we be ourselves. That is what tourists feel when they come here. They do not want something they see everyday in large cities. They like to visit Ireland and see what it is like. Therefore we should not ape other countries. However, because of successive budgets, we have dear petrol, drink, car hire and now dear clothing. We cannot compete very well in these fields. We still have some unspoiled scenery unless the charges imposed for refuse collection kick back and people do not pay anything and dump their refuse. We have reasonable clear water, good fishing, sailing and sport. Above all else, we have physical room for people on our beaches and in our countryside. If we embark on a programme of enticing people here — perhaps providing sadly lacking camping sites — encouraging others to come here and, better still, our people to remain at home, those would be useful exercises.
I compliment the Minister on his grant for Irish centres in Britain. That was necessary. They do good work. I might compliment him also on his allocation for sport. I was disappointed that the same energy Fianna Fáil showed in bringing the gas pipeline to Dublin has not been evident in the present Government's extension of that pipeline to the North or possibly a spur of it to Kildare, Kilkenny or wherever the needs exist in industry.