Adjournment of Dáil: Motion.

The Taoiseach

I move:

That the Dáil at its rising on 19 December 1985 do adjourn for the Christmas recess until 2.30 p.m. on Wednesday, 22 January 1986.

It is my duty to report to the House and to the country on the progress that has been made during the past year in relation to the national economy, the public finances, the Government's legislative programme, developments within the European Community, and the result of the Government's negotiations with the British Government concerning Northern Ireland.

The points I intend to emphasise this afternoon are the following:

—the Exchequer borrowing requirement and current budget deficit will be quite close to target this year;

—despite significant additional expenditure on public pay and unemployment benefit and assistance total current Government expenditure has been held at or just below the budget figure;

—however the level of taxation in 1985 was lower than estimated at 35½ per cent rather than the budgeted 36½ per cent;

—this shortfall in tax revenue this year presents the Government with difficulties for the 1986 budget;

—the objective of lower taxation combined with a phasing out of the deficit, can be achieved within a reasonable period of years only by combining control of public spending with measures to generate economic growth;

—the package announced on 23 October last will have a significant impact on construction activity, on employment and on tax revenue yield. The response to the new home improvements grant scheme has been so great that additional provision is being made for them, over and above the £12 million announced last October;

—the generation of growth in Ireland by indiscriminate stimulatory action on the part of Government would be fruitless and self destructive;

—stimulation of growth must be very discriminating to benefit employment and production in Ireland as far as possible;

—considerable progress has been made in slowing down the rise in unemployment with no net increase over the months from June to November;

—the problems of underprivilege especially in our inner cities and in some of the new suburbs require positive discriminatory action;

—public service efficiency is increasing with the co-operation of those working in the public service;

—the agreement at the recent Luxembourg European Council on the commitment to achieve an internal market by 1993 and to provide in the Treaty for the specific needs of the Community's less developed regions is particularly important for Ireland;

—the Government's legislative programme is well advanced, with over 30 Bills now before the Houses of the Oireachtas; and

—the Government are totally committed to implementing the Anglo-Irish Agreement in a manner that will secure the objective we all share — peace and stability in Northern Ireland.

Having summarised the points I want to make I shall develop them in the course of my contributions. Turning to the public finances: despite a very substantial shortfall in tax revenue, the indications are that the Exchequer borrowing requirement and current budget deficit will both be quite close to the budgeted figures, which in turn were based on the national plan. In particular the indications are that, as in the past two years, the current dificit will diverge from the budgeted figure by a narrow margin — about one-tenth of the average over-run of the years 1979-82. Indeed over these three years 1983-1985 taken together the net excess over the budgeted deficits has been just 3 per cent, as against an average over-run of about 60 per cent for the four preceding years.

In the current year this has been achieved in the face of a shortfall in tax revenue, the result of which has been that the level of taxation in 1985 has been about 2.5 per cent lower than provided for in the budget, namely 35.5 per cent of GNP as against the figure of 36.5 per cent in the budget.

The tax shortfall is partly attributable to the lower than expected level of aggregate economic activity. But newly available information has led to the conclusion that up to one-half of the tax shortfall may be due to the fact that VAT and other reforms earlier this year proved to be more concessionary than had been allowed for.

For example, it had been hoped that the reduction in excise on television sets and betting would be self-financing and that the impact on revenue of the abolition of the 35 per cent VAT rate would be substantially reduced by an increased volume of sales at home. It was of course, recognized at the time that this strategy involved uncertainties. In the event, while the tax adjustments have certainly proved worthwhile in terms of diverting back to this State activity which had tended to move outside the State, neither these tax reductions nor the earlier reduction on spirits, in fact, have been fully self-financing. This is something to which we must have regard in considering any future proposals for tax reductions claimed as self-financing; we now know that there are severe limits to this kind of approach to taxation.

While the cumulative effect of these various factors on Government revenue will, it appears, lead to tax revenue being off-target by only about 2½ per cent this nevertheless involves an amount well in excess of £100 million, a sum that will be compensated only in part by a fortuitous increase in non-tax revenue in 1985 which will not recur in 1986.

Although the trend of the public finances on the revenue side has been unfavourable, the picture on the expenditure side — for which the Government carry direct responsibility — is much more satisfactory. It has, of course, been necessary to face the need for significant additional expenditure under two headings — public service pay, and unemployment benefit and assistance. The House will recall that the national plan provision for increases in public service pay in 1985 was insufficient to cover the cost of the arbitrator's award of a 24th round. The Government decided to make provision in the budget for that award on the basis that offsetting savings would be effected. The present estimate for public service pay in the current year involves a sum of £84 million, or 3½ per cent above the plan figure. At the same time the level of unemployment in the current year has been somewhat higher than had been provided for in the plan and in the 1985 budget, involving additional expenditure of some £35 million.

Mr. O'Kennedy

Did the Taoiseach say "somewhat higher"?

An Ceann Comhairle

No interruptions, please.

The Taoiseach

In accordance with the Government's policy of adhering closely to the total level of spending provided for in the plan, compensating savings have, in fact, been effected throughout the rest of the public service and these are expected to offset some 85 per cent of the additional spending under these two headings. The result, when expenditure on the Central Fund is included, is that the total level of current spending in 1985 is now expected to be in line with, or possibly even fractionally below, the budget figure despite the need to make these substantial additional commitments.

I should perhaps add that the level of capital expenditure during the year has been kept well within the budgetary limits, with the result that borrowing for capital purposes is likely to be lower than provided for in the budget. Total borrowing in 1985 will thus be close to — possibly within about 1 per cent of — the provision for Exchequer borrowing in the 1985 budget, despite the shortfall in tax revenue.

I believe that the effectiveness with which public spending is now being controlled is a major achievement of this Government, and one which will help to maintain the confidence that has been created both at home and abroad in the manner in which we run our affairs. Nevertheless, even with this tight expenditure control, there is no point in disguising the fact that the shortfall of tax revenue is a disturbing feature of the outturn of 1985 and one that will present the Government with difficulties in the preparation of the 1986 budget, which will be presented by the Minister for Finance on Wednesday, 29 January.

The emphasis of Government policy must now be on the encouragement of growth, in particular through the more efficient use of the resources provided by the taxpayer. In our present financial situation we have room neither for any inadequacy in the control of spending, nor for any inefficiency, whether in the spending of public moneys or in the collection of taxation.

It was with this in mind that when the Dáil resumed on 23 October last the Government announced a number of measures designed to encourage the growth of output and employment, and to improve the equity of our taxation system. These measures have been widely welcomed and have already met with a very encouraging response. A total of 13,000 applications for home improvement grants have already been submitted, and additional provision for these grants over and above the £12 million originally proposed two months ago is accordingly being made. The impact of this additional activity on the construction sector will be considerable and as the grants will be available for use only in the employment of tax-registered builders, this additional spending will not be lost to the black economy, but the appropriate proportion will return to the Exchequer through the taxation system.

Another feature of the package announced on 23 October was the scheme to stimulate employment by exempting private employers from PRSI contributions in the tax year 1986-1987 in respect of additional new full time employees taken on up to 31 March 1986, where these employees have been on the live register for at least six months. This scheme is a timely one, for it offers a significant encouragement to additional employment in a year in which the recovery of demand in some of our major trading partners, such as Germany and Great Britain, could offer a prospect of new markets and increased exports to a large number of Irish firms. Many of these firms will thus require to take on additional employees at some point during the course of next year and through this scheme they will be encouraged to bring forward this additional employment to the earlier part of the year.

The new measures introduced by the Government to deal with tax abuse will also be taking effect during 1986 and are expected to yield additional revenue. The expansion of the special inquiry unit in the office of the Revenue Commissioners and the establishment of small local collection units, together with the transfer of enforcement work to new sheriffs and the application of a surcharge where accounts and returns are not submitted to Revenue within the specified period — all of these measures, together with such other developments as the application of the tax clearance scheme of sub-contractors engaged by main contractors on public contracts, will contribute to a tightening up of the tax collection procedure. This will be welcomed by all those in our society who are paying their taxes on time, and in full.

The efficiency of the public service has been increased significantly, with the co-operation of the staff concerned. The size of the Civil Service has been reduced by 8½ per cent which, taken in conjunction with the increased volume of work to be undertaken in servicing a community whose population continues to grow, represents a considerable improvement in efficiency.

In the wider public service, which includes local authorities and health boards, similar staff reductions have been achieved, thus leaving room for the appointment of 1,000 additional gardaí and no less than 3,000 additional teachers without increasing total numbers in this part of the public sector. I believe that there will be general approval for this shift in the balance of human resources in the public service to meet the undoubted need for the strengthening of law enforcement and the equally clear necessity to provide a large increase in the size of the teaching force in order to cater for the increased number of children and young people in the educational system.

Measures taken by the Government to improve efficiency and to control costs in the public sector are helping to create the conditions for faster growth. The commercial State bodies are themselves part of the production sector and improvements in their efficiency and reductions in the cost of the goods and services they provide make their own direct contribution to growth, while in a number of cases they are also providing essential goods and services to the private sector, the capacity of which to operate competitively depends, at least in some measure, upon the efficiency and low cost of such services.

At the same time the competitiveness of the private sector also depends to a significant degree upon the tax environment in which it operates — including the tax regime applicable to employees which, when taxes are raised beyond a certain level, can operate as a disincentive to work. The control of public spending has already made it possible to halt the increase in taxation which followed from the massive 38 per cent increase in the real cost of public spending in the years 1977-1981.

No one should underestimate the magnitude of the task facing this and subsequent Governments in reducing this burden of taxation while at the same time phasing out the current deficit. If an attempt were made to achieve this objective through a reduction in public spending alone, the impact on public services, including the social welfare services, the health service and education, as well as in the maintenance of our infrastructure, could be catastrophic. The objective of lower taxation combined with a phasing out of the deficit can therefore be achieved within a reasonable period of years only by combining control of public spending with measures to generate economic growth.

In the Irish circumstance, with something approaching 70 per cent of our needs being met by imports of goods and services from outside this State, the generation of growth by indiscriminate stimulatory action on the part of Government would be fruitless and self-destructive. The bulk of the impact would be felt in other countries exporting to Ireland and the balance of payments consequences of such action, even if sufficient leeway existed in the Government finances to make it possible in the first instance, would force a rapid and painful termination of any such initiative — as other countries much larger than our own have discovered to their cost in recent years.

The stimulation of growth must therefore be undertaken in a very discriminating manner, encouraging, whether by way of grants or tax reliefs, additional activity in very specific areas where the effects thus generated will be large in relation to the cost to the taxpayer, and where the additional expenditure will as far as possible accrue to the benefit of employment and production in Ireland, rather than to producers in other countries exporting to us.

Self-sustaining growth generated in this way also provides the key to the halting of the rise in unemployment and to the initiation of a process of reduction in the number of unemployed. The Government cannot, of course, in present circumstances limit their actions in respect of unemployment to growth generating measures; they must also apply, judiciously, resources provided by the taxpayer to mitigate the effects of high unemployment by a variety of carefully devised schemes such as the employment incentive scheme, the social employment scheme and the teamwork scheme. But the main thrust of Government policy must be directed towards achieving a level of economic growth which will produce an increase in self-sustaining employment sufficient not merely to absorb an annual increase in the labour force of around 15,000, but, beyond this, to provide employment for increasing numbers of those already out of work.

Considerable progress has been made in slowing down the growth of unemployment. Indeed it is notable that between June and November this year there was no net increase in the number of unemployed, seasonally adjusted. This contrasts with the situation when the Government came into office. At that time the numbers unemployed were rising at a rate of 40,000 a year.

Mr. O'Kennedy

We are making great progress but nobody seems to know that, outside this House.

(Interruptions.)

Mr. O'Kennedy

They seem to be living in cloud cuckoo-land outside this House.

Acting Chairman (Mr. Allen)

Please allow the Taoiseach to continue.

The Taoiseach

I am grateful to Deputy O'Kennedy for interrupting to highlight the fact that his Government left behind an annual increase of 40,000 in the number of unemployed. Such interruptions tend to be counter-productive but I am more than happy to take them and to use them as an opportunity to hammer home the points I am making.

Mr. McLoughlin

According to "Backchat" last Sunday Deputy O'Kennedy is certain of a ministry. He will not be left out in the cold next time. They are thinking about the Cabinet already, but there are a lot of dead ducks that will not come through.

The Taoiseach

He may be certain of a ministry but when? In which decade?

Mr. Donnellan

I suggest they set up a Government in exile.

The Taoiseach

Will his hair still have a russet quality or will it be entirely grey?

Mr. Reynolds

We have a Government in exile — we do not want another one.

The Taoiseach

It may be that the levelling off in unemployment during the course of the current year owes something to special factors, such as an inflation of the summer figures by an abnormally high level of registration by school leavers, and the introduction of the social employment scheme, so that unemployment may still contain some underlying upward momentum. Nevertheless the momentum has slowed dramatically and this promises well for the coming year. The prospects will become clearer during the early months of next year, and the future movement of unemployment will, of course, depend greatly on the extent to which the growth of world demand evokes a response from our exporters on a scale that would more than absorb the annual growth in the numbers leaving the educational system and seeking employment.

We have already reached the stage where the vast majority of those leaving the educational system do find employment, in most cases filling vacancies left by people retiring or otherwise leaving the labour force. But there remain a significant proportion of young people, more especially those whose education has ended at a relatively early stage, who are still not finding employment within a year of leaving the educational system. And while much has been done by the various State agencies concerned with youth employment to mitigate the effects of this situation, more needs to be done to ensure that the opportunities provided by these agencies are, in fact, concentrated upon the more disadvantaged groups of young people with lesser educational attainment — in many cases coming from environments that do not have a tradition of continuing education.

I am convinced that the problems of under-privilege which exist, especially in our inner cities and in some of the new suburbs, require special action or indeed positive discrimination, if they are to be tackled effectively. More and more we must direct our resources in a discriminating manner towards those most in need. The additional resources — £5 million provided last October for amenities will be deployed with this objective in mind.

The question of the development of our economy and of employment must, of course, be seen in the wider context of the European Community, participation in which has brought to this country substantial benefits. Accession to the EC has allowed us to reduce sharply our dependence on the UK market and has accelerated the diversification of our trade into other markets. Many people may not remember that in 1972, before we joined the Community, the UK accounted for 60 per cent of Irish exports and the other countries now in the EC for less than one-fifth, a ratio of over 3:1 in favour of the UK. This year about a third of our exports have gone to the UK with other EC countries accounting for another third — equality between the two, an enormous change in the pattern of our trade in these 13 years.

Even more significant is the fact that we have been freed from dependence upon a single market in which traditionally for well over a century prices of farm products had been artificially depressed in the interests of Britain's cheap food policy. Membership of the Community has given us the opportunity not only to increase our farm exports but also, by offering us wider access to the European market, to develop and expand our industrial base.

Associated with this has been the very substantial inflow of resources from the Community associated both with the Common Agricultural Policy and with the Regional and Social Funds. The scale of these flows is perhaps not widely enough appreciated. In the current year the net flow of funds from the Community to Ireland will amount to over £850 million. If this net inflow from EC sources had to be raised by taxation, if we were outside the EC, tax revenue would have to be almost 16 per cent higher than it is at present in order to maintain public services at their present level. This understates the scale of the problem that would exist for us outside the Community because of the general depression of the economy if we were not able to sell our products relatively freely within that area. That would be an intolerable load for taxpayers, who are already over-burdened, to carry.

I mention these figures because there is a tendency to take for granted the benefits of Community membership and to highlight only the disadvantages which necessarily arise in certain areas from participating with other countries in common policies. There have been some voices raised on the other side of the House to suggest that we would be better off outside the Community. I do not think these voices are raised seriously or that they represent the views of the party opposite, but as these suggestions have been made it is right to answer them. It is right that our assessment of membership should be a balanced one based, so far as the economic side is concerned, on a recognition of the very substantial net benefits that accrue to us from participation in the Community while also recognising our duty to contribute to the further development of the Community.

In this context I should perhaps comment on a claim made by the Leader of the Opposition in his response to my statement on the recent Luxembourg European Council. Deputy Haughey suggested in his statement on that occasion that there could be a drop of 25 per cent in allocation for Ireland from the Regional Fund in 1986. This suggestion has no foundation. In fact, on the basis of the 1986 budget voted by the European Parliament and the outcome of negotiations yesterday on shares of the Regional Fund, following enlargement, including guarantees given by the Commission, the Government are satisfied that our allocation for 1986 will actually show some increase over 1985, reflecting the safeguard I had written into the conclusions of the European Council in Brussels last March.

Mr. Haughey

Big deal.

Mr. Sheehan

It is a better deal than the one which Deputy Haughey made on the 10th.

(Interruptions.)

The Taoiseach

Correcting Deputy Haughey's mistake has disturbed him but it is important that when incorrect statements are made in the House on occasions when there is no opportunity to reply that they should be put right at the next available opportunity and I am doing so now. Deputy Haughey was totally incorrect in what he said on that occasion and it is as well to put that on the record.

We have a particular interest in the establishment of an internal market free not merely from tariff and quota restrictions but also from other obstacles to trade. We have, therefore, given strong support to the proposal to achieve this internal market by the year 1993 and, recognising that a major obstacle to the achievement of progress in this area has been the abuse of the unanimity provisions of the Treaty, we have agreed that, with certain specific exceptions which we regard as important, qualified majority voting shall apply in the years ahead so as to give effect to this important objective. These exceptions cover the areas of public morality, public order, public security, the movement of animals and plants in a manner that will affect animal or human health or life, the protection of national treasures, and the protection of industrial and commercial property.

The importance of this new impetus towards an internal market is indicated by the fact that the cost of administrative regulations — bureaucratic red tape — has been estimated at between 6 per cent and 8 per cent of the final cost of products to consumers within the Community and the elimination of these barriers could add as much as 4 per cent to Community gross domestic product. At present rates of growth that means an extra year and a half's growth added on to what would be achieved between now and 1993. We, in Ireland, have a particular interest in the elimination by member states of protectionist measures such as Government procurement policies and technical regulations which have been used to influence the location of international investment by US and Japanese companies — a matter which I first raised two years ago at the Stuttgart European Council. I am glad it has now been taken into account in the steps being taken towards the criterion of an internal market.

Another development upon which agreement was reached at the Luxembourg European Council several weeks ago, and one that is of special importance to us is the commitment to economic cohesion which involves incorporating in the Treaty for the first time new provisions for the specific needs of the Community's less developed regions and a requirement that in the completion of the internal market and the implementation of community policies, account will be taken of the objective of reducing regional disparities.

I hope that the reserves maintained by the Italian and Danish delegations, for opposite reasons, in relation to the increase in the powers of the European Parliament will be lifted, enabling these important amendments to the Treaty to be proceeded with.

I want to turn now briefly to the question of Northern Ireland, and relations between Ireland and Britain. I will not, of course, go over ground covered in the debates in this House and in Seanad Éireann on the approval of the Anglo-Irish Agreement. I want, however, to emphasise the commitment of the Government to the implementation of this agreement in a manner that will secure the objective which all of us share — the achievement of peace and stability in Northern Ireland. As I made clear at the time when I was presenting this agreement to Dáil Éireann, we recognise that the establishment of the Inter-Governmental Conference in Belfast will not immediately or automatically produce this result. It will take time for the operation of these new structures to affect a radical change in the alienation of the Northern Nationalist minority which has existed in varying degrees for 65 years, and the removal of which will eliminate the basis of support for, and tolerance of, violence directed against the Unionist community in Northern Ireland.

To the Nationalist community I say again: you can now raise your heads knowing that your position is, and is seen to be, on an equal footing with that of the Unionist community. Through this agreement, the two Governments are committed to providing new means for the expression of your identity and to giving new scope for the expression of your aspirations. The agreement specifically recognises the need to reconcile and to acknowledge the rights of the two major traditions that exist in Ireland, represented on the one hand by those who wish for no change in the present status of Northern Ireland and on the other by those who aspire to a sovereign united Ireland achieved by peaceful means and through agreement.

It is regrettable that the whole thrust of this agreement, recognising these rights and directed towards the objective of ending violence, has yet to be fully appreciated by the Unionist community in Northern Ireland. It would, of course, have been preferable if over the years the reality that the permanent exclusion of the Nationalist minority from any say in a devolved government in Northern Ireland was creating a degree of increased alienation overflowing dangerously into violence, thus disturbing the peace and stability of society in the North. It is notable that all surveys of public opinion in Northern Ireland which have been directed towards this question of power-sharing have shown an acceptance by a large majority, including a clear, indeed, overwhelming majority of the Unionist population, of this concept. It was the failure of the Unionist political leadership to agree to a participatory system of devolved government along the lines acceptable to both communities in Northern Ireland that eventually created a situation in which the danger of total destabilisation made it incumbent on both sovereign Governments to approach the matter in a different way.

For the two Governments to have failed to act in the face of this most dangerous deadlock would have been totally irresponsible.

The action we have taken together has been most carefully judged to achieve the objective of ending the alienation of the minority while offering to the majority the security of an international agreement, under which, for the first time, they are assured that any change in the status of Northern Ireland would require the consent of a majority of its people. This objective along with the provision that the work of the Inter-Governmental Conference shall not extend to any area in respect of which devolved power-sharing on a participatory basis is agreed, provides a basis upon which Unionist opinion can focus when the immediate trauma caused by the creation of the Conference begins to subside.

At this point I must make it clear that it is not part of our plan, and it is certainly not our wish, to see the Unionists excluded from the processes of government in Northern Ireland. Nothing could be more counter-productive; we are only too painfully aware from the experience of the Nationalist community over the past 65 years of the damaging and corrosive effects on the stability of the area and on the lives of its people of excluding either community in Northern Ireland from a full role in its affairs.

The Nationalist and Unionist people of Northern Ireland share a desire for peace, and a distaste for extremists and violent political action. It is on this common ground that we must build. But we can build on a secure foundation only if the agreement is implemented methodically and fully by the two Governments. Our Government are determined so to act.

I can only add that the scale and intensity of support for this agreement outside Ireland and within this State have been greater than anyone could have expected and the support given to it in the British Parliament has been as overwhelming as any of its supporters could wish. Through this backing and support we will proceed to implement the agreement to the full, but with sensitivity to the fears and concerns of both communities in Northern Ireland, and in the best interests of all the people of Ireland and Britain.

Turning back to our own domestic situation, it is worth pointing out that the Government's legislative programme is now well advanced with over 30 Bills now before the Houses of the Oireachtas. These included, for example, Bills to reform company and bankruptcy law; to provide for complaints against the Garda Síochána, which will allow for the full implementation of the Criminal Justice Act; to deal with discrimination against women in regard to nationality and citizenship, and also domicile; to make provision for a free port at Ringaskiddy; to introduce new building regulations that will make particular provision for the disabled; to provide for the care and protection of children; to establish on a statutory basis a combat poverty agency; and, under the auspices of my own Department, to establish national archives and to provide for the preparation and publication of archival material. And a most important Bill, which is now before the Seanad, is the Bill to establish the National Development Corporation, which will have a major role to play in the development of employment in the years ahead.

This heavy legislative programme has already required the Dáil to sit four days a week, and until midnight on several days a week, during much of the period since the resumption of the Dáil session on 23 October, and it is clear that a similar pattern of extended and late sessions will be necessary in the months after Christmas in order to bring this legislative programme, together with other Bills soon to be published, to fruition before the summer recess.

In drawing together the threads of these remarks, I must return to the basic, economic and financial problems which still face us, and which remain daunting. Once the level of public spending had been raised by almost 40 per cent in four years, to a level totally inappropriate to an economy at our stage of development, major problems were created for the public finances which were bound to be very difficult to resolve and which cannot, in fact, be resolved over any short period of years. The using up of the product of something like 15 years growth of the economy during a period of four short years between 1977 and 1981 effectively pre-empted available resources into the nineties, leaving us to face throughout the eighties a combined problem of excessive levels of borrowing and excessive levels of taxation.

We have made significant progress with respect to borrowing, reducing the level of borrowing as a proportion of our national output by two-fifths of the figure which faced us in mid-1981. But borrowing, and the current budget deficit in particular, still remain at an unacceptably high level, imposing each year on the taxpayers of the future an additional burden of interest payments, which are already pre-empting almost one-third of total tax revenue. It is for this reason above all that the level of the taxation, and in particular the level of PAYE taxation is so inordinately high.

It cannot be repeated too often that the proposals to alleviate this tax burden by substituting increased borrowing are inherently nonsensical — because it is the very increase in borrowing which imposes the additional burden of taxation on taxpayers in subsequent years, as we have learnt to our chagrin since 1978.

It is because of this dilemma, forced on us by the developments of the late seventies, that we have to concentrate our efforts on achieving and sustaining a higher level of economic growth than we have experienced in recent years. It is towards this objective that Government policy must be primarily directed. The major part of the impetus for growth must come from outside, from the continued strength of world trade which can be expected and which should allow sustained growth of our exports and of our output during 1986. If this additional foreign stimulus materialises, and if we can maintain the progress made in reducing interest rates during the past year, then the prospects for 1986 could be for a higher growth rate than cautious official forecasts currently indicate. The new stimulus afforded by the measures announced by the Government on 23 October gives us further grounds for expecting that such an improvement in growth will take place.

Nevertheless, at this moment at any rate, such improved prospects as may be offered by these anticipated developments are substantially overshadowed by the fact that we will be coming into next year with a level of revenue significantly lower than had been expected. Fortunately this has been balanced on the expenditure side by the tight control over spending which has ensured that the total level of spending in 1985 has been held to the planned level despite the need to find additional resources to implement the public service arbitrator's pay award, and to provide for the additional sums necessitated by the higher than expected level of unemployment. But there is no disguising the fact that the opening budgetary situation for 1986 is more difficult than might have been anticipated and that the Government's room for manoeuvre, whether in relation to public service pay or taxation, is correspondingly reduced.

I think it is right that I should submit this sober report to the House, for it is the duty of a Government — and one which I personally take seriously — to keep the Houses of the Oireachtas fully informed as to the way our country's affairs are developing, whether they be developing in a favourable or unfavourable direction. But none of the problems that we face is insuperable. If we can mobilise fully the resources available to us — including the resources of vision and imagination which we have applied both to the successful management of our membership of the European Community and to the negotiation of the Anglo-Irish Agreement — then we can overcome our domestic economic and financial problems.

These problems derive in large measure from the fact that we have not succeeded in mobilising on the domestic scene our talents and resources in the same way that we have done externally. Very substantial headway could be made with these problems if our entire people co-operated together to resolve them. There has however been a pattern of over-reliance on the Government of the day — not merely over-reliance on Governments for aids and tax reliefs and incentives of various kinds, but over-reliance on Governments on their own to tackle the black economy, to eliminate abuses in social welfare and evasion of taxation and to reduce absenteeism — when all these problems are ones which involve the whole community and not just the Government. No Government in this State have taken anything like the number of steps that we have taken to deal with these abuses in successive budgets. But better enforcement — and I recognise that we still have a distance to go before our enforcement mechanisms are adequate — is not the whole solution, and inded can never be more than part of the solution. As long as people are willing to put up with paying an excessive level of taxation while remaining reluctant to identify cases of abuses known to them, this problem will not be brought fully under control by any Government. Everyone who allows himself or herself to be persuaded to pay for certain services with cash rather than by some other method that would involve a written record of the transaction is contributing to his or her own higher level of taxation. Everyone who employs someone knowing that he or she is in receipt of unemployment benefit or assistance, and often knowingly permitting the person concerned to get off work in order to "sign on", is adding to the burden of taxation on his or her own business. Everyone who knows of people who are consistently abusing the tax system and does not furnish information about cases to the tax authorities is effectively transferring the tax burden of the defaulter to himself or herself.

In tackling the problem of the black economy during 1986 this Government will be seeking the co-operation of all our people in the interest of stamping out these practices, which have created a vicious circle of spiralling taxation. I say a vicious circle because higher taxes, introduced in the first place to pay for excessive increases in public spending, divert people into the black economy, thereby reducing tax revenue and forcing further tax increases on those who are already paying their full share, and so the vicious circle continues.

This Government are prepared to govern. We will take all action that may be necessary to ensure that the taxpayers of this country are not abused, as they have been for years past, by different groups seekings to evade their responsibilities. But in giving this leadership, and in undertaking this task, we shall require and shall seek the co-operation of the entire community — just as we shall seek increased productivity from everyone engaged in enterprise, private or public, in order to increase our share of the domestic and external markets and thus to acclerate the growth of our economy — which is the only sure path out of our difficulties.

It is perhaps inevitable that after a Government have completed three years in office, politicians and the media should begin to speculate about elections and preparations for elections. But I have no intention of selling the people of this country short in terms of providing them with effective Government for the period of office for which they elected us to serve. We shall complete our term of office and then present ourselves to the people with a record of performance that will justify our return to office. We are not going to be diverted from this course, or from the difficult decisions that will have to be made next year as in other recent years, by any short-term considerations of political popularity related to the fact that we shall be returning to the electorate within the space of the next two years. We shall be getting on with the job, doing what needs to be done, because that is what we have been put here to do, and because that is the basis on which our people will decide to reelect us, when the time comes to do so, in 1987.

Mr. Reynolds

A stay of execution for one year. It is no wonder they clapped.

(Interruptions.)

Mr. Haughey

Deputy Farrelly does not need permission to speak: he never speaks.

Mr. Farrelly

Deputy Haughey did not hear my contribution before lunch.

Acting Chairman

Deputy O'Kennedy without interruption, please.

Mr. O'Kennedy

Any Taoiseach who can make a virtue of diminishing tax returns because of the penal tax levels and the reduced consumer spending power, any Taoiseach who can come into this House and talk about improvements in the unemployment trends since 1982, since when unemployment has increased by 60,000, any Taoiseach who can talk in terms of significant progress in respect of reducing borrowing when our total State debt has increased from just over £12 billion to just short of £21 billion since he came into office, is really living in cloud cuckoo land; and it is clear that the document Building on Reality which he introduced has proved to be consistent with his presentation today, a building on total unreality.

On a day when the country urgently needs a boost, when businessmen and primary producers need opportunity, when the young need hope, when the unemployed need dignity and when the old and the sick need our compassion and concern, this Government have once again turned their backs on all of them.

The Estimates for the Public Service published today demonstrate dramatically that the priorities of this Government are totally unrelated to the needs and the potential of this economy. They also demonstrate the Government's failure to allocate scarce resources to areas of urgent need while at the same time— and I say this deliberately — lavishing taxpayers' money on a growing bureaucracy and administration. This Government proclaimed their intention and their determination to tackle the imbalances in the economy but they have succeeded only in aggravating all the aggregates — borrowing, budget deficits, taxation increases — and much worse, in spreading an air of hopelessness and frustration throughout the community. I regret to say that, having heard the leader of this nation today, the people will not be in any way reassured or encouraged.

Last year I was proved right with regard to the Estimates. Today the Estimates for 1986 were published and, as was the case last year, they are based on false projections and will be proved to be entirely unreliable as was the case last year.

Mr. Dukes

The Deputy was proved wrong last year, he was proved wrong today and he will be proved wrong at the end of the month.

Mr. O'Kennedy

With the growth in unemployment and the increase in the numbers claiming unemployment assistance — despite the claim of the Taoiseach that the unemployment position has improved dramatically since he came to office — a 5 per cent nominal increase for unemployment assistance over 1985 cannot be accepted as a reliable figure. It is also a reduction in real terms. Last week the Government had to introduce a Supplementary Estimate amounting to an extra £35 million to provide extra money for unemployment assistance over and above what they provided in the Estimates last year. I hope they will not be here next year to do the same but the Government who inherit the problem will have to rectify the mistake by making good the deficiency in this year's figures for unemployment expenditure.

Our industrial development policy should recognise a number of realities. We are a small island community and this imposes certain cost disadvantages in respect of transport and infrastructure. What happens? We get rid of our shipping capacity and instead of improving our infrastructure the Government propose to cut back the road development programme by £10 million in the figure included in Building on Reality. They are undermining what was included in their own document. The essential telecommunications programme is reduced by 13 per cent on the out-turn for 1985. Are we meant to believe that we have the most modern, best equipped telecommunication facilities in Europe?

This shows an appalling lack of awareness of the disadvantages we have imposed on our industrial and business sector to compete effectively in international trading. Already we have the third lowest number of telephone units per thousand in the OECD area, with only Portugal and Turkey at a lower level, and I am damn sure their work a little better than ours. Countries such as Greece and Spain have lower national output per head, but have at least 50 per cent more telephone units per head of population than we.

What did the Government do? They cut back the allocation for telecommunications. Their attitude is that we are all right, that we want to cut ourselves off from the world outside. We have already cut ourselves off from reality inside. When those who are concerned outside look to today's publication to try to find a signal for them, they will go away with the same message as they got in the last three years. They are not encouraged here. We are just penalised and lectured by a Taoiseach and a Government who would be better employed following academic lives than there leading the nation.

It is not possible to compete in a modern economy without essential telecommunication structures which would give us immediate access to the market place. The priority in industrial policy should be to promote higher valueadded, particularly in internal trade services, and as we demonstrated in our recent policy document, the focus should be on science and technology, research and development. We cannot continue to complain, though it is a matter of great concern, about the black hole, the repatriation of profits, if we rely on the multinationals in our interest to locate research and development and high technology activities here. We cannot complain if they decide to locate those activities in their countries while we pay no attention in our industrial development programmes to research and development activities to ensure that Irish industrialists will have the necessary trained and skilled personnel. We have got to ensure that we will have the knowledge and the skilled personnel so that we can attract industries here. While we continue to penalise knowledge we will see the black hole growing deeper and bigger.

This year alone more than 700 third level award holders either emigrated or remained unemployed. That is a mark of shame against the Government. While other countries base their economic development on their graduates, we continue to turn our backs on this great personal resource. The total failure of the Government can be illustrated by the fact that in patent registrations, our guarantee of the future, the indication of what we can do through knowledge and skill and technology, we achieve only one half per 100,000 of our population each year as compared with Japan which achieves 60 times that, 30 per cent 100,000.

Is it any wonder that we spend our whole time reacting, crying and hopelessly pointing out that others are causing problems for us? We do not invest in the most important resource we have, the skills and knowledge of our young people.

Another area with immense potential is the development of financial services and the information technology relating to it. We already have a strong base in our banking, insurance, accountancy and management consultancy services. The potential for promoting international value added through information networks is being totally ignored by the Government, and the provision of an adequate satellite service which could be used for transmission of funds, information and business data, for which there is a huge international capital market, demonstrates the great potential that exists there but has been totally ignored. Are the Government anxious to tell our people that they want them to live in a world of 50 years ago or are they prepared to tell them that we are living in an era of modern technology and that, by God, we will compete and win?

It is time we moulded the knowledge we have of financial services into a new promotion of employment in these sectors where even a small increase, as we have, of one half of 1 per cent of world trade would have an immense impact on our economy.

I will give one more example of Government failure. It is in natural resource development. We have imposed serious disability on the effective development of our downstream forest industries. We are importing £400 million worth of forest products annually, and informed sources in the business — the Taoiseach knows a fair few of them — indicate that at least £250 million worth could be replaced by Irish products. For heavens sake would the Taoiseach ask somebody to examine this? The Government still adhere to an archaic tendering system for our forest products and this is seen as the biggest single block on the effective development of our forest processing business. The tendering system is that the highest tender per unit, even for a very small enterprise, could be for 3,000 cubic meters. That is the measure fixed for all who tender for processing our forest products. Is it any wonder that major developers who could and would tender and win processing contracts are not prepared to be subjected to that type of blackmail?

That is but one example for those who do not seem to be aware of what is happening under this administration. It is high time that we played from our strength rather than our weakness. Irish industry has a capacity utilisation as low as 60 per cent, and instead of recruiting young people to train in industry on a contract basis — business training could be promoted by people like Deputy Reynolds who would train them and tell them about real life in business — this Government continue to rely not on business people and training programmes promoted by them, but on expensive permanent training centres which are totally unrelated to actual work experience and which do not provide the same job outlets as training programmes linked directly to industry. Our young people get six months in cold training centres and then wander around for 12 months or 18 months in the cold world of unemployment.

Is it not time for the Government to look at the realities, at their failure in this area? Perhaps it is in marketing that the Government have shown most lack of awareness of the need and the potential that exists for a more vigorous economic activity. It will never be possible to exploit the great opportunities for us unless we become familiar with the ethos, culture and commercial consumer practices in the markets we wish to penetrate by affording even minimal tax incentives to marketing personnel to base themselves abroad, and by promoting language and familiarisation courses in all our marketing institutes. We could then begin to understand the markets, particularly in the agrifood industry which we are deplorably failing to exploit.

Is it not sad to think there are marketing schools in Dublin that do not even have language courses as part of the marketing programme? I do not blame the schools because the Minister for Education probably does not provide the funds. We will need marketing personnel who will at least be able to understand what the customers are saying and perhaps as a bonus be able to communicate with those customers. Unfortunately, the majority of our marketing personnel are not capable on either counts. There are exceptions in the marketing area, exceptions such as the Food, Drink and Tobacco Federation of the CII who have been operating very successfully for three years. They demonstrate that the Government must come to grips finally with the real economy and its potential and must support vigorously any initiatives that would help us to familiarise ourselves with the market place.

This Government have launched 34 different schemes but in addition they provide another scheme the purpose of which is to introduce one to all these other schemes. Those of us who are up early enough in the mornings can hear the advertising on radio as part of the Government's lavish publicity operation. Instead of advertising in terms of, "let's get working" the Government should be applying that dictum to themselves. They should put an end to this nonsense that is beamed at us every day by way of our television and radio networks. It is not the fault of the many young people who cannot find work that they are in that position. Even the latest report from the Youth Employment Agency indicates that the most important channel for young people in terms of employment are the personal contacts they make for themselves, whereas the services provided by the manpower agencies of Government account for only as little as a quarter of placement jobs. Yet the Government continue to expand the agencies of the Department of Labour.

Tourism and its related activities is another area of huge potential which instead of developing we have obstructed by official policy. If we are serious about winning even a small share of this huge growth area, particularly from countries such as Japan, Australia, New Zealand and the US, it is time we opened our airways to the very wealthy potential customers from these areas just as every other country in Europe has done, instead of adhering to outdated protective regulations which make holiday costs to Ireland far more expensive than the cost of holidays to any other country in Europe from these distance points. The problem and the potential can be underlined by the fact that only 3,000 Japanese tourists visited this country this year by comparison with a corresponding number of 500,000 Japanese to England.

The reason for this is that these tourists can travel from Tokyo to London at the same rate as they can travel to Paris, Rome, Helsinki or Bonn. Ireland is the exception because anyone coming from Tokyo would have to pay the additional fare from London to Dublin. That is an example of the incentive we are offering to people who could contribute so much to our balance of payments. Tourists from these places could make an undiluted contribution of enormous proportions to our balance of payments and to our foreign currency reserves but, despite having all the attractions such as golf, fishing, clean air and beautiful countryside, we erect insurmountable barriers against them. Tourism has the advantage also that the product is domestic and that the employment content is very great, a very important aspect at this time of growing unemployment.

If one is to judge the Government's priorities from the public expenditure allocation to the Central Statistics Office which has more than doubled this year to bring it to £13.25 million, it is not unfair to say that the Government are prepared to double the money to count the people while showing no care as to whether the people are there.

The priorities for the development of the economy at this stage must be an enhanced investment climate in all the productive areas and a tax system which rewards efforts and enterprise. By increasing the total tax revenue this year to 42 per cent of GNP compared with 33.5 per cent of GNP in 1982, the Government have crushed enterprise and penalised work in every area of the economy. Within this, the revenue from income tax has increased from 12.1 per cent of GNP to more than 14 per cent this year. The increase in excise duties and VAT to more than 20 per cent of GNP has dampened consumer activity and has had a disastrous effect on tourism, on the construction industry, on the service economy and, as the Taoiseach has acknowledged, on revenue returns.

As a direct consequence of these penal tax levels — the highest in the whole OECD area — the capacity of the economy to generate sufficient revenue to meet our expenditure programmes has been undermined. The direct consequence of this is that the budget deficit which the Government propose to eliminate within four years is now poised to be the highest ever at £1,350 million and 8.6 per cent of GNP. The target in Building on Reality of a 5 per cent budget deficit for 1987 is now totally unrealisable. The Minister for Finance found himself in the extraordinary position recently of requesting the EC Commission to delete the proposal in their report to reduce the budget deficit in 1986 by 1½ per cent of GNP. That proposal of the Commission was based on the Government's target and clearly repudiates any suggestion by the Taoiseach that the Government are adhering to a consistent programme of financial rectitude.

Not surprisingly, as the budget deficit grows, the problem to finance it grows also. By the end of this year the total national debt will be close to £21 billion. That will represent a 66 per cent increase in the three years since the Government came to office. We have now reached the point where the national debt adds an extra burden of £22,000 per annum to the debt of each worker in the State. Almost 70 per cent of new borrowing is swallowed up by way of current expenditure while only 30 per cent is provided for necessary capital investment programmes. This banqueting on borrowing from current expenditure must stop. Instead, we must continue to borrow for productive capital purposes. That has always been the purpose of Fianna Fáil Governments.

While the potential for development and secure employment based on our personal and natural resources is enormous, the Government confine themselves to lecturing the public, as the Taoiseach did again today, while paying no attention to the lessons the Government need themselves to learn.

In a recent interview with Business & Finance which is published in their 28 November issue, the Taoiseach had some advice to offer school leavers. He may know that Business & Finance does not usually form part of the reading material of these young people. Perhaps he may consider having published in Hot Press his advice to businessmen. However, to those school leavers who are unable to obtain employment the Taoiseach offered the advice that they should retain their courage and enthusiasm. He went on to say, as reported at page 45 of the magazine:

Unemployment among those 1983 school-leavers was highest, at 45.5%, among those who had left school with no qualifications.

He continued:

Young people should remember that the Government operate a very wide range of employment, work experience and training programme, for young people, especially the unemployed.

This craven appeal to the young to have hope in the face of hopelessness, to look to schemes of employment instead of looking for permanent and secure employment, is typical of the Taoiseach. In this same interview the Taoiseach had advice for young emigrants. He urged them to keep in mind the following points when thinking of leaving Ireland. I quote:

are you certain that you would not be better off at home...? Make sure to seek advice from those who can assist, including the National Manpower Service; make sure to arrange somewhere to stay before you go; you will need at least £200 to last you until you get paid; bring references from former employers, priests or teachers...

Is it not a sad reflection on the nation that the Taoiseach, has been put into the role of mother counsellor? Compare his advice with the advice which the late Seán Lemass gave to my generation of the fifties when they were emigrating. He did not remind us to bring our warm winter woollies, to bring soap with which to wash our faces or to bring references from priests and teachers. He told us to come back to Ireland as soon as possible, that there was a place for us in our own country. Today I am saying to our young people that they should ignore the message of the Taoiseach in his role as mother counsellor and come back here in their thousands and let us rid ourselves of our only problem, that problem being the Government. We hope that very soon a Government who will realise the potential of our country and its people will be in office.

Mr. Flynn

Soon the people on the other side will have vanished into history.

Minister for Education (Mrs. Hussey)

As we move towards the Adjournment we should contemplate a country which is slowly and with considerable difficulty facing up to reality, where a Government who wish to govern responsibly must face pressures from every interest group for more spending while at the same time devoting their energies and resources to creating conditions for the growth of employment. From what I have heard this afternoon there is little evidence that Fianna Fáil or any other party in the House except the Government parties, see the contradictions inherent in their demands for more spending, accompanied by promises in the case of Fianna Fáil, and their demands for tax reductions in order to create incentives.

An extraordinary feature of the speech we have just heard from Deputy O'Kennedy is that he looked for more help for the disadvantaged and for more spending in education while asking for reduced taxation. The Deputy also complained about Irish Shipping, in effect asking the taxpayer to pay another £145 million into Irish Shipping; he also asked for more investment in third level education despite the £126 million investment which was embarked upon, the vast bulk of which will be used in the area of technology about which he also complained. There is an incredible amount of contradiction in what Fianna Fáil say both here and outside the House. A feature of Fianna Fáil when last in Government was that they found it quite impossible to say no to any pressure group or pay demand and they thus contributed enormously to their own psychological barriers and the psychological barriers of many people, making the control of expenditure traumatic. Fianna Fáil are unable to face it.

There is no evidence that Fianna Fáil would be better fitted for office in 1987 than they were in 1982. Their term in Opposition, once the leadership feuds had been brought under some kind of uneasy control, was marked by occasional publications which purported to be policy documents. They have been, unfortunately, a succession of damp squibs which have mercifully been ignored by most of the interest groups in the media. Fianna Fáil demonstrated that they have no interest in policy and policy formation because it is foreign to the present power structure in Fianna Fáil to think constructively beyond next week.

The most outstanding recent example of that was the rushed judgment on the Anglo-Irish agreement, hastily and foolishly embarked on, embarrassing in the extreme for many Fianna Fáil people and compounded quite recently by the extraordinary premeditated attack by Deputy Paddy Lalor on John Hume in the European Parliament. The people have watched Fianna Fáil showing their true colours. They are hasty, irresponsible and shortsighted. They have a great desire for one thing, power, but they are incapable of putting a coherent case to the country.

Over the past three years this Government have had to struggle to overcome many obstacles. We still face a formidable financial challenge. We had to embark on measures to restore sanity into a situation which was heading for serious trouble. When the Fianna Fáil Government were in power before 1983 they accepted the reality to an extent when they published The Way Forward but they have been trying to forget that realism ever since. Fianna Fáil indicated in the Estimates they published before the beginning of 1983, a half-hearted acceptance of some reality. It was half-hearted because those Estimates contained a mention of cutbacks but very few specifics.

Nobody on the Government side will claim to have solved all the financial problems. Many difficulties remain and the Taoiseach detailed them soberly for the House this afternoon. We have taken significant steps towards halting the extremely dangerous growth in foreign borrowing which threatened our future. In doing that, unpopular measures had to be taken mainly because the country had been led into a sense of expectancy of high spending by Fianna Fáil in the previous years. The economies we had to make were absolutely necessary. The economy must be brought around to a point where it can improve its performance and future prospects. It could be said that we did not go far enough, that we should have resisted more sternly the clamour for more spending and better social services.

Such choices are not easy ones and the reality is that economic actions can at times have both good and bad effects simultaneously. Thus while cutting back on social services may help to balance the budget, there is a point where it can depress economic activity in a way which neutralises the benefits. If one goes in for spending in the hope that it will raise morale and stimulate economic growth, there is the real danger that inflation will rise and the debt burden grow intolerably.

The answer must be found in striking the right balance, taking account of all the factors. A Government cannot even get much help from would-be objective commentators. For every one who says we have not gone far enough there is another who says we have gone too far. Governments must find their own way through the maze of conflicting advice and comments. All of us politicians particularly Government politicians face a perpetual problem in translating the complexities of national economics into simple statements which the ordinary Irishman and woman can understand.

Generally speaking, sensible families understand the rules for managing their own affairs. One can pay out ultimately only what one first takes in. The scales of spending and income must be kept overall in balance if major problems are to be avoided. If one wants a lifestyle on a scale greater than one can afford one may borrow money to close the gap between what one wants to spend and what one has to spend. That may work for today or tomorrow but sooner or later one must repay that debt from one's own resources.

Many people who clearly understand that kind of logic when applied to their own lives find it difficult, when listening to politicians or people in Government, to translate that rule into the running of the country. That is one of the problems Governments face. We cannot aspire to standards of living which we see in other countries if we do not have the resources of those countries. That applies in many areas of spending, including education. We may wish to buy that lifestyle by borrowing today, and the timescale for paying back may be longer than that applying to ordinary families, but our children will end up paying for what we felt we must have today.

Not long ago in this House I was abused by the Opposition because they claimed we do not pay as much per head for each student in our education system as do other countries. I pointed out that we spend a larger proportion of our total resources on education than most other countries. This was dismissed as irrelevant. Let us not fool ourselves. If we want to spend more on each child's education we can only do so by increasing our total wealth as a nation or by foregoing some other service such as health or social welfare. Yet the cry on all sides is for more spending on education, on health, on social welfare and for higher wages for everyone. We must ask ourselves when will this country reach maturity and particularly the Opposition so that they will realise the madness of that thinking? Indeed, when will many politicians on the other side of the House have the courage to stand up and tell the whole scene as it really is?

This Government, while avoiding particularly savage spending cuts, the likes of which were in Fianna Fáil buried document The Way Forward, the kind of spending cuts that some commentators would have us make, have a very firm and clear record in controlling public spending. We have achieved a kind of financial discipline which Fianna Fáil had forgotten existed. Unfortunately the abandonment of any kind of financial control by Fianna Fáil was for dangerously popularist motives. That was a most alarming feature which finally convinced the country to turn Fianna Fáil out. I am appalled at the gall and hyprocrisy of people on the Opposition side who criticise us for marginal overruns on budget projections. The Taoiseach detailed earlier today the extraordinary overruns engaged in by Fianna Fáil Governments year after year up to a point of 60 per cent. Therefore, it is amazing to hear accusations being thrown across the floor and it is necessary to answer them.

Deputy O'Kennedy spent part of his contribution discussing education. It is important because education now occupies such a central role not only in the country's spending but in its future. We must, on an Adjournment Debate, consider education for some time. We have made most significant progress despite the very necessary discipline of the strictest financial control. Education is a world of challenges. The biggest overall problem rises from the very large proportion of our population which we have to educate and which is well out of line with most other countries.

I should like to pay unreserved tribute to all of those people in the educational sector who have maintained so well the quality of education even within the limits imposed by the unavoidable scarcity of resources. We set ourselves the objective of getting value for money and I believe we have been successful in doing so. People have revealed talents, strengths, imagination and ingenuity in the way they have worked to give the very best service to young people. In this tribute I begin with my Department. Here, at a time when the slimming down of staff numbers has imposed great pressures, my officials have excelled not only in maintaining the system but in supporting me in carrying through a very extensive programme of reform. The same can be said of teachers, school managers, committees, indeed all sectors of education.

It is widely recognised that the last three years have been a period of great change in education. Much has been achieved at a time when it might be expected that the best that could be done would have been to endeavour to keep the ship afloat. But great progress and changes have been achieved through commitment and dedicated effort, qualities which are absolutely vital in so many different areas to our future success as a nation. We should agree never to sell ourselves short or to undervalue our achievements. It does less than justice to those who give so much of themselves to working for young people to carp continually because we do not have more resources to spend on education.

Let us remind ourselves that we spend over £1 billion of taxpayers' money each year to educate nearly one million people. Each family bringing up children receives a very substantial cash subsidy over the years spent at school. As I said recently, a family of four children, who all spend the usual eight years in primary school, five years in a post-primary school and, say, two of those children go on to third level for three years, will each receive a total State subsidy, at present prices, of almost £60,000. That is the type of reality of education spending not often enough understood by ordinary families when they are computing the kinds of demands they want to make on the educational system.

We have been directing funds to give special help for pupils in disadvantaged areas and have been taking important steps to equalise opportunity in education. The Curriculum and Examinations Board are working actively and have already stimulated a lively national debate on all aspects of educational programmes. With regard to the modern languages area, interestingly enough touched on by Deputy O'Kennedy, this Government have made major strides in improving the teaching and examining of modern languages. There are now aural and oral tests as part of the leaving certificate examination. The development of communicative skills in European languages is highly significant. Here I agree absolutely with Deputy O'Kennedy, that we must improve our communicative skills in those languages in order to expand our economy through better international marketing of our goods. Unlike Deputy O'Kennedy I should like to pay tribute to the many schools at third level which have included languages in their marketing programmes and I know that more and more of them are planning to do so because they realise its significance for our young people. The "Ages for Learning" document introduced important new changes in educational structures which had been called for for many years. That also includes the provision of 2,000 more jobs in secondary teaching.

We have brought forward a major capital programme for school building at all levels but particularly to provide additional third level places throughout the country, especially in the technology area. We have initiated a long overdue debate on the possibility of improving and rationalising our educational management systems through the establishment of local education councils. We have sponsored a major programme to bring about greater opportunities for girls in education.

All of these improvements and achievements have been affected within realistic and tight cost limits. If I appear to emphasise that point, it is not to apologise in any way but rather to pay a genuine tribute to those who have proved what can be achieved given good will and the right kind of leadership working together. I should like to refer briefly to the debate initiated on the publication of the Green Paper "Partners in Education", a most fundamental document and one hailed as such by people in education generally. The issues of management which it addresses are far reaching.

For historical reasons we have a variety of school systems at second level which are all too often seen as being in competition with each other. We want to remove sources of conflict and draw together the best of all systems into a more co-ordinated, overall service. It is quite natural that everybody will carefully examine those proposals and consideration of detail may colour their initial reactions. I would appeal now to everybody to look at the overall thrust of the proposals and their implications for the long term good of education. The details can be discussed. I feel so confident that there is much merit in the general line of development that I would ask all education interests to sit down and discuss them with us because we are all partners in the education process. We must approach the debate with an openness of mind and generosity of spirit. Together in partnership we can do so much for young people that we cannot do now.

We all wish — and I know Deputy O'Rourke shares this wish with me — for more funds for education. I do not know if we can all wish that without having regard to our capacity to pay. It is not in the interests of our young people now in the education system to pass them on a debt-ridden economy. In future years they will not thank us. There is no way in which we could fail them more than by deceiving them about the only way in which to get greater funding for education.

One of the greatest challenges is meeting increasing demands for places at third level. This is where the full force of the youth population bulge has yet to have its effect. Through all of those engaged in third level education we have achieved a remarkable degree of productivity. We must seek even more because, despite our massive capital programme, we cannot accommodate all the extra numbers without a greater intensity of use of existing accommodation. Costs of third level education to the taxpayer are very high indeed. Each student at third level costs the taxpayer some £3,000. We have been able to affect substantial increases in the grants system for higher education and we are annually indexing these. That is something never done before and which is long overdue. At the same time, in the fee structure it has been necessary to revert gradually to a situation in which fee income will account for 25 per cent of the total resources available to third level institutions. When we talk about fee income we should remember that only a quarter of the total resources available to run the third level system comes from fees. The rest is coming from the taxpayer. The offsetting of fee increases against improvements in the level and number of grants paid is a progressive measure which directs aid to those who need it most, namely those on lowest incomes. The grants system is an essential element in the effort to improve the participation rates of lower socio-economic groups in third-level education, something of concern to us all.

I am, of course, conscious of the difficulties for families who have to pay full fees and whose income falls outside the eligibility limit for grants, even though in our improvement of the grants system we have a staggered system where somebody is not cut off from very large assistance by virtue of being just above limits. I share the concerns expressed about fee levels recently by some of our leading academics. However, the situation is forced on us by our overall economic difficulties and I must have regard to the funding needs and priorities of all levels of education, particularly bearing in mind the very high cost of each third level place. It was by measures such as budgeting for increases in third level fees that we managed to release much needed funds for extra services for the disadvantaged at primary level, for example.

In running our educational system I am constrained by several parameters. However one may wish to do so, one cannot work for idealism in a vacuum. I have many balances to make. They include the balance between reforms and new developments and between equity and social justice, the need to maintain quality and standards, the need to make education relevant to all kinds of work and leisure while maintaining the liberal tradition of Irish education, the need to ensure the efficiency of administrative structures, and at the same time to achieve maximum cost effectiveness in the delivery of education and the need to control the total extent of resources required, with all the other demands we face.

I have sought to develop a true partnership with all the educational interest groups. In this respect we have made great demands on the time of so many people on whom we are constantly calling for consultation and advice. A constant stream of people come to discuss policy with us in Marlborough Street. In this regard I am particularly pleased that this year we have the National Parents' Council in place — an extremely important new voice at the consultation table.

The House will be aware that the Estimates for the Public Service were published today. Let me say one or two words about the Education Estimates to point out a feature or two. A gross total provision of £1,126.710 million is being made for the education services in 1986. This represents an increasee of 6 per cent over the projected outturn for 1985. I am not sure what Deputy O'Kennedy meant when he talked about cuts. The capital provision is 10 per cent over the 1985 outturn.

Our national plan stated that primary education would be a priority for expenditure, and I am glad to say that that commitment is reflected in the Estimates for 1986. The capitation grant for national schools is being increased from £22 to £24. This is an increase in real terms. Since 1983, the rate of grant has been increased from £15 to £24, an increase of 60 per cent. The special fund for disadvantaged areas is being increased by £250,000 bringing the total for 1986 to £750,000. The grant for free books at both primary and post-primary level is being increased by 5 per cent. An additional 50 remedial teaching posts will be created, as well as some 55 remedial and guidance posts in post primary schools, mainly in disadvantaged areas.

Those are some of the features which I have picked out of the Estimates published today which I felt the House might like to know about. Of course, in education we cannot please everybody. There will be fundamental differences of opinion about issues which from time to time touch every family. One may not like everything we do, but I do not believe anybody doubts that the Government's commitment to education is sincere as has been the commitment of other Governments before us. Our commitment to young people is made now but we also make a commitment to their future. Among other things that last consideration means responsible financial management and reasonable limits to spending.

I believe we have worked well in the past three years, and we will continue to work well because of dedication and commitment on the part of so many people. That has been the natural expression of the value which Irish people have placed on learning and on all aspects of education. We have a great deal going for us and we have the capacity to make it or blow it ourselves as a nation. Having been Minister for Education for three years, I am proud to be a Member of a Government who stand on honour and integrity and seek nothing but the best for all their people. We do not give up under pressure. We show what can be achieved even at a time of great financial difficulty. In this respect we can turn even our greatest adversities to good and noble ends. It has been done and will be done until our turn is over.

Mrs. O'Rourke

I am glad that I was in the House and the next to speak when the Minister for Education delivered her speech. I recognise many of the good points she made. I know she has had some time to consider the Education Estimates, but I have only had a cursory reading of them. However, I regret that the Minister chooses always to overlay her speeches with petulance, pettiness and preaching. It is a great shame that she spoils what could be worthwhile contributions by moralistic statements about the honour and integrity of her Government as if they were the prerogative of a Coalition Government only or of a Fine Gael Member of this House.

As long as Deputy Hussey, Minister for Education, repeats her preaching from her benches to our benches I will say, as I have had occasion to say before, that I consider myself and the party I represent to have honour and integrity and that the position I have been given is also one of honour and integrity. As a member of a party who have served this country — and in particular the course of education — so well for so many years, I consider that it ill-behoves a member of a Government who have spent so little time in office to say that they have the full rights on honour and integrity. The same note of preaching and self-justification pervaded the Taoiseach's speech. I was not in the House when he spoke but I heard most of his speech and I read it subsequently, and it bore the same note of self-righteous moral indignation and self-justification.

It is a very alien way to do business for a Government constantly to hark back to a previous Government's tenure of office and say that the ills of all those years are the fault of the big bad wolf, Fianna Fáil. We heard it in 1983, 1984 and 1985 and I expect that we shall hear it in 1986 and 1987. That is a very non-productive line to be taken by a Government who are supposed to be leading the country and telling us where we are going and what we are doing.

I noted with interest some points the Minister made. She spoke about a mythical family and the cost to the Government in education for that mythical family. The Minister certainly is economical in her speeches. I have heard that speech recycled at least six times. She has given it in this House. It was the speech she gave at Goff's in Kill, County Kildare and she made the same speech when I shared a platform with her in Wicklow. I read that it was her speech on two other occasions and she made it on another occasion in the Dáil.

For economy of speeches and paucity of ideas the Minister for Education ranks very high. Her mythical family of Mr. and Mrs. and their four children have been well worn by now and their case has been reiterated time and time again by the said Minister. She referred to the various plans which she had brought forward in the Department of Education during the past three years and the wide concurrence of opinion and consensus and agreement which she says these plans have received. I will refer to them and tell the House the facts.

The Minister referred to the Action Plan on Education and described our documents as damp squibs but her plan is like a firelighter that was never ignited. It consisted of a series of pious platitudes and unrealisable targets with every sentence beginning or ending with the phrase, "if and when resources permit". Any Member could produce an action plan on tourism, education, health, social affairs, infrastructure or the environment if he or she used that phrase at the beginning or end of each sentence. Already many of the specifics announced in the plan with definite targets have not been realised.

The Minister made great play of the Curriculum and Examinations Board. On several occasions I have said that I was in favour of curriculum reform. I spent many years teaching and observing at second level and I am aware of the importance of the correct balance between curriculum reform and the preservation of standards in education but the Curriculum and Examinations Board, laudable as it is, has done nothing more than produce documents for consultation, documents for further debate and so on. There has not been any action. Many positive ideas have emerged but none of them has been carried through within the walls of our classrooms. It is amazing to think that if one says one has such-and-such a document or such-and-such a plan everybody falls about in wonder. The board consists of many fine men and women who privately say that their hands are tied because the first thing they must get from the Government is a financial commitment if curriculum reform is to be implemented. The Government have failed to provide that finance.

The Government have commented at length about curriculum reform but in a practical way have not done anything about putting into action the well researched views of the board. I was interested to read in regard to curriculum change that the greatest deterrent to curriculum reform is an adverse teacher-pupil ratio. That is what we have had here since Deputy Hussey became Minister for Education. The teacher-pupil ratio has worsened. There are more pupils per class at primary, second and third level than in the history of the State. That is an indictment of the Government's attitude to education.

I was amused to hear the Minister lavish so much praise on teachers. Last August the Minister went on radio — and was reported in the newspapers — to castigate teachers. It is easy to do that in August because teachers are on holidays and there is little hope of reaction. One can be as immoral in one's statement as one wishes at that time of the year in the hope that teachers will forget what was said when they return to school. I welcome the Minister's U-turn in regard to teachers' pay. I have been calling for such a move for a long time. I made my first call in October and I have repeated often since then that the only way to break the industrial impasse was for the Minister to respond to the teachers and invite them to meet her for talks about the arbitrator's award.

However, the Minister chose to be unavailable to all commentators in a very deceitful fashion. Some weeks ago when I was preparing to go on "Today Tonight" on RTE I heard an announcement on the news to the effect that the Minister agreed to talk but through the public services committee of ICTU. That committee had not agreed to talk about the arbitrator's award. At Question Time the Minister told me that there had been a major breakthough in this regard and that the machinery existed within the conciliation council for direct talks between the teachers and the Government and she would arrange that. That has proved to have been a charade because while they have met to discuss the 25th round they did not meet on the arbitrator's award.

Today we have the statement that perhaps in the early days of January the Minister, accompanied by the Minister for the Public Service, will meet representatives of the teachers' unions. At that stage it will be almost three months since the industrial unrest commenced. I should like to remind the Minister of the saying of Winston Churchill, "jaw, jaw is better than war, war." Why did we not have "jaw, jaw" in the middle of October particularly when the Minister has seen fit to have discussions in January? Discussions will take place because unrest is seeping from the Labour benches. That will not happen now because there are no Labour Members present; Deputy Durkan and I are the sole occupants of the Chamber.

It has been said that Labour Deputies will not support the Government's line in regard to teachers' pay. The Government cannot have it all their own way. The Minister, and the Taoiseach, told us of their unswerving line in regard to Building on Reality and their unstinted devotion to the cause of the Irish people. They told us that they would not be deflected, they would not bend to every sighing wind but would stand firm and resolute like the oaks of old. However, that was followed by the dramatic announcement that the talks with the teachers are about to commence.

The Minister's constant refusal to talk has resulted in two months of industrial strife in schools. Indeed, this dismissive attitude towards teachers has ill served the cause of education here. It has been a unique feature of her term as Minister for Education. I welcome the U-turn but I wonder why it has taken eight weeks for it to happen. It was her contempt for teachers that was at the back of her decision not to meet the teachers. The Minister thought she would bring the country with her. The series of strikes has sown a legacy of bitterness among teachers. They did not want industrial action but were forced to embark on it by the Minister's unilateral statement to the effect that the arbitration award could not be paid. It is reasonable to expect any Minister to argue in favour of his or her Department but the Minister for Education was fit to castigate teachers maliciously and bitterly. The undercover activity the Government engaged in was an attempt to turn the tide of public opinion against teachers. It is disgraceful that they sought to do that. They sought to turn in a subtle and clumsy way the tide of public opinion against teachers. It was their hope that the teachers would feel the cold wind of opprobrium and give up their efforts to get the arbitrator's award. It must be remembered that those negotiations were entered into three years previously by both sides on the understanding that the award when announced would be implemented.

The public are not unaware of what has been happening. That the undercover operation has not been successful is a tribute to the common sense of the ordinary people who have decided that teachers are doing a tough job well, given that we have the lowest amount per capita spent on education of all European countries. That information comes from the EC. It shows quite clearly that the per capita expenditure on all levels of education, primary, secondary, third level and adult, is the lowest of any European country. In the context of the forthcoming talks with the teachers' unions, I want to restate the clear guidelines which our party have consistently advocated as the basis for fruitful negotiations. I have already given these during the public service debate in the House towards the end of October. They are: first, the reappointment of the arbitrator; second, the upholding of the existing conciliation machinery; third, a clear recognition of the integrity of the amount awarded by the arbitrator. The rest is between the Minister and the teachers' unions during these talks. Those guidelines are the very bottom line in the approach to these talks.

I find myself in full agreement with the secretary general of the World Conference of the Organisation for Teaching Professions who came to Ireland on the day of the teachers united rally in Dublin on 5 December. He stated that if the Government reneged on the teachers' system of conciliation and arbitration that would be in direct contravention of Convention 98 of the International Labour Organisation to which Ireland has subscribed and which the Government have signed. I deliberately put that on the record tonight because the Government cannot have it on all sides. They cannot say how noble, pure, straight and just they have been in all their dealings, unlike Fianna Fáil who deal with interest groups and behave in what is termed an irresponsible fashion. The Government in dealing with the teachers' strike have behaved in a completely irresponsible fashion. First, they should have recognised that the cause was just; second, they should have recognised that eventually they would have to deal with the teachers and talk with them because their cause was just and they were engaged in a conciliation machinery which the Government had willingly entered into as a party to negotiations.

Having tried all sorts of undercover activities and various means and methods to turn public opinion against teachers, they found that ploy had not worked. Now they are coming towards the month of January, a month before the Dáil Vote, and suddenly teachers are, in the Minister's words, marvellously dedicated persons who have put so much in difficult circumstances into the cause of education. Let us remember that last August according to her they were behaving in an immoral fashion. It raises my hackles, as an ex-teacher, to have that thrown collectively at a bunch of people who do so much for education in such difficult circumstances. I am surprised that there was not wholesale unrest in the teaching profession. That is an appalling indictment of our educational system, one which will be forever to the discredit of the present Minister. She tried in a snide, underhand and malicious fashion to run down her own Department and her own civil servants. She thought they would not have the wit or wisdom to answer her, to recoil and to respond as they have done.

I have met very many teachers who are very angry at the manner in which they have been treated by this Government. U-turns will not change the teachers' opinion of them. These are people to whom we have entrusted the young from four to 18 years of age. We talk about having a repository of trust in our educational system, with such a history and tradition but if we have, surely the teachers who operate the system should be shown the normal courtesies and dealt with in a civilised fashion. I nailed my colours to the mast from very early on. Perhaps I spoke with a teacher's hat, but I also spoke with a very fair idea of the work involved in a teacher's day.

Has anybody who has talked about the teachers' hours come home at 4.30 p.m. with 40 or 50 copy books of eight pages of a history or English essay from leaving certificate students which must be corrected? Like many another teacher, I have sat until 11 p.m. and 12 midnight doing this work and gone in the next day to give myself wholly and completely to a class of young people, burgeoning, bright, eager to get on, forward looking, trustful, demanding, challenging young people who want the best out of their teacher — and why not? The teacher wants to give them the best. I have never been as physically, mentally and emotionally exhausted as when I thought. It is a job in which there is no let-up. When we leave the Chamber here we can have a cup of tea, chat with a colleague, work in our offices, prepare our next speech or drive to a meeting, but we have a physical and mental let-up. That does not happen when one is teaching. One is constantly in the public eye and the best is demanded of one.

I refute the denigratory tone in which the Minister dealt with our policy documents. That is so ludicrous when one considers her Government's Green Paper called Partners in Education. If ever there was a damp squib, that was it. There was no mention of the primary sector in it. No wonder the INTO declined to partake in the talks. The document begins with students of 12 years of age. In the next breath, the Minister will say that her first responsibility is to the primary sector. She chose not to mention Brother Declan Duffy, Secretary of the Catholic Secretariat of Secondary Schools, who passionately, with vigour and strength, denounced that Green Paper for what it was — a wordy windbag of a document, promising nothing, like all the other documents on education from that Government — all talk, no action, nothing but blather. He said: “We looked for resources and you gave us a stone”.

Two years ago I spoke here on education in the Adjournment debate and the Minister read out a telegram which she had received from Brother Declan Duffy which sent congratulations and thanks for the capitation grant at secondary level. The Minister referred to the laudatory remarks in that telegram for about ten minutes in the Chamber. The same day she had received a telegram from Mr. Joseph Duffy, then president of the Students' Union of Ireland, of which I received a copy. She made no mention of that telegram which was the direct opposite to Brother Declan Duffy's telegram. That shows again the one-handedness and selectivity of the Government as regards the facts which they want to publish. The Minister says that the Green Paper is a marvellous document to which everybody has responded, but the opposite is the case. Brother Declan Duffy has been on television and radio denouncing it.

Some of the documents produced by the Minister's Department have good points. I welcome the Curriculum and Examinations Board with their very positive ideas but these must be implemented and they will not be in the regime of this Government. It will be left to Fianna Fáil to implement them and to Ministers for Education on these benches to provide the finance to implement the programme put forward at vast expense to the people. The Minister had troops of advisers marching in and out of her Department. There is a constant traffic of consultants to the various Minister of this Government. They consult on what way they will do things today and change them tomorrow and the next day. The number of consultants engaged in the Department of Education is absolutely enormous, as revealed recently in reply to a Dáil question. The consultants say when to talk and when not to talk. I strongly suspect that the consultants are part of the process of levelling stones at the Opposition, saying that the present Government are people of integrity who will march on until 1987. They may do so but they will be marching out then.

I remember the discussion on the Education Estimates last May. I had been canvassing the previous night in Athlone for the local elections. The Minister had announced for the third time that she was building regional colleges. She announced again tonight for the fourth time that she was going ahead with the building of regional colleges in Tallaght, Blanchardstown, Dún Laoghaire, Thurles and Castlebar, all projects which were in Deputy Wilson's White Paper in 1980. I am reminded of Dryden's line about the oft quoted prophet of tautology. The Minister for tautology constantly repeats that there will be more and more colleges of education but she refers each time to the same ones which were announced six years ago. In a vain attempt to win the Dublin vote we had a charming interview with the Minister for Education during a news programme in which she announced the colleges for the third time. I was in a home belonging to the mythical family to whom the Minister referred — mother and father and four children at various stages of education. They were all very bright. They were straightforward in their views which were very anti-Government. I came here the following day and touched briefly on that subject. I knew there would be a huge wash of ill-will against this Government and so the local elections proved.

There is a high degree of animosity between the electors and the Government. The public are pleased at what they perceive in the interim to be an agreement between the people in the North but that will not sustain this Government. The deep-seated and pervasive animosity and ill-will will find its expression whether the Government go to the country now or later. I am convinced they will not go to the country for some time because all sorts of plans have to be hatched and all sorts of papers have to be got out between now and then in an effort to sway public opinion. That animosity will overspill at the next election. There will be an enormous turn-out of people who want with all their guts to get this Government out and they will succeed.

Mr. Durkan

I was getting slightly depressed listening to the scenario being depicted by the previous speaker.

Mrs. O'Rourke

I am very charming.

Mr. Durkan

I should not like people to feel that the picture is as bad as has been painted by Deputy O'Rourke. It is easy for people to be anti-institutions. When Deputy O'Rourke was speaking to the people she mentioned I am sure she explained to them that any alternative Government could work only within the resources available to them and would always have to be realistic. There is a great danger that we could confuse 1987 with 1977. If people who will be voting in 1987 can think back to 1977 and consider the situation which prevailed then, they will find adequate grounds for examining the situation very carefully before they accept too many pious platitudes and assertions of easy delivery on any score or in any field by any party seeking election.

Deputy O'Rourke spoke at length about the discussions between the Minister for Education and the teachers. I express the sincere wish that the Minister and the teachers can get together and resolve whatever difficulties may have arisen in a forthright and mature fashion which will be beneficial to both sides and to the country generally. It would be wrong to attempt to exploit the situation now or in the future. I would refute the suggestion that the Minister for Education set out to exacerbate the situation. She has to my knowledge indicated her willingness at all times to meet the teachers. I wish for a successful conclusion to such talks when they take place.

Deputy O'Rourke also said that the Government response to everything was an action plan and that the failure or limitation of an action plan could be attributed to scarce resources. All plans are subject to curtailment according to the resources available. Resources can be acquired by borrowing or by taxation but in both cases they have to be paid back. Standards of living are being eroded by taxation and the burden of borrowing would have to be borne by future generations. We must not allow our expectations to overcome reality.

Deputy O'Rourke mentioned the attitude of blaming the country's ills on Fianna Fáil. I do not think any political party would level a charge that any one individual or party was responsible for the situation which has prevailed for the past ten years or so. It behoves us as politicians to take stock of the direction in which we are going and to consider how the public will perceive us as public representatives if we are not realistic and present them with the facts.

Deputy O'Kennedy expounded at length on a number of schemes, which he described as expensive and useless, introduced by the Government to combat unemployment and improve the quality of life for people. I have been looking down a list of some of the schemes introduced by the Coalition Government during the past four years or so. There are now thousands of families who have been housed under the Housing Finance Agency scheme. Those families would otherwise have had to live in overcrowded, unfit and totally unacceptable conditions. Sufficient funds were provided to lend money under the scheme to prospective borrowers which had not been a feature of the SDA loan system previous to the introduction of the HFA scheme. The Government also restored the home improvement grants scheme which were recently further embellished and improved, in marked contrast to the activities of the previous office holders who scrapped them. I do not know why but I am sure that it was not because they had excess funds in the kitty.

The Government also introduced increased income levels for qualification for higher education grants and these were considerably increased over the last number of years, something which seems to be forgotten about. The home improvement grants are dramatic in the effect they have on encouraging people who need to carry out improvements to their homes to do the work now and to get grant assistance which has been provided for in the Estimates. There are also home exchange grants for a person who has lived as a tenant or tenant purchaser of a local authority house for three years who can hand back that house to the local authority and buy a house either under the building society loan scheme, the SDA loan scheme or the Housing Finance Agency loan scheme and qualify for a grant of £5,000. In certain circumstances, people can also qualify for a new house grant of £2,000 and for mortgage subsidy to such an extent that grant assistance is now available almost to the extent of 30 per cent gross in the case of the purchase of an average priced house. I do not believe that that scheme is nonsensical or useless, it is very positive and I am surprised that the Opposition speakers so far do not seem to have examined the situation in depth.

There are also numerous employment incentive schemes which the Opposition claim are unsuccessful and they claim that there are more people unemployed than the figures portray. Would the Opposition prefer to have people training or retraining or to have them unemployed? Which is better for the country or for the people concerned? It is imperative that we recognise that young people in particular expect us to provide some means whereby they can become involved in worthwhile employment. For that reason it is essential that we recognise that those schemes are there to facilitate the people, not as an end in themselves but as a measure to alleviate the problem in relation to unemployment. Such schemes are positive measures. The enterprise allowance scheme, the team work scheme and others are necessary, constructive and a source of encouragement to all the people who have been involved in them. I know that there are snags in these schemes. For example, some people who do a six months training course find that there is no work for them on a continuing basis but at least they will have had the opportunity of getting vital experience rather than confining them to the dole queues. It is essential that we try to ensure that we do not lose the confidence of the young because if we do we will have very serious questions to answer and only ourselves to blame. We need more similar schemes because if we cannot provide full employment we must provide temporary employment. The more schemes that we can produce to provide temporary employment to encourage the young population, the better. As a result our country will be more settled and the economy more stable. I do not accept that we should try to resolve all our problems overnight as I know from past experience that that is neither feasible nor possible. We should take the steps one at a time and try to work within our resources. That is what it boils down to. If we do this we are following the proposals in Building on Reality as opposed to building on the kind of fairy tales to which we have listened for so long.

I compare those schemes with those which existed some years ago. I am not making a political point but, as I have said many times, the people look to politicians for leadership and for the resolution of their problems and they will judge them by the way in which the problems are attended to. In 1977, free car tax was introduced and most people thought it was a great idea because it put more money in their pockets. We also had the abolition of rates, although I admit that all political parties were involved to a certain extent in this, and the advent of spending in all areas which led to a fairly dramatic increase in public expenditure, 40 per cent in a very short period. Although there was more money in people's pockets and increased public expenditure the unemployment levels rose by 40,000 per annum, which was amazing when one considers that the burden of taxation was supposed to be alleviated. The slogan at the time was to get the country moving again. Perhaps the country was moving but not in a desirable direction.

During that period also interest rates were increased to such an extent that it was virtually impossible for business to exist and it is only now, after repeated and consistent attempts by the Government to turn the national ship around, that at least some results have been achieved in the area of inflation and interest rates. We should remember that the farming and industrial interests cannot ignore that the major problems which they have had to face up to prior to the change in the economic climate were high interest rates and high rates of inflation. It was impossible for a businessman or a farmer to borrow money knowing that his debt could double in four years by virtue of those high interest rates and inflation. Likewise I am sure those looking to Ireland as a place for investment could not be impressed by those trends. I mentioned those points because it is important now and again to look at our experiences and thoughts over a period of ten years and tell those who might be making decisions which will affect us for the next ten years what we have learned. Given the circumstances in which the Government had to operate over the past few years, I think they deserve a great deal of commendation for their efforts. They were faced with two options — to do nothing or to try to take control. By doing nothing they could give themselves short term popularity, they could all be heroes, or they could even borrow more money until such time as the international bankers called a halt, but that would scarcely be in the interests of the people of this crountry now or in the future. But they chose the other course which might not be the popular course in the short term, which might not be seen by the people as the right course in the short term, but in the long term it will be proved that it was the only action that could have been taken. Admittedly, it has resulted in a reduction in the standard of living of our people, but that was to be expected. This comes back to whether there are resources available to do what we want to do, and what the public expect us to do, and then we have to ask ourselves if we raised people's expectations above and beyond what was realistically possible.

Over the last number of years the Minister for Agriculture has done exceptionally well in very difficult times. He has held steadfastly to his course and protected the interests of the Irish farmers in a difficult international situation. He has not been flamboyant about this. There were no spectacular deals in tents amid the shifting, shimmering, swirling sands of the Lybian desert or elsewhere, but he has achieved for the Irish farmers a stability which was not there before. The people have more confidence in that kind of consistency than in flamboyant action which might grab headlines but which does not usually stand the hard test of time.

I will now deal with industry. For the first time in many years we are likely to achieve a trading surplus. This has been done basically as a result of hard-headed policies, of an ability on the part of the Irish industrialists to accept the advice given by the Ministers concerned, to face up to tough international competition and to accept that they must sell hard goods of a high standard, at least as high as anything they are competing with on the open market, and sell at a price which is acceptable to the buyer. Otherwise they do not stay in business.

I know there are a number of areas, particularly the computer and high technology areas, where there have been dramatic increases in exports. That market can fluctuate because high technology has only a very short life span, but it is very encouraging that we have large scale investment in that area at a time when we need jobs badly. Our workers, management and all involved in that industry are moving ahead in the international arena, setting their own pace and successfully meeting competition head on. There is a saying that nothing succeeds like success and if there is one thing we need it is more of that attitude, because when our competitors see we can produce the goods more investors will be attracted to this country and that is what we need.

I have mentioned education already and I do not want to go over the ground already covered by the Minister and Deputy O'Rourke but I want to make these points. A number of us have found over the years that a difficulty arises in relation to higher education grants, whether they be non-adjacent or adjacent type grants. This is something the Minister might take a closer look at some time, because there is too fine a guideline and the interpretation of the regulations is such that it creates a certain amount of hardship for some people.

Another area which has been singled out for spectacular criticism from time to time is the health services. We are relatively a very small country and yet we have a very sophisticated and widespread scale of services and structures, all of which have to be paid for. The services we have could easily serve a much greater population. If we expect — and we do — a high degree of sophisticated services, then we must expect to pay for them. This is one of the reasons why taxation is so high here.

I have been a member of a health board for six or seven years and there was never any degree of politics played by members of the boards but that has changed slightly. This is a retrograde step. Over the years most board members have been constructive and apolitical in their approach. I would be very sorry to see a change in this area where people might be tempted to exploit a situation for political expediency. This would not be advisable from the point of view of confidence in the service itself or giving the public valid and accurate information.

I have heard stories emanating from hospitals and institutions about the considerable hardship inflicted as a result of cuts in services. Of course there have been restrictions in expenditure but each year since this Government took office an increased amount of money has been allocated. There have been economies but under the various headings there have been increases in very difficult times. We should remember that when a health board produce their budget at the beginning of the year there follows a period during which that budget may be trimmed to ensure that the board concerned work within their resources. That did not start this year or last year: it has always been the practice and it will continue to be the practice. There will always be people who will say they could have done with much more money. I am sure every Department could spend much more but we must realise we can spend only what we can afford to raise by way of taxation or borrowing.

With regard to unemployment benefit and unemployment assistance, I have always believed we would be better off to have more people working either in permanent or temporary employment and have the appropriate schemes to train them for such employment. This would be more constructive and invigorating for the people concerned and better for the general morale of the country rather than confining people to the queues of the unemployed. We should endeavour to provide more short term or temporary jobs, even if it means the introduction of a national minimum wage. We must consider whatever means we can to ensure a fairly dramatic reduction in the number of people unemployed.

Dr. O'Hanlon

The Adjournment debate gives us an opportunity to review events in the past year and to look forward to 1986. Before referring to the Estimates and the economy I should like to comment on the trial concluded in Belfast today. The result of the Kirkpatrick supergrass trial must be a matter of grave and serious concern to every Member of this House. The judge referred to Kirkpatrick as "a man of bad character and low moral standards" whose stated motives were "a series of lies and evasions". Having said this about him, the judge then accepted him as a credible witness on which to convict 27 defendants. These defendants were convicted on the totally uncorroborated evidence of Kirkpatrick by Judge Carswell sitting on his own without a jury. In view of the judge's low opinion of Kirkpatrick's credibility, then to accept his uncorroborated evidence and convict the defendants makes a mockery of the judicial system and would not be accepted in any civilised country in the world.

It is particularly a matter of concern that this case of perverted administration of justice should come one month after the signing of the Anglo-Irish Agreement. At the same time as the judge was handing out the sentence, the Taoiseach was making the following comment in the Dáil this afternoon in the Adjournment debate:

To the Nationalist community I say again: you can now raise your heads knowing that your position is, and is seen to be, on an equal footing with that of the Unionist community.

Such a statement from the Taoiseach shows a total lack of understanding of the sense of outrage felt by all right thinking people at the decision of the judge and which regrettably can only further alienate people from the system of justice. When we put down a motion condemning the supergrass system the Government merely noted the system and did not condemn it. I hope they will take some action in relation to this case.

It was obvious from the speeches of the Taoiseach and the Minister for Education this afternoon that there is no ray of hope for the people. The Estimates were circulated today and we have not had much time to study them. In looking at the Estimate for Health for 1986, it is obvious there will be a cutback in real terms for next year.

Minister for Industry, Trade, Commerce and Tourism (Mr. J. Bruton)

Is the Deputy in favour of more taxation?

Dr. Hanlon

I am in favour of looking after the needs of the people who are unable to provide for themselves in terms of health care. If the Minister studies the Estimate he will see that the cutback in respect of Health will affect the most vulnerable and dependent. For example, next year the voluntary hospitals will not receive any increase. The health boards will receive an increase of 2 per cent when inflation is expected to be 5 per cent. This means a real decrease in money and is in keeping with what has happened in the past three years since this Government came to office.

Mr. J. Bruton

Economies have to be made.

Dr. O'Hanlon

In answer to a question here last week the Minister for Health told me——

Mr. J. Bruton

The Deputy's party are always talking about the burden of taxation. They cannot have increased expenditure and still complain about taxation.

Dr. O'Hanlon

The Minister is advocating that we should not provide a service for those who are unable to provide it for themselves. That is the alternative. I am sure everyone, including the Minister, will agree that there is an obligation on us to provide health and social welfare services for those who are unable to do so by their own means. Since this Government came to power there has been a cut in real terms — this was admitted by the Minister of Health a week ago in this House — of as high as 5 per cent in the case of the Western Health Board and the North-Western Health Board. In the health board area in which the Minister present in the House and I happen to live the figure was 3 per cent. That is a significant figure and it means that the health board are not able to provide the services that are necessary for the people.

This year the provisional overrun is £100 million more than what we were told in the document Building on Reality would be spent on health services in 1985. In 1986 we will spend even more than the amount stated in that document in respect of 1987. Obviously, at the time of the launching of Building on Reality the Government did not get their figures right. That document was hawked around the country as if its implementation would be the saving of the nation. However, within a year the figures in it were out of date to the tune of £100 million in the case of the health services.

From the 1986 Estimate the health boards will get an increase of only 2 per cent when inflation will be running at 5 per cent. This means the health boards will have to reduce services further, having already reduced them in the last three years. The voluntary hospitals will not receive any increase in 1986. I believe that the philosophy is against private medicine and the voluntary hospitals. This is clear from a number of statements from the Minister of Health who, when presenting his last Estimate, said he was unhappy that the care of the mentally handicapped was outside the health boards. In the main, mental handicap services have been provided here by religious orders, for example, the Brothers of Charity and St. John of God. I have never heard any complaint about the quality or the cost of the services. Nobody has ever suggested they have been extravagant or inefficient. Still the Minister cast that shadow.

Where is the concern previous Governments have shown for the less well off? In fairness to all Governments they have always shown concern. Back to the thirties, Fianna Fáil Governments have shown more concern than Coalitions, but it is fair to say that all Governments have shown some concern for the less well off. However, this Government have not shown it. In the Estimates published today we are told food subsidies will be reduced by half. Two years ago the Government reduced them by half. In Building on Reality we were told food subsidies would be phased out after the child benefit scheme came into being. Now we are told the child benefit scheme will not appear, as promised, next February.

The equality legislation which should have been implemented last December still has not been introduced. Successive Governments in recent years have given double allowances at Christmas to people dependent on social welfare. That is something we all support, and I am sure those who pay tax do not begrudge the double allowance to old age pensioners and others who have no other sources of income. However, this year the allowance has been cut by 25 per cent. That is the measure of the Government's concern for the less well off.

In the three years since they took office they have taken medical cards from old age pensioners, reduced the dental service so that it is now practically non-existent for adults, and reduced the optical service. Social welfare increases have not been kept abreast of inflation and they are being paid for only nine months each year: those increases, formerly paid from April, are now not being paid until July or August. The elderly in their homes in rural Ireland are living in fear — there were numerous attacks on them last winter.

The capital budget for 1986 tells us that preparations will be continued for the provision of a new hospital at Ardkeen and for developments at Wexford, Sligo, Kilkenny, Loughlinstown and Drogheda hospitals. Planning of a new major hospital at Tallaght will continue. It is not sufficient to tell us that preparations will continue, because preparations can mean very little. We should be told what the intentions of the Government are in relation to projects for which plans have been made. We are told:

In the mental handicap service the planning and provision of facilities which will enable mentally handicapped persons to live in community residence will continue.

Over the years numerous new premises, homes, hospitals and workshops, have been built but they have not been staffed. It is not sufficient to build those places and to tell us in the capital programme that more facilities will be created at a time when an embargo prevents health boards from staffing such facilities. When I put down a question here recently I was told that 14 new units were unopened. A unit in my constituency, completed in 1982 in Cootehill, through which mentally handicapped children would be enabled to live in the community, has not been opened because it has not been staffed. The Minister should not be building these facilities without plans to open them and staff them.

The GMS has been the cause of problems for the Government from the point of view of finance. For some peculiar reason the Government decided that the GMS should be funded by the health boards. This is a new departure because it was always funded by the General Medical Payments Board. This put health boards in an impossible position. They were responsible for funding a service over which they had no control. The allocation they were given was what the Minister for Health decided; they had no control over the level of spending, which depended on demand, and demand for service depended on the number of inmates or the number of times persons visited their doctors. The result in 1985 is that there has been over expenditure, and consequently we had a Supplementary Estimate last week to allocate more funds for the GMS.

We have been told that the Government intend to terminate contracts with doctors in the GMS in the first three months of 1986 as a means to curtail expenditure. As I pointed out here last week, two weeks earlier the Minister told me that one of the reasons for an increase in the visiting rate in 1985 was that negotiations were in progress on the service. If the Minister and his officials think that the visiting rate went up because the doctors made a conscious decision to increase the visiting rate to influence negotiations, there will be no successful outcome to the negotiations. The Minister must see the real reason for the increasing visiting rate. It is increasing first because of the Government's economic policy. It is well recognised that when there is rising unemployment and increasing poverty there is an increase in morbidity, an increase in sickness and an increase in demand for health services. That is reflected in our own GMS. Another reason is the cutbacks as they affect hospital services and whereby there is a reduction in the number of hospital beds available and a reduction in the number of out-patient clinics. In that sort of situation, patients will require visits at home more often from their family doctors. The weather, too, was a factor in 1985 because one of the effects of the kind of wet summer we had this year is an increase in the level of infection. It is important that those involved in negotiations should recognise that there are genuine reasons for the increased visiting rate this year.

Another matter of concern to the Minister is the cost of drugs which I agree is very high. There is a wish to encourage doctors to use more generic preparations but the Minister could do more to ensure that there is quality control because this is a very important aspect in respect of all drugs. About 25 years ago we had a problem when drugs imported from abroad under their generic name and which were available at dispensaries did not measure up in terms of quality. At the time I was working in the Ceann Comhairle's town and I recall very well the problems caused by those poor quality drugs. The Government should consider this question of quality control and perhaps produce a formula which would enable the medical profession to be confident that the generic preparations they were using were of the right standard.

From time to time the Minister tells us that those who complain about the level of the medical services are causing mass hysteria, or he may allege that these complaints are the result of some political connivance. At least that was his reply when he was asked why hip operations were not being performed in Kilkenny hospital. The reality is that there is a reduction in the level of service and that there is no political connivance so far as this complaint is concerned. Deputy Durkan has told us that he is concerned that members of health boards may be becoming political, whereas formerly they were apolitical. I believe members of health boards to be apolitical still and to be concerned primarily with the welfare of the people for whom they have responsibility. These people have a responsibility to point to the defects in the service and to bring to the Minister's attention those areas in which they consider there is need for correction. Unfortunately, some of the Minister's rhetoric about health board members and about individual chairmen of health boards appears to be influencing Deputy Durkan.

Undoubtedly there is a reduction in the level of service. In my health board area which is also the health board area of the Minister for Industry, Trade, Commerce and Tourism there is no dental service available for adult medical card holders. There is a limited dental service available for children but no such service for such persons as those depending on old age pensions, widows' pensions or supplementary allowances. This means that in order to have their teeth attended to, these people must avail of the services of private dentists which may cost them one or two weeks of their social welfare payments. This is a direct result of the health board not being able to fund a dental service. We all agree that our taxation levels are very high but taxpayers do not complain about providing a dental service for the poorest people in our community. There is an obligation on us, out of all the millions collected each year, to provide a minimum and basic level of health and dental care for those for whom we have responsibility.

Other European countries, the UK in particular, are making major efforts to involve voluntary bodies in helping those in the community who are less privileged but the voluntary bodies in this country are labouring under a greater handicap than most by reason of the health boards not having statutory obligations to provide funding for those bodies. By the time that the health boards' severely reduced allocation is spent on essential statutory services and on paying staff, they are unable to grant any increase in successive years to the voluntary bodies, such as the Social Services Council, the National Council for the Blind and so on, who are doing such excellent work. This, too, must be a matter of concern.

Last week the Minister announced an increase in the charges for private beds in public hospitals. We now have the ludicrous situation where a private bed in a public hospital is more expensive than a private bed in a private nursing home. It is recognised that more facilities are available in private nursing homes. The VHI, recognising that, too, say they do not intend to pay the full maintenance cost in hospitals in which that little extra facility that their subscribers expect is not available. Even before the increased charges announced on Friday last, private beds in public hospitals were costing more than beds in nursing homes. In other words, a private room in St. Vincent's Hospital or the Mater Hospital now costs less than a private room in a health board hospital. While this may or may not result in more revenue to the health boards, and that point is debatable, it is not in the interest of the service generally.

First, we must recognise that we do not have a free comprehensive health service. Consequently we must accept that there is both a public and a private element in our health services and that people are entitled to avail of private medical treatment if they so wish. That is not something we should decry, regardless of what may be our philosophy, whether we think in socialist terms or otherwise, because at a time of recession, people who opt for private care are taking some pressure off an overburdened and overtaxed public health care system. That is why we should not penalise such people to the extent that the cost of a private bed becomes astronomical.

A further problem in this context is that this type of situation leads to increases in the VHI premiums. Approximately 20 per cent of the population are not entitled to comprehensive free care and consequently are obliged to participate in a private health insurance scheme if they are to fund their maintenance and treatment costs on becoming ill. The effect of this astronomical increase in the cost of a hospital bed in a private room in a public hospital, is to increase the premium, which is another form of taxation on an already overburdened overtaxed population. We discuss regularly the serious situation in Beaumont Hospital, a very necessary hospital which is lying idle because of the ideology of the Government and the Minister. We have only one major hospital working on the north side of the city. I know there are plans for a new Blanchardstown Hospital but the Mater Hospital is the only one working to full capacity on the north side of the city. It is currently costing £1 million to keep Beaumont idle. That brings me back to the promise in the capital programme about building more units for the mentally handicapped. There is no point in building them unless they are to be staffed.

I am concerned about the direction of the Minister and the Government in the health area. There seems to be an antiprivate medicine, anti-voluntary hospital attitude. Last week the Minister introduced a new Health (Amendment) Bill which will give the Minister power to discontinue services and to close hospitals at a whim. The Bill says that it would be after consultation with the health boards but that might mean only a phone call to the CEO to say that it is intended to close the hospital. We will oppose that section of the Bill which will give the Minister power to close hospitals.

Unemployment is at 229,000 following three years under this Government and another 40,000 are employed on short term schemes. I agree with Deputy Durkan that it is better for people to work on short term schemes than not to work at all, but he missed the real point which is that ideally these people should work full time.

Acting Chairman (Mr. Prendergast)

The Deputy has three minutes left.

Dr. O'Hanlon

Deputy Durkan also said that between 1970 and 1981 unemployment increased by 40,000. The reality is that 80,000 new jobs were created between 1977 and 1981 and that 40,000 of those were outside of the public service. The Taoiseach, juggling with unemployment figures, told us today that the rate of unemployment had slowed down. The Government who came into office saying they would reduce unemployment are now presiding over the highest level of unemployment ever in the history of the State. It would be appropriate to add the 40,000 on short term schemes to the unemployment figure bringing the total to 270,000 people, as that 40,000 people will only be employed for up to six months.

The Minister for Education, Deputy Hussey, and Deputy Durkan said that we must create wealth before we can give jobs. I agree with that. However, the basic difference between Fianna Fáil and Coalition Governments is that first of all the Fianna Fáil Government will create the confidence necessary to create jobs and then they will create the jobs. The building industry at the moment has 40,000 unemployed and instead of giving an incentive, Government policy was to increase VAT on building from 5 per cent to 10 per cent. That is just one example of how the building industry has been run down. I agree that we must create wealth but the wealth cannot be created under a Coalition Government mainly because of the different ideologies of the partners who make up that Government.

Acting Chairman

The Deputy's time is up.

Dr. O'Hanlon

It has not been a good year for this country and from the Estimates 1986 will not be a good year. Before the budget the Government should show some concern for the less well off in the community.

Minister for Industry, Trade, Commerce and Tourism (Mr. J. Bruton)

The first thing we should ask ourselves is why we need this debate. We had six hours on 27 and 28 November last for a debate on the economy and we had a similar situation to that which now prevails where there was one Deputy on this side of the House and another on the other side talking to each other, saying almost exactly the same things that Members have been saying since the beginning of this debate and will continue to say until it adjourns. Is this custom of Adjournment debates where people have the latitude to talk to no one about everything and anything necessary, and is it the best use of parliamentary time? It would be far better to have spent the remainder of the time putting through legislation. There is a large amount of legislation waiting to be put through the House but unfortunately it is a custom here that we have this charade of an Adjournment debate where people rehash old arguments and clear their throats for the type of speech making in which they will engage at cumainn and branch meetings. That is not the best way to use this House.

However, to reply to Deputy O'Hanlon who spoke about the need to restore confidence and said that there could not be confidence under a Coalition Government. Practically every country in Europe is governed by a Coalition and over the last 30 years many have been governed better than us. There is nothing intrinsically wrong with Coalition. What is wrong here is the sense of opposition for opposition's sake. It is probably a legacy of the civil war. People seem to believe that when one side proposes something the other side must oppose.

Mr. Wilson

It is the same in every parliamentary democracy in the world.

Mr. J. Bruton

It is not the same——

Mr. J. Bruton

The Government in that country has not had a majority in Parliament for the last two and a half years, yet they have been able to carry through a very successful programme. That will not happen here because we believe that it does not matter what the Government are doing, they must be opposed for opposition's sake. That is true of the present Opposition, and I must admit that it has also been true on occasion of my party when in Opposition. We will not get to mature politics until we shake off——

(Interruptions.)

Mr. J. Bruton

——the legacy of the civil war which is typified by the attitude of the Opposition in recent times when they announced, without even having read the NDC Bill, that they would repeal it. Not only were they going to oppose it, but they were going to repeal it. They had a similar reaction to the Anglo-Irish Agreement. If we want to make any progress we must quickly get away from "knee-jerk" politics which seem to typify a lot of the debate in this House.

As a result of a proposal I expect to make in the near future I hope we can get our political system to look a little further into the future. One proposal I expect to be bringing before the parties in the Dáil is for the establishment of an economic and social committee consisting of seven members, I think of both Houses, to look at issues that will affect this country beyond the term of the present Dáil, in other words, things five, ten, 15 years hence based on existing demographic circumstances. There is a great need for this. If I may illustrate this by reference to our most severe economic problem at present, which is unemployment, our present unemployment problem was entirely predictable 15 years ago. At that time it was obvious there had been a very big increase in the birth rate here, that there had been a major decline in emigration and, as a result of that, between 15 and 18 years from that day forward there would be a very substantial increase in the number of people entering the workforce. That meant that in the mid-eighties we would need to have a substantial sum of money available to help whoever were in Government at that time to deal with the problems of providing work for these young people. What did we do ten, 13 years ago, almost exactly when this circumstance was coming into view? We proceeded to run a series of budget deficits which have not stopped since. We started with our first budget deficit in 1972.

In view of the prospect that in the mid-eighties, ten years later, we were going to need an exceptionally large sum of money we should have set aside some funds, as any household will do, to have it available as, for instance, parents set aside, if they are fortunate enough, money to pay university fees for their children, during their primary school years, because they will cost more when they reach university level. Families do that but our country did not do it. The country knew it would have an unemployment problem in the mid-eighties but, instead of putting money aside, it started to run deficits, almost spending the money as quickly as possible, almost as if deliberately to ensure it would not be available when it would be needed in the mid-eighties to cope with the predictable unemployment crisis arising from the rapid increase in the birth rate that occurred 15 or 18 years ago. There is no point in saying which party were responsible because, if I did so, it would be very much in character with the type of debate in this House which I have been criticising.

It clearly shows the need for a system in this House of getting our politicians to look beyond the immediate preoccupation of all of us, legitimately enough, of beating one another at the next general election and rather looking a little further ahead to problems that will be there for us and our children, if we are lucky enough to be around ten to 15 years hence. That is why I believe the establishment of an economic and social committee, comprised, I hope, of senior and experienced Members of both Houses — a proposal I expect to bring forward sometime in the first six months of 1986 — will command support in this House and will become a permanent feature of the operation of the Dáil in future.

I should like to turn now to the immediate problem with which we are faced even though I have pointed out that it is a problem about which we are at a disadvantage because previous Governments and the Dáil did not make the provision they should have made and instead ran current budget deficits when they should have been building up a surplus to enable the present generation to face its problems in the employment area. I should like to draw the attention of Deputies to the Report of the Commission of the European Communities on The Economy for 1985-86. First of all they say — and they are not speaking about Ireland, they are speaking about Europe in general, though their remarks certainly apply here — that on the basis of present policies and behaviour there is no prospect in the medium term of raising the growth rate in the Community above some 2½ per cent, that this would not lead to a significant decline in unemployment in this decade in Europe. They go on to say that if the relationship between growth unemployment observed in the sixties still applied, medium term growth rates of above 6 per cent would be necessary to achieve the increase in employment. That is 1 to 1½ per cent, needed in order to bring down unemployment gradually but significantly. They conclude by saying that consequently the unemployment problem can be solved only if there is a distinct improvement in the relationship between growth and employment.

That is very important and something about which we need to think in this House. First, the point it makes is that it is not sufficient for us to solve the employment problem simply to get more production. Of course we need more production but we would have to have a growth rate of as high as 66 per cent per annum, which we have not achieved at any time since the war, indeed the foundtion of the State, if we were, on the basis of growth alone, to solve the employment problem.

What is clearly needed is a change also in the way in which the labour market works, in other words, in the way in which more output is translated into more jobs. What has been happening in this country is directly the opposite of what is really necessary to translate more output into more jobs. For example, we give very generous capital grants to firms to put in machines. We give them even more generous tax allowances — section 84 and so forth — to do the same thing. On the other hand, if they are going to take on more workers they face — and this is true of all European countries, it is not unique to Ireland by any means — the prospect of paying tax on an additional worker, in other words, PRSI, and PAYE. Therefore we have a situation in which we say, on the one hand, that we want more jobs, yet we tax any employer who decides to substitute men for machines and give grants to an employer who decides to substitute machines for men, Of course, that is true of all other European countries. Deputy Wilson, if he chooses to intrerrupt me, will ask what am I talking about, I am in Government, am I not, and what am I doing about it? There is not much point in talking about it here. I would anticipate that interruption by pointing out to the House that the Government have, in the PRSI holiday they have introduced for employers who take on additional workers this year——

Mr. Wilson

Interrupting oneself is better than talking to oneself.

Mr. J. Bruton

——before 31 March provided for a situation in which those people will not have to pay any PRSI for 12 months in respect of additional employees. I would have to say that this is a very modest change relative to the problem and to the very substantial benefits given to people who invest in machines as against those who invest in employment.

One issue we need to tackle in the period of office of this Government, and perhaps in the next Dáil as well, because it will require a sustained programme over five or six years, is to shift the basis on which our tax system works away from the subsidisation of capital towards subsidisation, or at least neutral treatment, of those who employ additional labour.

We must look also at the way in which the unemployment benefits system interacts with the labour market. At present in order to qualify for money one has to guarantee the Department of Social Welfare that one will do no work. That is essentially what underpins the unemployment benefits system. Yet we all agree that there is an enormous amount of work to be done but, to qualify for these benefits, one has to guarantee that one will not do any work. There have been some changes made in an endeavour to shift that around where, for instance, the employment enterprise allowance scheme was introduced under which people were allowed to still draw £50 a week and set up a small business. In other words, they were not totally cut off from unemployment benefit, they were not told they had to guarantee to do nothing in order to qualify for some benefit. The notion of a country which needs more work and more people to go out and create activity for themselves saying that the only basis upon which one can qualify for income support is by guaranteeing to do nothing, is essentially not good. We need to build on what has already been done in the establishment of the Enterprise Allowance Scheme so that people who are unemployed at the moment will be able to take up part time work more easily while still remaining entitled to some benefit.

If a person can start off by getting a job for one day a week with an employer and the employer finds him satisfactory, he might take him on for two days a week and gradually for three days a week, four days a week and finally give him a full-time job. If we create a situation where a person taking on temporary work for, say, two days a week gets into a hassle with the Department of Social Welfare who, because they think it is not two days a week but five days a week that the person is working, threaten to take the benefit from him altogether, many people will either say they will go ahead and do the work — in other words break the law and claim illegally — or simply not bother to take up the part time work.

We must make major changes in the way in which the social welfare system interacts with the labour market if we want to overcome the unemployment problem. Everybody should have an incentive to take on any work however lowly paid and for however short a time, and nobody should be better off doing nothing. A very subtle and perhaps radical change is required here. I draw the House's attention to the fact that Young Fine Gael, who are associated with my party, have produced a very interesting document on the notion of a minimum income to be paid to all people regardless of whether they are working, in place of paying them social welfare. In that situation people would be entirely free to work or not to work and would still get a basic income. This scheme would be very costly and would require further increases in income tax if it were to be paid for, and most people would not contemplate that.

However, if we are serious about solving the unemployment problem and if we take seriously what the EC said, that it is not possible to solve it by increases in production alone, we must be prepared to consider radical changes like that. We must get away from the whole notion of wages for work, in other words, paying people the same amount for a particular job at a particular skill level in a particular firm, any firm, regardless of whether that firm is making money, does not make sense. If a fitter is working in a firm which is extremely profitable and another fitter is working in a firm which is losing large sums of money, the only effect of paying both of them the same amount of money is to ensure that one of them will lose his job very quickly because the firm who are losing money simply will not be able to retain the services of that fitter for very long.

It would make far more sense and would lead to a much greater total number of people being employed if all wages were to be paid on a profit sharing basis. If a person in a firm which is extremely profitable saw his wages increasing in line with the increase in profits in the firm, and there was an automatic adjustment in the income level of people working in the non-profit making firm, that would ensure a greater total number employed and would mean that, instead of trying to cut their labour costs by having redundancies, firms would have an automatic system whereby labour costs would adjust in line with their overall performance. Of course, that would require a greater degree of confidence than exists at the moment between employers and workers.

There is no doubt that workers do not trust accounts produced by employers. Workers do not believe in many cases that they are being told the truth about the situation in their firm. In many cases workers have been sorely deceived about, for instance, their pension contributions which they thought their firms were making. Clearly, a profit sharing system cannot be introduced without a total change in the attitude of employers towards disclosing information to their work force in the context of relative bargaining and so on. I am very glad that the companies Bill, which will require more extensive publication of accounts of private limited companies, provides for improving the situation in that regard. However, that is the long term future that we must look at. I will leave that topic by saying that we must have a radical look at the way in which the labour market works in addition to looking for increases in production if we are to solve the unemployment problem.

Let me turn to the question of increases in production and in particular to the increased success for industry. We must have more research and development in Irish companies. A multinational company located in Ireland who are simply producing goods but doing no research and development in Ireland will not last long. New products are being produced all the time, what is being produced in the Irish plant will not remain marketable for ever. Unless Irish executives are engaged in research and development in every multinational company in Ireland, devising new products in Ireland to replace the products that are now being produced in Ireland by the multinational, that multinational will eventually close.

I had the pleasure of visiting a multinational, Kollmorgen (Ireland) in Ennis recently. That company would have closed five years ago were it not for the fact that the Irish executives in that company insisted that corporate headquarters give them the capacity to do research and development here in Ireland and the autonomy to introduce the results of that research and development here. That company are now thriving and expanding because they have courageous executives in Ireland undertaking substantial research and development here. I hope during 1986 to make it my major thrust as far as companies are concerned to get them to do two things, first, to put more money into research and development and, second, to put more money into marketing.

There have been passing comments in this debate on the Estimates and Members will have noted that the agencies within the aegis of my Department have, generally speaking, seen their budgets reduced. However, one exception to this is the Irish exports board, Coras Tráchtála. That is in accordance with the White Paper on industrial policy. We said that we must see Irish companies spend more money on selling our goods overseas. It is not good enough to produce a good quality product if you cannot sell it. Unfortunately, this is particularly true of a number of traditional Irish companies which very often have been formed by people who were factory floor workers and set up on their own. They knew all about making things but very often they knew little about selling them. Therefore, it is important that those people be helped to sell more abroad and that they be encouraged to get together in groups to sell abroad if they cannot do it individually. I am glad that more money is to be provided for that purpose in 1986.

We must realise that we must encourage people to set up businesses on their own, people who were previously in a safe job or people who were previously unemployed and are prepared to run the risk of losing whatever benefits they are getting by setting up a business. We are only going to have people prepared to set up businesses if we are prepared to support them financially but also, and this is important, if we do not treat failure in business as a disgrace. Research has shown, according to a recent Irish study on innovation that: "Most failed entrepreneurs try again. New firms have a much greater chance of success and survival if founded by someone who has failed at least once if not twice in earlier ventures." In other words, somebody who has failed in the past in business should not be stigmatised and refused credit and should not be made a pariah in the industrial sense for the remainder of his life.

I should like to conclude by saying a few words about the Anglo-Irish Agreement and the progress made there. It is very important that we in this State understand the feelings of Unionists at present. It is not the same thing, but for them it may not be very different in sensation, if we were to find that under some agreement British officials were to sit in Dublin and were consulted about decisions being taken by the Dáil and our Government. For the Unionists that is the way many of them see it. They see people who for them are quite different coming from another jurisdiction to their area and being consulted about matters they were not previously consulted about. The only way we can fully understand the feelings of Unionists is if we are prepared to put ourselves in their shoes and envisage what it would be like for us and how we would feel it the same thing happenned here.

Rather than getting all self righteous about the reactions of Unionists we should make some attempt to understand why they feel the way they do. We should also point out to them, as has been pointed out to them by a number of others, that if they do not like the involvement of people from Dublin in their affairs they have a simple remedy, to engage in discussions with their neighbours of different political and religious persuasions and agree on a power sharing system of administration to which power can be devolved in Northern Ireland. The administration would then be free of external influences. It is very important that that should be said to the Unionist community. We should also say to them that we respect and understand their fears and the feeling that they have a separateness and a need to make provision for themselves in different ways. I hope that will be the spirit in which the agreement will be debated in Northern Ireland and in this State in the years ahead.

Mr. Wilson

After the extraordinary outburst of the Minister for Industry, Trade, Commerce and Tourism at the start, a very puzzling outburst, I have to tell him that the Opposition are not going to refrain from criticising the Government, and their activities, a Government who now smell of the charnel house and have failed on every single proposition they put before the electorate in the last general election. If the Minister thinks we are not going to criticise the fact that the Government took office with a brief to reform the nation's finances and have failed abjectly to do that, then Deputy Bruton is hoping for something that will never happen. We will have to remind him that the elimination of the deficit on current account was foremost in the Coalition policy platform when they were asking the people, when they were fooling the people into putting them into office. If he thinks we are going to let the people forget that promise was made and has now been forgotten completely, then he has another think coming to him.

This year the Minister has budgeted for a deficit of £1,234 million but is he holding it to that? Not at all, because all the indications are that we will have a £1,350 million deficit on current account. If Deputy Bruton is calling for silence on the £20 billion of national debt which he told us blandly when campaigning for office would be brought under control — it is now double what it was when he took office — he will not get it from this side of the House. If he thinks that we will let the people forget the black hole in the economy which cost the country £1 billion this year, a black hole which the Minister, Deputy Dukes, did not see until he was led by the ear to look into it by the Fianna Fáil Party in the House, he is mistaken also. If he thinks we are not going to talk about the crisis in employment, the huge numbers unemployed, he is mistaken again. He should remember that 44,000 of the unemployed are construction workers although the Taoiseach was boasting today about a stimulus for the building and construction industry. If the Minister, Deputy Bruton, thinks we are going to be silent on that score he is wrong again.

We have an adversative system of politics here and we will stay with it because one must criticise the Government of which there is a smell of death already. We will continue to criticise them until we get a change of Government for the benefit of the country. We will not forget about the emigrants. I do not know if the Minister in the lush lands of Meath is aware that there is heavy emigration from some areas such as my constituency. Indeed, my nieces and nephews have had to emigrate. Is the Minister concerned? I do not think so, nor do I think the Minister for Finance is concerned. They are, as they have been from the beginning, engaged in a nice bookkeeping exercise. We will not stop criticising a policy that puts people last in every aspect of our national life.

The Minister, Deputy Bruton, was charged with responsibility for reforming the activities and structures of the House but we have to wait six months before we can repeat a question. Under the change in the system at Question Time Ministers come in more frequently than before but the old rule of six months with regard to parliamentary questions still obtains and thus in some way nullifies the benefits of the new system. Time and again I have complained of the system that operates here under which we cannot ask questions about semi-State companies because, we are told, the Minister has no responsibility in the matter. If we are paying £115 million in this House to CIE to run the national transport system, how can it be that the Minister for Transport has no responsibility in the matter? In calling the Minister's attention to that I should like to ask him, if he is interested in Dáil reform, to do something about it. Time and again I have raised matters concerning all semi-State companies for which the Minister should have responsibility — my belief is that he has such responsibility — but time and again I have received a courteous note from the Ceann Comhairle to the effect that he had to refuse the question because the Minister had no responsibility for it. There may have been some logic in adopting that position when a semi-State company were not depending on the House for large injections of money but it does not make sense now. This House and the Minister, Deputy Bruton, who has assumed responsibility for reforming the House — God bless the mark — should look to it that something is done about it.

I view the transport scene at the year's end and I see nothing but disaster. Suddenly it has been made clear that the Minister's policy and the economic philosophy of his Minister for Finance and his Government are responsible for industrial relations chaos and a deterioration in the quality of life of thousands of people this Christmastime. This is the policy which has sunk Irish Shipping, has removed the Irish Flag from the world's ports and has treated the workers of Irish Shipping so shabbily that even the most rabid capitalist would be ashamed to do it. While these workers see all around them other ex-employees of State companies being well, even handsomely treated, they can look forward only to unemployment, a drastically reduced standard of living and no hope for the future. At the same time the liquidator is being richly rewarded for winding up the company and substantial sums of money are being spent on the Irish Spruce with no benefit whatsoever to the Irish taxpayer. It is lunatic economics to keep on paying thousands of pounds per annum to the Japanese for the Irish Spruce and thousands of pounds on the crew and the maintenance of the ship in Marseilles while the State is receiving no return whatsoever as of now and foreigners are carrying our coals to Moneypoint.

The next manifestation of this policy is the B & I mess. Is it any wonder that the B & I officers are worried about their future when they see how the personnel of Irish Shipping Limited have been treated by the Government? They fear the same uncaring treatment that the Minister and Government have meted out to Irish Shipping. As one who travelled often on the Irish Sea route to and fro as an emigrant, I appeal to Mr. Spain to cut through any red tape, any bourgeois susceptibility in this matter and see to it that the B & I boats take the people home for Christmas. If he is big enough, he can do it without prejudice. Above all times of the year, this is a time to put people on priority — I repeat to put people on priority, not accountants' dreams, not monetary theories of one kind or another from the dusty pages of the economic books or from monetarist economists.

I appeal strongly to Mr. Spain to see to it that the boats move again and serve literally thousands of people — I am not exaggerating — who in all good faith had saved their money and paid their fares to get home to Ireland, whether on the east, west, north or south coast. Those people are now at risk and I do not care what rules are quoted, I will not be convinced that the management of B & I and the unions cannot solve this problem without prejudice. I appeal also to the Federated Workers' Union of Ireland to make a special effort, again without prejudice, to get the boats moving again for Christmas to serve these people who deserve well of us, who wish to come to us in this Christmas period, in the midst of transport chaos. Not for the first time would true patriotism, be motivating a trade union in this country if they saw to it that the boats were moving again. When the Black and Tans were here, the unions stood by the people and during the war years, 1939 to 1945, they stood by the people. I am appealing for a concerted effort on the part of management and unions to solve the problem at once, if necessary without prejudice to whatever further negotiations will have to take place after Christmas to resolve the difficulties.

B & I management have a case to answer with regard to the Rosslare-Pembroke line. I do not know if sufficient consideration has been given to the possibility of providing a larger ship which could be run economically on that line. Let us not forget that if that service is ended, we will still have to pay £1.5 million per annum to the people at Pembroke for a number of years. That is money down the drain, along with much more money sent down the drain by the crazy philosophy that motivates the Minister for Communications and his Government at the moment. Having examined the case for a larger ship on the Rosslare-Pembroke line, I am not going to say categorically that it should be provided, but I say that we are entitled, from the chairman and the board of management, Zeus and all the other expensive people whom we are paying, to a rational explanation as to why this option has not been chosen by them. If the figures I have for the number of diversions which B & I had to make because their ship was not large enough and they were not able to cope with traffic are correct, then a larger ship should be acquired and that route should continue in operation.

In fairness, Mr. Spain more or less admitted that, but he said that the competition from Sealink on the Rosslare-Fishguard route would be too much and would lower the revenue. This is a possibility and a danger, but I visited Rosslare earlier this year and it was the Sealink people who were afraid of the competition rather than B & I at that time, so they have at least an equal chance of competing. If they could prove their worth they could outstrip the activities of Sealink on that route. Would the Minister tell the House if the chairman of B & I has already signed an agreement with Sealink about the southern corridor business and activity? Did he do this before he got permission from the board, or from the Minister? What is the present position? The taxpayers and their representatives in this House are entitled to get that information. Is there already in existence an agreement on the southern corridor, signed, sealed and delivered between B & I and Sealink?

I asked permission to raise on the Adjournment of the House the prospects, if any, for future Ireland-Europe shipping links. I was refused on the basis that the Minister has no competence in the matter — something that I was talking about already with regard to reform of this Dáil. What is a Minister with Transport in his brief supposed to be interested in if he is not interested in a shipping route between Ireland and the mainland of Europe? What kind of crazy judgment are we communally expressing in the rules that we make for the Committee on Procedure and Privileges if a Minister for Transport — Communications cannot be regarded as having an interest in transport between Ireland and the mainland of Europe?

We joined the EC in 1973. It is supposed to develop into a great big free trade area. Already the EC takes a substantial percentage of our exports. In fact, when the campaign for joining the EC was being conducted one of the strong points made was that we would no longer be depending for our exports on one market. When one looks at the statistics, that has happened. Instead of 80 per cent going to Great Britain, it is about 50-50 — or was the last time that I checked the statistics. Therefore, one would think that a Minister of Government with Transport responsibilities would be interested in coming into the House and giving us his views on an Ireland-Europe link. If he is not supposed to have an interest in transporting goods, services and people to and from mainland Europe, who in Government is supposed to take such an interest? Are we all living in a cloud of theory? What is happening to the Irish Continental Line is a good question. Yesterday I tried from my lowly seat to raise the matter. I saw an advertisement in the newspaper that ICL was for sale. There was mention of the ships, the St. Patrick and the St. Killian. Anyone seeking information should apply to Allied Irish Investment Bank or the Investment Bank of Ireland. There was not a word about the liquidator. I had a letter before me stating that I could not raise the matter in the House because the liquidator was responsible for Irish Continental Line. Where is logic? It must have flown out the window and kept flying. The more one ponders on it, the crazier the whole thing sounds and looks. The whole scheme of things is loco. This House and its procedures need urgent attention.

Is there a move afoot to sell ICL to foreigners? I do not know, but if the Minister were here I might be able to ask him and get some satisfaction from his answer. Now that Sealink, an American company, is to have the only ship on the southern corridor, are ICL with the St. Killian and the St. Patrick going too? The answer to this question interests the people of this country and their representatives in this House. It is time for this House to sound the tocsin. The Minister should declare openly to the House that he will not permit ICL to fall into foreign hands. If we are giving away the southern corridor, admittedly we will be getting 50 per cent of the profits. Are we to hand over a successful and profit-making company to foreigners? Why are the banks the people who seem to have the whip hand with regard to this State-owned company? If that company can make profit and provide employment for a prospective foreign company it can do this for Ireland too. This House must interest itself in the matter on that account. Fianna Fáil will oppose any such move on the part of the Minister, the Government, the liquidator or Uncle Tom Cobley agus eile.

The third major area in which the Minister's policies are causing havoc and destruction is CIE. All these troubles stem from governmental and ministerial policies in the transport area. The foot-sore citizens of this city do not have to be reminded of the chaos, havoc and destruction ensuing from these policies, The Minister's riding instructions to CIE as in the case of Irish Shipping, B & I and ICL are imposing hardship on customers and workers. To what end? Why confrontation? Why the machismo? Are we bankrupt of ideas which promote industrial peace? Has the elaboration of the Labour Court, of industrial relations generally, of a new Ministry of the Public Service, of well-staffed Departments in universities been for naught? On several routes in this city foot-sore shoppers dragging children behind them would indicate that the whole charade is wasteful, that it is all a farce and that nobody is dealing with the practicalities of the situation.

Surely the management are not so wooden nor the unions so thick that they do not see the benefits of negotiation and industrial peace to the economic and social life of our capital city. For God's sake, let them stop this madness now before they do more damage. The one person bus dispute has been going on for several decades but it will have to end now. It must be resolved once and for all. In four different countries this year I travelled on one person buses driven by men or women. Those countries included the Soviet Union which is supposed to have special care for workers. One could buy tickets out of a slot machine and punch them on board the bus. If it can be done in other countries, why can it not be done here? Why must people be crucified because management and unions cannot come to an arrangement about it? We should try to show understanding and end by negotiation this mad orgy of self-destruction. I cannot characterise it with any other words.

I started off by criticising the Minister for Industry, Trade, Commerce and Tourism who asked us not to indulge in adversarial politics. As we look at the performance of this Government coming towards the end of the year, he is asking too much. I have, in the case of ICL, B & I and CIE, the big headings in the transport area, indicated where this Government have brought important State institutions. The Government were elected to office because they were supposed to have some special expertise — God save the mark — in organising our finances and they were to eliminate the current budget deficit in so many years. They forgot about that — that is auld lang syne. The Minister for Finance said with all the sang froid of which he is capable, that he would keep it down to £1,234 million this year but I have indicated that the figures show the deficit will be at least £1,350 million. Not even in one year can he stick to his figures. I have indicated the scandal of the black hole where £1,000 million will be repatriated by firms who are entitled to do so but who would not repatriate their profits if they found a climate here which would induce them to invest in a country on the verge of the EC with its huge sophisticated market. I called attention to the bluff that the national debt was going to be dealt with and to the fact that it now stands at practically double the amount it was when the Government took over with a £20 million plus mark on it. I pointed out that the Government have failed miserably as far as employment is concerned and that a huge number of people are employed in New York, Boston and London, especially young people who have been trained in arts and crafts, as plumbers, carpenters, engineers and mechanics. There are thousands of people involved who were looking forward to a bright future in this country to which they are entitled, but many of them are now working illegally in the United States and Canada.

I also pointed out that the so-called Dáil reform has not materialised. When speaking today about a general election the Taoiseach was bluffing when he said he did not envisage one for several years, but 1986 will not be very old when the Government will go to the country and be glad to escape from the problems and difficulties which they have created to make way for a Government who will inspire the people with hope and also inspire those who want to invest in this country with confidence so that the profits which they make will be kept in this country for the betterment of all its citizens.

Minister of State at the Department of Justice (Mrs. Fennell)

In speaking on women's affairs I want to emphasise that all areas of Government policy, planning and action are as much the interest and concern of women as they are of men. All of us who care about peace and reconciliation must have the same reaction to the hope extended by the Anglo-Irish accord. Similarly, the reduction in the inflation rate from over 25 per cent in mid-November 1981 to 5 per cent in mid-August 1985 is of vital importance to women who make up the bulk of consumers and have to balance household budgets. For them, stability of prices is of very real importance. As we have seen so sadly in recent months, where women have been victims of vicious and cowardly attacks both in their homes and on the street, tackling the crime levels and the actions of the Minister and the Department of Justice and of the Garda Síochána are of deep and very relevant interest to women. Women should not have to be subject to the fears and intimidation which result from such attacks, nor subjected to a curfew therefrom which restricts free movement.

There is now apparent in Irish society a mindless and awful pattern of violence perpetrated by young men. As well as introducing primitive measures to deal with people found guilty in our courts of brutal and sadistic attacks we must also examine what influences have changed the pattern of behaviour of so many of our young men — a pattern which is accepted by a minority group but is, I believe, alien in a society which has traditionally had a respect for the old and acknowledged the physical vulnerability of women. The violence today is being perpetrated by men and it is not good enough to blame it all on unemployment, although I accept that is a factor. We must examine the underlying fundamental influences which are probably contributed to by the violence in the North, the increase in the drugs problem and, to an extent, by violence on television. All areas of government are relevant to women but there are areas where discrimination must be eliminated and injustice ended.

I am very pleased to be given the opportunity to contribute to this debate by reporting to the House on the activities of my office over the last year and on developments generally in the women's affairs area. In doing so, I believe I am in a position to report that significant advances have been made over the period in highlighting women's concerns, in placing these concerns firmly on the political agenda for future action, and in beginning the process of action which, I believe, must be continued if Irish women are to be given the same opportunities as men in all aspects of their lives.

Deputies will be aware that the office of the Minister of State with responsibility for women's affairs has been in existence for only three years now. It is a source of particular pride for me to be able to say that over the past year the first major objective of my office's activities was met with the publication last May of my report Irish Women: Agenda for Practical Action. The report represented the painstaking deliberations of an Inter-Departmental Working Party on Women's Affairs and Family Law Reform, which was chaired by me, over a period of some two years and I would like to underline the fact that it was the first such exercise undertaken at official level in the history of the State. Given the fact that this Government have promoted similar “firsts” in the establishment of my office — one of only two such examples of special machinery of its kind among the member states of the European Communities — and in the establishment of the Oireachtas Joint Committee on Women's Rights — the only such committee among the national parliaments of the Ten — I believe that Irish women can look upon this Government with some confidence as one which is determined to go beyond the parameters of other governments.

Deputies will be aware that the previous major report on the concerns of Irish women was that of the independent Commission on the Status of Women in 1972, which was published at a time when there were major discriminations against women, particularly in the areas of pay, employment and social welfare. Since then, most of these more overt forms of discrimination have been eliminated and my report is, therefore, more concerned with the creation of positive opportunities for women and the removal of the remaining barriers which are largely determined by traditional practices and procedures.

The Agenda report contains a comprehensive examination of virtually the whole range of social and economic factors and practices which affect women. As its title suggests, the report outlines a set of practical objectives to be pursued in order to attain equality of opportunity between men and women in Irish society. Some of the recommendations are already being implemented gradually. One development has been the extension of eligibility for dental, optical and aural benefit to the pregnant wives of fully insured workers. This was the first step in the extension of these benefits to all wives who do not work outside the home whose husbands are fully insured and I am happy to report that over 1,200 women have availed of this facility to date.

In addition, because it would be dangerous to carry out certain dental treatment during pregnancy, special provisions have been introduced allowing for temporary fillings and dressings to be done during pregnancy and the treatment completed after childbirth. Further progress since the publication of the report is reflected in the recent circulation of the Domicile and Recognition of Foreign Divorces Bill, 1985, and the Irish Nationality and Citizenship Bill, 1985. I will be referring later to some developments in women's health, family planning, women in business and the abolition of the general exemption of the Garda Síochána and of the prison service from the Employment Equality Act, 1977.

While I have taken a personal interest in all these more recent developments, my intention is that there will be more comprehensive response to the recommendations in my report. At the time of the report's publication, the Government agreed to the preparation of a programme of action in the women's affairs and family law reform areas. They also invited the comments of interested parties on the report and asked them to indicate the areas they believe should be dealt with in the programme of action. I am pleased to say that I have received very detailed and helpful comments on the report from a number of interested groups.

In this context, however I must express disappointment at the fact that the Irish Congress of Trade Unions, which represent the interests of many thousands of women workers, did not see fit to respond to this invitation. Indeed, the only reference made by congress was at the launching of their Women's Charter — which I myself warmly welcomed — when they described my report as being completely inadequate as a basis for action and, in effect, dismissed it. In contrast, my report was welcomed on the whole by various women's groups, including the Council for the Status of Women, precisely because it contains a comprehensive analysis of the economic and social problems affecting Irish women. I have to say, therefore, that I was surprised and disappointed that Congress should make such a passive and dismissive reference to such an important report without taking the opportunity, on behalf of the women they represent, to outline the precise shortcoming in my report with which their women's committee took issue. In any event, I am pleased to inform Deputies that the process of consultation with interested groups is now completed and I therefore propose to bring forward final proposals for the programme of action for submission to Government in the very near future.

In concluding my reference to this report, I should mention that it was the subject of a very interesting debate in Seanad Éireann over two days in July during which Senators made a number of worthwhile suggestions while broadly welcoming the report overall. I was greatly heartened by the extent of the welcome for the report from all sides of the Seanad and I would welcome the opportunity for this House to engage in some similar exercise by way of a specific debate on women's issues at an appropriate occasion. I very much hope that the programme of action upon which I intend to secure the Government's agreement may provide the appropriate occasion for such a debate.

As I have already indicated, the preparation and publication of this policy report together with the necessary follow-up action, has been the major objective of my office since its establishment. The office is, however, engaged in a wide variety of other developmental activities and I would now like to touch upon some of these. The allocation to my office this year was £170,000. A major part of this amount was designated as the annual grant to the Council for the Status of Women. The remainder has been used to fund a range of support and developmental activities undertaken by women's groups and individuals as well as by my office. These include grants to women's support-pressure groups, single parent organisations and a number of adult education projects.

I was especially pleased to be able to fund the latter. Women have particular needs in the area of adult education, for example, many women wish to re-enter working life outside the home when their children are reared. This emphasises the need for continuing education for them during their time in the home in order to keep in touch with current educational developments and to provide them with specific skills and aptitudes for a future working life. In addition, adult education fulfils a need for social and human development. It can, by increasing people's awareness of their work and of the contribution they can make to society, do much to help the individual and thereby the community.

There are, however many constraints facing women wishing to pursue third level education, for example, the time limit on the taking up of higher education grants, which militates against mature students. For this reason I was particularly glad to be able to organise this year, in the context of the final year of the UN Decade for Women, a special once-off grants scheme of £500 for its mature women students. The purpose of the scheme was to provide financial help to "unwaged" women who were having difficulties funding their studies and who were not in receipt of any other grant or scholarship. Costs, such as expenses arising from child care, travel, books etc, were also taken into consideration.

Although I had originally intended to award eight grants, the very positive response to the scheme, together with the high standard and variety of applications submitted, persuaded me to increase the final number to 20. The successful applicants were from the universities, the National Institute for Higher Education and a regional technical college. Courses taken included arts, law, child care and business studies.

I am particularly pleased to report that a major activity of my office during 1985 was to highlight the opportunities open to women to start their own businesses. In this regard I organised a series of seminars around the country the success of which was far greater than anything I had anticipated. Quite evidently the difficulties experienced by women in staying in or re-entering the workforce and the very lack of opportunity felt by those who have jobs, has led to a phenomenal interest in the possibilities and prospects of women beginning their own businesses.

This experience is not, of course, unique to Ireland. For example, in America there has been dramatic growth in the number of women-owned businesses over the last decade. It is estimated that between 1973 and 1983 the number of US companies owned by women increased from 3 per cent to 26.1 per cent of all privately-owned non-farm businesses. Furthermore, according to the report of the President on the State of Small Business in 1984, female operated businesses have increased more rapidly in recent years than either male operated firms or the total number of businesses. I believe that this very favourable trend holds out the hope that similar inroads can be made here in Ireland, given the proper support structures. In fact, I am pleased to say that the major State agencies, such as the IDA and SFADCo, were very quick to take up the challenge posed by the response to the seminars organised by my office and in order to build on and consolidate on that response the IDA organised their own "Women in Industry" campaign last October, and which they indicated will be an annual event. In addition, my office and the IDA are jointly funding a research project on women in enterprise, the fundings of which should form the basis of any further policy initiatives for women entrepreneurs. SFADCo in co-operation with my office, also organised a "Women in Business" day during their Small Industry Week in September. I hope the activities in this area will continue during 1986.

On a more general point, I have been impressed by the success of devoting a certain period of time that is some weeks or a month to focus concentrated attention on a particular theme or issue related to women. It worked successfully this year in the case of the women in industry and I think its application to other areas such as women's health, education, management etc. could be usefully examined as a basis for future action by my office.

An area of particular concern to me and one to which I hope to devote more attention next year is that of women's health. During the year, I was pleased to be associated with the efforts of Hume Street Hospital and of the Irish Cancer Society in the opening of the country's first free cancer screening clinic for women at Hume Street Hospital, Dublin, last October. I regard this as a particularly important development, as female cancers, such as breast cancer and cervical cancer, seem to be on the increase in western countries generally. The Hume Street Clinic is the first "walk in" women's cancer screening clinic in Ireland and operates every Wednesday. The intention is to persuade women to become more conscious of their own health and to stimulate general interest in women's health. The need to provide further clinics of this nature is evident given the fact that the clinic was booked up for four months within a week of opening and is now considering opening a further day per week.

Between 50 and 60 women die each year from cancer of the cervix. While highlighting the importance of developments such as the Hume Street Clinic, it is also important to realise that many of these deaths might be avoided altogether if more women were aware of and prepared to make use of existing smear testing services. Smear testing is available from GPs, family planning clinics, at the out-patient departments of maternity hospitals and other large hospitals. Recently, the service has also been made available at special clinics in about 70 health centres throughout the country. In September 1985, the Minister for Health made a special allocation of funds to St. Luke's Hospital in Dublin to enable their laboratory to deal more speedily with the large numbers of smears they receive for analysis.

Before leaving the question of women's health, I must refer to the importance of the recent enactment of the Health (Family Planning) Act, 1985. I have always been of the opinion that access to family planning services is a key element in ensuring that our health care system adequately meets the needs of women. The Act provides a sound legal basis for the provision of a comprehensive range of family planning services in this country and, apart from removing the need for a prescription for non-medical contraceptives sold to persons aged 18 and over, it also empowers a wider range of outlets to sell contraceptives than was the case previously. Contraceptives may now be purchased directly from pharmaceutical chemists, doctors, health board institutions, certain voluntary hospitals and licensed family planning clinics.

It goes without saying that the active co-operation of the country's eight health boards is absolutely vital if women, particularly those living outside the major urban centres, are to secure access to the family planning services to which, I must emphasise, they are now legally entitled. Therefore I deplore reports in recent days which suggest that despite the request from the Minister for Health to health boards to draw up plans for the development of family planning services in their areas, such co-operation will by no means be automatic on the part of at least some boards. I can only surmise that such a negative reaction stems from the ingrained prejudices of the male dominated members of health boards who are blind to the fact that access to family planning services is an important health issue rather than a moral issue.

I would like now to refer to one other development which, I believe, will prove of practical benefit to women over time, I refer to the European Communities (Employment Equality) Regulations, 1985, which were made earlier this year by the Minister for Labour and which abolish the general exemption of the Garda Síochána and of the prison service from the provisions of the Employment Equality Act, 1977, and limit the execptions to certain categories of posts in both services. In relation to the Garda Síochána and prison service, all posts are now to be open to men and women except: (a) where it is necessary in the interests of privacy and decency that posts be filled by a person of a particular sex by reason of the nature of the duties of the posts: one example of such duties would be the question of personal searches; and (b) where the duties of the post include certain dealings with "violent persons, quelling riots or violent disturbances". These exemptions are, however, limited to where the employer does not already have sufficient employees who are capable of carrying out the duties and whom it would be practicable to employ in carrying out the duties.

There is also provision in the regulations prohibiting certain orders, regulations, rules, directions, instructions or arrangements in respect of the Garda Síochána and the prison service treating men and women differently except in relation to requirements relating to height; special treatment accorded to women in connection with pregnancy or childbirth; requirements where the sex of a person is taken to be an occupational qualification for a post as allowed by section 17 of the Employment Equality Act, 1977; and requirements to have the capacity to perform certain posts.

I am pleased to report that the next recruitment competition to both the Garda and the prison service will be conducted in accordance with the regulations and it is expected that the amendments and additions to the Employment Equality Act, 1977, will lead to a gradual increase in the number of women in both services.

I have always been keenly aware of the fact that many women do not have ready access to basic information on their legal rights and entitlements and that the feelings of isolation resulting from such lack of information greatly exacerbates any difficulties experienced by women.

Consequently, I am concerned to allocate the funds available to me to women's support groups but also to continue to build on the information programme begun by my office in previous years. Conferences and seminars are one aspect of this but an equally important part is the series of information leaflets available from my office. To date these include specially prepared information for widows, on pre-school facilities, on all the major pieces of legislation affecting women, on the significance of the UN Decade for Women and so on. I was also glad to be in a position to fund this year a radio and poster campaign called "Reach Out" which was aimed primarily at young girls who become pregnant and simply do not know where to seek help. The campaign was organised in consultation with all the support services active in this area, and over 6,000 posters were distributed for display throughout the country.

I would now like to draw the attention of Deputies to the World Conference which was held in Nairobi last July to review and appraise the achievements of the United Nations Decade for Women 1976-85. I had the honour to head the Irish delegation to this world conference and I was pleased to be able to include in the delegation three of the leaders of women's organisations over the decade — Sylvia Meehan of the Employment Equality Agency, Mamo McDonald of the Irish Countrywomen's Association and Audrey Dickson of the Council for the Status of Women.

I think it is fair to say that the predominantly male membership of this House over the past decade could not be expected to appreciate fully the significance of the United Nations Decade for Women and what it has meant for women worldwide. While the objectives established at the beginning of the period were not fully met by any means, its importance lies in the fact that it has been a catalyst for change and that significant strides have been made in the area of women's rights. In the Irish context, I need only point to a number of key pieces of legislation which have been enacted over the period to illustrate this point.

Three important pieces of legislation in 1976 started the process — the Family Law (Maintenance of Spouses and Children) Act, the Family Home Protection Act and the Juries Act. These were followed in 1977 by the Employment Equality Act and the Unfair Dismissals Act, while 1981 witnessed four major advances — the Maternity (Protection of Employees) Act, the Family Law Act, the Criminal Law (Rape) Act and the Family Law (Protection of Spouses and Children) Act. The Health (Family Planning) Acts of 1979 and 1985 represented further major advances, while the Finance Acts of 1980 and 1983 introduced important adjustments in our taxation system of benefit to women.

One important development over the period of the UN Decade for Women has been the entering into force in September 1981, of the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women. At the world conference in Nairobi, I announced the Government's intention to accede to this convention before the end of this year and, since that time, I have been in close contact with the Minister for Foreign Affairs, Deputy Barry, and his Department to ensure that this timescale should be met. A necessary prerequisite to accession was detailed consultations with our community partners and other states to clarify certain provisions of the convention, but I am pleased to inform Deputies that this process has now been completed and that the matter is before the Government for final decision. Given the significance of accession to the convention in this the final year of the UN decade, I am very hopeful that the end-year deadline will be met.

I have attempted in this contribution to outline for Deputies the initiatives which I have been taking to assist Irish women in their efforts to secure equal rights with those enjoyed by men in our society. I am satisfied that these initiatives have all been of very practical benefit to women and that the publication of my report will prove the single most important contribution to women's concerns in the years ahead as more and more of these recommendations are implemented. I do not pretend that difficulties do not remain to be overcome in securing the implementation of these recommendations given the very real constraints under which the Government must operate in the present economic climate. Drawing from the title of my report, however, I believe that the recommendations are practical in nature and that the political will which this Government have already demonstrated in the area of women's issues will enable them to be implemented over time.

I must mention here, however, that the extent of progress to be achieved in eliminating remaining discriminations in our society will also depend on the extent of the commitment of women themselves to their cause. I think it is fair to say that many of the very significant achievements of the mid to late seventies came about from the concerted efforts of women's groups who demonstrated quite clearly that they were no longer prepared to entertain the glaring discriminations which existed at that time. A similar response to the remaining discriminations which have been highlighted both in my own report and in the Nairobi "Forward Looking Strategies for the Advancement of Women" is now called for, because it is clear from this material that some discriminations and injustices remain to be overcome and it is equally clear from past experience that these issues will not be tackled unless women demonstrate their sense of grievance sufficiently strongly.

Last week the Irish Nationality and Citizenship Bill, 1985, was circulated. The Bill will end the differentiation as between men and women in the criteria for the acquisition of Irish citizenship by foreign spouses of Irish citizens. At present foreign wives of Irish men are entitled to Irish citizenship on making a declaration accepting citizenship. However, foreign men married to Irish women do not have a right to Irish citizenship. They may obtain Irish citizenship by naturalisation provided specified conditions such as good character and residence in the State are satisfied.

The Bill provides that foreign husbands and wives will be entitled to citizenship by declaration if they are married to Irish citizens for three years. Accordingly, no longer will there be any differentiation between men and women in regard to the criteria for obtaining citizenship.

The Bill also provides for some other changes in the law relating to naturalisation. First, it improves the conditions under which refugees may obtain citizenship; secondly, it eliminates the present statutory requirement of one year's advance notice of intention to apply for citizenship; third, it provides that the effective date of citizenship acquired by descent will be the date of registration of the Irish citizenship rather than the person's date of birth as at present. The most important change proposed in the Bill is that it will apply the same criteria to foreign husbands and foreign wives of Irish citizens as regards the acquisition of citizenship. At present, foreign wives of Irish men are entitled to Irish citizenship on making a declaration accepting citizenship. Foreign men married to Irish women, however, do not have a right to Irish citizenship. They may obtain Irish citizenship by naturalisation if they satisfy such conditions as good character and residence in the State. The Irish Nationality and Citizenship Bill, 1985, provides that foreign husbands and wives, by declaration can acquire Irish citizenship if they are married to Irish citizens for three years. Accordingly, there will no longer be differentiation between men and women in regard to criteria for obtaining citizenship.

The Bill provides for other changes in the law regarding naturalisation. It improves the conditions in which refugees can acquire citizenship. It will remove the present statutory requirements of one year advance notice of intention to apply for citizenship and it will provide that the effective date of citizenship will be the date of registration of Irish citizenship rather than the person's date of birth. The Bill will provide the same criteria for both foreign husbands and foreign wives of Irish citizens.

The present arrangements date back almost 30 years. The Irish Nationality and Citizenship Act, 1956, gave foreign wives of Irish men the right to citizenship on making a declaration. Foreign husbands, however, had to go through the naturalisation process involving criteria in relation to character and residence in the State. There has been an administrative practice through the years which reduced to two years the normal five years residence required. Under the Bill the requirements for men and women will be three years residence provided the marriage subsisted at the time of citizenship.

The generally accepted view internationally in the fifties as regards marriages between persons of different nationalities was that the wife was more likely to move to the husband's country rather than the husband moving to hers. Accordingly, the usual practice was to legislate for easy acquisition of citizenship by foreign wives. Our 1956 Act reflects that viewpoint and, accordingly, provides for citizenship for foreign wives by declaration. In the years since 1956 the force of this argument has waned. The changed circumstances have resulted in new legislation in many countries which applies the same conditions to both foreign wives and foreign husbands. The Irish Nationality and Citizenship Bill, 1985, is in keeping with the international trend of applying the same conditions to husbands and wives in the acquisition of citizenship.

I will turn to the new initiative, the pilot family mediation scheme, the commencement date of which it is hoped to announce early in 1986 subsequent to the presentation to me of the report of the steering committee. Mediation, or as it is sometimes referred to, conciliation, is a process whereby a third party — a professional mediator — brings a husband and wife together to work out their own solutions when their marriage has irretrievably broken down. The objective is not to provide somebody else's answer to the couple's problems. This point is very important. After all, it makes perfect sense that having lived with their marriage for many years the couple themselves are the best qualified persons to decide their future. They can be helped to do this by a professional mediator.

Before I finish I should like to refer to a Bill circulated last week in regard to dependency of married women. I indicated that the Bill would be circulated before the end of the year. The Government's Domicile and Recognition of Foreign Divorces Bill, 1985, was presented to the Dáil on 10 December and circulated the following day. No other aspect of Irish law was regarded as so offensive or derisory to women as the domicile dependency of married women. The purpose of the new Bill is to abolish the common law rule under which the domicile of married women is in all cases the same as that of her husband. It is provided in the Bill that the domicile of married women will be the same as in the case of any other adult. It provides also for domicile of the children of either spouse and recognition of foreign divorces. I am pleased that before the end of 1985 the Government have begun to honour commitments to equality in law for women. In the next two years we will deliver an impressive programme of legislative action which will give Irish women equal status in law which cannot be reversed or eroded. I intend to ensure that by the next election no women will point a finger at this administration and claim we reneged on our commitment to sexual equality in Irish law. Years of neglect of those issues by Fianna Fáil Governments had to be redressed.

I thank many women's organisations, the Council for the Status of Women, the ICA, the Limerick Federation, the Federation of Women's Clubs and many other groups.

Mr. B. Ahern

In an Adjournment Debate the whole idea is that the Government and the Opposition would review not only the year but the term of office of the Government. One of the difficulties the Opposition have had in previous Adjournment Debates in this Dáil has been that the Government on each occasion have changed the ground rules. In the last election campaign, Fine Gael and Labour each put forward policy documents or manifestos culminating, after the election, in Programme for Government. Following the disastrous policies they pursued in 1984, including the partial abolition of food subsidies, they decided to put forward new policies in Building on Reality. On several occasions this year they said they are not bound by these targets. They changed the ground rules and on the opening day of this session in October they came in with U-turns in their policy.

Therefore, one must look at the continuing changing nature of Government policies. They talked about rolling over their plans and policies, about flexibility, but they have gone away completely from what they got elected for, the twofold purpose of halting or reversing unemployment and getting the country to live within its means by overcoming the problem of the national debt. However, the deficits get worse, the borrowing goes on and the national debt is higher than when Fianna Fáil left office in November 1982. The deficit this year, as is apparent from the Estimates issued today, will be £1,300 million. The number unemployed at Christmas 1985 is 228,000. We are borrowing £100 million per month to pay for day-to-day expenditure. The Government have no policies and no good alternatives.

The Taoiseach told us today that the Government would identify positive developments such as the decline in interest rates and the falling value of the dollar. Those figures have been put into the Government's budgetary arithmetic for January 1986. On the negative side, there is a much slower growth rate in employment and a continuing rise in unemployment. The Taoiseach made great play of the point that unemployment is not going up at the 1983-84 level, but being a statistician by profession the Taoiseach knows the law of diminishing returns: when you have half of the country out of work you cannot expect unemployment to rise at the same percentage.

Day by day we hear of closures, liquidations, companies letting off workers, short term and long term. So there is no improvement in regard to unemployment this year. Tax receipts are below estimates in the 1985 budget and according to the Taoiseach the public service pay bill will exceed the 1986 targets. Perversely, even though tax receipts will not reach budget targets, the level of overall tax is very high when accounts is taken of the narrowness of the tax base and the underdeveloped state of the economy. This adversely affects our competitiveness and the power to generate jobs. Approximately 40 per cent of taxpayers pay tax at above the standard rate, whereas in the United Kingdom only 5 per cent of taxpayers are liable at a rate in excess of the standard rate.

A marginal tax rate of 62 per cent at very low thresholds exclusive of social security contributions is indefensible. The Taoiseach has been stating continually that a key requirement is that pay settlements do not exceed those of our main trading partners, and continues to call on the trade unions to ensure that this will be the case. That is a fair point, but the extent to which the trade unions can agree to moderation in pay claims during 1986, or during any other year, must be influenced by the degree of the personal tax burden members must carry.

At current levels, income tax is causing serious economic damage and results in calls for increased income. This factor was pointed to clearly by the NESC when earlier this year they said that if we were to continue to have pay moderation at the levels demanded by the Government, both in the private and public sectors, they must introduce some justice into the tax system. The proposals in respect of taxation put forward by the Taoiseach in this House on the first day of this session will not help in the efforts towards pay moderation. These proposals will result only in a few more inspectors being appointed, or in the appointment of a few more sheriffs, or in providing a little more overtime.

That is not what the trade union movement mean by social justice, and neither is it what the PAYE sector are calling for. What is being called for is a total overhaul of the tax system. The NESC which comprise representatives of employers, unions, farmers and so on, have set down clear guidelines which the Government should follow. Apart from the report of the Commission on Taxation, the NESC make the following observations: that in our system there are high marginal tax rates at relatively low levels of income, that there is sharp reduction in family disposable incomes due to increases in direct taxation in recent years, and there is a distributive impact of the system of allowances and reliefs and that the overall taxation system is of a regressive nature.

Concern was expressed also in the Government's White Paper on industrial policy last year at the very high levels of taxation, but yet they have not taken any action in this regard. If they are to show any credibility in respect of the various areas on which they promised action, they must at least do something about the tax levels. Inordinate amounts of what otherwise would be disposable income continue to be taken from the PAYE sector and a consequence of that has been a reduction in the amount of revenue accruing to the Exchequer. Because of that decrease the amount of money available for investment and for job creation has been very small.

There was little point in the Taoiseach speaking to us today in general terms. The fact remains that the position is as bad now as it has been at any time in the past few years. Almost 250,000 people are unemployed while as many more are living on the breadline. In different debates in recent days we have pointed to the effects of the Coalition's policies on ordinary working class people. We have pointed to the difficulties they are experiencing in trying to pay their food bills, to meet their mortgage repayments and their energy costs. Living standards have been falling continuously. I could accept the Taoiseach talking about the need for pay moderation if he were prepared to do something substantial to introduce social justice into the tax system. In the absence of such action, we cannot be expected to be supported by the trade union movement.

Our chronic unemployment problem is one of our most serious problems. As we approach 1986 we must be acutely aware of the economic consequences of high unemployment levels. All around us we witness the waste of human talent and resources. We see the many young people who have had a good education, in many cases to degree level, but who are unable to obtain any employment. I notice in the Book of Estimates that again there are vast increases in the amounts for the day to day expenditure of the Department of Labour. These moneys are for such areas as the enterprise allowance scheme, the social employment scheme and the various training programmes, but none of these areas provides any type of sustainable employment. They are all desirable in that they are better than nothing but the fact remains that large numbers of our young people are becoming totally disillusioned. It is for that reason that the Bronx is full of young Irish people who have had to turn their backs on this country because it offered them nothing more than schemes, if they were lucky, and very low levels of subsistence.

There are people who talk in terms of our having a great social welfare system as if these young people or any others are living off the State because of that alleged great social welfare system. Those people are depending on social welfare because of economic policies. They would be very glad to have jobs. That is why it is very wrong for various interest groups to harp continually on the abolition of certain subsidies. The concern of these groups is that right wing interests would have more money to invest for the purpose of generating profits.

It was proved down through the years that we got very little return from some of the industries in which we invested large amounts of money. I was very pleased to note the other day that Mr. Bill Attley of the Federated Workers Union of Ireland stated that the trade union movement would have to change their attitude and that the various semi-State bodies, the health boards and the local authorities, would have to view matters in a different light. Mr. Attley's words were that the public are our customers and not our enemies and that the public service and semi-State workers must show that they can be more efficient than private contractors. The view is put forward here sometimes that anything that has a State involvement must be inefficient and cannot be capable of creating jobs. Most of our semi-State companies have served the country extremely well but, as in the case of Irish Shipping, some mistakes were made. For decades Aer Lingus proved successful.

The CIE and the B & I bashers take the line that once a semi-State company encounter difficulties they should be sold off to private interests. We must remember that private enterprise are in business for their own selfish reasons. They are motivated by profit making. They are in business to achieve the maximum profit for their investors. These reasons are all right but when anything goes wrong a private company will not continue in operation. That is why the involvement of the State is much better. In that way the State has some control.

I am always surprised when the Minister for Communications appears to boast about having abolished Irish Shipping. The Minister is trying to break up the B & I and he is gunning for CIE, too. He does not seem to care about the public interest. What is happening in respect of the B & I is that the Minister is reaching an agreement on behalf of the Irish State with Mr. James Sherwood. He is the person who owns Sealink. He is an American and a multimillionaire. By reason of taking over Sealink he acquired a 40 per cent stake in the IOM Steam Packet Company. He is now showing considerable interest in the Belfast car ferry company.

Does not the dominant role of Mr. James Sherwood clearly pose a major threat to the future of B & I and the strategic needs of this country? That man is an American millionaire and if he is the same as other multimillionaires in shipping he will use Irish waters as long as it is profitable and when it becomes worthless to him he will turn his back on the employees of B & I who are fighting for a viable company in a company which down through the years has made substantial profits. We are asking these people to give up their State role and move in under a B & I management in the hands of a person interested only in major profits, who does not care about B & I, Ireland or the fact that it is a strategic shipping company for us. It is very sad if that is the policy of the Government. Mr. Bill Attley is correct to call on the trade union movement and workers to face up to the reality that they must work efficiently and effectively and to call on the Government to recognise that State employees can do an efficient job. Mr. Seán Lemass proved in the sixties that State companies can be used to generate employment. The policy document of October 1984 of the Irish Congress of Trade Unions said that the State should be used for job creation, and can be used successfully. If private investors are not prepared to invest in the necessary amounts it is up to the State to provide joint packages with private investment in order to create jobs. I caution the Government on the action they are taking in a series of semi-State companies where there is substantial employment. The Government should stop privatising them because at the end of the day it will work out at a major disadvantage to the State.

An area with which I have been concerned throughout the year, as spokesman for the public service, is the appalling Government handling of the whole pay issue in the public service. For the first time in the history of the State there was a totally successful national strike of the public service in 1985. Public servants are people of high integrity and credibility who work through difficult times for the State to ensure the best for the country. They were forced into that action by the Government. They were told they would have no increase in 1985 and in 1986 and that their special increases would be cast out and that the Minister would continue the savage embargo in the Departments and take away some of their traditional rights. The Minister in the White Paper said that civil servants could be dismissed, put on protective notice and so on and he continually harassed the public service. Civil servants, because of their nature, are not out front and cannot defend themselves. Recently, however, the Minister changed. The Minister had believed that he could say what he liked, but he went too far and caused the biggest strike since 1913 when he brought out 150,000 white collar and blue collar civil servants onto the streets. Today the Minister has dropped most of the guidelines with which he started and today the Taoiseach said that the Estimates for 1985 were substantially more than were budgeted for. That is because almost nothing was budgeted for. We all remember the appalling spectacle of the Minister for the Public Service negotiating into the early hours of budget day last January. The Minister continually said he would give no increase but at the last moment the figures were changed and because of revenue buoyancy the money was provided to pay the public servants. It makes one wonder what will happen this year. The Minister for the Public Service who puts forward a very hard image has yet to achieve anything in the public service. There is almost no co-operation with the Minister and implementing the White Paper appears to be a very slow process. The Minister has damaged the position in the public service for the future. I hope the Government have now seen the error of the Minister's ways.

On a number of occasions during the year the Minister for the Public Service was very upset that I had singled him out personally but I singled him out only in his capacity as a Government Minister. I know the Minister will have a little more sense and knowledge than some of his colleagues who are giving him the impossible task of persuading people to take zero of an increase in 1985. I am sure the Minister did not draft the document Building on Reality which said that there would be a 2 per cent increase in 1985, a 3 per cent increase in 1986 and nothing after that. It was a nonsensical policy. The Government could never have stayed with the figure they put forward. They had to back down. They now appear to be conceding also on the arbitration awards.

The major point about the public service issue is not so much the paying out of special increases but the attempt by the Government to do away with the pay negotiation machinery. This Government comprises Labour Ministers who were once paid officials of the trade union movement and yet the Government by sleight of hand tried to do away with the pay machinery, which has been used in the public service for 35 years, by not appointing the arbitrator. The negotiation machinery had served this State well through various pay awards, national agreements and national understandings. The fact that today the arbitrator has still not been reappointed is something which will be hung around the neck of this Government for a long time, particularly the Labour Members who were paid union officials. It was only due to the responsibility and levelheaded approach of the trade union leaders that we had not more difficulties and strikes in 1985. The Government provoked the public service, they cajoled them and misled them. It is an appalling record for the Government. Not one Labour Member — except Deputy Michael Bell who condemned and voted against the Government — contributed on all the Private Notice questions and debates on the public service. Deputy Bell at least had the strength to vote against the Government on one occasion but he cannot be expected to do it all the time. But where were his colleagues who did not speak in the House against the Government's performance on this whole pay issue? We await with interest news of whether the Minister will reappoint the arbitrator and if he will pay the teachers 10 per cent in some phased way.

Last February, April, June, October, November and again this month I was assured by the Minister for Labour that we would see a White Paper on manpower policy during 1985, effecting a rationalisation of the various services provided by Manpower, AnCO, the Youth Employment Agency and all the other schemes funded by the levy and the European Social Fund. We have seen no White Paper to date. It is now 15 months since prominent journalists had a detailed leak of the whole document. Somebody owes it to the House to say where the White Paper on manpower policy is to be found. The last such paper was introduced in 1965, when the scheme was aimed at generating employment, to establish a manpower authority that would quickly be able to obtain the thousands of jobs that would be available for employers and employees alike. We are still working under the provisions of that White Paper when the position has been totally reversed.

In June last I put forward a motion in Private Members' time, when the Minister sought the agreement of this House to establish one authority to administer all of these schemes in order to provide training in a meaningful way, moving towards sustainable jobs and eliminating the vast amount of duplication obtaining amongst the various training agencies. But there has been no White Paper, no proposals. The Minister's promises are like so many others that just fall on deaf ears. It appears to be yet another area in which the Government merely say: "We will publish a White Paper, a Green Paper"— as we had last week on transport policy —"then we will bring in legislation, then we shall have a debate and in about ten years time we will do something about it."

I am glad to note that the Minister of State with responsibility for women's affairs is back in good health. But since she assumed office she has talked continuously about the establishment of commissions, committees. The Minister for Communications has done the same, but there has been no legislation. The Minister for Labour has introduced one Bill only which had been handed down from Fianna Fáil in 1982. Where are the policies? Where is the action for the unemployed? Where is the incentive to industry? The National Development Corporation is a bad joke, that is, if it ever gets off the ground, bearing in mind that the necessary legislation took three years to be passed.

As we enter the fourth year in office of this Coalition Government things are becoming increasingly worse. There are major strikes in this city; unemployment is 80,000 higher than when Fianna Fáil left office; the national debt has risen from somewhere in the region of £11,500,000 to £18 billion; and the current budget deficit is some hundreds of millions more than it was. There is no hope for young people. There is massive emigration. People are totally devastated by continuing recession. The number of people who have been unemployed for over a year is steadily increasing, with no proposals emanating from the Government.

The present Taoiseach told us in 1981-82 that if we tightened our belts for a few years all would be well. The belts were tightened so much that people and our economy have been strangled. There is no incentive. Young unemployed people are emigrating as they did back in the thirties and sixties. Business people are not prepared to invest. Yet the Minister says that in 1986 we shall have to tighten our belts again, following the same old policies, providing billions of pounds in the Estimate for social welfare to pay for redundancies and unemployment benefit. There is also the major cost of the health services because a large portion of their cost has been occasioned by the recession.

Law and order has broken down. There are the drugs problem, the prisons, the courts problem, all related to unemployment. There are no policies, except a programme for Government —Building on Reality 1985-87— and various other policy documents, but no action. I hope that, by the time the next Adjournment debate comes round, their will be a Government in office who will be prepared at least to reverse these trends and take some positive action away from the negative type of Government we have now watched for three years and three days.

Mr. Skelly

As Deputy B. Ahern has said, the fourth year of this Government's term of office is just around the corner and their remains a fifth year, with no unexpected miracles having taken place in the first two years. Perhaps we should have been even more restrictive in those first two years. Certainly the third year has restored a certain amount of confidence and secured a base. Given the job the Government had to undertake in five years, it would be unreasonable to expect that the first three of those years should produce miracles. It is a five-year programme. The Taoiseach has never denied that fact.

In the remaining two years I expect we shall see a recovery and significant growth. Providing certain guidelines are followed and that we are prepared to take a certain amount of risk, recognising the situation for what it is, using imagination, we could perform minor miracles. But, if we follow a traditional line in job creation and ignore our young population, we will face the danger of increasing emigration, solving our problem in that way. I have spoken about that in the past and I shall refer to it again later.

I have said that we need a generation for Ireland. We have that generation in the form of our young people. We do not need 150 jobs under a diluted IDA policy in ten different countries. Rather what we need are 10,000, 20,000, indeed up to 50,000 jobs. We accept that the reporting in which the IDA have engaged in the last two years, because they could not meet their job creation targets, means that that method of job creation through multinationals has failed. We accept that that is why they have resorted to this type of job announcement, that we must have something imaginative, dramatic, in order to create the huge amount of jobs required.

The key to the problem lies in Dublin city where there resides a third of the population. Those types of jobs have been created in other different countries. For example, in North America, in Canada there are two cities, one with 500,000 population, Edmonton in Alberta, and another with now a population of two million, Toronto. Edmonton was turned into a tourist shopping mecca for the North American States. They succeeded in creating 50,000 jobs to cater for hotels, tourism and shopping. This city is ideally placed to do likewise. We should think of ourselves, not as an island with 4,500,000 people but rather as people living in a beautiful city — albeit falling down — situated on a river with a population of almost 700,000 people.

Through Aer Lingus, by means of cheap fares, we should attract these tens of thousands of people from the cities of Britain to come here to an ideally situated capital city on the east coast, to stay for a while, do their shopping and go on short or extended tours, thus co-operating with the hotel industry. That would not be difficult to achieve. In order to service that kind of programme a large number of young people are needed and most countries in Europe have not got them. Before I came in here I heard the leaders of parties on both sides of the House referring constantly to the fact that we had the youngest population in Europe and that the youth were our greatest asset. For the last three or four years I have heard never a word about that because those young people have turned into our greatest liability through failure on our part to provide opportunities for them. They lack amenities, outlets and educational opportunities. We do not know how to face that problem so we ignore it, but it does not go away.

Too many of yesterday's men are running this country. Too many people prefer to close their eyes to the problems of youth. That is why we have had the explosion of crime in the last five to ten years. I was ridiculed in this place three or four years ago when I spoke about the incredible increase in crime, of gangs in the city, of the criminal activity. I came into this House in 1982 and people here constantly referred to 1922. I am not interested in what happened before 1982. I am interested in 1985 and onwards. Those Members referred constantly to our past and the 700 years we took to gain our freedom, and in the space of seven years we have handed over our capital city to a bunch of criminals. Admittedly, it seems that the Garda have got on top of the godfather type criminal, but we have let a drug industry mushroom around us, we are responsible for uncoordinated, chaotic planning and we are running a system in which disciplinary regulations do not apply. We do not apply Acts of the Oireachtas. We do not apply the Road Traffic Acts or the Hygiene Acts. We are a type of people who react when something gets so badly out of hand that it calls for crisis action. If we are to prove that we are a nation fit and capable of ruling ourselves we must be able to provide for the population that we have.

I continue to repeat, because I do not want to let anyone get away from this problem, that I do not want to sit here and listen to old men telling me what things were like in the twenties, thirties and forties. This is the first time in 100 years, the first time since the Famine, that we have our total population together, young people, old people and those in between. In the fifties and sixties we had the emigration valve to spare us from facing up to the problem of providing jobs. The cream of our population spread throughout the world then. We lost 500,000 people in ten years in the fifties and sixties at the rate of 20,000 a year. Now we have a large young population and the challenge is to be able to employ them, to drag ourselves up off our knees and take our place among the developed industrial countries of the world and make our contribution.

We must not allow ourselves to fall into this lazy way out of ignoring what we cannot do anything about but holding on to positions, power and authority and forcing the best of our people to run away, to leave out of frustration or disappointment. That is the challenge in a nutshell and to say anything else is to ignore the problem. If we analyse it carefully, face up to it and try to provide solutions for it then we have the right to stay here. If we cannot do that we have no right to stay here or to be in this House. Membership of this House is not a sinecure. It should not be looked upon as a pensionable job. We are in here to make a contribution to represent those who elect us and to run the country and provide a service to the people. If we cannot do that we have no right to be in here. Nobody has the right to say that he or she is going to stay in here for 20 or 30 years and get pension rights and that this is a secure job and a safe seat. The electorate should recognise that in their voting patterns.

Because each speaker's time is limited to half an hour in this debate and the topics on which I can touch are limited, I will restrict myself. The Taoiseach referred to the problems of under-privilege especially in our inner cities and some of the new suburbs. He said that those problems require positive and discriminatory action. I agree with that and I am glad that he mentioned it. The bulk of our population dwell in and around Dublin and on the east coast, so therefore there lies the bulk of the problems which are there in abundance. In the constituency which I represent, the Inchicore area, 4 per cent of the population have the opportunity of third level education but they make up 26 per cent or 27 per cent of the inmates of St. Patrick's and Mountjoy. In Ballyfermot, where I went to school, and which has a population of 50,000 to 60,000, one miserable per cent, namely, about 500 people, have an opportunity of third level education but they make up about 70 per cent of the inmates in St. Patrick's and Mountjoy. On the south side of the city that percentage changes. From 30 per cent to 44 per cent have the opportunity of third level education and, of course, they make up less than 1 per cent, if anything at all, of the people in St. Patrick's and Mountjoy. I have tried to articulate the story behind those headlines since I came into this House but it has fallen on deaf ears, with the occasional minor success. It seems that when one takes on the Establishment or the status quo, be it liberal or conservative, inevitably one becomes unpopular. The first reaction of the critics is to try to discredit the people who challenge them. Remember the people who dared to take on the corrupt multinational drug companies and the abuse through malfunctioning drugs such as thalidomide. I am thinking also of the recent case of Hanrahan against Merck, Sharpe and Dohme. The rights of those people were trampled on. Their ancestors farmed there for 300 years but suddenly they were told they did not know how to run a farm. I am not going into details about that; I am dealing with the under-privileged.

What we do not want, if I may speak as one of the graduates of this class as I often refer to myself, is patronage.

Although I should have expected it I was absolutely sickened and dumb-founded by the attitude adopted by the vast majority of Members of the three major parties in that we were about to pass legislation that would have legalised a racket that has been going on here illegally and uncontrolled for the last 15 years with a few people making untold fortunes out of the plight and hardship of the under-privileged and disadvantaged. People were making millions illegally. We do not regulate things here and let the law run on. It was because the Supreme Court decided that what these people were doing was illegal that they, backed up by a very expensive lobby, appealed to Members to change the law in their favour so that they could continue making millions out of the misery of the unfortunate poor.

Emergency legislation was prepared and brought to the House. We have had promises of legislation to change the adoption laws, on child care, illegitimacy and a host of other matters but we are still waiting for that legislation, yet we were able to prepare legislation in a few weeks to cater for the gaming machine industry, as they call it. It is not an industry; it is a racket. In order to prove their case — it appears that everybody fell for it — they said there was a danger that 4,700 jobs would be lost and we would all suffer badly because of that.

I welcomed the Supreme Court decision and I said at the time that these gaming hall proprietors — I refuse to call the places where the machines are amusement halls or an industry — were a powerful lobby who were attempting to have that part of the Gaming and Lotteries Act, 1956 which sets the limits on stakes and pay-outs declared unconstitutional and having failed to do that in the courts they concentrated their efforts on TDs. It was sad to see that the three major parties gave in so readily to the demands of those people because gaming machines do not offer any benefits to society but are responsible for a great deal of misery. Like others, I have witnessed the terrible hardships people suffered as a result of these machines. We all know of cases where women have to be escorted to do their shopping to prevent them squandering their money on such machines. We are all aware of people who squander their week's wages on the machines and of children from 12 years of age upwards, and on B & I boats from eight years of age, who lose all their pocket money in the space of a couple of minutes. We are aware that old people and pensioners end up crying after losing every penny they have on these machines. In this case the youth were a great asset, not to the country, but to those profiteers. I do not think there is much employment involved in this.

I should like to mention a courageous piece of writing in the Evening Herald of Tuesday, 17 December, by Kerry McCarthy. In the course of his article he said:

How, you may ask, did an industry operating these legal limits build up a workforce of 4,000 which the arcades lobby now say is threatened?

The answer, of course, is that the industry was not built up on the legal limits. For at least 15 years the arcade owners themselves illegally set their own limits many hundreds of times greater than what was permitted by law.

As a result they have made vast profits for themselves and only in a small number of cases were they prosecuted and even then the fines were so derisory that the takings from one slot machine in a couple of hours could pay it.

Quoting Donal Glynn, a clinical psychologist attached to the Rutland Centre, he said that slot machines have no single redeeming feature or social merit. Kerry McCarthy went on:

The number of meetings of Gamblers Anonymous has trebled in the last five years to cope with the explosion of young people addicted to slot machines, especially poker machines.

He asked:

Do our legislators not have a duty to protect these people and do they regard the interests of an industry built up on illegal gaming as being more important than the victims of that industry?

Such addicts steal to get money to feed their habit and it is the ordinary citizens who want to live in peace who suffers as a result. Are our legislators taking that into consideration?

An Ceann Comhairle

Long quotations are not encouraged.

Mr. Skelly

I am at the end of the quotation. Kerry McCarthy said:

The gaming industry is one where the owner cannot lose because he fixes the machines himself with no independent supervision. They are the original licence to print money and money that is not so easily taxed either.

Yesterday in the courts one of the arcade owners was fined £3,000 for not having a gaming licence by the District Court in 1983. Of course, he continued operating. The individual involved is a founder member of the Amusement and Leisure Trade Action Committee, was one of the oldest in Dublin and his premises dated to pre-planning days. He told the court that at the end of the day he ended up with nothing and agreed to pay a fine of £250 duty on each of his 20 machines. That was accepted by the court and he was fined £6,000 but the fine was mitigated to £3,000 with the justice saying she was sorry for people like this man who found themselves in this situation. That gaming machines address was given as Keane Amusements, Talbot Street, Dublin, a premises which has eight employees and 20 machines. That hall turns over between £6,000 and £8,000 cash per day, £50,000 per week or £2½ million per year, an incredible amount of money. The owner said that at the end of the day he had ended up with nothing although he had such a turnover. The justice felt sorry for him and reduced the fine to £3,000.

I would like the Revenue people to investigate those premises and the others around the city where millions of pounds are being taken in annually. There are people in small businesses who work themselves to the bone, the equivalent of eight days a week, with 30 to 40 employees and have not made a penny for five years and are lucky to end with a week's wages for themselves. At the same time these racketeers can make millions off the backs of our poor people. Those people spend the social welfare payments the House have kept up with inflation in recent years. That racket is going on in the city under our noses and we are not doing anything about it except that when the proprietors formed themselves into an organised group and lobbied us we rushed in legislation to help them out of their difficulties. Fortunately that legislation did not get through but those people will try again after Christmas.

If the law is not applied strictly between now and Christmas all we will have succeeded in doing is making people who are extraordinarily rich, rich beyond the imagination of most people here. The most successful entrepreneurs and the most successful legitimate businessmen are not likely to be more wealthy than those who are running these businesses. These people are worth millions. Yes, the fine was paid in cash as most of their bills to creditors are paid in cash. There is so much cash coming in that they do not know where to hide it.

An Ceann Comhairle

Deputy Skelly has five minutes.

Mr. Skelly

The money must be going out of this country in trunk loads. If we take the figures that these people have trumped up as the earnings in their dubious so-called industry, we can reckon that they are at least turning over £600 million — and we are worried about a budget deficit. We are trying to scrape together enough money to put our young people back to work and this racket is taking over the city of Dublin and every town and village. Single machines in hucksters' shops are producing £600 per week. The craze has gone to such an extent that it is more difficult to cure than heroin.

Every shop that closes on the streets of Dublin is being reopened as a gaming hall. Those traditionally in the food business are getting out of that business and opening such halls all over the place. It must be one of the greatest scandals of the decade. It is a cause for shame on everybody in this House who has not acted to stop it. We also have a duty to find out what is going on around us. We must have our feet on the ground because last week we had our heads in the air. At least that was my experience, because I could not convince the Members in here of the wrong without going to the media and organising a campaign in the last week.

It is worth considering that a week ago the teachers of the children of this nation, numbering in total 20,000, had an organised, peaceful march to the Dáil. They are of the most responsible people in the country, but they were refused entry, perhaps for security reasons. However, within the last week this House has been full every day of these racketeers, lobbying TDs and anybody who would listen to them. They were in here all day yesterday and all day today; there were 300 of them outside the gates last night and the same this morning. They tried to intimidate me when I was coming in but they were wasting their time.

Yet the teachers were kept outside the House. Why were these people not kept outside the House? They have contributed nothing to our society but are robbing it of money which is needed to put people back to work. While they will enjoy themselves over Christmas with the enormous wealth they have taken from the hungry, they will have the doubtful satisfaction of knowing that there are literally tens of thousands of homes around Dublin city and other towns and villages where there will not be a crust of bread, or a toy, or clothes for the children. There are marriages shattered and homes broken up over these gaming halls which should be closed down.

The greatest service Members of this House who are on local authorities could do for the children of Ireland, when they get the opportunity — and one is coming up in Dublin Corporation next week by courtesy of The Workers' Party — is to ban these gaming machines and dens of iniquity from our society forever. There is one thing about this type of addiction which does not apply to the heroin addict. There are no withdrawal symptoms and if they are out of sight, they are out of mind. We should pass an Act in this House providing that from a certain date all these machines will be banned and then we should empower the Garda to go into any premises with a sledgehammer and smash them. We should do as the police in New York did, who threw them into the Hudson river.

——you could legalise for prostitution and drug-trafficking and make much more revenue.

Dr. O'Connell

In reviewing the performance of this Government at the year's end, and more particularly after three years in office, I have no hesitation in saying that this country is going through the greatest economic crisis in its history. No cosmetic exercise or public relations programme can disguise this fact. Despite the ministerial assurances that Ireland is "poised for recovery", which is the hackneyed phrase that has been used in the past year, the recession is deepening. The unemployment figure stands at 240,000, or over 17 per cent of the workforce. It must be pointed out that when the Coalition Government came into office only 170,000 were unemployed, and there are a further 70,000 people added to those figures despite the fact that in their Programme for Government they gave a promise to the people that they would halt and reverse this serious trend. After three years in office, nothing has been achieved on the unemployment front.

It must be repeated many times that as many as 50,000 people have emigrated this year alone. The figures can be confirmed. Those who are working are still facing this crushing burden of taxation despite innumerable promises made by the present administration that they would ease the burden of taxation. I might remind members that in February of 1982 in this House the Minister for Finance welcomed the first report from the Commission on Taxation saying that the recommendations would have to be acted upon urgently. Despite the fact that there have been three reports published from that commission, there is not one word from this Government about implementing those recommendations. They have sidestepped the issue, but again are past masters at the art of public relations and the cosmetic exercise of portraying the gloomy situation in a fine light.

No appearance on the Late Late Show will fool the ordinary people that the country is not in a bad way. No cosmetic exercise by the Taoiseach or his spouse will fool them into believing that in this State all is well. No Taoiseach with the aid of television can fool the people that the country is on a sound footing and everything is fine, because the opposite is the case. The situation is appalling and the Taoiseach tries to disguise that by these devious means.

The unemployment figure of 240,000 is a damning indictment of this Government. They have tried to cover up this scandal with a patchwork of scurrilous employment schemes which obscure the real extent of the problem. When we consider this catastrophic figure of the unemployed, we must remember that over 50 per cent of these people are on unemployment assistance, which is means tested. That means that as many as 25 per cent of our population are living at or below poverty level. Charges that the social welfare system is being abused cannot disguise this appalling fact. These charges that have come consistently from the Department and from the Minister serve to cause greater divisiveness in our community.

It is not good enough for the Taoiseach to say that considerable progress has been made in slowing down the rise in unemployment. What kind of unmitigated rubbish is that? He will not admit that there are 240,000 people unemployed. He tries by devious means to present it in a different light. He uses convoluted verbiage to disguise the fact that 240,000 people are unemployed and living in poverty. Is that an achievement to be proud of after three years in Government? When they came into office only 170,000 were out of work. This Government promised major reform of the tax structure and an effective tackling of the problem of unemployment. They came in today to give an account of their stewardship. We cannot but admit that the economy is in a bad way. It calls for some explanation. If they were politically honest the Ministers would admit the truth about the economy. All we hear is that it is poised for recovery.

Crime is at an appallingly high level, despite the fact that the Minister says it is not increasing. Everybody knows it is. People are living in a state of fear in our cities. There is so much despair and despondency that people are not reporting the innumerable crimes of which they are the victims.

The educational system is almost grinding to a halt. It is being starved of the necessary funds and those in greatest need are being deprived of the means to gain the full advantage of education. The health services are literally being dismantled by the Minister for Health.

We see today the obvious industrial chaos which reigns in this country on a scale unmatched since the early seventies. The CIE strike is causing unnecessary hardship and the Government cannot but claim full responsibility. The shipping strike was wrongly provoked and will be devastating in its effect.

Never was national morale so low, yet the Taoiseach says everything is fine and rosy. He gives weird economic figures and prides himself on being an economic expert. I maintain that these figures are conjured from mid air because I have yet to see an economist substantiate the multiplicity of figures regurgitated in support of his theories. Let us recall the situation which prompted the Taoiseach to introduce a tax on children's footwear in 1982. The Taoiseach who knew figures so well could miss £30 million in the Department of Energy. This is the economist who is running the country. He says that tax revenue is off target and involves an amount well in excess of £100 million. The Government had presented a programme to ensure that there would be proper buoyancy but it is now off target by an amount well in excess of £100 million, a sum that will be compensated only in part by a fortuitous increase in non-tax revenue in 1985 which will not recur in 1986. There is an admission that the economy is in a bad way, although it should have been presented to us in a forthright fashion. How can we rely on the Taoiseach or on the figures with which he presents us? We were told that the figures in the national plan were accurate, yet they are well off target. The Government will not admit that the plan has no relevance, that it is totally unrealistic and will not solve our problems. I speak with a sense of annoyance because the Taoiseach sets himself up as a very self-righteous man incapable of any distortion of the truth, but I believe he has presented economic figures which are a fraud and a farce.

The Government had not the courage yesterday to move the Gaming and Lotteries Bill. Where is the courage of the Taoiseach? They came in with a Bill, sought the endorsement of the Fianna Fáil Party and when they did not receive it they ran scared and withdrew the Bill, attempting in a massive PR exercise to lay the blame on Fianna Fáil. They have a majority in the House but it was an unpopular Bill and when they did not get the support they sought they tried by every means at their disposal to blame Fianna Fáil. This was an act of political cowardice. They did not consult the Opposition about Bills last week or the week before because they have the means to have Bills passed without Fianna Fáil support. It was a blatant attempt to discredit Fianna Fáil. Having seen this and having seen their performance during the past year I believe there is need for a change of Government. I had hopes that the Taoiseach would bring in necessary reforms but all I have seen is a cosmetic exercise par excellence.

We must admit that the country is in a deplorable state. What are the options open to us so that we can get out of our difficulties and pay our debts? All attempts at fiscal rectitude have failed. Should we cut back drastically on social welfare benefits and payments, reduce public expenditure generally on a massive scale, hive off loss-making semi-State bodies, reduce considerably our army of civil servants, teachers, doctors, nurses, gardaí and Army personnel? These groups comprise the public service. Are we to increase further direct or indirect taxation or should we widen the tax net to pay the costs of public expenditure? These are the questions which face us all. Charges have been levelled at the Opposition over and over again that they have never come forward as a constructive group to offer advice to the Government.

Last week we saw an instance of this when Fianna Fáil brought in a Private Member's Bill but the Government would not accept it because they intended to bring in their own Bill. Therefore, why should the Opposition be encouraged to come forward with proposals to assist the Government since the Government merely adopt such proposals later on and present them as their policies? The Government are there to govern but they are not fulfilling that task. They should make way for a party who will govern.

The Government are in a mess and are not able to control finances. There is a budget due soon and it has been their ploy over the years to present a dire picture to the public in advance of the budget to condition them into accepting whatever comes. The Taoiseach said he had introduced tax reform in the last budget and that he had rationalised and simplified the tax system in respect of income tax and VAT. That was a bold and brave statement but the actions do not measure up to the words. It was a cosmetic exercise which merely undid some of the great harm they had done by increasing VAT to 35 per cent on so many items. They abolished the 65 per cent tax band which they had introduced and, by its abolition, they were admitting that they had made a grave mistake in introducing it.

The selective changes which they made in the last budget were certainly not radical; they merely tinkered with the system. They had three reports from the Commission on Taxation but failed to act on any of them. The proposals in the reports are realistic and would give the country some hope of a measure of tax relief, a widening of the tax bands and a greater participation by the public in paying their taxes. The Government are dividing the country by making wild charges against some sections of the community, turning urban against rural communities and business against employees.

At times the Taoiseach talks like a members of the Opposition. He also speaks as one who would like to come into Government to make changes. He said that the problems of the under-privileged, especially in inner cities and some of the new suburbs, require positive discriminatory action. He is the Taoiseach. He leads a Government with an ample majority and he can introduce the necessary proposals which are long overdue. He put a stop to a measure for the inner city, which was agreed by Deputy Haughey when he was Taoiseach, because he said it served no purpose. What does the Taoiseach mean by speaking about discriminatory action in favour of these people? Has he changed his mind? Does he now realise that he was wrong in the first place when he condemned it? We must tackle the question of the inner cities and rehouse the inhabitants properly. We must also give them employment and I am not referring to the shallow, ineffectual employment schemes which are designed merely to reduce the numbers on the unemployment register.

These schemes are not serving the purpose for which they were intended or for which money was provided. There is overlap in the functions of many of the agencies set up to deal with the problem and they are bureaucratic bodies seeking to use up the funds but not to provide proper productive employment schemes. They do not serve the needs of the areas where employment is most needed. If the crime rate is to be lowered and hope offered to the underprivileged and disadvantaged young people, we must do more than utter pious platitudes. I hope the Taoiseach will elaborate on his reference to positive discriminatory action in favour of these people. What are his plans to bring about this state of affairs in disadvantaged areas?

The outlook is very gloomy and depressing. Young people are rebelling against society because it does nothing for them. The Taoiseach was interviewed recently and he was asked what advice he would give to the young. I would be ashamed to offer the advice he gave to a group of young people. He merely said that he could offer them some hope, that the Government were taking the necessary measures to provide employment but that, if they had to emigrate, they should ensure that they had enough money to secure a place to stay. Despite the opinion polls, the public will give the Government their answer very shortly because they are disillusioned with them. They know there has not been any positive action by them, merely cosmetic exercises to bolster the economic figures.

The public are very anxious to see an end to the Coalition Government as they remember three former Coalition catastrophies over the years. They have never solved the problems of the country because they are two parties with different philosophies trying to agree on a programme for Government. I do not believe the public can accept the promises which the Government made despite the fact that the rise in unemployment is slowing down. That is not a satisfactory answer to those on the dole, those living in poverty, or those who cannot hope for employment for any member of their family. As many as three, four or five members of one family may be on the dole. Meeting such families is a common experience for anybody who has cause to visit these areas. If these people do not get some answer to the problem of unemployment and associated poverty, there will be a great danger of a social upheaval. I do not believe that the Government's efforts to create a division by playing one section of the community against another will serve any positive purpose. It will never restore morale.

I tell the Government to come clean, to give the people the facts; let us try to mobilise the young, to involve them and invest in them areas which are crying out for attention. So what if we spend more money in the interest of the community? Maybe we can renegotiate our loans but we cannot go on with this so-called policy of fiscal rectitude which is not going anywhere, which has not achieved anything, which has not solved the problem of the national debt or the current budget deficit. We should look at the possibility of investing in our youth and offering them some hope of a place in society rather than relying on what we call the policy of fiscal rectitude.

Mr. Enright

I have an obligation tonight to mention with great sadness the results of a decision announced in the Belfast High Court today by Judge Carswell. Twenty seven people were convicted of crimes and in my view that was a very wrong decision and an outrageous judgment. During the trial — and this was well documented in our national papers — Judge Carswell said that Harry Kirkpatrick had perjured himself in court, that he had given evidence that was not true in relation to his entire period in custody. Mr. Kirkpatrick gave evidence on oath in relation to his motivation for being a supergrass, about the negotiations he had with the police as to immunity from prosecution or getting executive clemency and it was all proved to be untrue. It had been proved that Harry Kirkpatrick had misled the court and told lies on oath. In the face of all that, the judge was willing to accept, in relation to various incidents mentioned in the indictments against the 27 people, Harry Kirkpatrick's evidence. Where it was proved that the evidence was patently untrue, the judge was willing to proceed on the basis that Kirkpatrick was mistaken rather than being untruthful. I will give an example.

Mr. Barrett

(Dublin North-West): On a point of order, I think that the Deputy is completely out of order. He might take up the matter with the leader of his party. There was much talk about the Hillsborough Agreement and we thought everything would be a bed or roses——

An Ceann Comhairle

That is not a point of order.

Mr. Enright

It is not a very helpful comment. In the Kirkpatrick case there was mention of an accused person who was engaged in a conspiracy but it transpired that that accused person was in prison at the time. However, it did not shake the confidence of the judge in the evidence give and it did not cause him any worry in arriving at the conclusion he reached even though the evidence was uncorroborated. However, because of the ruling of the Chair I will not continue further with the matter other than to say that the uncorroborated evidence of one person — it is clear he lied on oath — has sent 27 people to prison. I am pleased there is some vehicle or mechanism through which we can express our concern.

An Ceann Comhairle

The Deputy is now relating his remarks to the debate.

Mr. Enright

I thank the Chair. I welcomed the Anglo-Irish Agreement as a positive step. If we have concern about some point there is now a mechanism through which we can express that concern. I call on the British authorities to stop these supergrass trials. I totally condemn acts of violence of all kinds. However, decisions of this kind bring the legal system in the North of Ireland into serious disrepute. This decision was a gross miscarriage of justice and will be seen as such by the minority community in the North. The people who have been convicted by Judge Carswell may appeal to the Court of Criminal Appeal but the tragedy is that they will be detained in prison pending their appeal. This could take a number of years. The Government should make every effort to ensure that the appeals are expedited.

The European Court of Justice does not get involved because it does not want to be seen as a court of appeal in respect of decisions taken in individual countries. However, because ten people have been sentenced to prison for life, the matter should be taken up at the level of the European Court unless the decision is changed. I am deeply concerned and I consider that this decision calls for a total end to the supergrass system.

Mr. Barrett

(Dublin North-West): It is the first crack in the Anglo-Irish Agreement.

Mr. Enright

An effort is being made by the British Prime Minister, the Taoiseach and people of goodwill throughout the country to try to reach a consensus to bring unity to the country. I know the Taoiseach will continue in his efforts to bring about that peace and unity. What is important is the unity of people. With approximately 80 per cent of the people of Ireland I welcome the Anglo-Irish Agreement. I think it will be successful.

I am glad that the Minister of State at the Department of Agriculture is present in the House. Part of the document Building on Reality dealt with the prospects and policies for agriculture and the food industry. There is considerable scope for employment and for wealth creation in that industry. It is essential that food processing be developed and this includes vegetables, fish and meat processing.

It is a national scandal, and one that has been in evidence for the past ten or 12 years, to see all types of imported foods on the shelves of shops and supermarkets. Vegetable processing in Ireland has not even maintained its position but has been declining for the past ten or 12 years. Carrots, peas, cauliflowers, potatoes and other vegetables are imported. Our farmers are able to produce vegetables at a price and of a quality comparable to, if not better than, similar products from Britain and the Continent. Yet, we are not developing vegetable processing.

It is time we established an Irish food board. It is necessary to bring under one umbrella the various bodies involved in food production and processing and such a board would be an important development. There is considerable potential in the area of frozen foods, especially nowadays when many people use microwave ovens. There is the possibility of considerable employment in factories. For every job in processing there is at least one and perhaps more jobs on every farm in planting and cultivating the vegetables.

As a nation we should love our country. We should be able to compete successfully on our home market and also penetrate the British and continental markets. Bord Bainne succeeded with Kerrygold. We have people with initiative, enterprise and intelligence and they would be glad to work in co-operation with the Government and semi-State bodies. The Ministers in the Department have worked exceptionally hard to develop this industry. They have a problem because most of the food is being imported through supermarket chains. Multiple supermarkets control 58 per cent of the grocery trade in Dublin. If you go into a supermarket in Dublin you can be sure that any vegetable you buy will have been imported through multinational chains, many of them with outlets in Britain and further afield.

Therefore, we must try to restrict the size of supermarkets, and the Government must ensure that our smaller grocery shops will be able to continue. Their numbers have been dropping consistently over the years because the large supermarkets have forced them to the wall. By forcing small shops to go out of existence the big supermarkets have been enabled to expand, particularly in food sales. The time has come to restrict further supermarket development by licensing them and restricting their size. I hope the Government will succeed in doing this.

Below cost selling is banned in most EC countries but not here. We should have a serious look at this. Supermarkets lure shoppers by offering perhaps one item for sale cheaply. Then, once in the shop, the housewife may find other items which attract her even though they may be more expensive than in smaller shops. Eventually there will be a total monopoly of food and grocery sales by supermarkets, and small towns, the lifeblood of the nation, will suffer because shopkeepers will not survive the competition of monopoly selling. As I have said, if we are to retain our domestic market for home produced food, we must restrict the chains from uncontrolled development.

A problem that concerns me seriously is the considerable publicity given to uncollected tax arrears. We have been told that more than £700 million is uncollected by the Revenue Commissioners from a number of firms. In Laois-Offaly and elsewhere people have communicated with me and I, in turn have been in touch with the Revenue Commissioners about arrears of tax. On all occasions I have found the Revenue Commissioners courteous and helpful. However, their job is to collect tax arrears. We must look into this carefully. The Revenue Commissioners at the moment are holding a firm line and are proceeding to register large numbers of judgments against firms, many of whom are genuinely unable to pay — indeed I understand only 10 per cent of those in arrears can pay. If judgments are marked against them and they receive publicity, there will be a run on such firms and this could lead to closures and unemployment.

I suggest that the Revenue Commissioners might have a task force which would visit firms in arrears and in co-operation with them find out if the firms would genuinely find difficulty in settling their arrears. The task force personnel could be allowed to examine the books to find out if the firms were straight and honest. They could then give them an extension of time for settlement. It is important because it is a problem that is affecting a large number of people. All of us are anxious that our existing industries, many of which are long established, will continue in operation.

Mr. Noonan

(Limerick West): On reading the Taoiseach's speech one might be forgiven for thinking that we were living in a different country. For instance, he said that the Government have made significant progress in regard to borrowing, that the level of borrowing as a proportion of our national output has been reduced by two-fifths of the mid 1981 figure. In the current edition of Success magazine there is the comment that under the leadership of Dr. Fitzgerald, the total tax take has rocketed from 36 per cent to 42 per cent of GNP. That is followed by the comment that despite that, current account borrowing is at record levels. I cannot understand where the Taoiseach is getting his figures from or how he can state that the Government have controlled borrowing when the direct opposite is the case.

Since the Government were returned to office just over three years ago, returned to office under false pretences, they promised that they would reduce the unemployment figures but in this case, too, the numbers have rocketed since then. The Government promised then, too, to reduce income tax, but the reverse has been the case. They said also that they would reduce foreign borrowing and the budget deficit, but these promises have not been fulfilled. It is time the Government realised that they have neither the energy nor the ability to govern. They should realise that they have become a totally inaccurate and ineffective Government.

I wish to deal briefly with the matter of agriculture. In this sector, too, Government spending has been reduced despite this being our most important industry. Agriculture is the bedrock of the economy but the Government have starved it of finance. Total expenditure in this area has been reduced substantially. The Estimates for 1986 show a further reduction in the real spending in this area. Again, this is an indication of the Government's lack of commitment to this most important industry.

I wish to refer briefly to the report of Bord Bainne which I have read with interest. This indicates that our dairy exports increased by 8 per cent last year to a record value of £1,130 million but, on the other hand, there were problems because of New Zealand encroachments on our traditional markets and because of the continuing problem of the EC butter mountain.

One could say also that the same kind of report could apply equally to our beef industry which also enjoyed a year of record exports but which also faces huge problems because of changes in the market place and perhaps to some extent because of our lazy and excessive dependence on the EC intervention system. The time has come for a new approach to both industries. It is time that the producers, the processers and the exporters broke away from the strait-jacket of EC guaranteed price systems and from shortsighted policy of commodity broking. This country can hold its head high because of the quality of our food products. We can go into the international market place to sell those products on a very high quality basis.

The writing is on the wall for our traditional means of disposal so far as milk and beef are concerned. Already a super-levy and a quota system are in operation in respect of milk and it is only a matter of time until an equally serious glut in the beef intervention stocks forces a similar limitation on the production of beef throughout Europe. In the years to come there will be no dramatic increases in our exports of these two vital products unless we are prepared to come to grips with the task of producing market to market. We must ascertain what the consumer in Europe wants and then produce the goods to meet that demand. We can no longer act like the ostrich and stick our heads in the sand and pretend that all is well. The facility of selling into intervention has clouded the issue. One would not need to be very wise to realise that the continual piling up of foodstuffs in warehouse or in chartered ships cannot continue for ever. If we do not change our attitudes and bring our food industry into the eighties and nineties, changes will be forced on us and the great strength of Ireland's agricultural economy will be damaged severely while other more enterprising countries win our markets with new products and better marketing.

Bob Geld of highlighted the scandal of the EC butter and beef mountains. Millions of tonnes of foodstuffs are locked away in Europe while millions of African men, women and children starve. Such a situation cannot be expected to endure.

There are several major EC export deals under way. If these are successful, 500,000 tonnes of butter will be going to India and 150,000 tonnes to Pakistan while another large quantity will be going to Russia. But even if all these deals are agreed, there will remain a further 500,000 tonnes of butter in stocks in three years time. In the meantime countries such as America and New Zealand are chipping away aggressively at the available markets in places such as North Africa and the Middle East, places to which we have sold produce in recent years. I am not suggesting that the intervention system should be scrapped. We all know that it is the very essence of the CAP but we in Ireland must take a long hard look at the system and perhaps at our attitude to it. Intervention was intended to provide a floor price in a fluctuating market. It was never intended to be an end in itself.

We have, to a certain extent, developed an intervention mentality. Perhaps we are all too ready to accept the soft option, the easy way out. There is no challenge in producing for intervention. There is a challenge in producing for the real markets and we must be prepared to accept it if we are to realise the enormous employment and export potential of our food industry. We should not complain that New Zealand are encroaching our traditional markets for dairy products. We should ask ourselves why a country like New Zealand is capable of getting those markets at our expense and we should follow their example in aggressive and State supported marketing. We need a stronger approach to marketing. We must stop thinking in an insular fashion and get out there and sell.

Recently I had the pleasure of meeting the new Ambassador to Britain and Ireland and we exchanged views on the vexed question of preferential treatment for this country's dairy products in the EC. We had to agree to differ on that subject but we agreed that both our countries face similar problems. No longer could we assume that nothing would change, that what applied today would apply tomorrow. The New Zealand reaction to this is markedly different from ours. They see an end to their traditional markets so they send their marketing men out to break into new markets. They also realise that butter is becoming less attractive to the consumer so they have set about developing new dairy based products with which to spearhead their marketing drive. We could and should follow their example in a co-ordinated way with the State leading from the front providing all the necessary back-up to producers, processors and exporters.

One vitally important element in any marketing drive is the tax incentive scheme under which it operates. We should expect our best marketing men to work for this country but we do not encourage them if we penalise them with a punitive tax system. No other country makes it unattractive to their international salesmen to spend the bulk of their lives away from the homes and families in a foreign environment. These people cannot be treated in the same manner as the 9 to 5 worker because they simply do not work those hours. If the rewards are not there why should they endure this very demanding lifestyle? Any salesman who spends more than 50 days a year in an export market should be given a realistic tax concession on top of and above average salary. In this way they could at least compete with their counterparts from more progressive countries, and the benefits of increased exports will accrue to this country. It is significant that export marketing is considered a top job practically everywhere in the world. If one travels abroad one can pick out the well dressed international marketeers in any hotel lounge. Very few Irish sales people can compete and this does nothing for their confidence when dealing with clients.

We committed nearly £1,000 million in educating our young people to a standard never before achieved but once again we failed to make it attractive for those well educated people to work for Ireland. Those who are lucky enough to obtain work are crippled by taxation while thousands more, possibly as many as 50,000 a year emigrate and offer their skills to other countries. We lag behind miserably in areas like research and development yet the young people, the third level graduates, in whom the State have invested the most money have no outlet at home in which to use their talents. Our best brains are exported and Britain, America and Germany benefit. These people should be encouraged to stay at home and contribute to future development. It would make economic sense to establish a major research and development complex where the people with the best brains could produce new ideas, bringing about new direction and produce new products. I suppose it would be too much to expect this Government, a Government without imagination, even to consider such a move.

We asked CBF to market and promote Irish beef abroad on a paltry budget of roughly £1.5 million. Yet the chief executive of one of our largest creamery cooperatives told me last week that his budget for marketing and promotion topped £1 million. The CBF are being asked to do an important sales job for Ireland but they are not being given the tools with which to work. It is a credit to CBF that in spite of their annual struggle for Government support and their minimal budget they are responsible for one of our major indigenous export earners, worth well over £540 million every year. This annual uncertainty over the extent of their budget and over their existence cannot help them develop and maintain a momentum in the international market place.

I am delighted to note in the published Estimates today a 40 per cent increase in the grant-in-aid for CBF up to £1.1 million. This follows the equally encouraging agreement by the farming organisations to increase their share of the funding by way of levy. While welcoming the increased funding for CBF, we must not forget that the industry is grossly underdeveloped, that our levels of value-added sales are low, as are our employment levels, and jobs unstable. We are operating in a market in which supply exceeds demand, in which cheaper options, such as pork or poultry are becoming increasingly popular, with financial support from the Common Agricultural Policy becoming increasingly more difficult to guarantee. Major strides in exports in recent years have come about as a result of markets being obtained for boneless and processed beef, especially vacuum packed. It is in this area that the future of our beef industry lies.

We all know there is a market for boneless beef in EC countries. This is a market of premium retail outlets waiting to be fed by this country. Servicing this market can secure a more stable and profitable future for the industry, from producer to factory worker. There is money to be made by the producer, by the processor and the State if we place strong emphasis on added value. We know already that high quality boneless beef has a ready market and that the lower quality cuts from carcase de-boned can be further processed into other added-value products such as canned meats, beef burgers, minced beef, even pet food. Each stage of processing can mean more jobs here on farms and in our towns.

The beef industry is no different from any other in that it needs a healthy, encouraging economic climate in which to thrive. This places an onus on the trade unions, the financial institutions and the State who must all play their part if the massive potential of the industry is to be realised. Emphasis on its development must come first from the industry itself. They must recognise the futility of relying on commodity trading, concentrating instead on the prospect of major benefits that can be obtained by way of increased emphasis on added value sales.

Those benefits include job security for those engaged already in the industry, higher living standards and a higher level of employment. Those are objectives worth working for. While the emphasis must come from the industry, the State also has an important, supportive and enabling role to play. CBF were commissioned to go out to the market place to obtain the necessary sales. But they should know that their funding is guaranteed for a further four or five year period so that they can plan ahead and sustain the momentum of any marketing campaign they have begun. CBF are the main marketing arm of the industry abroad and should not be denied the tools to do the job of which they are capable.

The Department of Finance should not be allowed to dictate on a year to year basis how agencies such as the CBF should be run. The Government collectively must make a commitment to the project in which they believe, making the requisite money available. If they believe in the capabilities of the beef industry — as we do on this side of the House — they should have the courage of their convictions and back it to the hilt. The returns will accrue by way of more jobs, exports and revenue for the tax man.

I spoke earlier of the need for the Government to provide the right economic environment for all industries, especially the developing food industry in which to operate with confidence. Unfortunately that environment has not been created by this Fine Gael-Labour Government. They stand indicted. Despite their obsession with the need to balance the nation's books and maintain strict control over the nation's finances, they have failed in every one of their stated financial objectives, the very objectives on which they sought a mandate from the people.

I want to quote from an article entitled: "Bankrupt Coalition Policies Lead to Economic Blight" by Rory Lawless which appeared in the December/January 1985 issue of Success magazine as follows:

The national debt is up, taxes are up and the Coalition continues to renege on virtually all of its promises before the red ink can dry.

I quote from that article purely to show that economic commentators, not just this party, have seen through the false promises of this awful Government.

The gloomy figures and the number of people on the dole queues make a mockery of everything this Government pledged in their naked pursuit of power three years ago. The people never sought an unemployment figure of 234,000. They never sought a budget deficit of £1,234 million and they never sought a national debt of £16,747 million, one of the highest in the world. In the three inglorious years of this inept Fine Gael-Labour Government the gross national product per capita has fallen from £4,355 in 1981 to £4,151 in 1984 and is still falling. The number of cars owned by persons living in Ireland has fallen from 226 per 1,000 in 1981 to 203 in 1984. New car registrations have fallen steadily from 73,000 in 1982 to 56,000 last year.

The number of house completions has fallen from 26,800 in 1982 to 24,900 last year. Current exchequer spending has increased dramatically despite all the promises, from £6,812 million in 1982 to £9,015 million this year. The national debt, the problem the present Taoiseach was going to solve to save us from all the nasty men of the International Monetary Fund, is far from having being solved. It is running rampant at a 218 per cent increase on the 1982 figures.

Now we will get it.

Mr. Keating

The Deputy will get it certainly if he sticks his neck out.

Mr. Flynn

Do not do that again or I will have to——

Mr. Keating

This may be virtually the night light spot in the Dáil today, but I find it very hard to be overly compassionate to my esteemed colleague — as opposed to steamed colleagues because there are a few of those around also.

(Interruptions.)

Mr. Keating

If Deputy Flynn came down from his room in bad form he should go back, close his mouth and do his work and let the rest of us get on with the business we have here.

Mr. Flynn

I heard that the Deputy was going to give his usual performance of piffle so I had to come down to soften his cough.

Mr. Keating

Mr. Keating

I listened very carefully as I always do. If I have done the Deputy an injustice it was not intentional. Unquestionably the Government have endeavoured to deal with the nation's problems. They may not have been successful in all aspects of that and none of them would claim to be, but they have acted in the nation's interests without any vestige of support, encouragement or help from the Opposition in this House. It seems not unreasonable that the party would now and again give some credit where it is due. A major hallmark of this parliamentary period since the Government took over has been the negative, sterile opposition which has marked every attempt by this Government to introduce a degree of enlightenment into either social or economic areas of activity. Politics has been played in every issue. Considering the way the Opposition have carried on, I doubt whether they can lie straight in bed.

Whether it was major issues like the Anglo-Irish Agreement which had to be pre-empted bluntly by the Leader of the Opposition who accordingly had every member of that party running in behind him, and the one individual with a bit of spunk since cast into exterior darkness, or whether it was something as relatively petty in economic terms as the Bill on the amusement centres this week, politics was played at every opportunity. Therefore, I am beginning to lose hope that there is any future for the people from anybody in those benches and the people are cottoning on to that idea very rapidly.

Hope for the future resides in this Government's honest attempts to face up to those issues which have confronted them since they came into office and which have been exacerbated at every opportunity by an Opposition whose overweening characteristic is an absolute lust for power which characterised their last period of Government when there were excesses of a type which I will not go into now. They are now a memory and I hope will remain so, but it is very easy for us to recall that era to people's minds if necessary. All those shadows are a thing of the past and we have tried to deal honestly, openly and courageously with the issues facing this country in the interest of all the people, North and South.

I am concerned about what I might call the negative nature and, to some extent, pointlessness of a debate such as this. Unfortunately, there is a great reluctance, particularly on the part of the Opposition, to allow a certain latitude to their speakers. A certain inflexibility in their traditional Opposition approach to issues which the Government bring up does us collectively a disservice. The faith of people, my constituents and other Deputies' constituents, in this House is diminishing. At present no other profession is the subject of as much vilification and hostile criticism as that of the politician. Some of this is understandable and much of it is justified, but at this season of goodwill it is not unreasonable to ask that there might be a review of some attitudes which can be characterised as consistently destructive, often factually incorrect, corrosive of morale for people in the political process and adding unnecessarily to the hopelessness and alienation of the people. In this case I am not asking people to suspend their critical faculties or that constructive, honest, tough criticism of Members of this House should not be the norm. However, I am asking that the trend in recent years towards glib, superficial castigation of the whole system and all those in it on the basis of top of the head comment, damning everybody associated with the political process as being either wholly corrupt or incompetent or both, should at least be reviewed. Such comment is doing a great deal of disservice and damage. I am talking about commentators who regularly review procedures in this House. Some of their comment is not in the national interest. I offer these comments respectfully and with no desire to trammel in any way the people engaged in that commentary but simply as a request that those engaged might think again about some of the material that comes across in commentary on the way the House is managed. It is reasonable in times of great economic difficulty, high unemployment and other structural problems that people will focus their dissatisfaction, and in some cases hopelessness, on the political system. It is proper that rigorous critical analysis of the political process should take place and that the anomalies, contradictions and problem areas that attend to this institution should be pointed out and the demands for change where that change is appropriate should be made. There are excesses and abuses and they should be stopped. It is about time that collectively we grew up and said, where people consistently point to a source of what they see as scandal, that that is an area we should attend to and deal with.

What does seem, to some at least, to be unreasonable is the constant barrage of invective from some commentators which is beginning to create in the public mind a stereotype of the politician as being inevitably lazy, inevitably indifferent to people's problems, ineffectual in dealing ever with any of them and having enormous private gains from the political process. Any objective assessment of people in the mainstream of public life will in my view contradict each of those labels, but such objectivity is not a feature of some aspects of the view which is publicly created by that type of comment. I do not know whether that objectivity is not sufficiently provocative or requires too much hard work for that minority who are preoccupied with this type of construction but, nevertheless, the relative ease of regurgitating the same convenient images which feed upon one another tends to create and portray in the public mind an image of the House as being absolutely indifferent to the nations business.

That is a matter of great regret because there are many people on both sides of the House who have a passionate sense of patriotism and commitment to the country and who work very hard in their own way, not necessarily always perfectly, to try to do something about it. That job is not just one for Members of the House. It is a responsibility which falls on each and every citizen. Perhaps we have been slow to remind citizens generally of that obligation and responsibility.

In fairness, there is often a grain of truth in some of these more extreme criticisms. In fairness, the political process does not tend to deal with such attacks. It does not contradict where contradiction is possible, or correct where it might be appropriate to do so. Undoubtedly, there is an enormous educational omission in our schools and colleges where a comprehensive understanding of political institutions is not treated with any seriousness. Apparently, we expect people to become suddenly politically aware, astute and educated upon leaving school, when such subject matters have been carefully avoided by their school curricula during all their formative years. That is asking too much of any young population. I am asking for a process of political education, not political indoctrination, about the political process, about the responsibilities of being a citizen, about public participation by the citizen in the way the country is managed and run. If that happened we would have a much more enlightened and informed public. That would be for the good of all. It would mean that there would be an even greater demand on all of us but that is a good thing.

The injustices that are blatant and the stereotypes that are being created are easily constructed and, perhaps, do a great deal of damage which the people who assist in creating them do not fully realise. A combination of gibes and general allegations which take no account in many instances of the facts is wrong. Regularly I see the work of a TD portrayed as being innocuous, irrelevant and so on. One of the simple facts which one never hears about is that probably more than half of the work of a TD is of a purely private and confidential nature which nobody knows about either in terms of its content or its intimate nature. I am not asking that that work be widely commented upon or commended but saying that at present it goes unnoticed. As a person who is a full time TD with a commitment to public life I must say that now and again I resent the implication that all of us spend our time with our feet up doing nothing and that the House meets now and again, that it is irrelevant when it does so, and Members spend most of their time on holidays. That is untrue and it is a disservice to us all to say so.

I do not believe that the political process should apologise for asking not merely for fair and frank criticism but more than that, for a positive and supporting environment towards that political process by leaders of public opinion among commentators generally. It is about time we told people that this country is not about the Government of the day doing things for everybody or, as the Opposition might have it, on everybody, but is about all of us doing our best and making a contribution. The Taoiseach mentioned that today in reference to the black economy. The answer to the black economy is for each of us to deal with it in our own way but that is too difficult. We expect somebody else to do it.

The political process is as weak or as strong as public understanding of and participation in that process allows. It reflects the good, the bad and the ugly probably in the same measure as any other representative profession would. People should not expect virtue or vice from public life, politicians or the political process in a proportion of respect which is not generally available. We are not more virtuous or less virtuous than anybody else. We are public representatives capable of extremes and capable also of nobility and great achievement as the history of the House will testify to.

It is not a perfect system but it is not a wholly imperfect one either. I should like to ask, if it is not a somewhat naive note, whether traditional values of respect for that process, respect for the House and its Members and encouragement of the respect and active support for its development have all gone out the window or would be deemed to be somewhat outdated or not trendy enough. I was brought up to believe that people at the top in public life were entitled to respect and entitled to be given the benefit of the doubt. That is not to suggest that their every action is deemed necessarily to be worthy of that respect but in general there was a benevolence in that regard. It is about time we said that that might not be unbecoming.

I admit that the constant denigration in the House assists people in creating the type of image we enjoy at present publicly. I cannot recall when I heard a sermon from the pulpit asking for public understanding and active support for the political process. What would be wrong with a senior clergyman here saying that it was right to support the Government of the day, it was right to try to understand what was going on. I do not recall when I last read an editorial in a newspaper, or a significant article, asking that the public participate in that process more accurately. It is much easier on the sideline. Occasionally a line of credit is given to some individuals but it is often given in the context of being as extraordinary to the whole system. It is not a perfect system but it is an open and democratic one. As has been said, it is the worst system in the world until one looks at some of the others. At the very least we should say that it is the only one we have got and the choice is whether we work towards improving it or whether we throw it out altogether.

I should like to ask those who are engaged in portraying to the public this House and its Members for a fresh and dispassionate attitude to that system, one that is strongly critical where that is appropriate but one that also gives credit where that is due both in the process as a whole and to those many individuals within that system who are as caring, as patriotic, as selfless and as hard working to the same extent as many other people are in their own professions. That pervasive environment of morale sapping hostility and criticism and abuse is one in which people who genuinely want to do a good job do not remain in the process. It is unnecessarily coloured at present. We have a responsibility in that respect. We have assisted the creation of that.

It can and must be frustrating for an Opposition to be in opposition for a period after being in Government. It must be very difficult for them to attend in an openly constructive way to issues which confront them on a day to day basis. However, I should like to ask the Opposition — I am not being smart in any respect in this request — to consider their net contribution in the last three years in the House. I am sad to say that my impression of them is — not a remark I enjoy making — that their contribution has been very negative, empty and appears to have been characterised mainly by a desire to take political advantage out of every possible opportunity to discomfort the Government. In some cases it was done with the possibility of incurring serious problems for the nation as a whole. The handling of the Anglo-Irish Agreement left a great deal to be desired prior to its ratification in the House afterwards. The Opposition have a responsibility also. It is fine for them to blame the Government and point to the indices as having gone one way or another.

They are under an obligation genuinely to evaluate in as dispassionate a way as possible what the Government come up with and certainly oppose when opposition is due. However, unless my memory serves me incorrectly, every measure of any significance whatsoever introduced by this Government, whether it was a relatively uncontroversial item, or the most difficult budgetary item, has been opposed, not just tooth and nail by speeches, but by calling votes. That is not the kind of example that we should be giving to the people. I do not blame some of the commentators for writing us off. I am convinced that unless this House gets its act together over the next three or four years there will be major and irresistible pressure to bring about change from people who genuinely believe less and less in this House. Some of these are at present Members of it on all sides who believe that unless some kind of fresh atmosphere permeates this Chamber it will no longer serve the purpose for which it was created and no longer give the kind of leadership which we believe it to be capable of giving to our people. It is losing the confidence of the people — of that I have no doubt whatsoever. That is not a reflection on any Government, or any individual. It is to some extent a reflection on the political mould which has established this House, a reflection on the way in which we do business in this House. Who precisely is listening to this debate? Is it relevant, even, to anybody?

We have a major problem and that is the context in which the Government are trying to operate. The Taoiseach fairly and without any political overtones tried to portray today the progress which the Government have brought about. The Government have attended to their job, have genuinely tried to tackle the enormous economic difficulties which face them and have tried to deal in a pragmatic way with the incredible area of public expenditure — an enormous burgeoning threat. Certainly in my view the two great threats facing this country are the size of public expenditure, paralleled only by the challenge of the North of Ireland problem. They have dealt with that very difficult issue and tried to show semi-State bodies, agencies and Government Departments that there must be an attempt by them to live within their means. They are not doing that. The Government understand that it cannot be done overnight, but there has to be a planned process of setting targets which are realistic and meeting those targets. If there is fall-out of one kind or another at the end of the day, that is the price that has to be paid if we are to do our duty to this country.

A little understanding of that from the Opposition on the record, if it is not too naive to ask for it, would be helpful. That problem is patently clear to anybody. We commented earlier in the House today in the context of the debate on the educational areas. Again, this is an area where there is massive and increasing investment and yet one gets the kind of remarks about U-turns and all that kind of cliché and nonsense which even the young people see through and have seen through long ago. It is time for us to face up to the fact that the game is up unless we change the way we are doing business at present.

The public finances are an enormous threat. The Taoiseach said today that the problems in his view were not insuperable. Obviously, problems which we have created can be resolved by us, but it is not unreasonable to say that it is an enormous challenge and perhaps it will require a degree of co-operation and mutual understanding in this House which has not existed heretofore. The simple fact is that the political implications of having to take the steps which are clearly economically necessary are such that it is likely to cost a great deal of political sacrifice. If that is to be the case and the country is the better for it, then the price is cheap. Ultimately the political parties are not ends in themselves, but means to an end. It is very difficult, however — and I hope the Opposition will forgive me for saying this — when one senses that it is being done basically by the two parties in this Government without any degree of assistance or co-operation from the far side of the House. I hope I am not being unfair, but that is the impression that one gets.

The attempt to bring about a correction in the current budget deficit and to get public finances into order have been tackled by a united Cabinet with determination and vigour. In some cases in some constituencies the shoe has certainly pinched, but it is fair to say that in some cases it has not pinched enough. There are still major challenges facing this Government.

I want to offer a few brief and constructive suggestions which I hope might be taken on board and might give some opportunities for further progress. I have the honour of working as chairman of the Dáil Committee on Public Expenditure and in passing I must say that after two and a half years' work it is demonstrably clear to that committee that the public service are, to a large extent, operating in a vacuum. Therefore they are operating wastefully and inefficiently. That vacuum is created by the lack of any clear target or goal for most people in that public service, both on the micro level as an individual employee and on the macro level in terms of trying to achieve targets departmentally or from the point of view of the agency concerned. Management by objectives is a concept which is accepted generally as being the only way to handle any programme of activity. It is still relatively new conceptually in public life in Ireland. The result is an enormous and incredible waste of public money. That should be a priority. After all, if one cannot borrow any more or does not wish to — at the same time one naturally faces up to the fact of the incredible burden of taxation and the need for reform there — there are not many other options open, but at least trying to get better value for money is one of the options. From looking at the work of a number of the Dáil committees concerned with State-sponsored bodies, with small businesses, with public accounts and public expenditure, there is ample evidence — and I include there the reports of the Comptroller and Auditor General which yearly throw up horror stories——

An Ceann Comhairle

The Deputy has four minutes.

Mr. Keating

The waste and inefficiency going on is not just unforgivable but must be a prime target, not for major cutbacks, which is not what I am suggesting, but simply for getting better value for the same expenditure, and that is clearly possible.

Secondly, I take the view that the State has not yet decided on the role of entrepreneurship in our economic environment. There are very mixed views about whether the State should be involved directly, à la the NDC, or should be involved in creating the environment in which entrepreneurship flourishes and not get involved directly, or whether there should be a mix of some kind. My disposition which is shaped to some extent by the political circumstances in which we find ourselves is that a sensible partnership of public and private sectors is needed. The State in my view should not do the job of entrepreneurship itself, principally because it is not very good at it. That is not what its function is. Instead, it should create the environment and so some of the running where it is seen to be desirable to do so.

Partnership is what I am after in some of the areas that have become to some extent controversial. I see nothing wrong at all, for example, with inviting public participation in asset-rich State enterprises where the public would actually have equity and enjoy the rights and privileges that go with that, being involved in the day to day management and monitoring of progress of some of the State agencies.

There are vast savings and better productivity in the area of housing. At present there is an incredibly bizarre economic or financial scenario where the total income from rent on local authority dwellings pays for approximately half the cost of maintenance and does not pay anything towards capital costs — unsustainable in the medium and long term. I say that as one whose constituency benefits more than most from that — it is unsustainable. There is an easier and more efficient way and that is to give people the financial means to buy their own premises. It would be more socially desirable, more economically productive, more efficient and would lead to a better mix in society. Every area of Government at administration which has dormant assets should be considered with a view to converting those assets into revenue potential, cutting down the degree of direct Government involvement and utilising public funds to facilitate developments of various kinds by individuals or organisations. We should look for better value for money.

Minority interests or properties of State boards should be examined. Let us trim where possible. It is not clear to me what some State bodies are doing in some of the areas where they are involved. Every State body should be asked to reexamine their area of operation and if they cannot justify their involvement in any area they should withdraw from it. What is a public transport company doing in the area of hotel ownership? Perhaps it is justifiable, perhaps not. An Bord Gáis should be given more freedom to develop a network of gas pipelines. There is also a need for much more aggressive international marketing. A small country on the edge of Europe must be engaged in marketing.

Mr. Keating

On a point of order, is it in order for the speaker to suggest or to say that the Taoiseach was seeking to mislead the House?

An Ceann Comhairle

As far as the Chair knows, the Deputy is not alleging that the Taoiseach deliberately misled the House. If he is alleging that the Taoiseach deliberately misled the House, it is very much out of order.

Mr. Flynn

I am trying to suggest that Deputy Keating believes the Taoiseach was not genuine and sincere when he suggested today that the problems could be overcome. Out of his full 30 minutes contribution he could only find it in his heart to speak three sentences of support for his own Government's activity during the past three or four months. One of them was to the effect that the Fine Gael Government have tried to deal with the problems of the country and are seeking to come out of the shadows. He is quite right there. They have been trying but they have failed. Of course we all know that Deputy Keating accepts that they have failed in their attempt to deal with these problems.

Mr. Keating

That is not true.

Mr. Flynn

The shadows he has cast over the parliamentary contribution would have us all berated as incompetent and ineffectual, but that is not the case and I have never found the reporting of this House to suggest it. Deputy Keating unfortunately should have been accommodated one row further down on the benches and then he would have spent his 30 minutes defending the Government's inactivity during the past few months.

Today's contribution by the Taoiseach was a poor effort. That is not being over critical but it is hard to be generous about it. I would not recommend it as prescribed reading over the Christmas period but his party colleagues should read it tonight and see how poor an effort it was to justify the Government's activity or lack of activity. It is becoming a kind of cracked record, a worn out tune, to blame Fianna Fáil as if we had just left office or as if the ills of this nation somehow came about because of the last period or two of Fianna Fáil in Government.

Debate adjourned.

Dáil Éireann debate - Wednesday, 18 Dec 1985