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Seanad Éireann debate -
Thursday, 2 Aug 1956

Vol. 46 No. 10

Imposition of Duties (Confirmation of Order) (No. 2) Bill, 1956 (Certified Money Bill) — Second Stage (Resumed).

Question again proposed: "That the Bill be now read a Second Time."

When the House adjourned last night, I was referring to the Minister's speech and to the Government's call for the participation of all citizens in the solution of the situation which confronts the nation at the moment. The Taoiseach, speaking in Cork yesterday, stressed the seriousness of the situation and the need for the co-operation of the people as a whole in order to solve our problems. That was the theme I was debating when the House adjourned last night.

One speaker yesterday evening painted a very optimistic picture of the financial situation. Naturally, we are always very glad to be treated to a little optimism, but I venture to suggest that at the present time it is much more important that we should hearken to the Minister for Finance, who speaks on behalf of the Government and with full responsibility for what he says. It is all very well to be optimistic at the right time and in the right place; at the moment I do not think there is any reason for over-optimism until such time as we are a little further out of the wood.

That being so, I propose now to make a contribution to this debate to-day which may be slightly unusual inasmuch as one very seldom hears the side of business and industry, and the creation of capital coupled with the task of producing those goods and services for which the Minister calls. I make one appeal: I ask that anything I say here to-day will be received as a constructive effort divorced from any semblance of an attempt to hurt or harm anybody. I ask that anything I say be taken in that spirit.

Before the House adjourned last night, I said that I was glad to see that the Government was itself giving a lead in the present situation; the Minister has promised to cut down State expenditure this year by approximately £5,000,000—perhaps more. We all know that practice is better than precept and this is the right sort of lead to have from the Government, a Government which is asking the citizens to follow suit, each in his own particular way.

I mentioned last night that a number of citizens have already given some indications that they do not seem to think that anything is called for from them in particular. There is the idea that the problem is one for somebody else and already some groups are laying down impossible and unrealistic conditions precedent to their participation in the national effort. For example, public statements have been made since this situation arose by trade union leaders stipulating that, unless the Government controls prices and profits—we all know that both prices and profits are already controlled by several Government bodies—there will be no relaxation of wage demands.

Sometimes it seems to me that the least co-operation with the Government's efforts and the most criticism of the Government comes from certain persons who are nominally supposed to be supporters of the Government. Speaking in the Dáil at column 1604 of Volume 159 the Minister for Finance said, and he also said it here yesterday when introducing this Bill:—

"Another round of increases in money incomes on top of those gained last year would be certain to price many of our products completely out of foreign markets."

There is a direction from the Minister for Finance on the subject of wage increases. Now, in order to justify wage demands almost in advance, certain individuals to whom I have referred are already charging the Government with not keeping down the cost of living. It is clear to many people that, apart from outside causes over which the Government has no control, wages are the direct domestic cause of higher prices; in many cases, they are the only cause. The implications in these charges, therefore, is that it is profits that are responsible for higher prices. The fact is that profits are dangerously low in this country.

Incidentally, there is a lot of talk about profits but we never hear about the companies which make no profits and which never pay dividends to the shareholders from one year to another. As I mentioned before, I myself and friends of mine had the unhappy experience of investing quite large sums of money in Irish industry which were lost completely. Not a single penny was got by way of a return on them.

Profits in this country are dangerously low and, as a consequence, sufficient capital is not being built up or attracted to our economy. Again, I want to mention the Ibec Report because this report was commissioned by our own Government. We ought to have regard to it. On this very matter of profits, the Ibec Report says on page 84, paragraph 2:—

"Profits from manufacturing enterprises in Ireland in general have not been sufficiently high to attract domestic private investment upon a scale consistent with a vigorous industrial development in its initial stages, or to encourage the thorough modernisation of existing equipment needed to make Irish manufacturing genuinely competitive."

The profits have not been sufficiently high here to attract capital. That fact is referred to in the Ibec Report. Yet in spite of that, some elements are still proposing more restrictions, more taxation and more penalties of all kinds on industry and capital. The main reason I refer to this and that the Minister is asking for more production, both in agriculture and in industry, as a solution of our balance of payments problem and, in fact, of our whole inflationary situation.

I find it difficult to understand the mentality of some elements in Labour which continuously and consistently attempt to damage, discourage and discredit industry—the very industry upon which they depend for their livelihood and prosperity, the very industry which the community needs so badly. They are like people who are continually boring holes in the bottom of the ship in which they travel. Proposals to tax industry and profits are made in an attempt to justify wage demands. Rather than weaken the source of employment, would it not be far wiser for Labour in the long run to help build up a strong and healthy industry from which high wages could be justifiably expected and demanded rather than try to drag down the machine upon which they are depending for a living?

We will never get more production from industry and we will never get more money invested when an atmosphere which is antagonistic to profits prevails. When the Tánaiste went to U.S.A. last year, he found it necessary to stress the advantages and profits that would be available to American capital, if invested in Ireland. I fear that American businessmen will need more than words to convince them that this country offers a fair return for capital invested, especially in face of the Ibec Report which is the first thing that anybody who is going to invest money here will read.

How different is the outlook of American Labour which, while demanding the highest wages and best conditions of employment in the world, at the same time advocates and assists in every way in the making of high profits consistent with good value. I have heard the representatives of American Labour speak at the I.L.O. in Geneva. They know that it is only from good profits that good industries can be built which will produce good goods in large quantities. They know that those industries will pay the highest wages and give the highest standard of living to all concerned.

That is an enlightened outlook. In other words, build up the machine you are travelling in, provided always that it is not done at the expense of the community. That can be achieved. These misconceived anti-profits attacks will sabotage our whole industrial economy and national prosperity in the future. It is not surprising that there has been little or no response from American capital to the appeal by the Minister for Industry and Commerce, who invited American businessmen to invest their money in Ireland, when American businessmen know that Irish Labour leaders condemn and resist good profits, regardless of whether they are made through efficiency or profiteering.

The issues are confused. The Ibec Report also points out that. There seems to be an idea that there is something immoral in the making of good profits. That, of course, is wrong. Very often the best profits are made by the most efficient industry which gives the best value to the public. Very often an industry making no profits gives very bad service and is really a menace to the community, since it also gives very bad conditions in regard to employment.

An Irish Labour Minister for Industry and Commerce was, in fact, an ideal ambassador for us to send to the United States in the hope of getting capital for investment here, but I cannot help feeling that it was his own adherents who did not give him the right goods to sell. That is what happened. It would be a very good idea for workers here to invest their own savings in industry and commerce, including the banks—savings out of their own weekly pay packets and not, as is often advocated by some social thinkers, shares allocated to them for which they do not pay any real money, because, if they pay their money for their shares, money which they have saved in the hard way, they will realise the money value of these shares and how hard it was to find the money originally to start all companies and banks as well.

I should like to see the funds of trade unions similarly invested. There would then be an appreciation of the need for profits and a realisation of the inadequacy of present-day profits as a reward for savings invested in Ireland. There would also be an appreciation of who really owns businesses and banks and who finances both industries and banks in the country. This would in turn bring about the realisation that such institutions are private property and, as such, are not available to be controlled, used and abused at the behest of the State, as is often advocated.

We do not want our whole industrial economy to be like that of C.I.E. If C.I.E. were a profit-making concern, it would provide good and safe employment. Somebody said yesterday that it would not give good, safe, employment. At present it is a profitless company providing uncertain employment. It should give fixed steady employment without requiring all sorts of legislation to ensure its existence. Surely we do not want an economy like that?

It is often stated that private enterprise failed in regard to C.I.E. and that C.I.E. had to be taken over. It did not fail. When the G.S.R. was taken over originally, I made a speech on the subject, and pointed out that, private enterprise was never allowed to work since 1914 and the railways were practically taken over by the Government and a railway tribunal set up. Ever since that time, economic laws were not allowed to work on the railways. The railways were not allowed to translate their costs into prices. We would have nothing but C.I.E.s in the country if some of these people got their way.

Private enterprise starved of capital could not be a success at present. All the capital is going to State bodies and there is practically none left for private enterprise. There is too high taxation and the profits are too low. How could a private enterprise economy work on no capital, too high taxes and low profits? The only way you can build up capital is out of profits and there is no provision made in our taxation laws to allow anybody to build up capital because every liquid penny that any company has in hands is taken either by the collector of taxes or in wages. As I said, the same tactics that broke C.I.E. and destroyed private enterprise in C.I.E. can very well do the same in the little degree of private enterprise which we have in this country.

In the present situation, we are also being told that, no matter how difficult times are, the standard of living must be maintained. One would think that all one had to do was to say: "The standard of living must be maintained" and that it could be done by magic. It cannot. That is a very laudable and desirable aim and wish and one that is not confined to any one section of the community. There is no section of the community that does not want to maintain their standards of living and to increase them and to make them better, if possible. In fact, that is what the Government itself is trying to do to-day and is determined to do by the very action that is being taken at the moment. It is to restore our economy and to maintain our standards of living and to improve them. That will not be done for the State as a whole if only one group of the community are to keep all the best living standards for themselves, regardless of other elements in the community.

Unfortunately, there is also prevalent throughout the country a kind of idea on this point that the situation has nothing to do with certain people. They have an idea that everything can be solved in one of three ways. First, the banks—some people think that the solution to everything is in the banks. Others think there is a solution in the external assets that are always there and that will bolster us up, for ever in fact, and finally, that industry and commerce and business can absorb all sorts of costs and all sorts of impositions and still carry the baby and pay taxation and keep the whole thing going.

As I happen to be a director of a bank, I do not want to say anything here to-day as regards the banks that would seem to be using either inside knowledge or my position, but I do think that certain things should be said and, therefore, I shall avail of the Minister's own remarks in regard to the banks to show that the banks cannot be relied upon to get us out of our troubles to-day. They have already done their utmost in the matter and they have been left in a very difficult position.

The Minister in Volume 159, No. 10, column 1600 of the Dáil Debates, said:—

"It is not, I think, appreciated that, as a direct consequence of the balance of payments deficit, the commercial banks have lost nearly £50,000,000, or two-fifths, of their net external assets since January, 1955. It is essential, therefore, that any further sales of sterling securities, whether by departmental funds or by the banking system, in order to finance public capital outlay, should be avoided or at least kept to a minimum."

At column 1604, of the same Volume, he said:—

"While there has been some increase in small savings, deposits with the commercial banks have continued to fall."

Therefore, you have the position at the moment that the external assets of the commercial banks have fallen by £50,000,000, that the deposits are falling—and these are the stock-in-trade of the banks—and, therefore, the position of the banks is deteriorating all the time.

Incidentally, the Minister also mentioned in the Dáil the other day, in reply to Deputy MacBride, that the banks' investment in Ireland now has reached 70 per cent. So, if the banks have 70 per cent. invested in Ireland and their deposits are falling and their external assets have fallen by £50,000,000, we cannot look to the banks for any more help in this situation. I might add that it is frequently forgotten and not realised that the Irish commercial banks are privately-owned companies. They are owned by thousands of shareholders, big and small, communities and bodies of all kinds, institutions and small individuals. I happen to know that the vast majority are in the last category, that is, they are mostly small people holding small numbers of shares. In fact, anybody who examines the shares list of the Irish banks will be astonished to see how small the holdings are.

In the same way, the deposits in the banks are all the resources of small people, religious communities, institutions and individuals, and they run into many, many hundreds of thousands of people. So that, on the one hand, the owners of the banks are small people, holding in large numbers, and the deposits, that is, the stock of the banks, are held also by a similar kind of people. Therefore, for the State to do anything with the banks or to interfere with them in any way would really be raiding private property just the same as a house or any other property.

Apart altogether from the moral aspect of getting tough with the banks, it is most dangerous that there should be any talk like that because it can only result in frightening off depositors and, if depositors are frightened off and the banks are left short of deposits, the whole banking system, upon which we depend so much, can collapse.

As regards the assets, which some people seem to think we can lean on so heavily and for so long, the Minister, at column 1600, Volume 159, No. 10, said:—

"...most of these holdings (of external assets) belong to private individuals and institutions and are no more available for public capital purposes or for covering balance of payments deficits than houses or other private property."

Unless we turn ourselves into a communist or, at least, a very advanced socialist State, we have no right or reason to confiscate the property of private citizens to solve our public problems. The Minister was quite right when he said that many people believed that this situation would right itself. I might add that many people believe it can right itself without any effort on their part and, in some cases, in spite of their determination to avoid shouldering their fair share of the burden and, even at the present time, we still have people calling out for higher expenditure on social services, higher capital outlay and more impositions on this, that and the other. Somebody mentioned a capital levy on incomes of £500 and £700 a year. It sounds like somebody living in Cuckooland.

Year after year, in this debate, I have almost become boring on the subject of stressing the necessity for a national basic policy on the creation of wealth and a strong economy on which to build the prosperity of our country. I was looking at the Ibec Report again last night and it also makes this very point, that we seem to have no long-term policy or no long-term philosophy as to whether we are a socialist or a private enterprise State. One says we are the one and the other says we are the other, and we do not seem to know where we are going. The policy that has been pursued year after year of taking 6d. off the income-tax and putting 6d. back on the income-tax, of having investigations into prices here, there and everywhere, is not a policy.

I would also suggest that we are confused in other ways. We have very strong nationalism here and a very strong degree of a sort of socialism and socialist thinking. On the one hand, the nationalist streak is very much against the importation of foreigners or foreign capital or anything into the country. I suggest that that is wrong, that while we must protect our nationals to the full, we should be always open, ready and willing to bring foreigners in, for the know-how and for what they can give us and for their money, because we will never be able to have enough money to develop the country as we should, quickly enough anyway. On the other hand, we have the socialist mentality, a sort of envious mentality, which is prevalent in the country and which is preventing our own nationals from setting up and becoming strong and rich. Between the nationalists preventing people coming in and helping us and the socialists inside preventing our own people from becoming strong, we are between the devil and the deep blue sea.

We had a great opportunity of developing when we got self-government here after the Treaty. We all thought, in the Sinn Féin days, that we could develop something in Ireland that nobody ever saw before. Our idealists believed that we could develop an economy here that would be in conformity with our national philosophy and our Christian philosophy and our own particular needs. Unfortunately, it is only true to say that we have built up an economy that really consists of secondhand ideas from all over the world, particularly from England, with very little philosophy of our own apparent, economic or any other.

Critics of the inter-Party Government assert it is impossible to build up a satisfactory philosophy and a satisfactory economy with a Government composed of such mixed and diverse elements as those which compose this Government. This is particularly thought by the Labour side. They say: "How can you build with Fine Gael?" On the other hand, certain supporters of Fine Gael feel: "How can you do it with Labour included?" I think that is wrong. I believe that, from a Government composed of all elements of the community, we can get something solid and strong and lasting. If we could get such a thing within a Government, it would not be subject to the stresses and strains of a policy devised and set up by a strong party of one particular school of thought. I think such a thing could be done and that the Labour Ministers in this Government are in a position in which Labour may not find themselves again for a long time to come.

There is a wonderful opportunity for the Labour Party to sit down and work out a form of philosophy which will take into consideration the really deep problems of the nation in building up capital strength and money, and not influenced by the misguided ideas of socialists in other countries. I have met many people in the Labour movement, both in this country and abroad, and publicly and privately. Speaking to them privately, they are sensible about profits and so forth, but, when talking en masse, there seems to be a mass hysteria which follows Labour and socialists in other countries. I suggest that Ireland could build up a Labour Party that would be fully Labour in every possible way and have a sense of responsibility to our new economy in the light of our needs.

It is sometimes forgotten by the critics that there are four Labour Ministers in this Government. Anything said by the Minister for Finance in his speech in this debate is also their voice. It is not a Fine Gael or a Farmers' voice; it is an inter-Party voice in which they are just as committed as anybody else. In loyalty to the pledge given when this Government was set up, it is only right that they should back up the Minister for Finance in everything he is asking for on this occasion.

The Government has very clearly stated through the Minister—and the Taoiseach reinforced it, as did other Ministers—that our very existence as a State depends upon our building up savings in every possible way and by every citizen. It is from earnings that we can make our savings and it must be from work well done that we receive our earnings and profits. We want better work, better earnings, better profits and better savings. That should be a national slogan now and always and, in it, everybody is catered for. To achieve these objects, it must be made profitable and admirable to save. It must be recognised that those who work hard and save are more important than those who talk and spend. The concern of our public men in the future and of politicians and statesment must be for the thrifty and hard-working citizens. The voices of the thriftless are still to be heard loud and strong calling for the moon from the State. They must not be needed, I suggest. In future, rather must we cater for the hard-working and saving citizens upon whom our whole prosperity depends.

The Minister has made the position which faces us clear. He pointed out the road we should follow in order to put ourselves in the position of attaining prosperity for our country. I suggest that everybody should read and not only read but digest and act upon the request and admonitions of the Minister. What we need in this country is efficiency and hard work in agriculture and industry, coupled with savings all round—in a word, production and saving.

We have had a very long discussion on these two Bills and my contribution will be brief. However, I feel obliged to offer one or two comments on what we have been debating.

Unlike some of the previous speakers, I do not think the Minister either expects or desires to be congratulated on what he has been obliged to do so far as the introduction of the measures which we have been debating for the past two days is concerned. Certainly he is to be complimented on taking these steps in the light of the circumstances which face us. I have not the slightest doubt in the world that he should be fully and earnestly supported in his consistent and determined effort to grapple with the present serious position in which we find the economics of our country.

I must say also that I do not share the convictions expressed by some speakers that the imposition of these new import levies will, of itself, be sufficient to secure the necessary redress of our adverse balance of trade. I rather share the views and some of the fears that have been voiced by some Senators, particularly Senator O'Brien and Senator O' Buachalla, that the very measures to which we are compelled to resort in this legislation may of themselves create even more serious problems for us here by way either of increased prices or unemployment, or even a deterioration of conditions in the economy of our country within the foreseeable future.

The Minister admitted that these measures will undoubtedly reduce the real value of personal incomes and will inevitably result at least in a temporary reduction in our existing standard of living. He warns us, too— I think, quite rightly—that these measures will be rendered absolutely useless if there is any appreciable movement to secure or seek compensation for that reduction by way of a higher level of either wages or salaries. I suggest, despite what the previous speaker has said, that inevitably the same result will flow from any tendency towards a higher margin of profit in industry generally or on the part of those who control the normal means either of production or distribution within the country.

For that very reason, I was rather shocked to hear it suggested here last evening that the distributors of imported goods—goods which will now be subjected to these levies—should be entitled to charge a profit margin calculated on the import cost of these goods and, in addition, on the rate of import levy charged on these goods when they come into the country. That seems to me to postulate a fantastic theory. I suggest that, if there is any substance whatever behind that suggestion, a very grave responsibility will rest on the Government to make absolutely certain that these new levies will not be used to provide an additional source of profit for just one section of the community.

I have no hesitation in saying that, if there is any substance behind that suggestion, the Government should take steps immediately to freeze all existing prices of commodities subject to these levies. That has been done in more countries than one and we ought to take serious notice of what is happening outside our own shores and what people are trying to do elsewhere to deal with the same problem. Certainly there should be some prohibition on any attempt to increase prices at least until such time as there has been a prior examination by some competent authority like the Prices Advisory Body as to whether increases would or could be justified. The Government should also take steps to convince the people generally that these levies are necessary, and no more effective means of convincing the people that there is no other way out would be to see that the actual amount of levy charged on these imports from here on is actually shown, together with the actual price of the commodity when it is being retailed.

While it may be necessary to take these measures in dealing with imported goods, something like the same type of prohibition against increased prices should be imposed on home produced commodities. While goods coming into the country have a heavy rate of duty on them, the temptation will remain for those inside the country to take advantage of that position in respect of goods manufactured here and to increase their prices, if for no other reason than the scarcity that will arise from the imposition of these levies. I suggest that this is a matter which needs very careful study and very definite action from the Government.

It is, to my mind, a very reasonable contention that, if wage and salary earners in all industries are expected to exercise restraint in their demands, either for improved conditions or even for the maintenance of their present conditions, that class in the community are entitled to a specific assurance that the sacrifices expected of them will be shared by other sections of the community, including distributors of imported goods, or, for that matter, producers and distributors of home-manufactured goods. I would go so far as to say that, if such an assurance is not forthcoming in respect of the people generally, then I fear we shall face an even worse disaster than anything this country has experienced so far. I cannot see wage or salary earners, or any other section of the community being content to accept a reduced standard of living, while other sections of the community are to be permitted, if they are to be permitted, to go on merrily making more and more profits, either from production or distribution.

Turning to the wider and more general aspects of the situation we have been discussing, I should like to remind the House that during the debate on the Finance Bill, I made a specific allusion to the export from Ireland every year of a sum of roughly £10,000,000 by way of insurance premiums. At a time like the present, I may perhaps be pardoned for referring to that aspect of our economy again, and I should like to urge the Minister in the immediate or near future, to have a closer look at the conditions in which that specific amount of money is being sent out of the country every year. Without going into any great detail about it, I should like to point out that its use is lost to this country not alone for one year but for a very long period of years. I submit that there is something faulty or missing in a system which permits that type of thing to go unchecked.

Another suggestion I should like to advance for the Minister's consideration, with a view perhaps to helping generally in the present situation, is in connection with the fact that we have not here at home any facilities for what is known in the insurance business as a re-insurance pool. There must be a very substantial amount of money leaving the country every year for re-insurance abroad and, unless I am very much mistaken, I think there was provision made under the 1936 Insurance Act for the setting up inside the country of a re-insurance pool of our own. I submit that in the present circumstances it might be opportune and timely to examine the practicability or otherwise of setting up some type of permanent re-insurance pool at home. It would enable us to make a satisfactory contribution towards correcting any adverse trend in our balance of payments. I may say of course I do not expect the Minister to deal now, any more than I did during the debate on the Finance Bill, in any great detail with any of these suggestions I have made.

The Minister intends to deal with the last one in some detail, because he knows something about it.

I should be glad to hear what the Minister has to say. I know many of the people engaged in the industry would like to be satisfied that this aspect of their problem was being dealt with. Finally, I should like to compliment the Minister for Industry and Commerce on the appeal which he voiced, I think, in the Dáil some weeks ago and which he repeated in Cork last night for something in the nature of a political truce—I think that was how he described it—between all Parties and all sections of the community, so that the community generally as a nation, together and united, could face up to the realities of the present situation and seek practical means of dealing with it. The Tánaiste and the Government are entitled to the fullest support of all sensible and responsible citizens and they are entitled not alone to our congratulations, but to our complete co-operation in dealing with the present problems which undoubtedly are very serious.

We agree with the Minister and the speakers on the other side of the House that the principal and biggest drive for increased production must come from agriculture, but the experiences of the farmer have made him a very discouraged person because of the uncertain conditions prevailing in agriculture. He sees that everything he buys has been increased in price, while the prices of the things he has to sell have fallen. For his wheat he gets a lower price than he did a year ago, although he must pay higher wages to his labourers.

Does anyone think that is a true way to set about getting higher production from the soil? I often think of the many wrongs that were done to the Irish farmers, but the greatest wrong ever imposed on them was that of appointing to the job of Minister for Agriculture a man who has no love for anything that is Irish and who has always so proclaimed himself.

The problem of unemployment is a very serious one at the present time. Having a knowledge of the congested areas of Sligo, Leitrim and Roscommon, I know that in the past year and a half, many small land owners on the sides of mountains have been forced to lock up their houses and leave. Large tracts of mountain sides have been cleared of these people; the people are gone and the land is waste.

To add to the farmers' difficulties, the Minister for Finance this year robbed the Road Fund of £500,000 which would give occasional employment to many of the people living in the poorer districts. Local grants will now be reduced with a resultant loss of employment. How can the Labour Party, and the other members of the Government who claim to represent that class of people, remain quiet and silent while those difficulties are inflicted on the small farmers and the labouring people of the congested districts?

We have been asked to stay quiet now because of the mess the Government have got the country into. Senator L'Estrange would like us to have gone down to Cork to support the members of the Government, to slap them on the back for the stand they have taken to clear up the mess in which they find themselves. We are asked now to forget the attitude of those people from 1951 to 1954 when we had them going through the streets of Dublin with a row of pitchforks and the Minister for Finance going round the country with a packet of cigarettes talking about the taxes. We are to forget those things now and help the Government to clap themselves on the back because of the mess they got themselves into.

It is all very well for the Government to talk; many of them do not know the sufferings and the unemployment that exist throughout the country. They will not go out now and ask the unemployed of Dublin to throw themselves on the streets opposite Leinster House, although there is more unemployment now than there was then. There is more destitution in Dublin now than there was from 1951 to 1954 when the present Government were carrying on the dishonest campaign against the Government of that time. I hope the people will forget that dishonest campaign and give the extra production the Government is asking for to get the country out of this mess.

Firstly, I should like to congratulate the Minister on the able and lucid statement he gave in the Dáil when introducing the Estimate for his Department. I agree with Senator McGuire that it would be an excellent thing if everyone in the country interested himself in that statement. A limited number do recognise the dangers of the situation, but there are a large number who do not. If they read that statement, they would appreciate the difficulties and the dangers in which we find ourselves and I feel sure they would do their best to assist us out of that position. I think the present situation was probably inevitable. It had to occur at some stage, and I must sympathise with the Minister that he happened to be in office when the crisis arose. As far as I am personally concerned, I am delighted to see that he is there. I am afraid that is a contradiction, but I do think that he is an excellent person for the job.

It is a compliment I would rather be able to do without.

At the risk of wearying the Seanad, I should like to refer briefly to the balance of trade figures over the past 23 years, which I shall divide into three periods. Perhaps 23 years is too long a period because I believe that in pre-war years there were no official accounts kept. Taking the first period before the war, it is, I think, the general impression that the balance of payments was adverse. There is, I think, support for this view because the banks' sterling surplus fell by £3,000,000 per annum from 1933 to 1939.

The next period is, of course, the war period, which lasted from 1940 to 1946. The trend was exactly the reverse during that period, and we accumulated a total balance of £162,000,000, an average of £23,000,000 per annum. The reasons are obvious. Our agricultural exports continued, though probably at a reduced scale. On the other hand, imports were virtually unobtainable and the surplus was forced on us, whether we liked it or not.

The next period was the nine years period following 1946. During that period, our adverse balance has been £208,000,000. That is an average of £23,000,000 a year. It is a strange coincidence that while we were in our heyday we accumulated exactly that sum of £23,000,000 a year of favourable yearly balances. The reasons for the adverse balance since the war are various. I think the first effect after the war was that, since imports had been unobtainable for a number of years, there was naturally a rush to acquire them when they became available. There were also schemes which had been made impossible during the war.

Another factor which influenced the position was that, shortly after the end of the war, the so-called social welfare state was introduced in England. That had the effect of increasing the standard of living. Individual savings, which earlier had to be contributed to provide for illness, pensions and so forth, were released and were available to the individuals to purchase other things, consequently improving the standard of living. We here, because of our proximity to England, because of the common language, because of emigration, tried to maintain a standard which was approximately the same as that in England. As a matter of interest, I looked up the figures and found from the Statistical Abstract for 1955 that, in 1954, 857,000 people travelled to Britain from here and that 822,000 returned. It is clear that we have always a large number of people in this country who are fully aware of conditions in England.

I think further factors were emigration, the measure of unemployment and the natural desire to raise the standard of living which led to the expenditure of a certain amount of capital on certain things which, by themselves, were not immediately productive, such as houses and hospitals. Those are two examples and there are others which one could think of. The effect, of course, of this was that we placed a further strain on the balance of payments. Had we not been in the sterling area, our currency would have been under pressure and the red light would have been showing. We have got a barometer and that barometer is the banks' surplus sterling assets. Since 1947, I am afraid, it has shown a downward trend, although it did show two upward movements. Since the Spring of 1955, the barometer has fallen down practically in a straight line. Now I am afraid it is standing at "stormy". The effect on our sterling assets is that we are now reduced to the position where they are slightly higher than they were pre-war. The pre-war purchasing power, however, was greater than it is to-day. Relatively, I might say our position is worse than it was in 1939.

I am sorry for worrying the Seanad with this account of the past and I wish I could suggest a cure for the present position. Naturally I agree that an increase in production is necessary, but, on the other hand, I feel that we will not get any material increase for some considerable time. I think the measures which the Minister has taken should materially assist the position not only in regard to revenue expenditure, but also in regard to capital expenditure.

Finally, I should like to remind the Seanad that when I was speaking here before, I mentioned that I thought that we as a poor country were trying to maintain a higher standard of living than we could afford. I am afraid that we will have to be prepared to accept a lower standard of living before we emerge from our present position.

The Minister for Finance said in this House in Volume 46 column 366 of the Official Reports:—

"In regard to the economic situation in general, Senator Walsh, I noted yesterday, said that I had delayed far too long in dealing with that situation. Other Senators on that side of the House complained violently about the method with which I had dealt with it, and that I had been much too severe. Senator Hawkins, I think, particularly took that line. It would be very much easier for the country to understand where Senators on the other side of the House stood if they would deal with the matter with a united voice."

After listening to contributions made by Senator McGuire and Senator Murphy, I can well imagine the diversity of opinions, even though they are on the Minister's side of the House. Senator McGuire mentioned to-day the question of C.I.E. and the financial position which existed more than 30 years ago. I suggest that no comparison can be made between the position 30 years ago and the position which obtains to-day, in view of the fact that practically no transport competition existed in those days, as against the very severe transport competition, from private haulage and private cars, which exists to-day.

I agree with Senator McGuire, however, that if semi-Government Departments are competing against private industry, they are doing so unfairly. The private individual has to pay substantial death duties, income-tax and surtax and the income from these duties is partly used for social welfare purposes and for subsidising the industries which are competing against them. This is the position as far as Gaeltarra Éireann is concerned. They are producing against private enterprise. Recently I, as an executor, have had to pay death duties which amounted to well over £20,000. Most of that money came out of a private family business and the effect on that business will be extremely severe. It will reduce their capital to such an extent that it will be very difficult for them to carry on. Senator Crosbie has already referred to that type of thing in another debate.

I think it was unfortunate that only public companies were entitled to the concessions which the Minister allowed in his Budget. I do not quite understand why the Minister was not in a position to give that advantage to private industries. The profit motive is undoubtedly one of the greatest methods of getting efficiency, getting hard work and getting returns, and I would respectfully suggest that it is on private economy that the future of this State must rest. We all know that there is an extraordinary amount of waste in connection with any semi-Government industry. The Administration must be indicated for its failure to take timely and effective steps to head off the economic difficulties in which we are now placed. These difficulties have been threatening us for some years past and have now overtaken us. Steps should have been taken earlier to organise production. There are many industries which would be able to supply, from the home sources, many of the items which now appear on the import list and which are adding to our economic difficulties.

Yesterday the Minister asked Senator Ó Buachalla what type of commercial industries he had in mind. I think the previous Coalition Government planned too much for the production of electricity from oil and coal and that the result is that our bogs are not being allowed to be developed to the extent to which it was previously intended, owing to the fact that the demand for electricity has not come up to the level which the E.S.B. and the Ministers at the time had anticipated.

It was not the Minister; Deputy Lemass did it off his own bat.

The Ministers must have accepted that position.

They had no option but to accept.

The Minister will agree that coal and oil are being used to a fair extent.

It is much cheaper.

I fail to see how it can be much cheaper. I understood that water was cheaper and came before coal. At any rate, I think the Government have failed to put forward any scheme or plan by which the standard of living of the people may soon be brought back to a reasonable level and confidence restored in trade, industry and finance.

Senator Murphy referred yesterday to the fact that we still have £500,000,000 in foreign assets. Senator Murphy is an excellent man with statistics, but I did not hear him state how that £500,000,000 was made up. He certainly did not refer to the fact that over two-thirds of that is in liabilities——

On the contrary, he did, and the official record will show it.

He said we had liabilities but he did not state to what extent.

Perhaps not, but he did state the liabilities.

I agree he did state the liabilities but the attention of the House was not drawn to that. I am merely complaining that, when he gave these figures, he should have given the other figures also. The Minister stated in answer to a parliamentary question, as reported in Volume 159, column 1583 that the net amount the commercial banks had invested abroad was £75,000,000, while the total assets were £281,000,000 and that there was a sum of £150,000,000 invested in this country. For that reason, and because of the fact that the Central Bank has apparently only £70,000,000 invested abroad, it is difficult to see how the extra amount was made up. I realise that individuals have a considerable amount of money invested in various commercial concerns and I can see the extraordinary difficulty any Government would have in taking control of all those assets and having them brought back, but I doubt very much if they would realise anything like the difference required to make up the amount of £500,000,000 to which Senator Murphy referred.

It is obvious that the levies introduced by the Minister in March last have not had the desired effect. The Minister has admitted it and many Senators have admitted it during the course of this debate. It is, therefore, necessary, in my opinion—as the Minister has quite rightly done—to impose further restrictions to discourage imports of non-essential, consumable goods, particularly in view of the balance of trade position as shown over the past six months. We cannot continue to import practically twice the amount of goods we are exporting at the present time. To retrieve, however, the enviable position in which we were placed in 1954 when our deficit of payments was brought down to £5,500,000, a greater amount of saving and more efficient and better production are necessary. This is particularly so when we compare our output from both land and industry with that of other countries throughout the world.

The Minister stated in this House on 28th June last, as reported in Volume 46, column 367, that the problem which Deputy MacEntee had to deal with in 1951 when he took over again the Department of Finance was even worse than the problem which——

I did not say anything of the sort. Would the Senator please quote me accurately? I said Deputy MacEntee alleged it was worse.

The quotation is as I have stated.

Can I have the reference, please?

The Minister has asked for the quotation.

Column 367 of Volume 46. It was even worse, he said, than the problem which he had to deal with in March last. That was the case because the adverse trade balance, as the Minister was aware, in 1951 was £61.6 million. It was £30.2 million in 1950, and to have brought down the figure to £8.9 million in 1952, to £7,000,000 in 1953 and to £5.5 million in 1954 was certainly no mean achievement. I suggest it was only made possible——

The Senator must have given me a wrong reference, if he states it was Volume 46.

Volume 46 is about 1930.

From what is the Senator quoting?

I am quoting from——

The Official Debates?

I have not the actual debates in front of me, but I have taken particular care with the reference, and I have it as Volume 46, column 367.

Volume 46 is 20 years ago; we are at present at Volume 154.

I will certainly check up on that.

On a point of order, in view of the fact that the Senator has not substantiated the reference correctly, might I ask him to withdraw it in view of my denial until such time as he is able to substantiate it?

I take it he is not pressing the point?

No, sir; I took it in good faith.

I accept the good faith, but it was not what I said. That is the point. That is why I wanted the reference. What I said was that Deputy MacEntee alleged he had a worse problem.

I take it that the Senator will accept the Minister's correction, until he satisfies himself that the correction is not in accordance with what is recorded in the Official Debates?

Would the Senator have the date, and I can get the record?

No. I have not got the date.

Does the Senator know on what occasion it was?

It was on the 28th June last.

We can certainly get that easily.

Was it in the Dáil or the Seanad?

In the Dáil. I feel, however, that the Minister has made an honest appraisal of the position and it is to be deplored that other Ministers and Parliamentary Secretaries have not been so candid in their public statements. The Minister for Finance said that our economic independence is at stake and our resources which represent the forced savings of two world wars have been largely wasted. This is set out in the Dáil Debates, Volume 159, column 1592. Furthermore, he said that, without a radical change, we cannot enjoy much longer the artificial standards to which we have become accustomed since the external reserves to which we owe these standards are steadily running out.

It is unfortunate that members of the Coalition Parties, when they were campaigning in 1954, did not accept this economic principle. The electorate were then advised to vote Fine Gael for reduced prices, reduced taxation and a better standard of living. Have these better times now arrived? The Labour Party promised they would not increase the tax on imported commodities, such as tobacco; they promised that there would be no increase. The fact that in the last four by-elections which have been fought since the general election there has been an overall majority of over 1,500 against the Coalition Government surely indicates that the people have become disillusioned. As long as expenditure could be financed from public borrowing, the Government did not require to worry unduly, but now that it is apparently impossible to find the necessary money for all capital development, the public must be informed that the end of the road has been reached. They must be told the true position. We have to pay now for the improvidence of past years.

The gross charges for debt services have been doubled over the past five years and the increased yield from taxes for the current year is estimated at £5.3 million. This does not include the income from the levies, which would amount to about an extra £5,000,000. Deputy MacBride in the debate in the Dáil on 26th July last referred to the fact that the Central Bank now had £70,000,000 invested in Great Britain. It is not inopportune to point out that, in March, 1948, the total amount which the Central Bank had invested abroad was £43,900,000 and that in the third year of the Coalition Government, these assets invested abroad amounted to £80,600,000.

Is is not a fact that on 11th June, 1948, the Coalition Government decided they would not seek Marshall Aid? However, six members of the Government crossed to London a few days afterwards and, following a meeting with the British Chancellor of the Exchequer, it was decided that the Government should apply for 128,200,000 dollars. Deputy MacBride was a member of the deputation which crossed to London at that time. These dollars were sold to the Bank of England for sterling. Reference was made to the expenditure of this Marshall Aid Loan by the Fianna Fáil Government. The Coalition Government spent £1,000,000 per month for 18 months before they left office——

And the Fianna Fáil Government spent £24,000,000 in six months.

And the Fianna Fáil Government, as the Minister states, spent 24,000,000 dollars——

No, pounds.

£24,000,000.

In six months.

The Minister will remember that all these capital projects were approved by the previous Government and incorporated in Deputy McGilligan's Budget statement of 1951.

The present financial position is certainly difficult, but if the people face up to it with fortitude, under wise and able leadership, and with the courage and resolution which sustained them during the perils and hardships of the emergency years, I believe we will pull through. However, sacrifices will require to be made by all of us. If selfish interests, as Senator McGuire has already suggested, are to predominate, then the future is a grim one. If more organised sections of the community are to take more out of the national pool, then other sections will have to take less and our exports will be still further reduced, with dreadful consequences to all of us.

The Minister has already referred to the increased costs of goods for export, and the further we increase those costs, the less chance we have of selling those goods in the world market. High import levies, restrictions on trade, increased taxation, a rising cost of living, deterioration in markets, serious balances in trade, serious balances of payments, high unemployment, a high rate of emigration with a falling population, low agricultural output, low savings and a practically non-existent production—these certainly constitute a very serious problem.

Senator McGuire referred already to high interest rates and the little incentive in the form of reasonable rates on capital in many sections of our industry and commerce and to the dissatisfied dairying and agricultural community. Import levies in themselves, as Senator Crowley stated, will not prove an effective solution to our problem. Senator Murphy referred last night to the rather high amount being spent per mile on roads. I should like to point out to Senator Murphy that most of that money is coming from the motorist in the form of road tax.

£90 of the £230—not most, less than half.

In my county only one-third is being provided by the ratepayers. Senator Murphy should remember the fact that the buses and the railway lorries, which are fast-moving, heavy traffic, are responsible for a fair amount of deterioration in the roads, particularly in county roads on bog foundations.

I should also like to refer to the fact that the wages of road workers have increased in at least the same proportion as the increase in expenditure referred to by the Senator. The Senator stated it was 3¼ per annum. I would refer the Senator to the fact that, in 1938, the road workers' wages in Donegal and many other counties was 26/- per week and in some counties it was 28/-. In 1939, it was 30/-, and the road workers' wages in Donegal to-day is £5 per week. In addition, an application is at present being considered by the Labour Court for a further 15/- or £1 on those wages. I think the Senator will agree that the wages are not out of proportion with the expenditure on roads.

The Senator should also remember that the cost of tar and the cost of machinery has probably increased in the same proportion.

Plant and machinery, £25 per day.

I am with the Senator when he says that a railway system is necessary and I am anxious that the Government should never forget the importance of the G.N.R. to our northern counties and how serious would be the economic position of these northern counties, if these lines were to be closed. I would refer Senator Murphy to the fact that in a considerable portion of my county there is no railway and ratepayers and taxpayers have now to keep the roads substituted for the permanent rail line that formerly existed.

But the Senator is still getting rail rates.

That only applies to a very small section and that section was constructed by a grant of practically 100 per cent. from the British Government a great number of years ago.

If the Chair would allow me, on a point of order? I have the reference for which the Senator was looking earlier. It is the Seanad; not the Dáil. It is at column 366 of volume 46:—

"I certainly mentioned in the other House but I cannot remember whether I mentioned it before in this House, that we might make a comparison with what Deputy MacEntee as Minister for Finance suggested was his problem in 1951."

I then went on to quote the other sentence that the Senator has quoted. It is quite clear that what I was doing was quoting Deputy MacEntee's suggestion and not my own opinion. The Senator will accept that?

Certainly.

Mr. Douglas

The Minister here yesterday and in the Dáil last week laid great stress on the importance of reducing consumption of the less essential goods and of increasing sales. Every member of this House and of the Dáil appreciates the problems which the Minister is facing and which gave rise to that statement in both Houses of the Oireachtas. In the Dáil, when he was referring to the purchasing power of money incomes, the Minister said at column 1592 of Volume 159:—

"We are, moreover, spending so much of these incomes to satisfy our immediate wants and desires that all too little is being set aside for the productive investment on which our future standards depend."

At column 1591 he said:—

"Both in March and in the Budget and on various occasions since, it was made quite clear that further action would have to be taken if an adequate improvement did not take place. Stress was laid on how much that improvement depended on individual decisions to produce more and to defer unnecessary consumption so as to increase savings."

I fully appreciate, and I think every member of this House appreciates, the problems which the Minister is facing and I admire the courageous way in which he has presented the facts; but we must not overlook the fact that, apart from the new issue of savings certificates, very little incentive to save for investment or other purposes has been provided by either the present or the previous Government.

Senator Walsh, and recently, too, Senator Crosbie, referred to the high death duties and the deterrent they may impose on wealthier members of the community who might save for investment purposes. I join with these Senators in hoping that the Minister will in the near future introduce some alleviation of the heavy penalties imposed by death duties in order to encourage people who save to invest for long-term purposes. When a worker in the lower income group reaches 70 years of age and is entitled to an old age pension, he finds that, if he has worked and lived frugally and saved money, the savings which he has accumulated over a long period count against him when he applies for pension. If we wish to encourage savings amongst our lower income groups, such savings, if they are invested either in State funds or private enterprise, should not count against an individual when he applies for his old age pension.

Many people in the higher income groups are losing interest in life insurance. In one or two cases, people have actually disposed of their life policies, the feeling being that a great deal of the money saved in such policies only goes to the State on death and such a policy no longer affords to the family the security it afforded in the past.

Senator Walsh referred to the question of family businesses. I agree with the Senator that the future of this country lies in private enterprise. Private enterprise in the past has been the backbone of industry. Now one of the difficulties in private business and in a private limited company is—here I speak subject to correction by the Minister—that where a majority of the shares is held by an individual member of the family, the shares so held are liable to full death duties. Indeed, one of the difficulties inherent in family business nowadays is the problem of meeting death duties out of capital.

The Minister referred to the importance of increasing exports. That was also referred to by the Taoiseach, both in the Dáil and recently in Cork. I think its importance is appreciated by all responsible citizens. The Minister, however, when referring to underwriting of the proposed national loan did not give much encouragement to farmers or exporters when he said at column 1600 of Volume 159:—

"The normal arrangements for the flotation of a national loan mean that Government funds and the commercial banks, as underwriters, have to be prepared to supply any deficiency in public subscriptions. For Government funds—and, indeed also for the banks in present circumstances—the fulfilment of underwriting commitments would involve further sales of sterling securities. Neither the Minister for Finance nor the banks could regard this as a welcome prospect. It would reduce the already limited reserves held by departmental funds, leaving them less able to support the State capital programme in the future, but what is even more serious, it might necessitate in the case of the banks a contraction of credit facilities in other directions in order to safeguard their liquidity."

I have heard that statement referred to by many people outside and both farmers and manufacturers will be nervous of trying to increase their production for export, if they are working in continual fear of a contraction of their existing credit facilities. It is seldom possible, as most manufacturers know, to obtain prompt payment for exports. It is essential that producers should feel reasonably confident that, if they plan ahead to the maximum of their available resources, they will not find themselves suddenly in financial difficulties, due to a contraction of their credit facilities with the banks. I have heard a number of criticisms of the report of that section of the Minister's speech which appeared in the Press and I was indeed glad to find that, as far as the actual Dáil Reports are concerned, it was not quite as serious as one or two of the newspapers suggested. I think, however, that the Minister should make some further statement on this question.

I want to refer now to the actual list of goods affected by the levies, more for clarification purposes than anything else. In the first list of goods liable to levy, item 44 referred to prepared fruit juices and item 45 referred to prepared vegetable juices. As far as I can make out, since the first levy, tins of unsweetened fruit juices have not been liable to any levy duty and they have been imported freely, but I find that under the new levy in Part 2, Section 16, we have "fruit (other than pulp), fresh, chilled or frozen, excluding apples, plums, pears, hothouse grapes and fresh strawberries". I should like the Minister to clarify whether or not tins of unsweetened fruit juices are now liable to levy.

On the last occasion, when we were discussing the first levy, I asked the Minister whether oranges would be liable to levy. In the first statement he said "No", but I find that in the new levy, under Section 16, oranges are not mentioned. Are they liable to the second levy?

Did the Senator say "are not levied"?

Mr. Douglas

Yes. The section says "excluding apples, plums, pears, hothouse grapes and fresh strawberries". Oranges are not mentioned and I assume they are liable to the levy.

They are definitely included now.

Mr. Douglas

That was one of the questions I wanted to ask the Minister.

I forgot that it was done by way of an exclusion.

Mr. Douglas

Another item which is now liable to levy and which I, as a draper, should welcome but about which I heard a certain amount of criticism, is that the levy is now being applied to sewing machines for household use. If we are endeavouring to encourage a reduction in the standard of living, we ought to encourage people to make their own clothes, but this levy is a contradiction of that proposal.

I now turn to the Appropriation Bill. There are a few small comments and suggestions I should like to make under that heading. First of all, may I take Vote 54 which is for the expenses of the Department of the Minister for Posts and Telegraphs? I wonder why this country has not made more use of postage stamps as a source of revenue for the State? It has been suggested that it is immoral to take money from stamp collectors. I cannot see it is any more immoral to take money from stamp collectors who, if they do not spend it on Irish stamps, will spend it on other stamps, than it is to take money from foreigners who invest in our sweepstake.

Stamps are a convenient method of prepaying postal rates. That was their prime purpose. If that is their prime purpose, I should point out to the Minister that under our present postal rates it is impossible to buy a single stamp to frank a 2-lb. parcel. We have no stamp of the value of 1/2. A registered letter to a foreign State is also 1/2. I suggest to the Minister that a considerable income could be derived from issuing a new series of stamps which would include values to frank our present postage.

In 1954 the Israeli Government made £13,000,000 from the issue of their stamps. The British Government has never disclosed the figures of the sales of their stamps in the Crown Colonies; but they have disclosed that the Crown agents in London earmark over 50 per cent. of the total issue of stamps for the collectors. That means that half the stamps are not used for postal purposes, but go into collections all over the world. I hope the Minister for Finance and the Minister for Posts and Telegraphs will seriously consider this source of income.

Under Vote 51, there is mention of expenditure for certain transport services and grants for harbours. I would ask the Minister concerned if he would seriously consider, under this heading, providing a small sum to repair the landing stage at Glengarriff. I mention this landing stage, because there is a large cruising vessel calling there this afternoon. It brings a great deal of tourist money—invisible exports, if you like—into this country.

About three weeks ago I landed at Glengarriff by sea. It was at half-tide and it was with the greatest difficulty that I managed to get on to the wooden slip. When I was trying to return to my ship, it was low tide and it was quite impossible to bring a launch alongside the rickety old wooden steps and the only way I could get into the launch was by going down an iron ladder. When almost half way down, I was told that the remainder of the rungs were missing and I had to jump.

Glengarriff is visited every year by this cruising vessel and I understand that there is a possibility that some other English lines may visit Glengarriff also. Surely, it would be worth spending a small sum to provide a suitable landing stage. It would not cost a lot and the work could be done without much difficulty.

There is another point I should like to make on the Appropriation Bill, but I do not know which Vote it comes under. My point is in connection with our naval service. I mentioned in this House some months ago the fact that many of our navigational charts are out of date and a survey even of a moderate character of our Irish coastal waters is long overdue. I wonder whether it would be possible to have one or two of our naval vessels undertake this survey around the coast. In England it is done by a section of the naval service. I should think there would be very little difficulty in arranging for one or two of our officers to be trained in survey work. It would be a valuable asset and I understand that the existing electro-plates would be available from the British Admiralty.

In conclusion, I should like once again to pay a tribute to the Minister for the able way in which he has tackled this financial problem with which our country is faced. I think that every citizen of this country, regardless of his political affiliations, appreciates and recognises the courageous manner in which the Minister has placed the situation before the public and I believe he has the respect of every citizen.

May I make a few comments on the levies? I think it is generally agreed that these levies are necessary, desirable and preferable to quotas. I think it would be desirable if some kind of an escape clause could be included in a Bill such as this just to avert some unexpected or harmful consequences that might arise in regard to the levies.

We know that when the photographic films came under a levy, radio-graphers and people like that in hospitals who used films were very much alarmed and something had to be done. In this Bill there are, from the point of view of the ordinary laboratory worker, two or three things that could easily cause considerable alarm, for instance, the levy on plastic materials. We use a great deal of plastic material in hospital laboratories and in ordinary educational laboratories. I suppose we will be hit by the levy, unless something can be done. Could not some kind of an escape clause be inserted where the article is required for educational or medical purposes? Something like that ought to be incorporated in the Bill.

With regard to the point raised by Senator Douglas about the prepared fruit juices, is it possible to have canned or bottled fruit juices that have not been prepared? I should have thought it would have fermented in a bottle. Bottled fruit juice, if it did not explode, would have remarkable consequences on the temperance consumer. Anything in the nature of fruit juice in a bottle or can would have to be processed or prepared by either pasteurisation or the inclusion of an antiseptic.

Mr. Douglas

On a point of explanation, it does not say "unprepared" fruit juice.

I just wonder how is it unprepared. I am very doubtful if it is actually unprepared.

I notice in the list waxes and polishing materials, beeswax and other insect waxes and then polishing preparations of all kinds. Does that mean that polishes in general will increase in cost as, if there is a levy put on the beeswax and insect wax and vegetable wax and a levy on polishing preparations of all kinds, how will polishes be made? Is that a roundabout way of taxing polishes or does the Minister intend to exclude paraffin wax in that particular case?

The next point in regard to the levies that occurred to me is, of course, the duration. The Minister has told us explicitly that they are not to be considered as permanent, but many things that we do not think will be permanent are apt to be permanent. An imposition of levies is very often a one way street. In fact, in order to impose these levies, the Minister is availing himself of the Emergency Imposition of Duties Act, 1932. Many of the duties imposed 24 years ago, I believe, are still in operation. It is sometimes much easier to institute a levy than it is to remove it, as so many things can happen. An alternative for the levied product may be made locally and then an industry will be established, growing up under the sheltering branches of the levy and, then if you remove the levy, the industry will suffer. We must keep in mind the possibility that levies are apt to remain put.

Another thing that occurred to me in connection with certain of these levies is this: is the effect not going to be annulled by the operation of hire purchase? Where you get a levy on sewing machines, for example, such as the ordinary domestic user is buying, we will say, on five years purchase at so much a week, it will simply mean that, instead of a five years purchase, it will be a ten-years purchase and it probably will not affect him very much immediately at all. Where a hire-purchase scheme is operating with regard to an article subject to a levy, the effect of a levy may be so dissipated through time as to lose its immediate value.

As to the actual consequences of the levy, first of all, it will provide the Government with valuable money, but I wonder how it will affect the public. The Minister may remember in his school days that when bulls eyes went up, we shifted to liquorice strap. I do not think that the argument that the levies will encourage saving is a convincing argument. Probably, the people who can afford will pay more for the levied article and, if not, will find some other way of spending the money.

Lastly, of course, there is the exploitation danger. Whenever a levied article goes up in price, a local rival product, out of sympathy, is apt to go up in price and I am not sure how we can protect the community against the indirect reaction effect of the levy in one way or another.

Ink is being restricted. I presume that that will increase our production of local ink. I do not think we make very much ink. We make some very extraordinary inks and we make some very good ones, but I would not be surprised if the price of our locally manufactured ink goes up purely out of sympathy, in that strange way that things happen.

I suppose it would be unjust to submerge without referring to the appropriations. In referring to the appropriations, of course, one feels, as anyone must feel who sat through the debates here, that we continually oscillate between realities and nebulous sentiment and the number of times on which we have been told to produce more and to save more during these two debates has been very impressive. I think we almost had a record of it. Produce more! This most remarkably valuable statistical survey now made available to us contains material that I have not really had an opportunity of discussing with my economist friends, but which to me is very unsettling indeed. I take Table 2, page 6—national income and gross national expenditure—and I take the deficit and I find that the national income increases and the expenditure increases and, if I divide the increase in expenditure by the national income, I find that the proportion is about one-fifth—between one-fifth and one-sixth, which means that, as fast as we increase our national income, we are going to increase national expenditure. A certain fraction of our national income seems to be at the moment in equilibrium with that expenditure, about one-fifth. That surely means that our general pattern of national production is wrong in some way. We are producing things that are requiring more and more imports to keep them being produced. When the Government surveys its own expenditure and its own economy, a wide survey of our national production in reference to the things needed for that production also requires to be made because I feel, that with that significant danger fraction, there is something wrong in the general overall pattern of national production.

We have had reference to the battle of the balance of payments, the battle of the bulge. It appears to me that the battle is costing something like a million of money and even the sums expected to be raised by the Minister as a result of the levies are not going anywhere near removing the bulge. I was very comforted by Senator Murphy's cheering remarks yesterday, but, on thinking them over last night, I was not quite so cheered and I feel that, if there is anything in figures, the situation is very bad indeed.

The Senator had a nightmare, a justifiable nightmare.

I sincerely hope the Minister will consider the consequences of the nightmare. I thank the Seanad for its indulgence.

I wish to speak mainly on the first item, which is really a feature of the credit squeeze, the imposition of duties. It has been apparent during the course of this debate that there is a good deal of agreement on both sides of the House about the credit squeeze. Senator after Senator on this side of the House has congratulated the Minister upon being bloody, bold and resolute and in walking the tight-rope over the precipice and Senators on the other side of the House have repeatedly congratulated themselves on their own charity in not hurling rocks at him, thereby starting an avalanche. Perhaps it may be bold of me to suggest that the precipice really need not have been there at all or, if there, need not have been the victim of a tight-rope experiment.

The big Parties are undoubtedly united on the need for the credit squeeze and it is inevitable, if you believe in our present financial policy. I do not. I believe that that policy has not been sufficiently challenged. Senator McGuire has drawn an alarming picture of all the "Reds" and socialists and people of ill-disposition and revolutionaries who are impugning the banks and our present financial policy, but no less a conservative than Lord Packenham not so long ago in Dublin spoke very definitely, if in a very polite way, on the need for devising some new financial policy suited to the needs of this country. He was quite definite on the necessity for that and that argues that since 1922 we have not devised a financial policy appropriate to the needs of this country.

We have professional economists on both sides of the House—Senator O'Brien has spoken on one side and Senator Ó Buachalla on the other—but they have not contributed any new idea to this nation which at this moment, in the midst of this alleged crisis, certainly needs new ideas and new methods, not simply the old multiplied by 100. The country is looking for new methods and new ideas, particularly with regard to finance. More and more people are talking about the necessity for devising a financial policy which will not be simply geared up to English financial policy, which will not manifest itself in such ways as the automatic raising of the bank rate if England raises her bank rate. These economists on both sides of the House have not provided us with anything except a desert. When they are told it is a desert, they utter platitudes such as that many hands make light work, that the more production there is the better and that if everybody behaved well, there would be no necessity for the police. They lament the circumstances of this unfortunate nation, and so on. To my mind, that is not the way to face up to a crisis, if there is a crisis.

Senator McGuire quoted at some length from the Ibec Technical Services Corporation Report. That report was invited during the period of office of one Government and published during the period of office of the subsequent Government. It was published in 1952, four years ago. Just before the part from which Senator McGuire quoted, there is a section called "Overcoming Handicaps to Manufacturing". The compilers of the report deal with the major handicaps to manufacturing. They say:—

"The analysis that has been presented of Irish manufacturing industry shows that it has been subject to the following major limitations and competitive disadvantages:—

(a) Its materials costs have been unduly high.

(b) It has been unduly concentrated upon activities that add relatively little, through processing and fabricating steps, to the value of the materials handled.

(c) Its productivity per person employed has been relatively and absolutely low, in part probably, because of inefficiencies in management and labour usages, but importantly because of low plant and equipment investment."

Inefficiency in management is one of the things for which the comparative backwardness of our manufacturing industry is blamed. I suggest that some of our semi-State companies need better technical management. That is true even of C.I.E.; the workers are all right but they are badly managed at the top. If Córas Tráchtála were properly managed, American firms seeking business would not now deliberately by-pass this concern. I have known a number of them to do it.

The report goes on to discuss the factor of low investment. That seems to the compilers of the report to be one of the major factors militating against the Irish economy. On page 92 of the report we read:—

"We return, at the end, to a theme that has run like a chain of linked traffic signals throughout our analysis of the Irish economy—the degree of Ireland's economic linkage to the United Kingdom which is inconsistent with its passionate commitment to political independence. The effectiveness of political sovereignty will continue to be vitiated while the Irish economy remains so decisively dependent upon the United Kingdom as a market for its exports, as the purveyor of its shipping services, as its major source of import supply, and in its financial and fiscal services."

It goes on as if to emphasise the need of a new financial policy for this country:—

"The influence of this status of economic dependency dominates the design and colour of Ireland's economic life in myriad ways that rob it of independent initiative. Her currency is tied to sterling, and sterling crises affect Ireland by the inevitable process of infusion. Ireland's investment funds both public and private have flowed to the United Kingdom in the absence of a developed and active market for home investment. She is almost entirely dependent upon Britain for dollar exchange. She is forced to buy an important part of her processing materials upon terms that are competitively disadvantageous, and to sell an important part of her output in a form that serves the convenience and interest of England's economy rather than her own. Almost every decision and bargain with respect to Ireland's foreign trade is conditioned by the stern necessity of accepting the best terms that Britain will offer, since no tenable alternatives have been fashioned."

I submit that these passages from a report which, presumably, is a respectable and conservative report, or otherwise it would not have been quoted by Senator McGuire, may interest us because there is a very drastic need for a new financial policy which will not admit of the current crisis with which we are faced. The credit squeeze in its present form presents certain anomalies. It is obvious that England can, in some respects, afford a credit squeeze. She is suffering almost from over-employment. We are suffering from chronic under-unemployment. We are suffering from the collapse of small businesses as a result of the credit squeeze.

With regard to the savings campaign, there are two things left out of count that are deterrents to saving. The first is the continuous depreciation of the pound sterling. I know several people who said: "I will never save again in my life. I had £1,000 invested in 1938 or 1939. That money is now worth only £600 or £700. It would be much better to take out £100 a year and spend it."

Senator McGuire says the banks are private property. If that is so, why are they not engaged in ordinary competitive business? They will give you the same miserable interest on your deposit, if you have one, and they will charge you the same high rate of interest on a loan, if you can get one without a sermon. These private companies seem altogether too much concerned with issuing pastorals and sermons hectoring the Irish people on their unfortunate addiction to spending.

I want to deal now with the speech of Senator Woods yesterday. I want to apologise to him for interrupting him. I did so completely under the misapprehension that we were speaking purely on Item 2 of yesterday's agenda and not on Items 2 and 3 together. I should also like to say to the Minister, without any animosity whatever, that he had no right to usurp the functions of the Chair in reproving me——

The Minister is perfectly entitled to raise a point of order, if he so desires. That is what he did.

I suggest the Minister might have left the matter to the Chair.

The Minister will utilise his right when the Senator interrupts Senator Woods or any other maiden speech in the rude way in which he did.

The Minister might have left that to the Chair.

It is a question of taste and Senator McHugh is not in a position to comment on it, in view of his own conduct.

That remark comes oddly from Senator Hayes in view of his bullying tactics.

An Leas-Chathaoirleach

Senator McHugh.

Having explained the situation now, I am sure Senator Woods will appreciate it, being a gentlemanly sort of person. He made an extremely good speech. He talked about afforestation and emigration. He spoke almost entirely in terms of his own county, but, even surveying the problems of that county, one could not proceed to solve them without some new financial policy. It is not by niggling little reforms that you can solve, say, the problem of afforestation in one county. It has got to be tackled as a national concern. It is not by tackling one county here and another there that you will solve emigration. It is only by large scale capital investment in production that you will solve it. This can only be undertaken by a resolute Government with a new financial policy. A new financial policy is imperative at this time.

To sum up, these are the two points I make: Firstly, there must be a new financial policy; and secondly, this policy should be knit up with a planned economic output. There has been a certain amount of unity on both sides of the House. If I can make myself heard above the Minister and Senator Hayes——

Not worth listening to.

——I should like to say the two big Parties should be urged to come together, as they were recently by Deputy MacBride. The argument has been made that then there would be no Opposition and that, in a democracy, there is need for a healthy Opposition. I agree with that, but I should like to point out in all sincerity to those who use that argument that it is a healthy Opposition who oppose on grounds of disagreement, but it would be an unhealthy Opposition who would oppose on grounds which were agreed grounds. Here we have something agreed: it is agreed that there is a necessity for a new financial policy and for better economic planning. I would appeal to both of the big Parties to come together on this matter. I believe that the post civil war generation would regard it as a step forward and would follow resolutely behind any such unity.

All speakers in this debate, both on this side of the House and on the other, have been adamant that one thing is necessary—the necessity of bringing home to every individual in the country the seriousness of the present financial situation. I feel that, while agreeing with this necessity, it is not always so easy to do it, because, of course, of necessity, Ministers for Finance and economists talk in terms of high finance, in amounts running into millions of pounds.

I think it has been a pity that, so far, no particular effort appears to have been made by Government Departments to simplify the position, to reduce the position to the level of a simple sum that is easily understandable by even the simplest people. I throw that suggestion in for future use, perhaps at a later stage when the Minister and his officials are initiating a savings campaign. For instance, it might be possible to handle it on these lines: what does our adverse balance of payments of £36,000,000 amount to?

It could be compared with the fact that one million of our population spent on foreign goods £36 per head or, alternatively, that each individual in our nation spent somewhat over £12 a head on foreign produced articles more than we had earned by our exports. It could, perhaps, be explained that this situation, if we got a universal effort by everybody doing something about it, could easily be changed. An investment of £10 per head of the population in savings would, for instance, make a very big difference. I throw out that idea for what it is worth to the Minister and his officials for use at a later date.

On the general question, of course, we are all aware that our principal export—the export by which we have lived up to the present—has been agricultural produce. The fact of the matter is that our standard of living has now become so high that our agricultural exports at the present moment are not sufficient to pay for this new standard of living which we have developed. I am all in favour of a high standard of living; I think it is an excellent thing that the standard of living of our people has grown out of all knowledge of the people old enough to remember the days before World War I.

I do not think any one of us would like to see our standard of living being lowered. We would consider that a retrograde step. On the other hand, as realists, if we are to maintain that standard, we should realise we must pay for it. Higher agricultural production and a consequent increase in agricultural exports are not, of necessity, things you can do overnight. A change in agricultural methods is, of necessity, a slowish process. We have got to look then for the alternatives to agricultural production, and I think the next best asset we have, and one which now comes very close to agriculture, is tourism.

So far, I think we would be justified in saying that, while our tourist industry has made exceedingly good strides and great improvement since the end of the war, we have still scarcely scratched the surface of this potentially large field. In his connection, I might point out to the Minister a matter in which, I think, a great mistake has been made. Naturally enough, dollar tourists would be the most valuable tourists we could get at the moment. By that, I am not implying that other tourists will not also be valuable, but at this moment in world history, Americans happen to have a financial value which is superior to that of other people.

Now, I think the influx of American tourists into this country would be greatly increased if they were given certain facilities that up to the present moment have been denied them, as a result of deliberate Government policy. What I am referring to is that American-owned aircraft are not able to fly into Dublin Airport. That has been the deliberate policy of Governments who are afraid of running any risk that Shannon Airport might be by-passed or overlooked. If Shannon Airport is ever to be by-passed or overlooked, there is absolutely nothing we can do about it; if that position should come about, it would occur as a result of an improvement in aircraft generally and of the extension of their range.

The American people are realistic people, and when they go to visit a country, they usually like to fly into the capital of that country. Many American tourists have failed to come to Ireland because there is no direct communication between the United States and the capital of Ireland— Dublin. I think in that way we have lost quite a lot of American tourists. I hope it is a matter to which the Government will now give their consideration.

I join with the other Senators who have congratulated the Minister on his determination to make a saving of £5,000,000 in Government expenditure. I take this opportunity also of making a further suggestion to him. In addition to making the saving, would it not be good business to hold an investigation into the efficiency of the Government machine? I do not suppose it would cost very much to have our whole bureaucracy investigated by a modern business efficiency firm and a report made upon it. The methods used are generally antediluvian and in many instances are calculated to slow matters up and, one might almost think, to interfere with the ordinary flow of trade and commerce.

I have seen things myself in Government offices and if I or any other businessman were to run our businesses on similar lines, we would not be in business very long. I shall give two instances. On one occasion, I had to visit a Department which comes directly under the Minister's own office, that is, the Postal Customs House at Amiens Street. While I was there for well over an hour waiting to pay a customs duty of 3/6, I saw a young man, an employee of a business firm in the city, who came down to clear some commercial parcels. He had his invoices, his bills of lading and the money. He was informed that he had to fill in a certain document, the number of which I cannot recollect at the moment, in triplicate and that this document cost a certain small sum of money. He produced the money and said: "Very well; give me the forms." He was told: "No; in order to get this form, you must return to Eason's in O'Connell Street, or to the Government Publication Offices in Henry Street," a distance of over a mile. That kind of thing is a great help in business and commerce.

Let me give the Minister another instance. Under the regulations by which he has placed a levy on newsprint, provision is made for a drawback on newsprint which is exported. We all export newsprint, some in larger quantities than others, both to Northern Ireland and to the United Kingdom, because, strangely enough, people in Northern Ireland and the United Kingdom read Irish newspapers. Although this levy has been in existence now for over four months not a single penny has been paid back to any Irish newspaper by way of a drawback, the reason being that the officials of the Minister's Department refuse to accept the weights of the firms concerned for the newspapers which are leaving this country.

If they mistrust us, they apparently mistrust C.I.E. just as much, because they refuse to accept the railway rates. The only weights they will accept are the weights of their own officials which, of course, becomes an unworkable proposition as newspapers invariably have to catch steamers and trains and cannot wait on a quay-side or at a railway station for the convenience of a customs official to weigh them. The position has been complicated, I understand, by another gentleman who wants to know what difference would the ink make on the paper.

Ink now has the levy, too.

Yes. From time to time we are exhorted to export more. Manufacturers are always being exhorted to seek an export market. It is perfectly right and just that Governments should ask Irish manufacturers to go after export markets. However, the help given to manufacturers in their search for export markets is not adequate. Coras Tráchtála is a very admirable organisation as far as it goes, and has done excellent work, but it covers a very limited field. On the whole, from the point of view of the commercial life of this country, I would say we are getting very bad value indeed from the Department of External Affairs. This is not a criticism of the Department or its personnel, but I would stress that we have not a sufficient number of commercial representatives in the various places where we have representation. We have Ambassadors and Ministers who are very necessary in certain places, because these places are of great importance to us politically, and so on, but our consuls are not pulling their weight and are drawn from the wrong type of people, as a rule.

A consul should really be a commercial representative and his only connection with the Department of External Affairs in St. Stephen's Green ought to be to give him a short course in passport and visa control, and the small consular duties. He should essentially be a commercial expert, a salesman, and I do hope that for the future the Government will try to bring about a change in the administrative policy of our Department of External Affairs which will enable us to build up a commercial organisation in foreign countries. That is what our friends the Canadians did. The Canadians are richer than we are and they could afford to do it on a larger scale. The Canadians always had two services, a diplomatic service and a commercial service, and the commercial service, incidentally, was always regarded by them as being by far the more important. I hope that, at some time, this will be brought about.

It is hardly necessary to refer again to the fact that the amount for which our approval is sought in this Appropriation Bill is a sum much greater than the people should have to expect. On the one hand, we have the promises made by the Government in power and against that the declining income of the principal section of the community, namely, the agricultural community. All Parties have to agree with the Minister that the situation is bad. One thing which a realisation of the seriousness of the situation might achieve is that it might explode the myth that the resources of the country, and the amount of money which a Government can lay its hands on, are limitless. If we establish that throughout the length and breadth of the country, it would be a purgatory worth going through. The point is: will it achieve that objective and will everybody realise it in its true form? A lot of people pretend to believe that the resources of a nation are endless and that there is no limit to the supply of money available to a Government, whenever they want it. Greater nations have found that that was not so and that was the rock on which they perished, when they found that they had reached the stage when the "kitty" was empty. When that happens to great nations it must more readily happen to smaller nations like ours.

In the present financial year, there are certain large development works which might have been undertaken but which will now probably have to be left in abeyance. There is the question of a further national loan, and it is a very good thing, probably, in its own way. If £20,000,000 can be obtained, it will relieve the tension in certain quarters. It will help the Government to carry on and keep up the pressure which it promised to maintain in relieving the needs of the people. It will also do something else. It will increase the national debt and when a national debt exceeds a certain percentage of the national income, it cannot be regarded as a very good position. There is a limit and that limit has to be recognised and taken into account. We cannot get away from that. There is always a certain distance you can go but there is a halting point, and it is better to see that point ahead than to wait until you crash into it.

Increased production has been referred to by everyone and it is expected that increased production is to come from agriculture, but it is very hard to see how it can come from agriculture. There has been a fall in cattle prices during the past 12 months, and, even if we were to export more cattle, we would still make less money on them. That is apparent to anybody who reads the market reports. Even yesterday's market showed a drop.

It is a good thing to hear that the Minister proposes to cut £5,000,000 off the expenditure of working the State. It is an earnest of his intention to do his part and to blaze a trail for others whom he has asked to save. I hope he will be successful and will succeed in getting much more off than the £5,000,000 he has promised. It must also be borne in mind that the agricultural community are tied down very seriously with local rates. If one refers to 1914, one will find that rates are fifteen times higher to-day—that is the gross rate. It is fifteen times higher now in my county, and I think we are rated as low as any county in the Twenty-Six Counties.

There is also the very serious question of national transport in which everybody is interested. A body has been set up recently to go into it. I, for one, have every confidence in the men selected to compose the commission. They are experienced in various walks of life and I only hope that they will be successful in thinking out something which will save C.I.E. from extinction. C.I.E., to a great extent, have nobody but themselves to blame. They turned the people away from them because they were the only carriers in the country and considered that they could not be replaced. The activities of the great luxury liners have been curtailed because people are now travelling by air. They were able to be replaced, and, if that can happen to them, there is no reason why steam engines cannot be replaced.

It is due largely to the bad service they have been given that the people are prepared to support any alternative made available. A good deal of traffic has been lost through C.I.E.'s own fault. In my own county, a fair which was one of the best in the country, and which up to 15 or 20 years ago was attended by buyers from Dublin and other centres, was abandoned completely because the purchasers were unable to get their cattle to Dublin on the day of the fair. It was found that the cattle had to remain somewhere during the night and that, as a result of their undergoing that treatment, the buyer suffered a loss of about £5 per head.

Everybody is anxious to see a good railway service available and everybody has appealed to the Government from time to time to try to assist the railways because, after all, £26,000,000 of Irish money was invested in them in years gone by. The idea was to preserve that investment. Many of the people who had bought railway stocks found themselves possessed only of pieces of paper eventually, but that is now passed and gone. A serious effort will have to be made, and I hope if a good plan is produced, it will be accepted and if it is accepted by the Government, it should be adopted and worked out by everybody concerned. Meanwhile, I think the people are entitled to support whatever system gives them the best service and the people are anxious to support the railways, if the railways give the service they want.

Reference was made yesterday to illegal hauliers. They may be illegal to a certain extent, but they perform a very necessary service. The monopoly, C.I.E., in the first instance, and also the carriers who have plates, will do only the choice jobs. If I have a job to do and I am not in a locality which they consider is a suitable one from their point of view, they can by-pass me and tell me they cannot do the work. Therefore, I am very glad to have a neighbour to fall back upon. A neighbour cannot be doing anything terribly wrong in this respect because he has to buy his truck and it represents his bread and butter. He will work hard and give good service, and without this sort of haulier many people would be left unserved. The monopoly under legislation passed some years ago will only take the cream of the work available and does not mind the other fellow—illegal though he may be—having the remainder of it. If we were forced to depend on the monopoly to serve our interests in the country, we would be in a very bad situation.

In Limerick City, Thursday is observed as a half-holiday, but despite that buses come in sometimes barely ten minutes before the shops close. They arrive half-empty carrying only the people who are rich enough to come to see a picture—and they will not be very many—from the countryside. They travel up to 40 miles from different centres and they run side by side with trains. Why should not Thursday be a half-holiday for the men? The part of the day when they are supposed to work could be devoted to overhauling or cleaning the vehicles and then the half-holiday would coincide with the city half-haliday. It is a dead loss as it is. The authorities must be aware of this, but apparently they do not take things seriously. As long as the Government can be induced to subsidise C.I.E. and keep it floating at the expense of the public, there is nothing to worry about; but like all good things, this will come to an end and I think we are very near it now.

I hope the findings of the committee will be of a practical nature designed to save the transport situation, and that an opportunity will be given to these people who are employed in transport to maintain their livelihood, while at the same time giving a service to the public which they will appreciate. The public will pay if they get the service they deserve and the people who will ultimately suffer if this service is not given will have no one to blame but themselves.

I believe it is generally accepted that this measure, the Imposition of Duties Bill, is necessary and also that it is acceptable because of the fact that the increased cost of the type of goods that are liable to the new import levies will not impose a great burden upon the section of the community that can least afford to bear it.

One thing that induces me to speak here to-day is the reference made by Senator McGuire to the attitude of the trade union movement and the labour movement generally. In one part of his speech he referred to the fact that one of the trade unions or one section of the trade union movement had stated that if the Government did not control prices and profits, it would seek further wage increases Later on in the same speech, Senator McGuire said it would appear that the trade union movement did not permit manufacturers or producers to transfer costs to the prices of their commodities. The one thing that strikes me as peculiar in those two references is that Senator McGuire seems prepared to think that anybody who has a commodity for sale is entitled to take everything into consideration and then seek a price for that commodity, but that wage-earners or those whom the trade unions represent who have only one commodity to sell—labour—are not entitled to seek higher prices for their labour. In other words, he thinks that labour as a commodity is one that is not worthy of the same respect as a manufactured commodity.

Senator McGuire also referred to the fact that the trade union movement was continually demanding that the standard of living be maintained. That is actually true. Surely Senator McGuire does not think that the trade union movement or the Labour Party are seeking to maintain the standard of living that Senator McGuire enjoys? The trade union movement is seeking solely to maintain the minimum standard of living, to ensure that a reasonable standard of living is given to those who produce our goods. Those remarks come at a time when Senator McGuire himself and all the other members of this House were urging that everybody in the country should co-operate to assist in overcoming the so-called crisis that exists at present. At a time when everyone here was hoping that all Parties would cooperate, Senator McGuire decided to take that opportunity to deliver an attack on the trade unions and the working-class community in general.

He wonders why there are people within the trade union movement who would look with suspicion on the people Senator McGuire speaks for. One reason, perhaps, is that, when these new import levies are collected, the only people who will benefit will be the people on whose behalf Senator McGuire was speaking. The people who import and sell goods will take into account the levies they have paid, add that to the cost of the commodity and put on their usual percentage of profit. In fact, they will derive a benefit from these new levies. Of course, they will make the case that it is only a fair return for the capital involved in the transaction; nevertheless, they will not be at any loss but will gain by the levy. If they were selling an article at a price not taking the levy into account, they would have a certain percentage of profit, but now when they sell an article with the levy on, they have the percentage of profit on the article and the percentage of profit from the amount they have paid in the form of the levy.

There was a comment that one of the reasons this country was not producing more goods for export was the attitude of certain people in the trade union movement who were prepared to criticise the profit that manufacturers or producers obtain from their businesses. It should be remembered that most Irish industries have had the benefit of protection since they were founded. It is not unreasonable to believe that an industry that has the benefit of protection should work, as far as possible, towards ensuring that it produces an exportable surplus. Very few of our Irish industries have really directed themselves to that task, most of them being satisfied to supply solely the home market where they had an assured demand and an assured price because of the protection given them by the State.

In connection with the credit squeeze and particularly in reference to the banks, I believe that, while it is not desirable that the Minister or the Government should take any steps to alter the existing relationship between the banks and their clients, it is essential that some type of guidance should be given to the banks to ensure that there is some form of selective distribution of credit, particularly under present circumstances. I know of a case recently of a firm on the east coast employing 200 workers. Ninety-five per cent. of the production of that firm was exported. Their bank overdraft was no greater in recent months than it had been on many occasions during the past fewyears. Yet the bank decided to foreclose on that business. It meant that 200 workers were put out of employment and that the product of that firm was no longer available for export. In other words, the action of the bank caused the unemployment of 200 people and, as far as the adverse trade balance was concerned, 95 per cent. of the output of that firm, which had previously been exported, was lost to the country.

I believe it is unfair and wrong at a time like this for anyone to make use of the fact that the trade unions are carrying out their duty to the workers in seeking the highest possible rate of wages they can possibly obtain for them. It is wrong to use an occasion like this for the purpose of delivering an attack upon trade unions.

The measures contained in this Imposition of Duties Bill are necessary. Everyone in this country realises that we have to export more, but it would be as well to remember that, as most of us here have said, it is mainly agricultural exports will remedy the defects in our economy. In that respect, I think it should be said that more firm measures should be taken with the farmers and the agricultural community of this country. It is my opinion that they have failed, and failed hopelessly, to live up to their responsibility to the State. They seem to trade upon the fact, which is generally recognised, that they served this country well during the Emergency. But if they did, there are many other people who served this country well—there are those who joined the Defence Forces, for instance—and who received far less for their services than the Irish farmers. The output of agricultural produce in this country is so low that it warrants the serious attention of the Government to ensure that more agricultural goods will be available for export.

Business suspended at 6.15 p.m. and resumed at 7.15 p.m.

This debate, as was perhaps inevitable since we were taking not merely the Imposition of Duties (Confirmation of Order) (No. 2) Bill but also the Appropriation Bill, ranged over a wide series of subjects. I can appreciate and understand that that was quite inevitable in the circumstances. Equally, Senators will understand and appreciate that, in relation to certain of the detailed points made during the course of the debate, I might not have readily to hand the material with which to answer those points in as great detail as I, and perhaps the Senators, would wish.

The Senators concerned came in fully aware of the particular point, or points, they wished to raise and I did not have the advantage they had of familiarising myself with the details before coming in here. I trust, therefore, that in so far as these detailed points are concerned, Senators will forgive me if I do not refer to them now. I shall, however, ensure that their observations are considered in the appropriate quarters at a later date.

On the general problems under discussion there was, in some respects, a wide diversity of view. There was almost a unanimity of view in other respects. So far as I am concerned, I never object to anybody who differs from my point of view. On the contrary, I welcome such a difference because it is only through the clash of ideas that one is really able to appreciate and understand fully the importance of what the other fellow has to say. I think, however, that when people intend to speak on serious subjects, such as the subjects we have discussed here to-day and yesterday, they should make some effort to ensure that their preparation is adequate or, if they are not able to make adequate preparation, they should at least ensure that they do not indulge in merely destructive criticism. It seems to me that there is an obligation on members of this House, if I may say so with respect, and particularly on those members who are supposed to represent a certain point of view. Their obligation to put forward a constructive point of view instead of a purely destructive one is much greater. To accuse others of platitude and to say that we want a completely new policy, without oneself making any effort to avoid platitudinous statements or to produce any constructive policy, merely indicates that the particular speaker taking that line has either not got the ability to argue his views out to their logical conclusion or is not prepared to sit down and devote the necessary effort essential to his purpose.

There is an old saying that it is better to make sure of what you are going to bring in before you throw out the water that is there. People who talk about the necessity for a new approach to the problems we are discussing to-day should have some concrete idea of what their new approach will be before paying lipservice to destructive criticism of things as they are. Other speakers differed violently from the point of view I hold, but I must confess that I was able to appreciate the manner in which they put their criticisms to the House because they were putting forward what was to them an obviously sincere point of view and, though I will answer their criticisms now to the best of my ability, I want it to be understood that, in answering them, I am not challenging in any way their sincerity about the views they expressed.

I think perhaps in one respect I was a little hard on Senator Louis Walsh when I interrupted him in the middle of his speech, though I had clearly intended, from the sense of my remarks on the previous occasion, to convey to the Heuse that it was Deputy MacEntee's views I was putting, not my own. At the same time, in fairness to Senator Walsh, I must say I did not make it as clear in the actual words as I might have done, although back earlier in my remarks that day it was clear enough.

Senator Kissane opened the debate by taking the line that this was not really a trouble arising now, but that it was one which had been going on for a considerable period. In fact, he blamed it all on the first inter-Party Government. That seems to be the line that has been put out through certain channels on the far side of the House. Whether it was following the lead given by Senator Kissane or otherwise, we heard various Fianna Fáil Senators taking the same line at a later stage.

If they feel that that is the sole cause and taking them at their words for the purpose of this argument, but no further or otherwise, then I cannot understand why, in the three years they were in power, they did not correct the tendencies they saw. I would suggest to the Senators that they can hardly have it both ways. Either they were wrong from 1951 to 1954 in not correcting the tendencies or else the tendencies arose in their existing form later than that.

In fact, of course, we know that what occurred was that there was a world-wide trend of difficulties which hit us here and because of our peculiar circumstances in our own position, we have been, perhaps, more particularly vulnerable than elsewhere. I want to make it quite clear, however, in that connection that, while there is no doubt in my mind that the force of outside events has materially affected our position, that does not mean to say in any way that it was the sole thing that affected us. On the contrary, our own circumstances have affected us also and the peculiar circumstances of our trade. Whether the causes responsible for our present difficulties are internal or external does not matter in the slightest to this extent, that the remedy must be one we must find ourselves and only we ourselves can find.

There was a certain amount of criticism hinted at rather than more firmly stated by Senator Kissane to the effect that I was relying upon the effect of the levies alone to deal with our balance of payments problem. Of course, that is not so. The levies are merely part of the pattern set and only one segment of the measures that have been taken by the Government.

Senator O'Brien put his finger on the most important aspect of the whole thing, and that is the psychological aspect. It is essential our people should realise that, in the ultimate, the decision remains with them and that, though the Government may and will give the leadership necessary and take the measures necessary to deal with this situation, in the last analysis, it is individual decisions that really count, not governmental decisions.

Senator O'Brien very properly said that the effect of the various measures being taken were cumulative in character and, therefore, could not be judged singly or apart from each other. It is, of course, clear, again as the Senator said, that the effect of the levies could be actually inflationary in one instance if it were not corrected. We are suffering at present, not so much from internal inflation as from import inflation. It is because there are not sufficient goods produced here to provide for the purchasing power that is effective at home that we are having to bring in additional goods to meet that gap. If the effect of the levies was that less goods were brought in and that then, as Senator O'Brien pointed out, the effect was that exactly the same purchasing power was chasing the amount of goods that was in the country, instead of an import inflation, we should have an internal inflation. That is why it is absolutely essential from the point of view of righting the economy that there should be the stress upon savings and that there should be the stress also on a decrease in general consumption, particularly of non-essential goods.

Certain Senators spoke about the levies as if the sole purpose of them was to get a switch from consumption of goods produced externally to consumption of goods produced internally. That is not the intended effect. The intended effect undoubtedly is to deter imports. The deterrent effect is of far greater importance than the revenue yield which will arise from the payment of the duties, if the goods are brought in but it would not be sufficient merely to switch from an imported article to a home-produced article in the same volume because the effect of that would be, as our industries are based, inevitably to drive up imports again, though at a slightly lower scale, in the strata of raw materials.

One of our difficulties here is that we have so few raw materials and that our industries are based so much on imported raw materials. In consequence of that, the consumption of even home-produced goods brings in its train an increased import of raw materials. Unfortunately, in our existing circumstances, therefore, we must clearly set out to ensure that we do not in that way increase our imports in another direction, while decreasing them by the levies in the direction intended by governmental Order.

I must confess that I found myself in a rather strange position when Senator Cogan was speaking. Senator Cogan and I are well known for disagreeing with each other, but yesterday I must confess that I found myself agreeing with a lot of what he said. He said, first of all, that he thought it was very wrong for politicians on either side of the House to detest each other. I agree with him wholeheartedly. I hope he will not get into too much trouble with his Leader who indicated in the Dáil last week that he detests the Government. Senator Cogan also said that he disapproved entirely of the purchase of jet planes at the present moment. Again, I hope he will not get into too much difficulty with Deputy Traynor, the former Minister for Defence, because it was only while Deputy Traynor was Minister for Defence that these jet planes were ordered. None has been ordered since the change of Government. Whether they are wise or unwise, the fact is that when contracts are made by any Government, its successors must honour those contracts, particularly when they are outside the country, and it would be disastrous for our good name if, merely because of a change of Government, a succeeding Government proceeded forthwith to repudiate contracts made by its predecessor.

Senator Woods, in his maiden speech, dealt particularly with some of the problems with which he is acquainted in the north-eastern corner of Louth. The Senator did not go on to indicate one other thing that he might have indicated, that is, the extraordinarily efficient production that is carried out there by some of the farmers in that area. I have not the experience that Senator Woods has of that area, but I have personal experience of seeing the manner in which the farmers in that area produce. While Senator Woods was painting the industrial picture there rather on the gloomy side, he should at the same time have touched on the other side, the agricultural production which, in that corner of Louth, certainly, is as good as anywhere else in the country.

Senator Murphy and Senator McGuire seemed to me to get stuck in each other, if I may use that expression, during Senator Murphy's speech, without either of them realising what was in the other's mind. As regards the levies, at any rate as regards what should happen in relation to the levies and in relation to prices, is quite clear to my mind. I think, quite candidly, that there would not be very much difference between the points of view of Senator Murphy or Senator McGuire and mine. It is perfectly clear that, when import levies are imposed, the importer will have to pay the levy and, because of that levy, will have to submit to additional expense. That additional expense cannot come out of the air and I think that was the point that Senator McGuire was making.

On the other hand, it would be very wrong, particularly in our present circumstances, if people were to take advantage of our present circumstances to make a greater profit than they would make in ordinary times. That would be profiteering in the sense that it used to be known and I think that is the point of view, broadly, that Deputy Murphy was putting forward. There is a mean, and I do not think either Senator would disagree with me, and that is, that it would be wrong if an unfair profit was made because of the difficulties of the time. We must recollect, on the one hand, that to take advantages of a national emergency would be anti-social and anti-national.

Equally, on the other hand, we must realise—and I would commend this particularly to Senator Bohan who said some things with which I do not agree, but, while disagreeing with him, I must confess that he put his point of view quite clearly and quite lucidly in a maiden speech that, for its clarity and lucidity, certainly deserves commendation—that there is no doubt that the effect of these levies will be that there will be far less goods of the nature involved sold and that, therefore, the first thing that will happen, undoubtedly, is that the people who are in the distributive trades for these imported goods will have their turnover severely restricted. It is not correct, therefore, for the Senator to suggest that those people could possibly welcome the levies. They could not.

It is inevitable, if the levies have the deterrent effect I hope they will have, that there will be a restriction in the turnover of people who are interested in either the importation or the wholesale or retail sale of these articles. One must bear that in mind when considering, for example, their overheads —how the spread of their overheads has to be taken into consideration in their turnover—and also the interest, if they have to borrow for the purpose of paying the duty. There is a mean in these things. I do not think that either Senator Murphy or Senator McGuire will disagree with me when I put that mean as the correct line to take in our present circumstances.

I am afraid I must take issue with Senator Murphy on another aspect of his speech. I understand his views, as expressed, are to some degree prevalent and certainly, as was made clear in the Dáil the other day, I feel they must be thrown aside completely. I may say I am not talking of Senator Murphy personally in this matter. I sensed a feeling of complacency in his remarks that things would be all right and that we need not be too worried about them. We must rid ourselves of that idea. They are not going to come right, unless we take positive and cooperative action to make them right.

There is no use in our believing that wishful thinking will cure our present ills. It requires a very much more positive effort in order to get us out of these difficulties. At the same time, I want to tell Senator Murphy that I appreciate more than I can say the view he expressed—speaking not merely for himself but for the trade union movement of which he is a prominent member—that that great movement would give us the fullest co-operation and that he was assuring me of their fullest co-operation in any savings drive. If we can get that co-operation from all our people in a positive savings drive such as we are initiating now, and particularly if we can get it from the trade union movement, then we can hope that, with that on the one side and with an addition to production on the other side, we shall be able to surmount our difficulties. At the same time, it would be wrong if I allowed his perhaps too optimistic note to go without the criticism that I have just passed on it.

Senator Murphy also referred, in relation to the Appropriation Bill side of the business before us, to public transport. He is quite correct when he says there are only three things that can be done in relation to public transport. The choices before a country of our size in relation to public transport are difficult and perhaps stark. Therefore, it is only right and proper that we should be quite clear on all the facts and implications before the country as a whole makes its choice. I do not think that, as yet, the country appreciates the seriousness of that position either. There are three choices: (1) the virtual abandonment of the rail services at one end of the scale, (2) the complete restriction of private transport at the other end of the scale and (3) somewhere in the middle of the scale lies the choice of permanent subsidisation from the Exchequer. I need hardly say that the third choice would be anathema not merely to me but to any Minister for Finance in any Government. I do not believe any Government would accept the view that public funds should permanently subsidise public transport.

Whether or not it will be possible to achieve a bridge between the two ends of the scale to which I have referred, it is impossible to tell at this moment. However, it is quite clear to me, at any rate, that the action the Tánaiste took of setting up a committee to examine this problem as a matter of great urgency was the right way of ensuring that all the facts would be available and that, when they report, we would be able to take a firm decision in the knowledge that the public had the relevant information before them at the time. The committee in question will have a difficult task. They will have to see whether the view expressed by Senator Hartney, for example, that the public should get the best possible service, no matter what would result, is justifiable. The public's view of that service at present perhaps is that they want a door-to-door service. That has to be reconciled, on the one hand, with the fact that other people feel very strongly that it is absolutely essential that the rail service, as such, should be maintained. It is clear, however, that our economy cannot support two systems of public transport competing with each other in the manner in which we have seen them competing in recent times. The economy as a whole must avoid that type of duplication. If we were to permit such duplication to continue, we should be wasting our resources in a way that would be entirely unjustified.

Reference was made to the restaurant in this building and to the amount that is paid to subsidise it. The restaurant here has a difficult task inasmuch as it is entirely different from an outside establishment. In an outside establishment, by and large, approximately the same number of meals are sold every day it is open. Here, one day there is hardly anybody in the restaurant when neither House is sitting and the next day perhaps there are 200 meals to be served at any one time. It is impossible to run any business, which has that violent fluctuation, on the ordinary outside commercial scale. The subvention is to enable the restaurant to carry on. It is essential that Deputies and Senators who have continuous business in the House should be able to get meals here. Because of the fluctuations, it is necessary to pay a subvention to the Restaurant Committee. Lest there should be any doubt in the mind of anybody outside, I just want to say that the effect of that subvention is not to make the cost of meals cheaper to Deputies and Senators. On the contrary, I think that for the meal one gets in the restaurant here, the price is higher than one would have to pay in an equivalent establishment outside.

Senator Ó Buachalla spoke in a serious vein and I think his speech was intended to be helpful. I must confess, however, I thought I had rarely heard such a series of paradoxes as was put forward by the Senator. His first few words were that he did not approve of the discussion on the levies and on the Appropriation Bill being taken together, but he supported the decision of the Seanad. He then went on to say that he supported the measures I was taking, but that he did not approve of them. He said further that he believed in private enterprise, but he had no faith in it. Then he said he saw the dangers in the measures I was introducing, but apparently he saw no dangers in a continuance of imports surplus to what we could afford to pay for.

There was a series of such paradoxes and for that reason I found no little difficulty in understanding exactly the point of view the Senator wished to put forward. I thought I had made it clear before, but apparently I had not made it adequately clear, that these measures that we are taking, like those in relation to imports, are, of course, negative measures. I made it quite clear, speaking many times over the past four months, that the ultimate approach, the long-term approach, must be to take positive steps for an increase in production, positive steps to make sure that we have greater exports and, with greater exports, that we will be able to pay for our imports. It will, however, obviously take some considerable time for us to be able to increase our exports to that degree and it is necessary, therefore, in the circumstances, that in the interval we should ensure that we do not import more than we can afford to pay for. That is the purpose of these measures.

In relation to the positive increase, I asked Senator Ó Buachalla what he had in mind and he referred to two things, wheat and grass meal. So far as wheat is concerned—I do not wish to go over all this again—we got last year roughly the equivalent of the decision taken by the Fianna Fáil Government on 22nd January, 1954— 300,000 tons of dried wheat. We have had a discussion on that again and again and I do not want to weary the House by going into it further at this stage. However, I want to stress this, lest there be any misapprehension, at the moment, that, in relation to any particular crop, we should not, just by some change in price one way or the other, merely have a switch from one form of agricultural production to another. A switch is of no avail. We must have increased production as a whole. It suddenly occurs to me that I am incurring your displeasure, Sir, by touching on agricultural production having regard to the motion which Senator Cogan has on the Order Paper, so I had better leave that subject.

Senator Ó Buachalla also referred to grass meal. I would like to have had time to go into the question of grass-meal production at some length, particularly in view of the fact that I was engaged elsewhere on the day it was discussed in the Dáil, when there were some statements made in regard to it which were entirely out of accord with the truth. The fact in relation to grass-meal production is that the evidence of the directors at that time was that they had not in any way applied their minds to the possibility of an export market and that if there is a possibility of an export market for grass meal, it must be on a really competitive basis. The only grass meal that can be produced on a really competitive basis is meal produced from grass on some of our mineral soils, not on bog.

The experiments in progress now at Glenamoy will be of far greater value to the nation as a whole, if they are successful, than any grass meal factory would have been there. The most that that could have shown would have been that it was possible to produce grass and grass meal from bog. It is more important to show that we can utilise our bogs for forestry and for agricultural production of a mixed sort, and if the Glenamoy experiments which we have started are successful, that is what we will have shown. Everybody knows that grass meal can be produced without any difficulty from ordinary good soil and if there is the export market that Senator Ó Buachalla thinks there is, then it is easy enough for these existing plants to expand their production to meet that demand. I trust that they will do so.

Senator Crowley referred to the drain there was from the country in relation to foreign insurance premiums. Naturally enough, we all have great pride in Irish insurance companies, but it is wrong to speak of the amount of the premium income being paid to foreign insurance companies as being equivalent to a net drain. It is not. It is not even the amount of the gross premium, less claims, that is the drain, but the amount that there is after taking credit for such of it as is ploughed back here.

Many foreign insurance companies do give our economy considerable assistance. Some of them have widespread house purchase schemes. Some of them have in the past assisted very substantially Dublin Corporation and other local authorities by lending them funds on mortgage and otherwise. Many of them have assisted our national loans in the past and I certainly would go as far as this with Senator Crowley and say that I hope in the future those companies will understand and appreciate that, when they are getting an income here from premiums in that way, they have a responsibility to plough back into our country the amount they are getting, and that they will show how appreciative they are of that responsibility in the future, as many of them have shown in the past—and I gladly pay tribute to them—by subscribing to the national loan when it comes along as I forecast in the Dáil the other day.

Senator Crowley also referred to the question of a re-insurance pool. There was of course, a provision inserted in the 1936 Insurance Act for a re-insurance corporation. I think the reason it was never established was that it was found that the spread of the risk in the country here would not be sufficient to achieve what it had been hoped to achieve at that time and that, on the contrary, it might have the effect rather of concentrating the risk in a way that would not be satisfactory. Insurance can only be effective if it is spread over the widest possible field. There is, however, an arrangement, not made in so many words, not put in any formal scheme to the extent of a re-insurance corporation, that Irish insurance companies would work together to ensure that if one company is not able to take the whole of the risk itself, the first other company which is asked to come in on the risk with it is one of the other Irish companies and in that way without getting the danger of concentration one might get from re-insurance of the type to which the Senator referred, we do achieve the benefit of ensuring that, consistent with the spread of the insurance risks as much as possible, the money is kept amongst the companies carrying on business here.

Senator Lynch accused me of robbing the Road Fund. I do not know whether "robbing" is the correct word, but let me say quite categorically that I have no hesitation in standing over the fact that I directed the transfer of £500,000 from the Road Fund to other more productive capital purposes. I think it was a wise decision of the Government. It was one which I will defend with the greatest pleasure anywhere throughout the country. The Government have been very careful to ensure that, in their application of the Road Fund, more money will be spent on county roads. This transfer, to which effect was given in the Finance Act recently before the House, will cause a change over from main trunk road allocations. At this stage, particularly with the great difficulties in respect to capital at present, I do not think we could possibly afford the type of main road polishing that any of us can see throughout many parts of the country.

Senator Guinness referred to our proximity to Britain and the natural effect that has upon our standard of living. That is so. Our proximity to Britain does cause difficulties for us. It is inevitable that we should be affected by what we read in the newspapers, most of which report British news so much, and that we should tend sometimes to forget that it is not the standard of living they can afford we can enjoy but the standard of living our production warrants.

I visited part of the country recently and spoke to a friend of mine who had been doing the pedestrian job of canvassing in a certain area. He had done a full day's canvassing and had come across 19 cases where people had emigrated from the area in which he was travelling. That was distressing enough, but the extraordinary thing about it was that, in every single one of the 19 cases, he found the people concerned had left jobs to go to other jobs in England. That is one of the most difficult things to understand about emigration at the present moment—not that our people are leaving because they are unable to find work, but that they are leaving jobs here to go and seek other jobs in Britain because of its proximity to us. As Senator Guinness pointed out, the proximity of Britain is the suction that draws our people away. That is a far more difficult type of thing to deal with than the type we had in earlier years.

I am afraid I have kept the Seanad a very long time, but there are still a couple of points to which I should like to refer. Senator Fearon, in particular, suggested I should have put an escape clause in the Bill concerning this Order. I must confess I disagree with him violently. If I had put an escape clause in a Bill such as this, the effect of it would be to give the exact opposite impression to what must be created by the imposition of levies. It is essential in imposing these levies that the Government see that they carry conviction to the people, that their imposition is absolutely necessary, regardless of the inconvenience that may be caused. The insertion of such a clause as that referred to by Senator Fearon would detract very much from that conviction. Even though there may be one or two mistakes—there may be one or two mistakes when an Order covers 68 articles —it is much better that a genuine mistake should be made by including goods which were not meant to be included, than that anybody should feel there was an escape clause which would undoubtedly detract from the seriousness of the situation in the public mind.

When speaking on hire purchase, the same Senator seemed to forget that pretty drastic restrictions on hire purchase were included in the series of actions taken by the Government last March, the effect of which undoubtedly is to prevent many of the abuses to which the Senator referred, and particularly the extended period abuse to which he referred, because, in respect of all goods now, there is a maximum period over which a hire purchase operation can continue.

Other Senators referred to individual matters to which I shall give consideration at a later date in co-operation with the appropriate Ministers. It so happens that one of the things mentioned by Senator Douglas is already reasonably familiar to me, that is, the sale of stamps for stamp collectors. In the past, we have not had at all the happy experience that the Senator suggested other countries had. If we had had that happy experience, I can assure him it would be a form of revenue collection from which I would not be in any way averse.

I am grateful to the Seanad for the manner in which they discussed these two Bills, yesterday and to-day. As I indicated when introducing them yesterday, the first Bill—the Bill confirming the imposition of levies—is one that the Government have brought in reluctantly, but which they brought in because they were absolutely determined to take every step that is necessary to preserve our economic independence. We would be lacking in our duty and we would be guilty of grave cowardice as a Government, if we failed to take the steps the situation demanded.

I hope the steps that we have now taken will be sufficient to maintain that economic independence. I hope they will be sufficient to ensure that the value of our Irish currency will be maintained, vis-a-vis other currencies. I say that most specifically, in view of certain remarks that were made, not in this House but elsewhere, in the past few days. I want to make it as clear as I can that I as Minister for Finance—and I know I have the backing of every single colleague of mine in the Government—am absolutely determined that any measure that is necessary to uphold the value of the Irish £ will be taken; that we will make certain that, in so far as we can, our economy will be expanded in order to be able to pay for the imports that we require; and that if unfortunately we are not able to pay for essential imports as we would wish, then we will have to restrict those imports, as we have done in this instance, because no matter what may come, no matter what temporary political embarrassment may be caused, this Government is determined that the State will pay its way and that we will put our economy on a sure and safe foundation on which we can maintain, and later improve, the standard of living of our people.

Question put and agreed to.
Agreed to take remaining stages now.
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